Chapter 4
Disclaimer: I wish I was clever enough to own this stuff. Tolkien was a friggin' genius.
A/N: I'm so excited for this chapter! I promised the Company, and guess what? The Company showed up! Also, thank you to each of you who have reviewed, followed, and favorited this! I'm so glad you're enjoying it, and hope not to disappoint! :)
Warnings: Mention of mild torture, lots of shocked dwarves, and one grumpy, frightened, overwhelmed OC.
If Deorynn had thought that having one small knife still on her person would help her at all, she'd been sorely mistaken. In fact, it had turned out to be rather more an annoyance than anything. The three-inch blade she stored in a sheath strapped to her shoulder under her tunic was not only impossible to reach while tied up, but kept digging into her shoulder and the outer edge of her collarbone. She was certain it would leave a spectacular bruise, especially with all the bouncing from the running warg.
Two days of this nonsense they'd put her through. No food, water only twice a day. Tied to the back of a warg in a sack like some sort of foodstuff (maybe to them, she was, who knew?), bounced along behind some orc's disgusting bum all hours of the day, and then there was the nighttime. The nights were worst, especially when the hunting party stopped to rest. That was when they pulled her out of the sack; they couldn't kill her outright—to deprive their Master of the honor would be an instant death sentence—but they made sure she was wholly uncomfortable. They poked and prodded her with sticks and sharp objects, used her own knives to slice into her skin while cackling madly at the sight of her blood, and took turns trying to garner a response from her—which she never did deign to provide.
All this was bearable, if annoying and painful, but the very worst part was the second night, when one of them pulled the pins from her hair and roughly unbraided it. That, in itself, was indignity enough—he may as well have undressed her and left her standing before them stark naked—but then they decided they quite liked her hair and wished to keep it for themselves. They spent the next hour passing her between them, each one ripping out a handful of the light brown strands, some using knives (the more merciful option, though she'd never tell them so) and some just pulling with their bare hands. By the time they yanked the bag back over her head, she was certain she would not be presentable to anyone—much LESS a dwarf—for several more years. And even once her hair grew back, the humiliation of having it handled like that would doubtless stick with her, possibly forever.
That had been the night before, and her scalp still hurt, not to mention the massive headache she had incurred. She clenched her jaw inside the sack, fighting the urge to let go and cry here in the darkness. She needed to remain alert, regardless of how she felt, to be ready should a chance of escape present itself.
Suddenly, the shouts went up from an orc to Deorynn's left, echoed almost immediately by the blood-chilling warg howls. She knew that sound and what it meant without having to see anything.
The hunters had found their prey.
The next several minutes were something of a blur to her. Early on, she thought she heard a mad shout of "Come and get me! HA!" Others would tell her of the chase that ensued later, but at the time, for her, it was just more bouncing in the dark, with some additional shouting and the sound of arrows whizzing by. At one point, her warg stopped and the orc astride it quieted and sniffed; Deorynn thought perhaps he was stalking, or maybe just standing watch briefly to determine his quarry's location.
Then she heard the unmistakable rasp of a sword being drawn from the back sheath inches from her. The orc was readying to fight. A few more moments of silence followed.
Then, quite suddenly, the warg beneath her growled and jumped forward, then jerked and whined in a way that Deorynn knew from experience meant it had been hit by something—an arrow, most likely. Another whizz—definitely an arrow—followed hot on the heels of the first, and the orc squealed in pain as the world began to spin.
Deorynn hit the ground hard, the full weight of the warg's hindquarters landing on her legs. She let out a muffled cry of protest as the creature rolled once, staggering to its feet again as she heard the orc give a war cry. Blades clashed, growls rumbled, voices shouted, and then it was over as her warg fell and did not rise.
Except it had fallen on the side where her head was this time.
Deorynn had had quite enough of this.
Wriggling furiously, she shouted through her gag. Whoever had killed the warg and orc was now her new best friend, but she needed to get out of this. She kicked and pounded her legs on the dead warg's flank, hoping beyond hope she'd get the attention of whoever was out there. She stopped when she heard a rough voice:
"What in the name of Durin-?"
Dwarves. Well, that figured. Anyone not an orc was more than welcome to her right now, but did it have to be dwarves?
