Chapter 2: The Road to Imladris
Three days carved the last of the unfamiliarity from Cedric's borrowed bones.
The body knew its work. His legs ate miles without complaint, finding purchase on slick stone and tangled root that would have sent his old self sprawling. His lungs breathed thin mountain air as easily as sea-level oxygen. His hands maintained weapons with the automatic precision of thirty years' practice, checking bowstring tension and blade edges during each rest stop without conscious thought.
The mind inside that body still reeled, but it was learning to hide the reeling.
Adapt or die, Cedric told himself as the patrol crossed into the Trollshaws. You wanted this world. Now survive it.
The East-West Road stretched ahead, ancient stone worn smooth by centuries of traffic. This was the route Bilbo had traveled sixty years ago, pursued by trolls that turned to stone at dawn. This was the path the Hobbits would take in a few weeks, with Aragorn guiding them toward Rivendell and the Nazgûl hunting close behind.
Cedric knew all of it. The meta-knowledge sat in his skull like a stolen library, pages upon pages of lore and plot and consequence that the people around him couldn't imagine.
The Pact found that knowledge delicious.
"Cedric."
He turned to find Taran falling into step beside him. The youngest Ranger in the patrol was barely twenty, with the lanky build of a body still growing into itself and eyes that held more worry than they should. Halbarad had mentioned — the inherited memories supplied this — that Taran was a third cousin, blood of Cedric's blood through a connection too tangled to trace quickly.
"You move well today," Taran said. His hand rested on his sword hilt in a nervous habit the boy probably didn't notice. "Better than when we left the Angle. Halbarad says you've been sharper since the cairn."
The cairn where the Pact activated. Where I woke up wearing a dead man's face.
"The road clears the head," Cedric said. The original Ranger's speech patterns came more easily now, archaic cadences replacing the modern idioms he had to consciously suppress. "And Rivendell waits. That thought lightens any step."
"Do you think—" Taran stopped, looked away, started again. "Do you think Lord Elrond will have news of the darkness in the East?"
"What darkness troubles you?"
The words came out gentler than Cedric intended. Something about the boy's worried face stirred protective instincts that felt genuine, not performed, and the Pact noted this with quiet interest.
"All of it." Taran's voice dropped. "The whispers from Gondor. The Orcs growing bolder. The shadow spreading from Mordor that even the Wise cannot name. I fear—"
He stopped again. This time he didn't continue.
"Say it," Cedric prompted.
"I fear that the darkness will swallow us before anyone remembers we existed." The words came out in a rush. "The Dúnedain. The Rangers. We guard the North, we've guarded it for a thousand years, and no one knows. No one cares. When the darkness finally wins, we'll be the first to fall, and Gondor won't send aid, and Rohan won't ride, and the Elves are leaving, and—"
"Breathe."
Taran breathed. His hands shook on his sword hilt.
"You will be remembered," Cedric said.
The certainty in his voice surprised him. It surprised Taran too — the boy's eyes widened, searching Cedric's face for mockery or empty comfort.
"How can you know that?"
Because I've read the histories. Because I know that Aragorn will ride to war with the Dúnedain at his side, that the Grey Company will fight at Pelennor Fields, that the Rangers' sacrifice will be sung in Gondor for generations.
He couldn't say any of that. So he said what the Ranger mask would say, what the original Cedric might have believed:
"Because the darkness cannot win forever. And those who held the line will be honored when the light returns."
Taran stared at him for a long moment. Then something in the boy's face relaxed, tension bleeding out of shoulders that had been locked too tight.
"Thank you, kinsman."
The words carried weight. Not casual thanks, but the acknowledgment of a burden shared. And as Taran spoke them, Cedric saw.
The Morgul-mark flared into visibility on his inner sight — a faint glow around Taran's head, barely brighter than a candle flame. The Pact's first true manifestation of Kinslayer's Insight, marking a bond that could be harvested.
[KINSLAYER'S INSIGHT: TARGET REGISTERED]
[TARAN — RANGER OF THE NORTH]
[BOND LEVEL: NASCENT]
[BETRAYAL VALUE: MINIMAL]
The system notation burned itself into Cedric's awareness like hot iron pressed to skin. He looked at Taran's earnest face and saw the number beneath it — minimal value, but value nonetheless. The boy's trust was an asset now. His gratitude was currency.
No.
