Duath i-Achas Eriol

Chapter 3

Solace To the Suffering

To put things into perspective, the journey that my father had commanded Elladan and I to make was one of many days in the best of circumstances and the gathering war did not constitute such. So, it took us a little more than a week of hard won, battle weary progress to reach the Old Ford and once there, what we encountered proved my father's foresight more than accurate.

Thranduil's forces were massed on the eastern side of the ford, there under the command of an old friend, and very welcome sight after the constant push of our battle to win north-easterly progress. The gold and white-green gleam of their armour was almost dazzling against the dirty brown wall of leather that had been our constant sight as we fought our own battles, and my heart lifted - at least a little - in that.

I remember also, the smile of almost pure relief that came to grace Elladan's expression as we set eyes upon them. It is not often that he smiles, being by far the closest in temperament to our father, but when he does it is a light that can lift even the most despairing of hearts. That, he inherited from our mother.

The Greenwood's army was a great curving swath that cut across the line of the Old Forest Road, preventing the ingress of the enemy along the easiest route into the Wood of Green Leaves. It forced them further south along the bank of the Anduin; to retreat north once more or, for the more foolhardy among them, to try westward across the ford and throw themselves upon the anvil of the Horseguard from Rivendell.

Between the two of us, Greenwood and Rivendell would hold the north… for a time at least.

Dismounting, Elrohir handed the reins of his horse to the nearby groom, The enemy was repelled for the day, retreating back into the wilds and hills - northward, whence they'd come. Light had becoming too low for human eyes to see clearly. Elves, he had to admit, had the advantage in that respect.

He turned his head to smile as he felt the hand clasp his shoulder, and fell into step with Elladan, the two of them approaching the far bank of the ford, where their ally commander awaited them, and even at such a distance they could see he wore a smile.

"Legolas Thranduilion," Elladan said formally as they came to a halt in front of the other Elf.

"The Brothers Peredhil," Legolas responded, equally as formally, but Elrohir could tell that like he, Legolas could barely restrain himself. "Your arrival is timely and most welcome."

"And with our father's high regard," Elrohir said, raising an eyebrow in place of a shrug of amusement at the expression, which showed a complete lack of surprise, on Legolas' face.

"Indeed," the prince said, "then doubly welcome."

He laughed then, Legolas; the sound a welcome, almost musical note to banish the lingering discord of battle, and before Elrohir could move, fairly launched himself to wrap a tight hug around him. After a moment, with a chuckle of his own, Elrohir reciprocated the warm gesture.

"Elrohir," Legolas greeted him again, more personally this time, and then reached out to catch his brother around the shoulders and draw him closer too. "And Elladan. It has been too long, my friends."

Even Elladan relaxed then, as Legolas released them both, and shook his head, still smiling at the two of them.

"I might have known your father would have the foresight to send you east with the Horseguard," Legolas said, "But come, we can have better, more comfortable conversation in my command pavilion."

"Your father must have come to trust you greatly since the War of the Ring," Elladan offered, as the three of them started toward the fluttering silk of Legolas' tent, but Legolas laughed again.

"My royal father simply wanted me out of his hair," he said.

The words were good humoured enough, but it did not take an empath like Elrohir to feel the underlying pang of hurt that Legolas had tried to keep from the tone of his words. Following behind his brother, who walked at the prince's side, Elrohir sighed softly. He knew that Thranduil could give the appearance of being a lofty and remote king, and that the loss of his beloved wife had hardened him still further, but Elrohir could not shake the sudden feeling that, before this new conflict escalated much further, Thranduil and Legolas must find a way to greater accord and peace between them. He shivered slightly as the thought left him, and hurried a step or two, to catch up.

"…each day is the same," Legolas was saying, "though their numbers are getting less, so either we are prevailing, or these men are just a diversion, and the main force has found another way around."

Elladan shook his head as all three of them ducked through the silken entrance of the tent and Legolas bid them to have a seat. "The latest information from our scouts speaks otherwise," he said.

Simply spoken words - and also the truth - and yet they cut Elrohir deep for the loss they signified. For so many years, such information had come to Rivendell from a source other than their own scouts, one dear to his family - dearer yet to him.

Elrohir felt his brother's eyes then, an apologetic caress that passed over the careworn expression he knew had once more found its way to his face.

"There is still no word then?" Legolas asked softly, "No trace?"

He sat up a little and shook his head. "And now our lord father sends us to Emyn-nu-Fuil to seek answers there," he said.

"Answers?" Legolas handed each of them cups of sweet wine to drink and took his own seat, "to Sillothuiell's disappearance?"

"To this new Shadow that rises," Elladan corrected the prince, and reached over to place a hand across Elrohir's forearm.

