The Daughter of the Moon Volume I

Chapter 30 : Dissolution of the Community

Elenwë also felt ill and couldn't help but fall to her knees next to her friend.

The moments she had spent with Boromir came back to her mind, and each of them hurt her as much as if a blade had been stuck in her stomach.

She sighed, with her heart on the edge of her lips.

-Alas! Said Aragorn. Thus disappears the heir of Denethor, Lord of the Watchtower! It is a cruel end.

The Company is now all in ruins. It is I who have failed.

Fainted was the trust that Gandalf...

had put in me. What am I going to do now? Boromir has forced me to go to Minas Tirith, and my heart desires it, but where is the Ring and the Bearer?

How can I find them and save the Quest from disaster?

For a moment he remained kneeling, bowed by his tears, without letting go of Boromir's hand. Elenwë looked sad, holding the other hand of the man from Gondor.

This is how Legolas and Gimli found them.

They came from the west side of the hill, creeping silently among the trees as if hunting.

Gimli had his axe in his hand and Legolas his long dagger: his arrows were all exhausted.

When they came out into the clearing they stopped in amazement and stood there for a while, their heads bowed in grief, for they could see clearly what had happened.

-Alas! said Legolas, joining Aragorn. We hunted and killed many Orcs in the forest,

but we would have been more useful here. We came when we heard the horn, but too late, it seems. I

fear that you may have received fatal injuries.

-Boromir is dead, says Aragorn.

We are unharmed, for we were not here with him.

He fell defending the Hobbits, while I was up there on the hill

-Hobbits! cried Gimli. Where are they? Where is Frodo?

-I don't know," replied Aragorn wearily. Before he died, Boromir told me that the Orcs had tied them up, he did not believe that they were dead. I had sent him to follow Merry and Pippin, but I did not ask him if Frodo and Sam were with him: not until it was too late. Everything I have done today has gone wrong. What do I do now?

-The first thing we have to do is take care of the one who fell," says Legolas. We can't leave him lying there like a carrion in the midst of those nasty Orcs!

When he said this, he approached Elenwë and picked her up and held her in his arms.

She did not cry, but her face showed deep sadness.

-Come on, come on! he added. We should hurry...

The four of them made a rudimentary stretcher to put Boromir's body on.

Gimli carefully chose many of the enemy's weapons to put them with their friend's body.

Legolas and Elenwë filled their quivers with Orc arrows.

They carried the body to the bank of the Anduin.

In a boat, they placed the weapons and helmets of the enemies defeated by Boromir.

Meanwhile, Aragorn and Legolas combed Boromir's hair, arranged his clothes and surrounded his waist with the golden belt offered by Galadriel.

They placed Boromir over the enemy's weapons. Above his head they put his split horn and between his fingers they left the sword of the Gondorian.