Gathering Dusk by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 7

All of the warnings given in chapter 5 apply.

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All things in Middle-earth were fleeting, worn and diminished by time like water erodes rock, and yet much remained the same. 

Glorfindel turned the order that might prove his death warrant over in his hands. Elladan’s firm, elegant handwriting was recognizable even in cipher. In a fit of melancholy he stroked his thumb across the reed paper’s smooth surface before feeding it to the glowing coals in the brazier heating his command tent. Even summer evenings were cold this high in the Misty Mountains.   

Soon the sun would touch the western foothills in a great wrack of colour like Aulë’s fires, and the Balrog-slayer of Gondolin would once more battle a waking nightmare. That first time had been the easier one – the Balrog fell upon the Gondolindrim from ambush, leaving Glorfindel no time to dwell on his peril. He now had a tortuously slow crawl of hours to imagine the possibilities: a second taste of Námo’s ungentle mercy, failure and dishonour, capture. 

He could not help but wonder what desperate battle Elrohir would be waging tonight, to warrant a diversion of this kind. His breath hitched at the thought. Elrohir was Elrond’s son, but Glorfindel had been his teacher in the skills of war. Over the long years Elrohir had grown from Glorfindel’s student to his lieutenant, and his friend. Glorfindel would never sire a child of his own, but through Elrohir he had tasted the joys and cares of shaping one to thrive and take his place in the world, the depth and power of a father’s love. To spare him the horror that was the Witch-king Glorfindel would gladly lay down this life. 

The tent flap was drawn back to admit Rodwen, his herald. Like all her house, Gildor’s daughter had once been the quintessential Noldorin courtier, a honeyed tongue and a mind buzzing with intrigue. Like a moon in orbit, shining but cold, she used to circle the ruling house of Imladris – and especially Elrond’s sons. Today her voice was poised as ever, bearing no trace of the terror Glorfindel could feel pulsing through her mind. War had improved Rodwen like fire tempers steel.

“Lord, it is time.”

Glorfindel rose from his camp chair with cat-like ease despite the bulk of his armour. Without prompting Rodwen held out the first iron gauntlet for him to don and fastened its buckles with hands that seemed steady as the mountains. A promising lieutenant indeed.

“Are the banners ready? And Asfaloth?”

The question was redundant, serving only to settle his nerves and fill the silence. Rodwen cast him a knowing look as she held out the second gauntlet. Glorfindel knew that both the great banner of Imladris and that of the Golden Flower would stand ready outside the tent, beside Asfaloth curried to shining white perfection, saddled and barded in gold and green.

“All is prepared as you ordered, Lord.”    

 She moved to the door flap to hold it open for him. The opening faced west, and a sharp wedge of light cut through the dust motes dancing in the tent’s still air, red as fire or spilled blood. At the sight Glorfindel had to draw in a deep breath, fill his lungs with crisp mountain air to dislodge the mass of shadow and flame writhing inside his chest. That burden he had long released into Námo’s keeping. Glorfindel stepped outside to mount, hale and whole and free of the weight of memory.

Rodwen brought her own stallion beside Asfaloth, and now the great lance that held Elrond’s folded banner did tremble in her grip. Glorfindel laid a hand on her shoulder with a melodious chime of his gauntlet against her pauldron. The stars were opening in the blue-tinged east, and in the bloodshot western sky the sign and symbol of all their hopes burned brightly.

“Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” (1)

Glorfindel’s voice was fearless and full of the fierce joy of battle. His standard bearers took up the call, answered by every Elf in the camp until the mountains rang with it as they rode forth.

“For Eärendil! For Imladris! Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” 

(1) "Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars!" Frodo’s outcry when faced with Shelob at Cirith Ungol. I imagine this to be the battle cry of the warriors of Imladris, which Frodo picked up during his stay there. 

 

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Nothing about an advancing army is fast, or quiet. Azulzîr commanded a great force of Hillmen companies from Rhudaur, Orcish infantry, Warg-cavalry, and a seemingly endless supply train of Trolls grumbling beneath their heavy packs. All had to set themselves in motion with much shouting and cursing in their various foul languages, march to the gorge mouth beneath their gruesome Elf-banners, and await their turn to enter the narrow, stony footpath beside the brook where only two could walk abreast. 

