Author’s Note:  Well, very sincere apologies to all the lovely readers who’ve been waiting for more of this!  I did mean to post more of it sooner – a lot sooner – but the craziness of life, including Christmas, work and a car accident, got in the way.

            Still, here it is at last!  A couple of other notes: I am no poet, unlike Tolkien, so I unashamedly stole the song that appears near the end of this chapter.  My respects and apologies to the Welshman who penned the original!  And, apologies to David Wenham and his fans, but I’m afraid I am not a fan, and I do not approve of the interpretation of Faramir in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers.  So, for the record, the Faramir who appears in this story is not the Faramir in the film!  Oh, and following Tolkien’s lead in this particular instance, I’ve decided that Boromir and Faramir in this version have black hair.  I don’t mind if you just picture this Boromir as Sean Bean with black hair, though – that’s what I’m doing!

            I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Twelve:  The Stormcrow and the Shadows

            The day dragged on in waiting and in shadow.

            Faramir and I made the rounds of the wall, along the ramparts of the Causeway Forts and as far as to the first milecastles to north and south. 

All seemed as prepared as it could be.  The wall was well manned.  The Men seemed alert, and for the moment at least calm, free of any such terror as had struck at Osgiliath.  The catapults, as Lieutenant Siriondil had reported to us, were in place, manned and ready. 

            It must have been nearing the noon when our inspection was completed, yet the darkness was still impenetrable.  Scarce an arrow’s shot from the wall, the Causeway Road and the rocky ground simply vanished. 

All seemed quiet – we could hear no drumming, no creaking of wagons, no tread of hoofbeats or marching feet.  If the foe was advancing upon us, they did so with all the silence of the shadows they inhabited.

            We tested both the catapults and the absence of our enemy, by ordering that the catapult crews fire makeshift torches into the road and the ravine to either side.  Bundles of cloth – mostly fashioned of blankets stripped from the barracks that had been supplied to support a garrison twice our present numbers – were soaked in lamp oil, set alight, and fired into the dark. 

            The slope below us was free enough of vegetation that we had little fear of starting a conflagration.  And there was little to be lost even had a brush fire started, for none of our folk now lived beyond the wall.

But the dots of flame from that first volley did not spread.  And though they helped somewhat to pierce the darkness around them, they showed us no sign of the enemy’s approach.

            For now, it seemed that the enemy was waiting.  And so must we.

            On the wall of the North Fort, just outside the tower that housed our quarters, I once again found myself glowering over a parapet into black murk.  Lieutenant Siriondil to my left and Faramir to my right seemed to have no better idea than I of what we could do to make this time of waiting more useful to us.  When I turned to either side to look at them, both were frowning into the darkness.

            I said to Siriondil, “the Men at least can pass the time watching for the torches to go out.  I suppose that is better than nothing.  See that a new volley is fired as each round of torches dies.”

            The Lieutenant saluted.  I turned to Faramir again.

            “Do you sense anything?” I asked him.  “Any useful visions?”

            “No.”  He smiled wanly.  The question was one I had asked often enough over the years for him to be thoroughly sick of it.  But perhaps this time it seemed another confirmation that I was truly the brother he remembered.  He continued, “you know the visions don’t come running whenever I deign to summon them.”

            “I know,” I agreed.  “And I still think it’s bloody inconsiderate.  If they’re going to give you the kind of suffering they do, they could at least come when you ask for them.”

            Faramir sighed, but any further reply was forestalled by a respectful hail from across the rampart behind us.  “My Lords.”

            Both of us turned, to see Svip and Holgar hurrying along the wall.

            “Sirs,” Holgar said, saluting as they approached.  He glanced down at Svip and smiled, then said, “I beg to report that Svip has received a thorough tour of the Forts.  We have visited the walls, barracks, armoury, parade ground, guard houses, stables, kitchens, bakehouse, refectory, laundry, storerooms, privies, and gardens.”  Holgar turned to Svip and asked, “did I miss anything out?”

            “The wine cellar,” Svip added eagerly.  “I’ve never seen so many different bottles!  There were lots of types that I don’t have in my collection.”

            “Wait till we get to Minas Tirith,” I told him.  “Our father’s wine cellar puts this one to shame.”

            “Is anything happening?” Svip asked, craning his neck as if by stretching he could make himself tall enough to see over the wall.

            “No,” I said.  “We’re just getting bored.”

            Faramir said, “Svip, my brother has told me of your voyaging together.  If it doesn’t offend you, there are many questions I’d like to ask.  I’ve never had the opportunity to speak with one of your people.”

            I smiled at the sound of that.  The language was more courtly, but the sense of it was the same as something Svip had said to me, in those first days beneath the Falls of Rauros.

            “Of course!” Svip said delightedly.  “I’ve got some questions too.”

            I’ll bet you have, I thought.  I wondered if Faramir had any concept of what he had got himself into.  But then, Faramir could probably keep the questions going just as long as Svip could.  If it were not for the fact that Sauron’s forces were bound to strike sooner or later, this conversation could last until the end of the Age.

            A sudden chill struck me, and against my will, I shivered.  Both Faramir and Svip glanced at me sharply.  “Do you want to go back inside?” Faramir offered.

            “No, I’m fine,” I said.  “Let’s walk some more, I’ll warm up.”

            “Do you mind walking?” Faramir asked Svip.  “You’re not too tired?”

            “Of course not!”

            I turned to Holgar.  “Thank you for your assistance,” I told him.  “You can return to your Company.”

            Holgar saluted, but he said, “My Lord, may I speak with you for a moment in private?”

            I looked over at the others, and said, “you two go on ahead; I’ll catch up with you.”

             Both of them hesitated, eyeing me worriedly as if to assure themselves that I was not about to keel over dead.  Faramir nodded, still studying me.  Then he turned to Svip.  “All right?” he asked.

            “Right,” said Svip. 

They set out together along the wall.  Faramir had his hands clasped behind his back, and Svip quickly took up the same pose as he fell into step beside Faramir. 

I grinned, wondering if Svip had been doing that with me as well.  If he had been imitating me all along, I was impressed with the Men’s self-control in not laughing every time they saw us.

            I turned back toward Holgar, and saw him also watching Svip and Faramir’s departure, with a look that was mixed affection and worry.

            “What was it you wanted to speak of?” I asked.

            “Sir, how long has it been since Svip slept?”

            I frowned and thought back.  “I don’t know.  We know he slept in the harbour at Cair Andros – that would be three nights ago, now.  I suppose he probably got some sleep on the ship, anyway …”

            Holgar shook his head.  “I don’t think so, My Lord.  Or not very much, at any rate.  I was down in the hold with the wounded, and he was back and forth every few minutes checking on them, all night.  I did sleep for a little while myself, but I kept waking up when Svip came by again.”

            “I see,” I said.  “Why do you ask?  Have you noticed anything wrong with him?”

            “I’m not sure, Sir, but I did think he was starting to look a bit grey.  It’s nothing like it was that time before.  He’s got as much energy as ever.  He was running about the Forts like a three-year-old who’s just got up from his nap -- Sir.  But I thought I should bring it to your attention.  So you know to keep an eye on him.”

            I looked again at Svip and Faramir, now some distance along the wall.  “Yes,” I said.  “Thank you.  You did well to tell me.”

            Holgar hesitated, then he went on impulsively, “do you know, Sir, whether Svip needs river water to sleep in, or just any water?”

            “I don’t know,” I had to say again.  I scowled in thought.  “It might be any water.  Back in the barn, I think he just said it was the first time he’d slept out of water.”  Gazing at my brother and the water creature, apparently deep in conversation, I said, “I should be able to find out.  If my brother’s pestering him with questions, I should be able to squeeze in one about his sleeping habits.”  I thought a moment more, then decided, “on the off chance, Holgar, find a washtub; have it filled with water and brought to the tower chamber.  I’ll see if I can’t sweet-talk Svip into having a nap.”

            “Yes, My Lord,” said Holgar, grinning as he saluted.

            The young Ranger made for the stairs, and I hurried after Faramir and Svip.  Both of them smiled and nodded at me as I caught up with them, then they went back to their discussion. 

“What is your house built of, then?” inquired Faramir.

“Oh, it’s not built,” said Svip.  “It grows.  It’s a plant.”

“A plant?  Really?” Faramir asked, and I exclaimed as well, “really?”

            “Yes, it grows all along the river bottom, but much smaller.  The pods are usually just a few inches long.  It only starts growing to the sort of size one could live in, when one of us is already living nearby.  It’s our piss, you see.  There’s something in it that makes the House Plants grow bigger.  That’s why it’s the worst possible challenge to piss in someone else’s territory – it’s like telling them you’re going to start a house of your own there.  The longer you live in one place, the bigger the plant gets, and it keeps growing more pods – that’s how you get the different rooms, each one of them’s a pod.”

            “Good heavens,” murmured Faramir.  “That’s remarkable!”  He glanced over at me, and smiled as he saw me striving not to look flummoxed at the news that I had lived several days within a waterplant.  Not to mention said plant’s particular choice of fertilizer.

Faramir continued his research.  “Where do you live until the plant has grown large enough?”

“Any kind of shelter where you’ve got access to the water, but there’s air to breathe, too.  A cave, if there’s one in your territory, or else you can dig a burrow in the riverbank, or build a hut out of sticks and logs, or whatever’s to hand.  It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s got water and air.”

“What about inside the plants?” Faramir asked.  “How do you keep air in them when they’re under the water?  If you’re able to go in and out of the house, why isn’t the air inside eventually lost?”

Svip tilted his head to one side, looking up ponderingly at Faramir.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I never thought of that, it’s just the way it is.  Maybe the plants make the air themselves?  Or it’s something to do with us living inside; maybe somehow we and the plants make the air together?  But I don’t know why it doesn’t leak out into the water.”

“Mithrandir may know,” said Faramir.  “We can ask him when we get to the City.”

“Who’s Mithrandir?” Svip asked.

My brother glanced at me questioningly, surprised I suppose that I’d not told Svip of the Wizard.  I shrugged, and Faramir turned back to Svip.

            “He’s one of the Istari – the Wizards.  I doubt anyone but he and the other Wizards know how old he is, but he is very old and wise, and I don’t think I’ve ever asked him a question that he couldn’t tell me at least part of an answer to.  If anyone’s likely to know how your House Plants work, Mithrandir will.”

            Svip nodded, and for a moment we walked onward without speaking, each wrapped in his own thoughts.  Then Faramir asked Svip about the language of his people, and the conversation was on once more.

            Svip revealed that his people indeed had their own tongue, which he had learned from his mother.  But he hadn’t used it much since leaving her house, and he thought it likely that for most of his people, the females used it more than the males – since the females would teach the language to their offspring and speak it with them for several years, while the males only had to use it briefly when they met up with a female to mate.

Svip told us that he had learned the common tongue from listening to Elves and Men when he was travelling at the time of the Old Wars, before he had his own house.  He didn’t know for sure, not having met many of his own kind, but he thought most of them probably learned the common tongue, since they’d need it to converse with anyone they lured into the water.  And the one time he’d encountered another male of his people – a memory that caused Svip to shudder – their brief confrontation had taken place in the common speech.

