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.

21. Chapter TwentyOne: The Steward's Battle

Dear All: Well, I did manage it in under two months anyway, this time! And I am very curious to see what everyone will think of this chapter. The next one should follow relatively shortly, I hope. So, with a deep breath and with much knocking on wood, here is Chapter Twenty-One!

Chapter Twenty-One: The Steward's Battle

Svip and the ferryman both stared at me in alarm. As my heart sank, I said, "My father did not join the Rohirrim; not while I was with them. Svip," I went on urgently, my thoughts racing to catch up with this new circumstance, "see if you can pick up their scent; learn which way they went."

Svip nodded, bounded over to Wiglaf's boat and hopped inside it. While he was sniffing around the inside of the boat, I asked the ferryman, "What more can you tell me of them? Do you remember anything else the Steward said? How were they equipped?"

Wiglaf Son of Herdred answered, "Equipped as though for campaigning, My Lord, or for a journey. The Lord Steward had shield and bow strapped to his saddle, and he himself was armoured and wore his sword. The halfling also was armoured as one of the Citadel Guard, but I did not see that he wore any weapons."

I nodded, watching distractedly as Svip scurried about the ferryboat. I asked, "Was there any sign that the halfling might have been under duress – that the Lord Steward was compelling his attendance by force?"

The boatman's eyes opened wide. He stared a moment in stupefaction, then he succeeded in collecting himself. "I – I cannot say, My Lord. I suppose that it is possible. The halfling did stand close to the Steward, I recall, and I believe that the halfling looked nervous, but I did not think anything of it. It is possible that our Lord might have held a weapon on him. But that is speculation only, My Lord; I truly cannot say."

Svip hopped out of the boat again and commenced making his way inland, scuttling along with his nose close to the ground like a nightmarishly misshapen bloodhound.

"Don't go too far without me, Svip," I called out to him.

"I won't," he called in answer, without looking back. A moment later he was vanishing in the shadows, as the light that reached across the River from Waterfront dwindled at the edge of the trees.

I commanded, "Wiglaf, go at once to the Harlond and fetch to me the Commander of the Guard. Make haste."

"Aye, My Lord." He turned and shoved his boat free of the shore, leaping aboard and setting to with the oars in what seemed all one motion.

I turned to squint into the dark, where Svip had vanished.

Valar, I asked myself, what can this mean?

How in blazes had my father made it past those who watched over him, to set out after the Rohirrim – or on whatever other mission might have brought him here?

It did not bode well for Masters Cosimo and Pelendur, or for the guards whom I had ordered to obey Pelendur's orders above those of the Lord Steward.

Pippin had heard our plans for reinforcing the Emyn Arnen watchtower. It was possible, I told myself, that he had told the Steward of them, and that my father indeed wished to join the Rohirrim in their expedition, perhaps to make some amends for the scene in his Tower chamber.

It was possible, but it was not likely. Far more likely, I thought in bitter dread, was the chance that he had set forth on some other quest entirely – a quest perhaps not his own, but imposed upon him by the suggestions of the Dark Lord himself.

The time seemed unending before Svip came loping into view, to scramble down the riverbank and draw to a halt at my side.

"I've got their track," he reported eagerly. "They're heading that way," he added, pointing east and north.

"Do you think you can follow their track?"

"Yes," he said, "of course."

"Good. We will wait to consult with the Commander of the Guard, then you and I will set forth after them."

I suppose it was scarce ten minutes from when the ferryman set out, to when he and the Guard Commander returned. But they were not ten minutes that I should care to wait through again.

"Lieutenant," I began at once, as the guardsman rushed ashore and saluted me, "have you horses enough at the Harlond stables to mount a search and rescue party?"

"No, My Lord," he said, with a look of dismay. "We have two only; the rest were requisitioned for the patrols."

"I feared as much. Then use one of those two and send a messenger to Lord Húrin, in the City. Give him my order to assemble a company as swiftly as may be, and send them forth to recover the Lord Denethor. He has headed northeast, through the trees here; Svip may be able to give you more precise directions for a little way." I added, as a thought occurred to me that I did not like in the slightest, "It may be that he is headed for Morgulduin. He may make his way toward Minas Morgul; or north, toward the Morannon."

The Lieutenant gaped his astonishment. I hastened on, "The Lord Steward is ill, and may be delirious. I believe it is in this delirium that he has set forth. His delirium may tell him that he must take the fight to the Dark Lord himself, and beard him in his lair. I do not need to tell you that we must catch up with our Lord and bring him home as soon as possible."

"Yes, My Lord!" the guardsman agreed fervently.

I yanked my signet ring from my finger and thrust it into the Lieutenant's hand. "You will give this to Lord Húrin, that he may know these orders indeed come from me. Tell him also to check the Lord Steward's rooms in the King's House, and seek out his guards, his seneschal and Master Pelendur the Healer. I fear some evil has befallen them, or they would not have allowed the Steward thus to set forth. You understand your orders?"

"Aye, My Lord." The Lieutenant turned to Svip, asking, "Lord Svip, is there anything more you can tell us of the Lord Steward's route?"

As the water creature answered him, I took a swift drink from my canteen, then went to refill it from the River. Grimly recalling my other recent forays away from the banks of the Anduin, I asked Wiglaf the ferryman, "Have you a bottle or wineskin I might borrow? One that may be fastened to one's belt, if you have such about you."

"Well, I have, My Lord," he said with a shamefaced expression, going to collect a wicker-covered bottle from his boat. "The wine is none of the best, I'm afraid, sir."

"It does not matter; I am going to dump it out. Would you like a drink before I do so?"

"No, sir, that's all right, My Lord."

In haste then I poured out the wine and dunked the bottle in the River. As I hooked the boatman's bottle to my belt, the Lieutenant concluded his consultation with Svip.

"Are there any other orders, My Lord?" the guardsman asked.

"No; only to state again the pressing need for haste."

"I understand. You are setting out after the Lord Steward before the company joins you?"

"I am."

"Then – then the Valar's speed to you, sir, and all luck."

"I thank you."

The Lieutenant and Wiglaf hurried back to the boat, the ferryman adding his own, "Valar be with you, My Lord." With the first splash of the oars in the water, I turned to Svip.

"All right, Svip, let's go."

My friend surged up into horse form and I leapt onto his back. We headed into the blackness of the woods.

The forest has no great thickness on the east shore opposite the Harlond; nothing to match its growth in Ithilien to the north. But I thought we might near as well have been riding into Moria, for all the light that the stars and the thin strip of moon afforded to us. As Waterfront's lights diminished in the distance behind us, I had cause to thank the Valar for my shapeshifting comrade's night vision, as well as for his sense of smell. Svip plodded onward with his nose to the ground, often veering off to follow a new course through the trees as the scent of our quarry directed him.

I wondered at how my father was directing his course, without such a comrade as Svip to aid him. But there were breaks enough in the tree cover for the stars to show through in places; I supposed that he was taking them as his lodestone.

I did not wish to think of the other possibility, that some force outside himself was guiding him.

Our path for the first hour or so led roughly parallel to the River – little by little bearing east, if I judged rightly from the stars. But yet the River lay nearby at our left.

I told myself, He cannot be that far ahead of us. We can catch up with him, if he keeps to this course; we will catch up with him before he goes too far from Anduin for me to follow.

We will catch up with him. We must.

Svip asked me once, in a pause from sniffing out the trail, "Why do you think your father's doing this?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I'm afraid – I'm afraid he is trying to get to Mordor. The Dark Lord may be calling him there – or perhaps he believes, if he can gain entry to Mordor, he will have some chance to strike against the Dark Lord, himself. If he continues north and east, he will come to Morgul Vale. He could turn east there, on the old road to the Tower of the Moon. Or he could continue northward, on the Ithilien Road. That's the route that Faramir and the others will have taken. If he follows that road to its end, it will bring him to the Black Gate."

"Boromir?" Svip said, in a tense and warning voice. "You know we can't keep following him – if he gets too far from the River."

"I know," I said. "We have not gone that far yet."

No, we have not, my mind grimly answered me. But we will.

For our path had turned, in the past few minutes. We were veering further east, into the thicker reaches of the woods, leaving Anduin behind.

We will catch him, I told myself. He is not that far ahead.

We plodded on. A faint breeze sent ghostly murmurings through the trees. There seemed no other sound in all the forest save for Svip's sniffing and the faint rustling of his hooves in the bracken and leaves.

