Chapter 147

Decision Time

The time of parting grew nearer and we all knew it. Most of us were strangely reluctant to bid farewell to each other. We'd shared so much in what technically amounted to a very short span of time, but in that time we'd gone through the greatest trials that the world had to offer us. We'd been separated and now we were reunited. It seemed a shame to put an end to that. It felt as the end of an era.

Fortunately Aragorn had a good excuse ready to hand. Preparations were underway for his coronation and he insisted we all stayed for that. The enthusiasm with which this proposal was greeted was quite disproportionate, I must say. Besides, said Aragorn as though he still needed to convince us, we had so far not celebrated our great victory in a fitting manner, so perhaps we ought to remedy that at the same time.

Needless to say that no one felt any need to contradict him.

All the same, there were things to be getting on with. Mary, when she popped round every few days, was still on my case about Harry, and by now she was beginning to wonder when our parents and Peter were going to come home. It had been some time now and hadn't they been here quite long enough?

The answer in Peter's case was a rather definite "no" to that. He was still enjoying every single moment and, now that he had stopped gushing in awe most of the day, was actually making himself useful too. It was my not so secret suspicion that he was trying to wrangle an invitation to come north to Erebor. Truth be told, I rather doubted he was in any great hurry to go home again at all.

As for my parents, I barely saw my mother, but only because she was still mostly living in the Houses of Healing. I couldn't imagine she was going to leave until the last patient walked out of there on his own. As for my father, he had quietly and without fuss made himself a regular fixture of life in Minas Tirith. People liked him and he liked the people. As far as I knew he was comfortable right where he was.

But Mary was right in one regard: decisions had to be made and they had to be made sooner rather than later…

Beth

'Good journey,' Beth wished the messenger, but he was already halfway to the gate and probably didn't hear her anymore. Well, not that it mattered in the slightest. He was one of the Rohirrim, so he'd made the journey here once already. It stood to reason that he could find his way back.

This I have done right.

It wasn't always easy, this getting things right stuff, but Beth fancied that at long last she was perhaps getting the hang of it. She'd been married good and proper – in every sense of the word now that nightly interruptions were at long last a thing of the past – she was learning how to be the Lady in Residence and now she had just set another step towards getting her life back on track.

So naturally Mary materialised at just this precise moment to no doubt rain down no ends of criticism.

It was still odd, seeing her sister appear out of nothing – no winds on the receiving end, Beth noted with some interest – but it was getting progressively more normal. She lived in a world of magic now, after all. These things happened.

'Good morning,' she greeted. 'Perfect timing, you're just in time for breakfast if you have the time to spare.'

Mary checked her watch. 'I could manage two hours and then I'll have to get back.'

They walked towards the palace together.

'So, when are you leaving?' Mary never had been one for subtlety or patience, so it came as no great surprise that she would bring that up within two minutes of arrival.

'After Aragorn's coronation,' Beth replied promptly. 'Provided Gimli is up to it by then.' His recovery had been a lot slower than anyone had anticipated. The fever was finally gone now after returning every few days or so for an unwanted repeat performance, but the wound healed slowly and Gimli couldn't stand for longer than a few minutes before he had to sit down again. 'You're invited, by the way. For the coronation. And the party afterwards. Oh, and Terrence and the kids are welcome too.'

'So my children will be there, but yours will not.'

She's like a dog with a bone. 'Not quite.' And now Beth grinned. It had been ages since she'd got one over on her sister. 'But Helm and Freda will almost certainly be here by then. I've sent for them just this morning.'

Since there was absolutely nothing there for Mary to moan about, this shut her up nicely, just as Beth had intended. She left Mary to stew over a suitable response for the rest of the way to the breakfast hall.

It was no formal arrangement, this new habit of having breakfast together, but it had formed quite naturally from a desire to spend as much time in each other's company as they could before everyone went their separate ways again. The Fellowship was there in its entirety, as was Faramir, who everyone considered an honorary member anyway. The rest of Beth's family usually showed their faces as well. In fact, it was the only time of day Beth saw her mother's face lately.

'I've brought a guest,' she announced as she walked in.

'Here comes trouble,' Peter said. 'How's the jobhunting going, Mary?'

She never did like it when he got his licks in first. 'Slowly.' The glare she bestowed upon him was easily as fearsome as Sauron's now deceased eye.

Her father interfered before an argument could ensue and Beth was wise enough to make sure she was seated on the other side of the table between Boromir on her right and Legolas on her left. Just in case Mary did think up a suitable response.

At first it seemed that she was worrying for nothing. Everyone tucked into their food with a will. It was good to see that Gimli was once again wolfing it down as though there was no tomorrow. He even managed to catch the apple Thráin chucked at his head before it hit him square in the face.

We're all healing.

Frodo was no longer as quiet; he laughed without restraint at something Pippin told him. Sam smiled just on the general principle of the thing as he chatted animatedly with Faramir. Gandalf sat back and oversaw it all with gentle indulgence.

This is what we fought to achieve.

And now they had achieved it. All of them were still here, more or less in one piece. They had all lost weight and some of them had strands of grey in their hair. Beth knew they all had nightmares from time to time. But just knowing that all their efforts had paid off restored a measure of peace to them.

So of course it wouldn't last. Mary had been suspiciously silent for all of half an hour before she was heard to inquire loudly of her mother just when she thought they were all going to come back home again. 'You've been here for nearly a month now. It won't be long before people are going to start wondering where you are.'

'They won't wonder about me,' Peter reminded her cheerfully. 'Since I'm never around anyway. Would you pass me the honey, please, Merry? Cheers.' In all of this he never once looked up from his plate.

Mary looked at him in dismay. 'You can't mean to stay here?'

He shrugged. 'Don't see why not. How often do you get an opportunity like this? There's a whole world out there to explore. Why in the name of sanity should I not make good use of that?'

This sentiment of course immediately appealed to Thráin, who had apparently wandered around the world since age eighteen. 'You would be more than welcome to come north with us when we depart from this city. We can show you Erebor at least.'

Mary opened her mouth, but Legolas got there first. 'If you would see the Lonely Mountain, it is no more than fair that you should see the woodlands as well,' he insisted. 'During the summer months they are always at their best.'

Thráin muttered something along the lines of this being a matter of taste and how some people just didn't seem to have any, but Mary easily drowned him out: 'Seriously, is the whole family going to move here now?'

'We are considering it.'

It took Mary, and indeed all of them, a second or two to realise that this had come from Patrick Andrews. Not unlike his son, he sat quite calmly and buttered his piece of toast whilst he dropped that little bomb. It came as a surprise to Beth, because although they had spoken often lately, he'd never mentioned anything like this. She knew they both liked it here, which pleased her no end, but to the extent that they would pack up their lives and move here?

'The healing techniques here are fascinating,' her mother said. 'It might be enough to tempt me out of retirement.'

Thráin appeared mildly confused. The love for one's work he understood, but retirement was a concept he still grappled with. It just didn't happen among dwarves. They worked until the day they died, not because they had to, but because they simply couldn't imagine living any other way.

'You've been waiting for the right temptation since the day you went into retirement, mum,' Peter pointed out.

'I might have,' she responded. 'All the same, that's the way things are and it seems decent to tell you.'

Mary temporarily lost the power of speech.

'So, what is making you hesitate at all?' Peter asked, monopolising this short break of sisterly dismay to fuel the flames of outrage even more. 'You've already got a job and dad's doing all sorts of odds and ends about the place. Everyone likes you as far as I can tell, so what's the hold up?'

'Living arrangements,' their father said. 'We'd like a place of our own, but since we're a little short on money that we can pay with in this city, that might be a problem.'

She'd had no idea that their plans were that far advanced. If they were talking practicalities already, then this was decidedly more than just an idea they were idly entertaining. They were actually going to do this as soon as they had the details sorted out.

Aragorn looked at Boromir, who considered this only very briefly and then nodded. Aragorn in his turn smiled and nodded as well. 'Many houses in the city are empty and its occupants gone. You may take any one of those,' he said. 'Faramir will see to it that your labours are compensated.'

Mary opened her mouth, closed it again and then at last found her voice. 'Really? You are really going to do this?'

'We'll only be a whirlwind away.' Patrick smiled. 'It'll be a shorter journey to see you than going by car.'

She had absolutely nothing to say to that.

'So, are you coming north with us?' Thráin asked. 'I can assure you that you will be given the warmest of welcomes in Erebor. My kin, I believe, would be pleased to meet you.'

'We'll think about it,' was the reply to that.

Mary might have gone off on a tangent again, but she did not get the opportunity, because Sam spoke up. 'I've been thinking, Mr Thráin,' he said. 'And I think I should like to come with you when you go north.'

All conversation ceased.

