Two riders came to the top of a once-green crest overlooking the plains of Western Vanyamar.
Galadriel wore mail and a helm. She carried a sword at her hip but did not draw it, for she knew that her power was not in her arms. Beside her, Fingon stood restlessly in his stirrups, trying to get a better view. Before them, the battlefield was made ready. As great blocks of troops in armor that flashed with the lightning, marched with precise order to encircle the fortress, they beat drums that echoed far across the innocent plains of Elvenhome.
She watched with satisfaction as Turgon's siege towers were efficiently erected and dragged into position by teams of Valinorian draft horses who faced the reek of the dead with ears perked forward under their lovingly crafted armor. The precise rattle of battle snares echoed the ringing mail of the gathered army of nearly fifty thousand troops assembled under the banners of many who had fallen in the great battles of the first age. The armies of Gondolin and Nargothrond, and Doriath and the holdings of Himring and all of Beleriand had taken little than a fortnight to muster once again as they had in the days of their wandering youth. None had mentioned the grim reality that, with the Doomlord fallen, they did not yet know the fate of any who would die this terrible day. For the first time, many looked at death with the uncertainty of mortal men, but seeing the white lady and hearing her words of hope and certainty, they were unafraid.
The storm that had churned above the black walls of Mandos had grown into an almost living entity, and the dark clouds now stretched across most of the sky. Galadriel looked to the East, and between the peaks of the mountains, she could see the distant light of Earendil shining its light across the belly of the storm, like a blue-tinted sunrise.
There was a crackle of ossanwe as orders flew back and forth between sections of the army. They sang together in ancient battle hymns to banish despair and bring courage to the heart.
All was ready.
"We will draw them out with bombardment, and then I will have my riders close from the flank," Fingon said, and Galadriel nodded. She raised one hand, and from that high place, all could see the light upon her hand. A great ringing of silver trumpets went up and she felt the Princess of Gondolin give the order to release the trebuchets.
There was a moment of tense stillness as the beams in the devices creaked and released their payloads in long arches through the slashing rain. With a terrible BOOM, they shattered against the high, black walls, and wherever the stones tumbled loose, a swarming mass, like a dark liquid that moved with cruel intention, seemed to seep forth from the walls of the fortress and soon flowed over the ramparts unhindered.
"What is that?" Fingon said beside her, straining his eyes against the slashing rain. It took her only a moment to see that it was not a single substance but a mass of undead who moved without the dignity of an army of men or elves, but in a piling mass of bodies in varying
levels of decay who clawed their way across one another, their eyes burning with a purple hunger.
"Death," Galadriel answered.
…
The veiled elleth sat on a stuffed cushion before the fire. Her flowing black garments were fashioned of lacework flowers which shone silhouetted in the firelight as she lifted the veil from her face. Her eyes gleamed brilliantly in the backlit shadows of her visage alight with the silver and gold of the two trees undimmed by the sight of sun or moon.
Aragorn kept the child close to his side as the crowd pushed the newcomers forward to stand on a brightly colored carpet decorated with Finwë's radiant sun. Maedhros dropped to one knee without being prompted, and it was clear that Elrond was about to follow his example when the lady laughed in a clear and joyful voice.
"We are all equals here, Son of Fire!" she proclaimed, and her voice was deep and queenly as she looked upon him with a smirk. Maedhros looked up at her, searching the backlit mystery of her face for some echo of his father, "Kings, princes, and children, we all stand alone before Eru." She pushed her veil back past her snow-white hair, and there was a seer's dissection in her glance as she regarded them one by one with a regard like starlight in primordial waters, "sit, and listen!" They saw now that there were many low cushions, each one ornamented with the patience and skill of a master weaver.
Aragorn took one. Looking around at the many gathered faces, he saw his own people, but also many kind and noble warriors and simple people of ages passed who, it seemed, had been gathered together from their places of waiting. He wondered at the evil fate that had pulled so many innocents from their peaceful lives and, if Elrond was right, would allow him to return to his family while they could not.
Already, the spirit of the child clinging to him resonated faintly, turning the edges of her smile to stardust as she settled onto the shelter of his side in innocent confidence. The music of the universe was reflected in her trusting smile. She looked to be about a few months older than Celiriel.
