Desolation

Chapter Thirteen

Thanks to Lalaith for betaing this, and cookies to all reviewers.

They stared. The silence was absolute. It seethed, almost a living thing, breathing, surrounding them, caressing them. It seemed to as if a dull golden light enveloped their thoughts, as seeping mist which prevented them from breathing, from even thinking to breathe.

They stood where they were, locked in an eternity of heartbeats.

A dry, dusty breeze eddied around their feet, raising puffs of dust, but there was a damp chill on its far edge which promised rain.

The sky crackled with power held long in check; cerulean lightning lanced earthwards.

The blue eyes closed slowly, their light dimmed.

It was Elrond who started forwards first, healer's instincts overriding those of a warrior. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the gleeful hum and murmur of the enemy, but it mattered not to him.

Elrohir was by his side as he knelt beside the comatose figure, his fingers fumbling with the pin fastening his cloak at the neck. He cursed softly the pin pricked his finger, and wrenched it free of the fabric with a hissing tear. Gently, the younger peredhel wrapped the cloak around the old man's shoulders, feeling the rigid shocks of terror and pain running through him.

He risked a glance sideways at his father and blanched. Elrond's eyes were tightly closed, the thick, dark lashes dusting his wan cheeks. And his hands shook with the force of his adamantine concentration. Even through the black cloth binding his brow tightly, his son could see the sudden flare of the Silmaril - and through his shirt, the now-sickened glow of the Rings. They sang to his blood as much as to his father's heart, and, his gentle hand holding the Istar still, he could not help but remember better times when the sun had shone yet upon this Middle-earth, and the power of the Three had seemed a thing benevolent indeed.

But Elrond had no such luxury. He knew his own strength was waning fast, his fëa slipping minute by minute into Mandos' care. And still he knelt by his old friend's side, his hands pressed to the bony shoulders, pouring his power, his will into him. Hoping against hope... Hoping against the red flare in the back of his mind, the dull, burning ache of Sauron's mastery which made the blood of Melian sear so, and his hapless peredhel flesh fall away before it...

And still he tried, for all the nameless dead before him, and for the fall of his father's people, and the doom of Men, and the fading of the Moriquendi. Still he tried, for of this earth he knew best its healing, the slow, silent ways of knitting tissues and the busy hum of blood...

Gandalf blinked, squirming as a rock knuckled him in the small of the back. Sudden pain flared through him from a hundred different injuries, and he sat bolt upright despite the desperate weakness lingering in his body.

Elrond reeled backwards, the peaceful mediation of healing fading fast from his mind. His flailing hands found gravel beneath their palms, and with some difficulty he steadied himself. Dizzying flashes of light bloomed before his eyes, and he saw, as if from a great distance, the wizard's ancient face looming before him. It was still graven with deep lines of pain and weakness, still marked with burns and terrible, livid weals inflicted by Sauron's vital hatred. And yet, strangely not. Strangely untouched, unsullied.

The nightingales sang over a far land, and the lady of healing slept amongst the blossoming flowers on the islet amidst the calm waters of Lórellin, shaded by bending willow-boughs.

"Welcome back, mellon-iaur," Elrond said dazedly, sitting back on his heels, his hands resting slackly on his thin knees. For once in his long life, he could not find the words. "I .. I did not look for this good fortune."

For a moment the Istar's eyes were as dark and deep as the wells between the stars, and then he nodded slowly. "Do not ... ask of me ... the future, friend, ... for I know it ... not, only what ... must be ... done ... ere ... the end." He laid his hand upon Elrond's arm, and the fingers were blazingly hot. "Ere the end ... what must be done..." He raised his gaze to the elf-lord's forehead, his eyes suddenly wide, and his grip grew slack.

With a bare gesture of his head, Thranduil summoned a pair of maidens forward.

"Take him to the rear." Elrond twined his hands about Andúril's hilt, staring at the runes engraved in the blade. "Keep him safe."

One of the maidens nodded, raising her short blade to her forehead in a salute. Her hair flashed silver in the torchlight; it was almost as if ... and then it was gone.

Gently, tenderly, they escorted the wizard away, and Elrond raised his head from his contemplations to eye the sneering host gathered before the Black Gate.

The hideous horse of the Lieutenant of Barad-dûr cantered in a restless circle, its eyes flashing madly, bright glimmers sparking from their depths. A mocking smile curved his lips and shone an unholy light in his eyes. "Even he knew, my lord fool. If you have any care for your shrivelled skin, turn back now and flee to the very shores of the sea, for we shall pursue you hence."

