The sun rose on a rather irritable Dúnadan who had slept not a wink.  His troubling conversation with Sarn had kept Aragorn awake through the first watch.  After a mere two hours, he had abandoned his bedroll to stand guard until morning—covering both his own watch and Meneldir’s.

They had a bit of firewood left, so the men lit it and built a blaze just large enough to warm their breakfast and brew Aragorn a much-needed cup of tea.  Sarn brought their young captive out of the tent, sat him before the fire, and pressed some bread and cheese into his hands.  While the man set about dismantling the tent and folding up the canvas, the boy sat perfectly straight with his feet folded under him, staring at nothing as he nibbled on the bread.

Aragorn sat on a convenient boulder not far away, enjoying his rare luxury and pondering their next course of action.  Were it not for their captive, this patrol would have lasted another week, at least.  As it was, they would have to either retrace their steps or cut across country to reach Osgiliath to the south.  It would mean leaving this stretch of forest unprotected, a prospect that worried Aragorn, given the ease with which the Men of Rhûn had ambushed them.  For a moment, he considered splitting his patrol and sending . . . perhaps Sarn and Meneldir to shepherd the boy to Osgiliath while Aragorn continued on with the rest of the patrol.  But, no, they could not risk reducing their strength if more hidden foes might be abroad.  Had this been a patrol of his own Rangers in Eriador, he might have risked it, but the Gondorians were not as skilled at stealth and woodcraft, and he was responsible for their lives.  And, besides, Denethor was at Osgiliath, and he was not known for his mercy.  Aragorn needed to be present when they handed the boy over . . . for whatever might come next.

He was weary.  He was distracted.  Neither was an adequate excuse for failing to foresee what was about to happen.

Sarn was returning to the fire with the disassembled tent in his arms, when the boy reached out and tugged on the hem of his tunic.  The man paused.  He squatted beside the child and leaned close to hear what he whispered.

Then the boy moved.  He sprang up, quick as a bobcat, and jerked Sarn’s knife from his belt while the man’s hands were still tangled in the tent.  As canvas and tent poles clattered to the ground, the Easterling threw his bound hands around Sarn’s neck and brought the dagger to his throat, just as it had been at his own throat less than a day before.  The other men cried out and leapt to their feet, dropping plates and canteens to draw swords.

Aragorn stood, too, but left his sword in its sheath.  The boy whirled to face him, dragging Sarn back with him, his hostage still in a half-crouch.  The child’s eyes were wide.

Sarn’s eyes were not.  He seemed startled, but that emotion passed as quickly as it appeared, to be replaced by something like mild irritation.  Knife or no knife, Sarn weighed twice what the boy did and was one of the most experienced soldiers under Aragorn’s command.  Aragorn saw him gather himself, preparing to throw the boy forward over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

Aragorn caught his eye and gave a minute shake of his head.  Sarn gave him a disbelieving look, but Aragorn held his gaze, his own face firm and calm.  Slowly, the other man relaxed, though he shot Aragorn a baleful glare.  It was a look that said “You’d best know what you’re doing.”

Aragorn hoped he did.

He advanced with small steps, holding his hands out to his sides.  The rest of the patrol closed in, forming a ring of swords, but stayed a few paces back.  The young Easterling stiffened and retreated a step, stopping only when he felt the heat of the campfire. 

“There’s no need for this.”  Aragorn pitched his voice low, using the steady tone he’d learned from working with half-wild horses.

The whites showed all the way around the boy’s eyes, and his breath came in quick, nervous gasps.  “I’ll kill him,” he panted, “I swear, I will!”

Aragorn held his gaze and breathed slowly and evenly, willing the boy to do the same.  He thought he saw the panic in the youth’s eyes dull just a little.  “And what would you do then?” he asked quietly, “You cannot defeat us all.”

