His brother's sour mood neither surprised nor daunted him, used as he was to bearing with it whenever Boromir began to chafe at his clumsiness. "Might I trouble you for my sword?"įaramir retrieved the weapon and handed it to him, chuckling. "Only if I am fighting you." He looked around the enclosure in exaggerated confusion. "It may keep you alive," his brother pointed out.īoromir climbed to his feet, shedding bits of sawdust from his clothing as he did so. "The point of this exercise is not to win a contest of arms but to defend against attack."īoromir made a disgusted noise in his throat and sat up. "How am I to win such a contest if I cannot disembowel my enemy? Or lop off an arm, at the very least?"įaramir uttered a long-suffering sigh and pulled off his helm to run a hand through his matted hair. Then Faramir lowered his sword and said, "You were doing quite well until you tried to disembowel me, Brother." Even as Boromir's sword went flying, Faramir swept his legs out from under him, knocked him flat on his back, and brought the point of his sword to the Steward's throat. Faramir moved with startling speed, sidestepping his onrushing opponent and disarming him with a deft twist of his own blade. He had barely recovered his balance when Boromir abruptly changed tactics and charged in, sword flashing. With a tremendous heave, Boromir at last thrust aside his brother's weapon, and Faramir fell back, breathing hard. Swords locked, muscles strained, and mighty arms strove to master those pitted against them. For a moment, it seemed as though he would cleave his brother's head in two, then Boromir's sword came up to parry the blow and caught the blade on his hilts. ![]() Where Boromir went, Gil went before him, and when he reached for her, she was there-even if it meant that she must sit quietly by while he and his brother tried their best to dismember each other.įaramir's sword came whistling down in a vicious arc toward Boromir's helm. She was the Steward's Squire, sworn to her lord's service and proud to keep her place at his side. It would never have occurred to Gil to leave her post and seek shelter from the winter chill. ![]() She might have no part in the skirmish, but she watched it as keenly as any captain drilling his troops, and when a blade whistled too near a helmed head for comfort, her grip on her cloak tightened until her knuckles showed white. But she made no sound, offered no protest, and merely pulled her cloak more closely about her shoulders when the wind gusted. With no battle lust to warm her and no combat to distract her from her stomach's complaints, she was both cold and hungry. The slight figure huddled on the wall to watch them, clad in the sober livery of a royal squire, was not so fortunate. So intent were they on their contest of arms that they did not feel hunger, thirst or the cut of the wind on their faces. The day was clear and cold, with the bite of winter in the air, yet the men were sweating heavily beneath their gear, warmed by their exercise and the heat of battle in their veins. In the wide, empty space of the practice yard, two men circled each other, their booted feet scuffing on damp earth and sawdust, their swords flashing in the pale sunlight as they hacked and lunged and parried. The clash and ring of metal striking metal filled the air, frightening the morning chorus of birdsong into silence. I will be cleaning up the chapters, fixing the typos, and getting them posted over the next few days. One can only hope! In any case, there's lots of adventure and angst and orcs and explosions and Ents and hobbits and the rest here to enjoy, so please do! Maybe reading it through this time as I clean it up for publishing will get my creative juices flowing. I can't guarantee you that I will ever write those last few chapters, but I haven't entirely given up on them, either (I did go back and finish an epic in another fandom after letting it lie fallow for 13 years, so there is precedent). So hopefully you'll find it worth reading. The main plot is finished, all the characters who are going to survive are back in safe hands, no one is left dangling off a cliff, and only the romance plot (such as it is) remains unresolved. It isn't quite finished, but at the request of a few readers, I have decided to post it anyway. This is Part Two of my Boromir Saga, picking up the story four years after the events in The Captain and the King. ← Previous Work Part 2 of The Captain and the King Stats: Published: Updated: Words: 147,883 Chapters: 15/? Kudos: 6 Hits: 139
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