Atanatari: Of the Three Houses of the Edain by Himring

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Your News is All of Woe

Beleg brings news of the lost battle to the Haladin.

Featuring Gloredhel, Beldis and Handir.

Rating: Teens (warnings for themes of deep mourning and references to multiple canonical character death)

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Beleg halted among the trees, where he could watch the settlement unseen for a moment. But nothing was to be gained by waiting—if he was the first to bring the bad news, then he was over-late, and if anyone had been ahead of him, if anyone had been ahead of him… But there were no men of fighting age about that he could see, only boys and an old man on a crutch.

He stepped out into the clearing and, almost immediately, the settlement became alert. A boy whipped up his bow to threaten the intruder and lowered it again, having recognized him or, at any rate, identified him as an elf.

Among the others a murmur went up.

‘Beleg. It’s Beleg…’

Farther back, a flurry of suppressed exclamations, the sound of running footsteps…  He was barely in among the first houses, when Gloredhel came rushing out along the street to meet him. Two paces away in front of him she stopped. Her mouth worked soundlessly, as she tried to read his face.

‘Nobody has been here before me?’ he asked, hoping against hope.

She shook her head, golden hair flying.

‘The messenger you sent to Nargothrond—he stopped at Larnach’s holding on the way to leave a warning. As you had instructed him, I think? He said the battle had been lost…’

Her voice failed.

She gathered herself and resumed: ‘He said to let us know that the battle was lost and we should look to our defence and our borders. That is the news we had.’

Now, it seemed she could read his face too clearly.

‘They are not coming back, are they? None of them are coming back!’

Her cry rang out in the silence.

Behind her a woman gave a sob, quickly stifled.

Beleg shook his head, half in agreement, half in denial.

Gloredhel whispered: ‘We have been waiting…’

‘I was delayed,’ said Beleg. His lips and tongue seemed stiff, as if frozen, hard to move. ‘I had a badly wounded companion to slow me down and to take care of. And I had to alert the Marchwardens, find messengers…’

‘Tell me now,’ said Gloredhel.

‘I am not certain. It was difficult to be entirely certain of anything, in that battle!’ said Beleg. ‘We were not stationed far from each other at first, but we quickly got separated. Our allies coming from the east were delayed and our forces on the western front were drawn out too early. Fingon carried the assault to the Gates of Angband, but was beaten back. Haldir and his men were in the rear-guard in that retreat. I heard that Haldir himself fell there and many with him. This much is known. Then we were reinforced and the tide of battle seemed to turn again in our favour but soon even worse befell us.  We were divided and driven away southward with Turgon. I do not know who of the others might have survived, then. Not Fingon, nor any who were with him by the end—but perhaps one or two, if they were scattered before…  If they escaped into the mountains, they might have survived, perhaps. They might take a long time to make it home.’

He paused and added reluctantly: ‘But not Haldir.’

‘I see,’ said Gloredhel, and she who had been so tall and golden, sagged a little and her radiance was dimmed. Beleg was reminded that she was no longer young, as Men counted.

Her son, Handir, stepped up beside her. Beldis, his wife, appeared on the other side, to her left, flanking her protectively.

But it was Gloredhel who went on questioning him: ‘None escaped south with you and Turgon? What of my nephews? What of Dor-lomin?’

Beleg shook his head. He could not look at her, not any longer.

‘If there were any Haladin with Turgon, I saw none. But if there were, they would not have escaped that way, they would have remained with Hurin and Huor. For your nephews stood and died in Serech, and all those who were with them, all of Dor-lomin, by their own choice, so that Turgon and his army might escape…’

Beldis grabbed Gloredhel’s arm. Gloredhel had swayed only briefly and was now upright again, but Beldis kept her hand steadily, firmly under her elbow, even though she was a whole head shorter than Gloredhel.

‘I thank you for your news, bitter as it is,’ said Handir.

‘How I wish it had been better!’ answered Beleg.

‘Will you not come and enter our house?’ asked Beldis, without letting go of Gloredhel. ‘We have offered you nothing in the way of hospitality yet.’

‘Ill news makes an ill guest,’ said Beleg. ‘Shall I not leave you to your grief and come another time?’

‘Please stay,’ said Handir. ‘For I would still have your counsel, even in these dark days, as my father did and my grandfather before him. And maybe, also, there is still a little more you can tell me of my father’s last days and of my foster brothers.’

Beleg made himself look at Gloredhel again. Her gaze went past him, but Beldis gave her arm a gentle squeeze. It brought her back, a little.

Seventeen years ago, when the Siege of Angband was broken, there had been fear and danger and bereavement, too, but Beleg had seen Gloredhel endure unbowed. Now she was a widow, her beloved husband dead, his people reduced to a mere threatened remnant, her own home and family gone, fallen to the enemy.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

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Chapter End Notes

This scene grew out of "Namesakes", which features Beleg and Haldir before the Battle. I felt it would be better not to include it in that story and took it out, but decided to finish and post it separately.

Canonically, Gloredhel died of grief.
In my story about Brandir, "A Hard Time for Healing", I suggest that conditions among the Haladin after the loss of the battle may perhaps not have helped, either. (Brandir is her grandson.)

Hurin and Huor are both Gloredhel's nephews and her foster-sons.
I'm reading canon as implying that Handir had not been at the Nirnaeth, remaining behind as his father's heir, and survived because of this. But the wording is not unambiguous.

The title is a quotation from "The Two Towers". The proverb used by Beleg is a variation on a Rohirric proverb quoted in that volume.