Wounded
When they came back into the fortress Eowyn was there waiting for them. She had brought the women and children out from the caves and many wives were running through the soldiers, trying to find their husbands.
When she saw Aragorn among the men Eowyn pushed towards him smiling in relief. She touched his face and embraced him.
"My lady," Aragorn said, returning the hug. "It is well to see you."
"Are the lords Gimli and Legolas all right?" Eowyn asked, looking through the crowd.
"They are... ah, tallying up their totals," Aragorn told her. She giggled softly.
"And Lord Falenor?" She asked. "I saw Brego was still in the stables..." Eowyn trailed off as she saw Aragorn's face. The ranger took her hand and led her into the keep. Eothain was still crouching beside Falenor, two dead uruks a testimony to his defense of the peredhel.
Aragorn shooed the boy away and bent over Falenor.
"Gently," he advised Eowyn. The lady carefully took Falenor in her arms and embraced him slightly.
"Can you help him?" she asked tearfully.
"I can do my best," Aragorn sighed. "Haldir would have been able to... but it is no use to say such things."
"Aragorn?" Gandalf asked. The wizard was waiting with Eomer, Legolas, Gimli, and Theoden. "We ride to Isengard." Aragorn nodded and stood, but Eowyn grabbed his arm.
"What about Falenor?" she asked. "You said you would help him!"
"Take him back to Edoras," Theoden said. "Have doctors tend him there."
Falenor's spirit was wandering. The spear had mortally wounded him, and his spirit had nearly departed from his body when miruvore had brought him back. His spirit now remained tethered to his body, but it was restless.
It galloped across the plains, searching for someone. Finally it found them, a group of riders walking through the wood.
Shadowfax was surprised when Falenor's spirit entered him, but the stallion's soul made room for Falenor to join him.
"Something wrong?" Gandalf asked as the mearas stopped. Shadowfax started slightly, for when Falenor was in him the stallion could understand what the Istar said. The horse shook his long mane and began walking again.
Falenor looked around. Theoden was behind him on his horse, Snowmane. Aragorn rode Hasufel behind him, and Eomer was on Firefoot beside him. Legolas and Gimli brought up the rear on Arod.
The riders were looking around warily as low sounds, like grumbles and creaks, echoed around them.
The wagon Falenor was lying on was jolted and he hissed in pain. The shaft of the spear was still in his side and at every bump in the road his body protested and ached.
Shadowfax saw two small men sitting on a crumbled wall. Merry and Pippin! Falenor told the stallion excitedly.
"Welcome, my Lords..." Merry shouted, standing up. "To Isengard!" Gandalf steered Shadowfax up to stand next to the wall and the wizard huffed in annoyances.
"You young rascals! A merry chase you've led us on, and now we find you feasting and... and smoking!" Gimli yelled, waving a fist at the hobbits.
"We are sitting on the field of victory," Pippin informed the dwarf. "Enjoying a few well-earned comforts. The salted pork is particularly good."
"Salted pork?" Gimli asked, practically drooling.
"Hobbits," Gandalf grumbled.
"We're under orders from Treebeard," Merry told them. "Who's taken over management of Isengard."
Aragorn helped Pippin onto Hasufel and Eomer took Merry.
"Where's Falenor?" Pippin asked. "He's not...?" Falenor started slightly to hear his own name.
"No, he was injured, though," Aragorn told the hobbits. "He's being taken back to Edoras."
"When do you think he's going to wake up?" a little voice asked. It was Freda; she and her brother had been following the wagon for days now.
"Leave him be!" their mother rebuked them. "He's been through quite enough as it is."
"But he promised to tell me a story!" That was Eothain. Falenor smiled slightly. There was a slight silence for a moment.
"Do you think he's dreaming?" Freda asked her mother.
"It's a wonder he can get any sleep with you two hovering over him!"
Shadowfax did not shy at the trees that lumbered around the flooded courtyard of Orthanc. The other horses did, but Falenor spoke to them through Shadowfax, and they did not bolt.
"Young master Gandalf," an Ent rumbled as he approached them on long legs the size of tree trunks. "I'm glad you've come. Wood and water, stock and stone I can master, but there's a Wizard to manage here, locked in his tower."
The other riders shifted uncomfortably, and their horses fidgeted in response.
"Show yourself!" Aragorn called up the tower.
"Be careful; even in defeat Saruman is dangerous," Gandalf warned.
"Then let's just have his head and be done with it," Gimli said with a shrug.
"No, we need him alive," Gandalf said. "We need him to talk."
"You have fought many wars and slain many men Theoden king, and made peace afterwards," a voice, deep and cold, called out from a balcony. "Can we not take council together, as we once did, my old friend? Can we not have peace, you and I?"
"Don't listen to him!" Falenor wanted to scream, and Shadowfax gave a high whinny of agreement.
"We shall have peace," Theoden began softly, but then he became more assured. "We shall have peace... when you answer for the burning of the westfold, and the children that lie dead there. We shall have peace, when the lives of the soldiers, whose bodies were hewn even as they lay dead against the gates of the Hornburg, are avenged! When you hang from a gibbet for the sport of your own crows... we shall have peace."
"Gibbets and crows?" the wizard sneered. "Dotard! What do you want Gandalf Greyhame? Let me guess; the key of Orthanc, or perhaps the key of Barad-dur itself, along with the crowns of the seven kings and the rods of the five wizards!"
"You treachery had already cost many lives," Gandalf said softly. "Thousands more are now at risk, but you could save them Saruman. You were deep in the enemy's council."
