Shadows Laid Before the Sun by Idrils Scribe

Chapter 4

Sweat ran down Carnistir’s back beneath the padded layers of his gambeson and cuirass. He shifted in his saddle, cursing his rotten luck and this entire expedition. The suit of armour was Curufinwë’s work, diamond-studded mithril shaped and beaten until it was light as a feather. It fitted Carnistir like a second skin, but the metal still caught the sun. Summer lingered long this year, and he felt like a clam being slowly boiled alive inside its own shell. 

Beside him, Maitimo gave no sign of unease, but then he never did. Perhaps his body was so used to agony that small discomforts no longer registered, or else he meant to set their company an example of knightly stoicism. 

Canissë had found no lack of volunteers: behind them, a column of warriors stretched for half a mile. All fine soldiers in high spirits, armed and armoured to the teeth.

“Lead us to it” Maitimo had said, and though Carnistir’s skin crawled with horror at the very thought, he would not refuse his brother. There had been a time when, faced with Maitimo’s bossy moods, Carnistir would only have scoffed and called him a rust-headed idiot loud enough to scandalise even the warriors in the hindmost line. 

Not since Angband. This new Maitimo was - not brittle, as such, because no one who fought with such deadly fire could be. Nonetheless, swearing at a man so damaged seemed shameful, and so Carnistir did as he was told. 

Nan Dungortheb beckoned, but for now their route ran near the Girdle. This close, Melian’s defence was dreadful to behold. The morning had dawned cloudless and bright, but Neldoreth’s beeches could barely be seen. The trees emerged like lumbering giants from the swirling mists, but their shapes were strange and seemed to change each time the eye moved, so that one could not gain a proper orientation. 

Erestor had experimented, venturing among the mist-wrapped trees armed with a compass and secured by a long line tied about his waist.  The needle had spun wildly once he set foot within the forest, and so had Erestor’s mind. In the end he was hoisted back to safety when he cried out in his frightened confusion. Doriath might be an Elvish realm, but the House of Fëanáro would find no aid there. 

Quite the contrary: tendrils of mist leaked from the girdle, fanning across the road like searching fingers. Those unlucky enough to be struck, horse and rider both, went strange and bewildered for a time, their wide eyes flicking back and forth as they wailed at hallucinations. Their comrades had to keep them in formation or they would have wandered aimlessly into the depths of that alien forest, doubtlessly to their deaths. How this was not considered kinslaying, Carnistir could not fathom. No doubt the Sindar had some far-fetched explanation that satisfied their conscience.

He scoffed - The House of Fëanáro would not be deterred by a bunch of drab-eyed savages. The company turned their well-armoured backs to the shimmering wall of mist-wreathed wood that was Doriath, and headed towards the mountains.  

The Ereth Gorgoroth loomed over the column of knights; row upon row of  snow-capped peaks, harsh and impenetrable, falling in sheer precipes to the shadowed valley at their roots. 

The pull at Carnistir’s mind had gone from a mere call to an incessant drone. Its touch had seemed sweet at first, but this close it proved that bitter-rotten sweetness of charnel. 

“Can you feel it?” he asked Maitimo, not knowing what answer he was hoping for: to be told that it was merely an illusion conjured by his own foolish fears, or that Maitimo felt it too, and therefore the horror was real. 

Maitimo did not look aside. “Of all our House you were ever the most gifted at osanwë, and you are no coward. What you feel is real, Moryo.”

“Valar protect us.” The phrase left Carnistir’s lips before he could master himself. It was anathema, of course, and had been so ever since their own bloodied hands had severed all their House from divine grace, but in this moment of terror the old habit prevailed. 

Maitimo only laughed. “No use in praying, brother. You are not Findekáno.”

They barely took note of the first webs: on the cusp of autumn, some were to be expected. Perfectly common orb webs stretched between branches and tall grass, inhabited by perfectly ordinary - if somewhat large - diadem spiders. The webs seemed remarkable only because there was nothing for them to catch. 

Naught but spiders lived here. They found no trace of any other animal. No birds twittered in the sky, no cicadas chirped in the dry grass, no buzzing bees, no mice scurrying in the undergrowth. A leaden silence pressed upon the land. Only the north wind whistled forlornly through the shuddering gorse.

Onwards the Fëanorians marched across the sere and trackless land, and with every step the webs thickened, until the company passed entire trees spun into towers of spider-silk, webs trailing from their leafless branches like hanging nooses. 

A wide-eyed scout brought Maitimo the dry husk of an oriole, golden feathers sticking out at odd angles beneath a cocoon of silk. The web had been torn by the frightened bird’s flailing and flapping, but once tangled, the bright little thing had been spun in and sucked dry nonetheless. Maitimo shrugged it off, but Carnistir could bear to look at the tiny corpse. At least it had two eyes. 

Soon after, they had to leave the horses. The beasts were sweat-foamed and white-eyed, prancing and spooking in their terror, more of a liability than an asset. The same could be said of some of the warriors, and so Canissë mercifully ordered them to stay behind and guard their mounts. 

After that, things worsened. There were spiders all around. Spiders the size of Carnistir’s finger-nail, thousands upon thousands studding the web-wrapped trees like strange, many-legged blossoms. Spiders the size of his open hand crawling on the boles. One time, glimpsed between the dead, grey underbrush, a spider as big as a dog. 

Carnistir wondered at the size of the webs, and could not resist reaching out his hand and touching a blanket-sized orb web that sat empty between two trees. At once he was stuck in the glue-like surface of the threads. He yanked and threw himself back so his entire weight was behind the pull, but could not get loose. His panic was brief, and the blue steel of his hunting knife did release him. He carried the unsheathed blade in his hand, after that. 

It was some time before he realised why Erestor exchanged a look of concern with Maitimo: none of the countless spiders had come forth to defend its work, or had hindered their march. They were allowed to advance ever deeper into this cursed valley.

To what purpose, Carnistir dared not contemplate.

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back for another chapter, in which the tension rises and the spiders get bigger.
Of course I'd love to hear from you: what awaits poor Carnistir? And what is Maitimo up to?
A comment would make my day!
See you tomorrow for more spidery creepiness,
IS