Unperturbed by Gandalf's tantrum, the Dwarves continue with their nightly ritual. The slate-grey sky darkens to starless black, and a campfire crackles to life inside the decrepit house. Bilbo skitters about like a nervous doe, casting regular frantic glances over his shoulder.

Perched on a section of the crumbling wall, I count the blades concealed beneath my clothes. Eleven of them, including the Blade of Woe sheathed at my hip. If Thorin rallies a mob to ostracise me, I'm not going down without a fight.

My stomach gripes as the smell of boiled vegetables and herbs wafts under my nose. Bofur stands guard over the cooking pot, ladling its anemic contents into bowls. Bilbo frets around him.

"He's been gone a long time."

"Who?"

"Gandalf!"

"He's a Wizard! He does as he chooses."

Which is both inconvenient and extremely bloody typical. The senile old coot has probably forgotten I even exist, and I'll have to spend the rest of this bloody quest sleeping with one eye open. Though none of the Dwarves glance in my direction, the skin beneath my collar prickles.

Mud squelches under my heel as I drive my frustration into the earth. Never, ever trust a Wizard. Especially not an ancient, weed-smoking hippie who thinks Hobbits make good burglars.

Bilbo scurries down the hill towards the forest with a bowl in each hand meant for the two princes. A breeze whispers through the long grass at the edge of the woods as a flash of maroon darts between the trees.

Shadowmere patrols the edge of the forest, barely distinguishable from the shadows. He moves like smoke, toeing the edge of corporeality. He stops and lifts his head, ears twitching. When his red eyes find me, I sit upright.

Something's wrong.

Gathering up my pack and bow, I slink away from the camp into the open air. Goosebumps shiver down my back and arms as the chill replaces the fire's sparse warmth. The gibbous moon shrouds the distant snow-capped mountains in liquid silver. According to my map, we'll have to cross them at some point. How we're going to do that with sixteen stubby-legged ponies is anyone's guess.

Shadowmere nickers as I approach. I reach to pat his muzzle, but he jerks his head away and stamps his front hoof.

"What is it?"

He snorts, shakes his mane and points his nose towards the forest. In there.

The shadows between the trees are too dense to see through. I step forward, bracken and nettles crunching under my boots, and listen. Silence blankets the forest like fresh snow, unmarred by nocturnal noise. Except…

There.

Two bodies tumble through the undergrowth. Fili stops dead and Kili slams into his back, pitching him forward. They stare up at me, white-faced and breathing hard.

"What's going on?" The teeth gnawing at my gut elongate into fangs when no Hobbit emerges from the trees. "Where's Bilbo?"

"Trolls," Fili gasps, "took the ponies. Bilbo's gone to investigate."

My heart stalls. "You sent Bilbo towards a group of trolls alone?"

"They won't see him." Kili squeezes his brother's shoulder, fingers digging beneath Fili's collarbone. "If he's careful."

I shake my head. The thought of Bilbo—sweet, tiny Bilbo—facing even one troll knots my stomach. "He's in danger."

Kili swallows and leans close to his brother's ear. "We have to tell Thorin."

Fili grimaces, the last hint of colour draining from his face.

"How many of them?" I ask.

Kili's gaze flicks to me, and he tilts his head. "At least two. Three, going by the stink of them."

Three trolls. I've taken on trolls before. Only ever one at a time, but if I can save his burglar from a grisly fate, Thorin might leave me be.

I can't believe I'm considering risking my life for someone else's approval, but in the face of Gandalf's indefinite absence, it might be my best option.

Never mind that. I will not stand here and let Bilbo Baggins get eaten by trolls.

Squaring my shoulders, I look back at the two princes. They're still watching me, silent and unmoving. It's a little unnerving. People rarely look to me for instructions, even when they should.

"Right. You two stay here. I'm going to fetch Bilbo. If we're not out of this forest by first light, tell Thorin."

To my surprise, they both nod. Kili's arm remains around Fili's shoulders; his dark eyes glitter as he studies me with something that might be curiosity or suspicion.

