The story of Legolas meeting Smaug is told in Black Arrow* (I am missing Smaug a bit.)
For summary, see the previous chapter.
Thank you as always to my very wonderful beta, Anarithilien.
Chapter 22: For what is beneath the earth.
The darkness was impenetrable, pressing down on his eyes like a physical thing. It felt too close, like there was no air, or a wet cloth had been pressed over his nose and mouth. Legolas found it hard to breathe as he blundered against the rock wall, cold against his half nakedness and he still felt as if he wore a coat of lead. There was a faint smell too, unpleasantly familiar: bones and the stale air. Only the faint glimmer of the jewel set upon the gold circlet of the Ghost gave any light at all, and Legolas shuffled, almost blindly, through the dark. In one hand, he held the hilts of both of the Ale gezên-aozh and with the other, he groped along the low ceilinged tunnel walls, feeling how the stone had been carved densely, swirls and spirals. Sometimes they seemed to resolve into larger patterns that niggled at his consciousness, as if they had a meaning he almost grasped.
But his feet dragged clumsily, and his hands felt slow and heavy, his fingers stiff. Shuffling along in a half crouch, he was suddenly afraid that it might get narrower, lower. What if it narrowed so much that he could not get out? Was this tunnel going anywhere at all? The air felt too thin, and the dark was a tangible pressure. He felt stretched, like he had left something in the chamber of the Úmaiar and was still attached to it by an ever straining leash.
The Úmaiar had not pursued him. As if his capture were not as important as whatever had distracted them. Something had called to them. Something long awaited and long sought.
He did not want to think what might have summoned the Úmaiar. They had been set here in the Barrows by Angmar long ago and roused when he passed by on his search for the Ring. Legolas stumbled uncharacteristically against the tunnel wall, so the steel blades of the Ale-gezên-aozh clattered loudly in the silence.
A sudden flash of blue light danced along the blades and dimmed instantly, as if something wicked had peered briefly from around the corner.
Legolas froze, barely breathing, feeling his heart thumping hard in his chest. He listened for the sharp scrape of steel, or the scuff of a foot brushing the stone floor … And he could not help the panicked fear that hid silently in his soul and kept him awake in the darkest hours, listening for the long howl of the Ghoul, the gnash of its wicked fanged teeth.
It is dead, he told himself desperately. Two years ago in Minas Tirith, Erestor killed it. Legolas had seen its head, cut from its neck and burned separately from the body. It cannot be here.
The Ghost watched him impassively, its outline trembling as if it could barely hold its form. For a long time Legolas did not move. The Ale gezên-aozh glimmered dimly but steadily, as if something waited quietly, just out of sight and watching him in the darkness.
He wished he could sheathe the knives and hide in the dark. He quickly peered into the deep shelves that lined the burial chambers. There might be an ancient sheath or tattered cloak. Old bones, bleached by age, rested in the soft dust. Long dead chiefs and princes of the ancient tribes of Men. There was gold here too, necklaces, rings, rich bracelets loose about the ivory wrists and gold cuffs. Quickly glancing into one tomb, he saw a long spear tipped with mithril and chased with gold, resting against the curving rib cage of a long dead chieftain. But there was nothing he could use to hide the Ale gezên-aozh. Hurrying, he moved along the narrow chamber, peering into each deep shelf. Further along, the skeletons were even older, no longer laid out formally but curled up, like children in sleep, and in groups as if to keep each other company. Here it was not gold that glinted in the knives' dim blue light but copper, iron, and coloured stones that Legolas did not recognise. But it was long ago that any fabric had perished, and none of the sheaths would suffice.
Legolas gave up and glanced about himself quickly, peering into the darkness and checking that the light had not intensified. It had not. But it had not dimmed either.
The Ghost was suddenly beckoning him, urgently onwards.
Legolas hesitated for a moment; what if it was the Ghost that the Ale gezên-aozh was warning him about? He glanced again at the translucent face that was so close to Aragorn's, but that meant nothing: Khamûl had possessed Elrohir, and Legolas had not even guessed. But in truth, what choice did he have? To turn back would be to return to the Úmaiar. So he followed. Almost blindly into the dark, deeper beneath the earth and into the narrowing and low tunnel that led to the heart of the tumulus.
