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Chapter 20:
Moriquendi Are Strange

Whack!

A brief cry ripped from Maitimo's throat, one he quickly bit off with a fierce clenching of his teeth. Not that it helped. His shoulder blade still seared with fire. He did not feel any skin split beneath the lash, but he knew a welt would form before long, could feel it forming already. He slowly opened his eyes, glowering where he kneeled on the rock floor and nearly shaking, though not with pain. Hot fury raced through him and it took all of his willpower not to turn around and lunge for the Orc daring enough to strike him with his rod. For the third time. Maitimo went back to his work, his hands visibly trembling from the anger that made all of his movements stiff and clumsy. Valar, he hated Orcs. Hated them. He was working as fast as he was able to. Could these swiving beasts not see that? By Aulë, if they struck him one more time he would –

Whack!

A curse exploded from his mouth, several Moriquendi heads whipping over to him in surprise. Maitimo dropped the tongs as he spun around and rose on his right leg in one smooth motion. Within the space of a breath he lunged for the Orc, moving so quickly that a glimmer of surprise actually made its way into the Orc's sallow eyes. And the Orc shuffled back several steps, animalistic anger contorting his savage face as he roared like the mud-dwelling beast he was. But before Maitimo could even extend his arms to wrap his hands around that wretched fiend's throat, several Moriquendi were hauling him back, shouting frantic Edhellen at him while pulling and tugging at his arms and waist until he stumbled forward to his knees, his bad foot sending him off kilter. He ripped his arms out of their grips, trying to rise and rush forward as he watched the Orc roar at him, now joined by several more as they appeared from in between the bloomeries. But they did not approach any closer, no matter how much they snarled and twisted their rods in their fists.

Ah, so they would only leave him be after inciting him into a fury? Maitimo's expression darkened as he fought harder against the grappling Moriquendi to again rise to his feet.

"Baw, Lachend!"

"Avgaro!"

"Daro!"

"Leave off!" Maitimo snarled at them, sending a scathing glare over his shoulder. He half expected them to meet him with that blank stare that always seemed to result after any Quenya, but his tone of voice was apparently enough since they released him, even as they continued to regard him with a mix of exasperation and worry.

He was just pushing himself up from the ground when there was a noticeable shift in the heated air and a foreboding hush fell over the Elves and even the Orcs. Maitimo looked up and froze where he awkwardly stood as the Orc-speaker appeared from nowhere, just suddenly emerging from in between two bloomeries as if he had been a calling's distance away the whole time. Maitimo glared at him in growing incredulity, a new brand of fury blossoming all over again. For what, was he a swiving apparition now?

Elves again went out of their way to veer out of his path, but the Orc-speaker's eyes were trained on Maitimo as he moved with his unworldly speed towards him. Maitimo braced himself, a slight apprehension rising, but moving so quickly that he became a blur, the Orc-speaker's hand shot out and snatched the rod from the very Orc that had been taking liberty with Maitimo, closing up the last few steps that lay between them. The Orc-speaker twirled it once in his hand before whipping it out and striking it with merciless strength across Maitimo's face, so nippily that Maitimo could not even begin to try and evade it. The strike was so loud that it echoed even above the working furnaces.

He felt his skin slice open over the cheekbone, felt the hot blood instantly well to dribble down as he stumbled back from the force of the hit, falling over completely as he crashed into the Moriquendi that were still behind him. He cupped his cheek as the whole left side of his face throbbed, the vision of his left eye blurring.

The Orc-speaker tossed the rod back to the Orc without looking behind him, his face that had always been so unreadable finally darkening into an expression of irritation, and maybe even anger. He scowled down at Maitimo, lip curling in derision. "I grow tired of your pettiness," he said in a dangerously low voice. "Naivety is excused only once, little king! Act on your miffed pride again and it will be before my Master I drag you!" He turned his thunderous gaze on the many Elves who had frozen at the spectacle. He barked out something in Edhellen that sent the Moriquendi scrambling away from Maitimo and back to their own work. The Orc-speaker's eyes followed them before they snapped over to the group of Orcs and he, again, guttered out something this time in their own happy little speech. The Orcs made no response and the Orc-speaker did not wait for one as he turned and departed back between the two bloomeries as quickly as he had arrived, shoving one Elf aside who could not move away fast enough, said Elf yelping in agony as his bare foot crashed against his cooling ingot.

Maitimo looked away from the Moriquendë, grunting as he righted himself. His head was spinning as he shifted on his knees to return to the bloomery he was working at. Not crawl – shift. He was not crawling. He wiped the back of his hand against the few hot streaks of blood he could feel steadily dribbling down his cheek, wincing at the sting and how the rod had aggravated the wound on the opposite side of his head, which now flared and pulsed again unrelentingly. Maitimo cursed under his breath.

Valar, that Orc-speaker was strong.

The racing of his heart finally slowing, he made an effort to focus his attention on what he had been doing, resolutely ignoring the Orcs he could feel moseying around behind him.

