By Stars' Light by Erfan Starled

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Chapter 9

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*** Fifty Second Year of the Sun ~ River Narog below the High Faroth ***

 

“Glorfindel! What are you doing here?” Finrod smiled with pleasure to see him.

 

Glorfindel raked him up and down, and seemed not dissatisfied at what he saw. “I asked the King if I could play courier to see a bit more of the country and Galadriel has written to me… She said you thought you’d found what you were looking for. Said I should come and see it for myself. She sounded a little – sceptical about your project.”

 

“Since when was Galadriel ever enthusiastic about anything that involved digging?” Finrod retorted, not quite sure what Galadriel thought about anything since she had met Melian.

 

“Well, I wanted to see you anyway, after your little disappearing act. I am not sure your uncle is pleased with you about that, you know. You should write to him. He didn’t expect you to be gone so long. Or leave again for Doriath so soon. And I have a lot of letters for you from Orodreth.”

 

Orodreth was in command at Tol Sirion and not sure he was happy about it. “Then you have my thanks – and I am very glad you came. I have much to show you.” Finrod looked around. “How did you find it?”

 

“Galadriel said to follow the river, and when it looked impossible, keep going. Or turn back and try the higher path. She said I’d find you where the river deepened into a gorge.”

 

“At least King Thingol won’t be dictating who visits me here.”

 

“He really is going to let you settle here then?”

 

“So he says. It surprises me, too.” Finrod said no more than that and Glorfindel eyed him and spoke of Galadriel lingering in Doriath and her taste in silver princes – one in particular. From Finrod’s descriptions of Celeborn’s tall good looks, calm depths and hard-to-penetrate reserve, the conversation fast came round to Menegroth itself.

 

“The halls are finely made. I intend something like it here if I can manage it. Secure, but not gloomy.”

 

“From what your sister says, Thingol’s hideaway is well enough. Lots of ornamentation.” Glorfindel sounded so unimpressed, Finrod laughed.

 

“You are a child of the sky, Glorfindel. You always were. But even if we live underground here, the forest is still wide and high – it’s excellent hunting – and the plains across the river stretch north uninhabited. We shall have reason in plenty to be outside, and the rest of the time we would be safe and cosy, out of the weather…”

 

“You don’t need a cave for a rain-free bed, you know. Remember houses?” They laughed. The argument of house over forest was as old as the elves’ own history, setting decadence and comfort against the subtler, spiritual joys of the woods under an open sky. It was a joke that went on forever since the good of both would always hold true. The Noldor might not choose to sleep in trees – though they had learned the Laiquendi did so – but they would always want to walk the forests by the light of the stars.

 

Glorfindel was doubtless checking up on him and Finrod was glad of it, glad to see him and glad to find he could still laugh at nothing. Mostly, everyone had stopped asking Finrod why he had been off wandering alone so often. Only Thingol knew of Lord Ulmo’s visitation that had left him disquieted and compelled to hunt far and wide for a secure retreat.

 

Finrod was fairly sure Turgon had shared those dreams, or something very like, for he too had been travelling remote reaches since their damp night’s rest in the fens to the east. His own tight unease for the future was lifting a little after finding this place, perhaps a result of being able to do something definite. It felt good to laugh.

 

Barad Sirion and Minas Tirith, formidable though they stood, were only practice for what he planned to build and he was delighted to have the chance to show his cousin what he had in mind – and to get his advice. He started telling Glorfindel how he had poured out his store of jewels to see if Thingol thought he could enlist help from Ered Luin’s people.

 

“Trade these for pearls at the Falas,” Thingol had said. “Give Aulë’s people pearls and they will work for you content. Especially if you can share some craft with them. They love learning.” He looked a little smug among the fruits of his partnership with those same workers from Belegost. He also seemed flattered at Finrod’s genuine enthusiasm as he toured the carvings and weavings of Menegroth’s halls, looking at forest scenes of Valinor, worked intricately in stone, and Arda’s histories laid out in thread. Nowhere else had dwarves, elves and Maiar – one Maia, at least – worked to produce such a collection of art. In stone, weavings, gold and jewels – everywhere he looked in the wide halls there were examples of their skill.

 

He had particularly enjoyed finding Oromë and Nahar coursing through a stand of beeches and finding on the other side of the pillar a wealth of curled branches hiding animals – nested wrens, squirrel, tree-snake, pine-marten… Every pillar told a story and he learned to look for the smallest details – trailing columbine in flower, a dragonfly hovering over a foxglove, a stand of snowdrops in a copse under a dusting of snow with the Pelóri breathtaking in the distance, a panther snarling at a python coming too close to a curl of sleeping cubs.