If his hands shook a little, he told himself it was a vestige of the Úmaiar's sorcery that had dragged him somehow through the earth to the chamber beneath. But he knew it was the memory of the Ghoul, its elongated face, white and haggard, its fanged teeth and red rimmed eyes that were once a Man's. Its long hot red tongue lapping at Legolas' thigh…. Teeth...
He knew he was becoming hysterical and put the back of his hand against his mouth to stop the scream that tried to wrestle up out of him, and he stood for a moment; the Ghoul had… it had…
Legolas squeezed his eyes shut as if by not looking, he could erase what he could not admit, had never confessed even to himself. There is no time for this, he told himself. Not now.
But a treacherous and insidious voice whispered somewhere in the dark. For there was something too deep, too sinful: the Ghoul had indeed bitten him, sunk its long pointed teeth into the softest parts of him, the silken skin at his neck, at his thigh…and Legolas had arched into it. An ecstasy, an intense erotic desire.
His hand shook, and he gripped the comforting smoothness of the watchful emeralds set in the hilts of the Ale gezên-aozh. A warmth stole through him then, as if Gimli was there, his square, capable hands holding Legolas', steadying him. It was the warmth of the forge, of the hearth, of his friend's earth-brown eyes. Holding onto him. Always.
He forced himself to breathe. Gimli would be searching for him, he thought with sudden guilt and relief. And Aragorn. And their search would, without doubt, bring them to the barrows for they will have guessed he had been taken. And what danger must they now be in? It became even more important that he escape, and he looked to where the Ghost waited for him, its sense of urgency was almost tangible. It raised its hand and moved onwards more swiftly and Legolas hurried after it.
He knew he was blundering inelegantly after the Ghost through the narrow and low tunnel. The deeper they went, the more tired he felt, the heavier, and he thought again that he felt stretched thin, like something tugged on him, like he had forgotten something.
Elrohir, he thought. Is it our bond? Has something happened to him? Sudden fear for his beloved overwhelmed any thought for himself and he turned sharply, eyes wide and straining for a trace of Elrohir, his Song.
Immediately, he realised how foolish it was to think that Elrohir was anywhere close. He was in Imladris. It was just his over wrought imagination, and so he did not go back to the chamber or seek the way out, but instead he turned back and followed the Ghost.
The Ghost hurried him onwards and suddenly Legolas felt the air and pressure lighten as if they had come into a larger space. He could straighten up too and his breathing eased a little, but his limbs still felt weighed down as if he was clad in heavy armour. In the dim light he could see the Ghost stood near a rockface, and turning about with his knives raised, Legolas saw that this was the end of the tunnels. A dead end. There was nowhere else to go.
Something crunched under his feet as he shifted forwards slightly. A brittle, fragile sharpness. The unpleasant smell intensified as well, mineral, cold. Decaying.
At that moment, bright blue light flared again along the blades of the Ale-gezên-aozh. This time, he turned more quickly, the blades crossed defensively in front of him.
Something white was rolling slowly away from him, it rolled once, twice and came to rest, facing him. A skull. It was too big to be human. Heavy jawed. An Orc. Its deep and empty eye sockets seemed to be watching him, and its bared pointed teeth grinned up at him lewdly, greedily in the blue light. He had an uncanny sense that he had awakened it.
Carefully he inched away from it as if it might bite him, nevertheless he was relieved, for this is what the Ale gezên-aozh must have sensed, he thought. It was just a long dead Orc that must have wandered down here seeking plunder after the battle perhaps, having heard of the treasure of the buried kings and princes, and been lost in the burial chambers of the Men of Cardolan.
His foot pushed against something, and he looked down. There was a long, thickset bone beside his foot. The humerus of the Orc. There was the thick fingered hand, outstretched and clawing into the darkness and then he saw what it reached for. A smaller skeleton was huddled against the rock wall. A woman, Legolas thought. And then he saw the thin little bones that she had been curled around.
She must have run down here with her child, hoping to hide. Legolas felt sick. He tried not to imagine her fear, her suffocating panic as the Orc came upon them, for he knew too well what it was to be hunted through the dark, to be caught in terror.
