A Deed Justly Renowned by AdmirableMonster

A Deed Justly Renowned

screw it, posting for Pride Month

I have some other thoughts and potential additions but I really needed to get this out

Read A Deed Justly Renowned

There was blood on Findekáno’s mouth. He could taste it, coppery and foul, on his tongue. There was blood on his hands, too—dried now, crusting and flaking off. He could not think about it. He could not think about what he had done. He must find Maitimo, he thought, but everything had gone from thrilling battle to chill numb dread. No—not dread, even, just—numbness. Nothing. He shut his eyes for a moment, wondering if the sudden ceasing would clear, but it did not.

He had no time for it. Everything was a confused knot of people running around, and he did not know what to do. He needed someone who did. He needed not to sink down here, staring at his hands, staring at the blood upon the sand.

“Finno!” He turned, too slowly, and those earnest grey eyes were looking into his. Findekáno felt the tension bleed out of him in an instant as he stepped across the sand and took Maitimo’s hands in his.

“Thank the stars, you’re not—”

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

They both broke off and laughed. The numbness still lay like a heavy cloak across Findekáno’s awareness, but it seemed less important with Maitimo shining like a beacon in front of him. “What is happening?” Findekáno asked, urgent and fearful. “Why are we fighting—were you attacked?”

That pinched, awful, drawn look. Findekáno had seen it too often before, and under normal circumstances, it made him angry. Now if it weren’t for the queer veil lying across everything, he thought it would make him—not afraid, exactly. Not concerned. Something between the two.

“My father—” Maitimo inhaled shakily. “We must have the ships. We must. Without the ships, we have no hope of reaching Middle Earth.”

It was hard for Findekáno to follow. Too many things had happened in the past few days, and his mind felt bruised, felt battered. “We are killing Teleri—for the ships?”

“No! No.” But Findekáno knew Maitimo, knew him too well. He heard that slight, terrified hesitance in his voice, as if he wasn’t completely certain. “They—they attacked us, when we tried to—to take the ships.”

So we are only murdering in self defense over robbery. Findekáno blinked at him, and, for the first time in his life, he saw Maitimo’s face harden strangely.

“We had no choice,” Maitimo told him. “We had no choice,” he repeated, as if he were trying to convince himself. Then, with a flare of something that felt far more quintessentially him, “They would have killed Káno.”

Findekáno’s heart sped up in his chest at the thought, and he could hardly fault Maitimo. Makalaurë was a few days older than he was, but he had always felt younger to Finno, and how much more intense must that be for Maitimo? How could he judge Maitimo when he had thrown himself into the fray with no idea what was going on? But that strange hardness made him feel cold, intensified the numbness. “What do we do now?” he asked.

For an instant, Maitimo shook his head, and then he bowed it. “We go on,” he said, fiercely. “We go on—to avenge our grandfather.”

Findekáno felt that fierceness pierce even the odd veil. “I will follow thee,” he said, helplessly, his hands tightening on Maitimo’s. “Anywhere thou goest, I will follow thee.” A brief smile passed across Maitimo’s face.

“I know,” he said softly. “Finno—” There was a weight in his voice that Findekáno had heard before, and it made heat pool suddenly in his belly. Maitimo leaned forward, and the world fell away, the numbness with it. There was just the two of them, and Findekáno was standing up on his tip-toes. Everything felt very slightly out of sync, as if it were just about to fall into place, as if the final puzzle piece of their ancient friendship was about to settle—

“Nelyafinwë!” Fëanáro’s voice called, and Maitimo jerked back, and the moment shattered.

* * *

He could still taste the blood. He wondered if he would ever be able to stop tasting it. He shook his head, irritably, banishing the introspection. He was not Maitimo. He had no time for it, not now. Findekáno strained his vision, following the swan ships as they docked across the narrow strait, pacing back and forth in impatience. A little further down, Nolofinwë and Turukáno stood together, deep in conversation, but Findekáno could not be still. Not now. He should be on the ships now; he should be with his best friend now.

How had this happened? Why had Maitimo left without him? They’d fallen asleep together, curled up side by side near the fire, sharing body heat in the bitter cold, whispering about what they would do when they returned to Valinor. “I never want to have a snowball fight again,” Findekáno groaned.

“No,” Maitimo agreed, moving imperceptibly closer. “No, but—but think of curling up in front of a hot fire with hot chocolate.”

