Chapter 12

"You tell stories in much the same way that other people breathe, lady," Boromir remarked. They had come at last out of the passages, into a great open cavern, full of cold air. Erin was shivering, asleep against her sister's back, the two of them propped up against the wall. Boromir had been set to watch, and again unable to sleep, Rhian stayed awake too.

"I have always told stories, as far back as I can remember. It was a great pastime in our family. My parents told stories to me, and I told my own versions of them to Rosie. Erin and I used to entertain ourselves by making up stories of our own. They were mostly about two sisters who had some sort of adventure, of course, and in the end lived happily ever after."

"Will you tell this story, do you think?"

Rhian was silent, staring into the darkness. "I don't know," she said finally. "I hope so."

"Tell me, lady, you speak very little of your home. Why?"

"There is nothing to say of value."

"Do you think so little of the time you come from?"

Rhian thought carefully before she answered. "While I lived there, I thought that perhaps the good outweighed the bad. But now that I am here, now that I compare it to the grace and honor in this world, in this time...I say yes, there is little to be valued in the place where I was born."

"A sad thing to say."

"Yes. But at least in this world, evil has a name to fight. In that time and place, evil is simply everywhere, in everyone, and it is accepted far, far too easily."

"You speak with the dignity and grace of a great lady- a queen."

Rhian blinked, unsure how to respond, but Boromir apparently did not expect her too. He changed the subject, talking of Gondor. His pride for his country reverberated through his voice. Eventually, all talk was exhausted and Rhian began to fall asleep, but the strange tone of Boromir's voice still rang in her ears.

In the morning, there was sunlight- pale, trembling sunlight, filtering down from far above. Rhian woke from strange dreams, where instead of the night sky there was a great stone roof, with threads of mithril instead of stars, and Gimli's voice echoing, in Moria, in Khazad-dum! And somewhere in the dream Boromir was telling she should have been queen, instead of the dark haired woman wearing the crown...And in her dream everyone's faces were blurry.

But in the sunlight her dreams faded, and it was time for breakfast, before they went on.

They came eventually to a great square chamber, where everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. Rhian stumbled over a vague shape beneath it in the doorway, and Boromir caught her arm- he had been walking behind her, instead of ahead as usual. Frodo's voice came from in front of her, where she could not yet see for Aragorn's shoulders- "It looks like a tomb."

It did. The chamber was full of dust and shadows, and the single slanting ray of sunlight fell upon a single great block of stone, carved with runes. "Balin, son of Fundin," Gandalf read quietly. "Lord of Moria."

Rhian felt the deep sorrow spreading among them, and the dark thread of Gimli's palpable grief. The thick emotion fell over their fellowship like the dust on the floor, uniting them, for a little while. As her eyes adjusted to the light of the chamber, Rhian made out the shapes of bones, armor, shattered weapons...her skin prickled. She saw Erin shudder. A tomb indeed.

Gandalf found the blackened book- the pages slashed and stained. Rhian stood looking over his shoulder as he laid it on the stone slab of Balin's tomb to read. Erin pressed close to her side, and Boromir was still close behind her. The fellowship had automatically clumped together, as though they were all afraid of being pulled apart suddenly. The wizard's voice read slowly as he puzzled out the script on the abused pages. Echoes of the dwarves last moments filled the room. Driven back, back, barring the great doors, trapped... "We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall...We cannot get out. The end comes...drums, drums in the deep." A shiver passed up Rhian's spine. "They are coming."

Rhian's hands fisted. The air filled with the finality of those last words...horror...

"Come now! Back to the hall!" Gandalf's voice pulled her back. And then...

Boom, boom...doom, rumble, doom...boom, boom...Rhian gasped at the sound, backing up into she bumped into the stone tomb. A harsh horn blast, running feet, shouts in the hall...doom, doom, doom... "They are coming," she whispered.

