Chapter Text
There is smoke in the air.
Celegorm reins in his mare and watches the thick clouds curl up into the sky. “Cedhriel,” he says over his shoulder.
Another horse pulls up beside his, and Cedhriel rises up in her stirrups, one hand shielding her eyes as the other rests on the hunting knife at her hip. “Days old,” she says eventually. “Another one of those semi-nomadic settlements we’ve come across before. Some structures are standing still, but I can’t see open flames.” She hesitates, her lips thinning. “No movement of people.”
“Is it him?” Amras asks as he joins them on the low rise. He stands up in his stirrups to look as well, and Celegorm can see him tracing the disturbances through the grasses that spread out endlessly across these plains, the vague shadows of mountains they’ve never seen before only barely visible in the haze of the horizon. “We lost his trail yesterday, but he was heading in this direction.”
They've learned, over the years spent in the wilds, just what the trail left by a wounded Vala looks like. Sometimes, if they're lucky, they come across his own tracks, great furrows gouged in the earth or trails scorched through a forest. But most of the time, they trace what he left behind. Like calls to like, and where he passes, all manner of things are drawn out of hiding.
“We have to assume it is,” Celegorm replies. His hand finds the hilt of his hunting knife at his hip. “He always brings out anything foul from the dark."
He touches his mare’s flanks with his heels, and she obediently dips her head and starts moving. His hunters follow behind him, the easy rolling pace of their horses eating up the ground beneath them until the scent of smoke begins to hang thick in the air. Cedhriel coughs, pulling up the thin scarf around her neck to cover her nose and mouth, and Celegorm catches Rochiel riding up beside her out of the corner of his eye.
The settlement is still smouldering when they arrive. Tents once made out of hides and pelts are now collapsed in on themselves, only the bare bones remaining as the rest crumbles to black ash and soot that immediately chokes the air. They’ve seen a few of these camps before across these plains, on their endless hunt tracking Morgoth across the earth, and Celegorm instinctively picks out what he can recognise.
The crumbled mass at the centre, a flame or two still trying to lick at the blackened wood, would have been the main tent that people gathered in at night. Soot and ash has blown across the paths between tents, softening the sound of the horses until everything is muffled, but Celegorm can still see where the individual tents would have been placed, the posts driven into the ground for the horses’ pens little more than smoking husks.
His mare snorts, and abruptly stops. She shies away, Amras’ horse following suit a moment later, and Celegorm wrestles with the reins as plumes of ash are thrown up around them until the air is saturated with grey and they can hardly breathe. His mare is panicking, leaping back and quivering with fright beneath him, and it takes all of Celegorm’s control to turn her and settle her down until she’s standing absolutely still, her entire body tense beneath him as the ash slowly starts to settle.
“What was that?” Amras asks as he runs a hand down his horse’s neck in an attempt to calm him. “What’s there?”
Celegorm slips down from his mare, handing the reins to Amras, and pulls out the long knife at his belt. “Wait here.”
“Tyelko-”
“ Wait .”
Celegorm pulls up the scarf around his nose and mouth, tightens his grip on his knife, and stalks forwards into the gloom. The ash coats everything, acrid on his tongue, and the whole world around is muffled until he can barely hear the rest of his hunters throughout the shell of the camp.
His foot hits something, buried in the ash and the dirt. Celegorm crouches down, brushing the ash away.
A little wooden horse rolls a few scant inches across the dirt before one of the charred wheels cracks and falls into pieces. The toy topples over, a small plume of ash rising around it.
Celegorm looks up, and that’s when he sees the first of the corpses.
They must have been trapped in their tent when the flames were set. None of them have made it outside the ring of black and charred beams that once made up the supports of their home. Already the ash is beginning to cover them.
Celegorm dips his head, and breathes shallow breaths through the thin cloth until he can loosen his hand from its grip around his knife. He gets back up to his feet.
There’s nothing they can do here.
