Chapter 2: Savior and salvation
The wind used to be just that, wind. Now it had become so much more, a terrible enemy none had expected, more vicious than any beast and way more dangerous. It tore through their clothing, turned exposed flesh into ice, and it never rested. It was always there, always hungry for destruction and agony and there was no protection against it. Their furs and cloaks way too thin and their bodies unaccustomed to such cold, they had never experienced it before. He sighed, the tent held little heat but it was better than nothing, it was small and humble and yet he knew that many had even less than this, and it caused him to bow his head in shame. How many had they lost so far? He had lost count of them, and it was all because of him, because they were loyal and believed in his words, and those of his accursed brother. His servant entered, the ner was shivering like a leaf in a storm, his teeth clattering. "My lord, two more have died, and we had to euthanize four more horses, the animals are starving to death my lord"
He nodded, a huge lump in his throat. They had brought provisions but it hadn't been enough, now the people tried to fill their bellies with the flesh of those poor faithful beasts who used to be like their own kin and when the last horse had died and was devoured, what then? The idea made his stomach churn. They had brought too much, and the horses were needed but there was no food there in the ice cold desert, and no shelter. The hay almost gone, and the animals as well as the elves forced to eat snow to get hydrated. Elves can survive a lot, but this sapped their strength minute by minute and the darkness, oh Eru, the darkness most of all. Had he been wrong? Was he leading his people to their doom, to a cold slow death in a place where nothing could live? He fought the terrible feeling of despair which had descended into his soul, the sorrow and the lack of hope. He was their leader, he had to stay strong for his people but it was impossible. Where was he to find strength? To find power? What was he to say to those who had lost their loved ones? Those close to dying from fatigue, starvation and cold? Oh Eru, they deserved it, that was the worst part of it. They had all chosen their fates when they chose to follow him, abandon Aman and the valar. He could still remember the harbor, still see that horrible scene of carnage, dead elves everywhere, slaughtered by their own race. It had never happened before, and for it they were cursed. So maybe it was just righteous that they all would perish in this place of ice and darkness, even the innocent, even the children. He leaned his head onto his hands, hid his face and smothered his sobs. He had to get over, if only to see his brother one more time, and tell him exactly what he had done.
Tonjar woke up after a few hours, with a terrible headache and an even more terrible attitude. He was not convinced that they were the only survivors and he was very confused and in obvious shock. Artan had to restrain him from going outside to see for himself and CeKay had also tried to calm him down. The synth had made it clear that they couldn't stay in this place, this part of the ice sheath was unstable and dangerous and cracks would open and close in minutes. She had already gone through the wreck of the jumper, and taken everything that could be used for anything, Even the wiring had been ripped out and she had poured some of the oil from the remaining systems into some empty canisters for later use. That oil did burn, and could come in handy later. She had also found sixteen power cells hidden in the remains of the back compartment, a pulse rifle and some ammo and a set of the long slightly curved knives the uurzit were so fond off. But she had found no more food, and whatever fabrics she had managed to get out of the jumper was thin and made to protect the seats during times of storage, not to provide heat. She had dug graves for the dead, in the ice. It had been a hard job but one she could do easily enough. Artan had wanted it and she had obeyed, she had no reason not to.
She knew that Artan disliked her, he didn't like synths in general and she wasn't offended by it. He shared that view with many of many races and she knew why too. The first synths had been mere machines and sometimes they would malfunction, click, go gaga. There were horror tales still of the carnage some mad synths had caused and to many the very idea of a synthetic organism was a form of blasphemy. A robot was alright, it was just a piece of metal and wires made to do a job, so were most droids but the synths, ah, they were pretending to be something most people couldn't quite comprehend. Alive and yet not born, a machine with a soul. CeKay were of a class of synths made very late in the war, in a part of the galaxy where few ventured. The quadrant had been ruled by the last remnants of the Chushrian empire and they had desperately tried to resist the constant onslaught by the talgmarians.
