A/N: Alright, now some people have told me that the Crebain were gifted to Saruman by Radagast the Brown, not Sauron. However, after some research, I found that this is speculation – Tolkien didn't go into much detail about how the Crebain came to be. So, I'm still following canon as much as possible.
Shuffling closer to the campfire's warmth, Rercyn groaned softly as he contemplated the message he wanted to send to his fellow Rangers. On the one hand, he balked at the thought of putting too much information into a message which might be easily intercepted by the Dark. It was clear, from the number of Orcs they'd been forced to battle against over the past fortnight, that the Dark was intentionally pursuing their little group, and that it'd most likely to do with Raza. Rercyn was loathe to provide them with any more valuable knowledge than they'd already possessed.
On the other hand, people needed to know of Raza. In the unhappy possibility that the Orcs prevailed in killing the Rangers and carrying off Raza, the Steward would have to, at the very least, know the physical description of the king they would need to rescue. The one message that Rercyn had dared to send at the start of their trip, saying only "Urgent! Guard important man!" was hardly enough to explain the current mess they were in.
After scraping and rewriting the message for the seventh time, Rercyn gave it up as a lost cause. A cause to be soon foisted upon Eorel. Trying – and failing – to stifle an exhausted yawn, he watched as Eorel restlessly prowled around the boundaries of their camp, looking positively dead on his feet. Rercyn couldn't blame him; the past few days of relentlessly unending Orc fights had taken a toll upon all of them. Truly, it was a Vala-blessed miracle that they'd escaped uninjured from every skirmish so far. It seemed like their luck had given out though – barely a few day's travel away from Minas Tirith, Raza had finally succumbed to the stress and fallen ill.
Glancing over at Raza, he frowned to see the thin man lying in the exact same position as he'd been some time ago. How odd. Raza never stayed still while asleep – Rercyn had often watched him as he thrashed about and muttered incomprehensibly, caught in the grips of night terrors which he'd never divulge to the Rangers. Perhaps the illness was affecting him more than Rercyn had thought? Rercyn certainly hoped that wasn't the case – they were only three to four days travel away from the nearest guard posts. The sooner they were within sight of fellow Rangers, the safer they'd be from the thrice-accursed Orcs which persisted in harassing them so much.
Though, that was another odd matter. In the past two days, the number of Orc attacks had fell dramatically, to the point where they hadn't faced a single Orc in the past two days. Rercyn knew better than to drop his guard, though – logically, the Orc attacks should have increased in intensity, as the nearer the trio came to human territories and allies, the smaller the chances the Orcs had of capturing Raza. The Orcs couldn't possibly be so stupid as to attack them near the city zone...right?
Rercyn ignored the nagging doubts which whispered that he might be wrong.
Scanning the trees around him, he frowned as his eyes failed to penetrate the darkness. Tonight, of all nights, just has to be a moonless night, doesn't it? He thought in exasperation, and called out softly, "Eorel, stop your pacing. You'll wear yourself out unnecessarily."
"What? Don't be ridiculous," Eorel grunted, careful to keep his voice low too. He'd learnt his lesson earlier on, when he'd called out for Raza to get his dinner and got a faceful of angry Crebain for an answer. It seemed like Raza's illness had brought out the Crebain's mothering side – they wouldn't allow anything to wake him at all. "I'm the one on guard duty. You're the one wearing yourself out by fretting over Raza like a mother hen. Honestly, of all times to get ill, why did he have to do it now?"
"Oh come now, he's not doing it on purpose."
"We don't know that."
"You're being ridiculous, Eorel. Please, just sit down for a bit? You need your strength if any Orcs choose to attack us tonight."
"And if they do, it'll be because of this man and his supposed 'illness'! I said it once and I'll say it again, Rercyn – that man. Is not to be trusted!"
