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A Long and Weary Way  by Canafinwe

Chapter XIV: The Fruits of Failure

The effort of struggling with his arms was growing swiftly exhausting. Aragorn's breath was laboured and beads of cold perspiration were trickling into his eyes. He let his body go limp for a moment, panting softly and striving to gather his resolve. He could not rest long, however, and as soon as he was able to breathe again he resumed the urgent motions, shaking his arms with such vigour that he felt as if his shoulders were about to be torn from their sockets.

He was hovering on the cusp of defeat when he felt the insistent bite of steel against the heel of his left hand. The exhalation of triumph was more of a moan, but a moment later he had the blade in his fingers. It was one of the little throwing knives: he had anchored the remaining two in the hem of each sleeve during his abortive break for freedom.

With excruciating care he twisted his fingers, trying to slip the blade between his wrists. He was not confident that he would be able to pick it up again if once he dropped it. He nicked more than one finger in the process and his hands grew sticky with thick, sluggish blood, but in the end he had the knife in place. Sawing through the ropes proved a challenge, for by now his fingers were cramping and his left wrist ached terribly. He would have fared better after a few minutes' rest, but he had no time to squander.

At last he felt the fibres snap and the bonds loosen. Frantically he wrenched his hands free of the rope and eased them forward. His arms burned and his joints creaked and popped as he restored his body to a more natural position. He ground his teeth against the spasms that tore into his shoulders and breast; to cry out now would be his downfall.

Scarcely had the cramps faded into a burning ache than Aragorn was forcing himself up. Fumbling rather badly, he cut quickly cut the bonds at knees and ankles, but it took some vigorous rubbing to restore feeling to his calves and his chilled feet. He did not trust his clumsy hands with a knife against his throat and so he did not remove the noose, but merely coiled its long tail about his shoulders like some strange hempen cowl. Perhaps a bit of rope would come in handy later on, anyhow: he would remove it when he found the chance. A concerted effort got his knees under him and he struggled to his feet, clutching his arms to his bruised abdomen, which protested cruelly against such exertion.

Casting a furtive glance towards the cave to reassure himself that the sentry yet slept, Aragorm moved with what haste he could to where his boots lay. He leaned against the hanging tree to wrestle with them. It proved a challenge to drag them on over bloated ankles with hands that could not properly grasp, but the desperate need for haste was a powerful motivator. Shod once more, Aragorn turned his attention to gathering his belongings. He was able to salvage little. His cloak and his knife he gathered, but the former had no clasp and the latter's sheath was nowhere to be found. His belt lay discarded by the hewn remains of his bowl, and it was with grim gratitude that he discovered that the pouch hanging from it had been overlooked by the plunderers: flint, steel, tinder rags and his cache of dried nailwort were all untouched. But his provisions were ruined, his water-bottles useless, his pack-straps cut and everything else either spoiled or soiled. He recovered his wooden cup although he would not dare to use it without several thorough rinsings, and he managed to find the coil of wire and his sewing-wallet – but the needles were gone and the thread had been pulled from its winder and tangled into a hopeless snarl. He kept in anyway, in case he might be able to work it out of the knots once he had time and proper dexterity.

There was no sign of his penknife, which was not of Elvish make. He grieved to lose it, for it had been a gift from his mother's cousin many years ago, but there was no help for it. By the fire, the smoke of which had doubtless drawn the attention of the Rangers, he found his comb. It had been snapped in two. He kept the half that had retained the most teeth, but left the other. The little crock that he had taken from the orc on the mountain was smashed, but Aragorn scraped up what grease he could and folded it into a corner of the rag that had been cut from his cloak.

There was nothing else worth bearing away, so he bundled the meagre remains of his gear into the ruined pack. He hesitated when he came to the cloak. He would have been glad of its familiar warmth in the sharp winter air, but without his star it was unwearable. He could scarcely stroll brazenly into the cave to reclaim his property from the sleeping Third Voice, nor could he linger here to improvise a clasp. Hastily he rolled up the tatty garment and stowed it in his pack, which he fasted by its one remaining cord and tucked under his arm like a washerwoman's bundle.