Sucking in a lungful of cool night air, I curl my fingers around the Blade and step into the forest.

Beneath the black canopy, the darkness is tangible. The stink of rot, fermented earth and something unbearably foul clogs my windpipe. Deep, jagged grunts and grumbles that barely resolve into speech blunder past my ears. These trolls can talk.

Something crashes through the brush behind me. I whirl and almost slice off Kili's ear.

"Mahal." Straightening from a crouch, Kili gawks at the Blade in my hand. The markings along the blade bathe his fascination in soft red light. I forget what a formidable sight my dagger can be to those seeing it for the first time. I tuck it into my sleeve.

"What are you doing?" Even my quiet hiss is too loud in the stillness.

"I'm coming with you."

"No, you—"

He plunges into the shadows. With a reserved sigh, I follow the trail of rustling and faint cursing, praying the trolls won't hear our not-so-subtle advance. A smudge of glowing yellow appears amid the gloom, and I get my first glimpse of the trolls.

These trolls are nothing like the trolls in Skyrim. They look like an apprentice sculptor who only knew the general shape of a human and not much else pummelled them out of ten-foot slabs of granite. Something squirmy and Hobbit-sized struggles against the grip of a gigantic, gnarled hand. They've found Bilbo.

Kili seizes my wrist and yanks me down. My shins bark in protest as they collide with the ground. Clenching my teeth against a hiss, I shake him off and peer through the bracken.

Bilbo dangles from the biggest troll's fist like an absurd bat, coattails flapping around his head. A curved blade jabs his soft belly.

"Are there any more of you little fellas hiding where you shouldn't?"

"Nope!"

A troll with a lazy eye sticks its craggy face close to Bilbo. "He's lying!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Hold his toes over the fire! Make him squeal!"

Kili bristles. Before I can grab him, he launches into the clearing, sword drawn. He slashes at Lazy Eye's calf. The troll shrieks, hopping backwards as Kili makes another swipe at a flat, toeless foot. He's pretty handy with a blade.

"Drop him!"

And also a complete idiot.

"You wot?"

Kili twirls his sword. The mad glint in his eyes says he'll willingly take on all three of the trolls if they don't co-operate. "I said, drop him."

This will not end well.

Something huge thunders through the trees. A dozen Dwarves swarm into the clearing, and everything dissolves into chaos.

Thorin's company attacks as a seamless unit, bounding off each other and hurtling in every direction like hairy cannonballs. Yells and whoops bounce off the trees, filling the night with savage joy.

It's impossible for me to pinpoint anything in the carnage, and I'll never find Bilbo just sitting in this bush like a moron. I haven't been in a fight for over a year, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Rising from my crouch, I roll my shoulders and step into the fray.

The trolls smell even worse up close. Their screams and howls rattle my eardrums. Bodies catapult around me—Dwalin's tattooed head, Balin's white beard, and Fili's golden hair flit about my peripheral vision, but there's one curly head I don't see.

Where the hell is Bilbo?

With a chorus of joyful whinnies, the ponies break free from the pen and bolt into the trees. A green waistcoated figure clutches the trolls' curved dirk, urging the animals to flee. The largest troll notices the commotion and, with an enraged bellow, lumbers towards Bilbo.

I leap into its path, skidding on the loose earth. The Blade sinks into the meat of the troll's thigh, the force of the blow wrenching it from my grip. A boulder-like fist catches me square in the chest. The force of my back smashing into the ground punches the breath from my lungs. Fire snarls around my ribs, and hot blood bubbles up my throat.

"Bilbo!"

Kili's panicked shout hauls me back to consciousness. The Dwarves cluster to my right, their gazes fixed on something several feet in the air. Thorin's arm forms an impenetrable barrier between Kili and the trolls. Two of them hold Bilbo by his arms and legs, stretching his small body between them like he's strapped to a torture device.

"Lay down your arms! Or we'll rip his off!"

Thorin stays unbearably still. The others glance at him, shuffling their feet. Kili twitches; his eyes dart back and forth between his uncle and the helpless Hobbit. Thorin drives the point of his sword into the ground. Grumbling and muttering, the company follows suit. Kili throws his sword down with a growl.

