On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 16: Confrontation

His Imperial Highness Prince Bawbuthôr of Pellardur is a devout and god-fearing man. 

He knows well that divine favour must be paid, and the prince has never failed to give Lord Mûlkher his due. 

In Pellardur’s great temple the altar-fire never goes out. There has not been a day that the Giver of Freedom wanted for sacrifices. With every Sacred Agony, Bawbuthôr's prayers rise to the sky, riding upon their cries and the smoke of burned flesh.

Today is the day Bawbuthôr’s piety will be rewarded, his day of Freedom. Today he will vanquish death and regain the undying life stolen by the lying Powers in the West. 

Great Men take what is their right, even when the opposition is fierce. Beyond the shieldwall of his imperial guard, the white-fiends’ swords are a shimmer of flashing steel. Dreadful creatures. Bawbuthôr loathes the too-bright light in their eyes, their unnatural swiftness, the inhuman ring of their voices, singing blasphemy as they kill. 

They are devils, conjured by the evil Valar to test the faithful, and Lord Mûlkher will wipe them out like straw is burned in a firestorm. 

Beside Bawbuthôr, Mûlkher’s own anointed priest moans and clutches his holy knife, his forehead beaded with fearful sweat. Bawbuthôr turns a scornful eye at such small faith. Men of the cloth tend to grow portly and weak. Never seen on the training grounds, their only labour is cleaving the flesh of their chained sacrifices. Bawbuthôr glances sideways at the priest’s wide-eyed terror, the quiver of his rotund jowls. Soon, he will no longer need this intermediary. Soon Bawbuthôr himself will commune with the divine. 

He breathes deep of the smell of battle: war-fire, burning wood, and spilled blood. The White-fiends may struggle, but the King of the World will grant victory to His faithful servants.

So it must be: that very morning, the priest divined Bawbuthôr’s victory in the battle to come, reading favourable signs in the liver of a virgin slave-girlfrom the Prince’s own harem. The girl was a rare beauty - selected for her Elf-like elegance, exquisitely expensive. Bawbuthôr saved her especially for this day. A kingly sacrifice. The smoke from her body still spirals up from the ship’s altar. 

The White-fiend’s eyes rest upon it as he hacks into the line of bodyguards, and the sight seems to double his ardour. 

Beside Bawbuthôr, the priest whimpers. 

“Master yourself, Your Holiness!” Bawbuthôr hisses, lest the guards are put to rout by the sight of their priest’s wavering conviction.

Bawbuthôr does not fear the White-fiends. He is a Prince of Umbar, come to avenge his brother and father. He will wash the tarnished honour of the Imperial House in Elvish blood.

A potent substance. What a chance, to drink the very elixir of immortality! 

Grey streaks Bawbuthôr‘s hair, and when his slaves disrobe him for his bath the sight of his own sagging flesh drives him to terror. White-fiends are free of death, though they are heretics, unworthy of their immortality. They do not deserve their fair faces and smooth skin and strong, clean-lined limbs. Hate burns in Bawbuthôr's chest. Soon, he will get his due. 

Discovering an Elf in the heart of his own city was a sure sign of Mûlkher’s favour. Bawbuthôr took personal charge of the unusual captive. He ordered the Elf brought to the temple instead of the palace dungeon, and before Mûlkher’s altar he wielded the whip and the branding iron with his own hand. 

Marring so flawless a being with lash and brand struck Bawbuthôr with a sacred ecstasy, surpassing all his previous sacrifices. How smooth its unstained skin, how melodious its cries - so much fairer than the toneless howls of mortal slaves! Bawbuthôr had to rein himself in, a great act of his superior will, lest he kill the creature in his holy bloodlust. 

Such perfection is not for lesser men. Bawbuthôr alone drank the Elf’s blood; first let into a cup, then straight from the vein. 

O, what bitter disappointment, when he felt no improvement in his aching joints and wheezing breath! But Bawbuthôr did not give up so easily. Protracted interrogation revealed Lord Mûlkher’s true purpose for this captive Elf. The creature was but a serf, unworthy of Delivering a Prince of Umbar. Its only use was to lead Bawbuthôr to Glorfindel. 

The Giver desires this Elf-lord, eldest and most potent of them all, for His sacrifice. In return Mûlkher will allow Bawbuthôr, His loyal instrument, to drain Glorfindel’s essence and imbue himself with the white-fiend’s immortality. 

Glorfindel certainly is a worthy sacrifice. The Elf is a storm of gold and steel. Bawbuthôr watches as the finest warriors in Umbar fall like wheat to the scythe before this creature of starlight and iron. 

Bawbuthôr does not waver. He is a god-fearing man, and Lord Mûlkher never fails to reward the pious. This battle is but a final test of his faith, and he must not doubt that the hour of his victory, his immortality, is nigh.

The gift of life unending is not for all, but Bawbuthôr is one of the worthy, a man of might and pride and high lineage, a scion of the great Ar-Pharazôn, King of Kings. Such men do not brook denials, but take what is their due. 

And yet, the white-fiend fills him with terror. The stern light of its immortal eyes, the terrible rush of that voice, the cold shine of its blade. The way it cuts through the ranks of his guard, the elite of fighting men in the empire, pledged body and soul to their prince, as if they were but a gaggle of cowering, bare-handed slaves. 

Even the Imperial Guard are lesser men, of course. Their blood is muddied by the lowly slave-peoples of Middle-earth. Of all the men on this ship, Bawbuthôr alone is worthy of Glorfindel’s blood. How fitting, then, that he is destined to shed it, the ultimate libation to the Lord of the World.

All Bawbuthôr's life, his every prayer to the Ancient Dark, all of the sacrifices he bled and burned, have led him to this glorious victory. His scimitar slides from the sheath with a silken whisper. The holy name of Mûlkher glitters gold-inlaid on the blade.  

Glorfindel leaps over the crumpled bodies of the innermost circle of guards, and at last they stand face to face. 

Bawbuthôr's hour has come. 

“Mûlkher!” he calls out. “Oh Giver of Freedom, guide my hand!”

The Elvish blade rises. Behind the silvered steel, Glorfindel’s face is terrible to behold. Those light-filled eyes hold no fear. Only cool, determined fury.  

Bawbuthôr’s strike is viper-swift and lethal, but Glorfindel dodges, then whirls past his defence as if it were made of air. Bawbuthôr gets but a moment of terror, the brutal surety that here stands an opponent he can never hope to match. 

Glorfindel stabs forward with almost languid, insulting ease. The Elvish sword enters Bawbuthôr's throat in the tiny slit between cuirass and gorget. Steel slides through his windpipe, parting flesh and sinew like a ship’s keel cuts through the water. 

For a single heartbeat Bawbuthôr stands pierced like an impaled sacrifice. He is barely aware of the hot gush of his own blood jetting from the wound. 

His eyes meet Glorfindel’s, and then the Elf speaks. A calm voice - how is he not winded!? - but clear as a golden bell.  

“For Elrohir. For Calear. And for the others.”

A single thrust of that slender hand, and Darkness rushes in. All Bawbuthôr can feel is bitter envy.