Post by Aikári Salmarinian on Mar 21, 2022 18:26:47 GMT
60. Battle under the darkness of night.
What I had suspected, was right after twenty-four hours. The Dwarves headed my warning and travelled back west, which felt somehow lighter to them. With us leaving we triggered something, as from the northeast a considerable force appeared, covered under darkness. The dwarves saw nothing, but they heard. In neat rows and squadrons elf and dwarf stood their ground, waiting. All of my riders kept aside, sweeping in from a side angle, on the left and right of the dwarven army.
“Don’t get killed!” I ordered in Leikvian. “And neither wounded.”
My people offered the first wave of arrows, cutting many down among the enemy. The returning arrows were destroyed by the twirly whirlies arrows of the dwarves. A second volley of the enemy ended in the same way. Then they held their arrows and I saw a man appearing, which had to be the leader, a local lord of king perhaps. He was dressed richer than the soldiers behind him. Also he was on horseback. Across him waited a neat silver and golden army, with far greater numbers than theirs.
“What do you think?” I asked to Bregedúr.
“He is nervous,” my commander said smiling. “Very nervous. None of their arrows reached their destination, while ours already skilled a large number.”
I could see the dead and wounded laying on the ground, where the army had retreated by ten meters.
“And the commander is mortal for sure. No wizard or Orc,” nodded Bregedúr.
That was as much a relief. Fear could propel humans on the run. Orcs acted different. The dwarves held back, when I broke loose of my own troops. My men had arrows on their bows and would let go on a single command of me. The human commander copied my move and rode from his troops. We met in the middle. From two different sides it was impossible to communicate. The walls around his mind were weak, so it was easy to have a clear impression where he came from. What I found was disturbing. My own indentity was difficult to guess for him as he had never met someone like me. He had no knowledge of my kind, neither on any other kindred than his own. He believed in peoples with great magic powers. That I had read his mind, he wasn’t aware off.
“Go back where you came from!” I called loud in Annúnaid for all to hear and made a motion to the east over the mountains.
He shouted something back, but it was an unfamiliar language. They would all die here, I knew. I placed a picture of a battlefield in his mind, which could happen if this would go through. His eyes only widened and full of fear he gazed at me, shouting something what might be a curse. Spears were pointed toward us by the soldiers. Swords were drawn out of the scabbards from the sound of it. Making him understand was perhaps too difficult, or he was too stupid to understand. I had enough of it and returned to my people. I reported what I had done, but shook my head.
“His king is either a wizard, or a Maia, perhaps Gothmog in another shape. He might have gotten warnings that any enemy would be evil, to destroy them,” said Bregedúr in Leikvian.
“The opposite truth from their side,” I responded.
We didn’t have long to wait for the enemy to seal their fate. I wish it could have been different, but the language barrier prevented understanding each other. Our arrows hit well, theirs were destroyed by dwarven inventions. After that it was mostly slaughter. I didn’t engage into battle now, but most of my people and Gimli’s people did. There were enough wounded still and some dead, but that was expected. For our enemy the battle was a disaster. I saw the leader back when the first rays of the sun came over the Orocarni. Then our numbers were revealed truly to him. We had won, but I felt no feeling of victory. It was good for the moral though.
What was left of the enemy army was taken prisoner. The dwarves astounded them with their sizes and impressed them by their ferocity. My people didn’t bother with the guarding, they camped in another part, healing the wounded dwarves and kept watch what hid more out there. The enemy knew off the taller beings around, but hadn’t indentified us as elves yet. Perhaps they never had encounted my kind. I was together with Merelin, enjoying her company greatly. For some hours I had forgotten about the battle and what we had travelled for. This defeated force couldn’t set up new plans to conquer the west. They were more a threat for lands as Gondor and Rohan than the realm of my father.
“What do you think we should do, when we get back to Aradhrynd?” asked Merelin in my arms.
“What do you mean?” I asked her in Leikvian.
