CHAPTER 7
The city was dark again, and fearful.
It was another breakfast at the high table when the next news came. The seat of honor was empty, although Lord Balin had not been laid to rest. But most of the same dwarrow were at the table, eating much reduced fare. They were preparing for a siege, and that meant rationing. The space underneath Ori's fingernails was bleeding from peeling open chestnuts. The scent filled the room, signaling that it was still autumn.
It had only been two days since the messengers had left. They could not possibly have returned from anywhere but the Elven kingdom in such a time frame, but he forgot his sense entirely when the head guard came late to breakfast.
Everyone's face turned up to see Náli enter when he heaved open the great door. His face was so grim that they knew the news was bad.
"What is it?" Ori cried. "Will they not come? Is there a great army?" He knocked over a mug in his haste.
Náli took a deep breath. The lift of his chest was visible from across the room. "Our allies do not know of our plight," Náli said evenly. "There is an army approaching the East Gate. The heads of our scouts are on poles at their front." He paused. "And yes." His voice finally broke. "It is a great army indeed."
Everyone cried out.
"Take heart!" he said. His eyes were red. "Surely the elves will have heard and seen this army on the march. We may have assistance from them even without our messengers reaching them."
The next day, the sacred engraving on a grand stone sarcophagus was finished. They laid Lord Balin to rest inside. His face was washed with water from the purest mountain spring and he wore not armor, but the fine robes that marked his status as a diplomat.
Ori joined in the mourning song. Tears streamed down his face and into his beard. Above the sound of their voices, he could faintly hear the sounds of the orc army a league overhead. Their raucous cries were in his dreams now. They were beating drums at all hours.
Afterwards, he came across Twaika curled up in a corner. Ori stopped, stricken by the sobs she was muffling into her sleeve.
Walking past took every ounce of willpower that he had. She had hidden for privacy. She would be shamed if she knew that he had heard her.
These days, everyone wore armor. Anyone who lacked a full set was given some from the vast treasure available in the ancient city. There had been no official order given but everyone felt the rise in tension. Three days passed, and they began to look for aid from the elves. Surely they would come. Surely they would know of the danger that their neighbors were in.
The Dwarrow prepared themselves for war. They were no longer a formidable army, though soldiers remained. The halls of Khazad-Dum were now a colony, with many gentlefolk like poor frightened Twaika. Even she joined the bakers and the miners and the merchants in donning ancient armor and practicing with weapons made heavy to suit the strength of their ancestors.
Ori found himself alone in the stillness of the chamber of Mazarbul, which had also become Lord Balin's tomb. Hunched over the record book, he carefully wrote, "we have barred the gates but doubt if our forces can hold them long. If there is no reinforcement or no escape it will be a horrible fate to suffer, (but I shall hold.)"
He took a shuddering breath and stared at his own penmanship. It was real, then. Their plight was dire.
'The elves must see the orc army. They will see it and mobilize to stop it. They will not benefit from having an orc occupation on their western border.' Ori hoped it, as hard as he could.
It stung now to pray for salvation from elves, but he could see it now that they needed their allies. They had been too proud. They had been foolish. He remembered Thranduil's words of warning that the orcs would multiply in a shocking speed after there were dwarrow in the area. Why had they not heeded his words?
He looked up to the sound of footsteps. "There is another door," Oin said, forgoing any greeting. "We yet hold the western slopes, do we not? We should send a party there to see if we can escape, or to bring back allies."
"Our scouts did not return from there, either," Ori said quietly. He shut the book to protect it. "There is no reason to believe that we can escape that way."
Oin scoffed. "They did not return as heads on pikes, which may mean that we can hope for watchful neighbors, perhaps with some reinforcements." The old healer fixed Ori with a gimlet stare. "I mean to try the Elf-door on the western slope. What say you?"
'Why ask me?' Ori shrugged. "Alright," he said. He swallowed down a lump in his throat. "You should take a company of soldiers, in case you must break through orcish lines to get there. Outside help is our only hope." His voice wavered.
"They will not have Khazad-Dum easily," Oin swore.
Ori's chest puffed up with reluctant pride. It was true, wasn't it? They could not hold, but they would fight for every inch of ground.
That afternoon, Oin left for the western gate with 20 soldiers. It would take 4 days to cross the kingdom and emerge out the other door, so no one hoped for word soon.
The orcs began bombarding the eastern gate. Day and night the thuds and thumps rang through the halls of Khazad-Dum, and fearful wails broke the silence of the night.
"Is there any hope left?" Ori asked Lόni quietly.
Bells jangled quietly when Lόni shook his head. "We will die here," he responded. He was grimmer than Ori thought the musician was even capable of being. "Perhaps if Oin returns soon with news that the path is clear, some of us might escape into the wilds."
Ori wrenched his hands into his hair. "Perhaps we should try!" He said. "We should run."
"The orcs know of that door as well, even if they cannot open it from the outside," Lόni pointed out bluntly. "And besides, if we broke our line and ran, the orcs would pursue us as soon as they break through an unguarded gate. And it takes 4 days to cross the mountain." The litany was familiar now.
He didn't have to finish explaining the problem. They would not be able to outrun an excited orcish army for 4 days. Orcs did not tire easily, and they would crawl over their own living brethren if some slowed. In that scenario, the dwarrow would surely tire first.
