For the previous chapter, 'Invoked Hope',
click here.
The timid hand on the bowstring
slates the easiest shot.
- Dark Elvish Saying,
gathered by Viraïgon,
Master in Picture and Word
North of Middle-Earth, fifty miles east from the Land of the Conclave, Late Third Age
Cadhalor sat on the saddle of the armored steed Sardaï and thundered over the plains. It was about time that I turn to the mission again. Esmonäe's arts of healing and knowledge gave me a second life and I plan to use it.
It was pointless to assume that he would find Thangrineth or her remains during his sharp ride.
If he applied the effect of the poison that he experienced on the dark elvish maiden, then she had to lie dead in the grass or wherever. Her death is certain.
With that it fell to him to reach the spirit and enter a pact of alliance with it. He was the one who would return as hero into his homeland, despite that he was strongly believing that the war was no idea of the Conclave. The Comets have influenced them. The rulers bow to the political pressure and the power of the most influential. Cadhalor would never have thought that such a day would ever arrive. Possible that with my triumph as Star, I will be able to turn the tide to a better end.
Inúr he had left at his house. She would be hindering him, because of her blindness and because of the much slower horse that she would have to take. The slave lived hidden in his house, performed simple tasks and waited that her master would return. Her old master.
You know why you have left her behind. Cadhalor played with the thought to gift Inúr back to Thangrineth. She is not good for me. He hated to admit that he felt something for her. He had not yet concluded what kind of feelings pained him. But she caused something in him that only his wife was usually allowed.
Under different circumstances - would Inúr have been a Dark Elf - he maybe would have cut the ties to Enoïla and would have started anew. But a slave? A barbarian who cannot even closely compare to the grace, the beauty nor the immortality of my people? Never.
And yet he seemed to have at least lost a great deal of his heart to her. During their journey she had lost weight, so that her stature was the same as those of the filigree elvish women. And her appealing face ...
Cadhalor forced his attention back unto the street. I need to give Inúr away. Under all circumstances. Far away. She had to leave immediately his thoughts if he wanted to survive his second attempt to return without shame. She is a mortal creature and hence mediocrity in all that she touches. Do not waste your time with mediocrity, he said to himself and shut the thought away.
To the right time: Before him appeared the colorful painted palisades of the Kraggash.
This time there would be a surprise for the vile goblins.
Cadhalor brought Sardaï to stand, opened the casket with the flammable arrows and lit the wick at the bow, right over the handle. The smoldering tip would touch the soaked fabric on the projectiles and set them ablaze as soon as he would have fully drawn his bow. Thirty arrows he had taken with him, half of them possessed fist-large vessels made from thin bladders that held petroleum; on impact they would splash open.
»Here are my greetings to you.« Cadhalor shot the first arrow against the wooden wall. The Kraggash would not notice what he was doing until it was too late, he hoped. As soon as the fire rose into the sky.
Entirely calm he sent the arrows over, sloshing did the petroleum soak the wood.
A guard opened a hatch after the tenth shot. He must have heard the unusual sounds.
You need no longer walk around in your vileness. Cadhalor killed the guard with a normal war-arrow and send a burning projectile right after.
Hissing and cracking the palisade was engulfed by fire on a length of twenty steps, the paint burned even better and increased the effect of the petroleum. With its help, the fire spread quick as the wind to both sides and unto the walkway.
A single arrow was enough. Cadhalor loosened the wick and let it fall to the ground, then he waited until the blaze had done its destructive work.
The goblins were in turmoil on the palisade, tried to extinguish the flames with the help of sand. To gain control over the fire, they opened the gate and a group of thirty creatures hurried with buckets forward to help from the outside.
The winds are with me!
Sardaï felt his master's wish. The stallion rushed forward with a dark neigh, stretched its powerful body and galloped towards the opened palisade.
The goblins saw the Dark Elf only as he stormed through the group of them and trampled seven of them into the ground. The nightmarish steed found the opportunity to wound two of them mortally with quick bites and then they had overcome the border.
»Do you remember me?« Laughing did Cadhalor ride through the realm of the Kraggash, without that they would have been able to stop or harm him. This time things turned out to be better for him.
The palisade was covered in an inferno, as he could see by the pillar of steam rising from it. The urge to paint their palisade so colorful had been the demise of the goblins. Whatever these creatures used to create their paint, it had the vital disadvantage of being lightly inflammable. He smiled. Knowledge that he would make use of in during his journey home.
Thangrineth could not believe that barbarians could win any battle at all with these horses. On the other hand, if mediocrity meets mediocrity then none of them notices how bad rider and steed are.
She however showed the horse, on which she sat, without a pause what miserable quality it had. She called, cursed, struck against it and used her power of dread to drive it on. And still it seemed to her as if she was hardly moving from the spot.
