Bound, and waiting. by Haeron

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Chapter 2

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Part Two

Gondolin, First Age, Atop Cirith Thoronath

 

‘You wait here,’ Glorfindel said fondly, it was an order under a veil of affection. His face was strained with grief and fatigue, his hair was being whipped across his face by a wind that seemed like to blow them straight off of the lofty pass through the mountain, and yet he smiled despite it all. Flakes of snow caught in his golden tresses, now tangled, and oft a flake would land upon his lashes. He looked beautiful still, even against a backdrop of everything else that had become most terrible.

 

And how strange it was to see snow after the fires of Gondolin!

 

The fires that had swallowed houses whole, belched by drakes and cruel machines of Melkor’s making. The fire had choked the breath in one’s lungs and turned the skies red, and yet now they had moved from one extreme to the next, from fire to ice. Erestor liked it not at all, for it seemed an ill omen...

 

Suddenly, he gave a dry laugh that had risen up like so much bile.

 

What more can ill omens do? What worse could happen? We have lost our home.

 

Glorfindel had been waiting on an answer and a promise, but seeing Erestor’s bark of laughter that might so easily have turned to a sob, he softened, and held him around the waist. It hurt Erestor to look up at him, his young brazen thing, his flower with whom he had danced with not a day past, with flowers in his hair and his collar shinning. He hadn’t worn it today, his golden collar, no, now he sported a bloody lip and a weeping wound upon his cheek, but it was his eyes that had suffered the greatest wound. Some of their shine had been lost, forever, perhaps. It had turned to fear now. Devastation. Guilt.

 

Erestor felt frozen. His legs were leaden, his muscles ached. A procession of Elves was behind them, each one worn and weathered, each one weeping for a hope they ought not to have clung to.

 

Cirith Thoronath, the Eagle’s Cleft, obscured the sky ahead. There was only smoke behind from the ruin of the city that none dared glance back at, and all the stars in front and above must have been hidden by the pass. Erestor met Glorfindel’s eyes, and saw his silent beseeching. There were no stars there, either, no pinpricks of light.

 

‘I’ll wait,’ Erestor said, and Glorfindel’s relief was palpable in its desperation.

 

Yet, when Glorfindel turned to assume his position again at the head of the procession and scout out the entrance to the pass interior, past a deep, dark chasm that none had been apt to approach without its prior inspection, Erestor remembered himself, and his fear came forth in a flood like meltwater. His heart skipped a beat, he darted forward to clutch at Glorfindel’s arm; his armour was smeared with blood and soot but Erestor clung to it.

 

‘No,’ he said, half a whisper, half a distraught sob. Glorfindel turned to him with a forlorn expression, bittersweet sorrow, but he said nothing. Only the wind spoke, whistling in their ears an icy tune. And his collar seemed pale, reflecting the snow. ‘No, Glorfindel, I have... I have an ill feeling,’

 

Glorfindel took Erestor’s hands in his, but Erestor felt only the touch of metal. Gauntlets were not as sweet to hold as warm hands.

 

‘So do we all, my raven, my small raven, but we must pass through it. We cannot linger here on this cliff’s pass. We must away, we must go.’ Glorfindel stressed, as though there stood a single chance of it being so simple. It bit at Erestor, a twinge of something cruel, that even after all that had happened Glorfindel yet retained some iota of the ideality that had been Gondolin’s folly, but he held his tongue.

 

They could not, after all, linger there on the cliff’s pass. Glorfindel was right about that much, and perhaps that was all he needed; a goal, something right to aim for.

 

It just seemed so empty to Erestor.

 

‘Hope, hope for me love, and wait here, just a moment.’ Glorfindel came close to whisper, hot into Erestor’s ear. ‘Hope for me,’

 

He kissed the tip of Erestor’s ear and his kiss was sweet and sad, Erestor had a wish to pull him close, to feel a heartbeat against his own and know some shadow of the hope Glorfindel needed of him, but before he could think to cast his arms about Glorfindel’s shoulders, he had already turned away. A darkness called, and he was bound to illuminate it; such was his curse, such was his duty.

