1909, The Hundred Years War of the Evil Dragon (9)
——Third Era, 3017, April 5——
Gondor March, Cair Andros (dros).
The city's name comes from an Elvish word meaning "ship of foam".
It is located on a narrow island about 16 kilometers long downstream of the Anduin, the longest river in Middle-earth. The island is shaped like a large ship. The northern end of the island is tall and sharp, like the bow of a ship.
It got its name because the river water hit the sharp rocks there and splashed countless white foam.
To the east of this island is Mordor, the territory of the Dark Lord, and to the west is Anorien, the fiefdom where Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, is located. It has considerable strategic value.
Therefore, the people of Gondor built a fortress on it to defend against the attack of Mordor. Nearly a thousand years after Sauron was defeated, this place has developed into a fortress city with strong defensive capabilities.
A city naturally has pubs, and the most indispensable thing in pubs are drunkards and drunkards.
"Tap-tat-tat... la-la... ow!" A drunkard who was singing a strange tune randomly tried to push open the door of the tavern to leave, but was knocked to the ground by the reverse-opened door.
"Damn it...which one...jumped ashore...dead fish!" The drunk man was furious, drew his sword with his backhand, and shouted angrily at the person who had just entered the door.
Snap, the person grabbed his wrist: "You don't recognize me?"
"Why should I admit..." The drunk man's eyes widened.
The person holding his hand was a man wearing black steel armor, lined with dark blue chainmail, with long black hair, a resolute face, gray-blue eyes, and a calm and confident expression. Behind him, there were others
Nearly ten men and women with equally well-equipped equipment, including even a wizard in gray robes.
"I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you, sir." The drunkard's hand shook, and the ordinary iron sword fell, and the man caught it with his backhand.
"Go away, don't let me see you again." The man waved his sword and then handed it to the follower behind him.
"Yes, yes--" The drunkard didn't dare to ask for it and rushed out of the door.
"Aragorn, you actually want to snatch a drunkard's weapon?" Gandalf held up his hat and seriously considered whether to keep a distance from him in the future, but then realized that it seemed that it was too late.
"If you can sell it for 5 dinars (silver coins), why not?" Aragorn shrugged, ignored the eyes of other guests in the tavern and walked straight to the counter, knocked on the table, and then said something that could be heard by everyone in the room.
The voice said loudly: "Helbo! I'll buy the wine tonight!"
"Okay!" "Here's to Strider!" "Is your legion still short of people?" The tavern suddenly burst into jubilation.
After picking up 5 dinars and changing hands for 2 Mirians (gold coins, Mirians), it is difficult to determine whether the future king of Gondor is frugal or generous.
Gandalf shook his head and followed Aragorn's other followers to find a table to sit down. He looked at Aragorn from afar as the stars held the moon but he was able to do so with ease.
From the day they met to now, a total of... sixty-one years have passed.
In this time span, some short-lived races have replaced three generations. Even humans are enough to turn a young man into an old man. But time seems to be completely unable to leave a mark on Aragorn. He is even older than the first time he saw him.
She is now even younger, should she be said to be worthy of the blood of the elf princess Lúthien?
However, it seems that the Princess Evening Star he is pursuing is also a side branch of Luthien?
...Forget it, Maia, who is responsible for guiding the rise of mankind, does not need to care about the elves' family affairs. Gandalf turned to look at Aragorn's followers.
A noble young man, the son of a chief, an architect, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, a forest ranger, a field doctor, a city guard officer, and a female street thief.
Except for a few individuals, Gandalf is quite satisfied with this group of followers. After all, they were recruited by Aragorn after he gained enough fame. Think about it again, when he first started from scratch, all of them were hired simply with money.
Gandalf was prepared for these people to rebel one day, but they did not do so at all. Even after retiring because they were too old, they still lived in various manors under Aragorn's name as manors.
host.
The most irritating thing is...Gandalf himself is Maia. Even if he looks like this in another thousand years, it is impossible to retire.
During these sixty years, Aragon has been unswervingly moving towards his goal, from helping villages train militia, purchasing missing goods, transporting goods, driving cattle, to delivering messages to the lords of various cities, cleaning out thieves' lairs, and participating in
During the local war and rescuing captured family members, Aragorn did not reveal his identity at all, and he just raised the reputation of "Strider" from obscurity to fame in the Seven Kingdoms.
Hmm... maybe it's the Six Kingdoms. After all, Mordor doesn't allow him and his war group to enter, and the orc city doesn't need help.
Although in order to avoid the fear of lords everywhere, the number of the "Striders" war group has been kept at around 200 people, but Gandalf believes that as long as Aragorn reveals his identity and then raises his arms, it will be enough to summon thousands or even tens of thousands of people.
Even if a large army of ten thousand people stormed Minas Tirith...
No, no, why did Aragorn attack his own country's capital?
Could it be that his intention was not to gain prestige so that the regent could abdicate in favor of someone worthy of his position, but to force the regent to replace him by force?
This...if it is true, do you want to stop it?
However, as a wizard who has been away from the team for eight months of the year, whose whereabouts are erratic, and who has not made any significant contributions to the team, his words seem to have no weight at all.
There is no way around this. In order to deal with the threat of Saren in the future, he must travel around and establish good relations with dwarves, elves, orientals, hobbits and even dragons, so that he can draw in help when war breaks out.
Humanity alone is no match for Mordor's army.
Speaking of which, although he had consulted a lot of information about the ring in Frodo's hand, there was still no definite evidence to prove which ring it was, but it was probably one of the rings lost by the dwarves. After all, Bilbo had originally
I picked it up in the dwarf territory.
Anyway, this matter is not urgent, it is still early before Demon Lord Sauron is resurrected——
"【boom!】"
"[Click!]"
The ground shook violently, knocking half of the guests in the tavern to the ground. The people who fell on the ground could clearly see through the windows.
Under the dark sky, Mordor's long-dormant Mount Doom,
