Shadows of Old Heroes by bunn

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

They had killed werewolves already on this patrol, and now they set up the banners again as the day faded, their bright colours in the firelight a lure and goad to any of Morgoth’s creatures walking in Ossiriand.

The night went on, quiet, the horses shifting a little, the guards walking from time to time around the fire on the hilltop. Elrond sat with his head on his knees, at least half-asleep. At last there was a shift, almost imperceptible, a change of air that meant, high above the reek, the dawn was coming.

Something else had come with it. Darker than the darkness, cold, silent, it was watching them. Fëanor’s spirit moved silently across the hill, wondering whether to leave the hilltop to confront it.

None of the Elves on the hilltop had seen it yet, though from their sudden tension, it was clear that they could feel something on the lower slopes. Fëanor looked at Maedhros, and found Maedhros looking back, his eyes catching the firelight.

“What do you think it is?” Maglor asked his brother, quietly.

“Only one of the dead, I think. One of Sauron’s servants, perhaps.” Maglor reached for the harp, which was usually the quickest way to send the dead, ensorcelled things that roamed Beleriand away, but Maedhros raised a hand. “Wait,” he said. “It is alone. Let us see if there is anything we can learn from it.”

He went down the hill a few paces, sword drawn. Behind him, Elrond got to his feet, and Maglor held the harp ready as the other Noldor stood alert, swords in their hands.

Fëanor could see it well enough. It had been an elf, once, before it had died. One of those who had never seen the light of the Trees, for its spirit was shadowy, but it was also wrapped around with the darker stain of Morgoth. It had been one with a great power: a king, very likely. It stood there, dark against the night, wearing only heavy chains that looked more or less like iron. But looking at them closely, Fëanor could see that they had been forged from shadow and dark word and deed, and held in place with runes. He was sickened to see that the runes were of his own design.

The chains held the spirit, agonisingly, partly in the living world. It could move, but only as the master of its chains allowed it.

Maedhros stopped well before he reached it, and said a word of protection, which echoed uncomfortably through the hillside, jarring Fëanor backwards.

“Why are you here?” Maedhros asked it.

His voice gave it power, Fëanor saw, uneasily. It swayed forward a little and spoke, not mind to mind but with a voice of breath and sound that it stole from Maedhros.

“Why here, why are you here...” it said, and Maedhros stepped back from the darkness and the misery carried in the echo of his own voice.

“Who is your master? Who commands you? Morgoth, or Gorthaur the cruel? Is he here?”

“Master commands you. My master. Gorthaur.” It hissed the name as if saying it was painful.

“Go!” Maedhros told it, putting strength into his voice, but it took his art, and threw it back at him, beginning to form its own words in Maedhros’s voice now.

“Go! Here is mine. You shall not be here. Here is mine .”

Maedhros frowned at it. “Who are you? What is your name?” He gave it an inflection that should have commanded obedience, but it had no effect.

“You shall go from here. Here is mine,” it repeated, and its voice was like the creaking of a great tree bending in a storm.

“We shall not,” Maedhros said steadily. “This is not your land. This is Ossiriand of the green-elves, under the protection of the Sons of Fëanor and the children of Lúthien of Doriath, and you shall not have it. ”

“Ossiriand,” it said, and there was a note of longing in its stolen voice that was terrible to hear. “Ossiriand is mine.” Behind it in the dark, there was the sound of wind in trees.

“No!” Maedhros said, and said a word of command. It rocked backwards, but the chains took the impact and it came on.

Fëanor moved in front of his son and struck at it with his sword. The chains rang. If he had had time, he might have analysed that note and found the key to the runes that held the chains in place and anchored the spirit in the world, but there was no time. It struck at him with the shackle on its wrist, and there was a strength behind the blow that pushed him back. No dead spirit alone should command such power. It was calling on something else.

Fëanor’s attack had given Maedhros time to retreat back up the hill to the fire. Maglor had begun to make the song that should have sent a dead spirit wandering away confused and lost. It had no effect.

