Under strange stars by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 4

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The journey with Elrohir’s company was punishing. Glorfindel’s Umbarian guides had travelled during the fiery daytime, but on smaller, even-footed camels and never at speed. This ride felt like receiving two beatings at once: one from the great war-camel beneath him and another from the southern sun burning directly overhead. 

Glorfindel now fully appreciated the Haradrim fashion of covering one’s entire body, including the face. As the sun rose the intense glare flickering off the sand underfoot stung even for an Elf. To Mortal eyes it had to be near unbearable. Elrohir and his companions handed around a small jar, its contents an inky black. Darkening the skin around their eyes with the mixture of ground charcoal and animal fat seemed to bring some relief. When Elrohir turned around and offered the pungent stuff to Glorfindel he gladly accepted it.

Out here in the deep desert water was precious as life itself. Elrohir soon told Glorfindel that they would not pass any wells or watering holes. They wholly depended on what their camels carried, and would find no more before reaching their destination, which he refused to name. Glorfindel observed Elrohir and made sure to drink less often and in smaller sips than the Peredhel did, which was hard enough. The constant gnawing thirst gave him a new respect for his mortal companions’ ability to suppress the longings of their feeble bodies.

At high noon they set up a tarp to rest in the shade. The camels were hobbled and released, but they stayed nearby. The vast sea of sand surrounding them held nothing for the animals to graze. 

Elrohir sat up to take first watch as the others lay down to sleep. He had removed his head-covering to reveal dark hair cropped heartbreakingly short, as seemed to be the custom among the Haradrim. Awash in equal amounts of pity and sorrow Glorfindel noted the uneven bristles in Elrohir’s neck where one of his fellow warriors must have cut it for him with a knife. The sight brought unpleasant thoughts of thralldom and torture: no Elf would undergo such humiliation of their own free will.

It would be a long work, to bridge this gulf of strangeness that gaped between what Elrohir had become and what he was born to be. Suddenly Glorfindel doubted the wisdom of his counsel to Elrond, that the Peredhel stay behind in Imladris. Glorfindel himself had little fondness of Mortals, with the esteem he had held for Tuor all but demolished by witnessing Isildur’s weakness. Elrond, with his ingrained understanding of Elrohir’s adopted people, would probably have had a far easier time building a rapport. A dear price the Peredhel had paid for safekeeping the burden that was Vilya. Glorfindel would see to it that it would run no higher.

Glorfindel sat down opposite Elrohir once he was completely sure that the others were asleep. He chose the spot both to scan the horizon at the boy’s back, and to see his face. Even with the strange black stripes around his eyes he was the spitting image of his brother.

“Will you not tell me where we are headed?” Glorfindel asked.

“We are on a hunt, Master Glorfindel.” Elrohir answered with a wry smile. “Our prey hides in the Sea of Dunes. I did not tell you in Amuk’s camp to keep from alarming those overhearing our conversation.”

Glorfindel read what little emotion slipped past Elrohir’s carefully maintained facade. To his dismay, it was pure and unadulterated fear.

“What is it you seek?” he demanded, urgency in his voice.

“I do not know. We have no name for such a creature. Some call it the Demon. It seems to be a man, and yet not. Fear is its weapon, and with that it causes a slow death without wounds. It sets itself against the Haradrim, aiding Umbar, and it will be our downfall if we do not defeat it soon.”

An icy fist closed around Glorfindel’s heart as he thought of Sauron, fled into the wilds after his downfall at the hands of the Last Alliance, when Isildur failed to deal him the killing blow.

He took Elrohir by the arm, his fingers gentle but firm. “Have you seen this creature with your own eyes?”

A hint of pain flickered across Elrohir’s face, but his voice remained steady. “I have.”

“Show me.” Glorfindel belatedly realized that he was issuing orders as if this were one of his warriors.  

Elrohir looked at him in confusion, thinking the demand an ill-timed jest. “I don’t have it in my pocket.”

Glorfindel did not even smile at the attempt at a light-hearted answer. His eyes bored into Elrohir’s. 

“You and I, we can open our thoughts to one another, and so share memories. You may not have experienced it among Men, but you are certainly capable of it. Allow me to see this being through your eyes so I may put a name to it, if I can.”

Elrohir recoiled, backing away from Glorfindel with loathing in his eyes. His right hand shot to the dagger in his sleeve.

“I have felt that before, too, and from the very thing we seek. It was not an experience I’d care to repeat. Are you one like him, perhaps given fair form to deceive us?”

Elrohir’s entire body tensed like a snake about to strike, and for an instant Glorfindel was terrified. Against a half-starved child he was sure to come out the winner, but Elrohir would never trust him again. 

Glorfindel raised both hands to where Elrohir could see them. “Look into my eyes. I speak the truth. I am nothing like him.”

Elrohir did look, and what he saw made him relax somewhat. “Take my hand,” Glorfindel said, voice carefully even as he threw caution to the winds and reached for Elrohir’s. “It will make it easier.”

