Neither Gone Nor Forgotten

Dolthafaer had – foolishly, he now realized – believed that his troubles with Thendryt had come to an end.  Months ago, the Man had departed from the Valley and taken up his post in the Coldfells, where his madness had been allowed to run unchecked so long as it was against the servants of the enemy.  Out of sight.  Out of mind.  The thought that he might even find his end in those cold pines had been a comforting one.

And then had come the surprising news that the Warband had been decommissioned, followed shortly by the news that one Thendryt Morson had returned to Imladris in the company of Lilleduil.

Curious. 

Dolthafaer had sent word to Fáorië.  They had spoken once about Thendryt, and the danger that he believed the Man posed – a danger that seemed more likely now, without the yoke of Elisbeth to keep him in check.

Lilleduil had found him first.

“I would like to know your side of the business between you and Thendryt Morson,” she had told him.  “Starting with the Hithaeglir. I am particularly interested in why Vanimar asked the Warband to participate with them on a mission, then set a watcher on one of their number.”

The raven-haired elleth had broken into a toothy grin. 

“That is something I am very, very interested in.”

Dolthafaer had appreciated little the necessity to share his dealings with this Man with yet another, but he had had little choice.  Ráolor, Lilleduil had claimed, had his heart set upon spilling Thendryt’s blood.  The Hammer had learned that Thendryt was responsible for Yrill’s injury months past, it seemed, and craved vengeance. 

Dolthafaer had left that conversation vibrating with anger – at Yrill, for the part she had played in setting off the unstable Hammer, and at Thendryt, for dragging him back into the cloud of chaos that followed the bastard wherever he went.  Part of him had wondered if he should simply allow Ráolor to do as he pleased.  Was it truly his responsibility to keep the Man safe?

Ally?
Enemy?

Yes. 

Speaking with Parnard had helped him make up his mind.  As strange as it was to have the Ambassador as an ally in this clandestine business, Dolthafaer was impressed by the level of discretion he had shown so far – as well as his practicality.  A hot-blooded Noldo like Ráolor would have simply seen Thendryt dead from the start.

“Whatever the Man has done, Parnard, it has of yet not been enough to drive him out of Imladris. That is why we watch him. That is why we wait. It is only a matter of time until he reveals himself.”

The two of them went in search of Ráolor the next morning.  They found him quite easily, in fact – his voice practically carried across the Valley as he shouted down a shopkeeper, making the poor fellow tremble in his slippers.  Dolthafaer suppressed a sigh when he saw him, guessing already that it would be easier to talk reason into a stormcloud.

“Raolor?”

The Hammer turned to face the Lords of Vanimar, his shouting abruptly cut short.

“Lord Dolthafaer, and Lord Parnard! What an unexpected honor.”

“When you have a moment, Raolor, we need to speak with you.”

They moved out of earshot from the shopkeepers, who seemed very much relieved by the respite, Parnard’s small dog bouncing at their heels. Dolthafaer folded his arms over his chest as he regarded the Hammer before him.

“I hear you had threatening words for the Man of the Warband, Raolor.”

“Of whom do you speak?”

“Thendryt Morson.”

“The mortal?”

“The mortal, yes.  Unless there is another you have been threatening recently?”

Ráolor’s face changed, his gaze darkening. 

“Thendryt…”

“I have heard report that you plan to chase him down, to the point where the Lady Danel was moved to ask you to abstain from murdering him.”

Beside him, Parnard opened a small book in his hands, a quill pen poised over a blank page.  Dolthafaer watched, unmoved and unimpressed, as Ráolor gripped the iron bar he had been brandishing at the market stall in both his hands and slowly began to bend it.  Violence was written plain on the Elf’s face.

“Thendryt… Morssson.”

“Explain to me why this Man has earned your ire, Hammer.”

Ráolor looked at him with blazing eyes.

“What are these silly questions for, Lord of the Arrows? You know the answer. Do not pretend anything.”

Dolthafaer replied, tense and snappish: “He threw a stone at one of my Arrows.” Parnard’s quill was scratching on the paper.  “A rock, smaller than his palm, from a great distance, and injured her lightly.  A matter I was aware of, a matter well in hand.  You think death is the appropriate response to a Man throwing rocks?”

Parnard began, “It seems… a bit…”

“What do you think lingers in the profoundness of this mortal, Arrow Lord?” interrupted the Hammer.  “What lingers in the profoundness of his wretched mind?  He threw this stone, because he wanted to kill.”

Dolthafaer shook his head. 

“If he had wanted to kill, he would have thrown his spear.  Not a stone, the size of his palm.”

Parnard chipped in, brandishing his quill: “I think that is very likely!”

Dolthafaer took one deliberate step closer to the warrior, allowing his façade to slip and a flash of anger to light his cool gray eyes.  He did not know which infuriated him more – Raolor’s disrespect, or the fact that he was being forced to defend a Man who he would gladly put an arrow in himself.

“Do you think I would allow Thendryt Morson to live if I believed he meant to kill Yrill? One of my Arrows?”

Ráolor did not back down.  Every word only seemed to drive the Noldo to greater depths of rage, further and further from reason.  Dolthafaer had seen such madness in one of his kind before, and the sight set every nerve on edge.  There would be no controlling this.  It would simply burn until it burnt itself out, to the ruin of all around it.

“I thought he was a soldier first. He spilled Goblin blood. I let him fight alongside our ranks.  But he is a traitor! A traitor, like the rest of his vile race!  He betrayed our trust!”

Dolthafaer narrowed his eyes. 

“He betrayed nothing.  He threw a rock like a child.”

“Yes. It was an act of petulance.”

“He betrayed the trust of the Eldalië, and he attacked an Elda!” raged the Hammer. “This is their way of saying: thank you. He is not a soldier, but a wretched, vile assassin, trying to prey upon those who turn their backs to him.”

Dolthafaer stared hard at the Hammer, his eyebrows rising higher and higher as he raved on.  For all of the times he had doubted Thendryt – and for all that he still doubted Thendryt – he could see this blind rage as nothing but pure folly. 

They argued at length, the three of them.  Dolthafaer felt his patience slipping.  Ráolor rejected every word that he and Parnard had to offer him.  He was bound by promises to Danel and Fáorië to spare the Man his life, but he would not stand down from his pursuit.  He would hunt down Thendryt; he would break Thendryt; and then he would demand some sort of justice for an imagined wrong. 

By the end of it, all of them were left feeling sore and infuriated.  Dolthafaer eyed the warrior as he returned to the market stall to bellow at the shopkeep, his eyes hard and his fingers clenched and his mind racing to find a way to sway this elf. 

“Will the Lord Veryacáno hear us in this?” he asked Parnard, muttering, without much hope.  At one point, he had threatened Ráolor with disciplinary action, but the Hammer was typically allowed to run roughshod wherever they pleased.  He doubted any of his superiors would bat an eyelash if one more mortal fell beneath their feet. 

“I would rather think not.  We should appeal to Lord Anglachelm.”

Dolthafaer shook his head, stymied by this unhappy and unexpected position of having to protect the very Man that he had provoked himself in months past.  Having found no answers to their problems in the marketplace, he and Parnard went their separate ways.  The little dog alone seemed untroubled by what had come to pass this morning, bright-eyed and wagging his tail at his master’s feet.

Who was more mad, Dolthafaer wondered – the Hammer or the Man?