Every few minutes now I took a small, judicious sip from my store of River water. But I could not hold off forever the tell-tale signs that I most dreaded.

Cold began to whisper in my blood, a mocking foretaste of the assault to come.

The first numbness set in, in my fingers. Even knowing the futility of it, I flexed my fingers and shook them, first one hand and then the other – as unobtrusively as I could, in the foolish hope that Svip would not notice that manoeuvre.

We rode on, and the cold seeped through me. We rode on, and the numbness spread, through my arms and my legs.

"Boromir? We're going to have to turn back soon."

"Not yet. He can't be far ahead of us."

Svip gave an angry-sounding snort, but went back to sniffing the trail.

I took to glancing over my shoulder with increasing frequency, and listening for any sound of the company in pursuit. But it was too soon, I knew; far too soon to expect any reinforcement. It would have taken an hour, at the least, from the time the messenger left the Harlond, for the company to be gathered, to set forth and to cross the River.

We were more like, I thought, to find Orcs upon our trail, than our reinforcements.

"Boromir," Svip said in sudden urgency. "You have to get off me."

I slid down from his back. I nearly wept in frustration, for I felt no hint of sensation when my feet hit the ground.

Svip shrank into his own form. I could barely see him, but I knew he had changed, from the direction of his voice. "I'm sorry," he said shakily. "I held on as long as I could. We're too far; I can't change shape any more."

"I know," I said. "It's all right; you did all that you could."

He whispered, "We should turn back now."

"Can you still scent their trail?"

Svip muttered something in his own language that was more than likely a curse. But he answered, "Yes. I still can."

"And how are you? You'll be all right, if we keep going?"

"I'll be all right," he said. "But you won't."

"We haven't gone ten miles," I argued. "I'm all right, for a while yet."

He snapped, "Will you admit it, when you're not?"

"Yes," I sighed. "Yes, all right, I will. Svip – how much chance do you think there is that our troops will find him, if we do not? How much chance that they will find him before Orcs find him instead?"

"All right," Svip said, with an angry sigh of his own. "But listen – if we go on now, then we have to turn back when I say so. When I say you can't go any farther, you have to turn back with me, no matter what."

"All right, Svip. Yes. All right."

"You swear it?"

"I swear it. Yes."

So we walked on, Svip reaching back to take hold of my hand.

Again I thought of Moria. I thought of the nine of us, picking our way single file through that impossible darkness.

This night seemed as dark to me, and this time we walked without even the will-o'-the-wisp gleam of the Wizard's staff.

And this time, I thought, I was a different Man from the Boromir who had taken that other journey in the dark.

This time as I walked in the darkness, it was without my old assuredness in myself.

No more could I be certain, as indeed I had been in Moria, that my body would accomplish all that I asked of it. I could not know that I had strength and endurance enough for myself and my comrades, enough to stand fast against whatever enemies we might face.

This time, I knew, my enemy was within myself. My strength and endurance were nothing against the cold spreading in my blood, against the numbness creeping in to steal all sensation from me. Or against the whispering promise in my mind, of the black unconsciousness that would reach out to claim me for its own.

I fought to think of something besides my body's slow betrayal. I began to play out in my mind the possible scenarios of what I would say to my father, and what he might say to me, when we met.

In my mind I formulated arguments, and pleaded with him. I shouted at him, and I begged him to come home.

And the cold grew. I took a drink, and I felt the canteen neither in my hand, nor against my lips. I thought that I felt the trickle of water in my throat, but I was not certain even of that.

Svip was speaking to me. I knew that, but I could not make out the words. I stopped and stared desperately at the stars, trying to gain enough focus to make them stop swimming in and out of their places in the sky.

"Boromir. You can't go on any more."

I nodded, or I thought that I did. Distantly I heard my despairing answer, "I know."

You have to think now, I ordered myself. You have to.

I glowered at the stars until they ceased their crazed wheeling above me. Then I said to Svip, "Does it hurt you, to go too far from the River? Or does it just stop you from changing shape? If I turn back now, can you still go on after my father?"

"It won't work," he said. "I don't think you'll make it back to the River alone."

"That doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does. Anyway, if I did catch up with him, how would I convince him to come back? Maybe you could do that. I won't be able to. I might be able to bring Pippin back with me, if your father would let him go. But your father would still be out here, and you'd be somewhere dying in the woods, and we'd lose both of you!"

"We can't leave him out here. Damnation," I groaned, "I am such a fool. We should have waited. The troops will never find him without your help; we should have waited for them …"

"Then let's find them," Svip said eagerly. "We'll go back and meet them. Then some of them can take you back to the River, and I'll lead the rest of them on your father's trail. It will work, I know it will!"

I thought on that, and could think of no better option. "Yes," I murmured. "Yes, all right …"

Ahead of us sounded faintly the neighing of a horse.

Hope and triumph jolted into me, seeming to sharpen my thoughts. I hissed, "Svip, come on!" and started forward. I felt none of it, but I must have been forcing my way through brambles or smaller trees. I heard them rustle and snap as I tore through them, and as they tore at me.

"Wait! Stop!" Svip cried out helplessly, as he rushed into the brambles after me.

We plunged through to a clearing. The vista of stars spread above us. Their faint light slowly revealed to my eyes a dark shape ahead of me – a shape which could be that of a Man on horseback. The starlight seemed to catch upon a glint of silver, that might be the blazon of the White Tree, on my father's chest.

The horse neighed again at our noisy arrival. The shadowed figure spoke in my father's voice, cold and sneering, "You are clumsy trackers, even for Orcs. We have heard you ploughing through the trees like mûmakil, this league and more past."

"We are no Orcs, Father," I answered wearily. "It is Boromir, and Svip."

"Boromir!" another voice, Pippin's, cried out.

"Are you all right, Pippin?" I called to him.

"Yes," the Hobbit called back. I thought I heard more than a little fear in his voice.

"Yes, I'm all right, I'm fine."

My father spoke again. His voice was softer now, but no less cold.

"You have had a wasted journey," he said, "if you seek to make us return. Or do you wish to join in our venture? If that is so, then you are welcome."

"I could answer that better, sir," I said, "if I knew where you are going."

"Where else would we go?" he demanded haughtily. "We go to Mordor."

I had expected it, but still my heart ached on hearing it. "May I ask why you are going there, My Lord?"

He said, "We go in the hope of succeeding where you failed. We go to retrieve the Enemy's weapon, and bring it to Minas Tirith. Or what is more likely, to give up our lives in the attempt."

I thought, I should have expected this. But I had not.

The starlit clearing wavered and danced before my eyes, like a scene viewed through water. I put a hand to my forehead, trying to still the whirling of my sight and my mind. Though I did not know why I bothered, for I could not feel my hand on my forehead, and only my blurred vision told me that it was there.

"Sir," I called to my father, "My Lord, listen to me. You are not well. You will not wish to believe me, but I vow to you, it is true. You are ill, My Lord. You may think that you have chosen this venture, but I promise you, the will that guides it is not yours."

"Is it not?" the Lord Steward inquired disdainfully. "Then enlighten me, pray, upon whose will it is."

I said, "My Lord, it is Sauron's."

For a moment only silence answered. Then my father sneered, "What kind of a fool do you think me? Do you believe me so witless in my dotage that I do not know my own mind?"

"I beg of you, only listen to me. We found you with the palantir. Can you remember that, sir? You have been using the palantir, and Father, the Dark Lord also has one of the palantíri in his grasp. Is it not at least possible that these thoughts you believe to be yours are instead suggestions from the Enemy? Then the path you believe could save Gondor may lead instead to its ruin."

The Steward answered in biting tones, "Your precious Lord Aragorn also has gazed into a stone of seeing. And he, so he tells us, has bound it to his will. Do you believe that a mountebank of a Ranger has power to wrench a palantir from the Dark Lord's control, but the Steward of Gondor has not?"

I sighed. "My Lord, I do not know if Aragorn has bound it to his will, or if he has not. I am not by him to witness his actions. But I have witnessed yours. I know that when you fought me in your Tower chamber, you did not do so of your own will. I know it is not your will that has brought us here. It is the Dark Lord who decreed this quest for you, My Lord. Not you."

My father gave a short, scornful laugh. He said, "Any other Man but you would suffer for speaking those words. You, I can forgive. But I am sorry to see you so deluded a fool."

