Author note: Dear readers, I am returning to work after my three weeks-summer holiday after this weekend, so please be ready that updates will be a little slower after this chapter, thank you. / Rogercat

~X~X~X~X~X~X

With Gimli having gotten the fire started again and boiling some water in a tea kettle which Merry had been carrying in his pack, Aragorn could start treating Boromir better.

"You had good layers of protection, the wounds are not as deep as I feared. Expect some new scars once those have healed fully, though."

But Boromir, who had a better guess as to why the wounds were not worse, knew that he would need to thank Rhaenys and Aegon for using the brooch to indirectly save his life. He had a life-debt to the two oldest children of Elia now, and he intended to honor that no matter what.

"Without them...I would likely have fallen for the whispers of the Ring, and possibly try to take it from Frodo by force. And...undoubtedly been killed today."

He knew the damage so many arrows could cause in a body, having seen it in his soldiers back home in Gondor in battles against the orcs of Mordor. Get hit in a vital point like the lungs so you could not breathe or a big blood vessel so you would lose a huge amount of blood, and you would find yourself dead pretty quickly even in the hands of skilled healers.

Once Boromir's wounds had been washed with some warm water, cleaned out with ahelas herbs and sewn together, they had to make a choice about what to do next. But when Aragorn was looking around for clues about what may have happened to Frodo and Sam, of which one was some prints of hobbit feet that had waded out in the water and back, two things stood out:

One of the three boats from Lorien was visible on the other shore, two packs were missing, one certainly Sam's as it was rather large and heavy with cooking equipment because Sam was the best cook among the four hobbits.

"This then is the answer: Frodo has gone by boat, and his servant has gone with him. Frodo must have returned while we were all away. I met Sam going up the hill and told him to follow me; but plainly he did not do so. He guessed his master's mind and came back here before Frodo had gone. He did not find it easy to leave Sam behind!"

"But why should he leave us others behind, and without a word?" said Gimli, as he checked on the pulse of Boromir to ensure that he did not suffer more blood loss that they could have missed, "That was a strange deed!"

"And a brave deed," Aragorn responded, "Sam was right, I think. Frodo did not wish to lead any friend to death with him in Mordor. But he knew that he must go himself. Something happened after he left us that overcame his fear and doubt."

"We have all seen why; those hunting Orcs came on him and he fled as Boromir gave him enough time to do so," Legolas reminded them, now returning after finding no more enemies around, carrying with him two smaller knives, leaf-bladed, damasked in gold and red; as well the sheaths, black, set with small red gems.

"No orc-tools, those two fine handcrafts!' the Elf said, "They were carried by the hobbits. Doubtless the Orcs despoiled them, but feared to keep the knives, knowing them for what they are: work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor. Well, now, if they still live, our friends are weaponless. We will take these things for now, hoping to give them back."

This confirmed that for whatever reason, the hobbits had been the real targets, and why two Men, Elf and Dwarf, had needed to fight. Those huge orcs had been ordered to kill them, because they were far more dangerous thanks to them being used to dealing with the beings of evil.

"Those orcs are not the normal kind sent out from Mordor," Boromir spoke, recalling something he had noticed during the battle, "those are almost as tall as men, and their gear was different too. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal."

Now that was a riddle indeed, as Aragorn and Boromir both tried to recall what they had learned about orcs during their lives and many battles.

"S is for Sauron," said Gimli, "That is easy to read."

"Nay!" Legolas protested, for even if his home, Mirkwood, was somewhat isolated, his father Thranduil had taught him about the Fallen Maia, as the Dark Lord was called among those who had survived the First Age when Sauron had served Morgoth, the first Dark Lord of Middle-earth, "Sauron does not use the Elf-runes."

"Neither does he use his right name, nor permit it to be spelt or spoken," Aragorn added in, "And he does not use white. The Orcs in the service of Barad-dur use the sign of the Red Eye."

After a moment, it clicked for Boromir what the S in white may stand for:

"The S is for Saruman! Isengard is near the Gap of Rohan, he would be able to send out spies and scouts without the Rohirrim noticing it! And as Gandalf told us at the Council, Saruman has turned traitor against the West…!"

