Chapter Thirteen: Death on the Wind

Grey clouds flowed in from the east, boiling and building, massive columns of flat slate, invisible under cover of darkness. Heat lightning flickered, tore the twilight apart, filling the air with sickly white flashes, illuminating every stark grass blade. A low rumble of thunder echoed from over the mountains and a ghostly chorus took up amongst the trees far below.

In the breaks between the lightning when the world plunged into blindness, dark figures darted three or four at a time across the pale ribbon of road and into a shallow depression that paralleled the wood.

Ramir pulled his cloak closer about his rangy form as he pressed his men onward. "Come on. Come on. We haven't all night! Move yourselves!" He ushered another group over, cutting glances at every turn over his shoulder at the thrashing trees beyond. They seemed to be warning him in their hissing voices: come no further.

He shuddered despite himself. Turning sharply away from the forest, he hurried across the road and threw himself into the ditch on the other side as thunder crackled in the distance.

Swathed in green and brown, the men of Gondor lay flat in a long line against the dry grass, their glittering eyes the only visible part of them. Many were casting uneasy glances at the sky. They thought the storm a bad omen.

"Come now, men. A bit of ill weather will not stop us. You are soldiers of Gondor. You fear nothing!" Ramir assured them, his own courage weakening as the thunder snarled low, nearly drowning his words. "Do this right—for your friends, for your families. And I promise you, we'll go home again."

Heartened but still grim, the men clung all the closer to their weapons, staring at the wood with blatant apprehension stamped clear on their faces in the pale flashes. Ramir bellied forward until he lay near the center of the line. They had the element of surprise on their hands; they couldn't lose.

Raising his head, Ramir opened his mouth to give the order and froze, eyes narrowing. What was that? Head and shoulders low, he crawled forward almost on hands and knees across the ditch. Pressing flat into the grass, he stayed absolutely still like a lion that scents the antelope near.

Dim and indistinct shadows bounded towards them from the trees, long grasping shadows. Ramir held his breath, narrowing his eyes. As the lightning ricocheted again off the mountains, he caught the faces and nearly laughed in triumph blinking away the shimmering after-images. They wouldn't even have to hound their quarry from the woods; their quarry had come to them!

Heedless of peril so close at hand, Rameil pressed the Haradrim onward, eyes shifting constantly, dark hair streaming over his shoulders like a banner in a high wind. Ancadal and Orophin flanked the group on either side and made sure none attempted escape as they passed between thinning tree trunks, cutting parallel to the wide moorland that dipped down into a shallow depression fifty or so yards away. Two other elves near the rear of the procession slowed to aid a man who had fallen from a gash in his leg sustained during the fighting earlier.

The first arrows dropped them without a sound.

Scanning the dry whispering lands ahead of them, Rameil shook his head uneasily; he did not like this open ground. "Orophin, get Belegorn up here, will you? He knows this terrain better than I."

Orophin turned his head, scanning each elven face. Then he saw them. A few yards back, pale shapes in the dusk, he saw the two elves shot through their throats and whirled on the woman. "What have you done?"

"Not us!" She protested, dark eyes flashing.

Rameil opened his mouth to inquire what was going on when he suddenly stumbled forward with a shocked cry, a grey and blue-fletched arrow growing out of the back of his shoulder.

"There! The ditch!" Ancadal cried out, having seen the arrow fly. "Get down!"

Orophin saw what the other elf was pointing at in the next flash of blinding light. Spears forested from it like a copse of dead trees.

At the sight of their enemies, the Haradrim panicked, breaking formation, shoving aside their elven guards and racing madly onto the open plain.

There was nowhere for them to run.

A deadly rain of arrows dropped upon them like avenging hawks, cutting them down as they, realizing their error, tried to flee back into the protective trees. Rameil pulled Orophin, who was closest to him, down onto the ground, falling on top of him as barbed shafts thudded into the turf inches from where they lay.

"Come! Come! We've got them!" Ramir strode among the ranks, head and shoulders high, fearless in his ecstasy. He hadn't expected the plan to go this well. But, the elven line was broken, the Haradrim dead or fleeing. Elves lay strewn upon the ground, transfixed and lifeless.

From his place at the bottom of the ditch, Tergon stared at the destruction. He felt sick seeing the fair folk stretched upon the brittle grass among the dark-skinned bodies of their enemies.

"Form up, lads! Give them a last good battering!" Ramir drew his sword and rushed at the remaining enemy.

Garen threw a small knife skillfully into the dwindling fray. "Did you see that dark-haired one go down? Never knew what hit him!"

Rameil put his lips close to Orophin's ear. "There are too many for us to fight." He turned his head as slowly and carefully as he could, eyes half-closed, as though he were dead. He saw Ancadal's eyes glittering back at him from a few paces away.

Wait, Rameil mouthed to him. An imperceptive nod and Ancadal wrapped his fingers around the hilt of a sword lying close to hand.

The men were almost upon them, whirling their blades aloft to cut down those few who remained standing.

"Now!" Rameil leapt up from Orophin and gutted a tall man who had nearly trodden on him.

Orophin was right beside him, brandishing his long blade fearlessly. He saw the glint of green and recognized it in time to keep from killing the man they owed the most.

Tergon's eyes were wide with fear as the elven blade hovered close to his throat.

Orophin turned abruptly from him and slew a man swinging wildly at his head. There were too many but those nearest them were dead. "Come on! Fall back!" He tugged Rameil's uninjured shoulder in passing. "Fall back!"

Breaking away, they raced headlong into the trees, neither Rameil, Orophin or Ancadal looking back. So they did not see the form of a small dark woman rise from among the dead, shoving aside two bodies of her comrades, wrapped in an enemy's cloak. Skirting the lines of Gondorians sending arrows after their fleeing enemies, she broke off westward and fled into the heavy air, away from that place of nightmares and death.

Jubilant with victory, the Gondorians pursued the retreating elves into the trees, hurling battle cries heedlessly into the night air, driven on by the shouts of their captain.

