Chapter 10
Corax the raven swooped right at them. "Gobbbbliiinnns!" he screamed.
Nÿr, healer apprentice traveling in disguise, didn't have time to translate as an ugly pack of goblins charged straight for them.
But Bruilan, the man of Gondor, was ready for a fight.
"Down!" Bruilan ordered her.
Nÿr tried to hit the dirt, but a goblin crashed into her, grabbing her by the back of her neck and pushing her sideways.
Bruilan drew his wicked-sharp long sword and swung it in a great arc, slicing four goblins at once.
Nÿr ducked her head and twisted around, getting her hands on the short staff that dangled from her belt. She pulled it from the ring on her hip, ramming the handle straight into her captor's groin, just as Nama had shown her.
The goblin's eyes bulged and it went to its knees as she got the staff in both hands, brought it down against the back of his neck and kneed him hard in the chin.
Its neck snapped against the staff with an audible crack and it went limp.
Gray-green goblin blood sprayed across her face as Bruilan dispatched a one-armed goblin with a raised club.
Nÿr spun, faced a tall goblin who shrieked at her, both hands on its upraised sword. She took the opportunity he presented: unguarded stomach. She plunged the metal point of the staff into his gut, thrusting upward to his heart. She watched his face go blank in surprise, the weight of his own sword pulling him backward. She jerked her staff free and turned to confront the next goblin.
Except there wasn't one. She and Bruilan were the only two standing amidst a dozen dead enemy.
Bruilan held his long sword at the ready and circled, listening for more goblins.
He locked eyes with Nÿr, raised his eyebrows as he realized she was unhurt, and then looked at her two kills.
He held up a thumb, meaning good job.
And unlike the first time she'd killed a goblin defending the King's son, Nÿr had no regrets this time, except the bottom half of her staff was bloody. She looked for a mossy tree trunk and quietly scraped it against the green spongy stuff.
Goblins. Yeech.
"Let's hope that was just a random patrol," Bruilan murmured. He picked up his sack of scrap copper and tin from where he'd dropped it and motioned her to come along. He led off, cleaning his sword with a scrap of cloth as he walked, then sheathing the bright blade.
Nÿr followed a few steps behind, wetting a cloth with water from her flask and cleaning her face as best she could.
They had to look like itinerant traders, after all.
She picked up a plain, hammered tin helmet that had rolled off a dead goblin, putting it on over her slightly mussed hair, completing her disguise as scrappy, wandering dwarf.
It seemed like a lifetime ago, but she could still bring back Nÿr the orphan lass who felt she was worth nothing, who was fearful of the man who was her partner, who was willing to put up with mistreatment because she was so afraid of being cast aside…
She pushed aside a scoff at her younger self and tapped into that past.
And she made herself hunch as she walked, kept her eyes cast down as much as possible, changing her stride from confident lass to meek female afraid of attracting the man's wrath.
Corax landed on a downed tree beside the narrow trail.
"Ivy cliff," the raven muttered. "Dark place behind the vines."
"Are we near, Corax?" she asked in a low voice.
Ahead of her, Bruilan turned to look at them.
"Almost there," Corax clucked. "Watch."
"He says we're close," Nÿr translated. "Watch where he goes." Corax took the air and flew over their heads.
As one, the man of Gondor and the dwarf lass had their eyes on the raven as he glided silently ahead.
And that's when Nÿr felt the sword tip in her back and a goblin hand covering her mouth.
"Do you think this is enough of the dragon?" Fili asked Gondor's King. They stood side by side on a wide, flat lake barge with several loads of dredged up dragon bones lying on deck, including the massive skull, still attached to the neck and a hefty-sized piece of the spine and ribcage.
"Hard to say," Aragorn admitted. "But we have the head and the heart." He gestured toward the great skull and the massive breastbone. They also had the pelvis and many wing and leg bones.
Fili waited for one more pass of the hired longshoremen's drag hooks. When he saw that they brought up nothing for the third time, he was ready to call it done.
"Let's get it to the Mountain," Fili said. "If we're lucky, the afternoon winds will pick up a bit early." He considered the blue sky as the barge captain picked up anchor and raised sail.
Then he studied their catch. The afternoon heat and sun would dry out the bones a bit, but after sitting underwater for 81 years, Fili knew they wouldn't dry completely.
The first step when they got back to the Mountain: dump a flammable oil mix all over them.
And then Fili intended to smash that skull himself.
He was carefully nurturing a smoldering rage, and he considered his options. Sword, axe, mace?
Warhammers, he decided. Big, heavy. Crushing. He could almost feel one in his hand, a heavy hammerhead on a sturdy handle.
And the Mountain. He was a Son of Durin and the Mountain would help him end this once and for all.
He owed it to the people he'd seen killed in Laketown that night.
He owed it to his uncle, Thorin Oakenshield, and all their people who died when this cursed dragon attacked Erebor.
And he owed it to his brother and eighty-one years of torment.
Nÿr couldn't get her bearings, being relentlessly pushed and shoved along. But as long as she played meek, she realized they weren't giving her much attention.
Bruilan, on the other hand, was obviously their focus. The goblins had managed to get a rope wrapped around the tall man's arms, pinning them to his sides, and they jerked and pulled him along, taunting.
And they laughed as they went, if that odd gurgling could be called laughter.
They were rushed to an ivy-covered rockface, and Nÿr thought they would be hustled inside.
