False Dawn by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 1

Content warning: like the rest of the series, this work is heavily based in Tolkien canon, particularly the Silmarillion and the LoTR appendices. War is central to the story. Expect Silmarillion levels of violence, Orcs behaving Orcishly, descriptions of injuries and dead bodies, and character deaths (none go against canon). Rape and torture are mentioned and their aftermath described, but there's no detailed description of the acts themselves. As in Tolkien's own work, familial conflict is among the main themes. If it's in the Silmarillion, chances are that it'll turn up here. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if any of the above might trigger or upset you.

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Imladris, the year 1409 of the Third Age

 

High above the Misty Mountains the star-strewn east had begun to brighten. A pale moon hung low over the ridges looming over Imladris Down in the valley a battle was raging, and the coming dawn would bring Elrohir no relief. 

Exhaustion got the better of him, and he was a fraction too slow to dodge. He lacked the breath to do more than wheeze as a swift elbow to his ribs winded him. There was no time to wonder whether they were broken. This fight had dragged on with neither mercy nor quarter for two gruelling hours, and Elrohir’s opponent advanced yet again, sword aloft and a harsh, wrathful fire in his eyes. 

Their blades connected with an ear-splitting clang. Elrond spun aside, feinting left only to come in with a killing cut to Elrohir’s right flank. This was one of Maedhros’ clever, left-handed moves, very nearly unbeatable, but Canissë had drummed this very lesson into her student so thoroughly that Elrohir’s body remembered it as well as his brain. Nimble as a Wood-elf he dodged Elrond’s deathblow and sought to plunge his dagger into his father’s throat, only to find Elrond’s right hand pressing a dirk into his stomach.

“We take down each other. Well fought!” Elrond smiled, fell and fierce, and for an instant Elrohir saw no gentle healer but the formidable commander whose armies once trod the Black Tower into the dust. 

Elrohir laughed as he returned the blunt, weighted practice blades to their wooden chest and turned to his father bearing a decanter of watered wine. As he poured two cups of the tart drink, cooled in ice from the cellars, the sun rose above the eastern valley ridge and birdsong erupted across the forest bordering the family garden.

Elrond drained his cup in one long, thirsty swig and blotted his face with a linen towel. Elrohir stood contemplating his father with an expression he knew would betray his concern. Of late, Elrond had taken to roping Imladris’ finest sword fighters into these lengthy practice sessions.  What disastrous foresight had convinced the Lord of Imladris that he might need to lay hand to blade himself, Elrohir had not yet dared to ask. This morning would provide the perfect opportunity though, and he intended to take it. Elrond’s vision could not be worse than the dark imaginings that had plagued Elrohir on the road.

Elrohir’s musings were interrupted when Elrond took his empty cup from his hand to set it in the grass. Elrond's brow furrowed in concentration as he laid a hand against Elrohir’s ribs where his elbow had struck, and sang a single cantrip of sonorous Quenya. Elrohir let the warm wave of power wash through him unopposed, and felt the forming bruise retreat, muscle and sinew knitting together. Dealing out injuries, no matter how small, would disturb Elrond’s gift of healing. These were perilous times, and some unfortunate warrior of Imladris might pay the price for his lord’s indulgence in swordplay. Allowing Elrond to undo what damage his hands had inflicted would preserve his skill for future need. 

“Take a deep breath?” Elrond asked in his bedside voice, eyes on where his hand rested over Elrohir’s battle-stained smock.

Elrohir did, and found the movement entirely painless. Elrond laughed, easy and relaxed as he rarely was these days, and laid an arm around Elrohir’s shoulders to steer him towards the breakfast laid out for them on a trestle table nearby. Elrond and Elrohir were the habitual early birds in a family of late risers, and their dawn time meals together were a habit of many long-years. Breaking his fast with his younger son tended to leave the Lord of Imladris in a gentled mood. His counsellors had taken to scheduling the more contentious meetings whenever Elrohir was home from a campaign. 

Elrond and Elrohir were alone, or as near to alone as the Lord of Rivendell could afford to be in these dark times. Elrond’s contingent of Fëanorian guards no longer left his side. Even now a pair of them, decked out in full battle dress and armed to the teeth, stood at the far end of the garden. So ancient were these warriors that the light of the Two Trees shone in their eyes. Once they were Maedhros’ personal guard, kinslayers many times over, fiercely loyal to Elrond, and Elrond alone. Their lord’s foster-son was now the last of Fëanor’s heirs in Middle-earth. 

The guards kept a polite distance, an illusion of privacy, but they were close enough to leap to Elrond’s aid in case of trouble. And trouble there was aplenty, of late. Elrohir was newly returned from overseeing yet another long reconnaissance mission into heavily contested territory. He had compiled a formal report and explained its conclusions to the council, but on these occasions Elrond never failed to speak with Elrohir at length and in private, both to detail the state of war-torn Eriador and check his son’s well-being. 

Elrohir sank into his chair and poured them both wine, generously watering it. A single maple leaf, a lacy star of perfect vermillion, fluttered down from the tree overhead. Elrohir caught it by the stem to twirl it between his fingers. Autumn’s golden dawn set its delicate splash of red alight against white linen tablecloth and fine porcelain, pale blue as a robin’s egg. For an instant he lost himself in the ethereal beauty of Imladris, so welcome after his journey’s grim, violent despair.  

Elrond was patient. He understood the sentiment well enough. In silence he took up a loaf of white bread, still warm from the oven, and cut it to lay a slice on Elrohir’s plate before buttering his own. He did not speak until Elrohir managed to extract himself from his own mind with an apologetic smile, and reached for a steaming bowl of pheasant in almond sauce. 

“Stay in the garden when we are finished, and rest in memory for the day,” Elrond said. “You need it. Did you sleep at all, on the road?” 

Elrohir shook his head. “We only rested the horses. The land crawls with enemies, Orcs and Hillmen both. I thought it wise to keep moving.”

“Nonetheless your company suffered few casualties. Has Angmar gone quiet?” Elrond asked.

Elrohir’s fingers fiddled with his sleeves seemingly of their own accord. He had to make a conscious effort to still them when he noticed Elrond’s look of concern. “With a purpose. The Witch-king seeks to evade our eyes. I cannot say what manner of foul scheme this is, but I like it not at all.” 

He took a deep, grounding breath as he struggled to put to words these past weeks of nameless, insubstantial dread, crawling like rot beneath the skin. “Something is wrong.”

Elrond did not bat an eye at the grim prediction. He simply cut a wedge from a small wheel of aged cheese as if Elrohir’s words were entirely expected. The lack of surprise was a terror in itself. 

Elrohir had barely taken his first bite of tender, well-spiced meat when a small, pained gasp sounded from across the table. He looked up to find Elrond frozen into stillness, eyes blank and distant. His right hand clamped his left forefinger as if something pained him there, but Elrohir saw no blood dripping from the white-knuckled fist. 

In less than a heartbeat the Fëanorian guards were beside their lord, surrounding Elrond with swords drawn. Elrohir was both terrified and relieved to see no telltale blue shine on the blades. No Orcs, then. Here was an assault that could not be parried with arms.

“Stand down,” Elrohir commanded as he reached out to touch Elrond with hand and mind, both movements slow and careful. Before he could pry open Elrond’s clenched fist his father gasped, then gave a deep, rattling sigh. 

The Lord of Imladris returned to the here and now to find himself scrutinized by his son and his equally white-faced guards. 

“I am well.” Elrond addressed the Fëanorians in a decidedly lordly tone. “As you were.”

These warriors were no fools. They knew trouble when it stared them in the face. Nonetheless they obeyed their orders, and retreated to the bottom of the garden. 

Elrond and Elrohir were alone at the table once more, and the wafting smells of good food only served to heighten the dread beating through Elrohir’s veins like the drums of war. Every ounce of warriors’ instinct he possessed was screaming in alarm. 

Elrond calmly filled his cup from the silver decanter of heady Gondorian red, and drank it down unwatered.  

“Fear not, Elrohir. This was but a vision, a fickle thing, perhaps real and perhaps not,” he said at last, voice hoarse with an emotion Elrohir could not fathom.

He shot his father a silent look of disbelief. Something was clearly wrong, and he was about to press the matter when he spotted movement from the corner of his eye. He whipped around, hand on the hidden dagger in his boot. 

Erestor came down the path to the house, formal robes billowing behind him as his long legs ate up the lawn at a pace barely short of outright running. Both Elrond and Elrohir stiffened in their chairs. None but his formidable chief counselor would disturb the Lord of Imladris at a family meal, and never over trivial matters.

Something was very wrong indeed. 

 

----

 

Instead of the formal reception room, Elrond wisely chose a private audience chamber to receive their unexpected guest. 

The casements stood wide open to a gentle wind, rich with the scent of cool, wet leaves and a view of lush canopy at the peak of its autumn raiment. Birch in fluttering gold, oak in ochre, beech a deep, luscious russet. This entire wing of the house had been angled for a perfect view of one of the valley’s falls, elegant as a ribbon of white lace. The song of water clattering on stone mingled with the chirps of a cloud of finches come to feast on the rich bounty of honeysuckle berries growing against the house.

And yet, Elrohir could not take his eyes off the Dúnedain warrior’s cloak. It was good northern wool, spun and woven with that slight edge of roughness typical of Mortal work. The cloth had originally been dyed a rich dark green with a lavish silver trim. Black Orc-blood, now dried into stiff crusts, had soaked it so thoroughly that the bell of fabric might have stood on its own had its wearer chosen to abandon it. Small flakes of the vile stuff were peeling away to litter the gleaming parquet floor as he moved. The Mortal, Brannor was his name, was beyond noticing. A steward had offered to take the soiled garment when he entered the house, but he had clung to it as if it were his last worldly possession. 

As the man’s story progressed Elrohir realized that was indeed the case. 

Brannor was alone to appear before the Lord and Lady of Imladris and their hastily summoned counsellors. The remainder of his party of refugees, the battered remains of a battalion defending the great keep of Amon Sûl, had been taken directly to the House of Healing where Lindalië and her staff of healers would salvage what they could. 

Elladan, ever the convivial host, elegantly resolved the issue of the soiled cloak by plying Brannor with fortified wine until the liquor relaxed him enough to relinquish his grisly garb. The gambeson he wore underneath stank to high heaven of mud and cold sweat, but all present far preferred it to the stench of Orc.    

 “The Witch-king set every last Orc in the Northern Wastes on us,” Brannor explained, wild-eyed. “Cardolan is razed to the ground, not a stone left standing upon another, and Arthedain will soon suffer that same fate. Amon Sûl came under siege. Before the end my company was sent out through a concealed tunnel to seek aid from the Elves. Alas, we are too late! From the hills we watched King Arveleg fall to the Witch-king’s mace. The Witch-king broke his body in sight of the keep, and the men were struck with despair. The tower is fallen.” 

Brannor’s stance grew stiff, his back ramrod straight. His hands shook around his silver wine goblet. 

“The beasts impaled the king upon the pinnacle before they set fire to the tower. We saw him burn from miles away as we fled … ” 

His voice broke, and the proud Dúnadan turned his face to the wall for an instant, drawing a deep breath.

The images seared into the Man’s mind made Elrohir’s hand shoot to his hip in deeply ingrained muscle memory before he could master himself. It was a foolish gesture—Imladris was a peaceful house, and his sword was in the armoury. He suddenly felt ridiculously defenseless wearing courtly robes of heavy night-blue velvet instead of his gear of war. 

That same rush of dismay swept the gathered company. King Arveleg was Elrond’s distant kinsman and his death was grievous, but ultimately little more than another snapped link in a long chain of deceased Mortal kings. The grave heart of the matter was the loss of the strategic fortress of Amon Sûl and its treasure: not merely one of the Palantíri, but the Master Stone of the North, the one to see into all others. For it to fall into the Witch-king’s hands would be such a devastating blow to the Dúnedain that it might well lose them the war.

Celebrían was the first Elf to dare the question weighing everyone’s mind.  “Our deepest condolences at the loss of your liege, Lord Brannor. The Elves will remember King Arveleg and his valiant deeds until Arda’s end. Tell us, what of the palantír?”

The Lady of Imladris seemed gentleness personified in her elegant dress of moss-green silk. Silver hair cascaded down her back in gem-pinned waves, but her fingers bore archer’s calluses. Celebrían’s knuckles had turned white where she gripped the carved armrests of her chair. 

Brannor sent her a look of outright reproach, but he was wiser than to offend his Elvish hosts with rebuke.

“The Seeing Stone was carried back to Fornost in retreat, my lady. It now falls to Prince— King Araphor.”

For an instant Elrond beheld the Mortal with stunned bewilderment before regaining his mask of lordly politeness. “Araphor is eighteen years old. Surely Queen Isilmë will reign in her son’s stead?”

Brannor sent the Lord of Imladris a look of bleak despair. “I cannot say, lord. At this point we know not whether Fornost still exists.”  

 

A great host came out of Angmar in 1409, and crossing the river entered Cardolan and surrounded Weathertop. The Dúnedain were defeated and Arveleg was slain. The Tower of Amon Sûl was burned and razed; but the palantír was saved and carried back in retreat to Fornost, Rhudaur was occupied by evil Men subject to Angmar, and the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west.

-- The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur 

Chapter 2

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To soothe both Brannor’s injured pride and his troubled heart, Elladan personally walked the Dúnadan to the House of Healing to visit his injured men. 

