Chapter XII: Fruitless Days

Before the grey gloom of morning touched the mountains at his back, Aragorn reached the mouth of Morgul Vale. He halted at the foot of the slope that led up and out of the valley, eager to be gone but at the same time reluctant to tackle the incline. He was weary and the gash on his leg was throbbing against the bandages. With his spirit still reeling from the close brush with the Nazgûl he wanted nothing more than a safe place to sleep, but there was no safety in these lands for him. He took a frugal swallow of the orc-cordial, and when his aches began to dim a little he started up the steep, winding way towards the cleft in the mountains.

This was perhaps the most dangerous stretch of road that he had walked in many years. The way was narrow and bereft of cover. If a patrol of orcs, or a messenger, or a spy were coming from the other direction Aragorn would not be able to conceal himself, and he misdoubted his ability to fight, injured and exhausted as he was. There was nothing to be done about it, however, and hoping grimly for the best he followed the path with what haste he could muster.

For all his fears he was not assailed and soon found himself moving down the slope, leaving Imlad Morgul behind. The stink of decay clung to him, refusing to dissipate though the distance between himself and the hated valley grew with every uneven step. Aragorn was beginning to wonder if he had at last slipped into madness, for it seemed his mind was deceiving him, but then he realized that his boots were fouled with the juices of the grotesque flowers over which he had trodden through the night. He stepped from the path into the grey, scrubby grasses in the hope that the residue would be worried away as he walked.

Even with the orc-cordial in his veins he felt treacherously close to falling asleep upon his feet. What a sight he must look, he thought to himself. Grubby and bloodied in his patched travelling clothes, shoulders stooped with weariness, his right leg lame and his left stiff from carrying so much of his weight. His bandaged wrist he kept tucked against his side, hugging his cloak close to his body in a way that was oddly consoling. Aragorn supposed that he ought to be very glad indeed that he was alive and well, neither slain by the spider nor broken upon the stairs nor even now weighed down with Morgul-chains awaiting torment in the Dead City behind, but at the moment he was incapable of enjoying such satisfaction.

The ground levelled off and the road grew straight. Abruptly Aragorn realized that it was not prudent to continue as he was. If he kept on this course he would soon reach the great Cross-roads, where the ancient Númenórean highways met: East to Minas Morgul, West to Minas Tirith, South into the once-verdant hills of Harondor, and North – to the Black Gate. Not one of those roads appealed to Aragorn, and yet they were his only choices and the question before him now was which way Gollum might have chosen, had he ever passed this way.

Gollum. Aragorn stopped where he stood, his weary shoulders sagging still lower as he hid his face in his right hand. Not for the first time in fifteen fruitless years he cursed the creature whose name had become such a symbol of bitter and hopeless toil. In the hunt for Gollum he had endured greater privation, and weariness, and indignity than he had suffered for any other quest or errand in his life, and what had he to show for it? A few scraping tracks in a cavern left far behind, and a rumour that something had dwelt in the Ephel Dûath two or three years past. Now here he was, having since passed through darkness and blood and nameless horrors, no further along in his search than he had been a fortnight past.

And where would he go from here? How could he search for something without any evidence that he had even been in these lands? He had lost the trail yet again, and this time he had no hope left that he would find it.

His wounded leg was thrumming distractedly again. It would soon be time for another dose of the orc-liquor, but Aragorn was reluctant to take it. He had so little left, and it would be days yet before he would be able to move on without it. Besides, he was exhausted. He needed to lie down for a while, and if he could only root out a safe place he might even sleep a little. Perhaps the world would not seem so grim and hateful once he had found some rest. Limping rather badly, he veered off the road.

As he drew farther from the highway winding down to Morgul Vale, the undergrowth grew more dense and plentiful. Though the way was proportionally more difficult, Aragorn was glad of the hedges and bushes. For one, they would obscure his passage and might well provide cover for him when he found a place to halt. For another, where vegetation was plentiful there was hope of water. He doubted that he would have the strength to roam far afield in these next days, and he had only enough drinking-water to sustain life for another two. He had no desire to repeat his experience in the mountain pass, and he did not doubt that if it came to that death would find him more quickly this time.