CeKay had never told anyone of her origin, of her past. To everybody she was a synth stolen from some military surplus storage, destined to be destroyed just because it was too many synths and it took too much time to check each and every one for faulty programming. In fact she was so much more, one of a kind. The last spark of genius from a brain superior to most others, the last remnant of a race which once ruled everywhere. The Godhay had been few even when the Chushrians rose to power but their great intelligence and their ability to transform and perfect any technology and incorporate it into their own was the stuff of legends. Some say it was a plague which wiped them out, the truth was not as mundane. The Godhay were a race obsessed with themselves, with their achievements and the things they could create and they became scattered and vulnerable. And the war started claiming lives, many lives. In the end only a very few remained, the last of a race capable of transforming the universe into an oasis of peace and prosperity but unfortunately seduced by their own might. Even the powerful can die, and their greatest weakness lay in the fact that they were breeding in a very unique manner. Most races had two genders, the Godhay had five. One of those five genders could breed with any of the other four, but they were extremely few and would always be carriers. They would carry the young within their own body until they were ready to hatch, but the other four genders could not do that. It always took three individuals of two of the other genders and one carrier to produce an offspring. Two of the genders would provide what others may describe as sperm, either female or male. The other two were capable of creating what could be described as eggs but only one of them could produce eggs which could become a carrier and that was very rare. So the Godhay slowly went extinct, the victims of their own success.
CeKay could remember her creator, Shis'hra. He had been ancient even then, and one of the very last ones alive. He had been wise and full of despair, seeing that the talgmarians would turn the galaxy into something dark and terrible if they were allowed to win. The Godhay had never made weapons, not directly anyhow. Much of their technology was of course transformed and used for such purposes but it had never been their original intention. Shis'hra broke that taboo, he tried to make weapons capable of destroying the talgarmians and he did invent things that indeed stopped their progress and forced them back. He did rip their arms off but they still had teeth, and they did still attack and bite whenever they could. The war wasn't as savage as before, not as grand. But it was still a war, and still ships and lives were lost. He had seen what other races had, what they used and how their tried to find that final thing which would allow them to merge man and machine. To create a weapon with the mind of a living being and the capability of a machine, he went further than that. CeKay had no ideas of what demons rode his tormented mind but he merged technologies from many races, and of many types.
The first attempts had been mistakes, horrible mistakes which had to be destroyed and destroy them he had. Probably cursing the very day he was hatched for Shis'hra saw all his creations as his own offspring, as his spawn. Some became mentally insane, unable to cope with the hard facts of what they were. Others didn't function at all, or had the mind of a toddler. A few seemed to be perfect but revealed serious flaws when it came to ethics and understanding. And some were downright homicidal and uncontrollable. The Cushrians caught wind of what he was doing, and to them this was the ultimate sin, it was beyond blasphemy and even if they had used Shis'rha's genius many times over an order was given for his arrest. She didn't know who had warned him, or why. All she knew was that she was the only perfect one, the only one who worked the way she was supposed to. And he didn't want to see her go. So he had given her an order and she had followed it, and when the Cushrian soldiers did break into the laboratory they found a lot of crushed synths and in the backroom a long row of standard C class synths ready to be tested, including CeKay. One of the soldiers had gambling debt to pay and sold her, and so she ended up as a part of the crew of the crashed ship.
Artan didn't know of this, if he had he would have been even more suspicious and CeKay knew that Shis'hra had died in prison, of old age, before anyone could accuse him of anything. The irony was that his invention could have been the downfall of the talgmarians, once and for all. But this nobody knew of and nobody cared.
CeKay had discovered an open patch of sea not far from the crash site and she had jumped in and discovered that the ocean was teeming with life. She had discovered a sort of animal with a thick hide and fur and she killed some, dragged them back to the tent. The pelts could be made into clothing and so she did. She made simple but warm coats and Artan grumbled something about her being too smart. Standard synths had very limited programs, and they ability to learn new things were often blocked to prevent them from getting too much like a person. She spent a few days making clothes and then they had to move on, cracks had appeared close to the small camp and they had to leave the wreckage behind. She had made some sleds from pieces of hull and they did slide easily over the hard surface but she was careful not to reveal how strong she really was.