“I don’t have to!”  The dagger was trembling in the boy’s hand.  From the way Sarn grimaced, Aragorn suspected he’d felt its edge once or twice.  “If I kill him, you’ll have to kill me!  That’s how it works, right?”  He looked up at Aragorn with eyes that were almost beseeching.  “I don’t want to go to the Lower Circles!”

Aragorn filled his lungs slowly.  The boy matched his breath without seeming to be aware of it.  “His name is Sarn.”  Confusion flashed across the boy’s face.  Aragorn glanced down at the Easterling’s hostage and then back up at him.  The knife trembled more violently in the boy’s hand.  “Mine is Thorongil,” he continued, “What’s yours?”

“What do you care?” the boy spat.

“Well, if we’re all going to be killing each other,” Aragorn replied with a calm he did not feel, “What is the harm in knowing each other’s names first?”

The young Easterling stared at Aragorn, perhaps wondering if he was mad.  But, every moment he spent questioning Aragorn’s sanity was a moment when he was not weighing the worth of his own life against the cost of taking Sarn’s.  “It’s Qara,” he said at last.

Aragorn tried to step closer, but stopped when the boy tensed.  “Have you ever killed a man, Qara?”  The flicker of fear in his eyes was all the answer Aragorn needed.  “It is not so easy as you’ve been told.”  The boy swallowed hard, but clutched the dagger all the tighter.  It seemed a more direct approach might be called for.  “Why are you so anxious to die?”

Qara lifted his chin proudly.  “We are Ghosts,” he said, “We are dead already.”

Aragorn did not respond to that.  Whatever indoctrination the boy had received, he could not hope to undo it just now.  He suspected, though, that it was not ideology that drove him now.

The Boy of Rhûn withstood Aragorn’s silent, expectant gaze for a moment longer before he looked away.  “You would have to do it quickly,” he said, his voice quiet, cracking with a combination of fear and youth.  Aragorn heard in that voice his deep-seated terror bound up in ragged scraps of control.  “Out here in the open . . . you wouldn’t risk me screaming and giving away your position.  But, if you take me back to your city . . .”  He trailed off.

“What?” Aragorn prompted gently, “What do you think will happen?”

Qara looked at him as if he’d decided that Aragorn must be mentally deficient.  “You’ll torture me.”  His voice was suddenly calm and matter-of-fact.  He might as well have said ‘the grass is green’ or ‘the sun rises in the east.’  “You’ll torture me.”

“No one’s going to torture you,” Aragorn said soothingly.

“Right,” the boy snapped, his tone acerbic, “I’m sure I’ll be greeted with nothing but love and forgiveness.”

“We are not the monsters you have been told of.”

“You shouldn’t lie to the dead, Thorongil,” he said harshly, “And I’m dead either way, aren’t I?  Don’t lie!  I can see it in your eyes.  Like I saw it in his.”  He indicated Sarn with a jerk of his head.

Now Aragorn was the one swallowing hard as his earlier conversation with Sarn rang hauntingly through his mind.  Still, he kept his face calm.  “You don’t know that,” he told Qara, “How could you?  I don’t know that.”

“But, it’s what you expect, isn’t it?  No quarter for the barbarians, isn’t that what your Steward commands?”  Aragorn didn’t respond.  The young Easterling looked down at Sarn.  “You tried to be merciful,” he told him, “I am sorry.”

Sarn’s eyes widened and his hands flew up.

“We hang the condemned.”  Aragorn blurted the words out, half on instinct.  Perhaps a brutal truth would succeed where his reassurances had failed.  The boy hesitated.  He watched Aragorn searchingly.  “The gallows are tall,” Aragorn continued, “The Steward decreed that they measure such that when a man is dropped from them, he breaks his neck at once.  No pain.  No screams.  It is quick.”

And it was this—not the words of comfort, but the promise of a noose—that finally calmed the boy’s wild panic.  Slowly, his fingers relaxed and the knife dropped from his hands.

