By Stars' Light 1-3/14

[erfan-starled.livejournal.com]

Title: By Stars’ Light
Author: Erfan Starled
Beta: Keiliss
Rating: R but mostly PG-13
Pairing: Finrod/Calyaro aka (Silm Char?)
Languages: Malinornë
Warnings: Fighting. Deaths. Slash.
Written for Elfscribe. Request: Silm characters would be good. Music, a lie, erotic dreams, "the past is a beautiful, cruel country" -- use as a quote and/or concept. No fluff.

A.N. Silmarillion based.
A.N. Heartfelt thanks to Keiliss for discussion, canon info and beta.
A.N. For other contributions much appreciated, thanks to: Mal for translations, Oshun for canon info, Enide for comments.

Summary: Finrod expects to hunt Morgoth and finds himself on a very different journey. He has company along the way.

Chapter One

The elf cradled between Finrod’s thighs, head resting heavy against his stomach, legs sprawled over his own, had finally roused. Finrod bent over to speak to him. “Is it well with you?”

“Nothing I can’t live with.” A dry laugh accompanied the reply. Their adventures of recent days had left them both the worse for wear.

“You cried out. You must have been dreaming. Go back to sleep if you can. You need the rest.” He felt the body subside but not in sleep. A hand moved, came to rest on Finrod’s arm where it rested over the other’s chest. It closed in firm pressure, long fingers wrapping themselves around his wrist and holding on.

He kissed untidy hair, and rested his hands on the other’s shoulders, glad of this time to touch for a while undisturbed. In the thick dark he savoured the heat of their contact. So much had happened since their beginnings. He had a little time yet to sit and remember.

***

*** The Calacirya: Years of the Trees 1500 ***

“At least the arguing is over…”

Finrod said nothing. Close though they were, his hawkish sister did not share his desire for the peace and order of Tirion. She did, however, know he would be glad the confrontations were over. He wondered for how long. He had watched with cold dismay as people were beguiled into pursuit. Revenge, justice, subjugating a great enemy, freedom, new lands… Fëanor had certainly found something for everyone. His uncle was always a good orator. Meanwhile, both their course and their leadership bitterly divided the princes.

He followed their people through the murk. The tree-bereaved land was all the darker for the fogs that crawled over the ground but still, sure-footed, they navigated the litter of rocks in the pass. His regrets merged into a common sense of loss. The dearth of light, silver and gold, whose common twilight had been as beautiful as their separate fullness, parting from Amarië, leaving Tirion… He turned often to look back through the unnatural murk.

Mindon’s beacon gleamed fainter now. Half-falling backwards over a grass-covered stone, Finrod straightened up with a word of thanks for his neighbour’s steadying hand and faced onwards, east between ramparts of rock, where white ships sprang tall masts that would carry them west.

He doubted this haste would serve them usefully. For hunting Morgoth many of those up ahead were ill-equipped. Finrod had seen Fëanor leave, travelling light. This driven quest of Fëanor might have good reason behind it but to see their hunt led by obsession that would listen to no counsel was worrying. To see even composed Calyaro fall into place on Fëanor’s left so far outside his usual setting had jarred.

With so many agreeing that they wanted to settle in Endor, families were going, even children. Finrod was glad Amarië would remain in safety and await his return. The crowd trailing Fëanor carried no more than cloak and sword, and a few bundles that might be food. Though in Calyaro’s case, he was apparently taking at least one of his instruments with him. Finrod had time to wonder where the road would lead them all before he moved away on his own more measured preparations.

He was glad that he had dug in his toes when Fingon on one side and Galadriel on the other had urged him to hurry. Like hounds pointed on the scent, they were eager to be off. Fëanor had urged immediate departure once the decision had finally fallen his way. He wanted no-one changing their minds. Finrod had ignored his importunate cousins to take stock of what they might need that might feasibly be carried. There was no guarantee that Morgoth would quickly be hunted to earth, and no knowing where – this might take some time, and they still had to live.

