10. To the Carrock and Return to the Eastern Shore
The sun, ascending above the mountains, burnt away the mists that had troubled Aragorn. Though drained from his adventures in the night, he swiftly traversed the northern marches of the Gladden Fields, deceptively harmless marshlands by the light of day. After a few hours' travel, he at length put Loeg Ningloron at his back. Now before him stretched the spectacular valleys of the Wilderland, rising and falling ghylls and hillocks studded with forests of fir trees and patches of snow glistening like white jewels that some great giant or troll had flung across the vale.
Upon the East-West Road the Old Ford bridged the river. It was in poor condition, and rumor held that any who diverged from it in Mirkwood were lost forever. Aragorn had heard tales of orcs using the road, of wargs lurking about its borders, and Gandalf had told him of giant spiders skulking in the woods flanking its swift and straight path through Mirkwood. The shadow of Dol Guldur enshrouded all Mirkwood but for Thranduil's realm and the region still held by the Beornings. Even as he had driven Gollum through the bogs of the Dead Marshes, Aragorn had decided it prudent to avoid the Road and pass into Mirkwood north of the Carrock. Then, it seemed the wiser route. Now, he harbored doubts. Nothing was safe anymore. Evil had entrenched itself in lands it once circumvented. The servants of the Enemy grew bolder. This wild, rolling country, once an ancient kingdom but naught more than unkempt downs and open plains, offered little cover.
Had Aragorn been alone or with a traveling companion less loathsome, he would willingly cross the Wilderland, as indeed he had done six months beforehand with Gandalf. He sighed as he wondered whether Gandalf's errand to Minas Tirith had proved profitable. Had the scrolls there revealed the information he sought? Wherever he was, surely his road could be no worse than Aragorn's. Brushing windblown locks of hair out of his face, Aragorn lugged Gollum down the stony flanks of a high butte. The creature was morose and emaciated, crawling along ahead of him, a pallid worm enfeebled by miles of grueling travel and starvation. Eight hundred miles they had traveled, and the foul stench had grown tolerable only because exposure for many days and many leagues had blocked and numbed Aragorn's nasal passages. The odor was less noisome, but he always felt on illness' verge, a head cold ruminating in his sinuses.
The only other road to Thranduil was through Mirkwood itself. Choosing between the forest and the boundless Wilderland did not enthuse hope. Not only did orcs, wargs, and spiders prowl amongst the dark trees, but also Aragorn did not know how far north the Nazgûl guarding Dol Guldur roamed. In his younger days not even Nazgûl would advance within one hundred miles of the Wood-elves' kingdom, but now there were wights in the Gladden Fields, orcs crossing the Riddermark. Nevertheless those dark trees would hide him better than did the treeless downs.
At any rate, he headed west, traveling through the skeletal forests of fir trees some two leagues from the foothills of the Hithaeglir. His decision had to wait until he came upon the East-West Road anyway; the Anduin's waters this far north were deadly to swim, so he had no choice but to cross it at either the Ford of Carrock or the Old Ford. Putting off a decision for now was the best decision.
Sometimes a small cart road intersected Aragorn's trail, for a network of paths crossed the Wilderland and all connected eventually to the great East-West Road, the main artery between Rhovanion and Eriador. He passed hollow ghosts of the old kingdom of Éothéod, ruins of farms and towers, stone walls, and other structures ravaged by the wars and dragons that had destroyed the Men of Rhovanion. It was a deserted country, wrecked and cheerless, burgeoning with grief. The overgrown cart roads had once been active routes of trade between the regions of Wilderland stretching as far South as Rohan and Gondor, and across the High Pass into Eriador, but as Gondor and Rohan suffered under assaults from Umbar and as Éothéod went into decline, trade with Eriador was all but abandoned.
On his third day out from the Gladden Fields, Aragorn espied a large bird wheeling near the rims of the jagged peaks, high and far off. A hunting eagle, he thought. Hunting for what? Doubtfully he watched it, and it flew slowly southwards, towards him. He sprang forward and made for a thicket that lay ahead. Shielded from sight by prickly brambles, he lay flat on his stomach, pinning Gollum down, assuring his silence with the sword against his throat. For a long time the eagle hung in the sky, a dark speck against the shredding wrack of pale clouds and intense blue firmament. Every minute Aragorn lost made him anxious. He wanted to hurry along, but he did not know whom, if anyone, that eagle served or what it looked for. Mayhap it had nothing to do with his business, but his fears refused to be dismissed. After interminable circling within sight, it vanished behind the mountains, and Aragorn crawled out from the brush, batting aside thorns tearing bleeding scratches in the exposed flesh of his neck, face, and hands.
