Rise Up With Fists by Agelast

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Chapter 2

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Time grew short.

For the first time, Beleg found himself counting the seasons, the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, instead of being content to them slip past him in a stream of continuous days, when he was happy to do his duty, and expect nothing more.

He had been content, but now he was no longer so. Unhappiness, too, was a new emotion, a sharp edge that intruded into his thoughts, arrows that always found their mark.

And it was Túrin who was the source of Beleg’s unhappiness.

Beleg had never met a more maddening fellow, quick to be offended, keeping his grudges close to his heart, closer, even than his loves. He had grown, oh yes, he had grown up quickly, right before Beleg’s eyes. Or rather, Beleg had left him in the spring a shy and awkward boy and had come back in the fall to a sullen and strange man. Was that how mortality worked, to steal time, such as it was, and change the face of one he thought he had known so completely?

For Túrin had become very difficult to know. Sometimes he looked at Beleg as if he nursed a great grudge against him, though Beleg could not imagine what that could be.

Impatient, Beleg left Túrin to be a wounded soul, and turned back to his duties, which had not changed.

And it was his duties that forced Túrin back into Beleg’s orbit, when the young man presented himself to Beleg on stormy autumn day, at the edges of the Marches. He was mixed in with a with a group of new recruits; most were at their first century mark.

Túrin was seventeen.

***

“What in Badhron are you doing here?” Beleg hissed quietly at him, as the night cracked open and rain, cold and steady, poured itself onto their heads and soaked into their clothes. Túrin blinked and blew out a mouthful of rainwater, which just missed Beleg’s shoulder. He had expected, perhaps, a more cordial welcome.

A frown, by now a familiar expression on his face, settled on on his handsome and well-shaped features.

The brat, the least he could do was be a little less comely,Beleg thought sourly. Just as quickly, embarrassment washed over him and Beleg looked away for a moment, to get a hold of his emotions.

Túrin of course, did not notice his distress. “My foster-father felt it best that I should have some experience in the field, and I agreed with him,” he drawled, with a bored look that was as unconvincing as it could be. “After all, I cannot endlessly hack at some straw-stuffed dummy and think myself a great warrior.”

“No. Thingol does not think like that,” Beleg said bluntly, and Túrin blinked in surprise.

Then Túrin smiled, a flash of sweetness that was gone in an instant. “Perhaps I had a hand in convincing him -- a little.”

Beleg shook his head. He had work to do; he was not here to nurse Thingol’s fosterling. He said, his tone clipped, “Well, look after yourself. If you are killed, much goes to ruin.”

“I will,” Túrin said, though by that time, Beleg had already turned aside.

***

And Túrin did prove himself adept at keeping alive, and indeed, killing orcs. He gained the respect of those he served with, though not always their love. He kept himself apart, and took no part in what festivities and rituals they had, in the rough frontiers that was their home.

***

It was a dangerous, isolated kind of life, and whatever company was afforded to the men stationed on the marches was a welcome one. It in this spirit that Beleg welcomed Mablung to his perch high atop a tree, one hazy evening in late autumn. The weather was turning cold, but there was not yet snow upon the ground, and there were reports of an usually large band of orcs that had strayed -- or perhaps were commanded? -- into the woods. Beleg was there to relieve Mablung, who had not see the inside of his bedroll in many a long night. Beleg clasped his friend’s hand to his chest, gladly.

“Well met, Heavy Hand! I was beginning to forget the lines on your face.” Beleg sobered a little and continued on. “It has been too long.”

Mablung raised a weary brow and nodded. Beleg was not given to many words himself, but compared to Mablung, he was a veritable babbling brook.

“Have you seen much in the way of action here?” Beleg leaned heavily on the branch he stood on, testing its strength against his weight.

“Nothing,” Mablung said. Then, “But I dislike this stillness.”

“Indeed.” Beleg’s sharp eyes pierced through the gloom of the evening to catch a slight stir in the trees far ahead of them. He nudged Mablung, but his companion had sighted the disturbance as soon as he had, and they tensed, bows out, their arrows notched, ready for what would happen next.

