"The Walls of Moria!" Gimli spoke in awe.
I looked up and I could see why. The wall was literally made of the mountainside. It stretched up into the dark night beyond where I could see. The Fellowship had come closer together and Frodo had moved to walk beside me and Kili.
I could still feel Kili's eyes on me after our conversation but I pretended not to notice. Give me a five am deadline for a ten page essay, or quiz me on Caesar's battle formations in Battle of Pharsalus and I'm your girl. But in dealing with guys, the closest I ever got to a boyfriend was my best guy friend who I played video games with when we should have been doing homework.
I continued to stare at the gigantic wall before me when I heard a splash. Frodo had placed his foot on what he probably thought was solid land and he fell into water up to his knees.
"Are you ok?' I asked him, grabbing his upper arm and helping him out of the muddy water.
"I'm fine." He answered. "Thank you."
"You should be careful," I brushed off some of the mud that had splashed up on his cloak. "You never know, there might be a sea monster down there."
Frodo laughed a little at my attempt at humor but he stopped when Aragorn shot us a stern glance.
"What?" I asked. "Please tell me you're joking!"
Aragorn walked up to me and Frodo while keeping his cautious gaze on the still lake, "There used be legends of a water watcher in this lake, it would be wise to leave the water undisturbed."
I nodded and we walked back to where the others had moved on.
"Dwarf doors are invisible when closed." Gimli said to Gandalf who was feeling along the wall.
"Indeed Gimli, even their own masters cannot find them if their secrets are forgotten." Gandalf spoke out in a contemplative murmur. I hoped that this was not going to be the case here.
Legolas looked at the three dwarfs, "Why doesn't that surprise me?"
Gimli took the comment in stride, though nowhere near happy about it. The younger dwarf princes, however, did not. I saw Fili and Kili bristle, glaring at the elf who had turned his back on them. They started to move towards him. Great the last thing we needed was a fight to break out between us.
I rushed over and put myself between them and the oblivious elf. Fili brushed past me but I was able to grab Kili's arm as he passed. Even with my feet planted in the dirt Kili easily kept barreling forward, all but dragging me behind. "Come on guys, let it go." I pleaded. Incredulity laced their expressions. "Let it go, it's not worth it."
"She's right." Aragorn came over. I was thankful for his intervention. "I will speak to Legolas about his words, but we cannot afford to let a rift open between us."
Fili and Kili nodded in agreement.
"Only starlight and moonlight can tell." Gandalf murmured turning. The clouds pulled back revealing the moon, its light revealing blue, silvery carvings outlining a door on the side of the mountain.
"It reads 'The Door's of Durin, Lord of Moria, speak friend and enter." Gandalf translated.
"What do you suppose that means?" asked Merry.
Gandalf looked to us all and explained, "Oh it's quite simple. If you are a friend you speak the password and the doors will open." He put his staff on the door. "Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!"
"Nothing's happening." Pipin commented.
Gandalf tried to force the doors open, "I used to know every spell in the tongues of Elves, Men and Orcs."
"What are you going to do then?" Pipin asked.
"Knock you head against these doors Peregrin Took and if that does not shatter them and I am allowed some peace from foolish questions, I will try to find the opening words." He turned back to the wall. "Fennas nogothrim, lasto beth lammen. Ando Eldarinwa, a lasta quettanya, Fenda Casarinwa."
"Oh, it's useless." Gandalf threw down his staff and sat defeated.
"It's a riddle." Frodo jumped up with his realization. "Speak friend, and enter. What's the elvish word for friend?"
"Mellon."
As soon as the word left Gandalf's mouth deep creaking resonated in the air, the ground beneath our feet rumbled. Massive doors opened in the seamless wall.
"Soon, Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarf's. Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone." Gimli proclaimed proudly, entering the doorway. "This, my friends, is the home of my cousin Balin. And they call it a mine. A mine!"
