Authors Note: Hey guys! This is my second ever published fic, and I'm interested to see what you think of it.
A big, no, a giant, no, a HUMUNGOUS thank you to kira2127 for her edits and her bravery and honesty when telling me that something sucked and needed changing.
Reviews welcome! I love them!
No infringement intended.
Gehyel hid behind the over-turned table, shivering with a deep terror that pulsated through her tiny limbs. She gave a whimper every time an Orc growled or a piercing Dwarven scream reached her ears. The black night was churning in chaos and fear. The women were screaming from the neighboring houses, some cries cut short with the slashing of flesh. Wargs howled and snarled as they and their masters hunted and battled the village inhabitants.
Gehyel rocked back and forth, her eyes shut and her small hands clasped over her ears. She asked whatever powers there may be to make it stop, make the noise stop. She dug her fingers into her own scalp, trying to physically force the world into silence. The noise was driving her mad, but the smell that drifted through the open door was worse, making her vomit on her tucked legs.
She was still rocking, now covered in her own mess and tears rolling down her cheeks, when the sound of running feet entered the house.
Her eyes snapped open, her whimpering mouth clicked shut. She held her breath. There were hurried sounds of furniture turning over and heavy breathing. Gehyel dared not move, but she knew she had to if she were to get out of the house alive.
Reaching for a large jagged piece of glass from the broken lantern that had lain on the table, Gehyel carefully got to her knees. Wrapping her tiny hand around the glass shard, she was got ready to push up to her feet.
The steps neared and suddenly the table was thrown back. Closing her eyes in horror, Gehyel slashed out and yelled at the top of her lungs. Taking a chance, she kicked out and scrambled for the door.
She had nearly made it to the threshold when a strong arm grabbed her around the middle. She screamed every curse she had ever heard her Ada and her Uncle Bofur say when they thought she was out of ear shot. A hand clasped over her mouth in attempt to muffle her screams. A moment ago, she had wished for her crumbling world to calm down, now all she wanted was to erupt and escape.
Remembering the glass in her hand, Gehyel stabbed it into the arm around her waist that had lifted her up.
Her assailant cried out and yanked the shard away from her. She bit down on the meaty fingers that held back her cries. When they released for a split second, she screamed again, wishing for anyone, any Dwarf outside to hear her.
"SHHH!" the assailant hissed in her ear. "Gehyel, STOP! It's me! It's Ada!"
Gehyel froze.
The strong arms turned her around.
She was indeed facing her kind, salt and pepper haired Ada. There was blood coming from his temple, making the left side of his face a scary dark crimson. It matched the blood trickling down his arm. His clothes had been torn and he was missing his carving knife that usually rested in his belt.
"Oh, Ada!" Gehyel pleaded. "Make it stop!"
Her eyes started to well up and she felt as if she was going to start crying again. She shrieked when another crash came from just outside the window.
"Hush child," Ada cooed. "Gehyel, you have to stop this now. You have to be a brave wee lass for me."
Ada looked very serious when he said this. And almost… scared.
That was the most terrifying thing for Gehyel. Nothing scared Ada.
"Bifur!" A voice cried from the door.
Both Dwarves looked up to see Gehyel's Uncle Bofur leaning against the door frame. He was panting hard and there was blood all over his tunic, though Gehyel could not tell if it was his. He held his mining pick low to the ground, the metal end looking heavier than usual. There was blood on the pick too, dripping slowly onto the dirt floor. But the little pool of liquid that this blood made was black. Orc blood.
"Bifur, we have to get out of here. They've taken the market place and are on their way to the East Village. There's nothing we can do." Uncle Bofur looked wild with the same look in his eye as Ada.
Ada made a frustrated sound, and then turned back to Gehyel.
"Will you be brave for me, lass?"
Gehyel wiped her eyes and nodded, even though she wasn't sure if she had as much courage as Ada wanted her to.
"Good," he said. "Now, put your arms around my neck. Good girl. Alright, now I need you to tuck your head in and keep your eyes shut. This is important, ghivashith. Tell me you'll do that," Ada said quickly.
"Yes, Ada," Gehyel said softly, trying to sound brave.
"Alright. Here we go," Ada said as he gently arranged her limbs against him and cradled her head under his chin.
"Let's go cousin," Gehyel heard her Uncle Bofur say.
Gehyel buried her head into her Ada's shoulder as she felt him rise from his knees and make for the door.
