"This is a mistake."
Celegorm's terse words whispered not hours before flitted through Maedhros' mind, but grimly he steeled his will against them. They were not meant for his ears: alone within the royal tent hastily erected upon Mithrim's roaming plains he had been readying himself for his departure, yet the woven banners strung about the wide walls were not enough to dampen those ill-fated words. Hard and fast Celegorm spoke them to Maglor, the princes thought themselves concealed from casual overhearing by the thick swaddling of canvas, yet the words had still stolen to Maedhros' ears.
Over the parchment map staked to the grand table before him Maedhros glanced, his hazel eyes wandered to the three inked spires that marked the dread Thangorodrim, the infernal mountains that reared their smoking heads above Morgoth's stronghold, and the thorns of doubt pricked only deeper into his heart.
"This is nothing more than a feint," Celegorm had whispered, he had implored Maglor to see reason even as the final preparations for Maedhros' leave-taking were made. "This is a game of daggers and mirrors, and we cannot fathom what shadows lurk behind this façade. Nelyo will not see sense, he will not see the snare that loops before him; he will throw himself away upon the rash hope that a thief might relinquish that which he has stolen. This is madness, Káno, this is folly, and you must make him see it."
Maglor's reply Maedhros could not glean, and sternly he had pushed such disparaging words aside. His brothers quarrelled and champed like nervous horses at the bit, but sagely Maedhros stood amongst them, and he had swayed them to allegiance. The Moringotto's messengers he would meet in a cleft amongst the Ered Wethrin, in a hollow basin delved amid the spires of the mountains some fifty leagues north of Eithel Sirion. Once it was a site of ancient slaughters and black magic, but now he would make it a place of armistice. For it was a truce that Maedhros would bargain for, not an arrogant war waged in his father's name, and he himself would lead the Noldorin party and determine suitable conditions for negotiation.
Yet even as that resolution turned in his mind, unbidden anger churned in his blood, and hard he gripped into the edge of the table to still the shake in his fingers. The Oath, that accursed oath sworn in fey mood and wrathful flames pounded in his veins and it renounced all clemency, it thirsted for blood, it crooned for war, but Maedhros would not so easily succumb to its seduction. Strength in arms might not avail his kin in reclaiming the Silmarils; their armies reeled in the wake of his father's death, they mourned their kindred slain in the battle under the silent stars and wished no more for conflict, and Maedhros would not see the blood of his people further spilled upon capricious whim. The Oath renewed at his father's deathbed might gnaw at him, and his brothers also; it would cozen patience to careless haste, it would twist sense to base impulse, but he would not fall prey to its demands.
He would not pay its blood-tithe.
Fëanor's son he was, though his mother's noble spirit oft tempered his moods, but by it he was diminished in neither pride nor courage, and though sorrow for his father's death wore at him, it would not be his master. Boldly he had assumed his father's crown, and grievous tears had spilled down his cheeks as his brothers had proclaimed him their lord. Amid wreckage and steaming ruin he had ascended to a precarious throne, but though grief wore at him, he would do what he must for his people. He had led them from that battle, stricken and stained, he had led them through a night that blotted out even the spangled stars above with its smoke and its horror, and upon the western plains of Mithrim he had seen them regrouped. About the shores of a great lake he had brought them to safety within these hostile lands, and he would do so again.
His brothers fretted as he had armed himself: Caranthir rumbled out his worries as a squire garbed Maedhros in a magnificent breastplate of burnished steel, Curufin scowled down at Huan flopped by his feet as Maedhros tightened the gleaming bracers upon his arms and rolled out his shoulders within his newly smelted pauldrons. Amras held tightly to little Celebrimbor curled up and dozing in his lap, and Celegorm stood tightly at his side, worrying at the cuticle of his nail until Maedhros was sure that he must have torn it beyond all repair. Finally Maglor ceased his worrisome pacing, the rhythmic tread of his steps had sent a faint tinge of nausea rolling through Maedhros' stomach; he passed Maedhros his sword sheathed within its ornate scabbard, and with every ounce of willpower in him Maedhros forced himself to ignore just how hard his brother's fingers were shaking.
The lantern light glinted off of the great ruby set into the sword's pommel, and it threw a lustrous scatter of reddened light across Maglor's hand as he withdrew. For one sober moment, it looked as though his knuckles were scabbed in blood.
Suavely Maedhros bade his brothers farewell, and pointedly he ignored the thickness that knotted in his voice as he took his leave of the camp. He would return, he simply promised, and as the armed retinue of his guard assembled at his back, mounted upon swift horses and clad in finest mail, under the clear sky awash with glittering stars his brothers named his words sacrosanct. He would return, they replied in kind, and their people would be made safe; Maedhros would return from this, there was simply no other way. There was no leave to consider alternative events, lest bold hearts quail where they should not.
Maedhros did not look back as he rode from the camp, as he spurred his horse into a canter up the dusty track that wound northwards across Mithrim's fields. He could not look back, not at the five of them standing there, limned in the guttering torchlight and such fragile hope. One too few, his heart chimed then, and though shame twined through his stomach with that hateful thought, he gritted his teeth against it.
Within the stirrups he rose, he touched his spurs once more to his horse's flanks and gave the beast its head, and he let the tender night wash over him as they sped away across the plains.
"Liars beget lies, Nelyo, and Morgoth's foul throne is laced with deceits."
