Of Victory's Price

Whatever it was that Kíli had imagined fighting in a battle would be, it certainly was not like this. With the initial call of the trumpet they had shattered the gates, leaping out straight into the fray at Thorin's lead, only to be faced with ranks upon ranks of solid enemy lines that pressed upon them like an unending black tide. Everywhere he turned there were enemy blades, backed by the snarling faces of orcs and goblins; it seemed that for every one of them that was cut down, two more took its place. The only distinct impression that he could register in his mind was of the overwhelming closeness of space: there was no room to draw his bow, hardly enough room to even breathe; between the proximity of the orcs and the musk of their stench, combined with the overarching salty tang of blood, the stormy air was thick enough to make him feel suffocated and nauseous. This was not a field for heroism nor glory, not even for the testament of skill; it was all Kíli could do to keep his position behind Dwalin's right side and press forward with mechanical chops of his sword without being crushed in.

It was a near hopeless endeavor, he could see that. For all his headstrong recklessness, Kíli was not one given to unrealistic expectations of victory, and he could read the situations of battle as well as any competent warrior. Back on the battlements Dwalin had reported the enemy moving in a crane's wing battle formation – a rough likeness of the letter V – with the bulk of the army far to the back stretching into the ruins of Dale and the main command post set atop its battlements. The two wings of the deadly crane were manned by highly mobilized warg riders spread wide to flank Dáin's forces from the sides, driving them back against Erebor's gates. There they had joined with a second arrival of goblins streaming down from the slopes over the mountainside, effectively surrounding them from three sides with the mountain wall acting as a fourth. The two spurs of the mountains that once served as ambush points for the allied armies now proved to be a death trap which allowed for no chances of retreat. Bard and his small band of Lake-men across the river were pinned to the Eastern spur by the back of the crane's right wing, engaged in a fight for their lives, while the majority of the elven warriors were bogged down by a faction of the enemy's left vanguard far back along the Southern spur until Ravenhill. Their only chance of success, by Thorin's calculations, was to gather with Dáin's forces and charge forward for as far as they could; once they gained enough distance, the company would split ranks and cut through the right wing towards the command post in Dale to bring down Azog. Without the uniting intelligence of the pale orc's leadership, the goblin army would likely scatter as grains of sand devoid of mortar.

Their plan had worked fairly well at first. Rallied by Thorin's battle cry and the arrival of new aid, the dwarves, men, and elves had all fought with renewed energy, taking advantage of the enemy's momentary confusion to gain precious ground. Swiftly the dwarves of Iron Hill rushed to his help, regrouping in formation behind their king; they formed an unbroken line of shields along their front ranks and pressed forward with outthrust spears like a wall of solid iron. When they reached the wider part of the valley Thorin let out a cry and led the charge east; he took with him his company and twoscore of Dáin's warriors. With flashing sword and shining mail Thorin sliced through the enemy defences as an arrow-point lancing through water. Dwalin and Fíli were behind him on his right and left, after them came Kíli, Balin, and Glóin; they met their foes with a narrow reverse V formation of their own to act as a wedge in tearing a widening gap across the crane's right wing. The Lake-men saw what they were doing, and doubled their efforts in attempt to meet them; countless wolves and riders were driven into the water or stampeded by their comrades under the ferocity of their onslaught. Dáin, at the forefront of the rest of his dwarves, sounded the horn before feigning slow defeat back into the shadows of the valley with the left wing pressing hot on their heels, the elves, upon reception of his signal, quickly caught on to their tactic and also began a slow retreat to the south, careful to keep the orcs engaged as they went. Together they were able to attempt to simultaneously draw out both ends of the enemy's left side, thus thinning their defences, while at the same time the right wing teetered on the edge of collapse under Thorin's attack.

For a fleeting instant it looked as if they had gained the upper hand. The orc army was again forced to fight on multiple fronts and was momentarily confused as to which ones they should be defending first. But that instant was indeed short-lived; Azog was a cunning tactician in the art of war, and he had the advantage of a clear view of the battlefield from his superior height above Dale's walls. With a piercing shriek of orc-horn the flag signals were changed, fresh warg riders backed by goblin infantry streamed out from the main body to reform the flailing right wing, this time taking full note of the greatest weakness in Thorin's strategy that the lesser orcs in their panic had previously overlooked: The sheer insufficiency of their numbers and the exposure of their rear and flanks. Instead of engaging them head-on, the warg riders streamed past to encircle them from behind; now they were the ones being forced to fight on two fronts, experiencing reduction after reduction upon their already-pitiful numbers. Stripped of the elements of speed and surprise that had been their only hope, the attackers had turned into the attacked, and Kíli knew that it was only a matter of time before their shields would fail and they would be surrounded and dragged down to drown under the black tide.

