Halbarad

A Ranger of the North

Halbarad was one of the Dúnedain of the North, the Rangers who guarded Eriador in secret under the leadership of Aragorn, and he was Aragorn's kinsman, presumably a descendant of one of the many branches of the House of Isildur. Nothing is recorded of his life before the War of the Ring, but he was trusted with the leadership of the Rangers in their Chieftain's absence, and Aragorn greeted him openly as kinsman.

The Grey Company

In the early months of 3019 a message reached the Dúnedain in the North that Aragorn had need of them. It came, they believed, from Galadriel, who had sent word out of Lothlórien by the sons of Elrond. Halbarad gathered every Ranger who could be spared in haste, which was thirty, and rode south with them and with Elladan and Elrohir, grey-cloaked and unmarked, bearing spears and bows and a tall staff wrapped in black cloth. They came down through Rohan and found Aragorn on the road from Isengard on the night of 6 March, after the fall of Saruman. The meeting was a great joy to Aragorn, who had expected no help from the North and had not asked for it.

Halbarad brought two messages. From Elrond came the counsel that time was short and that Aragorn, if he was in haste, should remember the Paths of the Dead. From Arwen came the staff, which was a banner she had made with her own hands over many years and which she bade him unfurl in the hour of his need; with it came the word that the days were now short and that either her hope would come or all hope would end. Halbarad did not know what was in the cloth, and it stayed furled through all that followed.

The Paths of the Dead and the Pelennor

He rode with Aragorn to Helm's Deep and then to Dunharrow, and on 8 March the Grey Company went in under the mountain by the Paths of the Dead. At the black door Halbarad said quietly that it was an evil gate, and that he would find his own death beyond it, but that he would pass it nonetheless. He did. He rode to the Stone of Erech, where Aragorn summoned the Dead, and it was Halbarad who unfurled the standard there for the first time, so that in the darkness it seemed a plain black banner. He crossed Lebennin with the Grey Company and the Shadow Host, fought at Pelargir, and sailed up the Anduin in the captured ships.

On 15 March, at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Halbarad stood in the leading ship as Arwen's standard broke out in the wind and showed the White Tree, the Seven Stars and the crown, and he carried it ashore beside Aragorn. He fell in the fighting that followed, one of the great losses of that day beside Théoden and the lords of the southern fiefs. His foreboding at the Dark Door was fulfilled, and Aragorn mourned him.

Slain at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields on 15 March 3019, bearing the King's standard, as he had foreseen at the door of the Paths of the Dead.