Written for the Hobbit Kink Meme's fourth fill-a-thon (hobbit_kink on LJ) and rather hastily at that, so mistakes were made. Most notably, it completely slipped my mind that Bard never met Tauriel in The Desolation of Smaug, having left with Bain to man the windlance before Bolg and friends trashed his house. I'm also, uh, kind of bad at talking like a pirate (arr!), though I did re-watch the POTC films recently, which helped lots with the details. Still couldn't quite excuse to myself the addition of a monkey. Or a parrot. I hope the end result is entertaining nonetheless. Concrit welcome!
Cover Art © Rory Phillips (GoGo Picnic, Ten Paces & Draw's The Hobbit Artist Swap)
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And Really Bad Eggs
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Bard was about to despair when he heard his name. He knew deep in his bones, like the ache of too many cold nights spent on the lake, that the dragon was coming, but the guards were deaf to his pleas that the townsfolk or the Master, at least, be warned.
If only... he thought, remembering a long ago tavern conversation with the blacksmith as he eyed the bars. One especially enterprising smuggler had, according to rumor, affected his own release from imprisonment by simply levering the door off its hinges with a handy bench. He then proceeded to sneak past his gaoler, availing himself of the sleeping man's half-finished bottle of rum, and out of town entirely, never to be seen or heard from again. "Half barrel hinges! Ha! Man escaped fair and square, if you ask me. Means more work for me, too."
And the blacksmith had done his work well, Bard noted glumly. The wrought iron bars, each nearly as wide across as his thumb was long, were drilled through both ceiling and floor, the door hinged with thick metal plates bolted together, the heads of the fasteners filed down and worn so smooth Bard doubted they could be pried loose even had he a boxful of tools. Dejected, he sat on the narrow cot. Which was also bolted securely, to the floor and wall; he'd checked, for what little good it'd do him.
He stared sightlessly at his empty hands. Was he doomed to be trapped here while Smaug turned all of Laketown to ashes and ruin around him? He berated himself for leaving Sigrid and Tilda in the care of strangers, one of whom was deathly ill. With a bitter laugh, one palm rubbing tiredly over his face, Bard admitted that he hadn't much of a plan when he'd run out the door of his home with black arrow in hand and Bain at his heels. He'd never used the windlance, if it wasn't rotted through after decades exposed to wind and water. He should've known that the Master would move against him after his failure to convince Dwarves and Men alike of the folly of entering the Mountain. I'm no hero. He was too afraid—for his children, abandoned by their father; for the people of Esgaroth, blissfully ignorant of the monster coming to burn them in their beds; for himself, helpless to do anything but watch.
"Psst! Bard!" a voice said then. It came from the barred window set high in his cell's exterior wall. For a heartbeat, Bard hoped it was Bain and that his son had evaded pursuit to secret the black arrow away until the redheaded she-Elf, perhaps, could fire it in his stead. The speaker, though, did not name him "Da" and was too... chirpy to be Bain, whose voice had begun settling into a man's this past year. He couldn't guess who else it might be.
When he looked towards the window, Bard saw not a human face peering in but an old thrush perched on the sill. Black as coal and its pale yellow breast freckled with spots, the thrush trilled, its beady gaze fixed on Bard. Confused, he asked, "Who said that?"
To his utter astonishment, the thrush answered, in perfectly intelligible Westron, "That'd be me, mate. At your service," sounding remarkably smug for a bird. Then again, a talking bird had much to be proud of, indeed, Bard mused, dazed. I've finally gone mad. The feeling of unreality that'd been lapping at the edges of his mind since he'd found the barrels he was supposed to collect occupied by thirteen sodden Dwarves and a Hobbit of the Shire now threatened to drown him.
"Bard, ain't it?" said the thrush with what seemed a suspicious squint at him. Bard nodded, rather absently, thinking rather hysterically that a talking bird had no right to be wary of him. "Of the line of Girion, Lord of Dale?" Before Bard could reply, too busy gaping at the fact that a talking bird knew of his ancestry, the thrush continued, "Also called Bard the Bowman?" It cocked its head at him expectantly.