With Finarfin’s approval, he had swiftly mustered messengers to bid those associated with their house to make careful selection. They must carry at least some of the means to maintain themselves, but the list of what they could bring was small. Ropes. Ropes were always useful when hunting, to carry the kill, to fashion shelter if it stormed. Basic hand tools – usefulness for weight, he had emphasised, bearing in mind an indeterminate journey. And food, he urged. Food that will keep on what might be a long hunt. And they might find portable valuables of use, in barter among themselves. Or as gifts to smooth over differences, perhaps. He made sure to pack what he could.

Galadriel grew more thoughtful and went away to oversee these orders carried out. He saw her questioning those who gathered for departure bearing nothing but a hastily caught up cloak, not wanting to be left behind. She sent them back to think again.

He also took the time to walk through the city to the quiet Vanyarin quarter. Amarië was waiting for him where Galathilion wilted in the poisoned gloom. This was good-bye, for a time. He touched her hair, her cheek and gently drew her close. They parted almost wordlessly on an aching kiss that lingered ghost-like on his skin as he strode through the Calacirya.

The cliffs turned north, and the coastal bluffs retreated from the shore to open into wide salty flatlands spreading north to the city of ships. There were so many of them on the move it was hard to be sure when the angry cries of elves seemed to carry on the wind above the constant shrieking of the gulls. Finrod stiffened, desperately hoping it was a trick of the wind, but his hearing had always been better than most. Gulls did not scream defiance.

Appalled, he looked around and spied Galadriel. Eel-like he wove a path at his fastest run and overtook her. He shouted without slowing, “Tell father to come as quickly as he can!”

He did not linger to explain, but raced on, only watched over his shoulder long enough to see her stare and then kilt her skirts at her thighs. She put her head down and ran, infected by his urgency, letting her pack jounce unheeded at her back.

Others were looking at each other now. Those he knew for steadiest he shouted one word to, ‘Come!’ as he passed, desperate to get to the source of the outcry.

His concern proved inadequate. He slowed in shock as he burst through the city gates to find people running, crying and shouting. Noldor, swords in hand, closed on Teleri, who were the ones screaming defiance. An arrow hissed past, narrowly missing Finrod, but he hardly noticed.

He ran for the docks where the noise sounded loudest and found what at first he took to be Morgoth’s work. Fire flared in the darkness where lanterns had been overturned, gleaming and glinting on drawn metal. Dark patches shone on clothing, on bodies, in the gutters… Blood.

He looked around. Teleri were taking cold aim from windows and housetops at Noldor fighting with cold steel those they had cornered on the ground. The decks of the graceful ships themselves were the heart of this battle-ground and even now, one of them shed ghastly light on the whole scene as her sails went up in a gout of flame.

Galvanised, Finrod started giving out savage orders to those he had brought with him. Some he sent to bar further entry into the city, some to help the injured, and others to investigate further streets for trouble. The burning ship had to be next or flames would take all… He made to cast her off, regardless of the battle being waged for her decks.  Some of the Teleri drew on him, seeing what he did, but he shouted his name and faced them – seeing their King’s grandson and his gesture at the danger above, they helped him loose the heavy loops from the bollards and let the current carry away the danger of wholesale fire. Her struggling compliment of Noldor and Teleri would have to jump for it and get to shore however they might.

Panting with exertion, he took stock. The Noldor were winning, the Teleri not giving in, and he did not know how to put a stop to it. Everywhere he looked there was fighting, a blood-spattered Noldo not five hundred paces away had closed on a Telerin boy with a bow. His blood ran cold.

He moved faster than he knew he could and leapt to put a hand so hard about Fingon’s wrist that his cousin shouted out in pain and shock. He made to swipe at Finrod’s head with his left hand, a hard blow, but Finrod ducked back and shook the right hand bearing the sword, and then brought up his left to grip his cousin’s throat, pushing him back, ignoring more flailing blows. Mad with horror, he held him pinned to the rough harbour wall, bashing his sword-hand repeatedly against the stones. The Telerin boy slid away over the gutters and ran off in a spillage of arrows, abandoning his bow.

“What do you think you are doing?” Finrod shouted. “What have you *done*?”

Fingon cried out in pain as his hand broke under the attack. He dropped the sword on top of the small hunting bow, and stared in shock as Finrod shoved him one last time into the wall.

Fingon started to shake his head, saying over and over, “They attacked. They had *attacked*…”

Savagely, Finrod swung him forward. “Look, you *fool*. Look what you joined!” He thrust him toward the docks and let him go in disgust.

