Author’s Note:  Hello!  I hope there really are folks out there who like long chapters, because this one has become The Chapter that Ate the World.  And it doesn’t even continue as far as I originally meant it to, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Anyway, I hope people can wade their way through it!

                At one point in this chapter, the date March 10 is mentioned.  The little knowledge I have of the differences between the Shire Reckoning and the Stewards’ Reckoning is due to Lady Elwing of Man of Gondor, and her site Lithe Days: Middle Earth Information.  I haven’t got my brain around all of it yet, but I trust her!  So, for those who like to keep track of this sort of thing, the date given as March 10 here is in the Stewards’ Reckoning, and is the same day as the March 9 listed in the chronology in Tolkien’s ROTK appendices.

            Enjoy, I hope!

               

Chapter Eight:  In the Vanguard of the Storm

            We left Lilla Howe the next morning, as the first fingers of dawn touched the sky.

            We spoke little, and for the most part we avoided meeting one another’s eyes.  When my gaze did cross those of my comrades’, the emotions that played across their faces seemed the mirror of my own.

            None of us spoke of it, but I believe that all our thoughts held the same fears.

            It was too much like the last time all of us had left the refuge by this route.

The similarity to our departure two days ago brought me the dread that those two days had not passed at all.  That we were still back there, two days before, and that everything would turn out the same – that we would still encounter the Orcs on the riverbank, and that Buslai and Finn would still die.

            As we walked toward the River, into the growing dawn, I wondered if this were how it felt to Faramir when his visions came true.  When events that he had witnessed in dreams started coming to pass before his waking eyes.

            I told myself the feeling was superstitious foolishness.  However it might seem like the same day come back again, it was not.  The Orcs who had slain our friends were dead.  And unlike Finn and Buslai, they had no one to bring them back.

            Whether deliberately or otherwise, we chose a different order of march than we had that last time we set out.  Cirion and I switched places, he marching at the head of the column and I at the rear.  This time Svip stuck close by me, not scampering far afield as he had done the time before.  At the centre of the group, Finn and Buslai walked steadily, no longer requiring the other Rangers’ support.  But their faces bore haunted looks that I understood all too well.

            All would be well, I assured myself.  It would be well, as soon as we had passed the locations where the two of them drowned before.  Once we reached new ground, my comrades’ confidence would be restored – as would my own.

            The tension hung about us thick as a fog.  Once again we made our way down the slope to the riverbank.  I think, the usual caution of the Rangers notwithstanding, we cast twice as many glances behind us as usual as we sought to assure ourselves that no Orcs were creeping up along our trail.

            No word was spoken by any of us as we doggedly marched past the places where we had fought.

Orc corpses were there aplenty.  The tall grasses hid those that must be lying on the bank above, but those we had slain in the River bore witness to the fact that our battle at this spot had indeed been two days in the past.

The flood that had threatened us must not have had any impact downriver, or I would have expected the corpses to be washed away.  They had been borne a little downstream, but only as far as the nearest rock or snag that could arrest their progress.  New holes rent through clothing and flesh showed that various animals had been at work.  Those that lay with their faces to the sky had been thoroughly worked upon by the carrion eaters, eyeballs pecked out and noses, lips and ears more or less gnawed away.  The heat and the water had wrought their predictable effect, and the bloated forms bobbed upon the River’s breast like rafts of inflated goat bladders.  The familiar odour of decay was strong even at this early hour; in the heat of the day it would create a stench that even the hardiest veteran would be loathe to breathe for long.

All of us save Buslai and Finn cast grim, worried glances at each other, at the bloated corpses, and at our recently drowned comrades.  Only Buslai and Finn never once glanced at the River and its grisly burden.  They marched with gazes straight ahead, without hesitation or pause.  But it took no great insight to notice the death-grip of Buslai’s hand on his sword hilt, or the pallor of Finn’s face, white and set as that of any of the statues in the Tower Hall.

            All that day we marched, and as our battleground fell further behind us so too did the worst of the dark, oppressing dread.  It still was no picnic party that we were engaged upon, but the pall on our spirits gradually fell away.  Conversations began, in the low, muted tones of those who march through disputed territory.  Svip once more looked about him with more interest than fear, though he still stuck close by my side.

            We paused for a brief noon meal of foodstuffs we had scrounged together from Lilla Howe’s damaged supplies.  As we ate, we could not help but notice how tired and worn both Finn and Buslai looked, far more than any of the rest of us.

Svip offered that he could turn into a horse and bear each of them in turn.  Despite their protests, Cirion ordered them to accept.  For some time that afternoon first Finn rode and then Buslai, though Svip’s steps soon began to drag a bit on Buslai’s turn.  The young Ranger insisted on dismounting the sooner, rather than slow our progress by putting too great a burden on Svip’s back.

            Three times we saw what we assumed to be bands of Orcs in the distance, travelling south, twice on the East shore and once on the West.  But they were far from us and did not seem to spot us, and we successfully took shelter in the grasses of the riverbank until the danger of discovery was past.

            The air about us grew warmer and the sunlight brighter, the farther south we travelled into our own land.  The warmth of the sun on my face brought a thrill of homecoming, and I had to smile a little as I thought of how I had longed for the caressing breezes and gentle air of Gondor while we ploughed through the snow of Caradhras, or picked our way through the icy chill blackness of Moria.

            Better late than never, I thought, though I wished with all my heart that my journey had brought me home long months earlier – or better yet, that I had never left.

            And the homecoming was bittersweet, as they so often are.  The Sunland might be as warm and welcoming as always, but the land we loved had already been touched by the hand of war.

            We met no one on our journey south.  Even the birds and animals that we glimpsed seemed more skittish than usual and more subdued in their calls, though I suppose that might only have been my imagination.  Apart from the distant bands of Orcs, we encountered none but ourselves.

The lands north of the Pelannor have never been heavily populated, in my lifetime or several before it.  In the days of Beregond, when our borders came under attack, the population of our northlands dwindled.  For a time then the danger seemed past, and some settlers moved north again and founded new farms and homesteads.  Then in Túrin II’s reign came the next dark years, and again all but the hardiest or most stubborn fled.

But the land is too fertile to be left empty for long.  And our people have no taste for defeat.  Again some of the more daring, willing to fight the occasional Orcs along with insects and crop blights and drought, sallied northward and built up some of the richest farms in the kingdom.

Never had I seen these northlands empty as I saw them now.  It sent a chill through my blood, and made me feel that we were not living in our own days at all, but in some dark year out of the history books.  It was a cold and painful reality to accept, that our own days had become as dark as any we might read about in the pages of some dusty chronicle.

As we marched south, we saw none of the farmers and fisherfolk of North Anórien.  The only fishing-boats we saw along the River were the most ancient and dilapidated hulks, too worn out to be worthy of repair.  And in the farmlands on the low rolling hills, there was no sign of life, no movement beyond the occasional flight of some bird.  The fields, the vineyards, the olive groves, all were silent and still.  Each cottage and farmhouse and each villa standing proudly on its hill seemed like paintings from the ancient past, still preserving the colours and images of a world long gone, but with none of the people who had given them life.

            The Rangers informed me that the evacuation of the countryside had been going on for weeks now, since it had become obvious that the Enemy was steeling himself for some decisive strike.  For the past several months many had left of their own choice, moving in to the City or to the fortress towns of the White Mountains, or to Lossarnach and points farther south.  But when the recent larger troop movements were observed, of Men of Harad marching to join the Nameless One in his wastelands, my father had ordered that all the northern settlements be emptied.

None but our soldiers were to remain north of Rammas Echor.  Nor were the evacuees permitted to move in to Minas Tirith, save only for such brief stops as might be required to make purchases for their journey.  It was said, the Rangers told me, that even the evacuation of the Pelannor and the White City itself was being contemplated by my father and the Council.  Evacuees from our northlands were allowed only to head for destinations in the White Mountains or further south, and it had taken much of the manpower of the northern garrisons and the City to see the evacuation carried out successfully and prevent it from slipping into chaos.

            Cirion’s face grew grim again as he spoke of it, and he made some muttered comment on the lines that if those troops had been employed in seeking out the Enemy and halting his advance before he reached our lands, the evacuation would never have been necessary.

            He had a point, but at the same time I was glad that our people were not here.  And that, if the fates were willing, the battles ahead might be fought army to army, without thousands of civilians losing their lives in the process.

            Although, I thought, even if we won hands-down, it would not be the end of the harsh realities confronting us.  Our people might find themselves returning to homes and fields and villages that were no more than burnt-out ruins.  And even if, by some chain of miracles, the decisive battle came immediately and we were entirely victorious, it would still take weeks to get all the citizens of the Pelannor and North Anórien back to their homes.  It would mean two months or more, from the start of the evacuation through the last of our people’s return, of untended fields, crops not sown, fishing trips not taken, businesses neglected.  Half the growing season lost this year, would mean privations and risk of famine in the year ahead.

            It gave me a headache to think of it.  As I marched southward with my comrades, I heard little of their hushed conversations.  My brain was filled with calculations of how much food reserves we had in our warehouses, how much we could requisition from our southern tributaries without putting too great strain on their resources, and what other nations we could negotiate with for food and supplies, without revealing to them the full extent of our weakness and tempting them to attack us while we were still reeling from the Dark Lord’s assault.

            That night we made camp at the refuge carved into the pilings of the old Mardil Bridge, sixteen miles to the north of Cair Andros.  The refuge, like the lands we had passed through that day, was untenanted.  But here, this emptiness was a surprise, and perhaps an ominous warning.

            On the westernmost of the great stone pilings, that rise up like the stumps of gigantic trees where this mighty bridge once stood, a warning beacon was established during my grandfather’s reign.  The soldiers who man the beacon are garrisoned in the refuge built underneath the pilings.  To find none of them here and no hint of their whereabouts, was a sign that awoke forebodings in all of us.

Cirion told me that the three soldiers of this post had been here when he and his party passed through on their way north.  We could find no sign of combat or any other trouble, but the fact remained that the three Men were gone.

            It was possible that the troops in this region had been recalled, abandoning North Anórien to make a stand at Cair Andros or Osgiliath.  But had that been the case, it would have been standard practice for the order to be left in the refuge with the other official dispatches, for isolated troops such as Cirion’s band to find when they stopped at the refuge.  We found no such communiqué, and we were left with the mystery and the warning.

            Cirion decreed, with a tone and a face that brooked no argument, that Buslai and Finn were not to take up their shifts in the watch-keeping that night.  Both looked unhappy at the order, but if truth be told, they seemed almost too weary to keep awake.

            I volunteered to take Finn’s place on the first shift.  It was a deeper satisfaction than I had expected, when Captain Cirion accepted my offer without hesitation.

            So, I thought, I may be back from the dead and I may have nearly got Cirion and all his men killed, but at least I’m no longer under suspicion as a spy.

As I made my way out from the refuge again with Svip at my heels, it occurred to me that my actions at the Howe had probably been so heroically stupid, they proved I could be none other than Boromir himself.

            Svip had promised he would be quiet if I let him stand the watch with me.  He proved true to his word.  We found a spot atop the westernmost piling, fairly concealed amidst the jumble of building stones, but providing a commanding view of the countryside.  I lay down on my front and Svip sat, and together we watched as daylight faded and the first stars sprang into life.

            More than stars were visible in the scene before us.  I had thought, when the daylight still held sway, that I could see thin tendrils of smoke rising in the distance to the east.  Now in that same region there appeared pinpricks of fire.  Six or seven of them, I thought, though I could not discern whether some of them were one larger fire or two smaller ones close together.

There was no sign of the fires spreading.  They were most likely campfires.  And in this land, in these times, I had no doubt that they were the campfires of our enemy.

            The place where I had seen the smoke, I judged, must be about two leagues distant.  I whispered to Svip to keep an eye on those fires, and I turned my focus to the nearer ground about the refuge.

            I suppose it was only to be expected as I lay there, that my thoughts should turn to the most recent occasions when I had taken a shift on watch -- and to the company I had been travelling with.  Unbidden, as my gaze passed time and again over the darkened land surrounding us, I thought of the comrades I had lost at Amon Hen.

