Chapter 1: Boromir Meets With Trouble At The Outset

The letter sat between them on the desk.

“Reunion with Rhûn,” Boromir mused. “It is beyond any of my dreams. I had only thought to hold the borders we still have.”

“You may dream, Son of Denethor,” said Aragorn, “yet I know not if you may do more than dream as of yet! This letter may be a ruse. I plan to investigate it by sending a messenger to meet with this person who offers such welcome tidings. I would like to send someone doughty- someone who understands what is at stake, and can bring back good information.”

“I think I take your meaning,” Boromir said. “I may take Sméagol and go to show him the sights. If, in addition to the tidings of the messenger, my small friend should happen to hear things by night, why, he cannot help that his hearing is keen. But-“ He must temper excitement with prudence! “Would they not fear a military action on your part if I am recognized?” He was wondering if Faramir might be the better choice- but of course Faramir was well occupied.

Aragorn leaned forward. “Here is my thought- I want to know of course if the Easterlings have any plan to rally against Gondor with Sauron no longer present to distract them.”

“That has ever been their aim.”

“And they are not likely, I deem, to tell you outright! Particularly if they are sending missives like this, claiming they seek reunification. Yet you may hear more than you expect if you appear an amenable alternative to myself.”

“Do I take you to mean…”

“If all is well, you have authority to negotiate on my behalf. If all is not well, do you not think those who are wish to topple my throne may believe they may court your favor if you appear with your single small friend, and none of my retinue?”

Boromir hesitated a moment. “I confess you are right, though I might wish it otherwise. Then I suppose a part of my task is to appear as though I would welcome this talk, so I may see how far it leads? It will be difficult, and I hope it will not be necessary in the end, but I will do what I must.”

It was a deep trust indeed the King had in him, to bid him forth to court those who would set him up in Aragorn’s stead. I would die for him, Boromir thought fervently. No! I will live for him. Tis more difficult for a Man like myself; tis one glorious act to die and then over, but in living I must find the right course over and over again!

“But suppose it is a test?”

Sméagol looked off into the night. He didn’t seem to be listening with anything like rapt attention. Perhaps Boromir was pressing him- he had just woken at the setting of the sun, and had not yet eaten, and no Halfling was clear-minded when hungry. It had been long hours without conversation, and much of it crossing the open plains of rural eastern Rohan with no sign of human habitation- they had only just an hour or so since entered a small wood. Boromir had launched into speech as soon as his companion had crept blinking into the open air.

Boromir adjusted the reins. The horse was a gentle one and responsive to his hand, but she still grew slightly restive when Sméagol was on the seat beside Boromir and not farther back inside the wagon. Boromir had been forced to learn better handling of the reins- he could not guide the horse with his knees as he did when he rode, and he could not use a whip, even to touch the horse as a cue, for Sméagol grew anxious when he saw a whip in a Man’s hand.

“An odd test it would be, of course,” Boromir said, with a slight laugh. “To send me forth where I may plot- unobserved? I might even set myself up as a ruler in that far-off region, and none would know of it until he sent another messenger to see where the first had gone. None would know except for yourself, of course…” He regretted the remark at once- suppose Sméagol thought it an accusation of some kind? Or suppose he thought it went beyond idle talk, and was an invitation that he must report? For that matter- where did Sméagol’s loyalty lie, at heart? It ought to be with the King, but there was a chance it lay rather with Boromir and only with the King by extension… or even with no Man at all.

Sméagol said nothing.

“But suppose the test was to see whether I would refuse. The plan made too much sense for me to refuse- King Elessar speaks frankly, and I am apt to answer frankly. I fear my father taught me to think overmuch on deceit-”

“Don’t speak.” Sméagol’s own voice was a low whisper. “Something- sss- I smell something.”

Boromir fell silent at once. Sméagol sniffed at the air. “What is it?” he muttered. “I know that smell from somewhere.” He paused to think a moment and then he froze like a frighted rabbit. “We must get off the road. Get off the road!”

