Boromir's Return

by Osheen Nevoy

Boromir awakens from his death and finds himself in an unexpected situation. Basically book universe with some AU bits, but inspired by Sean Bean. Complete, after nine years as a work-in-progress.

10. Chapter Ten: The Siege of Cair Andros co...

Chapter Ten: The Siege of Cair Andros (continued)

The enemy's fleet surged forward, past the place where the chain had sunk and into the harbour.

Along both walls, we still fired on them, arrows raining on the Orcs in a downpour of flame. I saw two boats flounder as they hit the submerged wrecks placed at locations about the harbour, to arrest just such intruders who did not know the course by which to win safely through. The Men at our catapults yet fired, at least three more enemy craft sinking as catapult shots hewed them down.

"All Men," I yelled, "both walls! Independent fire at will!" The command was barely necessary, for most of the Men at the embrasures had already run to join us, adding their fire to that of their companions.

There were too many of them. All of us knew it, even as we fired on. There were too many, their boats turning to right or left toward the quayside, getting out from the line of the catapults' fire. There were too many, leaping from their boats and racing along the quay, toward the tower stairs that would give them entry to the wall.

Through the shouts, the whirr of arrows and the catapult fire, trumpet notes rang from the fortress behind us.

It was a call welcome in the circumstances, but one that I ever loathe to hear: the command to retreat.

"Back to the fortress!" I shouted. "Back to the fortress! Now!"

The retreat was orderly enough, as such manoeuvres go. Men ran along the upward-sloping harbour wall, toward the north end of the island, and the fortress. As they ran, most dragged arrows from their quivers. At every few paces they would stop and turn to fire, then race on once more.

The first Men to reach each of the towers slammed closed the heavy wooden doors and barred them, then dragged into place anything available to help block the doors: overturned braziers, Orc corpses, even the bodies of our slain comrades.

The Men at the catapults kept firing, as long as any Orc boat moved within range. As the last of the boats spewed its crew onto the quay, a new bonfire sprang up to light the darkness. The catapult Men set their own siege engines afire, to deny them to the Orcs. Now they sprinted up the Great Stairs to the fortress, but Orcs raced close at their heels.

I halted my retreat, to fire down on the Orcs that were nearest to those six Men racing up the stairs. All around me, others stopped and did the same.

"Right," I yelled, when no more Orcs moved on the Great Stairs. "They've got a chance now. Now get moving! Go!"

As I ran on, I found Svip. He stood at the edge of the wall, struggling with a bow that stood as tall as he did. He had the arrow nocked, but the reach of his arms was too narrow for him to both keep hold of the bow and pull the bowstring back far enough to fire.

"Svip!" I shouted. "Damn it, what are you doing? Come on!"

He cast a desperate, angry look at me, then he flung down the bow with a furious shout in a language I did not understand.

"Come on!" I shouted again.

He did not at once obey. Instead he drew forth the short sword he had at his belt, that he'd carried with him ever since we left his home beneath Rauros. Holding it like a miniature javelin, he hurled it down from the wall.

I scarce believed what I saw. The sword caught a running Orc in the chest, and I saw the Orc fall.

I knelt by Svip, grabbing the water being's shoulders. "Svip, we have to go," I urged. "We have to go, now."

There was a wildness in his gaze as he stared at me. Then abruptly he twisted free and ran. I scrambled to my feet and followed him, muttering something under my breath about damned stubborn halflings who don't know when to retreat.

Not much farther along the wall, Svip and I halted again. Svip's steps faltered and stopped as he came to Fingal Son of Frithjof, and the burned form of Lothar.

Fingal stood by Lothar's prostrate body, grimly firing down at the Orcs on the quay below. Several other soldiers had stopped and were yelling at Fingal, pleas for him to come on.

"Fingal!" one shouted. "Damn you, Man, let's go!" He seized Fingal's shoulder, but the other Man shook him off, turning on him with a look of such wild rage that the soldier took a step away with a whispered oath.

"Fingal," I said, stepping up to him. "They're right. You have to leave." Svip moved close to my side, his own anger seemingly forgotten as he glanced back and forth between Lothar and Fingal.

The latter stood now with his bow lowered. His breath came in gasps that were almost sobs.

Fingal looked down at Lothar's still-breathing form.

"If we carry him," Fingal murmured, "it'll hurt him too much. There's no way we can get him to safety that won't be worse than – "

He swallowed back the words and looked at me, hopeless grief in his eyes.

"I should finish it for him, My Lord," he whispered. "I should, I know that I should, but I – I can't."

I met his gaze, and nodded.

"I will do it," I told him. "You go on, now. Go."

Fingal swallowed again. His mouth twisted in the wraith of a smile.

"Yes, My Lord," Fingal whispered.

Fingal's other comrades had turned and hurried onward. Fingal still stood there, as I knelt beside Lothar and took his unburned hand in mine.

Svip also was waiting for me. I turned my head and saw him watching me, with a frightened, uncertain gaze.

"You go on as well, Svip," I ordered quietly. "I'll catch up with you. I swear it. Now go."

Fingal Son of Frithjof shouldered his bow. Then he bowed to Svip. "Let us go, My Lord Svip," he said. "We'll go on ahead; the Lord Boromir will follow us. Will you come with me?"

Staring into my face, Svip nodded. He turned and hurried to Fingal's side.

The Man cast a last look at me and at Lothar. Then he and Svip set out along the wall.

I drew the dagger from my belt.

It was the dagger I had taken from the Orc I slew by Svip's house, below the Falls. I hated to end Lothar's life with an Orc blade. But I told myself that it would not matter to him.

I thought that Lothar's eyes were closed. At least I could not see any sign that they were open, amid the burned flesh of his face.

He breathed in a tortured gasp. I let go of his hand, and as gently as I could, I put my hand on his chest to hold him still.

I did not know if he heard me. I hoped that he did not. But I said, "Lothar. You have fought bravely. We will win this victory, Lothar. We will win, and Gondor will be saved."

I drove the dagger into his heart.

As I stood, a swift glance told me I was the only Man left alive on either harbour wall. Across on the east wall, I saw Men scrambling up the tower ladder to the safety of the fortress. Farther back along that wall, hulking figures fought their way through the door of the intermediate tower, and the blockage heaped before it.

Ahead of me, several Men were scaling the western ladder to the fortress. No Orcs had yet reached this wall, but the sound of heavy bodies hurling themselves against the intermediate tower door assured me they were not far away.

I ran. As I raced past the intermediate tower, I saw an axe-head break through splintering wood.

"My Lord!" came a shout that I recognised as Fingal's voice. "My Lord! Come on!"

Fingal and Svip clung to rungs of the ladder leading to the door of the Turgon Tower. Svip was a few rungs above the soldier, but both were paused, looking back at me. Above them, I saw two archers standing at the ready in the open doorway.

As I ran on, I heard the door shatter behind me.

"Hurry up!" Svip yelled in a voice of panic. "Hurry!"

"Get climbing, then!" I shouted back at the two of them. "Move!"

They moved. Svip was launching himself through the tower door, between the two archers, as I leapt to the lower rungs and started to climb.

I saw Fingal's feet vanish somewhere above me, just as both archers fired. The arrows zinged past me. Far closer than I liked, I heard an Orcish howl of pain.

The archers in the doorway readied their next shots, while two more arrows sped from the arrow-slit windows at either side of the door.

The ladder shook and jolted with the weight of an Orc springing to its rungs.

I reached the door. Several pairs of hands hauled me inside. I stumbled to my feet, finding myself standing surrounded by Fingal, Corporal Amandil, the Sergeant of the Tower, and Svip.

The archers in the door fired. Someone yelled, "Get the ladder!"

The others and I seized the ladder and heaved it upward. We yanked it into the room, as the two archers at the arrow-slits fired again, and those at the door flung their bows aside to leap at the door and slam it closed.

The shouts and jeers of the Orcs on the harbour wall of a sudden sounded very far away. But all of us knew that they were not so.

The two archers threw the bar into place across the door, then retrieved their bows and crossed to take their places at the next two unoccupied arrow-slits.

I looked around at my comrades. The Sergeant of the Tower had a grim and shaken look about him. Amandil had cuts and scrapes all over him, I supposed from flying rock in the destruction of the harbour tower, but he grinned at me through his mask of dust and blood. Fingal was as wan as any ghost. Svip looked up at me with a faint, uneasy smile.

"You're all right, Svip?" I asked.

He nodded hastily, and said, "I'll go check on Thorolf." Before I could answer, the water creature had fled.

We held the fortress, through all that black afternoon. On Eradan's orders, the Men who'd defended the harbour went off-duty, while the curtain wall between harbour and fortress was manned by troops who had not had so near a brush with the enemy.

Eradan left one catapult each on the west and east fortress walls, and ordered the others moved to the curtain wall. There they joined the archers and the soldiers hurling down rocks and boiling oil at our attackers, in holding back the Orc forces' periodic assaults.

I was the one Man whom Eradan did not have the authority to order off-duty. Wisely, he did not try. While the other defenders of the harbour trooped to the barracks, I conferred briefly with Captain Eradan, then leant my aid to moving the catapults. That completed, I remained on the curtain wall.

