Far above Taur-Nu-Fuin, far-seeing Thuringwethil hovered, her razor-tipped wings beating the night air, ever watchful lest one of Thorondor’s folk should rise from their eyrie upon the Crissaegrim in challenge as they were wont to do whenever one of the Dark Lord’s winged messengers or spies flew too close. The thoronath - whom she once admired long ago in a past she chose to forget - commanded the skies to the west, the south, and the east of the land formerly known as Dorthonion. Her Master had not yet sufficient control of the air to challenge the agents of distant Manwë, the so-called Lord of the Sky who refuted his claim of ownership over all the world. So those of his servants who took to the air, by his strict command, dared not stray too close lest they risk provoking an all-out assault by the eagles which the Dark Lord would be compelled to counter and hard-pressed to contain. Why the great birds were so devoted to the circular hills west of Ered Gorgoroth when there were other, taller heights more akin to their former home in Aman and more suitable for a strategic advantage was a mystery that Thuringwethil had yet to discern. Regardless, its discovery would have to wait, for the Dark Lord was still in fury over the recent loss of Tol-in-Gauroth and his lieutenant’s monumental failure to hold the vital fortress.
Sauron. The Cruel. The Abhorred. The Terrible Dread. The Mist of Fear. The appellations spat at him in the hated Sindarin tongue were endless. But Thuringwethil would think of him always as Mairon and still addressed him as such. Mairon, not Sauron, even as he, when deep in rumination over some evil plan or focused on some cruel device would, from time-to-time and apparently without realization of the act, called her by her former name, a name of power and of the rushing air, from the time before when they dwelt together as equals in the Blessed Realm. “The Blinded Realm,” she reflected inwardly while outwardly her chiropterine features twisted slightly in a wicked sneer as she recalled how, for long, the Dark Lord’s chief deputy deceived the Great Powers of the West in the very shadow of Māchananaškad. And as she flew, Thuringwethil rolled and dived in delight of the shadow, the rush of the night air, and at the remembrance of the ultimate deception. “All save Melyanna,” she thought after a while, and her countenance smoothed and she felt a momentary twinge of sorrow at memories long forgotten, memories of another time, another place, another state of being – memories which she immediately suppressed. She could not think on that now for she had greater concerns. Sauron, who seemingly craved order for the Dark One above all things but secretly lusted for ultimate power, had fallen from grace - if ever the Master’s brutality could be described in such a term. For a moment, Thuringwethil shuddered at the idea that the Dark Lord could, even many leagues distant, know her innermost thoughts and true feelings toward her cruel overlord. But she dismissed the thought, for, after all, had he not given her the duties once entrusted to his lieutenant, namely, to guard the plains before the fastness of Angband and to watch for any movement of the enemy? Moreover, he had appointed her a special commission just after the destruction of Tol-in-Gauroth, delivered by the Voice of the Master, Langon, as she knelt in silence and deep in thought amongst the still smoking ruins. And as she pondered thusly, he spoke unto her.
“Lady of the Shadow, harken to the words of the Master - for he bids thee rise! In thee He holds no fault in what hath transpired here. Gather up thy strength and assume the mantle of the former seigneur of this broken tower,” the herald of the Dark Lord proclaimed. “For the time draweth nigh when the power of our Lord shall be revealed in all its might and fury to take back all the lands of which He was possessed before the arrival of the foul interlopers, the accursed playthings of the Valar upon whose behalf the so-called Great Powers of the West did dare to usurp the mastery of all Arda. The mansions of these wicked creatures shall He lay low and their stinking corpses shall He pile as carrion for the beasts of His host.” And she rose and the Voice of the Master made as if to go, then spoke again. “And if, by chance or design, whispers shall come to thine ears or sight to thine eyes of the whereabouts of thy once superior,” said Langon, “to the High Captain of Angband shalt thou send word and speedily. For our Lord would make for him a fiery guard of honor to convey him thence and thus reward him…accordingly,” and this last he said with feigned solemnity. At this, Thuringwethil knew full well the true meaning of the herald’s words for her ‘once superior’ had betrayed the Dark Lord after his fight with Huan and Lúthien. In his struggle with the Hound of Valinor, the Lord of the Dark Tower had not only been defeated but had surrendered this pivotal fortress and fled rather than lose his raiment of his flesh and face the ignominy of returning to their Master in formless disgrace. And she knew full well what was meant by the manner in which the once Admirable One was to be conveyed north. For there was no amity between the Dark Lord’s lieutenants, rather hatred and envy, and the Lord of Flame long held his rival in contempt. Eager the High Captain was for any opportunity to humiliate the Lieutenant of the Dark Tower and crueler, therefore, would his fall become.
So Thuringwethil began her watch, and within this, her search, but she did not have long to wait. For soon word came to her keen ears that a horror had newly descended upon Taur-Nu-Fuin, one that inspired as much dread and terror as had been found within the dungeons of the recently destroyed dark tower or in the deepest caverns of Angband - and Thuringwethil knew she had found him. But the mistress of flying beasts found herself conflicted. For it was Mairon who had freed her from the constraints of the West. And it was Mairon under whom she had so long served. And it was Mairon who confided in her alone his plans and stratagems utilized against their foe. And as she pondered her next move, a sound came to her ears, the voice of a man in mournful lament, from far beneath her somewhere in the Pass of Sirion, a song…to Lúthien.
The mention of the daughter of Melyanna startled Thuringwethil and she began warily to circle above the Pass to espy what she might. However, when the song ended as abruptly as it had begun, her curiosity overcame her suspicion and she slowly descended. Then a new song arose, sung in a high clear voice, a song of great beauty, of sublimity, and of power, and the shock of it hit Thuringwethil who let out a groan of pain as though struck by a mighty wave of Ulmo himself. Momentarily stunned, Thuringwethil fell from the sky, regaining full consciousness just in time to prevent her from dashing upon the still broken ruins of Tol-in-Gauroth. And as it dawned on her that the voice was undoubtedly that of Lúthien - for in it was the power of one of her own order, the power of her mother - she immediately sensed that she was in the greatest of peril. For watching her from a short distance away, Huan, the mighty Hound of Valinor, had come again to Tol Sirion.
In his mouth, he held the great wolf-hame of his vanquished foe, Draugluin, her kin, that had been left behind when his formless being was sent, screaming back to their Master in the north - the fate that the Lord of the Dark Tower had so cowardly avoided. Before she could call upon her own power, Huan, dropping the wolf-hame, sprung upon her with great speed and ferocity, his weight crashing down upon her with immense force. Although not of her order, the mighty hound had been imbued with the power of the Hunter of the Valar, Oromë, so that when roused he was equal in strength to that of the Maiar. In such a state, Huan had defeated the Mother of Ogres, the Father of Werewolves, and the Lord of the Dark Tower and to this list, the slayer of Úmaiar would now seemingly add the Lady of Bats.
Now Huan had Thuringwethil within his grip, as he had Wolf-Sauron not long before, and like that battle, Thuringwethil could not escape, though she tore at Huan’s flesh with her razor-tipped claws. But there was no Lúthien to whom she could surrender, nor did she possess anything with which she could barter with the hound - nor did he desire anything that was in her possession, save one. As Huan’s jaws crushed her neck, Thuringwethil succumbed and surrendered her fleshly raiment; her spirit, rising up like tendrils of smoke, blew northward and dissipated. Then Huan, taking a brief moment to sniff the air, took up the bat-fell of Thuringwethil, and the wolf-hame of Draugluin, and bounded off in the direction of his mistress.