Blood and Fire

8. Little Elwing

If the Noldor had forgotten Galadriel’s face...

She had been almost in tears.

“Do you not trust me?” she had demanded. “I can use a bow as well as any man. I led my people across the Helcaraxë! Why send me to hide with the children when I might go instead with your lady and defend my home?”

All around, the Thousand Caves had seethed with activity. Celeborn had gone to oversee the emptying of the armoury and Elves with weapons hurried everywhere, their swords gleaming as the lanterns came down around the square. Nimloth and the women with their bows had already gone up to the gallery. Every minute, more Elves came frantically into the square, seeking instructions and reassurance from Dior the King. The hollow thunder at the gate above had echoed through Menegroth’s deep halls as though some Vala beat an arrhythmic pattern on a monstrous drum.

“One moment,” said Dior to his children’s nurse. “Lady –”

For a moment, anger and frustration had threatened to overwhelm her. “Do you not trust me?” she repeated fiercely. “The command was yours, my lord said. Do you think I would betray my home to those whom I no longer call my kin?”

“Lady, I trust you,” said Dior, a little wearily. The light glinting on his helmet had matched his shining eyes. “Please –”

“Then why may I not give my bow to our cause?”

Instead of answering, he had taken his daughter from the nurse’s arms. “Lady,” he said and held the child towards her, bundled up in blankets and trailing shawls so that only the plump pink face blinked sleepily out, uncomprehending. The boys standing hand-in-hand beside their nurse stared solemnly up at her with their father’s clear grey eyes. “Galadriel,” their father went on. “You have my trust and my children. Others have given their bows. Go with the children and those who cannot fight to the treasury. If the city is lost, you alone may save Doriath.”

The child had been heavier than Galadriel expected. She had never had much to do with children before.

“Go,” Dior had said again, gently. “This is no time for pride.”

Later his words came back to Galadriel as she sat on an empty brass-bound chest with Dior’s daughter in her lap, surrounded by the only treasures that remained in the Thousand Caves. The words and the way Dior had spoken, as calmly as Lúthien before she went out of Doriath to rescue Dior’s mortal father.

A child whimpered somewhere, wanting its doll. The mother had gone with Nimloth’s archers. Someone else moved to soothe the child. They had only two lanterns and the shadows were very deep, shifting as the woman passed through the light. Some Elves had brought their blankets and lay huddled on the stone floor, sleeping or attempting to sleep. Most sat in silence around the cavern, staring with frightened eyes at Galadriel or at each other or at the massive treasury doors that had been replaced after the Naugrim sack. Far off in the distance, the sounds of fighting could be heard.

Celeborn.

He was out there. Somewhere.

She took a breath. It was hard not to remember the slaughter she had seen at Alqualondë. And Celeborn, in the midst of it. Too easy to imagine him split open and bleeding on the stone. It would be better not to think at all.

The child Elwing in her arms was sleeping. She tried to think of nothing, and failed.

It was impossible to tell how much time passed in that dim cave. After a while, the noises from the caves above began to become louder and more distinctively unpleasant. Inside the treasury, no one made a sound. Galadriel could almost taste the choking terror in the dark air. The battle was coming closer to them. These were Elves who had survived the Naugrim sack. They knew what bloodshed looked like. This would be worse.

She heard a distant crash like axes hacking into wood.

They were breaking into the hall above the treasury. Someone was breaking into the hall above the treasury. Now she had to remind herself to breathe. Little Elwing still slumbered peacefully in her arms. No one else was asleep. It might be Celeborn, fleeing the battle with Dior and Oropher and their forces to seek what sanctuary she could provide. Or it might be – the enemy.

They could be dead, all of them. Celeborn could have bled his life away already, alone in the dark.

“Are they coming?” whispered one of Dior’s sons. His eyes were wide and fearful. “Is that –”

“Hush now,” said Galadriel and was amazed by the steadiness of her own voice. She could hear shouting. They had broken into the hall above. In a moment, they would be at the treasury doors.

