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Maglor’s first reaction to hearing his brother’s plans for the defense of Beleriand was, No. Absolutely not.
He didn’t say that, of course. He would have said it without question to Maitimo-his-brother, but Maedhros-heir-of-their-father was another matter entirely.
There was a fell fire in his eyes now that would have rivaled Feanor’s, and it was backed by a will of iron.
Brittle iron, possibly, but iron nonetheless.
That brittleness was exactly why he wanted to put his foot down and say, No. You shouldn’t be alone. Not now.
But he couldn’t find a way to say it that wouldn’t sound like an accusation of weakness, and it terrified him to think what lengths Maedhros might drive himself to in order to prove his strength if he thought it was in any doubt. His brother was already pushing himself too far, too fast, and while Maglor couldn’t argue with the results for their people as a whole, he was deeply concerned about what would happen if it finally proved to be too much.
It was just the seven of them in Maedhros’s command tent right then. If there was going to be an objection raised, this was the time.
But his tongue was failing him.
He shot a desperate glance at Celegorm, but his brother just gave a minute, grim shake of his head.
Yes, Maglor was right to be concerned.
No, Celegorm didn’t have any ideas what to do about it.
“Problem?”
Maedhros’s voice was deceptively mild, but it cut through the stifling air of the tent like a whip crack.
Celegorm jumped guiltily.
Maglor’s tongue finally recovered its wits, and he jumped into the breach. Maedhros was already angry enough at him; there was no need to drag the others into it. “Yes,” he said. “How exactly do you expect me to hold a gap in the mountains of this size without something slipping through?”
It was a reasonable question. Maglor would fight any orcs he could find, but with wide open plains of that size, he would be hard pressed to stretch his forces thin enough to find them in the first place.
“I have every faith in you,” Maedhros said.
And that, as they both knew, was a hideously blatant lie.
They hadn’t talked about it, was the thing. As far as Maedhros seemed to be concerned, time had stopped when he was captured and restarted when he was free, and everything in between wasn’t worth talking about unless it was militarily relevant.
The reasons he hadn’t been rescued until Fingon showed up were not, apparently, militarily relevant.
We sent war parties after you three times, Maglor wanted to say. We never even got close to Thangorodrim, things were different in the dark, his creatures were stronger. I had to stop them from trying again, or they would have gotten themselves killed trying.
Celegorm had been in every party. The rest of his brothers had each been in at least two.
Maglor had not gone because the others had convinced him that the Noldor could not lose another king. Not so soon.
Or he had allowed them to convince him. Good sense or cowardice or both or neither or -
It didn’t matter. He never said a word of it to Maedhros because it all came down to excuses in the end: This is the arithmetic we used to decide it wasn’t worth it to try again.
Even if they thought he was dead, even if they’d thought it was impossible, even if they’d tried - None of that was worth very much in the end, and he knew it. Maedhros would have done better in his place. Fingon had done better in his place.
So the reasons were there if Maedhros wanted them, but since he didn’t, Maglor had no business spewing them out in a plea for forgiveness. This wasn’t about him and his pathetic need to know just how deep the fury he thought he glimpsed in his brother’s eyes ran. This was about Maedhros and the fact that whether his brother admitted it or not, he needed to heal.
So he kept his mouth shut about that and about most things except in the very dead of night when Maedhros would wake up gasping and stare shuddering up at the roof of the tent until Maglor’s songs managed to soothe him back to sleep.
They never talked about that either, but Maglor managed to get one of his apprentices assigned to Maedhros’s people.
Even if Maedhros was tired of accepting his help, maybe this way he could still get some sleep.
When Morgoth attacked, he would attack through the Gap. Maglor was as certain of that as he was about anything. He and his people would be on the front lines of it.
So perhaps Maedhros did have some faith in him after all. If not enough to think they could hold the line permanently, at least enough to think that Maglor could hold it together long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
They would get ground to pieces in the meantime, but they could hold the line.