Despite his battle-stained state Brannor had a proud and noble bearing as he fell into step with his Elvish host for the walk through the sprawling house. Imladris was at its fairest in autumn, when the last vestiges of summer sunshine lingered in cloisters already floored with the pale gold of fallen leaves. Brannor drew their spicy scent deep into his lungs, and Elladan could see tension bleeding from his shoulders, to be replaced with bone-deep exhaustion. A fine time for smoothing ruffled feathers.

“Forgive us our directness, Lord Brannor. News is hard to come by in troubled times, and all here are keen to hear how Arthedain fares against our Enemy.”

“No offence was taken. In war not even the Elves can afford to hold on to the pleasantries of gentler days. The Lord and Lady of Rivendell may be as direct as they please, and I shall thank them for it if they aid Arthedain in its plight!”

A ghost of a smile played across Brannor’s bearded face. ”I was pleased to see your brother Elrohir among those present. Our minstrels still sing of his valour in breaking the Witch-king’s siege of Rivendell. Perhaps your father will send him to Fornost to face our common foe once more?”

Elladan knew he had failed to keep the slap of—of what precisely? displeasure? envy? off his face when Brannor’s eyes flitted to his in frank curiosity. This Mortal was no mere soldier, but a noble well acquainted with the intrigues of courtly life. Elladan kept his voice carefully neutral. It would not do to send Brannor home carrying baseless rumours of dissent between the sons of Elrond. 

“Whether Imladris will deploy its troops remains for my father to decide.” 

They had reached the path that wound from the main house to the House of Healing through a half-wild shadow garden of moss sheltered by fiery red maples. A small brook murmured down towards the Bruinen over cleverly placed rocks. The water’s song seemed unnaturally loud as awkward silence descended between them, and Elladan quickly filled it with distraction.

“Do you have kin in Fornost?”

Brannor flinched as if struck. “My wife and son were among those who sheltered in the crypts beneath Amon Sûl’s great tower.  Whether they were trapped there by the flames or escaped with the company headed to Fornost, I do not know.”

Elladan recalled the fortress of Amon Sûl. He had visited the great stronghold of the North many a time on Elrond’s business, to convene with this king or that lord. Walls upon walls of jet-black stone hard as adamant, built sky-high without gap or crack by the lost arts of Westernesse. He shuddered to imagine the power and malice that might raze a keep so strongly warded. The loremasters of Imladris had spent a Mortal lifetime debating the true identity of the Witch-king, but there could be no doubt that he was a mighty foe indeed. Brannor’s family was unlikely to have escaped his wrath. 

The Mortal’s face was hard, closed like a walled fortress. 

“Your journey to Rivendell may yet be their salvation, if we can relieve them at Fornost,” Elladan said.

Brannor did not answer him, his eyes firmly on the path’s moss-edged flagstones. Clearly this talk had only brought more pain, and Elladan regretted that he had no better comfort to offer the man.

The great double doors to the House of Healing were cast from green-tarnished bronze depicting the gardens of Lórien in Valinor. One stood ajar to reveal a glimpse of the frenetic activity within. When Elladan and Brannor stepped through into the house’s courtyard, the bustle assaulted every sense. 

White-smocked healers darted to and fro, some bearing stretchers, others the various menacing tools of their trade or baskets of linens both clean and red-soaked. The air was thick with the coppery tang of blood, pungent herbs and distilled spirits. The lightly wounded awaited their turns on benches in the shaded gallery. From several treatment rooms sounded Elvish voices raised in various Songs of healing. The Singing could not quite mask the snarl and rattle of a surgeon’s bone saw. From one windowless room on the far side of the courtyard came the sound of mourning—great, wailing sobs. A brother perhaps, or a friend close as one. 

Brannor’s dejected air fled him in an instant. Elladan watched his sullen guest change into a stern, efficient captain as he knelt beside the nearest stretcher and spoke softly to an ashen-faced lad who could not have seen twenty summers. 

Elladan, who was neither healer nor soldier, found himself no longer needed. He gently let the great bronze doors fall closed behind him and breathed the garden’s clean, mossy scent, his heart heavy in his chest. 

Canissë had been lounging in the dappled sunlight on one of the carved marble benches, still as the stone itself save for one slender hand drawing her dagger across a whetstone. 

Her sharp, pure Noldorin face had been called beautiful at times, by Mortals who remarked upon such things. An Elf might have thought the nose too aquiline, if not for four Ages of war and sorrow shining from light-filled eyes older than the Sun and Moon, lifting the ancient warrior beyond mere aesthetics.  

Canissë had been Elladan’s personal guard since the day he took up public life as Elrond’s heir, yet he still felt that tiny shiver of awe as he sat down beside the Elf who was once Fëanor’s own lieutenant.

She now cast him a knowing look. “Peace, Elladan. You will not want for occupation after today’s tidings. There is no need to begrudge Elrohir his.”

Elladan shook his head with curt, sharp frustration. As Elrond’s firstborn son and heir, these dark times found him safe within the valley, hoarded like a swaddled jewel in its box while his younger brother won battlefield renown. Canissë was too perceptive to miss Elladan’s growing resentment, though he hoped it eluded others. 

He was quick to cover the flash of hot shame that washed through him at his own spite, and decisively changed the subject. “What do you make of this Brannor?”

Canissë cast him a knowing look, but seemed loath to go against his wishes. “Some strange fate is on him, and he knows it.“ 

Three ages after she sailed to Middle-earth, red-plumed and bloody-handed in Fëanor’s train, her regard still held that piercing light of Valinor. Many in Imladris found that gaze hard to bear, but Elladan had been glad for her keen insight many a time.

Elladan thought for a moment, as a maple leaf drifted down from the canopy overhead, perfectly shaped and red as a clot of new-shed blood. With a swift flick of his hand he plucked it from the air to twirl the stem between his fingers and breathe in the spiced, lively scent of wild forests. 

He felt better for something to organize, at least. “Put a guard on Brannor. I want our stealthiest tracker hounding every step he takes within this valley.”

“Consider it done.“ Canissë was quick enough to acknowledge Elladan’s order, but something like compassion darted through her mind even as she spoke. 

Elladan knew her words were no lie, but an untruth nonetheless. A heartbeat later he understood, and his fist clenched on the leaf in a blaze of hot, shameful anger at finding himself superfluous once more.

Brannor was under guard already, and had been for hours. At Elrohir’s orders. 

 

----

 

Elrohir looked up from his harp at the brisk tap of a wooden staff on the path’s leaf-covered flagstones. For an instant he failed to hide his annoyance at the disturbance. His short-lived scowl was met with a smile like a wrinkled apple breaking open. 

“Ah, just the fellow! Well met, son of Elrond. This is a rare opportunity!”

Elrohir had been elusive indeed—he had spent the morning in the House of Healing, speaking at length with Brannor and those among his men left capable of answering questions, and the afternoon ensconced in Glorfindel’s study. Together they had hammered out the foundations of a strategy—one that would need a great deal more thought and  tweaking before it would stand up to scrutiny at tomorrow’s privy council.  

With his fingers busy on his harp strings Elrohir’s mind could fly far and free. He had sought seclusion in the western garden, a half-wild bower of birches sheltering fresh green ferns and delicate orchids. A well-placed bench of carved stone offered stunning views of the Hidden Valley beneath autumn’s pale blue evening sky and Eärendil rising above the western walls. 

This garden was open to all who wished to enjoy it, but the denizens of Imladris knew better than to disturb Elrohir when he went to play there on the eve of a campaign. His unexpected visitor seemed blissfully unaware of this tacit understanding. Elrohir politely refrained from showing further annoyance and stood to welcome his father’s guest. 

“Well met, Mithrandir. How may I help you?”

Strange birds of every possible feather flocked to the generous hospitality of Elrond’s house. Over the years Elrohir had observed a colourful procession of remarkable guests wind its way through his father’s halls. Mithrandir was among the more unusual strays to wander into the valley. 

On their first meeting Elrohir had found the Grey Pilgrim rather disconcerting. He had never met one of the Ainur, unlike his elders who lived through the Exile or the War of Wrath. Mithrandir’s absurd guise of a wizened Mortal greybeard—a weather-worn face and the bushiest eyebrows Elrohir had ever seen on anyone who was not a Dwarf—stood in jarring contrast to the immortal fire burning bright within. Elrohir knew not whether his unease sprung from the inherent strangeness of the Ainur or Mithrandir’s personal peculiarities. To eyes that could pierce the veil of his Mortal flesh Mithrandir burned bright indeed, and in the light he cast all things grew strange to Elrohir’s eyes.  

Upon Mithrandir’s first visit, straight from the ship in Lindon, many in Imladris had shared Elrohir’s reservations. This was not the first Maia to walk among the Elves of Middle-earth seeking to learn and teach. Annatar had taught the survivors of Eregion a lesson indeed—one they would never forget. Mithrandir would have found little welcome in Elrond’s house if not for Glorfindel. 

The reborn hero had hailed Elrond’s suspect visitor as his old friend Olórin, wisest among the Maiar and once the companion of Irmo and Nienna in the Gardens of Lórien. The emissary of Aman tactfully declined Elrond’s offer of a home in Imladris and a seat on his council, but chose to range far and wide across Middle-earth, vanishing from the west for long-years at a time. Where he went Mithrandir would not say, but he always made his way back to the House of Elrond to find ease from his journeys and take counsel with the High Elves. Elrohir had never caught the greybeard at anything that might be construed as political maneuvering or attempts to influence Elrond and Celebrían’s private counsels. He fiercely hoped that today’s ouvertures would not prove a first.

Mithrandir smiled, and it was as if the midday sun broke through clouds. “Might I have your company for a time? I am much grieved by today’s news, and I would hear the thoughts of Elrond’s warriors. I will make it worth your while.”

He dove into the wide sleeves of his grey robe, and for a brief and miserable instant Elrohir wondered how he should tactfully refuse some bribe in exchange for his father’s secrets. When Mithrandir’s calloused hand emerged he held neither gold nor gems, but strange paraphernalia.   

Two long-stemmed objects ending in cups carved from cherry wood came into view. Mithrandir proceeded to stuff them with a brown, thread-like substance from a small silver box. Judging by the dried herb’s aromatic scent it was Sweet Galenas. With a muttered whisper both briefly caught fire and extinguished themselves to remain smouldering. Fragrant blue smoke rose to the roof of shivering birch leaves above their heads. Mithrandir smiled like a cat in a dairy house before handing one over to Elrohir, who accepted the burning thing out of sheer politeness with a bewildered nod of thanks.

“Pipe-weed! An indulgence of the river-folk in the Vales of Anduin. You’ll find the habit most enjoyable—a worthy compensation for being kept from your harp.” 

There was nothing for it but to copy Mithrandir as he took the pipe’s narrow end between his lips like a bottle-fed lamb, and breathed in the burning weed’s vapours. In the next heartbeat Elrohir’s tongue seared with burning pain from the hot smoke, tears shot to his eyes and it was all he could do not to cough up his lungs like a sickly Mortal. He had to blink ferociously against the tears that would have run down his face. Once his vision was restored he found Mithrandir eying him with rapt, cheerful expectation, and could not bear to disappoint the Istar. 

“It is ... unique. Unlike anything I have tasted before!”

Mithrandir’s wrinkled smile lit up the darkening garden.

“Few Elves seem to care for a pipe. I am glad to finally come upon one with a taste for it!”

In the interest of diplomacy a second draw at the infernal device seemed inevitable. Elrohir took a shallower breath this time. The smoke stung less, and he managed to keep his smile and his dignity intact. 

 Mithrandir puffed, muttered in Valarin, and from his mouth sailed a tall ship, smoky sails taut in a wind of illusion. His mortal form had a warm laugh, a deep baritone, and Elrohir could not help but join him. It was disarming, this unquenchable fount of merriness—childlike and yet not: Mithrandir’s joy sprung from great wisdom and many bitter sorrows.  

With a smile lingering on his face Elrohir turned to his unexpected visitor.

“That is remarkable. Even our chief minstrel could not call up such vivid images—if Glaeriel could ever be convinced to take up a pipe.”

Mithrandir remained silent for a moment, taking another lungful of smoke and relishing it, his grey eyes closed like a contented cat.  When at last he spoke his voice was gentle.

“Elrohir, are you satisfied with life?”

Elrohir was perplexed. Nine long-years of errantry at many a great court had not prepared him for this unfathomable Maia. The Lord of Darkness and his army of rabid Orcs had Arnor by the throat, and yet Mithrandir saw fit to interrupt the strategic planning of Elrond’s armed forces for this ?

“The entire North is in peril, and so is Imladris. I will not be satisfied until my home and people are safe.”

Mithrandir turned to look Elrohir in the eye, and he suddenly felt like one of Arwen’s gemstones, turned this way and that beneath a magnifying glass in search of fault lines.

“In Aman, princes do not receive their fathers’ crowns unless by strange and bitter fates. The sons of Men have the certainty of inheritance. You and Elladan have one foot in both while your Choice remains unmade. Have neither of you ever desired to be lord in your own right?”

“I have little use for such speculations. Imladris is not Tirion, and Elladan and I no leisured princelings. Neither are we lords of Men.” 

 A sinking feeling of foreboding came over Elrohir when the strange question’s terrifying implications struck him.

“Did the Valar send you to extract our Choice from us? Why this sudden haste?”  

Mithrandir shook his grey head. “That is not my purpose. The hour of your Choice remains set by your father leaving these shores.” 

He turned to look Elrohir in the eye, open and unveiled. “Elladan chafes at his fate, and he is less than subtle about it. Those old enough to have seen this before are concerned, and rightly so. It is how great houses are broken.” 

