CHAPTER VI


The sky looked as if it had been painted with blood, the hue fading from one deep and dark to a fierce red. It seemed for the time that the only colors were gold and red and black, and there would be no other colors thereafter. Against the flaxen sun, the mountains were lumps of ebony shadow and the clouds daunting like an admonition, yet I only granted the red glare a grim look. We would be losing the light soon.

"I will go to scout ahead," I said to Tyelpe, who gave me a sharp nod.

Taeloth stepped her way forward. "Two people better than one." She turned to Tyelpe. "Do I have your leave, my lord?"

"Go as you will," Tyelpe said, turning away to the red land.

The rest of the host began to settle to camp for the night as I picked my way up the rocks, Taeloth following. At the summit we could see that there was a crimson lake, or at least it seemed to be that color. The eventide made it hard to tell. A strong gale blew along the shoreline, ruffling the waters and tousling Taeloth's silver hair.

"You best tie that up, if you want to stay alive," I told her, thinking of a certain person. My own hair was bound tightly in a bun.

"It's cold," Taeloth murmured, hugging her cloak tighter around herself.

"It's always cold here," I said, staring at the red water. "It'll be colder in the night."

She was silent then, and followed my eyes to stare at the horizon. "It reminds you of something, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"The lake," she said. "I can see that you're thinking of something."

"I wasn't thinking of anything in particular," I told her.

"But the lake—it reminds you of something, doesn't it?" she pressed.

Perhaps it could have been Lake Helevorn, but red glass instead of black glass in this gloaming. I closed my eyes and felt the wind upon my face. "I suppose."

"Why do you never talk about it?" Taeloth asked. "I feel like you have so much to tell, but you'll never say it."

I smiled sadly at the child before me. "Some things are not meant to be told, Taeloth."

"I'd like to know," she said, "and I think it would be good for you to say."

The puffs of dark cloud were moving to cover the waning sun. "What would you like to know?"

"Anything—everything," Taeloth said, ecstatic that I had agreed.

"I won't remember unless you ask something more specific," I told her.

She thought for a moment. "Why are you so insistent on this mission succeeding? Lord Tyelpe said that it had something to do with your past."

"I think anyone would want this mission to succeed, Taeloth."

"Don't you talk to me like I'm some stupid child," Taeloth said suddenly, indignation rising in her voice. It was then I realized suddenly that she was me as I was. I could see my younger self reflected in her in every way—that rapturous determination, that fervent passion, that naïve zeal. Always I had tried to prove myself to the others that thought themselves higher than I, yet also all others. Before, I had thought training would bring me some peace to this imbalance, but now I knew. Training could do me no use now.

I didn't answer her, and sipped some of the draft out of my flask almost absently. I would have to make more soon, to be safe.

"What is that?" Taeloth said, her voice still stiff with ire. "You always drink out of that flask. I know it's not water."

I concealed the flask in my cloak. "Is it necessary to know every detail of my life, Lady Taeloth?"

Her eyes flashed. "You're not telling me because you think I'm still a child! Naergon knows, doesn't he? And Lord Tyelperinquar, too, I would think. Why can't I know?"

"They have found the answer to that in some of the most unpleasant ways possible," I said. "I do not believe Lord Naergon knows. I am not mocking you, Taeloth. You can calm yourself."

The words only seemed to make her more fervent. "I wish everyone would stop talking to me that way!" she exclaimed indignantly. "No one trusts me enough to tell me anything!"

"It's not you," I told her.

"Is it you, then, Lady Híthriel? Why must you be so closed off from me? All I wished for was someone I could talk to, that I could be friends with, but you will tell me nothing."

"Taeloth, I'm sorry if you think that it is that way, but—"

"Sorry, but," she mocked. "Valar damn this all." With that she stomped off, muttering.

I sighed and gazed back at the scarlet waters. It was odd how I could still feel the vibrations of her anger in the bonds of energy twisting through the air; it had been long since I felt the connection of another's fëa in such a fashion. Generally I would have to feel for that ósanwë within myself, but just now I had not tried at all to reach out to Taeloth's fëa. Perhaps we were really so similar that the fëar simply connected on instinct.

The lake really did look like Helevorn—a tall, daunting mountain stood on the other side, surrounded by smaller peaks as it had been in Thargelion. Thinking of it made a sudden nostalgia wash over me, and I closed my eyes as if imagining could bring deceased memory back to life. I breathed in the wind's crisp scent, then suddenly realized that Taeloth was nowhere near. My eyes snapped open and I hastily extended my own tendrils of ósanwë around the lake. I sought any presence of her fëa nearby as the sun was retreating down into the west, the streaks of red withering to black, and found none.

Shit, shit. I scanned the clearing with my eyes now, thinking that my ósanwë must have erred; much of it had been stifled ever since the scar…but still, nothing. We hadn't been very far from the camp, perhaps she had gone back. I began picking my way back down the rocks the way we had come.

Saerin was sitting upon a rock at the head of the camp when I came, sharpening his sword. He looked up abruptly when I approached, and set his blade aside. "Hith," he said.

"Have you seen Taeloth?" I demanded.

"Yes, she just came by this way," Saerin told me. "She went back to her tent."

I breathed a sigh of relief, although I did not show it. "Thank you for telling me." I made to leave, but he stopped me.

"Are you all right, Hith?" he asked.

I paused, as if taken aback. "Yes, I'm all right. Good evening to you, Lord Saerin." With that I turned and left.