She would never grow up. The thought hit him like a punch to the throat, and to his shame, he found himself desperately seeking the gathering dead for his wife and children, and feeling a profound relief when he did not find them amongst their huddled number.
"Your little brother," Miriel Þerindë addressed Maedrhos with a shake of her head, "Has caused quite a bit of chaos in our halls, Nelyafinwë. What have you to say for him?"
"Only that I have refused to aid him in this madness at every turn," Maedhros confessed earnestly, the fire light shining off his unbraided auburn hair. "this goes beyond the evil of any oath, be it broken by death's bitter medicine or no. what my brother has done is an affront to Eru himself."
"He speaks the truth," Elrond came to his defense as he had been doing for so many long yeni, "He bears no love for Curufinwë's madness."
Miriel smirked and turned her gaze upon him, "I met your brother once, Peredhel. He also caused a bit of chaos in his time. I would not trust his twin to do better. I wonder which of you sacrificed more for love in the end? All that work, Earendilion, just to make yourself a Kinslayer."
Elrond stared at her open-mouthed, "I had to protect my son."
"I would know little of that," she answered coldly, her gaze shifting to Aragorn, "This is no place for the living, edan, and yet here you are, most curious."
"His name is Aragorn Telcontar, and the power which has been stolen from the Doomlord keeps him trapped here," Elrond came to his defense hotly, "we must return him to the living. We must return him to his family."
Miriel studied him for a moment, and her gaze was ancient as the darkness and more full of terrors, "if you still can," she said quietly, "tell me, edan, hast thou heard the music of Illuvtar, hast thou seen that you walk upon the measures and bars of His harmonies, and have you heard the call of the silence at their ending?"
Aragorn had never truly understood the terror that the Rohirim had once expressed to him at the rumor of the lady Galadriel in her haunted forest under the stars. But the fear of the white lady was an illusion for foolish mortals. In the black lady Þerindë, the Dead Queen of the Noldor and the mother of Fëanor, it was as if the darkness between the stars had been given form and that darkness knew his own.
"No." Aragorn lied stubbornly, feeling the lucid gaze of the child at his side.
"Hope you do not," she gave him a knowing smirk, "for there is a call which no heart can resist at the end of all things. Your time has not yet come. If you can but turn your path away, you might spare your family from doom."
"Can you help us?" Aragorn asked directly, "Atarinkë's abominations roam the halls unchecked, do you know a way to undo this dark sorcery?"
"It is for this very reason that I have assembled you here," she looked at Fingolfin sadly, "all who would fight for liberation must come into accord for the salvation of Aman." Her glance moved to the little girl seeking shelter in the shadow of her king, "and to defend the innocent. Curufinwë," she paused as if the name left a foul taste in her mouth, "Blood of my blood, fire of my fire, seeks to unlock the secrets of the gift of men, to look beyond the circles of the world and to hear the final music and the silence beyond. But this is forbidden, and it goes against the nature of the spirit of the Eldar. We are, and ever shall be, everlasting as Arda. I know because I, too, have attempted this terrible art." She let silence ring for a few beats. "I was the first Necromancer and the first seer who beheld the whole symphony of history and my part in it. Before men were ever seen in the hills and mountains of Beleriand, I sought to spread my sight across all of Ea, to understand the will of the Powers and weave history at my feet, and all I beheld was ruin until the end of all."
"Then is there no hope?" Aragorn asked, "Is all joy to be stolen from our lips as soon as it is tasted?"
Miriel laughed, and the sound was the same as Finwe heard under the forests in the first days, "It is true, much of the music is set in a minor key. I alone amongst my people was cursed to see those who I love so dearly burned away into the ashen void. My husband and son are turned to ash, my house lies in ruin. the music is unrelenting and while it plays, it may bring us to tears, but I think we will be made better for the hearing of it, in the end. For the everlasting, to seek death is to defy the will of Eru, so I have spent the long years at the feet of the Doomlord, learning and waiting as the fateful stars of my family's fate aligned." She looked at Elrond thoughtfully.
"Waiting?" he prompted.
"For the coming of the Star Child who will wear the eternal darkness as a mantle and the secret fire as a sword and hold life and death in balance."