'Why, Sam?' asked Thráin, who understood this no more than any of the others. 'I believed that your heart longed for home and the Shire.'

'It does.' He rose to his feet as he often did when he had something of importance to say. 'But I couldn't go home, sir, not yet, not when I haven't thanked your brother for what he did for us.'

The silence that followed these words was deafening and this time, Beth liked to think, for all the right reasons. In all the excitement she'd almost forgotten about the war in the north. She hadn't forgotten about Harry – heaven forbid – but she'd lost sight of the part the Free Folk there had played. Mordor had been completely empty, all the orcs sent north to deal with the stubbornly defiant King under the Mountain and his allies.

She was in no danger of forgetting it now. Thoren, this cousin she had never even met, had drawn Sauron's eye and his forces away from Mordor and away from the Fellowship. True, the Fellowship had achieved the real victory, but they might never have got close enough without Thoren defying Sauron to within an inch of his life.

If he is still alive, a little voice whispered. Harry would have been kept safe behind the strong walls, but with a little bit of a shock she realised that Thráin's nearest and dearest had not been. Even now he didn't know if they had survived. She stole a glance at him, but if his thoughts had wandered in that same direction just now, there was no trace of it on his face. If anything, it seemed that Sam's declaration had rendered him speechless.

Beside Sam, Frodo nodded. 'Sam is right. I couldn't go home now, as much as I want to, without thanking him. It would not be right.' He looked Thráin in the eyes. 'Without him, we might not have made it to Mount Doom.'

Legolas inclined his head in acknowledgement of this fact. 'It is true,' he said. 'We five could not have passed by legions of orcs unnoticed. We owe him our very lives. It would be my honour to tell him so in person.'

It was a little bit like it had been in Rivendell, back when everyone had suddenly stood up to volunteer for the quest. It was now open volunteering season again, because once Legolas had finished speaking, Merry and Pippin insisted that they absolutely must thank Thoren and they couldn't possibly even contemplate returning to the Shire before they had done so. Boromir too vowed to come, eyes on Beth, smiling. The decision had been made then. Her heart made an involuntary little jump.

Only Gandalf and Aragorn had not spoken and truth be told, she didn't think they would, which went a long way to illustrate why she had never been very good at predicting anything, because Gandalf was the next to open his mouth. 'I should like to join you,' he said, looking Thráin right in the eyes. 'Your brother has bought much time and hope when it was much needed. He has brought about much change for the better.'

And wasn't that Kate's legacy right there? Sure, she had done what Gandalf had brought her there to do, but she hadn't stopped there. She had given birth to five children who then went out into the world and, true to their mother's spirit, threw away the rulebook to forge their own paths. She only knew Thráin personally, knew what he was capable of doing when he put his mind to it. Heaven knew what the other four were like.

All heads now turned to Aragorn, who was visibly torn in two over the whole thing. Of course, he was a King now. Before long he'd wear a crown and then there would be no more going off into the wilds on a whim. He had responsibilities. But Beth could tell that he very much wanted to come.

So it was just as well that Faramir stepped in and made the decision for him. 'It would only be fitting for the King of Gondor to meet with the King under the Mountain to establish diplomatic relations,' he said, straight-faced.

Everyone digested this, as well as their food, in silence for a moment.

'Well, when you put it like that it would be remiss of you not to go, my friend,' Legolas agreed pleasantly. 'In truth, if you are to speak with the King under the Mountain, you ought to speak with my father as well.'

'Spoil the trip for him, why don't you,' muttered Gimli.

Legolas carried on as though he had not heard him, which seemed unlikely given the elves' talents to overhear a conversation not meant for their ears three towns over. 'And to be truly thorough, it would be prudent to have a meeting with the King of Dale. I imagine that this will take considerable time. It would be best to set out as soon as we may.' He smiled serenely at Aragorn, the very image of innocence.

She imagined it was working. After a moment's more hesitation he inclined his head. 'One last journey for our Fellowship,' he agreed.

'Good,' said Pippin, shoving a sausage into his mouth before addressing Thráin: 'So, what's in the bag?' At least that was what Beth presumed he said; it was hard to make out the words with the sausage getting in the way.

'What bag?' she asked.

'The bag at his feet,' Merry answered promptly. 'The one he's tried to keep out of sight ever since we came in.' He assumed an air of wounded innocence. 'He's not even let me have a peek.'

The corners of Thráin's mouth curled up just a little. 'That is because the contents of this bag are not for you, Master Meriadoc. You should not poke your nose where it is not wished for.'

