Chapter Four
Beka, daughter of Lord Dwalin of Erebor, used every bit of skill she had at blending in and staying in the background as she led her small cousin out of hiding, hoping desperately that they would not attract the wrong attention.
The secret passage to Nÿr's Study came out in the Halls of Learning next to a statue of Joadmun the Apothecary. They managed to join a crowd of students going between classes, then veer off to a parapet overlooking the central hub and leading to the staircases.
Even so, Beka immediately recognized that something was going on in the central hub. Three dwarves in plain black stood in the center of the bridge one level below, waving hands in a "no access" gesture and turning perplexed folk back the way they'd came. There were guards in ill-fitting uniforms on the stairways, blocking people from going up or down.
And to get to the mines, they needed to use the stairs leading down.
She pulled Iri into a doorway, stopping to re-think this. She needed help…but maybe not adult help. Beka had an innate sense of distrust when it came to most adults anyway.
She looked back at the Halls of Learning. All of the trainees took classes here. Beka herself took classes three days a week. She'd been here for history, engineering, and Khuzdul lessons just the day before.
Glancing at Iri, she made a quick decision and turned her around, heading for the reading room, the big study hall that students used between classroom hours. She led Iri there now, evading a green robed professor, then slipping through a side entrance into the large hall, full of students in neat rows with books open and quills up.
She scanned the faces. A few wrinkled their brows at them, but silence was strictly enforced in the reading room, and no one spoke. She looked for someone—anyone—she knew.
Then spotted Mieth, in the center of one of the middle rows. Thank Mahal. One of her cousin's friends and a sturdy enough lad.
Beka sat in an empty chair on the aisle, pulling Iri close underneath the table, still clutching her hand. She nudged the student next to her, gesturing to borrow a quill and scrap of paper.
The student scowled but scooted the things over, and Beka made a sorry, but I really need this look, and scrawled a quick note.
Meet me outside now! Warhammersx10. Beka
She waved it a moment to dry the ink, then noticed the hall monitor craning his neck to look for the source of possible disturbance.
Beka bent down as if checking her boot and folded the note, handing it to Iri. "Mieth is halfway down this row," she whispered. "Quiet as a mouse, Iri. Give this to him and come right back."
Iri nodded, took the note, and small as she was, slipped quickly behind the seated students and made it to Mieth, a lad she knew since he'd visited the family with her brother several times.
Beka watched, hoping to catch Mieth's eye when he saw Iri and the note.
She saw him sit up and look down, and presumed Iri had made it. Then she saw him unfolding the note.
A moment later he looked right at her. His eyes were wide, but they were steel. Beka jerked her head to the exit and quietly rose and took herself out.
Moments later, Mieth was there, Iri at his heels.
"Beka?" he hissed. "What in aznân…?"
"Where's Fjalar?"
"In law class…"
"We have to get him. Now." She backed her words with her best Durin family glower.
"Beka," Mieth started, as if he would dismiss her.
"No. Listen. There's been an attack," she whispered the last word, biting back tears. "On the King."
Next to her, Iri nodded, her eyes round. "They killed Mum's guard…" she whispered.
Mieth looked shocked. That was not something a child Iri's age would just make up.
"More than one," Beka whispered. "Gunz is hurt. He needs healer help. Mieth," she elbowed him. "We have to get Fjalar before they do." She glared at him as if that alone would be enough to spur him into action.
At the end of the hall, two professors were conferring with a newcomer.
Beka pulled Iri into the shadow. "Get him out of class," she whispered. "Any excuse you can find…bring him to…" she shook her head, not knowing the Halls of Learning well enough to name a good hiding place.
"To the archive. Last door on the left," Mieth spun her so she would see it. "It's always unlocked. There's a second exit into the trainee's infirmary."
"Good." Beka grabbed Iri's hand. "Go!" she hissed at Mieth, and she took off, carefully staying close to the wall and walking slow enough to look like any older student escorting a younger one.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Mieth casually cross the hall to another room, head down as if checking a note.
She found the room marked Archive and opened the door, slipping into a massive storeroom full of row upon row of shelves. Scrolls, leather-bound books, flat stacks of parchment…
Beka had the sense to get away from the door and led Iri several rows in, ducking into a row of shelves marked metallurgy.
Moments later, Mieth, Fjalar, and a lad Beka recognized but had never met, arrowed inside, closing the door behind them.
"Beka!" Mieth hissed.
"Here!" she whispered back.
Nodding to Fjalar, they locked the door and quickly piled a stack of heavy trunks against it.
Iri broke free and ran to her brother, tears erupting.
"Shhhh!" Beka ran after her, desperately trying to hush her little cousin.
Beka and Mieth exchanged apologetic glances as Fjalar scooped up his little sister.
The other lad, the one Beka didn't know stepped around them. "Let me check the other door." He trotted off.
Fjalar slid into an unoccupied office and motioned Beka in after him. Mieth took up a guard position, eyes scanning the storehouse grimly.
It didn't take long for Beka and the weeping Iri to relate the horror of the massacre in the family quarters.
Fjalar listened, his face unusually solemn and pale as Beka finished by telling him everything Nama had said.