A fairly predictable downward spiral ensues from there. My ribs scream as thick fingers seize me and encase my limbs in burlap. A blur of red catches my eye—the Blade, still lodged in the troll's leg. My pathetic attempt to lunge for it earns me a sneer as I choke on a mouthful of sticky copper.

A debate about how to cook us comes to me in jagged pieces.

"Never mind the seasoning, we ain't got all night! Dawn ain't far away, so let's get a move on! I don't fancy being turned to stone."

I try to sit up and discover I'm wedged between two Dwarves. A third pins my shins and ankles, which are rapidly losing blood flow.

Dwarves are heavy.

"Wait!"

Bilbo's voice. Pain stabs through my chest as I struggle to see him over the bundle of bodies. As far as my smudged vision can make out, he's unhurt. The relief is almost worth the surge of dizziness that sends spots of colour dancing in front of my eyes.

"You are making a terrible mistake!"

"You can't reason with them, they're half-wits!" someone yells.

"Half-wits? What does that make us?"

It's quite difficult to glare at Kili from this angle, but I manage. This whole thing is pretty much his fault.

"I meant with… With the seasoning."

Sweat drips down the side of my face and splashes onto my collarbone. This is all too much, too loud. My mind drifts, smothered in a soft grey fog that urges me to just sleep.

"What do you know about cooking Dwarf?"

"The secret to cooking Dwarf is to… skin them first!"

A boot catches me in the side, jolting me awake, as the Dwarves yell and struggle against their burlap bindings.

"Traitor!"

"He's right!" Lazy Eye snatches Bombur, lifting him high by the toes. "Nothing wrong with a bit of raw Dwarf!"

Behind the trolls, something Wizard-shaped darts behind a large boulder. I blink, squinting at the trees. Great, now I'm hallucinating. But why Gandalf, of all people?

"Not that one. He's infected!"

Lazy Eye squeals, and Bombur slams directly on top of Kili.

"They're infested with parasites." Bilbo screws his nose up in mock—or possibly real—disgust. "It's a terrible business. I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't."

"We don't have parasites! You have parasites!"

This has to be a dream. Nothing this ridiculous could happen in real life.

A thump to his back cuts Kili off mid-yell. He twists to glare at his uncle. In the brief silence, I can almost hear the rest of them catching on, like a cascade of coins pinging off the ground.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm!"

It might be the concussion, but I have a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh. I glimpse Thorin's head poking out of the sack behind me and almost inhale my tongue.

The biggest troll jabs a finger at Bilbo. "This little ferret is taking us for fools!"

"Ferret?!"

"Fools?!"

"The dawn will take you all!"

Oh, thank the gods. I'd recognise that dramatic, booming voice anywhere.

Gandalf looms into view atop the boulder, a pointy-hatted silhouette against the lightening sky.

"Who's that?"

"No idea."

"Can we eat him too?"

Gandalf's staff cracks down, cleaving the boulder clean in half. The first rays of dawn spill into the glade.

With a noise like a rockslide, the trolls' skin solidifies into stone.

The glade erupts into cheers, and darkness closes over me.

"Sif?"

A gentle voice drags me back to the surface, groggy and disoriented. The inferno in my chest punches a hole in my cocoon of oblivion, and, against my will, I'm awake.

A curly-haired silhouette blocks the glare from the sun. I blink, forcing my stinging eyes to focus. "Are you alright?"

Each short, punctured breath draws the smell of rich, damp earth into my nose. Garbled voices drift past my head, mingling with the birdsong. My mouth feels dry, the skin around it tight and probably crusted with blood.

I squint at Bilbo, at his mussed hair and concerned eyes. I have to get something to fix my ribs before I pass out again, but there's no way I can even stand in this condition, let alone walk to get my pack.

I swallow thickly and force myself to speak. The words emerge in a hoarse whisper. "I need—can you bring my bag? It's… somewhere… probably in a bush." I hope.

