The Shackle by Elisif

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

“It’s alright, Maitimo, I’ve got you.”

My eyes blurred with rain and tears; my arm shook slightly as I raised the dagger and brought it down hard against the hell-wrought manacle. Beyond a vile scraping noise, it accomplished nothing. Again and again, I slammed the ever duller knife against the gyve, , the blade slipping to angle sideways and crash my knuckles into the rock just blow it and beside Maitimo’s piteous wrist, my fingers and my steel both scraping against the soaked metal and catching on the scratches of runic insignia that circled it. When that didn’t work, I tried shifting my cousin’s wrist upwards within the gyve; it budged the tiniest measure, evoking a cry of pain from its pititful owner trapped below, but the only things released from Morgoth’s trap in that moment were flecks and shreds of dried, black blood that fell from the tight ring of scabs and cuts the manacle so brutally ensnared. An awful hollowness sounded with each clang of steel against steel as again I attempted the dagger until finally I miscalculated and, my hands damp with sweat and rain, I dropped it onto the torpid rocks below. The rain lashed onwards, harder and harder.

“It’s alright,” I whispered, glancing upwards at the hellish trap extending above our heads, traced my fingers up the manacle to the rusted chain and broad pin that nailed it to the sheer face of the rock. Growing desperate, I seized the broad head of the nail with both hands and scrambled my legs up the rough surface of the stone until my full weight was working and angled to draw the pin from the stone and my feet lay flat against the rockface.

The rusted head of the nail cut sharply into my palms; I fell further backwards, over and over, wresting my full bodyweight against the chain in the hope of pulling it free until at last the rain and sweat on my palms again proved too much to hang on any longer and I let go and dropped back downwards onto the boulder.

I stared at my hands. Sharp lines of crimson sliced across them, open and bleeding, the nail and chain having rendered them a bloodied mess.

“Finno…”

I wiped my hands against my tunic and took Russandol back into my arms, taking the weight from his shoulder and holding him tight against my chest as he struggled for breath, his head tilting back as he gritted his teeth against the pain.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” I said, breath hot against his cheek and blind fury awakening in me as I glanced downwards at his mangled, naked body pressed up against me. “They did worse than that to all of you.”

He looked down at himself, the filthy mat of his once glorious hair falling in front of his eyes and he whimpered; then, his eyes traced upwards to his helplessly trapped arm and mine followed.

Our eyes met.

An awful shudder coursed through him as he fell back against the rocks, shivering and trembling, panicked gulps of breath and stifled gasps of pain shuddering from his chest as resignation hit him, and in his helpless bonds, his chest twitched feebly. With a sudden howl of pain, his left arm pushed me back away from him with alarming strength, and alone he twisted and struggled like a trapped animal.

“Just do it then,” he said, gasping for breath and in stammered, desperate pain. “Just get it over with…”

His eyes opened wide.

“Kill me Finno…”

“No!”

“Please! Just do it and get it over with, they left me here to die, I can’t take it anymore! Please!”

Again he pushed me back and as though frozen and chained in an unwaking nightmare I watched he struggled and twisted, his legs kicking feebly and ribcage shuddering, helpless and naked and filthy and sobbing openly, wiping the tears from his face with his free hand. My cloak fell from his shoulders to the ledge below and he whimpered; I leapt down from the rock, snatched it up from the damp ground and wrapped it around him fully this time, holding it over his front and tucking it in around his shoulders, my right arm propping up his full, meagre bodyweight under the armpit and holding a fold of the cloak in place around the back of his neck. The gesture made him cry even harder, desperate shaking sobs against my chest as I lifted him upwards and pressed him back against the rocks, my fist clutched around a fold of cloak against his collarbone.

“I’m not giving up on you,” I said. “Do you hear me? I’m not—“

I glanced upwards.

“Maitimo, I can free you.”

“What?”

I repositioned my grip against his shoulders, tried to quell the vile mixture of horror and hope that welled up inside of me. He sniffed, did not respond as he sobbed against my shoulder. I pushed his chest back a tad, brought his face to mine, touched his cheek.

“Maitimo, I can free you, do you understand?”

“No…”

“I’m going to—“ Eru help me.

“What?”

“I can free you, alright? I’ll be fast, I promise—“

“No!“

“Only a few more minutes of pain, I promise you. It will be over, and then I can take you home, and then there’ll be a nice dry bed waiting for you with clean clothes and warm blankets and medicine for the hurt and we’ll wash your hair and your brothers will be with you, and it will be spring and there will be strawberries and warm bread and fresh milk for you to drink, alright?”

It was raining harder now, as though pacing itself with Maitimo’s tears.

Not trusting myself to say anything further, I traced my fingers up his arm to the ragged skin of his ensnared wrist, the skin just below it so bruised and shredded with cuts I barely dared to touch it.

You’ll be doing far worse than touching it in a few seconds.

