Heirs of What
| Part 4 |
-The Shadows Start to Fade-
Chapter (31) 'Dead Man Walking'
Orcs were fickle creatures. Always greedy. Never satisfied or content. Never sure later of their choices fueled most often by blinding hate. Only questioning an act after it was too late to undo it. Fear of retribution making them wonder if they should have done it, if perhaps they should have used reason instead of rage as their marker. They were quick to draw a blade and slow to put it back down. Only after they'd killed did they wish they'd have kept prisoners instead. Only when their toys were dead did they want to play. Only after they make a decision did they think about it.
They were fickle creatures.
That was why nearly as soon as Bolg had buried his blade into Kili's torso and watching him collapse into the mud, he began to regret it. The dwarf could know nothing of value, Bolg knew that. He was too young and inexperienced. If he had anything to offer he would have shared it already in an effort to save himself. He was also wild, nothing but trouble that would slow them down on their way to Moria. The orc knew he'd had every good reason to slay him. And yet…and yet he had worried. Would his father be angry with him for it? This was Durin blood after all. Thorin's blood. Would his father wish to execute Kili himself? Would Aloz have a different purpose for the dwarf that Bolg had not thought of?
It was that uncertainty, that apprehension, that regret that drew Bolg back to Kili's corpse once all the rest of the captured had been slain and their bodies set ablaze by careless, unfocused flames that spared some without cause and wandered the piles of dead aimlessly. Despite the seeping wound in his own flesh, Bolg had struggled over to the young dwarf's lifeless body and probed at it with the toe of his boot. Just to be sure.
Then Kili had moved. A barely there flinch, the faintest and most ragged of breaths reaching Bolg's ears and evoking an absolute shock. He wasn't dead. Unconscious and as near death without dying as possible. But not dead. His eyes half closed, his bloody hand still laying over his wound, Kili was barely holding on. But he wasn't dead. Something, a stubbornness, an insanity, a strength kept him tethered by the thinnest strand to the living. The Durin in his veins made its defiant presence known that day.
And that was when Bolg, despite his hatred for the dwarf at his feet, decided to take Kili with him. He would die during the trip in all likelihood. But if by some chance he survived, Bolg would eventually present him to Azog.
With as much care as orcs were capable, they had bound his wound and carried him to Moria. Not once did he stir. Beyond his shallow, weak breath there was no suggestion he was alive and no indication that he would wake. They poured some water down his throat and it didn't come back out though they couldn't really see him swallow. Bolg was surprised when the dwarf survived the trek at all. He was surprised each day when Kili did not die. But as the orc's ugly wound slowly healed, so did Kili. It was at Moria that he first gained any form of consciousness. Brief and mindless at first, but awake. And then finally, at last his strength surged and his thoughts became his own again.
The first thing Kili was aware of was pain. It was everywhere, inside him like it was who he was not just the single sensation his mind could grasp. Perhaps it was the agony that wouldn't just let him lay down and die. Maybe it, raging and huge and screaming through his muscles and skin and bones was the only thing that kept nothingness from making its final claim. Kili didn't remember waking before and losing consciousness again. And he didn't remember falling in and out of awareness after. He didn't know how many times pieces of reality had to puzzle together and then be placed again when darkness tore it apart. He wasn't sure how slowly he really figured out where he was or what had happened to him. Probably much longer than he realized. But all at once Kili understood that he was the orcs' prisoner, wounded and incredibly weak.
The crestfallen, heartbreaking recognition gutted Kili. He was forced to relive the terror and despair of realizing he was captured by the same creatures he had been taught to fear since his earliest memories. Once again he was forced to wrestle his panic until he came to terms with his desperate reality with an overwhelming sense of defeat. Slowly, he remembered his misery during the weeks since he'd been taken. He remembered all of the hurt and fear and rage. In torment he remembered Azog's plan to attack and slaughter his family at Erebor, and tears wet his face as thoughts of their death consumed him. He had absolutely no strength to fight them.
But something, a primal urge was still grateful that he lived. Without even realizing how close he'd been to losing it, Kili was thankful for the life that still resided inside him. And he reminded himself almost constantly, like the one sane, steady thought he could hold to in the chaos of his delirium and torment, that as far as he knew his family was still alive. They were not dead. They could not be dead. And they would not die. He refused to let despair overtake him. Despite the fragility of life, his own of which he was now so acutely aware, Kili was still not ready to give up. He and his family still had a future to fight for. Because they could not be slain. He could not believe that. No matter what had been keeping him alive, the pain, or stubbornness, or fate, Kili knew that now it was his kin. Now thoughts of them kept his heart beating even when he was so near so many times to the end.
