Of Ingwë Ingweron by heget

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Of the Great Hunt

Sorry for the wait - here's a longer than average chapter. Enjoy the stealth Draugluin cameo.

The Vanyar would later sing of it as the Great Hunt. Their poetry spoke of Cuiviénen as the time of the Awakening, the Great Hunt, the Duel, and then the Great Journey. Elves who had lived before the settling of Aman were known not as those that had undertaken the Great Journey, as it was among the Noldor, but those that had partaken in the Great Hunt.

Finwë and Elwë stayed behind in the Minyar village with the children too young and their mothers like nursing Maktâmê. Also appointed to stay behind were Inkundû and Ravennë to fulfill their parents’ roles as leaders while Imin and Iminyë led the hunt. Neither were pleased, though Inkundû’s face displayed his resentment more clearly than his sister as his mother painted a line of red clay across his jaw.

Elwë sat with Maktâmê and the infant Indis, comfortable and accustomed to such young children, whereas Finwë invited himself to the cache of spare spears, javelins, and other weapons stacked in the communal hut between the dueling circle and the chieftain’s house. These were the extraneous or damaged weapons as opposed to personal weapons of each tribe member, and Finwë busied himself by inspecting them. His goal was to identify the craftsman of each weapon if he could and to repair or re-sharpen what his skills could. Halfway through his self-appointed task, Inkundû would come over to loom over Finwë’s shoulder in peevish boredom, blocking the young man’s light. Imin’s son would begin a snide comment disparaging Finwë’s honor and intelligence, Finwë would turn red-faced and enraged to retort, and Elwë with his shadow-soft steps would be there unexpectedly, looming in turn over the shoulder of the Minyar prince with his greater height, interrupting this burgeoning squabble with questions for Finwë about the geologic properties of each stone for tool-making. Deliberately ignoring Inkundû, Finwë would prattle to his best friend about the superior knapping ability of flint as Elwë pretended to attentively listen. This was a game the pair had long played. Not so bemused would be Inkundû, and once more Ravennë would think her older brother deficient and immature.

The rest of the village, following the lead of Imin and Iminyë, began the long trek from the shoreline through the surrounding forest out into the grasslands. Before the abductions and deaths from Melkor’s cruel agents, the Minyar hunting parties would have split during the forest trails into groups of three to seven and fanned out into many directions. Wisdom was that the greater the number of hunting attempts, the likelihood of one group succeeding would outweigh the failures of the others. This division of the hunting parties, and that each group returned on their own schedule to the village, exacerbated the disappearances and abductions of the Minyar. The tribe had assumed innocent delays until many star rotations passed with none returning, and so scattered and separated, the pattern of these disappearances was at first overlooked.

Such a hunting party would include at least one pair of the first generation, the Unbegotten, with their greater experience in tracking and understanding prey, and a novice hunter to benefit from their knowledge. Another necessity would be a runner who could tire the animal in a long chase if projectile weapons failed, for as a last resort it was discovered that despite the greater swiftness of the beasts, an elf had near-immortal stamina and a will that overrode any weakness of the body. Hunting parties, once established, changed only once the novice hunter desired to allow another youth to replace them, or if some disagreement became too great for the dueling ring to settle. Sometimes two hunting parties would work in tandem or request a supplementary runner. Regardless of a single hunting party’s success on a trip, what could be returned to the village was shared with all, even if the individual allotment of meat, bone, and hide was unequal. This was not to state that fierce competition and jockeying of reputation among the parties and individual members of the tribe was not fierce and rampant.

Great hunts, where there were enough runners and spear-hurlers to corral an entire herd, and enough hands to carry more than one butchered carcass back to village, were rare and momentous occasions. That everyone had this opportunity to hunt with Imin and Iminyë was a boost to everyone’s status, a concept easier to grasp in concrete terms than the heady idea of hunting beside the god of the hunt.

Oromë had shifted his appearance to be no taller than Imin and changed his apparel to match the simple leggings and loincloths of the elven hunters. His belt carried no weapons or waterskins, only the gold-capped hunting horn, and his long brown hair was twisted back into a single tight ponytail. The boughs of the evergreen trees swayed with his passage, their limbs creaking like a slow eerie fanfare. Pine needles fell to carpet the forest floor behind his feet.

