First Age of Middle Earth – 506
Sen pân gwesta: gurth hon annatham nan i-vent aur, naeg tenna i-vent i-amar.
He could feel his mother's eyes on him as he hurried to ready himself.
Ever more frequent, since the message came that sent his father and others of the older warriors out upon long hours of patrol in the woodlands of Neldoreth, Nivrim and Region; even more often since Dior had answered the missive with rejection, did he feel her hovering in his doorway.
Slowly he and turned to her, holding out his hand.
He said softly, "When will you tell me what troubles you?"
She came to him then, slipping her hand onto his arm, and holding tightly as she looked up at him, and shook her head.
"I have no need to speak of it, Thranduil," she answered, "for it is already upon us, and soon we will be swept in its tide toward all that will come after."
"More riddles, Naneth?" he sighed softly. "Ada is right. You have spent too much time in worry."
"And yet your Adar is arrayed for war," she answered, "And you also, Ionen."
He lifted her hand from his arm, holding her trembling fingers in his hand, and gesturing toward the hallway, beyond his rooms, that led out from Menegroth, said, "Oath, curse or otherwise, Naneth, these are our people and I cannot, I will not allow them to come to harm undefended. There are children here."
"You are barely more than a child yourself," she said. "Battle now, and you will spend your life in conflict and war. Will you not spare yourself?"
He shook his head.
"I will spare those who cannot save themselves. Naneth, you know this is right." He pushed her gently toward the door, feeling the chill of foresight surrounding her words, and his own. "You must go to safety, and I must face this oncoming darkness."
"If we part now, I will never see you again," she said. "Thranduil, please!"
"No," he said firmly. "You must forgive me, but it is my duty." Briefly he embraced her, slipping out of her arms when he thought she would have tried to hold him back. "Find safety, and help the others if you can."
Then with no further word, he snatched sword from sheath, and hurried down the winding stone stair, and into a tide of war from which he and his kin had, for so long, been protected.
** ** **
For the second time in less than the passing of even half a decade, the forests and pathways of Doriath ran with the blood of Elves. The steps underfoot were slick, and the iron scent filled his every breath, leaving him weakened with nausea, his eyes hot and sore from the smoke of the burning, and unshed tears for the loss so many lives.
At the scuff of a foot at his back he spun, tired arms aching with the effort of raising twin blades in defence against the descending Elven steel, growling denial; every sensibility railing in silent, horrified protest at crossing blades with another Elf.
"This need not be!" he ground out, pushing against the other's blades as he locked his own against them, but even then, he knew his words, his persuasive wisdom came too late to reach the other, as he saw the darkness of hatred in his eyes, as glancing down he caught sight of the red-black stain of blood beneath his feet.
Heaving hard to force the other back far enough to free his steel to move, and with the cries of the hurt and dying around him; the cries of children slain without mercy, Thranduil pushed away the righteous reservations of his youth, and embraced the cold of the truth. The only defence left to Doriath was to attack, to fight.
No time for fatigue, no time for thought, he focussed inward, became one with the play of his muscles, the circle of his blades, the thrust and parry; pattern of the deadly dance. Steel rang against steel, and blue sparks flew in the dimness of the caverns through which the battles took him. Unfailing and unyielding he fought off all he came against until the blood of his kin stained his innocence with a ghostly echo of an older time, but all before him found their end as he defended – with every breath he took – those who would have otherwise met a merciless end.
Fierce and terrible the axe that felled the mighty kingdom of Doriath. Deep into the night, they fought, and Thranduil among them. Deep into the dark and cold until the battle came at last to the great hall, and small pockets – knots of fearsome warriors caught in the ferocity of their battle – were all that was left of the two great hosts.
Barely ahead of a trio of deadly kinsman that stalked him, Thranduil came. The flickering light of torches a sombre sheen turned crimson where it once had flickered bright and silver in the reflected splendour of the Halls of Menegroth.
The burden of such a horrible truth weighted his heart sorely, but as he came ahead of the three, blades raised and ready, he caught then the sight that first cracked his resolve: lying broken upon his side, Dior Eluchîl, his fair and beautiful light shattered; his expression, even in death, one of despair. His hand lay outstretched toward another, softer hand, for nearby him lay Nimloth, his queen, her pale gown awash with her life's blood from the wound so visible across her back. She had been cut down from behind, and Dior come too late to save her.
Despair and anger warred in Thranduil as he turned to face his pursuers, turning their blades aside on the edges of his own even as they came at him, two of them moving past the third they flanked, and he turning his sword left handed about his one remaining hand, his wild, auburn hair a firestorm around his head.
"Why!" Thranduil hissed, recognising at once the eldest of the Sons of Fëanor. "They were not your enemy!"
Kinsmen fairly flew past Thranduil, taking Maedhros' companions into battles of their own as the Noldor answered his question with the cruel thrust of his blade.
"He made himself so," Maedhros said as his heavy blade sliced toward Thranduil's head with such force that the younger Elf knew he could not hope to parry it. "When he refused our summons."
Instead Thranduil spun aside, both his blades apart, one high one low, in spinning striking Maedhros armour on the side, sending shimmering sparks into the dim hall.