He had not been walking long when he came upon a hollow in the lee of a great spur of the mountain. Out of sight of the road, it was bordered on three sides by rock, and the ancient gorse-bushes were high upon the fourth side. It was as good a place as any for a wounded man to hide, and Aragorn settled upon the ground with his back to a large boulder. He stretched out his wounded leg and tucked up his good one, rubbing his hams awkwardly with his right hand and hoping that he would not be visited by further cramping. Though he wanted to maintain a watch at least for a little while, he rapidly found himself incapable of resisting his enervated body, and he slipped into a deep, incautious slumber.

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He did not sleep long, for his leg was troubling him. For several fruitless days after that he moved northward as best he could, keeping to the foothills where the underbrush was thick. His marches were brief, for hobbled as he was he could not endure long without rest. The orc-cordial was all but gone, and he had resolved to use no more now, lest some greater need arrive later, but his pain was considerable and it wore upon his resolve. Though he remained as vigilant as he could he neither saw nor heard any sign of servants of the Enemy.

He was fortunate enough to find water – vile, sulphurous little rills trickled down from high places and met this most fundamental need– but now his stores of food were growing short. With the pain clawing at his appetite he was eating little enough, but he had to cast away his meat, for it was too rancid to eat, and that left him with orc-bread and walnuts. In this desolate place there was little to be found by way of wild food. There were whortleberry bushes here, but it was the very heart of winter now and their fruit was for the most part gone. He ate what shrivelled purple husks he could find, but for the most part he subsisted on bitter roots and the mushrooms that seemed the only living thing save the gorse that thrived in these grim climes.

He was tempted to turn westward, for he knew that in the heart of Ithilien both flora and game abounded, but he was apprehensive of crossing the road. There, too, he would have to be doubly wary, for he could no more afford to be taken as a spy by the Rangers of the Steward than he could to be captured by orcs. Though he did not doubt that under normal circumstances he could have walked in that land without detection, in his present state he would not take much tracking. He knew well the skill of the border-wardens of Gondor, for he had served with them long ago and taught them many of their tactics.

Furthermore, he knew that Gollum was not in Ithilien, and there was still some part of his mind that refused to forsake the hunt. Aragorn understood now that it was not hope: if he were to be honest, he would have had to admit that all hope of finding the wretch had been abandoned long ago. But his obstinacy lingered, as did the inertia of the chase. After searching so long, it seemed almost more difficult to stop than it did to limp forward another mile, scanning the undergrowth for hobbit-like tracks and moving ever northward towards the Ered Lithui.

In those miserable days while the year waned around him, Aragorn kept a wary eye upon his wounded leg. At first the gash bled whenever he chanced to disturb it. At last the first webs of scar-tissue began to form, but the wound oozed pus and fluid, and was most painful to the touch. He dared not chance a fire, which would have drawn unwanted attention from both the thralls of the Enemy and the soldiers of Denethor, and so he could not make compresses to leach out the infection. Instead he used one of the little throwing-knives to drain the wound from time to time, and whenever he came across water he washed the bandages and applied them anew. A day came at last when the inflammation was all but gone, and after that the discomfort eased considerably and he was able to walk properly again.

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By Aragorn's reckoning, it was the twenty-second day of Afteryule, or by the calendar of Imladris the sixty-ninth day of hrivë. He had lost count of the days during his time in the bowels of the Ephel Dûath, but two nights ago the clouds to the West had lifted sufficiently that he could make out the ghostly outline of a great round moon in its first night of waning. Unless he had languished beneath the earth for twenty-four days, he reflected wryly, his estimate of today's date was near enough to the mark.

Certainly it felt enough like January. Even so far south, the air was cold and the wind nipped at the tip of his nose. There were no animals about, though high above him lean, avaricious crows circled like the harbingers of evil. Somewhere away to the west, the men of Ithilien were about the business of safeguarding the border-lands of Gondor, working together to ensure that the bridge at Osgiliath remained inviolate and that no servants of the Enemy crept across the river to worry the fertile lands beyond.

Aragorn spared a pang of longing for the camaraderie of his own men, far in the North. They would be suffering the privations and the dangers of a bitter winter now, wandering through deep, uncut drifts of snow by day, and by night huddling together around meagre campfires built on ground for which they had been obliged to dig. Yet Aragorn would gladly have traded this barren place where even the nights were not sufficiently cold to bring frost for the frigid expanses of home and the company of his folk. With the perils of Imlad Morgul now a fortnight and more behind him, he found the loneliness creeping inexorably back into his heart. He longed to speak with someone, with anyone at all. He had not expected to miss Gandalf's company so soon, but miss him he did. It would have been well worth the ribbing for his self-endangerment that he would doubtless receive to hear the wizard's voice again. These empty lands offered a bitter road to the solitary wanderer.