There were simply too many to fight.

In a snatched moment of panted breath between a blocked spear and a retaliating thrust, Kíli looked up over the battlefield. Past the black sea of teeming orcs, the foreboding ruins of Dale loomed as a dark shadow outlined against a pallid grey sky. Beyond it, blacker thunderclouds pressed low against the horizon, a cheerless sight for a cheerless day.

How far were they from their destination?He wondered with a strange sense of detachment. He could discern with certainty the malignant form of the pale orc prowling below his flag post, which meant that they must be close. Two hundred yards? A hundred seventy-five? An elven archer with a good bow could easily hit a target at thrice the length. But it was a distance that Kíli knew in his heart that they would not be able to cross, the distance between life and death, success and failure, and he felt a sudden surge of bitter anger at the thought that they had come so far, only to be defeated by their old enemies now.

"We'll never make it like this," he gasped over the tumult as he struggled to draw alongside Fíli and Dwalin, already they were being crushed closer and closer together into a tight knot. "The river––if we can fight through that way we may still have a chance…"

From the point of the company Thorin spared him a glance, even as his critical position kept him hard-pushed to hold the encroaching enemy ranks at bay and allowed no opportunity for conversation. But it was Dwalin who answered, swinging his great axes without breaking stride.

"No, laddie, we won't," grunted the seasoned warrior as he knocked the slavering jaws of a warg aside and sending it careening into its comrades with a well-aimed blow to the eye. "Chances were against us from the beginning. But we were never supposed to. The Defiler is the one who will come to us, he's waited for this long enough."

A long howl came then from Dale's battlements, as if in testament to Dwalin's words.

Kíli felt his blood curdle. It was a bone-chilling sound, starting as a long, deep rumble but soaring upwards to impossibly high, until it seemed that even the clouds would shatter under the sheer weight of its contained malevolence. He snapped his head up towards the source, just in time to see a flash of white fur leap from the broken stones of the desolate city, and like the parting of a tide the darkness of the enemy ranks receded before him.

"Oakenshield!" Azog roared, the blade of his severed arm flashing in the grey sky-light.

The scope of the battlefield was suddenly changing around them. Gone was the incessant press of the solid orc wall in their numbers beyond count, Kíli felt that he could finally breathe again, but his moment of confused relief was short-lived as the wargs harassing their sides and rear redoubled their attacks in a charge of frenzied madness. The dwarves had no choice but to go forward in effort to escape; the front they had previously fought so hard to gain was suddenly an open space around them, impossibly mocking in its gaping emptiness.

And abruptly everything in the immediate vicinity fell still. To their grim surprise and resignation, the company of Thorin Oakenshield found themselves standing at the edge of a wide circle, looking straight into the murderous path of Azog the Defiler.

"Oakenshield," repeated Azog astride his great white warg, and there was laughter in his voice this time, the savage satisfaction of a beast who cornered his prey. "It is well past time for me to collect my due. The line of Durin will not be able to cheat me from it…again."

He reached the opposite end of the circle and stopped there, his mounted guards fanning out behind him. Kíli took advantage of the lull to dart around to press himself against Thorin's side, but his uncle did not turn this time. Thorin stood straight and still, the coldness of his resolve cutting as a blade; all too soon Kíli felt him move away, and he instinctively clutched at his arm, but all that registered was the chill of metal armor as it slid through his fingers, black and grimy with the filth of war.

To Thorin's left, now cleared to his line of sight, Fíli gave a slight shake of his head. The unvoiced message was clear: There is nothing that you can do.

And so he could only watch as Thorin stepped forward, gore-stained blade held wide at his side, to meet Azog's mockery with a challenge of his own, the deep hatred which ran past a hundred years barely suppressed under the steely demeanor.

"Then you must come and take it from me, filth," he replied coldly.

Behind him his kin and companions started as if to follow in aid. Thorin immediately spun to stop them, voice hard with the finality of command: "No! Stand back. This is my fight and mine alone."