By such a slow speed that her journey was passing by with, she allowed herself to imagine the arrival in the land of the Conclave. She would thoroughly savor it, be celebrated, receive the blessing of the Conclave and become the mistress of the storm of destruction that would thunder over Middle-Earth.
In her thoughts, Thangrineth set up her army.
To the front, as arrow-decoy and wall against cavalry will walk the scum, the savage tribes. The flanks will be guarded by the larger creatures. Mountain trolls that were chained and forced into submission and giants would make sure that the smaller ones would not break out of their formation once the enemy began to move. Behind them she positioned the archers of the tribesmen of Mirkwood and in the end the warriors of the Dark Elves and behind them their own archers, as the bows of her people could reach farther than those of the mortal races.
Naturally she would select smaller parties of soldiers that could move independently from the host to take on more specific tasks, such as eliminating enemy catapults in quick assaults, kidnap the leaders of their foes or to slay them on the spot. They could just as well dare a lunge and burn down the encampment of their adversary. The art of war declared to meet your enemy with something he knew and to weaken him immensely with a surprise.
But before we can strike out into every direction the fortress of the Easterlings that keeps the unmapped North secure towards the south must fall into our hands. The key for this barrier she had secured. She alone.
Thangrineth unintentionally had to think of Cadhalor. Certainly he is dead, his body torn apart and shredded by scavengers and his bones lie broken and gnawed upon. She did not mourn Cadhalor's death. He had been a companion forced upon her by the will of the Conclave. With his death, the advocates of the expansion of the Dark Elven realm had already won. The agent of the Comets returned from the depths of the unmapped North.
There she wondered what she should tell about the passing of the Dark Elf.
She could drag his fame through the dirt by telling the truth and pronouncing him a coward. She could decorate his gutlessness.
Or she raised Cadhalor's reputation by letting him fall in battle against several enemies, slain by poison and guile and not in an honest fight.
Thangrineth was uncertain. It would be almost wantonly to not chip away at his image.
To the contrary to her, Cadhalor had family. A quite big family with children that could become one day great Elves themselves. They already learned to be astonishing members of their people, if also in different elements. If she would make their father become a failure, it would cling to their name for all their life.
Family. Thangrineth had never longed for such a thing. She wanted to remain alone. She was not inclined to a connection with another Elf and especially not one that would be of no worth to her.
But sometimes, in certain moments of her immortality she did envy Dark Elves such as Cadhalor. They possessed something, a foothold, a fundament that was not founded on the approval of the entire society, but was always there. In good times, in bad times. In all times.
Thangrineth refrained from asking herself what would become of her if her ambitions would not bear the fruits that she aspired.
True friends she had none, only political allies and companions in spirit. Of her family she knew none other but her twin-brother, father and mother had fallen long ago in battle. But they had raised her so that she would pursue the same goals as them: Fame and power.
Thangrineth had to think about the fact that Cadhalor kept together with his love for an extraordinary long time -- and she with him. Something unusual among their people. Is that love? Something like that she had never experienced. Did one have to experience it? I can very well live without that feeling. I do not miss it.
Her objection was alone towards Cadhalor, not his wife and not towards his children. Therefor she would refrain from bad-mouthing the Dark Elf. I will let him die in a lost battle, overwhelmed, weakened from the poison and struck by four arrows.
Thangrineth would decorate her tale in such a way that she would have tried to save the Dark Elf from an assaulting horde of trolls; with that she could grant herself some glory. But the situation would have been lost. Cadhalor would have insisted that she would make her way alone and bring the mission to an end. That should be sufficient. He hasn't deser...
Suddenly it went down for her and she fell towards the earth. Only a heartbeat did the horse roll over her, wedged her in and lay still.
Thangrineth felt the sweat of the beast upon her, pressed and pushed its weight from side to side and slowly managed to free herself. Her ribs pained her; she felt dizzy, but otherwise she appeared to be unharmed.
One blink of an eye she had not been inattentive and the stupid animal stumbled and fell. That would never happen to one of our steeds.
There was nothing to be done. The neck of the horse was broken.
»What else, ye powers?«, she called into the morning sky and raised the spear. Dirt fell off from her. »Why should I not arrive at Dsôn?«
A single strike of a hoof and a loud huff let her turn around. She gazed into a pair of ember-red eyes that belonged to exactly that wonderful steed on whose back someone sat, who she would not have liked to see. »Cadhalor?!«
The Dark Elf sat leisurely in his saddle and hailed her with a nod.
»Truly, the Creator must hate me«, Thangrineth said quietly.
