On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 11: Defiance

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“We must only outrun the bastards until the storm hits!” Galdor somehow summons a smile whenever he is in Elrohir’s view. “Alphalas! Hoist your hammock if you have to, old girl, but keep us ahead!”

“Yes, sir!” Alphalas calls out a stream of orders, answered by a chorus of ‘ayes’ echoing from up aloft. 

In mere moments, like a bud unfolding into a flower, all of the

Nemir’s

sails burst into full bloom. Stretched taut by the wind, they stand white and bright against a sky of slate-blue thunderheads. The wind picks up with a howl, and the

Nemir

leaps forward with a worrying creak. Galdor and Alphalas are flogging their ship for all she is worth. 

Elrohir stands with his back to the mizzenmast, the frantic bustle of the deck streaming around him, and lays back his head to watch the snow-white canvas snap and billow. He would have enjoyed it, perhaps, this delirium of flying foam and tearing speed, a wild delight like camel-racing or a joyous dance, had the cause not been such terror. 

Alphalas catches the thought when she appears beside him. “She is fast, isn’t she? When we reach Lindon we shall unfold every sail, and laugh with Ossë as we bring you home.”

Clearly the first mate is trying to cheer him up. Elrohir summons a wooden smile and an accented thank-you in the Elvish tongue. He has no desire to remind this poor woman that her odds of seeing her northern home again dwindle by the second. 

Length by torturously slow length, the Umbarians are closing in. Their figurehead looms ever larger, a snarling viper with empty obsidian eyes, the Eye of Sauron on its forehead. Elrohir can hear them now, the beat of the slavemaster’s drum marking the swish of the great dromund’s oars and the rhythm of their warsong. 

The Song he knows from other battles, an old terror with claws sunk into his very bones. It is a fell, fierce chant of fire and darkness, potent with the Singer’s dark power. The Prince of Pellardur is of the purest Numenorean blood. A true-hearted Kingsman, loyal to the old faith of Mûlkher, and he has learned well the dark arts of his House.  

The Elves Sing, too. Elrohir has heard them before, sweet and wistful and full of love for sky and sea and all that is in it. Today, matched to the howls of the swelling storm, their Song remains beautiful, but in the way of a well-forged blade glinting with a deadly light. There is something of Glorfindel’s white fire in it, and with a shudder he realises that these people are perilous indeed. Fell and fair, and absolutely lethal.

Between Elves and Umbarians, Elrohir can do naught but be dragged like a piece of luggage, and watch as they decide his fate. 

Alphalas senses that thought, too. “No use standing around here, lad. Come with me. I have something for you.” She leads him away from the railing, towards one of the great grates and its ladder that leads down into the hold. 

Glorfindel’s eyes flick over from his hushed talk with Galdor, but he does not follow. In Umbar, Elrohir could not take a single step without Glorfindel hovering at his shoulder. Glorfindel would guard him like a broody hen her chick, always worried and watchful for knives in the dark. Not here. Glorfindel trusts these Elves blindly.

Alphalas leads Elrohir deep into the hold, to the armoury. He almost  falls down the ladder, wobbling to find his balance as the wave-tossed ship rolls and pitches. Once he finds his feet and looks around, he cannot help his wide-eyed stare. Rows of racks holding swords and bows, shields and javelins, hauberks of Elvish mail, one glittering waterfall of blue steel after another, enough to armour every last soul aboard. He has never seen such riches. 

The mail glitters in the angled patchwork of light that filters down through the grate overhead. Each hauberk on its stand is topped with a helm, the slender cheek guards more like sculpture than something to be taken into battle and bludgeoned. 

“Where does all this come from?”

Alphalas shrugs. “Standard navy issue. We will lend you a spare one. A little large on you, but we can hold it up with a good belt.”  

A spare one, she says.

All this, and then more to spare. It boggles the mind.

Alphalas lays out a gambeson, thick layers of linen stuffed with horsehair. While Elrohir pulls it over his head and tightens the laces, she lifts the hindmost hauberk off its rack, the mail’s ringlets singing silver-like as it swings from her hand.

Elrohir swallows as the reality of the battle ahead closes in. 

To distract himself, he looks at the Elf-woman before him. Her wiry arms hold inhuman strength, because she lifts the heavy hauberk one-handed, like a linen shirt, while with her other hand she picks the topmost arming cap off a stack and holds it out to him.

The tanned skin of her forearms is that bleached brown of driftwood. Two tiny tattooed birds whirl across, swooping up into her rolled-up sleeves. Drawn with a master’s hand, they are lifelike enough to almost flit up and wing away into the open air. The little creatures are strange nonetheless - bright jade-green, cobalt blue and topaz with a metallic sheen to their inked feathers. 

“What do they mean, your coloured birds?” Elrohir blurts out as he takes the cap, already embarrassed at his own nosiness. “Something from a dream?”

