But his particular duel didn't last very long. The Troll snarled and turned away, crashing into its own line. Trolls often did this in battle, they lacked any sense of purpose and did nearly as much damage to their own forces as to their enemy. The Dark Lord kept them as much for creating terror as anything else. Northad was pushed back towards the mountains, but he could see, though not give much direct aid, Fingon and Turgon on the battle site.
Meantime, Terglis and Mulling were journiying eastwoods. The small party they were in had not encountered anyone, but were in fact less than happy by this. They had been hoping to find Maedhros by now and his absence was causing concern. But Terglis saw nothing but Forest, Mountain, bog and an odd flash in the North, near to were they had departed.
As Terglis looked around, someone cried, 'Orcs!' and a strong force of Orcs appeared in full battle gear and armour, marching towards them, but had not spotted them as yet. Hopelessly outnumbered at this point, the Elves decided to use guile and cunning rather than force and hid amongst some trees the way in which only Elves can. Terglis dived under a bush.
But one Elf didn't hide carefully enough. He was unlucky as an Orc virtually walked right under him, looked up and gave a howl. The Orc pulled him down and several Orcs attacked the golden-haired Elf and his head was cut clean of, despite others of the party coming to his aid. Though they seemed to be about to suffer the same fate, when a trumpet blared out in the gloomy darkness and the Orcs moved hastily away, began running away in fact. Maedhros had finally arrived. And the Orcs were surrounded and slaughtered. Though not without loss and Terglis was nearly fatally wounded more than once.
Maedhros explained the delay. 'We were assailed by a force from Angband, which we had to prepare for!'
'A force that was curiously lighter than reports had made it,' growled one of his brothers, Caranthir. He was one of the more wild sons of Feanor. But more and more Elves from the forces of the sons of Feanor appeared from the woods, backed up from behind by Ufthang ahd his Easterlings, and began to march, or to ride towards the plain of the Fen of Sereech, singing as they went and their armour at least shone in the darkness.
Things were proving tougher for Northad than he had ever imagined. Although the Noldor and man army was re-inforced by the forces of Gondolin, the numbers of Orcs seemed uncountable and eight foot tall trolls made of stone was tough work for anybody and worse than these were the Balrogs, twenty feet tall, hairly, bear like with claws, vicious teeth and wielding whips of fearsome fear, though few in number were seemingly invincible to whatever the Noldor could throw at them.
Northad left hand was bleeding badly from his duel with the Troll. But that was the least of his problems. The temperature fell to near-freezing, cold wet, driving rain which splashed down upon the Army in the darkness. Northad was also concerned about a mortal companion, Druilin that had enthusiastically dashed on ahead with the large company of Elves that hammered upon the doors of Angband.
Northad was right to be concerned. Druilin had charged with the Elf, Gwindor through the forces of Morgoth, slaying many. But he was trapped on Angband's doors, opposed by multitudes of Orcs and even dragons and made worse by the fact that he was a mortal man and a little out of his depth in a battle amongst the Elder despite been nimble for one of his kind. But now a dragon caused large rocks to be dislodged and fell amongst the company along with arrows and flames. One rock fell upon Druilin's neck causing him to fall and choke. Druilin died slowly and in pain amongst the bodies of the Elder as he choked to death on his own windpipe.
The coming of an even darker, cold night bought a little relief. The army of Beleriand was able to retreat to the foot of the Mountains while there was a rota to take up a defensive shield-wall against the creatures of Angband, others were able to take much needed rest, food and healing. Northad was sitting on a rock with Earnur and both were patching up their wounds as best they might.
Earnur was bleeding from a deep cut on his face that would last till the end of his life. Although Northad was thinking this might not be too long. Northad suggested, 'Look, this isn't going well. I don't think many will survive. What about you and I just slip our way to the back and slope of, unnoticed?'
Northad saw flames exploded in the darkness behind Earnur. But Earnur's face was unimpressed and hard. In fact, he responded to Northad's suggestion by giving him a firm slap around the face. 'Well, it appears that it takes a mere mortal like myself to remind one of the Eldar race of their duty. We won't get away for one. Behind us are many companies of Orcs only to happy to prey on individual stragglers. For two, what of our purpose here? You would fly when the going is grim and leave Morgoth to have his will? You can't fly from him forever, Morgoths arm grows long. So I for one say we stand here and fight. You with me?' With a certain amount of reluctance, Northad agreed.
Day, as it were dawned, though one could scarce have noticed as the light was no more than a slender dusk and there was little relief to the cold. Northad was forced back into the fray. Onto the battlefield he saw many bodies of the fallen which he had to step over. He saw one corpse was that of one of his companions from his initial trip up here only days ago, but to Northad it seemed years. He looked at the corpse, stiff, bleeding from wounds, holding a sword in its hand. Northad was thinking he liked not that grinning type of honour.
But now, Morgoth's forces were upon him again. Heavily armoured Orcs with Scimitars, Trolls, Wolves howled, Dragons were around belching flame, giant Balrogs roared and beat down any opposition. It was noisy. And Northad was finding out an odd thing. He had heard of mighty warriors that could kill individual Orcs in many numbers. Especially if the Orcs were in woods which they didn't know. But here, with the will of their Lord behind them, in battle readiness in their own country backed up by other creatures it was very much a different story.
