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'Burning Bright'

5. The Road

Ost-in-Edhil

Slipping out of Ost-in-Edhil unnoticed proved surprisingly easy. Two heavily laden carts bound for market reached the gates almost simultaneously, leaving barely enough space for horses to pass in single file while the drivers shouted at one another about who had the right of way. They edged past with heads bowed and Celeborn in the lead, hoping that anyone watching on Sauron's behalf would be diverted by the confusion and assume they were yet another group of refugees heading for Lindon.

They rode in silence, the world slowly coming awake around them, until they reached the place where a red clay road met the Tharbad thoroughfare. Looking incongruously out of place, it ran north, arrow-straight, through the rocky plain beyond Ost-in-Edhil to the great holly hedge that marked the boundary between the lands held by elf and dwarf. Galadriel reined in her horse and turned to look back the way they had come, the others following suit.

The city was coming awake, early sunlight catching gilded spires and delicate trelliswork, lifting the colours from pre-dawn grey to the vibrant shades so popular in this Noldor enclave. Still in shadow, the sturdy tower above the Guild-house looked almost menacing in comparison to later structures. It belonged to the very earliest settlement, back in the days when this had indeed been a stronghold as the name implied: Fortress of the Elves. The old city walls dated back to the same time, and, built to last, could still be seen in places, incorporated into other buildings as the town expanded.

The light-sensitive lanterns in the main streets were beginning to dim and would soon fade and vanish until the night came around again. By now the birds would be singing in the parks, where bare branches traced lacy shapes across the sky in contrast to their evergreen counterparts. She knew Celeborn had never loved Ost-in-Edhil, but Celebrían had lived there longer than any other place in her short life and called it home, while Galadriel had loved its energetic, challenging nature. And soon it would be no more.

Erestor was watching the city, his face inscrutable. She caught his eye and said softly,” Hurry, but take no more chances than you must. And give him all my love when you get there.”

He raised circled finger and thumb to his brow in salute, nodding. “I thought we could try riding alongside one of the larger groups,” he said, with a glance at Lindir for confirmation. “No one will bother with us, we’ll be safe enough. Enjoy your adventure, Bri,” he added, touching his fingers to his lips and holding them up with a quick, warm smile that drew one in return from Celebrían. Galadriel silently blessed him for trying to lighten the moment. She watched them dip their heads to Celeborn and ride off at a trot, then turned her horse to follow Celeborn along the red-baked dwarf road.

They travelled in easy silence as they had so many times before, and the city soon lay behind them. The land grew bare and rocky, all save for the bright green strip along the banks of the Sirannon that flowed bright and cheerful under a scattering of trees. Two cairns of heaped stones marked a ford across the river, beyond which lay a well-tended path leading up onto the mountain that towered above them, still snow-clad almost to its midway point. Celeborn gave her a meaningful look. “The snow’s still heavy.”

She nodded slowly, frowning, her eyes following the trail. “Yes it is, but the dwarves keep the way clear for us. They also use it at times.”

He lifted an eyebrow but said nothing more, They rode on, till a turn in the trail brought them to a steeper incline, and there they stopped. Trying to make it sound like the most natural thing in the world, Galadriel said over her shoulder, “Al right, Bri, down you get. We walk from here.”

Celebrían looked around in confusion, eyes wide as she complied. “Walk? But, but where to? There’s nothing here but…”

“Nothing but us and maybe a few dwarves, yes,” Galadriel agreed briskly. “The road over the mountain is too steep for horses. From here we rely on our own feet, not Gallant’s.”

Celeborn dismounted and brought Celebrían’s pack, forestalling further questions. He made a few minor adjustments before settling it on her back while she stood very straight, trying to look brave. “You heed your mother, she can be a very knowledgeable woman, or so they tell me,” he said as he worked. “Take care of her when she forgets to eat and wants to keep walking longer than is sensible, and I’ll see you both in a few months.”

Hearing the soft tone he used only with his daughter, seeing the care in every movement, each touch, Galadriel ached for him. Celebrían was the centre of his heart, holding a place not even open to her. She knew she could hardly have borne to leave them to face danger while she went on alone, and not for the first time she was in awe of his strength.

She and Celeborn had always found looks more eloquent than words, which meant that instead of declarations of love and concern they spent the last few minutes dealing with practical matters while their eyes said all that was needed. She asked questions about supplies, weapons stores and the like, while he checked that she had what he deeded the essentials. They brushed against one another as they moved about, storing the closeness and familiar warmth for later memories. There was very little to do, and all too soon it was time to move on.

