when the cold wind rolls in from the north by Arveldis

when the cold wind rolls in from the north

The land of her people was burning. 

The flames of Angband climbed from the plain of Ard-galen up the hillsides, leaving them blackened and bare after the flames had passed. Fire leapt from pine to pine, and Dorthonion’s once-mighty northern woods stood wreathed in crowns of flame. Sparks fell among the underbrush and fallen needles and kindled fires about the boles of trees, sending tongues of flame licking up their trunks. 

And everywhere was the reek of smoke. Great clouds of it hung heavy over the hillsides, settling upon Ladros in a heavy bulk, and hid the flaming, charred ruin of Ard-galen behind their mass.

Andreth’s eyes burned from the smoke, and her throat felt raw. Wrapping her winter scarf more tightly about her face, she set to stopping her windows and door with old blankets she had dampened in the snow drifts outside her house.

Emeldir, her eyes glittering bright and fierce from between the folds of her scarf and her hair turned grey with fallen ash, had beseeched her to join the other women and children in the Great Hall, but Andreth had deferred. The smoke was too thick to leave her home for more than a few minutes without being racked by coughing fits, and the night was too cold for her joints to endure such a long walk.

Her house was high enough above the fire break that she had no fear of burning within her home, and she was safe as long as the defenders held the northern slopes, though she had no great hope that the defenses would long hold.

Emeldir and the other women meant to barricade themselves within the Great Hall and set a guard about the hall of all of the women of Ladros who could bear sword, spear, or bow, but Andreth knew that such shows of defense were futile. The siege had broken, and all of Angband’s filth had poured forth, and the scouring of the land would not cease until all had fallen to fire or blade.

And so Andreth stopped her windows and drew the curtains tight against the horror of the night. She blew out all of the candles but one and let her fire die down to a faint glow, that the presence of her house might go unnoticed in the mirk of smoke and ash, should Ladros’ defenses be breached and Dorthonion overrun. She wrapped herself in the shawls and blankets that she had left and sat before the lone candle.

And she waited—for dawn, death, or deliverance, she did not know.

Ever her thoughts turned to the defenders: Bregolas and Barahir, her kinsmen, who fought though their fighting years were hastening to an end, and Angrod, and most of all to Aegnor. 

Aegnor had been certain, as had Angrod and the High King of the Noldor, that this night would come, though the other Elf-lords who held the leaguer had doubted, content with the long peace the siege had brought. This night was why Aegnor had turned away while she was still in her youth and left her grasping across the gulf between their kindreds, seeking a flame forever out of reach.

But too soon in the North wind his flame will go out! I say to thee thou shalt live long in the order of your kind, and he will go forth before thee. 

A bitter laugh rose in her chest as she looked upon her hands, creased and knobbed with age. How many years they could have shared together before this night came, before her youth faded like the leaves of autumn and winter stole upon her. Death came for him, Finrod had said, and would find him first, but it dogged her heels just as surely.

With these bitter thoughts, Andreth watched the flicker of the candle’s flame long into the night and into what would have been the grey hours of morning, had the light of morning had the strength to pierce through the mirk of smoke and ash.

When she deemed that morning had come and passed, she pulled more wood inside her house from the pile next to her door, and she dampened her blankets in the snow and prepared for another night of interminable waiting.

The days and nights passed in a dark fog of choking smoke and drifting ashes, and her stores of food and split wood, carefully rationed, drew low. Andreth considered the wisdom of Emeldir’s offer now, knowing that the women of Ladros would have salvaged what they could of the grain stores and would have brought the livestock within the hall with them, to slaughter as needed.

But her heart told her still to remain and to wait.

And so she did. She had not been named “patience” for nothing. 

Night came again, perceptible only as a slight deepening of the gloom, and Andreth sat before her candle, watching its flame dance against the dark shadows of her house until the flicker of candlelight filled her gaze. Her mind drifted, conjuring up images and strange forms within the shifting shadows of the flame’s movement, and she lost herself to the bright light of the flame, drawn to it as surely as she had been in her youth.

The howl of sudden wind, strong enough that it shook the timbers of her house, startled her from her trance. Outside, the spruce trees circling her house groaned and cracked, and several branches fell. One struck the corner of her house with a crash that sent her heart leaping like a frightened hare, and she clutched at her chest in fear.

Her candle snuffed out in a thin wisp of smoke. 

Cold creeped through Andreth’s chest, and her hands felt suddenly leaden. A great weight seemed to bear down upon her, and she bowed her head from the burden of it, even as the realization of its meaning cut through her consciousness.

Aegnor was gone. The Sharp-flame was no more.

In the darkness, Andreth wept.

Chapter End Notes

The Athrabeth quotes are slightly truncated to better fit the flow of the story.