"You speak in riddles, lady," Aragorn said, watching her hands. She had familiar callouses on her thumbs where her embroiderer's craft had worn a yellowed patch for the pressing of needles into cloth, "what of my son?" he asked.
"He comes even now, and behind him, the armies of Eru lay siege to this fortress; for as once they fought the spirit of Discord in the elder days, and his servant, Dominion in the new, now the Enemy is Silence, as a song cut short in its playing." She smiled at the child under Aragorn's arm, "Our sundering has made us weak, and we became weaker still until the deathless lands disappeared from mortal eyes. In death and dreams, we might remember how we once touched the world, but is the world you wish to rule, oh king and father of kings, one so distant from the fire at its secret heart?"
"I only want peace." Aragorn confessed and repeated, "Where is my son? Where is Eldarion?"
"I have seen his coming like a ship afar off across the unbending sea. But a great darkness stands before him ere he finds the way forward. The Sons of Feanor stand divided, and in his brutal undeath, the fair Tyelko may choose a less wholesome mount to do his hunting. The boy is in peril. Should he be taken before Curufinwë alone, it will go ill for him."
"Alone?" he asked desperately.
"Not yet," she looked far away, "He is guarded by the light of flower, flame, and song."
"Then he found the others? He found help?" Aragorn asked, but she did not have the opportunity to answer, for at that moment, there was a frantic knock at the invisible stone door.
Miriel stood, recognizing the pattern of the knock, and nodded for the armed Noldo beside it to press the combination of stones that would let the newcomer inside.
The black-clad elf who stumbled through and leaned against the closing wall behind him looked to be winded as if he had been sprinting. In undeath, Caranthir Fëanorion was even paler than he had been in life, and his black hair hung down in a tangled curtain. He clattered down the stairs in a frenzy and burst among them, skidding to a halt when he saw Maedhros in open-mouthed shock.
"Maitimo."
"Moryo!" Caranthir stiffly returned his elder brother's embrace, pushing him away after only a moment.
"They're coming!" He said to Miriel, and he pointed behind him towards the door. Aragorn looked to Elrond, who stood beside him. He seemed to be counting to himself.
"Where are the Ambarussa?" Miriel asked. "Where is Maglor," Elrond whispered.
"I could not reach them," Caranthir admitted, shaking his head, eyes bright with emotion, "but I got to a window before I was seen, my lady. The whole fortress is mobilizing. Great stinking hoards of the dead pour forth unlike anything I have seen. I tried to lose them in the darkness, but they are everywhere, searching for us. They will be here whether they follow me or not." It was clear that there had been a contingency plan for such an event, for everyone in the room sprang into action at once.
"Anyone who wants to stay out of the fighting, come this way!" Fingolfin commanded, sweeping aside a tapestry to reveal a door into another passageway, "Women, children, mortals with us!" his men sprang to action with the perfect coordination that centuries of practice still clung to even after all these years, leveling their polearms they formed a phalanx and lead the retreat out the tunnel.
"Go on," Aragorn pushed the child away to go with the other civilians. She looked back at him as someone took her hand, and a fresh anger ignited within him when he realized he had not asked her name. "Have you arms?" He turned to the Dead Queen.
"Go with them, son of Indis!" she spoke to Fingolfin without a hint of contempt.
"Where does this lead?" Fingolfin asked as the occupants of the room passed. There was a great rumbling and stamping in the corridor above them and sand fell in hissing ribbons from the stone ceiling.
"To the surface," Caranthir answered, "it opens to an inner ring of the fortress." A familiar roar and a crash came from beyond the hiding place, and everyone flinched as the walls shook. One of the children started crying, "Make haste, I fear that it smells us. You might meet resistance. Bring arms!" he had climbed atop a couch on the adjacent wall and pulled down one of the large tapestries, revealing a wall full of gleaming swords, polearms, and glimmering mail. They rattled and sang hungrily at the shaking stamp of their ancient enemies.
"Many of those who enter these halls bear their arms to the feet of the Doomlord." Miriel explained to the baffled-looking human, "I have foreseen the need for them." Aragorn took a well-made longsword from the wall, pulling it partially out of the sheath to judge the steel's quality and wonder at its owner's fate. It was made in the style of Gondolin and its blade was shining blue. Damrod also selected a sword and waited to see what his lord would do when he fastened it about his waist.
