Desolation

Chapter Eight

Thanks to Lalaith and Isis for betaing this.

It's been a long, long road, but finally the end is drawing near. Poor Elrond. ;)

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The neat bundle of arrow shafts, slender and graceful, lay by Thranduil's side, within easy reach, already tipped with anything from finely forged Noldorin steel points to chips of flint and bone. There was no time now for aesthetic considerations, for pride in skillfully beautiful workmanship of the highest quality. Anything which came to hand had to be used, every skill garnered in the thousand of years of Elven history since the first awakening by the waters of Cuiviénen had to be utilised, no matter how crude or simple.

The wood-king reached for another shaft with his left hand, his right already busy finding a length of twine in the box which lay on his lap, his fingers slightly greasy from the fragrant oils he had used to soften the bindings, to make them easier to manipulate. Moving deftly, he plucked feathers from the basket on the ground by his side, and began to bind the fletching to the shaft, to prepare the arrow for its deadly task, for the mortal fate which hung before them now as the pall of smoke on the southern horizon, thick and stinking black. Arrow after arrow dropped to the ground, completed, as he settled into the familiar rhythm of his task, his fingers flying, his mind free to wander.

He was glad of it, for he was tired to the bone as he had never been before, not even on the plain of the Dagor Dagorlad, nor after the death of his father. An insistent ache throbbed behind his eyes, burning them deep into their sockets, demanding sleep, solace, and above all a time for grief. At last, after all these years of his life, he finally supposed that for any the death of a child was a grievous harm, be they Dwarf or mortal Man, and he began to understand the ancient melancholy he had seen in his rival's eyes as the line of the Kings of Arnor, fosterlings of Rivendell, passed into myth and legend. But for an Elf, for whom death did not come with the natural span of the years, and who could neither accept nor forget its burdens, it was a wound heart-deep in the breast which would not cease to bleed. Legolas was ever in his thoughts, every unmarked hour, every formless, shifting day that passed in this eternal twilight, unlit by sun or moon, or any star of Elbereth's making. It robbed him of what little sleep he managed to snatch, and leeched into his waking dreams until they brought him neither comfort nor rest.

He realised that his hands were trembling, jerking the thin length of tendon loose time and again. Cursing softly, he set it aside, steadying his hands on his knees for a moment before continuing. Seeking some measure of respite from the memories which assailed him, he allowed his gaze to wander without volition across the encampment spread out before him, all that was left of the proud kingdom which he and Oropher before had built up out of the wild and tangled forests east of the Misty Mountains. Smiling painfully, he saw the maids and elflings at training beneath the watchful gaze of Haldir of Lothlórien, on a patch of open ground scuffed bare almost to the rock by their activities. By the fire, banked high within its protective circle of stones, a solitary Silvan warrior, older than Ithil, kept his bow cautiously at hand while he pared wild carrots into the stew pot for the evening meal.

Thranduil's gaze wandered still, and his smile faded from his face as it came to rest on his opponent of old. He was gaunt now, but a shadow of his former robust grace, his clothes hanging limply from his skeletal form. His black hair tied back in a simple queue, he moved among the scattered people, dispensing his healing skills. Screams punctuated the muffling silence as he set an arm broken in a scouting mission that morn. The herbs which might numb such pain were long since gone, and there was no recourse but to act fast and to endure. It was not hard to see the skill with which the elf-lord acted, his long fingers finding the break, bracing his shoulders to pull the fragmented ends of the long bone apart so that they might slip back into their allotted place, nor the concentration on his face as he dulled the edge of the patient's pain with the waning strength of his mind, unaided by the ring which had so long been its support in such things. But even from this distance, it took no effort to see the lines of pain and sorrow deep graven on his countenance, the shadowed grey pallor of his skin, the sharp points of his shoulder bones protruding through the fabric of his cloak. Already, he seemed but a pallid shade in the light of the fires, as if, if one cared to look hard enough, one might see entirely through him, as one might see through a window on a dark night, realising that the images reflected therein are but mirages of the senses.

Again, Thranduil remembered that they had both lost sons, and that some portion of grief and sorrow was more than owed to them for that. But there was more – Vilya's power bound the peredhel to the very airs of these lands, although he wore it not, and deep was his love for Endor, which his parents had sailed into the West to save, bearing with them the Silmaril, the holy jewel wrought by the fell hands of Fëanor. For this love, deeper than the Sundering Seas, deeper than the sunken roots of the mountains, he was failing in his strength, sapped to the core. For his dedication, his quiet, unspoken passion for the freedom of the Free Folk, he was fading fast, his fëa already straining at the bonds which bound it to his dying hróa. The Sindarin Elf knew the echo of this within himself, although it went not so deep, nor so far, and he grieved for it with what little of his spirit he could spare.

The time of the Elves is truly over, and there is naught we can do to stop the inexorable course of fate.

