Counting the Cost
The aftermath of a battle is nothing but pain - pain and exhaustion, and the horrendous duty of counting the cost. People who've never been in battle imagine scenes of jubilation, of grand celebrations and high spirits and endless rounds of congratulations. Somehow the air should be cleaner, the sky more blue, the world a better place after the battle is won.
Maybe it's like that, somewhere. Maybe it would be like that later.
But in the aftermath of Helm's Deep, the sun was a tarnished coin lurking behind tattered rags of cloud and the air smelled like shit, vomit and the harsh, thick metallic cloy of blood. So much blood.
Aragorn wandered in grim shock through the carnage between the inner and outer walls of the fortress. He had been in battles before, plenty of them, and knew too much of death, but this was butchery on a scale heÕd never faced. The dead and dying lay thick as leaf mold, and it was a constant balancing act simply to keep from slipping on the wet slime coating the stony ground.
Was this what it was all about, being a king, he wondered? Was it about watching your people die, knowing that thereÕs so little you can do to help?
The low rumble of voices around him spoke of helpers dealing with the injured. Women's voices spilled into the background as they crept cautiously out of the caverns to find out who lived and who died. Some would have husbands no longer; others would have men without arms, legs, or with some essential portion of themselves stripped away in the drenched darkness of hellish battle.
"Lor- Lord Aragorn." The voice was a tortured rasp to the left of his feet. Aragorn turned immediately, dropping as he did, to locate the still-living soldier. The boy was barely a man, but dressed in the armor of the Rohirrim, his face white as bone and hands trying without success to hold his spilled guts in his body.
"I'm here," Aragorn said, forcing his own voice to remain steady while his soul screamed to weep. So much loss, so much pain in this rocky place. And for what? Was it worth all these lives? "What can I do?"
"Have you ... water?"
Aragorn fumbled to pull up his water skin, still almost half full. "Aye," he said softly, not bothering to tell the boy that the water had nowhere to go in his destroyed body. He held the skin carefully just above the cracked lips and poured slow sips of water until the lad sighed and closed his eyes. Aragorn studied the gaping wound in the belly before him and knew that the boy would die, but that it would likely be neither fast nor easy. He flicked a look back at the boy's face, at thick dark lashes lying against skin peppered with a thousand freckles.
"What's your name, lad?" he asked finally, gently, the sound of his voice covering the sound of his knife as he drew it.
"Tyr, m'lord," the boy whispered, lids flickering open over pain-dimmed brown eyes. "Son of Temmett."
"Well met, Tyr, son of Temmett." Aragorn forced a smile that he hoped was convincing. "With your leave, I will examine your wounds."
"Thank ... you."
"Just close your eyes."
Tyr closed his eyes, and felt the hands of the king as they gently began to touch his chest. He might even have felt, for a breath, the cold touch of the blade that slid hard, fast and accurate up and into his heart. He died easily, and well.
Someone cleared a throat a few paces behind him. ÒAragorn.Ó
Aragorn looked over his shoulder without rising, a sudden wave of weariness keeping him nailed to the ground. Behind him stood Eomer the horse lord, also dirty and blood-spattered, but with his face cleaned at least, and his hair wet and pulled back. His horse-decorated helm hung loosely from one hand.
ÒTheoden King calls for you, inside the hold,Ó Eomer said, his dark eyes studying Aragorn intently.
ÒIÕve work to finish here,Ó Aragorn said, looking across the remaining corner of the field of battle that he hadnÕt already covered. ÒTell the king I will be in as soon as may be.Ó
ÒAye,Ó Eomer nodded, then paused for a moment before adding, ÒYou might stop to wash before meeting the king.Ó
Aragorn considered the younger man from his position on one knee and felt a sudden weariness that went even deeper than the physical exhaustion. This was how it would be from now on, he knew. As a king, his life would be increasingly about appearances, until the disreputable old ranger Strider would be an entity no longer allowed near the presence of the king. And that would be a loss, he thought. As now, when heÕd spent this long afternoon trying to offer peace and dealing too much death, but when it came to seeing the king, what mattered was that he not have blood and gore smeared across his face.
ÒI might,Ó he said finally, agreeably, to Eomer, then gave the boy a nod. Eomer looked briefly confused, then nodded in return, half-bowed, and backed away for a few steps before turning to pick his way back toward the Keep.
Aragorn stared across the remaining field of injured and dead, almost all of them elves in this section. Many of them he knew, some too well. HaldirÕs body would most likely be nearby, and that É that was not a duty Aragorn looked forward to at all. But it was a duty he would do, as he would perform all his required duties from this point forward.
The king-who-would-be forced his weary body upright and continued his slow progress through the hell of HelmÕs Deep, weeping without sound or surcease, and dispensing grace.