Then as swiftly as he could drive Gollum, he traversed the rolling moors of tumbled heath and dry grass, keeping a wary eye upon the sky and the towering cliffs. That was not the last time suspicious raptors floated overhead, nor the last time Aragorn dove for cover behind brambles and boulders. In caves peering out from a huge, iron gray headwall, a wound in the mountain as if someone had hewed off a chunk of it with a sword, he thought he descried dark shapes moving about within. They were far away and could very well be shadows or his wearied eyes playing tricks upon him. But goblins and orcs haunted these desolate hills. Aragorn wondered what goblins might do, should they espy him and Gollum. If they desired to free Gollum for whatever reasons, they would set upon his trail like hounds after a fox.
It amazed him that he had come so far, still bearing Gollum whilst nothing evil haunted his tracks. My luck cannot hold, he thought as he lay in a dell, anxiously staring at the cliff. The high, piercing shriek of wind whistling through tunnels reached his ears, and he shuddered. His heart beat heavily. Shadows like patches of night seemed to flit about the holes. Fear leapt within his breast. Enough of this. He had to set off for the river. The trees dispersed, but at least there were fewer high cliffs and hidden crags from which his enemies could watch him. This miserable journey had given him an aversion to open country. But he did not like canyons and labyrinthine country wherein he could not see what might be hunting him, either. He rubbed his forehead, pushing away dull pain behind his eyes. All he longed for was to be rid of Gollum and return to Eriador, unburdened and less conspicuous a traveler.
East of the mountains the trees thinned, and Aragorn threaded a course in the general direction of the Anduin. The fact was his only hope lay in speed – as it had since he embarked on this dismal journey with Gollum. No one, not even a Ranger, could hide from all eyes.
Other concerns began weighing upon Aragorn's troubled mind, uncertainties about his dwindling provisions and the strain in his body he was feeling more and more every day. Gollum he fed just enough to keep alive, but otherwise he kept the creature tamed with the knife-edge of hunger. Even so, he had few wafers of lembas remaining and less of everything else. Another week, he guessed, if he rationed carefully. He had formidable skills as a hunter, but that took time he did not have. Yet he could not forego eating for long, not when hundreds of leagues in Gollum's noxious company with a single night's rest in distant Lórien was taking its toll, and he needed what strength he could find to sustain his swift flight. Those bites in his arm refused to fully heal – always they oozed blood and fluid. He could not rid himself of the headache he blamed upon Gollum or the soreness festering in his legs and even his back. There was little he could do for aches and pains. Here no Dúnedain had ever dwelt, thus there was no athelas to be found, and the weed Aragorn had gathered in Ithilien was long since used up. Other herbs, yarrow and willow bark, he collected whence he stumbled into them, but could no more take the time to search for healing herbs than he could to hunt.
As the miles grew wearisome, his original plan to cross Anduin at the Carrock seemed his only choice. Should he cross at the Old Ford, he would have to race to the elves on what meager provisions he had, not impossible if nothing waylaid him. "What chances of that do I have in Mirkwood?" He said to himself, gazing to the East. "Whereas if I go to the Carrock, the Beornings might proffer some measure of assistance." His prisoner whimpered and gurgled until Aragorn tugged sharply upon the rope. The Carrock remained the wiser choice, but he still had misgivings about the odds of surviving unseen through the open Wilderland between the East-West Road and the Carrock.
* * *
Two leagues south of the Road, Aragorn and Gollum descried a small company of Dwarves marching towards the Hithaeglir, well-armed with axes and swords. Aragorn did not expect to meet anyone here, save for orcs, and could not contain his surprise and delight at seeing the Dwarves, reclusive and suspicious folk, but trustworthy. He wondered what business they had so far west of their Kingdom Under the Mountain at Mirkwood's Eastern borders and how they had come here. But with Gollum in tow, they might think him an enemy servant on an evil errand. Explaining his true purpose took too much time and revealed too much information. Had the lonely miles been less long and lonely, he would have hidden in a hollow or behind a rock while the Dwarves passed, but he greatly desired to speak with them and get news of Dale and Erebor, for events in the furthest corners of Middle-earth often went unnoticed during these troubled times when people concerned themselves only with defending their own borders.