Celegorm's words turned in his mind, but Maedhros would not allow them to daunt him. For as the ranks of his retinue formed up behind him, as Gaelor loosed his banner and Orellë sounded a triumphant horn to the skies above, as the drum of galloping hooves filled his ears, grim, unyielding resolve settled in Maedhros' stomach, and it would not be undone.
To the hollow amid the jagged crowns of the Ered Wethrin the Noldorin party came warily. A winding game-trail they followed for many hours up from the western foothills of the mountains, until at last the basin yawned wide before them, and amid the near outcrops of toothed shale and broken cliff-faces the company arraigned themselves. Lit torches studded the circumference of the hollow below, greasy flames writhed within their weathered brackets and under their fitful light Gaelor passed to Maedhros his great banner; the star of Fëanor's noble house emblazoned in silver thread upon a field of crimson and set with a glittering diamond upon each cardinal point. Maedhros would suffer no other to accompany him to the treaty itself, for so had been the Moringotto's terms, and if disquiet plagued him then he hid it well. For smoothly he nodded to his soldiery, and bade them be watchful, and grasping the banner then in one gauntleted hand he vaulted down the final crag of rock, and strode out towards the epicentre of the hollow.
Light flickered upon the eastern hillside, and indistinct scatters of conversation borne upon the breeze belied Morgoth's retinue shrunken into the rocks there, yet as Maedhros walked out so too did the enemy's envoy. A sallow-skinned uruk strode forth, clad for war in blackened plate steel, a scimitar at its belt and a mighty helm upon its head, and as they met both parties staked their banners proudly into the ground. Fëanor's star blazed in the torchlight, and incandescent it seemed, radiant and gleaming, and before it the sable banner of Angband hung, a black field that yielded nothing, like a void ripped open amid the fabric of the world and clotted with shadows. Beneath such mighty heraldry Maedhros and the uruk greeted each other cordially, yet cold and haughty were their countenances, and in an archaic, corrupt tongue of the forsaken West the uruk laid bare its master's treatise.
Armoured fingers gripped tightly to bowstrings, swords hissed partway free of their scabbards as the Noldorin party watched the proceedings keenly; knuckles whitened as for a moment Maedhros recoiled, but as the taut seconds tricked by, no weapon was yet drawn. More easily then rested the retinue's hearts as their lord swept the russet hair from his face, and it tumbled like a torrent of flame down his back as Maedhros staked out his terms in refute. Ever the party was alert; the air of the hollow was close, thickened with the memories of black deeds and treacheries, it snatched at the throat with a noisome vapour. The craggy outcrops of rock that encircled them seemed all too much like broken teeth howling up at the sky, and their lord and the envoy but fleeting prey in the stone mouth of a leviathan.
For nigh unto an hour Maedhros spoke with Morgoth's vassal. The discourse reeled and spun between them, trickeries were unwoven and ambiguities razed, yet at last it seemed that Maedhros had the mastery, and the uruk's terms were peeled back to their barest bones. Ever Maedhros spoke cautiously; each shift of the uruk's burly shoulders reminded him of his peril, each sweeping gesture or too-breathy snarl sent a sharp pulse of readied adrenaline spiralling through his veins, but tightly he held himself in check. For all his suspicions it seemed the uruk spoke earnestly, no trace of a lie could he sense within its guttural tones, and its dismay as he whittled down its audacious proposals seemed starkly genuine, yet remorselessly Maedhros pressed his advantage. His people's safety he would ensure; that accord was paramount, and to that the uruk was grudgingly agreeable. Yet to all entreaties regarding custody of the Silmarils it remained coyly mute, and the first murmurs of unease scratched beneath Maedhros' skin at the evil look growing in its piggish eyes. The stars wheeled and burned in silent witness far above, and at last a halting accord was made, and though the uruk huffed and growled and balked at the steep terms offered, finally it offered its gloved palm in guise of friendship.
Graciously Maedhros stepped forward, yet even as his hand crossed the uruk's, the bellow of a deep-throated bugle crashed out from behind a spur of rock, and Maedhros' bold heart sank to his stomach. For as he leaned forward black malice glittered suddenly in the uruk's eyes, serrated fangs were bared in some hideous rictus of merriment, of mockery, and the uruk's fingers clamped like a vice about Maedhros' wrist. A dreadful heartbeat passed; the mountains seemed to quiver in the wake of that awful horn-call, but then a clamour took up from the eastern fells, red flares fizzed and sparked, and foul voices cried out, and drums pounded out their wrath as a great host of mailed orcs poured forth, and Maedhros knew that he was betrayed.
A roar of anger arose from the Noldorin party; it crested even to the pinnacles of the hills as ignited in their fury the elves leaped forward, bright weapons in their hands and wrath scored in their hearts. Arrows thrummed through the air; a crude, raven-fletched shaft scudded not two inches from Maedhros' side to bury itself into the dirt at his feet, and instinctively he flinched away from it even as the uruk grappled him aside. Hard it wrenched at his wrist, muscle and bone squealed their protest as almost beyond endurance they were twisted, yet through that hideous, grinding pressure somehow Maedhros endured, and with his left hand he grasped frantically for the hilt of the knife concealed at the small of his back.