None deigned to answer; but as if they were of one mind they stalked forward in a broken line, weapons upraised, eyes hot with anger and vengeance and justice. To the very mouth of the Morannon they came in wave after wave, their banners flying with the colours of the free peoples, even of the Elves of Lindon and Imladris, rescued from the wreckage before the Gates. A bright display it was, and terrible and wonderful. It seemed to light the sky even as the flaming wonders above the ice bay of Forachel, and the army came on with a steadfast cheer echoing from thousands upon thousands of throats, rising to the very walls of the heavens.

The eagle swooped and soared, and his eyes were very bright.

At the head of the army strode Elrond and Elrohir, Thranduil and Dáin, Ulrang and Haldir of Lothlórien, their eyes like paired stars.

Before them, the Gates swung open and the Lieutenant and his company fell back, their faces caught in grotesque parodies of amusement. The trap had been baited, and the bait taken. They smiled for the joy that their master would cut this elf-child down, this gaunt elf-child ,this presumptuous elf-child, this elf-child with eyes like stars and thoughts that burnt, and such a terrible look upon his face, as if he knew secrets they did not, and rejoiced in them beyond their ken. But his secrets would be snuffed out, ripped out, to bleed into the dusty grey soil. They smiled, terrible laughter ripped from their throats.

But still the army came on, and on their faces, too, there were smiles, and the hope lay thick and fast in their eyes like the snow in the northern lands, and all the screeches of hateful scorn could not touch it.

A single, night-fletched arrow was notched, and a single elf fell, but the orc host was caught in confusion at the song upon his lips, the Narsilion, the Song of the Sun and the Moon, sung in such a strange place and at such a strange time. And others took up his call even as he died, throughout the front ranks of the Army of the West and the East, and those amongst the Enemy who could understand shrank back in fear, and those who could not drew back in confusion, their ears assailed by the tumbling chords of light.

A hand, slender and pale, drew a bow-string taut, the grey-green fletchings quivering with the tension of the string. The Man braced himself on his back leg, his long, slim fingers flexing around the carved wood of the bow, the inlaid runes, light against his fingertips. His balance shifted slightly, his eyes alert, his heart alight with vengeance. The arrow sang through the air, its flight swift and sure, and Faramir of Gondor bowed his head, as if in defeat, or desperate victory.

Battle was joined in earnest then, upon the great Plateau of Gorgoroth, as the two opposing armies clashed, the horde of orcs and Men of Darkness encircling the tiny force of Men and Dwarves and Elves completely.

The sky roiled above them, branches of bilious yellow lightning lighting up the tumbling clouds. Errant, willful winds gusted from side to side, catching the combatants off guard, sending them reeling off their balance, tumbling like leaves in an autumn breeze. The perpetual twilight was thick and dank, cloying the lungs and clinging to the mind. The flickering light had to it an odd greenish cast, sickly as mortal death. The din was almost unbearable – the ring of sword against shield, the hoarse clamour of the orc host, the desperate cries of the dying. Somewhere to the rear a child called out, caught by the belly upon a barbed spear, blood rippling from his lips in thick torrents, his dark hair clinging to his pale face.

The mountain rumbled in the distance, vomiting great scarlet gouts against the sky, like dragons' fire in the tales of old, like the Balrogs' whips against the Encircling Mountains as Gondolin died.

The heart in Elrond's chest skipped erratically, and it was only by that golden silver light that sparked in the back of his mind that his feet did not fumble on the uneven ground. But in his hands, his sword was an arc of gleaming light as sure as that radiance, burning from horizon to horizon as the orcs fell beneath the heat of his wrath, the chill of his grief.

A monstrous creature loomed before him, one eye hideously obscured by ridges of white scar tissue, the other gleaming with a baleful amber light amidst the webbing of faint scarlet lines. The dessicated skulls of some small beasts were bound about its neck, and it seemed to be crimson in hue from head to foot, such was the blood which coated it. It leered at him, taunting him, bearing fangs which did not deserve to be named teeth, so rank were they; swinging its scimitar from side to side it advanced, blood dripping from the notched blade. Instinctively he ducked, even as its blade bore down upon him in a foul welter of stinking metal, and lunged up under its guard. Andúril pierced its leathery hide at the point where it was weakest, just beneath one hulking arm.

