The sheer walls were gone, and the river, its energy pent up in the Vale of Sirion, spread across the wide Fen of Serech, boggy marshlands for half a dozen leagues in all directions. Rising higher than the sad lands of Ard-galen were the three peaks of the Thangorodrim, fierce and sheer, breathtaking and dreadful. Dark, formidable clouds hugged the summit.
The braying of horns and the beating of drums echoed across the Fen. A great host marched to the north, a teeming mass of Orcs numbering in the thousands advancing towards Finrod's company at speed. He sat straight up in his saddle and scanned the flanks of the approaching army for a weak point, a place to cleave a way through; otherwise he would have no choice but to retreat or fight through a host far greater than his.
iSo Morgoth seeks to sunder us from Dorthonion and Hithlum, he thought. Dorthonion he doubted he could regain, but while he had a valiant army to command, he would not abandon Hithlum and Dor-lómin. He urged his company onwards, but the horses stumbled in the bogs, hindering the passage through the fens. The Elves on foot could pass swiftly through the meres, yet the riders would not abandon their steeds.
As they struggled on, the Orcs drew closer. The throbbing roar of their drums grew louder. Finrod's heart pounded like the drums. Had all the gates of Thangorodrim been opened? He saw naught more than a wall of spears and scimitars as impregnable as the face of the Ered Gorgoroth enclosing him. Drums roared in his ears. The earth trembled, the stagnant water of the fens shuddered. With the strength of his will, he held his army together as terror and doom enclosed them. The Orcs taunted them, then rushed upon them. "Utúlie'n aurë! Utúlie'n aurë!" cried the hosts of Felagund. The day has come! The day has come! Like a heaving thunderstorm unleashing its fury, the legions of Orcs crashed into the Elves. Within minutes the foremost ranks fell beneath the savage onslaught.
Swarms of Orcs assailed Finrod. They saw that he was a high Noldorin lord and desired his death or capture above all the Elves in the Fen. He hacked and hewed at the teeming hordes, and more came, more than his sword could slay. Groping arms clawed at him, trying to pull him off the horse. The arms he hacked off. Unnumbered weapons besieged him on all sides. Weapons he thrust aside with his sword. "Draw back, draw back towards Dorthonion!" he called. From horseback he feinted, he parried swords, scimitars, and spears, yet they surrounded him like the waters of a rising flood.
A wall of Orcs drove a wedge between him and the main part of his army, which Orodreth still commanded. Finrod and the small company charged the Orcs sundering them from the rest of his army, but the might of their foes was nigh unbeatable. Finrod was forced to retreat with his company lest they perish. The Elves led by Orodreth struggled to fight their way to their king, but the Orcs were too many. Finrod descried a glimpse of his nephew furiously hacking his way through swarms of Orcs, but a swelling host came before Orodreth and pushed him back toward the Ered Wethrin. Then they turned to assail Finrod.
Finrod could no longer see his folk beyond the teeming hordes. The Orcs had separated his small company from the rest and barricaded them against heights of Dorthonion. Pinned between the mountains and their foes, death or capture was inevitable. A vision of Maedhros hanging by his wrist from the Thangorodrim flashed in Finrod's mind. Better to die fighting in the fen than suffer as a prisoner or thrall of Morgoth.
He need not resign himself to the Halls of Mandos yet. The cleft through which the River Rivil tumbled might remain open. With desperate hope, Finrod urged his remaining company towards the heights, but the flood of Orcs swept round ahead of them, blockading their last escape route. A sortie of Elves, maddened with anger and fear, assaulted their foes and tried to hew a path to the heights. They all fell beneath the scimitars. The others drew together in a defensive circle of swords and spears, but it did not avail them. One by one the throbbing mass of Orcs slew the Elves and closed in upon their ring. The waters of the fens churned scarlet with blood.
Finrod's stallion screamed and reared high, striking out at invisible foes. Then he crashed upon his side in a bog, throwing Finrod into the muddy and bloodied waters. Finrod rolled clear of the thrashing horse and saw the black feathered shaft of a spear jutting from the horse's chest. Blood spurted from the wound as the animal struggled to rise, but he sunk to his knees. The eyes were rolling, showing the whites, and blood and foam were bubbling from the stallion's mouth.
Then Orcs set upon Finrod before he could rise. Unable to get up for too many had beset him, he parried their scimitars while prone in the bog. A sudden pain burned his side. A spear, thrust through the mail, he wrenched from his ribs. He felt the wet and hot surge of blood soaking his tunic and cloak. He saw nothing but for the iron-shod legs of Orcs, heard nothing but for his thudding heart and the clash of steel. At once Túveren leapt forth in sudden onslaught. So fell and swift was his onset that the Orcs assailing Finrod withdrew, and Finrod had a moment to leap to his feet before once again they attacked him.