On the shores, the Orcs' drumming still sounded through the dark. I was sure that they did it for no other reason than to wear on our nerves, and in that they succeeded. As I paced the wall, ordering myself to ignore that damnable drumming, I tried to determine the enemy's next move.

Every few minutes scattered bands of them made a rush at the fortress, to be beaten back by the Men on the wall. Since the fall of the harbour they had not yet launched a concerted attack. Their captain was clearly giving them some rest and recreation, as reward for their capture of the harbour. From the wall we could see through the dusk as Orcs ransacked the harbour buildings, dragged forth all the food, drink, weaponry and stored goods that they could find, and set the buildings alight.

They made no such move against the twelve of our ships moored in the harbour. That, I told myself, was more cause for alarm than any pillaging they might indulge in.

Those ships would make a more than worthy exchange for their mangy cockle-boats that we had sunk.

Perhaps, I thought, that had been their plan all along. Perhaps that explained why they'd gone out of their way to assault Cair Andros, when they could have avoided it entirely and proceeded in force to Osgiliath.

They were after the ships. They wanted our ships, and our deaths were merely an added attraction.

With the Cair Andros fleet they could make their way downriver in all ease and safety. And they could approach Osgiliath under cover of our flag. They would hope to be upon our Men before the ruse was discovered.

I told myself that the Men of Gondor were not so easily fooled. The Osgiliath garrison would certainly have scouts in the field, who would spot the Orcs' approach. It would take more than the ships and Gondor's flag to disguise the crewmen's identity.

Yet I was not sure. In this loathed dark, perhaps our ships would indeed give the enemy the advantage that would destroy us.

I nearly sent word to Eradan then and there, commanding that we turn the catapults upon our fleet. But I forced myself to hold back.

Let the enemy make the first move. If they wanted a pause for celebration, to make themselves drunk on victory and hopefully, on the wine stored in the harbour warehouses, then I was happy to oblige them. There would be time enough when they moved to ready the fleet, for us to sink our ships and I hoped, plenty of Orcs along with them.

My path along the curtain wall brought me to a Man who sat against the parapet, his bow clutched in his hands as he gazed into the livid sky. My steps slowed and then ceased entirely, for in that Man who seemed to take no heed of my approach, I recognised Fingal Son of Frithjof.

The soldier looked to have aged decades in the hours since I had seen him. That morn I had thought him my own age or slightly younger. As he sat there staring at the dark, his drawn and haggard face reminded me more of my father.

I cleared my throat and stepped toward him. Fingal turned his head, blinking in surprise.

His distant, lost look was succeeded by alarm. He started to scramble to his feet.

"No," I interposed, "you don't have to get up." The soldier paused in his crouch, with a look of uncertainty that would have been comical in other circumstances.

I sat down a few feet away from him. "Sit," I ordered. As he warily sat again, I said in an attempt at levity, "Fear not, Fingal Son of Frithjof. I give you the right to sit in my presence, without let or hindrance."

The unfortunate soldier attempted a smile, looking as though he would gladly dispense with my lordly presence. I resolved that I would swiftly be on my way. But the events of the morning, I felt, had made it my duty to speak with him.

"You do know that you're off-duty?" I inquired.

"Aye, My Lord. Might as well be off-duty here as in the barracks. I'll not be sleeping, either place."

The silence that descended made me wish I had not thought it my duty to speak with him after all. At last I asked him, "You'd known Lothar a long time?"

He looked up at the darkness again. "Aye," he said, his voice raw. "He's my brother-in-law. All of us grew up together." A great sigh seemed to gust forth from Fingal's very soul. "Valar," he whispered. "I'll have to bring the news to my sister."

The grief in his face and voice called words from me that I'd have been better advised not to speak. "I'll visit her, if you think it would be of help," I offered. "If there's anything I can do – "

Fingal stared at me, his look of dismay more eloquent than any speech. He awkwardly forced out the words, "That's very good of you, My Lord, I'm sure she'd be honoured – "

"Forgive me," I interrupted, feeling that I'd revealed myself as the worst kind of ass. What the blazes were you thinking? I demanded of myself. That basking in your glory would make a widow forget her pain? "It was idiotic of me. You'll oblige me if you will forget it."

"It's not that, My Lord," Fingal assured me hastily. "It's good of you to offer. It's only that – she'd want to clean the house for you, My Lord. And cook something special. She'd think she couldn't let you inside without dusting the place top to bottom, and she'd be spending all her coin to buy the best for your dinner …"

Fingal paused, with a sickly smile of apology. "She'll be in a bad enough way when she gets this news, My Lord. I don't want her thinking she has to cook and clean for the Captain-General into the bargain."

"I understand," I said bitterly. "I am a fool, and you've done well to remind me of it."

I stood up. Fingal sprang to his feet, reaching out his hand as though to grab my arm but then thinking better of it.

"My Lord," he said. "Please do not think that. I thank you for offering. Sir – if you'd write to her instead. It would give her something to take comfort in – without fearing that her house would be unworthy of you."

I managed a smile. "Of course," I said. "What is your sister's name?"

"Branwyn Daughter of Frithjof, My Lord. Number Six Carpenters' Street, on the Third Level."

"Very well. Do not fear, I will not write any details of your brother-in-law's death. That is your choice, to tell her of it or no. But what I write will be the truth. That he died in honour, as a valiant Son of Gondor."

"Thank you, My Lord." The soldier looked as though he did not know whether to be relieved or miserable. "Sir – I beg your pardon for offending you."

"The fault was mine. I grieve for your loss, Fingal Son of Frithjof."

He bowed and I strode away, wishing furiously that the Orcs would make another assault. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hide from my embarrassment by finding some foe to kill.

If ever you speak of this with your sister, Fingal, I thought, you can assure her that the great and mighty can be great and mighty fools.

How, I wondered, can Men so wise as my father and Faramir have such an idiotic son and brother?

Night sank on us sullenly, with no stars or moon to pierce its blackness.

The enemy did not oblige me by launching any major attack. Even their sporadic raids on the wall grew more infrequent. As the murky afternoon crept into night, the Orcs rowed a longboat into the harbour and unloaded a second battering ram. But though they moved the ram into the shelter of the burned-out barracks, near the foot of the Great Stairs, they did not yet make any effort to smash through the fortress gate.

I leaned on the parapet above the gate, frowning at the lights of Orc campfires and the smouldering harbour buildings.

What were they waiting for? I wondered. Until they thought they had worn our courage thin, with the wait and with their accursed drumming?

Or until some reinforcement came that they believed would assure their victory? Reinforcement perhaps from the black riders of the air, who would descend within our fortress walls in slaughter and in terror?

As I scowled at the harbour, I heard familiar soft, slapping footsteps along the wall. I turned to see Svip walking cautiously toward me.

"Hello," Svip said.

I nodded. "Hello."

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Waiting," I said. A rueful smile tugged at my mouth as I added, "and thinking dark thoughts."

"Can I wait with you?" The question came out in a tiny, timid voice.

My smile grew more heart-felt. "I would be honoured," I told him. I bowed slightly and gestured to the nearest embrasure. "May I offer you a seat?"

He nodded and held up his arms. I lifted him into the embrasure, striving again to stifle the feeling that I had brought a child with me into this war zone.

Svip huddled in the embrasure, his knees hugged to his chest. As he gazed at the harbour, I thought that he looked like some whimsical gargoyle. Except that the look on his face was not whimsical.

"How is Thorolf?" I asked him.

"The same, I think. Pretty much. He was sweating awfully when I was there. And shivering. And he was swearing. A lot."

"I don't blame him," I murmured.

The drumming on the shore grew louder. Svip noticed it even as I did, turning his head to squint into the dark.

I asked, "Do you see anything?"

"No," he said, his voice bleak. "They're too far away."

The thought came to me of how very quiet he was. Or at least, of how quiet he was for Svip.

His incessant chatter, the countless questions that I once had found so maddening … I wondered how long it was since I had heard them. And if ever I would hear them again.

"Svip," I said suddenly. "I am sorry to have brought you into this."

"No!" he said, with startling vehemence. "No. You didn't bring me. I brought myself. And I'm glad of it," he insisted. "Only …"

He shook his head. "It's only that it's my first battle. That's all."

I fought to think of what I should say to him. What I could say that might possibly help.

I thought of nothing, and the chance was lost. A soldier hurried toward us and saluted, his face looking absurdly young in the braziers' flickering light.

"My Lord Boromir," he said. "Captain Eradan requests your presence in council, on the Turgon Tower."

"Thank you. I will be there."

As the young soldier made his departure, I turned back to Svip. "Are you coming along?" I asked.

His face seemed to brighten slightly. "Can I?"

"Of course. Come on."

He hopped down from the embrasure before I could reach to lift him down. Together we set out along the wall.

On the roof of the Turgon Tower, Eradan and the officers of his council were waiting when we arrived. Folding camp chairs and a folding canvas table currently piled with rolled-up maps had been carried to the roof, but the officers were making little use of them. Standing or pacing at various points about the tower roof were Eradan himself, his second-in-command Lieutenant Malvelgil, the Ranger Captain Cirion, Harbour Master Lieutenant Herion, and Sergeant Rüdiger the Armourer.

