@forcevociferatio
He knew the sounds of battle, even a small skirmish, and even from a long distance away. He knew the sounds of Orcs; he had fought them for so long that he could almost feel their foulness even from afar--or was he merely imagining that? He had none of the power or subtleties of mind that his cousin Artanis possessed, so he must have been. And yet he knew how many Orcs there were, and how many brave warriors fought them, before he ever came within sight of the battle. Hearing the sounds, using the clues his senses gave him to piece together a mental map of the battle had long since become second nature.
All he had on him was a hunting knife--that was all he needed in his solitary, wandering lifestyle. His weapons and armor of war he had buried in a cache farther north, wanting to be rid of them, but unable to truly part with them in case evil should ever rise again. The hunting knife was certainly no crude weapon; it was a dagger of the Noldor, among the finest craftsmen in Middle Earth or Valinor, but by the standards of the Noldor it was a humble tool, bearing neither adornment nor crest. But it would serve well enough to kill Orcs. Although he had tried his best through the Ages to purge himself of hatred, Maglor hated Orcs so much that he could have found the strength to kill them with his bare hands.
His dagger was in hand by the time he dashed to the foot of the wooded slope, and finally came within sight of the fray. One Man, hooded and masked but definitely a Man from his build and gait, stood alone against a dozen of the beasts--foul, bow-legged things, probably dwellers of the caves under the Misty Mountains, judging by their unusually large eyes.
Maglor’s frantic pace shuddered to a stop as he realized two things. One was that the Man did not need his help at all. He’d already dispatched six Orcs by the time the Elf came into view, and as he made two paces in his approach, had sent two more still to oblivion. The second was there was something strange about this Man, many strange somethings that clashed in Maglor’s senses and set his mind on high alert. The strangest thing was his weapons. They were blades, undoubtedly, but they were too straight, and they glowed. Not in the way that the blades of Gondolin glowed when the servants of Morgoth drew near, but these blades glowed as if lit by a fierce inner fire. To Maglor, who had been born under the gentle light of the Two Trees of Valinor, the brightness made his eyes ache, and he had to look away. He tried focusing instead on the man’s face, but he wore an eerie mask, white trimmed with gold, and his eyes were hollow orbs. Maglor felt his hackles begin to rise.
And suddenly, all the Orcs were dead, and Maglor was left standing in a clearing with a knife drawn, facing a tall and deadly foe with strange raiment and stranger weapons. He hastily sheathed the dagger and took a step back, his pale-blue eyes wide.
It briefly crossed Maglor’s mind that he, too, must look like a strange sight to this Edain: he knew he looked more pale and thin than any Elf had a right to be, and some had even thought him to appear sickly by the standards of Men. No Elf in his right mind would wear his hair as Maglor did, either; the dark brown locks were hacked off around his earlobes, scruffy, shaggy, and badly in need of a wash. His clothes were stained and dirty as if he’d been sleeping in the bush for years--and he had. Most off-putting of all was the vacant look that lingered often in his eyes--although now his look appeared skittish, hunted. He was well aware that he had an almost feral air about him, but he made no effort to hide it now. The only effort he had a mind to make at the moment was to struggle with himself over whether he should stay still with his knees locked up as they were, or turn tail and bolt.
