Gathering Dusk by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 8

A column of warriors marched home singing with the sun glittering off their mail, gem-strewn banners streaming in the summer wind. The road to Elrond’s house wound through the mossy shelter of a copse of beech and ancient oaks. As the vanguard emerged from its dappled green shade into the golden sunlight bathing the house, every bell up in the tower began to chime and the minstrels’ song changed to jubilation in all the tongues of Imladris. 

“Eglerio!”     

“A laita te, laita te!” 

Elrohir felt a hard, fierce satisfaction at finding the house and its denizens arrayed for a feast. Let music and laughter ring from the House of Elrond, and let Angmar’s Orcs gnash their teeth in bitterness! 

He shifted in his saddle, the movement unnaturally stiff with his broken shield-arm bound tightly in a makeshift sling. He did catch Celebrían’s concerned look as she steered her grey palfrey to come alongside him. Elrohir had refused a seat in the covered wagons carrying home the wounded, unwilling to dampen his warriors’ high spirits with the sight of their captain laid low. The long, winding descent into the valley on horseback had pained him, but soon the dull throb was wholly drowned in deep, heady joy.

 It seemed to Elrohir as if he rode in some beautiful dream.  The greensward sloping from the house to the Bruinen remained studded with yellow elanor like myriad stars fallen to earth. How bizarre, that even after the horrors of the burning gorge, the midsummer sun still poured golden over the Last Homely House, setting the glazed roof tiles ablaze in many colours. Garlands of summer blooms bedecked the house and the alders on the riverbank with bright splashes of colour, radiant in the midday sun, and the clear, ringing music of harps and flutes streamed across the valley like a blessing.

For a brief moment the memory of the Witch-king’s threat made his breath stutter. His arm burned with venomous pain, and a fleeting shadow seemed to cover the valley. 

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

From their birth Elrond’s children were marked for the Dark Lord’s particular hatred, but after this battle the Darkness knew Elrohir’s face, his name and his deeds. When he next set foot beyond the valley’s wards, he would be hunted. 

The Orcs of Arnor had just cause for their vengeance. Elrohir shuddered as he recalled his final inspection of the battlefield. Another calculated explosion had drained the newly formed lake and surfaced the full horror below. The gorge was a charnel house of corpses. Men and Orcs and trolls with limbs charred and blistered into grotesque dancing poses, their expressions melted into featureless caricatures of agony. Some had been trampled to a bloody pulp by their panicked fellows. The very worst were those who had merely drowned. Slack in death, their coarse, sallow faces regained a humanity that was lacking in life, and suddenly they had seemed just people . 

Elrohir needed to silence that thought. For all the wanton destruction The Witch-king had wreaked on Rhudaur, his foulness did not defile this beloved valley. With a shout he kneed his mare into a brisk gallop. Celebrían and their personal guard followed suit, a breathtaking, soaring delight of flying speed and fresh wind unfurling their starred banners until they reached the portico amidst song and cheers and laughter.

Elrond, Elladan and Arwen stood waiting, their hands full of wreaths of white blossom. Elrohir laughed, exhilarated. Despair had passed like mist at Anor’s rising, and those he had fought for still lived. 

Celebrían leapt from her horse and was caught in Elrond’s arms. For a single, perfect heartbeat the Lord and Lady of Imladris stood joined body and spirit, revelling in the wonder of being reunited, a thrill of pure, untainted happiness to remember until Arda’s end. 

When Elrohir recalled himself, it was to find Elladan and one of the grooms already holding out supporting hands for him to lean on. Elrohir nearly startled when, in an unusual breach of protocol, the Lord of Imladris untangled himself in a rush to personally help his injured captain dismount. When Elrohir’s feet touched the flagstones Elrond took his face between his hands to kiss his forehead and simply look, drinking him in like a thirsting man would cool water. With a strange jolt of warmth Elrohir realized that he had never seen his father’s face more alight with joy.

And joy there was aplenty, heady and complicated like the very best of wines. First came the songs of grief and remembrance, the laying of flowers and speaking of names, the silent standing, facing West where those beloved spirits rested in Námo’s care. Then Elrond praised and rewarded many who had distinguished themselves. Glorfindel was foremost among these. Next came Rodwen, and Gildor shone like a star when Elrond praised his brave daughter’s skill and named her a friend to his House until the end of Arda. 