As we climbed to the roof, Eradan was saying bitterly, "We've no chance of victory here, not unless we are reinforced or the enemy walks away. I see no great likelihood of either. I'll not sacrifice our Men to hold an outpost that will be lost whether all of us perish or no."

"Sir," Lieutenant Herion protested, "we are in the position of strength. We've provisions enough to last five times our number for five years. The Orcs cannot get near enough to assault the gate; they've no taste for arrows and boiling oil. They have their plunder. When they find that taking us is biting off more than they can chew, they'll get out while they can – "

"And go where?" I inquired, striding in among them. Amid salutes, bows and murmured greetings, I halted before the uncomfortable-looking Lieutenant Herion. "And go where?" I demanded again, giving him no choice but to meet my eyes.

To Herion's credit, he did not look away. "To Mordor I presume, My Lord," he said stolidly. "Or whatever foul nest they crawled from."

"No," I said. "They will go to Osgiliath. To the Pelennor. To Minas Tirith. Would you have Gondor ravaged whilst we huddle in our fortress with our five years' worth of provisions?"

A blush spread over Herion's face. He snapped to attention, staring into the air above my shoulder. "Sir," Herion said stiffly. "The soldiers of Gondor do not retreat, My Lord."

I wondered in what hyperbole-laden speech he had heard that phrase. I hoped it was not any speech that I had made myself. "I wish that could be true, Lieutenant," I said. "Gondor's soldiers do retreat. They retreat when they can serve their country better by fighting the next battle, than by dying in this one."

"Will you give us your instructions, My Lord?" asked Malvelgil the second-in-command. His voice was calm and respectful, but the glare he cast at Herion showed that he thought this debate had gone on long enough.

I looked around at all of them. Malvelgil and Herion stood glaring at each other. Cirion leaned against the parapet with his arms crossed on his chest, glowering at the company in general. Sergeant Rüdiger was cleaning his fingernails with his dagger's point. Watching the others with a preoccupied frown, Captain Eradan stood clutching a rolled-up map that he twisted about in his hands.

A tiny figure amid the grim-faced officers, Svip hung back timidly at the top of the stairs. He looked unsure whether to sit down and watch the show, or to run.

"You all know Svip of Anduin?" I inquired, gesturing toward him. All turned and bowed to Svip, the action forcing Malvelgil and Herion to temporarily break off scowling at each other. "Have a seat, Svip," I told him. "Sit, gentlemen. I believe there are chairs enough for all."

I sat in one of the canvas chairs and Svip scuttled across the tower to hop into a chair next to mine. When the others had taken seats about the table, I said, fixing my gaze on each of them in turn, "We will abandon the island. The questions are when, and in what manner." I turned to Eradan. "Am I right in assuming you intend using the tunnels?"

"Yes, My Lord," Eradan replied. "If we take the main tunnel to its farthest point south along the shore, we should emerge beyond their lines. At any event, the cove is concealed enough that the main body of our force should be able to remain concealed, while we determine the enemy's positions."

"And the fleet?" I asked. "For there can be no question of leaving it in their hands."

Harbour Master Herion stirred unhappily in his chair. I suddenly saw a reason for his insistence that Gondor's soldiers never retreat. As Harbour Master, it was his fleet that we were contemplating destroying.

Eradan nodded. "We have lost thirty-four Men this day." His eyes were dark with bitterness and sorrow as he added quietly, "Pending further reports from the Chief Healer. We are left with approximately fifty ill and wounded – though some of those will be able to fight if needed – and one hundred and seventy fit for duty. I recommend that sixty of the latter take the tunnel from the armoury to the harbour entrance, while the rest of the garrison proceeds south to the cove. The sixty will fire all ships of the fleet but one, and make their escape in that final ship. They will rendezvous with the main force at the cove, and all of us will proceed by river to Osgiliath."

As he finished, Eradan cast a quick, uncertain glance at me, like a schoolboy who'd just recited an answer he feared was entirely wrong. I wondered if I should get Faramir to talk with him, and convince him he need not be constantly second-guessing himself around me. Though if the conversation were to occur, I supposed I really had to speak with him myself.

"The plan is a good one," I said. "But we do not need sixty Men for the strike on the harbour. Ten will be sufficient for our purposes, and will have a better chance of reaching the ships unseen. Even the largest of the fleet can be manoeuvred by six Men, for as short a time as it takes to reach the cove. We will take a supply of lamp oil to douse the other ships. Four archers on our ship will set the other vessels afire, while the other six steer us out of the harbour. I will command the strike force; I presume you gentlemen can suggest candidates to make up the other nine."

Sergeant Rüdiger put in, "With respect, My Lord, you must not keep all of the glory to yourself – or all of the peril. There'll be enough of both to share among more than ten."

"Aye," agreed Cirion. "Ten Men is not enough. Take twenty, at the least. The more archers, the less time needed to set the fleet alight, and the sooner they can make their escape."

"My Lord," Herion the Harbour Master protested, "are we not thinking in the wrong direction? Why divide our force at all, save to get the wounded to safety? Let the main body of our troops attack the harbour! We'll have the advantage of surprise, and I doubt not the Orcs will be sleeping off our wine. We can recapture the island and the ships, and if you choose not to hold the island longer, then we will head south with all of the fleet. The ships will do our country more good at Osgiliath, than as ashes in Cair Andros Harbour."

I was tempted. For a moment I pictured the heroic scene, straight out of my childhood tales, as we slaughtered Orcs by the hundreds and then sailed downriver, sunlight gleaming on our banners.

Only we could expect no sunlight. Nor, I told myself, could we count on victory.

As I debated it, Lieutenant Malvelgil cried out, "We must not sacrifice our Men for the sake of our ships and our pride! Today we lost fifteen percent of our forces, with less than an hour of hand-to-hand combat. How do you think we will do when we throw all of our manpower against them? What percentage do you think we will lose then?"

"A smaller percentage by far," yelled Lieutenant Herion. "Orcs will have less luck facing our swordsmen, than they had lobbing missiles out of the dark!"

Malvelgil sneered, "The Orcs you've fought must have been toothless with age, or else you've been wiping out camps of their females. I regret to tell you that some Orcs can give our swordsmen their money's worth."

Eradan put a restraining hand on his second-in-command's arm. He said, "We are outnumbered twelve to one. That is a conservative estimate of their forces in the harbour, and takes no account of the unknown numbers that may still be upon the shores. I will face such odds gladly, My Lord, when there is no better course. But when we have a choice that will preserve more of us for Gondor's defence, then that is the road I will take."

Not without regret, I turned my back on Herion's plan. "We will send the majority through the main tunnel," I declared. "I will lead a force of twenty in the raid upon the harbour, since you gentlemen prefer that number. We must move as soon as is possible. I do not wish the enemy to force our hand by setting out with the fleet before we've bestirred ourselves, or by launching a full-scale assault on the gate while we're still trooping into our tunnels. Nor should we launch our attack before the main party is clear of the fortress." I asked of Captain Eradan, "How soon can we be ready?"

He contemplated a moment before stating, "An hour, My Lord. In that time we can make what preparations we require, and have all of our Men in the tunnel."

"Good. The harbour strike force will man the wall until the others have got clear. Lieutenant Herion," I continued, startling the scowling Harbour Master as I turned toward him, "we will need the best rowers and steersmen for this mission. Choose the six Men you believe most fitted for the task, and have them report here to me."

For an instant Herion looked as though he would protest once more. Then he stood and bowed. "Yes, My Lord."

As Herion left the tower, I stood, the others getting to their feet along with me. "I thank you, gentlemen," I said. "We need thirteen Men more. It appears that the skills of the Rangers would be of use in this task. Captain Cirion, will you take charge of selecting the rest of the team, and send them to me?"

"Willingly, My Lord," Cirion said, bowing.

Before the Ranger could depart, Eradan put in with a smile, "He need only find twelve Men, My Lord. I volunteer for your command. If you will have me."

I smiled back at him, though I had to point out, "I suspect the scholars of strategy would tell us it is unwise to send our two highest-ranking officers on the same perilous mission."

"They probably would. But I also recall you telling me that you would never send your Men anywhere you would not go yourself. Besides," he added, his smile growing melancholy, "ship's captains have ever had the right to be last off their sinking ship. Should not the commander of a fortress have the same privilege?"

"I can vouch for Captain Eradan's archery, My Lord," Cirion contributed. "He'll be no detriment to your command."

"Very well," I said. "Complete what tasks require your attention, and report back to me."

Lieutenant Malvelgil opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted, "Do not you think of volunteering, Lieutenant. We need you commanding the main force."

Malvelgil sighed and said, "Aye, My Lord."

Svip had hopped down from his chair as the rest of us stood, and now he tugged on my arm. Before Svip could speak, Sergeant Rüdiger was saying, "I'll not embarrass us both by volunteering, My Lord. My damnable bow-fingers have decided to get arthritic on me. But I wish that I could be with you."

I smiled and shook hands with him. "I wish you could too."

Lieutenant Malvelgil offered, "You shall have the honour of leaving the fortress last of our column, if you wish it, Sergeant. I can think of none more worthy."

"I do wish it," Rüdiger said. "You need someone reliable bringing up the rear."

The four officers departed. I glanced down at Svip, who was looking up at me with an eager gaze. Not yet willing to hear what I knew he would say, I strode from the tower and took a few steps along the wall. Svip scampered after.