Boromir felt a growing horror over what might happen in Rohan right now. Had Saruman somehow found out the truth of where Elia had come, and the portals between Rohan and Dorne? What if he targeted the royal family next, and tried to bring mistrust between the Rohirrim and the Dornish? But for the three others, that changed things a little.

"Our choice then," said Gimli with a hand on Boromir's shoulder to make him listen to their talk, "is either to take the remaining boat and follow Frodo, or else to follow the Orcs on foot. There is little hope either way. We have already lost precious hours because of needing to fight the orcs and treating the wounds of our comrade here."

"Let me think!" Aragorn requested, as he now was the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring since Gandalf had fallen in Moria, "And now may I make a right choice and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!"

He stood silent for a moment, looking between the other shore and the trees.

"I will follow the Orcs,'" he said at last, "I would have guided Frodo to Mordor and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the captives to torment and death. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of the Bearer is in my hands no longer. The Company has played its part. Yet we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now. Leave all that can be spared behind! We will press on by day and dark!"

They drew up the last boat from the shore and carried it to the trees. They laid beneath it such of their goods as they did not need and could not carry away, before leaving Parth Galen. The afternoon was fading as they came back to the glade where Boromir had been injured. There they picked up the trail of the Orcs, as it needed little skill to find, and began to follow it.

Four days passed as they followed the orcs. As much as Boromir tried to keep up with the others, he sometimes ended up slightly behind and needed to rest because while his wounds had been tended to, he had lost some blood and risked fainting if he overstrained himself.

"My friend, there is no shame in needing to rest more often than us. I would find it a lot more alarming if you tried to keep going on, and risk reopening your wounds," Aragorn said at the end end of the second day, where Boromir was so exhausted after running most of the day that he almost fell asleep after the simple meal of sharing a lembas bread between them.

"I know. I am trying to figure out how to present you three for the King of Rohan and his Queen. Knowing how things are, I bet that even the rest of the family must be gathered in Edoras."

For some reason, Aragorn suddenly looked like he did recall something.

"Even the Queen Mother?"

Boromir was getting annoyed. For someone who had spent his whole life as the current royal descendant left, he really should have gotten some knowledge of Gondor's neighboring country because Rohan and Gondor had been allies for so long.

"Last time I checked, Lady Morwen is the only Queen Mother currently in the House of Eorl, as her daughter-in-law Elfhild passed away in childbirth a little over 41 years ago!"

Legolas and Gimli, who did not know much about the current rulers of Gondor and Rohan, choose wisely to be quiet while finishing the meal and let the two Men reveal things for them.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

But during those four days as half the members of the Fellowship was trying to chase the Uruk-hai bringing the captured Merry and Pippin towards Isengard, many things happened in Rohan:

News about the attack on Théodred was spread thanks to messengers from Edoras, and they also carried a command from Elia, acting in her injured husband's stead.

Evacuate as many villages as possible, to avoid the loss of innocent lives. Summon the adult men to fight, and have the youngsters between fifteen and eighteen, as well those men too old to fight, take the duty of protecting the people of Rohan alongside the shieldmaidens.

Because of her pregnancy, Lothíriel was not able to travel to Edoras when she got the news about what had happened to the King, but she was very set on that her husband would travel to the capital and see if there was something he could help with.

"Leave the evacuation of Aldburg to me! You and the men are needed to guard Rohan, let the youngsters feel like they are doing something useful by protecting the people!" she insisted, reminding him of how the Third Marshal and his Éored would defend Rohan against enemies. Aldburg was strong in defense, but the married couple had agreed that it was better to move its people to Dunharrow, to avoid that there risked to be many deaths among the civilians if the capital town of the Eastfold was attacked.

"I am torn between leaving and worrying about you," Éomer admitted, making a side glare towards her belly where their first child still rested inside.

"The midwives said that the birth would most likely happen on one of the first seven days in March! It is more than enough time to arrive at Dunharrow and I will not abandon my people just for the comforts of Meduseld!"