Artan was suffering from a sort of paranoia and it was just getting worse. He acted in a manner which caused her to suspect that he was going slightly mad, overcome with grief and also a sense of guilt. If he had been able to fix the engines they wouldn't have been there in the first place and everybody would have been alive. Tonjar was silent most of the time, and that was an even worst sign. She knew how the human mind worked, he too felt survivor's guilt and he was terrified of the surroundings. Neither of the two men had been to a planet like this, and ice and snow wasn't that common at all. Moving forth went slow, the cold air could damage lungs if they breathed too hard and they couldn't risk getting sweaty neither. CeKay knew that she couldn't leave them, they would die without her and she felt that she owed Silfry a lot and wanted to repay it by saving these two last crew members. They put up the tent and slept when they felt like it, there was no sun or moon but every now and then an eerie display of aurora borealis swept across the stars and illuminated the ice with strange unnatural colors. It was beautiful but it only served to remind them of where they were.
After a week and a half both men started to get problems, they had food since CeKay could find cracks in the ice and fish using wire from the crashed jumper and they did use oil to melt ice into drinking water but it just wasn't enough. Physically they could make it but their psyche was working against them both. And another factor started to claim its toll on them as well, the gravity of this planet was higher than what they were used to. On most ships the G generators were only capable of reproducing something akin to 90% of full gravity and those ten percent that was added here did slowly make itself known. Even such a small deviation would make people less strong and more brittle and worst even, it weakened their heart muscle. In some huge ships, like the giant warships or those which served as cities in space gravity was divided into different zones, according to the need of different races. Some races preferred higher gravity whilst others suffered if the gravity came above a certain level which to other races were abnormally low. Here the men had no choice, and CeKay had no way of helping them.
In time they would go stronger, their bones would harden and their hearts would adapt to the stress but so far they hadn't had time to adjust and they had to stop and rest a lot. Progress was slow, very slow. CeKay knew that in eleven days they had travelled less than fifty miles, out of at least fifteen hundred. If the ice had been smooth it would have been easy but it wasn't, it was a labyrinth of cracks and bergs and canyons and huge hills and it was easy to get lost. CeKay was a navigator, she did use the stars and did stay on the right course but sometimes they had to make huge turns to get around an area too hard to cross on foot. They had been on the ice for fifteen days when Tonjar suddenly slipped on the ice and fell. The men wore boots made for use in a spaceship, they were heavy and solid and had a magnetic sole in case of G generator failure but they were never meant to be used on ice. The ice wasn't soft or brittle in any way, it was terribly solid and also very rough and the soles had been worn down until they were smooth and slick with no pattern left at all.
CeKay had tried to make boots out of the skin of those odd sea mammals but both men refused to use them, they felt that their familiar well worn boots were better. And now Tonjar paid the price for his conviction. He fell hard onto a protruding piece of ice and let out a yell of pain. CeKay could immediately see that he had broken his right arm, it was a nasty fracture and the bone protruded from the flesh and looked very grotesque. Artan swore and Tonjar whimpered and moaned in agony. They had no medicine for the medical kit every jumper was supposed to carry had been nowhere to be seen and CeKay knew that it was only so much she could do now. They managed to set the fracture, to put a splinter on the arm and bandage the open wound but Tonjar was sweating and panting and he had lost a lot of blood in a short time. They put up the tent, there was nothing else to do and CeKay knew that they would have to wait until Tonjar got better before they could move again .
And so she and Artan started to go hunting for more of those clumsy animals, the meat was edible although not very good and the furs were nice. CeKay knew that every eco system has its top predators but she hadn't seen any and so she had sort of pushed that thought away. Until one evening when they came across an animal which was freshly killed by something large. Artan feared that the beast could be close by whatever it was and he insisted on carrying the pulse rifle. CeKay let him, knowing that it make him feel a bit safer and in control of the situation. The footprints left by the animal were huge and she just knew that this was a beast well worthy of respect.