But I escaped, he thought. And she did not. Nor the child.
He remembered the lament of the Men of Cardolan, the ghosts that had emerged silently from the mist around the standing stones about the barrow; the distant sound of swords clashing had been this battle, the one they had lost, the one that had ended in a massacre of their people, a brutal rape of their mothers and sisters, their wives and children, and the Last Prince had fallen defending them.
It was no wonder their Song was of the long darkness, of the earth devouring their bones.
There was a sigh, a mere breath from the Ghost and he saw that it lingered beside the woman's bones, and its translucent hand was lifted as if it might stroke her head, and Legolas did not speak for the pity that moved him now.
She came back. The child had fallen behind and she came back for him.
'I do not understand. Is this why you brought me here? You need me to …what? Bury her? To give her peace?' he asked confused.
As he spoke, there was a soft crunch to his right and Legolas lifted the blades of the Ale gezên-aozh to see that the Orc was not, after all, alone. There were more Orcs lying close by the entrance to the chamber and he wondered how he had not seen them. He must have disturbed these bones as he had the skull that still grinned at him from where he had kicked it.
Just then, there was a shift in the air and a soft crack. At the same moment, blue lightning roared down the steel blades of the Ale gezên-aozh.
Come. Quickly. They are awakening! The Ghost threw out its hand as if it might catch Legolas and drag him after it.
Something shifted at Legolas' feet. In the pool of blue light from the Ale gezên-aozh, he thought the long bones of the Orc skeleton twitched. He gasped. And then, he swore the thick bony fingers moved.
Nearby, a heavy skull rolled on its side to stare at him. A monstrous skeleton twitched.
Something groped at Legolas' foot. He kicked hard and struck it frantically with the Ale gezên-aozh. Bones shattered under his strike but immediately they began rolling back towards each other so that the hand reformed and began to claw through the loose earth and dust, towards Legolas. Long bones dragged themselves after it.
One, and then another of the Orc skeletons jerked and twitched. One hauled itself upright and stood swaying unsteadily at first. Its thick boned fingers clutched a hatchet.
Suddenly Legolas knew that this was why the Úmaiar did not pursue him. They knew he would come here, and they knew what awaited him. Empty eye sockets watched him with malicious delight. Grinning, fanged teeth.
He could not get out. They blocked the way out of the chamber. Another Orc slowly twitched and jerked to its feet and took one stuttering, uncertain step. Haltingly, it stooped and picked up a heavy axe in the one hand. And then, as if it gained a confidence from standing erect, it crouched slightly in a combat pose, clutching the axe In its two hands. Another Orc skeleton struggled to its knees and lifted its heavy, grinning skull to watch him. In a moment, there would be too many.
He could not fight them. He felt too heavy, as clumsy as they. I will die here, he thought. And my father and brothers will never know. And Elrohir…
With a desperate look towards the Ghost, Legolas gathered himself; he thought he would leap as high and as far as he could over the watching Orcs, barrel into them if need be and scatter the bones long enough for him to take flight back up the tunnel. But I am slow, he recognised, shaking his head at himself. Still, what choice did he have? At least he might hide from the Úmaiar until he could find a way out. Suddenly, the Ghost shot out a hand and, with unthinkable strength, hauled Legolas back towards the rocky wall of the tunnel. It felt like lightning had flickered over him but barely, not scorching. He braced himself for the impact against the stone wall and he shut his eyes tight in anticipation.
I am going to die here, he thought. This was a trap.
There was a rush of cold air and a smell of stone and dryness. He felt like he had left his belly and his heart behind and there was a strange sense of dislocation that made him feel a little sick. Suddenly he crashed against hard rock and the air was forced out of his lungs. He fell forward to his hands and knees and his lungs heaved for air. He groaned and gasped for breath, waiting for the first blade to crunch down upon him.
After a moment, still no blade had fallen and he slowly lifted his head; he thought there would be a skull close to his own face. It would be enjoying his fear. It would gnash at his face, gouge out his eyes like they had Anglach's, cut off his ears. A sob almost burst from him, but he fought it down. He would not let them see how afraid he was.