A putrid smell filled the air. When Gandalf brought forth a light from his staff, it's illumination revealed the reason. Covering the ground were decomposing bodies, many of which had been ripped apart.
"This is no mine, it's a tomb." Boromir exclaimed.
Gimli sprinted to a fallen dwarf, crying out in anguish. Fili and Kili ran over to him, looking down at the dead dwarves in disbelieve.
Legolas pulled an arrow out of a dead body, "Goblins." he spat, pulling out one of his own arrows. I followed suit.
"We make for the gap of Rohan. We should never have come here, now get out of here. Get out!" Backing towards the entrance Boromir pulled his sword out.
I ran to Kili, grabbing his shoulder, "Kili I'm so sorry. We need to go. Come on."
"HELP!" Frodo cried. My head whipped around at his cry. He was being pulled back to the lake by a gray tentacle that had wrapped around his feet.
"Frodo!" I screamed running to him. The hobbits slashed at the tentacle with their small swords. It let go of Frodo for a moment.
Then the lake exploded, dozens of slimy testicles shot out grabbing Frodo around the waste, hoisting him up into the air.
I shot arrows down at the beast, surprised to find more than a few hit their mark. The water split open and a monstrous face leered at its prey. With a roar it opened its mouth to swallow Frodo whole. Frodo fell to the ground as Aragorn cut through the tentacle holding him and Boromir caught Frodo.
"Into the mines!" screamed Gandalf.
The creature hulled itself out of the lake and tried to squeeze into the small opening. The force created by it slamming its body repeatedly into the door shook the ground. The last of us cleared the door way when tons of rocks fell, covering the entrance and plunging us into darkness.
"We have but one choice." Gandalf hit his staff on the ground illuminating the room. "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world. Quietly now, it's a four day journey to the other side, let us hope that our presence may go unnoticed."
We walked in the blackness for hours. The fact that we were underground caused a tightening in my chest. I kept looking for a window, a sliver of sunlight but there was nothing. However Kili and Fili seemed right at home this deep under the earth.
Our path led us to a walkway that faced a wall on one side, and on the other opened into a great chasm. Remembering how I had almost fallen in the mountains, I pressed myself as close to the wall as possible.
"The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels," Gandalf broke the silence our company had fallen into. He pointed his staff down into the chasm, which by his light filled with a pure silvery brightness. "but in mithril. Bilbo has a shirt of mithril rings that Thorin gave him."
"He did?!" Fili looked to Gandalf surprised.
"That was a kingly gift, indeed." exclaimed Gimli.
"Aye it was." Gandalf agreed. "You know I never told him, but it's worth was more than the whole of the shire."
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The path we took came to a fork. Three tunnels branched off in different directions.
"I have no memory of this place." Gandalf said.
Aragorn decided that while Gandalf mused over which way to go, we should all take a break and rest. Frodo had sat down by Gandalf and they spoke to each other quietly in hushed tones.
"Merry," whispered Pippin, "I'm hungry."
I smiled that Pippin could think of food at a time like this. I heard movement to my left and which revealed itself to be Kili who sat down next to me on the cold rock, our backs to most of the company. We sat on a large outcropping that sheared off into a dark pit below.
"Would you like a drink?' Kili held out a flask.
Now that I thought about it I was perched. Taking the flask I tipped it back and took a big drink.
Immediately a coughing fit hit me. The liquid was bitter and held a distinct alcohol sting. "Wow what is that?"
He patted my back while I caught my breath, "Port. I should have warned you, forgive me."
"No problem," I handed the flask back, "this place is amazing." The cavernous room we were in was so huge you could sit my whole college campus inside it. "How did your people build it?"
"Very carefully," He answered with a cheeky grin, "in all honesty it takes lifetimes. But we dwarves are nothing if not patient and steadfast."
"Could I have another drink?" holding my hand out to the flask.
"Of course." Kili handed it over. "Our longer lifespans allows us to see our work come to fruition. On my seventieth birthday I finally saw the great hall of the Blue Mountains finished."
