Desolation

Chapter Twelve

Thanks to Isis and Lalaith for betaing this.

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Not one among them slept that night, huddled as they were in the lee of one of the slag heaps that pricked the surface of the Morannon. The harsh wind blew from Mordor, flinging grey dust in their tired eyes, swirling their cloaks in restless eddies before falling away into an uneasy stillness. A heavy reek hung in the air, foul beyond all description, the stench of death, and of hatred, and a pall of grim determination lay over the encampment. They lit no fire, and the night seemed very black indeed.

And yet on a time before the coming of the unseen dawn, there was a chink in the clouds, and from far above a solitary pair of eyes gazed down. Grey they were, and fair was he who looked down in sorrow, for he had been born in Gondolin before its fall, and had seen the passing of many things, and walked the streets of Elven Tirion, and come to the halls of Valimar beyond all hope. Darkened was his gaze that night, and bitter was the tune in his heart, and yet still he burned with hallowed light, Gil-Estel, the Star of High Hope, even as had for years beyond count. He remembered the sorrows of the daughter of Galadriel in the high meadows of Valinor, and of Elwing his wife, in the tall tower looking out upon the Sundering Seas, and his heart was hardened, and full of love, and of grief.

But Elrond did not see the stray starlight. His gaze was bent upon the sword lying in his lap, and on the oily cloth he held. Dropping it for a second, he stared at his hands. Scholar's hands, Celebrían had called them, and laughed, as he had threaded them through her silver hair. Long, slender, graceful fingers, and broad palms. Hands more adept with pen and book than holding a sword. He stifled a bark of sardonic laughter, and wondered what she would say of them if she saw them now. The skin was so pale as to be translucent, chapped and raw from the wind and the hilt of his sword, open cracks across the palms seeping blood. The right was ridged with angry crimson fever lines, the muscles wasted almost to the bone, showing dully white through the pallor. He could barely hold his sword, the creeping lassitude almost a physical pain. Sighing, he wrapped the greasy rag around his useless hand, and began to polish the blade carefully, smoothing away the stains of blood and rust.

"It is time." A figure stepped forwards out of the darkness, and Elrond saw that it was Ulrang, tight-lipped and apprehensive. But for all his evident fears, he was garbed for war in the manner of his people, his armour gleaming with its alien splendour, a cloak of vivid scarlet flowing from his shoulders, his hair braided and beaded. One of the Fathers of Men he seemed, the Atanatari, who had come long ago into the West of the world before the sundering of the lands.

"Not since the dawning of days have our peoples fought together," Elrond said, "and yet I would gladly die by your side this day."

Ulrang bowed, his eyes dark with some unreadable emotion. "And I with you."

Slowly, Elrond rose to his feet, a tall figure, pale and almost skeletally thin, but with eyes that burnt with a light which had not been seen beneath the skies of this Middle-earth for many an Age. "The time is upon us; let us meet the day."

The Easterling clasped his arm in a warrior's grip, and nodded slowly.

Carefully, the two picked their way across the cratered, pockmarked ground, Man and Elf together, Ulrang's hand beneath the elf-lord's elbow when he stumbled in his weakness and would have fallen. Elrohir stood ready in the middle of the encampment, and Elrond wondered at the stubborn determination in his youngest son's face. An almost barbaric glory was about him, swathed in dark cloth, his face wan, and his eyes dark. Twin daggers were at his waist, their handles ornately carved, and the chased mail of Rohan gleamed beneath his cloak. But in his hands, he held Andúril, the Flame of the West, its blade keen and bright.

The runes inscribed along its length burnt with a pure, clear fire of their own, and the younger peredhel's hands seemed to tremble as he grasped it. Thranduil stood at his left, the Lord Faramir at his right, shoulder to shoulder with Éowyn of Rohan. But the sword lay across his forearms, raw and old, and his face was alight with it, terrible and ancient.

"My lord father." He stepped forward, and knelt at Elrond's feet, his head bowed in formal obeisance, the sword held out, the edges of the blade glimmering with the unseen starlight.

Elrond extended a single finger and traced the ornate carvings on the hilt.

"Take it."

Elrond blinked in sudden surprise.

"Take it; for him whom I called brother, he who was as a son unto you." Elrohir placed the sword in his father's unresisting hands.

For a long moment, he stared at it, feeling its weight lying heavily across his palms, the uncontrollable trembling of the muscles in his forearms, the coarse texture of his cloak against the raw skin at the back of his neck. It was an effort to breathe, to force the air in and out.

