Finally, the stores were stowed, and the passengers aboard. In the Bay of Eldamar, the 41 ships bound for Middle-earth carefully manouvered themselves into the positions they would take for the journey. The wind was fair from the west. The stars shone bright above them, with the pale glimmer of the Mindon Light still visible on the water, as they waited for the signal.
Aboard the Tern, Feanaro's ship, a clear horn call rang out. Maedhros raised his horn in the two-note reply, as around him horn calls answered from each ship, echoing off the mountains. With that, the Noldor hoisted sail for Middle-earth. On the shore, fellow Noldor and Teleri alike stood, their waving soon lost in the night and their voices blown away on the wind.
Maedhros grinned, and waved back one final time, not that they could see him any more. Then he turned his face towards the east, and the coast of Beleriand. If all went well, they should reach Middle-earth somewhere between Sirion and Eglarest in four or five weeks. Travelling north along the coast to Eglarest would allow them to link up with Cirdan.
It would be interesting to see the old mariner again. Maedhros hadn't known him well, but they had worked together on occasion up until Doriath. That was... painful to think about. In a lot of ways, Doriath was when he had lost himself to the Oath of Feanor. He was going to have to face Doriath again this time, and he had a feeling it would be worse than revisiting Alqualonde. Still, that was in the future. For now, they still had to get there.
On the sixth day the wind backed south and weakened. A fog grew up around the ships, making the Feanorian lanterns difficult to see from one ship to the next. One could get above the very worst of it by climbing the mast, but keeping the ships together became much harder. The steersman needed to rely on a lookout up in the rigging calling out which way to go. Their progress slowed, then sped up as a wind from the north came back and blew away the fog.
Pods of dolphins came and went, chattering with the Telerin mariners, bringing them news and making them laugh. Maedhros wished he understood their speech, but he had not had time to learn, and would likely vanish inland once they reached Middle-earth. The Gannet's Telerin Captain, Maiweriel, obviously enjoyed their company, whistling and chattering to them in their own language. Afterwards, she'd tell her Noldorin shipmates ridiculous stories that mostly revolved around fish, dolphins, or attacking sharks. Apparently dolphins had a taste for danger... Weird creatures. They once saw a great whale, though the enormous animal never came close to them, and soon vanished again into the deep.
The days were sunny, and the nights clear, if colder. They were now sailing across the wind. Suddenly, they were going swiftly towards Middle-earth, and their main worry was how much sail to have up. Too little, and you wouldn't catch enough wind; too much, and you would capsize. And to keep the fleet together, they had to travel at the speed of the slowest ship.
Feanaro's ship, the Tern, was longer and more slender than most of the others, and leapt like an eager hound at wind or oars. It didn't really belong in the same fleet as something like the Sea Cow. That ship had been well-named, but they needed the horses she carried, and Findarato and Laurelinde were doing well at coaxing the best out of her. Despite this, they kept together and were making excellent time.
The wind held well, gradually backing to blow from the west, until late in the third week of the voyage. Then the wind began to blow from the south again, a strong wind with hard gusts that drove dark clouds overhead. They fled north, hoping to dodge the worst of the storm.
But the wind grew stronger, the waves higher, and the gusts harder. They reefed the sails, and sailed on, steering by compass when they could no longer see the stars, and watching closely for the lights of their fellow ships.
It began to pour with rain, which they were glad to see at first. They caught it in any container they could to use as drinking water, refilling empty casks, drinking from their hands and laughing as it washed the salt from their skin. But it kept raining, ice-cold water in bitter angled winds that mixed the rain with sea spray. They set a few Noldor to bailing. Everyone got soaked, the wet got tracked into the tented area of the deck, and some of the Noldor were violently ill. At least the stores of food, weapons and other needful things were well packed and should stay dry.
Then the air somehow grew even colder, and the wind grew stronger still. Maiweriel alternated between singing prayers to Uinen to calm Osse's storm, and barking orders at everyone. The Gannet stopped trying to travel, and faced into the storm, a sea anchor over her bows. "Hold us head-to-wind," Maedhros heard her telling Mircarn, one of the two other true mariners on the ship. "You're stronger than I am, and I'm needed more elsewhere."