Before they entered the forest, Oromë had waved Nahar to run on ahead, and the silver horse had galloped away into the surrounding hills. “He searches for the nearest horse herd,” Oromë explained. “If I need him, I shall call, and it will not take him long to reach me.”

Oromë hung back, allowing Imin and the most experienced elven hunters to take the lead in the trek from the village through the great evergreen forests. His face revealed nothing. Still, a grave suspicion that the Vala was humoring Imin with that patronization of a grown man watching an infant toddle and crawl on village mats made the chieftain and other Unbegotten elves irritable. Iminyë was the one to finally voice a sliver of their concern. “You did not wish to show us the proper trail, Great Power Arâmê? I see you carry no weapon as we do. Is it because our ways are incorrect?”

“I have never seen you hunt,” Oromë replied in an even, conciliatory voice. “I cannot offer you judgement without knowledge.” He laughed, a short self-deprecating little sound. “This shall be a fresh thing for me,” he said, echoing his previous tales of entering Arda.

Iminyë smiled at this, mollified. The same smile appeared on Imin’s lips. “To enter a world where every experience and thing beheld is fresh for you and everyone around you. Yes, we understand.”

Kanatië turned around to address the young man that she still thought of as unspeaking Û kwendô. “You should do the same, Son of Skarnâ-maktê. Observe how your people hunt.” Behind her, Asmalô whom she had mentored in his first hunting party grimaced. He that would be Ingwë replied not.

Cutting remarks and the wounds upon temperament and mind that they caused were reason to send one to the dueling ring, so that aggression could be matched with aggression and then released. Had he not been the shunned one, such words could have earned Kanatië a swift duel in the ring, and it would have expected. Asmalô, not for the first time, desired to champion the boy he had nursed beside. But he knew if he entered a fight to defend the honor of one who showed no outward sign of concern or regard towards his personal honor and standing among the tribe, it would not earn Asmalô any of the gratitude for whom this action would be done in the name of. Asmalô had long missed opportunities to proffer an assisting hand to his once friend, and now any outreaching gesture would be rebuffed. So the cycle was perpetuated, and Asmalô knew himself to be a useless and cowardly man, despite the bragging marks painted on his skin.

Thus Kanatië’s snide dig hung over the hunting party like an unwelcome odor. The man that would be Ingwë slowed his pace to take a rear position along the trail, back where any turn in the trees would hide him from view of the leaders. His tribesmen glanced back, troubled by the lack of anger to be sensed in the undercurrents of his thoughts. Secretly that was what troubled them most about this son of the unfortunate hunters, that his resentment of his tribe clearly remained and yet could no longer be readily sensed. He did not pretend to accept his place, but he hid his thoughts from them, as he hid himself. Imin waited for the nod from one of his most trusted hunters to signal when the young man would peel away from the tribe to hunt alone. The chieftain did not explicitly expect this to happen, but he would not be surprised. The young man’s disobedience and solitary ways would be watched for now.

Lasrondo watched in disappointment.

Ingwë did not speak to the ones he walked beside, but he never slowed his steps to fall to the last position or deviate from their path. His heels tread on fallen pine needles, and the heady scent anointed him. He did not join in with the traveling chants, but Ingwë was with his tribe and participated in the Great Hunt.

The hunting plains of the Minyar had only starlight to illuminate its features and no large body of water to reflect back the light. In this star-dark only the keen elven sight could distinguish the individual herds that grazed among the ferns and grasses. Bereft of the shielding trees, the wind was free to press against their faces and sing loud against their ears. Such a place frightened the other Kwendî, but to the Minyar this place was more home than the shores of Cuiviénen. Here there were no false star reflections in the water, no distant roar of the waterfall or the constant lapping of tiny waves. The lack of water music unsettled the Nelyar, but to the Minyar it was relief.

Here the only fire was what they brought with them. That was the job of those without the greatest skill in aiming and throwing spears or possessing exceptional speed or stamina. They were the fire bearers, and in Valinor they would become the core of the devotees to Varda, but during the Great Hunt, these young men and women unrolled the long leather rolls to pull out bundles of fat-soaked reeds, dried moss, and their precious flint stones. Carefully they lit the tallow sticks and held these rudimentary candles aloft, freehands cupped to shield the pinpricks of light from the wind. Tallow reed lights held aloft, the hunters inspected the lashings of their spears one last time, gazed analytically out onto the grasslands for the locations and relative positions of landmarks and animals, and waited for their chieftain.

