Marchwarden: Hidden Hero - Chapter 10
Jul. 14th, 2006 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenazI am off for Ireland this afternoon, where I will be riding down the Connemara coast with a dear old friend, and hopefully all the training and conditioning (and injuries!) of these last months will pay off. I am excited beyond words. This, however, will be the last update for a bit as both my heroic beta and I will be away. I Hope this update suffices for the time being. Everyone take care while I'm gone, and I eagerly await much wonderful writing when I come home. Namárië!
Title: Marchwarden: Hidden Hero - Chapter 10
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kenazfiction
E-mail: kenazfiction@gmail.com
Fic Journal: http://kenazfiction.livejournal.com/ or The Archive
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Borrowing the Good Professor's characters for my own amusement.
Archive: OEAM, Melethryn, The-Archive.net, others, just ask.
Feedback: of course!
Beta: Lady E
Summary: Life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
Click here for Chapter 9.
A/N: The following chapters owe a huge debt of gratitude to Marnie for letting me borrow some ideas from her work, The Battle of the Golden Wood. More information can be found at the end of these chapters, as it is too spoilery to include up front.
Third Age 3019, 45-47 Echuir
Four days after the first battle, the sky over Lothlorien was no longer blue. The bright clarity of spring sun had been leached away, leaving a vast expanse of ashen cloud and lusterless light. Through the wan skyscape an infinitesimal fleck grew steadily closer: a thrush, winging from East. Small enough to evade the notice of the foe's armies, she had sailed swiftly with her message, a scroll tightly bound to her leg. The news mixed darkness with cautious hope, and Haldir thanked her for her troubles as she hopped from his hand to forage on the ground before he sped off to deliver it to Celeborn.
"Dol Guldur rises against the Greenwood. Hundreds upon hundreds swarm the forest there. I weep for our kin, yet I am glad the Black Tower has turned its attentions elsewhere."
Celeborn cast a look toward the Mirror grove where his wife was sequestered. She had gone into seclusion with the rise of the sun, hoping to discern some hint of the enemy's plans. She needed the close silence of the glade to center herself, for she needed to keep her entire being focused on the land, her own life's energy spiraling outward, feeding Nenya and allowing the wards to hold despite the enemy's assaults.
The Elf-lord shook his head. "Dark tidings these are, but I do not think they will give us respite. You have seen their numbers; they could turn half as many on Eryn Galen and still plague us mightily. I, too, have had word, but this from our scouts in the South. Isengard sends creatures of its own devising both to Gondor and to us. Uruk-hai, they are called, and they are larger and stronger than Yrch; the light of the sun does not weaken them, and they are capable of far greater cleverness than the rabble we have dealt with. This is not over, Haldir; we have not yet seen the worst."
Haldir grunted in acknowledgement but before further words could be exchanged, a runner appeared, agitated and breathless, before them.
"My Lord, Marchwarden… you must come quickly. Great evil is upon us."
Rising brashly against the blighted tree line far beyond the Anduin, the trebuchets rolled ploddingly toward Lorien, dragged over the wasted earth by cave-trolls whose aggrieved bellows followed every snap of the Yrch-lash that drove them. The runner reported that others were even at that moment being assembled on the Gladden Fields, brought by boat during the first assault just as Haldir had feared. The arm of each weapon was the hastily debarked trunk of a sycamore, now shorn of leaves and branches, covered in pitch, and impressed as an instrument of destruction. Behind them, covered wains approached, driven by Easterlings who appeared as inhuman and savage as the Yrch they followed. Haldir sickened to see the war engines. On the Dagorlad, the trebuchets of Barad Dûr had heaved boulders over the fortress walls and on to the ranks of archers below. Orophin had lost two comrades, and very nearly his own life, when ballast had fallen. With no fallen ramparts to pillage, no mountains to mine, Haldir despaired of considering what the machines would fling on his land.
"They intend to burn Lorien to the ground," Celeborn growled. The tarpaulins covering the wagons had been pulled back, revealing enormous clay vessels. This was the balefire they had feared, but magnified hundredfold. The heinous brew within would ignite at the touch of air when the vessel shattered and would burn on, indifferent to water and difficult to smother. "We can only hope their range is not so far as Caras Galadhon."
The Marchwarden's countenance was grim. "These will not reach, but we will have much trouble in the North. There is no river to impede them on the Gladden Fields, and we have no such artillery in our own arsenal to counter them. So long as they escape the marshes, they can roll death to our door."
Celeborn passed a hand wearily over his face. "We must pull away from the borders and draw our line of defense closer. The borderlands over the Celebrant and the eaves of the wood must be abandoned."
Rage burned hotter in Haldir than any fire. He closed his eyes as if the darkness behind his lids would somehow quell his anger. Were they not the guardians of the trees, stewards of all that grew here in this green place? Would they truly leave their charges to fall to the flames of Dol Guldur?
Aye, he shuddered. We would. We must.
The resonant toll of the ancient Sinda's voice rose. "I have tended these trees for years uncounted. I was here when my Lady pressed the silver seeds of the mellyrn into the soil. I do not give this order lightly."
Celeborn's eyes were on him when he opened his own. He did not ask for Haldir's thoughts, though his look was a tacit demand. His order would stand, but he would have preferred his most trusted defender to execute it willingly.
"Elemmakil taught me that sometimes one must sacrifice the silver to save the gold," the Marchwarden repined. "So be it."
"Fall back!"
The steps of the retreating wardens made no sound as their captain flew through the wood with his order.
"Fall back!"
Above him, his brothers continued to rain down their shot upon the advancing Yrch, giving Haldir cover as long as they dared. Word had reached the patrols of the siege engines and their imminent fire. Already, Celeborn had overseen the exodus of the southern borderlands and Feredir had drawn in his men from the Naith. Now Haldir moved down the northern edge of the forest, alerting the remaining patrols that vicious weather approached, and soon.
"Let us away," Orophin hissed. "We have tarried overlong."
Rúmil's fingers opened, releasing another arrow from the string and shook his head. "A moment more… He cannot see what approaches when he roams the ground."
Orophin made a noise of irritation, his body poised to leap to an adjacent tree in retreat. "Have a care for your own hide. Haldir can fend well for himself and he has given his order. He will not be pleased to have a brother flout it." And with that, he was gone, only a bobbing of the branch to mark that but a minute prior he had posed there.
