A Candle for the Hollow City by Lordnelson100

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Chapter 7 Ruin

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The fire has been let to burn low, and the Chorus put out all but a handful of candles.  The winter wind is heard in the great chimney over the hearth.

A veil is drawn over the final scene between Thinkol of the Thousand Caves and Nótt , Dwarf King of deep Nogrod. For none who saw it lived to tell the tale.  When he heard the work was complete, Grey-Cloak went alone among the craftsmen to take up his prize. But neither he, nor they, ever recounted that day to their children. For none of them saw another sunrise.

Some say the Dwarves tried to take by force the now-welded Nauglamír and Silmaril for themselves. Some say that they only challenged Thinkol to give up his wrongful claim, and to surrender the heirloom to a rightful keeper.

Perhaps both these things are true: that the Dwarves sought to hold the treasure in the name of justice, and that Grey-Cloak did not believe their words, and accounted them only thieves.

And who can say what truth lay in the heart of King Nótt?

If the treasure passed into his hands at that moment, would it ever have passed out again? Perhaps he, himself, did not know.

For the beautiful heirloom had lain long under the belly of a dragon. And dragons, as all our people know, cast a wicked magic upon the treasures they hoard. The dragon’s infection makes gold speak inside our very minds:  a silent, sick and relentless voice.

First, it whispers that the treasure recovered will be sufficient and more to right great wrongs, to repair all losses, to heal disputes, to rebuild and make all whole.

A steady note is struck upon the wooden claves.

But soon, the voice of the worm urges caution and suspicion. Too many are the claimants and the pleaders for help. Perhaps there is not enough for all. Perhaps there are schemes disguised in the arguments of allies. Perhaps there are hidden knives, concealed behind the loving eyes of friends.

The hollow percussive notes speed up. They are joined by the fast whine of a bow, and by the dry rattle.

Finally, the heart of the dragon-sick is pierced and wounded with desire. His will bleeds away in the terror of loss, and he must need grasp all for himself, turning on rival and ally alike, twisting all promises and claims into hateful, selfish betrayal. And so he is lost. And so destroys himself, in the very hour of winning what he sought.

Voices wail from the Chorus of Erebor. The music hastens, and the abruptly stops.  Some rock, shaken by memory. The ancient past and living recollection blend.  

And so this Dwarven King fell into unwisdom, long ago; and took with him all who followed him.

For one wrong does not justify another. If a work is stolen from its rightful owner, it does not, thereby, return to the ownership of they who made it and gave it. And it was not for our people to punish wrongs that Elves may have done to one another.

In the end, this we know: that Grey-Cloak turned on Nótt and on the Dwarves of Nogrod,  and tried to cast them out without payment or heirloom alike, insulting them with great contempt.

Then Thinkol was slain.  Whose hand dealt the blow? The answer is lost.

Taking up the Necklace, Nótt and his folk fled his halls into the wilderness. But the Elves of Doriath came hotly after them. Greatly grieving Grey-Cloak’s death, in their turn they killed the craftspeople of the mountains. They did not stop to ask which one dealt death to Thinkol. They hewed down Nótt, and while he lay wounded, floundering in the mud for his axe, they cut his throat, and took the Necklace back again from his neck.

For many years, our people had journeyed their Great Road to work in Doriath. The Doriathim surely knew faces, a few mispronounced names: people with whom they’d bargained, or worked at building a new hall, or commissioned to make jewelry or a named blade for a beloved child’s coming of age. None now mattered.

Only two escaped the slaughter; and they made their way through the mountains to the fortress of Nogrod.  Then did doom wind ever more bloody around both Elves and Dwarves.  

At the news of the slaying of Nótt and their craftsmen, the Hollowbold City of Dwarves rose up in wrath and lamentation. They wailed and tore their beards, and called for vengeance for their friends and their lord.

Ai! Ai! Ai!  Wailings are mixed with pounding drums. Some in the Chorus press their foreheads to the floor, while others raise clenched fists.

Messages flew to and from their sister city of Belegost, who counseled them to pause for better wisdom: for already many saw in their hearts that Nótt with his rash acts had tangled the claims of justice and honor.

Too late. The Dwarf Host of Nogrod poured forth on the road to Doriath, loaded with gear of war.  Their axes gleamed. They masked themselves in their grim helms, created to fend off even hot dragon fire itself. Their war cries echoed through the mountain passes.

Thinkol’s death broke the heart of his wife, Wise-Woman Melian, and she vanished away. The spell-wrought fence that had long protected their kingdom vanished like ice in a sudden spring. The army of Nogrod ran through the woods of Doriath and raged against Menegroth, a wildfire set loose in a coal shaft.  With bloody blades Elf and Dwarf clashed together in the Thousand Caves.

The Elves of old were mighty, tall and dangerous, and the Dwarves themselves had armed them, to their woe. But the tall ones faced Dwarrow fighting underground, in caves they themselves had created, with the blood of their own dead king in their nostrils. The Khazâd had the victory. They sacked Menegroth, where long they had labored in honorable contract, if not in friendship.

Mahal turned his face away from them.

Their day of triumph was brief. Far off on their enchanted isle, the great warrior One-Hand and his wife Nightingale heard of this bloodshed and rapine against her father and onetime home, and they came flying over the land to burning Doriath.

Perhaps, in their last hours, the Dwarves of Nogrod were even surprised at this, their fate.  Among our people, the acts of Grey-Cloak would have broken forever the ties between daughter and the father who threw her husband into the torments of the Enemy. Did these Dwarrow think, therefore, that Doriath would go unavenged by the heirs of Thinkol?  It was not so.