Orcs and Trolls had cats’ eyes for the dark, their natural element, but the Men needed light to march by. Thousands of smoking torches held aloft made the companies of Hillmen and Easterlings look like a river of fire snaking its way into the canyon. The firelight painted the craggy walls blood red, casting giant, leaping shadows. A narrow swath of stars above was barely visible, the rising moon a mere waning crescent. A night made for ambushes. 

Elrohir’s eyes met Ardil’s in mute agreement. Both warriors smiled without mirth beneath their masks.

Time became a thick flow of anxiety, slow as trickling mud as the gorge below filled up with the enemies of Imladris. Timing was essential: as many as possible should enter the canyon before the vanguard would reach its dead end. They had several miles to go until – instead of a sweeping view of the Hidden Valley – Azulzîr’s scouts would find sheer walls of rock and the brook emerging noisily from a deep, inaccessible cave system, and know the trap for what it was. Once the alarm was raised desperation would make the trapped army bold and strong. 

Preparations had been thorough, with every warrior Glorfindel could spare from the precarious eastern defenses climbing into place, laden like pack mules with both their own gear and the special supplies Elrohir ordered. 

A familiar touch came to Elrohir’s mind, firm and determined. Celebrían was coordinating a fine-meshed web of her Nandorin scouts on the hills above, where they would track any Orcs or Hillmen who might attempt to bypass the gorge. These Wood-elves could flit through the trees like silent shadows, running along the boughs and dropping down unseen to slit a throat or send a well-aimed arrow. Not a single one of the scouting parties Azulzîr sent into the gnarled pine forests on those windswept heights would escape the Lady of Imladris to warn Angmar’s commander against the ambush he was marching into.  

Elrohir sought his warriors’ minds and found them open to his, united in grim preparedness. All was well, and all was ready. 

 

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From Glorfindel’s war camp it was not far to that last fearful step where Vilya’s wards ended abruptly and one stood exposed to Orc and arrow and foul sorcery. In a high vale of ash-grey stone Glorfindel and his standard bearers crossed into the Witch-king’s domain. 

Glorfindel remembered starlight on these mountain meadows, lush grass and wildflowers waving in the summer breeze. This had been a place of bright sunlight and pure winds, with a small mere glittering blue as a cornflower beneath the sky. A colony of stout, cheery marmots once burrowed here feasting on thyme and sedge, hunted by Great Eagles with bright orange eyes. The Silvan shepherds of Imladris roamed freely all summer and sang Yavanna’s praise for the bounty of their flocks. 

Two years of fighting and Orcish occupation had left nothing but bare rock and filth.    

Rodwen blew her silver horn, and its bright, clear voice resounded from peak to peak. The Elves unfolded their banners. One was midnight blue bearing many white jewels that marked the Star and Silmaril of Eärendil’s House, the other green as grass in spring with a great flower picked out in threads of gold.   

Here, beyond Vilya’s power a suffocating blanket of cloud covered the sky, and Glorfindel knew that even from great distance he shone like a golden flame in the starless dark with his cloak and armour edged in gold and the flowing brightness of his hair. Elrond’s timing had to be deliberate. Darkness was Angmar’s strength, and the Witch-king’s power waxed with the setting of the sun. Let him see a gleaming prize in easy reach and grow reckless with greed. 

“Come forth!” Glorfindel cried, and his voice rang like a bell in that unnatural silence without bird or beast. “O craven Lord of Angmar, master of thralls, come forth! Fight me with your own hand and sword! Too long have you cowered behind your slaves. Glorfindel of the Golden Flower awaits you, foe of the West! Show your face and stand against me if you dare!”

No answer came, but beneath their feet, somewhere deep in the mountain’s Orc-infested core, a great war-drum pounded like the beat of a diseased heart – once, twice, and was still. Only the wind whistled through naked, craggy rock. 

 

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Elrohir raised his hand, and at the signal flint struck steel. 

Boom! 

The very earth shook beneath his feet in what proved a truly impressive explosion, followed by an even more satisfying collapse. Despite breathing through a miners’ mask he could not stop himself coughing from the thinning upper whorls of the dense cloud of grey dust that filled the canyon. The Orcs below had no such preparation, and from the choking, impenetrable dust rose an earsplitting din of foul voices crying out in terror, howling Wargs and hacking coughs. 

