Story Downloaded from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net)
Title: The Boundaries of Time (#1432)
Author: Gypsum
Chapters: 7
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Archive: Tolkien
Category: Lord of the Rings
Description: Aragorn's journey with Gollum from the Dead Marshes to Mirkwood
Published: 09 Dec 2004
Updated: 30 Dec 2004
Warnings: Some violence
Type: General
Characters: Aragorn/Gollum
Chapter 1 - The Plains of Anórien
I want to thank everyone who beta'd this story, namely dragonlady7, Chathol-linn, and of course fliewatuet who has read through it almost as many times as I have. You all = the best!! This would be a mess without you. I also want to thank everyone at HASA for any insight they offered, as well as their great resource section. I also want to acknowledge councilofelrond.com and the Encyclopedia of Arda as tremendously useful resources. Last of all, thanks to my ex-roommate, Tolkien-geek extraordinaire, who put up with all my stupid questions.
* * *
“If a man must walk in sight of the Black Gate, or tread the deadly flowers of the Morgul Vale, then perils he will have. I, too, despaired at last, and I began my homeward journey. And then, by fortune, I came suddenly on what I sought: the marks of soft feet beside a muddy pool.”
-Aragorn (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Aragorn crossed Anórien uneventfully. He met one merchant crossing the plain in his wagon, but other than glowering with suspicion through bristling eyebrows and a dwarf-like beard, the merchant gave no hurt to him and offered Aragorn extra food and a skin of water in exchange for one of the many knives Aragorn carried.
“Alas, it is a foreboding sign of these ill times when Gondorian merchants trade food for weapons in their own lands,” Aragorn said after thanking the merchant for his kindness. His thanks were mere propriety of course since the man could not be said to have acted out of kindness, but even in the darkest times propriety and law must prevail.
The man scowled, dark gray eyes narrowing as though he thought Aragorn a madman, then he cracked the whip at his lumbering draught horse. Aragorn watched as the wagon dwindled to a speck against the splendid mountain range. Ominous clouds hovered above the peaks. Snow fell in the high country, in Minas Tirith, in the foothills of the Ered Nimrais. Was Minas Tirith the merchant’s destination, a perilous journey from here; unless one took the long way around? The straight road led through the broken fort of Osgiliath, the deserted city on the riverbanks. Once a thriving port, the principal city of Gondor, ere civil war and plague in the early Third Age had ravaged and destroyed its great dome, its magnificent bridge and stonework, and its people fled to Minas Tirith and Ithilien. Now its ruins were a haggard bulwark, holding Sauron’s forces to Anduin’s eastern shore.
Another two days found Aragorn standing upon the steep banks of swift-flowing Anduin, pale gray limestone tilted at various cants, burnished by flood and wind, pitching into thin white strips of sandy beach. The river spanned a furlong, running deep and fast, its bluish-gray depths boiling with treacherous white water. Not even he could swim that current. Kneeling upon the top of the limestone cliffs, he frowned upon the river. It was a practice of the Gondorian army to conceal small boats beneath brush and cliff along the bank for ferrying troops and supplies across the river in secret. All bridges were closely watched by the Enemy, but forty years ago when Aragorn served Ecthelion, small dinghies on the Great River had passed unnoticed.
He hoped to find the boats and convince the troop of soldiers guarding them that it was a wise idea to ferry him across the river. While his gray eyes and dark hair looked Gondorian, his accent and raiment marked him as a stranger and he feared they would think him an enemy spy and slay him. Still, better to face a small troop of men than the legions holding the stone bridge at Osgiliath. Should they refuse him, he must either employ all the stealth at his command and slink through Osgiliath or attempt to hijack a boat during the night and row in stealth across the river. The former had nigh impossible odds, and the latter reminded him of the Nodolantë, the tale of Fëanor’s flight from Valinor and the Kinslaying, his battle with the Teleri, for they would not lend him their ships. The curse of Manwë shall be on me if I take the boats of my own kin, Aragorn thought wryly. The Valar willing, it shall not come to that. He rose and walked along the bank, seeking signs of the hidden boats.
Though he found no boats in the immediate area – they could be anywhere between Osgiliath and Cair Andros – he came upon a trampled path from the river, ripping up the brush, tearing soil, and flaying open the net of low branches. Aragorn squatted down upon the makeshift path, examining the tracks. A number of two-legged creatures wearing heavy, iron boots had passed this way in a great hurry. Orcs. Inhaling sharply, Aragorn drew his sword and sprang to his feet. The company of approximately a dozen orcs had milled around here for some time – the ground around the riverbank was torn up for a wide swath in concentric circles and droplets of dark red blood flecked the leaves of trees and a clump of ferns. They had scuffled, no uncommon thing for orcs, who would kill each other as joyously as they would kill a Man or Elf. Then they had bolted down the path leaving a trail of destruction through brush and bough, clear enough for a blind man to trace. Their tracks were not more than a day old. Somehow they had crossed Anduin in the wilds undetected, for he doubted they had crossed at Osgiliath or come here from some encampment on the Western bank. Curious, Aragorn followed the path of flattened foliage leading down the bank to the river.
Rising above the roar of white water, the guttural and foul speech of Orcs came to his quick ears. As silently as a wraith, he crept through the cypress and low sage brush towards the river, and there behind a boulder worn smooth by water he crouched, immobile as a stone, barely breathing.
The Gondorians were not the only ones using small watercraft to furtively slip across Anduin’s great span! Before him, three orcs guarded two wooden dinghies pulled upon the shore. The boats had not the elegance of Gondorian craft. They looked as if they sat low and heavy in the water and had rounded, blunt bows and squared sterns, but were serviceable nonetheless. One orc sat upon the gunwales taking swigs of foul-smelling ale while the other two paced along the shore of pale gray and white sand, pausing often to stoop over, collect small rocks, and fling them into the churning river. Three bored guards Aragorn could slay before they knew what struck them. Take the boat and then row to the Eastern shore, thereby avoiding feeling as though he followed Fëanor’s ill path. Commandeering the boats of his enemies did not unsettle him.
At once Aragorn leapt out from behind the bank, crying “Elendil!” His first blow caught the Orc on the gunwales in the neck, and the creature fell dead into the boat with a strangled howl. His second blow slashed open the breast of another orc, and it too contorted its face in agony and died. By then, the last had drawn its notched scimitars and sprang upon him. His blade came down upon its helm, shattering it and cleaving the Orc’s head in two. Cries and the roar of iron-shod feet crashing through dead leaves and over rock arose from the woods. Wasting no time, Aragorn plunged his sword through the hull of the boat with the dead Orc in it. He rued leaving the other Orcs stranded upon the West bank to harry Gondor, but he did not want them tailing him. Then he shoved the other boat into the water, splashing through icy water halfway up his calves before the boat floated. His toes went numb. The swift current flung the heavy boat into his legs, and he vaulted over its gunwales.
Once he righted himself in the boat, he paddled like mad for the eastern shore. The boat bucked upon the white water like an unbroke horse. Waves crashed over the bow and the gunwales. Aragorn had to point his bow downstream and paddle with all his strength as the boat dove down a drop and sprang out of a hole, flinging its bow to the sky. Hitting that broadside would flip him in an instant. He backpaddled hard, spinning the boat round a pair of sharp rocks jutting from the river like the towers of Thangorodrim. He plunged over another series of drops, and then the rode the waves, bouncing and leaping. At length he caught an eddy and paddled into sand bank. Here he leapt out of the boat, pulled it ashore, and then punched holes in the hull with his sword. Even though Orcs already had entered Anórien, he would not leave a boat available for more to invade Gondor’s borders. Thus he too was trapped here between Anduin’s fierce waters and the Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow. Grimly he shoved the boat back into the river and with a pang of sorrow, watched the river toss it about as if it was naught more than a piece of driftwood, and then it consumed it; the little boat vanished beneath the gray and white water.
The companions of those Orcs he had slain would soon come through the forest. No longer did they have seaworthy boats, but still they could fire arrows across the river. Aragorn drew his hood over his head. He picked up a fast pace and vanished into the woods.
---------------------------------------------
I am aware that in book canon, Aragorn gave the ring of Barahir to Arwen when he plighted his troth to her in Lórien thirty-seven years before this narrative takes place. Though I am quite neurotic about sticking to canon in every detail (c.f. the long footnote explaining my digression), I decided to bend this one aspect of it, since the ring is a useful object to focus the narrative on now and then and important to some of the broader themes in this story.
Chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Morgul Vale
The Ephel Dúath, a towering wall of serrated peaks and sheer cliffs of shadow, blotted out sun and stars. Beyond the woods bordering Anduin, the land became desolate: dusty and bleak, blemished by jagged rocks. The earth was barren, of gray dust and cruel black rock. Poisonous fumes spewed up from vents discharging gases searing the lungs and eyes. No cool breezes bringing hope and life blew here. The air was stale, oppressive, and sweltering, for volcanic fumes from Mordor eddied in the Vale. There was no water and the plant life was sparse; spiny cacti, poisonous flowers, and brush with barbs that rent like knives.
Brooding gloom caked the desolate tors, the cragged spurs of Ephel Dúath thrusting down to the broken vale. The summit of the Mountains of Shadow was swathed in cloud and ash and smoke, black as a moonless night. The fumes sickened him; Aragorn trudged through the sharp rocks and twisted brush. Though the very air he breathed scalded his lungs and tears stung his eyes, he persisted slogging across the wasteland. To the past his mind wandered, and he thought this could be no worse than the flight of the Noldor across Helcaraxë or the captivity of Húrin, Beren, and Finrod in the dungeons of Morgoth.
The morose cloud of ash hugging Mordor and Ephel Dúath veiled the Ered Nimrais in an impregnable black and gray haze. How it tempted him to turn away from this desolate place of misery and despair at the ends of the earth and flee to the North or even Gondor! But he held to his way and never turned aside. Knowledge of Middle-earth’s fate should Sauron find the Ring strengthened his resolve. In his veins flowed the blood of great heroes of Beleriand like Dior, Eärendil, Beren, and Túrin, who had pursued the Enemy unceasingly to their deaths. Hardship and pain would not stop him.
Had he traveled straightway, the distance between Minas Morgul and Anduin was not more than a two days’ walk. But in a meandering course he wandered for four days hither and thither through the foothills of the Ephel Dúath, searching for Gollum’s tracks. Then on the fifth day, the ominous shadow of Minas Morgul itself, the city of the Ringwraiths, lanced him like a spear wielded by a stone-giant. Still, Aragorn could not see the city. It lay one day more to the Southeast, concealed by high ridges and cragged defiles.
The sulphuric stench of fumaroles rose to his nostrils and he saw noxious green and gray steam belching from the ground not fifty feet to his right. Covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve, he turned away from the vent, but it was too late and before long dizziness swept over him. He sank down upon the ground, head between his knees, resting his eyes from the twirling mirages. As he rested underneath the shadow of a boulder, he heard rough voices, clanking metal, and hard boots stomping against rock and earth. A large company of orcs. For several breathless minutes, Aragorn waited, listening. They spoke a disfigured version of Westron rather than their own coarse tongues. It must be more than one tribe, then, for languages amongst orcs varied enough that orcs from one region or tribe did not comprehend the tongues of orcs from another.
“You smell somethin’?”
Aragorn hearkened the sound of sniffing and growling.
“Manflesh!”
“’ere? What’s a Man doing ‘ere?”
“Spyin’ of course. Hunt ‘im down, boys!”
In wide, concentric circles they searched, drawing ever closer to Aragorn’s hiding place underneath the basalt boulders. He rued the poison fumes fogging his mind – he had not been as careful as he would otherwise have been and left them a trail to follow. The Orcs would find him. Hope fled his heart. But not in vain would he die! Weak as he was, they had not found him yet; the element of surprise would work in his favor. He unsheathed his sword. The moment the orcs came close enough for their stench to furl his nostrils, he gathered what strength remained and rushed at them, sword brandished high. His swift attack stunned them, and he slew two before they besieged him like a pack of rabid curs. Blades clashed. Aragorn maimed a third orc and turned upon a fourth, breathing labored as the air burned and choked his lungs, battling exhaustion and strain as furiously as he battled his enemies. Alas, he failed on both counts. He felt a sharp blow across the back of his head. There was agony and then there was nothing. Death perhaps bearing him away at last.
* * *
Though none of Ilúvatar’s Younger Children knew of their fate after death, Aragorn imagined it was peaceful, liberated from the sorrows and toils of the word. There should be neither pain nor sweltering heat. There should be neither foul odors nor grating voices. There should be no rough hands clawing at his shoulder, jerking him about, flinging him upon his back and forcing vile-tasting, acidic liquid down his throat, which caused him to sputter and cough and thrash in protestation, and brought consciousness back like a blow to the head. He was not dead after all. The hands pinned him against the ground and depraved Orc voices laughed at his suffering and more liquid was forced into him. In spite of its astringent taste, it brought warmth to his stomach and strength to his mind and body. He knew enough of orcs to recognize the liquid from stories and scrolls; a powerful tonic that could ease many hurts if the taste of it alone did not kill, sometimes used to enliven a prisoner so that information could be tortured out of him. They will cure me to torment me, Aragorn thought, recalling with a shudder tales of those captured and enslaved by Orcs, so I shall not respond to it.
The Orcs shook him violently. “It’s not working,” one said.
“Who’s fault is that, Snegrath? You’re the fool who hit ‘im in the ‘ead.” The owner of the second voice kicked Aragorn in the ribs, and it took all Aragorn’s will to not do more than curl up in pain. Lie still he must, for heavy boots in his ribs would be the least of his agonies should his captors think him closer to life than death.
Spitting vile curses upon Aragorn and upon one another, the Orcs flung him aside and lurched to their main encampment. Greatly relieved to be let alone, he considered his predicament. Sharp rocks bore into his side and hip, but he feared movement of any sort would draw their attention again; better to withstand discomfort and prolong his life. The Orcs had bound his wrists together with rough rope, which chafed painfully at his flesh, but they had not bound his feet. They had also removed all weaponry, but left him his mail corslet and the ring of Barahir. If hording treasure be their mission, why leave him the ring and the mail? He wondered that he was still breathing, for Orcs were not known for mercy or for taking prisoners. A stroke of fortune indeed; the same luck that had brought Barahir to the aid of Finrod Felagund, who was cut off from his people and surrounded by his enemies and would have been slain had Barahir not risked great peril to rescue him. Aragorn shut his eyes and his fingers went to the two emerald-eyed serpents.
“The Eye wants ‘im alive,” the Orc called Snegrath grunted, bringing Aragorn back to the present. “That’s the orders, lads, to bring anything caught wanderin’ these lands to ‘im alive. For questionin’.”
“This one’s already ‘alf dead,” said a new voice. “He won’t be much good for questionin.’”
“And we ain’t had much to eat ‘cept moldy bread since we left Lugbúrz with you rats,” complained a third. “You think the Eye’ll notice if you don’t bring back one prisoner?”
“We ‘ave our orders,” snarled Snegrath, “and intend on keepin’ to ‘em.”
“And we’re ‘ungry! ‘e’s not walkin’ anyway, so we ‘ave to drag him all the way to Lugbúrz? Might as well drag a bloody corpse.”
“Why are you complaining? You ain’t doing the dragging.”
The harsh voices went back and forth for some time. Aragorn guessed that one group of orcs was from Minas Morgul, the other from Barad-dûr, and the Barad-dûr orcs ostensibly had orders from their dark master to not indiscriminately kill Men and Elves found wandering within their borders, while the Minas Morgul orcs had less compunction and saw more value in satiating their appetites with flesh than in appeasing Sauron. Either way, death was inevitable if he did not escape. But orcs were not attentive creatures and a distraction, food or a skirmish amongst their ranks, which was brewing in any event, might provide him with an opportunity for flight.
And so did he shut his eyes and abide his time. For a long while, he was left lying on the borders of the orc encampment, but after some hours Snegrath stomped over to him, spitting, “You’re still ‘alf dead. Well, not much can be done about it now and you’re still comin’ along with us.” The Orc bent down, touching Aragorn’s face with hands ice cold like a dead fish, prodding him with a scythe-like knife, and he grunted, “Well, you ain’t all the way dead yet. You’ll be of some use.” Grunting some words in the cruel language of Mordor Orcs, he grabbed Aragorn’s shoulders and heaved him over onto his back.
Aragorn kicked out, catching the Orc in the groin so he uttered a yelp and fell on top of him. He was heavy and hot, reeking of rotting carrion and alcohol. They struggled in the dust. Grimy Orc nails reaching for his windpipe clawed bleeding furrows in his neck. The Orc stuck the scythe into Aragorn’s breast, but the chain mail foiled it. Its curved tip caught upon the rings. In the Orc’s moment of confusion as he struggled to free the weapon from the mail, Aragorn rolled over on top of him and got his hands around the Orc’s throat. With the strength bequeathed to him by desperation, he held onto the thrashing and moaning Orc until he thrashed no more. Badly short of breath himself, he rolled off his vanquished foe and lay in the dust, panting and coughing up blood. He pulled the scythe free of his mail and cut loose his bound hands with it.
Over three dozen orcs had set up a camp fifty or so yards away, a number Aragorn would be hard pressed to battle single-handedly in the best of health and strength, and in this moment he had neither. Already their scuffle had alerted those in the camp to something going amiss and in seconds, they would set upon him and kill him. He had to flee into the craggy hills at the foot of the Ephel Dúath, a precarious place to hide indeed, but he had grasped at tenuous threads of life, and he had won thus far. Light and hope pierced him, a smiting and transplendent thought that the shadow was no more than a passing thing and the light of Ilúvatar would prevail in the end.
His assortment of weapons had been thrown callously into an immense pile of daggers, swords, knives, and bows the orcs had assembled in their rampaging and pillaging. Though he regretted losing the sword, it was hardly worth losing his life to retrieve. His foe had been heavily armed. From the body Aragorn collected the scythe, a small dagger, a broadsword, and a skin of water.
“Where are they?”
“ ‘ow long does it take to drag a bloody prisoner over ‘ere?”
The grating voices intensified as the orcs advanced. Hastily Aragorn knelt behind a rock and thrust his arsenal into his belt and cloak, and then he vaulted over another boulder and ran to the lee side of another. Enraged curses floated to his ears: the orcs had found their comrade dead and their prisoner gone astray. Before they could commence a search, Aragorn crawled over the rocks, clinging to the basalt so as to leave no track, clambering into the nethermost coombs, the vast crevasses and faults slicing through the Ephel Dúath.
A vista of serrated peaks rearing for the dark sky stretched before him, and not more than two miles to the North, high on its rocky seat at the knees of the Ephel Dúath, the gloomy walls and tower of Minas Morgul guarded the mountains and Cirith Ungol. Aragorn gazed northwards, shading his eyes as he oriented his position, well to the south of anywhere he desired to be. He had feared as much. The orcs had carried him some leagues south, for he had been approaching Minas Morgul from the North, aiming to investigate Cirith Ungol while remaining several miles distant from Minas Morgul itself. Now he had to travel just beneath its villainous battlements.
All was dark about it, the earth and sky, yet it glowed with a light paler than moon and stars. The mere sight of Minas Morgul plunged Aragorn’s spirit into gloom. His ancestors had safeguarded it for a thousand years when it stood proud as Minas Ithil, Tower of the Moon, a gem in the paradise of Ithilien, and the blood of Westernesse infused strength into Men. In these dark days the blood of Númenor was all but exhausted, the Ring found at last, the Enemy’s strength swelling. But Sauron did not have the Ring yet – it was in the possession of a hobbit, a race Gandalf, one of the Wise, had a great deal of faith in -- nor had he yet slain Elendil’s heir.
Below him, Aragorn saw the Orcs crawling about, searching for a track, but he had vanished like a wraith, melting into the shadowy foothills. He hid in a crevasse just wide enough for him to brace his knees against one side and his back against the other, the broadsword drawn in the event he was found, his heart beating a heavy rhythm. Find him they did not, though they searched exhaustively. Perhaps a more patient and exacting search would have led the Orcs to Aragorn’s hiding-place, but Orcs, especially when angered, were impatient creatures and under the best of circumstances they were not exceedingly clever.