"Yes, Captain," said Mircarn. Spray from the huge waves crashed onto the deck, sluicing over the deckplanks before draining into the bilge. Everyone not already busy began bailing continuously so the ship didn't founder. When he looked up from bailing, Maedhros could not see the other ships' lights, and the horn calls were getting fainter, but what good was staying together if they drowned? Ice cold bilgewater sloshed over his feet. Trying for a higher foothold, he slipped a little on the deck. He looked down to see ice. There was more on the gunwhales, on the rigging...
"The water is freezing on the ship," yelled Amandil.
"I know," Maiweriel yelled back from where she stood near the rudder. "It's getting worse, too. Unless the weather changes, we need to do something. Taure, Amandil, Aiwen, I need wooden mallets, wooden staves, spears."
Taure and the others scrambled to get into the cargo to go and get them. "This is going to get worse before it gets better," said Maiweriel, "but we can handle it."
"What are you going to do?" asked Maedhros from his place in the bilge. "Bash the ice off?"
"Yes," said Maiweriel.
"Why not use a Song of Power to shatter the ice?"
Maiweriel stared up at him. "If you have any skill in that area, then for Osse's sake, use it! I have enough to do trying to get through to Uinen."
Maedhros scrambled out of the bilge and to where he could touch the iced-up shrouds. He took a deep breath, and thought back to a song of breaking that he had learned from Feanaro long ago. Back when Feanaro had been determined to teach his eldest son the ways of the forge, before they had both realized he lacked his father's gifts in that area. He sang the ancient strangely-shaped Valarin words, at first softly, and then with more power.
It felt strange, singing in his old body. His voice had never been the same after Angband, and he'd avoided singing when he could. Now his voice rang out clear and true, and the ice shattered and cascaded in crystal shards from the rigging as he touched it. "You are going to teach me how to do that," said Maeweriel, as the mariner and various Noldor got to work with a chest's worth of staves. "That is a Noldorin skill that can save lives on the ocean."
"Gladly," said Maedhros, forcing himself to switch to Telerin. But for now, they needed to deal with the storm. The rigging kept trying to ice up, and Maedhros grew hoarse from singing, while other voices stumbled over the strange words with little effect. They couldn't see the other ships, and the crew were busy bailing, as well as throwing both water and shards of ice overboard.
After what seemed an eternity, the wind eased, the spray vanished, the clouds blew away and the stars shone bright again. He could stop now. Maedhros slumped over the gunwhale before he could fall over, shivering uncontrollably. He was exhausted from the Song, his voice hoarse, and his entire body ice-cold. It was the drain of overusing Songs of Power, and he was probably hypothermic besides.
"You, my lord," said Amandil, "need to drink this."
Maedhros blinked stupidly at his herald. Amandil was holding a flask of something, and sighed when Maedhros failed to give a coherent response. The elf was soaked to the skin, and looked about like Maehdros felt. Maedhros reached for the flask with his hand shaking too hard to take it, then gave up and accepted Amandil's help. Limpe.
A warmth spread through his body, and his mind cleared. "Thank you," he said. "I think I overdid the Singing a little."
Amandil raised an eyebrow. "Just a little. But between you and everyone else, we are still alive and afloat, so that is something."
A few feet away, Carnil drew out a horn, and blew. Where were the other ships? To starboard, a dim horn call answered, then another beyond it, and another ahead of them.
Much careful manouvering and many horn calls later, they managed to find eight other ships, none of which held Maedhros' relations.
A/N: You might have noticed this chapter took a long time to put out compared to the previous few. I'm afraid I discovered Avatar the Last Airbender, and it ate my brain. I've been listening to Avatar fanfic and writing some of my own in the past few weeks, and got thoroughly distracted from this story. I can't promise what I'll do with this one in the next few months, but you should get one more chapter after this before I run out of rough draft.
Etta Daring: I'm glad that the characterizations are working for you, and that you enjoyed Maedhros and Feanor's unscheduled swim. That scene was such a pain to get right. I had to completely rewrite it about three times.
Guest: Yes, Fingon got the reference. I figure Maedhros is strongly motivated not to have the Noldor learn tactics the hard way.
Dream Plane: I'm glad you like the dolphin and the fish. They were fun to put in.