"Yes, I am he, but..." Bard shook his head sharply. He vaguely recalled that it was considered unhealthy to indulge your hallucinations by engaging them in discourse. The thrush, however, appeared quite real, moonlight silvering its feathers as it ruffled its wings, impatient. And why ever would I dream of a talking bird? Bard wondered, growing more confused with every passing moment. "Why do you—?"
The thrush squeezed between the bars on the window and glided over to Bard in a low, swooping arc, startling him. It landed on the cot beside him, then hopped up onto his knee and studied him curiously with bright eyes. "You're not a eunuch, are you?"
"What? No!" Bard yelped, offended and temporarily forgetting that he was arguing with a bird. "I have three children," he said stiffly. "Two girls and a boy." May they be safe. May they please be safe. The thrush edged higher and higher along his thigh, beak clacking, as if it wanted to confirm for itself that Bard was capable of siring children as he claimed. With an aggrieved huff, Bard unceremoniously swatted the thrush off his leg before it and its taloned feet got uncomfortably close. Its body was warm against his hand, though hardly heavier than an apple. Can it truly be real? Bard had never known his senses to lie to him like this.
"Good to hear! I had me doubts"—Bard stared, faintly horrified—"what with an epithet like yours. Figured you got it 'cause you'd sleep with a bow o'er a woman." Bard choked, face heating, as the thrush bobbed in approval of his love life. It then hopped back onto his knee and gave him a wounded look that would've made him feel guilty—almost, he amended—were it not for how the thrush began preening itself with an arrogant toss of its head, pointedly ignoring him. Just when Bard thought he could hold his tongue no longer, the thrush declared, "A king must have an heir."
Bard was suddenly struck by a coughing fit. "Me?" he wheezed. "King of where?" He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated beyond reason. "It's hard enough to believe a bird is talking to me without you spouting ridiculous—"
"You've never heard tell of the magical thrushes of Dale?" The thrush puffed up in indignation, pride affronted. "Ours is a most noble and ancient breed, long lived and gifted with uncommon wit." Bard was somewhat unwillingly impressed by the fair speech. Until the thrush added, "Yours truly being a prime specimen." It spread its wings, turning this way and that so Bard could admire it from various angles. When he merely raised an eyebrow, the thrush folded its wings again with a disgruntled cheep. "The Men of Dale learned our tongue in days past, and none better than those of the royal house, your esteemed forefathers. Talking to birds, as you so quaintly put it, is in your blood," the thrush chided. "It is your birthright."
"No," said Bard, slowly and flatly, "I know—knew—of no magical thrushes." He refused to be cowed by a damn bird, talking or no. The thrush watched him in unblinking silence, head tilted as if puzzled, for a long while. Finally, it waggled its wings in an odd manner that Bard assumed was a shoulderless avian shrug.
Beak grinding, the thrush said, "Look, mate, do you want out of the brig or not?" Bard nodded hesitantly. He could not deny that, but neither did he trust the magical, possibly imaginary thrush. "Then you listen to this here old thrush, and I'll have you free to heroically slay the big bad dragon, rescue many a comely lass"—to Bard's surprised discomfit, the thrush winked at him, a translucent lid sliding sideways over one eye—"and not a few comely lads, generally saving the day or the night, as the case may be, so on and so forth, in no time at all." The thrush pecked at Bard, gently and thankfully just on the muscle of his thigh, warbling encouragingly. "What say you?"
He opened his mouth to decline the thrush's offer of aid, then closed it again without a word. No—the thrush, probably bored, flew to the far wall, where broken pieces of glass glittered on the floor—birdbrained scheme could be worse than waiting in this cell to die. It started rearranging the tiny glass shards into half a dozen heaps sorted carefully by size and color, wholly engrossed in its task. Right? Bard sighed. "Why not?"
The thrush immediately perked up. "That's the spirit!" it chirped, taking wing to perch on Bard's left shoulder. He caught a glimpse of it grooming his hair out of the corner of his eye and decided it was best to overlook his accomplice's more birdlike moments. "I'll be needing you to make a little diversion, savvy? To distract the guards while I go round up some help."