The others bring more reports of corpses across the camp, faces drawn and horses shying at almost every step. Amras is silent at Celegorm’s side, staring down at the soot coating his gloves as Celegorm shakes the ash out of his hair. “We keep moving.”
“My lord-”
“I’m not your lord anymore,” he snaps at Rindaer. “You haven’t been my captain for a decade.”
Rindaer gives him a look that makes it clear what they think of that, but Celegorm looks away before it can take hold. “There’s nothing we can do here. Does anyone have a trail?”
“I do,” Riston says, glancing at his two siblings beside him. “Heading northeast. Are we pursuing?”
Celegorm gathers his reins up in one hand. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Let’s move out.”
They ride away, across these endless plains, and though his mare is just as eager beneath him to run, Celegorm feels something deep in his chest getting heavier and heavier with every league. He touches the reins, and his mare eases her pace beneath him.
Amras looks over to him, his gaze heavy. “Tyelko?”
He’d had a little wooden horse when he was a child. He’d dragged it around with him endlessly, pretending the gardens of their house in Tirion was a great wilderness to explore, until the wheels wobbled and then came off entirely. He remembers crying inconsolably at its death, until his father had crafted him a metal one in his forges that would last for longer. That one had been handed down, all the way to the twins, and then became Huan's favoured chew for a while until it finally died.
“Tyelko!”
Celegorm realises that he’s reined his horse in and stopped her entirely. He looks back over his shoulder, to the wreckage no longer visible on these endless plains. The others pull their horses up, watching him carefully. Amras turns his horse back around, urging him back towards Celegorm’s side. “Brother?” he asks. “What is it?”
Celegorm’s hand tightens around the reins. “Fuck this,” he says. “We’re going back. We’ve got to go back.”
0-o-0-o-0
To his utter shame, he doesn’t realise the obvious until it’s almost too late.
Between the thirteen of them, it only takes a few hours to dig graves and drag all the bodies that they can find into them. They work until their hands are black with soot and their stomachs twisting, but they keep going, silently moving around each other as they search for more bodies or somewhere clear enough to dig another grave, or for any markers that they can leave behind.
There’s a whistle from one side of the camp, and Celegorm straightens to see Brenneth signalling to him. A banner , she signs to him as he approaches, stepping over the ruins of the tents that are slowly cooling. She holds out a half-charred bolt of cloth to him. If we find another camp, they might recognise it.
“Good find,” Celegorm murmurs, looking it over. He doesn’t recognise the patterns, but then they’ve only met a handful of these nomadic groups so far. “Pack it with the horses. If we find another group, we’ll hand it over.”
Brenneth nods, carefully folding the cloth up and slipping it beneath her belt. She runs her hand through her short hair, the soot smearing across her brow and catching on one of the scars running down from her temple, a remainder from her time in Angband. I’m nearly done here.
“I think we can leave soon enough,” Celegorm says. He turns and looks out across the ruins, breathing shallowly against the ash stirred up and in the air. “I just...we had to come back. We couldn’t just leave them here in the open.”
Brenneth taps his shoulder. I know , she just signs when Celegorm turns back to look at her. We did right.
They work in silence, until there’s no more work to be done, and then they move on. Celegorm lets every breath of fresh air refill his lungs and blow away the ash that seems to have clung to him.
They've seen it before. They've been hunting for near a decade now, through mountains and forests and plains doggedly following his trail, and they've seen Morgoth's cruelty before. They found Brenneth and her companion wandering the wilds in a daze only two years ago, shackles still on their wrists. It still surprises him, on days like this, that Brenneth chose to stay with them, to join the hunt for a captor that took decades of her life from her instead of returning to Doriath or going anywhere else where there is civilisation.
Celegorm breathes out, and tries not to follow those thoughts. He twists his mare's mane between his fingers, the coarse hair rubbing at his hands, and he looks for the trail ahead.
Sometimes he thinks he can even feel it, the lingering darkness that nobody can see, tracing back and forth across the endless earth. Sometimes he thinks that if he just stopped, and listened, he would know which way to go.