It was an order which Kíli would have gladly ignored, but Fíli and Dwalin, ever so infuriatingly obedient to Thorin's wishes, pulled him back with a hand on either arm. Frustrated to the point of rage, Kíli shook them free and faced his brother, barely remembering to keep his tone hushed and wondering what it was about the situation that they could not see: "He can't win this on his own! There are at least seven wargs in the guard, we cannot just play audience and expect Azog to fight fair––"

"He only means to buy us time, brother. Victory is too lofty a hope."

Kíli stared at him, uncomprehending. How could he be so calm when Thorin was literally walking into a death trap? But Fíli's eyes were filled with a still grimness as they tracked Thorin's advance, the steel edge of his resolve as cutting as their uncle's had been, though his hands clenched so tightly around the hilts of his swords that the twin blades trembled.

And not once did Thorin look back.

Across the circle Azog was speaking again. "Very clever," the pale orc laughed. "But fear not, I shall make sure you will not be alone in death. Your end will come––and the rest of your kin with you."

"So let us end this now!" Thorin swept his sword upwards, and with a mighty howl Azog and his guards leapt towards him, teeth gleaming with savage desire for blood.

In an instant Azog was upon Thorin, swinging his great war-mace with the full momentum of the charge behind him, even as the dwarf king twisted to avoid the outstretched fangs of the white warg. Unwittingly Kíli let out a cry. Unmounted, there was no way that Thorin would be able to parry such a blow, and the rest of the warg guards were already striking from behind, blocking off all space for evasion. Kíli's heart jumped into his mouth as white fur momentarily obstructed his uncle's figure from view, but almost at the same moment there came a glimpse of sparks and the sound of clashing metal – first a great crash, then twice, thrice, a fourth time in quick succession, followed by a howl of pain – and the big white warg was suddenly whipping away with angry snarls upon its lips, to reveal Thorin standing a little ways apart, black blood steaming along the edge of his sword and red dripping down the back of his opposite hand. One of the other wolves stumbled backwards, clearly favouring an injured leg.

Azog's eyes blazed with intense concentration as he pulled his mount around to circle his prey once more.

The next few minutes were the most wretched ones of Kíli's life. He was forced to watch as Thorin was assailed by the throng of wolves again and again, each fresh wave of attack sapping his strength and taking him longer to repel. While Thorin fought valiantly and his armour so far provided protection against any critical injury, he was still badly disadvantaged in every way; the only reason that the fight had lasted even this long was because Azog's guards had no real intention of killing and beset him only for their leader's convenience at the final blow. Had all the orcs and their wargs decided to leap in for the kill, everything would have been over much sooner. Even the most formidable warrior stood no chance against such odds. Kíli knew this, and internally cried out to spring to Thorin's aid, but strong hands were wrapped around his arms again, holding him in place, even whilst a warg sank its teeth into Thorin's sword shoulder from behind. Though Thorin was able to deflect its rider's strike in time to pull himself free by leaving a piece of shoulder guard in its mouth, Kíli could see clear traces of red on the lighter fur around the wolf's muzzle; it had drawn considerable blood, and celebrated this achievement with a jeering roar echoed by its watching compatriots.

The sight tore at his heart. Now he was struggling desperately against the hands of his kin, his demands for release drowned amid the storm of sound – why were they refusing to allow him to help? Somewhere to the side and back he was dimly aware of people talking, the voices of Fíli and Dwalin, Balin and Glóin, as well as others, all merging in a nonstop mindless babble about Dáin, elves, and the left wing: they must keep Azog's attention focused away from the western front for as long as possible and they could not do that if they all charge in and make Azog decide that it would be more convenient to end them at once instead of playing cat-and-mouse with Thorin. And they were saying it insistently, persistently, punctuated by hard shakes to his restrained arms, as if they expected him to understand––

"It is his choice, Kíli," Fíli was hissing into his ear. "Do not undermine his sacrifice!"

But he is your king! Kíli wanted to scream at all of them. Your kin, your cousin, your uncle, are you truly so content to watch him die?


"You favour your grandfather, Oakenshield," snarled Azog as he tried to thrust his prosthetic blade past the range of Thorin's defences. "Fitting that you should both receive the same end."