She stood frozen as the great doors were closed and wedged- all but the east door. "Rhian. Rhian!" Gandalf was shaking her shoulder, and she startled out of her frozen horror. "Go with Aria, quickly," he said. "I-" His orders were cut off as there was a violent blow to the door, and it trembled on its hinges...it was shoved open, a horrible grinding sound as the wedges grated back across the floor...a green scaled arm, a toeless foot...Rhian still didn't move until Frodo's cry of "The Shire" echoed in the room.

Do not freeze up! You can't! she thought furiously, You don't have time to be terrified, Rhiannon O'Connor! You are not trapped yet, and you will get out! Already the door was splintering inward, the new gap filling with arrows. She had carried her black longbow all the way from Rivendell and never used it- she would use it now. She got one shot through the gap before the door gave completely and a flood of orcs streamed into the chamber. Then there was no more time, and somehow she got her sword into her hand. Cut, block- a black bladed dagger scraped the skin on the back of her hand, cut into her lower arm. It stung, but there was no time to bind it. Slash, stab- where was Erin? There, with Aria, out of the fighting, but- "NO!" Aria screamed at something Rhian couldn't see, and made to run out of hiding into the battle. "Erin! Stop her!" Why was her voice so hoarse? Out of the corner of her eye she saw her sister drag a struggling Aria back, both their faces marked with dirt and tears. An orc had seen them, and Erin's long dagger was covered with blood- then another orc was in the way, and Rhian's blade had more work to do.

"Flee!" DoomDoomDoomDoom "Now is the last chance. Run for it!"

Somehow the company found their way to the door. Rhian, standing bewildered when suddenly there was no one for her to fight, was dragged towards the stairs by Boromir. The drum echoes reverberated through the stone, doomdoomdoom. Vaguely she registered that Gandalf was staying behind...and Frodo... "Is he dead?" she gasped, sagging a moment against the wall.

"I'm not dead! I can walk. Put me down!" Aragorn half dropped him to the floor and Aria threw herself into his arms. Gandalf was giving Strider instructions.

"We can not leave you to hold the door alone!" the Ranger cried, but the wizard pushed him into the stairwell.

"Do as I say! Swords are no more use here. Go!"

Rhian groped her way down the steps in the thick dark with rest of the fellowship, reaching out blindly to keep hold on the back of Boromir's tunic, Aragorn close on her heels. The whole mountain seemed to be shaking doomdoomdoom, like some horrible nightmare. "Erin?!"

"I'm here," her sister's voice said, from somewhere ahead in the dark.

Then they had reached the end of the long stair, and the twins found each other in the dark and leaned on one another. Gandalf's voice echoed faintly from far above, and light flashed. doomdoomdoo- Silence. The wizard came flying down the stairs, landing in a heap.

"Well, well! That's over!" he said. "I have done all that I could. But I have met my match, and have nearly been destroyed. But don't stand here! Go on! You will have to do without light for a while: I am rather shaken. Go on! Go on! Where are you, Gimli? Come ahead with me! Keep close behind, all of you!"

The fellowship stumbled after the sound of his voice in the darkness- Erin and Rhian kept a tight grip on each other's arms, and Rhian felt a hand grasp her shoulder, Boromir or Aragorn.

DoomDoomDoom

The drums began again, distant, but following. Rhian felt as though her nerve should have broken long ago and left her raving mad, but she clung numbly to her sister and kept after the tapping of Gandalf's staff, as he probed the ground ahead of them with it like a blind man.

An hour, a year later, down many stairs in the dark, Gandalf finally stopped.

Erin sagged against the wall as the voices of the fellowship rose up in a murmer around her. Scenes from the battle above flashed past her eyelids. She had always thought herself incapable of violence- she had always thought that she would never be able to react if she were attacked. But she had used her long knife to good effect- her hands had been covered in black orc blood, as she kept Aria in the corner behind her. She hadn't felt sick until after, as they had fled down the stairs- then, the nausea had made her dizzy, until she heard her sister's voice in the darkness. At least now, she thought I know that I will be able to protect myself. But the talking had ceased, and they were moving again into the darkness.