After several hours we came to two huge statues with their hands held out, as if in warning. In the distance I heard the faint rush of a waterfall.
"The Argonath." Aragorn said from his boat. "Long have I desired to look upon the Kings of Old, my kin." Everyone stared up in awe at the regal men caved out of the mountainside. They were truly beautiful.
Aragorn, Boromir, and Legolas guided the boats to the western side of the river bank. Aragorn's was the first to make landfall. He pulled his ashore, then helped Legolas and I pull ours up.
Aragorn, Kili, Fili, Legolas and I went through each boat, pulling out the packs of supplies one by one. While we did that the hobbits, Boromir and Gimli worked on getting a fire started.
"We'll make camp here for now, and cross the river at nightfall." Aragorn said carrying the last pack to shore. "Hide the boats and continue on foot. We will approach Mordor from the north."
"Oh yes!" Scoffed Gimli. "It's just a simple matter of finding our way through Emyn Muil? An impassible labyrinth of razor sharp rocks, and after that it gets even better! Festering, stinking marsh lands far as the eye can see."
By this time I had taken a seat next to Pippin on a log. As Gimli's tirade continued, Pippin's face got greener. He turned and looked at me wide eyed.
I grimaced and patted him on the back.
Aragorn looked down at the dwarf, "That is our road." He said calmly. "I suggest you rest and recover your strength master dwarf."
"Recover my strength!" Gimli growled. He looked at the hobbit and I. "Pay no mind to that younglings."
I glanced around our makeshift camp. Aragorn and Legolas were off speaking to each other in hushed tones, Fili and Kili were nearly inseparable as usual, and the hobbits were almost back to their jovial old selves. But something was missing, wait… "Where are Frodo and Boromir?" I asked standing.
All conversation immediately ceased.
"Spread out. Find them." Aragorn ordered. When his eyes met mine briefly they were full or worry.
Everyone took off in a different direction. I ran straight up the hill and through some old ruins.
"None of us should wander alone. Least of all you." Boromir voice sounded from off to my left. The rest of his words became jumbled from the distance.
I sprinted towards where I heard him and came out into small clearing. Boromir stood on one side with an armful of firewood, and Frodo stood on the other. "Thank God I found you guys."
Then I noticed how Frodo was backing away from Boromir. Fear was clearly written all over his face. Frodo met my eyes, silently pleading for help.
"Boromir?" I asked the man, but he paid me no heed, it was like I wasn't even there.
"There are other ways, Frodo, other paths that we might take." He stared at the chain around Frodo's neck, as if in a trance.
"I know what you would say, and it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart." Frodo was slowly making his way over to me.
"Warning? Against what? We're all afraid Frodo. But to let fear drive us to destroy what little hope we have…don't you see this is madness."
"Boromir!" I shouted, grabbing Frodo and pulling him behind me. My fingers brushed against the chain that held the ring. What if were to take it? Maybe Boromir was right? I could save my world.
What? I staggered back, snatching away my hand like it burned. A smog lifted from my head, shame filling my gut.
"You know there is no other way." Frodo pleaded with Boromir to see reason.
"I only ask for the strength to defend my people!" Boromir yelled in anger and threw down the wood he was carrying. "If you would but lend me the Ring."
"No." Frodo's voice was small behind me. A pulsating sound emanated from the ring. I felt a pull. I'd never done drugs but this was what I imagined a craving would feel like.
"Why do you recoil? I am no thief." Boromir grew crazed.
"You need to calm down and back off a bit. Please." My hand hovered on the hilt of Galadriel's sword.
"You are not yourself." Frodo said.
"What chance do you think you have? They will find you. They will take the Ring, and you will beg for death before the end." Boromir's voice escalated until he was shouting.
Frodo needed to get away, from Boromir… and from me, "Go Frodo." I said to the terrified hobbit, and he began to turn and leave to clearing.
Boromir's face filled with rage. "You fool!" He barreled forward. When I tried to stop him he easily threw me off, and grabbed Frodo, slamming him to the ground. "It is not your's by unhappy chance. It could have been mine! It should be mine! Give it to me!"
I scrambled to my feet and jumped on Boromir's back. "Frodo run!"
Frodo slipped the Ring on and disappeared. I hadn't expected this, and apparently neither did Boromir. He grabbed at the empty air where Frodo had been, then he stood, promptly dropping me to the ground.