A hot summer evening's wind blasted Gehyel's back as Ada thundered out into the street. With the wind came scents that made Gehyel want to retch. There was smoke and Orc filth and the smell of heavy Warg musk.
And blood. The coppery tang that leached into her nose made Gehyel's stomach try to crawl up her throat.
The sounds of the Orc raid intensified, the screams sharpening and the growls becoming unbearably close.
Gehyel clenched Ada's ripped tunic with white knuckles, trying to give him any strength she could lend him to go faster, faster, faster. She could hear Uncle Bofur's hurried steps right alongside them. She could hear him giving Ada directions and saying that Uncle Bombur was already at the stables waiting for them.
Gehyel clutched Ada's neck as he turned and slid down the streets and alleyways. She heard him gasp and switch directions. His arms tightened around her. She felt his legs thunder down the lane, taking her away from the chaos that was tearing their world apart.
At one point, he tripped over something and she was jostled from her place at his shoulder. For a split second, she broke her promise and glanced over Ada's shoulder.
What she saw in that moment burned into her mind like a hot iron.
There was fire leaping from roof to roof on the buildings. On the ground, it engulfed the insides of homes and shops, flaming through windows and licking the clothing of Dwarf corpses. Dead Dwarves and Orcs lay everywhere. Some leaned against walls, some lay out in the street, limbs skewed at odd angles, blood pooling from gapping wounds and splashing over the dusty ground. As their life blood trickled out, they became nothing more than emaciated mementos of battle. Wargs dug into the corpses, not discriminating between Dwarves and Orcs, tearing flesh from the bodies and crushing the bones between their massive jaws.
The living were running or fighting, trying to escape the monstrous Orcs that hunted down every moving thing. Gehyel recognized few of the faces that blurred by, but some caught her eyes like candles in the dark.
The baker woman that had once gifted Gehyel with sweets on her way to visit her uncle in the mines was now ran down by a Warg. The beast trounced her in two lunges, sinking its teeth into the back of her neck. The old woman's screams ripped open the swollen underbelly of the night and tore through the air.
The Dwarf who hawked his stone cut wares on the corner stall of the market now tried to fend off an Orc blade with a broken axe. But the blade skidded past and gouged into his throat, creating a fountain of blood as he slid to the ground.
The Orcs were everything Gehyel had ever heard in the old tales, and everything her nightmares had twisted them into. The story of her own mother's death during a raid had filled Gehyel with a terror that had haunted most of her childhood. That terror now seemed miniscule compared to the sight of the living breathing Orcs before her.
Some slashed and stabbed dying Dwarves in sport, with wide and malicious smiles splitting their hideous faces like the stones she had seen Uncle Bofur split at the quarry. Others dragged female Dwarves through the street and pulled them into the shadows.
They all had the same intent. The same evil…
What that evil was, Gehyel couldn't understand, but whatever it was, it made her heart quake and her body melt in absolute horror.
She didn't even know she was screaming again until Ada turned her head back into his shoulder to muffle her cries.
"I told you to keep your eyes shut," he growled in her ear.
Gehyel bit down on the coarse cloth of Ada's tunic to hold her fear inside.
She hadn't been doing this for long when Ada suddenly stopped and a wooden door groaned on its hinges.
As Ada detached her from his shoulder, she placed her small hands over her eyes, determined to obey Ada this time. Ada placed her in what felt like a pile of hay, and she curled up in a ball on her side. She heard the squeak of leather and the frantic whinnies of a pony.
Uncle Bombur's and Ada's voices reached her in quick, hushed Khuzdul. They spoke for what seemed like an eternity to Gehyel.
Finally, Ada called to her.
She opened her eyes and saw the familiar walls of the village stables. Looking towards the back, she saw Uncle Bombur holding the reins of a chestnut pony, which was stomping and chewing on his bit nervously. Uncle Bofur was keeping watch out by the door, his pick held at ready.
"Gehyel, come here lass," Ada called again from Uncle Bombur's side. She scrambled over to him, holding out her arms to be picked up.
Ada scooped her up and swung her on to the saddle. She gathered up the reins and the pony's mane in her tiny fists. Looking around, she realized that hers was the only mount.
"Ada? Where's your pony? And Uncle Bombur's and Uncle Bofur's?"
Ada didn't answer her.
He placed a blanket over her shoulders and tied it in a knot at her neck.
"Bifur, hurry. They'll be here any second," Uncle Bofur said from his place by the door.