"Very well," he said at last, and straightened, but even as he did so, the sword slipped from his hands, the point burying itself in the glassy sand. The hilt clattered awkwardly against a protruding rock, dim echoes of the sound rolling out across the plain, and a cloud of crows rose squawking against the ruddy horizon. Twisting awkwardly, he picked it up, weighing it in his stronger left hand, tucking it into the crook of his arm. With the weaker fingers of his right hand, he fumbled at the buckle of his sword belt, slipping low around his too-thin hips. The brass was chilled beneath his fingertips, but it burnt him even as a terrible fire, and the engraved patterns were old and worn, but so familiar to him that he almost cried out for the loss of a world which was gone forever into the darkness.

"Here." He held the belt out, the muscles in his wasted arm beginning to spasm"Elrohir, please."

The younger peredhel took his father's sword, and for a long moment he simply looked upon it, remembering times when he had craved this boon so much. Now it was bitter, very bitter. He unsheathed the blade, and touched the naked metal to his forehead, and then to his lips. "I thank you, father," he said quietly.

Elrond smiled gently, a flash of his fierce, proud beauty of old showing in his face. "Be strong, dear child." He paused, looking out from the slight elevation over the motley army. The wind ruffled his dark hair, and he crinkled his eyes against its gritty cruelty. "I trust not to the strength of my arm," he murmured at last. "Not even to that of my left. If you would…" He halted, this latest evidence of the ravages of looming death robbing him of words.

There were tears in Elrohir's eyes, bright as starlight, as he stepped forward, a hank of silken cloth at the ready, and bound his father's left hand to the grip of the sword, the pommel lying flat against his wasted wrist. Elrond clasped his scarred right hand over the left, and hefted it aloft, swinging it in a wide, bright arc against the ugly sky. Even in this dim light, the blade shone with the light of a thousand gems, rainbows of light glimmering about it.

"Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë!" he called out in the voice of one might amongst the Eldar, in the voice of days long since lost. "The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!" He closed his eyes, fervently hoping that the words would not be so ill-fated as when first spoken by his kinsman as the day of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears had dawned.*

"Auta i lomë!" Elrohir and Thranduil took up the call, and soon it resounded from thousands of throats, a thunder of defiant rage. "The night is passing!"

"It is time." Ulrang touched the elf-lord's shoulder. "We should begin."

Elrond knelt on the hard ground in a small dell, pebbles digging into his knees, his hands resting lightly on his thighs. Without a word they gathered round: Ulrang and Thranduil, Elrohir, and Faramir of Gondor, and Éowyn of Rohan. Their faces were still and watchful like masks carved into living stone; only their eyes were alive, brilliant with inner fire. He reached under his tunic, feeling the warmth beneath his heart, hearing a song beyond living ken, feeling the answering chords in the slowing of his pulse, in the shifting of the winds against his skin. He held out the gem, slowly freeing it of its layers of cloth, and its light shone out, a beacon in the darkness, a brilliance beyond reckoning which shimmered in all their faces. One by one they reached out as if to touch it, and one by one they recoiled in fear and in awe. He himself remembered Maglor's mad longing, and the crimson light of need in Maedhros' eyes, and his spirit trembled within him

At long last, the Rohirric warrior stood forward. Her hands shook, and her face was white under its patina of grime and soot, but her face was set with the stubborn courage of her people. Deftly, despite her fears, Éowyn bound the sacred jewel to his brow, a beacon of all colours, and of none.

He thought he could hear the strands of the Noldolantë woven together into a new melody.

It was Elrohir who secured the strip of dark cloth around his head to veil the incandescent light. His hair hung in lank tangles about his face, and the filth on his cheeks was streaked and smeared with tears. His eyes were opaque with grief, but his thoughts were open to he who had known him e'en ere his birth.

"Do not cry, pen-nîn tithen." Elrond stroked a snarl of hair back from the younger Elf's face. "There is no shame in this death if the world lives yet, and you with it, my son."

"Wise in all lore is Master Elrond." Elrohir choked, shielding his eyes with one hand. "And yet may I not cry, Ada, for we shall win by your strength, and you lose by it?"

Elrond quailed at the force of the trust in his son's voice, the absolute faith for which he had no answer, being so devoid of it himself. He ducked his head and watched the sand trickling down the sides of the dell in dry rivulets. With a monumental effort of will he held back a sob, and pulled the hood which hung at his shoulders over his head.

The billowing wind which caught at his cloak seemed of a sudden to smell of elanor and niphredil, and the soft, sweet decay of mallorn leaves. He could see his home again, more clear before his eyes than the Dagorlad. The steep walls of the valley and the thick woods, lit by shafts of golden sunlight, the music of the Bruinen and of the streams. The Last Homely House, every winding path, every block of weathered stone, palest yellow in the early morning, safe until the very last. The rains of autumn, and the snows of winter, and the Hall of Fire in good cheer, and her voice upraised in song, and the toasts drunk the day she was wed to him, and the candles in their chamber that night as they lay together. Time lying lightly on the treetops like the first dews of autumn, and the laughter of children.

