Refuge From Shadow by Erfan Starled

Refuge From Shadow

Part 1

Posted: March 5, 2010
Title: Refuge From Shadow
Author: Erfan Starled
Fandom: Tolkien
Genre: FCS
Characters: Erestor/Glorfindel, Elrond
Rating: R
Disclaimer: The elves belong to Prof. Tolkien. The story is written for entertainment and shared without profit.
Timeline: 1697 S.A.
Setting: Imladris
Warnings: Orcs, violence, fighting, deaths, swear words, sadness, hurt, romantic angst.
Beta: Jaiden
Sindarin for names: Malinornë
Orc input: Enide
Author’s Note: First written for Glorestor 2008 lj community.

Summary: A refugee from Ost-in-Edhil reaches Imladris in 1697 SA. War-time leads to painful choices and conflicts.

*****

Erestor could smell food cooking. The image of pie rose golden and crisp in his mind, generous pastry walls hiding a wealth of savour, welcoming him home with its simple message of family and a happy end to a working day. His heart contracted.

He dragged himself back to where he stood, bone tired and tense, among a group of two score ragged elves. The others were weary to the point of dropping in exhaustion, too tired to show anger or sorrow. Erestor cast careful looks around. Safety might take many guises and he wanted to see just where he had fetched up.

Sauron had swept through Eregion and razed a city, but this refuge, secluded in a pocket of the hills, was well-hidden from enemy eyes and well-guarded, if the out-posts they had passed were anything to judge by. Westwards, the river was out of sight but ran swift and loud. Trees and cliffs lined the fledgling settlement, snugged hard into the feet of the Hithaeglir, the rich, damp greenery a shock to his eye after the arid cruelty of the high mountains.

The few structures visible were either simple and small, or in the rudimentary stages of design, but the people here seemed organized: someone came round murmuring reassurance and welcome, offering apples and little balls of grain to those who had not eaten in too long, while they waited to be settled in.

How many other knots of survivors had their soldierly escort, or others like them, collected up and led here? He could see people resting in various corners formed by a hodge-podge of equipment, stores and weaponry. Untidiness spread all over this relatively flat stretch of ground, in the way of activity well underway. Among the recumbent elves, the injured seemed as numerous as the hale. Their own arrival was witnessed in near silence while anxious eyes inspected faces, surely looking for loved ones. Their hopes seemed unrequited as the watchers settled back to a rest that had more the feeling of vigil.

Erestor turned away from their disappointment. He envied them even that, for he would not be one of those looking down the road to see if his family followed.

Glad of distraction, he saw movement off to one side, a swirl of cloth more colourful than anyone else here displayed, with a pair of keen eyes above inspecting the arrivals. Under the red cloak, lined in blue, a sword was slung and a careless hand rested on the hilt. This was, presumably, Lord Elrond by the way others followed him and listened as he spoke. The fighting lord was beautiful but he had not arrived in time to save Ost-in-Edhil.

Erestor shivered, remembering the city’s overthrow.

Lord Elrond started moving among the new arrivals with a word here, a question there, gathering the returned scouts, rescuers of Erestor’s party, into his train. The conversation rapidly became a round of intelligence enquiries – how long had they been travelling, which way had they come in, any trouble along the way?

At his side, listening closely, paced a taller, blond elf, who could have been straight out of the stories about the Vanyar in Valmar. Even his nose looked like the wood-cut illustrations in the children’s books Erestor and his brothers had learned to read from, clustered around the farmhouse table.

Remembering those much-thumbed volumes, an image of fire and black smoke flashed in Erestor’s mind. Cold fingers clutched his stomach. The cherished books were gone. What of his brothers? Did they yet live? Sorrow and determination stiffened his resolve to get through the days ahead.

One of the scout escort of Erestor’s party was murmuring something to Elrond. Erestor found the Herald’s attention bent on him. The soldier gestured to Erestor and then up at the mountains. Erestor could almost feel the enquiring inspection boring into him.

He wanted only to be left alone. He had heard stories about this lord and his forebears. Whether they were true or not, that gaze was perceptive. He did not want his feelings divined, still less his thoughts. He forced himself to remember Mornel, dead now and abandoned to the crows – or worse. The mare had never minded the work. She had been happy tilling the ground with him, in return for sharing the sweet roots of the harvest and enjoying the grooming she loved at day’s end.