Another puff of blue smoke rose at Elrohir’s shoulder, this time shaped like a flying dragon. In all his years as an officer Elrohir had thought himself calm and even-tempered in rebuking the impudent, the foolish and the incompetent alike, yet this Maia’s presumption somehow unleashed a hot, irrational anger. 

Elrohir had no need to ask which counsellor’s loose lips ran away with him. With a brusque jerk of barely suppressed rage he dropped the pipe beside him on the bench. Glorfindel’s loyalty should have been to Elrond and his House instead of this impudent Maia, and Elrohir would remind him of it as soon as he finished this conversation. 

“You know my brother not at all,” he replied, stiff and overly formal, “if you believe he would yearn for the ways of Men. Elladan is faithful to our House and its sworn task. Faithful to a fault.”

Mithrandir had a way of drawing forth confidences. Elrohir was shocked at hearing himself imply—to an outsider, no less— that Elrond was at fault for his dogged insistence that Elladan remain in Imladris, held back in safety to take up lordship in case of his father’s demise, while Elrohir rode to deeds of renown on the battlefield. Father and son had fought bitterly when Imladris came under siege. Elladan had obeyed Elrond then, but the coming battle for Arthedain would soon raise his old bitterness from a shallow grave.

Mithrandir seemed unfazed by Elrohir’s rebuke, because he stood to reverently touch the tears running down the face of a moss-covered statue of Nienna in its bower of trailing birch branches.

“As often in such matters, neither and both are in the wrong. Enabling a loved one’s errors is a poor service. You are your father’s most loyal captain, yet in this matter you should do more than execute his orders. A cracking wall is best rebuilt before it falls to rubble.”

Mithrandir’s face grew shadowed with a terrible foreboding, and a cold shiver ran down Elrohir’s spine. “You must mend this rift, Elrohir, or your House shall face the rising dark divided against itself!”

That same terrifying truth had been haunting Elrohir’s sleepless nights for years. A cold shiver of dread slid down his back, and he knew he was failing to hide it. Mithrandir’s sight was uncomfortably keen. 

“My skill is at making war, not peace,” Elrohir answered. “Between the two of us, Elladan is the diplomat. You should speak to him.”

Mithrandir sat down beside Elrohir once more. He seemed wholly unfazed by Elrohir’s rebuke as he took up the cold, forgotten pipe and stuffed it anew. 

“Such times as these require the unexpected, from all of us.” He handed the strange thing, now merrily belching out a plume of blue smoke, back to Elrohir. “You must expand your repertoire.”

---

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back everyone! False Dawn has been almost two years in the making. I was halfway when COVID19 struck, and for a while writing fanfiction fell by the wayside. My story seemed irrelevant, a luxury for gentler times now become unreachable. Then, as the bleak and busy weeks went by, it dawned on me that in dark times stories grow more, not less important, because they remind us that there's always hope.
I went back to writing, much slower and perhaps less inspired than before, but I managed to get through with the help and encouragement of my wonderful betas Anoriath and Dawn Felagund (they're both excellent writers, so please go read their stories when you have time!)
I hope that my writing can brighten this long winter for you, wherever you are.

Idrils Scribe

PS: hearing back from readers makes me a very happy Scribe!

Chapter 3

Read Chapter 3

The council gathered in Elrond’s study, a high, sun-warmed room so bright with colourful Noldorin frescoes that it shone like the inside of a jewelry box. Elladan let his eyes rest on the painted perfection of Gondolin’s spires pricking the heavens. A pair of Great Eagles—every last feather perfectly rendered and trimmed in gilding—wheeled over snow-white towers set against a sky blue as sapphire. 

Across the mother-of-pearl inlay of the council table—yet more bright Fëanorian geometrics -  Glorfindel was taking his usual place. He invariably chose the seat beside Erestor, facing the casements with their sweeping view of the Misty Mountains, his back turned to the likeness of his fallen city. 

Glorfindel’s startled slap of agony had been obvious, the day Elrond presented the freshly painted masterpiece to his gathered council. Elladan recalled the moment’s awkwardness, Glorfindel’s barely audible gasp and the smell of drying paint in his nose. Elrond’s dismay, the young artist’s mortification, their hasty insistence on having the reminder of ancient sorrows painted over. 

Glorfindel had adamantly refused his lord’s kindness. “The Eldar should remember the errors of the past,” he declared with his usual flair for the dramatic, “lest they be repeated.”  

With a strange blend of pride and jealousy Elladan noted how set apart Glorfindel and Elrohir seemed, an island of austere warriors’ grey against the autumnal palette of courtly robes. Elrohir seemed wholly unaware of his brother’s scrutiny. His mind thrummed with thought and determination as he leant forward with a focused urgency Elladan only ever felt from him before a battle.

It was Glorfindel who brought forth the fruit of their labour. “The Great East Road will be impassable, but Elrohir can take a company of light cavalry to Fornost Erain across the northern hill country in less than a sennight. He will come to Arnor’s aid if we find them still under siege. Even if he finds the city sacked, he may at least bring you certainty about the fates of the royal family and the Palantir.”

Elrohir nodded his assent in silence. Spread before them on the table was a detailed military map of the Weather Hills, riddled with small, coded ink-marks showing the positions of Angmar’s troops. The additions were so numerous that they rendered the original map nearly unreadable. 

Elladan worried the edge of his own notes, the reed paper soft and supple beneath his fingers. Beside Elrohir’s map, Elladan’s calculations looked unbearably pedestrian, the bland, undignified minutiae of war—rations and arrowheads and horseshoes. 

Elrond gave his youngest son a quick nod of approval. “Take no unnecessary risks, Elrohir,” his voice warm as it rarely was for Elladan. “If Fornost has already fallen you must turn back without revealing your presence. Should you find a siege ongoing, you have my leave to engage the Enemy as you see fit.”

Elrohir barely noticed the fatherly affection, his face hard, and closed. Elladan saw his brother’s dejection for what it was: a single company had little hope of delivering Fornost from Angmar’s gathered might. If he found Fornost under siege, Elrohir would have to turn his warriors around and slink back to Imladris, or risk getting them slaughtered in an attack against overwhelming odds.   

“Your first priority is to safeguard the Royal House,” Elrond continued his instructions to Elrohir with his hands folded on the table, as dispassionate as if he were speaking to any other among his officers. His shoulders were tense though, and his mind in turmoil: the father’s concern hidden beneath the lord’s calm, commanding exterior. 

“Young Araphor is the last of Isildur’s line,” Elrond said. “His survival is paramount. If you deem it needful, evacuate him and the Sceptre of Annúminas to Imladris by any means necessary. Second, but only just, come the Palantíri, both the Fornost stone and the Master Stone of Amon Sûl—assuming it did reach Fornost. These, too, you should carry to Imladris.”  

After a brief, uneasy lull Elrond added, “Elrohir, you must exercise great caution in your words to King Araphor.” His voice grew soft with compassion at what he was about to command. “Imladris has some strength of arms to offer him, but we cannot extend our arm as far as Fornost without leaving our own borders at risk. First we need to secure reinforcements from both Lindon and Lórien. You must assure the young king of the Elves’ unwavering friendship without making premature promises of aid.“

Elladan’s heart leapt. This was wrong, a surefire way to lose Araphor’s trust, and all Arthedain’s with it. He opened his mouth to intervene, but Elrond turned to him and spoke first. “Elladan, you will lead a delegation to Lórien and petition King Amroth for military aid. Use whatever means of persuasion you deem necessary. Amroth is no friend to the Noldor, but Imladris is a Sindarin realm, too, and Lórien needs its allies. He will not see us besieged a third time. You should make it back before Turuhalmë, with at least five battalions of marchwardens.”

So this was it. Elladan would not even remain in Imladris, but be dispatched to even greater safety, like age-old warriors send their youngest companions back to fetch whatever imagined necessity springs to mind at the first sign of Orc. He felt his face flush hot at the shame of it.

Celebrían unknowingly drove the knife in deeper. “Amroth is my friend. We were young together, and he has not forgotten it. I will give you letters for him, Elladan.” 

Elladan breathed deeply, lest he blurt out a rebuke so outrageous it would ruin all his chances.

Celebrían failed to notice because she had turned to Arwen, who had followed the proceedings with mounting unease. “You should go to Lórien with your brother’s company.”

Arwen sat up straight, skin pale as clouds against the heavy oxblood velvet of her robes. She reminded Elladan of Galadriel at her most determined. “I am needed in the forges, Mother. Are the warriors to do battle without swords?”

Elrond cut in before Celebrían could reply. “This house is exceedingly well supplied with smiths, but we have but one daughter. I would have you safely behind the lines, if the fortunes of war should turn ill.”

Elrohir drew a sharp breath. Elladan felt the flash of his twin’s disapproval, a twinge of pain at the edges of his mind, but neither of them spoke: Arwen needed no defenders.

She balled her fists below the table, her voice dark with indignation. “You would hide me away like a Dwarf squirrels an ingot? Do you think so little of me that you will not have me beside you at the last?”

Not for the first time Elladan admired his sister’s fierce independence. He himself could not afford it, being the heir and sharing in Elrond’s burden of Vilya’s safekeeping, but oh, how he dreamed of one day speaking his mind like Arwen could!

“I am giving you a great responsibility,” Elrond replied, bemused. “All in this valley who cannot bear arms are to remove to Lórien, and you will take charge of this evacuation. I will not preside over a slaughter of innocents while we can avert it.”

Arwen’s fair face was tense with distaste. “I shall lead in name only,” she retorted, “with Elladan travelling in the same company. All will look to him for guidance while they indulge me by pretending to ask my opinion. His will be the genuine task, to go before King Amroth and secure his aid, once he has delivered his sister and her ladies to safety like a basketful of eggs.”

Arwen’s gaze locked with Elrond’s, both caught in hurt and anger. Celebrían drew breath to steady her voice, but Elladan was quicker. 

His words fractured the uncomfortable silence. “You are no egg, sister, and I no errand-rider. I should ride to Fornost. Araphor knows me, and I have his trust.” 

As the Elves counted time, a mere blink of an eye had gone by since Elladan tutored the young Crown Prince of Arnor. Araphor’s fostering in Imladris had come to an abrupt and premature end when rising danger on the roads forced King Arveleg to hastily recall his heir to Fornost.

Glorfindel sent Elrond a telling look, and another flash of shame flushed Elladan’s cheeks. All of Elrond's children had been thoroughly taught the sword, but Elrohir alone had proven himself in combat. To Elladan swordplay was no more than a diplomatic art, a social lubricant to be indulged in against visiting lords and dignitaries. 

He owned a matching set of blunted weapons with handles of sculpted ivory and fine gilding along the blades, to be brought out into the gardens on those golden summer evenings when some Mortal prince or other needed entertaining. Elladan had won many a duel over the long years, but none had ever ended in blood. Whether he could hold his own against the Witch-king’s Orcs remained to be seen. Perhaps he would share his brother’s gift for clear-headed command and battlefield pragmatism, but he certainly lacked Elrohir’s extensive experience with leading troops into battle. 

Elrohir leapt in to spare Elladan from embarrassment. His smile was just a tad too jovial to be genuine. “Then join me, brother! Long has it been since last we rode out together.”

His words struck Elrond and Celebrían like a blow. Shocked silence filled the room, but then Erestor was quick to break the grim reality of it. “We cannot risk both sons of this House travelling in a single party. One of you may ride out, but the other must be kept safe. You should stay here, Elladan”

Elladan’s eyes sought Celebrían, then darted back to Elrond. Neither offered him any hope. “If my skills are found wanting,” he retorted past the knot of anger in his throat, “you have no one but yourselves to blame. No party that includes Canissë will fall short of military expertise. Let her handle the Orcs, and I shall deal with Araphor. The boy calls me friend. Even in his distress he will listen to me. Not Elrohir.”

This was nothing more than the truth. Elrohir had been away on various military campaigns more often than not during Araphor’s fleeting sojourn in Imladris. Whenever he briefly returned to the valley he was inclined to seek healing for his wounds of body and spirit, and the calm company of Elves—not a rambunctious Mortal princeling whose mind and mouth overflowed with a ceaseless stream of questions. Araphor had been awestruck by Elrond’s formidable warrior son. What little conversation they had shared at the high table never went beyond a superficial exchange of courtly pleasantries.

Elrond’s face remained expressionless, seemingly unfazed, and Elladan wanted to howl. How it smarted! So little recognition for all his painstaking work with the coltish boy the King of Arthedain had sent to Imladris to be tutored. While Elladan laboured to shape young Araphor into a man worthy of kingship, Elrohir had barely noticed the child’s presence. 

Elrohir knew it, “Elladan has the right of it, Father! The crux is not reaching Fornost, but what to say once there. He, not I, will serve you best.” Humble and generous words, and yet somehow they failed to soothe the sharp spike of Elladan’s jealousy.

Elrohir turned to their sister and smiled that sweet smile he kept only for her. “And we all know that Arwen is perfectly capable of wrangling Amroth.”

Elladan knew not what came over him, but he swept to his feet before Elrond could refuse and put an end to all his hopes. He came to stand before his father’s chair like a petitioner, or a man putting forth a challenge. A beam of golden afternoon light fell through the high windows to set the maroon velvet of his robes aglow, red as devouring flames. Elladan stood awash in that fire, proud and defiant.      