Just before she'd died.
Beka and Fjalar stared at each other.
"Where's my father?" he asked.
Beka felt herself deflate. "I don't know," she admitted. "He was there when I took Iri and Hannar into the Annex. They were all gone when I got back."
"My mother was still there?"
Beka cringed. "Yes. On the floor. She was breathing…Nama told me to take Gunz and go." She looked bleakly at her cousin. "I couldn't get them both," she said.
Fjalar's jaw was thrust forward, but he nodded.
"Nama said to take Iri to the mining families, to get Bofur. But I can't get to the mines, Fjalar. There are strange soldiers in the hub. I don't know any other way down."
"I do," Fjalar said, his face grim. "There are several."
The other lad returned and entered, making an all-clear signal with his hand. Mieth was with him and they both looked wide-eyed at Fjalar.
"Jarin, thank Mahal." Quickly, Fjalar briefed his fellow trainees on the crisis. "My brothers are still up there, Gunz is injured," he glanced at Beka. "Maybe seriously. We need to go get them."
"And take them where?" Beka asked.
"Healer hall," Jarin said. "Is right through there." He pointed behind them, to the other side of the archive.
"You're a healer trainee?" Beka asked.
Jarin nodded. "Third year."
"What about Iri?" Beka said. Her little cousin clutched her brother, sniffing back her tears.
Jarin looked at Iri. "One of Bofur's nieces is a year ahead of me," he said. "Embur."
Fjalar nodded. "We've met. Can you find her?"
Beka turned a fierce eye on her cousin. They couldn't include everyone or their chance at secrecy would be done.
"She's miner folk," Fjalar said to her. "She can take Iri, and she can get to Bofur faster than any of us."
"She can use the back stairs," Jarin explained. "That shaft was made special for the healers—has low-rise steps so it's easier to carry the sick up and down, so one else uses them. The doors are very discreet."
"Let's go," Fjalar said.
It didn't take too long for Jarin to find Embur, and Iri, thankfully, immediately associated the miner-born lass with Bombur's snail-shaped sweetrolls. Embur, it turned out, was one of Bombur's grand-daughters.
"Grandpapa's kitchen will be the best place to take her," Embur murmured, disturbed by the news. "He'll keep her safe, and I can get Uncle Bofur from there."
But Beka and Fjalar had looked at each other as Embur carried the princess-in-disguise to the healer stairs, both wondering how this would turn out.
They commandeered one more trainee that they knew and trusted, an older lass named Yódi, known for her hand-to-hand skills, and they made their way by back corridors to Joadmun the Apothecary's statue. They found the six-way intersection deserted, and Beka, the only one who knew the way, took them through the secret corridor. Yódi was stationed at the first turn, as guard to the corridor and help for Jarin when he came back with Gunz.
And if they never came back, her job was to get help.
Beka led the other three to the very old, carved wooden door. She pulled out the key on the blue silk cord, found the keyhole in the center of the door, and unlocked it.
Fjalar pushed his way past his cousin before she could stop him.
There, huddled together under a blanket, were his little brothers.
"F'lar…!" Hannar mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Fjalar scooped up the smaller lad, kissing his brow and pulling him aside, watching as Jarin carefully bent to look at Gunz.
Gunz. The whole side of his brother's face had purpled and swelled. Fjalar watched as Jarin checked the lad's eyes, felt his neck and spine, checked his arms, and then pinched his leg. Gunz flinched, even though he was out cold.
"Hey!" Fjalar frowned sharply at him, wondering what that was for.
"Just checking his reflexes," Jarin whispered. "It's a good sign; he reacted."
Fjalar understood, but he still felt a bit outraged. But he said nothing more, holding tight to Hannar and watching as Jarin checked Gunz's pulse and breathing.
Finally Jarin sat back and looked up, his face worried. "He needs a real healer, but I don't think we'll cause any more damage by moving him." Jarin stood, and Beka helped him get Gunz into piggyback position.
"I got him," Jarin said. He was a sturdy lad and easily carried Gunz. He reached for Hannar.
"Go with him, Hani," Fjalar used Hannar's baby name, trying to reassure him. "Help keep Gunz safe for me."
Hannar nodded at his big brother and willingly clutched Jarin's hand. Mieth opened the study door and let them out. They would join Yódi in the corridor, then she'd help them back to the trainee infirmary. Mahal willing, they'd all meet up again.
Fjalar had meant for Beka to go with Gunz, but she faced him, arms crossed. She knew what he meant to do next and it was just as well, he decided. She was the only one who knew how to work the secret wall.
He gave her a get on with it gesture and she nodded to the wall right of the fireplace, and then pointed to a pine cone tile set into the mantle.
Fjalar and Mieth drew their long knives, and Fjalar tossed a third knife to Beka. He leaned his ear to the wall and listened. Nothing. But he wasn't sure if that meant the chamber beyond was quiet, or that the wall was so thick that he couldn't hear.
"It will open only a little when we push the tile?"
"Yes." Beka held up two fingers to show an inch of space.
He nodded. "You two stand ready—if there's still men in there, shove the wall shut and we run like hell."