When I stopped, leaning against the parapet and looking back at Svip, he said, "I'm coming, too."

"No, Svip," I said heavily. "Please."

"Why not?" he demanded. "That's why I came here. To be of use."

"Svip, please. Listen to me. Bow to my wishes for this time. I do not want you killed."

"Well? I don't want you killed. Aren't I supposed to be keeping an eye on you?"

I felt like grabbing him up and shaking some sense into him. Instead I knelt before him.

"I promise you, Svip. I will take the greatest care I can. I will do my best to come out of this alive."

I wanted to promise him that I wouldn't get killed. But I knew too well that that promise can be impossible to keep.

"Please," I went on. "I'll have a better chance of surviving if I know you are safe, than if I'm constantly checking to see if you're getting slain."

Svip stared down at his feet. Finally he said, without looking up, "All right. I'm coming the next time, though."

Relief washed over me. "All right," I agreed, though I knew I would probably regret that promise, as well.

He hesitantly looked up, then before either of us could speak, Svip had flung himself into my arms. An instant later he broke the embrace, stepping back and saying hastily, "I'll go help with moving the wounded."

He ran.

Ere long, troop movement throughout the fortress showed that Eradan and the others had set our plan into action. With some grumbling, most of it hastily quieted as they passed me, the Men made their way down from the wall. They were soon replaced by those Herion and Cirion had sent, hurrying one by one up the stairs in the Turgon Tower.

The majority I recognised. Cirion had assigned himself to the mission, along with five of his Rangers who had not been on the journey from Lilla Howe, and three who had: young Holgar, Buslai, and Finn.

Finn and Buslai I'd not seen since we arrived at the fortress. When I inquired if they felt recovered enough for this mission, Buslai grimaced and said, "I should jolly well hope so, sir, after all the sleep we got."

Finn explained, "Captain Cirion sent us to the barracks when we got here, My Lord. Told us to get some rest. I guess we did. We were sleeping so hard we didn't even notice when the battle started. When the others couldn't wake us they sent word to the healers, and left. Healers couldn't figure anything out, either, but then seven hours or so into the battle, we just woke up. And wondered where everyone else'd got to."

I stationed my troop along the curtain wall, with Eradan at the eastern tower and the others posted at embrasures between his position and mine. We took pot shots at the occasional bands of Orcs who made runs at the wall; enough action on our part, I hoped, to maintain the illusion that the fortress was still fully manned. In the courtyard behind us, the line of soldiers passed steadily into the ground floor of the Turgon Tower, with the entrance to the tunnel within.

The stretcher-bearers with the wounded went first. I sought Svip's small form amongst them, but I could not pick him out in the darkness.

The eventualities I dreaded did not come to pass. There was no concerted assault while our Men still marched to the tunnel; no move by the Orcs to take the fleet and depart.

Yet activity on the quay did increase. Groups of them emerged from the shadow of burned-out buildings and the walls, to trudge about collecting the bodies of the slain and dumping them into the harbour. Others started loading chests and barrels, the plunder they had gleaned from our harbour warehouses, into one of our ships moored nearest to the buildings.

I smiled grimly as it occurred to me that their commander had likely set them those tasks so they would not have the opportunity for getting drunk.

The lone call of a horn sounded behind us.

I turned and looked down. The dim light of torches and braziers showed Sergeant Rüdiger, standing alone near the tower's entrance.

The old Sergeant gave a jaunty gesture, between a wave and a salute. He strode into the tower and out of our sight.

I looked back at my Men along the wall. The few nearest, I could see, had their gazes fixed on me. So, too, did their fellows down the line, though all I saw in the dark was the pale blur of their faces.

Time to go, I thought. With a nod to the nearest Man, one of the boatmen that Harbour Master Herion had sent, I walked into the top room of the tower and started down its spiral stairs.

As we trooped downward, I wondered how long it would take the enemy to realise that the wall was unmanned.

Once we're inside the tunnel, I thought, the sooner they figure it out, the better. I would not object if the Orcs cared to assault the fortress in force, perhaps finally try out their battering ram. I was in favour of any plan that got them away from the harbour, attacking an empty fortress while we crept about destroying the fleet.

The ground floor room looked well-ordered and unremarkable, with nothing to hint that an entire garrison had just marched across its floor. The last Men into the tunnel had pulled the flagstone securely into place behind them, and the room seemed innocent of their passing.

As we strode from the tower and across the courtyard, I smiled at the thought of the Orcs' faces, when they breached the gate at last and found us vanished into air.

The deserted armoury was a contrast to the last time I had set foot there, when I took Svip to join Sergeant Rüdiger's command. By the open trap door to the cellar stood a wheelbarrow filled with our troop's supplies: forty earthenware bottles that normally held water or wine, filled now with lamp oil. I took two by their leathern straps and slung them over my shoulder.

"Each Man take two bottles," I commanded. "I regret to say they've no wine in them, but we'll remedy that when we reach Minas Tirith."

While the Men chuckled at my obligatory joke, I continued, "We will exit the tunnel through the west harbour tower, unless we find that exit blocked from the tower's fall. In that case we'll proceed to the east tower. Our escape vessel will be the Isildur, the nearest ship to the towers. We will take to the water as soon as possible. Corporal Njal and your Men, you will proceed directly to the ship and ready it for departure. Get the cooking pot lit; we will need it to light our arrows. The last seven Men in line will take charge of dousing the ships on whichever side of the harbour we emerge on; the rest of us will swim to those on the other side. Each Man take one ship; get it doused and if you've any oil left, use it on the next ship along. As soon as you've used up your oil, get back to the Isildur. Hold your fire until all of us reach the ship, or until I give the command. Don't risk getting close to the enemy. Better that we miss dousing some of the ships, than be discovered too soon. I will take it as a personal insult if you don't all come out of this alive. Are there any questions?"

Hearing none, I said, "Then let us go crash our guests' party."

I climbed down the ladder to the armoury cellar. I rolled aside a certain barrel of arrows that stood by the wall, then I and the two next Men who climbed down seized hold of the iron ring in the flagstone beneath. Together, not without some cursing, we dragged the stone free of the tunnel entrance.

A breath of chill air escaped upward, cooling the sweat on my face. I could almost imagine that it was a breeze, something I had not felt since our enemy's darkness sank upon us.

"Bloody hell," one of my comrades was muttering, kicking at the flagstone we had just hauled loose. "I hope none of us ever has to escape through here by himself."

I descended the steep stone stairs into the tunnel. After a brief pause to light the torch that I found in the usual bracket on the tunnel's wall, I set out into darkness barely heavier than the murk hanging over Cair Andros. The others followed.

We proceeded in near silence, punctuated by our footfalls. As we moved into the tunnel, the ever-present din of the Orcs' drumming finally faded out of hearing.

It is said that Men of former days tended to be shorter of stature, though I scarcely believe one would see a difference if Men of today stood side by side with our grandfathers who fortified Cair Andros. Still, those tunnels sometimes make me wonder. The roofs can be uncomfortably low, and the walls in places are certainly closer together than I would have built them.

I ducked to avoid a dip in the ceiling. As I did so, my mind wandered to the first time I had seen the tunnels of Cair Andros.

On that occasion, the low ceilings were not a problem.

My father had brought me with him on one of his tours of inspection of the frontier garrisons, when I was ten years old. One of the officers made the mistake of mentioning a tunnel entrance while I was within earshot. I snuck back to that room, figured out the secret door's mechanism, and spent the rest of the day exploring the pathways beneath the fortress.

My father was not amused. Particularly since he'd had a good quarter of the garrison waste three hours or more in searching for me.

I received, of course, a rather lengthy lecture on responsibility, and as punishment my father required that I be at every single meeting he attended for the rest of that inspection tour. I had to turn in written reports to him on each meeting – fortunately he did not require that they be terribly good reports. Only good enough to prove that I'd been there, and that I hadn't been asleep.

But I did have a fun day exploring the tunnels.

We passed the stairs that led up to another hidden entrance, within the harbour guardhouse. It would not be long before we reached our destination. I shoved my mind away from reminiscences, and once more ran through our plan of attack.

It ought to work, I told myself. It ought to work – if there are not too many Orcs near the tower, if they don't spot us too soon, if they do not attack us in force while we're still swimming about splashing the ships with lamp oil.

I remembered a favourite saying of my father's that he used to rebuke those he thought were being overly pessimistic. Do not lose the battle for us before we have drawn our swords.

The tunnel branched to the right, to another set of stairs. The stone above them opened into the ruined west tower.

I thought, Now to see whether the entrance is buried under rubble.

I handed the torch that I held to one of the Men behind me, and said to another, "You're with me."

The stairs were just wide enough for the two of us to climb them. Reaching upward, we gave an experimental shove on the flagstone above.

It shifted.

With images playing through my mind of climbing from the hole into a circle of waiting Orcs, we heaved on the stone again.

The scrape of stone on stone sounded abominably loud as we manoeuvred the entrance stone aside. No shouts or whizzing of arrows followed; not yet.

Again we heard the sound from which I'd been so glad to be free for that brief time: the Orcs' eternal drumbeats.

I whispered to my comrade, "Wait here." With my hand on my sword hilt, I crept through the hole in the west tower's floor.