It was a few days later when water, food, and time had made him a bit stronger that he wondered where he was.
He knew they were no longer at Gundabad. He knew they were far from the dungeon that had held him in darkness and what he had once believed was utter misery. Now he knew things could always be worse, though he couldn't imagine anything worse than the pain in his abdomen each time he moved at all and even still when he did nothing by lay there. He knew he couldn't survive worse. He remembered Bolg's blow to his ribs and the snap he could both hear and feel in his chest. He remembered being dragged towards the warg pits to be killed and then an interruption that had saved his life. And then suddenly he remembered. Moria. They had brought him to Moria.
At first he felt hollow at the realization. Then slowly the emptiness filled up. This was not just another orc realm, polluted by their vile filth. It had been a dwarven kingdom, and one not so long ago fought for by his kin. Kili had grown up on tales of not just Erebor but also Moria where so many were lost. His family had been slain here. Their blood ran under the gates they had enter into the kingdom. His great grandfather had been beheaded just outside those walls, head held high in victory and then dropped into the mud. His grandfather had last been seen out there on that battlefield before he vanished and was proclaimed dead, a mercy greater than the many alternatives everyone choose to ignore. His mother's brother, the uncle Kili had always been told he truly favored had been killed out there just beyond his sight. While his coloring and looks matched that of Dis and Thorin, everyone said Kili owed a great deal of his heart to Frerin. The two of them shared an enthusiasm for games and fun and refused to believe in anything short of an optimal end to anything. His mother told him it was from Frerin that he got his impulsive streak, that his brashness was a gift and curse passed down from the uncle he never met.
Being there, in the place he had always known about and never expected to be, was unsettling and awe-provoking and heartbreaking all at once. Of the two dwarven kingdoms with which Kili had formed a sort of familiarity through the endless stories he'd been told, Moria was never the one he hoped to visit. It had always been Erebor he believed he would travel to. And yet, having never stepped foot in the Lonely Mountain, he sat now in Moria not far from the deathbed of his royal kin.
Part of him wished he could walk around and explore this place that some once thought could be their home. If the effort to take Moria after Smaug stole Erebor had not failed, this is where Kili would have been born. It was this kingdom in which he would have been raised. Now, it seemed a laughable impossibility that such a reality could have ever existed. That anyone once thought this place was their future seemed absurd. The thought of growing up in Moria suddenly made Kili so grateful for the youth he had and the Blue Mountains he had called home. Now, he could hardly believe there had been such hope for this place. Part of him wanted to see it, and roam the fields outside where the battle of his childhood had been lived. But another part wanted to be as far from it as possible. Part of him wanted to shrink away from the horrors and past the entire place was heavy with.
As it was, he couldn't do either of those things, both possibilities made even more unfeasible when he had finally regained enough strength that the orcs decided it warranted restraints again. He hands were bound around a large column, loose enough though had he could still slouch into a laying position.
It was a few days later when he had finally seen Bolg for the first time since stabbing him and Kili realized the orc wasn't dead either.
A sickening realization. He had hoped his marked strike to the chest would have been enough to kill the orc. He had even started to believe it was true when he hadn't seen Azog's son for days. But finally, one day Bolg walked by with a few others, and though he didn't close the distance between them Kili felt trapped by his gaze. The orc eyed him with an expression that was something besides the cruel hate that usually occupied his features. Surprise maybe. Surprised at seeing the young dwarf alive and recovering. Bolg had watched Kili for a moment, their eyes meeting only briefly before the orc moved on and Kili felt the air finally release from his tight chest. The breath hurt.
He noticed that he too was as surprised as angry at seeing Bolg alive. They had shocked each other by surviving. One far luckier than he deserved while the other only just as lucky as he deserved. And yet they were handed the same fate. Theirs was a shared experience, one which bound them in a mutual tangle of amazement and fury and hate. Kili would never hate another being the way he hated Bolg. Hated the sight of him and the fact that he still drew air. And yet he could not help but be amazed by his survival. The odds that neither had die seemed nearly impossible, like more than random fortune had played its hand. Like fate was saving them both for later, a final confrontation that would tear them both apart. Like it wasn't done toying with their tortured conflict, waiting for the heat when the calm erupted.