Tonjar got worse, the wound had become infected and Artan tried to clean it by cutting away the damaged tissue. This caused Tonjar to pass out from the pain and CeKay could see how the infection was spreading through his body. Her eyes were able to pick up infrared light as well as the other spectrums and he was burning up. After two more days the arm was stinking and she suggested amputation, it was the last resort but the only thing that may save him. Artan refused and Tonjar was getting delirious. CeKay knew he wouldn't make it, but still she tried to help, tried to find some solution. Then one evening when they returned from fishing they found the tent torn apart and Tonjar missing. There was blood everywhere and she knew Tonjar was dead. The animal had probably caught the scent of the festering wound and she regretted that she hadn't cauterized it when it was fresh. That could have stopped an infection but it would likely have killed him since they didn't have anything to numb the pain. Artan lost it. He insisted on following the beast and she didn't try to stop him, he was getting delirious as well and she suspected that this very place was the cause of his mental decline. He had been so self assure, so at home up there among the stars. It had been everything he knew and now he was in an entirely different place, in an environment so unfamiliar it could have been in another universe. It could make any man snap.
She and Artan did track the animal, it was easy to follow because of the trail of blood and they found it rather fast, at the bottom of an ice canyon where it was busy devouring what was left of Tonjar. It was a huge beast, white with long fur and four strong legs with claws. It had a long head with strong jaws and black eyes and when it did notice them it went up on its hind legs, roaring. CeKay could smell it, her sense of smell was extremely keen and it picked up every nuance of the animals scent. It was a male, it was at its prime and it was angry for having been disturbed. CeKay knew that the beast wasn't to blame, it had just followed its instincts and easy prey is easy prey, nothing more than that. Artan felt different, he was driven mad with grief and he charged the animal, not considering its strength at all. He was trying to fire the pulse rifle but it malfunctioned, the mechanisms had gotten stuck due to the cold and so he pulled a knife, trying to pierce the animal's bright white fur.
CeKay didn't try to intervene, it would have been fruitless. She could kill that animal like it was a mere fly but she felt that it was Artan's fight. It was one he would lose but it was nevertheless his fight. He hacked at the animal and the beast roared and hit him with one massive paw, it was terribly strong and the hit sent the man flying. Artan hit the ice hard but held onto the long curved knife, and as the beast bent down to bite he thrust the blade upwards, into its throat. The beast let out a howl of agony and a huge paw landed on Artan's face, literally ripped it off the bone and the animal growled and collapsed on top of the dying man. CeKay sighed, both the man and the beast died there, and she knew she was alone once more. And this time she was completely alone too. She didn't need the tent but she did fold the remains together and put it into the pack. She even brought the pulse rifle along with her, maybe it would function again whence she reached warmer regions. To her it didn't matter where she stayed but she felt that she should alert someone of the demise of the ship and its crew and maybe, just maybe that chance would come if she did make it south.
So she walked on, much faster than before and she dragged all of their stuff behind her with ease. She estimated that she would use a few weeks to cross the ice and then suddenly she had to slow down, apparently she wasn't alone on the ice after all. One day she came across tracks, a wide road of tracks, of many feet which had turned the snow to a hard surface and she just knew that this had to be a huge group of creatures. The tracks did look human but there were also some strange round tracks and some grooves which had to come from some sort of vehicle. She decided to follow, maybe this ice desert had inhabitants after all. She only believed that for a few hours, then she found the first corpses. It was two dead bodies, buried in the snow in a haste and she realized that these were no denizens of this frozen wasteland. She uncovered the bodies, to investigate. At first she thought they were human, then she saw a few very subtle and yet important differences. Both were male and very tall and also very skinny, their clothing had been removed and she did see that the bodies were more or less hairless even where humans normally have hair. The ears were pointy and the facial features what she knew would be described as very beautiful among humans. Both looked very young and she got a bit confused, what sort of race was this?
Both had very long silky hair which had been carefully braided and even though the burial had been done in a hurry it was rather obvious that they had been mourned for they had been placed with great care and their faces covered with some pieces of very fine cloth. She got curious, her medical programming kicked in and she realized that this in fact was a race with extreme longevity. They didn't age at all. Their telomers didn't shorten as they got older and thus they remained forever youthful. And they had a remarkable robust physique too. She found no trace of disease nor injury, it was the cold which had killed these two, and a lack of food. Something terrible had happened. Were these refugees? Had some disaster driven them from their home? She had to find out.
