Rian's Only Metal Hit by Elwin Fortuna

Rian's Only Metal Hit

"Another poem about flowers, Rian?" Morwen's tone is scornful and Rian withers under it, snatching back the paper she'd been holding out hopefully.

"I'm working on a song about the fallen High King," she says, "of whom the Elves make no songs."

Morwen raises an eyebrow and says, "now, that's more like it." Turin cries out, and Morwen turns to lift him up into her arms, over the crest of her belly which is just beginning to swell with her second child.

Rian smiles to herself and hums very softly: "star in the night, a bearer of hope...."

----

She finishes the song just as Hurin returns from a meeting with the King at Barad Eithel. That night feels like a celebration, so many men back home again, and there's a call for music at one point. Before any of the other harpers can respond, Rian finds herself stepping to a place by the fire, harp in her hands.

Nervous for a brief fluttering moment, she begins to sing, and everything except the beauty of the song and the expectant faces around her falls away.

Light fails at dawn
The Moon is gone
And deadly the night reigns....

When the song ends, there's a brief pause where no one even breathes, and then wild applause and shouts of 'More! More!' from the circle. Rian smiles, gently.

"That's all I have," she says, her nerves returning suddenly. "Let someone else play now." She moves away from the immediate circle of the fire, to find herself just in front of Hurin, who grins and tosses back his golden hair.

"That was a worthy song, little Rian, not so very little anymore," he says, and she smiles back. "Was it not fair indeed?" He turns to his brother, equally as golden but less effusive, behind him.

Huor looks at Rian intensely. "It was very fair," he says, and there is that in his tone which makes her think he means more than just the song.

Rian blushes fiercely.

----

"Rian! We must have Rian!" She can hear the shouts from the assembled men and makes her way quickly to the front, harp in hand. Her husband, her Huor, smiles up at her from the group. They will be leaving in the morning, for war, for what all of them hope will be the final battle against their Black Foe.

She knows what song they want, but asks the crowd anyway.

"The Fall of the High King!" resounds like a chorus itself, and when she sings "Proudly the high lord challenges doom," the whole crowd sings the next line with her. "Lord of slaves, he cries!" and the hills echo with it like a challenge to the darkness.

----

For what I became a king of the lost?
Barren and lifeless the land lies....

Her voice is broken, rough with pain, and her head is swimming with grief and sickness. All around her is death; rotting, bloated faces of Men and Elves, blood-stained carrion fodder. She has travelled here, feet bleeding, hair matted, barely eating, hardly sleeping, to see it for herself, and now that she is here, she can only sing one last song of defiance, before she lies down to die.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches movement, a figure all in black, tall and powerful beyond measure. In sudden fear, she stands, and looks to face it.

Morgoth stands before her, on top of the mound itself. There is a figure beside him, and Rian looks up, eyes blurring, to see Hurin, face pale, hair that was once golden and full partly torn out and ragged. He has been tortured, starved, beaten.

"Rian! No!" he says before either of them can think, and Morgoth turns to him.

"You know this woman?" he says, voice full of scorn for both of them.

But Rian is recovering her strength, mastering her fear, and tosses back the mats of her hair, laughing. Her hand finds the metal edge of an broken arrow in the mound and she eases it upward, holding it against her ragged skirts so it will not show.

"Lord of slaves!" she cries. "Now it's me or you!"

Morgoth makes as though he is going to laugh, but stops, suddenly. "You would challenge me, mortal woman?"

She sings, brightly, loudly: I dare you! Come out! You coward!" and Hurin catches her eye, and he has a sudden swift smile on his face.

Morgoth actually makes his way down the slope to her, and she laughs, a high fey laugh, as she finds she cannot move from the spot while his eyes are on her. "I could crush you easily," he says.

"Then do it," she says. "For I have heard that you are craven and cowardly. And also that you limp." Her voice returns to song. "Most proud and most valiant, his spirit survives!"

He seizes her. "You shall die even as he did, under my feet." He throws her to the ground, and as his foot descends, she brings the sharp edge of the arrow up.

It does not save her, but she dies laughing as he shouts in pain.