Of Draugluin by Huinare

Cuiviénen

The werewolves are given a task, and Draugluin discovers that the old ultraviolence isn't always that funny.

Now the Nauri were fully grown and Mairon had begun sending them out far and wide on patrols, hunts, and errands.  In the days when the second generation of whelps were still blinking clouded eyes, a messenger came from Utumno. 

The messenger told us that the Dark Lord’s spies had seen Oromë find the Eruhíni and go down to dwell among them.  “It seems he left a small guard around the bay, but they are secretive, revealing themselves not even to their charges.  There are three Maiar there at most.  It is Lord Melkor’s wish that the mettle of Angband’s Nauri should be tested, and also that the Nauri might serve as a small reminder of our presence, by either slaying one of the Eruhíni or by harrying Oromë’s people as the situation might call for.”

Lord Mairon answered that Melkor’s will would be carried out at once.  When the messenger was gone, I said, “The Maiar of Oromë are fell.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.  “Likewise are the wolves of Angband.  Did you think they would be relegated indefinitely to the slaying of deer and the torment of prisoners?”

“No, but of all the foes they could face on their own, Oromë’s–”

“I do hope you’re able to conceal your demoralizing fear of Oromë from your wolves.  Choose six from among them.  Assuming there are indeed three Maiar to stand against them, that makes it two to one.  The Nauri are mortal, yet they have still the power of the Raucar distilled, thanks to you.  And they have as well the fierceness and the loyalty of their animal kindred.”

“Might I go with them, sir?”

Mairon narrowed his eyes at me and for just a second there was a terrible warning look in them.  Then his manner became easy and he shrugged me off.  “If you must.  You shall do well to remember what we spoke of before this project’s inception.  If you become too attached, it can only lead to your own injury.  Take that counsel upon the leagues.  It is heavy, but it is current.  Gather the six and leave at once.”

Of course he was right.  The Nauri had not been bred for me to dote over.  They were meant to hunt and slay, and, as I did, they enjoyed those things.  I tried to keep myself of that mind against the dread that went with me on the long journey to the eastern foothills.

The place was a long bay off the south end of the Helcar.  Hills closed it around.  If we could have crested the hills, we may have heard the singing that was said to often rise from the settlements of the Eruhíni. 

We never got that far.  One of the Maia guards sensed us before we had gotten halfway up the slope.  I was a small way ahead of the others and I went to confront him alone, ordering the Nauri to remain hidden.  This Maia was not in a physical form when we argued and I tried to force him to manifest, a method Mairon had been teaching us at Angband.  But the Maia only snickered in my face and tried the opposite thing, to make me leave my body.  It was like someone had tried to pull me through an iron grating.  When he realized that I was trapped in this body, he announced it arrogantly, in front of the Nauri, “How could I hope to compel you to a thing which you yourself cannot do?  You’re confined in that form, is it not so?”

I denied it, and my anger and desperation were so great that the Nauri leapt to aid me against my wishes.  Seeing that I wasn’t alone, the Maia called for his fellows, and two more were soon upon us.  A vigorous and bloody skirmish rose.  Of the three Maiar, only the second one on the scene seemed to be Oromë’s.  I took on this one, partly to keep him from dealing death to the Nauri and partly because it was truly a terrible joy to do battle with him.  He was of great physical strength and skill, unlike his two companions, who resorted to mid-range weapons or telekinetic tricks.  I was very absorbed in my fight with Oromë’s Maia, but I saw sidelong that the Nauri were falling one by one, necks snapped or severed completely.  I thought the decapitation was the worst outrage, but then they eviscerated one of my folk, leaving her for dead in a thorn bush which tangled around her guts each time she struggled to get free.  This all increased the fury with which I fought the only honorable one of them. 

In the end, the third Maia stopped me cold by speaking to me out of nowhere, in the way the house of Námo tended to do, in a tone of prophecy.  “Be not so keen to deal out death, for you shall find yourself subject to it in your own time.  Guard the life of your present guise well, Draugluin, for in the hour that it is slain you shall be unhoused and suffered no other form while the world lasts.”