He had lost track of the minutes, but he did not doubt that he was all but out of time. With his free arm pressed against his battered trunk, he began to hasten away from the camp. To the northwest there rose a rocky hill, and it was in this direction that he moved. At first his legs trembled and he feared he would be unable to gain any significant speed, but as he fell into his stride his limbs steadied and his head grew clearer despite the ache in his core. Soon he reached the foot of the slope and he began his hasty climb, now and again casting his eyes over his shoulder at the camp below. If he could only pass the summit before the men of Ithilien came, he might stand a real chance of escape – for the orcs would surely be slain and the Rangers would not expect anyone to make for the empty lands that lay beyond.

But there was too little time. When next he looked behind, he could see the hooded figures creeping out of the gorse towards the cave. One squatted in the place where Aragorn had been lying, searching about for any sign of the captive. The man spied him, and rapped upon the arm of his comrade, pointing. But there was no time now to follow after a runaway, for with a cry the orc-sentry awoke.

Aragorn turned from the sound of battle and doubled his pace, straining against the pain in his side as he ran up the hill. Behind him the sounds of battle rent the air. He had no hope now of staving off pursuit: once the skirmish was decided, the victors would come after him – either the orcs, to reclaim their prize, or the Rangers, to discover what manner of man was trespassing in their lands. He must outrun them both.

There was a part of him that did not wish to run, not only because it galled him to fly from battle but because he knew that even a prisoner would find mercy at the hands of Denethor's men. They would give him food and drink, and allow him to rest – bound, perhaps, but unharmed and unharried. Though they would interrogate him they would not put him to torment, and no captain of the Rangers would sentence a man to death untried. If there were a healer among them, they would tend to his hurts. They would have made kinder jailers than the orcs.

And yet he could ill afford such a capture. The hour had not yet come for Aragorn son of Arathorn to walk once more in Gondor, and if he returned now there would be great calamity. What a coming for Isildur's Heir: to be dragged before the Steward as a tattered beggar, taken by the wardens of the debatable border-lands! Well could Aragorn imagine Denethor's expression as he beheld the once-puissant Thorongil, come back to Gondor at last. What hope would there be of restoring the kingship then? And worse, if Thorongil were still beloved in the hearts of those who had once been young soldiers and lordlings and who were now the nation's elite, there might be civil strife. Gondor might tear herself in twain, all for the sake of a few hot meals and a healer's scrutinizing touch.

At the very least it would be most embarrassing for Gandalf to have to extricate his ragged friend from the dungeons of Minas Tirith.

So Aragorn ran. He ran until he reached the crest of the hill. He ran, or rather skidded very quickly, down the far side. He ran until the noises of the fray were far behind. He ran while the sun climbed high. He ran though his throat burned in a torment of thirst and his abdomen ached and his head swam. He ran when his legs could scarcely bear him up. He ran until he stumbled and fell crashing to earth, and then he gathered up his weary bones and his ruined pack and ran again.

He ran until he came to a slow-moving stream wending its way between the scrubby hillocks. There he stopped for a time, his chest heaving. He drank his fill, and then lay down for a few minutes, resting his pulsing head and curling over the dull anguish in his viscera. He rinsed his cup, scrubbing it with silt from the creek-bed until he was satisfied that it was free of orcish filth. Then he drank again, until his belly felt bloated and could hold no more. He filled the cup and rose up again: it was all the water he could carry with him.

Surely the battle was ended. He wondered who had triumphed. He had counted half a dozen Rangers and others might still have been in the undergrowth. Likely they were sufficient to defeat a party of fifteen orcs, sunlight-shy and taken unawares. Though he hoped they had succeeded, and though he prayed that no man had been slain or grievously wounded in the endeavour, Aragorn could not help but wish that they would not pursue him. He knew that to be a foolish dream, however, and so he rose up and went on again, trying not to jog his steps too much lest he should spill his small supply of water.

The sun sank westward, staining the ragged clouds orange. Aragorn was stumbling now, made clumsy by exhaustion and hunger, but still he kept on. The Rangers might halt to rest awhile, whilst the hours of darkness made tracking impossible; but if the orcs had won they would not stop for night. Aragorn could not take that chance, however slim. Into the night he ran, until he could run no more. Then he crumpled to his knees. He drank what water remained in his cup and he cut loose the halter about his neck, stowing the coil of rope in his pack. Then wrapping himself in his ragged cloak, he fell into an uneasy slumber.

