Uldor by Himring

---

Chapter 1

---

 

I am Uldor. They call me the Accursed. Soon, the Eldar will think they know why that should be so, but they will be wrong.

 

I

I was the first of our tribe to meet an Elda. We had heard of them, of course. Rumours of bright elves with flaming swords that could drive the darkness away were one the reasons why we had embarked on the dangerous journey from the east. We hadn’t seen any yet, though, on the afternoon that I strayed from our camp because my dog had gone missing.

Our people didn’t really keep pets. Dogs were working animals that were supposed to earn their keep. A sentimental interest in any one of them was considered to be a childish fad, something to grow out of as you grew older and approached adolescence. At an age when I was already considered too old for such feelings, I passionately loved mine.

I called her Grey. She was as young and foolish as me. She took off into a thicket on the trail of a hare and didn’t come back, when I called. So I tried to follow her and followed her too far. I stumbled out of the trees and into stark, pants-wetting terror.

Orcs. We knew all about them, of course, although I hadn’t seen any before, first meetings with them naturally tending to be the last. Even now, it’s a chilling memory. The stench, the claws, the teeth, and, in spite of paralysing fear, just enough awareness to spot Grey among them on the ground—or rather her head and front paws, the rest being missing.

He arrived just in time. Or rather—they did, for he was not alone. The swords did not flame, but they did their work so quickly and efficiently, that before I could make out what was going on, the flurry of action was over and I found myself surrounded by dead orcs and living Eldar.

For that is what they were, Eldar, Shining Ones, not like us. Bright pale faces—and, among their gear and apparel, flashes of red and blue and green that were redder and bluer and greener than anything our own dyes could produce. The tall, red-haired one gave a series of short commands to those who surrounded him in their language. Then he came towards me. He sheathed his sword; that was the moment when I noticed he was one-handed.

‘Do not be afraid. You are safe now’, he said. He spoke our language with the accent of Bor’s people.

‘Grey’, I stammered. ‘Grey...’

He followed my gaze.

‘The dog? She was yours? I am so sorry...’

He knelt down and put his arms around me. I wept on his shoulder. He smelled different, partly as if he’d recently bathed, but partly just different. Even today, the smell of the Eldar feels safe and comforting to me. There is a bit of irony in this, considering that I’m probably about to die spitted on the end of an Eldarin sword.

He was Maedhros, on the way to visit his brother Caranthir when his scouts found the trail of orcs. He had saved my life. Supremely elegant in their competence and confidence, he and his people were the most glorious thing I’d ever seen. I would have worshipped him, even if he hadn’t been the only person in my universe to sympathize about the loss of my dog.

 II

‘Stop making so much noise, boy’, my lord Caranthir snapped.

I hadn’t been making any noise that I was aware of. It was true that I was finding it hard to keep trotting on sedately in his entourage when we were finally approaching Himring. I would have preferred to spur my horse into a canter up the hill and all the way to the castle gate. I had plotted and negotiated for months to get here: first, to convince my father that it would be useful for a member of our family to observe from close up what went on at the centre of power in this part of the world, then to persuade him that it was I who should be sent rather than either of my elder brothers and finally to get him to exert sufficient pressure on Prince Caranthir so that he agreed to take me along.

Caranthir didn’t like humans. He preferred dwarves. Our people had ended up in his service more or less by default. Bor’s people had arrived in Beleriand ahead of us, had been welcomed by Maedhros and his brother Maglor and been invited to settle near Himring. To think that that could have been us, if we’d only moved a little faster! But Bor’s people had just about taken up the remaining available resources in Maedhros’s domain, which was none too fertile.  The areas between Himring and Thargelion had not been safe to settle in since the Battle of Sudden Flame, although Maedhros and his brothers maintained a military presence there. Thargelion was where we had first arrived, and Thargelion was where we stayed. 