Bard dared not ask what sort of help the thrush expected to recruit. Instead, he bent his thoughts to the problem of attracting the attention of the guards, who'd thus far been unmoved by the prospect of a fiery death by dragon. The Master must have left instructions... And all at once he knew what to do.
"I'll see to it," he told the thrush. To Bard's annoyance, it eyed him skeptically, before nodding and flying out the window from whence it came. Doubted by a talking bird! Gritting his teeth, he stood and rattled the bars as loudly as he could. "Guards!" Bard cried. "Guards! I wish to confess my crimes!"
The response this time was gratifyingly quick. Two men strode into view, uniformed and helmed with swords sheathed at their sides. The first was lanky and nervous, fidgeting with his sleeves where he stopped well outside arm's reach of Bard. Nearer the bars stood the second, heavyset and with an officious air, one hand gripping a belt that dipped below a small but noticeable paunch. Feeling a bit uncharitable, Bard dubbed them Left and Right, respectively.
Right cleared his throat and, pulling a scroll from the folds of his generously fitted doublet, began to read from it, posed as a herald. "You're charged with disturbing the peace, inciting mass panic and revolt"—he unrolled more of the parchment, until it was the length of his arm from elbow to fingertips—"by way of a fabricated threat—one dragon, called Smaug the Golden, believed dead—and you aren't to be released till you're sentenced or pay a fine of eight hundred..." He squinted, bringing the paper up to his face. "...eight hundred eighty-two." With a dubious glance at Bard's ragged state, he added, "That'll be in gold, too." Deftly rolling the parchment up and tucking it back into his doublet, Right finished, "Them's the Master's orders. Do you plead guilty?"
Bard sputtered, too incensed at the Master's conniving and unseemly grab for power to answer. A diversion, he reminded himself. I need to keep them distracted. It was no comfort to realize, belatedly, that he had no idea when the thrush would return. He forcibly loosened his hands, clenched white-knuckled around the bars, and breathed deep.
Unfortunately, his mind was blank as a swath of fresh-fallen snow, the clinging haze of his anger making concentration difficult, so he blurted out the first thing he could think of. "How do you know the dragon is dead?" Bard winced as soon as the question crossed his lips. That most in Laketown would much rather forget that the dragon existed, whether for convenience's sake or a King Under the Mountain's promise of exceedingly great wealth, is a lesson he ought to have learned by now.
To Bard's pleased surprise, however, Left said, "He's got a point, you know." He turned to his fellow guard with a tentatively raised forefinger. "What if—?"
"Have you seen the dragon?" asked Right with a sneer. "Has anyone you know or who anyone knows ever seen the dragon?" He crossed his arms, peering down his nose at the slightly shorter Left.
Left deflated somewhat under that haughty gaze, finger and body curling inwards. He presented such a picture of miserable uncertainty that Bard almost felt compelled to defend him. "Well, no, but—"
"I didn't think so." Speaking ponderously, as if reciting from memory, Right intoned, "Absence of proof is proof of absence." He nodded to himself. "It's been two hundred years"—upon noticing that Left looked like he might object to this, Right bulled ahead at higher speed and volume—"or near enough that it don't matter since Smaug was last sighted." With a scoff, Right concluded, "He can't have lived so long."
Before Bard could get a word in edgewise, Left pointed out, "Elves do, though, so it's not like that's unheard of." I did want them distracted, Bard thought, bemused.
An utterly unimpressed expression on his face, Right said, enunciating very precisely, "But an Elf is not a dragon." His tone suggested that this was a principle that should've been obvious to everybody except maybe newborn infants and village fools.
On the other hand, the two men showed no signs of slowing, and Bard wasn't sure how long he could stand to listen to them bicker. "Gentlemen—"
But Right was now waving his arms about too enthusiastically to hear Bard, warming to his subject. "What do we know of dragons, anyhow?" he ranted at an attentive Left. "Not much, I tell you!"
Left grinned, apparently relieved to be in agreement. "Yeah!" Then, as Bard watched in morbid fascination, Left's smile slid off his face like a cold, dead fish. His brow wrinkled in consternation. "But doesn't that mean we should—?"