“And this time we won’t be parted,” Findekáno murmured. “We won’t have to hide.” He knew it couldn’t be so easy. He knew a strange Doom lay heavy on them, but he also knew his best friend’s arms were about him, and they were cuddling almost openly for the first time in a decade. How could any Doom compete with the joy of reunion? He had thought—no, he had known—that Maitimo felt the same.

But when he had woken, the Fëanorians were gone, the space beside him cold.

Fëanáro, Findekáno was certain, his chest tightening as he thought of his uncle. Most of the hot flames of anger in his chest were directed at him, but he could not help but admit there was a mixed-up muddle of hurt and frustration with Maitimo as well. Could you not have denied him, this once?

Could you not have woken me, at least?

But perhaps he was making too great a complaint. He had woken early—earlier than his wont—so perhaps Maitimo had only not wanted to wake him and had expected him to be shaken awake to board the returning boats. No doubt there was still some fear of his father mixed in—or fear of disappointing him? Findekáno could never quite be certain, nor understand the strangely fraught relationship between them, when his own relationship with his parents was easy and comfortable.

The thought, though, that he was making too much of what was probably at least partially intended as a kind gesture on his cousin’s part soothed him, and he took a long and shaky breath. He was not used to so many fears, he thought, frowning anxiously across the water, trying to catch a glimpse of Maitimo’s red head. This ought to be an adventure, probably, the kind they had dreamed of as children together—not children, not really, he told himself, but his own self from just a few days past felt like a child when he looked back.

Once he was with Maitimo again, it would feel more like an adventure, at least. It had almost felt so when they were whispering and giggling together the night before, when Maitimo’s face was open and happy and his eyes shining, even if the weight of tragedy lay heavy across him.

In the cold morning air, someone shouted, a terrified, wordless cry of anger. Something bright and red appeared in Findekáno’s vision then, but it was not Maitimo’s hair. It rose up, too large, too bright, curling and flickering, as if some great hand had swept crimson and orange paint across a too-dull canvas. Findekáno stared, for he could not think what he was seeing.

“They have set fire to the ships!” someone shouted, and the numb cold veil dropped across Findekáno’s vision once more.

* * *

And yet he kept faith. He would have crossed the Helcaraxë by himself if need be, to reach Russandol. He did not have to. Findaráto stopped him while his father was still closed away in his tent, perhaps struggling with the fact that his own brother had left them behind, and said, “Finno—I will come with you. If my folk wish to turn back, I will not deny them, but for me I must see Middle Earth. And—” he paused, his eyes going distant and dim. “Well, it will be an adventure,” he said, and his voice only shook a little, his fingers stroking across the twisted torc he always wore.

“Yes,” Findekáno agreed firmly, clasping his cousin’s hand. “You’ll see—it won’t be so bad.” Findaráto’s smile had always been breathtaking; even tinged with sorrow, it still was. And Findekáno could not have stopped himself from going, drawn like a magnet to a lodestone.

It was the longest and weariest thing that Findekáno had ever done. He could not have imagined, before it, how difficult traversing the Helcaraxë would truly be. He had no context for such a thing. Years stretched, day in, day out, always the same. He learned very quickly how to stalk and hunt in the bitter cold, with his senses dulled by the wind, how to react when one of the vast creatures they were hunting fought back.

Some of the host did not learn quickly enough, and they died.

Finwë’s death had been a momentous event, an impossible tragedy. At the time, it had seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen. Findekáno learned quickly that it was not and wondered what it said about him that each subsequent death seemed to hurt just a little less, as if his fëa were as numbed by the frozen wind as his hröa.

When Elenwë died, he barely even registered it. Instead of grief at her loss, he felt only relief that Turukáno had not lost them both, that Itarillë was plucked safely from the frozen waters, huddled in blankets, soothed to sleep by one of Findaráto’s happy lullabies. Perhaps Turno saw it in his eyes, Findekáno thought, for he did not think his brother ever spoke to him the same way again.

He thought he ought to care, but he seemed to have forgotten how to have emotions, so instead he just went to sleep, woke up, and kept trying to keep them alive.

* * *

I would know if he were dead. Was it true, Fingon wondered. Thirty years ago, Maglor had said, with hollow shadows behind his eyes, belying the mask of High King that he wore. While his father’s host had barely begun to cross the ice, Moringotto’s force had taken Russandol.