Black powder had originally been a Dwarvish invention, but once the Noldor understood its potential for mining they soon winkled the recipe out of their Naugrim trading partners. This particular batch and its placement had been a joint effort between Noldorin alchemists and a company of Longbeard miners from Khazad-dûm. On their errand of delivering a shipment of mithril to Imladris’ jewelsmiths, they had found themselves trapped in a besieged valley for the past two years. At the sight of their handiwork Elrohir gained a new level of respect for the Children of Mahal: the gorge mouth – and Angmar’s retreat – was well and truly blocked. All that was left to do was keep the Witch-king’s army trapped inside the gorge – and kill them.

 

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The Witch-king could walk invisible to Mortal eyes but Elves had other, keener kinds of sight. All their company could feel the Monster of Carn Dûm approach. The very air became heavy, oppressive, unclean as if infested with rot. The stars seemed to dim and the mountain wind’s whistle amidst the rocks shifted and grew unbearably strange, until Glorfindel realized he was listening to heavy breaths drawn through a jumble of worn, ruined teeth. Horses reared up in blind terror with wild, white-rimmed eyes. All Glorfindel’s art of horsemanship barely sufficed to keep Asfaloth from bolting.

Here was one who wielded fear as his weapon, and his skill at arms was great indeed. 

Shadow sprung to life and coalesced into flowing shape, a living unlight cloaked in black. The wide hood came down to reveal a crown of black steel, shaped like the jagged blades of Orc-swords. Between rim and robe lay nothing but gaping emptiness and a deadly gleam of eyes. At the sight Rodwen groaned like a small, hunted animal. Glorfindel’s heart brimmed with ice-cold anger that his young companion should face her childhood nightmares made real, this monstrosity whose very existence was a stain upon the goodness of creation. 

The Witch-king’s voice hissed cold as the gales that once howled across the Grinding Ice, filled with hunger and hatred for the blood of the living. 

“Elrond’s tame peacock, strutting out of bounds! I shall cut that frippery off your back and chain you in the dark!”

Glorfindel recognized that voice, and laughed. At that sound, merry as bells ringing through the suffocating press of terror, all in his company found new courage.

“You are but one of Sauron the Abhorrent’s thralls. I was expecting your master, oh craven Lord of Angmar! I shall chase you from the North in disgrace, that you may remind him of the reckoning that awaits!”

Red anger flamed in the faceless eyes, and the Lord of the Nazgûl raised his weapon – a great mace, cruelly spiked and black as the Void beyond the stars. Before such horror even Asfaloth shrieked and bolted. Glorfindel lightly leapt from his back, gold-inlaid shield in one hand, his sword in the other.  

With a mighty clang the dark weapon struck Glorfindel’s blade. This was Maircaril, the Elder Queen’s gift to the envoy of the Valar in Middle-earth. Against the pressing darkness its gleaming blade shone bright and sharp as a wrathful flame. Blue steel shaped in Aulë’s own forges met foul, spell-wrapped iron with a ringing note, sending silver sparks to the starless sky.

 

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Elrohir touched his scouts’ minds, and smiled. Panic was spreading like wildfire among their enemies. Along the length of the column the smaller Orc breeds were breaking rank to flee in terror to the canyon’s exit. Their drivers, big Gundabad Orcs wielding iron-tipped lashes, stood tall and raised their voices to restore order to their panicking underlings. Elrohir signalled his hidden sharpshooters, and volleys of white-fletched arrows picked them off. Once bereft of their whip-wielding officers most Orcish slave regiments abandoned all pretense of order and turned to mindless flight, trampling their hapless fellows. 

Warhorses and pack mules alike bolted in terror, crushing their attendants underfoot; Wargs turned snarling maws upon their riders. The roiling crowds broke like waves upon entire companies of Trolls, standing frozen by indecision like massive grey pillars amidst the clamour. Torch bearers dropped their load in their eagerness to save themselves, shrouding the canyon in darkness too deep for Mortal eyes. A hellish chorus of Men’s voices screaming in anguish joined the din. 

The well-aimed rockfall had dammed the stream that ran down from the mountains on the bottom of the gorge, leaving Angmar’s troops knee-deep in a newly created lake. Corpses and debris floated in the rising waters. The canyon floor was a seething, writhing mass of bodies stained dusty grey and the slick red of blood under the incessant rain of Elvish arrows. They were no longer an army, merely a large number of trapped enemies.

