Weathering by Elleth

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Chapter 1

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The watch-stones were gone.

Haleth had been so intent on the pheasants in Ordan's wheat-field that only when she turned homeward with three of them dangling from her hand, she noticed that the two lumpy rocks by the edge of the forest had disappeared. Not traceless; the earth where they had hunched was still moist under her fingers in the late-summer day. There were tracks of bent grass where they'd gone into the wood, and further in, stirred-up leaves.

She slung her bow over her back and knelt to examine the tracks, frowning to quiet down the sudden hammering of her heart against her ribs.

That Lanâdh and Aghân had recalled them – possible, but there'd been no word of Ordan angering the Drughu, and they wouldn't withdraw their protection without cause, not from someone who had earned their love and friendship, not from someone who freely succored them. And all the stories told of them by the fireside in the hall agreed that they never walked without good cause. She wished that, like Elwar had in the old stories, she could pull a hare from the fold of her garments, and take its run as an omen. Without one –

Haleth stilled to listen. Not even an insect rustled the forest. No bird. The wind itself, which had fanned a cool breeze into her face and sent the cornflowers nodding not long ago, had died. A drop of sweat dribbled down her nose.

"Argant," Haleth cursed under her breath. When she had announced that she intended to go hunting, most women had preferred to lounge in the shade of the hall in the sweltering day, and even Argant, usually faithful as a hunting companion, had ducked into the cooler forest not long ago. Presumably she meant to see if anything had gone into her snares, and to avoid an earful for trampling Ordan's wheat again, as she'd called over her shoulder, laughing. As an afterthought she added that he'd want to think twice before beginning a quarrel with a member of Haldad's family, a grace Argant didn't quite have.

Haleth made her way into the forest, grateful that she knew at least where Argant laid her traps and the way she commonly took. Circling the opposite way to Argant's usual route would bring them together soonest. The first four snares, empty, she passed by quickly, but approaching the fifth – uncouth noises rang through the forest a good distance away, until they stopped in a gurgle and the sound of a body dropping limp into the leaves.

Even before Haleth entered the clearing with an arrow nocked, she could see the jewel-blue of Argant's garments through the underbrush, and approaching further found Argant crouching with her hunting knife across her knees, next to the body of an Orc. Her head snapped up when the rustle of leaves alerted her to Haleth's presence, but she relaxed seeing who had come, sprang lightly to her feet and crossed the distance between them. Argant lowered her head, their foreheads touched, and a lock of her black hair fell into Haleth's face.

Haleth wrapped it around her fingers and tugged Argant further down, brushing their lips together for reassurance. Although Argant had tensed to suppress it, her hands on Haleth's shoulders were shaking. Haleth threaded their fingers together, lighter between darker, and lifted her eyes, the question obvious.

"You are unhurt?"

"She never got close to me." Argant pointed; there was a glint of silver around the Orc's ankle. "The steel wire I traded mother's fabric for, the one that that dwarf said would bring me good fortune. He wasn't lying, she couldn't cut it."

"She?"

"It was a woman. A scout. Before I killed her, she said there were more Orcs coming – all the sightings, Lorvin's homestead being burned, that is not just a marauding band passing through. They are sending a force against us."

It struck Haleth with a painful twist to her stomach that her family was entirely unprotected; earlier the same morning she had visited them after leaving the hall and found her mother raking up yellow grass and the first fallen leaves underneath the chestnut trees, despite the waving step that had come to plague Avreth after her and her brother's birth. Haldan, who had been rooting through the heaps his grandmother made, cawed triumphantly when he had found a handful of early chestnuts to carry to the fire and roast.

"I'd hate to give all this up," Haleth said – not to Argant in particular, since she would be at her side fighting, but it seemed the tales that cautioned against the steady tread of darkness after them had pushed into the present at last. Haleth hummed unhappily. "But I would rather have our lives than dying over sentimentality for hearth and home."

* * *

"... and an Orc was caught in Argant's sling. Are Haldar and Father in? Celinn?" Haleth asked.

"Mother went for berries with Gamain and Muirenn," said Haldan and tried to pat dust and grass-stains from Argant's clothes. "And Father and Grandfather went to the rivers. They said it was a day for fishing. Did the Orc steal the watch-stones?"

Argant shook her head. "No, Haldan – they've gone off to fight. Do you remember the story about the Drughu-stones?" Lanâdh told it to you when you were both visiting our hall in spring.

"They could walk."

"Yes, and what else?"

Haldan had the wide-eyed look of a spotted fawn, and the spatter of freckles over his brown face only contributed to that, scrunched into a thinking frown. "They'd go when there was danger. When the Orcs found us, or the Wild Men who hunt us..." He looked around the three women who had gathered around him in a half-circle. "Did you bring the Orc's head, Argant? I want to see."

Argant shook her head. "If we're right you'll see Orcs aplenty soon enough, but they don't look very different to us, except for their scars and teeth, and this one would just have been baggage. There's no honour in taking a head when your enemy is caught and nearly helpless."

"Enough of that now," Avreth cut in, her voice on the edge of harsh impatience, turning to the boy. "Your mother will be home soon. We'll order everything here and wait for her. And you, quick now, run to the rivers and warn the homesteads on the way that we will need to go behind the stockade. And tell grandfather. Haleth, Argant and I will see to the rest. You remember the stories about Elwar who kept her head when darkness came, don't you? We need you to be that way now."

Haldan nodded and sprang away, stopping only to tear the signal-horn from the gate-post, and rushed down the path sounding the alarm as he ran. The noise swiftly grew fainter.

Avreth's demeanor dropped as soon as the boy had disappeared. "Nine years are a good part of his childhood at least. Haleth, help me with the goats."

* * *

It was hard to concentrate over the sounds of people bleating and goats screaming as they were driven through the stockade gate. Refugees had been coming in a long column all afternoon, carrying sacks and chests, driving swine, cattle, horses, geese that hissed and clicked their beaks, all to find places on the edge of land between Ascar and Gelion, but the end was in sight finally. They had been counting those who had chosen to evacuate before the Orcs, and many, especially those in feuds with other families that would force them together into close quarters or people on the outlying homesteads, must have chosen to flee into the forest, or into refuges of their own.

They had not raised the alarm a moment too soon.

Already there were plumes of smoke rising from the upper reaches of the forest, and in the gathering dusk the first glow of fires shone between the trees. If the Orcs continued plundering and pillaging as they did, it would still take time for them to reach the stockade, and almost Haleth wished that they would speed up their step – if there was anything that she hated, it was waiting, even with Argant and the other women of the hall at her side; ready to man the stockades against the inevitable assault. Some men mingled among them, making repairs and adding to the defenses where they might.

The last replacement trunk went up into the earthenwork.

Haldar, up on a precarious ladder, was helping drive it into the ground with dull crashes, to close the final gap, while their father was bellowing directions over the noise as though he was Elwar herself building the first defense against the dark, instead of a hastily-patched substitute for an old and almost rotted structure. She wished, briefly, to feel the same control over herself; Haldad was like one of the watch-stones, immovable unless he decided to, and beloved by many people. Without him, the stockade would be half-empty still.

"Haleth," Argant said. She had been trying to strike up a discussion, and Haleth could easily guess what promise she meant to exact, which had made it easy to let other things to make precedence, but now she was carrying a small chest that had stood central in the hall, and each of the women had taken from it, Haleth and Argant alone remaining unadorned.

"Haleth," Argant said again, when Haleth again turned her back on her, and impatience lent her voice a sharp edge. "Please. I want to know you are at least properly decked for the journey, if we are hedging ourselves in toward our deaths here."

"Yes!" Haleth snapped – not to agree with Argant's words, merely to acknowledge she had been heard. She reached for the chest and opened the lid – there were only four arm-rings left, shining a dull bronze sheen in the dusk, and the heavy golden torc with the twisted, curled designs she refused to wear on any ordinary occasion.

She took one of the armlets and slid it over Argant's bare arm, and then the other. Argant closed her eyes briefly, and reached to do the same to Haleth, and last of all, put the torc around her neck. To Haleth, its weight felt like a sling to strangle her, and her fingers curled around the metal.

"I am one of you; I am not your leader," she said.

It seemed that the words pleased Argant, who offered her an apprehensive, thin-lipped smile. "Had you said anything else, I would have doubted you, but now I do not. You are the right person to wear this – the others would not all have refused to take it, had I offered."

"But they know that taking it without merit would have proved them to be one of Elwar's enemies, and none of them want to be that, because that would mean they belonged out there whipping the Orcs forward, like someone who rose high in the favour of the Dark in his high house."

"But you – you looked out for us even when there was no need, and you led us in battles when we had no one else to look to."

"We have known each other since childhood. We grew into women fighting together. How do you not expect me to?" Haleth kept her eyes stubbornly on the edge of the forest, but the gathering darkness beneath the trees so far only was that of evenfall, not that of their enemies revealing themselves – but it seemed their conversation had carried, because one by one the other women came to them, standing in a semi-circle.

"Still not aware that you are the center of the wheel, we are merely the spokes?" Ormind patted her on the back with enough force to drive the rings on Haleth's shirt into her skin. Haleth pulled herself up straighter, and finally tearing her gaze away from the trees looked at her companions, smiling briefly at the arm-ring that Muirenn had chosen – the youngest of the band at barely sixteen and a little vain, she had picked a broad bronze ring etched with flowing triangles in an intricate pattern – it fit her, and with it, it seemed, her resolve grew, the grip of her fingers around her spear tightening where they had before been slack.

"If the sun remains in the sky and some of us survive, I will hold us fortunate. But if the spokes break, the center of the wheel loses purpose. Don't you dare abandon me," she said. "Any of you."

There was some laughter around the circle, but the mood swung when Ebridh muttered, "We will end them, not they us. Elwar saw to it then, and Haleth will see to it now. We will end them, and give their weapons to the river! We will end them and send their heads back north!"

"Haleth will see to - " The words died on Argant's lips, always the most sharp-eyed among them, and she pointed at last at the mass of creatures teeming from beneath the trees, and it was her, too, who raised the battle-cry, shrilly ringing into the sky out of every throat.

* * *

Argant and Haleth staggered into the back of the camp when darkness fell the next evening, and everything about Argant spoke of how thin battle had worn her. They gave notice of the situation to Avreth and Haldad with a few curt words; they held the Orcs at bay and nobody had yet been lost, neither the warriors who held the defenses, nor the people who had come last and had had no choice but to remain within arrow's reach for the lack of space within the forticiations. Neither had the Orcs succeeded in setting fire to the stockade – but it looked to be a lengthy siege, and with the over-hasty flight, provisions would be a problem before long.

They slumped by one of the fires in the back of the camp to rest, and soon Argant's eyes were drooping, but her foot continued twitching restlessly. Haleth, who felt too much like an over-strung bow and too wide awake for comfort despite the meal of boiled meat and broth that should have helped her rest, saw Argant tense every time a noise sounded from the fortifications. At last Argant sighed and sat up, running both hands through her hair. She stumbled the three steps to the water, knelt, and splashed a handful into her face.

"If you can't sleep, best help make yourself useful, too," Haleth said to her. "Perhaps that will help you calm."

"It's not that," Argant said and lifted her eyes to Haleth. Drops of water still clung to her face. "I'm all wound-up from the battle, but if you'd lend me a hand..."

Haleth chuckled despite herself, a brief noise almost lost in the din of the camp. "Only you could make being blunt into a virtue. But not here - come, under the trees."

Argant did not smile, but she walked at Haleth's side to the cluster of willows dipping their branches into Gelion not far away, and ducked beneath the sheltering curtain. It was cooler within, dark and quiet, and Argant looked around, nodding. "Fine, here. Not that anybody would pay us much mind—"

"They want to be distracted, and they'll take anything for that, right now," Haleth replied. "Anything to take their mind off the fighting. Baking bread, fixing weaponry, or stories, or songs, or watching us."

"I'd take most anything, myself - in particular from you." As soon as the curtain of trailing leaves fell shut behind Haleth, Argant began untying the girdle that held her trousers up and sat down on a spot of earth between the willow's roots. She took Haleth's offered hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

"Your fingers are ice-cold," Argant said and began rubbing warmth into them.

"I will try not to give you frostbite." Haleth reclaimed her hand and trailed it down Argant's body, leaving it to linger on her hip, sliding the other upward over the muscles of her legs to nudge them apart without resistance, and tracing circles over the insides of her thighs, finding her already damp. Argant tensed against her hand.

"Don't tease me, not now – I just want to sleep. Get on with it."

Haleth gave a nod; it was easily apparent that Argant was not joking. Although she might later sleep with her head pillowed in Haleth's lap as she often did, Haleth pushed away that image and put two fingers into her unceremoniously, to go through all the well-familiar motions - by turns stroking, pushing and crooking until she was slick, until Argant's head fell back and her eyes clenched half-shut, pushing down and grinding herself against the heel of Haleth's hand. It took only some final strokes of Haleth's thumb to give Argant the relief she wanted.

She came with a yawn stifling her gasp, and Haleth left her relaxing against the willow tree, but not without a brief smile to herself as she knelt by the water to rinse her fingers, and she bit back the remark that this had been a quick matter even for Argant, who was uncommonly sensitive.

* * *

Even when they had returnd to the fires a short while later, Argant continued to find sleep elusive, only ever reaching the same near-doze that had not quite afforded her rest earlier. Most of the other women had assembled nearby around the other fires as well, others having taken their place at the stockade – the fortunate taking what sleep they could, or sitting wide-awake fletching arrows, sharpening swords, slow-turning the tips of wooden spears in the fire to harden them. Haleth was glad to keep her hands idle of weapons for the moment and was combing her fingers through Argant's hair, twisting it into tiny braids.

"Elwar hardened her heart," Haleth said eventually, when Muirenn, who was turning her spear with silent tears running down her face, began to grind on her nerves more than the noise of battle did, even though she knew the girl had never yet seen fighting of this scale. She paused and wet her lips, and considered her next words.

"This is a tale told in my hall to those who first come to it. Many have heard it before, and others know it in part, but I will tell it all the same." Her voice carried. The people around her had ceased their work for the moment, others from fires further away crowded closer. Still grateful for a distraction, Haleth supposed. Celinn nodded at her from across the flames and nudged Haldan awake. Haldar smiled broadly.

"What happened first during Elwar's time was not what happened first here – because we know better now, and it is because of her that we know better. Many of the men of her people had turned to worship Dobur in his house upon the hill and would burn alive those who opposed them or their strictures, and they licked up his teachings like dogs will slobber a treat even from a master's hand that strikes them. Elwar hardened her heart to his teachings," Haleth repeated. "She went in secret from house to house of the women she knew to be true, and in the dark of night they passed from their dwellings into the wild, and there they raised a wall of earth and built a strong place, just like this. And Elwar weathered the assault that was sent against her, behind a palisade of oak stems just like ours, and when the enemies found her, they sent men who dashed themselves to pieces upon the palisade. They sent a second host of stronger men, and they fell upon the spears and arrows of Elwar's people. They sent a third host, and this time there were Orcs with axes and cruel fires, and Elwar sallied forth and slew their leaders, and the rest turned tail and fled." Haleth glanced around. They were all listening.

"And afterwards, knowing that Dobur would not rest until he had routed them, it was Elwar who who took up arrows, swords and spears to teach others, although the training was long and the trials many on their westward march. It is from Elwar we come – not in blood, for she had seen how sure leadership might rot the heart and wanted no children to carry her legacy, instead for each to look to themselves unless another time of trial came and someone should be chosen – but it is from Elwar we come. The House of Marach have no such stories. They speak of Dobur and his house and call him Dulgôn, but Elwar is our legacy alone. Their women do not fight. We do, and we will weather this as Elwar did. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves!"

"But is Elwar's story true? Did Elwar ever live?" Muirenn asked, but despite her doubts her tears had stilled in rapt listening. She wiped the back of her hand over her face.

Haleth contemplated the answer. "Does it matter?" she asked at last, and felt Argant stirring, shifting to smile up at Haleth. It seemed even in her drowsing she had listened. "Her lessons are real, and we are here."

East above the mountains, the first pale stripe of sunrise showed. Argant lifted her head and rose, pulling Haleth to her feet alongside her, even though her grip still was slack with exhaustion. The rest of them followed suit; Muirenn on Haleth's hand, Celinn, Ebrith and the others, until more and more faces turned east, and the noise of battle dimmed for the moment with the advent of the new day – only the first of many that would follow, but all the sweeter for being the first reprieve.

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Chapter End Notes

First of all, many many thanks to Anna, Elvie and Zeen (in alphabetical order because you're all amazing and it would have been unfair to pick favourites) for their help and patience.

Since the Haladin were a culture I was not familiar with as much as I liked, and there is not much in the way of their earlier history short of their close association with the Drúedain (the idea of watch-stones is in fact canonical; The Faithful Stone in the UT offers more insight into it), I decided to abstract from the info we were given, and plug the holes with the most appropriate real-world equivalent and a good deal of liberty: a baseline for the Haladin in fact seems to be continental Celtic culture around the shift from the Hallstadt to La Tène culture.

Haleth's name is ancient in terms of the legendarium (so is her being a hunter, a poke by yours truly at the earlier stories where she still was male and called Haleth the Hunter) and derived from Old English hæleþ, "hero", rather than a Celtic-language word (and it was conceived of as Sindarin before Tolkien shifted the language concepts again), but despite that the element hall in many of the Haladin names was at one point intended to mean both "hidden" and "high/tall/noble"; it is still does hold those meanings in Sindarin, and incidentally old etymologies for keltoi - now largely discarded - were either "the hidden people" or "the high/prominent ones", probably not incidental considering we're dealing with Tolkien here. Further developments that led me to equate the Haladin with La Tène Celts included centralization and fortified settlements rather than scattered homesteads, grave mounds for high-status individuals, female fighters (only a few are known, like grave #116 of the Dürrnberg cemetery, but my research made clear there was significant bias, leading archaeologists to identify weapon-burials as male without closer examination and they may have been female more frequently than previously thought) and women leaders of significant position like the so-called Lady of Vix. She likely suffered hip damage that caused her to walk with a waving step, which I decided to adopt for Haleth's mother.

Mentions like the bronze arm rings (the most frequent accessory found in female La Tène graves), a torc as a sign of status/leadership, sacrificing enemy weapons to water, head-hunting, and a diet of wheat and boiled meat are all based either on archaeological or historiographic sources (albeit the latter are always written by Romans and thus outsiders to Celtic culture, so to be enjoyed with caution). I also decided to adopt some ideas from Cassius Dio's Roman History regarding Boudicca (though not from the right place or time) - such as the hare used for divination, and the quote about hares, foxes, dogs and wolves. I found it helped contribute to the notion of making the Haladin "a people apart" with strange customs as per canonical description, who also did not speak a language (closely) related to the Germanic-based Taliska of the other Edain Houses.

The non-canonical names were made up either from the elements of extant Haladin names, borrowed from Celtic mythology, or various older Celtic languages, using a wordlist for Proto-Celtic words and cognates, and choosing via fitting phonology rather than appropriate historical attribution. Dobur and Dolgûn are Old Irish and Adûnaic (for lack of much of the proto-Númenorean language the Hadorians and Bëorians spoke) respectively, for "Black/Unclean One" with reference to Morgoth coming among early Men to corrupt them before the westward journey as per Andreth's Tale in the Athrabeth - something that the different tribes surely must have had their own stories about, which is how Elwar came to be. The notion that men went to serve Morgoth and women were the ones who ascended to more prominent and active positions is likewise based on research into La Tène culture - while never quite as powerless as in other antique European cultures, a prevalent theory about women gaining in power was due to the absence of men hiring with the Etruscans and Romans as traders or mercenaries following the rise in power of the Italic cultures (I did not strictly intend to equate them with Morgoth).

If anything is unclear I'll be happy to answer questions. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story and playing in it, despite the editing process being a very tough nut to crack. Thank you so much for your request, Rhapsy - and whoever read this far deserves a cookie.