As night fell and the Orcs abandoned their search, Aragorn cautiously climbed out of his crevasse, chimnying up the sheer walls and resting upon the crest, concealed from view of any creature below by toothy ridges jutting from the hogback. Minas Morgul glowed a dim and pallid green in the dark. Aragorn gazed at the sky seeking Eärendil, a flare of hope, but no stars pierced the ashen sky. The only visible light being the evil green glow cast by Minas Morgul on the side of a long, tilted valley, a deep gulf of shadow reaching far back into the mountains. Tomorrow Aragorn would waylay festering doubts that Gollum had gone that way. Tonight, he must rest and examine his wounds as best he could, given that he loathed the idea of removing his cloak or mail in this noxious place.
Dried blood encrusted the back of his head and neck. Fresh blood oozed from raw and painful flesh on his wrists and oozed from the four claw-marks in his neck. He tore off two strips from his cloak and wrapped his wrists, and he cleansed the furrows on his neck with spit and a drop of water. Until he reached Ithilien where the flowers were not deadly to the touch and the water not poisonous, and there clean the wounds with fresh water, these makeshift bandages would have to do. Better to wrap the wounds in the soiled cloth than let them be infected by falling ash and dust. Tired from his ordeal, he tried to sleep upon the rock face, a restless sleep tossing and turning, listening fearfully to the night-noises with one ear open.
Thus Aragorn was still exhausted when feeble tendrils of morning sunlight pushed their way through cloud and ash – what would, by some, be called dawn. It was always dark here. Menacing black clouds clung to the tower of Minas Morgul, casting the valley where the city huddled against the Ephel Dúath in shadow, and a faint bloodied light glowed sullenly within the dark clouds and mist covering Mordor beyond the mountain range.
Wounds and fatigue harried him as he trudged over the rocks. Should orcs or other chattel of Sauron attack him now, he felt sure he could not withstand it. Yet his luck did not forsake him. He encountered few living creatures in the crags of Ephel Dúath, not even snakes and lizards. Only crows circled high overhead; spies of Sauron they well might be, but they would not harm him themselves.
By his will alone, he pressed onward. A route he held high above the long valley, climbing wearily over the black volcanic rock, sharp and unforgiving, gashing and scraping himself anew every time he slipped or stumbled. In this way he found himself creeping beneath its battlements, oppressed until he could not will his limbs to move.
As he crouched beneath the southernmost wall, terror keener than any he had ever known in all his long life clutched him. He had come so far; he could not give in now. He crawled along the wall, shoulder pressed against chilled stone, until he reached the gap in the bulwark where the road proceeded through the gate, two hideous stone sentinels, gaping, disfigured demons baring vicious fangs, atop intricately filigreed columns guarding the causeway. The gate itself was a cavernous maw in the northward walls. Cirith Ungol lay two miles down a road crawling deviously up the side of the valley towards the gate, crossing a stream from which steam rose in insalubrious wisps wrapping around the ghostly white bridge. Behind the walls of the city stood the tower gleaming with a ghastly fallow light illuminating nothing. The top tier of the tower rotated, a steady back and forth motion like an unblinking pale eye surveying its realm.
A steep drop-off from the road to a culvert alongside it afforded Aragorn some scanty protection. On his hands and knees, he crept through the culvert lest he be espied by the evil fortifying Minas Morgul, the Nazgûl and other fell things dwelling behind the battlements. His eyes he averted from the hideous tower until he reached the white bridge and the wide flats flanking the stream trickling silently from the city. Luminous flowers speckled the flats, beautiful yet disfigured and corrupted images from a nightmare. They stank of rotting flesh, of death and of decay. Who knew if they were deadly to the touch? If Aragorn did not cross the bridge, he must pass through the flowers and jump the rill. From where he huddled on the bank, a chill colder than death brushed his face -- the deadly touch of foul steam wafting from the rivulet. He must cross the road, and it seemed wiser to cross in the dark instead of upon the pale bridge in full view of the city. Holding his breath, he negotiated the flat, stepping over and around the flowers, hopped across the water and dropped upon his stomach on the other side of the flat. Here he crawled to the road and gazed down its steep and winding descent to Cirith Ungol.
All warmth fled from his body. The steam of Morgulduin’s tributary had brushed him and cast a chill upon him as he had jumped the stream. For several minutes he lay on the stony bank. His keen vision blurred; the rocks and fulsome green tower shimmering in a netherworld of haze.
The only sound in his ears was his anxious breathing in the ghoulish silence. Silently Aragorn crossed the road and began his descent. But he collapsed amongst the rocks and lay still for a time until he perceived shadows slinking about the walls, reason to withdraw further from Minas Morgul and climb behind a pile of jagged boulders fallen from the cliff. There, his eyes failed him and the shadows rending the tors deepened, darkness accursed and forlorn and more fearsome than the deepest chasm in Moria. Aragorn shivered. It was cold, so very cold. Minas Morgul itself glowed, a translucent light growing ever more luminous, a lance brighter than the sun stabbing his eyes, and yet he could not forestall his gaze, though hot tears coursed down his cheeks and the pain was unendurable. A bloodcurdling screech arose from the city. Six figures swathed in black robes riding black horses sprang forth from the gate. Terror overcame him and wrenched him from his torpor, and he flung his forearm before his eyes, blocking the stabbing light. Abruptly the shrieks fell silent and some great force cast Aragorn upon his back so that he came to lie gazing at the pitch black, starless sky. The haziness clouding his eyes dwindled, and while things remained blurry around their edges, his sight came back to him. All was silent as a tomb but for the breath sobbing in his throat. Trembling, he crawled to a cumbrous gap between two rocks. The pale city held its venomous breath and did not stir. No horsemen rode hence from its gates. “Tiro nin, Elbereth,”[i] he whispered.
What were the six horsemen Aragorn had seen galloping from the leering gate? A vision, then, the foresight of his Númenorean lineage troubling him with premonitions of the doom Sauron would unleash. Maybe it was no more than delirium, the poisons from the Morgulduin and the deadly flowers contaminating his mind, dissembling his sight. Whichever it had been, it had passed like a lethal yet swift-moving squall. If it was delirium, then he should let it be and if not, it presaged an uncertain future and he was more concerned with surviving the present.
Furtively he crept down the rock wall just abreast of the road towards the stairs of Cirith Ungol, keeping his body pressed to the ground and rocks. Alone in this dreadful place, he had not the palest hope of survival should one of the watchers in the towers pierce him with a well-aimed arrow. He considered the chances that one had shot Gollum, putting a quick and just end to the wretched creature’s miserable life. A fainter hope than Aragorn’s hope of tracking Gollum, for the little footpad who had eluded even the Mirkwood Elves was too wily to be easily slain from the watchtowers of Minas Morgul.
At long last Aragorn arrived at the pass two miles below the city, a series of treacherous, steep stairs carved into the sheer, black cliffs. The pass reached to the looming clouds at the top of the mountains, beyond Aragorn’s sight. Few creatures, good or evil, hazarded the precarious stairs, for a single misstep caused a deadly fall for a thousand feet or more. And should one survive the climb, the evil in the tunnels at the summit never slept and was not beholden even to Sauron.
Aragorn knelt upon the bottom stairs, looking for a track or any other sign in the iron-gray dust suggesting that some creature had recently passed this way. He climbed up the stairs about one hundred feet, often bending on one knee, brushing the rock with his fingers, studying every mark and depression in the sand. For all he saw, the pass was long abandoned. Neither orcs nor anything else had trod the fatal stairs. Gollum, if he had been in or out of Mordor at all, had either traveled by a different road or crept so stealthily that not even a Ranger could hunt him. Breathing a curse at Minas Morgul, the Pass of Cirith Ungol, and his own foolishness and pride, he rested upon a flat ledge overlooking the Minas Morgul, disconsolate, coughing up more blood and catching his laboring breath and wiping sweat off his brow with his sleeve. His limbs were tremulous and a fierce headache brewed, the affliction of the Morgulduin’s fulsome poisons.
He could continue to search the pass for Gollum, but exhausted and ailing as he was, the redoubtable ascent would be ill-advised and deadly. If Aragorn had found neither track nor trace of Gollum down here, he doubted his odds of finding it closer to the summit. Wearily he pulled himself to his feet with a spire-like rock and limped down the pass. More coughing fits assailed him.
Once he stood upon firm earth again, he searched for signs in the dust near the head of the stairs, but he expected to find naught and indeed, his search yielded naught. Resting his back against a boulder concealing him from the tower’s watchful eyes, Aragorn entertained the idea that Gollum had exited Mordor via the Black Gate after all. He did not understand how the craven creature would be so courageous, for the Morannon was heavily guarded and afforded few hiding places. The Pass had seemed to him a more likely route to Gollum, a secret way through the Ephel Dúath into Mordor. Though he desired to dismiss the idea as ludicrous and leave this blackened land, he could not cast it aside without regret. Stranger things had happened. While the chance remained that Gollum had passed through the Black Gate, Aragorn would uphold his duty and seek him there.
Continuing his journey through the foothills of Ephel Dúath until they intersected with Mordor’s northern mountain range -- Ered Lithui, the Ash Mountains -- at the Morannon would be fatal. Not too much longer could he walk through the desolate, poisonous land alone and injured without food and substantially more water than the inadequate skins he had pilfered from the dead Orc. He pined for glittering snowcapped peaks, for cold and clear rushing rivers pounding glorious music against the rocks, for ancient and beautiful forests of fragrant trees, for windswept plains rolling to the horizon, rising and falling like the sea.
A spiral of dust, disturbed by a whisper of air expelling its last breath in the stale valley, settled near his right hand. Absently he scooped up a handful, black and sooty, and let it sift through his fingers. The only way to survive then was to prolong his quest by swinging around through Ithilien and then approaching the Morannon through Dagorlad, the Battle Plain, and the Slag Hills. In Ithilien, he could replenish his food and water, treat his wounds, and recover his strength before he imperiled himself at the Morannon. Armies passed daily through its ramparts and raised a substantial risk of getting captured or killed. And traveling through Ithilien’s glades without leave from the Steward of Gondor or in the very least the captain of the Rangers of Ithilien violated the law of Gondor, but was a safer road than journeying in the confines of Mordor. Aragorn had faith in his ability to talk his way out of a confrontation with soldiers of Gondor. Although these dark days and the heightened activity in Mordor gave them grounds to be suspicious of strangers, they would not shoot a man first and ask questions afterwards. At least Aragorn hoped not, though Gandalf had spoken darkly of an evil thing eating away at the mind of the Steward. Nevertheless the Steward’s son, Faramir, commanded Ithilien, and the stories Aragorn had heard described him as fair of heart and clear of mind. Perhaps not so swift to shoot.
--------------------------------------------
[i] Sindarin: “May Varda watch over me.”
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Chapter 3 - Ithilien
The road, a giant gash incising the mountain, plunged into the Morgul Vale. Orcs and other fell beasts trod its rough-hewn surface and Varda only knew how diligently the Ringwraiths surveyed the solitary entrance to their lair, so Aragorn scrambled through the washed-out, tumbled rocks abreast of it, tottering and slipping upon loose rubble, plodding downhill like a footsore soldier. On one calamitous stumble, loose rock avalanched beneath him; he slid down a rock face about fifteen feet and landed roughly, twisting his right ankle between the fangs of two boulders. Defying pain, he bore weight on it nonetheless. He could not descend this mountain on one leg.
At length the road flattened and bent northwards towards a massive rock overhang, a shelf throwing across it an impermeable shadow. Exhausted from toil and weak from hunger and illness, Aragorn fell to his knees a furlong south of the shelf. The right ankle throbbed, but as with all of his other wounds, nothing could be done for it until he arrived in friendlier country. What little water remained in the Orc skins was warm and tasted putrid and vile, as though the Morgul Vale’s taint of decay had saturated it, but Aragorn’s throat and mouth were parched for want of water, thus he swallowed a few drops all the same. Then wearily he rose and hobbled towards the massive overhang. He had not the time to rest here.
Though the towering walls of Mordor now stood at his back, the land remained black and forbidding. To the west, a dim light glowed in the mist; muted hope shining far off in Gondor. The light vanished when he passed beneath the looming rock shoulder. Concealed by the murky shadow, he rested for a few hours, stretched out upon his side, exhausted but unsleeping.
One day moved into two as he plodded along the road, which began a slow ascent out of the valley and curved into a primeval forest of widely spaced ash trees and giant oaks of enormous girth. To his left the far off Ered Nimrais shimmered, blue and gray in the ever-present twilight, and behind him was darkness, the Ephel Dúath’s hard and menacing ridges. Not a living creature stirred. An eerie silence enveloped this place. Aragorn abandoned the road and flitted from one shadow to another. Though he was accustomed to solitude, the tomb-like stillness and loneliness of the forest made his bones ache. He thought perhaps that a fire had consumed this forest, destroying all life but for the trees whose fathomless roots ran deep and strong. The tops of the trees were gnarled and bent, contorted into grotesque shapes, playing tricks upon the eyes in the lackluster glow of unceasing dusk. Mystical demons rather than trees sneered in the dark and raked at the sky with curving, bone-white claws.
Aragorn searched through the sparse vegetation for herbs with which to soothe his injuries, but the only plants growing here were woodland hyacinth and celandine, neither one a medicinal herb. Athelas he did not expect to find until he crossed into Ithilien’s borders, for it was not a native plant of Middle-earth but rather one brought across the sea by the Númenoreans and thus only grew where Dúnedain had dwelt. A gray mist clung between the dead trees, and he felt the cold bite of the Morgulduin delving into his bones. He limped steadily along beneath the twisted and pale branches, oft using the Orc broadsword as a crutch.
It seemed as though he could go no further. The hazy film of fatigue passed in front of his eyes; it seemed the furious pain in his ankle flamed and it would bear wait no longer. At that moment the song of water falling over rock chimed through the forest. Pain and fatigue had blinded his eyes from the life springing forth round him: groves and thickets of flowering buds, soft moss spread upon the ground like carpet in a royal hall, tamarisk and lilies, pungent sage and junipers, ancient oaks and birches planted by men long ago and then forgotten and allowed to grow untamed; a cacophony of groping vines and gnarled branches ensnarling and entangling one another.
Aragorn fell to his knees beside the banks of a clear and cold stream. Oblivious to its icy bite, he scooped up water in his hands and swallowed gulps of it -- sweet and fresh water, the taste of life. He splashed it upon his face, upon the gashes in his neck, and then unwrapped the tattered cloak binding the wounds on his wrists and held his hands beneath the frigid water, gasping in relief as the stream washed over the chafed skin, cleansing and bearing away the ache of the rope burns. After Aragorn had satiated his thirst and felt some vigor flowing through his battered body, he crawled through the brush searching for herbs. Sweet water did not cure all ills, but it threatened to push to its last throw the shadow that Minas Morgul had spread across his heart. Bushes and thorns scraped at his flesh, perforated his cloak, and got matted in his hair, but he ignored it. Beneath pungent sagebrush he found athelas at last.
Aragorn would have liked a pot to heat the herbs in boiling water, but most of his gear had been lost. Heat strengthened the potency of athelas. Yet even when crushed into icy water it alleviated the sharpest pain and hastened healing. He unlaced his tall riding boots and painstakingly removed the right one, holding his breath as he eased the boot over his ankle, swollen and burning to the touch. That astringent Orc tonic would be welcome now,he thought, vile as that was. The leaves he then crushed between two rocks he had unearthed from the streambed, soaked them in water, and massaged them into his leg. Afterward he held his foot beneath the bubbling rill. It was cold and stung bare flesh, but the heat it bore away. Within several minutes, the sharpest edge of the pain was shorn off by the athelas and clean water. The same treatment he gave to the rope burns on his wrists, the furrows in his neck, and the deeper bruises across his ribcage.
The worst of his hurts assuaged, he continued hiking through the woods, favoring his right foot but bearing weight upon it. Evening fell across the forest, casting the woods and hollows into shadow. Stars glittered above the canopy, points of light amongst the tangled net of branches. Eärendil shone brighter than any, the mariner in his great ship Vingilot, bearing a Silmaril that had risen again from the sea by the glory of the Valar. As the sons of Fëanor, Maglor and Maedhros, once looked upon that star and despaired no longer, so did Aragorn, the last of the line of Eärendil’s son Elros. Yet enemies were still afoot: small bands of Orcs and Wild Men haunted these woods. Thus Aragorn slept lightly and fitfully in spite of his weariness.
* * *
In the morning, silver dew clung to branches and leaves; it soaked into the moss carpet upon the ground. Aragorn awoke wet and shivering with cold seeping into his bones. He draped his cloak about his shoulders, raised his hood over his head, and for ceaseless and uncountable hours he walked beneath the glistening boughs. At last his path intersected with the South Road, which ran straight and true through the woods, old and weathered stone built by stonemasons long ago. Distrustful of what might travel the road, he limped half a furlong alongside it.
The sounds of hooves clattering over stone came to his ears. He dropped to his knees behind a wall of brush, drawing the Orc broadsword from his belt. Five or six horses were cantering up the road towards him. All were shod and wearing heavily ornamented tack that jangled with each stride. Horses of Gondor. The Enemy’s horses wore plain tack that did not jingle. For a moment, Aragorn listened unmoving to their approach, a brisk canter as if they raced forth on an urgent errand. Dare he ask for their assistance, or should he remain hidden and allow them to pass unhindered? If he had not been in need of food or hot water and new supplies, it would have been wise to let them go, but he deemed it worth the risk to speak with them.
As they came over a small rise, he stepped out into the road before the riders. Soldiers of Gondor, Rangers of Ithilien, Dúnedain of the South they were, proud men with flowing dark brown hair and beards, clear gray eyes; bearing upon their breasts and their horse’s saddle blankets the White Tree and Seven Stars of Gondor. They wore forest green cloaks over their shoulders and their tack was silver and gold plated, from the shanks of the bits to the high cantles of the saddles. One rider slumped in the saddle, head lolling limply with the movement of the horse, feet bound to the stirrups. One of his companions ponied his horse.
Upon seeing Aragorn standing in their path, they yanked upon the reins, hauling their horses to a halt. The horses snorted, flinging up their heads and flaring their nostrils in fear of the foul place he had come from and surely smelled of. They fanned around him, enclosing him in a semi-circle. The riders drew their swords and two raised longbows, aiming arrows at Aragorn’s breast. He let fall the sword with a clatter upon the stones at his feet, and he held up his hands. Even if he had the strength to fight them, he would not slay his own kin.
“Hail, Soldiers of Gondor,” he said. “I am not a foe, but merely a weary traveler passing through.”
“There are no travelers in Ithilien,” said their leader, holding the tip of his sword a hair’s breadth from Aragorn’s throat, “merely spies and servants of the Enemy. What be your name?”
Aragorn did not speak his real name, for there were those in these lands who knew or suspected the significance of Aragorn son of Arathorn. Nor did he offer them the name he had been known by in Gondor and Rohan many long years ago: Thorongil, the Eagle of the Star. For then he had led the Gondorian army in battle against Umbar and counseled Ecthelion, the Steward and the father of Denethor. After the victory against the Corsairs, evil stirred again in the North, and the Chieftain of the Dúnedain had to return to his former lands to defend the simple people who inhabited the Shire and its surrounding hamlets in blissful ignorance of the foes stalking their borders. For those reasons and in fear of fame and of curious minds in Gondor -- such as the sharp and suspicious intellect of Denethor -- discovering his real name and lineage, Aragorn departed. No one knew whence he came and no one knew where he went or what summons he had received. Many had loved him, and the name was well known. In any event, Thorongil had been a great captain, a leader of men, not a wayworn vagabond, battered and lamed, wearing tattered raiment and carrying Orc weapons.
“I am a friend of Gondor, your kin,” Aragorn said at length. “Strider I am called, one of the Dúnedain of the North.” Strider folk of Bree and its surrounding marches called him, a name he had little affection for, but it surely had not reached the ears of Gondor.
“I am Damrod, Lieutenant of the Ithilien Rangers,” said the man, his sword unwavering, his gray eyes harder than the glinting steel of the sword. “If you indeed do not serve the Enemy, what be your business in Ithilien?”
“Hunting for a spy of the Dark Lord, if you will-“
A shadow passed across Damrod’s face. “A spy?”
“This creature could bring great evil to us all if he is not found, I fear. I don’t think he would have traveled through Ithilien, but I must, for I have searched for him in lands no man should wander, and I am weary and in need of rest and clean water and food.”
“Is it an Orc?” asked Damrod, his blade unmoving under Aragorn’s chin.