The folk of Nogrod set out for home, laden with all the spoils of Menegroth.  Already their numbers were much reduced, for many fell in the Thousand Caves.  Late in the day, they came to the Stony Ford on the deep River Gelion, fed by ice-cold streams that ran down from the mountains. Suddenly, all the woods were filled with the sound of elven-horns, and arrows sped upon them from all sides.

It was mighty One-Hand of the clans of Men, and with him all the Woodland Elves. Together, they delivered blood vengeance on the Dwarves, and ended them all. Not one of those Dwarrow escaped the shadows under the trees, or ever climbed again the high passes that led to their homes.

In their blood lay the army of Tumunzahar, the ancient Hollowbold. Their fire-forged mail had failed them, and was rent with wounds; their keen axes lay beneath their bodies; their beards were soaked with blood, and on their brows lay cold death; their strong arms would never lift hammer in the workshop again.  

That Dwarf who could carve stone like living flower, and his Dwarrowdam who was artificer of marvelous weapons; the warrior who set marvelous gems like stars, and his brother, the wanderer of many journeys. All lay dead, in their hundreds, and they who loved them would never see their dear faces again.

Someone among the Elves knew a little of Dwarven ways, and their deep-held beliefs about the sacred treatment of the dead. So they did not burn their bodies, or dig even a pit in the dirt. They stripped them of arms and mail and left them naked carrion for the beasts and Orcs to devour. Such is vengeance.

The Chorus stood, and they reached their hands up towards the roof of the hall, and beyond it, the invisible sky. They remained standing for the remainder of the Tale.

And the Elves took up again the Nauglamír. The re-made home of the Silmaril was new to their eyes, being but fresh from the hands of the craftspeople. They gazed with admiration on the Jewel that had been cut from the Enemy’s crown, now shining set amid gold and gems by the cunning of the Dwarves. It was smeared with the blood of those skillful artists. They washed it off in the cold stony stream, and they bore the famous heirloom away.

The voices of the musicians made a low droning note in their throats, which continued on and on through the last of this passage.

The Dwarven host had died, at least, in the way of warriors. Seeking revenge for a dead king and for their friends, striving to reclaim the Great Gift of their people as a weregild, revolting against dishonor, they took the blood road. They had chosen, and they had lost, and so they fell, and their souls went to the Halls beyond the world. There lies judgement beyond our knowing.

But now came the hour of the greatest sorrow: the hour when the innocent without choice would pay the price for those who took up the sword.

Now came on night, indeed.

Alas, alas. Lamentation.

When the hawk grasps the thrush in her flight, who will look to the nestlings that call for her in vain?

Alas, alas. Lamentation.

When the she-fox is slain in the snow, then what becomes of the cubs in their den?

Lamentation.

For when the Host of Nogrod marched away to war, all that city’s mightiest Dwarrows and Dwarrowdams went with it.  But the mountain was not empty.  There remained behind all those who did not bear arms, either because of their crafts or their age, their weakness or their gentleness.  

The very old and the very young, the child and the grandfather, the mother and the babe in arms, the sick and the halt, were at home; and with them, some each of loremasters and weavers, jewelsmiths and musicians, cooks and healers. For though Khazâd love and value skill in arms, yet even among us, not all are warriors.

A handful alone of stout fighters remained with the peaceful folk; for in their rashness and wrath, too many of the people of Nogrod had rushed to avenge their king; too few, they left behind to defend their true treasures of their hearts.

The Enemy of All knew at once what had befallen in Doriath, and how Beren One-Hand  and the Wood-Elves had slain the warriors of Nogrod. And laughing, faster than thought, He sent forth his cruel creatures, and they flowed through the dark woods and filled the valleys around the great mountain city, now empty of defenders.

In desperation, the survivors shut and barred the doors of the city, and barricaded themselves into a few small halls deep within. In desperation, they sent ravens to their neighbors in Belegost in the northern mountains, and even to the distant people of Durin, in Khazad-Dum far away in the East.

The Speaker with her hands uplifted in the firelight, made as if to release a bird on the wing.

But it was too late. The world was dark, and full of the Enemy’s terror in those days, and no help could come to them in time.

Foes surrounded them. Wolves howled through the night, and the wind bore their voices even into the inmost halls of the mountain. Hordes of orcs, great trolls and servants of the Enemy still more foul, assailed the ancient city. All too soon, they broke down the outer walls and gates.  

Then Morgoth’s creatures pounded on the doors of the last deep halls where the people of Nogrod still hid, and in wicked voices taunted them with their coming death. Then the too-few defenders raised their axes, and many who had rarely held arms picked up weapons,  so that they could make a better end.

Mothers held wailing infants to their breast and tried to comfort them at the last. Old wives and husbands, grown grey together working at the forge, clung to one another's’ hands. Friends turned to old friends, and bade them farewell, and promised to seek each other in the Maker’s Halls,  where souls fly to safety beyond death.

And at last the enemy had down each door and gate, and devoured every person within. And Night, unending darkness, fell utterly on that great city.

A hollow note strikes over and over, tock, tock, tock, futile and empty, and then stills. The musicians throw up their deep hoods all, and cover their faces in shadow.

If here and there, throughout the ancient lands, there still strayed lonely sons and daughters of this city, far from home at the hour it fell, they must have taken refuge in distant mansions of other Khazâd clans, pitiful guests with empty hands. And thus they faded, and their names and their fathers’ names were utterly lost.

For no Dwarf alive today claims lineage of lost Tumunzahar, of great Nogrod deep beneath the Blue Mountains of old.