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It is done!
Eru Ilúvatar, they have broken!
Elrond Half-Elven had been one of those in the forefront of what was left of the forces of the Last Alliance. He had lost count of the time during which the fighting had swayed back and forth over the same few leagues of blood-soaked ground before the Black Gate. Now, sweaty and bloodied and gasping for breath, his right arm aching so much he could hardly lift his sword, he watched the enemy ranks crumble and fall back, abandoned by their leaders and demoralised by the weakening of their master's will.
The battle had cost uncounted numbers of lives already and doubtless more would die of their wounds before the tally was made up, but the Alliance had the victory. And yet, it was not the decisive one for which they had hoped. In spite of all, Sauron still lived; his army had been defeated, at terrible cost, but he himself had escaped and fled back to his fortress of Barad-dûr. He was weakened but not destroyed, and nothing short of destruction would put an end to his lust to rule Middle-Earth.
It was all to do again. Only Eru knew how long it would take to force him into a second confrontation, and Barad-dûr itself was an impregnable fortress on which their attacks would break like water. Elrond, with leisure at last to lean on his sword, drew air into his lungs like a drowning man who suddenly breaks the surface of the water. In front of him, the demoralised remnants of the Orc-army scrambled desperately for escape, pursued through the Black Gate which now lay open, leaving Udûn unguarded beyond it.
The decision had been taken that nothing less than the full might of Elves, Men and Dwarves acting in concert would suffice to strike a decisive blow. Here on the Plain of Dagorlad, two great battle-formations had been drawn up side by side: Elendil of Gondor had led one, comprised of both Men and Dwarves (led by Durin of Moria), and High King Gil-Galad had had charge of the other, which included all the contingents of his subject Elf-lords, gathered from the scattered kingdoms of Middle-Earth.
They had known from the very beginning that the host of Mordor outnumbered theirs by more than two to one. True, on their side they had mighty warriors: Elendil the Tall and his son Isildur, along with many of the Faithful who had been saved from the fall of Númenor, as well as Durin who with his doughty fighters were the equal of many warriors of twice their height and more. The ranks of the Elves were a sight to strike fear into the heart of any enemy, with Gil-Galad at their head and Aeglos in his hand, and the Elven banners – though now tattered and frayed – still flaunting their rich colours with defiance to this drear dead land.
And yet, the Lord of Mordor had not only the orcs who were his servants and slaves, but allies – men of Harad and the cruel Easterlings, whom he had summoned to help destroy his enemy utterly. And in addition to those, he had Dwarves deceived and daunted into his service, and evil beasts, and even a fire-drake; but even they had not been as dangerous to the forces of Middle-Earth as the dissension in their own side.
For there were both Sindar and Noldor among the Elves, and the two Silvan Kings who brought their forces to join them had chafed at being brought under the control of the Noldorin High King. Even before Gil-Galad gave the signal to advance, Oropher of Eryn Galen had broken ranks, leading his valiant but relatively ill-armed followers against the might of Mordor. It had been brave, certainly, but ultimately disastrous – certainly for the impulsive, imperious king himself, who died shortly after the first clash, and probably for a huge number of his followers. And as if that had not been enough of a blow, Amdír had likewise engaged the enemy prematurely, leading to his forces being driven into the marshes by a powerful counter-attack and pinned there, of no further use to the Alliance army.
After that, the main battle had been joined, and Elrond had had no further opportunity to see what became of any of the Elves whose kings' arrogance and folly had led them to disaster. Gil-Galad had been consumed with rage and dismay (their chances were poor enough without their own side doing the enemy's work!) but had no time for redeploying his forces or even launching them in support in time; the premature action had meant their being cut off from any aid he could spare, since he had to see the battle as a whole. And within moments the onset came, and for a long while after that there was no time to think of anything but survival.
By temperament, Elrond was more interested in lore and healing than weaponcraft. Grief-stricken at the loss of the great library at Mittalmar, he had already begun to make Imladris a repository for as much of the accumulated wisdom of the years as could be gathered there. But there was no time to think of that now, no time to think of anything but the next enemy and the next, and the next after that. Reality shrank down to the clash of shield on shield and the probing of edged steel, or the whistling swing of an axe or a war-hammer, spraying blood.
The noise was deafening. Elven hearing is acute, and the assault of sound was a torment in itself. Men and horses screamed, in anger or in agony; orcs shrieked and cursed and howled, and the air shuddered with the impact of steel on steel. As the High King's herald it was Elrond's duty to remain beside his lord (as best he could with the savagery of battle, which is no respecter of ranks), but even without that he was probably safer there than anywhere else on the battlefield. Neither orc nor man could withstand Aeglos, unleashed in the hand of its master, and in the forefront of the other battle Narsil was doing the same red work, but for others, death stalked them all with ghastly patience, constantly assaying their defences. After a time, even the ground underfoot had become treacherous, slippery with blood and heaped with the bodies of the slain and badly injured, over whom the fighting raged without heed to anything save the necessity of staying upright.