Long enough had he abided by Elrond’s will, obeying his father’s every word while his rightful share of fame and glory passed him by. He would not, could not bear the humiliation of yet another rebuke. Long-standing and bitter was this quarrel, and today at last they had reached its end—Elrond had refused Elladan once too often.

By the startled look in his eyes, he knew it well enough. 

Elrond’s final words shattered the breathless silence, grave as the Doomsman’s voice. 

“So be it.”

 

----

 

Brannor had found little peace in the Last Homely House. The man had wandered the halls all day, trailed by his invisible guards as he paced with the restless energy of a pained animal. 

Elladan found him in one of the reading rooms adjoining the library. Brannor stood eyeing a glass-fronted cabinet with rapt fascination, and Elladan winced inwardly when he remembered its contents. 

On his approach the Mortal’s eyes flashed with barely veiled indignation. “Greetings, Lord Elladan. May I ask how the Elves came by an heirloom of the Northern Kingdom?”

From the safety of their case the shards of Narsil glimmered in the autumn sun. The ancient sword was long shattered, and yet it seemed untouched by time, unrusted, lethally sharp.

“Which kingdom?” Elladan could not keep from asking, though he did see the grief at the root of Brannor’s prickiness. “Three quarreling kings divided Elendil’s broken blade. When Rhudaur fell and Cardolan was overrun, we of Rivendell retrieved their pieces before the Witch-king could. Are we wrong to safeguard them until Arnor’s rightful king is restored?”  

Brannor cast him an inscrutable look. “Will the Elves be the judge of that?”

“Peace, my friend!” Elladan answered, eager to change the subject. “I did not seek you out to debate Mankind’s ancient quarrels. I bring news: my father has tasked me with leading a company to aid Fornost.” 

So far, Brannor had borne his grievous circumstances rather stoically, but now it seemed a thin veneer over something much like panic. “Why does he not send your brother?!” he demanded, suddenly looking savage and more than a little dangerous. 

Elladan sensed his hidden guards’ sharp, focused alarm, their knuckles tightening about their weapons. The air grew thick with tension. One suspect move would now spell Brannor’s death. He needed to end this, and quickly.

He straightened himself to his full Noldorin height. “When I last looked, Elrond Peredhel ruled Imladris, not Brannor of Arthedain. My father will send what aid he deems necessary.”

Brannor was a fine warrior, and he knew when to retreat. His tone grew placating even if his words were anything but. “With all due respect, my lord, but your brother has defeated the Witch-king before. We placed our hopes in him doing so once more!”

Elladan managed to keep insult off his face, if only because Elrohir’s warriors would doubtlessly report every word of this conversation. 

“You will not want for skill with arms,” he replied. “Canissë, my second-in-command, was Elrohir’s lieutenant on that occasion. For many mortal lifetimes before that she was his teacher. Will you dismiss a warrior who stood beside Isildur at Barad-dûr?”    

This seemed to calm Brannor down enough to be reasoned with, but beneath his seeming acceptance lurked something else, quickly hidden like a darting fish flits beneath murky water. 

Before Elladan could probe any deeper, Brannor bowed and touched his hand to his forehead in contrition. “Forgive my rudeness, lord. Between you and her, Arthedain shall be well served.”

 

---

Chapter End Notes

Hi everyone! I hope that the week has been kind to all of you, and that you enjoyed this chapter. What are your thoughts about the family dynamic so far? Will Elladan's long expected journey set things right between him and Elrond? And what will Elrohir do with himself with both his siblings gone?
Comments make my day!
See you soon,
Idrils Scribe

Chapter 4

Read Chapter 4

“Be watchful. Be wary.” Long experience allowed Elrohir to keep emotion from his voice. “You defend the heir of our House and the hope of the Dúnedain. May the stars shine upon your faces.”

Elrohir’s selection of warriors for Elladan’s escort were seated in a half-circle around him. He had chosen a mingled company, drawn from all the Elvish kindreds that called Imladris home. They received their brief in a sombre silence, faces set in identical frowns of grim determination. One thing only did these warriors have in common: they were the best in their respective fields. 

Borndis sat transfixed by the great map of Eriador covering the wall behind Elrohir, her dark eyes glued to the thing as if trying to memorize it. Elrohir knew for a fact that the Silvan chieftainess could draw a more detailed one blindfolded. Borndis was to lead the party’s scouts. Her second-in-command, Glingaer, was braiding a willow-withy with slender fingers stained moss-green by years of forest life. He was an ancient Laiquendë from Ossiriand who rarely set foot indoors, and never for trivialities. Borndis and Glingaer might seem rustic primitives beside the Noldor in their shining armour, but every captain who ever waged war in a forest knew better. Under leaf and branch these Wood-elves reigned supreme.

One might have heard a pin drop in the solemn silence of the warriors’ hall as Elrohir rose to salute his people. There were no questions. Chair legs scraped the flagstones as the company filed from the hall, leaving their commander to silent contemplation.

Elrohir drew a deep breath. It was done. He felt strange and shaken, ill-prepared to face the bustle outside, and turned instead to examine the map behind him.

Like every work of Elvish hands, the map was as beautiful as it was accurate. Even in Elrond’s house it was considered a marvel, wrought by the finest Noldorin cartographers. Elrohir’s fingers traced the sinuous spine of the Misty Mountains, each contour line drawn with care and every individual peak capped in white; the Hoarwell running silver and azure in its deep-carved canyon; the dark, pine-covered bulk of the Weather Hills rendered in exquisite detail. There stood a small, perfectly drawn Amon Sûl, the great keep of Arnor that was no more. At last Elrohir’s searching hand reached the gilt-edged towers and battlements of Fornost Erain, the City of Kings, where Elladan would fulfill this desperate errand that might restore the balance between the Sons of Elrond.   

Elrohir could not muster even a trace of gladness at the thought. 

There was no sound but the air itself stirring in the empty space of the hall behind his back, but Elrohir turned to face whoever would wish a private word with him. 

“Those left behind may walk the hardest path.” Canissë’s gaze was keen as light glinting off a blade. “I will guard your brother with my life.” 

Elrohir knew he had failed to hide the darkness in his face. Elladan’s personal guard was among the eldest of his officers, and after so many years he still found the ancient Fëanorian somewhat overawing.

When Elrohir first took up captaincy, finding himself set above a warrior of Canissë’s stature had seemed absurd, and he a mere boy presuming to command his elders. 

Canissë had laughed heartily when he told her so. “Modesty becomes you, son of Elrond,” she answered him, a twinkle in her eye. “I have seen far more pretentious and less talented brats stuffed into a captain’s surcoat. Besides, you are a star’s grandson, a symbol and a sign to us all. We might as well put you to use. Fear not—I will not let you do anything truly idiotic.”

She had kept her word then, and she would keep it now. No warrior in Elrond’s house could be a better protector for Elladan, save perhaps Glorfindel himself.

Canissë, too, seemed distraught. Her slender hand rose and came to rest on Elrohir’s shoulder, warm and heavy through the woollen cloth of his uniform. She had never touched him in such a manner, and he nearly startled at the realization that Canissë loved the children of Elrond’s House as her own, for better or worse. 

Her life had been long and lonely, from the day Fëanor’s stolen fleet carried her into three Ages of blood-soaked exile. Not for the first time Elrohir found himself wondering what had become of the spouse whose spirit still lingered in her eyes. Did he repent at the Doom of Mandos? Reach Beleriand under the Stars to be devoured by its wars? Or had he set her aside in disgust, and if so, at which particular kinslaying? 

In the next breath she saluted him, smartly as ever, her back ramrod-straight. “Be you well, my lord, until next we meet.”

 

----

Elrohir was the one to dress Elladan for the journey ahead. Canissë would normally be charged with securing every last buckle of her charge’s armour, but he had pulled rank on her. 

The great armoury of Imladris had fallen quiet after the double muster of Elladan’s company and the battalion that would escort Arwen and her delegation to Lórien. The sons of Elrond stood alone in the solemn, high-roofed space where the remains of three ages of their people’s Long Defeat stood on display. 

Elrohir had grown from apprentice to full-fledged warrior to captain in these timbered halls, but he had never forgotten the silent awe of his first visit. The high windows remained perpetually shuttered to shield ancient banners and coats of arms from light’s inevitable decay. Daylight fell through in beams, cutting the space into an ordered lattice of light and shadow from which the past leapt out at every turn.

Elu Thingol’s great banner hung from the rafters, a winged moon of mithril blazing against a black field of stars. The standard had been carried from the sack of Doriath by Elwing’s people, only to be taken from burning Sirion by Fëanor’s guilt-ridden sons, along with two young boys. Fëanorian artisans had mended it with honour for Elrond and Elros to deploy as they rode from the kinslayers, doomed yet beloved, into the High King’s keeping. 

There seemed little contradiction in having it displayed side by side with the eight-pointed star of Celebrimbor’s banner from Eregion. This, too, had been carried from a ravaged city by refugees to become an heirloom, a tangible memory kept in Elrond’s house.

In the centre of the hall hung Gil-galad’s great war banner, a star-strewn sky of royal blue. Below it stood the High King’s twisted and blackened armour upon a stand. Elrond won a great victory in Mordor, but he would not allow himself or any other in Imladris to forget its price. Elrohir knew that his father stood in this very spot in silent contemplation on each anniversary of that fateful day, when an age of the world had ended in the spilled blood of kings.   

Elrohir carefully lowered a padded arming doublet of sage-green wool over Elladan’s head. He bent low to run cords of braided hithlain through the lacing holes beneath Elladan’s arms, then carefully adjusted them so the garment fit him like a glove. Elladan stood perfectly still, arms outstretched. He was used well enough to being dressed in this manner.

Elrond may have abandoned the arts of war in favour of healing, but his household still honoured the Noldorin traditions from Finwë’s court in Tirion. In times of peace Imladris had seen warriors of all realms and kindreds compete in splendid jousts. The sons of Elrond would ride into the tiltyard arrayed as princes of the Elder Days, and warriors many years their senior were wary of their fierceness. This very hall still held the twins’ long-unused sets of jousting armour: identical winged helmets and cuirasses embossed with gold-inlaid Noldorin geometrics. Such splendid finery was worse than useless against the Enemy.  

With Elladan’s gambeson laced to Elrohir’s satisfaction he turned to the oak chest, carved with a frieze of running horses, standing ready on the sideboard. Out came Elrohir’s own mail. He alone owned a second set of armour, deceptively simple and unadorned. It had been covered in a dull grey-green patina, designed to dissolve into the craggy rock and coarse brushland of Eriador’s desolate heaths. 

With care Elrohir lifted his mail from the chest and let it swing from his fingers. The delicate rings sang a melodious song with the motion. Their dull finish appeared to drink in the hall’s muted light. Elladan ran his finger across it with reverence. Before today he had never needed such utilitarian armour. Despite its austere appearance, Elrohir’s hauberk was a masterpiece. Arwen’s peerless hands crafted it to his exact specifications and imbued it with every safeguard and art of stealth a Noldorin weaponsmith might pour into their work. The piece was well-worn, but always repaired to perfection.

“Now let us see if this fits you as well as it does me.”  Elrohir’s voice broke the solemnity of the moment. 

It fit, of course. Whatever their differences, Elladan and Elrohir were as identical in face and form as it was possible for living creatures to be.  

Elrohir now carefully placed the gorget around Elladan’s throat. His hands were tender as he lifted the single braid he had made of his brother’s hair from the wide metal collar encircling his neck. 

“Do not make yourself easier to kill than necessary—keep your armour on at all times, on the road. Even Canissë is not infallible, and a single arrow may end your life. ”  

Elladan nodded, and Elrohir silently took up his vambraces, a fine filigree of leather-lined steel hard as adamant, bearing the star-and-Silmaril device of their House. Underneath went fine kidskin arming gloves.

“I imagine Brannor will be most eager to join you.” Elrohir smiled, hoping that Elladan would be comforted by it.

“Something about him sits uneasy with me,” replied Elladan as Elrohir buckled his arm guards, though he wished nothing more than to put them on himself and ride out in Elladan’s stead. None of this was right. 

“A bereaved man, mad with grief and uncertainty both,” Elrohir answered instead, hoping to reassure Elladan. “Such torments of the spirit are not pleasant to look upon. Is this not what turns you away from him?”

Elladan remained silent while Elrohir lowered the surcote over his mail. This, too, had no use for splendour or pageantry. Silvan dye-masters had coloured it in simple grey and green patterns that would allow the wearer to disappear into forest and heathland simply by standing still.

“I do not know,” said Elladan as his head emerged from the cloth. “Perhaps I will like him better when he is back among his own people.” 

Elladan stood up straight, and Elrohir leant in to gird his waist with a stout leather sword-belt. When he was done Elladan pulled him up and embraced him, hard and tight, heedless of the metal rings of his mail biting into Elrohir’s skin through the thin wool of his tunic. Elrohir eagerly returned the embrace, drinking in the sensation as if he might keep something of Elladan by it. Ai, this was hard!

“Thank you for supporting me in this, for going against Father’s wishes. I know how hard it is for you to watch me leave.” Elladan pressed a kiss to Elrohir’s forehead. “I will do you proud, Brother.”

Elrohir had never realized how fell Elladan looked in full battledress. Elrohir’s armour fit him perfectly, down to the last rivet—even after years of walking separate paths in life his twin and he remained comfortingly alike. How long had it been, since they last were this close, without the cares of their father’s realm standing between them?