For an instant Elrohir could feel nothing but dismay and horror at having inflicted such suffering on any living creature. His resolve hardened when his eye caught one of the gruesome banners, an impaled Elf battered beyond recognition, falling down to be swallowed by the stream’s fouled waters in a final indignity. Its standard bearer, a helmed Hill-troll with a white-fletched arrow sticking from one of its beady eyes, went on a mad, braying stampede, trampling a gaggle of small, grey-skinned Snágas in its path. Orcs hated water with a passion. None had ever been known to swim, and the mail-clad beasts had already been struggling, waist deep in the murky, treacherous stream. Once swept off their feet they vanished beneath the surface never to rise again.

Azulzîr’s elite troops of Hillmen and Easterlings were not so easily dispatched. They rallied to form a protective shield wall around their commander, deflecting both the barrage of Elvish arrows and the mindless charge of their own maddened troops. Azulzîr’s voice resounded between the gorge walls, twisted and amplified far beyond its natural reach, speaking cold words of Power in Black Speech. 

Angmar’s troops were once more possessed by their master’s will. Discipline was restored to the scattered remains of his Orc-regiments and a nearby company of pack-trolls. Azulzîr commanded the lumbering giants to raise a defensive wall of debris, abandoned luggage and corpses, while volleys of Elvish arrows plinked harmlessly off their scaly hide. 

Elrohir let out a filthy soldier’s curse. That accursed Easterling had placed his makeshift fortification high on the bank, away from the slowly rising water. Azulzîr had dug himself in, and the Witch-king would soon come to his lieutenant’s aid.  

 

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Larcatal screeched and bucked in terror at the Witch-king’s approach. In his mad flight the stallion threw his rider. Rodwen had to let go of her standard when she hit the stony ground with a bone-crunching crack. 

Once the breathtaking pain began to lift, the miasma of dread that emanated from the Nazgûl strangled her once more. Beneath the horror of those faceless eyes she could not breathe, could not quiet her raging heart. Her limbs would not obey her will, and she writhed in the mud as one whose spine is snapped. Beside her, brought low in defeat upon the Orc-trampled filth of the battlefield, lay the lance that held the great banner of Imladris. All hope fled Rodwen at the sight of her failure. Despair washed over heart and mind until there could be no thought of rising, only of hiding her face from that awful gaze, crawling and grovelling in the mud like the worm she was.   

The Witch-king’s black mace came down on Glorfindel’s sword like the weight of tumbling hills. The steel of Aman held, but for an instant the Elf-lord was struck down to one knee. Tall and untouchable as the very mountains the Nazgûl seemed as he towered over his prey, a monstrous storm-cloud terrible in its wrath, crowned with jagged iron. His right hand still bore his great warhammer, and his left now drew a long knife that glistened with a pale corpse-glow in the failing light. 

“Glorfindel of the Golden Flower, the most vainglorious of Elves!” hissed the Witch-king, and he raised his Morgul-knife in mocking salute. “Did you expect the mercy of another death? I will enslave you, and carry you to the Houses of Lamentation, and bring you naked before the Lidless Eye!” 

Glorfindel stood, and in the darkness of that desperate place the fading light seemed to dwell only on him. Rodwen watched it glimmer like a fleeting memory of sunshine on his glittering mail and the waterfall of golden curves that was his hair. So must High King Fingolfin have stood before the Morgoth, small and bright and doomed beyond all hope.

 

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Elrohir beckoned Canissë. Her fair, high-cheeked Noldorin face was stern beneath her crested helm. He signalled for his esquire to bring his own before turning to his lieutenant.

“Select a company of your best close-quarter fighters. Those who have experience with Trolls.”

Canissë was loathe to contradict her young lord, but her wave of concern was clear. 

“We might spare ourselves the peril of going down there if we wait for the river to drown the lot.”

Elrohir shook his head. “Azulzîr is calling for the Witch-king. He will soon learn that his lieutenant has been put to rout, and rush to his aid. We cannot stand against the Dark Lord!  Azulzîr must be finished and we safely inside the valley proper when he arrives. We must climb down and get them.”

Canissë nodded and turned away almost eagerly. Three ages of fighting the long defeat had left her without a shred of mercy for Morgoth’s followers. Elrohir watched the gathering of armoured knights who would follow him in this mad sally to bring down the commander of Angmar. Canissë had chosen well. These were all old hands. Fell and fey Noldor, the veterans of many battles lost and won. Their eyes were grim, their hands white-knuckled around their sword-hilts. At times like this Elrohir found himself struck with awe at finding living legends as willing to rally around Elrond’s banner as they once did Fëanor’s.