I touched the green and blue mottled skin, felt for the piteously thin juncture of his hand and wrist to trace the narrow join between the angled bones. My fingers traced a thin gap between them; a tiny space but mercifully his suspension had stretched and elongated it enough for a knife to pass between the bones, I hoped.

I removed my sash, brought it up to his forearm and twisted the folded end of the fabric. Secured, I brought the now useless blunted dagger in its sheath up into the handle to use as a lever as I had seen done on the battlefield, and twisted it within the knot of yellow silk so the tourniquet squeezed and compressed his forearm mercilessly, before knotting it in place, praying it would hold.

I removed my other dagger, tested the blade with my fingertips; a drop of blood pooled, the blade mercilfully sharp. I drew a deep breath.

“Maitimo,” I stammered as I tested the angle of the dagger in my unpracticed hand. “Do you remember that thing you used to do when I was a child? Where you would tell me to list my favourite books or toys…”

So you could distract me and then rip a stocking off of a scraped knee or clean a cut with rubbing alcohol.

“Tell me things that you want. List them for me. When I get home, I want a hot bath and some fresh bread, what do you want?”

His head fell back against the rock.

“I just want it to stop hurting, I don’t know…”

He whimpered and the deathly white fingers of his bound hand flexed.

“Food. Something to eat. Anything but this. I don’t care anymore—“

I brought the dagger upwards and drew it hard through his wrist. It made a sharp cut through the paperlike skin, evoking tortured a shriek of horror from Maitimo and sending blood dripping down his arm, but beyond that It did nothing. Forcing myself to ignore his screams and continue, I brought the knife back up again, pivoted the point of the blade against the rock and with the pressure of my other hand against the handle of the blade, slammed it down hard into the crook of his wrist.

Blood shot from his arm, squirted into my face with such force I swallowed a mouthful, choked and could barely see. Blinded by sweat, blood, and tears and hearing nothing but Maitimo’s desperate, tortured screams of utter agony, I pivoted the slippery dagger into the open and wounded flesh of his wrist, again and again, each crunching thud of steel into skin evoking a cry more tortured than the last. Held up against me, he kicked, scratched fought with the rage of a dying animal. I had prayed the pivoted blows would be enough to sever it, but they were not. After several blows, the blade stayed stuck in the flesh and, vomit well and truly rushing into my mouth though I choked it down, I had no choice but to begin sawing through the ragged flesh. As the last sinews parted, he finally mercifully went limp and at last, his butchered wrist and parted below the manacle and his weight fell forwards into my arms.

The sudden silence was deathly, cold and alone and desperate. I bent his mutilated and bleeding arm over my shoulder, then leant over to half spit, half-retch a mixture of blood and bile onto the rocks below, gagging before wiping the blood and sweat from my face and turning back to Russandol and the unspeakable horror I had wrought.

Amidst the undending black and indigo of the driving storm and hellish rocks, there was a flash of cold brightness as the lightning turned the pouring rain running down his bleached, deathly cheeks to streaks of molten silver, Telperion’s shadow for the briefest moment visible amidst the horror. His head fell backwards; strands of soaked, filthy hair clung to his forehead, and as his neck lolled further against me, streaks of rain tumbled down the mess of snot, blood and tears in a wash of deathly, silent cold, mingled with the ash and muck.

Alone in the deathly silence of the storm I held him. Cold rain poured down my forehead and into my eyes; over and over, I wiped it free with the back of my free hand as I waited for him to awaken or die, whichever came first.

“Please…”

Shaking, my fingers peeled a strand of bloodied hair back from his cheek; his lips parted in a moan of pain and I held my hand over his eyes to keep out the rain running down into them, hand slippery with blood.

“Russo, wake up. Please. It’s over. I promise you.”

His eyes flickered open; for an instant, his lips parted and I brushed a smear of blood from them with my fingers. They moved to speak, but then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell limp against me again, groaning.

“It’s alright,” I said, patting his slippery, naked back as I clutched him to me. “Shh, it’s alright…”

He slipped further down against my chest; I struggled to haul him fractionally more upright, trying to gain a handhold against his buttocks, but he was so piteously thin there was nothing to hold onto. In the end, my fingers dug into and pulled him upright by the hollow below his ribcage, the ridges and patches of rough scar tissue at its base finally providing traction against the bloodied mess of his back so I did not drop him as I moved.

But at the sudden shift upwards, his butchered right arm slipped from its precariously upright position tilted against and over my shoulder to fall limply downwards at his side, and at that he screamed so loudly I almost dropped him.

“Pull it back up, pull it back up…”

Frantic, I grabbed his arm and yanked it back up over my shoulder, my left arm holding it partially upright and extended away from me. Again he screamed, tortured shrieks fit to shake the walls of the mountains, before he finally fell weightless against me as I held him up by his ribs in one hand right arm in the other.

For a few seconds he sobbed, dry lifeless heaves of desperate, unfathomable pain against my chest.

