"Behold, the great realm and Dwarf city of Darrowdelf," Gandalf said, his footsteps echoing a little ahead of Loena.
Loena was glad Legolas had come to stand near her, for she didn't even have to ask him to explain it.
"A grand, high roof," Legolas said softly. "An expanse of halls, woven from the rock. Tall pillars support the stone far above our heads, which are arched, like the breathing sky."
"It's a glimmer of what it once was," Gimli said, morose, holding the rope that led her still. "But still, a true thing of wonder."
Loena wondered, if Gandalf was right and the Elves at Lorien could restore her sight, whether she'd have the stamina to return here to see the curved ceilings and great, stone pillars for herself. She somehow doubted it. Legolas's descriptions were beautiful, and she could treasure the way her mind felt when she heard them – a small opportunity to see the world though Elven eyes.
"Ah! The sun rises," Legolas said, and Loena could hear his relief. "We have come through the night."
"How can you see it?" Loena frowned. "I thought we'd descended below the earth."
"We have re-emerged," Aragorn said, and she started. She hadn't realised that he'd come to stand near her. "The great Dwarven cities were ingenious with how they used light, and shadow, to illuminate their cities."
Loena dearly wished for the warm of the sun on her face. She imagined she'd look grimy, and pale. Her hair dank, and dark with oils. The underground did not suit her. She was itching for a field to run through.
She felt the string between her and Gimli go taut, and then completely loose.
"Gimli?" she asked, stopped, unsure.
"Oh!" He called, and heard him begin to run from her.
"Gimli!" Gandalf called after him.
"Where has he gone?" Loena asked, frantic, bemused.
"The sun has revealed the Chamber of Mazarbul," Legolas said grimy. "Here," she felt him pick the rope from the ground. She clutched at her end with uncertainty. "Follow me."
"Gimli!" She called after him, as the company moved to follow them. "Could we go faster?" she asked Legolas.
He obliged her, and they broke into a slow trot. By the time they came to the Chamber, Loena felt the difference between the temperature and heaviness of the air as they entered. Inside, everything seemed a lot more stifled, and more intimate. She could hear Gimli's sobs clearly.
"No!" He cried, and her heart broke for him.
She imagined coming home to Edoras and finding all she loved dead, with their bones bent and rotting. She imagined walking through its empty halls, eerily quiet and spoilt. She imagined how her soul would keen as she moved, how hopelessness would seep through her like poison from a snake bite. By all rights, Gimli should leave, now, and return to Erebor. There he could be with his people, and mourn his kin in peace.
Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens, Gimli had said, as they'd turned onto the path for Mordor.
"Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria," Gandalf read, his voice deep and sombre.
Gimli was as stanch as his word, and he would not desert them for his homeland. These were, however, dark roads indeed.
"It is as I feared, then," Gandalf said. There was a great swashing (like his hat and staff had been handed to Pippin).
Loena heard Gandalf shuffle around the crypt, as the others stood still, silent and respectful. She heard him pick something heavy off the ground, and the ruffling of pages told her that it was a book.
"We must move on," Legolas said, quietly enough that Loena hadn't intended for her to hear him. He must have spoken to Aragorn, for she could not imagine even Legolas would disturb Gimli as he mourned, and Boromir and the hobbits stood apart from them. "We cannot linger!"
"Legolas," Loena chided softly, but loudly enough that she knew he'd hear her.
"They have taken the bridge," Gandalf started to read, careful, grave, moved. "And the second hall. We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums—"
Loena's arms layered with goose bumps, she shivered against the chill that spilt down her back.
"Drums in the deep." Loena hears the ancient page turn, crisp as he smoothed it down. "We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out." Gandalf paused. "They are coming."
As he finished, a great crack and smash thundered out through the room. Loena jumped, her heart bursting through her chest.
"What was that?" she asked quickly, breathless with fear.
"Pippin has knocked a corpse from its rest down a shaft," Aragorn answered her. She could hear a tightness to his words, like he'd jumped as well.
