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In truth, it is not a battle they can lose. It is barely even a battle.
The orcs have come from the mountains, but not from any true fortress of their enemy. There are only perhaps forty of them. They wield flaming sticks, metal poles ripped from the outer walls of some abandoned dread fortress. Runaways, Maedhros knows, just by looking at them — or castaways, more probably. He feels an odd kinship with them; broken, angry things, many missing hands or fingers, some hobbling along on wooden legs. He sees their hunger in the sharp lines of their faces, and feels it in the pit of his own stomach; how well he can picture that all-consuming hunger. He is not sure, sometimes, if he has stopped feeling it or simply gotten quite skilled at ignoring the calls of his body.
And now he ignores whatever sympathy rises in his heart. He knows exactly what the orcs are here for; knows where their hunger shall take them. They have come to take from his people, to run them through their swords and break apart their bones, to tear elven flesh from bone and carry it away with them, to burn their homes for the momentary pleasure of warmth on long-frozen skin. They are hungry and they are hurt and they are monstrous.
(What shall his own hunger make of him, he wonders.)
He had been visiting Maglor when the news had come of the intrusion into the gap, only a short way away from the edge of the Noldor settlements, and they had ridden together. With them come sixty of their best men; they are armed with swords forged by the hands of the Noldor and bows woven of elven hair. They are swift, well-trained, and well-fed.
They find the orcs setting fire to a grain silo. The children and those unable to fight are gathered in the fortress built into the mountain; the others have already readied defenses, another hundred strong. They fight for pride, for love, for their craft, for beauty. They hold out against hunger and pain and ugliness, and in their own way they are meaner.
Maedhros dismounts to fight. His sword is yet a little awkward in his left hand, but his skill grows with each hit. He feels wroth incarnate; he is alive, here, as the bodies crumple around him, and he hopes the others do not the satisfaction he buys in blood.
Maglor does not dismount. His hands are ever skilled with string as he rains arrows at the horde of orcs. His form is perfect; he trained for many years in Aman, even before the first whispers of war. Maedhros watches him and thinks, with some dry, dark amusement, of Fingon, who learned without true instruction on hunts and during the war, who shoots off the inside of his hands, a second arrow balanced between his fingers or in his teeth even as draws the first one. He clenches his teeth when the arrow flies, as though daring it to miss.
Maglor is in every sense his opposite. He is serene, his posture perfect. He sings, a lulling, peaceful sort of melody. It is practical — meant to soothe his horse, to keep her still in the midst of battle — but it gives him an eerie note nonetheless. The sun falls upon his skin and his face is pale. The wind yanks at them and his hair is motionless in his braid. Elves and orcs alike shout and scream all around him, splattering blood onto the edges of his robes and the legs of his horse, and he sings a song of cool lake water and rays the of the sun in the clouds.
It is soft, measured brutality, delicate and dignified. Later Maedhros will count the arrows and see that Maglor had killed more than any of them.
They work together methodically, each taking their men to clear one side of the meadow of foes. The last orc falls under his captain’s sword, and he turns his attention again to Maglor’s side.
Only one orc is left standing. He is no way, except his continued survival, particularly notable. Not the biggest of the group, nor the most cruelly scarred. His skin is a grayish green, so typical of his kind. He wields a sharpened stick, red with elven blood.
His voice, when he shouts, is hoarse. He speaks in Sindarin, the dialect sharper and rougher than the other Maedhros knows, as though chopping each word free a little too early.
“Come down from thy horse, little prince! What coward hides behind his bow?”
Maedhros chokes on his irritation. Shoot him through the throat, brother, he thinks.
But Maglor, usually not one to follow such provocation, leaps from his horse. Hands his bow to one of his men and draws his sword, silver and gleaming in the sunlight.
Maedhros’s skin crawls. He likes Maglor on his horse, away from the fray — likes Maglor where none can touch him. Maglor walks forward, through the corpses of orcs scattered all about him, his head held tall, raven hair pulled back in a thick braid, red jewels gleaming upon his cloak, and Maedhros thinks of their father going to meet the Balrogs.
“I shall show thee cowardice,” he says. He sings a single note, low and fell. It catches on the blade of his sword, echoes into the meadow. All is silent, now. It is the only sound. Dread strikes Maedhros’s heart, then, horrible dread — he feels himself fell and doomed, for all the might and beauty of his brother. The orc, too, pales.
Takes one step back, then two. Drops his stick and runs for the woods.
Maglor takes a step back himself, his face set in grim satisfaction, and throws his sword.
It hits the orc neatly between the shoulder blades. He crumples and falls face first on the battlefield, his arms outstretched.
Maglor hums another note, striding forward to yank his sword back out of the body. Maedhros had not noticed before that all their men had frozen around them, watching the short exchange. Now the silence breaks, and all rush forward. Help their wounded, pull free their arrows. Search for brothers and sisters among the battlefield.
Maedhros is among them. He runs to Maglor’s side, taking him by the hands. He is unhurt, of course. Untouched. Untouchable.
“What purpose could that serve, Káno? Shoot them down next time, and come down not from thy horse. There is no sense to it.”
Maglor breaks his uncanny serenity. Laughs.
“I am not so easily felled, brother! None would speak of it had I shot him — see what a song I leave now, one that shall be sung as we ride from this land, and grow bigger and grander in each retelling. See what a story I weave!”
“Thou shalt be killed,” Maedhros says darkly, “for thy songs.”
Maglor pinches his cheek, laughing yet. “I shall consider it a worthwhile bargain, even if I am first to fall, for in spirit I shall outlive thee, and all our brothers! Come, Nelyo. I should not like to lose my arrows, nor my sword, in this wreckage.”