Elrond gripped his failing left wrist with his right hand, a new strength borne of desperation fuelling him, and drove the blade upwards and inwards, wrenching through sinew and muscle, piercing one great lung, grating against the rigidity of bone. The blade, tempered by the finest smiths of Imladris, wrought with all the hopes of the Age, laboured against the resistance of the orc's chest, but at last it broke free, forced through the layers of flesh by the will bearing behind it. The point emerged through its back amidst a shower of dark blood, and the orc was dead before it hit the ground.

The elf-lord tasted blood in his mouth, the sweet richness of elven blood, tainted by sickness, not the foulness of orc gore, before he realised that he, too, was injured. Touching his shaking hand o his midriff, it came away red with his blood, hot and warm and sticky. He felt it seeping down his stomach; he felt his tunic clinging to his hips, to his thighs. The world swum before him, and he saw leaves silver and gold against the sky, and ancient, vaulted Halls where never mortal foot had trod. The Rings burnt very warm against his chest, their heat melding with his own blood, and the call was strong in his mind, very strong. That insidious voice, bittersweet, tinged with a longing which he would never know, he who had longed so much in his long years, he who had loved so very much. It called to him, sang to him with the melody he had heard from his mother's lips in that house upon the cliffs of Sirion, so very long ago. But it did not know the words that were spoken, and the notes fell hollow.

Elrond clutched at the rings, wrenching them away from the raw skin at his neck, feeling even the harsh, hot hair of Mordor as a relief, even as his body was convulsed with shivers.

To one side, he was aware of his younger son forging forwards, his eyes shining with a deadly fervour as he swung the ancient sword of his bloodline from side to side, cleaving a path through the orcs which stood in his way. It seemed that he scarcely noticed the blood streaming from a dozen small cuts, or the sweat which poured through his dark hair in the noxious atmosphere.

To the other, he was even more dimly aware of the Wood-king, his left arm hanging limply by his side, blood spilling from the ruined place where once his hand had been. His hair was slicked to his head by some foul substance, his teeth bared in a rictus of hatred. His blows fell thick and fast in the hue and cry of the uneven battle, and his voice was hoarse and raw with bellowed fury.

Neither swerved from their sole goal: to forge a broad swathe to where the Dark Lord stood upon a rise overlooking the battle, his hideous black arms shining with an unholy light. To protect with their force and their lives the wavering Elf who stood between them, his will resolute and the sinews of his body unravelling as darkness took him and he fell into death as a bright stone falls into a dark pool.

But Elrond found that he could not concentrate on them for long before his mind slipped away, riven by tendrils of unconsciousness, only to be torn from that dream of golden, obsidian darkness, of sweet voices upraised in an impossibly beautiful song, by a silver urgency for which he could no longer remember the name. And yet it drew him back, a sweetness in the back of his mind, like the first honey of the year.

All he knew for certain was the terrible roar of the battle, and the livid light before him. His shoulders ached with the constant arc of the blade. There seemed to be a fire within them, eating away at the labouring muscles, penetrating his flesh like a hundred thousand javelins tipped with deadly poison. And yet it meant little to him although he winced with every movement. It was all so very far away, beyond the veil of silver mist which had descended before his sight.

The ground rose and fell, and he knew, more from memory than from his failing sight, that here the Udun opened out into Mordor itself. To either side, the Ephel Duath and the Ered Lithui fell away in shoulder upon shoulder of mottled stone, even unto the horizons. Before them, incandescent against the luminous sky, stood Mount Oroduin, and, to its left, eastwards towards Rhun, Barad-dûr, its sinister battlements crenellated in shades of darkness.

And Sauron, his hands upraised unto the sky, as if beseeching the winds of Manwë Sûlimo which would not answer him. His ghastly face was a mask of terrible delight, and Narya, the Ring of Fire, burnt upon his finger beside the One, lit with an unclean scarlet light, as of putrefying flesh, or of some vile moss which grows in the deep places of the world, unseen by the eyes of the Sun and the Moon. His baleful gaze, bright beneath the disfigured flesh and ghastly armour, was ever fixed upon the peredhel labouring towards him, and his laughter rose to the winds. He stood upon a low rise in the land, the battle seething about him, ebbing and flowing in unholy patterns of slaughter, but he was untouched, rimed with a sickly light. Vile lightnings poured from the heavens to cascade upon his head.