 

On the wall opposite, he had come face to face with a far darker work of the Queen’s weavings than any of her histories that he had so far studied. It displayed nightmare hints of shadows yet to come – the sun darkened by smokes, Ard-galen devastated, slinking shapes advancing on Tol Sirion. The echo of Lord Ulmo’s warnings, coupled with Menegroth’s vast achievement, moved him to confide in his great uncle. Thingol consulted Melian and afterwards told him about the Ringwil’s joining to the Narog and the gorge they had cut together downstream in hard granite. He had described the Narog’s swift course and offered to show him the caves hidden there.

 

Glorfindel took in the shale underfoot, the vine and bracken hung cliffs, and the rivulets spilling down sheer rock. “I see Galadriel has not been exaggerating. You really have lost your mind.”

 

“No such thing. Come, I’ll show you.”

 

He took him down to the threshold of the caves, under a vast overhang of rock and set back in a series of small blind breaks in the face. “I was just going to attempt to climb down from above and see if it can be done.” He pointed up to the towering complex of hills on which the forest of the High Faroth grew, pitted with steep valleys on its western escarpment, but dropping in a solid cliff wall on this eastern face.

 

“We can get nearer to the river than this. I’ll show you.” He led the way along a goat track out among the damp ferns and mosses of the gorge and followed it to a small stream in a rocky bed that fell over another sheer drop into the river.

 

“Careful. This is steep – you don’t want to go in here.”

 

“Indeed.” Glorfindel looked thoughtful. “And slippery. But no-one could cross.” They stared at the walls of rock and the froth boiling past.

 

“As long as it is never bridged…” Finrod surveyed it with satisfaction.

 

“It doesn’t seem possible that it could cut through rock like that. I walked through this river at the Ginglith crossing…”

 

The water’s passage was wild, fast and deep in its race through the deep channel between pathless rock. Finrod looked at it with proprietorial approval.

 

“See, the way the hills stretch north and south along the valley behind us? With the gorge one side, cliffs the other – the western banks are the only approach, from the south or the north. And that highland to the south-east goes unbroken right across to the Gelion. An attack would have to come from the west down the Sirion vale – and cross at the ford – or cross the Wethrin or get through Hithlum and Vinyamar…”

 

Finrod knew he was babbling, but Glorfindel didn’t discourage him. His head was tipped a little as if listening very closely. “Go on.”

 

“The alternative would be for invaders to take the eastern route round Doriath and come up from the Andram, leaving them the eastern plain still to cover and then the ford. If they wanted to cross in the south it means taking the Andram drop, or the Gilion vale and once they found a ford, we would see them coming with warning to spare. Either way they face a bottleneck. We could drop them in their tracks. If they get that far. If they ever know we are here.”

 

Glorfindel raised his brows. Finrod waited for him to say something but his cousin only nodded understanding. They all knew the tale of the first rout of Beleriand and Finrod was planning accordingly.

 

“And – see up there? – there is natural camouflage all around for watch-towers on the heights, for the fortress, and for any paths we may need.” It felt right. Satisfied, he set about showing Glorfindel the caves.

 

***

 

Next day, they took to the heights.

 

Their attempt to descend from the Taur-en-Faroth failed as its eastern walls fell inward below them and footholds failed. Ropes were not long enough and they found no way down. They worked their way northwards back out of the Faroth and returned the long way to the bank outside the caves and its drop to grey turbulence far below.

 

Over rabbit and ramson stew, Finrod consulted Thingol’s elves about the topography of the plain above the Andram. With their camp set and reverie calling, Finrod sombrely faced north. “What do you think? If the day comes that we have to stand fast against the enemy here, it will mean Beleriand is utterly over-run.”

 

“Morgoth is too well-besieged for that to be likely at present. But since you are considering strategy, I’d caution against the assumption of wholesale attack. There is no reason a pointed sortie could not be mounted, if once he can break a force out through the northern leaguer. He shows no sign whatever of coming out of hiding – he likes not the sun and nor do his warped creations – but remember his patience in Valinor. And how by patience and guile he deceived his gaolers… He may yet find a way, which we do not forestall.”

 

It was unusual to find Glorfindel so weighty in his speech. Unease rippled up Finrod’s spine and diligently he continued to seek out defensive weaknesses in the site. He found few. A path there must be for access. Supplies and people must come and go and there must be the means to eat. Water must have entry and egress. Such points of access as they needed, they must guard. His collection of small scale maps grew and his notes filled the margins to overflowing.