Dancing In The Dark by Grundy

Deep Breaths

Several days of relative quiet followed, for which Curufinwë was privately grateful. The atmosphere had an undercurrent of tension. People could not quite decide if they should take advantage of the relative calm, or if they ought to prepare for worse. The result was an almost frenetic appearance of normality, which must be all the more jarring to those who knew Nargothrond as it had been.

The worst Gildor had to cope with was the handful of people who dealt with their nerves by trying to drink them away. Fortunately, nearly all had proved to be merry rather than maudlin drunks. (Overly merry, in the case of the one who had been singing at the top of his lungs in the darkest hours of the night. It was just as well for the offender that it was Gildor, not Curufinwë, who dealt with him.)

The continued lack of news from the north wasn’t heartening. But in this case, Curufinwë felt sure no news was more likely to be good news. There was no chance whatsoever of a swift victory; the only news that could have come quickly would have been the worst kind.

Tyelko and Merilin returned the seventh day after they’d ridden out, with all scouts uninjured and bearing good tidings. Mithrim might be hard put – there was no definite word yet – but appeared to be holding. No orcs were coming down the coast or through the mountains from Nevrast. Nargothrond still had a secure retreat to the Falas should it be needed.

That meant for the time being, their best course of action was to do as Ingo had said and hunker down to wait out the uncertainty. As that filtered through the fortress, an expectant, almost sullen, air set in as everyone braced themselves, unsure if it was good news or bad news they were awaiting.

Gildor didn’t need to be told that the best way to deal with it was to keep everyone busy. The armories were inspected, the guards abjured to keep their eyes sharp and their arms ready, the kitchens asked to produce hearty comfort fare, the smithies and workshops all set to restocking what had been sent north with Ingo. (If any of the craftfolk believed they were being asked to replace expected losses, they had the sense to keep their thoughts to themselves.)

The sense of watchful waiting was only somewhat relieved by the unexpected arrival of messengers from Amon Ereb. Moryo had also had the same thought Curufinwë did, but in reverse. Their parties must have passed each other underway but not been close enough to spot each other.

The leader of Moryo’s messengers took that as cause for amusement rather than worry, and was inclined stay to hear some fresh news from the north before starting back.  Curufinwë hoped the Nargothrond group would have the sense to do the same. 

“At least this way I’ll have something to report besides the simple fact that we made it,” the woman sighed philosophically.

The tidings she carried were not as bad as they might have been, but grim enough.

Pityo and Moryo were safely holed up in Amon Ereb with nearly all their people, and prepared for a siege that so far had not materialized. Moryo had taken some casualties, but nowhere near as bad as might have been feared given the distance he had to cover on his retreat. Kano or Maitimo must have gotten a warning to him in time – there was no way he could have managed as he did if Helevorn had been taken unaware.

The Gap had fallen. Kano had been able to fall back to Himring in some semblance of order, but unlike Moryo he had taken heavy losses. He and Maitimo were now almost completely surrounded. Himring had recognized their peril in the nick of time and hurriedly prepared for the assault and ensuing siege. So far as anyone knew, they hadn’t been hit as hard as the Gap or Aglon had – but there had been no fresh word from them. They were entirely cut off.

Curufinwë swore under his breath as he regarded the map. It was a fool’s errand to attempt to reinforce Himring from the south – too many leagues of open plain where the Enemy could track their movements and pick the best place to ambush them, coming on them from any of the mountains, or possibly even from out of Nan Elmoth. Nothing they had heard from Doriath had mentioned the fate of what had been Eöl’s domain. Perhaps, with some deft prompting, Merilin might find out more.

Himring’s best defense right now was how damned difficult it was to assault. Even a proper siege would be tricky to maintain for very long. That would do for now, but depending on how things were going with Mithrim and the northern reaches of Sirion…

Ingo and Finno had to hold.

Curufinwë said nothing of that conclusion aloud, though. Too many people – two princes and a princess included – might take their cue from him. It was small consolation that the only place currently safer than Nargothrond was the Falas.

He managed to catch Merilin privately before dinner.