He opened his eyes and found that he was facing the rock wall, and there were stylised paintings too, on the stone walls that he did not remember being there before. Abstract at first. Then animals. Horses, reindeer, bison. Elk. He was certain they had not been there before.
But how? he thought in bewilderment; he had fallen backwards and his back felt bruised and his shoulder jarred so he must have hit the wall at some point. Could he have somersaulted during the fall and the Orcs be behind him?
Scrambling inelegantly around, he stared, frowning.
There was the Ghost's tremulous form shimmering, a rockface at its back, also covered with stylised paintings of animals. But no Orcs, no bones. The Ale Gezên-aozh flare of blue light had dimmed so he knew there was no longer any danger from the Orc bones, or the Úmaiar. A strange luminosity reflected on the painted rock and he stared at it, completely perplexed. He was dimly aware that the air was cooler, as if fresher or that he was in a much bigger space now.
He got to his feet and pressed one hand against the solid rock between himself and the Orcs. 'How did you…? How…?'
The Ghost watched him sadly. You do not know?
Legolas could not understand how the Ghost had done this. 'Do you have the same magic as the Úmaiar?' he wondered for the Úmaiar too had pulled him through the earth. And then, thinking about the woman and child who had died out there, he demanded, 'If you could do this for me, why could you not have saved her?'
She was safe. She was here. But a child had been left behind and she went after it before anyone could stop her. There was a weight of sadness in the Ghost now and its form seemed to be dissolving as if it could no longer hold it for sorrow. She returned too late. The Way had already been shut.
Appalled, Legolas knew they would have had no choice but to close the door against her; they had had to protect the ones already here and prevent the Orcs from knowing there were women and children here, or they would have found a way through. Orthanc fire, sledgehammers, nothing would have stopped them. Even an enchantment would have been discovered and Angmar would have come.
Legolas imagined her running back, away from the pursuing Orcs, dragging the child after her, desperate to make it in time and those already here, waiting and waiting…until they could wait no longer. Or worse, they had heard her, and knew the Orcs were too close to risk discovery. Closing the Way, knowing she would be caught, they must have been in anguish. That was why she was huddled against the wall, he realised, and pressed his hand over his mouth. He knew the despair she must have felt. He knew what it was like for a door to close and to be left inside with that you feared the most.
She was dear to me, the Ghost sounded weary.
Legolas cast an oblique glance towards the Ghost, but he hardly dared to ask for the grief in the Ghost's voice.
My sister… my child.
Legolas drew a deep breath, and he resolved then that he would tell her story, that if he ever had the chance, he would tell Aragorn so that her sacrifice could become part of the history of Arnor. He did not dare ask where the Ghost's wife was, or if this had been his only child.
The Ghost was fainter, as if the grief was too hard to bear.
'I am sorry,' Legolas said. 'We have such losses and stories too, amongst my own folk.'
You must come, the Ghost was even fainter now. Quieter and its outline blurred. It drifted as if the wind had caught it, and Legolas turned to follow as it bid.
Although the deep darkness obscured the edges, the roof, the walls of the chamber he now entered, there was the strange light that emanated from somewhere ahead. With a flutter of hope that it might be the moonlight and show him a way of escape, he hurried after the Ghost.
The pale light skimmed over something huge in the darkness, outlining a long, sleek shape that disappeared into the thinning darkness. Seemingly unconcerned, the Ghost glided on, and Legolas followed, more hesitantly glancing at the Ale-gezên-aozh, which remained quiescent.
But then suddenly he saw a head rearing up above him. The dim light gleamed on iridescent scales, reflected in the bright silver eyes that were fixed upon him where he stood in sudden, frozen panic. A dragon.
The dragon watched him in perfect stillness, its bright, silver eyes, unblinking, and its nostrils flared to catch his scent. The light that had been illuminating the darkness was coming from the dragon itself, a silver-white like moonlight. Not the molten gold of Smaug. And this was not the spectacular colossus of red-gold that the firedrake had been, with his insidious lies and tragic, glorious Song of Fire at the heart of the Universe. In fact, Legolas realised curiously, he could hear no Song at all in the velvet darkness. Nor was there a sense of the malice, swirling like smoke in this pale and eerie light. No sulphur and brimstone…the silver-white dragon was strangely still, as if frozen. Its head was dipped towards him but the bright, elliptical eye did not blink and there was no nictitating membrane to come up, shockingly, the wrong way. The dragon was absolutely still. Absolutely silent.