He had been moved to the bloomeries. Why, he had no idea, only that the Orc-speaker had come barging into the fuel pit and grabbing his neck again without so much as a 'do you mind?' to yank him away from Únad's side after not even an hour of working. Únad had only knelt there and watched him go, that anxious paranoia once more lighting up his eyes. But the Orc-speaker had forcefully hauled Maitimo back into the cavern, still not saying a word, and now here he was five hours later. Like in the fuel pit, he deduced that working kept Orc attention away from him for the most part. So as he had with Únad, he copied whatever he saw these Moriquendi doing, rushing to a bloomery as fast as his limp would allow him. The Moriquendi at the bloomery he had collapsed against had gawked at him, but Maitimo glared them into submission, his irate gaze burning into them until they looked away. Valar, what was it with these Moriquendi?

Despite their behavior, there were at least three Elves at each live bloomery and neither of the Elves at this furnace spoke to him – but he conceded that the fact they did not was most probably his fault. Glaring at new companions was not the most polite thing to do. But with so many Orcs teeming in and around the bloomeries, any desire he felt to try striking up a conversation with them like with Únad, pitiful as it would have been, wilted away rather fast. The Moriquendi did stare at him, though. Always staring, whenever they could sneak their eyes away from their task.

"Lachend?"

It was coarsely whispered, but Maitimo closed his eyes with a soft sigh, twisting his jaw and slightly shaking his head at the name, whatever it meant. Who in all of Arda started that, anyway? He looked up at the Moriquendë at the billow, his left eye now blurring with the reflexive tears that had gathered and he blinked several times as he tried to focus on the Elf's fatigued face. This Elf was one of the few Elves actually wearing a shirt, though it was saturated with sweat and stained with filth. The only feature that distinctively identified him from the rest of the ever dark-haired Moriquendi was the gruesome scar across the side of his throat. It looked painful, but Maitimo was glad to at last be capable of recognizing one Elf without trouble, aside from Únad.

The Elf looked down at him uncertainly, nervously twisting his hands on the broad handle before pointing at the hearth of the smelter. He did not speak any Edhellen – finally, a Moriquendë who seemed to know better! – but Maitimo understood the gesture well enough and shifted forward to the bloom bed, hefting up the pair of iron tongs he had thrown off to the side to tackle the Orc. The deep thrum of the furnace's inner fire was a constant drone in his ears, magnified by the heavy whoosh of air through the tuyere as scar-Elf worked the billow. Maitimo pressed his lips tightly together and took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself. He could already feel the scalding heat flaring out from the taphole and he winced in dreaded anticipation. Valar, this was insane. No gloves, no leathers, no protection of any kind to drag out newly smelted iron ore, but Maitimo knew now that the longer he hesitated, the greater the chance was that an Orc would notice. The first lash on his back showed for it.

Maitimo held his breath as he opened the clawed tongs and shoved them deep into the opening at the base of the furnace, his bare hands disappearing inside as he searched for the crucible at the center, pushing the tongs along the hearth's floor until he hit the lump of ore. He worked the tongs until he felt them take on a solid grip, clenching his teeth in pain as the top of his hand hit the roof of the taphole. He dragged out the porous mass as quickly as he could, the slag-covered ingot pulsing with brilliant reds and oranges as he released it to lie there on the bed. It rocked back and forth a little bit, but then it stabilized as its liquefying heat slowly made the mass droop into a mound against the bed.

Maitimo sighed in relief as he dropped the tongs. It had gone far better than the first bloom he extracted, on which he had burned himself four times in his haste to pull it through the taphole and from which had resulted the next lash on his back for apparently not working fast enough. Valar, he would enjoy seeing an Orc attempt to do it as quickly as he just did. Ai, his father would have his head if he saw him working a smelter so recklessly!

A tight, bitter smile ghosted across Maitimo's dried lips at the thought, but he forcefully banished it from his mind at the ache that tore through his chest. He took up the slag shovel leaning against the bloomery and again shoved the tool into the taphole, scooping out any sediment that remained in the crucible. Once finished, he straightened with a grimace, his back aching, and he leaned towards his left to peer around the smelter's rotund clay wall. "Eh!" he called. The Elf on the other side, the third Elf of their little group, came around to look in question at him. Maitimo nodded wearily to him, gesturing up towards the throat of the bloomery where black smoke was currently belching from. "Go ahead," he said, though he knew the Elf knew what he meant despite the Quenya. Maitimo briefly bowed his head, trying to gulp in air in the erratic gasps his cracked rib would allow him while he listened to the Elf shovel more charcoal and iron ore into the stack. And like all of them did, the Elf moved fast.

He could feel scar-Elf's lingering stare on the back of his head again, but when he twisted around to catch him the Elf looked away, eyes trained on where the nozzle of the billow was shoved into the tuyere. Maitimo narrowed his eyes at him before slowly turning to again regard the glowing mass of iron at his knees.

Maitimo knew he had to retract his earlier assertion just yesterday that these Elves were being idiotic with how recklessly they worked in their haste. He now realized that they had no choice, the several burns on his hands and forearms testifying to that. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and blurring his vision while every part of his body that had not already been hurting before ached with a strenuous burn. He knew he was nowhere near the level of exhaustion each and every Moriquendë looked to be, yet it was proving difficult to maintain the consistent pace these Elves managed to execute their tasks with, doubly so because he himself was forced to move far slower than his wont, all thanks to his foot. Maitimo spared a quick glance to glare down at said foot, that frantic aggravation briefly tearing through him as his gaze roamed the ghastly colors that still bruised it. But he ripped his eyes away and pushed himself to his feet, grimacing as sore muscles screamed at him and then gasping when his left foot took his weight.

Maitimo wiped away the perspiration that dribbled into the hollow of his throat with an impatient swipe of his hand, annoyed even more by its tickle. He rounded the bloomery to the billow, bracing himself against the heated rock. Valar, he wanted to return to the fuel pit. At least in there it was cooler.

He reached the billow, exchanging a silent glance with scar-Elf as he also took hold of the handle and pushed down, arms and shoulders burning up again. And then heaving it back up to force air to be sucked in through the valve. He had seen billows worked before, had worked plenty of smaller ones himself when shadowing his father in his forge, but these gigantic monstrosities were nearly impossible. Maitimo snorted. A massive billow for a massive smelter. How fitting. He could not help but look out of the corner of his eye at scar-Elf, to look at how the Moriquendë was practically stooped over the handle, how the tendons of his brittle wrists strained against his skin, skin that bore the ghastly indentations that only resulted from some kind of bindings. Rope, or something else. Maitimo's eyes traveled up the Elf's emaciated frame and he nearly startled when he found the Elf staring directly at him with a gaze both questioning and wary. And of that poorly suppressed wonder. Discomfort wriggling like a worm inside, Maitimo looked away, working the billow again. He frowned.

Work. He just had to keep working and he would not attract the Orcs' attention, even though all he wanted to do now was collapse against the smelter's wall and catch his breath. If he could just finish one day to sit down and think. To just think.

"Lachend?"

Maitimo sighed again. "Maitimo," he gritted out emphatically as he rolled his eyes over to the third Elf. As soon as he looked away from the billow, he could feel scar-Elf's gaze burning into the side of his head again. Maitimo clenched his teeth, mildly working his jaw. Seriously, what was with these Moriquendi? But the third Elf only gestured towards the ingot with the mallet he was loosely holding.

Maitimo's gaze traveled down to the iron lump. Well, it had evidently cooled enough to beat the slag from it, if its dimmed pulsing of color said anything. Tensing up in preparation for the pain in his left foot, he shuffled back over to the bloom bed, crashing to his knees as he again took up the tongs and clamped them around the bloom. This part was safer at least. Sort of. So long as a piece of the bloom did not break off and fly to land on his bare skin like it had with the last ingot, he would be fine.

Maitimo turned his face away as the third Elf hunkered down and began slamming his mallet against the iron, hammering away at the slag that crusted the ore. The impact jarred up the tongs and into his arms while he involuntarily winced with each bang of the hammer. The Elf struck with a precision that bespoke of having performed this task countless times before and soon enough, the ingot was clean of slag – as much as hammering could remove, anyway – and Maitimo immediately lifted the cooked lump over to the blanket of skin near the bed, the third Elf veering out of the iron's way. Maitimo dropped the ingot onto the skin, disposed of the tongs and bunched up the corners of the sheet. He pushed himself to his feet, heaving up the deposit of iron and cautiously holding it away from his side as he hurried over to the nearest bloom rack of the smithy, staying as clear of the Orcs as he could while weaving through the smelters, several Moriquendi staring at him when he neared and then stepping out of his way.

Maitimo glanced down at the skin-sack and mildly shook his head in dark wonder as he observed the puffs of hot steam wafting up through the openings near his hand. He was well beyond baffled by the skin – if it was skin – that Moringotto apparently employed for everything that required the raw leather. The sheets of skin had to have been treated, though he could not even begin to imagine what treatment they could receive or what beast they had been flayed from as to withstand the burning heat of freshly smelted ore. The nugget he was carrying now should have burned a hole straight through the sack and set the rest of the skin on fire. But aside from the occasional scorch mark, the skin was never damaged, no matter how many ingots he wrapped in its folds. Again, if it was skin, for Maitimo found himself questioning even that, except he had no clue what else it could be. His mind was unerringly taken back to the memory of his first meeting with the Orc-speaker, of the banner with him that had comprised of some ghastly material stretched taut between the two tongs. He now could not help but wonder if it and this skin were two in the same. If they were all the same.

Maitimo scoffed in disgust. It was not like it mattered.

He had discovered earlier that there were several nondescript openings in the cavern, aside from the entrance and two pockets, just as nondescript as the crevice had been in the Tunnel. But next to three passageways were assortments of what he definitely knew to be transportation devices that clearly necessitated the use of two people. Again with the wood, two long shafts were bound together by a drooping expanse of that unnatural skin, on which lay a mass of iron ore freshly smelted from the many bloomeries. Maitimo released a corner of his sack to let his own ingot fall on top of the pile. It tumbled off and down the side, smoking away, but Maitimo turned to walk back to his bloomery before he could see whether it rolled off the skin or not. Eventually two Elves would come and take up the carrier on their shoulders and disappear into one of those tunnels to the Valar knew where. He had seen dozens of Elves come and go these past few hours to do just that, which left Maitimo feeling more confounded than ever before. There were clearly more Moriquendi present than the fifty or sixty he had presumed yesterday. Were there ninety, then? A hundred?

