No Mercy
Fear was in the air.
The King had gone to the West, it was said said, to take the secret of life immortal from the Powers by force. Great ships powered by the strength of many slaves stolen from eastern lands had sailed a little over a month earlier, covering the sea west of the island in a carpet of black and golden sails and lofty masts.
In Romenna, the Faithful that had gathered together with Amandil in secret had already fled to the great ships in the harbor. The rest of the people tried to carry on as if nothing were wrong. But with the skies repeatedly darkened with clouds the shape of eagles that would blot out the sun, and storms thundered loudly and cast lightning bolts to stab at the city for days on end, the cries of children too young to understand what was happening filled the air. “What is wrong with the sky, Ammë?” “When will it stop raining?” Despairing mothers had no answer for them.
Then the rumbling began; and the harbor waters of Romenna grew angry, swamping and capsizing fishing scows even as the waves pounded away fiercely at the ancient stone quay. The great ships belonging to the Lords of Adúnië were torn from their anchors and tossed Eastward by a ceaseless, madding wind, their masts snapped away and dragging behind. Those unfortunates caught outside in the gale were plucked off their feet and borne away, never to be seen again.
Inland, the holy mountain exploded, throwing boulders so far into the air they could no longer be seen – until they fell back to earth. With a groan as if Arda itself had sickened, the ground shuddered, tipped and began to sink. Waves crashed over Romenna and climbed the slopes of the holy mountain itself, washing everything they touched away.
The punishment of the Valar against the Arrogance of Númenor came out of the West in the guise of a storm the like of which Man had never seen before, and the judgment of Ilúvatar Himself sundered the island world without mercy. Young, old, arrogant, humble, innocent, guilty – all were borne down to the same watery grave, with only a barren jut of mountaintop left in the end to mark their passing.