Under strange stars by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 3

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Both the newcomers and Amuk’s company made their grumbling camels kneel and dismounted. They would make camp for the day in this place. Amuk and Elrohir --no, Thanak-- turned their backs on the lively chatter of folk raising tents and lighting fires. They walked off among the strewn boulders surrounding the encampment to discuss whatever message Thanak had brought.

Glorfindel waited at the camp’s edge, nerves strung to breaking point. He tried his utmost to drown out the bustling of people and animals around him as he paced, suddenly agitated beyond what meditation could suppress. He had to restrain himself from following the pair to grab hold of Thanak and bare his face, if only to satisfy himself that hope was not playing cruel tricks on him, that this was indeed Elrohir and not some unfortunate young man of Gondor with the look of the Elf-friends. 

Glorfindel strained his ears, but he failed to understand their hushed conversation in rapid Haradi. All it conveyed was concern, an urgency with a hint of despair. Whatever the Haradrim intended with this strange war without armies, if war it was, it seemed to go ill. An agonizing hour passed and the eastern sky had brightened before they returned.

Thanak had clearly been told already of how Amuk’s company acquired a strange Northerner on an even stranger quest. As he approached Glorfindel his eyes gave away nothing of his inner thoughts. He was on the tall side for a Mortal, but smaller and slighter of frame than Glorfindel. His bearing had the grace and purpose of a seasoned warrior and he bore the arms to match it. A scimitar hung sheathed from his hip, a crossbow and quiver on his back in a leather holster. The desert-tinted garb of the Haradrim showed only tanned hands and a small slit of face from which sea-grey eyes now scrutinized Glorfindel. The depth of his gaze eerily reminded him of Galadriel in her youth.

Thanak spoke Haradi. “Greetings, Northerling. I am told you are looking for me.”

The faintest trace of Elven fairness remained in Elrohir’s voice even in such an alien language -- enough to remove all doubt. Relief flooded Glorfindel, and he could not help but smile. Despite Ruhiren’s grim warnings about this desert’s tendency to turn all things to darkness, it seemed the Valar had smoothed Glorfindel’s path to fulfilling his mission.

Elrohir sat down on the sand beside Glorfindel. His manner seemed gruff and unwelcoming, and his right hand remained hidden in the wide drape of a sleeve, no doubt clutching some weapon. Glorfindel deliberately ignored the implied threat as he undid his own headdress, revealing his face. With great caution, his back turned to the others, he released the artful enchantment veiling his appearance, so Elrohir would see him as he had been in Imladris. 

Glorfindel could see little of Elrohir’s expression, but he heard the hitch in his breath, and for a moment the carefully maintained guard on face and mind slipped to reveal shock … and recognition … before his eyes grew inscrutable once more.

A long silence descended. Glorfindel left the initiative to Elrohir, feeling the momentousness of this occasion and the delicate balance between hope and doubt in the young Half-Elf’s mind.

When Elrohir finally spoke it was not the Sindarin Glorfindel had hoped for, but accentless Númenórean.

“So at least this part of what Amuk tells me is true. I somehow knew you, long ago.”

It was less of an acknowledgement than Glorfindel had hoped for, but something at least. 

“Your father sends me to bring you home.” He said, his manner careful and gentle. “We have searched for many years. At last we have found you.”

“I have no memory of him,” Thanak interrupted. “What little I know of my childhood before I was captured does not allow me to tell whether you speak the whole truth. I can see no falsehood in you, but your mind is different from any I have met before. It hides many things.”

“Only what safety requires.” This was the truth and Glorfindel made sure Elrohir could perceive it in him, but even that failed to bring reassurance.

 A flock of sandgrouse spread out against the lightening sky. They noisily flapped into the air in a cloud of swirling feathers, disturbed by a group of warriors hunting them with slingshots. For the briefest of instants Elrohir’s eyes flicked, not to the distressed birds but to a small grouping of tumbled rocks nearby. The hidden warrior with her crossbow had been clever and stealthy, but Glorfindel could hear her breathe. 

He kept his eyes fixed on Elrohir’s, all openness and pleading. To threaten or demand would mean his death. The boy had grown up among Mortals, who did not value one another’s lives, and he would make himself a kinslayer without hesitation.  

Elrohir laughed without mirth. “Whose safety would that be?”

Glorfindel remained impassive. "Yours first and foremost, but also mine and that of those who eagerly await our return at home.”

“Which is?” 

Ai child, have they robbed you of even the memory of home? The thought was unbearable, and Glorfindel struggled against the sorrow colouring his voice.

“Imladris, in Arnor. Where Elrond, your father rules the Hidden Valley with the Lady Celebrían, your mother.”

Elrohir appeared utterly unmoved. “None of those names hold meaning to me.” His tone grew clipped. “It must have been over forty years. I am surprised to hear my parents are still alive, let alone sending out search parties.”

Elrohir’s lack of recognition, the seeming absence of any emotion was a dagger to Glorfindel's heart. He once held this child in his arms and sang the stars to life for him, only to see these very eyes light up with joy. He wished he could show Elrohir his brother’s face, his parents, to make him remember whether he wanted or not. What kept him was the hidden archer, and the likelihood of Elrohir reacting unpredictably to the strangeness of another’s memory inside his own head.

