Disclaimer: Lord of the Rings is not mine. It, and all characters affiliated with it, belong to the estate of JRR Tolkien.
A/N: Oh god, I swore I'd never do this. I promised myself I'd never write a fricking Tenth Walker fic.
I hate myself sometimes. ¬.¬
Well, anyway. I hope it isn't a Suefic. If it is, feel free to whup me upside the head until I cease and desist, because I have no wish to write that sort of thing. I would much rather be an elitist snob with a superiority complex... well, not really, but that seems to be what I'm turning into, so I may as well not fight it. ^.-
Beta'd by greeneyespurple over on LJ. Thanks!
And, as always, concrit is welcomed. Even more so than usual, in fact, because I am so nervous about posting this. XD I don't want to post anything that's not my best, kennit? Feel free to flagellate me to within an inch of my life.
1
The Fellowship had broken. Aragorn had felt it like some physical sundering, and a cold dread had fallen shroud-like upon his heart. They had fled hither and thither, calling Frodo! Frodo!, and when he cried out after them, he knew they did not listen.
Now the lean Ranger sprinted up the slopes of Amon Hen, and was running still when, eyes fixed on the ground and blood rushing in his ears, he collided with the stranger.
The stranger was also running, as though all the hordes of the Enemy were on his tail. His deepset grey-blue eyes widened as he fell in a tangle of gangly legs and wasted arms, bringing the heavy body of the Ranger down on top of him and crushing the breath out of both of them. Aragorn's first thought was of a rabbit in a snare; the boy had the same look of wild terror in his eyes, his mouth open and his face red from running.
There was no time to think on it. No time to waste. Hauling himself free, Aragorn dragged the boy to his feet.
"Why do you flee?" he asked, a new fear growing now in the back of his mind; the fear of attack, which since Frodo's disappearance had been driven from his mind. But the boy only swallowed, complete incomprehension showing in every line of his face. Deaf or mute - or both - Aragorn decided, and was just about to move on when the stranger suddenly spoke.
If it could be called speaking. It was no tongue that the Ranger, well-travelled though he was, had spoken or heard; harsh and grating to his ears, it was no more than a garbled run of sounds. But obviously it had meaning, for Aragorn saw his own frustration reflected in the boy's shadowed eyes.
Giving up – no time, no time! - Aragorn let go of the boy's shoulders, almost flinging the stranger away from him, and turned back up the hill, crying Frodo! Frodo! at the empty skies.
Behind him, unseen, the strange boy's eyes widened, and he stopped dead in his headlong dash. Thoughts buzzed through his mind.
A split second later, the boy turned up the hill and ran after the tall, dark-haired Ranger, yelling in that strange tongue. Aragorn might not have understood the words, but the meaning was clear, the desperation undeniable; wait!
Slowing, he turned to face the wild-eyed boy, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.
"I am in haste! What will you with me?" he demanded, before remembering belatedly that the boy could not understand him.
A bony hand, red with sunburn under a growing tan, tapped him on the chest, and he looked up from it to the boy's face just as the stranger, haltingly and uncertainly, but recognisably, said questioningly, "Aragorn?"
Shock struck him like a bolt of lightning, and Anduril was halfway from its sheath before he realised it. Resheathing the blade, but not removing his hand from the hilt, he grabbed the boy's shoulder in a grasp like iron, and regretted it instantly; it felt like grasping a skeleton wrapped in thin hide. The boy winced visibly, and Aragorn frowned.
"How did you know that name?" he asked slowly, putting his head questioningly on one side in hopes of being understood.
But the strange boy did not answer, not in Westron, not even in his own strange, garbled tongue. Instead, he pointed to the ground. "Amon Hen?"
The pronunciation was strange, but the name was recognisable. Mystified, Aragorn could only nod.
The boy's eyes widened, and for a second, he looked shocked enough to faint. Without even thinking, Aragorn moved to catch him, but the boy had already regained his composure – what there was of it. Wonder and terror seemed to flit like twin phantoms behind features sharpened by hunger. Murmuring to himself in that strange tongue, he turned, Aragorn's hand still heavy on his shoulder, and looked over the woods below.
Then he turned, and in the same strange accent as he had used before, he said hesitantly, "Boromir."
"Boromir?" Aragorn's frown deepened, and dread filled him at the look in the boy's eyes. "What of Boromir?"
