Vocabulary
"Imladris! Noro lim, mellon-nîn! Yrch! Yrch!"—'Rivendell! Ride quickly, my friend! Orcs! Orcs!'
"Anomen! Saes! Saes! Anomen! Noro lim!"—'Anomen! Please! Please! Anomen! Ride quickly!'
The half-goblins were cleverer than Orcs, but they were still not as clever as Elves—or as humans. In fact, they were scarcely as clever as one small human child. So intent were they on the Elves in the center of their trap, they assigned no scouts to look for any foes that might approach from outside their perimeter. Thus they had their backs to Estel as he crept up to the scene of the battle.
Elrohir had at last been born down by sheer weight of numbers and lay bound and gagged next to Elladan, who was similarly trussed. Anomen was still unconscious and had not yet been bound, for the half-goblins were busily trying to revive him. Their concern for his health of course resulted not from tenderheartedness on their part but from their eagerness to keep him alive long enough to collect the reward.
While the half-goblins were hovering over their captive, the Orcs, maimed and unmaimed alike, were greedily gathering up severed limbs and kindling cooking fires. Before too long Estel found himself faint and sick at the sight of a maimed Orc gnawing at a hand that may very well once have been his own! He struggled to master his stomach and emotions, however, for he had to do something. Anomen had at last come around and, once the half-goblins were sure that he was not seriously injured, he had been bound and gagged like the other two Elves. Clearly only Estel was free to act. But to act how?
No doubt he could fell an Orc or two with rocks, as he had done before, but to what end? He couldn't bring them all down that way. He'd only be captured or killed for his pains. His little bow would be similarly useless. Could he creep into the camp and somehow contrive to free Anomen and the twins? After all, he'd managed to steal food, flask, and blanket the previous night. Yes, but those objects had lain close to his hiding place. To reach his friends, he would have to cross into the center of a camp filled with carousing Orcs and half-goblins. Estel had a good opinion of himself, but even he could see that he had little chance of success. Very well, then, the only thing to be done was to go for help.
Estel quietly arose and made quickly for the horses, which fortunately were also outside the enemy perimeter. They had remained placidly browsing in the clearing where the Elves had left them. Anomen's horse stood by a tree, which Estel climbed in order to mount the steed. Once atop the horse, Estel took hold of the mane with both his fists. He pounded his heels against the horse's flanks to stir the stallion into action. The horse ignored him. Crunch. Crunch. Chomp. Chomp. The horse continued to nibble the grass.
"Take me home," cried Estel, kicking away in frustration. "Take me to Rivendell!"
The horse still ignored him. Estel tried to remember how it was that Anomen made the horse respond, for Elven riders do not guide their horses in the way that humans do.
"Ah, I know," Estel cried at last. "Imladris! Noro lim, mellon-nîn! Yrch! Yrch!"
The horse sprang forward, and it was a good thing that Estel was clutching the mane with both fists. Understanding now the words and the reason for the urgency in the child's voice, the stallion galloped northward, making his unerring way toward Rivendell.
Elrond, Glorfindel, and the patrol was riding southward with equal speed. They knew that Anomen and the twins had gone in search of Orcs and that Estel was therefore likely to once again encounter those fell creatures. This they meant to prevent. It never occurred to them that Elladan, Elrohir, and Anomen would be the ones in need of rescue. Their first inkling that this might be the case was the sight of a horse, still distant, that appeared to be riderless.
"Glorfindel," said Elrond, "your vision is by far the keenest—do you recognize that horse?"
"Aye," replied Glorfindel grimly. "That is Anomen's horse, and he is not one to fall from his steed without reason!"
They urged their mounts onward even faster, and their steeds complied as best they could. Occasionally the unevenness of the terrain blocked their view of the lone horse, and it seemed long before they were near enough to hail the stallion.
To their shock, when they did so, they were answered by the high-pitched voice of a child.
"Mae govannen," cried Estel in his best elvish.
Elrond broke into one of his very rare grins. "Ah, you scamp, I see you have been found out, and Anomen and the twins have sent you packing on Anomen's horse!"
Oh, no Elrond, it's not that at all. You see—"
"So you stole that horse, eh?" glowered Glorfindel.
"Well, yes, but—"
"Estel," said Elrond gently but firmly, "a warrior does not make excuses."