“No. It is a creature whose mind and body have been misshapen and corrupted by the foul work of the Enemy. I cannot say more than that.” He met Damrod’s suspicious stare with a penetrating gaze of his own.
“Sir, I believe him,” said one of the soldiers. “I see no lie in his eyes.”
“The Enemy comes in all guises, Baranor,” warned Damrod.
“Do you not know, sir?” pressed Baranor. “The Rangers of the North, the Dúnedain, are of the northern bloodlines of our kin, of Elendil, of Valandil, long rumored to have perished. I doubt in my heart that Faramir would want this man slain.”
“Does Captain Faramir lead the Rangers of Ithilien?” Aragorn said. “For I greatly desire to speak with him.”
Slowly, Damrod withdrew the blade from Aragorn’s throat, but he did not sheath it; he held it offset from Aragorn’s breast, mistrustful in spite of his comrade’s faith and the assurance in Aragorn’s voice and impassive gray eyes. “Captain Faramir is on an errand to Minas Tirith,” he said. “He left two days ago upon receiving a message that Mithrandir had entered the White City. He appeared greatly disturbed.”
“Mithrandir,” breathed Aragorn. In Gandalf’s coming shards of hope remained, before the tides turned and darkness fell.
“You know of Mithrandir?” Damrod said.
“He and I have been great friends for many a long year and through many toils,” said Aragorn.
“On what business does he come to Gondor? It was of great concern to Faramir.”
Aragorn shook his head. Often Gandalf spoke in riddles, but here he knew what Gandalf sought in Minas Tirith. But to Damrod he said, “His movements can be mysterious and puzzling. Often you cannot understand his motives until some time after he has vanished on another errand.”
Narrowing his eyes, Damrod at last sheathed his sword and said gruffly, “I have many questions for you, but we must ride hard and fast to our camp. Our comrade has fallen to Orc arrows, we have tarried too much, and I fear he shall not survive the ride. By the law of our land, I should take you in, but we have not the horses to spare in our company. You may go free, but do not tarry long in Ithilien!”
“Your comrade was wounded?” said Aragorn, looking to the Ranger who slumped over his horse’s neck, face pale as death and shining with the sweat of a raging fever ablaze. “I have some skills as healer,” he offered. “Perhaps I can stave off the poison long enough for you to reach your camp.”
The men exchanged apprehensive glances and whispered amongst themselves in Sindarin, in low voices that they believed below Aragorn’s hearing, but his ears were keen – he heard their hasty discussion concerning his trustworthiness and what devilry the Enemy’s forces had unleashed upon them and what risks were worth the lives of their comrades. And then they turned their weathered faces towards Aragorn again.
“If indeed you serve the Dark Lord,” said Damrod, “You shall have your throat slit before you can touch your weapons. But alas, we fear for our companion’s life, and you do not seem like a man the Shadow would place in our path to snare us with falsehoods.”
Aragorn bowed his head. “I would not snare you with a falsehood. You and your kinsmen are merciful and wise.”
Two of the Rangers dismounted and untied the ropes binding the wounded man to the saddle, and then they gently removed him from the horse and rested him upon a bed of soft moss beside the road. Here, Aragorn knelt down beside him, a hand upon his feverish brow. The wounded man seemed hardly to breathe. He was nearly spent. Man and horse formed a ring around the two on the ground, watching intently, hope etched with fear in their eyes.
“What is his name?” asked Aragorn.
“Aldamir,” said Damrod.
“Aldamir,” said Aragorn softly to the wounded man. “One of the kings of old.” He asked for a pan of water and one of the Rangers produced one for him. He steeped the athelas leaves he had collected earlier in water, producing a fragrance enlivening all who inhaled it, and then he took a cloth soaked in the aromatic water and laid it across Aldamir’s sweaty forehead. Upon opening Aldamir’s shirt, he found two arrow-wounds in his breast, angry and red, oozing blood and pus and the rotting stench of an Orc’s poisoned arrow. Would that the Lord Elrond were here, the eldest of the race of Eärendil and Lúthien! Aragorn bathed the wounds in the water and whispered a gentle plea for Aldamir to come back from where he wandered in his dark fever. [i]“Anor valthen, togo laugas lín nestad enin gûr hen. Ceven dhaer, anno vellas lín enin 'raw hen. Suil Ennui, erio thûl lín i faer hen.[ii]”
Aldamir’s eyes opened and beheld Aragorn’s weathered and lined face and kingly eyes, the blue-gray of the sea before a storm. He grasped Aragorn’s forearm with a gloved hand, and behind him, Aragorn heard gasps of relief from the other Rangers.
“Who are you?” asked Aldamir. “Am I not dead?”
“Nay, you are not,” Aragorn said softly.
“You speak the Eldar tongue!” exclaimed one of the Rangers. “That relieves my doubts, for no Men but Dúnedain speak Sindarin as if it were their own. But it has long been believed that the Dúnedain of the Northern Kingdom perished in the time of Arvedui, when Angmar at last defeated Arnor.”
“We are not many, but vigilantly we protect the Northern lands from evil,” replied Aragorn. Then he raised his eyes to Damrod’s wondering face and said, “He needs rest now and he will mend.” Healing the wounded man had purloined his final reserves of strength and he rocked back against the gnarled roots of a great oak tree, his forehead resting upon his knee, tired beyond all reckoning and the aid of athelas.
“You look as though you need healing yourself,” said Damrod.
“Merely rest.” He closed his eyes. “I have not slept for many days.”
“We are greatly in your debt. Come with us to our refuge. Orcs and Southrons roam these woods. Long ago, the woods of Ithilien were a paradise, a peaceful glade where one could seek solace and nourish his spirit, but no longer. The Tower of the Moon – now Minas Morgul – has long been the city of the Ringwraiths, taken by the Enemy over a thousand years ago, and South Ithilien tainted. As his strength grows, he impinges upon the borders of North Ithilien and our strength fails. It seems that there is little we can do, but what little we can do, we do it.”
Damrod told a tale Aragorn knew well, and he half-listened to the Ithilien Ranger’s premonitions of doom, but at the words “Minas Morgul” a chill coursed through him and he shuddered. In the darkness behind his lids he saw the luminescent tower staring from its perch upon the knee of the jagged cliff, an eye malevolent and unblinking.
“You do not look well,” said Damrod. “Come. Anborn,” he turned to another Ranger, “you shall carry Aldamir with you, and Strider shall ride Aldamir’s horse.”
“That is not necessary,” said Aragorn, rising to his feet, braced against the old oak tree. But Damrod placed the reins of a bay gelding in his hand, saying,
“This is Flame. He will bear you safely. You do not look as if you can walk another mile, much less the ten leagues to our refuge.”
Aragorn bowed his head and assented. His journey to the Morannon would fail if he did not replenish his strength, and not even in Ithilien’s evergreen and picturesque wood would he find rest. Though the forest appeared peaceful despite the gloomy rain, it was but feigned serenity. At the front door of Mordor, few places were wholly safe. He graciously thanked Damrod and hobbled over to the bank sloping down from the road, leading the horse and positioning the animal downhill from himself so he could mount without aggrieving his wounded leg.
After he had climbed into the saddle, the riders spurred their horses into a brisk canter and clattered down the road. Flame had a soft, undulating canter, like a boat swaying upon an even swell on a calm sea, and Aragorn found himself drifting in and out of peaceful and indistinct dreams. Rich green forest floated alongside him, horses snorted and breathed deeply, iron-shod hooves struck the road in a steady rhythm, swords and knives and bows rattled. There was no need to guide the horse or drive him forward, for the gelding was content to follow his companions home. Onward they pressed until the overcast day plunged into evening and the moon shone eerily through the clouds, a ghostly galleon rocking on stormy seas. To Aragorn, it seemed as if they would ride forever into the dreary night. He blinked his eyes and roused himself awake enough to ask the rider beside him, “Is it wise to travel at night? Orcs and other fell creatures stir in the dark.”
“It is not far now,” replied the rider.
Aragorn nodded and again he slid into those indistinct realms between sleep and wakefulness. For how much longer they rode, he did not know, and dreams impinged ever closer until they became almost coherent and then abruptly shattered when the horse jolted into a trot. They had turned off the road and come to a small river and a narrow gorge. The river sprang over rocks, cleaving through sheer cliffs. Looking to the west, Aragorn could see Anduin glinting faintly in the distance beyond the dark swath of forest, a silvery ribbon cutting through the shadowy plain.
“We dismount here,” said Damrod.
Aragorn pressed his fingers to his eyes and stifled a yawn. He wrapped his arm around the high pommel of the saddle and slid off the horse, leaning against the gelding’s shoulder or his knees should have given way when he dismounted. A root caught his foot and he stumbled hard, crashing face first into a hyacinth, and there he lay still, as though struck down by a blow
“Strider?” said Damrod, kneeling down beside him and shaking his shoulder. “Strider?”
The Ithilien Ranger’s lined face was shrouded in a black haze and falling away from Aragorn. A vast distance stretched between them, and Aragorn could no longer hear Damrod’s voice or see his face or feel the gloved hand gripping and shaking his shoulder. Falling until darkness enveloped his sight and his thought and swallowed the pain.
* * *
Aragorn was in Rivendell. Somewhere beyond his sight, Elves sang a plaintive dirge about the flight of the Noldor from Valinor to Middle-earth. Though the words were sorrowful, the music brought peace and warmth to his heart. The Bruinen, curling and rushing through a smooth channel, cackled against the rocks below. Sunlight shone through the silvery mist, thin rays stretching through Rivendell like Elvish fingers upon a harp. The spectacular snow-capped peaks of the Hithaeglir, the Misty Mountains, held their heads high above the clouds, marching across the horizon. Above his head, birds flitted and the fine structures of Elves, towers and terraces ornamented with intricate metal and stonework, wound up the side of moss-covered cliffs. On one of these terraces, Aragorn rested upon a soft bed overlooking the river, his pipe in his mouth. He inhaled the succulent fragrances of the plants and incense burning in the tiny lamps strung throughout Imladris. Here he had been raised and here his heart dwelt, in spite of his long years of wandering to distant lands, as far south and east as Harad and Rhûn, as far north as the Carn Dûm and the Mountains of Angmar, and fighting wars for Gondor and Rohan.
Arwen stepped onto the terrace; queenly she looked wearing a deep blue satin dress with gold embroidery across the sleeves and breast. In her glittering blue-gray eyes was the wisdom of one who had seen ages come and go. Hers was the beauty of Lúthien reborn. Her smile upon seeing Aragorn lit up her face like a star. The Evenstar, the light of her people indeed. She sat beside him, brushing a wisp of dark hair out of his eyes, and he took one of her fair, soft hands in his rough, battle-hardened one and placed it against his breast.
“Too long has it been since I last saw you,” he whispered in Sindarin.
“Do not speak,” she said, placing a finger against his lips. “It will wound my heart, for you must journey away again.”
“Yes, but not now. I have time to rest here, to recover my strength before I face new trials.”
“No,” she cried suddenly, startling him. “You cannot stay!”
“Arwen,” he said.
“Already the shadow covers the lands of Gondor and Rohan, and you must ride forth! There is no time.”
“I need time,” he said.
Just then Arwen was joined on the terrace by the shadowy figure of a tall Elf lord, fair and clear-eyed but bent by sorrow. She squeezed his hand and then stood up and stepped away from him, withdrawing from the terrace until the boughs shrouded her features.
“Where are you going?” Aragorn asked.
The Elf lord -- who was Finrod Felagund and Aragorn had no idea how it was he knew that – remained on the terrace with him after Arwen had left. Aragorn’s gaze turned from the boughs wherein Arwen had vanished to Finrod, who said gravely, “I had once vied with Sauron so that I might fulfill my oath and meet my fate, and hereinafter the same doom is upon you, to vie for mastery with the Dark Lord.”
Aragorn said, “What chances have I if a Noldorin king fell?” Finrod Felagund’s contest with Sauron with songs of power was renowned, but though the power of the king was great, the power of Sauron was stronger.
“That was the doom that I had foreseen,” replied Finrod, “But yours I cannot yet see, thus there is no telling whether death be your fate. But I see you bear the ring that I had given Barahir, which bound me to the oath I had given him and to the fate of his son, Beren. You too are bound to it. But great deeds await you ere your doom, though I do not know whether you too will fall at the hand of Sauron. But in a war of words and thought, you will vie with him.”
Rivendell suddenly seemed to fall away from him as he plunged down a chasm, wheeling and spinning in circles, reaching for a ledge or anything with which to arrest his fall, but his fingers slipped.
He lay sprawled in a black pit staring up at the tower of Minas Morgul, its many eyes like a thousand tiny knives, the windows on its lower levels black, faceless, gazing inwards. A great roar emerged from the city and bluish-white lightning sprang up the tower and leapt into the sky, illuminating the noxious black clouds. Aragorn squinted and blocked the blinding light with a forearm as it stabbed his eyes. A bloodcurdling screech arose, a cry stilling his heart. Is this what it is like, Finrod Felagund? Trapped until death in the deepest pits of the dark with no more hope? But it was Beren, a mortal, who lived through it. Then, a great beast ascended from the city, a reptilian creature with magnificent leathery wings, a long neck, and a cavernous, gaping mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. Upon the base of the neck sat a rider, a Nazgûl bearing a malformed crown upon his head; the Witch-King of Angmar, the ancient enemy of Aragorn’s lands to the North.
The creature spread its immense wings, leapt into the air, and then descended into the pit not five feet from Aragorn and smote his senses with its foul breath. His heart pounded a frantic rhythm. He tried to rise to his feet and draw his sword, but he could do nothing more than gaze in horror at the Chief of the Ringwraiths.
The Nazgûl dismounted, sword drawn. Slow and deliberate, he approached Aragorn, his presence freezing Aragorn’s blood, oppressing him with mortal terror. The notched blade rose above him, and the Witch-King brought the sword down upon him.
* * *
Aragorn snapped opened his eyes and sat up. He was drenched in sweat, gasping for air, trembling. Am I not dead? His mind remained caught in the web between sleep and wakefulness. A firm, warrior’s hand grasped his forearm in the dark, and a baritone voice said kindly, “It was but a bad dream. Something so accursed that you woke me and others in your restless sleep.”
It had been nothing more than a nightmare, the infernal Witch-King astride the winged beast a figment of his imagination. Alas, so were Arwen and Finrod, the former far away in the safety of Rivendell and the latter long dead. He was in Ithilien, swathed in blankets on a low cot, a dark ceiling of smooth stone arching over his head, the tranquil noise of water tumbling down a cliff somewhere in the background. How he came to this place, he could not say, for his last cognizant memory was of stumbling to his knees after he had dismounted the horse.
“I tried to wake you,” said the man. A name came to Aragorn: Baranor, one of the Rangers who had met him on the road. “But you would not stir. What dark dream plagued you?”
Aragorn shook his head. His breath steadied and the frenzied beating of his heart eased. “I care not to tell of it. It would dampen your spirits. How long have I slept?” He felt strangely more alive than he had for many days. Like a gray rain cloud rolling aside, the Black Shadow of Minas Morgul lifted and a clear shaft of hope pierced weariness and dejection.
Baranor touched Aragorn’s left hand and said with a smile, “It is warm again.”
Querulous, Aragorn raised an eyebrow. “How long have I slept?”
“Not more than thirteen or fourteen hours. You have been to some dark place indeed, for when you fell, you were ice cold. We feared you had suffered some grievous injury and stood upon death’s very doorstep. But though we are in the wild, we have healers here. They spoke of darkness and of fell things, but no fatal hurts, and rest would be a cure beyond every herb and healer’s voice.”
“My ears catch the sound of water upon rock,” said Aragorn. “I have heard stories of the most beautiful waterfall in Ithilien.”
“It is indeed,” replied Baranor. “You shall see it if you walk down that passageway, though it is dark now – no moon tonight -- and difficult to see.” He gestured towards a gap in the smooth, gray rock wall, a tunnel opening to murky blackness. There in gossamer sheets, like the sail of a Teleri ship but threaded with pearl and silver thread, hung a curtain of water. Baranor added, “Perhaps you should wait until morning to have a closer look. You have been through much and should rest.”
Aragorn nodded. “Yes, I am mending. Your kindness is much appreciated.”
Baranor left him, and for several long hours, Aragorn sat alone in the dark, knees drawn up to his chest, listening to the thrumming of water against rock, transfixed by the dazzling veil of the cataract, the jeweled curtain of silver and pearl spray. All around him in the great rock-chamber, the Ithilien Rangers slept fitfully, aware even in sleep of the omnipresent threat smoldering on their eastern borders. They were Gondor’s first and foremost defense against Mordor, the first to fall when the hosts of Sauron poured forth, but long had they been resigned to their fate. Warfare against Mordor had been nearly unremitting in Gondor since the Stewardship of Túrin II. It was in his reign that Sauron again declared himself openly and the folk of fair Ithilien fled west over Anduin. But Túrin never wholly ceded Ithilien to the Enemy; he built secret refuges for the soldiers of Ithilien, of which Henneth Annûn was one, and always a small garrison fortified the green woods.
Come morning, Aragorn would begin trekking north, following the Ephel Dúath until he reached the Noman-lands, and then swinging east through heaps and hills of slag and blasted earth to the Morannon. The journey inspired little hope, yet as he sat huddled against the rock wall of Henneth Annûn, the cold of Minas Morgul ebbed away like a tide.
After a while restlessly listening to the waterfall, he cast himself down upon the cot and lay on his back, hands folded across his breast, but now that he had roused after fourteen hours of sleep, he was wide-awake. He rose to his feet and padded barefoot across the cold stone floor to his supplies in a hollow corner. There, he sprinkled the dust of crumpled athelas leaves into one of the Orc water skins, which he had earlier filled with water from one of the streams in the grove. A torn piece of cloth he soaked in the water and wrapped firmly around his ankle, which was much improved from the anguish of three days ago. He cringed and gasped at the icy water touching his flesh, for a nipping chill was in the air. And then the athelas soaked into the flesh from the makeshift poultice, excising soreness.
Though he was hungry, he ignored the pangs in his stomach and crawled into the cot, curling himself in the blankets. His hosts had been more hospitable than he would have expected from them, and he was too polite a guest to take advantage of it. In any case, Aragorn understood enough Gondorrim law to feel grateful for the honor Damrod and his companions bestowed upon him – a night’s rest in Henneth Annûn and leave to travel through their lands free and unhindered. Strangers were prohibited from roaming freely in Gondor without express permission of the Lord and Steward, and Aragorn had no aims of approaching Lord Denethor or Minas Tirith until such time as he was ready to fulfill his rights as Elendil’s heir. Denethor would remember Thorongil with bitterness, the man who held a more esteemed place at his father’s side than he, Ecthelion’s own son. Aragorn thought, there are few in Middle-earth whom Denethor thinks well of, but he disliked me more than most. If indeed that time arrived before it was too late for both Aragorn and Gondor, a distant future Aragorn could see but dimly.
While he often believed he was not bound to the fate of his ancestors and could rise above it and defeat the Shadow, he nursed quiet fears, fed by the knowledge that past follies and oaths and the doom in one’s blood had swayed the destiny of Middle-earth since the flight of Fëanor and the curse of the Noldor. Not only did the fortunes of the Elves weigh heavily upon his shoulders, but that of Númenor. True, Eärendil had challenged the seas and brought the Valar to the aid of Beleriand, and Elendil had saved his people, fleeing Númenor. But the high kings of Númenor had brought destruction upon their own heads. Nor could much could be said for Aragorn’s direct descendents, the kings of Arnor who had in part destroyed the kingdom with civil war, territorial strife. And of course Isildur had kept the Ring when he had every chance to throw it into Orodruin.
The burden of the past was heavy. In the old tales of the First Age, follies and ill-fortunes were passed from unlucky or foolish parents to their progeny. Was that true now? Would Aragorn be bound to his ancestors’ fate, like Túrin and Nienor, or the seven sons of Feänor? Weariness overtook him, and sleep fell heavily upon him.
* * *
The rising sun illuminated the rock chamber. Men stirred and then set up tables on trestles, and then threw down cooking gear upon them; pots and ladles, bowls and dishes, platters and mugs, all unadorned but solidly fashioned.
