Chapter 5

The first of the crew stepped onto the ship just after dawn. Thorin could hear their footsteps and voices above as they boarded and prepared to set sail. He kept an ear out for anyone stepping into the cargo hold, and reached out with one hand to wake Bilbo.

The halfling blinked a couple times, his face contorting in confusion. Thorin watched as realization dawned, and Bilbo winced, shifting again to try and stretch his legs. "Is it morning already?"

"Aye. The men have boarded the ship, so we need to keep quiet."

"Ah." Bilbo resettled himself, and the room fell into silence once more.

A few minutes later, the crescendo of voices alerted Thorin to the fact that people were approaching the cargo hold. Two men, if he was not mistaken, and he could make out their words as they stepped into the room.

"See? Everything's as it was, just like yesterday."

Thorin tensed up, remembering the two sacks he had left the previous night. If the two men noticed something was out of place…

Footsteps creaked, drawing closer to their hiding place.

"Do we really have to check the whole ploughin' room?" asked the man who had first spoken. I swear I locked the door last night."

"Maybe you forgot. Anyway, it's captain's orders. He's still on edge from yesterday."

A scoff. "Like a witcher's going to be hidin' away here ready to pop out and gut us."

How little they knew.

The other man chuckled at that, and the door swung closed as they walked out.

Bilbo let out a small sigh of relief. "Do you think anyone will come in here again?"

"Let's hope not." The contents of a ship generally went untouched during its voyage, but the man's comment about the captain made him nervous. If they were to be discovered by a paranoid captain in the middle of the sea, he doubted it would end well for them.

"How long is this trip supposed to last, anyway?"

"Less than a week, if the weather is in our favor."

Bilbo gave a small hum and shifted again. "Have you ever been on a ship before?"

"No. Dwarves are not typically seafarers." It actually brought him a subtle sense of uneasiness, to be out on the open water with no earth beneath his feet. He could live with the feeling, but there was a reason the dwarves of Erebor had left the river trade to the neighboring men.

"I see. I would like to get a glimpse of the sea once we set sail, though." There were no windows in the cargo hold, which was only dimly lit by cracks in the ceiling.

"We should try to lay low," Thorin said. "We can't risk one of the crew noticing us."

"Speaking of, how are we planning to get off the ship?"

He turned to Bilbo, one eyebrow raised. "You were the one who smuggled us on here in the first place. I assumed you had an answer."

Bilbo seemed to take his statement in stride, shrugging and saying, "Well, I suppose when they come down here to unload the cargo, they'll find us and throw us off the ship, which will land us right where we want to be."

"That seems to be our only option."

And if the crew decided against letting them leave peacefully, they would have Thorin's steel sword to contend with.

The next couple of days passed without incident. The cargo hold remained quiet and undisturbed, and eventually Bilbo pestered Thorin into letting him walk around to stretch his legs every once in a while.

That night, the ship sailed into a storm. Thunder and heavy rain pounded against the deck, though thankfully none of the water leaked down into the room. A few of the lighter containers shifted with the rocking of the ship. Thorin was unaffected for the most part, but Bilbo was faring worse than expected.

"How long do you think this is going to last?" he asked, brow furrowed and arms wrapped around his stomach.

"I'm not sure," Thorin said, and this was true both for the duration of the storm and what to do about his companion's illness. He had no medicine for it (witcher potions were too strong for normal folk) and he didn't know of any other remedies.

The ship gave a particularly bad lurch, and Bilbo winced, pressing his lips together.

"Please do not be sick here," Thorin said. That was the last thing they needed, being stuck down here for another few days.

"I'll try."

The waves eventually lessened in intensity, though rain still pounded overhead. After a while, Bilbo dozed off, his seasickness evidently having abated. Even when the ship tilted again, the halfling did not wake. Instead, his head lolled to the side and came to rest on Thorin's shoulder.

Thorin stiffened at first, surprised by the contact, then relaxed. Letting Bilbo sleep was certainly preferable to having him seasick. The rocking of the ship continued, but the halfling's head didn't budge, and eventually Thorin felt his own eyes drifting closed.

A deafening crack sounded from above, followed by a terrified shout. Thorin jolted awake, one hand instinctively flying to his sword. The movement dislodged Bilbo's head from his shoulder, and he sat up with a sleepy groan.