Shuddering, he stepped away, to survey the ships. Bodies and hunting bows lay scattered among the wounded, along with fallen Noldor, their swords loosed by dead hands no longer doing harm. The fighting was over.

He turned to those who had followed him into the city. “Separate the survivors, and gather up all the weapons on the docks and in the streets.” By force of hand despite the danger, they wedged a space between the ships and the town, undeterred by the press of grief and rage.

He could not bear to stay more than a moment at the dock-side where Fëanor was determinedly, if shakily, ordering the securing of the ships by his sons. He had laid aside his sword, but appointed an armed watch at the ship-sides and those competent with bows had taken them up and were even now gathering arrows before the injured were tended.

Everyone was shocked. An eerie, incomplete quiet settled down, even while distant voices could be heard keeping more of the travellers out of the city. With jerky actions, Noldor on the decks cleaned swords and sheathed them and began scouring the harbour for those who had survived the sea. Finrod’s late-come faction bent to check bodies that might be alive in the streets. The weeping of surviving inhabitants carried on the clear sea air. The moans of injured elves, the creak of ships and the rush and slap of water in the bay were muted in his ears after the din of fighting.

When Noldor tried to stop Teleri who were come to claim the ship-board bodies, Finrod put his hand to his own sword-hilt to face them down alone. He had no idea what was on his face but Fëanor gave a sharp order, and the Noldor on the deck cleared a space for the elf who advanced among them to gather the broken body of a sailor. Silently, she smoothed his hair away from his face, before another joined her in loading the body onto some wood to carry him away.

There was an unreality to this aftermath of wounding and killing, the like of which he had never imagined, that made it impossible to feel or even think. Finrod kept staring at the body of a youth lying nearby on the stone flags, blood not yet dry pooled in the cracks between. He jerked his gaze away around the harbour, and then found himself once more drawn to the brown-eyed, spilled body, whose face looked at the sky as if counting stars worlds apart from the twisted limbs and gaping wound. The face was untouched and beautiful.

Finrod stirred. He tore his eyes from the sight, and stiffly stalked back to the gates, where Galadriel, for once quiet and white-faced, awaited him with messages. It was an ill-fated day.

Teleri cursed them in their bewildered, angry grief. The fighters had fled north, by ship and by land. King Olwë wanted none of the Noldor to linger, but the bonds of family made for grievous partings which he did not quite forbid.

Finrod’s aunt was weeping when they found her with Hlápo in her arms. Her son had been too young for work but spell-bound by ocean and ships alike, he could never be detained long on shore. Finrod collapsed to his knees at Hlápo’s trailing feet, devastated, while Finarfin knelt beside his wife’s sister. In greater sorrow than any they could have imagined, they remained still for a time unmeasured until Galadriel sighed and stirred from the door to fetch water and cloth.

When she started to wash the blood away, Finrod took the cloth from her. Tears as well as water fell on the body, until the sword cut in Hlápo’s ribs were all that remained to mar him.

The silence as they left was as barren as the harbour. The grimy black residue of oil fires looked no different than dried blood on the flagstones as they passed. Nothing else remained of the fight, except for the dim out-line of a fire-damaged hulk, hung canted on an outcrop of reef. Soon the rising tide would claim her for her last voyage and the last of the great Swans would be gone.

It was a grim knot of Noldor who departed the city, leaving their Telerin kin to live with devastation. Melkor, Manwë, Fëanor – there were more than enough at whom to rage. Instead, Finrod felt numb.

The gates rose before them. They went through with Finrod bringing up the rear, in no hurry to see the rest of the family. He had lost track of Fingon on the docks and was glad of it. Nothing was going to be the same again.

The gates, ornate and tall, curved up in wings of stone and wood over the arch. Inattentive in the mist-ridden dark, his foot caught on a metallic rasp and he tripped. Finrod picked himself up. He kicked aside the sword underfoot. Nearby crouched an elf, squatting against the wall with his hands hanging from his knees. One of the fighters? Or had he tried to stop them and been injured? In any case, the sword made him Noldo.