Still, Éomer did not feel fully comfortable with the idea of his young wife giving birth in a refugee camp than under the strong roof and walls of a proper longhouse.

"Can you at least accept going through the portal to Sunspear and ask the midwives serving House Martell for help, if things start looking less than good while giving birth? You are important for so many, and I would never forgive myself if you lost your life in childbirth…"

Knowing the tale of how the late Crown Princess Elfhild had lost her life at the birth of her son, merely two years before her husband became the seventeenth King of Rohan, Lothíriel could not blame the House of Eorl for having that fear showing up in their minds whatever one of their female family members was to have a baby. Childbirth was risky, for both mother and child, and none could foretell the outcome. Even a perfectly healthy woman in the best years of her life could lose her life without warning to some complication suddenly showing itself, despite that she may have survived several previous childbirths with no problems earlier.

"I see no reason to refuse that, husband. Besides, wasn't Princess Arianne blessed with a son of her own not too long ago?"

She was about to turn back to their home and personally pack the swaddling cloth and other things needed for their baby after birth, when something seemed to come up in her mind:

"Oh, and I need to borrow your spare set of riding boots again for the journey to Dunharrow! Do not dare to laugh, you have seen how swollen my ankles are in the evenings, those last weeks!"

Thanks to her nearly finished pregnancy Lothíriel had often found herself with swollen ankles and, with it being impossible to use her own footwear for the time being because of that little detail, she openly wore a spare set of Éomer for the comfort of the bigger size.

"Never, my sweet full-figured swan."

It was worth having to duck his head aside for one of the knitted mittens made of finer lamb wool she tossed at him, as that was exactly the same manner of mild punishment which Morwen had done with all five of her children and three surviving grandchildren.

Aldburg was not the only place that had gotten the command about evacuation from Elia. Right now, Lysa was checking over everything which her Rohirric household was able to bring along.

"Bring the loom along or not...it is heavy, but it will be a pain to commission a new one if the house is set on fire by the enemies…"

On the other hand, given that fabric always needed to be weaved after spinning linen and wool into thread, Lysa felt that the loom was too important to leave behind.

"Mother! We have gathered all the livestock and bound them with rope so none escapes from the herds!" Celia reported from the yard, where she and Amanda had just helped a maid to place some sleeping rolls in a corner of a wagon.

"Good. Also, girls, can you repeat the reason why we need to leave again despite just coming back home a few days ago?" Rhoyne asked, again acting as their governess when Lysa was busy with her role as the lady of the house.

"There is a war going on, and Feder is out with the King to help defend the borders of Rohan. Queen Elia wants her people safe, so that is why we are going to Dunharrow."

After her sister, Amanda added in:

"Dunharrow is safer than the farm for the moment, as a greater number of people are able to fight off enemies together."

Thanks to the fact that they were now believed to be dead in the same explosion that made the Eyrie into dust, Lysa had rejected the Arryn name for her and her children. So now, Celia and Amanda was free to view themselves as fully Rohirric as well, since Tirward and his family had adopted them in all but name already from the moment that Jon Arryn died and it would not be seen as kind towards Lysa that only her son got a paternal family to care for him. In Rohan, daughters were important as well, in a very different way than what they would often face in Westeros.

"Mama!" Eorl called from his seat in the wagon where he had gotten his favorite toy to keep his focus on, "can we leave now?"

Her son was too young to truly understand the meaning of war, only that it was something bad and that was why his papa was not home with them right now, but Eorl could see that his mother wanted to get the group start moving soon.

"Yes. Father-in-law, are everything else ready?"

Behind Lysa, Tirward's stepmother locked the door with a hidden snare through a small hole to pull down a small oak beam across the front door inside. This way, the door could not be opened while they were gone.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

The following morning when Elia got some help from the servants to get her husband clean over most of his body with wet rags, it was impossible to miss that Théodred had gotten a fever from the wound.