Deorynn had no time to consider it though, as the ropes binding her to the warg were cut and she flopped over in an exceedingly undignified manner. She growled in indignation, briefly, but someone else shouted, "No time, Dwalin, leave it!" as a powerful voice cried, "Move! RUN!"
Not giving a thought to her pride, Deorynn screamed.
No no, please don't leave me, not here, just take me with you get me out of here by Mahal don't leave me!….
A grunt, and suddenly she'd been thrown over a shoulder and was bouncing along like a sack of potatoes again. Really, the only thing that kept her from dying of humiliation at this point was the very distinct possibility she might die for real in the next five minutes. Deorynn listened carefully as she rode along on her unknown hero's shoulder, cries of "There's more coming!" and "there they are!" interspersed with orders and names; "This way, quickly!" and "Kíli, shoot them!"
Deorynn blinked, certain she had heard that name wrong. What was it about those two that they were still on her mind weeks after she'd encountered them? Maybe she was going mad.
For now, her rescuer had stopped running and was instead turning rapidly. With a sinking feeling, Deorynn realized they were surrounded. Then someone shouted something about being abandoned, followed only by the howls of wargs, the hiss of arrows, and the ring of steel as blades were prepared to fight.
"Ori!" the one carrying her shouted. "Make yourself useful, lad, and take this!" She lost her breath briefly as she was tossed and caught, presumably by Ori, who stumbled just a bit at her weight.
There was a beat of relative silence, then a shout of "This way, you fools!" and she was moving again. The unfortunate dwarf (she assumed it was still a dwarf) carrying her tripped a bit and she cried out instinctively in alarm, but he did not drop her.
There was a sudden jump, a feeling of weightlessness that terrified her, and then she was rolling for the second time that day. Fortunately, Ori weighed less than a warg and was kinder than one, so when he landed on top of her, he scrambled off.
Suddenly, she was alone, and Deorynn thought that feeling scared her more than anything else she'd experienced that day. The quiet sounds of several people around her gaining their feet and checking on one another were drowned out by the clear, bright call of a horn from above—an elf horn, she recognized with a small thrill. She could hear more shouts from the orcs, more arrows, the pounding of hoofbeats (oh, how it eased her heart!), and then gasps of alarm as one of the orc's dying cries came closer. An arrow was torn from flesh—she'd know that sound anywhere—and a gruff voice stated in disgust, "Elves."
Ah, the dwarven hatred of elves. It often went both ways, if her experience was any to go by, but she never had understood it.
Now that all was relatively quiet, however, she was less concerned about things like inter-racial communication and more concerned with getting out of this horrid sack. She wriggled and cried out again, and several voices murmured in alarm, her rescuers evidently having forgotten she was there. Heavy boots moved toward her and stilled beside her ear. The sack opened at her feet as the ropes binding it were cut, and a knife sliced the bag straight up the middle, causing Deorynn to blink, even in the dimmed light inside what looked to be a cave.
As soon as she could see, her brow furrowed. There was a party of dwarves standing over her, wearing looks varying from concern to confusion to outright suspicion. The closest one to her was massive, for a dwarf, and absolutely intimidating. He looked gruff and held two large battleaxes, and his bald spot was tattooed with dwarfish runes. Her eyes widened and she shied away before she could stop herself. A kindly-looking dwarf with white hair stepped forward with a grin, "Dwalin, perhaps let someone else talk to the lassie—"
He was cut off by her gasp of recognition at the dark-haired young dwarf who appeared behind him. Her voice was raspy from shouting when she croaked:
"Kíli?!"
Well, that got everyone's attention. The young man clearly didn't recognize her for a moment, during which moment a larger dwarf who looked remarkably like him stepped between them, asking gruffly, "who are you?"
Deorynn's eyes widened even further as she looked harder at his face, his sigil evident on his belt, the arrangement of his braids….
"King Thorin," she breathed.
Kíli, meanwhile, had figured out where he'd seen those green eyes before and was poking Fíli in the shoulder repeatedly, trying to find words. Fíli looked, and spoke for both of them when he said past Thorin's shocked stuttering at the girl's use of a title he'd yet to fully claim:
"Lelaenil?"