Glorfindel played his final card with regret for the pain it would inflict.

“What about your brother? Have you completely forgotten Elladan?”

The words hit Elrohir like a fist to the face. He gasped for breath, choked by rushing memories. The wet gleam to his eyes was a relief of sorts. Whatever else Elrohir had lost, he remained capable of honest tears.

After a long silence he looked at Glorfindel once more, this time with a new and unhoped-for gentleness.

“We meet in interesting times, Glorfindel.” Elrohir’s voice was hoarse with sorrow. “The war against Umbar is at a turning point. We must defeat them now or be destroyed. And right at this very moment you appear as if by Eru’s own hand, with a tale that is simply too strange to be true in this mad world.”

Glorfindel stated fact when he answered, “Yet you believe me, or you would have had me shot by now.”

Now Glorfindel did allow his eyes to move to his would-be killer’s hiding place, and Elrohir knew that he knew. A flicker of shame flashed through the boy’s mind. 

“I believe you, Eru help me!” he exclaimed, “But I fail to see how it still matters. As you have your duty to uphold, so do I have mine, and my time is running out. Now that I have delivered my message to Amuk I am needed elsewhere, and with great haste. My companions and I will leave in an hour, for we do not have even the day to spare. Where we go, you can’t follow. Amuk and his folk will now turn to the Pass of Horns. You must go with them and wait for me there. Eru willing, I will find you again. Then we will see what can be done.”

Glorfindel smiled, and briefly let himself revel in having convinced Elrohir. Now that the Peredhel believed him, all that remained to be done was strategy. And strategy was what Glorfindel had excelled at many centuries before Elrohir’s grandfather had been a twinkle in his great-grandmother’s eye.

“Take me with you, wherever you are going.” Glorfindel pleaded. “No matter what awaits, you will be glad you brought me before the end.”

Elrohir shook his head. “You know nothing of the desert, Master Glorfindel. We cannot take you on this journey. Speed is of the essence. You have no camel, and even if you did you are unused to riding. Go with Amuk.”

“Camels can carry two people,” Glorfindel retorted.

“Not as far, as fast and with as little water as the journey we are about to attempt.” Elrohir caught Glorfindel’s eyes with a stubborn determination that could have moved mountains. Celebrían’s son indeed.

Two could play that particular game. “So you leave me no choice but to follow you on foot.” Glorfindel said, wholly calm and matter-of-fact. 

Elrohir was flabbergasted by the sheer folly of that. “You’d be dead before the third day broke.”

“Do not underestimate me. There is more than the eye can see.”

Elrohir’s eyebrows almost disappeared beneath his turban. “Whatever that is, I am quite sure it will not let you walk all the way through the Great Dunes with only the water you can carry on your back!”

He had clearly never met an Elf-warrior, and certainly not one like Glorfindel, born in the light of the Two Trees. Glorfindel knew that his endurance would be double or more of what even the strongest Mortal body could bear. He would suffer, but he would live to protect Elrohir to the very end. He would not fail.

“I have sworn to bring you home safely. Now that I have found you I will not let you go to war alone. If I cannot ride with you I will walk in your tracks wherever you are going, and I will find you at their end.”

Elrohir was visibly taken aback by that much persistence in the face of reason. “You are mad. The one thing you will find in my tracks is your death.”

“A chance I am willing to take.” Glorfindel said, slow and solemn. “Hear me Elrohir, the name I heard your father give you the day you were born. Whatever is on the other side of the dunes, you will be glad of my help. Take me, or I shall walk.”

The sound of his true name seemed to break some unseen barrier, because Elrohir gave an exasperated sigh. “Very well. I’ll take you in my saddle, but know this. If your presence threatens our mission, I will not hesitate to abandon you to your fate in the desert.”

With that he rose to his feet, clearly distressed, and all but fled. Glorfindel followed. Elrohir’s company were already saddling their camels and packing their gear. He set to the same tasks in the reddish light of sunrise. 

With as little as he knew of camels Glorfindel could tell that Elrohir’s was a fine one. The animal was tall, with intelligence in its eye, its coat a golden tan. Glorfindel noted the heavy-tipped spear strapped to the saddle in easy reach. The weapon’s shaft was long enough to battle an adversary on the ground. Hanging from a hook on the saddle was a second quiver with even more crossbow bolts, fletched with the feathers of desert fowl.

Before Elrohir could mount Amuk approached. He was carrying Glorfindel’s weapons and waterskin, taken from him at the raid. The skin had been filled to capacity, and there was a bundle of dried dates Glorfindel did not remember packing.

“May Eru protect you, Glorfindel. These times grow dark and we may not meet again in this life or the next. I am glad to see that honor and loyalty have not entirely forsaken this world.”

Glorfindel bowed to this brave captain of Men, who had taken a chance by sparing his life and leading him to Elrohir for no other reason than that he understood all about a father’s love.

“My thanks and blessings, Amuk. May your fortunes in this war and beyond be favorable, and may you return safely to those you care for."

Elrohir silently packed Glorfindel’s belongings with his own. Even if his movements were gruff and angry when he allowed Glorfindel to mount behind him, it mattered not. Glorfindel now had the time he needed to talk to Elrohir. He could wait.