We rode on swiftly along the Road as night fell, reaching the West-gate under the light of white stars. The gatekeeper asked us questions, of course, and Frodo and Merry answered them while keeping our cover intact. Then we rode up to The Prancing Pony, and, leaving the ponies in the yard, entered the inn to find the innkeeper and ask for rooms. Barliman Butterbur was bustling in and out of doors when we entered, but when he saw us he took a moment to ask what we needed. As Frodo told him what we wanted, I looked around at the inn.

We were standing in an entryway, with doors at either end and one in front. Through the door before us I heard laughing and singing, and decided that must be the way to the common room. The doors at either end of the entry were open as well, but there were no sounds coming from these, so I imagined they must lead to the guest rooms. I was correct: Butterbur led us through the left door to take us to the specially built rooms that were particularly suited for hobbits. He had to go off again to attend to his other guests, but told us that Nob would be around soon, and that if he wasn't, we were to ring the hand-bell on the table.

Nob appeared a few moments later with candles and plates, and then he showed us the bedrooms, where there was water and towels waiting for us. I finished washing up first and caught Nob before he ran off, telling him that there would be a Man asking to be let into our room; he would be tall and dark, and goes by the name of Strider. I told him to let Strider in when he asked, and although Nob looked dubious about the matter, he agreed. Then he left to get the food. The others finished washing up and we sat down before the fire with mugs of beer to await dinner.

I sat there, pondering my choice to purposely change the story. I suppose it was that I didn't want the Ringwraiths to come anywhere close to us, even if we were asleep in the parlor, supposedly safe from them when they attacked in the bedrooms. Frodo would have given himself away to the wicked Southerner and Bill Ferny if he went out to the common room, so Strider needed to come to us and tell us to stay put. I supposed I could have convinced them to stay without his help, but then I would have had to do some explaining that I wasn't ready to do yet, because I hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to word it and because there could be ears listening that I didn't want listening. So I contented myself with ensuring that Strider would come to us.

A little while later, when we were about half-way done with our beers, Nob and Butterbur returned with the food. There was blackberry tart and cheese, hot soup and cold meat, and fresh bread. After we were done eating, Butterbur said, "There's a man who wants to see you. Strider is his name. He says he is a friend of Gandalf, and Nob tells me one of you said to let him in when he comes. I don't know which one of you said it, but I have to warn you. He's one of them Rangers from the North, a dark fellow. No one knows what his real name is, or where it is that he goes to when he's not here, so I tell you be careful." He turned to open the door, then smacked his forehead and said, "I almost forgot." He pulled a letter from his pocket and handed it to Frodo. "Old Gandalf walked into my room without a knock, about three months ago. He gave me a letter, addressed plain enough. I meant to send it the day after he gave it to me, but I couldn't find nobody willing to go to the Shire next day, nor the day after, and none of my own folk were to spare. I didn't mean no harm. I'll do what I can to set matters right."

"A letter for me from Gandalf!" cried Frodo, and he opened the envelope and read the letter. "Thank you," he said to Butterbur after a moment, handing the letter around for us to read.

"You're welcome. And now shall I let Strider in?"

"Yes. I believe he might be a friend." The innkeeper nodded and left, speaking to someone outside the door. Then a Man entered, and I recognized his eyes as the ones from behind the hedge along the Road. He looked at me quizzically, but I shook my head slightly and moved away to sit in a chair by the fire. Frodo spoke. "So you are the Man called Strider?"

"I am," he answered. "And I thank you for letting me enter."

"I recently received a letter that says you are a friend. But first I must ask, what is your true name? Strider must be a nickname, surely."

"Indeed it is. My true name is Aragorn son of Arathorn. And what letter is that?"

"It is from Gandalf, and it says that a Man named Aragorn who is called Strider may appear and offer his help. He tells me to accept your help."

"Well, will you take his advice and accept my help?"

There was a pause. Pippin and Merry looked uncomfortable and fidgeted in their chairs, and Frodo was still, his chin in his hand, considering Strider. Then I spoke. "I think we should take his help. He has said his true name, which matches what Gandalf has said in his letter. And I believe that if he wanted to kill us, he would have done so already, instead of engaging in idle talk. I believe he can be trusted."

