Marta's Mathoms - BMEM 2011 by Marta

Bones of the Earth (Azaghal) (Teen)

Azaghâl never thought he would die beneath the stars.

He was no fool. He always knew he must die one day; he was a Son of Mahal and death was his kind's due. He should feel the chill of Belegost stone this day, draw strength from the bones of the earth that had ever succored him. Pawing at the earth now, he found only scorched grass and pebbles. A poor substitute.

Still, stone was stone. The soil here was gravelly, too much like rock face to grow anything more than weeds. And the skies above were inky-black. There were stars, aye, twinkling far overhead, but in its own way this sky could almost be a cave's ceiling. All around him the men of his guard sung the beginnings of a funeral dirge. Their booming voices, the beat of his heart, the memory of Gothmog's cry as Azaghâl had finally driven him back: a song like drums in the deep.

Azaghâl never thought he would die beneath the stars, but did that matter, truly? He swallowed hard against the blood and bile rising in his throat and let his eyes close. No; Dorthonion was not so foreign a place, after all.

Chapter End Notes

"Last of all the eastern force to stand firm were the dwarves of Belegost, and thus they won renown. [...] But for them Glaurung and his brood would have withered all that was left of the Noldor. But the Naugrim made a circle about him when he assailed them, and even his mighty armour was not full proof against the blows of their great axes; and when in his rage Glaurung turned and struck down Azaghâl, Lord of Belegost, and crawled over him, with his last stroke Azaghâl drove a knife into his belly, and so wounded him that he fled the field." ("Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad," the Silmarillion)