Some nights, he didn’t much care. He was a kinslayer who was only lucky that his brother’s blood wasn’t permanently staining his hands; if this was what Maedhros wanted, if this was what would bring him peace -
Those nights were generally the nights when the wind was blowing down from Angband, and he wasn’t the only one whose thoughts took a fey edge when it did. Song chased the thoughts away like ash before wind, at least for a while. Sense would creep back in; someone had to hold the Gap, Maglor commanded the calvary, there was nothing more or less to Maedhros’s decision than that. Maglor could hold the Gap. Maglor would hold the Gap.
He was all that stood between his brothers and further destruction. He would not fail them again.
But then the song would fade, and the wind would blow, and the shadows crept back into his dreams.
The wind brought more than ill dreams the night the sky erupted into fire.
The sentries’ warning cries had him out of his tent in a moment, sword in hand. Ash and smoke were heavy in the air, and Maglor pulled his tunic over his mouth to try and filter it out. He could see far too clearly in the night. Liquid fire was spewing across the plains, and the grass near it was catching fire at the sparks.
It hadn’t rained in weeks. It wouldn’t take long to set the whole plain ablaze.
And marching forward with it, undisturbed by the heat, were blazing figures he knew all too well.
Balrogs.
With them was something else, something lizard like and far too large.
It also appeared to be spewing more fire.
Creatures they could fight, but the fire -
“To the river!” he cried.
It would mean leaving far too much of the way open, but maybe, maybe, by the river they would stand a chance.
The river was running black from soot, and the water was low after weeks of drought, but it still ran.
The air was heavy with heat. The cloth Maglor had wrapped around his mouth to protect from the ash in the air was drenched with sweat, but it was better than nothing. Those of his men who had lost their own protection or who had never had it were struggling to breathe between hacking coughs.
There were fewer of them than there had been at the start, but they had paid dearly for their losses, and the orcs they had run across were suffering nearly as much from the fires as they were, even if they were less affected by the foul air.
He hoped it was only his imagination that made the hilt of his sword feel warm even through his gloves. The metal of his helmet was nearly unbearable, but he didn’t dare to take it off. Not with the enemy in sight once more and closing fast.
“At my order!” he called, and his voice split the air clearly enough even if it cracked in the middle.
He knew the river behind him well. He knew its rhythms, its current.
He knew it would answer to the right call.
His voice was hoarse, but the power behind it would be no less for that. The water had been heated and fouled, but it was the river still.
His voice grew in force and power, and his men were watching for when his hand struck through the air. Those closest to him peeled away quickly, and the others followed their lead.
The water rose behind him and burst forth in a massive wave, crashing against their foes.
Orcs were swept off their feet. The fires of the Balrogs went out, if only for a moment, and his men were ready to take up the charge. For a moment, one precious moment, the tide turned.
And then more of the endless waves of the enemy swept down across the plain, and they were pushed back, step by step, into what had once been a river and was now just thick, stinking mud.
His armor had been discarded, piece by piece, lest the metal scald him and he be left trapped inside, baking alive. The air was a near impenetrable haze of smoke and ash that enemies stumbled through as blurred shapes.
His horse had long since succumbed, so he fought on foot, his sword still swinging forward, again and again.
He’d called the retreat - Oh, an eternity ago. The wounded … Well, everyone was wounded. The wounded he could spare, he’d sent riding hard for Maedhros. They could tell him what had happened. Reinforce Himring. And they would be -
Not safe. But safer than here.
The small remnant he’d kept with him to guard their retreat. Only half their number remained now, or at least only half were close enough to be in view. Maybe the others were just lost in the burning haze.
Maybe.
Back and back and back. Maedhros’s faith really had been misplaced, but there was no time for that now, only for the scalding air he was pulling into his lungs, the swing of his sword through muscle and bone, and the smell, always the smell, of corpses burning somewhere out of sight.
Or maybe that was the smell of him and his men burning, bit by bit, excruciatingly alive.
But every orc they killed was an orc that would not attack the retreat, that would not besiege Himring, that would not - that would not -
It was hopeless, though, and he knew it. It would be easier to just let his sword fall, to admit that he was as useless to his brother as he had feared to -
There was something foul on the breeze, he realized suddenly. Something new, or rather old. Something that was starting to send shadows scuttling through his brain.
But he could barely breathe now, let alone sing.
He gritted his teeth and fought on.
There were five men left around him.
Probably five. The whole world wavered, and it was hard to be sure.
Swing. Stab. Back up another painful step.
He had to - He had to -
…
When he woke up, the air was cool and nothing smelled particularly of burning.
Himring, he thought before he even opened his eyes. Only Himring could still make an attempt at being uncomfortably cold even in the middle of an apocalypse of fire.
The bleak grey walls he opened his eyes to confirmed his suspicion.
As did Maedhros’s pale unconscious form slumped in a chair beside his bed.
Oh.
He tried to swallow and failed. A hacking cough forced its way from his chest instead, and he shook with the force of it.
Maedhros was awake in an instant, holding him up and pressing a cup of water to his lips the moment the coughing ceased. “Drink,” he ordered, but Maglor didn’t need to be told. He gulped it down as quickly as he dared.
“My men?” he asked as soon as he thought he could.
“Of the five we found with you, three should make it,” Maedhros said quietly. “Of the others - casualty reports are still coming in. I’ll have the numbers soon.” He rubbed at his eyes, but the shadows under them only seemed to darken. Maglor wondered just how long Maedhros had been awake before collapsing at his beside. His apprentice had apparently failed at her job.
He didn’t miss the evasion on the casualty numbers. Whatever they were, they wouldn’t be good, but at least the fact that they were tallying at all meant that some must have made it through. He hadn’t failed them all.
But he had failed Maedhros. Again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he forced himself not to look away.
“You should be,” Maedhros burst out. “What were you thinking?”
Maglor flinched from the fire in his brother’s eyes. “I thought our chances of holding them were better at the river. In hindsight, perhaps we should have tried to hold them at the first approach - “
“The river was your best chance,” Maedhros said through gritted teeth. “I don’t argue with that. But what were you thinking staying behind when you sent the rest of your forces on?”
“Someone had to guard the retreat,” he protested. “And it wasn’t as if I was trying to do it alone.”
“Oh, because six men is so much better.”
“I didn’t try to hold it with six,” Maglor said through the growing lump in his throat. “There were - more. To start with. But in the smoke - “
Maedhros slumped back against his chair. “Oh.” A bit of color was leeching back into his skin. “I thought - “ He shook his head.
“That I was an idiot?” Maglor suggested with forced lightness.
“That you didn’t care if - “ Maedhros caught himself and changed what he was about to say. “That you were more concerned with continuing the fight than making it out,” he revised. He rubbed his face and looked away. “Himlad’s fallen,” he reported. “It was a massive attack. It seemed like they struck everywhere at once. I haven’t heard from Celegorm and Curufin. I haven’t heard from anyone except your people, and they said you fought like a man who would hold the land or die trying, and we were so hard pressed I couldn’t send anyone out to look even though you might be - “
A cold far worse than Himring’s crept over him. “The last,” he said. “We might be the last of our House.”
“We might be the last elves in Beleriand for all I know,” Maedhros said wearily before looking up sharply. “Not that it’s hopeless.”
“Of course it’s not hopeless,” Maglor said dutifully. Celegorm. Curufin. Little Celebrimbor. Caranthir, Amrod, Amras … And their cousins, too.
No word from anyone. Had their uncle held? Had Fingon? Or were they truly alone, one last hill that they would die on, Oath unfulfilled, family unavenged?
But all those bleak doubts were all too evident in his brother’s eyes, so he shoved them aside for himself and took up his role once more.
“Thingol’s probably still standing,” he offered.
“Much good that will do us,” Maedhros grumbled, but he looked a little lighter all the same. The lightness faded in only a moment, and he reached out to grab Maglor’s wrist with his one remaining hand. “I can’t lose you, ‘Laure. When I thought you were gone - “
To be alone, the last of their brothers; Maglor could imagine the horror of that. Better any death than to be the last.
“I’m not,” he reminded him. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Twice now, he had failed his brother, but if he had been wrong before - if his brother truly did not hold it against him that he failed again and again - Well, then perhaps this last request, he could fulfill.
If he could do nothing else, he could be here at his brother’s side until the Enemy’s fire swept them all aside.
However long until then that might be.