Thorin deflected the strike without dignifying the orc with a response. It was a long blade, and the wound on his shoulder made him move an instant too slow; the tip caught him partly on the upper arm and slid off the armor plating with an offending screech, unbalancing him. Rather than struggle to regain his balance, which would waste precious time, Thorin instead allowed himself to turn with the momentum, going directly into a slashing spin which drove back the warg preparing to attack his rear. Breathing hard, he came out of it with barely a stagger, and brought his sword up to counter the blow of a third rider in one smooth movement, determinedly ignoring the pain that lanced through his injured shoulder at the forceful impact.

In truth, he had almost no breath left to refute the jibe. Leading the hard charge through the thick of enemy ranks had in itself been an exhausting ordeal, and here alone in Azog's arena amid the numerous warg riders, reliance upon speed and agility was his best chance for survival. For a time he had managed to hold his own, weaving deftly between the fangs of the wolves and their riders' iron blades, but now the trials of battle were taking its toll. His steps were slower, his armor felt heavier, and his injured sword-arm no longer responded with the strength and precision that it should. A continuous warm wetness plastered the entirety of his right side in stark contrast to the air's biting chill. Though invisible under the dark fabric of his clothing, the wolves could still smell the redness of death on him, clear as day. The knowledge made their eyes gleam with savage glee.

His time was almost over, Thorin realized with little regret. While he risked no westward glance for fear of alerting Azog to their plans, he fervently hoped that the dwarves and elves spilling their blood on the western front had been given enough time to complete their manoeuvre. He hoped against hope that there was at least a small chance that they would succeed, and make his sacrifice to be not in vain, and perhaps – just perhaps – the rest of the company would live to see their victory.

Watch over them, Mahal, he prayed silently, but the Maker had abandoned them to their own fates long ago. Dáin, Thranduil, do not fail my trust a second time. You must prevail in this, for the sake of your own lives if not for mine!

Azog's white warg leapt at him again, slightly too high to be effective. He ducked easily, evading both claw and mace, stretching his sword as the wolf tore past to give a good gash along its flank.

"Thorin! Behind you!"

A cry came from the direction of his kinsmen – of which he had pointedly decided not to look at ever since he answered Azog's challenge – and he whipped around. Azog's attack had been a ruse. While Thorin's attention had been focused upwards on the white wolf's leap, another had approached from the side, and along the ground a smaller warg had flattened itself to creep its stealthy way towards him. Thorin turned, only to see the adjacent rider launch itself into the air, broadsword cleaving vertically towards his skull with the force of an avalanche, while the slinking smallish wolf darted forward, the orc upon it leaning down to sweep its mattock across the backs of his knees.

In the instant between life and death, Thorin did not choose to parry, but rushed at the orc wielding the mattock. In a burst of superior speed, he brought himself alongside the weapon on the lowest point of its swing, stepping onto the shaft; in two swift steps he was up the orc's arm, launching himself at the second warg just as the smaller one below sprung to its full height in retaliation to the unexpected weight. The added momentum took him higher than the leap of his foe; the orc rider in midair suddenly saw a muted flash of steel. There came a tremendous clang, and down fell the rider and mount, helpless as a stone, they crashed onto their mattock-wielding compatriot below in a tangle of fur and limbs. Thorin landed heavily, shoulder burning. He was forced to brace his sword on the ground for balance, but before he had a chance to recover, something large slammed into his flank and sent him tumbling across the frozen ground. A white paw pressed down on his chest, cutting off much-needed air.

"No! Thorin!" The scream came again, the edges frayed raw in its desperation. Other familiar voices joined him, indistinguishable now amidst the rising excitement of the audience. The end was coming, and the foul creatures delighted in it.

"It is over, Oakenshield." Azog's cold snarl sounded beside his ear, and Thorin looked up from his winded daze into the vile face of the pale orc, which loomed at him above the giant muzzle of his mount, bent so close that he could feel the heat of its rank breath. It licked its sharp fangs, expectant.

Back at the edge someone (or the entirety) of the company must have tried to reach him, because Azog briefly turned his head and barked an annoyed command in the dark tongue over his shoulder. Thorin felt rather than saw the tide of blackness converge on his companions, but the time for despair was long over. He could only watch numbly through dimming vision as Azog lifted the blade of his severed arm for the killing blow, a fitting retribution for his bitter triumph that day so many, many years ago.

"Die, like your forefathers and your fool of a brother. Let the filthy line of Durin die with you!"