“I want to say this while there’s no audience about,” he warned her quietly. “If whatever news from the north reaches us next isn’t good, I want you and the little boy off to the Falas without delay. Your daughter as well, if you think it can be managed without touching off a panic.”

“You think the situation that dire?” she sighed.

“If either of the northwestern positions fall, Morgoth can sweep down and engulf us and Doriath. If Himring falls, we will still have some time, but Doriath will be the front line. Much as I respect your royal aunt, I don’t believe she’ll have the upper hand should it come to her pitted directly against Morgoth and Sauron. She may hold the borders she’s drawn for a time, but not indefinitely. We’d also do well enough under siege for a time, but once our supplies run short... Better to run before we’re besieged, while we still have somewhere left to go.”

Merilin shuddered.

“Then you’d best pray the news from the north is good,” she replied grimly. “I doubt you’ll persuade Gildor or Finduilas to leave. Nor do I see either leaving without the other.”

“If things get bad enough, I’ll truss them up and toss them over the back of a horse myself,” Curufinwë snorted. “If they must make a last desperate stand, this is not the place for it.”

Merilin’s lips quirked, though he couldn’t tell if she meant to smile or frown before she caught herself.

“It shouldn’t be just Gilya you send away if you believe it is too dangerous to stay,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ll take all the children. We might even persuade my daughter that leading them to safety is an honorable task, not merely a Noldorin excuse to send the lone princess away.”

Curufinwë nodded, for there was sense in that. Letting the girl be the leader and protector of the group evacuating the children would be far more palatable than being forced to leave under guard with her mother and baby brother.

“What of the rest of Nargothrond?” Merilin said sharply. “It’s all well and good to say run, but moving so many people is no small undertaking. And much as I love the boy, that’s a lot to ask of Gildor. He’s not much more than a child himself.”

He did not bristle, though he wanted to. The boy had been trained well, and was handling himself and the situation better than some Curufinwë could think of who did not have the excuse of youth.

“I’ll assist Gildor in organizing the full evacuation. I’ve had some recent practice. I’ll insist he lead it out, and my brother and I will play rearguard. If anyone has to stay behind, it’ll be our people, not his. ”

“Let us hope it doesn’t come to that. Finrod may yet prevail.”

“Pray any Vala that cares to listen he does,” Curufinwë replied grimly.

“You might try that as well,” she suggested with a smile. “What can it hurt?”

He preferred not to answer that, for he feared the honest answer was probably ‘everything’.

“I have it on good authority they don’t listen to us,” he snorted. “You’ll do far more good than I can.”

---

It was as well for everyone’s peace of mind that word came down by bird several days later that Ingo was alive and retreating to Tol Sirion. If Curufinwë found it suspicious that the message led with Ingo being alive, he was apparently the only one who did.

The messenger that arrived the next day was able to elaborate. He’d been riding hard to reach them quickly, and came in for quite the harangue from the stable master about the state of his horse. The animal would not need to be put down, but it wouldn’t be fit for long journeys again anytime soon.

Ingo was indeed alive, but through purest luck. He and his personal guard had been cut off from his main force, stranded between Sirion and Rivil and forced to take refuge in the wetlands as a last resort. Curufinwë didn’t know the area well, but Tyelko did – he’d driven a fair number of orcs into the same spot in one of the first battles. Few orc had survived the experience.  

“Damn fool would have done better to stand and fight than try to elude pursuit in there,” was the mildest of his older brother’s comments. “Unless he knows it well, he’s as like to drown himself as find cover. Those marshes are treacherous.”

Curufinwë bluntly ordered him out of the room before he scared the kids. Tyelko could rant and rage later, when it was just the two of them. Not even Tyelpë needed to hear his unvarnished thoughts on the near-disaster at Serech.

Fortunately for all of them, and for Ingo in particular, a captain Men who had been driven out of Dorthonion and were helping hold the Pass of Sirion had seen the danger and hastened to the rescue with a hand-picked company. They’d managed to save Ingo and what was left of his guard, though at the price of heavy losses of their own. 

