Aragorn finished clearing away the remains of their evening meal and then stirred the embers of the dying fire to life once more by adding another small log to the pile.  The wavering yellow flames licked about the newly added firewood and grew stronger and brighter.  Aragorn stoked the coals one last time and then settled back against a large, sturdy tree and pulled out his clay pipe and began to diligently pack Shire weed into the small round bowl.

          Legolas frowned at his companion as he observed Aragorn extract the smoking pipe and weed from his bags, but did not comment.  He did not relish the ranger’s smelly habit but neither did he begrudge him this one small pleasure.  As Aragorn lit the pipe and began puffing away at the stem’s mouthpiece, Legolas busied himself with his nightly inspection of his weapons.  It mattered not where they camped, whether in the safety of a Shire meadow or amid Mirkwood’s dark and dangerous forests, the Elf never shunned this task.

          His dark head emerging from a cloud of blue smoke, Aragorn needlessly poked at the fire with a long, narrow stick, causing small sparks to fly up from the fire and the flames to rise to new heights.  Satisfied that the fire would not burn out any time soon, he leaned back against the tree and drew in another deep puff off his pipe.

          “Well, Legolas,” he smiled between the clouds.  “What tale do you have for me this night?”

          The Elf vigorously rubbed a daub of suet into the leather of his quiver with a soft deer hide cloth, infusing the leather of the carrier with the creamy substance which gave the tooled surface a smooth suppleness and dark, rich sheen.  He glanced up at the ranger seated across the fire pit from him and smiled.

          “I believe it is your turn for telling a tale, Aragorn.”

          Aragorn started and his eyes opened wider.  “Me?  What tale could I possibly tell to rival any you might impart?”

          Legolas paused in his work and grinned up at his friend, his eyes sparkling with excitement and anticipation.

          “Tell me a tale of sailing ships and the sea,” he quickly replied, his face aglow with an inner light and his expression like that of a child awaiting an especially longed for and favorite sweet.

          Aragorn hesitated a moment, thinking, and then slowly nodded his head.  “Very well,” he agreed.  “But it has been almost forty years since this event took place and that is quite a long time for me to remember details.”

          “Forty years!” Legolas snorted, giving the quiver another vigorous rub with the cloth.  “That is but a sneeze to me.”

          Aragorn laughed, grinning.  “Yes, well, since I am not Elfkind, I shall try my best to recall everything that occurred.”

          Legolas continued to work with his weapons, having moved on to the sharpening and polishing of his long knives, but his eyes watched the ranger with eager delight as Aragorn settled himself against the tree and prepared to tell his tale.  He rested his head back and took another puff of his pipe and then began.

          “The year was 2980 and I was called Thorongil then – the ‘eagle of the star’ – because some men said I was swift and keen-sighted, and I wore the star of the Rangers of the North upon my cloak.  I had just completed my service to King Thengel of Rohan and had journeyed to Minas Tirith to offer my sword to the Steward of Gondor, Ecthelion II.

          “Mind you this was at a time in my life when I traveled to a great many places and sought out the knowledge and teachings of far distant realms.  I wished to learn all that I could about the people dwelling in Middle Earth and whenever necessary, to lend my sword in the fight against Sauron.  It was a time I spent alone for the most part, but a time that I truly felt compelled to seek all the experience that I could gain.”

          He paused and puffed on his pipe a time or two; the contents of the tiny pipe bowl glowing a deep cherry red each time he inhaled upon the pipe stem.  By now Legolas had completed his work upon the knives and returning them to their sheaths, sat facing the ranger with his knees drawn up to his chest, arms crossed over them and his chin resting upon his arms.  His eager blue eyes watched the young human across the flames and he patiently awaited the rest of tale.

          “Secluded in Mirkwood and beleaguered by the evil of Mordor creeping ever closer to your home, you might not have heard about the Corsairs of Umbar.  These pirates were, and still remain, a constant plague upon southern Gondor and Ithilien.  As long as these brigands plied the seas and the Anduin River unopposed, no one was safe and the folk of the cities and towns along the coastlines fled in terror when the black sails of the Corsairs rose upon the horizon.  These pirates raided the ports and harbors along the Anduin and plundered and sacked every region from Minas Tirith to the sea.  Those men they did not press into slavery, they brutally killed; women were raped and tortured and then sold as concubines to chieftains in Far Harad.  And when they were through ravaging a city, they burned it to the ground leaving nothing but the black smoke of raging fires billowing up into the skies, like their black sails buffeting in the wind.

