DOR DAEDELOTH

Blood trickled down his brow, stinging his left eye a bit, and leaving an iron tang as it stained his lips. A few strands of his flaming red hair now lay plastered against his skin. Nelyo recoiled. Stinking orc breath and the stench of seared flesh filled his nostrils as he carved his way in the direction his father had gone.

He felt, rather than saw, Káno to his left. On his right he heard Tyelko barking orders to Rusco. As he cut off another grey-green skinned orc's shriek with a slam of his blade, he took a long, labored breath.

Of all he had done since landing on these cursed shores, this brought him the most solace. This felt good. This felt right.

His bronze boots kicked up more of the charred earth. If ever grass had grown in this battle plain, it had turned to ash long ago. Smoking and smoldering piles of wood and carcasses littered the area, providing some of the only light in this land where Morgoth's black heart strove even against Varda's stars far above them.

A deep pit of guilt settled into his stomach as he thought of the Valar. But as he felt a sharp dagger pierce just into his left abdomen, he turned the guilt into anger. He found the creature, small and quivering, gazing up with a fanged grin, its hand still wrapped around the tiny dagger.

Nelyo smiled. In one swift motion, he grabbed the orc by the arm with his left, twisted it still holding the dagger away from his body, and forced it to stab its own throat. For ten days, they'd done battle. For ten days they had worked for this moment. A tiny orc would not stop him from reaching his father upon the battlefield at the door of Morgoth's shadowed throne.

He turned right as the familiar voice of Moryo rose above the clamor. He sounded angry, but desperate. It took a moment to find him in the chaos.

"Moryo! Calm down," Nelyo shouted. He came to stand level with Moryo, meeting him half way between them. A burn on his left cheek made Nelyo pause. "What news from the front?"

"He has gone too far ahead. Fire and shadow are between us and him," Moryo said.

For a moment the chaos calmed. Nelyo glanced about. He noticed that the sparse fires had grown, and great swaths in the ground that still burned began to replace them. He looked back at Moryo. His brother's face, a deep shade of red from the exhaustion and heat of the Dor Daedeloth, stopped him in his tracks. Nelyo looked beyond Moryo. He looked at the flaming red light a few hundred yards away.

Nelyo turned to him. "Find the others. Gather what forces you can, and follow us." He glanced right. "Tyelko!"

The man's usually shining, fair hair had been stained dark with blood, dirt, and ash days ago. But his sharp grey eyes had hardened as well. Nelyo lifted his sword and gestured onwards.

"With me!"

Tyelko nodded. By the time Nelyo had cut his way to the front of their forces, his brother had joined him, Rusco at his right hand, and a dozen more warriors beyond.

They exchanged no words. They didn't have to. Tyelko fell into step behind him instantly. As Nelyo began to work his way through flaming rubble and smoking, shattered stone, he knew his brother was at his back.

They crested the top of a hill. Nelyo halted in his step as he looked down the steep, graveled path into the next great level plain. In the firelight he saw the bodies of his father's guard mangled and twisted in the ground. But he didn't see them.

He couldn't. He saw only Pityo. In every flame, be it dancing candle or raging conflagration, he could see and hear his brother. Nelyo couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He felt Tyelko beside him stiffen. He felt a rush of wind as a group of guards ran forward. But still he didn't move.

Not until a voice on his left cut through the din a moment later did Nelyo lift his eyes from the carnage.

"What are they?" Káno asked.

Nelyo glanced at his second brother who stood now at his left side. His voice quivered only a bit.

Tyelko responded for him, from Nelyo's right. "Shadow and flame."

Looking straight ahead, he realized what Káno had been referring to. Half a dozen dark, hulking figures twice their height stood wreathed in fire near the base of the slope. They surrounded someone, a figure whose piercing gaze seemed to glow with the very light of Valinor that they had lost. His father had always been at home amidst the flames.

Tyelko's guard had rushed forward and now engaged three of these beasts. A word, a name that Nelyo hadn't heard in many, many years formed in his thoughts. Valaraukar. Fallen Ainur, whom Eönwë spoke of battling in his great tales of the first wars.