Arwen’s ruby seemed all angles where it rested against Elrohir’s chest beneath his undertunic. He lifted it by its chain and closed his palm around it until a sharp, earthy pain drew him back to the present, to the things that were. Extending his hand to Elladan and opening his fist to offer him the jewel was the hardest thing of all, and when he finally managed it his voice was strangely rough. 

“May this protect you as it did me.”

 

 

“Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.

 

― The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 3: "Three is Company"

---

Chapter End Notes

And so Elladan sets out while Elrohir stays behind.
If you'd like to read more about Canissë's past, take a look at my first age stories "The King's Peace" and "The Art of Speech through Smithcraft".
Elrohir's ruby pendant is introduced in chapter 4 of Gathering Dusk.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. Comments make me a very happy scribe.
See you soon,
Idrils Scribe

Chapter 5

Read Chapter 5

 

 

 

'Nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the old hill's head.'

The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 11: “A Knife in the Dark”

 

Foresight struck Elrohir at the red hour of sunset, as he crossed the great tiltyard on his way to the house. One moment he was headed for his study and a long night’s work, his hands full of wax tablets filled with the everyday minutiae of war. The next, Irmo’s hand descended like a great wave from some minstrel’s song about the Atalantë, a moving, mountainous wall beating down upon his mind. 

He could not move, could not speak, could only let the vision wash over him as passing warriors swept around their transfixed captain like water swirls about rock. Elrohir had always thought himself too rational, too grounded to share in the ethereal visions that swept his father and grandmother. What little insight was granted him now held neither image nor sound, but only thought, feeling, ideas drifting to the surface, elusive as fish in murky water.

Elladan. Horror and loathing, the touch of evil lingering on his mind like soot after a house fire.

Elrohir recalled his last sight of his brother, Elladan’s beloved figure swallowed up by the grey-cloaked column of his escort. He had stood watching until the rearguard had disappeared over the valley’s western rim, a final glitter of midday sun on the points of their tall spears. Four days of hard riding across perilous lands now lay between them. Whatever atrocity Elladan was bearing witness to, he was beyond Elrohir’s comfort, or his aid.

Elrohir was too high-strung to remain still, fell with a cold anger at this marred world that required his bookish brother to face the realities of war.  He was ruined for desk-work tonight, but he might as well put his time to good use—it would not do for Elrond’s son to be seen idling in the Hall of Fire while others worked. He spun around and returned to the barracks. 

The cavalry stables lay quiet. With the grooms’ work done for the night, the airy stone buildings had filled with the sweet smell of hay and the content chewing of well-fed horses. 

“Halloth, my horse!”

Elrohir’s order had been rather brusque, and the Silvan head groom sent him a startled look of concern. He gave her an apologetic smile as she led Rochael from her stall and set to currying and saddling, her long chestnut braid sweeping behind her as she moved with the swift, measured strokes borne from long experience tending horses. 

Elrohir knew better than to draw blade within the borders of Imladris, but nonetheless he now unsheathed his sword and swung it under Halloth’s disapproving eye. The steel turned to a lethal arc of blurred silver with the speed of his movement. It would not remain so clean with its wielder spoiling for a fight. 

Elrohir caught himself hoping for a chance at confrontation tonight, an opportunity to purge the lump of incandescent rage burning inside his chest and wash it away in blood. He had not felt this fell since the worst days of the Siege. He would join one of the mounted patrols scouting a wide perimeter around the valley.     

Halloth led Rochael into the stable courtyard and passed the mare to Elrohir with a look of compassion that put him to shame. He did not bear Elladan’s absence well, and his staff knew it. With profuse thanks he lightly leapt into the saddle, and found a lance and shield held out for him to take the instant he reached out his hand. Halloth was soft-spoken, but she excelled at her work.

“Well met, Elrohir!” With quicksilver grace Glorfindel stepped straight into Rochael’s path, stopping Elrohir cold before he could join the patrol gathering on the greensward beyond the stable courtyard. 

“Tonight’s patrols are fully manned. I will meet with you on the revised schedules on the morrow. Meanwhile you should attend your parents.” Far-seeing blue eyes caught Elrohir's. Glorfindel had seen his eagerness for violence.

Elrohir opened his mouth to protest, but Glorfindel spoke first, in a low hiss meant for his ears only. “Compose yourself! Would you have your parents suffer two children in mortal peril in a single night?” 

Elrohir had been miserable enough that it never occurred to him that Elrond and Celebrían might share his suffering at Elladan’s absence. He stood caught between his terror for Elladan, hurt pride at Glorfindel’s rebuke, and the urge to do anything at all except be alone with this dark mood. 

The chain of command had been drilled into him once in the training of a warrior of Imladris, and again among Lórien’s marchwardens. He would not gainsay Glorfindel’s order, but oh, how hard it was to leap down from the saddle!  Without a word he fled to the house, leaving Glorfindel to deal with horse and bewildered groom.

 

----

 

The fortress of Amon Sûl had been one of the wonders of the North. The great tower, carved from stone black as night, rose from within ringwall upon ringwall. It commanded the plains of Eriador and the Great East Road from its hill, a thousand feet above the winter-browned plains. 

Elladan had stood upon those heights beside many a Mortal king, where the eye could see unhindered from the snow-capped heights of the Misty Mountains to the distant Tower Hills in blue-tinged vastness to the west. In the lush rooftop garden the Kings of Arnor took counsel with Elrond’s envoys beneath the open skies of summer, while minstrels sang of Númenor and Elvenhome. A bounteous country unfolded at their feet in a tapestry of gold and green. 

Today the ice storms that howled from the north battered a barren wasteland. The blackened skeletons of razed farmsteads reached up like begging hands to winter’s lead-grey clouds, chased across the sky by the Witch-king’s sorcery riding upon the wind. 

Amon Sûl was a monolith of seamless, jet-black rock built with all the art and skill of the Men of Westernesse, and those were once great indeed. Their work withstood fire and battering rams and sorcery for ten long-years. Now at last the Witch-king had mastered the great keep of Arnor. The ringwalls had ceased to exist, their man-high stones torn down and scattered across the slope as if a giant hand had strewn about handfuls of pebbles. 

The tower itself had been broken in half. From his vantage point, hidden in a pine forest on the southern Weather Hills, Elladan could see the topmost part laid low, baring the tower’s inner chambers as if a child at play had cracked a stick of wood. Swarms of Orcs crawled the hill like cockroaches, pillaging and defiling. Nothing remained of the inner rooms’ rich furnishings, nor the bounty in the great storehouses. Curtains still flapped in the north wind from empty windows, soft pink and carmine as innards spilling from a corpse.

The keep still had a pinnacle, a tall pole of metal erected on the rubble covering the ruined stump. There the Witch-king’s banner snapped in the bitter wind, a ghastly skull-face upon a field of blackest sable. Beside the flagpole stood another lance. The oddly-shaped object dangling from it was too ravaged to be recognized at once. At first Elladan did not understand why the Men turned away their faces and Brannor wept. Only after a moment’s silent observation did Elladan realize he must be looking at the limbless trunk of King Arveleg’s body, blackened by fire and desecrated by the Orcs’ foul sport, the lidless Eye carved into his face. 

Elves attached little importance to the ultimate fate of an empty hroä, burying their dead in woodlands or beneath an unmarked green mound. Elladan knew that, for better or worse, even after the Fall the Númenóreans still sought solace for their fear of mortality in ornate tombs, opulent funeral rituals and the elaborate preservation of decaying flesh. Had Arveleg died in days of peace he would have been embalmed with the most precious of spices, wrapped in cloth of gold and laid to rest in the echoing halls of a great mausoleum of black and white marble. The dishonour visited upon their king’s body must be a terrible humiliation, not just for the House of Isildur but their entire people. 

Elladan averted his eyes and bowed at the grisly spectacle, deep and formal.  “Know that we grieve with you. King Arveleg was kin to my House. The Elves will not forget his fate! He shall be avenged, but this is not the day. We have not the strength to retake the keep.”

Grief stood in Brannor’s eyes, but then a glimmer of something darker turned his gaze away. "I thank you, Son of Elrond, for your faithfulness in dark days." A muscle leapt in his jaw. "Arthedain will not forget it."

Canissë—eminently practical as always—interrupted the stiff exchange of courtesies. “We should move, my lords. These hills are crawling with spies, and I dislike the look of those crows. Let us move north around the Weather Hills, and take the safest road to Fornost!”

Brannor shook his head, suddenly frantic. “No! North of the hills we are exposed to the wind from Carn Dûm! Can you not hear his voice upon it?”  

Canissë shrugged. “Let him howl.”

Elladan intervened. Canissë was unused to the company of Mortals, and failed to grasp their exquisite vulnerability to the Black Breath. “We shall have some thought for the needs of your man, Brannor, and choose a hidden path among the hills.”

“I thank you for your compassion, Lord,” Brannor replied, but instead of gratitude something darker flashed across his face. 

Canissë sent Elladan a look of concern. Unbeknownst to Brannor, her fingers flashed in the subtle sign language of Imladris’ warriors and diplomats. “Doubt,” she signed. “Danger.”  

Elladan replied in kind. “Proceed.”

Canissë turned away to oversee their formation, the pale oval of her face afloat in the darkness spreading beneath the trees.

 

----

 

Glorfindel was an artist at heart. He enjoyed beautiful things, fine clothes and jewels, but above all the Lord of the Golden Flower delighted in this garden. It stretched from the wreathing ivory stonework of the terrace bordering his rooms, down the landscaped riverbank to the Bruinen, and all the folk of Imladris shared his joy in it. 

The great hothouse took pride of place, a wonder of Noldorin artifice. Elrohir stepped inside the warm green scent and silently followed one of the winding mosaic paths. The track snaked, lined with olive and box trees in glazed ceramic pots, through flowering hibiscus ablaze with colour, every shade of red and bright sun-yellow. Orange trees whispered in a gentle stream of mild air, their glossy leaves reaching for the morning sun falling through the glass roof overhead. Upon the same branch they bore golden fruit and pale, fragrant blossoms. The scent was intoxicating, a memory of sun-drenched Tirion sprung to life in the cold of Middle-earth’s North. This was far too glad a place for a dressing-down, and he wondered why Glorfindel had summoned him here instead of his study. 

Elrohir came upon a pair of elf-women seated on small stools tucked into the lush greenery. They were sketching the delicate swan-wing sculpture of a miniature orchid in a riot of varicoloured inks. At the sight, he clenched his fists until his fingernails drew blood from his palms. A sharp, sour rage drummed in his chest.

Ah, the folly of it! 

How dare these lighthearted geese waste their days on such unbearable trifles while all about them the Dark closed in? How could they giggle and chatter, while Elladan .... 

No. Best not to think of his brother now, not lest he do something foolish. Elrohir’s jaw hardened, and he let out a shuddering breath. Both the artists’ heads snapped up, startled at the sound. Elrohir recognized two of his Nandorin archers, their faces pale and shocked above the bright swirls of their sketchpads. He could barely bring himself to greet them, and with a terse nod moved on. 

At last Elrohir came to the very heart of the greenhouse, an elegant gazebo set amidst flowering jacaranda, a delight of scent and colour. Glorfindel received him with a jovial smile and a carafe of crisp white wine. His chess set—fine Valinorean work of onyx and moonstone—stood ready on the table. Beside the precious board sat an impossibility: a perfectly ripe melon. 

Elrohir had always been partial to these fruits from sun-drenched Valinor, but few gardeners could coax them to ripeness in Eriador’s cool climate. In summer the sweet treat would have been an achievement, but these deep days of autumn made it nothing short of a miracle.

Glorfindel knew this well enough, and he sliced and served the delicacy with a grand flourish. 

Despite Elrohir’s dark mood, his first bite of orange flesh, honey-sweet and aromatic, genuinely baffled him. “Glorfindel! That is delicious, how did you do it!?”

Elrohir’s praise widened Glorfindel’s smile even more. “The seeds come from Yavanna’s gardens. All they need is the right care, even in winter.” 

Even with Elrohir’s limited knowledge of horticulture he knew that it was nowhere near that simple. Glorfindel must have painstakingly sprouted the seed in a forcing bed, reared the plant, hand-pollinated its blooms, then Sang the fruit to exquisite ripeness. 

The master gardener set another generous slice on Elrohir’s plate. Affection shone clear in his eyes, and Elrohir felt a stab of shame at his earlier curtness.

“I know not what came over me. I feel surrounded by darkness, lost in it. With Elladan away I seem to … “ He lacked the words to describe the suffocating sense of wrongness .

Glorfindel gave him a look of genuine concern. “A great evil bides in the North. His gaze weighs the spirit, even here in Imladris. The darkness is stronger now than it ever was in your lifetime. ”

Elrohir could not keep the question from falling from his lips. “Was it the same, in Gondolin?” At once he regretted it: in all his years, not once had Glorfinel spoken of his fallen city. 

Glorfindel sat up straighter, eyes focused on the tender, white-and-golden perfection of a lily blooming out of season. Elrohir feared having offended, struggled to come up with some fitting apology, but then Glorfindel spoke. 

“Worse,” he said, “for we suffered both Morgoth’s hate and the Ban of the Valar.” He seemed to understand Elrohir’s desperate need to hear that Imladris was not Gondolin, and her fate would be different. 

“We of Gondolin may seem arrogant for ignoring Ulmo’s call, but it was no mere vanity.” Glorfindel grew agitated, defensive as one standing accused. “You would understand if you had seen it, Elrohir! The Seven Gates were tall as the mountains, massive, unassailable. The gatewardens were the city’s heroes, revered as little kings in their own domain, each one’s raiment more splendid than the last. They would stand against Morgoth for us.” 