          “When I came to Gondor, these maritime bandits were a daily threat to the shipping and trade of every region south of Rohan and everywhere there was fear.  And finally, after I had served Ecthelion for some years and had proved my worth to him as one of his Captains, I approached the Steward with an outrageous plan to raid the Corsair fleet while it lay at anchor in their home port in Umbar.  At first his ministers and war counselors thought me mad and would not listen to my foolhardy scheme, but Ecthelion was a courageous man unafraid of the extraordinary and he was willing to take a chance on me.  He agreed to let me assemble a small fleet and undertake this daring plan.  I asked for twenty of his swiftest vessels and hardy crews to man them.”

          Here Aragorn halted in his tale and shook his head as he recalled the sheer folly of this insane plan.  He gave the Elf a rueful smile.   “He gave me five.”

          “Five!” Legolas shouted, his head rising up from his knees.

          Aragorn laughed, blue smoke swirling about his head.  “Aye.  He told me the Gondorian fleet was too weakened and decimated and was needed to protect Minas Tirith.  He could only spare five small coastal runners for this daunting feat.  Would I accept his offer?  I told him I would, but I needed his finest seamen to man these ships and to this he agreed.

          “We traveled southward to the great harbor of Pelargir to take command of the ships and there gathered together what stores we would need for our journey south.  Under a new moon, we set sail by cover of darkness from the quays at Pelargir and traveled southward down the Anduin to the sea.  By day we hugged the banks of the river and moored our ships amid the marshes and reeds of the tributaries and coves, covering the ships with silken tarps to hide them from view should any other vessels sail past.  It took us most of a week to reach the sea and once we reached the delta of the Anduin, we hid the ships in a small cove off the Isle of Tolfalas.”

          “Tell me of the ships, Aragorn,” Legolas pleaded.  “Every detail.”

          The ranger chuckled.  “Ours or theirs?”

          “Both!” laughed the Elf.

          “Very well,” Aragorn nodded.  His hands began to move in the air in front of him as he measured and drew out imaginary ships for the Elf to examine.  “Our coastal runners were about a hundred feet long; very sleek and very fast, but not heavily armed.  Each held a crew of fifteen, stout sailors and oarsmen, and each held a small contingent of archers and swordsmen.  Our sails were dark red and looked like blood when the sun set upon them, but all our banners and pennants were removed and anything that could identify us as Gondorian was hidden from view.  We carried only what we needed to survive, a very large cargo of pitch, and thousands of feet of fine fishing line and seines.

          “Now the ships of the Corsairs were much, much larger and their sails were the deepest black for they always came during the night to plunder and pillage.  Their ships were all outfitted with heavy protruding bows made of iron plating and they were usually crowned with a huge spike that was used to ram unsuspecting vessels amid ship.  Once the stricken ship started to founder, the pirates would heave to alongside and board the sinking hulk, killing the crew and stealing the cargo.  The ruined ships were then burned and left adrift.”

          Legolas’ expression registered his revulsion yet his eyes held a curious mixture of excitement and fascination as he leaned ever forward listening to Aragorn’s story.

          “Against such power, how could you ever hope to defeat such a fleet?” asked the Elf.

          Aragorn laughed.  “Ah, but that’s the heart of this tale is it not?  And if you will stop interrupting me, I shall tell it.”

          Legolas laughed as well at the ranger’s good humored chiding and settled back once more to listen.

          “We remained moored off the Isle of Tolfalas for several days readying our ships for the battle to come and then with the rising of the full moon, we set sail into the Bay of Belfalas on a southwesterly course, avoiding the coastlines of South Gondor and Umbar and sailing straight out into the open seas.

          “This route was extremely dangerous, but we did not wish to meet any traffic sailing from the Havens of Umbar and with a good westerly wind and the southern current it only took us two weeks to reach the waters near Umbar.  We held our ships out to sea until we were certain that there were no other pirate vessels near.  We were nearly out of rations and knew that this raid must now go forward or we would die of starvation upon the high seas.”