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He awoke before the dawn to the sound of booted feet far off but drawing nearer. There was no noise in the frosty air, but the ground echoed with the drumbeat of distant pursuit. Aragorn rose up, stowing his cloak in his pack, and he loped off, shivering, into the morning chill. Now and again he glanced behind him, fearing to catch sight of his pursuers, but ever onward he ran like a wounded hart before the hunt, his energies focused only upon survival.

Just ere noon he saw them: a black mass on the crest of the horizon. Whether at this distance they could see him he did not know, but he doubted it. They were many, moving in close formation. He was one, a grimy figure indistinct against the brown lands around him. Yet the sight of his followers filled him with despair. He could not run much longer, and there was nowhere to hide. They would catch him in the end.

It was his own fault, he knew. He should have listened to his friend. He should have heeded Gandalf's advice and taken his generous offer and departed for the North while he had still had the chance and the choice. Had he but listened to Gandalf he might be in Imladris now, resting in safety before he rejoined his men in their hopeless watch upon the Shire. He had been too weary, even on that afternoon in Harondor when Gandalf had announced his abandonment of their quest, to undertake such a journey as he had. Again and again he had misjudged and misstepped because he was exhausted, his endurance worn thin and his patience strained. In his full vigour and reason he would not have ventured so far by orc-roads in the mountains. He would not have passed that door without an adequate supply of light, and so would not have run afoul of the spider. Rested and alert, he never would have fallen on the stairs below Cirith Ungol. Even the brush with the Nazgűl would have been easier to bear had he not been teetering on the edge of enervation and despair. Most horrifying of all was his lapse before the Black Gate. Such a sight never would have caused him to forget himself so utterly, except that the darkness in his heart and the weariness of his body had made him vulnerable.

It was irresponsible to continue on, to press further into these black lands in his present state. He needed to recoup his strength, to renew his spirit before he faced any other challenge. If he wished to remain alive he could not endanger his ill-equipped body any further. He had pushed himself to the very brink of disaster, and now it was time to draw back a little. He knew now that if he escaped the current predicament he would not be resuming his hunt. He would make his way North as best he could. Though it was a bitter thing to return empty-handed yet again, it was better that he should return alive, having failed in his hunt, than to die in an attempt to achieve the impossible. He could always try to pick up the trail again at some other time.

Save that he knew he would do no such thing. If he forsook the hunt now, then it was over. Never again would he find the resolve to search for Gollum. Never again would he go striding South in search of the lost trail. If he quit now, he was forever finished. He would never find his quarry. He would never learn the whole truth. If Bilbo's ring were ever identified, it would be on the strength of Gandalf's findings. Aragorn the huntsman would have failed.

It would haunt him forever, this defeat. Evermore he would wonder how he could have done better, what more he could have tried, where else he might have looked. Evermore he would be tormented by the thought that if he had dared – if he had only dared – to pass into Mordor proper, perhaps he might have found the creature at last. Evermore he would think that had he been a little swifter, had he pushed a little harder, mayhap he would have caught the creature's spoor where it was fresh. Evermore he would revisit at whiles these long wasted years, wondering, supposing, reliving. And from time to time he would catch himself looking about, searching a riverbed or the shadows in a bog or the border of a mountain pool for just a hint of a hobbit-like print in the mud, as if somehow he might turn back time itself to the days when he had had the chance to find the troublesome wretch and to save Middle-earth from darkness...

Despair, colder than the winter winds, more pernicious than the probings of a Nazgűl mind, crept into Aragorn's heart. So be it. He had failed; such were the fruits of failure. He could not find Gollum. He could not go on. All that he could do was to keep moving, to place one weary foot before the other as slowly, tortuously, he plodded out the thousand miles that would bear him back to the lands of his birth. He would confess his failure and he would strive to bear both the shame and the consequences like a noble man. He could no longer hide from the truth. He had failed.

The hunt was over.

lar

Yet though he was no longer the hunter, he was still prey. Whether the distant shadow on the southern horizon intended to butcher and eat him or whether it intended to reel him in for questioning he did not know, but he could not fall into their clutches. That they moved even during the day did not much narrow the field. In these lands, the gloom of Mordor hung low and day was little more bright than night. Furthermore, orcs when pressed for revenge did not halt even for the dawn. Third Voice and his comrades might still be on his heels, lusting for retribution. With a heavy heart and aching legs, he trotted onward, unable now to run. About him the lands grew ever more barren, and there was a sour smell upon the air. It plucked at Aragorn's memory, but it was not until he reached the summit of the next hill that he realized where he had come.

