Estelmo

The squire to Isildur's eldest son Elendur, who accompanied his master when Isildur marched from Osgiliath after the War of the Ring. During that march, Isildur's Dúnedain were ambushed by a force of Orcs. With defeat seeming certain, Elendur urged his father to take the One Ring that he bore and to flee before all was lost. This Isildur did, using the Ring's power of invisibility to escape from the battle toward the Great River.

Neither Estelmo nor Elendur ever discovered what happened to Isildur after his escape. Their remaining forces were soon overcome, and Estelmo was struck to the ground by an Orc's club. The defenders were almost all slain, but Estelmo was one of the few who recovered. Rescued by Woodmen of the Greenwood and the Elves of Thranduil, he eventually made his way to the North-kingdom with news of the fate of Isildur.

Isildur himself was never seen again, and for many years his fate remained unknown. It was later deduced that he had made his way to the banks of the wide river and, with great difficulty, swum across. As he made the crossing, the Ring he bore had slipped from his finger and sunk to the bed of Anduin, where it would lie for many centuries to come.

We have almost no details about Estelmo's life outside the events of the Disaster of the Gladden Fields, other than the fact that he was a young man (which indeed we might expect, given his status as a squire). Nonetheless, it is possible to make at least some conjectures. As the squire of the heir to the High Kingship, we can probably assume that he came from a noble family, and one associated with Isildur's household.

His service to Elendur probably connects Estelmo with Minas Ithil, Isildur's fortress city on the borders of Mordor. That city was captured by Sauron in II 3429, twelve years before the Disaster of the Gladden Fields, so Estelmo would have been very young indeed at this point. He may have been among those who escaped with Isildur to sail into the North-kingdom and seek aid.

During the War of the Last Alliance that followed, Elendur remained faithfully by his father's side, and so, as Elendur's squire, Estelmo would also have followed Isildur throughout the long War, until he took part in the fateful northward march.

After the disaster and his recovery, we know that Estelmo eventually made his way across the Misty Mountains to the land of Arnor, where he bore witness to the events of the ambush. After this point, Estelmo is lost to history. Perhaps most likely, he would have remained in the North-kingdom at the court of Valandil, who was the youngest and last surviving brother of Estelmo's slain master Elendur. However, it is not impossible that Estelmo still had family connections in the South, and so it is at least conceivable that he might have journeyed back to Gondor at some point.