Blood on the Brown Leaves by Isilme_among_the_stars  

Blood burgeoned from the wound, leaking rapidly through Elrond’s fingers no matter how diligently he pressed. Maethar struggled, pushing at him with the arm that Elrond did not have pinned to the ground in an effort to stem an alarmingly voluminous haemorrhage. The injured arm, spear torn in its vulnerable pit from an orc blow, only twitched ineffectually. Crimson had already slicked the ground beneath them liberally, slippery and stark over brown leaf litter.

“Daro, Elrond. Ego!”[1] Maethar ordered desperately, yet Elrond would neither stop nor stand aside as Maethar wished. That, he knew, would be the captain’s death sentence. Dangerous, too, was pausing thusly in the midst of battle to tend the fallen, but an acceptable risk, he deemed, for the Eldar had the advantage and were even now driving their desperate foes away. A few soldiers remained standing over them protectively.

“I need packing,” Elrond yelled, driving two fingers through the ragged hole in the hauberk directly into the wound to slow it’s pulsing flow. Maethar only groaned and batted feebly at Elrond’s arm. The fight was leaving him.

One of their guards stood solemnly by, his face grave. Elrond met his eye. “I need it now!” he pled. 

The other, as the skirmish drew further distant, dared kneel to unwind a wininga[2] from one of their calves and offer it forth. “Here, Prince.” 

“Is there nothing cleaner?” Elrond asked, for the strip of woollen twill was mud spattered in places. He already knew there was not. Not anything quick enough to hand, at least. Therefore, taking the cleaner end, he began feeding it between cleaved skin, reaching as far in as possible and pressing as forcefully as he could. Elrond had packed wounds before, with linen treated with honey and styptics to encourage stubborn bleeding to stop. None had been so dire, nor so urgent. And an adolescent was never suffered to take the lead in any treatment, only to assist. Why did no one help now? Why did they not take charge, nor even guide him?

“Help me,” he begged. He knew not what else to do. But the kneeling elf instead stooped to press their lips to Maethar’s brow and gently caress his cheek. He lay worryingly quiescent now, and though he breathed still each inspiration was shallow. Blood soaked the strip of wool beneath Elrond’s hands and flowed to the ground.

“There is no more to be done,” the standing soldier quietly divulged. But that could not be so, could it? Surely… if he could just… Elrond renewed his strength, centring all his weight over his locked arms, and pushed downward fervently, but to no avail. Silence fell, but for the stirring of leaves in the wind and a distant beat of orc feet, now retreating, amid the twang of elven bows. 

The kneeling elf gently closed Maethar’s eyes. “He has departed.”

“No,” Elrond protested. “No, it cannot be be so.” Yet it was, and he knew in the depths of his gut they spoke true, for the bleeding had near stopped and that could only have come of the ceasing of the heart’s beating. “No…” he muttered once more and was met only with pitying looks. 

Elrond had a sudden need to be away from the still-warm body that lay uncannily immobile before him, to escape the cooled blood under his knees that churned to mud beneath leaf litter on the forest floor. No longer could he stand the metallic tang in the crisp air, nor the ruthful gaze of old, sorrow-wise elves upon him. Elrond felt cold and light-headed. He stood silently, and though it was not the time of day in which to take bread, he sought water to wash his hands as if it were. Then, though the sun was yet high in the sky, he sought his bedding as if it were not. Their camp was dishevelled, but not inordinately so. Elrond took his pelt and cloak and settled with his back to a tree. Soldiers returned and wiped clean their weapons and tended to their hurts. When someone came to rouse him, he roused not.

“Is he conscious?” a voice asked. Then, much closer, while fingers lifted a blood-stiffened lock of Elrond’s hair, it went on, “Was he wounded?”

“Not a scratch on him,” reported another, after a cursory jostling of his cloak and mail.

“Leave him be,” a third bid, and Elrond knew it belonged to the elf who had stood guard over him as Maethar bled out beneath his hands. “He is grieved, is all. It will pass.”

Yet it was needful to move on, for already their company lagged behind the greater force Maedhros had ordered southwards as renewed fighting in the North drove bands of orcs deeper into Ossiriand. So it was that the other elf, the one who had knelt and pressed a kiss to their dying captain’s brow, crouched before Elrond and passed a damp cloth over his face. Gently, they removed the sprays of dried blood that clung to his skin. “There. Is that not better?” they asked and pulled him to standing with a firm tug.

It was, at least a little. Elrond found his feet steadier than he had imagined. He wept as he walked, but walk he did, and that was all that was needed for now. 

[1] Stop, Elrond. Be off!

[2] Wininga: a long strip of cloth (typically woollen or linen in composition) that is worn wound around the lower half of the leg. Used for warmth, they also offer light protection from brambles etc and keep mud and stones out of the shoes. 

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