Crouching in the shadows, I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dim, distant light of guttering braziers along the harbour walls. The Orcs must have taken no measures to keep them alight since we had abandoned the harbour. I supposed they could see in the dark well enough not to require them.

Half of the ceiling of this lower room was gone, gaping into the ruins of the upper room that had held the harbour chain's mechanism. The wall to my left was smashed in, a jumble of building stones and wooden ceiling beams hiding the floor. Only the choice of the builders that placed the tunnel entrance at the room's western end had saved it from being buried.

One massive Orc arm thrust out from the rubble, its hand clawing empty air. Near the top of the pile I glimpsed the body of one of our Men, sprawled amid the wooden wreckage fallen from the room above. Those two bodies were all I could see at first glance, but beyond doubt there were more, likely both here below and in the destruction above me. In this tower we had lost more Men than at any other position in the fortress.

I thought of the young Man with whom I'd spoken in the room above, nervously asking me if I thought the enemy would strike here. I scowled at the realisation that I did not really remember what he'd looked like.

Lightish hair, I thought. Freckles.

Damnation. I ought to remember.

I crept back to the tunnel entrance. "All clear," I whispered to the Man who waited below. "Pass the word to extinguish the torches and follow."

From my vantage point on the fortress wall this tower had looked a promising location for launching our assault. It had not belied its promise. On the side facing the harbour the tower had survived, shielding activity within from the view of our uninvited guests. It should be easy enough to let ourselves down into the water, through the breach torn by the Orc battering ram. Once in the water it was a brief swim to our escape vessel the Isildur.

For the rest of the plan, we would just have to hope that the Orcs were not on the alert for any foe swimming toward them.

The shadowy forms of my comrades began emerging from the tunnel. I stole to the heap of rubble and scrambled over it. With a brief glance at the black water only a few feet below, I lowered myself into the harbour.

I was surprised anew by how glorious the water felt, as it rippled against my body with a whisper of homecoming. The cold of it that should have been a shock was instead a welcome refuge from the sullen air hanging over us.

I shook my head in wonder at this latest reminder of how my resurrection had changed me. Then I swam, as cautiously as I could, toward our ships on the east side of the harbour.

I struck out to the east in the shadow of the Isildur, its graceful, brightly-painted form barely recognisable in the darkness. A glance behind me showed Corporal Njal and his team who would take charge of the ship, swimming steadily towards it. One of them clung to the back of a comrade who did the swimming for both of them. In his other arm the Man who was not swimming clutched a long bundle that I knew held our supply of arrows. Since our plan was to set the ships alight with flaming arrows, we could scarce afford to get the fabric at the arrowheads soaked as we swam.

The Orcs were still working. I heard occasional splashes as they hurled corpses into the water. The largest group of them I saw was yet at work loading plunder into the ship nearest the smouldering harbour buildings.

That ship we would not bother with. Even I was not foolhardy enough to try dousing a vessel while the Orcs were working on it. But I was going to try for the ship moored next to it.

I swam between two ships, the second and third along the east side. Feeling that I would scarcely be more noticeable if I had walked up to the Orcs with a torch in my hand and announced that we were going to burn the fleet, I pulled myself up against the gunwale and commenced pouring lamp oil into the vessel. I poured it over everything I could reach without climbing into the ship: rowing benches, shipped oars, the hull itself, the mast block, a pile of sails lying folded in the stern.

I emptied one bottle and part of the next before deciding that the ship was sufficiently doused. Then I turned and used up the rest of the oil on the oars and benches of the third ship. I caught a glimpse of one of our Men, his head and one arm visible at the ship's other side as he doused a coil of rope by the mast block. He left the now empty bottle in the ship, gave me a tiny salute and lowered himself out of sight.

Keeping within the darker shadows cast by the ships, I swam back toward the harbour entrance. Here and there I spotted others doing the same.

Were the Orcs entirely blind? I wondered. What use was their greater night vision if they couldn't spot a troop of Men out for a swim in the harbour?

I ducked underwater and cut across to the west side. For another few moments the Orcs' drums were silenced, though I could still feel them, reverberating through the inky water.

Rising cautiously to the surface, I found myself alongside the Isildur. A Man whom I recognised as Holgar was manoeuvring himself into the ship, keeping low over the gunwale. Another swam slowly from the direction of the other ships on the west side, towing something behind him.

As the Man came near I saw that it was Captain Eradan. He grinned as he recognised me, and whispered, "Found a boat full of their exploding missiles. Maybe we can use them. Light them and throw them at the ships, I suppose, since we haven't any catapult." He handed the rope by which he'd been towing the boat over to me, continuing, "I'll climb aboard and you can hand them up to me."

"Right," I whispered back. Eradan eased himself into the ship and leaned over the gunwale toward me. Treading water, I started gingerly handing him the round pottery jars one at a time, marvelling at the destruction these harmless-looking things had wrought upon us.

A sudden shout tore the still air. The whirr of an arrow was followed by a splash as the arrow drove into the water.

The quayside erupted into motion. All along the quay I could see Orcs running toward us.

"Men of Gondor!" I yelled. "Fire!"

Men who had been crouched around the mast block of the ship rose up, fiery arrows gleaming in the dark like a row of stars. Almost as one Man, they fired.

We had enough of the Orcs' missiles aboard, I decided, particularly since we'd never used them before and weren't quite sure what we were doing with them. I tipped the Orc boat to one side and sank it and its cargo. Then I dragged myself over the gunwale into the ship.

"Eradan!" I shouted. "Do a count! Do we have everyone?"

Throughout the harbour, flames sprang upward as our shots hit home. I scrambled to where Eradan had piled the missiles, near the firepot at the base of the mast. Too near, I thought; all we needed was for someone to kick over the cooking pot and ignite all of those damned missiles.

Another Man launched himself from the water, landing awkwardly in the Isildur's prow while arrows sang around him.

"We've got everyone now, My Lord!" Eradan shouted.

"Good! Njal, get us out of here!"

Four Men who'd been crouched by the benches thrust their oars through the ports and into the water. In the stern at the twin steering oars, Corporal Njal and the sixth boatman began turning our ship away from the quay.

Men fired on, dipping each new arrow into the firepot before sending it at the fleet. Enemy arrows and spears rained about us.

I called to Eradan, "Let's see if these bloody things work!"

I stuck an arrow into the cook pot, then, taking up a missile in my other hand, held the burning arrow against the missile's wick. I thrust the arrow back into the pot as the wick flamed into life. Thinking that we were probably incredibly stupid to be meddling with these things, I took a better hold on the missile and then hurled it with all of my might toward the neighbouring ships.

It worked. Three ships along, there came a crash and a vast new upsurge of flame.

Eradan laughed and exclaimed, "Good shot, My Lord!" He seized another arrow and one of the missiles. I grabbed another missile.

We disposed thus of six of the ten missiles we'd brought on board, the ships nearest us all but vanishing behind a wall of fire. The Isildur had nearly completed its turn; in a moment the oarsmen could put their full strength to getting us out of the harbour.

Eradan turned to reach for another missile just as I flung the one I held in my hand. In that instant, a spear thrown from the quayside drove into Eradan's back.

I twisted around at the Captain's yell of pain, and managed to grab him just before he would have fallen into the firepot. Eradan collapsed against me, murmuring in a tone of surprise, "Damn, that hurts."

The spear had caught him just under his right shoulder blade. It had not been thrown with force enough to penetrate very deeply. Only about half of the spearpoint was buried in his flesh. The wound was not deep enough to pierce the lung, or so I hoped.

As carefully as possible I pulled the spear from his wound, then I handed the now barely conscious Captain over to the Man who crouched nearest us.

"Do what you can for him," I commanded. I grabbed up another missile, lit it, and hurled it at the quay in the direction the spear had come from.

The beautiful sight met my eyes of a cluster of yelling Orcs erupting into flame.

Not all of the Orcs, I saw in the next moment, had turned their efforts to firing upon us. Some of them – a fairly large number, I thought, from the number of oars I saw in motion – had taken to the ship they'd been loading, and were bringing it about to give chase.

A Man scrambled across the deck toward me as I reached for another missile. I recognised my travelling companion Finn Son of Thorstein. He yelled out over the general din, "Can I have a go at it, My Lord?"

"Be my guest," I yelled back, handing him the missile and seizing up another one. We lit the missiles and flung them almost in unison. Flames leaped along the quay.

"Have the last one," I offered. As Finn grinned his thanks at me and threw our final missile, I shouted, "Three Men, keep firing. The rest, to the oars! Row for our lives!"

We made a stampede for the benches. It was a tribute to the craftsmanship of Gondor's shipwrights that our migration did not cause the ship to capsize. As I grabbed hold of an oar, I glimpsed the Orcs' vessel bearing down on us.

Even heavily loaded as their ship was, they were catching up with us fast. They had mustered more oarsmen than we could. And the Orc muscles behind each oar bore more strength in them than our own.

We drove through the harbour entrance, between the half-ruined towers. Ahead of us lay the open River.

The Anduin's current would add to our speed. It would also add to that of our enemy.

Arrows fired from the pursuing vessel rattled on our deck. One Man cried out as he was struck.