"Quiet," Gandalf ordered, and all fell silent. Loena closed her eyes, focusing on listening, as closely as she could. She could hear Aragorn breathing beside her, and Gimli's laboured breaths a little further away. Other than that, there was silence. She released her breath when she realised she'd been holding it.
"Fool of a Took!" Gandalf snapped. "Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"
Loena let out a long, slow breath, feeling the tightness in her chest slowly expand. She kept her hand around the hilt of her sword.
Useless, she thought helplessly. What point is a sword when I can't see the chest to bury it into?
There was a murmuring spread about the room, discontent rolled like waves. She felt it urgently now, the desire to get out, to leave. She knew she must stay, and comfort Gimli, and let him grieve. But there was a sudden nakedness about them, like they were being watched.
Loena thought it had been a trick of her tired brain when she hard the first boom.
But then the second came, and then the third.
"Gandalf—" she stammered, and as she said it, the drums came out louder, and then louder again, the booms picking up pace. It seemed with each strike that the goblins were communicating with them
Boom. Death. Boom. Death. Death. Death.
"Frodo!" Sam cried, and Loena snapped her head in his direction.
"Frodo's sword glow blue," Legolas said to her quickly.
Loena, in her fright, had forgotten what that meant. "How—"
"Orcs come," Aragorn informed her quickly.
"What do I do?" She asked desperately. "I can't—"
"Gandalf?" Aragorn called across the crypt.
Gandalf must have gotten his meaning immediately. "Come, Loena, I can place you in a sleep."
Loena had a sudden, terrible image of her waking, alone in her dark universe, with her slain friends lying around her. She imagined crawling across the corpses, and finding Aragorn's noble face beneath her hands, and then Pippin's tiny hand. She pictured tracing her finger along the curve of Gandalf's staff, as her robes were stained with their drying blood.
"No—"
"Loena, they will not know you are alive!" Gandalf said, furious in his impatience. "We have not the time for false heroics!"
"The drums come closer!" Boromir called, and pushed passed Loena. She could feel his hand on her shoulder as he made his way through.
"I will not!" She declared, gripping Gíed, her mind frenzied. She was sick with fear, and she could feel the measly lunch they'd spared themselves rising up dangerously in her throat. "I would rather die here, now, than wake to find you all dead."
Gandalf didn't say anything for a moment, but when he did, it was with the same frustrated anger that he'd addressed her with before. "Get in the corner." He must have pointed at someone. "Hide her."
Loena staggered forward as she heard the sound of an arrow smash into the wood of the door behind her. Boromir called back, as if in disbelief, "they have a cave troll."
A small hand found Loena's, and pulled her forward. "Come, quickly," he said. She knew it was Merry, and squeezed his hand as they moved. The ground was uneven, and Loena staggered more than she walked. Still they moved quickly.
"Here, here!" he said. "Oh quick, quickly, please!"
Loena obliged him, smashing her head against the rock as she pushed herself onto the ground. She grimaced against the feeling of the stone against her head. She felt a strange, oddly scented weight pressed over her, and then another, and another. She realised the smell were the bones and old, withered flesh of the dwarves who'd died in the cave around her.
"Don't move," Merry whispered. Both jumped as a smash from the door echoed around the room. Her cover must have slipped, because she felt him adjust the weight over her. "Please. No matter what, don't move!"
"Merry! Go stay with Frodo!" Aragorn called across the room.
"Good bye, Loena," Merry said.
"Good bye, Merry," Loena said, her voice thick.
It struck her then that her friends could still die, and that she'd still be left alone in her personal nothingness. A wraith haunting Moria until her certain death.
At least now she could yell out. At least now, as her last companion fell, she could stand, raise her sword, challenge the orc and fall beside them. There would be no uncertainty.
She kept her hand around Gíed as the door finally gave way, and the twanging of bow strings was swapped for the singing of sword blades. She heard her friends yell out, and heard the foreign, awful language of the Orcs as they charged through the room. Then, a sound she'd never forget, the guttural snarl of a troll as it charged through into the room. Rock smashed, and flesh hit the ground.
