On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 13: Caught in a storm/Prisoner trade

Elrohir has seen fierce storms in the desert, but never anything like this daytime dark, the way the light turns sickly yellow beneath the roof of roiling cloud. 

All the world seems lit up in flames – the Shakalzôr with torches, the water with luminous particles, and even the very masts are pointed with a blue flame. The sea is so aglow that the wakes of both ships are marked by a fiery track. For a single, terribly bright instant the darkness of the sky is cleaved by the most vivid lightning.

Glorfindel’s mail and the point of his high helm flash bright as he steps onto the plank that leads to his death. At the other end Calear is prodded up with spear-butts, reeling and stumbling in pained confusion. 

Glorfindel steps forward. Calear is shoved, staggers, and then for a moment they meet in the middle of the plank, right between both ships. Glorfindel lays his hands on Calear’s shoulders. A muttered word, and he makes to turn so Calear can step past him and onwards to the Nemir . Hands reach out to guide him there, and for a moment Elrohir sees the battered face lighten with relief. 

Then, quite predictably, two Umbarians leap up and grab Glorfindel, and haul him in like a hooked fish. A third one tilts the plank sideways. Calear stumbles, and for a single heartbeat he teeters between sea and sky, his face a mask of terror. The next, he plunges down into the gap between both ships and is lost to sight. 

Calear is too weak to swim. With howls of grief Elves leap at the railing, but in the dark cleft between the hulls there is naught but churning waves. 

A crack of lightning flashes across the water. Thunder booms overhead, and for a mere moment the Umbarians cower. 

Glorfindel is hewing at them before he even hits the Shakalzôr’s deck. He is magnificent. Elrohir has never seen anyone fight like that, a whirlwind of gold and steel. Fast, deadly, but alone against many. 

The Umbarian deck is a writhing mass of red-clad marines, ever more throwing themselves forward to die on Glorfindel’s blade, pressing him in. He is a white light, a single point of radiance amidst the swelling tide of red, ever more Umbarians leaping at him. 

Glorfindel’s vambraces are red to the elbows with their gore, his grey surcote spattered, but they hem him in and push him back until his back is against the gunwale. 

“Release!” booms Galdor’s voice, and at once a rain of arrows whirs down like a cloud of angry wasps. The Elvish archers sit high on the Nemir’s yards, and they do not miss. All along the Shakalzôr’s deck, men drop like stones with arrows sunk into their eye sockets down to the white swan-feather fletchings. 

“For Lindon! For the Havens!” Alphalas’ battle-cry cuts through the din, bright as a silver horn. Like a silver wave washes over the shore, she leads a company of Elvish swordsmen swinging across the gap from the Nemir’s rigging. They land on the Shakalzôr’s deck light and limber. In a heartbeat their blades drip red. 

Elrohir remains forgotten on the Nemir’s quarterdeck, left to watch the silver and the red battle back and forth.

For a moment the tide of Elves strikes a gap in the mass of Umbarian marines, almost reaching Glorfindel, and Elrohir’s heart leaps. 

And then, from somewhere on the Shakalzôr’s forecastle a dark ball flies through the air and bursts into a runnel of liquid flame on the Nemir’s deck. 

Elrohir cannot help but shout as the grenade hits. Remembered pain shoots up his arm, where an old scar throbs like he is burning anew. 

Umbarian war-fire. 

It is a devilish alchemy of the Black Númenóreans, a waking nightmare of liquid flame that cannot be doused with water. Thick and sticky the liquid washes over the Nemir’s deck, setting flame to all it touches. 

The Elves must know of this dark artifice, because the handful of the crew who remain aboard do not try to pour on water. At once they run to with sand and vinegar, but the foremast has already caught flame. One of the firefighters comes too close, and his cries of agony as his clothes catch on fire cut Elrohir to his marrow.

Biting smoke stings his eyes, covering the ship until all he can see is the hellish glow of the fire and the dancing shadows of the Elves struggling to put it out.  Divided between the battle and the fire, the Elvish sally falters. 

Glorfindel still stands alone and at bay, unreachable amidst the Umbarian onslaught.

The realisation hits Elrohir, dark and bitter as bile: this entire battle is in vain. He need not fear that the Umbarians may board the Nemir . They will not bother. The Corsair prince has taken the one Elf he came for, and now he will simply burn the ship with all hands.

This will not happen. Elrohir will not allow it. 

He spins around, makes for the ratlines in a flat run, yanking off his helm as he leaps and grabs the grey Elvish ropes and pulls himself up hand over hand, ever higher through the bitter, billowing smoke. 

“Eru Allfather, have mercy…” He finds himself reciting a Haradi prayer as he clambers out over the yardarm. The height is dizzying, both ships rocking beneath him. Then, in the final heartbeat before the mad leap, he remembers Ossë’s pendant, and closes his fingers around the Elvish amulet.