"When I was deluded, sir," I snapped back, "I thought as you think now. I thought that the Ring offered us a chance of salvation. I thought so, and the Dark Lord used that thought. Then as now, My Lord, that thought served only him. And nothing but ruin came from it."

In the faint light, I thought I saw the Steward shake his head. He said quietly, "I am sorry you do not have more faith in yourself. If you believed more fully in your actions, then they might have succeeded. And the Ring might be in Minas Tirith now."

"Then, My Lord," I answered, "the Dark Lord might be in Minas Tirith too." My vision blanked out for a moment, utter blackness taking the place of the stars' faint sheen of light. I told myself I had to say everything I could, before my consciousness went the way of my sight.

I hastened on, "Father, listen to me. You have told me often enough that I do not think things through; that I act upon the dictates of my heart, not my mind. This time, sir, I say that you have thought things through no more than I. In our desperation for our country, we have forsaken logic and reason. The Steward of Gondor is as guilty of this as is his son."

My vision came hazily back to me, as my father demanded, "And will you tell me in what particulars you claim my logic has failed?"

"The Ring. You think that in our hands, it might bring a chance to save Gondor. So did I think, as well. But My Lord, why should this be so? When the Dark Lord forged this Ring that would rule all others, why should he have created it to serve any other master but himself? How has it served any master but him? Do you know of any, sir; in all the history you have read and heard of it, can you point to any such case? Did it serve Isildur? Or the creature Gollum? Did it serve them, or did it not rather use them up and cast them aside? Sir, reason and logic will tell us that the Ring serves only the will of the Dark Lord. How is it any but his will that the Steward of Gondor should ride without army or guard, into the land of the Enemy? He seeks to rob us of our Steward, My Lord, even as he robbed us of eighty of our fighting Men. It is a trap, Father! He has set the trap in your mind; he has used your love for Gondor to steal you from us!"

Blackness again slammed into me. I saw nothing and I felt nothing. I wondered how long it would be before I heard nothing as well.

My father's voice came through clearly to me, "You are distraught, Boromir. As often as I've told you not to act without logic, I have told you not to waste emotion on what is mere speculation. You are speculating now. You do not know that the Ring will serve only the Dark Lord."

"Sir, you do not know that it will serve you."

"No, I do not. But I choose to take the chance – while any chance yet remains to us."

"Very well," I said in desperation, "very well, you may have chosen this. But has Pippin chosen it? Must you cast his life aside as you cast aside your own?"

My father answered, "It is his cause as well as ours. It is his world as well as ours, for which we fight."

"Yes, sir, it is his cause. But must it be his death, as well?"

Pippin spoke up shakily, "I don't mind so much, really. I'd like the chance to see Frodo and Sam again. And maybe help them get out of Mordor, if I can."

I asked him, "Do you want to destroy their quest, too? Do you want to help my father take the Ring, and make all their struggles be for nothing?"

It was my father instead of Pippin who answered. "My esquire," he said in weary tones, "my son is correct in this, at the least. You have served well, but I would not have you follow the road that is ahead of me. Go now; I release you from my service. I hope I may yet turn back the tide that is upon us. If I do not, then may you die in what way seems best to you, Peregrin Son of Paladin, and with whom you will. Farewell."

Pippin's voice came now from nearer the ground, and I knew my father must have lifted him down from the horse. The Hobbit exclaimed in protest, "I will not say farewell, My Lord! I do not wish to be released from my word or your service!"

I heard affection in my father's voice as he replied, "Then fight for my son. Stand by him and fight at his side, as you have done in the past. Thus you will fulfil with honour the oath that you gave to me."

"My Lord!" Pippin cried out. "My Lord, no, do not leave! Come back!"

No answer came from the Steward, and I had no doubt that he had turned his steed and once more set his course for Mordor.

I tried to step forward, though I do not know if my legs in fact obeyed me. I yelled, "Sir, no, do not do this! My Lord! Father! Come back!"

I heard startled and horrified cries both from Pippin and from Svip. I was not sure what they were shouting about, until I realised that their voices, both very near to me, came now from above me rather than below.

My vision swam back to me drunkenly. I saw the vast field of stars, spinning above me. And near at hand, peering down at me, were the shadowed faces of Pippin and Svip.

I tried to say something reassuring to them, but I do not think I managed to speak. My sight was fading again as rapidly as it had returned. Svip was urging now, "Here, come on, drink some, just a little, come on, it'll help," but I could not feel enough to know whether I had swallowed any water, or not.

Pippin was murmuring, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" Suddenly there came another voice near at hand: the voice of my father.

In a tone of fierce desperation, he demanded, "What is the matter with him? What is the matter with him? Tell me!"

And then I heard something that I thought I had never heard before: someone other than my uncle, my brother or myself, yelling at my father.

"What is the matter with him?" Svip repeated. "He's told you what's the matter with him; he's told you over and over! Don't you listen to a word he says to you? He's too far from the River! He can't go more than ten miles; I don't know how far away we are, but it's too far, it's too far! We've got to get him back to the River. If we don't, he'll die! Are you listening to me? He'll die!"

I heard no answer for a moment. Then my father spoke again, in a distracted voice that was barely audible to me, "Try giving him more of the water."

Svip snapped bitterly, "We could give him all the water; it wouldn't be enough. We've got to get him back to the River. We've got to!"

"Boromir," my father said, "stay awake. Do you hear me? Damn it, boy, don't you dare fall asleep! Damnation, wake up and look at me!"

I managed to force out the words, as slurred as those of any drunkard, "I'm awake, sir. I just can't feel anything, that's all …"

"Svip," my father began, "could you change shape and carry him – ?"

"No," Svip shot back, "I can't! I'm too far from the River too!"

"Boromir, damn it," the Lord Steward muttered, "if you are faking this to make me come back with you …"

That struck me suddenly as hilarious beyond all jests. The thought hit me that that was precisely the strategy Svip had used, when first I attempted to leave his house and the Anduin.

I broke out laughing. In between faint, hysterical laughs, I tried to explain. "Just like you, Svip," I gasped. "Just like you …"

My father instructed one of our comrades, "Here, take my handkerchief; try rubbing some of the water on his face. It may help him to remain awake." I heard no other speech for some moments more, then there came another curt order from the Lord Denethor, "Help me."

I was not certain in what my father wanted help. I heard the others moving about me, and I heard the snorting breath of a horse.

My father's voice came again, quiet and calming and very near to me. "Boromir, help me in this if you can. Try to get your feet beneath you. See if you can stand. You will not fall; I have got hold of you."

Obediently I made the attempt, though I had no notion whether my legs moved at all in response to the commands I was hurling at them. After another few moments, my father said, "I am sorry, Boromir, we're going to have to lay you across the horse. It will not be very comfortable."

"It's all right, sir," I slurred out, "I can't feel anything anyway."

For a while then I heard harsh and laboured breathing, some muttered curses from my father and one as well from Pippin, who followed that immediately with "I'm sorry, sir!", and another few snorts from the horse. There was some rustling of clothing and clanking of armour and accoutrements, then my father asked, his voice somewhere above me, "You are all right there, Peregrin; Svip?"

"Yes," I heard Svip answer, and Pippin agreed hastily, "Yes, we're all right."

My father said, "Let us go, then." He added again to me, "I have got hold of you, Boromir. It will be all right."

I supposed that he must have reached behind him, to hold onto me by my belt. It was the only likely way I could think of for him to guide the horse and keep hold of me at the same time. We must have set forth, but I had only the faint creak of the horse's trappings and the occasional sound of its footfalls to tell me anything of our progress.

Svip had perhaps suggested to my father the technique of getting me talking to keep me awake. That, or the Steward had decided on the wisdom of such a strategy himself. He said now, "You have mentioned before, Boromir, your thoughts on the reconstruction of Osgiliath. Tell me. How would you wish to see our policies develop with regard to the Citadel of the Stars?"

It was effort indeed to maintain concentration and energy enough to answer him. But I spoke, though I know not how much sense I may or may not have made.

I spoke of my dream to one day rebuild the Dome of the Stars. I did not stop there, but spoke on, of rebuilding the other public buildings and the houses where enough yet stood intact that could be salvaged, and of tearing down those structures that were too badly damaged, and reusing their building stones. I spoke of restoring West Osgiliath's wall, as we were now rebuilding the wall of East Osgiliath. I spoke of paving anew the wide, fair streets of the old city, and of means by which we might encourage our citizens to make their homes in Gondor's ancient capital once more.

