Chapter 82

Farewell to Erebor

We had a brief respite from all the fighting, even though it did not feel like it. The Hornburg was full with wounded men and elves and everyone who could still stand, didn't fall down with exhaustion and had at least one working hand at their disposal was put to work. Gandalf urged us all not to linger here too long, that there was business to settle with Saruman and that while the threat in Rohan might have abated for the time being, Gondor was still very much in the line of fire.

All of this was of course true and I know that Boromir and Théodred shared these concerns. But they pointed out that even if they wanted to they could not create miracles and only a fool would ride out to Orthanc to confront someone of Saruman's calibre without an army at their backs. Théodred demanded at least a day more and then he would come with him with all those still strong enough to sit on a horse and hold a weapon.

Boromir of course demanded to be included in the action. He could now more or less walk in a straight line – defying the healers' expectations yet again – and he could wield a sword with his left arm nearly as well as his right. Declaring that he had thus met Théodred's conditions and that Gondor ought to have a representative there at any rate – conveniently forgetting that Aragorn, who had come off rather better than him, was its future King – so he was coming and he would gladly fight whoever dared to say him nay.

No one dared.

The respite in the North however was almost over. Celeborn had brought news to Erebor that sent the whole kingdom into a frenzy. He knew, from his scouts, that an army was approaching out of Mordor, which was the one that Thráin and Legolas had seen, but another army out of the East was already marching and fast approaching. Lord knows how they had raised another army so quickly, but the East was vast and certainly had the numbers to muster another force to rival the one they had already sent against Erebor and its allies.

And so the whole thing began again…

Duria

'Have you seen my brother?'

'Two hours past,' came the reply from Halin. 'Though that's probably no good to you now.'

It wasn't and by now Duria was growing sick and tired of having to ask the same thing over and over again. Maker be good, he was riding out in less than an hour and here she was, as per usual, traipsing all over the Mountain in search of him.

'It's not,' she confirmed. She recalled Thulfa's advice of putting her brother on a leash. It sounded more tempting with every minute she spent in a fruitless search for him.

'You'd have better luck just waiting for him at the gates,' Halin counselled, not unkindly. 'He'll be bound to show up there.'

'If I wished to wait on him, I'd do that,' she snapped. 'My business with him is urgent. It cannot wait.' She had to forcefully remind herself that Halin was not to blame for Thoren's restless streak and so she calmed her breathing before she continued: 'I don't suppose there's any need in asking where he was headed?'

'I saw him in the hallway leading to the council chambers,' Halin responded. 'If he went in there, I cannot say. I had my own business to attend to.'

Because he would ride out today. Cathy did not like it and Halin did not like it either, but he was needed. Everyone was needed. Only the smallest force remained behind to guard Erebor itself. Everyone else rode out in defence of it.

Duria knew very little of such matters, but she deemed it foolish and stupid. They could sit in here and weather the coming storm. Thoren's almost pitying look told her that she didn't understand a thing about it. 'We must prevent their armies from joining,' he'd said. 'Separate they are formidable enough in their own right, but united they are a force against which we cannot stand. And we are ill-prepared for a siege now.' Because of traitors burning food stores. Their reserves were considerably less than they had been and there was no way to replenish them.

Even so, she did not like it.

Her feet brought her to the hallway Halin directed her to, but predictably there was no sign of Thoren either there or in the council chambers themselves. She might as well have saved herself a few minutes.

Nara approached from the opposite end and Duria prepared to repeat the refrain of the day, but Nara beat her to it. 'On the mountainside,' she informed Duria.

She had not even opened her mouth.

'What else could you be wanting here?' Lufur's wife answered the question – How in Durin's name did you know what I was after? – Duria hadn't had any opportunity to ask either. 'You've got that look about you. He's gone to pay his respects, I shouldn't wonder.'

Of course. She should have thought of that before. It was his way to go there prior to any major decision he had to make, as though the statues of their parents held all the answers. They didn't and they were not there, so Duria did not often go there of her own volition, but she had lost count of the times she had trod that way trailing after her wayward brother.

So up the mountainside she went. The area was relatively undamaged by the war itself. No doubt that the orcs would have burned down everything in sight if they'd had the time for it – they had certainly made a most convincing start with it – but they had not yet come here. Here she might stand and fool herself into believing that all was still as it was supposed to be.