The Hobbit's brows knit, but he nods and disappears. I close my eyes, praying he doesn't possess any tendencies to snoop. He wouldn't understand half of the things I carry with me, but they're all I have in the world, and I don't feel like sharing or explaining myself.

The worst would be if he found my journal. I'm not sure how I would even begin to explain any of what's buried within those pages. The habit of keeping meticulous records began alongside my life as the Dragonborn. It started off as a bare-bones recording of my adventures—a suggestion made by the Greybeards, probably to make embellishing the events easier for future historians—and rapidly evolved into a means of catharsis when things got… messy. I haven't dared to look back on any of the entries over the past few months, and yet I still continue to make them.

Snatches of conversation reach my ears across the glade. The Dwarves discuss the night's events in breathless, excited tones punctuated with bursts of raucous laughter. Their familiar noise is a welcome distraction, and an immense relief.

It's a miracle we made it through the night unscathed—broken ribs aside. Luckily, the trolls in this land are as stupid as they are ugly. If they were anything like the trolls in Skyrim, we would have been screwed.

Still, I can't believe I watched the same Hobbit who was terrified to leave his cosy house a few weeks ago stand up to three fully-grown trolls who were prepared to turn us into a buffet. Maybe Gandalf was onto something after all—maybe Bilbo doesn't need me worrying over him like a mother hen. Which, for some reason, is rapidly becoming a habit.

I've never reacted like that—instinctively, without a shred of rational thought—to protect someone before. Astrid would've admonished me for being so foolish. She certainly wouldn't have shown any sympathy for my current predicament. After all, I earned it.

Though, technically, it wasn't my recklessness that got us into trouble. The concussion, broken ribs and what I now suspect is a punctured lung are all because Kili was so willing to throw himself head-first into a fight, the idiot. I should be angry with him, but I'm too exhausted, and the warmth of the sun on my skin does wonders to smooth down the edges of my temper.

Bilbo reappears, clutching my pack in one small hand and my bow in the other. The bag is half as tall as he is, and the breath whooshes out of him as he sets it on the ground. Before I can fully register the next problem, he ducks his head and reaches to untie the sack from around my torso. Even after weeks on the road, he still smells faintly of lavender and sweet tea underneath the dirt and sweat. He fumbles with the knots, tongue poking between his teeth. His warm breath on my neck chases spiders down my back.

I close my eyes. This is Bilbo. He's half my size and unarmed. He saved my life not an hour ago. Why would he go to the trouble only to pull a blade on me? The idea of him wielding any kind of weapon is almost laughable.

So why can't I make myself relax?

"Do… do you need help sitting up?"

I screw my eyes shut tighter and nod.

His hands are warm and gentle on my back. Together we coax my broken body into an upright position, my jaw clenched against a scream. He hovers whilst I reorient myself and the bonfire in my chest subsides to a crackling flame.

I reach for my bag and he pushes it towards me. He opens his mouth, catches my eye, and closes it again. He shuffles back and clambers to his feet, hands folded behind him, and gazes off towards where the Dwarves wrestle in the dirt.

Several of the company are missing—presumably they've gone to retrieve their possessions from the farmhouse and round up the ponies. Shadowmere will have beaten them to it, though he won't take any credit.

Most of the Dwarves still skirt around Shadowmere like he's some kind of pox, though I caught Fili and Kili trying to pet him a few days ago. Once upon a time they would have lost fingers for their trouble, but my old friend must be growing soft—he let Fili rub him between the eyes for a good few seconds before snapping his teeth.

I almost managed to convince myself I didn't mind.

After a bit of fumbling, and with my teeth clenched hard enough they might splinter, I retrieve my prize. The glass vial is about the size of my pinky and contains a deep red liquid. I yank out the cork and drain the potion in one swallow. It scorches down my parched throat, hits my sternum, and blooms outwards in an icy burn. Bones shift and crack, knitting together behind a fresh surge of agony. A whimper escapes through my teeth before my lungs expand joyfully inside my newly healed ribcage.