In his hand, the Ale-gezên-aozh was silent, cool.
Was it a cold drake? Or frozen somehow into this strange cold?
Only then did Legolas realised that it was not a living dragon at all.
A great ship with a dragon's head for the prow, cased in silver and pearl, and its gunwales and hull shaped so that it resembled a dragon's wings folded back on itself.
He almost cried with relief that he had not escaped the Úmaiar, and the Orcs' cursed and ensorcelled bones only to run into the fiery jaws of a dragon. But there was a tiny piece of him that was a little disappointed, and mourned that Smaug truly had been the last Dragon after all.
This is the Draken Eldarion Hårfagre. The Ghost looked up at the ship with pride and extended its hand as if it invited Legolas to consider the beauty and craft of the ship.
It was made from a fine silvery timber Legolas had only seen in Lothlorien, but it could not be mallorn trees, surely? Its elegant shape seemed too finely made to ever sail, as if the Sea would swiftly dash the light and elegant timbers. Legolas knew boats; the forest river was the main trade route for the elves and he had been around skiffs and rafts and barges all his life, and he recognised the ship-craft in this. It must have been eighty feet long and wide enough for two oarsmen on either side. It reminded Legolas a little of the Corsair ships at Pelargir, but this ship was so much more graceful. He ran his hand along its sleek hull, more like a fish than ship, imagining how it would cut through the water, how its sails would fill and for a moment, he was completely lost…he imagined standing at the prow, its dragon's head lifted proudly as it plunged and rose on the waves, the sails filled with the westly wind and the Sea's sough and breath rushing past him, heading for the wide green-blue horizon.
With a deep breath and half closed eyes, he pulled himself back from the brink of Cuívëar, the Sea-longing that gripped him at times, for he dared not linger on those treacherous, seductive thoughts. Instead he walked alongside the ship, its whole length, admiring the craft that had built this, and he thought that Men must have brought it plank by plank into this chamber and built it here. How many years ago?
A thousand years of Men, said the Ghost with bitter pride. It was brought to seal a treaty, to bind a Promise. To honour one that was worthy.
Legolas glanced across to the Ghost. Sighting along the smooth, clinkered hull, he thought what great honour the Men of Cardolan had intended for a Man long dead and long forgotten.
'You intended great honour indeed,' he said. 'He must have promised much.'
The Ghost's face, so impassive up to now, showed a sudden rage and hurt. He promised us everything to help him rebuild the kingdom, it said angrily. But he was foresworn and betrayed us, he left us to the slaughter from Angmar whilst he sent his kin to safety, to Fornost. This was to be his sepulchre, the greatest honour we could bestow. But his bones lie …the Ghost lifted its hand and pointed vaguely east, Somewhere, unclaimed, unshriven, unburied for all we know. And all we care.
Legolas wondered what kingdom it was that this unnamed Man had tried to rebuild and thought of Aragorn, seeking to reunite his own kingdom. It would be hard to win the trust and loyalty of the Northern Men, he thought a little anxiously for his friend. But then his first duty was to escape this place so at least Aragorn had a chance, he knew.
Come, the Ghost insisted and Legolas obeyed, hoping that his acquiescence would lead to the Ghost showing him at last, the way out of this place.
There was a gangplank lowered as if it merely waited for Legolas and then would launch into the glass-green sea, white foam about its prow as it plunged and rose. The sails were furled but it would only take a hand to release them, and he thought how they would fill with the wind. The ship's decks were as pristine and sleek as the hull. There was something in the centre of the ship below the mast, a deeply ornate plinth, carved with the same spirals and curliques that Legolas had seen all around the barrow. It was long and wide enough for a man to lie upon although in no great comfort, and at its head, was a strange moulded shape that at first Legolas thought would be for the Man to rest his head but he thought it was too high and he was baffled. He thought that perhaps this was separate from the Man but something spherical and of very great importance, that would accompany the Man beyond the Bounds of Arda.