"We would have your permission to enter the Wood of Greenleaves, that we may follow our father's command," Elrohir said, his eyes closed, the words a mere sigh upon his breath as he sought to banish the pain that had flared once more in his heart at hearing her name and state so openly spoken.

"Of course you may have it, my friends," Legolas said. "You need not even ask, but since you are here, might I propose a course of action that will serve all of us well, I think."

"You wish for us to stay," Elrohir guessed, "and fight beside you for a time."

"Help me to drive these servants of Shadow back to the far north, whence they came, then I shall come with you to the Mountains of Mirkwood, and we shall discover together what it is that drives them," Legolas said.

Elrohir exchanged a brief glance with his brother, though in truth neither twin needed to see the other's face to know that they were in accord. They nodded as one.

"You have our swords, my prince," Elladan answered.

Faddha hesitated as she approached the doorway into the communal hall shared by the women of the stronghold, one hand against the wall to steady herself, the other pressed across her aching lower belly and abused sex, almost certain that this time he had left her bleeding, but this was not the cause of her hesitation.

She felt defeated; utterly, with the barest shred of hope remaining in her heart, and therein lay the source of her reluctance to enter the women's hall. In the days since Hethuc had first taken her by force, being around the women had become increasingly difficult, even though she had only and ever treated them with kindness and concern. Their silence, riddled with suspicion, and their bitter, harsh words wounded her almost more than their overlord's progressively more violent assaults.

"Again?"

Faddha jumped as the quiet voice sounded almost behind her, and then winced as an arm slipped around her waist for support and pressed on the bruises that coloured Faddha's back. She turned her head to see Elwed, one of the kitchen maids, looking up at her with deep concern on her face.

"I'm all right," she lied.

"And I am queen of Gondor," Elwed snorted. "Come on inside, let's get your face seen to if nothing else."

Absently, Faddha touched her fingers to her lip, only then registering the pain and the blood on her fingertips as she pulled her hand away. She looked at it as though it were something strange and unknown; something she had never seen.

"He must have…" She trailed off, allowing Elwed to begin to lead her closer to the women's hall.

"Belted you right hard across the face," Elwed finished her sentence as they came into the hall. "Where was it this time?"

"The stables," Faddha said. "They have just returned from the road."

"Lord wanted a warm welcome home." One of the women looked up from her sewing and all but spat the accusatory words her way.

"Instead he got her frosty nethers to bed his cock in," another said, drawing mumbling from the gathered women of the household. "Small wonder he took it out on her face."

Derision began to seep from every corner of the room, and like scaling knives on fresh fish began to strip away the numbness that insulated her from the pain. Faddha's mouth opened, her throat constricting on the sob gathering there as if to hold it in, to deny it to the world that would drag it from her; her weakness… her loss.

"Her defiance makes it worse for all of us," another said.

"Go to the cot in back," Elwed's voice was a feather against the daggers her so-called sisters chose to thrust into her already tattered heart; in expression of their own fear, she knew, though it did not make it hurt any the less. "I'll bring through water, and some fresh clothes and linens."

Elwed gave her a light push toward the small room at the rear of the hall where there was a low bed kept separate for any woman ailing, or a-childbed. Faddha's steps were slow, heavy as earth in winter and stumbling as though she'd taken too much ale.

"That woman has done more for you and yours that you will ever know," Elwed's voice cut through the bitterness that hung in the air like a fog. "You, Mara, where would your leg be without her healing touch? And you Rhondis - what about the man you call husband that came back from the hills with an arrow in his back, and not only lived, but walked nightly to your bed the following spring."

"Elwed, don't," Faddha said softly, turning around to try and stop the young woman from speaking out in defence of her, but Elwed wouldn't be quieted, not even as she began to move to gather the things she'd said she would bring for Faddha's comfort.

"And Hilaeth, that babe you suckle would have died of fever not two weeks past, had it not been for her knowing what herbs to give the both of you in aid," Elwed went on, pouring hot water from the pan in the fireplace into a wooden bowl.

Faddha felt her face flaming like the coals that heated the water; her pain and shame only further sharpened by the list of the aid that she had given to the people of the stronghold. She hadn't done it for the recognition, nor for any need of future accounting.

She turned back, meaning to flee to the small room, remove herself from everything until she could make her way out; find somewhere - anywhere - to shelter and not cause Elwed any more trouble than she was sure she had made for the other woman.

A hand grasped at her skirt as she turned, and off balance, Faddha tripped. She tried to right herself on the nearby table, but her hand came down on a tray that was barely balanced on the table's edge and she, and all of the wooden plates and clay pots fell to sprawl and scatter across the floor. She tried to get up, already reaching to gather the scattered things, but stopped with a short cry as new pain lanced across her scalp and squeezed at the back of her neck.

