Chapter 6. Up the River Legolin.

“We should cross the forest. The trees might ease our march.”  

“The trees drove us all to the river; there is something dangerous lurking in there.”  

“Are you afraid of the Onodrim?”  

Maentêw cast a sharp glance at the bold youngster and continued walking briskly, as they had been doing for a night and a day. “What do you know about them?”  

“I saw one, long ago,” the boy gloated. “And he talked to me.”  

“And what did he tell you?”  

The boy opened his mouth; closed it firmly. “I will not speak of it.”  

Maentêw laughed. “Fine! I do not want to pry! But there are other things apart from well-intentioned tree shepherds roaming the forests of Ossiriand… or do you forget what you saw in that clearing?”  

Thranduil chewed his lip thoughtfully. “I thought your patrol had done that…or else orcs and wargs had turned against each other.”  

“Think, Thranduil,” Maentêw suggested. “Would elves hack their fallen enemies to pieces? Or start a fire that would burn trees as well as carcasses?  

“I...we did not climb down the trees, did not really see what happened there.”  

“A clever decision, I bet it was Brethil’s idea.”  

Thranduil cast him a sour look. “It was,” he admitted. “But what caused that carnage, then?”  

Maentêw sighed, stopped, cast a quick glance around to check their way. “I do not know,” he sighed. “There was a malign presence in the forest, an evil like none I ever sensed…” He shook his head thoughtfully and resumed the march. “That is why Gil-galad ordered us to keep clear from the forest…”  

“And why are you obeying one who is so much younger than yourself?” the rebellious Sinda challenged him as they scrambled along the muddy track that climbed along the left bank of the River Legolin. Maentêw laughed. Certainly Oropher’s son had inherited his father’s ability for finding cause for fussing everywhere.  

“He is our captain. Surely you have heard your father explain that warriors obey their captains no matter their age… or race,” he explained mildly, wondering whether Thranduil too shared his father’s profound dislike towards the Noldor.  

“Why, of course! But you were a captain in Doriath; you said so when we met!”  

“Doriath no longer stands,” Maentêw reminded him softly. That silenced the youth briefly, but soon he changed course, still prodding for information.  

“How...how did you know I was Oropher’s son?”  

“You resemble your adar too much,” Maentêw chuckled, casting a brief glance over his shoulder. “And then that name… I doubt anyone but Oropher’s son would carry it…”  

“He said it was a special name…”  

“It is. One of our friends coined it after a visit to the Havens short after the new lights were kindled in the sky. Not everyone was allowed to use it… at least within Oropher’s earshot,” Maentêw smiled, remembering Celeborn’s malicious glee as he showed a handful of stiff and withered seaweed that he had brought back from Eglarest. They had all agreed seriously that it indeed looked like their friend’s head after a moon in the forest, and somehow the name stuck among those closest to the short-tempered chief hunter. Those were still the good times, Maentêw sighed, before the Noldor ever crossed the Girdle and brought change on their trail. He could well understand why Oropher had felt the need to shake off that name and pass it, together with all the good memories, down onto his son.  

“Were you friends, then? Why didn’t you come eastwards with us?”  

“I had a royal princess to protect,” he snapped. “Look,” he added gruffly, pointing at a swift current that hurried down towards the River Legolin and across their path not two hundred paces ahead. “We are closer than I thought… Taenben’s camp lies less than half a day north from this stream…”  

“Taenben?”  

“The Hîrdawar’s eldest son…the captain of the Laeg Faradrim…they hunt orcs and wargs wherever they find them. I hope they have found the survivors from our patrol,” he said in a confident voice. “And surely Oropher will be there, too.”  

“He was looking for the Hîrdawar himself…”  

“The Hîrdawar is beyond the mountains, overseeing the new settlements. Now, let’s be careful. Follow my steps. The stones are mossy and the current is strong. Do you want me to carry your bow?”  

“Do you think I am a clumsy edain?”   

“Even a sure-footed elf can slip when unbalanced, Thranduil,” he retorted calmly. “Are you ready?”  

He started crossing, checking carefully for the safer-looking stones among those protruding from the water. The river was not deep, but recent melting had swelled its current and the waters crashed noisily against its stony bed.  