It took CeKay little less than a day to reach the long trail of wandering people. It was indeed a huge group, maybe somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand of them and she became aware of the fact that many had died, not just two. All were dressed in everything from cloaks made from some soft materials to animal hides and nobody were really equipped for this environment. Among them were some thousand animals, tall four legged beasts with a long mane and a tail and it was obvious that they were treasured by the wanderers. The animals were even thinner than their masters and struggled to move on, but CeKay found them beautiful in spite of that. They suffered as their masters did and yet they did pull some sorts of sleds behind them, containing every sort of belongings. It appeared that these people had some sort of goal, that they were heading somewhere and she realized after a few hours that they too were heading southeast. They were trying to cross the ice and she made a decision. She wanted to help them, these were civilized beings, they seemed to be rather developed and they did carry objects made from metal.
That night she went into camouflage mode and did sneak into the camp. There were people everywhere, shivering from the cold, trying to huddle up together in heaps to stay warm. There were young ones crying for food and warmth and something inside of her realized that she was feeling empathy. She did pity them. They were all very beautiful and she didn't really care why they were travelling thus, she wanted to help. She slid between primitive tents like a shadow, completely blending in with her surroundings and yet one of the males almost spotted her, keen grey eyes seemed to trace her movements and she realized that these creatures had superior senses too. So she tried to move as little as possible as she made her way through this moving city. They seemed to be divided into fractions or rather families which in turn followed even greater groups and they had to have a leader. She stopped by the place where they had corralled in their animals, some were too weak to stand up and she saw that there were a few bags of something left there. One of the people had fed some of the animals from them and she crept up and opened one of the bags. It contained some sort of dried plant which smelled very nice and she understood that these beautiful animals were herbivores. And there were no plants on the ice.
She started to form a plan in her head, she did sneak up on a tent which looked a bit larger than the others and there she stopped, crouched down and listened. The inhabitants used a very lovely language with soft sounds and it seemed to be very intricate too. She could hear that the two talking were males, their voices deep and full and she engaged her translating program. The language wasn't known in any database but the translator could quickly pick out a few words it could give an estimated translation of. She heard them use the word losses, death, children and starvation. Then they used a word which could only be the animals, they were horses and they were starving too. She listened for a while. The odd sea mammals were seals, they were hunting them but didn't manage to catch enough to feed everybody. They were cold, many had died.
CeKay did sneak out of the camp with determination glowing in her eyes, she knew how to help. She ran ahead of the group, knew what course they were following and before long she did find a rather large opening in the ice. As she had been diving before she had noticed huge forests of sea vegetation, kelp and other plants too, now she started pulling huge masses of the greenery up and secured it just beneath the surface by throwing pieces of it onto the ice where it immediately froze into place. She also gathered as much crustaceans and fish as she could and tangled it all into the mass of plants. That ought to keep them fed for a little while but they needed so much more. The ocean wasn't deep, some of the ice almost touched bottom and somewhere there were huge grooves where it had been digging into the sea bed. She found a lot of mussels which she left on the edge of the ice and she tried to make it look as if some freakish incident had thrown it all onto the ice. But they needed more food, much more and so she ran ahead again, finding yet another gap in the ice. There had to be something else to eat down there, and this hole was huge and clearly something held it open and prevented it from freezing over. She did dive again, she didn't need air and she could withstand a crushing pressure and insane temperatures, it didn't bother her at all. Her senses did expand, she was in utter darkness now but still she did see using sonar. Her creator had been doing an excellent job indeed. There had to be something edible down there.
After a while she sensed that something was approaching her, something massive and she swiftly made an image of the thing. It was huge, almost half the size of the crashed ship and it was moving but slowly. As she got closer she could hear its heart, and sense that it was yet another mammal but way larger than the seals. Her brain picked up everything about this being, its length and weight, its strength and its ability to think. She didn't know it but it was a sperm whale, an old male. He was ancient, already almost two hundred years old and he was battered and worn out by his many long years. He was still a giant but his strength was waning and he was well past his prime. There were many years since the last time he had managed to win the affection of a female, he still had his impressive size as one of the largest ever of his species but he was no longer fit for a fight.