Her eyes locked with his blue ones, and several things hit her at once. The first was an intense feeling of relief and joy at seeing any familiar faces, even if they were all but strangers. The second was the sudden remembrance at just how out of sorts she was at the moment—namely, the fact that her hair was hopelessly tangled and hung in uneven shreds down her back. The third was a crushing physical exhaustion, brought on by two days of travel, torture, complete lack of sustenance, and now shock. These conflicting emotions were all so powerful, and so intense, she didn't have any clue how to respond to any of them; so for a long moment everyone just stared at each other.
Then the questions began.
"Where did you disappear to?"
"How do you know my name, girl?"
"How did you get here?"
"Who is Lelaenil?"
"What is going on?!"
Deorynn looked from one to the other rapidly, her brain feeling a bit like it might overload, and her gaze locked on Kíli. She didn't know she was wearing an expression of completely helpless, overwhelmed exhaustion, but he saw, and knelt beside her. "All right, you lot, leave the poor girl be for a moment! Look at her, she's probably in shock." He leaned close to her. "What do you need, lass?"
Her hand going to her hair instinctively, she barely registered the heartbroken look Kíli gave her. "A cloak?" she croaked. "With a hood, please?"
Fíli had anticipated the request the moment he saw her hair, wild and mussed beyond belief. But more than that, it was evident that great bits of it had been hacked off or ripped out. For a dwarf, there was no deeper shame, and he had hurried to get something to cover it for the girl. He did not know if she was a dwarf—her face was entirely too smooth, not a trace of hair along her jaw—but she was certainly reacting to the loss of her hair like one.
Once she was wrapped securely in his spare cloak, Kíli had helped her to stand, Fíli taking a place on her other side in case she fell. Thorin winced inwardly at the sight of the lass; she was covered in bruises, lacerations, and filth, all that besides the shameful state of her hair. It was obvious she'd been with the orcs long enough for them to torment her. Pity stirred in his breast, and he softened his gaze as he asked again—he needed to know this—albeit more gently, "How do you know my name, lass?"
She looked at him, steeling herself before answering. "My mother had a sketch of you when I was growing up. She said you were the rightful King Under the Mountain, where she came from, and raised me to place my allegiance to the Line of Durin."
He seemed satisfied with that answer, though Deorynn suspected he would be requiring more than that at some point. Kíli chose that moment to speak.
"Thorin, this is the maiden who saved me from drowning in the Lune, just before we got to Bilbo's."
Thorin started. "The Angel of Travelers? Lelaenil?"
Fíli and Kíli both nodded, though the girl looked at his feet. "Please," she murmured, uncomfortable. "My name is Deorynn." Then she added, as a bitter afterthought, "And I'm certainly no angel."
The brothers looked slightly affronted, but Thorin nodded, recognizing the bitterness and knowing better than to challenge it right this moment. He regarded her briefly before bowing to her like a lord might to a lady. "You saved my youngest sister-son's life, my heir's sanity, and my own heart from irreparable damage; I thank you and pledge a debt of blood to you."
Thorin's...sister-son? She had rescued a prince?
As Deorynn stood there in shock, Fíli stepped in front of her and bowed as his Uncle had. "Deorynn, you saved my brother from a horrible death and me from a horrible life without him; I thank you and pledge a debt of blood to you."
She was shaking her head, protests forming on her lips, when Kíli followed suit. "My lady, you preserved my life and saw me reunited with my family; I thank you and pledge a debt of blood to you."
Deorynn curtseyed to them all a bit clumsily, given her injuries, while the rest of the party looked on in awe. For the first time, she noticed the curly-haired hobbit standing beside the tall man in grey with a pointed hat—a wizard? This day was just getting odder and odder; first a blood debt owed her-three, actually!-for apparently saving the life of a prince, then a party of dwarves traveling with a Shireling and a wizard? It was rapidly becoming too much, and Deorynn thought she might just break down and cry in front of the lot of them if they didn't stop looking at her.
Her rescue came in the form of one of the dwarves declaring there was a tunnel leading he-knew-not-where, and should they follow it or no? With someone else's assertion that they should "follow it, of course!" they were off again. Deorynn found herself strategically placed between Fíli and Kíli, and they reached out to help her each time she stumbled.
And so the entire party squeezed through the tiny crevasse in the rock, headed hopefully toward safety.