Ada gently cupped Gehyel's face in his hands, like he was holding a delicate little bird that he had to send flying away.
"Lass, listen to me now," he said with a frighteningly serious tone as he looked deep into her eyes. "You must ride out to Belegos, you have to get away from here. Raise the alarm along the way if you can."
Gehyel started to realize what was happening.
"But Ada," she started to tear up again. "Why can't you come with me? Why can't Uncle Bofur and Uncle Bombur come?"
"There are no more ponies, child. They have all been slain or driven off by the Orcs," Uncle Bombur answered from her other side.
Gehyel was crying now.
"Ada, no! Please, don't make me go alone! There's room here for two. Please!" Gehyel begged her father but he only shook his head.
"No, my dove. I must stay here with your uncles and do what I can for our village."
"Bifur, hurry!" Uncle Bofur called.
Ada reached up one last time to embrace his weeping child.
"Stick to the roads," he said hurriedly as Uncle Bombur led the pony to the stable door. "Hide at night and travel as fast as you can by day. Trust no one but tell all what has happened. Do not stop until you reach Belegos."
Uncle Bofur motioned Uncle Bombur through the door as soon as he made sure the coast was clear. They pointed the pony toward the road, and not waiting for Ada to say anything else, Uncle Bofur slapped the pony's rear and the frightened little animal took off down the mountain road.
Not a moment later, a group of Orcs came storming around the corner of the stable, snarling and growling like wild beasts.
Bofur raised his pick and sounded a battle cry, delving into the nearest wretched creature. Bombur followed suit, the only weapon in his hand a ladle from the kitchens where he had been working before the attack.
The cries of his kin and the screams of the Orcs tore Bifur's eyes away from his receding child. Wasting no time, Bifur bounded to the corner of the stable to where the body of a Dwarven guard lay. Seizing the deceased's halberd, Bifur swung round to meet the enemy.
But what he saw stopped him in his tracks, holding him frozen in time while the world moved impossibly fast around him. What he saw branded itself into him like a scar of fire. Never would the image disappear from his mind.
Ever since her mother had died, Gehyel had been his only reason to continue walking in the world of the living. But past his fighting kin, Bifur saw his most precious treasure riding away on a pony… followed by two Warg riders, who closed the distance in a matter of seconds.
Bifur saw his baby girl turn around to face him, her frightened eyes blind to her own danger. She lifted her hand and pointed to something on his left, her scream echoing his own.
"NOOOOO!"
The last thing Bifur saw that night was a massive Warg sinking its teeth into the haunches of his daughter's pony.
The last thing Gehyel saw in her lifetime, was an Orc lodging an axe into her father's skull…
…
Bifur woke yelling, reaching for the halberd that he always kept within arm's reach.
Bofur was snatched out of sleep by his cousin's cries, and instinctively jumped on Bifur before he could get up. Bofur held Bifur down, trying to wrestle the weapon away from him.
"It's alright, Bifur! Nothing's going to hurt us! Ye're safe."
Bofur said this over and over again to his struggling cousin, the same mantra as every night that Bifur's mind let him remember a little too much.
Finally, Bifur quieted enough that Bofur was able to slid the halberd out of his grasp and gently place it on the ground beside his mat.
Bifur still breathed heavily as Bofur embraced him.
"Shh, ye're alright. It was a long time ago."
Bifur soon relaxed and Bofur let him lay back down.
"It'll be a long walk to Bree tomorrow, so why don't ye get some rest?" Bofur whispered.
As Bofur settled back under his own blankets, he glanced over at his brother across the fire. Sound asleep. He never woke when their cousin dreamed during these long trips in search of work. Now the fallen king of Erebor had called together a company to, as it was whispered, reclaim the Lonely Mountain. Bofur wasn't sure if they had made the right decision by joining, and he worried what effect something like this might have on his cousin. But their contract was signed, and they had to uphold their word.
Bifur lay still for a long time and Bofur believed he had fallen back to sleep. But soon the Dwarf heard his cousin muttering in Khuzdul. He didn't understand much of it, but when Bifur touched the remnants of the Orc axe embedded in his skull and began to rock back and forth, muttering one word, one name over and over again… It made Bofur's heart constrict.
Bofur thought about his beloved niece, and the night that changed all of their lives forever.
Oh, Gehyel, Bofur thought. How I wish you were still here. You are so very missed…
*Gehyel – dove
*Ada – daddy
*ghivashith – young treasure