Aragorn sprang off the ancient cart-road he had been following and squatted behind a rock outcropping with Gollum. The ropes he bound securely to a bent and gnarled juniper. Pressing the gleaming Númenorean sword to Gollum's throat, he growled in a low voice, "Stay here and stay silent. And if you make any noise or move anywhere, I swear upon the graves of my forefathers in Rath Dinen that you will regret ever having breathed the free air of Middle-earth. Understand?" The wretched prisoner curled miserably against the rock and refused to meet Aragorn's eyes. Sighing in his disgust, Aragorn rose, sheathing the sword, and went out to meet the Dwarves.
"Hail, sons of Durin," he said as they approached. "What business have you in the mountains?"
Alas, they were far less interested in him than he was in them. They met his curious gaze with suspicious glowers. He supposed he had a rascally look that did not invite trust and he surely stank of Gollum, though his nostrils were dulled to all scents and he could smell nothing. Aragorn noted several Dwarves eyeing the ring of Barahir on his left hand – Dwarves had a sharp eye for valuable treasures. They sniffed and spoke to one another in the Dwarvish language.
"Our business is our own," their leader said to Aragorn at length. "And whatever yours is, this is no direction to be traveling."
"Why not?" asked Aragorn,
"Danger is abroad, and if the East-West Road into Mirkwood is your path," said the Dwarf, "then you would do well to choose another."
"I have heard sinister rumors about the road," said Aragorn. "In taverns and such. Then they are true?"
The Dwarves muttered darkly in their own language. "Fell things are on the road," the leader finally said. "Terror haunts it as it passes over the Mountains of Mirkwood and there are goblins and their ilk roaming about in droves." He had a look about him dissuading Aragorn from further queries. "And I would not go further north, either," he added.
"What lies further north?"
"The Beornings are decent fellows, but if you pass into the forest above the Carrock, you cannot avoid the Elf-kingdom."
"I see," said Aragorn, biting his tongue to suppress the defense of the Elves rising in his throat. What wish had he to entangle himself in ancient grudges! In his weariness and anxiety, he had momentarily forgotten ancient lore: King Thingol of Doriath had commissioned the Dwarves to set his Simaril in the Nauglamír. The Dwarves had lusted for the Silmaril and challenged Thingol's claim to the Nauglamír, but Thingol had perceived their true intentions and slapped them down with shameful words. Enraged, the Dwarves had murdered Thingol. They then fled and were pursued to the death, but the two who escaped and made it to their city in the Blue Mountains told their kin that Thingol had withheld payment for the work they had done. The Dwarves had assaulted and ransacked the Thousand Caves. Relations between the Elves and Dwarves had been strained ever since.
"But you do what you will," grumbled the Dwarf. "But should some ill fortune befall you, you cannot say we did not warn you."
"Your advice is well taken," Aragorn said.
The Dwarves stomped towards the Hithaeglir and the High Pass, and Aragorn watched them vanish on the horizon, dark specks moving sluggishly across plain against the spectacular backdrop of the mountains. Unease stirred in his breast, a warning in his heart that enemy onslaughts had befallen or would befall Erebor and Dale, the lands east of Mirkwood. But there was no way of learning anything of it now, and it ought to be the least of his concerns. He roused Gollum ere he pressed on northwards, flying for the Carrock without hesitation. Whatever the Dwarves thought of the Elves, he did not doubt their warnings of the Old Forest Road. It was dangerous. Perhaps the haunting terror on the road were Nazgûl, but at any rate, if goblins overran the Old Forest Road, it was far better to risk the open downs of the Wilderland, far better to re-stock his provisions at the Carrock, and far better to travel through the protected realm of the Beornings. They kept safe the mountain passes leading between their land and Eriador and the ford at the Carrock. Their tolls were steep, but Aragorn, wearied of toil and of danger, was beyond caring. He would find some measure of safety with the Beornings, whatever they charged him.
These miles were the last, two more days to the Carrock and then another day or two's march through Mirkwood to the Wood-elves. But Aragorn would find no peace in Thranduil's realm; no solace or rest for the weary. The trials ahead of him seemed greater than what he had been through, the supreme test determining at last whether he died defeated or lived to win Arwen and the crown. The time to make his bid for the throne approached, hitherto the long and harsh leagues between here and Mordor brought him no closer to that goal than had all the long years of his life defending Eriador from secret perils. Not yet had his hour drawn nigh. As he hastened across the downs, footsore and tired yet whipped forward at speed by fears of Enemy spies, his path remained hidden. To his lands in the old north kingdom and perhaps Rivendell he would return, but beyond that everything was dark.
