Chapter Text

Bilbo peered closely at the letter, squinting at the perfectly-formed letters. The document itself was so old that the edges were crumbling. Usually Bilbo would have run his finger down the page as he translated, but this fine paper would certainly disintegrate if he did that, and the constraint made the task all the harder. 

The clear morning light that fell on this window-seat helped him make out the details though, and outside the window in the gardens of Rivendell, he could hear small birds singing merrily, as if in encouragement. 

If he could translate this entire text, it would be safe even if the original crumbled away entirely. 

A shadow fell across the paper, and Bilbo looked up. “Good morning Glorfindel!”

Glorfindel had been walking swiftly on his way to the doors, but as Bilbo spoke, he checked and turned with a flickering smile. “A good morning to you too, Bilbo. What are you working on today?” 

“You are just the person I wanted to see!” Bilbo told him. “Sit down, sit down! You can spare a few moments for an old hobbit, I hope?” 

“I was on my way to visit Asfaloth, but I am sure he will forgive me a delay, since I have a sweet apple for him,” Glorfindel told him, smiling. He sat at the other end of the window-seat, and looked with interest at the document on Bilbo’s tall folding desk. It had been made for him by some of the Elves of Rivendell, with long legs so he could use it with chairs made for longer legs, with built-in steps so that he could reach documents on high shelves without needing assistance. 

“I’ve found this terribly fragile old letter, and I think it’s about the fall of Angmar,” Bilbo waved at the brown, many-folded paper. “It’s just addressed to ‘Kinsman’ and I can’t read the name, but down here, at the bottom of it, it says ‘Captain of Gondor.” 

Glorfindel leant forward to look, his golden hair catching the light from the window as he moved, gleaming. His fair face was sad. “That would be Prince Eärnur.”

“Ah, then could it be a letter to Elrond? From his... I suppose a sort of great-great- I don’t know how many greats - grand-nephew? I see why it just says kinsman! I could be here all day writing out all the greats, when it comes to Elrond’s kin.”

“It is a large family,” Glorfindel agreed. “And much renowned. But alas for Eärnur! Do you know the name and the old grief that it recalls, Bilbo?”

Bilbo thought about it. “You know,” he said plaintively, “an awful lot of Elrond’s relatives have names that start Eä- something . But I think Eärnur was the last King of Gondor, the one the Witch-king of Angmar challenged to single combat. He rode out alone to face him and was lost, like one of the High Kings of the Elder Days.”

Glorfindel made a wry face. “Perhaps. He would have said: like Húrin.”

Bilbo blinked. “Like Húrin? The hero of Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the one who was captured by the Enemy and put under a curse? Eärnur was killed, I thought. Or was he captured and put to some awful fate too?” 

Glorfindel reached out and touched the very edge of the ancient letter, very gently. His face was unreadable. 

“Eärnur was not of a mind for studying. Not when I knew him, nor ever in his life, I believe. But he knew Húrin’s tale. When I knew him, he often spoke of Húrin’s battle-cry when the Enemy came against him in numbers impossible to overcome.”

“Aurë entuluva!” Bilbo said. “Day shall come again. It’s a good one, that... though it makes me sad when I think what happened to Húrin after.”

“Aurë entuluva,” Glorfindel said and shook his head. “Eärnur often quoted those words, for he honoured Húrin’s valour — though I am not sure how much he knew of, as you put it, what happened after. He was not a scholar.”

He thought for a moment and Bilbo thought he could see, as you sometimes could with the older Elves, when they chose to share their thoughts, the faces of those Glorfindel was thinking about: Húrin, fair-haired and young, as he had been as a boy long ago in Gondolin, and then Eärnur, tall and strong with dark hair and strong armour-clad shoulders, under a stormy sky. 

Glorfindel came back from his thought, and the images faded. “To answer your question: I do not know what fate befell Eärnur in the end. I have not heard of anyone that knows, not even Elrond. The Witch-King of Angmar sent Eärnur a challenge, and he answered it: no more can be said. I fear his end was bitter. Perhaps even as bitter as that of Húrin Thalion.”

He looked down at the letter. “I think this letter was written years before his death, years before he was a king. That is why he signs himself Captain.”