 

Towards the gaping maw of the pass interior he strode, a figure in the snow, and all that happened then happened in a flash; just as the lightning devastates the ground in the space of a blink. Something stirred from within and the cave entrance turned from black to orange to red; fire! The shadow on the mountain had found them, a Balrog, and it came now from the darkness. The Elves beside Erestor stirred, some shrieked, some cursed, others prayed loud and frantic to a set of Valar that had long abandoned them. The Balrog came forth, slow, and it was made of void and rock and flame; towering, burning, striding out of the dark onto the snow that steamed under its footsteps.

 

It saw Glorfindel, armed and armoured, and bellowed.

 

The sounds was like nothing Erestor had ever heard before in his life, he could barely look at ought else, so dreadfully did he gape at the Balrog, but he heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, slowly, and knew well that metallic chime. Not ten thousand Balrogs could have chilled him more.

 

He was going to challenge it, by Eru he was going to challenge it!

 

‘No,’ Erestor whispered in terror, his eyes wide and darting from Flower to Balrog. ‘NO!’ Erestor screamed it, he screamed it so it wrenched his throat and Glorfindel heard. With a heaviness he turned around, and in that moment their eyes met Erestor knew a ghost of premonition. He knew for the first time in his life an apex terror.

 

Glorfindel smiled. He already looked beaten; bloody and tired and lost to a grief beyond the ken of anyone else. The resignation upon his face dawned on Erestor, his heart beat a thousand times off the pace, his bones shook and there was a doom that filled the cavern of his chest, pressing on his lungs until all his breaths came shallow and shaken if they even came at all. Glorfindel winked, and mouthed the word wait.

 

‘NO!’ Erestor screamed but his throat could not project the word, he gasped it, croaked it and as he made attempt to get to Glorfindel, to reach him somehow, he felt himself restrained. Without a care for who was holding him back, Erestor broke free roughly of the arms that held him - but then...

 

He found he could not run.

 

The battle began; Glorfindel’s shield only barely deflected the blow from the Balrog’s sword and he buckled under its blow. Erestor stood frozen. He felt a touch on the small of his back, but did not turn round. He did not care; a thousand arms might restrain him, a thousand more voices might counsel him to look away - he would ignore them all. There was but one set of arms he longed for, one voice he prayed to hear again.

 

And Erestor watched the battle that would become legend, sung in tones of gold and yellow and green; a merry tune, if melancholy, a tale of strength, a tale of bravery. Those songs would ever ring hollow in Erestor’s ears. The battle on the mountain was not gold or yellow or green, it was grey and white... and red.

 

Glorfindel pressed an attack, aiming low for the Balrog’s legs in attempt to topple and overcome it, but it was too large, too oppressive, and brought down its sword as he darted near. Erestor heard a yelp of pain, Glorfindel cast aside his shield with a frantic flick and for a time held his arm awkwardly. He’s broken it, Erestor knew, already he’s broken! Time and time again Glorfindel rushed the creature when opportunity presented itself after a long dance of ducking and dodging and dancing around the beast on the mountain, and time and time again the Balrog cast him down, time and time again its blade connected with Glorfindel’s body. He fell to the ground times beyond counting, sometimes with a cry, sometimes with silence.

 

But each time he would rise from the snow, blooded, with gritted teeth and a desperate ferocity only the valiant dead know.

 

Erestor watched in tears that burned beyond grief. He was held in a knowing suspense, unable to watch Glorfindel being crushed over and over but unable to look away from his heart.

 

They had planned to marry, once.

 

In summer, under the June trees.

 

Erestor exhaled a shuddering breath.

 

Glorfindel was upon his knees in the drift, his sword wrenched away from him by the whip the Balrog wielded in its left hand. A sudden finality had come over the battle, the Balrog took a step closer. Glorfindel reached for his knife-belt, he grasped a blade and lifted an arm to throw it swift and true...

 

But the whip caught his wrist, and the blade fell from his hand heavily. With a cry of pain Glorfindel clutched at his wrist after the Balrog withdrew his whip and Erestor saw he could not apply full pressure to the joint. It was his right hand: his sword hand. Erestor whispered something that was lost on the wind. He heard gasps in the crowd, he heard moans of sorrow. But Glorfindel was not cowed. With a growl of exertion, he resolved himself.

