Initially, I intended to hold this story back until I had written more, but I post it now in light of recent events:
I dedicate this story to the memory of my best friend, Matthew, who sank yesterday into that last, long sleep to wake no more in pain. Hard is the parting of a man and his dog, and there was never a sweeter-natured dog than my poor old Matty. Rest in peace, champ.
The Lord of the Rings and its characters belong to JRR Tolkien and his heirs. I stake no claim. .
Prologue:
The whole benighted landscape about the Anduin, and about the Ranger who watched its waters, lay restless. The moon rode overhead veiled by shifting cloud, and the reeds whispered beneath the wind. Nothing else moving met the watcher's eye. And yet, Faramir recalled, orcs' eyes saw better in the dark them men's. Orcs, and death, had been ever present lately.
This fact weighed the more heavily on his mind, as in his memory he heard the echoes of a horn blowing in the forests to the north.
Three days had passed, and yet there came no sign of the bearer of that horn. Through the long months since he had heard it last – on the day his brother left for Imladris – he recalled the sound, and cursed the decision that sent Boromir in his stead, but now he cursed it more fiercely still. He cursed, and sat alone, and the death-ridden darkness sat around him.
His eyes swept the river, and he beheld on the stream a small, high-prowed boat. No oar touched the water; it drifted silently with the current, and about it played a gentle light like a straying moonbeam. The thought occurred to Faramir that the boat could be a ruse, a lure to draw sentries out into range of orc archers. But he neither saw nor heard any sign of the enemy, and so, cautiously, he waded out toward its path.
He recognized the body of a man before he touched the bow. In such times, it surprised him little. But as he leaned in closer to the ghostly light, he cried out in careless horror. Through all the intervening months, the image of his brother remained perfect in his mind. The corpse in the river matched that image so flawlessly that there could be no doubt, yet the contrast was terrible. The man who left in pride and strength and courage returned torn, his body stripped of all its finery, his eyes blank and face twisted in rage and anguish. Faramir fell, the cold water clutching at his chest, and his arms thrust, clawing, over the side of the funeral boat. His hand touched the corpse's stiff arm.
"Boromir! Where is thy horn? Whither goest thou? O Boromir!"*
The night swallowed his voice, and his hands let slip the sides of the boat. Boromir floated on, and the Anduin wrapped his brother in a chill like death.
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*Line taken directly from The Two Towers.
More a'comin'.