The Stricken Anvil by SkyEventide

Chapter 1

When he sees fire run high upon the walls, licking stones and sky, he knows what is ahead; when his people join him wielding maces and hammers and longswords, shouting to fuel their own charge, they also know what is ahead. They do not need to see the whips of fire and the feral horns, because they know them, many of them have known them for a long time, in their nightmares and in their memories. Angband has eventually come to their doors.

But Rôg yells to push ahead, and they yell with him, cleaning the path to their last battle. They know, but they do not fear. (Not anymore.)

~

The Balrogs fall and his House would almost sing victory. Rôg doesn’t sing, he never did. He was a quiet man, perhaps harsh in moods, and it was never with words that he voiced his deepest concerns. The hammer on the anvil has sometimes a voice of its own.

Rôg doesn’t sing victory, but he roars. It is not the dark smoke that burns his throat, it is not the heated air in the midst of the battle against creatures of fire, it is his rage. It scorches his lungs.

His people pull another Balrog to the ground and smash its arms with their maces; his people are blacksmiths and they always smash fire. It is then, when the Maia hits the pavement with a flare, that Rôg reclaims his name. It is then that he raises his hammer and strikes the head of the demon, a Demon himself.

~

He sees Penlod, they exchange only a glance across the street lit aflame. There is no time for much else. But Rôg doesn’t regret that; whenever they spoke, they spoke truly to each other, and there are no last words trapped in his chest. Penlod knows that.

The street is slick with blood, covered by blackened corpses of Eldar and Orcs, by carcasses of Balrogs as dark as coal. The road itself quivers under the assaults, the walls crumble distantly with catastrophic echo. Penlod’s armor is stained and ruined, and Rôg wishes he had the time to fix it. Yet here is no time but for that glance and they both understand.

That is their goodbye.

~

When he lies down on the street, he doesn’t feel his legs anymore; maybe his sternum is broken. He coughs, his sight blurred. The Lord of Balrogs came and cut through them all, merciless and fell. Rôg wonders whether they killed enough of them, whether they gained enough time.

His people will not let the servants of Morgoth get them alive, they will fall to the last man and woman there where he led them, there where they chose. For that, he is grateful.

He is deaf, now. The sound of the battle is distant, but his hand still holds his hammer tightly. Rôg asks himself whether, with that last stand, that last wave of strength that they opposed to the legions of Angband, he won or not; but finds no answer.

The last breath escapes his lips as his spirit abandons his scarred body of a thrall. He feels it, then, when he is not anymore in the realm of the living: a feeble call from the Black Foe that wishes to ensnare and trap souls, drag them among his foul ranks. He feels it – and ignores it.

The chains trying to hold his ankles are nothing more than smoke, the ones around his wrists nothing more than breeze.

He leaves behind his flesh. He leaves behind his name. And he laughs, because he tastes freedom.