"So you have come here for information. I have some for you," Saruman smiled. He took out a glowing ball of glass and gazed into it. "Something festers in the heart of Middle-Earth. Something that you have failed to see. But the Great Eye has seen it. Even now he presses his advantage. His attack will come soon."
Shadowfax stepped slightly forward when Falenor asked him to. The drover wanted to hear what Saruman had to say.
"You're all going to die," Saruman sneered. "But you know this, don't you Gandalf?" Falenor tilted Shadowfax's ear back, curious to hear Gandalf's answer, but it did not come. "You cannot think that this Ranger will ever sit upon the throne of Gondor. This exile, crept from the shadows, will never be king."
Shadowfax reared, his hooves just coming out of the water. He snorted in anger, Falenor's spirit well bonded to the mearas's by now.
"Gandalf does not hesitate to sacrifice those closest to him, those he professes to love," Saruman continued. "Tell me... what words of comfort did you give the halfling before you sent him to his doom?"
"Do not forget that you yourself were once bested by a halfling," Gandalf reminded the wizard.
"The path that you have set him on can only lead to his doom," Saruman ignored Gandalf's statement, but the other riders looked curiously at Gandalf.
"I've heard enough," Gimli growled to Legolas. "Shoot him. Stick an arrow in his gob." Legolas started to reached for his quiver but Gandalf stopped him.
"No," he told the Elf. "Come down Saruman, and your life will be spared."
"Save your pity and your mercy; I have no use for it!" Saruman sneered. "And as for the spy in your midst... be gone!" The wizard spread out his hands. Everyone held their breath. Saruman glared at Shadowfax.
"Be gone!" he tried again.
"I obey no one," Falenor said, Shadowfax whinnying. "Especially not a trumped up, egotistical, greasy..." Saruman shot a fireball from his staff. The flames flew down and engulfed Gandalf and Shadowfax.
"No!" Falenor said, sitting up in the wagon. People all around looked at him, frightened by his outburst.
"Mister Falenor," a woman said. The drover recognized her as Freda and Eothain's mother. "Are you all right sir?"
Falenor sank back onto the hard wood of the wagon. "I'm fine... bad dream," he mumbled, then let his spirit loose once more.
The flames died out, revealing Gandalf and Shadowfax unscathed and undisturbed. Saruman stared, his mouth slightly open in surprise.
"Saruman, your staff is broken," Gandalf told the wizard. Saruman glanced at his staff and as he did so its rod trembled violently and shattered. A hunched figure crept up from behind Saruman: Grima Wormtongue.
"Grima, you need not follow him," Theoden called up to the man who had served as his advisor. "You were not always as you are now. You were once a man of Rohan! Come down." Wormtongue bowed to Theoden and turned as though to creep away.
"A man of Rohan?" Saruman snorted. "What is the house of Rohan but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek and brats roll on the floor with the dogs? Victory at Helm's Deep does not belong to you, Theoden, horsemaster!"
"Don't call him that," Falenor argued wearily.
"You are a lesser son of greater sires."
"Grima, come down. Be free of him," Theoden tried again.
"Free?" Saruman laughed. "He will never be free."
"No," Wormtongue said quietly, advancing on the wizard.
"Get down, cur!" Saruman commanded him. He slapped Wormtongue and sent him falling to the floor.
"Saruman, you were deep in the enemy's council," Gandalf tried again. "Tell us what you know."
"You withdraw you guard, send the spy away, and I will tell you where your doom will be decided," Saruman said. Suddenly Wormtongue sprang up, a dagger in hand.
"I will not be held prisoner here," Saruman continued, unaware of the danger to him. Wormtongue jumped on the wizard's back and stabbed him twice before Legolas shot him down. Saruman fell off the tower and was impaled upon the spoke of a large wheel, one of his own maniacal inventions.
"Send word to all our allies, and to every corner of Middle-Earth that still stands free," Gandalf sighed as the wheel began to turn, dragging Saruman's body below the water. "The enemy moves against us. We need to know where he will strike."
"Eledhwen!" Falenor murmured, turned on his side and gasping as a sharp lightning bolt of pain greeted him. "The Rhaw Nur..."
"Peace, Master Falenor," a woman said, bathing his brow with a cold cloth. "Someone get Lady Eowyn!"
Treebeard had returned. "The filth of Saruman is washing away," he said in his odd slow fashion. "Trees will come back to live here. Young trees, wild trees."
Suddenly Pippin hopped down from Hasufel and waded through the water.
"Pippin!" Aragorn called, but the hobbit bent down and picked up a dark orb. It was the one Saruman had looked into earlier, and must have fallen with the wizard.
"Bless my bark!" Treebeard said, squinting at the darkened sphere.
"Peregrin Took," Gandalf said, steering Shadowfax over toward the hobbit. "I'll take that, my lad. Quickly now!" Pippin reluctantly handed the orb to Gandalf. Shadowfax turned his head to look at it, but the wizard covered it up and gave Pippin and Shadowfax a long look.
"Falenor? Falenor?" a voice was calling. The drover groaned and stirred slightly. "We are here."
"Eowyn?" he asked, his voice dry and cracked. The lady swam into view, her long golden hair pulled over one shoulder. Falenor tried to lift his head, then let it fall back. "Eledhwen," he mumbled as the darkness took him once more.
A/N: Do any of my fair readers who have journeyed with Anduin before this know which halfling Gandalf referenced in his retort to Saruman? Oh, that's right, I went there. Heir of Calenor, Chapter 15: Isengard.