My father, it seemed to me, took genuine interest in my suggestion that some of Gimli's people might be willing to travel to our realm, to bring their expertise to our building projects. He discussed with me the best sources and supply routes for providing new building stone, and he suggested, in a contemplative tone, "Many of our people will have lost their homes in this latest fighting. Of course most of those are folk of the countryside; yet some houses in the City as well are lost or badly damaged. We might offer dwellings free of charge to any of our citizens who choose to make their home in Osgiliath. To many of the countryfolk that might have no appeal, yet some I think would be willing enough to begin their lives anew."

"Yes, sir," I said. "I think that many of them would."

My vision was slowly coming back, or at least a trace of it was. I saw occasional blurs that passed by me, darker than the general dark surroundings. Along with that hint of sight, there came to me more clearly an awareness of the situation in which I had placed my father and our companions.

I asked suddenly, "We are all on your horse, Father? Pippin and Svip, as well?"

"Yes," Peregrin Took piped up, "we're both here."

"The horse – " I began, "Svip, are you all right? The horse is not too distressed by you?"

"No, it's fine," Svip assured me. "It's Hrafn; he's one of the horses Lady Éowyn has been training. I think I don't worry him so much any more – well, or else we're too heavy for him to bother with being worried."

Bit by maddeningly slow bit, the sensations of my body's reality were starting to return to me.

The first thing I felt was the thudding of my heart. Gradually I became aware of the feeling of numbing cold, and of a dull ache in my head. It took a good deal longer for me to be able to feel that my head was in fact against the horse's hip, getting the occasional jostle as the over-loaded Hrafn plodded along.

Creeping stealthily in on me was the pins-and-needles stinging of my hands. I was not certain if I could feel my arms swinging by the horse's side, or if I only imagined it because I knew that they must be doing so.

When I grew certain that I could indeed feel my arms, numb and deadened though they were, I nerved myself to try an experiment.

Cautiously I attempted turning my head, to see if I could look up at my father.

It worked. The move was painfully slow, yet my head did manage to turn. I saw what I thought must be the Steward, and perhaps even a glimpse of Pippin or Svip beyond him: dark shapes that held steady in relation to me, against the ever-changing murky blurs of trees and sky.

I let my head slump down again, and contemplated my next move.

More than likely, I told myself, I was being over-ambitious. But I said nonetheless, "Sir? If we could stop for a moment, I think I might be able to sit up."

In the whirling fog that made up my senses, I was not certain if my father had in fact pulled Hrafn to a halt. But he commanded, "Wait; I will dismount and help you."

Slowly I felt my arms and head stop swinging. My father's voice came again, "Come, Svip, Master Peregrin; let us move you out of the way, first." Then I could vaguely feel a hand touch my shoulder. My father said quietly, "I am here."

It was still a significant challenge. With much awkward flailing, I got myself worked around to face in the right direction. My sight was not clear enough for me to actually see the saddle, but I had bumped into it while twisting myself around. So I grabbed hold of the saddle, and thus braced, I succeeded in dragging my leg over the horse's rump.

For a moment I thought this was as far as I would manage to get. Actually sitting up seemed more of a challenge than I could conquer. But gripping the back of the saddle, I shoved against it as I fought to push myself upward.

"There!" Pippin exclaimed, his voice seeming impossibly far away. "There, I knew you could do it!"

My father offered courteously, "May I help you up, Svip?" I thought that I might have felt the horse shift a bit, and perhaps I felt a faint and tentative touch on one of my arms. The Steward's voice went on, "Boromir, I am going to mount up; then you can lean against me. Svip is sitting behind you now. He will hold you from falling, until I can remount."

I thought it more likely by far that I would squish the little water creature, should I happen to fall backward. I kept a death grip on the saddle, grimly begging the Valar to help me remain upright.

I was not certain that my father was in fact in the saddle, until I realised that he'd reached back to pry my hands free from the saddle's edge. I could distantly feel him manoeuvring my arms around his waist. He ordered, "Hold onto me. You can lean on me if you need to."

There was no question that I needed to. We rode on, my head resting against my father's shoulder.

The solidity of his back gave me proof that I was still in the living world. I tried to hang on to that sensation, and to the assurance that I was alive. My thoughts kept drifting dizzily, lulled to the edges of sleep by the faintly-felt motions of the horse. Half dreaming, I imagined myself back in my earliest childhood. I had stayed up too late, trying to prove that I was big enough to keep the same hours as the adults. Now my father was giving me a piggy-back ride to my bed.

Wake up, my mind whispered to me. Boromir Son of Denethor, you have got to wake up.

I wished that my father would start speaking again, to help me stay awake. But he did not.

That in itself gave me a toehold on reality: disquiet and dread that served to sharpen my thoughts, as allies in the fight to keep oblivion at bay.

I asked myself what my father was thinking – and what he might do, when he succeeded in bringing me back to the River.

How much of a hold did the Enemy still have on him?

Had the obsession to pursue his mad Ring-quest been broken?

Or was it only thrust for a time to the background, to return as implacable as ever when he had answered the immediate need to rescue his son?

I wanted to ask him of the others whom I had left with him, Cosimo and Pelendur and the guards. But at the same time, I feared to ask.

He has not hurt them, I told myself. He has not.

How can I be sure of that? my thoughts demanded. How can I be certain? He would have killed me, there in the White Tower. If the Enemy's hold was upon him when he awoke, he may have killed them.

What would he do, when we reached the River? Would he simply leave me there, and turn again to set forth on his quest?

It had been no sham, the weakness in which I'd collapsed, that had brought my father back to me. There had been no falsehood in that. But I thought that I would fake it if I had to. Perhaps by feigning greater weakness than I felt, I could keep my father by me, to return with me to the City.

I told myself, I should not even have sat up. It was a mistake to give him any reassurance that I am not dying after all.

There was a breeze. Of a sudden I felt it again, as I had not felt it for hours. It caught at my hair and blew it against my face.

I wondered where we were. I could see nothing but blurred variations in the darkness, though I did not know if my sight itself were wholly to blame, or simply the blackness of the night.

Suddenly my father spoke, in a harsh, tense voice that called my thoughts back from speculations and fears.

He said, "Boromir. If you should return to the City alive and I do not – "

That put an end to my plan of feigning more weakness than I felt. Without taking any conscious decision to do so, I pulled away from him and remained sitting up on my own.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded of him scornfully. "I am the one who is keeling over, sir, not you."

The Steward ignored me. "If you return alive and I do not," he repeated, "I want you to tell your brother that I apologise."

Mind blank with surprise, I echoed, "Apologise? Apologise for what?"

He did not answer me, and I pressed on, "Apologise for what, sir? For sending his Men to their deaths? Or for everything?"

My father gave no answer.

Anger now had driven the last of the fog and dreaming from my mind. I snapped, "Oh, no you do not, sir. You will not get out of it that easily. If you wish to apologise to Faramir for something, you will have to do it yourself."

My father snapped back at me, "You are pushing it, son."

I was about to answer, but Svip's voice came in an urgent whisper, "Orcs. There are Orcs nearby. I can smell them."

For some moments, none of us spoke. I strained to hear any sound of pursuit in the woods about us. I heard only Hrafn's hoof-falls, and a quiet sliding sound that told me my father was checking that his sword was loose in its scabbard.

I did the same, though I grimly thought that I did not know why I was bothering. I could barely feel the sword-hilt in my hand. If things came to combat, I could only hope for the strength to wield my sword.

I asked Svip in a whisper, "Can you tell where they are?"

"I'm not sure," he whispered back. "Upwind of us, definitely. But there may be more of them that I can't smell."

There seemed, still, no sound in the woods, save for our own passage and the whispering of the breeze. Then I thought that I heard the crack of a twig, off to our left. A moment later I thought I heard another.

I told myself that I was jumping at shadows. But I fumblingly found the ferryman's bottle filled with River water and took a long swig.

The effort it took to re-fasten the bottle to my belt boded ill for my prospects in any combat.

They may not attack, I tried to hope. If there are only a few of them, if we have stumbled across them by chance, perhaps they will keep their distance from us.

There would not be that few of them, my mind answered. They can see in the dark; they will see how few we are. The Orcs are not alive who would pass up so easy a prize as we must seem to be.

There was no chance, I thought, that the horse Hrafn could make a run for it, not burdened down as he was with the four of us. My father had the same thought. He said quietly, "I will dismount and keep them occupied, while the rest of you ride for the River."