“You can’t stay here.” There came no answer. Impatiently, Finrod said, “Up with you. We are forbidden the city.” A buckle scraped against stone, and with his attention now drawn to the shadows, he could see an odd-shaped pack at the other’s back, but the elf did not move.

“Finrod?” Orodreth was come after him. “Father sent me back to see what delays you.” He glanced between the two of them. “Are you alright?”

“I’m coming. Here, help me with him.” Between them they dragged the elf out into the lighter gloom of the fog-shrouded starlight.

Orodreth asked, “Who is it?”

Finrod answered, “I fell over him in the dark. He had a sword. Let’s have a look at him…” A pair of grey eyes that looked like wells of black horror stared at him out of a familiar face. Finrod let out a sigh, a faint sound of dismay, as Calyaro looked at the two who had gathered him up.

“Finrod, that’s Calyaro, and he’s covered with blood…” Orodreth stared, sickly fascinated.

Finrod pressed his mouth flat. “I recognize him.” A quick inspection found no injuries despite the shock the other was displaying. Calyaro said nothing as he was handled, and Finrod’s frown set deep. “Let’s go.” Grimly, he pushed his reluctant acquisition onto the coastal flats north.

End of Chapter One
Tbc

Calyaro – One who illuminates
Hlápo – Flies, blows, streams in the wind

 

Chapter Two

*** Border of Valinor ***

“I am going with them, father.” He spoke the words steadily, as if he were no more than going on one of Oromë’s hunts with Turgon, Galadriel and Aredhel.

“Finrod, Aman will be closed to you! You *heard* Him. No pity even in *death*, if you follow them now. Galadriel’s heart calls her hence, but yours – yours speaks of Tirion. And of those left behind, as does mine. We were always going to return, and now you won’t be allowed to!” Finarfin’s eyes bored into his son’s, desperate to persuade him. “Do not number yourself among the dispossessed… Listen to your heart. Return with me to Amarië. Don’t follow the oathsworn into this curse.”

His eyes hardened as Finrod shook his head slowly. He would go with Turgon, with Galadriel, and with his brothers. To leave them, to let them seek Morgoth without him, never to know their fate – he could not do it.

“This parting cannot be undone. Be very sure…”

“Give me your blessing?” He bent his knee and waited.

His father’s hands touched his head. Warm lips kissed his brow. Finarfin drew him to his feet for one last, long look.

“Then do justly. Tend your honour well. You will need it. Keep true to what you believe and take my blessing with you, for all your endeavours if not this choice, for I do greatly fear for you.”

Finrod kissed him, lips on tear-damp cheeks. “Tell Amarië I loved her well but could not stay. Help her understand?”

Finarfin gave no answer and Finrod nodded in abrupt resignation. His father would not promise what he could not do and his father did not understand this wilful severance from grace.

While the others said their goodbyes, Finrod let the chill breath of the fugitive north wind dry his tears.

***

*** Araman ***

The ships hove to clumsily. Fëanor welcomed his sons ashore but nothing was resolved about loading the ships for a first crossing. Fingolfin said they were all exhausted and should take counsel again after they had slept. Uneasily, much needed rest settled across the company. Calyaro watched as the boats came ashore and though his eyes followed Fëanor’s every step with equal parts hunger and dismay, he showed no sign of moving to greet his lord and Fëanor, after one cold glance in his direction, ignored him completely.

Finrod saw the little byplay and saw Maglor move toward the minstrel and his father say a sharp word to him. Maglor’s hand lifted in protest but he gave in and with one last look over his shoulder he went with his father. Calyaro blinked slowly and then he gracelessly retreated past Finrod to a less populated stretch of rock where Finrod lost sight of him.

After everything that had happened, the shambling, beaten-looking figure should not have been important, no matter how cultured he once was. It meant nothing that Calyaro had once entertained kings – but his reduction seemed in a small way to match the obscenities of the Haven. Finrod, feeling disgusted with them all and with better things to do, still found himself disturbed by the emptiness in Calyaro’s eyes.

They woke to a north-west wind and an empty sea. Talk turned grim but they settled down to share out some food and wait for the fleet’s return.