Neither of them was any good at prolonged goodbyes. When he was ready, he rested a hand on her shoulder and bade her take care, then hugged Celebrían once more and mounted his horse. Galadriel felt his physical absence as though he had already left, even though he would always be part of the fabric of her inner self, a space of light and belonging.

“Till star rise,” he said, looking down at her. “There is no distance too great for us to truly be apart.” Then he started back along the path, taking the extra horse with him. It was always good for a warrior to have a second mount.

Galadriel stood watching him leave until she felt Celebrían move closer. She looked down into sad blue eyes, and with what she hoped was a reassuring smile said, “Come on, cheer up. Think of the stories you’ll have to tell your children one day.”

Celebrían wrinkled her nose and look unimpressed. “I can tell them my parents put me down in the middle of nowhere and told me to walk?” she suggested. “What’s up there, Nana? Where are we going?”

Galadriel took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, shifting the weight of the pack she carried. She wondered if she really needed the extra shoes and how long it would take before she left them at the roadside. Warm clothing, that was the important thing. “We’re crossing the mountain to Lórien,” she answered. “You still like snow, don’t you? Might be a bit chilly, but all we have to do is follow the road over the Pass and down the dwarf stair and we’ll be right there.”

On The Road

The road to Tharbad was busy, and not with the usual merchant traffic. The more fortunate rode or led horses laden with as much of their owners’ worldly goods as they could manage, but many families made do with hand carts for the heavy stuff, carrying the rest on their backs. Erestor saw none of the city’s upper class, most of whom he knew by sight from functions in the Dorians’ house. It was as though the idea of flight had not yet spread upward to Ost-in-Edhil’s elite.

He and Lindir skirted the town itself, crossing the Gwathlo at the ford to the south. The water was swollen by winter rains, but not impassable as it would be later when the snows melted in earnest. As they followed slowly behind a family group who were struggling with two carts and a bad tempered horse, Erestor had time to look back. Tharbad’s walls were more businesslike than Ost-in-Edhil’s: the city elders had long experience with pirates coming up river. He had visited there often on Galadriel’s account in the old days of her dealings with the Numenoreans and had good memories of the town. He wondered how long they could withstand Annatar’s army and shivered.

He thought about this and the lack of any sign of Ost-in-Edhil’s nobility while they rode, but said nothing until they stopped for the night. The countryside offered little variation and their campsite was almost identical to the previous night’s and the one before that. The only difference this time was the proximity of a narrow, sluggish stream, which at least gave respite to their meagre supply of drinking water.

They had already settled into a routine of sorts, so while he went about the eternal task of checking the horses’ hooves, Lindir set to building a small fire. He used mainly twigs because the land was open and rocky with low-growing bushes and few trees. The rough ground made for uneven travelling, and a distance that a fit horse would normally cover in three or four days took almost twice as long.

Lindir looked up from laying the fire, his smile cynical. “Ordinary people don’t have as much to lose,” he pointed out. “No big houses, no jewels or beautiful clothes, no stables of fine horses. Makes it easier to pick up and move on. Most of the well-born are worried about the situation, frightened even, but not ready – yet – to do anything about it.”

“Not ready to leave their wealth for the easterners and run, you mean?” Erestor said, wiping the probe on a clump of straggly grass. He frowned, looking past Lindir. “There’s something – unelven – about being so wedded to possessions. I left a lot behind that I’d grown fond of, but even if I’d been given a choice, it would hardly seem worth my life to stick around and guard it.”

“Yes, but you’re sensible, and I don’t get the impression you feel the need to impress people either.” The sentence was punctuated by harsh blowing as Lindir tried to encourage tiny flames to spread and grow.

“I’ve been poor,” Erestor granted. “I’ve been quite comfortable too – well, I’ve lived in very comfortable circumstances. What you have matters less than who you are. And you? None of this seemed to surprise you much.”

Satisfied with his fire, Lindir sat back on his heels to watch Erestor work. “When I was travelling, collecting songs, meeting people, I got a sense for when it was time to move on, specially when I was in the far south amongst men. When you don’t know the language or the customs well, you need to rely on your instincts. I’ve had the feeling for weeks now that it’s time to visit my family. When Lord Celeborn approached me, it was – like hearing something I already knew. Even without this, I’d have left.”

