The Art of Ending by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 1

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“Have you considered that the man might be making an honest proposal?” Thanak only spoke once they had left Glorfindel’s earshot. 

 He stood in the slender sickle of shadow cast by a towering dune. The desert sand was a deep red here, and harsh sunlight reflecting off it seemed to paint both their faces in blood.

 “ That is no man!” Hamalan scoffed as she expertly slid down the sand dune’s flank to land on her feet beside Thanak. He was not a bad liar when necessary, but he could never get anything past her. 

 “White-fiends are a children’s tale,” she said, ”but perhaps the Last Battle is upon us and the legends of old are springing to life once more. This Glorfindel may have done no harm yet, but he’s far from harmless.” 

 Thanak shook his head in vehement denial. “Harmful and legendary is just what we need! Glorfindel says he once brought down this Demon and eight others of its kind. That’s more than any of ours may claim! Let him try it again.”

 She shot him her particular wordless look that eloquently conveyed he was talking absolute camel-dung. “ If Glorfindel is as powerful as he claims, why would he insist on separating you from your company? Whatever mad price he’ll ask for this miracle of his, you’ll be the one to pay it!”

 This question, at least, Thanak could answer, though the very idea filled him with cold terror. 

 “I am his payment. He wants to take me north.”

 Hamalan laughed without mirth. “Is that what he says? I think he wants to take you to Umbar, where they remember you well indeed! You’ll fetch him your weight in silver if he brings you in alive.”  

 Thanak knew well enough that of all the possible explanations for Glorfindel’s presence, that one alone made rational sense. He struggled and failed for words to convey his fleeting, bone-deep sense of safety at the remembered scent of strange flowers blooming on a northern meadow. It could not be said without sounding like the kind of sappy fool who would fall for such tricks. 

 “Glorfindel is no bounty hunter. I once knew him, long ago. That much of his tale is true.”

 “Even if he told you no lies he could still kill you!”  Hamalan exclaimed, truly exasperated. “If this brother you now claim to remember truly exists, why would he send for you all of a sudden? Perhaps Glorfindel is here to make sure you never turn up to claim this Elladan’s inheritance.” 

 Hamalan was eminently sensible as always, and yet the idea proved too painful to contemplate. Thanak found he had no desire to live in a world where she was right. If Elladan wanted him dead, he would die.

 “Dying by Glorfindel’s hand is not the worst possible fate. Not by far.”

 “Indeed.” A well-known pain rippled across Hamalan’s face, but her voice did not falter. “That would be getting strung up in the Great Temple of Umbar to be cut to pieces in slow stages. The priests of the Zigûr will make a grand festival of it. They’ll let Glorfindel watch from the lords’ gallery before he takes home his reward.” 

 They both shuddered at remembered horrors -- the sights and screams, the warring smells of gore and incense, the tender insides of a living human laid bare before the Zigûr’s altar so his hungry spirit might feast on their suffering. 

 Thanak tried to imagine Glorfindel’s alien blue eyes on him as he writhed under the priests’ knives. Would the northerling savour his agony, drinking opium-laced wine and laughing with the Lords of Umbar? Would he vie with the nobles for the honour of being granted a cut? Thanak found he could not summon the image. 

 “I believe him,” he said firmly. “Even if I didn’t, we cannot squander this opportunity. Glorfindel might win us the war!” 

 “Might. You’re playing dice with more than just your own hide, Thanak.” Hamalan turned her face away. Her voice sounded strange, and only then did he realize she was crying. “This noble self-sacrifice of yours will turn all my hopes to ash, whether you live or you die.”

 She left him standing in the valley and climbed the dune flank, light and limber, rivulets of rust-coloured sand cascading down from every footstep. Thanak followed, and pulled her to sitting beside him just below the summit, so those left behind in the camp would not see. Sheltered in this small illusion of solitude they stared out across rippling rows of dune after dune, and saw only silence and empty vastness burning under a leaden sun.

 “How many times have we said ‘after the war’?” Hamalan whispered in a tear-stained voice. “After the war was when we would marry. I believed it until I woke this afternoon and saw you sitting with him.” 

