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silwritersguildThis is a an old fic from 2005. It could fall under any of the themes mentioned above, I think, since it has OCs (both Elves and Easterlings), a villain (also an OC) and the viewpoint character is Finarfin. It also has Maedhros and Maglor and Finrod.
BEFORE THANGORODRIM - THE LAST FALL OF HIMRING HILL
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anna_wing
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Finarfin and the Host of the Noldor, besieging enemy-held Himring during the War of the Jewels.
Ch 1
The High King of the Noldor wrapped his scarf tighter round his nose and mouth and tried not to breathe too hard. The wind blew from the North. Chill, strong, unceasing, unclean, stinking of ash and blood and Ages of pain. While it blew, every breath of acrid air burned the throat and made even elven eyes water. And yet, strong though it was, it did not dispel the reeking murk that enveloped all the North. Even from the high, cold vantage of the hills, the cindery plain of the Anfauglith was barely visible, shrouded in a slow-coiling, yellow-grey haze.
It was early autumn on Himring the Ever-cold, and for league upon league the hills were already grey and dun and leafless. The long years of Morgoth’s dominion had fouled the water and withered the land. The trees once healthy and fair, though dwarfed from the height and the cold, were grown sickly and hostile. The only living things that the Elves had seen besides themselves were the carrion birds, crows and ravens and rooks, that flocked in the wake of the armies of both sides.
The fortress of Himring loomed unyielding before him, grey stone under a heavy grey sky. Maedhros’ work. Not for the first time, Finarfin regretted his nephew’s skill in defensive architecture. Himring had fallen last of all the fortresses of the Leaguer, and the Easterling Men who had held it since the Year of Lamentation had learned to take full advantage of its strength.
After months of harrying the Easterlings through the hills, the Noldor had driven the greater part of their host north and east out of Beleriand, into the trackless plain of Lothlann. But the Easterling rearguard still held Himring, blocking the approaches to the north and east. Finarfin had invested the fortress, expecting a quick victory that would free him to deal with the rest at leisure. Six weeks later, the Easterlings’ tall, narrow banners of black and violet still lined the walls defiantly. Two separate assaults by the Noldor had been beaten back with vicious determination; thereafter, Maedhros’ walls had resisted bombardment, fire, undermining and songs of power. It was entirely like the Sons of Fëanor, Finarfin thought with what he knew was unfair irritation, that their works should do more to hinder their own people than to help.
At his side, his son said, “There’s someone in there who isn’t just a Man.”
Despite weariness and anguish, Finarfin’s heart lifted at Finrod’s presence, as it always did. His beloved eldest, lost first to estrangement and the Grinding Ice, and then to slow death in darkness. Restored and living beyond all hope and all grief. When the hosts of the Valar sailed from Aman, the former King of Nargothrond had chosen to risk his renewed life, and accompany his father back into mortal danger, to fight once more for the land and the people for whom he had died in torment.
“I am accustomed to rebellion,” was all that he had said when Finarfin had tried to forbid him to go. It had been small consolation to his father, outweighed by greater fear, when his marriage-daughter Amarië had cited her husband’s own example, defying Finrod in her turn to follow her kin to war. She was with Eónwë’s host, in the ranks of the Vanyar. To Finarfin’s relief, his own wife, like the rest of the Teleri, had refused to fight. Eärwen of Alqualondë commanded one of her father’s fleets, guarding the shores of Beleriand and keeping the armies of Valinor supplied and transported at need. Empty Tirion they had left in the care of Finarfin’s elder sister Findis, come down from her tranquility upon the Holy Mountain. Finarfin had with effort restrained himself from remarking that it might have been well for the Noldor had Findis remembered her responsibilities as the second of Finwë’s children rather earlier.
“A Power of some sort, think you?” Finarfin asked his son now. He trusted Finrod’s experience of the long War. “One of the Enemy’s lesser Servants?”
He looked across and up at the sheer heights of Himring. From his vantage point on a lower, adjacent hill, it was a daunting sight. Maedhros had crowned the entire plateau with an encircling wall, with his great tower in the centre of further concentric rings of fortification. The steep, rocky slopes of the hill were overlooked at every point, treeless and cleared of anything taller than lichen. The Great Gate, broken when Himring fell to the Enemy, had been repaired with strength if not beauty. Like the walls it had resisted all arts of the besieging Noldor. The host ringed the hill, covering the slopes of the lesser hills surrounding it, but the siege engines were silent. Finarfin and his son were now considering a more fundamental attack.
“It’s not Sauron, anyway.” his son said, cheerful even through his own shrouding veil. “I couldn’t have missed him.”
Finarfin winced despite himself. He had noticed the same grim humour in the Companions, those ten who alone of all his people had followed Finrod into darkness and the werewolf’s teeth. They were there too, lurking at a discreet distance behind their Lord. Finrod had brought them from the Halls of Mandos back into life with him, and when the call to arms had come, they had attached themselves barnacle-like and without fuss to Finarfin’s host.
“It might be a mortal sorceror,” Finrod was saying.
“Gil-galad’s people told me that the Enemy has been lending strength to some of his mortal servants. Some are of great power, relatively, though it seems to shorten their lives even more. They’re more intelligent than Orcs, and he doesn’t have much choice now that he’s running low on Balrogs. The Song that I hear is like nothing I have ever heard before...”
“Nonetheless,” Finarfin said, “and though I would not grudge you further time in which to study the ways of this our enemy, it is my thought to humble my pride a little and solicit the aid of Eónwë’s folk. It would be better than wasting more lives of our people against yon accurséd rock.”
His son nodded without hesitation. “You are right, Sir. Better to save our strength as we can for the battle to come.”
They fell silent at that reminder. Beleriand, or what remained of it in the contest of Powers, was almost wholly overrun by the hosts of Aman. Himring was the last outpost still held by Morgoth’s forces. Once it fell, there would only be the Anfauglith and Angband, and the last battle. And then? The Valar had not shared with the Eldar their plans for what would come after Morgoth’s defeat.
Ch 2
A raven’s deep croak sounded in the darkening wood behind the two Kings, and the Companions came to more obvious alertness. Something moved in the shadowy bushes, and two strangers emerged from the thorns, silent as shadows themselves, in the midst of the startled Noldor. It took a moment for Finarfin to realise who they were. Beside him, his squire and herald Vanamirë hissed under his breath and set his hand to his sword-hilt. He was Findis’ son, though counted among the Vanyar. Years of battle had made him a skilled and deadly warrior, without teaching him to enjoy it.
“Your people are over-confident, Uncle,” said the taller of the strangers. His voice was deep and soft, an oddly toneless purr that made the small hairs stand up on the High King’s nape. “The Enemy is not yet defeated.”
Embarrassed guards appeared on the hill around them as they realised that two armed men had just walked undetected through their lines. Swords were drawn and arrows set to string as the ring of soldiers tightened round the newcomers. Neither made any movement towards their own weapons, and Finrod lifted a forestalling hand.
Fëanor’s last living sons bowed to his youngest brother. Gaunt and ragged, lean and fell as winter wolves, neither in any way resembled the shining princes of the Noldor whom Finarfin remembered from the blessed Day of the Trees. The Treelight lingered in their eyes, but it was mixed with a colder flame now, and darkness was behind it.
Maedhros’ distinctive hair was hacked off at his shoulders and held back with a leather band at his forehead, the fading echo of a prince’s diadem. Like his brother he was dressed in a drab mixture of leather, mail and grey Sindar weaving, much patched and mended. On the breast of Maglor’s tunic there could still be seen the remains of Fëanor’s flaming badge. But Maedhros wore a darker device; it was too stained and dirty to be seen clearly, but it appeared to be a black, wide-winged bird.
Finarfin unwound his scarf. When he spoke, it was the slow weight and assurance of his office.
“Kinslayers, accursed and outlawed. Will you yield yourselves up to my authority as the King of our people, and to the judgment of the Powers?”
Maglor remained silent. Maedhros said without visible emotion,
“We will not. Gil-Galad rules the Noldor of Middle-Earth, among whom we are perforce counted, and our Oath would outweigh our duty to you, even had we any. But we are come nonetheless to aid you as we can, if you will allow it.”
There was a low rumble of anger among the guards, unheeded by either of the Kinslayers.
“Do not, Sire,” Vanamirë said urgently. “The Doom of ruin is yet upon them. Let them be taken to the Lord Eönwe that he may deal with them as he judges fit.”
“Little cousin who has never known defeat.”
There was no change in Maedhros’ tone, but Vanamirë flushed and his hand tightened on his swordhilt.
“I will not be taken captive living, ever again.”
“You dare compare..!”
“Enough.”
Finarfin regarded his renegade nephews with a level stare.
“My herald is not wrong in his concern. How come you here, and what aid do you bring that outweighs the Doom that follows you?”
It was Maglor who answered, the once-golden voice darkened to iron and rust.
“We had word. But we were far in the South, and it is a long road.”
“Word from whom?” Edrahil of the Companions had come up at Finrod’s shoulder. He was Finrod’s shield-man and foremost counsellor, first of Nargothrond to follow him to death, and his disdain for Fëanor’s sons was unhidden.
“Beleriand is empty, except for ourselves and the Servants of the Enemy. Even the Laiquendi fled long ago.”
Maedhros lifted his right arm, the dusty-grey sleeve flapping over the stump of his hand. He whistled softly, an odd pattern of notes, rising and falling. There was a clatter of wings in the trees above, and a dark shape fluttered down onto his forearm. A great raven, far larger than any that Finarfin had ever seen, with a brutal beak and black, wicked eyes. It preened on Maedhros’ arm, unafraid.
“This is Cärc, Lord of Ravens. I learned his tongue, and befriended him some while ago.”
He smiled remotely down at the bird, which croaked in apparent acknowledgement.
“After the Nirnaeth. He and his people are my eyes, and in return...I feed him.”
He lifted his hand and scratched the raven’s nape, stirring the dark feathers and then smoothing them down with gentle fingers. It gave another, softer croak, and twisted its neck into the caress, shifting its feet for greater purchase. Maedhros raised his arm, and the raven walked up to his shoulder, where it perched, watching them all with its bright, impartial eyes.
“Orc or Elf, Adan or Easterling, they all taste the same to him.”
Those around him shuddered. Vanamirë said with cold distaste, “He has fed well enough in your train, Kinslayer.”
The grey, distant gaze considered him without interest.
“And in yours, little cousin. As I said, it’s all the same to him. He came to me in Ossiriand, with news that the Host of the Noldor was at Himring at last. And so here we are.”
“And what aid do you have to offer us? Your swords, in a better cause than you have wielded them for in recent years? Your followers, if you have any?”
“Swords and followers we have,” Maglor said. He seemed to take no offence at the King’s scathing words, or perhaps he simply no longer heard scorn.
“Even now. But that is not the aid we offer, though you are welcome to it if you desire it.
We offer you Himring.”
. . . . .