Rúmil smiled, high-spirited in the face of their success. Even the coming storm could not dampen his spirits and he answered the thunder back loudly, anticipating the rain that would renew the forest.

"Not half bad for a decent day's work, eh, lad?" Alfirin clapped him on the back.

"Scarcely had to loose a shaft, sir!"

Haldir said nothing. He knew better. The Haradrim had been the least of their worries; this victory did not change what the Gondorians would do. But he allowed his brother and the troops their moment.

Alfirin's and Arenath's soldiers regathered just outside the barracks at the bottom of a small hill. The swirling clouds overhead darkening the trees to a deep shade of silver.

Alfirin smiled and bowed elegantly at the waist to the ladies who came out to meet them. "Your beauty steals the gold from the very trees, my fairest and gentlest ladies."

"You are a terrible tease, Captain," Silivren shook a remonstrating finger at him but was unable to keep from smiling at the dashing officer.

He sniffed, a smile hovering about his handsome features. "But of course! I am the worst of villains. However, such loveliness is due the highest of reverences," he insisted, taking her hand lightly.

"You need a wife to curb that rakish tongue of yours, Alfirin," Geilrín said, glancing at her furiously blushing daughter with amusement.

"Confirmed bachelor, I'm afraid, madam," he winked.

"Unfortunately," Linwen added with a sigh and an admiring glance.

Alfirin nudged her. "I say, girl, steady on with the sheep-eyes, eh? Old enough to be your Adar, aren't I?"

She only grinned winningly to his playful disgust.

"I dare say, you brave warriors are probably famished," Geilrín put in, completely redirecting Alfirin's attention.

"I say, do we get a jolly old warrior hero's supper, hmm?" His face looked so hopeful that Geilrín hadn't the heart to refuse him.

"Of course, Captain. I'll see what my ladies and I can do."

"Top marks, my girl!" He threw a companionable arm about her shoulder. "Did I ever tell you, you were the most beautiful, wisest and most talented of ladies?"

"To my unending jealousy."

A figure appeared at the top of the shallow dip. Not as one dead or in a dream, but one pulsing and voraciously alive. He bounded down with an energy that shocked them all speechless. Even Alfirin remained quiet, staring, his arm slipping from Geilrín's shoulders as she stepped forward.

Fedorian ignored the incredulous gazes of his command, brushing past them and went immediately to a stack of white-feathered shafts bundled together against the smooth bulk of a tree.

"Sorry, old chap, you missed out on the odd scuffle." Alfirin offered apologetically with an easy smile, reverting to his usual loquacious self once more.

"They have come."

True to his word, Rúmil had said nothing of his commander's former affliction. But he could not help but stare in wonderment when his teacher spoke. Gone the delusions, the catatonia. As though nothing had ever happened. His eyes were bright, purposeful as Rúmil stepped in front of him.

"What has caused such a change in you?"

"A dream," Fedorian explained softly, his concentration bent on filling his quiver. All strained forward to listen.

"Seven stars hung in the western sky. They eclipsed all others in the heavens and Eärendil did not shine. Others moved about them and they shone down on a river, black and cold and empty…"

"And?" someone prompted for he seemed to have fallen into reflection.

"Save for the bodies floating in its shadows."

Stillness fell again, the storm's tension crackling between the gathered soldiers.

Fedorian said nothing more, his quiver full. Hooking it up underneath his knife sheathes; the fletchings adjusted carefully over his right shoulder. He looked up only as voices broke into surprised and alarmed murmurs around him.

Orophin and Ancadal came staggering through the trees, supporting an ashen looking Rameil between them. A feathered shaft protruded from the dark-haired elf's shoulder, a light red stain tingeing his grey tunic. Of those thirty that had gone with the Haradrim escort, they three were the only ones to return.

Haldir went to his brother and friend anxiously, helping him sit on the grass. "You're hurt."

The dark-haired elf grimaced but managed a brave smile as Geilrín knelt next to him. "Not really. Caught more leather than flesh thankfully. I don't think I could put up with a sling."

Orophin was white and trembling, dazed. "It was a massacre, Haldir." He shook his head. "I—we didn't even see them!"

"Orophin, what happened?"

Orophin stared open-mouthed a moment at his commander than shut it and glanced between he and Arenath as he spoke. "They took us unawares at the borders—the men of Gondor."

"And the dark men?"

"Slaughtered."

"And the Gondorians now?"

"Following the Nimrodel...north, I think, we lost them there," Orophin said numbly, his face still a mask of agony. He closed his eyes and sank to the ground beside Rameil, shaking his head over and over. "There were thirty of us," he said over and over. "Thirty!"

Compassionate Geilrín turned to him, chafing his hands gently and touching his face. "We cannot let them do this to our people." She looked over her shoulder. "Alfirin, you will—?"

"I will command them."

Rising, Geilrín seemed to grimace as though she had been expecting that. Speaking in a low voice, she peered keenly at her husband. "You are not well enough." Her eyes held more than worry for her husband's safety.

"I have strength enough for this," he told her firmly, his eyes staring into hers, daring her to refuse him this.

"I am sorry, sir, I must agree with her," Laer, another lieutenant, offered awkwardly when the commander turned his sharp eyes on him. "Your… vulnerability puts you at risk."

"Would you like to draw your sword and test how 'vulnerable' I am?" Fedorian raised an eyebrow in challenge. The expression on his face rendered Laer speechless and he lowered his eyes with a shake of his head.

"Good. Form up, troop!"


Silver pillars arched high overhead, lost in green-shadowed terraces. Early night leaked from under brush and hollow. Near-silently, the army slipped through the dark afternoon, camouflage and skills in stealth they had learned from the Elves long ago served them well now. Nevertheless, they knew they lay exposed to all eyes above. Picking their way through the pathless woodlands, the river on their right hand, every sense strained for sign of their enemies. But all was still, silent though the very air crackled with intensity.

"Why do we stay here?" Tergon's voice was strained with pain and anger.

Ramir didn't answer him.

