This chapter is dedicated to Aranna Undomiel, who knows me far too well...
Chapter Thirty-Five: Nothing Gold
Gil-galad watched in disbelief as the larger half of Greenwood's troops broke away in a charge. "The damned fool," he muttered fiercely at the golden head at the attack's front. "Curse him!" He turned to snap orders to his army, which was staring after Oropher's troops in confusion. Círdan, face still pale from recent wounds but eyes blazing with fire, was visible even a distance away and Gil-galad was relieved to see that the other Elf Lord showed no sign of letting his own forces follow the mad attack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Elrond disappearing into the crowd. Good. Someone needed to see that Greenwood's prince was stopped from following his thrice-cursed father's stubborn example.
"You should follow him, my lord," came a quiet voice that cut expertly through the din of orders and army.
Gil-galad turned to the side and then looked down to see the too-young figure of Glorfindel staring after Oropher and Greenwood with unreadable eyes.
The High King frowned. "I will not risk the entire army for one stubborn Elf's foolish pride," he snapped. The twice-born Balrog-slayer made Gil-galad uncomfortable. He was far too young to be so old and to see such age staring out of the eyes of one who was little more than a child sat ill with the Noldor. He wondered once again if he should have handed command of the army over to the twice-born, but no matter the age of the Gondolin Elf's fëa his form was that of a child. Even if the warriors would have followed him, it would have been uncomfortable. And twice-born Balrog-slayer of fallen Gondolin or not, Gil-galad would be doomed to the Void before he risked a child like that. Bad enough the not-elfling was riding as a commander, making him responsible for the whole Alliance would have been too much for a child to bear. Even if he was unnaturally wise for a child.
"They will not turn back," Glorfindel murmured.
"Of course they will," Gil-galad replied in surprise. "When they see that even Thranduil makes no move to follow them they shall have to hold and withdraw back to the cover of our lines."
Glorfindel shook his head. "Oropher will never retreat, and neither will his warriors. If we do not follow them, they will be slaughtered."
"I am not going to move the entire army to the rescue of one idiotic Elf," the other snapped harshly. "He knows what he is doing very well and I shall not give in to this blatant rebellion against the command of our Alliance."
"Then let me take a company and join them. I can convince Oropher to turn back with me, and we can say that I did so without your knowledge and then neither of you have to lose face in front of the other."
Gil-galad frowned. "I will not risk so much as one soldier on a king whose head is too swollen with pride and ego to obey the very orders he agreed to," the High King said sharply. "And once Oropher realizes this, he will have to order his forces to retreat and we will move to cover them. Now, I will have no more discussion of this disgusting revolt. My orders are final." Fuming, he turned back to the front to wait for Greenwood to falter and return.
"Let us hope you are right, my lord," the Balrog-slayer sighed quietly but his deep eyes were sorrowful.
Elrond forced his way through the Elven warriors, shoving aside any who did not move fast enough. He hardly even saw them as he flew through the ranks. He had to reach Thranduil and he knew he had only moments to do so before the Greenwood prince took action. Never mind that a good portion of Gil-galad's force separated Thranduil's warriors from the charge that Oropher had just made, Elrond was certain that as soon as the prince realized Gil-galad was not going to order his soldiers to follow Greenwood's advance—and Elrond had not needed to wait to hear his lord's voice to know that was not going to happen—as soon as he realized this, Thranduil was going to charge with his forces straight across the battlefield, consequences and plans be damned.
The peredhel gritted his teeth while he sent silent curses upon the haughty prince. He belonged at Gil-galad's side. With the battle starting, the High King would need his herald to pass orders and keep things organized between their commanders and allies. But someone had to keep stubborn Thranduil from following his fool of a father.
But then there was Thranduil coming towards him, pushing his way through the army with more success than Elrond had found. The Elven warriors that had stood between Gil-galad and Greenwood fell back at the sight of the furious prince. Elrond interposed himself in the other's path, but Thranduil bestowed upon him only a glare that could split stone before shoving past the peredhel. The gaping herald had a brief glimpse of sparking eyes and flowing gold before Thranduil had passed him by. Elrond turned in time to catch the prince's arm, but Thranduil refused to halt. He could not shake the peredhel off, so he simply dragged him along in the path of his wrath.