Elrohir shook, but he let himself be touched. His palm bore a swordsman’s calluses, rough and clammy with sweat. Glorfindel reached into his mind as gently as he could to avoid spooking him again. That distinctive, almost-Elvish weave of it was instantly familiar from Elrond and Elladan. The contents were another matter. Glorfindel was met with a firm resistance born of terror. Clearly Elrohir wanted nothing more than to recoil at the unfamiliar sensation of another mind against his, but he wished to learn what Glorfindel could tell him even more. Panic rose, its discord jangling the weft and warp of Elrohir’s mind. Glorfindel could feel him suppress it with the skill of one used to their life depending on composure. It was only a moment before he regained his bearings and brought up the memory.

Elrohir stood guard over a sleeping encampment. It was a dark noontime, the air so saturated with the dust blown up by a hot southern wind that a permanent red dusk had descended. As people and camels slept, the billowing curtains of dust endlessly driven across the sky were the only movement, and yet there was nothing peaceful about the scene.

Even just watching the memory, Glorfindel felt unease and impending threat weigh heavily on his mind. Something wicked approached.

The camels could feel it too, and they bellowed in terror, trying to run despite their hobbles. All around him men and women awoke and reached for their weapons. Every eye was trained on the invisible horizon and the dancing veils of dust, but nothing else moved there. 

Suddenly, on the edge of vision, something disturbed the pattern of the dust storm. A man walked towards the camp. No, rather than a man it was the absence of one, a man-shaped emptiness in the red dust. The crushing press of fear intensified. Somewhere behind Elrohir camels screamed in blind panic. Some of the people, too. One of the archers drew his crossbow to shoot a bolt at the thing. It was well-aimed but passed straight through the shape unheeded as it continued its approach.

Elrohir became aware of being touched, not physically but in mind as if another were with him in the darkness behind his eyelids. It was vile, a disgusting violation. He struggled with all his might to remove the thing as it clung to him with a grip of iron.

“You are not like the others!” The paralysing cold of that hissing voice was torture in itself.“What are you?! Speak!”

The pain intensified as Elrohir’s defenseless mind was torn asunder by an iron claw. The creature used fear itself as torture, pouring it into him like a viscous poison until he was mired in it like an ant in amber. There, just before the breaking point where it would wholly bring him under its shadow, a memory resurfaced from a time long forgotten.

“A Elbereth, Gilthoniel! A tiro nin!”

Elrohir’s waking mind did not recall or understand the words, but they had left his mouth nonetheless. Not only did they break the creature’s hold on him, but they struck fear into its dark heart.

When Elrohir became aware of his surroundings once more he was on his bedroll, a handful of pale, concerned faces looking down on him. The creature had fled, hours ago as it turned out. Meanwhile the dust had settled and through a gap between the tarps he could see the stars.

Glorfindel let go of Elrohir’s mind and hand. They were once more in the sea of dunes under clear blue sky and harsh midday sun.

Elrohir rubbed his eyes, seeming dazed. Passing the memory had been hard work, Glorfindel realized, for one not used to it from childhood. He touched the Peredhel’s mind once more. Elrohir was surprised, but he allowed it. This time Glorfindel only gave of the strength he had aplenty, glad he could do at least this small thing for him. Elrohir’s mind was clear and strong when he withdrew.

At his expectant look, Glorfindel answered, “It is as I feared, I do know him. He is not the one I dreaded most but a deadly adversary nonetheless. He is a Ringwraith, one of Nine. In the North we believed him and those of his ilk vanquished with the defeat of their evil master. I see now that we have greatly underestimated them.”

“How did you do it?” demanded Elrohir eagerly.

“Do what?”

“How did you defeat them to begin with? If you succeeded once, it can be done twice!” A fierce hope lit Elrohir’s eyes. “There is only one now and not the worst among them, you said. Can they be killed?”

Glorfindel looked at the stilled waves of red sand-dunes stretching to the distant horizon and thought of Elrond, the White Council, and the many weeks of travel separating them. The sheer distance was daunting, and at the last he dismissed it as impossible. He was alone in this, with one far too young to be a threat to the likes of the Witch-King.

After a long silence, Glorfindel finally answered. “Not by mortal men. I believe that the time for this one to die will not come for many long years yet.”

At Elrohir’s look of desperation, he answered, “But he can be weakened, struck with terror, his own weapon, and driven far from here. Which is what we will attempt.”

Elrohir did not seem convinced. “How?”

“Not by the sword or any other physical weapon. Some weapons are only of the mind. You remembered a little of that art when you first encountered him, and it saved your life in more ways than you know.”

As he spoke the words a terrible understanding dawned on Glorfindel. A cold sliver of fear of what might have been had their fates been even a little different slid across his heart when he realised the full measure of Elrohir’s despair.

“Now I see why you and your companions have come on this hunt, of all the warriors in Harad. They have Númenórean blood, you the blood of Lúthien. With that comes a measure of skill in matters of the Unseen. You are the last stand of the Haradrim, and you came here to die. That is why you are not concerned about water for a return journey, and why you refused to take me.”

He searched Elrohir’s eyes, and knew his words to be truth. With or without Glorfindel’s presence, this hunt would have been the last mission Elrohir ever carried out for the Haradrim. The cruelty of the child dying alone, in terror and without even knowing his father’s name was beyond what Glorfindel could bear to contemplate.