What did happen next was that Túrin crashed through the woods, even more loudly than his usual wont. Beleg could not suppress a groan. He whispered, loud enough for Mablung to hear, “I thought I taught him better than that.” Mablung gave him a brief look, before Túrin ceased his ungainly progress in the clearing near their tree.

His voice was wavering and uncertain as he said, “Cúthalion?”

Both Beleg and Mablung were beside him in an instant. Beleg began to check the boy for injuries, and sure enough, there was a wet patch of blood on his side. Beleg gave a soft curse, and Mablung gestured to their left. Others were approaching, and by their noise, they were not of elvenkind.

They melted into the shadows of the trees as best they could, their weapons out.

“Túrin, what has happened?” Beleg was careful not to let his voice shake. To show more concern would only alarm the boy, he reasoned.

Túrin should his head and seemed to retreat into himself. “I thought I could --”

“You went patrolling by yourself when you knew --”

“Beleg, I did find them --”

“At what cost? You’re injured, you will not about able to fight!”

“And I can fight!”

Mablung’s voice, quiet and authoritative, cut through their arguments. “Good. Because they’re coming.”

And so they were. The group of orcs Túrin had found burst through into the clearing, stamping down grasses with their hobnailed boots, slashing at the trees. Mablung and Beleg’s arrows took care the first wave and the second, but soon they were surrounded, every side by knotted arms and scaly feet, faces that were the stuff of nightmares. Túrin rushed at them with his sword, stabbed and parried, until the blade turned black with orc’s blood. But still they came and came.

Mablung, Beleg and Túrin were soon separated, and for a while, Beleg was too absorbed by his own fight for survival to think too much about how Túrin was getting on. Mablung, he knew, could be trusted take care of himself.

He heard a shout, Túrin’s voice, and Beleg turned, convinced that the worst had happened.

An orc with a dented skull rushed at him, ax raised over its head. Beleg, with a brief apology to Belthronding, used his bow to make another dent in the creature’s skull. It went down with a groan, and a quick knife to the heart finished the job. And so it went on, until all the orcs were dead.

Beleg was desperate now, pulling the fallen bodies of the orcs away, looking for Túrin. But he found Túrin not there, but leaning against a tree, patch of red smeared across his chest, his face chalk-pale. Silently, Beleg caught him and held him, careful not to exacerbate his injuries as he slumped against his shoulder.

“We fight well together, don’t we?” Túrin’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Beleg said, his heart in his throat. “We have many more to come.”

Túrin smiled.

***

Beleg came into healer’s hut to see Túrin awake and quizzing Sirveth, one of the apprentice healers assigned to the lodge. She said, impatiently, “We thought it was best to give you a healing draught as soon as we knew that your wound wasn’t poisoned. You’ve been sleeping for a day, no more.”

Túrin groaned. “It feels as though my side is on fire.” He eyed Sirveth suspiciously. “It’s not because of one of your concoctions, was it?”

Sirveth turned pink and said, rather haughtily, that the burning would subside shortly, and that he ought not move if he wanted to heal quicker.

“It was one of mine,” Beleg said. “I hope you have no objections?”

Sirveth turned to leave, and when she was behind Beleg, she stuck out her tongue at Túrin and then hurried away. Túrin’s own tongue stole half-way out before he realized how foolish he must look to Beleg, who, indeed, was giving him a politely inquiring look.

“She is a very able healer,” Beleg said, once Sirveth had left. “And has a dab hand with the bow.”

“Yes, I know. But some of her draughts are not exactly calibrated for the mortal palate,” Túrin said.

Beleg came and sat next to him, the straw mattress barely dipping down under his weight. He put a cool, dry hand on Túrin’s forehead. “I have made sure it was appropriate for you; the Woodsmen of Brethil use it quite often. I learned it when...” He trailed off, and looked at Túrin with concern. “Túrin, what’s wrong? You looked like you’ve swallowed a snake.”

“I -- nothing. Beleg, tell me what has happened in the last few days.”

And Beleg told him what he needed to know, all the while pulling Túrin back under the covers. He closed his eyes, and for a moment looked very tired.

“You must have something to eat,” Beleg said and Túrin moaned in protest, though his stomach growled, as if on cue.