She and Mieth moved into position and nodded.
Fjalar pressed the tile. The wall moved an inch.
They listened, and Fjalar put his eye to the crack.
Nothing. Cautiously, he slid the wall silently open a little more, listened, then opened a little more. Finally he stepped through.
Quiet. Still. Empty. Dark. A little light from the rooms beyond.
Mieth and Beka scrambled past, taking up defensive positions.
Inside the Annex, his uncle's quarters looked much as it ever did. Undisturbed. They eased themselves to the narrow hallway that joined the Annex to the King's rooms…
And found their first bloody corpse, a royal guard, on the floor.
Fjalar swallowed and stepped over him, eyes wide, ears straining.
Fjalar was not prepared for the impact of the scene inside. Nama, guts on the floor, dead. The bodies of Easterlings, foreign men, here and there. The chamberlain. Dead. More royal guard. Dead.
Beka pointed to the foyer.
It was heaped with dead, men and dwarves alike. Twenty or thirty, the floor slick.
Fjalar's stomach recalled throwing up at the sight of dead goblins when he'd seen his first battle action.
This was worse.
But somehow his anger at the scene in his parent's home over-rode his stomach this time.
Beka pointed to a black clad dwarf.
"Hothbrodd," she whispered, her lip curling. "Bastard."
The foreign dwarf was on his back, half his head bashed in, eyes staring up at nothing.
Dead bastard, Fjalar thought. There were no survivors here.
"Where is my mother?" Fjalar demanded in a hoarse whisper.
Beka pointed back to the sitting room. Inside, she waved her arm at a particular wall, showing him the location of the secret door that had let the enemies in...now closed again.
He saw Beka step to a place near a tea table, motioning that this was where she'd last seen the Queen. But she shook her head.
Fjalar's eyes searched the room. Had his mother hidden herself? Then he spotted something, just to his right.
His father's swords, side by side on the floor, as if placed there.
He was on his knees before he knew it, sheathing his long knife and with tears blurring his vision, he reached out, lifting his father's twin blades into his own hands.
And the enormity of the crisis crashed over him like a silent avalanche. He knew there were tears streaming down his face, but he let them fall.
In his entire lifetime, nothing he knew would have ever forced his father to leave these behind…
Then a noise.
They all turned.
Bofur stood there, his eyes wide in shock.
"What are you thinking?" he said in a hushed voice, stepping over the dead to grab Fjalar by the collar and haul him up.
Fjalar let himself be pushed along, his father's swords still in his hands. Beka and Mieth followed, and Bofur had them back to yet another secret door, hurrying them through.
And then they were pushed past a crew of armed, grim-faced miners and hustled down a flight of stairs before Bofur stood them against a wall.
"Mahal's axe, laddie. You have to get out of here…!"
"I have to find my mother," Fjalar shot back. He felt the weight of his father's swords in his hands, but he didn't raise them.
"The lads," Bofur raised a hand toward the miners they'd just passed, "Will look for her. You," he said, poking Fjalar in the chest. "Find your common sense, lad." Bofur stared at him. "If your father's gone, Fjalar, you are Erebor's King now."
Kili's caravan made camp just outside the gate that marked the Old Forest Road. They set up their gear, carefully replicating the look of an itinerant merchant's camp, including the tent ostensibly for the merchant himself. They had quick meals and cleaned up in the cool river that ran beside the road here. Tomorrow they would leave the river, so it was their last chance to really bathe for the next three days, when they would reach the headwaters of the Anduin.
His lady wife chivvied him into the tent as soon as the sun set.
"You didn't sleep at all last night," she said. "And you can not lead us through the Forest by staying awake for five days."
"I'm not taking anything to slow me down…"
She didn't let him finish. "I agree. Stop thinking it."
He looked at her. He should have known she wouldn't suggest it. She raised an eyebrow. "There are much easier ways to get you to relax and sleep," she murmured with a lopsided grin.
Indeed there were, but he still stared until her hands made her intentions much more clear.
And she was right. It was both easier and extremely pleasant, all at the same time.
Kili slept quite deeply afterwards.
But being a veteran of the early morning watch, he woke in the pre-dawn hours, tucked the blanket around his beloved's shoulders, and kissed her brow.
Then he dressed and took himself outside so Vit could stand down and catch another two hours of rest.
The hill dwarf nodded to his prince and then pointed silently to a couple of new additions to their group: two pointy-eared slender silhouettes armed with elven bows, sitting upright, ten feet apart at the eastern end of their camp, a pair of vigilant sentries in the night.
Tuilind and Yanu.
Kili sighed. He didn't particularly need extra company on this trip.
But he also knew that a couple more allies couldn't hurt.
** aznân = darkness, or the dark. (Thanks to the Dwarrow Scholar's Neo-Khuzdul Dictionary; google that if needed.)**
**Couple of inspiration sources, if you're interested. On my Durin's Day Pinterest Board (google Summer Alden Pinterest) is "Warrior in Red Cloak" by Alon Chau. To me, this is Prince Fjalar in another few years when he would be roughly the age of Kili in The Hobbit. I also posted several new works of ravens, who are about to play a big role in the story.**