"How do we know that Smaug even existed in the first place?" Right plowed on, heedless. "Might be the whole dragon thing was a ruse concocted by the Dwarves." Bard groaned at that; neither man paid him any mind.
There was a glint in Right's eye as he expounded on his Dwarven conspiracy. "They're supposedly skilled... artificers and whatsits. And they're always working at forges—hot furnaces with plenty of fire to go 'round." He leaned towards Left and whispered, though not quietly enough that Bard couldn't eavesdrop without effort or desire, "Betcha it was a staged accident, if you catch my meaning."
Luckily for Bard's continued sanity, the thrush choose then to fly back through the window, returning to its perch on Bard's shoulder with a near soundless fluttering of wings. "Help comes," it said, voice low for Bard's ears only. He nodded in acknowledgment, sighing at the prospect of blessed respite and more than ready to escape this madhouse. Hoping to identify his rescuer(s) and so as not to be found unprepared, Bard craned his neck, straining to hear if anybody was approaching.
"A ruse? Like a trick?" Left was saying. He paused, rubbing his chin as he grappled with this novel concept. "To burn... themselves out of their own home?" Worrying at his lower lip, he opined, "That doesn't make much sense to me."
A beat of contemplative silence. Was that a scuffle of feet from up the hall? "No, I guess not," admitted Right, sheepishly studying his boots. The noise was very faint, but Bard supposed that the thrush had convinced whoever it was of the necessity of being sneaky.
When his would-be rescuer finally padded into view and after a moment of stunned disbelief, Bard hissed at the thrush, "This is your idea of help?" He sorely wanted to wring the thrush's neck but, knowing he'd never be able to pin the wily creature down, settled for slapping a hand to his face. "A dog? Does it talk, too?" he muttered.
It was a handsome dog, to be sure, if a bit on the mangy side. Standing no higher than Bard's knee, the dog was lean and light on its feet as it walked confidently past the guards. Its scruffy fur was a mottled gray, tufts of longer white hair on its belly, legs, and face giving it what might be called—if it were a man, Bard thought sourly—character. Pointed ears swiveled alertly atop its head, and dark eyes peeked out from under bushy brows, above a wet, black button of a nose. It spared Bard a look before moving out of sight the way the guards had come, shaggy tail wagging.
"Be glad it isn't a monkey, mate," said the thrush with a chirruping laugh. Bard fumed. Why had he ever trusted that a magical talking bird could be relied upon? The thrush cocked its head at him, blinking, then added, "And don't be silly. Only my kind, the ravens of Erebor, and the great Eagles have the power of speech with Men." Bard groaned again and was again roundly ignored.
Right, meanwhile, had recovered well from his earlier embarrassment. "Still, I reckon the dragon's dead," he said. "Even a fire-breathing monster's gotta eat, don't it?" Left hummed in agreement, nodding. "But nobody's caught it flying about, and I ain't heard any reports of missing cows or missing people or such." Right spread his hands, palms up, in question.
"True..." Suddenly, Left began alternately pointing and snapping his fingers. "That one Dwarf—!" he exclaimed in a rush. "Whatshisname, the lordly looking one—Thor, son of—"
One eyebrow raised, Right seemed skeptical of the relevance of this Dwarf but willing to humor his fellow guard. "Pretty sure that was some relation of his. Father or mayhaps his grandfather," he mused. "Great-grandfather?" Shaking his head, Right observed with mild reproach, "He was very particular about his lineage."
"It's Thorin," Bard said listlessly. What could be keeping Smaug? "Son of Thráin, son of Thrór." At least if the dragon attacked, the issue of his existence or nonexistence could be counted as resolved for once and all.
"These two," said the thrush, "aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, are they?" Privately, Bard felt they were as dull as spoons but, at present, he'd rather take a leisurely winter swim in the lake than concede that there was sense in anything that good-for-nothing thrush suggested.