            Faramir asked to hear some words of Svip’s language, and for the next few minutes the water creature obliged, speaking words and phrases which Faramir carefully repeated.  It sounded a bit like the Dwarven tongue, Faramir suggested, although he could not have proved it by me.  I thought I had heard Gimli mutter a few Dwarvish epithets in the months of our journey together, but I couldn’t recall the sound of it except that I’d thought it sounded like Gimli was calling swine at the same time as clearing his throat. 

            My attention wandered during the language lesson.  I glanced to my right into the murk, but there was nothing to see beyond the wall except the specks of light from our torches. 

Many of our Men lining the wall turned to salute or bow as we passed.  I saw several smiles of wonder and amusement at the sight of our little procession, Svip and Faramir in their identical poses talking in water creature speech, and me trailing a few paces behind. 

In the faces of the Men, including those who smiled, I saw exhaustion and strain, weighing down on them as we waited in the hellish dusk.  

            I looked left, to south and westward.  Though I knew full well what I would see – or rather, what I would not see – I still could not hold back a surge of disappointment.

            My sight did not even extend to the far wall of the Forts.  I could pick out the torches along the wall, but beyond those torches in the dark I saw nothing of the land for which we fought. 

Nothing of the Pelennor, its fields and orchards dotted with red-roofed farmsteads.  Nothing of the huge, sprawling inns along the road, some now converted to farming as the volume of travel decreased, but most still welcoming the traveller with good hay for his horse, a seat in the shade where he could put up his feet, and a foaming mug of ale.

            And beyond them, nothing of Minas Tirith. 

Always before, the Men who stood on Rammas Echor could look back and see it: houses that gleamed pure white in the sun, the Tower of Ecthelion piercing the sky like a spear of silver and pearl, our banners catching the sunlight as the breezes bore them aloft. 

It seemed cruelly wrong not to see any hint of it, not even of the purple shadows and snow-capped crest of Mount Mindolluin, looming over Minas Tirith as a guardian giant with the City held safe in its arms.

And yet if we could not see the White City, neither could our foes.  They could not yet profane it with their gaze, no matter how their master turned his foul, lidless eye upon us.

Thoughts of doom, I reminded myself sternly, would get us nowhere.  They would kill no Orcs, would cause the Dark Lord not a twinge of discomfort, and were not likely to bring the sunlight back, either.

I turned my mind back to Svip and my brother. 

For this moment at least Faramir seemed to have banished his own grim thoughts.  His face bore the same look of delight as when he was a child, when he would run from the library to share with me the wondrous new facts he’d discovered.

As I made the conscious effort to listen to them again, Faramir was asking Svip, “why do you suppose the language exists, if it’s used so infrequently?  Was it used more often in former times?”

Svip gazed down at his feet for a few moments as we walked, then he nodded.  “I think it must have been.  I think maybe we used to live in groups, a long time ago.  I don’t know why that would have changed.  But my mother told me stories about a time when our people lived in villages. And they weren’t always trying to kill each other, either.  I used to think she’d made them up.  I couldn’t believe people would ever live together.  But maybe it was true after all.  Maybe the language comes from when we used to live together, and we only started having individual territories later.”

Faramir nodded thoughtfully.  “Yes.  Yes, that would make sense.  This really is wonderful!” he exclaimed suddenly.  “Listen, Svip, would you allow me to write about you?  You and your people?  I don’t think we have any writings on your kind, at least I’ve never run across any.  Perhaps the Elves have writings that discuss your people, but I’m almost certain there aren’t any in the Stewards’ Library.  And even if there are such writings, it would be good to have a modern work to compare with the old ones, to see what they might reveal about how your people have changed.  What do you think?  Would it be all right?”

Svip was silent for several moments, again staring down at the walkway and his feet.  “I think it would,” he said at last, hesitatingly.  “As long as you didn’t mention any of the actual locations where anybody lives.  I mean, of course you could say we live in the River.  But if you wrote about the actual places, people might try to find us and – and the others wouldn’t like that.  And if they found out I’d told you, they might come after me.”

“Of course,” Faramir said sombrely. “It was only a thought, Svip.  I don’t have to write it at all if you think it would anger your people -- ”

“No!  No, you can write it.”  Svip looked up at Faramir, with a bashful sort of grin.  “Do you think Elves and Wizards would like to read about us?”

 “I know they would,” Faramir said.  He chuckled quietly.  “In fact they’re likely the only ones who would read it, except for a few eccentric types like me.  You wouldn’t need to worry about all and sundry reading it, Svip; I’m usually the only Man to visit the library from one month to the next.”

“I would read it,” I said.

Faramir and Svip both turned and smiled at me.  As they did so, another wave of cold swept over me.  I shook with a shudder so massive that I had to stop walking to recover myself.

“Boromir!” Faramir exclaimed, grabbing my arm to steady me.  Svip meanwhile was watching me with narrowed eyes.  He asked sharply, “how long has it been since you slept?”

This at least gave me the opportunity I’d been waiting for.  I had not wanted to ask him earlier and interrupt their linguistic discussion.  But now that I really looked at Svip, I thought that Holgar had been right.  Svip was looking paler than he ought to.  Even in the dim torchlight I could see that.

“Just what I was going to ask you,” I said.  I went on in a challenging tone, “I slept on the ship.  You’re looking pretty grey, you know.  When did you sleep last?”

“On the ship,” he answered, but he glanced away from me as he said it. 

I did not confront him with any details from Holgar’s report, but only said, “I’ve been meaning to ask.  Do you need to have water from the River to sleep in?  Or is any water good enough?”

“Any water,” said Svip.  “It’s not like with you.  You need the River water because that’s what I used to bring you back.  It doesn’t matter with me as long as it’s water.”

“Good,” said I.  “Then there’s nothing to stop you having a nap.  We’ve a washtub in our quarters that ought to do nicely.”

Svip looked at me rebelliously.  Finally he said, “I’ll have a nap if you will.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes.  Faramir said, “I think he’s got you trapped.”

I was pretty certain that what I needed was not sleep, it was a trip to the blasted River.  But I supposed it didn’t matter if I gave in to Svip’s ultimatum, so long as the enemy was not turning up yet. 

The defences were ready.  It would not make them any more ready to have both Faramir and me pacing up and down the wall all day. 

At least it looked like I would get Svip to nap without having to tie him up and hold him down in the tub. 

Come to think of it, I didn’t have to stop with Svip, either.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of this, little brother,” I said.  “If we’ve got to have naptime, so do you.”

  Like old times, I thought, wondering if Faramir saw the funny side of this.  He always did hate being ordered to nap, ever since he was old enough to walk.  His nurse and I regularly went through complicated negotiations, usually involving letting him stay up an extra half hour at night reading his latest book, before we ever managed to wheedle him into napping.

Faramir did not look amused.  “I’m fine, really,” he said.

“So am I,” I told him stubbornly. 

My brother glared at me, then he gave a quiet groan.  “All right.  You two get some sleep; then when you’re up, I’ll take a turn.  If the enemy hasn’t appeared yet.”

“Fine,” I said.  “Come get us after two hours, all right?”

“Right.”

When we reached the tower chamber, we found that Holgar had accomplished his mission.  A shiny brass washtub had been placed between the fireplace and one of the beds, three quarters filled with water. 

Svip gave a squeak of happiness at the sight and scampered over to the tub, then he stopped and turned to look at me suspiciously.  “You are going to sleep too, aren’t you?” he asked.  “You’re not just going to wait till I fall asleep and then sneak out again?”

“I’m not sneaking anywhere,” I said.  I grabbed up the pillow off the bed farther from the washtub and tossed it to Svip, who caught it easily.  “I am going to sleep, Svip.  I promise.”

He nodded and jumped into the tub, sending water splashing on the floor.  The sound of it made me notice how very thirsty I was.  While Svip was arranging his pillow against the edge of the tub, I paused for a sip from my canteen.  I cursed myself for a fool for not refilling it with River water before we left Anduin’s shore.  The canteen was yet perhaps a third full, but if I’d had any brain I would have filled it while I had the chance.  The Causeway Forts are supplied by wells, and no irrigation pipes pass through the wall from the River here, as they do at other points along Rammas Echor. 

It might be a long time before I got to any River water, considering that I’d probably have to make a foray through enemy lines to reach it.

I would just have to drink sparingly of what I had.  The swallow I had taken was helping, I thought.  At least I was not shivering, though I still felt a damnable chill in my bones. 

As I lay down in the bed beside Svip’s tub, his voice came again, “you’ll sleep?  You really do promise?”

 “Yes, Svip, I promise,” I sighed.  “Sleep well.”

 Admittedly, I harboured the same suspicions about Svip as he did about me.  I did not let sleep claim me until I heard Svip’s small, wheezing snores.  He could of course have been faking, but I did not follow my suspicion through that far.

I wandered into sleep, the sound I heard changing from snores into quiet sobs.

I could not tell who was crying. 

I was in a cold, grey room, that had never warmed to the welcome of a friendly hearth or to voices lifted in laughter or in song.  I looked about me at the tall arches of white stone, the faint sunlight that drifted from tiny windows high above and floated down through ghostly armies of dust. 

I knew well where I was.  Many times before my steps had brought me here, to the Houses of the Dead.  I had stood here alone in the House of the Stewards as the air hung heavy with silence.  I had knelt here by the biers of lost ones that I loved, while the cold air, as now, was rent apart with sobs.

Faramir and I used to play here, to race over the echoing cobbles of the Silent Street and play hide and seek amid the pale statues and dark pillared recesses of the Tombs.  There were none here to chide us, none save the quiet servants who tended the Mansions of the Dead and who dared not raise their voices or their hands to scold the Lord Steward’s sons.

We stopped playing in the shadows of Rath Dínen when our mother was brought here, to sleep in cold stone and silence.

I wondered who was crying.  I knew I was in the House of the Stewards, for I saw the white banners of our House hanging aloft from the distant arches, wreathed about in falling dust.  It seemed that I was not standing, but rather floating above with the dust and the banners, gazing down upon the still forms of my ancestors as they slumbered on their beds of stone.

By one of the biers I now noticed two figures kneeling, one a Man and one a small green creature that could only be Svip.  It was the Man, I thought, whose sobs I heard, but Svip’s form shook also with sobbing too quiet to hear.  I realised with surprise that Svip was clad in the black and silver livery of the Citadel.  But my wondering how that had come to be took second place in my mind to the question of who the Man kneeling beside Svip might be.  And whose might be the silent figure that lay upon the bier where they mourned.

As I watched, Svip timidly reached out his hand and clasped it around the hand of the Man beside him.  I thought that I ought to recognise the Man.  He had black hair, and clothing that I knew I recognised.  But his head was bowed, and try though I might I could not seem to get any closer, to see his face clearly through the curtain of light and dust.

I should recognise him.  Everything about him was familiar to me.  But I could not be certain if the Man who sobbed was my brother, or myself.

I woke to my brother’s hand on my shoulder, and his quiet words, “Boromir.  It’s been two hours.”

I sat up.  “No sign of the enemy yet?” I asked.

“No.  Nothing.”

I glanced over at Svip in his washtub, wondering how angry he would be with me if I let him sleep through another shift.  It turned out that I needn’t have bothered wondering, for as Faramir and I watched his head suddenly popped up from his sodden pillow and he leaped dripping out of the tub.