When red light broke and flickered upon the horizon, reaching high and higher still, a laugh escaped Finrod before he bit it off. “A new custom for new times, my lords. They burn a pyre for the dead of Alqualondë…”

They all stared, silent. Only when the flames burned low and sank into the sea, did anyone move.

Fingon said, white-faced, “They would not do that! Maedhros would not leave us! Not after…”

Finrod looked at him. Did he think he deserved better? The impulse to call him to account moved in him, but there was nothing to say and nothing to be done. Those who had fought Teleri could still fight Morgoth. They must face Mandos’ doom and their own conscience. Finarfin would hardly let him do more. His feelings subsided into inner shadow, coiled quiescent, not resigned.

What to do? Some talked, others listened. Fingolfin considered their next course, while Fingon urged him to take the one route left to them, the northern passage, Galadriel nodding emphatic approval of this most dangerous course.

Finrod had no taste for debates with Fingon and murmured a word in excuse to his uncle. He started moving among the crowd, the needs of such a journey on his mind. Exiled, cursed and shipless – how had life changed so much in such a short time? And now the mountains ahead of them… To navigate even the coastline, they must reapportion the baggage, sparing people to aid the children, and they must take fresh stock of what food they had.

He was wondering what size groups they should divide into, each group to keep tally of their own number, when he came upon Fëanor’s rejected follower crouching mournfully among the rocks. Refined Calyaro was not his idea of a killer but then none of them had imagined killing of any kind before the unholy death of Finwë. He was fumbling with his pack, blind fingers undoing buckles and strap as if his eyes were blurred. 

He finally managed to get the wrapping open and bowed over what appeared to be a mandolin, fingers gently mapping the cracked neck and the gaping hole where pegs should have been. Half of them dangled still attached to their strings and the others forlornly adorned the once-proud neck above which curved a lovingly carved head and beak. Bleak irony that this broken instrument, clutched as if for comfort, must once have mirrored the swan-ships’ beauty.

Finrod moved on, but later saw him staring out to the sea as if searching the dark horizon for ships that would never come. He sat on, oblivious or uncaring of the rising tide. Finrod’s feet started to take him down to the beach toward him, moved by the sight of such desolation, when his sword knocked against his shin. He stopped, his cold heart hardening, reminded of Calyaro’s own sword wielded at the Haven along with the rest.

Instead, another figure down on the shore-line crossed to Calyaro’s side with ease, despite the wet, sandy rocks, slippery with weed. Glorfindel. He spoke a few words in Calyaro’s ear and then drew him away from the salt damp of his disconsolate vigil.

“Did he come with us, Aro? He seems more than a little upset.” Glorfindel came to talk to him, musician in tow, as calmly as if all in the world was well, apart from this one sorry creature and the sea-wrack that he was trying to shake from his boots.

“I picked him up at Alqualondë.” Their eyes met.

“He was there?” Glorfindel frowned.

“With a sword and travelling at Fëanor’s side when I saw him ride out.” Dispassionately, Finrod inspected the state of him. Damp, haggard and still blood-stained, Calyaro barely heeded either of them. Occasionally he shivered. He was wet to the knees.

“Well?” he said more coldly, “Has your lord betrayed you, as well as us? Is that what troubles you? Or is it your conscience?”

Slowly, Calyaro looked at him. Finrod had never seen such lifeless eyes and he almost shivered himself. For a moment they stared at each other, one with animosity, the other with hopeless shame, then Glorfindel shook Calyaro by the shoulder in friendlier fashion than Finrod’s address, more to rouse him from his stupor than rebuke when there was no sign of an answer.

Finrod’s spurt of savage anger faded back to easier numbness. There was going to be no remedy for what had happened. Fingon was no less guilty than this underling and he could not in justice single out the one and spare the other. He had other concerns, more pressing.

“Let him go. He’s of no account.” Glorfindel looked a little surprised, but released his catch.

Freed, Calyaro slowly wiped the mandolin as dry as he could and rebundled it closely in its tattered wrapping.

“Does he not talk at all?”

Finrod shrugged. “Not so far. Not to me. Let him do as he pleases. Let him drown on the rocks, if he doesn’t want to cast himself on Manwë’s mercy, or he can come with us and face that.” He pointed. Glorfindel’s lips twisted down, whether in disapproval of the callousness, or at the mountainous prospect that was their gateway to a precarious bridge of ice, he neither knew nor cared.

