Year 2658 Third Age
DEATH
Amdirion was firing arrows as fast as he could pull them from the quiver as he raced back into the clearing among the oak trees. The shrieking of his father's ravens overhead momentarily blotted out the clash of blades. Aki was right behind him, standing in his pony’s stirrups.
Half-a-century of fighting off caravan raids let Aki assess the situation in an eye-blink. This raid was all wrong. The pack ponies were huddled under a tree, untouched. A few Easterlings and Orcs had surrounded Naerel. Most had already fallen under the swing of her lethal, curved blade. But she was slumping in her saddle, too, wounded. The last two Orcs near her dropped, simultaneously sprouting the feathered shafts of Amdirion’s swift arrows from their heads.
Norion was in a worse situation than his wife. His feet were tangled in the net used to bring down his horse. Half a dozen Easterlings were around him, throwing ropes, trying to loop one around his head or his arm. He could not spare much attention for them. He was too busy parrying the massive, crooked sword swung by the man-sized Orc in front of him. Even that looked wrong, to Aki’s eyes. The Orc was fighting defensively, not closing for the kill. What was going on?
A thrown rope caught Norion’s knife hand. Aki threw one of his small axes before the Easterling could pull Norion off-balance with it. The belt-axe buried itself to the haft in the Easterling’s gut. The attacker doubled over. Aki did not bother to watch him fall. Another Easterling screamed, then choked, as one of Amdirion’s arrows punched through his neck, spinning him away from the fight, blood spraying out in a gruesome scarlet fan from severed arteries.
The remaining Easterlings slung wide loops of rope towards their prey. One settled around Norion’s neck. He was yanked backwards abruptly, off balance. Another loop of rope dropped onto his dark head. He was pulled, just as suddenly, in the other direction. Still trading blows with the Orc, Norion severed one binding rope, only to be caught again by another. He was yanked off-balance again as another Easterling fell under Amdirion’s arrow-storm, dying hands dragging at the other end of the rope on Norion’s wrist.
Aki galloped towards the fight, ripping the great battle axe from the leather loop near his stirrup. Defensive or not, Aki judged the Orc as the greatest danger. He slid from the saddle, axe in motion even before his feet hit the ground. The Orc dropped to one knee, hamstrung, with Aki’s enraged roar of “Baruk Khazad!” echoing around the clearing. Aki’s next swing cut the Orc nearly in half from shoulder to waist, but it was too late.
The Orc’s sword was already in motion. So was Norion. His feet were still bound in the remnants of the net; neck bound in two ropes; hand tangled in another. Cries of victory turned into moans of dismay as the remaining Easterlings pulled Norion violently down – directly onto the Orc’s extended sword. It was the last thing they ever did. With a grief-stricken yell, Aki flung his other small axe end over end, cleaving one Easterling’s face all the way to the back of his skull. The last two looked at the crimson dripping blade of Aki’s battle axe and ran, stumbling over each other. Neither had time to even scream when Aki caught up to them.
Amdirion leaped from his horse, stumbling over a dead Warg and the bodies of slain Easterlings and Orcs. He tripped over a severed head wearing an Easterling captain’s helm, trying to get to his mother. She slid limply from the saddle before he could reach her, pitching face-first into the dirt. With an anguished cry, he knelt and turned her over gently, fearfully.
Amdirion ignored the Orc-arrows in his mother’s leg and shoulder, but he pulled the ugly gold-chased dagger from Naerel’s pregnant belly and threw it violently to the ground. He watched in horror as the blade smoked and disintegrated before his eyes. Even partially deflected by the saddle, the blade had sunk deeply into her flesh.
He shouted to Aki “Bring me athelas from the pack, quickly!” Aki, still caught in the receding red haze of battle frenzy, stared at the young elf, uncomprehending. “Kingsfoil!” Aki nodded and turned to hunt through the broken pack on Naerel’s saddle that had held medical supplies.
Amdirion lit the very air around him as he poured the energy of his desperation and love into his mother over and over. Again and again, he called her name, called her back. It wasn’t working! Why wasn’t it working? Aki returned bearing a handful of long green leaves, which he tore into smaller pieces and pressed against the knife wound.
The baby had woken in the warm darkness of the womb at the sharp burning pain in her arm. The feathery, urgent touch of Naerel’s thought reached her unborn. “You have a hard choice to make, my love.”
“I am too young for choices, Ama.” The baby turned in her floating, confined space, comforted by her mother’s loving thought, snuggling into her mother’s warmth. Her infant-thought was unformed, more emotion than clear words.
“No, precious one. Can you feel the shadow?” The baby turned again, uneasily, realizing that the sharp pain had been an injury, and that her mother had been injured too. A hideous darkness was spreading with destructive speed through her mother’s blood and flesh. “My body may not survive this. You must decide if you wish to come with me, or if you are strong enough to be born into the world.”
“Come with you? Not be born to see the beautiful world?” On the heels of that troubled infant feeling came another, more fearful. “If you are gone, who will take care of me? Will Ada be there?”
Naerel touched her unborn daughter’s mind. “I don’t know, my love. He will or your brother Amdirion will. You will not be alone.”
“Then I will be born, Ama. You have told me of the world; of the stars and of the trees. I will miss you, but I want to see it. I love you always.”