I was sitting against a tree, with Merelin next of me and my left arm around her shoulders. I couldn’t dream any longer of someone else sitting there, except for distant memories about my mother. But then I had her arms around my shoulders and I was much smaller, a child still.
“I want us to together be more than we are now. Do you object?” she asked looking at me.
“Alright,” I smiled.
“Would your father be against it?” asked Merelin frowning.
“That’s not for him to decide, in this case. He’ll have to accept you whether he likes or not,” I nodded.
A wedding would be something grand among my people in Lasgalen, surely when I married. Many dreamed of a marriage with me, but Merelin was by far the only woman I really ever loved.
“I want to have a baby then also, the little daughter of my friend Aglairiel was so fun to see at the time she was born,” stated Merelin, a bit dreamy.
“I had expected much as that. I’ll need an heir sometime, and my father has the good age to be a grandfather,” I responded softly in her ear.
I didn’t want others to hear what I said. But secretly I had thought along those lines. We looked at the sky full of blinking stars, and it was not hard to find the familiar patterns, though they were in a different place. My father and grandmother would surely watch those too. The starlight was also our source of energy. The journey was good both of us, Merelin and me. After twothousand years it was time to set dreams to reality. Love was an initial factor I discovered and set something in work I had never been aware off. Partly it was physically, partly it was psychically. Without words we enjoyed each other’s presence, spending half the night under the tree before we actually retired and rendered ourselves to the dreamworld. It was a state of mind that would let absolute rest come to us. I lived on miruvor and lembas and so did most of my people. I was a bit earlier awake than Merelin and stood wandering off to relieve myself. When I came back Merelin had woke up and she hurried off to get herself ready for a new day. When she got back, her hair was wet and she had a blush on her cheeks.
“Would you braid my hair? I washed it in the water nearby,” she asked.
She reached a brush and comb and sat down. At her instructions I used six strains of hair and braided thus together in a quick fashion. The end I tied off and let it drop. The rest she combed out herself. Merelin was neat of herself, when she could be. Done we joined with the others, where I learned that during the night guards had watched out for us. I knew that it would be that always.
When I met the enemy commander again, stripped of his weapons and armour, he looked more like a pheasant than an important leader. I couldn’t say if what he had on were undergarments, but more he hadn’t on. His mouth fell open soon he saw me, as I wasn’t now wearing a helmet and just saw my tall shape, long blond hair and ears. Unlike him I never had to bother with hairgrow on my chin. That was something mortal. Thoran and Gimli came to me.
“He doesn’t understand a thing,” cursed Thoran in Annúnaid.
”Or either he is stupid or pretend to be stupid,” suggested Gimli, putting a pipe out of his mouth.
“Actually right now, he is afraid of me. I can sense his fear,” I said with a smile and my gaze at the man. “He knows who you are, dwarves, but he cannot figure out my kind. So in this vicinity live no elves.”
“Hoe can you conclude that?” asked Gimli.
“I read his mind,” I answered evenly. “And he doesn’t understand really any tongue we speak. Have you found someone among his people, who is a tradesman and knows Annúnaid at least, because he traits with the west?”
Thoran shook his head and bellowed an order in Hadhodren. A blush under his beard told me that he felt ashamed he hadn’t thought of that. Gimli coughed only and inhaled again from his pipe. But there was another method also and in a swift motions I drew my sword, holding the sharp blade up in the air. I pointed it at the mortal prisoner.
‘Now you talk or I’ll drive this blade in your stomach,’ I spoke in the man’s mind, whose eyes flew open and sudden stammered broken words.
“No!...No!...” called the eastern commander, throwing his hands in the air. “Please, not...”
I had two surprised dwarves standing with me. What they hadn’t achieved, I had in a few moments.
“Now tell what you know,” I spoke softly, but firm an order I knew he understood.