"Now you know you're no better than the rest of us."

The voice was cold, and held the low kind of warning that told Faddha that this was just the beginning of what she could expect from the other women. The woman that held her very nearly thrust her face into the broken shards of a mug that had shattered on contact with the floor. Having no more strength to fight the despair gathering in her heart, Faddha did what she had promised herself, three long years before, that she would never do.

The afternoon was drawing in, but the enemy showed no sign or desire for retreat. As hard as the combined armies of Rivendell and Greenwood pushed, the wild men of the North pushed back, coming at them in two and threes, their attacks crude, but strong, as if some fear drove them forward, made retreat a last and unacceptable option.

So it felt to Elrohir. As tightly controlled as he kept his natural gift during battle, he could not help but feel the cold shiver of dread that near blinded some of the foes that came at him. It was something they could use against them.

Setting his long blade against the hilt of his shorter offhand sword, he pushed forward into the midst of a small knot of wild eyed Northmen, before separating his blades and turning one upward in one direction, the other down in a deadly arc, cleaving two of them, before spinning to bring his attack to bear on others in the small formation. His hands moved in a blur of motion, feet keeping his balance as he tested his theory; tried to push them back. They chose death over retreat, and while he knew the wild men of the North were not the most skilled tacticians in battle, he knew they should have had more sense than that - more skill.

"Reform the lines!" he ordered, calling out in Sindarin to his kin. "Drive them back. Force them back!"

He smiled grimly as he heard his orders repeated by his brother and by Legolas, both instinctively trusting his judgement, or perhaps they, too, had felt or observed the fear that dove the men on. The enemy he faced quite obviously took offense at his smile, and swung the greatsword he carried in a downward arc, but the attack was slow and easily sidestepped, and almost with regret, Elrohir cut the man down granting a merciful and quick death to the frightened puppet of a warrior.

He pulled his sword free even as the fallen man's place was taken another; a second and a third Northman hovering, exchanging glances as if each waited on the other to make a move. Around them and behind, faced with the renewed onslaught from his Elvish kin, the wild men of the North finally broke, and scattered, making for the water, the hills, even the trees - anywhere but back the way they had come, but not these three. These seemed intent upon him, perhaps believing him a simpler target, being but one Elf, alone.

"Time to die," the first of the Northmen snarled as he moved to attack. He swung a small blade wide, but came in tight with a second.

Elrohir blocked with a single sweeping strike that took even the closer of the two attacks out harmlessly beyond the point of danger, answering with blazing repost that drove the Northman back against his two, still indecisive companions.

"Not today," Elrohir said, almost apologetically, as he broke to step back, "Leave now with your brothers-in-arms and you may yet live."

"And you may yet not!"

They came at him, all three at once, hard and fast as if whatever strange indecision had held the other two had abruptly broken and poured a wave of hate over the top of the lingering fear. The strength of it was almost crushing, and it took Elrohir a moment to realise that he had opened his senses, unbidden, beyond reason until the sudden unexpected cry burst within his heart.

An agony of emotional pain, hopelessness and despair blossomed from the echo of deeply physical hurts, but the touch and essence of it, so familiar it was like the mirror of his own soul, knotted everything he was with near terror and panic.

Elrohir… please-!

Pain of a different kind shattered the desperate touch of mind to mind.

Too late he tried to block the strike of the Northman's sword that shattered the steel of his spaulder, bit through the leather beneath and sliced the chain in two, tearing the flesh beneath. A second, deeper piercing lance of fire cut through his side. He staggered back, barely maintaining the presence of mind to slash down at the hand that held the knife embedded in his side. Elvish steel cleanly severed the wrist and prevented the man from pulling the blade free as Elrohir fell, first to one knee and then, as he tried to rise on a buckling leg, to his side. He rolled onto his back, but his strength failed even as he crossed his blades to catch the descending arc of a Northman's axe.

He felt the air stir, the whisper and whistle of feathers in flight as the volley of arrows passed the space where he had been but a moment before. The axe never fell, except backward with its wielder as the sharp, surreal edges of the moment faded into the darkening twilight of the death of his Northmen foe, and his own burgeoning pain.

"Lie still, my friend," Legolas' soft, calm voice and the press of a strong hand on his good shoulder kept him from rising. "We will send for a healer."

Elrohir took a huge, ragged gasp that sounded to his own ears like a cry, as if his lungs had not known breath for a thousand years. He tried again to rise, to pluck at the knife in his side as if it pinned him to the ground, not the press of Legolas' hand, nor the warm curl of his brother's fingers that caught his wrist and prevented him from pulling out the blade.