"Thank you, Dawn Gamgee, for your trust," Strider said, nodding his head at me. "But you are not the one whose trust is needed most for this arrangement. Frodo, what say you?"

"I believed you were a friend after I read the letter," Frodo replied slowly. "Or at least I wished to. And anyway, you do not seem to be one of the spies of the Enemy. I think one of his spies would – well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand."

"I see," laughed Aragorn. "I look foul and feel fair. All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost."

"Those verses apply to you then? I could not make out what they were about."

"I am Aragorn, and those verses go with that name. And if by life or death I can save you, I will."

"Thank you."

"Well, that's settled. Strider shall be your guide. Now I think it is time you went to bed and took what rest you can." Merry and Pippin took a room each, and Frodo and I shared a third, which meant the fourth was empty. We locked the door to the rest of the inn, and shut and barred the windows. Strider placed a chair in front of the parlor door and sat in it, intending to do so all night. A thought nagged at the back of my brain, a question: do the Riders know we're here? Surely they don't, I thought. We avoided the common room and didn't draw attention to ourselves; we are safe for tonight. But the fear that I was wrong was still there, eating away at my brain, and made my sleep restless. I dreamed.

I was at Crickhollow. It was night. Fatty Bolger was standing at the front door, looking out into the night. Something bad was out there; I could feel it. Then I was standing over Dorabella, asleep in her bed at Crickhollow; Mentha was asleep in the bed across the room. How could I have been so stupid? I told Mentha to take Bella away from Crickhollow the night we left, thinking it was the same night that the Ringwraiths attacked it. But it wasn't; it was tonight. And here she was, my daughter, asleep, dreaming peacefully. I heard the front door shut and lock, and then Fatty ran through the house to the back door and left. Then there was a pound on the door, and a voice said, "Open, in the name of Mordor!"

Bella turned in her sleep. Then the second blow came, and the door collapsed inward. Bella stirred, waking, and I knelt over her, wishing I had a mouth to tell her to sleep. I heard heavy boots stepping in the hall, and then a fist hit the bedroom door. Bella woke with a start and looked at the door. Mentha was awake too, and came over to Bella, who was closest to the door, and took her to the corner of the room farthest from the door. I followed them and put my back to them, as if blocking them from the view of the Black Riders. One of them entered the room and advanced to the corner, having spotted Bella and Mentha. Time seemed to slow down as the wraith approached and drew its sword. I threw my arms out, praying desperately that I could stop it through a dream. It raised its sword over its head and prepared to strike.

I jerked awake. The first thing I thought was, I'm still in the dream, because there was a Ringwraith, standing over me with its sword raised. Then I heard its sniffing, and felt Frodo beside me, still asleep, and realized two things in a flash: I was no longer dreaming, and the sword was swiftly descending towards me. I needed help but I couldn't stay where I was, so I yelled, "Strider!" and rolled over quickly. Not quickly enough, however, since I felt a spear of pain in my leg and it became pinned to the spot it was at. I shook Frodo awake, screaming, then looked back as more pained lanced up my leg. There was blood – my blood – on the sword, and it was raised again for a second, more lethal attack. I grabbed Frodo, who was looking around with wide eyes, and rolled off the bed, pulling him with me. My injured leg landed first, and I cried out in pain; but then Frodo was fully awake and he grabbed me and pulled us under the bed as Strider burst through the door.

In one hand was his broken sword, and in the other was a large stick from the fire place, blazing with fire like a torch. He approached the Black Rider fire first, waving it about. The wraith backed away from the light, and then fled the way it had come, through the window. Strider put out the fire in his hand and used the stick to replace the shutter piece that had been broken. Then he came over to us and helped me out from under the bed. When he saw my leg and the blood that was flowing freely from it, he tore a piece of fabric from the hem of my gown and wrapped my leg tightly to staunch the blood, then picked me up and carried me to the parlor and set me lightly on the floor by the fire. Merry and Pippin emerged from their rooms, and Strider told them to light candles and fetch Butterbur.