 

He was trying to stagger to his feet when the whip caught him about the neck. It cut off his scream, turned it to a grotesque choke, and forced him to his knees again. Erestor gave a start and would have tried to rush away again had not he been restrained once more. But he saw the blood seeping from beneath the whip, he saw it run down the golden plate of Glorfindel’s armour, gilded with flowers and sunbursts, watered now with blood.

 

His own blood. It fell on the snow; blood on the pale, and Erestor knew only his own heartbeat in that moment as time slowed to something awful to stretch the moment thin. He heard his breath loud in his ear, shaking with every inhalation. He saw Glorfindel’s fingers trying desperately to prise the whip from his neck; but it was no good. Spurred by panic Glorfindel dropped his hands to grasp about in the snow for the knife he had dropped, and by the grace of all the Gods, with turned backs or no, he found it. With a shaking hand, he cut the whip.

 

The balrog made a sound.

 

It was laughing.

 

Glorfindel pushed himself to his feet wearily and every fibre of Erestor’s body bade him call out for the madness to stop, for the bloodshed to end! But there was no force, not even love, that might have swayed Glorfindel from his task - and Erestor knew it all too well. Glorfindel would die for his duty.

 

He’d die for them.

 

A dry, rattling shudder seized Erestor then as he saw Glorfindel prepare for another charge; his heart wept. The Balrog waited with whip and blade, waiting for Glorfindel to steady himself and make attempt. And when he did, the Balrog barely deflected his strikes, forcing him to attack again and again and again - and each swing of the blade cost Glorfindel dear, that much was apparent. He held his blade with two hands now whereas before he had needed only one, he grunted with the exertion of its each swing. The Balrog was toying with him as a cat might goad a mouse; it was a play. Erestor felt the blow of it, blunt to his gut.

 

Nobody before had ever dared to toy with the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, none before would dare dream of goading him.

 

In that moment Erestor knew it.

 

It was over.

 

And he cursed himself a thousand times for the thought, his faithlessness almost made him retch.

 

Glorfindel’s neck was dripping with blood as though it had been cut from length to length, and he held his blade awkwardly in his right hand, switching it often to his left despite its comparative weakness. He was preparing for another charge, the Balrog let him, and as he ran he gave a bestial cry, striking at the beast with the full edge of his long blade. The Balrog teetered upon the edge of the cliff.

 

A collective gasp rose up from the Elves who watched, and when the best began to fall backwards a murmur of voices came; hope dared to open one eye.

 

But, as the creature fell - it reached out, and grasped Glorfindel’s golden mane.

 

It was going to pull him with him.

 

Just before Glorfindel fell, he met Erestor’s eyes, and there was a true and terrible terror on his golden face. He called out, he yelled in horror, and then - he simply was not there anymore, though his cry lingered on the air.

 

Still air. The snow fell silent.

 

Erestor’s scream wrent it anew. He screamed the name, Glorfindel’s name, and his world shattered in one heartbeat, his legs buckled from beneath him and he saw white, only white, everywhere... He heard his own voice loud and strange in his ears, ridden with tears and fear and horror; there were other screams now, other voices risen up, and together it all collated into a storm that hazed before Erestor’s eyes. Everything blurred, he couldn’t breathe - he couldn’t breathe! His heart felt absent his chest.

 

Someone was saying his name, over and over again and so foreign it was from the way that Glorfindel had once called him that Erestor flew into a fresh panic, his vision did not clear though he felt the snow melting into his ruined garments. Someone was calling him, someone gave him a shake by the shoulders and called him name again! But it was only when there came the distant sound of a body breaking upon the rocks below that Erestor’s haze passed.

 

He might have been sick.

 

He saw a kindly face of an old elleth, stained with tears and delicately lined. He pressed his hands to his mouth, clutching at his face. Everything was so cold... He heard it over and over somehow; Glorfindel’s body, the dullness of the sound. The Balrog’s came even worse; a smoting of rock upon rock. Birds took wing, black specks against the white of the mountain. Erestor clawed with shaking fingers at his eyes, choking for breath.

 

He’s dead, he’s dead... He’s dead!

 

Erestor’s scream rattled through Cirith Thoronath, it called the birds from their nests.