As if that would ever stop a hobbit. The fact that he had poked his nose where it wasn't wished for was the very reason that he was a part of their Fellowship to begin with. Now that this venture had paid off so well, it seemed unlikely he was going to put an end to that anytime soon.

'So, who are the contents for?' Pippin wondered. His speech had improved no end now that he had swallowed the sausage.

Thráin reached under the table and pulled up a large bag that made clanging noises when it was moved. Curiouser and curiouser, Beth thought. In this she was as clueless as the hobbits. It was not exactly easy to rein in her own nosy nature. She found herself leaning over the table to get a closer look before she caught herself and leaned back.

'Master Samwise Gamgee.' Thráin rose to his feet and extended the bag over the table to a suddenly very startled Sam, who clearly had no idea what this was about either. 'I hope you would accept this small token of my esteem. As promised.'

And stranger still.

If the befuddled look on Sam's face was anything to go by, he thought so too, but he took the bag from Thráin anyway. 'Oh, it's heavy!'

Thráin looked mightily pleased with himself.

As he probably should, because Sam pulled a frying pan out of the bag and the confusion instantly turned to elation. 'Look, Mr Frodo, now I can do a proper fry-up. I was that worried. The old one's dented.'

'That tends to happen when one concusses a Ringwraith,' Thráin said pleasantly. 'I hope this one will serve your needs.'

Beth doubted Sam even heard him; he pulled out four more pans – two frying pans and two cooking pans – from the bag, each one accompanied by various sounds of delight. 'Thank you, Mr Thráin, sir, thank you!'

'No less could I do for our Fellowship's wise and faithful gardener,' Thráin replied.

Sam blinked. 'You made them?'

'I did,' Thráin confirmed.

Needless to say this was followed by more thanks, all of which Thráin waved away as though they were not needed. Other people would do that from false modesty, meanwhile basking in all the attention, but not Thráin. By now she knew him well enough to know that he genuinely believed what he said and still she hadn't seen this really very thoughtful gesture coming in a million years.

Am I ever going to get the measure of him?

Elvaethor

'I don't like these boats,' Nori declared when they set off that morning. He rocked the little vessel intentionally to demonstrate his point. 'See, nothing stable about them. One gust of wind and we'll all be in the water.'

'Perhaps you should remain very still then, Master Nori,' Lancaeron retorted. 'And I shall strive to steer us over this river safely to our destination.'

'Alternatively, you could truss him up like a pig for slaughter and save yourself the trouble of having to ask for his compliance,' Kíli suggested cheerfully from a second boat, which he shared with Galu. 'No point in trying to achieve the inevitable, if you ask me.'

Lancaeron cast a pleading look at Elvaethor to ascertain if this was a real suggestion or a jest he failed to either understand or appreciate. Elvaethor himself was singularly unhelpful in this quest as he only smiled at his old friend. One learned to understand dwarves by interacting with them. No guidance this world had to offer would avail him any. Only experience would do.

It was their third day on the water. His friends in Lothlórien had been kind enough to lend them the boats they needed for their journey south. Orcs were still seen occasionally on the eastern bank of the river, they'd said, but so far Elvaethor's party had not clapped eyes on them. Still, when they made camp, they did so on the western banks.

'Thráin passed this way in the same manner, did he not?' Flói, who shared a boat with him, asked.

'He did.'

And he must have made that journey without running into much trouble, else he could not have been in Mordor to destroy the Ring. The Ring was no more, this he knew, so all must have gone very well.

'And after that?' Flói must have thought along the same lines.

Elvaethor shook his head, though his companion would not be able to see that, as he sat before him. 'I do not know. I only know that his path led him to Mordor from there. We are headed for Minas Tirith because it is the nearest friendly city to that desolate land.'

Even after so many years had passed he still only needed to close his eyes to see all that he did not wish to remember. He could still taste the ash on his tongue and smell the endless fires of that land. Unnatural it had been then and no doubt Thráin had not found it a more hospitable place.

'You've been to Mordor?' He didn't need to see Flói's face to know that he frowned in some confusion. 'Have all of my kin been to that wretched place?'

He chuckled despite the bitter memories. 'Yes, I have seen the Black Land. My father fell in battle before its gates. I fought with the forces that besieged Barad-dûr for seven long years before Sauron fell the first time.'

Flói was silent for a moment. Then: 'Durin's beard, I forget how old you are sometimes.'

