Title: Honour amongst men
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Characters: Aragorn, Gandalf
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,052 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 465 Amnesty, using Challenge 166 - Honour
Summary: Gandalf has come with a task only a Ranger can fulfil.


Aragon pulled the short blade from his belt with practised speed, raising it at the slightest sound from behind him. It hit its mark, but bit into hard wood, rather than flesh or armour, catching him by surprise.

‘Is that any way to greet an old friend?’

Aragon released the breath he’d been holding, pulling hard to dislodge his knife from the wizard’s staff. ‘Gandalf. Approach a Ranger from behind like that if you desire a swift death.’ His relief was palpable that it was friend and not foe he’d drawn his blade against.

Gandalf grinned and then cast his gaze down at the small fire. ‘Is there any meat left on that coney?’

Aragon gestured that he was welcome to it, and the pair of them sat either side of the meagre flames. Aragon reached from inside his pack and withdrew a long pipe, filling it with tabac and lighting it from the fire, letting a tendril of smoke snake away from it.

‘I expected to find you here,’ Gandalf said.

Aragorn did not question the curiousness of this observation. He’d learned long ago not to question wizards, much less Gandalf the Grey. ‘I have not travelled so far south in a long time, old friend.’

Gandalf nodded, stripping a greasy thread of meat from the carcass with a small knife, popping it in his mouth. ‘Yet foul things are moving ever southward, such as you have seen.’

Aragorn nodded. ‘Foul things indeed. Though I have not seen their like before.’

Gandalf raised a curious eyebrow at him. ‘So you have seen them?’

‘The dark riders? Yes. They carry a wickedness upon them.’

‘More than a wickedness,’ Gandalf replied, abandoning the coney in favour of his own pipe. ‘They are the Nazgul.’

Aragon nearly dropped the pipe from his hands. ‘But they cannot be, Gandalf!’

Gandalf did not let Aragorn’s alarm unsettle him. ‘Many things in this world were thought destroyed when Isildur cut the ring from Sauron’s hand, and yet darkness is rising again in the places where once it had been defeated. The shadow is growing ever more powerful, stretching and testing its reach. The Nazgul are not so destroyed as we thought. Their master has summoned them.’

Gandalf’s words made his mouth go dry. ‘For what purpose?’

‘The weapon of the enemy has been found’ he said plaintively. ‘In the most unlikely of places.’

‘Isildur’s Bane,’ Aragorn said in a whisper, barely daring to utter the words at all.

‘It calls to him, yet he knows not yet where it is. We must keep it that way, for as long as we can. He will never stop hunting it.’ Galdalf paused to take a long draw on his pipe, exhaling a large plume of smoke that resolved itself into a scene of bucolic peace. ‘Two hobbits left from the Shire this past fortnight, heading to Bree. It is vital that they reach the town unimpeded. The road is long and dangerous, though they do not yet know it. I would ask you to meet them there when they arrive in two week’s time, at the Prancing Pony. They will be travelling by the name Underhill. I expect that I should meet you there, but my journey may be waylaid a day or two. Do not wait for me. The halflings must reach Rivendell with as much speed and haste as you can press upon them. Only then will the ring be safe for a time.’

Aragorn fixed the wizard with a hard glare. ‘You have left the ring in the possession of halflings?’ It seemed incredulous that a wizard so wise should do such a thing. ‘Surely it would be safest with you.’

Galdalf appeared to shudder, the idyllic garden scene evaporating into nothing, disappearing into the night. ‘I would not take the ring, Aragorn, even if it were offered to me. Not even to keep it safe. Its power is too great, its pull too much for even the most powerful to resist.’ His ancient blue eyes bored into Aragorn. ‘Whatever happens, you must not touch it, not even for a second. It will corrupt any who hold it, but Men most of all. It is the reason that only the Elves keep their three rings of power. The dwarves were destroyed by their own, and the Nine…’

Aragorn’s features hardened. ‘I know what it did to Isildur. It should have ended that day.’ The great line of Men, of which Aragorn was their last heir, had brought shame and devastation by thinking that the ring could bring power and peace to the world.

Galdalf nodded. ‘Indeed, it should have, but the ring exerts a power that none of us can control. And yet… the halflings seem most immune to its grip. It is for that reason that Frodo must carry it for now.’

‘That is a great burden to place on one so small.’ Could he truly understand the danger the wizard had placed him in? ‘The Nine have sensed its presence, yes?’

‘They have. They will ever seek it out to return it to its master. We live in dangerous times, Aragorn, son of Arathorn. The world will have need of the Dunedain in what is to come.’

Aragorn dispensed with his pipe, no longer able to seek comfort from the sweet smoke. ‘The line of the kings is dead, Gandalf. It can never be remade.’

Gandalf pushed himself up with his staff, standing over the fire and the Ranger at its foot. ‘There may yet come a time when the world will need a king to rule it, though there may be many battles to be fought before that time comes. For now, our hope lies in the quest of two small hobbits. The Prancing Pony,’ Gandalf called over his shoulder, making his leave.

Aragorn’s eyes returned to the fire, studying its flames and wondering if the eye of the enemy lurked within them. He could suddenly hear the wails and screeches of the Nine in the night. He stamped out the flames and reached for his longsword, bracing for their arrival. Let them come, he thought, tightening his grip. Every step closer to him was a step further away from the halflings and what they carried. Some honour still was left in Men.