When he glanced up again, his sorrow a dull heaviness within him, the grey eyes remained considering but less sharply interested and then Elrond’s tall companion reclaimed his attention.

For a while, the newly arrived refugees were left to eat or stare about, drinking in turns from the spring water that rose nearby, channelled into a pool which cleanly flat stones kept mud-free. Gradually, they drifted to sit among stacks of stones and wood, propped to weather. Builders came and went between them to a piece of levelled ground, measuring and digging, as if it were normal to have drabbletail strangers looking on.

The chip-chip of someone working out of sight might be a carpenter, whittling pegs with the edge of an axe. Erestor found himself picturing something utterly different – an axe, embedded in flesh. This time he was not going to keep his stomach back from its protest, and he turned away to find privacy and spare others the stench of his bile.

Exhaustion and rage, tension and terror, familiar companions though they were, sat ill on an empty stomach. He contemplated the offering of food: his innards rejected the idea out of hand and anyway, he was too tired to eat.

One of the lord’s companions, the Vanya look-alike with the straight nose and wide-set eyes of deep blue was leading a group of elves directly toward him. Erestor had always thought of blue eyes as pale and lacking expression but there was nothing vapid about these.

The tall officer was neatly well-equipped, in an austere way. The dirt and rags of the newcomers were underscored by the inhabitants’ care over even the most worn of their apparel. There was a pride apparent in that display. Erestor shrugged. What did it matter? His concern was to keep his wits about him and settle in, which at the moment meant speaking to this rather managing elf currently asking questions. He seemed to be in charge of a party tasked with sorting the injured from the weak and the exhausted.

Erestor did not know those he arrived with very well. He had joined up with the little band of refugees escaping to the north when he found them going the same way as he was, looking for safety. He had told them he had been separated from friends and family during the rout of Ost-in-Edhil and with one look at his bruised face and tattered footwear, they had welcomed him among them. He wondered if it would be as easy to look this elf in the face and repeat his story.

"You had family? Have family?" The officer’s hand suggested the elves standing around, and more vaguely, the road south.

"Not here…" It was hard to answer. His eyes felt hard and his throat tight and dry. He swallowed his fear and distress. "I don’t yet know their fate."

The other nodded, refrained from the sigh he seemed to verge on and more briskly added, "You’ll be shown where you can rest. He glanced at the untouched apple in Erestor’s hand and the handful of dumplings laid aside. "Try and eat, when you can bear to. Food will help, after what you have been through.

Left unspoken was the obvious: not all would recover. Some would never fully engage with life again, not after what had passed on fields of battle and in streets of slaughter.

Warily co-operative with this unmistakeable air of authority, Erestor nodded. Left to himself, he breathed a little more freely, still taut with suppressed feelings. He was glad no-one else disturbed his thoughts, until another elf from Lord Elrond’s company addressed the little group.

"My name is Tathar. You are all very welcome. Your needs will be tended though none of us will hide the fact that there is much to be done when any of you feel ready.

"Anyone who is fit and willing I will invite to undergo some basic training in arms, enough to assist with local watch duties, nothing more than watch and warning. There is no obligation in honour or otherwise. None will be asked their reasons for saying yea or nay. Feel free to ask any questions if you might be interested. Any who prove apt for the work can volunteer later for the militia and duties further afield, should they wish to."

He spoke of a militia needed to scout for those fleeing from the enemy to assist them in and to watch for signs of the enemy. Even to travel-dusty newcomers this made sense, with the army needed in the field against Sauron. He ended with the assurance that the invitation applied only to those so inclined. There would be other opportunities to contribute, when they felt recovered.

Erestor listened intently, not missing the concealed compassion in Tathar’s cool delivery. Nor did he fail to notice the stiffening among some of the destitute elves, as if they took heart from the idea that they might have something of value to give.

Lord Elrond’s expression later, addressing them with his own personal welcome when they gathered for a meal in the evening, was elusive to read, reserved behind features of slightly alien cast, though it would be hard to say just what in the grey eyes or oval chin gave this hint of difference. Maybe it was the flatter plane of the cheek-bones or the angle of the long eyebrows.

Erestor shifted slightly over his mess of greens to avoid being seen to stare and continued to look his fill.

*****

Names

Tathar: Willow-tree
Mornel: dark star

*****

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