 She had not cried like this over a mound of beloved corpses.

 Thanak found that he could not bear her suffering, her sun-lined face wet with tears, so he kissed her. She tasted of salt and exhaustion as she shook in his arms. The embrace was awkward, their sword belts and baldrics for crossbow and quiver crushed between their bodies. It seemed strangely appropriate. 

 “Perhaps your hopes will be crushed like mine and perhaps they will flower, but I no longer believe that you and I will ever be wed,” she whispered against his lips. “You have taken much from me, Thanak.”

 Guilt bloomed in Thanak’s heart. He had taken much from Hamalan indeed. More than was honourable, though it had been offered eagerly. So much death and the bite of bleak despair had made them both careless. That she was not with child already was by sheer luck alone, and enough people had noticed their indiscretions for her reputation to suffer, should peace find her unwed. 

 “I love you. I beg you, believe me.” His voice broke on the words, whispered into the knotted cable of the ragged braid wound around her head. How long had it been since he last ran his fingers through that midnight hair, to become lost in the way the luxurious waves of it draped over her breasts? If only he had known then that it was the last time. One never knew such things until too late. “I love you.”

 “I know. And I love you, but you are no man like others.” She stroked his face, his beardless jaw, the high cheekbones that proclaimed his kinship with Glorfindel. “I let myself think of you as mine, but you always belonged with them. You are a hawk among us sparrows.” 

 Her fingers ghosted that strange, slight point to his ears, and the touch made him shudder even now. She noticed, and fresh tears washed her cheeks. 

 “A White-fiend has come for you, and he will not be deterred by the likes of me. The only choice left is whether I surrender you with bitterness or grace.”

 Thanak shook his head, suddenly frantic. 

 “He can’t keep me from marrying you. Do you think me low enough to break my promise?” 

 “No!” She shook her head in vehement denial, and caressed his face once more. 

 “You would defy Glorfindel and the Zigûr himself if you had to. But what then, Thanak?” she asked, despair plain and stark in her eyes, “Will Glorfindel drag your wild Southron wife along to the Northlands? Shall we make our home in a snowdrift, with White-fiends for neighbours?”

 “I don’t know. No one could live like that.” An idea struck him, quick as a darting lizard. “I can’t kill Glorfindel, but I could leave him behind in the Dunes once he has killed the Demon. He will survive it if he is as hardy as he claims.”

 “That cause was lost the moment he laid eyes on you.” Hamalan’s face was all bitter resignation. She had never shared his penchant for wishful self-delusion. “Now that he knows you are alive he will not stop hunting you. We’d forever be looking over our shoulders, and one day we’d find him standing there. After that, he will take instead of ask.”

 He took her face between his hands, stroking her cheeks. 

 “What would you have me do?” He knew he sounded desperate, but dignity no longer mattered. “Shall I take you to face the Demon, or leave you alone? Ai, I have nothing good to offer you!”

 She silenced him at once. Her kiss was rough, almost biting at his mouth, and for a moment he allowed himself to escape, floating in the mindless pleasure of it. He pulled her against him to rest in the soft sand, her head on his shoulder and his arms tight around her. Despite the layers of leather and blood-stained cloth between them his embrace could still make her sigh in delight. It was a long time before they let go.         

 “You must go with Glorfindel.” Her voice was dry and brittle as ill-baked clay, and she did not meet his eyes. “He offers a small hope, but it’s more than we ever had.” 

 Getting to her feet, she turned back towards the camp, her manner suddenly brisk. 

 “If you survive both him and the Demon you’ll find me waiting for you at the Pass of Horns.”

 “What will you do if I never turn up?” Thanak asked, afraid of the answer.

 She turned to face him, and he westering sun poured light the colour of fire across her face. No Elvish warrior-queen from legend could have been as fearsome, or as fair. 

 “I will avenge you, Thanak.”

 He did not do her the insult of weeping, though it was a hard thing.

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Chapter End Notes

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Idrils Scribe