PROLOGUE: THIEF

It was by no great feat of intuition that he knew the wood held no love for him.

He could hear the dirt-road crackling beneath his stride, giving him away. The clenched, stony soil pressed itself against the undersides of his boots, leather and earth; whispering. Felled leaves were yielding to a pulp were he trod – it had rained, and the woodland was zealous with sound. Even underneath his layers of quilting, wool and leather, the hairs on his body were sharp as the quiver of arrows bristling from his back. When he was younger, his brother would take him stalking buck and deer and fowl. But his brother was not here with him now.

And the Trollshaws made him feel like the buck.

I have King's blood, he tried to imagine he was somebody older and more heroic. Uncle would like that. King's blood does not balk.

The torch in his fist sputtered. Irritated, he puffed at it, trying to revive the flames – but they only shrank away, glowing a dim white. He tossed down the ashen wood and snuffed out the embers with his boot. Here was far enough, he decided, or he would never find his way back to camp. The young man fumbled at the laces of his breeches, freed himself, and pissed on the soil.

A sudden coldness on his throat became sharp. It took a moment for him to realise what it was.

He struggled.

"Don't move," the knife pricked harder into the flesh of his throat. "Or I'll cut you from apple to cock, half-man, I swear it."

A woman, he realised. His heart was beating very fast. "If it's money you want..."

"He's a bright one," she mocked in aside. "You'll be highborn, then?"

His assailant was not - he could hear it in the way she was spoken, but had better sense than to say it aloud. The steel at his throat was not very sharp, notched and blunted with rust. All the same, it would kill him. She hugged him tight, like a lover, desperately strong. He could feel the tapping of her heart under his own skin.

She shook him. "What's your name?"

King's blood does not balk. Suddenly brave, he said nothing.

The Thief honoured that with a broken, dry laugh. She shoved the point of the blade up against his pulse. "It's a quick end for you, milord dwarf – or your name."

The deftness of her hands made him afraid all over again. "Kili," he spat, hating her.

"Kili?" the dwarvish arranged itself awkwardly on her tongue. "Rare that you see half-folk wandering the Trollswood, milord Kili. You're my first. The hour's old as a crone. And it weren't wise of you to be travelling under dark, now, were it?"

"I see that."

"Do you?" he could smell earth on her skin and breath. "There's plenty in these parts worse than me, dwarf. Hark that."

Kili tautened. His hands were closed at his front, clutching his open laces; he hadn't had the opportunity to fix them. Flushing, he tried to sound imperious. "There's fifteen men not fifty paces behind me. They'll soon come looking. Take what you want. Run – if you can."

"You're lying."

His knuckle brushed against a knife on his belt. This is just some peasant. You've beaten bigger men than her before! But that was only in mock-fights, and he could not work his nerve. He had never killed a man - the thought of killing this girl made him quail. "I'm not lying."

A pause.

Then her free hand was mapping his body, rough and quick. Kili gulped against the weapon as she worked. Would she murder him anyway? He thought of his brother, his uncle, and the Company, recoiling with shame. He did not intend to be the first of Durin's Line to perish in the damp of his own piss.

The Thief snipped his coinpurse free, pried rings from his fingers; even filched the fine dirk on his belt from its sheath. Kili prickled with rage. The dirk had a beautifully carved hilt, and he was fond of it.

"Is that the lot of it?" she pressed him. "All?"

"That's all."

She was disgruntled. "Thought dwarves went lusty for gold? You're meant to hoard it."

"Those are Man's stories." It pleased Kili to make the Thief appear stupid. "What, did you think I'd have a chest-load tucked down my breeches?"

"It'd make up for what's missing down there, no?" she bit back. "Where's the rest? Sewn into your clothes?" The Highwaywoman reached a hand under his leather doublet and stroked the wool tunic beneath. He could feel the coldness of her fingers through the cloth. "Finely made, too. You're so highborn I can smell it."

"I have nothing else."

"Then your pretty garb will have to do. Take off your doublet." When he did not move, she drew blood on his neck. Kili grit his teeth. "Quick, now. Yours wouldn't be the first arse I've ever seen, boy, if that's why you're hot in the face."

Kili felt an instance of apocalyptic, overwhelming humiliation. King's blood does not balk. Thorin Oakenshield would not. Dwalin would not. I will not. He would not even have to kill the girl, if he couldn't. He would just have to be quick. Break her wrist, block her cut. Force her down. Make her yield. His heart was hammering.

Kili reached up –

Voices. Muted by wind, but voices nonetheless. Torchlight was driving yellow fingers through the trees. His hand faltered. "My brother and Company. I told you they would come. Run, if you can."

He could feel her weighing some decision in her mind. The knife at his throat began to shake. It made him nervous. Here, with his life poised on the edge of an outlaw's knife, he had never felt so mortal. It seemed ludicrous; grossly unfair. He could not die here, now. I wanted to look upon the halls of my fathers. I wanted to see Arda. And Erebor. Fear tangled his faculties. The prince waited for death.

It did not come.

After a moment, the knife jerked away. Kili heard a soft sound on the undergrowth; a receding step. Her breath was coming heavy. She's questioning herself. He thought about notching an arrow then. A good marksman could put a shaft through a hare's eye at full speed, and he was a good marksman. Why not this outlaw? Only his hands would not move.