There was another great crash against the outer wall. Damrod staggered into Aragorn as he positioned himself between his king and danger.
"Go with them!" Elrond ordered, taking a repaired shirt of rings down from a hanger, "but wear this." He urged, forcing the mail over his foster son's head like he was dressing a small child. "And remember those who wait for you across the sea," he briefly embraced the mortal, laying an earnest kiss into his temple where he could sense the lingering scars of the injury that had sent him to this place of darkness.
"You aren't coming?" Aragorn pulled back, straightening the mail and fastening the belt that came with the sword around his waist.
"Estel," he touched Aragorn's face, savoring the reality of him, "I came here to find you, and I will use all my abilities to see you set free." There was a great crash, and the stones of the wall at the top of the stairs shifted inward, "Don't you dare leave her." He commanded with tears in his eyes, pushing him after the last of the fleeing Gondorians and slamming the door behind Damrod.
…
"Arwen, I'm going to have to cut the band." Elladan caressed his sister's hair. Her pained breaths came in uneven, shaking gasps as she lay her burned hands across the cool table to lie them in a bowl of medicated water with bruised athelas leaves floating on its surface. He had rushed her from the catacombs to the Palace Infirmary. The only ones who noticed that the queen was nearly swooning from pain were Eowyn, Faramir, and Gimli, who stood under the eaves of the Infirmary and rushed after them when they saw Arwen's state. He had only allowed Eowyn into the surgery despite Faramir and Gimli's obvious concern.
His sister jerked away as he gently turned her left hand, "no." she begged, nauseated and delirious with pain, "Elladan, please!"
"I know, I know, I'm so sorry." He looked at the green gem and delicate sculpture of the ring of Barahir, this ancient heirloom out of the forgotten West, a symbol of a friendship between men and elves that had grown into the love that had, a few days ago, seemed to be the hope of mankind. The back of the band was deeply embedded in the charred wreckage of her fingers. "Finrod Felagund, forgive me," he whispered, taking a tool from Eowyn. Arwen closed her eyes and sobbed as he forced the ring cutter under the band and snapped the ancient metal easily. Even the lightest touch seemed to bring fresh tears to her eyes.
"There," he managed to free the mangled band from her finger. "I know it hurts. We will get it fixed, don't worry." He kept her hands submerged, "I can give you some more poppy milk," he offered.
"It's bad for the baby." She shook her head, a sheen of sweat on her brow and upper lip.
"Arwen, if you go into shock and fade from the pain, it will be worse for her." He was honest, as a good healer should be.
"Are you sure this isn't too much?" Eowyn took the dose of the painkiller that Elladan had prepared from the side table.
"She's an elf, Eowyn." Elladan reminded her, and she realized that the word had two meanings. It was not only that she would resist the effects of the drugs but that the combination of emotional and physical pain could easily kill her. Arwen nodded and allowed Eowyn to tip the cup into her mouth. She made a face of disgust at her brother.
"What did you hope to accomplish?" Elladan asked, worry etched across his face. "by using that cursed stone?"
"I had to see whether the wizard spoke true. Had to see for myself," she said quietly, leaning into Eowyn for comfort, "the stain of decay has soiled all that once was safe and pure. I saw ada in the darkness, in the halls of the Doomlord, where he should never have gone until the passing of the world." She blinked back tears that she could not wipe away, "He stood against a great evil, and all the hosts of Valinor made siege upon the fortress of the dead, a madman sat upon the throne of Mandos, it's all true, Elladan. You must let the wizard complete his work."
"I know," Eowyn knelt beside her, looking up into her queen's face with pity, "I have seen the same vision." Arwen's drug-softened eyes fluttered as her breathing evened.
"And Eldarion?" Elladan asked, still holding her wrists. He would not start the process of cleaning the burns and binding her hands until she had fully succumbed to the drugs.
"He just met his uncle Finrod." She slurred, lying her dark head on the edge of the table, dreamless sleep lulling her away from grief and pain.
…
"Stay at my back," Glorfindel ordered, squeezing Eldarion's shoulder through his mail.