And yet even over this, he could see new woods, where the mellyrn soared to the heavens in great silvered pillars, and the nightingales would sing until the ending of the world. The light brighter, more beautiful, untainted to his tainted eyes. A vision from beyond the sundered world, and the soft sighing of the breezes from Lórien to the furthest sea. And a touch on his forehead, light, in benediction, cold as night and death, warm as that gilded land. We await you, child.

Elrond reeled as the vision departed, shaking his head to dispel the mist lurking on the fringes of his vision. And yet somehow in his wonder, he felt a new strength, begotten not of himself, nor of his failing heart, but of a high, old music to which there was as yet no stain. And there was something of her in it to, something of his Celebrían, of the silver light on the seas of Mithlond where he had courted her throughout the darkening of the years, and of the gentle cadence of her spirit.

Of course. Her voice was a mere whisper. Did you think I would do nothing, my love?

Meleth-nîn… He reached out to her, and she enveloped him, until he could almost feel her lips on his brow, her small, delicate hands framing his face.

Remembered…she murmured cryptically, and then she was gone.

Strong hands hooked beneath his elbows, and he stumbled to his feet, blinking as if he had come out of the darkness into a great light. A strange smile quirked the corners of his mouth.

"Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë!" he hollered again, the echoes of his voice seeming to consume the entire world. Even the mountains seemed like to tremble before it.

Far distant, there came the screech of the Nazgûl, but he raised his voice once more, and held his sword high, and the army roared out their purpose as one.

The Ringwraiths cried out once more, in fear and in dismay, and then all was silent.

In that silence, they poured across the Dagorlad, Men and Elves shoulder to shoulder, bright and dark and dim. There were marks of their kinships, few banners to fly aloft, and the insignia at their breasts was worn and grimed, and yet it mattered not, for their course was fixed and true.

The sky seemed to boil with dark clouds, lit within by some baleful light. Before them, the Black Gate spanned the Morannon, the walkway at its top barbed with orc spears, bristling menacingly in the half-light. The jeers from the defenders were borne on the wind, mocking and jubilant. With a twist of his stomach, Elrond realised that they were excited, relishing the fight to come, the blood to be shed, in stark contrast to those who marched at his back, grim and silent.

Moving at a steady paced they passed the two hillocks of shattered stone which guarded the entrance to the Morannon, piled up from years of labour by the orcs. Now, they were slimed and crusted with some unmentionable substance, the stones glassy where they pierced the muck. A single banner, spared the carnage only to be subject to utter defeat, fluttered forlornly in the breeze: the White Tree of Gondor, scion of the line of Telperion, besmirched with the blood of the slain.

Elrohir wretched, and turned his eyes away, and his father laid a hand of comfort upon his shoulder, tears stinging his own eyes.

"Thus fell all I knew," the Lord Faramir sighed, his eyes distant, turned towards the West, where, far off, a reek rose over the Anduin where it turned South towards Minas Tirith.

But they spoke no more and moved onwards, for Mordor lay before them. They passed the mounds, the stinking charnel house of a world long since lost, and the defile narrowed, rising inexorably towards the Black Gate. The Towers of the Teeth, Narchost and Carchost, rose up against the sky, blackened fangs bared against the endless night. As if of one mind, the company drew together like wild animals at bay, weapons ready in nervous hands.

But Elrond strode steadily at the fore, hooded and cloaked, a figure of majesty undaunted by the evil airs of Mordor and illness alike. Behind him came Elrohir, arrayed as a warrior of Rohan, but with the colours of Imladris, and of the line of Eärendil bound in his dark hair and in bands on his sleeves, torn from the insignia he had worn riding out from Rivendell so long ago. Hawkfaced with pride he was, immovable. Thranduil was at his side for the Moriquendi, the Elves who had never seen the light of the Two Trees in Valinor in the Day before days. Eowyn of Rohan and Faramir of Gondor for the Men of the Darkness, and the Men of Númenor admixed in this Middle-earth. And, his eyes dark and alien beneath drawn brows, his scarlet cloak whipping about his ankles, came Ulrang, for the Men of the Darkness, the Easterlings. He looked neither right nor left, but his hand was clenched tightly about the hilt of his sword. A strange smile played at his lips, as of one contemplating the incongruity of life.

The derisive howls of the orcs grew louder, more hostile, and the youngest of the company shrank back, and some few would have fled, if it had not been for their greater fear of what lay in the wide world beyond this foul valley.

It seemed an eternity before they drew up before the gate, although it was some scarce count of minutes since they had passed the mounds. They would not fight there, on the bones and flesh of the dead; they would not do Sauron's work for him.

Elrond slowed to a halt slightly before the others, resting the tip of Andúril in the scant soil at his feet, feigning nonchalance, although his whole posture was stern and noble, a lord come to treat with villainous tenants.

"Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth and speak with those who demand speech with him!" He spoke in a low voice, but his words carried far across the quiet land; even the orcs were silenced.

No one came.

"In the name of the Eldar, and of the Fathers of Men, I call him forth, who names himself Lord of Mordor. I call him forth for justice, and for judgement."

Still, no one came forth. Elrond risked a glance sideways at Thranduil who waited tense and alert.

"In the name of the Lords of the West, who have brought mercy and succour unto us many a time and oft, I call him forth, who names himself Lord of Mordor. I call him forth for justice, and for judgement."

It seemed for a long time that there would be no answer, that the malice of the Black Land would remain mute behind its strong walls until a time of its choosing.

There was a sudden scuffling behind the Gate, the sound of a body dragged across stone, flung violently from side to side.

A terrible shriek ripped out across the shallow vale, almost bestial in its pain.

The Gate creaked open with agonising slowness, and the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur, the Mouth of Sauron, rode forth, garbed and helmed in black, horrible to behold.

There was something thrown across his saddle-bow, bloodied and bedraggled beyond all recognition.

The horse's hooves raised up puffs of ash and dust, and its red eyes rolled wildly in its head.

The Lieutenant of Sauron looked about, the reins held lightly in one hand, his gaze contemptuous. "Is there anyone in this rout to treat with me?" he asked scornfully, deliberately echoing the words he had spoken before that other battle so many months ago now. "Or indeed with the wit to understand me?" His gaze drifted over Elrond, and despite himself the elf-lord shivered in his cloak to see the evil displayed therein.

"You have no power here, elf-wight. Run back to your masters, hide behind your women's skirts."

Elrond held his gaze steadily, and the Black Númenorean cursed and spat in the dust. "Or are you so ill-favoured behind your wiles that no slut will have you, be she ever so base?"

Elrohir started forward, a growl building low in his throat, but his father placed a restraining hand on his arm. "It is enough that we know, îon-nîn, and that she knows."

The Mouth of Sauron laughed, cruel and harsh, and the echoes rang in the rocks of the Udun, finding caves hidden even from the restless crawling of the orcs. "You have no power here," he repeated, "unless you accept the suzerainty of your true lord."

The Silmaril glowed warmly against the skin of Elrond's brow, and he thought briefly of the house on the clifftops above Sirion, and of the high meads above Rivendell, and of Celebrían, her face fading into a pale blur as the ship pulled out into the Gulf of Lune.

"I shall speak with no underling, no traitor to my kin, but only with the Lord of the Black Land himself."

The Man threw back his head in silent mirth. "My lord sets terms for you: that you will depart from this place, and come never back. That you will yield up all lands and all arms unto him. And foremost that you shall yield up to him this trinket, this Ring which is his by right, and by pledge of the Elves of Eregion."

"I accept no terms." To those watching, Elrond seemed to grow in stature. His illness-dulled hair glowed with dark light, and his eyes were points of starlight shining above Beleriand ere the Sun and the Moon. "For I come in the name of the Lords of the West, of whom your master is but an errant servant. I come in the name of the Lords of the West who have ever bought succour unto these lands, and with the hope of the Evening Star within me." He touched his brow, but the Silmaril was as yet veiled.

The skeletal mount of the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr reared and snorted. His rider tugged his erratic movements into a tight circle, and he pulled against the reins, bloody froth streaming from his mouth, his teeth bared.

"The Lords of the West?" The Lieutenant's voice rose into a shriek of terrible amusement. "What can they do for you now? They are as dust on the wind, their impotence revealed for what it is. There is only one lord now in all the world: the Lord of the Black Land. Your idols of earth and air can do naught for you now."

And with that, he cast the burden from his saddle-bow to the ground, and cantered back towards the Gate, his entourage tight behind him, the pennants bearing the red eye fluttering in the breeze.

There was silence.

And the burden stirred, a patch of darkness against the filthy pale sand. Emaciated limbs emerged from the ugly, broken huddle, as thin as sticks of kindling. Blackened, scorched fingers clawed at the ground, seeking purchase against the rough earth. Breath rattled in the silence, reverberating in the ears of those who watched and waited, unsure of what to do next.

A hoarse, phlegm-ridden cough.

Blood seeping into the parched earth.

The man turned on his side, cloaked with his begrimed hair. A single eye turned towards the waiting army; in its blurred depths, a spark of blue flame awakened. Lips tried to frame a single word. Hands implored the very air for comprehension.

The blue flame grew stronger, expanding in concentric circles.

The mutilated, bloodied body writhed against the stones, caught with mortal agony, and with loss.

The blue fire flamed forth with familiar light, warm and regretful, and infinitely wise.

"Fools…" The voice was cracked and hoarse, scarce more than an aspiration. "My dear fools…"

TBC

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*A direct quotation from The Silmarillion.