In the Bleak Midwinter

The ice had turned the branches of the forest to delicate glass. Unnaturally still, the trees reached out their dark fingers and sought to touch each other above the path, while the snow painted everything a heartless white. With the cold came an eerie silence as tangible and as bitter as the crystallised spider webs stretching between the twigs.

A silver haired elf raced through the trees, cutting across the path and leaping back into the spindly embrace of the forest. He was gone in an instant, without ruffling the smallest icicle.

For a moment, the forest resumed its slumber, but a few hollow noises crept around, distant and distorted by the icy air. A crow called out to its fellows as if to comment on this new intrusion.

With a sudden flurry, a second elf burst onto the path and paused, looking about, his breath frozen on the air and his eyes wide.

‘Thranduil?’ he called out. In the distance, more shouts echoed on the mist. The elf listened intently to them, judging how long it might be before the owners of those voices ventured into this part of the forest. Then he ran off, staring about him at the monotonous landscape. Even where the canopy had blocked the snowfall, things were unfamiliar. Where once there had been dappled sunlight, magically guarded, there now was an alien world, full of strange angles, dark lines and endless tracts of maggot-white.

‘Thranduil?’ he tried again, lowering his voice a little. He paused and turned a full circle, rubbing his chin as he considered each possible direction. The crow laughed again from its hidden perch and Oropher listened for his son’s footsteps.

The whisper of feet on snow, so hard to detect even for Elven ears, came to him through the trees and he ran on, pushing aside the twigs and thorns clawing at his face. Ahead he saw a dark shadow behind two thick elms, like a doorway into some secret world. Like the path into a great underground hall, he thought coldly.

As he hurried on, Oropher saw that it was not a door, but a grove of holly with fleshy leaves and scarlet berries. The boughs rustled slightly as he approached, and so he drew his dagger from its sheath on his belt. Holding the weapon level with his head, his sleeve fell away where the fabric had been torn, and the wind stung the cuts on his forearm. They were too painful to be normal wounds, he thought, and he would not have put it past the traitors to use a poisoned blade. Well, if one of their accursed number lay in wait behind that bush, then at least one would pay.

Stealth was unnecessary. Any elf would hear him, however light his tread. Oropher let out a yell and dived through the holly, bringing down his knife instinctively. He felt the bulk of another body and suddenly was locked in combat, another elf’s hot breath against his cheek. The dagger fell into the snow, but for the first time the two combatants looked into each other’s eyes.

‘Adar,’ sighed Thranduil, stepping back. ‘I thought you were one of them.’

Oropher glowered, then rolled off his back onto his knees and scrabbled in the snow for his weapon. A few recent bloodstains from the blade had seeped into the unblemished white.

‘They are not far away,’ whispered Thranduil. ‘I heard them head north, and their voices are still on the wind. Where is mother?’

‘With Celeborn and Galadriel. They and a few of the others have found a place to hide, at least until the kinslayers withdraw or take their fight elsewhere. Some say that Elwing survived and fled. If we can find them, if we can get to them, all might not be lost.’

‘We should find every ellon with a blade and set after those murderers,’ hissed Thranduil, brushing the crumbs of snow from his cape.

‘With all our folk, still Menegroth fell,’ replied Oropher. ‘What can a handful of us hope to achieve? Now come, your mother feared for you. I have been searching for days, avoiding the kinslayers. When you were not amongst those who gathered in the grove, we thought you might not have left the caves at all.’

Oropher set off back the way he had come, glancing about to find his bearings. Though it was hard to find any path in this place, so much seemed to have changed. Thranduil remained where he was and glowered at the snow.

‘Will you come?’ Oropher called to him, still trying to keep his voice a whisper.

Looking up, Thranduil shook his head. ‘I shall find them,’ he said, then turned and ran off.

With a deep sigh, Oropher hurried after him.

The ground like iron beneath their feet, the two hared around in a wide arc, Thranduil several paces in front, thrashing through the stony undergrowth but still barely disturbing the air around him. Oropher travelled less daintily, as he kept one eye on his son and the other on his footing. Only when Thranduil halted and sniffed at the air, though, did he catch up.

‘Stupid young elfling,’ muttered Oropher. ‘Back now to the grove, before we are too lost to find the others again.’

‘The trees will tell us how to get home,’ muttered Thranduil, darting off again.

‘The trees are asleep for winter,’ whispered Oropher. Thranduil veered sharply left and disappeared from sight. Oropher paused and looked about, then found the ridge behind which his son had dropped. He climbed the snowy dune and found Thranduil crouched in the ditch below, listening.

‘I think they are to the northwest,’ Thranduil concluded. ‘Six or seven of them, about four miles away.’

‘Then that is far enough away for us to return to the others and see your mother and the young ones safely clear of this place and of those traitors!’

‘You go, adar.’

‘I am going nowhere, until you cease this. Thranduil, please. So many have fallen – there is not one in that grove who does not weep for one departed to Mandos! Thranduil, I must already mourn your brother, do not let my heart be broken again.’

Thranduil turned, an unwavering flame in his gaze. ‘It is for Ornuilos that I must do this. Or would you allow these murderers to run free, with your son’s blood on their hands?’

‘No,’ said Oropher, ‘I would not, were the world a fair place and all things unmarred. But as it stands, I must be content to know that they have only one son’s blood upon their hands, not two.’ He took a firm hold of Thranduil’s arm, matching his son’s glower. ‘Now come. The only revenge we can seek this day is to endure.’

Thranduil, a dusting of snow on the tips of his hair, breathed deeply and continued to throw his darkest look towards his father, but after a moment his shoulders dropped and he lowered his gaze. Oropher patted him on the shoulder.

‘Good, now come.’

This time apace with each other, the two retraced their steps through the wood. Perhaps it was the stillness of the air, but the shouts seemed to be creeping steadily nearer, and once, Oropher glanced over his shoulder and thought he saw movement behind them.

‘Why do they not go?’ he mused through clenched teeth.

‘They are searching for something,’ replied Thranduil. ‘I know from their calls, they are circling the forest.’

‘And you would leave the others in the grove unwarned?’ asked Oropher, prodding his son in the ribs to urge him to hurry. ‘They must not have the jewel of Fëanor. I had heard some say that Elwing had it. Perhaps that is true.’

‘Let us hope,’ said Thranduil, pausing by a copse of gnarled yew. He frowned as he looked about. ‘I do not recall this place.’

‘We cannot be far off the path. Come, this way.’

They crossed the copse, the trees seeming to dance around them as they moved, altering perspective and changing the landscape yet again. Dead branches lay like bones over a battlefield at their feet, crisp and brittle beneath a net of ice. Oropher now took the lead and pressed on, scowling as he searched for a landmark.

‘This is not the way,’ Thranduil whispered. ‘The holly trees were that way.’

Oropher considered both Thranduil’s preferred route and his own, then nodded and followed his son. Behind them a cry rang out. Agony froze on the air for a moment and both elves drew close to each other, holding the breath till the last echoes of the noise faded.

‘What was that?’ Thranduil asked.

‘A cry of one with a troubled soul,’ replied Oropher. ‘Who knows? Come!’

They ran on, this time without scrutinising each path. A heavy brown log broke out from beneath the snow, and they darted over it effortlessly. But as his feet landed on the other side, Thranduil stumbled and turned. His boot had caught a scrap of cloth, which had wound itself around his ankle. He kicked to free himself, but as the rag released him, he saw that he had shaken some of the snow away, revealing part of a larger bundle. He crouched and considered the object for a while, then traced its outlines with the edge of his hand, sweeping aside the snow.

Oropher slid to a halt and looked back, cursing under his breath.

‘Thranduil!’ he hissed, coming to his son’s side. ‘Will you move?’

Thranduil stayed where he was and continued to free the mass of rags from its icy shroud. He picked out strands of hair, caked with snow, and then ran his finger along the line of a small, tapered ear.

‘What is it?’ asked Oropher. He looked down over Thranduil’s shoulder and grimaced.

Thranduil straightened and stepped back from the dead elfling, which lay curled in a hollow behind the log, his hands to his blue-tinged mouth like a babe in the womb. Though the cold and snow made it difficult to tell if the child was known to him or not, Thranduil cursed and kicked the log.

