The Songs: A Story of East Beleriand by Himring

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Chapter 2: The Chill Wind of Himring

Warnings: mental issues, illness

(with some medical hand-waving)

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Huntress shivered, drawing her cloak closer about herself. The local guide that had first led them to the hill of Himring had explained that it had been named for the almost permanent chill due to its exposure to the north winds, but, truth to tell, she had not really noticed it being all that much colder than in any of the surrounding area until just recently. But now the chill kept seeping into her bones and no cloak or scarf seemed warm enough—ever since Targlin had died.

Perhaps the others, the Noldor, were feeling colder, too. She was finding it hard to tell. They had changed since Targlin died. They spoke less to her and when they spoke among themselves, she did not always understand them. Although she found Quenya difficult to speak—she could not seem to make it sound right and there were word forms that kept defeating her—her comprehension of Quenya had been progressing in leaps and bounds, before. During their journeys of exploration and their first attempts at settlement, she and her companions had grown at ease conducting whole conversations in which everyone switched back and forth between Quenya and Sindarin. Now the others were still just as careful, or perhaps more so, to address any direct remark or comment to her in Sindarin, but their Quenya had grown more opaque and hard to follow. Or was it her hearing that was now refusing to cooperate? The liquid Quenya syllables seemed to slide away from her understanding, as if they were running through her fingers like water.

They were grieving over the death of Targlin, she was certain. Of course, they were. She felt their grief as a reproach, although nobody had said anything.

‘Look,’ she wanted to say to them. ‘I’m sorry, very sorry that Targlin got captured and changed, but not that he’s dead. He had to die! He was going straight for Maedhros’s unprotected back! I had to act to save him, hadn’t I? And, of course, you were hoping you could free Targlin somehow, if I hadn’t killed him. But do you know how many people we of the Mithrim lost, just because we found it so very hard to give up on that same hope, when they were our own who returned from the Enemy’s prisons? So, you think you could have done better? You’re deluding yourselves!’

But the fact was that nobody had reproached her or even hinted that her actions might need justifying. She had not been given an opening to say any of these things. They had all gone very quiet. They were more watchful, too, the guards on duty often joined early by those on the next shift and themselves staying a little longer when they had done their turn, peering north.  She was not sure whether she was just imagining that they were watching her, as well. She listened to snatches of Quenya conversation that eluded her, listened hard for any mention of Targlin’s name or her own, for any undertones of anger, but found she could not interpret the sound of their voices nor read their expressions.

Maedhros himself had spoken to her shortly after the event. He had thanked her very gravely and formally for her prompt action on his behalf. Then he had offered her a necklace brought all the way from Valinor as a token of his gratitude. The necklace dripped pearls--it was a magnificent thing worthy of the finest lady in Menegroth or Brithombar, even Queen Melian herself. It hung across her palm like something dead.

How much she had learnt in such a short time, she thought, sadly. When she had first walked into the Noldorin camp in Mithrim, daringly, against the explicit instructions of her elders, she might have been overwhelmed by such a gift—crafted by unimaginable arts beyond the confines of Middle-earth. Now she knew these Noldor better and saw the differences among them. There were, perhaps, Noldor that might have considered she was not worthy of such a necklace under any circumstance. Others might have thought such a masterwork of Noldorin art fitting recompense for a saved life. But Maedhros? Maedhros did not place such high value on ornaments for their own sake; he was not truly grateful for what she had done—clearly, he was merely trying to buy off any claim she might have on him. She accepted the necklace without protest nevertheless, put it away at the bottom of her pack and did not look at it again.

Narye, her oldest ally and friend among these people, who was so very Noldorin, looking others straight in the eye, without realizing when it was a flagrant breach of manners, but always keeping her hands strictly to herself, as if even the briefest of friendly touches might be rude and a transgression—Narye had come to Huntress in the dusk, not looking her in the face at all, but hugging her against her chest so that Huntress had felt Narye’s splayed fingers pressing into her shoulder blades.

