Well, it's been a year and twelve days since I last updated. And now, after that obscene amount of time, here at last is the final chapter of COACT (Book One, anyhow).

I'll skip the standard pre-chapter ranting and get on with it then, shall I?

Chapter XIV (In which Book One finally comes to a close.)

I finally understood why my sword had been named "Blue Star." The glow it emitted was almost blinding, even in daylight. I gave my eyes a couple seconds to adjust, then rushed over to help Aragorn out. But by the time I got over there, he'd vanished.

I had less than a second to wonder if he'd already died, because I'd just dashed into a throng of bloodthirsty, meat cleaver-toting super-orcs. I tried to remember what Boromir had taught me about swordplay, because my little swing-randomly-and-hope-to-hit-something strategy sent Elluin bouncing off armor and coming straight back at me.

I injured two of the super-orcs; maybe I'd even killed them, but things were moving too fast for me to really tell. Either way, I got rid of two, and four more took their place. In a matter of seconds, I was completely surrounded. No wonder they'd gotten Aragorn so quickly—

I was interrupted mid-thought by a war cry from somewhere above me. I took a quick look up, in just enough time to see Aragorn leap off the top of the watchtower. As fast as I could, I swung at a super-orc behind me, and as soon as it fell, I used me new two feet of space to scoot out of the way. Good thing I did, too, because a second later Aragorn landed.

"Hey, you're alive!" I exclaimed happily. "For a minute there, I thought the super-orcs got you!"

"Uruk-hai," he said.

Normally, I would have stopped and given him the old blank-stare treatment. But I figured that doing so in the middle of a battle might result in my untimely demise. So instead, I just said, "Say what?"

"These are Uruk-hai," he clarified, pointing at one with his sword. Or, he stabbed it. Same difference, really.

"Oh. Right. Well, it's nice to see you alive."

We stopped talking then, and continued fighting the Uruk-hai. And kept at it for a while. At some point in the proceedings, Legolas and Gimli showed up, which I was thankful for—that meant we were only outnumbered twenty-five to one.

Then, over the din of clashing weaponry and screaming, dying Uruk-hai, there came another sound: a low, clear note, like someone was playing a musical instrument nearby. Cool, I thought. Background music. Like an action movie. That was all the thought I gave it, since I was more than a little preoccupied.

As usual, Aragorn and Legolas did not take this quite as well as I did. They both stopped fighting for a second, wearing identical slack-jawed expressions. Then they recovered, exclaimed something along the lines of, "The Horn of Gondor! Boromir! Oh no!" and zoomed off.

Not wanting to be left alone with the seventy-five-or-so Uruk-hai that remained, I followed them. And, unfortunately, the seventy-five-or-so Uruk-hai followed me.

I'd like to point something out here. Fighting a huge group of homicidal monsters is tough on its own. Fighting a large group of homicidal monsters while running downhill is much harder. And fighting a large group of homicidal monsters while running downhill on a slope covered in trees and very big rocks is next to impossible. I realized this when I swung my sword, missed, and my momentum sent me sailing headfirst into the trunk of a tree.

It hurt like anything and made my vision go kind of swimmy, but it didn't seem to have done any serious damage.

I'm probably going to have a bump the size of a cantaloupe, though, I thought bitterly. That ought to be attractive…

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be tow Aragorns dash past. Several Uruk-hai stopped approaching me and raced after the guy I could only assume they saw as a bigger threat.

A few minutes later—after the double vision went away—I pulled myself up off the ground, head still spinning. All the Uruk-hai that hadn't followed Aragorn had miraculously died. Many sported gouges that looked like they'd been made by an axe, and a great deal more were decorated with green-feathered arrows. I turned around to thank Legolas and Gimli, but didn't see them anywhere.

I followed the trail of dead super-orcs, hoping to find them, and happened upon Aragorn instead. Guy looked a little worse for the wear. He had just decapitated a huge Uruk-hai that might have been the leader. The man looked at the severed head in disgust, and then kicked it.

It was a good kick, worthy of any professional soccer player. I'd have been really impressed if he hadn't kicked it right toward me.

I ducked just in time to avoid being brained by the Universe's Most Revolting Soccer Ball Ever. Once it landed somewhere behind me, I started yelling at Aragorn. I mean, I'm sure he hadn't seen me, but still. Ew.

"What was that? You almost hit me, you whacko! That was—!"

I realized I was yelling at the patch of dirt Aragorn had vacated without my noticing. He had moved to the other side of the clearing, and was talking to…something. I couldn't see just what from where I stood.