Curufinwë wasn’t entirely clear what counted as heavy losses for Men. He hadn’t dealt much with them, as none had settled in his lands. Most of his knowledge was secondhand through Ingo or Moryo. He was told they multiplied shockingly quickly and had been numerous in the part of Dorthonion that bordered Aglon. But he didn’t know whether to understand ‘dozens’, ‘hundreds’, or possibly even ‘thousands’ from the messenger’s account.

He hoped they would not be wiped out entirely, if only for Ingo’s sake. Men or not, they looked to him, and had evidently thought highly enough of Ingo to risk their own short-lived skins on his account.

That was news enough for him to send Moryo’s people on their way. His brothers needed to hear the latest as soon as might be. He penned a short note, assuring them of his, Tyelko’s, and Tyelpë’s continued good health in addition to Ingo’s survival and promising more news as soon as it reached him.

He also dispatched a fresh cipher with the messenger, on strict instructions that if her party looked likely to be captured, it must be destroyed. He provided a small, secure container of acid for the purpose. It would need only a minute to make it illegible, three to completely dissolve the thin paper. Curufinwë doubted orcs could successfully open the locks on the letter without rendering it impossible to read properly, but he was taking no chances.

He could not be certain the enemy didn’t have the ones that had been in use before, and they would all have little choice but to put far more into writing now. Direct communication between Himring and Hithlum had fallen with Dorthonion. There was no road between Nargothrond and Amon Ereb, nor did Curufinwë think it advisable to make one. Ingo might not be as strict about it as Turvo, but secrecy might yet prove Nargothrond’s best defense. But it meant that getting messages would be a dangerous undertaking, now and likely for some time to come.

---

It was nearly a month before Ingo himself turned up, a tense time in which Gildor was not the only one to oscillate between an air of complete confident and a wreck of shredded nerves.

Curufinwë was more thankful than ever that Merilin had managed to get away from Doriath. True, it meant the worry of trying to keep things as normal as possible for the little boy, but the added parental figure was helpful in the effort to keep the older children from losing their nerve or their heads.

In turn, Curufinwë served as her pressure relief. The children overlooked that though she was keeping a calm and even facade, she was as worried about her husband as anyone else who had sent a mate off to the north. They had never been close, nor would he say they truly were now, but needs must. He sat with her evenings, ostensibly helping little Gilya ‘write’ a book to give to his father on his return. But he also let Merilin unburden herself of her worries once the boy was off to sleep. The news had been clear enough about Ingo but hadn’t said a word about Artaresto, and she was at her wit’s end.

They only found out why when Ingo marched in, with but a third of the force he’d taken north.

Curufinwë might not have been there to see the departure, but the atmosphere when Ingo’s column was sighted made it clear enough that Nargothrond had expected more to return. No one said ‘so few’, but it was plain enough that was what everyone was thinking.

It’s not as bad as it looks, I left half to man Tol Sirion, Ingo assured him privately the moment he spotted him.

Artaresto was not among those that had returned. Merilin lost all color when she realized he was nowhere in sight. Tyelko silently slipped in behind her to take Gilya away before he could catch too much of her fear, plopping the little one down for a ride on Huan.

Curufinwë waited until the trio were well away to suggest that Merilin go to the family rooms to wait for Ingo, but she shook off the suggestion, hissing that she knew her duty, thank you!

Ingo said a few words of thanks before dismissing his people. He was intelligent enough to know that those who had returned with him really wanted to hurry to their own homes and their own people. He looked years older than the last time Curufinwë had seen him, and terribly exhausted.

That impression was confirmed when he all but collapsed once the door to the family wing shut behind them.

Merilin chose that moment to round on him.

“How could you leave Orodreth in the north?” she demanded fiercely. “He’s no general!”

“Have some faith in him,” Ingo said wearily. “And I did not leave him, he demanded command of the garrison at Tol Sirion. His anger over his father’s death is fierce, and he desired to stay in the north to avenge him.”

“Ridiculous!” Merilin snapped. “There’s no avenging anything when Bauglir has the advantage in numbers, terrain, and just about everything else!”