‘You are misinterpreting us, our feelings and our actions,’ Narye had murmured, close to Huntress’s left ear. ‘How I wish I could explain, but, please, try to believe me, you do not understand us aright…’

Huntress had tried to believe, as she was being asked to, but Narye’s words made no sense to her. Were they intended as some kind of apology? How? What for, exactly? The formless sadness that had hung like thick fog about Huntress ever since she had killed, which had lifted briefly in the circle of Narye’s embrace, was not slow to return with redoubled force.

Huntress shivered and pulling up the hood of her cloak huddled further into the shelter of a corner, away from the north wind. It did not fully register with her, not sufficiently to take alarm as she should have, that her fingers were turning white.

 

Towards the end of the long hours of the night, Maedhros lay dreaming.  In his dream he saw all the friends and followers he had foolishly led into ambush after his father’s death emerge from the gates of Angband one by one and steadily head across the plain straight toward Himring in Targlin’s footsteps. Half waking, he reminded himself that he was responsible for any Noldo who died or was made captive in Beleriand—not only those he had personally led to disaster during his brief kingship—and with somewhat more of an effort he recalled that the scenario of his dream was not likely. His brothers had assured him repeatedly when he had asked, after his rescue from captivity, that all others except himself had been found slain in the ambush and were accounted for. They would not have concealed the truth from him, would they? Not all of them, even if they might have been tempted to do so. He had taken care to question them separately.

But his dream self was unconvinced, it seemed. As he drifted into sleep again, he slipped straight back into the same dream and again saw the column of those he had betrayed into the hands of the Enemy advancing on him.

‘You are dead, dead, dead,’ he said to them, pleading that it might be so.

But their faces remained unmoved and expressionless, as one after the other they pulled out long jagged knives and went for his throat or his eyes or his chest.

Out of the midst of his nightmare, he jerked awake as he heard Narye give a keening wail and quickly realized he had neglected the living for the dead. For away in her corner, Huntress lay white and cold and could not be woken.

 

They met to take counsel, Maedhros and Narye, Ceredir and Celvandil and Bronadui, the physician, in order to plan a course of action. They stood talking quietly amongst themselves, a little apart from the rest, in a half-built guard chamber.

‘I confess I do not understand Huntress’s condition,’ said Bronadui. ‘It is outside my experience.  It resembles, a bit, the shock that some of our people went into after Alqualonde. But the onset of that was much quicker and very obvious and those who did recover also recovered more quickly. The treatment cannot be the same. At least, anything I could have done, I would need to have done sooner. But I detected no symptoms, immediately after Targlin’s death, and did not suspect she might be sickening as slowly as she did. Now, I can do my best to keep her physically alive, but I have no idea how to wake her out of the state she is in. All the means I tried have failed. And as long as she does not wake, she will continue gradually to weaken, despite anything I can do to sustain her.’

Bronadui, it was agreed among them, was talented and open-minded, but not the House of Feanor’s most experienced physician. The latter had been sent east with Maglor and Caranthir. Maedhros had already considered getting him back while he was waiting for Bronadui’s verdict, but had concluded it did not seem promising, even apart from the fact that Maedhros was not certain of his precise location at present. Ingolmo was more experienced in some fields—highly proficient at dealing with complicated fractures, for instance—but also more likely to just throw up his hands and refuse to engage with anything entirely outside his experience than Bronadui.

‘You think this may, in some fashion, be a Sindarin thing,’ said Maedhros. Bronadui had hinted at the possibility but was clearly too cautious to say so outright, with insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis. But they could not afford to tiptoe around issues, because Huntress’s time was limited. Himring was not the Garden of Lorien where it had been possible to preserve Miriel’s body intact until everyone had quite finished their deliberations. They needed to take action and soon.

‘If we send her home to her people, they might know of a cure,’ said Narye, red-eyed.

Narye had been sitting by Huntress’s side whenever she could. She felt responsible for Huntress’s presence in Himring, Maedhros knew. The two had met at a time when Narye was at her best and, probably, her least self-conscious, smuggling supplies from the Feanorian camp to the half-starved followers of Fingolfin in secret while negotiations between Maglor and Fingolfin were dragging on. Later, Narye had clearly been taken completely by surprise when Huntress had decided to accompany the Feanorians east. It had thrown her off balance and made her uncertain in her dealings with Huntress.  

