AU Fourth Age fusion of book and movie-verse. Set ninety eight years into Aragorn’s reign.

A:L:G  OC  Friendship fic. Not slash. PG for violence and some adult dilemmas in later chapters.

Angst/Adventure

Previously posted as Unbinding the Box on ffnet

Adagio

Chapter Five

Three weeks on

Things had been simpler in earlier days, Aragorn thought, not for the first time.

Finally, not disgracefully late of the morning, they were riding on the great west road towards Rohan.

Beside him rode Legolas and, as they traversed the Rammas Echor the way was narrow enough to temporarily separate them from their escort so it was just the two of them, together.

He could pretend for a moment that little had changed over the years; as long as he did not raise his eyes higher than the ears of his horse, because then he would see the banner bearers and his forward guard, a troop of twenty men protecting their King.

As he cleared the wall he had to resist the urge to look back and watch the enormous snaking train of his personal guard, his city escort, the guard sent as a courtesy from King Elfwine of Rohan; followed by the Master Smith's party, the party from Aglarond and a tail of wagons carrying the cavalcade's tents provisions and sundry servants.

If he looked sideways he would have seen the keen outriders flanking their path. He chose not to.

Clear finally of the town lands surrounding the city Legolas looked into the far distance with his elven senses. Aragorn saw him fix for while on the forest of Druaden, wrapped as it was round the northern foothills of Mount Mindolluin.

Aragorn was struck by a sudden curiosity.

"Do your folk have commerce with the Woses, Legolas?"

"They are known to us." Legolas shifted his focus back to the King, but added no more

Aragorn was used to playing twenty questions with his friend. "And are your relations friendly?"

Legolas looked thoughtful. "Often." He offered finally.

Aragorn examined the blue sky and counted four white clouds before he trusted his voice again. He suspected Legolas of being obscure on purpose.

He changed the subject.

"Arwen wonders what we talk of, on the road, Legolas. Shall I tell her I actually spend my time prying information out of an immortal who has the conversational skills of a clam?"

Legolas looked at him, then turned his gaze back to the forest shrouded slopes.

"Well, you and I have more in common than the Elves and the Woses, Estel. I think they were here before both of us."

Aragorn gave up, and fell back into brooding about his changing lands.

The countryside was now intensively cultivated close to the city, and he could see farms and villages scattered as far as he could see across the flat plains of Anorien, from Cair Andros to the Entwash fading into the blue distance. He knew very few of them intimately, most had been established in the last ninety years. The very smell of the air was different from earlier times.

He was starting to feel like an anachronism.

He was snapped out of his bleak thoughts when a messenger galloped up the greenway from the direction of Rohan. The rider was intercepted by the King's guard and after a short conference escorted to Aragorn.

"He carries despatches from King Elfwine, Sire."

Both the guard and the messenger bowed leaving the messenger to hand his satchel's contents to the King.

"Well ridden, Lad." He complimented the youth.

"See Legolas, Elfwine penned this yester-eve at Edoras."

The messenger looked pleased.

"Your majesty is kind. I asked especially to be sent as my Lord Gimli," Legolas' attention sharpened, "is a hero and I could not stand any more of the whispers and calumnry being spread against him in Edoras."

"You have personal knowledge of him?" Legolas found his tongue.

"I have had that honour, my Lord. I accompanied him from Aglarond to Edoras some six weeks back."

Telfaren bowed to the Elf Lord.

"He was very gracious to me, and good company with his tales of great deeds."

Aragorn finished scanning the message, and then nodded dismissal to the messenger.

 "I will write an answer when we camp, nigh on Firien Wood, tonight. Can you wait?"

Telfaren nodded and bowed himself out of the royal presence.

Aragorn smiled at Legolas.

"Well, now we know Gimli is still enough himself that he continues his habit of making unlikely friends."

Legolas eyed Aragorn haughtily.

"First I am a clam and now I am unlikely. I think I will find company with more manners."

Aragorn laughed out loud, and Legolas was pleased to see the dark cloud lift from his friend temporarily; it made many things bearable.

 0000

Ghunkor-buri-Ghan watched his warriors drive the women of the horse-people into the village, and felt the bitter bite of premonition. This was wrong.