A sheen of panicked, hurting sweat beaded across his brow, the uruk's grip upon him was remorseless as it sought to heave him bodily about; it felt as though his very armour might be sheared in two under those biting fingers, but though pain flared up his arm Maedhros wrenched himself aside. Dust billowed about the heel of his boot as it skidded across the dirt, the uruk bellowed out its hatred as fleetly Maedhros turned, and after one brutal, scuffling moment of torsion, he drove the knife to its hilt within the uruk's neck. Dark, hot blood spurted through Maedhros' fingers, it soaked through his glove, and for one horrific moment it seemed as though everything was shocked into stillness; the wet gurgle upon the uruk's lips, the gleam of polluted blood in the ruddy torchlight, the slackening of muscles and the juddering twitch of the uruk's body in its death throes, and the promises that shrivelled upon its lips as it fell.
For a moment Maedhros stood as one stricken dumb; shock and hurt and senseless, numbing adrenaline pounded in his veins, the uruk shuddered and died at his feet, but scarcely had he time to draw breath anew before a cacophony of sound engulfed him, and something yanked him sharply backwards.
Embossed shields and the close cluster of bodies enveloped him; metal grated against metal and shone bloody in the light, as into the tight knot of his guards Maedhros was pressed and they swiftly closed rank about him. As a grim battalion beneath Fëanor's banner they stood, shielded and armed, and as the blankness of shock drained from their lord, as grisly clarity blared its warning in his mind hurriedly Maedhros regained himself, and he bade them stand firm. For upon the eastern hill wild flames leapt; orcs scuttled like black cockroaches issuing from their holes, chitinous and legion, and amid them stalked demons of flame. The Valaraukar were come, monstrous and looming like great pillars of smoke and ruin, and in their hands were wielded flails and cruel spurs, axes and broadswords that dripped oily flames to sizzle upon the stones below. Among them one stood tallest, hulking amid the twilight as some unclean thing birthed from an abhorrent womb, and at his roar the orcs surged forward over the hollow.
Fury swelled in Maedhros' heart as he saw their lines break into a sprint, the outrage of betrayal squalled in his veins but tightly he gripped to it, he mastered it, and as Fëanor's son revealed in the fey glory of his wrath he drew his sword, and aloud he cried: "Hold fast! Ortaerë, mehtarnya! Ortaerë!"
A slim volley of arrows peppered the oncoming tide of orcs, but they made pitifully little impact amid their black legions, and with the tangible crunch of metal slammed into metal the orcs crashed down upon the Noldorin ranks. Hard they fought; wanton in savagery and unmatched in skill, and with Fëanor's mighty star blazing above them the elves rallied to their cause, and undaunted they held their formation. Black ichor steamed upon Maedhros' blade as he cleaved an orcish skull in two, before slashing hard to his right and sweeping free a scant measure of room before his besieged companion, and the elf at his side scrambled backwards to recover himself as the next foe surged forward. Blades snapped and wheeled, the ground below their feet became slurried with turgid blood and foul, orcish fluids, but though valiant, the Noldor's stand was not without loss.
Frantically Maedhros twisted past the orcish dart that not seconds before would have embedded itself in his throat, yet behind him came a shriek; and Maedhros whirled as Laerufin staggered, as his friend clawed at the arrow buried to its fletch within his eye socket. Viscera melted down his face like thick, globulous tears, white and clouded and awash with red, a watery spray of vitreous fluid pulsed through his fingers before he crumpled to the dirt below, and horror reeled in Maedhros' heart. Adrenaline slammed through his veins, it clenched through muscle and instinctively bade him move, and with a savage, unseeing sneer he thrust his sword clean through the belly of an uruk who swung at him. But with the tremendous force of that motion too slow he came to balance once more; a flaming axe hewed through Celairon's thigh at his side, it sheared through armour and bone alike as if they were butter; and scorching blood splattered over Maedhros' side as helplessly he watched his friend fall.
One by one they were slain; the Noldor's tight defensive knot frayed as the orcs gnawed at it, as the Valaraukar unravelled it; and Maedhros screamed out his hatred as he felt the rush of sundered fëar envelop him, and loathing bubbled in him that his friends might have been defiled so cruelly. For how dare the Moringotto think to cross him; viciously he decapitated the squat orc who leapt at him and sent its grotesque skull tumbling; how dare Morgoth renege upon his vows, how dare he lull the Noldor to their slaughter like some craven, honourless dog; and as the warm splatter of orcish ichor drenched him, a feral snarl ripped across Maedhros' face.
Unearthly fury burst through his veins, he slammed his fist into a gnashing mouth, and as he felt teeth snap and bones crumple beneath his knuckles how he revelled in the sting of it. Some vestige of his father's puissant spirit seemed to grip him then, it hallowed him in its wrath, and as a Noldorin lord fully come to the height of his power he scythed through the orcish ranks. Anger ran thick as blood upon his sword; a howl ripped from his lungs as he smashed aside the club of some leering uruk, as he plunged his blade clean through its mailed chest; and though his company fought and screamed and dwindled about him, Maedhros the orcs could not touch.