Finrod’s bitterness faded. Like his anger earlier, it was not gone but settling deep within. There would be much to do and that was what mattered. Unprepared, they faced a journey far harder than they had imagined. Fables told of what lay ahead. They were about to find out for themselves.

End of Chapter Two
Tbc

Chapter Three

*** The Mountains of northern Aman ~ The Grinding Ice ***

Glorfindel apparently still had the energy to be curious despite the unrelenting cold. “Does he say anything yet?”

“Not a word.” Glorfindel, Indis’ nephew on her sister’s side, had shown endless patience with all of them, apparently liking the company of his younger cousins. He treated all Finwë’s grandchildren with impartial kindness, related or not. Finrod had never seen him take sides in his uncles’ quarrel. When Glorfindel spoke his mind, he did so discreetly where it might do most good and least harm. His unhasty deliberations had always reminded Finrod a little of his father. Even with childhood long past, Finrod felt obscurely comforted that he was here. Even if it was taking kindness too far to be solicitous of one guilty of bloodshed.

In a lull in the wind, Glorfindel cast his next question against the monotony of walking. “Why do you think he got left behind?”

“No idea. It wasn’t accidental, though. Fëanor was furious with him over something and wouldn’t let Maglor talk to him.”

“Doesn’t that make you think twice about what went on?”

“He’s got guilt written all over him. You can see it yourself.”

“He is not doing well, Finrod.”

Were any of them? Finrod grunted. “Even if I wanted to, there is nothing I can do. He can go back to his own soon enough, once we get there. If they will take him.” If they got there. He bit his tongue and kept his fears to himself, as did they all.

Despite his words, he took to wondering why Fëanor had cut his follower off so callously. It was something to take his mind off the cold. Glorfindel was right. Calyaro was not doing well. Physically, he managed better than some, but his spirit seemed broken. ‘Slain by grief…’ Mandos’ words echoed in his mind as he walked, until that took all his effort and thinking faded into a blur of white ice.

Talking hurt. Breathing hurt. Theirs was proving a wretched northward march, with food rationed and breath that froze in the air. They were all wondering just how long their bodies could function in the intense cold.

Fingolfin led the way with Turgon or Fingon. Galadriel, too, was eager to be at the fore. She and Finrod argued with their uncle as to how far north they must go before they could risk the ice. Argument availed little against ignorance and as time passed they spent more and more time in care of those who weakened in strength if not resolve. The steep escarpments meant the company must help each other along and keep careful watch on the slowest and the youngest that travelled in their midst.

As time passed, hardship distilled the cousins’ determination, as they weighed the dangers of cold and hunger and struggling through the mountain fringes against the need for the sea to be frozen all the way across once they ventured the strait itself.

The familiar tapestries of stars overhead altered subtly with the leagues. Some of the southern constellations had dropped below the horizon altogether and the northern constellations that remained held truer to their ever-circling course. Ango’s entire body was almost always visible now, curled around Hen Anguo, the only unmoving star in the sky. Galadriel puzzled over this change  but found no explanation. She and Glorfindel had less energy for debate, with talk so difficult, but Finrod was certain they would thrash out the mystery endlessly, once returned to warmth and safety.

In fear of perishing of short commons and prolonged cold, they at last turned east. A sound like nothing they had ever heard rumbled ominously ahead of them, as much felt as heard, transmitted through the icy snow they crossed. At first only faint, it grew insistently with every step they took, until the edge of Aman brought them to ramparts of ice forced high under relentless pressure.

Even with its surface waters frozen by Morgoth’s ancient blight, the Sea far below still moved and the Ice with it, grinding in constant torture. Fantastic shapes rose in ridge after ridge, carved by the wind and alternately smoothed and gouged by flying ice. In the troughs between these, frozen waters stretched from fissure to fissure, with fragments small and large all moving one against another. The air was filled with unearthly groaning that sapped the ability to hear even their own minds’ thoughts above its noise.

Soon, they bunched together for warmth, but the ice rapidly grew more treacherous than the wind and the cold. The first time a crevasse betrayed someone’s footing, hidden by layers of snow, it provoked screams and horrified lunges to help. Then the ice taught its second harsh lesson, as would-be rescuers slid into the void themselves to be lost in turn.