A sound rent the stillness of the twilit evening, and Aragorn dropped at once to one knee so that he was hidden by the gorse-bushes all about. The motion that a week ago would have brought excruciating pain from his thigh now engendered merely a sharp twinge into the muscle. The Ranger drew his knife, listening warily. The noise repeated itself; harsh and unpleasant even to ears that longed for the voice of another: the discordant syllables and strange fricatives of the Black Speech.

The speaker was too far away for Aragorn to discern precisely what was being said, but the voice grew nearer, and with it the noises of heavy feet and thick blades idly swinging against the bracken. He heard the grating sound of orcish laughter.

Hastily he cast about, looking for the best place to conceal himself. When no such hiding-place seemed forthcoming he cast about instead for the position of most tactical advantage. He settled swiftly upon a space of clear ground some yards behind him. There he might stand free of the undergrowth, while any assailant would be obliged to grapple first with the gorse. Swiftly and silently he crept to his chosen place and crouched there, ready to spring up at the first challenge.

The orcs were drawing nearer, and the ground was groaning beneath their feet. It was a large party – a dozen or more – and as they drew nearer Aragorn could at last make out their words.

'... stinking tarks think they can go where they please – pah! That'll teach 'em to go sticking their noses where they don't belong!'

'Did you see that tall one bleed? You think he's dead yet?'

'No telling,' grunted the first orc. 'It's just madness, isn't it, carrying away their wounded and their dead?'

'Selfishness, more like. They just don' want us to enjoy 'em.'

'You ain't asking the right question,' said another, and Aragorn's pulse quickened as he recognized the voice of the orc whose life he had spared. 'The question is why are they nosin' around so far north in the first place? What're they up to? What're they planning?'

'Who says they're planning anything?' the leader asked, snorting as he hacked at a nearby gorse-bush. 'They're jus' tarks.'

'Yeah?' Third Voice sneered. 'Then tell me why Lugbúrz is massing armies. Tell me why the City's sendin' out spies! Tell me why there's tarks in the mountains—'

'Aw, not this again!' a reedy voice moaned. 'I'm tellin' you, you didn't meet a Man what can understand our speech – an' if you did, then it was one of their Men and no tark.'

'Easy mistake to make,' another put in. 'Pale faces, dark hair, soft underbelly: they all look alike.'

'I'm telling you, it was a tark! Fire in his eyes, and a pale Elvish sword... but he knew our speech an' he let me go!' protested Third Voice.

'There you 'ave it: why'd a tark let you go? It must've been a warrior from the City.'

'Why would a warrior from the City kill all the others?' Third Voice argued, as mulish as ever. ' 'E let me go 'cause I answered 'is questions.'

'Questions 'bout what?'

' 'Bout that thievin' sneak was worrying our patrols two year back,' said Third Voice. He was beginning to sound rather defensive, and the forward progress of the company had halted. Aragorn wondered whether the others had the little dissenter surrounded.

'Another myth you mountain sentries dreamt up; just a fib to explain missin' supplies!'

'The tark didn't think so; 'e took me serious.'

'There weren't no tark!' the leader bellowed.

Third Voice said with the wounded air of one whose dignity has been impugned beyond hope of conciliation; 'Well, they believed me.'

'Pah! They would. They've got it in their heads that there's some kind o' conspiracy brewin' behind every door. You'd think they—'

'You think you'd have the good sense not to say such things out loud,' another orc hissed. 'That's treasonable, that is.'

'So what if it is? We're miles from the Road and days from the City. They can't hear me here.'

'Somethin's listening,' Third Voice whispered. 'We ain't so alone as you think we are.'

'This another one of your hunches?' demanded the leader, scorn dripping like venom from his lips. 'Dunno why you're wasted on this duty: maybe you oughta be up in the Tower counselling the Eye 'isself.'

'I'm a loyal City soldier, same as you!' snapped Third Voice. 'You'd do well ta listen ter me!'

' 'E might be right, Ghashmaz,' ventured the one who had spoken of treason. 'Las' time 'e said something was about, it was them tarks.'

