B2MEM 2009

[illwynd]

Eek! I'm running out of March, and I had planned to post a few more things... oh well. Here's another zine fic that I never got around to posting here.

Journeys in High Places
Disclaimer: Tolkien's. Not mine.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which Boromir and Faramir, both born in the shadow of the White Mountains, cross them for the first time.
Notes: Many thanks to Cressida, Lilan, Rohwyn, and the Inklettes for their advice and support. This story originally appeared in the Brothers of Gondor ‘zine.
X-posted to sons_of_gondor

For Gondorians, mountains loomed large. Dark and fearsome mountains to the east, the majestic heights of the White Mountains in the north, and many smaller peaks scattered across the land so that nearly anywhere one stood in Gondor, mountains teased the edges of the horizon. Mountains loomed large in the tales told to children: rumors of Meneltarma still standing from the sea above Atalantë, or a ghost of a legend of the tall peak Taniquetil in Valinor. The mountains of Gondor were strong, deep-rooted, and fair. To live in their shadow was to have joy at the sight.

But mountains, however lovely to look upon, are not the kindest of companions…

T.A. 3006

Minas Tirith

Arrayed around the table sat half a dozen men, and all eyes were focused on the old Ranger captain who stood at its head. Even in the garb of city folk, he had a strange, weather-beaten quality to his appearance. It suited his task; he spoke at length of the season of training and instruction before these men, all of whom had been named by Lord Denethor as captains of exceeding quality, capable of leading a company of Rangers.

Faramir listened attentively as the man described what they would be taught; the tactics used by the Ranger companies and the skills of secrecy in the wilderness. Faramir already had studied as much of these as he could; accounts of old skirmishes that detailed Ranger methods were abundant in the libraries of Minas Tirith, and he had read them voraciously. Just as much enthusiasm had he put into his practice with the bow, principal weapon of the Rangers. He wasn’t sure when the idea of gaining a captaincy among the Rangers had come to him, but as soon as it had, he had known for certain that it was there that his skills could be put to their best use. Denethor had given his grudging acceptance when Faramir asked him to be named as one of those chosen that season to complete the training. The Steward knew quite well his younger son’s competence in his current command, and worried only for the inconvenience of having Faramir argue with his decisions via messenger from Ithilien, rather than face-to-face; he had secretly grown fond of their verbal sparring matches.

After a week of instruction and practice maneuvers on the empty fields west of the Pelennor, the prospective Ranger captains were allowed a day and a night in the City to prepare for the next part of their training—a fortnight in Ithilien to learn all they could of this land that had lain empty, a place of clash and fray, since before any of these men reached their father’s knees. They had all studied maps, but there were things and places no map would show.

Faramir had decided to put the day to good use, indulging in the home comforts that he would miss during the rest of the training, so consequently he was dozing in his chamber with a full belly by late afternoon. Thus he also missed seeing his brother’s company returning home, and he was taken by surprise when he was roused by a tap at the door. Without waiting for a reply, the door swung open and Boromir strode through. Faramir’s eyes flew open, and within a moment he was jumping up to embrace his brother.

“Boromir! I didn’t know you would be coming!” Faramir was delighted to be able to see his brother before he left. Since both had become captains they weren’t often both in the city at once, and hardly ever for very long.

“Well, my company wasn’t due any leave for a few more weeks, but when I heard the news, I pushed it forward a bit.” Boromir said with a shrug.

“News?” Faramir said, momentarily confused.

“That you are to become a captain of the Rangers! Father mentioned it in his last message to me.”

“So you came to wish me well?”

“Aye, though I’m sure you’ll do fine. But more than that, I will be going with you.”

Faramir was surprised… no, he was shocked. “Why? Surely you have no desire to captain a Ranger company? You will be Captain-General soon enough, whenever old Orodreth decides to step down. We both know you will be, even at your age!”

“All the more reason. The Captain-General should be familiar with every portion of Gondor’s armies. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and what better time than now, when I can do so with you? I can think of no better companion, particularly on the last portion of the training.”

“I know your excuses by now. You must simply have realized that here is a feat of strength and fortitude for which you are not yet renowned in Gondor. How could you have not thought of it before?” Faramir laughed.

“You misjudge me; in truth I fear that if I do not accompany you, I will lose my little brother to Ranger methods. The next thing you know, you would be telling me that any tactics but ambush and secrecy are poorly thought-out and reckless, ai!” Boromir chuckled, answering the jibe in kind; the brothers often argued over tactics as it was. After a contemplative moment, Boromir leaned close to his brother and said, grinning solicitously, “What I would like to know is what mountains have to do with the Rangers of Ithilien.”

Faramir answered, “I suppose it is that it is difficult. Those who can cross the mountains have skill and strength of mind enough, what can they not do?”

“Perhaps true,” Boromir said, sitting down beside his brother on the bed. “So, now, you will fill me in on what I’ve missed in training thus far?”