He tries not to entertain those thoughts too often.
They ride into the night in an attempt to make up lost time, only stopping when it gets so dark that it’s dangerous for the horses to keep riding over unfamiliar ground and they’re at risk of losing the trail. Riston’s youngest brother Telion sets to untacking and brushing down the horses, surrounded by all thirteen of them as they vie for his affections. Some of the others are skinning the deer that Pelengil had shot down earlier as they rode, and lighting a small fire in amongst the grasses that are tall enough to almost swallow them where they sit.
Celegorm notices that Amras is quiet, carefully brushing the ash off his clothes as they sit and eat, but he doesn’t think much of it, distracted by the smell of roasting deer and the stars overhead, his fingers burning as he tears strips of meat from bone. Linnrien takes out her flute and plays a wandering tune that has her brothers rolling their eyes, but the others humming along.
Celegorm makes himself a bed out of flattened grasses and furs, and goes to sleep.
He wakes up abruptly, his breath rasping in his throat and his heartbeat thundering in his ears.
Celegorm sits up, one hand going to the hilt of his knife. The horses are grazing quietly nearby, three of them lying down asleep. There are no sounds in the air that would herald an ambush or attack, no smell of smoke beyond that of the fire, now banked to mere embers. The others are asleep, Rochiel and Cedhriel curled up around each other, the three siblings sprawled out on the other side of the fire. Celegorm can see the others, counting them one by one until his pounding heart begins to settle.
He’s about to lie back down when he hears a soft noise.
Wrapped in his furs on the other side of the fire, Amras twists in his sleep. He mutters something under his breath, too low for Celegorm to hear, and shifts restlessly again. Celegorm waits for a moment or two, but it seems to only get worse as a whimper slips through Amras’ teeth.
The slight breeze blows a thin thread of smoke across to Celegorm, and he can suddenly see boats ablaze on the shore.
“Oh, fuck ,” he breathes. “How the fuck did I not see this?”
He casts around for something to throw at Amras, but before he can find a convenient pebble or stick, Raenith stirs and sits up. "Amras?" she asks, her voice groggy with sleep. "Oh, shit, Amras." She reaches out for him with the stump of her wrist.
"No, wait-"
Celegorm is too late. Raenith prods Amras hard in the shoulder with her stump, and Amras sits bolt upright, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. "Pityo!"
Celegorm is already on his feet. "Telvo, Telvo it's okay," he says frantically as he hurries towards him. He misjudges his step and kicks at the embers of the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. Amras' gaze locks onto the bright orange of the coals, and his breath rasps in his throat so loudly that Celegorm can hear it.
"Telvo-"
Amras scrabbles to his feet and tries to bolt.
Celegorm flings himself after him. "Don't you- no you fucking don't!" he gets out as he launches himself at Amras' back. "Telvo, don't you fucking dare!"
He snags Amras' legs and brings them both down to the ground. Amras kicks out blindly, catching Celegorm's chin as he scrabbles to get hold of him. The taste of blood fills his mouth as Celegorm crawls up and pins Amras down into the grass. "Telvo!"
"Let me go!" Amras is lashing out blindly, writhing beneath him until Celegorm can barely keep him down. "Let me go, let me- Pityo! He's burning, can't you hear him, he's- Pityo! Pityo!"
Celegorm grits his teeth and wrestles one arm down into the grass before Amras can try and scratch his eyes out. "Telvo, it's me, it's Tyelko. You're safe. You're safe here. Come on now, wake up. You're safe!"
"You bastard !" Amras howls. He tears his arm free and punches Celegorm in the head, sending him sprawling. Amras is already scrambling to his feet as Celegorm rolls over, head pounding, and manages to snag Amras' ankle as he turns once again to flee, pulling him back down to the ground.
"Bloody buggering fuck," he yelps as Amras kicks out at him. "You're safe, Telvo, you're safe," he tries again, but Amras either can't hear him or doesn't care as he desperately fights back against Celegorm's hold. Celegorm can hear others stirring, their voices as they get up, but he can't lose focus even for a moment as Amras throws another wild punch and he only just manages to dodge.