It was Ardil who brought Elrohir’s helmet and placed it on his head. He would be the only Sinda among their party. Ardil’s armour had been made in Doriath before the rising of the Moon. He was a flash of blue steel, slender and strong amidst the hulking Noldor. Whatever lay in wait for Elrohir down in the gorge, it would have a hard time getting past Ardil. 

Canissë beheld her young lord with grim approval.The light of the Two Trees in her eyes had grown sharp and dangerous, starlight upon steel. For an instant he saw himself reflected in her polished cuirass. A tall, helmed figure, clad in silver and grey, with fury in his gaze and a sheen of distilled Maiarin power behind his eyes. 

“Lead the way, scion of Finwë.”     

Elrohir’s archers had defended a small side canyon, a pathway down into the dark swirl of madness that was the gorge. Elrohir’s company poured into it like a rippling stream of mithril, as if light travelled with them. The filth and murky water only seemed to make the Elvish warriors shine more brightly.

A shrill clamour of enraged shrieks greeted them as they reached the near-solid darkness befouling the canyon floor, to be faced with a wall of shields and coarse iron polearms. The Orcs’ yellow eyes were lit within by their master’s malicious will. Where first was terror they were now possessed with mindless rage, fanged mouths foaming with spittle. The screeching din-horde leapt forwards, every Orc scrabbling over the ones before it in rabid eagerness to get at the Elves and hack, bite or claw them into the stinking mud underfoot.

On Elrohir’s signal his warriors formed a Dírnaith, and the leaping flood of Orcs broke against the wedge of armoured knights driven into their shield wall. Barbed arrows of black iron uselessly plinked off Elvish armour as the beasts were struck down like wheat before the scythe by bright, blue-edged blades. 

Elrohir narrowly avoided being impaled as he ducked beneath a swinging pike. The grey-faced Snága hissed, eyes burning with hate, but before it could attack again Ardil whirled towards his young lord. His sword described a perfect, almost leisurely curve, and the beast’s helmed head came clean off. Black blood spattered Elrohir’s cuirass. He paid it no heed, grunting something that might have been thanks as he hacked the legs from under the snarling Orc that leapt at his throat over the falling corpse. 

So relentless was the assault that Elrohir was briefly astonished when no others were coming to take its place. A call went up among the lines of smaller Orcs, some foul repetitive chant.

“Burzum! Burzum!”

The beasts held back with a purpose: Elrohir faced their captain. Here stood the fang-toothed warrior who unwittingly damned his fellows by drawing them into Elrohir’s trap. This was a behemoth among Orcs. A lumbering, almost Troll-sized Gundabad goblin wielding a great scimitar of black steel oiled with poison. The creature’s eyes were wild and fey, their yellowed whites shockingly bright in a face contorted by ferocious hate. 

The Witch-king was an unforgiving master. Elrohir tried not to imagine the vile, drawn-out torments awaiting the failed captain, were it foolish enough to survive this night. This Orc was dead already, and its last living hope was to take Elrond’s son down with it. The smaller Orcs jeered, mocking and cursing Elrohir, but they kept well clear. He was their captain’s prize. 

The beast let out a raw, wordless scream of rage and came in like a battering ram. Time slowed, flowing thick as syrup, and it seemed to Elrohir that he moved as in a dream when he spun, catching the giant Orc’s deathblow on his shield. Strange, silver-like sparks flew where dark, cursed steel met the mithril Star-and-Silmaril device of Imladris. So heavy was the force behind that strike that Elrohir’s shield-arm went numb with a sharp, stinging cold. He paid it no heed, but kept wheeling in a fluid, languorous arc. In his right hand Hadhafang shone with a fell blue glimmer. Elrond’s sword seemed possessed by a will of its own, unerringly drawn to the Orc’s head to cleave it clean in two with a sound like a butcher dividing a carcass. 

At the slick warmth of black blood soaking the linen sleeves beneath his vambraces the world came rushing back – screams and the smell of gore, the sickening pain of his broken shield-arm and Ardil like a wall at his back, deftly dispatching the sneaking little Snága who would have skewered Elrohir as he stood reeling.

No Orc was left standing between the Elves and the hillock where Azulzîr and his officers would take their last stand behind makeshift fortifications. Azulzîr was desperate, and he had one final, terrible defence left. 

The Troll company came charging at the Elves, dreadful in their wrath, their deep roars like the breaking of hills. 