»I believe that he loves you: I have found you in highest peril.«
»Highest peril looks differently. My horse died, nothing more.« She looked at him inquisitively. »Why are you still alive?«
»I could ask you the same thing. I think that for some reason I am immune against the poisons of the Kraggash or at least against the one that they have mixed for our people.« Cadhalor smiled pitying. »What is your explanation?«
»Our new ally has healed me as a gesture of friendship.« Thangrineth was irked beyond all bounds. Why must I meet him now? »I have found the being and closed the pact with it. Alone!«
»Was it hard? What did you tell it and what did you promise?« Cadhalor leaned forward. »And more importantly: Where is your proof?«
The Dark Elf had instantly found the weakened spot, which didn't raise Thangrineth's mood. »I have his word«, she gave shortly back.
»It doesn't accompany you?«
»No.«
»Then you sealed a contract to ensure the pact will be followed?«
»No.«
»O, also no contract?« Cadhalor laughed her down with all his heart. »That will make a good impression before the Conclave, if you return as a hero who has nothing to show them but pretty words.«
»It is true!«, Thangrineth called out against him. »While you went on your way as pitiful as you were, I led hosts against one another and bested a hundred adventures to ...«
»Sure, sure. Save that speech for the tower to amuse the Conclave«, he dismissed bored her words. »Say: How do you call for our new ally?«
Thangrineth would not tell him that the spirit could be lured with singing. That would only give him more material to make fun of her. »None of your business.« She set a foot unto the dead horse. »Take me with you.«
Cadhalor smiled. »No.«
»NO?« Thangrineth could foresee that she would get to hear an offer in order to be allowed to ride on the steed back to the land of the Conclave, but she saw no reason to let herself be humiliated like so.
»You will enter our star-realm alive, if we are agreeing that we have sought out the being together. If you like, you can be the shining hero who led the successful diplomacy, but in my story, we have reached the land of the being.« Cadhalor spoke with calm, without any sign of agitation.
Thangrineth would have loved to pierce him with her spear. »You want a piece of the glory, without having done anything for it?« She thought about her endeavor against the Jembina, of her battle against the henchmen of the Galran Unuk. »Never!«
»O, but I will have done something: I brought you home safely.«
Now it was Thangrineth's turn to laugh and she made an effort to sound especially disdainful. »Ride on, on your steed, I will find me a new horse. I do not need you in order to get home and ...« She hesitated as she saw how her opponent lay an arrow unto his bow. »You do not dare!«
»It is about more than your personal search for glory, Thangrineth«, Cadhalor explained, still calm. »Politics. Comets and Stars, two factions in Dsôn Vaïmon. It is important that they hold together before the war that the Conclave plans. Without unity, our best tactics on the battlefields are worth nothing. Therefor, Thangrineth, we will return together or not at all. I promise you that.«
Thangrineth grasped her spear tighter. »You will find that I am not as easy to be killed like a barbarian or an orc. I will bury you and ride on your steed back to our city.« She made herself ready.
»And what if I can prevent you from becoming the hero you want to be without that I would need to kill you?«, Cadhalor gave back.
»How would that work?«
»By dragging your name through the dirt and pushing you into the lowest stage of life. A little more than a servant, more you will not be.«
»You would not accomplish such a thing. How would you? My reputation is without flaw!« Her wish to see the Dark Elf dead before her feet became overwhelming.
»Yet. But Inúr's profession can break your neck as the fall did to your horse. She fares well, by the way. Except for the eyes, but that you surely know.« Cadhalor raised the bow a little, the arrow-tip pointed unto the ground and into Thangrineth's direction. »I have seen the drawings she has made of our home before you blinded her.«
»And?«
»Let us assume that her servitude towards you was only a game. She chose you because you responded to her fine words and compliments the swiftest and led her in your own blindness to all these places.« He smiled broadly. »As I said: I have seen the sketches: From our city Dsôn Vaïmon to the defensive structure; everything is there. For possible invaders, these drawings are invaluable, Thangrineth.«
»Nonsense! No one would believe you.« I have underestimated his cleverness. He too can act in guile.
»What, if I would have found out about her intention and she would have admitted everything under torture? My daughter has a high knowledge of the body and can inflict pain to living things under which they would admit anything. The confession already bears her signature. And her dangerous drawings are gone. No one knows where they are.« Cadhalor looked at her patiently. »And you, Thangrineth, would carry the entire burden of a possible downfall of our people. I do not believe that the Conclave would forgive you such a deed. If they would hear about it.«
Thangrineth's face was entirely decorated by anger. Nothing she would loved more than ramming her spear into that smug expression of Cadhalor and let his skull explode. »Morgoth shall bring you ...«
»That he can do, if he likes, Thangrineth. But first we will return together. As heroes. Is that a suitable offer?«
Thangrineth gnashed with her teeth and brought forth a »Yes«. For now she would accept, but as soon as she had found the confession and destroyed it, Cadhalor would feel her revenge. It will not be to your taste.
Cadhalor leaned forward and reached out with his hand to help her to pull herself unto the steed.
Without grasping his fingers, Thangrineth heaved herself into the saddle.