Through the canopy, Rúmil could see out onto the Gladden fields, could see the great black arm of the siege engine drawing steadily back. He thought if he listened closely, he could hear the groan of straining ropes as the thralls cranked the windlass. He gave a whistle of alarm and scanned the ground for his brother when it went unanswered. A few moments passed before he saw Haldir a scant furlong ahead. He whistled again, and Haldir looked up, his face fixed in a frown.
"Fall back, I said! That was an order!"
"The engine is ready," Rúmil shouted in desperation. "You, too, must fly!"
The Marchwarden shook his head vehemently. "Not until all the patrols have withdrawn! Now go!"
He trekked on eastward and did not look behind him to see if Rúmil had obeyed. He had not, for he had seen dark shapes moving fast through the forest, not Yrch now, but Uruk-hai, and his brother was alone on the ground. Not even Haldir could put down a dozen Uruk-hai without assistance. Stealth would be his friend; he did not call out but leapt silently from tree to tree, following in his captain's wake.
He had nearly caught up to Haldir in the line of elderly oaks when the war whoops of the foemen turned his head to the field. A crash echoed through the wood, followed by the woosh of balefire catching light.
The conflagration was instantaneous.
Rúmil heard animal shrieks, but it was an Elf that dove from the tree in front of him, flopping helplessly on the ground, his entire body engulfed in flames. He called out helplessly but he had no means to extinguish balefire. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and sent it through the Elf's heart, dispatching him far swiftly than the flames would have. Even after the Elf's spirit had fled, the body moved, curled in on itself, fists drawn up as if it wished to beat back the pain. There was no time even to shed a tear for the loss. Soon the forest would be rank with the odor of charred meat that Rúmil could already smell wafting from the dead warden, and he would not be the last to fall to the flames. Rúmil's stomach seized and a flood of bile raced a caustic trail up his throat.
Another crash, and again the sound of ignition. The archer's skin was nearly seared by the heat, but he did not turn from it, shielding his eyes as he peered through the rising wall of flame to seek out his brother. He could not see him. He could see the fleeing backs of other wardens, but of Haldir there was no sign.
He looked to the trees for a clear path around the flames, and once he had found it, he shouldered his bow and charged on.
When the first firepot exploded, spewing its sudden devastation, Haldir was rooted to the spot by his shock. In the blink of an eye, the forest around him burst in greasy flares. The trees, the groundcover, and all that harbored within were alight, and the flaming oil dripped a rain of death from above. He heard horrible, high-pitched screams and knew that the fire had already claimed its first lives. Abruptly, then, the sound stopped, and he felt concomitant pangs of horror and relief that the suffering had been brief.
As the impenetrable wall of flames rose up around him he felt not heat, but a cold prickle down the back of his neck. He had seen this.
No.
He refused to give credence to what his eyes told him. Rúmil had retreated, he reminded himself. He was safely away from this inferno. He watched in impotent revulsion as poplars and elms he had known since birth cried out from their roots to their leafy crowns and died as so much kindling. Unctuous smoke begrimed him and the smell rising to his nostrils left no question that death was riding hard on the wake of the flames. The fire had disoriented him; trees he had used for thousands of years as guideposts were either now unidentifiable blackened wreckage or obscured by the translucent red curtain of fire.
Another firepot exploded and lit the forest with obscene light, hemming him in between burning walls. He dragged a hand across his face to swab the sweat from his eyes. He thought he heard the tramp of footsteps, but sounds were difficult to discern over the din of dying trees, crackling flames, and the distant screams of those who burned.
A warden's whistle split the air like a blade and Haldir's head instinctively craned toward the sound. Rúmil loomed above him in a mallorn, his bow drawn. Haldir followed the line of his arm and saw the Uruk-hai, undaunted by the devouring heat, closing in on him quickly. But the sound of Rúmil's whistle had drawn their attention as well as Haldir's, and for a moment, they turned away from him and looked up into the tree.
No…no!
He knew the rock would fly even before he saw the arc of the sling that hurled it, felt the impact of it before it reached its target. He knew, because he had seen it in his nightmares a hundred times before. Rúmil dropped his bow, reeling, and toppled backward off the branch. He fell quickly, though; in his vision Rúmil's descent had been eerily prolonged, as if he had been falling through water. But just as in his vision, Haldir could do nothing. He heard the song of arrows and knew his brother lost.
A groan and then a crack like a thunderbolt heralded the falling of a mighty bough from a locust tree, which plummeted from its host as quickly as Rúmil had fallen from his. He tried to leap out of the way, but he was not swift enough. The limb hit him with incredible force and drove him to the ground. He was still attempting to focus his swimming eyes before he realized that he could not move. The bough had pinned him and he could not lift it. He could smell burning wool as his cloak caught alight from the burning twigs and leaves. A moment later he could feel the back of his legs begin to burn. A scream rose up through the trees, a howl of pain and futile desperation. With a strange sense of detachment he knew that he had heard this very cry before. It had come to him in the Mirror, and it had been the sound of death. He had not recognized it for his own.
Through the clamor, he heard Galion's voice, but he could not answer. The pain subsumed him, and the terrible reckoning of the full measure of his failure and ignorance froze the scream in his throat and cut it off like the squeal of a boar under the slaughterer's knife.
As blackness swept up around him, he knew only two things: pain, and the horrifying revelation that the vision he had been granted in the Mirror was not the shape of things to come had he accepted his heart's demand, but the reality bequeathed to him because he had refused it.
He had not expected to awaken, but awaken he did. Slowly and stiffly.
His head ached fiercely, as did his shoulders and back, and his legs had been burned nearly up to his backside, though the thick wool of his uniform must have offered some protection. The healers had cut it away and left him in naught but a breechclout, but even naked and slathered with cooling unguent he could feel the heat trapped beneath his skin as if fire licked at it still. The noise of battle had receded to an abstracted tumult in this part of the forest, well away from the fires and the front. The scent of scorched hair clung tenaciously to his nostrils, but above him, a tracery of shadow danced across the tent canvas, and the sight soothed him. When at last he taken stock of his various pains, deeming none of them devastating, and had forced his eyes to still and focus, he cautiously turned his head to see who occupied the cot beside him.
It was Rúmil. He was swathed in bandages and a livid bruise extended beyond the boundaries of the wraps, ringing his eye. But he was alive, very much alive. The sudden rush of joy made Haldir's head swirl.
"Sweet Eru, muindor, I believed you lost."
