Legendarium [ Tolkien One-Shots ]

Broken Crown

He stood alone. Blood from a cut above his eye poured down his face, staining his pale skin crimson. His dark hair, flowing free except for two small braids with golden ribbons, flashed left and right as he glanced from side to side. His guardsman lay dead about him, crushed into the earth like ants beneath a boot. Fingon grimaced.

For before him stood his great foe, the slayer of Fëanor, the Lord of the Balrogs. Gothmog they named him, their captain and leader upon the battlefield. The screeches and shrieks of approaching orcs, the screams of dying Eldar and Edain, all accompanied the encroaching roar of Gothmog’s fiery form. The massive iron axe he wielded dripped with the blood of Fingon’s own men, and kindled a roaring anger in his heart.

With a great cry, he ran forward, dodging the first swing of the balrog’s axe with ease. As he slashed at Gothmog’s leg, he shied back from the flames. But still he managed to land a blow. The balrog reacted quickly, and when axe and sword met, sparks flew. Fingon’s weapon, shining blue in the battlefield, was as its own flame.

Fingon shuddered beneath the blow. Even his strength, counted great even among the Eldar, wavered under the pounding force of the leader of the Valaraukar, the fallen Maiar. The high king backed away for a moment, adjusting his sword in his hands. Blue cape, torn and tattered, bearing the sigil of his great house, dragged in the bloodied earth. He narrowed his eyes and began his attack again.

This time Fingon parried the axe swing with two sharp blows to the enemy weapon. He dove to the right of the axe, running close and slicing the balrog’s left arm. A mighty call went up, one of agony and fury. A smile played ever so slightly at the corner of the Noldorin king’s mouth.

He darted away again. This time he heard footsteps behind him. But Fingon had no time to prepare himself for what was to come, as he dodged from another swing of Gothmog’s axe. As he stopped to regain his footing, a cruel whip of tiny spikes wrapped itself around his midsection. He screamed in pain and anger as his sword fell and his arms became bound to his body. Through some dark power, the spikes cut through Fingon’s shining armor and ripped his midsection in a hundred different places.

He watched in horror as Gothmog approached. He could not turn to see the attacker behind him, but based on the heat radiating around them, he knew it to be another of the Valaraukar. His thoughts went first to his wife. She lived. She had to keep living. For their son, beloved Gil-Galad, she had to survive.

He heard then shouts of anger to his right. Glancing away from Gothmog, the smiling man-beast taking time to nurse his wound a moment, he frowned and shook his head. For his beloved brother, Turgon, made his way to him. Fingon screamed at him to stop.

“Flee!” He shouted as loud as he could, his strength failing as he bled from his middle. “Go! Now!”

Turgon watched his brother in horror, a million different expressions crossing Fingon’s face: terror, anger, agony, despair, melancholy. Turgon mirrored his brother. When finally the great axe of Gothmog, king slayer, clove Fingon’s helm in two, he found it difficult to stand.

“Finno!” He screamed in despair as he watched the blood pour from his older brother’s body. “No!”

Gothmog laughed a deep, vicious laugh that caused all to feel chilled to the bone who heard it. “Long live the High King of the Noldor!”

The Lord of the balrogs took the axe and set it in the ground. As he and the others of his kind converged, Turgon did not shy away. He saw what they did. He saw them stomp his brother’s broken body into the ground, saw them tread blood upon the standard of the House of Fingon.

“Utúlie’n aurë!”

Fingon had shouted it in joy but a few hours before. Day has come again. Turgon bitterly swung his sword as he ordered the retreat of his army. The day had come, and the day had gone. There would be no victory today, nor any day.

“Tears unnumbered ye shall shed.”

The curse of Mandos truly had come to fruition as it echoed in his mind. Turgon fought and fought, severing heads and disemboweling his enemies. Rage filled his every move, a rage he had not felt since the Dagor Bragollach. Hatred for the orcs, hatred for his half cousins, but most of all hatred for Morgoth. He did not know if Maedhros still lived, but Turgon decided then and there that if they met again, he would put aside the wrath against the House of Fëanor and together they would conquer the conqueror.

He knew now what his father had felt that day so many years before, after riding alone to the Gates of Angband and facing Morgoth in single combat. He no longer wished his father had not done it.

Turgon only wished it had been him.