Would it not be better, Fingon thought, making his way gingerly through the ashy soil, staring at a land even deader than the Helcaraxë, where nothing could grow beneath the heavy layer of ash—would it not be better if Russandol were dead? If he were still alive, what would have been done to him? Fingon set his teeth against the dull numb feeling of the ice welling up beneath his breast.

Sometimes he thought he had dreamed the way everything was just better when Russo was there. The way colors seemed just a bit brighter, everything sharp and clean and new. The way he felt so much less often that fading numb disinterest in the world that used to come over him occasionally, even in Valinor, that seemed to have become his only state of being on the Helcaraxë.

He set his teeth again. If it was a dream, it was a dream that was worth pursuing. And if no one else understood it, well, that didn’t matter. I would know if he were dead, Fingon told himself, feeling fierce hope swell in his breast. And if he is not dead, he needs me. Abandoned he might have been, but if Russandol was still alive, there was hope for healing. And Fingon thought he would still give anything to see one of Russo’s rare smiles again.

He had left behind his father’s host—and Finrod’s—nigh on three days ago now. At first, cheer had come easily, bolstered by the new bright daylight that reminded him of the Trees in Valinor. But the wondrous, vibrant green land soon gave way to scorched earth where little grew. Fields that seemed to have once been tilled lay fallow, covered with weeds. As he continued, even the weeds began to give up. The only vegetation left was thin and dry and twisty, as if all the water had been bled out of it.

Unlike the Helcaraxë, it was hot. It was a dry heat, which Fingon found more pleasant at first, but soon it was stripping the moisture out of his mouth, and the everpresent looming clouds made it seem as if twilight were come again, but without even the Stars to guide him. The darkness reminded him horribly of the Darkening of Valinor, when he hadn’t known what was happening but only that something terrible was, when he had spent hours telling himself that the Valar would protect them, only to find that they had not.

Only to find that his grandfather was dead. Russo’s face, as he clutched at Finno’s hands and whispered what he had seen—I could not stop Makalaurë and Tyelko from seeing, I tried, it was horrible—still haunted Fingon. He had started to put aside his own terror, to try to be what Russandol needed, but Russo caught at him and said, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be putting this on you, but I have no one else. I know he was your grandfather too, but my father is—I am responsible for my brothers.

And then they had had so little time. It had all happened so fast. Fingon wondered if there was anything he could have said that would have stopped Russandol from making the Oath as his father bade him. He did not think so. Not with all of them in shock from their grandfather’s death and Fëanor’s words persuasive and compelling, with Russandol’s desperate need not only to protect his brothers but also to live up to his father’s standards.

He shook his head, dragging himself out of the dark thoughts. He needed his wits about him in this place. He would need to be swift and brave and clever.

For the rest of the day, he followed a sluggishly running little stream, wading through the water to disguise the signs of his passage and to cool himself a little. Darkness came upon him as it petered out, and he made a crude shelter out of mud and sticks as the temperature dropped. If he had thought it was dark before, he realized his error now. This was a true deep darkness, darker than the Grinding Ice had been, and near as cold. He could not think how it had gone from so hot to so cold that he was shivering, wrapping himself tightly in the blanket that Russandol had woven for him long ago. He slept fitfully, waking every hour to startle at strange noises: first the raucous laughter of a group of Orcs on patrol, then later the footsteps of something huge shaking the ground, and at one point the passage of something that rustled and chittered. Each time, he put his hand on his knife, his heartbeat speeding up, tensing as he tried to ready himself for battle, blind in the awful darkness.

Nothing found him, and the watery, dim light came again, eventually. A little tired and with spirits somewhat damped, he rose to face the day. The temperature spiked immediately. Fingon sighed. He supposed he could look forward to a long journey like this.

He was not proven wrong. Days went by in the same manner, hot and dim and thirsty followed by cold and black and fearful. For days he followed the dry streambed, strictly rationing his water, and still he ran out before he had found a way into the foul place he was seeking.

As he was trying to determine his best course, a creature came upon him out of the sky, a misshapen thing twice as big as he was, with a mouth full of crooked teeth too big for it. He pulled out his bow, but he did not have time to fire before it was upon him, claws out and raking at his flesh, shrieking with a dreadful sound.