"Not good. My brother has found no signs of poison in the wound, at least none that he recognizes immediately, but it seems like an infection has still gotten its claws in my husband…"

The healers here in Edoras would do everything they could to ensure that Théodred indeed survived, but now Elia began to fear that maybe she had arrived too late. Even with saving him so quickly, the wound had been left open and there was no way of telling whatever the orc, serving Saruman, had dropped its sword into something nasty to make its opponents suffer. And it did not even need to be poison, sometimes dripping a weapon in contaminated water or the content of a privy was enough.

"Elia...the children?" he whispered once he was clean again, dressed in a fresh tunic and laid back in bed. For her it felt so unreal, to see her normally strong and tall husband laying helpless like this.

"Do you want to see them?"

"Want to tell them myself….that I am not going to give up my life so easily. I want to remain alive...for all of you."

His hand was trembling, a sign of how weak he was now, as he tried to raise it in order to touch her cheek, and Elia caught it as a sign of trusting him.

While his daughter-in-law took care of his son, Théoden listened to his former advisers about the latest news.

"Alburg is preparing to evaluate and bring its people to Dunharrow under the leadership of Lady Lothíriel, while your Sweostor-sunu and his men are guarding the borders of the Eastfold, sire. There is no news about their child being born yet."

Good, that meant Éomer was still alive so far, and he should have gotten the warning about that Saruman may be after his life as well, given his blood connections to the House of Eorl.

"What about Dorne?"

"Princess Arianne is gathering soldiers to join our forces through the portal. Her Prince Consort Daemon Martell is taking care of that, though he has been requested by his own in-laws to not join the fighting himself, for the sake of not leaving his wife a widow and his infant son fatherless."

That was understandable. Little Ramses Martell may be the heir to Arianne as her first child, but House Martell could not afford to lose the direct heirs after her, in this case her son, and his three maternal uncles Quentyn, Trystane and Mahaad. Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon followed next as Elia was the middle one of the three surviving children of Aria and Ihsan, as Aégnor and Andréth were the current heirs to Rohan.

"Oh? Naneth, what is wrong? Has Gondor been attacked again?" the former King asked at seeing Morwen come towards the table, her face unreadable and holding a letter bearing the seal of the Stewards in her hands.

"My son...Steward Denethor II of Gondor is dead. His younger son Faramir writes that his father slipped on an upper step in a long staircase without managing to prevent the fall and injured his head on the way down. He got a fatal hit to his head against one of the stones, and with the way he landed at the bottom of the staircase, he would not have survived another such hard strike against his head…"

Not the most honorable death as Denethor may have desired, but not the most shameful way of dying either. Accidents could be fatal and sometimes it was inner damage to the body or an infection related to the accident that killed a person, and Denethor had not exactly been a young man in the best years of his life. Morwen herself was eight years older than the now deceased Steward.

"Lord Boromir has not returned yet from his northern journey, so Faramir is the acting Steward in his stead for now."

This changed some things between Rohan and Gondor, but on a whole, both the Kingdoms needed to focus on Mordor and the attacks.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

The dawn of 30 February:

"Ow, ow, no Legolas, do not worry, it is just one of the wounds protesting that I tried to sleep on my stomach instead of my back…" Boromir said as the Elf came over to him.

"Aragorn, Gimli, please get up, it is nearly dawn."

Together the four comrades watched the dawn grow slowly in the sky, now bare and cloudless, until at last the sunrise came, pale and clear. The wind was in the East and all the mists of the night had rolled away; wide lands lay bleak about them in the bitter light.

Ahead and eastward they saw the windy uplands of the Wold of Rohan that they had already glimpsed many days ago from the Great River. North-westward stalked the dark forest of Fangorn; still ten leagues away stood its shadowy eaves, and its further slopes faded into the distant blue. Beyond there glimmered far away, as if floating on a grey cloud, the white head of tall Methedras, the last peak of the Misty Mountains. Out of the forest the Entwash flowed to meet them, its stream now swift and narrow, and its banks deep-cloven. The orc-trail turned from the downs towards it.

"Oh great, they better not have entered that forest to escape us! Even we in Gondor know better than entering too deep from the corners," Boromir muttered, grabbing the brooch just to not feel too worried about Merry and Pippin at this moment.

