Aragorn’s feet still took him higher, long after he thought that he had reached the summit. The footprints continued ever on until they came to an abrupt end. He stood staring ahead of him for almost a minute, not sure if he was seeing things.

Reaching out to the hobbit who lay curled at the base of the tree, he tapped him on the shoulder. Nothing happened.

“Frodo?”

Frodo did not rouse from sleep and alarm bells began to sound. Aragorn touched his face. It was warm, but something did not feel right. Gently, he rolled Frodo onto his back and there was his answer. A red flower was emblazoned across his white linen shirt and had spilled upon the ground.

“No,” he gasped. His cry of anguish and horror tore from his throat like a horn, bathing the forest with sound. “No!”

“Aragorn?”

He heard the elf call out his name, but it did not register. Anger began its unfettered rise within him as his eyes followed a hurried trail of large boot prints leading further up the hill. “Boromir!” he screamed in rage.

Legolas and Gimli reached the tree in time to see Aragorn continue up the trail. Gimli saw the hobbit first.

“Frodo!” he cried out.

Legolas set a hand on his shoulder. “Be comforted. Nothing can harm Frodo now, my friend. Spare a thought, instead, for Boromir. It is he you should worry about.” With a snarl, he drew a white blade from its slumber and continued up the hill.

“Legolas!” Gimli could see that the ring had gone, torn from the hobbit’s throat. “The ring is gone!” Quickly, he followed.

Aragorn had already found him, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, weeping, but the uncrowned king felt no sympathy or mercy. Approaching from behind, he kicked the man in the back, sending him sprawling through the leaf litter. He had barely lifted his head, spitting leaves, when a fist made contact with his jaw.

“You fatherless turncoat!” Aragorn screamed in blind fury. His blade met the half-hearted stroke of Boromir’s blooded sword, which still hung in his hand. Aragorn watched him rise before swinging his sword again. “I gave sixty years of my life to protect the Baggins family from Sauron, and you murdered Frodo in cold blood! Curse you, traitor!”

Strike after strike clashed against Boromir’s sword, but he made no real effort to fend off the attack.

“A sweet and defenceless soul and you snuffed it out, you evil in elven cloth!”

Aragorn continued to slash at him and Boromir found himself against a tree. The fellowship stands on the edge of a knife . . .she had said those words. And here he was, living out Galadriel’s warning.

The steward’s son’s knees began to buckle under the barrage, until suddenly Aragorn’s blade sliced through his wrist from the inside. Boromir’s cry rang out and he slumped. Even then Aragorn did not stop.

“Aragorn!” Gimli shouted. “Legolas, stop him!”

Legolas was at once horrified by the sight of his friend and what he was doing to the man who lay at his feet, slashed and torn. The cries had stopped now, only whimpers came from the blooded body. Yes, Boromir was helpless, carved up and bleeding to death, but did he not deserve it?

A full grown man of Gondor, tall and strong, had attacked an unarmed hobbit of less than half his size. He had sworn an oath, and yet he had betrayed Frodo. Legolas felt incensed, his nostrils flaring and the bloodlust call of a kin-slayer sang in his veins. At the same time, so did his sense of justice, of what was right. The two warred against each other. He struggled to rise above it, he knew he had to. Finally he grabbed Aragorn around the chest and pulled him back. Aragorn struggled in vain against superior strength.

Gimli took the opportunity to rush to the side of the downed man. Boromir stared up at him, eyes glazed with pain. “Do not hate him, Gimli,” he said with difficulty. “He is my king, and I deserve this.”

Gimli lowered his head as the sightless eyes stared upwards to the sky. Behind him, a man sobbed in grief, a pain that would not end lightly or soon. Before him, a hand reached out and gently drew a chain from the dead man’s hand. The dwarf lifted his tear-streaked face to the elf. Their eyes met, both remembering the oath he had shouted out at the Counsel of Elrond. I shall be dead before I see the ring in the hands of an elf!

“The ring took him,” Aragorn sniffed. “Even though I wielded the sword, it was the ring that killed him. I cannot go back on what I have done . . .”

“Then, do not,” Legolas replied, startling them both. “We should send them both down the river to the sea with as much honour and dignity as we can offer. The ring must go to Samwise.”

“I will go . . .”

“No, Aragorn!” Legolas warned. “You cannot face Sauron alone.”

“We will all go,” Gimli suggested quietly.

“I go without you.”

The voice startled them all, and they turned to find Samwise standing there on the path. His face was wet, but determined, and nothing they could say would change his mind. He stepped forward and snatched the ring from Legolas’ hand, much as Frodo had done on Caradhras. They wondered how long he had been standing there, how much he had seen. His words to them were enough to confirm their worst fears.

“Frodo’s sword is glowing, so I suggest you start doing some good in this world before we all get slaughtered without a by-your-leave.”

The hobbit was clearly as angry as he was upset, but without another word he began the descent to the river bank. The three remaining walkers glanced at each other, questioningly. Glowing? Why would a sword be glowing . . .?

Legolas lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Orcs!”

Aragorn lifted his eyes from what he had done and squared his shoulders. “Sam is right. Let us give the hobbits time to get away.”

A distant cry of hobbits fell upon their ears. It was a distinctive sound, even at the height of battle. It was not one of pain, but of fear. They had all heard the sound, but it was too late. Later they saw only one figure on the far shore or the Anduin, confirming their suspicions. There was only one place Merry and Pippin could be; prisoners of the Orcs.

They set Boromir and Frodo side by side in a boat and took it out into the channel. On the banks of the river they vowed together, that they would rescue the hobbits from Saruman come hell or high water. As it was, the following weeks were to provide both.