Rumour had it that even military considerations would not have persuaded Caranthir to take us in, if it hadn’t been for the memory of a lady of the Edain called Haleth.  She must have been a formidable human woman indeed to gain the respect of one such as Caranthir. Judging by the way he treated us most of the time, we can’t have reminded him much of her.

I looked at the back of my lord Caranthir’s head. It wasn’t exactly possible to remain on the good side of Prince Caranthir, if you were a human, assuming he had such a thing as a good side, but the journey had made it clear that his bad temper wasn’t uniform. It ranged all the way from slight grouchiness to towering rage. I just hadn’t quite figured out the whys and wherefores yet. Judging by the way he was hunching his shoulders just now, this was not one of his better moments.

I sighed as quietly as possible and began studying the walls of Himring. Finding out all about Himring and its strengths for my father was allegedly one of my reasons for being here, and it was certainly the largest, strongest, most impressive fortress I had yet seen. And it was the place where Maedhros lived...

‘Boy! If I have to tell you one more time...’

‘That’s him, isn’t it, my lord? Prince Maedhros—he’s just come out of the gates!’

Caranthir forgot all about the noise I was supposedly making. His whole bearing suddenly changed. Astonished, I thought: He’s craning his neck to identify that figure in front of the gates almost like I am.

It was, undoubtedly, Maedhros and he was coming down the hill to meet us. In a moment, Caranthir had us moving again and at rather higher speed. He was ahead of all of us now. We met Maedhros at a bend in the road halfway up the hill.

‘Welcome, Caranthir’, said Maedhros smiling up at his brother.

‘Maedhros,’ said Caranthir and got off his horse.

They didn’t say or do anything else, although I now suspected that, if Caranthir hadn’t had all the rest of us inconveniently trailing behind him, he might well have fallen on his brother’s neck. But just the way their voices sounded during that exchange made my stomach roil. So much emotion!  It wasn’t, by any means, all positive or sunny emotion; love, yes, and happiness at seeing each other again, but also pity and regret and other things I couldn’t identify... I couldn’t even make sense of what I could identify, for why should Maedhros and Caranthir pity each other? But even the element of pain showed how important these brothers were to one another. I thought of the lack of interest and flat dislike my own brothers showed me and felt cold.

Maedhros turned to the rest of us and bade us all welcome in fair words. His eyes alit on me.

‘Uldor’, he said warmly, ‘I’m delighted to see you here. Your last message said you still weren’t quite sure whether you’d be able to come.’

He turned to Caranthir. ‘Thank you very much for bringing him, Caranthir.’

Caranthir managed to scowl in a way that was positively gracious. Maedhros lightly placed his arm around Caranthir’s shoulders, and we all trooped along the road after the two brothers up to the gates.

III

Maedhros received me in the solar.

‘You requested an audience’, he said. ‘That sounded rather more formal than I would have expected. After all, you’ve already conveyed your father’s greetings to me. I thought I’d try and find out first what this was about and then, if you still wish it, I can grant you a formal audience.’

I looked at him, and my mouth went dry. Since he had saved my life, we had met a number of times in Thargelion in the company of my father or of lord Caranthir, but it struck me now that, for someone who was the most important person in my life, I didn’t really know him all that well. Worse, he didn’t really know me. But there was no help for it.

‘I’m here to ask to be allowed to swear fealty to you’, I confessed.

There was a startled silence. This was going to be as bad as I’d feared.

‘Surely, you are too young for such a thing?’

‘By the customs of my tribe, I’m of age.’

‘You are? But since your father’s message that you delivered makes no mention of this’, Maedhros said slowly, ‘am I to suppose your father knows nothing of your purpose?’

‘He doesn’t’, I admitted wretchedly. ‘If he’d known, he wouldn’t have allowed me to come.’

‘And what do you think his reaction is going to be if I accept what you’re offering?’

‘He’s going to be furious me and cast me out of the tribe.’ I was very sure of this and I suppose it showed.

