Hello people around the world!
First of all I want to say that this chapter was written in its entirety by Celridel. Second, that I thank Celridel's editions and writings and thirdly, the encouraging reviews of d'elfe, Backstreet Girl and DuckingCute.
Waiting for your reviews, guys! After all is one of the most terrible and important battles that have ever been in Middle-Earth!
Chapter 6: Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin
Morning invaded the sky with red, slaughterous splendor, for the Day-Bearer was sick with rage. She rose in a brilliance nearly as hot as her wrath, lusting for vengeance even as the darkness had lusted after her.
It was a red dawn.
A dragon dawn.
Banners snapped in the wind and hosts of spears twinkled like galaxies, and it would have been easier to count grains of sands on the shore than to count how many helmets were gathered on that green plain, swallowing the grass with their numbers. Golden Vanyar stood side by side with Avari clad in boiled leather, Noldor dressed in ornate plate armor that would turn any blade, and Men in ring mail, Dwarves in spiked helmets and bronze war masks made by secret craft. Maiar went among them, taking shapes of beast or birds or even of humans, but they were easily distinguished by the brightness of their eyes and the white shadows they cast. There were gathered the greatest of Princes and Captains, and the smallest of folk, forced side by side by doom.
Elrond stood by the High-King, dressed in armor fitting a Noldorin Prince. The Thangorodrim soared up in front of his eyes, titanic beyond measure, their summits glittering in the red light like rows of spiked teeth. He saw army after army vomited up from the dark, stinking heart of Morgoth's stronghold, marching like ants.
There are too many, he brooded. They will crush us like a man crushes a bothersome fly.
His heart beat slowly as he watched destruction appear, unfurling black banners that flapped in the gathering wind like carrion. Throngs of Orcs, marching in wedge-liked formations, phalanxes of werewolves, lean grey things made of fur and claws and teeth, cadres of flaming Balrogs, armed with whips and maces. All trained to fight in formation, skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Compared to Morgoth's army, the Host of the Valar was a motley band, undisciplined and desperate.
Yet they had no choice but to walk into the teeth of that army.
Someone nudged him, and Elrond nodded at his brother. They were nearly full-grown, tall, their height filled out with lean muscle, and Kingsmen now, in the entourage of Gil-Galad the High-King.
"Are you ready?" Elros' fingers were restless.
"My blood runs chill," Elrond said softly, stamping his feet. The air was cold, but there seemed to be a heat rising from the earth, something sulfurous and rotten-warm. He changed a glance at Gil-Galad, who was standing unmoved, hard-eyed, taciturn, and deadly.
"Do you think They are here?" Elros asked, his voice so soft it sounded more like a sigh. Elrond looked down, and then up at the sky. By tacit agreement, they rarely spoke of Elwing and Eärendil, and when they thought of them, it was rarely kind thoughts.
"Perhaps," he managed at last. "And look." He pointed Northwards, where a tattered remnants of a Noldor army stood, marked by their armor, and headed by an Elf who stood head and shoulders above the rest. His red cloak flapped like a crimson tide.
Elros smiled bitterly, then spat. "One happy family, it seems. All we need is Mortissë and we shall be complete."
Elrond did not answer.
A reek and gloom came then, creeping over the plains in a slow, insidious tide. Captains shouted orders in the mirk, and Elrond heard the stamping of many feet, wolves howling, bats flying, the skittering of spiders. "Pikes up!" Gil-Galad thundered, his eyes gleaming like stars that shine brighter as night darkens. Elrond raised his spear, bracing. He was a blooded warrior, more seasoned than any youth had a right to be, but this...
The world dissolved into red. It seemed to Elrond that he fought alone, foundering in a seething sea of black. The darkness grew and grew and grew.
Elrond's mind was a pale void, innocent of thought. He swung his sword again and again, as creeping night swallowed the sun. It was black around him.
Then it turned orange.
And men began to scream.
Elrond looked up, trying to see what new calamity had come. Then he forgot the battle. He forgot the sword in his hand. He forgot to breathe.
A dragon of untold size crouched on the peaks of Thangorodrim, crowned by a tempest of flame and lightening. His smaller brethren swarmed into the air, searing the darkness with red fire, but Ancalagon did not deign to move until a foe worthy of his might came to challenge him. His teeth were spears, his jaws could crunch towers in twain, he could drink seas dry and melt mountains with his breath.
Ancalagon threw back his head and roared, and the bones of Beleriand, tunneled through and hollowed out, shook as if with palsy.
"No!" Elrond shouted. "No! No! No!"
Fire flew around him, bright and hot, and men seemed to become living candles as they blazed up. The furnace wind beat at his face and roaring chaos surrounded him.
He wanted more than anything for a mother's hand to shake him and tell him to wake up. He wanted more than anything for Elros to hit him and tell him to stop screaming, for the stars' sake, he was trying to sleep.