 

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“Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” 

Glorfindel’s fair voice resounded between the mountain flanks, and for a fleeting instant the Lord of Angmar knew fear. Glorfindel was not Fingolfin, who rode to the gates of Angband at the defeat of all his hopes. The Balrog-slayer had passed through deepest despair into Mandos’ keeping to emerge fearless and full of joy. 

He stood tall before the Nazgûl, hefting his keen-edged sword, and laughed in the Witch-king’s face. The merry ring of that sound seemed to vanquish his enemy’s foul sorcery like wind breaks up a cloud. To the West, Eärendil’s light broke through the roiling vapours to outline Elrond’s champion in shimmering silver, glinting off the hard, bright fish-scales of his mail, the proud crest of his high helm, the flowing brilliance of his unbound hair.

Rodwen watched it glimmer on the white jewels that marked the sigil of Imladris on the great war-banner lying fallen beside her. The six-pointed Star-and-Silmaril of Eärendil’s house lit up in the radiance of his star, and in that blessed light she managed to stand and lift up the standard, driving its end deep into the muddy soil. She leaned on the great lance as the banner unfolded in the west wind, and stood reeling from sheer terror as she watched Glorfindel do battle. 

The Witch-king lunged forward, and for a heartstopping moment Rodwen believed he would impale Glorfindel on his Morgul-blade. The foul knife clattered against her captain’s chestpiece. The Lady Arwen’s skill and Song was bound in that armour and it held, deflecting the thrust with a strange shriek of metal. Quick as a striking viper Glorfindel’s iron-clad hand shot out to grasp the brittle steel of the enchanted blade and snap it like a twig. The Witch-king screamed in blind rage – the very sound of the Void, unbearable to any creature of light, and raised his great war-hammer.

 

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Elrohir had doubted this plan many a time, but now that the time for his most disputed order had come he did not hesitate. His voice rose loud and clear between the valley walls. 

“Fire!”

A volley of clear glass bottles sailed through the air, launched toward the crowding Trolls from high on the cliff’s edge by Wood-elves wielding slingshots with flawless accuracy. They shot so many that the very air seemed to sparkle with fist-sized crystal hailstones in a fleeting instant of absurd beauty.  

Then the first one struck grey, scaly skin and splintered into a fountain of fire. The Troll bellowed, its massive limbs flying in blind panic and splashing its comrades with viscous droplets of flame that clung to skin and armour. 

These containers of sudden flame, filled with a mixture of various strong spirits and a lump of white phosphorus to alight on contact with the air, were an invention from Nargothrond’s Fëanorian period. Like most of Curufin’s achievements they were highly contentious. Some Elves thought them a cowardly form of warfare, others deemed the death they dealt too cruel even for the Enemy. What little compunction Elrohir had left under the circumstances had melted into grim enthusiasm after witnessing the devastation the prototypes wreaked on a straw troll. A team of Fëanorian artisans had cranked out entire crates of the mean little devices. Elrohir’s and Celebrían’s approval had sufficed to overcome the Silvans’ reticence. Now that he saw the bottles in use he blessed every last one of the heated arguments he had with Ardil and Borndis over the so-called Orc-work. 

Soon the Trolls were hardly distinguishable as individual beings, changed into a writhing, bellowing heap of burning flesh. Many plunged themselves into the rising waters only to be dragged down by their armour, drowning and burning all at once. When Noldorin alchemists lit a thing on fire mere water would not suffice to thwart them. Eerie pools of red firelight licked and shimmered beneath the surface of the muddy river wherever one of the hapless creatures had sunk to the bottom, swallowed by both water and flame until the fuel ran out and the deadly waters darkened once more.

There was no time to stand, watch, contemplate the horror of it. Azulzîr’s men were pouring over the walls of his last stronghold, a stain spreading like burnt oil over water.  Behind them Azulzîr’s voice boomed out with dark words in the Black Speech, and the darkness seemed to draw itself together above the height where he sheltered behind a wall of corpses. 

Elrohir’s shield-arm hung limp and useless by his side. He had no choice but to let Canissë lead the charge and remain behind, protected by Ardil and the knights of his personal guard. Swords were but one way to wage battle, and Elrohir was far from spent. Lúthien’s children had an innate power of Song, and Celebrían had been thorough when she taught Elrohir her mother’s arts. Slowly but surely the writhing shadow receded and starlight reached the canyon floor once more. The lieutenant of Angmar was not without skill of his own, and the might of the Witch-king was behind him. Foul claws sunk deep into Elrohir’s mind, battling to wrest control of the winds of the valley from his grasp. Had he been younger or less experienced Elrohir would have frozen in terror. He staggered, held up by Ardil’s arm around his shoulders, but he stood. 