Kili's stomach felt nauseous upon realizing his effort and Fili's knife had been wasted. It was long gone and all he had left was the wound it had cut into his flesh. The laceration was no longer deep enough to seep blood all the time. Only when he moved too aggressively and ruined the dark, clotting scabs did it really bleed. But it was nasty, no doubt made worse by the orc blood which had contaminated it. And it was terribly tender, red and sensitive over much of his torso. The thought that it was his error and Fili's blade that cause it only made the wound ache more. Had it been nothing but the undisputable cruelty of orcs and their delight in pain that had caused his injury, Kili was sure he could have accepting his fate more easily. But knowing his own attack had gotten himself stabbed felt like another weighty failure from which he could not dig himself out. Over and over he had failed. And even while he suffered the consequences, he wondering if he could really survive them all. Fili had given him that one hope and chance at escape. And he had failed.
The thought of his brother was so bitter and so sweet all at once. The thought of Fili was his gentle comfort when his pain was great and his body so weary. The thought of Fili's strength and bravery was the reviving courage Kili needed when his fear weaken him. The thought of living to reunite with Fili was the violent reminder to keep fighting when his despair overwhelmed him. He was Kili's one, constant, unwavering hope. Unlike Thorin and most of the company, Kili was absolutely certain Fili was alive. Even Kili had to admit to himself at times that he wasn't sure whether the rest had survived in Erebor, or if dragon fire had consumed them. He denied the possibility most of the time, the thought too painful. But really he had no way of knowing. Fili, however, was undoubtedly alive. The dragon had been killed by the time the orcs had retreated with Kili, leaving Fili devastated and alone but alive and safe.
It was with incredible guilt and pain for his sibling that Kili considered how wrecked Fili must be. He could hardly stand to think about how scared his brother had to be and how desperate to recover him. Kili didn't know what had happened after he'd been taken. He didn't know if Fili had tried to follow at once or if he had gathered a party to aid him. He didn't know if Thorin had joined his nephew, or if he even could or knew to do so. Kili was sure, however, that Fili had come after him. He had no doubt. Fili had tried to save him. He wasn't sure how far his brother had gotten, how far Fili was able to follow him, but Kili knew that he had. With a start he had realized he wasn't even sure whether Fili had given up on him or was still looking.
He wasn't sure which would be better.
If Fili was still looking there was still a chance, a possibility no matter how small that he might be rescued. The hope in that thought was like a gale of fresh air flooding Kili's screaming lungs. It would also mean Fili still had hope. He wasn't grieving for his brother. Suddenly, like a blow, it had occurred to Kili how horrific that would be. The idea of actually losing Fili made Kili sick and he was instantly positive he couldn't even fathom how shattering that would be. If Fili still believed he was alive and was still pursuing him, it meant he wasn't mourning a loss he couldn't even imagine. It meant he didn't have to face the world alone. It meant Fili didn't have to live through something Kili knew his brother had always feared beyond reason, his death.
But if for some reason Fili had given up, if he believed Kili was already dead, it meant he would stay alive. Or at least have a much better chance of it. If his brother tried to save him, Kili knew it could get Fili killed. He still knew it was better to die alone than get his family slain. At least if Fili had stopped looking for him, Kili wouldn't have to watch him die. And if Fili had given up hope, at least there was a certainty to that. The fear of the unknown was a bottomless void. One didn't know how far they might fall. But certainty, even certainty in the death of a most beloved younger brother, was the bottom of the pit, the lowest place one could go. It was miserable, surely. But there was no more fear of falling further. There was only the climb back out. There had to be a little peace in that, even while it might be impossibly painful. There was no peace in the fear of not knowing. Of fragile, barely maintained hope.
Both alternatives were miserable, Kili knew. And while he couldn't decide which was worse, he wept for the suffering he knew his brother was enduring. He cried for his sibling's pain and his inability to relieve it. He remembered the way Fili looked at the exact moment he realized the orcs would take Kili and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The panic that burned in Fili's eyes. The surprise that drew his features into a heartbreaking visage of lose. The tremble in his outstretched fingers. The gasp of failure as he watched his little brother be dragged away through the water. That was the face Kili kept seeing, the unceasing despair embodied in his sibling's shaking form. It was that memory that made Kili bite back the pain each time it rallied and tried to overtake him, determination to survive and see his brother and family again rising up at each attempt to quell it. It was that memory that strengthened his resolve even when, days after reaching Moria, Bolg finally approached him for the first time since they had both knifed each other.