I nearly choked. I pressed my hand to my mouth to keep the port from spilling everywhere.
"Your what?!" My voice squeaked.
"Does no one live that long where you are from?"
"Of course people do." I said, "Just most don't look as good as you."
His head jerked up in surprise, cheeks red.
"What I mean is…" I downed another gulp.
"I think I know what you mean." Kili took the flash back with a smirk. Damn why'd he had to do that?
Reaching into his pocket Kili took out the small rock I'd seen him with the first night we talked.
"What is that?"
"It's a dwarfish talisman, very powerful. If any but a dwarf reads the runes upon it they would be cursed forever." He thrust is at me face.
Quickly I averted my eyes, fear shooting through my skin.
"Or not." Kili quipped.
I glanced back up. Kili grinned ear to ear, tossing the stone up and down. "You trickster." And I shoved him hard. At least I thought it was hard, he down sway one bit. "Damn your solid." Shaking my hand to rid it of the slight pounding that had taken over my fingertips.
He took it in good humor, "Of all the things a woman has called me, that is indeed the first I've been called solid. Let me see your hand." Kili made to take my hand. "You should be careful, I'm hard to hurt."
"Hey, hey I'm fine." I playfully held it out of his reach.
"You looked like you were in pain." Kili made to grab my hand again.
I crossed my arms behind my back, "I don't want it to go to your head. I'm tougher than I look."
"I hope you are, because you look like a dainty maiden."
I gasped and thwacked him upside his head. He grunted, "Ok, maybe you can hurt me a bit." He chuckled.
"Ahh!" cried of Gandalf happily from above us. "It's that way."
"He's remembered!" Merry exclaimed, scrambling to his feet.
"No. The air down here doesn't smell so foul. If in doubt Meriadoc, always follow your nose."
Gandalf started down the path with the rest of the Fellowship following. Kili and I looked at each other before rushing to catch up.
"Let us risk a little more light." Gandalf's staff grew brighter. "Behold the great realm and dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf!"The room we were in was huge. No, huge was an understatement. It was like a whole country had been built under the mountain. Majestic pillars reached up into the dark and the room stretched beyond what I could see. To carve even one of the pillars must have taken decades. If only we had been able to see this place when it was full of life.
"That's and eye opener no mistake." Sam said in awe.
Kili beamed up at the carved stone, "This is the first I've laid eyes on these halls. Thorin's stories do not do them justice."
Fili stopped beside him, "No, they do not. Come brother."
"Kili," I whispered and he leaned closer, "this is beautiful."
We walked a few hundred meters with no change from the darkness enveloping everything beyond Gandalf's light.
"Haugh!" Gimli suddenly cried as he sprinted to a room on our left that had a single beam of light streaming through an opening in the wall.
"Gimli!" Gandalf shouted as we scrambled after him.
We came in to a chamber carved of gray stone and filled with the fallen bodies of more dwarves. Though I saw Gimli stop and stare in despair at them he fixated on one in particular. A great tomb was set in the center of the room, the beam of light illuminating it like it was the last hope that drew the dwarves here where they perished. An inscription was all that adorned the sarcophagus.
Gandlaf ran his fingers over the runes, "Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria. He is dead then, it is as I feared."
Gimli had fallen to his knees before the tomb and cried openly. Kili and Boromir came up behind him and layed their hands on his shoulders. Kili and Fili looked at the tomb, at all that remained of their friend and great mentor with empty eyes.
"We must move on, we cannot linger." Legolas whispered to Aragorn.
Fili reached out his hand as if he wanted to touch the tomb and confirm the horrible truth before him. He moved around the tomb and let out a cry, joining Gimli on the ground. Kili rushed to his brother's side.
"Ori." Fili said looking at a dwarf who clutched an old cracked tome in his hands. Guarding it, even in death. "His journal was more precious to him than all the gold in Erebor. He was such a good lad, he didn't deserve this fate."