Celeborn would have called to give her warning. It was not Celeborn.

The battle was lost, then. Menegroth was lost and her wolfish cousins had found them. And Celeborn –

There was no time for that. Dior trusted her. Lúthien’s son.

“Hush,” she said steadily again and arose. The child was heavy in her arms. “Remain where you are. I shall speak with them.”

A moment passed in breathless fear.

The suddenness of the hammering at the great doors shocked even Galadriel. She heard a woman’s stifled scream. Deep in the shadows some infant began to wail and little Elwing’s eyes fluttered open, although she made no sound. It was amazing that the child was willing to stay bundled up in her wrappings like a baby. Maybe she sensed their danger. Every crash at the doors struck Galadriel like a blow. The stifling air caught in her throat. She resettled Dior’s daughter at her hip, as she had seen mothers carrying their children in the past, and readied herself.

The enemy. Her wolfish cousins. Her ruthless, bloody-handed kin.

Blades gleamed through the splintering wood. Here they came.

Galadriel could see gauntlets and the moving flash of swinging swords. Beyond the ruins of the door stood barely Elvish figures, all edges and dripping gore, the swords in their raised hands dark with blood. A mass of blurry shapes pressed ominous behind, more sensed than seen. Their faces were mostly shadowed; as the breach opened up, she recognised the device on a shield.

“You,” she said and moved forwards. “Were you not with my forefather Finwë’s household at Formenos?”

She had led her people across the Helcaraxë. Now they would listen.

Closer she could see the bloodlust in their faces. It had been there at Alqualondë. She raised her voice. “I am the Lady Artanis Nerwen, Finarfin’s daughter. There is no treasure here, only women and children. We will not fight you. Bring down no further curse upon your heads! Where are my cousins? Where is Maedhros? Who commands you?”

A gap had been hacked open wide enough for a single Elf-lord to step through. The shield on his arm was battered and the dove that marked him as one of Finwë’s men could barely be made out. His helm dripped blood. “Those who commanded here have fallen. Where is the stone of Fëanor, lady?”

Galadriel was shocked and almost faltered. She recovered herself swiftly. “Then who commands you?”

He raised his sword threateningly. “Where is the stone of Fëanor?”

“You will not harm me,” said Galadriel with a perfect certainty that she did not feel. Little Elwing was a silent weight at her side. “I am Finarfin’s daughter. And that cursed Silmaril is not here, nor do I know where it may be found. Dior the King has hidden it deep in the caves, and if he told anyone its hiding place, I know not whom.”

Another bloodied Elf came shouldering through the ruined doors. She did not recognise this man. Others followed him and moved menacingly into what scant lantern light shone thinly within the cavernous treasury. His voice was rough. “If not the stone, the Dark Elf’s children – where are they? The lord Celegorm left orders –”

“You shall disregard them!” said Galadriel, remembering her cousin Celegorm. “Who commands now?”

“The lord Maedhros commands,” said the Elf-lord who had served her father’s father Finwë. She saw the sideways glance he gave the other Elf, Celegorm’s man. “But he fights in the woods above –”

“Then you shall send to him and tell him that the women and children of Doriath are no enemy of his, and that his cousin Artanis would speak with him on their behalf. And you shall do no harm to those who shelter here. They are under my protection.”

She spoke with as much authority as she could assume. The Elf-lord seemed almost convinced, but Galadriel was alarmed to see Celegorm’s men spreading out through the treasury. “Where are the Dark Elf’s children?” growled the second Elf, looming towards her. His face was flushed from fighting and a haze of heat and sweat hung over him, the smell of danger. He must be drunk on battle. A flicker of fear broke through Galadriel’s shell. “Lady, you can protect no one. Where are the children?”

Behind her, a woman screamed. “No!” said Galadriel sharply, swinging around.