"We're heading south after this, men," Ramir knelt in the dry grass. Muttering low to himself, "Just one more matter of business first."

Twice the little spark went out in the gusting storm winds as he battered his knife against the sliver of flint in his palm. The third time, he burnt his fingers but, sheltering the fragile flicker with his body, he fed it with handfuls of dry grass and soon had a strong enough blaze going.

"All right, Adarnon. Bring those rags here."

The broad-faced man knelt next to his captain, hanging over his shoulders were long lengths of rope tied to large round river rocks. They clacked together as the man set them down. Ramir grinned, examining one and testing the length of cord fastened around the oil-rags.

"They will come. They know we are here. Why do we linger?" Tergon's voice held real fear despite the protection of the elven brooch pinned to his cloak; none had thought enough of it to take it from him.

Ramir glanced at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. A pale-bluish glare cut across the younger man's face, reflecting in his dulled eyes. Like a drowned thing's, the commander thought suddenly, wildly.

Far above their heads, the thunder rumbled closer.

A cool wind buffeted the trees, each individual leaf starkly outlined. Swift as rippling shadows, they moved. Battle-lightened eyes gleamed in the darkness of the forest storm as the elves slipped fluidly through the gale. Silver branches flashed past fading into the darkness behind them as they followed a road only elves could tread. Imbued in black, they were all but invisible.

Haldir gazed around at the silent company, every sense attuned for the sound of intruders. Rameil raced gamely beside him; the dark-haired elf had adamantly refused to remain behind and Orophin, following his example, regained his color and joined them. The healers in their white tunics—conspicuous and unanimously respected on the battlefield—Geilrín, Silivren and Eremae stood among them.

Fedorian halted their group a hundred yards from a silver strip of river just within sight, dull with thunder.

"Where did you see them?" he questioned brusquely.

Orophin scanned the riverside, pointing west and slightly southward. "They rose from the ditch on that side. I don't know where they went after that."

"Split up into groups of five. Find them."

It was not long before one of the groups returned, cleaving eagerly through the trees. They had found many footsteps in the dust along the riverbank, heading north beside the river but without crossing it.

Haldir could see the rigidity in his captain's shoulders even in the dark as he conversed in a low tone with Alfirin. He himself felt the thrum of anticipation singing in his veins, the saber hilt hot under his hand as though it too hungered for human blood. These men had troubled them for far too long and he would finally settle the score between them.

"I see them." Orophin said, tense, a few paces ahead of him.

Haldir was beside him in an instant. "Where?"

His younger brother indicated. "There. The farther shore. You can see the lightning glance from their spear-tips."

"I see them." I swear I will find you.

Fedorian was speaking and with difficulty Haldir pulled his attention back to hear what he said.

"Take your company across the river. Encircle them from behind. We will drive at them from in front."

"Hither and yon, thither and yon." Alfirin waved a hand airily. "See you in a tick and tock." He turned his head briefly as most of his group vanished from sight, melding with the shadows. "Prisoners, old scout?"

Fedorian's dead eye gleamed. "No."

Not a hundred yards to the left of where they stood a spark of red leapt up among the shadows.

The river flowed black and peaceful at their backs; the thunder suddenly hushed as though it too anticipated that first strike.

Tergon felt sweat slide under his collar as he looked up into the shadowed branches crisscrossing overhead. The others had fallen silent as well, their eyes flickering and cheeks ruddy in the light of the kindled fire. They looked mere boys, softer somehow in the mild light.

Ramir held one of his strange weapons over the fire by a thin twine dangling from his fingers. The moment the oil-soaked rags touched the small brand, they flared up, bright and immediate, blazing in the men's eyes as their captain began to whirl it through the air.

Ramir let the flaming missile soar into the shadows, a beautiful arc of red light against the black lace of the trees. A tongue of flame burst the night apart as it landed, leaving sparking after-images in its wake.

"Everyone take one! Sling them hard and fast!" Ramir's booming call shattered the silence, galvanized the men into action who bent eagerly to the flames.

Silhouetted against the fire pit they proved ideal targets.

A man spinning one of the flame-throwers overhead suddenly let out a tired gasp and slumped to the ground, the burning oil-rag slipping from his hand and igniting the grass at his feet. His companion next to him quickly muffled the fire as he fell on it.

Those who knew better guarded their vulnerable comrades' backs, sending arrows raining into the trees, aided a little by the dim flashes of lightning which caught in golden hair and deadly eyes. But the arrows seemed to be coming from all different directions as though the trees themselves had joined the battle to revenge their burning kin.

Men falling all around him, Ramir seized an unfortunate man by the collar, bellowing into his face. "Get out there! Find out which direction those arrows are coming from! See if we can circle round them!"

The man stumbled back as his commander shoved him away. Slipping down the bank, he retreated towards the river, flat on his stomach, every nerve straining for the twang of bowstrings. He lay pressed to the sandy earth as though dead, not even daring to breathe, heart crashing against his ribs. Slowly, after long stiff moments, he dared raise his head.

Nothing stirred in his direction.

Gathering a bit of courage to him, the intrepid scout bellied towards the river, glancing back once towards the comrades he'd left behind. Without the danger of death threatening now, he could clearly see the arrows pouring from across the river. He laughed at his friends. How foolish they looked! Standing in the middle of the light like that. Idiots.

As though having taken offense, the fire pit in the midst of the men suddenly went out with a whoosh of smoke, kicked into sparks. Light now only graced the angry sky, and the burgeoning pockets of flame in the night, beautiful to eyes that did not know their danger.

But fear of fire was the least concern in the scout's mind as he contemplated the water stretching wide dark and iron grey before him. It was ill luck to tempt fate. He sighed and with an anxious look at the thrashing trees across the glassy expanse, he slid in, shattering the smooth current flow into a thousand ripples that seemed to scream of his presence. The water was icy cold and the muddy bottom sucked at his heavy boots, instantly filled with ice. Wading across as soundlessly as he could, the soldier pushed in up to his chest, feeling the strong current tug at his body and fear tug at his heart.