The strength of Elves far exceeds that of Men and even Dwarves, and yet when their enemies finally broke and ran, there was hardly a soul in what remained of Gil-Galad's front ranks who had enough left to go in pursuit. Even the High King, his battle-splendour ruined with blood that was not his own, leaned heavily on Aeglos and simply watched the rearguard pour through and hurry in pursuit. Those who run are far more vulnerable than those who stand and fight, and there would be red slaughter done before the fleeing remnants reached a refuge, or weariness forced their pursuers to abandon the chase at last.
The High King could not be other than pleased that the enemy was defeated, and yet frustration was printed on what could be seen of his handsome, chiselled features. He knew as well as anyone else could that what they had achieved today was a beginning rather than an ending. A beginning of the end, maybe, but that end was still far off. As long as Barad-dûr endured, its master was not defeated. And even whipped back into his fortress, his arm was long and his malice indefatigable. For him, as maddening as this day's work might be, it would represent merely a setback.
For the first time in days, Elrond could put his sword back into its sheath. For all that Elves have far greater hardihood than Men, they are not immune to exhaustion and pain, and his hand was shaking as he picked up the weapon again. The print of the hilt was ground into his palm, his fingers battered nerveless, and as he touched the point to the mouth of the sheath he realised that it was still smeared with blood and filth. It should not be put away in that state.
However, as he glanced wearily around for something on which to clean it, it was almost impossible to see anything unsoiled. In front of them there was a mound of dead Orcs; it dawned on him with a dull sense of shock that he must have killed at least some of them, though oddly enough he did not like thinking that. At the time he had merely been trying to stop them from killing him, and that had been a very practical business when it was a matter of deflecting a blade and using your own in return; long hours of sword-training had made it almost reflex. However, a real battle with real swords necessarily involved real casualties, and there was a world of difference between the thud of a practice blade hitting a padded body and the hideous sight, sound and smell of an edged weapon opening flesh.
It was hard to feel any pity for Orcs, especially after fighting wave after wave of them driven by their Master's insane hatred. But here and now, loathsome as they still were and terrible as they had been, he could not help but remember that they were members of a race of ruined creatures who had once been his kin. As sweet as victory was, for him at least it came with an after-taste of ashes.
In the event, he used part of a cloak belonging to a fallen Elf of the High King's party, who would no longer have need of it. Most likely he knew the warrior's name, or would have done if the face had not been a smashed ruin of bones and spilled brain in which the eyes stared sightlessly.
Swallowing nausea – grief, maybe, would come later, for strangely enough at this present moment he felt nothing but an empty chasm where his heart should be – Elrond methodically cleaned his blade. The cloak was thickly lined with fleece and beautifully woven. It was blue, and around the outside of it some unknown, loving hand had embroidered a border of ivy with clusters of white flowers. Each bloom was exquisite, with a throat of palest gold…
For a long moment he crouched still, his eyes lingering on the place where the creeping stain of red was darkening the cloth. At first it seemed that the flower would remain inviolate, but then an edge of scarlet crept into its purity, staining the gold crimson.
Seeing it, he dropped the cloak abruptly.
Slipping the sword into the scabbard, he stepped back to Gil-Galad's side. The High King gave orders that his captains should be summoned (such as were still alive and uninjured), for the care of the wounded must be their first concern.
Naturally it was still important to guard against an unexpected counter-attack. There were no guarantees that some one among Sauron's forces might not find the wit and the authority to halt some part of the rout and make another assay while the enemy was still in disorder.
But as the noise of pursuit dimmed, leaving the lower and more grievous sounds of the wounded and the dying to take command of the battlefield, the possibility receded. For sure it was important to begin the work of gathering the injured and beginning the treatment of their wounds, and despite Elrond's exhaustion he knew that his expertise as a healer would be in demand. There would be no rest for him yet awhile – nor for many others. Even those who did not know one end of a scalpel from the other could do their part in finding and salvaging those who needed help, and casting an eye over the battlefield there was no doubt that there would be many.
Gil-Galad naturally knew that this would be his next duty, though he said kindly that he should rest if and when he needed it. A pleasant idea in theory, but in practice not easy to achieve when lives hung on his putting aside his own requirements.
But still the memory of the crimson and gold stayed with him, and so he made one request on his own behalf; and though it could not be said that the High King was particularly pleased (for it reminded him of how easily the battle could have ended differently), he waved him away and said it could do no harm to look.
After this pause, as brief as it had been, Elrond's joints had stiffened up. As he took a stride he lurched, and the fouled ground underfoot was no help. It was dreadful with not only bodies, but the things that had spilled out of them as they died, and but for the fact he had not eaten for hours (and that only a snatched mouthful of lembas to keep his strength up) he would most likely have vomited as he clambered over the wreckage of things that had so lately been alive.
The battle had swayed back and forth over ground lost and won and lost again at too-great cost. It took some while of searching before he could discover the place where Oropher had led that first and fatal charge. There the bodies were laid in heaps, few merely wounded because then their enemies had been fresh and eager to kill, taking time to finish off those who were struck down rather than simply moving onto the next. And aside from the ruin wrought by sword, spear and axe, there was the burning; for here the fire-drake had raged, spreading horrible death through the ranks before finally someone had made an end of it.