That night I slept outside the tents before the dying fire, watching as the waning flames sputtered to embers then to ash. I dreamt of the howling of wolves and shadows in the gloaming, and remembered what Maeglin had said to me in Gondolin: And sometimes it is told that the wolves howl when they hurt, when one of their own breathes their last. What say you to that, my lady? Do you howl?

Perchance on the nights when the moon has waxed full with lament, I had said. The bane is ever crippling.

Yes, indirectly I had told him; indirectly I had told them all.


I awoke to Silivros shaking me by the shoulder frantically. The night was still deep, and I could scarcely see the glint of his silver eyes in the darkness.

"What is it?" I hissed.

His eyes were wild with alarm. "We've tracked—"

Something in the air seemed to penetrate the ósanwë I knew so well, thrumming through the bonds of energy to me. My ears twitched, and I saw the bowman that stood upon the brink of the hill in my mind. I lunged forward, dragging Silivros down as a black arrow whistled through the air, and hit the grass with a dull thunk.

"The bowman's on the ridge," I said, hauling him to his feet. "Go. Wake Tyelpe, and blow that ridiculous horn, for the Valar's sake."

I felt around the energies in the air to feel where the Easterlings concentrated their attack, and found that they were approaching from all sides, with spears pointed in. It seemed that not many others were aware of the attack, for the camp was still silent. If we awoke quietly, then perhaps we could surprise the Easterlings in their own little ambush, but the thought vanished as the horn suddenly sounded through the camp, piercing the silence of the night. I sidled to the corner of the camp, seeking an Easterling to kill as the horn continued to blare—three long, deep blares that sounded like a mourning animal. Then at last, an Easterling sprang at me, striking to kill.

It was then a thirsty smile curved onto my lips and the terrible furore erupted from me. Within an instant my daggers were in my hands, and the Easterling's body was falling, falling to the ground, dead.

It had been long since I was drunk on blood.

No, they did not expect an elleth to be a warrior, however much of a lie those words were. Or whatever it was they called us—women, girls, females. They did not expect me to be the one to seize them by the hair and slit their throats. Too petty, was I?

The others had arisen now, but not before some of them were slain. Easterlings had begun to swarm into the camp now—they had been ever since the horn had sounded, so that some had scarcely any time before an arrow or two struck them in the back or a knife was at their throat.

I saw Saerin stumble as he parried blades with an Easterling shoving him into the ashes of a fire, and spun upon my feet, dancing to this song of death. With my dagger I thrust the Easterling backwards and drove the point into his chest until it stuck out on the other side, then tore it out, letting the body thump to the ground.

I spun instantly over to Saerin. "Where's Taeloth?"

"I. . .I don't—"

"Go find her. Now." I stole a glance backwards. "When I finish dealing with the ones here I will find you. Go!"

Saerin's eyes widened suddenly, and without another thought, my dagger had embedded itself in the chest of the dying man behind me. I wiped the drops of blood off my face, only managing to smear them.

"No time," Saerin said softly in repentance. He met my eyes then, and I felt a sudden twinge of something in my chest as I beheld the sentiment in his amethyst eyes, as if regretting all that we had done. Angband. We both remembered the warm darkness—

"I'm sorry," he told me, and suddenly he too was gone.

Forget it, abandon it, I thought. Don't think about it, don't think about it. Everywhere people were wounding each other, killing each other, and sometimes they all seemed so alike that all there was in the night were falling shadows. In the clearing there were three Eldalië against eight. One managed to wound an Easterling, yet not long after he himself was impaled by the spike of a mace. The other two were fighting madly now, hissing and growling like wolves as they struck, but what would they do against eight? An Easterling died, but soon after the two Eldalië were dead too, and they trampled over their limp bodies with hardly another thought. What savages we had become. Kinslayers. And I started this, didn't I?

Funny how late it was I realized this. I laughed drunkenly. Too late, too late. Hefting my daggers, I strode forward, leaving death in my wake. The confidence that quelled in their eyes replaced by fear drove me onward, encouraging me until it became something terrifying to behold. It was a dance, a lilting one accompanied by the sinister dying cries as music. The dance was mine, and only mine, because the others quailed before me, not knowing the song; all I could think of was nothing—nothing! The song drove me forward like liquor, and nothing else.

Time seemed to slow as I spotted my foe's vulnerability and struck there, precise and satisfying. Then I had to move on to the next and the next and the next because I could have been faster, more precise in my attack. It would never be flawless enough, so there had to be more, more, more, until I was absolutely perfect. I felt eerily calm and powerful as they shrunk before me with terrified eyes, and hardly felt the barbed mace that struck my shoulder. I laughed at the man's audacity and kicked the mace out of his two-handed grip, splitting his throat open. The scarlet came spilling down his chest like a waterfall, and I promptly turned to the next.

Am I still myself? I wonder what I have evolved into through blood and battle and war. Would I have done this before? I didn't feel the wound that the mace had made even though I distantly registered the blood seeping down my shoulder. There was no place for fear in my mind in battle; the next always died easier than the previous, and all that mattered was the gorgeous slaughter around me. They were falling and crying and dying but I was fighting and dancing and flying—why should I be afraid?

Laugh in the face of death and you will not be afraid. That is what I have learned.


Eldarin References:

Ósanwë. (Q) Interchange of thought.

Fëa. (Q) Soul, spirit.

Hröa. (Q) Physical body.

Elleth. (S) Female Elda, plural ellith.