Nemesis
Mordomin > September 23rd, 2023, 12:56 PM
In the early winter of 2834, the goblin Army of Moria marched down the road from the West Gate that long ago had been wrought of friendship between Elves and Dwarves. The Army turned aside from the empty land that was called Hollin, and followed the track of those who had fled to the refuge that was called Imladris. All signs of their passage had long since faded away, but the leader of the goblins knew it; he had walked it before.
That leader was the one called “The Harvomôr”, that is, ‘the dark left hand’. He did not much care what the goblins called him, only that they followed him. And follow him they did.
The Army of the Harvomôr arrived unopposed at the entrance to the Hidden Valley of Imladris. He led them through all of the enchantments that veiled that refuge to unwelcome eyes, for he knew how to pass them all. He had walked these paths before, and, as an Elf, the enchantments were not meant to thwart or bewilder him.
The goblins marched on.
Harvomôr had timed his arrival to the dark of the moon, and he waited until after the Sun had set to lead his army through the tunnel that led down to the ford of the River Bruinen. Behind him, an unseasonable storm had arisen on the western slopes of the Misty Mountains and now swept southwest in the train of his army, soon to overtake (and overshadow) it; dawn would not save Rivendell.
Then he led his goblin-horde through that last tunnel and down onto the pale. There they assembled, rank upon spear-tipped rank. There they halted.
Before them was a downward-sloping strand of perhaps a mile, ending in the waters of the river Bruinen.
Above the river there was a mist that rose to a great height, and was unusual for that time of year. Beneath that mist, the river aptly-named Loudwater burbled and churned, unseen.
The leader of the Army of Moria stood forth. He was a tall Elf, of white hair and eyes of deepest black. He was clad in clothes of black and scarlet. He wore no armor, but he wore black gloves upon both of his hands that extended well within the wide sleeves of his robes. In his left hand he held a long pale sword.
This Elf cried, “Come forth, Mordomin. Come forth and meet me. The Dark Lord has fated this day.”
A voice answered from across the river: “’Come forth’, indeed! Have I not sought you over mountain and under mountain and over the many miles of Middle-earth for lo! these many years?
“Yet I came to know that, in the end, you would come to me if I but awaited you here. The destruction of this refuge was always the task that your Master set for you.
“And you have done well, weakening and dividing us and leading many Elves who once dwelt here in peace to seek the Western shores. And now at last in your arrogance you have come to face me - thou fool.”
Out of the mist that lay upon the river there now came a solitary figure, tall and dark, holding a bright sword in its right hand. Taller and taller he became as he strode forth from the water, until it seemed that he was so large that he must be a creature unnatural. Yet it was not so.
For this one had been born long ago in the Light of the Uttermost West. He had come to Middle-earth with the great Elf-host of the Elder Days to wage the War of the Jewels against the Great Enemy, and he was accounted mighty among that host.
Clad all in black, he stood forth with a sword held low in his right hand.
“Greetings, cousin!” Harvomôr said as Mordomin stood forth upon the shore.
Mordomin said, “You are no kin of mine, Harvomôr.”
Harvomôr laughed.
But Mordomin said, “Do not think that because Sauron has laid his power upon thee that you are any kin of mine. Nor shall I suffer you to befoul my family by claiming to be one of them.”
Harvomôr laughed again and said, “I care not. I am come to slay thee, that is all. The Dark Lord made me for this purpose.”
Mordomin said, “You lie. You were enslaved when your Master wore his Great Ring. At that time, I too was his slave, deprived of my will.
“He would not have created a foe for me at that time. I was his servant, his thrall. He did not foresee his own overthrow, or that I would be freed from his will thereafter.”
Harvomôr said, “And yet he foresaw the need to slay thee, his once-servant. And so he created me, to defeat you and supplant you in his plan for Middle-earth.”
Mordomin said, “You lie. Again.”
Harvomôr said, “Shall we contest the matter with the sword?”
