*In my 'verse, there are two versions of the ending of the Silm. In both, Maedhros takes the Silmarils. In this Sons of Thunder verse, Maedhros is in the Dark, Champion of Eru Illuvatar and defending Arda from Morgoth.
Lamma-nancasû - The Úmaiar's Song of Undoing
Nyellondo - singer stone. This is the gemstone that Maglor passed to Elrohir in chapter 25, Grippsenar.
Useful armoury terms
Cuirass - breastplate
Pauldrons - shoulder armour
Moulinet - fencing move -spinning your sword to move a parry to a circular cut.
Gambeson - padded or quilted shirt normally worn under chain mail. Maglor does not wear one as his armour, made by Fëanor himself, he expects to turn most blades. It also makes everything heavier, bulkier and he prefers agility as a defence.
Just a reminder since Maglor is the main character in this and the next chapters:
The Doom of the Noldor or Curse of the Valar, depending on your perspective, is a harsh punishment for those seeking to atone. Þráinn is quoting from this. Abbreviated version here:
Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. …Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.
Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death's shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be…. The Valar have spoken.
For recap, see chapter 29.
(Another apology for the very long delay- another chapter I have written and re-written and struggled to get right. I hope it is now.)
Beta: Anarithilien- huge thank you as always.
Special thanks to Rochiriel for the excellent advice and discussion on biological weaponry and the Song and how this might work. This chapter is for her.
Chapter 32. Þráinn
It is I, Þráinn, came the dread voice from the shifting darkness. Maglor Fëanorian, I come for you.
A groan broke from Maglor's lips, and he turned towards the sardonic, amused voice. Þráinn had tricked him. When Maglor thought the Úmaiar had fled, Þráinn had merely lured him away from the main battle, and then silently stalked him back here, bled him, leached his Song. The wind that whirled quietly about him, lifting his hair and stroking his face with icy fingers, was no wind at all but Þráinn's Lamma-nancasû. The Úmaiar had been sipping at the azure-gold of Maglor's fëa while he had been fighting Thorendaw and Hrungnîr and it was no wonder he felt so weary. Þráinn had laid in wait for them, like Ungoliant of old. Hungering for the light, hungering for lost souls, for Maglor.
Now the darkness seemed heavier, like a cloak falling over him, dulling his senses, muffling sound and thoughts.
Thorendaw limped heavily towards him, one hand clutching the wound in its thigh that Maglor had given it earlier but even wounded, the Úmaiar carried its longsword with ease.
Now you know what you face. You cannot escape us. Thorendaw's pale eyes glittered, and the air was deathly cold. You cannot win.
Maglor knew he was trapped; he could not follow Legolas and Eldarion for he would take Þráinn right to the Mergyll-Dagnir and Aragorn. Elrond's sons. And he could not simply run, for that would leave the Úmaiar unopposed and with dominion still over the whole of old Cardolan.
He could no more submit to that than concede the Silmarils to the greedy grasp of the Valar. And then, as if he stood nearby, an image conjured in his mind of Maedhros dragging together by sheer will the disparate forces that made the Union of Maedhros.
Have we not always fought against impossible odds? He almost heard Maedhros speaking in that quiet, compelling voice to those who needed persuading. Yes, we may well be defeated, but would you do nothing instead? Go and hide in Doriath then for as long as we stand. For when we fall, all the world is lost.
Yes brother, he acknowledged silently only to himself. And still I battle on.
His hand went instinctively to where the Nyellondo, the deep red gem that amplified the Song and was a weapon against these enemies, used to hang about his neck. But he had given it to Elrohir to defend him against Grippsenar, and now its absence left a hole in Maglor's defence far greater than the gem's size suggested. He took a breath, hoping that Legolas would be swift and suffer no delay, for he knew he could not withstand the onslaught that was to come.