He had more power now than Elrond had ever seen him grasp. Unable to look upon it anymore, such was the pain of the terrible light flickering into his eyes, he turned his gaze away, back to the battle, back to the orc lying dying at his feet, its gnarled fingers clawing at the air. He remembered the old legends of those first days of his people beside the Cuivienen, and of the making of the orcs, and between hatred and sorrow there was in his heart not even a hairsbreadth.

But the battle was too fierce, too easily lost, too grim for such thoughts. Time and again he swung his sword. Time and again adversaries fell beneath his blade. Time and again only some instinct saved him, rolling to the ground as an orc scimitar scythed through the space where only a moment before his head had been. Gouts of blood slicked his face, dripping in his eyes, nearly blinding him until a brief pause gave him let to wipe it away with the back of one shaking hand. His boots were fouled with a slick mixture of churned mud and entrails. Men and Elves and lay dying upon the ground amidst the twisted corpses of the orcs which they had hewed down. He knew that far too many of them fell for his sake, so that the torrent might not fall upon him, so that the inevitable might be averted a moment longer.

A silver tug at him mind. Impatient. Commanding. A single word. Hervenn. He was Elrond Halfelven, and his song was not entirely of Arda, and nothing was inevitable. He smiled, despite it all.

Elrohir took a sword blow to the ruined stump of his arm, and howled above the fury of the battle, more in rage than in pain.

In the back of Elrond's mind, the silver thread winced, drawing back with an almost physical pain. The elf-lord stumbled sideways, crushing an orc in his haste. A father's haste. A mourner's haste.

"Ion-nîn…" He laid a hand upon Elrohir's left shoulder.

"'Tis nothing." Elrohir shoved him away. "We must fight." But there was tenderness in his eyes, and gratitude.

The battle closed in about them, fiercer than ever. They were separated from one another, and from Thranduil by the rip tide of battle as a new regiment of the Haradrim poured down from the stony heights in a solid wave which scarcely seemed to break upon the first rank of archers set against them.

And yet they beat them backwards, pace by pace, their boots slimed with the viscera of their comrades, their hearts weary and their sinews aching. For a while the sky to the West seemed to lighten above the Ephel Duath, but then the highest turret of Minas Morgul belched forth a yellow-green fire which lit up the sky and land as clear as day. Turning in an achingly slow circle, Elrond looked out across the plain of Mordor, out across the raised causeway which lead to the Morannon and all the world beyond. The battle seemed to stretch forever, he thought, even as he cut down a Southron who had crept up on him, presuming him unawares. To the distant horizons, Men and Orcs and Elves swayed backwards and forwards in an unseemly dance, bright metal flashing in the sudden light. A dim fog seemed to lie above the land, fading to the palest silver above the mountains.

His eyes betrayed him, and he looked westwards in the hope of some sign, but there was none only the ghastly flare from the Morgul-vale. And even that faded, cloaking the land of Mordor with its familiar darkness once more.

It was interminable.

Thranduil fell, a barbed arrow through his throat, the black fletchings protruding obscenely beneath his larynx. He collapsed to his knees, his outstretched hand kneading the air like new dough. Elrond stumbled to his side, tripping, falling. But the wood-king's pale eyes were wide with amazement, the pupils dilated. Sightless and dead. There was no time to mourn the passing of one with whom he had quarreled with this Age past in council chambers long since forgotten.

There was a hand beneath his elbow, human and youthful, the skin uncreased and unstained with the liver spots of age, a dark patina of grime worn into the pale skin.

He wrenched himself free, staggering to his feet, his sword at the ready.

The Steward of Gondor stepped backwards, his own blade, held away from his body. "My lord…"

"Nay. It is well that I can at least retain some grip upon the wariness of battle," Elrond cut him off.

At the Man's back, a sword sung, and there was the glitter of torchlight of chased mail and golden hair, holding off all comers. Brilliant grey eyes, and the face a mask of determination, hard and cold as forged steel.

Blood fanned across their faces, and the moment was broken.

Without a word more, Faramir took up the place which the Sindarin king had held. The seal-ring of the Ruling Stewards shone upon his finger, the onyx seeming almost to be lit from within as the scabrous light issuing forth from Oroduin and Barad-dûr gleamed in its depths. His movements were severe and precise, never missing a target, his attention always with the lord he sought to protect.

They fought onwards as if it would never end, until they knew no world which did not hold pain and blood and death. And still their blades rose and fell, and the light of Andúril went unquenched.

The rise in the land grew nearer; Sauron's massive figure darker against the sky.