A small thread of consciousness sprang to coruscating life and Elrohir felt Elrond’s focus on him, adding weight to the words from his mouth. Elrohir shuddered, caught in his father’s raw power of Song like a leaf whirling on a stormwind. Even here, outside the boundaries of Imladris, air and sky were bent to Elrond’s will. Together they drove back the roiling cloud of darkness, and the troops of Angmar faltered and were swept away by a wave of Elvish steel. Corpses piled up in heaps, staining the rising river red.

When Azulzîr’s voice fell silent Elrohir expected a final, desperate sally or some vile trick. Instead a deep, disconcerting silence blanketed the canyon, broken only by the voice of running water and distant din of battle where Celebrían and her Wood-elf companies were picking fleeing enemies off the surrounding cliff faces. The warriors turned to their captain in search of direction. Elrohir rose from where he had been sitting on a rock so Ardil could tie his arm into a makeshift sling. 

“Come. We should see this through to the end.”

 

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Glorfindel sank to his knees when the spiked mace pummeled him like a battering ram. His shield shattered under the sheer power of that strike. Rodwen could hear the sharp hiss of pain as he righted himself, letting the pieces fall from his hand. Darkness deepened, and Glorfindel called out the battle-cry of Elrond’s House once more. 

“Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” 

This time weariness dampened his voice, but the words seemed to wake Rodwen from her daze of fear like a swimmer escaping the icy pull of a dark lake. Her shoulders suddenly recalled the familiar weight of her quiver. The heft of her bow in her hands was an anchor, and when she nocked an arrow the elegant arrowhead, shaped and sung over with all the Elvish arts of smithcraft, glinted cold and sharp as a wrathful star of vengeance.   

The Witch-king screamed again and Rodwen shrank in renewed horror, but the dreadful cry came too late. She had already loosened her flight. The arrow thudded into the Nazgûl’s mighty thigh. Black mail split under Elvish steel with words of Power hammered into its shaping, and Rodwen’s arrow buried itself deep into the cursed remnant of what once was Mortal muscle and sinew.      

Again the Nazgûl cried, but this time pain and panic were in his voice, and both Glorfindel and Rodwen took heart. Glorfindel stood up once more, and he spun Maircaril so the sword blurred into an arc of silver flame. 

“Come then, O thrall of Gorthaur, and take me if you dare!”

A wind from the West burst apart the clouds once more, and Eärendil’s light bathed the dead valley in silver. Wild, irrational hope washed over Rodwen. Glorfindel raised his blade high to deal the final blow when suddenly a foul voice called words in Black Speech upon the wind. Unnatural darkness fell, but the Witch-king did not take his sudden advantage. 

Whatever message the wind had carried, it seemed to bring the Lord of Angmar great dismay for his next utterance was a wail of shock and alarm. The red glow of his eyes dimmed and vanished. An empty crown clattered to the stony ground, covered by the falling folds of a heavy black cloak. 

Glorfindel cursed, staring west with his face filled with horror, pale as death. 

The Witch-king had fled. 

 

----

 

The ring of jumbled pack-crates, Troll corpses and boulders Azulzîr’s troops had erected on the embankment was high enough to shelter what lay within from sight. The Elves pulled a section of it down without meeting resistance of any kind. What lay inside explained the uncanny silence. Faced with overwhelming defeat Azulzîr and his inner circle had chosen death over the Witch-king’s displeasure.

The Easterlings had fallen on their own swords. Tall men they were, their inked faces as inscrutable in death as during their brief and violent lives. Their personal effects and every written document that could be recovered were gathered to be taken to Imladris, so Elladan might glean whatever information they contained.  

Little else here seemed to be of interest, Elrohir thought as he eyed Azulzîr’s final mystery. Easterlings despised Orcs, and officers did not associate with their underlings beyond the issuing of orders. Nonetheless a single Orc had breathed its last here, in Azulzîr’s inner sanctum. Amidst the Mortal corpses lay a small Snága, a misshapen creature with a disproportional, jutting belly. Telltale blotches marked the sallow skin – for some unfathomable reason the Men had beaten their Orcish slave black and blue before cutting its throat. Dulled yellow eyes stared up to the sky in mute reproach. 