Something whirred in the margins of his visions.

It dragged him down into the bowels of panic. I am going to die. Not quite knowing what he was doing, or what he was going to do, Kili reeled around. He flung up a leather gauntlet, hoping to take the brunt of the blow with his arm. Something cut at him and cracked on the black night air –

It connected with a crunch.

He flinched on reflex. Then his other arm was over his eyes, pre-empting the next assault. But nothing happened. And what was worse, he felt nothing. No pain, though he had heard the blow that struck him. He was not bleeding, nor bruised. An instant of dizzy dread overcame him. The instant bloated into an eternity; a cold, harrowing forever in which he was nothing but a beginning and an end. In that eternity he was quite convinced he was dead.

Something dropped at his feet with a thump.

Kili recoiled a step.

It was too dark for him to see. His mind groped for understanding. He could not hear the Thief's breathing, but he knew was not alone. Her words reached out for him in the silence like a touch on the nape. There's plenty in these parts worse than me, dwarf.

A shape disentangled itself from the dark.

Kili's heart leapt. "Gandalf."

Forth the figure came, crutched on a gnarled shaft of bark. He heard the rustle of roughly-woven robes, stirring the wet leaves underfoot. "You appeared to be in some need, master dwarf. Are you injured?"

Kili experienced a prickle of embarrassment. "No." Then his bewilderment aligned. Kili stared down. "You hit her," he blurted, stupidly.

"There's no use to be made of remorse, now, be assured. She might well have done worse for you."

He gulped at a rawness in his throat. He could see nothing but a likeness in the dark, sprawled at his feet. Feeling sick, the prince crouched. He wanted to see the face of a murderer.

He saw her, and shrank. "She's just a girl."

"The Trollshaws teems with such creatures, I fear."

Kili heard slow, steady breathing, and stared down.

Thick, black hair snarled about her face. It was then Kili realised her voice seemed many more years than she was, in truth; a girl of twenty, little or less. It was only the solemnity of a thick, dark brow that gave her face the tangled mien of someone much older. She looked like a person who hated. The lower half of her face was scarfed. He felt disheartened; this did not look like a murderer. Irritated, Kili nearly reached over to tug the rag away – but somehow he could not bring himself to touch her. If he touched her, he would know this was not some forgery of nightmares; death was as real as she. He had always thought he would live forever. But kneeling at her side, he was gripped by an absurd, childish sort of fear. He felt like a boy peeling back the coverlets of his bed, expecting to find a monster.

"What's to be done?" he asked the wizard. "Gandalf?"

There was a moment before the old man spoke. "I must first know what she sought."

Must he make me say it? Kili flushed. "To rob me. Kill me, if I refused."

"And you? Did she have any interest in you?"

Kili didn't understand. "She asked me my name. She knew I was..." he frowned, letting his silence speak the word highborn. "Gandalf, I don't know what..."

The wizard gave a heavy sigh. "There is something you must know."

"What, Gandalf?"

"Not two months passed, your uncle Thorin was followed to the Inn of the Prancing Pony, in Bree. He would have been accosted, had his assailant not thought better of it."

An icy hand reached around Kili's throat and made a fist. "Who?" he managed.

"Some cutthroat – a knife hired by Thorin's enemies. Kili - those who would seek to usurp his claim would just as well seek to end his bloodline; and with it House Durin. You know what such a thing would mean."

A sour taste developed in Kili's mouth. A Company of Fifteen dwarves had set out from Bag-End in the Shire, intending to return House Durin to kingdom. Kili was the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, and the Lonely Mountain could be his one day. Even though there was still time for his uncle to have children of his own, and for his elder brother to marry, he dreamed of it all the same. And this girl tried to take it from me. Kili tried to convince himself that it was stupid, that no enemies would be fool enough to send a rusted knife to pierce a heart of stone, but it was no good.

"What would you advise?" he tried desperately. "Please, tell me."

Gandalf smiled at him in a way that seemed to guess at his every uncertainty. It was intended as gentle, but made Kili fiercely embarrassed. "You might do many things, Kili. You might forsake your fears, and let her be; this ragged child will not try you again, if she is only a thief."

Kili wished he could tell whether the notion displeased Gandalf. He could not make this decision alone. "And if she's not?"

"She will not go back to her masters empty-handed, that I know."

Kili understood. "But if I bring her, Uncle may kill her anyway." She did treason.

"That remains to be seen. What is in your heart, dear boy?"

Looking upon the girl at his feet, he felt disgusted and afraid and ashamed. Kili pushed that away. Someone older and braver. King's blood does not balk. Uncle had said something to them, once. Loyalty. Honour. A willing heart. What better way to show his fealty, than to give up this conspirator? If he let her go, they would call him idiot and fool and worse – boy. Everyone called him boy. He did not want to be a boy any longer. Kili did not wish to be remembered as the prince who drank the cup of water when a fire started in his bedchamber.

If I let her go I cannot prove myself.

He knew at once: "Uncle will want to hear of this. He will want to make an appraisal of his own," he said. "I'll bring her."


A/N: Thank you very much for reading! Feedback (positive and constructive) is always appreciated. ~ Inertia