"What was—"

The crack came again from a different part of the ship, and Thorin finally identified it as the sound of splintering wood.

Danger. It was rolling over the ship in waves, and he cursed himself for not waking sooner. The whole ship lurched, nearly sending him off balance as he pushed himself to his feet.

Bilbo stood up as well. "W-What's going on?"

"The ship is under attack." Thorin stepped out from behind the boxes and strapped both swords to his back in a swift, practiced motion. The dangerous presence belonged to a monster. It couldn't have been on the ship with them, or he would have noticed it earlier, which only meant one thing—the storm had stirred something up from the depths of the sea, and it had identified the ship as its next prey. "I have to kill whatever's responsible before it sinks us all."

"What can I do?" Bilbo asked, stepping out of their hiding spot as well.

"Stay out of the way," Thorin said, then sprinted for the door.

The rest of the ship was in chaos. Men were running about, carrying tools and struggling not to slip in the shallow layer of seawater that was sliding over the floor. Whatever was attacking them had breached the hull, Thorin concluded, and sped up his pace.

None of the men stopped to question his presence, evidently too concerned with preventing the ship from sinking. Thorin was nearly at the stairs when something altogether unexpected blocked his path.

The ceiling exploded as a massive gray tentacle as thick as his torso speared through the wood. Thorin's blade was out in a flash, slicing through the appendage and causing dark blood to splash onto the wood splinters littering the floor.

He cursed under his breath and took the set of stairs leading to the deck. It seemed the ship had crossed paths with a kraken.

Stepping out into the sunlight, Thorin surveyed the chaos. More men were running about, attempting to dislodge the half-dozen tentacles stuck through the ship with various tools. Captain Carter was the first to see him, and paused in shouting orders, anger mingling with the fear on his face.

"Witcher!" He drew the ornate sword on his belt and advanced on him. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ship," Thorin said, flicking some blood off his blade. "You need me to kill this monster. Step aside or you will regret it."

Carter's flushed face darkened a shade, but he lowered his sword and went back to shouting orders to his crew.

Thorin took that as an acquiescence and set to work, running for the nearest tentacle and severing it in one stroke. The remainder of the appendage thrashed and disappeared into the water.

From the position of the tentacles, Thorin imagined that the rest of its body was below the ship, and that the kraken was planning on crushing the vessel from below. All he had to do was make it very painful for the beast to maintain its hold and it would eventually let go.

The next two tentacles were severed with little effort. The third, however, was buried deep within the wood, and was too thick to cut in one stroke. Thorin was about to deliver the second when the tentacle began to retract from the deck. The next thing he knew was the floor beneath his feet breaking, a gray mass flying up, and his body jerked as the remainder of the tentacle crashed into him.

Thorin went airborne, the sea, the sky, and the ship spinning in rapid succession before his body crashed into the water below. He surfaced a second later, spitting out a curse and some seawater in the same breath, and tightened his grip on his sword.

Dwarves were not seafarers, but thank Mahal he knew how to swim.

He moved towards the ship, his movements slowed by the hand holding his sword. The water beneath him shifted, and Thorin barely had time to take a breath before a slimy appendage wrapped around his chest and pulled him underwater and into the dark depths of the sea.

Fighting against the rushing in his ears and the pounding in his chest, he sliced at the tentacle holding him. His stroke missed completely, diverted by the rapid movement of the water. Thorin shifted to get a better angle and tried again, this time managing to cut part way through the appendage.

Blood clouded the darkening water. Through the haze, he caught sight of a massive gray shape drifting beneath the ship. Thorin twisted his body, and the tentacle finally loosened its grip. He kicked off of the slimy flesh, pushing himself towards the surface. His lungs were beginning to protest from the lack of air, and it took all of his willpower to swim upwards.

After what seemed like hours, Thorin broke the surface with a gasp. He took a moment to fill his lungs with air, then turned and began swimming towards the ship. The kraken had relinquished its hold on the vessel, which meant it would likely bring its body up next to attack.

A rope slapped against the water, and Thorin grabbed it. Gradually, he was hoisted up and onto the ship, where one of the sailors helped him aboard.

