Marchwarden: Son Of Guilin 2

Marchwarden: Son Of Guilin

Part 2

Posted: March 2005
Title: Marchwarden: Son of Guilin
Author: Kenaz

*****

And we're wrapped inside our troubles
And we're wrapped inside our pain
And wracked with fires with longing
And our eyes are blind with night
With our fingers clutching coins
And our thoughts burning with 'I'...
--"A Sadness Song," Current 93

Mordor, Second Age 3441

So thick were the clouds of smoke and filth that not a single star shone in the sky. Would dawn even be discernable when it came?

Perhaps, Elemmakil brooded as he sank slowly to his cot, dawn will not come at all. He rolled over with a deflating hiss, every inch of his body aching with injury and exertion. The tent's peaked roof provided a focal point for his slack stare; even now, sleep eluded him.

He unbuckled his bracer and watched the silver coin tumble free, dropping with a clink against his hauberk. The faint impression of a fountain etched the pale skin of his wrist and he rubbed the mark gently, almost reverently.

Should we ever defeat this evil and end this miserable war, perhaps Mandos will gift me with your return. Guerdon at last for the Marchwarden.

A bitter smile graced his cracked, bloodied lips as blistered fingers tried to massage the tension from his brow. He was grateful for the moment of solitude. For his men, he demonstrated stalwart fortitude, and incited them with his expressed faith in their ability to triumph. At his ease, with strength ebbing and hope on the wane, he presented a less intrepid display.

They would take no inspiration from me now.

He brought the silver coin to his lips, its cool face a ludicrous substitute for the full, ripe mouth he could even now conjure in his mind.

Ai, Ecthelion... You are most sorely missed.

A weak smile played across Taurnil's lips, espying the grey-clad figure curled sleeping in the corner of the healing tent. An elf needs be well and truly exhausted to find rest in this affray, he mused. For a moment, he simply observed his recumbent friend: umber hair framed a pale face that, in repose, bore none of the hard lines of centered concentration that often cleaved his brow. Grey eyes remained unfocused in their reverie. How young he looks in sleep, Taurnil marveled. It seemed cruel to wake him, but he would be needed soon enough.

"The host of light moves with the dawn, healer," he spoke in a low tone. "Best be at the ready."

The grey eyes seemed to light from within as they resumed their waking clarity. They climbed the long line of leg and body to the familiar grin bearing down on them. Galion shook off the last vestiges of sleep and availed himself of Taurnil's proffered hand to pull himself up. The scant few hours of rest he had been able to steal had replenished him, but only barely.

"What is the sense of the men this morning?" he queried, "Is the end finally nigh?"

"It is what you would expect: angry, hungry, exhausted...determined." He drew in a long, deep breath, releasing it in a steady stream. "I dare not surmise what will happen today... I have thought us on the brink of absolute defeat only to have the tide turn in our blackest hour, and we have come close to victory on many occasions, only to have it ripped from our hands."

The smile faded from Taurnil's face, dour resolution supplanting the archer's innately gentle mien. 'This,' considered Galion grimly, 'is yet another measure of war. It is expressed not only in the number of bodies we burn and bury. It is in the faces of friends turning hard, the darkening of spirits. No herbal, no incantation, no laying on of hands will suffer the light come back to their hearts.'

"Well," Taurnil stumbled, suddenly at a loss for words under Galion's concerned scrutiny, "With Eru's blessing, we will speak again." He turned from his friend. "Perhaps I will have better tidings for you then."

Galion stayed him, clasping one of his hands between his own, and Taurnil felt the pulsing warmth of the healer's touch. The elf produced a flask from somewhere inside the folds of his tunic and offered it surreptitiously to Taurnil. Miruvor. The restorative elixir was in short supply these days, and it was a dear gift to receive it. He gratefully took a swallow, and as some weariness fell away, a hint of the smile returned to the archer's face.

"No in elenath hîlar nan hâd gîn, nethron."

**** Translations ****
No in elenath hîlar nan hâd gîn, nethron.
May all stars shine upon your path, healer.

In sallow half-light, the companies regrouped. Silently, prayers were sent, though later it seemed to many that Iluvatar had heard them not. Oaths were forged, though most went unfulfilled as their makers fell. Those not engaged in their avowals worked quickly and steadily at the business of war, restringing bows, fletching arrows, and honing blades.

Haldir folded Guilin's red cape, redder still for Guilin's blood staining it, fingering the riven fabric where the enemy blade had fallen, cutting wool, cleaving armor, rending flesh. He had carried it since Guilin's death, this vermillion banner, the standard of his own small but valiant house. He would bear it home to his mother and Rumil should he see this campaign through. Should he fall, Orophin would carry the burden of two cloaks, one red and one blue.

And if both should fall...