          “Tell me of the seas, Aragorn.  What was it like to sail upon the sea?”

          Aragorn’s eyes focused upon the Elf’s expressive face and he felt his heart sink as he recognized the first traces of the sea longing within Legolas’ eyes.  The Elf seldom spoke of it, but he knew the longing was strong within him.  It saddened him to think that one day Legolas might finally give in to that longing and leave Middle Earth –  leave him – and he was not sure that he wanted to think about that dismal possibility.  But he forced a smile to his lips and glanced back toward the expectant Elf.

          “The sea is a deep, dark blue-green and when the sky comes to meet it, you realize just how insignificant you are; a mere speck upon the great ocean of existence.  The waves rock you gently to and fro in a comforting rhythm like the pulsing of the blood within your veins and as the winds whip your face and hair you are overcome with a feeling of such freedom that you imagine yourself flying.”  He paused a moment, watching Legolas’ entranced smile widen.

          “There is no feeling in the world like it, my friend,” he murmured, his eyes momentarily rising to scan the heavens above.  After a time, he glanced back down at Legolas’ serene face.  “But I digress from my tale.

          “We waited for darkness to fall and then under oar we silently made our way to shore.  As we neared the enemy harbor, I sent the ships fanning outward in an arcing formation around the bay, stretching the seines out between our ships and then as we made our way in to the coast, slowly drawing the nets closer and closer to the enemy fleet.  When we were about two hundred yards out, divers left our ships and swam out with the nets, dragging them behind as they swam toward the Corsair fleet.  When they reached the anchored vessels, the divers secured the lines of the nets to the moored ships, stringing them all together like some gigantic floating necklace fit for Ulmo himself.

          “Several of the divers then noiselessly slipped ashore and scaled the harbor watchtowers where they found the Corsairs manning these towers drunk and lax in their duty, falsely secure in their imagined safe home port.  My men killed them swiftly and silently and then returned to our ships and we quietly sailed inward – the first assault had begun.  Flaming pitch was ignited and catapulted onto the decks of the moored fleet, followed by flaming arrows aimed at their black sails.  Within minutes the fleet was aflame and the night skies were turned to day.

          “The sailors aboard the Corsair ships as yet untouched by the fires tried to raise anchor and flee, but the constraining nets prevented the ships from leaving and soon the entire fleet was ensnared and transformed into a tangled, burning mass.  The Corsairs were forced to escape to shore or leap into the sea where my archers picked them off one by one.

          “I lead a group of seasoned warriors onto the flagship in search of the Captain of the Corsairs and his men and we fought them sword for sword across the foundering decks and then out onto the burning quays.  The Captain and I finally met head to head and although he was a formidable opponent, his corpulent life of piracy had made him soft; by allowing others to fight while he lay back and reaped the spoils, his stamina waned and he was no match for me.  His endurance soon faded and as he tired, I grew all the stronger.  When he finally let down his guard, I slew him easily, and having done so, looked to my troops.  Not wishing to wait for enemy reinforcements to arrive, I commanded my small band to retreat back to our ships.  We set sail at once and left behind us the flaming port of Umbar.”

          Legolas stared at his friend with awe and a small gasp escaped his lips.  “And you did this with only five small ships?”

          Aragorn nodded his head, slowly tamping out his pipe.  “Aye.”

          “With a victory such as this, upon your return the people of Gondor must have hailed you their greatest hero; they must have bestowed numerous honors upon you,” the elated Elf commented, but seeing the pained look upon Aragorn’s face his own enthusiasm seeped away.

          “Actually, I did not return to Minas Tirith,” the ranger answered.  “After we returned to Pelargir, I faded into the crowds and quietly left the city heading back north.”

          “But why?” asked Legolas.

          “I do not seek honor, Legolas,” he answered quietly.  “I had done what I set out to do.  It was time for me to move on.”

          The Elf somehow sensed that Aragorn was reluctant to accept the fact that he was indeed a hero and was loathe to discuss this particular segment of the tale, so he refrained from pursuing the conversation any further.   Instead, he slowly gazed up at the night skies and smiled as his eyes set upon Eärendil, and thoughts of great sailing ships filled his mind.

And that’s the end of this tale…..