Then he asked Frodo to get a jug of water from one of the rooms and bring it to him, along with a shirt that he could use to clean the wound and make bandages from. I looked at my leg and almost gagged: the hole was ragged from the Rider ripping his sword out again, and it had gone right through my calf, from back to front. It was a miracle it hadn't hit bone, but all the same it hurt like nothing else I've ever experienced. This was worse even than the back injury I had suffered my freshman year of college. Strange; that was the first thought of my old life that I'd had for years. Why did it come back to me now? Then Strider felt the wound to see if there was anything in it, such as a piece of the sword, and I cried out in pain, all thoughts of my other life gone.

Frodo knelt next to me, tearing up one of his shirts into rags and bandages. Pippin had lit all the candles and knelt by my other side, looking wide-eyed at the hole in my leg. Then Merry returned with Butterbur, who was tired-looking and in a night-cap, and as Strider tended to me he told us his plan. "It's about four in the morning," he said, dipping a cloth in the water and dabbing the wound. "We will have to leave as soon as it is light. Merry and Pippin, pack up all your things, and take care of Dawn's and Frodo's as well. Frodo, I'll need your help with Dawn, but when I'm done you'll help them pack. Butterbur, we'll pay you for whatever provisions you can give us." He paused to finish tying up my leg, then continued. "We'll need food for a few weeks, and our horses need to be saddled and the packs put on them. And we need breakfast."

Butterbur nodded, and he ran off. Then Strider lifted me and sat me in one of the chairs, saying, "You stay put. You need to stay off your leg for as long as we can manage so that it can heal fully. I did not find any metal shards in your leg, but I am no Elf. We will have to be careful with that wound. If it gets infected, you may die, and if there's a shard in it, you will become a wraith, slowly over time. For now, sit here and be still." I nodded. He left the room. Frodo, Merry, and Pippin were bustling in and out of the parlor, carrying our packs and bedrolls and piling them in the middle of the floor.

Butterbur and Nob came in with packs of supplies and a tray of food and water. Since I couldn't stand, I helped by filling the plates for the five of us, putting a bit more on Strider's plate since he was a Man. Strider returned with news. "The Riders have gone," he said as he sat down with a plate. "But Bill Ferny can be counted on to be watching us as we leave. Also, two of your ponies have fled. Some of the packs can be put on one pony, but the other will be needed for Dawn to ride on until she is well. The rest of the packs will be divided between us to carry on our backs." We ate quickly and the boys took the packs out in bunches. I dressed while they were gone, taking care with my leg. Then they returned for the packs that they would wear, and Strider lifted me from the chair to carry me to the ponies.

We left The Prancing Pony a little after seven in the morning, while most of Bree-town was still asleep. As we passed the house farthest out of town, a man stared out at us from over his fence; it was Bill Ferny. Anger welled up in me as he sneered at my wound, and I pulled an apple from the pack that I held in my lap and threw it at his face, quick and sure. It hit him square on the nose, and he ducked out of sight, cursing. I smiled a tight little smile, then turned my eyes back to the way ahead of us. We were headed along the Road, but Strider soon led us off it, into the woods. We followed paths that only he could read and understand, and if we had not had him, I knew we would soon be lost.

Days passed, my leg was healing, and we reached the Midgewater Marshes. I wanted to get off and begin walking again, but Strider made me stay on the pony. "Your wound isn't fully healed," he said when I protested. "If even a little of the water comes in contact with it, it will become infected." I shut my mouth then, and let the pony carry me. The Midgewater Marshes are the worst place. There are these little insects called midges that swarm around you and crawl in your clothes and bite you. The bites are terribly itchy, and at night we would spend most our time scratching the bites. Then there were the Neekerbreekers. They were some sort of cricket that lived in the Marshes, and all night they would go "neek breek, breek neek," which is why I gave them that name.