Maitimo bent down to snatch up the slag shovel, rounding the bloomery to join the third Elf in his shoveling, all the while avoiding that annoyingly rapt scrutiny of scar-Elf altogether. He met the third Elf's questioning gaze only briefly before stooping to scoop up some charcoal without a word. He knew the ratios needed to smelt it correctly, memories of watching his father's flawless expertise around the complexity of his own smelter springing to mind as Maitimo worked his own shovel. So he did not need to guess as he assumed the Moriquendi did at the amounts needed of ore and fuel or, Valar forbid, attempt to actually ask the Elves in Edhellen. Thanks to that knowledge, he moved twice as fast and confidently as the third Elf, or he would have if he were not shoveling so clumsily. He was dominantly right-handed but had to reverse his grip on the shovel so that the majority of his weight did not rest on his left foot with each heave, resulting in a very awkward hold. He worried at first at how slow it made him, but so long as he kept working the Orcs seemed to not care. The Orc-speaker was a different story, but he was presently not in the smithy, thank Aulë.

Maitimo turned his head to peer at the third Elf, eyes traveling from his dark head down to his bare and blackened feet to observe how he stood. He twisted his jaw in consideration. No, this Moriquendë did not appear to have a limp, though it was difficult to tell unless he was walking.

"Man te, Lachend?"

Maitimo's eyes snapped up at the frantic whisper. The third Elf was openly frowning at him in both worry and suspicion. He glanced down at his feet where Maitimo had been looking, looking back up in bafflement, his frown deeper.

Maitimo hesitated, wetting his lips with what little moisture was still in his mouth. "Múlamudas?" he asked tentatively.

The Elf jolted back slightly, surprise making its way to his face, though he only looked more baffled. He slowly shook his head. "Ú." The syllable was long and drawn out, but Maitimo had no trouble understanding its negative inflection since it was the exact same in Quenya.

Maitimo sighed, giving the third Elf a tight smile before turning his eyes back down to his shovel. It was worth the attempt. An attempt now numbering twelve.

Because this Múlamudas was turning out to be so incredibly easy to find!

Maitimo looked up as he sensed the nearing presence of another Elf and, using the shovel as a crutch, he moved out of the way when he saw a Moriquendë from the fuel pit – not Únad – approach with one of those sacks made from wood staves on his back, filled to the brim with charcoal. Maitimo nodded in concession to him, standing back to watch as the Elf wearily unloaded it, nearly dropping the weight from his shoulders. Maitimo removed himself into the darker shadows of the bloomery, though it was practically impossible to evade all of the Orcs' lines of sight. But he needed a moment to think, to try to piece together all this mystification in his brain.

Because truthfully, Maitimo was flummoxed, primarily because there was still one point of interest he could not wrap his mind around for the life of him:

What was Moringotto doing? What was he, Maitimo, doing here in this oppressive smithy, being made to take on the labor tasked to all these Moriquendi? It made no sense. If he was just another thrall to Moringotto, why had the Vala killed the rest of his delegation? If Moringotto had just wanted another thrall for his collection, why had he not also taken all sixty of those Elves captive with Maitimo and thereby multiply his slaves and their production by a massive amount? He certainly would have been able to achieve it with the force he sent with the Orc-speaker, especially with those four Valaraukar present. So why had he preordained the rest of those Noldor to die and Maitimo captured if his intention this whole time was for Maitimo to only labor away as all of these poor Moriquendi were being forced to do? There had to be something more that Maitimo simply could not see. There just had to be. But Maitimo could not discern what it might be no matter how desperately he worked his brain. Moringotto was just not making any sense!

Besides, it did not help that the quandary pierced down to the bedrock of his principal question of why Moringotto wanted him at all. Why had he bothered to kill those three score Noldor – Aráto and Sornion and all those faithful Elves who were masters of their own trade come doffing their armor – and not Maitimo? Why did Moringotto want him? Just so that he could now declare that he had a Noldorin prince as a thrall? Why did Moringotto go through all of that trouble and scheming to capture Maitimo if this was all Moringotto wanted him for?

Maitimo glanced over at the third Elf again as the Elf from the fuel pit moved away. He bit his lip, waiting until the Elf met his eyes again with that same questioning stare. His voice was still hoarse, but he spoke up only enough to be heard over the furnace's fire. "Quenderin?" He could not keep the hopeful lilt from his voice.

The third Elf frowned again, glancing cautiously over his shoulder. "Quenderin?" he repeated in a whisper, clearly puzzled. "Man sa?"

Maitimo sighed, looking away. "Nevermind." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture to communicate the muttered Quenya and the third Elf appeared to understand since he returned to his repetitive shoveling, though not before casting one more suspicious glance at Maitimo.

Maitimo watched him for a split moment before forcing himself upright with a grunt, pitting his shovel against the charcoal-dusted floor to alleviate the weight on his left foot. He glanced over at scar-Elf, unsurprised that he was already staring at him while pumping the billow. Maitimo slightly cocked an eyebrow at him. "Quen–"

Scar-Elf was already quickly shaking his head and Maitimo turned away from him stiffly, biting his tongue. He would not snap out. It was not these Moriquendi's fault they did not know Quenderin, but Valar, could not at least one of them speak it?