The rattling of dishes, the crashing of tables, the murmur of hushed voices, awoke Aragorn. He blinked his eyes as they adjusted to the gloomy light and looked about the chamber, a disorderly mess of scattered cots, weapons, clothes, and other supplies, as if a great windstorm had tossed everything heedlessly across the stone floor. After awakening in the middle of the night, he must have fallen back into a dreamless sleep, for he remembered nothing after ministering to his leg and then returning to the cot. Had he drifted off for one hour or ten? Rare was it that he slept for so many hours. He could not, in the cavern’s dim light, discern the precise time of day, though he figured it was morning. Henneth Annûn meant “window of the sunset” in the ancient tongue and the falls looked to west, to the sunset. Spears of light shone not into the falls, but glanced off it, thrown from a different direction. In the radiant glow of dawn, the waterfall shimmered with diaphanous threads and jewels of red and gold and blue, an array of ever changing colors. It seemed a relic of another age, of the gossamer waterfalls of Gondolin.
Most of the men in the chamber were moving about, lighting torches, readying breakfast, and sorting through weapons and other supplies. A small fire glowed in the corner, fenced in by three tables piled high with cooking gear. Shaking himself free of his blankets, Aragorn rose to his feet and crossed the great chamber, unfettered by lameness and the shadow. Baranor and Damrod hurried to meet him.
“Strider,” Damrod said, laughing. “You look much improved from yesterday. We feared you might not survive the night.”
Aragorn smiled at them and followed them to the tables. “What is the time?”
“It is just dawn,” said Baranor. “We did not wish to wake you. Come. You need to eat.”
“I have little time to spare,” Aragorn said. “I must eat and fly. My illness or whatever it was has waylaid me longer than I intended.”
The Ithilien Rangers stood facing the west in a moment of silence before sitting, an ancient Gondorean tradition recognizing the lost past. Aware of his royal Númenorean blood, Aragorn cast his eyes to the stone floor. It was his heritage these men looked to, though they did not know it; the heritage of Elendil and Isildur that had instilled hope in Men in their war against the Shadow. But in their hearts, they felt themselves to be a failing people, an autumn without a spring, and the blood of the high kings of Númenor becoming a thing of old tales. Only in the North was it more than legend, but little did Aragorn resemble the figures of Elendil and Isildur as they stood carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. What hope was there in him anyway? While the line of Elendil and his father Amandil remained faithful to the Valar, the other lines of Elros had turned to the worship of Melkor. And had his ancestor Isildur destroyed the Ring instead of keeping it, Sauron’s spirit would not have survived the victory of the Last Alliance. Then the troubling moment passed, and Aragorn turned his thoughts away from the past.
The meal seemed a feast; salty meat and bread and butter, and fresh fruits. It was no royal feast of a king’s hall, merely what could be brought or cooked camping in the wild. But it tasted more succulent than anything Aragorn could then recall, more luscious and mouth-watering than any fine meal in Meduseld or the Citadel in Minas Tirith. Some tales were told to pass the time while they ate, and the Rangers asked Aragorn if he knew of any. Their hospitality obliged him to tell something; henceforth he recounted the slaying of the dragon Glaurung by Túrin Turambar. A sorrowful end that story had: the deaths of Túrin and his sister Nienor when they learned through the deceit and trickery of Morgoth and Glaurung they had wedded one another. Nienor threw herself in Cabed-em-Aras and Túrin in his grief cast himself upon his sword Anglachel. But Aragorn said naught of this. He ended it at the death of the dragon.
“Strange it is that a wanderer in the wild should be well versed in the heroic deeds of the First Age,” commented one Ranger.
Aragorn shot him a harsh look. “The Dúnedain of the North do not forget their past, though they have not the great cities of their kin in the South.”
“Friends are few and the Enemy surrounds us,” said Damrod. “Peace shall reign in Henneth Annûn.”
“The old kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor have been sundered and grieved enough,” Aragorn added. “Let us not add to their grievances here.”
When the meal ended, Aragorn rose to his feet and bowed to his hosts in heartfelt gratitude. His life he owed to the Ithilien Rangers. He smiled, a brilliant flash of sunlight crossing the deep shadows of his face. And the Gondorians could not help but gaze at him in awe, wondering where this travel-worn, bedraggled vagabond came from and what his real name might be.
He said, “I am in need of haste and I am afraid I must ask you for some supplies. Mine have all been lost.”
“Anything,” said Damrod. “Come with me. We shall give you some weapons as well. That Orc blade you have with you is quite dull and notched.”
Aragorn followed him to a hollow in the back of the chamber, separated from the common area by haggard canvass tacked to the rock, draping across the entrance. In the hollow sat two unornamented wooden chairs facing one another. A small rug was spread out beneath the chairs; otherwise the recess was bare except for a little earthenware lamp burning in a corner.
“This is the Lord Faramir’s private chamber,” explained Damrod as he sat in one of the chairs. “But as he is not here and I am acting in his stead, it is my sanctuary. As you can see, we have all the trappings of a royal hall here at Henneth Annûn.” He laughed.
“Indeed,” said Aragorn.
“Before I release you, I must ask you a question you are loathe to answer, it seems. What is your destination? Our law does not even permit me to let you go. At least I should like to know where you travel and that you shall not remain in Ithilien longer than necessary.”
“I know your law.” He took a deep breath and beheld Damrod with a level gaze. “I came to Ithilien from Minas Morgul, where I searched fruitlessly for this creature of whom I spoke. Alas, there was no sign of him there, so I intend on hunting for him at the Morannon, the Black Gate. That is where I am going.”
Damrod’s face grew pale and he averted his gaze.
“On foothills of the Ephel Dúath, I had an encounter with Orcs that turned ill and lost what little gear I had left,” Aragorn continued. “I escaped, but I had no choice but to take their weapons and their water. It would have been too perilous to retrieve my own.”
Damrod waved him silent. “Do not speak more of this,” he said. “We feared some great evil had befallen you, for you were quite ill. You survived Minas Morgul! You are lucky to be alive.”
“So I hear,” said Aragorn.
“You should stay another day and rest,” Damrod suggested.
“I cannot. For most of my life, I have ventured alone in the wild on journeys to lands at the edge of the map. This has not been my first expedition to Mordor, though it was by far the worst. The evil there has strengthened since two-score years ago. In any case, I shall be fine.”
Misgivings still shaded Damrod’s features. “Is it necessary-“ but the uncompromising gleam in Aragorn’s eye silenced him. “Of course. What do you need?”
“Weapons, food, cooking supplies, water, and rope.”
“Rope?”
“Should I survive the perils of the Morannon, the least treacherous way out is the little used path through the Dead Marshes and over the Emyn Muil. I do not think any man can walk across the desolate plains of Dagorlad, unprotected, and not be captured or killed. Orcs use those passages. I shall need the rope for negotiating the cliffs of the Emyn Muil.”
Upon hearing the name of the Dead Marshes, Damrod’s face showed horror. He appeared to not have heard the remainder of the reasoning behind the need for a rope. “You ventured to the gates of Minas Morgul and survived the deadly flowers of the Morgul Vale. Now you intend upon journeying to the Black Gate itself and then, should you survive that unscathed, leave by way of the Dead Marshes. You either have the courage of our forefathers, of Elendil, or you are completely addled.”
“Perhaps both,” said Aragorn with a wan smile as Damrod led him out of the recess to a stack of weapons high enough to reach Aragorn’s waist.
As he looked for sharpened and well-balanced blades and a bow, he pondered Damrod’s repealed question. Is it necessary to go to the Morannon, had surely been the words on the tip of the Gondorian captain’s tongue. Aragorn was not sure himself if the Black Gate was a necessary peril or merely a fool’s errand. Perhaps he was addled. It panged his heart to know he would leave the evergreen glades of Ithilien and again encounter the desolate and wretched Ephel Dúath and crawl beneath the baleful red eye of Mordor. In the depths of his soul, he did not want to do it and would have joyfully remained here or turned west, back to his homelands. Alas, he could not convince himself to surrender his mission and turn around. The resoluteness in his blood and his own heart spurred him forward.
Clad in a new cloak, forest green like those worn by the Ithilien Rangers, carrying a bow and a full quiver of arrows, a sword graven with the Seven Stars and crescent moon, the insignia of Númenor, as well as three daggers, and provisioned with food, water, rope, and some menial cooking gear, Aragorn bid Henneth Annûn farewell. He doubted he would ever look upon its fair waterfall, luscious forest, and glittering pools again. Adhering to the law of his land, Damrod blindfolded Aragorn and led him out of the cave. The blindfold Aragorn expected – the secret paths to the last refuges in Ithilien must remain secret, even from a Dúnadan of the North. To the High King of Gondor they could be revealed, but that time was neither now nor near.
The Gondorians guided him up a steep incline following a sheer and smooth cliff wall, the sound of rushing water cackling at his heels. He rarely faltered, for he did not need his eyes to be surefooted. By the time Damrod removed the blindfold, Aragorn had lost all sense of direction. About him he saw a forest of ancient, wide-girthed trees in colorful raiment of flowers and shimmering green leaves. Here the land was an indistinct memory, muddled and dreamlike, the place where he had slid off the horse half-unconscious two days past. He stood upon the flank of a low mountain; behind him the narrow gorge and swift river, and to his right, Anduin snaking across the plain like a mithril band, veiled beneath a thin layer of mist hanging low over the valley. Beyond the great river, the Ered Nimrais reared their white heads towards the sky, flushed blue and purple with the rosy hues of the morning. Gondor, Gondor, between the mountains and the sea, he thought, the mournful lyrics to an old song. Aragorn turned his gaze northwards away from the bright mountains. His road did not lie south. North he must travel, and to the north the forest descended into flat, washed-out plains of the desolate stretches of Dagorlad and beyond it, the festering, stinking Dead Marshes. And to the East the serrated ridges of the Ephel Dúath clawed at the ashen, bloodied sky of Mordor.
“Here we part,” said Damrod, “Though I beg you to reconsider your choice to travel northeast. Nothing good can come from those evil lands.”
“Indeed, nothing can,” agreed Aragorn. “But it is there I must tread whether I like it or not.”
“You could stay a while longer,” said Baranor.
“I would, but the world is changing faster than you know, and I have not the time.”
Damrod sighed. “I do not think we shall meet again, but if we do in happier times, perhaps then you can tell us your secrets – why you so earnestly hunt this creature, your real name... I do not think it is Strider.”
“I am known by many names,” said Aragorn simply. Laying a hand upon Damrod’s shoulder, he added with a smile, “I too hope for such a time. Farewell. Navaer.”[iii]
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[i] To pony: To lead one horse while riding another.
[ii] Sindarin: “Golden sun, may your warmth bring healing to this heart. Great earth, may you give your strength to this body. Western winds, may your breath lift this spirit.” Translation by Taramuiliel. http://members.cox.net/taramiluiel/sindarin_phrases.htm
[iii] Sindarin: “Farewell.” Ibid.
Chapter 4 - Journey to the Morannon
Aragorn’s road after he departed Ithilien took him through tangled heathland, shrubs, fronds, and mosses overgrown with ling, broom, and cornel. No longer did he walk beneath a tumbled canopy, a grotto of deciduous trees; oaks, birches, cedars and cypresses. Here and there, clumps of tall pine trees dotted otherwise open space. The road, little more than a poorly maintained county cart-road overgrown with capricious vegetation, ran straight as ever, built with the handiwork of Númenor. With reluctance he followed the road, for it was the swiftest path through Ithilien to the Morannon and perhaps the main corridor for the legions of Mordor. It seemed little used, unsullied by armies and other travelers, but Aragorn trod it warily, lest his sight and the hosts of Mordor deceive him.
There were parallel ruts in the soil -- wagon tracks -- worn smooth by wind and rain and obscured by irascible vines and roots. Wagons had once traversed this road, but no longer. Nevertheless, Aragorn traveled cautiously, attentive to every sound, every birdcall, every shudder of the brush. Sometimes ravens crowed, harsh voices shattering oppressive silence, but otherwise he heard only his light, swift footsteps and the occasional breeze rustling the fronds. If walkers or riders trailed him, he would hear their approach.
Always to his right, the Ephel Dúath cast an ominous shadow veiling the sun as his course took him closer to the towering mountains. Trees like dark clouds spotted the hillsides as the land rose towards the mountains. It did not matter how many journeys Aragorn risked to the foothills of these mountains, the withered feeling in his heart never abated when the sun waned behind the blood-flecked ash rising from Mordor. He only traveled by day, for the nights were blacker than the chasms in the depths of Khazad-dûm, and he mistrusted what might travel this road under cover of darkness. When the sun fell behind the lofty moors to the west, he found cover for the night, hedges, rocks, or close-knit clusters of pine trees. Often he built a small fire and cooked over it, vigilant for the fire might serve as a beacon to his enemies. After having eaten he would curl up beneath the forest green Ithilien Ranger cloak and sleep fitfully until the gray light of morning roused him.
Aragorn held a steady pace along the road for four days until the infringing foliage overrunning the road receded and the ancient stonework had been reinforced. Fresh tracks crossed the old wagon ruts, tracks belonging to Orcs, men, horses, and unidentifiable creatures with tracks more than ten times as large as the foot of an eighteen-hand draught horse. Mûmakil, he wondered, legendary war animals of the Haradrim. In his time in Harad he had never once seen any, but they proliferated in tales, songs, and artwork. For a while, he knelt over a massive ball of rotted dung, festooned with southern plant shoots. Whatever it was, it had passed this way several weeks ago and many Orcs and men, on foot and on horseback, had followed. He found no sign that Gollum had traipsed through here, but he had no illusions about discovering any traces of Gollum. The creature, stealthy and swift, would not dare use the road.
Aragorn too must be stealthy and swift now that he had departed the quiet lands at Ithilien’s borders. The Black Shadow of Minas Morgul had been cleansed and he had the strength to stand and fight, but he did not deem it wise to draw attention to himself. Like a specter he faded into the broken country abreast of the road, leaving no trace, nothing arousing the curiosity and hunger for blood of Orcs and wild men. Under the black, starless nights he dozed, one ear tuned to sounds in the brush, and he only reluctantly lit small, inconsequential fires if cover was thick enough to obstruct the flames from the road. Wolves often howled, sometimes distant, at other times nearby; and he was aware of fell things lurking about in the murky gloom.
His decision to leave the road proved shrewd indeed. A few days after he cut through the desert, hordes of heavy boots marching across stone reached his ears. He scrambled behind a bramble and lay flat on his stomach, holding his breath, as immobile as a stone. Only his eyes moved, watching the road, a dike slashing through the earth itself, steep banks rising upon either side of it. A legion of men arrayed in the war garments Aragorn recognized from his journey to Harad traipsed beneath him. The leaders rode fine-boned horses and the others marched on foot in two lines straight as the mast of a ship. Horned helms covered their heads and faces, armor with ornamentation like the wings of a dragon protected their bodies, and they carried painted spears and curved scimitars.
Not until the Haradrim had gone round a bend of the foothills did Aragorn exhale. Warily he drew himself up to his hands and knees and crawled away from the road. How many legions passed through this barren country every day? The army amassing on Gorgoroth must be astounding, large enough to still the hearts of men if they knew what doom awaited them. A shiver of fear knifed between his shoulder blades. What terrifying onslaught was Sauron preparing behind the ridges of the Ephel Dúath? The thought of it burned Aragorn’s heart like a brand; carnage would be inevitable, battles bloodier and more prolonged than any he had seen in all his long life. Whether they lost or beat the formidable odds and won, many would die before the end. The fate of Beleriand shall be our fate, he thought. Kingdoms destroyed, embattled refugees driven to the shores. And none now lived to brave the seas and appeal to the Valar for aid. Even if another Eärendil arose, the folly of Ar-Pharazôn had made sailing to Valinor impossible.
But even the darkest nights see sunrise. As long as Gandalf let embers of hope kindle and placed a great deal of faith in the sturdiness of halflings, Aragorn too would hold out and refuse to break before the oncoming storm. Every day the Ring remained out of Sauron’s grasp, hope blazed all the brighter. It was not inevitable that history would be repeated. Finrod had said Aragorn was bound to the fate of Beren and his ancestors of old and would, as Finrod had, pit his will against Sauron’s, but the Elven-king had not presaged death or defeat. Aragorn recollected his wits and fingered the ring of Barahir, vexed that emotional torrents unnerved him so. Sterner than steel he must be. Knowledge of the emergent might of Mordor must not unsettle his resolve.
Since the road had transformed from an abandoned cart-road into a highway for the servants of Mordor, Aragorn parted from its swift and straight path for the Morannon and trod a roundabout course through the wasteland of broken rocks, dust, dried grass, dark thickets, and jumbled trees like clusters of smoky clouds. The looming Ephel Dúath, sweeping northwards until it butted heads with the Ered Lithui, led him to the Morannon. The black mists grew thicker and darker. With each passing day, the lands of the living retreated behind him, and his good spirits remained there as well, gone astray in this black place.
On a pitch-black night, Aragorn lay curled against a rock outcropping, the cloak pulled about his shoulders. The small fire flickering upon his face offered him some warmth and inspired malformed shadows to flit hither and thither on the sandstone wall. He did not sleep. His fingers were wrapped around the hilt of the sword. Something skulked in the darkness. Every muscle in his body was taught as a drawn bowstring.
He heard the snorting breaths of a large animal snuffling through the brush and sand, prowling about his campsite, afraid of the fire or otherwise it should have attacked him already. A musky scent, fetid and repulsive, filled his nostrils. A warg, he thought. Wargs and other foul creatures roamed this bleak land, hunting for stragglers, Orcs and men from the armies marching to the Morannon. They cared not what flesh they feasted on, good or evil. The yellow eyes gleamed in the firelight and it watched Aragorn. Meeting its gaze, he slowly sat up, squatting on his haunches and notching an arrow to the Gondorian bow.
The warg bared rows of yellow fangs and uttered a growl from deep within its throat. Unwavering, Aragorn planted his feet and waited, the cool bow pressing into his palm, the string cutting his flesh. The moment the warg gathered itself and launched, he let loose the arrow and flung himself sideways, landing on his right shoulder and rolling away from the animal’s shriek of pain and its heavy crash as it plowed into the earth. His arrow must have hit it. Alas, his aim had been true but not fatal. As he regained his feet, unsheathing his sword and shaking sand out of his eyes and hair, he saw the warg rising, unsteady and maddened by pain. The feathered shaft of the arrow jutted out from the base of its throat. It lunged at him, blood and foam flying from its jaws, and then darted sideways to avoid his slashing blade. He leapt towards the fire, grabbing one of the sticks he had used earlier in the night to stoke it, and raised it before the warg. The warg attacked again, but shied away from the fiery stick that Aragorn brought down upon it, snarling and clawing the sand in rage.
Aragorn took a threatening step towards the animal. It retreated, flinching from the scorching wood and the blazing white sword of Númenor. Malice shone in the glittering eyes. Its fermenting breath, hot and fetid, made Aragorn lightheaded and nauseous, but nevertheless he held his ground. The warg trembled with rage and madness. Then, before Aragorn could finish it with his sword, it shuddered and collapsed upon its side, its muscles seizing in a final protest against death. Taken aback, Aragorn took a swift step away from it. The arrow in its neck must have damaged it mortally after all. Wargs were notoriously resilient – they did not die easily or quickly, but die they did.
Cautiously Aragorn approached the beast, the edge of his sword against its throat should it stir. He bent down, removing the arrow from its neck – a fountain of blood spurted from the wound -- wiping the tip clean and thrusting it into his quiver. Fearing that the tumult had awakened every Orc, Haradrim, and Ilúvatar only knew what else within ten leagues, he swiftly extinguished the fire and faded away into the night, furtive and silent. Traveling at night disquieted him, but remaining in proximity to the dead warg was perilous. They would find it, and they would wonder what killed it, and they would hunt for him. He had intended for his presence here to go unnoticed, but alas, that aspiration had eluded him unless the orcs never found the dead warg or did not think anything of it. That chance he refused to bet upon and made haste through the night, fearful of what his eyes and ears did not detect in the moonless and lifeless terrain.
Once he stumbled into a hidden, steaming bog and had to vigorously claw his way out, hacking at a long, reptilian arm with his sword, some dark thing pulling him in. Breathless, he hurried away, a backward glance over his shoulder revealing two gleaming eyes glaring balefully at him. His course through the night in a northwesterly direction, his only guide the shadowy mountains and dour red glow beyond their jagged peaks, swung him around towards the road.