            Nearly a fortnight must have passed since our ways had parted.

The one scrap of knowledge that I had of them was that sometime before Cirion’s Rangers met the messenger from Rohan, Rohirrim Riders had encountered travellers who spoke of my death.

Countless scenarios could account for that fact.  I could make up explanations all night, but there was little likelihood I’d stumble upon the right one.

I tried not to let my mind dwell on useless speculations.  But one question kept coming back to me.

Suppose, against all the odds, Aragorn and the others had followed the Orcs and somehow managed to rescue Merry and Pippin.  If they had, where would they go then?

            It depended, I thought, on where the pursuers had overtaken the Halflings’ captors.  If it were not too far along on the way to Isengard, then they might have retraced their steps and turned immediately to the challenge of finding some way into Mordor.  I doubted they would have attempted to scale the wall of Emyn Muil; more like they would have cut slightly south and crossed Anduin below Rauros – perhaps passing within a few miles or a few feet of Svip’s house.

            But if the rescue had taken longer?  If it had taken them near to Saruman’s fortress – or even within it?

            What then?  Would they undertake the crossing of Rohan’s wilderness once more?  Or would they take the longer but easier route and follow the Great West Road?

            If they had done that, their route would take them almost within sight of Minas Tirith.

            I frowned as I thought of it, my eyes steadily scanning the scene below us.

            If they should find themselves that close to my City, what would they do?

            For Frodo, I thought bitterly, going to Minas Tirith was probably the last course he’d wish to follow.  How could he think of it without thinking of me?  Without thinking of my constant arguments that we should go to the White City – and of that cursed moment of stupidity when I’d acted like some common brigand instead of Captain-General of Gondor?

            If the choice were Frodo’s they would probably not follow the Great West Road at all.  After I’d behaved so abominably, Frodo would likely brave the wilderness a thousand times over, sooner than journey near the strongholds of Men.

            But if they did follow the Road …

            How would Aragorn choose?

            He had sworn to me, all those months ago in Rivendell, that he would go to Minas Tirith and devote his sword to our cause.

            If that oath meant anything to him – if he cared aught for the kingdom he claimed, and if Gondor’s present peril was as grim as my father and the Council seemed to think that it was – could he pass so near to Minas Tirith and not go to its aid?

            To tell the truth, I did not envy him that choice.  For though he had vowed to go to the City and stand with us against our foes, so also had he vowed to protect the Ringbearer.  He could not fulfil both oaths.  Or, he could not fulfil them if he held to his faith in the plan that the Elves and the wizard had concocted.  If he persisted in believing that the only possible course was to toss the Ring into Mount Doom, then he must either betray his oath to me and to Gondor or his oath to Frodo and the quest.  There was no way to remain loyal to both.

            It was too much to hope for, I supposed, that Aragorn or the others had finally seen what I’d been saying all along.  That they’d decided instead of traipsing into the Enemy’s arms, to take the Ring to Minas Tirith.

There is no point in thinking about it, I told myself.  I did not know what had happened, or might be happening, to the Ring.  No matter how much I tormented myself, there was nothing I could do about it.

I must have muttered something, or perhaps I didn’t quite manage to hold back a snarl.  I did something alarming, anyhow, for I suddenly noticed Svip casting me a startled and worried look.

            I forced a smile.  In the pale, dim light of the near full moon, I saw an answering smile from Svip, but he still kept a worried gaze on me.  I sighed at the thought that it was the same sort of look I have so often got from my brother, when he thinks I’m about to go on some kind of a rampage.

            I thought I ought to tell Svip about the Ring.  About the Ring, and all the damned soul-searching struggling I’d been putting myself through over it for months.  And about the wretched day when I’d finally tried to take the Ring and put myself out of my misery.

            I ought to tell him about it, if nothing else because it would help me calm myself down if I could put it into words instead of just churning it around inside my skull.

            I ought to tell him, but I didn’t want him to think badly of me – any more than he must already.  To see the disappointment and distrust in his face would be nearly as bad as seeing those looks from Faramir.

“I’m all right, Svip,” I whispered to him.  “Everything’s fine.”

            Oh, yes, I thought.  Everything’s fine.  My country’s under assault, the Enemy’s greatest weapon is in the charge of a Halfling who’s got every Ringwraith in Middle Earth flapping along on his trail, and I’ve lost my chance to do anything about the damned bloody Ring and now I couldn’t use it against the Dark Lord if it was right under my nose.

            To my surprise, I found myself breaking into a rueful grin.

            I’d never been able to make up my mind, all those months when I was stewing over what to do about the Ring.  Most of the time, I think, I’d thought that if we did take the Ring to Minas Tirith, the best and wisest course would be to hide it somewhere in the depths of the Citadel, where at least it would be out of the Enemy’s reach.  Or at least, it would be until he destroyed us.

            But every now and then, the thought had sneaked into my mind that perhaps I was the one to use it against him.  That with the Ring I could lead our troops into Mordor, I could end our centuries of peril and fear, I could avenge all the lives he had destroyed and tear a reckoning from the Nameless One’s heart.

            Well, that was one thing that I knew was not going to be happening.

Even if, against the odds, I should find Frodo and our company and the Ring waiting for me in Minas Tirith, I could not bear the Ring to Mordor at the head of our armies.  I could not, because I couldn’t go ten bloody miles from the blasted Great River.

            And if I wasn’t able to use it, would anyone?

            Aragorn might, if he truly believed that he was the rightful King – for as Isildur’s Heir he was also, in a way, the heir to the Ring.

But he would not do it.  Not unless all his noble speeches about no Man being strong enough to use the Ring had been cooked up to hide his true thoughts from the rest of us – or from himself.  And I did not believe that of him, much though I would have liked to believe anything discreditable about him.

Faramir would not do it – not if anyone told him that Mithrandir had gone to his death firm in the belief that the Ring had to be tossed into the fire.

And our father …

I had to grin again.  Now that was a frightening thought.

Goodness knew our father could be frightening enough without the Ring.  It really did not bear thinking of what he might be like with it.

My mind conjured up an image of the Lord Steward grown forty feet tall, with an icy voice that could slice through Men’s skulls, and eyes of flame that saw the thoughts of all Middle Earth.

Come to think of it, that pretty much described my father already.

I tried not to laugh at the thought, to avoid convincing poor Svip that I’d gone entirely insane.

I told myself, apart from the bit about being forty feet tall, there’s not much to choose between Father with the Ring and without it.

I more or less managed to keep my temper through the rest of that watch.  A few times my thoughts tried to creep back along the same paths.  But I held them off by calling up the image of my forty-foot father, brandishing the Ring and treating Sauron to the same sort of lecture he had so often given me.

As long as I amused myself with that vision, it kept me from brooding quite so deeply on the horrors of our situation.

The pale yellow moon had climbed high in the sky when Cirion crept up the piling to take the next shift on watch.  We held a brief whispered consultation on the campfires to the East, and our probable proximity to the enemy.  Then Svip and I made our way back into the refuge.

Finn, Buslai and Thorolf all slept, stretched out in various locations near the walls of the square stone chamber.  Young Holgar was seated by the firepit in the centre of the earthen floor, staring down at the darkling glow of the embers.

A small selection of bread, dried meat and cheese sat atop a wine barrel, across the firepit from Holgar.  Svip and I crossed to the barrel and sat down by it, both of us casting curious glances at Holgar as we helped ourselves to the food.

The young Man smiled automatically at us as we sat down, but the smile swiftly vanished.  The expression on Holgar’s face told me that I had not been alone in pondering dark matters this night.

Now that I thought of it, Holgar’s mood had seemed to grow ever more grim as the day drew on.  He alone had not seemed to have his thoughts lightened when we left behind us the place where Finn and Buslai had died.

I said, as I tore off a piece of bread and passed the loaf on to Svip, “you have seemed troubled all day.  More so than any of the others.  Would it help to speak of it?”

Holgar hesitated, glancing up from the fire and then down again.

“My home is near here,” he answered at last, in a tone almost too soft to hear.  “The creek we passed, just before sunset – if you head up it for two miles, you’ll come to our house.  My father and brothers are fishermen … all of us in my family are, except for me.”

I thought back, remembering that creek.  Svip had found a crayfish burrow in its banks, but when I stopped and looked back at him he’d hurried to catch up, rather than take the time to investigate.  I thought that perhaps I remembered Holgar pausing and looking along the stream’s course, but I wasn’t sure.

“Have you heard from your family?” I asked him.

“Aye, My Lord.  They left two weeks ago.  The rest of them had wanted to for months, but my father kept saying he wouldn’t leave.  My mother finally just told him that they were going, and he could either get in the cart of his own free will or she’d tie him up and throw him in.”

Despite his worry, Holgar could not keep from grinning a little at that.  Nor could I.

“I wish I’d seen it,” Holgar admitted.  Then he sighed.  “They stopped at Cair Andros to see me, but we were out in Ithilien then and I missed them.  My brother wrote a letter and left it for me at the fort, that’s how I know they’ve gone.”

I asked, “have they someplace to go?”

He nodded.  “My oldest sister’s husband is a tavern keeper in Calenhad.  They’re going to stay with them.”  A wry, melancholy smile touched his lips.  “My father’ll hate it.  He can’t stand those little mountain streams up there.  Says they never have any decent fish.”

I only half heard most of the conversation that followed.  Svip asked Holgar about his father’s fishing business, and the young Man ended up giving Svip a complete history of his family.  I quietly munched my meal, while Holgar told Svip the names of all his siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews, and described his childhood visits to Calenhad and the fishing techniques used along this stretch of the River.  But my thoughts wandered onto gloomy pathways once again.

Holgar’s words had made me think of all of our people that this conflict had forced from their homes.  Our people all over Gondor this night, who must know that they might never see their homes again.

I wondered how many had simply refused to leave.  Our soldiers, I assumed, would have succeeded in removing most of them by force.  But how many might still be left, hiding from our own Men and the enemy alike?

How many of those would be dead before this fight was over?

It would be foolishness, I knew, to blame myself for what we were facing now.  None of us had built the roads that led us to these days.

My father had told me I know not how oft, that no commander can afford to sink himself in guilt for those he has lost.  That so long as he fights on, and gives his all to save those who are left, then he has not betrayed the trust that was placed in him.

I knew that it was true, and that guilt would serve no one but the Enemy.  But I could not stop myself from feeling that there must have been something more that I -- that all of us who ruled Gondor -- could have done.  That there must have been some way to turn back this day.  And that it was our fault for not finding that way, for not managing to hold off the tide of war that was now to sweep over all of us.

For as far back as I can remember, my father had told me the decisive battle that sealed Gondor’s fate would come in our time.  That was why, he told me, we must always be working to improve ourselves, to strengthen our bodies and our minds, to build up our armies and hone them to constant readiness.  We must never be satisfied, he told me, with what seemed good enough.  We must always be working, and fighting, and thinking harder, and what seemed impossible to us one day must be possible the next.

I remember that I loved to hear him speak like that, when I was a boy.  My blood thrilled to hear it, with the same joy and excitement as when I saw our troops march forth from Minas Tirith, and when I watched the officers of my father’s guard training for combat.  I exulted in the thought that when the decisive trial came, I would be part of it.  And I was never so happy as when I was putting myself through new challenges, to live up to what my father expected of me and what Gondor required.

I think the moment when I truly grew up was not on any birthday, or in any ceremony, or even in the midst of battle.  My childhood was over in the moment when I first realised that when the final battle came, we might not win.

I had tried to deny it, to keep working harder as my father said, as if I could negate the possibility of Gondor’s defeat by making myself invincible.

But there were still times when the thought came creeping in, cold and taunting and undeniable.

We could lose.

My father and my brother and I, like so many of our ancestors before us, had spent our entire lives fighting for Gondor’s survival.

But if my father was right, and we would see the last battle, then we might be the ones to see Gondor die.

A mocking whisper danced through my brain, it would not die if you had taken the Ring.

If you had been strong enough, if you had seized the Ring and not let it go, Gondor would never fall.