As he spoke his eyes strayed to their packs stacked in the shelter of a tumble of rocks. The neck of his oilcloth-wrapped fiddle was plainly visible.

Erestor finished running his hands over the horse’s legs and gave it a push as he got up. “Go graze, you. If you can find anything without breaking your teeth on rock, that is. We need to ration the trail mix.” He came over to take a look at the fire. “Be nice if we had more to cook than a handful of roots, wouldn’t it? I always heard this place was teeming with game – they must have gone south for the winter.” He followed Lindir’s glance and also considered the packs. “Not a common errand, is it? Haven’t you been tempted to take it out and have a look yet? Try and see what this is all about?”

Lindir had accepted Celeborn's explanation that they were carrying important information for King Gil-galad with a quizzical look but no questions. Now his eyes met Erestor’s. “The harp, you mean? Not a chance. Whatever’s hidden in there won’t yield easily, and I’m not of a mind to have the High King asking me difficult questions. You know what it is though, don’t you? You have the report, so…”

Erestor shook his head. “I have no idea. Something that has to be taken out of harm’s way. That’s all I know, and it’s quite enough for me, too.”

Lindir gave him a crooked smile. “So here we are, crossing – what do they call this place? Eriador, right? - with a mystery gift for a king and we don’t even know how much trouble we’re in if the wrong people catch up with us. You’d think we’d be more curious about what we might end up dead for.”

“I wasn’t given permission to die,” Erestor said dryly. “She was quite definite about me surviving to get all this to Gil-galad. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be faced with questions from the Lady moments after I finally leave Mandos.”

“That’s why there’s two of us. In case one of us does something inconvenient like getting killed.” Lindir held his hand out palm up as he spoke and made a sound of disgust. “It’s starting to rain again. I am getting so damn sick of this weather.”

Erestor got up, taking their cooking pot to fetch water for the night’s soup – the sparse contents would hardly justify calling it a stew. “How about a song while I get the pot ready?”

Lindir rolled his eyes. “Not a chance, unless you sing one yourself. It’s wet, cold and miserable and I can’t relax with that harp sitting over there waiting for something to go wrong. Let’s just practice our bad Haradrim while dinner cooks. It’s not a musical kind of day.”

Erestor laughed mirthlessly. “Welcome to my life.”

Mithlond

Elrond stalked into the kitchen muttering and flung himself into a chair, his cloak billowing about him. Thin stuff, fashionable. He’d have to leave the court clothes behind when he went off with the army Glorfindel thought, quietly amused. The Half-elf liked to dress well.

“They can’t all have left - where’s Círdan, Maeriel? He knows who sailed and who stayed. Ereinion just says yes, well, most of the Noldor were dead tired, those who weren’t just plain dead, that is, and – sorry Glorfindel,” he added, apparently just realizing he had company at the table. “What I mean is most of the Exiles may have sailed when the ban was lifted, but most isn’t all. And there must be plenty of experienced Sindar warriors… just not keen on captain’s posts. Say ‘Eriador’ and there’s a deadly hush.”

“Eriador?” The land had changed in what he chose to think of as his absence, which was a more comfortable way of looking at it than the more blunt ‘when he was dead’. Glorfindel mentally called up an image of the current map of Middle-earth and placed Eriador in relation to Lindon.

“Empty place between here and Eregion.” He had hesitated too long and Elrond had noticed. “It’s a fancy name for the space between the Blue and Misty Mountains. I’ve been to Ost-in-Edhil and it took forever. A few mortal settlements, only one or two big enough to call towns, rock and dry grass as far as the eye can see, leagues of heather and bushes, the occasional tree. And sheep. Everyone talks about sheep for some reason.”

“That would be because it is a good place for sheep and goats,” Maeriel said equably. She was folding laundry in the corner and had been humming to herself in contentment before Gil-galad’s newly created Herald destroyed the peace of her afternoon. “Open land, clean air, plenty of space to roam. My people always loved the land between the mountains, you know. What remains now is just a portion of great Eriador, penned up between the Red Mountain and the river. Dwarves on the one side, water on the other.” She seemed quietly amused by this. “For what would you be needing Noldor then, young one?”

Elrond, like Gil-galad, had spent years in Maeriel’s home. Had it been anyone else asking, Glorfindel suspected the Half-elf would have rolled his eyes at this point. “I need captains,” he said instead, his voice suddenly tired. “Battle experienced captains, men who’ll know what to do when I don’t. That means I need older elves, those who came over here to fight the Enemy. So far a couple of Maedhros’ people have stuck their heads up, but that’s about it. I thought Círdan might have some ideas.”