To his dismay he saw hundreds of small fires flickering like stars in the dejected land and the hunched backs of the Haradrim company he had seen several days earlier bent over them. Most were silent, either asleep or deep in thought, but several stood upon the edge of the encampment, gazing curiously across the escarpment in the direction Aragorn had come. He crawled between several rocky fins and hunkered down there, long legs folded under him.
It seemed wisest to wait out the night here, for the Haradrim sentries might notice unusual shadows lurking in the dark. Though the sun would arise and disperse the murky blackness in a few hours, the remainder of the night felt endless, as if dawn would never again shed her light upon this blighted land. Aragorn remained wide awake, alert to every movement in the encampment and every noise emerging from the heath and rock enfolding him. When dawn’s gray light at last broke through the sullen clouds, the Haradrim packed their camp and formed ranks. A formidable noise they made, crying out for battle and rattling weapons, ere they set upon the road to Mordor in great haste.
The road swept around a bend, the spur of a great mountain jutting forth from the flanks of the Ephel Dúath. After the men bringing up the rear of the twin columns vanished round the turn, Aragorn crept out of his hiding place, his gait stiff and limbs cramped from huddling in the small crawl-space for those countless hours. He blinked the dust from his eyes and sipped the cool Ithilien water, which he had rationed carefully for no streams for leagues carried drinkable water.
The stiffness he soon walked off, and he trudged through the dells alongside the road for many hours that blended together, an endless stretch of time through the ageless, wrecked country. On the horizon he saw the high and desolate ridges of the Ered Lithui, the northfacing wall of Mordor. The two mountain ranges enclosed the somber Plains of Gorgoroth and Lithlad and the inland Sea of Núrnen. Behind the gate, a deep cleft cut between them at the point where the Ered Lithui bent southwards and became the Ephel Dúath. On either side of the gate sat the two watchtowers, built by Men of Gondor when they overthrew Sauron and he fled from Mordor. On Aragorn’s last journey here many years ago, the watchtowers, the Teeth of Mordor, had fallen into disuse and decay, but he imagined that the Enemy in his ever-increasing strength had restored them. Thousands of eyes surely kept vigilance upon the gate and Cirith Gorgor. Aragorn could not fathom how Gollum had crept unnoticed past the hordes of Orcs, trolls, and other fell beasts guarding the pass, unless Sauron had deliberately released him. Gollum forever felt the Ring drawing on him. Hence he could lead the Nazgûl and other servants of the Enemy to it. Was Sauron savvy enough to use an unwitting Gollum as a hound on the hunt?
The sight of four Haradrim and one of their horses halted on the road disrupted Aragorn’s musings. He sprang behind a rock outcropping, pressing his shoulder against an upright stone and unsheathing the sword, fearing that he had reacted too late for stealth. Alas, he should be more alert. Mordor set the minds of men adrift, lost in a waking nightmare should they lack the strength to resist. One of the Haradrim held up the left front foot of the horse, palpating the tendons in its leg, his brows – indeed the only visible part of his face – drawn in vexation. The other three restrained the horse, two by the bridle and another by the stirrup. Nervous, the horse tossed its head and attempted to dance around on three legs.
“What ill turn of fortune is this, that one of their horses should go lame here?” Aragorn said to himself as the man who had been at the stirrup clambered up the bank, spear thrust forward, gaze probing the tors and crags for the movement that had drawn attention. If he must fight for his life, at least Aragorn only faced four of them so long as the remainder of the legion did not turn back. Four he could defeat, but as adept a swordsman as he was, he had no expectations of withstanding an onslaught of several hundred. Better to not draw the attention of any. He watched the Southron pursue a zig-zag course across the rough terrain, closing in upon him. Staying ever ahead of his foe, he withdrew against the mountains. The shadowy defiles enclosed him.
He drew a dagger and hid behind a tumble of rocks that had fallen from a grim cliff, abiding his time while the Haradrim came nearer and nearer. In front of Aragorn’s shelter he passed, and as he beheld the heir of Isildur, Aragorn sprang upon him and thrust the dagger into his breast. The Haradrim’s dark eyes widened with surprise. Back he staggered, but in his dying moments he valiantly swung his spear and caught Aragorn in the left shoulder. The blow sent Aragorn reeling, pain lancing through his arm. As the Haradrim collapsed, so did Aragorn, clutching his shoulder. A fleeting moment of nausea passed over him. Pressing his arm to his chest, he lurched to his feet. He must not linger, or the dead man’s company would find him.
Without a backward glance, Aragorn sheathed his dagger and ran, slinking across the road beyond sight of the Haradrim with the lame horse so he did not venture deeper into the Ephel Dúath while avoiding detection and disappearing into the heath and rocky fissures. He feared his arm might be broken, but he had not the time to examine it. Enduring the shooting pains, he furtively scrambled through rocks and thickets as far as he could muster the energy to travel.
When at last the road vanished from sight and the sullen bloodied glow hanging between the mountains flanking Cirith Gorgor was no more than six leagues away, he desisted his desperate flight at an old broken statue, a great king or lord, resting between two battered columns. The tops of the columns had been shorn off and the king’s face and hands were eaten away, whether by battle or by the unforgiving wind and storms, Aragorn could not say.
Up the statue he clambered one-handed and made an emphatic obscene gesture towards Mordor. His gaze set upon the mountain ranges. The Teeth of Mordor rose from the dark cliffs, two ominous sentinels, silhouettes against the sallow light of the sun and rising plumes of fire from Orodruin. To the south the ruined battlements of Durthang leered at him, a fortress like the Teeth-Towers of Cirith Gorgor built by the Men of Gondor at Sauron’s last defeat to guard the passes of Mordor. It sat high in the mountains, upon the great spur of the Ephel Dúath keeping vigilance over the valley of Udûn. Like Minas Morgul and the Cirith Gorgor towers, Durthang was a chilling memory of the failing strength of the west, something once fair and noble overthrown by evil. Aragorn shuddered. Should they fail, Minas Tirith and all the lands beyond her fair walls would fall into shadow, many replicas of the evil that had befallen the kingdoms of Beleriand, Minas Ithil, and the towers guarding Cirith Gorgor.
Resting his back against the statue, Aragorn examined his wounded shoulder, probing the sore flesh with his fingers. There was a cruel laceration on his upper arm a few inches below the shoulder, but he did not believe the bone had been fractured, for though it hurt, the arm was mobile. He spit upon a few remaining athelas leaves from Ithilien and massaged them into the cut. Within seconds, the weed alleviated throbbing pain and he felt cool relief washing through his arm, from the bruised shoulder to his fingertips. Then he had a few bites to eat and a few more droplets of water and lay down against the foot of the weather-beaten statue, wearied beyond all cares of what might befall him come twilight.
* * *
Whether or not the Haradrim found their slain companion and what they did upon their discovery Aragorn never cared to find out. His flight from the road had brought him nearly to his destination. The gray hued light of morning had woken him from a restless sleep plagued with disturbing dreams, which flitted away from his waking mind. Fiery pain and stiffness had revisited his wounded shoulder in the night, and he applied more athelas, frowning at the purple, blue, and black splotches surrounding the gash. After a hasty breakfast of Ithilien bread, he resignedly trod the path towards the barren ridges and towers, eyes cast down in defense against the occasional whirling dust eddy stirred up by the fetid breezes rousing the stagnant air. Though he saw tracks of Orcs and other things, for a few hours he encountered no living creatures traversing the lonely plain.
When the pallid sun touched high noon over the torturous ridges of the Ephel Dúath and Ered Lithui, he heard the great thundering roar of a company of Orcs running across the plain. They were behind him! He diverted from his route, surmounting the jagged flank of a rock buttress rising from Dagorlad. Here, he squatted amongst brambles and slabs of granite and watched about fifty Orcs charge through a cloud of dust below him, making haste towards Durthang. He remained immobile until the dust had settled and the Orcs had vanished beyond the buttes and low ridges of the red and black landscape. Then he climbed down from the buttress. Enemies, Orcs and wild men and other spies and servants, overran the southern reaches of Dagorlad. The last few miles around the spur of the Ephel Dúath between here and the Morannon would be beneath the very Eye of the Enemy. His luck was stretched thin and he feared it would not hold out much longer.
Aragorn henceforth swung wide around the spur and Durthang, a meandering course adding several hours upon his expedition but avoiding heavily used Orc trails winging towards Durthang and the Morannon. Sometimes the sound of trumpets and horns bellowing from the ridges froze his blood and at other times, he narrowly slipped past roving patrols, darting from shadow to shadow in the fissures and dells across the final stretches of Dagorlad as it ran up against the mountains.
Time wore away as he slogged through the rough country until at last he looked upon the Morannon, an iron gate below a great rampart. Sheer cliffs rose on either side of it and the Teeth of Mordor, Narchost and Carchost, stood upon the steep hills thrusting from the cliffs. Hordes of Orcs manned the towers and unsleeping sentinels paced back and forth on the rampart above the gate. Aragorn beheld their steel glinting in the sunlight. Nothing could navigate through the gate without suffering the bite of arrows from the towers and ramparts.
His ears caught the thud of hundreds of steel-shod feet marching across rock and hundreds of weapons rattling against armor, a throbbing roar like great waves pounding upon a rocky shoreline. A prodigious army approached. Apparently nothing could navigate through the gate without encountering armies of Mordor pouring through its parapets like debris in a flood, either. Pilous boulders and slag mounds concealed the army from Aragorn’s eyes, but he guessed from the clamor that they were not more than half a mile away. He sought cover in a rocky hollow amongst the reeking slag mounds west of the road. From there he surveyed the gate, the cliffs, and the mountains, searching for a secret path to the pass. The deep gash in the gnarled rock and bubbling, steaming slag heaps in which he took cover would be a clever hiding place for Gollum, but no trace of the miserable creature did he see. Nor did he see a defensible passage to the Cirith Gorgor. Any attempt to reach the gate from here brought one out into the open, an easy target for the archers in the nearest tower.
Battling disconsolation, he threaded his way through the fissures to the eastern side of the gate and the buttresses of the Ered Lithui. A discordant trumpet call ringing from the rampart shattered the air, and many horns responded. Startled, Aragorn took a short intake of breath. The gates swung open and the army of men and Orcs emerged from behind a sharp ridge lying across the slag as if an angry Vala had thrown a giant knife that had embedded itself in the black and dusty red earth. They marched into the defile, swallowed by Cirith Gorgor. Aragorn lay motionless beneath an overhang, holding his breath, feeling the rock beneath him quaking with the vibrations of hundreds of steel-shod feet, imagining a stealthy creature slinking through the gate just as it thudded shut. Could it be done? There was an open bowl devoid of cover a hundred or so feet in front of the gate, and once through, Cirith Gorgor’s sheer, narrow walls enclosed, and the Teeth Towers and Durthang watched all. The Men of Gondor had designed them to keep evil at bay and let nothing slink undetected in or out of Mordor. Indeed, nothing did.
It was folly to venture to that accursed vale seeking Gollum and folly to then risk his life at the Black Gate when he had found no trace of Gollum near Cirith Ungol. All hope he had of finding the wretch evaporated. Then as swiftly as it consumed him, his ire diminished, for this mission had not been as completely futile as others he had embarked upon in his life. What he had found at the fences of Mordor enthused very little optimism, but it was better to know it than not. The Enemy was amassing an army that would be the doom of Middle-earth. It would be like the hordes Morgoth had poured forth from Angband that had destroyed the great cities of Gondolin and Doriath. Even the Wise, Elrond, Gandalf, and Galadriel, were not yet aware of this intelligence, though they had foreseen it. The armies of Gondor and Rohan as they stood were weaker than Gondolin and Doriath had ever been and would be rent apart like the hulls of ships in a gale.
Perhaps Isildur’s heir could unite men and make them strong again, as in the days of Elendil and Gil-galad when the Shadow had fallen, defeated. But Gondor and Rohan were weak, Théoden of Rohan was an impotent ruler and Denethor of Gondor was looking to consolidate his power rather than relinquish it. Aragorn could not foresee how to gain the throne and reunite men, waging a successful war against Sauron, without tearing asunder Gondor in civil war. In the face of the massive armies gathering strength on the Gorgoroth plain, his wild hopes seemed further from fulfillment than ever.
Nothing could be done for the present; the time was not yet ripe to fret over Minas Tirith politics or future wars. Events would play themselves out as Ilúvatar willed. While he lived, while Gandalf lived, while Arwen loved him and clung to hope, and while the Ring remained hidden and Minas Tirith stood strong and splendorous, there remained a chance that the free peoples would prevail. His will might very well be stronger than that of Sauron.
There was no reason to linger until his enemies slew him. To Lórien – one hundred fifty leagues to the north – he would go to offer his counsel and forewarnings to Galadriel and Celeborn. The borders of Lothlórien were well protected, and there he could forget about his burdens and worries for a little while. Traveling through the borderlands of Mordor had exhausted him and wounded him in body and in spirit, ailments for which he would find relief in the tranquil, nourishing groves and streams of Lórien. Then if he did not have tryst with Gandalf for a long while – the wizard’s movements were mysterious and Aragorn never knew with certainty where and when they would meet – the Galadhrim would pass the warnings on to him.
Not without regret could he turn his back to the gloomy walls of Mordor. He had but two choices, to seek Gollum on the Gorgoroth Plain itself, a suicide mission, or turn back. The wretched maggot was not worth dying for. Nine years scouring Middle-earth for Gollum, and he had failed. It stung his pride that fate should force him to at last give up, though his duty lay elsewhere now. It was just as important, if not more so, to get word to the Wise forewarning the amassing strength of Mordor.
His decision made, he crept out of the dell in which he had hidden. He took a secretive route across the arid moors of the Noman-lands, loathsome mudflats pockmarked with dying, poisonous pools of gray ash and gas and fire-blasted rock. Green shoots would never sprout here, even as spring, grim and sickly, arrived in the southern reaches of Dagorlad.
Eventually his path would bring him into the Dead Marshes, the site of great battles between Men, Orcs, and Elves. There, the slain of the Battle of the Last Alliance were laid to rest where the growing marshes had swallowed up the graves. Traversing the Marshes, one beheld the faces of the dead in the water, some fair and noble, others foul, all corrupted and all holding candles, flames flickering atop the putrid water. Lore held that the Dead Marshes were impassible, that anyone who stumbled into the water would die and join the dead faces beneath the murky meres, lighting their own corpsecandles. Fearful of their perfidious reputation, Orcs and wild men bypassed the Marshes by many leagues across the flat, stony Dagorlad. At any rate, Aragorn believed he knew of a passage through the Marshes, a secret path unknown to the hosts of Mordor, dangerous in its own way but far safer than the heavily-used trails crossing Dagorlad and then swerving to the east and west of the Marshes. The dead did not frighten him as much as the living.
At the northwest corner of the Marshes, the Emyn Muil rose up from the formless lowlands, a series of sharp and steep cliffs and deep ravines as the land plunged from the plateau of the Anduin to moors and plains at Mordor’s fences. Aragorn banished thoughts of the Emyn Muil as he plodded across the stagnant mudflats. Climbing up the unforgiving and razor-sharp cliffs with an injured shoulder would be an arduous endeavor he did not relish. Green and gray haze veiling the Marshes concealed the remote Emyn Muil from his eyes. It was a rotting wall of steam wafting from the meres and smoke born by the foul winds from Mordor that perennially lay across the low vale.
Chapter 5 - The Dead Marshes
The thick mist embraced Aragorn as he passed into fens and bogs of the Marshes, a shroud cloaking the Ephel Dúath and Ered Lithui; they loomed on the easterly horizon, a wall of indistinct mountains from a dream. He turned northwards, seeking his passage through the treacherous quagmires. The pools were loathsome, and they stank of rot and decay, and noxious mist curled into the dim and gray sky. By now night was falling. The Marshes were plunged into a gloomy darkness – what starlight and moonlight pierced the ash and clouds hugging Mordor fell short of breaking through the fog.
Hundreds of lights sputtered across the black fens before him, an array of stars shivering before they expired. The corpsecandles. Aragorn cast himself on the ground beneath a lonely tree cowering on a patch of reeds, and he stared at the lights. In the water he saw faces, shining white in the dark pools, corrupt and sad, faces of Men, Elves, and Orcs slain during the seven-year Siege of Mordor. They were like shadows, the faces seemingly tangible but nothing more than auras of the dead swallowed by the infringing marshlands. So many had died, and so many would die again. No Elendil and no Gil-galad walked this Middle-earth to lead the combined strength of Westernesse and the Eldar to overthrow the Shadow; no Eärendil braved the seas to bring the host of the Valar to Middle-earth. And even if Aragorn, Elendil’s heir, had the valor within him to defeat Sauron, the carnage remembered by the flickering candles of the Dead Marshes would be unavoidable nonetheless.
The dreary dawn wrought little levity upon his spirit. Through the sticky ooze and moss he stumbled, battling reeds snapping at his cloak and sidestepping around the meres, searching for firm places to walk and not sink into knee-deep mud. He hopped or crawled onto patches of pale reeds, which often gave way and he staggered into the fetid black pools. Polluted mud and water splattered on his face, in his hair, on his cloak and pack and weapons. He was wellnigh coated in it. With one hand he battled the marshes, for his shoulder tormented him; only with sharp bolts of pain could he use his left arm.
As he circumvented a broad fen, tangled reeds caught his foot and he tripped, falling to his hands and knees on the banks of the muddy pool. Stinking black muck squished between his fingers. As he attempted to stand again, his eye caught something in the black slime. The marks of soft and bare feet. They resembled those of a halfling but no halfling would be anywhere within thousands of miles of this miserable place. His heart beat faster.
“Gollum,” he whispered into the bleak Marshes. By fortune’s machinations, had he stumbled into his quarry at last? The irony was bitter! If those tracks led him to Gollum and if he captured the wretch, he must bypass Caras Galadhon. He was wounded, weary, and how he pined for the woods of Lórien. The tracks he could ignore and no one would know he had found and not pursued them. It seemed folly to chase the creature; Gollum had a day or two on Aragorn and could traverse the marshes faster than he. Aragorn had a duty to warn Galadriel of the armies building in Mordor, did he not? Alas, his will to complete what he had begun nine years ago would not be subsumed. Should anyone ask if he had found signs of Gollum, ignoring the tracks left him but two choices; either lying or admitting that he did find tracks and had disregarded them. Both choices soured his stomach. At any rate, the tracks led away from Mordor, skirting the northern edges of the Dead Marshes, Aragorn’s intended path towards the Emyn Muil. They were fresh but swift, appearing and disappearing, weaving a wild path through the noisome cesspools and bogs. So Aragorn too fought his way through the Marshes, staggering across the unsound islands of pale reeds and tussocks.
Through the grimy glass the dead faces leered at him, and he avoided their eyeless and fatal stares. Always, the ghastly faces inquired whether he was a mighty enough lord to lead a great army to its doom on the slopes of Orodruin, whether he bore the courage of Elendil and Isildur, or merely their blood. Aragorn averted his gaze. In the ghastly nights in the Marshes, it seemed to him that greatness was a thing of the past, and that Aragorn son of Arathorn, alone in this vast emptiness, had neither the power of the Noldorin high kings nor that of his Númenorean forebears.
Every so often he found himself at a loss for where to go, facing a mere wider than he could jump, then he backtracked around until he came across a less impassible route. On occasion he lost Gollum’s trail for several miles and roamed in lost circles, slogging through the muddy islets until it reappeared. Doubt cast a pall upon his heart and he wondered if he indeed knew the path out of the marshlands or if he would find Gollum here. The creature weighed less than he and could take passages where Aragorn faltered.
Evening fell and the temperature sank as the sun withdrew what modest light and warmth it had offered through the impregnable clouds and mists. Biting cold cramped Aragorn’s limbs, and he no longer felt his fingers and toes. Stiffly he crawled across a marshy islet towards the skeleton of a bramble, shelter for the night. To his left, a corpsecandle flickered like the white canvas sheet of a loose sail flapping in a breeze. He saw a movement in the corner of his eye, and he turned his gaze to the stagnant mere on the other side of the isle. There, a gangly creature crouched over the black pool, peering into the water, hissing, “My precious, my precious, where iss it, my precious?”
