Hi guys!
So, in these next three chapters will be told the Sack of Gondolin and all the tragedies that happened thanks to the betrayal of Maeglin.
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Chapter 68: Fire and Steel
One Hour Past Sunrise
Fire raced down the slopes of the Echoriath, rivers of flames that roared in bitter rage, turning the velds of Tumladen red, and pale Gondolin blushed under that baleful light. Across those fields, shapes ran, those who kept vigil on the peaks coming to bear the awful tidings. And some fell under the flames, but some came to the city, shouting in smoke-choked voices "Melko is upon us! Melko is upon us!"
The Lords and their houses were gathered in the Square of the King, their voices carrying over the anguish and clamor of bells.
Turgon's face was still and hard as the Lords spoke, shouting among themselves. Tuor pleaded that they should go and face the forces of Melko onto the plains while there was still time, but then he and the other lords fell to bickering, as to whether they should go forth as one or sally out in many bands.
"Go forth in one great host," Duilin exclaimed. "We could route the forces of Melko if we fight on the open fields."
"Yes. We sally forth in one united front, unhindered by walls and innocents, instead of being nicely caught in a trap," Glorfindel agreed.
"Why toss away our greatest strength?" Maeglin refuted, speaking words of ruin cloaked in advice. "King, should we sally forth, our city would be left undefended and the losses would be grievous. Let us use our walls and gates to advantage, instead of throwing them aside and going naked into the open."
"Indeed," Salgant agreed loudly. "The Prince speaks well. We can stand upon the walls and pick off our foes one by one, instead of making a desperate attempt to mow them all down."
Turgon turned to face Maeglin, and his grey eyes seemed colorless. "You have not led me astray yet, sister-son," he said softly, yet his voice carried above the cacophony around them. "We shall man the walls. Now tell me, Tuor, where is my daughter?"
"No-" Tuor said, and then his voice failed him, and he opened and closed his mouth wordlessly. Tears jabbed at the back of his eyes, sharp like a thousand needles. He turned and ran towards his house, and some of the Wing Folk followed him
The fountains in the King's Square were steaming from the heat of the firedrakes, and Tumladen was cloaked in a thick mist, broken only by tongues of flame.
Three Hours after Sunrise
"Hush, Eärendil," Idril said softly. She pulled his tunic over the shirt of mail, and closed her eyes for a brief second, trying to contain the tears for his sake.
Outside the windows, darts of Balrog-fire fell in a deadly rain, and the flowers and grass curled and turned black. The mist was growing thicker by the minute, and she knew that soon Melko's force would breach the gates, entering the city under the cover of fog and smoke.
She took her son's hand and fled the house. She saw dark figures fleeing blindly, aimlessly, but the mist was too thick for her to see their faces.
As if from far off, she heard her husband's voice, shouting her name. Idril turned, clutching Eärendil in her arms.
Then a great gout of fire and smoke shot up, and the wall her house had stood upon was gone, gutted by the murderous flame. Heat beat the air with red wings, buffeting the two of them to the ground. She heard Eärendil scream as she fell on top of him.
"Tuor!" she shrieked, but her voice was drowned by the swelling roar of a dragon, erupting up from the column of flame so loud she felt blood trickle from her ears.
She picked her son up again and ran bent over, hearing returned as she went. She was fleeing towards the tunnel, intending to have Eärendil wait there while she gathered up survivors.
She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw silhouettes through the mist, following her...following her...following her...
Idril spun on her heel, no longer heading for the tunnel. She could not afford to have Maeglin discover it.
Glowing cinders floated in front of her, newborn fireflies. The heat was sickening, blistering, leeching her strength away like a vampire sucks blood.
Now she was on the scorched walls, and she knew Maeglin was near, for no Orc or Warg or evil thing assailed her. Only those shadows in the mist, drawing nearer, closing in on her in a half-circle. She counted five, the grimmest and least good-hearted of Maeglin's grim House.