Before Boromir could do as he suggested, there was a hideous sound like thunder.

The cart was pitched to the side and he flung out of it, striking the ground hard. Figures crowded around him. Boromir was a Man to be reckoned with, even taken off guard after a shock and a blow; they were many and he was wrestled to submission in the end, with a sack over his head, but it went ill for them. His sword was drenched in blood before it was taken from his hand.

They tied him with double bonds, like a giant of old who might burst ordinary ropes with the swell of his biceps. In a strange way Boromir was honored.

This treatment surely meant they did not intend to kill him- at least, not here, and not for some time yet. Killing him would have been much easier and swifter, and they would have done it now if they meant to do it at all. Then too he would be valuable as a ransom. There was no cause for panic on his own account- but where was Sméagol?

If the old Halfling were alive and on his feet (and hands), he ought to be able to slip away- but suppose he had struck his head in the explosion? Suppose the attackers had not known he would be worth ransom as well, and they had cut him down?

A Man dropped onto Boromir, his knee in his chest. “So! Boromir the Bold has come daisying along the path.”

“You have the advantage of me in several respects,” said Boromir, with some difficulty. “I would know your name.”

“I won’t tell it.” There was a sound and something struck the sack- the Man had spat upon Boromir. The sack over his head protected him from the fullest of the insult.

Here is one who would not choose me to rule in Elessar’s stead, he thought. “Forgive me; you know your grievance with me, but I, who have not seen your face, do not.”

“Ha! Then wonder.” The sack was pulled halfway up, and a gag forced into Boromir’s mouth, and the sack replaced. Footsteps crunched away. Voices conferred, too low to make out the words.

The bonds chafed, his muscles ached. A sound- close behind him. Sméagol was very near, and he was weeping. He was alive! Was he captive? Why was he so near? Boromir had thought him a prudent self-sustaining creature, without the loving but foolhardy courage that most of his kind were prey to.

“Black powder,” Sméagol whispered. “The filth of the White Hand and we smelled it too late, gollum, gollum, o my love! Are you killed?” His cold hand rested on Boromir’s back a moment. So he must be free, unbound.

With the gag in place Boromir could not tell him to run, to hide, and save himself. He dared not even attempt to signal, aside from twitching the muscles in his back so that Sméagol could know he lived.

Sméagol was feeling at Boromir’s bonds- tugging at the ropes around his wrists. His voice was choked. “They hurt you, they hurt you, the filth, the scum!”

The sound of snuffling lament faded away- the creature had left on silent feet, and by the grace of the Valar he would melt into the woods, perhaps to summon help from the nearest guard post.

The next sound- a voice: “You, go see what was in his cart.”

“With pleasure, sir, and if it’s prime enough, I hope you’ll agree to take it and go. Kidnapping the General is mad.”

“He kidnapped hisself, like, wandering over our trap,” a low voice growled in response.

“Still, the King will have our heads for this. I’d sooner kill him and be off.”

Another voice: “Skog, put your blade aside; I told you there will be none of that. Go see what’s in the cart! We may have it and the ransom.”

Someone marched away. His companions remaining said: “I’d like to keep my head. I wasn’t expecting Boromir the Bold to come along when we laid that trap, and he’s gone and killed Othmog in the taking of him. A few others, too. I’d rather be shut of him.”

“We won’t be killed. You’re thinking of Denethor. He would have come and trampled us instead of paying a cent for his boy, right enough, but now he’s mad and shut up in a tower somewhere, and Elessar’s soft. Anyway, I aim to get something in return for Othmog, and-”

Just then there was a scream that choked off midway through.

“What was that?”

Boromir was fain to know as well. With the exception of present company he had thought there were no dangers in these woods. Yet he had not expected the bandits, either, so what else may be lurking unseen? Sméagol was out in the woods alone and undefended.