"Yrch! Yrch! Yrch!" screeched Estel. It had worked with an elven horse; mayhap it would work with the Elves themselves.
Dumbfounded, the warriors stared at the child.
"Are you saying," said Elrond slowly—
"Yes! Yes! The Orcs have Elladan and Elrohir and Anomen! And the nasty creatures are not hungry at the moment, but you'd better come quick!"
"Baramagor," ordered Elrond, "escort Estel back to Rivendell."
"No!" shouted Estel. "There-are-too-many-Orcs! You will need every warrior!"
Elrond made a quick decision. He spoke to Anomen's horse in elvish, and the stallion immediately broke into a gallop heading northward once more. Elrond would have to trust that the horse would carry Estel to safety, and, as all signs pointed to their foes being to the south, he had good reason to put his faith in the horse.
You, reader, are no doubt thinking that Elrond was entitled to rely upon the horse but that he should not have left Estel out of his calculations. And indeed, as soon as they were out of sight of the warriors, Estel cried, "Anomen! Saes! Saes! Anomen! Noro lim!"
Enthusiastically, the horse wheeled about and charged southward. No doubt he was eager to be reunited with Anomen so that he might rid himself of the screeching creature that clung to his mane so tightly. Be that as it may, the stallion was now galloping southward as rapidly as he had been galloping northward, with Estel unnecessarily urging him onward.
At last Estel arrived at the clearing where Anomen and the twins had left their horses. Elladan and Elrohir's stallions had now been joined by the patrol's steeds, and Estel decided it was time for him to dismount as well. He slid off the horse, and, his little bow strung tight, he slipped off in pursuit of Elrond and the others.
Estel heard them before he saw them. The Elves had broken into two bands, one taking a position to the west of the Orc camp, the other to the east. Upon an agreed-upon signal—a bird call—they had stormed into the camp from either side. Baramagor had been assigned to sprint without delay to the side of the captives, lest the Orcs, once they had recovered their wits, should slay them. He gutted the slack-jawed Orc who stood guard over the prisoners and immediately cut Anomen's bonds. Seizing a knife, Anomen likewise freed Elrohir while Baramagor did the same for Elladan. At once the released prisoners joined the fray. In the confusion, they could not find their own weapons, which their captors had cast aside, but they made do with scimitars dropped by slain or wounded Orcs. The three, plus Baramagor, formed into the traditional circle, once more fighting back to back, but this time not needing to fend off an entire Orc army.
Throughout the camp bands of Elves were fighting in this fashion, frustrating the efforts of the Orcs who had been able to overwhelm three Elves through brute force but lacked the finesse to defeat a larger number of elven warriors. Still, the Elves were hard put to maintain the advantage. The Orcs were being commanded by half-goblins, and those creatures were not about to let their prizes slip away without a fierce struggle. Somehow they had divined that Elrond was the leader of the Elves, and they concentrated their efforts on the band where Elrond, back to back with Glorfindel and two other Elves, was parrying the thrusts of a particularly enormous Orc. Estel's attention, too, was drawn to Elrond. He could see that the elven-lord, skilled as he was, was no match in strength for the beast. He nocked an arrow and drew back the string of his little bow. The projectile that strung the Orc was not driven with enough force to do much damage, but the Orc was distracted, and Elrond used that to his advantage, his sword slipping under the Orcs guard and slicing across its belly. The Orc fell, tripping on his own entrails. Another Orc, urged on by a half-goblin, filled his position. Estel aimed for that one and had the satisfaction of seeing it start and look about, with predictably fatal results. Again and again he loosed his shafts.
Ai! One of the half-goblins had realized that these little arrows were coming from the perimeter of the camp. He scuttled aside into the woods and came up from behind to the spot from which he judged the archer was firing. Estel, intent on aiding Elrond, was unaware of his danger until he was dangling in the air, his throat gripped by the half-goblin.
"'Ere, wot's this?—a little man-brat! I'll show yeh how we play with man-brats!" With that, the half-goblin drop-kicked Estel into the middle of the camp, where the fighting was at its fiercest.
A horrified Elrond had seen the half-goblin reach into a bush and pull up Estel by the neck. To his even greater horror, if that were at all possible, he had seen the fell creature drop-kick the child into the maelstrom of struggling Orc and Elf.