***

Two weeks in Ithilien had flown by. The trainees had trekked across the lands, met many of the Rangers currently stationed there, been shown several secret places, and practiced at creeping across the lands unseen and unheard. All of them had done so before at higher stakes, for all were experienced warriors, but they pushed themselves ever to improve. They practiced night maneuvers; Rangers would fight at night more often than others, by necessity or design, and doing so required great skill and much practice, for the enemy had the advantage of troops who could see in the darkness better than any man. They learned many things known only to the Rangers, of which I can tell no more here. And at last the time came for the final test of their skill. For this they traveled back across the River, and past the City, and into Anórien, under the shadow of the White Mountains.

The small encampment of a half dozen tents was set up near a little stand of trees and a pond fed by a mountain stream. For two days all the men rested and stored up their strength. By daylight and firelight, there was quiet conversation and an undercurrent of anticipation.

“I have heard there are three companies of Rangers in need of a captain,” one of the younger men, Cirion, said idly to his companions, “two of them newly formed.”

None of them had yet mentioned this. With the exception of Boromir, all of these men hoped to be granted one of those captaincies, yet even if they all proved themselves worthy, two would return to their former companies empty-handed.

“I can wait, if it comes to that,” said Hador. “There may be more… in future years.”

Another, a man named Daeron, sniffed and looked around the loose circle of men who sat near the fire. “Then you can do so. I have been requesting this for three years; that is long enough,” he said, with a grim look.

This was typical of Daeron, from what Faramir remembered from the few occasions that they had met. The man conducted himself with a sort of strenuous correctness; he was rigid as a dried reed in his insistence on following all of Gondor’s oldest customs, even those less practical at that time. This had made him not particularly well-loved by the men under his command, and among the other captains the rumor was that he thought too much of himself for too little reason. Faramir thought of him differently, though. He sensed in the man a purity of purpose—here was another who loved what the sword protected, rather than the sword itself.

Coming back to himself, Faramir heard Hador speak. “How can you be certain you will even pass the test?”

“I cannot be certain, but I know it,” Daeron said smugly.

“Is that a boast I hear, Daeron? I am surprised at you!” Hador laughed. His manner was the opposite of Daeron’s, though he was no less determined.

“There is no boast in stating the obvious,” Daeron replied, earning him an elbow in the ribs from Hador.

“Time will tell, my friend.”

Each day, a pair of men set off up the mountain, up the long trail. Though the journey would take several days, they went only lightly burdened, with a small pack containing the barest necessities. Any competent man can do well when fully supplied and comfortable, but Rangers did not always have this luxury; it was their lot to do much with little, and in this, these men would have to prove their ability.

The brothers were the third and last pair to leave, after Daeron and Hador. The sun had barely risen when they began, walking swiftly along the grassy path across rolling fields of long grasses and tiny yellow flowers, and soon disappearing from sight.

They walked through ever-changing landscapes. Oaks over green-shaded floor thick with a mould of brown leaves in which little creatures scuttled gave way to larches and firs. The dark soil at their feet sloped up and became interspersed with fields of boulders and great stones amongst the trees. They scrambled over these when no path led around them.

And sometimes the path was clear, but often it was not. It was crossed in places with other trails unmarked on the one old faded map they had studied of this mountain. Deer trails, they supposed, after starting down a few when the way was uncertain. It was plain enough which path was theirs when the other twisted and turned wildly (though Boromir had briefly and wryly mused that the deer might have chosen better routes than men had). In other places they caught sight of old, broken paving stones at their feet, and these were somehow heartening; men in bygone days had walked here, when the danger of war was less in Gondor and folk could spend their time on such things as climbing mountains for the dream of seeing as far and clearly as eagles. And in other places, no path at all was evident.

They spoke a little bit, cheerfully and on topics of small importance, and their thoughts dwelt on the road ahead.

Faramir’s thoughts were on many things. When they had begun, he had noticed most the beauty all around him. There was something enthralling about being where he had never been before, discovering these old paths as if he were the first to walk them. Little glimpses of loveliness in the wilds caught his eye—a vine of blue flowers climbing from the ground to the web of boughs above, a quick glimpse of the far pale peaks swathed in clouds, a shaft of yellow sunlight that struck on a hare dashing quickly away from them at the sound of their footfalls. Even the rustle of the wind, the far-off songs of birds, and the green scent of leaf and moistness all around stirred him. He had wished that he could devote his full attention to these things, but that was not his purpose there, he knew.

But as the time passed, his thoughts began subtly to change. Without realizing it, he began to slip effortlessly into a different sort of consideration: a Ranger’s way of thinking. The terrain, growing harder and steeper by the hour, was neither adversary nor hindrance, but instead was abundant with advantage. Here was a place where he could easily conceal himself, there a stand of trees on the hill could be defended by only a handful of Rangers for as long as was needed. The leaves of that herb could be made into a poultice for aches, and the underbark of that tree could stanch the bleeding of a wound.

But wherever his thought wandered, his effort was focused on one thing: keeping up with Boromir. This was no easy task, and perhaps no other man could have done it.