"No you will not, sir," I told him. "Do not even think of it. It would be useless, in any case. Hrafn cannot make any speed with three of us on his back, any more than with four."

"You are in no state to fight," he said. "You will do as I tell you."

"No, I will not." I tried the same basic tactic as my father had, saying, "Pippin, Svip; the horse should make good speed with only the two of you riding him. My father and I will stay here, while you ride to the Harlond and summon help."

"Are you out of your mind?" Pippin protested, his voice holding equal parts fear and anger. "Do you think we're stupid enough to believe help would get to you in time?" I heard him take a deep breath, then he said, "I'm the esquire of the Steward. I'm not running anywhere."

"And I'm your bodyguard," Svip reminded me. "None of us is going to run – not unless the others run too."

"Fools, all three of you," hissed my father. "Stupid, bloody fools."

"There may not be very many of them," Pippin suggested, trying to sound hopeful.

"Aye," the Lord Steward rejoined, "and there may be very many of them. And we are one old Man, one sick Man, and two halflings."

"We've faced worse odds before, My Lord," Pippin argued, gamely continuing the attempt.

"Yes," my father snapped. "When you faced worse odds before, my son got himself killed."

The first arrow whistled past us. I did not see it, but I heard it, whirring close by my head.

I heard a little yelp from Pippin, but I did not think that he'd been hit. My father hissed out his orders, "Keep your heads down. Keep as low as you can. Peregrin, Svip: see if you can unfasten my shield; use it to shelter yourselves."

Three more arrows followed in swift succession. Then there was a lull, a mocking silence as if to lure us into thinking that the arrows had been a dream.

I thought, Only four archers among them.

Or, only four archers among them who were thus far in range.

My father urged Hrafn to whatever additional speed the unfortunate beast could muster. The arrows sang forth once more.

Svip hissed suddenly, "Maybe we're close enough to the River for me to change shape. Then Boromir can ride me, and Hrafn will make better time."

"Svip," I began, "if you think you're going to trick us into leaving you behind – "

"No, no," he protested. "Just wait while I try it. If it doesn't work, I'll get back on Hrafn, I promise."

By now Hrafn must assuredly have scented the Orcs. He whickered in alarm as my father pulled him to a halt.

But it was a testament to the skill of the Lady Éowyn's teaching, that he made no similar protest when the horse-shaped Svip appeared at his side – or as I saw it, when there appeared at his side a large, vaguely horse-shaped blur.

Pippin exclaimed under his breath, "Oh, well done!"

Near at my right hand, Svip was saying urgently, "Can you get onto me, Boromir? I'm right here."

In my near blindness, I reached for him. Numbly I realised that my father had grabbed hold of my hand and guided it to Svip's neck.

"Hurry!" Svip urged frantically. "You're doing fine, you've got hold of my mane; come on, get on!"

Arrows rained on us from the dark. By the sound, there were more of them this time than four. I heard a thud that must have been one of them ploughing into my father's shield.

Like a fish drowning in a fisherman's boat, I made a wild, flopping lunge, from one horse onto the other. I was still struggling to get my right leg over Svip's side, when the water creature cried out, "I've got him, go!"

We set out at what might have been something near to a run. Flopped down against Svip and clinging onto his mane, I managed to drag my leg to its proper place, though I probably kicked my shapeshifting friend quite a bit as I did so.

There was a shout behind us; a harsh, angry shout in the Orcish tongue. Above the noise of our progress, I heard the crashing of heavy bodies, tearing through the underbrush. I tried to judge how many of them there might be, but I could not tell.

"Sir!" I called to my father. "I sent for reinforcements from the City, when we started after you. They cannot be far from us now. There may be some of the patrols nearby, as well."

"There may be," he called back, "but I have no means of summoning them. I did not anticipate a situation where there would be any help to summon." He added in sharp, jibing tones, "I do not suppose that you have provided yourself with a new horn?"

"No, sir. Not yet."

Another Orcish shout sounded, followed by the twang of many bows. And it was followed as well by the scream of a wounded horse.

The sounds of Hrafn's hoofbeats faltered and slowed beside us. I cried out, "Sir?" at the same moment as Svip called, "My Lord?" and the Lord Steward shouted to us, "Do not stop! Keep going; Hrafn can keep pace with you."

I wondered if Hrafn were in agreement with my father on that. But a goodly portion of the blood of the Mearas ran in the horse's veins. He had enough of the lineage of the steeds of Rohan that he would indeed strive to keep pace with us, for as long as his legs held beneath him.

The dark shapes of the trees blurred past me as we plunged on. I stared at them, trying to make the shapes resolve themselves in my sight. I looked up to see if I could catch any glimpse of the stars, anything on which to try and make my eyes focus. But there was nothing but murky haze. I bit my lip in anger at the thought that I might have to fight in this darkness, and as I thought of how little help I could be to my father and my friends.

More shouts came from behind us, shouts and whirring arrows. My right shoulder twinged in a hint of pain, like a wasp sting piercing through to my fogged senses.

Keeping myself low to Svip, I cautiously reached over to investigate. My numbed fingers closed around what had to be the shaft of an arrow, jutting out from my shoulder.

Marvellous, I thought. Now I just have to hope that these Orcs do not use poisoned arrows.

Not that I would be able to tell, I told myself, if I were dying from poison. My senses were drugged enough already; any poison was like to make little difference to me until I died of it.

Svip must have heard the arrow strike; that, or I was bleeding onto him. He asked me fearfully, "Boromir, are you hurt?"

Before I could answer him, there came another whinnying scream from the horse at our side. And this time there followed other sounds: a frightened yell from Pippin, a grunt and a curse from my father, and a great thud as Hrafn and his riders plummeted to the ground.

Svip wrenched himself to a halt. I yelled, "Father, Pippin, are you hurt?" while Svip shouted to them, "Come on, get onto me, quick!"

I heard the horse thrashing on the ground, and the shouts of our pursuers, seemingly right on top of us.

Something bumped against my left hand. My father yelled at me, "My bow and quiver; take them!"

I fumbled and grabbed hold of them. Pippin meanwhile was crying out frantically, "The shield's under the horse! I can't get it!"

My father answered, "It does not matter!" He must have seized Pippin and swung him up behind Svip's neck, for suddenly the Hobbit was there, giving a startled gasp as he landed in front of me.

Svip yelled again, "Come on!"

It was a moment more before the Steward followed. I heard him draw his sword, and heard a faint yipping sound from Hrafn. The sword then was shoved back into its scabbard. There was another's instant's pause, then I felt Svip jolt as my father leapt onto him behind me.

Svip set off again. He voiced no complaint, but even in my benumbed state I could tell that our combined weight was more than he could bear in safety. His breath came loud and laboured, with occasional pained grunts as his hooves hit the ground more heavily than they should have. It was only a matter of time, I thought, before he lost his footing beneath our weight, and all four of us went flying.

"Svip," I called to him, "we are too heavy for you. We will have to stop and fight them."

My father commanded, "Veer left! There should be a hill close at hand; make for that. It will at least be vaguely defensible."

Svip obeyed, as I asked, "What hill is that, sir?"

"Ostoher's Hill – if we are where I believe us to be."

From that I had a better notion of where we must be. Ostoher's Hill lies roughly five miles from the River, about halfway between Osgiliath and the Harlond.

I speculated to myself on whether our people would someday re-name the hill after us. But that, of course, presupposed that they would learn we had met our deaths there.

With Orcs as our opponents, the chances were more than even that no trace of us would ever be found.

"Give me my bow," my father hissed. He pried bow and quiver from my hand. With a muttered apology to Svip as he braced the bow, he sat there stringing the bow while we jolted onward through the dark.

"Watch out," was his curt warning, as he nocked his first arrow.

I whispered, "Sorry, Pippin," and leaned further forward to get out of my father's way. The first shot sounded almost directly in my ear. More followed, again and again, with rapidity near worthy of an Elven archer.

I wondered if the Steward could see anything of his targets. If he could not, then there were enough of them behind us for even a blind shot to tell. A yowl of pain and rage followed one of the arrows' thuds.

Our foes, I believe, momentarily slowed their pursuit, at this first sign that their prey could fight back. I heard Orc voices raised in what sounded like argument. Then Svip pulled up to a dizzying halt, and shouted, "The Hill! Get off; I don't think I can carry you up it."