"Yes, that's it!" Left cried, with more finger snapping. He nodded briefly at Bard. "Thank you." Then, turning to Right, he continued, "As I was saying, that Thorin fellow seemed the upstanding sort, not one to fib, and he was all convinced that he had to retake the Mountain." Crossing his arms, Left straightened to his full height, voice growing more assured with every word. "Now, if the dragon weren't alive, who'd he have to retake the Mountain from, huh? Answer me that!"
Right opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly stumped. "Well," he started, before stuttering to a stop. He scratched the back of his head with one hand while Left's expression shaded into smugness, one foot tapping impatiently. Finally, Right offered, "This one time an aunt of mine went visiting family down the river for most of a year, and when she got back home, her house was crawlin' with rats." He shuddered in remembered disgust. "She 'ollered so loud the whole quarter heard her."
Left blinked. "Rats," he said flatly. He stared at Right, slack-jawed and incredulous. "You think that those Dwarves are on a heroic quest to, to reclaim Erebor from a mountainful of rats?" Both Right and Bard winced; an agitated Left was unpleasantly screechy.
Puffing out his chest, Right said, "They could be rodents of unusual size," his tone mulish. Bard couldn't help but roll his eyes. Oh, for the love of—
The dog had returned. And—Bard goggled—held securely in its mouth was a large iron ring. Upon which hung half a dozen keys, metal gleaming dark in the torchlight. "Doesn't seem such a bad idea now, eh?" asked the thrush, preening. When Bard huffed, the thrush flew back to its glass baubles, grumbling about ungrateful whelps.
Eyeing the guards speculatively, Bard tried to gauge their attentiveness. Right had decided that offense was the best defense and was making a strong—or at least zealous, Bard thought wryly—case for 'Thorin' being an imposter.
"How do we know 'Thorin' wasn't just pretendin' to be king?" argued Right. "Why'd he and his friends sneak into town all quiet-like, if they weren't up to some trouble?" Cutting off Left's protests, he drove the final nail into the coffin of Thorin Oakenshield's good reputation. "And they were caught at common thievery! King Under the Mountain? Pah! More like a tale they spun to get outta arrest."
Exasperated, Left demanded, "Then who do you think they were?" Given previous experience, Right would undoubtedly take that as a cue to launch into another of his improbable digressions. If I can get the keys...
The dog, meanwhile, had come to sit on its haunches against the far wall of the hallway. Out of his reach, Bard noted with frustration. He crouched, slowly and glancing occasionally at the guards, though he need not have bothered. The two men were so engrossed in their bickering that they seemed to have forgotten he was even there.
"Dwarves from the Iron Hills, I expect," replied Right readily enough. "Mark me words. Once they get home, we'll see troupes of Dwarves trompin' through here claiming to be this or that personage, hoping to get feasted and sent off in grand style, same as Cousin 'Thorin.' " He scowled, presumably in disgust at the (hypothetical) waste.
I wish I had a bone... The dog was proving indifferent to Bard's charms, whether beckoning gestures or soft whistles. "Aren't you a nice dog?" he whispered, feeling all of five years old. "Here, boy! Come here!" He patted his leg and smiled, but the dog merely tilted its head at him in incomprehension, possibly feigned. Sighing, Bard ran a jerky hand through his hair. And now I'm suspicious of a dog.
"Might as well put up a sign on the town gates: Free food and drink! Fine clothes! Weapons!" Right's cheeks reddened in indignation.
"Oh, so those Dwarves are liars, too? You—" Left paused, a look of dawning realization on his face. He pointed an accusing finger at Right. "You're a speciesist! You got something against Dwarves, the Dwarven race!"
"No, I don't." One of the dog's ears twitched, and its posture changed immediately from relaxed to one of intent focus. It sniffed at the air.
For a fleeting moment, Bard was cautiously optimistic, his hand outstretched. "Yes, yes, you do." But instead of bringing him the keys, the dog trotted off without a backwards glance, heading fast for the nearest door and taking Bard's chance at freedom with it. He cursed under his breath.
"I do not!" objected Right, bearing that of a man who'd been gravely and wrongly offended. "I don't trust plenty of people, not just Dwarves. Small children, that little old lady down in the fish market—you know the one who only comes up to 'bout here—" He leveled a hand less than midway up his chest.