Boromir’s enthusiasm for the crossing of mountains had grown from a somehow detached interest to a blazing excitement when Thurinir, the old Ranger Master, had mentioned that while they would only be considered to have passed the test if they crossed in less than eleven days, no man before had done it in less than eight.

“Seven,” Boromir had whispered behind tented fingers. “We will do it in seven.” Determined that it should be so, the pace he had set when they started off had been like a wind, and had not slacked. He had quickly found great joy in pitting himself against the mountain. The harder it became, the more he thrilled at it. His weariness, the ache in his limbs at day’s end, felt much like the end of a victorious battle, but one without any losses or darkness to dampen his cheer.

On the second day, the path climbed more steeply than before, and to one side the ground fell away into a steep ravine. A trickle of water could be heard from its depth, though what stream it might join on its course was uncertain. When they paused to catch their breaths and refresh themselves, Faramir leapt from rock to rock to a point where he suspected he would be able to look out over the lands below, and he gasped at the sight. League upon league of deep green stretched out into the distance, where it faded to the pale green-gold of low fields. The horizon faded into a pale haze, and the sky above was a perfect cloudless blue. He gazed out at all this for a long moment, feeling the wind on his face, then turned away to find Boromir standing a little behind him perched on another of the boulders. He too looked into the distance.

“Just wait until we are further up; the views from the high places are said to be magnificent.” Boromir said, clapping a hand to Faramir’s shoulder. “For now, we should press on.”

The road continued to weave upward, the deep gorge growing yet deeper upon their right until no sound of water or rustle of leaves could be heard from its depths. To their left the boulder-strewn hill grew taller until it leapt up to become a steep slope of stony soil, bare and dark and treacherous-looking. Behind it the sun was hid and the path grew dim and chill. Though the sky above was still clear and blue, and the wind still stirred a little, no sounds could be heard; no small creatures scuttled down in the gorge, no birds sang, no crickets chirped. It was a silence like of the tomb. Only their breaths and quiet footfalls broke the silence.

For a while they walked along this gloomy path without speaking, both hastening forth in the hope of coming to some wider place before darkness fell truly. Boromir glanced over at his brother. Faramir’s face showed his usual calm determination, but Boromir suspected it concealed some uneasiness. He felt the same, but would not have admitted it. He pursed his lips to whistle to drive away this dreary silence, then remembered how when they were younger he had often done so, deliberately off-key, until Faramir would plug his ears with his fingers and give him a scathing look. No, not the best idea just at the moment, he thought.

At long last he saw sunlight slanting down before them on the path, and heard small forest noises start again around them. The high slope had again dropped, dropped down to level ground, and they came then to a little bowl of a field at the knees of the mountains.

But daylight was waning anyhow.

“We should be able to make it to the far trees before darkness. I dislike the idea of making our camp here in the open…” Faramir said.

To Boromir it seemed strange to worry over sleeping in the open in such a place; they were both accustomed to making camp in wide-open fields, though, he admitted, only with large numbers of men, and scouts watching the lands all around. But he had no objection to going further before that night’s rest.

Across the field, with a nearly moonless night falling they halted. They would not risk losing the way so soon into the journey by continuing on in darkness. There they lay their staves aside, nibbled a little of their store of waybread in silence, and bedded down on the soft earth at the feet of an old tree. They fell quickly into sleep.

Late that night when the sliver of moon had long since set, the sky was grey with clouds. The wind howled, whistled through the high branches, and sent them creaking. Each cold gust further chilled the cloak-wrapped figures that slept at the base of the sprawling tree. Rain began to fall, pattering on the leaves above, and dripping through in heavy drops. Boromir stirred briefly, tugged his cloak up to cover his face onto which a raindrop had just fallen, and fell back asleep. The night wore on.

***

When day dawned, the clouds were skimming away above, but the air was still cold and wet. They awoke shivering; the tree had provided some shelter, but their cloaks were damp and heavy. Faramir sat up, rubbing his arms to warm them. Very shortly, their packs were hefted once more and, staves in hand, they continued along the trail through the forest. The ground was wet and boggy and swathed in flowing mists, making for treacherous footing as the path grew steeper.

By midday they had come to the end of the sparse forest. The limbs of the last trees creaked with a sheen of ice over the frost-patched ground. As they rested briefly, Faramir began gathering up fallen branches, breaking them over his knee.

“Do you think we will need that?” Boromir asked, eyeing him. “We would go faster without the extra burden.”

“That is true, but we don’t know what we will meet higher up, if it is already so cold here. And we won’t take too much,” Faramir replied.

“You are likely right,” Boromir mused, nodding. “And we would surely want a fire if we didn’t bring any wood, I guess.”

They also took this last chance to find a trickle of water through a tiny ice-laden streambed and fill their bottles.

They made their way up without marker or trail for many hours, through places where nothing grew but dark, stunted bushes and sun-blanched clumps of grass. Over piled stones as big as houses they bounded nimbly, from one to the next. They scrambled up hills of scree, and dark stones the size of fists tumbled noisily down in their wake. They climbed low cliffs, wedging fingers and feet into any tiny crack or crevice they could find, as if they were born to it. Boromir found himself grinning as he was reminded of their secretive exploits of years ago, climbing the inner walls of the White City to stand upon rooftops and stare out at the horizon.