* * *
When he clambered up the lee side of a butte in the early morning, Aragorn looked upon the Carrock, an immense prominence of stone jutting from the downs and buttes, towering over the river. His sight was keen; even though ten or so leagues lay between him and the massive outcropping, he saw stairs carved expertly into the stone. Three or four leagues from his overlook, the East-West Road sliced through the uplands, a deep gash in the earth extending from the exalted mountains to remote Mirkwood, a murky shadow far to Aragorn's right. He scanned the road for movement, for signs his enemies traversed its length, but the road was desolate. Perhaps something moved at Mirkwood's borders, but Aragorn did not have Elvish sight and could not make it out. At any rate, unless it had wings it would not come upon him today, and he would not pass into the forest for thirty miles hence. The dawn was ashen, the sky gray, and Aragorn's senses as a Ranger warned him of snow. Rarely was he mistaken about the weather. He only hoped that snow lightly dusted the Wilderland lest a ferocious blizzard delay him and deter the Beornings from ferrying him across the river.
Aragorn and Gollum scrambled steadily amongst defiles and ridges for several hours ere the first snowflakes fluttered downwards from the pale sky. Aragorn did not heed them – since the morning's climb to the summit of the butte, he had resigned himself to the inevitability of foul weather – but Gollum muttered, "Why does it snow, preciouss? Cold, cold snow with no nice, warm cave and nice fresh fish," the first words he had spoken for many days. Then he flung himself to the ground beside an ancient and decaying stone wall, refused to go another step, and lay weeping.
Aggravation twisted inside Aragorn, a dagger in his breast, and he raised the sword over Gollum's head, tempted to slay the creature or at least draw blood. The chilling caws of ravens, a sound like a death knell, suddenly drew his attention from Gollum. A flock of them wheeled overhead and then landed upon a withered pine tree. They cawed and stared at Aragorn and Gollum, as though waiting for something. Aragorn's gaze shifted hither and thither from his prisoner to the ravens. Those birds were suspicious, mayhap enemy spies. He had not the time for this! His temper was frayed like the rope of a mainsail in a brutal squall. After taking a deep breath to settle his ire, he let the sword fall to the ground, nocked an arrow to his bow, and fired it at the ravens. Gollum gave a start when the bow sang, no doubt recalling with fear the three Dúnedain arrows that nearly slew him in the Dead Marshes. The arrow landed with a thunk in the tree. With shrill cries, the ravens sprang aloft, circled about the tree in anger, and then flew off. Their cacophonous voices echoed in Aragorn's ears for a long while. Slinging his bow over his shoulder and picking up the sword, he turned to Gollum. "You shall be next," he said threateningly. Gollum got the point, dragging himself to his feet and staggering along the trail again.
Without further incident they came to the East-West Road, wide as a small river, its stony surface cracked with disuse, infiltrated by vegetation. Snow fell thickly now, clinging to his hair and eyelashes, and Aragorn drew his cloak over his head. A thin dust spread upon the ground and across his shoulders. In spite of the white flakes swirling in his eyes, he stooped warily over the road, seeking tracks or other signs of the Enemy. Indeed, there was trampled grass and heavy footprints several weeks old. He found the tracks of the Dwarf troop. Orcs had also used the road, journeying from Mirkwood to their lairs in caverns beneath the High Pass.
And due west of the pass was Rivendell, where his heart dwelt. Aragorn cast his eyes to the mountains, to the High Pass, a narrow road cutting dangerous switchbacks into the steep side of a mountain overlooking a valley far below. The low cloud cover and the snow billowing off the peaks in the high winds above timberline engulfed the mountains. On the western side of the pass, sunlight bathed the fair valley of Imladris, and Arwen awaited him.
A shift in the direction of the wind drew him from his reverie, and he blinked snow from his eyes and sprang across the road. No orcs journeyed from their lairs in the adverse weather, nor had they passed through here for weeks, but the road nevertheless instilled in him apprehension. "The eye of the Enemy watches this place," he muttered to himself. How far northwest did Nazgûl from Dol Guldur wander? Aragorn shuddered as visions of Minas Morgul and its terrible tower lanced his thoughts. Fingers, stiffened from the cold, curled around the hilt of his sword. Then he shook it off – even if Nazgûl did not come this way, orcs certainly did and it was foolish to linger here. Not even a Ranger could make his way across this snow and leave no track. The only thing left for him to do was make haste to the protected territory of the Beornings.