The younger Galadhel forced a smile around gritted teeth. "I was found." The shot that had knocked him from the tree had done the least damage; the fall had taken a larger toll in fractured bones, though the moss and thick carpeting of leaves had softened his landing somewhat. "As were you," he added weakly, gingerly raising his hand to his swaddled head. He was terribly weary and miserable with pain, but the healers had forbidden him sleep or poppy's milk until they determined the injury to his head posed no risk of claiming him. As it was, he almost wished for death; it seemed a pleasant reprieve from the war drums throbbing in his skull and the stabbing pains that accompanied each breath.
"I saw this in the Mirror… I thought I had averted it. I thought I had spared you."
Haldir's gaze still hovered warily over his brother, as if he expected Rúmil to suddenly vanish. Confusion and relief roiled within him. He had seen his brother fall, seen the Uruk-hai circling with their slashing knives, and yet he lived!
"Fool, you could not even spare yourself!" Now the younger Elf's smile was genuine, though it quickly reverted to a grimace. "Ah, I can jest no more. 'Tis too painful."
"I saw the knives! I heard the arrows!"
"Those were no Orcish bolts, brother; those were arrows of Lorien! Orophin sought Feredir when I did not follow him and alerted him that the idiot sons of Guilin had not the sense to retreat, so your Lieutenant decided to come fetch us and save us from our dedication to duty."
Haldir might have smiled, albeit shamefacedly, save that the situation still felt so dire to him, and his mind rang uncomfortably with the echoes of his vision. How could he have so grievously misjudged the Mirror's message?
"Breath of Manwë, Rúmil! Have you no idea how close you came to death? 'Tis a wonder Feredir found us at all."
Rúmil's face gentled, a secret smile playing on his lips. "Nay, it was no wonder. He heard me. I called to him in my need and he came for me."
Haldir closed his eyes. He had never truly fathomed the true depth of love's power; that a bound soul would hearken so readily to the song of its mate. In his misguided imaginings, love had been a millstone to carry, an obstacle to duty and a deadly distraction. Yet he had seen the truth of it right before his eyes again and again: the potency of devotion which girded a pure heart from the most seductive of all temptations; the strength of emotion which overshadowed even the dazzling proposition of omnipotence; the unvoiced cry of a soul in peril heard and answered by its sworn guardian. A memory emerged, a recollection of his first and only conversation with Glorfindel of Imladris, the curious look upon the Elda's face as he had spoken:
Where love is given and returned, there is no weakness, pen-neth.
Another voice came to him then, that of the Lady, and even now he could feel the touch of her fingers soft on his head.
You know now what you must do. You know now what your heart demands.
Ignorant lackwit, he silently wailed. Your heart demanded Galion and yet you heeded it not! He had ever placed duty above all, heeding Elemmakil's exhortations and treating love as a plague. But he had succumbed nonetheless to his oldest companion and dearest friend, and he had never known such peace or happiness as he had in Galion's arms. He had destroyed that happiness by doing what he believed duty demanded of him. Yet in failing to follow his heart, he had failed in his duty nonetheless. To himself, and to Galion.
The archer read the crux of his brother's thoughts in his face and stretched out a hand.
"He came for you, Haldir."
As if summoned by the cast of Rúmil's whispered words, the healer stepped into the tent, though he did not immediately approach the brothers. Haldir's heart thundered to see him, his very flesh all but dancing on his bones at the nearness of that most beloved form. He looked well, if weary, but Haldir saw that his left hand was bandaged and wondered at the wound. Galion worked his way from cot to cot, checking dressings and feeling for fevers as he passed. At length he made his way to them, nodding brusquely at Haldir, fatigue plain in his face, before turning to Rúmil.
"I will give you something for the pain now, if you like. The most dangerous hours have passed and if you wish to sleep, you may."
Another weak smile crossed the younger brother's face. "I should like nothing more."
Galion brought the poppy's milk quickly and helped Rúmil to drink it. Once the archer had swallowed the bitter draught down, he passed his hand lightly over the Rúmil's eyes, murmuring softly as Haldir had seen him do—had felt for himself—so many times before. Rúmil's body went limp as sleep engulfed him and his haggard muscles slowly released intransigent tension.
For Haldir, to have Galion so close and yet not speaking, not touching, was a torment. When the healer turned, he found Haldir's stare settling heavily upon him, holding him steadfast. Desolate grey eyes met regretful blue and neither blinked. The air in the short distance between them thrummed as though charged by a sudden storm, pregnant with possibility. It was Galion who broke the unnerving contact and looked down the length of the tent with eyes gone distant and guarded.
"You may return to your men on the morrow if your legs can bear it; the blisters will soon begin to rise. Yet your body is strong and is healing quickly. A runner will fetch a new uniform for you."
His voice was flat as he spoke, and when he had finished, the silence between them was ponderous and thick as mud. At the last, Galion's head drooped and he began to turn away.
"Galion, please…"
The healer shot him a rueful look. Haldir realized then that he had not thought on what he might say. The healer had avoided him at every turn since their parting, but now that he stood but a few short feet away, he no longer knew what words to speak. How to offer up his heart to one who could barely tolerate his presence? Was there even love left to claim? So great was the emotion in his heart, the remorse for his precipitous actions, that he would have hungrily feasted on any crumb of Galion's affection. But he wanted more, so much more, than the crumbs alone. Though the thing he most wanted was the thing for which he had least right to ask. Thus, his tongue faltered.
"I…How did you come to injure your hand?"
A small smirk gave him hope.
"Lifting burning limbs from a prostrated Marchwarden is not so pleasant a chore as one might think."
Haldir dared an uneven smile in return. "It was once no chore at all for you to keep your own heated limbs on a prostrated Marchwarden."
Galion's incipient grin cooled and Haldir rushed to rectify the jest which had clearly overreached what the healer could bear.
"I am sorry. That was too familiar. I regret you were injured on my behalf."
"It would not be the first time, and no doubt it will not be the last," the breeziness of his tone accentuated the harshness of his words and Haldir winced. Galion straightened his shoulders and looked to his bandaged hand. "It is my body's nature to heal. No doubt my wounds will have vanished in another day or so."
"Forgive me, Galion," Haldir blurted out all at once, before the Elf could turn aside from him again. "I have grievously erred. All I feared, all I wished to forestall, came to pass despite my action. Or rather, because I failed to act."
"I seem to recall you acted quite decisively." The healer's voice was sharp, his patience depleted and the pain of barely-scabbed hurts rose up within him to plague him anew.
"Aye, but the wrong action!" Haldir pushed himself up to sitting. "Hear me out. I understand what message the Mirror had for me: it revealed to me the trials I would face and bade me make ready for them. I should have availed myself of your love, of your strength. No more powerful weapon could I have commanded on the field than my soul fortified by its mate. I should not have pushed you away, sadron, but cleaved to you more tightly."
A derisive noise rattled in Galion's throat. "Faithful one. Ah, yes. Ever present to weather your faults and follies. Something to be picked up at need and set aside on a whim."
"'Twas no whim and well you know it," Haldir charged back. "I feared for my brother's life. I have begged your forgiveness and will continue to do so as long as I might, but I know not how else to atone, to rebuild what I have, through misapprehension, destroyed. Tell me how to make amends to you."
The rage in Galion's expression diminished, but not the hurt. He surveyed the terrain of Haldir's chest and the scar that marred it. His fingertips tingled with the memory of the wound, of healing it, and of tracing its shape on bed-warmed skin. Each digit could summon unbidden the sensation of that cherished hide beneath them. He curled his traitorous hands into fists. "You had no faith in me. You put your trust in a vision, but not in the one that unstintingly loved you."
"It was my own heart I did not trust. I have never doubted you, not once in all the long years of my life. Nor did I cease to love you. If you believe nothing else, believe that."
Haldir would have leapt up to pull the healer into his arms except for the unseemly spectacle an unclothed Marchwarden flying from his cot would have caused. But he was not above displaying his nakedness to his best advantage, hoping that if Galion's heart was slow to thaw, perhaps inciting other parts of him might speed them toward some sort of reconciliation. Dire times called for dire measures, and he would gladly sacrifice the silver of his pride for the gold of Galion's renewed regard.
Nay, he reminded himself. It is not merely his renewed regard I desire, nor the incitement of his body. I would have nothing less than his whole heart.
Unpremeditated words surged from him with the compulsion of a floodtide; too swift, too fierce, too implacable, to be suppressed.
"Bind yourself to me. Do as I should have done long ago and set this aright."
Galion's jaw fell uselessly open. Shortly thereafter, his face took on a look of perfect stupefaction.
Then he roared.
"Are you mad? I think it was not your legs that were seared, but your brain, fool! You cannot think for an instant that I would even consider such a rash and senseless demand from you!"
He remembered himself and his eyes darted frantically around the tent to see how great a disturbance this absurd exchange had caused. Some of the other healers were watching him curiously, but turned quickly away when they noted his eyes upon them. In the next cot, Rúmil continued to sleep the deep and oblivious slumber of healing.
"I cannot fathom where you find the wherewithal to suggest such folly," he hissed angrily, "or the audacity to denigrate the very idea of a sacred bond, but this is neither the time nor the place for any such discussion."
But Haldir would be neither dissuaded nor denied. "You came to me when I most needed you. You love me still."
"I came to you because it was my duty to do so!"
"Any other could have come in your stead if it were merely a question of duty. But it was you who came to me. Admit you love me still."
The tell-tale crease began to show itself on Galion's brow. He had only ever lied once to Haldir, and that was to shield him from Elemmakil's neglect when he lay gravely wounded. He could not lie to him now. He grudgingly murmured:
"Impertinent knave. Do not make me tell you what you already know full well."
"Then take me for your own! I have failed deplorably already. Do not compound my error with your obstinacy."
Galion's eyes glinted furiously, the color of tempered steel. The gall! Only one Elf would even dare suggest that he bore some responsibility for their current straits…and only one Elf could make a marriage proposal ring stridently as a field command. He could not countenance that arrogant insinuation a moment longer. It was so keenly true to form and so utterly maddening. It was so utterly Haldir.
"I mean to make you mine, healer."
Haldir could see the muscles working in the darkling Elf's jaw. He was seething. He turned brusquely away and removed himself from the pavilion. Haldir cared not. Anger was far easier to suffer than indifference. Anger meant he still stood a chance.
Galion avoided him assiduously for the remainder of his time in the infirmary tent, but Haldir did not mind. He had renewed hope, and he clung to it as tenaciously as a leaf to a mallorn branch. Before dawn, he carefully dressed himself in the uniform that had been delivered and strapped on his weapons. Though his legs, now blistered as Galion had promised, screamed at the friction of his breeches against the bandages and the bandages against the wounds, he could stay abed no longer.
Walking stiffly out of the tent, he saw his healer bent at a stream, fetching fresh water and he stalked over on silent feet. When Galion stood and turned he startled to find Haldir just a step away. Water sloshed over the sides of the basin and soaked his sleeves. The acquisitive gleam in the Marchwarden's eye raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
"I have shed many illusions of late, and one of which is the witless notion that I could ever bear to be parted from you. I will ask only once more: Bind yourself to me. When this battle ends…if it should end… find me in our old accustomed place and give me your answer."
With that, he turned and made for his patrol's camp with pained strides, leaving Galion stunned and speechless at the water's edge.
What little joy Haldir had mustered through his exchange with his estranged beloved was crushed when he saw the damage the balefire had done to Lorien's borders. Groves of ancient, stately trees, from common spruce to mighty mallorn had been reduced to twisted black stumps. Smoke still rose from scorched earth, and still Dol Guldur pressed on, abandoning their siege from across the Anduin only when there was nothing left within their reach to burn, though the engines on the Gladden Fields rolled perilously closer. Once more Celeborn demanded the defensive line be drawn back, and once more Haldir relayed his orders down the greatly foreshortened patrols. The Galadhrim held, but barely.
On the end of the third day, the enemy forces withdrew to their dark places, leaving Lorien and her people reeling. None spoke of ruin, for still they stood even as the beloved trees before them fell; but the line of the dead, many horribly burned and more than a few granted mercy from the flames at the hands of friends and brothers, stretched far too long, and in looking upon them, it was difficult not to feel anything but insurmountable loss.
"Bury them," Celeborn directed. "They have seen enough of fire."
Haldir squatted amid the blackened wreckage and clung ever tighter to the hope that Galion would come to him. As he looked at the waste his land and people had become, that hope seemed the only bright thing left to him. He reached down and trailed his fingers through the cinders and the taste of ashes was bitter on his tongue. It was the taste of defeat. All around him, the morning dew glistened on the bodies of the dead like tears.
Next chapter...
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A/N, Continued: Marnie was generous enough to let me use some of her battle strategies from her epic saga The Battle of The Golden Wood. In this chapter, I must give her credit for the idea of Dol Guldur using siege engines and balefire against the Lorien. The Battle of The Golden Wood is truly one of, if not the most, compelling and beautifully crafted stories I have ever read in this fandom, and it is an absolute must-read for all lovers of Lothlorien-fic. I am truly grateful that such a talented authoress was so gracious in letting me poach from her tale to augment my own humble offerings.
Echuir = 'Stirring.' The Sindarin name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.
Muindor = Brother
Pen-neth = Young one
Sadron = Faithful one
Title: Marchwarden: Hidden Hero - Chapter 10
Author:
kenazfictionE-mail: kenazfiction@gmail.com
Fic Journal: http://kenazfiction.livejournal.com/ or The Archive
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Borrowing the Good Professor's characters for my own amusement.
Archive: OEAM, Melethryn, The-Archive.net, others, just ask.
Feedback: of course!
Beta: Lady E
Summary: Life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
Click here for Chapter 9.
A/N: The following chapters owe a huge debt of gratitude to Marnie for letting me borrow some ideas from her work, The Battle of the Golden Wood. More information can be found at the end of these chapters, as it is too spoilery to include up front.
Third Age 3019, 45-47 Echuir
Four days after the first battle, the sky over Lothlorien was no longer blue. The bright clarity of spring sun had been leached away, leaving a vast expanse of ashen cloud and lusterless light. Through the wan skyscape an infinitesimal fleck grew steadily closer: a thrush, winging from East. Small enough to evade the notice of the foe's armies, she had sailed swiftly with her message, a scroll tightly bound to her leg. The news mixed darkness with cautious hope, and Haldir thanked her for her troubles as she hopped from his hand to forage on the ground before he sped off to deliver it to Celeborn.
"Dol Guldur rises against the Greenwood. Hundreds upon hundreds swarm the forest there. I weep for our kin, yet I am glad the Black Tower has turned its attentions elsewhere."
Celeborn cast a look toward the Mirror grove where his wife was sequestered. She had gone into seclusion with the rise of the sun, hoping to discern some hint of the enemy's plans. She needed the close silence of the glade to center herself, for she needed to keep her entire being focused on the land, her own life's energy spiraling outward, feeding Nenya and allowing the wards to hold despite the enemy's assaults.
The Elf-lord shook his head. "Dark tidings these are, but I do not think they will give us respite. You have seen their numbers; they could turn half as many on Eryn Galen and still plague us mightily. I, too, have had word, but this from our scouts in the South. Isengard sends creatures of its own devising both to Gondor and to us. Uruk-hai, they are called, and they are larger and stronger than Yrch; the light of the sun does not weaken them, and they are capable of far greater cleverness than the rabble we have dealt with. This is not over, Haldir; we have not yet seen the worst."
Haldir grunted in acknowledgement but before further words could be exchanged, a runner appeared, agitated and breathless, before them.
"My Lord, Marchwarden… you must come quickly. Great evil is upon us."
Rising brashly against the blighted tree line far beyond the Anduin, the trebuchets rolled ploddingly toward Lorien, dragged over the wasted earth by cave-trolls whose aggrieved bellows followed every snap of the Yrch-lash that drove them. The runner reported that others were even at that moment being assembled on the Gladden Fields, brought by boat during the first assault just as Haldir had feared. The arm of each weapon was the hastily debarked trunk of a sycamore, now shorn of leaves and branches, covered in pitch, and impressed as an instrument of destruction. Behind them, covered wains approached, driven by Easterlings who appeared as inhuman and savage as the Yrch they followed. Haldir sickened to see the war engines. On the Dagorlad, the trebuchets of Barad Dûr had heaved boulders over the fortress walls and on to the ranks of archers below. Orophin had lost two comrades, and very nearly his own life, when ballast had fallen. With no fallen ramparts to pillage, no mountains to mine, Haldir despaired of considering what the machines would fling on his land.
"They intend to burn Lorien to the ground," Celeborn growled. The tarpaulins covering the wagons had been pulled back, revealing enormous clay vessels. This was the balefire they had feared, but magnified hundredfold. The heinous brew within would ignite at the touch of air when the vessel shattered and would burn on, indifferent to water and difficult to smother. "We can only hope their range is not so far as Caras Galadhon."
The Marchwarden's countenance was grim. "These will not reach, but we will have much trouble in the North. There is no river to impede them on the Gladden Fields, and we have no such artillery in our own arsenal to counter them. So long as they escape the marshes, they can roll death to our door."
Celeborn passed a hand wearily over his face. "We must pull away from the borders and draw our line of defense closer. The borderlands over the Celebrant and the eaves of the wood must be abandoned."
Rage burned hotter in Haldir than any fire. He closed his eyes as if the darkness behind his lids would somehow quell his anger. Were they not the guardians of the trees, stewards of all that grew here in this green place? Would they truly leave their charges to fall to the flames of Dol Guldur?
Aye, he shuddered. We would. We must.
The resonant toll of the ancient Sinda's voice rose. "I have tended these trees for years uncounted. I was here when my Lady pressed the silver seeds of the mellyrn into the soil. I do not give this order lightly."
Celeborn's eyes were on him when he opened his own. He did not ask for Haldir's thoughts, though his look was a tacit demand. His order would stand, but he would have preferred his most trusted defender to execute it willingly.
"Elemmakil taught me that sometimes one must sacrifice the silver to save the gold," the Marchwarden repined. "So be it."
"Fall back!"
The steps of the retreating wardens made no sound as their captain flew through the wood with his order.
"Fall back!"
Above him, his brothers continued to rain down their shot upon the advancing Yrch, giving Haldir cover as long as they dared. Word had reached the patrols of the siege engines and their imminent fire. Already, Celeborn had overseen the exodus of the southern borderlands and Feredir had drawn in his men from the Naith. Now Haldir moved down the northern edge of the forest, alerting the remaining patrols that vicious weather approached, and soon.
"Let us away," Orophin hissed. "We have tarried overlong."
Rúmil's fingers opened, releasing another arrow from the string and shook his head. "A moment more… He cannot see what approaches when he roams the ground."
Orophin made a noise of irritation, his body poised to leap to an adjacent tree in retreat. "Have a care for your own hide. Haldir can fend well for himself and he has given his order. He will not be pleased to have a brother flout it." And with that, he was gone, only a bobbing of the branch to mark that but a minute prior he had posed there.
Through the canopy, Rúmil could see out onto the Gladden fields, could see the great black arm of the siege engine drawing steadily back. He thought if he listened closely, he could hear the groan of straining ropes as the thralls cranked the windlass. He gave a whistle of alarm and scanned the ground for his brother when it went unanswered. A few moments passed before he saw Haldir a scant furlong ahead. He whistled again, and Haldir looked up, his face fixed in a frown.
"Fall back, I said! That was an order!"
"The engine is ready," Rúmil shouted in desperation. "You, too, must fly!"
The Marchwarden shook his head vehemently. "Not until all the patrols have withdrawn! Now go!"
He trekked on eastward and did not look behind him to see if Rúmil had obeyed. He had not, for he had seen dark shapes moving fast through the forest, not Yrch now, but Uruk-hai, and his brother was alone on the ground. Not even Haldir could put down a dozen Uruk-hai without assistance. Stealth would be his friend; he did not call out but leapt silently from tree to tree, following in his captain's wake.
He had nearly caught up to Haldir in the line of elderly oaks when the war whoops of the foemen turned his head to the field. A crash echoed through the wood, followed by the woosh of balefire catching light.
The conflagration was instantaneous.
Rúmil heard animal shrieks, but it was an Elf that dove from the tree in front of him, flopping helplessly on the ground, his entire body engulfed in flames. He called out helplessly but he had no means to extinguish balefire. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and sent it through the Elf's heart, dispatching him far swiftly than the flames would have. Even after the Elf's spirit had fled, the body moved, curled in on itself, fists drawn up as if it wished to beat back the pain. There was no time even to shed a tear for the loss. Soon the forest would be rank with the odor of charred meat that Rúmil could already smell wafting from the dead warden, and he would not be the last to fall to the flames. Rúmil's stomach seized and a flood of bile raced a caustic trail up his throat.
Another crash, and again the sound of ignition. The archer's skin was nearly seared by the heat, but he did not turn from it, shielding his eyes as he peered through the rising wall of flame to seek out his brother. He could not see him. He could see the fleeing backs of other wardens, but of Haldir there was no sign.
He looked to the trees for a clear path around the flames, and once he had found it, he shouldered his bow and charged on.
When the first firepot exploded, spewing its sudden devastation, Haldir was rooted to the spot by his shock. In the blink of an eye, the forest around him burst in greasy flares. The trees, the groundcover, and all that harbored within were alight, and the flaming oil dripped a rain of death from above. He heard horrible, high-pitched screams and knew that the fire had already claimed its first lives. Abruptly, then, the sound stopped, and he felt concomitant pangs of horror and relief that the suffering had been brief.
As the impenetrable wall of flames rose up around him he felt not heat, but a cold prickle down the back of his neck. He had seen this.
No.
He refused to give credence to what his eyes told him. Rúmil had retreated, he reminded himself. He was safely away from this inferno. He watched in impotent revulsion as poplars and elms he had known since birth cried out from their roots to their leafy crowns and died as so much kindling. Unctuous smoke begrimed him and the smell rising to his nostrils left no question that death was riding hard on the wake of the flames. The fire had disoriented him; trees he had used for thousands of years as guideposts were either now unidentifiable blackened wreckage or obscured by the translucent red curtain of fire.
Another firepot exploded and lit the forest with obscene light, hemming him in between burning walls. He dragged a hand across his face to swab the sweat from his eyes. He thought he heard the tramp of footsteps, but sounds were difficult to discern over the din of dying trees, crackling flames, and the distant screams of those who burned.
A warden's whistle split the air like a blade and Haldir's head instinctively craned toward the sound. Rúmil loomed above him in a mallorn, his bow drawn. Haldir followed the line of his arm and saw the Uruk-hai, undaunted by the devouring heat, closing in on him quickly. But the sound of Rúmil's whistle had drawn their attention as well as Haldir's, and for a moment, they turned away from him and looked up into the tree.
No…no!
He knew the rock would fly even before he saw the arc of the sling that hurled it, felt the impact of it before it reached its target. He knew, because he had seen it in his nightmares a hundred times before. Rúmil dropped his bow, reeling, and toppled backward off the branch. He fell quickly, though; in his vision Rúmil's descent had been eerily prolonged, as if he had been falling through water. But just as in his vision, Haldir could do nothing. He heard the song of arrows and knew his brother lost.
A groan and then a crack like a thunderbolt heralded the falling of a mighty bough from a locust tree, which plummeted from its host as quickly as Rúmil had fallen from his. He tried to leap out of the way, but he was not swift enough. The limb hit him with incredible force and drove him to the ground. He was still attempting to focus his swimming eyes before he realized that he could not move. The bough had pinned him and he could not lift it. He could smell burning wool as his cloak caught alight from the burning twigs and leaves. A moment later he could feel the back of his legs begin to burn. A scream rose up through the trees, a howl of pain and futile desperation. With a strange sense of detachment he knew that he had heard this very cry before. It had come to him in the Mirror, and it had been the sound of death. He had not recognized it for his own.
Through the clamor, he heard Galion's voice, but he could not answer. The pain subsumed him, and the terrible reckoning of the full measure of his failure and ignorance froze the scream in his throat and cut it off like the squeal of a boar under the slaughterer's knife.
As blackness swept up around him, he knew only two things: pain, and the horrifying revelation that the vision he had been granted in the Mirror was not the shape of things to come had he accepted his heart's demand, but the reality bequeathed to him because he had refused it.
He had not expected to awaken, but awaken he did. Slowly and stiffly.
His head ached fiercely, as did his shoulders and back, and his legs had been burned nearly up to his backside, though the thick wool of his uniform must have offered some protection. The healers had cut it away and left him in naught but a breechclout, but even naked and slathered with cooling unguent he could feel the heat trapped beneath his skin as if fire licked at it still. The noise of battle had receded to an abstracted tumult in this part of the forest, well away from the fires and the front. The scent of scorched hair clung tenaciously to his nostrils, but above him, a tracery of shadow danced across the tent canvas, and the sight soothed him. When at last he taken stock of his various pains, deeming none of them devastating, and had forced his eyes to still and focus, he cautiously turned his head to see who occupied the cot beside him.
It was Rúmil. He was swathed in bandages and a livid bruise extended beyond the boundaries of the wraps, ringing his eye. But he was alive, very much alive. The sudden rush of joy made Haldir's head swirl.
"Sweet Eru, muindor, I believed you lost."
The younger Galadhel forced a smile around gritted teeth. "I was found." The shot that had knocked him from the tree had done the least damage; the fall had taken a larger toll in fractured bones, though the moss and thick carpeting of leaves had softened his landing somewhat. "As were you," he added weakly, gingerly raising his hand to his swaddled head. He was terribly weary and miserable with pain, but the healers had forbidden him sleep or poppy's milk until they determined the injury to his head posed no risk of claiming him. As it was, he almost wished for death; it seemed a pleasant reprieve from the war drums throbbing in his skull and the stabbing pains that accompanied each breath.
"I saw this in the Mirror… I thought I had averted it. I thought I had spared you."
Haldir's gaze still hovered warily over his brother, as if he expected Rúmil to suddenly vanish. Confusion and relief roiled within him. He had seen his brother fall, seen the Uruk-hai circling with their slashing knives, and yet he lived!
"Fool, you could not even spare yourself!" Now the younger Elf's smile was genuine, though it quickly reverted to a grimace. "Ah, I can jest no more. 'Tis too painful."
"I saw the knives! I heard the arrows!"
"Those were no Orcish bolts, brother; those were arrows of Lorien! Orophin sought Feredir when I did not follow him and alerted him that the idiot sons of Guilin had not the sense to retreat, so your Lieutenant decided to come fetch us and save us from our dedication to duty."
Haldir might have smiled, albeit shamefacedly, save that the situation still felt so dire to him, and his mind rang uncomfortably with the echoes of his vision. How could he have so grievously misjudged the Mirror's message?
"Breath of Manwë, Rúmil! Have you no idea how close you came to death? 'Tis a wonder Feredir found us at all."
Rúmil's face gentled, a secret smile playing on his lips. "Nay, it was no wonder. He heard me. I called to him in my need and he came for me."
Haldir closed his eyes. He had never truly fathomed the true depth of love's power; that a bound soul would hearken so readily to the song of its mate. In his misguided imaginings, love had been a millstone to carry, an obstacle to duty and a deadly distraction. Yet he had seen the truth of it right before his eyes again and again: the potency of devotion which girded a pure heart from the most seductive of all temptations; the strength of emotion which overshadowed even the dazzling proposition of omnipotence; the unvoiced cry of a soul in peril heard and answered by its sworn guardian. A memory emerged, a recollection of his first and only conversation with Glorfindel of Imladris, the curious look upon the Elda's face as he had spoken:
Where love is given and returned, there is no weakness, pen-neth.
Another voice came to him then, that of the Lady, and even now he could feel the touch of her fingers soft on his head.
You know now what you must do. You know now what your heart demands.
Ignorant lackwit, he silently wailed. Your heart demanded Galion and yet you heeded it not! He had ever placed duty above all, heeding Elemmakil's exhortations and treating love as a plague. But he had succumbed nonetheless to his oldest companion and dearest friend, and he had never known such peace or happiness as he had in Galion's arms. He had destroyed that happiness by doing what he believed duty demanded of him. Yet in failing to follow his heart, he had failed in his duty nonetheless. To himself, and to Galion.
The archer read the crux of his brother's thoughts in his face and stretched out a hand.
"He came for you, Haldir."
As if summoned by the cast of Rúmil's whispered words, the healer stepped into the tent, though he did not immediately approach the brothers. Haldir's heart thundered to see him, his very flesh all but dancing on his bones at the nearness of that most beloved form. He looked well, if weary, but Haldir saw that his left hand was bandaged and wondered at the wound. Galion worked his way from cot to cot, checking dressings and feeling for fevers as he passed. At length he made his way to them, nodding brusquely at Haldir, fatigue plain in his face, before turning to Rúmil.
"I will give you something for the pain now, if you like. The most dangerous hours have passed and if you wish to sleep, you may."
Another weak smile crossed the younger brother's face. "I should like nothing more."
Galion brought the poppy's milk quickly and helped Rúmil to drink it. Once the archer had swallowed the bitter draught down, he passed his hand lightly over the Rúmil's eyes, murmuring softly as Haldir had seen him do—had felt for himself—so many times before. Rúmil's body went limp as sleep engulfed him and his haggard muscles slowly released intransigent tension.
For Haldir, to have Galion so close and yet not speaking, not touching, was a torment. When the healer turned, he found Haldir's stare settling heavily upon him, holding him steadfast. Desolate grey eyes met regretful blue and neither blinked. The air in the short distance between them thrummed as though charged by a sudden storm, pregnant with possibility. It was Galion who broke the unnerving contact and looked down the length of the tent with eyes gone distant and guarded.
"You may return to your men on the morrow if your legs can bear it; the blisters will soon begin to rise. Yet your body is strong and is healing quickly. A runner will fetch a new uniform for you."
His voice was flat as he spoke, and when he had finished, the silence between them was ponderous and thick as mud. At the last, Galion's head drooped and he began to turn away.
"Galion, please…"
The healer shot him a rueful look. Haldir realized then that he had not thought on what he might say. The healer had avoided him at every turn since their parting, but now that he stood but a few short feet away, he no longer knew what words to speak. How to offer up his heart to one who could barely tolerate his presence? Was there even love left to claim? So great was the emotion in his heart, the remorse for his precipitous actions, that he would have hungrily feasted on any crumb of Galion's affection. But he wanted more, so much more, than the crumbs alone. Though the thing he most wanted was the thing for which he had least right to ask. Thus, his tongue faltered.
"I…How did you come to injure your hand?"
A small smirk gave him hope.
"Lifting burning limbs from a prostrated Marchwarden is not so pleasant a chore as one might think."
Haldir dared an uneven smile in return. "It was once no chore at all for you to keep your own heated limbs on a prostrated Marchwarden."
Galion's incipient grin cooled and Haldir rushed to rectify the jest which had clearly overreached what the healer could bear.
"I am sorry. That was too familiar. I regret you were injured on my behalf."
"It would not be the first time, and no doubt it will not be the last," the breeziness of his tone accentuated the harshness of his words and Haldir winced. Galion straightened his shoulders and looked to his bandaged hand. "It is my body's nature to heal. No doubt my wounds will have vanished in another day or so."
"Forgive me, Galion," Haldir blurted out all at once, before the Elf could turn aside from him again. "I have grievously erred. All I feared, all I wished to forestall, came to pass despite my action. Or rather, because I failed to act."
"I seem to recall you acted quite decisively." The healer's voice was sharp, his patience depleted and the pain of barely-scabbed hurts rose up within him to plague him anew.
"Aye, but the wrong action!" Haldir pushed himself up to sitting. "Hear me out. I understand what message the Mirror had for me: it revealed to me the trials I would face and bade me make ready for them. I should have availed myself of your love, of your strength. No more powerful weapon could I have commanded on the field than my soul fortified by its mate. I should not have pushed you away, sadron, but cleaved to you more tightly."
A derisive noise rattled in Galion's throat. "Faithful one. Ah, yes. Ever present to weather your faults and follies. Something to be picked up at need and set aside on a whim."
