Chapter 12

It seemed the thieves were content to rely on their illusion to keep intruders out. Thorin and Bilbo encountered no obstacles as they ventured farther into the cave—not even guards stood sentinel at any point.

The cave stretched back a little ways before turning to the right. Thorin's sensitive ears picked up the crackle of a fire and low voices, and he signaled for Bilbo to halt.

"Do we have a plan?" Bilbo whispered.

Thorin's jaw tightened. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of what had happened with the leshen. This time, there would be no sorceress to heal him should Bilbo get injured again. But he had made it clear that he was determined to go on and that he would not tolerate being held back.

"What do you think we should do?" he replied.

Bilbo's eyes widened at the question. "Well—" He blinked, then motioned for Thorin to follow him. They crept to the bend in the cave, and Bilbo peered around the corner. After a moment, he turned around. "I see five men. Their loot is all stacked against one wall."

Like a dragon with his hoard. "Are there any other exits? Points of cover?"

He shook his head. "It's just that one room. I don't believe they ever expected anyone to make it all the way here."

Thorin had made sure that they had no warning of it, either. Five men were hardly a challenge to a witcher. They may have a shot at finishing this at last, and the thought swept a thrill of apprehension through him.

Seemingly sensing his thoughts, Bilbo reached out to grasp his arm. "They have dozens of magical objects in there. There's a chance they'll use them against us."

Aye, that would stack the odds in the thieves' favor. There was no telling what manner of weapon they would bring forth until he faced them in battle.

And that was what he would do. Thorin would face them as one of Durin's sons, and win back what was rightfully his.

"I will take care of the men. You—" He stopped with no little amount of effort. They were partners in this, he reminded himself. "How you choose to aid me is your choice. I only ask that you keep yourself safe."

Bilbo nodded, his grip tightening on Thorin's arm. "And you, as well."

Thorin checked that his steel sword was free in its sheath, then rounded the corner and marched towards the thieves.

The men noticed him a few moments afterward and sprang to their feet. To the left, he recognized the narrow, sly face of Phineas Ward.

Behind them was a disorganized jumble that would have perfectly resembled a dragon's hoard were it not for the lack of gold. Most of it appeared to be junk—jars and piles of cloth, staffs and rusty shields, boxes filled with a mess of smaller items.

And somewhere in that chaos was his way back home.

"Witcher." Ward stood and spread his arms. "Welcome."

The man closest to him put one hand on the longsword at his hip.

"May I ask how you happened upon our humble hideout?"

Thorin drew his sword. "I tracked down your men at the watchtower. After that, I found the one with the map. And now I'm here, and there's nowhere else for you to hide."

"You killed them all, I presume." Ward tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "Half of my men, dead at your hand. And I don't even remember what I stole from you."

"I do." Thorin eyed the other three men, who had retreated to the back of the room to obtain their own weapons. "And I want it back."

Ward nodded to the man with the longsword. "Heimruc."

The man drew his longsword and struck out at him in the same motion. Thorin barely had time to ponder the fact that they were five feet apart before a wave of dark energy swept towards him. He twisted to the side, barely dodging the attack.

The addition of these magical weapons was going to prove a challenge, indeed. He ducked under another attack and lunged forward, striking at the man. No sooner had their blades clashed than another wave of energy struck him dead in the chest, sending him flying backwards.

Thorin landed on the stone floor, shudders racking his body. A sickly, cold feeling swept through his limbs, and it was with a great amount of effort that he pushed himself to his feet. He could now allow himself to be struck by another blow, nor could he let his blade clash with the other's.

He evaded another strike, and caught a glimpse of the three men who had armed themselves. The first had donned a sword as well, and there was no doubt this one carried dangerous powers too.

The others had chosen much more unnatural abilities. One donned an amulet, and immediately hunched over. Fur sprouted from his skin, and after a moment, it was a lion standing in place of the man. The second downed something from a flask, and his skin began to change as well, becoming—Thorin's eyes widened. Mahal. Something like molten fire covered the man from head to toe, and he laughed aloud.

Ward, he noticed with a scowl, stood and watched like a coward.

Thorin spared a moment to hope that Bilbo had chosen to stay out of this one, though he knew it to be unlikely.

Then the four men moved forward and attacked as one.

Even with his speed and strength and decades of experience, Thorin struggled at first. The other sword produced a different kind of wave that split the stone it struck and would no doubt break bone with a direct hit. With that in mind, he was forced to refrain from parrying, which essentially left him with a sword useless for defense.