He had understood yesterday me in a wrong way, but that was his choice. He gave his name, but I couldn’t remember right away. Gimli shorted it to Ruvis. Odd that sounded to my ears. In severe broken Annúnaid he spoke of a powerful ruler near the east coast over the mountains. He had promised gold to every commander who ventured west and conquered lands in his name. All citizens were subjugated, high taxes were paid and women had nothing to say. They remained indoors and only men could go outdoors. Only on marriage a woman could leave the house of her parents to go living with her husband. Ruvis was married to three women and had seven children, all less than a decade old. I had still my sword in hand and looked stern at him, greatly displeased by the try of deceiving us with pretending not knowing other languages. Ruvis’ eyes were somehow glued to the deadly beauty of the weapon. Finally he fell silent and looked uncertain and frightened from me to the dwarves and back. I sensed Merelin came to me and watched curiously the captured human.
“That’s what they look like, hmm,” she spoke in Leikvian.
She was armed again and dressed in armour like mine. Her hair was waistlength, while mine fell over my shoulders and was not much longer.
“That is what they look like, and stink also. The smell is awful,” I nodded to her in Leikvian. She spoke Sindarin now, but still no Annúnaid. “Spawn of Angband.”
Merelin laughed at what I said and I grinned. Later I met with my advisors. We spoke Sindarin then, because some came from Imladris and Lothlorien. We began to set up a plan to tackle the mighty threat at the eastcoast. There was no way we returned home now. The end could perhaps be my death, but I was not afraid of that. What motivated my people was my determination to put an end to the threat from this area. And they trusted me, because the famous walk of the ring I had proved myself not to be tempted by the evil of the thing. The whole journey I hadn’t any interest in it, because Gimli had been there and back then I thought much about the feud between elves and dwarves. That had changed during our stay in Lothlorien. I had a dangerous and daring plan, which I first detailed to Gimli. I was a member of the famous Fellowship.
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Gimli angry. “I don’t want you to offer yourself as a kind of bait, Legolas!”
Seldom he used really my name, but when he did, he meant it very seriously. The dwarf stood steady his ground and wouldn’t give way, I somehow knew. He was a lord of the dwarves, with the dream to settle in Aglarond, the glittering caves just behind the Hornburg of the Rohirrim.
“It shall be me!” said Gimli. “Because of the logic. I am naturally protected against this kind of evil, I am a member of Aulë’s people, not the overlord Iluvatár, as you called him. We are strong, sturdy and can resist fire. We are like the stone of the earth, loving it. From stone we create halls, furniture, emblems, statues, weapons and even tools. Stones properly heated, stay hot for a very long time. Stone is how we always defeated our enemies. It has to be me. These people in these areas know my kindred and most likely hate them.”
What could I say against those arguments? So I conceded and nodded to him.
“You’ll have the honour to be the bait,” I said to me, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Gimli reformed the plan I had created and went with it to the others. Elven and dwarven commanders listened to what he explained in Annúnaid. Who couldn’t understand, learned it later via Sindarin, Leikvian and Hadhodren. I would play another role in this. The Dwarves needed to have the honour, the elves would have to stay back, a reserve force of surprise. The combined strength of five peoples of Dwarves ran into the numbers I couldn’t count anymore. Among them the army of Gimli was already legendary, which against my fivethousand elven horsemen and –women seemed a poor number. I remained behind, when Gimli and Thoran went eastbound the next morning. I had the two captives, former general Harik Tavlos and the defeated Ruvis. When the two got together, it was apparent to me that both knew each other, but hated also deeply. Ruvis had still a part of his army, general Tavlos had nobody. I knew we couldn’t babysit them forever as the dwarves had left, so I ordered them to have them stripped of armour and weapons and let them free. General Tavlos didn’t join them and rather kept with my kindred, as he had befriended a few of my people and was learning Sindarin. They told him who I was and held a pretty unique position among my kindred, as there were no other princes of elves. My father was the only elvenking still in Middle Earth, but that was not important to me, just a simple fact. Being an elvenking was different, than a king of dwarves or a king of humans. As my father had said one day I would take his place. But all those ages alive I had never been jealous at my father, or wanted to replace him. Within three days following there was a giant battle near the mountains victorious won by the army of Gimli and Thoran. A messenger came back to tell us that.