Maedhros looked alarmed. ‘Uldor, are you voluntarily risking exile, without need?’

‘Not without need,’ I said. He doesn’t understand, I thought, resignedly. I won’t be able to explain.

‘You might find exile harsher than you think, Uldor. Have you thought it through, what it would mean never to be able to return home again?’

‘I have.’

‘I’m afraid you are not entirely happy in Caranthir’s service.’

‘He’s not happy with us in his service. We’re not dwarves.’

‘Humans and elves apparently have very similar thought patterns. Dwarves are different. That’s why Caranthir finds them easier to handle.’

‘You mean Caranthir prefers dwarves to elves as well as to men?’

‘I suppose, in a way, he does.’ The thought clearly saddened Maedhros.

There was a moment of silence.

‘Uldor, I have suspected before that all is not well between you and your family’, said Maedhros gently. ‘But these things are usually temporary, especially at your age. If you are only patient, your problems with your father might well sort themselves out. Exile, on the other hand, can be very, very final. Also, I think that your father might not stop at exiling you, he might accuse Caranthir of failing to uphold his commitments as your liege lord, if he permits you to take the oath. He might also argue that I owed it to him not to accept your fealty. If he chooses to take the issue further, it might endanger our alliance.’

These things are usually temporary?, I thought bitterly. How would you know, my lord Maedhros? When you meet your brother in the road after a time apart, it is like one of your brother Maglor’s compositions. The music of it is so rich and varied, it needs a small orchestra to play it. The music of Ulfang’s familial affections is like a boy’s first attempt at a shepherd’s pipe. It squeaks a little, and there is an end to it.

‘I am sorry’, said Maedhros. ‘I can see how disappointed you are. If I could do so without serious consequences to yourself or to me, I would gladly have taken you into my personal service. But if I were to risk endangering our alliance with your father at this time, I would need a very strong reason to do so.’

‘You’re sure that my father’s allegiance is so much worth having?’, I couldn’t help asking.

I could see in Maedhros’s expression that the tone in which I spoke of my father had shocked him.  Shame and embarrassment sealed my lips and I said nothing further.

 IV

‘To think,’ said Borthand, gesturing widely, ‘that before we crossed the Mountains, we didn’t know the world could be like this.’

At first, I had been inclined to resent Borthand, son of Bor. Not only had he been granted by accident and heredity what I had fought so hard to obtain and yet failed to gain, direct fealty to Maedhros, but he also had all the other things I hadn’t got: his father and brothers clearly loved him and he had a large circle of friends. This also made me suspect his motives for taking an interest in me. I thought that Maedhros had told him to befriend me.

Maedhros was clearly trying to make up for disappointing me by making my stay in Himring as pleasant as possible. He went out of his way to devise treats; he took half a morning out of his busy schedule for a leisurely visit to the kennels with me. I thought sadly that if I had really just been an adolescent who was in temporary trouble with his father, this treatment would have suited the case admirably. As it was, his thoughtfulness just impressed on me the desolation of the surroundings I would be returning to. I had cuddled the puppies and stroked the silken ears of the bitches, but in the end politely refused the gift of a dog.

As for Borthand, whether Maedhros had sent him or not, my only regret soon was that we would not have time to become friends. I had not had a chance to practice making friends much; by the time I had figured out how, I would have to leave. Meanwhile I allowed him to show me around and hung on his lips as he explained things. My undisguised fascination with everything he chose to tell me flattered him.

We stood on the castle walls. ‘Yes, that’s where it lies, there under those black clouds’, said Borthand, ‘Angband , where He lives, the Despoiler, the Dark Enemy. After all those years of obeying his messengers in fear, whenever  they deigned to take notice of us, because there seemed to be no other way, and still being prey to orcs and worse—finally, we have a real chance to fight back against him and his minions! Since we came here, my lord Maedhros has protected our families against all incursions and, when the time comes, he will lead us in battle. I can’t wait to show those monsters that they can no longer trample us with impunity!’