His father's loss remained a visceral ache deep within his body, like steel bands contracting around his heart. He recalled only in vague impressions the hour when news of Guilin's death reached him: Taurnil's arms gripping him, his friend's tears seeping through his hair and wetting his neck to mingle with his own... The gentle hands of Galion radiating warmth and finally sending him the ephemeral solace of sleep...Elemmakil's sonorous voice in his ear, whispering a lament...

In the dark, he would walk, pace the borders of the camp as if with each footfall he could traverse the landscape of his sorrow and leave it behind him. Frequently during those nights, Elemmakil was there, sometimes offering consolation, more often bearing silent witness to Haldir's despair.

Compared with the sympathetic condolences offered by friends and comrades, the marchwarden's consolation had been brutal. Yet in it Haldir found greater comfort and resolution. "Never again will you feel as bereft as you do at this moment," his Captain sternly exhorted, "because you will never again allow it. You will steel yourself because you have obligations greater than your own pain."

"Your brother looks to you for his courage; will you fail him? Will you endanger any number of your fellows because you are distracted by the loss of one?"

When the wound was no longer raw, he bade Haldir walk with him, and under blackened skies, he presented the archer with his father's cloak.

"The time for mourning is passed. Take his mantle and remember his blood spilled. Let that memory burn within you, for it is that fire which shall drive you. It is that fire which will purge your fear and guide your arrows true."

The Marchwarden charged that Haldir's duty as soldier and brother required him to forge anger from his sorrow and sacrifice his private grief to present a face of strength. And when at last, in the deep of night, that strength finally crumbled, Elemmakil wrapped him tightly in his arms and let him weep in ragged, wrenching sobs until no more tears would come.

Sometimes, come morning, Elemmakil held him still.

The seven years since Guilin's death had passed in the blink of a bloodshot eye. What, he wondered, is seven years to an immortal? Is there surcease of grief for the one who begat you? Named you? Taught you to wield the very bow you carry?

The squalling of war horns shook the elf from his grim reverie. He beheld a man pulling the standard of Elendil from the parched earth. The white tree with its seven stars had flown through the night side by side with the banner of Ereinion Gil-Galad, marking by their twinned presence the last stand of Edain and Eldar together.

Orophin stretched his aching arms, strapped on his father's blade and, aware of his brother's gaze upon him, offered up a wan smile that did not quite reach his eyes. Fear clouded his crystalline gaze, gilded with resignation and sadness. Haldir squared his broad shoulders, hoping his own disquietude was not so baldly evident, that his brother might take some comfort in his stalwart appearance, however contrived. Orophin was waiting for him to speak, anticipating the words that still brought him pain to utter. For they were not his words, they were but a purloined benediction, one that allowed the brothers a small part of hope and a great part of love.

He laid a lingering kiss on Orophin's head, his lips brushing against the taut pink scar just barely visible beneath his pale tresses.

"I will come back to you, young one," he quietly intoned, "for I do not willingly part from you."

With that, they moved to join their kindred on the steady march toward they knew not what.

When Haldir would later try to recall that final gruesome battle, his first memory would be of a palpable silence that thickened the air and left him fighting for breath. Only the impossibly slow beating of his heart breached the wall of nothingness, thundering in his ears.

He remembered his vision constricting, his awareness distilled to a focused beam illuminating only what lay immediately in his path. If he believed himself terrified beyond all reason on the parched flats of the Dagorlad, he knew himself enraged beyond all control at the foot of Barad-dûr. Blood roiled in his veins, thickened with vengeance, as he let loose round after round. At his side, Orophin bared his teeth and matched him shot for shot. The sons of Guilin extracted the price of their father's death with every arrow that met its target.

Arrows. Another memory. When his own were spent, he pulled rounds indiscriminately from the bodies of friend and foe alike. When those, too, were gone, he unsheathed his sword and charged headlong into the fray.

Finally his voice shattered the mute air, a deep, wrathful roar born in the darkest part of his heart, his father's name an oath and battle cry. He swept his steel in a lethal arc, watching it separate a head from a body, black blood spurting from the neck in a foul jet, mirroring the black plume of fetid smoke rising from Orodruin. Oh, but that sight pleased him, roused in him a hunger he had never known before, a murderous lust. That lust only grew with every corrupt, misshapen adversary he brought down. Burned brighter and hotter with each drop of tainted blood he spilled. Later, he would shudder at the recollection, unnerved to recall the vicious desires lurking within him.

He remembered Elemmakil's uncanny grace, his blade scything a wide swath through the oncoming horde, and even as his own strokes fell he recalled thinking the Marchwarden utterly beautiful in his deadly fury.

