And the Anduin ran black.
"I have seen it," Boromir replied. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. The blade, forged in Gondor’s brighter years, still held an edge that could part silk and orc-flesh alike. But edges mattered little against what he felt pressing against the veil of the world.
The night answered with a thousand pairs of eyes.
"For Gondor!"
Above them, the stars winked out one by one, as if snuffed by a cold and patient finger.
For three nights, the eastern shore had whispered. Not in words, but in the way the reeds bent against no wind. In the way the frogs fell silent all at once, as though a great mouth had opened somewhere beneath the mud.
Then the shape laughed. Softly. Once.
Boromir smiled — a terrible, beautiful smile — and settled his shield upon his arm.
And the last watch began.
The younger man hesitated. "I believe in orcs, and in the treachery of Haradrim. I believe in walls and spear-points." And the Anduin ran black
"And yet," Boromir turned from the river, and his face was the face of a man who has glimpsed a crack in the world, "something hunts us that does not hunger for meat or gold. It hungers for the sound of a horn that does not answer. For the name of a king that no one sings anymore."
The sound ripped through the fog, bold and bright and utterly, magnificently defiant. Behind him, a hundred tired men lifted their spears. Before him, the hooded shape on the far shore turned its head slowly, as though noticing a fly that had chosen to sting a giant.
The river moved in silence, darker than the space between stars. Boromir, eldest son of the White Tower, leaned upon his sword and watched the water slide past the piers of Osgiliath. Behind him, the great city groaned under the weight of shadow; before him, the east bank lay clenched in the fist of night. The blade, forged in Gondor’s brighter years, still