Anduril shook in the prince's hand as he backed up into the reassuring solidity of Glorfindel's back, glad to be at the other end of his spear. He would never have admitted to being afraid of spiders, per se. Still, despite Winmaril's preachy Sylvan romanticism, he had never allowed one to live in his bedchamber for more than a few seconds. He now realized Those spiders that made the drafty citadel their home was but a faded reflection of the true horror that had once spawned such evil creatures in the dark places beyond the orbits of Arda.
The night had come alive all around them with the skittering forms of thousands of purple- eyed arachnids. They quailed at the first resonating chord of Finrod's song, and Glorfindel swept his spear in a great arc, keeping them at bay. The first wave was small enough to be crushed underfoot, and wiping spider guts off his boot, Eldarion foolishly hoped that that would be the last of them. But then the larger spiders appeared, and they liked to jump.
Glorfindel's carefully drawn perimeter swiftly shrank as they fell between their ankles and had to be crushed underfoot or stabbed.
The horses snorted and stamped as the creatures began to bite at their legs. They were standing some thirty feet away, and between them, a cluster of crawling legs seemed to ooze from the shadows, eight purple eyes glowing in the night as she bared her dripping fangs at the prince and gesticulated with clawed appendages held higher than his head. Finrod's song resonated through his whole body, and Eldarion suddenly remembered how to fight.
"Elendil!" he shouted (just like his father had taught him) and brought down the sword upon the creature's furry carapace. It crunched and spattered him with ichor as he spun to put his foot through another and hewed the legs off a third.
"Get to the horses!" Glorfindel ordered, slashing his spear to clear the space between them and the quickly panicking steeds. Only Riele remained unphased as she crushed one after another with her cloven hooves and impaled them with her horn as their foul fluids stained her creamy coat.
Finrod stood behind them as the darkness came alive in a hulking form higher than the trees. He joined his voice to the music of his harp and faced the new darkness with one hand raised in a song of breaking and slowing to buy his companions a few moments to escape.
"I heard you died, naked and terrified." A cruel laughter cut across his song as out of the darkness, riding astride an enthralled arachnid abomination, the fair-haired son of Fëanor appeared. At the urging of its rider, the spider pounced upon him with its poisoned fangs bared. Finrod struck a chord upon his harp, striking the monster's side and throwing it off track mid-leap. Lashing out, the monster hooked one stinging claw around the strings of his harp, and they rang in a dissonant jangle. Both smashed down in a tangle of legs and teeth. A moment later, there was a flash of blue steel, and Finrod staggered away from the stilling mass of legs, soaked in black blood, wiping a blade on his thigh and spitting out a mouthful of foul fluid.
Celegorm sprang aside lightly from the ruin of his mount. He drew a recurve bow before his feet hit the ground. And had leveled an arrow at the prince's fleeing back. Glorfindel saw where his single working eye was trained and, spinning his spear in a great arc, aimed a blow to put it out.
"Run!" Finrod grabbed Eldarion's arm to pull his attention from where the boy had seen that spear he had so playfully bouted with only a few minutes ago, nearly splitting the fair-haired elf's skull in half. Had the universe been in order and life and death been in their proper arrangement, that should have been the end of Celegorm, son of Feanor. But as Glorfindel stepped back in horror, he stumbled forward unhindered with a low moan. Eldarion screamed as Finrod lifted him onto Rielle's back.
"That is new," Glorfindel remarked before he spun the spear in a great arc above his head and severed his neck cleanly. The body crumpled to lie atop his fallen mount. Glorfindel made a few more swipes with his spear, forcing the spiders into retreat. His horse cantered up to him, stomping nervously as he fluidly swung himself into the saddle.
Thinking quickly, his heart still hammering, Eldarion had wiped the blood from Anduril's blade and held it aloft, finding that it glowed clearly, showing a rocky ridge to the south. "This way!" he shouted, galloping off into the night with the two gore-spattered elf lords behind him.
...
"This is it!" Eldarion announced, jumping from the saddle and running up to a large boulder. He wondered if Aulë had placed this single massive stone alone in this field himself at the beginning of time. Eldarion touched the stone, and it was warm as the first faint light of morning began to show its massive geometry.
Glorfindel followed him, smelling the air, grimacing, and looking to the lightening sky.
"They have joined the battle." He said cryptically, looking to the South where cursed fires had sent a violet light onto the clouds.