“Never forget that I love you, my beautiful daughter. You know who you are…” The last fading touch of Naerel’s mind came faintly. “When you are older, you will remember…”
Amdirion called his mother’s name more desperately. It still wasn’t working! Naerel was taking the strength her son was giving her and diverting it to something besides her own healing. As she started to writhe and struggle against his hands, Amdirion realized with a burst of pure blinding panic that his sister was being born – far too early. “Hold her hands” he said frantically to Aki as he reached for his mother.
Naerel was breathing harshly, gasping with pain, her beautiful face distorted with effort. She looked up, met Aki's eyes and tried to speak. He leaned closer. She tried again. "My daughter will be...she is..." and she murmured a word in Sindarin that he could barely hear. Then her whole body tensed and arched, and she gasped again.
The child came forth in a slithering rush, bleeding with more than birth blood. Her tiny arm had been cut deeply by the dagger blade, newborn blood dripping into the dust. “Here – take her!” Amdirion said, shoving the infant into Aki's hands.
Naerel turned her head and saw Norion's body lying on the other side of the clearing. His wounds were too great for his body to survive. He was gone. The light of her heart was extinguished. She had taken the thrown dagger for him, but she had not been able to save him.
The shadow-taint of the blade was destroying her flesh. If she did not release herself, it might enslave her mind as well, making her into one of the evil-undying. Her children would have to go on in the world alone. Tears slid down her face. Her eyes closed again. Slowly, reluctantly, her life slipped away from her son despite all his efforts to save her.
Aki looked down at the baby he now held. She stared back at him, dark grey eyes more aware than he had ever expected a newborn's to be. He tore up a few more of the kingsfoil leaves, pressed them into the gaping gash in her right arm and bound the wound with a rag from one of the torn packs. She still had not cried, but her tiny fist had tangled into his beard with surprising strength.
Without even thinking, he laid his hand on her forehead in the manner of the Dwarves, as he had done when his son was born, trying to discern her ‘true’ name; her secret name. It came into his mind without effort, the word her mother had used. He whispered the word to her in his own language. As if that were a signal, she coughed hard enough to clear her lungs, then made a sound partway between a gurgle and a cry. "Hmmph," he said. "It’s about time you made some noise! Let’s find you something to eat."
Norion's ravens had circled in, croaking with distress. They landed around Norion’s body, and around Amdirion still cradling his mother, to stand unmoving, mute with grief. As the baby cried louder, young Carc broke from the circle with a squawk, flapping to one of Aki's packs, tearing it further with his beak and strong claws. Aki scrambled to his feet and walked to the pack, still holding the crying baby. "Ah! There’s a skin of goat’s milk in here from our last stop. It should still be good if it hasn’t been cut open." He looked at Carc’s sword-like beak, then down at the fragile newborn in the crook of his arm. "You’re going to let me get that milk for the little one, aren’t you?" Carc croaked softly as he hopped off the broken pack.
For the next two days, Aki tended the tiny baby while Amdirion raised a grave mound for his dead parents. The young elf did not eat, or sleep that Aki could see, refusing all offers of help, working with a set face and grim determination. Once the green mound was completed, Amdirion piled the bloating bodies of the dead Orcs and Easterlings with dry fallen branches, then set them alight.
The fire lit the night like a beacon. Amdirion stood, a black shadow against the glare, through all the hours of its burning. Aki stood his own vigil, back to the fire, watching for bandits or enemies who might be drawn to the sooty orange glow. He could do nothing for Norion or Naerel's deaths, but he could stand guard over their children in this time of grieving. He did not realize that the young raven, Carc, was sitting on a branch above his head, watching the newborn babe he held in his arms.
Dawn finally stained the cloudy sky. By then, the fire was nothing but ash. Amdirion turned away, packed up his ponies and pointed his horse northeast towards home. He had not spoken at all in the days since the Orc raid. He did not speak to Aki on the trip back.
To Aki's puzzlement, he also refused to hold or touch his baby sister. Aki sacrificed one of his own wool shirts to make a sling, holding the baby as he rode, pressing more leaves of athelas into the cut on her arm whenever they stopped. Neither of them noticed the young raven ghosting along behind them through the trees.
The baby slept most of the time, contentedly burrowed under Aki’s beard, crying only when she was hungry. The wound on her arm did not seem to cause her much pain. But it also did not heal as he expected, remaining raw and bloody under the bandages.
When they finally reached the borders of the Woodland Realm, Amdirion brought the ponies to a halt. He swung down from his horse and walked back to Aki's pony. Aki extended the sleeping baby in her sling. Amdirion flinched a little as he took her. He tucked the sling across his body and accepted the pouch of athelas leaves from the dwarf. With a voice hoarse from disuse, he said "Thank you for taking care of her."
Aki cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm sorry about your parents."
"There was nothing more you could have done," Amdirion replied shortly, his face empty and grey. He turned his back on Aki, cutting his ponies from the string as he headed into the trees. The raven watched as Amdirion rode down the trail, leading his laden pack ponies. When the last pony passed, the raven drifted after Amdirion on noiseless wings, a darker shadow under the green-black shadows of the trees.
Aki turned his own ponies down the track that would take him to Erebor. Norion and Naerel had been friends. Aki's heart was heavy with the loss, yet it was also lighter as he turned towards home.