All of us piled off him. We commenced a mad, scrambling run up the hill, a hill that I could scarcely see. Pippin grabbed my left hand and Svip, back in his own form, seized hold of my right arm. The two of them herding me up the slope, we ploughed through a mass of bushes that must have been taller than my halfling friends. Pippin and I fell once, and Svip tugged at my arm until we stumbled to our feet again. I thought, as we ran, that it might not be so good an idea for Svip to be yanking on my arm that had an arrow in its shoulder. But in the circumstances, I told myself, that was probably the least of my worries.

My father's bow sang out behind us. I dragged my two companions to a stop, and yelled back to him, "Father! Come on!"

His bow sounded again, answered by a roaring Orcish cry. Running footsteps followed, and my father's shout, "I am right behind you! Keep going!"

I did not know that we had reached the top of the hill, until Svip urged, "Get down! There's a fallen tree right ahead of us; can you see it?"

"Not as such," I admitted, as I crouched down, "but I will take your word for it." I reached out and felt that there was indeed some kind of barrier, that could well be the trunk of a fallen tree. Svip tugged at my arm again, whispering directions, until we had scrambled around to place the tree between us and our enemy's last known position. I asked then, "Is my father here?"

"Yes, yes," the Lord Steward said impatiently, near at hand. "I am here."

"Sir," I told him, "I cannot see worth a damn."

He paused a moment, then said, "If we could provide some light, that might be of help. And it might serve as well for a signal beacon, if there is any aid to be called. Svip, Master perian," he went on, "take my tinder box; see if you can start something burning."

"Yes, My Lord!" Pippin exclaimed.

We heard the two halflings in whispered conference, their voices moving farther away from us. When it seemed that Pippin and Svip were likely out of hearing, my father said to me quietly, "You are wounded."

"I don't think it's bad, sir," I answered. "Truly."

"It is your sword arm."

"I don't think it really matters, sir. I can barely feel either arm."

He did not answer that. I thought I could feel him prodding around the wound, and I asked him, "What do you think, sir? Should the arrow stay in, or come out?"

The Steward said briskly, "I'll break off most of the shaft; the point should probably wait. He added, "If it had poison on it, I think it would have acted by now."

I heard the snap of the arrow shaft breaking, then I heard my father crawl closer to our fallen-tree bulwark. I asked, "Can you see the Orcs?"

"They don't seem to be following yet. There's some movement at the base of the hill. They are probably holding a council of war."

"Father – " I began, "sir, if there's any way we can, we have got to get Svip and Pippin out of this alive."

"We will," he said firmly, in a voice that seemed to admit of no doubts. "We will not allow them to die here."

Regretfully I thought to myself that those were words only, not reality. I wished I were still a child, to believe past all doubt that everything my father promised would come to pass.

Somewhere behind us sounded a cheerful crackle of flames, bearing with it the bright tang of burning wood. Closer at hand I heard running footfalls, and then Pippin's whispered report, "There was another dead tree. I think it's burning pretty well."

"Well done, my esquire," my father told him gravely.

Pippin added, in worried tones, "I hope it doesn't set the whole forest alight."

"If it does," the Lord Steward observed, "it will certainly make a noticeable beacon." He paused a moment, then went on, "You have no weapon, do you, Master Peregrin?"

"No … no, My Lord," Pippin said, sounding embarrassed.

I wondered if he had no weapon because my father had not permitted him to carry any, when or if the Steward had forced the Hobbit to accompany him out of the City. But if that were so, neither of them mentioned it. My father said, "Take my dagger. It will serve, at least, until you can claim a better weapon from a fallen foe."

Pippin answered, in his pert Hobbit tones as of old, "Their weapons will be too big for me to lift, My Lord, unless they are carrying their nail files with them!"

"Svip," I said, "you don't have a weapon either, do you?"

"I don't think I'll need one," he declared. "I can use my hooves. I'm better with them, anyway."

My father's plan for the fire, I thought, was starting to work. I could certainly see more than I had just moments before. All was blurred, still, but at least I could see the difference between some of the blurs. The ruddy gold light from the fire showed up the dark line of the fallen tree, the paler expanse of slope up which we had scrambled, and the blackness of the trees below.

I looked about me, and though I could not make out their features, I could see the three separate shapes of Pippin, Svip and my father.

Svip hissed suddenly, "They're moving. I can see some of them moving around to our left. There's some still in front of us, too. I can't see any moving to our right."

My father said, "If they have any sense at all, they'll attack from several sides at once. Boromir, how is your sight?"

"I think it will do, sir. I can see the three of you. I should be able to see them, when they are close enough to fight."

The Steward continued, "I'll handle those who come up this side. The rest of you, do what you can against those attempting to flank us. Peregrin, Svip: stay by Boromir; he will need your keen eyes to aid him."

"If – if you please, My Lord," Pippin put in timidly, "Svip can see in the dark, he'll be more help to Boromir than I would. I should like to stay with you. I'm your esquire, after all."

"So you are," was my father's quiet reply. "Very well. We shall fight that Men may tell our tale in days to come, Peregrin Son of Paladin."

"Pippin," I said, putting out my hand to him and wishing with all my heart that I had kept him safe, "I'm sorry, Pippin. I am sorry you have to be here."

"Don't be sorry," he insisted. Distantly I felt him grasping my hand. "Please, don't be."

Svip, beside me, reached out to Pippin, and the two of them clasped hands.

"Hurry," ordered my father. "Go around to the back of the hill; make haste."

Svip and I set out, keeping low to the ground. We skirted our way around the burning tree. To me it seemed a blurred column of light, as though one of the Valar had appeared among us, too bright and powerful to be clearly seen.

Svip guided me to some bushes, thick enough to hopefully camouflage me from our enemies' sight. He hissed, "Wait here. I'll try to see where they are."

Kneeling behind one of the bushes, I waited. From Wiglaf the ferryman's bottle I took one last swig of River water. With satisfaction, I noted that it was a little easier this time for me to re-fasten the bottle to my belt. Then, as soundlessly as I could, I drew my sword.

The water creature reappeared at my side. He reported in a whisper, "They're close. There's six of them, I think, coming up the hill a little bit to our left. Then there's another five, to the right of us a bit. The slope starts down just in front of us here, but it's pretty even; I don't think there should be much to make you trip on it. Do you think you'll be able to see them?"

"Yes," I told him, with perhaps a trifle more confidence than I felt. I asked, "You're going to change into horse form to fight?"

He whispered, "Yes."

I nodded. "Then I'll take the ones on the left, and you take those on the right."

"All right," Svip answered. "I'll tell you when we should attack."

As we waited in silence, it hit me again how very cold I felt: cold, and numb, and dizzy enough to be wandering in drunkenness or a fever. Impatiently I told myself, All the better. If you're numb, then it shouldn't bother you a bit if you get any more wounds. I'll be very disappointed in you, if you don't keep right on fighting until you drop down dead.

I thought that I could hear them now: faint rustlings as they crawled up the hill, the occasional quickly-silenced clank of armour or weapons.

Then suddenly sound burst upon us from the other side of the hill: roaring Orcish yells, and the sharp twang of my father's bow.

The Orcs on our side of the hill must have been waiting for that attack as the signal to launch their own. I heard more clanking from them as they shifted from a crawl to a run, and Svip hissed out to me, "Now!"

A massive horse surged out of the bushes, rearing up and causing the astonished Orcs to pause in their charge. In that instant of their bewilderment, I leapt out from cover myself. To my relief, I could see my targets off to the left: a dark clump of standing figures partway down the hill. I ran at them, yelling at the top of my lungs, and swinging my sword in an arc as I neared them. I felt the drag on my sword as it connected with armour or flesh, although how many of them I might have wounded, I could not tell.

The shadowy form of an Orc lunged at me from my left. I managed to bring my sword around, catching his swordblade near the hilt of my own.

Instead of pressing their attack, several of the Orcs suddenly drew back a little, and I did not blame them. Hoofbeats thundered down on us as Svip charged, sounding as though he would run all of us down. He yelled out, "Gondor!", and as the Orcs recoiled from the yelling horse, I struck at them again. My sword, I was certain, lopped through the neck of one.

Other Orcs yelled to the right of us. Their battle cry, I thought, sounded more shaky than they must have wished, as they strove for courage to endure the assault of the unearthly horse.

