Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Middle Earth and its inhabitants belong to the great JRR Tolkien, not me!

A/N: Welcome, everyone, to the third and final installment of the Erebor Reclaimed Series! If you haven't read the first two tales, When Comes the Dawn and Inikhdê, it's recommended that you do so as this one won't make much sense without it—both stories can be found on my profile.

For those of you coming over from Inikhdê, welcome back; and thank you so much for sticking with me through this whole series! This story promises some fascinating twists and even more new lore; I'm really excited to share it with all of you. You guys have been fantastic, making even the rough spots—and there've been a few over the past nine months—worth it in the end.

Special thanks, as always, to summerald and Cassandrala for being my awesome writing buddies and helping with proofreading! Both ladies have awesome stories in progress on their profiles—you should really go look them up, it's totally worth your time! Extra shout-outs to KungFuSchildi, drwatsonn, Celebrisilweth, Eruwaedhiel95, . .Fireplace, miller330, VioletBrock, and Nocturnal-Silver-Wolf for being regular reviewers. Love you guys!

Without further ado—enjoy!

Ryn drove her sword into an orc's belly mercilessly, crying out in pain and rage as another one stabbed her in the side with a doubtless-filthy dagger. She heard Talos call her name, but couldn't spare a second to be sure he was all right; instead, she whirled around and took the orc's head clean off its misshapen shoulders. Glancing to where her brother had been only moments ago, she was pleased to see him laying into their enemies with his pair of battleaxes, his chestnut hair flying, standing over their companion protectively.

Said companion was no warrior, Ryn knew; the Human lad had no feel for battle at all, and that was even after she'd spent a frustrating number of hours trying to teach him the most basic defensive moves. Elof just wasn't built for it, physically or mentally, though she refused to give up—if he was going to travel, he needed to know how to defend himself.

Those were skills he was currently putting to use, she noted with no small amount of pride, letting Talos cover his back and sides while he dodged and parried a few thrusts from one of the smaller orcs in front of him.

Ryn gasped in relief as she pulled some energy from a nearby tree to heal the stab wound in her side. These days, a simple heal like that took a matter of seconds; and it was a good thing, too, as another wave of orcs—these ones bigger and meaner-looking—appeared behind Talos. Elof's blue eyes widened just as Ryn found her voice:

"Talos! At your back!"

Her brother didn't lose a beat; he spun on his dominant foot, shoving Elof behind him as he did. Elof stumbled; and Ryn sped the five or six paces to where her comrades stood, positioning herself at Talos' back, the lad between them.

"Come on!" Talos hollered at the oncoming horde. "Bring your pretty faces to my axe!" Ryn was busy counting—there were about twenty of them, nothing she couldn't handle with a bit of magic—but spared an eye roll at her brother's brazen cheek; he'd been spending too much time with Kíli's cousin, Gimli. They both quite enjoyed their snark in the midst of battle.

The group drew nearer as Ryn fell into her Magic, identifying and getting a good grip on the sickly-brown energies of the creatures pounding over the forest floor in their direction.

"Any time now," Elof muttered nervously.

With a small grin, Ryn yanked hard at the energies, absorbing the warm energy into her own body. The orcs tripped over themselves and each other, stumbling as their life force was drained swiftly, leaving all twenty of them dead in a haphazard pile of bodies and armor, barely five feet from the small band of travelers.

"Rukhsul," Talos commented flippantly. "You were supposed to leave me a few, namad."

Ryn sent a mock-annoyed smirk his way and crossed to the orcs. "Search them," she ordered. "There might be something we can use." She pulled on her pair of leather gloves, internally moaning that she'd have to clean them thoroughly again after touching those disgusting creatures with them.

"You're getting better at that," Elof noted, pulling something slimy and brown from the armor vest of a nearby orc. He made a horrified face and tossed whatever it was aside.

Ryn was fairly sure she didn't want to know.

"Your help has been invaluable," she answered, looking curiously at a piece of rough animal skin sporting odd charcoal markings. It looked like it might be some kind of writing, though she'd never seen the like of it before. "Can you Read languages other than Orð, Elof?"

"A couple; mostly only ancient languages," he answered, distracted by retrieving one of Ryn's throwing knives that had found its way into an orc skull. "Why?"

"This," she straightened, holding out the scrap of skin. Elof crossed to her and took it, his brow furrowing as he looked at it in the waning moonlight.

It would be morning soon, Ryn noted dispassionately. The orc ambush had come in the wee hours of the morning, when, she guessed, the orcs thought the Watch would be least alert.

Apparently, none of the orcs had ever travelled with a dwarf. Talos had been far from sluggish and had spotted them long before they anticipated.

Fortunate, for her tiny party.

Her attention was brought back harshly to Elof when he made a disgusted sound and dropped the animal skin. "What?" she asked, alarmed.