He had fought sharks almost half his size, giant octopuses three times longer than his own body. He had conquered every ocean on this world and knew them all like some ancient song burned into one's memory but he had been beaten now, one time too many. He kept living and kept hunting just out of old habit, his mind too proud to simply give in. He had been swimming with a pod of females when orcas did attack. They went for the weak ones, the calves. They had little chance against a grown sperm whale and they knew that too darn well, but the male had been separated from the pod and one orca had done something rather odd. It had bitten into his left fin and almost torn it clean off. The male had gotten his revenge, one swift swipe with his tail had broken the orca's back but the pectoral fin was ruined and now he couldn't swim as fast as before. The pain and the shame of the injury lasted for a long while and so he started to travel on his own. And now he was trapped in this area covered with ice, dependent upon a few breathing holes he had to constantly struggle to keep open. Without them he would drown.
The male was still a capable hunter but he had to hunt for smaller prey now, and at this age his teeth had started to drop out as well. Where he once had been the mightiest fighter of the ocean he now hunted small squid and even fish, no longer the giant octopuses of the deep. The scar tissue ran deep and caused him great discomfort and yet he kept swimming, kept living because that was all he knew. He had been feeding rather well on a school of squid and was heading back to the breathing hole when he realized that he wasn't alone. He had a sort of sixth sense and it told him that he was being watched. His sonar focused, capable of knocking other beings out with just one thrust but it didn't find anything there. He got confused, swam ahead and tried again. Nothing, but he knew something was there, then he sort of felt that there indeed was something ahead of him but it was small, way smaller than even an orca and he relaxed. Such a small thing was no danger, it was probably a stray seal or something like that.
CeKay knew that this was no mere beast, this was a sentient being, a creature old and wise and self aware as she was. It had a soul and it even had a name for itself but she needed the meat. Besides, the male was very old and it was dying. He didn't know it, but his body had started to slowly shut down. Before long he would take that final dive towards the great depths and never return, and leave a legacy only through the many calves he had sired. She felt sorry, and sad even as she used her superior strength to ram a huge spear of steel hard ice straight into the old whale's chest and heart The old male felt a horrible pain pierce his side and he turned his massive head to bite, to find the opponent, to kill but he found nothing and his heart stopped beating. His eyes saw nothing, only darkness and his last thought was one of silent acceptance, he had outlived his days, now he would rest.
CeKay needed to bring the carcass to the surface and she used the fact that his lungs still contained air, and the oil in his massive head was warming up and becoming lighter, he had been moving upwards and he still did, even in death. She just gave the body some pushes and the dead whale did break the surface. But it would sink again soon of she didn't anchor it so she used sea weed and formed a sort of rope which attached the tail to the edge of the ice. It would of course seem suspicious but she couldn't do it any other way. To wait until the body floated on its own would take too long and by then the meat would be spoiled too. She made sure to push a huge amount of sea weed up onto the ice and then she ran back, they had to find this mountain of blubber and meat, it would feed them at least once.
CeKay went into camouflage mode again and hid behind the last stragglers, she listened to them talking and started learning a few new words, like polar bear, which apparently was the huge white animal that killed the men, and someone named Morgoth who apparently was some sort of enemy. She hoped that these people would find the things she had provided for them, they needed it sorely and she had found that she in fact liked them. They had grit to continue to travel like this and determination and not a small amount of courage. She would stick with them, for what else could she really do on this world? It could be interesting and she was curious, being inquisitive and eager to learn new things was something her creator had made sure to add to her personality and now it kicked into overdrive. There was so much to learn from these beings!
He was busy trying to organize the journey, there were children who needed to ride the sleds and there were adults too weak to walk too. The horses were close to collapsing and his heart did bleed for their poor patient steeds. They had ever only had the fair pastures of Aman under their hooves and now they had dragged them into this cold hell and yet the horses tried to pull and do their best, even if it was killing them. He saw that his own stallion was limping, the strong muscles almost gone and the fire in the soft dark eyes almost extinguished. They had killed twenty horses the last day, animals too weak to move and there had been many tears and great grief but the meat had been very welcome. He made sure the children and the nissi got the best meat, it just wasn't enough. He was shivering to the bone, he had never felt that cold in his life and he wept for them all, they were probably not going to make it.