'Come then coward,' he cried and swiped his sword through the air with more swagger and confidence than he felt. 'You fear to fight me, oh lord of the Úmaiar. You send these unworthy lesser thralls! You are afraid!' He felt for the Song, looped a rich refrain about himself in readiness for battle. H did not take his eyes from where Thorendaw and Hrungnîr now waited, still and silent.
The air shivered and a tall, tall figure emerged as if the darkness itself had coalesced. It was clad in armour of black steel chased with runes limned in red. Pale eyes gleamed hungrily from within the dark helm that clasped its face, a horrible parody of Maglor's own helm. This was Þráinn. Cruel as Angmar and more ancient. Powerful, like the Balrogs.
'I do not fear you, Maglor the Murderer. Slaughterer of Sirion, kidnapper, kin-slayer. Thrice damned, they call you. Your own people.'
A mace swung from one gauntleted hand and an iron buckler in the other. Maglor knew the lithe chainmail of his own armour, supple as fish-scales and as glittering, would be tested indeed by this heavy, spiked mace. But far worse was the long knife sheathed at the Úmaiar's hip. It whispered darkly and runes slid over the sheath like serpents, black over silver.
A morgûl blade.
With this they had intended to cut Legolas' fëa from his body, Maglor realised, but they had not been thorough. The horn of Cardolan perhaps had interrupted them? Or was it the presence of Elessar? Or even Maglor himself?
A whisper brushed over Maglor's cheek, a cry of curlews and the sound of the grass whispering over the moor. Not all the ghosts of the Last Men of Cardolan had gone to protect Legolas and their Prince. Now they ranged themselves around Maglor himself, weaving a silvery net to shield Maglor as best they could. He bowed his head to them in gratitude, feeling it was undeserved, a sacrifice too much, for there were three Úmaiar and Maglor knew that Þráinn had been weakening him all this time, crouching in the dark.
Thorendaw took a lurching step towards the valiant ghosts who levelled their ghostly spears at the Barrow Wight, and although Hrungnîr hung back a little, its longsword was hefted in its mailed fists ready to battle.
'Did you think to vanquish us? To drive us from this, our realm?' Þráinn hissed and braced its shield.
Maglor levelled his bright sword towards Þráinn, watched Thorendaw move around to behind him. He shifted, a little more clumsy than usual, for Þráinn had drunk his Song and weakened him already. He tried hard to keep all three in view. But Thorendaw and then Hrungnîr moved again, and he had to turn his head from left to right to keep watch. Þráinn did not move and Maglor stilled, keeping his senses wide, listening for their attack, but all he could hear was the whining, nauseating dirge of Þráinn's Unsong that picked and gnawed at Maglor's nerves.
The attack came suddenly.
Hrungnîr leapt forwards at the same moment as Thorendaw launched itself from the left. Maglor blocked and parried Hrungnîr's heavy blow and pivoted swiftly to meet Thorendaw's. He was aware of the ranks of ghosts charging silently forwards at Þráinn as Maglor himself cut upwards, aiming for Thorendaw's throat and used the momentum of the thrust to kick at Hrungnîr as he passed. Hrungnîr slashed downwards, catching Maglor's thigh and he stumbled.
The ghostly spears gleamed in the charge that surged about Maglor before Hrungnîr could strike again at Maglor. But Þráinn swept his arm through the air and fog billowed through the cavern, flooding inwards like a too fast tide over the feet of the ghosts, a drowning grey sea. Their translucent faces looked about them wildly, panicked, and Maglor saw how the fog had begun to drown them, to drag them into its murky depths.
Desperately, Maglor struggled to his feet, gathering the Song to himself. He sent notes of Song looping upwards into a crescendo, hoping to drown out Þráinn's unbearable Unsong.
Thorendaw charged, sword raised and brought it clanging down upon Maglor's and it was hard to try to maintain the physical defence while at the same time building the Song. Maglor ducked beneath Thorendaw's sword and launched himself at the Úmaiar as its momentum carried it forwards. He struck harder than he thought possible, all his weight and momentum sending Thorendaw sprawling against the cavern wall. Small stones scattered from the roof and showered down over both Maglor and Thorendaw, clattering on their armour.