Shut up, my mind snarled.  I don’t want to hear about the Ring.

Holgar and Svip were still talking when I retired to sleep.  I lay there watching the dim firelight on their faces, as I repeated in my mind the vow and the promise and the hope that I had thought so many times before.

We will not lose.  We will not lose.  Gondor will not fall.

When I fell asleep, I dreamed of the Ring.

It was two hours past dawn that next day, when I decided I must be under a curse.

The morning began well.  It was glorious spring weather, the air soft and rich with the scents of grasses and flowers.  The bright sun rose over a landscape that seemed untouched by war – apart from the absence of any people, and the faint hint of the enemy’s campfire smoke on the air, borne to us on an occasional twist of breeze.

We cut inland from the bridge for about a mile, to where a long, thin stretch of trees runs parallel to the River.  We had seen no sign of activity from our Orc neighbours across the Anduin, but if they or their fellows should be on the move, we’d have better chances of avoiding discovery if we kept our path under the shelter of the trees.

For those first couple of hours we made good time, despite the extra caution with which we picked our way, expecting Orcs to pop up from behind every shrub.  Thorolf was now travelling some ways ahead, as an advance guard.  Occasionally we would hear his bird-call whistle signalling that all was well.

Then suddenly came the signal to advance with caution.  A moment later the breeze changed direction, and it carried to us a new, stronger reek of smoke, whispering at us through the forest ahead.

We were ten miles north of Cair Andros.  I knew this when we stepped from the trees into the clearing cut for a hundred yards on either side of the old Lesser West Road.  The road strikes north from the island fortress and then divides in two, one road paralleling Entwash and the other striking off to join with the Great West Road, at a point forty miles to the south and west.

Along the road ten miles north of the fortress stands a stone livery stable and messenger station.  The road now stretched out before us, with the stable just on the other side of it.

The thatched roof of the building was gone, except for a few charred sections of wooden beams that had somehow not fallen when the roof burned.

No living creature, Man or Orc, met our eyes.  But we saw two dark shapes sprawled before the entrance to the stable, in the sallow dust of the road.  Shapes that all too easily resolved themselves into the bodies of Men.

Beyond the livery stable, from the trees at the far side of the road, we heard another bird call from Thorolf.  The way was clear, but he was investigating further.

With the others close behind me, I walked to the bodies on the road.

Their brown leather jerkins and black cloaks told that they were soldiers of the North Anórien garrisons.  The clothes of both were soaked through with blood.  And both of them had been decapitated, their necks mere jagged stumps.  The heads were nowhere to be seen.

I heard Cirion hiss out an oath, and I had to bite back one of my own.

The two were not freshly slain.  I thought they had most likely been lying there since sometime yesterday.  Judging from the smell and the insects that moved upon them, they had lain out in the sun for longer than these two hours of the morning.

With their heads gone, I could see nothing to immediately tell us their names.  There was every likelihood that my comrades the Rangers knew both of them, and a reasonable chance that I did as well.  But the foes who had robbed them of their lives had taken their identities as well.

Cirion made for the door of the stable.  A moment later I followed him.

The livery stable had the standard floor plan of these buildings: a rectangular shape like the old longhouses, a loft that ran the whole length of the building, a small one-storey room for the human occupants to the right of the door, and the remaining three quarters of the building given over to the horses’ stalls and a work area that doubled as a minimal smithy.

Half of the loft itself, most of the hay that had been stored in it, and almost all of the roof above had burned.  Someone, though I had a hard time imagining who, had put out the fire.  The place stank of damp ashes along with the smells of hay and blood.

The gates to the stalls were all opened, and the corpses of three horses lay in congealed pools where the blood had not seeped into the straw.  One of the three lay in its stall, the other two lolled grotesquely on the workshop floor.  There were gashes and stab wounds all over their bodies, and there seemed no real way to escape the conclusion that the horses must have been tortured.

I am no great devotee of horses, but nonetheless my gorge rose at it.  I grimaced, with a sudden thought of how my relatives of Rohan would react to the sight.

One of the two horses in the smithy had its back legs and haunches hacked off, along with most of one side, sliced off ribs and all.  Cirion muttered, “looks like our friends the Orcs have had a nice horse meat supper.”

To our relief, the room to the right held no further corpses.  It was a jumbled mess, with tables and benches overturned, and barrels, bags and boxes of foodstuffs wrenched open and scattered over the floor.  I noticed that there were no wine barrels or bottles of any description, and surmised that the attackers must have been seeking something to wash down their horse steaks.

A strangled gasp sounded from the main room.  I stepped back into the doorway and saw Svip and Holgar standing just inside the main door.  Holgar’s face was pale, but it was Svip who must have made that noise.  He now stood staring at the massacred horses, with a look of sickened shock.

The water being turned abruptly and raced outside again.  I hurried after him.

I more than half expected to find him losing his breakfast.  But I did not, though as he stood with his arms wrapped around his chest, I could see his whole body trembling.

I crouched down beside him so my head was more or less level with his.  I couldn’t think what to say, so I just put my hand on his arm.

He turned his head to look at me.  “It shouldn’t bother me,” he whispered.  “It’s not like I’m really a horse …”

Before I could answer, another bird call sounded its strident notes: the call to alarm.

Finn and Buslai, who had been kneeling in the road by the two corpses, scrambled to their feet and started running toward the stable.  Holgar stepped out of the door, followed by Cirion an instant later.

Thorolf was racing toward us from the far edge of the trees.  I stood, with my hand on my sword hilt.

We could see no one behind him – yet.

Thorolf Son of Eyjolf halted beside us.  He hissed, “we’ve got to fall back.  There’s a camp of them ahead, in the woods.  Couldn’t get a good idea of the numbers; I’d hazard two hundred at least, at a guess.  They’re all over the place, looks like they’re planning a long stay.  We’ll have to go around.”

We nodded, and turned to head back across the road and into the trees.

Finn suddenly snarled out a comment that would not be repeatable in polite company.  I was in entire agreement with him.

Hoof beats pounded toward us from the west, along the Lesser West Road.

It sounded like only a few horses at a gallop, but beyond that we could hear the sounds of a larger force on the move: creaking as of wagons, and the jangle of equipage or weaponry.

We could not yet see anything move along the road.  Then a cloud of dust rose into view.  The hoof beats were drawing closer, much faster than I cared to hear.

We could make a sprint for the trees, but they were far enough away that I didn’t think we would all make it before the riders came in sight.

Captain Cirion growled another curse, then he spat out, “into the stable!  Now!”

All of us raced inside.  If we hid in here we could find ourselves well and truly trapped, and I’m sure that all of us knew it.  But it offered a better chance, however slim, than standing like fools on the road while who knew what army galloped toward us.

The faintest whisper of hope touched my mind that these hoof beats might herald the approach of Riders from Rohan.  That instead of joining the Orcs that Thorolf had seen, they might be come to offer them battle.

If they were, well and good.  We would join them.  But it was not a chance I would risk any lives upon until we had seen who these riders were.

The ladder to the hay loft had burned and fallen.  Perhaps half of it was left, but that was half the height needed to reach the loft.

Holgar was the first to find the alternate route.  He seized hold of one of the stones in the wall that divided the living quarters and the stable, and began pulling himself upward.  The stones were uneven enough to provide decent hand and foot holds, and soon Svip and then the rest of us were scrambling up after him, to the unburnt portion of the loft.

I followed last, tarrying below to break the fall if any should lose their hold.  I noticed that two sturdy beams, apparently untouched by the fire, still supported the floor boards of that section.  I only hoped they were sturdy enough to support all of us on top of it.

Two hay bales, against the wall, had escaped the fire.  We dragged them out to form a screening wall, augmented with a few heaps of scattered, charred and sodden hay.  These pitiable defences created a tiny refuge for us in the back corner of the surviving bit of loft.  Lying on the floor we were effectively hidden, at least from below.  There was a small, half-burned overhang of roof left above us, but it would not do much to shield us from above, should we encounter any foe like that demon of the air that Legolas had shot at.

Thus began one of the most grim and maddening days of my journey, that already held such a treasure house of grim and maddening days.

Hoofbeats and groaning wagons, and then the tread of a marching army, drew ever closer beneath us.  With them came the rough cacophony of Orcish voices.

They drew beneath us, and then they surrounded us.  And they remained.

We heard the neighing of a few horses, and the rolling creaks of the wagons came to a halt.  Growled conversations by the hundreds sounded out beneath us, though in quieter tones than one would normally hear from an army of Orcs.  Assorted thuds and rustles and clanks told that some of them were setting up tents.  I heard the clatter of cookpots and utensils as well, but one thing was missing that would normally mark the scene: we smelled no new smoke from cooking fires.

Of course, I thought.  That was why the burning stable had been doused.  I had not been able to imagine any of our soldiers taking the time to bother with it if they were in the midst of combat with Orcs, and fire-fighting did not seem a usual Orc activity.  But it should have been obvious.  This close to Cair Andros, any burning building could easily have been spotted from the fortress.  So too might the smoke from any cook fires.  And even were it not, it was likely that scouts sent out from Cair Andros would see it or smell the fires, or both.

It took no great leap of logic to determine that these Orcs had their sights bent on taking the island fortress.

But they were not ready yet; perhaps not all of their expected forces had gathered.  So they were settling in for a long wait.

And as long as they were, so were we.

To make our situation even more charming, a select few of them moved into the stable.

They must have been the officers of this particular regiment, taking the plum quarters for themselves.  Some, from the sound of it, made themselves at home in the smaller room, and some set up camp below the loft, right beneath us.

It is still a wonder to me that we lived through that day.

The Orcs’ sense of smell is keener than any Man’s, and I expected them to nose us immediately.  We owed our lives, I suppose, to an unusual handful of circumstances.  The usual stable smells mixed with those of smoke, ashes, blood and rotting corpses, and the fact that Men had inhabited the building for centuries and presumably imbued it with our smell, must have combined to make them overlook any whiff of Man that reached them from the loft.  If they noticed Svip’s smell, they must not have recognised it.  Then, too, the burned and fallen ladder, still lying on the floor, was an obvious if faulty indication that no one could be hiding above.

We lay there.  And we waited.

I thought, I must be under a curse.

Of course, the fact that I’d been brought back to life might tend to weaken that theory.  But perhaps it was just that Svip was outside of the curse’s plan.

Whoever or whatever had cursed me must have been tickled pink with my death.  Now that Svip had brought me back, perhaps it was taking a while to work up to another deathblow.  In the meantime it had to content itself with taking a journey that should have lasted four days, and turning it into a fortnight.

Ten miles.  We were ten miles from Cair Andros Fortress.  Ten miles from being able to warn our Men, and all of Gondor, of the peril converging on our doorstep.  And here we lay, with our noses in burnt, wet straw, half a score of feet above a bloody Orc army.

The straw made me think of all those times in the tales when the hero’s hiding place is discovered because he has the misfortune to sneeze.

I should not have thought of it.  The moment I did, I felt a tickling in my nose.

With a mighty effort, I resisted.  It was a damned good thing, too, I told myself.  If I gave us away by sneezing, the Orcs would not have time to slay me.  I would have to kill myself, from the sheer ludicrous shame of it.

Someday, I hoped, I could regale Faramir with this story, over a few good bottles of wine.  I would save it for some time when he was in a particularly miserable mood from fighting with our father.  Then I would delve into my wine cellar, abduct Faramir from his rooms or his townhouse or the Steward’s library, and launch into the tale of my journey from the Falls of Rauros and our lovely day with the Orcs.

It ought to do well at cheering him up.  After all, the tale was supplied with some especially fine “Boromir makes a fool of himself” sequences.

The day crawled on at a crippled pace.  With my usual pessimism, I began to wonder if the Orcs planned on staying here for weeks.

There were times when no Orc was within the stable.  But we could still hear them right outside, and we dared not make a break for it.

Their voices were all around us.  Their voices, and the everyday sounds of life in any encampment.  If I tried, I could almost imagine that we were encamped with our own troops.  Apart from the guttural snarls of the brutes’ speech, and the stench that seemed to attach itself to the insides of my nostrils.