A billow of dark smoke obscured the battlefield, as if arising from some monstrous fire. In the far distance, thunder rumbled, and rain began to fall in heavy pellets, cold and sweet.

The Steward was borne backwards, subsumed by a new torrent of orcs. His screams rang out over and over. He was lost to Elrond's sight, and of a sudden his cries were cut off in a gargling moan.

The elf-lord felt the fury boiling within him. Too many had died. With a growl he flung himself forwards. A horse flailed about before him, tossing hither and thither in the mire, its harness inextricably tangled about its dead rider.

Sauron was so close.

The Nazgûl screeched overhead, lordless now, but still a terror beyond the reckoning of mortal men. To Elrond, battling relentlessly forwards, it seemed that the wingtips of their fell steeds almost brushed his hair. A thick, stinking wind swirled around him, raising eddies of dancing dust, casting sand in his eyes. The Ringwraiths screeched long and loud, and the men beneath cried out, clapping their hands to their ears in a fruitless attempt to block out the hideous wailing. Their wings beat the air, louder by far than the distant thunder. The Black Breath rippled over them, an invisible tide darker than the darkest night. Even the most doughty quailed, their hearts shrinking within their breasts. The world seemed to close in. Weapons dipped and swayed, sinews robbed of their strength.

Sauron was closer yet, just beyond reach, just beyond hope, as the Nazgûl wheeled and circled again, drawing intricate patterns in the sky. The precious wedge of clear space about the elf-lord contracted as the Men of Rhûn and Rohan to either side fell back, their hands still in sudden fear.

There was a touch on his shoulder. He spun, and only nearly decapitated the warrior who stood there, breathing hard from the fray. Her hair was streaked and matted with blood, her face chalky from new grief. To her left stood the young prince of Dol Amroth. He had been weeping.

Between them they held Gandalf, his body sagging almost to the ground. The wizard shivered convulsively, his chin drooping to his chest.

"What…?" Elrond started, drawing back against the meagre shelter of the causeway wall which stood high above them. "Why were…"

"I … commanded it, mellon-iaur," Gandalf wheezed. "I must…"

"You must what?"

"The Road goes ever on and on, my friend." The colour was leeching from his face, but a great light grew in his eyes, mighty and terrible and wonderful. "I hope … at the end … the Lords of the West … shall … forgive … me … if I … overstep … my bounds in … this."

"No." Elrond shook his head as panic rose within him, feeling almost as if he was an elfling again. "No…"

"Yes." The Maia struggled to his feet, stumbling free of those who had aided him thus far. He clutched the ragged cloak to his throat, and yet he seemed a king unveiled, standing there in the midst of the raging battle, with an elf-lord of high lineage kneeling at his feet, his dark cloak cast over his brow. "Farewell, until we meet once more beyond the Western Seas, or the world is broken and remade." His voice had gained in strength, with the rich, deep timbre of old.

The very earth seemed to sing. A scattering of pebble dislodged themselves and ran in rivulets down into the gully in which they stood. It felt to Elrond, struggling to look up, as if he had turned his face towards a blazing fire in some distant hearth, or to the sun on a bright day in summer when the sky held no clouds. Peering sideways through his streaming eyes, he saw the stark terror in the faces of Éowyn and Amrothos. But he could not look upon the wizard himself, for he burnt like a beacon, like the sun in splendour.

In the distance, the thunder stopped and the rain pattered to a halt on the sodden earth.

The light grew brighter yet, and a dim wailing began, torn from a hundred thousand ghastly throats. All around them, Sauron's armies recoiled, falling back, fighting amongst themselves in their haste to get way, stabbing and trampling each other as they went. The grotesque, ruined masks which were the faces of the orcs contorted into feral snarls of hatred; the Haradrim and Easterlings who fought under the banner of the Dark Lord were little better. The din rose inexorably, the clamour of a hundred thousand different voices calling out at once in fear and in pain. The stench of fear hung thick over the battlefield.

The screams of the dead and dying mingled with the general uproar as a cavalry regiment stampeded, the grim horses terrified by the light, their eyes rolling maniacally in their sockets, spittle burbling between their bared teeth.

The light grew brighter yet, the brilliance seeming to feed upon itself.

In the skies above them, the Nazgul and their steeds added their cries to those of their comrades below, like the scraping of monstrous fingernails across the walls of the world itself. The winged beasts craned their sinuous necks against the rising wind, their clawed feet tearing at the air, clutching at the earth. The eight surviving Riders rocked from side to side, shaken by paroxyms of mortal terror. One beast, maddened in its fear and disorientated by the wild flailings of the Nazgûl at its back, careered uncontrollably towards the ground, one leathery black wing carving a long trench in the muddy soil, throwing orcs and Men high into the air amidst the burbling of their death screams.

Thrown forward onto his face by the cataclysm unfolding around him, Elrond rolled cautiously onto one side, and peered up through his lashes, blinking against the bright light and the tears streaming from his eyes. The Rings at his breast glowed dully, but the radiance set about the wizard was more brilliant by far, a white shot through with many colours, expanding in a dome as far as the eye could see. But in the middle of all this, the old man trembled, wavering on his feet, his arms outstretched for balance.

Far away, through the pain lancing through his weakened arms, and the brightness of the field, a league or more distant, Elrond could see Dáin of the Lonely Mountain kneeling in wonder, a company of his sturdiest warriors about him, their faces bloodless in awe beneath their beards even from this distance.

And beyond the sphere of absolute calm that was the vicinity of the dying Maia, slowly but surely the host of Orcs and evil Men retreated in abject confusion, their limbs quivering with hatred and terror. They quailed as the light grew brighter yet, whimpering as they tore and bit at one another to get free of it.

As if it had been some sign, this galvanised the beleaguered force at last, adding new strength to their tiring limbs, and new purpose to their faltering hopes. The dwarves at Dáin's side scrambled to their feet, snatching up their axes, storming forward against the retreating line, the twin blades singing through the air. Their guttural howls were taken up by others in their kin in other parts of the field, and now the Men joined them in sundry voices, and now the Elves of Mirkwood, kingless and homeless, but as terrible in their vengeance as Elu Thingol had been of old.

And before their deadly blades the orcs milled in incomprehension, scarcely even raising their own weapons to defend themselves, such was their bafflement at the catastrophe which had befallen them. They moaned piteously in their inhuman voices, shielding their eyes against the light, even as the Nazgul and their mounts struggled and writhed in the skies above.

The tiny force which had set itself against all the might of Mordor, beyond hope and beyond darkness, showed no mercy. For none would be shown unto them and for the first time since that dreadful night many months distant now, they caught in the darkness a dim flickering of a chance of hope, and a fierce, bright joy shone in their hearts.

Before them, what little resistance remained in the hearts of the orcs melted away as mist on a meadow in the morning of the world. And Elrond saw the corridor of which he had so lately despaired, opened again to him, clear to the base of the hillock on which Sauron stood arrayed in all his dread force.

Wincing at every movement, the peredhel levered himself upright, bracing himself on Andúril to get a foot beneath him. He stood still for a moment, breathless from the exertion.

Behind him, the light failed and died. The ancient wizard collapsed to the ground. Wheeling, Elrond saw that his eyes were open and sightless, staring at the fathomless depths of the sky, and his lips flecked with dark crimson blood.

But there was no time now, no time to mourn, no time for tears lest they should be spilt in vain. As yet, the way remained clear, as yet there was still a chance, for the host of the Enemy had not rallied, fearing some new Assault of light.

"The day has come!" Elrond cried again and again in a great voice, carrying above the sounds of the battle and of the harsh wind which whipped eddies of tiny pebbles into the air and lent an unnatural semblance of life to the dead littered across Gorgoroth, stirring their hair and twitching at their fingertips. He staggered forwards, limping now, almost falling. The blood pounded in his ears as he slipped and clambered his way up the shallow slope, feeling each breath as a stab of pain beneath his heart. And the taste of this victory was bitter on his tongue, bitter indeed. "Day has come!"

There was a soft chuckle, mocking and cruel. "Wise in all lore is Master Elrond?"

The elf-lord straightened, only half a handful of yards distant from the Dark Lord, every nerve alive with tension.

"Hast thou come to offer thy allegiance unto me? For mine is the only day that shall ever come." The dark armour which covered Sauron from head to foot clanked as he moved, the plates chiming against one another.

"My fathers stood against thy master, and he was cast down, and his dominion utterly destroyed upon the face of this earth. My wisdom is my own, and my allegiance belongs to the Lords of the West."

"Not so great then is thy wisdom, nor so worth the tales by which it is reckoned. Thou wouldst have been wise indeed to have joined with me long ago, when I offered it. For be thou certain that I shall not offer it now, nor ever, even shouldst thou plead with thy very life."