“Now is perhaps not the time,” Curufinwë murmured, casting a glance at the wide eyes of not only Gilya, but Findë, Gildor, and Tyelpë in the doorway of what had become the family common room.

Finrod and Merilin ignored him, and he had the distinct impression the fight was continuing silently, all but confirmed when Gildor’s eyes suddenly blazed with anger.

Happily, Tyelko took the hint and hustled Tyelpë off in the direction of their rooms. Findë hesitated, but Huan headbutted her gently, then leaned into her side sympathetically, herding her in the same direction.

Curufinwë picked Gilya up to carry to his nursery. A child that young didn’t need to be in the middle of what threatened to be a nasty fight between his mother and great-uncle.

“What say we go work on that book of yours some more, little man?” he murmured soothingly. “We have a bit more time to get it just right before your Ada arrives.”

Gildor, however, planted himself next to Ingo.

“Gildor,” Curufinwë said firmly. “Gilya and I could do with some help. You know more of the local flora than I do.”

Gildor scowled, an expression Curufinwë recognized only too well.

“Now is not the time, boy,” Curufinwë murmured. “Come along.”

He could feel Gildor’s eyes burning a hole in his back – but to his relief, he could also hear him following.

He would have spoken to him silently, but he was carrying the littlest Arafinwion, and there was every chance the child’s hearing was as sharp as anyone else’s in Uncle Ara’s line.

Gildor didn’t stomp or make his anger plain, but it was clear his attention wasn’t really on the little picture book about the flowers of Nargothrond, and certainly not on the somewhat hurried lullaby as they put the little one to bed early – though Curufinwë suspected the boy’s singing had more to do with how fast Gil-galad dropped off to sleep than his own did.

Curufinwë pulled Gildor out of the room, leaving the door ajar behind them so they’d hear if the little one awoke. They retreated to what was nominally Merilin and Resto’s sitting room to await her return, Curufinwë dropping into one of the chairs by the fire in weary relief that at least they’d kept the baby away from the latest family feud.

Only then did Gildor ask the question that had obviously been on his mind.

“You know full well Atto wouldn’t make Uncle Resto come back if he didn’t want to, why didn’t you want me saying so to Aunt Merilin?”

Curufinwë gave him a long look and waited until Gildor threw himself down into a chair instead of pacing angrily.

“First, Resto is your cousin, not your uncle. You really ought to get used to thinking of him that way. He’s also not old enough to have much more experience with war than you do – I don’t think he’s seen so much as a day’s fighting before this wave of battle broke out.”

“So?”

“So Merilin is correct that he’s unlikely to avenge much. He hasn’t the temperament, and since Ango was so adamant about keeping him safe, he hasn’t the training either. He’s unlikely to accomplish much. Ingo would have been wiser to send him back and stay at Tol Sirion himself. As it is, our best hope is that Resto has the sense to recognize when it’s time to retreat. It won’t help anything if he gets himself killed trying to hold the Pass.”

“Why shouldn’t he hold the Pass?” Gildor snapped. “If we lose the Pass, Mogoth controls the Vale of Sirion!”

“Resto doesn’t have the numbers, boy,” Curufinwë said sharply. “He’s on an island, which may grant him some protection. But he has limited supplies, and not enough people to mount any effective counterattack. Mithrim is still holding the line to his west, at least so far. But with Dorthonion taken by the Enemy, the attack from the east bank will be relentless. Morgoth wants the Pass – he needs it to cut off Mithrim and given him a path to Doriath and us. And there are no reinforcements coming. Ingo left as many as he dared, and Mithrim can’t spare anyone.”

Gildor glared at him, then seemed to realize it wasn’t his fault either, so switched to glaring at the blameless carpet as though it were an agent of the Enemy.

“Your father’s a grown man and more than capable of fighting his own battles. Let Merilin work her anger out at him and don’t make it any worse. He’s going to need us united in the coming days, not at each other’s throats, sulking, or holding grudges.”

“I do not sulk,” Gildor informed him icily, sounding all for the world like his mother.

“Of course you don’t,” Curufinwë agreed amiably. “All the same, you’re staying out of it, and helping me smooth things over in the morning.”