My apologies for the repost of chapter five; it wasn't until Ziggy pointed out it appeared I had posted a draft that I realized I'd picked up the wrong one when I posted it the first time. And many thanks to those who've taken time to leave feedback on the story; it's much appreciated.
Aragorn retreated immediately to his place in the bow, out of the way, yet available for quick action if needed. He could not help but notice the captain's gaze turned as often to him as it did to the bank of black clouds, rent by sharp streaks of lightning, building on the horizon. Nor that they had yet to weigh anchor.
With a relatively large land mass on one side and a wicked storm brewing on the other, it seemed logical that they would run before the tempest rather than wait it out. The wind was already picking up, the waves that had seemed only nominally higher on shore rocking the ship significantly.
Aragorn turned as he heard the spyglass snap shut. He watched the captain speak a few quiet words to the first mate, then Hawan, as he gestured to the dripping cutter that had just been hauled up over the side.
Trepidation rose with each boot fall as the captain strode toward him. "No." Aragorn curled his fingers around the wood as if he could gainsay the decision by physicality alone.
Borlath crossed his arms over his chest. "Get your things together. Harwan is collecting provisions for the two you. He will take you back to the island where you will wait out this storm."
"I go where the ship goes."
"That is neither your choice, nor your decision to make. I will not risk your life when I know you will be perfectly safe on shore. We must sail into deeper waters away from land. If we founder, someone will come looking for you."
"No," Aragorn repeated harshly, though he knew from the set of the jaw any argument he put forth would be cut to ribbons. "I don't—"
"Half your passage was to crew for this ship," the captain's voice drilled through the beginning of Aragorn's incensed retort. "My sailors do as they are told, without question. Collect your things and get to the boat now." Borlath turned abruptly, shouting orders to set sails and be ready to weigh anchor at a moment's notice. "Every second we await your departure adds jeopardy to all our lives," he said over his shoulder. "I will not leave until I see you on the beach."
Of course he moved, and quickly. Aragorn had little doubt the captain's orders would be carried out with swift efficiency if he refused to leave the railing; one way or another he would find himself in the cutter. But neither was he so far gone in his rebellion as to be willing to risk other lives for the sake of his own stubborn willfulness.
It was the work of mere minutes to collect the broken sword and bedroll from his cabin. The boat was back in the water, boxes and barrels and crates being hurriedly lashed to and between the empty seats.
Borlath reappeared carrying a wooden casket, and under his arm, a sealed map container. "Should I fail to return, this must reach Gandalf the Grey." He handed over the chest; one Aragorn had noticed the evening before. It was small, not much larger than a trinket box, but intricately carved with diminutive fanciful beasts delicately painted: a pale horse bearing a silver spiraling horn in the middle of its forehead; some ancient scion of Thorondor, but with wings and head mounted on the body of a lion; a coiled sea creature, its amaranthine scales so life-like it appeared to writhe as the ship captain thrust the box into his hands.
"Elrond will know how to contact the wizard if need be. This belongs to you as well." Borlath thrust the map container at the younger man. "It is my expectation we will return within a day or two at the most; however, if we do not, I leave Harwan in your care. Land is not his proper element; he knows nothing but the sea. However, he likes you and will be a staunch ally and a good companion should it come to that."
"Borlath—"
"Every moment you delay is another moment we cannot weight anchor. Go!"
Aragorn went, shinnying down the rigging thrown over the side, to drop into the boat beside his new companion. Before he was settled, Harwan was pushing off the ship, reaching across him to lock down the oars.
The boat was too large to be easily handled by just two, but an amalgamation of wind and waves aided their passage so they were soon within landing distance of the beach they had left no more than two hours ago.
Aragorn, glancing over his shoulder, caught just a glimpse of sails billowing from the top mast, the rest of the ship blocked by a towering wave cresting behind them.
"Row!" he shouted, heaving on his oar with a desperation born of panic. Harwan, his head instinctively following the younger man's, threw his entire weight against his oar as Aragorn did the same.
The wave, furling in on itself, caught them just under the bow, and hurled the boat out of the water like a missile from a catapult. Time stretched linearly, every moment unfolding like the petals of a moon flower, visible in increments, measured in heartbeats.
Aragorn's elven-tutored mind stretched to assimilate each one. Knuckles white, fingers locked on the oar, booted toes straining against the underside of the seat in front of him, they flew like the sea birds he had watched over the moiling mountains of waves. At the speed and velocity they were traveling, the boat would beach all right - in a pile of splinters - but there was naught he could do. And then, as if caught in an invisible net, the flying craft hovered for a split second, just long enough to lose momentum, and dropped like a cumbrous boulder onto the rocky shoals.
Wood screeched as it splintered, the keel splitting down the middle like a sectioned orange. Harwan's paddle flew up with flailing hands, sending Aragorn sprawling over the side as the flat of the blade caught the side of his head.
He was scrambling to push off the slick rocks suddenly under his booted feet before his mind registered the explosion of nauseating pain sucking the air out of his lungs. He shot to the surface, coughing up sea water and grabbed for the splintered side of the boat as the sea behind drew back with the same power it had propelled them forward, the puissant undertow momentarily shifting the broken bits as though to drag what was left of the vessel back to its proper element. Only the weight of the hastily lashed down cargo kept the piece Aragorn clung to in place.
If he could just get some purchase long enough to lunge with the next incoming wave, it would likely deposit him on the sandy shore with little or no effort on his part, but that meant letting go, and he could not force his fingers to obey his commands. He could as easily be swept back out to sea as thrown up on the beach.