Yet all too soon he felt that unearthly haze of anger slip from him; his breath came tight and fast through gritted teeth as he shoved aside a howling orc, his arms trembled with fatigue, but adrenaline yet spurred him onwards, and he would not allow himself to succumb. Hastily he rallied to himself what remnants of his guard remained, and at his cry they assembled himself into a bristling phalanx, a bright clutch of silver armour amid a sea of boiling pitch. Shields locked in grim formation, their boots scraped defiant furrows into the wetted soil as the orc threw themselves upon their barricade, yet none might penetrate it, and as a fortified company they began to cut themselves free of the slaughter. Too many had fallen; the warning blared through Maedhros' mind as he stabbed through a narrow slot of the shields, too many lay gasping or sightless upon the churned dirt, but fiercely Maedhros held his nerve, and as one the Noldor made their steady retreat. A hail of arrows clattered down upon them, one whipped past Maedhros' face as he ducked beneath his companion's shield, yet in those taut, breathless moments, the hammer stroke fell the hardest.
Great flails of fire scythed out across the soil, they snared about the legs of the defenders and ripped them asunder, and in shrieks of agony and the sear of bubbling metal the phalanx collapsed to its ruin. A flare of red light blossomed to Maedhros' left, and desperately he tumbled aside of the whip that sought to grasp him; his shoulder and back crunched into the soil as he dove to his side, but a devastating arc he cleaved about himself with his sword as swiftly he righted himself once more. Howls of glee echoed in his ears as his party was savaged, the breath jerked into his lungs as clarity crashed down upon him; there were too many orcs, there were too many, the field was lost; Gaelor fell with a cruel dagger skewered through his throat, and cold dismay clove through Maedhros' heart. Quickly he ducked the axe sent swinging towards his head, with one agile twist he sent his assailant flailing to the dirt below him, but even as the orc fell he glimpsed the company that lurked behind it, an evil light in their eyes and eager weapons in their hands.
A savage pike-thrust he swiftly turned, the blade skidded upon his sword's tang with the rending squeal of metal upon metal, yet into the momentum of that parry he twisted himself. The heel of his boot scored a crescent furrow into the bloodied soil, and aside of the advancing orcs then he leapt, he launched into a desperate sprint towards the ragged few of his kinsmen left standing. Over bodies dead and slowly dying he vaulted, the hilt of his sword he smashed into the face of a howling orc that ran at him, but through those frantic seconds lost horror bled through him as not five metres before him Rirlossë staggered backwards from a brutish uruk, her shattered arm clutched to her chest, and a keen of anguish upon her lips. And how fiercely Maedhros dove forwards then, he hefted his sword and clove clean through the uruk's corded neck; he yanked his blade free of the uruk's twitching body and ran towards his friend left spluttering amid the broken ground.
Too late he came to see the deft scimitar that slashed across his belly; it was only the craftsmanship of his cuirass that saved him from being eviscerated then and there, too late he came to parry that awful blow before the air came smashing out of his lungs. His sword skittered awkwardly upon an uruk's scimitar as it lunged for him once more, pain bruised across his abdomen from the dread concussion of that blow, but a swift, dirty kick to the back of his knees sent him toppling. And in those clotted, viscous seconds he couldn't breathe; Rirlossë was hewn in a steaming arc of blood before him and he couldn't scream, he couldn't save her, he couldn't move. His lungs seemed paralysed in his chest, his right hand scrabbled for grip upon his sword as he saw the uruk come to stand before him, but too slow, too slow; panic hammered in his veins, instinct shrieked at him to move, but left winded and gasping, helpless he was to dodge the kick that slammed into his guts.
The impact of it left him gagging; agony roared through his stomach, through his chest, but in the wake of its heat something seemed to unlock within him, a whooping cough of air punched back into his lungs, and he jerked back into motion once more. Desperately, clumsily he threw himself aside as an orc swung at him with a cleaver, his fingers closed about the hilt of his sword, and though every muscle in him ached he clambered to his feet once more. Hard he panted; his hair tumbled in a messy russet straggle down his back; his lips twisted into a feral snarl as the orcs fanned out before him, and an awful cry rang out over the hollow.
"Take him alive!"
The Balrog captain's bellow seemed to reverberate through the very earth, and dread spilled through Maedhros' innards.
They could not take him, they could not; the consequences of such an abhorrence would be unthinkable, and so they would not, they would not take him alive, they would not lay so much as a filthy finger upon him. For once more Maedhros rallied himself, rage erupted through his heart, and laced with the first quivers of fear it spurred him to move. A bestial howl tore from him as he twisted aside the javelin thrust at his side, the crash of his elbow sent the weapon's shaft splintering as in its wake he darted forward, he smashed his bracer into his opponent's cheek and all too satisfying was the wet crunch of bone beneath his arm. Yet scarcely had he drawn breath anew when another orc swung at him, his heart pounded a dark tattoo within his chest as with a shrill clatter of blades he parried it, and the maelstrom of strokes that fell behind it, yet dismay tangled about him as in those precious, futile seconds he sensed the thick crowd of orcs begin to truly encircle him.
Furiously he fought; they would not take him, they would not take him, the thought screeched through his head as his boots skidded through a mire of blood, but as a fiery whip suddenly cut towards his head, in that terrible instant he came undone.
For even as he ducked the blow, a steel-capped boot slammed into the back of his thigh, a dagger scored across his breastplate and under their combined onslaught he stumbled, his knee twisted awkwardly beneath him as he lurched to regain his balance. Yet even as he struggled to right himself clawed hands came down upon him, gnarled fingertips gripped about his shoulders, his arms; vile fingers wrested his sword from his hand, and though he thrashed and spat in their tightening grip, his efforts were in vain. Hard his legs were kicked out from under him, his knees crashed helplessly to the mud, and the blunt impact of a boot to his groin set him retching on nothing but acrid bile.