This is where he would have been laid to rest had he kept his promise, the Ghost said. In the greatest of glory, the greatest of honour. He would have led the Men of Cardolan when we are raised on the Last Day to fight in the Dagor Dagorath against the ancient foe, Angmar.
Only then did Legolas realise that this graceful ship was never intended to sail the Sea, it was a tomb. Built to honour the Man, the King, who had promised something to Cardolan and not delivered upon the promise. He thought about the whispered Song of the ghosts of the Men of Cardolan when they had emerged from the mist,
Who shall keep the promises made to the slain and restore what was lost?
They yearned for freedom from the yoke of the Umaiar, and for that ancient promise to be kept. But he did not know how he could help.
The Ghost turned to look beyond the ship, as if it could see beyond even the earth wall of the barrow and out into the empty and abandoned land of Cardolan.
The barrows upon these downs are protected by the spirits of our ancestors. In the Great Barrows here upon the Tyrn-Gorthad lie our greatest leaders. Each is armed with Mergyll-Dagnir, weapons bestowed upon us by the great smiths of Eregion who dwelt in Ost-in-Edhel, to defeat the darkness that will come again..
Legolas thought about that. 'That city was sacked and destroyed long before Elendil returned from Númenor,' he observed rather acutely.' How did they come to give you such great gifts?'
The Dunédain of Fornost are not the only Elf-friends, said the Ghost wryly. Our people have been here for two Ages of Men and Elves, and though many left on the Great Journey, many remained. As did your own People, the Ghost said shrewdly. So the People of Cardolan are Dunédain it is true, but we are also the People of Haleth.
There was a murmur of wind through the darkness as if the name alone had conjured it and Legolas felt it lift his hair. Then the glimmer of light flickered. It seemed like a mist had stolen through the chamber and Legolas turned in horror for that surely meant the Úmaiar had found him. But instead, as before, the mist seemed to coalesce, and the shades of Men could be seen faintly, dimly, as if unable to hold their shape.
Legolas stared. Some were clad in armour, mail shirts and helms, but others had simple cloaks and leather breastplates, and there were others who had wolfskin cloaks and axes, more useful for cutting trees than battle. Faintly, he heard them, a murmur that was not the wind but the ghosts that thronged now in the dimness of the pale and eerie light.
Will we hear the horn again in the hills ringing?
An awakening to grief.
An awakening to the treachery of a promise not kept?
Who shall keep the promises made to those who sleep under the hill?
Who shall sound the horn that calls us from the grey twilight, the ancient Kings of old?
Who shall keep the promises made to the slain and restore what was lost?
Help us.
It was the same Song that he had heard above ground just before the Umair arrived. Legolas moved to stand beside the Ghost. 'I do not know how to help you,' he said softly. 'Though I wish to.'
Do you swear to help us? the Ghost asked.
Legolas shook his head. 'I do not need to take any oath. Your story moves me beyond pity. You have my word that I will do what I can.'
There was a long sigh that came from the thronging ghosts and Legolas thought it was like they had been holding a breath.
The Ghost closed its eyes as if it had long awaited this, and said, You must help us then as I have helped you. Help us drive the Wights from the Iaun-Gynd so that we are ready to fight on the Last Day, so that we can revenge ourselves when the time comes.
'Revenge? Upon Angmar,' Legolas asked, thinking that he too wanted revenge upon the Witch-King for all that he had suffered at the hands of the Ghoul.
At this, the Ghost's face, so like Aragorn's, turned stone cold. Not only upon Angmar. Also upon the Traitor who betrayed and lied to us. He made promises to us so that we bled and died for him, so that our wives and children were slaughtered while he fled North to safety and left us to die. We will be revenged upon the Traitor and all his blood. Upon the blood of Arveleg and all his kin. Upon the Dunédain of Arnor. Upon all the blood of Elendil.
Pulling back, Legolas stared in shock at the Ghost. It meant Aragorn. It wanted revenge upon Aragorn for some great wrong of which Legolas knew nothing. And he was certain that Aragorn would not know either, for Aragorn always sought to do what was right and in Legolas' view, his friend's honour was unblemished. But he did know that Aragorn was somewhere on the Barrow Downs and that he would come here, looking for Legolas.
Tbc