Finn had ended up at the oar behind mine. He called to me now, "If I'm killed again, My Lord, you don't have to bring me back. It was too much bother the last time."

I shouted, "I'll keep that in mind."

I glanced backward, and almost wished I had not.

They were scarcely an oar's length behind us. There was no chance we could outrun them. We were going to have to stop rowing and fight.

One of our Men cried in a tone of awe, "Will you look at that."

I turned again. All along the ship Men did the same, and our rowing slowed as one by one we stopped and stared.

On either side of the Orcs' ship, waves rose from the River. They towered to the height of the mast, then curved in toward each other, over the ship.

Like a gigantic hand closing, the waves smashed in on the Orcs' vessel. Then another wave reared from beneath the ship. It hurled the ship backward through the air. Flying into the harbour, the luckless vessel crashed downward into the ships of our burning fleet.

The water grew suddenly calm, as though the waves had never been.

We stared in stricken silence. Behind us in the dark, the Orcs on the shore drummed on.

I swallowed. When I was sure that I had my voice under command, I ordered, "Keep rowing."

As the Men obeyed, one of them demanded of the company in general, "What in the Valar's name was that?"

I heard Buslai Son of Brynjolf answer somewhere behind me. "The Captain-General's a friend of the River. It must have decided to help him out."

We reached the cove two miles south without further incident, and with no sign of renewed pursuit. It was fortunate that our steersmen knew this stretch of river better than I, for in this darkness I would assuredly have missed the jagged finger of rock that marked the entrance to the cove. As we slowly turned toward the small tributary stream and the beach hidden by overhanging rocks, torchlight suddenly gleamed from the dark. I saw Sergeant Rüdiger the Armourer, standing by the River's edge with the torch in his hand. Beside him stood Svip, light glinting off the water that dripped from his clothes.

Even the largest of Gondor's river-going craft can be easily beached, and launched again, though not quite with equal ease. As two more torches flared to light and our comrades approached from the shadows, we drove the ship onto the sand.

Almost before we'd ceased moving I leapt over the side. "We need a healer here," I ordered, "we've new injuries aboard. Start getting the wounded to the ship. Pull up the planks fore and aft of the oars; there'll be more room for the wounded to lie down in the hold."

Svip, Rüdiger and Lieutenant Malvelgil gathered about me. "Captain Eradan has been injured," I told them grimly. "A spear-shot; I don't know his condition." As shock washed over Malvelgil's face, I attempted to bring his full attention back to duty. "What's the situation here, Lieutenant?"

Malvelgil took command of himself with visible effort. "We reached the cove without difficulty and have encountered none of the enemy, My Lord. But I believe they have further troops to the south. Scouts sent to the clifftop observed numerous small fires along the shore. They appear to be campfires, My Lord, not signs of fighting or looting. But there seems little doubt that they belong to the enemy."

I nodded. "We will attempt to make it appear the ship is derelict. We'll let the current take us. No rowing unless we have to, and no Man should be seen above the gunwale. Perhaps we can avoid being attacked, or at least being attacked as frequently. We must be ready to answer whatever assaults do come, but the fewer we have to fight off, the better."

As wounded on stretchers were borne past us, Auda the Chief Healer clambered out of the ship.

"Have you seen Captain Eradan?" Lieutenant Malvelgil demanded of him.

The Healer frowned at us. "We have his wound cleaned and bound," he said in a troubled tone. "It is not deep, but I fear the spear was poisoned. Not as dangerous a poison as it might have been. But dangerous."

"Thank you," said Malvelgil, blocking all emotion from his voice and face. Even in the half-light, I could see his clenched fists trembling.

The loading of the ship proceeded with reasonable speed, considering that we were squeezing around two hundred Men onto a craft designed to hold a hundred. In the hold we constructed the most comfortable beds we could manage, out of the stretchers and the ship's sails, and settled the more seriously wounded upon them. A few other Men stayed below with their injured comrades. The rest of us would have to find room on the deck, huddled in the minimal shelter of the gunwales and the benches. We would be near to the oars for when we had to use them, and each of us would have bow and arrows close to hand.

Corporal Njal and his fellow steersman took up their places at the steering oars. Theirs would be the most exposed position, with no benches to shield them. They had tied ropes to each steering oar, so they would be better able to manoeuvre them while crouched below the line of the gunwale.

But for the first few moments of our journey, the steersmen were allowed to stand at their oars. Half of the Men who would be on deck took position on the rowing benches, using the oars as poles to shove us off from the bank. The rest of us, myself included, stayed outside and pushed the ship, only clambering aboard when we at last floated free of the shore.

The steersmen brought us to the middle of the current. With considerable grumbling, we shipped oars again and sought the least uncomfortable positions we could discover, sprawled about the deck like so many corpses.

I found myself a piece of deck just behind the upward-sweeping prow. There were several coiled ropes stored in the prow, and I reflected that at least I'd be able to use one of them as a pillow.

The Orcs' drumming faded in the distance. The gentle lapping of water and the moans of the wounded in the hold were the only sounds.

I thought a brief but desperate prayer for their recovery. For all of them, but the names foremost in my mind were those of Captain Eradan and Thorolf Son of Eyjolf.

Svip kept scurrying back and forth, for a few minutes sitting in the prow with me, then going below to visit the wounded. I hoped his continual visits did not distress them, but I supposed they probably did not. He seemed to be keeping quiet; certainly I did not hear him below pestering them with questions. And the Men seemed to have adopted Svip as a kind of mascot. I thought that perhaps his association with me – and with my miraculous return – had turned him into their talisman for victory.

Once in that night, and two times more in the brown haze that passed for daylight, our ship came under attack. Never did the attacks prove more than a passing threat. The Orc bands that attempted to salvage the drifting ship were small enough that a bowshot volley or two was enough to leave them corpses on the bosom of the River.

I kept waiting for us to float into range of some more sizeable force, but the encounter did not come.

The day stretched on.

I lay in the prow, glowering at the lurid sky.

I felt a fresh surge of hatred for that smothering blanket of cloud. It seemed that if only the cloud were torn away, we would know that at least we still had something for which to fight. We would fight not just from desperation and stubbornness, but from hope. But while this livid murk hung about us, there seemed no way of believing that we would ever win.

Which was precisely how the Dark Lord wanted it, I reminded myself. Which meant that we had to hang onto our hope regardless, just to spite him.

I glanced down at the sound of someone scrambling across the deck toward me. Svip picked his way over a coil of rope, then sat cross-legged in the prow, hunching low so as to not protrude over the gunwale.

For a moment he studied me with a troubled scowl, then his gaze flinched away.

"What is it?" I asked him. I had been wanting to ask him that all night, but had waited for something that would seem like the right moment. But there was no right moment. The last time he had left, I'd vowed that I would ask him the next chance I had.

He looked back at me. "Boromir – " he began, then suddenly the words started tumbling forth. "Boromir, the ones that – that die, I won't be able to bring them back. I don't have any more silverweed with me. I don't think any grows this far south. I was afraid of that, back at the fort, when I went to sleep in the harbour. I checked at the cove, to make sure. The waterplants are different down here. The soil at the bottom's siltier, I think. I think maybe the water's too warm for the silverweed to grow properly. I'm sorry, I should have brought more with me – I could go back and get more, but by the time I got back, some of them are bound to have died. And the ones back at the fortress, I'm not sure I could get to them, with the Orcs – and if you wait too long after they die, I'm not sure that it works – "

"Svip, please. Stop." I stared miserably at the deck, then I forced myself to face him.

"I am sorry, Svip. I should have said this to you sooner. I had no right to pressure you into bringing Finn and Buslai back. I took advantage of our friendship to make you do what you knew you should not. I'll not do it again."

He shook his head in protest. "But I didn't want them to die, either," he said. "I don't want any of them to die. And this is different, these ones won't have drowned. I could bring them back, if I had the silverweed. It's my fault, I didn't bring enough along – "

"It's not your fault," I insisted fiercely, gripping his shoulder. "People die, Svip. We can't save them all. People die."

"But I don't want them to," he whispered.

"I know," I whispered back. "Neither do I."

Night settled on us again, another ink-black night with no trace of stars.

When the dark drew in, Svip made his way to the stern. The last I saw before night closed in entirely was Svip hunched atop the barrel where one of the steersmen would usually sit, looking in silhouette like some gigantic house cat. He was whispering advice and directions to Njal crouched by his steering oar, as he sought to keep our course down the River's middle.

If Svip could see in this darkness, I thought, it was an easy bet that our enemies could as well.

Despite my constant grim expectations, the hours passed with no shouts of discovery and no arrows whizzing past our heads. And with no blood-chilling cries from flying shadows above us.

Sauron's enterprise clearly had his dreaded captains busy somewhere else. I grimaced as I thought of it, remembering my dream of Faramir riding for the City's walls, while the winged demons swooped and circled above him.

As the current bore us on, I thought that the utter darkness brought at least one comfort. If our foe had passed in force through the lands that were drifting past us, the land and its farmsteads and villages would be in flames. Yet now no fire pierced the dark, not even glints of campfires such as we'd seen further upriver. No scent of smoke reached us on the sullen air.

Perhaps this time the blackness should give us hope, that when light came again at last there would be something left for our people to return to.