‘It is very close,’ I said. ‘I think my father had not expected to find that the stronghold of the Dark Enemy was so close, when he crossed the Mountains.’

Borthand looked troubled for a moment. ‘I don’t think my father had, either.  But’, his face cleared, ‘then we met the Eldar, and Prince Maedhros came to speak to Father... And meanwhile there are so many new things to learn! Had you ever imagined a place like Himring in your wildest dreams?’

His fingers reverently caressed the stonework of the battlements, admiring masonry surpassing the skill of any human we had ever heard of.

‘No’, I said, ‘I had not.’

V

Before I left Himring, Maedhros said to me: ‘I’ve written to your father and suggested that you would make a good ambassador. I am hoping he will take up the suggestion, and you will be able to come here more often.’

I thanked him for his kindness. But as I rode away among the guard of my lord Caranthir, misery boiled inside me.

‘Boy!’, said Caranthir sharply.

I looked at him and remembered what Maedhros had said about thought patterns and also that, if Maedhros’s suggestion was to bear fruit, I would need as much of the goodwill of Prince Caranthir, as I could get. Then I resolutely looked straight ahead and thought of green fields endlessly stretching away and nothing else.  By the end of the day, I was completely exhausted with trying not to think, and Prince Caranthir was treating me with grudging respect.

In this way, I began to learn to conceal my thoughts and emotions from Caranthir.

 VI

‘Gah!’, said my father and spat.

He turned his disapproving eyes on me.

‘You are very impressed with these Eldar friends of yours, aren’t you? You think they are so much better than us? You believe all they say about resisting the Dark Enemy for the benefit of all peoples of Middle-earth?

You should listen more closely to the rumours I’ve heard. Your precious Maedhros and his brothers—did you know their own kind say they are common murderers? Apparently they killed lots of their own people in a quarrel over a couple of boats on the other side of the sea, and then they ran away all the way here, because they found themselves in trouble over that.  And the reason they are fighting the Dark Enemy? Apparently he got away with some kind of jewellery that they think they have a claim to, but I’ve heard that it really belongs to somebody else. So they’re thieves, too, or as good as—and as greedy as the rest of us or even more.

And look at the way these elves treat their human allies! The Edain that got here before us and were so keen to join them in the battle against the Dark Enemy—beggars for punishment—look what reward that got them. Hador’s people dumped in Dor-lomin—have you heard what an inhospitable, unprofitable area that is? But they are still luckier than Beor’s people, who the elves were happy to let bear the brunt of the attack the last time things really heated up around here. Wiped out, runt, didn’t you hear, in spite of the so-called assistance of your wonderful Eldarin friends! As for that woman Haleth we’ve heard so much of, apparently our glorious leader Prince Caranthir cheerfully allowed her to march off and get more than half her people eaten by giant spiders or whatnot. That truly shows a great deal of respect for her, I’d say.

The same thing will happen to Bor, if he doesn’t watch out. Doesn’t he realize that these Eldar despise us and are just out to rope in any fools they can to do the dying for them? He’d better get out of there while the going is good...

No, you can forget about the Eldar, you moon-struck calf. On the other hand’, he grins, ‘it could actually be useful that you are so starry-eyed about them. That soppy admiration of yours, I bet they lap it all up; they’re nothing if not vain. Yes, why not, you can go and talk to them for us now and again. It will save me having to look at your ugly mug all the time, see you looking down your snooty nose at the rest of us.’

Thus was I appointed ambassador of the people of Ulfang to the Eldar. I felt that perhaps this was not quite how Maedhros would have envisaged such a scene. However, because I was ashamed of my father, but used to him, there were other points that I missed. My father was seethingly jealous of the honour shown other human allies by the Eldar, but despised those same human allies for earning honour the hard way, that was clear enough. But I knew he enjoyed baiting me, so I discounted much of the rest he had said.