The familiar picture of her brother in front of the tomb did nothing to give the lie to that notion. He stood straight, but with his head bowed deep in thought. Asking counsel of the dead.

'Thoren,' she called out when she was still a reasonable distance away.

He looked up and sighed. 'One last hour of peace, Duria. Was that so much to ask?'

The weariness in his tone brought her up short. He sounded old and exhausted. It was in his eyes too, if not in any other part of him. He does not believe he will return. It was a reminder she could do without.

'I did not mean to cause you discomfort,' she said, because she had most definitely intended to disturb him, but not to cause him further pain. 'But I would speak with you.'

'Speak with or speak to?' he asked, sounding slightly suspicious.

She bit down on the irritation. 'With,' she replied.

Thoren jumped on the opportunity. 'I want their tomb to be moved inside,' he told her and that in itself spoke volumes about his faith in his mission. Had he ever had any at all? 'I don't want their bones to be left as playthings for the orcs, their last resting place defiled by their foul hands.'

She hadn't thought about that before, but now that he mentioned it, the thought seemed unbearable. 'We should,' she agreed. 'We should never have built it out here in the first place.'

Thoren gave her a sharp look. 'It was their wish. This place held meaning to them.'

Be that as it may, Duria was allowed to have her own opinion about it. But this was not the time to argue about it and so she let it rest. 'I'll have it done,' she promised.

Thoren nodded. 'Do it soon,' he counselled. 'There may not be much time.' He waited until she had promised to do so. 'What did you want with me? You did not come here to discuss tombs with me, I reckon.'

She hadn't. 'I would want a promise from you,' she stated. It sounded somewhat foolish and childish to stand here and indeed ask for it, but she had come this far now. It was even more foolish to retract. 'That you will do your best to come back alive.'

He looked at her in pity. 'You know that promise is not in my gift, Duria.'

'I asked you to try, didn't I?' The words came out a bit more harsh than she had planned them. 'Is that promise beyond your gift as well?'

She remembered the darkness after she believed he was gone the first time. Instinctually she shied away from that dark pit of grief. She did not think she could bear that a second time. But the solution for it was simple. Now if only her brother would actually listen to her.

Understanding dawned in his eyes. 'That is well within my gift,' he told her. 'I shall try to survive at least.' It was all the promise he could give and they both knew it. 'Was there anything else you needed?'

'Only that you don't come back and I have to find out you've married your elf in the meantime,' she said. Tauriel was Thoren's faithful shadow these days, recipient of many undefined glances and meaningful smiles. Cathy had noted it too, Duria knew, and her sister's intuition was something she could safely rely on.

He groaned and rolled his eyes. 'Now you're at it as well? It was bad enough when it was just Cathy, Duria. Will the two of you leave this matter be? We are in the middle of a war, for Durin's sake! Have you nothing better to do than speculate about my relationships? I wonder where you find the time for it.'

It was not the sort of denial she had hoped for.

'Thinking and observing hardly take up any time at all,' Duria retorted.

'May I remind you that we are in the middle of a war, so even if I were to be so inclined, there is no time for such things?'

Duria had a very good answer to that. 'Adad and amad found the time for it,' she reminded him.

'I am not them, as you so frequently remind me, Duria.' He was heading rapidly for annoyance and it had not escaped her notice that he had still denied absolutely nothing concerning Tauriel. He had evaded and side-stepped. He'd even gone so far as to counter-attack. She wondered if he was even aware he was doing it; his irritation looked very genuine.

'But you are their son,' she pointed out, not content to let him have the last word in this matter. 'And their choices were unconventional.'

He shook his head in exasperation. 'Can you leave this for the time being?' he asked, sounding tired and put-upon in equal measure. 'If I come back from this war, you may bend my ear about whatever you please to your heart's content, I promise you, but I should like to not get into an argument with you today.'

Because you believe this is the last time we see each other in this life.

She nodded. 'Very well. Come, we must go. They will be waiting.'

'You go on ahead,' Thoren said. 'I will remain here for five minutes longer. No more than that,' he promised hastily when he saw the looks this elicited. 'Say your farewells to Narvi, Duria.' The tone was almost gentle.