So Thorin threw all of his energy into dodging and landing hits where he could. The man with the skin of fire had proved to be an immediate danger. As Thorin evaded the swing of one of his glowing fists, even the proximity left blistering heat on his skin.

The lion was the first to be dispatched. Thorin had fought faster and tougher creatures than it, and the man was clearly used to moving on two legs instead of four. He drove his sword in between its eyes, and its skull was obliterated a moment later as he dodged a stone-splitting blast that struck the lion instead. Blood, gore, and bone spattered against the floor.

The remaining three surrounded him. Thorin dodged another bone-shattering wave that passed close enough to throw him off balance. He stumbled and grunted as a kick to the shoulder nearly forced him to the ground. Bracing himself with one hand, he lashed out with one foot and was rewarded with the crack of bone and a cry of pain.

He pushed himself to his feet, then ducked beneath the other man's blade and slashed at his leg. Blood spurted from his inner thigh, and Thorin turned away as the man staggered back.

A searing pain clamped down on his right arm, and he cried out. The man of fire had one hand clamped about his forearm, and the incredible heat shot straight through his armor. Two glowing eyes, nothing more than the flickering orange of heated coals, stared into his.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Thorin switched his sword to his other hand and plunged it into his gut. Despite his appearance, the man's choked grunt was completely human. Liquid fire erupted from the wound and sizzled against the cold stone floor. The hand around his arm lifted, leaving red-hot agony behind.

Thorin jerked the sword out of his stomach, then reversed his grip and stabbed backwards into the torso of the dying man. His blood sizzled as it came into contact with the heated metal. Weakened, he managed only a pained wheeze.

The third man raised his sword for another strike. With one arm injured and the other holding a rather occupied sword, Thorin knew he would not be able to block the blow.

But before he could deliver the swing, the man jerked back, choking. A knife—Bilbo's knife—protruded from his throat. He stumbled back and collapsed, red soaking the front of his shirt.

Blood and fire pooled at his feet as the four men lay dead.

Thorin shot a brief glance towards Bilbo, who was standing at the entrance to the room. His eyes were wide, face pale, and his grip on his walking stick was white-knuckled. He gave him a brief nod of thanks and turned around.

Ward had not moved from his place near the cave wall. His face, too, was drained of blood as he gazed at his fallen underlings. He turned to Thorin, and anger sharpened the dull shock in his eyes.

"You killed them all."

Flicking the blood from his sword, Thorin advanced on him. "You know what I am capable of. Return to me what was mine."

A vindictive edge filled his voice as he said, "Do witchers feel pain, I wonder? Do you know what it's like to have a sword driven into your stomach?"

Something flashed in his hand. Thorin tensed up, but it was only a sliver of silver. A needle, he realized.

"Would you like to find out?"

Ward pinched the needle between his thumb and forefinger, holding it by the tips so blood welled up on his skin.

No sooner had the tiny gleam of red registered in his vision than a piercing agony lanced through his abdomen. Thorin faltered, gritting his teeth as a groan of pain escaped him. He glanced down, one hand passing over his stomach, but there was no blood.

"Or perhaps I should show you what it feels like to be burned alive?" Ward pressed harder, and drops of his blood fell to the floor.

The scalding sensation afflicting his arm blazed across his back. Thorin screamed, eyes screwed shut against the overwhelming pain. One knee thudded against the ground.

Faintly, he heard footsteps slap across the stone, and Bilbo's voice rang out: "Stop!"

"No," he wanted to say, but his jaw was clenched so tightly it ached. This pain he could endure, but he could not watch Bilbo go through the same. Breathing hard, he braced his sword against the ground and began to pull himself up.

"What are you going to do, halfling?" Even with his blurred vision, the lines of Ward's face were hard.

Bilbo was standing between them, his walking stick held in a defensive position. He let out a short breath, drew himself up, then swung his weapon as hard as he could. The tip of the wood cracked across Ward's temple, sending him to the ground, and the needle clattered from his hand.

"That seems like a good start."

The pain in his back and stomach vanished, though a ghostly tingle of it lingered. Thorin straightened with a wince, panting slightly.

"Are you all right?" Bilbo turned around and took a step towards him.

"I'm fine." His gaze darted from the unconscious thief to the halfling and quickly checked him over for injuries. He let out a short breath and sheathed his sword. They'd made it alive and unscathed—save for the burn on his arm.

Clenching his jaw against the pain, he removed his half-melted vambrace and tossed it to the floor. Pulling back his sleeve as carefully as he could, he inspected the injury. Though his armor had taken the worst of it, the upper half of his forearm was a swollen, angry red.