Eldarion stepped up to the rock, holding up the blade. Finrod stood behind him, taking down one of his braids as he studied the stone, "there's generally some trick to these sorts of things. They can often be unlocked with a word or a song."
"Mellon." Eldarion tried, raising the tip of the sword to the stone and earning a fond smile from Glorfindel. That same strange red light reflected in the blade, spreading from the maker's mark above the hand guard and lacing up the marbled steel of the blade to concentrate on the tip. The stone remained unchanged.
"I don't think the Valar spoke Sindarin when the world was formed." Finrod had sat with his mangled harp in his lap. He combed out his braid with his fingers, and his hair fell into the grass in a gleaming pool,
"Finarfinion, know you the Valarin word for friend?" Glorfindel asked. With an experienced hand, Finrod twisted three strands of his own hair into new harp strings to bind and tighten in their pegs.
"I do not." He confessed, plucking thoughtfully at the string until it rang at the correct pitch, not looking up from his work even as Riele watched over his shoulder.
When they had finally found the place, Glorfindel had insisted that they rest for a few minutes, hearing no sign of pursuit. He had insisted that Eldarion eat, though, from the brilliant energy that seemed to be vibrating through the boy's every movement, he knew better than to insist on more than a moment's rest. The hour of Doom was growing close, and the child would go into it armed with his father's sword, his great-grandmother's baking, and a purely medicinal dose of his grandfather's liquor.
"What did Uncle Gimli say?" Eldarion looked at Riele as if she would speak. He jammed a quarter of a square of lembas bread into his mouth and dissolved it with a casually offered swallow of Glorfindel's miruvor. He tried to hide his excitement. It was a legendary treat for adults and elves, which his uncle Elladan had never offered to share. A single swallow of the floral liquor made him feel brave, strong, and like he could fight a balrog with his teeth.
"What do we do?" Eldarion paced. He thought for a moment and seemed to have an idea as he set Anduril's tip to the rock, "Ah," he planted his feet firmly and in his best accent of the
Dwarrowfolk, he said, "barook-kazad-kazadi-menu." He tapped the tip of the sword to the rock, but it only flashed red.
"Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!" Finrod corrected him and struck a chord on his newly strung harp, letting the note echo into the Earth. Drawn by some foolish intuition, Eldarion winced and brought the delicate steel edge of his father's blade down onto the granite. A white-hot fire raced down the length of the sword and through his body into the ground below his boots but it did not burn.
The ground shook violently, and a crack ran through the center of the boulder. Eldarion was thrown onto his backside, and he dropped Anduril with a clang. The boulder split with the sound of a key unlocking. The two halves of the rock stood for a moment before, with a tremendous and ponderous groaning they fell open like the covers of a book. The boulders rolled away to either side to crash against the trees, and where they had been, they revealed a passage between them that went down into the darkness. They all stared, frozen in wonder for a moment.
"He knows that we are here," Finrod told Glorfindel as he pondered the mountains and the stones. Glorfindel was helping Eldarion to his feet. The boy frowned at the tip of the blade but found it unmarred. "the Creator favors the boy. Perhaps the Valar have not abandoned us entirely." Eldarion was not paying attention, for it seemed that the perfectly hewn rectangle of blackness was drawing him inward like a breathing mouth.
Riele whinnied poignantly. Eldarion looked back at her and stopped. She stood between the other two horses, swishing her tail expectantly. "You won't like it much in there, Princess," Eldarion said, and he did not expect himself to become emotional but his eyes prickled at the thought of leaving his loyal friend.
"She may yet have other deeds to perform this day, my prince," Glorfindel said gently.
"We should relieve them of their burdens and return them to camp," Finrod said, releasing the strap from his horse's saddle and throwing it behind a tuft of grass, "they will not be hunted without us." He patted her neck, and Glorfindel did the same, stroking Lothwindor's nose and giving him precise verbal instructions on the safest way back to camp.
Eldarion felt strangely lonesome without the merry little equine, and as he watched Riele canter into the misty light of the dim morning, he wondered who had sent her to watch over him.
"Come." Glorfindel lead the way, stooping slightly as he led the three of them into the darkness. Anduril gleamed with living fire in the prince's left hand.
…
Aragorn gently pushed through the crowd to see why they had stopped. The once-high king of the Noldor looked back at him from the first opening they had come to at the end of a long passage and beckoned.
