He lay on his back. His eyes would have been staring at the sky, if he could have opened them. One was already a swollen mess, mind-numbing pain shooting from it that he was sure he was blind. The other eye he could open just a crack, though he could not make out much of anything. His whole body ached and burnt with pain. He tried to focus his thoughts away from the pain to listen to the Men’s harsh voices and understand what they were arguing about.
Men’s voices, harsh and bitter, even addressing each other. He had heard Aearlinn cry to the horses, but she was silent now. He had failed her. She was young and trusting and had but a few years experience in any form of training. He should have known at first glance, he should have been faster. Now…he could not bear to think about it. Hot tears flowed, mingled with blood, bathing the mess of his ruined face, his broken jaw and cheekbone.
Then there was a shadow almost on top of him, and a stab of pain near the tip of his ear. The man was cutting at his ear! ‘Valar, help us!’ he thought, trying to steel himself against the new atrocity to be committed against him.
The man dropped the knife silently on the grass. It just fell from his fingers. Then his body slumped forward across the Elf. The weight! For a moment Barahirn could not breathe at all. Then there was a brown booted foot, kicking the man away.
“Barahirn? Barahirn!” a faintly familiar voice cried.
He struggled to make sense. It was an elven voice, with a hint of what he believed was a Gondolin accent.
“Aearlinn…” he managed to utter through great pain. “Find Aearlinn.”
The shadow over him moved, he heard bootfall on the soft grass, then the paving..then grass again. He heard arrows fly.
‘Kill them all,’ he thought. ‘Lord Estarfin has the right of it regarding Men.’ But even then he did not totally believe that.
Then came the cry. “Ai! They have slain her.”
“Kill them all,” he whispered as he struggled for breath and words.
~ ~ ~
He thought he was wandering through Lord Namo’s Halls. One dark corridor led to another. There was faint light, candlelight, showing tapestries hanging in the darkness. Hanging on the walls or floating in the air? He wasn’t sure. He was searching for someone, he couldn’t remember who, though sometimes he could just make out a pale coloured figure with long fair hair, running always ahead of him. She seemed light of foot, as if she saw more than he in that place, as if she was running to greet someone. He could never quite catch up.
~ ~ ~
The smoke from the burning houses was filling the nearby air and, although not beside one of those torched, Barahirn was still quite close to the fires. He felt like his lungs were alight, his body was broken. He could not move.
A strong hand was on his shoulder; he sensed a figure crouching close by. With the greatest of efforts he managed to turn his head enough, that he could see through one partially open eye the green garbed, black haired figure of the Scout, the Hunter. Lord Belegos?
“Rest, Barahirn. Help is on the way. Many neighbours are here trying to put out the fires, and they have sent for the healer in Celondim. Now I must pull you further from the flames and smoke. I will get someone to help me carry you to Danel’s house.”
Barahirn hardly heard the words, and his thoughts were elsewhere. “Aearlinn?” he managed to whisper. “I could not save her.”
The hand gently patted his shoulder. “She died swiftly,” Belegos said, his own voice gruff with grief. “You could have done no more.There were many of them, over a dozen.”
He heard the scout’s reply but thought ‘I am a Noldo, I should have done better. What will the others think of me? I failed them all.’
“Dead?” he managed to say, his voice cracking with emotion.Then he gestured for some water.
Belegos sadly shook his head. “Just a short while longer until Curumaito gets here. He will know what is safest. And I slew only two before the rest were squealing like piglets and running for their horses. Elves from the nearest houses were running up the hill, they had weapons. It was not just down to me, though a Hunter is always one of the best armed .” Belegos signaled to someone close by, and they came over to help move Barahirn.
His vision clouded again, as a fresh wave of pain wracked him. He imagined flames licking up his own body and setting his hair alight. He screamed, but the greatest pain of all was losing Aearlinn.
~ ~ ~
“Now don’t try and move. I need to finish examining you. Be still.” It was a voice he had not heard before, but it was a calmly reassuring voice with a Lindon accent.
“How is he doing? Can you help him?” That was Belegos speaking.
“Of course I can help him. Though I do not yet know how much.” Lindon accent spoke again. “I can save his life, yes, but he has so many injuries.” As Barahirn struggled to think, he realised there was something else behind the ‘Lindon’, something a little more like Lord Estarfin and Lady Danel?
And then he realised the pain had lessened enough for him to think.
“Thank you,” he spoke poorly through his bruised lips.
“Don’t speak yet. Your jaw is fractured.There is a lot of swelling now. Most of you is fractured if I am honest. But with rest, and the right medicine….you will recover.”
He felt a sense of relief, the pain would fade, but that was swiftly pursued by guilt. He would recover but Aearlinn was dead.
He was in the caverns again, chasing a fair haired figure clad in a pretty white dress. Had she not been wearing blue? He turned his head from side to side as if he would deny what had happened. She ran easily ahead, stopping at intervals so he could draw a little closer…then she turned a corner with a tapestry depicting the slaughter at Alqualonde, and she disappeared.
“Can you give him something to help him sleep properly, Curumaito? To hasten his healing? He is too restless.” Belegos asked.
“I’m a healer, not a Maia,” came the snappish answer. “I work with what is possible using the things we have at hand. If you want a blast of lighting and instant wholeness you better go find Radagast or Saruman or even the old Grey one, Gandalf.”
“I’m sorry,” the Hunter spoke more softly, but still with a sense of urgency. “I am more than angry this happened, and would like to bring down all those involved. But killing brigands will not aid Barahirn now. Only your skills, and perhaps the Powers intervention can do that. And alas, I am on a mission to Evendim. I stopped here by chance, and found this! Yet I must move on within two days. There are others whose lives depend on me.”
“He can’t be left alone for some time yet,” the healer replied as he set out an array of linen and tinctures. “I will stay for now, though it is always possible I may be called away to assist another.”
There was silence. Barahirn moved his right arm. There was no pain. So he reached out for Belegos’ hand in a gesture of thanks. The Hunter gripped his hand in return.
“Rest, young one. You will not be alone. There are neighbours offering to sit with you. I shall remain as long as I can.”
“Has word been sent to Imladris,” Curumaito asked Belegos. “Mithlond will respond swiftly with more patrols. Though not all Men act in this manner, indeed, the Breelanders are usually a well mannered crowd, there will always be some like these brigands.”
He lay still on the bed, wanting to say ‘Kill them all. Let Lord Estarfin deal with them,’ but he could not move his mouth enough to speak.
~ ~ ~
He was huddled up in the dark tapestry lined corridor, and someone was standing behind him.
“You let them kill her,” said Ceuro, for it was the Noldo smith who was with him.
“I did all I could,” he protested, talking in thought that not even a broken jaw could prevent.
“You let her down.”
“I know it.”
Then Ceuro’s arms were about his broken body. “As did I, brother. As did I.”
He opened his better eye. Through the slight crack of vision he saw Belegos sitting on a chair, the far side of the room. His head was in his hands. By the corner was the brown haired Curumaito, grinding something up in a mortar and pestle.
And beside him, his hand warm upon Barahirn’s uninjured shoulder, tears running down his face and falling on the broken ellon, stood Ceuro himself. “Forgive me, Barahirn,” he said through his sorrow. “I failed you both. I should have been here.”