By way of reply, the stranger tugged at the arm holding him, pointing down at the forest and saying, almost shouting, something urgent in his strange, otherworldly tongue.
Still deeper Aragorn's frown furrowed, and now he wondered if this might not be some trick of the Enemy, to distract him and to keep him from his goal.
"Boromir!" the boy repeated insistently, and made a motion as though something had struck him in the chest. He frowned for a moment, as though considering his next move, then pointed back down the hill, mimicked an archer pulling back a bowstring, and turned back to Aragorn. "Orcs!"
Aragorn's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he released the boy sharply. "Alas," he murmured to himself, "an ill star shines on this day, indeed. First Frodo, now this! And where is Sam?" Out loud, he said slowly and clearly, "Can you show me? Boromir – Orcs – can you show me those?"
The boy frowned, still regaining his balance from being so suddenly free, then shook his head and shrugged, tapping the side of his head with a fingertip. Jabbing a thumb at his own chest, he pointed behind him, in the opposite direction, and shook his head sharply, all the time jabbering away in whatever strange dialect it was he spoke.
Aragorn understood. The boy had come from that direction, and Boromir was not there. But where he was, neither of them knew.
All the more reason to move quickly.
Anduril leapt into his hand like a cold flame, and the strange boy stumbled back, shocked by the suddenness and smoothness of the motion. Aragorn no longer paid him any mind; leaping forwards, he lunged down the mossy stone of the hillside, long legs brushing aside grass and nettles. Behind him, he could hear the stranger, gasping for breath, clumsy feet thudding flat against the hard rock of the hillside. The sounds faded, little by little, as he entered the woods, casting around for signs of Boromir, but in the back of his mind, he was well aware that the strange boy was still following him.
It was a few minutes later, as he leapt over a fallen bough and cut away the branches blocking his path – an ignoble use, he thought dimly, for a noble weapon – that the deep, rich sound of a horn filled the woods.
"The horn of Gondor!" he gasped, turning towards the source of the bittersweet, echoing note. "Then it is truth, indeed! This day was mistempered from its dawning, and now..." And now, the Fellowship is truly sundered. The thought was bitter in his mind, and he thrust it away, concentrating on the sounds of the forest and half-praying for another note of that terrible horn.
He was not kept long waiting. It was but a few heartbeats later that the note came again, resonant and desperate. Aragorn's feet thudded in time with the blood that pounded in his ears as he pushed himself faster, faster, towards that fading echo. Another sound, too, came soon to his ears; the roars and cries and heavy, solid thuds of a battle. He was close now. Very close. The clash of steel rang in his ears, and his own sword seemed to shine bright in reply.
At last, as the horn rang out a third time, Aragorn crashed through the dense thicket around him and leapt into the clearing, Anduril as bright as starlight in his hand.
"Elendil! Elendil!" he yelled, his voice ringing out into the woods as clear as the horn which Boromir lifted once more to his lips.
"Aragorn!" Boromir cried in relief and joy, lowering his horn mid-blast to turn and match the blade of a snarling Orc. Already, his foes lay piled around him, ten or twenty at the least. The tall Man of Gondor was cut and bruised; the haft of a black-feathered arrow protruded from the join between shoulder and chest, and dark blood dyed the cloth of his tunic around it. Still he fought on strongly, dark hair flying and grey eyes blazing.
A little way away, Merry and Pippin lay, dead or unconscious, bound with harsh ropes on the ploughed and muddy earth of the battlefield. Orcs swarmed hither and thither like flies on a bloated corpse, with bows and swords and rough flails, filling the clearing and the woods around it. Diving for the Orc who knelt over Merry with rope in hand, Aragorn struck off his head in a single blow, turning to bring his sword up against another. But the strength of numbers was against them, and the two Men were driven further and further apart, fighting for their lives above all else. Out of the corner of his eye, Aragorn saw another Orc bend over the hobbits, and, driving his foe through with a desperate stroke, lunged forwards to bury Anduril in its throat. He stood over the small, sprawled forms of the hobbits, the reforged Sword of Elendil flashing to and fro as he drove the Orcs back, standing at bay like a cornered bear.
Boromir had been driven back against a tree, his breathing heavy as he slashed and struck. Anger blazed in his eyes, and the full strength of his arms was in every blow he drove home, but the exertion was taking his toll; he was tiring.
Once again, the sweet, rich note wavering, Boromir put his horn to his lips and blew.