He held his breath until his temples throbbed with blood, breathing in again only once before he reached the other side several yards downstream. Fingers and knees frozen, he dragged his waterlogged body up onto the bank and lay there a moment, panting, relieved.

"I say there, old chap, you lost?"

The scout looked up sharply, something of a strangled cry breaking past his lips as a tall, ominous-looking figure stood on the hither bank above him, a spare pole casually grasped in one hand. It glinted at the top.

"Bad time of night for a swim, eh? Rather cold even at this season," the figure whose face remained in shadow bent down, and patted the man's soaked shoulder in a hail-fellow fashion. "Never fear, lad, we'll set you right."

A short time later Linwen came bounding through the trees, her face streaked with soot from the fires that had sprung up on their side of the river. "We're almost out of arrows, sir. They're taking heavy losses but something's up if I know anything about old stratagems."

"Top marks, my girl. We'll get another swing of arrows when Déorian drops by again—shouldn't be too long." Alfirin, alone, surveyed the river with an air of tranquility.

"Anything about?" she asked, joining him at the dark riverside.

Alfirin smiled. "Sent one back to his camp—poor bodger was confounded lost would you believe?"

Haldir glanced at the elf beside him who was trembling with palpable excitement as he tested his recently restrung bow. He smiled. The younger ones were always twitchy. They hadn't yet learned the patience of their elder kind.

"First battle, soldier?"

The recruit looked up, surprised at being directly addressed by the superior officer, and nodded with a grin as he loosed another shaft, rewarded by a sharp cry from below. "Yes, sir!"

"How long have you been training for this?"

The archer blew out his breath in what seemed a long-suffering sigh. "Quite a while now I should think, sir."

Haldir laughed, his eyes tinged with the all-too painful knowledge of battle-joy he saw lighting the younger elf's face.

Directing activity below, Fedorian stood calmly on open ground near their position, unflinching as missiles from both sides whistled overhead. An arrow ruffled his hair as it passed close to his cheek.

"Batty commander's going to get himself killed," the recruit muttered to his friend beside him. Then saw who could hear and bit the inside of his cheek. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean anything by it."

Haldir merely nocked another arrow. "What is your name?"

The elf swallowed nervously while his friend snickered. "Caladaer, sir, son of Belegorn." He gave his friend an annoyed look and cuffed his shoulder, hissing: "Shut it, Mithron!"

"Good archer, your father," Haldir nodded in recognition. "If you have half his skill you should do just fine. You've already proven you've got enough of his cheek." But the lieutenant was grinning.

Blushing, the elf nevertheless swelled with confidence at his officer's praise. "Thank you, sir. My father always said I was the cheekiest of his children."

"You and you," Fedorian suddenly appeared in front of them. "Pick several others—put out those fires! Now! Haldir, you come with me."

The selected recruits and their officer saluted smartly and withdrew into the smoke.

Haldir followed his commander down from the hazy tree branches. The fire was spreading quickly.

Fedorian seemed unconcerned as he watched the human warriors battling for their lives. "Alfirin's on the other side by now. We'll take them between us."

"Or they will take us between the fire," Haldir murmured grimly, glancing backward.

Here and there soldiers hurried back and forth, stripped to the waist, their gleaming shoulders pulsing to repel the terrible conflagration that threatened to consume everything in its direct path.

Fedorian seemed oblivious to the peril around him though smoke tangled in his golden hair, drifting across his eyes.

"Captain, we cannot stop it. It's too hot," Caladaer ran up, swiping sweat from his eyes, his face blackened with ash. His words were calm but his eyes were full of silent terror borderline panic.

Fedorian shook his head, eyes never leaving the other shore. "A little longer… just a little longer…"


Ramir knew he had lost his element. Like most generals of war, he had underestimated the power he had unleashed. His fire ripped through the bracken, smothering several of his own soldiers in smoke, stray embers catching more.

"Get back! Get into the river, you fools, before you burn too!" He shouted. The men were only too glad to obey. Abandoning their dead, they fled for sanctuary.

With a grim, satisfied smile, their commander plunged after them. And nearly tripped over something in the dark. Putting out his hands, he felt the cold moist thing give like weed…give like flesh. Understanding gave way to horror and he recoiled fast, the thing bobbing in the current, slowly rotating.

Tangled in the weeds, was the body of a scout, drifting in the shallows. An outflung hand sought purchase in the green vegetation as though searching out an anchor. An expression of fear was frozen on the blenched face.

A tremendous pulsing sound cracked the air and Ramir turned just in time to see a massive tree begin to topple.


Small fires had sprung up and merged with one another, forming a raging conflagration that consumed everything in its immediate path. One of these victims was a massive mallorn, well over three centuries old which had stood leaning over the river time unremembered. The esurient flames had quickly devoured the dry silver bark, peeling it away to reveal a blackened inside and unsteady root which in turn smoked to ash, relieving the ancient monarch of his pedestal.

With a rending of shrieking wood and a resounding crack that echoed the thunder, an aged mallorn, venerable giant, agonized and torn by the weight of the flames, fell from his lofty throne.

Haldir had his hated enemy in sight, vulnerable in the center of the stream. An arrow was in his hand in an instant, against the bow, his eye sighted down the shaft. A crushing intolerable heat knocked him to the ground and he remembered nothing more.

He opened his eyes slowly, unsure of when he had closed them. One side of his face seared and his shoulder, twisted under him, ached fiercely, his fingers tingling. As he tried to move, a suffocating feeling enveloped his chest; he couldn't breathe. All around him was an interlocked mesh of smouldering branches. The tree had fallen almost on top of him, its largest branches missing him by inches only. Twisting choking tendrils obscured the branches and even the grass as smoke billowed heavily down on him. Struggling and wincing as sharp twigs dragged and raked at his back, embers falling on the back of his neck, he gradually managed to pull his body out from underneath the fallen ruin.

Coughing raggedly, he held his chest as he staggered vaguely towards the direction of the river and recoiled with a cry.