But the blade did not come down.

Someone screamed his name again, disconcertingly close this time. Instead from above there came sounds of a scuffle followed by a grunt of irritated anger – which quickly changed into a bellow of surprised rage. Then abruptly the crushing weight of the warg was gone, and he could draw breath again, its crushing weight replaced by a terrible, shrieking cry of pain that Thorin before would not have believed a warg capable of making. The wretched creature reared above him, paws scrabbling wildly at its own face, as it shook its head in a fit of crazed agony Thorin was able to discern the source of its ailment: a knife was embedded in its eye, weeping thick tears of blood that stained the snowy fur black.

His own vision swam again before finally coming into stable focus, and when it did, it was straight unto a scene pulled from the hidden depths of his worst fears.

Azog had caught Kíli fast around the throat, and with the other arm, the pale orc stabbed downwards towards his heart.

"No!" he gasped.

Then Kíli turned his head to look at him, hair falling away from his face, and in his eyes Thorin suddenly found clarity. The voice had been Kíli's all along. It was Kíli who called to him to distract Azog from delivering the death blow, he had risked everything to cripple the white warg, and now he exchanged his life to successfully unarm the pale orc of his most efficient weapon in his one functioning hand. A chance, read the unvoiced plea in his nephew's gaze, your chance…

A chance, but at what price? His mind screamed bitterly. A chance for him to live a moment more for another attempt at the unlikely completion of an already-failed task, only to watch his young kin fall to the fate that should have been his? Foolish child…

But a chance was a chance, and on a battlefield such chances were far too valuable to let pass; there were greater things at stake here, much greater than the price of their own two lives. The doom was not yet sealed for all of them, for his mental lapse had taken but the millionth fraction of a second; the fatal thrust has not yet come to transpire. Groping along the ground with his left hand, as his right was near paralyzed by fiery pain, Thorin grabbed the first thing that he encountered and swung it at the warg's head with all his might, lunging to his feet in the process. It reeled back, howling in renewed rage and pain, the sharper curved end of the mattock had buried in its other eye and stayed there, caught on the bone socket underneath.

Still Azog's blade fell, even as his mount bucked and twisted under him in its blind torment. The silvered steel continued its downward descent, piercing through the young dwarf's lighter mail, one last time it went down, and Kíli barely uttered a cry, then it was brutally torn out again, silver edges now hidden under a sheen of glistening red. Thorin screamed then, as he had not screamed since he witnessed Thrór's decapitation, he found his own sword again and swung it left-handed, only to be blocked with a jarring rush, the tip coated in his nephew's blood mere inches from his face. Azog flung the body aside with careless cruelty, turning to face him, Thorin could see the madness of pure sadistic viciousness etched in those ugly features, mindless in its malevolence.

All around chaos were erupting. Members of the company and the remains of those he had taken from Dáin's guard were breaking through left and right, though they were still hopelessly surrounded; he glimpsed Balin's white hair from the corner of his eye, and heard Fíli's anguished cry as he reached his fallen brother. But Thorin's singular focus was on the pale orc, the simmering hatred of a hundred and forty-two years boiling to its peak and overriding physical hurts, they engaged again for a few brief blows, before the throes of Azog's mount forced Thorin back. The white wolf was in full crazed frenzy now, howling and clawing and snapping at thin air with neither aim nor regard to its rider. One of its motions brought the mattock's still-dangling haft within Thorin's reach, and so he seized it, intending to end the beast, but at the pain of fresh pressure put upon its already-tender wound, the beast finally lost its last vestiges of sanity, and bolted off in a blind run.

Taken by surprise, Thorin did not immediately think to relinquish his hold, and thus was dragged out a near couple scores of yards by the warg's mad dash. Confused orcs and goblins hurried to throw themselves out of their leader's path, as the way opened, finally free from congestion, Thorin saw with greater surprise that they had not been so far from the river after all. It ran now before them, swift and silent under thin ice; he released his hand and rolled out of the way just before the warg ran itself howling over the bank's edge, ending its sightless torment in the icy plunge beneath.