Holding his arm outstretched, my own cramped hideously, slippery with blood; there was no way I could continue in this position without dropping him.

“Russandol,” I said.

He sobbed harder. I grit my teeth as I struggled to retain my grip on his forearm.

“Russandol, I need both of my hands to keep holding you, alright? I’m going to let your arm down as gently as I possibly can, but I can’t keep holding it like this. I’m sorry.”

He whimpered.

“It’s only for a few seconds, I promise”.

As gently as I possibly could, I leant forward against him and let his arm fall over my neck and back, bending at the shoulder and elbow at last into the unfamiliar position, his bleached stammers of pain turning into drawn, voiceless screams as it settled into position and the warm blood from his arm dripped down the cold sweat and rainwater drenching my back.

“Shh, shhh…”

With a dreadful shudder of his chest and shoulders, he retched then and was sick down my back, thin vomit soaking into my sweaty shoulders and splashing against my legs. Another heave and his head tilted; with sudden realisation I jerked his arm away again, holding it in another awkward position, as he gagged.

Another scream.

“Please…” he gasped, wrenching his head back and kicking his knees upwards into my stomach, “Just stop moving my sho-houlllder, just just stop touching it!”

He screamed as he fell against me, kicking into my chest and sobbing in dry, heaving breaths.

“I’m sorry,” I said, patting his back like one might hold a newborn. The rain poured downwards over us both as he cried ever harder.

“I’m sorry I had to move it, but I can’t let you be sick on your arm, alright? We need to keep it clean—”

A groan bled from his throat; again he sobbed, eyes rolling back in his head as he went limp once more, his face a grotesque mess of snot, blood, vomit, and tears.

For all his weighing as much as a dead bird, he was still taller than me, and his knees jolted against my calves as I kept my fingertips dug below his ribs. At long last, I steadied myself and jumped down backwards from the rock with Russandol in my arms.

His long, skinny legs, dragged against the rocks as I stepped backwards, but he did not react, nor did he move them. My eyes were blurry from the rain again; it took a moment to notice that his feet were misshapen, stretched into permanent arches by his suspension and dragging lifeless against the ground as I lifted him, half-dragged, half-carried him to the rim of the ledge to wipe the sweat and tears from my eyes to search for Thorondor amid the thunderous rain-lashed abyss below. When Thorondor appeared, I scooped him upwards into my arms and up against my chest as one would cradle a child, one arm under his knees and the other supporting his limp head and neck.

“Fin…”

I planted a kiss against the sweaty strands of his hair as I scooped him up and climbed downwards onto the golden, bone expanse Thorondor’s back. With a single broad beat of his wings, the eagle soared into the thunderous sky carrying us with it and leaving Maitimo’s wretched prison far behind.

As the rain lessened and the sky lightened, in my arms, he shuddered; I tore off my shirt and wrapped it tight around the terribly bleeding, butchered stump of his arm, rendering the white shirt a lump of drenched scarlet gore within seconds, again dripping its vile warmth down my shivering back as I cradled him.

As the sky lightened with whisps of smoke-blue and cracks of amber-coloured light, I searched for my cloak and realised we had left it behind. Shivering myself and eternally grateful for fashion necessitating so many layers, I removed my surcoat and wrapped it tight around Maitimo’s body as we finally cleared the clouds and flew into the light of the Anfauglith at last.

The light of dawn in the new world brought no catharsis. In the morning light and absence of the rain, for the first time I could make out the true horror of Maitimo’s injuries and the sight was nauseating. The entire front of his body was from head to toe was sunburned crimson and ragged; you could actually make out the lines running down his sides where Arien’s burning light had ceased and scrapes from the rock had overtaken them in the prime position of torturing his skin. Whiplines and scored burns marked every inch of his skin; his back was a seeping mess of infection, leaking pus and blood into my arms; it was impossible truly to tell where one injury ended and the next began. His feet were bent into permanent arches, his right leg badly twisted from an old breakage, to say nothing of the dislocation of his shoulder, and he had wet himself from the pain; I toyed with the idea of mopping up the mess, trying to give him back even the merest scrap of dignity, but decided it would not to further dirty the surcoat, in case I needed it sterile to bind his arm with later on. Tucked around his chest, his hips protruded sharply enough to keep the blood-soaked cloth off of his groin, as I cradled him, the blood dribbling down my chest from where his arm hung over my shoulder, the right now.

“Shh, shhh…”

Waveringly his lips parted and another groan escaped them. I held him still tighter.

“Finn…”

“Hush Russo, you’re safe now. Angband is behind us. Can you feel the wind on your face?”

He moaned, struggled against me.

“Hurts, hurts…”

“Hush now. It’s alright. You’re safe now.”

With a corner of my tunic I attempted to mop some of the blood and tears from his face, staining the yellow silk red.

“Shh, shh…”

The iron mountains fell behind us; the smell of pines and mist-cold clouds overtook us.

“It’s alright Maitimo, I’ve got you.”