Unnoticed, Elrond had come closer, a salve pot in one hand, a bundle of bloodied bandages, torn in strips from blankets and cloaks, wedged in the crook of his arm. He spoke not a word, for his mind dwelt in Imladris, in the spring of the years of the Third Age, when his twin sons, so alike in voice and appearance that none but their parents could tell them apart, were but toddling about the fine-wrought haven. Just as Thranduil, he mourned the loss of his children with keen-edged grief which could not be dulled by time. Silent still, he took a seat on the crude bench beside Thranduil, and, without ceremony, daubed the thick, noisome salve on the wood-king's cheek. The king flinched back as his skin seemed to catch on fire as the repellant substance came into contact with the long, shallow abrasion where he had stripped his skin away against the bark of a stump in his haste to fling himself to the ground to avoid a misdirected arrow. But he did not protest, for the exhaustion came upon him again as he sat there, and he could not formulate even a simple curse. And after score of moments spent gritting his teeth in pain, a hollow numbness gradually spread through the wound, bringing with it blessed relief from the ache which had afflicted him, and a sense of healed wellbeing.

"Thank you," he said at last, releasing his grip on the bundle of sinew which he had held clenched in his fist.

Elrond inclined his head in acceptance and smiled softly. "The Captain of your Guard demanded that I salve your wounds before you took everyone's heads off in your pained rage."

Thranduil turned to grin at him, but his amusement died at its birthing. A few scattered rays of starlight had broken through the clouds, and as the dim light fell on the peredhel's face, its illumination was a curse indeed. The veins in his face shone blue through the translucent skin, as clear and bright as a spider's web, pricked with points of dew, beneath the morning sun. His lips were as pale as the whites of his eyes, the grey darkened to the hue of the storm. Thranduil looked down hurriedly, and then almost wished he had not, for he saw the elf-lord's sword arm, and it was terrible indeed to behold. Crimson lines of blood poisoning spiraled from wrist to elbow, where they disappeared into the voluminous folds of his sleeve, which hung from his arm in hanks of fabric, and they were as deep in hue as if fresh blood had been spilt there. Reeling with horror, Thranduil thought of the rumours he had heard whispered among his people these last days when the fires burnt low and the chill settled even in their bones. Among those who had been born of the Avari in the starlit woods, before the first sunrise, who had but little love for the deeds of the other Elven kindreds. The whispers of the accursed jewel, of the doom of Thingol's line, that they were bound forever to an unnatural fate, to the time and tide of unnatural death. A word might silence the rumours, but it could do not for the lurking possibility that it might be all too true.

Elrond caught his eye, and the sorrow in his own intent gaze deepened. "Worry not, mellon-iaur. I live yet, and shall live, until my task and will are laid to rest, for ill or well."

"How long?"

"A handful of weeks; mayhap as much as a month."

"That is short time indeed for the Eldar."

"But long enough for our task," a new voice joined in, speaking Sindarin with a hoarse, guttural accent, heavily accented, almost as an Orc might speak it.

Metal shrieked as Elrond tugged his sword from its sheath, the oiled blade reflecting the torchlight, gleaming a baleful scarlet. Even as he did so, he whirled, his feet steady on the uneven ground, ignoring the pain which lanced through his right side, the dragging weakness of his sword arm. There was no time now for thought; he pressed forward, using the speed and surprise of his actions to press his advantage over his startled foe. The Man, his face shadowed by his deep hood, stumbled and fell, even though his demeanor suggested he was little accustomed to such swift defeats. He lifted one hand to ward off the crushing blow aimed at his head, and instead found steel pressed to his throat, drawing blood in a thin ribbon from his punctured skin.

Without lowering his guard, Elrond risked a glance at Thranduil, to find him standing beside him with an arrow aimed solidly between the Man's angled, dark eyes.

"Hold. Peace! Peace! If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder that they are so few." The voice – strange, alien as it was – seemed somehow familiar.

"Show yourself, friend." Thranduil spat the last word, hostility and disbelief filling his voice.

"I cannot show myself when I dare not move my hands for fear of being skewered like a roast hog."

"We will not injure you, but neither shall we remove our weapons." Elrond searched the darkness for signs of others, but could find none beyond the soft murmur of the camp to their left.

In the flickering light, the two Elves could just see the corners of the Man's mouth twist in a wry expression of amused defeat. Moving cautiously, he raised his hands to his temples, and slipped back his hood.

It was Ulrang, the Easterling, unlooked for and unexpected, for all the oaths he had sworn and the promises he had given. His face was as shrewd as ever, his dark eyes calculating, yet surprisingly kind even as he appraised those who held him prisoner. His knife was at his belt, still sheathed, as was a curved sword in a battered leather scabbard that had seen enough of war and suffering. Purpling bruises dappled his face, crowding close to his hairline, and as he moved, he held one elbow close by his side as if he was afraid his arm would break loose.

