"You would find it strange to believe, but he is not incapable of managing himself," Balin told Dwalin, halfway to irritated with his brother. "You cannot second guess every step he takes."

"Gone a year in the Shire with the Halfling. And now running off with another one."

"The lady is not a hobbit." Dwalin pouted, disenchanted. "Could have had me fooled."

"I fear for him. Of course I fear for him. But at this moment I do not. And I welcome those moments." Balin crossed his arms stiffly over his chest.

"I woke up last night when he bedded down. It was in the wee hours. What do you suppose he wanted with her all that time? Or her with him?" Dwalin mused suspiciously.

"I have no idea, brother. None at all."

II

They walked silently back around the base of the watchtower and did not speak. In her mind there was nothing to say, only ponder, imagine, left to wonder whether there was mirth in him, as there was gentleness. There was kindness. She had seen plainly the better nature of his heart already, in the way he cared for his people and looked after each of them on the road as carefully as she.

But as they came down and Dwalin grumbled over making camp, Thorin drifted away, and barely acknowledged her for the rest of the afternoon and into the night. He and Dwalin had their little fire again after the other dwarves were long asleep, and Balin joined, but there was no music that night.

Morning brought better prospects. Meisar had gone to Amon Sul again, at daybreak, while the dwarves still slept, and found that the smoke had cleared over the village, and no ominous packs made dust anywhere from there to the horizon.

The caravan moved again, after they had broken their fast on thick-cut bacon and blueberry cakes served from Urdlaug's wagon. The sky was placid and endless. On the air was a dry scent of grass and parched earth. The wind was an easterly wind, worrying Meisar for it brought no smoke signals or the scent of orc from the west for the dogs to detect. Nonetheless, the company seemed in good spirits. It would have to hold them, for now.

They met a stream a few leagues ahead, and they decided to stop and bathe there.

The sound of splashing and peals of laughter caught in the hazy afternoon, while the animals sunned onshore. The men went to one side of a thicket of tree-branches dipping into the water. Their clothes were tossed off in haphazard piles and they thundered in, slapping naked backs, pelting each other with their soaps, and splashing mightily.

More daintily than otherwise, the dwarrowdams sorted their supply of soaps, towels and hair-combs. Layer after layer they shed, until sunlight met skin at last, and underneath it all they were mostly the same- sweaty and sore.

Clothes and hair-beads were shed and deposited in hollows between the rocks. Meisar's over-tunic, her jerkin and long skirt and the braies she wore beneath were shucked off with uncanny relief, against the summer heat. She stored her garments close to the shore, stepping naked into the cool stream. She could feel the eyes of the dwarrowdams on her, checking her up and down, and they found she was little and hairy in all the places they were, except for her face.

She sunk into the stream neck deep and dipped her head back in the water. When she surfaced, Emli shot a sliver of soap her way. "It has a minty scent. But don't eat it. It tastes terrible, not at all like mint."

Thorin was the last into the water keeping a cool watch over the company. He washed intently, enveloped in the relieving chill of the water. Bofur tossed soap at him. He scrubbed at his chest and his back and lathered the hair at his underarms, scouring the earthy odour from himself. He washed his long hair in the cool water, massaging his scalp and keeping the tangles at bay as best he could with his fingers. The water relaxed his muscles, so much as they could be.

A large rock planted in the center of the stream further shielded the men and women from each other's sight, though much ribaldry went on between them. It was a sign of their unbroken spirits, however small. With the afternoon sun glinting down in approval, many a giggling dwarrowdam ribbed at the men, who were climbing in various states of undress onto the rock to tease back at them. Urdlaug shielded her sisters' eyes and brayed orders at them to go about their business. Meanwhile, Nori and Ori laid low in the rocks, about to commandeer a raid. While the dwarrowdams tried to move the men from the rock by pelting them with mud-balls and stones, the two went stealthily into the rocks and collected up the women's clothing. All the while Dori stayed behind and huffled and puffled about the impropriety of it all, keeping himself well-concealed up to his shoulders in the stream, until Dwalin came along and dunked him. It was one of the lighter moments the company had experienced since Ered Luin.

They had made off with an armful of garments each before Meisar emerged, wrapped a rough-spun towel, and trotted uselessly to chase them off. "Boys, stay to your side!" Her voice rumbled like a rather stern warning but when she turned around Thorin could see was smiling. She had good teeth, small teeth like pearls, and for a moment, he thought she might have laughed.

"Let us show them the meaning of foul play," Freyda challenged, and went up onto the shore to dress. Dwalin caught a glimpse of her strong, round buttocks and legs like tree trunks and dipped back into the water to hide the distraction at his loins.

Ori and Nori, and now Bofur barreled around the corner and littered the surface of the water with female clothing. Before any could rescue their garments all were in the stream and the men were on the shore laughing as the little hairy women dove and waded about the sopping flotilla of clothes.

As the afternoon went on, seemingly endless, the women trod about in the long tunics and under-coats yielded to them by the men, shaking out and beating upon wet clothes as if to brutalize them into drying. Meisar was cool and wet and sat alone. Loose strands of sopping red hair clung to her cheeks while she struggled to re-braid it properly. She looked over at Thorin, fully dressed again. She studied his layers, behind a curtain of half-undone hair. His outer coat and the sleeveless patterned surcoat he wore beneath, followed by the inner doublet, a layer of mail, and finally his knee-length tunic, belted at the waist in a handsome silver and mithril belt. He wore heavy boots with the worn doeskin breeches tucked inside them.

"Aren't you a bit warm?" Bofur called out. He was garbed in only his breeches, bracers and the long-sleeved top of his smallclothes, Brynja in her only dry garment, a sleeveless linen shift. Thorin looked up when Meisar did, catching the reddening of her cheeks when they met each other's eyes over Brynja and Bofur's heads.

Thorin's hair was gathered in a messy tail, and he was braiding the locks that hung loose in front at his temples, intently. Meisar studied the solid curve of his neck, dusted in hair halfway down his throat, and the thick fingers that threaded hair carefully, weaving tight plaits that were perfectly even.

She was warm, even as the sun began to sink slowly away from its high spot in the sky. It was an invisible heat, one that seemed to come from within, as unfamiliar as an untraveled land, and she shifted un-eased about in the grass. Dwalin was watching her too intently for her comfort. But when Freyda came about with her legs bare to the knee, his attention drifted away from Meisar, to her relief.

Her taciturn expression softened a bit against the glow of sun. She crossed her legs at the calves and slid a toe through the grass. Her feet were very small and pale, almost too small for her frame. Thorin studied the hasty, uneven ridges of the long plaits, which were as uncomplicated as his own, not like the intricate, adorned tresses many of them wore. Ori fixed the elaborate structures of braids his brothers sported, at the cost of his own jagged pudding bowl coiffure, and Emli was in constant maintenance of Gimli's beard and waist-long red hair that made him look so much like his father. Gimli, for his part, helped Oin care for his, seeing as his uncle was nearly deaf and slightly arthritic. Brynja, who could never stop touching Bofur's hair in the first place, made a public ritual of brushing and braiding it, at night and morning both, as courting dwarves would. Gyda and Freyda, both alone, minded each other's. And the brood of Bombur, with their efficient braiding circle, were always yowling and grunting and whining as they tugged mercilessly at each other's heads and chins. All of the dwarves in their caravan had someone to braid their hair, whether sweetheart or kin. Except the two of them.

Thorin tilted his head upward toward the sun and absorbed its warmth. Beside him, Dwalin watched Freyda practice her swings on the grass, bearing forth her battle-axe that bore her signature runes at its handle. Freyda, like Dwalin, was tall for a dwarf and fierce to look upon. Her beard, pale ashen blonde like her hair, extended in fluffy wisps halfway down her jawline and was decorated with clasps of bronze and sterling silver that clinked harshly when she moved.

Watching her was the first he had taken his eyes from Thorin. He looked at her as Thorin had not seen him look at a woman. That particular look was reserved for a plate of cookies, or so he thought until Freyda the iron-smith was spinning on her heels against the inertia of her ax.

He looked for Meisar and squinted at her, walking up and down the water's edge with her hounds circling about on a set of tracks. "Smells of orc, do it?" Freyda questioned between warrior-grunts that could rival Dwalin's in depth.

"Smells of something no good," Meisar furrowed her brow in Freyda's direction. When she neared Freyda tossed her a sheathed sword, which she caught by the handle. "Keeps the arms strong. If it smells of orc, ye best learn to fight," she said. Meisar raised the too-big sword. "I can fight, and we best get on the move, Freyda," Meisar advised, eyes narrowed in worry.

"Look lively, Shepherdess," she grinned at Meisar, heartily.

She turned around to see that Thorin and Dwalin were watching them.

"My king, Mister Dwalin," she muttered. Dwalin took a quick glance over the women's weapons and crossed his arms over his chest, skeptically. "No real need to for those, lass. It's unlikely they'll ever see battle."

"War is not the province of dwarrowdams, tis true," Meisar interjected as Freyda made indignant eyes at Dwalin. "But a strange beast is kindled when a dwarf-woman is comfortably armed, and threatened with danger."

Thorin nodded tacitly. But Meisar, like Dwalin, was suddenly without a hint of humor. "I would be grateful for any weapon I had at my disposal. They have served me well, and the dwarves I take east," she asserted.

"And you have used them?" Dwalin questioned, earnestly. "It would be just our luck," sighed Freyda.

