Hi guys!
Let's remember that during the years that Laura lived in Gondolin, it happened the Battle of Outnumbered Tears which was a complete disaster for the Elves, Dwarves and Men. So, here's a chapter that talks about it from Maeglin's POV. I want to give thanks and give all the credit of this chapter to Celridel who wrote it in its totality.
Also, I want to thank Celridel for her help in this story and for the reviews from d'elfe, Amberdeengirl17, Ducking Cute, Backstreet Girl and idonthaveaname.
Waiting for your reviews, guys!
Chapter 52: Tears Uncounted
Someone screams out my name. A sound breaches this blood-soaked continuum.
I turn fast, my shortsword in one hand, my slender knife in the other, ready to stab and to slice, ready to save.
"Duck!" I scream at the soldier, as a goblin's black blade hurtles to him, ready to cut the slender thread of life.
But it is too late. My shortsword cleaves through the goblin's deformed skull, cracking bone, and the killer collapses on the killed. It took its own weregild before it could ever fall.
I have fought for eight days, and my clothes are stiff with the blood of the dead.
My knife makes a silver arc, slicing an Easterling's throat. The man's blood fountains up as I cut an artery.
My own mother could not recognize this face.
Thank the Valar for small favors.
I press forward through corpse-choked reeds, the marshes sucking at my boots as if they are not gorged enough. I want to go where the fighting is the thickest, to Turgon's side.
On the horizon, I see fires light up the smoky air. Glaurung stalks the night.
I see Turgon, and he fights like one possessed, and I understand why, of all the Eldar, Morgoth fears him most of all. Fey he seems, and I love him for it. I wonder if he knows of his brother's fate yet.
Then glowing green eyes find mine, and a great wolf-shape springs from the shadows, jaws open to burrow into my throat.
I am knocked to the ground, rolling over and over, a mangled mass of steel and fur. My knife in one hand, I give up trying to keep the werewolf's jaws from my throat. Instead wrap my arms around its thick, shaggy neck in a crushing embrace, trying to stab.
It howls out a death agony, and suddenly its crushing weight is pushed off me.
A dwarf wielding a battle-ax is standing over me, wearing a hideous, horned war-mask. I cannot see his eyes, but he pulls me to my feet and then is gone into the fray.
I look again for Turgon, but I cannot see him. Fear hollows my guts, and I hack through the throngs for a sight of him.
I see nothing.
Familiar faces pass by me, like ghosts. I see Glorfindel, his golden hair an idiot brightness in a place where all the stars swallowed. At his side, Laura fights like a clockwork soldier, moving in her own interior death-giving rhythm.
Ecthelion's face is hewn from stone as he chops down orcs like a lumberman felling trees. He sees me, hails me. I ignore him, pressing forward.
Now I see Glaurung, still far off, but coming closer. He rears back on his hindlegs, beating his wings, and even from here, I feel the tremendous, sulphur-tinged wind. Small figures surround him in horned masks: the Dwarves are taking on the dragon, and I feel a sudden kinship towards them all. Dwarf or Man or Elf, it matters not. We are all here, gathered for different purposes, but we are all here.
It seems war is the only thing that can bring us together.
I fight on.
For a minute, I think I catch sight of Turgon, but then a lumbering troll cuts off my sight.
I slide under the spiked club, huge as a full-grown tree. It comes smashing to the ground and I dart between the troll's legs.
"Over here!"
Another warrior grabs my shoulder. He is exceedingly tall, and his hair and tattered cloak are a chaos of crimson.
He bends to one knee, his fingers interlaced, nearly touching the ground. I run towards him, setting my feet in the cup of his hands, my knife ready. He straightens, pistoning me upward. As he lifts me, I raise one foot and placed it on his shoulder, using it as a foothold to lunge for the troll's hamstrings.
I catch hold of the troll's knee and clamber up his leg like a boy inching up a tree with no branches in reach, my knife clamped in between my teeth until I reach the upper leg.
Then I cut. My knife, of my own making, parts the grey skin of the troll, going past muscle and membrane to slice the tendon.
The troll roars, falling to his knees, and I am forced to leap into the fray or be crushed.
Then the red-haired warrior is there, scything down a circle of foes so I may land safely.
He pulls me up, and with a nearly casual flick of his sword, beheads an Orc.
"Do I know you, boy?" His eyes bore into mine.
"No, sir," I say, though I know him.
"You fight well," he says, and I run on.
Rog and his House fight in a shield wall, smashing through their foes, mowing them down like a scythe mows down the wheat field.
On.
Vapors and smoke rise from the Fens, obscuring this atrocity from the eye of the pale moon.
Or is it day?
I forget.
On.
I hew my way blindly through a wall of smoke.
Then a face is front of mine, a sneering, laughing face, eyes like pits of night in the white face.
I swing my sword. The stroke cuts through empty air. Faster than my eyes can track the motion, the thing snakes behind me. It seizes me in its unholy grasp. An ice-cold hand crushes my sword-hand, forcing me to drop my blade.
"My master will find you useful indeed, Eöl's Son," the vampire says, its voice a dark and honeyed baritone, chilling my marrow with fear and premonitions.
I throw my head backward, feeling instant gratification as I hear its nose crack.
I spun fast, throwing all my weight into a kick aimed at its chest. The vampire stumbles back, stinking batwings spread to catch its fall. I scrabbled about in the marshy water, searching for my sword, and found it tangled in duckweed.
I wrench my blade upward, dripping with bloody water, but the vampire is already gone, searching for easier prey.
On.
At last, I see Turgon.
He stands in the middle of the battlefield, and it seems that a light is about him. His face is deadly with wrath, he fights with the power of a tiger's charge and again I feel my love for him.
Is this why I fight? For him?
It is a good a reason as any for this hopeless, doomed devotion.
Near Turgon are two men. I take them for brothers, for both are tall and golden-bearded, their eyes blue and dangerous, their armor slick with gore.
I come to Turgon's side, and I know he sees me, although he makes no sign. At last I can lean upon my sword, and rest for a minute, for there is a wide circle around us, empty of foes.
The older of the Edain brothers stands still as well. He removes his helmet and his hair falls in a shower of gold, streaked with grey. Blood flecks his beard, and I see the purple crescents that ring his eyes.
"Do not lose heart yet, Lord Húrin!" Turgon said, and the medley of power and despair in his voice takes me by suprise.
Húrin looked at Turgon with a sad smile. "Those that remain fight to their deaths. Go now, lord, while time is! For in you lives the last hope of the Eldar, and while Gondolin stands Morgoth shall still know fear in his heart."
For the first time, I see Turgon falter, and his face becomes grey. "Not long now can Gondolin be hidden; and being discovered it must fall."
Huor came forward to stand by his brother. He was taller than Húrin, taller even than Turgon, and his voice was deep. "Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. Though we shall never meet again, from you and from a me will a new star arise!"
And I see light, and it is not Balrog-flame nor Dragon-fire. It is a white, burning brilliance, as for an instant I see a star brighter than any ever before. It blisters my eyes and I lust it for its light. My heart beats fast, with a hope I do not understand and a fear I cannot contain.
And as Turgon and I leave, to gather the remnants of our force, I look back once last time, and I see the brothers readying to fight once more.
I feel the first tears sting my eyes, mingling with the sweat and blood. The air is rotten with death, and tomorrow morning, the dew will fall red for many leagues.
The minstrels will sing no songs for this battle.
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