He had been distracted by his grief when they set off.

 His third son born dead in four years, Bar-Suli listless and turning her face from him in shame, and then prophesies and the demand for action.

 It had been easier to give in than to argue with Ghazari who was always reckless and ready for mischief, and now he was ashamed.

He showed nothing of this on his face of course, sitting impassive on the Ban-Rock of Rule outside of his hut door, under the sheltering peak of Halfirien.

He watched as the returnees filed down the grassy alp towards him, emerging from the steam generated by the hot pools like the old ghosts that were now cleared from the temple by the grace of the King of the Stone-city.

If he lifted his eyes from their arrival he could see the foothills of the Ered Nimrais falling in decreasing arcs, until the bulk of Starkhorn rose into the sky hiding the city of Edoras from even eagle sight.

But he knew what had been done here would be a stain on the good will of those fierce people, whose friendship this last century had allowed his people to expand into the mountain heights of their ancestors.

This was not a good day.

Gleowyn had moved past anger and despair in the five days it had taken to get here. Now she nursed a burning hatred in her breast for these people that had slain one of the truest souls in middle-earth like a base beast.

The intensity of her feeling made the pain she had felt before she was kidnapped seem the merest annoyance, and she laboured under guilt, that she could see no atoning for, in leading Gimli to his death.

After the first day her captors had had no word from her mouth. She ate what she was given, for she needed her strength to stay on her feet. But her burning contempt had begun to affect the whole party, from Ghodsi to Ghazani, and the warriors were silent and subdued as they led her bound form to present her to their Chief.

Gleowyn spat on his feet.

Ghazani jerked hard on the rope that was worked as a halter that ended at her hands and she fell to her knees; but she quickly lifted her chin and glared at the round headed, thick bodied man in front of her.

Bowed but not defeated at all.

Ghunkor considered her for a minute or two, and then raised his eyes to look at Ghazani and his twin brother Ghodsi.

First he looked at Ghazani, and deliberately used the common tongue so the woman could understand him.

 "Did it ever occur to you to ask her if she could help us?"

The look on Ghazani's face told him all he needed to know about that.

He shifted his focus to Ghodsi, "Did you?"

Ghodsi wriggled and twisted his feet and looked at the rock and the hut wall and the back of Gleowyn's head. Eventually he shook his head.

Gleowyn's outrage reached boiling point, she scrambled to her feet and screamed at the brothers.

"You killed him and didn't even have a reason."

She turned back to the chief.

 "You gave them no orders?"

Tears were now running unheeded down her cheeks, "You let them kill one of the Fellowship, beloved of the King and his people; and they could of asked?"

Her fury was truly awesome and the warriors backed away a step or two in front of it.

Ghunkor now rose to his feet, all his forebodings coming home to roost.

"Explain, Ghazani-buri-Ghai. What dishonour have you brought to our homes, already blighted as they are?"

"It was just a dwarf, my Chief. It was guarding the woman, so we shot it. The gods said nothing of a dwarf, my Chief."

“He was Gimli! He was Lord Gimli of the Nine Walkers, you stupid savage. He was beloved of elves and kings and,” Gleowyn choked. “He was kind.”

Sobs overwhelmed her and she sank to the ground.

Ghunkor breifly shut his eyes.

“I have heard of this hero.”

Ghunkor drew his belt knife and cut the halter from Gleowyn's arms, then spun around and held the knife to the great vein under Ghazani's chin.

The circle of watching warriors and families drew back further.

 The silence highlighted the chorus of coughs and wheezes that were the constant accompaniment of life now the gods had removed their favour from Ghunkor's village.

“The gods said nothing…” Ghazani looked stunned and terrified.

"Well, tell the gods I have lost patience with them, Ghazani. Tell them to mend your stupidity"

And with that he slit the hapless warrior’s neck, and stepped back to let his body fall twitching at his feet.

Screams came from the assembled watchers, and Gleowyn backed away, suddenly pale and silent.

Ghunkor wiped the knife on Ghazani's cloak, and turned slowly to look at Ghodsi, who was on his knees with tears flowing down his face.

"Do you have any more messages for us, Ghodsi?" Ghodsi sobbed a little harder but managed a headshake.

