False Dawn by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 4

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“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.”

 

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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"

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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