Incunabulum 6: An Ambush
For several days Hrothmar had no more nightmares. He felt almost as if something had been lifted from his mind now that Horthir knew everything and was no longer threatening to send him to Galadriel. The elf fighting-bands had gone back to finish the war in the Misty Mountains and even Hrothmar had high hopes of their success. It was with a light heart that he set out some days later with his horse laded with repaired weapons.
It took him some time to find the elven forces, for they were good at concealing encampments, but at last he found a sentry—none other than Elvisir—hidden in a clump of brush. Various runaway sheets of music scattered about the grass made his hiding place rather noticeable.
"Hello, where are the others?" asked Hrothmar.
"Oh, hello, Hrothmar. Thranduil let you off sword-forging, did he?" asked Elvisir, who was apparently in the middle of composing a song. "The camp is further up; I'll take you to it."
They set off together, Elvisir filling Hrothmar in on the latest war news.
"Horthir and the other Wood-elves are up in the mountains. It's only Lothlorien elves at camp just now, except for your brother Halrodil. Horthir left him behind."
"How's Halrodil doing?" asked Hrothmar, who was feeling in a benignant mood. "Has he killed his first cave troll yet?"
"No, but he's done decently by orcs in the last few days."
"Good for him. Then I take it there's still some fighting to do. I was afraid it would all be over by the time I got here."
"No, unfortunately there were more orcs left than we thought. But we'll soon have them finished off. Elrohir had a fabulous idea: several forces have gone into the mountains to surround what's left of the main orc army and drive them down to the plain where our forces are waiting to intercept them. It's brilliant. They'll be completely surrounded."
"Then it sounds as if I got here just in time."
They arrived at the encampment a short time later to find a few elves standing about in a desultory manner.
"Why are there so few?" asked Hrothmar, looking around in surprise.
"They're spread out in bands across the area so they'll be in position when the orcs show themselves. We don't know exactly where the orcs will appear, so Findor has a larger group here for reserve."
"Do you mean Findor's in charge here? Why didn't you tell me? I'd have kept away."
As he spoke an elf came hurrying across the open to the copse in which the elves were camped.
"A rider approaches from the mountains," he exclaimed.
At this news Findor materialised in his usual unnerving fashion and waited in cold and spectral silence for the rider to arrive. The sound of hooves soon followed and then the horseman appeared.
When they saw him the elves gave a general start. He had ridden hard and his horse was dark with sweat and flecked with foam. The rider's clothes were torn in many places and he was bleeding profusely from various surface wounds. He dismounted and staggered towards Findor.
"Ill tidings," he gasped. "The enemy were ware of our plans. They've made a counter-stroke and completely disrupted our communications with Elrohir."
"Whose band are you from?" asked Findor, grasping the situation rapidly.
"Legolas's. He sent me to bring up what reinforcements are available."
Findor's lieutenant, who had been listening to all this, glanced round the encampment.
"We cannot possibly reach him in time," he said. "Moreover, the attack may come at any moment and we must be ready to meet the orcs in the open."
"No attack can be made until the lines are re-formed," said the messenger.
"Where is Horthir's band?" asked Findor.
"I know not. They received the brunt of the attack and our bands were separated. In the darkness all was confusion. The fighting continues even as I speak."
"Bring my horse," said Findor to a bystanding elf.
"What do you mean to do?" asked his lieutenant.
"We cannot imperil the success of this campaign to help the wood-elves repair their own blunders. I will ride alone to find Horthir."
"He is coming now," shouted Halrodil, running towards the party from the edge of the copse.
His eyes were sharp, even for elf eyes. It was not until some time later that Horthir arrived, breathing hard like the first messenger and with a desperate look in his eyes.
"Findor!" he shouted, reining his horse in hard, but without dismounting. "Tell Haldir to collect the Lothlorien forces and bring them up to the northern passes as fast as they can march."
"Where is your force?" asked Findor without moving.
"They've been scattered. I know not how many remain alive. We were completely cut off from the rest and surrounded. You must bring up help at once if they are to be saved."
"And yet you were able to escape," remarked Findor drily. "How was that?"