“This is just the sort of thing I was hoping you would be able to tell me,” Bilbo declared, enthusiastically making notes. “You led the forces of Rivendell in that war, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Glorfindel agreed. “Though I was in Rivendell, and so was late to battle. Angmar, our old enemies of the northern hills had been creeping across Arnor for many lives of men. But at last they came in force against Fornost, the last great city of Arnor. They drove out Arvedui Last-king into the north. There was nothing we could do about it: there were not enough of us to face Angmar. Even if we had emptied Imladris... I might have done that, if it had been my choice.” 

Glorfindel frowned, remembering a debate long-past. “I thought, if we rallied every elf in Rivendell and rode west, we might still save Arvedui, and his city of Fornost. Elrond would have done that for Arvedui, I think. But Celebrían said nay, and she is the Lady of Imladris.”

“She didn’t want to take the risk?” Bilbo asked, after a moment. Celebrían could not be forgotten in Rivendell, but her name was edged with grief, and so he spoke carefully, never having met Celebrían, and knowing her only by the place she held among all those who had loved her. He had never heard Elrond mention her at all. 

“I cannot say that she was wrong. We only had the strength to hold Imladris against our enemy, not to attack. If we had emptied the valley, all might have gone down in flames, before there was time for Gondor to come and save us. If they came. We did not think they would.”

“Why not?” Bilbo enquired, licking his finger to turn a page in his notebook. 

Glorfindel brought up one foot so it was perched on the edge of the window seat, and rested his chin on his knee, while he thought how to answer this. “Gondor had its own troubles. They were far away, they had seen plague and war, and had been beset with mighty enemies. We had heard little from them since the word had come that their king and both his sons were slain.”

Bilbo was much interested. “Oh! So is that how it came to be that Gondor doesn’t have a king any more, but only Stewards? And is that how our friend the Dunadan comes to have a claim to the throne of Gondor?” What had been a tale of long-forgotten heroes had turned out to have hobbit-like potential for family gossip. 

But Glorfindel shook his head. “Not quite - though if you want to know the details, ask your friend the Dúnadan, not me! But as I understand it, when their king fell, Arvedui, last king in the North, tried to claim the throne of Gondor on his wife’s behalf, for Firiel was the old king’s daughter.”

“So Firiel and Arvedui were married, and Arvedui was heir to the north-kingdom, and Firiel to the south?”

“That is how some saw it, here in the north. But Gondor would not have him, or her.”

“So our king wasn’t good enough for Gondor, is that it?” Bilbo asked, a little indignantly. 

Glorfindel shrugged and then leaned back against the finely-carved wood. “Arvedui had no aid to send to Gondor in their need. Perhaps that’s why they turned away Firiel and Arvedui, and crowned Eärnil king of Gondor instead. He was a kinsman of their old king, I believe, and had been a general in the war that killed the king and his heirs.”

Bilbo considered this. “Why did Gondor have armies to send to the North, and Arvedui not have armies to send to the South?” he enquired. 

Glorfindel laughed. “How long an answer would you have! Plague. Harsh winters. The endless threat of Angmar creeping closer, year by year. And more than that: if you would know the weary list of chances lost and hopes forlorn, try Elladan or Elrohir: they were in the thick of it.”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t make such a good tale to read - and anyway, you’ve got more patience with my questions than either of them!” 

“In that case, you will have to put up with me simply telling you that Arvedui’s kingdom was not much more than the city of Fornost and some outlying farms. Though, I mind that you have told me that Bree-land, and the Shire still held their allegiance to the King to the end. I suppose they too should be counted part of Arthedain, though they survived its last battle and the fall of the city.”

“Ah! Now this would be the battle that is in the Shire-records,” Bilbo said, delighted to have made the connection. “That would be... let me see... three-seventy-four of our Shire Reckoning, in the days of Bucca of the Marish. Bucca was our first Thain after the King was lost, you see. We sent some archers to help in the last battle at Fornost, so I’m not entirely uninformed, you see! Though there’s no record of what happened to them, sad to say. None of them came back.”

“I have not heard of the archers of the Shire that came to the aid of Arvedui,” Glorfindel admitted. “But knowing you, Bilbo, I am sure they fought stoutly.”

“One day I hope I’ll find some record of what happened to them.” Bilbo half-suspected that those archers might have found some pressing reason to be somewhere other than Fornost, and he couldn’t really blame them. The Witch-King of Angmar, by all accounts, was a foe far beyond any hobbit. But it was hard to admit such a thing to the heroic Glorfindel.

“But Fornost fell, and the king died,” Bilbo prompted, instead. 

Glorfindel nodded. “When Arvedui knew that Angmar would take Fornost, he sent a messenger south to Gondor, pleading for their aid in his wife’s name.”