“Ready?” Svip asked cheerfully.  “Are we going back to the wall?”

“Yes,” I told him.  “We’re going back.”

I stood and said to Faramir, “your turn, then.  Don’t try sneaking out of here as soon as our backs are turned.”

He frowned, but nodded. “Call me the instant there’s any move from the enemy.”

“I will.”

The dripping Svip hurried over to me as Faramir lay down in his usual position, curled up on his left side with both hands underneath the pillow. “All right, Boromir,” Faramir said irritably without turning to look at me, “you don’t have to stand there watching until I fall asleep.”

 “Right,” I called back as we turned to leave.  “I’ll see you in two hours.”

We walked outside into the sickly dusk.  I returned the nods and greetings of the soldiers nearby, then stepped to the parapet to scowl once more at the light of our torches glowing in black emptiness.

“Boromir?” Svip asked in a hesitant tone.

I turned my back on the taunting dark.  “Yes?  What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.  Only, well – when the fighting comes again I don’t want to have to do nothing.”

“What do you mean?  You’ve been doing a great deal.  You pulverised a lot of Orcs at Osgiliath.”

He nodded.  “I know, but at the island I couldn’t do anything.  The wall here’s wider than the one there, so I can turn into a horse here, but that doesn’t do any good until they’re close enough to kick and bite.  Don’t you have any bows that are small enough for me to use?”

I thought about it.  I couldn’t think of any stash of children’s weaponry that would be at the Causeway Forts, but there was another possibility.

“You could probably handle a crossbow,” I said.  “Their range isn’t as great as the longbows’, but it’s a greater range than biting and kicking.  They take a bit of getting used to, but they do have pulleys that help draw back the bowstring, so you don’t have to be strong enough to draw it by yourself.  And they’re a lot smaller than the longbows; I think you’re probably big enough to use them.”

“I’d like to learn how,” Svip said eagerly.  

“So you shall,” I said, suddenly feeling purposeful.  It was a relief to have something practical to think of, instead of just chills and shadows and dreams of foreboding.

I called Lieutenant Siriondil over to us.  “Lieutenant, select two Men who are particularly skilled with the crossbow.  They must be good at passing on their skills, as well; they’ll be instructing Svip in the crossbow’s use.  Have a target set up here on the tower.”  

Svip’s crossbow lesson proved a good diversion.  Indeed the diversion was nearly too good, and several times I noticed officers censuring their Men to keep focus on the enemy’s possible approach, rather than on Svip’s archery.  But still there were murmurs of applause, and I saw a few coins exchanged as those who had bet in Svip’s favour collected on their wagers.

“He’s pretty good at it, My Lord,” Lieutenant Siriondil observed once, when Svip’s crossbow bolt skewered the target’s centre.

I nodded.  “It doesn’t surprise me, I suppose.  He’s got a good eye.  And his aim can be truly frightening.” 

I had been keeping close track of the nearest hour candle, that burned behind a pane of glass in its niche in the tower wall.  The fortress’s bell had pealed once for the passing of an hour, and was about to do so again.  The candle had burned nearly to the second hour-marking since I had started watching it. 

Before I could head inside to waken Faramir, he beat me to it.  My brother stepped out from the tower door, pulled his cloak tighter about him and walked over to me.

The sleep, if indeed he had got any, appeared to have done no good at all.  He looked exhausted.  The shadows beneath his eyes seemed darker, and the rest of his face seemed even paler than before. 

He followed the gaze of the Men watching Svip’s training, and asked, “is this the first time he’s used a crossbow?”

“It was, two hours ago,” I said.  “Looks like he’s got it down.  Now we just have to find something for him to stand on so he can reach the embrasures.”

Faramir smiled, which did nothing to relieve the worn pallor of his face.

“You’re right on time,” I observed, as the hour bell rang out.  “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some,” he said.

“Dreams?”

He shook his head dismissively.  I very well knew what that usually meant.  There had been dreams, and they had been bad.  “Nothing much,” he answered.  “Could have been a lot worse.”

“You’re sure?” I prodded.  “You look awful.”

Faramir raised his head proudly, giving me a challenging stare.  He said, “I’m sure I don’t look any more awful than you do.”

I snorted.  “That’s debatable.”

Concern rapidly succeeded the challenge in Faramir’s gaze.  He asked me, “Boromir, how close do you need to stay to the River?”

I shrugged and turned to watch as Svip and his trainers engaged in a new archery contest, now firing ten paces farther back from where they’d been firing before.  “I don’t really know,” I said.  “It seemed it was four or five miles before I started noticing anything wrong, when I tried to leave the River before.  It got worse the farther I went, until ten miles or so when I was keeling over.” 

“We’re four miles from the River now,” Faramir said.

“I know.”

“Is it getting worse?” he persisted.

I shrugged again.  “Not really.  Maybe slightly.  It isn’t a problem.”

“Isn’t it?”

I sighed.  “I’m a bit cold.  That’s all.  It’s nothing to worry about.”

“When will you worry about it?”

I scowled at him.  “When it gets too bad for me to fight.  Then I’ll worry.”

“When do you plan on deciding it’s too bad?  When you pass out while some Orc is running at you with an axe?”

“For heaven’s sake,” I groaned.  “When it gets too bad, I’ll leave.  I’ll follow the wall around to the Harlond, have a nice swim and fill up some canteens, and head to the City from there.”

“You could do that now,” he pointed out.  “While you’re still conscious, and we don’t need to waste good fighting Men on carrying you.  And before the Harlond’s over-run and you have to take your swim in the midst of an enemy army.”

My fists clenched.   I had to consciously will myself to unclench them again.  “I’m not leaving until I have to, Faramir,” I hissed.  “You know that.”

He argued, “I know that our father is mourning you for dead.  And that you might do a greater service to Gondor by going to him and giving him something to live for, than by waiting here to fight when you’re in no condition to do so.”

“How the hell do you know what condition I’m in?”

The anger abruptly left my brother’s face.  He clutched my arm, gazing at me in desperation.  “Boromir, listen to me.  You just came back to us.  Do you think we want to lose you again?”

Of a sudden I felt my eyes sting with tears.  I swallowed.  “You won’t lose me,” I said gruffly.

“Will we not?” he demanded, a bitter gleam in his eyes.  “You know you can’t promise that.  Any more than you could promise it the last time.”

“You listen, brother,” I ordered, closing my hand over his.  “You know I cannot desert our Men while they’re waiting for the Nameless One to strike.  I can’t do it any more than you could.”

“If it would help them more to leave than to remain, I could do it.  So must you.”

I bit my lip, looking away from his desperate gaze.  “I will,” I said.  “But not yet.”

Faramir suddenly yanked his hand away from my arm.  “Damn it, Boromir!” he hissed, still keeping his voice low enough not to carry to our Men along the wall.  “Do you believe Father and I are made of stone?  Losing you this time nearly destroyed us!  I am not letting you put us through this again.” 

I shot back, “I’m not putting you through anything!  Nothing that we haven’t always known we someday might have to face.  You know it as well as I do.  It is our duty to fight for Gondor.  To lay down our lives if need be.  And if that happens, then it’s the duty of those who are left to live with that loss.”

“Don’t lecture me about duty!  This isn’t about duty, it’s about you not being able to put anything before your stupid pride.”

“It is not pride!” 

Both of our voices were growing louder now.  I noticed several of the Men glance over at us and swiftly look away again.

The sight served to thoroughly douse my anger.  It would do the morale of our Men no good at all, for their captains to be quarrelling.  If our father were here, I thought, he would knock our heads together.  And he would be right to do so.

I sighed.  “It’s not my pride, Faramir,” I said.  “Not this time.  It’s the truth.  I know that I’m all right now.  And I will leave before my condition becomes a threat.  I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

He shook his head sadly, with his melancholy smile.  “I want to believe you,” he said.

I thought for a moment.  Then I said, “Faramir.  I vow to you by my Oath of Fealty to Gondor.  I will return to the River before my condition endangers my life, or the lives of our Men.  Will you believe that?”

Faramir sighed, his gaze slipping away from mine.  I grasped his shoulder, struggling to think of anything more I could say that would make him believe me.  Then suddenly he turned, looking into the courtyard of the Forts as though he heard something approaching.

An instant later, the trumpet rang forth from the Forts’ West Gate, that guards the road from Minas Tirith.

Someone sought admission through the gate.  That much was clear, but who, or how many, was impossible to know.  After a few moments I heard the gate creak open, but in the dark it was still too far for me to see who might be passing within.

I glanced over at Faramir.  “Reinforcements from the City?” I suggested.

He shook his head, still staring toward the unseen gate.  “No,” he said.  “I don’t think so.”

We waited, and gradually a horseman rode into view, down the main thoroughfare of the fortress out of the dark.

I was not sure if perhaps the torchlight along the road played tricks upon my sight.  For while the horse seemed nearly invisible at times, moving like a fog in and out of the light, the rider seemed to give off his own radiance, a pure white that gleamed from his person and cast the darkness aside.

I squinted at the approaching horseman, trying to make sense of what my eyes told me.

He had a white robe, I thought.  A white robe that shifted in and out of sight, for as he rode the darker cloak that he wore shifted to reveal more of his robe, and then fell closed about it once again.  It seemed that he had white hair, as well, partly concealed by some large, dark hat.  As the rider drew near to the stables, I frowned, wondering if the impression that he had been glowing were indeed merely some trick of the light.

Whatever it had been, it seemed gone now, leaving only an old Man in a white robe and a dark cloak.

Faramir breathed, “Mithrandir.”

I nearly swore.  But I held the words back, to keep from wiping the delighted smile off my brother’s face.

Wonderful, I thought.  Just who I do not want to see.

I told myself I did not believe the superstition held by many of our Men, that the Grey Wanderer only moved amongst us as the harbinger of doom.  I ought not to believe it, anyhow, after journeying with him for three months – although, to be certain, that journey indeed had led to my doom.  And to his.

I sternly fought back a thrill of dread, at the memory that this rider below us who now dismounted from his steed and walked with it toward our stables, had returned from the fires of Moria.

Yes, I told myself, and you’ve returned from the Falls of Rauros.

I did not believe he was any supernatural messenger of doom.  Yet still, the thought that he must have ridden here from Minas Tirith – and from our father – sent whispers of foreboding through me.  I could not help fearing that he brought news of some misfortune to our father.  Misfortune that, had I gone straight to Minas Tirith, I might have prevented.

Faramir looked over at me, his smile growing apologetic as he remembered that I had little more love for the Wizard than our father did.  “I’ll go and meet him,” Faramir said.

I answered, “I’ll come along.”

He frowned in surprise, then nodded.  “If you want to,” he said doubtfully.

I did not want to.  But neither did I want to hold back from encountering my fellow voyager from the realms of the dead.

If I waited, it would look as though I feared to meet him.

Which I did.

But I would sooner die again, I thought, than let that fear show.

Svip and his trainers seemed deep in discussion of the crossbow’s workings, but nonetheless as Faramir and I started for the stairs, Svip broke free of the conversation and scurried over to us.