To the ground they wrestled him; they slammed his face into the befouled soil, and yet more of them piled atop him as he spluttered. The press of them was suffocating, hot and scrabbling and foul; dirt grated over his cheek, pink abrasions tore across his skin amid the filth that coated him, but panic bolted through his veins, and desperately he kicked out. A grimace contorted his bloodied face, he writhed and shook with every ounce of terrified strength that he had left to him, and a bellow of rage loosed from his throat as suddenly he tore his right arm free of their grip. Hard he kicked out then, his boot clanged off of chainmail armour but even that stunted momentum was enough, and with a colossal effort of will he lunged up to smash his fist into an orcish face, and desperately he tried to roll himself away. But such boldness was cruelly rewarded; meaty fingers knotted through his hair and wrenched him upwards, russet locks flowed like tongues of flame through fingernails slaked in gore, and like a puppet dragged by sadistic strings he was heaved up to his knees. Iron hands clamped down about his shoulders, he bucked and screamed against the press of them as with near bone-breaking force they wrenched his arms behind him, and horror seethed in his heart as he felt bonds of cord being looped about his struggling wrists.
"No!" he screamed, though pain raced through him panic lent strength to his movements, and near blind with fear he tore against the orcs that held him. "No," he spat; he grunted and shook as a savage jerk upon his hair pulled him up short, and those hateful fingers only grasped him the tighter. "No, no, let me go! Let me go!"
"Bind him tightly, now," a Valarauka boomed, and the orcs seemed set aflame to hear their commander's encouragement.
Frenzied hands clutched to him; shrill panic trembled in Maedhros' throat, anger and terror waged their devastating war within him but through filth-stained lips he screamed, "Stop! Stop, let me go! Let me go!"
Ugly, jeering laughter broke in his ears, the cord about his wrists was knotted cruelly tight, and near incoherent with rage and horror Maedhros bucked, he thrashed and squirmed and spat, "Fuck you! Fuck you, let me go! Let me – "
The blunt impact of an axe-shaft slammed into his solar plexus sent stars scattering across his vision, and severed his shriek in one wet, choking cough. Breath rattled into his lungs; deathly torpor for a moment gripped him, it slackened muscle and deadened nerves, but even as he spluttered and retched, even as choking tears blurred over his eyes the orcs grappled him and hauled him to his feet. Coarse hands shoved him forwards, he shied and kicked and spat with every ounce of breathless determination in him, but as he stumbled amid the mangled ground the orcs only dragged him onwards, towards the eastern hills and the flames that roiled there.
The clamour of battle dwindled to the mournful keens of the dying, but in his fear Maedhros scarcely heard them. Before three monstrous Valaraukar he was dragged, and four burly uruks held him fast as their flame-filled eyes appraised him.
The heat of them was terrible; greasy rills of fire dripped from their broad wings outstretched in the gloom, and their bodies crawled with smouldering embers of flame. One amid them stood tallest; the crushing malice of him was as a tangible force, and rage boiled in Maedhros' heart as he recognised the hideous horns that curled from the Balrog's scalp. Gothmog it was who stood before him; dread commander of the Umaiar, usurpers and betrayers all, the one whose whip had sliced through his father's cuirass, who had lacerated his fair face with its spray of fire, the one who condemned his father to death. The desperate reality of his situation sank like skewering thorns through his heart, but as the air scorched through his lungs still he twisted in the uruks' grip, and before the Valaraukar's loathsome feet Maedhros spat, "Fuck you! Fuck you and your vile kindred, demons! Let me go! Let me go, or – "
A brutal clout across his face sent the words spinning from his mouth; it sent his head reeling, and himself lolling back into the uruks' grip. A fiery sneer clove across a Valarauka's face, the one upon the left with a broken horn and a scarred chest, and menacingly it growled as it stepped back into line behind its captain. The flames about them shimmered as a sickly, blurred halo in Maedhros' eyes, they refracted and spun dizzyingly before him as Gothmog quickly nodded, and sharp sensation shook him back to clarity as he felt the grainy knot of a cloth gag being worked against his lips. Desperately he fought against it, blood frothed crimson upon his lips as he clamped his jaw shut, as he grunted through gritted teeth that felt loosened in their sockets from that horrific blow. An uruk's fingers dug agonisingly hard into his cheeks, they crushed into raw, traumatised skin, and wordlessly Maedhros screamed as he felt his jaw at last pried open, and his protests were severed into warped, guttural groans as the cloth gag muted him.
His heartbeat seemed all too loud in his ears; horror blazed in him as he felt the gag fastened cuttingly tight at the back of his head, and Gothmog rumbled something in a scraping, foreign tongue to the uruks that held him. The last thing that Maedhros saw was the triumphant leer of an orc captain as a thick cloth hood was roughly shoved over his head and fastened securely at his throat, and fear stole the strength from his limbs as a raucous chorus of voices erupted around him.
The Balrogs roared out their orders in some harsh tongue, and then again, and Maedhros froze as he recognised the lilting patterns of corrupt Quenya amid their dark tones.