So she went. In her mission to find her brother she had almost managed to forget the other thing that she could hardly bear to think about. Narvi.

Rationally she had known from the beginning that he would ride out to war at Thoren's side. He was an able warrior, this husband of hers, and his skills were called for. It was selfish of her to want to lock them in their chambers until the end of the war. Dwarves were no cowards and Narvi embodied all the best of their race. She had to let him go where she could not follow.

But she didn't want to.

The memory of the loss was still too heavy.

She found her husband in the healing rooms, bidding farewell to Harry and Jack. Dari and Nari clamped their hands around his legs and hung off of them like dead weights, like this might prevent their father from leaving. They were too young yet to understand why there was no choice for any of them, not in this matter.

'You lads be good now,' Narvi told Jack and Harry with the lopsided grin that Duria loved so much. 'I'll expect both of you to be fully healed upon my return.'

'Yes, Mr Narvi.'

'What am I, a dwarfling?'

Narvi laughed, genuine laughter that rumbled from his chest through his throat and out his mouth. He gave no appearance of nervousness or fear, though she knew he was well acquainted with both. He feared leaving them behind, not being there when they needed him to defend them. After her last fighting debacle Duria knew better than to make claims that she could adequately defend anyone; she only had to look at Harry to know that she did not possess that talent.

'A patient,' he corrected Jack, still smiling. 'It is perhaps fortunate then that I'll leave my lads with you to make sure you heed the healers' orders.' He turned to the boys. 'What do you think? Are you able to keep your uncle under close guard?'

Nari's eyes were teary, but Dari managed a dry-eyed, firm nod. 'Yes, adad.'

I wish you did not have to be so brave at such a young age, Duria thought, but this world had grown so very cruel. Even children now had to bear the burdens of full-grown dwarves. They hardly understood this war, but Dari had taught himself already to accept it and to be strong for those who did not yet know how to be. It had not escaped her notice in the slightest that he acted as a protector for Nari and Harry both of late.

He nudged his brother now. 'We can, can't we? Because you'll go and sit on his chest and I'll go sit on his legs and if he tries to escape even then, Harry'll call for the healers.'

Harry nodded fervently. 'I can do that,' he agreed.

Nari pulled himself together and nodded through his tears. 'I can do that,' he echoed.

If he can be strong and brave, then so can I, Duria reminded herself. With that thought firmly fixed in her mind, she entered the room proper. 'It sounds to me as though you have covered it all,' she told them with pride. They were good lads, these boys of hers. 'That will leave me all the more time for my work.'

'Oh, you have work to do?' Jack enquired with no small measure of sarcasm. 'You could have fooled me these past few days, Duria.'

She ignored that. 'Dari, Nari, let your adad go, please.' The time was upon them and drawing it out served no purpose. 'He must go and we must remain.' The words felt as though they tore her heart from her chest, but her emotions were hers to command and not the other way around anymore.

Dari did as she told him, though his bottom lip looked suspiciously wobbly. Nari cried, but he too obeyed, clutching her instead. She lifted him into her arms and held him close. To her own surprise, she was near tears herself.

She looked at Narvi's face and drank in the sight of it, every last detail until it was seared onto her mind, so that she would forget nothing. She memorised the way he looked at her and the birth mark on his left cheek and the freckles on his nose. A memory was all that would sustain her in the time to come.

And he may not return.

She dare not think about that now, not when the tears were still so near.

'You must leave,' she said. Thoren would not thank her kindly for delaying the proceedings because she was unable to do what needed doing. 'But we shall walk with you.'

They did. Narvi filled the air with talk, mainly to distract the lads and keep them from crying. Dari did indeed put a brave face on it, but Nari still sniffled into her hair and could not seem to stop. She wished she could cry with him, but once more it was her lot in life to steel herself and be the rock they all clung to in the storm.

The closer they came to the gates, the noisier it became. Horses neighed, folk shouted and despite the fact that the war was yet miles away, the air filled with the sound of clanging weaponry. Nari's crying intensified and even Dari began to struggle in earnest now. It did not help matters that all around them there were families like them, fathers bidding farewell to their wives and children, sons saying goodbye to their mothers and sisters.

Some of them are so young.