“Be careful!” he warned. Disregarding his advice, the boy jumped lightly from stone to stone, laughing merrily as he went. Just when Maentêw was about to smile condescendingly, the ground roared and trembled under their feet. It was as if the land complained and tried to shake off a disgusting presence. Startled by the sudden motion, the boy lost his footing and crashed into the river with a surprised yelp.  

With an annoyed sigh that might have been a soft curse, Maentêw jumped to the bank and started running after the young elf, guided by the bow that he desperately fought to keep out of the water while the swift current rolled him and bumped him into the rocks. He looked like a soaked, bruised, half-drowned rat by the time Maentêw managed to drag him out of the stream. “Get out of those damp clothes while I get a fire going,” he suggested soberly. “We could do with a rest after all…”  

Soon he had a feisty fire playing merrily in its stone circle, and Thranduil’s clothes spread around it. He rummaged in his pack and produced a couple of salmon cakes. “It will be so shiny that we will be spotted at a distance,” he called to the boy, who had taken seat far from the fire and was still fretting over his bow. They had dried it carefully with handfuls of grass and then with Maentêw’s dry cloak, but still the boy continued oiling it obsessively, for fear it would warp. “Come and get some food, Thranduil. We should start walking again soon…and I think we will have to change course…”  

“Because of that upheaval?”  

“Not exactly. I saw tracks while I was gathering wood. A host of green elves marched east not a day before us. They are fleeing their camp, going towards the mountains.”  

After a brief hesitation Thranduil placed his bow on the grass, tightened Maentêw’s cloak around his lean frame and came to sit by the fire.  

“Why would they flee to the mountains?” he asked, accepting the food with a nod.  

“Word is to depart Beleriand, boy,” Maentêw grunted. “Even the Hîrdawar’s people are heeding the commands of the Valar...”  

“Well, no word reached *us* in the south…”   

“You never sent word anywhere or anyone that you were alive did you?” Maentêw retorted defensively. The boy looked stunned and he grimaced, angry with himself. “Forget it,” he grunted, cursing Oropher’s stubbornness inwardly.  

They ate in silence for a while. Then the boy pressed on.  

“Why didn’t you come with us when Menegroth fell?”  

Maentêw sighed, stopped munching the salmon cake, groaned. He shifted uncomfortably and finally gave in. “We had to get Elwing to the safety of Cirdan’s havens. Nimloth… the Queen had managed to hide the Silmaril in the baby’s swaddling clothes and sent her away with her maid before all was lost…” It was long since he had last called to mind that dark night. He had run into the frightened nursemaid by chance, and only by the grace of the Valar, he was sure, had they managed to avoid Celegorm’s servants as they broke into the royal family quarters. He remembered the eerie silence as they crossed empty corridors and the nursemaid’s horrified gasp when they reached the throne hall, where Celegorm and Dior had killed each other. Quickly, she had folded her cloak over the baby’s face to protect her from that terrible sight. Odd, how one such simple, compassionate gesture still stood out amidst the terrible memories of that time.  

“…But I suppose your adar says that we fled cowardly,” he ended his tale bitterly.  

“My adar does not speak much about those days,” the boy answered softly. “I….I think he blames himself…”  

Typical of Oropher, Maentêw thought, watching the fire. “I suppose he would. We all did, at one moment or another. But it was no one’s fault…except those cursed sons of Fëanor’s,” he sighed, though he knew it was not as simple as that. Fate had its ways, and it had caught all of them in its net, from the moment Thingol set that doomed price on Lúthien’s hand, or, according to Oropher and many others, since the Noldor returned to Middle-earth bringing their curse with them.   

To Maentêw, Thingol had been both victim and accomplice of his own weakness. His greed had set in motion a tide of unforeseeable consequences that had swept away many, Maentêw’s family among them. And yet, after meeting other survivors in Balar, he had found out that, bitter as the doom of Doriath had been, it was but a wave in the sea of despair that washed relentlessly over Beleriand.  

“I still dream of that night,” the boy whispered, almost to himself. “I only remember the cries, and the panic… but I saw the red-haired one, cutting down one of the guards who protected our flight…and they left the young princes to die in the forest, how could they?” he wondered softly. “My adar says they are not elves anymore…”  

Maentêw shook his head. Before his eyes the fuming ruins of the Havens of Sirion and the corpse-paved streets still stood out vividly. It had been madness, of a kind too close to despair, which had turned elves against elves and then assailants against their own ranks in the crest of their confusion. A despair that had bitten deep enough to even force fey Maedhros to relent and send back Elwing’s children without condition. No, he reminded himself, they were elves indeed; doomed, cursed, twisted in their wickedness, but Firstborns still, all of them capable of killing their kin… and that was what frightened him most.  