 “Stay here, Svip,” I told him.  “There’s a messenger from the City that Faramir and I must meet with.  You stay here; go on with your training.  You’re doing very well.”

Svip beamed at the praise.  “So you’ll let me use the bow, when the fighting starts?”

“Oh, I think we’ll let you,” I said.  “Won’t we?” I added, turning to Faramir.

“Decidedly,” Faramir agreed.  “If you had not volunteered, we would be begging you to.”

Our small green crossbowman grinned.  “Right,” he said, then he turned and raced back over to his tutors.

We hurried down from the wall.  I had supposed that I was alone in my misgivings at Mithrandir’s arrival, and that Faramir simply looked forward to greeting an old friend.  But glancing over at my brother, I saw a troubled frown on his face as we reached the foot of the stairs and hastened between the Forts’ two towers. 

“Do you think something’s happened to Father?” I asked him in an undertone, so none of the soldiers who saluted as we passed would catch the words.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Faramir answered, in the same low tone.  “I can’t think of what else would bring Mithrandir here now.”

“Have you had any visions with Father in them?”

Faramir shook his head.  “No.  That is – no.  I don’t think so.”

We reached the long, low stables building and hurried into the courtyard between the two rows of stalls.

Voices sounded in one of the stalls ahead of us.

“So, Lord Stormcrow,” a Man was asking cheerfully, “have you come to bring us tidings of despair?”

“If I have,” spoke a familiar voice that sent a shiver down my spine, “I am arriving behind my time.  No, Master ostler,” he went on in a tone of quiet laughter, “I come bringing hope to those who will hear it.  And perhaps to bring some light in this darkness.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you then, Sir,” the ostler observed.

Faramir had quickened his steps and was a few paces ahead of me.  “Mithrandir!” he called out, gladness in his voice despite the fear of what this arrival might herald.

“Hail, My Lord,” replied the Wizard. 

I caught up to my brother and stood beside him.

“My Lords,” Mithrandir corrected himself.  He solemnly bowed his head, then studied me with eyes that seemed to blaze out from the stall’s shadows.

The ostler bowed low and then busied himself with raking the straw on the stall floor and trying to be unobtrusive.  The stall’s third occupant, a massive grey horse that stood taller than Svip in horse form – and was a more thoroughly convincing horse than Svip, as well – gave a whinny of greeting and shook his mane.

“I am glad to see you, Gandalf,” I said.  I was sure the words did not sound heartfelt, but at least I managed to say them.

“And I you, Lord Boromir,” he answered. 

There came to my mind the memory of a horse that Mithrandir had spoken of in Lord Elrond’s council, a silver stallion of the Riddermark that Théoden King had been loathe to see the Wizard depart with.  Mithrandir had said, I recalled, that a friendship had grown between them, and that this wondrous steed would come at his call.

“This is Shadowfax?” I inquired.

“Shadowfax, chief of the Mearas, lords of horses,” he said, caressing the grey stallion’s mane.  “A true and valiant friend.”

As Shadowfax bent his head to nuzzle the Grey Wanderer’s hand, I wondered suddenly what he would think of Svip, should the two horses encounter each other.  And what Svip would think of him.

Mithrandir gave a final pat to the great stallion’s nose, then turned his gaze on Faramir and me.  “I would speak with you both, My Lords,” he said.

Faramir nodded.  “We’ll go back to the tower.”

We left the stable, after a parting injunction from the Wizard that the ostler should treat Shadowfax with the respect that was his due.  I thought the order likely un-needed, for from the way the ostler had eyed the Meara since the horse’s lineage was mentioned, he was liable to line Shadowfax’s stall with cloth of gold, and bring his apples and carrots upon a silken cushion.

I glanced over at Mithrandir as we walked.  I could see no mark upon him from his plunge into the fiery pit; no wounds, scars or burn marks.  I supposed the fight with the Balrog had been near two months ago by now, yet still I would have thought to see some sign of it.  There could have been any number of wounds hidden by his robes, but his gait was as spry as ever.  It was hardly the walk of one who had crawled back up after plummeting into that chasm.

I thought how odd it seemed to see him wearing white.  Never had I seen him wear anything but grey, except perhaps for a few different-coloured hats, since the day when I was ten years old when I first remembered seeing him appear at our father’s court.  And though his grey hat and cloak had the look of the old Gandalf, I was almost sure they were not what he had worn when the nine of us journeyed from Rivendell.  The staff he carried with him, I thought, was new as well. 

Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? I asked myself.  If he did somehow crawl out of the pit, I imagine he would need some new clothing and gear. 

I nearly laughed as I thought, not everyone goes around for weeks in the same filthy clothes they were killed in.

How in blazes had he escaped?  Had there been some ledge just below the bridge?  A ladder left behind by the Dwarven miners?  A convenient underground lake that broke his fall and through which he swam out of danger?

I shook my head in disbelief.  He could not have escaped. 

For a moment the memories rushed over me.  The sudden unearthly silence as the echoes of my horn’s call died before they should have, and in fiery shadow the Balrog advanced upon us.  The scorching heat that swept at us when Aragorn and I turned to face the foe, and saw Mithrandir stand upon the bridge, outlined against the flames.  The blank darkness as the Balrog and the Wizard vanished, and the cracking roar as of the end of the world, as the last shards of the bridge hurtled downward after Mithrandir and his enemy.   

I looked at him again, and shuddered.  The thought came to me that the impression I’d had as Mithrandir rode through the Forts had not been illusion after all.  Even now, as we walked side by side for all the world as though the Wizard were an ordinary Man, there were yet moments when I thought that he somehow gave off his own light.  It did not seem to be there when I looked straight at him and tried to see it, yet I was sure of it all the same.

As we walked, Faramir asked, “should we have anything sent for?  Have you eaten?”

“A cup of wine will be welcome.  As for food, I have been well provided for.  The Lord Denethor does not permit his guests to starve, although Master Peregrin might tell you differently.”

I wondered if he were testing me by mentioning Pippin’s name.  I could not believe that Mithrandir would accept my return without some doubts, without at least considering the likelihood that I was some trick of the Enemy.

“Is Pippin all right?” I asked him.

“A little frightened.  And decidedly out of his depth.  But he is learning.  Perhaps he may not be out of his depth by the end of this adventure.”  Mithrandir chuckled quietly.  “Though he will probably still be hungry.”

I went on, “and Merry and the others?  You have seen them again, since Moria?”

He kept silent so long before answering, I thought he would not reply at all.  “I have,” he said at last, and he followed the words with a deep, melancholy sigh.  “They were well, when I left them.”

Bloody Wizard, I thought.  Can he not tell me any more detail than that? 

We reached the door to the North Tower, and Faramir sent one of the guards to fetch Mithrandir’s wine.  As we climbed the tower stairs, I asked, “the Halflings were not harmed in their captivity?”

I heard a smile in his voice as he replied, “nothing from which two young Hobbits cannot swiftly recover.”

“And – ” I hesitated, then plunged into the next question.  “What of Frodo, and Sam?  How were they parted from the rest of the company?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath from my brother.  I stopped on the stairs to look at him, and saw him watching me with a grimly worried expression, as if he feared the answer were one I would not wish to hear.

I turned back to meet the Wizard’s gaze, that seemed attempting to read my soul.  “Frodo set out for Mordor alone, from Amon Hen.  Master Samwise followed him.”

From Amon Hen, my thoughts repeated.  I had little doubt that Mithrandir knew as well as I did, in what manner Frodo chose to set out alone.

He had fled in horror and despair, from the attack of one who should have stood his protector and his friend.

I turned and climbed the stairs.  Faramir and the Wizard followed, Mithrandir continuing almost as if speaking to himself, “I did not know of Frodo’s choice until Aragorn and the others told me.  And what little I know of their journeying comes from your brother’s meeting with them.”  He sighed again, then went on, almost too quiet to be heard, “they walk a dark road.  Darker than any the rest of us shall face, even in this gloom of our Enemy.  Yet they carry with them a light that does not fail.  If they remember to use it.” 

One thing has not changed, I thought.  The Grey Pilgrim still speaks in riddles.

Although in this case, I was not sure that I wanted him to speak any more clearly.  I had no wish to discuss with him Frodo and Sam’s journey. 

Not now, at least.  Not while my brother was there to hear.

We walked through the guardroom and into our quarters.  As soon as the door had shut behind us, Faramir and I spoke in the same instant.

“Is Father all right?” Faramir questioned, even as I was asking, “has something happened to our father?”

The Wizard looked from me to Faramir, and back again.  “Your father is hale in body,” he told us finally.  “As for the strength of his mind, that I do not know.  I doubt if he knows, himself.  Yesterday, Lord Boromir, he received your letter from Cair Andros.”

“Thank the Valar!” I exclaimed.  “Then the messenger made it through?”

“His journey was spent slipping between Orc scouting parties, and the last six leagues he completed on foot, after sending his horse to lead the enemy off his trail.  He reached Minas Tirith yesterday morn, three hours perhaps after Lord Faramir set forth.”

“Then Father’s all right, surely,” Faramir put in eagerly.  “If he knows that Boromir’s alive – ” 

Mithrandir’s eyes were troubled, as dark as the blackened sky.  “The Lord Steward does not know what to believe.  One moment his strength and hope are with him, as he believes in his heir’s return.  The next moment he doubts again, and he believes the letter a lie.  His fears and his hopes stab him each in turn.”

Faramir and I looked at each other, the desperate concern on Faramir’s face mirroring that which I felt myself.

“You’ve got to go to him, Boromir,” my brother said urgently.  “You have to.”

My gaze dropped from his.  I stared at my right hand, as I forced the fingers to unclench out of a fist.  “He would not wish me to desert my post,” I said, even as a sickening dread crept through me.  The knowledge that I had stood by my post would be little comfort, if grief came to our father while I lingered no more than five miles away from him.

“Forgive me, My Lords,” Mithrandir interposed quietly.  “I must ask.  Will you tell me, Lord Boromir, how it is that you have returned?”

I looked up again with a sudden rush of anger.  The question was a reasonable one, I knew; everyone else was asking it.  But it angered me hearing it from him, whose own return must be a tale as scarcely believable as mine.  It was on the tip of my tongue to snap out that I’d tell him mine if he’d tell me his. 

Before I could say anything, Faramir spoke up, stepping between the Wizard and me.  “A river creature by the name of Svip brought him back,” Faramir said, “using a spell involving Anduin’s water and mud, and a plant that Svip calls silverweed.  His people live in territories along the River’s bottom, each alone.  Svip has journeyed here.    Loneliness led him to bring Boromir back, but friendship has brought him here to fight at Boromir’s side.”

My brother’s defensive tone brought a smile to my lips and gratitude to my heart.  He spoke as though ordering Mithrandir not to dare suggesting that my return was a trick of the darkness.

The Wizard raised one bushy white eyebrow.  He asked, “can you tell me more of what manner of creature Svip is?”

“He hasn’t told us what his people call themselves,” I stepped in.  “He’s a shapeshifter.  In his normal form he’s three and a half feet tall, and green.  The only other form I’ve seen him take is that of a grey horse.  I don’t know if he can take any other.”