Ch 4
Messengers were dispatched, accompanied by the raven Cärc as safe-conduct, to the brothers’ followers still lurking in the hills beyond the Noldor lines. The High King decreed that for now at least, the Kinslayers should be given refuge and succour. In the meantime, he would hold council with their renegade lords.
The High King’s tent held the King, Finrod, Edrahil, Vanamirë, Finarfin’s other Captains and their lieutenants and the Sons of Fëanor. This was only two more people than usual, but the tent seemed indefinably more crowded. This might have been due to the obvious space left around the brothers.
Maedhros sipped delicately from his cup of finely-chased pewter; his manners were princely still. He sat like the others, cross-legged and straight-backed on the cushions scattered across the tough, woven-grass mats, The cordial of Aman lent a little colour to his gaunt pallor, but in the bright, steady light of the lamps the marks that wilderness and wickedness had left on his beauty were brutally clear. Maglor sat beside him in the same posture, head bent so that his long, dark hair shadowed his face. His cup was already empty, dangling loosely between his fingers.
“We are ready to advance at your word, Sir,” Meneldis said, the second among Finarfin’s captains. Her son and daughter had followed Fingolfin and died in the Dagor Bragollach. “If the Lord Maitimo’s Words of Unmaking bring down the walls we can attack at once. The Easterlings do not have the force to withstand us without stone to hide behind.”
Ravendë, the third captain, leaned forward to stare at the plan of Himring spread out on the low table before them. She said, not looking up,
“The Easterlings may not be able to withstand us in the end, but they will fight hard before then, walls or no walls.”
Her troops had taken the brunt of the second assault on the walls, and had lost many to the stinging arrows of the Men. The Easterlings poisoned their darts, with some venom that burned elven flesh and resisted healing.
“It will take some time to bring the walls down,” Maglor said in his muted voice.
“From what Finrod has said, and what I have myself Seen, the Enemy’s Servant has laid its own enchantment upon them. Much will depend on how many of your people are able and willing to join their voices with ours in the Song of Unmaking.”
“Enough, I think.” Finrod looked around at the company. Edrahil nodded.
“The Companions are with you, Sir, as always.”
Vanamirë said, “There are Singers in plenty in the host, Sir.”
Maedhros set down his cup, and reached for the Easterling arrow on the table before him. One long finger touched the dried blood on its head.
“There may be fewer than you think to sing our song, little cousin.”
Finarfin spoke before Vanamirë could reply.
“I can well guess, nephew, that any Song of your devising would weigh upon the hearts of Singer and hearers alike.”
Maedhros looked up at the unexpected harshness of the High King’s words, but
said nothing.
“Nonetheless, we accept and thank you for the aid that you give, in the hope that we may thereby attain our end with expedition and without greater loss.”
Finarfin’s gaze gathered in the company.
“We of Finwë’s House will Sing the Words of Unmaking, with all who can join us. Meneldis, you have command. Make your dispositions as you see fit, in readiness for the falling of the walls.”
. . . . .
The Song began at what would have been Sunset, had She been visible. All those who would take part, some five dozen Elves, were gathered on the hillside under the occluded sky. A handful of the renegades had come to join their lords; the rest were of the host of Tirion.
The Words of Unmaking were beautiful in their poetry, and their music, and terrible in their meaning. Their touch upon the greater Song that shaped the world, the Song that needed no bodily voice, was appalling, a desecration in itself. The Amanyar shuddered as they Sang, flinching in horror and pity. As Maedhros had predicted, not every Singer in the host had proven able to bear the weight of the Words. The Sons of Fëanor Sang the slow wearing of time; of stones ground to pebbles, mortar crumbled to dust, iron rusted and broken. They Sang of walls and towers fallen to grass and bramble, deeds and names forgotten in the wind and the waste of years. They Sang death, fruitless, unmarked, unmourned, unredeemed by valour or memory. They Sang hope withered, and courage lost and a final sunset, drowned in blood and fire.
But even as Finarfin felt the walls begin to give, as foundations shivered and mortar fell like sand, another Voice answered from the fortress, thin and faint and defiant. A woman, Singing alone in an alien tongue. Her voice was harsh and strange, as if Cärc the Raven were to sing a lullaby; but in the nature of what they did, the elves understood her words. She Sang of the strength of shaped stone, of shelter granted against storm and malice, of steady endurance and guiding purpose. She Sang of oaths kept and honour unbroken, brief lives offered freely that others might continue. She Sang of bright cities under an unclouded sunrise, alien, many-towered cities of Men, teeming with the ephemeral flames that would yet outlast the undying Eldar in the world. She Sang against them, and though her voice grew yet more hoarse and grating as the hours passed, when dawn shed its dim, impeded light over the world, the walls still stood.
. . . . .
Ch 5
The elves ceased their Song when the Sun had risen fully above the horizon. Her kindly warmth cheered them even through the lowering clouds. Their enemy fell silent a heartbeat after, though they felt the pressure of her attention on their minds, as perceptible as the Sunlight was to their bodily senses. Power hung in the thick air, humming quietly just below the level of hearing, a tension that itched along the skin and made muscles ache with uncertainty.
The troops emplaced the night before for the attack withdrew, leaving watchers in case of a sudden sortie by the garrison. The lords of the Noldor adjourned to the High King’s tent for breakfast and further council.
“I truly wish to know what she is,” Finrod said round a mouthful of steamed bun. It was stuffed with dried fruit and meat, intended for quick nourishment.
Ignoring his own plate, Finarfin said grimly,
“I fear that your first surmise was correct, son. She sang in Valarin.”
Finrod swallowed his bun in one gulp, astonished.
“You know that tongue, father?”
The High King shook his head.
“Only Fëanor, of all the Eldar, had more than the most minute acquaintance with the speech of the Valar. It is harsh to our ears, though with its own splendours; a tongue of swords and storms, and difficult of the learning. Once, on an occasion when our family was not...at odds, he spoke to me of it, and the matter lingered in my memory.”
“The words of the gods are not easily forgotten.”
Maglor’s voice was unchanged, to all hearing utterly unaffected by the long night's work. The chill fire in his eyes was undimmed. The Sons of Fëanor sat as they had the day before, eating and drinking with silent concentration. As the leaders of the Song, they had borne the brunt of the battle and were depleted, though nowhere near the end of their strength. Finarfin saw that stark endurance, and remembered the proud and beautiful boys he had known a Sea and an Age of the world ago, and mourned in his heart.
To his own son he said,
“I beg your pardon, my son, that I must recall to you your most dreadful miscarriage against Sauron the Accursed, but even now, after more than four dozen years of battle, there are none in our ranks with greater skill or experience than yours in this Art of combat. What is your counsel concerning this past night’s work?”
“The walls are down,” Finrod said. “She’s holding them up.”
Even after nearly fifty years to accustom himself, the peculiar effect that Sindarin had had on his son’s lámatyávë still disconcerted Finarfin from time to time.
“You are saying that the Words of Unbinding did indeed unloose the bonds of the fortress, but that our enemy within is of her own will and might sustaining the stones?”
“He is right,” Maglor said. “I hear her Song, even now.”
“But our foe is but one,” Finarfin said, “Or I did much mistake last night. Whether she be Maia fallen, as seems now the case, or mortal corrupted, how long can she uphold the weight of Himring against all nature?”
“She is alone,” Maglor said with certainty. “But how long she can hold..”
Maedhros set his teacup down beside his plate and stretched his arms above his head.
“You heard her Song,” he said. “She wants life. Send a herald and suggest that this would be a good time to surrender.”
. . . . .
It was full morning behind the heavy grey of the clouds, though still early. The High King, his son and his nephews stood once again on the hill, guards watchful around them. In the distance, a rider was making his slow way up the winding road to the Great Gate of Himring. Vanamirë rode in full armour, watchful of Easterling treachery and the Enemy’s sorcery; in his hand he bore the standard of the High King, Finwë’s ancient device of radiating light.
The rider reached the top of the hill unmolested, and halted beneath the Great Gate. After a while, a cluster of black and violet banners appeared above the Gate, and there was an exchange of shouts, though the distance was too great for the words to carry even to Elven ears. Finarfin had no need to strain his hearing. By reason of both kinship and loyalty, he and Vanamirë could exchange thoughts at will, when audible speech might be dangerous or impossible. He was thus unsurprised when the postern opened, and a small figure rode out alone to join his nephew on the ride downhill.
Ch 6
The emissary of the Easterlings was a woman, not much taller mounted on her shaggy pony than the most of the Noldor were standing. Finarfin’s first, startled thought was They are sending children against us now? Then he looked again and realised that short and young though she was, she was neither a child, nor, indeed, undersized for one of her race. In the beginning, the Easterlings had seemed strange indeed to the Amanyar, who had met at first only the tall Men of the Edain, most like among mortals to the Eldar.
This woman could never have been mistaken for an elf. She was no taller than a Dwarf, but compact and strong in build, though more slight than any of the Naugrim. Her hair was black and straight, drawn back into a tight, short plait. She was no Swerting either, being both sallow and pale in complexion, but her face was strangest of all: round and snub-nosed, with narrow, black eyes that seemed to slant upwards over high, flat cheekbones.
She was clad in the normal fashion of her people, in leather breeches and tunic, under riveted armour of rectangular plates. A curved sword hung at her waist, and an unstrung bow was slung at her back, the quiver hanging off her high-horned saddle. Her metal cap and high, felt boots were both trimmed with what looked like wolf fur. The enamelled device on the front of her cap was that of the banners, a black moon on a field of violet.
Stools were set out on the faded grass before the King’s tent. The Easterling sat stiffly facing the loose half-circle of Eldar, having refused tea. Closer attention revealed hollowed cheeks and the bones showing underneath the pale skin of her face. Her hands were chapped and reddened, and her wristbones were too prominent. The weeks of siege had taken their toll on the defenders also.
There was a long silence. The woman stared at the High King out of black, unblinking eyes, though there was both fear and stubbornness in her posture.
The High King sighed, and spoke first, in Sindarin.
“Lady, I am called Finarfin. I am the High King of the Noldor. Have you a name by which we might call you?”
The woman flinched at his first words, but after a moment she took a deep and obvious breath and replied. Her Sindarin was fluent and vilely ungrammatical.
“I am call Khitun. I am, ah, second. I am speaker also.” She paused, apparently in search of the correct word. “Herald. I am herald for Innin the Undying, Grandmother of the Arakan Deg, Lady of Cold Hill.”
Maedhros laughed softly, from where he sat at Finarfin’s left. The woman Khitun shot him a glance of naked fear, then lifted her chin and glared at the High King.
“You want ... parley. Grandmother asks why. Better you go away and not bother her anymore.
Her accent was the same as the last night’s Singer, but Finarfin did not need Maglor’s mindspoken confirmation to know that they were not the same.
“We offer the ...Grandmother and her people the chance to go from here in peace and safety, without more deaths, of hers or ours.”
The woman frowned, in what appeared to be concentration, rather than anger.
“What is “peace and safety”?
Finarfin hesitated over her question a moment, before he realised what she meant.