What I had suspected, was right after twenty-four hours. The Dwarves headed my warning and travelled back west, which felt somehow lighter to them. With us leaving we triggered something, as from the northeast a considerable force appeared, covered under darkness. The dwarves saw nothing, but they heard. In neat rows and squadrons elf and dwarf stood their ground, waiting. All of my riders kept aside, sweeping in from a side angle, on the left and right of the dwarven army.
“Don’t get killed!” I ordered in Leikvian. “And neither wounded.”
My people offered the first wave of arrows, cutting many down among the enemy. The returning arrows were destroyed by the twirly whirlies arrows of the dwarves. A second volley of the enemy ended in the same way. Then they held their arrows and I saw a man appearing, which had to be the leader, a local lord of king perhaps. He was dressed richer than the soldiers behind him. Also he was on horseback. Across him waited a neat silver and golden army, with far greater numbers than theirs.
“What do you think?” I asked to Bregedúr.
“He is nervous,” my commander said smiling. “Very nervous. None of their arrows reached their destination, while ours already skilled a large number.”
I could see the dead and wounded laying on the ground, where the army had retreated by ten meters.
“And the commander is mortal for sure. No wizard or Orc,” nodded Bregedúr.
That was as much a relief. Fear could propel humans on the run. Orcs acted different. The dwarves held back, when I broke loose of my own troops. My men had arrows on their bows and would let go on a single command of me. The human commander copied my move and rode from his troops. We met in the middle. From two different sides it was impossible to communicate. The walls around his mind were weak, so it was easy to have a clear impression where he came from. What I found was disturbing. My own indentity was difficult to guess for him as he had never met someone like me. He had no knowledge of my kind, neither on any other kindred than his own. He believed in peoples with great magic powers. That I had read his mind, he wasn’t aware off.
“Go back where you came from!” I called loud in Annúnaid for all to hear and made a motion to the east over the mountains.
He shouted something back, but it was an unfamiliar language. They would all die here, I knew. I placed a picture of a battlefield in his mind, which could happen if this would go through. His eyes only widened and full of fear he gazed at me, shouting something what might be a curse. Spears were pointed toward us by the soldiers. Swords were drawn out of the scabbards from the sound of it. Making him understand was perhaps too difficult, or he was too stupid to understand. I had enough of it and returned to my people. I reported what I had done, but shook my head.
“His king is either a wizard, or a Maia, perhaps Gothmog in another shape. He might have gotten warnings that any enemy would be evil, to destroy them,” said Bregedúr in Leikvian.
“The opposite truth from their side,” I responded.
We didn’t have long to wait for the enemy to seal their fate. I wish it could have been different, but the language barrier prevented understanding each other. Our arrows hit well, theirs were destroyed by dwarven inventions. After that it was mostly slaughter. I didn’t engage into battle now, but most of my people and Gimli’s people did. There were enough wounded still and some dead, but that was expected. For our enemy the battle was a disaster. I saw the leader back when the first rays of the sun came over the Orocarni. Then our numbers were revealed truly to him. We had won, but I felt no feeling of victory. It was good for the moral though.
What was left of the enemy army was taken prisoner. The dwarves astounded them with their sizes and impressed them by their ferocity. My people didn’t bother with the guarding, they camped in another part, healing the wounded dwarves and kept watch what hid more out there. The enemy knew off the taller beings around, but hadn’t indentified us as elves yet. Perhaps they never had encounted my kind. I was together with Merelin, enjoying her company greatly. For some hours I had forgotten about the battle and what we had travelled for. This defeated force couldn’t set up new plans to conquer the west. They were more a threat for lands as Gondor and Rohan than the realm of my father.
“What do you think we should do, when we get back to Aradhrynd?” asked Merelin in my arms.
“What do you mean?” I asked her in Leikvian.
I was sitting against a tree, with Merelin next of me and my left arm around her shoulders. I couldn’t dream any longer of someone else sitting there, except for distant memories about my mother. But then I had her arms around my shoulders and I was much smaller, a child still.