“I feel that we are fated to do so,” Mordomin said, raising up Vórimáca, his dwarf-wrought blade.
There then befell the combat of Mordomin and Harvomôr, and it seemed at first a contest uneven. For Mordomin was much more powerful and swift with his sword than Harvomôr, and Mordomin struck the blade of Harvomôr from his hand three times; yet each time Mordomin stepped back and allowed Harvomôr to recover his weapon.
Mordomin pierced the guard of Harvomôr again and again, but no matter where upon the body of his foe Mordomin struck, his sword was turned, and his foe was unharmed.
Mordomin looked puzzled; but Harvomôr smiled.
Then there came a furious exchange, and Mordomin, having turned aside the sword of Harvomôr once more, struck a deadly blow at the throat of his foe.
But the sword of Mordomin rebounded from the neck of Harvomôr, leaving it uninjured. Harvomôr was staggered, but he regained himself, and smiled.
Mordomin looked at his foe, perplexed.
Harvomôr laughed at his confusion, and struck a cruel and violent blow to the side of Mordomin in his turn, beneath the right arm that he had extended to strike off the head of his foe; and that riposte clove deeply into the side of Mordomin.
The power of the blow lifted Mordomin from his feet and cast him down upon the strand; his sword rang as it fell from his hand.
“So die all that oppose the will of the Dark Lord!” gloated Harvomôr. Raising his eyes from his fallen enemy, he turned to face his goblin-host and he lifted up his arms in exaltation. He proclaimed in a great voice, “Mordomin is fallen, and the road to Rivendell is open!”
The goblin-host cheered.
Harvomôr turned to face the river and the mist that rose above it.
“Elrond!” he cried. “I know that you can hear me! Your champion is fallen. Surrender now and I shall be merciful. All of your folk may pass safely through my lines, after taking a vow to depart Middle-earth for the West and not take up against the Dark Lord ever again. Yea, and ye may take all that ye can carry with ye; I care not. When you are gone, my army will take and burn what remains.”
Behind him, the goblins roared.
From beyond the mist above the river there came no reply.
But upon the hither shore Mordomin stirred and rose. First to his knees, and then to his feet, and the goblins cheers faded to a vague murmur of fear.
Mordomin picked up his sword Vórimáca, called the Durance blade, with his left hand, clutching his right hand to his pierced and bleeding side. And Mordomin raised up his sword once more in defiance.
“A curse upon the stubbornness of Elves!” cried Harvomôr as he struck once more at Mordomin.
For many years, Mordomin had trained in swordsmanship under the tutelage of the Edain of Numenor, and later under elven masters in Lindon and Ost-in-Edhil; for he had learned to his sorrow that in battle his cursed hand was not always his to command, and would slay friend as soon as foe.
Harvomôr beat Mordomin back, and back again. Mordomin with his left hand was able to turn aside the blows of his foe, but the force of the blows drove him down the strand and toward the river.
“Die, you fool!” Harvomôr cried, as he battered away at the sword of Mordomin. “Why will you not die? Surely you long for release from your ancient curse. I shall slay thee swiftly, Mordomin.
“I, Harvomôr, am the master! This is my hour! The Dark Lord has made me mightier than thee!”
“It is not my fate to die by your hand,” Mordomin said, turning away another powerful blow.
“Of course it is!” Harvomôr cried. “The Dark Lord fashioned me to be thy Nemesis!”
Laughing, Harvomôr struck again and again. Mordomin turned each blow aside, and stepped back, and back again, and his foe followed him, until their battle took them to the very banks of the river, and then further, into its waters.
When the river was surging about his knees, Mordomin suddenly stepped forward, slapped the sword from the hand of Harvomôr as if he were but a child, and then seized him about the throat with his Cursed Hand.
With a great cry, Mordomin lifted the Harvomôr above his head and then threw him down into the river.
What happened next was hidden from those on either shore by the mist above the river.