At this he laughed. 'And yet there are still some folk alive in the world today who are older than I am.'

'But not many?'

'Not many,' he agreed. Until some eighty years before, he'd felt the weight and the loneliness so keenly, the loss of all those who should have been alive. Those days were behind him now. He belonged again. What greater gift could he ask for now?

My brother yet breathing.

That was a gift he'd asked over and over again, but the dead did not return. Even so, the loss hit him at times unexpectedly. It was somehow easier to bear now that he was not in Erebor for a time. Had he lingered in those beloved halls, he would have seen the emptiness everywhere he looked.

Yet out here in the wild he did not escape it entirely either. After all, Flói was here. Whether by conscious choice or force of habit the space beside him was always left vacant, as though he were merely waiting for Jack to take the place he always occupied. Jack would never occupy any space in this world again and still, no one would step into the void he left behind.

The journey downriver was an easy one. The weather was kind and indeed getting warmer with each passing day. Leaves grew on trees, birds sang in the branches and the smell of blossom was in the air. Even the Brown Lands, usually so aptly named, were covered in a sheen of young green as grass and small bushes sprang up from the soil.

Sauron destroyed much, Elvaethor reflected when he saw this, but life has prevailed in the end. It brought him hope to see it.

He did however not linger long on the beauty of the land around him, for the river and his little boat required his attention. It had been some time since he travelled this land and never had he made the journey by water. He found that while he more or less knew where he was, the landscape looked ever so slightly different when he sat in a boat as opposed to when he sat on the back of a horse.

Sarn Gebir could not be too far ahead and so he made sure to keep a close eye on his surroundings. It was because he did that he one day saw the disturbance on the western bank. It was a branch out of place that drew his eye at first and when he looked closer, he saw that the ground had been disturbed as well.

He pointed this out to his companions.

'An old camp,' reported Galu, whose sharp eyes had not only seen it sooner than Elvaethor, but who could also read the signs better.

'Thráin's company?' Kíli asked.

Possibly, yes. Yet Elvaethor knew Thráin. It was not in his nature to leave traces of his presence behind when he did not want to do so. If he had done so here, it was bad news indeed.

'I mislike the look of this,' he said. 'We have made good time today. I should like to stop here and see what I can learn.'

Not that it would avail him any, this he knew; whatever had happened here, had happened months ago. Yet something called out to him, to explore and to learn. It had been so long that he had heard any news of Thráin that every snippet was welcome. Anything he discovered here was more recent than anything he'd already heard.

The others didn't protest. They even let him go on shore first, so that they would not disturb the tracks surrounding the old camp. And an old camp it was. He found the remnants of a fire. The side closest to the water had flooded away since, but the burned logs and branches remained.

'Put out,' Lancaeron judged. 'This fire did not dwindle on its own.'

'Left uncovered too.' It had been far too easy to find. 'They departed in a hurry.' Was it haste that had made them so careless? He couldn't see another reason.

'They left much of their gear behind,' Galu observed. He held away a branch and revealed the makeshift storing space underneath. Spare blankets, cooking and fishing gear, spare garments, some in need of mending. Here were all the little odds and ends one took on a journey, but left behind when the decision had to be made to travel as lightly as one could. 'They must have chosen speed over secrecy.'

'Perhaps so.' And yet something did not sit right with him. Had they gone back to the river or had they resumed their journey on land? A sudden gust of wind from the west only deepened the mystery, for now he smelled death as well, and so did Galu and Lancaeron.

'Many bodies lie nearby,' Lancaeron said for the benefit of their remaining three companions. 'Dead these many months.'

'If there are dead bodies, there must have been a battle,' Kíli concluded.

Flói finished that thought: 'One of them may lie here unburied. It is our duty to put that right.'

Elvaethor was inclined to agree. Besides, they would have stopped for the night soon whether they had come upon this site or not. He would not venture near Sarn Gebir in anything less than the bright light of day – though it made little difference to his eyes – and by his estimation they were now not far away.

They split up, one elf and one dwarf to each team. Elvaethor put Lancaeron out of his misery by taking Nori along. He did not mind his presence.

'Doesn't your heart have any useful things to say on this?' Nori asked. Had Elvaethor not known him so well, he would have found the tone of voice accusing and abrasive. Knowing Nori as he did however, he understood what he heard.

