"And what is to be done with our unexpected guest?" Imrihil asked. "We can hardly justify his release now that he has seen our forces."
Aragorn spared a glance toward the door of the tent. "I had considered taking his tongue," he said quietly, nodding to himself as he considered.
"My lord," Imrahil started, his voice soft with a warning caution.
"But that would align with their expectations, and worse, would not keep him from finding
some way to warn his chiefs," the king continued. "No, my friend, I'll keep my temper in check, you have my word. He shall be sent to the prisons of Minas Tirith, where I shall ensure he is kept alive and well cared for. I shall have the rangers ensure his anonymity and silence, lest old prejudices endanger his safety there."
"Prudent," Imrahil said, relaxing. "I thought for a moment- ah, well, it's not worth mentioning."
Aragorn shook his head. "There's only one man I would render silent thus, and I have it on good authority he is dead."
The lord of Dol Amroth nodded slowly, but refrained from asking after the identity of what was apparently a corpse, perhaps wisely.
"Perhaps a ranger could be sent in his stead, disguised and carrying a response," Aragorn mused, stroking his beard with two fingers as he thought.
"Trickery, my lord?" Imrahil asked, hesitantly. "It does not sit well with me to stoop to such tactics, I must admit. Against orcs, there is little I would hold back, but to use the same tactics we reproach against our own enemies?"
Aragorn had to bite back a bitter laugh. "There is some utility in acting honorably, I grant you, but neither will I give them warning of our coming and cost the lives of the children of Gondor. Too many already shall die. An answer then, must be of some ominous presence, a thing which will lay a question in their minds and find them ill prepared for the answer."
"Is there such a message, my lord?"
"I shall have to think on it," Aragorn admitted. "We have some time yet before the response can be sent at all- he won't have arrive to the White City for another three days."
"Then it shall be another three before we should send this rider," Imrahil said, tapping his fingers against the palm of his left hand as he calculated the remaining distance to the capital of Harad.
"With good fortune, we will be on them before it, but I shall not rely on mere fortune. She is a fickle mistress and prone to treachery," the king said, standing. "I have much to think on, and I thank you for your ear."
"I fear I have been but little aid to you. I have no answer for the treatment of our… guest, nor for the matter of my-" the lord's voice faltered then and he struggled to swallow down his grief. "My nephew's ring."
"Would you like the care of it?" Aragorn asked, his hand returning to his packet where the trinket rested.
"Yes… and no. I think… I think it might be best returned to Faramir from your hand. Assuming-"
Assuming Faramir was still alive.
"No," Aragorn said firmly. "He lives. I shall return it to him when we are reunited."
"What then, now, my lord?"
"What now indeed," he said heavily, pressing a hand to his face. Behind his close eyes, he could see Boromir, his skin gray with death, lips bloodied from within, the scarlet blooming over him like a flower on a grave. "If Lord Elrond had come I might have wisdom beyond all the years of men, or through Gandalf the cleverness and guile of Istari, but here we are- two men as blind and deaf as men have ever been."
"No, my lord," Imrahil said gently, taking to his feet. He set a hand on his king's shoulder. "You saw the forces of Mordor broken, their weapons scattered and shields fallen. You gave back to me my last nephew, the last shadow of my sister in his eyes. Even the elves must admit that you are, if not the caliber of the ancient heroes, an echo of their strength not seen in many centuries."
"I pray you are right," Aragorn agreed. "I trust wisdom to present itself," he said, pushing the entrance to the tent aside.
Even into the lengthening evening, there was an oppressive heat in the air that hit his face as he stepped outside, reminding him that he and all his kind were not welcome in that land, but welcome or not they had come.
"This heat will be as much our enemy as all the bands of men who face us down," Aragorn muttered to himself, ducking hurriedly back into his own tent.
There would be time to think on the problem of the response as they rode on, and the question of the ring of state could wait… probably.
The only course of action he could see for the immediate future was to press on as if nothing had changed.
The forces of Gondor were not a day beyond the border when they came upon the remains of a war party.