"We march east," a deep voice bellowed, and Maedhros flinched in horror as he felt himself passed between the company of uruks, they pushed him about as if he was nothing more than a rag doll until a fresh set of hands grasped him firmly, and miserably he stilled within them. "Collect what treasures you may from the field, but the elf's sword and banner I claim in tribute to our lord. Make haste, we march with the shadows!"
The scuffle of bodies pressed close about him; the blank darkness of the hood was so awfully disorienting, but sharply Maedhros cried out behind the gag as suddenly he was pushed forwards. Stern hands locked about his arms and though he tugged and twisted against them he was forced to walk, bound and blinded and onwards into darkness.
"Slay any left alive!" A thin voice barked behind him, and with its words and the roar of orcish glee that met them, blank despair crested in Maedhros' heart as he was led away. "Leave the dead to rot."
The hot, frightened pants of his own breath were all that Maedhros knew to be certain; everything else was but some hideous dream painted in sore, tired flesh, a dream from which he could not awaken. For how many miles the orcs had dragged him, had pushed him this way and that and growled at him to walk, he did not know; time and footsteps blurred into an aching monotony from which there was no respite. Muted and blind they led him, and though the orcs were not careless, neither were they kind. Rough hands gripped about his shoulders and yanked him aside when the terrain shifted, his boots scrabbled for purchase upon the broken shale as slowly they began to descend, and through the panicked clutter of his thoughts Maedhros guessed that they wound now across the easternmost slopes of the Ered Wethrin, and down to the sparse plains of Ard-galen below. His bound hands dragged painfully at his bonds as the treacherous ground slid beneath him, as for a few nauseating seconds he felt himself begin to truly slip, but each time he was swiftly steered about, and an orcish snarl broke through the claustrophobic confines of the hood about his face and bade him walk onwards.
His legs ached beneath him as for what seemed a slow eternity they trekked; the ground undulated sharply beneath him, and as the flurried adrenaline of battle drained away, as blank shock began to bite more often he stumbled, and with lessening patience the orcs righted him. Desperately he tried not to flinch as their hands grappled him, he tried not to whimper behind that foul gag as the horror of his situation seeped through him, but he could not stifle his squeak of alarm as his ankle caught upon a jutting spur of rock, and helplessly bound he toppled.
Pain flared across his knee as awkwardly he fell, he could feel the wet slick of blood blossoming even from behind the protection of his sturdy poleyns, and in the brief moment before an uruk grasped for him, he ground his knee into the rock. A dark smear of blood he daubed there, and some tiny shred of hope ignited in his heart even as he was pushed on into darkness.
Turko would find him, he thought to himself; the words danced like a frantic, fragile prayer through his head, and viciously he clutched to them, to the one slender lifeline amid the chasm of despair that reeled open before him. Turko would find him, and Pityo would be at his side; there were no hunters more skilled among the Noldor. Even amid the trackless mountains his brothers were adept, and Huan was relentless in pursuit of prey once scented by blood. Turko would find him, he had to. He had to.
The words flitted through his mind like some sick, crooning lullaby. Turko would find him, and Káno would take him home.
Tears prickled behind Maedhros' eyes as hours later he was pulled to a stumbling, exhausted halt, but frantically he blinked them away. Muffled shouts filtered to him through the thick hood, garbled snarls in some guttural tongue bounced about him, and at this break from the weary dullness of the march his straying thoughts quickly sharpened once more. Rank sweat plastered his dishevelled hair across his cheeks, a ribbon of drool dripped humiliatingly from his lips pried open about that aching gag, each sticky press of the hood to his face hissed across abraded skin, yet desperately he tried to ignore the hurts that plagued him and to focus upon the commotion of sound that whirled about him. Warily he listened to each foreign voice, and dread clenched in his stomach at what their words might portend.
His legs trembled with fatigue; his fingers twitched weakly within the bonds that cut painfully into his wrists, and violently he started as without warning he was pushed to his left, and forced to march some short distance across crunching, gravelled soil. Abruptly then he was halted, jabbering voices swirled about him, and a whimper flickered in his throat as he felt new hands close upon him. Harsh fingers fumbled with the straps of his bracers, with the buckles that secured his cuirass; he squirmed as hands groped between his thighs to unfasten his cuisses, but a sharp cuff to his shoulder stilled such protests, and hatefully he endured their touch. They stripped him of his armour, and as the cold mountain air lapped over him he shivered in his sweat-stained shirt and breeches, and a grunt of surprise punched out over the gag as suddenly he felt the bonds at his wrists sliced away.
For a moment he staggered; hot tongues of pain lapped up his arms left cramped and aching from so long in confinement, but before he could take so much as a step the orcs seized him once more, and in one disorienting arc spun him about. Sharply they ripped the gauntlets from his hands, a solid nudge to his legs bade him sit, and with that forcible motion his back thudded uncomfortably up against a sturdy post sunk into the ground. Dismay coiled in his heart as they took his arms once more and bound his wrists cruelly tight about the wooden pillar. The sickly air within the hood was stifling, it stung across the tender flesh of his cheek, and despite himself he whined as he realised that it would not be removed. The orcish voices receded, and left him alone with nothing but the darkness and his nervous thoughts for company.