The air, already chill, soon became utterly cold. It seemed to carry scents of winter and ice from above; a hint of blue shadows stood beyond the darker peaks that loomed above their heads. It does not seem so when one looks at mountains from afar, but all mountains deceive: when a climber thinks he has reached the topmost precipice, he often looks out and sees yet another, taller and more treacherous, beyond it.

Still, they soon found themselves staring up a long expanse of pure whiteness that led to the peak. All was cold and colorless, and the sky was pale though the sun shone brightly enough they had to squint against its light. Their breaths made plumes of mist. After a little while, footprints could be seen in the thin covering of snow; the ever-blowing winds had not yet wiped away all trace of previous travelers.

“They must be just ahead of us,” Boromir said, eyeing these tracks.

Faramir saw his expression and suppressed a laugh. He knew his brother’s nature well, but he did not share his need to be first in everything he did.

They found themselves walking along a trench between stony walls, with snow to the top of their boots. Around a bend, they suddenly did come upon Daeron and Hador. The two men were sitting, resting on a small boulder facing the south, so that they did not see the brothers for a moment.

“They rest so often that they are overtaken!” Boromir suddenly called out, laughing. The two men whirled around wide-eyed and jumped up to greet them.

Hador bowed slightly, his hands on his breast. “Mayhap it is so, but there are leagues to go yet,” he said. “And how fare you?”

“Well enough,” Faramir answered. “And you?”

“Not badly, but for this cold! When I reach the other side, I will petition to have this testing moved to Belfalas. Much more comfortable weather!” Hador said, feigning a shiver.

“Don’t mind him; he’s too soft,” Daeron said, glancing sideways at his companion and smirking.

“Yes, so you keep telling me.”

Boromir and Faramir exchanged an amused look over their banter. After only a minute more, the two pairs parted ways; Daeron insisted on finishing their rest, and Boromir was itching to go forward again.

The brothers trudged on for some time. The snow grew deeper as they went until they sank up to their knees in it, and they felt as if it clung to their boots, so slow was their progress. Boromir panted with exertion; his pack had grown heavy and his head had grown light, but with the cold, he did not want to stop. At least walking kept him a little warmer than he would have been, he thought. Then he glanced over to see Faramir nearly stumble, dragging his feet through the snow as if walking while sleeping, hunched over against the wind.

“We should rest,” Boromir said, pausing to catch his breath. “We spent too much of our strength away… yonder…” He gestured down the mountain.

“No… it is just the air; too cold, too thin,” Faramir said. “We will grow used to it…” He was resting his hands on his knees as he tried to keep himself upright.

“Here, sit… we will rest for just a few minutes… not for too long,” Boromir said, sinking down into the snow, unable to care about the seeping cold. He had never felt so weary in his life. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, and did not even realize as he closed them.

He dreamed. In the dream, he clung by his fingertips to the side of a cliff in the middle of a roaring wind. He felt battered by the wind, and terribly cold. Somehow he did not know what had become of Faramir—had he fallen? Did he also cling to the edge, perhaps calling out for help? Boromir was unable to turn his head to look. He felt the stone against his cheek, and saw only the darkness around him. Horror had welled up inside him as he had called out his brother’s name over and over, and heard no reply. Unable to hold on any longer, he had found himself falling, and awoke with a start. He felt stifled. He struggled to wakefulness, pushing away the fog in his mind and the remnants of the dream. He understood, underneath his half-frozen confusion, the terrible situation they were in. At least an hour had passed. Night was falling, and he could barely see Faramir beside him, sunken down into a snow drift with his head on his pack. Scuffling to his knees, he leaned over his brother. Faramir’s face looked terribly pale, and he did not stir.

“Faramir,” he said as he lifted his brother’s shoulders from the snow and drew him close, “awaken, it is too cold…” His teeth chattered and he felt his lower lip crack painfully as he spoke. His blood tasted of thin salt on his tongue. He wrapped his cloak around them both and pressed Faramir’s hands between his own. They were like ice. He pleaded and shook him, and silently condemned himself for falling asleep and endangering them both. He could not think clearly, or he might not have been in such a panic—breath misted softly from Faramir’s mouth: he was only deeply asleep and very chilled.

“I was dreaming of a fire, of being warm… why did you wake me?” Faramir suddenly asked in a sleepy groan, without opening his eyes.

“Because we should not have fallen asleep! Up! Up!” Boromir said. His voice was harsh in the cold, thin air, and his fear made it more so. More softly, he added “we can make a fire, if you want, but first you must get up.”

The urgency in his brother’s voice cut through the calm of Faramir’s dream, and he too struggled to wakefulness.

They got to their feet and dusted the snow from themselves. “I thought for a moment… your hands were so cold… not that mine are much warmer,” Boromir said with an apologetic grin. “So, do you say it is time for our fire?”

“No… no, we should save it. We should go on for a little, find some sort of shelter,” Faramir said slowly, flexing his fingers. They seemed to burn a little as they warmed; he stuck them quickly under his cloak.

Several hours later, Boromir sat huddled in his cloak in the dark, shivering and breathing on his hands. The wind here never stopped, and the snow it blew against his face pricked like little knives. Three days before, in the gentle breezes and comparable warmth on the knees of the mountain, he could not have imagined being so miserable. This was a cold beyond the winters he had known. But he had to endure it. He sat without moving: Faramir was curled up asleep against him, sharing his warmth. They had deemed it too dangerous for them both to sleep in this cold after their first dreadful error. So here he sat, through half the long night. The darkness was not complete; the moon was still in the sky, and the snow reflected its silver light, but it did him little good. All that he could see by it was the blowing whiteness and the darkness of the rock they sheltered near.

More than half the night actually passed before he woke his brother. Faramir had been sleeping so soundly, it had seemed a shame to wake him, and he had waited until he felt he could not last another minute. As soon as Faramir had assured him several times that he was fully awake, Boromir fell quickly asleep.

He woke in the first light of morning to find Faramir smiling at him oddly.

“What is it?” he said, stretching and rubbing at his eyes.

“You would not believe what I saw in the darkness, perhaps an hour ago,” Faramir said.

Boromir looked around worriedly—what could be wandering here? There were, he had heard, some wolves and other beasts that didn’t mind the cold, and would even hunt at the mountain peaks, though what they hoped to catch aside from snow-hares, he wasn’t sure. “What did you see?”

“Daeron and Hador. They are apparently quite determined not to be the last to make it across the mountain.”

“They were walking at night?” Boromir asked in disbelief.

Faramir nodded. “They claimed they had only just started, and must have only camped a little way behind us.”

“Well. Then we had better get going also. A race is what they will have, if they want it!” Boromir said, brightening and getting to his feet.

As they started off again, there was a new peak before them. This time there was no mistaking it; it was the final summit, and it loomed above them, jutting into the clouds. A cliff a little ways up could be seen to skirt it and pass over to the other side. In the crisp morning air it seemed like only a short jaunt would take them to it.

As they walked, Boromir would from time to time glance up with a worried look. He did not know why he was suddenly uneasy, but the feeling did not go away. Faramir too began turning his eyes the same direction. By his guess, Hador and Daeron would likely be at the peak now, or approaching it; their lead was not so great. And somehow, he too was uneasy.

The feeling still lingered when they reached the top, though for a while they noticed it less. They had learned to conserve their strength in the deep snow, and their steady pace took them swiftly upward. And now they were as high up as they could go without scaling the ice-sheeted cliffs to the uppermost summit.

Faramir called a halt, though there was no need to say it; the view would have stopped any man in his tracks. They stood side by side looking out to the south, and it seemed that spread before them was the whole of Gondor. From that height, nothing of the features of the land could be seen but for the nearer mountains and hills that seemed so small now. Beyond that there was only an expanse of green and brown, mottled with blue cloud-shadows, and a far-off glint of water.

“Do you think… no, that cannot possibly be the sea, can it?” Faramir said as if to himself. He was utterly entranced. He forgot the cold and the wind and everything else, and just looked out at this magnificent sight.

“Perhaps a bend in the River?” Boromir answered, shrugging.

After a few moments, Faramir sighed. “It is beautiful. More than I had dreamed it would be.”

His brother glanced over at him and smiled idly. He agreed, of course.

They were broken out of their reverie by a strange sound. It began softly, as a deep rumbling in the ground beneath their feet, and in moments it was a roar as if the mountain was tearing itself apart. From somewhere far off, there came a sound on the wind of men crying out in terror.

As one, the brothers raced to the far side of the path where it sloped down again, from whence the sound seemed to come. Some distance to the side and below, the snow rolled, tumbled, fell as a great swath. At the near edge of the devastation, perhaps three furloughs away, two small figures could be seen fleeing, but they moved too slowly. They disappeared into the whiteness.

Before the rush of snow even ceased, Boromir and Faramir were running. The deep snow made the going hard, but somehow they dashed through it without stumbling, following the path made by the last two men. Their packs clattered on their backs. They did not stop until they reached the broken, churned path of the avalanche where the last footsteps stopped.

“I cannot spot them; can you see any trace of them?”

Faramir shook his head in response.

“Then we must search down the hill. They would have been pushed down more from here.”

“I think you are right. Take care, though,” Faramir said, catching his brother’s arm before he started away. “It is said that oftentimes more snow will tumble after the first, and it may happen at any moment. And we must work quickly for their sakes as well as our own. They will not live long under the snow, if they still live at all.”

They separated, weaving through the deep tumbled drifts, each poking his staff far under the snow, seeking with every step, feeling for something other than hard stone beneath.

Minutes flew by. Faramir was no longer in sight. Would they find either of the men alive, or find them at all? Boromir wondered. It seemed unlikely, but that mattered little. They would search the whole mountainside if they must.

