Anor and Ithil by Haeron

Chapter 3

TA2990

Glorfindel ran through the void and darkness pursued him with each faltered step, ever a cold horror at his back. He could not stop, he could not turn around; or he would be lost to somewhere worse than Mandos. Empty it was here, empty and dark.

The rain fell in an iron straight sheet. Glorfindel could not see more than a half-dozen paces before him, but he ran forwards though the grass turned to mud beneath his heels. Often he slipped, often he choked and thought never to rise again. It was a field, this forsaken place of nothingness, and an incline now he met. A hill.

And he knew he must conquer it, even though the hill seemed a meagre thing to the bare eye. Glorfindel’s muscles protested as though sundered and bruised in bloody battle and courage turned to bitterness - desperation was all that was left, threatening a metamorphosis into panic. Erestor was screaming terribly as though he might retch up his guts.

Glorfindel felt his heart seize in his chest but could not for all his strength combat the wind suddenly raised against him. He could not move himself to climb the hill, he could not return an answering yell to Erestor, for voice and breath were stolen from his lips by the gale.

He fell. The wind bit, clashed against his gilded armour as a blow from a blade and tangled his hair behind him. Glorfindel bowed his head and thought of the cold death awaiting Erestor here, in this place light had never known. He coughed. Everything was grey and fading swiftly to black and they were alone and sundered.

Run or fight? Sometimes both instincts grasp hold of a soul and moves them to weighty purpose. Doom driven, ill-fated. Glorfindel lifted his head for the wind to assault but saw then on the fringes of his perception a crumpled figure.

Screaming something awful.

He could no longer stand. Glorfindel clawed with hands and fingers and knees sore from exertion, dragging his body up the cruel hill an inch at a time. His fingers threatened to break. The mud came away in sods. Erestor was there, but he would not be able to reach him. Glorfindel would have screamed, the rain fell upon his face and there stained it with tears of some distant deity. Was it the One?

Glorfindel saw Erestor before Erestor saw him. He lay as a broken doll upon the hilltop, curled into a position of warmth and assuaged pain. But his own limbs gave way as Erestor rose to sit up. His eyes grew heavy, the rain dripped into his mouth.

Erestor met his eyes and they grew wide with fear. Erestor screamed his name with voice utterly broken.