He ran a weary hand through his hair at the bitter thought, grimacing and pulling it away in repugnance at the grimy feeling of sweat-soaked strands. Reluctance warred within, but that bubbling despondency pushed him to cast one more fleeting look at scar-Elf who, of course, was still staring at him. Maitimo pursed his lips. "Múla–"

The Elf shook his head.

Maitimo turned away sharply, his movements more stiff and jerky as he willed himself to just forget it, forget all of it. He jabbed the shovel into the pile of charcoal with more force than necessary. Valar, just why in all of Arda did he have to find this Elf? Could Únad not have attempted to communicate that much, particularly since he had been doing a fairly good job of it? Maitimo wondered why he even bothered. It was awkward trying to approach these Elves that gawked at him, difficult trying to ask them, embarrassing when they then stared at him as though he had been born under a rock, and did nothing but heighten the risk of the Orcs' rods on his back. Maitimo still did not know if they were allowed to speak or if the Moriquendi forewent talking simply because they were too exhausted, but he did not want to have to garner an Orc's attention to find out. Though they were obviously not permitted to attack the Orcs, he added sardonically.

Maitimo nearly jumped out of his skin when an obnoxiously loud horn blast erupted throughout the cavern.

He looked up in alarm, peering into the smoke-clogged chimney that funneled up from the smithy. His eyebrows drew together. The horn had sounded like it came from up there, echoing on down into the cavern of bloomeries. He remembered the two consecutive horn blasts yesterday and waited for the second one, but it never came. But the Moriquendi immediately responded to it nonetheless.

Before the Orc-horn ended its blaring note, every Moriquendë in his sight was either straightening from their hunched positions, rising from where they knelt by bloom beds, or stopping wherever they were walking. Simultaneously, tongs and shovels and hammers and any other tool were unceremoniously dropped to the floor, their clangs echoing over each other as Elves trudged away from the bloomeries, some Elves pairing up to lean on each other. Maitimo frowned, wondering for a brief and even hopeful moment that the Moriquendi would start filing towards the mouth of the smithy as they had done yesterday, but…no. That momentary flare of promise fluttered and died in his chest, but his frown deepened even further as he watched them unwaveringly spread out towards the walls of the cavern to sit down in the deeper shadows, many of them congregating along a portion of the left wall. Even scar-Elf and the third Elf of their exclusive group were heading that way without a glance back.

It was a resting period, Maitimo suddenly realized. One horn meant a break while two had to mean an end to the day's labor. Realizing that they were actually allowed to rest almost made Maitimo collapse where he crookedly stood. He was quick to do as he saw the Moriquendi doing and shuffled over to the right wall – the shortest distance to walk – and huddled down in the heavy shadows cast by their sloping walls. He did not know how long this break would last, though probably a pitiful amount of time if he had to assume, but he would take what he could if it just meant catching his breath. His stomach seared with pain as he lowered himself and leaned against the rock. He absently crossed his arms over it, trying not to think about it. His stomach had stopped growling for nourishment a long time ago and only now wracked him with an endless, deep-set pain.

Maitimo closed his eyes as he leaned his head against the stone, mouth falling slightly open as he inhaled gulps of air, ignoring the mucky feel of sweat cooling on his skin and the lances of pain that shot through his chest with every breath. He stretched his left leg out in front of him, nearly wanting to cry in relief at the reprieve. Valar, he did not even want to see what his foot might look like now.

But now he finally had a moment to piece together his thoughts and make sense of this mess. Just –

He sensed a presence and his eyes opened, ears twitching as they made out the soft patter of footsteps before his eyes even registered that it was an Elf approaching him, not an Orc. Maitimo froze as the Moriquendë came closer, his steps confident enough that it was obvious his destination was Maitimo himself and Maitimo watched him warily, wondering what he could want. But as his eyes traveled cursorily up and down the Elf's lissome body, he noticed all of the sudden the faulty footing the Elf was walking with and he softly gasped. He was limping!

Maitimo's eyes snapped back up to the Moriquendë's own and he listed forward, catching the Elf's gaze. "Múlamudas?"

The Elf slowed to a stop as he frowned at Maitimo. "Amman len anglennad nin isto?" he quietly grunted as he lowered himself with a pained grimace to sit cross-legged next to him. He looked down at his hands, fiddling with something. "Ú-iston mas de."

Maitimo gave a tight smile. "Thought so," he muttered as he leaned back against the wall again. He may not understand a word being said, but he was fairly positive that the actual Múlamudas would not look at him in downright confusion in response to his name. Maitimo lifted an eyebrow, studying the Elf. "Quenderin?" Why not?

The Elf glanced up, his frown deeper. "Man?"

"Nevermind."

Maitimo looked away and caught the Elf doing the same after several moments of silence. But the Elf caught his attention again as he moved one of his hands up to his mouth and Maitimo's eyes widened as he watched the Moriquendë slide something in between his teeth. Food! He realized he was close to gaping and snapped his jaw shut, listing forward once more. "Where?" he barked, pointing at what looked like meat of some kind.