The orc had neared slowly, for once unrushed. The first thing Kili had noticed was the dark clotted wound in Bolg's chest. It was healing like his own, but a twist of satisfaction came when Kili saw the way the orc favored his left arm and kept that side of his body from moving too much. He was still in pain. And that, at least, made Kili's attack a little more worth it. Bolg had just observed the dwarf once again at his feet for a while, his black eyes unrelenting and unkind. Finally he spoke.
"Not as weak as I first thought." It was not a complement, Kili knew, rather an effort to provoke him. It was not said with admiration, but something about it almost sounded genuine. Perhaps Bolg really had underestimated the resilience of his prisoner. "But more foolish," he added, his hateful words again assuming their usual tone. Still, Kili had not answered. He refused to be baited into a response, not having strength enough for the orc's games. Maybe if he'd had a stronger beat of life stirring inside him Kili might have told Bolg that the same could be said for him. Instead, Kili just met Bolg's eyes and waited.
"You belong back at Gundabad, your corpse rotting and burnt," the orc told him with a sneer. "But I am taking you to Azog. You will not fair much better there." The fear of facing Azog had been instant and huge. Kili let it flood him, consume him, and then settle again. He couldn't stop it, and he had no energy to fight the terror. So he just felt it. There was also a little relief, if only in knowing why Bolg had kept him alive. Suddenly Kili knew Bolg couldn't kill him until he took him to Azog. It gave him a little hope and a little courage when the orc spoke again.
"You have fled from your death for too long. Know that it comes swiftly."
"Maybe, but," Kili had tried to speak, his voice barely there at all. He swallowed and tried again, this time his words coming at least loud enough to heard. Barely. "I will live long enough to see you die." It wasn't the threat he wanted to make. Kili wanted to tell the orc he wasn't going to die at all. He wanted to tell Bolg he would kill him himself. But the odds of that seemed terribly thin, and in his state Kili knew the only thing he could kill was himself. Still, a strange, irrationally certain part of Kili believed he would get to see Bolg die. Maybe it was just an overwhelming hope. But it felt like he believed it.
For once he didn't fear a blow in retaliation. Any more physical harm would probably kill him. Kili knew it and so did Bolg. Instead the orc grabbed a handful of the dwarf's hair and wrenched his head back so Kili had nowhere else but black eyes to look at.
"I will order every drop of your family's blood slaughtered even if it's with my dying breath. I will tell them to make it painful and I will tell them not to leave a recognizable face. You will never see them again." With that Bolg had left, knowing his words would strike just where they were intended.
Kili couldn't help himself. Despite his best effort, he felt the weight of Bolg's threat even when he knew it was exactly what the orc wanted. He had fallen lax against his bonds, exhausted in every way possible.
The next day, while the rest of the army departed for Dol Guldur, Bolg, Kili, and a small party of near two dozen left the halls of Moria and began traveling North. Kili had gotten a brief view of the old kingdom from the outside. It wasn't as tall as he'd expected, but still bigger. It had spanned much further than he'd anticipated, stretching the battlefield of Azanulbizar larger than he'd imagined. With a renewed wonder and grief, Kili had realized he was standing on the very ground his family had been killed on. The valley field looked now unextraordinary, but Bolg had been there at least once before when there had been bodies and blood and he had helped his father kill Durin's folk where they stood. Any place Kili's foot stepped as he was pulled across the field could have been it. The place where Thror's head had landed. Where Thrain had fought. Where Frerin had been cut down. Where Thorin had watched it all slip away.
Kili shuddered, a physical tremble that shook through his sore muscles. Suddenly he had wondered if this wouldn't be his own battlefield and deadbed of sorts. If this would be the last known place he would stand before his hopes and dreams were cut down. If it was here where his defiance and refusal to die would take its last stand. If from here he had already watched it all slip away. What if he didn't live another day? What if they had already all died, his family? What if someday people knew that he had been brought to Moria with the orcs and then never seen again? What if, like much of Durin folk, this here was the end?
He couldn't think like that. Or at least he didn't want to. But there was a fear, a terror so deep and so unyielding since the moment he'd been taken that it seemed a part of him now. A permanent ache in his chest, like a constant grief for his peace. Like he was always, already mourning a future he knew in his depths that he wouldn't get.