This enemy knew my name by some dreadful art, and I felt against my will that it was also true, about my fate.  I never liked to think of my body dying, even though it might have seemed like a good thing to be free of it, for there had always been a nameless dread in the thought.  Staying my attack, I did something shameful.  I turned and fled, not wanting the Maiar to slay me as they had just done with the rest of them.

I had hardly run an hour on the road back to Angband before Mairon intercepted me.  Like all the Raucar could who weren’t fool enough to land themselves stuck in a body, he could travel formless at great speed.  He sat on a boulder and demanded a report.  Shaking with fatigue and something like anger, and still something more, not daring to look at him, I explained what had passed.

He gave me only silence for a long time, an untwitching shadow, then answered, “I’m not surprised you fled.  You could have done little else at that junction.  If I am disappointed, it is by your insistence upon attempting to coddle and protect the Nauri in the first place.  You see that your involvement changed nothing.”

Wrath crashed into me as though to knock the breath out of my lungs.  Lord Mairon had sent my Nauri off to die as easily as he’d condemned me to their form for their sake.  I barely kept myself from snarling, and the fur sprang up along my spine.   

He saw that I finally resented him, and his gold-tinged eyes flickered just a bit.  It came to me that he no longer had any need for me, since the Nauri could breed on their own.  I saw too late that my reward for this imprisonment was nothing more than the questionable honor of watching my own perish in service to Mairon. 

For a moment I wanted to call him to answer for all of it, even knowing he could inflict much torment on those who gave him a mind to, but then fear or reason returned to me.  I could not have changed my doom even if I had seen it coming.  I couldn’t have refused Mairon’s bidding half disguised as a request, and I couldn’t have kept aloof from the Nauri.  Since indeed nothing could be changed, it was useless to be angry.  My fur smoothed back down and I lowered my head.

Lord Mairon’s eyes still gleamed with warning, but no longer in my direction.  He was looking back toward the hills.  “Yet all of you put up an admirable fight against powerful Maiar who are not to be trifled with.  I’m unsure who Námo’s vassal was nor why such a one would be present there, but, from your description, the one you fought could be none other than Alatar.  Lord Melkor’s spies have said that he is Oromë’s right hand.  The one who first intercepted you sounds uncannily like my former colleague Curumo, who of all folk should be well aware what he dares in this.  It is preposterously arrogant of these three who would slay with one hand and with the other defend, to think they can hold back our shadow from the east.  I assure you, Draugluin, that their screams and lamentations shall provide what recompense they may for the loss of your pack.  Now, return to Angband, take some rest, and ready your mind for the conflict to come.  I doubt it can be long now before things begin to escalate.  The Valar may yet instigate war in defense of their vaunted Eruhíni.”

The thought of revenge was the only thing to give me any measure of comfort.  Yet it wasn’t only anger and sorrow that troubled me, but dread.  “Lord Mairon, what of the Maia’s prophecy to me?”

“What of it?”  Seeing that his manner was harsh and that I was wretched, he paused and spoke more softly.  “Let us speak of that after I return from Utumno.  I am in haste, and you are weary.”

I did as I was bid since there was little else to do, in fear now of death upon the road, and back at Angband I had to tell the rest of the Nauri that their brethren were dead.  I assembled them under the firs in the courtyard, and I let all sorrow flare into anger and rallied them until they were howling for the blood of the Maiar and the Eruhíni and the Valar themselves.  It was better to tell it in a rage than to give them a display of weak sorrow.  Once we’d all fumed and howled for a long time, I turned to go off by myself into the trees.  Some of the second generation of whelps trotted after me. 

“Go away.  I’ll bite your ears off.”

I must not have sounded very convincing.  They kept getting under my paws until I grumbled and flopped down on a mossy rock.  They piled on me and licked my face and recited singsong rhymes about the storm hunting the stars until we all slept.  My last waking thought was that even now none of them knew that I was actually trapped as a wolf, for I’d let them believe that I simply saw no reason to ever choose any other form around them.  It increased their pride, and made my shame less.

The six Nauri who had heard the truth uttered hadn’t lived to tell tales.  That was the best thing that came out of them dying.  Not that I was glad they were dead.

Chapter End Notes

The skirmish at Cuiviénen, seen from another character's viewpoint in a much more tedious project of mine, was what originally prompted this story.  Draugluin did his thing and left the page, and I thought, "What's up with that guy?  What's his story?"