Maglor leapt upon Thorendaw, bashing his sword against the Úmaiar's helm, kicking and battering for all he was worth. At any moment, he expected Hrungnîr's heavy fist, but Thorendaw threw him off and their swords clashed again.
With a grim sneer, Þráinn turned its fist into an open palm towards the ghosts, and the waves of fog thickened and surged about the ghosts like a drowning sea. Maglor tried to fight past Thorendaw to reach them, but the ice-cold fog wrapped around him too, leaching the warmth and life from his blood. Panicked, he reached for the Song, seeking images of sunlight to burn it away, but his thoughts were slow and sluggish, and he had to concentrate hard to remember. Thorendaw was swinging its longsword heavily through the air and fog, slashing and cutting at Maglor.
Maglor turned his head for an instant to find Hrungnîr, but Thorendaw roared eagerly, seeing its moment, and charged forward. Maglor pivoted quickly, managing to deflect the blow with a well-timed moulinet and shoved Thorendaw's blade upwards and away. Lunging forwards, Maglor then followed through with a sharp thrust between the Úmaiar's cuirass and pauldron, shoving in the point of his sword in as hard and as fast as he could.
Thorendaw roared with pain and writhed, slashing downwards blindly. Maglor leapt back, but before he could recover he felt an unbelievable force smashed into him from behind that sent him sprawling to the floor. All his breath was knocked out of his lungs for a moment and before he could recover, Þráinn's mace smashed down towards him again. He felt his ribs crack under the force and weight. He managed to roll painfully away just in time before the next blow smacked the rock next to him. He scrambled back, ribs burning, from the mace that was hurtling towards him. Gritting his teeth against the piercing pain in his ribs and lungs and chest, Maglor hauled himself upright, throwing up his sword just in time to block the thrust from Thorendaw aimed at his chest. He shoved the blade away and lunged forwards himself, grimacing with pain as he did, but Thorendaw was strong. Its parry knocked Maglor's sword aside and Þráinn's mace thumped against his shoulder, throwing him backwards.
Maglor stumbled to his feet, trying not to clutch his ribs and give his enemies the comfort of knowing he was injured. Instantly he was surrounded by the silvery veil of the ghosts that had managed to escape the devouring fog. It gave him a moment to desperately summon the Song again and he conjured images of the sunlight and the clear blue sky and he called into Song a light shining in the gloom, as if guiding a ship to shore.
The fog thinned for a moment, and he saw that Þráinn had lifted his hand once more but had turned towards the dark of the tunnel behind him as if beckoning. There was a chittering swarming through the dark and then suddenly dark shadows burst from the tunnel like bats, thin-skinned wings that were taloned and clawed, and fanged teeth. Hungry and starving, they hurtled towards Maglor and the remnants of the ghosts with taloned claws that grasped and ripped through the silvery veil. Sharp little teeth gnashed at ghosts of the last Men of Cardolan and snapped at Maglor while Thorendaw smashed its longsword through the ghosts, cutting them into long ribbons of silver while the fog roiled and churned about them and the spiteful wind tore at them.
In desperation, Maglor tried to pull down the great chords of the Song, to burn away the fog for good, but ice cold wind snatched the words from his mouth, burnt his throat with its bitter chill, and the whining dirge pulled the azure-gold of his fëa from him. Þráinn swung the mace rolling through the fog, and whumped down upon Maglor's shoulder again, forcing his sword spinning from his hand. It clattered to the floor and Thorendaw kicked it away.
Then Þráinn was upon him again with mace and iron buckler which he clouted around Maglor's head. A heavy kick to his guts from Thorendaw sent him reeling and spinning to the ground in a dizzy stupor of pain. He should be dead, he thought, had it not been for his helm and armour.