Below him spread the grey expanse of the Dead Marshes. Here and there a sheen of sickly green disrupted the bleak winter fens. Tangles of swamp-weeds formed dark pox upon the land, and the foul, heavy smell that had plagued him for miles now seemed quite overwhelming. Revulsion shivered up the Ranger's spine as he stood there, numb with pain and cold and bitter despair. But he could not tarry forever, and there was no path for him but the northward path. He began to stumble down the slope onto the flat approach to the marshes themselves.

He would have struck a westerly course, and skirted them entirely, save that by now he was fairly swooning with exhaustion. For two days and a night had he moved forward with only a handful of hours spent in restless slumber. He was wounded and he was weak from hunger and thirst. He could run no farther: he had to find shelter, some place to conceal himself in the vain hope that his pursuers would pass him by in the gloom of the evening. The only cover in all these lands lay amid the sickly reeds and rushes of the fens ahead.

Soon he reached the edge of the quagmire, picking his way carefully into the muddy lands. He cast about desperately for somewhere, anywhere, large enough to conceal a man. Time was running short. His pursuers were doubtless behind the last hill now. There was not a moment to spare.

But there! A tangle of cattails, and a broad stretch of rushes, almost waist-high. Aragorn looked back. There was a shadow on the hilltop now, less than a mile behind. Swiftly he crouched, crawling forward through the mud until he was concealed among the reeds. Breathless he waited. It hardly seemed possible that such a place could hide him long. His breath came in ragged gulps and his heart was hammering in his chest. He had tarried too long on his hopeless quest and his tenacity, mayhap, would cost him his life. At the very least it would cost him his freedom. Again the black thought came to him and his wayworn spirit quailed. Such were the fruits of failure.

lar

Surely it took no more than a quarter of an hour for the trackers to descend onto the plain, but to Aragorn, huddling in the stinking mud and contemplating which of two grim fates was the more calamitous, it seemed an eternity. While he waited he berated himself. Fool, to believe he could accomplish what Gandalf could not. Doubly a fool, to press on even after losing the trail once again. And thrice three times a fool to be caught by four craven orcs because he was too dumbstruck to bestir himself! Fool he was, aye, and he was about to suffer either a fool's death or a fool's humiliation.

He could hear them now. They were perhaps three hundred ells away. At that distance, the clamour of orcs would have filled the air. These folk were quiet, murmuring among themselves. The Rangers, then. Aragorn felt a craven flutter of relief deep in his gut. He was not about to be slain like a dog in the muck. Then he remembered the disastrous consequences of capture by Denethor's men, and that small comfort, too, abandoned him.

Nearer still; they were on the very brink of the Marshes, and now Aragorn could make out their words.

'There, clear as day; the same boot-prints we saw in the camp, and back by the creek-bed,' said one. 'Well-made, but old and worn. Never a nail to be seen.'

'That cannot be right,' another put in. 'If those are his tracks, he has made his way into the very heart of the fens. All living creatures shun this cursed place. Captain, let us leave here while the daylight lasts!'

'We cannot leave! The man is a spy; else why would he have fled before our coming?' argued a third.

'A spy, or some sorry wretch who knew little of our ways and our skill,' said a quieter voice. 'He may have thought us unlikely to prevail, and snatched his chance for escape while he could. Who is to say how long he languished in the tender care of the orcs? Show pity for those less fortunate, Damrod, and you may find grace when most you have need.'

'Pity he could have had in abundance yesterday;' said Damrod; 'but he has led us on a merry chase, and I see no reason to forgive that. Never before have I ventured so far to the North, Captain, and I do not intend to return empty-handed.'

'What business had he in Ithilien?' asked a fifth man. 'That, at least, we must learn.'

'He may have had no business there at all,' put in a sixth voice, younger than the others. 'Mayhap the orcs brought him thence against his will. His face was bloodied and swollen: they had used him cruelly. If he has other wounds than I saw he may need our help.'

