Chapter XX: Respite from Toil

Aragorn did not know what to make of Gollum, nor indeed could he guess what Gollum made of him. Uncooperative at best and openly hostile at worst, he squatted now at the end of the rope, watching his captor out of the corner of one eye.

Driven by fear of what might lay behind, Aragorn had managed to drag himself away from the edge of the cliff and into the mountain passages. Here, clefts in the rocks allowed access to the next narrow path, and the next beyond that. There were few inclines of any significance, and for the most part the ground was bare and solid beneath his boots. Yet he was weak, worn down by his wounds and by the sleepless nights. The climb had left him bereft of any strength to walk on towards dawn. Not long after sundown he had halted here, in the shelter of a massive pillar of stone.

Now the first grey light of day was leeching slowly across the sky. It was time for the improbable companions to rise up and start on their way, but Aragorn found himself incapable of motion. His left limbs felt like a pair of millstones, weighing down his body. His right leg was thrumming with a bone-deep ache that followed the fledgling scar tissue along the spider-wound in his thigh. And his infected arm burned as if it had been thrust naked into a vat of molten iron.

He knew that something of his discomfort was showing in his face, for Gollum was watching him intently now, his unwieldy skeletal head turned to stare down his emaciated shoulder. There was hatred in his eyes no less intense than it had been in the foothills behind, before their strange climb, and yet though his hands were not now bound he made no move to tamper with the halter about his neck or the rag still stuffed into his mouth.

Attempting to school his features, Aragorn stared back. He fixed his weary eyes on Gollum's gleaming orbs, as if by doing so he could read the creature's heart. Yet insight eluded him. It seemed most unfair. Gollum knew something now of the man who had caught him. He knew that Aragorn had some connection to Bilbo Baggins, whom surely he remembered as the one who had dabbled in riddles and come away with his dearest treasure. Doubtless he knew or suspected that the Ranger took no pleasure in the force necessary to subdue him – and that knowledge was dangerous indeed. Worst of all, he knew that Aragorn was weak, and growing weaker with each tortuous mile. All this Gollum knew, and yet to Aragorn he was as unfathomable now as he had been on the night of his capture.

Gollum's actions on the cliff had shaken his jailer badly. Aragorn had been quite secure in his assumption that the prisoner was motivated by malice alone, and thus Gollum's attempt to unseat him had come as no surprise. But then, of his own volition, Gollum had taken Aragorn's hands and aided his ascent, and this was troubling. While it was true that he might have been acting only out of a desire for self-preservation, saving the Ranger so that he was not also dragged to his death, the alternative could not be disallowed. It was possible that Gollum had acted with temperance – even mercy. Certainly he might have dispatched his escort at the top of the cliff, strangling him or even eviscerating him with his own knife while Aragorn was too overcome to defend himself. That he had not seized the opportunity spoke to more inscrutable motives. It was this that unsettled Aragorn. A creature driven by hatred was easy to guard, his actions straightforward and predictable. A prisoner at war with himself could not be relied upon to adhere to a set pattern of behaviour. The need for vigilance, then, was only intensified by Gollum's ambiguous actions.

Yet so too was the need for clemency, for if Gollum had taken pity upon the struggling Ranger it behoved Aragorn to repay that kindness. Perhaps today the prisoner would submit to having the gag removed, that he might eat a little.

Aragorn tried to speak, to bid Gollum draw near, but his voice would not obey him. He closed his mouth, swallowing with a tremendous effort. His throat stung. Most likely he was in need of water. One of the bottles hung heavy from his belt, and the other was tucked into his pack, lying awkwardly against his hip with its one makeshift strap taut against his chest. Distantly he thought of moving his left hand up, only a short way, to loose the bottle and bring it to his lips that he might dig out the stopper with his teeth and take a mouthful of rainwater… but none of those events transpired. He could think about moving all he wished, but his body seemed determined to remain still.

For a while he did not resist, content to sit there with his back against the stone, blinking dumbly at Gollum. It seemed so difficult to move, even a little. Far simpler to lie here, languishing in thirst, until he slipped at last into gentle oblivion. Sleep called to him; not the healing sleep that eased the heart and restored the body, but a warm, insidious slumber within the hot embrace of fever. He could feel himself sinking into the tempting realm of unconsciousness, sliding inexorably beneath the surface of the waking world like an incautious traveller caught in a sucking mire. Down, down into darkness…

With an undignified snort he roused himself, the cold hand of terror snatching him back from the heat and the gloom. He must not submit! He had a prisoner to watch, and to bring safely to Mirkwood. He could not give in to his beleaguered body and its mounting fever. Even the luxury of sleep must be denied until he secured his captive and took steps to ensure that he might wake again. Driven by a desperate surge of will, he got the drinking-vessel to his lips and quaffed a tepid mouthful.