Besides, thought Maedhros, she had probably felt constrained by the memories of Alqualonde. It was a constraint he felt himself. The northern Sindar did not really resemble the Falmari that much, despite also being Teleri. And yet, while it was easy enough to wish any Sinda well, without reservations, it was more difficult, with Alqualonde and the Doom at the back of his mind, to open up enough for a close friendship. Such trust might be only one of those things they no longer deserved.

In Huntress’s case, however, Maedhros thought, Narye might be shouldering a little too much blame. Huntress was young and adventurous, and probably would have been tempted to leave her tribe and go exploring anyway, although perhaps not to live among the Dispossessed. But now Narye was the more distressed because she believed she had thoroughly failed her friend. No wonder she was readily seizing on the solution of returning Huntress back to Mithrim.

‘We cannot, at this time, send enough people with her to get her safely straight across the plain,’ said Maedhros.

‘So, we would have to send her by the route through Dorthonion,’ said Celvandil.

‘And then, when they got to Hithlum, whoever took her would still have to find her people. They move about, they might not be anywhere near the mountains or the lake,’ said Ceredir.

‘Nolofinwe will have posted some of his people in the Ered Wethrin and they would know of the movements of Sindar in their vicinity,’ said Narye.

 ‘All of that would take a dangerously long time,’ said Bronadui. ‘Although, perhaps, we might find Sindar on the way in Dorthonion, who might be able to advise us. We might even cross paths with a Sindarin healer. For I would have to go with whoever we send, if we choose to try this, to help sustain Huntress during the days of our search. But we would be staking a great deal on the Sindar being familiar with the condition that is afflicting her. We do not know this for a fact.’

‘Maybe Huntress would want to be taken home, regardless,’ said Narye sadly.

‘If we are pinning hopes on Sindarin healers of Dorthonion, not of Huntress’s own clan,’ said Celvandil, ‘how about the Sindar that live closer by? Are there no healers among them? I do not think the guide that led us here had such knowledge—he said nothing that would suggest it—but what about the rest of his people?’

‘I am not certain,’ said Maedhros. ‘But they were moving south, the last time we spoke. He said they would return, in half a year or so, but I think they would be a long way south, by this time.’

‘Makalaure’s last messenger mentioned meeting another group of Sindar on the way,’ said Ceredir, ‘Sindar that we ourselves have not encountered yet. In fact, I think—yes, I do remember he said this clan had a healer of high repute among them. They take great pride in her. But that would be almost the opposite direction, south-east, not west.’

‘He did not mention the healer to me, although he spoke of the encounter. He did not meet the main group, only a couple of their scouts. They would be about two or three days’ ride away, going by what he said.  Did you pick up any more details, hints which way to find the main group?’ asked Maedhros.

‘No,’ said Ceredir. ‘But they would be camping in a sheltered spot near water, I guess? There are not so many of those in that area, are there? Except they may have moved on since, of course.’

‘But their healer is highly reputed among Sindar?’ asked Bronadui, hopefully.

Narye, too, had begun to look a little more hopeful. Her expression lightened.

‘You think it is worth trying,’ concluded Maedhros. ‘Then I will go and fetch this healer.’

None of the others said anything, they just looked at him.

‘What? It was my life she saved after all.’

She had. And he should not have allowed her to be in the position to do so. It had been a calculated risk to turn his back on Targlin. He had counted on being faster than Targlin, and it was not that he had miscalculated—he would indeed have been fast enough—but the risk had been too high and that move could have miscarried in any of a number of ways. It was a risk that he had the right to take personally, but not as a leader that others depended on.

Huntress had been right to intervene. He had been very conscious of her as a potential back-up. That was where he had erred. He had relied too much on Sindarin pragmatism, in the matter of the returned captives, on Huntress’s independent mind, and on the fact that Huntress had never met Targlin before. He had overlooked how young she was. He should have kept her away as much as possible, like Tercano.

‘I will be going south-east,’ Maedhros pointed out to his concerned followers, ‘not north. Makalaure’s messenger did not encounter any danger from the Enemy, coming.’

‘Not alone,’ said Narye, decisively. ‘If you feel you must go yourself, take someone with you—Celvandil?’

‘Shall I get the horses?’ Celvandil asked.

And thus the decision was made.