Chapter Two - Concern and Consternation

"Sticklebats," Halbarad muttered under his breath as he paced around the fire. He tossed the remnants of supper – the bones of a pheasant – into the fire and wiped his hands off on some soft leaves of lamb’s-ear that he also tossed to the flames. He and the rest of the Rangers in the east Shire patrol were camped to the southeast of Chetwood, between Bree and the Midgewater Marshes, where they haunted the edges of the Great East Road, keeping watch for anything that might come along to pose a threat to the Shire.

Denlad shot him an amused glance. "‘Sticklebats’? Hobbit habits are rubbing off on you."

"’Tis a handy phrase. And there are worse habits one can pick up," Halbarad countered. He scrubbed at his face with both hands, running them down his cheeks and beard and then around under the long tangles of his black hair to massage the back of his neck. He blew out a long breath as he stared into the early evening sky. "I am worried."

There’s overstating the obvious, Denlad thought. He wiped the last smudge from his sword and tucked the rag back into his pack as stood to slide his blade back into its scabbard. "And here I thought all that pacing and huffing and puffing was simply a sign of the indigestion that plagues those of your advanced age."

"Keep your cheekiness to yourself, Denlad. I am worried about Aragorn. He should have been back by now."

"I’m sorry," Denlad said, immediately contrite. "I have my own hobbit habit in sometimes hiding deeper feelings behind foolish jests. I too am getting concerned, truth be told. But he’s not overly late yet. Maybe he simply chased something farther afield than he intended."

"Or maybe something chased him. And caught him." He hitched his sword to a better position on his hip. "No, something is not right. I’m going after him. Take reports from the sentries as they come in; see that the patrols here are covered as they should be. You know what to do. Aragorn was headed east. He said he wanted to skirt the Great East Road on the north side past the Marshes, to check on the area near the Weather Hills. I do not know if he planned to go beyond Weathertop, but he may have, and let us hope that is all that has delayed his return. I don’t know how long it will take me to find him, but if I am not back by four days hence, gather a patrol with horses and set out after me. I will leave cairns."

"I would rather you didn’t go alone."

"No, I need you here, Denlad."

Denlad planted his feet wide apart and crossed his arms. "Eledh is fully capable of taking reports and bringing a patrol if need be."

Halbarad glared at him, but Denlad had no wish to lose this battle of wills. Halbarad was his senior, in years and in rank, and he would obey should Halbarad absolutely order him to stay behind, but just as Aragorn was as a brother to Halbarad, he was nearly a father to Denlad, and he would not see himself left behind, not when his own unease flowed in such a tumultuous cascade through his gut.

Halbarad’s scowl did not waver, so Denlad played his trump card. "If Aragorn is injured, he will need my healing skills."

"So be it," Halbarad grumbled. "I simply pray you will find it a wasted journey." A corner of his mouth suddenly quirked upward. "Perhaps your company will vex me so that I will have no time for worrying."

"That’s the spirit!" Denlad grinned, then slapped Halbarad’s shoulder. "Fear not. We will find him. But before we rush into the night barehanded, you find food for us, and I will alert Eledh." It suddenly occurred to him that he was ordering Halbarad about as though he were nothing but a green recruit. "Ah, that is, if that meets with your approval."

"You will be taking over as Chieftain if Aragorn is not mindful of his place," Halbarad said with a soft laugh. He waved his hand. "Go, find Eledh and inform him of our leaving. Then hasten back, for I will leave in a quarter hour, with or without you."

--o0o0o--

They moved quickly on foot, slipping with the silence of mist through the wild lands, heading east. Years of patrolling this area left them knowing nearly every stone and twig, and as they passed they looked but did not find any sign of Aragorn, save an odd track that may or may not have been left by him.

"Is it his?" Denlad asked as they bent to look at one such vague mark in the dust beside a clump of grass.

"It must be. It’s the right size, and this is the direction he said he’d be going. And it’s off the road, as he usually travels. It cannot be anyone else’s."

Scant assurance, or so Denlad thought, but he did not say anything. He looked instead to their back trail and took what small comfort there was in verifying that no man or creature seemed to be following the same trail.

And so the hours passed until sunlight faded too much for them to see. They stopped to rest for the night, and daybreak found them traveling at speed once more. They ran throughout the day, speaking little, even when they stopped briefly for a mid-day rest and a meal.

As the afternoon wore on, it seemed every step drove dread deeper into Denlad’s soul, and he found himself battling an onslaught of fearful thoughts.

There are too few signs... we’re missing something, surely...

No, he immediately chided himself. Aren’t we all skilled woodsmen who can pass over a land leaving behind naught but a shadow? And Aragorn is the best of us all. It is no small wonder we are finding so few signs.

Fear immediately countered. But a man, no matter how skilled, will leave signs, and more than we have found. Those we have seen are so vague... what if we have passed Aragorn by completely, and he lies wounded in some ditch an hour behind us, breathing his last?

But they would have seen signs of that, surely. If Aragorn was hurt or ill, his signs would then become obvious, for an injured man cannot be so careful in the trail he leaves behind. So, Denlad told himself sternly, stop worrying. Unless some flying beast swooped down and snatched him off the face of Arda, Aragorn must surely be unharmed, and they would find him.

All the same, he couldn’t help casting a fearful glance upward at the empty sky.