“I want us to together be more than we are now. Do you object?” she asked looking at me.
“Alright,” I smiled.
“Would your father be against it?” asked Merelin frowning.
“That’s not for him to decide, in this case. He’ll have to accept you whether he likes or not,” I nodded.
A wedding would be something grand among my people in Lasgalen, surely when I married. Many dreamed of a marriage with me, but Merelin was by far the only woman I really ever loved.
“I want to have a baby then also, the little daughter of my friend Aglairiel was so fun to see at the time she was born,” stated Merelin, a bit dreamy.
“I had expected much as that. I’ll need an heir sometime, and my father has the good age to be a grandfather,” I responded softly in her ear.
I didn’t want others to hear what I said. But secretly I had thought along those lines. We looked at the sky full of blinking stars, and it was not hard to find the familiar patterns, though they were in a different place. My father and grandmother would surely watch those too. The starlight was also our source of energy. The journey was good both of us, Merelin and me. After twothousand years it was time to set dreams to reality. Love was an initial factor I discovered and set something in work I had never been aware off. Partly it was physically, partly it was psychically. Without words we enjoyed each other’s presence, spending half the night under the tree before we actually retired and rendered ourselves to the dreamworld. It was a state of mind that would let absolute rest come to us. I lived on miruvor and lembas and so did most of my people. I was a bit earlier awake than Merelin and stood wandering off to relieve myself. When I came back Merelin had woke up and she hurried off to get herself ready for a new day. When she got back, her hair was wet and she had a blush on her cheeks.
“Would you braid my hair? I washed it in the water nearby,” she asked.
She reached a brush and comb and sat down. At her instructions I used six strains of hair and braided thus together in a quick fashion. The end I tied off and let it drop. The rest she combed out herself. Merelin was neat of herself, when she could be. Done we joined with the others, where I learned that during the night guards had watched out for us. I knew that it would be that always.
When I met the enemy commander again, stripped of his weapons and armour, he looked more like a pheasant than an important leader. I couldn’t say if what he had on were undergarments, but more he hadn’t on. His mouth fell open soon he saw me, as I wasn’t now wearing a helmet and just saw my tall shape, long blond hair and ears. Unlike him I never had to bother with hairgrow on my chin. That was something mortal. Thoran and Gimli came to me.
“He doesn’t understand a thing,” cursed Thoran in Annúnaid.
”Or either he is stupid or pretend to be stupid,” suggested Gimli, putting a pipe out of his mouth.
“Actually right now, he is afraid of me. I can sense his fear,” I said with a smile and my gaze at the man. “He knows who you are, dwarves, but he cannot figure out my kind. So in this vicinity live no elves.”
“Hoe can you conclude that?” asked Gimli.
“I read his mind,” I answered evenly. “And he doesn’t understand really any tongue we speak. Have you found someone among his people, who is a tradesman and knows Annúnaid at least, because he traits with the west?”
Thoran shook his head and bellowed an order in Hadhodren. A blush under his beard told me that he felt ashamed he hadn’t thought of that. Gimli coughed only and inhaled again from his pipe. But there was another method also and in a swift motions I drew my sword, holding the sharp blade up in the air. I pointed it at the mortal prisoner.
‘Now you talk or I’ll drive this blade in your stomach,’ I spoke in the man’s mind, whose eyes flew open and sudden stammered broken words.
“No!...No!...” called the eastern commander, throwing his hands in the air. “Please, not...”
I had two surprised dwarves standing with me. What they hadn’t achieved, I had in a few moments.
“Now tell what you know,” I spoke softly, but firm an order I knew he understood.