The Elf stared at him in alarm, stopping mid-chew. He looked down at the handful of food and then twisted around to point towards the opposite side of the cavern. Maitimo's gaze flicked over there, but sitting down as he was there was no way to see through the bloomeries. But he presumed the Elf was pointing to those many Moriquendi he had seen congregate along that wall just moments earlier. Elves were again filtering through the smelters, but Maitimo did not even care what they might be doing now that he knew there was food to be had. He shifted to spring to his foot but froze when the strange Elf grabbed him with a surprisingly firm grip on his arm. Maitimo glared at him, but the Elf just shook his head, his mouth still full with chewing. Maitimo opened his mouth to argue, but he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see another Elf coming out from the bloomeries. It was scar-Elf, and he watched the silent Moriquendë come and squat down to practically collapse against the ground next to him just as the stranger had done. Scar-Elf had both his hands full and, without speaking, he reached over and dropped the serving of food into Maitimo's lap. Maitimo stared at it, confirming that it was indeed meat, before turning his eyes back over to scar-Elf who was now munching down on his own.

Scar-Elf met his gaze, eyebrows hiking up in question, but he again did not speak, instead ripping the tough meat apart from his fingers with a jerk of his teeth.

Maitimo swallowed. "Thank you," he murmured, looking back down at his lap. The meat was definitely charred, definitely overcooked, and definitely of a species that Maitimo could not identify. But the question of the meat's origin hardly slowed him down from taking up the slab of meat and biting into it, wrestling with the stubborn fibers. Valar, it was like trying to chew through leather. It was an unpleasant taste, even rancid, but his mouth watered as the unknown flavor exploded on his tongue. A more morbid part of him had the thought that the meat maybe came from the same creature as those skins did. It hurt swallowing, but he forced it down, grimacing as it scraped against sensitive tissue.

Maitimo was distracted as he again sensed the presence of another Elf and he again looked up. Two Elves were now coming, third-Elf one of them, but Maitimo did not recognize the other one. He stared, casting a significant, questioning look towards third-Elf, but the Moriquendë only looked at him fleetingly. Maitimo's eyes quickly whipped over to where another Elf was coming in from the left. And then another one. And another one. Maitimo gawked openly, his eyebrows drawing together. What in all of Arda….

The five Elves joined the other two in huddling down on the ground close to him – far too close to him, he thought, discomfort worming inside at their proximity. But they either did not notice his awkwardness or did not care as they crossed their legs beneath them. Without a word even to each other and nary a glance towards Maitimo, they all focused on quickly scarfing down their portions of meat.

Maitimo stared, eyes swiveling from one face to another.

This was creepy.

"Ah–" Several Elves glanced up at him at the brief noise and he closed his mouth shut. They look back down at their food. Maitimo stared, eyes moving across all of them again as his frowned further. Was this a Moriquendi thing or an enslaved-Moriquendi thing? Maitimo could not recall the Mithrim ever behaving in any similar fashion to this at all, brief as the time was the Noldor had interacted with them, or more like stared at each other in both fascination and suspicion while Fëanáro and Lord Neldoron had tried to communicate since the Lord of the Mithrim had been the only one in that rather large company to speak broken Quenderin. But never had those Mithrim suggested having such odd behavior as these Moriquendi did.

Come to think of it, why did Lord Neldoron never even tell them about these enslaved kin of his? His father had gone to pains to learn whatever could be gleaned of Moringotto from these Moriquendi, but Lord Neldoron had not so much as uttered a word of this horror. Valar, did he even know? Because if none of these Moriquendi were of the Mithrim, just where in Endórë had these Elves come from, and how? Something bad, unspeakably bad must have happened, but the Mithrim might as well have been living in blissful ignorance for how much they revealed.

Even as these conundrums raced through Maitimo's mind, he espied another Elf approaching, seeming to slink unseen between the smelters as quickly as he could move….And he was limping.

Maitimo held his breath as the Elf crouched down to huddle between two of the Elves, who both scooted over to make room. Maitimo stared, his eyes trained unwaveringly on this new stranger, now numbering eight – well, six, discounting third-Elf and scar-Elf. He briefly glanced around the smithy, wondering if any more planned to head over to his spot along the wall and also wondering if he would see Únad at all. Or even the Elf who gave him his shirt, whom Maitimo found that he kind of wanted to see again. But he saw neither. Several Orcs were still present, moving between the bloomeries with their ever-present rods in hand, but all the Moriquendi had removed themselves to the cast shadows of the circular wall.

The Orc-speaker was still absent and part of Maitimo started to grow suspicious of whether he should be suspicious of that or not.

But he dismissed that and centered his full attention on the eighth Elf and it was not long before the Moriquendë appeared to sense it, for he stopped eating to apprehensively turn his glazed eyes up to meet Maitimo's. He was as nondescript as much as his companions; shirtless and barefoot, dangerously malnourished, hair matted against the sweat, and skin embedded with filth, the soles of his feet blackened while what Maitimo could see of the insides of his smudged hands were speckled with blood.

He pushed that realization away for later, focusing again on the Elf's face, which had visibly grown more anxious the longer Maitimo stared at him. "Múlamudas?" he asked warily, trying to keep the hope at bay. Several of the other Elves were looking between them, but Maitimo snuffed down the rush of embarrassment and refused to look at them, especially scar-Elf and third-Elf, who must both know what he was on about.