“It is that your people may depart unmolested, with your wounded, your horses and your goods, saving only your arms and armour, to go where it pleases you, north or east. West or south also, if you wish, but I do not counsel it; the land there is dangerous and no longer solid beneath the feet.”
The Easterling took some time to puzzle out his meaning. Then she shook her head with exaggerated emphasis.
“Cannot. If no arms, no armour, we go slow, orcs and wolfs come, we die.” For the first time she smiled, a spiky, defiant, crooked-toothed grin.
“If die, then better die here. Home. Take you with us into dark.”
Meneldis said coolly,
“But orcs and wolves are also servants of the Dark Lord, even as you. Why should you fear them?”
The woman spat in the grass at her feet.
“Orcs.”
She lifted a hand and tapped a finger against the grey fur banding her cap.
“Wolf.” This time her grin was purely a baring of teeth.
“This hills ours. Orcs come, wolfs come, we hunt, they die. I am born here. This land my one.”
In all his years in Beleriand, Finarfin did not recall that he had ever actually truly spoken with any of the Enemy’s Men. He had seen their foul handiwork in Hithlum, had fought battles against them the length and breadth of the land for which his children had fought and died. Had slain them in numbers beyond count, Children of the One and kin of his though they were. This vicious, dauntless child was the first with whom he had ever held extended converse, and an unexpected pity stirred within him.
“Lady Khitun, if we release your people, with your arms and armour, where will you go?”
She looked back at him, eye to eye.
“Grandmother say, not good to play-play in games of gods. She say, she make mistake to come here long ago. She say, when she swear oath to Great King, is bad idea. But oath is oath. We are Arakan Deg, we swear, we do. When last battle time coming, we keep oath, fight.” She made a flicking gesture of the fingers towards the north-east.
“Us and our kin, there on the plain.”
Meneldis frowned.
“Then why should we let you go now, if we must only fight you later?”
Khitun shrugged.
“‘Later’ is not under hand of the living. Grandmother not know “later”. I not know. You not know. Maybe gods also not know. If not fight now, maybe later not fight also.”
She bared her teeth in that snarling grin again.
“Even if fight, dead later still better than dead today. Grandmother say, if we live, later, we go home. Arakan Deg are Children of Sunrise, we go back, make new home in old land. Leave Sunset for death, for gods and demons to fight over. Sunset is demons’ land, not ours.”
“We are not demons!” Edrahil said, nettled.
Vanamirë said almost at the same moment,
“If you will forsake your allegiance to the Darkness, and ask the pardon of the Valar...”
“Pardon?” The woman bristled.
“For what? From who? Who is Valar? God also one? Like Great King the same? Where got difference?”
In the appalled silence that followed, Maedhros laughed again.
. . . . .
Ch 7
The parley stretched on to mid-day. It grew a little warmer, though no brighter. The Easterling accepted tea in the end, after her voice had become too hoarse in the foul air to be comprehensible. She refused food, though whether this was due to suspicion or pride Finarfin did not know. Despite close questioning, they were unable to elicit much information about the mysterious Grandmother. She was a woman of their race, yes. She had ruled them from the beginning. Had, indeed, been born among them.
“But your Grandmother does not die as mortals do?” Finrod had taken over the questioning. “Does she change her appearance?”
“How you mean? Grandmother is always same.”
Edrahil said out loud in Quenya,
“Not a devourer, then.”
Finarfin shuddered inwardly. The Amanyar had learned to their horror that the stuff of children’s stories in Aman was reality in the Marred lands. There were Houseless spirits, and they did indeed steal the bodies of the living.
“It would be easier to deal with if it were a Houseless One,” Finrod said. “But it does look as if this Grandmother is one of the Uvanimor, walking in mortal form. In which case, do we want to let it go?”
Ravendë said,
“What do we speak of here? Two thousand mortals at most, some of them children and old, more than half of them wounded. We have driven the greater part of their kin out of Beleriand. One spirit, of unknown strength, but it appears not one of the Enemy’s greater servants. Even did the two hosts unite, their increase in strength would not be much. And a later field might perhaps be more to our advantage.”
Both Meneldis and Vanamirë nodded. Even when, or if, the walls fell at last, it would be an uphill fight, over impeded ground, against an enemy with nothing more to lose and powers whose limit they did not know. No one had forgotten that this was not the last battle that the Host of the Noldor would have to fight.
Finrod said, under his breath,
“Any one mortal is capable of changing the Fate of the World.”
He had been called Friend of Men, had died for a Man’s sake. It had wounded them all, but him most deeply, to see Men, their Secondborn kin, corrupted and deceived to the Enemy’s side. To slay them when they would not accept mercy, as most would not.
“The greater Uvanimor can change their shape,” Vanamirë said at last. “This one could surely escape us as it chooses anyway. The Lady Lúthien bound Sauron himself, but we have no goddesses here for the moment. If we can take these hills now without further bloodshed, why not do so?”
“We do not know what cost there might be, later.” Meneldis was unconvinced.
Finarfin looked at his brother’s sons. The Fëanorioni had been silent for hours, watching the Easterling with concentrated attention, much as the Lord of Ravens might have eyed some tasty piece of soon-to-be-carrion. Maedhros answered the unspoken question without shifting his gaze.
“They are asking for mercy. Will you grant it?”
. . . . .
The gates of Himring opened in mid-afternoon. A knot of ten riders came out first, escorting one more in their midst, all armed and armoured, and in coats of the same violet as their banner. Behind them came the woman Khitun, leading the rest of the garrison in ordered formation. They rode one hundred armed and armoured riders to a banner, men and women, wounded and whole, holding their ponies at a slow walk. The banners were of the Easterling style, a tall withy fastened to the rider’s back, with the black and violet standard secured by a cross bar at the top, and by cord along one long edge. Each company was followed by a string of pack horses, loaded with what looked like tents and other gear, and guided by children and older Men.
As each banner came down the slope onto the eastward road that skirted the foot of the hill, it moved to left or right, leaving the road to the pack-horses. The tall banners stilled their fluttering a little as they entered the lee of the Hill, sheltered from the endless wind. The Easterlings rode with bows strung and arrows at the ready, wary of the elven host watching from the hillsides above, but did not alter their steady pace.
The first ten riders and their charge did not take the road, but came directly up the thorny slope, still at that measured walk, to where Finarfin and his people waited with their own mounts. None of them had gear different from those of the common soldiers, save for their quilted coats of violet silk; the woman in their midst showed a great dragon embroidered in gold upon the breast of hers. Their ponies seemed reluctant to approach the Valinorean horses, shying and backstepping, but obeyed their riders at last.
They halted within earshot. The dragon-woman inclined her head, and said, in fluent Northern Sindarin,
“King of the Noldor, greetings.”
The Grandmother of the Arakan Deg could have been the woman Khitun’s mother, or perhaps, her elder sister. There were lines on her face that might have been years, or simple weariness, but her black eyes were bright and cold and steady. There was no especial taint about her; she was not one of those like Sauron, whose very presence was horror. But Finarfin had no doubt at all, looking down into her face, that she was of the Enemy. The difference in height between them, and between the little, scrawny ponies and the tall steeds of Valinor, could have been cause for laughter. It was not, any more than would have been the difference in height between a man and a poisonous serpent in the grass at his heel.
“Greetings,” he said. “Grandmother of the Arakan Deg.” He could not help a questioning lift of the eyebrow.
The woman...creature...gave a little, familiar wave of her fingers northwards.
“In the beginning, the Great King did not care for others to claim any title close to his. It is only recently that He has been persuaded that it is a greater thing to be King over Kings...or Queens... than over mere lords. But my people and I are accustomed to my name and do not wish to change.”
“You and yours still have the choice to change this far: your allegiance at least. Your herald has said that you have regretted it.”
The Grandmother said without emphasis,
“My line-daughter is brave and clever, but not so young as that. If she said so much, she surely said also why we cannot do as you ask.”
Vanamirë said, “An oath sworn to Darkness...”
“Is an oath, not to be broken. Or are matters different among the Eldar?”
The elves were silent.
“We are the Arakan Deg. We have promised and we will perform. When I judge it needful, which is not today.”
She smiled briefly, with a certain sweetness. Another delicate gesture of the hand encompassed the desolation around them, and by implication, beyond.
“I see little difference, Sir, between the works of my Lord and those of yours.”
This struck so close to what Finarfin had tried for years to avoid thinking that he almost flinched. She saw something in his face nonetheless, because her smile widened, less sweetly than before.
Finrod said softly,
“You have not seen Aman.” Finarfin felt a brief, unworthy satisfaction as the Grandmother’s smirk died.
She made no other acknowledgement of the former King of Nargothrond, but glanced instead at Maedhros. His gear and arms were startlingly shabby next to the glittering panoply of the High King’s court, but he sat his borrowed horse at Finarfin’s left hand with no less composure than in the days of his lordship.
“Lord of Himring, the Arakan Deg thank you for the shelter of your house these many years. You may enter, if you wish, and take what you will from what remains within.”
Malice found no purchase upon Maedhros’ indifference. He said only,
“Himring fell long ago. Let its walls follow.”
The Grandmother inclined her head, smiling again.
“As you wish.”
Finarfin could feel his son’s curiosity nearly vibrating next to him. But he did not think that showing any further desire would be wise. The mystery of this creature’s connection with the Easterlings would have to remain unsolved. He looked away, down the hill. The mortals were reaching the turn where the road curved into shadow under Himring’s eastern rampart, their black and violet banners barely distinguishable in the fading light. Slaves of the Servant of the Enemy, her willing instruments, wilfully ignorant of the truth, of the Light...
He was suddenly, violently, tempted to break his given word and give the order to slay them all. His people trusted him, and would obey, as his brother had been trusted, and obeyed. It would be easy and swift; the Easterlings were at disadvantage of both ground and numbers. It might even be merciful. Finarfin’s heart hammered suddenly in his breast. He sucked in a deep breath of the choking air, and coughed as it caught at the bottom of his lungs. With effort, he looked away from the mortals. As his head turned, he caught for a moment the Grandmother’s black gaze, and it struck down his spiralling thoughts as an arrow through a buck’s eye. She looked...interested. Cold and aware and knowing, and, he realised, waiting, as he wavered on the edge of the abyss. For a moment, horror possessed him utterly, as he realised the place to which his revulsion and anger were leading him.
Peace, Father, his son’s thought came to him, clear and cool. Light in the darkness, a beacon for his spirit. Some oaths must be kept, and some must be broken, and wisdom is to know which is which.
Finrod’s clean sanity steadied him, drew him away from the brink. He knew. He was the High King of the Noldor, the Wise Elves, and worthy of his place. Finarfin let his breath out quietly, easily, without strain. The disgust and loathing were still there, but they would no longer overmaster his judgment. He would keep his word and his people’s honour, and let the future befall however it might.
And he did not wish to face this creature any longer.
“You have chosen, then, Servant of Morgoth. Your people go. Should you not go with them?”
“Indeed.”