“So does Elwing now rule in that city in Sirion? Why did you enlist in Cirdan’s army, then?”  

Drawing a sharp intake, he stood up brusquely and cast almost dry clothes to the youth. “Get dressed!” he growled. “It’s time we got moving. I cannot wait to deliver you into your adar’s hands and watch as he asksthe questions!”   

This had the virtue of immediately subduing the pert boy, much to Maentêw’s shameless relief. Knowing how deeply –and at times forcefully- Oropher cared for those he loved, Maentêw could well understand the thoughtful look that suddenly settled on the cheeky sapling as he got dressed. Chuckling inwardly, he put out their fire, retrieved his cloak and led the march east, following the clear trail that climbed steadily towards the mountains.  

The horned moon was climbing down the summer sky when the boy spoke again, trying to sound flippant.  

“I expect that my adar will be so happy that we found you that he will forget our disobedience…”  

Maentêw grunted his doubts noncommittally and concentrated on the road. Suddenly, he was sharing Thranduil’s preoccupation.  

“What is that?” The boy shook him again from his thoughts some time later. He heard it at the same time, and turned his attention to the slopes on their left, which loomed high enough to hide them from the highlands and the forests beyond. From up there came a strange sound, a muffled roar that he could not identify.  

“Sounds like a strong wind in a dense forest...” Another, familiar sound made them shiver. “Yrch,” he grunted softly. “Let’s be careful.”  

The boy strung his bow quickly, while Maentêw studied their way. The path twisted always upwards, leading them close to the crossing, a steep fall to their right. They started again at a faster pace. Soon a bent on the trail allowed them to see the thin rope line that bridged the abyss, glistening in the grey dawn.  

“We are almost there,” he grunted.  

“So are they,” Thranduil observed. He was right. The uproar sounded very close to their left. “What do we do now?”  

Maentêw considered for a moment, studied the way ahead, spied moving silhouettes in every front, made up his mind.  “We run.”

  ****

Oropher did not hear the voices calling after him. He started shooting as he crossed the unstable rope bridge, his attention focused on the narrow trail to his left, the two elves that ran desperately to the bridge and the horde of panicked creatures rushing down the slope.  

“Run, Thranduil, run!” he shouted encouragingly, though his voice was lost amidst the din of the fleeing creatures and the steady, deep roar of the marching forest.  

He vaguely noticed a group of warriors coming down from the ranks of the Erchamion in the eastern flank, and the twang of bows beside him. Then someone cried. “Unsheathe! Here they come!”  

And the carnage began.  

Hack, chop, lash, thrust. 

Senses overtaken by battle mode, Oropher cut through wave after wave of panicked creatures that seemed more intent on reaching the bridge than on defending themselves. In their frenzy, many tripped and rolled downhill and into the abyss, or fell under elven blades and arrows they did not try to deflect.   

Stab, parry, hew, carve.  

Voices broke out beside him.  

“To the bridge!”  

“Up the hill! Come up the hill!”  

“Glîrdan! Cut the bridge down! Oropher, retreat!  

“No!” he cried. With a vicious lash he half severed the neck of a large orc that came running towards him. Panting, he took a brief moment to search the battlefield. A wedge of frenzied creatures stood between him and his son, cluttering the narrow trail and dashing madly for the bridge in their desperate flight from the merciless trees. The vanguard of the marching forest had already swallowed the bulk of the fleeing host, and their anguished cries and the dense, choking smell of orc-blood filled the battlefield.  

“Thranduil! To me! Here!” he cried. He had a glimpse of Thranduil and his companion, both pressed against the escarpment as the slope crumbled down over them, collapsing under the weight of the trees and dragging trees, along with orcs and wargs into the chasm howling.  

“Hold on! I’m coming!” With deft thrusts he plunged forward desperately. Right then, with a deafening roar that sounded like a mountain yawning, the land shook violently under their feet. The trees creaked and rumbled as if in pain. Unbalanced, Oropher flailed helplessly searching for a handhold, grabbing at rolling bodies and hacked branches that pushed him towards the abyss. Suddenly, a body slammed against him and he fell.  

TBC.