"They're rushing the gates!"
Thorin swore, twisting to look over his shoulder in the direction of the shout. He'd been helping one of his injured soldiers to a mat near the makeshift healing tents.
It was one of many, many mats, nearly all of them currently filled with the injured and dying.
The battle was not going well.
The army of orcs currently marching on the mountain made the battle to retake Erebor look like little more than a skirmish. They had crested over Lake-town and Dale like a wave of death, driving the survivors back into the safety of the mountain.
Thorin and his people had held the gate as long as they could but, ultimately, had been forced to call for a retreat.
The battle had degraded into a siege after that.
They were utterly surrounded. Over a hundred dwarves and humans had lost their lives closing the gates, and still more were falling from lucky arrow strikes as they patrolled the upper battlements, trying to keep the orcs off the gates and watching out for siege weapons.
Clearly, they weren't having great success.
Men and dwarves ran toward the gates which, as he watched, began to slide inward. A mass of people were already there, pushing back against the stone while, higher on the battlements, others tried desperately to keep the great chains and wheels that controlled the gates from breaking their locks.
Two dozen of his best archers lined the battlements, sending volley after volley of arrows into the mass of orcs outside.
Thorin's eyes fell on the back of a dark-haired archer near the center and, for a brief instance, he could have sworn it was Kili, tall and strong, fighting to defend his kingdom from invaders.
Then the image was gone, as was his nephew, off to try and save the world while he and his people fought to ensure there was a world left to save.
Thorin crouched, allowing the injured soldier to slide off gently to lay down on the mat. He grimaced as he stood again, joints sore and refusing to obey quickly.
He'd never been one to sit back while his people fought, and died, for him. He was every bit as covered with grime and the black ichor of orc blood as anyone else. He had a nasty gash on the side of his face from a lucky strike, and places he didn't know existed hurt from the armor pinching and chafing. The fingers of his sword hand were almost permanently bent as if still curled around a sword hilt and exhaustion lay on him like a heavy cloak.
He could have sat this out if he wanted. This wasn't the first time the orcs rushed the gates, and it was far from the last. Thorin alone wouldn't make much difference, just as the orcs alone, without a siege weapon, weren't going to break through any time soon.
His thoughts turned to the women and children upstairs, watched over by his sister, and then to Bilba and his nephews, unable to rest no matter how tired they might be.
He found Dwalin in the sea of injured, and saw the other dwarf watching him steadily. Thorin gave a short nod, gritted his teeth and pulled his sword from its sheath.
Then, with Dwalin matching his steps, he headed back into battle.
Under their feet, the ground began to shake.
Fili swore, sword flying from his grip as he failed to fully block an orc's blade. Sharp pain ran along the back of his hand, followed by a crimson burst of blood.
There was no time to do anything about it, as the orc he'd been fighting was already coming at him. Fili had no choice but to block with the only thing he had available to him, his arm. He barely had time for a burst of primal, almost childlike, fear before the blade intersected with his raised forearm. Blinding, white hot pain raced through his arm and he actually heard the sound of the bone cracking and breaking beneath the force of the blade.
He jerked away, wrenching his arm free on instinct more than conscious thought, and felt the orc's sword tip bounce and catch on his arm and hand as it fell away. For not the first time, he cursed his decision to not wear something more protective on his hands. Not that it might have mattered, in the end. The armor on his arms had saved him a cut that might have seen him bleeding out, but his arm was still just as broken, and hung just as dead at his side.
His foot twisted beneath him, throwing him off balance on the uneven slope and his heart leapt into his throat as he tried, and failed, to keep his balance. He hit the ground on his back, and immediately threw a leg up, trying to drive off the orc he knew was coming.
The feint succeeded in pushing one orc away, but not the other two that swarmed him, grabbing his arms as he struggled to sit up and slamming him back on the ground, pinning him. The orc he'd kicked sneered at him, and picked up his sword.
Fili grimaced. Fantastic, he was about to get killed by his own damn weapon.
"Fili!" Kili nocked one of his few remaining arrows to the string, aiming at the orc holding the sword, but he, without thinking, turned his profile to the creatures he was fighting to do it. In an instant, they had him disarmed, and were forcing him to his knees, wrenching his arms behind his back until he let out a cry of pain from between clenched teeth.