The golden day passed to blue, starlit twilight in song and laughter, embraces, sweet tears and the telling of many tales, glory and grief mingling to something more than either alone. For the first time in years the evening winds falling from the mountain heights carried the grassy spice of summer meadows in bloom and clean snow instead of Orc filth. Eärendil blazed overhead, bright enough that every tree seemed cast in silver, save where the warm light of lanterns strung between their boughs painted the fluttering leaves in gold. Then Glorfindel sang of Valinor, and his voice, rich and deep as honey, brought every listener a vision of Tirion alight in the glory of Laurelin and Telperion’s mingling. For the time of a single song present blended with past, Ennor with Aman. 

By midnight Elrohir was lightheaded with more than the cellar’s finest Dorwinion, laid by through dark days for precisely this occasion. Celebrían had risen from her seat at the long trestle-table with Elrond’s hand in hers, to be swept up in the thrumming, pulse-quickening whirl of dancers spinning around the great bonfire. Arwen wheeled past in Lindir’s arms, dressed all in silver-white, her cheeks rosy and her laugh bright as a star fallen to Ennor. For an instant she appeared regal and mysterious as Galadriel herself, even barefoot and with her midnight cloud of windblown hair cascading down her back where it escaped the confines of her circlet of diamond flowers.

Even ever-grave, ancient Canissë had succumbed to Elladan’s relentless silver-tongued coaxing. His clever brother now spun Fëanor’s own swordmaster through the swirling steps of a Doriathrin galliard as if the War of the Jewels had never been. 

Elrohir’s broken shield-arm made dancing thoroughly impossible, but he did enjoy the music and Glorfindel’s cheerful company from the cushioned seats set beside the fire for the comfort of the wounded. Elrond had set the break, bound the arm in a leather splint and sang a song of mending over the bone. It still hurt, but not enough to keep Elrohir from a hearty laugh when Glorfindel spun one of his many fancy, not-quite-unbelievable tales about Aman, gesturing with a flamboyance that made his wristbands of damascened gold sparkle in the firelight.

Elrohir basked in warm contentment at seeing his loved ones safe and happy. This night, all in Arda was as it should be. 

 

----

 

“Elrohir, come see my surprise!” Arwen looked more like a girl of fifty at her first dance than the chief armour-smith of Imladris commemorating a battle won. She was barefoot on the grass, cheeks red with wine and merriment, her windblown hair strewn with diamonds like a midnight field of stars. 

Elrohir shifted in his chair as he contemplated the problem of getting up. Despite Elrond’s ministrations his broken arm still throbbed with a dull, bone-deep pain. Glorfindel had taken it upon himself to ease it by steadily topping Elrohir’s cup with heady red Dorwinion. Elrohir could only hope that the onlookers would chalk up the resulting unsteadiness to his injury. 

“Can I not see it from here?” he tried. 

Glorfindel cast him a look of wry amusement. “Come, Peredhel, you are not so drunk as that!” He laughed, and pulled Elrohir to his wobbly feet. Arwen hooked her arm through his good one and steered him onto the elanor-studded greensward.

Oddly shaped cylinders of what appeared to be coloured paper had been stood up on canes stuck in the ground, looking not particularly decorative. One of the Dwarves from Khazad-dûm, a stocky sapper called Náli, stood amidst the strange objects, laughing and holding a burning taper. Recent events had granted Elrohir great respect for Náli’s peerless skill with explosives. 

The top of the dwarf’s head barely reached to Elrohir’s chest, so he had to step back to look him in the eye. “Well-met, Master Náli. What manner of craft will you show us tonight?” 

Náli smiled and gave a formal bow. The elaborate braiding of mithril in his russet beard flashed in the golden firelight, precious metal tinkling like many bells with the movement. “Lord Elrohir, well-met indeed! You have seen our secret arts put to the needs of war. Today the Dwarves shall bring joy instead of destruction!”  

Elrohir’s head spun with drink and confusion. Surely Arwen would not allow the Dwarves to demonstrate an explosion amidst so many people, or so near the house? He could only stare, utterly bewildered.

“These are called fireworks.” Arwen explained. “The Mírdain had a performance like this one staged each summer, in Ost-in-Edhil. Thank Aulë we had enough black powder left over from your antics to make them!”