Caladaer hung, half-propped up by the spear-like splinter that had slain him; his body tossed gently from side to side as the branches settled, crackling.

Blood dripping into his eyes, Haldir stumbled back from the horrible stench of burning flesh and wood. He coughed violently, his sight wavering with the throbbing pain in his head. He half-fell against a tree for support and leapt away with a pained cry, his fingers burnt.

"I say, sizzled elf doesn't taste very good at all," a friendly voice hailed him through the nest of branches.

Alfirin had arrived with his troop.

The older officer clapped the dazed elf on the shoulder and steered him away from the tree and Caladaer's body. "Come on, Haldir. To the river, there's a chap. Get out of all this foul-smelling murk, eh?"

Fedorian had wrenched himself free of the clinging branches and staggered to the edge of the river, eyes raking the shadows. He glanced back at the wreckage of the great tree beneath whose thrashing branches healers and soldiers yet scuffled among, trying to rescue those who yet could be.

A third of the force had been injured or killed and the old tree had partially dammed the Nimrodel, its clear cold waters overrunning, soothing the blackened branches.

"Where did they go?" Haldir asked, his voice rough as he met his commander at the river's edge, straining to see through his blurred, stinging vision.

"They did not flee," Fedorian answered back, his eyes still trained across the river. "And they will not wait for us to regroup."

Seeing their enemies beleaguered by their own forest, the men had halted their retreat, weapons at the ready. Now it was the elves on the low ground. The elves who were vulnerable.

"Those who can, to me! To me!"

Those who could raced to form the line, their weapons yet unbloodied as the elven warriors rushed to obey orders.

"Draw your swords!"

"What?" Haldir swiped the irritation from his eyes as he stared incredulously at his commander.

"We will take the fight to them. Prepare to charge!"

"Captain, it would be death to try!" Haldir twisted his neck over his shoulder. The great tree still burned and beyond it the forest was a bright blaze. Wounded and dead littered the ground, Geilrín, Silivren and Eremae rushing between one and another as the cries of the injured rent the air.

A flicker of flame glinted as Fedorian drew his black knives. His limp, sweat-soaked hair whirled round his face as he paced his line of warriors, teeth bared. The amber glow accentuated his high, wasted cheekbones, upturned lips, the glittering, ghostly eyes.

"Then die! Die, to protect your wounded kin, your homeland. Die as you swore you would for me."

Haldir slowly drew his saber.

Across the river, Tergon, his face ash-streaked and sweat-soaked, stared in horror at this deathly stand. Something burned his eyes and he blinked away smoke as he pushed through the ranks of his comrades, ignoring his friend who tried to arrest him.

"You must stop this madness! They are defeated—you see that! You have won then!" he cried out in bitterness, in fury and sorrow at Ramir. "They are finished; their home is destroyed. You can do them no more harm."

"Then it is well that I release them from their misery," Ramir said, raising his blade so that it caught and reflected the light of the fires beyond. "Stand fast, men!"

His friend, the older soldier Garen, managed to grab Tergon's shoulder and spun him about. "Pay attention to the commander now, son, and you might get through this alive," he muttered, squeezing the young man.

Fedorian's wild call rose even above the screeching flames. "Herio!"

In a tidal wave of spray and flashing steel, the elves rushed across the river. They did not gain the other shore before the Gondorians surged forth to meet them, slicing into the elven line with heavy, powerful blows that rent flesh like tissue paper. Though elven speed and agility outmatched the strength of Gondor, their numbers were thinned. Three to one, the elves were outflanked.

Déorian went down, wounded with a spear in the side. Thillas, the young elven scout, lost the tip of his ear to a lucky blade and Rameil and Ancadal fought side by side viciously against the overwhelming press, their faces taut with exhaustion and despair. Despite the awful numbers against them, the redoubtable Galadrim managed to throw back their enemies time and again, just barely keeping from being overwhelmed.

Alfirin stood under siege with the remnant of his patrol. In the midst of the river, the tough-looking campaigner wielded a double-bladed spear more than twice his height crafted of yew, the curving blades at either end glinted as the elf flourished it with casual grace.

Ramir lingered on the shore, directing his men from the side in a booming voice that carried over the clangor.

In the center of the madness, Fedorian wrought destruction with his twin blades, bloodied spray and the bodies of men collapsing around him like autumn leaves in a gale. He had been wounded, his cheek split by the corner of a soldier's vambrace.

Haldir stared at the destruction, his heart thrumming fast in his ears, echoing with the screams and battle cries of the joined fray. His body automatically obeyed instincts honed with over five hundred years of combat training, his saber moving as if with a mind of its own, flickering and emptying a gout of crimson into the roiling stream.

His eyes would never lose the horror of that night. The brave warriors lying facedown upon the blackened earth, the remains of their gold hair spread in the crimson ash and bloody water.

Alfirin was down with a pike in the leg. Wounded twice elsewhere, he fought madly to keep from being pulled down as Haldir forced his way towards him. Reaching his side, he helped the injured elf to the shore and drew the pike out carefully.

The older elf grimaced and forced a light chuckle. "Ahhh, easy old chap. Phew. Bit of a handsome old war wound, there, eh?"

"It will be a bit more than that if you don't stop this," Haldir ripped his cloak into strips, already sopping with water from the Nimrodel, pressed it over the deep gash in the other officer's leg.

"Pish tush! Old warriors never say die! Stiff upper lip and all that!" Alfirin gamely steadied himself without Haldir's support, his eyes flaring in the light of the fires. He stuck the broken haft of his spear into the earth as a prop. "Better stop this lot, hadn't we?"

"We cannot do it here. We need to fall back."

Alfirin shook his head. "Your commander's the jolly old officer in charge."

The lieutenant searched for Fedorian, already knowing where he would find him, in the thick of the melee, fearless and furious, and completely willing to sacrifice every one of their immortal lives. Thinking quickly, Haldir spun abruptly on his heel and snagged Rameil in passing. "Rameil, you heard the captain give the order to retreat, didn't you?"