Gandalf came over and gently lifted the book from Ori's grasp, and handing his hat and staff to Pippin. After he moved out of the way I went to the brothers' side. It wasn't fair that they had to endure this on top of everything they had been through. I couldn't help myself as I took Kili's hand in mine and put my other on Fili's shoulder. It was a ridiculously small display of sympathy compared to all they had lost.
"They have taken the bridge and the second hall." Gandalf read from the book. Fili and Kili shuddered as they heard the last dying words of their dear friend. "We have barred the gates, but cannot hope to hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums… drums in the deep. We cannot get out." The rest of the Fellowship looked around at the walls of the room, looking for the unseen enemy that haunted the pages of the book. The hobbits huddled together except for Pippin who backed up slowly towards a well, clutching Gandalf's hat close to him.
Gandalf continued to read, "A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out…They are coming."
I felt a chill creep down my spine at the finality of those words. I crushed my eyes shut, trying to block out the images of what had surely followed.
CRASH! BANG BANG BANG!
A deafening sound came from where Pippin stood looking sheepish. I noticed that the dwarf that had been sitting on the well where he died was no longer there.
"Fool of a Took!" Gandalf thundered and he barreled towards the young hobbit, ripping his hat and staff from Pippin's hands. "Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"
Gandalf turned to the rest of the Fellowship.
boom.
He turned back to the well, looking fearfully at the dark opening.
boom.
Boom.
Boom!
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Horrible, inhuman screeches could be heard in the distance, getting closer and louder with each second.
"Frodo!" Sam cried out and Frodo looked down, pulling out his sword glowing with a bright blue light.
"Orcs!" Legolas confirmed.
Boromir ran to the door to close it then violently he whipped his head back, a crude arrow just barely missing his face.
"Boromir!" I screamed running to help him.
"I'm fine." He said looking to Aragorn and me, grabbing the axes we had picked up from the ground and bared the door. "They have a cave troll." Nodding in the direction of the entrance.
We backed away from the door.
"Stay close to Gandalf.' Aragorn shouted at the hobbits.
Aragorn, Legolas, Kili and I pulled out our bows and aimed them at the entrance. The door was already shaking on its hinges and holes where appearing where some orcs had busted though. A spear appeared in one of these holes, but before the orc could release it Legolas shot off an arrow killing the orc.
"Let them come," growled Gimli from atop the tomb clutching both his war axes in his hands. He looked like he was ready to take on the all orcs himself, "there are three dwarves yet in Moria who still draw breath!"
Fili and Kili stood on either side of the tomb looking fiercer and more deadly than I had ever seen them before. If didn't even think Kili had it in him to look so scary.
The doors exploded inwards and dozens of foul, deformed creatures poured in. One of them came straight at me, probably thinking I was an easy target. I let the arrow I had been holding go and it embedded itself in the center of the creature's forehead, killing it instantly. There was little time to feel relief as five more immediately took its place. I shot off arrows, one right after the other. Little time was spent to see if I had killed my marks. All that mattered to me right now is that the foul things went down before it got to me or one of the hobbits behind us.
Aragorn had abandoned his bow for his sword and now both he and Boromir slashed at the enemy, beheading and stabbing orcs with deadly precision.
I had been pushed back to a pillar where Fili and Sam fought back to back. Sam had lost his sword sometime early in the brawl and he brandished a frying pot in his hand. I crouched next to them, shooting orcs that they missed with their blade and pot.
Suddenly Fili let out a gasp of shock as an orc he failed to notice was about to bring it's serrated black blade down on him. Then just as suddenly the orc was unconscious on the ground, the air reverberating with the metallic twang of the pot Sam had just hit it with.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this!" Sam cried out triumphantly before proceeding to whack another orc in the face.
Fili smiled as he looked down at the hobbit. "Aye I think you are!"
The orcs around us were beginning to dwindle in number. We might actually win this.
