Author's Notes
Another leaf on the tree of tales for you.
Content Warnings
There is content in the following pages a reader may find distressing: characters deal with complicated grief, graphic injury, combat-related traumas, and implied suicide attempts. This story is rated "M" for battle violence, suggestive innuendo, some smoking, drinking, foul language. And Orcs.
Reader, tread carefully. I cannot assure your safety.
As anyone who has ventured beneath the earth knows, sometimes there are pitfalls and slippery, unseen places.
Beta Readers and Cover Credits
Many, many thanks to the NaNoWriMo beta readers forum, Marilyn, Cassijex_73, and Tonks for their eagle eyes, red pens, and cheerleading and to digitalflute for an outstanding cover. All remaining errors are my own.
Series
Latest in Invictus (references events in Dwimmerlaik but can stand alone)
Chapter One: The Cruel
Caradhras, Third Age 2509
"Get up."
Snowflakes brushed Elrohir's face like mothwings. The wind had groped through every layer of fur, leather, wool, and flesh—though neither its icy fingers nor the fraying edge in his Captain's voice managed to rouse him. Never before had he refused his Captain's command. Especially that tone. Would he be charged with insubordination? What was the punishment when he was, strictly speaking, under no command but his own?
Someone had lit a hearthfire nearby. Its warmth and promise of comfort washed away his fretting on a tide of exhaustion. Oh, by the stars, he was tired…
"Up, Peredhel!" Rough hands knotted in his jerkin and hauled him out of a drift onto legs like splinters of frozen wood. "I have no mind to freeze to death on your account."
Elrohir wedged his fingers in a crack of stone. His mittens were gone. His knuckles gleamed like bone—save where they were the color of rust. Something slick and warm and wet trickled into his eye. He armed it away, leaving a dark smear on his sleeve and a stinging prickle across his scalp.
An ashen twilight hung about them. Overhead thunderheads surged across the stars like the wave that drowned Númenor. Lightning flicked against the Redhorn's peak, seared its shoulders with red flame.
Another shake jostled his attention earthward.
His Captain, a grey shadow among grey shadows, gestured below them. "Nanduhirion's not far now."
Below their feet unfurled a towpath—a tumbling, torturous descent, slick with icy spray from the torrent of falls away on their left. Even a careful man in full daylight could miss his step to disaster.
"The Stair lies between us and the dale," Elrohir pointed out. "And even if we come to the valley, Lórien is too far. I have nothing but my weapons. Not even my waterskin."
His pack lay abandoned somewhere in the crags above. Another mistake in a night of too many mistakes. How far behind were the others? Surely, by now, they should have—
"Never mind that now."
"We ought to wait. Emlin is the fastest climber. She might let down a rope."
The snow was falling faster now. Beyond its thickening curtain, not far behind them, drifted a reek of smoke. A scream, cut off. Other sounds, more terrible and gloating than screams. Shoulders and jaws tightened. Fingers curled round the worn leather grips of sword-hilts. Neither of them spoke, every sense straining to hear above the infernal wind. But no other sound came.
The Captain began to pick his way down towards the valley.
"Wait, wait. Only a moment." Elrohir lurched forward a pace, two, but even as he descended, he craned over his shoulder, gazing desperately back.
An indistinct figure appeared on the crag above them. Elrohir let out a cry and started back.
"There! Do you see? Do you see? It's Belegorn. The others must not be far behind," he croaked. His throat was parched and raw from thin air, smoke, shouting. He plucked at the hand restraining him. "Leave off!"
"There is no one." His Captain's grip tightened as if to root him there. "It is the snow and the dark that cheats your eyes."
"The others—"
"There's nothing more you can do for them, Elrohir."
From a man who employed delicacy about as often as he broke into poetry, the remark stuck like a hot needle. Something beyond the blackness of his memory stirred. He winced away.
"What do you mean? They're only behind us. They're not far behind us. They heard the order. They will come. Ammë wouldn't leave without you. She would never leave you." His voice was calm, stripped of the realizations and betrayals of the night. "Then I will go back alone. Leave me if you fear so for your skin."
He wrenched his arm free.
"It's not my skin I fear for, son. You can barely stand. If you make half a league in your condition, that will be luck enough. And then what? You saw their numbers, the cover of darkness. What do you hope to do, one against many?"
"For starters, I will climb. Then I will fight. I am a knight of the Eldar. You used to know what that meant." Bracing himself against the steep angle of the path, he heaved himself up a painful foot.
A green flash erupted from the crag above him just as he stretched for another handhold. Like fireworks, the light sprang up towards the storm's dark underbelly and unfurled against it with crackling force. A surge of wind lifted and poured down from the heights. Elrohir's fingers lost their slender purchase.
When he raised his head, the storm-wrack was shredding into gossamer, revealing patches of evening sky. The Valacirca had not yet climbed over the southwestern rim of the mountains, but red Borgil hung, low and visible, in the East like a burning eye.
Wordlessly, his companion helped him back to his feet. Elrohir clutched at his shoulder. "Gwador.2 we must go back for them. Please. Help me."
He cajoled and wheedled. He remonstrated. He begged. Finally, driven by the damned, damning silence, he threatened. He uttered every curse, every accusation he could summon to his lips until words and voice both failed him. Fresh blood trickled into his eyes.
Nothing stirred in the crags above. No hail came, only the wind, howling amid the stones. The silence and cold caught him then, reached down deep inside and lodged there.
This time, he did not resist as his Captain yoked an arm about him and steered him down the crest of the Stair.
Footnotes
Ammë (Quenya) - mother
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
Gwador (Sindarin) - sworn brother
Source: Parf Edhellen: an elvish dictionary, .com
End Notes
Comments, emojis, critiques, analyses, questions, and keyboard smashes are all very welcome and encouraged. Please be kind to one another. That's all I ask. Thank you for joining Elrohir and me on this journey.