The Coming of the White Fleet
'Lord Amroth, a light has been sighted ahead!'
Amroth looked up from the journal in which he had been writing. His esquire Iorlas was standing in the door of the cabin, his head bowed under the low deck beams.
'What sort of light?'
'I don't know. We can't see it from the deck yet. Better put on a wrap. The sun's not up yet and the air is cool and damp. It's still blowing hard.'
Hastily wrapping a cloak around himself, Amroth followed Iorlas up the ladder to the deck. The wind was still fair and strong behind them. The stern rose to long rolling swells, sweeping up invisibly in the dark. As each sea passed under them, the ship teetered on the crest an instant, then rolled and slid away down its receding back. The newly repaired mainsail boomed and shuddered with the strain. Amroth stood and watched it a moment, but it seemed to be holding and drawing well. Looking about the deck, he saw that the storm damage was nearly all repaired now. Working without a stop for nearly three days, the skilled Sea-Elves had spliced and knotted and replaced the more serious damage wrought by the great storm. As Sindarin, or Wood-Elves, he and Iorlas were excused from such skilled work, even discouraged from helping. He had spent much of the last week in his cabin, keeping out of the way of the real mariners.
He sniffed the air and thought that there might be the faintest hint of land in it, but he well knew that his forest-dweller's nose was not as quick to catch the subtle changes as the mariners'. He made his way to the bows and found a group of Sea-Elves assembled there, peering ahead into the night and talking quietly. He heard Cirdan's deep voice among them.
Amroth peered ahead into the darkness but could see nothing except the creaming bow wave now and again thrown out wide on either side.
'What is it, Lord Cirdan?' he asked. Cirdan stood upon the rail, grasping the forestay, his body swaying easily with the pitching of the ship. He glanced down and looked away to the horizon again.
''Tis a light, Amroth. The lookout at the masthead believes it to be a burning afar off, though I confess I as yet see nothing.'
'There, my lord,' cried one of the mariners, 'just to larboard of our head.' Amroth recognized the gravelly voice of Gilrondil the sailing master.
'I saw it that time!' said Cirdan. 'It is like a spark, very low on the horizon and we see it only from the crests. There! And there again. What make you of it, Gilrondil?'
The sailing master studied the faint flicker for a few minutes. 'No small light, I think, Lord, but a great flame far away. See how the sky above it seems to pulse with the flame?'
'Yes, I see that now. How distant would you reckon it?'
'It is most difficult to say, Lord. Not less than eight leagues, I would say.' He shouted up to the lookout swaying high above at the masthead. 'What can you make of it, Lindir?'
A voice called down out of the dark. 'It is more than one now, master. There are two fires. No, three! Another to the right.'
'Are they on land, think you?'
'I cannot be certain, but I would guess they are either on the sea or perhaps on a strand. They appear to be low. Another! Four, four fires burn on the sea.'
'The glow is right ahead,' said Cirdan. 'We should be nigh to them before daylight.'
They all stood watching those faint red sparks.
'It bodes ill, I fear,' said Cirdan. 'It may be the flames of war we see.'
'Might they not be signals?' Amroth suggested. 'Perhaps the people of Gondor have lit beacons on the shore to guide us.'
'Once there was such a beacon on the North Cape of the Ethir Anduin,' said Gilrondil, 'but it has long been dark. In time of war such lights guide foes as well as friends. Nay, if fires burn at the Ethir it can only mean evil. We shall see what the dawn reveals.'
As the long night wore on, the glowing lights in the east gradually faded and one by one flickered out. Then a white light appeared in exactly the same place. Amroth was about to point it out to the others, but it soon rose from the sea and was seen to be Earendil, the Morning Star, presaging the dawn. Soon after, a soft glow gathered on that same horizon and the looming seas around them took on long grey shapes. Then came a brilliant yellow gleam and suddenly the sun rose over the bow.
There behind them and on either side rode the great swan ships of Mithlond, their prows splitting the grey seas. Already a few were altering course slightly to close up around the flagship for the daylight formation. The new sun turned their sails a shell pink and cast diamonds into the spray at their bows. The fleet looked proud and strong, though they numbered but ten long swanships, thirty smaller corbitas, and a half dozen cogs. Most lay to windward, off their starboard quarter, and on each sail was emblazoned in gold the eight-pointed star of the Noldor. At each masthead flew the white banner of Galathilion, the Silver Tree.
Beyond the main body of the fleet loomed the dark mass of Tolfalas, the Island of Cliffs, which they had passed unseen in the night. Far away to larboard were the green rolling hills and white cliffs of Belfalas. Far ahead, just visible now in the slowly clearing haze, was a low dark line.
'What is that black shore ahead of us?' asked Amroth.
'Those are the willows of the Ethir Anduin,' answered Gilrondil. 'There among those immense trees, the mighty Anduin flows by many mouths into the sea.'
As the day waxed and the line of trees drew nearer, many gaps began to appear, marking the passages between islands. They made for the northernmost, close under the beetling cliffs of North Cape, for it was the widest and least troubled by rips and overfalls when the tide was in flood. As they drew near, Amroth climbed into the weather rigging and searched the coasts for any signs of life.
'What see you, Amroth?' cried Gilrondil from the aftercastle. 'Are there any sails?'
'No. There is nothing.'
'That is not good. The Men of Pelargir keep always several picket ships at the Ethir. They should have challenged us long before. The Ethir is never unguarded. Keep a sharp eye.'
At that moment came a hail from the ship nearest to starboard. 'Something floats in the water, Lord Cirdan. Just ahead of us.'
Cirdan stepped quickly to the rail and called back. 'Heave to, Hithimir, and see what it is.' The other ship quickly dropped its sail and its slow and stately pitch became a wallowing in the heavy seas. Amroth could see sailors rushing forward to peer down at some dark object rising and falling in the water.
'It appears to be wreckage, Lord,' came the cry.
'Gilrondil!' shouted Cirdan. 'Signal all ships to heave to. Bring us alongside Hithimir's ship.' A string of flags flew to the masthead and the Elves leaped to the braces to haul the yard around into the wind. A moment of thundering canvas, then the sail was clewed up and bunted in. The ship lost way and drifted over toward Hithimir's ship. Soon they could all see the dark object bobbing in the clear blue water.
At first Amroth could make no sense of what it was. It seemed to be a jumble of blackened logs, skewed at every angle, entangled in vines. Suddenly Amroth realized he was looking at the rigging of a large ship. A crossed mast and yard drifted in a tangle of rope and blackened sailcloth. Then with a shock of horror he saw a body tangled in the rigging, floating face-downwards, the long brown hair drifting around it. Everything was burned and blackened, but the masthead was undamaged and a few feet beneath the surface a blue banner streamed in the water — a gold citadel on a blue field.
'That is the banner of Pelargir,' said Cirdan.
'There can no longer be any doubt,' said Gilrondil. 'The pickets of Gondor are destroyed and the Ethir is taken.'
'A curse on the storm that delayed us! We have come too late.'
'This can only be the work of the Corsairs of Umbar. Pelargir may already be destroyed,' said Gilrondil in a voice of despair.
Cirdan turned to him. 'The flames were but five hours past. The Corsairs could not have reached Pelargir yet. They must still be in the River.'
'They could be hidden among the islands, lying in wait for us,' said Gilrondil.