"Is the beast dead?" he asked.

If they had been certain of its death, they may have not been so eager to pull him up, Thorin mused. "Not dead. Just weakened." He crossed over to the other side of the ship and peered down into the water. A hulking gray mass was growing larger beneath the surface.

"Going well so far?" a familiar voice asked, and Thorin turned to face Bilbo in exasperation as the halfling gave him a concerned once-over. "Did you fall in?"

"What did I tell you?"

"You told me to stay out of the way," Bilbo said. "But you never said to stay below deck."

Deciding he would deal with him later, Thorin turned to the rest of the crew. "Get away from the edge. The monster is going to try and ram the—"

Everyone cried out as the ship jerked, throwing a few men off their feet. Thorin grabbed the railing with one hand and Bilbo's arm with the other to keep them both upright. As the vessel swung back to right itself, Thorin leaned over the edge and saw a gray mass approaching the surface of the choppy water. Just below him was a vague round shape on the kraken's body.

This would be his only chance to kill the beast. With one hand on the railing to keep his balance, he leapt up onto the wood and shifted his grip on his sword so the blade was facing downwards.

"Thorin?" came Bilbo's voice from behind. "What are you doing?"

The round shape shifted, revealing an elongated pupil surrounded by a silvery iris. The monster's eye alone was wider than he was tall.

Not an easy target to miss. With a roar, he leapt off the railing of the ship and plummeted downwards, his blade aimed at the eye.

Seawater and a strange sticky fluid splashed onto his face as he landed, sinking up to his knees in soft tissue. The beast jerked, nearly throwing him off balance, but Thorin used the movement to cause further damage to the monster's eye, throwing all of his weight into driving his blade deeper. Given its size, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to reach the brain of the creature, but the eye was his best chance at killing it.

Without warning, the beast sank underwater. Thorin twisted his sword to free it, then pushed off, unwilling to spend another minute struggling for air. Fighting against the pull of the water as the monster sank deeper, he made it to the surface and was once again hefted back onto the ship.

They waited in breathless silence as the the monster drifted back into the depths of the sea. Thorin wasn't sure if it was dead or merely retreating, but either way, it was no longer attacking the ship. He sheathed his sword and stepped back from the railing.

Captain Carter pushed his way to the front of the crowd of wide-eyed sailors. "You have some nerve, sneaking aboard my ship. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't toss you over the side and let you sink along with that beast."

Thorin reached for his steel sword, already sizing up the crowd of men surrounding him. But before he could act, Bilbo stepped in front of him and said, "I'll give you one. If it weren't for Thorin, this ship would be in pieces and you'd all be drowned thanks to that beast."

"Bilbo." He placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him back, but the halfling swatted him away as one would a particularly bothersome fly.

"This dwarf here has just save all your lives, and the least you could do is offer him a bit of gratitude." He drew himself up to his full height (which wasn't very much at all) and fixed his gaze on the captain. "I propose that, in exchange for services rendered, you grant us passage on your ship."

Silence filled the air, and a few of the men fidgeted nervously.

"He did save the ship," one of the sailors said, and a handful murmured in agreement.

Looking as if he was chewing on a lemon, Carter stammered for a minute before he ground out, "You must stay out of the way for the rest of the voyage. If I catch even the slightest hint of misbehavior from either of you, you're both finished." He turned to his crew. "Let's move! Get this ship cleaned up and get us back on course."

The crowd dispersed, leaving Thorin and Bilbo standing near the railing.

"I wasn't sure if that was going to work," Thorin said, relief eclipsing most of his irritation towards the halfling.

"I know," Bilbo said, hands settling on his hips. "But it doesn't hurt to try, does it?"

Thorin looked down at his companion, and something close to a smile moved on his lips.

They moved to the front of the ship, where they were least likely to be in someone's way, and watched the water swell and shift.

"Are you all right?" Bilbo asked, the wind blowing his curls into an unruly mess.

"Hm?" Thorin shook himself from his thoughts and turned his head to look at the halfling.

"I mean, have you got any injuries? You did just get into a fight with a giant squid."

"I think the squid got the worst of it. I'm fine." All things considered, he'd survived the fight relatively unscathed, and thanked Mahal for that.