"Let me go, let me fucking go!" Amras snarls. "He's dying, I've got to get him, I can't leave him there, I-"
"He's dead!" Celegorm's voice cracks through the night air. "Telvo, he's dead already! He's dead and gone and it's been like this for centuries, you know this. Fucking come back from wherever you've gone, you bastard, because Pityo is dead and gone and he's not fucking coming back!"
Amras abruptly stills beneath him. A shudder wracks his frame, and then another. "You're a right bastard, you know," he says into the grass, his voice tight. "Fuck you."
"I know," Celegorm says. He eases up slightly and Amras flips over, staring up at him in the starlight from the clear sky above. "Back with it?"
Amras punches him in the face. The angle is wrong and there's not enough force behind it, but it's still enough to make Celegorm topple over, grunting in surprise. "Fuck you," he spits, rolling over and grabbing Celegorm by the neck of his shirt to shake him. "Fuck you, it's your fault! It's your fault he's dead and gone, you set those fucking ships on fire and don't you dare try and pretend otherwise, it's you and Atar and everyone else, they all killed him, they killed him."
He's sobbing now, throwing ineffectual punches at Celegorm that barely sting. Celegorm reaches up and grabs Amras, pulling him in close against his chest. "I know," he says, wrapping his arms around him and pinning him in place, head tucked beneath his chin. "I know."
Amras sobs into his chest, his hands coming up to clutch at Celegorm's shirt. "You bastard ," he spits into the spaces between them. "It didn't have to go like this. It didn't have to happen like this."
"Shh, Telvo," Celegorm murmurs. "Shh, now. I know. I know."
He looks up to see the others hovering nearby, faces twisted in sympathy or confusion or regret. "It's fine," he says to them, just wrapping his arms around Amras more securely. "It's all fine."
Amras sobs into his chest, tangled up in Celegorm’s grip. “Sure,” Rindaer says slowly. They set their hunting knife back down. “Losgar?”
Celegorm doesn’t need to answer that. They all heard Amras yelling Amrod’s name.
Riston, Linnrien and Telion are all sat huddled together, and Celegorm abruptly remembers them there on the shores, watching the first ships begin to catch. They seem so young, in those memories, the three siblings barely old enough to carry the spears in their hands.
Rochiel shakes her head. "After that camp...I'm not surprised."
Amras shudders in his arms, just once, and then pulls back from Celegorm's grip. His eyes are red, and he wipes haphazardly at them with the back of his hand. "Sorry for waking you all."
"Don't be ridiculous," Celegorm mutters, slinging an arm around his shoulders and pulling him in close. "Everyone, go back to sleep."
Amras shakes his head, and pulls away again. "No, it’s fine, I’ll just go off for a walk or something. I won't go far," he mutters as he gets to his feet. "I'll be back before dawn."
Celegorm wants to grab hold of him and pull him back down to the ground, put an arm around him and hold on tightly enough that neither of them can hear the sound of crackling wood. But his hands remain lax in his lap, and Amras soon disappears into the darkness.
There's silence, only broken by the sound of the horses grazing nearby. Lagor glances after Amras, as if to go after his once lord, but doesn't move from his spot next to Lachon. He reaches over and stills Lachon's hands as he rubs at his burn scars. They were dealt by Glaurung during the Galad Lain, and not at Losgar, but they're burns all the same.
Only one person was burned at Losgar, as far as Celegorm can remember.
There's a low whistle to get his attention, and when he looks over Brenneth is staring back at him. What was Losgar? she asks, spelling out the name with the alphabet they'd devised.
"Losgar?" Celegorm asks. "It's...it was-"
He can smell salt on the breeze.
There's a rustle of grass, and then a solid warmth at his side as Rindaer sits down beside him. "Shove off," Celegorm mutters, trying not to lean into him. "I'm fine."