Three of them separated from the others. Nelyo watched in horror as their swords, like crystalized fire, collided among Tyelko's hunters. He glanced right. Tyelko's eyes narrowed in anger as he took two steps forward. Nelyo joined him, and soon he and his two brothers were skidding down the rubble.

"There are three." Káno lifted up his voice to be heard over the cacophony around them.

Tyelko grinned, adjusting his sword. "One for each. Seems only fair."

Before Nelyo could respond, he had rushed forward to join Rusco in engaging the Valarauko on the right. He tried to look beyond them. He tried to see through the shadows and flames, to where he knew his father stood, but he couldn't.

Nelyo licked his lips. The taste of his own blood, and the blood of others, filled his mouth. Well then. One for each of them.

The Valarauko in the middle met his gaze as it drove its sword deep into another warrior. Nelyo paused for a moment. In his eyes, he saw reflected the same blazing will as the maia Arien. Nelyo paused. Then he ran forward.

Sparks flew through the air when their swords met. Nelyo screamed against the strength of the demon as it tried to force him to his knees. All thoughts of Arien, of Valinor, of the paradise he had lost fell away. He focused on the acrid fumes emanating from it and let it fuel his anger.

His first strike against the Valarauko's leg caused the beast to roar, though if it was from anger or agony, Nelyo couldn't tell. His sword had left behind a gash in the black, smoking, leathery hide. Instead of blood, molten flames exploded out to the ground. Nelyo cried out as it splashed towards him. Their pained shouts mingled in the air.

The Valarauko had greater strength. But Nelyo had speed, and as he kept it moving, aided by an influx of warriors from their main vanguard, the beast slowed ever further. Every strike hurt them both, though. He felt as though the flames cooked him beneath his armor. His hands stung. But still, Nelyo hacked at the creature.

With a scream, it fell to the ground at last. Nelyo took a brief moment to breathe. The stench surrounding them made him hack and cough. With a shout of his own, he drove the blade of his sword into its chest. The fire in its eyes died.

He looked to his left in time to see Káno and Moryo force the second to the ground. On his right, Tyelko, Curvo, and Telvo had toppled the other. He tried to catch his breath. He tried to breathe. His body ached. But as he looked ahead, his blood ran cold.

His father stood alone. Two smoldering, broken shadowy shapes lay dead on either side of him. But ahead, flanked by two more Valaraukor, stood one so large and fierce that even Nelyo felt afraid. He took a step forward.

The Valarauko lord swung. Nelyo took a few steps forward as he saw his hunched, wounded father lift up his sword one final time. Fëanáro, King of Exiles, roared in anger and pain as he heaved against the blade. The beast answered his roar with one of his own.

Time seemed to slow. Like a hammer hitting metal on an anvil, sparks flew as the Valarauko's sword slid past his father's own and slashed directly into his chest plate. Nelyo ran forward. He ignored the pain. He ignored the ash and smoke filling his lungs.

With a scream, Nelyo slid past his father's form and under the Valarauko's arm. Channeling every bit of strength, all the light he remembered before the Trees had withered, each summer day along the sandy shores of Tirion, Nelyafinwë swung at the Valarauko's sword arm.

He didn't register the world around him until he found himself staring into Káno's eyes. The world was dark. The chaos had receded to the edges of his consciousness. A shout behind him pulled him from the shadows. He turned. His stomach dropped.

Tyelko had his arms under their father's own. Curvo took his feet. Their father's face continued to pale as they dragged him back to safety. Nelyo followed. The tears spilling down his face cut through the grime.

They stumbled to the ground as their father's voice cut into the gloom. Nelyo felt his heart leap in his chest. He thought they'd been dragging a lifeless body through their lines. He skidded to his father's side, grabbing his hand.

"They will sing songs of this day," Fëanáro said. He coughed, blood spurting from his mouth onto his pale face. "Songs of the battle with Gothmog. Songs of the battle beneath the stars."

Nelyo knew, as he saw the crimson blood trailing down his father's face, that he would soon go join his father in the halls of Mandos. He struggled to find his voice. A lump formed in his throat.

"We will sing those songs," Káno told him. "Until we take our last breaths of the free air of Middle Earth."