In the primitive mind-speech created by the Unbegotten, Imin began to chant a song of limited words and well-known emotions, a pattern ingrained into the tribe. It was the most common -and most generic- hunting chant.

Illuminated by the stars far overhead and their tiny handheld imitations, the Minyar fanned out and began to sing.

Find me prey, the chant said. My belly aches, the chant said, but I have strength to chase after something that shall fill it. I am cunning; I shall find a way to catch it. Find me prey.

As they sang, Oromë changed. It was nothing overt, but the hues and tones of his appearance adjusted to richer and deeper levels. He had not before been insubstantial in any discernible way, but somehow his presence felt more solid as the elves sang. Self-assurance, perhaps, or satisfaction. It was hearing a story retold that one well-remembered, and hearing that each line recited matched what one recalled. Oromë did not feed off of their song, but it strengthened him.

No mammoths wandered within sight, but a large herd of deer was close enough to count the points of antlers in the dark. Colorless in the darkness, light would reveal their hides to be a rich reddish gold with a few scattered white spots high on the haunches, and they were a large species, which promised plenty of meat. Such deer were a favorite of the village.

The stars had made good progress on their rotation across the sky and several constellations had disappeared from the sky completely in their slow journey since the elves had last hunted on these plains, but the deer pricked their ears nervously to the sound of the Minyar chanting. The deer had not forgotten.

The song changed. Prey had been evaluated and selected.

Beatifically, Oromë smiled.

Imin pointed to the lead runners to go ahead, sprinting after the chosen animal. The deer broke into a bouncing run, quickly outpacing the elven pursuers. Half of the hunting party followed the buck, lobbing spears, while the rest worked to further divide the herd, looking for other animals that were falling behind their fellows or panicking in the wrong direction.

A quick chorus of triumph called out for the first animal hit, a clean chest strike that instantly felled the animal, but the Minyar hunters had only begun. They had not come to these plains for just one buck.

With a crow of delight and full body shudder that seemed to vibrate the very fabric of perceived reality, Oromë lept into the air and transformed at the apex of his leap into a four-legged beast, a great stag with ruddy coat and many-branching antlers. He cavorted up to the fleeing herd, looming over them with his greater height and rack of impossibly complex antlers, then when he reached the lead animal, Oromë shifted his physical form once more. This time he chose the body of a great black bull with horns as wide and curved as the rib bones of a giant. He lowered those horns into the path of the fleeing deer and bellowed. Even then the sound had no anger.

The lead deer stumbled as if poleaxed by the bellow of Oromë.

Spears flew through the air, some wobbling as they spun, and two landed with wet thuds in the bodies of the startled fleeing deer.

Imin running beside his wife turned to face her with a silent question, and Iminyë nodded. “More spears!” she hollered to her hunters. “Fetch the fallen! Runners after those two! Knives to the one we have. A full fist before we return! And watch for tracks and signs of another herd!”

Around the black bull that was Oromë the deer herd split and tried to flee, the two injured members falling behind, closely pursued by hunting groups. The man that would be Ingwë hesitated between which group to follow or if to stay behind with Asmalô’s group who had encircled the first slain deer and were beginning the slow but familiar process of butchering it. They sang as they pulled out their knives.

Fortunately the great Minyar hunting party had not widely dispersed in pursuit of prey before the following happened.

Oromë as a bull lifted his dark head, the giant white horns curving up to cup the star-speckled sky between its points. His nostrils widened, and ears flicked with sharp intent. A hoof lifted from the ground; shoulder muscle tensed. The elven hunters turned towards the direction of his glare.

On a distant ridge they could see moving silhouettes of wolves. These onlookers were positioned so that the majority of the elves were between them and Oromë. They were obviously interested in the dead buck that the elves were beginning to skin and quarter. This occurred commonly on the plains. A particular pack liked to follow the Minyar hunters and were well-known and not feared. Sometimes the hunters even left scraps for that wolf pack, back before meat was scarce and hunting limited by fear of the Dark Hunters.

