Slaughter
"Your mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity."
-Banksy, "Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall"
Faces, faces, there are infinite- faces. These begging not for mercy, these not terrified but wrathful, these are clearly the soldiers of Siriombar, such a military as this refugee kingdom by the sea can produce or maintain. They seemingly defend the harbour for the same reason that we are now attacking it: escape can be had by means of ship-for the people, for the Silmaril.
This is not the first time I have fought upon a dock, casting fallen adversaries into the voracious jaws of the sea below, watching the plumes of waves transform from argent to scarlet as they foam with the blood of Elf slain by Elf.
Three grey ships, Telerin swans borne upon their prows, lie anchored at these docks; we know of no vessels having departed since the invasion began.
On such narrow fighting ground as this- rickety wooden planks that span but a few feet across- there is little room for error, if one wishes to remain dry, or at least to die upon land. I find myself blade to blade with a nér clearly of Telerin descent, most likely Sindarin. (I can deduce the latter from the loathing in his eyes.) The clanging of our swords against one another is little muffled even by the crashing of waves against the great cliffs behind the quays.
I defeat him easily- perhaps he was trained for woodland warfare with a bow. A bow. The notion strikes me suddenly, and I whirl around, ears ringing with the twang of bowstrings I am certain sing in the hands of warriors somewhere above, lining the rocky ridge, unassailable. An arrow in the back. It will penetrate my heart before I know I am dying. Fear seizes me; I whirl around.
My eyes scan the cliffs. Their tall ashen faces frown upon the wharf and surrounding sea even in the September sunshine. No archers are to be found; then whence comes the sound of bowstrings? A glance around the harbour reveals swords alone as instruments of swift death, but the clash of them is overwhelmed by the unnerving song of a rain of darts upon battle.
Like Alqualondë, by the sea; like Doriath, a hail of fine-pointed death; the invasion of Siriombar seems to combine the worst of every Kinslaying before it, mingling them together in a nightmare unrivaled by those of sleep. Another adversary approaches me, and my sword engages his. A few deft parries are exchanged before a jab to the heart sends him into the water below.
The singing of bows is suddenly matched by the whine of arrows; facing the cliffs, I wonder if they come instead from the sea itself. Another glance behind me, though, reveals nothing but the sound, growing ever louder. If the sound is not real, or at least not affecting me, some twisted rationale within me almost wishes it was: anything is better than this terrible not knowing, the gripping fear that, though there were none behind me when last I looked, there may be now.
Focus. If there are no arrows, the only cause for fear is the warriors whose sole object is my death. I will die. We are outnumbered here; I will die. Yes- no!
"Be wary," warns a voice, kind but severe, fatherly almost. "They will kill you." Father? I have not spoken to the man since Alqualondë, the night he boarded the ship, gratefully or tragically not mine, that would be sunken in the wrath of Ossë and Uinen, dragging with it to the depths a full crew of talented swordsmen, my father one- in command- of them.
"Wary?" scoffs another. "This woman- wary? Her lack of conscientiousness is pathetic; it's really a marvel she remains alive."
"She remains alive?" Another tongue joins the discussion- with me? Of me? "Since when? I thought Ránenel of Tirion died ages ago and we had moved on. Tell me not that she yet lives."
What are they saying? What are they saying? My sword collides with yet another of the defensive soldiers; a slice to the throat seals his fate. That action was wary; I am wary; I have survived, and I will.
"Of Tirion?" counters the first tone; its quiet graveness is more frightening than the harsh criticism of the other two. "This monster once hailed from Tirion? I spoke to Rániel of Himring, warrior, murderess."
"Murderess?" I reply aloud, shocked to hear the word from this unseen mouth. "Only orders- I do as I am commanded." I can barely make out my own voice among the cries of battle, clashing of weapons, and beating of the sea against the rocky cliffs. I suppose they cannot hear me, either: My response is completely ignored.
"A monster among monsters, dwelling in their lair, feeding on the blood they spill, that is what she is- feeble and weak among those far stronger, a mere parasite." The second voice is caustic, angering, perhaps, but only as genuinely offensive as the truth it speaks.
"Silence! Do you not realize she can hear you? Do you seek to drive her mad with fear of herself?" As I begin the dance of battle once again, I wonder if this is the fatherly tongue's demented means of defending me. How kind of it to do so, I muse.
The two cruel voices laugh in unison, a terrible cacophony so great in volume that it sets my ears to ringing. My lips tremble with a suppressed cry of pain; I but clench my sword more tightly.
"No, this creature is not mad," the third voice finally replies, appearing to regain some semblance of its composure while its fellow remains in an agonizing fit of hysteria. "Not yet."
"But she will be?" The first tone sounds veritably pained to speak the words.
"Is she not?" chorus the other two as the laughter dies away completely. "Is she not? Is she not?" The last reverberations of the question fade slowly, chasing one another into a silence that I sense leaves only the kindest voice behind.
A sensation of pain recalls me to my surroundings. Blood seeps out from a cut to my right wrist; I bite back a scream of horror. The man who delivered the wound falls by the sword of a Fëanorian soldier. I step over his body, compelled once more to pro-activity by the insults of the second tongue. No parasite goes hunting for prey more than once; it remains where it has positioned itself, stubbornly, until it or its host has died.
