“My lord!”
A wild cry drifts on the wind, the clamour and clashing near drowning it out, and the far-off golden head does not turn. She nearly despairs then, nearly surrenders to the leaping madness and blood-lust. An arrow strikes her shield, her spear wheels in her hands like a flaming brand, and just distantly she can see it--- flame leaping on the horizon---
Another arrow, an axe that clangs on the shield like the clear ringing of a bell, and a presence at her side, bright and burning.
“Fall back!” Even right at her shoulder, Harthalín must shout to be heard, and her bright sword is dulled by dripping blood. “Fall back!”
Wildly they flee, turned tail and never heeding the arrows that strike among them and ping off battered armour. She trips and goes down, mud staining her livery with hues of black and red, and Harthalín grabs her shoulder. Scores of Elves run with them, all that is left of the golden prince’s last stand, and every one as caked with blood as they.
For all she knows, they will run into the falling darkness and sink into the sea, drowning like they should have, all those years ago. Yet it is only a hundred meters back to the lines, to the earthworks they had constructed an age before, and they regroup there such as they can. She searches among their line, for someone must have called the retreat, and at last she finds him. Golden hair lies limply on his shoulders, stained and torn as the rest of him, but he is unharmed. Someone must have reached him, been closer or loud enough to hear.
The orcs surge and break on the earthworks like crashing waves, but beneath the assault they soon will crumble. Every Elf stands on the uneven ground and does not falter, even those near-fainting with exhaustion. The Eldar can fight for days if need calls, and if their lord stands at hand.
Choking ash coats every breath in, a shaky rasp each exhale, and a grey shadow has fallen on all that she can see. Each stab and swipe, each block and parry, blends together in the deepening night. Whether the unseen Sun is actually descending the horizon or the smoke from Ard-galen is merely thickening, it is impossible to tell.
“Aphado nin!”
The prince’s shout rings still musical through the air, carrying to every inch of the battlefield. He charges suddenly, up and over the earthenworks with the pounding feet of a host of followers on his heels, the golden point of a gleaming arrow. Their crumbling defenses they abandon to fling themselves into the madness. Heavy thuds and clangs pound one after another into her shield, and it begins to dent and crack in places. She casts it aside uncaring, and wields her spear two-handed. Somewhere off to the left, Harthalín has done the same, bright blade flaming the brighter in the dark.
A cry goes up, of grief and fury, and catches upon the host. The prince has ceased his terrible assault and stands still, uncaring of the brutal battle that rages all about. She spins to stab the snarling warg before and sees to the southwest his cause for despair. The blazing flames of Ard-galen have leaped, it seems, and caught on the high pines. Dorthonion is burning.
“Aegnor! Angrod!” The golden head bends in grief, and it is only Edrahil fighting at his side that saves him from death. She whirls to face the next foe, for the tide of pain has flowed too far this day and no more may come. She fights, and her spear twirls ever faster in each attack, like a dancer amid the flames.
One by one, the great army Finrod had brought forth from Nargothrond falls to the grasping marsh at thier feet. They retreat, with a step, a leap, an ill-timed fumble. She loses sight of Harthalín soon, and even of the prince not long after. The night deepens.
Faltering from pure exhaustion, she nearly falls to an arcing blade before a stout spear knocks it off-course. A shout, rougher than Elf and fairer than orc, resounds across the fen, and a sudden thicket of spears sprouts up around them. Short, stocky Men, brown of hair and eye, emerge from the trampled grass, from the stagnant pools of water and blood.
“Lacho calad! Drego morn!”
Bregolas’s men, she thinks in stunned disbelief, though she will later learn that is not quite correct. Some of Dorthonion’s people then, must have made it out alive.
“Flame light! Flee darkness!” the cry is taken up by a hundred throats as the new press of forces turns the tide of the battle. The orcs come down from Ard-galen are innumerable, but not all of them can attack at once in the treacherous swamp, and Finrod’s Elves know the land.
Once again they flee, arrows cutting down those unguarded and the men of Bёor guarding the rear. She runs, though her spear is knocked to the ground by a fumbling orc. She lets it go, for to turn back is madness.
She cannot see the prince in the darkness, indeed can barely see the runners before her, but the Elves around her thrum still with heady resolve, and she does not worry. It is nearly an hour before they reach dry land, stumbling, limping, and fewer by far than that morning. Finrod calls the leader of their rescuers to him, and most take it as a signal to rest. Some sit, some stand guard, and some merely collapse where they stand. None sleep, for now.
She is weaponless save for a belt-knife, and it feels wrong, for she has not been without arms for many long months. Years perhaps, as the Sun counts them. She stands, for she knows not what else to do. Perhaps an ambush even now waits to spring, to fall upon the Eldar and their unlooked-for allies.
“A spear?” A voice at her side sounds loud in the sudden quiet. No great din, no screams, just the murmur of quiet voices and a man at her shoulder. He holds a Mannish spear out to her, stained with the blood of countless foes but its haft unmarked. The man bears his own spear still by his side, and her gaze flashes up to the man’s in silent question.
He shrugs, weariness and grief writ in the gesture. His voice is hoarse from long use. “He won’t be needing it anymore.”
She takes it, and turns as the prince calls muster.