It wasn’t just Bor who benefited from association with the Eldar. For our tribe, too, life was now more comfortable—and for the time being safer—than it had ever been before. Caranthir might dislike us, but not all of the elves in Thargelion did. They were willing to assist and teach in small ways, and gradually there were many little improvements, unimportant as such, but adding up to a completely different style of life. I assumed that my father and brothers appreciated that as I did, although it later turned out that I was wrong; all it did was to inflame their greed.

In any case, I would have rather died than repeat the things my father had said to Maedhros or any other elf. As I had nobody to discuss them with, they sank to the bottom of my mind and stayed there.

VII

I called her Ulrica, on the few occasions I had the chance to call her anything. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t her name anymore. She had put off her girl’s name when she became the third wife of Lorgan and was now only ever referred to as Third. The two older wives took every chance to pass on any hard and back-breaking work to her, and Lorgan was not kind. He beat her. She was putting up a brave struggle; she made an effort to hold her head high, her shoulders straight. But already it was beginning to take its toll; the beginnings of defeat were in her eyes. You could see that she would not be pretty for very much longer. I suppose that lent my love for her some of its urgency.

It wasn’t much of an affair really. Covert glances, a few whispered conversations at dusk, when I managed to catch her alone and help her with the two heavy pails of water she had to fetch from the river, a hurried kiss or two, and one desperate silent grapple that we never repeated, because we were so afraid of being caught. I thought of nothing but her for months, dreamed of her by night and by day.

Because I couldn’t talk about her to anybody else, I mentioned her to Maedhros and instantly regretted it. I felt that I should have known he would disapprove. He listened to me with a deepening frown, as, to defend my choice, I began to rhapsodize about the beauty and noble spirit of Ulrica and the depth of my feelings for her.

‘I was hoping’, he said finally, ‘that you would soon marry. I think that you could do with a wife capable of being a companion and helpmate to you. It would be even better if she had kin who could stand your friend at need, as you do not get along with your own family.’

I stared at him in outrage. He had the grace to look embarrassed.

 ‘You are too isolated among your own people, I think. I’m sure this girl is all you say, but a secret affair will isolate you even more. And it will make you vulnerable...’

‘Politics!’, I exclaimed. ‘Are there no other considerations with you? No doubt you and all your brothers swore an oath of celibacy until the time you manage to defeat Morgoth...’

For some reason, he seemed to find that amusing. ‘Hardly’, he said, clearly trying not to laugh.

I resented being laughed at. ‘Hardly, indeed! I’ve heard what your precious brother Celegorm got up to with that princess of Doriath!’

Maedhros’s face hardened. He does not stand on his own dignity except on formal occasions, but under no circumstances does he take unsolicited criticism of his relatives well. I had soon learned not to be too frank about any foibles of Caranthir’s.

‘Oh, go on, say it!’, I went on defiantly,  ‘What is a negligible peccadillo in a son of Feanor is, of course, a serious crime in an Easterling!’

His eyes widened. I realized what I’d just said and flushed deeply. We stared at each other for a moment.

‘Uldor,’ Maedhros said quietly, ‘we have benefited greatly from your services, Caranthir and I, from your unusual fluency in Sindarin, your quick grasp of unfamiliar situations, and all the other skills and talents that seemed to make you the ideal channel of communication between us and your people. But I still sometimes wonder whether I gave you the right answer, when you made that request of me the first time you came to Himring. I didn’t know the customs of your people well enough, I still don’t know them as well as I would like, but perhaps if I had managed to arrange a betrothal with one of Bor’s kin or some kind of fosterage...’

I didn’t need to hear this, not now.

‘I’m of age, I tell you! I’ve told you before!’

I turned my back on him and flung myself out of the room, the height of discourtesy.

His voice followed me.

‘I know, but you still seem so young to me...’