The water did something to clear his addled wits. He set aside the bottle and drew his good hand across his brow. It came away sticky with perspiration. His fingers were cold and could not gauge the feel of his skin, but he did not doubt that he was burning with infection. Objectively he reflected that what he needed was a warm, dry place to sleep, where he might have clean water aplenty – both to quench the fire raging unchecked in his veins and to boil, that hot compresses might be applied to his festering arm. Given these two things, and perhaps some wholesome food, he would swiftly recover his full vigour, but he had nothing; not even the wherewithal to rinse his makeshift bandages. If his circumstances did not swiftly take a turn for the better, he would never reach Mirkwood.

'We're moving,' he announced, the simple syllables grating painfully in a throat still raw despite the boon of water.

Gollum's eyes narrowed instantly.

'Come, on your feet. We cannot stay here.'

Still, Gollum did not stir. Aragorn knew that his command held little weight while he sat thus, supported by the rock and teetering on the brink of an unhealthy slumber. With an effort that almost cost him his hold on consciousness, he struggled to his feet. His injured arm he clutched to his breast while with the other he shored himself up against the stone, drawing taut Gollum's lead. An abyss of blackness swam before his eyes and the world spun wildly around him. He pressed the side of his face against the rock, old bruises aching under the pressure of that desperate contact, and fought with all his fading will to keep his feet.

Somehow he did not fall, and when at last he raised his head, he began to shuffle forward without waiting for Gollum to rise. He half expected to have his arm jerked backward when his captive refused to move, but as the cord tugged at his scrawny neck the prisoner sprang to his feet and followed like a sullen dog.

Aragorn had not gone far when his scuffling feet skidded onto softer ground. He froze immediately, his muddled mind not fully cognizant of the ramifications of such a change but his harried instincts crying out for caution. It took him a moment's laborious puzzling to realize that suddenly the ground was not so rocky, but covered over with grey-brown earth. A dizzying glance at the surrounding land revealed no imminent threat, and so he continued, walking on the borders of a nightmare and now and then twitching his left wrist to encourage Gollum to follow more promptly.

Soon it became plain that he was in some sort of shallow gully that wound its wandering way through the mountains. The skeletal remains of bramble-bushes clung here and there in crevices of the rock wall, still stubbornly upright in their poor soil. To Aragorn they seemed like the last memories of life in a place long since given over to death. He shuddered, and his palpitating heart skipped unsteadily in the cavern of his chest.

Each step became more difficult, and with each slow minute that passed the effort of remaining upright was becoming almost more than the Ranger could manage. Soon he would reach the point where he could not go on. His legs would fail and he would fall, landing doubtless on his injured arm in a blinding euphoria of anguish. And then – he would not rise again, unless to crawl into the comforting shadow of some sorry thorn-bush, there to wait for the sleep from which none awaken.

He could hear the mountains laughing, singing out their cruel mockery of the foolish mortal who had dared their paths in such a state. They sniggered and chortled and chuckled, relishing every painful step, every moment of his suffering. They giggled and rollicked and bubbled and rushed...

Aragorn halted, swaying unsteadily. Gollum stopped short of scrambling into his captor's legs, then took a look upward and scurried to the end of the rope, where he would be less likely to find himself pinned under the weight of an unconscious Ranger when his escort fell. Aragorn paid little heed to the creature: he was listening to the laughter of the mountains as abruptly he realized that it was not laughter at all, but the sound of running water.

Eagerly he stumbled forward, dragging Gollum behind. If there was water, fresh water, he might lave his brow and beat back the fever. He might wash his wounds. He might even, if he dared, gather dried brush for a fire and see about leeching out the poisons from the marks of Gollum's teeth.

Yet when he reached the place where the stream rushed away into a pool that cut into the rock wall of the gully, he had only the strength to crumple to his knees without crashing down upon his injured limb. He sat there motionless, staring into the grey depths of the thrice-blessed rill. Near him Gollum, for once too preoccupied with his own needs to glare at his captor, squatted down and began to paddle his wounded hands in the water, making unpleasant noises deep within his throat.

For a long time Aragorn sat there, insensate. But his will returned at last, and he bent his body down, dipping his left hand into the cold water and splashing it up onto his fevered face. The gentle slap of the fluid restored something of his good sense. He repeated the motion, and again and a third time. Beads of water clung to his brow and tracks of murky wetness ran down his face and his neck. Finally he braced his left hand against the edge of the riverbed and leaned down to plunge his whole face into the water. He held his breath as the cold took hold of his skin, easing the fuzziness of fever and restoring some vigour to his heart.