Elrond felt the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, the stiffness of the cloth across his shoulders where his own blood was drying against his skin. He fought with the sense of blank terror which the renegade Maia inspired in all, the knowledge that here was one who had been before the world began, and would still be here when the ash and dust of the Dagor Dagorath settled into stillness.

You are the scion of the lines of kings, and the blood of Melian flows yet in your veins, Celebrían said quietly in the back of his mind, and he could see her long, slender fingers threading nervously through her silver hair, and the concern in her face.

He found that he was curiously unafraid. "We differ in our knowledge of wisdom, thou and I." He raised his head and looked proudly into the horrific pits which were the Dark Lord's eyes. "For thy sight is clouded, and thy wisdom less than the wind."

"Wilt thou then deny me what is mine by right? Give up these Rings, even as your wizard friend gave up his when he was found and brought unto my tower. For he was then broken in body, but thy death may yet be swift."

He smiled softly, ruefully. "Long years we knew peace, and we shall not so easily be cowed by pain or death, even as Beren Erchamion went undaunted, and as Finrod Felagund, by whose valour he was saved, and escaped even from you, Sauron, Lord of nothing."

The Maia's face was terrible to behold in its wrath, the teeth bared in a rictus, the hideous skin drawn into tight lines over the misshapen bones. "For that deed alone, thy death shall not be merciful, for thou shalt cry out unto thy lords, and declaim thy low birth a calamity beyond all telling, and recant thy loves, and bemoan thy breath." Sauron's lips curled in an awful parody of a smile, and Elrond felt a chill course down his spine. "Yea, and even thy memory shall be sundered, and all thy recollection of the elf-witch's brat torn asunder, and thou shalt die even as the beasts which crawl beneath her feet."

Elrond toyed with the pommel of the great sword he still held, bound to his left hand with stout cloth. The metal was warm beneath his grip, the ancient patterns familiar and comforting. "Nay. I think it shall not be so, for by this blade was the Ring sundered from you, and you fear it yet."

Indeed, there was a flicker of something akin to fear in Sauron's eyes, only to be obliterated by a torrent of blind rage which carried all before it. Without warning, he bore down on the Elf before him, lashing his great mace from side to side. The ground sizzled and smoked where his feet passed, and a sickening smell of burning wafted through the air. For a long moment, it mingled in Elrond's memory with the putrefying stench of charred flesh as Gil-galad had fallen beneath those heavy feet, the last king of the Noldor in Middle-earth. But the next moment, the great mace came crashing down, and there was no time for further thought.

He threw himself to the ground and rolled desperately sideways, but still it caught a numbing blow to his left arm, and it was only by virtue of the bindings that he kept his grip on Andúril. Dust filled his nostrils choking him, and he coughed, crying out involuntarily as the paroxyms shook his frame. He scrabbled in the dirt, bloodying his knuckles in his haste, and circled the Dark Lord warily.

Almost lazily, Sauron struck again, and he dodged, his reflexes buying him some time to recover his breath.

It had to be soon, now. His hands trembled at the thought.

Again, a blow was aimed at him, a vicious swipe at his kneecaps, and again he evaded it. As he jumped sideways, he closed with the Dark Lord, and lashed out with Andúril, cutting through the heavy armour and drawing a bloody line across the foul flesh beneath. It leaked a yellow pus which soured the air in his lungs.

Sauron snarled in rage, but Elrond knew more than to think he had done his adversary some serious wound.

Back and forth they went, thrust and parry, hither and thither across the broken land, sparring through thickets of the many-thorned brambles. Blood dripped almost incessantly into Elrond's eyes now, and he could feel his heart weakening with each drop, his pulse slowing. His vision swam, and he staggered heavily, weaving on the spot, retreating step by step in a desperate effort to put some space between him and his pursuer. His head was boiling underneath the layers of cloth, but he could barely feel his hands, so numb from cold as they were. His reflexes were failing; exhaustion crept in. He spun, dragging a hand across his eyes to smear away the blood.

"Hast thou wearied already of thy dance?' Sauron mocked him, swinging the mace backwards and forwards in an almost lazy current of sinuous motion. "Wilt thou then welcome thy death?"

"Not yet," Elrond whispered, and pushed the hood back from his head. Such was the trembling of his hand that he fumbled with the knot securing the band of silk about his brow. His fingers slipped clammily; he was only too aware that at any moment, Sauron's amusement would end, and the mace would come crashing down.

