ERNIL

Chapter 25 ~ Dust to Dust V

Lord Luinlas was given effective command of the stricken army while King Thranduil remained incapacitated.  Their losses were more than sobering.  The King’s Guard was shattered; only a handful of their number remained.  The others could boast little more than a third of their original strength.  Their removal to the rear was humiliating, yet there was little else they would be good for at present, and the population of Eryn Galen could not safely endure any further losses.

When at last he had abandoned his brief dalliance with death, Thranduil was back on his feet as soon as possible, long before his time.  He was still lethargic and weary of life, a quiet shadow of himself, but painfully aware that he would now be expected to wear a brave face for the benefit of the entire army.  He endeavored to walk without a limp, but was not entirely successful.

That first day he left his bed—to Noruvion’s consternation—a summons arrived at their position for the king or his representative to appear before Gil-galad to receive their new assignment.  It was clearly expected that he would send a representative, yet Thranduil was stubbornly determined to go himself.  Galadhmir and two attendants would accompany him.

It was impossible for him to mount or ride a horse, and he refused to be carried.  It was not an unbearable distance to walk between camps, yet it was slow going, and Thranduil felt his limp worsen along the way.

Gil-galad was surprised to see him.  “Thranduil!” he said, jumping up as the guard admitted him and Galadhmir to the king’s pavilion.  “I hardly expected you, my lord.  Come in, come in!  I must say that you have been a serious concern to me since I received Elrond’s report.  He was convinced that we should soon lose you as well, yet I see you are recovering.”

“As well as can be expected, my lord,” Thranduil said.  Throbbing waves of discomfort continued to afflict him, aggravated by the walk.  He also felt rather faint.  Perhaps he had not yet entirely recovered from the blood loss.

“Now that Mordor itself has been breached,” Gil-galad was explaining to him, moving a finger over a hastily sketched map, “I have elected to move your command from the outlying border and station it at Morannon, both to manage the gate and to act as a reserve rearguard.  Those divisions which have endured a more recent bloodletting will take your current position.”  He looked up and frowned, the light flashing off the jeweled stays in his hair.  “You are going terribly pale.  Are you all right?”

“It is nothing,” Thranduil lied, trying to shake off the unfortunate mention of bloodletting.  The ordeal was so recent that the very thought still nauseated him.  “Go on.”

Gil-galad continued to explain the strategic value of their position and their attendant duties, almost as if to assure him they were not being summarily discarded.  He could very well have delivered a biting lecture on the importance of military cohesion and the value of following orders, but he did not.  That was fortunate, for Thranduil did not know that he could have borne it.  He could scarcely bear to stand there any longer with his back aching the way it was.  The open wound had largely healed, but something had not yet been set right.

“From here your sentries will protect the backbone of our supply line . . .”

Ai, Belain . . . 

A strange twisting pain shot through his spine.  His stomach turned, his vision blurred, and he would have fallen had Galadhmir not caught hold of him.  The force of that was enough to jar him back to full consciousness, but everything still hurt.

“Thranduil, you are unwell,” Gil-galad insisted, laying a steadying hand on his shoulder.  “Please stay here and allow my people to attend you.”

Gradually, Thranduil was able to stand again on his own.  Gil-galad was looking at him as a friend now rather than as the High King.  “No, my lord,” he declined at last.  “I shall stay with my own.”

“Noble of you,” Gil-galad said, a grim approval behind his eyes, “and so like your father.  I expect I may trust your people to look after you.”

“Always, my lord,” Galadhmir assured him.

Gil-galad dismissed them with a weary smile and a final caution.  “We have lost too many valuable lords already, Thranduil,” he said.  “Do not spend yourself cheaply.”

On their return to their own camp, Galadhmir demanded an explanation for his fainting spell.  Thranduil put him off as best he could, his mind elsewhere.  So like your father, Gil-galad had said.  He did not feel like his father.  He felt hopelessly inadequate in his new role, exposed and abandoned.  He could barely walk, and they expected him to shoulder his father’s obligations. 

They were passing through a cheerless field hospital, the wounded and dying strewn all about them.  Thranduil glanced aside at Galadhmir, wondering at his quiet resilience.  He had said nothing of the death of his son save once, and Thranduil knew it must have devastated him.  Sauron would have a great deal to answer for by the time the war was over.

Glancing aside then, he felt a sudden constriction in his chest that had nothing to do with his wounds.  He stopped at once and limped aside into the mass of the wounded, falling painfully to his knees beside a familiar figure that in any other circumstance he would have been very glad to see.  Now it brought only more heartbreak.

Serataron was on the point of succumbing to his wounds, too far gone to speak.  Yet as Thranduil hovered over him and took his hand, he saw that he recognized him.  It seemed almost another lifetime when they had known one another so well, an age ago on the shores of Lindon before either of them had heard of Greenwood or Mordor.  It all ended here, slain in the dust.

Thranduil remained with him as he died, closed his sightless eyes, strained to the point of despair as the last father he had known was cruelly reft from him.  He lingered a moment longer, hardly aware of the great tears rolling down his face.

At last he stood, but it was the last thing he knew.  The whole world turned white before it was swallowed again into blackness.