But they all went. Duria was relieved to see several men of Esgaroth among their number, grim looks on their faces. They had come. So far, nobody had left. She forced herself to see this as a good sign, a sign that this alliance was not yet as broken as it had seemed. But we have not seen the end of this sorry tale just yet.

Duria reached out and took Narvi's hand in hers. She was not given to public displays of affection, but she'd gladly make an exception today. It might be the last time she was able to do so.

'Take good care of yourself,' she charged him. She did not entirely trust her own voice, but she was relieved to find that it was steady enough for the time being. 'And when it is all over, come back to us if you are able.'

Narvi was not often solemn, but he was now. 'I shall do my best,' he vowed. 'Keep yourselves safe, Duria. You're what makes me wish to return. Remember that.'

She had no words. They had never let her down in such a way before, but they failed her utterly. She had to resort to other measures and so she did. She forgot that there were others who could see them and kissed her husband full on the lips.

Thoren

Many had come. It was a good thing, Thoren knew. Men, elves and dwarves had all assembled here today and, to his infinite relief, a large number of men from Esgaroth were among them. They kept themselves to themselves. They looked haggard, tired and in some cases sullen, but they were here.

'They will not abandon us now,' Elvaethor said with confidence.

'I hope that you're right, my friend.' Thoren wished he shared his confidence, but it was hard. So much had gone wrong with this alliance. Trust had been broken and it was not so easily repaired. It worked both ways too. Despite his own proclamations he did not feel at ease with them. He would look at them and wonder. He wished he did not, because it was a distinct disadvantage in battle, but he could not help it. Trust was not something he could be forced to feel.

But they are here. Let that suffice.

The time had come. Soon he would ride out, but there was one other thing that must be done first and that was why they had gathered here. Thranduil strode across the wide open space before him to join him. Brand followed with a young man Thoren vaguely recalled seeing among the people of the Lake.

'My lords,' Brand said. 'May I introduce Solmund? He has been chosen by his people to stand as their Master. As such he should be with us today.'

Solmund looked like he would rather be anywhere else. He was very young to be these people's leader, twenty years at most, Thoren estimated. It appeared as though he was quaking in his boots at the sight of three kings here assembled, but to his credit he did not turn tail and run.

'You are most welcome,' Thoren told him. It was not good that the men of the Lake lacked leadership. They had needed someone to unite behind and if this Solmund was the answer, he would not object. 'Are your people agreed on today's action?'

Solmund drew himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders and drew a deep breath. 'They are, my lord.' He had a pleasant voice and he sounded more impressive than he looked. Thoren took that as a good sign. 'They are still fearful, but they gave up these traitors and threw them on your mercy. They will not go back on that. They also express the hope that relations between our peoples can be mended after this.'

'I would like nothing better,' Thoren informed him. He meant every word. He looked to Feredir, who waited on his command. 'Bring out the prisoners.'

He still had doubts about letting them live. It seemed such a poor display of justice. But the dwarves had no death penalty like the mannish kingdoms did, not in the way they did at least. It occurred to him that this was perhaps the crueller way, to cast them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The orcs had burned all that could be used for food and if starvation did not kill these men, then the cold hand of winter would surely claim them. Even if they found a way to survive for some time, these lands would soon be crawling with orcs again. This was a death sentence all the same.

Ours is a cruel way, he thought, but he remembered the lifeless bodies too. There must be a reckoning.

This punishment was seldom used either way. Dwarves were law-abiding beings in general. True, they brawled as much as men did, but if folk like Nori and his sticky fingers were rare, then murderers and traitors were almost unheard of. The last time this drastic a measure had been needed was during his father's reign when he cast out Nói the traitor for essentially committing the same crime as these men. He had never implemented it himself.

He felt oddly nervous about it.

It did not last very long. Rage took over when the men were led out. They were eighteen in number altogether, sixteen male and two female, ranging in age from boys just shy of the age of majority to grey-bearded old men. All of them had thrown their lot in with Ingor and in doing so, they had thrown their lot in with the Enemy.

Their demeanours were as different and wide-ranging as their ages. Some walked tall and straight, defiant to the last. One old man even had the nerve to spit in Thoren's general direction. Others had begun to realise the severity of their circumstances. One lad, sixteen if he was a day, cried. He attempted to throw himself on the ground, begging for mercy, but his guard would not let him and there was no mercy to be had for him.