'I have no fear for Thráin,' he said. Had he passed on, he would have known it. 'But the fates of his companions are as veiled to me as they are to you.' He did not know them, not well enough. He had known Legolas for a long time, but they had never been friends. They knew each other and they respected each other. Gimli too he knew, mainly because it was a trial to get Glóin to keep quiet about him. With some horror he realised that this endless gushing was unlikely to ever end now that his only son was part of the company that had destroyed the One Ring.

They had walked due west, while the two other teams remained close to the river banks. It was not long before they came upon the first bodies. One lay here, there another. The smell was overwhelming here.

'There are more bodies,' he said. 'Close by.' Just over that little ridge, he reckoned, and indeed he was proven right. Piles of them, strewn across the forest. All of them were orcs and all of them had been here for months.

Nori hid his nose in his scarf. 'Well, that brings back happy memories of dragon-dragging, I can tell you.' He poked one of the corpses and the helmet fell off. It was marked with a hand done in white paint.

Saruman.

Who had betrayed them. Thráin's letter to Thoren had warned him of the wizard's betrayal, so that he had utilised orcs was no great surprise. 'A wizard should know better.' He was supposed to be a guardian, a wise one who could share his wisdom with those who needed it. Saruman, it seemed, had exchanged wisdom for madness.

'They're strange folk,' Nori shrugged. 'I'll grant you that Gandalf's better that most, but if he's been up to his old tricks again, he's not that much good on the whole either.'

Elvaethor frowned. 'His old tricks?'

'Abducting lasses from their own land and stranding them in ours,' he clarified. 'He did it to my sister too, remember?'

'Yes, I remember.' Though many a day he had simply forgotten that Kate had not lived all her days in Erebor. She was odd and outlandish and at the same time she fit in so well, more so as the years went by.

'And you've seen what that decision's done to Young Harry.' Nori might often give the impression that he cared for nothing and no one, but Elvaethor knew better. Harry was his kin and his kin had been grievously wronged. Much as Elvaethor liked and respected Mithrandir, he could not help but think that his old friend might have been wiser in his dealings with Kate's kin. 'I'd like to give him a piece of my mind.'

'Perhaps you may have the opportunity to do so.'

Nori grinned. 'I dearly hope so.'

They searched the corpses, but found none that were not orcs. Elvaethor tried to read the tracks, but there must have been heavy rainfall since the fighting took place, for there were none to be had anymore.

'We found none that were worth the trouble of burying,' Flói reported when he returned with Lancaeron to camp. 'Orcs aplenty, but we've left them where we found them. I'd not do them the honour of burning them.'

'Nor should you,' Kíli agreed. 'And at least you found something. There was nothing to be had to the south. I reckon they never got that far.'

Good news indeed. 'We shall take the gear our friends left behind and bring it with us,' Elvaethor said. 'If luck is on our side, we may find them in Minas Tirith and return to them what is theirs.'

So they spent the night at the old camp and left at first light. As it turned out, Elvaethor had misread the signs and so it still took half a day before they reached Sarn Gebir, where they camped, before carrying their boats over land. It was on that path that they found more decaying orcs, but again no dead of any other race.

Their road was not easy, Elvaethor knew. He suspected that he knew partly which road they would have taken now, through Emyn Muil and the Marshes. Thráin had told him of the venture he'd undertaken to map them out, on the basis that one could never quite know when that would come in handy. There was no doubt now in Elvaethor's mind that Thráin had been the one to guide them.

But how did you get into Mordor, my brother? Not through its Black Gates. Such a small party could not break through them. Had he found another way? Did he already know of such a way? Had any of the others?

His heart called him south faster than his legs could carry him there. Thráin was there. He felt it, though he did not speak of it to any of the others. They had a good while still to go, although the greatest distance now lay behind them.

'In the old days, there was a way to climb down no great distance away from mighty Rauros,' he recalled to his companions at dinner. Kíli had just asked what roads they were going to take once they reached the waterfall, because you're not steering me down those, I'll have you know. 'It is my dear hope that this passage still exists. If it does, we can resume our journey by river until the city of Osgiliath.' Or rather what was left of it. After this war and the destruction the orcs had wrought on Esgaroth and Dale he could no longer take this for granted. 'From there it will be a short journey on foot to Minas Tirith itself.'

'And that's where we can hope to find my wayward nephew?'

'It seems most likely.' Thráin's feet had ever been made for wandering. Stay where you are, brother. This time we are coming to you.

Next time: Elvaethor and his companions reach Minas Tirith, where Elvaethor gets a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

Thank you so much for reading. As always, reviews would brighten my day quite considerably.

Until next week!