"What are you doing?" Thranduil snapped without so much as a preliminary as soon as the furious Elf reached Gil-galad's side. The High King looked sternly at the prince, his steely grey eyes unmovable.
"I am following our agreed upon plan," he said firmly, daring the other to argue.
Thranduil did. For all that the prince was flanked by only two guards—and one of them a maiden—he lifted his head as if he had an entire army at his heels and intended to stare the High King down into forced compliance. Gil-galad raised his own chin, refusing to be cowed by this impetuous child.
"You must give the command to follow them," Thranduil insisted.
Gil-galad's eyes flashed coldly. "The army will move to cover them as soon as they begin their retreat," he smoothly informed the prince.
Thranduil's gaze sharpened like a Silvan arrow. "Soldiers of Greenwood will not retreat in front of the Enemy," he snarled proudly.
"They will retreat, because I will not order the army to follow the stubborn conceit of a self-important fool to destruction," the High King retorted sharply.
"You must," Thranduil insisted, his careful calm reflecting the first hints of dismay. "Else they shall be destroyed!"
Gil-galad said nothing, just turned away to watch as Elves and orcs neared one another on the battlefield.
Thranduil gritted his teeth, forcing his words out almost against his will. "I admit that my father should not have acted so, but you know well that your arrogance pushed him to this! Sitting back and waiting for those warriors to be destroyed is not an option you can entertain, whatever your feud with Greenwood's king."
"All they have to do is retreat," Gil-galad said mildly. "We shall not let them perish, but neither shall I risk the fate of this war to assuage Oropher's wounded pride. If the entire army goes chasing after your father, we could all be destroyed, and I cannot put that many lives in jeopardy for one fool's mad insubordination." He turned away, signaling for archers to prepare to lay down covering fire for Greenwood's imminent return to their lines.
"But they will not retreat!" Thranduil exclaimed. Gil-galad snorted in disbelief but said nothing more. Thranduil exchanged now-frantic glances with his two warriors, then looked out to the battle. Sharp Elvish eyes had no difficulty picking out the shining golden figure leading their warriors, and for a moment Oropher turned back and his eyes met his son's gaze. He saw the stationary army and the distress on Thranduil's face. He saw Gil-galad waiting for him to retreat. He smiled thinly at his prince, then gave a shout and turned back to face the Enemy.
"Nooo!" Thranduil lunged forward but Elrond caught him and dragged him back. The peredhel knew not what the prince intended to do—attack Gil-galad? Run the length of the battlefield alone to his father's aide?—and he would not have been surprised to learn that even Thranduil did not know what action he would have taken had be not been restrained.
The prince struggled fiercely and Elrond would have lost his grip on the furious warrior had Círdan not suddenly appeared at his side to help hold him. The shipwright said something in a voice that was sad and soothing, but Elrond could not hear him over Thranduil's shouts. The other two warriors of Greenwood were shouting as well, and Elrond felt one of them try and haul him off their prince. Then there was Glorfindel barking orders and grabbing arms and a press of anxious bodies trying to hold them all. Gil-galad said nothing, eyes fixed on the conflict ahead.
"Release me!" Thranduil ordered angrily, his resistance became more and more frantic so that Elrond was hard-pressed to maintain his grip on the furious Elf. "You cannot just let them die!" he yelled at the High King's unmoving form. Elrond desperately ached to look at the battle that was consuming Thranduil's tortured gaze, but he dared not turn to see for fear of losing hold of the Greenwood prince. "You condemn them to death and their blood shall be as much on your hands as upon the Enemy!" he shouted to the unresponsive commander. Tears of mingled rage and grief streamed unheeded down Thranduil's fair face and Elrond slowly realized that he too wept.
"How dare you!" the prince spat harshly but the High King made no answer. The sounds of battle were impossible to hear over the cries and shouts around them, but Elrond needed nothing but the wild look of pain in Orophorion's eyes to know how the attack was faring. The prince gave one last lunge, his hands fumbling for his sword, but he could not throw off his captors.
"Kinslayer!" Thranduil screamed raw-voiced in rage and the Noldor stiffened. Still Gil-galad did not move and the prince collapsed weeping against their encircling arms.