A roaring snarl filled the chamber and the largest, ugliest thing I had ever seen plowed through the stone surrounding that door, sending deadly shards in all directions.
I ducked Sam under my arms, shielding his head and neck with my arms. The razor sharp rocks pinged safely off my elvish tunic. "What is that?" I screamed.
"A troll!" Fili shouted back. "We've dealt with them before, but never one like this!"
Though the troll was bound in chains by the orcs, it made no distinction in who it attacked. It killed many of the remaining orcs as it tried to get at us. It saw Gimli still on top of the tomb and reared it's club back before slamming it down, shattering the tomb as Gimli jump away. This only enraged Gimli more and he roared as he ran to the troll's legs, hacking away with his axes.
The troll swatted at Gimli but was hindered by the chains the orcs held it in. Having enough it ripped them out of the orcs' grasp. It used the chains to swing at Legolas who in the midst of battle had made it to the second level of the room. After slamming the chain down and just barely missing the elf a large link caught on a pillar. Legolas ran across the chain and jumped on the troll's back, shooting double arrows down on its head.
I couldn't see what happened next as one of the surviving orcs jumped in front of me, filling my vision. It didn't have a weapon so it grabbed me by the throat and with its other hand knocked away by bow. I couldn't breathe, the world started to look fuzzy and disorienting. My fingers clawed desperately at the creatures hands around my neck. With my free hand I tried to punch it in the face, but my blow was devastatingly weak from my lack of oxygen. It shoved me up against a wall, knocking what little air I had in my lungs out. As everything started to go dark I remembered the daggers Arwen had given me. I reached my hand down; thankfully the orc was too gleeful in the death it was dealing, that it didn't notice the movement. It pulled its misshapen lips back showing shark-like teeth in a sickly grin of triumph. My searching hand found the handle to one of the blades. I pulled it out and brought it up with my remaining strength. The blade caught the orc right under its mouth freezing its face in that smile and traveling up into its brain, ending the fight. Vaguely in my haze I heard a loud thump across the chamber.
Finally the orc released its grasp on me as it slumped to the ground. I heaved in the deepest breath I could manage and looked around. The chamber had grown eerily silent. I saw my friends gathering in one corner of the room, sadness evident on their faces.
With a start I scrambled to my feet, only to fall back to the ground. Boromir and Kili who were standing closest to me rushed over and each took one of my arms to steady me. Kili brushed a hand along my bruised neck.
"What happened?" I almost didn't want to know.
"It's Frodo." Kili replied solemnly, removing his hand. I was right I didn't want to know this.
We came to where the others were. Aragorn crouched over a figure lying face down on the floor with a spear protruding from its abdomen. "Oh no." he whispered out in despair.
My heart clenched painfully at the sight of the small little hobbit. "Oh God." I croaked out, leaning into Kili who stood next to me. We looked down at Frodo in shared grief.
Aragorn tuned Frodo's body over. He was still for a moment before he let out a hiss of pain and sat up. The spear fell away revealing that Frodo had no wound!
"I'm alright. I'm not hurt." He assured us rubbing his stomach like all he had suffered from the troll's attack was a bruised rib.
I stumbled over and crushed Frodo carefully in a hug, kissing his forehead in relief. "Thank God!"
"You should be dead. That spear would have skewered a wild boar." Aragorn exclaimed.
"I think there's more to this hobbit than meets the eye." Gandalf raise a knowing eyebrow at Frodo.
Frodo opened his shirt showing a silvery chainmail undershirt. Sam and I brushed our fingertips over the material, the metal rings were warm and soft to the touch.
"Mirthril!" Gimli said, "You're full of surprises Master Baggins!"
Kili knelt down to help Frodo off the floor, mirth showing on his face, "Just like Bilbo."
The inhuman screams began to fill the chamber again.
"Their coming back!" Fili said running to the busted door.
"To the Bridge of Khazad-dum." Gandalf lead us out of the chamber.