If any of the dwarrow escaped, it would be by sacrificing the bulk of their forces to hold the line.
Ori thought about it. He looked at the pretty Twaika and others like her. He quietly began preparations to allow a small group of refugees to escape. It would be a grievous wound to their pride and honor to flee while their fellows still fought.
But there were a few children in the colony. Surely people could be convinced to make a run for it through the west gate.
Ori began making quiet arrangements. As soon as Oin sent word, he would send them off. Perhaps even sooner.
The orcs broke through the east gate on the fifth day after Oin had left. They were inexorably pushed backwards into their own home. The halls that had once been full of hope now entombed dozens of dwarrow who were left where they fell.
Ori sent off his group of children and their minders. They would probably encounter Oin on the outside. He sent Twaika with them, along with others who were competent enough but certainly not true warriors.
Oin now carried the last hope for their salvation. Ori prayed every morning that Oin would soon return with reinforcements. The dwarrow paid heavily in blood in the guard hall and stopped the incursion at the first hall. They held it there for four days. That was the day that the survivors returned.
…
His bones hurt with every movement. It was hard enough being old without being weighed down in armor, but Oin bore it as best as he could with huffing and quiet groans. The younger dwarrow he was with were lighter of foot and made fleet by terror.
One day into their journey, the sound of the orc army at the east gate faded into a deep and disquieting silence. It was somehow worse.
The full upper expanse of Khazad-Dum had been searched in their 5 years of occupation. But it was quiet and dark because their population had been nothing in comparison to the lives that this city had been built to hold. His heartbeat was as loud as their footsteps ringing against the stone.
'It feels as if we are watched.'
He lifted his hearing trumpet to check and flinched away from it. That horrible grinding was louder than usual. Something was in the deep. Something was moving below.
Dread grabbed a cold hand around his heart and it would not let up. Oin gruffly pushed on. He could not do anything about this. His intuition was telling him that there was a danger below powerful enough to rival the danger to the east gate. But he could not affect it.
They rested as little as they could. No one spoke of it, but Oin thought that everyone sensed the danger in the air was closer than it ought to be. If orcs had leapt out of an ancient storefront it would have nearly been a relief.
The journey was predicted to be 4 days, but that was in normal conditions. In the old days, the path would have been lit and the rhythms of the mountain would have ensured a pattern of day and night that reflected the outside. Oin rather suspected that it had been closer to 3 and a half days when they finally reached the hall with the old Elf-door.
The younger dwarrow had pushed through on adrenaline, but he keenly felt the pain of every step. "Open the gate," he ordered gruffly. The dwarrowdam he indicated took up the great wheel and began cranking it to open the heavy stone gates. It cracked open and yes- it was night outside. No light came in.
The doors blew open.
Oin cried out in shock and braced his footing. Water had rushed inside and forced the door open.
From outside a horrible, gleeful trill lilted on the night air.
"Orcs!" he cried, and staggered to a better stance. The water was still rushing in but it was not a great wave anymore. He heard the sounds of unlucky dwarrow struggling to their feet in wet armor. Oin pulled out his axe. He accidentally caught the wide terrified eyes of the dwarrowdam who had opened the door. "Close it!" He bellowed to her. Then the first orcs came splashing in.
3 of them were backlit by starlight reflected on the mountainside and then one fell with a shriek and went under the water.
What? Oin moved to meet one of the orcs even as his mind raced. It had looked as though the orc was dragged underwater by something. He parried, kicked his opponent in the chest, and then cut its damn head off. He was searching for his next orc when he saw something horrible and sinuous rise from the water.
"There's something in the water!" Oin bellowed. "Close it, close the gate!" He knew the dwarrowdam moved to obey, straining against the weight of water.
He ran forward through the shin-deep water, huffing with the effort. He made eye contact with the venous yellow eyes of an orc. The thing grinned with cracked teeth at him and lunged forward. Oin was roaring forward with his axe when the orc was lifted directly out of the water by a tentacle at its ankle. It shrieked in fear and horror but none of its fellows moved to help it.
Oin took a step back.
His face tilted up to watch as the orc was dashed against the side of the rocky entrance. The horrified shrieks cut off. He could see brain matter slump down the wall.
"By my beard," Oin breathed in a new horror.
In the distance, he saw something rise above the water. Light glinted off of something round and bulbous.
Eyes. They were eyes, Oin realized. Two large dark eyes had emerged from the deeper water outside on top of a misshapen head. And they fixed on him. Oin took in a shaky breath. He charged towards it, shouting a battlecry that he barely even heard.
Something wrapped around his ankle with vicious strength. He had a moment to realize that this was one of the tentacles that had dragged one orc under and dashed one against the stone. And then Oin was rocketing underwater. He screamed. All the dignity and poise of his age was gone. He could hear only the pounding of his heart underwater. He kept his eyes open and he saw it, he saw the damn thing. It had a long neck attached to a snakelike body that curled round and round the pool outside of the gate. Its skin was black and it had a mass of tentacles that emerged from ridges on its spine.
In the last moments, he had a name for it. Cold-drake. It must have been a cold-drake. As a child he had been chased out of Erebor by a fire-drake. As an adult he had then triumphed over it. And then in his old age he would find that there was at least one dragon left in this world, a horrible thing with eyes on the top of its head and a great gaping maw still bloody with black orc blood.