Abruptly, Rercyn's patience snapped. It was too much – the Orcs, the exhaustion, the deep-seated, unspoken terror that he'd be the one who failed to protect their king – Eorel's paranoia was just the last straw. Pounding a fist against the ground and disregarding the Crebain's warning cries, he hissed back furiously, "Stop it, Eorel! I told you, it's not for us to decide! Once Steward Denethor sees him and determines if he's the king, then..."
Eorel, never one to keep his temper well, snarled back in turn. "By the Vala just listen to yourself speak! Look at him. He is not the king. He cannot be the king. We're courting danger by bringing him to Minas Tirith!"
"What do you propose to do, Eorel? I admit, he's nothing like how I imagined our king to be. But he saved you, and you saw the methods that he used!You know the stories and the prophecies as well as I do, Eorel – only the king has such healing powers, only the king can unleash the full powers of kingsfoil! What other proof do you need that Raza is not what he seems? What other feasible course of action can we take right now? Or do you want to abandon him to the Orcs? That's tantamount to treason!"
Rercyn's last, passionate words seemed to echo through the trees. Eorel, already opening his mouth to respond, snapped it shut again. Staring at Rercyn, the fight drained out of his body. Slowly, he shook his head. "Treason. You've already decided that he's the king, haven't you?" His voice was quiet, resigned, but there was still something in it which made Rercyn respond defensively, albeit more calmly.
"Of course not. As I said, it's up to the Steward to decide."
"And what if he is? What will happen? How will he rule?"
Eorel's abrupt question took Rercyn by surprise. Blinking, he stated the obvious. "Well, he'd be coronated. And for all his snark, he seems like a decent man, though I don't know him well enough to predict how he'd rule..."
"And that's just it. There lies the crux of our problem. We. Don't. Know." Sighing, Eorel ran a hand through his dirt-spattered hair wearily. "Look, let's suppose for one instant, that the Steward decides that this stranger, who can't speak our language, can't fight worth a damn, and has a passel of Crebain around him is our king. Can you imagine the mess that'll happen? Our arguments are mere pale imitations to how people will react. And do you see Raza being able to quell that kind of problems? He may be a good man, but not even you can claim that he knows anything about diplomacy."
"He can be taught all that! The blood of our greatest rulers runs through his veins. He'd learn with time..."
"Time which we don't have. He'd make a mess of Gondorian politics for sure, and would you be willing to weaken Gondor just for the slim chance that he'll learn with time?"
"It's not just a slim chance though, it's a certainty. He'll bring us into glory, he'll revive our power, and if trouble has to come before our victory, it'll be well worth it! It'll..."
"Rercyn, please. Listen to yourself. I'll be the first to admit that I'm biased against him, but only so much as you're biased towards him! Many people don't believe the prophecy any longer, and for good reason; who knows if the original words have been preserved in entirety over all these centuries? It may be nothing more now than a bunch of old wives tales, and Raza may be nothing more than a particularly talented healer. And if that's the case, then we're making a big mistake, and Gondor may fall." Rercyn jerked back at that.
Staring at Rercyn pleadingly, Eorel went on in a gentler tone. "I'm going along with this insane plan of yours, to introduce him to our people because it'd be worse to just hide him, but this isn't going to end well. You're a Ranger of Ithilien, Rercyn, and you know as well as I do that people who've been pinning their hopes on a heroic king are going to be disillusioned, and Raza's going to have to bear that burden of their disillusionment. It's just too much. Unfair, too, to treat him like the king. He clearly doesn't know what's going on. Nobody, nobody, is going to be happy about this."
There was a silence. Swallowing hard, Rercyn turned away abruptly. For he knew what Eorel'd said to be truth. This. This is why Eorel's my partner. Eorel was brash and impulsive, but his flashes of odd insights balanced out Rercyn's calm, analytical judgments well. And in this case...Rercyn's judgment had failed him badly, to the point where Eorel had to pull him back from his desperate delusions. I've grown up with tales of our prophesied king, of how he would come one day and bring peace and prosperity to our land; is it so surprising that I wanted so badly to see that turn to reality?
The only sound for a long while after Eorel's words was the gentle crackle of the fire.