Yet these shapes were not true wolves, and certainly not their friends. Though the lead shape was a pale blue in this perpetual midnight of Arda before the creation of sun and moon, the forms that followed the lead of the pale hunched wolf-figure were made of light-devouring voids. Even at this distance, the elves could judge the size of those distant shapes as unnaturally large. The uncanny matte quality coupled with the wrongness of their silhouettes made it obvious that they were the Dark Hunters.

This time Oromë’s exclamation bloomed from a deep-seated rage. The giant bull shifted back into the red deer with many-branching antlers, and the scream that came from that throat was a clarion piercing note, a sound that seemed to physically manifest as an explosion of light. With that cry, Oromë leapt in direction of the Dark Hunters. It was a leap that said physics were not concrete law but merely the outlines for a player to improvise as one did playing variations on a melody. The pack of not-wolves began to scatter, disappearing into the darkness. The pale blue lead figure paused before fleeing from Oromë, though if the pause was a challenge to the Vala or the freezing of terror, no elf could say.

A second cry and flash of bright white, and Nahar galloped into view, white mane and tail streaming behind him. His path was on an intersect with Oromë, passing by the elves who were butchering the first kill. Asmalô dove to the ground in fear of collision with the galloping horse.

As Nahar leapt towards the fleeing not-wolves, his hooves slammed against the hard earth, cratering it with the ferocious impact of a meteor strike and sending chunks of dirt and stone flying through the air to land dangerously close to the astonished elves. This time Lasrondo was the one to dive to the ground, covering his head with both arms, and Asmalô to pull his fellow hunter back into an upright position and convince him of their safety.

Nahar’s landing at the end of his great physics-affronting leap was no less destructive, and though he did not vocalize, there was a song in the undercurrents of his thoughts, a complex rhythm that evoked the sensation of overpowering rage.

When Oromë and Nahar were abreast, the deer-form flowed back into his original man-shape, and with a leap almost too quick and graceful for the onlooker to comprehend, he vaunted onto Nahar’s back. Astride Nahar, Oromë sat up and pulled a shape into being in his hands. He was too far away and too swift-moving for the elves to see the object that he held. Later Oromë would display them for the elves: his great hunting bow and arrows.

The muscles of his back bunched and strained as he pulled back an arm, then let loose the arrow as that arm flung up with the graceful curve of a hunting cat’s tail.

The arrow arced like a comet over the plains. Wind screamed in agony in its passage, shrill and short, and air rippled out like water from the impact. Earth liquefied under the arrowhead, and the impaled shadow-shape writhed like a spineless deep-sea creature brought to the surface before it dissolved into the ground. Faint wisps of steam rose from the crater around the embedded arrow. A tuft of matte-black fur lingered around the arrowhead before disappearing with a foul odor, though no elf was close enough to behold this.

With perfect balance Oromë rode astride the galloping Nahar as the titanic horse quickly crested the hill and pivoted on his hind legs, shining silver hooves raised as if to strike. Oromë pulled another arrow into existence from a quiver of song and released it into the darkness. A split of air, a scream of pain, and the Lord of the Hunt smiled to see another servant of Melkor vanquished. Nahar’s front hooves thudded back to the earth with a quiet impact of sound. Imperiously the stallion tossed his head and snorted. “I concur,” said Oromë, and then he nudged the horse back to the waiting elves with a shift of leg muscle.

When Nahar and Oromë reached the elves kneeling in astonishment around the half-butchered buck, he reached an open hand down in offering to load the carcass onto Nahar’s back. Gingerly Asmalô and the man that thought of himself as Ingwë hoisted the skinned carcass onto the giant horse’s back behind Oromë, carefully positioning the antlers and legs. Nahar’s movement as he carried his rider and the deer carcass to the rest of the waiting elves was now a sedate walk, and his silver hooves barely bent the grass or left imprints in the dirt, so gentle was his stride. The horse could scarcely be believed as an instrument of such impactful violence, had one not witnessed his actions not a minute prior.