"Where are we?" Aragorn squinted as he came to stand beside the tall elf. They peered into a vast well, nearly a hundred feet across, that extended forever, going upwards into a rainbow effulgence beyond the edge of sight and downward into the void. A great crack ran through the inner walls of the well where an elaborate stair wound up and down in unending spirals.
"This must be the center of the halls," Fingolfin said thoughtfully, his men spreading out along the stairs, going up and down on either side of him.
"Now that's something," Damrod said, the mystical light touching his face. Many others had come to stand at the railing, and the mortals were laughing, and many joined hands as they ran towards the light.
"I don't hear any sound of pursuit." Aragorn stared back down the tunnel behind him, hope flaring in his chest momentarily.
"Come, my lord!" Damrod said with a smile, "We're almost free!" He extended a hand and looked down at it. Aragorn saw that it shimmered as if it were made of transparent glass. He knew then what lay at the top of those stairs, and it drew him in like the moon draws the tides from its perch beyond Arda.
"Don't go that way." A firm voice said as a gauntleted hand was laid on his shoulder. "The one you call father would want me to keep you from that light." Fingolfin's whisper kept him tethered. His family did not wait for him that way. Eldarion was still in danger, and he longed to hold Arwen in his arms again before the end.
"Protect the children," Aragorn ordered, "I must wait for the others." He squeezed his Chancellor's arm in a warrior's greeting, and Damrod nodded and obeyed. He climbed the long road to eternity without a second glance behind him.
But the fleeing mortal spirits had only gone a quarter turn around the well when the ground shook, and an all too familiar roar sounded from the darkness below. Masonry crumbled and cracked, and Damrod had just enough time to scamper to the side before a falling pillar obliterated the step behind him. A large chunk of the floor vanished with a cascading crash that echoed until it faded from hearing.
A serpentine mass of leathery wings and bony, desiccated flesh unfolded into the depths of the well. The Dragon thrashed and roared and belched blue flames but seemed to have been called to the fell deeds of its master and paid the fleeing mortals no heed as it barreled up into the light.
"Estel!" Aragorn turned to the voice with a gasp that was almost a sob of relief.
"Ada!" he grabbed Elrond around the shoulders. He was covered with dust, as were those who followed behind him.
"Did you see where it went?" He looked out into the well, looking first down and then cringing and staggering into his foster son's arms as if the light streaming down from above caused him pain.
"It seemed to be called away on some errand," Fingolfin observed, shielding his eyes as he tried to trace the monster's pace in the gouges it had left in the stone.
"The tunnel has collapsed behind us," Maedhros announced, stepping onto the stairs behind them. The red of his hair was masked under a layer of dust, and he had a cut above one eyebrow.
"Then there is only one way forward," Aragorn looked down into the dark.
"I see something," Maedhros said, stepping beside him and following his gaze into the darkness, "I see fire."
…
Battle closed upon the plains where Yavanna once danced. The undead came in their stinking wave of decay to the fields, where Her feet had fallen like dewdrops on the flowers.
Fingon rode down the lines, issuing a wordless command as he raised his shield to catch the onslaught of arrows that rained down upon them at angles from the wind-torn skies. As with one mind, his cavalrymen raised their filigreed shields to catch the onslaught of missiles launched from the bows of purple-eyed skeletons.
The front lines of Galadriel's formations braced for the impact of the wave of the dead. While the archers arrayed behind them aimed into the snarling mass. Their battle hymns were choked as a wave of suffocating stench preceded the dead like a poisonous tide born on the wind. Razor-bright blades of Noldorin polearms shone in a wave as the sea of corpses crashed upon them.
These shambling thralls knew little of tactics and possessed no skill with weapons or strategy, but theirs was by a thousand times the advantage in number, and they came on in unending surges until they piled up before their enemies as high as the tips of their glaives. They attacked with claws and teeth and rough clubs, a wave of thoughtless savagery put to berzerk frenzy by the unholy indigo fire of their master.
Fingon brought his great black charger around to the far end of the cavalrymen who had once guarded the siege of Angband under their fallen Fëanorian lord. Fingon had asked for the honor of their command when the first word of their present calamity had reached him in Formenos, where he had lived since his re-embodiment, awaiting the return of his beloved cousin, who in the better days of their youth had been as close as a brother.