VIII

They dragged her into the room with her hands tied behind her. Her face was bruised, her mouth beaten to a pulp. They’d shorn off her hair, and I think they’d flogged her. Perhaps she was concussed, too; her eyes were unfocussed and I’m not sure she recognized me. She didn’t utter a sound, not even a whimper.

I had had no warning. I stared at her in dumb shock.

‘Bringing shame to your family, runt’, said my brother Ulwarth coldly.

‘A disgrace to the family name you are’, said Ulfast.

‘Always were’, said my father.

‘Interfering with other men’s wives,’ jeered Ulwarth.

‘We won’t be able to hold up our heads before Lorgan’, growled Ulfast.

‘I knew you were accursed from the time you killed your mother and brother at birth,’ croaked my father.

I looked at my father, his wispy white hair, his wrinkled face, his toothless mouth. He hardly ever arose from his bed now; the main duties of his youngest wife were to bring the bed pan at regular intervals and pile on more blankets.

‘If I had ever seen the slightest sign that my mother meant anything to you—or even my dead twin brother—, I might forgive you,’ I thought. It had not occurred to me that I hated him before.

Then I forgot about him. I looked in agony at Ulrica. I had brought her to this.

‘How did you find out?’, I asked stupidly.

There was a moment of silence. Then Ulwarth grinned. ‘How do you think? Of course, he asked us not to tell you.’

I gazed at him uncomprehendingly. Then gradually I began to feel very sick. Clearly, it showed.

‘Yes, of course, it was him. Your hero, the glorious Elda. Maedhros.’

IX

Their moral indignation was mostly fake, of course. They had paid Lorgan double the price at which he had bought Ulrica and, although he made a point of treating me like a pile of stinking manure whenever our paths happened to cross, I could not see that it had damaged his relationship with my father or brothers in the least.

What they’d needed was a hold over me, a way to blackmail me because they did not trust me, and now they had Ulrica’s life to bargain with. She would live as long as I did exactly what they wanted. They needed me to lie to the Eldar for them.

Ulfast and Ulwarth did their best to conceal it, but it was clear that they hadn’t known themselves that my father had been negotiating with Morgoth all the time since we arrived in Thargelion. In the beginning, I’m sure, he was simply trying to play one against the other, Maedhros against Morgoth, for the maximum gain, but at some point he had decided to throw in his lot with Morgoth. When just recently he had got too weak to act on his own, he’d brought Ulfast and Ulwarth in on his treacherous game. They seemed to think they had come up with their clever plan all by themselves. I wondered whether they really had or whether emissaries of Morgoth had imperceptibly nudged them in that direction.

I did my duty by them, although by then I wasn’t at all sure I cared. I warned them that if it was safety they were after, they wouldn’t achieve it by siding with Morgoth on the battlefield. Maedhros might be defeated, maybe my father was even right in thinking that he couldn’t win, but that wouldn’t make it any the less risky to oppose him. If we were out for all that we could get or even if we only wanted to assure, as much as possible, our own survival, the only advisable course was to pack up all our things and get out of Beleriand at once, hoping that Maedhros would distract Morgoth sufficiently so that he would lose track of us in the wilderness of Eriador.

They didn’t believe me, of course. They had never really credited my superior knowledge of the Eldar, however willing they were to make use of it. Now they had me over a barrel, they despised me doubly and the idea that I might know better than they was quite inconceivable to them.  It occurred to me that there was something fundamentally wrong with our people, independently of their attitude to the Eldar. Maybe it was the long decades of being harried by Morgoth’s creatures and emissaries that had done it. But if so, Bor’s people had somehow escaped the same fate. Maybe it was just our family, quietly rotting at the core. In that case, there might be hope for the rest of the tribe, if only Maedhros managed to take my brothers down with him.

The next time I saw my lord Caranthir, I thought only of green fields.

X

Maedhros regarded me warily.

‘The girl you mentioned? Ulrica?’

‘She died.’

‘She died?’

‘She got caught. The punishment for adultery, for a woman, is death.’