“You center your balance when you ride,” Oromë began to instruct as the elves walked beside them. Already Oromë had warned them not to follow directly behind Nahar in his blind spot. However , The Minyar who hunted the dun horses as often as the red deer needed not this reminder of a horse’s powerful kick. “Sit so your legs are between the muscle of the shoulder and the barrel of the chest, and grip with the upper leg, not your calves. Raise your toes so the heel of your foot is lowest. Observe.” Oromë flexed his foot. “This way you will not fall off.” Nahar flicked his ears in a complex pattern and made gentle whuffing sounds, punctuated by a low nicker. “Well, they cannot have perfection. The second gait will be difficult. And they will need usage of both hands, so they must learn to do so without clutching the hairs of the manes in fear of falling off. Oh! Yes, I had forgotten seeing that in the Song. Yes, aides like those would help the Children.”

When this impromptu procession reached Imin and the elves gathered around the second kill, Oromë dismounted and began to carefully cut hairs from Nahar’s tail and weave the strands. Seeing the Hunter absorbed in this task, Imin refrained from interrupting him with greetings and instead bade his tribesmen to continue to field dress the slain deer, waiting for Oromë to finish this strange task. Then Nahar lowered his great head, and Oromë began to rope and twist the braids into loops around the head, one encircling the muzzle, another the ears. Satisfied, Oromë gently pulled this new contraption off of Nahar and began to weave more rope. Finished with his task, he turned to Imin and this audience of elves. “I have a gift for you, for your fellow leaders, and for the three young men who introduced me to the Children.” He held aloft his creation. The loops of braided rope shone silver in the torches. “Use this as the halter for your horses as to tame them. When you have them captured, place this around their heads, and hold these pieces as reins. This shall tame them.[10] As you see, it is woven from the hair of Nahar.” Oromë paused, and his mouth twisted into a wry grin. “This is only a temporary measure. The ...scent, we shall call it, shall fade. To train a horse to accept a rider is no quick process, if there is to be trust earned. But this shall quicken the process, and our time is limited to do what is necessary. Mailikô’s servants are bold, and that one leading that group was especially powerful. Nahar will stay with you, and he will call forth horses so you may gather and tame them. But I must go. I will not tarry overlong, but that servant should not be permitted within echo distance of any innocent life, and if I have a chance to capture that traitor, I shall seize it.”

“When shall you return?”

“Gather your kills, and I shall bring more, and before you leave these plains for the forest, Nahar has instructed the herd to await you. The trees shall tell me when to rejoin.”

Mighty Nahar stood guard as the elves gathered their kills and searched for more prey, the flare of his wide nostrils the only sign that the blood might in any way discomfort him. The torch-bearers stood closest, but none were brave enough to touch him. In time they grew accustomed and forgot the horse’s presence, absorbed in their tasks. Handë, one of the runners, cornered the man that would become Ingwë in a fit of inspiration, realizing that the young man must have made many solitary hunts. His question was not mocking when he asked what food the loner would have gathered on these plains without companions to assist in finding and running down prey, though Asmalô, fearing that his once-friend would construe the question in a negative way, interrupted and talked over Handë in a fumbling attempt to play peacemaker. With a sigh, Ingwë admitted that his haul was normally eggs, though here on the plains he found a modicum of success with nets and especially with a simple length of cord weighed on both ends with stones by which he could knock birds from flight and tangle the legs of running deer, though he had only attempted this method on smaller ungulates. Handë and Asmalô were impressed by the ingenuity - which the man that would be Ingwë felt was underserved, as the bolas trick was a hunting method he learned from Elwë’s parents- and by the keen eyesight it would take to aim at a flying bird in the pure darkness. The young man would have blushed from their admiration if not for the enforced impassivity of his face. Ingrained habits made him turn away, and he retreated to the safety of Nahar’s silver sides, rubbing the soft nose of the horse and wondering if there might be a nest to raid in a nearby tree.

While his wife directed the next hunt, Imin held the silver halter bequeathed by Oromë and ran appraising eyes over the giant horse. He made a wordless scoffing sound and addressed the objects of his thoughts. “You believe yourself capable of this new thought, to ride upon one of the beasts that look like this and not be thrown or trampled?”

Ingwë startled to realize his chieftain had been addressing this question to him. With a pause that could be construed as rudeness, if proud Imin was so inclined, he finally answered. “Yes.”

Imin waited for elaboration, and he was miffed when the young man’s answer remained a curt single syllable.