"Get him out of here," Glorfindel hissed in Elrond's ear and suddenly the peredhel found himself dragging the weakly struggling warrior from the field. He was all but incoherent now yet the cry of kinslayer stillechoed hauntingly across the field.
...
The clear, cold day shattered as abruptly as if it had been a mirror tumbling onto solid rock. The sky, empty and blue and pale, hardly flickered before dark grey clouds overwhelmed it from nowhere, and a dizzying avalanche of swirling white crystals descended upon the narrow Pass of Caradhras. It was an impossible shift in the weather, faster than could be believed, and it caught the four young Elves and their horses utterly off-guard.
Elladan loudly spat a word he had learned from the Dúnedain and bent low over his mount's neck, trying to wipe his eyes clear of the deluge of opaque white dust. It lashed at the travelers like sharp grains of glass, and they squinted desperately but even Elven eyes could barely make out the edge where the Pass dropped off into thin air.
"We have to stop!" Elrohir shouted, spitting snow from his mouth.
"We should push on!" Fuiniel argued, her voice sharp and thin as it struggled to be heard through the wind. Elladan couldn't even see the two younger elflings through the swirl of white; hard enough to make out the dim shape of Elrohir riding right behind him.
"It is too dangerous!" he called back, shaking his head even though he knew she wouldn't be able to see it.
"If we wait, we could be snowed in here!" she persisted.
"And if we press on," Elladan began, then choked on snow that had taken advantage of his turning to face into the wind. .
"We risk tumbling off the mountain in our snow-blind state!" the younger of the twins finished the sentence where his brother left off.
A fainter, high voice was all but swept away by Caradhras's rage as Legolas asked, "what about the yrch?"
Elladan spat snow from his mouth and started to reply, but for once it was not his twin who spoke the thoughts he planned to voice.
"Even yrch could not travel in this," Fuiniel said firmly. The twins nodded; they could not see one another's action, but they were acting now as one mind, and knew the other's senses as their own.
Not that any sense were doing them much good in this blinding snowstorm; they might as well have had their eyes closed and their ears stuffed with cotton for all the good it did in this impossible weather.
"This makes no sense," Elrohir grumbled.
Elladan felt a cold pit that had nothing to do with the storm open in his gut. Glorfindel was right. "It is Caradhras," he gasped, barely able to hear his own words over the violent wind tugging at his clothes and hair. His horse shifted anxiously beneath him, breathing hard in panic, but there was nowhere for her to go. Elladan stroked her frozen mane and wished he had some comfort to offer.
"That makes no sense, though," Elrohir insisted; somehow he had heard or at least sensed his brother's speech. "If the mountain did not want us to cross, why present us with a path clear of snow all the way to the peak?"
"It wanted us up here," Fuiniel's voice was dark and low and all but stolen by the wind, "because it could not destroy us until we were within its grasp."
Elladan shivered, frozen by that thought more than the storm; he was Elven-blooded, and cold did not affect him like it did mortals, yet even his eldritch heritage could not keep all the chill of Caradhras from touching him—and it did nothing to stave off the premonition of doom that was grasping now at his senses.
"Well, it shall learn that such a gamble was a poor one," Elrohir shouted defiantly. "Because we shall pass over this mountain, and it shall not stop us."
"Please do not make the mountain angry," Elladan muttered, but he said it to himself alone; there was no sense arguing with Elrohir when such a stubborn mood came upon him…especially when Elladan himself agreed with his brother's sentiments.
"Do you feel a sense of warning, brother?" Elrohir asked suddenly. "As if something does not want us traveling on, because danger lies ahead?"
"I think that something is the mountain," Elladan shouted back, "and I believe we are well past warning and into downright wrath at this point!" His twin made no reply, perhaps too overwhelmed with the snow dashed at his face to force more speech.
"We should tie ourselves together," Legolas suggested, the small elfling's words almost lost at the edge of Elven hearing. "That way we will not be lost."
Elrohir was already pulling at the packs carried by his mount; he tossed a thin strand of hithlain to his twin, who tied the end securely around his wrist. "All right!" Elladan shouted, and felt a faint tug as his brother tested how much slack he wanted to chance. "But we ought to dismount and lead our horses on foot," the older brother insisted.