She set her son down, drawing the sword from her belt. "This is the time, Maeglin," she called. "Show yourself!"
And Eärendil screamed.
She turned back, spinning like a dancer, her sword pale in her hands. Maeglin stood in front of her, Eärendil perched on his hip. His face was blank, calm, gazing at her with a flat, black stare.
"Give me my son," Idril said. From behind them, a hellish chorus of noise erupted, and a sudden wash of heat assaulted them, thick with the smell of ash, brimstone, and burning flesh.
"Drop your sword, Idril," Maeglin said, his voice soft and cold. She hesitated, and he stepped backward, towards the sheer cliffs. At the bottom of those cliffs, orange gouts of fire danced, and the precipice walls shimmered with the heat.
She let her weapon fall from her numb hands, and the sound of her blade clattering on the stones was as loud as a scream. She stepped towards Maeglin; her hands held upwards. "Please Maeglin," she whispered. "Have you not done enough?"
"I have done everything," he said, smiling. "This was all for you, Idril. This is your gift. I am turning back the hands of the clock, giving you the second chance you refused to give me. By tomorrow's dawn, you will be free from all your mistakes."
He took another step backward, inching closer to the edge. Idril moved forward again, going slow and careful. She struggled to clear her mind of the overwhelming fear and anger and pain, trying to find the words that would buy her a little time.
"Maeglin," she said softly. "Maeglin, this goes beyond you and I or even Gondolin. The child you hold is the one who will keep the world in balance. If he dies, hope dies with him."
"Hope," Maeglin mused, and Idril took another step forward. "Hope is and always has been a fleeting thing. The fate of the world will never rest with one man."
"It does now," she whispered, and he threw back his head in laughter. "Idril, Idril, Idril!" he cried at her. "Idril, you are as complicit as I in this thing. This is as much your doing as mine!"
"No!" she shouted, and moving fast as a lightening-strike, she slid the dagger from her sleeve, and stabbed at his neck. Maeglin brought his shoulder up just as she brought the blade down, and it sank into the hollow between his clavicle and his neck. It was a grievous wound, but nowhere near fatal.
He moved his wounded arm anyways, burying his hand in her hair, close to the roots so she could not tear away. Idril finally understood how devastatingly strong he was, as he hauled her bodily to the edge of the cliff.
Below them, the flames danced, clawing up towards them, and in their ruddy light, Maeglin's face was the face of a demon.
She wrestled with him thereupon the brink, like a tigress for all her fierce beauty, a woman with steel in eye and heart and arm. She jabbed at his side and then his face, gouging at his eyes so that he released her. Idril grabbed for the dagger still buried in his flesh, but his hand was already there, jerking the blade out, his face was a rictus of agony. Behind her, Idril heard a sound like the rush of eagle wings, and she saw Maeglin's intent. She grabbed for the hand that held the blade.
Then Tuor was there, and so great was his fury he seemed a battle-god instead of a man. Idril heard the snap of breaking bones, and then she had caught up her son, hiding his face in her shoulder, praying the struggle would be brief. And it was.
Maeglin's body struck the cliff walls three times, and then he tumbled into the flames, a sacrifice of burnt flesh to the bones of his father.
Idril stooped and lifted Anguirel. The black blade was light in her hands. She turned to see what had become of Maeglin's folk. They lay on the ground, a testimony of Tuor's wrath. Only one was breathing. Pressing her son's head into her shoulder, she stepped on the Noldo's chest, and Anguirel's blade pierced his throat.
Five Hours After Sunrise
Duilin pulled the string of his bow back, and
Black scaled mountain smell of sulfur white-hot heat red flames please darlings don't look it'll all be over soon please let it be over soon oh Duilin where are you
He stood petrified, feeling their pain, every inch of him blooming into a searing agony. He felt them pass, and their deaths ripped his soul into shreds.