He'd always been good with words. Nelyo glanced up at him, and saw Káno's own eyes welling with tears. But his brother's voice never wavered.

Their father laughed. He nodded. "Indeed. Let nothing stand between you and vengeance, my sons. There is nothing left but that."

Nelyo felt his father's hand grow warmer, hot to the touch. He watched each of his brothers battle against tears and anger. Then he turned to his father. Their gazes met.

"Nelyo."

"What would you ask of me?"

His father paused for a moment. His piercing grey eyes hardened as he looked up at the stars above them, muttering three faint curses. Then he turned, looking at Nelyo head on. "You are now King of the Noldor. Let no other race, no other being come between you and your birthright." Then he hacked up more blood, laughing again, though it was weak. "End the ones who stole your father from you. It is in your hands now."

Nelyo nodded. He couldn't bring himself to speak. The armored, bronze circlet still atop his head felt heavier than it ever had. Looking back the way they'd come, Nelyo saw silhouetted against starry skies the three, great peaks. Only when he felt his hand burning did he turn back.

His father's eyes had closed. His chest stopped moving. In the still expression of his face, Nelyo saw reflected his grandfather Finwë. Then searing pain, and a bright flash, and he stumbled back.

When they uncovered their eyes, they found ash in place of Fëanáro's broken, bleeding body. Silence fell around them. Down on his knees, Nelyo tried to stop the shaking of his right hand. He saw them in his mind. Finwë, Pityo, his father. The Falmari floating face down in the tossing waves. The burning ships.

When he opened his eyes, he took in the slumped, hurting forms of his five remaining brothers. Moryo and Tyelko both stood silent, stoic, ashen-faced. At their feet knelt Curvo, eyes alight with a fire like the ones that had raged around them. Telvo's shoulder brushed against his own. He was glad he couldn't see the youngest's face. Nelyo wasn't sure he could've handled that.

And across from him, face hardened like the marble their mother used to carve so intricately, Káno looked up to meet his gaze. He could hear his brother's voice in his mind, urging him to stand. Nelyo took a deep breath. But he nodded.

"Come." His own voice sounded hollow and rough in the evernight. "We must return to Mithrim. There is much to plan."

His brothers didn't speak. Tyelko looked at him and nodded, before turning away. The others followed except for Curvo, who glared first at Nelyo as if resenting the command. But Nelyo didn't have time to argue. And to his relief, Tyelko soon pulled Curvo along behind.

Nelyo turned back to the three peaks. Distant orc cheers and glowing fires settled at the horizon. He had to take command now. He had to. But as Nelyo looked at those towering mountains, he shivered.

What had Eve said? If they had not burned the ships, they would've had enough to win. Each death, each casualty from this war now lay on their heads. First Pityo, then Fëanáro, mightiest of all the Firstborn.

"We must leave, and regroup back at Lake Mithrim."

Káno stood on his left again. He had known it even before the man had spoken. Instinct, perhaps. Káno was the only shadow he knew better than the cousin he had left behind on the other shore.

How many lives now depended on him? Nelyo didn't want to think about it. He continued to gaze across to the mountains. And not just lives, but deaths, too. His father had charged them with one, final command. Avenge him.

Nelyo turned to his brother. "Organize the army. We move now. Put Telvo's house along the outside. Tyelko's hunters need a break." He walked away from the charred ashes where his father had taken his last breath. But he halted only a few steps away.

"What is it?"

"If we had not burned those ships," Nelyo began, "would they now be alive?"

Káno didn't answer at first. They both knew what two they spoke of. There was no point in speaking their names in this foul land. "We will never know."

But Eve had been so sure. And as Nelyo began to walk back through the path of Eithel Sirion, he found himself agreeing with her. No greater mistake had he ever made than when he'd not stayed his father's hands as he'd set fire to those swan ships. Words had never been enough against Fëanáro Curufinwë. Nothing had ever been enough against the spirit of fire.

Nelyo glared off into the starry sky towards Mithrim. They had marched to war against Morgoth, not the house of Nolofinwë. One by one, those burning ships were taking everyone he cared about. Pityo. Findekáno. Eve. Fëanáro.

How many more would follow?