Fractures by Elleth  

Chapter One: Alphangil

Ambush and abduction... 

But when he had drawn forth, as he hoped, the armies of Morgoth in answer, then Fingon should issue forth from the passes of Hithlum; and thus they thought to take the might of Morgoth as between anvil and hammer, and break it to pieces. And the signal for this was to be the firing of a great beacon in Dorthonion. (The Silmarillion, Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad)

*

Dorthonion had become terrible and desolate.

The wintry heathers and pine forests lay still, half-burned and half-choked by the dust blowing in from Anfauglith. The name of Taur-nu-Fuin was a statement of fact more than a disservice. Many trees had withered and twisted in the tainted ash, and there were entire stretches of land that lay under some deeper darkness where they did not linger.

Alphangil shuddered to find that - strange even in winter - there were no birds, nor any small beasts, as their horses made their slow way westward from Himring, but she also shuddered to think what forms they might have been twisted into, those that had not fled. She was tense and jumped at every noise as they set out to different peaks along the southern border to Ladros toward the center of Dorthonion when they found no fitting place for their purpose.

Outriders scouting for enemy activity had declared the land safe for the time being. Those few dark creatures that had crept in far enough from Nan Dungortheb were no true obstacle when they crossed paths, but a retinue kept around them to defend them if necessary. They had kept the host as small as secrecy demanded and security permitted - three companies, thirty-six all in all - selected and outfitted for stealth. Maedhros had declared the matter too important to leave to others who might bring inaccurate information or even seek outright betrayal. It would not be the first time his war plans were hampered by sabotage: Lost shipments of ore for weaponry, one of his tacticians found strangled in her bed and her wife fled, the Naugrim visited by strange messengers promising them wealth and boons if they refused or betrayed their alliance with the Elves… Alphangil could not blame Maedhros for setting forth with those he trusted most: Fingon, her, and a handful of trusted advisors on the war council.

Treason, and fear of treason.

When they reached, after a long slog, an old road, now slippery with frost, muddied and ill-maintained, meandering up toward Orod-na-Thôn, they found it trampled by orcish boots. It was apparent to all of them, however, that the tracks were old, faded under rain and snow. The retinue drew closer regardless, and Alphangil spotted more than one hand going to sword and bow, among them one woman who seemed to have been assigned to Alphangil as a special protector, because she had been close to her the entire ride and now came even nearer. Alphangil refused to let it rankle her and swallowed down a complaint to Maedhros.

Once they had reached a rocky plateau under the summit, Maedhros turned to Fingon and Alphangil. "Would this be the right place for the beacon?" he asked. None of their other spots had proven suitable. Orod-na-Thôn was the last, lest they meant to announce the beginning of the battle from Anfauglith itself.

"The road is easily defensible, and there is enough wood around to gather for the beacon," Fingon judged. He looked at the map Maedhros' second had ready, tracing with a finger where there could be watchposts.

Alphangil took the spyglass Maedhros offered her and turned westward and a little north until the towers of her home appeared, light stone against the darker rock of the Ered Wethrin in the distance, small as a child's toy. "Eithel Sirion is visible from here," she said. "We are high enough, and if this can be fortified, yes. This should do."

She passed the glass to Fingon, who confirmed it with a huffed noise betraying his impatience and dislike of being out in the cold. "Finally. I can see it. And I know that the mountain is visible from our towers. This ought to be the place."

Maedhros smiled grimly, turning north and returning the spyglass to his belt. "And he will be able to see it, too."

It needed only unaided elven sight to make out the peaks of Thangorodrim across the desolation that had once been lively, bustling Ard-galen, now stretching dirt-grey with frost under a sky of leaden cloud.

"When the day comes, he will bite," Fingon said. He sounded joyful but defiant at the prospect. "And we will smite his armies as a hammer that strikes an anvil and avenge the fallen of the Dagor Bragollach, and Beleriand will be free of him." He stretched his fist northward.

Alphangil coaxed him to open his clenched hand and tangled her fingers with his until he lowered his arm again and let the challenge pass. She willed herself to be the steadying presence he needed, even if it meant gainsaying Fingon's notions of triumph.

"If all goes well," she counselled. "It is one thing to defeat his armies, another to defeat Morgoth himself."

Her husband was not deterred, frowning now at her caution. "Do you think the power he expends in such a battle will return to him? He is sending his creatures far and wide through the Northlands and seeks to control them with his will," Fingon countered. "If both are one and we destroy enough of them, will we not then weaken him?"

It had been an argument they had often had in the war councils.

Alphangil sighed and stepped back, remembering how her own people had tried to resist Morgoth even before the Noldor arrived. She recalled also how Maedhros had despaired after the council the day they had decided to wage this fifth great battle, then unsure and shaken. Now, clad in armour and standing on a height in full sight of Morgoth, he held himself straight as a steel blade, his grey eyes hard and brittle as flint.

Maedhros nodded. "We already determined that. Creatures made by him are bound to his will, as the Naugrim say they were bound to Aulë's in their beginning. They have no true will of their own. And those who were not made but corrupted by him - his will dwells ever upon them, to control what freedom of will they have. I have known his will on me, and it is terrible beyond speaking. Even the Orcs, I believe, though evil, would rather depart from him and do their own evil work than be compelled to do his bidding when forced so. Killing his armies - it will hurt him as though through ten-thousand stings, each one sapping a little of his power, and we must fight as though that is enough."

