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The first wail echoed through Ithilien. The second produced no sound, only a breathless open-mouthed agony. Faramir had collapsed on the riverbank, snatching up the halves of the Horn of Gondor, and screamed until he could no longer draw breath. Shame at such a display in front of a patrol and his men; knowledge that the sound could draw the Enemy; such things were but whispers in the void of grief that consumed him.
Cradling the evidence of his brother’s death tight to his chest, he wept openly, head thrown back and chest heaving. Yes, he and his father had both heard it days past, even if in their minds more than their ears. And, yes, he had dreamed of it, the same way he had dreamed of the wave. But those things were not proof, and he could pray that they meant danger, not… this .
He screamed.
Never had he known life without Boromir. Never had he dared to imagine it, besides in the childhood nightmares after his mother had passed, the ones that threatened losing everyone and everything. It had always been a possibility—it had been long since he was naïve enough to think otherwise—but a possibility in the same vein as Minas Tirith under seige, or Sauron taking back his famed Ring. Vague. Unfathomable. A horrible worst-case that he could hardly imagine and that nauseated him when he tried to.
I should have gone , he thought. It should have been me. I am the disposable one, I am the lesser . And, though he hated himself for thinking it: I am the Ranger, I am the superior navigator and I am superior in the wild. If one of us has to die, better it be me—but had I gone to Imladris, it likely would have been neither .
His lieutenant placed a hand on his shoulder and he took it in one of his own, grateful for the comfort. The world was ending, but at least there was one warm thing left.
“Captain,” the man said, voice low, “I am so sorry for Gondor’s loss, and moreso for yours.”
When he screamed again, no sound came.