It was a grizzly sight, but not easily spotted until the soldiers stood atop the carnage, frightening off the buzzards praying on unburied bodies.
There were great bones, picked clean by scavengers, the desert wind, and the cruel, southern sun, the ribs standing like teeth gaping toward the sky.
"There must have been a battle," Imrahil observed, riding closer to his king as they went. "But it cannot have been waged by our own men. I see none fallen but Haradrim." His eyes swept the scene, searching for signs that he might be wrong.
"Indeed," Merethir agreed from the other side. "And no clear battle line."
"Only days old," Aragorn said, unable quite to tear his own eyes away. He dismounted, brow furrowed to see better what lay beneath them.
"Only days?" Imrahil asked, incredulous.
"The desert is cruel," Merethir said dryly. "It is a good reminder. The sun and the beasts will gladly leave us in the same state, alive or not."
"Tents- trampled. Useless, now," Aragorn mused. He wasn't really paying much attention to the chatter behind him. "Merethir, Imrahil, back them up. I want to see this place with better eyes. Keep the horses off." He brushed his fingers over a half-buried scrap of fabric. It was thick, and rough, and dark, though he could not quite tell what the color was meant to be under the fine grit it had gathered. "Wool," he muttered, tugging at the corner of it.
"Will you bury the dead, sire?" Imrahil asked, dismounting to better guide his own steed through the debris.
"There is no burial in the desert," he called back. "This is the greatest rest that can be offered as we have no way to burn the bones with us, and it would be unwise to burden our own soldiers with the unresting. Leave them with your prayers, they'll do the most good." His mind was still on the fabric in his grip.
As he pulled, more and more came up from under the pouring sand, eventually revealing a cloak- not anything in the style of the Southrons, but a Gondorian cloak, a kind standard-issue to the Rangers of Ithilien.
Aragorn held it aloft. "Faramir was here," he called. "We must search the grounds. I hold hope he shall not be found here." He bounded across the sand, thrusting the cloak into Imrahil's arms. "Take it," he said. "As some comfort. There were no bones beneath."
"A ranger and his cloak are not easily parted," Imrahil said warily. "And we know not what sorcery may have destroyed them this way."
"Not sorcery," Eomer said, holding aloft a skull that had been picked clean, but for morsel her and there of gristle and hair.
There was a dent on the back, a crescent shape split in two by a deep crack.
"That man was killed by a horse," Aragorn observed, eyebrows lifting. "Your sister is an accomplished warrier to have done all this herself."
"His- the Lady Eowyn did this?" Merethir asked, letting out a delighted laugh and earning
a glare from two kings and the prince of Dol Amroth.
"I cannot fathom how she managed such a feat alone," Aragorn admitted. "But I am convinced she was a part of it."
Eomer puffed out his chest proudly. "The Shield-Arm of Rohan is cunning indeed," he said, tossing the skull away and making several Gondorians, their king among them, wince at his cavalier treatment of the dead.
"Yes," Imrahil agreed hurriedly. "Very cunning, so much that how she managed it seems to be beyond the best of us, unless, perhaps, you have an explanation?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. "I certainly should like to know how to defeat what looks to be no less than two Mumakil, and at least thirty men, alone, but I am afraid such an attempt would buy me only an early grave and a good pub story."
"As I see no sign of Rohan's finery among the sands, I think she will have herself an excellent pub story," Aragorn agreed, kneeling again to examine the crushed remains of a tent.
All the tent-poles were shattered, and the silk torn to shreds.
"The mumaks have something to do with this, I am certain of it," Eomer said, pounding his right fist into the palm of his hands.
"I agree," Merethir said from where he, too, was kneeling. "Many of these men died crushed- stepped on, I imagine. I have found a few that have been goored, and there remains blood on the tusks." He pointed toward the still flesh-coated skull of one of the fallen beasts.
"The mumaks trampled most of these men," a new voice added, and Aragorn recognized Captain Turothon. "But few have any sign of horse-damage to them."
"She must have stirred up the Mumaks to panic," the king said thoughtfully. "A good trick, that. I would like to know how she managed it."
