Sons of Fire and Blood by Ar-Feiniel

Red Faced

Morifinwë Carnistir - Caranthir

In which Caranthir raises his hopes and watches them crash down.

He beheld them as they stood
In chaotic rows, nervously,
Muddy tunics, holes in boots
Eyes darting like rabbits.
The Secondborn look like second place
Compared with his fiery cloak
His carved and gilded armour,
Dark hair tossing in the wind,
Mouth stretched in a line
Like a blade's edge
Paper thin and deadly sharp,
Grey eyes like a stormy day
Looking down in...
What?
Disapproval?
Disappointment?

These are the mortal men
Gifted by Ilúvatar with a chance
To flee to an undiscovered country
While he walks the earth eternally.
These are the promised usupers
Of the Eldar's peerless majesty
Yet they are good for nothing
But plowing the fields.
He turns away without a word,
Waves a careless hand.
They are beneath the notice
Of a son of Fëanor.

--

His generals stutter when
They break the news -
Orcs are running across his lands
Unchecked, unchallenged.
His generals shift nervously,
Waiting for his face to
Flush red with anger,
For his voice to rise with fury,
For him to unfurl his crimson banner
With a white eight-pointed star
And lead them to defend his realm.
They are not disappointed.

The trumpets sound
In the crisp morning air
Like the roar of a bear
Awakened in anger.
But yonder returns an answering call
Shrill as a nightingale.
It is the Secondborn, the remnants
Holding the gates,
Tall and proud against
The vile breath of
Monstrous death.
In disbelief he sees
The glint of their swords,
The resolve in their war cries,
The fury of their blows,
And he thinks perhaps
He has misjudged.

--

He brings his men into that battle
That holds all their desperate wildest hopes
On a tenuous string
And beside his noble brothers
He boasts of the strength of
His men,
Of how they fight until the end
Impervious to despair.
But even as he said those words
A cry of pain rises in the din
Horror spills before his eyes
Of their ranks being mowed down
With a savage triumph
By his very own men whom
He had once called brothers.

His face flushes red
As pools of blood,
His kunckles whiten around his hilt,
Hands shaking with fury.
And Carnistir curses the day he ever met
The abhorred Secondborn,
The usurpers of his hope.