The nurse was on her knees, clinging to the clothes of Dior’s sons. One of Celegorm’s men had hold of them and was dragging them away. No sound came from either boy, although Galadriel could see their fear. They clutched at their nurse’s hands desperately. The rest of Celegorm’s men were heading in that direction. Two of them caught the nurse by the shoulders and tore her away from the boys, hurling her to the ground. She scrabbled at the ground, trying to catch hold of her twin charges. A solid backhand blow from one of the men snapped her head back with a crunch and sent her reeling; his fist in the metal gauntlet had split her face open, blood dripping down her chin. Her screams as she saw the boys being carried off filled the treasury.

“Stop that!” Galadriel commanded, moving furiously to intercept the men. Little Elwing still settled at her hip was beginning to make unhappy noises; she held the child tighter, suddenly afraid that attention might be drawn to Dior’s daughter. “Leave those children –”

“Are they not the Dark Elf’s sons?”

Dior’s expression came back to her: his knowing eyes, his nightingale calmness, entrusting his children to her care. You alone may save them. One of the boys’ anguished faces caught her eye.

“Leave them here!” she said again. “My cousin Maedhros –”

The second Elf, Celegorm’s man, crouched down in front of the captive twins. He placed the edge of his bloodstained sword against the throat of the nearer boy and grinned up at her, wolfish. “Protect them, lady,” he said with soft menace. “Where is the stone of Fëanor, the Silmaril?”

Galadriel found herself helpless; seeing the boy’s terror, she would have surrendered the Silmaril on the spot, had she possessed it. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed and heard the frantic edge to her own voice. “In the safest place in Doriath, the King said. I don’t know what he meant, he must have a hiding place somewhere, maybe in his own chambers. It isn’t here! Let the boys go!”

She saw that he believed her. He straightened, sheathing his sword. “Oh, we shall let them go,” he said and grinned again. “Where is the Dark Elf’s daughter? What babe is that you hold –”

“You will not take my child!”

“Yours, lady?” said the Elf-lord who had served her father’s father Finwë.

“Mine!” said Galadriel fiercely. Elwing’s pink face was beginning to crumple; in a minute the child would start to wail. She resettled the child more securely against her hip, distantly aware that her arms were starting to ache. It occurred to her in a sudden flash of relief and fear that as long as Elwing was bundled up in so many layers of blankets and shawls, it could not be seen that the child’s hair was as dark as Galadriel’s was not.

Celegorm’s man was looking wolfish again. “My daughter,” she said and clutched Elwing in instinctive reaction as he loomed closer. She glared at him. “You will not take her! Now release those boys!”

“Protect those you may, lady,” he said and swaggered towards the ruined doors. A stink of smoke and death caught in her throat as he passed. His men followed, carrying Dior’s terrified sons with them into the dark.

Anger and helplessness left Galadriel silent. There was nothing she could do. Behind the nurse was rocking on her heels and clutching her bloody face; her screams had broken into rough sobbing. Other women were in tears. And from Elwing’s mouth a narrow wail began to unfurl towards the echoing reaches of the cavern.

“Hush,” Galadriel said distractedly. “Hush.”

She needed to keep her thoughts on something, anything, other than Celeborn’s fate. Her husband. Her Sindarin love. So many things might have happened to him. He was probably dead. If Galadriel allowed herself to think about that now, she would never be able to face down Maedhros and her cousins. Later she could scream blasphemies and tear her hair and maybe even weep like those whom she and her kin had left bereaved at Alqualondë. Right now, she was responsible for the lives of all these women and their children. The remnants of Doriath lay in Galadriel’s hands. And that mattered more than any private loss.

Dior had trusted her to save them. All of them.

She fixed the bloodied Elf-lord with her most imperious glare. “You will send to my cousin Maedhros,” she commanded, drawing the tattered remnants of her authority around herself once more. “You will tell him that his cousin Galadriel demands safe passage out of Menegroth for herself and these women and children. And you will tell him that Dior’s innocent sons are to be returned to my care! Go now!”

“Lady,” he said with apparent respect and bent his head. “I shall.”

...their daughter would never have come out of that furnace alive.