Behind it, Fëanor’s keen sight could see shadowy trees moving, their nearer branches illuminated by the fire, twisted and clawlike, hooked against the dark sky. Darkness ran between them, and they whispered in their own language words that Fëanor could not understand, but he could feel the hatred in them: hatred for fire, for steel blades and all things that were not trees.

The Noldor had torches blazing now, and made a ring of fire on the hilltop, their bare swords shining. Maedhros, standing by the fire, was clearly considering setting fire in the approaching trees. It would be difficult to do, for the trees were elms, imbued with the essence of water, and they would resist flame with all their being. And even if he could, would the walking trees flee fire, or would they continue their attack, blazing?

Maglor changed his song. He was calling to the trees now, singing to them of summers of sleep; green leaves under blue skies. Their creaking, clawing advance slowed, but the dead king walked on up the hill in his chains.

Then Elrond’s voice called out, in the Sindarin of Doriath: “Be still!”

There was a power in the words that shook the hillside, and sent the fire flaming high. It echoed through the woods. And the dead king and the walking trees were still.

The light was growing. Although the sky overhead was still dark, along the line of the mountains, a thin line of brilliant red light outlined the peaks, brightening moment by moment to a clear gold. Maglor’s harp sang through the sudden stillness, telling of bright dew on shining leaves in the silent morning of the world.

The dead king turned his head, as if he had heard a call from behind him, and then, without any visible movement, he was not there any more.

Quietly, Elrond crumpled forward, and it was only because Telutan caught him that he did not fall into the fire.

* * * * *

 

Elrond lay as if stunned until midday. As soon as he had opened his eyes and had managed to sit up, Maedhros gave the order to move again.

“The trees may be sleeping, but we cannot wait for nightfall here. We’ll move towards the mountains. Eärrindë, you are lightest. You must ride double with Elrond and make sure he does not fall.”

 

Elrond was very pale. “I can ride on my own,” he said.

Maedhros looked at him carefully for a moment, and shook his head. “No. We need to move at least three leagues before the light goes, and we may come under attack again. You are weary now: you will be spent by the time we can stop again. ”

“Come,” Eärrindë said, offering him a hand to help Elrond to his feet, and then steadying him as he staggered. “I cannot do what you did. Let me help.”

* * * * *

 

Up in the foothills of the Ered Luin, the river Legolin was a narrow strip of silver, set about with rocks and gravel, but shallow and easily forded. They crossed the running water, and made a camp high on the western slope between Legolin and the first of the steep streams that ran down to join the young Brilthor, among the birch trees. They did not set out banners this time, and although they risked a fire, for the nights were still cold here so high in the hills, they built it in a shallow dell among rocks where the light would not show far afield. Elrond huddled in a blanket near the fire and fell asleep almost as soon as he had eaten a bite and drunk a cup of water.

“Will he be all right?” Eärrindë asked Maglor quietly.

“I hope so,” Maglor told her, distressed. “I hope it is only that he has overreached his strength and needs to sleep. But who knows? He is not like us. There is a part of him that is frail and mortal, a part that is Eldar, and another part that is made of song and wears his body only as we wear clothes! His parents must know how to balance those unlike elements, but I don’t. And I don’t know how I could tell Elros...”

“Stop fretting. You are almost as tired as he is,” Maedhros told him. “So am I. That chained thing was strong.”

“It listened to him, ” Eärrindë observed.

“Yes. I think I can guess a name for it, from that. I think it may be the Green-elf king, the one who died at Amon Ereb, before the sun rose. Denethor, the songs call him, don’t they?”

“Yes. Denethor, son of Lenwë, only king of the Laiquendi: they never chose another... You think it listened to Elrond as Thingol’s heir then?” Maglor asked “Denethor was under Thingol’s protection.”

“Denethor owed Thingol allegiance, for what good it did him... If that was Denethor, then he must have been trapped before he could flee to the halls of Mandos.” Maedhros put his hand inside the armour at his neck, and eased it where it weighed on his shoulder. “But it did obey. There is still something left that remembers. Perhaps Sauron had to leave something of what he was, so that it would be able to call on the strength of Ossiriand.”

“That is how it called the trees.” Maglor said, making a face as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “If Sauron has held him all these years... The poor wretch.”

“Yes. Rest,” Maedhros told him. “I’ll wake you at midnight.”

“Should you not sleep too, my lord?” Eärrindë asked Maedhros cautiously. “We have never been attacked this high up in the hills.”

“Later,” Maedhros said. “I have something I need to do first.” He stood, and went to speak quietly to several of the Noldor, rearranging the watches so that there would be several in each watch old enough that they had followed Fëanor from Valinor, and still held the memory of the light of the Trees in their eyes. It gave them an advantage over the younger ones, when it came to dealing with the dead.

Then Maedhros walked away from the fire, away from the cautious watchers sitting with weapons to hand, and those whose turn it was to sleep, and slipped behind a rock. He turned to his father and looked straight at him.

“Father,” he said, and his face was very grim.

Maedhros, Fëanor replied, opening his mind so that his son could hear him. It was a risk, of course, but they were far from Angband. Maedhros had not opened his mind to his father, and although that might have been caution, Fëanor knew that it was not only that. Is this wise? The living should not speak with the dead.

Maedhros said bitterly “I had to give up doing what seemed wise, or just, or fair, long ago. Now I do what I must. I’d ask you not to speak with Maglor though, if I thought you’d listen.”

I did not speak with you, Fëanor said, amused at this lack of logic from his eldest son. It was, he found, very pleasant to be spoken to, and to speak back, despite the lack of warmth in Maedhros’s voice. It was lonely, being dead, and moving unspeaking and unseen among the living.

“All the same, if I must turn to necromancy, I’d prefer he didn’t follow.”

Necromancy?

“Well, what else is it? Sauron would be proud of me. But I have no choice.” Maedhros’s voice was so miserable that Fëanor could not be angry with him, not while he was running his fingers around the cuff of his metal hand. If Fëanor had only been swifter, or more resolute about Thangorodrim... But he had not been. And now of all his sons, only two were left. Even to avenge his own father and Morgoth’s theft, Fëanor thought, even in the heart of his anger and grief, he should not have left Maedhros to suffer on the mountain. If he had thought harder on it, he would have found a way; Fingon had. And now the anger was burned almost to ash, and nothing was left but the grief.

Maglor does not see me, Fëanor reassured his son. His eyes move past me. I do not think he wishes to see, and I am not sure if he could, even if he would. But I promise I will not speak with him.

“Good.” Maedhros rubbed at his eyes. “I need your help with this dead king of Green-elves, father. He has no form, so cannot be killed. The strength to banish him is not in me, or in Maglor, not with the power of the land behind him and a Necromancer holding his chains.”

Nor is there such strength in me. You saw me strike at him, and how little effect it had.

“I don’t expect you to drive him off, but you can aid me. I have no-one left here with the skill to break the runes that make the chains, not without touching them. If you can find a way to do that, I think Elrond can send him home.”

You’d set the boy against him again? You think he has that strength?

“I’d not set him against a creature that has Sauron’s power to call on — of course not! Elrond is not Lúthien. But loose the chains, and that poor creature is only a dead king of the Moriquendi, no matter what has been done to him. Even in enchanted chains, Elrond could hold him in place until his master called him back, and without them... Elrond will want to free him.  It would take a weapon from our Enemy, and I believe it can be done.”

Let me consider.

Fëanor walked back in memory, to look at the dead spirit, and the runes upon its chains. It was a fascinating problem. The runes had been set by a master and made words in a language that he did not know. It offended him, both in its structure, and in its existence.

He considered the note that had rung out from the chains as he had struck them, and ran through the runes again. They reminded him of the cords that had held him while Fingolfin had fought. They had in some ways functioned similarly, and he had spent considerable time considering them, ensuring that he could not be so easily held again.

Ah, there it was. The master-word was set on the collar around the dead king’s neck. It was cunningly wrought, with no loose ends that could be unwound, no levers that could be turned without a key... unless...