Dropping his bow, he managed to pull out his knife, thanking the stars that he had not brought a sword, which would have failed him at such close quarters. The creature was terribly powerful, but it was clumsy, its strikes flailing and wide. It knocked him to the ground and beat at him with its wings, but many of its attempts to bite and claw him missed, and he rolled out of the way and drove the knife into the base of its wing, then pulled it out and rolled away again.

It seemed to go mad with pain, lashing out indiscriminately in every direction, and it was all he could do to keep himself out of reach of those vicious claws. Finally, he grabbed the heavy bow again and wielded it as a cudgel, smashing it along the side of the things head and half-stunning it for long enough to bring his knife to bear again. He finally, desperately, managed to cut its throat, and hot blood ran across his hands. The creature collapsed with a gurgling moan, and Fingon stared down at it, trembling.

It was blind, he realized, the indentations where its eyes should have been sewn shut with clumsy threads. Inspecting the corpse more carefully, he saw that in a few places clumps of feathers still clung to its form. It looked like a raptor, perhaps a huge eagle, but injured—tormented, perhaps—and warped. For a long time, Fingon sat on his knees looking down upon it.

Had this been a fair beast warped by Morgoth’s hand? If it had—if it had—his heart pounded so heavily in his ears he thought it would drown out all his thoughts. His stomach heaved, and he barely managed to keep from throwing up.

I must get to him. I must.

It had been thirty years. Speed could not matter at this point. But his feet quickened despite himself, and he fairly sped across the ground, nearly as swift as an arrow.

It grew ever darker as he traveled, until there was little difference between the fearful blackness of night and the dim morning. Fingon could barely see his hand in front of his face sometimes. But he could put one foot in front of the other, could he not? He had to struggle to find food and water. A week or two after his confrontation with the warped beast, he found that he was regretting not having butchered it. His supplies were running low, and nothing lived in this barren land. He started taking time each night to lay traps for small prey, and it helped a little. He caught skinny mice and huge scorpions, whose tails he had to remove before he could roast and eat them. Once, he caught a skinny fox, mangy and tangled up in the snare trying to get to the little mouse inside. Even as small as it was, it would have made him a meal for several more days, but he looked at the remains of the patchy red fur and could not get himself to kill it. The creature looked at him with mute terror, and when Fingon reached into the snare to free it, it savaged his hand.

He sent it running off back towards the light and bandaged up the deep cuts it had left. A few days after that, the ground began to slope up, and the darkness broke a little, though the light was nothing of the Sun but a red and fiery glow that spread across the landscape from a high volcano looming over everything. The slope was gentle at first, but soon it became impossible to traverse. Fingon came to a high sheer ridge of smooth black glass, laid his hand upon it, and frowned. Surely he must be close the center of the dread kingdom by now, but he could not easily climb this immense barrier, not without risking a fall that might bring his journey to an abrupt and painful end.

So he turned wearily aside and began to make his way along it, trying to find some entrance or at least a safer way to clamber up it. He thought it could not be so much longer now, but the wall of obsidian stretched out as far as he could see in the dim light. At times, he heard Orcs growling and fighting, and once he heard the cry of a wild thing that sounded like the bird that had attacked him so many days ago. Trembling, he sank into the shadow of the wall, clutching grimly at his knife. He should not be afraid—was he not Astaldo, the Valiant? But he was afraid, terribly afraid. And yet he knew he could do nothing but continue on. He must find Russandol. He must. If he was afraid, what must his cousin endure?

Worse than the sounds of hostile beasts were the other sounds that sometimes filtered down to him on a dry ash-laden wind. The pitiful cries of creatures enduring something beyond what anyone should have to. Tears dripped freely down Fingon’s face when he heard them, and several times he could not help himself—he had to stop and press his hands over his ears to drown out those noises. He knew there was little he could, only one nér, when he could not even enter the evil kingdom, but he thought his chest might break open with the pain of it. Someday, he told himself, someday they would tear Morgoth down, break his throne, and cleanse this dark land of its evil. Fingon knew he would gladly die to make that happen, but he could not die now and no more could he think to challenge that dark king, when he had another objective.

When Russo waited for him, perhaps without hope.

The air grew drier still as he went onwards. The wind howled from the North, carrying fine silt dust that made him cough and cough, unable to catch his breath. Tearing the bottom of his tunic off, he fashioned a kind of makeshift scarf to protect his nose and mouth, but there was little he could do to protect his eyes, and they stung and ached as he walked on.