"Hm?"

Following with his keen eyes the trail to the river, and then the river back towards the forest, Aragorn saw a shadow on the distant green, a dark swift-moving blur. He cast himself upon the ground and listened again intently. But Legolas stood beside him, shading his bright elven-eyes with his long slender hand, and he saw not a shadow, nor a blur, but the small figures of horsemen, many horsemen, and the glint of morning on the tips of their spears was like the twinkle of minute stars beyond the edge of mortal sight. Far behind them a dark smoke rose in thin curling threads.

There was a silence in the empty fields, and Gimli could hear the air moving in the grass, but he could see on Boromir that he seemed to hope for something.

"Riders!" cried Aragorn, springing to his feet, confirming what Boromir just had prayed for, "Many riders on swift steeds are coming towards us!'"

'Yes, there are one hundred and five. Yellow is their hair, and bright are their spears. Their leader is very tall," said Legolas, and Boromir knew that it had to be Éomer, as Morwen Steelsheen had passed on her height, a sign of her Gondorian blood, to her descendants.

Aragorn smiled.

"Keen are the eyes of the Elves," he said, to which Legolas responded:

"Nay! The riders are little more than five leagues distant."

"Five leagues or one," Gimli said as Boromir took a chance to quickly sit down on a stone to avoid feeling lightheaded again since they had not eaten anything since yesterday evening, "we cannot escape them in this bare land. Shall we wait for them here or go on our way?"

"We will wait," Aragorn decided as the leader of the small group, "I am weary, and our hunt has failed, not to mention that Boromir needs rest. Or at least others were before us; for these horsemen are riding back down the orc-trail. We may get news from them."

"Or spears," Gimli muttered with his hands holding his axe ready, hoping that it was people that Boromir or Aragorn may know.

"There are three empty saddles, but I see no hobbits," Legolas commented when the rider came slightly closer.

"I did not say that we should hear good news. But evil or good we will await it here."

Aragorn had served the long dead King Thengel and Steward Ecthelion II under the alias Thorongil, to learn about Gondor and Rohan, but that was about forty years ago and now when he tried to say some greeting words in Rohirric, Boromir actually laughed despite the pain from his wounds.

"Aragorn, your Rohirric is rusty as a weather-worn outdoor hasp," Boromir said with a grin when Aragorn's current accent revealed that he had not been anywhere near Rohan and its people recently, "Even if you have been in those lands before, you have not spoken that language in many seasons, Thorongil, I hear that. Let me do the talking with the Riders of Rohan for now and train anew!"

Now did Boromir finally remember whyAragorn had seemed oddly familiar when meeting him in Imladris, as if the oldest son of Denethor II had seen the unknown royal heir somewhere back home in Minas Tirith when he was really small. Now he knew, because Aragorn would often be acting as a unofficial adviser to his grandfather and his strongest memory was of the two men talking together in the gardens as he played with a favorite toy between them, something about how Ecthelion hoped that his grandson would be friends with Prince Théodred since the two heirs was born the same year and Thorongil joking about little Boromir better not be scared away by Morwen, who had became Queen Mother at the death of her husband not many weeks earlier.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

Author note: Athelas, also known as Kingsfoil in Westron, was a sweet-smelling herb with healing powers, such as curing wounds, poison and counteracting evil influence such as the Black Breath.

During pregnancy, the extra fluid in the body and the pressure from the growing uterus can cause swelling in the ankles and feet. The swelling tends to get worse as a woman's due date nears, particularly near the end of the day and during hotter weather. So poor Lothíriel has a very good excuse to borrow the larger riding boots of her husband!

The Gregorian calendar does not contain a 30th of February, but Tolkien does have it as part of his calendar for Middle-earth

Thorongil was an alias taken by Aragorn in his youth (T.A. 2957-2980), when he journeyed to Rohan and Gondor when Morwen's husband Thengel had become the new King and Boromir's paternal grandfather Ecthelion II ruled Gondor and performed services to those two.