For an instant Elrohir stood staring at the carcass, frozen by pain and bone-deep exhaustion. His arm throbbed, and much remained to be done and seen and decided before he might rest and seek out a healer. He turned away from the unanswered question, glad to see the pitiable thing put out of its misery.  

Ardil intercepted him, laying a gentle arm around his shoulder. His fair face was stern with worry.

“Elrohir! Time runs out. The Witch-king is coming.”

Elrohir was too worn-out to produce anything but a terse headshake.

“Not now. I need to check …”

Ardil cut him off with a rough gesture, all urgency. With a jolt Elrohir noticed the fear in his stoic guard’s eyes.

“Whatever that is about, Canissë has it in hand. She has called the retreat. We are out of time. The Witch-king’s wrath will be terrible, and your father’s wards our only escape. Come now, or I will carry you like a sack of flour!”

Ardil was right. Around them the gorge resonated with the din of battle, screams and dying groans and the clang of steel on steel, growing sparser as the dark waters rose to swallow all. The retreating Elvish host was an outgoing tide of silver mail. 

Running with a broken arm was agony, blunting all the senses until nothing remained but Ardil’s guiding hand on his shoulder, that dull, relentless pain and the pressing need to put one foot before the other. Out of the gorge they climbed, up into the rustling dark of the pine-covered foothills. 

Even beneath the cool, resin-scented shelter of the boughs Elrohir could feel him . The very trees seemed to tremble with revulsion at the Witch-king’s approach. Darkness deepened, turning these beloved forests into a place of terror and slithering shadow. A cold voice rode on the wind, calling out words of hate and bitter rage. 

The cries seemed to slice Elrohir’s very soul, and a voice cut through his mind, foul as acid and venom. 

Elrohir son of Elrond! Fear me, you half-bred get of a cowering father, for we will have a reckoning!

Elrohir’s broken arm flared in icy, breathtaking agony, and he stumbled on the uneven ground. He would have fallen had Ardil not grabbed hold of him. The sharp jostle made him bite back a howl of pain. His guard paid it no heed, but laid his own arm around Elrohir’s shoulders to half-drag him along and keep up with the company’s relentless pace. 

In the next heartbeat a wholesome warmth flowed from Arwen’s jewel, pressed against Elrohir’s heart beneath layers of steel, leather, and linen. The familiar weight of it somehow granted him the strength to keep running despite the horror hunting him through the darkened woods. 

Running, running until blood beat in his ears and throbbed in this arm. Small animals of the night would feel like this when the hunting owl swooped down upon them with open beak and claw.

At last, at the very end of Elrohir’s endurance came that final step, the one that crossed into the wards of Imladris, taking them to safety. Elrond’s defences were stronger than ever – not even the echoes of the Witch-king’s impotent rage carried into the valley. Here the air tasted clean and the bleak press of terror was lifted from the land. 

Ardil’s face glistened with tears as he turned to embrace Elrohir amidst the throng of laughing, sobbing, singing warriors, and with genuine astonishment Elrohir realised that in nearly ten long-years of close companionship he had never seen the ancient warrior cry. 

“We won, elfling! The siege is broken!” Entire Mortal kingdoms had risen and fallen since the last time Ardil called Elrohir by that childhood endearment. 

It seemed too much to contain, that this leaden weight of dread upon every breath one drew in Imladris had lifted at last. For a moment Elrohir refused to believe his own good fortune lest it prove a dream, sweet and impossible and bound to vanish at dawn. 

He did not weep, not until he looked about himself and found the stony path awash in silver light. He turned his face to the sky, and suddenly felt tears washing the soot and grit from his eyes. He could feel them running down his cheeks and into the high collar of his mail. A great, shuddering sob shook him, then another, until he sagged in Ardil’s embrace, slack with relief and bone-deep exhaustion.

Above the Hidden Valley the night’s cloud-wrack was broken, and In the great swath of stars above their heads Eärendil’s light shone clear and bright like a blessing. 

---

Chapter End Notes

And so both Elrohir and Glorfindel win a hard-fought victory.

I was quite nervous about posting this chapter. I've never written anything like it: two simultaneous epic battles with alternating scenes, a large and varied cast and some ethical dilemmas for all involved ... It was a big challenge and I can only hope that it came out right in the end. 

Hearing readers' thoughts and feedback would mean the world to me here. Seriously, if you were ever going to comment on this story, this chapter would be an excellent place to do it. 

See you soon for the welcome home party and its aftermath ...

Idrils Scribe