I lay there staring at black nothing.

At some point I fell asleep, to the low moans and murmurs of our wounded, the whispers of their comrades trying to quiet them, and the rush of the water on our hull.

That sleep brought no dreams that I remember. But when I awoke, I knew our situation had changed.

I felt someone's hand on my shoulder, and heard Svip's voice hissing "Boromir." As I blinked my way awake, I thought I could see what I had been looking for earlier, the wavering red light of fire. A hint of smoke drifted to my nostrils, and I thought that somewhere in the distance I heard shouts, and the clang of steel on steel.

I propped myself on my elbows, whispering, "Does anyone know where we are?"

The fire, I saw now, was some ways ahead. Behind and around us all was still black, but ahead, the sky glowed red.

"I think it must be Osgiliath, My Lord," came the voice of Captain Cirion, as he crept across the deck toward me. "I've been trying to keep track of our position. The sound of the current changed about five minutes back. If that was the Eärnur Shallows that I heard, then it should be Osgiliath ahead."

"Yes," I murmured. I closed my eyes for an instant, clenching my fists as I fought a wave of outraged fury.

The thought came to me of all the times that I had vowed, to our Men and my father and myself, that Osgiliath would never fall while I lived.

My father had told me not make vows like that. I should have listened to him.

I opened my eyes and stared at the distant red glare. Neither outrage, fury nor regret would gain us anything.

I hissed, "Pass the word to the steersmen to pull us in to the shore. We'll send ahead a scouting party."

The river grasses rustled on our hull as we pulled alongside the bank. All along our craft I heard hushed sounds of movement as Men awoke, and their comrades gave them whispered reports on our whereabouts. The tense alertness spreading among us seemed even to have touched our wounded. It seemed that their murmurs of pain became quieter, as though even through delirium they strove to fight in Gondor's service.

"My Men and I will go, My Lord," Cirion whispered. "I'll take Finn and Buslai; I believe both have proved they are fully recovered."

"Very well," I began, but Svip interjected.

"You don't need to send scouts," he whispered. "I'll go. It'll be safer. I can swim in; I'm smaller. No one ought to notice me."

I could see both his face and Cirion's very dimly in the vague light. Perhaps more from imagining than sight I thought I could tell what expressions were on their faces: surprised irritation on Cirion's, and eager pleading on Svip's.

"My Lord," Cirion hissed, "we must not ask Svip to risk himself – "

"You're not asking," Svip hissed back. "I'm volunteering."

I hesitated, yet again cursing myself for letting Svip get caught up in this. He ought to be at home right now, with nothing to concern him beyond finding odd new items for his collection.

"My Lord," the Ranger began, but again Svip interrupted.

"Where's the sense in sending big, hulking men who'll be spotted in a instant, when I can go there and back and they'll never even know I was there?"

"Damn it, will you listen – "

"Enough," I decreed. "Svip will go."

I heard Cirion's exasperated sigh, and I was almost certain that I saw the smile on Svip's face.

The little water creature swiftly went about taking off the daggers and shortswords that he had about his person, then he slipped into the water. As he paused with his hand on the gunwale, gazing up at the ship, I reached out and closed my hand over his.

"Be cautious," I ordered him. "Do you hear me? If you are slain in this, I will not forgive myself."

"Right," Svip said. This time I knew that I saw him grin.

With a barely audible splash, he was gone.

We waited, in near-silence broken by whispered pain and the distant clash of steel.

"Is this to happen every time, My Lord?" Cirion demanded, icy disapproval in his tone. "Is every plan to be discarded because the water creature has a different suggestion?"

My fists clenched. I was glad of the dark, that might conceal the anger I should have been able to keep from my face. I said, "His suggestions will be acted upon when they are right."

"And how long do we wait for him?"

"Until he comes back," I snapped.

The Ranger Captain made no answer. I heard the rustle of movement as he scrambled further back into the ship.

I leaned against the curve of the prow, watching the glow of the distant fires.

The air hung like lead. I wished I had swum forward with Svip to investigate. It seemed that only in the water was there any escape, any relief from the loathsome weight of the air that never moved, and the days that brought no light.

Cirion was right. If I kept allowing Svip to risk himself like this, the moment might come when I must face the knowledge that he was not coming back.

That moment might come sooner than I would admit.

But I was not going to think of it. Not yet.

I thought instead of the last time I had seen Osgiliath. Of a summer's morning at the Osgiliath bridge.

I could feel the warmth of the rising sun on my face. I felt the sticky heaviness of our foemen's blood soaking through my clothes. I felt the sweat trickling under my helmet, stinging the cuts where a glancing sword blow had jammed the helmet into my head.

And I felt the shocking sudden cold of the water, as our comrades tore down the bridge's final pilings and we leapt into the River, leaving behind us our raging, screaming opponents and the corpses of all our company.

That day I made a promise to the soldiers I left guarding the western shore. I vowed to them that even now, Osgiliath would not fall. I vowed that together they and I would hold the west shore. We would hold back the enemy lurking in East Osgiliath's ruins, and someday all of Osgiliath would be rebuilt. Its gleaming towers would stand once more, on both shores, as tribute to Gondor's glory and to the courage of her sons.

Then I rode away. I rode to Minas Tirith, and the dream that spoke of Imladris, and Gondor's doom.

I rode away to my death.

My words taunted me as I heard them again in my mind.

If Osgiliath would not fall while I lived, as I had boasted, what did it mean now that I had died and returned?

Had fate brought me back only in time to witness Osgiliath's fall?

A whispered cry startled me from my thoughts.

"Here he is!"

Svip leapt dripping into the prow. All along our ship, Men inched closer to hear his report.

"Orcs," he said breathlessly. "An army of them. They've got bridges of rafts tied together, all across the River. They're running across. The fire's on the west shore. There are Men there, too. There's a line of them on the west shore, fighting the Orcs as they get across. And I think there are more, further west. I heard shouting, and their trumpets."

In the pause that followed his words, I looked at the faces of our Men, little more than blurs in the darkness.

In spite of Svip's grim report, something like hope leapt in my soul.

We could yet do something to aid our comrades. Even if Osgiliath could not be held, we were yet in time.

I said, "I believe it is time that we joined in. What say you?"

A chorus of agreement answered me.

"If our people are retreating, then we will guard their retreat. Is Corporal Njal within hearing?"

Men along the ship moved aside for Njal to creep closer. "Here I am, My Lord," the steersman whispered.

"Keep us close in to this shore. We will get up the highest speed we can manage with a Man at each oar, and strike the first bridge we reach with as much force as we can." I looked around again at the assembled company. "We must get our wounded to the main body of the retreat without putting them at unnecessary risk. I want one able-bodied Man assisting each of the wounded, and another twenty to guard the flanks. We can't spare enough Men to carry the wounded on stretchers. Any who can't walk, you will have to carry; do the best you can. Get the wounded ready to move. As soon as we attack, do not wait for anything. Make for the west and the sound of the trumpets.

"The rest of us will each take an oar. Row for all you are worth, and be ready for combat the instant we strike the bridge." I had to grin at my next thought. "Be as blood-curdling as possible. We want them to think there's a few thousand of us, at the least. And make as much noise as possible – noise that will identify us as Men of Gondor. It's as dark as a privy pit out here; we don't want our own Men slaying us by mistake."

I allowed a moment for the upsurge of laughs and joking whispers. "That is all," I said, the whispers ceasing as I spoke. "Any questions?"

No one spoke, then one Man whispered, "No, sir. Good luck to you, My Lord."

"And good luck to each of you," I replied. "May we each strike a blow for Gondor. Every Man, to your stations."

We scattered, some climbing down to the hold, others finding seats at the oars. I sat at the frontmost starboard oar. As quiet once more settled over the Isildur, I looked back along the deck. As far as I could see, there was a Man on each bench. At the stern, the steersmen stood to their oars. One of them raised his hand to me in salute.

"Forward," I ordered, loud enough for my voice to be heard throughout the ship. One hundred oars plunged into the water as one, and the Isildur leapt forward.

The ship was still building up speed when Svip came scampering to the prow and hopped onto the bench beside me.

I had been a bit surprised, though relieved, when he had gone without comment to join the Men in the hold. I should have known that the notion of Svip avoiding danger willingly was too good to be believed.

"Svip," I said, as the water creature ducked out of the way of my oar, "you are going with the wounded."

"No, I'm not," he said. He sounded perfectly cheerful, and I swore under my breath.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," he repeated. "You said I could come along the next time."

Valar give me patience! I prayed. "You going ahead to scout on your own was the next time," I argued. "I didn't say anything about the time after next."

"Scouting ahead doesn't count," said Svip. "You know perfectly well the deal referred to the next time you go into battle."

"Svip," I growled, "one of these days I am going to wring your scrawny little neck."

"No, you're not."

I clamped my jaw shut to stop myself from saying, "Yes, I am," and rowed.

We could soon see more than the fires' light ahead of us. I thought perhaps I could make out some solid mass above the waterline, that must be the pontoon bridges of which Svip had spoken. I saw a rush of movement as figures shrouded by the darkness raced across the River. And I saw, silhouetted in the glow of fire, another line of figures along the western shore, and the glint of light upon sword blades.