Almost two weeks earlier they had seen something on the horizon to the north, a sort of bright flash followed by intense light and it had reminded him of the burning ships at Losgar. Some thought it was a sign but nothing had happened and now the incidence was forgotten completely. They had seen that eerie flickering light across the skies often now, at first it had spooked them but now it was something they had gotten used to, it didn't harm them and it did provide some extra light but he found that he had started to hate it. It reminded him too much of what they had lost, and it taunted and mocked his hopes every day. He was about to give his horse his last little dried apple when there was a shout. "There is an open patch of water ahead, and something on the ice!"
A servant came running, frantic looking. "My lord?"
He tensed up, felt a surge of excitement, of hope. "Arm the archers, if there is seals there we could perhaps manage to kill a few before they have time to get off the ice"
The long line of elves stopped, he stared as archers were sneaking forward, disguised with the pelts of polar bears. Then one waved an arm. "No seals, but there is something else here. My lord, you have got to see this!"
He ran forth, along the ragged edge of the ice something dark was hanging and one elf got hold of it and pulled some pieces of it free. It appeared to be some sort of plant? There was grasses growing in the rivers and lakes back home, but he hadn't known that there was such things growing here, in the ice cold polar sea. He knelt down next to the elf, grasped onto the long sleek leaf, it was twice as wide as his hand and three foot long, an inch thick and it did smell a bit salty but a wild hope did awaken within him. He pulled off his glove, felt it, ripped it apart and bit into the soft mass. It did taste of something rather odd but it wasn't salty, and the taste wasn't unpleasant. He got up. "Everybody, get as much as you can out of the water, this is edible."
Elves ran to the edge of the open water, desperately pulling at the sea weed and kelp and huge amounts came slowly up from the deep. And tangled within it was mussels and crabs and other sea creatures too, even fish. Something must have happened to throw it all up like that but he didn't care what it was. Some of the elves cheered. "Behold, it must be a gift of Ulmo, praised be the lord of the waters"
He didn't know, maybe the vala were on their side in this but now they had to salvage the catch before it all froze solid. There were several tons of under sea vegetation and the elves did discover that most of it could be eaten. A few elves offered pieces to their horses who eagerly devoured the gifts and before long they had managed to spread the kelp into huge heaps and let the horses eat. The animals were desperate and had to be restrained not to eat too much in one go but it was like a miracle. The crustaceans and other sea creatures would make a good dinner for many and he made sure that everybody got at least a little. Elves can survive on very little food, but they do need some, in special when they are spending so much energy staying warm and moving forth. His sons were busy taking care of the distribution but Fingon came forth, carrying a crabs leg, it was as large as his arm and he held it out. "Atar, this is for you"
He swallowed hard, hunger tore at his belly and he had felt weaker by the day. "I am grateful son, but there are nissi and elfings who need this more than I"
Fingon stared at him, the blue eyes very determined. "Then I won't eat either, we need you atar, you cannot afford to lose your strength"
His son's voice was pleading and he felt his resolve crumble. He took the leg and used his knife to pry the hard outer shell open. The meat inside was pale and looked juicy and he had to gather all his resolve not to tear into it like a beast. The taste was a bit like chicken and he gasped as the juices filled his throat and stomach with much needed sustenance. It was wonderful, he barely had time to chew, chunks of meat went down his throat and made him cough but he kept eating, felt how the sensation of eating was something almost new to him. For how long had they wandered across this wasteland? He had lost track of time completely! Everywhere elves were stuffing themselves with food, raw and unfamiliar but edible still and he saw that the hope returned to their eyes.
He saw that his brother's daughter was sitting next to her brothers, desperately ripping a fish apart with her bare hands, shivering as she devoured it raw. He saw high ranking noble men doing the same, nissi cracking open sea urchins for their elflings, ner ripping open huge king crabs for their wives. It was a feast, an odd bizarre and pretty gruesome feast but one none the less. After a while the elves had eaten their fill and yet there was some left. Some suggested that the kelp maybe could be dried and burned and he agreed. They should try that. As the group slowly started to wander again the remains were loaded onto the sleds and many walked with newfound strength and vigor. If this was a sign it was a good one, maybe they would reach the other side after all, maybe there was hope.