From the side of the room, Loena heard Frodo call for Aragorn. Her heart tugged for him. Her helplessness threatened to overwhelm her, and she kept her grip tight on her sword. The troll roared again, and it set her teeth on edge.
"Frodo!" Aragorn called.
Loena should be out there. They wouldn't be so outnumbered if she had been there, guarding Frodo as was her oath.
She'd broken her oath once, she would not do so again.
There was a great cry from the troll, and the snick of a spear through the air.
"Frodo?" Sam called, voice shocked, and then, with fear. "Frodo!"
He's fallen, oh, he's fallen, Loena locked her jaw to keep from sobbing. She cursed her eyes, and cursed the Ring. Even now, she wondered if reclaiming it would return her sight, if even for just a moment.
She dismissed the thought from her brain quickly, tiredly, and with practice. It did not appear again.
From all the way across the way, she heard Pippin and Merry unleash war cries, and imagined them waving their daggers as they charged through to protect their friend.
Then, in a moment of terrible lightness, the corpse lain on top of her was pushed away.
Loena lay completely still. Two strained breaths, two feet on the floor. Two Orcs.
She felt death lay his withered hand on her shoulder.
"Well, well, well," an orc hissed above her. Loena felt her heart in her throat. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing steady, but she knew her heart beat hard against the skin of her neck. The second one replied with a keen cackle. "This one ain't dead."
Loena's eyes opened with a flash, and she turned to the sound of the Orc, she unsheathed Gíed quickly, and took the advantage of his surprise to swing it toward him. She heard his yelp of pain as it buried into his side. She could feel that the sword had been buried closer to the hilt, and so it was with pure muscle memory alone that she wrenched it from his body, pulled it back and sliced through its neck.
Its corpse fell before her. She could hear it as it hit the stone, and feel it as its arm toppled near her feet.
She had lost the advantage on the other, and she turned to it. The snick of the sword through the air was near silent, but it was loud enough for her to clumsily raise her sword blocking its strike. The force of it shocked her arm, but she pushed back.
It drew back and swung again, and she met this again, with more confidence, guarding her flank without thinking.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" It gritted, as they struggled against each other.
Loena pushed back against it's sword as hard as she could, slammed forward into where she had guessed it's body should be. Sent off balance, she slashed her sword forward. It snapped back, skewing her strike so that she dug her blade into his arm. She withdrew it just fast enough to meet the next skit by her jaw line.
She gasped with the closeness. "I cannot see," she snapped. This time when she slammed into it, and swung her sword, her quickness was the same as she'd practiced in Rohan, and the sword dug awkwardly, but firmly, into its neck. She withdrew it, and the orc fell to the floor, grunting in its final breath before death.
Loena swayed, and felt back awkwardly for the wall behind her.
Around her, sounds of the battle were quietening. The Cave troll gave its final, devastating roar, and its great weight shook tinkering rocks from the ground as it slammed against the stone.
Loena stood herself back up. Her surprise fuzzed at the front of her mind. She stood, strangely proud, clutching her stained blade, and feeling the adrenalin of battle coursing through her fingers.
"Oh no!" Aragorn made out, winded, across the hall. Loena suddenly remembered Frodo, and her stomach went cold again. She made towards the sound, but she tripped, and staggered to the ground. Her sword clanked from her hand, and she barely found the hilt again, reaching out wildly before her. She pushed the sword into her sheath before picking herself up again.
"Here," she heard a gruff voice beside her, and felt Gimli take her hand. "Careful."
"Did you—" Loena started. She reached toward Frodo, and her voice broke. "Did you see what—"
"Stabbed through the middle," Gimli said quickly, voice full.
Loena's grief paused, confused, because surely the hidden mithril had protected Frodo. Gandalf had called it as tough as dragon hide, and surely that was enough to protect Frodo from the spear thrust of a cave troll.
As if spurred by her thought, she heard Frodo take a heaving, huge breath.
"He's alive!" Sam exclaimed.
Gimli rushed them forward towards where Frodo lay. "How-?"