Mithrandir smiled in wonder.  “The Duinhirrim,” he murmured.  “Long indeed is it since I have heard of their people.  Longer still since I have met one.  I was not sure if any yet dwelt in Middle Earth.  I would be glad of the chance to speak with Svip, Lord Boromir.”

I tried to fight off a frown that was settling on my face.  I did not believe for a moment that he wanted to speak with Svip for the sake of renewing old acquaintances with his people.  More like to question him on whether I was constantly ranting that I had to get my hands on a certain Ring. 

I had no fear of what Svip might say in answer to his questions.  But there was quite a bit that I hoped Mithrandir would not say to Svip about me.

At that moment I agreed entirely with everything my father had ever told me about Mithrandir.  The Wizard brought our family nothing but trouble, and I heartily wished him out of my sight and far outside of our realm.

I said, trying without much success to stop my dislike from sounding in my voice, “Svip’s always happy to talk with anyone.  He’s outside, on the wall.  Give me a moment first to tell him who you are.”

 I found Svip and his two tutors taking a breather.  The three of them were sat against the parapet, playing a game of dice.  As I approached, the soldiers scrambled to their feet.  Svip hopped up an instant later.

“Is everything all right at the City?” he asked.

“Thus far, it seems.  Stand at ease, gentlemen.”

The two crossbowmen bowed.  “Your names?” I inquired of them.

“Ranulf Son of Tostig, My Lord,” said one, a pudgy fellow with an accent that placed him as hailing from south along the River Ringló, and “Narmacil Son of Pelendur, Sir,” answered the other, a grizzled veteran whose speech suggested he’d been born within sight of the White Tower.

“My thanks to you both,” I said.  “What are your thoughts on Svip’s progress?”

“He’ll do us all proud, Sir,” said Narmacil.  “He’ll skewer his share of Orc devils before this day is through.”

            “Thank you,” said Svip, shaking hands with both of them.  I sent Ranulf and Narmacil back to their companies, then I turned to Svip, momentarily at a loss on how to word what I wanted to say to him. 

Svip spoke before I figured it out.  “What’s the matter?” he asked me.

I said, “the messenger from the City is Mithrandir, the Wizard we told you of.  He’s asked to speak with you, if you are willing to speak with him.”

“Of course.  Why wouldn’t I be?” Svip asked.  He looked up at me in puzzlement, and I thought that perhaps he had never encountered the concept of not wanting to talk with someone. 

Even if he had not, it did not take him long to understand that I might not want him speaking with the Wizard.

“You don’t like him,” Svip said suddenly, frowning in concern.

I shrugged.  “Sometimes I like him well enough.  And sometimes I want to tell him to – ”  I stopped short.  The ending of that sentence that jumped to my mind was “to jump off a bridge,” but it would hardly be in the best taste to say that.  Besides, I thought, it was clear enough that when Wizards jump or fall off of bridges, they just pop right back up again.

“My brother likes him,” I went on.  “Faramir thinks he’s the most wonderful thing on two legs.  And our father can’t stand him.  He thinks Mithrandir’s a trouble-maker plotting his own advancement and the downfall of our family.”

“Why does he think that?” Svip asked.  “Is it true?”

“Who knows?” I sighed.  “Our father’s in the habit of thinking the worst of everyone.  And often he turns out to be right.  The difficulty’s in figuring out when he’s right and when he isn’t.”

Svip nodded slowly, his brow furrowed in thought.

“Listen, Svip,” I said, “the thing about Wizards is – they are very wise, they know things that most people don’t, about – about the pattern of events, and what the future may hold.  And they often don’t tell other people what they know, because they think no one else is wise enough to handle their knowledge.  I don’t say that Mithrandir wants to hurt any of us, but the way he uses people, to fulfil some pattern he can see that the rest of us can’t – without thinking that it matters if those people understand what he’s doing or why – ” 

I shook my head in frustration, losing my way as I fought to put my thoughts into words.  “All that I am saying is, he will probably be asking you a lot of questions.  Just remember, you do not have to tell him anything you don’t want to.  Perhaps there won’t be anything you don’t want to tell him.  That’s all right, if there isn’t.  But if there is anything you’ve got doubts about, anything you’d rather he didn’t know – then you don’t have to tell him.  And he doesn’t have any right to make you think that you have to.  That’s all.” 

Svip nodded again.  “I won’t tell him anything I don’t want to,” he said.  He looked at me searchingly and asked, “is there anything you don’t want me to tell him?”

I gave another sigh.  “No, Svip.  Tell him the truth.  So long as it feels right to you.”

My time for warnings was nearly out, which was likely just as well.  Mithrandir and Faramir were walking toward us, in solemn conversation.

Svip looked at them, then glanced up at me anxiously.

“It will be all right,” I said.  “I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“No.  It’s fine.  I’m not worried.”

Faramir and the Wizard stopped beside us, and Mithrandir gravely bowed.

“Svip,” I said, “this is Lord Mithrandir of the Istari.  Mithrandir, I present to you Svip of Anduin.”

“Hello,” said Svip.

 Mithrandir answered with some incomprehensible phrase that clearly meant a great deal to Svip.  The water creature stared at him for a moment, then spoke rapidly in his own tongue.  When Svip finally paused, the Grey Wanderer replied in the same language.

“I’ll check in with Lieutenant Siriondil,” I told Faramir, and I walked away as briskly as I could without looking as though I was running away from them.

For the next half hour or so I kept my distance.  Their speech must have switched to the Common Tongue, for from time to time when I looked over at the three of them I saw Faramir joining in the conversation.  Faramir leaned against the parapet, Mithrandir leaned upon his staff, and Svip must have asked one or the other of them to boost him up to an embrasure, where he sat swinging his feet.

I ordered myself not to look at them too often.  Every time I did look, it sent a sour, jealous feeling coursing through me. 

I sneered at myself for the weakness that led to this feeling.  All the same it made me angry to see them, to see my brother and Svip chat cheerfully with Mithrandir, when it was all I could do to exchange a few words without wanting to punch him in his wise, wizardly nose.

            The three eventually strolled toward me, where I stood leaning against an embrasure and thinking bitter thoughts.  Svip ran ahead of the others.  He reached up and tentatively took my hand, looking at me as though fearing I would blame him for speaking with the Wizard.

            I smiled at him, and he smiled back, though he still was not certain, I think, whether I were about to explode.

            “Faramir and I are going to the House of Healing,” Svip said, “to see if anything’s changed there.”

            I nodded, trying not to let it show on my face as my heart sank.

            Faramir shepherding Svip away with him had one meaning, I was certain: it was now my turn to endure a one-on-one interview with the Grey Pilgrim.

            As Svip and Faramir headed for the stairs – both of them casting me further apologetic smiles – Mithrandir walked over to me and took up position looking out at the darkness through the next embrasure along from mine.

            Well, I thought, this should be fun.

            The Wizard remarked, not looking at me, “you choose your friends well, Lord Boromir.”

            That, at least, we could agree on.

            “Svip chose me,” I pointed out.  “I’m part of his collection.  But, yes.  I am grateful for his friendship.”

            I stared at the black nothing beyond our torches.

            Mithrandir did not answer, and I struggled not to sigh audibly.  If we had to speak to each other, I wished we could get it over with.

I supposed that he knew all about my confrontation with Frodo.  Even if he had not known before, doubtless Faramir would have spoken of it with him, after encountering Frodo and Sam in Ithilien.

            I grimaced as I thought of it.  There had never been much love lost between Lord Mithrandir and me, but I hated to think what his view of me must be, now that I had assaulted his young Hobbit protégé. 

I wondered, only partly in jest, if he were more likely to fry me with a lightning bolt or turn me into a newt.

            Neither, I told myself.  Mithrandir would not want to bring sorrow to my brother.  Although if I asked him, Faramir might well tell me that I’d be less annoying as a pet newt than I am as a Man.

            As deeply as I dreaded speaking of my departure from the Fellowship, even less was I willing to wait until Mithrandir spoke of it first, like a guilty child awaiting punishment from his schoolmaster.

            I asked him, “you know how I parted from Frodo?”

            The Wizard looked toward me and nodded.  His eyes were dark as stormclouds and his face unreadable as he spoke quietly, “I learned from our comrades, when I met them in Fangorn Forest.”

            There was a great deal of information in that brief statement, all of it surprising to me.  Which comrades? I wondered.  What were they doing in Fangorn?  And how had these comrades known of my attack on the Ringbearer? 

I did not think he was speaking of Frodo and Sam; they could never have reached Henneth Annûn five days ago if they’d strayed as far west as Fangorn.  But neither did I think our other companions had witnessed the assault, even from a distance.  If they had, would they not have come running to Frodo’s aid?

            I thought sourly that perhaps Aragorn’s kingly intuition had told him of my fall.  Though if so, his intuition had come too late to do Frodo or me any good.

            The words stuck in my throat.  Nonetheless I forced out the question, “how did our comrades learn of it?  They did not see it, or they would have come to Frodo’s defence.”

            Mithrandir studied me before answering.  I thought that I saw understanding and pity in his gaze.  Neither of those did I have any wish to see. 

He said at last, “Aragorn says you spoke of it to him, in the moments before your death.”

            Sickening cold seemed to hit in the pit of my stomach, and spread throughout all of my frame. 

I heard myself whisper, “I did?  Oh.”

            Of all the Fellowship, I thought, why did it have to be Aragorn? 

Nausea welled in me as I thought of the anguished shame that must have driven me to confess my failure to Aragorn.  The shame and the despair, in the certain knowledge that I had only those few seconds to set any of my affairs in order, to put anything to rights.

I wondered what I had said to him.  At the same time, I was certain that I did not want to know.

            I started in surprise as the Wizard placed a hand on my shoulder. 

I wanted to break away from his grasp.  But I forced myself to keep still, and listen to his words.    

            “Your comrades hold no hatred for you, Boromir,” he said.  “Nor should you hold any for yourself.  You died fighting for your friends.  Any debt that you owed was paid.”

            “That’s very decent of all of you,” I sneered.  I pulled away from him and leaned over the embrasure, staring out into the dark.  “It’s an easy task to forgive a Man’s failures, once he is dead.”

            I do not think the Wizard made any move to step closer to me, but his quiet voice sounded to my ears as though he still stood at my side.  He observed, “and it is no easy task for a Man to forgive himself.  You are not dying now, Son of Denethor,” he went on persuasively.  “And well I know that you hold me no dearer in your heart than your father does, or than you hold the Lord Aragorn.  Nevertheless I ask of you: will you speak of it now to me?”    

            I turned to face him.  I could not read in his face what he expected of me.  Did he expect me to plead for forgiveness?  No, I thought, probably not.  He should know me better than that.

I compelled myself to meet the Wizard’s gaze.  “My intentions were worthy,” I said.  “But my actions were dishonourable.”

            He contemplated me in silence.  Then he asked, “then tell me, My Lord.  What are your intentions now?”

            “My intentions regarding Isildur’s Bane?  I have none.  I cannot take it, even if I wished to.  Not unless it were to wander back within ten miles of Anduin.”

Mithrandir’s eyes grew distant for a moment.  I wondered if perhaps his thoughts were seeking the Ring, or for Frodo – assuring himself that both were far from us, and beyond my grasp.