I stumbled toward him, picking my way past the multitude of dead bodies (none, I was happy to see, belonged to anyone I knew). When I finally got to Aragorn, I found that he was cradling a very human corpse, peppered with enough arrows to be considered a pincushion. I still couldn't see the face, because Aragorn was in the way.

But I recognized the sword in the figure's bloodied hand. It was all too easy, in fact; how many times had that same sword nearly killed me in mock-duels back in Lothlórien?

Then I remembered something. It was something I'd forgotten over the past nine days. Something I hadn't paid much attention to in the first place.

I'd seen this before. It had been one of the many slides in Galadriel's Magic Mirror Picture Show. The lone figure pierced with black arrows, surrounded by his slain opponents.

Crap.

But wait. Boromir was speaking; he was still alive. Not for too much longer, though, by the look of him. His face was a shade of pale I'd only seen matched by printer paper, and bright red blood welled in his mouth as he spoke.

"…it is over," he was saying to Aragorn. "The world of men will fall…and my people fail."

I opened my mouth and said, "Boromir…" That was as far as I got. What do you say to a dying guy? Nice knowing you? Don't go into the light? I couldn't think of anything appropriate, and Aragorn spoke before I got a chance to continue.

"I do not know what strength is in my blood," he told Boromir, "but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall…nor our people fail."

I had a feeling there was some kind of significance to his words, but I didn't get it at all. It probably would have helped if I'd known what the White City was.

Boromir, however, got it—whatever it was—immediately. "Our people…" he murmured, smiling weakly. "Our…people…"

Okay. Wait. I could figure this out. "Our people." Right. So Aragorn was acknowledging that he was of the same—race? Nationality?—as Boromir, who was from…Gondor, so…

"I would have followed you, my brother…" Boromir said slowly. He was fading fast. "…My captain…My king…"

And that's when, finally, I understood.

King! Gondor! King of Gondor! Aragorn was going to do it! I would have actually jumped for joy if Boromir hadn't been dying at me feet.

I looked down. Forget dying; while I'd been trying to puzzle out Aragorn's speech, Boromir had, in the words of Charles Dickens, "conquered a confirmed habit of living into which he had fallen."

Aragorn murmured, "Be at peace, son of Gondor," and gently kissed him.

On the forehead, freak.

Just looking down at the body—Boromir—creeped me out way more than anything else I'd seen in this crazy place. I could handle the monsters—I'd seen horror movies, after all. But this? No way. Just a couple of hours before, I'd seen him out in the river, rowing a boat and talking to Merry and Pippin and being all—alive.

Now he just lay there with glassy eyes and blood dripping from his lips, sword clutched in one hand and arrows peppering his body.

He couldn't be dead. He just couldn't. I'd just started getting along with him! And even when we hadn't been friends, I'd still respected the fact that he was a good fighter. It didn't seem right that someone so skilled in battle or whatever should be lying there, dead as a doornail, while a bumbling little teenager like me had managed to survive practically unscathed.

A wave of guilt slammed into me, so forceful someone might as well have punched me in the stomach. How many weeks ago had it been, our time in Moria? How many weeks since I'd wished he'd fall down a hole or get shot by an orc? It seemed so long, and I had all but forgotten thinking those things. But now, every single "leave me the hell alone" and "why don't you go curl up and die somewhere?" came back with grisly clarity.

I'm sorry, I thought. I was just kidding. I swear. I didn't mean it.

Aragorn turned from Boromir to look up at me. "Didn't mean what?" he asked. Apparently, I'd thought aloud.

"I…I…" I paused, focused on keeping back the tears that welled in my eyes. They fell anyway, so I kept going. "I said a lot of mean things to him before like…that it wished he'd die. And now he did…I know I apologized to him, but I still feel like…like…"

I started sobbing then, which was really just as well, because I couldn't really think of just what I felt like. Scum, maybe. Worse than scum, if there was something worse. Because I'd been holding his bad attitude toward me against him all that time, and instead of maybe taking a minute or two to learn what his point of view was, I'd just sat there and acted like a complete witch. With a capital B.

There was also the huge part of me that felt guilty because, when I could have been helping Aragorn defend Boromir or whatever, I'd been lying half-unconscious at the base of a tree I'd run into.

And then, I managed to do something even more embarrassing than breaking down in front of Galadriel: I sank down to ground level where Aragorn knelt and buried my face in his shoulder, still bawling.