On the fourth night out from Bree, we were lying, trying to sleep, when there came a light in the eastern sky, flashing and fading. It wasn't dawn, for that was many hours off yet, and Frodo asked Strider what he thought they were. "I do not know," Strider answered. "It is too distant to make out. It is like lightning that leaps up from the hill-tops." Frodo was silent again, but he did not sleep yet. I rolled over on my blanket, cozying up against his side. He put his arm around me, and soon I heard his breathing slow as he fell asleep. I followed his example soon after.

Seven days out from Bree, we left the Midgewater Marshes and I was allowed to get off the pony and begin walking. We found a track and followed it southwards. It was made so as to keep anyone walking along it concealed from view, so that anyone looking down from the hills or up from the flats couldn't see someone on the path. "I wonder who made this path, and what for," said Merry as we walked along one part of the path where the large stones screening us from view were unusually large and closely set. "I am not sure that I like it: it has a – well, rather a barrow-wightish look. Is there any barrow on Weathertop?"

"No. There is no barrow on Weathertop, nor on any of these hills," answered Strider. "The Men of the West did not live here; though in their latter days they defended the hills for a while against the evil that came out of Angmar. This path was made to serve the forts along the walls." He went on to tell us that Weathertop had once been called Amon Sul and there had been a great watch-tower on the top of it. It was now broken, but once it was tall and fair. It was on that tower that Elendil stood, watching for Gil-galad out of the West.

"Who was Gil-galad?" Merry asked, but Strider didn't answer; he was lost in thought. Instead, I began reciting a bit of poetry I remembered from my nights at Bilbo's feet. It was about Gil-galad and how he had disappeared into Mordor long ago. The others turned to me in amazement, and when my voice faded, Merry said, "Don't stop!"

"That's all I know," I said with a shrug. "I learned it from Bilbo when I was young. I had always loved the Elves, and Bilbo knew that, so he wrote that part of it down for me to read again and again."

"He did not make it up," said Strider. "It is part of the lay that is called The Fall of Gil-galad, which is in an ancient tongue. Bilbo must have translated it."

"Yes," I said. "There was a lot more that I read once, but didn't memorize, because it was all about Mordor. I never thought I would one day be falling his footsteps and heading to Mordor myself."

"Going to Mordor!" cried Pippin. "I hope it won't come to that!"

"Do not speak that name so loudly!" said Strider.

We reached Weathertop in mid-afternoon. Strider left Pippin and I in a little hollow we found with the ponies, to make camp while he and the other two climbed to the top of the hill. Pippin and I explored the hollow and found a spring of water with footprints around it. I kept Pippin from marring them, telling him to go back to the hollow and I would gather the water. I kept away from the prints, stepping only where the mud was not already disturbed, and gathered water. I noticed that I still favored my left leg, trying to keep my weight off it as much as possible. The pain had died down over the days, but there was still a dull ache there that I believed I would have the rest of my life.

When I returned to camp, Pippin had built up a pile of firewood that he found already chopped behind a pile of rocks. I told him to wait until Strider got back to light the fire. Then Strider returned with Frodo and Merry, and told us they had seen black figures approaching Weathertop along the Road. I told Strider then about the footprints I'd seen, and he went to examine them. When he returned, he told us that Rangers had been here recently, and that it was they who left the firewood. But the other prints, the more recent ones, were made by heavy boots, and there were many pairs of them, as many as five. Then he stood and thought, an anxious look on his face.

My heart sank. I had almost hoped that the Riders wouldn't follow us to Weathertop, but I realized that I was giving myself false hope. I looked around at the hollow with fear now, and said, "Shouldn't we leave this place, if the Riders have already been here and know it? It's getting late, so if we are to do anything, we need to do it fast."

"Yes, we certainly must decide what to do at once," answered Strider. "Well, Dawn, I do not like this place, but I cannot think of anywhere better that we could reach before nightfall. At least we are out of sight for the moment, and if we moved we should be much more likely to be seen by spies."

"Can the Riders see?" asked Merry. "I mean, they seem usually to have used their noses rather than their eyes, smelling for us, if smelling is the right word, at least in the daylight."