“It’s a good approach,” Glorfindel told him, and saw Maeriel give a small, satisfied nod. “I don’t mind a commander who isn’t afraid to say he needs help. It’s the ones who think they know it all that made me nervous.”

“I’ve done some fighting, but I’ve never been in charge of anything before,” Elrond started to play with one of the pretty, woven placemats Maeriel made in her spare time. “I know how Maedhros did it, but I’m not sure that’s much use. After the War, we were busy building Lindon up and I was learning to be a healer. Turning orcs out of their dens and hunting down mercenaries never appealed to me much. That was more Ereinion’s thing.”

“Ah.” Glorfindel turned this over. “It’s - unusual for a healer to go to war, isn’t it? At least it used to be. Assuming there will be a war of some sort.” Intelligence had been minimal, leaving Gil-galad seething with frustration. He had sent out scouts, dispatched couriers to his aunt and Celebrimbor, even taken the somewhat extreme step of sending to ask the Dwarves for news, all to no avail.

“I’m the heir, so it’s me or Ereinion. And the Council won’t let him cross the mountain unless they know what’s waiting on the other side.”

Glorfindel noted the irritation without comment. Elrond was not the first to find himself out of his depth due to an accident of birth. “So you’ve been asked to put aside healing to show the flag and carry the honour of the crown?” he asked instead.

“I’m a healer, Glorfindel. I’ve gone out with patrols, but not as a soldier. Lately I’ve been trying to find new ways of dealing with broken bones and scarring.” Leaning forward, he warmed to his subject. “I’m studying Men as well – so much more goes wrong with them, things that don’t touch us. It’s centuries worth of study just to know the basics. And then there are troubles of the mind, of the soul… Anyway, this appealed to me a lot more than running around with a sword in my hand like a lot of my family did. Now of course, I’ll have to follow in their footsteps.” His mouth twisted in a smile that was less than humourous. “Maybe they’ll make up songs about me, too. Like my father.”

“It’s not a good thing, glorifying death and pain,” Glorfindel agreed gently. “They sing about Gondolin, too, I think? I know the only book I’ve read so far spoke the biggest amount of nonsense I’ve ever seen, all about heroes. There is nothing heroic about fighting for survival against impossible odds. Heroism implies there was a choice.”

“Well, I suppose your friend Ecthelion was a hero,” Elrond suggested, leaning back in the chair. “He did a lot of damage before it was over.”

“Thel was as stubborn as an ox,” Glorfindel chuckled. For him, that explained it all; words could never do Ecthelion justice. He leaned his cheek against his hand and swirled the water he had been about to drink when Elrond arrived. “You know, you could do worse than use whatever you learned from watching Maedhros. For all his faults, he was a good soldier. Unnumbered Tears wasn’t brilliant strategy, but the disaster was more about trusting the wrong people. We spent years dissecting it… we’d lost before we even begun. And perhaps veterans aren’t the best choice for what lies ahead of you either.”

Elrond quirked an eyebrow. “That’s new. I’m not used to hearing Maedhros described as a good solder. You’d not use veterans?”

Glorfindel shrugged. “He was a fine soldier who made a strategic error in one rather well-known battle. The business with the Oath, the burning of the ships, things that I’ve heard happened here later – they can’t detract from his ability. As for veterans, I think it’s rather like one of His Majesty’s reasons for not letting me go along with you. He rightly pointed out it takes time to learn new ways of doing things.”

One of the cats idled in through the garden door, gave them a look of pure disdain and leapt up lithely onto the old sack Maeriel kept beside the hearth for them. Glorfindel fell silent as he watched. It was the white cat with the black splotches, the one Maeriel referred to as Her Ladyship. After a moment he continued. “If you go looking for men experienced in the battles of a previous Age, you risk them seeing everything in the light of those battles – just as I might be more inclined to think what I learned in the Tears was immutable. What you need are leaders who know the area, understand the terrain. And they’d have a greater stake if they love the land they’re protecting.”

“The Sindar walked little enough in the land between.” Maeriel broke in unexpectedly. “If you look to my people though – they serve the king as trackers and advisors in his army. You could do worse than to ask a few of them for their thoughts on how best to safeguard Eregion.”
 

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Part 6

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