So his dreary thoughts continued through the hours until the gloaming deepened toward night. They came then upon an upright stone, a standing black shadow looming some thirty feet into the air, looking like it could have been thrust into the ground by the angry hand of some giant in long ages past. It was a well-known landmark, one the Rangers used often, and it marked the place Aragorn generally liked to camp when he patrolled this region. But tonight, with the early rising moon casting its cold light on the blunt peak, Denlad thought it looked somehow fey and terrible. He shivered. "I like not the feel of this place," he whispered.

Halbarad squatted and laid his hand on the remains of a fire. "Cold. And at least one dew has fallen upon it. He has not been here in at least a day."

Denlad chewed his lip. "We must wait until morn, then, to find his trail. I do not trust my eyes to see anything in this darkness, and he could have walked off in any of a hundred directions."

"Likely not a hundred, but certainly a dozen. You are right, though. We cannot go blundering into the night after him."

So they settled themselves at the base of the rock and passed a restless night, lighting no fire and taking turns keeping watch, for although they had neither seen nor heard any beast or man, there existed every possibility that something evil lurked in the blackness, something that may have attacked Aragorn and may even now have its sights on the two of them. Denlad tried to sleep when Halbarad spelled him on watch, but it seemed every small noise brought him to heart-pounding wakefulness. Truth to tell, this night reminded Denlad far too much of the days they had spent along the Hoarwell, chasing–and being chased by–a Nazgûl. Aragorn had nearly met his end during those dark days.* Denlad peered into the black shadows cast by the moon. Yes, this was far too much like that moonlit night nearly three years ago.

He liked it not one bit.

But the long night passed, and nothing leapt at them from the shadows, and though neither of them felt very rested as dawn lightened the eastern sky, Halbarad started right away on the search for tracks, and Denlad followed suit on the opposite side of the rock, which in morning’s cheerful light looked quite harmless. Denlad shook his head at his own folly. Letting darkness so rattle his calm like he was nothing more than a frightened child; it was shameful.

He squatted down to better see the ground. For a long moment, he remained motionless, only his eyes moving as he looked methodically over every square inch before moving to his right a pace and repeating his careful study. His eyes lit on a broken branch and he hurried forward. On the ground beneath it was the faint outline of a man’s heel. "Halbarad!"

Halbarad hurried over and looked. "At last! That is Aragorn’s; there can be no doubt. He has a cracked heel on that boot and was complaining about it to me only a week past."

They both moved forward and Halbarad found another sign. Aragorn had headed north, at a normal pace. Whatever danger may have befallen him certainly had not chased him from this campsite. They hurried as fast as they could without losing the trail, until finally, shortly after the sun’s highest hour, a movement in the sky some miles off caught his eye. "Halbarad," Denlad gasped, pointing.

Vultures, many of them, circling in a black column of death.

"It is not him," Halbarad said. "Likely a dead stag."

Denlad heard the desperate plea underlying Halbarad’s words and said nothing. It was his own frantic supplication as well.

They hurried on.

--o0o0o--

Denlad thought his knees would surely give way, so shattering was his relief. He moved upwind of the decomposing body... the body that was decidedly Southron in garb and coloring and completely the wrong height to be Aragorn... and sent upward a silent but fervent prayer of thanks.

"I wonder who he is. Or was. He has been dead at least a day, perhaps two," Halbarad said. He bent down and, holding his shirt over his mouth and nose with one hand, rolled the body over. He peeled back the man’s coat. "No weapons, and there is a grievous wound in his belly. If I know Aragorn, that is the mark of his sword." He pulled the body onto its side and looked. "The blow severed the man’s spine, see?"

Denlad grimaced. A Ranger he may be, and one not unused to the grim details of violent death, but he still had no desire to gaze long nor close on such wounds when the man who bore them was so long dead. "I will take your word for it."

"I am sure that is Aragorn’s work. I have seen him deliver just such a wound, more times than I can count."

Denlad turned away from the grisly sight and looked at the dusty ground. There was a jumble of footprints all around the man’s body, some clear, some smudged as wind slowly did its work to erase them. It was obvious that quite a struggle had taken place. There was evidence that at least one man may have stepped into a gopher hole. Perhaps the Southron had, and that had given Aragorn his opportunity. But then Denlad frowned as he found a dark spot, rusty brown and almost black. He knelt and touched it with his finger. It was dry.

And no mistaking: it was blood. But whose?

He looked back at the man’s body. This stain was too far away to have come from the Southron, if he had indeed fallen where he had been stabbed. And he could see very little blood on the man’s clothing. Likely the blow had been instantly debilitating, if not fatal, and so there could have been little in the way of bleeding except what might have pooled beneath the body. That meant this blood could very well have come from the man’s opponent. He leaned down, his face inches from the ground as he studied the footprints, trying to hang onto a desperate but frail hope that the Southron’s foe had been someone else. After a moment, his heart sank. He found the familiar cracked heel print, and several more bloodstains. There could be no doubt. "Aragorn is wounded."

Halbarad hurried over. "May Valar grant him grace to survive until we find him." He hurried past, following footprints that, far from the steady if elusive pattern they had shown up to this point, were now very obvious and very erratic in their placement, the sign of someone wounded and struggling to keep on and no longer able to hide the sign of his passing. Here and there were more blackish stains on the ground, and then under the shelter of a bush, Denlad found another stain, and a place where a man had knelt.

He bent down and picked up a small piece of dark blue fabric, stained nearly black at the edge. "Aragorn’s shirt," he said, holding it up. "He must have used it, torn it... made a bandage."

Halbarad nodded; there was nothing else to say.

They hurried on.

________

*The full account is found in the story, "At Hope’s Edge".