The Grandmother gathered her reins, without any show of anger or disappointment. There was a little ripple of movement among her escort in response; they had watched the elves with tense alertness throughout, dark, narrow eyes fearful and hostile. Their mistress remained at seeming ease, her good humour apparently recovered.
“I would have enjoyed ... furthering our acquaintance in other circumstances. Perhaps we will meet again, on the last field. Perhaps not. Farewell, then, King that was, King that is.”
She looked to Maedhros once more; ironic laughter glittered in the darkness of her eyes.
“King that will never be, may you and yours find your desire, in the battle to come. My thank-offering to you, in place of the one that you refused yesterday.”
He did not respond, and she bowed to them with a mocking flourish, left hand over her heart, and turned her pony away. Her escort closed around her, and they picked their way down the hill and rode past and away into the twilight, towards the head of the long column of riders.
The elves waited on the hillside until the last of the Men had vanished around the bulk of Himring hill. Scouts would follow, to guard against treachery, and the Host would remain alert until the Easterlings were gone with the rest of their people into Lothlann. They would follow, all the Hosts of Aman would follow, in their own good time.
They waited. The afternoon grew darker and the flaying wind colder. At last, Vanamirë gave a soft exclamation and pointed. Above them, Himring began to fall, as if all the weight of its years had come upon it at once: piece by piece, slowly at first and then faster and faster, unnaturally swift. The tower fell first, the great blocks crumbling from the foundations upwards, riven as if by many winters. Then the walls and all the buildings within them, inner to outer, in a great roaring avalanche of stone. Last of all the mighty iron gates twisted on their hinges as their supporting pillars collapsed; at the end the dust rose so thick that even elven sight could not pierce it.
The echoes of ruin rolled around the hills and rolled again, and died; there was silence on the hill. Maedhros’s voice was soft, pitched under the endless whine of the wind, but Finarfin heard him with perfect clarity.
“Never say that I was not willing to see my own work broken.”
. . . . .
Ch 8
The dust of Himring’s fall was a haze in the air still, though it made no impression on the no-colour of Maedhros’ clothes and armour. He disregarded it as he did the curious, hostile stares of the nearby guards. His attention was on the three bodies that had been found in the ruins. They had been Noldor, two men and a woman, crushed by falling stone. A space had been cleared amid the rubble and their bodies laid out as decently as might be, cleaned and wrapped in cloaks. Around them, the blue light of Amanyar lamps shone as the Noldor searched the ruins for more dead. Maedhros had laid out for them the plans of the chambers underground, cellars and storehouses, all the inner workings of Himring. Most had collapsed as well; the ground beneath their feet was treacherous with sudden sinkholes.
They had found a few Easterlings, too injured to ride with their people. Those had died before the walls fell, each of a quick knife-thrust into the nape. The elves had not fared so well.
Finrod had helped bring their bodies out himself, moving stone and rubble in the cold, unblinking light of Fëanor’s lamps. Now he sat wearily on a fallen block of ashlar, grey with dust from hair to boot-heels. Somewhere along the way he had lost his scarf, and his hair was straggling loose of its long plait.
“They were chained to a post in front of the tower,” he said. His voice was hoarse and his eyes reddened with dust.
“Gagged so they could not call out.”
Elven hearing was keen. They would have been heard.
..go in, if you wish, and take what you will from what remains within.
Maedhros knelt beside the broken bodies. The woman was nearest, her sharp features marred and misshapen by the falling stones that had killed her. Cärc fluttered down upon beside her body and croaked, his black eyes glittering in the chill light.
“No,” Maedhros said. “She is not for you.”
The sound that the raven made in response was horribly like disappointment.
“She was your herald, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Maedhros said. “Hísilindë. She fell at the Nirnaeth. We thought that she was dead.”
He touched the shattered cheekbone gently, and looked across at the other two bodies.
“He was Carnistir’s. And he...Findekano’s, I think. I...do not remember their names.”
“Anganarmo, “ Maglor said behind him, on a cough. He had come up with Finarfin and Vanamirë. “And Endorion. He was born in Mithrim. I named them in the Noldolantë.”
“You will have to rewrite that verse,” his brother murmured. Maglor said with soft-voiced venom,
“I shall. And the Grandmother of the Arakan Deg shall build the cities she Sang, and live to see them fallen to dust even as this, and her name forgotten by those she calls her children.”
Maglor had been called the Mighty, once. A Singer in the world that Song had made. Hearing the iron certainty in his words, Finarfin wondered if Fëanor’s greatest son might yet have power to truly bind the future, whether in foresight or in curse. But if so, he thought, it could only be for evil, and ill-wishing, for the Doom upon them.
His son’s attention was yet upon the dead. For all his self-command, his grief and frustration were plain to see. There would be no rescue from the fallen tower this time, no joy striking like sudden sunlight in the face of the darkness. It was the serpent that had struck, and her poison had been mortal. Finarfin came forward, and laid his hand gently on his son’s shoulder. Finrod lifted his hand without looking up and clenched his gritty fingers about his father’s.
At last, as if to deny the darkness the final victory, he said,
“Yet they are safe now. All of them are safe.”
The quick lift of Maedhros’ head sent the raven leaping back with a clatter of wings and an irritated squawk.
Finrod met his cousin’s eyes. He was calm again, with the steely, enduring tranquillity of the Reborn, that no anguish could ever again defeat. His light still shone, despite the veiling of dust and sorrow.
“Your followers,” he said to the Kinslayers. “Your brothers. Your father. They dwell in Mandos, in Námo’s care. They are safe.”
To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth...
For a moment it was as if Maedhros had not heard. The bright gaze was as blank and distant as ever. Then he nodded, and something eased in his gaunt, weary face. He rose to his feet, and Maglor laid an arm about his shoulders, sustaining and sustained.
“That is...good to know. Thank you.”
. . . . .
The blue-white sparks of Fëanor’s lamps were scattered as thick as stars upon all the hills about Himring. The Noldor would move out themselves soon enough, once word came from Eönwe.
The Feanorians were leaving the Host that night. Maedhros had said simply,
“We are Doomed, still, and all who follow us. We may meet again upon the last field, but until then we cannot fight beside you.”
Finarfin had not argued, knowing that this was truth. But for honour and the memory of love, he made a last attempt to mend matters.
“Nephew, I beg you. Surrender yourself to the mercy of the Valar. Let go this damnable Oath and trust to their wisdom and their love. Let your people at least come home; they will have safe-conduct among us, and I myself will plead for them if need be.”
If Finrod’s smile was like sunrise, Maedhros’ was the sunset. Beautiful also, but with nightfall inevitable behind it.
“I thank you, Sir,” he said. “I will tell my people. I think that those who survive the battle to come may accept your offer.”
“But not you,” Finarfin said, with weary sorrow.
Looking at his nephew with the deeper insight, he could discern only the ash and cinders of despair. Like the Anfauglith, like Beleriand, a blasted wasteland where nothing green would grow again, though blood watered it like rain.
“No,” Maedhros said, quite gently. “I am sorry. We too swore an oath. And I cannot say that the Fall of the Noldor is ended yet. But if you can save any of them, I would be grateful, though gratitude is all the repayment that I will ever be able to make to you.”
He bowed to Finarfin, correct and graceful, and then to Finrod. The High King returned the courtesy, and out of the corner of his eye saw his son do the same. Regret was unhidden on Finrod’s face.
“Good fortune to you and yours, for the morrow, and all morrows after. Farewell, Sir. Prince.”
He shrugged his shadowy cloak around him, and turned away from his dead to the night. None moved to detain him. The guards gave way before him with a mixture of revulsion and fear, and he walked among and past them as if they were not there, through his broken fortress to its ruined gate, and the dying hills beyond.
Maglor did not follow, but nothing in his aspect gave Finarfin hope that his offer would be considered by this Son of Fëanor either.
“No, Sir,” Maglor said in his ruined, beautiful voice, seeing his thought. “We are the last, and I also am a lord of our House. I will not abandon my brother to bear the weight of our deeds alone.”
“Then...” What more have you to say to me? Finarfin was tired, a heartbroken weariness of the spirit, even more than of the flesh. He had fought for nearly fifty years, victory after victory, each more bitter than the last, seeing the land wither and burn and finally break under the clash of contending Powers. West and south the sea was rising, as earthquakes shattered the land and molten rock boiled away the rivers. The last battle was coming, and he hoped, trusted that they would have the victory, but Beleriand would not survive it. And the Sons of Fëanor, who had helped to begin it all, still clung to their petty, terrible Oath. Grieving and furious at once, he barely heard what Maglor was asking.
It was Finrod who answered, realising his father’s distraction.
“The sons of Elwing and Eärendil fight among the Edain, in the armies of Eönwe. They are well, and renowned warriors.”
“That is well.” Maglor smiled very faintly. “My brother will be pleased that they have done his teaching honour. Will you give them my greeting and good wishes when you see them again?”
Finrod sighed. “Yes, I will. Cousin, what is there that I can wish you, if you will not seek the mercy of the Powers?”
Maglor shook his head.
“Wish us what the Servant of the Enemy wished us, in her mercy. Wish us swift death in the battle to come.”
“No,” the High King said, sadly. “We can only wish you peace, and an end to your Oath.”
Maglor said, without irony, “It is the same. Thank you, uncle. Cousin. Farewell.”
Beyond the reach of the lamplight, the starless night swallowed him very swiftly.
Vanamirë shivered.
“Will there be light again, do you think, after this Darkness?”
Finarfin answered,
“I do not know.”
. . . . .
BEFORE THANGORODRIM - THE LAST FALL OF HIMRING HILL
Author:
anna_wingRating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Finarfin and the Host of the Noldor, besieging enemy-held Himring during the War of the Jewels.
Ch 1
The High King of the Noldor wrapped his scarf tighter round his nose and mouth and tried not to breathe too hard. The wind blew from the North. Chill, strong, unceasing, unclean, stinking of ash and blood and Ages of pain. While it blew, every breath of acrid air burned the throat and made even elven eyes water. And yet, strong though it was, it did not dispel the reeking murk that enveloped all the North. Even from the high, cold vantage of the hills, the cindery plain of the Anfauglith was barely visible, shrouded in a slow-coiling, yellow-grey haze.
It was early autumn on Himring the Ever-cold, and for league upon league the hills were already grey and dun and leafless. The long years of Morgoth’s dominion had fouled the water and withered the land. The trees once healthy and fair, though dwarfed from the height and the cold, were grown sickly and hostile. The only living things that the Elves had seen besides themselves were the carrion birds, crows and ravens and rooks, that flocked in the wake of the armies of both sides.
The fortress of Himring loomed unyielding before him, grey stone under a heavy grey sky. Maedhros’ work. Not for the first time, Finarfin regretted his nephew’s skill in defensive architecture. Himring had fallen last of all the fortresses of the Leaguer, and the Easterling Men who had held it since the Year of Lamentation had learned to take full advantage of its strength.
After months of harrying the Easterlings through the hills, the Noldor had driven the greater part of their host north and east out of Beleriand, into the trackless plain of Lothlann. But the Easterling rearguard still held Himring, blocking the approaches to the north and east. Finarfin had invested the fortress, expecting a quick victory that would free him to deal with the rest at leisure. Six weeks later, the Easterlings’ tall, narrow banners of black and violet still lined the walls defiantly. Two separate assaults by the Noldor had been beaten back with vicious determination; thereafter, Maedhros’ walls had resisted bombardment, fire, undermining and songs of power. It was entirely like the Sons of Fëanor, Finarfin thought with what he knew was unfair irritation, that their works should do more to hinder their own people than to help.
At his side, his son said, “There’s someone in there who isn’t just a Man.”
Despite weariness and anguish, Finarfin’s heart lifted at Finrod’s presence, as it always did. His beloved eldest, lost first to estrangement and the Grinding Ice, and then to slow death in darkness. Restored and living beyond all hope and all grief. When the hosts of the Valar sailed from Aman, the former King of Nargothrond had chosen to risk his renewed life, and accompany his father back into mortal danger, to fight once more for the land and the people for whom he had died in torment.
“I am accustomed to rebellion,” was all that he had said when Finarfin had tried to forbid him to go. It had been small consolation to his father, outweighed by greater fear, when his marriage-daughter Amarië had cited her husband’s own example, defying Finrod in her turn to follow her kin to war. She was with Eónwë’s host, in the ranks of the Vanyar. To Finarfin’s relief, his own wife, like the rest of the Teleri, had refused to fight. Eärwen of Alqualondë commanded one of her father’s fleets, guarding the shores of Beleriand and keeping the armies of Valinor supplied and transported at need. Empty Tirion they had left in the care of Finarfin’s elder sister Findis, come down from her tranquility upon the Holy Mountain. Finarfin had with effort restrained himself from remarking that it might have been well for the Noldor had Findis remembered her responsibilities as the second of Finwë’s children rather earlier.
“A Power of some sort, think you?” Finarfin asked his son now. He trusted Finrod’s experience of the long War. “One of the Enemy’s lesser Servants?”
He looked across and up at the sheer heights of Himring. From his vantage point on a lower, adjacent hill, it was a daunting sight. Maedhros had crowned the entire plateau with an encircling wall, with his great tower in the centre of further concentric rings of fortification. The steep, rocky slopes of the hill were overlooked at every point, treeless and cleared of anything taller than lichen. The Great Gate, broken when Himring fell to the Enemy, had been repaired with strength if not beauty. Like the walls it had resisted all arts of the besieging Noldor. The host ringed the hill, covering the slopes of the lesser hills surrounding it, but the siege engines were silent. Finarfin and his son were now considering a more fundamental attack.
“It’s not Sauron, anyway.” his son said, cheerful even through his own shrouding veil. “I couldn’t have missed him.”
Finarfin winced despite himself. He had noticed the same grim humour in the Companions, those ten who alone of all his people had followed Finrod into darkness and the werewolf’s teeth. They were there too, lurking at a discreet distance behind their Lord. Finrod had brought them from the Halls of Mandos back into life with him, and when the call to arms had come, they had attached themselves barnacle-like and without fuss to Finarfin’s host.
“It might be a mortal sorceror,” Finrod was saying.
“Gil-galad’s people told me that the Enemy has been lending strength to some of his mortal servants. Some are of great power, relatively, though it seems to shorten their lives even more. They’re more intelligent than Orcs, and he doesn’t have much choice now that he’s running low on Balrogs. The Song that I hear is like nothing I have ever heard before...”
“Nonetheless,” Finarfin said, “and though I would not grudge you further time in which to study the ways of this our enemy, it is my thought to humble my pride a little and solicit the aid of Eónwë’s folk. It would be better than wasting more lives of our people against yon accurséd rock.”
His son nodded without hesitation. “You are right, Sir. Better to save our strength as we can for the battle to come.”
They fell silent at that reminder. Beleriand, or what remained of it in the contest of Powers, was almost wholly overrun by the hosts of Aman. Himring was the last outpost still held by Morgoth’s forces. Once it fell, there would only be the Anfauglith and Angband, and the last battle. And then? The Valar had not shared with the Eldar their plans for what would come after Morgoth’s defeat.
Ch 2
A raven’s deep croak sounded in the darkening wood behind the two Kings, and the Companions came to more obvious alertness. Something moved in the shadowy bushes, and two strangers emerged from the thorns, silent as shadows themselves, in the midst of the startled Noldor. It took a moment for Finarfin to realise who they were. Beside him, his squire and herald Vanamirë hissed under his breath and set his hand to his sword-hilt. He was Findis’ son, though counted among the Vanyar. Years of battle had made him a skilled and deadly warrior, without teaching him to enjoy it.
“Your people are over-confident, Uncle,” said the taller of the strangers. His voice was deep and soft, an oddly toneless purr that made the small hairs stand up on the High King’s nape. “The Enemy is not yet defeated.”
Embarrassed guards appeared on the hill around them as they realised that two armed men had just walked undetected through their lines. Swords were drawn and arrows set to string as the ring of soldiers tightened round the newcomers. Neither made any movement towards their own weapons, and Finrod lifted a forestalling hand.
Fëanor’s last living sons bowed to his youngest brother. Gaunt and ragged, lean and fell as winter wolves, neither in any way resembled the shining princes of the Noldor whom Finarfin remembered from the blessed Day of the Trees. The Treelight lingered in their eyes, but it was mixed with a colder flame now, and darkness was behind it.
Maedhros’ distinctive hair was hacked off at his shoulders and held back with a leather band at his forehead, the fading echo of a prince’s diadem. Like his brother he was dressed in a drab mixture of leather, mail and grey Sindar weaving, much patched and mended. On the breast of Maglor’s tunic there could still be seen the remains of Fëanor’s flaming badge. But Maedhros wore a darker device; it was too stained and dirty to be seen clearly, but it appeared to be a black, wide-winged bird.
Finarfin unwound his scarf. When he spoke, it was the slow weight and assurance of his office.
“Kinslayers, accursed and outlawed. Will you yield yourselves up to my authority as the King of our people, and to the judgment of the Powers?”
Maglor remained silent. Maedhros said without visible emotion,
“We will not. Gil-Galad rules the Noldor of Middle-Earth, among whom we are perforce counted, and our Oath would outweigh our duty to you, even had we any. But we are come nonetheless to aid you as we can, if you will allow it.”
There was a low rumble of anger among the guards, unheeded by either of the Kinslayers.
“Do not, Sire,” Vanamirë said urgently. “The Doom of ruin is yet upon them. Let them be taken to the Lord Eönwe that he may deal with them as he judges fit.”
“Little cousin who has never known defeat.”
There was no change in Maedhros’ tone, but Vanamirë flushed and his hand tightened on his swordhilt.
“I will not be taken captive living, ever again.”
“You dare compare..!”
“Enough.”
Finarfin regarded his renegade nephews with a level stare.
“My herald is not wrong in his concern. How come you here, and what aid do you bring that outweighs the Doom that follows you?”
It was Maglor who answered, the once-golden voice darkened to iron and rust.
“We had word. But we were far in the South, and it is a long road.”
“Word from whom?” Edrahil of the Companions had come up at Finrod’s shoulder. He was Finrod’s shield-man and foremost counsellor, first of Nargothrond to follow him to death, and his disdain for Fëanor’s sons was unhidden.
“Beleriand is empty, except for ourselves and the Servants of the Enemy. Even the Laiquendi fled long ago.”
Maedhros lifted his right arm, the dusty-grey sleeve flapping over the stump of his hand. He whistled softly, an odd pattern of notes, rising and falling. There was a clatter of wings in the trees above, and a dark shape fluttered down onto his forearm. A great raven, far larger than any that Finarfin had ever seen, with a brutal beak and black, wicked eyes. It preened on Maedhros’ arm, unafraid.
“This is Cärc, Lord of Ravens. I learned his tongue, and befriended him some while ago.”
He smiled remotely down at the bird, which croaked in apparent acknowledgement.
“After the Nirnaeth. He and his people are my eyes, and in return...I feed him.”
He lifted his hand and scratched the raven’s nape, stirring the dark feathers and then smoothing them down with gentle fingers. It gave another, softer croak, and twisted its neck into the caress, shifting its feet for greater purchase. Maedhros raised his arm, and the raven walked up to his shoulder, where it perched, watching them all with its bright, impartial eyes.
“Orc or Elf, Adan or Easterling, they all taste the same to him.”
Those around him shuddered. Vanamirë said with cold distaste, “He has fed well enough in your train, Kinslayer.”
The grey, distant gaze considered him without interest.
“And in yours, little cousin. As I said, it’s all the same to him. He came to me in Ossiriand, with news that the Host of the Noldor was at Himring at last. And so here we are.”
“And what aid do you have to offer us? Your swords, in a better cause than you have wielded them for in recent years? Your followers, if you have any?”
“Swords and followers we have,” Maglor said. He seemed to take no offence at the King’s scathing words, or perhaps he simply no longer heard scorn.
“Even now. But that is not the aid we offer, though you are welcome to it if you desire it.
We offer you Himring.”
. . . . .
Ch 4
Messengers were dispatched, accompanied by the raven Cärc as safe-conduct, to the brothers’ followers still lurking in the hills beyond the Noldor lines. The High King decreed that for now at least, the Kinslayers should be given refuge and succour. In the meantime, he would hold council with their renegade lords.
The High King’s tent held the King, Finrod, Edrahil, Vanamirë, Finarfin’s other Captains and their lieutenants and the Sons of Fëanor. This was only two more people than usual, but the tent seemed indefinably more crowded. This might have been due to the obvious space left around the brothers.
Maedhros sipped delicately from his cup of finely-chased pewter; his manners were princely still. He sat like the others, cross-legged and straight-backed on the cushions scattered across the tough, woven-grass mats, The cordial of Aman lent a little colour to his gaunt pallor, but in the bright, steady light of the lamps the marks that wilderness and wickedness had left on his beauty were brutally clear. Maglor sat beside him in the same posture, head bent so that his long, dark hair shadowed his face. His cup was already empty, dangling loosely between his fingers.
“We are ready to advance at your word, Sir,” Meneldis said, the second among Finarfin’s captains. Her son and daughter had followed Fingolfin and died in the Dagor Bragollach. “If the Lord Maitimo’s Words of Unmaking bring down the walls we can attack at once. The Easterlings do not have the force to withstand us without stone to hide behind.”
Ravendë, the third captain, leaned forward to stare at the plan of Himring spread out on the low table before them. She said, not looking up,
“The Easterlings may not be able to withstand us in the end, but they will fight hard before then, walls or no walls.”
Her troops had taken the brunt of the second assault on the walls, and had lost many to the stinging arrows of the Men. The Easterlings poisoned their darts, with some venom that burned elven flesh and resisted healing.
“It will take some time to bring the walls down,” Maglor said in his muted voice.