But the memory that gripped his mind like no other was the coming of Sauron and the soul-chilling shriek of his Nazgûl. Briefly then did his blood lust cool, tempered in equal parts by terror and the epiphany that he would not likely emerge from this battle alive. More terrible than the shriek of the shadow wraiths was the low, deadly hiss of the Dark Lord's barbarous mace rending the very fabric of the atmosphere with each threshing stroke. Bodies flew, breaking against the craggy mountainside.

Haldir did not mark the fall of Gil-Galad, or the smiting of Elendil. He could but barely recall the obliteration of the accursed citadel down to its very foundations. He knew not that the strength of men had failed, that Isildur claimed the Ruling Ring for his own. All this he would learn later, and it would seem to him as legend and lore, despite his very presence within the tale. What he did recall in those final moments was the rising of a wind so acrid and rank he feared it poisoned. As the gale rose, he fought to turn his head against the swirling sand to find Orophin, but his brother stood some distance away. A tide of sheer panic rose within him as the tempest raged with such force that he was blown from his feet, violent tremors quaking beneath him as though the very earth sought to break itself asunder.

Then, he remembered, the heavy silence returned once more.

Amroth gripped Thranduil in a vice-like embrace. How alike they were, both sons of fallen kings, both leading home the ragged remnants of their wrecked forces from a battle yielding only a tentative victory.

"This is not over, Amroth," the woodland king intoned, fixing his counterpart with steely eyes. "The failure of men will find the shadow returned to us. I know not when, I know not in what form, but mark me: it will return."

Amroth absorbed Thranduil's augury with a dismayed sigh. Could there not be some small bit of rejoicing at the end of this horror without giving thought to horrors yet to come? Yet the Lorien king knew Thranduil spoke true, and his heart ached for the knowledge.

How long? How many years of peace might they enjoy before finding themselves once again in arms in dark country? Could they again prevail?

"You fought well, Haldir."

Elemmakil's voice caused Haldir's stomach to seize. Since Guilin's death, the sole remaining Marchwarden had taken it upon himself to both console and counsel Haldir, but lately, their meetings had taken on a decidedly different edge, one that set his blood racing in confusion and anticipation. A certain tension had emerged, but Haldir assumed with no small bit of embarrassment that it was merely his own one-sided infatuation.

Elemmakil's legacy was formidable, indeed: Keeper of the First Gate of Gondolin and one of the few survivors of the Hidden City's fall, servant of Turgon, comrade-in-arms of Ecthelion of the Fountain and Glorfindel of the Golden Flower. The Marchwarden had fought side by side with elves whose deeds were the stuff of legend. But even had Elemmakil's reputation not all but hallowed him to Haldir, his boisterous surety and ready laugh would have smitten the young galadhel no less. Now having seen him in battle, fearless and masterful, and having received his palliative attentions, Haldir's admiration for his Captain blossomed fulsomely.

But where the untried recruit eyed the Marchwarden through the golden filter of a stripling's hero worship, the battle-tested archer viewed his captain in a rather different light. He still thought with wonder on the stories of Elemmakil's history, revered the confidence and reveled in the amiable laughter—though laughter came less frequently now—but there was something more. Something darker. Desire.

"I was but one of many," he demurred. Elemmakil now stood toe to toe with him, and though Haldir was but a hand's span shorter, he felt infinitely small in The Marchwarden's charismatic presence. The closeness of their bodies perturbed him.

"Do not belittle your valor. You are young yet, but already you have been tested and proven." Elemmakil's eyes fell briefly to the cloak in Haldir's arms then returned pointedly to the archer. "You have weathered a great loss."

"He would be proud, Haldir. I am proud."

Haldir's cheeks burned. Base attraction aside, the captain's regard was as important to him as his father's had been. Elemmakil, like Guilin, embodied the spirit of his office. That simple sentence, those three small words, represented the epitome of praise, and inwardly, it delighted him beyond measure.

Outwardly, however, he turned skittish as a colt under Elemmakil's direct and prolonged gaze. He fought to stand the deep stare, but a challenge lurked in those unblinking orbs, one that he could not quite decipher. Did he imagine it was lust?

If it was, he reasoned, t'was only his own. Despite hunger and exhaustion, the flames that coursed his blood in those final days of war had not yet been entirely quenched, leaving him unsettled, and more than a little agitated. It was beyond reason to hope the Marchwarden's stare mirrored his own state, was it not? To make such an assumption would be to overstep himself, to risk utter humiliation. Abashedly, he offered a feeble excuse to the Marchwarden and asked to take his leave.

Elemmakil's lips curved in a small, knowing smile, one dark eyebrow rakishly cocked as he dismissed the anxious warden. Indeed, he mused, this one dares not speak his desires, yet he wears them plainly enough. He would wait for nightfall and then perhaps pay the archer another visit.

*****

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