"I'm alright," Frodo said weakly. "I'm not hurt."
"I think there's more to this hobbit than meets the eye," Gandalf said, both relieved and bemused.
Loena imagined Frodo must have revealed his shirt, for Gimli gasped. "Mithril! You are full of surprises, Master Baggins." He remembered Loena, and spoke to her. "Frodo was adorned with a mail of mithril, and its strength hindered the troll's attack."
"Oh," Loena said.
"You sound unsurprised," Gimli said, surprised.
"Oh, well…" Loena decided there was no real reason to keep the secret. "I'm not surprised he has a mail of mithril. I heard it on him."
"You didn't think to let us know?" Boromir asked, who must have heard their conversation.
"No," Loena said. "I thought it…I thought Frodo had a reason for keeping it to himself." She shot her head up. Screeching and heavy footsteps thundered outside the crypt. "They come!"
"From the hall!" Legolas added, hearing as well. "Many thousands!"
"To the bridge of Khazad-Dúm!" Gandalf cried. All stirred around her, and Loena imagined she could hear someone lifting Frodo to his feet.
"I won't take no for an answer," Boromir warned her.
"You wish to carry me," Loena guessed. "I oblige, of course. I have no death wish."
Boromir laughed airily, and she felt him pick her up, slinging her across his chest. "We have that in common, Maiden."
Boromir ran beneath her, and she clung to him as tightly as she could. All around her orcs poured after them, their foul breath stinking the air. She felt a great sound from above, like a flock of crows descending. Boromir was breathing heavily below her, and she closed her eyes tightly, willing him the strength to get them across and out of the Mines.
Boromir slowed, and Loena worried that he had run out of energy. It was only a second later that she heard how absolute the noise of the enemy had become. The hissing and preening pressed in all around them.
The orc army had surrounded them, and they were deafening. Loena imagined that there would be many thousands of them, beady yellow eyes fixed upon the ten of them.
She had survived, blinded and cowed, in the Chamber of Mazarbul, only to die mere moments later. She wanted to cry with frustration. She could feel Boromir's grasp on her slip slightly, as though he were readying to put her down, so he could take out his sword and fight.
She felt the heat before she heard it's terrible roar. She jerked her head toward it, terrified and curious in equal measure. She felt Boromir gasp below her.
All around her, the goblins screeched with fear. The fear came off them like waves, and Loena felt as though she could taste it, like metal, on the back of her throat. Some even dropped their weapons with a clang as they fled. The creature, whatever it was, bore down towards them. The snick of its claws on the rock stung Loena's ears.
Gimli laughed as they ran, a sickened, satisfied laugh. Loena thought his triumph desperately premature.
Boromir's chest tightened beneath Loena with the furthest thing from mirth. "What is this new devilry?"
"I feel its fire from here," Loena breathed, and she felt Boromir tighten his hold on her slightly.
"A balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you." Boromir had already begun moving when Gandalf yelled; "Run! Quickly!"
Boromir ran quickly across the ground, and he kept his breath even as he moved. Loena knew he could not last with her in his arms. The noise and air changes around Loena again, in a way that she now knew meant they'd entered a far more enclosed area.
A hallway, perhaps, for surely Boromir would not have charged into a dead-end cavern.
Loena bounced in Boromir's arms as they sped down stairs, and then suddenly seemed weightless as they stopped.
He flailed, and her stomach tipped, and her voice stuck in her throat. She felt the tickles of a strange, stale breeze rise from below her. Fear curled in her stomach as she realised that they must have run to the edge of a ledge.
She briefly saw her and Boromir tipped over, falling down and crashing through that dead, cold air below them. Boromir's weight hefted and shifted under her, and the momentum stopped, and changed, and they tipped back.
They crashed hard, and fell onto the stairs. She felt Boromir scurry up beside her, and then a second person pulled her to her feet. Legolas, she decided, realising that her saviour barely seemed short of breath.
"What—" Loena started.
"We need to go—" Boromir dismissed her, and moved to pick her up again, hand on her shoulder.