"What?"

Haldir bent his eyes on his friend pointedly.

Rameil looked from the smoke-shrouded figure of his captain to the grim face of his friend. "Yes, sir, I heard him."

Haldir released him. "Good. Do it—help the wounded."

Alfirin looked away, a slight smile hovering over his pain-creased features. "Good show, lad," he murmured, stooping to help an injured elf to his feet.

Haldir shouted, praying he'd be heard. "Tolo! Nan duin! Hain edraith! (Come! Upriver! Help the wounded!)

Accustomed to obeying orders in the thick of battle, the elves ceased their attack and broke away from the ranks of their enemies, hastening to his call.

"What did he say?"

"Upriver! Come on! Hurry!'

They escaped upriver where the tree damming it had backed up the water, the clear, shocking-cold flow nearly overrunning its banks. They took the wounded as far back as they could into yet-undamaged trees and laid them beneath the bower of a few that yet retained their leaves. The fire that had been their curse became their blessing as it protected them from a southward attack and the swollen river cut off all attempts at fording it.

Blinking away smoke-stung tears from his eyes, he stared around him, trying to get his bearings enough to see who was still with him. Eremae ran up to him, eyes hard and determined, brow bloody, her hands even more so.

"Are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Eremae shook him when he didn't respond. He merely stared at her and when she found no tears or blood gouts upon him, she left.

It seemed so cold so far from the searing heat of the fire. Moving as though in a dream, he staggered towards the silver glint of water, his saber dragging a furrow in the dirt. Reaching it, he sank down into the water.

The Nimrodel wept bitterly as it rushed past him, her tears soaking his leggings to the knees as she mourned the trees that trembled alongside her. She cradled her wounded countrymen as one by one they came to her cool embrace, to soothe their burns and strengthen their tearing hearts.

He plunged his blade, steaming, into the cold water, cleansing away the corrosive blood from the blade. It looked so clean. As the water mounted to his knees and splashed over his face, he found his pain and weariness eased. A hot wind ghosted his cheek.

"That was well thought of," Rameil gasped, sinking down beside him, his legs trembling visibly. "I thought we'd all had it."

"Where is your commanding officer?" Haldir asked a soldier who seemed to be wandering about in a sort of daze, his eyes wide.

The young elf shook his head over and over as though he had forgotten how to stop it. "I—I don't know…. I—I think he's dead. Ai, Valar…"

"Ai, Valar," Rameil repeated, glancing back over his shoulder; the groans of the wounded and burnt shivered on the air.

Without remembering how he'd gotten it, Haldir licked his bleeding lip and swallowed, trying to get rid of the metallic tang in his mouth. His mind was empty of anything. He started when Rameil touched his shoulder and looked at him.

"Rúmil and Orophin, I do not see them."

Every muscle in Haldir's aching body tensed and he stood, water cascading from his arms and legs as he leapt back to shore, his muscles protesting volubly. Passing through the makeshift ranks of injured, shaken and dead soldiers lay everywhere, some with their faces covered, in no order of rank or patrol. Alfirin's combined with Fedorian's until neither was recognizable from the other. He searched every single face.

"Where are they?"


Ash rained from the blistering, screaming trees. His kin lay stretched out on the dead earth, heads hanging limply, eyes glassy, limbs outstretched, graceful and terribly beautiful even in their unnatural stillness. Stillness as he had never seen, even when they had brought his father home from the war. This desecration… this carnage… He had seen no few skirmishes in his years on the guard but nothing like this. Nothing like this.

Lips blistered from the heat, nostrils filled with ash, eyes parched as the dust that rose around his thudding boots, Rúmil raced headlong into the trees, away from that feeling of utter fear that seized his entire being in an iron grip. Dimly, he heard someone shout after him but he didn't hear what they said over the screaming of his mind.

Sweat rolled down his face and disappeared into his soaked collar but he kept going, changing direction randomly when the heat became too much.

Blinded by sweat and smoke, he tripped over a thick tree root and sprawled. Twisting round, he scrambled up again. But exhaustion kept his legs from picking himself up. Instead, he stared at the root he had stumbled over, his chest heaving unevenly in the hazy air.

Two veins flanked the thicker shaft attached to the trunk ending in branching spindly tips that seemed to disappear into the ground. He stared, frozen, fascinated before his blurry eyes adjusted and he realized what he was seeing.

Those veins were arms. Those spindly tips, fingers.

A small scrap of cloth, twisted and blackened though it was, lay clenched tightly in a fist. Long strands of hair draggled, wispy and dry, like the late blooms of the mellyrn. Those eyes…. By Valar, those eyes looked at him! Small, mewling sounds escaped invisibly from some part of that wracked frame, nothing Rúmil recognized as a mouth. Moans, weak, painful whimpers slowly dwindling and rising again.

"Healer!" He whispered—he shouted—he screamed it until his voice grew hoarse and died. No one was coming.

And it was dying. So slowly.

He did not touch it whether from some instinctive primal fear of the unknown or for fear of worsening the situation… He did not recognize that face. That face made of blackened stone, clay, brick. Anything but flesh.

Tearing his eyes away from the sight, he stared at the ground beside it. Wound between the brittle twig-like fingers, he saw the little shred of cloth again, more closely. It was stained and dirty but once it had been white. The tunic had been white before it had burned away. A healer indeed was here. He laughed bitterly. But stopped himself together before it became hysterical.

For he knew those eyes now. Knew them as he knew his own. "Oh, Silivren."

Articulate speech was beyond her. But those eyes were full of pleading. She needed help to reach beyond the circles of this world; and he was the only one to give it to her. Rúmil firmed his lips, choking back the screams that threatened to rip him apart on the inside. As he had eased her pain on the night of her father's death, so must he end it now at the advent of her own.

He still had his bloody sword limply grasped. But to take the life of another immortal… A Kinslayer's deed and a cursed one. Even to help one who was suffering. He wished he were anywhere else but here… here, responsible for the life and death of one whom he loved.