Svip lunged at one of my Orcs and seized the creature's neck with his big horse teeth. He bit down, cutting off the Orc's terrified screams. Then he hurled the Orc away from him, yelled, "Gondor!" and charged again, toward the handful of Orcs to our right.

I yelled with him, shouting the battle-cry of my country as I swung at my horror-stricken Orcs.

I do not know that Orcs have much imagination, or that they are plagued over-much by superstitious fears. But these Orcs knew fear that night, in the form of the riderless horse that had charged at them, shouting in the speech of Men.

They were afraid, but it did not stop them from fighting, once they had recovered enough from that first shock.

Even in the light from the burning tree, I heard that fight much more than I saw or felt it. Sight did guide me in the struggle to catch their swords and axes on my own blade. But more, I fought from the cues of their harsh breaths and growls, the intake of breath just before they swung at me, the clanking of their armour as they lunged.

I heard screaming to my right, screaming and Svip's indomitable yell of "Gondor!" I smiled a little as I thought of the Orcs' shame, if they lived long enough to feel it: the shame that a band of Orc warriors should be mown down by one lone horse.

Other sounds clamoured about us. I heard the twanging of a bow and the whirr of arrows, very near to me, though I had not seen if it were one of my Orcs or of Svip's who had gone back to using his bow. Nor could I tell if any of the arrows hit me. A few times I thought that they might have, as I felt faint jolts through my body. But no pain reached me, and what might have been striking arrows could equally have been the reverberation of metal on metal, or the twinge as I stumbled on some unevenness in the ground.

From the other side of the hill, another voice joined Svip and me in shouting our battle-cry. The shout of "Gondor!" sounded over and over again in my father's voice.

I smiled, and I made myself shout louder, hoping that my father heard me even as I heard him.

The screams of Svip's Orcs had gone silent. Instead there came his hoofbeats, once more thundering closer toward us. There was a lone scream, followed by some crashing and thuds, and it struck me that I could not hear any longer the shots of the Orc archer.

But there were still two Orcs fighting me. One of them, near as big as a troll, ran at me now with a great roar of rage, bearing me down with the weight of his body rather than any other weapon. As I fell, with the Orc heavy upon me, I remember irrelevantly thinking, Damn, that'll drive the arrow deeper in my shoulder; it will take some serious digging to get that out.

I could vaguely see the outline of an axe, that the Orc had raised to smash down into my skull. I grabbed his arm, trying to hold the axe away from me, and I twisted awkwardly to bring up my sword. I heard the familiar wet thudding sound as the sword drove up into his guts.

The Orc gave barely any other sound, just a faintly audible grunt. I heard other sounds around us: another scream, nearby, Svip's shout of "Gondor!" and in the distance, the battle-cry of my father. Then the Orc's huge body slammed down on me, taking from me all my breath and all light.

For a moment, I think, I lost consciousness. I remember thinking how quiet everything was. My eyes opened again to a scene of delirium or madness: in the dim, fiery light, the dark shape of my foe rose away from me, unmoving, as though he were a marionette raised up by strings too thin for me to see. I blinked, trying to understand what I saw, and suddenly the Orc marionette was tossed aside. Standing over me was a new shape, that I recognised as a horse – a horse that must have taken hold of the dead Orc with its jaws, and flung him away as a dog would fling a rat.

"Svip," I croaked out. I knew an instant's mad dread that he would not answer me, that it was not Svip at all but some ghost horse that had claimed the Orc's soul and now would capture mine, as well.

But the dark horse-shape vanished, and I was almost certain that I could feel Svip seizing my hand. I was certain that I heard him, as he cried out in thin, frantic tones, "Boromir! Are you hurt?"

"I don't know," was my truthful reply. I felt no clear pain within my shroud of numbness and cold. I tried to see if any arrows were sticking in me, but my eyes would not focus enough to give me an answer.

I asked Svip, "The Orcs. Are there any of them left?"

He said, "I don't think so." I heard again taut desperation in his voice, bordering on hysteria. "None of them here are alive. And I can't hear any others. Boromir – I think something's happened."

"Happened?" I repeated. My limbs guided far more by memory than by what I actually felt, I struggled to get my legs beneath me and shove myself up from the ground. I managed a shaking crouch and had to pause, leaning dizzily upon the hillside until I gained a semblance of equilibrium.

Svip told me, "I can't hear your father, either."

I listened, and thought, He is right.

The last I remembered, before falling with the corpse of my opponent above me, I had still heard my father's war-cry of "Gondor!" Now, it was silenced.

I told myself that if all the Orcs were slain, there was no need for the Steward still to be shouting his battle-cry. But as I listened, I heard something else.

Very faintly, like a distant brook, I could hear someone crying. The crying went on, and on, so constantly that I tried to tell myself I was imagining it. It was not crying at all, but the breeze, or indeed some rivulet, a tributary winding its way into mighty Anduin.

But there are no streams near Ostoher's Hill. And it was not the breeze. I knew what it was, regardless of the stories I might try to tell myself.

I started to scramble up the slope. Svip kept close by my side.

Again we made our way around the fiery tree, now starting to burn low. Despite Pippin's fears, it did not seem that the fire would spread. The recent rain, the dampness of the mould and the living sap of the trees about it, would confine the fire to its first home until it guttered out. As I ran stumblingly past the dead, burning tree, I thought that in one of its purposes the fire had failed. Our beacon would burn itself out, but no help had come, no rescue from the City had answered.

Svip called a warning too late as I tripped on the fallen tree behind which we had first sheltered. I crawled over the tree trunk and then was avalanching down the hill, half running and half falling.

The crying was somewhere near to us now. I knew that I was running through bushes, from the noise I made ploughing through them. I grabbed hold of one, and managed to slow my progress enough to drag myself to a halt. I stared, trying to force my eyes to make sense of the shapes before me.

Darker than the slope of the hillside, lying lower than the straggling bushes: I would have known that the shapes were those of corpses, even without the reek of blood hanging heavy in the air all about us.

But one of the shapes, at least, was not a corpse. The sobbing stopped. There sounded instead the voice of Peregrin Took, forlorn and desperate.

"Boromir!" he cried out. "Your father – your father."

"He is dead," I said, not moving from where I stood.

Pippin sobbed again, then tried to choke back the sound. I heard his quiet gasps as he fought to hold back the sobs and could not.

"Where are you?" I asked – foolishly, no doubt, for I could certainly have followed the sound of his sobbing to reach him. But I dreaded to walk forward blindly, and to fall over the body of my father.

"I can see them," Svip said quietly beside me. I felt the distant touch of his hand clasped around mine, and reluctantly I followed as he slowly started once more down the hill.

Pippin's crying had started again, a quiet and empty sound. We were very close to him, when Svip tugged on my arm, and said, "Here. We can sit down here." I obeyed. Svip, holding onto my right hand, guided it down to what my dulled senses and logic both told me was the body of a Man. I touched the Man's arm, then felt to his hand, in its thick leathern gauntlet. Wishing I could feel it more clearly, and wishing I could see him clearly but yet cravenly glad that I could not, I pulled off the gauntlet and closed my hand around his.

I might have been imagining it, but I thought I could feel that his hand was still warm. I clutched it more tightly, and felt the familiar shape of his signet ring, pressing against my skin.

"Pippin," I said, "are you hurt?"

"No … no," he murmured, gasping back the sobs once more. "One of them fell on me, a bit, but I managed to roll mostly out of the way, and … no. I'm not hurt."

Holding my father's hand, I asked Pippin, "Can you tell me what happened?"

The tears still thick in his voice, Pippin cried out, "He fought so well! He was fighting like – like you. He kept shooting at them, he shot ever so many, I think ten of them – at least seven. But one of the biggest of them, I think their leader, was shouting at the rest of them and I guess he ordered them to charge, even though your father was still shooting them down as they ran. And then too many of them got too close to him, and he threw down his bow and drew his sword, and he fought like you, shouting 'Gondor!'

"I was standing in back of him, and one of them ran at us from the side, and would have – would have axed me, but your father swung around and cut off his head. But there were so many of them, and they kept coming at him, and one of them was still shooting at him, even though he might have hit his own – his own soldiers."

Pippin gasped in a shaking breath, then raced on. "First an arrow hit him in the leg, and then another in his side, but they didn't seem to bother him and he kept on fighting. But they were so close about him, and they forced him down. And one of them was leaning down to stab him, and I … I stabbed the Orc, with your father's dagger, in its throat, and the Orc fell on me, but I – I mostly got out of the way.