Cedric shoved the assessment away, but the Pact didn't let him forget it. The mark around Taran's head stayed visible, a constant reminder that every bond formed was a betrayal waiting to happen.
The Crebain came at midmorning.
Cedric saw them first — black shapes wheeling above the tree line, too many to be natural crows, too coordinated to be wild. His memory snapped the identification into place: Saruman's spies, the birds the wizard used to survey Eriador, the same flock that would eventually force the Fellowship to attempt the Redhorn Pass.
"Cover!"
His voice cracked across the trail before he could think. The Rangers reacted instantly, Dúnedain training kicking in as they dove for the shadow of the tree canopy. Halbarad hauled Taran down beside him. Mallor pressed flat against a boulder. Gorlim was already invisible in the undergrowth.
The Crebain passed overhead in a screaming cloud. Cedric counted forty, maybe fifty, their calls echoing off the rocks as they spiraled and reformed, searching.
They're looking for movement. For signs of the Dúnedain heading to Rivendell.
The patrol held stone-still. The birds circled twice more, then continued east, their cries fading into the distance.
Halbarad rose slowly, brushing pine needles from his cloak. His eyes found Cedric with uncomfortable focus.
"How did you know?"
"The flight pattern." The lie came smoothly. "Too coordinated for wild birds. Crebain wheel like that when they're hunting for their master."
"You saw them before anyone else. You called the warning before Mallor, and Mallor has the sharpest eyes in the company."
Cedric shrugged with the body's easy grace. "Lucky glance at the right moment."
Halbarad didn't look convinced, but he didn't press. The patrol reformed and continued east, and Cedric felt the Pact stir with something that wasn't quite satisfaction.
You could have let them see us, it suggested. Saruman's eyes would have noted the patrol. The intelligence would have changed his plans. Perhaps for the better. Perhaps for the worse.
For worse, Cedric answered silently. His attention could doom this patrol, and I need them to reach Rivendell.
Practical. The Pact's approval was cold comfort. But you resisted my urge. The urge to let them pass unchallenged, to keep your knowledge hidden, to see what chaos might unfold.
Cedric hadn't realized he'd felt that urge until the Pact named it. A pressure in his chest during those crucial seconds, a suggestion that silence might serve better than warning. He'd acted anyway, shouted the alarm, and now—
The rune-marks on his forearms pulsed with faint heat. Not pain, not yet, but the promise of it.
[HEROIC ACTION DETECTED: WARNING ISSUED]
[CONSEQUENCE: TIER 0 DISCOMFORT — MINOR]
It punishes heroism, Cedric thought, watching the heat fade from his skin. Even small heroisms. Even good instincts.
I punish nothing, the Pact corrected. I merely note when you choose light over power. The discomfort is educational.
The watch-fire burned low that night.
Taran found him again, as Cedric had half-expected. The young Ranger settled onto the log beside him and said nothing for long minutes, watching the flames dance.
"That song you were humming earlier," Taran said finally. "I didn't recognize it."
Cedric's hands went still on the whetstone. He'd been sharpening his blade without thinking, and somewhere in the rhythm, he'd started humming. A song from his old life. A melody that had no place in Middle-earth.
"An old tune," he said carefully. "From a place far from here."
"It sounded sad. And hopeful at the same time. Like a farewell that expected reunion."
It was a song about traveling home. A song I heard at my mother's funeral. A song that existed in a world where Tolkien wrote books instead of living through wars against darkness.
"Perhaps it was."
Taran accepted this with the patience of youth that had learned not to push. The fire crackled between them.
"Cedric?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For today. For what you said about being remembered."
The Morgul-mark around Taran's head brightened. Barely visible before, it now held steady — a soft glow that traced the boy's skull like a halo gone wrong.
[BOND LEVEL: ESTABLISHED]
[BETRAYAL VALUE: LOW]
Cedric looked away from the notification and forced himself to meet Taran's eyes instead.
"You're welcome, kinsman. Try to sleep. The Trollshaws are not a place for tired Rangers."
Taran nodded and moved to his bedroll, and the mark around his head glowed steady all through the night, a small fire that Cedric had kindled without meaning to.
The Pact watched, and waited, and catalogued every ember.
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
Hustler [$7]: 15 Chapters ahead.
Enforcer [$11]: 20 Chapters ahead.
Kingpin [$16]: 25 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic