It is unmistakable, my travels have taken me well past the eastern borders of eriador and the misty mountains and the unpleasant smell immediately triggers me to feel for my hunting knife at my side. They hurry past without a glance.

This has answered my worst fears. Just one month ago, with the events in the shire, myself and my mentor Rhar went to Hobbiton and spoke to Frodo. We approached his door unseen but at our knock we found him seemingly expectant. Normally we would never have been so direct but we knew in what state Aragorn had left and this hobbit had the details of the end of the great enemy and could be trusted. He spoke of the ordeal of the nine companions through the war and at last he came to the ascendancy of Aragorn to king of gondor. He had been crowned as we had heard and before Frodo had left he gave him one last message for the dúnedain. Our exile was over. The wanderings of the men of the West since the fall of Isildur and the diminishing of the kingdom of Arthedain could now end. All of the Dúnedain were to join the people of Gondor and our Chieftain in Minas Tirith. The news was unbelievable, over a thousand years of life in the West had come to an end. Despite the rejoicing amongst ourselves and the thought of peace across middle earth, I am still nervous. The shire and indeed much of eriador has high hopes and Sauron is destroyed but remaining orcs have been roaming across the land, destroying and killing in the death throes of their race.

Two weeks after leaving Frodo to finish his book that he is writing, the last remnants of the rangers in the West were ready to leave just twenty five in all. Some have died in conflict, some were further east and have already answered our Lord's call and the Dúnedain have simply diminished to a tightly knit group. My father Araval died fighting orcs and fell protecting a poor village near the misty mountains. My mother is one hundred and still beautiful and waiting with my people in the North downs.

Two weeks ago, on the eve of our departure east, Carandir returned from scouting. An orc unit was in the weather hills. Not some raiding party but a real military unit left over from the orcs of the white hand headed who knows where. The danger was realized in time however and now here I am looking for signs of their presence or intentions. I made weather top in two days of travel but the orcs had trailed off already towards Bree but the citizens seem unaware of the threat. Bill ferny however was different. He was one of the specimens of men that I despised, willing to sell his neighbors into slavery or worse for a bit of silver.

After a brief meditation I see that Butterbur is closing the doors. It is planting season and a week day, no one is staying late. I get up to exit and he seems to see me for the first time. My dark cloak hid me in the corner and I had not ordered respite whilst I spied on the locals. He lets me out without a word and with less suspicion than normal. With the leaving and ascension of who they knew as strider, they have started to gain an inkling that rangers are not simply the wanderers they call us.

Ferny exited the pony a while ago but my nose can still pick up his foul stench and I follow it towards the main gate. One row of humble houses back from the breelanders trusted wall, the two men are quietly moving. I move soundlessly behind them. If they are not in league with orcs for some plan then I do not know what their actions could mean. The wall looms ahead, it is shut for the night hindering all but the rangers who have always scaled it whenever we please. The two men separate. Bill approaches the gate as the other slowly climbs the stairs with a blade behind the sentry on watch. I pull a smaller knife from my belt and take aim at the figure but just before I throw, hear footsteps and look down to see Ferny charging me. I take a mere second to draw my long knife, step aside and slash his throat before a I turn to throw again but in that split second, the other man stabs the sentry from behind and throws a torch into a brazier before my blade finds its mark in the back of his skull. My sharp ears here the approach of many feet and I realize that the orcs must have been in waiting for the signal to attack. I have always respected bree for their tradition of maintaining a gate closed at night and guarded, but tonight it does them no good. I act quickly, throwing a torch from a nearby wall onto the thatch roof of a shed and the flames rise high. I then go to the first house I find and kick open the door. The inhabitant emerges bleary eyed and startled and I see that it is Barney. "quickly" I tell him "sound the alarm, Bree is under attack." He seems in disbelief but seeing my dark green cloak his eyes register that the danger is real. He nods then runs down the street giving the horn call of bree "Foes! Danger! To arms!" I am satisfied and turn back to the gate.

The orcs had paused evidently expecting Ferny and his partner to throw open the gate but upon hearing the commotion, they were now throwing ropes and scaling the wall. I stand fast in the space on the road before the gate and wait. I need to give time for the peacefully farmers of Bree to prepare for battle. When the first of the hideous bodies step onto the parapet I hold my long knife in one hand and a torch in the other and shout "O Elbereth Gilthoniel!" The attackers pause at the words of their ancient enemies but few now can speak the elvish tongue and when they see no light haired warriors they come pouring over in a rage. I curse softly, normally I would have a bow, or at least a sword or staff, but for my scouting, I traveled light and fast. I hold my ground and spin into the first orc dodging his blade and stabbing through his eye. As he falls I bludgeon the next enemy over the head but although my blows are strong, and my arms skilled at war there are too many. The breelanders are only now trickling out in old leather armor and carrying simple swords and pikes. I fall back to where they are forming to take the brunt of the attack and they accept my presence without question. The last of the orcs seem to have entered the town and I estimate around thirty, not as many as I expected but too many for this collection of poorly armed men and hobbits before them. "Hold together and form a line." Although difficult, I think that we stand a decent chance and the group listens, obediently stretching across the street. The orcs charge and I curse again as they separate. Most are rushing the defenders but some delve into the side streets to ransack the houses. I throw the flaming torch at the fastest orc knocking him to the ground slowing the leaders, the next ones fall upon the men and hobbits to a bloody effect. Some orcs fall but I already see two hobbits and one farmer prone in the street I dive into the oncoming attack with speed and experience slashing with my longknife and a short sword from one of the fallen hobbits. After another thirty seconds or so, I have dispatched another six assailants, and the townspeople are outnumbering the orcs. I fall back and take four of the men who just joined their neighbors off to the side. The screams of women and children being dragged from their homes has already reached us and we charge one alley where orcs are about to enter another door I kill the first one and leave the other three for the men behind me as I rush past and turn towards more screams. I am too late as the two orcs in front of me behead a woman and her young son in front of their house but I exact swift and violent revenge cleaving the first ones head open ducking under the second's axe to thrust my knife under his armor. Pain. I am thrust forward as an arrow penetrates my cloak and left shoulder. I turn and throw my knife which buries itself in his bow which he drops and runs. I sprint after him onto the main Street past the breelanders just finishing off the last marauders, back onto the wall and over the gate into the night.