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He lingered for a long time, content like his prisoner to dabble in the stream, bathing his face and his useable hand, and even going so far as to unlace the first few inches of his cote, that he might dribble water onto his neck and breast. But as his faculties returned out of the mists of fever, Aragorn set about other necessary tasks. He eased his right arm into the water, holding it beneath the surface though the torment of the cold was almost more than he could bear. As he waited with gritted teeth for the stream to soak the bandages, he reminded himself that this was less painful than trying to remove the dressings dry, with the first new flesh and the crusted blood and putrescence still fusing them to his wounds.

When he deemed the bandages were wet enough, he worked loose the end and unwound them slowly. He hissed in consternation as his forearm was revealed in all its varicoloured splendour. Around the edges of the first set of wounds the flesh was white and lifeless, peeling away from growing abscesses. Yellow, curdling pus covered the raw new skin beneath, and several of the wounds were bleeding blackly. Purple bruises surrounded the hurts, and red striations radiated outward over the pale skin of his arm – the marks of entrenched infection creeping into his blood.

The puncture-wounds by his wrist were less gruesome to look upon, being swollen and glossy almost like an adolescent's blemishes. One looked disconcertingly dark, but the others were oozing orange tendrils of ichor and infection.

Aragorn turned his eyes resolutely from the wounds and set about washing his bandages. He swirled them one-handed in the shallows, then set them on a stone and beat them with another. Then he rinsed them again, and again pounded the filthy water from them. This process he repeated until the fluid driven from the cloth ran clear, and though he knew such rough handling would shrink the wool, he was glad of the opportunity to do it. Much could be accomplished with tight binding and clean dressings.

He turned back to his arm, sniffing resolutely for any hint of the sickly-sweet stink of decay that would herald his death. All that he could smell was the sharp memory of shed skin and the coppery tang of stagnant blood. Luck then was with him. As he eyed the wounds, however, he came to an important conclusion. Whatever the risks he must have a fire: he needed hot water to draw out the infection.

By the waterside the bracken was thick, but it was not dry enough. Aragorn could not take the chance that these branches had life left in them, and might then smoke. He moved to shuffle on hand and knees towards the wall of the gully, where the bushes were brittle and dead. He was stopped by a fearsome tugging on his wrist. Gollum had seized the rope just below the knot that encircled his neck, and he was hauling on it with one hand while with the other he was still paddling in the pool. He was reluctant, clearly, to leave the water.

Rather than argue, Aragorn crept back. The fuel near the stream would have to serve, then. In his weakened state he found that he cared less for prudence than he did expedience. All he wished to do was see to his wounds and dress them again, that he might lie down to rest. He gathered such wood as seemed best-suited to his purposes, and set about building his fire.

Using his flint proved a greater challenge than Aragorn had anticipated. His right hand was useless, scarcely able even to shore up the steel against his knee, and his left shook with fever. Several times he dropped his tools, and more than once his sparks failed to catch the tinder of grubby linen, but at last he had a little flame that he coaxed and fed with the care of a shepherd tending a sickly lamb, until at last the bracken caught alight.

Breathlessly he watched, anxious lest his fire should send up a pillar of smoke to announce his location as clearly as a cross-roads marker. But the fuel was dry enough, and what pale tendrils there were the thicket under which he crouched quickly dispersed. While the blaze took hold and the embers grew hot, Aragorn dug out his wooden mug and collected small stones.

The process of heating water was slow and weary. He let the stones grow hot, and dropped them one by one into his cup. When at last he deemed the water hot enough he poured it over his wounds, eyes screwed tightly closed against the pain. The first sorry dribbles were not enough, and the process had to be repeated over and over again, until Aragorn lost count of the cupfuls of heated fluid.

Then he set to work with knife and stone again, cleaning away the newly-dead flesh and such of the pus as had not yet been washed away. At last the wounds were pink and naked, the dark blood trickling back. He drained the puncture-marks and dug out the plug of cruor that occluded the black one. Then he heated water again and washed his arm once more, and with fingers that trembled with pain and enervation, he bandaged his arm again. The pressure of the clean dressing soothed his torment, and Aragorn allowed himself a low, slow moan of relief.

Gollum, who had turned his head violently away when first Aragorn had produced the little orc-knife, looked back at him now. The act of turning lifted his tortured hands out of the water. Aragorn felt a reflexive wrenching of guilt; he had seen to his own hurts first, at the expense of one who was in his power. That he could have done little for Gollum in his prior state did not much mollify him.

At least he could rectify that want now. He filled his cup again and heated the water.

'Come here,' he said. 'Let me see your hands.'

Gollum glanced anxiously down, his long fingers twitching. Then his eyes darted to the abandoned blade and the dark stains in the underbrush.

'I will not hurt you,' Aragorn tried. 'I have some skill as a healer. I can ease your discomfort.'