Death. So much death. So many Elves who would never return to their beloved woodlands and the wives and children who waited for them there. For all his attempts at composure, Elrond's eyes stung with more than the acrid reek of burned flesh.
Oropher's standard had been at the forefront as the king led that fateful, foolish charge in its shadow. He might well have perished in the battle anyway, as so many others had, but his folly had made it certain as his household and followers were isolated and attacked from three sides, crumpling like thin tin in a mailed fist. The banner had vanished soon after, captured and borne off by the enemy as a token of triumph, but the memory of the landscape over which that first assault had been made helped Elrond to guess with a fair degree of accuracy where the first onset had been. It was there that he began to search, gagging from time to time at the sights and the stench, but steeling himself to continue till the worst was known.
He found Oropher first. The Elf-king's dead face was frozen in a rictus of rage and pain, his breastplate stove in by a dozen hammer-blows and his right arm severed at the elbow. With difficulty Elrond pulled him free of the piled corpses of those who had tried to defend him and died for their efforts. They were stiffening and hard to move, and flies already crawled upon them, while carrion birds disturbed from their hopeful investigations hopped and cawed indignantly.
Oropher had died for his folly and could well have cost the Alliance the battle, but he was a king nevertheless. With movements that were slow from weariness and grief, Elrond laid him out in the best seemliness he could contrive and covered his face with a cloak.
There are demands of friendship that cannot be denied. His hope waning and his body crying out for rest, he moved to another heap, the uppermost bodies on this one shrivelled by dragon-fire. As soon as he had seen the extent of the wreckage of what had once been an army it had all too clear that the chances of finding one individual among hundreds were next to non-existent, but each time he pulled aside another corpse and promised himself that this would be the last, he found himself going on.
Crimson on pale gold…
It was little more than a strand of hair, spread in the base of a muddy footprint, but it was the colour he had been looking for. Feeling the springing of desperate hope replacing the weight of despair that had been growing heavier with every passing moment, he began lifting and shifting with greater urgency and purpose, until finally he uncovered an Elf whose long, pale, silken hair spilled out from under his helmet, lying almost face-down in the mud. The armour was of a quality that told him to be one of the officers of Oropher's army, but it was his height that was the most significant tell-tale.
As soon as he could find access, Elrond thrust shaking fingers under the rim of the helmet, finding the underside of the jaw. Even more to his amazement than to his relief, the skin was warm, and the pulse beat – fast and thready, but at least still present.
There was, of course, no saying what injuries Prince Thranduil had sustained. What could be seen of his face was smeared with blood, like much of his armour, but there were grimmer signs. The hair that would have flowed from the left side of his head, currently resting on the ground, was missing, and there was a dreadful smell of burned flesh. Not all of this came from the bodies around him.
Elrond stood up. Already salvage parties were moving about the battlefield, rescuing any who could perhaps be saved, and with a shout he called two of them over. Between them, with great gentleness, they turned Thranduil over, and for all that he had thought himself steeled by now by the awful sights he had seen, Elrond almost recoiled from the ruin of the young prince's face.
The right side was burned, but the damage was superficial; if he lived, it would mend. The left side, however, was scorched to the bone, the flesh melted away by the heat of dragon-fire. Nothing could be done but to clean up what remained. If he lived – and the shock of such an injury, even if there were no others, could kill – Thranduil would be disfigured for the rest of his days.
Ellerian.
Although his heart was given to his own wife Celebrían, Elrond felt great affection for Thranduil's wife, lately found to be carrying their child. How would it affect her, if her husband returned to her thus? True, she would be thankful he lived to return at all – few of his father's army would return to their homes and loved ones now – but the shock…
The other Elves helped him to gently prise the unconscious prince from his armour and check him for other hurts. He had sustained a few minor cuts to the other side of his face, and significant bruising around the ribs (most likely he had simply been trodden on as the battle raged over him), but otherwise he was uninjured. Still, Elrond's gaze was drawn again and again to that dreadful, marred left side of his face. Even the surface of the eye had been burned, and mostlike the sight in it was gone past saving.
Bodies can heal, to some extent, given time and care, but there would be no healing damage this grave. Still, for an Elf-lord of Thranduil's power, there is always a glamour that can be cast, hiding the ruin. But what lay within, at the core of things – the damage that had sustained would more than likely never find healing at all.
Drawing a deep breath, Elrond thrust his arms under Thranduil's shoulders and knees. With an immense effort he lifted him from the clutching mud, shifting his weight so that rather than lolling backwards like that of a dead man, the prince's head now rolled to rest against his rescuer's upper arm. And the pale gold of his hair fell trailing in the mud, stained with crimson.
"Live, my friend. Live for Ellerian, and the babe she carries," he said softly. But if Thranduil heard, there was no response; save that a wrinkle came and went in the smoothness of his forehead, and his lips moved, as though he walked in evil dreams.