The world seemed suddenly a great weight bearing down upon him, the sky leaden, the earth rising up to crush him with its pleas. He struggled frantically, cursing the malaise in his fingers. Somewhere to his left, he heard Sauron's mirthless laughter.

He tugged again, and the knot came free. The band of silk fluttered out behind him, drifting away high above Mordor. The winds shifted, and seemed suddenly to blow from the West, over the Ephel Duath from Ethir Anduin and the sea. Far off, the solitary eagle called out in his hunting, and the world fell silent. Even the battle seemed to fade away, and the sea breeze smelt of elanor and niphredil in a far green land beneath a swift sunrise.

Elrond gasped for breath, shocked anew by the power of this thing, the beauty untouched even in this dark place.

He heard a rasp, low and guttural, and realised with a start that it was Sauron. The fallen Maia was gazing upon the holy jewel with undisguised longing - greed - terrible lust to possess. There was something in his eyes which the elf-lord could not even begin to describe, even as he instinctively shrank back from the hatred it kindled.

"It cannot be..." Sauron hissed, advancing on the peredhel standing tall and proud before him. His eyes flashed with malice. "It cannot be."

Elrond grappled for Andúril's hilt, holding the sword out before him in both hands. He could scarcely stand. Blood trickled from the base of his skull, and he appeared almost a shade already, fëa without hröa. And yet he seemed an image of Eärendil painted in some great hall of lords and kings, the Silmaril shining brightly upon his brow, his face grave and proud.

"The power of the Silmarils, wrought by the hands of Fëanor from the light of the Trees of Yavanna, is woken in this world to be thy ruin, Sauron, Nameless and Forgotten."

"It shall not be so. This trinket has no power over me."

Elrond's legs failed under him, and he crumpled to the ground in a heap of emaciated limbs. In that instant, Sauron was upon him, one terrible, burning hand pining him to the earth by the hem of his cloak as the other reached for the neck of his tunic, grabbing desperately at the chain which hung there, yanking its burden free, the Rings tumbling end of end, gold glinting brightly, sapphire and adamant flashing...

But he hesitated, torn by his own greed, his lust to possess, by the ancient humiliation, and the pain of the fall of his master. He wavered above the fainting peredhel, his massive fingers clenching and relaxing reflexively. In a heartbeat, he saw an Age past, saw triumph and disaster, saw himself crowned with the Silmaril as his master had been, and all reason fled.

He snatched the Silmaril up, tearing the bindings free, holding the jewel up in both hands, the thin cords trailing like a nest of adders.

He howled with triumph.

And with pain. For the light of the Silmaril, hallowed by the Valar, burnt him, searing into his dreadful flesh. He screamed, a high, terrible, primeval scream, clutching the Silmaril to himself even as the pain increased fourfold.

In his agony and his triumph, he did not notice that he trampled Nenya and Vilya into the earth.

Smoke poured from his wounded palms, and he screamed again and again.

With the last of his energy, Elrond dragged himself to his feet. Blood and sweat poured indistinguishably down his back, and he could taste bile in his mouth. But Sauron's gaze, deranged with pain, did not fall upon him, half-crawling across the earth before him.

Droplets of stinking blood dripped from his hands, sizzling as they touched the ground, and his eyes remained locked on something unseen to all but him, hidden deep in the brilliant facets of Maedhros' Silmaril.

In the end, the work of an Age was over in a heartbeat. Just as it had three thousand long years before, Andúril sliced through flesh and bone, muscle and tendon as if it was naught but air.

The mutilated, bleeding hand hit a protruding rock with a heavy thud. The runes inscribed in the gold band glowed hotly and Mount Doom flared red against the horizon.

Although great was his power, greater than it had ever been, the terrible pain of his burning distracted the fell Maia, and the dread sinews which knit his being together unravelled into the wind, dust blowing where once a figure had stood in gleaming armour.

The sword fell from the Elf's hands, the bindings unravelling with careless grace.

Elrond was dimly aware of kneeling to take the Silmaril between his hands, brushing away the thick, glutinous blood, before his head hit the gravel.

Footsteps crunched towards him, and he fumbled for the Ring, clasping the slender gold band tightly, not knowing whether friend or foe approached.

"Ada?" Elrohir knelt by his side, tenderly smoothing back an errant lock of dark hair. "Ada?"

"Soon..." Elrond hunched his knees up to his chest. "We must ... soon ... or his strength will recover and be too great..."

"Yes, we must.'

And Elrond drifted away into a timeless time, and knew no more.

TBC