"Kili," Fili managed to gasp out. He managed to wrench free from the orcs holding him, startling them as well as himself, and rolled to his side, scrabbling for a rock, a sword, something.
A foot came down in the middle of his chest and forced him onto his back again. With a grunt of pain, Fili grabbed the orc's foot and tried to push it off, but didn't have the leverage.
The orc sneered at him, idly rotating the sword clutched in its hand. "Which of you should we kill first?" he asked. He lowered the sword until the tip was resting against the pulse in Fili's throat. "You?"
One of the orcs holding Kili grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back while the other placed a slender blade against his throat. "Or him?"
Fili met Kili's eyes, and saw his brother looking back steadily.
Fili swallowed a sigh of resignation, wary of the blade tip resting in the hollow of his throat.
So much for going home.
Sorry, Bilba, he sent toward the opening in the mountain she'd vanished through.
We tried.
He shut his eyes, and braced for the sharp bite of the blade.
He released his grip on the orc's foot, because no one wanted that to be the last thing they did, and lowered his hands to the dirt, fingers curling against the rocks and grit of the mountain.
Under his fingers, a low rumble began.
Silence fell.
The scrape of the gates as they slid an inch inward, only to be forced back closed again.
The cry of the wounded, and the yells of the men and dwarves as they struggled to keep the mountain safe.
The sharp whistle of arrows as they flew over the gates, and the screech of the orcs gathered outside.
All of it.
Just.
Stopped.
Thorin froze, breath harsh and loud in the sudden silence.
"What-"
His voice trailed off, as he realized it wasn't just the sound that had stopped.
The people had stopped as well. All of them, motionless, muscles in mid-strain, mouths open in voiceless yelling.
All but him, and Dwalin who stood next to him looking every bit as confused.
"Hail Thorin, child of Durin," a strong voice suddenly called out behind him. "How fares your kingdom?"
Thorin turned, and found himself facing a woman. She was tall, and ethereal, but he could not place her as either an elf or human. Her skin appeared to be tinged with the faintest green and her hair was so bright a yellow it nearly hurt to look at. The gown she wore shimmered and sparked as she moved, and flowers adorned both it and her hair.
"My Lady Yavanna." Thorin said, for he'd seen the paintings, and heard the descriptions, and who else could it be with this kind of power over time itself? He sank to one knee, arm draped across his other knee and face down. Beside him, Dwalin copied him, slightly slower as he'd taken an injury to his leg that was hampering his movements.
Her questioned registered and, keeping his head down, he answered, "The day is long, my Lady, and the orcs are many."
"So they are." She approached, and he risked raising his head to look up at her. She gestured regally with one hand and he rose to his feet, Dwalin rising just behind his right shoulder. "My news should bring you joy, then, for the Dark One falls as we speak. Without his will driving them, the ranks of the orcs will descend into disorder and chaos."
Thorin's heart jolted in his chest. "Then Bilba and my nephews succeeded? They made it to Mount Doom?"
Yavanna's eyes took on a distant look and moved past him, as if she were seeing something else. "They have." Her eyes cut back sharply to him. "Do you honor them?"
"Of course," Thorin said. "When they return-"
"They will not," Yavanna cut in simply.
His heart stuttered and, next to him, Dwalin reared back as if physically struck. "What?"
"They have succeeded in their quest," Yavanna said. "They have saved all of Middle Earth, but not for themselves." Her voice took on a sorrowful tone. "You will not see them again."
Thorin sank to his knees, shock racing through him. "No," he whispered. "It cannot be true. They cannot be dead."
"Their deaths have not yet come to pass," Yavanna said simply, "but they come quickly."
"Then, please," Thorin surged to his feet. "Send me to them. Let me try and save them."
Yavanna studied him. "What makes you think I can, or would?"
"Because I don't believe you'd come simply to gloat," Thorin said. He hesitated. "And Bilba has mentioned, on many an occasion, that she's often felt watched over. As if something, or someone, was guiding her in her worst moments of life. I would say this certainly counts as one."
Yavanna's expression gave nothing away. She was still studying him, as if looking for something, though what that something was, Thorin could not say.