“I’m going to go and look.” Footsteps went walking away.

“Do you think someone else found the cart?”

“He wouldn’t scream because he saw a bandit. Maybe if he saw a mirror.”

A tense silence fell. Time passed slowly to one in painful bindings, so perhaps he could not judge, but it seemed a long silence. The Man did not return.

“Here, I’m going to look, but not alone like the other two fools.” That was the growling voice that Boromir suspected was an Orc. “You come along with me, you brave Man.”

“If I do that leaves only one to watch the brave General.”

“He’s trussed like a pig!” That was the one who had such a grudge against Boromir. “He is only a Man. He may vanish during sieges, but not when he’s tied.”

“Your friends haven’t come back,” said Skog, and spat loudly.

“Go and look,” said the grudge-holder. “Go! Think you the son of Denethor the Mad is a sorcerer or a shape-changer? I tied him twice!” Indeed, Boromir would have remained where he was had no one remained to stand guard at all.

Footsteps departed once more- no doubt Skog and his companion had left.

“Fools,” the grudge-holder muttered. “Fools all.”

A heavy breathing, of one much exerted, just behind Boromir’s head. Then a trembling voice spoke in Boromir’s ear. “Can you run if we cuts you free, my love? Just twitch a bitsy, if you can run.”

Boromir twitched. He was not certain, however, that he was minded to run if freed- only one captor remained nearby and fists may be enough to subdue him and take his weapon. But Sméagol had not asked if he would run. Only if he could run.

He half expected Sméagol to chew through his bonds- the creature carried no knife- and steeled himself for sharp teeth and slobber at his wrists, but- good fortune! Sméagol had got himself a knife of some sort and he applied it carefully and quietly.

Pounding footsteps ran up close. “They’re both dead.” It was the Man and he sounded rattled. “Olgi’s been throttled and Alfish looks as if a dog’s been at him.”

“Both throttled,” Skog corrected, “the dog knocked Alfish down first. And then I suppose its master choked him- unless that dog has hands.”

Sméagol froze. Boromir could not counsel him and knew not what to counsel- ought he flee, or was he well-hidden behind Boromir’s broad body, and would be safer to remain there? Was the danger lurking near the cart a threat to him as well?

“No one’s there.” The Man’s voice shook. “It’s as if a ghost-“

“Come with me. We shall find this ghost!”

They left- Sméagol went back to work at Boromir’s bonds. His breathing shuddered, and cold tears spattered on Boromir’s hands. Finally those hands were freed, the blood painfully returning to them. Sméagol was murmuring something over him, made unintelligible by his shaking voice.

Then he went to Boromir’s feet and began cutting the bonds there while Boromir removed the sack from his head and the gag from his mouth. When his eyes had adjusted he saw he was lying on the edge of a rough encampment. Those Boromir had slain were laid out by the fire- he had slain five, and left them in gruesome condition. Adding the mysteriously slain two by the cart and the three that were still alive, the original group must have counted for ten.

Boromir’s feet were free. “You have done well, and faithfully,” he said quietly. “I would have counseled you to run for help-“

“Run for help?” Sméagol sounded baffled. “There is no one a day’s walk away. Leaving you- with those cruel ropes!”

“I am glad you did as you thought best and not as I would have counseled.” He struggled to stand- Sméagol helped in a clumsy fashion, pushing him to his feet. He was just the height of Boromir’s walking-stick and didn’t complain when Boromir briefly rested what he realized at once was far too much weight upon him.

“They won’t touch your walking-stick,” Sméagol hissed. “I hid it. They will not find it. The gift Lord Faramir gave you. They will not touch it!”

“You’ve done well.”

“And no one touched what was in the wagon. O no. Didn’t get close enough. Gollum, gollum! They was talking of killing you, killing you with you tied up! They got something else, didn’t they? Didn’t they jusst!” He pressed something into Boromir’s hand. It was the knife he had cut his bonds with, a small thing- even for Sméagol it made a dagger rather than a sword and for Boromir it made something closer to a tooth-pick.