Náli carefully lit the first wick, and the firework shot up with an ear-splitting shriek. A magnificent flower of red and gold blossomed against the sky. Elrohir wobbled on his feet as he tilted his head to look. Elladan had not let his brother from his sight all night, and he quickly stepped in to steady him with an arm around his shoulders. Stability restored, both twins gasped and laughed along with everyone else. 

In the next breath the scent of black powder and saltpeter hit Elrohir like a punch. 

All of Imladris clapped and cheered as another bloom of coloured light rose glittering against the dark velvet sky, silver-bright and green as emeralds, but Elrohir did not see. Before his mind’s eye, fiery arcs of liquid flame rained down on the writhing bodies of speaking creatures, screaming as they roasted like spitted meat. His next breath choked his lungs with that unmistakable smell of burning flesh.

Ai Irmo have mercy!

Elrohir shook with terror and revulsion, battling his wild, irrational impulse to run and hide in some dark place. These rivers of flame and the howling, writhing death they dealt were his own designs, his deeds, even if done by the hands of others. The gorge, the thousands dead by water and fire, the sheer horror of their suffering.  

Elrohir had thought himself long past such sentimental notions. Long-years of training and inescapable necessity had taught him to kill with remorseless efficiency. He had heaped entire mounds of corpses over the years of Arnor’s slow disintegration. Even so, this ambush had been the very worst thing he ever did. 

Erestor and his scholars claimed that Orcs might once have been Elves. Elrohir prayed it would prove a lie. If killing Morgoth’s creatures was a kinslaying he would be counted among the cruelest of Fëanor’s followers. Imladris had been saved, or perhaps merely granted another respite, but the luxury of clean hands was past. Elrohir had bloodied his beyond all redemption. 

Elrohir breathed deeply. He knew well enough that he tended to grow maudlin when drunk. It would not do for Elrond’s son to behave so at a feast -- especially not this one. The road to the Havens lay open once more, and each one of Elrond’s people to abandon Middle-earth was a drop of Imladris’ lifeblood leaking away. Tonight’s show of strength would do much to stem the coming hemorrhage.  

Another firework bloomed golden in the sky. At Elrohir’s side Elladan laughed, wholly absorbed in joyous awe, his hand still resting easily on Elrohir’s shoulder. Elrohir shuddered beneath the touch, suddenly bitter and relieved and envious all at once. He had wanted his brother to remain this innocent, careless and unstained. For two years of darkness and doubt he had prayed that Elladan might be spared from the war. His pleas had been heard -- his own fall had made it possible. 

Elladan’s eyes caught his and for a single heartbeat his distress was visible. Then Elrohir closed his mind and smiled once more, taking a firm hold of his shame.   

 

-----

 

Glaeriel stood tall and straight before the assembly. The dark crown of her braided hair, sleek and blueish as a raven’s wing, shone in the light of a constellation of lanterns when she formally bowed to Elrond and Celebrían in their high-backed chairs before taking her place on a carved stool before her great harp. The instrument was tall as a man, its maple wood the colour of dark honey and polished to a smooth shine. The burnished notes of a stately pavane fell light and sweet as spring’s first stirrings, bringing visions of sunlight on fresh birch leaves and mayflower in bloom. Imadris’ chief minstrel had peerless mastery of her remarkable instrument.

A wave of joy swept Elladan at the well-known music washing through the glade. His home was once more as it should be. His parents sat in their usual place of honour before the performers, the unwavering axis around which orbited the whirl of ever-flowing life and colour that was Imladris. The household was out in force, and the ambience one of unfettered mirth. 

Glaeriel’s next piece was the evening’s most eagerly anticipated performance. A company of discerning music lovers with long memories, the Elves of Imladris were always eager for entirely new compositions. This particular one called for a singer to join the harpist, and Lindir rose from his blanket to join Glaeriel on the dais. The tall, broad-shouldered Noldo standing together with the willowy Sindarin lady seemed to personify Glaeriel’s eclectic style. Minstrels from Lindon and Lórien had begun to call it the Imladrian tradition: a Noldorin ballad set in a classical Sindarin key. 

The piece was excellent, but at first Elladan failed to understand why Celebrían lit up with pleasure at the opening notes. Elrond took her hand, elation clear on his face. Their gazes turned towards a startled Elrohir, who had been deep in conversation with Glorfindel. The  Elf-lord’s twinkling eyes betrayed that he, too, was part of this mysterious, joyful conspiracy.