"With me! With me! Knights of Himring," Fingon sang loudly in word and mind, drawing a curved cavalry sword. "Ride for your lord awaits!" The red-crested riders, shields bright with the star of Fëanor, rallied to him, drawing their sharp steel spears. Their horses made a thundering arc to cut off the first wave of the dead in a pincer movement. He looked across the heaving sea of corpses, desperately seeking where his little brother led Glorfindel's Flower knights to cut off the opposite flank.
Fingon looked up to the black walls and saw the places where the stones from Idril's artillery had smashed away chunks of the masonry, and he beheld massive, grey-skinned hands break
forth. Mountain trolls, their hides swollen with the bloat of decay, forced their way out. Some seized stones and hurled them blindly towards the riders, tossing horse and warrior to the ground while their companions hastened their charge and turned their bright spears to the new threat. There was an entrance; if the main infantry divisions could break through, then perhaps they could breach the fortress here, or perhaps they were being trapped.
Galadriel raised her hands in focus as the ground shook with the weight of their enemies. Dozens of urgent voices flashed through her mind, and she saw the whole battlefield as a tapestry laid out beneath her in the painterly strokes of life and death.
She saw Fingon drop sideways in the saddle to slash a troll's legs from under it. He straightened out just in time to see another of the brutes lumbering straight for his brother. His horse had been struck, and Argon was scrambling backward over the slick mess of corpses, choking on the toxic fumes this close to the ground as he bravely lashed out at any who got too close.
Of course, Fingon thought grimly, these creatures did not require breathable air to fight, and one of his brother's legs was turned too far. He couldn't stand.
Fingon did not have time in the chaos of battle to draw his bow, so he hurled his sword. It spun from his hand in a flashing arc and was buried in the monster's back. Thinking quickly, he managed to get a foot underneath him in the saddle, and when the horse got as close as he needed, he leaped. Seizing the hilt and ripping it out with a gush of rancid blood, he swept it around and hewed the brute's head from its shoulders with a cry of rage. He took a lungful of breath as he followed the beast down into the mire, not losing a second to cut the legs out from the two orcish corpses, which came screaming at him as he stumbled for his brother and heaved him to his feet. He whistled for his horse and throwing Argon's unconscious body upon the saddle. He ordered the steed to flee and resolved to fight on his feet as his blade swept out to face the fresh waves of dead that fell upon him.
Seeing the cavalry charge from afar, Galadriel watched as the Flower knights and the Riders of Himring crashed around the troll's maddened fists from both sides.
The overwhelmed shield walls bulged and buckled around the wave of the undead groping forward blindly until they were hewn apart in the mud. Reinforcements came from the rearward divisions, but the mounting gore inevitably pushed back the lines. Her eyes were drawn toward the looming fortress walls, where a mighty rift had opened. Atop the ramparts stood a maia in deep blue robes, his hands raised in a word of command against her own. His robes seemed to broaden and spread behind him into massive wings as he took on his twisted, draconic form and bellowed blue fire into the churning heavens.
"Pallando Virne," She snarled, and they beheld each other, who had last spoken in ancient days, for Eldarion had told her of the Wizard's treachery and the shape that he had taken upon the tower of Ecthelion. A fearsome love came upon her then, and she called upon the greatest store of her power to see the destroyer of her family punished and broken as the beast took flight.
Her horse reared, she raised her hand, and a beam of pure light shone forth from her as a beacon. And it smote Pallando-Virne's eyes, and he was blinded as his great body came
slamming to the ground amidst the heat of the fighting. Enraged, the creature thrashed its tail in a great arc that threw aside any who stood close. He screamed and belched flame into the sky. Jerking in distaste as a gold and black arrow buried itself in his eye.
"Over here, you old bat!" Fingon taunted as he knocked another arrow and sent it speeding after the first. He stood on the corpse of the headless troll, his helm cast aside and his gold- wrapped braids whipping in the driving rain.
"You would stand against me?" Pallando rumbled, swiveling on the troublesome elf, flame licking his black teeth. He sniffed, his serpentine body gliding through the gore.
Fingon only laughed and replaced his bow with a second shortsword. As the dragon inhaled, he saw fire build in the depths of his open maw.