Asmalô’s expression was aghast, but his face was hidden by the darkness. Then Kanatië and Elnaira interrupted with delightful cries that they had discovered the burrows of large ground squirrels, and everyone rushed to flush the rodents from the burrows. The meat from an individual animal was minimal, but the hunters were after multiple kills, and the pelts were prized. After the ground squirrels were gathered and piled next to the deer carcasses, the Minyar spotted a small herd of camelid creatures. This time Handë pulled Asmalô and the man that would be Ingwë to join with his group of hunters, and Ingwë felt an unfamiliar joy to run beside another and a greater joy when his spear pierced the side of the galloping animal. Lasrondo nodded in approval when the young man dodged the flailing limbs to give the grace stroke, murmuring the song of appreciation and relief.

Exhausted, the Minyar gathered their bounties, and Nahar carried what they could not. When they retraced their path to the treeline, they found a small herd of horses grazing on the tender ferns around the saplings. The horses raised they heads and made low greeting sounds to Nahar, but seemed to ignore the presence of the elves. As the Minyar knew that they were covered in the smells and effusions of gore from their hunts, and that the animals of the plains like the deer remembered that the elves were dangerous, this unconcern was deeply unsettling. Cautiously they approached the horses, and Imin was bold enough to bring forth the silver halter and loop the end of the rope around the closest horse’s head in a makeshift noose. The horse continued to graze, only flicking an ear to the elf in a sign that that it was not blind to the approaching elves but was choosing to ignore their presence.

“I have oathsworn that you shall not harm them,” an unfamiliar voice sang.

Imin replied, “They obey you well, Chieftain of Horses. I swear we shall not harm them. What food do they need? My people shall gather them, or bring forth from the stores of Tata and Enel’s people.”

Nahar snorted. “It is your people’s fire and spears that have convinced these little ones. Turn those weapons away from their hides and towards the wolves and lions that hunt their foals.”

Imin nodded. “They shall not be so calm without your presence, I still presume.”

Nahar bobbed his head, then turned and lifted his upper lip to make a high-pitched cry. In the distance, trees began to sway from an unseen wind, and a large shape moved across the stars.  

 

Oromë returned to find the elves in enthusiastic debate over the captive horses and if this feat could be replicated with other animals. Imin had adjusted the loops of the halter to fit the lead mare’s head properly, and some of the other elves were scratching ears and carding fingers through the stiff manes. The concept of paddocks to corral and shelter the animals had been outlined, and the debate had progressed onto propositions of where to construct them and upon whom the duties of building and later guarding these enclosures would fall, and how many would be needed and of what dimensions. That had led to the debate over what other animals might be kept in pens and corrals near the village.

“What of the mâmâ ?  They are smaller than the auroch or wisent, and some have thick long hair on their hides that would easier to make felt, perhaps even weave as we do the stems of plants. Despite the large horns on the males, they are not near as dangerous.” Every elf present turned to stare at the eighth-born child of the Minyar. Asmalô was the one to voice what they were all thinking. “That was the most words you have addressed to your tribe since we were children.” Swallowing his shock and remarking from a position of more than a little jealousy, Asmalô added, “Is it that you speak only in the presence of others and not your people that the Tatyar and Nelyar boy call you Kwendë?”

The young man that would become Ingwë Ingweron was not yet accustomed to the attention of all elves present to be focused intently on him and his words, but even in his discomfort the young man found his reply falling easily from his lips. “I speak when I have words worthy of being heard.”

Imin’s face was a thunderclast. “Or to those deemed worthy of hearing your voice? By choosing never to speak to your tribe, your actions were a choice to state that we were undeserving of your voice?”

“You made it clear it was I, and my parents, unworthy of bother to the tribe,” Ingwë countered.

“All voices are alloted the respect to listen to them,” Oromë interrupted, “at least for that initial hearing. Eru Ilúvatar allowed my king’s brother to sing with us, even after he disrupted the song.” A sarcastic lit of mouth. “Twice. It was his will to drown out the other voices that displeased my Father.”

The implicit rebuke was a shadow over their return to the Minyar village, though the excitement of their successful hunt and the herd of horses buried the dark feelings until after Oromë’s departure.

Chapter End Notes

[10] If Tolkien can do riffs on Macbeth, then I claim fair game on Bellerophon and Pegasus.

 

Context clues probably made it obvious, but mâmâ is Primitive Elvish for sheep.

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