Turgon and Argon ran beside the sled with the remaining fish, both had gotten some color back and Turgon's wife and daughter was riding the sled. Both too tired to walk much further. Aredhel too was on a sled, her feet sore and her body rather weak. He feared for them all and wondered yet again what he had done when he insisted upon following his brother. It was madness, but less than that which rode Fëanor. At least he could say that. That day they managed to cross quite a lot of ground and the guards watching the back reported of having a feeling of being watched but they saw nothing at all. He did take it seriously, after all, they were good ner who had served him well for many a yeni and if they said they were watched and followed they were. But by what, or whom?
The next day came with a blizzard that forced them to stay stuck but the third day it died down and they could move forth yet again. They came a long way before someone called out. Between two huge frozen bergs there was a patch of flat ice and in it was a huge area of very thin ice. Something lay in the middle of it and they slowed down and stared in awe at the colossus which lay there, dead. He blinked, could not believe his own eyes. "It is a whale?"
Turgon nodded. "Yes atar, it is a whale. A dead whale! "
Fingon yelled. "Someone, find rope, we have to pull it up onto the ice!"
There was frantic action, elves running around desperately, horses unhitched from the sleds, rope found and using spears and walking sticks they managed to get rope around the massive tail. He felt a bit sad watching the dead beast, it was magnificent but he could see that it was old. The skin scarred and covered with barnacles and its left pectoral fin almost gone. The tail was tangled into sea weed and he wondered how that had happed, was the lord of the waters really helping them?
Hundreds of elves and horses started pulling, the ice was thick and smooth there and the surface did tilt towards the edge of the water, it made it possible to drag the carcass onto dry land. It was a monumental effort for the whale was enormous, at least eighty tons of mass and yet they managed to do it. Some even climbed onto the carcass and cleared away the ice and others carved grooves in the ground to get rid of body fluids. It took two hours but then the whale was on the ice, the entire beast. It lay there and many just stood there, staring. It was like watching a dead God, a behemoth of the seas which should have been alive and swimming, not laying there so robbed of its dignity and grandeur. Some of the warriors took their swords and started cutting away at the beast, huge chunks of fat and meat. The fat could be burned in lamps and cinches and the oil in its head burned too.
He yelled orders, every pot and kettle and barrel available were to be filled with the stuff and they sat up camp there. Before long elves were cooking food for the first time since they entered the ice desert and some wept with relief. The burning oil did smell terrible but to them it didn't matter, all that mattered was to get warm food in their bellies. Meat was prepared, and the nissi made racks from spears and the shafts of the sledges onto which the meat could be hung and dried. In the middle of the desperate activity someone suddenly screamed, a loud splash was heard and there was even more screaming. He ran to the water's edge, a nis sat on the ice, being held back by two ner as she screamed and clawed towards the water. " My daughter, my baby"
One of the ner stared at him with huge eyes. "She fell in, slipped and fell in!"
He closed his eyes, falling into this water was a death sentence, even to an elf, it was freezing cold and the child couldn't swim in the thick cloaks and clothes the little one's wore. She was gone. Then there was a loud splash and a dark figure flew out of the water and landed on the ice like it had been shot out of a catapult. It writhed and coughed violently and then it started to wail, loud terrified screams. It was the child and the mother ran forth and grasped the little girl desperately, tore the wet clothing off and dragged her into a tent. It was a miracle.
He just stared, it had been impossible. Something in the water had saved that child, had tossed it back onto the ice like it was a ragdoll. He hesitated, then he walked slowly to the edge, stared down into the frigid bluish green sea. For a swift second he could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes glowing deep down below, then they were gone and he let the air out of his lungs, hadn't known he had been holding it. Fingon walked up to him, he looked as if he was deeply shocked by what had happened. "Atar, what is is?"
Fingolfin turned to his son and tried to smile, but his face felt stiff, almost strange. "It seems as if we have a savior my son, but I have no idea of who it is, or what it is. But it is mightier than us all."
Fingon stared at the now tranquil sheet of water, he had never seen his father that shaken before. What had he seen down there? He had a strong sense that they all soon would find out who this mysterious savior was.