He fell silent, drawing mindless swirls into the condensation pearling on the crystal of the wine-carafe. Then he appeared to reach some decision, poured himself another cup of wine, and drank deeply. “In the end it all proved meaningless prancing and posturing. All those proud gatewardens ever did was harass ragged refugees.” 

He was still for a moment, thinking, eyes firmly on the cup in his hands. “Yes, we were proud, foolish, and vainglorious, convinced that the blessings of Valinor could be ours to have in Middle-earth. But most of all we were naïve.” Blue eyes caught Elrohir’s, and in that gaze lay a disarming honesty. “We simply failed to imagine that our defenses might fall. We failed to imagine how even a Vala would find the city, hidden as it was.”

“Things are different this time,” Glorfindel stated with confidence. “Your father is a better ruler than Turgon ever was. He knows what it is to lose, to bleed.”  

That much was true—Elrond bore the scars of many lost battles. The thought held little comfort, and Elrohir worried at it like a scab. “Do you sometimes doubt, Glorfindel? The Valar sent you to Middle-earth with a purpose, but will their plans prove wise, or even feasible?” 

A bold question, almost blasphemous, but Glorfindel fielded it without flinching. “Time alone shall tell,” he answered, wholly calm. “My mission is simple: do whatever is needed to safeguard this House. To what purpose, Manwë and Námo alone know. Have faith in them.”

How strange, to hear the Valar themselves spoken of as if they were people, real persons  who might be met and spoken with. Even after an age in Imladris, Glorfindel remained an Elf of Valinor, born in the light of the Trees. He was a foreigner in Middle-earth.

The thought came to Elrohir unbidden, that his own ways would seem just as strange. He wondered whether Glorfindel was homesick at times.

Glorfindel sensed the thought. “I chose to return to Middle-earth, Elrohir. I knew that my task here would be a long one. My home shall await me when I return.”

When. Not if. Their eyes met, both acutely aware that Elrohir lacked Glorfindel’s easy certainty in that regard. Much had been said between them on the subject of the Choice, and not all of it amicable. Thankfully, Glorfindel let the matter rest. 

“Whatever the end shall be … I am grateful,” he said instead. “For the life I lead here in Imladris, for having a part in these great deeds.” He gave Elrohir a look that seemed tentative, uncertain. For all his good cheer, Glorfindel did not wear his heart on his sleeve. “I am grateful to have met you.” A sword-calloused hand came to rest on Elrohir’s shoulder

All Elrohir’s life Glorfindel had been a second father to him. It was Glorfindel who first Sang him the songs of Valinor, the ancient lays of the Noldor. Glorfindel who taught him the skills of sword and bow, the art of strategy. Here was one who knew Elrohir—truly knew him from earliest childhood, his good sides and his ugly ones—and yet loved him without reservation. 

Glorfindel smiled, all fondness. “There is hope yet, my friend. When estel is all you have left, you should let it carry you.” 

Elrohir returned his friend's smile despite himself. “Thank you, Glorfindel. For everything.”    

Glorfindel laughed his golden laugh, relaxed and joyful. He poured them both more wine and reached for the chess board. “Now elfling, expect no mercy!” 

---

Chapter End Notes

Hi everyone,
I hope that all of you are safe and well, and that you enjoyed this chapter. Both twins find themselves in unfamiliar territory, each in their own way, and Glorfindel tries to help.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter and the story so far. A comment would make my day! 
See you soon,
Idrils Scribe

Chapter 6

Read Chapter 6

Not so long ago, travelling from Imladris to Fornost Erain would have been as simple as riding down the King’s Road. As things stood, Elladan’s company crossed ravaged hill-lands in what was once eastern Arthedain, now a desolation occupied by Angmar.     

Elladan lowered his hood to study their surroundings. A cold drizzle ran down his neck and under the high collar of his mail hauberk. Before him Canissë did the same. Elladan was neither vain nor foolish enough to let himself be singled out by over-rich garb. He and every member of his considerable security detail wore identical grey wax-cloth cloaks over their mail. 

Steady rain had beaten down for days without end in sight, soaking rider and horse alike. It set everyone on edge even more than usual. He let his mind brush the fine, ever-shifting web of awareness spun by their scouts and found their minds taut as bowstrings. 

Roaming bands of Orcs plagued the Weather Hills, and with such heavy cloud cover the foul creatures could move even in the daytime. Sunset was hours away and yet deep grey shadows already lay pooled in the valleys. 

Dark pine forests loomed above the column of Elf-warriors and their Mortal companions as they followed a winding vale beneath steep, boulder-strewn slopes running down to their path. This little-used track proved treacherous, for even Elvish horses slipped on the wet soil or worked themselves into a lather of exhaustion as they sank into loamy mud up to the fetlocks. 

As Elladan looked on, Brannor’s mount startled at a hare sprinting from the undergrowth. In white-eyed panic the bay gelding slipped on a patch of decaying leaves to land against a tree-trunk with the sickening crunch of bone. 

Elladan leapt down from Rochíril’s saddle and ran to where Brannor had deftly dismounted and rolled to his feet. His face was wan with misery between hood and dark beard as he watched his gelding twitch and grapple in the agony of a broken leg. Elladan froze with indecision beside the man until Canissë appeared at his shoulder. She did not even look at Brannor’s grief as she drew a blade and put the animal out of its misery with a single bone-deep cut to the throat.  

Brannor sank to his knees, heedless of the churned slurry of mud and horseblood soaking his breeches, to cradle the horse’s head in his lap as it died. The proud captain of Arnor wept as if the beast were his most beloved kin. 

Canissë seemed equally distressed, but her trouble was far less sentimental in nature. 

“Udûn’s pits! The smell of horse-meat will soon have every Orc from here to Carn Dûm swarming this valley!” She whipped around to face Elladan. “We must get away fast, my lord!”

Elladan nodded. “Aye. Brannor, put your saddle on one of our spare horses. You will have no need of that bridle.” 

Brannor rose, pale as a corpse and with an absent, alien look on his face. His eyes darted to  the slopes towering above their heads as if he expected to see the Witch-king himself swoop down upon them.

“Morgoth’s balls! Get a hold of yourself, man!” Canissë was beyond compassion. 

She descended on the cadaver and made short work of the cinch to drag Brannor’s saddle off the dead horse’s back, driving rain clattering from her cloak as she worked. So absorbed was she in getting Brannor to move that she missed the first shiver of alarm that passed in  her warriors’ collective awareness.

Elladan had been almost painfully attentive, and with a jolt of pure terror he sensed the minds of the Silvan scouts guarding their flanks light up in alarm. He saw his doom through their eyes before the warning calls went up.

“Yrch!”

Suddenly they heard the beasts’ shrill cries, and saw them stream from the forest, running down the slopes like a moving tide of pitch beneath the black banners of Angmar. 

The howls and snarls of Wargs rent the air, and for the first time Elladan’s waking eyes saw those sleek and dreadful shapes that still haunted Elrohir’s dreams some nights. These monsters were near-sentient, half-animal, half-spirit, bred in mutilated mockery of Oromë’s Hounds. Their eyes shone with a fell, malicious fire; their stunted minds filled with bestial rage and devouring.

For a moment Elldan froze in terror as the world spun around him, a reality too horrid to accept. Canissë called his name once, twice, then simply elbowed him in the ribs and drew his sword for him to press the hilt into his hand. 

“Elladan! You know how to wield this. I taught you myself, and you always were a clever one. I will take charge but you must stand, son of Elrond, and show your warriors a captain’s courage!” 

A fleeting touch of warmth upon his mind and she was gone, turning away to call out her orders. Warriors peeled away from the main host, archers went up the surrounding trees, cavalry and spearmen formed a protective shieldwall with Elladan at its centre. 

Only Brannor’s men broke the orderly pattern. With a cresting wave of horror Elladan watched as they spun their horses around, Brannor leaping behind his lieutenant’s saddle, and sped up the slopes to disappear in the many-pillared shadows of the forest. At first Elladan believed that the Dúnedain were taking their vengeance in a suicidal stroke of blind rage. In the next heartbeat he noticed their sheathed weapons, the Orcs standing aside to let the Men pass unmolested.

They were betrayed. 

The stab of insight, bright and painful as a lightning strike, thrummed along the Elves’ collective minds. Without need for spoken orders their arrows rained down in vengeance. It was too little, too late but at least some of the foul traitors never reached the shelter of the treeline. Elladan could only stare in horror as Dúnedain fell beneath white-fletched Elvish arrows. A tall, dark-haired man loudly breathed his last, twitching in the slurry of bloodied mud as he gurgled and clawed ineffectively at his skewered windpipe. A snarling Orc trod the Mortal’s corpse into the mud. He had been wearing a borrowed grey cloak.

“The Void take the treacherous Secondborn!” Canissë cursed, drawing her sword with a sound like some tender thing tearing. “And curse us for blind fools, led like pigs to slaughter!”

Elladan saw beneath her rage into a vast depth of self-loathing. Canissë still bore the ancient Doom of Fëanor’s followers, haunted by treason from kin unto kin. Today that very curse had reached across three ages of the world to entangle Elladan.   

A shadow of foreboding fell on Elladan’s heart when he turned to her. “We have no hope of help: Imladris is far behind, and Fornost four days’ march ahead, if it still stands.”

As if to prove his words, the first wave of Orcs battered their ring of shields, but the noose was not yet fully drawn. 

Elladan quickly turned to Borndis, who stood at his elbow directing her scouts. “Here, I give this into your keeping!”

He scrabbled beneath his undershirt, and Elrohir’s ruby flashed in the dying day’s half-light. Borndis’ eyes widened at the sight of the jewel.

“Carry this to Imladris by any means,” Elladan ordered her, “at all costs; even at the cost of being held a coward who deserted me. Flee! Go! I command you!” 

Borndis’ face was wet with more than rain. She kissed Elladan’s cheek like she had not in the many long-years since he was her toddling shadow bearing a tiny bow of green willow, but she did obey. The ruby disappeared beneath her mail. She drew the hood of her grey cape, and even Elladan’s keen eyes could not track the shimmering shape of her once it was swallowed by the dark pines. 

A pair of Wargs bounded after her, hulking grey shapes leaping through the undergrowth, their open mouths slavering with bloodlust. Elladan cried out in warning, but a ring of Orcs had closed around the Elvish host and Borndis was now gone beyond all help. She would  escape the fell wolves by her own skills, or be torn limb from limb in their jaws. 

Step by iron-booted step the Orcs closed in, the fetid reek of them overpowering in the nose. Elladan breathed shallowly through his mouth lest he vomit and shame himself in sight of all.

The Orcish captain was a hulking, ironclad brute from Gundabad with yellow eyes and corpse-pale skin. It called out a challenge in the Black Speech, bloodshot eyes bright with malice as it whipped its Warg until the beast reared. Elladan had never felt such hatred for any living being as he did when he spotted someone’s torn-off arm dangling from its jaws. 

He leapt into Rochiril’s saddle and raised up his sword. The Noldorin blade glittered with a sharp blue light, and suddenly Elladan felt fell and fearless, his heart aflame with a thundering, defiant hope. He turned to face the great Orc and called out the battle-cry of Imladris with all the Power he could muster thrumming behind his voice.

 

“Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!”

 

At once every last eye in the valley was on him, both friend and foe. Elladan laughed. To be a son of Elrond was to embody an idea, be a living symbol of hope and defiance as tangible as Eärendil was remote. If this would be his death, he would make it worthy of Song. At the sight his warriors took heart, and many voices took up that call in all the tongues of Elvenkind.

Canissë spun her own destrider alongside, pride and dismay at war in her mind. “You are brave indeed! After that, they will deal you something worse than death. Fight hard, Elladan!”

A blast of horns startled his horse, but Rochiril was too well-trained to jump in fear like Brannor’s mare. Elladan had a brief moment to think of Elrohir with longing and gratitude. 

And then they charged—an unheard signal—and Elladan saw only the next foe and the next, trusting Canissë to defend his back even as he wreaked bloody havoc in the ranks of their enemies. The sounds of rending flesh and agony were new to him, as was the fetid smell of black blood.

Orcs fell like wheat before the scythe to the Elvish blades, and for a brief, utterly glorious moment it seemed they would somehow win. 

Then the wind turned into the north, and a fell shadow swooped down. 

“Fuinur!” called the Orcs. 

Elladan was a loremaster and he knew that name, even if his mind refused to contain its horror. Horses shrieked and bolted and Elves cried out in terror when the bitter reality of it struck. 

The Orcs kept chanting that terrible name like a spell. “Fuinur! Fuinur!”

The Ringwraith laughed, and drew its jagged sword while his thralls drew strength from the miasma of despair that went before him. 

Elladan saw Glingaer fall, torn from his horse by a pair of snarling Orcs leaping onto the animal, their weight bearing horse and rider to the ground with an anguished scream suddenly silenced. He leapt from his mount when they tried the same with him, and Rochiril’s screams echoed in his pain-fogged mind.

Canissë’s battle cry resounded in his ears – strong, at first, burning with the light of her ancient spirit – but dimming with fatigue which each utterance until she grew too hoarse and short of breath to shout. 

“ Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima !” he cried, joining her voice with his own, ignoring those points of the web that were extinguished in his mind, one by one. 

Canissë and Elladan were the last now, standing back to back, spattered with blood and gore. Grim understanding resonated between them: they would not be taken alive. No one would ever sing of their last stand in the Hall of Fire. 