"I and one other fought our way through to bring help. My companion was was slain by orc arrows on the mountain slopes. Do you doubt my word? Look at the mountains—already the smoke goes up from orc fires."
Hrothmar saw that this was indeed true, but Findor did not honour the mountains with so much as a glance.
"Our lines are tenuous already as you well know," he said to Horthir. "I cannot ask Haldir to send even a small force. To do so would be to ruin our hopes of victory."
"Victory!" exclaimed Horthir. "Even if they all come up immediately it will only be to prevent total annihilation. There can be no talk now of victory."
"Thranduil might call such talk defeatist," said Findor calmly. "He will not be pleased when he hears you have led his troops into an ambush."
Horthir seemed almost to reel. He gazed at Findor with a hopeless amazement.
"Even at a time like this," he said slowly, "your ambition is uppermost. Can you not understand? Our people are dying!"
"Your people," corrected Findor. "Your flight has left Legolas and his force entirely at the enemy's mercy. I will send a messenger to Elrohir to inform him of the situation."
Horthir straightened and his eyes grew hard. "Elrohir is already aware of the situation," he said. "He is in full retreat. I advise you to look to your own position. By nightfall the orcs will be upon you."
He turned his horse with a vicious jerk and galloped from the encampment in the direction of the mountains. Hrothmar, who had watched the interchange with growing amazement and dismay, suddenly came to life and dashed to where the horses were tethered, with Halrodil close behind him.
He and Halrodil, both mounted, broke from the cover of the copse at the the same time and raced across the plain after Horthir, who was already small in the distance. His horse was half spent and his pursuers soon overtook him, but he was unaware of their presence until Hrothmar shouted to him.
"Hi! Horthir!"
Horthir, a furlong in the lead, suddenly wheeled his horse and turned in consternation.
"What the Morgoth are you doing?" he shouted.
Hrothmar, who had never heard such language from any elf—much less his brother—was struck dumb in admiration.
"We're coming, too," said Halrodil.
"Idiots!" cried Horthir wildly. "Can't you see it's useless?"
Hrothmar, recovered from his shock, stood his ground.
"We're brothers," he said. "We do things together."
Horthir looked at them both for one instant, then with a spasmodic jerk of his knee, rode towards Hrothmar.
"Do something for me," he said in a low voice when he was near enough for Hrothmar to hear it. "Take Halrodil back to the camp and make sure he stays there."
"Horthy, old man," remonstrated Hrothmar.
"I trust you, Hrothmar," said Horthir.
Without another word he turned and galloped off. For a moment Hrothmar watched him, motionless. Halrodil hesitated and then began to ride after him. Shaking off his stupor, Hrothmar rode forward and caught hold of a frayed rope which still hung from Halrodil's mount. They watched Horthir grow small and disappear at the base of the mountains.
"Come on," said Hrothmar, and the two made their way back to the elven encampment.
Findor made no comment when he saw them return. He had taken Horthir's warning and had sent a message to Haldir to consolidate his forces. The Lothlorien bands were strung out thinly along positions chosen for advantage in attack and not defence. Findor's own camp was soon packed up and moved to a stronger position and there the elves waited as the night fell.
In the dusk parties of elves began to pass through the encampment, bringing whispers of the disasters in the mountains. Hrothmar and Halrodil listened hopefully for news of their own forces, but none came. By dawn it was clear that the war had taken on a different aspect.
Early in the morning a message came from Haldir saying that Elrohir's forces had been obliged to retreat and that now the two elven armies were separated by the Misty Mountains and, lurking within them, a larger army of orcs than the elves had thought existed.
Also came the news that Horthir's band had been almost completely eliminated and Horthir himself slain.
A band of Wood-elves reached the encampment at noon. They belonged to Legolas's force and were mostly walking wounded making their way back to Mirkwood for medical aid. They stopped at the camp for the noon meal and gave a brief account of what had occurred in the mountains.