It occurred to him, rather belatedly, the last thing he had heard from his companion had been Harwan's shout of consternation as the wave had launched them airborne, flailing in free fall. Salt water stung his eyes as he forced them open, gingerly reaching his free hand to the right side of his face where the paddle had caught him. His fingers, when he drew them away, were for an instant covered in blood, but only for an instant before the next wave broke over his head.
Instinct unlocked the frozen fingers of his right hand as a shudder wracked the broken boat frame. He shoved off the moment the water receded enough that his boot toes touched the rocks, arcing to dive into and under the receding wave, struggling against the riptide current sucking the sand out from between the deeply embedded rocks. He had learned to swim in the freezing waters of the Bruinen and knew what it was to swim against a current, though not with clothes and boots weighing down his buoyancy; but it had been nothing like this. He could make no headway against the relentless draw of the tide.
He was not an elf and had not the capacity to hold his breath forever as it seemed his brothers were capable. But he dove for the bottom, wedged his fingers between a pair of rocks and held on until the ebb turned again, this time tossing him far enough forward that he could scrabble to his knees, then to his feet, and stagger to the shore. Where he dropped, winded, to hands and knees and crawled the last few feet onto dry sand, flopping face down, waiting for his heart to catch up with his body.
The water had not been particularly cold, and the bright, penetrating sun shone warmly on the tranquil beach. Behind him, the waves still slapped the shore and he could hear the shattered pieces of the boat and cargo groaning with each inhalation and exhalation of the sea.
Aragorn sat up abruptly, then pushed himself to his feet, swaying a moment before he began to weave down the beach in an alarmingly erratic manner, but at least his feet obeyed his brain's signal to move. He waded back into the swirling foam, grabbing the splintered prow of the boat that had, fortuitously, shifted higher on the rocks, and heaved with all his might.
The groaning issued from neither boat nor cargo, but the prone man draped like a curtain over the wooden seat.
Fear lent him strength, as did an incoming wave, and Aragorn stumbled backwards dragging half the boat, its unconscious passenger, and the remaining crates and barrels that had not already tumbled back into the ocean, further up the shore. He could not manage to get it clear to the beach, but far enough that it was beyond the immediate pull of the sucking tide.
Staggering around to the interior, he grabbed Harwan under the arms and hauled him further up the beach, well above the damp sand, quickly checked that he was breathing, clinically noted the broken arm and swelling over the left eye and careened back down to the boat.
Yanking his knife from his boot, he sawed through the soaked lashings and started rolling crates and barrels up the beach as well. They were large enough he could not lift them by himself, even at normal strength, and his head still buzzed as though a colony of angry bees had taken up residence. But he could tip them end over end, or roll them in the case of the barrels. He explored the cut still trickling blood into his right eye with his fingers on one of the trips back down to the boat, found it ripped skin rather than cut and worried about it no further.
The deep draft of the sundered cutter had anchored the left side of the boat, the side from which Aragorn had been summarily expelled, in deeper water, and though tentatively grounded, it was too far out to attempt to collect its remaining cargo. His pack, the map, and the little box had all been at his feet on his side of the boat. Even if they were still inside the damaged keel, he dared not try to retrieve them and turned with regret to toil back up the beach with the last barrel, upending it so its bulk cast a little shade on Harwan's face as he knelt beside the man. The broken sword, at least, was secure in its scabbard, strapped to his back.
The man's left forearm had snapped cleanly halfway between wrist and elbow. It was the work of a moment to realign the bones and call up enough healing force to fuse the break, but he had neither the energy, nor the skill, to complete the healing. He had seen Elrond knit broken bones, but even folk the master healed required splints and slings for several days.
Using the barrel, Aragorn levered himself to his feet and went to inspect the two crates he had managed to salvage. Choosing one at random, he wedged his knife into the slit around the upper edge and pried off the top. He glanced briefly at the contents – incongruously, it appeared to be dried, salted fish – and with rather more strength than he thought he possessed at the moment, slammed the lid against the side.
Once, twice; a third time without noticeable effect. The fourth time the wet wood splintered as the boat had and he ripped a couple of slats free to use as splints, returning to bind them to the broken arm with a length of fabric slashed from the hem of his shirt.
Harwan was staring at him when he glanced up, though no sound had escaped the man's tightly compressed lips.
"How many fingers?" Aragorn held up three.
The sailor closed his eyes.
"Harwan?" Urgency colored both cadence and tone as Aragorn gripped the man's shoulder. "Look at me," he commanded, searching frantically through the limited vocabulary he'd picked up from the men over the last week.
Thankfully, for he could conjure no words of translation, the coarse black lashes lifted in response to the demand in his voice. The pupils constricted immediately and in tandem and Aragorn breathed a sigh of relief.
"Can you sit up?" He mimed the motion of rising, pointing with his chin over his shoulder at the dark cloud banks harried by a menacing wind racing toward them. "The storm is coming fast. We need to get to shelter."
Harwan pulled up his knees, dug his elbows into the sand, and with Aragorn's help, levered himself upright. He paused only a moment before lurching to his feet, and swung about motioning for the younger man to precede him across the wide, smooth expanse of sand.
Aragorn shook his head, a mistake he thought immediately, but grabbed Harwan's arm and together, staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they trudged toward the tree line, the sky darkening broodingly behind them.
TBC