Sarn moved.  In one fluid motion, he rose to his full height, bent at the waist, and pitched the Easterling forward over his head.  He did not put his full strength into the throw, so the boy landed relatively lightly, but still with enough force to drive the air from his lungs.  Aragorn crossed the distance between them and knelt at Qara’s side.  He seemed dazed but unhurt, so Aragorn turned to Sarn as the other picked up his belt knife.  “How do you fare?”

The veteran rubbed his neck, where the dagger had left a half dozen small scratches.  “I’ll live,” he grunted.  He looked down at the young Easterling with much frustration, but no malice.

Keeping a restraining hand on Qara’s shoulder, Aragorn turned to the rest of his patrol.  “We’ve tarried too long.  Finish breaking camp.  We must be off.”  Slowly, but obediently, the men sheathed their swords and returned to folding bedrolls and tying packs shut.  Aragorn worked free the knots that still bound Qara, gently turned him over, and retied his hands behind his back.  He could feel far too many of the bones in the boy’s wrists; he seemed half-starved.  “Don’t fret,” he murmured, “Everything will be alright.  No one is going to hurt you.”

The boy trembled.  Aragorn could tell he did not believe him.

And Aragorn wasn’t sure he believed himself.

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They marched through midday, eating as they walked.  The Men of Gondor might not be as skilled at stealth and forestry as Aragorn would like, but they were more than capable of spending the whole day on the move with little rest.  Yet, as the afternoon wore on, Aragorn noticed that Meneldir’s steps began to drag.  His head wound was likely the cause, though he never complained.  Aragorn worried, as well, about Qara.  After his frenzy that morning, the boy had lapsed back into silence.  He trudged along with his jaw clenched and his eyes on his feet.  Aragorn couldn’t say whether the boy was weary or whether his wound was troubling him, for he would not answer even simple questions.

So, when they reached a sheltered glen in the early afternoon, Aragorn called for a brief rest.  While the men sat with their backs against trees or boulders, sipping from their waterskins and nibbling on crusts of bread, Aragorn approached Qara and crouched silently before him.  The boy stared back steadily, his eyes flat and expressionless.  Sarn had tied him to the bole of a gnarled old willow tree, with a folded blanket and a rolled cloak to cushion his wounded back.  Aragorn’s lieutenant seemed to be developing a soft spot for the Easterling boy, despite the child’s murder attempt.

“We’ve not been getting along so well,” Aragorn said at last, keeping his tone light.  Qara did not respond except to give him a disparaging look.  Aragorn pulled the cork from his waterskin and lifted it.  “Here . . .”  His captive drew back.  Dark eyes flitted suspiciously from the offered skin to the man who held it.  Aragorn remained still, his face calm as he waited the boy out.  At last, Qara seemed to decide that there was nothing overtly malevolent about the offer of water.  He relaxed and allowed Aragorn to raise the skin to his lips.  After taking a few swigs, though, he pulled away, causing water to splash down his front.  Unperturbed, Aragorn took a quick drink himself before stoppering the skin.  “I was only a little older than you, the first time I accompanied an armed patrol,” he said in a conversational tone, “For the first few leagues, I thought the very trees would reach out and seize me . . . and that was before I’d even left my father’s lands.”  He smiled, inviting the boy to share in a joke at his expense.  The boy did not laugh, but the guarded expression in his eyes seemed to fade slightly.  Aragorn sobered.  “Was this your first time away from your homeland, Qara?”

The boy looked away.  He opened his mouth as if to reply . . . and then closed it again.  A sudden scowl flashed across his face.  “I am a Ghost,” he said at last, “We only get one time.”

“A Ghost?”

He lifted his chin and all but glared at Aragorn.  “It is a great honor.”

“Yes, it must be,” Aragorn said soothingly, “I can tell by the way you speak of it.  But, that does not help me know what it means.”

Qara’s jaw clenched.  “We are the bravest.  Everyone says so.  Back—” his throat caught on a word that sounded like ‘home.’  He swallowed.  “They’ll tell stories of us forever.  They are telling them already.”