"It's Black Speech," he shuddered in response.

Ryn resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Black Speech was rather harsh and guttural, it was true; but it didn't deserve half the terror it was often met with. "So can you read it?"

Elof shook his head. "Never had the courage—or the necessity—to learn it."

Ryn cocked an eyebrow, and the lad tensed defensively. "Language holds power, Ryn. A magic all its own—and the language of Mordor isn't just a collection of sounds and words like Common. It's….it's more like Orð. Orð is a healing language; Black Speech a destroying language. It's difficult to stomach."

Still skeptical, Ryn kept her eyebrow cocked, but looked down, going back to the task of finding something useful to them. "Well, since I doubt it's a letter from home," she guessed. "It's likely some sort of missive. Like a mission brief or something."

"Which could mean this was a deliberate attack rather than a random raid," Talos put in, crossing to her with a couple of dirty—but serviceable—blades. "Here," he handed her one, and Ryn nodded her thanks.

"It could," Elof added thoughtfully. Then he made a face. "That's not terrifying at all."

"It's not so bad," Ryn answered. "If we knew what they were—"

She was cut off by a brutal pain exploding in her shoulder. Vaguely, she heard someone shout her name, also interrupted with a pained gasp.

Talos.

She didn't get the chance to feel the terror she knew was welling in her chest though; she felt her knees hit the forest floor, black spots dancing across her vision.

Poisoned arrow, she realized faintly. Wonderful.

It was the last coherent thought she had.

One of the few things in the massive underground city of Erebor that had not been entirely destroyed by the Dragon Smaug's seventy-year residency there had been the Library. The room, while massive, was contained by thick walls and only accessible via several halls that were far too small for the dragon's bulk. The combination of that and Smaug's utter disregard for such things as scrolls and parchments meant the Library had survived with only minimal damage.

Since becoming King Under the Mountain, Fíli, Son of Dis, had taken the Library on as a personal project; he had scrolls and documents and books of all sorts being delivered from all over Arda; the finest craftsmen working on restoring the old chamber to its former glory; and carpenters from nearby Dale building sturdy shelves to house the new works being delivered to the Mountain nearly every day.

It was this room that had quickly become one of Ryn's favorites; the rich velvet cushions and roaring fireplace made a comfortable place to read, and the place always smelled of parchment and ink.

This evening, she was curled up on the thick bearskin rug, poring over an Eiri treatise on Rare and Curious (Master Asmund's words, not hers) Ailments, hoping there might be something about morgul poison in it. Translating Orð into Common was still a bit of a struggle for the lass, even after two months of doing nearly nothing but reading it; but Elof was much quicker and able to help anytime she got stuck.

He was sitting nearby at the moment, long legs draped over the arm of his plush chair, blue eyes focused on the page before him and black hair falling all askew over his forehead. The Human lad's short crop of hair, lack of beard and much-taller figure made him something of an oddity in Erebor, but most folks had long since stopped chattering about it when it became common knowledge he was assisting the Eiri lass with saving their Prince from a fate worse than death at the hands of the evil Vala, Melkor. His born role as an Eiri Reader meant Elof could translate anything and decode ancient secrets long kept.

He sighed from his chair, and Ryn looked up. "Find anything?"

Elof shook his head, rubbing his eyes hard. "No, sorry. And my head is aching something fierce."

Ryn nodded. "We've been at it since midday; we should call it a night. But I ran across something I can't really read, mind helping me with it before we stop?"

"Sure," the lad slid off the chair and flopped onto his belly beside the soon-to-be Princess, looking at the swirling runes she pointed to.

"This one. It says 'stinann sal heilbredae alea,' which I think loosely translates to 'the stone that heals all.' Is there any…"

Ryn stopped at the look on Elof's face. He snatched the book from her, eyes wide and jaw slack.

"What?" she asked, heart beating a little faster.

"The Umräd," Elof whispered. "Valar, Ryn, you've found a reference to the Umräd."

"What is that?"

"The Starstone," the lad answered. "It is said to have the ability to purge all darkness from a being. It was fashioned by Estë herself, from the light of the First Star; it is the most powerful of all the Healing Stones."

Ryn nodded, struggling to keep up. Elof had told her of the Healing Stones—ten gems, hidden by the Ancient Healers before the demise of their race, that had once been used regularly to heal all manner of ailments.

"Where is it?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"Hidden," Elof answered. "Like all the others. But it so happens I know exactly where."

Eyes wide, Ryn waited. Elof grinned.

"It's in Fjallstadr, protected inside the Vault. Fárbjóðr had tasked me with opening the thing, but I always told him I couldn't figure out how."

"But you could," Ryn gaped at the young man.

"I can," he smiled.

Rukhsul—Khuzdul, lit. "Orc dung"

Namad—Khuzdul, "sister"