Spring came, and with it the stirring of all living things.
From every great kingdom of the West, envoys rode toward Western Eowenría, gathering beneath Kaen's banner.
This embassy was drawn from the rulers of Middle-earth, a company that carried not only the will of the Free Peoples, but also the authority of the Free Alliance itself.
Their numbers and order were thus:
> Gondor: Led by Denethor, heir to the Steward, a company of fifteen young southern Dúnedain nobles. The weakest among them were elite heroes; Denethor himself was already brushing the threshold of epic rank.
> Rohan: Led by Prince Théoden of Rohan, but aided fifteen Riders of noble blood, as he was still young. Théoden was Seventeen now, a young boy with easy grace and keen eyes.
> The Dwarves: Led in person by Thorin Oakenshield: fifteen young champions of Khazad-dûm, the brightest of their generation. Many had fought in the War of Moria five years before; now, without exception, they had all risen to peak elite hero tier.
> The Woodland Realm: Led by Prince Legolas. Thirty in all, a mingled company of Sindarin nobles and Silvan warriors, every one of them a legendary hero who had survived since the First Age of the world.
> Lothlórien: Led by Lady Galadriel, Noldorin princess and Queen of Lothlórien. Thirty more came in her train, Noldor and Sindar lords alike, ancient Elves who had walked beneath many stars before the Sun was kindled.
> Eowenría: Led by Kaen himself. His own party numbered more than fifty, including:
i) Artemis the Maia
ii) Arwen, Princess of the Dawn,
iii) Yenistriel, Regent of the Aeshi Elves,
iv) Gandalf the Grey,
v) the High Commander of the King's Guard, Reger,
vi) and fifty hand-picked warriors of the King's Guard.
As for Glorfindel, he had ridden west as soon as the first tidings came, and was already in the Lindon region.
The Elven saint meant to stand upon the shore before Kaen arrived, and let his very presence warn the Westward Elves what kind of Middle-earth they were sailing into.
.....
They gathered first in Azure Spring City.
There, after formal greetings and the weighing of faces long spoken of but seldom seen, Kaen led them westward along the Great East–West Road.
They crossed the Mitheithel River, rode over the wild highlands of the West, and came at last to Eowenría's western border: the hill called Weathertop.
Beyond that, they would press on: through Bree, past the Barrow-downs, across the Shire—where, if one left the road for a while, one might spy Hobbiton and the green doorways of Bag End and then bend south-west across Eriador, over the last low ranges to reach the Grey Havens.
The journey would be spanning leagues and leagues; three months, by their reckoning, before they stood upon the quays of Mithlond.
Many in this company were still young, at least by the measure of Men and Dwarves.
They were the future of Middle-earth, shaped already by the new age that Kaen's deeds had begun.
Almost all had grown up on stories of him: the Orc-slayer of the North, the King beneath the Sacred Trees, the slayer of the Balrog of Moria.
Their respect for him ran deep and unforced.
On the road, whenever they halted for the night or for the watering of horses, Kaen would sit among them by the fire and answer their questions.
Elrond's tutelage had left its mark: Kaen was not only a great king, but also a learned counsellor. The way he looked at a problem, the long view he took, the principles he spoke of, these things sank into the hearts of the young nobles and captains, and they knew they would shape their choices for years to come.
In these days in Middle-earth, anyone who followed Kaen for long seldom remained ordinary.
Such folk tended to become legends in their own right, leaving bold marks on the tale of the age.
This was one of the chief reasons their realms had sent youth rather than greybeards.
Aragorn and Denethor, heir to the Steward of Gondor, had long since fought side by side in the lightning campaign to the Far East; in these weeks they grew truly close.
Aragorn, as a Northern Dúnadan, mingled easily among his southern kin; laughter and argument flowed in their tents at night, as they compared the customs of North and South.
...
More than twenty days later, the company reached the western marches of Eowenría—Weathertop.
It was a late afternoon in early spring.
The hill that had once watched over the rise and fall of the kingdom of Arnor still stood there, shoulders bare to the sky. Broken walls and tumbled stones lay scattered upon its crown; in the slanting sun one could see every crack and scar upon the old rock, and here and there the black traces where beacon-fires had scorched the stone in days of war.
After the northern Dúnedain realms split, Angmar had not fallen upon them at once.
First Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur had torn one another in civil war and only then had the Witch-king descended upon them like winter.
This was one of the fields that had drunk their blood.
"This is Amon Sûl," Gandalf said, his voice rough with smoke and age. He pointed toward the shattered ring of stone that had once been the tower's base. "Once it was the Eye of the North-kingdom and now there is only the wind sighing through its empty joints."