But that by now very familiar frown was contorting the Moriquendë's already worn visage. "Man o den?" he muttered in a surprisingly deep voice, eyes flitting from Maitimo to several of his companions. He slipped another large scrap of meat past his lips, chewing quickly. "De ú si, had min gryth."

"Psst," the Elf sitting next to third-Elf interjected. He leaned towards the deep-voice Elf. "Lachend ú-pêd Edhellen," he rattled off in just above a whisper.

Tossing a glance at Maitimo, the Elf's eyes slightly widened. "Man?" he hissed back.

The other Elf nodded. "Thandren. Pêd Queeeenya."

Maitimo smothered a snort, feeling somewhat proud that he understood the gist of their murmurs, or at least what the one Elf was trying to explain about his lack of speaking ability. He had no clue what the first Elf had answered to Múlamudas' name with, but….Maitimo turned his eyes over to third-Elf, who had been discreetly peering at him for a while. An eyebrow slightly lifting, he flicked his eyes meaningfully over to the Elf he just questioned and looked back at third-Elf, his stare insistent. But third-Elf shook his head in response, his clear eyes conveying that he understood the question of whether or not this was Múlamudas. Maitimo sighed, tossing another piece of meat in his mouth as he thought.

Pêd. Hm. He added that to the roster of words he knew he had to start remembering. He was aware that he was using the wrong form of their 'speak' verb every time, but at least these Elves appeared to have no trouble dissecting what he was trying to say. Because that was one of the more astounding differences with this Edhellen. In Quenya, the general conjugation of a verb was the same for each subject, only changing with each different tense. But his father had managed to piece together rather quickly from the Mithrim that these Moriquendi had a different word for every single conjugation of the verb, every single tense and with every single subject. How by the Valar did a language that sounded so flat to his ears wind up evolving into such a ridiculously complicated mess? Pêd, then. One more conjugation of 'speak'. Several dozen more to go.

Wait a moment. Maitimo's eyes snapped over to stare hard at the stranger. How did he know about the Quenya? He had never seen this Elf before, had never seen any of these Elves except for the two he was working with and had only ever mentioned Quenya to the shirt-Elf. And Únad. But neither were anywhere in sight.

The deep-voice Elf only wound up looking more confused as he stared at the other Elf. "Quenya?" he enunciated slowly.

The other Elf nodded. "De lammed," he whispered. And then he shrugged. "Egor ha man pent an bragol."

Maitimo glared at both of them. "Eh!"

"Shh!" All eight of them were quick to hush him, even scar-Elf, and stared at him in a mix of consternation and heightened anxiety. Several looked over their shoulders, scooting in closer to the wall.

Maitimo slowly nodded, letting them know he understood to be quiet. With the smallest of glances towards third-Elf and scar-Elf, Maitimo looked at the rest of them. "Quenderin?" Oh come now, please.

Frowns abounded, many of them looking at each other before returning to stare at Maitimo. "Quenderin?" many of them repeated and Maitimo dropped his head. Quenderin was muttered several more times, as though trying it out on their tongues, along with whatever other Edhellen they spewed out with it. Except for scar-Elf who appeared to revel in silence. Maitimo was just about to seriously abandon the venture and return silently to his food when it suddenly occurred to him that these Elves would not know that word at all. Could not know. Valar, Quenderin was an erudite word! He wagered that not even half the Amaneldi themselves used it, still resorting to the original word it evolved from. Quendian was what he should be using with these people!

Maitimo looked back up. "Psst." Eight pairs of eyes swiveled to him and he held his breath. "Quendian?"

The reaction was immediate. Confusion cleared from their faces, replaced by obvious recognition. The relief that swept through Maitimo was so powerful that he grew dizzy. They shot Edhellen his way, but Maitimo did not even bother with it. His expression softened into something more congenial as his eyebrows rose in question at them all. "You speak Quendian?"

They shook their heads and Maitimo deflated as most of them devolved into mutters again. But the name Múlamudas was mentioned at least once by every voice and Maitimo perked up, growing stiff with tension as he tried to pick out their overlapping Edhellen. "What Múlamudas?" He was met with several silent stares, but Maitimo held up his free hand and gestured to pay attention. "Lasto," he said, suddenly inspired. The Elves looked at him in open surprise, especially third-Elf, and Maitimo nodded, his heart starting to race. Well then, it really did mean 'listen'! "Listen. Múlamudas what?"

"Penninodh Quendian, hîr nîn," whispered the deep-voice Elf. He gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "Mae, Múlamudas pêd den."

"Wait." He all but glared at the Elf as the garble of Únad's own side of their conversation alongside that cart came rushing back, the few words he had comprehended finally piecing together. "Múlamudas speak Quendian?"