Elrond had fought in the Battle of the Last Alliance, but Gil-galad had been grooming him as a leader, not a warrior. Thus the Peredhil had always been urged to think in broad, strategic terms. He had also been encouraged to be self-effacing, to put the needs of the many ahead of the needs of the few—or the one. As Gil-galad had hoped, this training had born fruit. Throughout the many centuries that had followed Gil-galad's death, Elrond had ever been the one who gave counsel and advice, the one who mediated between factions and nourished negotiations. Invariably the good leader, Elrond always worked dutifully for the benefit of his people and sought neither power nor reward for himself. No matter what he was forced to confront or to suffer, his needs and personal desires he always placed last.
When the Orcs had carried off and tormented Celebrían, even then Elrond had not set aside the centuries of training and practice. He remained calm. He never raged, never gave vent to his sorrow, not even when Celebrían at last departed for the Undying Lands. Imladris had to be sustained, no matter the cost to him.
But when Elrond saw the half-goblin drop-kick the little human into the midst of the battle, for a brief while it was as if those centuries of restraint had never existed. The elf-lord let out a roar that affrighted even Glorfindel. With a mighty swing he decapitated the Orc who stood before him, and then he charged straight for the spot where Estel had disappeared into the surge of bodies. Hacking with abandon, Elrond might have been mistaken for Orc himself, leaving a trail of severed arms and heads in his wake. One half-goblin he hewed apart at the waist, the legs remaining upright for a fraction of a second after the trunk had toppled to the ground.
As Elrond was slashing his way toward the spot where he had last seen Estel, that child was himself doing his best to confound his enemies. He had landed at the feet of an Orc that, momentarily taken aback, stared stupidly at him for the seconds that it took for the little human to catch his breath. By the time the Orc raised his scimitar, Estel had strength and wit enough to scramble forward, between the legs of his foe. The Orc, unable to check his swing, thrust his weapon in the dirt. Before the Orc could wrest his scimitar free, he was cut down by an alert elven warrior. Continuing to dodge in this fashion, Estel sowed chaos amongst the Orcs. He was small and fast-moving, not an ideal target for the doltish and lumbering Orcs. More than once an Orc swinging at Estel inadvertently slashed one of his companions when the little human sprang aside to avoid the blow. Before too long, the half-goblins had realized that this little warrior was a serious threat, and they began to pursue the annoying human. Of course, they were then no longer able to command the Orcs. Now leaderless, those creatures became even less effective than before and fell inexorably to the swords of their elven foes.
Once the half-goblins had begun to chase Estel, things might have gone ill for the child, but the battlefield was now open enough for Anomen to spot his foster-brother. Anomen quickly caught the attention of his friends, and they charged as a group toward the little human. Once they reached him, Anomen reached down and pulled the child into the center of their band. Once ringed by Elves, Estel for once was all too happy to stay put. He had had as much of battle as he could stomach. Anomen and his companions assumed a purely defensive posture, allowing the other Elves to mop up the last of the Orcs and half-goblins.
The mêlée over, Elrond ripped his sword from the belly of his last opponent and frantically scanned the battlefield for any sign of Estel. He did not see him at first, and he felt the bile rise to his throat. But then Anomen's band at last relaxed discipline, the Elves stepping away from one another and looking about to ascertain the fate of the other elven warriors. There in the midst of that small group stood the little human. Elrond hastened toward him. He did not realize, however, that he was so splattered with Orc blood that he looked as if he were wearing a mask of black. He reached the child and stooped over him. Estel, looking up at the blood-streaked apparition, screamed in terror. Chastened, Elrond stepped back. He looked about at his companions. Of all the Elves, Anomen, predictably enough, was the cleanest. One would scarcely guess that he had been in battle. Elrond gestured toward Estel.
"Anomen, would you please take charge of Estel?"
"Yes, Ada. Oh, and Ada."
"Yes, ion-nîn."
"The nearest stream is off to the northeast about a quarter mile from here."
Elrond felt the stirrings of a smile, although his expression did not change. Of course Anomen would know the location of the nearest place suitable for bathing.
"Thank you, Anomen, but I must first attend to matters here." He had to take stock of his warriors before he saw to his own needs. The centuries of restraint had returned as quickly as they had fled.