"Foul happenings have crept out of the dark corners of the world. Even a king will need more than luck to keep them at bay," Meisar returned the sword to Freyda.

Freyda stepped forward and presented Dwalin with her ax for inspection. "This, Mister Dwalin, I made by my own hand. If my life depends on it, it ought be suitable for battle." "Let's see its worth," Dwalin challenged. Freyda was already smiling, her two front teeth turned in slightly. Dwalin drew his ax.

"We should be on our way," Meisar muttered, concernedly. "There is no time for sport."

Freyda held her own against Dwalin, so fiercely it seemed momentarily to frighten the hardened warrior dwarf. Her eyes were blue flames, berserker.

"You look surprised, my king," he heard Meisar observe quietly. Thorin turned his head toward her to see her heavy eyes lift in a wistful stare toward the sparring dwarves.

"Surprised? No. It is just that I have not seen Dwalin treat with a woman before." He flinched as Dwalin narrowly missed a blow of Freyda's ax on the back of his shoulder. "Or face such an ardent sparring partner."

"Freyda is not one to cross. Even for him, I dare say."

"I would not have expected it, but there are many things I did not expect, my lady."

It became obvious Dwalin's admiration her pale hair and finely decorated beard, and the strength of limb she displayed with pride. He could conceal many of his thoughts, especially the ill ones, but not so much the things that pleased him. For Dwalin, that had mostly consisted of killing orcs and baked goods. Good, he thought. Dwalin could use a hearty woman. Maybe it would distract him from other things.

"Aye, we have found ourselves in some unexpected company, and I am glad for it… even yours," Meisar continued. She dared only such mild cheek.

"Are you saying you do not find me agreeable?" he responded gruffly, but when she snapped around red-faced to see him, there was a hint of a smile. She hadn't realized how much she had longed for that smile, until it was there, and gone again so quickly.

"My king…" She stuttered and then half-chuckled. The stubborn lines at the corners of her eyes deepened when she laughed. She looked older than she was anyway, but her smile, a rare sight, outshined her weary visage.

"Meisar, I…" his voice went from steady and deep to utter silence.

"Milord?"

"It is nothing, dunininh," he said quickly, brusquely.

She held her gaze stiffly at him, let herself study him. His face was not as creased or dour as she would have expected, from a dwarf who had shouldered so much. His skin was strangely smooth for a dwarf of his age and bearing, and his beard covered chin and cheek fully but it was short. She would have thought it grown to a goodly length by now being nearly two centuries of age. But she did not ask. There were many things she had endeavored not to ask him.

He was handsome though. Striking and regal, and as solid, and frozen, as ice.

Dwalin wiped the sweat from his head and shared a water skin with Freyda. He belched and turned toward Meisar, her eyes still fixed.

"What do you look at?"

"Long nights and places for foul things to hide."

"Aye," Dwalin sighed.

Meisar sighed with a cold eye at the horizon. "At least we are in agreement of that."

They moved when Meisar finally insisted they get on their way. They crossed over the open plain beyond the small interruption of woods and water where they had rested. Rocks thrust up from the earth created stone fingers pointed upward at the sky, still blue and boundless. The road was quiet but not for long. Soon there were men and women on horseback, looking distressed. A family passed on a wagon, forlorn children covered in ash. Soon more country folk straggled out along the road, weeping women with children clinging to them and men in various states of injury.

Thorin stopped, and flagged down a man who was on foot. He was long missing an eye and his hand was wrapped in bloody linen. "Good sir, what has happened?" Dwalin and Meisar fell back in deference behind him. Their three ponies were startled by the braying of four wretched nags, who were hauling an open cart. In its bed were a dozen deceased men, women and children. There was nothing to cover them with. "The village was attacked by orcs," said the man.

"We slaughtered the pack. But do not expect safe passage," a younger and much burlier man told them. He was covered in black blood up to his elbows.

"Speak plainly. What do you mean?" The man gave Thorin a withering glare.

"A few escaped. No telling where they've got or if they have friends they're bringing back with them. We're not sticking around to find out."

Meisar tipped her head to the passing men, Thorin bristling beside her. "We are ripe for attack. Slow moving target," growled Dwalin.

"Then we must keep moving," insisted Meisar. "We can clear these open plains before dark, make for the forests, if we move at speed."

"Have there been attacks like this before? Meisar?"

She didn't answer. "What does it matter? There's been attacks now," Dwalin half-hissed. It matters, Thorin's head raced at him, blocking out Dwalin's grousing. I know not how but it does.

"There used to be many trolls in these parts. Not orcs," Meisar said finally, contemplatively. Her voice, low and unassuming as it was, snapped him back to the present.

"But so few trolls now." A hint of melancholy was in her tone. "You say it as if it were a bad thing, so few trolls," Dwalin snorted.