“You see more than you are shown, Glorfindel.” Elrohir’s eyes seemed glued to where his fingers were twiddling with his bone-hilted dagger. “We have no desire to die. But knowing what we do, I can honestly say that I see no other possibility. We will stand against the Demon, and be defeated. Harad will fall.”

After Ruhiren’s tales Glorfindel had expected to encounter darkness and despair in the desert. It was nonetheless painful to see Elrohir ensnared by it.

“Why?” Glorfindel demanded. “Why throw your life away on a battle you have no hope of winning? Do you not care for the life you have been given?”

Elrohir looked at Glorfindel and spoke plainly, as if explaining a simple fact of life to a child.

“We will be the lucky ones, before the end. If the Black Númenóreans conquer these lands… I have no desire to survive that day. Only the dead will be beyond their reach.”

Glorfindel knew he was treading dangerous ground.

“You are not one of the Haradrim in sooth.” He remarked cautiously. “I am not telling you to leave now, or even asking you to, merely offering. If you want to go north, we will. I’ll lend you what help I can with the war, if that is your choice. But you only need to say the word and your part in all this shall end.”

Elrohir was less offended than he could have been.

“I am going to pretend that you did not just propose me to commit desertion.” He answered dryly. “It’ll spare us the misery that will come from me trying to behead you, which is what our laws require me to do in such cases. For both our sakes I have only heard the part where you said you would defeat the Ringwraith.”

Glorfindel looked at the bright young spirit before him. One fateful day he had kept darkness from consuming the child’s forefathers. He had brought down a Balrog then.

He would not cower before a mere Mortal now, Ringwraith or not.

Glorfindel laughed, fearless and full of joy as he cast off the despair that still clung to his young companion like a heavy cloak.

“Elrohir Elrondion, you bravest of fools,” Glorfindel said. “It was without a doubt divine intervention that brought us together, and despite the Valar’s best efforts you would have left me behind with the luggage.”

Elrohir did not even smile. “You should stop singing their praises if you want to make friends in these parts.” He sat back to look Glorfindel in the eye. “You are unlike anything I have ever seen before. Your death would be a great loss, and I would have no part in it.”

Glorfindel looked at Elrohir with nothing but joy in his open gaze. “The same can be said for you. I am rather hard to kill. I will not die, and neither will you.”

Elrohir ignored the implications of Glorfindel’s words. There probably was only so much he could wrap his mind around in one day.

“What do you propose?” 

“Send your companions back to Amuk.” Glorfindel ordered with a seasoned captain’s confidence. “They will be more burden than help. Then bring me to this Demon, and I’ll see what can be done.” 

Elrohir paled. Until now he had made an effort to mask his fear. At those words he dropped all pretenses, terror plain as day in his eyes.

“Alone? This is madness. Have you not seen what he is capable of? Once het sets his eye on you, you’ll be swept away by fear like a flood, to darkness and death. There is no escape from his gaze once it is upon you. Our only hope lies in numbers. Even he cannot subdue six attackers at a time.”

Glorfindel shook his head, doing his utmost to project an image of supreme confidence.

“I have seen him when he still wore his iron crown, in Mordor on what was to be the day of his triumph. He knows me well indeed! When your father and I faced all nine Ringwraiths in battle they could not stand against us in the end. This one has not forgotten! He is alone now, and much diminished. Once he was a Mortal Man, and despite the foul enchantments laid on him, he still knows fear. It will be his undoing.”

Elrohir seemed only half-convinced, caught between a wild new hope and the weight of long-carried despair. He was quiet for a time, and guarded while thinking. 

His next concern was of a far more personal nature. “How do I know you will not tie me in a sack once the others are out of earshot, and drag me north to your lord?”

At first Glorfindel was appalled at being thought a liar and a coward. Then he remembered the slave market in Pellardur. Elrohir may have a distinct lack of trust, but he had his reasons.

“I can only give you my word.”

Elrohir shook his head. “There is no promise you can make that I can trust.”

Glorfindel smiled once more. “You will have to take a chance, then. Know this: if I really wanted to take you north against your will I could already have done so. Your companions are no match for me.”

Elrohir considered this for a time, and Glorfindel smiled when he saw common sense win out.

“Very well. Master Glorfindel. I accept your proposal, Eru help me!”

Elrohir rose to wake his bleary-eyed company, who responded to his order to turn away with equal measures of concern and relief. 

His lieutenant, a dark-skinned Haradrim called Hamalan, would not be swayed by Elrohir’s assurances that he had agreed to the arrangement of his own free will. She was a fair woman in her prime, all soft roundedness and long dark braids, but her scarred hands and straightforward manner spoke of a life amid violence. Glorfindel could tell she greatly cared for Elrohir. They must have known each other for a long time, judging from the way their conversation required more looks than words.

Hamalan insisted on leaving the camp with Elrohir until they were out of earshot between the dune ridges. They spoke at length there before she could be convinced that her captain had not been bewitched or possessed by the strange Northerner. 

Elrohir would rejoin his company at a place called the Pass of Horns. He managed to say it as if he truly believed he would survive his journey with Glorfindel.