He stared at me. I stared right back at him.

‘I’m sorry to hear that’, he said finally. ‘I was afraid...’ His voice trailed away. ‘Uldor...’, he began again.

I said nothing. Then somebody knocked on the door who wanted Maedhros urgently. I carefully avoided resuming that conversation.

XI

We are all set for our destruction. I’ve taken the evidence for movements of enemy troops at our back that Ulwarth and Ulfast had carefully fabricated and fed it to the sons of Feanor in their councils bit by careful bit. I’ve discovered with a bitter pride just how well I have learned my lessons from Maedhros and Caranthir. I know exactly how to phrase things, know how to pace the flow of information so as to convince them.  And so we delay, creeping carefully forward across the ashes of Anfauglith, while far ahead in the west the High King of the Noldor waits for us in vain and Morgoth plots his downfall.

There is a movement in the corner of my eye, and I discover with a start that I have been careless. For a moment, my mask slipped and became a grimace of pain. I was lucky nobody was looking me directly in the face at the time.

Maedhros is coming towards me. He is alone. There is nobody with him, not even a bodyguard. He stops before me and looks at me searchingly. I regard him calmly, with no more than the appropriate amount of concern.

‘My lord Maedhros?’

He looks over my shoulder. He’s checking that there is nobody within hearing.

‘Uldor, I hope that what I’m going to ask you won’t offend you...’

I contrive to look as polite and interested as possible and just the slightest bit puzzled.

‘I’m afraid I don’t entirely trust your brothers...’

I manage to look distressed, but un-offended.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and leans forward in his urgency.

‘All this evidence for movements of enemy troops—have you actually seen any of it yourself?’

‘My lord! Of course I have! Didn’t I say?’

His hand grips my shoulder as if he could wrest another answer from me. His grey eyes bore into my mine. I look straight back at him. I’m the puny, negligible Easterling fooling the mighty prince of the Eldar. See? I can do it to you as you did it to me.

He sighs in half-suppressed frustration and lets go of my shoulder.

‘I’m sorry if I appeared to be doubting your word’, he says quietly and strides away.

Later, I see him standing at the edge of the camp, looking west. After a while his brother Maglor goes up to him and speaks to him. Maedhros appears to be answering him, but without taking his eyes off the western horizon. Maglor speaks to him again, urgently. This time Maedhros turns away towards the camp. Something about that movement of his reminds me of a story I once heard about Maedhros.

Long ago, when he was hanging off the face of the mountain above Morgoth’s fortress, his uncle and his cousins came with a whole army to assail the gates of Angband. They didn’t know he was there, imprisoned. Their blows rained on the gates, clashing and booming. They shouted defiance in mighty voices. They blew horns. They raised a terrific din. And amid all that noise they were making, they couldn’t hear Maedhros crying out to them for help.

When I first heard that story as a boy, I burst into tears. I clapped my hands over my ears because I didn’t want to listen to it. I don’t know why I’m thinking of it now. All those stories about him hanging off the mountain are clearly wildly exaggerated. And anyway, he’s not alone now by any means. More than half of the people in this camp, from his brother Maglor on downwards, would cheerfully die for him.

And they almost certainly will. Including Borthand, who could have been, but never quite became a friend. Maybe it’s me hanging off a cliff face, and nobody hears me screaming.

XII

Ulfast gives the signal. Ulwarth takes it up. We desert the flank of Maedhros’s army we were supposed to be guarding and, followed by the orcs we were fighting up to that moment, turn against our allies. I am not in command of any of our troops. That leaves me free to look for Maedhros and—probably— see him at the exact moment when he realizes he’s being attacked from behind. It’s such a lightning decision that I wonder, if he did not, after all, suspect me. He shouts something at Maglor. It’s too far away for me to overhear, but it is soon clear enough what it is. Maglor sweeps up the remainder of Caranthir’s troops and Bor’s people under his own command and successfully rallies them round to face us. We’ve inflicted heavy losses in the first onrush, but now we’ve lost the advantage of surprise. There is a short lull as our people withdraw just a little to reassemble and repair our front line. I’m sure Ulwarth and Ulfast are surprised and dismayed.