Bilbo hissed through his teeth and placed one hand on the uninjured part of his arm. "That doesn't look fine."

Thorin gave a half-shrug in response. After Smaug, he'd seen dozens of cases much worse than his. "I'll let it cool and put a bandage on later. It will heal." He squeezed Bilbo's shoulder with his free hand. "You did well."

He nodded at the praise, but then his gaze turned to the man lying with his knife still protruding from his neck, and something in his eyes changed. No doubt it was the first man he had killed. Thorin knew how much that could change someone.

"I'm going to start searching through their hoard," Bilbo said, his voice soft.

"Be careful." Thorin watched him go, then turned back to the unconscious thief. His hands curled into fists. Here was the man that had nearly stolen everything from him, brought low by his own cowardice. The desire for revenge burned hot in the back of his throat.

"Thorin." Bilbo's voice broke him from his thoughts. "I found their record of everything they took." He set a large, leather-bound book on a large crate and flipped it open. The motion dislodged another smaller box on the adjacent crate, sending it off balance.

Before either of them could react, a small, black urn fell from the box and hit the floor, shattering on impact.

"Oh, dear." Bilbo jumped back as an inky black substance spilled from the urn and spread across the floor.

Thorin watched with wide eyes as the substance began to move...and a person rose from the blackness, dragging it upwards as if it were a piece of cloth.

On second thought, he amended, this was not a person at all. The pale grey skin webbed with faint strands of black, the long, thin fingers that tapered into points, and its shroud-like robe spoke of something beyond the realm of the living.

Bilbo froze mid-step. As though it did not even see him, the creature, which was facing the pile of treasure, began to move towards it.

As silently as he could, Thorin slid his sword from his sheath and stalked towards the monster. He had never seen nor heard of such a creature in his lifetime. But he would, as he had done countless times before, find a way to kill it.

With smooth, unnatural movements, the monster approached the hoard and plucked a coil of glowing blue wire from the pile. It held the object up, towards its face. Since its back was turned to Thorin, he could not see what it was doing, but continued his advance.

A chill filled the room. The coil clattered to the floor, the wire now a dull gray.

Thorin's grip on his sword tightened. The object had been damaged in some way, that much was clear. He could not allow this monster, whatever it was, to do the same to his key. With quick steps, he closed the distance between himself and the creature and slashed it from hip to shoulder.

The shroud covering its body blurred in the direction of the strike, like a brush smearing wet paint. After a moment, the displaced segment shifted back into place.

The creature finally turned to face him, and Thorin saw with a jolt of horror that it did not have a face at all—only a jagged black slash of a mouth and smooth gray skin where its other features would have been.

And then it began to change.

The shrouded robe rose and expanded, covering its features, then billowed out like a black cloud. Thorin took several steps back, sword at the ready.

The shape finally began to take form. Something too thick and stiff to be fur sprouted from the bulky body. Four legs, bulking muscles, and a slashing opening on a jagged snout appeared from the twisting cloud. At seven feet tall, the beast towered over Thorin. It raised its head and roared. The sound did not touch him, but seemed to echo back within the body of the monster, as though it was hollow inside.

Gathering his courage, Thorin raised his sword and attacked.

His first strike, aimed for the top of one of the front legs, met its mark. Thick drops of dark blood splashed onto the ground. In this form, it seemed, the monster could be harmed.

And if something bled, that meant it could be killed.

He settled into the familiar rhythm of battle, slicing at the beast with his silver sword and dodging its clumsy attacks. It seemed the creature had traded size and strength for speed with its new form, and Thorin managed to stay one step ahead of its swipes and snaps.

Yet the monster refused to falter, even as the ground turned slick with its own blood. Thorin grit his teeth as he left a sizeable cut in the beast's hide and it did not so much as let out a growl of pain for his efforts.

His foot hit a particularly slippery patch of blood and nearly threw him off balance. Before he could regain his footing, one of the beast's legs came from behind and slammed into Thorin's back. The blow sent him flying across the cave to crash against one of the stone walls.

He hit the ground with a groan, ears ringing with the impact. Pain flared through the majority of his body, though it didn't seem as though anything was broken. Distantly, he heard Bilbo call out his name.

Thorin pushed himself up with a wince, bracing himself for another attack. But the monster was no longer paying attention—

The monster was no longer paying attention to him because it had been drawn to the sound of Bilbo's voice.

Thorin ran, not slowing his pace even as his boots slid on blood. Bilbo was standing frozen, the book clutched in his hands instead of his walking stick, which was lying on the ground a little ways away.