There were several nods, accompanied by more of their rapid Edhellen, but Maitimo could hear none of it as this near revelation ricocheted through his mind, thought after thought spinning around his head as quickly as the Edhellen was going through one ear and out the other. But the resentment against Únad that had been gradually building over the last many hours swiftly dissipated until almost nonexistent. By Aulë, to know that this was what Únad had been trying to say, and to do it with that paranoia he had been taut with….Maitimo tossed a cursory glance around the darkened smithy, towards the mouth of the fuel pit, but he was still nowhere in sight. Almost at the same time Maitimo belatedly registered the unhesitant manner these Elves spoke of this Múlamudas with, that except for silent scar-Elf there was not one Moriquendë who had not murmured his name. They all knew who he was, he realized with growing anticipation. Valar, he had to find this Elf! Maitimo listed forward, the speed of his jerky movement startling the two Elves on either side of him.

"Where?" He almost shouted the demand, but even he could hear the raw urgency in his hushed voice. Part of him cringed at how pathetic he sounded, but he looked between the staring Elves insistently. "Where Múlamudas?"

The deep-voice Elf seemed mildly exasperated, but he and four others pointed in unison to where he had just dropped off his own load of freshly smelted ore, where lay that broad opening in the wall of rock. "Min gryth," he pronounced slowly, and Maitimo recognized those words from earlier. The deep-voice Elf's eyebrows canted up slightly and drew together in a clear question of whether Maitimo understood him, gesturing more firmly towards the crevice. "Gryth."

He was referring to the tunnels, Maitimo realized as he followed their fingers to stare at the lone tunnel next to the multiple transportation devices, where this damned Elf with the limp could apparently be found. He looked back at them. "Gryth?"

They all nodded. "Gryth."

Well all right, then.

Maitimo opened his mouth to speak further, having the notion that he could maybe somehow ask where in the tunnels Múlamudas was – because the Valar knew he had certainly figured out that these passages were far from easy to navigate – but just then another blast of the Orc-horn suddenly erupted throughout the cavern, sounding again like it came from the chimney itself. With a speed that completely belied the fatigued set of their scrawny bodies, the eight Elves sprung to their feet and rushed back to the bloomeries – or hobbling, in the case of a few. At the same time, the Orcs stirred from where they had been docilely meandering, several emerging from the deeper shadows of the cavern as they barked out short words in Edhellen to the passing Elves, some shouting "Mudo!" more than once.

All the Moriquendi were moving and Maitimo did not delay a moment longer before pushing against the wall to rise to his feet. Valar, he had not even finished his meat, had barely been afforded any time to do so. He quickly downed the rest of it while he made his way to the smelter, ducking behind other smelters and the Elves stationed there to steer clear of Orc gazes.

Neither scar-Elf nor third-Elf spoke to him, but they did stare at him for a long, pregnant moment before returning to the billow and shoveling respectively, tossing glances his way every once in a while like they usually did. Maitimo ignored them, ignored all the gazes of the Moriquendi in the vicinity he could feel and took up his own shovel, not bothering to check on the progress of their latest ingot, which he knew could not be finished smelting yet. It was not long before sweat started to bead along his brow again, but his throat now felt so deprived of moisture that it hurt to merely breathe. That meat was bliss on his stomach but had been like a felloe-less wagon wheel on his throat.

He kept working, not even feeling the slightest more invigorated after the break, but he was determined to keep pace with the Moriquendi since that was what the Orcs seemed satisfied with. But now Maitimo kept shooting his eyes up to look sharply in between and around the bloomeries, both to hopefully spot Múlamudas appearing in the mouth of one of the tunnels and to hopefully not spot the Orc-speaker, who was still gone. Or was he just waiting on the other side of the smithy's mouth for Maitimo to act up again? But with Múlamudas….Maitimo sighed dismally. Even if he now knew where to search, he still had no idea what the Elf with the limp looked like. Only that he had a limp. Which at least two dozen Elves had, and countless more were on their way to limping simply from ruined feet.

Every time he caught movement in the right tunnels from the corner of his eye he whipped around to look. He saw ten pairs of Elves coming or going, bearing the skins of amassed ore on their shoulders, though he could not see in which direction they turned if entering the smithy. Nor could he tell if any were limping. He swore that three of them were, but all were dark-haired and barefoot, only one wearing a shirt, and Maitimo just could not tell which one might be this Elf with the limp unless he went over there and interrogated every one of them. But then the Orcs would be on him, and then the Orc-speaker shortly after them if he resisted. He had to keep the Orc-speaker away, at least until he could think.

At one point Maitimo rose from the bloom bed with a grimace, the muscles in his back searing as he heaved up another blistering ingot. He turned towards the tunnels and started the trudging walk towards the ingot piles but nearly froze in his steps when his eyes alighted on two Elves hovering over the carrier. Both were dark-haired with any healthy weight melted off their frames and only one wore a shirt. They spoke briefly to each other, the shirtless Elf looking worried over whatever the other one said, but Maitimo's eyes widened as the shirted Elf walked around the carrier to the other end of its shafts. Like many others he was limping, but this Moriquendë practically buckled upon each step, barely touching his left foot to the ground before collapsing all of his weight on his right. He dragged his left foot behind him when he could, arms flailing along his sides to keep his balance, but it still did not stop him from looking as though he was about to fall over with each step.

Maitimo quirked an eyebrow. Now that was a limp.

Quendian: "When historians needed a general adjective 'Quendian, belonging to the Elves as a whole', they made the new adjective Quenderin, but this remained a learned word." [HoME Quendi and Eldar XI.407]