“From what Finrod has said, and what I have myself Seen, the Enemy’s Servant has laid its own enchantment upon them. Much will depend on how many of your people are able and willing to join their voices with ours in the Song of Unmaking.”
“Enough, I think.” Finrod looked around at the company. Edrahil nodded.
“The Companions are with you, Sir, as always.”
Vanamirë said, “There are Singers in plenty in the host, Sir.”
Maedhros set down his cup, and reached for the Easterling arrow on the table before him. One long finger touched the dried blood on its head.
“There may be fewer than you think to sing our song, little cousin.”
Finarfin spoke before Vanamirë could reply.
“I can well guess, nephew, that any Song of your devising would weigh upon the hearts of Singer and hearers alike.”
Maedhros looked up at the unexpected harshness of the High King’s words, but
said nothing.
“Nonetheless, we accept and thank you for the aid that you give, in the hope that we may thereby attain our end with expedition and without greater loss.”
Finarfin’s gaze gathered in the company.
“We of Finwë’s House will Sing the Words of Unmaking, with all who can join us. Meneldis, you have command. Make your dispositions as you see fit, in readiness for the falling of the walls.”
. . . . .
The Song began at what would have been Sunset, had She been visible. All those who would take part, some five dozen Elves, were gathered on the hillside under the occluded sky. A handful of the renegades had come to join their lords; the rest were of the host of Tirion.
The Words of Unmaking were beautiful in their poetry, and their music, and terrible in their meaning. Their touch upon the greater Song that shaped the world, the Song that needed no bodily voice, was appalling, a desecration in itself. The Amanyar shuddered as they Sang, flinching in horror and pity. As Maedhros had predicted, not every Singer in the host had proven able to bear the weight of the Words. The Sons of Fëanor Sang the slow wearing of time; of stones ground to pebbles, mortar crumbled to dust, iron rusted and broken. They Sang of walls and towers fallen to grass and bramble, deeds and names forgotten in the wind and the waste of years. They Sang death, fruitless, unmarked, unmourned, unredeemed by valour or memory. They Sang hope withered, and courage lost and a final sunset, drowned in blood and fire.
But even as Finarfin felt the walls begin to give, as foundations shivered and mortar fell like sand, another Voice answered from the fortress, thin and faint and defiant. A woman, Singing alone in an alien tongue. Her voice was harsh and strange, as if Cärc the Raven were to sing a lullaby; but in the nature of what they did, the elves understood her words. She Sang of the strength of shaped stone, of shelter granted against storm and malice, of steady endurance and guiding purpose. She Sang of oaths kept and honour unbroken, brief lives offered freely that others might continue. She Sang of bright cities under an unclouded sunrise, alien, many-towered cities of Men, teeming with the ephemeral flames that would yet outlast the undying Eldar in the world. She Sang against them, and though her voice grew yet more hoarse and grating as the hours passed, when dawn shed its dim, impeded light over the world, the walls still stood.
. . . . .
Ch 5
The elves ceased their Song when the Sun had risen fully above the horizon. Her kindly warmth cheered them even through the lowering clouds. Their enemy fell silent a heartbeat after, though they felt the pressure of her attention on their minds, as perceptible as the Sunlight was to their bodily senses. Power hung in the thick air, humming quietly just below the level of hearing, a tension that itched along the skin and made muscles ache with uncertainty.
The troops emplaced the night before for the attack withdrew, leaving watchers in case of a sudden sortie by the garrison. The lords of the Noldor adjourned to the High King’s tent for breakfast and further council.
“I truly wish to know what she is,” Finrod said round a mouthful of steamed bun. It was stuffed with dried fruit and meat, intended for quick nourishment.
Ignoring his own plate, Finarfin said grimly,
“I fear that your first surmise was correct, son. She sang in Valarin.”
Finrod swallowed his bun in one gulp, astonished.
“You know that tongue, father?”
The High King shook his head.
“Only Fëanor, of all the Eldar, had more than the most minute acquaintance with the speech of the Valar. It is harsh to our ears, though with its own splendours; a tongue of swords and storms, and difficult of the learning. Once, on an occasion when our family was not...at odds, he spoke to me of it, and the matter lingered in my memory.”
“The words of the gods are not easily forgotten.”
Maglor’s voice was unchanged, to all hearing utterly unaffected by the long night's work. The chill fire in his eyes was undimmed. The Sons of Fëanor sat as they had the day before, eating and drinking with silent concentration. As the leaders of the Song, they had borne the brunt of the battle and were depleted, though nowhere near the end of their strength. Finarfin saw that stark endurance, and remembered the proud and beautiful boys he had known a Sea and an Age of the world ago, and mourned in his heart.
To his own son he said,
“I beg your pardon, my son, that I must recall to you your most dreadful miscarriage against Sauron the Accursed, but even now, after more than four dozen years of battle, there are none in our ranks with greater skill or experience than yours in this Art of combat. What is your counsel concerning this past night’s work?”
“The walls are down,” Finrod said. “She’s holding them up.”
Even after nearly fifty years to accustom himself, the peculiar effect that Sindarin had had on his son’s lámatyávë still disconcerted Finarfin from time to time.
“You are saying that the Words of Unbinding did indeed unloose the bonds of the fortress, but that our enemy within is of her own will and might sustaining the stones?”
“He is right,” Maglor said. “I hear her Song, even now.”
“But our foe is but one,” Finarfin said, “Or I did much mistake last night. Whether she be Maia fallen, as seems now the case, or mortal corrupted, how long can she uphold the weight of Himring against all nature?”
“She is alone,” Maglor said with certainty. “But how long she can hold..”
Maedhros set his teacup down beside his plate and stretched his arms above his head.
“You heard her Song,” he said. “She wants life. Send a herald and suggest that this would be a good time to surrender.”
. . . . .
It was full morning behind the heavy grey of the clouds, though still early. The High King, his son and his nephews stood once again on the hill, guards watchful around them. In the distance, a rider was making his slow way up the winding road to the Great Gate of Himring. Vanamirë rode in full armour, watchful of Easterling treachery and the Enemy’s sorcery; in his hand he bore the standard of the High King, Finwë’s ancient device of radiating light.
The rider reached the top of the hill unmolested, and halted beneath the Great Gate. After a while, a cluster of black and violet banners appeared above the Gate, and there was an exchange of shouts, though the distance was too great for the words to carry even to Elven ears. Finarfin had no need to strain his hearing. By reason of both kinship and loyalty, he and Vanamirë could exchange thoughts at will, when audible speech might be dangerous or impossible. He was thus unsurprised when the postern opened, and a small figure rode out alone to join his nephew on the ride downhill.
Ch 6
The emissary of the Easterlings was a woman, not much taller mounted on her shaggy pony than the most of the Noldor were standing. Finarfin’s first, startled thought was They are sending children against us now? Then he looked again and realised that short and young though she was, she was neither a child, nor, indeed, undersized for one of her race. In the beginning, the Easterlings had seemed strange indeed to the Amanyar, who had met at first only the tall Men of the Edain, most like among mortals to the Eldar.
This woman could never have been mistaken for an elf. She was no taller than a Dwarf, but compact and strong in build, though more slight than any of the Naugrim. Her hair was black and straight, drawn back into a tight, short plait. She was no Swerting either, being both sallow and pale in complexion, but her face was strangest of all: round and snub-nosed, with narrow, black eyes that seemed to slant upwards over high, flat cheekbones.
She was clad in the normal fashion of her people, in leather breeches and tunic, under riveted armour of rectangular plates. A curved sword hung at her waist, and an unstrung bow was slung at her back, the quiver hanging off her high-horned saddle. Her metal cap and high, felt boots were both trimmed with what looked like wolf fur. The enamelled device on the front of her cap was that of the banners, a black moon on a field of violet.
Stools were set out on the faded grass before the King’s tent. The Easterling sat stiffly facing the loose half-circle of Eldar, having refused tea. Closer attention revealed hollowed cheeks and the bones showing underneath the pale skin of her face. Her hands were chapped and reddened, and her wristbones were too prominent. The weeks of siege had taken their toll on the defenders also.
There was a long silence. The woman stared at the High King out of black, unblinking eyes, though there was both fear and stubbornness in her posture.
The High King sighed, and spoke first, in Sindarin.
“Lady, I am called Finarfin. I am the High King of the Noldor. Have you a name by which we might call you?”
The woman flinched at his first words, but after a moment she took a deep and obvious breath and replied. Her Sindarin was fluent and vilely ungrammatical.
“I am call Khitun. I am, ah, second. I am speaker also.” She paused, apparently in search of the correct word. “Herald. I am herald for Innin the Undying, Grandmother of the Arakan Deg, Lady of Cold Hill.”
Maedhros laughed softly, from where he sat at Finarfin’s left. The woman Khitun shot him a glance of naked fear, then lifted her chin and glared at the High King.
“You want ... parley. Grandmother asks why. Better you go away and not bother her anymore.
Her accent was the same as the last night’s Singer, but Finarfin did not need Maglor’s mindspoken confirmation to know that they were not the same.
“We offer the ...Grandmother and her people the chance to go from here in peace and safety, without more deaths, of hers or ours.”
The woman frowned, in what appeared to be concentration, rather than anger.
“What is “peace and safety”?
Finarfin hesitated over her question a moment, before he realised what she meant.
“It is that your people may depart unmolested, with your wounded, your horses and your goods, saving only your arms and armour, to go where it pleases you, north or east. West or south also, if you wish, but I do not counsel it; the land there is dangerous and no longer solid beneath the feet.”
The Easterling took some time to puzzle out his meaning. Then she shook her head with exaggerated emphasis.
“Cannot. If no arms, no armour, we go slow, orcs and wolfs come, we die.” For the first time she smiled, a spiky, defiant, crooked-toothed grin.
“If die, then better die here. Home. Take you with us into dark.”
Meneldis said coolly,
“But orcs and wolves are also servants of the Dark Lord, even as you. Why should you fear them?”
The woman spat in the grass at her feet.
“Orcs.”
She lifted a hand and tapped a finger against the grey fur banding her cap.
“Wolf.” This time her grin was purely a baring of teeth.
“This hills ours. Orcs come, wolfs come, we hunt, they die. I am born here. This land my one.”
In all his years in Beleriand, Finarfin did not recall that he had ever actually truly spoken with any of the Enemy’s Men. He had seen their foul handiwork in Hithlum, had fought battles against them the length and breadth of the land for which his children had fought and died. Had slain them in numbers beyond count, Children of the One and kin of his though they were. This vicious, dauntless child was the first with whom he had ever held extended converse, and an unexpected pity stirred within him.
“Lady Khitun, if we release your people, with your arms and armour, where will you go?”
She looked back at him, eye to eye.
“Grandmother say, not good to play-play in games of gods. She say, she make mistake to come here long ago. She say, when she swear oath to Great King, is bad idea. But oath is oath. We are Arakan Deg, we swear, we do. When last battle time coming, we keep oath, fight.” She made a flicking gesture of the fingers towards the north-east.
“Us and our kin, there on the plain.”
Meneldis frowned.