Just as he thought this, the end of his staff met something soft. His heart leapt. Throwing the staff aside he began to dig in the snow frantically. The thin leather of his gloves did little against the sharp ice fragments and the seeping cold, and his fingers were soon numbed of all feeling, but he did not notice. He tore through the snow, tossing it aside in great handfuls. It was thickly packed and heavy, and by the time he had dug down a couple of feet he was fully exhausted by the effort, but would not pause even to catch his breath. At last he stood in a cleft up to his chest, and the man’s feet were uncovered. As gingerly as he could, he cleared more snow away and pulled.

He had at last freed the man… but the snow beneath him was much too red. There was no life left; that was clear enough from what he saw. Boromir slumped down against the snow, shock and horror wiping his mind blank of any thoughts that he could later remember. He had seen men killed more horribly in battle, but few more senselessly. That only made it worse. He could hear his heart thudding in his chest as he pulled himself out of the pit, and he felt he was moving slowly, too slowly.

Retracing his steps he sought Faramir, and found him in a flurry of digging. Wordlessly, he dropped to his knees and helped.

Without pausing, Faramir glanced over at him. “What did you find?” he asked, already sure of the answer just by the look on Boromir’s face.

“Hador. Beyond any rescue,” Boromir breathed heavily, jaw clenched. “It would not be right to… bring back what is left of him. We will build him a cairn of snow, after this.”

Faramir nodded slowly. They continued digging in silence.

Suddenly, a hand burst from the snow below them.

Faramir gasped and took hold of it. “Daeron! We are here, we will dig you out.”

He kept his hold on Daeron’s hand as they dug carefully around it, and in moments they had him uncovered.

The man was dazed. A gash on his brow was bleeding in slow dregs, and his unfocused eyes flitted back and forth between the two brothers. “Hador… where is… Hador?” the man said, his breath wheezing and labored.

“Stay still,” said Faramir. “Are you badly wounded?”

“I do not know… my leg aches…” Daeron said.

Carefully, Faramir’s fingers sought for injuries. The man hissed in pain as Faramir touched his right leg, below the knee. Boromir looked on.

Leaning close to Boromir, Faramir whispered, “It is shattered. He will not be able to walk alone. And I think that is not his worst injury. Do you see his eyes? He must have taken a bad knock on the head; I am amazed he can still speak.”

Just then another rumble was heard. They froze, looking up the slope. High above, a flicker of movement could be seen, and they did not wait to see more.

Boromir plucked Daeron from the snow, leaving the tattered remains of Daeron’s pack behind in the hole they had dug. Faramir had already leapt out, and was casting glances all across the landscape, looking for an escape.

“Go, Faramir! Run! I will follow!”

Faramir dashed westward as fast as he could, the shortest way out of the path of the falling sweep of snow. The roar grew and grew until it was deafening, and he was sure that in another moment he would be carried away into the whiteness. He felt that he was shouting, but could not even hear his own voice. All he could do was plunge onward through the snow, and hope that Boromir was behind him.

The roaring stopped not a moment too soon, for just as he skidded to a halt, he saw that the ground fell away steeply before him. He whirled around. Boromir was only a dozen paces behind him, and slowing to a lope in the furrow of snow Faramir had made. Behind him, the last bits of snow still tumbled.

Boromir sank down to his knees immediately, and set Daeron down before him. The man’s breath still wheezed, but his eyes were no longer open. Boromir, his face haggard with weariness, looked up at where Faramir stood, and then looked down at the injured man again.

“Our path is now gone… we will have to find another way down. And you cannot carry him the whole way.”

Boromir nodded but said nothing.

Faramir thought for a moment, then shucked off his cloak, laid it over their staves, and cut a few lengths from his rope to secure it. Boromir watched until his breath returned, then quietly set to binding Daeron’s wounds. The cut on his brow had stopped bleeding, likely from the cold, so the leg first, he thought. One of the longer sticks of their firewood (which had, thankfully, stayed secured to his pack as he ran) served well to splint the break. He removed his own cloak and wrapped the unconscious man in it. Together they lifted him onto the litter, picked it up, and headed off.

They trekked along for some time seeking for some sort of path downward, but the mountain offered none. The stretch on which they stood seemed only to lead either up or back to the treacherous leeward slope from which they had only just escaped.

Boromir walked behind, and he watched Daeron’s face grow whiter as the minutes passed. “We need to get down,” he said suddenly, “to someplace where we can warm him. Our only choice is to go back, and hope that the slope will be safer now.”

“We should not go back,” Faramir said.

“Then how do you say we get him down from here? Not to mention ourselves!” The day was wearing away at Boromir’s nerves, and he was already too tired to keep the edge out of his voice.

“We keep looking,” Faramir said calmly.

Boromir opened his mouth to loudly disagree, but he was cut off by a whimper.

“Cold…” Daeron stuttered.

They stopped immediately. “Here, try to drink some water. I have kept it a little warm, or at least unfrozen. It should help,” Faramir said, crouching down beside him.