Ghunkor pushed him onto his side with his foot. Ghodsi lay snivelling. Ghunkor left his foot on the shaman's side, as he looked at all the people in his village, finally letting his gaze rest on the shocked face of the captured woman.

"And can you save my people, woman of Rohan. Tell me what is wrong?"

It was his turn to be shocked when the woman met his eye and stated with convincing confidence.

"Oh, yes, I can. Now I'm here I'm sure,” She pointed at the seam of yellow that painted the cliff wall behind the tribe. “It's Morgoth's bile and all that coughing, Morgoth's bane."

 0000

Two weeks later

Gleowyn picked Luin-beri-Ghan's whimpering babe out of her hammock and walked with her on her shoulder to the mouth of the hut that had become home for the last two weeks.

Far below the afternoon sun painted Firien Wood with gold and black and lit the far fields of Anorien and Rohan in the misty distance. She knew she could not really see Edoras for the bulk of Starkhorn across the Folde, but she could pretend.

Little Bin coughed sadly against her neck, startling herself into a fretful cry that Gleowyn soothed absently with a rhythmic pat on the back. She turned to peer back at the sandstone cliff that formed the east wall of the alp; the yellow seam of Morgoth's bile seemed to leer out at her where it ran along the layered wall. The old miner's saw about the yellow ore would seem to be true, it had certainly brought these people rue. So many of them were sick.

The young and the old, and especially the women with young babes, the People were preparing to move from this place but it took time and organisation, they were nearly ready now.

Despite being captured and walked here like so much baggage, she had not been harmed really; if you did not count the fact that they would not allow her to leave, and if she could discount the real grief she still felt for being the cause of the death of Lord Gimli.

That was a grief she wept for every night, her own woes seeming suddenly insignificant when set against such a loss to middle earth.

She heard Luin's harsh cough coming closer and turned to give Bin back to her mother.

It was the yellow ore, she was sure, her father had had a whole tin mine ruined by it, in fact its presence in these hills had curtailed most mining work, and the cough it caused was known as Morgoth's bane in Edoras.

Suddenly the drums started, echoing up from the forest. All the men stopped their tasks to listen.

Ghodsi sidled up beside her.

"Stone-house father comes to our woods."

He gestured away and down to the bottom of the hills where the West road crossed Firien Wood.

"Woses count many men. Many banner."

Gleowyn gazed at him in dumb surprise for a moment before suddenly becoming galvanised into action.

"Ghodsi, this is it."

She grabbed the skinny man and shook him.

"The hands of the king are the hands of the healer. Ghodsi you have to get Ghunkor to go to him. He's the healing following me."

 00000

 Late in the afternoon Aragorn had been lulled into the timeless blank that occupied his mind on any long journey, and was only started into awareness when his horse stopped under him in response to the halting of his forward guard.

He reached out and touched Legolas on the arm, bringing him back into the moment as well; his friend became touchy if strangers found him asleep in the saddle.

Aragorn leaned forward to ease his muscles and examined this wide field on the borders of Firien Wood to assess its suitability as a campsite.

Of course his forward guard were doing that for him already.

He exchanged a look with Legolas and then dismounted, pausing for a moment after his feet hit the ground. He was definitely going to have to find an excuse to take more regular long rides, he felt decrepit.

The rest of the party moved into the field, and in a commendably short while Aragorn's pavilion was set up and what seemed like a small town of tents encircled it, housing the various members of his party in efficient comfort.

The woods started reverberating with the drum calls of the Wose people he thought he had left behind in Druaden forest.

"Have the wild men been here long?" he enquired of the head of the Rohan honour guard who happened to be near when the sound erupted.

The man peered into the twilight that was advancing under the trees as if he expected to see Pukel-men lining the wood edge.

"Nay, less than five years to my knowledge Sire."

 He looked earnestly at the king.

"They are shy for all their racket. Only the foresters see them and only when they want to trade. I think they live up yonder mostly."

He waved his arm vaguely at the frowning peaks of Calenhad and Halfirien; still snow capped this early in the season.

Aragorn nodded to the man who escaped the royal inquisition with some relief.

Aragorn went to find Legolas, by the horses, as was no surprise.