Of course. How foolish! To make something so polished, yet with such a weakness!

Perhaps the chains had been made first and only later had their master chosen who was to wear them. Surely he would not have made such a mistake if all the task had been done in one. Who had the chains been made for? Fëanor wondered, suddenly, if they had been made for him. If he had not broken free from Morgoth’s servant...

But no, they would not have held him. Sauron had over-refined his design, had added flourishes of malice, small barbs to torment the wearer of the chains. That had left the spell open to be its own undoing. It was sloppy work, once you examined it closely. This would be easy.

Fëanor laughed, and left his memories behind. Maedhros was waiting for him patiently, leaning in the shadow of a tall rockface with his sword in his hand.

I have some words of power for you, he said to Maedhros. They must be said by a living voice. You must simply ensure the dead king repeats them.

“Simply?” Maedhros’s voice was sharp and a little incredulous.

He spoke with your voice before. He will again. The runes have been folded in upon themselves until they cannot be unlocked from without except by their creator, but since the creature can steal a voice, it is possible to use the concept of ...

Maedhros shifted minutely in the shadow of the rock. It occurred to Fëanor that his son had ridden for days without sleep, and had fought both with the sword and with all his arts.

You don’t need to know this. The words are...

“I don’t need ...?” Maedhros suddenly looked tense, alert and suspicious. Fëanor pushed his senses out in all directions, looking for danger, but could see nothing.

What is it?   Fëanor asked, ready to strike.

“I am wondering if you are indeed Fëanor, as I had thought, or another of the Enemy’s traps,” Maedhros said coolly. “My father did not tell me that I had no need to know.”

Really Maedhros? My mind is open. You can see who I am, do not be foolish.

Maedhros regarded him with narrowed eyes, suspicious and distrustful, and did not reach out to him.

When you were only a little taller than my knee, I made you a clockwork bird that sang, because you were unhappy that the birds in the apple tree had flown away.

“Morgoth spent years in Valinor,” Maedhros said flatly, moving backwards over the rocky ground, his sword pointed directly at Fëanor.

Never in my house! Fëanor remembered that exhaustion could affect the living mind, and deliberately calmed the flame of his spirit. I do not think Morgoth occupied himself taking note of children’s toys in Tirion, he said, more patiently. The acquisition of knowledge for its own sake is always worthwhile . But consider: you have long ages to devote to learning and the practice of the arts, but staying alive is also important. You have managed it; I have not. You may continue to manage it, if you sleep. And so, I suggest that another time would be better suited for a detailed study of the Enemy’s use of runes and their modes of operation in relation to the imprisonment of dead spirits. I am of course happy to give you an introduction to the matter if it is of interest to you, but it seems your most immediate need is for a tool that will do the work at hand.

Maedhros gave him a look that was equal parts exhaustion and incredulity. “That is more convincing,” he said, and although he still did not open his own mind, he dropped the tip of his sword. “Perhaps, if I can banish this thing, I will edge infinitesimally closer to a Silmaril. Or at least the Oath will stop goading me for a while. I would settle for that. ”

I have listened to your thoughts upon our Oath, and the Curse of Mandos.

“Yes, I have noticed you listening,” Maedhros said coolly.

I did not speak. I did not intervene.

“I noticed that too.  It made me wonder if you could still speak.  It did not seem like you to stay silent on that matter.”

I judged you were correct, when you said that it did not bind us to honour, as I had intended, but only to the Silmarils. I should not have made it so it could drive us against children.

“You should not have made it so it could drive us against our own kin,” Maedhros said bitterly.  “If you had counted our cousins as kin, then perhaps I could have believed we did not need to attack the Havens. I should have stood against you then.  I should never have waited till Losgar. I have looked back so many times since and seen the moment when I should have spoken.”

I had not thought our kin would choose to hold them from us .

“You did not think of them as kin at all. And yet they marched across the Ice to avenge Grandfather.”

Fingon came to your aid, and in return you gave him a crown.