What could have possessed one so young to choose to fight for Sauron? Thoren wondered about that. Had he been one of the men to slash the throats of innocents? He had not been told and truth be told, he was grateful to Feredir for this.

The guards lined them up before the four leaders of the Alliance. As King under the Mountain it fell to him to speak their verdict and have them sent on their way.

'You stand here today to answer for your crimes,' he spoke. Everyone had fallen quiet and his voice carried here. He could not hope to match the volume achieved by Stonehelm, but he had no trouble making himself heard either. 'You have been found guilty of treason beyond any doubt. You have been found equally guilty of the murder of defenceless folk seeking shelter within the walls of Erebor. You have killed and burned and now must bear the consequences of those actions.'

In the silence that followed only the sound of the wind could be heard.

It lasted for a few moments and then one of the younger men spoke up. 'If you are going to kill us, get on with it!' Bravado in the face of certain death.

He carried on as if nobody had spoken: 'You will not be killed here today, as I know the way is in the place you hail from. It was in the halls of my kingdom that you committed your crimes and by the laws of my people you are judged.'

A few more began to display signs of some concern.

'My people do not have executions,' he continued, more for the benefit of his audience than that of the traitors. 'We have no need of them. On the rare occasion that one of us commits a crime so terrible that we cannot allow the culprit to walk freely among us, we cast him out. We will send him out of the gate with nothing but the clothes on his back and a chain of iron around his right wrist, declaring his crime for all with eyes to read in Khuzdul and the Common Tongue.'

As one the guards put the chains around the wrists of the traitors. The men startled. Alarm showed on more faces than it had previously done. Perhaps they realised that the fate that awaited them was worse than an execution.

He spoke the words that made it official: 'These chains mark you out as condemned. You are denied access to our halls. No dwarf will aid you. We sever all ties of friendship with you. We will not give you water, food or shelter. If you come near us, we will chase you off like the scum you are. You are dead to us.'

Thranduil spoke next: 'These chains mark you out as enemies to elves. You have chosen to side with the orcs, so in our eyes that is what you have today become. We know no mercy for such abominations. Should we encounter you, we will kill you where you stand.'

Brand made to speak next, but Solmund beat him to it. 'These chains mark you out as traitors not just to the Alliance of Free Folk, but to all men,' he said. Thoren heard a slight tremor in his voice, but he controlled it admirably and the longer he spoke, the more certain of himself he became. 'Your actions have risked our very survival and for that we curse you and we cast you out. We sever all ties of kinship with you. You are not merely dead to us, but it will be as though you never existed. We denounce you and deny you. If you come near us again, we will kill you.'

They were brave words and heartfelt. Yet there were also tears in his eyes. Brand took his hand and squeezed it gently. 'The youngest lad is his own brother,' he whispered to Thoren by way of an explanation.

He tried to picture having to be in a position where he must cast judgement on his own brother and found that he could not. The prospect was horrifying.

The folk of Esgaroth stirred at last. They huddled together, but now for the first time they stood straight. Some wept, others only looked on with stony faces and dry eyes. But they stood united. The convicts looked at them and found no sympathy there, no mercy. Grief there was in plenty, heartbreak too. But the mercy these men looked for was not present.

One of the convicted women wailed. She tried to throw herself to the ground, but her guard would not let her. She then appealed to her own people for sympathy and mercy, but they were true to Solmund's words and they looked on her with blank eyes, as though they did not even know her.

'Be on your way,' Thoren said. 'Do not let the sun go down on you here. You have heard what the consequences of that will be. Not a single one of the people here assembled will hesitate to do what must be done.'

That might be a little bit of a stretch, but it was close enough to the truth that the traitors did not doubt him. The arrogance had left them. One of the men tried to work the chain off his wrist and found that it would not budge. It was dwarven craftsmanship; it withstood most things, save perhaps dragon fire.

One by one they turned around and left. They didn't do so in an orderly manner. Some clung to others for support. The wailing woman was carried off by one of her companions. Only one man, the one who had dared to raise his voice, still walked with his head held high. They moved south, though what they hoped to find there was anyone's guess.

The people looked on in silence.