Except her captors were met by an angry war-goblin bellowing as it strode out, gesturing a line of armed goblins behind him to head east.
Bruilan was shoved aside and he spared her a glance that said keep quiet.
They've spotted Erebor's battalions on the march, Nÿr realized. Just like Dwalin said, the goblins were charging out to meet the threat.
She wanted to count them, estimate how many were pounding past. But she stayed in character and hunched under the tattered cloak. With any luck, they wouldn't even know she was female.
The mass exit went on for a good while. Hundreds, she figured. Hundreds were leaving.
Then the bellowing war-goblin shouted and chivvied their escort into joining the line of departing goblins. One shook his head, hand tight to Bruilan's rope.
Some sort of argument ensued, ending when the war-goblin pointed to Bruilan and jerked his head toward the cave's entry.
"Orzhak," he said.
Bruilan's captor didn't argue. He turned to grab a fistful of Nÿr's cloak, dragging her along as he shoved Bruilan forward.
Nÿr followed. She couldn't get to her staff, but she might be able to get her leather belt off, use it as a garrote.
But she didn't have a chance.
Their lone escort hurried them down a main corridor, then took a left-hand tunnel only to find a half dozen rat-faced goblins blocking their way. Bruilan was pushed forward, poked, looked over, and critically considered.
Nÿr backed up and huddled in a corner out of the torch light, hoping to be forgotten or overlooked.
Bruilan's bonds were cut, his sheathed sword and coat cast aside, landing not far from her feet. A set of heavy iron manacles were handed from one goblin to another.
Nÿr kept her eye on the discarded sword and started looking around for a better hiding place. There, in the dark, a crooked wooden door hung about an inch open, as if someone had departed in a rush.
Bruilan towered over the little mob around him, and he elbowed and pushed back as they attempted to lock the manacles around his wrists. He stomped hard on the foot of one goblin, and after much shrieking, spears came out, all pointed at him.
Nÿr tested the door, listening for signs of an occupant. With the goblins completely occupied with Bruilan, she used her foot to catch a piece of the scabbard's belt and drag the sword slowly towards her, backing for the darker shadows and the door.
Bruilan roared an objection as they captured one wrist and bolted the manacle around it.
Nÿr nudged the door open. In the distance, somewhere deeper in the cave, she heard a sudden roar of more goblins, followed by a chant. Were they…cheering?
Fight ring. Fili had interpreted Corax's description of Kili's location as a goblin fight ring.
And she realized their intentions for Bruilan must be the same.
More cheering, as if something they liked had just happened in that ring, she figured. The group with Bruilan stopped, listened, and began nodding and laughing.
"Orzhak! Orzhak !" They repeated, pushing Bruilan forward, completely forgetting Nÿr.
She heard them taking Bruilan further down the tunnel. She bent and lifted Bruilan's sword. It was over-sized for a dwarf, but she could carry it on her back, hope to return it to him.
The trick would be to do that without getting caught again herself.
The sound of flapping bird feathers caught her attention and she looked up, seeing Corax land overhead in the high rocky ceiling, his glossy feathers reflecting torch light.
"Raven Prince," he muttered, eyeing the shadows where Nÿr crouched. "You come?"
Kili had started feeling more himself as soon as Yagrat, Smaug's personal she-goblin, had breathed her last.
And he'd been right. The next opponent they dropped into the fight ring had been worse: a mean, stooped and heavy goblin with a spiked club.
He might have been in trouble, except spiked-club goblin was slow and fought only left-handed. Approach it from the right and it couldn't defend itself.
Kili had a badly-forged short sword abandoned by one of the many dead goblins in the ring, but it was enough. He toyed with the goblin as long as he could, as long as the watching crowd would tolerate.
But Kili was tired, still sweaty with an un-natural fever, and hampered by the aching, burning scars on his right leg, just above the knee.
The site of his morgul wound, inflamed and agitated by spider poison.
He still wanted to throw himself off the edge—throw himself into the void that surrounded the fight ring and find blessed relief in a quick, self-inflicted death.
No! You must not, Kili! He would simply trap you, too. It was the distant voice of his one-time lover, Tauriel, her bright elven spirit trapped by the brooding spirit of the dragon.
It was the only thing that stopped him. If her spirit could be freed, he would need to stay alive, and staying alive meant he had to fight and keep the earth beneath his feet.
He struck the goblin from the right, flaying open a beefy bicep.
The crowd roared. "Kill! Kill! Kill!" they chanted.
Kili thought they didn't sound as loud as before. He glanced up. There didn't seem to be as many.
Was it a mind trick? Kili wondered at the change, but couldn't make sense of it. Didn't have time to make sense of it.
The goblin swung its spiked club with more force than Kili expected and he jumped back, losing his footing and falling to the dirt. He turned it into a roll and got back to his knees in time to see the goblin falter, off balance.
He got to his feet, tested the weight of the short sword by spinning it in a quick flourish.
It would do.
Eyes narrowed, he went on the attack, spinning the blade and surprising the goblin, who made the mistake of raising its arms in shock.
Kili slashed left through the soft stomach, spun the blade, and slashed right across the stomach again. The goblin clutched its gut and went to its knees.
And Kili slashed deep into its throat, blood pumping out in a gruesome fountain as the goblin slowly slumped sideways and went limp.
The crowd erupted into shrieks of triumph and now Kili peered up at them in earnest.
Definitely fewer goblins on the overhead bridge and parapets.
But what it meant, he couldn't fathom.