“Then why should we let you go now, if we must only fight you later?”
Khitun shrugged.
“‘Later’ is not under hand of the living. Grandmother not know “later”. I not know. You not know. Maybe gods also not know. If not fight now, maybe later not fight also.”
She bared her teeth in that snarling grin again.
“Even if fight, dead later still better than dead today. Grandmother say, if we live, later, we go home. Arakan Deg are Children of Sunrise, we go back, make new home in old land. Leave Sunset for death, for gods and demons to fight over. Sunset is demons’ land, not ours.”
“We are not demons!” Edrahil said, nettled.
Vanamirë said almost at the same moment,
“If you will forsake your allegiance to the Darkness, and ask the pardon of the Valar...”
“Pardon?” The woman bristled.
“For what? From who? Who is Valar? God also one? Like Great King the same? Where got difference?”
In the appalled silence that followed, Maedhros laughed again.
. . . . .
Ch 7
The parley stretched on to mid-day. It grew a little warmer, though no brighter. The Easterling accepted tea in the end, after her voice had become too hoarse in the foul air to be comprehensible. She refused food, though whether this was due to suspicion or pride Finarfin did not know. Despite close questioning, they were unable to elicit much information about the mysterious Grandmother. She was a woman of their race, yes. She had ruled them from the beginning. Had, indeed, been born among them.
“But your Grandmother does not die as mortals do?” Finrod had taken over the questioning. “Does she change her appearance?”
“How you mean? Grandmother is always same.”
Edrahil said out loud in Quenya,
“Not a devourer, then.”
Finarfin shuddered inwardly. The Amanyar had learned to their horror that the stuff of children’s stories in Aman was reality in the Marred lands. There were Houseless spirits, and they did indeed steal the bodies of the living.
“It would be easier to deal with if it were a Houseless One,” Finrod said. “But it does look as if this Grandmother is one of the Uvanimor, walking in mortal form. In which case, do we want to let it go?”
Ravendë said,
“What do we speak of here? Two thousand mortals at most, some of them children and old, more than half of them wounded. We have driven the greater part of their kin out of Beleriand. One spirit, of unknown strength, but it appears not one of the Enemy’s greater servants. Even did the two hosts unite, their increase in strength would not be much. And a later field might perhaps be more to our advantage.”
Both Meneldis and Vanamirë nodded. Even when, or if, the walls fell at last, it would be an uphill fight, over impeded ground, against an enemy with nothing more to lose and powers whose limit they did not know. No one had forgotten that this was not the last battle that the Host of the Noldor would have to fight.
Finrod said, under his breath,
“Any one mortal is capable of changing the Fate of the World.”
He had been called Friend of Men, had died for a Man’s sake. It had wounded them all, but him most deeply, to see Men, their Secondborn kin, corrupted and deceived to the Enemy’s side. To slay them when they would not accept mercy, as most would not.
“The greater Uvanimor can change their shape,” Vanamirë said at last. “This one could surely escape us as it chooses anyway. The Lady Lúthien bound Sauron himself, but we have no goddesses here for the moment. If we can take these hills now without further bloodshed, why not do so?”
“We do not know what cost there might be, later.” Meneldis was unconvinced.
Finarfin looked at his brother’s sons. The Fëanorioni had been silent for hours, watching the Easterling with concentrated attention, much as the Lord of Ravens might have eyed some tasty piece of soon-to-be-carrion. Maedhros answered the unspoken question without shifting his gaze.
“They are asking for mercy. Will you grant it?”
. . . . .
The gates of Himring opened in mid-afternoon. A knot of ten riders came out first, escorting one more in their midst, all armed and armoured, and in coats of the same violet as their banner. Behind them came the woman Khitun, leading the rest of the garrison in ordered formation. They rode one hundred armed and armoured riders to a banner, men and women, wounded and whole, holding their ponies at a slow walk. The banners were of the Easterling style, a tall withy fastened to the rider’s back, with the black and violet standard secured by a cross bar at the top, and by cord along one long edge. Each company was followed by a string of pack horses, loaded with what looked like tents and other gear, and guided by children and older Men.
As each banner came down the slope onto the eastward road that skirted the foot of the hill, it moved to left or right, leaving the road to the pack-horses. The tall banners stilled their fluttering a little as they entered the lee of the Hill, sheltered from the endless wind. The Easterlings rode with bows strung and arrows at the ready, wary of the elven host watching from the hillsides above, but did not alter their steady pace.
The first ten riders and their charge did not take the road, but came directly up the thorny slope, still at that measured walk, to where Finarfin and his people waited with their own mounts. None of them had gear different from those of the common soldiers, save for their quilted coats of violet silk; the woman in their midst showed a great dragon embroidered in gold upon the breast of hers. Their ponies seemed reluctant to approach the Valinorean horses, shying and backstepping, but obeyed their riders at last.
They halted within earshot. The dragon-woman inclined her head, and said, in fluent Northern Sindarin,
“King of the Noldor, greetings.”
The Grandmother of the Arakan Deg could have been the woman Khitun’s mother, or perhaps, her elder sister. There were lines on her face that might have been years, or simple weariness, but her black eyes were bright and cold and steady. There was no especial taint about her; she was not one of those like Sauron, whose very presence was horror. But Finarfin had no doubt at all, looking down into her face, that she was of the Enemy. The difference in height between them, and between the little, scrawny ponies and the tall steeds of Valinor, could have been cause for laughter. It was not, any more than would have been the difference in height between a man and a poisonous serpent in the grass at his heel.
“Greetings,” he said. “Grandmother of the Arakan Deg.” He could not help a questioning lift of the eyebrow.
The woman...creature...gave a little, familiar wave of her fingers northwards.
“In the beginning, the Great King did not care for others to claim any title close to his. It is only recently that He has been persuaded that it is a greater thing to be King over Kings...or Queens... than over mere lords. But my people and I are accustomed to my name and do not wish to change.”
“You and yours still have the choice to change this far: your allegiance at least. Your herald has said that you have regretted it.”
The Grandmother said without emphasis,
“My line-daughter is brave and clever, but not so young as that. If she said so much, she surely said also why we cannot do as you ask.”
Vanamirë said, “An oath sworn to Darkness...”
“Is an oath, not to be broken. Or are matters different among the Eldar?”
The elves were silent.
“We are the Arakan Deg. We have promised and we will perform. When I judge it needful, which is not today.”
She smiled briefly, with a certain sweetness. Another delicate gesture of the hand encompassed the desolation around them, and by implication, beyond.
“I see little difference, Sir, between the works of my Lord and those of yours.”
This struck so close to what Finarfin had tried for years to avoid thinking that he almost flinched. She saw something in his face nonetheless, because her smile widened, less sweetly than before.
Finrod said softly,
“You have not seen Aman.” Finarfin felt a brief, unworthy satisfaction as the Grandmother’s smirk died.
She made no other acknowledgement of the former King of Nargothrond, but glanced instead at Maedhros. His gear and arms were startlingly shabby next to the glittering panoply of the High King’s court, but he sat his borrowed horse at Finarfin’s left hand with no less composure than in the days of his lordship.
“Lord of Himring, the Arakan Deg thank you for the shelter of your house these many years. You may enter, if you wish, and take what you will from what remains within.”
Malice found no purchase upon Maedhros’ indifference. He said only,
“Himring fell long ago. Let its walls follow.”
The Grandmother inclined her head, smiling again.
“As you wish.”
Finarfin could feel his son’s curiosity nearly vibrating next to him. But he did not think that showing any further desire would be wise. The mystery of this creature’s connection with the Easterlings would have to remain unsolved. He looked away, down the hill. The mortals were reaching the turn where the road curved into shadow under Himring’s eastern rampart, their black and violet banners barely distinguishable in the fading light. Slaves of the Servant of the Enemy, her willing instruments, wilfully ignorant of the truth, of the Light...
He was suddenly, violently, tempted to break his given word and give the order to slay them all. His people trusted him, and would obey, as his brother had been trusted, and obeyed. It would be easy and swift; the Easterlings were at disadvantage of both ground and numbers. It might even be merciful. Finarfin’s heart hammered suddenly in his breast. He sucked in a deep breath of the choking air, and coughed as it caught at the bottom of his lungs. With effort, he looked away from the mortals. As his head turned, he caught for a moment the Grandmother’s black gaze, and it struck down his spiralling thoughts as an arrow through a buck’s eye. She looked...interested. Cold and aware and knowing, and, he realised, waiting, as he wavered on the edge of the abyss. For a moment, horror possessed him utterly, as he realised the place to which his revulsion and anger were leading him.
Peace, Father, his son’s thought came to him, clear and cool. Light in the darkness, a beacon for his spirit. Some oaths must be kept, and some must be broken, and wisdom is to know which is which.
Finrod’s clean sanity steadied him, drew him away from the brink. He knew. He was the High King of the Noldor, the Wise Elves, and worthy of his place. Finarfin let his breath out quietly, easily, without strain. The disgust and loathing were still there, but they would no longer overmaster his judgment. He would keep his word and his people’s honour, and let the future befall however it might.
And he did not wish to face this creature any longer.
“You have chosen, then, Servant of Morgoth. Your people go. Should you not go with them?”
“Indeed.”
The Grandmother gathered her reins, without any show of anger or disappointment. There was a little ripple of movement among her escort in response; they had watched the elves with tense alertness throughout, dark, narrow eyes fearful and hostile. Their mistress remained at seeming ease, her good humour apparently recovered.
“I would have enjoyed ... furthering our acquaintance in other circumstances. Perhaps we will meet again, on the last field. Perhaps not. Farewell, then, King that was, King that is.”
She looked to Maedhros once more; ironic laughter glittered in the darkness of her eyes.
“King that will never be, may you and yours find your desire, in the battle to come. My thank-offering to you, in place of the one that you refused yesterday.”
He did not respond, and she bowed to them with a mocking flourish, left hand over her heart, and turned her pony away. Her escort closed around her, and they picked their way down the hill and rode past and away into the twilight, towards the head of the long column of riders.
The elves waited on the hillside until the last of the Men had vanished around the bulk of Himring hill. Scouts would follow, to guard against treachery, and the Host would remain alert until the Easterlings were gone with the rest of their people into Lothlann. They would follow, all the Hosts of Aman would follow, in their own good time.
They waited. The afternoon grew darker and the flaying wind colder. At last, Vanamirë gave a soft exclamation and pointed. Above them, Himring began to fall, as if all the weight of its years had come upon it at once: piece by piece, slowly at first and then faster and faster, unnaturally swift. The tower fell first, the great blocks crumbling from the foundations upwards, riven as if by many winters. Then the walls and all the buildings within them, inner to outer, in a great roaring avalanche of stone. Last of all the mighty iron gates twisted on their hinges as their supporting pillars collapsed; at the end the dust rose so thick that even elven sight could not pierce it.
The echoes of ruin rolled around the hills and rolled again, and died; there was silence on the hill. Maedhros’s voice was soft, pitched under the endless whine of the wind, but Finarfin heard him with perfect clarity.