'Fine, then: let's move on!' Ghashmaz grunted. 'But if I hafta 'ear about your mysterious warrior one more time, you maggot, I'll gut you like a pig an' leave your entrails for the crows!'

Their march resumed, and Aragorn waited at the ready as they stomped past perhaps fifty yards from his hiding-place, felling the venerable gorse-hedges as they went. At last the noise of their passage faded as they marched away southwards, towards Morgul Vale.

He had not wish to fall afoul of such a company, nor did he want to encounter Third Voice again. When they were well away, Aragorn got to his feet, rubbing idly at his thigh which had stiffened after so long crouching beneath the bushes. Sheathing his knife but keeping it loose in the scabbard, he started north with all haste.

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Through the night he walked, and into the next day, too. At what he took to be noon – though the smoky clouds hung low and made it difficult to be precise about the time – he reached the end of the gorse-forest. Here the land was rocky and grey, too barren to support even these hardy plants. Aragorn halted in the last stunted thicket, and under its cover he slept a little. At dusk he rose, and gathered his possessions, and started northward again.

Soon he realized that he was moving east: though the mountains were still to his right the aura of the rising moon was almost directly ahead. He had at last reached the end of the Ephel Dûath where they joined the Ered Lithui, the tall ashen range that marked the northern border of Sauron's land. Here the red glow of Orodruin stained the sky from afar, belching black smoke into the air where it mingled with the clouds into a maelstrom of darkness. The barren land soon gave way to a treacherous path rent with fissures through which the foul emissions of the earth belched up to sully the air.

Aragorn made slow progress here, for the path was dangerous and there was no light save the carmine blight upon the horizon. The reek was terrible: brimstone and ash and evil mingling in the stagnant air. At dawn he halted in the lee of a great hill of slag, there to rest a little, though in this place he dared not sleep. Then onward he went, out of long habit keeping a sharp lookout for hobbit-prints among the debris. The grey half-light of day faded around him as he came upon a deeply rutted cart-road that wound about the towering mounds that were the detritus of the mines of Mordor.

By his reckoning it was well past midnight when suddenly he saw the light of bonfires and torches away below. Instinct sent him onto his belly atop a mound of gravel and filth, and he crept so that he was peering over its edge, hopefully unseen.

Before him stood the Black Gate, monstrous to behold even in the indistinct darkness. The great watchtowers, built by the Kings of Gondor in their golden age of triumph but long abandoned by a waning line and a weakened land, stood still in the gloom. The stonemasonry of Númenor had endured the centuries of neglect, only to be captured by Sauron and rebuilt. Despite the night about him, Aragorn could see the shadows of the sentries upon the high walls, and he could feel the penetrating gaze of the watchers, ever vigilant lest some impudent spy should dare to assail the Teeth of Mordor.

It was not the first time he had laid eyes upon this place, and the horror of the Morannon alone was not enough to freeze his blood. Yet he lay there transfixed as his eyes followed the flames on the plateau before the gate. It was alive with activity: labourers and slaves quailing beneath orc-whips as they hauled forth the waste of Sauron's war-efforts. When he had walked these hills before, this place had been empty, visited infrequently by the carts of rubbish and useless stone. Now there were dozens, hundreds of folk below, toiling in this last part of the process by which the hosts of Mordor were armed and armoured. If such was the effort at the end of the line, what vast labours were taking place in Gorgoroth itself?

Dismay rendered the Ranger utterly immobile. He could do no more than stare, whilst his mind flooded with dread and with images of utmost disaster. What hope had Gondor before such a force? What would befall the West on that dreaded day when Sauron saw fit to pour forth his armies against the Free Peoples? And if upon that day the One Ring was on his finger...

Abruptly his instincts were screaming at him to rise, to move, to flee! There was danger here! But his limbs would not respond. He could only stare, horrified, at the spectacle before him as the ramifications of this sight sank home with the full weight of despair. There was a moment of clarity in which he was made aware of the dreadful truth that the pressing threat was not before him but behind, but by then it was too late.

'Well, well, what have we here?' a lilting voice sneered as a clawed hand closed on Aragorn's shoulder and an iron-shod foot settled upon the small of his back. 'Seems the little maggot was right: tarks nosing about where they've no call to be. P'raps you can answer a few of our questions, eh, my pretty?'