"Good plan," the other twin yelled back, "I shall take the rear. Legolas!" His voice abruptly dropped in volume as he turned to face the other direction. "Switch mounts with me, but be careful. Feel your way down the line…"
Elladan waited anxiously until he heard his brother's shout that the precarious switch had been managed without mishap, then tested the knot around his wrist one more time. It held fast. "Is everyone secure?"
Three answering shouts and one anxious whinny answered him. The young Elf Lord patted his horse gently on her frosted neck, then buried his fingers tightly in her mane. For once, he regretted that he did not ride with mortal accoutrements. He would simply have to hang on, and hope for the best.
Staggering under the force of the wind and snow, the four young Elves and their steeds pushed forward slowly up the Pass of Caradhras, defiant in the face of the mountain's fury.
But Caradhras has never been particularly fond of defiance, and the mountain redoubled its efforts. There was a loud crack, and sudden rumbling from above.
"Get back!" Elladan shouted, but the rest of his words were consumed by the thundering tumble of snow as the mountain seemed to crack in half, swallowing the elflings in an endless mass of snow and ice.
The last echoes of the avalanche trickled away as the snow slowly settled. As suddenly as it had come, the impossible storm faded into the bright, clear day. On the peak of Caradhras, all was silent and peaceful, an unbroken landscape of immobile, frozen white.
...
A rasp of ragged fabric on rougher rock echoed loudly in the silent caverns. A dark figure, twisted and broken beneath its filthy robes, paced back and forth, muttering foully to itself. Anger smoldered beneath its concealing hood, and swirled around its silent footsteps. It did not seem to feel the wintry cold of its dark stone surroundings, but hunched deeply in its cloak nonetheless. The dragging noise of its ragged robes sounded like fingernails scraping, echoing mockingly in the dark, frigid corridor of rock.
It regretted killing Aglarmegil so quickly. True, the yrch had enjoyed their sport, and the foolish warrior would not have lasted long with injuries of that extent anyway, but the cloth-swaddled figure was frustrated nonetheless. There was no news from the scouts about the Imladris Elves, and now the thrice-cursed Thranduil was on the move again, apparently on the mend. How the foul king could foist himself back from death so easily was a mystery that the twisted figure could not fathom, but intended to correct soon. Fading, he should have Faded by now…
But there were other ways to kill an Elf than despair. The yrch, however, had failed once again. They were paltry, inefficient servants, but they were the only ones it had. A curse in the Black Speech of Mordor spat from the dark depths of the heavy hood. It ought to have known better than to try and assassinate Thranduil with stealth using yrch to deliver the blow! Elves were creatures of the trees, and yrch were very much not; how had it made such a foolish mistake as to think the simple creatures could drop on the unsuspecting king and slaughter him from above?
It was the frustration, and impatience. Desperate for something to happen, it was making mistakes, and that would not be tolerated. It would have to do better—and so would the yrch. Perhaps it was time for some more motivation…
Many of the foul creatures had been lost to the Elven slaughter, but their numbers were practically endless. More slunk into the forest every night, moving under the cover of cloud and moonless night, sneaking right past the noses of watchful Elves and Men who thought they could contain the Shadow.
A cackling, broken hiss of a laugh jangled in the dark corridors. Nothing could contain the shadow, not now any more than the last time foolish Elves and Men had tried to stand against it! It laughed, and the caverns seemed suddenly darker and colder than before. Had there been anything left alive in them, it would have fled at the soul-chilling sound; but the yrch were ravenous, and any small creatures that had once resided in the twisting, crude caverns that served the foul things as a home hidden deep within Greenwood's forest were long since consumed.
There was no one to hear the shattered, Shadow-heavy laugh, but the earth shuddered nonetheless.
...
Gil-galad walked alone over the bare and broken, bloodied ground. Healers still moved among the wreckage, but their search was the desperate kind that one makes when one has long ago stopped looking, but cannot bring oneself to abandon the effort. His guards stood back a ways from the High King; some of them moved among the dead, others simply sat and wept. Even Elrond stood apart from him, the peredhel's eyes brimming with sorrow.