* * *
The snow, a thin white sheet, shone in the moonlight like a sail thrown across the downs. Aragorn rested for a few hours while the constellation Teluhmetar, the Warrior of the Sky, was at its zenith, before he journeyed on in the black night. He traveled while sunrise illuminated the leading edge of the low mists to the East, a faint golden and red light. Still, the snow fell, heavier now. At least it covered his tracks.
A strange voice, deep and rich as if the Misty Mountains themselves had rumbled, said, "Hail, stranger. These are strange times for travelers to be about. Where are you going?"
Startled, Aragorn halted. A tall man seemed to rise out of the very earth before him. He had a heavy brow, thick arms knotted with muscle, and a bristly black beard, donning a wool tunic and hefting an intimidating ax. His horse, a sturdy paint draught horse, stood patiently behind him, the reins looped about its neck, its muzzle touching his shoulder. Then Aragorn recollected his wits and said, "I shall tell you my business if you tell me yours." He guessed the man was a Beorning, but in these times suspicion was one's staunchest ally.
"You're an insolent fellow," said the man. "Crossing borders and then making demands. If you must know, I'm called Einarr and it is my business to be protecting my Chieftain Grimbeorn's borders from suspicious strangers such as yourself."
"I do not mean to be insolent," said Aragorn. "But in these times it is not wise to be free with one's tongue. My name is Aragorn, at any rate, and I mean to cross Anduin at the Ford of Carrock. The men of this land have long been known to ferry travelers across its waters, and I had hoped it is a tradition you have not abandoned." He saw no harm in offering the Beornings his real name. If it meant anything to them – and he doubted it did – they cared not, for they were a provincial people and the affairs of Gondor many hundreds of miles away did not concern them in the least.
"Why are you crossing the river? And what is that... creature... at your side?" asked the Beorning, glowering at Gollum as though he would enjoy hewing his ax through the wretch's emaciated neck.
"The creature is a prisoner -- a spy of the Dark Lord -- and I am taking him to the Wood-elves for safekeeping," explained Aragorn.
"That's a likely story," commented Einarr. "And even if it's true, you don't honestly expect to be crossing the river in this weather now, do you?"
Aragorn folded his arms across his chest. "I am afraid I do not know what I can do to assure you I am no enemy, but it will become apparent enough if servants of Sauron beset your lands because they were tracking me and my prisoner." As he spoke, a fierce light shone in his gray eyes, and though Einarr stood a head above him, the Beorning fell back a step.
"The Elves don't much like strangers, either," Einarr said.
"I am no stranger to Thranduil."
Einarr tilted his head, his heavy brows creasing as if he did not quite comprehend the gray-eyed stranger, and then gestured with his ax that Aragorn should follow him. The horse swished its tail and obediently trailed him though he laid not a hand upon its bridle. "Well, you can either turn back or come with me," he said. "We shall see what Grimbeorn makes of you." He sniffed and scowled. "Is that smell you or that wretched creature?"
"Most likely both at this point," said Aragorn. He had no choice but to follow. If he turned back and crossed Anduin at the Old Ford, he should either run out of provisions or get killed on the Old Forest Road. Gandalf knew these folk and mayhap their leader knew Gandalf and would offer some hospitality to a friend of Gandalf's.
Einarr led Aragorn and Gollum to the foot of the Carrock, ducking into a small cave at its base facing the stone-gray river. Granite, burnished by water, arced overhead, shining black and silver in the light of a small fire flickering towards the rearmost walls of the cave. The fire took the teeth out of the biting cold outside. Several Beornings, bearded, broad-shouldered, clothed like Einarr, sat about the hearth speaking in their own tongue, from which the language of the Rohirrim had descended, but they were now distant relatives, too distant for Aragorn to understand.
One of the men from the hearth had risen and joined them. He stood taller than Einarr, head-and-shoulders above Aragorn. In his face was the stern and intractable disposition of a leader and warrior. Aragorn wondered if he were not a shapeshifter, for the leaders of these men had the power to change into giant bears at will.
"So you want to cross the river," he said. "I am Grimbeorn, Chieftain of these lands."