Lindir’s rounded baritone rang out deep and clear.

Elrohir was genuinely astonished when every eye in the gathering turned to him. When the song mentioned gullible Orcs and a dark, deep gorge, understanding struck both twins at once. To be praised in song before the household was an honour Elrond bestowed but rarely, and only on the most deserving of his warriors. This night the Lord of Imladris glowed with pride at finding his own son worthy of the distinction. He beckoned Elrohir, who rose to stand beside his father, his one good hand caught in Elrond’s. 

Elrohir’s startled surprise at finding himself the center of attention had sufficed to sober him up. His demeanour was calm and dignified, without a trace of either vanity or false modesty. 

Elladan was not bitter. Not at all. 

The skills of war were Elrohir’s domain, a natural talent enhanced by long-years of gruelling training with the hardiest warriors and armsmasters of both Imladris and Lórien. He had come to full mastery long ago. When Elrohir led his father’s troops into battle he was as ruthless as he was cunning, both vicious and valiant, beloved by his people and unfailingly loyal to Elrond’s cause.  

Elrond had arranged this performance with a clever purpose. Among the various travellers marooned in the valley by Angmar’s siege was a mingled company of Sindar and Silvan Elves of the Greenwood. The bard and loremaster among them, a slender, dark-haired Wood-elf marked by a leaf-shaped tattoo on her face, was listening raptly, her lips moving along with Lindir’s lines. Thranduil’s Elves saw no need for such Noldorin fancies as written lore. Silvan loremasters trained their minds into living repositories of the oral history of their people, all of it rendered in song. Even after a single hearing this minstrel would faithfully reproduce Glaeriel’s composition in her home forest, spreading the reputation of Elrond’s son and his warriors far into the East. Lórien and Lindon would hear of Elrohir’s feat even sooner, now that the constant stream of news and trade between the realms could flow once more. Haldir and his march-wardens were sure to take fierce delight in their former student’s achievement.   

Glorfindel’s smile as he watched Elrohir’s moment of glory could have lit the darkest depths of Angband. With an unpleasant jolt Elladan was struck by the realization that Elrohir was no longer considered anyone’s apprentice. Where Elladan remained a perpetual child, a moon trapped in his brilliant father’s orbit, Elrohir had grown from Glorfindel’s student into his fellow captain – and his friend. 

Elladan was not bitter. 

By their very nature the arts of government and diplomacy generated far less subject matter for heroic ballads or moments of crowning glory. Negotiations were not battles with clear-cut lines between loss and victory. In the councilrooms Elladan listened more than he spoke, and few of his deeds were anything but the – be it skillful – execution of plans laid by his elders. Even if Elladan rarely decided on anything without the approval of either Erestor or Elrond, what of it? His contribution was no less appreciated for that, or so he hoped. 

Of Elrond’s children, had not Elladan alone been trusted with knowledge of Vilya? By that trust Elrond had placed the fates of all Elvendom in his hands. Still, no feat of Elladan’s in nearly ten long-years of study and toil had sufficed to inspire Elrond to the kind of praise he now showered on Elrohir, and the knowledge stung. 

Elladan shook his head as if to clear it. Their House stood victorious, and Elrohir had been returned to him, safe and sound. His beloved brother, constant companion, the second half of Elladan’s very soul. Their closeness was both reassurance and delight, and in Elrohir’s absence there could be no joy. The lightening eastern sky was the harbinger of another fair day, a day of freedom, the dawn of a new chance at peace. 

Elladan was not bitter. 

 

Chapter End Notes

First of all I'd like to give many, many thanks to my wonderful beta readers, Dawn Felagund and Cherepashka, and Anoriath for her help with the final chapter. This story would have been a great deal less interesting without their invaluable advice and support. All remaining mistakes are mine. 

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, both on this chapter and the story as a whole. What you think of the celebration and the currents running below the surface? Do you feel for Elladan and Elrohir's respective troubles? Did Elrond and Celebrían handle this one well? A comment would make my day. 

Of course this tale is nowhere near finished, with the Witch-king still out there and hellbent on revenge.
The series' next installment is called False Dawn. You'll find a sneek peak in the next chapter.

Thank you for reading, commenting and supporting, and see you soon for False Dawn!

Idrils Scribe   

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