"The black horses can see, and the Riders can use men and other creatures as spies, as we found at Bree. Senses, too, there are other than sight or smell. We can feel their presence – it troubled our hearts, as soon as we came here, and before we saw them; they feel ours more keenly. Also," and here his voice sank to a whisper. "The Ring draws them."

"Is there no escape then?" asked Frodo.

"There is still hope," said Strider as he laid a hand on Frodo's shoulder. "You are not alone. There is little shelter or defense here, but fire shall serve for both. These Riders do not love it, and fear those who wield it. Fire is our friend in the wilderness."

"It will also tell them exactly where we are," I thought to myself, but I helped the others build a fire with the wood that had been put aside by the Rangers. We prepared a meal, making sure to keep it frugal, despite having had nothing to eat since breakfast. Frodo wondered how the food would last to Rivendell, since already we were getting low, and Strider assured him that there was food to be had in the wilderness: berries, roots, herbs, and wild game. The dark drew in close around us as the night deepened, and I asked Strider to sing a song of Elves before war happened, since he would not tell us of Gil-galad.

Strider sang the Lay of Luthien, and as I listened to him sing it, I thought of his relationship with Arwen. I knew they were almost destined to be together, the daughter of Elf and the son of Man. The first union between Elves and Men had been Beren and Luthien, and they had Dior, who had a daughter, Elwing. Then there was Idril and Tuor, who had Earendil the Mariner. Earendil married Elwing, and they had two sons, Elrond and Elros. They two were given a choice: to be of Elf-kind or of Man-kind. Elrond chose the Elves, and Elros chose Men. Through Elrond came Arwen, and Aragorn was descended from Elros. Thus did the two lines of the Half-elven become reunited and restored.

I studied his face as he told the others more of the story of Beren and Luthien, and of the line of the Half-elven. His eyes shone, and his voice was rich and deep. For a moment I could imagine him in royal garb: rich garments of silk and fur, with clean hair and a full beard, and a crown upon his head. I thought it would be a great thing to see him thus, when the journey was done and he was on the throne of Gondor, where he belonged. Then the moon rose, and I was drawn back to reality as Frodo stretched and Merry said it must be getting late. I stood and walked to the edge of the dell, looking for I knew not what.

Then I felt fear take hold of my heart, and I saw three black shapes coming up towards the dell, and I ran back to the fire, telling Strider of what I had seen. "Keep close to the fire, with your faces outward!" cried Strider. "Get some of the longer sticks ready in your hands!" We stood there nervously, waiting for any sign of the Riders. Frodo stirred, anxious to break the oppressive silence; then Strider whispered, "Hush!" as Pippin gasped, "What's that?"

Over the edge of the dell, three or four tall shadows stood, outlined against the velvet night. They were so black as to appear to be voids against the lightness of the star-lined sky. There came a venomous hiss, and then pain seized my leg, and I sank to the ground behind Frodo. I realized the pain was coming from the wound I'd received at the inn, which was strange because it had been fully healed for a few days and hadn't bothered me all day. But the pain was back now, as strong as it had been when I had lain bleeding on the bed. I groaned, barely noticing that Frodo was pulling the Ring out of his pocket and putting it on his finger. By the time I snapped out of the daze my pain had put me in, he had disappeared.

I cursed and stood, ignoring the pain in my leg as best I could. I threw my arms out, hoping to find Frodo by touch since sight was no use, but it wasn't until I heard his voice that I knew where he was. He cried out, "O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!" There was a shriek from the Ringwraiths, and then they fled. I staggered over to where I guessed Frodo to be from his voice, and as I fell to my knees by him, I vaguely recognized Strider leaping into the light of the fire, chasing the remaining wraiths away with a torch in each hand. I put my hands out, and found a firm shoulder under my left hand. I followed it down to a hand, and then to the Ring. I slipped it off Frodo's finger, and he materialized before me, his eyes staring into mine with a dazed look.

He fell forward to the ground, and I put the Ring back in his pocket before collapsing myself. I felt weary, as though it had taken a great effort for me to do the little I had done. I guessed it was an effect of the wound. I looked over at Frodo and noticed the stab wound in his shoulder. I wished I could have stopped the blade somehow. Then I blacked out.