Grinding Ice by Gabriel

Chapter 1

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The wind struck him in the face, leaving a sting not with its chill but with its ferocity and strength, as he strode the cliffs above the grinding ice next to his brother in-law Fingolfin. Angolmôr stared over the endless white ahead of them, his long dark hair whipping back behind him like a standard blowing furiously in a storm. Fingolfin abruptly halted at the summit of the bluff to gape over the vast landscape. Below, immense platforms of ice cut like pieces of a puzzle had broken away from the rest and re-frozen to form plains of endless blue-white stretching as far as the eye could see. He sighed heavily at the magnitude of his decision to make the crossing, anticipating the impossible feats that it would take to do so.

“Do you trust my judgement, brother?” Fingolfin cried against the wind, the weight of responsibility on him, magnified by the absence of Finarfin and his burning desire to have his beloved wife at his side, resounding in his voice.

“Am I not here?” Angolmôr responded, his words whipped away with the wind no sooner than he said them. “Do you not have ten thousand Noldor at your back?” he continued. “That should be answer enough, my Lord.” Fingolfin’s features changed to grim resolve. He turned to look at the host of the Noldor standing together some distance away, then at his family. His grey eyes travelled over his sons’ and daughter’s defiant faces, and beyond to his niece and nephews. The anguish deepened on his own face as he turned back and, with his eyes firmly fixed on the distant ice shelf, he headed down the slopes towards the shifting ice.