"Yes, I intend on crossing the river," replied Aragorn, bowing his head.
"And that skulking creature is an enemy spy you're taking to the Elves for safekeeping?"
"He is. And the sooner we reach Thranduil's kingdom, the safer we all shall be. I am a friend of Gandalf the Grey, if that means anything."
"Gandalf," said Grimbeorn. "The wizard. Him we've not seen in some time. He passes through here now and then." He studied Aragorn, his eyes shining through his thick, black beard, bright points of light piercing cloth and flesh. Then he spoke a few words in his language to Einarr, who responded in a dubious tone.
In Westron, Grimbeorn said to Aragorn, "You're from the North, aren't you? A Ranger from Eriador."
"Yes, I am one of the Dúnedain Rangers," breathed Aragorn in relief. Grimbeorn must have seen Rangers before and recognized his looks or his accent.
"Your folk used to pass through here, not often but enough to be known."
"As enemies of evil, I should hope."
Grimbeorn rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "They meant us no harm, at any rate, and were certainly enemies of orcs. They would ask to be ferried across the river and have wild stories to tell. Hah. I remember a fellow of your sort – tall and dark with those bloody piercing gray eyes -- who thought if he told a wild enough story, we'd let him cross without a toll. Anyway, I think they were on friendly terms with the Elves. They could speak their language. Can you speak it? That would be proof enough of your kin, since I don't think enemy servants can speak the language of the fair folk."
"Pedin i lam edhellen,"[i] said Aragorn. Switching back to Westron, he asked wearily, "Is that proof enough of my good intentions?"
"Proof enough. You should join us for ale and food until the blizzard dies. You look as if you're going to fall over."
Under better circumstances, Aragorn would have accepted their hospitality out of courtesy. It was his habit to go along with the customs of strange peoples in strange lands. Furthermore, he liked the thought of ale warming his stomach and soothing aching joints and sore feet, of stories told around a fire, music to ears long wearied of Gollum's sibilant whining. But there was no time. He had to bring Gollum to the Elves swiftly. His heart warned him that he had not passed through the Wilderland unnoticed, and he did not wish to lead vassals of Sauron to the Carrock or give them time to track him and set upon him on the other side of the river.
"I do not wish to be an imposition, but time presses upon me," he said. "I cannot stop for anything now. I need to re-stock on food and water, and then set off for Mirkwood."
"But it's snowing," said Einarr. "You don't want to be crossing the river in this snow."
"I have no choice," Aragorn said. "Snow or not, wind or not, I must get my prisoner to Mirkwood with all due speed."
The Beornings eyed him like he was quite mad, but light, strong and resolute, shining with determination rather than madness, gleamed in his steady gray eyes and his face was as stern as that of the stone kings from over the sea, an irresolute dissuasion from arguing about his heedless disregard for weather.
"We'll give you food and water and ferry you across the river, but I can only wish you the best of luck finding the path through Mirkwood in this weather." said Grimbeorn and he rose, indicating Aragorn and Einarr should do so as well. At the mouth of the cave Gollum lay bound to a post, as still and as pale as one long dead, and Aragorn shoved him with the side of his boot to rouse him from his stupor.
* * *
The ford, a narrow dock reaching into the river with a small raft latched to it, was a mile upstream from the Carrock. The raft was made of five logs bound together by thick ropes, and a rudder hung from the stern. It bobbed up and down against the dock, swaying with the motion of the river as though struggling to free itself of its moors and drift downstream. A thin sheet of snow and ice covered raft and dock, the river brooding and bleak, the land and sky dour and gray. Few birds called.
The boatman was a hard-faced man, as broad-shouldered as an ox, his beard flecked with gray, eyes immutable as stones. In his own language he greeted Einarr, and they had a brief and skeptical conversation in which they gestured emphatically towards Aragorn and Gollum. After some sort of accord had been reached, the boatman moved to the ropes and began untying them, but his gaze remained cold and unfriendly.
As Aragorn assisted Einarr and the boatman in unmooring the ferry, he said, "There is little I can spare for the toll. Most of my supplies were lost and I was provisioned with only the bare minimum of what I needed to travel."
"Well, then show me what you do have," said Einarr.
