Horseman Wild in Windy Clouds by Himring

Horseman Wild in Windy Clouds

‘I remember,’ Annael to Tuor, as they sat at the end of a day of hunting, watching the moon slowly rise out of strands of mist over Mithrim, ‘when I was young, before the first moonrise, I saw Araw ride, sometimes, the one that the Noldor call Orome.

We walked the woods and the hills under the stars, but creatures of Morgoth walked then, too—fewer and more scattered than now, but dangerous enough! We learned to be wary of ambushes in the shadows, especially in the north. But Araw rode, then, and Morgoth’s creatures learned to be wary of him!

We used to hear Araw from far off. He came from the west as in a storm, with a thunder of hooves. When he blew his great horn, tree tops bent under the blast.

He would pass in a deafening rush. We would see sparks fly up and tongues of fire flicker. I think that was where the feet of his tall silver-white horse struck rock, but his countenance, too, shone with light, and perhaps his spear and arrows, also.

We ducked aside into cover for fear of getting trampled and crushed, for the force and speed of his onslaught were great. He did not slow or stop and speak to us, as he had done to our forefathers before the Amanyar passed over the Sea—not to us, although he may have had words with Queen Melian down south in Menegroth, for all I know. He swept past, across mountain and plain, and straight on eastward to continue his great hunt in the wide lands beyond.

And we, overawed, dared to breathe again. Yet, wherever he went, in his wanderings—and we could never predict when he might return—in the wake of his going no creatures of Morgoth were left to trouble us. All had been hunted down or had fled far away in fear—and we walked more safely for a time, under sky and in shadow.

And so it went for a while, and indeed that was how it had gone since we settled in Beleriand, almost. But then things changed, without warning, and, at first, we could not understand why. Angband opened its gates and creatures of Morgoth streamed out in numbers never seen before, some fiercer than we had encountered yet. We were not prepared to oppose armies, where we had never had to deal with more than raids and skirmishes, at the most. Soon we were part overrun, part swept aside, and those hordes streamed southwards to assail the kings and lords there and their cities.

Then we waited for Araw and attempted to call on his help, as we might, thinking that, surely, he must perceive our plight and bring his whole hunt with him to aid us, but he never came. And Queen Melian sent message only that she could tell us nothing of what kept him. It was only when the Noldor arrived that we were, eventually, able to understand a little better what had happened…’

‘Did he just forget to come?’ asked Tuor, gazing out over his occupied homeland. He and his foster father were little more than fugitives in their own country, but others, he knew, suffered even worse from Morgoth’s might. ‘Maybe he could be reminded?’

Chapter End Notes

The way I responded to this prompt is partly influenced by the context in "The Fall of Arthur" from which the quotation is taken.

This describes a ghostly apparition of wild riders in a tempest, where Arthur's troops are encamped far east on the borders of "Mirkwood". In the context of the poem, it is an omen of the disasters that are about to befall Arthur. It reminded me of other stories surrounding the Wild Hunt, though, and so also of Orome and Tolkien's descriptions of his rides in Middle-earth.

The title I chose is adapted from the passage describing the horsemen in the poem.

It looks as if Annael, as one of the Grey Elves of Mithrim, should technically be using "Arum" as his Sindarin form of the name of the Vala, rather than "Araw". But that forms is little-known, so I am ignoring that. I have not even attempted to translate some of the other Quenya names in this ficlet, for ease of reading.