“How?  They cannot know what you’ve done here, yet.”

The boy stared at him wordlessly, and one more piece fell into place in Aragorn’s mind.  Ghosts.  Dead Men, still bound to this world.

He answered his own question.  “They know that you did not intend to come home.”  He carefully kept all traces of pity out of his voice.  The desperate flicker in Qara’s eyes told him he’d guessed rightly.  He frowned.  “You truly wished to die in that skirmish?”

The boy sagged against the tree trunk.  Doubt and fear warred across his face.  It was strange to see such conflict in one so young.  “They said we just had to be brave enough,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “That if we were, it would be quick.  That we wouldn’t have to go to the Lower Circles.”

“The Lower Circles?”

Qara’s eyes flashed.  He was definitely glaring at Aragorn now.  “Don’t pretend you don’t know.  Everyone knows about the Circles.”

“Well, I am only an ignorant West-Man.  I’m often a little behind on what ‘everyone’ knows.”

“Liar!”  Qara spat.  “You serve Gondor.  You must have seen them.”

“Perhaps you can tell me what they are and then I’ll judge whether or not I’ve seen them.”

The boy stared at him hard for a few more seconds, then sighed.  Bowing his head, he murmured something in a strange tongue.  It sounded like a children’s rhyme.  Aragorn waited patiently as the boy fell silent.  After a moment, he spoke again, in the Common Tongue this time.  “Seven Circles under sky for the heathens . . . . Seven Circles under stone for the faithful ones . . . It doesn’t rhyme in Westron.”

Aragorn pursed his lips.  “Seven Circles?  The rhyme is about Minas Tirith?”

The boy gave him a look that mixed relief and exasperation, like a schoolmaster whose recalcitrant pupil has finally mastered some simple concept.  “Seven Circles.  Fourteen, in all.  The Upper Circles where you live and the Lower Circles where prisoners are taken for torment.”  He spoke in the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used to say “You’ll torture me.”

Aragorn blinked.  He had expected some indoctrination—had suspected that the boy had been told the Gondorim were monsters who brutalized their foes—but this . . . He shook his head slowly.  “There are no such Circles,” he said, praying the boy would believe him, but knowing he wouldn’t.  Sure enough, Qara gave him a scornful look.  Aragorn arched an eyebrow.  “A seven-tiered dungeon the equal of the city itself?  The Dwarven lords of old could not build such a thing.  The stone would never support it.”  The boy’s face was skeptical.  Aragorn sighed.  “I’ve told you already that we do not torture our prisoners.”  He knew how futile his words most likely were; Qara had apparently been taught the opposite since he was still learning in rhyme.

But, Aragorn had one last card to play.  “They told you those things so that you would kill for them.”

Something flashed across the boy’s eyes.  He’d been stalwart and resolved on the question of dying, but the thought of killing seemed to give him pause.  “That doesn’t make it a lie,” he said at last.

“But, do you want to kill, Qara?  For them?”  The boy didn’t respond.  His hands curled into fists where they rested against his thighs.  With a sudden movement, Aragorn drew his belt knife and cut through the ropes that bound Qara.  Every eye in camp was on them in an instant, as even the men who’d begun to doze snapped back to alertness.  Aragorn pulled the Easterling to his feet and pressed the knife into his hand.  Qara stared at it, like he’d never seen such a thing before. 

Aragorn fell back a half step and spread his arms slightly.  “Go on,” he said, “Do what you came here to do.”

Behind him, eight men grasped the hilts of eight swords.  Qara’s eyes darted from Aragorn to the others.  “Or, perhaps death does not hold the appeal it did this morning?” Aragorn suggested.  “Perhaps what you really want is to go home?”  He glanced behind him.  “Lay down arms,” he barked, “All of you.  No one is to draw sword, whatever happens.”  The men slowly took their hands away from their weapons, though from their faces, they were not at all happy about it.  Sarn, in particular, gave Aragorn a look that suggested that if Qara didn’t manage to kill him, he would be happy to finish the job.