These thoughts were too dark and too powerful and so, as always, Kili had pushed them down and instead had watched the land as they moved through it. He watched as they cut back through the mountain pass into Gladden Fields, as the cliffs rose and then fell again before dropping away into golden grasses that still smelled sweet despite the cold that had come. Kili had realized, with delight and sadness, that the sweet scent was the first pleasant thing he'd experienced in a long time. He watched as they traveled North, hugging the Misty Mountains until finally the group drop down towards Mirkwood after crossing Rhimdath. The weather was fair and the nights clear and the harshest winds were blocked by the mountains on one side and the forest on the other.
If not for Kili's pain, hunger, and exhaustion he might not have minded the trek. But each day, each hour, he wasn't sure if his body would last another moment and sometimes, when the agony was at its greatest, he wasn't sure if he wanted it to. There were times when collapsing and laying still and not moving again was an overwhelming temptation. But the urge to survive was always more overwhelming, the thought of actually dying and actually giving up horrifying. Each time the group stopped Kili would collapse, his fatigue drawing him into a deep and empty sleep. The orcs were rough with him, but they didn't strike or kick him like they had when first they'd taken him to Gundabad. He didn't even remember the journey to Moria. Still, despite the company of orcs and his constant misery, Kili was glad to be outside and away from the confines of Gundabad and Moria both. At least he was not sitting there dying one painful breath at a time. And at least if he was going to die he got to see some of the world he had heard so much about.
He was intrigued by its beauty, much more than during the Quest to Erebor. Then, he'd been much too excited and distracted to pay attention to the wonder of the shifting landscape and the marvelous way all of it was formed together. He was sure, after everything he'd been through, that he could appreciate the quiet, peaceful nuance of nature in a way he had never been able to before. That was something, he guessed. A new perspective at the end of his life. Maybe that was common. A tragic last burst of flame in a dying ember.
Still, he had soaked up the splendor around him as fully as he could, not at all certain it wouldn't be the last beauty he would ever see. Even as they left the fields and rocky cliffs took over at the north end of Mirkwood, Kili had watched as the gold and green were cut away and claimed by the dark stone and rich mud. There was something to the contrast that was still lovely. Wild and unstoppable. He had drank up every second of the fresh air, grateful for the way it revived his lungs even as his body ached.
They had not followed any kind of schedule, usually traveling for as long as they could and stopping whenever they had to. Kili knew Bolg was in a hurry to reach his father. The urgency kept him distracted and the orc had left Kili mostly alone. One day, in late morning, they had stopped for a short while in the low end of a valley. They had taken food and rested, a few orcs keeping watch. Kili had almost immediately fallen asleep, waking in the late afternoon by a booted, rough jab to his legs and he was pulled to his feet. He still felt exhausted and weak, unconsciousness pulling on his hazy mind. Long before he was ready to move again he knew they were preparing to resume their march.
But they never did.
He felt the shift before he saw or heard anything. A tremor of uncertainty, of confusion, of fear swept through the orc pack in a moment as a mutter arose and eyes were turned by pointed figures. Kili drew a heavy breath and tried to focus, a task much more difficult without food or strength. He had just steadied himself, his own weight hard to support on weak and injured legs, when an orc rushed up behind him and grabbed his shoulder, holding him tight. It was Bolg. Kili followed his gaze and that of the other orcs to see what had upset them so.
Then he saw.
Something, tiny and warm, stirred in the pit of his stomach. It twisted and shaped into being in an instant. It swelled inside him, outgrowing his gut as it pressed on his lungs and drove a breath out of his mouth. It came alive, bursting bright and racing from his center into his broken limbs, the heat leaching life into them again. It exploded in a wave, scalding in his chest as it burned away his fear. It simmered in his veins, whispers rising up inside of him into a roar that begged to be voiced. It filled up every inch of him, chasing away all the shadows he'd been living in until all at once there was nothing but the heat and the light.
Hope.
Kili let is consume him, tears flooding his eyes and a relief so whole, so complete, so overwhelming he sank. If not for Bolg's grip he would have fallen. There was nothing to do but drown in the emotions that assailed him, love and joy overtaking all the rest in a single moment as his eyes found the top of the crest above him.
Fili.
Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading. I hope you liked this chapter, though I'm fairly certain a particular element has some of you excited ;) Thank you as always for any follows, favorites, and especially reviews. I truly treasure them all. Let me know what your favor part of this chapter was!
