Shadows Laid Before the Sun by Idrils Scribe

Epilogue

Even at this distance the soot stung Carnistir’s nose and throat, but tonight he found that scorched-earth stench of burning forest sweeter than Yavanna’s roses. He stood beside Maitimo, close enough that he could feel his brother’s warmth where their shoulders touched, and watched Nan Dungortheb burn. 

Erestor and Canissë had done their utmost with what supplies they had carried - including some of that vile incendiary mixture of sulphur, naphtha and quicklime that Erestor devised for the swan-ships. 

Being set alight from all directions had effectively quenched Órembar’s interest in capturing its unwilling guests. 

From this hilltop they could see the fire-lines roaring across the landscape. Sparks rose on a whirlwind of smoke, spreading the flames until they engulfed the entire web-strangled wood. 

Summer lingered still in Beleriand, and it had been a dry one, leaving yellowed grass and tinder-dry brushland. The Fëanorians had lit an inferno hot enough to raise a fire-cloud. The flames stained the mushrooming umbrella of smoke in leaping shades of crimson. Its black thunderheads had risen so high they blotted out the very stars. 

At the edges of Carnistir’s mind, Órembar’s call had turned to a roar of pain and rage, but even this conflagration had not sufficed to silence it. A horrid little shudder ran all down Carnistir’s back as he recalled the moving tide of spiders that swarmed northward towards the slopes of the Ered Gorgoroth, fleeing for the safety of bare rock and snow.

“We cannot kill it, can we?” Carnistir asked, and looked aside to see the scarred lines of Maitimo’s face harden. 

“Not even if we somehow set the very mountains on fire. A single spider is enough for it to survive, and in time it will regrow.” Maitimo passed his left hand over his face, wiping at the soot-streaks. “It is a strong and ancient Maia. Singing it out will take great Power.” 

“We were fools to attempt it.” Carnistir took care to shoulder part of the blame. 

“Not fools,” Maitimo said bluntly. “Nan Dungortheb is a flaw, a weak point in the leaguer of Angband. We had to try and seal it. At any cost.”

“Even at the cost of our lives?”

“Remember what we swore!” That wild fervour had returned to Maitimo’s eyes. “Our lives are forfeit if we fail to fulfil our Oath.” 

“Even so, we must suffer Órembar to linger here.” Carnistir breathed deeply. “It may lure in another Elf.” He shuddered at the recollection of Nelwë’s final moments.

“Thank you, Nelyo,” he blurted out, dropping the wall of formality that had grown between them. “Thank you for … dispatching Nelwë.”

Maitimo gave him a knowing look. 

Carnistir blinked against tears, and the rivers of fire below melted and bled into stains of glowing brightness before his eyes. He never told a living soul about the silver-haired boatswain, but somehow her death seemed small and meaningless in the face of all Maitimo’s suffering, and he held his tongue.

“Do you never think of it?” Carnistir asked instead, hating the pleading tone in his own voice.

“What is Alqualondë, what is all of the Elves’ paltry infighting, in the face of the battle against Morgoth?” Maitimo said quickly.

Carnistir knew not what to answer him.

For a time, Maitimo watched the conflagration in silence, red light playing across his face. “For now, Órembar is crippled,” he said at last, firmly back into his role as General of the Eastern Leaguer. “All we can hope is to contain it until the day of our victory.” 

He turned towards Carnistir, gesturing with his stump as if he still had a hand there. He forgot, at times. “Once we regain our Silmarils, we shall be the masters of Beleriand. We shall come with Song and steel and the Holy Light on our brows. That will be the end of Órembar.”

Not for the first time, Carnistir could not help but wonder on which brows, exactly, Maitimo meant to place that holy light. Even if all things went their way, three jewels for seven brothers would spell a bitter quarrel. One he dearly hoped would stop at words alone.

As he drowned in his morose musings, the hardened shell around Maitimo’s mind opened the tiniest sliver, and when Carnistir turned in surprise, their eyes met and he saw it.

Maitimo smiled. That soft smile his big brother used to show as he carried little Carnistir, small and sleepy, in the crook of his arm. The smile Carnistir believed he would never see again after Angband. 

The sight of it now filled him with terror. Maitimo was not smiling at Carnistir, but at his impossible vision of victory.

“Órembar is but a Maia, and we cannot kill it!” Carnistir pleaded, throwing out the terrible truth that sat rotting in his stomach like spoiled meat ever since they crossed the Mindeb. “Do you not see it, Nelyo!?” he pleaded, sick with despair. “We are sworn to defeat the mightiest among the Valar, but we cannot even touch a mere Maia!”

“Then we must find a way.” Maitimo’s hand shot out, and from a clump of withered gorse he plucked a writhing spiderling, and crushed it in his fist. “Our Oath is all we have left, Carnistir. I intend to keep it.”

Thus spoke Maedhros and Maglor and Celegorm, Curufin and Caranthir, Amrod and Amras, princes of the Noldor; and many quailed to hear the dread words. For so sworn, good or evil, an oath may not be broken, and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor

Chapter End Notes

And that concludes or horrid Halloween tale. Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end
The brothers have buried the hatchet, in a way, but poor Carnistir doesn't get much comfort from it...
By now you probably know that comments are fuel to my creative fires, so please let me know your thoughts on the chapter and the story as a whole, make my day, and give me a much needed push towards finishing my WIPs!
Next up: a series of loosely connected drabbles in the Under Strange Stars 'verse for Comfortember. In the longer term, I'm working on a sequel for Northern Skies.
See you soon,
Idrils Scribe