There was no guarantee he would be able to kill the monster before it attacked, and it was too big to move. That left only one option.

He barreled past the monster and crashed into Bilbo, sending them both to the ground. One hand went to the back of Bilbo's head to shield his fall somewhat, and the other moved swiftly to cast Quen. The monster's leg came down towards them, but a burst of gold energy repelled its blow.

Thorin pushed himself up, checking the halfling over for any injuries.

"Keep it busy," Bilbo said breathlessly. "I think I know how to get rid of this thing."

He only had time for a brief nod before he was turning back to the monster and striking at its leg as the appendage came down once more. He slashed and dodged, keeping the monster's attention away from Bilbo and whatever plan he had devised.

But even witchers began to tire. Thorin drew in a ragged breath as the pain plaguing his body throbbed and clamored for his attention. Backing down was not an option. He only hoped Bilbo's idea would work.

"Thorin!" He was standing at the opposite end of the cave, two rather incongruous objects in either hand. "Get out of the way!"

He wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to evade in regards to a lit candle and what appeared to be a human skull. But he backed away anyway, keeping the monster in his periphery as he watched Bilbo kneel down and place the skull over the candle.

The flickering light shone through the eye holes, then flared into bright twin beams. Where the light struck the monster, it began to erode its very existence, like paper over an open flame. Thorin backed away further, out of reach of the beams.

Unaware of its plight, or perhaps uncaring, the beast continued its advance. But it had disappeared entirely before it could reach him.

And the cavern fell silent.

Bilbo took the skull away and set it down with shaking hands. "I wasn't sure if that was going to work."

"What did you do?" Thorin asked, flicking blood from his sword and walking towards him. But he hadn't gotten very far before a groan sounded at the other end of the cave. He turned around. Ward was beginning to stir. He walked back over to the thief as he sat up, one hand on his sword.

Ward watched him with baleful eyes. "Well? Going to stick that through me or not?"

"I'm still mulling it over."

With a quickness characteristic of thieves, his hand darted towards the needle. But Thorin was quicker, and his boot clamped down over the object.

"You're not making it any easier for me to spare your life." He moved his foot, and the needle skittered across the floor, away from them.

Ward finally seemed to notice the black smears of blood across the floor and frowned. "Cracked the urn, did you?"

"That's none of your concern. The beast is dead, now." He stepped closer. "The black key you took from me. It is still here?"

Ward shrugged. "You'll have to check the book." A lazy grin stole over his face. "We may have rented it out to someone."

Thorin's grip on his sword tightened. "For your sake, you should hope you did not."

He lifted his chin in defiance. "And what are you going to do about it?"

But he didn't draw his blade. He wanted no more death at his hand. They were at the end of their journey, now, and they'd gotten what they'd wanted.

Thorin turned and glanced behind him. Bilbo was watching him from the other side of the cave, his expression unreadable.

He faced Ward. "I've come to reclaim what is mine. As long as you stay out of my way, I have no quarrel with you." His hand released his sword. "And at any rate, my job is to kill monsters, not humans."

Ward was watching him uncertainly, his body filled with hesitant tension. After a minute, he pushed himself to his feet and sprinted for the exit.

Thorin let out a low breath, hoping he had not made the wrong choice, and turned back to Bilbo. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He began walking towards him. "But, uh, sorry about knocking over that urn. I'd no idea it had a monster inside."

"I know you didn't. And we managed to kill it in the end. Though I'm not sure how you knew to use those two items."

He gestured with his chin to the book, which was lying open on one of the boxes. "They keep records of what every item does. These two, apparently, make things disappear." He shrugged. "I thought it was worth a shot."

Thorin smiled, pride swelling in his chest. "Well done, Bilbo." He reached out for him, but stopped as the halfling held up one finger.

"Not now! You'll get blood all over me again."

"That's already happened, I'm afraid." Thorin glanced at the dark stains on his coat from when he had tackled him earlier.

"All right, then." A smile twitched on his lips. "Just this once. And just because we won." He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Thorin's neck.

And as he returned the embrace, it struck him—the thieves and monsters were defeated, and their stolen items returned. At last, they had reached the end of their journey.

They had won.

*CDI Link voice* I won!

Had a lot of fun coming up with the magical items/abilities in this chapter. The creepy creature is also something I made up on my own, which was quite fun. I pictured the beast form to be kind of a cross between Beast Ganon from Twilight Princess and the bear from Annihilation.

Also, let me know what you thought of this final battle. I wanted to make it climactic while obviously still having Thorin and Bilbo survive at the end.