Blood and Fire

4. Some things are not meant to be put into words

There was a breathless moment as the gates shattered and the dawn poured in.

Then the wolves came.

They had cut branches from the snow-laden trees, stripping the dead beech leaves away and wrapping strips of cloth around the ends to create makeshift torches. Underground there was no guarantee of light and certainly no light had leaked out through the disintegrating gates. No sound came from within. The Thousand Caves might have been deserted. This surprised no one. The Sindar and their child-king would hide, Celegorm had said, his brothers agreeing with varying degrees of weariness. They would smash their way inside, take the Silmaril and leave. There would be little damage done, except to the fair Dior’s pride. The vows Celegorm and Curufin had sworn before Nirnaeth Arnoediad had been made in a fit of temper and Elu Thingol was dead now in any case. There was no need for a bloodbath such as there had been at Alqualondë.

Alqualondë. The name stirred too many echoes. Even Celegorm seemed afterwards to regret waking that particular ghost.

The way lay open. The first wave entered.

Torches.

The Noldor had torches. Oropher, waiting far below, saw pinpricks of firelight approaching through the distant dark. They would regret that. There was no sound now but the splashing fountain and far-off jangling metal and boots on stone.

Then –

– counting under his breath, watching the torches: not now, not now –

Far above, Nimloth gave the signal to the women in the galleries overlooking the avenue of stone trees.

Now.

Out of nowhere, arrows. Suddenly men were yelling in surprise and pain, others flailing on the ground, scrabbling against the stone. Several of the torchbearers had been hit and fire sparked and sputtered as the torches plummeted, crashing to the floor. Where cloth caught light on the way down, more cries resulted. In the dark, the spread of blood could hardly be seen. Suddenly the way down into the caves seemed tight and small, the rock wrapping round them. Above it all and through the pitiless arrows, someone was shouting orders.

“Forwards! Forwards!”

Ahead in the deep darkness could be seen a beacon of white light reflecting the glitter of tumbling water. Most of them were still half-blind underground and dazed by the sudden attack. They pressed forwards, shields and torches raised, while the arrows hummed around them like hailstones and shattered on the stone.

Then a sudden sense of space and openness, coming out into the square –

“Now!” cried Dior, clear as nightingale song.

And more arrows from all angles, punching through mail and flesh. Those who fell cluttered the ground and entangled the feet of those who came behind. The blaze of light that split the darkness where the lanterns were strung above the fountain made it hard to see anything other than the tumbling water. They cast themselves into the dark, leaping over the fallen and around the massive pillars, yelling their battle-cry.

“Auta i lómë! The night is passing! For the Noldor!”

The darkness was suddenly full of swords. “For Doriath! Doriath and Dior!”

The space was too close for Oropher’s liking, crammed in ranks with the archers behind him. There was no time to fight elegantly and no space to dodge or parry properly. Their light-filled faces came out of the dark, screaming that bizarre war-cry, and he punched and thrust and hacked and so far was still alive. In a brawl like this, survival was mostly about luck. Something had caught fire and the air was thickening with smoke and the stench of burning meat. There was blood in the fountain, red tendrils unfurling as the water splashed merrily and catching the light when the flames flared up.

A Noldo swung out of the smoky dark. His teeth were pearl-white as he roared.

Oropher had wondered sometimes in recent weeks whether it might be different, harder, to fight other Elves. Now it turned out that Elves coming screaming towards him with swords were as easy to kill as any Orc or frothing wolf. The Noldo’s guard was poor. Oropher despatched him with a thrust and kicked the body away from his sword. There was a bubble of blood on the Noldo’s lips and he sprawled askew on the ground as he died. Oropher had an unpleasant feeling that he might see the dead man’s odd look of glazed surprise again in his dreams.

There was a lull, of sorts. Oropher caught his breath and took stock. His hand stung from the scrapes where a sword had caught his guard and his head was still ringing from a glancing blow not long before. No serious wounds, yet. Their ranks still held, mostly intact. He could hear Dior moving among the Sindar beneath the archway to the right, speaking quietly and with his customary composure about courage and the importance of discipline and other such matters. Celeborn on the other flank sounded a little hoarser, though the words were similar. It seemed the Sindar needed encouragement to keep their spirits up.

“Is that a second wave?” asked Erestor beside him, only a little breathless.

More torches could be seen wavering far in the distance. Apparently the Noldor had not learned their lesson. Nimloth’s archers would be glad of the targets they presented. Oropher nodded. “Looks like it.”

“Pity. We were doing so well.”

The square was littered with the dead and dying. Here and there, the patterned ground was slick with blood. A handful of archers had crept out to collect discarded arrows; they moved swiftly through the darkness and the drifting smoke, weaving among the bodies and between the massive pillars. As shouts and cries rang out further up the avenue of stone trees, Nimloth’s archers having loosed a fresh volley at the second Noldor wave, the arrow-collectors came hastily back to the refuge of the shadows. “You were doing well,” said Melinna, brushing between them. “Can you keep it up?”

The glow of firelight on mail coats and heavy footsteps approached. “Here they come,” said Oropher and raised his sword. “Archers, ready –”

The second wave hit like a hammer. He was plunged again into a world of hacking and shoving and blades and gasping death that tore apart the dark. There was no time for thought. Their faces would be waiting for him, white and raging and full of gore, in the frenzied quiet behind his eyelids. Since there was no time to worry about that either, he yelled and slashed and ducked and stabbed and gave himself up to the struggle without concern for guilt or regret. There was a good chance his eyes would next close in death. Just now, only survival mattered.

The heat was intense. Smoke and blood everywhere. Time had vanished somewhere amid the fighting. He was hurting from a hundred cuts and bruises and his throat was raw from yelling things he never heard. He hardly noticed when the man at his shoulder fell, a Nando he had known all his life. The gap was filled at once. Death happened. Others were falling around them. Mourning was for later, for an Elf from the airy greenwoods slain by an Elf’s hand among stone trees in the bloody dark.

Lunge, parry, kick, thrust –

– smashed the edge of his shield into one of those white faces, filling up with blood and tears –

– beside him the Dark Elf staggering, he saw a gap and chopped down; a mail coat turned the edge of his blade but Erestor had regained his footing now –

– the Noldo’s blood-laced gasp of death –

And a moment to breathe.

He caught a lungful of smoke and choked, racked with sudden coughing. The tears that filled his eyes made the flames flicker and the red-running fountain blur. His feet were encumbered by dead men and there was nothing that he could do about it.

“More coming,” he heard Erestor say hoarsely. “Ready?”

Oropher rubbed his eyes with a bloody hand. “Ready.”

And –

– the smash of impact, shields slamming into shields and arrows flying, men roaring and slithering on the blood-slick stone –

– again.

More gaps were opening up in their line. The archers had taken up their swords and daggers now. Oropher found that Erestor’s wife was fighting at his side. Most of the women archers had gone with Nimloth to the upper gallery. He had seen Melinna’s handiwork at Sarn Athrad and knew better than to fear for his back. There was no time to be concerned about such matters now. The line was beginning to break.

This could not go on. It hammered through his head as he swung and struggled. Enough – enough – this cannot – can not, it can not – go on –

And Dior’s voice, singing out over the clash and clamour of the battle.

“Fall back! Fall back!”

At last. Oropher took up the cry, hearing Celeborn shouting the same thing on the other side of the square.

“Fall back!”