The note filled the woods and echoed off the hills, setting a flock of birds to flight from the high seat of Amon Hen.
A little way away, an Orcish archer drew back the string of his bow, narrowing one eye as he aimed.
And the stranger barrelled out of the woods at a dead run, feet pounding and breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
Diving through a momentary gap in the seething hordes, he lunged at Boromir just as the arrow flew. For a moment, he seemed to hang in midair, as he took a deep rasping breath, and the roar and crash of battle seemed to fade.
Then real time came flooding back, and gravity with it, bearing the boy down harshly as he reached the tall warrior, who was thrown off balance by the suddenness of it. Pain exploded in the back of the boy's mind as, leaping shoulder-first into Boromir's stomach, he crashed face-first into the stench of long-dead leaves and freshly-dead Orcs. The arrow thudded dully into the top of his arm, sending tendrils of numbing, burning pain into him as Boromir rolled him aside. The look on both their faces was one of profound disbelief.
Boromir was on his feet in an instant, unable, though not unwilling, to spare a glance for the stranger who had saved his life. The enemy pressed in upon them still, numbers difficult to judge in the shifting shadows of the woods. The stink of piss and blood lay heavy on the air, close and stifling, and no wind came to blow it away.
Seconds stretched into minutes, or hours, or days – lost in the deadly mindlessness of battle, neither of the men could know time with any certainty; as for the strange boy, pain and shock had mercifully overcome him, and he lay in a dead faint at Boromir's feet – and the Orcish ranks, slowly but surely, began to thin. But there were still too many, too many, pressing in in a great, claustrophobic mass around the two warriors. Boromir was beginning to falter, and blood darkened Aragorn's tunic in what seemed to be a thousand places, when Gimli's axe embedded itself between the Orcish archer's shoulderblades, and he and Legolas leapt into the fray.
Amid the crash and clash of steel, time once again lost meaning, stretching into nothing but arrhythmic motion and the warmth of blood. They fought in silence, no energy left for cries and roars, and the only sound remaining was the steady huff of breathing and the dull, wet thud of steel on flesh. Then, at last, an eternity later, the Orcs broke ranks, fleeing like a pack of wolves into the golden light of late afternoon.
As soon as they had gone, Boromir fell to his knees, looking dazedly at the Orcish sword he carried in lieu of his own, which lay broken at his feet. His face pale and drawn, he closed his hand around the arrow still lodged in his shoulder, took a deep breath, and tugged.
The arrow would not budge.
"Don't," Aragorn told him sharply, as the Gondorian put his hand to the arrow again.
Boromir nodded, jaw tight with pain, and forced himself back to his feet. Gimli, who was already kneeling by the hobbits and working at the ropes that bound them, looked back over his shoulder with a frown.
"Who lies there?" he asked, nodding to the strange boy.
"I know not," Boromir admitted, squatting beside the fragile-looking figure and turning him over. "But this much I know; that I owe him my life."
Aragorn and Legolas frowned, looking over. Now, with the panic and the pain evaporating like dew, they could see the stranger clearly.
He was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, but the hungry shadows darkening his white face made him look even younger. Under his unbelted tunic – through the thick, cloying dirt of travel, it was a bright blue, made of some fine-spun material like, and yet unlike, the fabrics that the Fellowship wore – his ribs showed clearly, and his long, gangly limbs were bony and thin. His light brown hair hung in clumps to his shoulders, like rotten straw, and his deepset eyes were closed. Rags of shoes – as light as Legolas', and made from what seemed to be black canvas – were knotted to his feet.
"A traveller," Aragorn summarised, eventually, and turned to Pippin and Merry as they began to stir.
"One who has come many leagues," Legolas noted, frowning, "and with few supplies."
"We should treat his wound," Boromir put in, picking the boy up – he felt as light as a feather in the arms of the doughty Man – and turning back towards the river with an expression that dared anyone to challenge him. Nodding as he helped Merry and Pippin up, Gimli followed, Legolas at his side, each supporting one of the hobbits.
Momentarily alone, Aragorn bent and picked up the hilt of Boromir's broken sword, turning it over and over in his hands. That same dread clung to him.
The Fellowship is sundered, he thought, kneeling to gather the pieces of the shattered blade. A black-fletched arrow, buried deep in the loam, brushed the side of his hand, and he found himself shivering.
The Fellowship is sundered. And this child, this strange, otherworldly child, is the blow that has sent it past repair.