Legolas placed his mount's hind foot down gently and stood up from his grooming, placing the hoof-pick neatly in the leather roll he had produced from his slim saddlebags.

"Will you visit these trees, Legolas?" Legolas gave the forest a considering look then smiled gaily at his King.

"Aye, they have much to tell me I think. And I hunger for trees after all these days away from Ithilien."

"Will you join me later then, for a game perhaps?"

Legolas picked up his bow and quiver from the small pile of his possessions stacked alongside the picket line. "Mayhap. And we may even share a woodcock or two for supper?"

He slung his weapons around himself with joy, and walked off to the woods edge, raising a hand in farewell to his king before swinging himself up onto the nearest convenient branch and vanishing from Aragorn's sight.

Aragorn considered the busy people around him, grooms, cooks, dwarves and soldiers and decided he had better go and write some letters before he felt completely redundant.

Much later in the evening he was sitting in the lamp-lit silk of his pavilion working, not on the despatches, which he had completed much earlier, but on a tricky translation from the Quenya of a poem he had never quite understood when it was sung on feast days in his youth at Rivendell.

He heard a disturbance at the boundary of the camp and jerked his head up, but waited to see if it was anything that needed his attention.

It really upset his guards if he interfered and made them feel as if they weren't doing a good enough job.

Finally the sound of challenge and counter-challenge reached the soldiers outside his door and he rolled up the scroll and its translation and waited to see what was going to come through the tent flap this time.

After a short pause Legolas swept in, bringing the cool air of the evening with him like a wave, and behind him came a wild man, short and round limbed as Merry had described them to him all those years ago, dressed in a rather magnificent cloak made of snow martin pelts, his face painted with blue and black dye so that it looked a grotesque mask.

Aragorn looked a question at the Elf.

"This is Ghunkor-buri-Ghan, over-chief of the clan of the Horned Goat who have claimed this mountain and forest as home. He wants to speak to you. In fact he is quite insistent."

Legolas stepped to one side and left the chief contemplating the King.

Aragorn inclined his head.

Ghunkor sank to his knees in front of him then banged his forehead on the carpeted floor of the tent.

Aragorn stood, but before he could say anything the chief began to speak. His voice muffled by his submissive posture.

"Stone-city King, mercy I crave you. Wrong has been done, not undone it may be, but justice I meted as my honour dictated. Now my people suffer, still they suffer, even as the gods spoke we suffer and the horse-woman said, "Mighty is the healing of the King." If more lives are needed mine is forfeit, and after me the warriors have sworn service."

He risked a glance up at the King who was listening with a furrowed brow.

Ghunkor gestured at the unseen forest outside.

"The drums tell of the dishonour so all Wild men know it, no home now have we."

Aragorn had a bad feeling, he glanced at the Elf who appeared fascinated by this recitation but not yet worried, then bent down on one knee to try to get on a level with the Chief.

"What horse-woman, Ghunkor?"

"She, of whom the prophecy spoke."

 The Chief seemed to struggle with the King's obvious lack of understanding for a moment then turned to the Elf.

"Go thou where I found you. Towards the mountain you will find her, with the women waiting, and the babes."

He reached up and removed one of the three brown feathers braided into his hair.

"By this the warriors shall know you."

He handed it to Legolas who vanished out the door. After a second the door guard stepped inside to watch the King's uncouth guest.

Ghunkor ignored the guard and prostrated himself again in front of the king who was feeling a little uncomfortable with the intensity of this, obviously proud, man's submission.

"There is more, Ghunkor-buri-Ghan?" The King asked.

"The King is wise, as it is spoken." The chief swallowed. "When my warriors brought the woman, she was not willing."

The short man knelt back on his heels and scanned the tent as if checking the Elf had really gone, then bravely met the Kings eye.

"Her companion was killed by one who is now dead by my hand."

"And her companion was?" Aragorn asked, already fearing the answer.

"A Dwarf, claimed by the horse-woman to be one of the nine that saved our world in the times of my grandfather."

Ghunkor saw the King close his eyes in pain, and fell back on his face. Leaving the Aragorn to open his eyes and meet the appalled expression on the face of the young guard.

Aragorn broke the silence wearily.

