Adventure of Boffo Hardbottle 1

The stream falls behind as Boffo Hardbottle climbs into the North Moors. The ground turns to rock and sour heather, and the orc tracks sink deep in wet mud, plain as a road sign to his eyes.

The Wounded Drover keeps close, one hand pressed to her bandage, the other steady on a stone as she breathes hard in the thin air. Ahead, the prints bunch and turn toward a dark fold in the hills.

A cold gust parts the heather. For a heartbeat, Boffo sees a broken ring of stones on a rise above the track, and beside it the flash of crude iron helms moving low against the sky.

The answer is suddenly clear, the tracks leading straight from the border to danger. If Boffo follows them now, he may find the raiders before they reach the Shire.

Boffo Hardbottle flattens to the heather and lets the wind hide him. The orc prints draw him uphill, and his boots find the gaps between stone with careful, silent steps.

At the ring of stones, he pauses below the rise. The raiders are there, three shapes hunched around a dark bundle, their helms barely lifting against the sky.

One orc kicks the bundle open. A strip of pale cloth and a tied sack spill out, stamped with mud from the Shire side of the moors.

Boffo catches a word on the wind, then another, enough to make the meaning plain, they speak of taking food and ledgers from the farms below, before moving south again.

A loose pebble slips under Boffo's hand and clicks against the stone. One helm turns. The orcs have not seen him yet, but now they are listening.