Chapter 14. Weathertop

After gazing raptly at the mountains rising in the distance, Pippin-lad walked around the perimeter of Amon Sûl, speaking as if to himself. But Haldoron was listening closely, and since he possessed the keen senses of one of the Northern Dúnedain, he heard every word. It was interesting to compare the account in the Red Book as the Ring-bearer had written it with Aragorn's narrative of events at Weathertop.

Pausing where the hilltop overlooked the Road in both directions, Pip-lad extended his hand to the West, sighting along the Road as if he were placing figures on a game board. 'Three of them were travelling eastward towards Weathertop,' he murmured, and then turned to face the East while extending his other hand. 'And at the same time, two were travelling westward to meet them. Mister Frodo said they looked like black specks, creeping inexorably towards the middle – as if to catch him between pincers.' The teen slowly brought his hands together and then knelt, clasping the jagged stone before him, leaning a little to look through the cleft between that stone and its neighbour.

Looking over the lad's shoulder gave Haldoron a clear picture of what Aragorn and the hobbits atop the hill had seen. When Merry asked me who or what they were, I had no answer to give him. But I feared the worst, his kinsman whispered in the Ranger's memory. It would have been too much to hope they were mere travellers upon the Road, who would pass us by without looking up to see us watching them. And at last, as the Sun began her descent, her face obscured by clouds from the East, they met on the Road beyond the foot of the hill, met, and stopped, and now they were close enough for me to see that the Enemy had caught us at last.

Pip-lad suddenly jumped up and walked to the centre of the ring, scuffling his feet in the dust. 'I wonder what happened to the cairn?' he said to all and no one.

'Cairn?' Robin said, and the others turned from their perusal of the surrounding vistas to listen.

The Gamgee teen gestured towards the dusty ground. 'A pile of rocks,' he said. 'Broken stones that had been blackened, as if by fire.'

'Gandalf!' Faramir said in excitement. 'That's right! He drove off the Black Riders – by himself – and left a flat stone with some scratches that a friendly eye might be able to decipher...'

'There are certain codes that the Dúnedain use to communicate to others – Rangers, patrolling Elves from Rivendell, and yes, even the occasional Wizard,' Haldoron said dryly. 'And so Elessar was able to work out that Gandalf had been at Weathertop on the third of October from the runes scratched on that small stone.'

'They saw the echoes of his fire in the sky!' Robin said, wonder in his voice. 'You told us about that, Pip, as we were walking...'

'Old Gandalf managed to draw off four of them,' Faramir remembered, 'so that there were only five in the group that attacked the Walkers here.'

'Only five,' Haldoron snorted.

Ferdibrand studied him curiously. 'You seem to know something of them,' he said.

'More than I ever wanted to know,' the Man said shortly. 'My Chief knew them better than any of us, but we had a taste of their darkness... I lost a good friend to the Black Breath.'

Faramir thought of his Uncle Merry and shuddered. To distract himself from the thought, he said the first thing off the top of his head. 'So where were they when the Ringwraiths attacked? I don't see how they could expect to find any cover on this windswept height!'

'They were in the dell at the foot of the hill,' Pippin-lad corrected. 'In fact, I don't think your da – or mine – ever stood atop this hill! Just Strider, Mister Frodo, and Master Merry. Our fathers stayed in the dell with Bill, and explored... and spoiled the ground for Strider to read the signs of who had been there.' The teen shook his head.

'I want to see it,' Faramir said. 'For a great part of this endeavour is to walk in my da's footsteps, after all...'

'The dell is on the western flank at the bottom of a sheltered hollow,' Pip-lad said. 'We didn't see it because we climbed up the north side of the hill rather than beginning the climb from the dell.' He rubbed the back of his neck. 'Handy, that,' he said.

'What's handy?' Faramir asked.

'Well, if we go back down by the same way we came up, we'll be walking in your da's footsteps,' the Gamgee teen told his friend. 'Except we won't, since he never stood upon the hilltop, at least the way the Red Book tells it.'

For some reason, Haldoron felt the need to stifle a chuckle. Had that been a gentle gibe on the Gamgee lad's part, or was it simply a coincidence of words? As he looked over at Ferdibrand, that hobbit rolled his eyes, leading the Man to have to swallow down another chuckle. This was hardly the place and time to explore Hobbits' ideas about humour.

'This way,' Pip-lad said to the others.

'After you!' Robin Bolger said, extending his hand as politely as if he were inviting the teen to be the first to go through a doorway.

'O no, after you!' the Gamgee teen grinned.

'I quite insist!' Robin said grandly, and he gave a sweeping bow that might have been suitable for honouring the King and Queen of Arnor and Gondor in the eyes of the courtiers and nobles at a grand court occasion. 

The teens both bowed to him in return and, together, they stepped out of the circle of stones. Talking without ceasing about the wonders of Weathertop, the high tower that had stood here in times past, the paltry ruins that remained (along with nothing remaining of the cairn Gandalf had left), and what it must have been like when Elendil stood there, watching for Gil-galad to come out of the West, they led the descent, slipping down the north side of the hill as Frodo and Merry and Strider had done, while (not) following in their fathers' footsteps.

Haldoron noticed that Ferdibrand lingered a moment behind the others, drinking in the sight of the mountains beyond them as if he were trying to memorise the view.

***