“Brother, if you cling behind the shields of the rearguard like that, you will never find your courage.”

And then Nárello vanished in a red haze of flame and blood, and there was only the shrieking of the Balrog that clove Fingon’s helm in two and drove the Noldorin king into the dust.

Above the gasps and screams of his brother’s dying, they called to him, pulling him forward from the rear, thrusting into his trembling and bloodstained hands Nárello’s sword.  They called to him, his brother’s men, Artamir and Hallas, in desperate voices, half-choked with fumes and grief, and he scarcely heard them before Turgon, the King himself, seized him with mailed hands and all but flung him toward the beleaguered captains of Gondolin.

“To the fore with you,” grunted the king, and there was no pity in his eyes for the sudden horror of Nárello’s death.  “You’ll hold the line with Ecthelion, or die trying with the rest of us.”

He stood frozen, still clutching the sword that felt too heavy in his grasp, that was slick with blood, and when he turned to look at Artamir he saw only a pair of eyes dark with hopelessness and the golden flower stained with gore upon his breast.

* * *

When Idril the King’s daughter asked him to help oversee the last phase of the construction of the passage, Glorfindel did not refuse, though for a moment he wondered why she should confide in him above the captains of the other ten Houses.

Her eyes were grave, never leaving him even as she instructed Eärendil’s nurse to take the child from the room.  “Take him, Meleth, and see you do not frighten him overmuch with your tales.”

Eärendil kissed his mother.  “Good-night, naneth.  And good-night, laurëalótë.”  Golden flower, because the child preferred it. 

“He is a beautiful child,” Glorfindel murmured as the nurse carried him out.

Idril paused to look toward the door with a mother’s proud, proprietary gaze.  “Meleth tells him too much of the tales of Melkor.  Oft he is too restless to sleep.”

“Even adults are made uneasy by such tales,” he said softly.  “But why do you ask me to see to this task and not others?”

For a moment she did not answer.  “Because,” she finally replied, her voice low and measured, “you feel the cloud of foreboding even as I do.” 

Glorfindel, too, was silent a moment, weighing his words.  “Lady, I am sure there are others more trustworthy, more capable of this charge.  Why you would ask me, I do not know.”

“Do you not also dream of blood and fire?”

“There are many whose sleep is troubled now, since word came of the ruin of Doriath and Nargothrond.”  He did not tell her that his dreams had been filled with fire and blood long before that.  He had never told her of the nightmare that had been the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, though she knew he had been there and that his brother, then lord of the House of the Golden Flower, had been slain there.  No, he had not told anyone.  Only Artamir and Ondollo, steward of the House, who both watched over their lord’s restless slumber, knew of the visions that brought him trembling back to consciousness and filled him with unspeakable dread.

How does she know such things?  For Artamir never would have spoken, nor would Ondollo. 

But Idril was wise, he knew, and perhaps could see things men kept hidden.  Such talent was not unknown among the great ladies of the Eldar.  What she sees in me, I do not know.

“Another month or two and the passage will be ready,” she said.  “I will rest easier when I know the work is done, for something tells me we may soon have need of it.”

Turgon would have told her to put aside such fears, that no enemy could ever find the hidden way through the Encircling Mountains.  After Tuor’s coming, the King had ordered the way destroyed, concealed under tons of dislodged stones, and now none might come or go from the city and thus inadvertently betray the path.  Only the Eagles came to Gondolin now, bearing news from without. 

“Why do you not entrust this task to your cousin, my lady?” asked Glorfindel.  “Maeglin has the greatest skill in stonework and smithing.  Many a fine blade he has made for my House.  I do not—”

A shadow passed over Idril’s face.  I do not know what I have said amiss, but of Maeglin she does not wish to speak.  I do not like him much myself, for his manner is strange, but surely she is better served by his talents than mine. 

“My lady,” he said apologetically, “I have little skill in such matters.  I would make a poor architect.”

She smiled then, a slight upturn of her lips in which some shadow or sorrow yet lingered.  “Did you think I was asking you to trade your sword for a mallet?” she asked.  “Nay, that work is given to Findion.  He is skilled with the chisel and moreover owes no allegiance to the House of the Mole.  Nay, when the hour comes Tuor and I will lead as many from here as we may.  I would have you and your people stay near to us, for the House of the White Wing is not numerous and the road will be hard.” 

That was true.  Tuor’s House was comprised mostly of castoffs from other Houses diminished at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.  Those survivors of Fingon’s House who had found no haven elsewhere were welcomed into the House of the White Wing, as were Idril’s own loyal servants and those others who were drawn to the Man’s charismatic presence, but there were not many who would serve one of the Secondborn, regardless of the favor Turgon showed him.  After nearly fourteen years, Tuor was in some respects still as much an outsider and upstart as Glorfindel felt himself to be.

“Do you recall the words of warning the Lord of the Waters gave my husband ere sending him to us?” asked Idril.

“I do, my lady.”

“The Valar tell no falsehoods.  Nor have they forsaken us as utterly as many believe, though we have turned from them.  Nay, Thorondor and his kin that guard the heights of the Echoriath are Manwë’s own servants, and Tuor my husband wears the favor and emblems Ulmo himself chose for him.  Tuor is not to blame if others do not listen.”

Glorfindel knew Idril had spoken in secret to many folk, urging them to rally to her and Tuor should the city or its king fall.  They had only laughed, saying Gondolin would stand as long as Taniquetil itself; he knew this, for Idril had given her warning to many members of the House of the Golden Flower and he had heard their scorn, even as his own heart grew heavy.

If the city falls, it will be from a treachery and evil greater than I or any other save the Valar can withstand.  It will be more foul than the Unnumbered Tears, and none will be left to sing of it. 

After their long retreat back from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, once the seven Gates were shut fast and the blood and smoke washed away, Turgon had praised his captains, as was the custom.  To Ecthelion and Galdor and Egalmoth he had given many jewels, and to Duilin a bow inlaid with ithildin runes.  And to his newest captain the king had given a fine sword that Glorfindel did not wear; the bright steel, like Turgon’s words, could not take away the horror and desolation that had come before.  Nárello screamed as the Balrog burnt and trampled him, and Turgon shouted.  Glorfindel wore Nárello’s sword instead, saying it was an heirloom of his House.

“I-I am honored by your confidence, lady,” he finally said, “but there are better men than I.  Galdor is the most valiant of us, and Ecthelion the most loyal.  Rog is stalwart and—”

A gentle hand fell upon his arm, the lightest of touches.  “Do you not think you also have something worthy of giving?”

“My doubts would be of no help to you, my lady.”

“Think you that you are like Salgant, and faint of heart?”

The image of the lord of the House of the Harp, squat and heavy in his armor as he had hewed down a mob of Orcs at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, leapt into Glorfindel’s mind.  “I have never known Salgant to be cowardly,” he murmured.  He spends overmuch time fawning upon Maeglin, but that is not proof of a faint heart.

“There is much that may change, and much ill thought that may bear fruit, ere the end,” she said.

* * *

Many of the younger members of the House of the Golden Flower chafed at the strictures of the Tarnin Austa.  There was too much of silence these days, and though there would be the soft music of harps to ease the night, they wanted laughter to drive the brooding air away.

“You know nothing of silence,” grumbled Ondollo.  “When the Trees died upon Ezellohar, that was silence.  And when we crossed the Helcaraxë, there was only the wind and the crack and crash of distant glaciers, and that was a sound as desolate as Nienna’s tears.  You know not how many long months of that we endured, and here you complain of one brief night.”

“Leave off, steward,” Glorfindel said softly.  “They do not remember.”  He himself had been very young at the crossing of the Grinding Ice, young enough that he had to be carried on Ondollo’s shoulders.  He thought he remembered something of the time before, the mingling of the lights of the Two Trees and the weeping in his father’s house when they died.  He had a hazy memory of a beautiful Vanyarin lady robed in green and gold, a soft lap and sweet fragrance; Nárello said their mother had died crossing the Helcaraxë, but Glorfindel did not remember that.  His first true memories were of Nevrast and Vinyamar by the sea, and the long march east through the Echoriath to Tumladen where Turgon had built Gondolin.

Through the window, Glorfindel looked down on the Street of the Folkwell, where the lamplighters were busily hanging silvered lanterns from the boughs of the new-leaved trees.  Tonight jeweled lights would play in the Court of the Fountain, and the pools would glitter, reflecting their light and the gleam of the two trees Glingol and Belthil, that Turgon himself had made in memory of the Two Trees of Valinor.

“Here, Erunámo.”  As the steward draped the green and gold cloak about his shoulders, Glorfindel bit his lip at the sound of his essi, his father-name.  Ondollo was the only one who called him that now; the others either respected his wishes or knew him only by his epessë.  But Ondollo never listened, always pretending to be hard of hearing when his lord reminded him of his chosen name.

He accepted the cloak in silence, though it was not midnight and words were permitted.  Ondollo came around to his front and fastened the green silk with a brooch in the shape of a golden flower.  More golden flowers, tiny beads threaded through his hair, glittered among his braids.  “Ah, pitya laurëlótënya,” said the steward, beaming.  “Now you look like a proper prince.”

My little golden flower.  Glorfindel snorted at the steward’s affectionate exclamation.  Nárello looked more the part than I do.  I feel queer and half-dressed.  Admirers of both sexes told him he was beautiful, but he did not know that they saw.  Ecthelion, his dark hair glittering with the silver and diamonds of his House, was beautiful, if such a word could be used to describe a male.  Idril Celebrindal was beautiful, and the king’s sister Aredhel Ar-Feinel, Maeglin’s mother, she had been fair, though white and stern like gleaming frost.  As for me, my nose is too long, my mouth too thin and I am not particularly comely.

“Perhaps my lord will catch the eye of some lissome maiden at the feast, no?”  Ondollo winked suggestively at him while plucking a bit of invisible lint off the gold-shot silk.  “They looked longingly at you at the Nost-na-Lothion and you, foolish Erunámo, you said not a word.”

“Nor will I say anything at Tarnin Austa, as custom dictates.”

“And you shall become as stuffy as Elu Thingol was, and you barely six hundred years old.”

“You met Thingol but once,” Glorfindel pointed out.

“Yes, and it was enough.”

Until midnight might he speak, but Glorfindel was noted as a lord of few words.  There would be feasting and dancing from sunset until midnight, and he anticipated being assailed by several maidens, including one persistent, dark-haired lady of the House of the Swallow.

“Ah, there you are,” said Tuor, greeting him in the hall of the house of the King.  Idril’s husband was resplendent in a tunic of silk that was like fishes’ mail, turning to silver, then sapphire or green as he moved.  His cloak was fastened with a luminous sea-jewel set in silver.  The son of Huor was tall for a mortal, yet even so Glorfindel found himself looking slightly down upon him and it seemed rude.  “We are going up to the walls to watch the sunset.  Will you join us?”

Behind the Court of the Fountain and the white Tower of the King, terraces ran along the length of the king’s house, looking down upon the falls of Amon Gwareth and the vale of Tumladen nearly six hundred feet below.  Turgon’s men, their lances decked with flowers, stood at attention among the trees while the lords and ladies of the city gathered to watch the sunset.

Glorfindel found a place between Egalmoth and Varniher, one of Galdor’s lieutenants; the lord of the House of the Tree was engaged in a spirited conversation with Laiqalassë, one of his other lieutenants.  He saw Idril, her white skirts turned to gold in the light of sunset and rippling in the breeze, and Eärendil, whom Tuor lifted onto his shoulders so he might see the view over the terrace.  Tuor, in a fit of paternal pride, told Glorfindel and Egalmoth that this was the first Tarnin Austa the boy was allowed to stay up and celebrate; he need not have said anything, for Eärendil himself proudly relayed this fact to everyone he could.

In a final wash of crimson and gold, Anor set behind the Echoriath and twilight fell over the city.  The first stars began to appear.

“Adar,” Eärendil said to his father, “is Anor coming up again?”

Glorfindel felt Egalmoth nudge him.  “A charming little prince, is he not?”

“In the morning, yondo,” laughed Tuor.  “But come, there is a feast waiting, and the cooks have prepared all your favorite dishes.”

“No, adar.  She is coming up again now, see?”

“Silly child,” said Idril.  “Anor rises in the—oh, Elbereth!  What is that?”

From where he stood, several paces back from the edge of the terrace, Glorfindel heard the murmurs of dismay before he saw anything.  He heard the king questioning Tuor and Ecthelion, for it was plain the light Eärendil saw was nothing natural.  Then the captains were pressing forward, pulling him along with them, and the terrace was cleared.  At last he could look out and see what the cause of the commotion was.

Against the black mass of the Echoriath, where the North Gate cut into the rock, a red glow lit the foothills like firelight.  No summer bonfire was this, for even the greatest fires lit by the farmers of the vale should not have been visible as anything more than pinpricks so high up. 

“The North Gate is strong,” Maeglin was saying.  “I strengthened its defenses myself.  ‘Tis nothing more than a child’s passing fancy.”

“If this is some fancy, then we can all see it,” Tuor answered stiffly.  “Even you cannot be so blind.”  He was no longer holding his son, but had given Eärendil back to his mother.

Hostility hung thickly in the air between them, but the king’s nephew merely dismissed him with a gesture.  “We are in no danger, mortal.”

And then, one of the ladies still on the terrace screamed.  Glorfindel turned, even as Turgon went to the wall and braced himself on the edge to look out.  More voices took up the cry; he heard someone begin to weep.  There were more panicked gasps and cries, more women began to quail in fear.  Tuor told Idril to take Eärendil back to their house, and to take as many women as would follow her.

“I see it also,” murmured Egalmoth, shifting over so Glorfindel could look.  “There, against the hills, do you mark it?”

Glowing, writhing down the slopes, serpents of flame slid into the vale of Tumladen.  Between them, it seemed the shadows themselves were moving.  That is an army, from the north, from the direction of Angband.  They have found us.  No—oh, Eru, this cannot be.  Gall choked him and he trembled against the edge of the terrace, clutching the marble to hold himself upright.  “Yes,” he croaked, “I see it.”  How can Maeglin be so blind in his arrogance?  The North Gate has fallen, and we are finished.

* * *

Notes:

naneth: (Quenya) mother

Nirnaeth Arnoediad: the Battle of Unnumbered Tears took place thirty-nine years before the fall of Gondolin. 

Helcaraxë: Tolkien does not explain how Glorfindel comes to Middle Earth from Valinor, or if he was born after the Crossing of the Grinding Ice.  If he was born after, this would make him about five hundred years old or less at the time the story takes place, as Gondolin fell in FA 510.  Elsewhere it is implied that those who have seen the Two Trees are imbued with a greater spiritual power, and given the comments Gandalf makes to Frodo about Glorfindel in The Fellowship of the Ring, that “those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power” (II.1:294), it seemed likely that Glorfindel had lived in Valinor during the Time of the Trees. 

I have taken the liberty of making Glorfindel about six hundred years old, old enough to have lived in Valinor but not old enough to have actively participated in any rebellion against the Valar.  Tolkien never specifies, but given that he is later reembodied and sent back to Middle Earth as a special emissary of the Valar, I think it unlikely Glorfindel could have participated in the Kinslaying at Alqualondë.  Therefore, he probably crossed the Helcaraxë with Fingolfin’s host.

essi: (Quenya) the father-name, usually given at birth.  I have taken the liberty of giving Glorfindel the essi of Erunámo, which roughly means “judgment of Eru.” 

epessë: (Quenya) a “use” or personal name, usually chosen by the individual. 

Laurëalótë: (Quenya) “Golden-flower”

Nost-na-Lothion: Birth of the Flowers.  The festival probably coincides with Beltane or May Day.

Tarnin Austa: The Gates of Summer.  This festival probably is the equivalent of the summer solstice.

Laiqalassë: (Quenya)  The name means “green-leaf.”  In “The Fall of Gondolin,” Tolkien uses the Sindarin form “Legolas,” but as I did not want readers to confuse this Noldorin elf with the son of Thranduil, I chose to use the Quenya version of his name.

adar: (Quenya) father

yondo: (Quenya) son

It had been a full night and day of terror.  The writhing shapes of fire that slid down from the hills near the shattered North Gate were, in fact, serpents, of bronze and iron, cunningly crafted siege engines to batter at the walls of the city.  And with them came true fire-serpents, the urulóki, and Orcs and Balrogs with their cruel whips of flame.  By the time the northern sentries rode into the city, harried and wounded, half their number taken by surprise in their guard-towers and lost, all the sky to the north was lit with flame, and the blood-red light played ominously about the courts where the silvered lanterns and jeweled lamps still hung for a forgotten festival.

Glorfindel remembered the council, called in haste by the king, but the arguments that passed between Tuor and Maeglin were a blur.  Tuor urged Turgon to evacuate the women and children while there was yet time, and in that moment revealed the existence of Idril’s secret passage to any who did not already know.  Glorfindel watched Maeglin’s face change at this information, eyes narrowing, becoming crafty.  You should not have spoken, Tuor.  There is evil in this.

He listened while Maeglin persuaded the king to stay and defend the city, claiming that it was impregnable.  Do you not hear the urulóki already shrieking overhead?  If the North Gate is fallen—that they have found that hidden way—then it is already too late.  He wanted to say all this and more, but his tongue had turned to wool in his mouth and he sat frozen.  Turgon will think me craven for all that I cannot trust my voice not to break.  And he will be right, for I am afraid.

His eyes slid over to Maeglin, and to Salgant who even now was hanging upon his every word, and he understood in that moment why Idril had not entrusted the work to her cousin.  Across the table, he met Tuor’s eyes and the mortal nodded.  We have been betrayed.

Then Egalmoth was nudging him.  “Come, otorno, the time for talk is over.”

All he remembered of the trip back to his house were the distant wails and sobbing of the women and the way his limbs trembled, threatening to undo him.  Ondollo met him at the door with his sword, and Artamir and Hallas, their festival finery set aside for gleaming mail, were ready with his armor.  He let them array him in the chain mail shirt and buckle on his greaves and breastplate, over which went the green surcoat with its rayed golden flower.  Last of all, Ondollo wrapped the baldric around his waist and gave him his sword.

Now that surcoat was torn, little more than a bloodied, smoke-stained rag by which the other defenders of the city could identify him, and he was stifling in his armor as he fought a retreat from the Great Market northward to the King’s Square.  The flaming siege engines had not been able to scale the sheer face of Amon Gwareth, where the spring-fed torrents of water that cascaded down its sides turned the heights to glass.  But when fire met water, steam began to pour from all the fountains and reservoirs of the city.  Stifling heat and smoke billowed into the streets like a fog, and people swooned.

Glorfindel was tempted to shed his breastplate as he ran, anything to catch a breath of cool air, but he dared not.  The last messenger brought tidings that the city’s north gate had been broken and the wall breached somewhere on the east.  Orcs and Balrogs poured into the city from seemingly every direction, and flaming arrows arced through the air, landing on rooftops and in gardens.  The barriers Glorfindel and the other defenders had thrown up along the streets would only hold for so long.

And then the urulókë swooped in low, barreling along the road that connected the Lesser Market with the Great, and its flame ripped through the barriers and ignited the storehouses that fronted the marketplace.   Glass windows shattered in the heat and walls blew outward; the concussion knocked over most of the defenders and pinned those nearest the blast under the debris.  Glorfindel heard Hallas scream as a chunk of burning masonry struck him, but then Artamir and Ondollo were urging him along, reminding him that he had ordered the retreat, and the heat and press of Orcs pouring over the shattered barricade kept him from going to Hallas.

Where were the reinforcements I sent for?  An Orc snarled into view, disappearing in a spray of gore as his sword clove its head in two; he kicked the body aside without ever breaking his stride.   Bodies he saw splayed in the streets, some Orcs but mostly Elves, hewn down or overcome by the heat and fumes and trampled.  His messenger probably had not made it to Turgon; the last had been bleeding from half a dozen shallow wounds and could barely stay upright.

The warrior running beside him took a flaming arrow between the eyes and went down, grunting as he fell.  Glorfindel did not see who it was, could not stop for him.  The Orcs were on his heels, tearing at the corpses of those who fell behind.

When he got to the King’s Square, if it was not already overrun by Orcs, he did not know what he would find.  All he had were the bits of information gathered by runners; he knew Duilin was dead, shot through the chest by a flaming bolt on the northern wall, and had a rumor that Penlod of the House of the Pillar had died, pinned to a wall by Orc spears, in the Alley of Roses.  Of the king and Ecthelion, whose House Turgon kept back to defend the palace, Glorfindel knew nothing.  Nor of Tuor’s White Wing or the Rog’s Hammer of Wrath, sent to hold the North Gate.  If they got through, he’s dead.  Rog never would have retreated.

Turning a corner, the second-to-last before the square, he saw warriors running toward him.  A flash of gold and silver on sable told his weary mind they were Salgant’s men of the Harp.  Their leader, Manveru, caught Glorfindel by the arm and held him for an instant.

“Salgant told us not that we…were needed,” he panted.  “He…he held us back.  We came anyway.”

More treachery this day. It is even as Idril said, he is Maeglin’s coward.  “The Great Market is lost,” answered Glorfindel.  He gasped for breath before adding, “Urulóki, do not go that way.”

“Where is the rest of your troop?” asked Manveru.

“This is my troop.”  All that had escaped with him had since passed him by and gone ahead to the King’s Square; they were perhaps half the number he had set out with.

Tuor met him near one of the fountains.  His blue surcoat was torn and bloodied, the swan’s wings on his helm charred from the heat.  In one hand he clutched his great axe Dramborleg, while supporting a swooning Ecthelion in the crook of his other arm.  The lord of the Fountain was ashen, long gashes rent across his face by claws or some cruel whip, and slashed deeply in the arm.

“Balrog got me,” he gasped when he saw Glorfindel.  “Least you are…still intact.”

“Barely, otorno.”  Mindful of Ecthelion’s wound, Glorfindel caught him up on his other side to help him walk.  “The Great Market…gone.”

“Rog took it worst at the north gate…he and his warriors, they were surrounded.”  Ecthelion winced as the movement jarred his wound, but continued, “They set an urulókë on him.”

Tuor shouted for Ecthelion’s lieutenant Elemmakil to help his lord to one of the fountains.  “Get him some cool water and bind up that wound.  We’re going to need every man ere this is ended.”

Barricades were going up across all points of entry to the King’s Square.  Tuor supervised the work, going from one team to the next.  “We’ll hold them back for as long as we can.”

“But the south,” said Glorfindel, “the Road of Pomps, you did not—”

“Egalmoth’s coming up with everyone he can gather.”  Tuor turned, shouting at the warriors of the Harp to pile the debris higher and thicker.  “We’re going to try for Idril’s passage, if it isn’t too late.”

“Who else is left?  I heard Duilin was dead, and Penlod.”

“There are still Galdor’s people, and some survivors of Duilin’s House.  Salgant’s cowering somewhere in his house by the Lesser Market, but we have his warriors.  The House of the Mole, they are lost.”

“Maeglin--?”

“He’s dead,” growled Tuor.  “His warriors are dead with him.  Look around you.”

Glorfindel noticed then how many warriors of the Mole sprawled dead in the square, and the enemy had not yet won through.  Feathered shafts sprouted from some of the bodies, the fletching bearing the colors of the Sparrow, the Tree and the White Wing.  There is no creature more accursed than the kinslayer.  “This is not the work of—” 

The Man turned and grasped him by the shreds of his surcoat, his eyes wild with fury.  “He tried to kill my son!  He betrayed us all!  I threw him from the walls like the animal he was!”  Tuor’s breath was as hot in his face as his words, and Glorfindel did not resist.  “Now go to the south side with your warriors and be ready to throw up the barricade once Egalmoth gets through.”

Up the Road of Pomps came the warriors of the Heavenly Arch, driving before them a throng of terrified women and children.  Egalmoth ran in front, sword drawn.  He reached the edge of the square before the others and turned, urging the survivors on.  Some were laden with treasures; he wrenched jewel-caskets and illuminated tomes from unwilling hands and flung them aside, shouting for the people to leave everything but the food and water they would need to sustain them.

As the last of Egalmoth’s warriors flew past, Glorfindel urged his people to start piling sandbags and fallen masonry across the road.  “Hurry!”  He grabbed a chunk of stone and hefted it into place.  “There is not much time!”  And this road, unlike the alley up which he had come, was wide.  It might take an hour or more to erect anything resembling an effective barricade.  They needed more warriors.

“Go!” he shouted to Ondollo.  “Get whoever Tuor or Ecthelion can spare.”

“My lord!” cried Artamir.  “They are coming!”

A swarm of onrushing twisted limbs and cruel weapons, led by the biggest Balrog Glorfindel had ever seen, bore down on them. 

“Gothmog!” cried Egalmoth.

“Hold the barricade!”  As Tuor’s command echoed through the square, warriors of the Harp and the Heavenly Arch ran in to supplement the ranks. 

The wave struck the barrier with the force of a battering ram; it wavered, crumbling, but held.  Orcs came first, jabbing over the wall with spears and cruel hooks, clambering over even as the defenders flung them back.  Glorfindel felt something sharp graze his cheek, thought he felt a trickle of blood.  His shield reflexively came up; he did not stop to see how badly he was hurt or mark who had struck him.

The Balrogs came in the second wave, leaping to the top of the barricade and lashing the air with their whips.  A lash of fire passed dangerously close to Glorfindel’s head; he felt the heat sting his face as the thong struck the warrior next to him.  He shrieked as he fell, clutching at a spray of gore that used to be his face.

“Urulóki!”

Peering up above the rim of his shield, Glorfindel saw the black shapes winging downward toward the barricade.  Six or seven of them, smoke trailing from their nostrils, and it was the Great Market all over again.  “Scatter!” he cried.  Turning, he caught Egalmoth by the arm and shoved.  Both of them stumbled, spilling over the corpses of Orc and Elf alike, even as Gothmog leapt to the top of the barrier and crushed it under him as he plowed over.  Other Balrogs and Orcs, swarms of them, poured howling through the gap.

Egalmoth disappeared into the maelstrom of the fray, but Glorfindel saw Artamir fending off a pair of Orcs, and Tuor, who put himself directly in Gothmog’s path.  Are you mad, mortal?  Dramboleg came up, hewing at the Balrog’s armored limbs, glancing off the iron plates.  Gothmog snarled at Tuor’s insolence and drove the Man back toward the fountain where Ecthelion and the other wounded lay.  Glorfindel could see little of Tuor past Gothmog’s bulk, but knew the Man was tiring, wilting under his own exhaustion and the creature’s heat.

Warriors of the Fountain came rushing up even as Tuor faltered and stumbled.  Gothmog snapped his whip; Glorfindel saw one of its many thongs tear off Elemmakil’s head; the captain’s torso fell twitching in a rush of blood and half a dozen or more of his comrades fell with him.  Tuor rolled away from a second snap of the whip, but his axe lay now beyond reach.  Glorfindel saw him grope toward a broken spear; the whip snapped down and sent it flying from Tuor’s reach.  Gothmog inched closer, toying with his prey.

Suddenly the Lord of the Balrogs seemed to lurch.  He stumbled backward half a step, and as he shifted Glorfindel saw Ecthelion, gray-faced, his shield-arm hanging limp at his side, standing on the rim of the fountain, wrath shining in his eyes.  He leaned against the haft of a spear, pressing all his weight upon it as he screamed something at the Balrog.  Glorfindel could not make out quite what it was, but it might have been “Heca, ulundo!”

Glorfindel turned and, pointing his sword toward the fountain, shouted, “Roqueni Laurëalotëo Nénen i ortal!”

Few of the Golden Flower were able to rally to his call, little more than a dozen, but it might be enough to bring Gothmog down if they took him from behind.

Between them and Gothmog swarmed a pack of smaller Balrogs.  Glorfindel roared his frustration, thrusting his blade into the eye of one Balrog and hewing off the arm of another.  His foot slipped in a slick of gore and he suddenly slipped to one knee.  Pain reverberated through his left leg; he could not hold himself upright and slumped down, even as a Balrog’s flaming sword sliced the air where his head had been.

Gothmog lunged and so did Ecthelion, driving the spike of his helm into the Balrog’s belly.  Pinned against the bellowing, writhing creature, Ecthelion wrapped both legs around Gothmog’s limbs and wrenched him back with him into the fountain.  There was a shout from Gothmog, drowned by a great splash and sizzle of water, and both combatants vanished in the steam that poured out of the fountain.

Tuor was shouting, rallying the warriors of the White Wing to save Ecthelion from drowning, for the lord of the Fountain had not surfaced.  But the water was steaming, boiling, and began to run red with blood.  Dismayed by the demise of their leader, the Balrogs wavered, and in that moment the survivors of the House of the Fountain surged down upon them, screaming in their fury.

And behind them, led by a figure gleaming in silver and white and blood-red, the warriors of the King thundered down the way leading to the palace and swarmed the enemy.  Turgon had held his House in reserve, but no longer.

Shrieks and flame poured down from above.  One of the urulóki was descending, trampling Orc and Elf alike, and blackening the white stones of the courtyard as it alit.

I have to get up if I want to live.  I have to move.  Glorfindel swallowed the pain in his leg and let one of his warriors pull him to his feet.  The entire square seemed to be rushing in one direction, like the dragging of the tide, and he was caught up in it.  Yet they were not fleeing the urulókë.  Urged on by Turgon and Tuor, they were mobbing it, driving it toward one of the fountains.  Flames belched forth from an angry maw, ripping into the leading edge, but as those warriors fell others swiftly took their place.

Scalding steam filled the air, and the sizzle of burnt flesh.  Glorfindel’s eyes stung.  He could barely see; what little vision he had left was blurred by tears.  There was only the smoke now, and the high-pitched shrieks of a dying urulókë.

* * *

Notes:

Urulókë: fire-drake, or dragon.

otorno: (Quenya) sworn brother, associate.

Elemmakil:  In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien does not specify which House Elemmakil belongs to, but since Ecthelion is the first lord who comes out to greet Tuor, I took the liberty of assigning Elemmakil to the House of the Fountain.

House of the Mole: These warriors, dressed all in sable with moleskin caps, were utterly loyal to Maeglin and attacked Tuor by the walls where Tuor flung Maeglin to his death.  For the purposes of the story, I moved some of the corpses to the King’s Square.

“Roqueni Laurëalotë Nénen i ortal!”: “Knights of the Golden Flower to the Water [=Lord of the Fountain] that sustains you!”Big thanks to Aerlinnel at Henneth-Annûn for the translation of Glorfindel’s battle cry!

“Heca ulundo!” (Quenya) “Begone, foul creature!”

laurëalóti: (Quenya) golden flowers.

Egalmoth urging the women to leave their valuables behind is actually done later by Tuor, but there is no reason why both could not have done this at separate times.

“Quickly, go in single file.  No, leave your treasures—only food and water.  Don’t argue with me, woman!  There’s no time!”

Tuor herded people toward the entrance to the passage, though to Glorfindel his idea of herding was more akin to shoving.  The Man had no patience left, shouting at those who balked and ripping the valuables from those who refused to leave them.  Ecthelion’s death weighed heavily upon him, and Maeglin’s treachery, and those burdens lent no honey to his tongue.

Idril he sent on ahead with Voronwë; Eärendil had been sent through the passage hours earlier and there was no further word of him.  Others had also gone, stragglers whom Idril had found wandering in the streets before Tuor and his followers met her on the high ground of Gar Ainion, Place of the Gods.  Glorfindel noticed she was clad in mail and there was blood upon her face and raiment, though little of it was hers. 

Night had fallen again, a twilight clouded by smoke and lit with flame.  They had cut their way out of the King’s Square, and those warriors who refused to leave, the King’s warriors and those of the Fountain, covered their escape with swords and arrows and, when weapons failed them, their own bodies, sealing the way behind them with a barricade of corpses.  Urulóki prowled the streets, scorching the pavement with flame and trampling the bodies of the fallen. 

As they ran, Glorfindel saw many warriors look back over their shoulders to the Tower of the King, where Turgon had barricaded himself.  He took his own cue from Tuor and swallowed his grief long enough to shout at them to keep their eyes and wits on the road ahead.  Even so, many of the Golden Flower fell along the Road of Pomps.

How many did we save? he wondered.  Long ago he had stopped counting, but there seemed to be hundreds.  Perhaps there were a thousand, yet when he saw the corpses of maidens and children in the street and replayed in his mind the warriors cut down, the number seemed much less.   The greater bulk of them had already passed into the tunnel, and Galdor and Eglamoth had taken their warriors below to guard them; the flood was slowing to a trickle, and still Tuor remained at the entrance, shoving and urging everyone along.

Flames suddenly blossomed against the midnight sky; half a second later the boom of a distant explosion rocked the south wall.  Those who had not seen turned at the sound, gasping, covering their mouths with their hands as the upper portion of the Tower of the King broke away and crashed downward.  The ground shook at the impact, and the noise momentarily deafened the cries of horror.

It is over, thought Glorfindel, and he felt his heart flutter and sink in his breast.  Turgon is dead.  At least Idril had not seen the tower come down, and perhaps by now she was far enough away that she could not hear the explosions or feel the concussion.

Tuor gave the scene one last, despairing look, then dove into the passageway.  Glorfindel and his warriors would hold the rear, and see to it that the passage was securely blocked after them.

The last forty or fifty survivors filed through after Tuor, going single-file, some with torches or lanterns torn off festival displays.  Glorfindel hurried them along, scanning the alleyway for more people, for any last-minute stragglers who might come running (for surely there must be people still alive and trapped throughout the city), before withdrawing his warriors to the first length of the tunnel.  Tuor had placed under his command the last remnants of the Houses of the Swallow and Harp, for there were not enough of the Golden Flower left to make a stand should it come to it.

Ondollo, his bottom lip split and black with caked blood, held aloft a torch for the warriors who threw off their arms and took up the chisels and picks left by the entrance by the masons.  Using debris hauled in from the street, they began to brick up the door while from above, amplified through the strata of rock, muffled tremors dislodged stone dust; the warriors choked, coughed and kept working.  When the walls and streets under which the tunnel ran collapsed, as well they might, the passage would seal itself, or cut off all route for escape for anyone trapped behind the debris.  Hurry, thought Glorfindel.  The torch trembled in Ondollo’s hand; the bloody lips formed the same word.  Hurry.

The tunnel was not particularly wide or tall, and its entrance was less so, enough for a broad-shouldered Elven warrior to duck under the lintel.  Four archers worked feverishly, piling up stones and sandbags without mortar; more would have helped, but there was not room to accommodate them.  Once the debris reached the upper seam of the entrance, Glorfindel pulled the archers back and sent them down the passage one at a time, reminding them to do as Idril instructed, not to panic or try to outpace those ahead of them, for the way was narrow.

A thin, stale haze filled the passage; the air was warm and close.  The path gently sloped downward, but when it ran level again, they were still near street level.  Too close, thought Glorfindel, for the walls and ceiling rumbled constantly above them, and it seemed the stout wooden beams that shored up the passage strained to take the burden.  Sometimes a violent jolt sent clouds of dust or small stones showering down; the city above was falling in on itself, buildings collapsing under the strain of heat and flame, or the relentless pounding of iron siege engines.

From up ahead, Glorfindel heard muffled sobs from women and children, sometimes from warriors when the ground shook.  His own warriors were panting in the torchlit gloom, realizing for the first time how claustrophobic they were.  They were not Naugrim who loved burrowing in the lightless earth; they needed to feel the wind and sun, and see the stars. 

Keep going, he told himself, letting his lips wrap themselves around the words until they were a voiceless chant.  One step, then another step.  Do not stop, do not look back.  Keep going.  The words throbbed in his head like the trembling of the earth, the cadence of them driving back the terror of the dark, close space that pressed in upon him like a tomb.

Even with the torches, they could not see more than a foot before or behind them, so they had no warning when they came upon the first corpses.  One of them, a man, had been turned over by those who went before; Glorfindel reached and felt for a pulse, but the body was cold and stiff, having been dead many hours.  Perhaps his heart had given out in terror, for fear alone could bring death, especially in this place, but then, farther down the passage was a second corpse, and a third.

“The air is rank,” whispered Ondollo.  “Mark the torch.”

The flames were sputtering, devouring precious oxygen.  “Put it out,” said Glorfindel.  “We can feel our way.”

“No!” screamed one of the archers.  He backed up as if to run, but there were warriors behind and before him and he was trapped.

Glorfindel swiftly maneuvered his way to the archer, pinning him up against the wall with his own body.  When the warrior did not stop screaming, Glorfindel brought up his hand and slapped him hard enough to draw blood.  “You will be quiet,” he hissed.  “You will not frighten the others.  There are women and children ahead of us who can hear you.”

The archer, one of Duilin’s House, thrashed and hyperventilated.  Glorfindel slammed him back a second time, crushing him against his quiver.  “Do not make me kill you to silence you.”  Elbereth, please do not make me do it.  Please, please be quiet.

“Not the light,” he sobbed.  “Please, n-not the light.”

“It is already going out.  Look, the way is straight.  I have been through this tunnel before.  Keep to the wall and feel your way.  You cannot get lost if you keep moving.”

Loosening his hold upon the archer, Glorfindel instructed him to hold to one of his companions if he feared being left behind; this order he extended to everyone, to grip to someone else or the wall, for he saw the fear in their eyes as they watched the sputtering torch.  Then, before he lost his resolve, he ordered Ondollo to douse the light.  Half a dozen frightened pairs of eyes were the last thing he saw, heard a dozen or more gasps and moans of despair greeting the darkness.

His body was pressed to the wall, hands splayed against the rock as he felt his way.  To the left, always to the left.  His feet shuffled inches, testing the way ahead, nudging corpses and stepping over them.  How many people tried to flee this way and were overcome by fumes, or terror?  He gasped, pushing down his panic.  No, do not think on the dead now, lest you join them.  You must keep going. 

It was difficult.  The air, already thin and stale, reeked of voided bowels and bladders.  It smelled of fear.  Glorfindel took little breaths to conserve his air, sometimes reaching across with his left hand to squeeze the fingers that clamped his right arm; he did not know who held to him, but felt the fingers squeeze back.

After a time, the rumbling subsided, became no more than a faint murmur under the stone, and he realized they must have passed beyond the city walls and Amon Gwareth.  The way runs a league from the walls out into the vale of Tumladen.  The end cannot be not far now.  Earlier he had traversed the way at Idril’s bidding, following the mason Findion from the tunnel’s beginning to its end.  In his mind’s eye, he tried to visualize the way, the walls narrowing and ceiling becoming lower toward the end.  Even now, he felt ragged stone chafe his fingertips and the calluses of his palms, and, as he turned his head to the left, he thought the air felt cooler.  But it was when he felt the ceiling brush against his scalp that he knew they were close.  He sent the word back, urging the warriors not to panic when they felt the space press in around them; the masons simply had not had time to finish their work.

“Light,” someone murmured.

He saw it, too, a watery strip of moonlight perhaps fifteen feet away, now ten as he edged toward it.  The air felt clean and cool on his face, moist with evening mist.  We have made it.  We are alive and on the other side.  His limbs trembled with release, though his mind told him he and the other Gondolindrim were not yet out of danger.

The tunnel opened into a large, dry basin; the bushes that once concealed the opening had been trampled by the passing of hundreds of feet.  Glorfindel stumbled into the night air, while behind him he heard his warriors gasp and sob in relief as one by one they emerged from the darkness.

Ithil was low on the horizon, framed between two jagged peaks of the Echoriath, but there were yet several hours before dawn.  The basin was dark; though full of people, neither torch nor lantern burned anywhere.  Egalmoth, whose sentries helped Glorfindel’s group descend from the mouth of the passage and embraced them in welcome, cautioned them not to light any lamps that might betray their presence to the enemy.

“You did not stumble upon a child in the dark, did you?” Egalmoth asked.

“We came upon many corpses, otorno.”  Glorfindel took the cup of water one of the warriors of the Heavenly Arch gave him and drank deeply.  The water tasted of clay and grit, but his dry throat soaked it up like the sweetest of wines.  “We went in the dark and did not mark them all.”

Egalmoth looked troubled.  “No one has seen Eärendil,” he explained.  “Even now, Tuor and Idril search among the survivors.”

“He is still in the tunnel?”

“I know not.  The lady sent him ahead many hours before, but he was not here when we came.  She does not wish to leave until he is found, but Tuor fears we will be discovered if we tarry too long.”

Even now, captains of the Houses of the White Wing and Tree were moving among the survivors, instructing them to make ready to leave.  A hard choice Tuor has, and one I would not wish to make nor wish upon any other.  Glorfindel nodded, stumbling away from Egalmoth in search of a place to sit.  A long march lay ahead of them, out of the vale and through the mountains to whatever refuge Tuor and Idril planned to lead them, if indeed there was anyplace left that could be called a refuge.

Glorfindel felt a cool, moist cloth touch his cheek.  The rag Ondollo used to dab the blood from the Orc scratch was none too clean, but his touch was gentle.  A hand carefully brushed his hair back from his face, fingers combing through the tangled strands.

“Look, Erunámo,” murmured Ondollo, tugging at a knot.  Glorfindel winced as his scalp was pulled, and looked wearily at the speck of metal glimmering in the steward’s palm.  Even in the moonlight, he recognized the flower-shaped golden bead.  Putting his hand to his hair, he felt more beads, snarled among his tangled braids.  The festival, Ondollo had woven gold flowers into his hair for the festival, Tarnin Austa that came early with fire and blood.  It is not even two days and yet it seems so long ago.  Glorfindel let his shoulders slump as he laid his head upon the steward’s shoulder.

“Erunámo, pitya laurëalótënya,” Ondollo said softly, “it is all right.”

“Yes,” answered Glorfindel, though it was not so, “but I am weary and there is yet a long way to go.”

* * *

Dissension stirred among the survivors.  Weary and anxious to flee the vale of Tumladen, the thoughts of many turned south toward Bad Uthwen, that had ever been known as the way of escape.

Tuor and Idril, fearing Maeglin’s treachery extended far beyond Gondolin’s walls, both argued against this course.  They would go north through Cirith Thoronath, the Eagle’s Cleft, although it was twice the trek and would bring them dangerously close to Angband.  Even Egalmoth, who agreed that Bad Uthwen should be avoided, doubted the wisdom of this course.

“The way is high and cold, even in summer,” he said, “and we have no provision for such a journey.”  Indeed, there was not even food or water for all.  Cirith Thoronath would be a cold, hungry road, without hope.  Glorfindel, who did not speak, for he was the youngest of the captains and did not think he had anything worth saying, listened to the debate and remembered the long retreat from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.  Wounded and with little food to sustain them, warriors had fallen dead upon the road; on the last stretch, as they neared the Hidden Way that led to the Seven Gates, Turgon had ordered the living to carry the dead so the enemy might discover no trace of their passing.

But these are not warriors, Glorfindel reflected.  They are women and children, the sick and wounded.  They are unaccustomed to hunger or cold or weariness.  Before him, leaning against each other in their exhaustion, he saw a pair of maidens shivering in their tattered festival silks.  Their shoes had been lost somewhere in the ruin of the city.  They would surely freeze to death if Tuor pressed on to Cirith Thoronath.

Ondollo saw this, too.  “When we crossed the Helcaraxë,” he said, “we had ample provision and warm clothing.  I know not what we will do now.”

In the end, many rejected Tuor’s choice and left to try their fortune through Bad Uthwen.  Several captains protested, moving to use force to keep the group together, but Tuor ordered them to stand down.  “Let them go,” he sighed.  “If the way of Bad Uthwen is clear and they win through, I will call them fortunate.”

But no word ever came back of those who left, and ever afterward Tuor bitterly rued letting them go.

The march northward began under cover of darkness, for Tuor intended to cross as much of Tumladen as he could before the sun rose and the refugees became visible to the enemy.  At the fore of the column he placed Galdor’s lieutenant, the sharp-eyed Laiqalassë.  Glorfindel had met the archer once or twice, and knew well Laiqalassë’s reputation for being able to see as well in the dark as by day; he knew Tumladen and the passes of the Echoriath better than any, it was said.  If that was so, no better guide could be had; Glorfindel overheard Tuor and Galdor tell this to many of those who balked at leaving in the dark for fear of being lost.

As they left the shelter of the basin, Amon Gwareth became visible on the horizon.  Fire lit the sky like a false dawn, and the wind carried the sounds of distant carnage and destruction.  Glorfindel heard the sobs and moans, felt one rising in his own throat as he looked on burning Gondolin, but then came Tuor’s voice, rough as the Man himself, ordering them all not to look back.

With great difficulty, Glorfindel tore his eyes away.  He is right.  We must turn our eyes forward if we are going to live.  Still, his gaze was pulled toward the red glare; he swiftly put Ondollo and Artamir at his back to block his view, urging them not to look either.  I will not think about all those we left behind.  Nay, I will not say their names now, not while the grief is so near.

Dawn filled the vale with a weak, hazy light; the sun could not pierce the veil of steam and smoke that rose from the burning city, and Tumladen lingered in a wintry gloom.  Guided by Laiqalassë, Tuor drove the march until midmorning brought them to a mountain-fed stream where they might steal a brief hour of rest and refreshment.  What little food had been brought out of Gondolin was now rationed; Idril took charge of the stores, doling out nourishment as it was needed or could be spared.  Waterskins were filled, and Laiqalassë said there was another spring near Cirith Thoronath.

“There are Eagles as well,” he said, “for they have aeries among the high peaks.  Manwë watches over us.”

Many who heard scoffed at this, saying the Valar had done nothing to save Gondolin or its people from a horrific end.  But Ulmo did warn you, Glorfindel wanted to say, through Tuor His messenger.  You did not listen.  Turgon did not listen.  Are we to blame the Valar because we are deaf?

Seven leagues lay between the tunnel and the pass of Cirith Thoronath.  As they began to climb the foothills, slightly more than two leagues remained before they reached the entrance to the pass, but the way grew steadily steeper.  Snow appeared above the treeline, still some way distant.  Laiqalassë warned them that the path would become even steeper and more treacherous the higher they ascended.

Rest, they needed rest, the warriors and women and children alike.  Glorfindel felt his body growing heavy and sluggish; on the road from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he had walked nearly a quarter of a furlong in a half-doze before Hallas stopped him.  Distantly he knew what a comical picture he had presented, and might have chuckled at his own folly had any laughter been in his heart.  Nárello would have laughed.  He found joy in even the grimmest places.  

“Keep me awake,” he mumbled to Ondollo, who looked no more alert than he.  “I care not how you do it.”

“Perhaps we will stop soon,” the steward offered.  “The women and children are hard pressed to keep the pace.”

From up ahead came a sudden commotion that stirred Glorfindel from his sluggish reverie.  His heart leapt in panic as he saw Tuor and perhaps forty or fifty warriors of the White Wing and Tree race on foot away from the column.  His hand went instinctively for his sword, fumbling at the hilt--curse me if I am too late--until Artamir told him it was not necessary.

“We’re to hold the rear, herunya.”

And you did not even hear Tuor. What a fine captain you are, fool.  “What can you see?”  Artamir’s eyes were better than his, and he did not trust his own vision at that moment.

“The mist has cleared a little, though I cannot see--  Nay, there are Gondolindrim on foot, six or seven of them; I think one is holding a child.  They are pursued by strange riders.”

Glorfindel looked for himself then and saw the great wolves, Orcs armed with spears upon their backs.  Tuor’s warriors fell hard upon them, hewing the beasts with swords and spears, loosing arrows when they could not venture near enough.  Sounds of the battle reached the column; some of the women began sobbing in terror at sight of the Orcs.  It fell to Glorfindel and Egalmoth to restore order to the rear, while Idril, Voronwë and Galdor held the group together at the fore.

Tuor presently returned to the main company with Eärendil on his shoulders; the boy was only slightly scratched and bubbling with excitement at having been able to watch his father fight.  The wolfriders had cut down all but six of the warriors Idril sent with him, but Eärendil did not seem overly concerned by the danger he had been in.  Like any boy, he did not want to be cosseted by his mother, for that was not manly, but let Voronwë set him on his shoulders when Tuor gave the order to resume the march.  People smiled despite their cares to see the prince; his boundless energy was infectious.

On the lower flanks of the foothills, Laiqalassë brought them to a shady dell where they could rest a while.  Tuor called a halt to the march.  They would sleep through the day to regain their strength and resume the march at sunset, although even Laiqalassë looked hesitant at the prospect of passing through Cirith Thoronath in the dark.

“The way is narrow,” he said, “and walled on one side by a steep drop.  Any misstep would be fatal.”

“It cannot wait until morning,” answered Tuor, “and we can go no further now.”

“Who shall take the first watch?” Glorfindel asked.

Tuor studied him with hard eyes.  “Not you, otorno.  You look well-nigh ready to fall down.  Go and get what rest you can.”

As Galdor and ten of his archers took the watch, Glorfindel found a place in the grass by a clump of hazel bushes.  Ondollo was waiting for him with a cup of water; Artamir had gone to the brook to try to wash some of the Orc blood from his face and hands.

“Lie down, Erunámo,” urged the steward.  “The sentries of the Tree will wake us if an enemy comes.”

“I would not be asleep when that happens.”

“Erunámo,” Ondollo said softly, “what do you imagine Nárello would tell you to do, were he here?”

The steward knew only too well what his weakness was.  Someday I shall reprimand you for using Nárello’s name to manipulate me so...if I remember.  “Curse you, meldo,” he grumbled, lying back so his head was pillowed on the turf.  As his eyes lost focus, he heard Eärendil playing in the brook, splashing water on Idril and Egalmoth, who was tending the wound he had gotten in the King’s Square.

“Naneth,” the boy was saying, “I wish Ecthelion were here to play his flute for me, or make me a willow-whistle, so I could play.”

Glorfindel ached at the sound of Ecthelion’s name, but his pain was greater at the image the boy’s words conjured.  Nárello used to cut willow-whistles for him in the sea marshes of Vinyamar, but Glorfindel had never been able to play, not then and not now. 

“Ecthelion is not here, hinya,” Idril answered softly, sadly, but Glorfindel was asleep before he knew whether she told Eärendil the rest of it.

* * *

Notes:

herunya: (Quenya) my lord.

meldo: (Quenya) friend

naneth: (Quenya) mother

hinya: (Quenya) my child

Bad Uthwen: Tolkien tells us that those who left Tuor’s group found a monster who had been set by Melkor in the pass of Bad Uthwen on Maeglin’s advice.  All were killed and (presumably) devoured.

As the sun began to dip far into the west, Tuor roused the company.  He had not slept at all; in his own fitful slumber, Glorfindel sensed the Man pacing back and forth.  A scanty meal of waybread and broken meat was doled out by Idril, for the company would need whatever strength it could muster for that night’s march through the mountains, and those that had extra clothing or rags tore them into strips to bind the feet of those who had no shoes.  Glorfindel gave what remained of his surcoat and ordered his followers to do the same.

The path grew steeper, and the green grass that colored and softened the foothills gave way to mossy scrub.  To either side of the path, the trees thinned to a few hardy pines and firs, and after a time those, too, disappeared.  Then there was only bare rock and the snowline lowering blue-white above them with the promise of deeper chill; the vale was warm under the summer sun, but as they climbed frost hung smoke like in the air with each breath.  Glorfindel heard women and children shivering and moaning in the cold; he could do no more for them than to urge them to keep moving.

In the eastern sky the first stars began to appear, faint, twinkling lights against a backdrop of deep blue, and the light upon the trail grew dim.  Up ahead, a shoulder beckoned in the path, black against the blacker mass of the mountains; beyond it, the company would forever leave sight of Tumladen.  Many turned, to glimpse what they could, and gasped at what they saw. 

After a day of clinging haze, now at sunset the mists that shrouded Gondolin lifted and they saw the ruin of Amon Gwareth.  One last burst of flame lit the sky as the last tower fell.  Tuor gave them a moment before urging them on again.

Twilight fell, then night, but Tuor would permit no lanterns as the way narrowed and became close.  Scouts of the enemy could easily be lurking in the hills, close as they were to Angband; the company could not take the chance when there were too many likely places among the crags for ambush.

“Now we must string out into single file,” said Laiqalassë.  “The path narrows even more and Cirith Thoronath is near, less than a quarter of a league.”

“How long before we are through?” asked Egalmoth.

“By day a sure-footed warrior can take the path in an hour or two, but we are going in the dark and in places the walls are very high; there will be little or no moonlight to ease our way.  Most of the night will be needed.”

Tuor ordered the company to a halt that he and his captains might arrange them for the passage.  Galdor and his spearmen, led by Laiqalassë, would go foremost with the most able-bodied women and those injured who could walk.  Idril and Voronwë with Eärendil would came after, followed by Tuor, Egalmoth and all the warriors of the White Wing bearing the most severely injured.  Glorfindel would hold the rear with the largest company of warriors, survivors from the Harp, Swallow and Pillar who were to guard those women with small babes, children and lamed men.  Of his own House, Glorfindel counted no more than nineteen warriors, and less than thirty women and children of the Golden Flower were with them.  Next to the Houses of the Mole and the Hammer of Wrath, he thought despairingly, we have fared the worst.

Once arranged in single file, the company crawled along at a shuffle, a foot or less at a time.  Glorfindel found the pace irksome.  Some encroaching shadow was waiting for them, some evil that would overtake and overwhelm them if they tarried too long in one place.  He bit his lip to keep from urging those ahead of him to move more quickly.  Tuor, on Laiqalassë’s advice, had ordered no one speak, for the high walls of the cleft carried echoes long and far.

As the night deepened, snow began to fall, whirling down in icy eddies that blew into faces and unprotected eyes.  People huddled together for warmth as far as the narrow confines of the trail would permit.  All the more reason to pick up the pace, thought Glorfindel; the longer it continued at this crawl, the greater the chance people would begin to succumb to the elements.

At last, he saw the figures lying stiff by the side of the road, frozen faces upturned and white under the moon.  A shudder passed through him that did not entirely come from the cold, and he felt a silent hand touch his shoulder in reply.

The gap that marked the pass loomed up before him, and the trail wound up toward it in a last, steep climb that left him breathless.  In whispers, he passed the word back to remind his people of the instructions Tuor gave him hours before.  Stay close to the wall, as in some places the way was dangerously narrow.  Do not stop for any reason, as there are others coming from behind who cannot see you.  Do not light any lanterns, and above all do not speak.

When it was his turn to enter the pass, Glorfindel put his hand to the wall at his right and felt his way, as he had felt his way through the tunnel.  He could not see how deep was the jagged drop to his left, and could barely discern the edge of the path, but from far below he heard the rushing waters of Thorn Sir and felt the cold air that whistled up to sting his face and whip through his hair.

Suddenly, from up ahead and above, echoing and reechoing upon the high walls of the pass, he heard shouting and screaming, and then the uncouth tongue of Angband.  Orcs had found them.  Even as he drew his sword and heard the ring of a dozen or more swords being drawn around him, stones began to fall from the heights.  The ambush was coming from above, yet the walls of Cirith Thoronath let him see nothing; he could be struck by a boulder and fall to his death before he ever knew what happened.

He pressed his back to the wall of the pass for whatever safety it could offer, urging those on either side of him to do the same and not panic.

Higher up, he heard yet more cries, the sharp shrieks of eagles descending.  “Thorondor.  Manwë’s Eagles have come for us,” Ondollo murmured, before shouting it aloud.

The steward’s cry still reverberated off the walls as a commotion began in the rear of the party.  Orc shrilling filled the air, overtaking the shouts of warriors taken unaware.  The clash of steel hammered at the entrance to the pass; Glorfindel saw several dark shapes tumble into the chasm, yet could not tell whether they were Orc or Elf.

A flash of flame and smoke leapt from crag to crag, overstepping the spurs of rock that sometimes jutted out from the path over the chasm and crushing them in its wake.  Glorfindel did not have to hear the cries of alarm to know it was a Balrog.  And now it was overtaking them, passing them to descend on the women and sick, and he had not enough warriors or room to go after it.

Biting his lip, he shoved the warrior before him against the wall, seized the warrior’s shield and went after it.

“Erunámo!  Áva carë!”  Ondollo’s despairing cry fell away behind him as he danced along the edge of the path, pushing startled people aside as he ran after the Balrog.  Why are you leaving your company, Glorfindel?  Tuor’s warriors are ahead of it, and Egalmoth’s.  They can already hear the shouts, they will stop it.  Why are you running?

Up ahead, he could see the demon waver and turn, snapping its fiery whip in the direction of its pursuer.  Stones skittered loose from the wall as the whip struck it; people cowered, whimpering as the Balrog passed and crying out in alarm at the lone figure who flew past them after it.

Balrogs he had slain before, at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and by the score in the Great Market and the King’s Square, but this one, that came between him and all he had left in the world, ignited a fury in him that cared not how close to the edge he ran or that an Orc’s stone might take him from above.  His world suddenly encompassed only the Balrog, himself and the narrowing distance between them.  For all he knew, this was the Balrog that killed Nárello—for all he cared, it was.

Again the whip sliced the air, but he came under the lash of the thongs and his blade swept up, hewing the Balrog’s arm from its shoulder.  Black blood sprayed him as the whip went tumbling, a snarl of flaming tendrils, into the darkness.  The Balrog’s bellow of pain filled his ears.  It flung itself at him; his next stroke swiped its shoulder as its momentum plowed into him and sent them both tumbling from the path onto a crag.  His sword went flying, falling into the depths of Thorn Sir after the whip.

Glorfindel barely had time to draw his dagger as the Balrog drove itself at him, clawing and raking at his armor.  The heat was scorching.  Sweat beaded on his forehead as flames billowed against his shield; his lungs screamed for air in the choking smoke.  It did not need to pierce his armor to kill him; it would simply suffocate him.

“Sercë Nárellon!”  Gathering what strength he had left, he shoved all his weight behind his shield and jammed it into the Balrog’s face, while with his right hand he plunged the dagger into its belly. 

Its howl filled his ears even as it fell away from him.  And then, at the moment he lowered his shield, clawed fingers grasped his hair and yanked, hard enough to rip some of it out by the roots, and he was falling into space.   Voices screamed above him, but they grew fainter as he fell farther into the Balrog’s roaring embrace.

His shield was gone, a silvery disc spinning moon-like into the abyss; there was nothing now between him and the Balrog.  He felt his flesh blister and burst, and his hair caught fire.  He opened blackening lips to scream, but there was no more air in his lungs.

The sizzle of flame meeting roaring water filled his ears, half a second before gravity slammed into him and the darkness took him.

* * *

Notes:

“Erunámo!  Áva carë!”: (Quenya) “Erunámo!  Don’t do it!”

“Sercë Nárellon!”: (Quenya) “Blood for Nárello!”

Tolkien states that Glorfindel actually stabs the Balrog with the dagger in his left hand.  This would suggest Glorfindel was left-handed.  Being right-handed, however, it simply seemed more natural for me to have Glorfindel hold the shield with his left arm and strike with the right hand.

The body Thorondor brought up from the depths of Thorn Sir did not resemble the Glorfindel they had known; it hung like a broken, blackened rag from the Eagle’s claws as he set it down on the plain.

There was no time to dig a proper grave.  There was no time for a funeral at all, for even though the Eagles had driven off the Orcs and the Balrog was dead, the company feared to linger too long in one place.  But it did not seem right to leave Glorfindel’s body as they had left those who froze to death on the path to Cirith Thoronath or fell during the ambush.  So few had escaped Gondolin, and at great cost.  Heroes there had been, yet memorials there were not.

A cairn was built over the body, at the very mouth of the pass where the Eagles might watch over it.  Voronwë and Galdor, whose voices were the clearest and steadiest, sang a mournful dirge, then it was time to move on.

Tuor stood by the wayside with Dramborleg draped over his shoulder, herding the company along the southward road that would take them to Doriath and thence to the mouths of Sirion.  As the column dwindled, he paused to look once more toward the cairn.  A lone figure stood there, bent in grief over the tumbled stones.  Tuor circled the column and climbed up to him.

“It is time to go,” he said gruffly. 

Dressed in the tatters of the house of the Golden Flower, the man wore the badge of a steward on his upper arm.  He gave no sign that he heard Tuor, but continued to weep unabashedly, repeating over and again a name that sounded like Erunámo.  In his hand he clutched a small object.  Tuor drew close enough that he could take the steward’s hand in his own and pry the fingers open.

A single gold bead shaped like a flower rested in the steward’s palm.  Laced through the hole, snagged by dried blood and a tiny imperfection in the gold, were several strands of golden hair. 

Idril, noticing that her husband was not among the column, climbed up to see what delayed him.  Still holding the steward’s hand in his, Tuor showed her the bead and all that remained now of Glorfindel’s golden hair; the corpse Thorondor bore up from Thorn Sir had had none. 

“Speak gently now, my husband.”  She took the steward’s hand and, moving in front of her husband, gently closed the steward’s fingers around his prize.  “You are a faithful servant, but it is time now to go,” she murmured.  “Come, the House of the Golden Flower has need of you.”

The steward hesitated, then laid his head upon the lady’s shoulder.  “Erunámo,” he sobbed into her mantle.  “Pitya laurëalótënya.”

He drifted, no longer aware of the numbing cold or his own lethargy.  Once, he dimly remembered, he had wondered where he was, but no longer.   This place simply was, and he was one with it.

Sometimes he felt the presence of others, though, like him, they had neither bodies nor voices.  This he accepted, no longer wondering that it might be thought strange.  Most of the time he was left to himself, save for those rare occasions when some hazy, uncertain presence approached him and asked his name and if they knew where to find this one or that.  He did not answer, for though he had a vague memory of what a name was, he did not remember what his own had been, or if he had ever had one. 

And then, a presence came to him that was not like the others.  Dark it was, and forbidding, but it was not unkind and did not frighten him.  Tendrils of gray mist wrapped around him and became a voice, calling him by many names: Erunámo and Laurëfindo and Glorfindel, and he remembered that all of these sounds had belonged to him at one time or another. 

The voice asked if he was ready to leave this place, if he was healed of his hurts.  But he did not remember any other place but this, or that any hurt had been done to him for which he required healing.  Pain was a sensation of which he had heard (he did not know when or where) but did not recall what it felt like.

--Your sacrifice has not gone unheeded.  There are those without who will have need of your courage in the dark days to come.  You will be released, and your memory of this place will fade—said the voice.  Ropes of mist coiled around him from every side, swathing him in darkness, and he saw and heard nothing more.

He was cold again, but the cold now felt different.  It felt heavy and deep, and he shivered; it took him a moment to realize how strange it was that he could do so.  He took in a deep breath, and the inrush of cool, clean air burned his lungs.  Choking, he curled into himself until the coughing spasm subsided.

An archway of stone sheltered him; the rough-hewn pavement pressed against his flesh.  He looked down and saw pale limbs trembling in the cold; it took his mind a moment to grasp he was naked, and another moment to feel shame.

Through the curtain of his hair he saw a pair of feet and the hem of a gray robe; the fabric rippled slightly as hands touched him.  He flinched at the contact, at the new sensation of being touched.  Something soft and heavy and warm spilled over him; when he put up his hand to feel what it was, he realized it was fabric, to cover his nakedness.

“You are cold,” a voice said gently.  An arm draped over his shoulders, urging him upright.  “I will help you to stand.”

Stand.  His limbs flailed uselessly, unwilling to obey him; he let the other’s strong arms pull him up and support him as he started to sag.

“In time you will learn to walk again, but for now I will guide you,” said the voice.  He lifted his head until he could see the face of the one holding him.  A male’s face, neither young nor old, neither Quendi nor of the race of Men, he returned Glorfindel’s gaze with warm eyes. 

Who are you? he thought.  He wanted to say the words, to sound them in his throat, but though his lips moved he could not remember how to make speech.  He shook his head in frustration, moaning and trying to force the animal sounds he made into something meaningful.

Still supporting him, the man touched his cheek, wiping away his tears, then put a finger to his lips to still his frustrated efforts.  “Speech is something that will also return to you in time,” he said. 

Glorfindel held to him, trembling as the man guided him from the archway into the cool grass.  After the dimness of the other place, the air was too bright and made his eyes water.  Turning, he buried his face in the darkness of the other’s robe.

“Ah, yes, you are not used to the light.”  A hand gently drew up a piece of fabric, a hood, to shield Glorfindel’s eyes.  “Mandos often forgets His charges have been too long away from the sun.”

Mandos.  The word struck a chill in him that he did not understand, something vague and forbidding that yet remained just out of reach. His throat constricted around the sound, trying to form it.

The man recognized his effort and answered it.  “You have been released from the Halls of Awaiting, but do not dwell upon that place; your memories of it will soon fade.  Mandos has granted you a new body, which you must learn to use.  You will have need of it.”

Bewilderment overtook Glorfindel with physical exhaustion.  He slumped against his guide, suddenly too weak to stand.   The arms that held him upright now eased him down onto the grass, supporting him so he could sit.   More questions than he could fathom brimmed on his lips, mute for his inability to articulate them, and he gave a frustrated whimper. 

Gentle fingers cupped his chin, lifting his face so he was compelled to look into the other’s eyes, that belonged to neither Elf nor Man but were grave and compassionate.  “You have many questions; in time I hope to answer all of them.  For now, I will answer one and give you my name.  I am called Olórin.”  

“Ol-ór--?”  His lips started to shape the name, but speech failed him.  He hung his head, leaning against the other for support.

“Come now with me,” said the one called Olórin.  “Let us leave the cold of Mandos behind, for there is much work that lies ahead.”  He touched Glorfindel’s cheek and smiled.  “For both of us.”