“He took your ssword,” said Sméagol, and spat on the ground.

“Worry not on that account, my friend, I shall retrieve it.”

Boromir collected himself and walked towards the light of torches ahead. Sméagol tugged at his hand with a hiss of alarm.

“I will not slink into the night,” Boromir said quietly. “It will be safer for you, however, if you hide. There is some danger ahead. Did you hear the scream?”

For a moment Sméagol was very still, Boromir’s hand still in his- a strange look was on his face. His small voice was clear and direct. “Yes, I heard it.”

Boromir ought surely to have realized, by this point, what had happened. Yet, although he knew Sméagol’s history, it was not in his mind to consider him a killer of Men. “Then be cautious,” he urged.

Sméagol let go his hand and slipped out of sight.

Boromir expected two Men and an Orc- he found one Man, an Orc and a half-Orc. The Man and the half-Orc were investigating the bodies of their companions, the Man disrespectfully nudging the side of one of his friends’ corpses with the toe of his shoe.

The Orc saw him first, and lifted a crossbow. Boromir stopped where he stood.

The Man and the half-Orc turned to him. The half-Orc lifted a sword, Boromir’s sword.

“I will depart in peace if you allow it,” Boromir said.

“In peace!” the half-Orc spat. By his voice, he was the leader, the grudge-holder. “You have killed most of us and you shall kill the rest, I expect.”

“I was moved to defend myself. If you will let me depart I shall go without a word.”

“Skog,” said the half-Orc, “shoot him.”

“No.”

The half-Orc turned to him. “No?”

“Been told not to,” said Skog. He was perspiring. He was wearing a bright white necklace of finger-bones that he had not had a moment before- they were living fingers, attached to their owner, a ragged shape clinging to Skog’s back.

“What- what is that?” the half-Orc asked.

“Let him go,” said Sméagol. “I’ll tear out your eyes. I’ll drown you.” The soft, fervent sound of his voice made this sound less improbable than it really was, and of course the half-Orc and the Man could not see him and his small stature, nor know he was unarmed- nor even know he was mortal. In fact there was not much Sméagol could do to them.

Skog, however, was in true danger.

The Man turned to the half-Orc. “Just let him go, for the Eye’s sake!”

“He killed my mother!”

The Man said something in exasperation that cast severe aspersions on the character of the half-Orc’s mother- and perhaps it was true for she had undoubtedly been an Orc, but it was unwise and unkind, and his friend thanked him for it by running him through with Boromir’s sword. He turned to Boromir, looked at him a moment with red lights in his eyes. He came forward- Boromir prepared to take the sword away, which he felt he could do with the aid of the small knife, despite his staggering, stiff limbs, for he had far superior training, strength, and skill- but the half-Orc fell face forward. A crossbow bolt was in his back. He lived yet- he was struggling, and Boromir stooped towards him- but then another bolt hit home, and another.

Boromir stood. His knee throbbed. He shook his head.

Sméagol was crouching next to Skog, who was feeling at his throat and shaking his head.

“I’ll go, boss,” the Orc said. “I’ll go as far as you want.”

Boromir looked at him a moment in silence. “Depart,” he said finally.

“Want me to leave the crossbow, boss?”

“I daresay you will need to hunt for food. Will you do aught else with it?”

“Me? No, boss.” He vanished without another word.

Boromir recalled that Orcs ate Men, and wished he had phrased his speech more carefully. It was too late now.

Sméagol was nosing at the half-Orc’s body. “He dropped your sword,” he said.

Boromir stooped and retrieved the blade. “I had no grudge against you or your mother,” he told the dead half-Orc. “I guess she was an Orc, of Saruman’s army, and perhaps I slew her upon Amon Hen. It was fair combat. I have never killed in anything other but fair combat.”