Then to my disbelief he smiled faintly.  The Wizard pondered aloud, “there are times when intentions and actions both are far from their results.  We can take comfort perhaps in the thought that the result was worthy, even if the action was not.”

            Wonderful, I thought.  A vintage wizardly conundrum for me to chew over.  I asked, trying not to let my impatience sound in my voice, “what result?”

            His solemn yet kindly glance almost made me want to squirm.  It seemed entirely unlike my father’s piercing gaze, yet somehow it had the same sort of effect: the impression that he saw and understood every last thought in my mind, and every aspect of my being.

            “Had you not attacked Frodo, he might not have chosen to leave the company.  And had he not, he might have been seized and brought to Saruman.  And his burden with him.”

            Oh, fine, I thought.  So it’s all right then that I behaved like a thorough cad, and brutally attacked a comrade I’d sworn to protect?

            My self-disgust must have shown on my face.  Mithrandir said in a sombre tone, “You are not alone in feeling the lure of Isildur’s Bane, My Lord Boromir. I have heard its call. And I will pass no judgement on others who have heard.”

            I felt myself smile bitterly.  I said, “I fear I have not the same detachment as you have.”

            He raised one craggy white eyebrow and commented, “the fact that you’ve not lived the lifetimes of thirty Men may have something to do with that.”  Unexpectedly he smiled again, as calm and contented a smile as if he were sitting in the Stewards’ Library puffing on his pipe and answering Faramir’s questions on some incomprehensible treatise of Elven lore.  “Do not doubt, Son of Gondor, that sometimes things happen as they are meant to.  It may be that your parting with the Fellowship was meant to happen.  As your meeting with Svip was meant.  And your return to where you are needed most.”  He added, eyeing me with a trace of concern, “although Svip and your brother tell me you ought to be four miles closer to the River.”

            Not again, I thought.  I said in exasperation, “I promised Faramir I’ll leave when my condition gets too dangerous to remain.”

            Mithrandir nodded.  “And Faramir wonders if you’ll admit that your condition is too dangerous, before you have fallen over.”

            I sighed.  Some day, I thought, I will convince that little brat that I’m not as stupid as he thinks I am. 

Of course, I supposed I couldn’t really complain.  If he thought he had to look after me and protect me from myself, it was just about the same as what I thought about him.  Only he wanted to protect me from my stubbornness, ambition and pride.  Whereas I wanted to protect him from his stubbornness, innocence and pain.

I told the Wizard, “I want to serve my country.  It will not serve Gondor if I sacrifice myself to my pride.  I will leave when I need to.”

            The Wizard gazed at me, deep in thought.  “I believe you, Lord Boromir,” he said at last.  “Your brother, I’m afraid, will not believe until he sees it.”       

            I shrugged.  “Even the wisest Men can be surprised.”

“They can indeed,” Mithrandir agreed.  “As can Wizards.  Every now and then.”

I eyed him in suspicion, not yet entirely convinced that he was not about to lecture me on the depths of my evil and my irresponsibility.  But no lecture seemed forthcoming.  Reluctantly, I smiled.

“I hope you will forgive my curiosity,” I said, “since we seem to understand each other for the moment.  I have got to ask.  How the hell did you escape from that pit, and the Balrog?”

“Do not name him, even here,” Mithrandir murmured, his brows drawing together and his gaze darkening with pain.  He went on, “I did not escape.”

“Ah,” I said.

Suddenly I thought that he looked truly old, as he usually did not.  Usually he seemed a creature existing by his own rules, outside the strictures of time.  Now, for this moment at least, age seemed to have laid its hand upon him, carving upon his face its lines of weariness and sorrow.

“We fought.” He spoke quietly, his gaze far from me.  “Long did we fight, a fight as would make a song many nights in the singing.  We fought, and I threw my enemy down.  Darkness took me.  Far I wandered, outside thought and time.  Then I was sent back, for my task is not complete.” 

The focus of his eyes returned to me.  He smiled, but the smile yet seemed to speak of weariness beyond anything Men could comprehend.  “We have both returned from death, Lord Boromir,” he said.  “It may be that you were sent back as well, that your part in the tale of this Middle Earth is not yet fully played.”

I stared at him, feeling as though icy fingers scraped along my spine.

I told myself that my reaction was absurd.  But the news that Mithrandir was truly returned from the dead filled me with as much amazement as though the same thing had not also happened to me.

I’d had two weeks and more, to get used to my own return.  It seemed natural to me by now – almost.  But to hear that another had returned, somehow made my own resurrection frightening and mysterious once more. 

Nor was it reassuring to hear Mithrandir speak of being “sent back”.  The way he had said it left me in no doubt that he remembered being sent, and remembered who had sent him.  It sent a whisper of fear through me to think that whoever sent Mithrandir back might also have made the choice that governed my fate.

I was a great deal happier thinking of my return as merely something of this earth, thinking that I was back because Svip had found me in time and decided he’d like to add a Man to his collection.  If some greater power had guided Svip’s actions and directed my return, I thought that I would rather not know of it.

I swallowed nervously and asked, “you remember it?  Being sent back?”

“I remember it,” he said.  “You do not?”

“No.  I don’t.”

He murmured, “perhaps it is better so.” 

I thought that his comment should anger me, for its implication that mere Men could not deal with the knowledge and the memory.  But for this once, I was happy to accept such a statement. 

I did not know whether I could deal with it.  But I knew I was glad that I did not to have to try.

Mithrandir went on, “not recalling may make it easier, to remember in what world you belong.”

I strove to think of anything I could say to him.  A timely interruption freed me from that duty.

Svip appeared at the top of the stairs and hastened along the wall toward us.  He said, a little out of breath, “Mithrandir?  Faramir asks you to join him at the House of Healing.  He wants you to have a look at the Men we talked about earlier, the ones falling into this black sleep.  More of them have fallen to it, now.”

The Wizard nodded briskly.  “I will go.”   He turned back to me, and for a moment he closed his hand over mine, where it rested on the embrasure.

“Thank you for speaking with me, My Lord,” he said.  I thought that perhaps he smiled as he turned to leave, but I was not sure of it, for in the next instant his face was darkened by the shadows of his hat.

Svip and I watched him depart, walking again at his spry pace that seemed to belie any hint of age.

“How did it go?” Svip asked me worriedly.

 “It was fine.”  I glanced down at him, and could not help smiling at his doubtful expression.  “It really was, Svip.  You don’t need to worry.  I’ll not try to kill Mithrandir any time soon.”   Even if I did try, I thought, I’m sure it wouldn’t work.  I added, “and I’m not going to sulk because he’s here.”

“Good,” Svip said.

 With Svip at my side, I again inspected our front line, walking the wall to the first milecastles north and south, and ending up at the north tower by the gate once more.

Svip now proudly carried with him the crossbow we’d given him and a quiver of bolts fastened to his belt.  When we returned to the north tower, I turned my thoughts to arranging things so that he could see to fire at the enemy. 

The hay bale on which the target had been strapped for Svip’s crossbow lesson looked a likely answer.  I unhooked the target, then enlisted one soldier’s aid in hauling the bale over to the parapet.

Shoved up against one of the crenellations, the new firing platform was just about perfect.  Standing on it put Svip at a good height to fire through the embrasure.  It made a convenient bench for him to sit on while we waited, as well, although he kept hopping up again to join me in staring into the dark.

“Why is it taking them so long?” Svip asked me once, in a whisper.

“Because they want to frighten us,” I said.  “They think the longer we have to wait, the more afraid of them we’ll be.” 

I did not speak the continuation of that thought, which was that their strategy was nigh to flawless.

Assuming we did not plan any last-minute improvements to the wall – which we did not – then the longer our foes could make us cool our heels here, the better for them.  Nerves, impatience and boredom all would play upon us, little by little chipping at our readiness.

Nearly all of our Men here had seen battle before; most were veterans from the Osgiliath garrison and the wilds of Ithilien.  That at least was something to be thankful for, that we had not unblooded recruits to deal with.  These Men would handle the waiting better than would many of our brethren in the City, merchants and tradesmen who had never stood within earshot of an arrow’s flight.  I loathed to think of the prospect that faced our folk, when the enemy’s advance breached Rammas Echor.

If it does, I added to myself, striving to hold my pessimism at bay.  We may yet turn back their tide.  No foe has yet breached the Rammas.

Which means nothing, my mind argued grimly.  No foe has yet attacked the Rammas, either.

Evening was drawing in, little difference though there was between the murk of the day and the encroaching night.  As the last hints of light in the sky faded, I found myself absently rubbing my gauntleted hands together, and flexing my fingers to bring some warmth and life into them.  Only as I noticed what I was doing, did I realise that my hands had grown entirely cold, and with only the faintest trace of feeling.

“Damnation,” I muttered.  My feet were not doing any too well, either.  I stomped them and then irritably kicked the parapet, muttering further imprecations under my breath as the numbness showed no sign of diminishing.

I supposed I ought to allow myself another swallow or two of River water, much though I hated to use any of my diminishing supply.  If it would hold off the cold a little longer, I told myself, it was worth using it now instead of waiting until I was too weak to even drink.

I uncorked my canteen and took a swig, sourly noting how little my hands felt of their actions.  I paused for a moment, then took another swallow before corking the canteen again.

I wasn’t sure if I felt slightly warmer after that drink, or if I only thought that because I wanted it to be true.

“How much water do you have left?” Svip asked, crouching on the hay bale and eyeing me frowningly through the torchlight.

“About a third of the canteen.”

“Here.  You’d better take mine, too,” he offered, unhooking a flask from his belt and holding it out to me.

“No, that’s all right, Svip,” I argued.  “I’ve got enough.”

“No, you don’t.  I can drink any water.  You need the River water, now take it.” 

I smiled ruefully as I accepted the proffered bottle and fastened it to my own belt.  I remarked, “good thing I’ve got all of you to look after me.”

“It certainly is,” Svip agreed, in a prim, righteous tone.  I grinned, thinking that if only my brother were green-skinned and three and a half feet tall, he and Svip would be one and the same person.

Svip stood up and leaned on the embrasure to look out, boosting himself on his elbows so that his feet dangled against the wall.  I stared beyond the wall as well, and wondered despite myself if I should bow to Faramir’s wishes and betake myself out of there. 

There were strong arguments in favour of such a course – chief among them, the risk of our father taking some desperate step, that I might forestall if I went home and proved to him once and for all that I was alive.

But the arguments on the other side sounded just as loudly in my mind.

What would it look like to our Men, if I were to leave now?

It might seem a good omen to them that I had returned.  That in spite of the tales of my death, I had come back to fight alongside them at the hour of our country’s greatest need.

But what would it look like if I returned only to flee, before the enemy had even shown their faces?

You’re stretching the point, Boromir, I argued.  You don’t want to leave, so you’re seeking excuses that say you don’t have to.

If I thought it might damage morale for me to leave before the battle, what did I think it would do if I returned only to immediately get myself killed again?

I scowled out at the dark.

Had I heard something out there, beyond the wall?

I listened harder, and heard nothing.

There was another explanation, I thought, for the enemy’s delay in attacking us – above and beyond their aim to enlist our fear and impatience as weapons against us.