“That was rather hopeful of him,” Bilbo said, twiddling his pen in thought. “Given that Gondor had already given them the brush-off before, so to speak.”

“Perhaps it was. But Gondor came to the aid of Firiel and her son Aranarth, though too late for Arvedui. They say in Lindon that the ships that Eärnur led north filled all of Mithlond, and Harlond, and Forlond. This is hearsay, of course,for I was in Rivendell when Eärnur’s fleet came to Lindon, and half the forces of Angmar lay between us.”

“What did the Witch-king do?”

Glorfindel laughed shortly. “He did not know what he was facing. He had taken Fornost, and made himself comfortable there for a year, not thinking that there was any army left in Arnor able to face him. And so when he heard the horns of Gondor calling, he came out unwarily, to face Eärnur on the field. I suppose he believed it was some small company that one of Arvedui’s lords had brought against him, and thought to chill their hearts with his horrors.”

“That sounds very grim and horrible,” Bilbo said tentatively. “But I’m not quite sure what you mean, Glorfindel?”

Glorfindel considered him gravely for a moment, then spoke gently. “The power of the Witch-king against mortal men is a power that lies in fear, more than in might of arms. Fear of pain, death and loneliness. I would not speak overmuch of that, for it broods in the heart of mortals. It would do you no good, Bilbo.”

“I see,” Bilbo said, making an effort not to brood. “I can’t say I find brooding comes naturally in Rivendell, you know. But I take it this fear he spreads wasn’t much good against Gondor?”

“He might have held long, even against Gondor, behind the walls of Fornost,” Glorfindel said. “But the Witch-King was over-eager. He left the walls and came out onto the plain. There, he found that he was facing Círdan in his wrath, with a sea-wind behind him. And even as he turned to face Círdan, his mists were blown away, and the legions of Gondor were revealed to him. 

“He tried to attack — I will say this, for all the darkness he has fallen into, there was still courage there. 

And Eärnur’s cavalry came thundering down on him like the wrath of Oromë when the world was young. I think it may have been in that moment that the Witch-king formed a great hatred of Eärnur,” Glorfindel said, and laughed, and there was sadness in his laughter, but but also a brightness like a blade. “A thousand years of war to take Fornost, and he held it less than a year... Eärnur and Cirdan hunted him north and east, towards Carn Dûm.”

Bilbo was scribbling enthusiastically. 

 “That is where I first met him. I can see and hear them still: the Host of the West as I saw it then: the tall Men on foot in their great helms winged like sea-birds and their bright shields, driving our enemy back to his stronghold, and the thundering hooves of the horses of Rhovanion. They are swift, and surpassingly brave, those horses, and their riders carried long spears.

“The forces of Angmar were caught between us. Orcs and Men and other, darker things too. Eärnur brought up his cavalry, but this time, the Witch-king was ready for him. Eärnur's horse would not face him. All of the horses of Rhovanion bolted and carried their riders far away. By the time Eärnur had marshalled his men, the Witch-king was gone. Eärnur would have followed him, but I counselled him against it.”

“Oh, this is your famous prophecy, isn’t it?” Bilbo interjected. He scrabbled through a notebook, and eventually read out the line, “ Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall .”

“I foresaw that he would not return to Arnor, nor to Carn Dûm. I warned Eärnur not to pursue him,” Glorfindel agreed. A troubled frown creased his forehead. “I do not know what doom awaits the Witch-king of Angmar, but I knew most certainly that Eärnur would not kill him. He did not believe me.”

“Good grief!” Bilbo exclaimed in astonishment. “ He told you to your face that he didn’t believe you?” This seemed bold indeed, even for a future King. 

“No. He did not say that in so many words. It may be that he believed me, there on the field before the distant and evil towers of Carn Dûm. But if he believed that I had seen truly, do you think, Bilbo, that he would have answered the Witch-king’s challenge, later?”

“I suppose not.” Bilbo thought about it for a moment. “I take it you were sure? Awkward things, prophecies. Or so I understand. We don’t have much call for them in the Shire, you know. Not beyond the prospects for next year’s potatoes, anyway.”

Glorfindel smiled. “Yet have I not heard you speak of the day when the King returns?”

Bilbo rubbed the third finger on his left hand and thought about it. “I suppose so. Though that’s not a prophecy! More of a... a saying. Just one of those old phrases that nobody thinks about much any more.”