"I see your mind." He roared at the surrounding trees. "You will take the Ring to Sauron, it will be the death of you, and the death of us all! Curse you! Curse you and all halflings. Curse you!" He tried to run up a steep hill, but tripped and came tumbling back down onto the floor of the clearing.
"Frodo?" he called out, but this time his voice was filled with sorrow. He looked around the clearing, seemingly noticing me for the first time. "What have I done?"
I had no answer for him.
"I have failed. I am unworthy." Tears fell onto his palms.
"Boromir." I approached the man with caution. We hadn't really had time to get to know each other, so I was unsure what he might do next. "Boromir, we can't stay here."
"I have failed."
"You need to stand."
He shook his head in refusal.
Snarls echoed in the trees. We had been found.
"Get up!" Time for some tough love. With a rough grip on his forearm I jerked him upwards. "You are better than this. You are still needed."
"No." He whined.
I took a deep breath and braced myself, I hoped this worked.
I slapped him across the face. He held his cheek in shock. "You are Boromir, Son of Gondor. Now stand and fight!"
Boromir's eyes narrowed in clarity and determination. He withdrew his sword and spun. There we stood back to back as the foul beasts erupted into battle.
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Kili searched the woods with his brother. He had wanted to go with Ana, but she had taken off before he could say anything. He was learning that she had a mind and will of her own that bared any argument with her.
"You don't think something could have happened, do you?" Fili's question broke into his thoughts.
"In hope not."
There was silence between them for a moment before Fili spoke again. "You know, this kind of reminds me of that night we were supposed to have looked after the ponies." Fili said, bring up memories of a lighter time.
"Yeah, Thorin had given us such an earful." Kili laughed softly. "Of course after he had yelled at us about the trolls."
"He did love to yell." Fili said sadly.
They continued on their way, their eyes roving about the forest for any signs of their missing hobbit or Boromir.
Suddenly Fili stopped dead. "Do you hear that?"
"What?" Kili asked.
"Battle! This way!" And Fili took off at a sprint down a hill, unsheathing his sword in the process.
Kili took out his bow, notched an arrow, and followed. They came across the fighting in the old remains of a fortress. Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli arrived about the same time they did.
Everywhere he looked, Kili saw massive black monsters. They were nothing like the scrawny orcs or malformed goblins he had fought before. They were larger and bulkier than any human man he had ever seen. All order was lost in the frenzied battle. It took several blows to take down each creature, and even those missing arms kept on fighting.
In a moment of distraction one of the creatures had gotten close to Kili and was about to bring down it's blade on him. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, but it was too late for him to do anything.
There was a wisp threw the air, and shortly after and arrow embedded itself between the creatures eyes. Kili whipped around and saw Legolas string another arrow into his bow. The elf nodded to him. Kili nodded beck in gratitude and again found himself caught up in the battle.
A loud bombing call rose in intensity then lowered several times. Legolas's head whipped around to towards the source of the sound. "The Horn or Gondor!"
"Boromir." Aragorn said as he ran past the elf.
At that moment Kili realized that he hadn't seen Alex since the battle's beginning. It didn't take much thinking on his part to guess where she was now.
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They just kept coming, one after the other. For everyone I managed to strike down, two took its place. Boromir and I had become overwhelmed quickly. Sometime in the fight we had found Merry and Pippin.
"Boromir on your left." He parried the blow meant for his neck just in time. He nodded curtly at me. I returned the gesture.
The things were trying their hardest to kill Boromir, but they seemed like they were trying to take the hobbits and I alive. I just hoped that Sam and Frodo hadn't been taken, and that they were being protected by Aragorn or the others.
Boromir blew his horn again, hopefully calling the rest of our company to us. A panic gasp came from where the hobbits were hiding, and I whirled to cut down the creature that was reaching for them.
Suddenly Boromir cried out from behind me. I turned, and with a jolt I realized that the thing sticking out of his chest was an arrow. His eyes were fixed on a spot farther up the hill that many more of the creatures were pouring from. I followed his line of sight and saw that largest of the creatures readying another arrow in his bow.
