Under strange stars by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 8

A long line of armed camel riders snaked into the hills in a silence heavy as stone. The least noise could now give the Haradrim ambush away to the approaching Umbarians and doom them all. Elrohir directed his company into position using hand signs, steering Ot up and down the column. Not once did he turn around to look at Glorfindel, but that strange, rigid set of his shoulders spoke clearly enough.

As they lay in ambush overlooking what was to become the battlefield the long, silent wait began to grind. Hours passed, and now that there was nothing left for Elrohir to do, Glorfindel could tell he was suffering. He did try to rest, but the unfamiliar weight of Glorfindel’s mail made him toss and turn in the sand-hollow they shared.

Glorfindel gently brushed his mind, pleasantly surprised when Elrohir allowed it. What he encountered was a well of agitated confusion. The young Peredhel was afraid, but it was more than simple fear of the upcoming battle. Just weeks ago the idea of being slain had not held the terror it did now. Ever since Glorfindel reawakened the deeply buried memory of Elladan it had consumed him like a fever. Elrohir could not, would not accept the end of his life without having seen Elladan one more time. He now remembered brief snaps of his brother, small moments of what little time they had had together. All that remained of their bond was an emptiness, harrowing not because of what it was but what should have been there, like an amputated limb.

Night came and went as the sounds of the approaching army grew louder. It was enough to make even the bravest among the Haradrim doubt their sanity. Thousands of feet marching to drum beats, stirring clouds of red dust high enough to blot out the fading stars. The grumbling of discontented camels beaten forward by their shouting riders. The greatest terror of all were the elephants, living mountains of flesh with battle turrets strapped to their backs, trumpeting dejectedly as they were slowly driven across the valley floor below.

The Haradrim were not entirely without hope, be it a cruel one. Even from this high vantage point the Umbarians’ desperate suffering was clear to see. Their marching  rhythm was disjointed. Some companies lacked half their number, and more than a few soldiers dressed as cavalerists were on foot, their camels lost to thirst or perhaps slaughtered for their meat. Elrohir turned his head towards Glorfindel who lay next to him, flat on his front in the sand to spy over a hillcrest, and smiled despite the leaden weight of his dread.

Just after sunrise, a relief like water to a thirsting man, Hamalan and the rest of their company arrived. They had been drawn back from guard duty to join the main force. Glorfindel could tell that her familiar presence and calm efficiency were a balm to the agitation Elrohir tried his utmost to hide from his companions.

Their long wait mercifully reached its end. Horns and battle cries from the keep could be heard over the din made by the marching army below. The camel-riders formed a phalanx.

War in Harad held little poetry. There were no grand declarations or rallying cries, not even a last chance for Glorfindel to say something to Elrohir along the lines of "take care" before they poured themselves over the hill crest and into the valley below, silent like a rising flood.

Elrohir and Ot moved as a single being executing the steps of some deadly, arrhythmical dance. Glorfindel could not register what was happening beyond their section of the battlefield, so were all his mind and will set to protecting his charge. The damned Peredhel took too many risks in his eagerness to do as much damage as possible to the Umbarian camel-cavalry before the element of surprise wore off. The Umbarians were fearsome fighters, clad in well-forged steel. The battle would have been hopeless but for the agony of thirst that had weakened man and beast, making them far slower than the Haradrim.

Whether green field or desert, camel or horse, Man or Orc ultimately made no difference, Glorfindel realised as he deflected what would have been a deadly blow to Elrohir’s back, and ran the offending Umbarian through. Not to the screams, the blood, the way gore clung to one’s sleeves to the shoulder after the first few disembowelments.

There came a lull in the fighting, a chance to look around. It turned out that they had run out of opponents. Elrohir turned to Hamalan on her own camel beside him, and together they laughed, fearless and fierce. They were both unscathed, and their company had just brought down an entire Umbarian camel-cavalry division. 

The celebration was not to last. As Glorfindel watched them rejoice, the reckoning arrived. 

The ground itself shook under the enormous feet of the mûmakil. So alien, so mighty were these beasts that the only comparison Glorfindel could think of were the ancient slime-drakes of Morgoth. They seemed more like moving mountains than living animals, crowned by cruel metal spikes on teeth, trunks and feet. High above the ground in turrets strapped to their backs rode their masters, driving them on with iron-tipped whips. 

Atop the tallest Mûmak stood a turret draped in gold-embroidered red silk. A multitude of signalling flags hung from it on many flagpoles, being constantly rearranged as the battle progressed. A tall figure in gold-plated armour stood among many attendants swarming about him like bejewelled beetles. From this elevated lookout General Arnuzîr commanded his army.

Elrohir and Hamalan moved as one. Instead of turning around and fleeing for the safety of the hills, they charged. Their war camels had been raised in the presence of mûmakil and could be brought to approach them. The company thundered towards the monsters, kept alive only by their speed as arrows and javelins launched from the dizzying heights of the creature’s backs bounced off the ground around Ot’s legs. 

Glorfindel grabbed Elrohir’s shoulder and spun him around in the saddle. “Stop, you fool! This is madness. Draw back!”

The brute force with which Elrohir thrust his intentions into Glorfindel’s mind would have sufficed to command an entire company of Elven warriors. Even mûmakil had their weakness, it turned out. The eyes first, and then the tendons moving their enormous legs. Haradrim archers were already launching volleys of arrows at the beasts’ heads. Glorfindel could feel, more than hear Elrohir’s cry of triumph as Arnuzîr’s mount was struck blind by many ochre-fletched arrows sticking from its bloodied eye-sockets like a bouquet of bizarre flowers.

There was no time for pity or shock at the sight of such cruelty inflicted on a living creature. 

A call went up from many voices, Elrohir’s among them: “Cut it down! The legs! Take it down!”

Ot brought them ever closer to the maddened, thrashing Mûmak. Both Elrohir and Glorfindel drew their cutting spears, and beside them Hamalan did the same. Suddenly there was a rush of wind, like the wings of Manwë’s eagles landing. The enormous head descended, dripping blood and foam from its metal-tipped tusks. Someone screamed, Glorfindel could not tell whether it was man or mount, and then both Hamalan and her camel were gone, sent flying into the air like a handful of dry grass. The mere sight of the sickening crunch when camel and rider met the hard ground was enough to know that neither would rise again.

Elrohir’s anger and desperation hit Glorfindel like a stormwind. For an instant the Peredhel sat frozen, Ot wildly galloping without his rider’s direction. At the full, unguarded extent of Elrohir’s sorrow Glorfindel briefly wondered what, exactly Hamalan had been to him. The alarming line of thought was cut short when Elrohir emerged from his shock with a wave of bitter hate. A single thought bloomed in his mind, another way beside the unreachable, flailing legs to bring down the General of Umbar. As they thundered past the Mûmak’s flank, he suddenly stood in the saddle and jumped.

Of course. The cinch. It held the whole battle turret fast to the animal’s back. Several Haradrim had come to the same conclusion and were hauling themselves up to carve at the knotted cable of leather reinforced with iron. It did come apart, but far too slowly. As Glorfindel watched volleys of Umbarian arrows picked off the cutters one by one. Elrohir alone remained, saved by Glorfindel’s mail and hanging on for dear life with his legs as both hands sawed frantically, dulling one blade after another on the cable’s metal threads.

Glorfindel reached out in mind to the structure of the iron itself, already screaming and stretching, and sang.