“I gave his father a crown.  It was a crown you never wanted, and nor did Fingon. Nor, to do him justice, did Fingolfin.  Not until it was him or you, and when you burned the ships at Losgar, you made sure it could only be him.”

You would have made a better king than either of us,  Fëanor said, partly because it was true, but perhaps also because Maedhros looked so tired and miserable.  Not that the praise seemed to comfort him.

“Is that my father’s voice I hear, or the lies of the Enemy, urging division even now? Fingolfin was the only king that we could have, and no-one could say he did not give his all to it. Fingon was more than worthy to succeed him. Yet still Grandfather’s death is unavenged, and we are further now from the Silmarils than ever.”

You have your grandfather’s talent and more, and what is more, you had the patience to survive. Dead kings are little help to their people: I can speak with some authority to that.  But if you desire justice for Fingolfin, I can tell you that he took his revenge.

Maedhros narrowed his eyes, exhausted and suspicious.  “Fingolfin died.” he said flatly.

He gave our Enemy seven bitter wounds.  That is more than any of the Eldar have done: more than the Ainur have done. He should be honoured for it.

Maedhros blinked. Then he sat down rather heavily upon a rock.  His sword was still in his hand, but he seemed to have forgotten it.  “I can see no reason why the Enemy could possibly want to tell me that,” he said.  “But I am more surprised than I can say that my father should do so.”

I have never been dishonest.

“No.  You never were.  But... Fingolfin wounded Morgoth seven times before he died?  Seven? I didn’t know that. Nobody knows that, save Morgoth and his legions. Nobody saw the fight. Only the enemy’s black blood, and the body, afterwards.”

I saw the fight. I was unable to come to his aid, Fëanor said, bitterly.  It still galled him to admit it.  But it would be neither true nor fair to hide the facts, and if there was one thing left to him to lean on, it was that truth was stronger than the Lie .

Morgoth came out to meet him in single combat, and my brother shone like a star against him. Three times he was beaten to his knees, three times he rose again. He wounded our Enemy for the last time in the foot, even as he fell.  Tell Elrond; his kin should know of it.

He thought about that for a moment.   Our kin should know of it, he said. You were right about that.  It was a fight more than worthy of your grandfather’s memory, and I was proud of him. It was hasty of me to spurn Fingolfin’s help, and hasty to assume that proud words could only come from an enemy, and not from a brother. I did tell him that, afterwards, before he went away...

Maedhros,  will you not accept these words I have found for you and then rest? You asked me for them.  Whether they will bring us closer to my Silmarils, I cannot say. But they might at least strike a blow against the Enemy, and it seems I have some catching up to do.

“I suppose you could put it that way,” Maedhros said, looking noticeably surprised.  “Very well then. Give me these words. I’ll trust to Elrond’s luck. Not mine.  Mine ran out long ago.”

 

* * * * *

Three days later, they dismounted again at the hill that looked out over the River Gelion. The trees around the hill were not noticeably different from the elmwoods higher in the hills, at least not in the daylight, but the grey light of day was already fading.

“Are you sure about this?” Maglor asked Elrond, quietly, as Maedhros, Saeldir, and Umbathiel, all veterans born in the light of the Trees, walked along the slope looking down into the trees for signs of the enemy.

“No,” Elrond said, and gave Maglor a strained grin. “But if it’s this or choosing to abandon what is left of Ossiriand, and leave poor Denethor enslaved to our Enemy too. It seems worth a try. Don’t you think?”

“We’ve abandoned enough places already. Ossiriand would be only another name on the growing list. And a dead king of the Laiquendi is not your responsibility. Say the word, and I will tell Maedhros; you don’t have to.”

“And here I was hoping for a vote of confidence,” Elrond said ruefully. “Never mind,”

Maglor snorted. “I have every faith in you; you know that very well. It’s only that... it can be hard to say no when Maedhros has an idea. It comes of having six unruly little brothers. It makes him more like our father than he’d like to be.”

The corner of Elrond’s mouth quirked in amusement “That’s what he said, when he asked if I was sure, this morning. Elros would tell you that he has noticed that the plan is always too dangerous, and I am always advised I may make the safer choice.”