Faramir had said that the army of the Southrons was still coming in to camp, when the darkness closed in last night at Osgiliath.  And who knew, I thought, how many more might have been yet to arrive; how many Men and siege engines and how much weaponry the foe might have had to move across the River?  It could have taken them this whole day, while we waited and gnawed our fingernails, simply to move all their forces and supplies across the breast of Anduin.

Footsteps behind us made us turn, to see Faramir hurrying toward us.

“Anything yet?” he asked, with a preoccupied frown into the dark.

“Not yet,” I said.

A moment later Mithrandir appeared, climbing swiftly to the wall and joining the rest of us in staring into silent nothing.

The Wizard’s brows drew together as he gazed at the darkness, then he said quietly, “they are coming.”

Faramir and I shared a brief, grim glance, then we clasped each other’s hands.  “I’ll take command of the south fort; you take this,” Faramir said. 

I nodded.  “Right.” 

Faramir turned and called to the nearest orderly, “bring bows and quivers for me and for the Lord Boromir.”

“For me as well,” added Mithrandir.  “I imagine I can still wield a bow, long though it has been since I tried my hand at it.”

Faramir and Mithrandir smiled at each other, and I sincerely hoped that Mithrandir would chose to station himself under Faramir’s command rather than mine.  I shouted, “archers at the ready!  Count off by twos; we will fire in ranks when they approach.”  With Svip at my heels, I made for Lieutenant Siriondil, where he stood at the nearest catapult. 

Our makeshift torches were guttering low.  We could see no advancing enemy about them, but there was no telling what might lurk just beyond.  As Siriondil saluted me, I ordered, “you will take command of the archers north of the tower.  Pass the order to all catapult crews: fire two volleys of torches, one at this distance and another twenty yards farther.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

The orderly hastened up to me, handing me a longbow and quiver.  I made speed to take my place at the embrasure where I had stood before, while Svip hopped eagerly to his hay bale at my side. 

Faramir had already run across the walkway atop the forts’ great gate, to take his post on the south tower.  Now I saw Mithrandir stride to the walkway as well, his white hair and robe again seeming to glow brighter than they should in the darkness.  Instead of following Faramir to the south fort, the Wizard stopped on the walkway, taking up position above the very center of the gate.

As Mithrandir nocked his first arrow, I could not help grimacing, petty though I knew my irritation to be.  

Faramir would have been glad to have the Wizard fight at his side. And he would not have the constant suspicion that Mithrandir was watching to see if he’d do something evil or stupid. 

Was it truly necessary, I wondered, for Mithrandir to choose a post for himself where he could keep an eye on me – and where, standing on the gate instead of on either tower, he was under no one’s command but his own?

Again I thought that I heard something.  Not the usual sounds of an Orc army approaching; no drumbeats, horn calls, battle songs or howls for our blood.  Their commander must have ordered that they advance in silence.  There seemed only a low, distant rumbling, as if the promise of bloodshed called forth growls of excitement that even fear of their leaders could not restrain. 

Our first catapult volley sliced through the night in a torrent of flame.  As the catapult crews adjusted their trajectories and readied the next volley, the rest of us stared desperately outward, struggling to pinpoint any movement in the gloom. 

The catapults fired once more, the second rank of torches landing near the base of the slope, far below the wall.

The distant growling grew to a roar, and the dark shapes of our enemies charged through the torchlight. 

They were racing at us along the Causeway Road.  More of them scrambled up the slope to the road’s either side.

I yelled, “wait for my order.”  Distantly, from the north along the wall and from the south fort across the gate from us, I heard similar commands shouted by Lieutenant Siriondil and by Faramir.

Standing on his hay bale at the next embrasure, Svip cocked his crossbow and snapped the first bolt into place.  I said to him quietly, “don’t fire with the volleys.  Your range won’t be that far.  Wait till they’re right below us, then your shots will tell.”

He took up his place at the embrasure, with a grim nod.  “I will,” he said.

The blood-tinged torchlight below us seemed to hold only the disorderly ranks of Orc warriors.  I could see none of the Southrons that Faramir and his Men had encountered at Osgiliath.  That should not be a surprise to me, I supposed.  I had no doubt that it was the usual strategy of Men who fought beside Orcs, to let their Orcish allies take the first brunt of the enemy’s resistance whenever possible.

I shouted, “mark your targets!  First rank, fire!”

The first hours of that battle brought no surprises to us, none except perhaps the fact that the enemy seemed to be employing so little in the way of strategy. 

Charge after charge ended for them with their corpses in piles, beneath the wall and along the road.  For the few who made it with their siege ladders as far as the wall, their roads had the same end as those of their comrades.  Their arrow-spitted corpses we sent plummeting to earth.  Their ladders we hurled back from the wall, sending them toppling down upon the heaps of Orc bodies.

“Eight!” Svip exclaimed gleefully.  He turned to me with a grin, as the latest assault crumbled. 

The few surviving Orcs from this round scattered back down the slope, to the accompaniment of jeers both from our Men on the wall and from their own troops waiting in the shadows. 

“That’s eight I’ve got now!” continued Svip.  “I think. Eight that I’m sure of, anyhow.”

“That’s splendid,” I told him.  I smiled, hoping that Svip did not notice how strained my smile must be, as I tried for what seemed the thousandth time to rub some warmth into my hands. 

It was a pointless effort, I knew.  I had scarcely any feeling left in my arms or my legs.  Rubbing my hands together was not likely to help.

I told myself, you had bloody better take yourself out of here before ever this fight becomes hand-to-hand.  Not that one must be able to feel one’s limbs in order to fight, but it generally helps. 

Another line of them charged, running at us over the piles of their fallen.

“Mark your targets!  First rank, fire!”

I wondered, what are they playing at?

What was the point of these frontal assaults, that got so many of them slain to no purpose?  Unless, I thought, they were testing us, sacrificing some of their troops in the effort to gauge our firepower.  That, and perhaps to fool us into thinking they had no better plan of assault, that when they did launch some different strategy upon us it might take us the more by surprise.

            At last they chose a new tactic.  No more of them raced through the torchlight.  Instead they now held fast at the foot of the slope, and sent arrow volleys and catapult shot at our walls. 

Few or none of their arrows told.  At least I saw no Man fall to them along my stretch of the wall. 

The catapults posed a keener threat.  They were firing again their incendiary missiles, aimed high over the battlements and crashing down into the fortress itself. 

Our stone buildings were at little risk.  The same could not be said of the thatched roof and wooden interior of the stables, to which many of their shots fell perilously close.

            We concentrated our own fire upon their catapults.  Twice we succeeded in forcing them to pull back their line.  Yet even so, as they withdrew into the dark and out of our range, they were able to adjust their catapults so that many shots still soared above our wall and down into the buildings beyond.

            I want those damned catapults, I thought.  They shouldn’t be that good.  When all of this is over, we need to get our hands on a couple of their catapults and figure out how they work.

            “I wish they’d charge again,” muttered Svip. 

I smiled ruefully over at him.  He was leaning on the embrasure with his head propped on his arms, scowling out toward our invisible foe.  Their new tactic had taken them beyond the range of Svip’s crossbow long before the rest of us had to cease firing, and he was not at all pleased.

            “They may oblige you sooner than you like, Master Svip,” came the voice of Mithrandir.  The Wizard walked up to us, shouldering his longbow.  He said to me briskly, “the stables are at the most risk from their fire. We must get the horses moved to safety.”

            “Aye, we must,” I agreed, barely restraining a grin as I saw a chance to get him out of my hair for a while.  “Will you take charge of that operation?”

            Mithrandir, I will warrant, knew precisely what I was doing.  It did not trouble him unduly.  He smiled with grim amusement and said, “willingly.”

            I called a sergeant of the tower guard over to us.  “Lord Mithrandir will command the evacuation of the stables,” I informed him.  “See that a platoon is placed at his disposal.  Some Men should remain at the stables to fight any fire that takes hold.  My Lord,” I continued to Mithrandir, “such wains and carts as we have should be readied for the evacuation of our sick and wounded.  Hitch what horses are necessary and have the others saddled and ready at the gate, that there may be no delay when we withdraw from the forts.”

            “Aye, My Lord,” Mithrandir answered with a bow of his head, still eyeing me in amusement.  He turned, and set out at such a pace that the unfortunate sergeant had to all but run to keep up with him. 

Again we waited, while they fired upon us from outside the range of our archers and our catapults. 

I took a drink from my canteen.  This time the Anduin’s water seemed to bring me no reviving warmth.

Svip had turned from the embrasure.  He was watching me with wide, troubled eyes.

“I know, Svip,” I sighed.  “Don’t say it.  I have to get back to the River soon.”

Very soon, I silently added. 

New symptoms had come to join the numbness and the cold. 

I was starting to feel dizzy.  It was nothing disabling as yet, but it needed little imagination to figure out what Faramir or Svip would say in answer to that. 

Impatiently I rubbed a streak of sweat from my brow.  I felt almost feverish, with the distant mocking voices of delirium whispering at the edges of my mind.

I took another swallow of river water, willing the voices into silence.  They did not obey me.

I stared at my hands as I corked the canteen again.  I might as well have been watching the actions of someone else, for all that my hands felt of their motions.

Go, I ordered myself.  Get out while you can. 

Go to your father before you get yourself killed again for nothing.

“All right,” I said heavily, hating to have to say it.  “I’ll leave.”

Svip smiled, then he added quickly, “I’m coming with you.”

“Of course,” I agreed, managing to smile back.  “We’ll leave.”

It was, I reflected, as good a time as any to make my departure – probably a better time than most.  Better now than to wait until another assault was hurled at our wall, when most likely I would convince myself that I couldn’t leave while our Men were in peril.

“Sergeant,” I called.  “Take command here.”

“Aye, My Lord.”

“Right, Svip,” I said, as my companion hopped down from his firing platform.  “We’ll go tell Faramir we’re leaving.  That ought to make him happy.”

It shouldn’t bother me, I thought as we hastened over the gate, to walk without feeling any hint of my legs.  I’d had more or less that experience any number of times, although to be sure it was usually experienced on late-night returns from the tavern.

Faramir, indeed, looked near overwhelmed with relief, when I told him of my decision.  I wanted to say that he should leave with me too, so pale and exhausted did he appear.  But one of us had to stay, to keep up our Men’s courage and to hold the retreat together if it should come to that.

He cast a distracted glance into the darkness, then turned frowningly back to me.  “You’re not going alone?”

“No,” Svip piped up.  “I’m going with him.”

“Boromir, for heaven’s sake,” Faramir sighed.  “You need to take more Men with you.  There’s no sense in not having enough to put up a fight, if you run into the enemy.”

He was right, of course, and besides I was too tired to argue.  I thought for a moment, then said, “Captain Cirion’s Company of Rangers are stationed on the wall south of the tower.  Let them be sent for and ordered to proceed to the gate.  There should be horses ready for them there.”

Faramir nodded and turned to relay my command to the next orderly.  Svip meanwhile said in concern, “will they be willing to leave without Thorolf?  He’s still in the House of Healing.”

There was much, I thought, that Svip yet had to learn about the ways of Men, particularly the question of obeying orders.  But I only assured him, “we will get the wounded out soon.  Thorolf’s friends know he will not be abandoned.”