It was oblivious to Aragorn’s presence. Aragorn remained motionless for a time, breathing shallowly, quelling his shivering. Slowly he drew his sword and then crept towards the creature, which was covered from head to toe in stinking green slime. The fetid smell made him almost retch, but he swallowed hard. Then the creature raised its luminous yellow eyes from the pool and saw him. It uttered a strangled yelp and attempted to flee, but Aragorn sprang to his feet, the sword of Gondor glimmering in the dying light of day. “Do not move!” he cried.
Gollum, for it was Gollum, stumbled backwards at the sight of the sword and almost fell into the tepid pool. He shrieked, a wail rupturing eerie quiescence with hatred and terror. With his back against the mere and Aragorn and his bright sword blocking the one escape route over the sodden island, Gollum was trapped. Uttering a torturous screech, which was only eclipsed by the deathly voices of Nazgûl, he lunged at Aragorn, pale eyes smoldering, and Aragorn sent him sprawling into the murky water with a blow from the flat side of the sword. The craven creature whirled upon him, baring yellow fangs and staring down the gleaming blade of the sword, graven with the markings of Westernesse, the crescent moon and seven stars. He froze in terror as if the markings woke some fear deep within his heart, and into the mere he sprang. Aragorn gave chase into the shallows, sinking to his knees in the black muck and cursing Gollum and his ill fortune in finding him here. Into the mere he would not follow his quarry, for he had no desire to learn whether legends he had heard of the fate of those who fell into the Marshes were true. Neither did Gollum, who had shied from the depths of the black pool and the corpsecandle and skittered through the reeds on its shores.
“Halt there if you want to live!” snapped Aragorn. He notched an arrow to his bow, aimed it, and fired. Then he loosed a second. They whistled through the air and dove into the mud not an inch from Gollum, one after the other: thunk, thunk. Gollum leapt away from them, splashing into a shallow fen. It was a contest now, a skirmish Aragorn intended to win. Whatever be their fate in Lórien, whatever the message Aragorn sent Galadriel, this creature would not see the other side of the Marshes free. If he did not submit to capture, Aragorn had few reservations about slaying him. He fitted a third arrow to the bow. This one would be no warning shot. Gollum withdrew into the pool and then looked to the arrow’s tip as Aragorn slowly drew back the bowstring. Forsaking flight, he dragged himself out of the pool, curling into a ball on its shores, weeping.
“Don’t hurt us,” he whimpered. “Don’t hurt us. Nasty Man and nasty long sword and nasty arrowses hurts us, my precious. It hurts us. gollum, gollum.”
Disgusted, Aragorn lowered his arrow and took up the sword again. The Númenorean engravings had struck the fear of Ilúvatar in Gollum, which had for a moment overcome the fear of the corpsecandle, an effect Aragorn did not rue. He said sharply, “Get up, you wretch. Over to the bramble there. Now.” He indicated the broken brush with the sword.
Gollum paid him no heed, as if Aragorn had commanded him in Quenya instead of Westron. “It hurts us, the nasty sword, it bites us, precious, bites us cruelly. We hatess it.”
“It will ‘bite you’ again if you do not heed my words,” said Aragorn, raising the sword. He should slay the vile creature, put him out of his misery once and for all, succeed in what Bilbo Baggins, Sauron, and surely others before them had failed. But Gandalf had insisted that Gollum should live and made plain that he thought Gollum had a part to play in this, though what it was or why, the old wizard could not say. Aragorn had been skeptical, and as he looked upon Gollum, the corrupted, miserable creature whose spirit the Ring had defiled and warped beyond all redemption, his skepticism grew. Pity had stayed the hand of Bilbo and perhaps clouded Gandalf’s judgment, and Aragorn could not deny it. Gollum’s life was a sorrowful tale and the creature had long been an unwitting victim of Sauron’s malice, but he had born the Ring for too many years – it had devoured all that was noble and fair – and the formidable malice and hatred that Sauron had poured into the Ring was all that remained. Regardless of who or what he had been before he discovered the Ring, Gollum was a villain now, too dangerous to be on the loose and in Aragorn’s mind, not as deserving of life as Gandalf believed. But Gandalf desired Gollum alive and at any rate, wanted him questioned. Until he reconvened with the wizard, Aragorn would abide by what he and Gandalf had agreed to.
“You owe your life to Gandalf,” Aragorn told Gollum, who had heeded the threat and upraised sword and skulked to the thorny brush, eyes downcast, sniveling and muttering curses. His sword held to Gollum’s throat, Aragorn unwrapped the rope he had received from Henneth Annûn and bound Gollum’s slimy hands with it. Gollum wriggled in protest, and there was murder and wrath in his pale eyes. “We are sullying some fine rope,” said Aragorn.
“He puts the sword to our necks and he puts the ropes on our hands, precious,” cried Gollum. “We did nothing, oh, yes, we did nothing to him and he treats us so cruelly. The rope, it burns us, it burns us, precious. We hates it. Men, men of the west twisted it, fierce men with long swords. Curse them, precious, curse them.”
Ignoring the protestations, Aragorn wrapped another loop around the creature’s scrawny neck, a halter of sorts, though he thought a noose would be more fitting. Then he sank down beneath the skeletal bush, beset by weariness yet warding off sleep, sword resting across his knees. Grimly he watched Gollum paw at the knots, but they were seamen’s knots and few knew how to untie them. The pitiful creature gurgled in despair, wrapping his fingers around the rope on his neck and then casting himself upon the ground, writhing about, bemoaning his lost “precious.”
A black veil shrouded the Marshes, as it would a lady at a funeral. The cold deepened. Aragorn, breathing into his abraded hands to warm them, languished for the warmth and light of Lórien or Rivendell or any place but here. Gollum, for his part, seemed unaffected by the weather. Back and forth he rocked, weeping and casting furtive glances at Aragorn.
In spite of Gollum, Aragorn would hold to his intended course: out of the Marshes undetected and then up through the treacherous northern spires of the Emyn Muil, following the Anduin upstream a hundred leagues towards Lothlórien and crossing the Nimrodel and Silverlode on its most western fringes. Disappointment left a bitter taste in his mouth. To Caras Galadhon he could not bring his prisoner. There would be no respite for him in the fairest of all cities on Middle-earth, little likelihood of alerting Galadriel and Celeborn to Sauron’s movements. The power of Galadriel, who had crossed Helcaraxë and communed with the Valar in Aman, had battled evil and kept it from the forest. Leading Gollum through Lórien’s outermost borders on its western eaves risked Aragorn’s life and his relations to the Elves as it was, yet he had little choice. The fortress of Dol Guldur stood at the edges of Mirkwood on the eastern shore of Anduin, a dark sentinel, the stronghold of Sauron where he had dwelt in secret for a thousand years after the Gondorrim had driven him from Mordor. While Sauron himself no longer resided in Dol Guldur, an outpost of Mordor it remained, a place of great evil. A Nazgûl dwelt in its terrible battlements, keeping close vigilance upon Lórien and the Mirkwood Elves. Only once during his many travels had Aragorn explored the realms of the wicked fortress, for few who went there came back alive. No, the safest route for hundreds of miles passed through Lórien.
Then his route continued upstream for many hundreds of miles to the northern reaches of Mirkwood, the kingdom of Thranduil of the Wood-elves, and there he would leave Gollum in the hands of the Elves. Mirkwood he and Gandalf had deemed the most suitable place to imprison Gollum in the event they found him.
For many hours sipping ale in an inn near Bree, a time and place hundreds of leagues and many years distant, they had debated and deliberated and discarded other choices. Leaving him with men would be perilous. Aragorn distrusted his kin; he saw no strength in Rohan and Gondor and did not dare reveal to them why Gollum need be kept prisoner. Théoden was aged and sickly, a weak king, and while Denethor was strong, Gandalf suspected he had used the palantír in the White Tower, which had bent his mind towards madness. Aragorn, recalling Denethor’s intense dislike of Thorongil and suspicion that he might be the heir of Elendil, did not believe the Steward would be overjoyed to see him under any circumstances. And his own kin, the Dúnedain of the North, had not the facility to confine the cunning and deceitful footpad. Dwarves they had forthwith dismissed. To the Elves then Gollum must go. But Lórien and Rivendell did not want him nor had they the prisons in which to confine him. Neither could Aragorn bear to sully the fairest realms of Middle-earth wherein his heart rested. And Gandalf had reviled the thought of bringing a bearer of the One Ring to the realms of the Three. Mirkwood, however, had dungeons deep within its caverns. Thranduil’s people already knew of Gollum; they had begun the hunt for him seventeen years ago, following his trail through Mirkwood and back, though never catching him.
For now, Aragorn hovered between waking and sleep, shivering in fear of the shadows creeping through the meres and across the opaque sky whenever his mind drifted too near sleep. When he blinked away cobwebs of sleep, the night was quiet and still, the only sounds the hiss of the foul wind through the reeds and Gollum’s irrepressible snuffling. He floated away again, as though borne on a ship, and he saw mountains, the Ered Nimrais rearing their heads beyond the shimmering water of the Bay of Belfalas, the sky blue and clear, the wind fresh. There were faces all about him, shining, joyous faces, faces of Men and Elves who had died at the gates of Mordor and on Orodruin’s fire-blasted flanks and in the kingdoms of Beleriand and Númenor in great battles long ago.
Abruptly he fell back into the waking world of the gloomy Marshes and raised himself up on his elbow; he saw Gollum skulking towards him, hatred and loathing burning like the fires of Mordor in his pale eyes. As though unaware Aragorn had wakened, Gollum leapt at him, hands clammy and wizened grasping for his throat, but Aragorn nimbly rolled sideways and struck Gollum in the head with his fist. Livid, Gollum whirled upon him and found himself face to face with the glittering serpentine markings of Númenor. He cowered, trembling, the rage in his eyes vanquished by terror.
“Do that again and you will not live out the night,” snarled Aragorn, grasping Gollum by the throat. The putrid stench of the miserable wretch inches from his nostrils dizzied him, and he tossed Gollum roughly aside in repugnance.
The remaining hours of the long, and dark night brought Aragorn neither slumber nor peace. He lay curled on his side, wide-awake, though Gollum huddled dejectedly on the other side of the island and did nothing more to threaten him.
* * *
At morning’s pale light, Aragorn had a swift and cold breakfast of dried pork, dried fruit, and Gondorian waybread and then jerked Gollum to his feet with an unkind tug on the rope. The creature had been cringing beneath the broken bramble. As Aragorn pulled him along, faltering through fens and bogs, he shrieked, a piercing racket shattering the tomblike silence of the Marshes. They walked in this manner for several hours until Aragorn found a skeletal chain of tussock isles crossing the cesspools. Herein he had a moment’s respite from intently concentrating on his path. Turning to Gollum, he demanded, “Tell me, were you in Mordor?”
“Why should we answer its questions when it treats us so harshly, preciouss?” Gollum said.
“Were you captured in the Black Land?” repeated Aragorn.
“So cruelly he tortures us,” wept Gollum, “So cruel to us. He wants the precious from us, yes, that is what he wants, but we mustn’t let him have it, oh, we mustn’t, precious. We’ll keep it, yes, yes, and hides ourselves from it, from the eye! It watches us!”
“Who tortured you? Sauron?” said Aragorn, unsure if Gollum referred to Sauron’s minions, himself, or both. He yanked upon the rope, for Gollum had balked in a patch of dying reeds and hidden his face in his slimy hands.
“No, no, don’t make us walk beneath the eye!” howled Gollum, throwing his weight against the rope. “Nassty man makes us show ourselves to the yellow face, nasty cruel man hurts us with his swordses and his ropes. We hates it, precious, we hates it. In the dark they won’t see us. The eye sees all; it will see us and take us back there.”
“I know you understand me,” snapped Aragorn. “You understood Bilbo Baggins well enough to bandy riddles with him. I shall make this even more unpleasant for you if you do not tell me now whether or not you were in Mordor and what they did to you there.”
“Baggins, yes, he stole the precious, he did. Thieves, filthy little thieves. They stole it from uss. We hates it, we hates them all that steal the precious, we wants it and we will find it. Baggins stole it from us, precious. Very tricksy he was, very false, but we’ll find him, we’ll get it, won’t we? gollum, gollum.”
“Did you tell the Enemy that Baggins stole ‘the precious?’”
“But we can be tricksy, too, can’t we? We survived, we escaped.”
“So you were in Mordor,” said Aragorn. “And you got out? Is that what you are saying?”
“But the ropes are burning uss,” wailed Gollum. “The yellow face hides nothing from him, my precious, he sees all, he sees, he sees. The Eye sees and he wants the precious! But if nasty man lets us go we will keep it from him, we will, keep it safe, keep it for us.”
“Did you escape from Mordor?” pressed Aragorn.
“We will finds it, we must finds it, but the light hurts us. The cruel nasty light.” Gollum hid his eyes in his hands and writhed about in the tussocks. “Why does he do this to us, precious. We was minding our business and he puts the ropes on us. The cold, cold ropeses that burns out neck! Must take it off!” He clawed uselessly at the rope.
Exasperated by the futility of pursuing Gollum with questions, Aragorn gave up presently. Perhaps Gollum was cunning enough to spew inanities at Aragorn with every query, but not even in his most aggrieved nightmares did Aragorn perceive the torment and woe of the dungeons beneath Barad-dûr. Whatever horrors they had inflicted upon Gollum could have warped his mind beyond the bounds of lucidity. Nevertheless it remained clear that he desired the Ring and posed a threat to the one who carried it. If indeed Sauron had spared him from the dungeons, Gollum must have been released upon an evil errand, unwittingly since the creature was more terrified of the Dark Lord – his adversary who desired ‘the precious’ – than he was of Aragorn and would elude Sauron’s will more readily than he eluded Aragorn’s. Sauron was cunning. The same treachery that had deceived the Númenoreans and Celebrimbor would serve him well in using Gollum for his evil ends.
Gollum cried and whined about eyes and yellow faces, his prolonged wailing making a racket loud enough to rouse the curiosity of every Orc within a hundred leagues. He weighed naught, but lugging him through the bogs and meres grew wearisome as the shadows lengthened. Aragorn bade him to be silent and held a gleaming dagger to his face.
A bolt of courage struck the creature, and he hurled himself into Aragorn. His teeth he sank into the vambrace on Aragorn’s left forearm. Sharp fangs burrowed beneath cloth and leather. With the hilt of the knife, Aragorn struck him hard, again and again until he tore away with flesh and leather in his teeth, recoiling from the blows, covering his head and whimpering like a whipped hound. Blood surged across Aragorn’s arm, soaking through the vambrace and cloth and dripping onto his hand. He unbuckled the vambrace and rolled back his sleeve, revealing red lesions gouging into the flesh oozing blood and yellow fluid. Dizziness and nausea impinged upon him and then swept past. The wounds needed bathing, but the water here caused deadly infection, and he had no drinking water to spare. So he did what he could, crumbling his few athelas leaves on the lesions and then binding his arm in cloth and fashioning a sling with a torn cloth and the vambrace. Between that and his shoulder, his left arm was all but useless, yet contend with it he must until he could cleanse the wounds in the waters of the Anduin.
Then Aragorn turned his attention to Gollum, who squirmed amongst tussocks in fear that Aragorn would slay him. Suppressing rage, Aragorn tugged sharply upon the rope and when Gollum shook and gibbered incomprehensibly, grasping at the reeds, Aragorn raised the knife towards Gollum’s head. If ever he was going to slay the maggot, he should have done so there and then. Hitherto he had trusted the foresight of Gandalf, and stayed his weapon in spite of his better instincts. Instead of striking him with the steel, he unkindly shoved the creature into a fen with his boot. Gollum quieted his shrieking and wailing. Nonetheless, he refused to walk willingly and suffered to be hauled along like a plow behind a horse.
“Enough of this.” Aragorn said after a time, and Gollum flinched away from his steely gray eyes. “As you are no cart and I am no horse, I will not suffer to drag you to Mirkwood.”
When Aragorn invoked the name of Mirkwood, Gollum goggled and he fawned pathetically at Aragorn’s cloak, whimpering, “Elveses... No, don’t take us to the elveses, fierce nasty elves that hurts us, precious, they hurts us. We be good, we be very very good if he doesn’t take us to the elveses... We tell him anything he wants to know, yes, about the Black Land, even. gollum, gollum.”
“I will not bind myself to a promise I cannot keep,” said Aragorn. Gollum felt the terrible call of the Ring; he would make any promise and betray it just as swiftly if he thought it advanced his agenda of finding his precious. Deceit was the one thing Aragorn was certain of in his dealings with Gollum. “And you will walk or I shall truss you up here for the carrion-eaters or servants of Sauron to find and pick the meager flesh off your bones.” He unsheathed the sword. For reasons unbeknownst to him, its Númenorean etchings disturbed Gollum more than did the White Tree on the dagger. His point made, he returned the long sword to its scabbard, for wielding it was nigh impossible as he floundered one-handed through cesspools.
The threat seemed in earnest and Gollum bowed his head, cowed by the cold steel of the Westernesse sword and the thought of whatever Aragorn’s words wakened in his imagination. Willing he was not, but he grew obedient when Aragorn laid a hand upon the hilt of his sword.
The dead faces grew ever more mesmerizing as Aragorn’s weariness and the ache in his injured arm beleaguered him. The cold and damp of the Marshes aggravated his wounds. In a daze he thrashed and slipped through the thick mists, through the mud and ooze, grim and stoic, stooped over, footsore and cold from water soaking through his boots.
When night fell, he found himself gazing into the proud, fair and corrupted face of a fallen Elf lord in the pool, the pupil-less eyes open, haunted, the golden hair streaming about the shoulders. The candle danced in Aragorn’s intense gray eyes. He could not turn his gaze from the dead face; the ghoulish eyes seized his heart. Though none knew who it was, to Aragorn’s eyes it became Finrod or Finarfin; Thingol or Fingolfin; Fingon or Turgon; one of the Elven-kings of old who had met his fate at the Enemy’s hand. All queried whether or not the bearer of the sword of Elendil also bore the strength of Elendil. Would their fate be his? In the haunted eyes, past and present merged and the dead lived. Kneeling upon the muddy shore of the mere, Aragorn reached for the pale face, his blood-soaked fingers disturbing the grimy glass of the water, distorting the grave image beneath it.
“Tricksy lights,” hissed Gollum. “Mustn’t follow the tricksy lights.”
The dead suddenly pulled back into the shadows. Aragorn abruptly withdrew his hand, as though the water stung him, and turned to Gollum, aghast that the creature who surely wished for his death had spoken helpfully. What deep fissures had the Ring rent through his mind that drove him to sink his teeth into a man’s flesh in one moment and save him from peril the next? Isildur had desired to make the thing into an heirloom, passed down to all of his heirs, a grim thought sending chills coursing down Aragorn’s spine, a visceral fear of what might have been had Isildur not perished in the Gladden Fields.
Gollum at any rate had resumed rocking himself and muttering effusive gibberish below Aragorn’s hearing, as if someone else had warned against looking into the pools. His eyes were half-lidded, and he made no response to Aragorn’s querulous stare. Though Aragorn had no intentions of sleeping, he rested his eyes and behind his closed lids saw the colorless face of the dead Elf lord in the mere. He could not rid himself of it. Softly, he sang a few verses of a sad and befitting tune in Quenya telling of the death of Gil-galad in the days of the Last Alliance.
Gil-galad was an Elven king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realms was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven’s field
were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.[i]
Above him the heavy clouds shredded and the shimmering moon cast a pale, white light through the deep blue strips of cloud and smoke. Not a glimmer of moonlight had he seen since he had departed from the Morannon; the ashen specter elated him. In the blue-tinged glow, he saw the Emyn Muil, a jagged, murky mass to his northwest perchance a day’s walk away. The same moon shone upon Gondor and upon Rivendell and Lórien and upon his homelands in the North, the lost kingdom of Arnor. Beyond the rugged rocks, it shone upon the Anduin as it cut through the Argonath and Sarn Gebir and plunged down the Falls of Rauros. It shone upon the sea that had swallowed Númenor and the graves in Middle-earth of the fallen; it shone upon Calacirya, the Pass of Light in the deathless lands, and the cities of Tirion and Túna.
Neither the moon nor the Elvish lay mollified Gollum, who buried his head in his hands and cried, “The white face, it hurts us, precious. Its eyes watch, always watching, it sees us. gollum, gollum. It is painful, yes, beneath the white face, yes, he makes us walk beneath it he does... Cruel men, cruel elves, they don’t know, they don’t understand, they think the light is their friend, but its hurts us, it burns us, doesn’t hide us, doesn’t keep us safe...”