He had understood yesterday me in a wrong way, but that was his choice. He gave his name, but I couldn’t remember right away. Gimli shorted it to Ruvis. Odd that sounded to my ears. In severe broken Annúnaid he spoke of a powerful ruler near the east coast over the mountains. He had promised gold to every commander who ventured west and conquered lands in his name. All citizens were subjugated, high taxes were paid and women had nothing to say. They remained indoors and only men could go outdoors. Only on marriage a woman could leave the house of her parents to go living with her husband. Ruvis was married to three women and had seven children, all less than a decade old. I had still my sword in hand and looked stern at him, greatly displeased by the try of deceiving us with pretending not knowing other languages. Ruvis’ eyes were somehow glued to the deadly beauty of the weapon. Finally he fell silent and looked uncertain and frightened from me to the dwarves and back. I sensed Merelin came to me and watched curiously the captured human.
“That’s what they look like, hmm,” she spoke in Leikvian.
She was armed again and dressed in armour like mine. Her hair was waistlength, while mine fell over my shoulders and was not much longer.
“That is what they look like, and stink also. The smell is awful,” I nodded to her in Leikvian. She spoke Sindarin now, but still no Annúnaid. “Spawn of Angband.”
Merelin laughed at what I said and I grinned. Later I met with my advisors. We spoke Sindarin then, because some came from Imladris and Lothlorien. We began to set up a plan to tackle the mighty threat at the eastcoast. There was no way we returned home now. The end could perhaps be my death, but I was not afraid of that. What motivated my people was my determination to put an end to the threat from this area. And they trusted me, because the famous walk of the ring I had proved myself not to be tempted by the evil of the thing. The whole journey I hadn’t any interest in it, because Gimli had been there and back then I thought much about the feud between elves and dwarves. That had changed during our stay in Lothlorien. I had a dangerous and daring plan, which I first detailed to Gimli. I was a member of the famous Fellowship.
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Gimli angry. “I don’t want you to offer yourself as a kind of bait, Legolas!”
Seldom he used really my name, but when he did, he meant it very seriously. The dwarf stood steady his ground and wouldn’t give way, I somehow knew. He was a lord of the dwarves, with the dream to settle in Aglarond, the glittering caves just behind the Hornburg of the Rohirrim.
“It shall be me!” said Gimli. “Because of the logic. I am naturally protected against this kind of evil, I am a member of Aulë’s people, not the overlord Iluvatár, as you called him. We are strong, sturdy and can resist fire. We are like the stone of the earth, loving it. From stone we create halls, furniture, emblems, statues, weapons and even tools. Stones properly heated, stay hot for a very long time. Stone is how we always defeated our enemies. It has to be me. These people in these areas know my kindred and most likely hate them.”
What could I say against those arguments? So I conceded and nodded to him.
“You’ll have the honour to be the bait,” I said to me, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Gimli reformed the plan I had created and went with it to the others. Elven and dwarven commanders listened to what he explained in Annúnaid. Who couldn’t understand, learned it later via Sindarin, Leikvian and Hadhodren. I would play another role in this. The Dwarves needed to have the honour, the elves would have to stay back, a reserve force of surprise. The combined strength of five peoples of Dwarves ran into the numbers I couldn’t count anymore. Among them the army of Gimli was already legendary, which against my fivethousand elven horsemen and –women seemed a poor number. I remained behind, when Gimli and Thoran went eastbound the next morning. I had the two captives, former general Harik Tavlos and the defeated Ruvis. When the two got together, it was apparent to me that both knew each other, but hated also deeply. Ruvis had still a part of his army, general Tavlos had nobody. I knew we couldn’t babysit them forever as the dwarves had left, so I ordered them to have them stripped of armour and weapons and let them free. General Tavlos didn’t join them and rather kept with my kindred, as he had befriended a few of my people and was learning Sindarin. They told him who I was and held a pretty unique position among my kindred, as there were no other princes of elves. My father was the only elvenking still in Middle Earth, but that was not important to me, just a simple fact. Being an elvenking was different, than a king of dwarves or a king of humans. As my father had said one day I would take his place. But all those ages alive I had never been jealous at my father, or wanted to replace him. Within three days following there was a giant battle near the mountains victorious won by the army of Gimli and Thoran. A messenger came back to tell us that.