And indeed, Túrin proved to be hungry. He crammed in a piece of bread into his mouth, and had hardly swallowed it before he snatched the bowl of soup from Beleg’s hands. He did not look up until there was nothing left to eat, and then he looked sadly at Beleg, and offered up his empty soup bowl to him.

Túrin said, earnestly, “May I have some more?”

The corners of Beleg’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Of course,” he said, taking the bowl. And on impulse, he ruffled Túrin’s thick, dark hair, over the young man’s protests. Túrin settled back into his bed, and glared at Beleg.

“You still treat me like a child,” he said.

Beleg’s smile slipped from his face, and was replaced by a more pensive expression.

“You are still a child, even by the accounting of your own people. I do not hold you by the standards of mine, for then you would be appallingly young.”

“There are Men who are my age -- younger, even -- who have wives, and children. Perhaps I --”

“Túrin,” Beleg said seriously, “are you trying to tell me that you have a secret family somewhere? What would your mother think?”

Túrin made a disgusted noise. “I don’t know why I must bear the brunt of your so-called humor. Mablung says you used to go for years without speaking to anyone at all. I suppose you tried your jokes on the trees then. Not that they answered back.”

Beleg laughed and shook his head. “You’d be surprised.”

***

Túrin stirred in his sleep and said, “Beleg.”

Beleg sat up from his chair next to Túrin’s bed, alert all at once. “What is it?”

“I want to stay here, and learn from you -- properly. Please don’t send me away. I do have my foster-father’s blessing in this.” Beleg rose and went over to the fire, which was now only a bank of hot coals. He added more logs to it, until it came roaring back to life. Then he turned his attention back to Túrin, who seemed to him to look more careworn now than he had in the first few days after his arrival from Menegroth.

That, no doubt, was mostly due to his injury, but Beleg thought, how quickly it starts! Once he was a child, and then in a blink of an eye, he is a youth, another and he is a man.

He is dying with every second that he breathes.

For the first time, Beleg could comprehend clearly Lúthien’s actions. She could not take away Beren’s mortality from him, for it was a part of him as much as was his body, his mind, his heart. Those were the things she loved. Instead, she had sought to share it, and perhaps lessen the bitterness of their inevitable parting.

Beleg could not do that; he had no Silmaril to bargain with, no song that could sway inexorable fate. This day, this moment, was the only time they had. He put a cautious hand on Túrin’s cheek and the young man closed his eyes, and appeared to fall asleep.

But as Beleg pulled away, Túrin said, “Do you ever think of it?”

Beleg was startled. Could Túrin read him that easily? “Think of what?”

“The battle.”

“Ah,” Beleg said. There was no need to clarify which battle, though he had been in many.

“Yes, I often do.” Now Beleg grew remote, pulled back into a memory that took up all his thought, his attention. The sounds, the sights, were too much, and he blinked, and looked back at Túrin, suddenly understanding.

“You wish speak of your father?”

Not Thingol, but Húrin, steadfast to the last, and long-lost.

Túrin nodded. “There are not many here who knew him.”

“But I did not know him,” Beleg said, gently.

“And I know that. But -- you saw -- his greatest hour,” Túrin said awkwardly, a dull blush clouding his fine features.

Mechanically, Beleg observed that Mablung too had had that honor.

Túrin nodded. “Mablung is very good, but you -- you are different and closer to my heart. As I am to yours. Or am I mistaken?”

“No,” Beleg said, after a long pause. “No, Túrin, you are not mistaken.”

I will lose him, through war or injury, or time. I will lose him and think of him still when his bones have crumbled into dust.

So be it.

Beleg straightened his spine and tried to conjure up the image of Húrin, and the brief days before the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. Days full of fervor, bright, hard optimism and a dreadful fear of failure, unspoken by all and felt by all -- that proved all too justified.

And the battle itself...

Túrin’s eyes brightened as Beleg described it, though he must have heard all the stories before. Neither of them faltered at the scenes of blood and violence that swam before them, conjured up by Beleg’s words. There was Húrin, alone, and with his brother slain before him. He was defiant to the end, and his voice echoed, phantom-like, in their little room.

Day shall come again!

Túrin’s face was wet with tears. He only said, “It will, it will.”

Beleg bowed his head. He could not speak.