"Go, Boromir," Aragorn announced himself beside them. "You've been run down. I shall do carry her now."
"Fine," Boromir said shortly.
"Run!" Gandalf ordered behind them. She heard Boromir charge off, and even heard Legolas's light-foot as he moved with him.
Aragorn picked her up without another word, and she clung to him, tightening her muscles as tightly as she could. He had not run for long when they begin to slow.
She heard him curse beneath his voice.
"What?" she demanded.
"There is a gap in the staircase," Aragorn supplied. "We must jump."
"Jump?" Loena demanded. "How are you to do that with me-?"
"I know not," Aragorn admitted. "Yet." He added quickly.
"Gandalf!" Legolas called across, and Loena realised that he must have made the jump first. She heard a push from the old wizard.
A twang snatched her attention. It seemed to come from far across the cavern around them.
"Aragorn! Archers!" Loena called, just as the first arrow smashed against the rocks at their feet.
Aragorn cursed, but made no attempt to move.
"Put me down, you fool," Loena snapped. "Shoot back!"
She hard Legolas's bow snap down below her, and the snick of his arrow as it flew back.
"All will come to naught if we're shot dead by arrows," Loena plead, ducking her head as another two archers fired down on them.
"I see your point," Aragorn said, though he sounded worried. "Can you stand?"
Loena nodded emphatically, and he spent precious moments setting her properly on her feet. He turned, and she could hear him withdrawing his hunting bow and one of his arrows.
Loena felt her own, useless bow on her back, and withdrew it out of instinct. She paused, and swore next to her, that the hobbit had the distinct chink of mithril.
"Frodo?" she turned to him.
"Yes?" He said quickly.
"Correct my aim," Loena snapped quickly. She plucked an arrow from her quiver with practiced fingers, and attached it to the string of her bow. She hefted it up and pulled it back so the feather's tickled the side of her cheek.
"Uh…" Frodo seemed unsure. "Down?"
Loena moved it slightly downward. "Like this?"
"Yes!"
Another arrow whizzed past their heads. As if in answer, Loena shot her bow.
"How was that?"
"Too low," Frodo admitted.
Without another word, Loena strung and fired another arrow in the direction she'd originally aimed. "How was that?"
"Good!" Frodo answered quickly. And then, slightly awkwardly, "You didn't hit one—"
"I don't need to," Loena strung another one and shot it to the same spot. "We need to stop them shooting at us."
Boromir had leapt across the gap with Merry and Pippin, his tired arms gripping them as he leapt.
"Keep your bow up, Loena!" Aragorn ordered, and past her. She set her jaw grimly and fired faster. "Sam!"
Loena ignored the proceedings to her right and continued to fire. She imagined she'd look an odd sight – milky eyes unfocused, looking downwards as she shot up to where the goblins looked down on them.
Gimli was the next to go, jumping himself after arguing some with Aragorn. She heard some cracks in the foundation beneath her feet.
She turned to Aragorn to tell him, but he called to her before she could. "Loena!"
She rested her bow and before she was made to try to tackle the stairs, she felt Aragorn grab her.
"I'm going to throw you across," he told her quickly. "Boromir and Legolas will catch you on the other side."
"Right," Loena nodded. Then she paused. "Wait, what—"
Before she could push her objections, she felt the wind rustling around her, and for a moment she was weightless. Then the world caught up to her, and she slammed into a strong, broad chest. Boromir must have nearly collapsed under the force of her, but he recovered quickly, and kept her in his arms.
Next to her, Legolas had begun shooting his bow again. Then, that same cracking ached across the gap between the bridge. More cracking, and the stones cracked against each other as they tumbled down. Loena had no idea how deep the ravine was beneath them, but she knew that Frodo and Aragorn would definitely die should they not make the jump.
More rocks, and by the sound of them, heavy ones, tumbled off the side.
It was a chance that seemed to increase with every moment. Then further off, behind them, more rocks fall.
"Steady!" she heard Aragorn call, his other words muffled between the falling debris.
"Put me down," Loena said quickly to Boromir. "They'll need your help."