"I heard a rumor," she said. "That there were goblin hordes in the mountains, driving the trolls underground, to labor in the tunnels. They say they are harnessed like oxen and labor until they die."

"Labor at what? They were vanquished at the battle of-" Dwalin stopped himself.

"What any vanquished race would do- replenish."

III

By the time they found a halfway suitable place to make camp it was already dark. There were no fires and no supper. "Mahal let the sun rise tomorrow," she prayed quietly to herself. The watch was tripled. The dwarves lay down in shifts for sleep but it came to none. By the second turn of watch, pure exhaustion overcoming fear, all but Virta had fallen asleep at their posts, as Urdlaug's snores rumbled deep into the forest.

IV

"Du Bekar! Du Bekar!"

A woman's voice was screaming in the night in the old tongue. To arms.

Thorin woke with a start and there was a terrible pressure on his neck, grinding into his skin without mercy. A foot. Nasty and malevolent a limb, it pinned him. He heard the sound of bastardized Elvish, a single beady eye glaring down at him.

"Dwarf scum." A blade flashed and the one-eyed orc stood over Thorin with bloody cleaver raised. It gargled in its native tongue, a rotten grin upon its face.

Suddenly Dwalin was hurtling toward him, blocked by a pair of orcs which he slashed at with his axes in a fine berserker rage. "I should like his head!" came a separate ugly squeal, beside the orc that was readying to bring the blade down upon Thorin. Four, four orcs. There had to be more. Thorin reeled helplessly against the foot on his throat. "Hold still, or it'll be two swings. Maybe more!" came the repulsive tongue again.

An ax bluntly cut into the night air and landed squarely in the head of the orc pinning him. The weight released from his throat and he gasped as the orc buckled and tumbled down into the grass, mercifully dead, too mercifully. The ax had hit it square in the forehead, a throw was one of practiced ease, clean and precise in spite of the ferocity from which it had seemed to leave the assailant's hand. Black blood rained down on Thorin. Another orc fell, and with all its dead weight now laying prone upon Thorin's body, he was pinned effectively again. He thundered at his immobility as he heard the dwarves, male and female together, unleashing harsh battle cries into the night, and the screams of the orcs. He heard the clang of a frying pan and the crack of a skull. He heard roars as limbs were severed and high-pitched yelps as blades punctured ribs and lungs.

Of all the dwarves, it was Meisar who came and plucked the ax from the mangled skull of the orc and fell to Thorin's side. She called out for Dwalin to help move the dead orc from the king but he was occupied fending off an onslaught of three more.

"Shield him! With your life, lass!" he heard Dwalin roar at her. Grasper and Keeper issued simultaneous blows to the attackers surrounding him. Ori was near; the twang of his slingshot and a high whinny as an eye was gouged repeated twice over.

The half-dead orc that had laid mangled upon the grass sprung up again suddenly, causing Meisar to drop the full weight of dead orc back upon Thorin as it lunged for her. The awful squelch and snap of metal cutting bone and sinew assaulted Thorin's ears. He saw a chunk of the orc's head roll and it let him know she was the one still alive.

Two more orcs were upon them in a moment's time. A curved blade whistled toward Meisar's neck while she struggled again to move the orc from Thorin's body. It nicked her skin before Bifur leapt into the fray and drove a spear into its skull.

"His head! Bring his head!" Separate voices now rushed in, as did a clash of metal and bone. More black blood rained down on Thorin before the orc could claim his prize. Bofur and Bifur rammed a set of spears into its back simultaneously, sending the orc's arm reeling back as its nerves fried from spine and outward. Caught in its path, Meisar was flung off the ground and into the rock face. She hit the ground ragged as a paper-kite in a gale.

Then fell a sickening silence except for Dwalin's grunting as he hacked the heads from the last of them, and Bombur's daughters finishing one off with cooking ware. He heard the familiar frightened cries of the younger girls, and would have taken them into his arms himself to protect and comfort them, had he not been so helpless. It raged at him ,uselessly. A heavy, uneasy quiet returned to the night, thick with fear and trepidation.

Dwalin fell on his knees beside Thorin, checking him for severed appendages or great fountains of exsanguination. This time he found none, though Thorin was silent and dazed beneath a putrid, smearing layer of orc blood. "My king!" Dwalin thundered. "Awake! Speak now!"

He could hear Eda and Oin rushing in, the healers crying out his name. Dizzily, Thorin's rolled his head away and to his side. Meisar splayed out in the ground close to him, spattered in all manner of foul fluid, caused a swell of bile to rise in his throat. He glanced the severed orc head lying dispiritedly in the grass beside him. A great fragment of the skull was missing; brains that smelled of rotting meat unfurled into the earth. Dwalin shook him. His voice and the visage of Meisar spun before Thorin's eyes. Black blood ran in many tiny inlets through her hair.

His head spun and he could see neither her nor Dwalin any longer.