How could he make this choice?

Orophin caught sight of his brother as he fled from the field. "Rúmil, what are you doing! Stop! The fire's worse there!" Parrying a sharp lunge intent on taking his head, Orophin reposted with a stroke that left his man bleeding in the dust. Without thinking of the fight more, he shot off after his wayward sibling.

Orange smoke-light swept past his legs. Leaves and bark had burned off the trees, stripped and stark and black. He fought through the miasma, blinking his streaming eyes and trying to keep as low as he could.

"Rúmil!" He shouted as loudly as he could, and inhaled a breath of smoke that set him to coughing. Blindly, he groped his way forward, his eyes shut against the stinging smoke, thinking perhaps he had a voice calling out.

He passed the great fallen tree, smouldering in a wrack of smoke. Suddenly his keen ears picked up a soft sound, almost indiscernible from the sharp crackling sparks of a few fast-burning branches. "Rúmil?" He rounded the further side of the ash-flaked ruin and stopped.

Rúmil knelt there. Arms blistering, sleeves smouldering, he knelt there, shaking, sobbing against the tree trunk. Orophin knelt beside him, every sense straining for sound of discovery by their enemies. Nothing save the roaring of the fire that overwhelmed even the thunder met his ears.

Orophin looked at the black, withered thing at his little brother's feet. It looked like a pile of leaves and twigs. He tugged Rúmil's shoulder, drawing him to his feet. "Rúmil, come on. Haldir's probably worried sick."

Moving as a sleepwalker, Rúmil allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, leaning heavily on his older brother as they staggered away from the nightmare that this battle had become. The river's edge was quiescent. The men and elven rearguard were both gone, leaving behind a wreck of dead in the water, on the river shore.

As they skirted the bank, the storm took pity on the ragged brothers, the keening earth.

It began to rain.


"Geilrín, help me hold his head up," Eremae said over her shoulder, tendrils of golden hair clinging to her neck. She turned when her friend didn't answer. "Geilrín?"

The other healer's face was deathly white, hands in the act of reaching for another vial from their dwindling supply. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Geilrín!"

The woman's face cleared and she moved, vial in hand, to support the moaning warrior's head. A deep cough shook her suddenly, wracking her slender frame.

"You all right?" Eremae asked sharply. They had long been working under the smoke. Her own head was swimming, her eyes scraped raw by the dry wind.

Geilrín nodded, still coughing. Rain slid down her face and into the collar of her blood-spattered tunic, grey now instead of white.

Eremae turned away to administer to the now-senseless soldier and tended his hurts with methodical quickness. "I need a bandage for this cut—it just won't stop b—Geilrín?"

She had stopped coughing. She had stopped everything. Geilrín lay slumped against a little hillock, her head thrown back, one arm draped limply across her chest, the other at her side.

Eremae touched her friend's face, her neck, moving aside the limp, stinking strands of hair.

She was dead.

Numb to grief and practical, Eremae laid her friend's arms at her sides and covered her face with a coarse blanket. One of far too many.

"Eremae…" a hoarse voice gasped and the woman turned to see Orophin supporting an ashen Rúmil whose face was lowered in pain.

She bid Orophin lay his burden down. "Go find your brother—he was searching for you. I will take care of Rúmil."

Glass ground into his fingertips. Searing, spreading pain that only intensified though he no longer held anything between his hands. Rúmil had to clamp his lips together to keep back screams. His skin felt stripped away, leaving nerves raw and bare. A strained whimper broke his lips.

She heard him and pressed a hand to his chest. "Lie back."

He did so with the obedience of exhaustion. The ground was hard and unsuitable but he cared not. Sound seemed to drift away from him. Dimly, he felt the touch of something wet and soft on his face, soothing his blistered lips, moving to his burned arms. A hand touched his shoulder.

Wearily, he opened his eyes without realizing he'd closed them, looking up into a blurred face, dim and indistinct as though ash still stung his eyes. The rim of something hard pressed against his lips and a cool liquid dribbled down his chin.

"Drink."

He took in a mouthful and instantly spat it out. It tasted like ash. After a few more experimental sips, it began to taste like water again. Eremae drew it away before his thirst was slaked.

"I'm going to put you to sleep all right. It's best for you right now with those burns," Eremae readied a damp, rank-smelling cloth and laid it lightly but firmly over his mouth and nose. "Just breathe deep and count to ten."

Cool rain tearing on his face, he got to three before the world flickered and, like a wilting candle flame, went out.

Mist began to rise, a combination of smoking ash and extinguished flame. It drifted through the hollows of split trunks. Entwined with the dead limbs of those quiescent on the river shore. Clung to the damp faces of those yet living.

Those soldiers unable to sleep stared as a figure moved slowly out of the fog, its features gradually drifting into view like a ghost whose form takes shape from the forgotten.

Tunic hem soaked, sleeves in tatters, a sword dangled limply at his side. Along the inside curve of his neck a dark spatter of scarlet, the match of those on his uniform. Dried streaks of sweat mingled with the rain streams plastering his lank hair against his smoke-grazed jaw. Eyes empty stared at nothingness.

The soldiers gazed at their commander, some dumbfounded, others dropping their eyes before his heroism.

Fedorian walked as one stricken but he held himself uncommonly straight, with rigid exactness, every step precise, measured, but pained as though something inside him had broken. He walked past the lines of weary, ragged elves, the wounded and the dying, without once turning his head, the rain pattering on his shoulders.

He did not look at any of them, his voice so low the rain almost drowned it out.

"You all shame me."

"Call muster. See who's left."

Eremae moved slowly up to him. Without touching him she spoke in a low voice words only he could hear. But they saw his face grow even more ashen underneath the grime. He followed her quickly.

Haldir caught his brother hailing him and moved towards him as quickly as his sore, exhausted muscles would allow, dimly hearing Rameil counting off names. "Are you all right? Where is Rúmil?"