"We had reconnoitred an orc tunnel," said the most loquacious of the party; "and were following it with our forces more spread out than was entirely wise, when we were suddenly assaulted from a side passage and everything was thrown into confusion. Horthir's band was cut off and surrounded—I fear many did not escape. Our party was behind them and so we tried to make our way back out while fighting a rearguard action. Horthir and his elves fought their way forward to find an exit, and so we went on getting farther and farther apart. There were hordes of orcs."
"Hordes and hordes," interposed a second elf with a bandage over one eye.
"They kept pouring in from passages on either side and soon we were surrounded. Suddenly we saw Horthir again, far down the passage, hacking his way towards us with the blue light of his sword glimmering in the darkness. He fought furiously, but the orcs at last brought him down. We tried many times to recover his body, but we could not."
Hrothmar saw suddenly, as a bright flash leaves a dark etching on the mind, his father's body as it had looked when recovered at last from the orcs after many days. His eyes turned to Halrodil. Halrodil understood none of that, for he had never seen his father. He had not yet been born when it had happened.
"His spirit will rest in the halls of Mandos," said Halrodil solemnly.
Hrothmar winced and turned away.
The sun drew towards the west; evening fell and the stars came out. Elvisir sat on a stone in a patch of grey moonlight, surrounded by scattered sheets of music, alternately plucking chords from his harp and jotting notes onto the nearest sheet. At last he spread the music out in front of him and began to sing a lament for Horthir in which he likened him to Fingolfin of old who went to fight Morgoth in single combat. And when he had finished, he played the favourite song of Galadriel:
Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar!
Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar.
Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!
Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar!
Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar.
Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!*
Hrothmar sat alone, silent and unmoving. Eventually he was aware that Findor had come past and stopped a moment to stare down at him. He did not look up, but suddenly the memory of Dol Guldur and what Findor knew about it flashed into his mind. It filled him with uneasiness and he followed Findor with his eyes as he passed on.
Findor strode over to Elvisir, handed him a piece of paper, and dispatched him with a wave of the hand. Elvisir looked at the paper inquiringly.
"For Haldir?" he said.
"Yes. Get."
Elvisir went to the picket string, mounted a horse, and rode out of the encampment. Hrothmar got to his feet as Findor came towards him again.
"You are no longer needed here," said Findor. "You've delivered your freight; return to Mirkwood."
"The war isn't over yet."
"It is for the present, thanks to your brother's mismanagement."
Halrodil, who was sitting nearby, got up with a distressed expression.
"I was not referring to you," said Findor.
"We know whom you're referring to," said Hrothmar. "It wasn't Horthir's fault we were beaten."
"You have not seen enough of the fighting to know. The wood-elves have ruined our chances again and again by their blunders."
"I've seen Horthir fight," said Hrothmar. "Don't think you can fool me. You're just jealous."
"Jealous?" said Findor, his cold eyes flashing.
"Jealous and you hate Wood-elves. You wanted him out of the way."
Findor took a step towards Hrothmar. "It has been rumoured that our kinsfolk were betrayed in the mountains," he said in a low voice. "The wood-elves inhabit a dark forest, and their lands lie on the very borders of the dark lord's country."
"You can't pin anything like that on us."
"There are ways of learning the truth."
Hrothmar was silent, remembering what Findor knew. The old fear returned, but this time he could define it—a terror of being trapped. His attempts at getting free seemed to have only ensnared him more.
Halrodil understood nothing of Findor's implications and spoke up in Hrothmar's defence.
"Hrothmar is right," he said. "It was your fault we did not make the attack in time last week, because you delayed to send the message."
Scarcely deigning to look at him, Findor delivered a back-handed blow which sent the lightweight Halrodil halfway across the camp.
"This is no time for petty quarrels," he said to Hrothmar. "Do you wish to lodge a formal complaint with the elves of Lothlorien?"
Hrothmar was wild with rage but, as was usual for him, his anger only cleared his head and made him more cautious than ever.
"I have no quarrel with any of the Lothlorien elves except for you," he said.
"Your quarrel is with all the Eldar, Avari**."
Hrothmar swung. Findor ducked, but Hrothmar had anticipated that and his next blow, delivered with his other hand, connected where it counted—in the hollow just beneath the jawbone. Findor reeled back and nearly lost his footing and Hrothmar was following up his advantage when a blow to the back of his head informed him that Findor had allies.