"He, perhaps," Thranduil countered, pressing the advantage of his sudden move, and advancing on the Noldorin Prince, twin swords flashing in the torchlight. "Bereth tín u-neithol!"
Bitterly his blows fell, and the time for parlay was long passed, the sands of its hourglass running with the royal blood across the flagstones at his feet. His assay was met, parried, just as he turned aside the incoming repost, but he was tiring and with each successive parry grew later and almost too late, and each strike he made fell weaker, until growling, Maedhros leaped ahead, swinging his blade wildly in advance, and Thranduil felt the sting of hot Elven steel shear the plate at his chest.
Hissing in pain, he barely thought to raise both blades, overhead and crossed to catch Maedhros' following, descending stroke, and the three blades locked, Thranduil's arms straining as he fought to hold back the older Elf's attack.
"He killed my brothers," Maedhros growled.
"They invited death," Thranduil spat, "as have you all, but you murdered his beloved light, perhaps not by your own hand but—"
"Thranduil!"
An urgent, almost terrified cry of his name cut off his bitter accusation, and Thranduil risked a glance behind. All remaining breath went out from him, though not the fight, nor the strength of his arms, which in the agony of discovery redoubled.
In the far entrance to the Great Hall of Menegroth stood Oropher. His father was bloodied, his cloak and armour in tatters, advancing before all that was left of his comrades at arms... but in his arms he cradled the limp and broken form of Thranduil's mother.
"Mûl o Morgoth!"
Heat and light exploded in Thranduil at the realisation of his mother's faltering life, and renewed strength and vigour flowed into his limbs, as if spring was newly come and not the dead of winter as it felt in his heart. Pushing hard, he sent Maedhros' blade all but flying away, following the Elf Prince as he gave ground, a cold light burning in his eyes as blow upon blow fell upon the elder's faltering guard. As if the very heart of Doriath had entered him and invigorated his speed and skill, Thranduil struck until, catching the guard of Maedhros' blade with the tip of his offhand sword, he sent the steel away, and pressed the tip of his other against the Norldorin Elf's throat.
"On your knees," he snarled, bringing the offhand blade to join the first as – clearly knowing he was beaten – and his death was at hand, Maedhros slowly sank to the flagstones, eyes locked with Thranduil's burning orbs. Thranduil crossed his blades at the Maedhros' throat. "Join your brothers in—"
"Ionen, no!"
It was not Oropher's cry that stilled his hand, but the flickering light he thought he saw at by his left hand, a softness in the dark... and words came to him, whispering as if upon an unfelt breeze.
Let him be spared... The children... ... Find them...
He turned his head to peer through the soft light to his father and the Elves with him.
"Where are the children?" he demanded, uncaring of who answered, keeping Maedhros in place upon his knees. "Where are Eluréd and Elurín...? Elwing?"
"The twins were taken by Celegorm's servants," Oropher answered, "Where their sister is..."
He shook his head, and Thranduil could only assume that she also was taken. He slowly turned his gaze back to Maedhros, fresh anger burning upon the bed of coals already inside of him, listening to the soft, internal whisper of a truth he did not understand how he knew... The Silmaril is no longer here... even as Maedhros offered desperate but empty assurances.
"We do not wage war upon the innocent."
Leaning down, his voice soft and full of menace, putting pressure on the blades that held the Nordorin Prince at his mercy, Thranduil challenged, "Do you not?"
He did not expect an answer, letting the dead and dying in the Hall speak to the answer as – keeping one blade at Maedhros' throat – he grasped the Elf's braided hair and turned his gaze to look upon the slain queen of Doriath.
"Prove it," Thranduil hissed. "Man anira han u-hemp hi!"
He straightened, forcing Maedhros' head back on the edge of his blade, and uncaring that he addressed an elder, an Elf more noble than he; with an arrogance that belied his years and status, ordered, "Find your brother's servant, return the children – if you wish to live."
Maedhros nodded carefully, his eyes never leaving Thranduil's, and only when Thranduil was certain that his answer was genuine did he remove the blade, sheath it, and instruct the others of his kin, "Take him, and cast him into the forest to begin his search."
The Elves looked to his father, now the Elf of greatest rank within the Halls of Menegroth, and Thranduil saw his father nod his ascent. Only then did they move to follow his command.
He did not care.
As they dragged the Noldorin prince from the Great Hall, Thranduil turned and joined his father as Oropher knelt with his mother still in his arms, and Thranduil wept as the mantle of authority fell from about him and he felt the truth of his mother's passing.
__________________________
Naneth – mother
Ada/Adar – dad/father
Ionen – my son
Bereth tín u-neithol – his queen was innocent
Mûl o Morgoth – Literal translation is Servant of Morgoth, however, since there are no cuss-invectives in Elvish, you can assume this to be the worst insult an Elf could utter
Man anira han u-hemp hi – that which you seek is not here
The quotation at the head of the chapter is the Sindarin form of a line of the Oath of Feanor, and means: This we all swear: death him we will give ere the Day's End, agony till the World's End.