Canissë threw away her shield, splintered and torn, gripping her sword with both hands. Elladan smiled grimly and raised his own blade with a vicious snarl at the oncoming foe. He lifted his voice, hoarse and tired as he was, and Sang a western wind in their faces. For a single heartbeat the dying day’s blue twilight seemed to brighten. It was but a mockery of hope.

The Ringwraith was strong in this darkening hour. He sang a foul cantrip of artful necromancy, laughing at the Elves’ despair. Elladan caught but half the words in the Black Speech, and terror gripped him as their meaning sank in.

Another Orc leapt at him, but this one was unarmed. Elladan ran the beast through and it belched out its life’s blood in a gush of black slick. As it died its clawed hand closed around Elladan’s wrist, vicelike. In blind panic he hewed off the corpse’s arm. That should have been the end of it, but the hand clenched like a band of iron and it would not move even in bloodless death. There was no time to pry loose the fingers, because another empty-handed Orc leapt at him, and another. 

Elladan hacked and kicked and screamed but he could not keep the myriad hands from grabbing him like pale crabs from the deep come at a floating corpse, and once attached neither sword nor Song would move them. Orcish hands scrabbled for his arms, his legs, even his hair until he was covered in them as in a second layer of armour, their splintered ulnar bones sticking from him at odd angles.

And then Canissë was torn away, fear and panic enveloping the connection between them as hands, not weapons, stole her from his side, burying her strength beneath their bulk until he saw no more movement. 

The next Elladan knew was blind terror. The Ringwraith leaned over him as he writhed in the mud and gore of the battlefield, pinned down by clutching corpses. This was a mere lieutenant, not the Witch-king himself, but Fuinur’s proximity nonetheless gutted the mind, carved it to raw, shapeless pieces like the body of hapless King Arveleg. 

Elladan’s bloodstained appearance seemed to excite Fuinur. The bony mask that once was a mortal face came close to Elladan’s as if they were lovers leaning in for a kiss. His breath stank like an open grave.

Elladan’s hands were pulled behind his back with iron manacles, and the last he saw before a black hood covered his eyes was Canissë’s struggling form dragged from a pile of the dead.

 

 

Last of all Húrin stood alone. [...] but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, for the Orcs grappled him with their hands, which clung to him still though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, until at last he fell buried beneath them. 

The Silmarillion, Chapter 20: “Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad”

 

 

Chapter 7

Read Chapter 7

Elrohir woke to terror. 

His bedroom lay pale in the bone-white light of the hunter’s moon, the casements open to the Bruinen’s song now tainted with an alien note of discord. A tendril of the encroaching darkness had breached the sanctuary that was Imladris. Some fell thing was out to hunt. 

Elrohir sat up in bed, and the north wind caught what loose wisps of hair had escaped his simple braid. This was no soft breeze whispering through the valley’s apple orchards, but a gale that howled from the desolate wastes of Angmar to sting with icy claws, groping face and skin beneath the thin linen of his nightshirt. It carried the stench of death.   

Elrohir’s eyes whipped across the room. There! In the sallow half-light something moved at the foot of his bed. The thing writhed, crawled closer, and Elrohir cried out in dismay. This was Glingaer, a scout assigned to Elladan’s security detail. The familiar traits of his fine-boned Nandorin face were twisted into sad mockery by a head bashed in. Despite the grotesque, unsurvivable injury Glingaer’s bloodied hands clawed for Elrohir’s throat. One eye was lost amidst the amorphous mass of shattered skull and brain. The remaining one shone black as the Void. 

Instinct took over. Elrohir leapt back. His swift kick met only air. In half a heartbeat his fingers found the silver-tooled knife beneath his pillow. A quick stab for the jugular saw the creature reduced to a heap of mangled limbs.

Where he expected gore his searching hand met wrinkled linen and feathers gleaming snow-white in the moonlight. Reality came crashing back with a rush of blood like thunder in his ears as he surveyed the ruin of his eiderdown. Some strange entanglement of memory and Mortal dream had run away with him. 

Alarm pulsed through his veins like the drums of war, his mouth dry with that gritty, metallic taste of adrenaline. A single devastating certainty cut through his confusion. Something was deadly, desperately wrong. He needed to leave. 

Elrohir swung from the bed, knife in hand, frozen in a moment’s indecision on where to turn first. The room’s once-familiar furnishings menaced him from every angle. Velvet bed curtains billowed shroud-like in the strange wind. Elrohir’s harp in its corner, a beloved gift from Celebrían, now seemed some Orcish instrument of unspeakable torture. Wall hangings, once things of beauty in the light of sun and candle, twisted to show baleful shapes of horror and decay. 

Another shadow moved near the door. Elrohir spun, knife out to run the intruder through, be they flesh or spirit. 

“Elrohir! Stand down!” Ardil kept a safe distance but his voice brooked no argument.  

Elrohir breathed deeply. In and out. He half-expected the stench of the battlefield, that greasy smoke that wafts from burning corpses. The air that filled his lungs smelled of Imladris in autumn—the crisp spice of fallen leaves and a hint of cider apples. 

“I am awake.” It sounded less confident than he had hoped. Only then did he realize Ardil’s unusual intrusion. “Why are you in my bedroom?”

“I am in charge of your security.” Ardil answered dryly. “Where else would I be when you wreck your rooms in the dead of night? You were shouting.”  

Elrohir belatedly realized he had not been left alone for a moment of the past week. Elladan’s departure had left him unstable, beset by unpredictable waves of foresight that set his mind adrift like a ship unmoored. Elrond and Celebrían had kept him close, made sure he ate and slept and was diverted with tasks that did not involve the handling of actual weaponry. Elrohir had let them. He dutifully heard scouts’ reports, wrote up rosters and accepted Glorfindel’s suspiciously spontaneous invitations to evenings of chess. Ardil must have been charged with nighttime surveillance.

His guard stepped into the room, one hand outstretched towards Elrohir. He stood staring at the strange gesture for an instant, dumb and motionless. 

“Pass me the knife.” Ardil implored. “You have no need of it.”

Every instinct Elrohir possessed screamed in protest at the very idea of going unarmed on this night. He shook his head. “I am awake.”

He sheathed the blade and turned towards the wardrobe to retrieve a field uniform. He cursed under his breath when he realized he would have to wear standard-issue armour instead of his own.

“Send word to the stables and the barracks.” As he spoke Elrohir yanked off his nightshirt and pulled the uniform’s fitted undertunic over his head without a second thought. Ardil had been his personal guard for nearly ten long-years. The man had seen it all. 

“I will need my usual escort. Have them prepare at once. Get your own gear while you are out. I will meet you in the stable courtyard in half an hour. And have some armour sent up for me!” Elrohir did not turn to look at Ardil. Issuing orders had become second nature over the years.

Ardil did not move, but stood with his feet planted wide like a swordsman taking the measure of an adversary. “You should speak to your father first.”

Elrohir spun on his heels to face his bodyguard, unsteady fingers struggling with the ties of his gambeson. “Stars above, Ardil! Of all the times to be splitting hairs! We must hurry!” Whatever this was, they had no time to lose.

Ardil shook his head. “I have orders not to let you leave this house.”

Elrohir’s hands clenched into fists and he saw Ardil’s eyes settle on his knife-hilt. He was intimately familiar with Ardil’s every move and feint, that minute twitch of tension in the man’s shoulders as he prepared to leap. Not once in ten long-years of training together had Elrohir managed to best the ancient warrior in unarmed combat. His only hope now was the strength of the desperate. 

Ardil raised both hands in a placating gesture as if he sensed the thought. “Come with me, Elrohir. Let us talk before we do each other an injury. There is someone you should see.” 

 

----

 

None of what awaited them in Elrond’s study made any sense.

Not Celebrian’s steely, dry-eyed silence.

Not Elrohir’s ruby pendant, which should be around Elladan’s neck in Fornost. Celebrían now inexplicably clutched the jewel, her eyes blazing with something Elrohir could not name. 

Not Borndis, who should likewise be in Fornost. The Silvan warrior was briar-scratched and mud-soaked as if she had been there, then come crawling back to Imladris on hands and knees. How absurd she looked, kneeling before Elrond like a supplicant instead of standing to attention as she should. 

Elrond did nothing to restore order or rightness but stood frozen, impotent, eyes empty as if his mind were elsewhere. And what fool had raised Glorfindel and Erestor from their beds before they even fetched Elrohir?

All eyes turned to Elrohir as he stepped into the study. The press of their one question filled the room thick as smoke in a house on fire. He knew the answer, knew it with devastating certainty. 

Time slipped, stopped and stuttered when he spoke the words. “Elladan is not dead.” 

Elrohir’s voice came out calm and level, but all their eyes were heavy on him and he could not bear them.

Now Borndis was sobbing, deep and harsh, and Elrond buried his face in his hands. Elrohir did not know what would have been the better thing to say. 

“What happened?” he managed to utter, though his mouth seemed made of wood.

Borndis, now prostrate at Elrohir’s feet as if he were some tyrant king of Black Númenor, at last gave him some clarity. 

“Oh, my lord, they took him. The Men were traitors for Angmar, bait to trap a son of Elrond! Your brother sent me away to warn you. His guards were all killed, but he is captive!”

One rainy autumn day long ago in Lórien, Elladan had fallen from a mallorn tree. Elrohir recalled every agonizing detail of his twin’s stumble on wet, moss-covered bark, the wobbly overcompensation that followed, the toppling. He could still feel in his own chest that jerking sensation of weightlessness, the pummelling of rushing branches, the dull, teeth-rattling thud of the ground. Elladan had been knocked out cold. For an instant his mind went black as the Void and Elrohir had believed him dead. He had wept like a child then. Now, he was the one falling.

No language Elrohir knew had a word for what he would become. Orphan, widow, widower. These defined a person by their loss. No such word existed for an amputated twin.

Someone keened, and only then did he realize it was his own voice. In an instant he was embraced, wrapped in hands and arms and bodies. Elrond, Celebrían, and Ardil.  

It seemed an unusual display of affection from his stoic guard. With a jolt Elrohir felt Ardil deftly reach into the tangle of limbs to lift his knife from its sheath.

 

----

 

“And now for the bitter question.” Elrond fought to keep his voice steady, but could not keep from rubbing his face with trembling hands. “What shall be our next move?”

His eyes came to rest on Elrohir with unveiled terror. Elrohir was not himself, with his mind awash in whatever horror was being visited on Elladan. Their reserved, fastidious son had emerged from his rooms wild-eyed, unbraided and dressed in what appeared to be half a field uniform. Ardil, eminently sensible even now, had sent for a formal robe, a comb and a flask of miruvor to restore his captain’s dignity. It did nothing to soften Elrohir’s heart-wrenching look of mute despair.  

“Our options are limited,” said Erestor. He rose to pace the room, his robes trailing behind him like the wings of some great, dark bird. “There has been no demand for ransom or surrender.”

“They do not know that we know. Not yet,” Elrohir interjected, a haunted look in his eyes. ”Time and surprise are our only advantages. We must set out for Carn Dûm at once!”

With a swordsman’s agility, Erestor spun to face Elrohir. “Is he in Carn Dûm? How do you know this?!” he demanded sharply.

Elrohir seemed astonished, and answered with rock-solid certainty: “I know .”

Elrond’s stomach dropped with the sickening implications. So did Celebrían’s, it seemed, because she clasped his hand beneath the table with bruising strength. Together they shared a look of horrible understanding. 

Erestor was quick to intervene. “Elrohir, if you know where Elladan is, does he not know the same of you? And will he share that knowledge, when the information is requested with enough … persuasion?“

Erestor turned to Elrond and Celebrían, his mouth set in grim determination. “We made contingency plans for your sons. I recommend you follow through on them despite matters being ... the reverse of what we anticipated.”

Elrohir gave Erestor a perplexed stare. “Reverse? What contingency?”

Erestor moved to stand beside Elrohir, and laid a hand on his shoulder. The gesture seemed both comfort and restraint. “You and your brother share great closeness in mind. This might be used against us if one of you were captured, and it was most likely to be you. Events have turned out otherwise, but the risk is the same. You should leave this council, Elrohir, lest other ears than yours learn our plans.”

“You have no hope of finding Elladan without me,” Elrohir growled, shaking off Erestor’s hand, his every muscle coiled like a great cat about to leap.

Erestor did not answer him, but turned away to face his lord and lady once more, beseeching. “You have more to consider than your sons alone.”

Through a fog of grief Elrond nodded, hanging on to composure by the merest thread. “Elrohir, go rest in your rooms. I will come to you soon.”

Elrohir shot to his feet, his chair clattering to the ground behind him. “Father, I have obeyed you in all things, but not this. I will ride out after Elladan.”

Elrond reeled with the horror of his child’s agony, and wished for nothing more than to give comfort. He reached for Elrohir with a half-formed, desperate gesture that was half embrace, half caress, as he delivered another blow. “I cannot allow it.”

Elrohir flinched away. “Will you abandon him!?” That look of shocked betrayal in his eyes was harder to face than the worst of Sauron’s horrors. 

“Never.” Celebrian’s voice was carefully level. “Elrohir, the Witch-king has sought vengeance against you ever since the siege. With Elladan’s assistance he will hunt you down wherever you turn. You must remain within this valley where our wards can shield you.”

Elrohir interrupted her with a shout of rage. “The Void take your accursed wards !” He spat out the word like a curse, and all in the room paled. 

He seemed shocked by his own fury, and let his voice go calm and clear. “You will let me rescue my brother.”