Bilbo's wide eyes dart between my face and the empty vial. "What was that?"

"Medicine." I kick the sack off my legs and wiggle my toes inside my boots, flinching as blood surges to the deprived muscles. "Of a sort."

Bilbo's eyes shine with more questions, but he looks down, fiddling with one of the shiny gold buttons on his waistcoat.

With the pain gone, my gaze drifts to the three stone figures across the campsite. Gandalf raps one smartly with his staff, like a schoolteacher disciplining a naughty student. The dagger still wedged in the troll's thigh glitters in the sunlight.

I roll to my feet and cross the glade to retrieve the Blade. It slides from the stone with no resistance, returning to my hand like a loyal pet. My fingers close around the ornate hilt, and a smile tugs at my mouth. Much better.

Slow, deliberate footsteps approach through the bracken. I duck behind the statue as Thorin emerges from the trees and strolls towards Gandalf. Though he's half the Wizard's height, he somehow manages to look down his nose at him.

"Where did you go to, if I may ask?"

"To look ahead."

"And what brought you back?"

"Looking behind."

I swear if I roll my eyes any harder, they're going to get stuck. Maybe Gandalf deserves some credit for not being completely useless and saving our hides, but it's also possible this was all his fault.

Thorin gives a barely perceptible nod of thanks, despite the tightness around his eyes.

"Nasty business," Gandalf mutters, glancing up at Lazy Eye. "Still, they're all in one piece."

Thorin doesn't miss a beat. "No thanks to your burglar."

Gandalf raises his chin. "He had the nous to play for time. None of the rest of you thought of that."

Thorin looks sheepish for all of half a second before he sighs through his nose. "And what of the Elf? For a supposed dragon-slayer, she wasn't any help at all. She almost got Kili killed."

My fingers dig into the statue, nails scraping the unforgiving stone. Gandalf holds Thorin's gaze. The Dwarf king's thick brows form a harsh 'V' over his eyes.

"I made my reservations regarding her clear from the beginning," Thorin growls. "If any of my kin are harmed because of her—"

"Our agreement still holds." Gandalf's voice mirrors his placid expression. "You may seek retribution as you see fit, as promised."

Thorin nods his assent, and the conversation moves on.

I shove the Blade into its sheath at my waist and stalk across the clearing. The Night Mother's brittle whisper hisses inside my mind, repeating the words of the contract she burdened me with over a year ago.

Why did I let him live?

Crouching by my bag, I dig through the contents for my water skin, needing to wash the taste of ash from my mouth. Power sizzles in my belly, roused by my thundering pulse. If I don't calm down, it will burst out of me and the whole forest will burn.

As it often does in moments where I start to lose control, a familiar face sharpens behind my eyelids. Red hair, kind eyes, the smile he reserved for when I was being especially difficult. An anchor point in the storm.

I force a lungful of air in through my nose. Hold it. Release.

It shouldn't bother me that Gandalf and Thorin have an agreement about my death. At one time, I might have applauded their foresight. But after all the effort I've made to repress my assassins' instincts, I ought to be granted some kind of reprieve. I thought I'd left the distrustful glares and concealed blades on Skyrim's grey shores.

I sense Bilbo hovering behind the curtain of muddy hair brushing my shoulder. I tuck it behind my ear and lift my head to look at him. The gold buttons on his waistcoat glitter as he bounces on his toes.

"I wanted to thank you."

I blink. "Why?"

His nose twitches like a rabbit's. "I saw you save my life. I may not have much experience with adventures or fights, but I do know a thing or two about manners."

I exhale, and something in my chest loosens. "You saved my life, too. We're square."

A tentative smile brightens Bilbo's face as he offers me a slight bow. I can't help smiling back. He strolls over to join the Dwarves. As they prepare to move off, Bilbo turns to me and beckons. I nod, motioning for him to go on without me. My eyes dart to the troll statues. Thorin and Gandalf have disappeared.

Pushing to my feet, I swing my pack onto one shoulder and my bow onto the other. My fingers brush the hilt of the Blade. Perhaps it's not too late.