Chapter 355: What Boromir Saw
"This is the Water-city, the most prosperous city in Eriador, and the chief shipyard of the Free Cities."
In the south of the Lone-lands, Boromir drew rein at the gates of the Water-city and stared at marvel after marvel, at the great statues that guarded the river-mouth. Words failed him.
"Even Pelargir's shipyards, at their richest, could not match this," he thought.
The Captain of the White Tower, High Warden of Gondor, had never left his own land since he was born. It was not that he disliked the thought of travel.
He had never had the leisure.
The moment he came of age, he had ridden to the front, to face the Enemy's most savage blows, holding back Mordor and the wild men of the South.
From the day he reached the line, his world had been only black, dust-choked ground under poisoned mist, and at night that foul green glare that stained the sky.
Set beside that, this place was a miracle. It was too fair.
It stirred longing in him.
The road from Gondor had been easy going. The old highways, once so broken that they were little more than scattered stones and potholes, had been remade by the Free Cities.
The Great North–South Road, according to Gondor's records, had been worn down to scraps, riddled with pits, cutting through bogs and river-sands, all but impassable.
Now it was a smooth new way of grey stone, laid end to end. Where bridges had fallen, they had been rebuilt. The river crossings were sound.
Boromir remembered his father's words.
Under the Lord of the North, the folk of these lands lived in peace. They did not have to face the Enemy's teeth themselves.
In Gondor, blood was shed every day.
There was no help for it. Gondor stood where it stood.
Call it duty, call it burden, or simply the need to survive. They had to fight. They had to hold the line.
With his thoughts in a tangle, Boromir sighed and rode on north until at last he came to Roadside Keep.
"Roadside Keep," he breathed.
In the open ground before the walls, he craned his head back to look and found no words at all.
From the name, he had imagined a stronghold, something like one of Gondor's lordly keeps, with a few thousand souls in its shadow at most.
The "keep" before him was a city to rival Minas Tirith, broad and high and mighty.
"Mm?"
As he was still drinking it in, his eyes narrowed.
From the great gate, company after company of armed men was marching out and heading north.
There was an order to it. Every file was the same size, every unit clearly marked and labeled.
"Greetings, soldiers of Roadside Keep," Boromir said.
He walked his horse towards one of the less harried-looking companies, picked the captain out at a glance, and hailed him.
"I am Boromir, Captain of the White Tower of Gondor. I have come to pay my respects to the Lord of the North, Levi."
"May I ask what is happening here?"
"So you are a friend of Gondor," the captain said.
He set his work aside for the moment.
"Our lord is far in the north, fighting the evils that lie there," he said. "Even he cannot alone hold back such a horde of monsters. We are going to the Wall to support the garrison."
"The Wall. Garrison. Monster-host," Boromir repeated.
The words were all familiar enough. It was their sharing a sentence that threw him.
He voiced his doubt at once.
"I heard that eighteen years ago the remnants of Angmar were wiped out by the army of Roadside Keep, and that Carn Dûm, their old capital, is now a strong-point of the Free Cities. How are there still monsters there?"
"It is no wonder you do not know," the captain said.
"These are not old foes. They have only begun to appear in the last few years. They come out of the Northern Waste, and they are fiercer than any enemy we have seen."
"May I ride with you?" Boromir asked after a moment's thought.
"If foes appear, my sword will be ready."
The captain's eyes lingered on the iron sword at his hip. After a brief pause, he nodded.
"You may. That is within my say."
"Welcome to the company."
"Draw your rations over there," he added, pointing to the place where supplies were being handed out.
Boromir, choosing to follow local custom, went to collect his share.
"These 'field rations' are a feast," he said, half to himself. "Bread, dried meat, fruit, and even milk and honey. Healthy, too."
He picked up a small bottle from among them.
"And this?" he asked.
"Healing potion. It knits wounds. So long as a man is not quite dead, it will bring him back," the quartermaster said.
"Sounds a little like a golden apple," Boromir said.
"A golden apple? That is not something just anyone can come by," the captain said, shaking his head.
"Those are given out as honours, as the costliest of gifts. You will not see many of them."
"I see," Boromir said.
It seemed his father and Levi were on better terms than he had guessed. Denethor had, after all, called the man "uncle".
Puzzled and thoughtful, he marched north with the gathered host until they came to the foot of the Wall.
"Loose!" someone cried.
The hiss of arrows filled the air. The storm of shafts cut down the oncoming creatures.
At the first sound of fighting, Boromir's body tensed of its own accord. He dropped into battle-mind as easily as breathing.
"Up we go," the captain said.
Boromir went with him, up onto the rampart.
"Fire!"
He joined the defenders without thinking, drawing and loosing with the rest.
A good captain does not only know how to command. He can take his place in the line, obeying orders and fighting cleanly when he must.
Boom.
A blaze of white light flared far back among the struggling ranks of the foe. A heartbeat later, another knot of monsters went flying, flames licking at their hides.
Boromir narrowed his eyes and peered towards the source.
"Levi," he said.
He knew that figure: one man sweeping the field almost on his own.
Grey-black armour with a faint dark-red tracery. A cloak of old but tidy linen. A sword in his hands near as tall as a man. He stood as a living breakwater against the flood.
Behind him moved a grey-clad shape Boromir also knew: Gandalf the Grey.
The wizard's work was mostly in support, clearing away smaller beasts that slipped past Levi with the sword Glamdring. When pressed he would lift his staff and send out a flash of light, but he used it sparingly. He fought, for the most part, with cold steel.
As Boromir watched, a thundering of feet shook the stones.
"Those are… trolls," he breathed.
"Look out!" he shouted.
To his surprise, even at that distance, through wind and whirling snow, Levi seemed to hear him. The northern lord only waved once and charged straight at the oncoming trolls.
For a moment, Boromir thought he saw something on the man's hand, a star-shaped flash of light.
Thud.
One by one, the trolls toppled. Not a single one took more than three strokes to fell.
That kind of power bordered on terrifying.
Boromir measured it against his own.
For trolls like those, he would want at least a picked party of five if he hoped to handle them cleanly.
"The strongest foe I have ever faced was a war-beast, seven or eight metres high," he said quietly.
"I had thirty men with me before we brought it down."
"That is no small feat," the captain beside him said.
"I have seen the sort of beast you mean. They are devilishly hard to deal with. Blades and spears do little enough to them."
"To meet it in the open and bring it down with only common weapons, that would be counted excellent work here. Worth a medal, at least."
"So you are not having an easy time of it either," Boromir said.
He looked along the Wall at the rows of hard-faced soldiers, armour tight, lines straight, no one slacking, and felt something in his own heart shift, just a little.