"Wasn't just Amras’ brother," Rindaer says quietly. "Want me to explain?"
Brenneth is frowning. Was it bad?
Celegorm chokes on his breath, and Rindaer slaps him hard on the back. "Bad?" he croaks. "Yeah, it was...it was bad." He looks across the fire at Rochiel and Cedhriel, their hands entwined. "You explain. You'll tell it right."
Rochiel looks over at Cedhriel. "We weren't there," she says quietly. They had always served Fingolfin, and Fingon after him, and they had been on the far side of the shores. "We only know it as it was told to us."
Celegorm shrugs sharply. “You won’t soften the blows.”
There’s a thud on the other side of him, and Telion sits down next to him until Celegorm is pressed between two of his people, solid warmths against each side. Rochiel is frowning, but at Brenneth’s gesture she sighs, and nods. “So after Alqualondë, which-” She looks over at Celegorm, and something on his face makes her grimace and shake her head. “Which we won’t get into now, but suffice it to say that after we took those boats and sailed them up the coast, Fëanor took his host across the sea first. He said he would send the boats back for us. Instead, we saw fire on the horizon.”
Celegorm can hear his father’s voice raised above the crowds. The wood catches so easily.
Cedhriel wraps her arm around Rochiel’s shoulders and pulls her in close. “You know how Celegorm and Amras have four other brothers?” Rochiel asks. “Maedhros, Maglor, Caranthir, Curufin.” Brenneth nods, and Rochiel grimaces. “Well, there used to be one more. Amrod.”
“Pityafinwë,” Celegorm says quietly. “His name was Pityafinwë. Together, him and Amras were called Ambarussa.” He can feel his lips twisting in a grimace. “We didn’t even know Sindarin when he died.”
“Fëanor didn’t send the boats back,” Rochiel says, her voice hardening. “He burned them instead. I don’t know why, only that we kept going anyway and made it here over the Helcaraxë. But Pityo was asleep in one of the boats, and nobody knew.”
Brenneth chokes on her breath. Lachon rubs at his hands again, and then gets up and walks away into the darkness. “I’ll go after him,” Lagor says quietly. “Check on Amras as well.”
Did he mean to? Brenneth signs. Your father.
Celegorm breathes out slowly. “Don’t know. Maybe. He was mad with grief at the end. Maybe it had already started then.”
His voice sounds strangely hollow to his ears. Rindaer digs his fingers into his shoulder, the sharp pain making him jolt. “I’m fine,” he mutters.
“He was your brother too,” Rindaer just says again. “You fucking idiot.”
Celegorm tries to breathe through the skittering beneath his skin. Telion leans his head against his shoulder. “None of us knew,” he says quietly to Brenneth, watching wide-eyed from the other side of the embers of the fire. “None of us, when we put those torches to those boats, knew he was there. If we had…" He knocks his head against Celegorm's shoulder. "Well, your father was a force unlike any other. But I don’t think I would have put that torch to the wood.”
“I did,” Celegorm mutters. “We all did, other than Maedhros. Did anything and everything my father asked of us. Even after Pityo died. Even when he was dying we swore that fucking Oath again when he asked it of us.”
“Tyelko.” Rindaer grips his shoulder tight. “Tyelko, stop.”
Celegorm falls silent. Exhaustion suddenly seems to be dragging him down, pulling him down into the crushed grasses beneath him. “Right,” he says, not really sure why. “That’s what happened, anyway.”
Linnrien starts humming. Celegorm recognises the tune.
There have been so many laments, written over the centuries. Some are common knowledge, shared out freely between anyone who is willing to listen. Some are personal, intended to stay within families and not to leave the borders that they themselves define.
Some barely get sung at all.
He doesn’t know who amongst his father’s people wrote the lament for Losgar, for Amrod and all those they doomed to die on the ice. Maglor certainly didn’t. But it had made its way through the Fëanorian camps regardless, night by slow night until almost everyone knew it, even if Celegorm can never remember where it is he learnt the tune.