"I must take council on these fell tidings, Ghunkor. Go thou with this soldier, who will keep you safe for me until I call for you again. Many members of our party need to hear your story, and not least him who you sent to bring your people."

Ghunkor, impassively in control again, meekly rose to his feet and followed the guard, who had also managed to wrestle a more professional mask over his features.

Aragorn sat back down on his chair, rubbed at his forehead fretfully and then bent again to his pen to make a list, finally he called in the second guard and gave it to him.

"Make sure the Lord Legolas comes to me first, Darion. It is important."

The guard saluted and left, and Aragorn waited in the momentary calm for the storm to break.

 0000

Aragorn told Legolas what the Wild Man had said, and watched the life and animation drain out of the Elf's face as if it was water pouring from a jug.

 Legolas faltered where he stood, and Aragorn quickly guided him into a chair and handed him the goblet of wine he had poured earlier.

He hadn't thought his friend would take the news well.

Legolas looked up at Aragorn with eyes that seemed suddenly too big for his delicate face.

"Surely this cannot be, Estel?"

He clutched the goblet of wine to his chest, then seeming to realise what it was, took a huge gulp of the contents.

Aragorn sat down knee-to-knee with him and waited.

"It is senseless, Estel. How could he be dead?"

Legolas looked around the pavilion frantically then finally rested his gaze on the sombre face in front of him. A tear, unnoticed, ran down his cheek.

He finished the wine in his goblet, and then got up with a restless energy that was quite purposeless.

Aragorn stood also and shadowed him, and then, when he stopped near the wall of the tent and bowed his head, the King clasped him by the shoulders and rested his own forehead on the Elf's.

"I am so sorry, Legolas. I do not know the details of what happened, but I guarantee he would have died, as he lived, with honour."

Legolas shook his head in misery and swiped the back of his hand across his wet cheeks.

"Would he was alive; his honour was never in question."

 00000

Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth, the cave troll, was having a good day.

He had used his clever boulder trick, out on the mountainside, and was swinging a plump pigeon and a limp rabbit by their necks as he thumped along the tunnel.

Now he would be able to feed Oval Pebble. The big boar had lasted much longer than his last pet, Gravel, the mountain sheep. Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth thought hard and decided that it was because Oval Pebble was not fussy over what it ate. Stone-Water was looking forward to Oval Pebble running over to him and tickling him with his big tusks, like he did every time he could reach him.

Stone-Water nearly hummed as he rounded the last twist of the passage that led home, only to cry out in dismay at the sight that met him.

Granite-Glinting-Crystal, while the most beautiful cave troll of her generation, took up a lot of room in all her craggy hugeness; today she had rolled over in her sleep and crushed Oval Pebble with her elbow.

The Boar's head was quite flat and Stone-Water knew from experience that Oval Pebble was unlikely to run towards him again, even if he waited for a long time.

Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth kicked at his mother until she woke up.

"Look." He gestured towards the dead pig. "Look what you done."

His mother glanced at the mess beneath her elbow and winced. "Look what mess on my beautiful hide. Spent long time polishing." She sat up and twisted her arm in an effort to see the damage.

Stone-Water was exasperated. "Not your hide; Look what you done to my pet."

Granite-Glinting swiped at his head, then shuffled over to the stream that crossed the corner of the cave and bent to dip her arm in the water.

Stone-Water went and got a flat bit of bone.

 "All you care about is self," he grumbled as he scraped the remains of his pet off the floor.

Still muttering, he tipped the carcass down the rubbish hole and threw the flat bone down after it.

His mother turned a considering look on him, then looked down at as much of her encrusted bulk as she could see.

"I go out." She announced after a while.

 "Black-Rock-Burns and Snow-Boulder fight for me. I watch."

She shambled past her son and patted him heavily on the back.

"Keep telling you, Son, stop bringing pets home. They always die, then you always get mad."

She left, and Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth crouched in the middle of their cave, amongst all the pretty shiny things, and felt aggrieved.

After a time he grabbed his club again and took to the tunnels.

"I'll show her, I get another pet."

 00000

Gimli was beginning to suspect that following Gleowyn might not have been the most sensible thing he had done in the last year or so.

His dark adapted Dwarven sight had made following the party through the first part of the Forbidden Paths easy, their heat left a ghostly image on the air.