Aragorn supposed that this last must be the Ranger who had come upon him. Though he could not accept the implied offer of aid, he was nonetheless grateful to the kind-hearted youth. After so long among foes, it was consoling to find that someone cared enough to remark upon his well-being.

'Indeed he may need it, Anborn,' said the Captain, his voice low and pensive. 'But it seems he wants it not. Therefore I must chose: do I make further pursuit, even into these hated fens, and force our aid and our questions upon him, or do I withdraw, and allow the unfortunate to pass out of the knowledge of the Men of the West? By which course shall I best serve my nation, and my Steward, and my men?'

'Withdraw,' said the second Ranger.

'Aye, let us be gone from here. 'Tis a wicked place, and night is falling,' the first agreed.

'Your father would bid us press onward, my lord,' said the fifth; 'yet though I confess we should learn the stranger's intent, I would as lief remain upon unchanging ground.'

'Then I will speak what the rest fear to say!' Damrod exclaimed. 'We cannot bend the laws of this land for any man, be he pitiable or no! He had no right to walk within our borders—'

'I did not see him walking; I saw him bound and helpless,' protested Anborn.

'Yet he freed himself with no aid from you,' the fifth man put in. 'He cannot have been as helpless as he looked.'

'The laws of Ithilien—'

Damrod fell silent in the midst of his explanation. Aragorn knew the sound of such an abrupt halt in a soldier's speech. With a gesture or an imperious glance, his commander had made a demand for silence.

'We are no longer in Ithilien,' the Captain said presently, having made full use of the pause. 'We are beyond our borders, and in this debatable place there is no rule of law. Therefore the word of the Steward holds no weight here, over traveller or fugitive or servant of the Enemy. As this man was a stranger in the camp behind, so we are strangers here and so in danger. We do not know these fens and cannot walk them safely. Therefore let us depart, and tarry no longer. He has escaped our nets whatever his hurts; so let him be gone.'

There was no use in arguing with such a tone. Aragorn felt a sudden, irrational thrill of pride, like an old general who realizes that the new generation is indeed worthy to succeed him.

'Very well, my Captain. Let it be as you say,' Damrod professed. There was no resentment in his voice, nor any defiance. He had the sound of one who had discharged his duty and spoken his mind, but who accepts as a good soldier must the word of his leader. 'I shall be glad to return to our own borders, where at least the law holds.'

'Give me your bottle,' the Captain said. 'Is it full?'

'Aye,' said Damrod. 'But why?'

There was a sound of clinking buckles and shifting gear. 'You four men will share with the two of us, I trust?' asked the Captain. 'We shall have enough water between us to see us safely to the stream?'

'Aye, Captain.'

'Verily.'

'We shall.'

'But why?'

'There is no clear passage through these Marshes,' the Captain remarked. He was still shuffling through his equipment. He raised his voice to add; 'If the man has any sense, he will come out and take the long road around.' Then more softly he said to his men; 'And it is a long road, and lonely. The waters of these swamps are not to be trusted, nor have I seen any sign of game. If the man comes out as he went in, he will happen upon this. Whatever his transgressions, I would not condemn the poor soul to starve in this wasteland.

'Now let us go,' he said then, grunting a little with the unmistakable sound of a man hefting a heavy pack upon his back. 'We shall not halt until we are once more within our own lands. Onward!'

Aragorn listened as the footsteps sped away. Even when all was silent, he crouched there, breathless. He did not know whether the Captain had been aware of his lurking presence, or whether the raised voice was mere supposition – or even coincidence. They might have sent off some of their number only, with the others lying in wait. Yet his thirst was utterly unbearable, and at last it drove him forth, picking his way back to the firm ground at the borders of the Marshes.

There was no sign of the Rangers, but in the scrub grass lay two bottles, each full of clean water from the stream to the south; and a small bundle wrapped in linen. Within Aragorn found two wrinkled apples, several strips of dried meat, and a couple of pounds of hard, dry bannock; the waybread of the Men of the South. Such was the mercy shown to a suspect stranger by the Captain of Ithilien. Stricken with awe that brought unshed tears to his weary eyes, Aragorn bowed his head. There was yet hope in the world while good men dwelt in Gondor. With this gift he might win through to the living lands beyond the Emyn Muil, and so find his way home at last.

But he would never find Gollum.





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