“Never say that I was not willing to see my own work broken.”
. . . . .
Ch 8
The dust of Himring’s fall was a haze in the air still, though it made no impression on the no-colour of Maedhros’ clothes and armour. He disregarded it as he did the curious, hostile stares of the nearby guards. His attention was on the three bodies that had been found in the ruins. They had been Noldor, two men and a woman, crushed by falling stone. A space had been cleared amid the rubble and their bodies laid out as decently as might be, cleaned and wrapped in cloaks. Around them, the blue light of Amanyar lamps shone as the Noldor searched the ruins for more dead. Maedhros had laid out for them the plans of the chambers underground, cellars and storehouses, all the inner workings of Himring. Most had collapsed as well; the ground beneath their feet was treacherous with sudden sinkholes.
They had found a few Easterlings, too injured to ride with their people. Those had died before the walls fell, each of a quick knife-thrust into the nape. The elves had not fared so well.
Finrod had helped bring their bodies out himself, moving stone and rubble in the cold, unblinking light of Fëanor’s lamps. Now he sat wearily on a fallen block of ashlar, grey with dust from hair to boot-heels. Somewhere along the way he had lost his scarf, and his hair was straggling loose of its long plait.
“They were chained to a post in front of the tower,” he said. His voice was hoarse and his eyes reddened with dust.
“Gagged so they could not call out.”
Elven hearing was keen. They would have been heard.
..go in, if you wish, and take what you will from what remains within.
Maedhros knelt beside the broken bodies. The woman was nearest, her sharp features marred and misshapen by the falling stones that had killed her. Cärc fluttered down upon beside her body and croaked, his black eyes glittering in the chill light.
“No,” Maedhros said. “She is not for you.”
The sound that the raven made in response was horribly like disappointment.
“She was your herald, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Maedhros said. “Hísilindë. She fell at the Nirnaeth. We thought that she was dead.”
He touched the shattered cheekbone gently, and looked across at the other two bodies.
“He was Carnistir’s. And he...Findekano’s, I think. I...do not remember their names.”
“Anganarmo, “ Maglor said behind him, on a cough. He had come up with Finarfin and Vanamirë. “And Endorion. He was born in Mithrim. I named them in the Noldolantë.”
“You will have to rewrite that verse,” his brother murmured. Maglor said with soft-voiced venom,
“I shall. And the Grandmother of the Arakan Deg shall build the cities she Sang, and live to see them fallen to dust even as this, and her name forgotten by those she calls her children.”
Maglor had been called the Mighty, once. A Singer in the world that Song had made. Hearing the iron certainty in his words, Finarfin wondered if Fëanor’s greatest son might yet have power to truly bind the future, whether in foresight or in curse. But if so, he thought, it could only be for evil, and ill-wishing, for the Doom upon them.
His son’s attention was yet upon the dead. For all his self-command, his grief and frustration were plain to see. There would be no rescue from the fallen tower this time, no joy striking like sudden sunlight in the face of the darkness. It was the serpent that had struck, and her poison had been mortal. Finarfin came forward, and laid his hand gently on his son’s shoulder. Finrod lifted his hand without looking up and clenched his gritty fingers about his father’s.
At last, as if to deny the darkness the final victory, he said,
“Yet they are safe now. All of them are safe.”
The quick lift of Maedhros’ head sent the raven leaping back with a clatter of wings and an irritated squawk.
Finrod met his cousin’s eyes. He was calm again, with the steely, enduring tranquillity of the Reborn, that no anguish could ever again defeat. His light still shone, despite the veiling of dust and sorrow.
“Your followers,” he said to the Kinslayers. “Your brothers. Your father. They dwell in Mandos, in Námo’s care. They are safe.”
To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth...
For a moment it was as if Maedhros had not heard. The bright gaze was as blank and distant as ever. Then he nodded, and something eased in his gaunt, weary face. He rose to his feet, and Maglor laid an arm about his shoulders, sustaining and sustained.
“That is...good to know. Thank you.”
. . . . .
The blue-white sparks of Fëanor’s lamps were scattered as thick as stars upon all the hills about Himring. The Noldor would move out themselves soon enough, once word came from Eönwe.
The Feanorians were leaving the Host that night. Maedhros had said simply,
“We are Doomed, still, and all who follow us. We may meet again upon the last field, but until then we cannot fight beside you.”
Finarfin had not argued, knowing that this was truth. But for honour and the memory of love, he made a last attempt to mend matters.
“Nephew, I beg you. Surrender yourself to the mercy of the Valar. Let go this damnable Oath and trust to their wisdom and their love. Let your people at least come home; they will have safe-conduct among us, and I myself will plead for them if need be.”
If Finrod’s smile was like sunrise, Maedhros’ was the sunset. Beautiful also, but with nightfall inevitable behind it.
“I thank you, Sir,” he said. “I will tell my people. I think that those who survive the battle to come may accept your offer.”
“But not you,” Finarfin said, with weary sorrow.
Looking at his nephew with the deeper insight, he could discern only the ash and cinders of despair. Like the Anfauglith, like Beleriand, a blasted wasteland where nothing green would grow again, though blood watered it like rain.
“No,” Maedhros said, quite gently. “I am sorry. We too swore an oath. And I cannot say that the Fall of the Noldor is ended yet. But if you can save any of them, I would be grateful, though gratitude is all the repayment that I will ever be able to make to you.”
He bowed to Finarfin, correct and graceful, and then to Finrod. The High King returned the courtesy, and out of the corner of his eye saw his son do the same. Regret was unhidden on Finrod’s face.
“Good fortune to you and yours, for the morrow, and all morrows after. Farewell, Sir. Prince.”
He shrugged his shadowy cloak around him, and turned away from his dead to the night. None moved to detain him. The guards gave way before him with a mixture of revulsion and fear, and he walked among and past them as if they were not there, through his broken fortress to its ruined gate, and the dying hills beyond.
Maglor did not follow, but nothing in his aspect gave Finarfin hope that his offer would be considered by this Son of Fëanor either.
“No, Sir,” Maglor said in his ruined, beautiful voice, seeing his thought. “We are the last, and I also am a lord of our House. I will not abandon my brother to bear the weight of our deeds alone.”
“Then...” What more have you to say to me? Finarfin was tired, a heartbroken weariness of the spirit, even more than of the flesh. He had fought for nearly fifty years, victory after victory, each more bitter than the last, seeing the land wither and burn and finally break under the clash of contending Powers. West and south the sea was rising, as earthquakes shattered the land and molten rock boiled away the rivers. The last battle was coming, and he hoped, trusted that they would have the victory, but Beleriand would not survive it. And the Sons of Fëanor, who had helped to begin it all, still clung to their petty, terrible Oath. Grieving and furious at once, he barely heard what Maglor was asking.
It was Finrod who answered, realising his father’s distraction.
“The sons of Elwing and Eärendil fight among the Edain, in the armies of Eönwe. They are well, and renowned warriors.”
“That is well.” Maglor smiled very faintly. “My brother will be pleased that they have done his teaching honour. Will you give them my greeting and good wishes when you see them again?”
Finrod sighed. “Yes, I will. Cousin, what is there that I can wish you, if you will not seek the mercy of the Powers?”
Maglor shook his head.
“Wish us what the Servant of the Enemy wished us, in her mercy. Wish us swift death in the battle to come.”
“No,” the High King said, sadly. “We can only wish you peace, and an end to your Oath.”
Maglor said, without irony, “It is the same. Thank you, uncle. Cousin. Farewell.”
Beyond the reach of the lamplight, the starless night swallowed him very swiftly.
Vanamirë shivered.
“Will there be light again, do you think, after this Darkness?”
Finarfin answered,
“I do not know.”
. . . . .
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Date: 2010-07-29 12:40 pm (UTC)Did you want this piece included in one of the theme compilations? If so, let me know a ~300-word excerpt, and I will include it and link to the full version here. Everything you could possibly want to know and more can be found here, although tossing questions at me or one of the other mods is also always acceptable. :)
Also, could I trouble you to use the story header format? It can be found on our profile. Many thanks! :)
Thank you for posting this--it is cool to see some older stories seeing the light again. Now if only I could find time for all the reading I want to do ...
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Date: 2010-07-30 03:49 am (UTC)My apologies, I've fixed the title headings.
I don't have a usable e-mail right now, so could I just put the 300-word excerpt here ?
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Date: 2010-07-30 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-02 09:57 am (UTC)The parley stretched on to mid-day. It grew a little warmer, though no brighter. The Easterling accepted tea in the end, after her voice had become too hoarse in the foul air to be comprehensible. She refused food, though whether this was due to suspicion or pride Finarfin did not know. Despite close questioning, they were unable to elicit much information about the mysterious Grandmother. She was a woman of their race, yes. She had ruled them from the beginning. Had, indeed, been born among them.
“But your Grandmother does not die as mortals do?” Finrod had taken over the questioning. “Does she change her appearance?”
“How you mean? Grandmother is always same.”
Edrahil said out loud in Quenya,
“Not a devourer, then.”
Finarfin shuddered inwardly. The Amanyar had learned to their horror that the stuff of children’s stories in Aman was reality in the Marred lands. There were Houseless spirits, and they did indeed steal the bodies of the living.
“It would be easier to deal with if it were a Houseless One,” Finrod said. “But it does look as if this Grandmother is one of the Uvanimor, walking in mortal form. In which case, do we want to let it go?”
Ravendë said,
“What do we speak of here? Two thousand mortals at most, some of them children and old, more than half of them wounded. We have driven the greater part of their kin out of Beleriand. One spirit, of unknown strength, but it appears not one of the Enemy’s greater servants. Even did the two hosts unite, their increase in strength would not be much. And a later field might perhaps be more to our advantage.”
Both Meneldis and Vanamirë nodded. Even when, or if, the walls fell at last, it would be an uphill fight, over impeded ground, against an enemy with nothing more to lose and powers whose limit they did not know. No one had forgotten that this was not the last battle that the Host of the Noldor would have to fight.
Finrod said, under his breath,
“Any one mortal is capable of changing the Fate of the World.”
He had been called Friend of Men, had died for a Man’s sake. It had wounded them all, but him most deeply, to see Men, their Secondborn kin, corrupted and deceived to the Enemy’s side. To slay them when they would not accept mercy, as most would not.
“The greater Uvanimor can change their shape,” Vanamirë said at last. “This one could surely escape us as it chooses anyway. The Lady Lúthien bound Sauron himself, but we have no goddesses here for the moment. If we can take these hills now without further bloodshed, why not do so?”
“We do not know what cost there might be, later.” Meneldis was unconvinced.
Finarfin looked at his brother’s sons. The Fëanorioni had been silent for hours, watching the Easterling with concentrated attention, much as the Lord of Ravens might have eyed some tasty piece of soon-to-be-carrion. Maedhros answered the unspoken question without shifting his gaze.
“They are asking for mercy. Will you grant it?”
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Date: 2010-08-05 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-31 04:54 pm (UTC)