"Silith-" he gasped when he had breath enough to make the sound. "Sillothuiell nín!"

"He is afraid," Elladan said; his soft voice filled with worry.

"And half mad with pain," Legolas said. His tone was mournful and without much hope.

They were both of them right: Legolas and my brother. I was afraid; frightened because the first hint of contact with my soul's light in years, and she had been crying out in anguish and in need; scared that I was not there to give her solace; terrified that after such an appeal, I could not tell where she was - did she even still live? So, yes, both were right, because the agony of those fears, those terrible truths was almost too much to bear.

For three years I had search, relying only on the sense of magic I felt from the gems that made up the twinned brooches we each had worn since the day of our marriage. When we bound ourselves, each to the other in the ancient Elvish rite of joining soul to soul, a little piece of each of our life's essence became locked within the magic that gave the jewels their power, though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that such ornaments were merely symbolic of the arcane connection to which we had promised ourselves. Through our marriage we would always hear, always feel, always know one another's needs and thoughts and emotions - even were I not already an Empath. Through our marriage it had even, sometimes, been possible for us to share words mind to mind, though rarely over any great distance and that only added another dimension to the pain of that moment on the battlefield of the Old Ford. Through our marriage it was possible to sustain each other in times of great peril or injury, even to the point of staving off death, but also to hasten it - for each of us knew that should one of us fall, surely the other would soon fade of a broken heart.

Such we both had willingly promised - such was what we both, then, faced.

Faddha was not sure whether it was the hand over her mouth that woke her, or the one that lightly shook her shoulder, but the scent of Hethuc's warband lay heavy around the man that disturbed her rest. It filled her with both fear and nausea in equal measure, and suddenly all the will to fight left her.

"Has he finally tired of my refusal so much that he believes I will soften if he shares me with his warband?" she said, her tone one of defeat as he lifted his hand away from her mouth.

She was supposed to be safe where she was. Elwed had promised her no one would find her there.

"Tell me something," he said in response. "If you hate us so much, why then do you stay? I see no chains, no locks upon your door and the gate is never barred, so… why?"

"I cannot tell you," she answered. "You would not understand."

"Suppose you try," he said.

He released her shoulder then and, still afraid, she half sat up and shuffled away as far as the narrow cot would allow. In the dim light that came in through the high, narrow window, and was little more than starlight and a sliver of silver from a darkening moon, she studied his face. She knew him from the warband, though she did not know his name; one of those that Hethuc trusted though, she knew that much. She remembered seeing him at Hethuc's side on several of the nights on which the war leader had exercised his power over her.

"Yes, lady," the warrior said, "You have healed me, more than once, I think, if that's what you're trying to remember."

She shook her head.

"Lau," she began, and then corrected herself, "No… I don't-"

"You were going to tell me what I wouldn't understand," he interrupted. "Then, perhaps, we'll see to what you don't."

She frowned, as did he, and then he moved closer.

"Speak quickly, woman. I'm getting bored with waiting."

"Out there," she nodded her head upwards toward the window, "beyond these walls there is a war being fought. No one saw it coming. All believed that Elessar's peace would hold and it should have. That is why I stay: because there is shadow and fear in the heart of man; because there are women and children suffering and cowering the dark. I stay for all of those who have no voice, who have no hope, who have no chance of peace or ease of their misery."

"Very noble," he said, and he reached for her again, catching the front of her shift before she could move away far enough, "Also very stupid if you think that these people you so altruistically try to protect care, or even know, half of them just what it is you do for them… or if you think that Hethuc hasn't… figured out what you're trying to do."

"It is not Hethuc's hand that-"

"His is the rod that'll break your back, woman," he said, "Listen to me if you won't listen to your own despair. Go home, little-"

"I cannot!" she hissed and a cold rush of panic hit her, as if she had suddenly been plunged into the rushing waters of the falls of Rauros. She practically clawed at his hand, still holding to the collar of her shift. He was immovable and she saw the truth of her earlier fears in the man's dark eyes. She whispered "But I cannot stay here."

"Not and live," he agreed. "I may not know the words you weep when he's done with you, but… I know what happens to your kind if you prove false to your promises, and one way or another he will break you, because he won't have a woman bring him to ruin before the masters he serves."

"And if I am all that stands between those masters and the women, and the children, and the wounded, and those lost in Shadow - what then?" she argued. "I won't abandon them."

"You can't help them by becoming one of them."

"I told you you would not understand," she said, her eyes filling with tears as the words of one, long fallen into Shadow and faded to dust, echoed in the emptiness of her heart and whispered on her outgoing sigh as she ceased her struggles with Hethuc's right hand man. "Ónen i-hîdh adanath; ú-chebin hîdh anim."