“Not until the king returns,” Glorfindel pointed out. “I thought I looked ahead and saw that the Witch-king would one day be killed, and not by the hand of man, yet there he is still, in Minas Morgul, as the wind blows and the world grows colder. Now I hear that great Osgiliath, the capital of old Gondor, is fallen, as Fornost which was capital of Arnor fell before it. Minas Tirith may not have long left. 

“I did not foresee that the Witch-king would run straight to Mordor and take Minas Ithil to stand in the stead of Carn Dûm. If I had, I might have spoken other words to Eärnur. At the time, it seemed we had won a great victory. That Gondor’s hosts were so mighty no foe could withstand them.” Glorfindel broke off, shaking his head. “They said in the songs, afterwards, that there was not an orc, nor a man of Angmar left west of the Misty Mountains.”

“It wasn’t true?”

“It was true, in the sense that they were no longer men of Angmar,” Glorfindel said and shrugged again, fluidly. “There were not many left, but there were some who had been men of Rhudaur, of Cardolan, once. They were afraid. Those that were left sued for their lives, and Gondor granted clemency. The orcs did not. They rarely do.”

“So all the orcs were killed?” Bilbo said, making a note. 

“Not all. Some. Those who came at us in a madness of fear. The rest we drove east to the mountains,” Glorfindel said, and sighed. “We did not fear them. They seemed poor things, weak and fearful, their thoughts coloured by cruel masters and Men who had come among them and used them for their own ends. They were terribly afraid of us. The orcs of Angmar were so much less mighty than their ancestors: less dangerous, or so we thought. They fled into dark holes in the mountains. We hoped, in those days, that they might find a way to live without preying on travellers and farms.”

“I suppose,” Bilbo ventured, daring, “That was before Celebrían...”

“Yes. Before Eärnur too, for that matter, and so many others.”

Silence fell between them like a shadow, though outside the window the birds were still singing with no thought of war or torment in the dark. 

At last, Glorfindel looked down again at the letter that had started the conversation. “I think this was written after the Witch-king fled,” he said. “Eärnur’s host encamped north of Rivendell for a while, before he went back to his ships and sailed home to Gondor.” 

“Up beyond the Ettenmoors?” Bilbo was surprised. “A bit cold and wild up there for camping, isn’t it?”

“It was the height of summer, just tipping over into the start of autumn,” Glorfindel said, remembering, and the gold of tawny heather-hillsides and rowans decked in glorious scarlet berries came into Bilbo’s thought. Where the hills folded down gently to make an open green space he could see many tall white tents pitched, and among them were black banners marked with the curling shapes of white trees. A broad-shouldered, round-faced man who wore the badge of the white tree upon his shoulder looked up, and smiled. He didn’t look much like Bilbo’s friend the Dúnadan.

“It had been a place of fear, Angmar, and there were many dark holes and houses that had known cruelty and fear, yet the land was not ruined. The heart of the place was hollow, like an old tree that cannot withstand the winter winds, but there was still life in it, once the Witch-king and his spirits of dread had left it. ”

Bilbo looked at the letter again. 

“ Kinsman ,” he read aloud. The smudged words and unclear lines were clearer now he knew where the letter had been written and by whom. He went on, guessing at the few words he still could not read. 

I shall be leaving in six days time, when the harvest moon is at the full. I have carried out the task my father set me, here in the north. I’ve done it well, I venture. I leave Arnor in care of Araphant: he will be short of men for a while, but I have no fears for him. He carries the blood of Anarion’s line, and that name goes with good fortune.

A lack of men will cure itself with time and I’ve no doubt you’ll do what you can for him and his brother in the meanwhile. We shall see Arnor renewed before you know it.

In a few years I shall come north again to see how things are going here. Now that the peace is established and our enemies driven off in abject defeat, it may even be that I shall bring my father to meet you.

Aurë entuluva, as the line from the old tale goes, and we’ve rousted out enough shadows and horrors that the Day can look down on us and smile

 - Eärnur Captain of Gondor

No mention that his horse bolted there, I notice.”

“No,” Glorfindel agreed, smiling. “He would not put that in a letter. It made him angry, though it was not the fault of his horse. Such powers as the Witch-king wields are beyond the limit of most good beasts.”

“And he never did come back with his father to visit Elrond, I take it?” 

“Eärnur never came north again: not he, nor his father. Within five years the Witch-king had taken Mordor. Another twenty years, and Minas Ithil fell. There was no lasting peace.”