With a cry Boromir leapt to his feet and parried blows with another creature, taking it down even in his injured state. Then he let out a gasp when another arrow buried itself in his chest. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Boromir raised his head and looked at Merry and Pippin and I. Then with a cry he stood back up and stabbed and incoming creature.
A final arrow hit him in the stomach and when he fell to his knees this time, he didn't get up. Merry, and Pippin broke out of their shock and grabbed their swords out of the creature they had slain together. The three of us let out a battle cry and charged the hoard running towards us.
Merry and Pippin's weapons were knocked aside easily. One of the creatures grabbed Pippin around the waist while Merry had been caught by the throat. I only had a moment to take this in before a hard object collided with the back of my skull and darkness bled into my vision.
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Boromir watched Merry, Pippin and Alex being taken, and he was helpless to do anything to stop it. He had three arrow embedded in his chest, and even if those wounds weren't fatal, he could feel their poison tips working against him.
He heard deep growling and he looked up. Long past the time when all the other monsters had left, the one who had filled him with arrow had remained to finish him off. The creature snarled as it strung another arrow onto its bow. It pulled back the bowstring and… was knocked to the side by a flying body.
Aragorn slammed into the creature. It quickly recovered and threw it shield at Aragorn, pinning him by the neck to a tree. Aragorn struggled to get the shield off him, when that failed he slide out from it just as his adversary cut the tree with his blade right where Aragorn's head had been.
Aragorn rolled away and stabbed it in the leg with his dagger. The creature just looked down at Aragorn with mild annoyance and punched him in the face. It slide the knife out of its leg and licked the blood and threw it at Aragorn.
Aragorn withdrew his sword and swatted the knife away. He ran forward and sliced the creature's arm off and promptly studded it through the abdomen. It looked at the sword in its torso, grabbed it, and pulled it further in. This brought Aragorn's face closer it it's and it snarled at him. Aragorn ripped his sword out and cut the thing's head off.
He barely spared a glance to his fallen foe before rushed to his friend's side. Falling to his knees, Aragorn reached to pull the arrows out.
"No, leave them." Boromir swatted his hands away.
Legolas, Gimli, Fili and Kili arrived after finishing off the lingering creatures. They saw Aragorn and Boromir and realized that they would shortly loose another member of their fellowship.
"They took them." Boromir choked out. "They took the little ones. They took Alex."
Kili paled when he heard this.
"Forgive me. I have failed you all." Boromir pleaded.
"No, you fought bravely." Aragorn assured him.
"Frodo. Where is Frodo?"
"I let Frodo go." Aragorn said.
"Then you do what I could not. I tried to take the ring from him." Boromir admitted.
"The ring is beyond our reach now."
Boromir's face filled with despair. "It is over. The world of men will fall, and all will come to darkness… and my city to ruin."
Tears shown in Aragorn's eyes. "I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall, nor our people fail."
Boromir struggled to take in another breath. "I would have followed you to the end my brother, my captain, my King." His eyes glazed over.
Aragorn closed his eyes and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. "Be at peace Son of Gondor."
Kili held tight to his brother. Thorin had been right to say he knew nothing of the world. He wished he could go back to when the tragedies were only found told before an evening fire.
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Boromir floated in a boat. His head rested on his shield, his sword lay on his lap, and his broken horn lay at his feet. After a few moments his boat went over the water fall, thus putting to rest the Captain of Gondor.
"Frodo and Sam have reached the eastern shore!" Legolas shouted while helping Fili to push on of the boats out into the water. Across the lake they could see the faint forms of Frodo and Sam climbing up the water bank and out of sight.
When Aragorn didn't follow Legolas looked back at his old friend in question. "You mean not follow them?"
Aragorn gazed across the lake. "Frodo's fate, is no longer in our hands."
"Then we have failed. It was all for nothing." Fili said.
"The Fellowship has failed." Gimli agreed.
"No." Aragorn whirled to face them. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Not while we have strength left." He raised his gaze to where Kili had been standing apart, he had been silent since Boromir had passed. "We will not abandon Merry, Pippin, and Alex to torment and death. Leave all that can be spared behind. Come, let us hunt some orc."
Legolas smirked at the dwarves.
"Yes!" Gimli roared in devilish delight.
Kili raise his and Alex's swords, "Du Bekar!" His battle cry thundered the fellowship into action. They sprinted up the hillside.
"Du Bekar!"