Denethor swung down from his horse. He laid a hand on the pitted stones of the wall; his fingers traced a deep scar cut into the rock.
"Was this the work of the Nazgûl?" he asked softly.
"It is the work of time," Kaen said, with a faint sigh. "Darkness can throw down towers—but it cannot erase what the land remembers. Come. The Prancing Pony in Bree is not far now, and we will have our supper there."
They rode down the gentler western slope of Weathertop, and as dusk drew its purple veil across the sky, the company came to Bree.
The little town where Men and Hobbits dwelt together was already wrapped in evening smoke.
Along the North Road, timber houses leaned over fences hung with drying herbs; from behind low stone walls came the soft lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep.
The lamps of the Prancing Pony burned like a cluster of warm, yellow stars. Even from the road they could hear the noise within: the clatter of mugs, the crackle of the great hearth-fire, the rattle of benches on wooden floors, and the rise and fall of rough voices in song and argument.
When the embassy entered Bree and folk saw Kaen riding at the front with the golden-armoured King's Guard around him, a breath went through the whole town like a wind.
Bree was close enough to Eowenría that many travellers on the East–West Road had gone there at least once; few were strangers to the sight of the tall, broad-shouldered warriors in gold.
But a king's crown, gleaming beneath a spring sky, was a rarer marvel.
"B;ess my soul….that's him! That's the King of Eowenría!"
"Our king, the High King of Middle-earth… the Bane of the Shadow!"
"He's come to Bree itself—Bree will talk of this for a hundred years!"
"I can't believe it, I've seen a great king with my own eyes. Are those Elves beside him? Look how fair they are…"
"And those are Dwarves. I know that one at the front—Thorin Oakenshield! I saw him once in this town before, and now he's a king."
People crowded to the sides of the road, bowing and ducking their heads as the company rode by.
When Kaen's party came to the Prancing Pony, the innkeeper and his staff hurried out in a flurry of aprons and bows to receive them.
At Kaen's request, rooms were arranged for as many as could be housed within the inn; for the rest, gold was laid down to rent nearby homes for a night. No traveller was turned out of bed; Kaen would not have his coming be a burden.
Once matters were settled, the main body of the escort dispersed to their lodgings. Kaen and a small group of a dozen went in through the back door of the inn.
The smell of ale hit them at once—rich and yeasty.
In a shadowed corner, a few men in rough cloaks hunched over their table, talking low. The candle between them threw their uneasy faces into sharp relief.
Kaen saw Artemis safely to her chamber. Galadriel and Arwen shared a room; Thorin and the others took a long table in the common-room, ordering platters of roast meat, loaves of bread, and foaming beer, eating and talking in their many tongues.
It was then that voices from the next table drifted clearly across.
"…I'm telling you, that stretch of downs is haunted, sure as my beard," a bearded man said, throwing back a long gulp of ale. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Last week a Hobbit out of the Shire said he lost his way in the Barrow-downs. Swears he saw a pale hand coming out of the mound, grabbing at his ankle."
"Not only that," another traveller put in—a grey-haired fellow whose voice trembled a little, as though the memory itself chilled him. "My cousin's barges were unloading down the Brandywine, and he saw blue fire drifting over the barrows in the night. Said he heard singing, too. Old, crooked words, and a tune that put ice in his bones."
"They say that isn't fire at all," a third man murmured, "but the corpse-lights of evil spirits. The mounds of the Barrow-downs are full of cursed things the Witch-king of Angmar left behind, just to drag travellers into graves as offerings."
At that, the noise in the common-room ebbed for a heartbeat; the name of the Witch-king still had teeth in these parts.
Legolas's pointed ears gave the slightest twitch. He turned toward Gandalf and asked in a low voice, "Evil spirits? Wights in the Witch-king's service?"
"Cursed shadows," Thorin answered before the wizard could speak. His thick fingers slid around his mug; the beer inside rippled faintly. Thorin had lived in these lands for a time—there was little here he had not heard in some tale or other.
"In days past, those hills were barrows of the First Men—Edain and early Dúnedain both lie there. Afterward the Witch-king defiled them with his sorcery, and they became lairs of wights."
"The Witch-king's sorcery?"
The younger nobles pricked up their ears at once. Voices rose, urging the elders to tell them more of that age.
But Thorin knew few details of those distant days. With a helpless look he turned to Gandalf.
The Grey Wizard took his pipe from his mouth and tapped it twice against the tabletop. The dull knock silenced the nearby chatter.
He looked around at the ring of curious, fire-lit faces—Men and Dwarves and Elves of many kindreds.
Then, in the hush that fell over that corner of the inn, Gandalf began to speak of the older ages of the world, and of the first rising of Angmar in the North…