"So..." Left said warily, as if tasting his words for poison. "You don't trust... short people?" His face contorted into a puzzled grimace.
Twisting on the balls of his feet, Bard hissed at the thrush, "What now?" indicating with an angry sweep of his hand the dogless hallway. "The keys are gone!" The thrush cheeped in surprise, dropping the piece of glass it held in its beak, and winged over to the bars.
"That—!" It hopped between the bars out into the hall, head turning first in one direction, then in the other. Bard stood and crossed his arms, fighting the urge to pace or maybe kick at the walls. "That... is a pretty predicament," the thrush at last admitted, tail feathers drooping. There was a note of genuine contrition in its voice, which mollified Bard. But only somewhat, seeing as he was still imprisoned.
Right, meanwhile, was imparting some family wisdom to Left. "Me pa's always said that if a man can't look you in the eye, he's got somethin' to hide." He nodded sagely, though Left appeared unconvinced.
Perching again on Bard's shoulder, the thrush shifted from foot to foot, beak clacking, before saying weakly, "I reckon you—"
"Wait..." Bard said, shushing it. The air suddenly felt too close, pressing inwards on his ears like he'd dived into deep waters. Above the endless lapping of waves against piers and moored boats was... He frowned, uneasy. "Do you hear that?" The thrush cocked its head, listening.
Faint but growing louder—closer, thought Bard—at an alarming pace was a dull roaring sound such as the wind made when blowing cold from the mountains of the far north down through the river valley out onto the lake, laden with sleet that would pound the town as if trying to flatten it. Around him, the wooden boards of the guardhouse walls creaked ominously, almost shivering, and through the barred window he could see the lights of hanging night lanterns bobbing like fireflies as they were buffeted by the rising gale. Horror raked up his spine and crawled over his skin. A shadow darkened the moon.
Bard gripped the bars and rattled them hard until both of the guards were staring at him, expressions part annoyed at the interruption, part amazed at his continued presence. "The dragon!" he cried. Desperation made his tone sharp, scraping his throat raw.
Left said, as if soothing a needy, ill-tempered child, "Yes, we were just discussi—"
"No, you fools!" Bard growled, at his wit's end. "The dragon is here!" And then it was too late.
There was a fwoomph of searing light and sound, heat beating against his exposed, vulnerable skin as the exterior wall exploded in flames. Bard instinctively ducked, arms raised to protect his head. He scrambled to put his back to an intact wall, for what little good it'd do him if the building collapsed, eventually sliding to sit on the floor in the gap between cot and bars, heart racing. Claws like long knives and a whip-quick tail, red scales glinting golden, sheared through the fire and were gone again before Bard could do more than gasp at this glimpse of Smaug. Truly, Smaug the Magnificent, he thought, dazed.
It couldn't have taken longer than a few seconds for Smaug to pass, but time lagged strangely, and it seemed a small eternity before there was nothing to hear except distant screaming, the tolling of warning bells, his own ragged breathing and, beneath it all, the pulse of air being driven by monstrous wings. It's not over. Bard forced his eyes open—when had he shut them?—and tried to take stock of his situation.
A gaping hole had been torn in the wall and ceiling, the jagged edges still burning. Though, thankfully, Bard noted with some relief, the fire was slow to spread. Charred debris littered the cell—splintered pieces of wood, partially melted lumps of iron—most of it either smoldering or topped with tiny flames, candles in the dark now that the torches in the hall had been blown out. Bard was startled to find embedded in the cot not a handspan from his face a broken plank with several bent nails in it.
"Got lucky there, mate," said the thrush from where it was tucked snugly against his stomach under the cover of his coat. Bard had to agree, nodding mutely, mouth dry as he eyed the wicked points on the bit of wreckage that might have been his end. That was too close. He wiped his forehead with a hand and was startled anew to see blood mingled with the sweat.