Alphalas is not offended, because she smiles as she straightens the mail coif. “Not a dream. They are real hummingbirds from Valinor.” 

For a moment, the Elvish name boggles Elrohir. “Valinor … Amatthâni?” he mutters the name in Adûnaic, not out loud, because surely this Elvish sea-woman means some real place overseas he has not heard of. 

“Yes!” Alphalas smiles broadly as she helps him pull the mail over his head. “Amatthâni, in Númenórean. Lindon’s mariners ink a hummingbird in remembrance of a journey to Valinor.”

Elrohir settles the mail’s weight on his shoulders as he digs for polite words. “Valinor is a children’s tale,” he says eventually, his tone measured.

Alphalas has her back turned to him as she searches through a chest, lifting up one silver-tooled swordbelt after another and comparing their lengths. “As real as you and I,” she says simply.

Elrohir watches the braided cable of her dark hair swish behind her as she moves. Is she lying, or merely joking at his expense? It seems nothing like her, if he is any judge of Elvish character. 

“The tale tells that none who enter Valinor may return. How come they let you go?” 

Alphalas turns around, holding up a stout leather belt with a motive of silver kelp swirling along the length. The collar of her shirt sits open, and now Elrohir notes the Stirrer’s amulet hanging around her neck. 

“The Grey Ships of the Havens carry passengers to Avallónë,” she says, offering him the belt. “The crews may return to Middle-earth if we do not set foot upon the quays.”  

Elrohir is too stunned to take it from her hands. “Have you ever

seen

a Vala?” he demands, his own jade octopus suddenly heavy against his skin.

“No,” Alphalas smiles, “but I have met Maïar in many shapes.” 

When Elrohir stills, too stunned to take the belt from her hands, she simply bends forward to loop it around his waist herself. 

“What are they like?” he blurts out, standing there like an idiot as Alphalas dresses him for war. She does it with the measured skill of long experience, using the belt to divide the hauberk’s weight between Elrohir’s hips and his shoulders so he can move lightly. 

As she works, she thinks for a moment, but then the words come to her. “Bright,” she says decidedly. “Brighter than anything in Middle-earth. More real, perhaps. Certainly not less.” She straightens, her work done, and her gaze as she inspects his armour is sharp. “The Men of Harad have strayed from wisdom, if they believe that the Lords of the West are not real.”

“Why should we think otherwise?” Elrohir retorts, because he will hear no ill spoken of his people. “We have seen only Sauron, and none to oppose him.”

Her eyebrow lifts, and Elrohir belatedly realises that, to him, the Haradrim are no longer ‘we’. He manages to keep the bitter stab of grief off his face.  

“Sauron does not rule the world,” Alphalas replies as she passes him a helmet. Her gaze is bright, birdlike. She sees his pain and she cares, but there is no pity. 

Elrohir is grateful. He has been coddled enough. He puts the helm on his head, looking her in the eye past the Elvish face guard. “Sure looked like it, from where I was standing.” 

“Then look again,” she says, with a smile sharp as a whetted blade. “We shall prove it.”

 

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“Beat to quarters!” 

At Galdor’s word, drums roar from the quarterdeck and the crew leaps into smooth, well-trained action. 

In mere moments, the

Nemir

is battle-ready. Glorfindel has done his share of troop inspections, and he can only approve of Galdor’s captaincy. All hands stand ready, armed and armoured. The decks are cleared and sanded, all flammable objects stowed in the hold. Archers leap up the ratlines, quick as squirrels to their positions high in the rigging, where they can rain down death upon the Umbarian decks. 

Elrohir has turned to the railing, his eyes on the approaching warship. Ice-cold hate burns in his eyes. Here stands a fighter. Battered and battle-weary, but ready to do whatever it takes. He knows well indeed that the Umbarians are merciless.

Glorfindel draws him aside, unpleasantly reminded of the last time they stood together like this before a battle. “You do not have to do this,” he says, in Haradi. “Stay below deck. This time, I will fight in your stead.”

“No!” In the darkening gloom before the storm, the light in Elrohir’s eyes is inhuman, ferocious. “I will not sit in my room while the crew get slaughtered!” Here stands no mere Elf, but something more, bearing an eldritch strand of Melian’s blood. 

Glorfindel no longer doubts that Elrohir did kill the Emperor of Umbar, and for a moment he is glad that the Peredhel is not his enemy. 

Even so, he is young, and so terribly wounded. Glorfindel’s task is to look out for him. “Elrohir… You have suffered enough. You do not have to do this.”

Elrohir shakes his head, frantic. “You will need all the help you can get! I have more experience killing Umbarians than all you Northlings put together.” 

No point in arguing with that. Elrond’s son is just like his father, the man who laid siege to the Black Tower. Wild, star-eyed, unstoppable like the Sea itself. 

“Last time I had to drag you away half dead.” Glorfindel can but try.

Elrohir does not flinch. “This time, there is no Mûmak.”