Buslai and Holgar occupied themselves by scraping away the mortar between two stones of the wall, to create an embrasure for spying on our foes.  I noticed Cirion eyeing them frowningly, presumably keeping tabs on them to make sure that they didn’t knock the stone out of the wall and onto some Orc’s head.

No such disaster occurred, but the view we got through the spyhole, when we took turns crawling up to peer through it, was not encouraging.  The number and variety of the tents set up without, made it look as though the Orcs were here for some gigantic town fair.  This impression was added to by the wagons piled high with loot, glittering and colourful in the sunlight.

I could discern little of what was actually in those wagons.  But the sight made me clench my fists hard enough to hurt, anger and nausea welling within me.

These Orcs had approached from the West.  Their spoils might come either from our own lands or from Rohan; perhaps from both.  Bright, gleaming fabrics, the glint of metal: each glimpse made me think of the houses that had likely been stripped for this plunder, and that might now be reduced to smouldering wreckage.  And of the people who I could only hope had not been there, when the Orcs had made their raid.

That night brought us no more comfort than the day.

We partook sparingly of the bread and dried fruit we had with us, and as the darkness closed in we made attempts at sleep.  For form’s sake, we took turns on watch.  But I doubt that my comrades got much more sleep than I did.

When I glanced around, in the moonlight pouring in on us through the ruined roof, I saw that most of them had their eyes still open and their faces set in weariness, worry and boredom.  Only Holgar, with the resilience of youth, seemed to sleep away much of the night in relative ease.

It occurred to me that Holgar was the only one of my companions who I had never heard snore.  The wakefulness of the others was likely due in part to the same thought that had come to me.  I dreaded to let myself fall fully asleep, for to bring the foe down on us by snoring would be hardly less humiliating than doing so by sneezing.  Theoretically, he who stood watch should be able to awaken any of us before our snoring got out of hand.  But still, there was no telling what chance noise might be the one that would bring the enemy about our ears.

The Orcs, of course, suffered under no such restrictions.  If I should find myself in some hell when I die again, I am certain it will involve an eternity of being denied my sleep while listening to Orcs snore.

Svip passed a worse night than any of the rest of us.

As the night drew in, I saw him fidgeting uncomfortably, ripping a blade of straw into tiny pieces.  When I crawled closer to him, he looked around as if in embarrassment, and then hissed in my ear, “I’ve never slept outside of water.”

We had with us no vessel or container large enough to fill with water and let Svip sleep in it, even had we combined the water from all of our various canteens.  Finn had a bowl that we filled from my canteen and Holgar’s, but it was only big enough for Svip to rest his hands in.

For a time he tried to sleep lying down in the straw, with his hands in the bowl.  We had surrounded the bowl with straw, propping it in place so that Svip would not knock it over in his sleep and alert the Orcs to our presence.  But the idea that Svip would sleep at all turned out to be wishful thinking.

Time and again I looked around at the scene outlined in the pallid moonlight.  The jagged silhouette of the ruined roof against the sky, Holgar peacefully asleep, Cirion with his eyes determinedly closed, but tapping his fingers on his axe hilt, Buslai lying on his back and gazing up at the moon.  Thorolf and Finn had their backs to me, and I could not see if they were awake or not.  But I could see Svip lying there with his eyes open.  After a while I realised that his entire body was shaking.

I crawled closer to him again, and mouthed the words, “are you all right?”

He sat up, wrapping his wet hands around his knees and blinking at me.  “Cold,” he breathed.

This wouldn’t do at all.  There wasn’t much that I could do for Svip, but at least I might be able to help him fight off the cold.  I found for myself something resembling a comfortable position, leaning back against one of the bales of hay.  I could not quite sit upright, or my head would protrude over the bale.  I picked up the water bowl and gestured for Svip to come lie down on my lap.

He gave another embarrassed look, then he crept over and climbed onto my legs.  There we spent the night, Svip stretched out over my thighs like an oversized lapdog.  I kept one arm about him, and with the other hand I balanced the bowl on my knee, so he could keep his hands in it.

I do not think that he slept much.  All through the night I could feel him shivering against me.

It made me think of the long ago nights of childhood, when Faramir climbed into my bed to sleep after a bad dream.

Or of the times when my son had fallen asleep in my arms.  But that was a path that I decidedly did not want my thoughts to take.

With the dawn came no real change in our situation, only that all of us were colder, wearier, more racked with aches, and probably more ready to do something recklessly stupid to get ourselves out of this.  At least I know that I was.  I kept having to talk myself out of asinine plans of action that were certain to get us caught and make worthless everything that we had been through.

We could not stay here forever.  Our basic plan, sketched out in the most hushed whispers, was to take advantage of the confusion when this force moved out again.  We would leave as soon as it seemed possible to avoid capture, and outpace the Orcs if we could, hopefully reaching Cair Andros ahead of them.

But, I wondered, what if this force did not move out again?  We still had to somehow make our way to the fortress.  Even if these Orcs did not move on against our outposts, if they were being kept as a reserve, I was still sure that the main attacks were coming soon.  This troop movement that we’d got ourselves stuck in was part of a pattern, that said as clearly as anyone could wish that the Nameless One was poised to launch his long-feared invasion.  We had to get to Cair Andros and warn the garrison of what we had seen, whether these Orcs moved out or not.

How could we get out of here if the Orcs did not move?

There was one possible strategy I could think of, but I was disgusted with myself for even considering it.

Of all of us, Svip was theoretically the one with the best chance of getting through unseen.  He was small enough that he might escape notice, and once out of the camp he could change into horse shape, both to make his escape the swifter and to hopefully convince any Orc who saw him that he was merely a runaway horse, not any kind of messenger.

But the plan was so fraught with peril and uncertainty, as to make it virtually a suicide mission.

Even if he got past the Orcs, what then?  There would still be our Men to convince, if he made it to Cair Andros.

To be sure, Finn had his map-making supplies with him.  I could use them to write a letter for Svip to take as his safe conduct, and to bear such information as we had on the Orcs’ strategies and deployment.

But yet, there was a strong risk that our Men would not believe him, or believe any letter that he brought.  For was I not known to be dead – and at the hands of the enemy?  Even if I included my signet ring as part of the packet Svip bore, it might be seen as proof that the foes who slew me had stripped my corpse and taken my ring, to use in some ploy such as this.

We might, indeed, do better to have Cirion write the letter, and not yet introduce the concept of the Lord Boromir being back from the dead.  But even then there was the same risk, that our Men seeing an unknown being such as Svip would assume him to be some vile creature of the Enemy.  No matter what safe conduct he bore, it was more like that the garrison’s Men and their commander would assume treachery, and either imprison Svip or slay him out of hand.

And there was another factor, that made me loathe to even contemplate such a plan.

If he were entirely himself, I might almost feel that I could ask Svip to risk it.  He was clever and resourceful.  If anyone could pull off this plan, he could.

But on this day, I feared for him, too much to suggest that he put himself at risk for Gondor.  He was risking too much for us already.

He looked dreadful.  As the morning light spread over our unhappy little band, I was shocked to realise how appalling Svip looked.

The usual grass green of his skin had taken on a greyish hue, like sage.  He smiled when he saw me looking at him, and attempted to look his cheerful self.  But when I put my hand on his forehead, it burned fever-hot.

Damn it, I thought.  I might have to suggest to Svip that he follow my escape plan, just so he could get back to the River.  I had no idea how bad this might get, if he remained away from the water.  Presumably, he had no idea either, since he said he had never done this before.  But if he was in this bad a shape after just one day, I dreaded to think what another day of it might do to him.

There was no indication that the Orcs had intentions of leaving.  They sounded perfectly at home.  Frequent loud-voiced arguments, occasional clanking sounds as they cleaned weapons and armour, the maddening snores of one of the officers camped beneath us – all seemed to mock us, to promise that we would be stuck up here forever.

Every time I glanced over at Svip, the fear and the guilt hammered harder at me.

I had to get him out of here.  I could not let him be sacrificed to our cause.  I could not let him perish because he had made the fatal mistake of helping me.

I eyed the sickly pallor of his face, and I sighed.  It would probably take a good bit of arguing on my part to convince him to leave us.  In which case, I had better get started.

The Orcs outside were getting louder, I thought.  Either that, or I was just losing my mind.

No.  There were definitely large numbers of them out there, starting to shout about something.  To shout, and to beat their swords against their shields.

Maybe they were getting ready to move out, after all.  But if not, I still faced the task of convincing Svip.  I leaned over to him, to whisper my plan under the cover of the increased noise.

Of a sudden, a different note came into the Orcs’ shouts.  Some of them, I thought, some large number, must have fallen silent all at once.  Those that still shouted tried to keep up the same raucous cheers as they had voiced before.  But they failed.  Their shouts held the unmistakable note of fear.

And then there came another sound.  A long, piercing cry, cold and cruel.  Distant, but at the same time horribly near, as if it sounded from the sky but also from inside my own mind.

Svip gasped, and I saw terror spring to life in his eyes.

I looked wildly around at our comrades, and saw the same panic and horror on their faces.

I recognised that cry, and that fear.

“Be silent!”  I hissed.  I spoke louder than I’d have dared to a moment before, but the shouts of the Orcs and the still-sounding echoes of the cry assured me that our neighbours below would not notice my words.  “It will not take us if we do not let it.  Only take courage.  Do not speak and do not move.”

The Rangers and Svip all kept their eyes fixed on me.  Svip reached out and clutched my hand.

A wave of darkness passed over us, as if some monstrous shadow had swallowed up the sun.

Then the shadow was gone.  But something had changed.

I noticed it more and more, as the day crept on.

One of my prayers, at least, had been answered.  The Orcs were packing up their camp.  Tents were coming down, equipment was being tossed into wagons, officers harangued their troops with new, biting force.  I thought that I could hear extra scorn and virulence in their voices, and I supposed they were trying to make up for the fear that the shadow and the cry had called forth in them.

As the Orcs packed up, and we waited, I realised that some difference had come into the quality of the light.

No longer did we lie there in the familiar spring sunlight.

Gradually, almost too gradually to notice the change, the sky took on a bruised, lurid hue.  I looked upward, and for some moments I just watched it, trying to comprehend this phenomenon that seemed different from anything I had seen.

I could not even be sure what colour it was.  At times it seemed merely a cloud – unusually dark and heavy, perhaps, but a cloud like any other.  Then it would change, and there would seem to be light visible through it – but light that changed from red to yellow and back again, as if the cloud were in fact made of smoke, and both the smoke and the flame were rolling in to devour us.

Slowly, the very air about us took on a reddish glare.  The glare of a fiery, angry sunset.  Or, I thought, the glare that I had always imagined one would see everywhere, if one ventured into Mordor.

Cirion crawled over to me, and hissed, “what the hell is going on up there?”

I shook my head and did not answer him.  But I thought that I knew the answer.

The battle that my father had spoken of for as long as I could remember, was coming.  The Dark Lord at last had all his forces arrayed, and he was throwing the dice to begin the final game.

All of his forces? I wondered.

No, I prayed.  Not all of them.

Not the Ring.

That last hour of waiting seemed, if anything, worse than all that went before.  As the Orcs packed up their gear and received the shouted orders of their officers, it felt like waiting for my first battle.  There was the same mocking anxiety, the same desperate eagerness to do something, anything, to make the waiting cease.  And there was the same knowledge that if I did what I wished, if I charged the enemy before the order came, I would bring all our carefully-laid plans to destruction.

At last the waiting ended.  With a great din of protesting wagons and horses, grumbling foot soldiers and bellowing officers, the Orc regiment headed out.

The noise was fading into the trees when Finn announced that he could see no more Orcs through the spyhole.  One by one, we made our cautious way down from the loft.

I half thought that some troops would have been left behind, and we would run into them the moment we crept from our rat hole.  But the stable was empty of all save the corpses of the horses.  Without, there were only the bodies of our two slain comrades.  They were despoiled now of all of their clothing, and some of the Orcs had whiled away the time by carving obscene pictures into the pallid canvas of their backs.