He felt multiple arms clutching at him and dragging him backwards, but his smith work had given him an edge over the others in muscle and weight. He broke free and rushed forward. Through the confusion he heard Halrodil shouting, "Hrothmar! Hrothmar!" He paused. Something struck him across the face and he fell back against a tree***.
He tried to get up, but Findor stood over him panting, his breath smoking in the cool autumn night, a long white knife in his hand pinned against Hrothmar's throat. Behind him Halrodil stood, swaying a bit, pale and with spouting blood from his forehead. Apparently he had tried to stop Findor.
"Mirkwood will not forget this," said Hrothmar.
"Shut up," said Findor. "Don't waste the little breath left you in idle threats."
Hrothmar glanced around at the watching elves. They were all of the blond, Lothlorien variety, but surely they had better feelings despite that fact.
"Are you just going to stand there?" he said. "He sent my brother to his death. He might have saved the battle if he had brought up troops in time. He's the traitor."
Findor gave the knife a vicious twitch which drove it into Hrothmar's neck and loosed a trickle of blood.
"The evidence is too strong against you," he said. "Did I not care to know the truth so strongly I would slay you now, but you will stand trial in Lorien."
Hrothmar looked at the other elves, but met only dark stares.
Findor lowered the knife and sheathed it. "Lock up the wood-elves," he said.
Immediately Hrothmar and Halrodil were thrust into a wooden cage, reserved only for prisoners, and hoisted into the tree limbs above, all possible means of escape effectively cut off. Through the long hours they sat together, neither speaking, nursing their mutual injuries.
Through the blackness of his grief, Hrothmar's anger burned with a white-hot glow. Yet he was afraid, too. He had heard of Galadriel's talents in mind reading and knew he stood a small chance at his trial with her as judge, Findor as prosecuting attorney, and a host of Lothlorien elves as jury. Much as he had feared to stand before Galadriel as a medical patient, he feared even more to face her as a criminal.
Haldir had decided to consolidate the Lothlorien forces and bands of elves continued to converge on the camp through the night. The prisoners' lofty position and the accounts of the evening's events circulating freely among the elves exposed the two brothers to much undesired attention. It was very uncomfortable in the cage, as well. Halrodil dozed a bit, but Hrothmar suffered from his usual insomnia.
Near midnight there was a stir in the wooden cage. Hrothmar clutched at the sides, for it seemed to be swinging, but he soon realised that it was being slowly lowered. He readied himself for some villainy of Findor's, but when the cage had reached the ground and the door had been opened, the elf who insistently beckoned them out was Elvisir.
"I've heard it all," he said. "Don't bother explaining, just get out of here."
"Where to?" asked Hrothmar drily, but climbing out of the cage without delay.
"Your best chance is to go northwards; you'll probably meet the fewest elf bands in that direction."
"I mean we can't escape for long," said Hrothmar. "If we go back to Mirkwood, the Lothlorien elves will make Thranduil hand us over—and Thranduil will probably do it, too."
"Well, I've done the best I can. If you can't trust your own people, I don't know what you can do."
"Why don't you tell Haldir the truth about what Findor did?"
"I can't," said Elvisir. "I don't like Findor, but he's a Lothlorien elf and I'm a Lothlorien elf, and I can't go against him. We high elves have to hang together."
"Even against the truth?" asked Hrothmar hotly.
"Some things are more important than the truth," said Elvisir, but he looked down as he said it and did not seem to have much conviction.
Hrothmar gazed at him for a moment, struggling against what he knew to be practically a religion to all elves: staying true to the tribe despite the consequences to anyone or anything else. He had been raised to think so too, and now was the first time he had ever questioned it. He had at last come up against something more important.
"That's the last time I ever trust an elf," he said.
He and Halrodil turned and vanished into the darkness.
* For the rest of this song, see The Fellowship of the Rings, Book II, chapter 8
** Hrothmar is not actually of the Avari, since the Wood-elves were Teleri, but the word is a common insult among elves.
*** Findor appears to have a working knowledge of Kung Fu.