The din of battle swelled to greet us. Trumpet calls of Gondor blended with Orc conch shells, Men's shouts vied with Orcish howls, the crackle of fire fought to drown out the clash of steel.

Two very distinct emotions arose within me: a fierce joy and an incredible exasperation that damned bloody Svip was risking his life again.

"All right, Svip," I snarled. "Do not get yourself killed."

"All right," he said.

The Isildur drove forward like an arrow. The dark bulk of the bridges and the creatures running across them loomed before us.

We hit.

The Isildur's prow smashed into their raft bridge, slicing one of the rafts clean in two. Splintering wood flew in all directions, and for an instant I ducked into the shelter of the prow. Then I leapt from the prow to the remains of the bridge. I bellowed "Gondor!" at the top of my lungs, swinging my sword to meet that of an Orc who'd turned back from the shore to face this new enemy.

I beat his blade aside and lopped off his head before he could recover. As another Orc rushed me with a roar of fury, a grey horse jumped from the Isildur's prow, his jump taking him over the first bridge. Svip turned, lunged, and closed his teeth on my Orc's shoulder just as our blades met. He dragged the Orc bodily from the bridge, shook him like a dog with a rat, and then flung him away, the limp body hurtling into a group of running Orcs on the next bridge.

"Thank you!" I yelled. "Why don't you find some Orcs of your own to kill? There's enough for both of us!"

Svip obligingly charged the second bridge. He reared, his hooves knocking at least another two Orcs into the water, then grabbed a third in his teeth as he splashed down on all fours again. I shook my head, then followed him, to mop up any Orcs who might get past the battle-mad horse.

The cry of "Gondor!" rang about us. Along the riverbank, Men surged forward to gain a foothold on the bridges, as our reinforcements joined their ranks.

Orcs were now leaping from the bridge in front of me and rushing inland through the shallow water, to avoid Svip's frenzied attack. I vaulted over the bridge and ran through the water to meet them, yelling "Gondor!" as my sword bit through Orc flesh.

In the corner of my vision I saw Men running forward on the third bridge. As I hacked at the Orcs around me, one of our soldiers darted from the shore into the water, to take a stand at my side.

For some moments the fighting was too brisk to allow for any other focus. Then as the last two of our immediate opponents fell, my comrade got a glimpse of my face.

"My Lord Boromir!" he gasped out, nearly dropping his sword.

I said, "Yes." And that was all the conversation I managed, for in the next instant more Orcs were plunging through the water toward us.

The soldier fought his next two opponents in silence, but as he swung his sword at the third he shouted a new battle cry: "Boromir!"

I do not know how long we fought. I think it can probably have been no more than ten minutes, from the time the Isildur crashed into the bridge. On all of the bridges that I could see, the Men of Gondor had pushed forward, taking the fight to the Orcs instead of letting them reach the shore. Some Orcs were now bypassing the bridges entirely, rowing across in cockleboats while we hacked at their fellows on each bridge. The Orcs in the boats had no simple task ahead of them, for our Men farther back on the bridges and the shore rained arrows upon them in unrelenting numbers.

At some point the soldier and I had clambered onto the second bridge, racing along it until we met a band of Orcs sprinting at full tilt in the opposite direction. Svip swam forward at our left, springing up to grab an Orc off the bridge whenever he decided there were too many for us, and once sinking a boatload of unfortunate Orcs who strayed too close to his hooves.

Three more of our Men had taken a stand on the bridge a few feet behind us, and were firing at any Orc boat that approached. I don't know if they had recognised me, if they'd heard of my return from the Men of Cair Andros, or if they had simply taken up my comrade's battle cry. But they and the soldier beside me were all shouting "Boromir!" with every blow he struck and every arrow they fired.

In the blackness of the far shore there sounded a cry; a cold, mocking screech of hatred.

I could not at first see what had uttered that cry. Then a shape blacker than the sky hurtled downward from one of the shattered towers of East Osgiliath. It galloped at us like some mad horseman of the sky, its cry shrieking out again and twisting through my mind.

The black horseman dove at our bridge. Orcs and Men alike threw ourselves down on the raft bridge, to avoid the steed's flying feet as the dark one swooped over us.

I caught a moment's glimpse of an ice-pale crown glowing beneath the rider's black hood, and a sword likewise gleaming with icy fire as it sliced the air above my head.

The horseman rode on, diving at the combatants on the next bridge with his cry of madness and terror. As I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my fellow warrior by the shoulder and dragging him up with me, I saw the other three Men on our bridge turn to run for the shore.

"Hold your ground!" I bellowed, at them and at our Men in general. "For Gondor! Hold your ground!"

The three soldiers slowed and halted, reluctantly turning to face the eastern shore once again. One of them gave a wordless shout, and fired his next arrow up toward the black horror circling the third bridge.

Our Orcs had been cowering back. Now they rushed us again, howling in desperate rage as they charged.

Svip leapt from the water, seizing an Orc off the bridge with such force that hideous multiple cracks sounded from the creature's backbone. I cut down another Orc and my fellow soldier felled a third, I shouting "Gondor!" and my comrade crying again "Boromir!"

From the shore far behind us, our trumpets rang in the command to retreat.

I gritted my teeth, wishing for an instant that we could press forward and take the enemy on their own ground, flying black horseman or no. But I did not command here this time. I did not know our numbers or the numbers of our foe, or what our troops' condition might be. It was not for me to decide.

But I was damned if I'd let these Orcs come strolling over their bridges the instant we turned our backs.

Ten more Orcs on our bridge were hanging back for the moment, cowering together in awe of the magical horse at our side. I did not think their fear would last long, but while it did, they made an excellent target.

I unslung my bow from my back and nocked an arrow. I said to my comrade, "We do not want these fellows running up our backs as we retreat."

He stood as if frozen for a second longer, perhaps trying to make sense of the mad sights he was witnessing. Then he shook his head and muttered "Aye," and reached for his bow.

We dropped four in swift succession. This put the remaining six on the offensive, and they rushed forward again. The soldier and I backed away along the bridge, shouldering our bows again and drawing our swords.

"Svip!" I yelled. "Get back here. Get back to the shore. We're retreating."

Svip lunged, seizing another Orc in his teeth. He hurled his victim down and trampled him in the water as he fought to swim for the bridge, splashes blending with screams.

"My Lord!" came a shout behind us. "Get down!"

The soldier and I immediately dropped into a crouch, and the arrows of our three companions sang over our heads. Three more Orcs fell.

It was the work of a moment to finish the other two. The soldier and I sprang up and charged them. They had died almost before they could make any move of defence.

The voice of some officer sounded from the shore, "Fall back! Fall back!"

I grinned wearily at my comrades. "I suppose that means us," I said. I looked over at the horse at my side. "Come on, Svip. I mean it."

As we hastened back across the bridge, I glanced upward, listening for the hellish shriek of the horseman. I did not hear it, or see any trace of him.

Where had he got to? I wondered. Had he shown himself only to urge our retreat, and flown off to roost again somewhere now that he had his desire?

We reached the riverbank. All along the shore, Men were hurling at the bridges lit torches and chunks of burning wreckage, which I supposed they must have pulled from our camp that the enemy had set ablaze.

On the shoreline between the bridges, Men piled a blockade of corpses, our own comrades' and those of our foes. This, too, they set afire.

"The ship, as well," I said, to an officer who seemed to be directing this operation. "It might still be sound enough for the enemy to make use of it. Check that all Men are clear of it, then set it alight."

The officer stared, with an expression that clearly showed he had recognised me. Then he said, "Aye, My Lord," leading a team to where the Isildur's stately prow gleamed in the firelight.

The foe was hanging back now, all along our line. In the murky distance I could see the shapes of their boats, but they made no move upon us. I supposed they were nursing their wounds – and waiting to occupy West Osgiliath until we had withdrawn, and could inflict no more losses upon them.

An officer on horseback galloped up to us, ordering, "Fall in! Form your columns!"

We obeyed. Svip stuck close by my side as the columns formed up. He did not speak, I supposed to avoid frightening the troops who did not yet know his nature.

Two Men with wounded legs, I ordered onto Svip's back. As I was helping to boost the second Man onto the horse, Svip suddenly snorted in fear. An instant later, the cry of the dark rider screeched out from the inky sky.

The cry was answered by an echoing shriek, in a slightly different tone. Then another, keening out of the blackness further to the south.

The screams bounced off the dead city's ruins all around us, as though the riders had us surrounded.

Our column wavered, as a few Men started to run.

"Stand fast!" I yelled. "They fear us, or they would come down here and face us. Hold fast!"

Another horseman was galloping along the shore toward us. His steed reared as the loathsome cries sounded again, but in only an instant he had the beast back under control. He drew in rein beside our ranks, stroking a calming hand along the horse's mane. The horseman urged us, "Hold your line! Fear nothing from them. Let them descend and fight us, if they have the courage. Do the Men of Gondor fear foes who scream taunts from a safe distance?"

I froze at the first sound of the horseman's voice. All words seemed trapped in my throat.

The Men about me began to shift nervously away. The gaze of all of them seemed riveted upon me, and a tide of whispering raced through their ranks.

As the troops stared at me, I stared at the horseman. I felt as though I were the one who was seeing a ghost.

Then the spell was broken. I shouted, "Faramir!"