Aragorn had little he could afford to part with – extra weapons, mostly – but he laid his assorted daggers and knives upon the snow before the Beornings. All he cared to keep was the sword, the bow, and at least one dagger. But his collection of blades impressed Einarr nevertheless. His eyes grew wide at the sight of the arsenal and he laughed, fingering one of the daggers, a fine weapon of Gondor with the White Tree engraved upon its hilt. "You certainly travel well-armed! What dangers have you walked though to get here?"
"Many," Aragorn said simply, shrugging his cloak over his shoulders to ward off the cold.
"And flaming far too! These are like no weapons I have seen. Their markings are not from the North, not from your people nor mine. Yet I admire their craftsmanship! Is it from the South? Did you come from there? Dúnedain you might be, but they travel great distance. You said you were from the North, but you didn't come over the mountains." While he examined the weapons, he ran at the tongue faster than a horse of the mearas, with nary a pause to suggest he wanted an answer to his queries.
Aragorn did not interject, merely nodding in assent whenever Einarr met his gaze questioningly, and otherwise he stood in silence, arms folded across his breast. The Beornings were a trustworthy race of Men, but even to them Aragorn feared divulging more information than absolutely necessary to guarantee safe passage through their territory. Trust was more precious than mithril in these gloomy days.
"Though you are the first Dúnadan we have seen for some time," Einarr continued. "Travelers are few. Not even the Wood-elves venture far from their territory anymore. There used to be trade between our people and Lord Thranduil's-"
The boatman said something in his language, which spurred Einarr to haste and silence, and he chose the orc scythe Aragorn had pilfered upon his escape from the orcs a month and a half ago beneath the Ephel Dúath, and the Gondorean dagger he so admired. It panged Aragorn to lose those blades, but there were few things in the world so valuable a man could not part with them, and those two weapons were hardly worth such consideration.
In a final warning, Einarr said gravely, "Be wary of the forest. We cannot foil all danger that passes through it," and then he took his leave. The last Aragorn saw of him as he stepped aboard the raft, herding a reluctant Gollum before him, was his broad back dissolving into the fog slowly creeping towards the riverbank. Strange folk, these Beornings. But they would not lead him to harm. He considered Einarr's warning, curious and concerning indeed.
Wordlessly the boatman stood at the tiller, proud and fierce, and propelled the little raft apace through water with strong strokes of a single paddle. His name Aragorn did not know and felt disinclined to ask, for the man had an air about him disinviting talk. He bore the stony look of one who ferried the dead. Water lapped against the logs as the raft bounced lightly upon ripples, and Gollum occasionally made strangulated noises. Aragorn sat near the prow of the raft, his long legs drawn to his chest, resting his chin upon his hands, and cloak pulled over his head. The high bank upon the opposite shore rose out of the gloomy mist to greet them, closing upon them until the bow nudged the dock, and the stern, unhindered by obstacles, sluggishly swung sideways with the current of the river. Aragorn leapt to his feet, grabbing a rope and throwing it around one of the wood pillars and then assisting the Beorning in pulling the raft's starboard gunwales abreast of the dock. It was no Elvish boat; it handled awkwardly and behaved with far more equanimity under two men than one. But nevertheless his forthright assistance earned him a cold glare from the boatman, who did not appreciate the help. Aragorn took the man's ill-temper in stride, and with a half-hearted bow, disembarked with Gollum onto the dock and cast the rope back to the deck.
Like a ghost ship from some frightful tale, the raft pulled back from the dock and vanished into the roiling clouds. For a moment, Aragorn gazed after it and then he turned away from the Anduin and climbed up stone stairs rising from the dock to the crest of the plunging bank. Twenty leagues hence, the leading edge of Mirkwood shaped an impregnable wall with no apparent end or gaps. On a clearer day the Ered Mithrin, the Gray Mountains, would be visible as remote peaks far to the north, but winter's thick breath left only the vast forest and the pale borders of the Wilderland within view. It was a forest that broke armies and broke hearts like waves shattering upon sharp rocks.
Uttering a profound sigh, Aragorn trod down the narrow road of cracked stone, always, always driving his miserable charge a sword's length ahead, winding hither and thither through the hillocks and gullies but never diverging from his easterly course for Mirkwood. Within days, he would rid himself of Gollum and he hoped to never set eyes upon the wretched creature for the remainder of his days. Few of his wanderings had taxed his spirit so much as this one, though he had faced perils no less dangerous than those he had survived between here and Mordor and had more trials yet before him.
[i] "I speak Sindarin." Literally, "I speak the tongue elvish." Translation by Ithilden at www.henneth-annun.net.