He shook his head dizzily, trying to scoop the Song from the ancient stones, chords of iron and stone and protection against the Unsong. He felt the Song reach for him, but his tongue felt thick and clumsy and the icy wind tore the words from his mouth.
Þráinn dropped the iron buckler now, to wield the mace two handed. Swinging the heavy spiked weapon through the air, it built momentum and came swooping through the air. Rolling painfully, Maglor grabbed at Þráinn's abandoned shield and held it up just in time for the mace to crunch against it. He felt it bend under the impetus and then came another blow from the mace, but aimed sideways, knocked even the buckler from his hands and he half lay, half leaned against the rock wall, unprotected. Beaten. He could barely move to defend himself, could not grapple with the knife hidden in his liquid oozed from Thorendaw's wounds and Maglor felt a dim pleasure. Thorendaw's helm looked battered and dented but Maglor knew he looked worse. His breath heaved in his lungs painfully and he could not move his sword arm from the deliberate beating Þráinn had given it.
'Look upon those who would stand with you, who would follow you,' Þráinn's cold voice cut through the wind like a knife so it died, and the air was suddenly still. 'Did the Doomsman not say: 'For blood ye shall render blood? There is much blood on your hands, son of Fëanor the Proud. The Vain.'
Maglor had heard far worse. He did not respond.
But of the ghosts of Cardolan, all that remained, were long silvery threads streaming in the wind. The winged demons flew about, catching them, gobbling them up. Thorendaw lifted one hand and caught a fistful of ribbons, let them flutter and struggle. Then the Úmaiar lifted its head and a mouth opened. Thorendaw took its time, savouring the fear and anguish of the last of the ghosts of the Men of Cardolan as it devoured them.
Maglor tasted salt mingle with the copper of his own blood, and he knew he wept.
Þráinn stood by, watching Maglor with its unblinking, pale eyes gleaming with malice. 'To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well? Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman.'
Slowly, the Úmaiar turned its head towards the tunnel where Legolas and Eldarion had fled and stood listening for a moment. Then it turned back as if satisfied.
Only then did Maglor realise. Where was Hrungnîr?
Þráinn watched him avariciously, wry amusement. ' For blood ye shall render blood.'
A faint melody burst upon him, faraway. The faintest touch, like an unfurling of beech leaves in Spring, a light touch of green-gold and the faraway sound of the Sea and he turned towards it before it was snatched away by the bitter cruel wind. It was gone.
Grief struck at Maglor like a spear in the heart.
Legolas Thranduillion.
Misery and grief wrecked him. To have lost yet more. He thought of his brothers, the last most dear to him and most tragic, and of the two little boys he had loved, and one become a King of Men, and taken that 'gift' that led to such a sundering of grief. He cursed the Valar again, but it was a well-worn path. He found breathing hard now for the air was heavy and oppressive. Azure-gold threads streamed off into the darkness and he knew he had lost. He had no more to give.
'Did not the Doomsman say: To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well…'
Tendrils of darkness unravelled from Þráinn, spread towards Maglor like ink in water, and spooled about his thighs, his wrists, curled about his torso. The wind dipped and muttered and whined, ice-cold, sharp daggers that snatched at his breath, froze the Song in his throat.
Maglor forced his head up, lifted his heavy eyelids up, but his fëa was disintegrating, the azure-gold was slowly leaching into the air, the darkness.
'Tears unnumbered ye shall shed and the Valar will fence Valinor against you…' Þráinn intoned.
Maglor felt his mouth close tightly as if something bound him. Cold forced itself into his throat, his nose, his ears, blocking all ability to speak. To sing.
Thorendaw came towards him then, still limping, its eyes gleamed more intensely, more hungrily, greedy. It leaned over Maglor and for a dreadful moment, he thought he was to be devoured. 'Yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief…'
Thorendaw was gleeful and full of malice. Its heavy fist punched Maglor's face, his belly, its booted foot kicked him hard, and he slumped on the floor, huddled into himself waiting for the end for he could not fight anymore.