Celebrían rose to stand before him. “Be reasonable, Elrohir. You are not Fingon, to walk into Carn Dûm alone with your harp across your back.” 

He scoffed. “I may not be Fingon, but that ill-begotten Mortal who calls himself Witch-king is no Morgoth!”

Elrohir turned to the door, and Glorfindel rose to his feet. He glanced at Elrond with that unspeakable question in his eyes. Elrond had no choice but to agree. 

Seize him. For his own safety. He will never forgive us, but we have no choice.

Glorfindel coiled to leap, but in the next heartbeat three sharp strikes of wood against wood rang against the door. All in the study froze, and Elrohir made a small, keening sound. A message this urgent could only be grievous.

Erestor opened the door to reveal, not a message-bearer but Mithrandir wielding his staff, flanked by an apologetic-looking Fëanorian doorguard. 

“I bid you good evening, though one could hardly call it good.” Mithrandir shouldered past Erestor uninvited, and his piercing blue eyes lit on Elrond and Celebrían. “I would have a word with the lord and lady. A private word.”

 

 

 In later days he {Mithrandir} was the friend of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness.

The Silmarillion, Valaquenta, Of the Maiar 

---

Chapter End Notes

Hi everyone, 

I hope you'll enjoy this double update. Fanfic writers thrive on feedback and caffeine. A comment would make my day. (seriously: the silence is getting a bit unnerving!)

Happy Holidays!

Idrils Scribe

Chapter 8

Read Chapter 8

 

 

 

“The Nazgûl came again, and as their Dark Lord now grew and put forth his strength, so their voices, which uttered only his will and his malice, were filled with evil and horror. …  At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war; but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.”

The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 4, The Siege of Gondor

 

The north wind scythed howling across the barren heathlands of Eriador, cold enough that even Orcs sought the shelter of a small valley between the Northern Downs. 

Elladan felt a shadow loom over him, and he struggled against his bindings once more.  He was lightheaded from inhaling his own stale breath within the black hood. The coarse wool was crusted with Eru knew what fluids from previous prisoners. The stench was breathtaking. 

He shook with cold and rage and terror all at once in his thin undertunic. Ungentle hands had stripped him of his armor. The Orcs had wanted none of it, shrieking in disgust at the Elvish metal’s mere touch, but Hillmen had no such qualms. Elladan had listened with mounting horror as a rabble of ill-equipped soldiers first played dice, then came to blows over Elrohir’s precious hauberk. The gorget, vambraces and gambeson were long gone. 

Elladan willed himself not to remember Arwen’s ruby, its red glimmer of living flame clutched in Borndis’ fist. Not lest he read it in his mind.  

Fuinur towered over Elladan when the hood was at last lifted from his eyes. This was not the Witch-king himself but merely a lieutenant. Still the Ringwraith’s proximity was a terror beyond any Elladan had ever known. Bitter hatred for the murderer of his people made him tense like a coiled spring, fists balled and teeth bared in a vicious snarl, but he could not hold on to his courage. Soon the miasma of dread from the black-cloaked shade looming over him slackened his hands and forced him to lower his eyes and turn his face away, though he hated his own weakness. Hot, shameful tears ran down his cheeks as he shook at the Morgul-wraith’s feet.

Some unnatural thing that was once a human hand, encased in black leather, touched Elladan’s face to lift a single drop, and disappeared into the emptiness beneath the shadowy hood. Fuinur drew a rattling breath and with a slithering jolt of disgust Elladan understood that the creature was smelling him.

Somewhere behind Elladan rose a chorus of howls and groans and the sound of fists striking flesh. Canissë shrieked with rage as she fought to reach her ward. Her chained hands bludgeoned a Hillman’s face, loosening a spatter of blood and teeth, but there were too many others and in the end she was wrestled to the ground by a writhing mass of bodies. 

Fuinur wholly ignored the disturbance. “Elrond’s son,” he snarled, his voice a cold, alien hiss of scorn. “You are the other one, that craven weakling hiding behind your father’s cloak!”

Another deep breath, and the strange sniffing. “A tender piece of meat you are. And we shall have all the time in the world to make something out of you!” Fuinur’s voice now held something akin to lust, twisted with ages of hungry denial. 

Horror infected Elladan’s mind and heart like creeping rot. He could not strike or even struggle, and he knew he would never again be free of that foul, taunting voice echoing in the recesses of his mind. 

Fuinur savored his terror, drawing out the moment as he lay still and mute in the monstrous embrace. When the wraith rose, dropping him to the frozen ground with a teeth-rattling thunk, Elladan could do nothing but turn his face into the rimed grass, vanquished by the knowledge that this was but a taste of the horrors to come.

He could only be childishly, shamefully grateful when the unbearable weight of Fuinur’s gaze shifted to another.

“Brannor of Arthedain!” hissed the Ringwraith, his voice chill with hate. “A traitor you made yourself, cursed among Men and Elves. All in vain! You were to bring me Elrohir son of Elrond, the Butcher of Rivendell, but you dragged in his soft-handed brother instead. Now tell me, wretch, why I should uphold my half of our bargain?”

Brannor was death-pale. “My Lord, I beg you!” he cried. His eyes rolled in their sockets like those of a spooked horse as he went to his knees before the terror towering over him. “Surely either son of Elrond is a valuable prisoner?” Still kneeling, he half-turned to point at Canissë. “And his lieutenant has opposed you for an age! Surely you desire vengeance? Please, lord, release my wife and son, and those of my men, so all the North may know that the King stands by his word!”

Fuinur stepped closer to take Brannor’s face in a black-gloved hand in a strange mockery of gentleness.“The King keeps his word. Your kin have left Carn Dûm already.”  

The Mortal collapsed in terror, his waxen face beaded with sweat. 

“We made no such agreement about you,” hissed the Ringwraith as he held Brannor’s slack body upright with an iron grip on the Man’s jaw. “You have vexed me, and neither will the King be pleased.”

Brannor was beyond speech. He only whined, like some cornered animal. Fuinur released his death-grip on the Man’s face, and he collapsed to the frozen ground, slack as a corpse. 

Fuinur reached for his scabbard. His longsword rang as it was unsheathed, glimmering with that grey, oily shine of a Morgul-blade. Brannor turned his face from the sight, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

Instead of striking Fuinur stooped, and thrust the hilt into Brannor’s trembling hands. “You shall test the runt of Elrond’s litter!” 

A hellish din of jibes and cheers rose from the throng of Orcs and Hillmen. They jostled and pushed forward for a view as they whistled and jeered and rapped their pommels against their shields until the noise seemed to render Elladan deaf and blind with terror.

Ai, Elrohir! Where are you?

The Ringwraith waved and a jeering Orc ran to thrust a rusted scimitar into Elladan’s hands.

“You will fight to first blood—the winner gains an easy death!” Fuinur proclaimed as he thrust Brannor forward to face Elladan. “Go on, traitor! Make this worth watching, or you will leave this world without your skin!”

The crowd surged forward to encircle them, roaring. “Gut him!” they cried at Brannor. “Gut that Golug swine!”

Overseers made a barrier with spear-shafts and shouted in coarse voices, “Back, you maggots!” as their whips cracked overhead. The horde shrieked and fell back, then came on again, roaring and chanting as if this were a game. 

An Elvish voice cut through the din like a clarion-call. “No! I will fight in his stead!” Canissë was almost invisible beneath the pile of struggling Men pinning her to the ground.  

Fuinur laughed his terrible laugh. “You will serve a different purpose!” He turned to the Men sat atop her. “Stand her up and take her to the front, so she can watch the pup bleed!”

They swiftly did his bidding.

 

----

 

Brannor stepped into the circle, slipped out of his cloak and tossed it to one of his men. He stood there clad in a gray tunic woven on the looms of Imladris, a Morgul-blade in his hand.

Canissë watched an Orc press a notched scimitar into Elladan’s hand, saw him heft it, testing the weight and balance. Fear struck her, but also the comforting knowledge that Elladan had been trained in the sword from infancy by the likes of Glorfindel and herself, age-old elite warriors. He knew the devious art of the blade inside and out.

But that Mortal wields a Morgul-blade! I must stop this, somehow. I must find a way. 

Many hands kept her limbs and neck in their sweaty grip. Mortal hands and Orcish ones. Their unwashed stink wafted into her nose with every breath.

She let her weight slump against them, thinking. Ai, Manwë and Varda! I have no right to call upon you, but hear me for his sake!”

Elladan stood looking lost and vulnerable in his torn undertunic—such a far cry from his velvet court robes. He raised the scimitar in his right hand, feet planted firm and slightly apart. Canissë noticed it with a fleeting wisp of satisfaction: she had drummed the proper footwork into Elrond’s children time and again, hammered it home to all three of them year after year, hour after hour on the training grounds, until it became instinct.

Elladan crouched, sizing up his opponent, and Brannor began edging along the circle of spear-shafts. His Morgul-blade shone with an unnatural gleam in the muted light. Fear burned in the Mortal’s eyes. Brannor was a trained warrior of Arthedain, a veteran of many battles, but he was also terrified, and uncertain. He would make mistakes. 

Any small thing could change the course of this duel, Canissë realized. An outcry from the throng of spectators. A stray beam of sunlight. A fleeting shadow.

Elladan slowly circled opposite Brannor, feinting, testing his opponent’s speed and agility with an expert eye.

Canissë watched the realization strike Brannor. Elladan may be Elrond’s bookish son, but he was far from easy prey. Only now did the Mortal grasp that this was no soft-handed princeling, reared in gilded luxury, but a fighter born and trained. 

Canissë could afford no pity for Brannor—he was nothing more to her than a threat to her ward. She watched despair alight in the Man's eyes, making him all the more dangerous.

And then Brannor pounced.

Canissë saw the motion, stifled a cry.

The Morgul-blade struck empty air, and Elladan stood now behind Brannor with a clear opening at the man’s unarmored back.

Now, Elladan! Now! Canissë screamed into his mind.

Elladan’s attack was a thing of beauty, fluid and elegant, but hesitant—a fraction too slow. Brannor twisted, leapt away and out of reach. They circled each other once again.  

He has never killed before, Canissë realized, and cursed her own oversight and Elrond’s overprotectiveness. Brannor would have no such hesitations.

Again Brannor attacked, wild eyes glaring. Elladan slipped away, but his counterblow came a heartbeat late.

The two fighters circled each other; and then Canissë heard it. Brannor’s voice was barely a whisper, even to Elvish ears. “Come. I will kill you cleanly!”

Elladan’s eyes flashed with indignation.

“Let me!” Brannor insisted. ”‘Tis the greater mercy!”

For a single, terrifying instant Canissë believed Elladan would allow it. She knew for certain, as well as she knew her own name, that Brannor would merely wound and claim clean death for himself. 

Almost imperceptibly, Elladan shook his head. 

Canissë straightened her back against the hands restraining her. A vicious twist too swift for mortal eyes snapped her captors’ arms like dry twigs. The Hillmen had searched and stripped her, but they were coarse, foolish creatures, and Canissë was old and clever. They had taken all her blades—save one.  

All the world stilled and shifted until Arda itself seemed to turn upon its axis, and that axis was her right hand.

Manwë guide me, swift and sure. For him.

Little pity had the kinslayers been promised, and little did Canissë expect. She had done many ill deeds, selfish and senseless, but this one would be for good. And it would matter.

This flawless, pivotal moment in time. 

This utterly perfect throw. 

Brannor collapsed with Canissë’s boot knife jutting from his eye socket. He was dead before his body thudded against the frozen ground.

“You foolish woman!” bellowed Fuinur.

He turned to his Orcs, a jeering, slavering mass of claws and fangs. “Have her!” 

Hands. All Canissê’s world had become their hands, clawing, tearing, ripping cloth and skin alike, and she let out a long, wordless scream at the agony of it. Teeth sank into her from all sides. The Orcs shook their heads like wolves tearing flesh from a carcass. 

They are eating me . The thought struck her with stark, numbing reality.  It seemed strangely appropriate, after having witnessed that grisly spectacle acted out on so many battlefields.

Then her legs were pulled apart and she screamed even louder, though the deed itself was but a single drop in a raging flood wave of pain. 

Some things could not be borne, and the spirit must slide free from a body that can no longer house it. That thin, luminous thread binding fëa to hroä was surprisingly easy to snap, like a small animal’s spine pops beneath the hunter’s hand. At once pain and terror were past, instantly grown irrelevant. 

One thing still mattered, now that she was Houseless. 

Elladan did not look at the seething mass of Orcs that writhed over her fallen body in a slick of bloodied snow. His eyes were on her instead.

He sees me. 

Canissë no longer had a body, but something smiled nonetheless as she beheld her young charge one last time. So many memories joined in that beloved face. Fingolfin looked out at her, proud and valiant; Turgon in the days of his youth; Galadriel and Arafinwë the wise. And there, in the depths of Elladan’s sea-grey eyes was Dior, Lúthien’s son, long dead and yet not lost. 

Canissë could no longer protect Elladan. All she had left was estel . Hope that her deed bought him enough time for rescue. She was surprised to find that she could move, and press something like a kiss to his tear-stained cheek. 

Fare you well, son of my heart. May the world not be so marred when next we meet. 

From the West rang a call, stern but not cruel. The summons of Mandos were neither sight nor sound but some other sense, profound and impossible to ignore.  

A deep, joyous longing came over Canissë. She was going home at last. 

 

 

“if by life or death I can save you, I will.”

― The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1 ch 10: “Strider”