Time blurred into a nightmarish morass upon the borders of exhausted sleep and grim waking; phantoms danced and jeered and crooned through his mind, and suddenly Maedhros was in his youth once more. The high walls of his father's forge reared up about him, the furnace glowed ruddy and hot, and a baby bird was in his hand. Its rumpled feathers were matted in crimson gore, weakly it cheeped as he cradled it within his palms; tears had streaked down his face as he had brought it to his father, as he had for begged him to heal it, to save it. Sternly his father had looked at him, at the ruined, struggling thing in his hands, but whatever his father had said then was lost in the bestial roar of the furnaces, in the bellowing tempest of superheated air and his thin cry amid them.
His father had snapped the bird's neck across his anvil.
Maedhros' head lolled down onto his chest as exhaustion stole through him, the tightness of the gag tore at his lips and sent waves of such horrible pressure throbbing through his head. Despair clawed at his heart as for what felt like the thousandth time he squirmed within his bonds, he near ripped his wrists bloody in his attempts to free them, but such efforts were made in vain.
Horror bucked unbidden through his veins; frustrated, frightened tears prickled in his eyes, and he no longer had the strength to stop them falling. They carved their hot, stinging tracks down his cheeks; the breath seemed to clot in his throat as the blackness of the hood became strangling. The tumble of his thoughts he could no longer quieten with platitudes. Turko could not find him, the mountains were a maze of canyons and rock-falls and in them he was lost, Huan would whine and sniff but he could not find the scent, Pityo could not sense him; Turko could not find him and Káno wouldn't come, and –
Approaching feet scuffed amid the dirt some metres from where Maedhros sat, and quickly he stifled the sob that caught in his throat as coarse, muttering voices neared him. Every muscle in him clenched as those mutters only came louder, bolder; instinctively he flinched as gravel pattered over the tip of his boot, but from despair glowed anger, and it burned afresh in his veins. Though bound and blinded, he was yet a lord, he was Fëanor's son, and he would not quail in the face of his captors.
"All that effort for this miserable pig?" A sneering voice whined before him, and Maedhros started as amid the slurred intonations of misshapen lips, he recognised the corrupt, basal form of archaic Quenya, and the orc's crude words seared through him. "Nar, should've gutted him in the hollow, left him red and gasping with the rest of them."
"Spilled 'is entrails through the dirt an' made 'im lick 'em up!"
"Painted them across his pretty face, hmm, and made him crawl in the mud where he belongs!"
A tangle of voices jeered, and rigidly Maedhros held himself still as their scorn crashed down upon him.
"Crawl, little piggy," one gloated; a thick, drooling note to its voice. "Then maybe we could've opened him up, eh? Had a little bit of fun?"
Dark, ugly laughter echoed in Maedhros' ears; he near shook with abhorrence as that vile insinuation was laid bare before him. It was evil, it was sick, and tightly Maedhros gripped to his outrage to stifle the awful, cramping fear that pulsed beneath it.
"Y'hear that, snaga," a deep voice growled, and an iron-shod boot clipped into the side of Maedhros' thigh an instant later. "My boys should 'ave their fun with you. Such troubles we took with you, you might give us a little pleasure in return…"
Horror clove through Maedhros' heart as he felt the orcs press forward, desperately he bucked as he felt the flush of hot breath upon him, he kicked and squirmed and screamed behind the gag as fingers locked about his ankles, as they began to pull his legs apart –
"Away, Dagmur!"
The bellow seemed to reverberate through the very stones, and Maedhros near sobbed with relief as he felt himself relinquished, and the orcs stepped back from him in dismay. His heart hammered within his chest, nausea squirmed in his stomach as the breath skidded back into his lungs, and as tightly as he could manage he curled himself up to ward off whatever new evil might approach him.
"Why, Captain?" the deep voice called, and a chorus of snarls accompanied it. "He is a slave, for so we've captured him. We cannot take our sport with him?"
"He is not yours to despoil." The rumbling baritone of a Valarauka broke through the growls and mutters that heralded it. "He belongs to our lord, and I will see him delivered whole and un-abused, not torn bloody by your snivelling rabble. You answer to me, Dagmur, and I will have my captives treated with dignity, no matter how much it thwarts your desires."
"What dignity does this scum deserve?" the orc sneered. "Filthy snaga…"
"To your posts, now!" the captain thundered; a blast of heat shimmered through the air as it roared: "Else I will have you flayed for insubordination, you and your miserable company alike!"
A dissenting grumble rolled through the orcs, but slowly they shuffled off, and relief poured through Maedhros' heart as he heard them depart. Yet setting towards him then he heard the heavy tread of the captain; unseen things crunched to the stones by his side, and swiftly he steeled himself, he drew to himself whatever shreds of lordliness he had left and thrust them out before him like a shield.
The hood was ripped from his head in one quick jerk; torchlight blazed in his eyes and set speckled ghosts of light flashing across his vision, and dizzily Maedhros turned his head aside. Matted strands of hair plastered over his cheeks and neck; foul, drying saliva crusted over his chin, but as the crisp mountain air flooded into his lungs somehow it helped to steady him. Mustering himself, he squinted against the blinding glare of the torch laid nearby, and his eyes fell upon his captor squatting by his side. But even through his apprehension, surprise washed through him, for it seemed almost as though an elf sat beside him, a thickly muscled ner made warped by some slow geological cataclysm. Skin black as molten pitch gleamed in the light, and curled horns sprouted from his captor's temples to curl through hair that licked and danced with tongues of flame. Rivulets of fire cracked like turgid veins up the bared skin of its arms, alike to chasms of magma splintered though ash-blasted soil, and its yellow eyes roiled with a greasy, unquiet light as it gazed back at him.