His younger brother looked exhausted, his eyes hollow and skin begrimed with battle. "He suffered a few minor burns—Eremae is with him…" He trailed off and raked a hand through his tangled hair, swaying a little. "What happened, Haldir?"

"I know, Orophin, I know," Haldir started to touch his brother's shoulder when something shifted in his chest and he began to cough spasmodically. He doubled-up and gasped for breath, his lungs feeling as though they had shriveled within his husk of a rib cage.

Orophin drew him up slowly. "Are you all right?"

Haldir nodded, still coughing. "Fine…" he rasped. "Too much smoke… I'll be fine. I just need… need to breathe." They sat together for a while, not speaking, not sure of what to say and without the energy to try. The camp was quiet.

Orophin shut his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. Haldir's face was stony but tight. They could all hear.

The dry, wracking sobs of a man completely exhausted in every way imaginable. They looked on his pain with regret and appropriate sorrow but also gratitude that they, at least, had been spared such horror.

Haldir dared turn his head, a silent witness to his commander's grief. Seeing Fedorian's pale form lying so still beside his wife's covered body, beneath the blackened lace branches, eyes open and clouded, he looked one of the lifeless. Eremae—her bloody, soot-blackened hand reaching out in vain—the only mourner.

Haldir looked away.

Arenath wandered past, his eyes wide. His tunic had been torn in several places. There was blood on his cheeks. "Where is Silivren?" He asked to no one in particular. "I don't see Silivren."

No one answered.

Those who were without hurt or conscious with only mild injuries, and there were few, sat or stood idly, unsure of what to do with none to give them orders. Many sat expressionless, too tired even to grieve, eyes fixed at some distance point. Mithron, Caladaer's snickering friend, had his face in his hands.

It was Alfirin who finally struggled to his feet and got them organized.

"All right, chaps and chapesses, something terrible has happened this night—you all know it. But we can't think of that right now. All the ones we've saved, including ourselves need looking after. So why don't you settle down—set a watch for tonight— and take care of all manner of titivation and suchlike as you can. Good old rain'll wash this lot away."

Slowly, the group complied and staggered off towards the river to wash the blood from their hands, others settled down to sleep on the hard damp earth for as much sleep as they could find.

Ancadal leaned over Linwen's shoulder. "What does your captain mean by 'titivation?'"

Linwen frowned hard as she thought. "Well, I think it means something akin to 'Clean yourselves up.'"

"Why doesn't he just say 'clean up?'"

Linwen shrugged and peeled her cloak from her shoulders. "Why should he when he knows words like 'titivation.' I can't even spell it!"

"Is the captain dead?" a recruit inquired, breaking the weary quiet. His expression devoid of interest in either outcome.

"No," Haldir tried to explain as tactfully as he could.

The sharp and bitter vapor of disappointment, of burden, of loss stung him as he followed Orophin to where Rúmil lay, sleeping peacefully—one of the few.

Haldir almost knelt next to him when noises met his ears, hushed as though the one who made them was trying not to.

He peered blearily past the shadows, searching for that soft noise. And found it leaning under an old tree with drooping leaves.

Linwen sat in the darkness, sobbing, her face in her hands. He exhaled softly. He couldn't deal with much more grief this night. But he had taken a step forward to go to her anyway when a hand on his shoulder halted him.

Alfirin smiled sadly. "Let me, old lad." Limping forward, the militaristic elf- bent towards his subordinate. "Now, now, missie, what's all this, eh?"

Linwen hastily wiped away her tears, sniffing a little. "Nothing, sir."

He smiled gently and disbelievingly at her. Slowly easing himself down, he nearly sprawled as his injured leg threatened to buckle. She automatically put out a steadying hand to him.

"Ah, that's the ticket. Now then, what's all the boo-hooing about?" He solicitously tugged a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her.

Haldir didn't listen as he sat on the other side of the tree beside his brothers. He was exhausted beyond all measure and yet restless.

"Lost half the old force, chap," Alfirin said at length, his light tone belaying the terrible sadness shadowing his eyes as he met Haldir's. "Too few accounted for...We'll have to put up the jolly bivouac here. Can't move the wounded for a few hours yet at least. Try to get some sleep."

Haldir laughed bitterly as he swiped at his own eyes. "Not after this."

"Then good show, lad, you and I can take first watch," Alfirin said, sweeping his cloak over the form of Linwen who had fallen asleep at his side.

Haldir nodded and took a seat beside the old campaigner, waiting for dawn and wanting nothing more than a sight of the sun.

In the small, quiet hours before dawn, he wrote two letters in careful ink by the pale watery light breaking through the clouds. When he returned home he would tuck them neatly away in a corner of his trunk and pray he would never have to send them.

The Gondorian camp too lay silent; many in slumber, their broken sword hilts still clutched in their hands, shields pierced by white arrows. Those living remnants lay among the sleepers, wondering and weary. Theirs had been a restless night, expecting retaliation. None had slept well if at all.

Tergon sat slumped among them, shoulders bowed in weariness. Through the grace of a greater power, he was unhurt. Soft, beautiful sounds distracted him from his half-slumber.

"What're they doin', son?" Garen asked, his words slurred and pain-wrought.

Tergon cradled his friend's head in his lap as he peered across the river. "They're—they're singing." He imagined he could see shimmering figures through the fading rain curtain, moving gracefully in and around the mist, every so often stopping and bending near the riverside.

"'S very pretty… for being… so sad," Garen whispered with a last smile. He sighed once.

The younger ranger glanced down at his dead friend and slowly closed the older man's eyes, covering over his head with his cloak. "Rest well, my friend, in honor and glory. Until we meet again on the hither shore."

He stood, the silver sunlight glinting in his keen grey eyes. After what he had seen, there was no life for him among the Gondorian rangers anymore. He had seen all he had ever cared to see of war and its consequences.

As the gentle, rain-sprayed sun began to gleam on the brittle trees, it looked down upon the dark, bowed head and straight shoulders of a young man, his long, steady strides carrying him swiftly alongside the water, following the river course towards the sea.