Instead, he swung his sword again.
And again.
And again.
Battle-fever overtook him. He fought faceless foes, as the past and the future contracted, receded, became meaningless as a yesterday song. There was only the war, this sword swing and then the next and then next, parry maybe, or maybe chop or lunge or step backward. Shield walls formed and broke apart, swords cut, axes slammed, hammers crushed.
He fought, waiting for death.
But death did not come.
He measured hours by how stiff the drying blood on him was. The sky was choked with ash, and there was no sun or moon. Sometimes he fell back to drink water that tasted like copper and blood and dry out his mouth with crumbling bread. He would rest a little too, a thick heavy sludge of sleep that laid him unconscious until someone shook him.
Then he would go back.
Days passed like millenium, and years flew by like minutes, and he fought on the front lines of the Host, as they struggled up the slopes of the Iron Mountains, only to be easily repulsed by Ancalagon and his fires.
Elrond was somewhere in the middle of the field when his fever broke and he looked up at the sky. White light exploded in front of his eyes, like the heart of a star had shattered. He blinked at the terrible glare, his heart pounding, racing, as he saw a white ship descending from the skies, lit by an eldritch, unearthly glow. He saw the Silmaril ablaze-he had seen that light too often in his childhood to mistake it now. Down the ship came, down, down, hovering over the peaks of the Thangorodrim and it seemed silent and ethereal amid the wreck and clash of arms. Behind that proud swan-prowed ship streamed the Eagles in long straight lines and the rush of their wide wings was like an autumn gale.
Elrond could look no more: he had to fight his own battle. He slammed the point of his blade through the gnarled head of an Orc. Through his helmet came the screams, the hungry crackle of flame, the deep groans of war-horns, and the brazen blast of trumpets. He heard Ancalagon roar and once more the earth beneath his feet shook and shuddered. Eagles swooped and dived among the masses, tawny thunderbolts that seized Orcs and Wolves in their talons and soared upward, letting their catch smash to red ruin on the earth below.
Ancalagon rose from his post at the bating of Eärendil, a volcano given wings, launching himself into the skies. A shout of gladness and hope came from the Host of the Valar, and Elrond felt himself pushed forward as the army surged up the slopes thick with ghosts and corpses. He dealt out death as dragons wheeled in the sky above him and friend and foe died in the hundreds and the thousands. Everything seemed roaring red or orange or black. There was no in-between. Just that. Going forward was the hardest thing he had ever done or ever would do.
He marched upward for miles, slipping and sliding on the slag and ashes.
White sparks blazed around him, falling from the skies, but when he looked up, he saw no figures, only a shadow and a light in the murky skies. There was a glare of fire, lightning forked, and a canopy of silence came down. Wolves opened their slavering jaws and howled unheard. Screams became whispers. Men attacked but the clash of steel upon steel was smothered.
A flame of white light burst around, covering the sky, and for a half a heartbeat, the battlefield was as bright as day, and a savage wind tore at the armies.
Then came Ancalagon, not in glory and not in terror, but a black-scaled corpse plummeting through the air to land on the peaks of the Thangorodrim, and those hollowed mountains screamed and groaned under the weight of his passing.
Elrond felt the earth under his feet become undone and knew it was over. And then, at the very last, he felt a great power, a power that chilled him with its immensity, push the ground back together, pulling solid rock out of dust, letting him walk again.
He did not just walk, he ran, screaming wild things at the top of his lungs. Legions of darkness broke and died upon the bulwarks of light, and under the command of their master came again, and broke and died once more, till black blood soaked the ground and the mountains were covered with corpses.
And the Host streamed down the Iron Mountains towards Angband. But Elrond felt his legs give out from under him, and he fell to his knees on a jutting crag and cried. And for who, he could not say.
"Elrond?"
A hand was on his back. "Elrond? Kiddo? Get up."
He turned his head slowly, looking into green eyes.
"Get up," she repeated. "Don't give out on me now, kiddo. Not after all this."
He struggled to his feet. Why is my father not here? he wanted to shout. Why is he not coming down to greet his sons?
"Mellon nín," he managed, his voice as harsh as steel on stone.
"I told you we would see each other again," Mortissë affirmed. He thought she might be smiling behind her mask. They looked down together, where armies roiled and swarmed around the looming horror of Angband. "I'm going down there," she said. "Take care of yourself, kiddo."
Then she was gone, skidding down the shale-cursed slopes into the churning fray.
Elrond heard footsteps behind him, and turned with his sword drawn, to see Elros leaping down the slopes towards him. He steadied his brother when he landed and made his mouth smile.
"The last gasp, brother. Are you ready?"
Elros' grey eyes shone, lit by the fires around. "By the gods, I think I am."
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