Daeron sipped at the water then weakly handed it back. He seemed to have a hard time keeping his eyes open.

“Are you feeling any better?” Faramir asked.

“My leg still aches… and I’m very cold… but it is not too bad,” Daeron said, grimacing as he tried to smile.

“Good. We are going to get you down the mountain, now. You’ll be warm soon. We will build a fire…”

Faramir straightened up and turned to Boromir. His expression was grave. “All right. We will try it your way. Maybe it will be faster.”

So they turned back the way they had come. Without the panic of the avalanche bearing down upon them it seemed to take a great deal longer, though it was not really so far. At last they reached the churned snow which hid their true road.

“Stay to the edges. The snow should be less deep there,” Boromir said as they started down.

They were able to make their way down in that place, but it was far from simple. The danger was great, and without their cloaks, the cold seemed to get into their very bones, slowing their progress further. In places the slope was steep; difficult enough for one man to walk down, but nearly impossible for two, carrying another. And the covering of snow did not grow less, but instead became even deeper in places, so that instead of plunging on through it, one would wait with Daeron, listening for the slightest rumble that could signal disaster, while the other forged a path.

A harrowing hour of nervous passage later, they had reached the bottom of the slope. The path was still nowhere in sight, but they felt they could guess at the right direction well enough, and indeed the terrain left them few options. But the sky above was darkening over with thick clouds, though there were still a few hours before nightfall.

“I do not like the look of those clouds,” Boromir said, sniffing at the air. “And the air smells of a storm.”

Faramir nodded. “Now would be a good time for our fire… and some sort of shelter.”

Between two huge stones they set up a camp for the night. Somehow the ground was clear of snow there, and the stones shielded the spot from most of the wind. Daeron had at last revived, and sat to one side propped up against a smaller boulder as the brothers reclaimed the materials of the litter and built a small tent with them. The fire they made near it reflected its heat off the boulders, and soon all three were huddled around its flickering light, significantly warmed. For the first time since morning, they were able to rest.

Too soon, a light snow began to fall, and they retreated into their shelter. In the close quarters the brothers sat near the front of the tent while Daeron lay with his wounded leg stretched out and gazed at the fire.

“You did not tell me what became of Hador,” he said after a while.

Boromir pressed his hands to his eyes for a moment before answering. The day’s difficulties had mostly kept his mind from the place where he had left the unfortunate man. “I found him, under the snow as you were. But he did not survive the tumult.” The strange thought came to his mind, then, that while the mountain’s whim had killed Hador, the mountain had also likely given him his burial.

Daeron nodded, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

“I am sorry, Daeron,” Faramir said, looking kindly at the wounded man. He had seen that, though they vexed each other, Daeron and Hador had become fast friends during the weeks of training. “He was a good man.”

“Yes, he was.” Daeron answered quietly. Seeming to withdraw into himself, he went on in a monotone, “I try to remember what happened before… before the snow began to crumble, but it is all a haze. He had just been speaking of something, I do not remember what, and then we heard it. We ran, but it moved too quickly. Just before I was swept away, I felt him clutch my hand, but I could not hold on. We were torn apart. When you found me, I was sure that it was he…”

Daeron hid his face and wept silently, and neither Boromir nor Faramir seemed to be able to find any words to comfort him.

As twilight fell, Boromir emerged from the makeshift shelter, and went to stand near the great stone and gaze out. The view was unimpeded by other peaks—they were still quite high up. Although the clouds above the mountains were dark with snow, in the distance the sky was rayed with sunset colors, and the far fields faded in a warm haze. His thoughts lingered on Daeron’s words, the helplessness in his voice as he told of Hador’s last moments. The helplessness of being unable to prevent such a loss… There could be nothing worse, Boromir thought. He had feared such a thing, in the back of his mind, when he had learned of Faramir’s intention to join the Rangers, and he feared it again now as he looked out toward the horizon.

“How long can it last?” he whispered, and only then noticed that Faramir had come to stand beside him.

Faramir looked askance.

Boromir sighed. He had not meant to voice this thought, and most particularly not to his little brother. He was glad that the shadow to the east was hidden behind the mountains, for from his vantage at that moment, their land looked so… unchangeable. It seemed wrong, impossible, that it might someday fall under the shadow, but he knew well that it was not just possible, but likely. “How long can we hold off the dark day that we dread? Will it come during our lives? Will we be able to protect… all of this?”

He felt Faramir’s hand on his, and heard him say “There is no way to know. But we will do what we can, if that day comes.”

He turned to his brother and quickly pulled him into his embrace. “Yes, yes we will.”

The memory of that moment would later spur Boromir to ever bolder strategies. He had always favored these, but it seemed senseless after that moment to act in any other way, or not to strike back at the Enemy with all the force and fierceness that men could muster. It became his dream to make the Dark One pay so dearly for his forays that no Orc would dare cross into Gondor, at least while Boromir, Captain of Gondor, lived. But that still lay ahead, and far from this cold, high place.