‘Thranduil, come on,’ urged Oropher. ‘Naught can be done now. Thranduil, move. There are elflings still in Middle-earth that need your wrath to protect them.’

Again Oropher took his sons arm and dragged him away. After a few steps, however, Thranduil went willingly, though his gaze remained on the frozen corpse for a long while.

They did not stop again until they came to a thick clump of trees, leaning conspiratorially over till their branches intertwines. Thranduil saw flashes of colour between the trunks, and heard the faint murmur of sighs, sobs and anxious voices. Oropher led him to a sea green fir and pushed him through into the grove, where the small group of refugees sat huddled together. An elleth broke away from her fellows immediately and ran over to them, taking Thranduil’s hands at first, then she pulled his head down towards her and kissed his forehead.

‘Stupid child,’ she muttered, struggling to conceal the crackle of tears in her voice, though her cheeks glistened. ‘We had thought you lost.’

‘Maedhros’ kin are close now,’ Oropher warned. The rest of the elves looked up dolefully at him. ‘We must move. We must follow Elwing, if the rumours are true, and make for Sirion.’

‘I have already gathered up what little we still have,’ said Istel, Oropher’s wife, recovering her composure as she hugged her son. ‘I shall hurry the others along.’ Before she parted from them, she gave Thranduil a dire look. ‘And you will not venture out of your father’s sight.’

‘Naneth…’

‘You are our only son now, Thranduil. No longer can you hide in your elder brother’s shadow. I will rely on you to do what is right and help us flee this place. I know you are not fully grown, not just yet. But I need you to be as steadfast as your elders. Stay here, and stay in sight. Your time to be brave and seek vengeance will come.’

She strode off and called out to the others.

‘She knows you too well,’ said Oropher, seeing the question in Thranduil’s eyes. ‘What else would you do but seek to avenge your brother. But she is right. It is not the time.’

‘And those who would slaughter children? They are to be left to rule Middle-earth?’

‘They will come to naught,’ replied Thranduil. ‘Though it may take a thousand years, Vairë shall weave their fate and they shall pay. When you have fully shaken off your youth, you will understand that there are some things that must be left to the Valar to deal with. For now, we must survive.’

Thranduil lowered his head and walked away, his arms folded. He leaned against a tree, letting his forehead touch the bark and feel the coolness on his skin. The tree was indeed sleeping, as his father had said.

As he stood he heard the ellith preparing to leave, heard their whispers and rumours, like breezes passing swiftly around the grove. Once he heard his brother’s name, as one told the other how ‘the son of Oropher had fallen, so that his younger sibling might be spared’. Thranduil closed his eyes, the feel of that weight pressing down on him, the smell of fresh blood in his nostrils…and he remembered how he had opened his eyes at last and looked up into his brother’s lifeless face. He punched the tree and took the deepest breaths he could manage.

‘So many young ones died,’ said one of the ellith behind him. ‘Even Dior’s sons were wrenched from him and left to die alone.’

Thranduil thought of the corpse they had found. Perhaps the sons of Dior suffered the same fate, though how many children had these monsters left scattered around the woods? How many adults for that matter? Was the whole world a carpet of bodies, all slain at their unfeeling hands?

‘Even those who lived,’ replied Istel, ‘have in a way been slain.’

Thranduil glanced up and caught his mother’s eye. She seemed to stare at him for a long time, but did not look directly at him. Instead she gazed at something within him, as if she could see a shadow slowly spreading through his being.

‘For who could remain a child,’ Istel went on, ‘when he has seen such horror?’

She sighed and turned away. ‘We, all of us, are slain.’

Thranduil straightened slowly, watching as his mother drifted through the throng of movement.

‘Only if we allow it to be so,’ he called out to her. As Istel turned to look at him, Thranduil glanced towards his father and flashed a smile like silver. ‘For we endure. And for now that is the only revenge we may have, but it is good revenge.’

He sighed and left his post by the tree, heading into the crowd, where he began to gather up the packs and pots they possessed, helping others to put away their things and make ready. He watched Istel and Oropher, and saw them smile faintly as they too joined in.

‘They are coming,’ whispered Oropher, once the group was assembled. ‘Now let us go.’