Legolas' miruvor had given him a sense of strength allowing him to arrive at the formerly closed door of Baldor's doom in good time. Now that boosted strength had left him, and when he put his good right hand up to his left shoulder he could feel a large cold wet patch, and another down his side, soaking the top of the leggings.

He leant back on the wall beside the door and tried to draw some further strength from the mountain roots around him.

He looked for the remains that had lain at the door for countless years.

They had been pushed out of the way by the arc formed by the opening of the door into the passage; the slab remained propped ajar by two broken pieces of rock. Baldor's gem encrusted belt had vanished and somehow that disgusted him even more than the abduction of an innocent girl and the desecration of this ancient place.

The air flowing down into the main cavern from the side passage was cold and smelled of mould and old rot, but it was the way the party had taken. Although the trace was faint he could still see the long worm of their heat image stretching up the slope.

After a moment or two he decided he was as well as he was going to get, pushed himself off with his good hand and plodded into the passage.

The heat trace was dissipating quickly, so Gimli tried to hurry, past a honeycomb of deep niches carved in the walls.

Burial chambers he supposed.

Once or twice side passages loomed to the right or left but the wisp of heat carried ever on and Gimli gritted his teeth and followed.

The pain in his shoulder was becoming all consuming, and he had to stop again to move his pack even further over to the right.

He leant his axe against the tunnel wall, and then wandered on forgetting it.

He felt pain in his right side and dropped the heavy weight that tugged on it and walked lighter for a little while.

He tried to remember what he was following, and leaned against the tunnel wall to think, his helmet tipped forward in front of his eyes so he took it off and dropped it when he remembered that he was following a heat trace and there was a great big one going to the left.

This tunnel was wide and the trace was easy, and then he found himself on his knees and his palms were smarting from their sudden contact with the cold floor

"I will not crawl in the dark, again." He thought to himself, fuzzily; and struggled to his feet.

The large heat source was right in front of him and as he struggled to focus on it, it seemed to be peering back at him.

A huge gnarled finger poked him, and he fell down again, with the world nauseatingly swimming in and out of focus. The small part of him that was in the world heard a voice like a mountain say, surprised.

"A dwarf. I haven't had a dwarf for centuries."

Then a rock-like hand wrapped itself around his torso and picked him up; the pain was so intense Gimli passed out completely.

Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth was very pleased. A dwarf lasted a long, long time. He sniffed at his prize. Then frowned. Red stuff. His mother's scathing words came back to him.

"The only ones you can catch are sick. They all die, and then their kin bring our people trouble. No more two legs as pets."

Well she would be gone for at least two weeks and he would show her.

He would make this one well, and keep him in a safer place than Oval Pebble, and then she would see he could keep a pet. Even a sick one.

Mentally he thumbed his nose at his mother, and patted the dwarf on the back, eliciting a feeble groan.

Stone-Water-Worn-Smooth smiled happily, and stumped off back home.

 00000

Gleowyn stood with the group of Wose women and looked hungrily around the circle of tents making up the King's campsite.

Lord Legolas had come to them in the forest, handed something to the warriors that appeased their fears, then approached her and asked her softly if she was well.

She could see him scanning the others and with a sinking heart knew who he was looking for, but before she could explain anything except that she was unharmed, she found herself drifting through the forest after him in the company of all the Wose tribe.

If it hadn't been for the coughs that marked their progress she could have fancied herself alone, for only her feet made any noise.

Now they stood in a moment out of time, in the middle of the encampment in the dark, in a ring of protective Wose warriors who were in their turn encircled by watchful soldiers in the livery of Gondor.

One of the babies started up a hiccupping cry and Gleowyn went and hefted the infant while her mother sat on the ground preparatory to nursing. As if it was a signal, all the women settled on the ground, coughing and wheezing intermittently.

Gleowyn handed the sniffling baby back to her mother and remained in her limbo, standing.

Finally she heard her name being called in a voice that she seemed to have been missing for a lifetime.

"Gleowyn." Shouted her father; and time snapped back into its normal groove as she saw him running towards her. Then she was enveloped in his strong embrace and her life started again.

TBC

Rose Sared

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