Frantically, Gollum shook his head. The effect was almost comical, but Aragorn was too wracked with fever and a niggling horror to appreciate it. Again, Gollum looked furtively at the knife, and again his chin wagged from side to side so that his lips chaffed against the gag.

'You will not need such treatment as I have had,' Aragorn promised, realizing the source of the prisoner's reluctance. 'Let me wash them, at least. They will heal more swiftly for it.'

Again Gollum shook his head. Aragorn sighed wearily. He took the cup and leaned forward, setting it halfway between his prisoner and himself. 'Wash them yourself, then. Such hurts cannot go long untended.'

Gollum lashed out with one long foot, kicking over the vessel. At this repudiation of his attempts at humane treatment Aragorn felt a hot flush of anger, but it faded swiftly into profound weariness. His little fire was dying now, and his wounds were clean. If Gollum would not cooperate even for his own benefit, then so be it.

He kicked out the last of the embers with the side of his boot and then edged away from the detritus of the fire. Gently but firmly he reeled in the rope so that Gollum, however reluctant, was forced to hop nearer. Aragorn took the strips of cloth that he had been using to bind his prisoner, and in an exertion that would have been impossible prior to tending his arm, tied Gollum's wrists and feet. The creature struggled, but less than he had before. Perhaps he, too, was worn down from the hard ascent and the long nights of sleepless enmity. When Aragorn was finished, Gollum lay in the underbrush, his legs writhing only a little.

'There,' said the Ranger. 'We do not trust one another at all, I think, but I must sleep and therefore you must be secured. Rest while you may: we have a long road before us.'

Hatred shone from the pale eyes, but Aragorn was too weary to care. The effort of immobilizing the creature had sent his right arm throbbing again, and it was with numb gratitude that he eased himself down amid the bracken and slipped into a wary sleep.

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He awoke perhaps four hours later to find Gollum curled into a ball, his bound limbs tucked awkwardly and his malicious eyes hooded with paper-thin lids. He had all the seeming of a being deep in slumber, but his emaciated ribs were rising and falling too quickly. Aragorn guessed that the prisoner had been watching him all the time he had slept, and had taken up this position the moment his captor began to stir. The thought was unsettling, but at least the creature had made no move to throttle him in his sleep.

The fever still lingered and Aragorn's throat was burning. He inched towards the water's edge, careful not to overextend the line between himself and the prisoner. He bathed his face and drank a little, then wetted his hair and tried to work out some of the snarls with his fingers. The effort proved too much for him, and for a while he lay there with his cheek against the rocky creek-bed, trying to summon his strength once more.

When he felt well enough to sit up, he rummaged in his pack for the last of his bannock. He gnawed the waybread slowly, cognizant of the reluctant stirrings of his stomach. Then he drank again, this time from his bottle, and settled with his back against the stems of a sturdy gorse-bush to watch the shadows shift as the Sun travelled far above.

All through the afternoon he languished there, now dozing fitfully, now creeping back to the water's edge to lave his face and neck. After the hideous, barren lands through which he had passed this dying gully seemed a place of great peace and beauty, and his weary heart craved both. As he looked about he thought he could imagine this hidden vale as it must have been long ago: green and verdant, filled with every variety of hardy mountain life. He thought of other such places he had seen, amid the lofty, snow-capped peaks of the Hithaeglir, or the noble heights of the Ered Nimrais between the Hornburg and the fastness of Edoras. For a moment, as he walked in memory, it seemed he was a young man again; bold and fair and valiant, driven by unbridled optimism and visions of a bright and hopeful future.

And all his errantries and labours had come to this. The mighty Thorongil, marshal of the Mark, captain of Gondor, whose voice had rallied men to victory, was now but a wayworn wanderer, struggling against the forces of probability and the travails of his own injured body. He was caught up not in great deeds for the glory and preservation of the West, but in a tedious and bitter and mayhap hopeless chore.

Aragorn beat back the stirrings of a self-pity that he would never have felt, save that the fever was wearing on his will and weakening his resolve. True, this unhappy drudgery would prove no deed of glory, but it was necessary. Much hinged upon this journey; perhaps the very fate of the world. This was no lofty quest, to be memorialized in song and story. No tales would be told of this dark road. When it was done and the prisoner was delivered safely to Mirkwood, no one would even remember who had brought him thither or what had been endured in his finding and capture and on the long northward road. Yet glory and renown were of no consequence: if he survived to succeed that would be reward enough. And if any good came of his struggles, he hoped he would find the humility to be grateful.

In the meantime, his sole focus must be to bring himself and his captive to Thranduil's realm alive, and as he closed his eyes against another wave of nausea, Aragorn reflected that that struggle would prove quite difficult enough.