Gothmog clad in humanoid fána sat before him, or so Maedhros guessed from the curl of his horns, and bitterness dredged through his heart as he recalled all the evils that the Balrog had inflicted upon his kindred. Acrimony scoured through him, and he turned his head aside, and spitefully he stared out at the backs of the orcish war-tents that clustered together some twenty paces from him, their blank rawhide canvas exiling him to the very outskirts of their camp.
One thick finger the Balrog extended, and stoically Maedhros endured the heat that brushed over his face with its passing, until suddenly the creature tapped upon the cloth gag between his parted lips.
"Scream," Gothmog murmured, firmly yet not unkindly, "and you will wish that you had not."
A terse moment of silent passed, but as pain throbbed dully through Maedhros' jaw, stiffly he nodded. Gothmog leaned cautiously forward then, and with surprising tenderness unpicked the knot behind his head, and worked the damp cloth free from his lips. Maedhros moaned in relief as the gag finally slipped loose; his jaw spasmed and ached as he flexed it, as he swallowed down the sour sheen of congealed saliva that seemed to coat his tongue in grit. Alertly the Balrog watched him, but as the seconds passed and Maedhros showed no signs of crying out, the Valarauka laid the gag aside, and took up a leather skin of water from the gravel by his neatly crossed legs.
Scorned pride stung in Maedhros' veins as the nozzle of the skin was pressed to his lips, the Balrog's warm knuckle tilted his chin as if he were some recreant child to be made obedient, but gratefully he drank, and the cool water soothed the filth of the trail from his mouth. He grimaced as Gothmog withdrew the skin, but as the Balrog then took up a bowl of dark, chunky stew Maedhros stared at him in confusion.
"Here," the Valarauka said, absently stirring the stew with a spoon. "Eat."
A sudden pang of hunger twisted through Maedhros' stomach, but haughtily he lifted his head, and with as much defiance as he could push into his voice he replied, "I do not want it… Not from you!"
"It will be kinder from me than from the others, I promise you that."
The blunt tone of knowing Gothmog's voice sent spears of foreboding lancing through Maedhros' heart. For a moment then he wavered: the rich scent of the stew sent hunger cramping through his innards, and though it felt like a betrayal, it felt like a surrender, at last he nodded. He suffered the Balrog to press the spoon to his lips, though his fingers twitched feebly within his bonds as he longed to be freed. As if he were no more than an animal made lame and helpless the Valarauka fed him, but though that degradation stormed through him, still he accepted each spoonful of warm stew past his trembling jaw.
Eventually Maedhros finished the bowl, and as the broth settled like a fortifying, invigorating weight into his stomach, softly he murmured, "Water… p-please…"
Patiently the Balrog lifted the skin to him once more, and gratefully he drained it. Somewhat refreshed then he shifted himself slightly, the heels of his boots crunched as they slid across the gravel, and he pushed himself a little more upright against the wooden post that crushed between his shoulder-blades. Gothmog watched his motions neutrally, but as a wince crossed Maedhros' face as he settled himself, the Valarauka reached for the gag once more.
"Wait!" Maedhros croaked; the words sounded pathetic even in his own ears but still he spoke them to keep that awful gag from his lips. "Wait… you… You're taking me to him, aren't you? To… to the Moringotto, to Angband…"
Solemnly the Balrog nodded: and as the confirmation of that horrible truth crashed down upon him in all its undeniable clarity something in Maedhros' chest seemed to buckle. Horror flooded through him afresh, fear and hatred and such bitter fury swelled in his heart, and as angry tears glossed over his eyes savagely he blinked them away.
"Please," he whimpered, and how he hated himself for it; he hated that he subjected himself to this creature, he hated that he begged for its mercy, he cursed every blind, arrogant, stupid decision that had cast down him so low, but still the words poured from him. "Please, please just let me go… Release me, and… "
"And what?" the Balrog murmured, and the soft rue in its tone only stripped bare the cruelty of its truths. "Your bargains are empty, Noldo. As the soldiery might not take their pleasures with you, your freedom is not mine to barter."
A hitching sob caught in Maedhros' throat, despairing tears blurred in his eyes, and to his utter abhorrence he felt the gag pressed to his lips once more. Beseechingly he whined, he shook and twisted and grunted but with appalling ease the Balrog held him still, and slipped the cloth behind his teeth. Defeated tears trickled down his bruised cheeks, through eyes limned in swollen, reddened flesh Maedhros watched as the Valarauka checked his bonds once more, and then silently withdrew. His cloven feet left blackened marks singed into the gravel, and as the quiet snuffle of muted tears rolled through Maedhros' chest, for a moment Gothmog turned back.
"Sleep while you can, prince," he said slowly, almost sorrowfully; and his words drenched Maedhros in nothing but despair. "For my home is forged of nightmares, and you will find no rest there."
Well, I really hope you've enjoyed what you've read so far! I though a nice little battle-scene and its aftermath to get everyone warmed up... But genuinely I hope you liked it, and I hope everyone would like to read on, as I'm really excited about continuing this fic (assuming everyone doesn't suddenly turn around and go 'euuuugh no'!) Questions, comments or concerns are always welcome, either here or at the heart of my lair: .com
Thanks for reading thus far, and with any luck I shall update speedily(ish). Yours, theeventualwinner x