Foolish creature. By seeking sustenance it murders its sustainer. What does it plan to do once it has slain its provider? Die itself, I suppose, and painfully; its life is worthless without the provision of the host.
But I am not such. If I am a parasite, clinging to my husband and his kin immovably, then I am a harmless one. I may die with my host, but I shall not be the cause of its death. As the voice said, I am weak and feeble; I am incapable of such a feat. I am worthless, that I know fully, with or without my fated hosts, so I might as well remain with them than without them. What is wrong with remaining in a place where safety is more certain?
"Be wary," repeats the voice. "They will kill you." The simple warning pulls me out of the recesses of my own mind, and away from the absurdity I now realize is an attempt at reconciling why I remain alongside my own family- all because of the provoking insult of a disembodied voice. But I am not safe, not here, not now.
Proactive. I remind myself of the new goal, but I am given no opportunity to put it into play before I am approached once more by a warrior, death in his stormy eyes. My death-my death!
"He hates you," advises the voice. "He saw you from the moment this party approached the quays, and he has been waiting since then for the opportunity to strike."
"Why? Why does he feel so?" I murmur, even as my blade meets his. "Did I wrong him?"
A delighted laugh escapes that unseen mouth. "I should think so!" it exclaims. "You slew his mother in Doriath. Perhaps you failed to notice-" It sounds as if it has begun to converse with itself for but a brief moment. "-oh, were the others onto something after all?" Elevating its tone, it continues, addressing me once more.
"But he has been watching you ever since. He followed you to Ereb, ever behind you, poised with a bow in hand to deal you the death he aims to repay you for his mother's. Now, after all of these long decades, his chance has finally come."
My first reaction is denial. Surely he would have slain me long before now, had he truly been present, but, against my better judgment, I lock eyes with him. All of the loathing I see within only confirms the voice's chilling words. My heart finds its way to my throat, and suddenly this duel is more of a fight for my life than any yet to occur on this day of death. Here is one who has long despised me, one I should long ago have learned to fear, one whose journey to Mandos has been postponed far longer than it should have been.
I will kill this man, as I killed his wench of a mother. Perhaps she was the one to wound my face with her fingernails... It would not surprise me, for this her son combats with that same ferocity- yet he and his sword are deadly.
With each blow I dodge, my heart hammers but the harder; am I weakening? Will this be the jab that ends everything? When will I see no longer the cobalt sky and the turquoise sea but eternal darkness? (I feel it approaching me.)
"Kill him! Kill him!" cries the voice. "Parry! Block! Remember how gladly he takes this opportunity. One of you will die- let it be him!"
"Thank you," I whisper, genuinely grateful for its encouragement. "But, why? You are unlike the others. What drives you to care for me so?"
"Care about you?" How does it speak so gently with incredulity in its tone? "Do not be mistaken, child. I only show this regard for you as it benefits me; our essences are bound. You see, I too am a parasite."
Even as it says the last word, the word that ricochets through my mind, bouncing painfully off of my recent internal debate, I finally make the slash that gives me victory. It seems strange that, finally able to access his sword-bearing wrist, I have swiftly amputated his right hand. Fumbling for his fallen sword with the left, though a scream of anguish looses itself from him and blood pours from his wrist onto the same tattered boots that carried me to Doriath and back, he manages to grab it. He swings feebly at me with it, but, unsurprisingly, the motion is harmless.
At any rate, I have already thrust my blade through his abdomen, twisting it cruelly as I withdraw it. Just before letting him topple backwards into the mortuary of floating bodies the surrounding water has become, I hiss, "Join your mother." Death freezes an inexplicable mask of confusion onto his face.
"Well done," asserts the voice, bearing with the words an audible smile. "Vigilant in the end, you saved us. For that I must thank you."
Us? I recognize no bond to this detached entity; it holds not with me! A parasite. Am I infected myself? With my left hand, I reach up, feeling the skin of my face, my neck- I will scour my arms and legs when next I am able- for symptoms of a creature upon me.
Finding none for now, I glance around the quay, and see only Fëanorian soldiers standing; I am not surprised. Scattered across the dock's wooden beams are a multitude of corpses, but not anywhere near as many as fill the sea around it.
Even at Alqualondë the ocean served as a final resting place of nowhere near as many hröar, at least that I saw, but there were streets at the Swanhaven, and many were slain thereupon. Blood is everywhere, the wood, the other men, the bodies, my clothing, my hands- even my face, I note as I reach up, now to wipe away perspiration. At Doriath, I would have been delighted by the red liquid's warmth, but the warm outer temperature makes its thermal stickiness only a discomfort.
I lay eyes on Makalaurë, who is slowly walking from the furthest end of the dock down to where it begins beneath the cliffside. He sheathes his sword, and with a hand-motion commands every soldier still living to come as near to him as he may. There are roughly sixty of us remaining of the one hundred he had ordered to come here rather than progress to the rest of the town.
"Half of you will remain here as guards against an escape by sea," he says authoritatively. "The other group will come with me up the cliff to... search further." I smile grimly; "search" sounds so much kinder than slaughter.
I, of course, elect to follow him. I have not seen Maitimo since our arrival this morning, and that notion worries me terribly- irrationally, perhaps, but terribly. I sheathe my sword- what else but temporarily?- and, vaguely aware of my parasitism in doing so, walk beside Makalaurë to the stairs carved into the cliff. Perhaps it is a trick of blood and sweat, but do I see tears on his face?