He lost all sense of time with the howling of the wind. He knew he was growing weaker, with even less food and less water, but he could not stop, so he endured. Finally he came, at least, to a change in the landscape—here it dipped slightly, and perhaps it had once been a forest, for the skeletal remains of trees seemed to litter the ground. To his gratitude, they afforded a little shelter from the wind, though a touch to their ashy sides confirmed that these were corpses only. If he had had the energy or the time, he would have stopped to weep for the loss of such companions.

It grew cold again, then hot again, until Fingon lost count of the times it had done so, lost count of the days he had spent wandering in this grim place. He could feel the awful stillness of it trying to whisper to the part of his mind where the numbness slept, to waken it. Whispers of uselessness, despair, exhaustion—just lie down, sweet prince, and sleep for eternity, for thou wilt never find he whom thou seekest. He is long gone, and all that is left is for thee to join his sand-scoured bones.

He was on his knees before he had even realized it, so subtle was the spell that had been woven about him. But it was just like the Helcaraxë, he thought, with sudden clarity. Those ice-laden winds carried strange voices on them as well, or perhaps it was only Fingon’s own mind the whole time. He had never listened to them then; why should he listen to them now?

He blinked the grit from his eyes and reached into his back for the little traveling harp he had brought all this way. It was not heavy, and he and Russandol had made it together, long years ago, on a sleepy sweet summer day, whiling away time in the forge. Well, it was past time to put it to use again, Fingon thought, with sudden anger. You would strip me of my hope?

If they found him by the sound, if all the beasts of Morgoth descended upon him, let them come. He would not be silenced. He would not let that cruel, quiet voice tell him to lie down and give up, whether it came from inside or out. So he opened his mouth and let an old, old song of Valinor pour forth, sweet and riddling and a little silly, the kind of thing that lovers sang together.

 

What color is the ocean

I asked the shining sea

Green or red or white or grey?

Tis always blue to me.

 

What color are the heavens?

I asked the arching sky

Pink or purple, black or white?

Tis blue to those with eyes

 

What color is my true love’s gaze

I asked the waves and wind

Green or blue or brown or black?

 

Fingon cut himself off with a gulp, partly to take a breath and partly because it was a call and response song, and he couldn’t help himself.

Even so, he had not expected the response, croaked out in a hoarse but eminently familiar voice, “Brown, I think you’ll find.”

“Russo,” Fingon breathed. Then, raising his voice, “Russo! Russo, can you hear me?” Where was he? For a heartstoppingly long moment, there was no response, and then he heard his cousin’s voice, dazed, reedy, almost too quiet to be audible, “Finno?”

“Talk to me!” Fingon shouted. “Please! Tell me anything! Sing some more?” The voice had come from somewhere ahead and above. He did not know if Russandol would respond. He did not know if he could respond. Another momentary pause, and then, wearily, Russandol’s voice rose in answer, singing something queer and awful, something that sent shivers through Fingon’s hröa, though he did not understand the words.

He wove around rocks that all looked the same, ducked beneath a spreading thorn tree with finger-length spines that seemed to bob down with a mind of their own. Afraid that they might tangle in his braids, Fingon ducked, trying to protect his ribbons with his knife. Pain sliced through his upper arm, but when he made it out from underneath, the ribbons were still whole, and Russo’s voice was much louder.

Fingon looked up, and there he was.

The awful thing was how much he still looked the same. Fingon had tried to prepare himself, after his encounter with the thing that might have been a bird, wondering if Russo would be twisted and changed, wondering if he would even recognize his cousin. But he did. He was covered in scars, his hair matted and raggedly cut along the line of his jaw, some of it waist-length, some of it sheared off nearly at his scalp, and he was stick-thin, the lines of his bones almost easier to see than the flesh that covered them—but his grey eyes, weary, pleading, were unchanged. The dear lines of his hröa showed only too clearly the marks of his extremis, but there was nothing warped here—only bent, trammeled, perhaps broken.

The expression in his eyes Fingon could not quite read. There was an aching longing there, but something else as well, a queer haziness, a fog hanging across his vision. He was so close and yet so far away.