As he stood alone, frozen by the blistering, shattering pain, a flaming Balrog-dart flew true, piercing him in the eye. It was a brief sensation, cold and incomparable to the other pain. He staggered on the battlements and fell. The wind whistled through his ears (the sweetest sound) and blind, he met fire, but even that was not as hot. And those who stood on the wall saw his ashes borne away, flying as if on the wings of ghost-birds.
Nine Hours After Sunrise
Tuor tossed aside Ecthelion's helmet, pushing the Elf's face into the pure water of the fountain, trying to revive him. After he saw that the Lord of the Waters had drunk, Tuor sat him down at the base of the fountain. Ecthelion's skin was grey with pain, his shield-arm a ruin of smoking flesh and blood.
"Give me my helm," the Noldo said slowly.
"You cannot fight. We will hold the King's Square until Glorfindel comes," Tuor said.
Ecthelion's eyes closed briefly, then flickered open. "No," he said, every word bringing him pain. "Give me my helm, Tuor."
Reluctantly, the man put the spiked helmet on Ecthelion's head, catching the glint of steel eyes behind the visor.
"Now help me stand," the Elf demanded.
Tuor swallowed, and with a mighty pull, brought Ecthelion to his feet. They stood together and watched the Alley of Roses turn black; the great hedges crumbled to ash as Morgoth's mighty lieutenant passed them by. He burst into the King's Square with a whoosh of flame, followed by a phalanx of Orcs.
"So you arrive at last," Ecthelion shouted, standing upright and moving away from Tuor. "And I thought you were a craven, Gothmog. Come, prove me wrong!"
A wave of heat assaulted those who stood in the King's Square as Gothmog approached the Lord of the Fountain, a towering monster clothed in flame, but behind the flame was a stygian darkness, a titanic and primitive blackness ripped from the gut of the night. Beside him, Ecthelion looked like a child or a dwarf, but the Elf did not quail, and the fire rippled on his sword and reflected in his diamond eyes.
Gothmog laughed, a thunderous sound, harsh as grating stones. "Do the Noldor ever learn when it is too late? Death is already yours, Fading Star."
"Did your Master send you to bandy words or to fight? Will you bore me to death, then?" Ecthelion challenged, his voice clear with ruthless calm, closing the distance between them.
They fought then, a symphony of steel upon steel, but Ecthelion was already weak, and Gothmog battered Ecthelion back, until the Elf's back as at the base of the King's fountain.
Then Gothmog's axe clove through the Elf's sword hand, separating flesh and bone like pulpwood, and Ecthelion's pale sword fell to the ground, his severed hand still clinging to the hilt, and all of Melko's creatures left alive in the Square gave a great cheer.
Ecthelion stepped backward onto the lip of the fountain, blood flowing freely from the stump of his hand. Then he seized the flaming monster in a death-giving embrace, burying the spike of his helmet deep into Gothmog's black heart. They fell backward together, locked together like lovers, and the clear waters of the fountain swallowed them whole.
Thirteen Hours After Sunrise
Blood coagulated behind them, a solid river of carnage and gore. Anguirel's blade was ripe and dripping as she clove through the skull of an Orc. Voronwë was at her back and they hewed their way through the black throng, going like a firebolt through a forest.
"To me!" Idril shouted. "To me! To me!" Her voice rang clarion over the brazen trumpets and crackling of fire. By her count, they led nearly a thousand survivors to the tunnel, but it was not enough.
They moved through the rubble and fire, and those who could walk clustered to them, swelling their bands into hundreds.
At last, Idril turned to look at Voronwë, wiping the sweat from her brow with her arm. "Where are they?" she demanded. A few scattered Orcs moved through the streets, but her band quickly did away with those.
"The Kings' Square," the Mariner said softly, looking straight ahead. "They are gathered at the King's Square."
"No," Idril answered immediately. "No, they are not. That is where Tuor fights."