“And he died in Minas Morgul. A sad end to a brave man.”

“Brave, and proud, and a fool,” Glorfindel said sadly. “When he became king, the Witch-king sent a challenge to single combat. It was a thing he often did in Angmar: Elrond and I never favoured him with an answer, but Eärnur... Eärnur was impulsive. He ignored the first challenge, but another came seven years later. That time, Eärnur rode out to Minas Morgul. I do not know if Eärnur was still angry that his great charge went awry, but if he was, I am sure the Witch-king knew just how to provoke him. And that, Bilbo, is why Gondor now has no king, for they did not know if Eärnur might one day return, nor had he named an heir. That is why the Stewards rule there now, awaiting the king’s return, as they have done for many long years.”

“And this Araphant he mentions would be our Dúnadan’s ancestor, I suppose. And I suppose he had no more luck with setting up his kingdom in Arnor than Eärnur did in Gondor.”

“Never again has the North-kingdom had Men enough for hosts, nor cities,” Glorfindel said, and stood up. “And now, I have kept Asfaloth waiting long enough for his apple. He is one of the few, the very few horses that can face the Witch-king of Angmar without fear.”

“Is he really?" Bilbo said with considerable interest. "Do you know, I think I could use a breath of fresh air myself?” He stoppered his bottle of ink, and shut the old letter in his notebook, and together, they went out into the autumn sunshine, where yellow leaves were shining in the long grass along the path, down to the meadows where Asfaloth ran beside the shining waters.

Chapter Text

Timeline of Angmar - Third Age

1409 - Witch-King of Angmar invades Arnor. 

1864 - Arvedui born. Prophesy of Malbeth the Seer: “Arvedui you shall call him, for he will be the last in Arthedain. Though a choice will come to the Dúnedain, and if they take the one that seems less hopeful, then your son will change his name and become king of a great realm. If not, then much sorrow and many lives of men shall pass, until the Dúnedain arise and are united again”

1928 - Eärnur born - his father a nobleman and kinsman of the king, but not expected to be king. 

1938  Aranarth son of Arvedui born (!!!)

1940 - Arvedui weds Firiel (!!!)

1944 Disaster of the Morannon - Ondoher of Gondor and his sons Artamir and Faramir are killed. 

1945 Arvedui’s claim through Firiel rejected. Earnil, captain of the successful southern force in the Disaster of the Morannon, crowned king of Gondor

1964 Araphant dies, Arvedui succeeds to the throne of Arthedain

1973 Final assault from Angmar gathering speed, Arvedui calls for aid from Gondor. 

1974 Winter/Spring - Fornost falls to the Witch-king of Angmar, Arvedui’s sons Aranarth and ? driven across the Lune. Arvedui takes refuge in the North Downs, then flees to the Ered Luin, taking refuge in the ruins of Belegost/Nogrod, then fleeing further north to the Lossoth in the ice-bay of Forochel. 

Witch-king of Angmar sets up his seat in Fornost “usurping the house and rule of the kings”

1975 - Arvedui dies after taking the ship Círdan sent to the ice-bay of Forochel to rescue him. Eärnur’s Gondorian fleet lands in Lindon, filling Mithlond, Harlond and Forlond with ships. 

Eärnur and Círdan ally and move eastwards. Met the forces of Angmar on the plains between Nenuial and Fornost. 

When Angmar forces began to retreat back to Fornost, out of the north came the main body of the horsemen from Rhovanion, which had passed around the hills to come down and scatter the enemy in a rout. The Witch-king fled north to the lands of Angmar. 

Before he could reach Carn Dûm he was overtaken by the cavalry of Gondor with Prince Eärnur at its head. Simultaneously a force led by Glorfindel came up out of Rivendell. Angmar defeated. 

1979 Bucca of the Marish become first Thain of the Shire in the absence of a King in Arnor. 

1980 Witch-king of Angmar appears in Mordor with the other Nazgul. 

2000 The Nazgûl issue from Mordor and besiege Minas Ithil.

2002 Capture of Minas Ithil and its palantír. Minas Anor renamed Minas Tirith.

2012 Arahael son of Aranarth born in Rivendell. 

2043 Earnil dies, Eärnur inherits the crown, Witch-king of Angmar sends him a challenge. 

2050 Second challenge from the Witch-King. Eärnur vanishes in Minas Morgul 

2106 Aranarth, born grandson of the king of Arthedain, dies Chieftain of the Dunedain. Arahael becomes chieftain.