He stood and looked around for Azog. Of course the cunning orc had the sense to jump off his mount, a true pity too, for Thorin would much have preferred that they both meet a watery end. It did not take long to find him; he was also by the bank, just starting to regain his feet. Thorin made his attack before he could recover and rearm; stripped of his weapon and warg and backed by the river, Azog could do little more than defend himself. Fueled by the fresh grief of Kíli's death, Thorin's sword fell with renewed vigor, within a few seconds he had broken past Azog's guard to leave a deep slash across the inside of his remaining arm, effectively severing the tendon. The orc bellowed in dismay and anger. He was echoed by a single, clear note from the west, soaring high over the waning sky.

Thorin's heart soared with it as he recognized the sound. It was the call of an elven horn, incredibly close by the quality of its clearness. Azog stiffened before his eyes, realizing too late his mistake: his failure to recognize the falseness of Dáin and Thranduil's retreat had led to fatal lapse on the western front, allowing them to stretch the left army until it thinned to the point of weakness, to be cut through like heated butter upon the allies' retaliating attack. Had he not been so preoccupied with his game with Thorin and stayed on the walls to keep watch over the battle, Azog would have likely seen through their trick before it had a chance to unfold, but be that as it may, his arrogance and need for revenge blinded him to deadly error. And in his realization of the first, he made his second: the direction of a series of sharp whistles drew his gaze towards Dale's battlements, and the horrors of seeing his flag post combust in a burst of flame held his attention a little too long. It was almost too easy for Thorin to step up, going into a half turn at Azog's belated parry, his sword ran along the length of the prosthetic blade with a screech of metal, and completed its motion with its tip buried in the Defiler's throat.

"For Thrór," he whispered savagely, savoring at last the death of his old foe. "For Kíli."

A fountain of black blood spurted out as he flicked his wrist. A dark smile gaped across the pale neck, ghastly and wide against the colourless skin. The foul features above looked even uglier in death, frozen in a permanent mask of furious disbelief.

With the last remnants of his strength, Thorin cleaved the orc's head from its body, and held it aloft for all to see.

"Azog is dead! The Defiler is dead!"

His proclamation spread across the black host like fire through a parched meadow. Far and wide orcs, goblins, and wargs learned the news, even those not close enough to see the carcass. Many of them were already bewildered from witnessing their command flags turn into a torch, and at this last straw they turned and ran. Lesser commanders tried desperately to keep order, but their army had grown disheartened; they had not the wits nor means to coordinate themselves without Azog's central flag post. Most still fought, but now their efforts were sporadic and unorganized, an effective functioning army reduced to a chaotic mob. To the west the elven horns sounded again; across the river there came a ragged cheer –the Lake-men had regained control of the opposite bank.

Consoled by the turning tide, Thorin threw Azog's head into the thick of enemy ranks. Relief was a luxury that he could not yet afford, as they were still heavily outnumbered. Trying to see past the immediate wall of orcs had ever been a useless endeavor, so he looked towards the blazing brand on the city wall, attempting to calculate the distance of the elven army. Burning the command post was an ingenious move, he accredited. The elves had used whistling arrows to draw attention as well as those carrying the flame, hence leading to Azog's lapse, and as the cloth of all signal flags were commonly treated with oil for protection against foul weather, they had caught fire as soon as the first arrow brushed. To reach a shot of that height and distance, Thranduil's people must be at most a third of a mile away, perhaps even less.

He tightened the hold of his left hand about the hilt of his sword, and dove back into the fray.

The arrow came out of nowhere. One moment Thorin was fighting, catching glimpses of his own comrades through thinning enemies, and the next he felt a concentrated force slam into his unarmored right shoulder, driving his breath away and pitching him backwards. The initial contact registered as a cold pinch in already-burning wounds, which abruptly exploded in fiery pain, increasing the original agony by a hundredfold. Staggering back, he struggled to regain his balance, but the ground under his feet was suddenly no longer there, he stepped into empty space above the riverbank, and was suddenly dropping in free fall.

"Thorin!" A familiar voice shouted overhead.

His fall jerked to a halt, injured shoulder screaming as it was subjected to a fresh wrench of abuse. Fíli caught him by the wrist and for a moment he hung there, gritting his teeth against the pain and looking up into the face of his remaining nephew. Fíli quickly moved to pull him up, much like Dwalin had done in the cliffs outside the goblin caves; it was a much easier task than before, as the banks were neither very tall nor steep along the river.

Then someone shoved Fíli from behind, and they were both falling into the cold waters below.

Far above the clouds, an eagle screeched.


I know this is obvious, but just in case... no character death in this chapter.