Which, in hindsight, was really not the smartest of ideas. He'd just been in a pretty intense battle, and had the whole Eau de Sweat-and-Blood thing going on. After a moment, I pulled away and wiped some of said blood off the bridge of my nose.

"Dude, take a shower," I muttered, grimacing. "You stink."

He grinned.

My scowl deepened. ""No, I'm serious. What are the people of Gondor going to think if their ruler smells like he just climbed out of a boxing ring?" Okay, even I couldn't help a little bit of a smile at that. I mean, hey, my chances of going home had just dramatically risen.

"True," he said, getting to his feet and helping me do the same. "But let's not get so far ahead of ourselves. We still have much to deal with here and now. Boromir, for one thing. Merry and Pippin's capture, for another."

I did a double take. "Merry and Pippin's…what?" I looked around, and realized for the first time how few of us there were. Aragorn was with me, and I was vaguely aware of Legolas and Gimli somewhere behind us. Boromir lay dead at our feet; Merry and Pippin, having apparently been hobbit-napped, were nowhere in sight; Frodo and Sam—

"Hey! Where are Frodo and Sam?"

"There." Aragorn pointed at the lake. Out in the middle of it was one of our boats; in that were Frodo and a half-drowned Sam, paddling for dear life toward the other side.

"Um…right. So, um, what do we do?" I asked, regarding our situation in general.

"Leave the dead," Aragorn said decisively. "Except Boromir. We should give him a proper funeral. But we do not have time to bury him, so what…?" He trailed off.

"So why don't we just, I dunno, cremate him?" I asked. At the same time, Legolas said, "Wait. I have an idea."

Guess who Aragorn chose to listen to? As usual, everybody but me. Why did he always do that?

I rolled my eyes as Legolas shared his "brilliant" idea. It turned out to be putting Boromir into one of our boats, push him out onto the lake, and let the waterfall take him where it would. Oh, lovely. To heck with a traditional cremation—let's just chuck him off a cliff!

I helped Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli prepare the funeral boat, trying hard not to whine about Legolas's idea being picked over mine. We hauled Boromir into one of the boats and spruced him up, removing the arrows, washing off the blood, and laying his sword, shield, and the remains of his horn with him.

It was all kind of unsettling, but it was nice to have something to do other than sit there and weep.

It also consisted of a fair bit of stealing. Legolas put the arrows in his quiver, Gimli discreetly pocketed all food items in his pack, and I caught Aragorn strapping on Boromir's vambraces. Sheesh! I was in with a team of grave robbers!

I said as much, and Aragorn fed me a story along the lines of, "I'm only taking these to remember him by. Same reason you've got his dagger, right?"

Um, no. That dagger was a gift, remember? As in, Boromir gave it to me. As in, I did not just take it off his dead body.

This time I kept my mouth shut. I really didn't feel like escalating the situation into another "I'm never speaking to you again" episode. After all, we'd just gotten over the last one. Instead, I just followed Aragorn into the boat we'd tied Boromir's makeshift funeral barge to.

He and Legolas rowed us out into the middle of the lake, as close to the falls as we dared go. Once there, we relinquished Boromir's boat to the current. As we watched it go over the waterfall, Aragorn began to sing.

Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows

The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.

'What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?

Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?'

'I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey;

I saw him walk in empty lands, until he passed away

Into the shadows of the North. I saw him then no more.

The North Wind may have heard the horn of the son of Denethor.'

'O Boromir! From the high walls westward I looked afar,

But you came not from the empty lands where no men are.'

The slow melody made me want to start crying again, but it was like there weren't any tears left. I just sat there, staring at the spot on the fall where I'd last seen the boat.

Legolas picked up the tune:

From the mouths of the Sea the South Wind flies, from the sandhills and the stones;

The wailing of the gulls it bears, and at the gate it moans.

'What news from the South, O sighing wind, do you bring to me at eve?

Where now is Boromir the Fair? He tarries and I grieve.'

'Ask not of me where he doth dwell—so many bones there lie

On the white shores and the dark shores under the stormy sky;

So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea.

Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!'

'O Boromir! Beyond the gate the seaward road runs south,

But you come not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea's mouth.'

Aragorn went back in for another verse.

From the Gate of Kings the North Wind rides, and past the roaring falls;

And clear and cold about the tower its loud horn calls.

'What news of the North, O mighty wind, do you bring to me today?

What news of Boromir the Bold? For he is long away.'

'Beneath Amon Hen I heard his cry. There many foes he fought.

His cloven shield, his broken sword, they to the water brought.

His head so proud, his face so fair, his limbs they laid to rest;

And Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, bore him upon its breast.'