Alone, careless of the threat that Mordor posed nearby—if they should dare strike against the High King now, they would face wrathful sorrow of which they had no name—Gil-galad walked the field of Oropher's defeat. He came at last upon what he sought: the broken body of Greenwood's liege. Gil-galad bowed his head and silent tears streamed down his face.
He knelt next to the once-proud form, his face creased with sorrow, and brushed a gentle hand along knotted strands of tarnished gold. The fire of the indomitable Silvan king had somehow been smothered beneath the weight of Mordor's endless Shadow, and the Alliance already felt smaller. Greenwood was such a small potion of their army, but Oropher's presence could have dwarfed a force of hundreds.
And now—what was it Greenwood's warriors called him again? Aralor?—Now the fierce aralor lay broken on the field, and Gil-galad bowed under the weight of ageless sorrow. Somewhere in the distance, a pale voice rose in a lamentation.
Gil-galad sighed, sorrow twisting in his gut like a poisoned snake. If only Oropher had not been so stubborn…if only he had realized how stubborn the Greenwood king would be…if only he had sent the archers in to cover them, perhaps Oropher might have retreated…he could have taken the whole army in after them, but that would have caused even greater death and defeat. No, Gil-galad knew he had made the right choice; but that knowledge made this loss no easier to bear.
Rather, it seemed somehow to make it harder, for this tragedy could have been so easily avoided. So many dead in vain, victim to their stubbornness and that of their brash king—and, if Gil-galad was to be perfectly honest, perhaps even a little to his, as well. Oropher's endless disagreement had rankled, but perhaps if he had taken the time to convince Greenwood's king instead of arguing him down and outvoting him, perhaps then Oropher would have bowed to sense…
But recriminations alter nothing. What was done and dead could not be undone. Thank the Valar he at least had had enough foresight to split Greenwood's forces into two companies, or they would have all been lost. Gil-galad could so easily see bright Thranduil lying on this blood-soaked field beside his father.
The High King shifted the orc corpses that littered the ground around the golden king; he was long-since inured to the distasteful feel of orcish blood and flesh, and the bodies moved easily aside to reveal how fierce a struggle had finally managed to overcome Greenwood's stubborn king.
The mutilated form of a noble Lady lay crumpled atop the bloody body of proud Oropher. She had been hacked nearly in twain but even in death her hand had not relaxed its grip upon her sword. Grievous wounds decorated both bodies, and the ground beneath his boots was wet with all the blood that had spilt upon it. Oropher's corpse was so battered that only the blood-drenched gold of his hair gave testament to his identity; there was no emblem of rank or nobility on the armor of Greenwood's king save for that brilliant flame. The Lady bore no such signature locks and he could not recognize her once-lovely face, but Gil-galad knew this shattered form had to be Oropher's second-gon, the lady Gilthawen, now fallen in defense of her dead king.
The Noldor Lord felt fresh tears sting his sad grey eyes. All around him stretched the brutal spectacle of tragedy in vain, and it broke his heart.
Gil-galad levered himself slowly to his feet, unfolding as if over some vast and frozen distance. Elrond was suddenly at his side, trails of tears fresh in the ash on the peredhel's cheeks; somehow he had sensed that he was needed.
"See that the bodies are attended to properly," Gil-galad told his herald and gestured at the bloody, broken forms lying before him. "Endeavor if you can to have Oropher moved off the field 'ere Thranduil comes looking for him," he added heavily. "I would not have the prince find him in this state." His frown deepened. "And try not to allow Gilthawen's daughters to see their mother like this."
"Yes, my lord." Elrond nodded, his deep eyes glittering with pain.
Gil-galad gently pried the blackened sword free from Oropher's cold hand. "I shall take this to Thranduil, and formally tell him of his father's fate," the High King said quietly. He wiped the dripping blade on his own cloak.
Elrond once more nodded, solemnly, but did not speak.
Erenion Gil-galad took a last long, weary look around the tragic field, then squared his shoulders under the weight of sorrow and strode across the corpse-strewn ground. His dark cape flapped about his ankles like a forlorn banner tugged by the thin, melancholic lament winding through the bitter, ash-filled air.