I wished that we could stop to bury them, but it was all too plain that we did not have the time.  And, I told myself, there would be many more of our Men lying unburied before this was over.  All the more, perhaps, if we did not get to Cair Andros before this Orc advance.

With agonising caution, we made our way into the forest.  Thorolf, it turned out, knew some of the Orcish language.  He told us that they had moved out in three columns, moving abreast of each other through the woods.  If we proceeded carefully enough, we should be able to keep ourselves between two of their columns, hopefully out of sight.

That journey through the trees lingers in my mind like a vision from some nightmare.  The red, smoky light kept making me wonder if the damned fool Orcs had somehow set the woods afire.  I almost wished that they had.  It would certainly send a warning to our Men in the fortress.  And the fire would be something tangible that we could combat, unlike this unnatural murky dusk advancing on us at the will of the Enemy.

We had deliberately picked the most uneven stretch of ground through those woods, a spine of rock thrust up from the earth, to ensure that our path would not be the same as those the Orc columns had taken.  Keeping low to the ground, we jogged through rocks and the undergrowth.  The raucous noise of the Orcs’ progress sounded to right and left of us.

Once we must have strayed too close to the column on our left.  From out of the trees, far nearer than I would have expected, came some Orcish shout that was evidently a question.

Automatically all of us froze.  An instant later Cirion hissed for us to keep going.  We marched onward, all of us gripping swords or axes or readying our bows.

As we walked, Thorolf yelled back a reply in the Orcs’ own tongue.

Whatever he’d said, it seemed to satisfy our questioner.  We heard barking laughs and a few jeering remarks, then some harsh command that presumably told the others to keep quiet.

No Orcs came rushing at us out of the trees.  They marched on, and so did we.

            I asked Thorolf later what had been said in that exchange.  Our unseen questioner had demanded we identify ourselves, and Thorolf had graphically told him to mind his own business.

            We hurried ahead, trying to unobtrusively move farther to our right.  Without, of course, marching straight into the arms of the column on that side of us.

After our brush with the Orcs, we had stepped up our pace.  I suddenly noticed that Svip was no longer beside me.  He had been marching doggedly at my side, but now he was gone.

I turned to seek him, silently cursing myself.  Svip and I were at the rear of our column.  If he fell behind, there was little chance that any of the others would notice.  How should they, when even I had not seen?

In the fiery twilight, at first I could not see him.  The dark seemed thicker behind us.  Trees, rocks and sky were vanishing together in a deep, fire-tinged fog.

A flicker of movement caught my eye.  It seemed that an icy hand let loose its grip on my heart, when I realised that I saw Svip plodding along on our trail.

I scrambled back through the rocks to meet him, and knelt by his side.

He had been staring at his feet as he walked, and seemed to take some time to notice me.  He stopped and bit his lip, and when he finally looked up at me I saw apology in his eyes.

I reached out and felt his forehead.  It was burning hot again.  I could not tell if his skin was that sickly sage green, for his face had the same crimson tinge of everything else in this foul false twilight.

When we first headed into the woods, Svip had been keeping up well.  He had looked better, as well.  Or at least I’d thought that he had, though now I wondered if I had only thought so because I wanted him to.  I cursed myself once more for not keeping better track of him.  And for getting him into this in the first place.

A bird-call whistle sounded ahead of us, inquiring our whereabouts.  I whistled back, signalling that we were fine, and would follow.  Then I turned back to Svip.

            “Come on,” I whispered to him.  “I’ll carry you.”

            He gazed at me miserably.  “No,” he began.  “You shouldn’t have to -- ”

            “Don’t be stupid.  You’ve carried us when you’re a horse.  Now let me return the favour.”

            I scooped him up before he could protest further.  Hastening after the others, I tried not to think of my fears for the frail, shivering creature in my arms.

The sky ahead still held light.  In my imaginings it seemed that I could feel the dark behind us, as if the creeping twilight were peopled with thousands on thousands of eyes.

            I reached the Rangers near the edge of the trees.  They were crouched in the shelter of the rock ridge, all readying their bows.

            “The Orcs have stopped, My Lord,” Cirion reported in a whisper.  They’re not advancing past the trees.  They’ve posted lookouts along the tree line.  If it meets your approval, we’ll take out the nearest two and make a run for it.”

            I nodded.  Cautiously I set Svip down on the ground and handed him my canteen.  He took a long drink from it, his hands shaking as he did so.  Then Svip re-corked the canteen and clutched it in front of him, as if he could stop the trembling in his hands by just holding the canteen tightly enough.

            I caught a worried glance from Holgar, who stared in dismay at Svip and then looked to me as if I could provide an answer.  I could only shrug in reply.  Hating myself for not seeing some way of helping Svip, I crept forward to the tree line to have a look at the ground ahead of us.

The forest ends two miles from Cair Andros.  I think the tree cover would naturally become thinner at this place, for a gap in the hills here creates a wind tunnel that would stunt any tree’s attempt to grow against the winds blowing through it.  But ever since Cair Andros was fortified, one of the duties of its garrison has been to cut back the trees two miles from the island, denuding the area of potential hiding places for attackers.

The land that lay before us is blanketed in tall grasses.  If we kept low enough it should be sufficient to conceal us.  But there would still be danger when we made our first rush.  The grass cover is broken in places near the forest, where stumps mark the handiwork of Men of Cair Andros, sent out on punishment detail to prune back the encroaching trees.  Before we reached the thicker grass, the Orc lookouts would have ample opportunity to see us.

As I lay there, I could see the two nearest lookouts, perhaps a hundred yards apart.  It took me a while to pinpoint their locations.  One was standing with his back against a tree, his form blending in to the tree trunk in the gathering dark.  The other took me longer to spot.  He was seated, only his head visible above a wall of grass.  I would not have seen him, I think, but that he was to the West of us, and in the West the sky was light.  His head was outlined against a blue sky.  It seemed impossible that blue sky could still exist, alongside the ruddy darkness that was seeping in upon us.

From our vantage points, the Orc lookouts and I could see Cair Andros, rising over the sea of grass.  In the creeping dusk, the black rock of the island’s cliff face faded into the dark.  The walls of the fortress above seemed to stand in mid air, their white stone stained blood red.  I could see the rearing waves where Anduin’s current breaks on the black cliff, but they were stained like the fortress, bloody foam breaking against darkness.

The walls of Cair Andros give an easy view across the fields of grass to the edge of the woods.  Even if they were to crawl the whole way, the Orc army would be spotted moving through the grasses, their columns showing from above like black snakes inching across the field.

The Orcs must know this as well as I did.  That was why they had halted once again; they were waiting for full dark.  And that dark might not be long in coming.

The sun was still high in the western sky.  From its height there must be a good two hours before sunset.  But the dark in the East seemed to promise that once the sun was gone, there would be no other light.

I crept back to my comrades.

“All right, My Lord?” Cirion asked.  “Thorolf and I will take out the sentries.  The rest of you head straight out, and we’ll join you.”

“Right,” I agreed.  The other three Rangers all had their bows at the ready as well, in case our plan should go awry.  I wished there was something that I could do, but I was going to have my hands full with Svip.  I could not afford to stop and fight.  To get him out of this, as he deserved, I must resign myself and do nothing but run.

Svip handed me back my canteen, with a faint attempt at a smile.  I re-fastened it to my belt, then held out my arms to him.  “Ready?” I whispered.  “Why don’t you climb onto my back?  It’ll be easier if I’ve got my arms free.  Right, just hang on to me.  Sorry, it may jolt a bit.”

His smile grew more determined.  He whispered back, “just don’t drop me.”

Keeping low, Cirion and Thorolf set out, Cirion heading to the left and Thorolf to the right.  With Svip clinging to my neck and the others following just behind me, I scrambled back to the edge of the trees.

We waited to hear the twang of bow shots.  They came almost in unison.  I did not see either Orc fall, for my gaze had been fixed on the field ahead, studying the pattern of the stumps and reckoning the swiftest route into the thicker grass.  The bows twanged, and several of my comrades hissed “go!” or “now!”  And we ran.

From the right, behind us, sounded another bowshot.  And the rustling crash of a body falling into the grass.

I lunged behind the minimal protection of a stump, trying to flatten myself enough to get Svip out of the line of fire.  A glance to the right showed another Orc standing outlined against the sky, nocking an arrow to his bow.

In the same instant, Holgar, Finn and Buslai all fired.  The Orc toppled.  I could not be sure in the dusk, but I thought that I saw three arrows buried in his chest.

Cirion came racing up to us from the left, and a moment later Thorolf crawled out of the grass at our right.  He clutched his right shoulder, trying to hold back with his hand the blood that seeped out around a black-feathered Orc arrow.

“Didn’t see him,” Thorolf gasped out bitterly.  “He was sitting in the taller grass.  Beyond the other.  I didn’t see him.”

“Move your hand,” Cirion hissed at him.  As soon as Thorolf obeyed, Captain Cirion braced himself with one hand on Thorolf’s collarbone, and with the other yanked the arrow out of his flesh.  Blood welled from the wound.

It is always a wise course to let Orc arrow wounds bleed at the first, to help clean out the wound should the arrow prove poisoned.  But now Thorolf protested, “damn it, no!  They’ll be able to track us by the blood.”

“Can’t help that,” Cirion muttered.  “Let’s get further away.  We’ll bind it when we’re deeper into the field.”

So we scrambled onward, into the ocean of grass.

There were no shouts behind us.  No shouts, and no Orcs trampling into the grasses.  I could scarce believe that even the fall of our third victim had gone unseen.  But it seemed that it must be so.

We paused once to bind up Thorolf’s shoulder, then we took up our half-crawling race through the grassland.

It was a strange couple of hours, scuttling along with no view of anything beyond grass and sky.  I had ended up at the head of our party, which I rather wished I had not.  The Rangers, I thought, must know some quieter and less obtrusive way of blazing a trail through this grass than I did – though I don’t know what I expected them to be able to do, short of waving a magic wand and parting the grasses before us.  At any rate, I had no magic wand and had to just plough my way through, trying my best not to let the grass blades stab me in the eyes.

I was at least able to navigate fairly easily, just by keeping the looming clouds to the left of us, and the embattled patch of blue sky to the right.  The low roar of Anduin provided another guide, though even had we been walking upright through the field we would not have seen the River at most times, cutting as it does far below the bank at this point.

Occasionally I asked Svip to look above the grass to check our progress.  I would pause while he scrambled up higher, balancing his weight on my shoulders until he could get a glimpse of the island fortress and tell me how far to the right of us it was.

“We’ll get you to the water soon, Svip,” I whispered to him as I crawled on after one of these pauses to get our bearings.  “We probably shouldn’t risk it till we’re across to the island.  But the island’s got a good harbour.  There’s lots of sheltered areas where you should be able to sleep.  We’ll have you there soon.”

He nodded, his fingers digging deeper into my neck at the mention of water.

The air seemed unseasonably hot.  I noticed it more and more, as I had to swipe my sweat-damp hair away from my eyes with increasing frequency.  If it was this warm already in North Anórien, I thought that they must be stifling in the City.  I wondered if the wealthier citizens’ migration to their summer homes in the mountains would begin earlier than usual this year.  Then I recalled that since this year the warm weather was accompanied by the threat of invasion, then yes, it had probably begun already.

The rich smells of damp earth and spring wildflowers hung heavy about us.  I caught the occasional whiff of a fox, and heard abrupt rustlings in the grass as the foxes and other denizens of the field fled our approach.

Beyond that, there was nothing to hear but the murmur of the River and the sound of our own passage.  It took me some time to realise why that seemed so strange.

There was no wind.  It was probably the first time I had set foot on this plain without there being at least some wind blowing, from somewhere.  The Cair Andros garrison had nicknamed this field Wind Battle Plain.  It is noted as much for the force with which the East Wind comes raging over it from across the River, as for the strength and violence of the West Wind, that charges through the gap in the hills after racing over the plains of Rohan.  At Cair Andros, Men joked that our wind was battling it out with Sauron’s.