"And then your father was on his feet again, and he was still fighting them, but the archer was still shooting, and another arrow hit him, in his leg again. And there were only two others of them left, and your father charged the archer and cut him down, while he was trying to fit another arrow to his bow. But there were still those two, and they ran after him, and he cut off the head of one of them, and he was still shouting 'Gondor!' But the other – swung at him while he was killing the other one, and the sword sliced along his neck and his chest, but he still stabbed that one, before the Orc could pull back, and – and then they both fell. He fell. But he killed all of them! He killed them all!"

Softly then, as the story ended, Pippin broke again into sobs.

"Not quite all of them, Pippin," I told him. "Not all. He would not begrudge you the one that you killed."

"But it was only one them! It was only one, and he killed so many. And I didn't save him."

"Pippin," I said, "Pippin, don't. Please don't."

Blindly I held out my hand to him. The Hobbit suddenly hurled himself at my chest, and was sobbing against me. I was almost certain that I felt his tears upon my neck.

"Boromir," he whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

With my left hand I patted Pippin's back. With my right, I was still holding my father's hand.

Svip spoke, his voice quiet but harsh with strain. "We have to leave," he said. "We can't stay. There may be more of them nearby."

Pippin's sobs had been slowly quieting. He whispered again, "I'm sorry," and pulled away from me.

Svip repeated fiercely, "We have to leave."

I sighed, knowing that it was true, but feeling too weary and too hopeless to move. I said, "We can't leave him here."

"No," Svip answered, sounding shocked. "No, we can't. I'll change shape and carry him – if you can get him up onto my back."

"Yes," I sighed. "Yes, all right."

Svip was perfectly correct on the need for haste. But I could not seem to make understanding of that urgency pierce through to my body or my mind.

I looked down to where the Lord Steward lay. I asked, "Are his eyes open?"

Svip whispered, "Yes." He also, I thought, sounded on the verge of tears. But so far as I knew, his people did not cry.

Staring down, I could not truly believe in the reality of this. I thought that I would not fully believe in it until I could see my father's body clearly, and my eyes told me that it was true.

A portion of my mind prayed that I would not live that long, so I might never have to see it and admit the truth.

I let go of my father's hand, carefully, as though he were still alive to feel it.

"Svip," I said. "Please – help me close his eyes." I could, I knew, have found his eyes to close them on my own. But I was afraid, afraid of the discourtesy of my numbed fingers fumbling blindly over his face.

Svip sharply drew in a breath. I waited for him to say something, but he did not.

Instead I felt the faint touch of him putting his hand over mine. He guided my hand until he brought it down upon my father's brow.

Svip whispered, "What do we have to do?"

I said, "We only need to close his eyes, for now. There will be more to do later – when we've brought him to the White City."

In the firelit dark, while Peregrin Took of the Shire wept quietly at my side, Svip of Anduin and I closed the eyes of Denethor Son of Ecthelion, Twenty-Sixth Ruling Steward of Gondor.

Svip drew his hand away, but I was not ready yet to relinquish that thin thread of contact.

Hesitantly I moved my hand, and let it rest for a moment on my father's cheek.

In wonder, I thought, This must be the first time since I left infancy that I have touched my father's face.

It was the first time apart from that same evening, when I had struck him as we fought in the White Tower.

The thought came to me of how very strange it would feel, how very strange and very wrong, to go through the rest of my life never hearing my father's voice.

"Father," I whispered, "why must you do this to me?"

Svip said again, in his near-frantic tones, "Boromir. We have got to leave."

"I know," I said. "I know."

I hesitated a moment more. Then I leaned down and kissed my father's forehead.

I drew back from him and stood up. I stood there as I fought again for equilibrium, trying to convince my body that it had no immediate need to fall down.

The big, dark horse-shape of Svip reappeared. He stepped around the Steward's body to stand by it farther down the slope, that the height would be slightly less to which I must lift the body to set it over Svip's back.

"Pippin," Svip asked, "can you see me?"

"Yes," answered the Hobbit, "pretty well."

"Boromir may need your help – if he can't see well yet."

"I know," Pippin said firmly. "I'm here, Boromir."

It was a struggle, but then it was a struggle for me just to remain vertical and awake. I managed to lift my father's body, leaning it over my shoulder until I could get to my feet again and drape it over Svip's shoulders in turn. Perhaps as much of a challenge was my next task, to get onto Svip's back myself. I managed it after the requisite awkward flailing. When finally I was seated behind the body of my father, Pippin said, "I'm sorry, Svip, I think I'm going to have to climb up you." That indeed was what he did, grabbing hold of my hand and then clambering up the hip of our shapeshifting friend as though he were climbing a tree.

So we set out once more.

I would say that I remember little of that journey. But I remember the emotions of it, and that is more than enough.

I was holding onto Svip's mane, with my other hand upon my father's back. At some point I must have begun to sway, for I remember Pippin tightening his grasp around my waist and trying to steady me, probably more than once. More than once I remember him begging me to drink some River water, but I always told him that no, I did not need any, I was fine.

I knew that I was not fine. But I did not want the greater clarity of mind that drinking that water might bring.

I did not want my mind to clear, for then I would have to face all the things of which I did not want to think.

I would have to think of Cosimo and Pelendur – to fear whether they were even alive, until we reached the City and learned of their fate. And then if they did live, I would have to see their faces when they learned that my father was dead.

I would have to see the faces of our people; I would have to face their grief and to let them see my own, when we brought my father into the White City.

I would have to face the fact that I was the Steward of Gondor, that when the next audience was held in the Tower Hall, it would be I who held the White Rod of Office, not he.

You cannot fear it, I tried to tell myself. You have known always that someday you must take your place in the Steward's Chair. You have known it and planned for it, and you cannot wish it otherwise.

But I did wish otherwise. I wished otherwise, for I would only be seated in that chair because my father was no longer there.

We were nearing the River. I felt it in a soft, wordless calling in my mind, as though a gentle voice were welcoming me home.

I thought, I wish that the River were my home. I wish that were as far as I will have to go. I wish that I could sink into its waters, and that I would never have to think of anything more.

At some point I heard Pippin again start to cry. I remember hearing him say, "Hurry up, Svip, please hurry. I think he's going to fall."

I could hear the River, the deep and gentle rush of it as it strides between the Land of the Moon and the Land of the Sun.

I could hear it, and I thought that I could feel it, like fingers stroking across my face, bringing cooling out of fever, and rest out of pain.

My mind was swaying so, that I did not notice it when Svip stopped moving. But I do remember him saying to me, "Boromir. Boromir, we're here."

I slid down from Svip's back, landing on my feet with a jarring thud. Immediately my legs buckled beneath me, and for an instant I fell to my knees. Then I fell further, collapsing forward nervelessly until I lay in the water at last.

I felt the River water, as it eddied through my hair and lapped at my skin. I felt the sludgy soil against one side of my face, and I remember stretching out my hand as far as I could, as though begging Anduin to pull me deeper into its grasp, so I need never feel anything but the water, ever again.

And then it seemed that the River answered my plea.

There seemed, of a sudden, to be more water about me. It enveloped me, lifting my body up from the shore. I puzzled on it a moment, thinking, But it is a river; it has no waves. Then I ceased to think of it, for the sensation was too perfect to admit of any thought.

The Anduin lifted me, carrying me, it seemed, far into its current. I heard cries of horror, I supposed from Pippin and Svip, but I could not bring myself to listen to them. I felt the water all about me. It seemed to warm me from within, stealing away the bitter cold that had dwelt in my veins and my bones. I felt the peace and release from sorrow that it brought to me with its touch.

With a feeling of joy, I thought suddenly, I will not have to face any of it, after all. I will not have to look upon my father's dead face. I will not have to sit in the Steward's Chair always feeling that the Chair is not mine, that the Lord my father should be sitting there, not I.

But that peace and that perfection did not last.

I remember the sensation that the water was setting me down again, with gentle care, like a motherly little girl setting down her favourite doll. I felt again something other than water against me: the ground, unforgiving and cold. I thought that perhaps I felt grass blades against my face and hands. I felt the water drifting away from me, and I wanted to cry out to it, to beg it not to leave me. But that was too much for me to speak, and I lay there, trying to focus only on the water, to feel all of it that I could before it left me alone. The water lapped around my legs, as though in one last caress. Then it ebbed away, and my consciousness ebbed with it.