A Powerful Illusion by Himring

Chapter 4: Endings

Warnings: for lost battles.

Riding like the wind to Angband, Fingolfin slowed for a moment, remembering the words of his nephew Maedhros, who was now probably as dead as Angrod and Aegnor were. There was no way of knowing for certain.

‘We shall have to see what high courage can do, Russandol’, he muttered between his teeth and urged Rochallor on towards the Iron Gates.

***
During the battle of the Nirnaeth, as Glaurung swept those of Himring aside, Tercano, Maedhros’s standard bearer, was pierced in the eye by an orc arrow, staggered backwards and fell. Young Aphadon rushed to catch the flame-coloured banner as it threatened to sink to the ground. He barely survived half an hour to carry it. All in all, by the time Maedhros reached Mount Dolmed after his long retreat across Anfauglith, six members of Maedhros’s immediate household had died under the banner. The seventh had lost his left arm up to the elbow.

Briefly, Maedhros considered hacking the pole to pieces and burning it, ordering the banner torn to shreds. But after all, what was the standard but a stick of wood and a coloured rag? It was the commander of the army who was to blame for its defeat. And beside the immensity of loss that was the Nirnaeth, even the death of young Aphadon, consigned by his parents to Maedhros’s care because they fondly imagined that entering his service guaranteed a long and successful career, was little more than a drop in the sea.

Maedhros took a couple of steps in the dark, pressed his aching forehead against the sheer rock wall of Mount Dolmed and thought enviously, enviously of his uncle’s last ride. But such rides were not for the likes of Maedhros Feanorion. Nothing that Maedhros had done had ever caused Morgoth to stir a single step from his Iron Throne and now nothing he did ever would.

But neither could Maedhros even begin that long ride back across Anfauglith without turning back seven times—nay, seven times seven—for the sake of those who still relied on him.

***

‘Mellyrn?’, said Fingon to Haldir as he refilled the cup generously with sweet mead for him in lofty halls beyond the West. ‘Yes, they do grow over here. Or at least they did. I haven’t been that far south since…

‘You say you haven’t seen any since your arrival? But you haven’t been here very long yet, have you? Shall we go together and have a look—the day after tomorrow, perhaps?

‘But tell me, Haldir, do tell me: do hazelnuts yet grow east of the Sea?’

Chapter End Notes

Last section contains verbal allusions to the Lorien chapters in FOTR (Lord of the Rings, vol. I).