Aragorn took no notice.  He focused all his attention on the boy and prayed he’d read him correctly.  The knife trembled in Qara’s hand.  His face was stricken.  “What’s stopping you?” Aragorn asked quietly.

Qara bit his lip.  “It would not be honorable,” he said, after a pause.

“Killing never is,” Aragorn countered, his voice even.

The boy raised the knife and stared at it.  “You aren’t what they said you’d be.”

“No,” Aragorn agreed, “Are you?” 

Still, the boy did not move.  Aragorn stepped close and gently took hold of his wrist.  The knife still lay between them, the tip level with Aragorn’s breast.  Qara looked up at him through eyes that shone with tears.  “I’m a coward,” he whispered.

His hand loosened on the dagger.

It dropped to land, point first, in the forest floor.

“No,” Aragorn said quietly, “You’re not.”

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In the end, the solution was all too easy.

They made camp that night in a slight hollow within the forest.  Aragorn again insisted that the tent be erected to contain the boy, though they had no natural wall to pitch it against.  When Sarn expressed doubts about the security of the arrangement, Aragorn dismissed his concerns, making sure to do so within Qara’s hearing.  Meneldir proved easy to recruit as a co-conspirator.  Together, they staged a loud conversation about the geography of the region and how a clever woodsman could easily ford the Great River at a particular point a league to the north, and so slip into empty Ithilien.

Aragorn tied Qara’s hands to the tent stake like the night before, but with a knot that would slip under enough pressure.   It would seem like a careless mistake.  He considered leaving a loaf of bread by the tent’s door, decided that would be too obvious, and settled for letting his pack sit, unattended and slightly open, at the edge of their camp.  A few eyebrows were raised at his apparent carelessness, but the men soon guessed what he was about.

He took the first watch and pretended not to notice when a small figure slipped away into the night.

When his watch was over, he went to his bedroll and slept soundly.

A few hours later, he surveyed the empty tent with satisfaction.

“’Tis unfortunate,” he told the men.  To their credit, they almost hid their rueful snorts.  “Nevertheless, we’ve a patrol to complete.  One small Easterling cannot be allowed to turn us aside from that mission.”  They exchanged knowing looks as they broke camp.

But, Sarn cornered Aragorn in private, before they could move out.

“You think you’ve saved him?” the older Man hissed, “He will only return to his masters.”

“You don’t know that,” Aragorn replied evenly, “I think Qara has begun to realize he was lied to.  And regardless, he finds the life of a raider distasteful.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Sarn countered, “What if we have to fight the same Easterling again in a month or a year?”

“Then we will defeat him again!” Aragorn snapped, losing his patience at last, “And as many times as it takes until . . .” He fell silent and drew a slow breath to calm himself.  He was angry, but not at Sarn.  No, his anger was for the nine faceless bodies that dotted a distant hillside.  When he closed his eyes, he could see them again.  In his mind, each one had Qara’s face.  “They sent children against us.”  He spoke softly.  Sarn did not reply, nor would he meet Aragorn’s eyes.  Slowly, Aragorn pushed his raging emotions aside.  “We cannot become what they think we are,” he said at last, “If we do, we could subdue all the world and still we would have lost.”

Sarn stared at his feet.  “What are you going to tell the Steward?” he asked.

“The truth.”

“And if he has you court martialed?”

“Then he is not as worthy of my loyalty as I believe him to be.”

Sarn snorted.  “Do you ever get tired of taking foolish risks, Thorongil?”

“Do you truly think them foolish?”

He looked away.  “No, I suppose not.”

“Then let us waste no more time.”  Aragorn shouldered his much lighter pack.  “We have a long way yet to go.”

Fin

A/N:  I hope you enjoyed!  As always, reviews and concrit are much appreciated.