By the tenth fall, the shouts for help invoked their risky, new routines. Carrying ropes to hand, they probed for the last safe edge, stamping down hard before crawling spread-eagled onto the surface near the edge.

By the hundredth such disaster, they had found ways to walk – and climb – east with an exhausted, despairing caution, trying to cover the distance in hopes of not perishing of cold and starvation from their very slowness. Some ideas had worked. Others failed.

They roped groups together in the ill-founded hope that one person could be saved by the rest. Without purchase for their feet on the ice, it only meant multiple disaster as one person’s fall pulled others over with them. Grimly they uncoupled the ropes from those at the front.

They learned to proceed in strict lines and rotate the leaders of each file when they tired. Whatever lengths of wood or metal they had brought, be it sword, spear, javelin or mere fishing rods, they used to check for solid ground ahead. Prod, test, step. Prod, test, step. In this way they managed for a time. Until the ice moved and a bank gave way where they stood.

The cold and eerie wastes, the constant grinding and creaking that vibrated through them, the treacherously flowing Ice that preyed on them without respite, opening channels before them no matter how careful they were, the wind that howled for leagues on end carrying sharp ice that cut exposed flesh – any one of these would have eroded the alertness they could not afford to lose and could not maintain.

So many were lost that the Helcaraxë felt like a live creature beneath their feet, taking them treacherously by ones and twos. Determination became their mainstay, hope a casualty left in their wake with the rest. They had thought to cross successfully by sheer perseverance, but sapped by cold, doubt set in and later thought itself froze, numbing hope and doubt alike.

They lost count of Ango’s revolutions, by which they measured time.

Oddly, Calyaro woke from his stupor in the midst of this misery when he tripped over an exhausted mother and her child, fallen before him in the line of march. Finrod saw him stumble and land on the hard surface. For a moment he seemed dazed, before he looked around and stood up with the crying child, thumb in mouth, lifted to one hip. With his other hand he bent to pull the mother up. Finrod reached him and together they hauled her clumsily to her feet.

Calyaro nodded his thanks. Finrod, due to relieve Orodreth, let go. Calyaro gripped the mother’s arm more firmly in his frozen hand.

When Finrod trudged up the line again later, the three of them were still together. Calyaro had apparently kept them going until the mother could clutch the toddler to her chest once more, wrapped about by a shared cloak for what warmth she might retain about them. Finrod saw him lay a hand on the child’s back in parting, and touch the elf’s shoulder, before moving away.

Finrod grew used to seeing him join the rescuers when someone fell, or lead a file, or walk the lines with other stalwarts to shove falterers up and on. He had not imagined he could feel gratitude toward one of Fëanor’s Haven forces, but he came to rely on him in the same way as he did Orodreth, Aegnor and Angrod as they tended those who faltered.

It was far too cold to stop to rest. Hands could not undo packs or hold food. They froze and walked and pushed each other along. The only passage of time was another freezing breath and the next forced step of a cold-stiff foot, punctuated by another wail of terror that would galvanise the nearest into painful action. Hands chapped by cold barely healed, reopening at the slightest exposure or strain, the deepening wounds slowly turning black as healing failed them. Finrod fell into line more and more often to rest and blindly keep step without having to think. More than once while on duty he walked mindlessly in the wrong direction, waking disoriented and off course.

Once, he had strayed and only knew his error when hands laid on him roughly halted him, jolting him to consciousness.

“Calyaro?” Only the two of them stood in a hollow between ridges. Had Calyaro not seen him and woken him he might never have woken at all, or he might have wandered until he dropped without ever finding the others if once the wind rose. Calyaro started trudging in the right direction, dragging Finrod with him by a hand threaded through the rope coiled at Finrod’s waist.

The Ice stretched before them, never ceasing its noise.

When bitter tragedy hit Turgon, Galadriel and Glorfindel kept Turgon, Idril and Aredhel firmly between them near Fingolfin. Turgon seemed lost in nightmare, barely acknowledging them after Elenwë’s loss.

Coming painfully up to the front, Finrod asked, “How is he?”