"That day will come - our day will come," Fingon said again, slinging an arm around Maedhros' hips, now an identical picture of determination. His eyes shone, and a momentary finger of sunlight from the sky fell onto his silver crown and the golden bands in his hair; then he tilted his head back and let the light play over his face.

Alphangil stepped back further. The clouds rippled in the sky and the light vanished. She could not help but feel that it was a portent, but one that she could not read clearly - something good turning to evil, the words of the Prophecy of the North coming true at last?

To evil end all things shall turn that begin well.

"We should go," she called when the moment had passed. An unrest was on her mind that she could not explain. Her two men did not seem to hear.

The look Fingon and Maedhros gave each other was a familiar one, but this high and open was no place for them to show forth the love that bound both of them and united them in the purpose to make their war a triumph more than a necessity. She did not often feel as though the three of them were not of one mind, that they did not respect her thoughts and fears, but with a cold wind picking up and blowing their hair back, red and black mingled, she could not help a shudder.

She could not help feeling out of place in their unity, but at the very least they heeded her when she called for them a third time.

They departed quickly and silently, down the mountain and into the cover of red pines standing like a dark hall with many pillars around them. The needles on the ground swallowed the hoofbeats of their horses. There was no wind. Once, a jay startled up crying into the sky above the frozen forest, but they encountered no other sound by bird or beast until the early winter nightfall, and did not speak.

Just after the darkness had begun to descend on them, they came to an abandoned village of Men, deserted during the Bragollach, where they had rested on the way toward Orod-na-Thôn already. Some were sent out to make the place safe, and the rest began to set up camp. Alphangil felt bone-weary and worked herself out of her chainmail shirt, laying it aside by her bedroll before stretching out for a rest. Fingon had set up his bed and then gone to tend to Pilin. Maedhros kept him company.

The attack came out of the gathering dark.

The Orcs must have been waiting in the hollowed-out houses, either so well-hidden that they had not been seen, or there was treachery at work: one of Morgoth's spies in the host of Maedhros, placed carefully onto a game board and moved toward the right place and the right time to strike.

Alphangil realized she had guessed right when she found the edge of an elven blade at her throat and a voice hissing in her ear to warn her against screaming out. The same woman who had kept close to her. It now became terribly clear why.

With the knife pressing into her skin, Alphangil remembered the woman's name: Cýronil, one of Maedhros' people, a former thrall who had alleged to have escaped Angband. They had spoken before, on Himring. Could it be? Alphangil knew that Cýronil had undergone questioning that would break and reveal anyone who did not hold good intentions before being taken into Maedhros' service, or so the rumor went openly around Himring.

She did not doubt Maedhros capable of it, but it seemed that Morgoth had found ways to circumvent Maedhros' caution and steel his thralls into resistance.

Against her pounding heart, telling her to get loose and run, Alphangil forced herself to breathe, and to think. They were in the thick of a throng of fifty or more Orcs surrounding them, in the center of the fighting. She would not make it far.

Their surprise attack had left the elven host in chaos, struggling to form ranks, Maedhros unhorsed and Fingon trying to wrest Pilin back under control; even a warhorse of Rochallor's line was startled by the sudden onslaught out of nightfall. Neither of them had yet noticed her. One of Maedhros' soldiers spotted her and she saw his eyes widen in horror, but the Orcs swept between them and the soldier went down under an onslaught of blows before he could so much as cry out.

Trying to escape now wouldn't do her any good; the next unfortunate swing of an orcish blade would end her. Better to bide her time. If they had wanted to kill her, Cýronil would have already had ample chance to simply slit her throat, but had not done so; she was grasping Alphangil's braid now, wrapped it around her hand tightly like a leash and kept pulling her further back. The roots of her hair stung and terror took her breath away, especially when Cýronil scattered the last remaining doubt by calling out something guttural that could only be Orcish.

A line of Orcs broke away from the fighting and made a ring around the two women, shields up in defense. More followed the further they withdrew, and finally Alphangil saw Fingon glance up, a spatter of black blood across his face. His eyes found hers for a glimpse only, just before she was dragged around the edge of a war-ruined house, inside through a broken wall, and down into a cellar that lay half-open to the sky.

A skeleton - no larger than a child, no larger than Gil-galad was now - lay down there, still grasping a spear from a lost last stand. Alphangil fought back a noise of despair thinking that this might be her son, or that she would die or be taken and leave him motherless, Fingon widowed and alone with only Maedhros for scarce comfort. She did not think that Maedhros would welcome it any longer either, now that they had grown closer, now that they had become three. If they still were. If the war was not fracturing them.

Around another crumbled wall loomed the opening of a crude tunnel. That explained, then, how the attack had been staged so quickly and stealthily, especially with a traitor in their midst.

Alphangil was dragged into the deeper dark in a stinking press of orcish bodies, heard them grunt something she could not understand, heard Cýronil laugh. A blow to the head from behind had her knees buckle. The roots of her hair pulled and stung. Spots of light bloomed up in the dark before her eyes, but she would not yet surrender.

Another blow came. The light took her, and then the darkness did.