Shouldering his bow, Fingon pressed his hands to the base of the cliff. It might be sheer, but surely, he could reach the top of it. There was no other way up that he could see; the rocks rose high and jagged in all directions. But it was the last obstacle, the only thing left to part them. He would scale it and hold Russo in his arms, whisper words of love, take him back, keep him safe.

It was sheer, the cliff. He scrambled up the base of it, perhaps a few meters, but his hands and feet slipped and precipitated him back to the ground. Wiping sweat from his forehead, Fingon called up, “I’m coming, Russo!” and pulled off his soft shoes. He would have a better grip on the rocks with the soles of his bare feet.

He made it farther, the second time, by two handholds. Then the rocks beneath his left foot gave out, sending him slipping and slide down the rough cliff face. All right. A little more difficult than he had thought, but it was only a climb. How often had he scrambled up steep slopes in Valinor, reaching the top to laugh together with Russandol over a breath-taking view? If they had, perhaps, not been so steep or so jagged, well, love would lend him strength.

An hour later, he had not made it past the base of the cliff. He was sweating, muscles straining, muttering some inventive curses under his breath that he thought he had learned from his mother, long ago. Panting, he leaned his head against the cool rock, then looked up to where Russandol’s eyes were still staring down at him, his gaze agonized.

“Please,” he heard, the voice carried on the wind; muffled, perhaps, for his hearing was not what it had been before the frostbite on the Ice. “Please don’t make me watch anymore. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? Please. Please. How many times do you wish me to beg? Is there something else? I will do it. Just don’t make me watch him bleed any longer.”

The pain in his voice made Fingon’s breath stop in his lungs. “Russo!” he called. “Russo, I’m here, it’s all right!” He looked down to see that he was bleeding, his hands covered in shallow scrapes that were leaving long rust-colored trails on the side of the cliff. “It’s nothing, it doesn’t even hurt!”

There were tears starting in Russandol’s eyes and trickling slowly down the side of his face. Futilely, Fingon stretched out his hand, as if by sheer force of will he could close the space between them to brush them gently away. “Please,” Russo sobbed. “Just kill me. Just—you have no use for me anymore—no one is coming for me—I beg of you. Just this one small mercy.”

He seemed to be speaking to Fingon, but he could not be, for in such pain, in such torment, Fingon could not imagine Russandol calling him thus formally, as if there was no closeness between them. “Russo,” he whispered. To have come so far and to fail now—it was not to be borne! But the muscles of his arms were trembling as he put his hands back onto the cliff face, and—worse—he heard the sound of his best friend sobbing, pleading, words gone now, just a litany of desperate noises tumbling over and over again.

With vision blurred by his own tears, Fingon looked up again, at that dear form. Just kill me. What other mercy could he offer?

But I came to save thee. He had held onto hope for years upon years, toiling through the cold and the pain and the fear that his cousin—his closest friend—had abandoned him. The love he bore Russandol had been a beautiful, easy thing in Valinor, and he had thought perhaps they might even exchange vows someday. That hope, too, he had clung to, even through the hard days of the perpetual winter. He had come so far, and now he would not even be able to ask whether Russandol would have waited if he had not been taken.

Would he ever see his dear one again? Was this to be his last sight of him, wracked with agony through the blur of Fingon’s own tears? And yet how could he leave him here to suffer? “Ai, ĕrĕmelda,” Fingon rubbed the tears from his eyes as he raised his bow. He would have to sight very carefully, for he knew he would go mad if the shot were not clean.

He thought he might go mad in any case.

Murmuring an ancient prayer, he drew it back. He did not want to look, but he could not afford to turn away. He had spoken these words last—or some form of this invocation, at least—under far less serious circumstances, and he tried to think of that day, instead, of Russandol’s laughing face as the two of them raced after rabbits in the fields, transfigured and transcendant, almost fey, so different from the staid face he kept carefully schooled for his father.

As he bent back the bow, he heard what sounded like the beating of tremendous wings. The bow twanged as it released, but some great force jerked it upward—and Fingon half off his feet—and the arrow, though loosed, went wild. He clutched at his bow and staggered, and a great feather-covered form landed beside him, with all the force of a tempest.

“Well met,” said a voice like a woodsaw, and Fingon stared up at a great golden eye looking down at him. “I am Thorondor,” the voice continued. “You will need to climb onto my back, for I could carry you in one claw, but I cannot carry your injured friend in safety.”

