The following days passed by slowly with nothing interesting to talk about besides a few exchanges of words with various members of the Fellowship. They mostly pertained phrases like "You are going with Boromir to Minas Tirith" or "Why do I have to take them to Minas Tirith?" or "Why can’t Boromir take them to Minas Tirith right now?"
Several days did pass though, and then several nights as Aragorn insisted we switch to traveling at night instead of during the day. One night after traveling with the Fellowship for nearly a week, we came upon something unexpected.
"How far did you say we traveled, Aragorn?" Boromir questioned from another boat.
"I believe we are nearly a day away from Sarn Gebir, why?" Aragorn asked back.
"The sound of rushing water looms ahead." Legolas warned before Boromir had a chance to reply.
"Perhaps the River narrows." Aragorn suggested.
There was silence for a while longer and the River became faster. There was a terrible grinding noise on the bottom of our boat.
"Aragorn?" I asked worriedly.
"I think we are already near Sarn Gebir." Frodo noted as a rock scraped against the bottom of his boat as well. Aragorn nodded knowing now it must be true as the boat shook from the force.
"All together, paddle!" Boromir bellowed, "Paddle! Or we shall be driven on the shoals!"
Everyone quickly began paddling towards the shore. We had barely begun when something splashed in the water not far from the boats, sounding rather like a rock. Another hit Frodo square in the chest and it was clear they were not rocks at all but arrows.
Somewhere in the darkness upon the eastern shore shouts could be heard. Dark shapes could even be spied if I looked close enough. Another volley of arrows came at us, most hitting the water but one sank deep into the wood of Boromir’s boat. Merry gasped as the arrow barely missed hitting him.
"Yrsh." Legolas cried.
"Orcs!" Gimli cried.
"Great." I moaned, yelling back for Katy to paddle harder.
The boats barely seemed to move at a turtle’s pace as we rowed against the current with all our might, yet move we did and the western shore slowly became larger. We had nearly reached it and were beginning to think we were in the clear when Legolas spoke.
"Elbereth Githoniel!" He muttered looking up into the blackness of the sky.
A chill seemed to come over me, my very heart seemed to freeze yet somehow we managed to continue paddling. Legolas dropped his paddle and with the lightning speed only an elf could muster, his bow was soon in hand, an arrow loose at the unseen shape.
There was a bone-chilling scream and a particularly dark shape seemed to fall from the sky. The voices of the orcs and goblins on the opposite shore rose all the louder in their shouts and curses while the mood in our little boats seemed to lighten immediately.
Once we got to shallow waters along the shore Aragorn led us all in pulling our boats further upstream, away from the nearby rapids. He finally stopped and Katy and I collapsed, our energy spent both physically and emotionally.
The majority of the Fellowship stayed up discussing the events longer, but as for me, I was ready to go to bed and was soon asleep with their voices echoing in my dreams.
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