Túveren fell before him, his throat slit. "Túveren!" he cried. A handful of other Noldor, upon hearing his voice and learning their king yet lived, battled their way to his side. Standing over the body of his chieftain, Finrod savagely hewed down dozens of Orcs, but ten more attacked him for every one he killed. While he parried the blades of three Orcs, a fourth swung his blade, gashing open his left thigh and his legs gave way. Into the bog he fell. Swiftly he scrambled to his feet as a blade intended for his throat cut into his shoulder.
Lamed and bleeding, he fought on with the final burst of strength of a dying wolf besieged by hunters. But his strength faltered. He was drenched in his own red blood. Neither his blade nor feet moved swiftly now; he knew he could not long stand. Death would find him; in the Halls of Mandos he would see his brothers, and the sorrows of this world would roll away like gray rain clouds; but in death the Curse remained and he would not meet Amarië again nor behold the fair green fields of the Pastures of Yavanna, the crystalline waves crashing upon white shores of Alqualondë, the bright lanterns guiding the way across Calacirya.
Just then a great horn sounded from the East. A ray of sunlight pierced the grim clouds. The Orcs assailing Finrod faltered and raised their eyes to the mountains at Finrod's back. The Noldor too raised their eyes. From the narrow canyon through which the River Rivil poured into the Sirion, a host of Men bore down upon them, arrayed in helms and hauberks, the bright points of their spears gleaming in the sun.
With fury they assailed the Orcs, and the Orcs gave way in their confusion. The Edain formed a wall of spears surrounding the beleaguered Elves. An Edain spear slew two Orcs attacking Finrod, and then Finrod at last fell to his knees in a shallow fen even as the battle between the Edain and Orcs stormed all around him. He made no effort to get up. The mortals had arrived too late to save his life. Then a Man was crouching before him, grasping his shoulders, saying, "Lord Finrod, rise... Quickly now!"
Finrod looked into the Man's clear gray eyes. The face, the dark hair and beard, the high cheekbones and sharp nose, were familiar, but such pain and grief fogged his thought that the name was lost. Through the misty recesses of his mind he groped and the name Barahir came to his tongue. Barahir brother of Bregolas, son of Bregor. Now he must tell Barahir that his wounds were mortal and death now bore him to the Halls of Mandos, but before he could speak, Barahir and a doughty kinsman pulled him to his feet and supported him upon their broad shoulders. The spears of the House of Bëor encircled him.
Barahir's men, valiant and fierce, battled their way through the hordes of Orcs. Like the waves in a fierce storm breaking on a rocky shore, the onrush of Orcs broke against the spears of the Edain. Like the waves, the Orcs kept coming, battering the ring of spears with force of numbers. Many mortals were slain, but the wall of Men withstood the onslaught. No Orc steel touched a wounded Elf in the center of the ring. Sluggishly they sloshed towards Dorthonion, wading through bloodied water, hewing through droves of Orcs.
They arrived within the shadows of the cliffs. The head of the pass was near. But Finrod warred with the will to live and the will to give up, lie down in the marsh and be freed from pain. But the mortal had risked his life and that of his men to save Finrod and his people; Finrod dared not forfeit his life now. Gently Barahir urged, "Not far now, my lord... You will not be harmed while I am here... Keep on going... Look, Felagund, the Rivil."
At length the embattled company had cut their way through the Orcs and had their backs against the mountains. Up they climbed, ascending the steep stairway delved into the rock by the handiwork of Finrod's own stonemasons long ago, before he founded Nargothrond in the South. Orcs surged against them, but the Men and a few Elves not yet injured fought fiercely, and the Orcs could not surpass the anger of the Noldor or the might of the Edain. Many Orcs fell. A small force of Barahir's men leapt upon them and beat them down the narrow pass.
"I am a burden to you," said Finrod to Barahir as the small sortie of men retreated up the stairs after slaying unnumbered Orcs. "Let me go and you join your men."
"You are hardly a burden," said Barahir with a smile. It was the first time Finrod had spoken since Barahir and his men charged the Orcs from the heights of Dorthonion. "Lending my shoulder to you is but a small price to pay for the great service you did to my people and for our friendship. And I do not think you can climb these stairs wounded as you are."
The onslaught was lessening in fierceness, the Orcs retreating in greater numbers down the stairs. A few still besieged the ring of spears, but they fell impaled, and the remaining ones at last dispersed and withdrew down the steps. These joined the battle on the Fen between the remainder of Finrod's host and the Orcs, though the Elves now were falling back to Minas Tirith at Tol Sirion. Finrod, from the heights of the cliffs, watched the wrath of Morgoth drive his people into retreat, and a black shadow engulfed his heart. He swayed and would have fallen in despair had Barahir not been holding him up. Then he kept struggling up the stairs, for he would not repay the valor of the Edain by relinquishing all hope now.