On this went for some time until Aragorn, too wearied and in too much pain to listen, cuffed Gollum in the side of the head with the hilt of a knife and told him to be still. He swore to himself that he would gag the little wretch or abandon him tied to a rock or tree if he continued his endless whining and babbling into the ominous and silent night. With a murderous and sullen growl, Gollum obeyed and curled into a dejected ball as far from Aragorn as he could manage on their tussock island.
---------------------------------------------
[i] The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Ch. XI
Chapter 6 - Passage Over the Emyn Muil
The fens and mires narrowed. Knee-deep bogs turned into mossy mounds, firm footing at last. The rotting stench of Gollum and of the Marshes was so fierce that it scorched Aragorn’s breathing passages and hurt his head, like fires blazing behind his eyes. But a great relief it was to have the Marshes behind him and the Ephel Dúath no more than a remote, hazy shadow at his back. Up a gully he marched. The sides of it rose on either side of them. Then an impregnable cliff, a looming imposition of rock of gray and rusted hue blocked their path, and Aragorn had to tread along its base for some time searching for a climbable incline.
“We know a way up, yes, we do,” said Gollum. “We found the way, my precious, down the cliffs, we did. Down the cliffs... We finds it again if he asks us, if he lets us go and keeps us away from the nassty elveses. Then we finds the way, my precious.”
Aragorn eyed Gollum askance. “You would just as soon lead us into a trap.”
“Yess,” hissed Gollum. “Trapped.”
He walked along the gully for a long time – at least it seemed that way to his tired feet – until the slant eased into a more favorable slope, and then he turned his back to the vast fens of the Marshes. The solemn and disturbed images of the dead in his mind faded as he climbed up the stony slope, a reprieve from ghosts of the past haunting him through the Marshes. Wind moaned through the crags and dells of the toothed ridges, a breeze from the north that did not smell so foul as the east wind.
Rock climbing tore at the wounds in his left arm. But up he clambered during the day, the pain a mist clouding his thought from which he only awoke to snap the rope at Gollum when the devious creature trailed too far behind. At night he rested without sleep, for Gollum muttered sinister riddles in the dark, and Aragorn distrusted him more than he distrusted Sauron himself. Sauron at least he trusted to be evil, but Gollum, enslaved by the Ring, was far from good but not entirely villainous. While he waited out long nights, Aragorn applied his ever-dwindling athelas to the wounds, but it seemed all the leaves did was stave off a threatening fever.
Under a cavernous shadow beneath a rugged fin, he took respite from a protracted and steep ascent up a hogback, his breath labored and left arm hanging useless in its sling. His prisoner sang a nonsensical song, which he paid no mind to and had not even the energy to snap the rope and demand Gollum keep his tongue behind his teeth. It was day, but the smoke from Mordor continued to veil this land from the sun, and the gray light lingered even though many leagues lay between Aragorn and Mordor’s walls. Then raucous noises from Gollum alerted him to something amiss. He half opened his eyes.
“Kill him,” Gollum was hissing. “Yes, kill him my precious, and cut nassty ropes from our neck. Wrap our hands around his neck and wring the life out of him, yes, yess. Deserves it, yes, so well deserved, for he hurts us, precious, he burns us with his cruel rope.”
“No,” Gollum continued after a pause. “No. Too dangerous, my precious. He’s quick, he is. Too quick, too cruel, will hurt us if we try.”
“He’s hurt now. The climbing, it hurts him, he can’t do it. We can sneak up and do it and he won’t know, he won’t stop uss, then, then we can use his nassty knives to cuts the ropes, yes, cuts the nassty ropes.”
Even as Gollum debated whether or not to throttle Aragorn, the creature crept towards him. “What if he sees us, precious, what if he knows? He’ll cut us with nasty rope and cold sword, bleed us, take us to the elveses. Too risky. Too risky.”
“But we’re going to the nasty elveses anyway. Doesn’t matter, that’s what he says we’re doing, that’s where we’re going, precious. Only one way to save usss, one way. Kill him. Kill him.”
Aragorn gripped the hilt of his sword with his good hand and through his eyelashes watched Gollum slink towards him on all fours. The northern borders of Mirkwood, Thranduil’s kingdom, lay more than eight hundred miles to the north, and not even he had the strength to travel eight hundred miles without rest. Yet he must always sleep with one eye open, ever watchful of his treacherous prisoner, an insurmountable task for eight hundred miles. He must whip the fight and treachery out of Gollum’s perfidious spirit until he had naught left in him but obedience. Aragorn detested cruelty, but he had to bow to necessity and do whatever he must.
Aragorn pulled himself up on his left elbow, even as pain lanced through his shoulder, and he unsheathed the sword in Gollum’s astonished face. Howling in despair, Gollum backtracked with such haste that he tripped and fell hard against the rocks. There he cowered, trembling. The edge of the sword Aragorn pressed to the wretch's throat.
“I have been more merciful than you deserve,” he said. “If I had my will, I would end your life here, but I must get us both to Mirkwood alive. I am beyond caring how.” He kicked Gollum in the side, and the miserable creature cried out, doubling up and writhing in pain. Anguish at beating on a creature unable or unwilling to defend himself impaled Aragorn’s heart, and he involuntarily averted his eyes from Gollum’s misery. Gollum put him at a loss. There was no doubt in his mind that Gollum was a villain, a murderer, and deserved more punishment than Aragorn would inflict. He had little compunction about killing Aragorn in his sleep, yet he quailed before Aragorn’s rage and had no hope of overcoming his sword. The manipulative little wretch curled up and cried. The more punishment he received, the harder he would weep, accepting the blows until nightfall when stealthily he took his revenge. But there were other ways to coerce cooperation.
Aragorn dug his knee into Gollum’s back, restraining him though he writhed, shrieking curses in both the Common Tongue and the coarse language of Orcs, and tried again to bite. Tightly he bound Gollum’s hands and then gagged him with a shredded piece of his old cloak, the one he had used to bandage wounds in the Morgul Vale. Once he had Gollum bound so he could do little more than walk and climb, Aragorn roughly shoved him against the rock shelf, pinning him there. Brimming with malice, Gollum glowered at him, murderous snarls bubbling up from his shriveled throat.
“Yes or no,” Aragorn said, “Did you take the Stairs of Cirith Ungol out of Mordor?”
Gollum muttered muffled insults and flailed his legs.
“Answer me,” Aragorn growled. “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol. Was that your path?”
Gollum made no attempt to answer him and did nothing more than cry into the gag and thrash like a snake caught under an eagle’s talon. Thoroughly perturbed, Aragorn let him go and wearily turned towards the path he must tread through the maze of cliffs, fins, and tors. A few hours of daylight remained. He hoisted his pack and jerked tiredly upon the rope.
Henceforth the next few days’ travel was sluggish, scrambling across treacherous climbs through drop-offs and crevasses, exploring the slopes of the Emyn Muil for passable routes. When the flat gray clouds overhead fissured and slivers of sunlight dappled the pale gray and rust-colored bands of the fins and cliffs, Gollum screamed and cried, earsplitting wails resounding through the cliffs. Aragorn did not know what fell things inhabited the desolate cliffs and what eyes and ears watched them. He pointed the Westernesse sword at Gollum. “For the love of the Valar, stop wailing like a rabbit in hawk’s talon,” he said.
Gollum whimpered, “Don’t hurt us, don’t hurt us.”
“Alas, I would not only hurt you but kill you if it were my choice,” said Aragorn, gesturing up the slope with the sword. Head down, Gollum scurried past and scuttled up the shorn rock face ahead of Aragorn. They made far better time, though Aragorn’s wounds and the labyrinthine contours of the land often leading him astray for several miles hindered their passage. Always he worked westward, though he often diverted from his course when sheer cliffs obstructed him and he had to work back west again, a zig-zag line through the barren and stony slopes. At his back he kept the black Ephel Dúath and the reddened sky of Mordor. Frequently he made use of the rope – the part not haltering Gollum – to negotiate treacherous precipices, and felt greatly in debt to the Ithilien Rangers for the gift.
Come twilight, a sudden storm sprang forth from the gray sky. Clouds burst overhead, lightning danced across the pinnacles and across the murky black lowlands stretching towards the mountains, thunder roared like a great army, rain poured down in sheets. Rivulets of water flowed down cliff faces and the rock became slick. Small streams rushed through gullies and eddied around the feet of Aragorn and Gollum. Driving Gollum ahead of him with the threat of his ever-drawn sword, Aragorn sloshed through the streams and puddles and clambered cautiously up the slippery rocks. In spite of the hard going, the lashing gale and the thunder roaring like the rage of the Valar against Ar-Pharazôn sent a surge of excitement through him. “What a glorious storm this is!” he said aloud, turning his face to the howling wind. “In such gales Númenor could have been swallowed by the sea!” Bolts of lightning ripped open the sky, setting ablaze the deep clefts and ridges of the Emyn Muil in white light, so brilliant that it lit even the distant crags of the high Ephel Dúath and Ered Lithui.
Waiting out the storm underneath an overhang seemed a wise choice, had Aragorn more time. Crows, hawks, and other beasts whose eyes not even a Ranger could slip past spied for Sauron, and Aragorn thought it inevitable that the Enemy would learn of Gollum’s recapture. As Sauron indisputably had some pernicious design in releasing Gollum, he would be incensed to hear of his plans foiled. The last thing Aragorn desired were Orcs, or Ilúvatar forbid something worse like a Nazgûl, on his heels for the long days of travel to come. His best defenses against the eyes and ears of Sauron were speed and stealth. He had not a moment tarry. So long as he had the strength in him to press forward, forward he must go.
A steep and rocky incline rose before him, a daunting cliff-face. There was no time to rest, but the chances of being struck by lightning upon the exposed ridge were quite good. The chances of Sauron’s spies being out in this weather were considerably lower. “Alas for this storm,” Aragorn said to himself. No more did the storm thrill him now that it hindered his flight. “But climbing that rock now is a good way to get killed.” He leapt out of the small stream roiling around his ankles in the wash he had been following and took cover in a cleft in the cliff wall, a seat gouged into the limestone face protected from the lashing gale. While waiting, he counted the seconds between the lightning flashes and the roar of thunder. Often he barely reached the number one before the thunder rattled the Emyn Muil. Unless this was some storm brewed up by the wrath of Morgoth himself, the heart of the storm ought to move off in an hour or less.
The moment Aragorn counted fifteen seconds – three miles – between the lightning and thunder, he abandoned his shelter and paced along the foot of the cliff, searching for a gully or wash or rockfall, a trail up its torn flanks. None appeared. He squinted through the dark rain towards its summit as a dazzling flash of lightning set it alight and showed no easy path. There he descried deep cracks rent into the limestone, broken with sharp ledges and folds.
He resumed pacing alongside the unyielding and barren rock face. On its northern and southern edges, the cant increased to a sheer escarpment, high and insurmountable. He exhaled a dismayed breath. The wall above the cleft wherein he had waited out the lightning was the only path up the cliff for leagues. Pointing the sword towards the high summit, Aragorn compelled Gollum to climb the stony face ahead of him, and then sheathed the weapon and began his slow and toilsome crawl.
Gollum scrambled over the rocks as far ahead of Aragorn as the rope round his neck permitted, ascending effortlessly despite the wet rock and the ropes about his wrists. Behind him Aragorn labored up the cliff, aggrieving his wounded shoulder as he clung to the broken stone and hauled his body up the wall. In better circumstances he could keep apace with Gollum, but the rocks were slippery, the pain scalding, the sheets of rain obfuscating his sight. For a little while he rested on a ledge, his limbs quivering and his chest heaving. He gazed upon the spectacular vista; the sullen red sky above the dusky Ephel Dúath; the plain, formless and murky, at the foot of the mountains; the gnarled mass of serrated pinnacles, ridges, and deep clefts and gullies of the Emyn Muil. Wild lightning in the distance continuously set the sky aflame with lances of white fire thrusting from the tumultuous dark clouds.
Steeling himself against pain, Aragorn continued upwards. Fingers slipped and the toes of his boots shakily held the rock. One step at a time, he dragged himself along, up and up, pressing his body into the slickened limestone, and at every step questioning the wisdom of his decision. Would it not have been better to wait out the storm underneath an overhang or boulder? The adversity of this climb seemed hardly worth the few hours he had gained. Had the desire to flee the confines of Mordor addled his common sense? Aragorn raised his eyes, squinting ahead through the rain, and there saw Gollum’s dim shape perched above him on a lip overhanging the cliff face. The summit of the escarpment at last. He scaled the last few feet of broken rubble and then lay flat on his stomach on the ledge beside Gollum for a while, in more pain than he thought he could bear. “It would have been wiser to have ascended this on the morrow,” he said to Gollum, who crouched on the ledge well away from Aragorn.
In the very rock itself, he felt the thunderous roar of an immense cataract, a deep thrum pulsing through the stone and earth. Not even the blackened night, the wild storm, the sheets of rain in his eyes concealed the solid plumes of spray rising from the Falls of Rauros. To the west, the escarpment fell away in a sheer precipice, a deep gorge in which a silver and gray cloud churned and roiled as the Anduin plummeted down the falls in roaring tongues of rushing white water. One stage of his journey was over. From here, his path took him northwards until he could ford the Great River somewhere between Sarn Gebir and the South Undeep, a dangerous road for Orcs watched the eastern banks of Anduin, but he had no boat, and no Man nor Elf could swim Anduin’s swift currents south of Sarn Gebir or the wide lake of Nen-Hithoel.
Aragorn drew himself up to his hands and knees and crawled to the lee side of a boulder, clutching his throbbing arm to his chest. So long as the storm raged, no Orcs would come and in the lashing wind, the roaring thunder, and driving rain, he would be safe to rest for the night and replenish his strength for tomorrow’s race to Sarn Gebir.
Chapter 7 - Flight to the Riddermark
Sometime in the night, the storm blew itself out and dawn broke through the heavy clouds shrouding Mordor and stretched thin fingers of light through mists furling atop the Emyn Muil. The thrumming of the falls roused Aragorn from a dreamless sleep. He blinked in the sun, a strange and heartwarming sight after many days traveling in flattened and sallow light. He had not intended on letting deep sleep claim him, but it seemed to have done him good. While blood trickled from his forearm and the shoulder ached as if a horse had kicked him, pain no longer paralyzed it. Nor had his prisoner throttled him in the night. The ruinous wretch crouched beneath a nearby boulder, malice gleaming in his eyes but his bonds were tight and firm and the fear in his heart potent.
When Aragorn looked to the west, the view elevated his heart. There, the escarpment on which he rested descended steeply for hundreds of feet to the Nen-Hithoel, Anduin’s silver and white lake. The pent-up waters spread out in the elongated, oval basin and then sprang off the edge of a cliff in jets of foaming white water. Wafts of coiling white spray rose from Rauros, a cloud of mist parrying with sunlight in rainbows and golden beams of light. Gazing south, Aragorn saw three lofty hills rearing above the brown and gray strata of the cliffs and deep canyons, above the labyrinth of burnt and naked stone rending the Emyn Muil. They were Amon Lhaw, and Amon Hen and in the center, surrounded by rushing waters, Tol Brandir. In the days of the kings of Westernesse, Amon Lhaw and Amon Hen were great watchtowers, but now they sat empty and abandoned. Ever did Aragorn desire to set foot upon the high seats of Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw, but his road lay in the opposite direction. He had no time for deviations. High above Nen-Hithoel a hawk circled, a dark silhouette against the pale sky. Whether it served the Enemy or not, he had no idea; nonetheless the sight unsettled him. No longer did the wild storm, a torrent of darkness, shelter him from his foes; the splendid sunlight was his greatest foe against stealth.
Aragorn stirred and got up. In his pack he found breakfast, soggy bread and nuts and dried fruit. It was not good, but it was food so he ate it anyway. His last remaining athelas leaves he applied to the swollen, oozing lesions in his forearm.
Though stiff and sore, he did not linger upon the overlook. He drew his sword to assure Gollum’s obedience, and then hurried along the rim of the escarpment. With a twinge of regret and sorrow for the glory of the days of the kings, Aragorn cast a wistful glance over his shoulder at the three temples of stone and it seemed that a mantle of gold rimmed the cap of Tol Brandir. Perhaps a day would come when that glory returned to Gondor.
The bright sun, the breathable air, and the great river running alongside him in the dark canyon renewed his vigor. Before his wounds harangued him into taking a brief rest, he covered many miles scrambling through the brambles, weeds, and fallen limestone boulders, over ridges, deep dales, and rocky spires elaborately serpentine and smoothly sculptured, colored in horizontal bands of gray and rose. At midday he took cover in a dell beside a bottomless gray pool, splashing water upon his face and cleansing the cuts on his arm.
Gollum was wroth about the sun’s emergence. He had scuttled forward sullen and silent at the tip of Aragorn’s sword, but now he protested noisily, howling muffled curses into the cloth gagging his mouth. Aragorn shoved him against the rock, pressing his blade to the creature’s throat and staring into Gollum’s pale face.
“Be silent, you miserable maggot!” Aragorn said. “You think to get me killed by rousing every Orc along the Anduin’s Eastern shore to your aid?”
Gollum frantically shook his head, but deceit shone in his eyes.
“I do not believe that. But it matters not. If you do not hold your tongue, you will suffer worse punishments than you already suffer, at my hands and at the hands of the Elves should we make it that far. You will wish Sauron had never released you.” Ending Gollum’s miserable life while his blade touched his throat tempted Aragorn – Gollum was a danger, a burden, a sly villain – but Gandalf’s admonitions again stayed his hand, and when he looked upon Gollum trembling beneath the sword, he saw a forlorn, wretched creature whose mind and body had been shriveled by the Ring, and a pang of forbearance stirred in his breast. He let Gollum go and stepped back against the side of the hollow where he sat down and ate a bit. The sword he did not sheathe.
Silvery shadows of fish flitted sumptuously about beneath the murky gray water. Whimpering Gollum looked up at Aragorn beseechingly and mumbled into the gag, “Release us, and we will be very, very good. Release us.”
Aragorn’s face was impassive, his eyes harder than steel. When Gollum began whining again, Aragorn swung the blade of the sword towards him, the Westernesse etchings glinting like blue fire in the sun. Gollum cringed in terror and crawled to the far side of the hollow.
After his brief respite, Aragorn clambered out of the hollow and went on, ever afraid of tarrying too long in one place. He feared Gollum’s cacophonous crying had drawn the Enemy’s attention; or the crows and hawks circling overhead were spies of Sauron; or the smoke from small fires he lit at night captured the attention of shadows he sensed in the dark; or some fell beast noticed what few tracks he made.
They marched across the rough and broken landscape of dells and crests in peace for a day and a half until they reached the Argonath, giant statues of Isildur and Anárion on each bank of the river, proud and stern, forged by the handiwork of Westernesse guarding the long-vanished kingdom. Between them the river rushed at great speed through a dark chasm, boiling and thrashing in tumultuous rapids. Aragorn, a mile away from the sheer and dreadful cliffs rising on either side of the river, heard the rushing water and saw two great pinnacles thrusting from the shorn off ridges of the Emyn Muil. For many years he had desired to look upon the proud, weather-worn visages of the Númenorean kings. Unlike a diversion to Amon Hen, the Argonath did not lead him far astray from his intended course, so westward he turned towards the roaring river.
The junipers and firs rustled. It was not the wind that stirred them. Aragorn paused. A bow whined, an arrow zinged by his ear and implanted itself in a tree not three inches from his head. He flung himself to the ground, rolling behind a low brush and then crawling on his hands and knees to the cover of a broken, wind-worn statue. It was unrecognizable as anything but offered protection on all sides. Nearby Gollum uttered a strangled cry and cowered behind a jagged limestone boulder. A barrage of arrows bounced off the stone, plowed into the earth, embedded into trees. Aragorn crawled to a gap between two ornamented stones and peered through the evergreen forest. There he saw faint shapes moving about in the trees, dark and disfigured. Orcs!
They had him pinned, for their arrows blockaded his northerly road, and they would soon move in on him if he remained beneath the old statue. It had no entry but one and would be a deathtrap if they found him.