"This was a rout," Merethir said. "We did not pass the rider coming in, so the lady must still be looking for Faramir."
"She did not find him here, and neither shall we," Aragorn agreed, but something in him hesitated to move forward. "There may be more information for us here, something missed, perhaps. Search on but a little longer, and then we shall resume our march." He halted, glancing toward Eomer. "If that is agreeable to all parties?"
"I have no objection," Eomer agreed. "Any hint or sign of my fool sister will help ease my growing dread. Little would keep me from a vengeful madness if I were to find her fallen."
Aragorn glanced toward Imrahil, who was looking a little wary of the horselord. He knew, of course, that Eomer was right. The king had been present to see the murderous strength that grief had poured into the horse lord's unhinged mind upon finding Theoden dead and Eowyn apparently lifeless as well. "Your people would suffer a great loss to find their princess fallen and their king mad."
"Then let us hasten to find them alive," Eomer agreed. "Before more is put at risk."
He wasn't able to find much else, except that they had abandoned anything that had been crushed or broken in the mayhem. There was one thing that gave him a sense of relief as he laid eyes on it.
Faramir's sword had been left abandoned in the sand, buried and waiting for rescue. It served to confirm what he had already suspected.
The steward was not there. His belongings had been split apart between the officers as spoil, and the captain of Ithilien had escaped, possibly before Eowyn was even able to catch up.
A dark thought eclipsed the momentary joy of the discovery as Aragorn realized that Faramir's escape necessarily meant he was alone to contend with the desert.
"I have seen enough," Eomer said, dropping his hand onto Aragorn's shoulder where the king of Gondor knelt, clutching a sword. "You seem grieved, my friend."
"Faramir is lost. This desert hates the Numenorian line; it will not be kind to him. I can only pray he finds his way out before the heat takes him."
The horse-lord tightened his grip for a moment. "My sister is willing to face a war party alone for him. I trust her judgment enough to say she would not choose a man so easily snuffed out."
"Easily?" Aragorn asked, dragging himself worriedly to his feet. "Injured, alone, and wandering a land that despises him is to die too easily?" He held the sword a little tighter, as if to keep Faramir closer somehow.
Eomer held his gaze, an easy confidence in his stance. "Yes."
"Yes," Aragorn agreed. "I must believe that, if only for my own sake."
"We both must, for you must trust that Faramir would not choose a woman so easily taken, either."
The gray eyes king considered his brother in arms for a long moment. "Do you suppose Faramir has even realized?"
Eomer broke into a raucous laugh that seemed entirely out of place in the shimmering, angry heat of Harad. "No, of course not, and neither has Eowyn, yet why else would she charge off on such an ill advised errand?"
Aragorn inclined his head. "It will be a good marriage," he said, making his way back toward Roheryn.
It was good to think of a future where the ties to Rohan might be formalized with such an advantageous marriage to both sides, but more than that, that the happiness of his son might be secured in the heart of a worthy woman.
Eowyn herself seemed amenable, if oblivious.
"That is, assuming either of them get up the courage to actually speak to the other," he conceded.
"Indeed," Eomer said, mounting Firefoot.
"We'll have to take special care of the animals from here out. Our supplies will last, and there is an oasis in our path, but we shall have to take it to have use of the spring there," Aragorn said, addressing his captains once more as they once again readied to ride on.
"And how know you this? I have seen no detailed maps of Harad, and those maps we have of it at all are few," Eomer said, genuinely surprised.
Aragorn swung himself back up onto the saddle. "This is not my first visit," he said grimly. "I pray it shall be my last. I never wish to have cause to cross the southern border again. Valar curse this place."
"Perhaps curse it when we are not in its grip," Eomer suggested.
"The desert hates us," Merethir said, only half-joking. "But I take much satisfaction in knowing the feeling is mutual. If we despise the sun enough, perhaps it will turn its face away in shame and hide behind a friendly cloud for us."
"If only," Imrahil agreed, managing a smile even as he wiped the sweat out of his eyes.
"Ride on," Aragorn called, urging Roheryn forward.