It was some while after dark that the storm clouds truly let loose their fury. The wind howled and beat at the little shelter, and thick wet snowflakes drove down, illuminated eerily by the lightning. Thunder rumbled and crashed in wrath. Faramir wondered at all this during his watch—he had never before heard thunder during a snowstorm. None of the three seemed to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time for the whole of the night.

When day came, the storm still showed no signs of stopping, though the thunder had quit. The embers of their fire had sputtered away under the snow, and their wood was gone. Most unsettling, though, was that Daeron had worsened in the night. He would open his eyes and seem to take heed when Boromir or Faramir spoke, but would then slip back into a listless languor.

Faramir, who had been satisfied that Daeron would recover quickly, was now thrown into doubt. “What should we do? I fear if we wait out the storm, he will not last. But it is warmer here than it would be, out in the winds…”

“I do not know,” Boromir answered. He had stood outside just a few minutes before, and had stared upward, trying to get a sense of the sky through the haze of falling snow, but with little success. He had thought the clouds seemed less dense, but it might have been a trick of the early light. “But the longer we wait to decide, the deeper the snow will be if we do go.”

For minutes, neither spoke. The snow fell steadily outside, and all was quiet. Faramir furrowed his brow and stared downward at nothing, weighing their options in his thought. Boromir stared out. To him it seemed more and more that there was but one choice. When at last their eyes met again, it seemed they had both reached their decision. With a slight nod, they began gathering their things up and preparing to leave.

When all was made ready and Daeron was again bundled up tight on the litter, they headed off. In the driving snow, nothing could be seen more than a few paces in front of them. All they knew of the path was the general direction, remembered from the night before, and the feel of the ground sloping downward as they trudged along. Their fingers, clutching the ends of the litter, soon numbed, and their feet, kicking through the snow, ached with cold. Snow settled on their shoulders and melted there, and it gathered in their hair, to be shaken off at intervals.

Time stretched as they walked; they might have not gone any distance at all, so little could they gauge of their progress, but they went on without stopping. They worried for Daeron; he had not spoken a word in hours. The only hope they had was that they would be able to get down quickly to some place where they could get out of the storm, and perhaps make a fire once more.

“After this, I’m sure Ithilien will seem a comfortable and home-like place,” Boromir said suddenly. His mind had been wandering, lingering on drear thoughts. It seemed to him better to focus on something other than the cold and the uncertainty of their descent.

Faramir smiled to himself. “Certainly it will, even more so than it does already.”

There was a silence as they maneuvered down a steeper slope, carefully keeping the litter on a level. “I would have liked to have seen it, when Men still dwelt there in peace,” he continued when they reached the bottom. “It seemed like a garden, long untended and overgrown, but still with a lingering beauty.”

“Something like that,” Boromir said in answer. In truth he had thought that any evidence of Men’s labors there was long faded, outside of the secret places still held by the Rangers and the occasional bit of tumbled old stone.

They forced their way through a deeper drift of snow in silence. At the end of it, Boromir turned his eyes to the sky again. Though snow still fell, the grey sky above was indeed growing lighter. “The storm is over!” he said, sighing with relief.

Through the thinning snowfall, they could see now below them on the slope, perhaps only a league away, the snow-dusted tops of dark trees. They could have shouted for joy; they would make it, all three of them.

***

A month had passed since their ordeal on the mountain. Daeron was still in the Houses of Healing; he had recovered quickly from the blow to the head once he was warmed again, but the leg would take longer. The brothers had taken to visiting him there while he recovered.

“I admit I am surprised,” Daeron said one day, “that after everything… Thurinir has told me that I will be offered a captaincy among the Rangers—when I am fully healed, of course.”

“Why does it surprise you? The mountain’s whims are not yours to command,” Faramir replied gently.

“True, but I did not really complete the task, did I? At least not with my own feet.” Somehow he was able to chuckle over this now; for some time he had felt a terrible weight of gratitude toward his rescuers, which had faded only after many friendly visits. “I was not sure, at first, whether I even wanted the command any more. But I will accept it. Hador would wish me to, I think,” he added.

“You will do honor to his memory,” Faramir said, voicing Daeron’s unspoken thought.

But they could not remain with Daeron long that day, and they soon excused themselves. The company that Faramir was to lead was ready to return to Ithilien, and he would be going with them. Boromir, likewise, was preparing to return with his company to Osgiliath only a few days hence.

When the time came, they stood together before the gates of the City. Their backs were to the White Mountains, and they gazed eastward. A hint of a smile was on Faramir’s lips, but Boromir’s look was darker. He wanted to say many things—on how proud he was of Faramir, the faith he had in him, how much he worried for him, little pieces of advice that he was sure Faramir already knew—but he could not find words for any of it. Instead he tousled Faramir’s hair as he had when they were young, and grinned.

“Take care of yourself, little brother.”

“I will,” Faramir answered solemnly. They embraced, and parted.

Boromir stood watching until Faramir and his men had disappeared along the road, then walked slowly back into the City.

~end~

(A deleted scene from this story can be found here.)