Finally, she spoke. "And what of your kingdom, Thorin, called Oakenshield? Who will lead them in your stead?"
"My cousin," Thorin said immediately. Dain had arrived with reinforcements days earlier and was now locked inside the mountain with the rest of them.
Yavanna's eyes narrowed. "There was a time when controlling your mountain, and its treasure, was all that mattered. For that, your One suffered greatly."
Thorin stiffened, and lifted his jaw slightly. "And for that, all I can offer are my deepest apologies, and the vow I will spend my life trying to make up for it."
He could swear Yavanna was looking straight through him, her eyes more piercing than a blade. "And if I were to ask you to choose, between those you love, and your kingdom?"
"I would choose Bilba, and the boys," Thorin said immediately. His heart clenched inside his chest as he spoke the words, but he didn't retract them. Taking back Erebor had always been his dream, but it had been a dream because he'd wanted it for his people. He'd wanted to give them better than what they'd had, raise them up from the muck Smaug's attack had left them in.
Somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten that, but he'd found it again.
"If you go, you may not return," Yavanna challenged.
"I accept that," Thorin said calmly.
He'd done what he set out to do.
He'd restored Erebor, ensured the safety of his people.
Yavanna tilted her head. "If you go, you may still fail."
"At least I'll have tried." Behind him, Dwalin made a noise of assent, the first sound he'd made since Yavanna had appeared.
"Middle Earth will be safe if you stay," Yavanna probed. "Your One has saved it."
"Not for me," Thorin insisted. "Not if she, and my nephews, are not in it."
Something like pride, possibly even relief, passed over Yavanna's face, and she smiled. "Well done. Perhaps you are a child of Durin after all."
"Hopefully not the kind that unleashes Balrogs or causes dragons to come attack them," Dwalin muttered, only to break off with a grunt as Thorin sent a foot back to kick him in the leg.
Yavanna looked amused, and then she was gone.
Thorin blinked, panic bursting in his chest. "No," he started, taking a step forward. "Wait."
He blinked again, and suddenly he wasn't in Erebor anymore.
Air like ice cut through his clothes and armor and a dark cloud covered the sky overhead. The ground was shaking under his feet, vibrating as if, somewhere far beneath, something were waking up. Directly ahead of him stood a mountain and, at its base...
"Fili! Kili!" His sword was in his hand and he charged forward without thought or hesitation. Kili was on his knees, Fili pinned a few feet away, and there was utterly no time to give it any more thought than that.
His vision narrowed, zeroing in on nothing but the orcs, watching as they rose and turned to face him in almost slow motion. The one standing over Fili was so taken aback by his, and Dwalin's, approach it completely forgot about Fili, who took the opportunity to kick it soundly in the nether regions.
It barely had time to open its mouth in a howl of pain before Thorin removed its head from its foul shoulders. Beside him, Dwalin had sent Grasper and Keeper flying, beheading the two orcs holding Kili so neatly that they were probably dead a full thirty seconds before they realized it.
It was quick work after that.
"Uncle?" Fili asked in confusion once the orcs were dispatched. "Dwalin? What? How did you?"
The ground rocked beneath their feet suddenly, violently, forcing them all to stagger and fight to keep their balance. Kili, who'd been making a makeshift sling and bandage for Fili's clearly broken arm gritted his teeth and barely budged, determined to help his brother even if the earth suddenly decided to start moving on its own.
"No time." Thorin spared the briefest second to hug them both as hard as he could, followed by Dwalin, before demanding, "where's Bilba?"
Kili nodded up the slope, toward where an entrance into the mountain currently belched black smoke. "There. We were trying to hold the orcs back while she completed her mission."
Thorin nodded, and tightened his grip on his sword hilt. "All right," he said, adjusting his stance automatically as the earth gave a second, even more violent, lurch. "What do you say we go get her then?"
Fili, face lined with pain, and fatigue heavy in his eyes, grinned and pulled his second sword from its sheath over his shoulder, holding it in one hand. Beside him, Kili tossed his now useless bow down and also retrieved his rarely used sword, matching his brother's grin.
Then, together, the four of them turned as one and charged up the mountain slope.
Hold on, Bilba, Thorin thought toward his One. We're almost there.