Suddenly fearful he'd taken some grievous wound without knowing, Bard hurriedly checked himself over, dislodging the thrush, which flew back to his shoulder with an undignified squawk. He was slightly singed and decorated with crisscrossing pink scratches, one at his hairline bleeding sluggishly, but otherwise unhurt. Lucky... Climbing gingerly to his feet, he fisted his hands to stop them from shaking and studied the hole in the wall.
"Hey, you!" shouted Right, his uniform and helm askew from what was most likely a hasty dive to the floor. "You better not be thinkin' of escaping!"
Bard spared the two hapless guards a pitying look, waving a hand at the strong iron bars separating him from them. "And how would you stop me?" he asked. Thanks to a dog. He badly wanted to laugh hysterically but was afraid he'd laugh himself to tears. He'd be of no use to his children then. Be safe. Please be safe.
"And he's king!" the thrush added helpfully, flying to the cot nearer the bars. What its obsession was with kingship, Bard couldn't guess, and he had no mind to ponder its eccentricities. The waterway beside the guardhouse was filling with boats and panicked people, many in their nightclothes and all desperate to escape the dying town.
"You? King?" There was such sneering disbelief in Right's voice that Bard unconsciously stiffened, a curt reply on the tip of his tongue, before remembering that, no, he actually had no interest in being any sort of king. I have no time for this. He determinedly showed them his back, stepping carefully across the debris-strewn floor towards the hole in the wall and freedom at last, if too late to raise the alarm. The might-have-beens stuck in his throat, bitter and ashy.
"Of where?" he heard Left say behind him. "I thought he was a bargeman..." Left trailed off, then mumbled something that sounded like "talking bird."
"You're just about the worst king I ever heard of," groused Right, unable to let this absurdity stand. "What're you doin' in the lockup?" Finally realizing Bard, who was halfway outside already, would not be in custody for very much longer, Right ordered, "Halt! Don't move any farther!" A noise of metal rattling, followed by loud cursing. "Where are the keys?"
"I don't have them." An awkward pause. "I thought you did!"
At which point, the thrush said, smug as only a talking bird could be, "Gentlemen, long shall you remember this day as the day you almost caught—"
A towering fireball in the neighboring quarter drowned out the rest of the thrush's words, so bright it left a ghostly smear of color across his vision even after Bard averted his eyes. The snaking form of the dragon, a great gout of flame spewing from its mouth, flashed through the pall of acrid smoke that blanketed all of Laketown, the sooty clouds stirred into swirling patterns by its passage. Pained screams and the crackle of wood burning melded into a cacophony that battered his ears.
Gin Alley. Most of the breweries and distillers were on that street, as well as the town's winter stores of oils and fat in warehouses filled with large clay jars that now exploded one after another in Smaug's wake as their contents cooked. Bard watched numbly as the winged shadow banked high over the lake. The beast means to leave none alive. Even if any of those who'd fled to the water could survive when the dragon stalked the sky above, with home and stock destroyed, the coming winter would be harsh beyond imagining. Despair shrouded him, his grief a heavy stone upon his chest. He didn't know what to do.
"The dragon... It's going to kill us."
"Not if I kill it first."
The thrush, hopping forward to join him, let out a mournful trill. "Not the rum," it said, sounding confused and unhappy. "Did he have to burn all the rum?" Bard ignored it and started sprinting down the boardwalk, not waiting to see if the thrush followed. He had to find Bain and the black arrow. Then, he thought grimly, I have a dragon to slay.
HERE ENDETH A TRUE TALE OF BARD DRAGONSHOOTER
ON THE NIGHT THE WYRM OF DREAD FELL TO HIS DOOM
"What," said Bilbo Baggins, "a load of utter tripe." He shut the book he'd bought cheap from a traveling merchant in one of his nostalgic moods with a decisive clap, put on his sunhat, and went outside to weed his garden. While crouched amongst his tomatoes, it occurred to him that it might be worth it to send the book to Dale so he could hear of Bard's reaction, which was bound to be amusing. He chuckled. Yes, he would do just that.
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END
Sometime later, dragon slain and treasure won: "I take it back. Best. King. Ever. All hail King Bard!"
Sometime later, in Dale: "A book? Why would Bilbo send me a—"
XD