"'Twas no whim and well you know it," Haldir charged back. "I feared for my brother's life. I have begged your forgiveness and will continue to do so as long as I might, but I know not how else to atone, to rebuild what I have, through misapprehension, destroyed. Tell me how to make amends to you."
The rage in Galion's expression diminished, but not the hurt. He surveyed the terrain of Haldir's chest and the scar that marred it. His fingertips tingled with the memory of the wound, of healing it, and of tracing its shape on bed-warmed skin. Each digit could summon unbidden the sensation of that cherished hide beneath them. He curled his traitorous hands into fists. "You had no faith in me. You put your trust in a vision, but not in the one that unstintingly loved you."
"It was my own heart I did not trust. I have never doubted you, not once in all the long years of my life. Nor did I cease to love you. If you believe nothing else, believe that."
Haldir would have leapt up to pull the healer into his arms except for the unseemly spectacle an unclothed Marchwarden flying from his cot would have caused. But he was not above displaying his nakedness to his best advantage, hoping that if Galion's heart was slow to thaw, perhaps inciting other parts of him might speed them toward some sort of reconciliation. Dire times called for dire measures, and he would gladly sacrifice the silver of his pride for the gold of Galion's renewed regard.
Nay, he reminded himself. It is not merely his renewed regard I desire, nor the incitement of his body. I would have nothing less than his whole heart.
Unpremeditated words surged from him with the compulsion of a floodtide; too swift, too fierce, too implacable, to be suppressed.
"Bind yourself to me. Do as I should have done long ago and set this aright."
Galion's jaw fell uselessly open. Shortly thereafter, his face took on a look of perfect stupefaction.
Then he roared.
"Are you mad? I think it was not your legs that were seared, but your brain, fool! You cannot think for an instant that I would even consider such a rash and senseless demand from you!"
He remembered himself and his eyes darted frantically around the tent to see how great a disturbance this absurd exchange had caused. Some of the other healers were watching him curiously, but turned quickly away when they noted his eyes upon them. In the next cot, Rúmil continued to sleep the deep and oblivious slumber of healing.
"I cannot fathom where you find the wherewithal to suggest such folly," he hissed angrily, "or the audacity to denigrate the very idea of a sacred bond, but this is neither the time nor the place for any such discussion."
But Haldir would be neither dissuaded nor denied. "You came to me when I most needed you. You love me still."
"I came to you because it was my duty to do so!"
"Any other could have come in your stead if it were merely a question of duty. But it was you who came to me. Admit you love me still."
The tell-tale crease began to show itself on Galion's brow. He had only ever lied once to Haldir, and that was to shield him from Elemmakil's neglect when he lay gravely wounded. He could not lie to him now. He grudgingly murmured:
"Impertinent knave. Do not make me tell you what you already know full well."
"Then take me for your own! I have failed deplorably already. Do not compound my error with your obstinacy."
Galion's eyes glinted furiously, the color of tempered steel. The gall! Only one Elf would even dare suggest that he bore some responsibility for their current straits…and only one Elf could make a marriage proposal ring stridently as a field command. He could not countenance that arrogant insinuation a moment longer. It was so keenly true to form and so utterly maddening. It was so utterly Haldir.
"I mean to make you mine, healer."
Haldir could see the muscles working in the darkling Elf's jaw. He was seething. He turned brusquely away and removed himself from the pavilion. Haldir cared not. Anger was far easier to suffer than indifference. Anger meant he still stood a chance.
Galion avoided him assiduously for the remainder of his time in the infirmary tent, but Haldir did not mind. He had renewed hope, and he clung to it as tenaciously as a leaf to a mallorn branch. Before dawn, he carefully dressed himself in the uniform that had been delivered and strapped on his weapons. Though his legs, now blistered as Galion had promised, screamed at the friction of his breeches against the bandages and the bandages against the wounds, he could stay abed no longer.
Walking stiffly out of the tent, he saw his healer bent at a stream, fetching fresh water and he stalked over on silent feet. When Galion stood and turned he startled to find Haldir just a step away. Water sloshed over the sides of the basin and soaked his sleeves. The acquisitive gleam in the Marchwarden's eye raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
"I have shed many illusions of late, and one of which is the witless notion that I could ever bear to be parted from you. I will ask only once more: Bind yourself to me. When this battle ends…if it should end… find me in our old accustomed place and give me your answer."
With that, he turned and made for his patrol's camp with pained strides, leaving Galion stunned and speechless at the water's edge.
What little joy Haldir had mustered through his exchange with his estranged beloved was crushed when he saw the damage the balefire had done to Lorien's borders. Groves of ancient, stately trees, from common spruce to mighty mallorn had been reduced to twisted black stumps. Smoke still rose from scorched earth, and still Dol Guldur pressed on, abandoning their siege from across the Anduin only when there was nothing left within their reach to burn, though the engines on the Gladden Fields rolled perilously closer. Once more Celeborn demanded the defensive line be drawn back, and once more Haldir relayed his orders down the greatly foreshortened patrols. The Galadhrim held, but barely.
On the end of the third day, the enemy forces withdrew to their dark places, leaving Lorien and her people reeling. None spoke of ruin, for still they stood even as the beloved trees before them fell; but the line of the dead, many horribly burned and more than a few granted mercy from the flames at the hands of friends and brothers, stretched far too long, and in looking upon them, it was difficult not to feel anything but insurmountable loss.
"Bury them," Celeborn directed. "They have seen enough of fire."
Haldir squatted amid the blackened wreckage and clung ever tighter to the hope that Galion would come to him. As he looked at the waste his land and people had become, that hope seemed the only bright thing left to him. He reached down and trailed his fingers through the cinders and the taste of ashes was bitter on his tongue. It was the taste of defeat. All around him, the morning dew glistened on the bodies of the dead like tears.
Next chapter...
* * *
A/N, Continued: Marnie was generous enough to let me use some of her battle strategies from her epic saga The Battle of The Golden Wood. In this chapter, I must give her credit for the idea of Dol Guldur using siege engines and balefire against the Lorien. The Battle of The Golden Wood is truly one of, if not the most, compelling and beautifully crafted stories I have ever read in this fandom, and it is an absolute must-read for all lovers of Lothlorien-fic. I am truly grateful that such a talented authoress was so gracious in letting me poach from her tale to augment my own humble offerings.
Echuir = 'Stirring.' The Sindarin name for the Elvish season that lay between modern 11 February and 5 April.
Muindor = Brother
Pen-neth = Young one
Sadron = Faithful one
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