His words were hollow. His legs were shaking. His wrists and ankles burned. The wagon lay overturned in the road, and he sat down upon its side. The horse was dead. She had been crippled by the explosion, and it looked like one of the attackers had seen her struggling and put her out of her misery with a swift stroke to her neck.

At least this incident plainly had nothing to do with Rhûn. At the first, Boromir had feared some far-reaching web of treachery.

Sméagol was sniffing at the bolts protruding from the half-Orc’s body. “I didn’t tell him to shoot. I only said if he killed you I would kill him. He decided to shoot.”

“I suppose he feared that if his friend began a fight with me, I would end it with him, or perhaps you would.”

“Perhaps,” Sméagol muttered. “I thought he was shooting you at first, and I almost did kill him. It was foolish- foolish- gollum!”

Boromir ran his hand over his face. He began to clean the ill-fated Man’s blood from the blade of his sword.

An unpleasant sound came to his ears- Sméagol had drawn off into the shadows to vomit.

The two strangled Men lay on the path. Boromir was now free to examine them at his leisure, and concluded that Sméagol had rushed upon the first Man and thrown him by taking his arm in his teeth, dog-fashion- that had been the scream- the second Man he had surprised from behind. It was skillful work. Boromir himself would not have been able to do it. He had not learned the needed technique. For someone of Sméagol’s size it was a feat indeed.

Sméagol’s ragged breathing shuddered out of somewhere in the dark.

“Did you see how I fought the onslaught before I was taken?” Boromir lifted his sword so that the blade was before his eyes. “It was a glorious dance. There is nothing so pleasing as a well-balanced sword! When I raise my weapon I am in my right place in the world, I am strong, my body is filled with power that I may use as I will- all who oppose me fall before this blade.” He shook his head. “And yet you see what is left behind afterwards- gore and ruin. Battle is always thus.”

Crickets sang all around them in the night. Boromir huffed slightly through his nose to clear it of the stink of blood. His small friend must be awash in it.

Sméagol spoke quietly: “Do you feel them die?”

“I feel them stop short when my sword cuts the life from them. I see the light leave their eyes. And you have seen how much blood I spill. It is what I am expert at. And sometimes it is needful.”

“Do you wish you had not done it?”

“Never. I wish it was not needful of course, but there is no cause for regret, those Men chose to make me their enemy.” He shrugged. “A life of peace was not granted to me. I am not pleased by killing for its own sake, but I am pleased by the swiftness of my sword-strikes and the strength of my arms. The time for doubt is before the fight was engaged, after all- not the moment when the sword falls. It is good and proper that I be pleased when I succeed and I take no shame in it. Did it not please you?”

“Did it please… did what please me?”

“These Men were larger and stronger than you, they had captured me and no doubt would have harmed you if they could, and you were right to strike against them. Surely it would be no shame if it pleased you to overpower them through skill and cunning. Your thought was to whittle the numbers of the camp until I could be freed, was it not? And here I sit.”

At some time during this speech Sméagol had stolen back to his side, and he took Boromir’s hands into his own chill ones. He gazed at the rope-marks on Boromir’s wrists and pain crumpled his face. There were scars on the sides of his own wrists that had much the same shape.

“You rescued me,” Boromir said.

Sméagol said nothing, transfixed in horror by the wounds.

“I did not expect it,” said Boromir. “Surely, I did not expect it.” He found he was trembling.

Sméagol drew back from him and sat down on the ground. He gave Boromir a deferential, almost shy look. “What now?”

Boromir collected himself. “Now, having defeated these, we will treat them with the respect of disposing of their bodies and not leaving them for the depredations of animals- though I fear it must be a pyre.” He greatly disliked large fires, and so did Sméagol. Yet it must be done. “But first, my friend, show me where you have hidden my walking-stick.”

Sméagol had put it in a tree. He swiftly retrieved it, and began to help Boromir clean up the carnage.

They had quite a tale for Aragorn already.