Fingon did not let his knees give out, but it was a near thing. He had been so near to losing Russandol, so near—but he had not. He had not. “Thank you,” he gasped. Surely, there was something more appropriate to say. Russandol would know what it was, but all Fingon’s etiquette had fled from his head to make way for the joyous relief.

The great eagle merely bowed his head, and Fingon swung himself easily up, steadying himself with his knees as those immense wings began to beat and they took off. Upward they climbed, higher and higher, spiraling upward in circles too lazy for Fingon’s taste, every muscle in his body quivering with the need to be near Russo, to touch him, to hold him. I came to save thee, and I shall!

“Hold on tightly,” Thorondar warned him. “I cannot hover.” Fingon scrambled for a hold as his perch suddenly went nearly horizontal. There was a cracking, rending noise of stone, and he realized that the eagle had sunk his great talons into the rock, holding himself to the side of the cliff that way—and Russandol was right there, the ugly manacle that kept him locked to the unforgiving stone within easy reach of Fingon’s hands.

He was conscious, though he seemed confused, blinking slowly at Fingon. “Please,” he murmured. “No more. No more.”

“I’m here, Russo.” Fingon reached out, pulling his sturdy knife from its sheath again. “It’s Finno. Dost thou not know me?”

His cousin’s eyes blinked, long and slow. “I know all your guises,” he rasped. “Is there nothing I can say so that you will kill me?”

“Russo.” Fingon fumbled with the knife, trying to work it into the lock of the shackle, but he could find no purchase. Sawing at the shackle itself did naught but threaten to notch the knife.

“Please hurry,” said the great eagle. “I cannot hold this position forever.”

His knife would not cut the damn shackle. On his next attempt, he nearly dropped it, swearing rough and loud in words that Russandol and he had first learned together, giggling, by hiding outside the forges and waiting. His cousin’s expression changed slightly, a vague questioning look appearing behind the pain.

“Language,” muttered Fingon. “I know. But I do not think the Lord Thorondar is going to judge.”

“Your words, no—your swiftness, yes.”

It was not going to cut. He could stay here for a thousand thousand years, and still the knife would not be strong enough to cut the shackle. And he did not have a thousand thousand years. What could he do?

He thought of the fox, tangled in his snare; thought of another fox, long ago in Valinor, that he and Maitimo and Makalaurë had rescued, trailing behind Tyelkormo on one of his hunting expeditions, checking the traps more closely. It had been in agony, he remembered, for the snare had twisted around it, cutting off its circulation, and the poor thing was snarling and starting to tear at its own paw by the time they managed to free it.

Makalaurë’s eyes had gone distant—alone of the three he had sometimes, rarely, been taken by foresight—and he had whispered so that Findekáno alone could hear, “If a knife will not cut the shackle, it can still rend flesh and bone.” He had blinked and seemed confused; Fingon did not think he had ever recalled the moment later.

Fingon recalled it now, his sweaty hands slipping on the iron shackle that his knife would not cut.

“Russandol,” he said, trying to explain, trying to get permission, even though he could not ask, because there was no time left; he could feel the little ripples of tension, like fault lines, running along Thorondar’s wings. And Russandol did not move or react. So Fingon swallowed and brought the knife to bear not on the shackle but on his cousin’s wrist.

The knife cut too easily this time, slicing through slender tendons and flesh as easily as if Fingon were butchering a rabbit. He had thought that Russandol would scream, but he did not—he only whimpered softly, tears running down his face as hand parted from wrist.

Then it was done, and Fingon pulled his cousin into his arms, Russandol’s face terribly pale, blood streaming from the terrible injury on his arm. Thorondar screamed, harsh and wild, and launched them violently away from the face of the cliff.

It was not Thorondar who should have screamed, Fingon thought miserably, as he took the bowstring from his bow and ripped another long strip of cloth from his ragged tunic to tourniquet the injury. Russandol lay back against him, quiet. “Do you know,” he said presently, as Fingon finished tending it as best he could under the current circumstances, “it feels real now.” Tears flowed down his face, and he sighed. “I knew it would eventually. I only hoped it would not, but—” he halted, then, as Fingon struggled desperately to find something to say, “Oh, Finno, I am so sorry,” Russandol murmured, and then his head fell to the side as he fainted.

And the great eagle winged onward.