Maglor

In the streets of Sirion it was chaos. Maglor lifted his shield above his head and followed Tamblin back down the hill down to the gate of the town. The cart he had heard Tamblin and his men overturning lay split in half, impaled by a six-foot arrow from a ballista, with the wickedly jagged tip typical of Feanorian smithing.

"Have you heard back about Amrod and Amras?" he asked.

Tamblin's answer was curt. "Amras, no. Amrod, dead. He was in the vanguard as one of his companies went up against Amras'. It's hard to tell who you're supposed to be fighting when we're all in the same armor."

Maglor rolled his eyes at Tamblin's claim. "Amrod was with me just fifteen minutes ago."

"Yes," said Tamblin, "and now he's not."

Maglor froze in the middle of a battle. In front of them, a trio of soldiers who apparently hadn't gotten the news about Elwing's confirmed flight – Of course not, how could they? – ran into a house to search it, swords at the ready. The feeling of wrongness, which had been steadily building in Maglor since they'd entered Sirion, reverberated through him like the sound of metal scraping against ice.

"Stop searching the houses."

"My lord?"

Amrod was dead, Tamblin had said, but that couldn't possibly be true. Maglor's own men hadn't pointlessly searched every house in the town; that couldn't be true either. He thought of the little bodies nestled together in the closet like twins in the womb. Maglor looked around at the rows of houses bordering the street with their doors now hanging ajar. Amras had been right, that was now clear to Maglor, but Amras, or hopefully just Amras' men, had killed Amrod.

Maglor swayed.

"My lord," Tamblin warned, as the fighting raged around them.

"Sir!" Tamblin dragged Maglor down and stepped in front of him to block a sword swing from an elf in Feanorian armor. Tamblin's own sword wedged itself through a chink in the soldier's armor, and their opponent – ally, Maglor thought, we're all on the same side – fell to the ground. Tamblin gave Maglor a meaningful look.

"We need to get you out of Sirion," Tamblin told him.

"What?"

"You're looking for Maedhros, remember?"

Maglor paused. "Yes." He stood up again and clutched his sword and shield with more focus. He remembered again. "We're to stop searching the houses. Gather your men and tell them there's no need anymore."

The two elves made their way again to the gate and the battering ram that lay abandoned beside it. Tamblin spoke shortly. "Wouldn't do much good at this point. We've already made our way through most of the town."

Maglor's shoulders sagged under his armor. His foot slipped slightly on a wet patch on the street but he steadied himself again. "Then just … do what you can to bring things back to order. Stop things from becoming worse than they already are."

Tamblin nodded wordlessly.