Elrond raised an inquiring eyebrow, relaxing only slightly, while Thranduil bristled beside him.

Ulrang scowled, his face a grim mask. "It is only too easy to forgot that a soft life lived without honour is no life at all," he said bitterly, "as I am sure you know, elf-man. Not all among my kin were content to go into the dark with honour, to brave the halls of our fathers with pride. Not all of them would have followed me to this end, to change a short life of happiness and the death of our people for a glimpse of hope and honour."

"And what of them now? Do they sit high in your counsels now one month is changed for the next?"

Ulrang turned his head and spat at the ground. "They moulder, elf-man. I would leave no enemies behind me for the lord of lies."

Elrond nodded slowly, and withdrew his sword, slipping it back into its scabbard. "Let him go."

"What?" Thranduil went an ominous shade of puce which Elrond remembered all too well. It had usually presaged a storm of temper which could rip mountains from the earth and make forests flee.

"He is an ally to us, a good and honourable Man, strange though that may seem to those of us who remember the treacheries of his ancestors."

Ulrang gritted his teeth, but wisely refrained from any speech that might culminate with him finding two arrows protruding from his lower abdomen.

Briefly, the elf-lord described his previous meeting with the Easterling, and the agreement to which they had come. Eventually, grudgingly, Thranduil lowered his aim, and the Man clambered to his feet, dusting fragments of dried grass from his travel-stained oilskin breeches.

His head high, he sketched his erstwhile captors a sardonic bow.

"I see you are held in great esteem, more than the portion accorded to some traveller of little name, Master Elurin."

Thranduil shot him a startled look. "You used your uncle's name?"

"It seemed fitting." He shrugged. "But the time for such pretences are past. Lord Ulrang, I am Elrond Peredhil, son of Eärendil and Elwing."

The Easterling goggled, and then burst into peel after peel of surprisingly melodic laughter which re-echoed from the hills and startled a new semblance of life into the encampment. He tried to force words out between wheezing breaths, but all Elrond could hear were fragments of his own name. He looked to Thranduil, but the other elf-lord merely grinned at him, some of his grim mood lifted.

Eventually, some part of Ulrang's mirth was satiated, and he became fractionally more coherent. "Legend has you … tall as a house … clothed all in black with … the skulls of your enemies arrayed around your neck and on your brow… You … breathe fire … and eat wicked children…"

Elrond opened his mouth to make a laughing comment about his own sons in their youth, but then the reality of the situation was borne in upon him once more, and grief hit him in a wave. They were gone … dead … he forced himself to remember that they were not merely gone, as if they were hiding beyond the next hill, but dead, mouldering in the piles of bone and ash strewn before the Black Gate. His children … his own flesh and blood, the babes he had held in his arms with Celebrían beside him, had named before all Imladris… dead. And Arwen soon to follow them…

There was a light touch on his mind, as a butterfly alighting on a branch, and the faintest scent of cinnamon and vanilla reached his senses. For a brief moment, he beheld her beloved face, the countenance of the wife he would have gladly died to save. An eye of a bold shade of deep blue beneath a finely arched brow … the flicker of distant sunlight and cool shade on long, silver hair … a graceful hand raised to her mouth…. Through her eyes, he caught a fleeting hint of what she saw about her: marble pillars that seemed to soar as the Mellyrn of Lothlórien, and broad courtyards tiled in marvellous patterns… The halls of her forefathers: the palace of Finarfin, High King of the Noldor. Aman. Tirion.

Meleth-nîn, I know. I understand. I grieve. You are not alone in your sorrow, and I shall ever love you, e'en as the stars love the earth they touch with their light, and the earth loves the stars it beholds in glory and grace. For them, you will succeed. For our children. The sorrow in her voice was no less deep than his, and yet it brought him some measure of calm.

I love thee, Celebrían-nîn, and I thank thee.

He blinked once, twice, focusing on the bemused faces of the Man and Elf before him. "I hope you perceive the reality somewhat different," he stuttered in response to Ulrang's chortled admission, still acutely aware of the warm caress of Celebrían's thoughts in the back of his mind, the reassuring passion which soothed the cold darkness growing within him.

"Somewhat stranger, if truth be told," Ulrang mused. The next moment, he returned his attention to the business at hand. "I bring four thousand men sworn to arms, loyal and true. I come to die, if you will be brave enough to die with me." He clapped his hand to his chest, open-fisted, in a warrior's salute of trust and respect.

Elrond bowed deeply, repeating the gesture, and, only a fraction of a second behind him, Thranduil followed suit. "I give my blood, I give my loyalty, I give my hope to this, our final battle." At first he knew not whither the words came, but he had a fleeting impression of a tall, dusty room with golden sunlight floating in through mullioned windows and a sea breeze stirring the piles of paper. Balar. And a battle-weary Ereinion Gil-galad holding forth laconically on the customs of Men.

