Besides, the dead were listening.
But when the hooves of the horses had dwindled to a faint murmur some distance ahead, and it seemed as if the mountain's weight was squeezing the walls together into a mere crack to cut him off from the rest of the company, the stumbling dwarf saw a glimmer. Soon he was certain it was not merely the groping fancy of his eyes, but the pale hair of the elf who walked before him. The dim light grew. The tunnel opened. A rivulet of water dripping from stones collected and began to run beside them. They passed under another archway and came out into the living air of a deep-cloven ravine. The fading light of sunset tinged the sheer crests of the cliffs, and to the dwarf's numb wonderment there was a sky overhead, and a few stars already twinkling in its cold blue waters. In that moment he could almost have waxed lyrical on the subject of Elbereth, but pride and friendship were rough bunkmates, and Legolas was watching him again as if to make sure he'd retained his faculties.
Gimli snorted and looked around them. Now where in Middle Earth are we?
Aragorn's voice answered from the shadows nearby. Morthond, which is Blackroot, and I need not tell you why. Astride Brego, he waited by the tunnel's mouth in the shallows of the stream itself, for there was not room for two to pass on the narrow rocky strip that hugged its bank. Water rushed and gurgled around the horse's legs, hissing. The man's face was drawn and stern but undaunted; little else would trouble him ever again after wrestling with the horror of the palantír. Rouse the horses, my friends. There's many leagues yet to Erech, and we must be there before the sun rises.
Remind me again why we have a wild man from the north as our guide, Gimli grumbled.
Legolas, like the other elves, was singing quietly to soothe the horses awake. Their voices more than anything else helped banish the dread of the place from which they'd come. But not entirely. The dwarf did not turn to find out what, if anything, had followed them.
Come, Gimli, said Legolas, holding out his arm. Arod's tail swished, and the horse's head was held high; there was no trace of weariness on any of the animals or hint that they remembered where they had been. Gimli heaved aboard, and the elf leapt up behind him; the rest of the company had already travelled some distance down the bank of the watercourse. For a brief time Aragorn rode behind them, with the shades of the Oathbreakers pressing hard on his heels.
The dusk deepened. The walls of the ravine abruptly peeled back, and the Morthond Stream plunged with a crash over a stony shelf beside the track. From there it fell by terraces down into a wide grassy valley. Far below was the humble ruddy glow of distant lamps and hearth-fires. Gimli's spirits rose at the smell of wood-smoke. Somewhere in the fir-clad slope on their left hand, faint above the rush of the falls, came the ordinary peals of a squalling infant, some cottager's child fretting over nothing worse than dinner. But there was no time for the company to seek news or a hearty meal.
They began to pass huts built on stilts down by the river, and now and then a local putting stores away or bringing in wood for the night's fire. But no friendly hails greeted them, only cries of fear. Burdens were tossed aside, and men and women and children lunged for the cover of their homes or the forest at their backs; doors were slammed shut; dogs howled or cowered or broke their chains and bolted. Rumor of the ride of the sinister host swept through the Morthond Vale at the speed of sturdy mountain-bred horses, as the inhabitants fled or took refuge in the wooded slopes and canyons on either side of the river. The last dun tints of sunset had not yet faded from the sky, but Aragorn's company was already passing many homesteads where all lights had been extinguished, a few of them abandoned with doors still swinging. The King of the Dead, came the cries from woods and rocky copses. The King of the Dead is come! Aragorn's return could have brought no greater fear had he taken the ring from Frodo's hand.
Once the road widened and bent southeast, Aragorn resumed his position at the front of the elven-host, setting a grueling pace. Gimli and Legolas rode beside him again, and that was to the dwarf's liking; he wanted no more wights breathing at his back. But Aragorn was silent, bent on his own inner struggle, stretching the horses as much as he dared, lest he miss the midnight tryst. Far into the night they rode.
As it drew near the appointed hour, Legolas suddenly gave a cry and pointed with his left hand towards the mountains. The clouds were few and high this night, but through those veils that rested on the mountain-peaks there came a sudden red flicker. As they watched it grew brighter and brighter. The keen-eyed elf could see it was not one flame, but many, travelling westward like a slow-moving bolt of lightning along the top of the range whose toes they were skirting, flashing from peak to peak. It was coming straight towards them, and it was coming from the direction Minas Tirith.
A dragon? Gimli exclaimed, the heart within him going suddenly cold.
The beacon-fires of Anórien, replied Aragorn, his ragged words torn away on the wind. Lord Denethor calls for aid. We are summoned!
Then has the siege begun? asked the dwarf.
Aragorn began to pull away from them; Brego had caught his rider's fey mood. Not yet, his answer came drifting back. But war comes, and the Steward calls for all free folk to gather in Gondor's chief stronghold, where they may fight together with stout walls at their backs. Yet neither we nor Rohan can reach the city before the lands around her are held against us!
Aftrewards he pressed them harder still, and the leagues of the mountain road were fleeting beneath the feet of the steeds of Rohan, any of whom might have rivalled Shadowfax under the guiding will of such riders. Finally, at midnight, they came at last to the bleak hill with the Black Stone set upon it. The elven-host halted in a half-circle at the foot of the mound, for this was man's business. Even Legolas and Gimli stayed below, watching anxiously as Aragorn scaled the round hill, step by labored step. His bent figure was silhouetted against the full moon. They could see him stand and straighten by the huge sphere of rock set into the earth at the hill's crest. He turned and looked both north and east. Then he drew the silver horn and blew one haunting note.
Figures Gimli had been trying not to see rushed between and through the elf-host like a wind-blown skirl of leaves and swept around the lonely figure who awaited them. The air around the man was suddenly full of moving shadows, not just empty darkness. He raised his hand.
Oathbreakers, why have ye come?
Dim and cold came a chorus of voices that made Gimli wish his axe were still in his hands and not strapped across his back. To fulfill our oath and have peace.
The hour is come, for I am Elessar Isildur's heir, to whom the oath was sworn. And when the lands from Erech to Pelargir are cleansed of Sauron's servants, the oath shall be fulfilled and ye shall have peace. Follow.
He did not seem a living man who spoke, although his voice rang out clear over their rustling murmur. In answer to his command came the braying of many horns, faint and discordant, ill notes jarring even to dwarf-ears used to the scrape of metal on stone and the clamor of the forge. The elves shifted in their saddles, the first sign of unease they had shown on this eerie journey.
Aragorn strode quickly back down the hill and did not speak. He slung himself into the saddle. Brego leapt forward again and resumed the race eastward. The elves followed, and the dead pursued. So he became King of the Dead for a while, who was not yet king of the living.