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Confirmation reaches them in the spring that Elwing of Sirion has the Silmaril.
It takes as long as the spring only because they weren't looking. They can stretch the oath that far, they can be disinterested in knowing - but now they know, and so there it is. Elwing of Sirion is twenty-three. Half-man, so fully grown. Sirion is a city of refugees. Elves and Men and, since there are Men, children. Elwing herself has infant children.
They debate whether to send messengers. Debating is allowed, even protracted debating. The Oath, these days, is loud in their minds, and louder when they're pushing it like this, but they drag out the debate for a few months. Messengers will probably be shot on sight. The last time Elwing of Sirion received news of the House of Fëanor it would have been the news that her brothers, twins, aged seven, had not survived the sack of Menegroth.
They send messengers anyway. The messengers are shot on sight. They have good armor, Fëanorian armor, and return home injured but not lethally. Maglor's songs no longer stitch them together. War makes you worse at healing. Maglor's songs are more powerful than ever - he can knock back a wave of approaching enemies, he can make a blade's next touch deadly, he can make them faster and more impervious to danger, but he can no longer do healing.
Maedhros, when he thinks about this, thinks that perhaps there needs to be part of you that is not broken for healing spells to draw on. Or perhaps the Enemy is amused to strip that away first. Perhaps the Enemy finds it suited to the theme as the Oath tugs and yanks and twists them into violence against the lands they once defended and the peoples they once sheltered.
They send messengers to Sirion again. The messengers deliver a plea for the Silmaril, an offer of anything at all in exchange. The messengers do not return at all.
The Enemy is many many hundreds of miles from here but at night Maedhros can hear him in his head. Is it so implausible that I really let you go? the Enemy likes saying. You serve me better free than you ever would have willingly.
The Oath allows them to work slowly. They begin planning the sack of the refugee camp even more slowly than the Oath allows, so slowly that its currents are constantly tugging at them. Any slower and the currents would erode all the things they care about which are not the Oath, and it would be a disaster to go to Sirion once they've been stripped of their capacity to care about anything that is not the Silmaril. So they do not hold out forever. But they work as slowly as they can.
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"No, just makes us stronger in whatever way does suit us and match our needs and goals."
"Taught us to fight so we could defend our families against Elves, taught us armor and weapons..."
So Maedhros turns away from the wall. "You can either give Promise your name - which will let her tell if you're lying to her - you can swear to answer truthfully for the next hour, or I can kill you now, which would you like?"
A moment of frightened silence from the orcs. Then one volunteers a name. It does not click. Maedhros sighs.
A moment of frightened silence from the orcs. Then one volunteers a name. It does not click. Maedhros sighs.
imeanforever
She was hoping for coaching on ways to steer the conversation, not that -
"It has to be the first name you ever had."
"It has to be the first name you ever had."
Another long minute of anxious quiet. Then a different orc, trembling, offers a name. That one clicks.
imeanforever
"Answer me honestly. Has anything any of you have told me during this conversation been false as far as you know?"
"I don't remember all of it, I was scared - sometimes Melkor does give people orders they don't like, and most orcs are sworn to him not just some."
"Babies who are too young to swear."
"We'd explain why they should. They always do want to, it's like a rite of passage and you say it with all your friends."
imeanforever
"What do you think would actually happen to me if I escaped here and went to Melkor?"
"He'd be very interested in you. He'd probably try to convince you to work for him. If that didn't work he'd probably hold you prisoner. The Elves are doing that too, though, aren't they?"
"He makes them work in the mines, usually."
"Iron, coal. Mostly. I think. Orcs don't work in the mines usually."
"Prisoners."
"When we conquer an Elf kingdom."
"Some of the Maiar with powerful magic call down power to shake down the walls, and we surround it and take the Elves and march them back to Angband."