Galadriel was measuring the skies, probably checking their direction by the Snake’s Eye while the driving, blinding winds were in abeyance. She did not answer, but Glorfindel shrugged.

“He’ll survive. But you?”

Finrod felt more dead than alive, with legs made of lead and lungs cut by knives with every breath. “I’m fine. I’d better get back.”

Glorfindel eyed him critically. “Stay here. I’ll go.”

With relief he gave up his watch while Glorfindel went to the rear in his stead.

When the hateful creaking of the ice first diminished, Finrod hardly noticed it. When nothing gave way under them, when they no longer had to divert their progress to shouted warnings, the impossible realization stole over them that the Helcaraxë was behind them.

Even as this hope took root and their steps grew confident once more, a shine of silver appeared about them, ever brighter, and long shadows sprouted from their feet to claim the land ahead. Behind them where the Pelori must be, the sky was paling, and then a circle of unknown light mounted the heavens. Calyaro was not the only one to stop and raise his face to stare in bewildered wonder until Fingolfin ordered horns brought out, and chill hands and blue lips tried valiantly to play as they marched into their own shadows under a silver sky.

“Ghost of Telperion,” the whisper ran. It sounded like a phrase from song. Finrod looked around and found Calyaro but he was only smiling faintly. With blissful silence underfoot, they walked on snow converted by the unearthly light into crystalline sparkles of extraordinary beauty. At last Fingolfin steered his survivors south, deeming they had gone far enough east into the foothills to find land not water if they turned for warmer climes.

When they first saw bare rock, they collapsed wordless, apart from a few enquiries about injuries, or persuading the dangerously weak to eat. They stared at each other in an unhappy mix of grateful disbelief and worn grief.

Calyaro sat blankly staring at his hands’ blackened skin where cracks had deepened as he persisted in working the ropes. Whether healing was prevented by the cold or forestalled by fresh damage, none was sure. Finrod looked away from their ruin to where Turgon sat, staring into nothing, and wondered when any of it would seem real.

Fingolfin started scratching a map with his dagger on the rocky substrate, cast into strange relief by the inexplicable orb now rebounding from the eastern horizon. They all kept staring skywards, but it did not feel an ominous thing. It had come from the west and thither it returned with no immediate disaster in its wake. They dared a diffident trust of this Light so reminiscent of the Elder Tree, and a goodly feel gradually replaced their first surprise.

“Here.” Fingolfin stabbed the ground. “This is known from before the crossing. We go south to the firth that breaks the coast. There is a vale that will see us through the mountains. After that, we will see. The old tales place Angband in the north, here somewhere.” He swept a curving line above his other marks with the tip of his dagger. “But exactly where he has fled, we won’t know until we get there.”

The company formed up. South they went, their thirst at last liberally quenched with fresh, running water, and then east through the mountains, following the path of the sky’s voyager as it sank to the horizon. But as they emerged from the vale, a red-gold fire lit the western sky. Colour blazed all around them as this late-born twin to the silver elder climbed high. In burgeoning hopes that the Valar had not wholly forgotten them, Fingolfin summoned banner bearers forward and ordered his horns to signal their coming into a day most joyous, in spite of all that had gone before.

Their hearts lighter despite danger ahead, they covered the leagues to Morgoth’s doorstep. Rough prints of creatures unknown were all they saw of enemies, fled away from them and from the sky’s fierce new beacon.

No herald emerged nor any enemy, though they waited and Fingolfin had spears batter the doors in notice and challenge. But no answer came and he would not wait for some trap to form about them, vulnerable as they were down on the plain between the arms of grim mountains to north and west and east. Out of prudence he turned south intending to search out a place of safety with clean water and plentiful food where they could all rest.

And so they travelled south and east, back through the high pass to put the wall of mountains between them and the enemy’s gate. Here on the western plains they would succour the weary and renew their strength.

Scouts reported a Noldor encampment about a great lake, set in the wing of a spur of hills. There Fingolfin led them, for he was angry and they were many, in no mind to avoid or delay this encounter. On Mithrim’s shores they came to rest, anxious to confront their betrayers.

End of Chapter Three
Tbc

Ango – The Snake (Draco)
Hen Anguo – The Eye of the Snake (Polaris, the North Star)