Yet now there was no wind at all.  I’d have thought that the East Wind would be in the ascendant, since this damned fiery cloud was rolling in from the East.  But however that fog was moving, it apparently did so with no aid from the wind.  The air in Wind Battle Plain hung oppressive and still, pressing down on us with suffocating closeness.

It was, I thought, the proverbial calm before the storm.  Only when those clouds broke over our heads, they would bring not water but fire.

We were close enough now to see the island and its fortress looming over the grass.  The black cliff was visible again at the fortress’ base.  Glints of light from the sinking sun flickered off veins of minerals in the dark rock.  We could hear the waves splash as they broke on the long island’s prow, and hear the hollow boom as water rushed through the cavern beneath the black cliff.

I wondered when the soldiers on Cair Andros’ walls would notice our approach.  For notice it they must.  We might not be as obvious as an Orc army crawling through the grass, but we would still stand out, even through this fast descending dusk.

We had best make ourselves identifiable as a band of Men before we came within arrow shot of the walls.

I called a halt when our path was crossed by our old acquaintance the Lesser West Road.

In older days the Road led to a ferry crossing just south of Cair Andros, and merged with the Ithilien Road upon the farther bank.  There was still a ferry at Cair Andros now, but it journeyed only from the west shore to the fortress island, and back again.  The ferry keeper was also the officer of the guard house on this shore.

I stayed crouching at the edge of the road for a moment, then turned to the Rangers.  “If no Orcs have slain us yet,” I said, “they are not likely to for this evening.  Let us complete our approach like Men.  We’ve a lot better chance of avoiding being shot by our comrades, if we walk to their door as Men who have nothing to fear.”

The others nodded their agreement.  We unfolded ourselves from our crouching positions and stepped forth onto the road.

I felt ludicrously exposed to be standing up after our long crawl.  Trying to ignore the creeping sensation in my spine, I strode on with Svip on my back, as though I did not half expect that there’d be arrows ploughing into us at any instant.

The road curves to follow along the edge of the riverbank cliff.  We were close enough now to see the silhouettes of Men outlined on the fortress walls.  And to see the signal fire that gleamed from the West Turret, announcing our approach to the keepers of the guard house on this shore.

Directly opposite the centre point of the fortress, the two storey stone guard house stands on the west side of the road.  Across the road, stairs carved into the cliff lead down to the ferry crossing.

The guard house loomed darkly to our right, standing mostly in shadow.  I could see lamplight in the lower windows.  In an upper window, that seemed otherwise unlit, a spear of light from the falling sun shone like a beacon, piercing through the building from another window on the farther side.

As we neared the guard house, I stepped aside to let Cirion walk ahead of me.  He, at least, was expected.  And the sight of him should be less unnerving than that of the Steward’s dead heir, emerging from the red dusk with some unknown creature on his back.

The lamplight that gleamed in the guard house windows was suddenly extinguished.  It was almost too dark to be sure, but I thought that I saw the door open, and at least three figures of the height of Men slip swiftly out from the building.

“Come no further!  Identify yourselves!” a voice rang out in challenge from the shadows of the guard house.

The Rangers and I halted.  Cirion’s voice came back brusquely, “I identify myself as Cirion Son of Angantyr, Captain of the Anórien Rangers.  And if you do not recognise my voice, Lieutenant Ostoher Son of Ornendil, then the Nameless One has either made off with your hearing or your wits.”

“He has not made off with your sense of humour, Ranger,” was Ostoher’s rueful answer.  “Hail and well met, we had nearly given up hope for you.”

Cirion snorted.  “You’d have given it up entirely if you could have seen us.”  He stepped closer to the Guard officer and spoke in a tone too low for me to discern the words.  Most like, he was breaking the news of the two companions the Rangers had picked up on their travels.

One of those companions now hissed to the other, “put me down.”

I obeyed, setting Svip down beside me on the road.  I smiled as I saw him straighten his tunic and stand as tall as he could.  I thought, if Svip still has his pride, then perhaps he will live through this after all.

Gasps and startled exclamations sounded from the Men standing by the guard house, then were hastily silenced.  Lieutenant Ostoher spoke again, a shade too loudly and boisterously to hide his confusion, “ho there, within!  Get those lamps lit, will you?  It’s enough that we have to go stumbling about in this murk, we needn’t be breaking our legs on our own furniture!”

Light flickered to life again through the windows and the open doorway.  The Rangers, except for Cirion, all stood near me, and they glanced at me now with various sympathetic expressions.  I suppose that a truly grim scowl must have settled on my face, as I contemplated the number of people to whom I would have to explain how I happened to be alive.

“After you, My Lord,” Thorolf said.

Oh well, I thought.  At least I was starting out with smaller numbers.  First Cirion and his Men, and now the Cair Andros Garrison, before working up to Minas Tirith.

And really, I told myself, there wasn’t any point in explaining it more than a few times anyhow.  If I kept explaining, I’d have time for nothing else.  Perhaps I should write up a statement, and have my seneschal distribute copies to anyone who inquired about it.

“All right, Svip?” I asked quietly.  He nodded, and together we walked to the guard house, the Rangers falling into step behind us.

Lieutenant Ostoher stepped forward to meet us, and bowed.  “Welcome to Cair Andros, My Lord,” he said.  Even in that dim light, I could see that his eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates.  But he was doing pretty well, I thought, for someone who’s just had to greet a Man that all know to be dead.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.  It’s good to be back.  This is Svip of Anduin, a comrade in arms.”

Ostoher bowed again, to Svip.  After the shock of seeing me, the little green water being was clearly a sight that he could take in his stride.

“Let us go inside,” I said.  “We make fine targets out here.”

We walked into the common room of the guard house, and I continued, ignoring the flabbergasted stares aimed in my direction.

“We’re facing attack,” I said without ceremony.  “If not tonight, then tomorrow at the latest.  We won’t be able to hold the shore.  Lieutenant, send two of your Men to take the ferry across to the harbour.  I’ll inform your commander of the situation and advise that he order the rest of you back to the fortress.  But should the attack come before you receive the order, I expect you to have sense enough to retreat.  Don’t wait for orders.  At the first sign of danger you are to make for the island with all the speed you can.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Good.  I’ll see you at the island.”  With no further delay, I headed for the stone slab in the fireplace that guards the entrance to the passage under the River.  If I demonstrated that I knew how to get into the passage, I thought, perhaps it would help convince the Lieutenant that I was who I seemed.  Although that strategy had not worked spectacularly well with Cirion at Lilla Howe.

The slab pivoted open, and I lit the torch in its bracket just within the passage.  The lit torch I handed to Cirion, and I crouched down beside Svip.

“With your permission, Svip,” I said, “I’ll carry you again.  Some of the footing in the passage is treacherous; we’re familiar with it and you are not.”

He nodded and scrambled onto my back.  I stood, affecting not to notice that several of our soldiers were gaping at us and bidding fair to dislocate their jaws.

Cirion walked into the passage first, followed by me and then by the rest of the Rangers.  We descended the stone stairs into blackness – four hundred and seventy four stairs, as I knew from having counted them when I was there during the Cair Andros Campaign in my fifteenth year.  The passage then runs level under the River for another three hundred paces or so, though I have not counted them again since that year, and I still had a bit of growing left to do when I was fifteen.  It might be a few paces fewer, now.

Our path took us upward again, up the matching set of stairs in the island – only three hundred and sixteen stairs on this side, if I remembered my count correctly.  With our comrades ranged behind us on the steps, Svip and I waited on the narrow stone landing while Cirion placed the torch in one of the empty brackets and then heaved on the thick wooden door.

We emerged into an evening that seemed to have grown even grimmer with cloud and fire.  As we stepped from the passageway into the outer courtyard of the fortress, the gate of the inner wall creaked open and ten Men strode through toward us.

I set Svip down again, and we waited as they approached.

Lieutenant Ostoher would have signalled that we were taking the passage, but he’d have had no way of signalling that the slain Captain-General of Gondor was among our party.  I sighed, resigning myself to another performance of the popular comedy “Captain Boromir Returns from the Dead”.

The Men halted before us, and I recognised the commander of the Cair Andros garrison at their head.  He began, “Cirion, we’d all but given you up --”

Then he noticed me.

He gasped out, “My Lord Boromir!”

Seldom in my life have I seen anyone so profoundly shocked as was Captain Eradan Son of Ciryandil.  He took a step backward and for a moment actually swayed on his feet as if he were about to fall.

I had never seen Eradan so shaken, and I have known him since he was brought to Court as a playmate for my brother when they were five years old.  I have cleaned up plenty of his scratches, scrapes and bloody noses, I provided an alibi for him and my brother when they broke off a limb of the White Tree by swinging on it, and I held him off for an hour at swordpoint when I was guarding Faramir and Eoflæd’s bedchamber against friendly intrusions on their wedding night.  I was also Eradan’s commanding officer the first time he saw combat, I saw him slay his first Orcs, and I held him while he threw his guts up afterwards.

But I had never seen him look as stunned and horrified as he did now.

Without thinking about it I reached out and grabbed Eradan’s shoulder to steady him.  He stared at my hand on his shoulder, then gazed long and hard into my face.  He shuddered, then he swallowed and pulled himself together.

            “I really am here, Eradan,” I told him.  “It’s all right, I’m not a ghost.”

            He attempted an apologetic smile.  “Your brother was just here, My Lord,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady.  “He told me of the dream he’d had of you – and I thought -- ”  He paused, then the words rushed out, “I thought that was why you were appearing to me, My Lord.  I thought I must be having one of his visions.”

            I nodded.  I could sympathise with that thought.  It was the sort of thing I’d been thinking all too frequently myself.  Then the full import of Eradan’s words came home to me.

            “Faramir was here?” I demanded, a surge of hope stabbing through me.  “How long ago?”

            “He left not two hours since.  He and three of his Men from the Ithilien garrisons took horse from the guard house after we spotted that cloud rolling in.  He rides to the City, to warn the lord your father.  The rest of his troops just embarked by boat for Osgiliath, scarce an hour ago.”

            I nearly cursed, for a multitude of reasons.  I wanted to race back through the tunnel, requisition whatever horses Faramir might have left at the guard house stables, and set out after him with all possible speed.  To have missed him by only two hours, to know that he had probably been standing here on the walls of Cair Andros while I was inching my way across Wind Battle Plain …

            But at least I knew for certain that he was alive.  Or he had been, two hours past.

            I wished that I could recall Faramir’s Men on their way to Osgiliath, as well.  It was frustrating beyond words, to think of those troops that might have helped us hold the island, lost to us by only an hour.  But no, I told myself, I must think about this rationally.  Whether we had the Ithilien troops or not, there was scant likelihood that Cair Andros could hold back the enemy longer than a few days at the most.  Whatever became of us here, Osgiliath would face the advancing tide eventually.  Faramir’s Men might just as well make their stand at Osgiliath, as here at Cair Andros.

            There was little doubt that the same fate would overtake us all.

            “We need a council of war,” I said to Eradan.  “We’ve a lot of plans to make and not much time.  But forgive me, there’s another matter I must tend to first.”  I turned to young Holgar, standing with the other Rangers at a respectful distance behind me.  “Holgar.  Have you any duties that require your attention now?”

            Holgar cast a hesitant glance at his Captain, and Cirion answered, “not at the moment, My Lord.  My Men have leave until tomorrow – or until they are needed.”

            “Then, Holgar, will you escort Svip to the harbour?  Help him find a safe place to sleep, and see that he has whatever he may require?”

            The young Ranger’s face broke into a smile.  “Very willingly, My Lord.”  He knelt beside Svip.  “I’d be honoured to carry you, Svip, if you’ll allow it.”

            Svip hesitated, then looked up at me.  “You’ll send for me if something happens?” he asked.  “I don’t want to miss anything.”

            “I’ll send for you,” I told him.  “I swear it.”

            He held my gaze for another moment, as though trying to read in my face whether I meant it.  Then he nodded and turned away, holding out his arms for Holgar to lift him up.

            The two of them set off across the courtyard, to the Great Stairs that lead down the slope of the island all the way to the harbour.  I caught a peculiar expression on Captain Eradan’s face as I turned back to him, suggesting he was unsure whether to burst out laughing or to seriously fear for his sanity.

            “I’ll explain everything,” I said.  “But we don’t have time.”

            Our party divided up further.  Cirion took charge of Finn’s pack of maps, sent Finn and Buslai to the barracks with the firm command that they get some sleep, and ordered Thorolf to have his shoulder wound looked at by the healer immediately.  Cirion, Eradan and I made our way to Eradan’s council chamber, a long, windowless room in the second level of the fortress wall.

            Eradan sat at the table we had strewn with maps, listening in solemn silence as Cirion and I outlined our observations of the Orc army.  Cirion stood leaning on the table, while I spent most of that council of war pacing about the room.

The garrison’s scouts had brought back word of increasing enemy activity, up until two days before.  But since then, no scout sent north from the fortress had returned, nor had there been word from any of our other outposts throughout North Anórien.

            The most recent news that Eradan had was of developments across the River, in Ithilien.  My brother’s troops had won a battle there against the Men of Harad, near our refuge of Henneth Annûn.  That also had been two days ago.  It was a victory, and a worthy one, yet the forces of the Enemy massing across the Ephel Dúath were deemed too great to make it worthwhile holding the Ithilien frontier.

            It was the right decision, I thought; the only one that could have been made now, considering the insufficient manpower of our Ithilien garrisons.  We simply did not have the numbers to hold such extended front lines.

Yet I knew how it must have hurt my brother to leave Ithilien to the ravages of our foe.  I have heard him speak often enough of the beauties of Ithilien, of its flowered woodlands and hidden streams and the way that the sun and the moon shine through the waterfall at Henneth Annûn.  I knew that his soul must have bled when he turned his back on that land, knowing that the Nameless One would crush it into the lifeless desolation of Mordor.

            Then, too, came the question.  If we kept drawing back, tightening our frontiers, when would it stop?  When would we come to the point where we could withdraw no further?

I believed I knew the answer to that, as I was sure Faramir knew it as well.

            Our actions made sense.  It was the logical choice to make a strategic retreat, in Ithilien as here in Anórien.  We did not have the manpower to hold our scattered outposts.  We had to withdraw our troops to one strong, defensible location, rather than losing our Men one by one as we fought for every inch of territory.

            But yet.  I knew, as Faramir must know, where it would end.

We would never have enough Men.  We would keep pulling back, until we reached the walls of Minas Tirith.  Until we reached the place where we could retreat no longer.

            No, I thought.  Perhaps we yet had time.  Perhaps if my father sent enough troops to Osgiliath, we might yet hold them there.  Or failing that, on the causeway of Rammas Echor.  But after that – after that there was nothing.  Nothing left to stand between the Enemy and our City.

“How many Men have we here?” I asked Captain Eradan.

            “Two hundred and fourteen fit for active duty – two hundred and fifteen including you, My Lord.  Though it may be one less, if the healer thinks badly of Thorolf’s wound.  Another thirty-seven in the House of Healing – most of those are wounded that Lord Faramir left here, from his battle in Ithilien.”

            Cirion spoke up, “we saw at least five hundred in the force we passed through, that we left at the forest’s edge.  Another eight hundred, roughly, that we spotted throughout our mission, passing through the Sunland in scattered, smaller forces.  They may not all be aiming here, some may be heading for Osgiliath, but yet …”

            Eradan added, “there is word also of huge numbers massing at the Black Gate, as well as Minas Morgul.  We have no reliable figures for them, yet reckoning the forces of Southrons that were observed moving north … and the Orcs of Mordor that we have no means of reckoning …”  He threw his hands up in a gesture of despair, then he drew in a breath and went on in calm, flat tone.  “I think we may guess fifty thousand, My Lord, and not be guilty of over-estimating.  As to how much of an under-estimate it may be, that we will not know until we see them.  Nor can we know how many may strike at Cair Andros.  The majority of them may be bound for Osgiliath, or …”  He smiled grimly and shook his head.

            “Or,” I continued, smiling back at him, “we may wake up tomorrow and find them camped on our doorstep.”

            The sudden, unexpected thought occurred to me that Eradan looked older than he had the last time I had seen him, perhaps a year and a half ago.  His face seemed more lined and worn, and his blond hair, the legacy of his Rohirrim grandmother, seemed to have taken on a trace of grey – though perhaps, I told myself, that was only the effect of the candlelight.

            I stood gripping the edge of the table with one hand, studying Cirion and Eradan’s faces and seeing in them the same knowledge of our hopelessness as had struck home to me.

Yet even without hope, I told myself, much may be done.

            “We will hold the island as long as we can,” I told them.  “For as long as we can delay the enemy here, we will, until it is clear that the fortress will soon fall.  Then we will retreat to Osgiliath, and hopefully be in time to do some good there.”

            Eradan and Cirion nodded.

            I asked Eradan, “have you any messengers left here that you think would have a chance to reach Minas Tirith?  We should send my father and the Council such information as we have, both of our position here and of the findings of Cirion’s party.”

            “Yes, My Lord.  Aleksei Son of Ohtar is the best that we have.  He will make it through safely, if anyone can.”

            “Good.  Then both of you, prepare such materials as you think should be sent.  If someone will lend me paper, pen and ink, I will inform my father of our position.”

            Eradan led me to his office, adjacent to the council chamber.  His writing desk was generously supplied with all the necessary items, including a silver ink well and a vinescroll engraved pen, both of which I remembered had been gifts to him from Faramir.

            “If you’ll excuse me then, My Lord,” Eradan said, “I will inform Aleksei of his assignment.”

            “Yes.  Go.”  As he turned to leave, I called after him.  “What’s the date?”

            He blinked in surprise.  “The Tenth of March,” he replied.

            The Tenth of March, I thought.  Then it truly is eight months, since I set out seeking for Imladris.  Eight months that I was away, while our country tottered toward its ruin.

“Do you need anything else, My Lord?” he asked.

“No, nothing.  Eradan -- I’m sorry about the fright I gave you earlier.”

            He smiled.  “It’s all right, My Lord.  I’d rather have had the fright than not have you here.”

            He bowed and made his departure.  Before he was fully out of the door I had dipped the pen in the ink well and was writing swiftly, “At Cair Andros, Tenth Day of March, one hour past sunset”.  Or at least, I suppose that was the time, though with that damned murk outside, it was hard to tell.  I then launched into the salutation that I had penned so many times over the years, I could have written it in my sleep: “To My Noble Lord and Father, Denethor, Steward of Gondor, Greeting!”

            Here I paused, uncertain of how to proceed.

            The letter that I’d written a few days ago was presumably still sitting on a shelf at Lilla Howe.  Even if any messenger had been passing through the area and picked up the letter and dispatches, there was little chance that he would have made it through the enemy’s advance.  That letter was so much wasted effort, and I would just have to start again.

            I grimaced at the tauntingly empty sheet of paper.

I loathed to think of what it would be like for my father, receiving a letter from his purportedly dead son.  Although I had no doubt that the old man’s constitution could withstand it.  At least the shock would hopefully be a pleasant one.

One thing was certain: My Noble Lord and Father must be hopping mad that I’d been away for eight months in the midst of a war, and I hadn’t even sent him word of my whereabouts.

Not to mention losing the Horn of Gondor, and no doubt multiple other failings that I’d forgotten about by now, but that My Noble Lord would be sure to remind me of.

I should probably count myself lucky that I was several decades too old for him to give me a thrashing.

I shook my head, replenished my ink, and wrote.

“I send my apologies for my extended absence.  My part in the mission that took me from our realm has ended, and I am returning to Minas Tirith with all practicable haste.  I arrived at Cair Andros two hours past, travelling with the Ranger Captain Cirion Son of Angantyr and four others of his company, and a comrade of mine from beyond Gondor’s borders.

“For the last two days of our journey, we made our way through a force of Orcs numbering around five hundred, that appears aimed for Cair Andros.  We expect the attack no later than tomorrow.  We will hold them here as long as possible.  When the fortress can no longer be held, we will retreat to Osgiliath.

“My Lord, I respectfully ask that you send whatever troops we have available, to reinforce the Osgiliath garrison.  I believe there is every chance that we can turn the Enemy back at Osgiliath, as we have before.  But only if we have Men enough to constitute a defence, not a sacrifice.

            “The dispatches that this letter accompanies detail the observations of this garrison’s Rangers, of enemy movements in this region.  In my own journey by boat from Rauros I have seen enemy troops along nearly every league of the eastern shore.  In smaller numbers, but numerous enough to cause the gravest concern, their troops have penetrated to the west shores as well.  The groups that I have seen on both shores were relatively small, until the force that we encountered in these last days.  But it is evident that their master is calling them together.  When these groups are united, they will constitute a force such as has not been levelled against our country during any of our lifetimes.

“You will recall the apparent new breed of Orcs that we spoke of after last summer’s battle at Osgiliath.  My recent travels have brought me into further contact with them.  They are indeed hardier and more skilled than the Orcs we have encountered in the past, and they seem impervious to sunlight.  I know not how many of these new Orcs our Enemy may command, but we must be aware that they may turn the tide of combat in his favour.

“These next intelligences may already have reached you, but I feel it my duty to mention another aspect of the threat against us.  Saruman of the White Hand has allied himself to the power in the East, and seeks to undermine our alliance with Rohan.  I have reason to believe that he sent forth a troop of Orcs that ambushed my company north of Rauros, and I have no doubt that the Lord Saruman is behind the attacks upon our Rohirrim kinsmen.

            “On more personal matters: for much of my journey south I travelled in company with seven others, from whom I was separated by mischance at Rauros.  If any of them should pass into our land, I ask that you extend every courtesy and give them whatever assistance may lie within our power.”

            I paused, contemplating in what order I would list my former comrades.  Even I had to admit that Aragorn had become the leader of our expedition after Gandalf’s death, but I was cursed if I was going to accord him the dignity of listing him first in a letter to my father.

I should start with Legolas, I decided.  Aragorn might have a claim to the kingship of Gondor, but Legolas was a prince of unquestioned title.  So I wrote:

            “These comrades are: the Elven prince Legolas, son of King Thranduil of Mirkwood; the Dwarf Gimli Son of Gloin, of Erebor; a Ranger of the North called Aragorn son of Arathorn, known to some as Strider …”

            I stopped again, wracking my brain to remember Frodo’s family name.  I knew that I had heard it, but try as I might, I could not conjure it up.  Well, I did remember his father’s name; that would have to do.  I wrote again:

            “… and four Halflings, of a race that call themselves Hobbits, from the far Northwest: Frodo Son of Drogo; his servant Samwise Gamgee; Meriadoc Brandybuck; and Peregrin Took.  All seven have proved themselves worthy and noble companions, and true friends of Gondor.”

That might be stretching it a bit as regarded Aragorn, I thought.  Blast it, I hoped he wouldn’t do something stupid, when and if he reached Minas Tirith.  Heaven alone knew what would happen if Aragorn should declare himself King of Gondor in the midst of a battle, or some other such lunacy.  My father, I knew, would not be inclined to accept that claim without proof, nor would his temper easily brook Aragorn’s pretensions.

I sighed, my mood growing ever more grim as I thought of it.  I did not believe that Father would allow a civil war to break out while we fought for our nation’s survival – nor would Aragorn, for that matter.  But I devoutly hoped that I would have a chance to speak with my father and warn him of this claimant to Gondor’s throne, before the self-proclaimed King appeared on his doorstep.

I shook my head, with another frustrated sigh.  I should wrap this up, but I knew I must give some explanation for the stories of my death.  Frowning at the paper, I wrote:

            “I am informed that you have heard rumours of my death, and I apologise for any grief these rumours have caused you.  It may be that reports have reached you either from my above-named comrades or through others whom they have encountered on their journey, stating that I was slain above the Falls of Rauros.  I assure you that these reports were made with no intent to deceive.  I was separated from my companions under such circumstances that they could not choose but believe me dead.  No blame falls to them in this.  We were all sorely outnumbered and all fought bravely, but I must wait until I see you again before I explain these circumstances fully.  My peril was great, but I assure you I live yet, and I look forward to the day when I may present my respects to you in person.

            “I remain your devoted and obedient son, Boromir, Captain of the White Tower.”

            I heaved another sigh, scowling down at the letter.  Of a sudden it looked phenomenally unconvincing to me.  My father’s first thought, I was sure, would be that it was a forgery by some foe, who sought to control the Steward’s actions by bringing false word that his son and heir still lived.  I could hope that my father would be convinced when he recognised my handwriting.  But if I knew him, he would never entirely believe it until he beheld me with his own eyes.

            I just had to hope he would act upon the reinforcement of Osgiliath, regardless.  If it should prove that he sent no troops to their support, because he suspected my letter as a false report designed to lure our forces from where they were truly needed …

            For a moment I nearly tore up the letter, in my fear that it would prove the doom of us all.  But I had to hope that my father’s love for me would outweigh his suspicion.  And for that love, I owed him word that I lived.  I only prayed that my letter would not do more harm than good.

I folded the letter and closed it with a dollop of sealing wax.  As usual I used more force than necessary pressing my signet ring into the wax, and droplets of it spattered across the paper.

I sighed in exasperation, then I had to smile as I thought of it.  Perhaps this, at least, would convince my father that the letter was genuine.  Splattering wax by jamming my ring down too hard has long been a failing of mine, and the untidiness it creates always drove my father up a tree.

            As I stood up from the writing desk, Eradan returned.  He was accompanied by the messenger Aleksei, a dark, reed-thin Man that I vaguely remembered meeting a time or two before, when he had brought dispatches to my father.

Word of my miraculous return must already have spread though the fortress, or else Eradan had warned him.  The messenger answered my greeting with a courtly bow and a hearty “welcome back, My Lord,” and managed to avoid looking like he’d seen a ghost.

            The night seemed impossibly black, as Eradan and I walked with Aleksei outside the fortress, to the door of the passage.  As we wished him farewell and the Valar’s speed, I noticed that the sky held no trace of stars.  Of stars, or moon, or anything but the enshrouding blackness.

            The door thudded closed behind our messenger.

            “I gave him the order for Lieutenant Ostoher,” Eradan told me, “to abandon the guard house at once.  We’re moving our siege engines into place along the wall, so we can destroy the guard house if the enemy attempt to shelter in it.”  He sighed, staring up at the sky.  “I’ve just given orders that the beacon on the North Turret be lit.  It will throw at least some light upon the shore.  Though if they strike tonight, we still will scarce see them before they’re upon us.”

            For some hours of that death-black evening, I accompanied Eradan on his rounds of the fortress, inspecting our defences.  The north beacon blazed up, adding its light to that of the torches along the walls.  Yet the light seemed to be swallowed up, as if the world itself simply stopped and all about us was black nothingness.

            The beacon fire atop the North Turret cast a hint of illumination over the rippling dark of the River, and for perhaps a few yards along the bank on either side.  But Eradan was right; the Orcs could just about be building pontoons across the water and scrambling up the fortress walls, before ever we saw them.  We were fortunate, I thought, that Orcs are not known for their skills at maintaining silence.  We might not see them, but we were bound to hear them.

            It was past the fort’s regular meal hours when we finished our tour of inspection, so Eradan and I raided the kitchens.  Eradan took his bowl of stew back to his office with him, but I remained in the long, low kitchen building at the centre of the inner courtyard, chatting with the Chief Cook and his assistants while wolfing down several large helpings of their cooking.

            That chicken and barley stew and the fresh-baked bread seemed the first real food I’d had in I could not say how long -- the first that was not dried stores, raw fish and water plants, or the airy offerings of the Elves.

            The cooks were busy baking the next day’s bread.  One of the assistants, a lad of fourteen or thereabouts, asked me about my journey, so while they worked I regaled them with descriptions of Caradhras, Moria, the Argonath, and the Anduin Marshes.  I did not speak of death or my return from it, and they did not ask.  Though the eyes of the young assistants seemed very wide when they looked at me, which may, I suppose, have had something to do with my coming back from the dead.

            I filled two more bowls with stew and another bowl with apples, and grabbed a couple of loaves of the bread, assuring my long-suffering friends the cooks that it was not all for me.  The youngest assistant volunteered to help me carry the food.  We set out together, leaving the fortress proper and heading down the broad white steps to the southern end of the island, toward the harbour.

            The boy asked me if I’d found any Halflings on my voyage, so as we walked I told him what little I knew of the land, habits and history of the Hobbits.

            We found Svip and Holgar near the harbour guard house, both fast asleep.  Svip was in the water, bobbing peacefully with his head resting on an inflated leather buoy tied to a bollard on the quayside.  Nearby lay Holgar, on a folding cot that I supposed had been loaned to him by the harbour guard.

            Holgar awoke at the smell of stew.  I sent the cook’s assistant back to work, and Holgar and I sat on the stone quay while Holgar ate.  We watched our sleeping comrade and the twin beacons of the harbour towers, two more bastions of light against the all-encompassing blackness.

            “You should go up to the barracks,” I whispered, as Holgar finished eating and lay back on the quay, frowning up into the inky sky.  “Get a night’s sleep in a real bed, for a change.  I’ll stay with Svip.”

            “No, Sir,” Holgar whispered back, sitting up again.  “I’ll stay here, I don’t mind.  You’ve been away from real beds longer than I have.”

We debated it for a few moments, before I ended the discussion with the compromise that we would both stay.  Holgar ran to fetch another cot and more blankets from the Harbour Master.  I sat there staring at the sky and wishing I could make even one star appear out of that mocking emptiness.

Holgar reappeared with the cot, one of the harbour guards following with a huge stack of blankets.  He must have thought this sleeping arrangement singularly odd, but he did not voice any question.  I suppose that as the second-highest ranking Man in the kingdom, I have always been allowed a few eccentricities.  And as a Man who had died and returned, I had probably earned a few more.

I fell asleep swiftly, to the lapping of water on the quay, the soft wheeze of Svip’s snoring, and the familiar dull roar of the River.

At some point in that brief night, I started to dream.

I dreamed of Faramir.  I saw him riding alone in the sun-dappled woods of Ithilien.  He halted to let his horse drink from a stream.  As the horse guzzled thirstily, I saw Faramir sit up straighter in his saddle, his eyes betraying the sudden tension that he did not let the rest of his body show.  Moving slowly and casually, as if he were making some minor adjustment to his saddle-girth, he reached toward his sword, that hung strapped to the saddle.

Six massive Orcs stepped from the woods behind Faramir.  Their swarthy faces gleamed with sweat, their drawn swords flashed in the sunlight, and their leather breastplates were decorated with swirling patterns and handprints in what appeared to be blood.

They were grinning as they regarded my brother; grinning as if he were a toy they’d enjoy playing with, or some tender morsel they were about to devour.

Faramir’s horse raised its head, snorting in fear.  But his calming hand on its neck kept it under control.  The Orcs began strolling toward the stream.

Faramir slipped his sword free of its scabbard.  He wheeled his steed around so swiftly that the Orcs recoiled in surprise.  Brandishing his sword and keeping low over the horse’s neck, Faramir charged the Orcs.  He shouted, “Gondor!”

Then the dream changed.  The scene was now the Pelannor, before the walls of Minas Tirith.  The daylight was marred by the same murky cloud as we’d seen spread from across the River, now blocking the entire sky.  Thick, brownish haze hung over everything, imparting a twilight tinge to the world.  My City yet stood bravely, but the white walls were tinted a sickly yellow, and the spire of the Tower of Ecthelion vanished into that haze.

As I watched, five horsemen emerged from the fog, galloping toward the City.  And suddenly the day grew darker still.  Black shapes that were not clouds dove out of the sky, swooping low at the horsemen.  There were five of them, one for each of the Men.  Again and again they dove and then launched into the air again.  They circled the horsemen, taunting them, driving their horses mad.

A cry broke forth from the filthy sky.  Long, screeching, a wail that dove in and out of hearing.  It seemed to hold more hatred and more horror than any sound I had ever heard.

And in the midst of that cry I saw one of the horsemen lift some gleaming object to his lips.  And I heard, though I was not sure how the sound pierced through the cry, a clear, faint trumpet call.  The trumpet call used only by my brother, Faramir Son of Denethor.

The cry grew louder, drowning all trace of the trumpet’s notes.  The dark shapes drew together, seeming to ride toward each other along a road of stained, ruined clouds.  Then together they dove upon their prey.

I woke, lying on the cot we had borrowed from the Harbour Master.  The blanket I’d been using had fallen, and was lying on the stone quay.  Holgar on his cot and Svip in the water both slept on.

Damn these dreams, I thought.  I’d had about enough of them.  I knew we were facing our doom, I did not need dreams to tell me so.  Why couldn’t I have some boring, ordinary dream?  Why couldn’t I have the sort of dream I normally have when I’m worried; dream that I’d neglected to write a history essay because I wanted to practice longer in the armoury, and my tutor had complained to my father, or some such trivial thing?  Why did I have to keep dreaming about Faramir facing the dark?
            I stood up from the cot.  It must be dawn, I thought, or nearly so.  But it hardly deserved the name.  The sky was black no longer, but neither was there any trace of sun.  Only that thick, foul cloud, grudgingly admitting a dim half light.  If things kept on like this, we would have to keep the torches lit all day.

The air still hung as if it were made of lead.  Not a trace of breeze, not even that which usually comes just before dawn.  It was hotter than it should be at this hour, as if the fires of Mordor had rolled in upon us while we slept.

I heard something.  Something so faint I was not even sure that I heard it, just on the edge of hearing.  A sort of distant rumbling murmur, barely audible over the call of the River.

A shiver whispered through me, despite the oppressive heat.

I started across the quay, toward the Great Stairs.

A glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye made me glance back, and I saw Holgar scrambling from his cot and hurrying to follow me, and Svip leaping up onto the quay.

I nodded to the two of them as they caught up with me, and noted to my happiness that Svip seemed as alert and bright-eyed and healthy as ever.  Then we headed up the stairs, to the intermediate tower of the island’s curtain wall, facing the western shore.

The guard at the tower door saluted, and tried not to look too surprised on seeing the small, dripping form of Svip.  We entered the tower, climbing the stone spiral stairway that leads up to the wall.

As we stepped onto the wall, another guard turned to face us and saluted.  I walked to him, wondering if all of our soldiers were really growing younger, or if it was just me getting old.

I looked through the crenellation, to the shore.  I could see nothing but that weird empty twilight.  A few feet back from the riverbank, the land seemed to vanish

The guard stood beside me, scowling across the River.  “You hear it?” I asked him.

“Aye, My Lord,” he said grimly.  “I hear it, but I can’t see anything but this damned crap – begging your pardon, My Lord.”

I smiled.  “No offence taken.”  The smile swiftly vanished as I turned back to stare into the nothingness.

The sound was coming closer.  I was sure of it now.  Rolling, creaking noises such as we’d heard among the Orc army.  The creaks of their wagons, and of who knew what siege equipment they might have been assembling while they waited to launch their assault.  And the half-heard undertone that was the tread of their feet upon the plain, and the growls of excitement and blood-lust that even fear of their officers could not make them entirely restrain.

I said, “Holgar, go.  Go to Captain Eradan.  If he does not know of it already, inform him that the enemy is here.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Holgar said, and he ran.

Svip, the guard and I stood there.  Svip whispered that he couldn’t see anything.  I murmured back, “that’s all right, neither can we,” but nonetheless I lifted him up and set him down in the crenellation, so he too could gaze into the bruised yellow-grey emptiness that masked the dawn.

If the storm were about to break, I wished that it would get it over with.  Let it break upon us and do its worst.  Anything, so long as this damnable heavy nothingness broke as well.

Come for us, you bastard, I whispered in my mind.  Make your play.  Take us, if you can.

Out of the haze came a conch shell trumpet call.  A dozen catapults fired at once.  Most of their missiles fell short, slamming into the walls and vanishing in the River far below.  A few sailed over the wall, and I saw at least two of them burst into flame.

The storm had broken at last.