At last Mordomin rose up, and, taking up the body of Harvomôr from the river, he dragged it from the stream and brought it forth upon the riverbank into the sight of the goblin-host, and he raised up the body above his head and then, with a great cry, he broke the body of his foe upon his knee; and then he cast it from him for all to see.
“Thus died Gelmir,” cried Mordomin.
Although the fall of their captain had dismayed the goblins greatly, the goblins held on, for the lure of the plunder of Rivendell was still hot in their hearts.
But when they were not half of the distance to where he stood, Mordomin looked up suddenly, and cried, “A! Dúnedain!”
And a flight of arrows came from the hills above the ford, and each arrow seemed to find a mark. The goblin host wavered, but then they surged on, for the arrows, for all that they were well-aimed, were few. They raised their shields above their heads and ran on.
There then came an answering cry to that of Mordomin, this from beyond the mist upon the river: “A! Imladhrim!”
Then a great rain of arrows flew forth and fell upon the goblins through the mist across the river. Many more goblins fell, for these arrows struck under their upraised shields. The goblins wavered in their advance.
Horns sounded beyond the mist. Elven horns seldom heard since the Fall of Gil-galad. They rang and resounded from the walls of the valley.
In the wake of the horns came Elrond, Master of Rivendell, and with him came Laia, a Lady of his Household. Elrond paused at one point while crossing the ford and stooped to pick up something from the river-bed.
That thing was a sword. A very particular sword: Vórimáca, the Durance-blade, which had fallen from the hand of Mordomin during his final struggle with Harvomôr.
Elrond bowed, and offered the sword, hilt first, to the Elf-lord where he stood.
“Your sword, Lord Mordomin,” Elrond said.
Mordomin received the sword from the Master of Rivendell.
Mordomin then said, “I shall turn aside this leaderless rabble. Take yourselves to safety across the river, and think not too harshly of me for what I am about to do.”
Mordomin looked up the strand from where he stood and saw that the goblins were advancing once more. Re-ordered, with spears in front and shields turned against the arrows from beyond the mist (for the arrows from the hilltop, never many, had ceased), they came on toward the river.
Then Mordomin put by his sword and removed the glove from his right hand. His Cursed Hand was thereby revealed.
Mordomin said, as Elrond departed, “They have forgotten who I am. I must remind them.”
Mordomin raised up his Black Hand, and the thunderstorm that had been following in the train of the army of the goblins, that the now-fallen Harvomôr had raised, surged forth at the bidding of Mordomin to over-shadow them, deluging them with rain and striking them with lightning. No few of the goblin host were slain by bolts from the storm, but the rest of them held their course toward the river. Which was where Mordomin awaited them.
And the goblins came to him, for he exerted his will upon them using the power of Sauron that resided in his Black Hand. One by one they came to him, and one by one he slaughtered them, wielding his unbreakable blade upon each and every one of their helpless necks. Helpless, for though the goblins could raise their weapons and fight, the prowess of Mordomin (aided by his dark curse) made them seem as cattle led to slaughter.
Again and again Mordomin struck, and when the bodies became too deep he stepped back and bid them forth again. They climbed over the bodies of their fallen, driven by the evil will within the Cursed Hand of Mordomin to attack and bring low the Elf-lord before them. But they could not.
Arrows still flew from the far side of the misted river, but fewer now, for few had the strength of will to look upon Mordomin the Blackhand in his wrath. None now flew from the hillside above, and the goblins had abandoned their bows for spears and swords.
Mordomin met their spears and shattered their swords with his dwarven blade.
When at last he had hewn down the goblin-host of Moria to a pitiful few, he released his hold upon them and allowed them to flee. Fewer still made their way back to their holes in the Misty Mountains, but the rumor of the horror that awaited them should they think to assail Rivendell was spread wide.
And thus ended the last assault upon Rivendell in the Third Age. Never again would the goblins of the Misty Mountains think to gather and assail the Elven refuge to their west. They would not come forth again until the time of the War of the Ring.