"Have you ever fought a monster as big as that one before?" Bilbo peered down into the water, as if he were still hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature.

"Not even close." Thorin crossed his arms and leaned his elbows on the railing. Theory and instinct alone had aided him during the battle. But he would need to have experience for when he faced the dragon Smaug, who was even larger than the beast he had just defeated.

Though perhaps time had distorted his memory of the dragon. That day had been one of chaos, when Smaug had taken Erebor. Most of it came in flashes—a wall of scales passing inches from his face, charred flesh and broken bones, a haze of smoke and dust.

"I still think the captain should have paid you for that," Bilbo said, bringing him back to the present. "That was no small feat, what you did."

"He granted us passage to Skellige. It would be folly to expect anything more." He glanced at the crew, who were going about their duties and stepping around the tentacle-sized holes in the deck as if their ship hadn't almost capsized. "And money is of no concern to me."

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. "I thought being a witcher is how you make a living."

"It is. But that's not why I became one."

"Well, I imagine that can't be the occupation of choice for most people." He lowered his gaze, considering his next words, then said, "I heard witchers are taken from their families as children and trained from a very young age. Is that what happened to you?"

"That is the case for most witchers, but not for myself." He would have to word his answers carefully. His trust in Bilbo only went so far, especially concerning information about himself. "I joined their ranks but ten years ago, to learn the skills necessary to defeat the monsters of this world."

"Really?" Bilbo lifted his eyes to Thorin's face, searching it as if he could find some sort of hidden meaning there. "Why?"

Thorin said nothing for a few moments. Few in this world had ever made such inquiries, and even after many years, it was still a painful topic to discuss. But Bilbo had been an understanding and open-minded listener so far, and he saw no harm in sharing at least part of the truth with him.

"I come from a dwarf kingdom called Erebor. Many years ago, it was taken from my people. A dragon came from the north and drove us out of our home. In becoming a witcher, I hope to one day slay that dragon and reclaim my homeland."

As he spoke, Bilbo's eyes widened in understanding. "That's...not what I expected, honestly." He gave Thorin a small smile. "But your people must be very proud of you for undertaking such a task."

Thorin lowered his gaze to the choppy water below. The issue of Erebor was controversial among the dwarves in the Blue Mountains. Many were content to remain in the smaller settlement and live in peace, while others sought to reclaim the mountain in the east. He had not consulted his kin in person before traveling to this world, only sending a letter explaining the situation to his sister before departing with Gandalf.

"I've never heard of Erebor, actually. I thought all the dwarf kingdoms were in the Mahakam Mountains."

"Erebor is...quite far from here." Literally worlds away, he thought with a twist of irony.

He had visited Mahakam a few years ago, curious as to how the dwarves of this world lived (and perhaps also seeking a sense of kinship among those of his own race). There had been stark differences—in the architecture, the language, the way they dressed themselves and styled their hair. But the main characteristics of these dwarves had remained consistent with those from Middle-earth.

On the whole, it had made him ache for his own home.

"What's it like there?" Bilbo asked. "I've never been to any dwarf kingdom, so I don't have much to go on, but…"

"It was the greatest of all dwarf kingdoms in—in the land." A wave of nostalgia mixed with longing swept through him as his mind filled with thoughts of Erebor. "Countless chambers and halls of green stone filled with golden light. Our craftsmen fashioned objects of incredible beauty from the gold and gems hidden within the mountain. It was a place of great prosperity, and the pride of the dwarvish people."

Bilbo was staring at him, an almost melancholy softness in his gaze. "You must really miss it."

"Aye." Perhaps some of his people had managed to move on and accept the loss of Erebor, but Thorin would never be able to forget what those halls had held, and all they had been forced to sacrifice.

And because of that, he would not stop until he reclaimed what had been taken from his people.

The next few days passed without incident. They stayed out of the way of the crew, who in turn ignored them. Thorin did not speak of Erebor again.

On the morning of the sixth day, Bilbo pulled him to the front of the ship and pointed at something on the horizon.

"That looks like land, in the distance."

"It is," Thorin said. A faint dark shape lay on the horizon, jagged in places where the numerous mountains stood. "We've reached Skellige."

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought!