And Love Grew by polutropos

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Last and Cruellest Slaying

The Silmaril is lost.

The night had been a symphony of violence. The roar of flames eating up thatch roofs. The clatter of combat, the clop of hooves over wooden piers, the slap and break of water as another body found its muddy grave. A thousand voices raised in terror, condemnation, prayer, command.

Now, silence choked the narrow streets of Sirion and dawn bathed the ruined city in a yellow haze.

Dornil’s horse wove a path around smoking debris and toppled merchant carts. The occasional corpse. Dornil did not see them, did not look, for her sight was fixed on the cliffs where the land climbed up from Sirion’s mouths. Against the backdrop of Cape Balar’s rocky thrust frowning in the distance was scored the memory of the jewel’s descent, a gash of silver-gold through the cool grey of morning.

The battle had jerked to a stunned halt, the city holding its breath, watching. Watching the Silmaril take flight and fall— fall, fall, and disappear in the dark waters below.

Those whose lungs still could had heaved a breath of shock and dismay, and then the battle was over. In one beautiful and horrifying moment, both sides had lost.

The first sounds to cut the silence were the confused and terrified sobs of children. Then, the scurrying of feet taking shelter behind whatever roofless, charred walls they could find; the clatter of metal as scattered contingents regrouped. Several had lurched like guttering flames towards an enemy soldier, only to stagger to a halt when they met the other’s eyes. The urge to violence foundered. There was nothing left to fight for.

As the scar of the Silmaril’s path faded from her sight, Dornil remembered her duty. She brought her destrier to a trot, seeking and rallying whatever soldiers of the sons of Fëanor she could find.

“What is the command, lady?” they asked in turn.

“I know not,” she answered. “Hold and wait. Be on your guard.”

At last she caught sight of the standard of Maedhros rising above an unroofed stone wall. She dismounted her horse and called out to the group of soldiers marching under it.

“Captain Lisgon!”

Maedhros’ High Captain turned. The four remaining fingers of his right hand clutched the standard pole so tightly that his bony knuckles were even starker white than his skin, pale as the starlight under which he was born.

“Lady Dornil, I am glad to see you living.”

Dornil swallowed the sudden urge to embrace him. This was no time for sentiment. “What are our orders?” she asked.

Lisgon cleared his throat and gave his answer to the assembled men. “All those on foot who are able are to seek out the injured and bring them to our camp. Both our own men and the people of Sirion, if they can be persuaded. If they will not come, you are to tend their wounds as best you can.”

“And if we are threatened?” Dornil asked.

“Pick up your weapons only if you have no other choice,” he replied.

Dornil bit the flesh of her cheek. “What of those who turned against us, lord?”

Oathbreakers all, condemning their lords to torment. Dornil was certain it was they had aided Lady Elwing’s flight. There had been no way of escape. Not this time. They had made sure of it: no more would fall in vain.

“Only if you have no other choice,” Lisgon repeated. “Go now. You have your orders.”

Slowly, the shock still plain on their faces, the footmen nodded and dispersed.

“Those who are mounted,” Lisgon continued, “are to cry the following message through the streets: that the battle is ended. No weapon will be raised against those with whom we would have been allies, with whom we would now make peace. All are free to remain or to take refuge wherever they see fit. Any resident of Sirion who wishes to follow us will be taken under the protection of Lord Maedhros. Any soldier who wishes to return East and stand against Morgoth has until midday to prepare and assemble at the camp of Fëanor's sons.”

Dornil grimaced. Could it be that even after the night’s hideous slaughter, even after their dearly-bought and fruitless victory, Maedhros was yet set on mercy and repentance? Even for those who had allowed their Lady to lead them headlong into ruin? It was the thief Thingol and his heirs who ought to have repented.

Dornil quenched the thought before it could consume her. It was no use: Caranthir's brothers and their following were all that remained to her. In her grief over the death of her husband and lord, she had sworn to serve Maglor, knowing the esteem in which Caranthir had held him. But after Doriath, to serve Maglor was to serve Maedhros — blindly, mindlessly, a devotion more akin to worship than fealty.

She had no choice but to keep her disdain for the counsels of Maedhros concealed, and she had done so all these long years. And yet, as vengeance slipped further out of reach, she felt the bonds of kinship and fealty unravelling. Not for the first time, she wondered if it would have been better to fall beside her husband in Menegroth.

At the camp on the outskirts of Sirion, men bearing stretchers streamed past the hastily erected tents and wagons, seeking empty patches of ground on which to set their burdens down. Others had not the comfort of a stretcher, but bellowed in pain as they staggered forwards with one arm slung over a fellow soldier’s shoulders. The place reeked of sweat and blood and the delta’s marshy rot.

Maglor passed among the bodies of the wounded and sang as well as his wrecked voice could manage. His throat had not seen such abuse since the Battle of Tears: muscles strained with Song, the soft flesh scraped raw by the heat of smoke and the acid burn of the uncontrollable retching that had seized him when the Silmaril plummeted into the sea. But he had to sing. It was the only way he knew to keep his mind from unravelling into madness.

“Enough.”

Maglor recognised Maedhros’ boot on the grass beside him. He uncurled from his crouch on the grass and stood to face him.

“There will be time for lamentation on the long retreat,” Maedhros said.

Once, Maglor would not have masked the pain of such a brusque dismissal. He might have countered with a biting word of his own. That was before he had borne witness to the erosion of the others’ loyalty to Maedhros. The fallen scraps of respect left behind by Celegorm and Curufin, Amrod and Amras, his own followers — these Maglor gathered and stitched to his heart like a patchwork of devotion. A soft and fraying casement, but protection nonetheless against the sting of little cruelties.

As for speaking to his brother mind-to-mind, to smooth over the jagged edges that made him thus? There was little hope of that. Beneath the stern comportment and commands, Maedhros’ mind was an impenetrable torrent of despair.

Maedhros’ gaze roamed the field, taking in the extent of their losses. The sunlight lent a false brightness to his dusky pallor; accentuated the scrawl of scarring on his cheek. A flicker of revulsion cramped his face. “Come,” he said, turning his back on the scene, “let us find a place apart.”

As they walked in the direction of the command tent, he said, "The ships from Balar have been sighted on the horizon. They are not equipped for warfare.”

That they would not have to fight another battle ought to have been a relief, but Maglor heard none in his brother’s voice and felt none himself. The lack of retaliation was its own quiet conquest. Shame could cut as deeply as any weapon.

“I guess that Ereinion and Círdan come to offer aid to their people," Maedhros continued. "A more appealing offer than the one we have made.”

Maglor looked over his shoulder, picking out unfamiliar figures among the ebb and flow of bodies. A grey-bearded man stooped over a sack of his belongings with an expression of dismay. A silver-haired elf with two ridged scars where her eyes had been was guided by another elf, shorter and with the slender form of one scarcely out of childhood. A woman clutched a babe to her chest, her lips moving in inaudible song.

Was Maglor right to have counselled his brother to fold these survivors into their numbers? Could they afford such a burden on the road? Was he only inviting resentment and discord into their midst, seeding future betrayals?

To persuade Maedhros, he had first spoken poetically of the power of mercy to move hearts to loyalty; then, with a mind honed for warfare, of the need for soldiers. The truth was he could not support the weight of Maedhros’ despair alone. “It disgusts me,” Maedhros had said, after Doriath, “that there are still those who look upon me with trust in their eyes.” Yet, without followers buttressing him Maedhros would collapse, and Maglor could not endure such a fall.

They could not afford to lose anyone to the succour of Ereinion.

“Then we must hasten our retreat,” said Maglor, as they drew up to the tent. A silent guard held open the flap.

Maedhros ducked inside. “We will. With so many wounded, I have decided to divide the retreat into two hosts. Those who cannot fight will travel with a guard south around Taur-im-Duinath and follow the Gelion north. The journey will be slower, but protected from any organised attack. Our best fighters will come with me and make as direct a retreat as possible by the same route we travelled along the Andram. I do not doubt that Morgoth will have tidings of these things soon, and he will know that Amon Ereb stands well-nigh defenceless. It must hold.”

Maedhros stopped beside the small folding table at the back of the tent. He splayed his fingertips over a map of the delta and pushed it across the desk’s surface. He did not look at Maglor as he said, “You will lead the second host.”

The air rushed from Maglor’s lungs as a breathless question: “What?”

“You are better suited to it than any others among us.”

“How so? What of Lisgon? These people are more likely to trust a dark elf—” Maedhros lifted his eyes only a moment to glare at him. “And you will need me on the Andram if your aim is stealth. Why then?” It was so quiet Maglor could hear his own blood rushing in his ears. “Nelyo,” he pleaded.

“Maglor. You forget that Lisgon was a thrall. They will trust him no more than they trust me. And yes, they will mistrust and despise you at first, no doubt. But you will make them love you. That is why. Now, do not make me explain myself further. You will take the second host.”

“There are other options—”

“Enough!” Maedhros shouted, then nervously glanced at the tent’s thin walls. His hand trembled. With lowered voice, he said, “You suffocate me, that is why. Your displays of remorse shame me.”

With this confession, all the defiance burning in Maglor’s breast turned to ash. How long? he thought. How long have you wished to be rid of me?

“As you command,” he muttered, and sank down onto an upturned crate. He let his head drop between his shoulders.

A moment later a triangle of sunlight sliced across the ground, shadowed down the middle, and the voice of Maedhros’ High Captain hailed them.

“Captain Lisgon. What is the news?” Maedhros said, steady, the heat of his voice contained.

“My lords,” the Captain nodded twice, acknowledging Maglor also, and stepped aside to reveal the man who accompanied him: a Green-elf, by his slight build and the lines like the veins of a leaf tattooed on his amber-brown cheeks and neck. One of few remaining who had long ago sworn fealty to Amrod and Amras.

“This is Orfion of Ossiriand,” said Lisgon. “He says that he was witness to— to the loss of the jewel, my lord.”

“Orfion," Maedhros said, as if greeting one with whom he was already acquainted. Likely he was: there were few of their followers whose names and faces Maedhros had not committed to memory. Then, forcefully, he said, "Speak."

Orfion recoiled as if struck by the command. He fell to his knees and prostrated himself. “I have betrayed my oath of fealty to your House, lord.”

Maedhros grunted, almost a laugh, and turned away. The elf tilted his face up, hands clutching at the fringes of the pelts covering the tent floor. His eyes locked onto the Maglor’s. Who could blame you? Maglor thought, watching the elf’s terror turn to confusion. Any fool would have broken an oath to the monsters Amrod and Amras had become.

“My brothers whom you served are dead,” Maedhros said slowly. “Unless you killed them yourself, I care not. Stand and speak, soldier. What happened on the cliffs?”

Orfion scrambled to his feet. Maedhros gestured to an unoccupied crate on which he could sit, and the elf accepted with noticeable relief.

“My lords,” Orfion said, “when Lord Amras was slain on the piers by… by those of your—our—own following, lord, myself and several others of his guard, not knowing where to turn in the confusion, and wanting to bring word to Lord Amrod, escaped the battle and came to where Lord Amrod and his men were guarding against flight by the western road. But Lord Amrod already knew of his brother’s fall, though not the manner, and his eyes were hollow as if his spirit too had fled, but when he heard me speak the words, that Lord Amras had fallen by the arrows of his own men, that his body had been thrown off the quay, then his whole face burned with a fey light. He passed through the stone gate, shouting and slashing—”

“What was he shouting?” Maedhros interrupted.

“My lord?”

“My brother, what was he shouting?”

“I do not know, lord. It was in your own tongue, of which I know little—”

“You served him for four centuries, Orfion. What was he saying?”

Orfion’s tongue flickered over his lips. “About the fire on the ships, lord. He cried Umbarto.”

Maedhros drew a long breath through his nose and closed his eyes. It was how Amrod’s madness always began, since Losgar.

“Carry on,” Maedhros said.

“My lord, he flung his sword about with such abandon, such hate, that I thought he might slay one of us, or himself. But it was thus stumbling into the night outside the city that he caught sight of a small group mounting the hills in the distance. Suddenly returned to himself, Lord Amrod commanded, ‘After them!’ We gave chase, but Lord Amrod ran so swiftly, as if driven by a fire within, and the men with us were weary and injured, so that all but myself fell behind. I was with him when he caught up to those we pursued, where the hills begin to rise and drop steeply into the sea, where you saw...”

Orfion paused, working his jaw around his next words.

“It was the Lady Elwing with her children and a woman-servant and their guard. I knew him for a warrior of Gondolin by his livery. He turned to engage us, but Lord Amrod paid him no mind. Swift as a hawk, he had snatched the children before the Lady or her servant were aware of him. And dropping to his knees and holding both terrified boys to his chest he held his sword to their throats.

“‘Hand over the Silmaril and they will live,’ he said. One of the children squirmed and a line of blood bloomed wet on his throat. There was no feint in Amrod’s voice. None dared to move or speak for a long moment. Then the servant spoke first, denying that her lady had the jewel with her. Lord Amrod laughed. ‘Of course you have it,’ he replied. ‘In that box you are clutching. Was it that very same in which you smuggled our birthright out of Doriath, where my brothers died in vain? Hand it over or I will slit your children’s throats.’ But Elwing had already silenced the other woman, and she drew the necklace out of the box. I thought she might hand it over, but she clasped it about her neck.

“Its light, my lord — I could scarcely breathe for the beauty of it, and the terror of the Lady wearing it. There were tears on her face that had been hidden by the darkness, and they now shone like little streams in the moonlight. I have never feared darkness before, my lord, but I did then. I fear I will evermore shun the night, having seen that light.”

Tears had gathered in Orfion’s eyes, and he sputtered to a halt. “Please forgive me, lords, I am not one prone to weeping, but the memory— it is impossible not to weep. I do not know why.”

“I do,” said Maglor. Compassion for the simple soldier who had become entangled in their doom warred with envy: it ought to have been him there, and Maedhros, looking upon the Silmaril’s light. Maglor would not have let it slip through his hands.

Orfion collected himself. “Even Lord Amrod was struck dumb,” he said, as if in answer to Maglor’s shameful thought, “and in his moment of faltering the children nearly escaped his grasp. Elwing lurched forward then, but he clutched them closer. He bared his teeth. ‘Hand it over!’ he commanded. She did not speak. She gazed long at her children, then touched the Silmaril on her breast, and for a moment I thought she would remove it. Then a fell cold light washed over the Lady’s face, and she spoke, quiet but hard, in the tongue of Men.

“And then she turned and raced to the cliff’s edge. She leapt, and as she fell she loosed a horrible cry. The light of the jewel glowed along the precipice — and then it was gone.

“All was a confusion of shouts and fighting. The woman-servant screamed her lady’s name and ran to the cliff’s edge. The guard commanded her to stop, and there was a struggle between them — I saw little of it, for Lord Amrod had risen to his feet and held again the edge of his sword to the throat of one of the children, who stood altogether still. The other wailed, and Lord Amrod drew his dagger and swung it at him. Rising and holding both blades aloft, he cursed them, saying that he would take them both with him. And then suddenly he dropped his weapons and crouched down before them and embraced them, and he murmured that he would save them, that he would spare them the burden— the burden of living.”

Orfion choked back the last words. “Then the guard leapt at Amrod, and dragged him to his feet — but as he did, Amrod drove his dagger deep into his thigh, and the man stumbled, and Amrod dropped the dagger and seized him by the neck. ‘I do not want to kill you, old friend,’ he spat. ‘Stand down, Galdor. This is not your fight.’ Then he threw the man to the ground. Amrod turned on the children again and then — my lord, I was certain he would slay them, and I could not bear it.

“I turned on him, my lords,” said Orfion, no more than a whisper. “He was not himself, I could see no other way. But I had no chance of overpowering him. He struck my face, he cut my hand and threw me away from him, away from the children. I could not see where I had fallen. But there was the clanging of swords, and I knew the one he called Galdor had risen to fight him. They fought fiercely, well-matched as they were, all the while Amrod shouting curses, wild ravings. Then he stopped. There was a long moment when I could only hear laboured breathing. Then gurgling. Still my sight was blurred, but I turned and saw the shape of Lord Amrod folded and broken on the ground. The cut to his throat had been deep — the pale dry grass was dark with his blood.”

Orfion wept freely now. Maglor ached to weep with him but the well of his tears had run dry. They had known Amrod and Amras had died — one always felt the death of a brother, and that rending of the soul was even more potent, Maglor had now learned five times over, when one was doubly bound to his kin by oath. Amras died early in the night, at the hands of their own followers. They had not known the manner of Amrod’s death until now.

“I had loved him,” Orfion said, “him and Lord Amras. I saw them both fall, and Lord Amrod because I had failed to protect him, because I had set upon him myself. I betrayed him.”

alt=Amrod threatens Elrond and Elros by runawaymun

There was a silence. Lisgon was staring at the ground, knuckles white around his sword hilt. A grey tint had settled over Maedhros’ face. The camp noises seemed far off.

Outside the tent walls, the sun was bright and the birds twittered in mockery.

“You served him well, Orfion,” said Maedhros.

Orfion looked at him in surprise. “My lord?”

“You ensured he did not die a monster.”

Maglor looked at the ground. He could not let Maedhros see his doubt. It is what Maedhros needed to believe.

The tale-spinners had made Celegorm the villain of Doriath’s fall, and the rest of them had looked the other way as their dead brother was censured for the devastation they all had wrought. It was convenient. It was politic.

But when their youngest brothers had clamoured for blood and vengeance, and would have pursued it whether Maedhros stood with them or not, Maedhros still saw his little brothers who had done no wrong. So it was Maedhros who signed his name to their threats of violence, and Maedhros who stood at the forefront of the troops and gave the command to set fire to the perimeter and seize the boats. Maedhros who struck the first blow.

For all Maedhros’ efforts to preserve the twins’ innocence, Amrod and Amras died the villains of Sirion.

Though it cramped his heart with shame, Maglor could not bring himself to regret it. Not if it meant there was hope of forgiveness for his last living brother.

“And the children?” said Maedhros. His features brittled, fault lines slipping under the weight of memory. “Do they live?”

Of course, the children. Maglor’s shame sank deeper for the pair of twins who had escaped his thoughts altogether.

“I do not know, my lord,” Orfion said. “After the struggle between the two lords, they were gone, and the woman-servant too. The lord Galdor cried out for them, but there was no answer. He looked at me: ‘Do not follow me and I will not kill you,’ he said. Then he ran off, calling their names: ‘Gwereth! Elrond! Elros!’”

Orfion heaved a breath and looked between Maedhros and Maglor. “Thus I was able to come to you, my lords.”

“Thank you, Orfion, for your honest report. With the death of my brothers, I deem you released from your service to my House. You are free to go where you will.”

Orfion’s hands cupped his knees. “My lord, I have nowhere to go in these parts.”

Maedhros hummed in the back of his throat. “I have given all survivors of our own host and of these Havens the choice to join us in retreating East. A Silmaril is lost to the depths of the sea. Our oath binds us now to stand against Morgoth, no matter the odds. You are free to travel with us, if you wish. My brother’s host has need of guards, if you consider yourself fit for such a duty.”

Rising from the crate, Orfion said, “Lord Maedhros, Lord Maglor,” he bent twice into an awkward bow, “thank you for your mercy. I am honoured to continue to serve you in the war against the Enemy.”

Maedhros nodded. “Convene here before midday. You may leave us now.”

A taut silence followed. The names of orphaned princes hung heavily in the air: Elrond, Elros. Eluréd, Elurín.

The symmetry would make a fitting second canto to the tale of Dior’s sons that Maglor had sent singing down the rivers and through the wilds of Beleriand. How Maedhros repenting had run crying through the woods, seeking the two helpless boys; how dead Celegorm’s vengeful soldiers carried them off; how Maedhros had been in anguish when the search was given up.

All of it was true. (Save the birds: even Maglor was not so drunk on hope as to dream up a miraculous rescue by creatures of the forest. That had been the bards of west Beleriand.) The remaining sons of Fëanor had indeed grieved when they discovered the bodies of two boys frozen in the folds of an oak: they had grieved the Silmaril slipping even further from their grasp. But when none dared speak the ugly truth swaddled in a blanket of regret and repentance, omission was easy.

They were never meant to die. The blood of Lúthien had eluded them so well that death had found them before they could be made currency in the war. It had been Celegorm’s design, but they had all known. Later, when Maglor had sought to dam the flood of his brother’s guilt, Maedhros had snapped: “Make no more apologies for me! Never again will I be persuaded to employ the tactics of our Foe. We do not barter with children.”

Yet they had assailed Sirion with fire. Was that not a weapon of the Enemy?

At last Maedhros spoke, his voice heavy as if the words were dredged from a deep well of thought. “Maglor, you will return to the city and search for Elwing’s sons. Tell no one what you are doing. Ensure they are safe and unharmed.”

Maglor rose, smoothing from the edges of his mind the memory of those other children. Here was a chance for a different story.

“Yes, my lord.”

He ventured stepping closer. Close enough that he had to tilt his chin up to meet Maedhros’ eyes, close enough that he might have laid a hand on his arm, felt his pulse, felt the fear his cloaked eyes concealed. He did not.

“Maitimo,” he said. “I will find them.”

Chapter End Notes

Thank you to firstamazon and Tethys_resort for offering feedback and encouragement on this chapter. Thanks to Chestnut_pod's brilliant Elvish Name List for the names Orfion and Lisgon. Dornil and Gwereth were devised by me and I take responsibility for any misuse of language -- I like the sounds.

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