He blinked, but something warm was running down his forehead and into his eyes and one eye would not open. Unbelievably, his sword lay a little way away and he tried to move the fingers, but they felt heavy and clumsy. He fumbled at his boot but cold stole over him and slowed his movement, a little cat-paw of frost on his skin. It started on his hands and crept over him. Freezing fog swirled around him like a grey sea and he felt so cold as he lay unmoving and wretched.
'For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment… and by grief.'
Slowly, Þráinn walked towards him now. The morgûl blade hung darkly at its hip.
Maglor licked his lips, tasting the copper-salt of blood, feeling the swollen bruising. He would rather be slain by his own blade than be consigned forever to the Úmaiar's agonising dissolution of being. One hand was useless, crippled by the mace but the other lay at his side in the dust. If he could just summon the strength to reach for his knife. But he could not move. The dark tendrils wound about him, holding him, filling his ears and nose and mouth.
Þráinn's heavy, booted foot was beside his hand. He stared at the boot; leather, supple, worn. It surprised him, but not as much as the pain as the boot lifted over his hand and ground down, treading heavily on the small bones so he felt first one, then another of the tarsals snap under the weight. He bit down on the cry that struggled from him. The last hope.
Remember those you have betrayed.'
The last word hissed around him, seemed to linger and drift. His eyes were blurred, and he thought the air around him was leached of colour.
'Remember that should you come to Mandos, there long shall ye abide and yearn for your body, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.' Þráinn leaned over Maglor then and with his one good eye, Maglor squinted up at his enemy.
The Úmaiar's pale eyes had no pupils, just pearly iris that swallowed him, permeated his spirit, slid all the Song from him like pulling a veil from him. 'You shall wish that was your fate. You shall not dog the Halls of Mandos, whining after those you did slay.'
It leaned over him. 'No.' Its breath was ice, sucked all the air from Maglor's mouth and lungs, slowed his blood and heart. 'We shall devour you.'
Maglor saw eternity. A deathless end. Nowhere.
A scrape of ancient steel indicated that Thorendaw had drawn the morgûl blade, designed by Morgoth to cut the soul of an Elf from its body. Dully, Maglor thought of his long, long life and the sins for which he had never stood account, of his six brothers each dying in despair. He had always thought he would join them. But this? This was an end of light and being, this was not death. This was enduring eternity in the Abyss, an endless scream of anguish.
'I see that you comprehend,' said Þráinn softly, almost tenderly. 'Your sacrifice will be… delectable. And you will be consigned to …nothingness. Not even the Dark Abyss of the Night. You will simply exist forever in our own darkness until there is nothing left of you at all.'
There were heavy footsteps coming from the tunnel that led to the chamber of the Last Prince and Hrungnîr strode into the cavern. He dragged, half carried something limp and heavy behind it. A long grey pelt.
'This one was searching for him,' Hrungnîr's voice was darkness and malice. 'I have killed it.'
For a moment, Maglor thought it was a Warg, a young one perhaps, and then the bundle was dropped beside him. A cloak of grey fur. And then he saw long black hair and a narrow vulpine face, very white, eyes tightly closed.
No! No, not Närmó! Not after all this time, not after he had evaded and avoided Erestor for all the Ages. Maglor felt his steel heart crack. He could have reached out, and stroked his hair from that loved face but he could barely move and what was the point?
And then an amber slit appeared, Erestor cracked one eye very slightly open and stared at Maglor accusingly. Maglor darted a glance at the Úmaiar that stood leaning slightly together as if conferring and when he looked back down at Erestor, the other amber eye opened narrowly.
And he winked. Impossibly. Irrepressibly. 'Got you at last, you fucking, shitting, treacherous old bastard,' Erestor whispered softly.
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