ERNIL

Chapter 24 ~ Dust to Dust IV

Thranduil woke slowly, and at first was aware of nothing but pain.  It was so intense he could not even begin to isolate particular wounds.  For all he knew, he could have been missing every limb on his body.  His only certainty was that he was not dead after all, yet he almost wished he was.  Then he heard and began to recognize low voices over him as the dim and dismal world swam in his weakened vision.  He closed his eyes again, preferring to see nothing.

He was vaguely aware that they were cutting away his armor and tunic.  Now he could not help but notice several places where the pain was worse, notably in his left shoulder and chest, over several ribs, and raging through his lower back.  He endured it all in silence, still too weak to bring himself to scream.  They probably did not even realize he had come around.

“Removing the arrows will renew his bleeding.  I shall need all your hands to compress it.  He has none to spare.”

“What of his back?”

“I do not believe it is truly broken, though I dislike to leave him lying on it.  But if we cannot manage what he has lodged in the front of him, that will be the least of his worries.  The wrap should hold it well enough for the moment.”

“Elbereth, he looks terrible.”

“He cannot help that, and I do not blame him.”

“This mud gets everywhere.”

“Clean it as best you can.  Gwaelas, press this over the chest wound, and be thankful we have no barb to address there.  Galadh, be ready to hold him here.”

A horrendous pain shot through his side.  Thranduil cried out and convulsed in spite of himself, his entire body exploding into new agonies.

“Thranduil!” Noruvion gasped, quickly moving to hold him down, his hands warm and sticky with what Thranduil presumed to be his own blood.  “For your own sake, be still!”  His face was lined with a friend’s grave concern, yet he spoke with a healer’s voice.  “Be still, or it will be your death.  You may scream if you wish, but be still.  Linhir, take his shoulders.”

Thranduil braced himself as well as he might as the torment began again.  It was almost more than he could do to simply breathe as three arrows were pulled, twisted, and ripped out of him.  The two in his leg had to be pushed through, yet the one in his side was apparently shallow enough to risk pulling back.

“Galadh, staunch the bleeding, but be mindful.  The rib is broken.”

It felt broken!

Noruvion straightaway went to work on the second arrow in his chest.  That one must have struck a nerve, for the wound flared excruciatingly at the first touch.  Thranduil gasped, trembling violently as a white haze clouded his vision.  “Is it broken, too?”

“It glanced off your rib and broke it, yes,” Noruvion explained, his voice terse with an impatience that reflected his worry, “and you are fortunate that it did or it would have shredded something more important.  Be still.”

He pulled on it again, and Thranduil felt the claw of the barb hung fast upon the bone.  “Stop! Stop!” he roared, and tried to heave himself upright.  Linhir forced him back down and pain shot through his back.

Quickly realigning the barb, Noruvion worked it free at last with as little new damage as possible and stood back for a moment as Gwaelas applied the necessary pressure to the wound.  After that Thranduil felt he had strength left for nothing, drawing sharp and shuddering breaths that were the nearest thing to sobs he would allow himself.

“As I expected,” Noruvion observed.  “The shock is taking him.  Never mind the rib, Gwaelas, only stop that bleeding!  This is when we may well lose him, so brace yourselves.  Linhir, stay with him.”

Galadhmir watched with untold sufferings of his own as Thranduil’s eyes once again lost their brilliance and faded to sightlessness.  The table glistened red despite their best efforts to curb his bleeding, and ugly purple bruises surrounded each of the entry wounds.  He felt powerless, yet he was determined that Thranduil should not die.  He could not bear it.  He thought not only of himself but of his sister.  How was he to face Lindóriel if they returned without their father, without his son, and without her betrothed?  Without Thranduil their house would be irreparably crippled.  If he could not take up Oropher’s fallen crown, none of them could.

Noruvion was grimly examining the four extracted barbs, still red with gore.  “Tainted,” he pronounced.  “These two.”

“What of that one?” Galadhmir asked, indicating the black shaft still firmly embedded in Thranduil’s shoulder.

The physician sighed.  “I do not know how much more he can endure tonight, yet it only does him more harm the longer it remains.  Perhaps it is too late.  Look, he is dying already.”

“He is not dying!” Galadhmir snarled, but without a single proof of that assertion.  “Never tell me so again!”

“I will tell you the truth!” Noruvion spat back, his dark eyes aflame with despair.  “Do not think I would not give my own life in this moment to save his, but I cannot, and death will have its way despite you!”

“Stop it!” Linhir snapped.  “Do not make me ashamed of you both.  If Thranduil is to die, Belain forbid, let us be certain that none of us is to blame.”

Noruvion sighed curtly.  “Very well,” he said, taking up his knife again.  “The arrow must come out.  I left it for the last because it will be the most difficult.  At least he is lost to us for the moment.  Linhir, hold him firmly anyway.  He must not tear himself if he wishes to retain the use of his arm.”

Noruvion attacked the offending shaft with intense precision, but it was deeply embedded.  Pulling it back the way it had entered carried many of its own risks, but they were all agreed that to break the bones of Thranduil’s shoulder to allow the shaft passage was unnecessarily brutal and would probably be enough to kill him in his present state.  So, they were obliged to widen the entry wound and pry it open deeply.  He began to bleed again, which he could ill afford.  He was already so pale as to be colorless, and though his insensibility was a blessing, it was so complete that it gave them all cause for anxiety.

After a long and careful struggle, the barb at last came free with a wet sucking sound, and Linhir immediately covered the wound.  Noruvion cleaned each one again and quickly stitched them closed, swathing them in bandages.

“There is little more I can do for him,” he said when he had finished.  “Take him and lay him down, but under no circumstances is he to be moved again.  It would be best if one of you would remain with him,” he added.  “I will be amazed if he lasts the night.”

Galadhmir stayed with him, attended by Gwaelas.  He sat beside Thranduil’s cot in somber vigil until the gray dawn of the next morning.  He held his hand all the while to be certain life remained in it, and to make Thranduil aware in some unconscious way of his continued presence during the darkest hours.  He spoke to him softly, saying things he did not expect him to hear, but that helped to lighten the pall of loneliness that seemed to hang over them.

It came as some surprise when Thranduil opened his eyes as though he had been listening all along.  He looked up at him with a calm intensity that almost recalled his former self, and when he spoke his voice seemed steady enough.

“My father is dead.”

It was more a statement than a question.  Galadhmir would have preferred not to tell him until he had recovered himself, yet he knew Thranduil wanted nothing but the truth. 

“Yes,” he brought himself to admit, the thought tearing again at his heart as well.  “Yes, he is.”

Linhir had given Oropher’s ring into his keeping, knowing Thranduil would ask for it.  He produced it now, and after a moment Thranduil languidly extended his hand to allow him to replace his with that of the king.

Even that effort seemed to exhaust him.  Galadhmir took hold of him again as he faded.  “Stay with me,” he pleaded, unable to do more.

The noise of a horse outside the pavilion drew his attention, and soon he heard someone speaking to the guard.  After a moment the red-collared Guardsman slipped inside and touched him on the shoulder.

“My lord,” he said softly, “a messenger from Gil-galad.”

“No,” Galadhmir shook his head firmly.  Thranduil had hardly escaped the shadow of death yet.  “Not now.  Send him to Linhir.”

“Wait,” Thranduil insisted, mustering what little voice he could.  “I will see him.”

Galadhmir was inclined to object, for it was certainly against his better judgment, but he merely nodded to the guard, who left them to return to his post.

To Galadhmir’s mild surprise, it was Elrond Halfelven himself who appeared in the doorway, but Thranduil seemed to have expected him.  Whatever formal address had formed itself on Elrond’s tongue, it was quickly forgotten in the face of the severity of the woodland king’s condition, brutally undisguised as it was.  Thranduil’s face was so white it was almost gray, his eyes sharp but haunted by pain.

“Yes, Elrond,” he said at last, “you need not stare.  Why have you come?”

Elrond returned to himself, remembering his errand.  “My lord the king has instructed me to inform you that in consideration of the losses sustained by Eryn Galen in this assault, your command will be removed from the front and committed to the rearguard.”  He paused for a moment, perhaps finding that too terse a message.  “He also sends me to convey his profound condolences to you, and that he owns Oropher’s pledge to him honorably fulfilled.”

Thranduil merely stared at him with an unpleasant look.  “He despises us, does he not?” he asked bluntly.

“No,” Elrond denied it at once.  “The king does not.”

The obvious and perhaps unintended implication was that there were many others who did.  Thranduil looked away to the canvas wall, his strength ebbing again.

“Thranduil, I . . .”

“Leave me,” he commanded, his voice breaking with weakness and pain.  “Leave me to die in peace.”

Galadhmir looked back to Elrond with a silent plea of his own.  “Go,” he advised him.  “Make your report to Linhir and Luinlas.  They are better able to address it.”

Thranduil did not watch as Elrond left.  Indeed, he was hardly conscious of it.  He felt too crushed to take any notice.  He was drifting in a grim world of his own, tired of the pain, tired of the agony that would not allow him a moment’s rest, tired of the disgrace and the tragedy and the ruin of life.

“You are not dying,” Galadhmir insisted vehemently, clutching his hand when they were alone.  “What of Lindóriel?  I will not be the one to face her and say that you spent your life needlessly!”

He heard Galadhmir’s voice, but words came less and less clearly to him.  Oblivion beckoned, dark and painless, calling him away from the filth and unbearable suffering that gripped him now.   Slowly he consented to abandon the tormented prison of his body.

He was slipping . . . the pain was dulled . . . the world blackening around him in the sudden heavy quiet of death.  Nothing mattered anymore.

The soft darkness was violently shattered by a desperate flare of life, the pain overwhelming him again with new and awful clarity, choking off his breath in his throat.  Galadhmir still had his hand, draining his own life’s force to anchor Thranduil’s wavering spirit in his body where it belonged.

“Do not leave me here to mourn all three of you,” he pleaded tearfully.