“But only Elros would say that?” Maglor raised his eyebrows.

“Of course. I’m the polite one,” Elrond said, and they both laughed.

* * * * *

When dusk fell, a cold white mist came up from the river, hiding the darkened woods, leaving everything soaked wet. The hilltop felt enclosed by fog, a cold and windowless silent prison. It was growing colder. The grass began to turn white with frost. Somewhere, out there in the mist, there was a power stirring.

The attack came swiftly, this time, faster than they had expected. Six great wolves raced in silently, red eyes blazing, jaws slavering. Fëanor could see they had spirits bound within them, but they were lesser spirits; no great danger. Telutan beheaded one as it leaped for his throat, as Maglor and Umbathiel killed two more. The spirits bound within them fled, and the other three wolves retreated, snarling. Roquenon had been bitten, but was still standing.

Then the dead king was there, with no warning, within their ranks, as if he had sprung up from the grass. More wolves were coming out of the mist, and the Noldor turned as one to confront them, leaving the dead king in their midst to Maedhros.

The words to unlock the chains rolled out through the fog, a complex string of liquid syllables with all Maedhros’s considerable authority behind them. The dead king lashed out at him with one chained arm. The blow had the strength of the master of the chains behind it. Maedhros ducked hastily back, and tried again.

“Be still, and speak!” Elrond cried. It was not part of the plan, but his voice cracked with power. Beside him Maglor was singing a song of the stars of Elbereth, sword in hand. Nine wolves lay dead, but now the trees were moving again.

The dead king was caught into inaction, head raised, listening. Maedhros spoke a third time, his voice thinning with the strain. This time, the dead spirit spoke, and it was Maedhros’s voice again, but it said only the words that Elrond had spoken: ‘be still... still... still...’ Elrond shot Maedhros an alarmed glance.

Maglor threw down his sword, swept out his harp, and began a wordless music of sleep, directed at the swaying, creaking darkness of the trees. Without a word, Saeldir and Roquenon fell into place either side of him, guarding against the wolves.

Maedhros spoke the spell again, for the fourth time, slower, pronouncing every syllable carefully. This time, at last, the strange echo that was Maedhros’s voice in the dead king’s mouth picked up the words, sounding flat against the cold fog. If Fëanor had had breath, he would have held it.

Maedhros came to the end of the spell, and stepped back a pace cautiously, sword ready, although it was unlikely to be of any great use against a spirit. The dead king was still speaking, slowly, and as he too came to the end of the spell, the wolves were quiet, and the movement in the trees stilled for a long moment. Only the sound of the harp rippled on against the silence.

There was a barely-audible sound of cracking, and fury beat red from the chains for a brief moment, before they broke into pieces and fell to the ground.

In the very moment that they fell, the dead spirit lunged forward, still in the seen world and fast as a snake, and struck at Maedhros with the spiked cuff of the chain. It moved so fast that Fëanor could not intercept it. It hit Maedhros on the join in his armour near the neck, and he reeled backwards.

Elrond shouted, a wordless cry but there was enough strength to it to hold the fading wraith in place, no longer in the seen world, unable to move again. He stepped towards it, and held out a hand, a look of fierce concentration on his face. “Sleep,” he said to it, quietly now. “Sleep and dream of forests under stars, and find what healing you can. Sleep from now until the breaking of the world.”

The unseen wraith paused, bowed, and folded away quietly down into the grass of the hillside. Elrond hurried to Maedhros, who was kneeling, head down, holding his hand to his neck, with Telutan standing over him, sword in hand watching for wolves.

“Get the horses,” Maglor ordered, hands moving constantly on the harp. “Panonis! Help me hold these thrice-cursed trees back. They do not... want... to sleep.”

“Should I...?” Elrond asked. He was still on his feet, this time, though he was pale. There was a pause before Maglor answered. His fingers were flying on the harp.

“No. We’ll hold them. Get Maedhros on a horse. Quickly.”