I’m looking Maglor’s way when he spots me. His usually abstracted features are incandescent with rage. He’s clearly taking my betrayal of his brother personally. 

It’s easy to underrate Maglor, partly because he’s never made a secret of the fact that he would really prefer to spend his life making music. How my father laughed when I told him that! There is also the fact that he so clearly regards himself as Maedhros’ right hand, the one he doesn’t have, which makes even some of his own kind think of him as somehow less. Even if you’ve been privileged to watch one of Maedhros and Maglor’s practice fights, you might get the wrong impression because Maedhros is so clearly deadlier: faster, stronger, more single-minded. It’s only when you make an effort to ignore Maedhros that you realize that Maglor is very much somebody you do not want to meet on a battlefield. The sons of Feanor have had centuries to perfect the art of killing with a sword. It’s going to be some time before Maglor gets around to killing me, but, unless a Balrog happens along to distract him, I’m going to be filleted.

There is no Balrog on this side of the field. By the time Maglor catches up with me, Borthand and his brothers are dead and so are Ulwarth and Ulfast. That would have surprised my brothers, because they were so much bigger and stronger and they always considered me too scrawny to be any kind of fighter at all. But I picked up a few Eldarin tricks, and so at this point I’m still alive to be killed by Maglor.

I manage to give a better account of myself than I expected to or maybe I just get lucky. I actually succeed in inflicting a wound on his upper arm, before I feel his blade neatly slicing into my belly. Without looking down, I’m immediately certain that the damage to my organs is fatal. Time slows as I go into shock with the impact and blood loss. I look around for Maedhros.

Although it is virtually impossible to see anyone in the chaos that is now prevailing on the western flank, by a fluke, a cloud of dust lifts, troops shift and there, for a moment, he is, even apparently looking in my direction, although I’m sure he doesn’t see me. He’s looking absolutely wild. His sword arm is splashed with blood right up to the shoulder, his face is streaked with dirt, there are gashes in his chain mail, and most of his hair has escaped from its ties.  But under all of that, his expression seems focussed, almost calm.  The troops and dust shift again, and he disappears, but the image stays burned on my mind.

I recall how I saw him the first time, gleaming in the sun.

‘The dog? She was yours? I am so sorry...’

And suddenly I realize the extent of my stupidity, the huge gap in my reasoning that two carts could drive through side by side. I hear myself asking again, idiotically: ‘How did you find out?’ and see Ulwarth’s expression and realize that of course he was about to lie to me. There were any number of ways they could have found out and that Maedhros would have told them was of all the least likely. But they weren’t sure that Ulrica alone would give them a sufficient hold on me, and they scented my suppressed resentment and doubt like sharks are said to taste blood in the water. So good at lying to the Eldar, so transparent and gullible when faced with my own people—and so blind to the truth even when it was staring me straight in the face.

I never had a chance of saving Ulrica anyway. I’m sure my father had her killed as soon as my back was turned; what I told Maedhros was perhaps already true by then. I have betrayed Maedhros for nothing.

Maybe I was always fated to die today, but, Maedhros, it was your side I should have died on. However, it is too late for explanations or apologies now. I close my eyes and wait for Maglor’s final blow.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

Thargelion is said to have been left deserted, when Caranthir retreated after the Dagor Bragollach, but it seems to me that it would make sense for Caranthir to have tried to regain it at the time of the Union of Maedhros, as Maedhros tried to regain Dorthonion. In fact, there is a hint in one source in HoME that this did indeed happen.

Also, admittedly, Caranthir seems to be getting on better with the Dwarves in this story than is strictly canon, although, of course, we don't hear the Dwarves' point of view.