House of the Golden Flower

And now came the monsters across the valley and the white towers of Gondolin reddened before them; but the stoutest were in dread seeing those dragons of fire and those serpents of bronze and iron that fare already about the hill of the city; and they shot unavailing arrows at them. Then came a cry of hope, for behold, the snakes of fire may not climb the hill for its steepness and for its glassiness, and by reason of the quenching waters that fall upon its sides; yet they lie about its feet and a vast steam arises where the streams of Amon Gwareth and the flames of the serpents drive together. Then there grew such a heat that women became faint and men sweated beneath their mail, and all those springs of the city, save only the fountain of the king grew hot and smoked.

But now Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, captain of the hosts of Melkor, took counsel and gathered all his things of iron that could coil themselves around and above all obstacles before them. These he bade pile themselves before the northern gate; and behold, their great spires reached out even to its threshold and thrust at the towers and bastions about it, and by reason of the exceeding heaviness of their bodies those gates fell, and great was the noise thereof: yet most of the walls around them still stood firm.

Then the engines and catapults of the king poured darts and boulders and molten metals on those ruthless beasts, and their hollow bellies clanged beneath the buffeting, yet it availed not for they might be broken, and the fires rolled off them. Then were the topmost opened about their middles, and an innumerable host of the Orcs, the goblins of hatred, poured therefrom into the breach; and who shall tell of the gleam of their scimitars or the flash of the broad-bladed spears with which they stabbed?

Then did Rog shout in a mighty voice, and all the people of the Hammer of Wrath and the kindred of the Tree with Galdor the valiant leapt at their foe. There the blows of their great hammers and the dint of their clubs rang to the Encircling Mountains and the Orcs fell like leaves; and those of the Swallow and the Arch poured arrows like the dark rains of autumn upon them, and both Orcs and Gondothlim fell thereunder for the smoke and confusion.

Great was that battle, yet for all their valor the Gondolthlim by reason of the might of ever increasing numbers were borne slowly backwards till the goblins held part of the northernmost city.

At this time is Tuor the head of the folk of the Wing struggling in the turmoil of the streets, and now he wins through to his house to find that Maeglin is before him. Trusting in the battle now begun about the northern gate and in the uproar of the city, Maeglin had looked to this hour for the consummation of his designs.

Learning much of the secret delving of Tuor (yet he could not discover all) he said nought to the king or any other, for it was his thought that of a surety that tunnel would go in the end toward the Way of Escape, this being the most nigh to the city, and he had a mind to use this to his good, and to the ill of the Noldoli.

Messengers by great stealth he dispatched to Melkor to set a guard about the outer issue of that Way when the assault was made; but he himself thought now to take Earendil and cast him into the fire beneath the walls, and seizing Idril he would constrain her to guide him to the secrets of the passage, that he might win out of this terror of fire and slaughter and drag her withal along with him to the lands of Melkor. Now Maeglin was afeared that even the secret token which Melkor had given him would fail in that direful sack, and was minded to help that Ainu to the fulfillment of his promises of safety.

No doubt he had whatever of the death of Tuor in that great burning, for to Salgrant he had confided the task of delaying him in the king’s halls and egging him straight thence into the deadliest of the fight – but Salgrant fell into a terror unto death, and he rode home and lay there now aquake on his bed; but Tuor fared home with the folk of the Wing.

Now Tuor did this, though his valor leapt to the noise of war, that he might take farewell of Idril and Earendil, and speed them with a bodyguard down the secret way ere he returned himself to the battle throng to die if must be: but he found a press of the Mole-folk about his door, and these were the grimmest and least good-hearted of the folk Meaglin might get in that city. Yet were they free Noldoli and under no spell of Melkor’s like their master, wherefore though for the lordship of Maeglin they aided not Idril, no more would they touch of his purpose despite all his curses.

Now then Maeglin had Idril by the hair and sought to drag her to the battlements out of cruelty of heart, that she might see the fall of Earendil to the flames; but he was encumbered by that child, and she fought, alone as she was, like a tigress for all her beauty and slenderness. There now he struggles and delays amid oaths while the folk of the Wing draw nigh – and Tuor gives a shout so great the Orcs hear it afar and waver at the sound of it. Like a crash of that tempest the guard of the Wing were amid the men of Mole, and these were stricken asunder.

When Maeglin saw this he would stab Earendil with a short knife he had; but that child bit his left hand, that his teeth sank in, and he staggered, and stabbed weakly; and the mail of the small coat his mother had put upon him in secret turned the blade aside; and thereupon Tuor was upon him and his wrath was terrible to see. He seized Maeglin by the hand that held the knife and broke the arm with a wrench, and then taking him by the middle leapt with him upon the walls, and flung him far out.

Great was the fall of his body, and it smote Amon Gwareth three times ere it pitched in the midmost of the flames; and the name of Maeglin has gone out in shame from among the Eldar and Noldoli.