I rubbed my brow.  The action did nothing to fight off a sudden upsurge of dizziness, and the increasing din of the voices in my mind.

“Boromir,” Svip urged, his voice sounding much farther from me than the voices that whispered in my brain.  “Come on.  Let’s go.”

I turned and stared outward into the inky sky.

It is not all in my mind, I thought suddenly.  There was something out there, in the sky. 

It sounded as a distant, wailing howl, that all of us knew too well.

The cry awoke echoes, that seemed to sound all about us.  From the sky’s blackness before and behind and above us came the cry of terror and hate, as the Riders of the Enemy surrounded us in the dark.

Along the wall, from first one throat, then from many, came answering murmurs of fear.  I heard a dull clatter as one Man’s bow must have slipped from his nerveless hand.

I glanced over at Faramir, who was gazing at the sky.  A bitter smile touched his pallid face, then he drew an arrow and nocked it, standing ready to fire into the dark.

At my other side, Svip gave a tiny whimper of despair.

“Stand your ground!”  I shouted, as the murmurs of our Men grew louder, and one or two of them turned to run.  “Stand fast!  These carrion crows cannot harm us.  They think to strike dread in our hearts with their howling, but they have not yet dared to meet us in fight.  This night the carrion they scream over are their own fallen, not ours.”

The murmuring quieted slightly, a few Men even daring to shout out jibes at our invisible taunters.  But the Men’s voices sounded hollowly in the night, with the shrieks of the Nazgûl seeming to warp all other sound.

“What are they?” Svip whispered.

“Servants of the Nameless One,” Faramir answered quietly.  “Once Men, until they fell to his promises of power.”

“Why am I so afraid of them?” came Svip’s frantic question.  “I don’t want to be afraid.”

“We all are,” Faramir said.

“You are?”

Faramir nodded once, with another grim smile.  “Very.”

“Boromir’s not,” Svip insisted.

“Of course I am,” I lied, wondering again why their cries did not strike ice in my veins as they did to everyone else.  I looked over at Faramir, seeing the bitter desperation of his smile and the fear and anger warring in his eyes.  “What say you, brother?” I asked.  “Has Gondor no war song that can drown out their howls?”

Faramir turned to me, his smile seeming finally to reach his eyes.  “I’m sure we have, brother,” he answered, “but we do not need you to sing it for us.  Your voice would strike more fear in our hearts than any Black Rider’s.  Why are you still here?  Are you leaving or aren’t you?” 

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“Do not make me carry you to the gate and tie you to your horse.”

He turned to face the darkness once more.  He began to sing, his voice carrying clearly through the Nazgûls’ screams.

            Men of Gondor, stop your dreaming

            Can’t you see their spearpoints gleaming?

            See their warrior banners streaming

            To this battlefield?

            Men of Gondor, stand ye steady

            It cannot be ever said ye

            For the battle were not ready

            Gondor will not yield!

            One by one the voices of our comrades joined Faramir’s, until the old battle song indeed rose almost loud enough to drown the Nazgûl wails out of all hearing.  As the song rang about us, Faramir hissed at me, “will you get out of here, Boromir?”

            “I’m going,” I insisted.

            Gondor’s strength has made her

            Freedom’s strong crusader

            Swords of Gondor have cut deep the heart of the invader!

            “Then go, you idiot!” Faramir hissed again.

            The sword is met, by sword replying

            Steel on steel, on strength relying

            Skyward Gondor’s flag is flying

            Gondor never yields!

            Svip was tugging on my hand, but I did not notice it until he got a good hold on my sleeve and yanked.

            I thought I heard a note of fury in the Nazgûls’ howls, as our war song rose into the dark.  Then other sounds cut through the distant shrieking and the song.

            There were shouts from Men along the wall.  Beyond sounded a roar as our enemy once more charged.  And from the Causeway Road came an unearthly trumpeting, as of every horn of the armies of Mordor winding as one.

            Faramir yelled, “Boromir, damn you, go!”  He sprang to the nearest embrasure, overlooking the road.

            I knew very well that I should obey him.  Nonetheless I ran to the parapet as well, even as Svip shouted desperately, “Faramir told you to go!”

            The torches our catapults had fired showed a sight from a fevered nightmare.  Up the slopes again raced rank after rank of Orcs, joined now by slighter figures in scarlet tunics and gleaming scale mail, the uniform of the Men of Harad. 

But my gaze was riveted to the creature that charged up the Causeway Road, scattering and trampling piles of corpses as it came.

            I had heard of such creatures in travellers’ tales and seen them painted in my childhood’s geography books.  And once a merchant from the south had brought one of their tusks as a gift of tribute to my father.  But never had I seen the great Mûmak of Harad, charging at us now with its tusks wrapped in gold, scarlet trappings flying over its vast tree-trunk legs, and its back and head encased in gold armour, from which emerged only its sails of ears and its trunk that roared forth fury and destruction.

            My brother shouted again, “get out of here, Boromir!”  Then he raised his voice further and bellowed, “south tower!  Fire on the Mûmak!  They will use it as a battering ram, let it not reach the gate!  Independent fire at will!”

            My arms felt as though I were moving them not at all, but I drew an arrow from my quiver and fired with the others.

            Arrow upon arrow bounced from the Mûmak’s armour, as hail off a rooftop.  Svip screamed, “Boromir, come on!” 

The Mûmak’s trumpeting call was taken up by its fellows.  Another of the monsters came charging from the darkness up the Causeway Road, and up the slope to either side lumbered more, shaking Middle Earth with their tread.

            Arrow after arrow finally lodged in the first Mûmak’s eyes and neck.  With a scream that I thought put the Nazgûls’ cries to shame, the great beast toppled to its side, plunging through the wall at the roadside and falling amid an avalanche of stones.

            As it fell I saw for the first time that the Mûmak had drawn a cart in its wake.  The cart was laden with barrels, and a Man rode upon it.  He tried now to leap free, only to be caught by the wheels and thrown down with Mûmak, cart and barrels to the slope below.

            The Mûmaks that toiled up the slopes had more labour than their brethren on the road.  Yet the first of them was drawing nigh our wall, a walking tower that bristled with our arrows and bellowed its rage and pain.

            Dwarfed by the creature in his care, a Man rode also in the cart that this Mûmak pulled.  More dark barrels, nearly as tall as the Man, jolted in the cart behind him. 

            “Boromir!” Svip shrieked again.  “Come on!”

The Mûmak swerved north just before it would have smashed into the wall.  As I fired, my arrow joining countless others that rained upon the Mûmak’s handler, the Man seized a torch that had been mounted at the fore of his cart, and lunged with it at the jolting barrels.

Faramir seized my shoulders and dragged me away from the embrasure.  I yelled, “damn it to hell!”

He shouted me down with  “Boromir, you bloody moron, get out of here now!”

Svip tugged on my leg, screaming, “Boromir, please!”

If we’d had any leisure for such reactions, I would have laughed.  Instead I yelled over the trumpeting of the Mûmaks and the shouts of our Men and the enemy, “let go of my leg, Svip!  All right, brother, you win!  I’ll see you at the City!”

“You’d better!” Faramir yelled back.  “If you get killed again, I’ll not forgive you!”

I shouted at him, “the same goes for you!” 

I shouldered my bow, then I scooped Svip up in my arms and ran with him for the stairs, not looking back.

I was racing down the stairs when the very world seemed to explode.

We were hit by a rush of heat and sound and flame.  I was thrown off my feet and tumbled down a few stairs, trying both not to squash Svip and to shield him with my body from the heat that rolled over us in a wave.

Somehow both Svip and I came to a stop, relatively unscathed.  I crouched on the step where we had landed, Svip yelling in my ear “what was that?” 

I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the wall.

Just to the south of our position, a gaping hole had been torn in the Rammas wall.  It stood like a ragged new gate, and through it burst such a sight as I hope never to see again.

A Mûmak plunged through the hole, trunk raised high in a trumpeting of anguish, its vast armoured head dripping with blood.  It dragged behind it the shattered skeleton of the cart.  Barrels and Man were nowhere to be seen, but the cart was engulfed in flame.  Fire from the cart leapt up to catch alight the Mûmak’s crimson trappings, and the creature’s bellowing seemed to tear the air asunder.

I could only suppose that the barrels had held some substance that caused the explosion.  There was not time for further pondering.

I staggered to my feet, letting go of Svip and turning in dread to look back at the wall where we had stood.

To my undying relief, I saw Faramir still standing upon the wall, alive and unharmed.  He yelled something at me that I could not hear, and furiously motioned for me to go on.  Then, with others of our defenders, he ran to the edge of the wall, firing at the Mûmak as it charged bellowing into the fortress.

The burning horror plunged toward us.  I seized an arrow and fired as the maddened beast thundered by.  In the corner of my vision I saw Svip grab one of his crossbow bolts and do the same.

An instant later I grabbed Svip again, clutching him to me in some semblance of protection as the Mûmak of Harad plummeted to the cobblestones, pierced with scores of arrows to collapse in blood and flame.

Numb, and nigh without feeling my body may have been, but nonetheless I felt it as the Mûmak fell.  Svip squealed and hid his face against my chest, as the monster’s head smashed down scarce five yards away from us.  One blood-dripping tusk crashed onto the stairs, reaching almost to where we stood.

For a moment longer I could only stare.  Then I was running down the stairs again.  On my heels came many of our Men from the wall, leaping over the Mûmak’s tusk and racing to take up position behind the Mûmak’s still twitching body, as their new line of defence. 

Through the breach that the Mûmak had torn ran Orcs and Southrons screaming for our blood, the first foes of Gondor ever to step through Rammas Echor’s wall.

I hesitated for another instant at the foot of the stairs, wanting desperately to turn back and join our Men.  Then through the din I heard the wild neighing of a horse, and Svip yelled from my arms, “Mithrandir!”

I turned to see Shadowfax the Meara draw to a rearing halt.  On Shadowfax’s back sat the Wizard, seeming to glow pure white in our murky hell of dusk and fire.

A bay horse, saddled and bridled but without rider, had galloped at Shadowfax’s side.  I did not know if it was the Wizard or the Meara that the other horse had followed, but the bay now waited patiently as Mithrandir shouted to us, “your steed, My Lord!  The Rangers are waiting for you at the gate.”

            “My thanks!” I yelled back at him, and I ran to the bay.  I set down Svip, leapt to the saddle with an ease born of necessity – for my kinsfolk of the Rohirrim would affirm that it was not born of skill – and reached down again to swing Svip onto the saddle before me.

            “Mithrandir!”

            The shout came from Faramir, standing upon the stairs just below the Mûmak’s bloodied tusk.  He called out, “Mithrandir, take charge of the wounded!  Get them to the City!  Tell my father we will hold here as long as we can!”  Faramir paused for one moment, then he added, “and get my brother out of here!”

            “I will, My Lord!”

            My brother turned to face the foe, as Mithrandir wheeled Shadowfax about and set out for the gate. 

The bay horse whinnied eagerly, but awaited my instructions.  An instant later, with a curse under my breath, I turned the bay, to follow where the Wizard and the Meara led.

            Faramir, my mind repeated desperately, if you die I will never forgive you.  

            With the battle raging behind us, we rode, for the gate of the Causeway Forts and for Minas Tirith.