He crept away from the statue, bidding a terrified Gollum to follow, and crawled through brush and sharp rocks scraping his hands and knees. Arrows hailed above his head. By the light of the Valar, he thought as arrows struck the ground so close he felt the air stir as they passed. Down a small gully he crawled until at last he saw the bowmen, three large Orcs aiming arrows in his general direction. Three more sat upon rocks and stumps, sharpening swords and scimitars and drinking some sort of potent and vile drink reeking of strong alcohol.
Did he fight or flee? Fighting with an injured arm worried him. But they knew he was here and would hunt him, and a fight would come to him whether he wanted it or not. He had survived great battles injured before. Just then, the middle Orc raised his sword high as he examined the blade in the light, and he caught Aragorn’s eye. Aragorn darted behind a tree but too late. They had espied him and there was no place to run.
Aragorn let loose a volley of four arrows, but his left arm was too weak and the pain too sharp to hold the bow steady. The arrows swung wide of their targets. His enemies returned fire, and he flung himself to the ground behind a rock. The sword was a better choice of weapons than the bow; easier to wield injured.
“Elendil le nallon sí di'nguruthos!”[i]he cried, springing to his feet, leaping down the gully, swatting arrows with his sword as though they were mosquitoes in the Midgewater Marshes. His right shoulder he hurled into the foremost Orc. Aragorn agilely scrambled to his feet and thrust his sword through the Orc’s breast before it regained its feet. Then he turned upon the others, a fierce light glittering in his gray eyes and a star seeming to shine upon his brow. In him at that moment, the majesty and pride of the Argonath, of Númenor, blazed again. The Orcs fell back in fear, as though one of the great kings of stone had come alive and stood before them. Brandishing the bright sword of Númenor, Aragorn charged them in their trepidation and brought the force of his blade against their scimitars. Steel clashed against steel, a tremendous noise shattering the peaceful silence but for the river’s roar and bird’s songs. He parried and wove amongst the six of them, swift and light on his feet. Two he slew, cleaving open the head of one and disemboweling the other, and then their four companions retreated, firing arrows as they withdrew into the woods.
Aragorn gave chase, dodging arrows. The stragglers he caught up with and after a brief skirmish, he brought them down and then ran after the latter two, headlong at first and then he eased his pace. He must not be reckless. He had no idea if the two Orcs fled into the lonely woods or into an entire legion. If the latter were the case, pursuit would bring death. But two living Orcs would report his presence to their masters. Did stealth justify the immense risk of running into a substantial company of Orcs? I can outrun them to the river, if indeed they report me and try to follow me, Aragorn decided. Once he crossed Anduin, his foes would lose his trail. He broke off pursuit and returned to where he had left his pack and Gollum. If the filthy wretch had taken the opportunity to slink off, Aragorn swore an oath to Manwë that he would hunt him down and slay him.
His pack had not moved from the gully and Gollum squatted underneath a rocky overhang, rubbing the ropes on his wrists against the jagged teeth of an old stump, which he ceased as soon as he saw Aragorn trotting over the dell, and through lidded eyes he glared at him. Aragorn hoisted his pack. A fearsome bolt of pain shot from his shoulder to his wrist, and he fell to his knees clutching his left arm. In the midst of battle, he had forgotten about his wounds and the reminder was violent, wrenching his entrails. Gasping, he doubled up, fearing he was going to be ill, but the intense nausea passed and left him lying on his side upon the pine needles and rocks.
Mindful of danger but in too much pain to move, Aragorn rested for a while until the blinding white light cleared from his mind, and then he arose, remaking his sling of the vambrace and cloth. Time pressed upon him; he had many leagues to travel before nightfall. Herding Gollum ahead of him with his sword, he made haste through the silence of the late afternoon: not the silence of peace but rather the menacing calm before the storm. His arm throbbed at each step and each heartbeat, but he bore it undaunted and pressed on briskly until the sun sank behind the rugged and rosy cliffs, the light faded into pale dusk, and the star-studded curtain of night at length crept over the northern reaches of the Emyn Muil and Sarn Gebir.
* * *
The country changed dramatically three days north of the Argonath. The hilly, rocky land crumbled away into bleak steppes, withered and formless slopes as far as the eye could see, brown and lifeless, as if blasted by some pestilence that had left no stone nor living tree nor blade of grass. The Brown Lands they were called, a wasteland stretching from the northern hills of the Emyn Muil to the southern fringes of Mirkwood. On the other side of the river, rolling plains of grass and tussock stretched to the distant peaks of the Hithaeglir. It was the Riddermark, the plains of Rohan. Few folk of Rohan ventured near the river in these dark days, for the Orcs overrunning the eastern shore could shoot arrows across the wide water and cross it in the shallows between the North and South Undeep as the river sluggishly crawled through the Brown Lands.
Aragorn too must cross the river, though he intended to do so within the next ten miles as soon as the foaming rapids dissipated. Once the river slowed her swift pace, he could swim across without being carried far downstream or to his death against the sharp rocks. A chill wind blew, an east wind from Mordor, and the bitter air nipped his flesh. He did not eagerly anticipate swimming the frigid currents, yet the formless slopes offered no more cover than Dagorlad, and the forces of the Enemy patrolled the wasteland and the stony banks of the river. Danger lurked on the western shores as well, but the rolling South Downs of the Riddermark, its rocky outcrops and scattered clumps of trees, proffered a measure of protection from unfriendly eyes. And the Rohirrim defended their borders. Weak King Théoden might be, but his cavalry remained one of the finest in Middle-earth. Orcs did not idly cross the Anduin and did well to travel by night and remain unseen.
Fearful of the vast wasteland, Aragorn raced upstream without more than two or three hours’ rest for two days. Injury had depleted his strength, and his flight wearied him more than it should have wearied one of Elros’ blood. Once he crossed Anduin, he could slacken somewhat. He had to, for this pace he could not maintain for hundreds of leagues, but he must hasten away from the Eastern shore.
Fortune smiled upon him for once, and no calamities befell him during his flight across the open hills until at last the river slackened its pace. He stood upon a gravel shoal thirty miles upstream of Sarn Gebir, looking out upon the downs of the Riddermark, the wide gray river, the gray sky foreboding sleet or snow. A faint breeze from the northeast lifted his dark hair. His breath steamed. His injured arm did not concern him, but the frigid water and the icy northeasterly wind did. This was no ford. The river ran deep. But he had to cross now before his luck gave out and a troop of Orcs trapped him on the open steppes.
Gollum posed a greater quandary. With the ropes on his wrists and the gag in his mouth, he could not battle the deadly currents of Anduin, yet Aragorn dared not release him. He was too able a waterman. For years he had survived the wet, dark caves and tiny rills beneath the Hithaeglir and understood the nature of river currents and shoals far more fundamentally than did Aragorn. Given his freedom in the Anduin, he would vanish beneath her dark waters and not be seen again.
At a loss for an answer to his riddle, Aragorn paced along the riverbank surveying the flat, gray and brown water. Even as he paced, distant cries reached his keen ears. When he looked out over the formless slopes, he saw a dark cloud, a troop of Orcs, marching slowly towards the river. He stiffened. Leave Gollum or untie him? As he struggled to choose quickly between unhappy choices, his foot struck a piece of driftwood that had washed upon the shore. A raft! He knelt beside the log. The river had brought him a solution, a way to float his prisoner across its wide waters. Aragorn silently praised Ulmo, Lord of the Waters, and hoisted the front end of the log and dragged it to the gravel spit where he had left Gollum. Here, he commanded Gollum at knifepoint to clamber aboard the driftwood and then he lashed the creature to it with sailor’s knots. The knife he held against Gollum’s throat while he swiftly bound his hands and feet to the log, hissing, “One word and you shall be dead.” Any unctuous noise, even muffled by a gag, would bring those Orcs upon them at speed, and Aragorn desired to slip away from the Eastern shore unnoticed.
Then Aragorn sheathed the weapon, inhaled to the very depths of his lungs, and waded into the glacial water. Immediately his toes went numb. As the water rose, icy bands constricted his chest. The rope he wrapped around his hand and towed the driftwood with him. The fierce current tugged it downstream, the rope crushing his hand. Imperiled by the deep cold settling into his bones, he swam for his life, gasping for air, vying and thrashing his way towards the opposite shore. When it felt as if the river would claim his life, his feet touched soft sediment and he lurched forward, splashing through the shallows and floundering upon the stony bank. The blood had frozen in his veins. His arm and shoulder were numb. The driftwood bearing Gollum he heaved upon the shore and for a moment reflected upon deserting the creature, leaving him bound to the log before he untied the rope and cast the wood into the river.
Quaking and faint, Aragorn wrung water from his sodden cloak. Then he swiftly turned from the river and faded like a ghost forthwith into the undulating hills of the Riddermark. If he continued moving, his blood would stir again. A great sleepiness overcame him, and he knew it came from the cold water rather than mere weariness. His soggy clothes weighed him down, and he walked stooped over and found no warmth in the miles of the Riddermark, but made his legs keep going anyway.
In a rock outcropping he stopped for the night. His flint, steel, and char-cloth were still somewhat dry in their oiled leather pouch. He broke twigs off a juniper and used them and dry grass as tinder, striking a spark with the flint and breathing upon the tinder until flames billowed. Gollum, disturbed by the leaping flames, hid behind a rock, burying his face in his hands, uttering hissing breaths. Paying no attention to the miserable wretch’s antics, Aragorn huddled over the fire, the heat licking his hands and face. Drenched gear he spread upon the ground beside the fire and there he lay letting the fire’s warmth leach into his chilled blood and bones. He sunk fast into a hazy dream.
* * *
At dawn’s first gray light, Aragorn arose after a quick breakfast of what little food had not been ruined by fording the river. The rising and falling plains were empty but for small cliffs and outcroppings, long-abandoned dwellings, and clusters of trees huddling together against the wind that ever blustered across the Riddermark. Once the northern provinces had been vast studfarms, pastures burgeoning sweet, green grass sustaining hundreds of horses, broodmares and foals and breeding stallions. Aragorn remembered it as green and vibrant fifty years ago when he had served under King Thengel. What blight had befallen this land? Not a single living thing did he encounter, and he found the silence eerie and distressing. The Rohirrim had forsaken the benighted Eastemnet to the Enemy and their dwellings and cities were in the south beneath the high ridges of the Ered Nimrais. “All is falling under the Shadow,” he said aloud to the barren downs. Blinking his luminous eyes, Gollum cast a glance backwards towards him, but Aragorn’s gaze was distant – it was not Gollum to whom he spoke.
He and Gollum traveled at speed for many days, toiling over small cliffs and low ridges. Crows and hawks wheeled suspiciously overhead, but otherwise the plains were deserted. No traces did they see of horses or men until a league or so adjacent to the southern fringes of Fangorn Forest. Here Aragorn came across signs that something else had passed through here, a wide swath of trampled and burned grass. Only Orcs caused such wanton destruction as they traveled. He wondered that the tracks led from west to east, from Isengard and the Gap of Rohan instead of from Mordor and the eastern shores of the Anduin. Could evil be afoot in Isengard? Last he had spoken to Gandalf, the wizard believed that Saruman was a friend and ally, but always Aragorn had held misgivings about Saruman holed up in his tower.
At any rate, the burned incision in the plains swung north, Aragorn’s intended course. Warily he followed it, for he had little choice unless he swerved into Fangorn itself, a brooding, wrathful forest as old as the forest by the Barrow-downs in Eriador and carrying some deadlier secret.
* * *
The next afternoon brought him to a rise overlooking a deep dish in the land and to the stench of Orcs rising to his nostrils. His heart beat faster as he and Gollum trotted down the side of a trough in the plains, downwind from the foul odor. Through the gully Aragorn furtively crawled, and with his sword as an ever-present threat, commanded Gollum to be silent. Rough sounds of a substantial number of Orcs reached his quick ears. To investigate the size and strength of the company, Aragorn crept towards the hideous noises, edging forward though thorny brush and grass on his hands and knees. Shadows lengthened as the sun dipped behind the remote peaks of the Misty Mountains. Wispy clouds swirling high above the mountains glowed a deep red, as though drenched in blood. And then he espied the camp, perhaps two hundred or more Orcs scattered about in the bowl, drinking ale and eating foul-smelling meat and bread, cursing and fighting. Before he had a chance to inspect the encampment, a roar like a furious storm reached his ears and the earth beneath his hands shuddered. Horses galloping across the plain.
An arrow flew over his head and landed near Gollum, who uttered a strangled cry and retreated to the end of the rope. Another arrow landed some ten feet to Aragorn’s right. He dropped flat upon his stomach as two more sailed overhead. But none were aimed at him and Gollum. Too widely and too randomly did they fall. The hoofbeats pounding the ground grew louder, an approaching storm, and a shrill voice cried, “Forth Eorlingas!” Cries of men and whinnies of horses ruptured the still evening air, arrows whistled overhead in both directions. Many fell perilously near Aragorn and Gollum. The earth trembled as if a quake ripped it asunder. To the west, Aragorn saw a silhouette of horses’ heads and flying manes and helms of riders backlit by the setting sun, a great wall of galloping legs and slashing hooves charging straight towards him, several éoreds of no less than three hundred riders. To the east, the Orcs scrambled to attention and formed ragged ranks of spears, swords, scimitars, and broad shields. Foam flew from the horses’ mouths and the light of rage and eagerness burned in their riders’ eyes. Horns rang out, a glorious resonance sending chills coursing down Aragorn’s spine.
Blood drained from his cheeks. Any movement would likely get him shot by one side or the other. Thus Aragorn lay still as a corpse against the sloping flank of the gully, heart thudding against his ribs, breath shallow. He hoped the horses saw him and leapt over him, or he would at last encounter death beneath the hooves of the Rohirrim. Nan belain![ii] Arwen, forgive me, I shall not return to fair Imladris. His hand leapt to the hilt of his sword, grasping it so its silver edges gouged into his palm, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the horses reached the edge of the gully and sprang aloft.
The roar was deafening. Three hundred horses pounded the ground. Yet there was no pain, no bones cracking beneath iron-shod hooves. The hooves struck the ground a hair’s breadth from Aragorn’s face and sprang away, long tails whisked him, the broad bellies of horses sailed overhead. Not a muscle did he twitch and not a hoof scored him. Like a rainless storm they passed, lightning and thunder darkening the sky but touching nothing.
When the rearmost guard bounded over the gully and a swift and sudden silence befell Aragorn, he unfurled his fingers from the sword and found red marks in his hand. Then, the cries of the battle rang in his ears. He glanced to where Gollum had lain, expecting to see the creature pulverized, but Gollum was as unscathed as he and shared with him an astounded look upon his face. Turning away from his prisoner, Aragorn crawled on his belly up through the rocks and trampled brambles, up the side of the trough to its lip.
The Rohirrim had shot through the Orcs like an arrow, fleet and deadly, slashing a swath through the scraggly and disorganized ranks. At once they wheeled around with masterful skill and fanned out amongst the Orc company, cutting them down with arrows and swords. Screams and cries of man, Orc, and horse rose from the sortie. Some riders and horses fell, but their foes suffered more losses than they. Around the camp they raced, rounding up the Orcs, slaying them with fury. In their language they called valiantly to their captain, Théodred son of Théoden, of whom Aragorn knew, “To hope’s end and to heart’s breaking!” And they galloped once more around the rim of the decimated camp before racing eastward in pursuit of about seventy Orcs who had fled. Their steeds were swift and they soon caught up to their prey and hewed them down, leaving none alive. Great cries of victory arose from the now darkened Riddermark, swords and shields were shaken, horses neighed. Then, they turned southwards and galloped away, vanishing into the twilight, the horses’ neighs and the thunder of their hooves upon the grass growing fainter in Aragorn’s ears.
He leapt out of the dell well after the Horse Lords had traveled even beyond the range of Elven eyes and ears. Though he held the Rohirrim’s valiance in high regard and had been proud to fight alongside them, Aragorn thought it wise to avoid an encounter on his errand of secrecy. Brave warriors they were, but they were not learned in lore and understandably were suspicious of strangers crossing their lands. Alone, Aragorn believed he could convince Riders of Rohan of his good intentions and royal blood, but bearing the burden of Gollum he did not think he had a chance. They would take but one look at Gollum and slay him and Aragorn then and there.
Head bent down and sword unsheathed, he wandered through the carnage of the Orc encampment, though what he searched for he knew not. The dead and the dying were sprawled across the site of the battle and already it reeked of decay and rot. Aragorn stepped around mostly Orc corpses, now and then prodding one with his sword, but amongst the slain he also found several fallen horses and riders. A pang of loneliness and desolation grieved his heart, for here he stood, one living amongst the hundreds of casualties of war.
Awkward movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention and he strode to where a mortally injured horse attempted to rise to its feet. One front leg had been shattered, half its face shorn off, and blood gushed as though from Rauros. Its rider hung by one stirrup to the side, bleeding profusely from a head wound but nonetheless alive. Agony contorted his sweaty, pale face and in confusion, he looked to Aragorn and strove to speak as Aragorn knelt down beside him.
“Who are you? I do not know you, but you are not one of the Enemy.”
“I am Aragorn son of Arathorn,” Aragorn said in a low whisper, “descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor.”
The dying man uttered a choked, coughing laugh and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. “’Tis a strange day indeed that our enemies so boldly enter our lands and legends spring to life in the very hour of death. Perhaps you are no more than a vision, but nonetheless I shall go in peace knowing the king has returned.” With that, he gave a shuddering breath and expired, his lips slightly parted, a look of repose upon his proud face with no trace of the pain he had suffered.
Aragorn touched the soldier’s cooling forehead, saying, “You fell bravely for Rohan and so you shall pass in peace.” Then he rose. With a swift blow of his sword to the throat, he put the horse out of its misery.
The blood-soaked plain squelching beneath his boots proffered him nothing more than slain Orcs and their gear, destroyed and scattered across trampled grass. His search for an indication to guide him and answer the riddle of these Orcs’ strange crossing from west to east over the Riddermark proved fruitless, and he sickened of death and grief. This place stank of it. Uneasily he beckoned Gollum from his hiding-place in the culvert, and the creature crept out from the brambles and skittered on all fours amongst the blackened corpses, dragging the rope behind him and gurgling muffled gibberish.
“The Enemy is not idle,” said Aragorn. “We cannot rest for many hours yet.” Gollum skulked towards him, hunger, lust, and rage darkening his grotesque features. A sudden desire to slay the murderous, treacherous thing seized Aragorn’s heart and with the force of all his will, he restrained his hand.
Far into the evening he journeyed. Bitter frost stung his flesh. The crescent moon shining overhead cast down a feeble light. Ahead of him a thin line of trees marched across the plain, an army of pale ghosts bound for Rohan. There, the lands of Rohan at last ended and beyond his sight, Lothlórien lay hidden in its vale, a lustrous jewel beneath the high peaks of the Misty Mountains. On he sped through the night until a weariness no Ranger should suffer bent his back, and his knees and feet were sore, and his prisoner, lamed by their endless flight across the Riddermark through the ageless darkness, hobbled miserably ahead of him, weeping bitter tears.
* * *
For a few hours, Aragorn slept fitfully, often waking and pacing. At dawn’s first light, a drab sunrise alighting the clouds to the east, he ate a hurried breakfast and set off again. As the sun rose towards high noon, the distant band of trees drew near; the loosely knit forest of The Wold, the uplands of Rohan between Fangorn and the Anduin. Like a misty shadow to the west, Fangorn sloped up the Hithaeglir, its green eaves fading to hazy blue on the flanks of the great mountains. In the clear and pale light of day, Aragorn now saw Methedras, the southernmost peak of the Hithaeglir, a vague white star shimmering in the distance.
The land rose beneath his feet and the ghostly trees of the plateau enveloped him. For several uneventful days he passed through the forest, unnoticed by the tendrils of shadow from Mordor that had crossed the Anduin. The chill in the air deepened as he traveled north and the deciduous trees were bare and dry, firmly caught in the icy clutches of winter. Dull gray hours passed without event. Crows, heard but unseen, cried and wheeled overhead. Through the gnarled and twisted trunks and groping branches, he trod over dead leaves and peat moss, arising when the black sky paled in the sunrise and resting for a few sleepless hours late at night beside small fires.
--------------------------------------------
[i] Sindarin: “Elendil to thee now I cry, here beneath the shadow of death!” The Two Towers, Book IV, Ch. 10. Translation by http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/SINDARIN.RXML.
[ii] Sindarin: “By the Valar!” Translation by Taramiluiel at http://members.cox.net/taramiluiel/sindarin_phrases.htm
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