He was relieved when Ulrang grinned in approval.

"Come. We make our plans now, and we march on Mordor within the day."

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Elrond moved the goblet of thin, sour wine provided by the Easterlings, and jabbed a finger at the map, sighing deeply. "Nay. We cannot risk the passage of Cirith Ungol, for a horror lurks there from the dawning of the world. And in truth there is no necessity."

"No necessity?" Thranduil and Ulrang exclaimed in unison, united in horror. "We must have surprise if…"

"It will be surprise enough that we dare come upon him at all, instead of lurking in the hills to be captured like beasts or churlish fools who care nothing for aught else beyond their own skins." Unconsciously, he touched one hand to the heavy burden which hung about his neck, chaffing at his skin, rubbing it raw. "We cannot depend on surprise, for he sees all, nor speed, nor force of arms, for he commands more than we can imagine in the deepest pits of our dreams. The only thing that we can depend on is this: that he craves the power that he has not, and has never had. He craves that which I cannot even name in these times. He will come for me, and that is the end to which all our force must be bent. To meet his force with might of our own, that he does not capture this, and, mayhap, beyond all hope or reckoning of hope, to wrest the Ring, the One Ring, from his finger, and to cast it into the fire."

"It is a foolish plan."

"It is our only plan. We march to the Black Gate and face him." Elrond hesitated, and he slipped the chain from around his neck, the two rings clinking together. Offering up a plea to the Valar in far Aman, he held them out in his extended hand. "I shall bear these until I can bear them no more. If I am struck down, take them, and take them to the fires of Mount Doom. Hide them, bear them, do what you will with them, but do not allow him to have them."

The certainty of his own death had been growing in his mind these past days, a conviction which not even Celebrían could ameliorate. Vilya and Nenya were to be his sacred trust for as long as he could bear them, even to that final battle: this he knew, beyond all doubt, for it sang in the blood of Melian the Maia which flowed through his veins. But also he knew that when he fell, as he must, he would not allow Sauron the Deceiver to bestow their power upon the broken and crippled tools of his will, to make a mockery of all that had once been good and beautiful in the world.

Thranduil's face set into a stony mask; Ulrang stared.

"Yet more surprises you have for us, elf-man," he said in wonder. "The Elven rings…"

"What know you of them?" Thranduil demanded, suspicion bright in his eyes.

"Barbarian I may be, but not an ignorant barbarian," Ulrang retorted angrily. "It is folly indeed to live in ignorance of the strengths of your enemies."

Elrond raised a hand and quieted them, his noble face devoid of expression, his emotions held on tight rein. "Do this. Do not betray the world."

"Aye, I shall, by Elbereth, and by Manwë Súlimo, by the Lord of Mandos who holds my doom, and by Nienna who weeps."

"By my blood, and my heart, and by my sword."

Elrond nodded in satisfaction and replaced the rings around his neck.

"It seems my host is not alone in arriving this night," Ulrang observed, his eyes fixed on the horizon, keen as a hawk at the hunt.

"Aye," the peredhel lord agreed. He had been tracking the progress of the cloud of dust for the past half hour, and now he was sure it could be naught else but a small army. Its ranks were low to the ground, thick set, heavily armoured, closely packed. And they came from the North, not from the orc-ridden mountains, nor from the gates of Mordor. "Come. Let us see what news they bring in these dark days."

Accompanied by a score of warriors, long-eyed and proficient with the bow, they moved out, covering the ground with long strides. The column was moving at a fast trot now, ungainly but efficient, and the faint slap of weapons against chain mail reached the Elven ears. And a song … low and harsh, old as the hills and somber as the darkness of the mountain roots. A song for war, and a life lived with the passionate brevity of mortal years, beneath the mountains, in the darkness which never changed.

Thranduil's hand tightened around his sword-hilt, but he did not say anything. Their necessity was too dire for old grudges; too dire to remember the murder of the Elven king of old in the cavernous halls of Menegroth and the grudge it had spawned.

They were clear to the eye now, standing shoulder to shoulder, bearded and helmed, their eyes fierce and dark, their bodies as sturdy as the weapons they wielded: stout swords, double-bladed axes, fearsome maces. In their midst they carried a covered bier, ornately decorated with traceries of mithril, banded with gold and precious stones, inlaid with mother of pearl.

Elrond stopped short of them, and bowed deeply, feeling some thread of the life he had known bind about him.

Peacemaker, as well as warrior, my love, she reminded him.

"Mae govannen, King Dáin of the Lonely Mountain."

He found himself presented with an axe at waist-height, the vicious blade held parallel to his body.

"By the arms and the hammer of Mahal, we come to fight by your side, Master Elf, will you or nil you."

TBC

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hróa – body.

Fëa – soul.