In response, Voronwë lifted a finger and pointed. Idril's eyes followed his finger, and all the color poured out her face.
The King's Square was awash with a black tide, like a great field of dark corn and every ear glinted with barbed light. Coiled around the foot of the palace was a great dragon, large as a mountain, and its belly was red with impending fire. But Idril's eyes were welded on the window in the topmost tower, and there she saw her father, alone and crownless.
She opened her mouth to scream, and the Square exploded into flame. It was a swirling storm of crimson and orange, red banners that unfurled in the hellish wind. The air was thick with ash and cinders.
Then Idril found her voice, and she screamed. It was a long and primal noise, filled with rage and sorrow too great for words.
"Idril!"
Tuor's voice came as he ran towards her, his face black and red with soot and blood. "Idril! Idril! I live! I live!"
She seized him in an embrace hot as the fire that raged in front of them, sobbing incoherent words.
But Tuor moved away from her, maddened by her grief. "Idril, I will find your father! If I must drag him from the Hells of Melko, I will get him!"
"No!" she screamed, holding him back, and even as she did, that high white tower became a spear of flame. There was a roar as stone gave way to heat and pressure, a crescendoing thunder, and the tower fell, collapsing in with a great gout of fire and smoke.
That hour marked the victory of Morgoth over Gondolin, Flower of the Plain.
One Hour After Moonrise
Eärendil slept in his father's arms, exhausted by terror. Tuor walked slowly, focusing on lifting one foot, then the other. His very bones felt heavy, and he was exhausted to a point that could drive a man mad. To the right and slightly behind him was Idril. Beneath the coating of blood, her face was colorless. Her lips were slightly parted and when he turned to look at her, he saw them moved. He wondered what she was saying, but his own lips refused to form the words, as if to speak would be to expend the last of his strength.
He thought the sun had set but could not be sure. The clouds were thick and churning, reflecting red with fire. Below them was a mist mixed with smoke, seeming thick enough to walk on, but he knew that one stray footstep would lead him down into a yawning emptiness.
As they climbed higher, the wind began to howl, flowing straight from the frozen heart of the North. Snow rose in eddies about them, for the Cirith Thoronath was a bleak place, bitterly cold all year round.
It was not long before the snow was falling faster, filling all the air, and swirling into Tuor's eyes. He walked slower, terrified to make a wrong step, and find himself falling, watching the burned land below race up to meet him.
Instead, he walked into Galdor's armored back. The Elf-Lord had stopped moving, and his head was tilted upwards as he listened to the wind, which seemed to howl with shrill laughter.
Behind him, he heard Idril take a sharp breath.
"They are coming from behind," Galdor said.
Tuor was so exhausted that the words seemed nonsensical to him at first. "What is that?" he managed, and the sentence fell from his lips like a dead thing he had vomited up.
Galdor turned to face Tuor. "They are coming from behind. Can you not hear them?"
Although Tuor and Idril were walking in the rearguard, the man had not been able to hear them over the howl of the wind. But now the first sounds of conflict came drifting to his ears, even as the sound of many wings beat the air.
"The Thornhoth!" Idril cried aloud, and although there was an ice-skim of hysteria in her voice, her words were glad. She reached up into the sky and plucked a falling eagle feather from the air.
The eagles came with the wind, line after line, gathered from all their eyries, dominating the skies.
~.~
Laura and Glorfindel stood at the very back of rearguard, watching the Eagles snatch the climbing Orcs in their talons, dropping them to their doom. It was only when they saw one of those flying shapes burst into flame, becoming a wheel of fire that spiraled through the night, that they knew all was not well.
"Another Balrog," Laura said. Her clothes were drenched with blood and gore, and Glorfindel had fared no better. "They just keep sprouting like daisies."
Glorfindel smiled, but there was no mirth in the smile. It was as thin and raw and hard as a dagger cut. "Then, Manya, it is well that we are the January wind."
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