Only when the last of them had passed beyond earshot did the noises return. It was time to leave and it was past time that they got on with the business of war. 'Say your farewells,' Thoren counselled the other leaders of the Alliance. 'We must leave soon.'

He himself made for Duria and Cathy. 'Take care of yourselves,' he charged them. 'And of this kingdom.'

Cathy nodded, expression solemn. 'I will do my very best to ensure that it doesn't come crashing down in your absence.' She aimed for flippancy and landed somewhere nearer worried. 'This alliance is still very fragile, you know.'

He did know. 'Pardon the man who stabbed Jack,' he said.

The last word had barely left his mouth before Duria exploded. 'How dare you?' she demanded. 'He tried to kill Jack and he very nearly succeeded! And now you want to liberate him so that he can try and do it again!'

She had changed, almost beyond recognition sometimes. She would never have dreamed of exploding like this a year ago.

'I would restore our cordial relationship with the men of the Lake, Duria.' He should have seen to it before, but there was always too much to do, so it must now fall to Cathy. 'He acted out of grief. I will not see him punished for such an act for all his days. Surely you, of all people know that?'

She coloured a deep red, either in anger or in shame. Thoren could not say. It silenced her in any case.

So he turned back to Cathy. 'Free him,' he repeated. 'He spent some days in a dungeon cell. Keep him under observation if you must, if you do not trust him, but set him free without delay. An act of mercy…'

'Will go a long way in restoring those cordial relationships that you spoke of,' Cathy agreed. The look on her face told Thoren that she liked it no more than their sister did, but she at least understood what he was trying to do.

She'd always had more of a head for these matters. He reckoned she would have done a fair job of ruling Erebor if she had been crowned instead of him. As it was, she was the youngest and he the eldest, yet it was to her he looked now to hold the Mountain in his absence. Thráin was away and Jack still wounded. No dwarf would ever be found ruling from his bed like an idle mannish king if he could help it. He knew he'd passed over Duria, though she had not said a word about it. She was older and wise enough in her own way.

But she is a mother who has her own children to think of first and foremost, Thoren thought. And she has not been herself of late. Only a fool would place the command in the hands of one so much at risk.

So Cathy was who remained and he trusted her to do well in his absence. If the worst should happen, she was the one their people would look to for leadership in their final days.

It may not come to that, he reminded himself. He had no idea where Thráin was, only that he had been in Lothlórien a month past and that he had taken his company south along the Anduin since then. It was not an easy road he faced, no easier than Thoren's own and he needed time to reach his destination.

If he reaches it at all.

He shoved that thought away, because if he heeded it, he might as well give in to his despair here and now. He more than anyone had to be seen to believe that they still stood a chance and if that meant hiding any doubts that he may feel, then that was what he would do.

'As you say,' he said. 'I leave Erebor in your capable hands. Until my return, the Lonely Mountain is yours.'

She nodded solemnly.

He turned to Duria. 'I leave the safekeeping of our parents' tomb in your capable hands,' he said.

It was a matter of some import, but only to him and his close kin. Cathy would have her hands full with the business of the daily concerns. It was good to give Duria something as well to occupy her time. And he knew that she would perform this well, because it mattered to her as well. At least he hoped it did; she had never gone there except to seek him out.

She too nodded. 'I will see it done,' she replied. All evidence of her earlier upset was carefully wiped from her face.

'And make sure that our sister here does not overexert herself,' he added.

Cathy made a face at him. He embraced her so that he did not have to see it. 'Be safe,' he told her.

'You can come back safe,' she whispered so that no one else could hear. 'Every single one of us always leaves, but we always come back. That is what we do, remember?'

'Like Thráin,' he said.

'Like Thráin.'

He let her go, embraced Duria and then moved away before his doubts and fears got the better of him. Lufur brought him his horse – he was tall enough to ride one without trouble – and he mounted up. He looked one last time at his home, drank in the sight of it, for it would be only a memory that could sustain him in the coming days.

Then Thoren abruptly turned around and rode out at the head of the troops.

To war.

Next week: Cathy complies with Thoren's wishes, more or less. Meanwhile Thráin is trying to find out just how far he can stretch the definition of reckless before it kills him.

Thank you so much for reading. Your feedback/commentary would be much appreciated.

Until next week!