'o Boromir! The Tower of Guard shall ever northward gaze

To Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, until the end of days.'

The last note hung in the air for an almost unnaturally long time before being swallowed by a sudden crushing silence. The four of us sat there in the boat for what seemed like an eternity.

I felt like I should say something, some deep, profound eulogy befitting a fallen warrior. Nothing came to mind.

We rowed back to shore, and as we did, I finally found my voice. "Wow," I said. "So did you guys have that prepared, or were you just ad-libbing? Because if you were, that was pretty good."

Okay, so I'd kind of missed the deep-and-profound mark. Still, my innate stupidity was better than the quiet.

Both Aragorn and Legolas declined to answer my question; I chose to believe they'd been ad-libbing. Because, really, I don't think they just had that song ready in case Boromir just happened to drop dead, or whatever. That would have been seriously creepy.

Back on the shore, Legolas, Gimli, and I waited patiently to hear Aragorn's plan of action. He didn't speak for a while, so the rest of us just kind of stood around the riverbank.

Then, inexplicably, Legolas raced off toward the boat we'd just gotten out of, and started pushing it back into the river. "Hurry!" he said to the rest of us. "Frodo and Sam have reached the eastern shore!"

I shot him a worried look. "You just noticed that?" I asked him. "Dude, Frodo and Sam have been out on the water for the past half an hour. Their boat has been out on the river the entire time we were holding the funeral. How, in that much time, did you manage to miss them? I'm the oblivious one; you're stealing my thunder here!"

The Elf decided not to dignify that with a comment, but instead turned his attention to Aragorn, who hadn't moved. "You mean not to follow them?" he asked, obviously perplexed.

"Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands," Aragorn answered. I suppose that sounded a little better than the truth, which was more like, Heck no, we're not following them! I'm the one who told Frodo to run for his life in the first place, because at this rate, our whole troupe would be dead of old age before we even got close to Mordor!

Legolas and Gimli, who hadn't witnessed Aragorn and Frodo's touching goodbye, bought his response. Neither of them looked especially pleased about it, though.

"Then it has all been in vain," Gimli sighed. "The Fellowship has failed."

"Not yet. Not while we have strength left," Aragorn vowed bravely. "We shall not abandon Merry and Pippin to torture and death."

He turned and started up the slope into the forest, calling back to us in his Leader Voice. "Leave all that can be spared behind! We travel light!"

I glanced into the bottom of the boat, where my t-shirt, sweater, sneakers, and favorite blue jeans lay in a heap. Oh, well. It wasn't like they'd do me any more good in Middle-earth. Bye, guys, I thought.

Then Aragorn turned back to us, wearing a grin that, on him, could only be described as slightly manic and extremely scary. "Let's hunt some orc!" he said, and dashed away into the trees.

Legolas smiled and looked at Gimli, who let out an excited whoop. Together, they took off at a run.

"Hey! What about me?" I yelled to them. But they were either too far away to hear me, or they were just ignoring me again. Knowing them, it was probably the latter.

I sighed. "Wait for me, you guys! Come on! I' going orc-hunting with you!" I started after them, but stopped when I realized we weren't really going orc-hunting.

We were going super-orc-hunting. Merry and Pippin by Uruk-hai. The big, six-foot-something ones with the meat cleavers.

But wait, again! Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli were happy about tracking down and eventually battling a horde of these things? What? I swear, I am never, ever, in a million years going to understand guys.

"Boys," I muttered disgustedly. And with that, I began the long run to catch up to my three companions.

Fin

I can't believe I started this fic almost five years ago. All that time, and it's finally finished. I feel so proud.

Thank you so much to everyone who read this and gave me the lovely reviews:

Gwenivive, RenegadeKitsune, sapphire2988, TrekieGreenieShannaraElfOfME, Kiami Sinno, Legolanderin, Mystic Archery Peanut Butter Horse, Morwen, MtReload, The Great White Emu, Ningwen, IloveJesus7390, Tash the President, kurleyhawk2, mellonim, XClaire BearX, . , LoudMouthStar, cobra1984, TheAngryPrincess13, Natalia101, -incessant embers-, Neassa, SilentStream, Maidenhair, Milla J, Fk306 animelover, freelance beatnik, Mystical Full Moon Maiden, Arialas, Naerdiel, , XOmeNyou, Jasmine101, and TheWall. Can't thank any of you enough for all the wonderful things you've said to me.

Stay tuned for Book the Second. First chapter should be up sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Thanks again,

Kaisa E.