He hesitated, but he put her down nonetheless.
Across the way, the stones groaned against each other, and Loena felt Frodo and Aragorn's panic as the great stone stairway seemed to rock.
"Come on!" Legolas called. "Now!"
Loena was nearly stepped on as Boromir and Legolas caught Aragorn and Frodo, who'd fallen over onto them.
There was no time to pause, no time to lick wounds or cheer for the lives saved. Aragorn picked Loena up, and the company charged down the stairs.
"Over the bridge!" Gandalf called as they ran. "Fly!"
Loena felt her heart lift as Aragorn's thundering run sent them quickly through the cavern. She felt with a surge of hope as the ground became flat once more, and then she felt him slow, and go more carefully, with the air changing strangely around them, as they must have come to cross the bridge. He ran across it, feet sure. She heard the rest of the Fellowship follow them, panting, feet knocking against the ground.
She felt Aragorn come to a stop, and realised, with a new, tender spark of hope, that they might escape. Here, so close, she could smell the outside. The grass was fresh, and the sun was newly risen.
The smells and sounds of Moria would soon be nothing but a bad dream.
But the Balrog screamed its terrible, hellish cry, and Loena's hope blew out in the breeze. It approached, the ground shook as it came upon them. A great heat descended, like the sun on the cruellest day of summer. It had come. It had followed them.
"You cannot pass!" Gandalf defied the shadow, voice full and threatening.
"Gandalf!" Frodo cried out.
The Balrog roared, but Gandalf did not call out. Loena imagined him standing, strong, virile. "I am the servant of the secret fire, wielder of the Flame of Arnor. The dark flame will not avail you! Flame of Udûn!"
The Balrog roared again, and the cavern shook as it moved. There was a clang, like two swords meeting, and then a smash, as if one of the two had shattered.
"Go back to the shadow!" Gandalf ordered.
There was a new sound now, a crack, like the end of a horse-trainer's whip.
"You shall not pass!" Gandalf bellowed, and Loena heard the sound of his staff striking onto the stone. She desperately needed to know what was going on, who was winning, and whether Gandalf still had a chance to come to them safely.
The balrog growled, and takes a heaving step. Loena prayed that he had stepped backwards. She heard the same cracking as when Aragorn and Frodo had been trapped on the staircase sing out through the chamber. She gasped as the cracking was absolute, and loud; the bridge collapsed.
"Gandalf?" Loena twisted, trying to hear for the wizard's deep voice, or the swish of his cloak through the air.
"Stands, still," Aragorn assured her. He was desperately relieved, and his shoulders eased up. "The Balrog has disappeared into the cavern beneath the bridge—no!"
Loena did not need Aragorn to tell her why he'd become aghast. She'd heard it, heard the Balrog's whip snap up through the empty air, heard Gandalf stumble and fall off the edge, heard his fingers grip at the end of the rock. She knew it should be impossible, but she did, she swore…she heard him breathing, lungs laboured.
She heard hobbit feet race across the floor, and then stop suddenly.
"No," Boromir ordered the captured Hobbit. "No!"
"Gandalf!" Frodo screamed,
The Grey Wizard had been kind to her, in Minas Tirith. And she had been friendless. She remembered seeing him arrive, one evening, on a grey horse. He had winked at her as he'd passed, as if to tell her, I'll be right back.
Her heart had soared, and she'd laughed, and had felt the wind through her golden hair.
And then;
"Fly, you fools."
And she heard the detaching of each finger from the stone, and the way his cloak pulled against the rock as his arms gave way.
"NO!" Frodo cried, and the cry broke Loena. She felt the numbness grow from her lips, down her throat, into her head, her neck.
"Aragorn!"
She hadn't realised that Aragorn had been set still, staring after where his friend had fallen, until that moment. He started to go, then, turning on his feet, ducking against the new onslaught of arrows that hounded them.
Frodo cried out again, a desperate, heartbroken cry, as Boromir forced him to safety.
Loena had not the will to taste the fresh air, nor find joy in the breeze, once Aragorn had emerged with her into the sunlight.