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Chapter Sixteen # With or Without You #
For a moment after darkness engulfed Goblin Town Thorin thought that he had lost consciousness, but that theory was quickly dismissed both by the fact that he was thinking about it and by the piercing squeals and squawks of the goblins that were assaulting his ears.
"What is this?" The Great Goblin demanded furiously from somewhere in the gloom, and Thorin's confusion grew.
"Your malevolence, the torches are out!" One particularly observant goblin screeched, and the Great Goblin's reply chilled Thorin to the core.
"Well don't just stand there! Re-light them - and get that dwarf onto the Bone Breaker now!"
Thorin lunged forward at Kíli's strangled cry of fear, but his nephew was lost to him in the pitch black and he staggered into nothing.
A flash of blue eyes drew his attention to where the Great Goblin stood, and Thorin watched with wide eyes as the tip of a long, glowing sword appeared with a sickening squelch, having been thrust through the vile king.
The wicked creature squawked in agony and the ruckus of the goblins increased as a familiar voice barked out.
"Take your weapons and follow me, quickly!"
Thorin had never been more relieved to see - or rather hear - Gandalf, but he did not dwell on his relief, instead snatching up Orcrist and running to the sound of Kíli's struggle. He raised his hands like a dwarfling playing blind-man's bluff in case he accidently struck his nephew. The first figure he felt had no hair at all, and he promptly punched it in the face, sick satisfaction filling his mind as he heard the creature fall screeching from the edge of the platform.
He heard the others begin to follow Gandalf, and he heard the scraping of weapons being snatched from the floor but Thorin refused to concentrate on those, instead feeling for the next goblin and landing a punch that broke the beast's jaw. This time his opponent fought back, swinging blinding and scratching Thorin across the neck.
The king-in-exile stumbled forward clumsily, tripping over a lump that yelped in a familiar voice. Standing up, Thorin drew a glowing Orcrist, swinging it in a clean arch through the air that sliced through the necks of Kíli's remaining captors now that he knew his nephew was below him.
In the dim light brought by his sword's blue blade, he saw the company leaving the platform, with Fíli and the burglar fighting to make it back to Kíli. To Thorin's relief, Dwalin, Balin and Glóin appeared to be managing to restrain a ferocious Fíli, while Dori had slung the positively viscous hobbit over his shoulder, quite literally kicking and screaming.
Thorin reached down and began to pull Kíli up himself, wincing when the boy screamed and fought him.
"It's me, Kíli, it's Thorin." He insisted, putting Kíli on his feet as gently as he could.
Instantly, Kíli stopped struggling and Thorin tore after the company, Orcrist in his right hand and Kíli's arm in his left. As they left the platform lights began to appear, the goblins having started to light the torches again, and Thorin ran as fast as he could.
Luckily, Kíli still seemed to have enough strength and wits to run, and Thorin quickly pushed him into the centre of the group, taking up the rear himself. Proud of the way the company tightened around their injured member, Thorin slashed at any goblins who came too close, the adrenalin fuelled rage of battle pouring through his veins, making him all but indestructible.
He noted Fíli tearing out of Dwalin's grip and taking Kíli's hand and Thorin's heart tugged painfully in a mixture of sorrow and pride as he realised how horribly familiar the situation was for his golden haired heir. Dori, on the other hand, did not let the hobbit down, and Thorin thought he saw Kíli laugh at the halfling's face for a moment.
A hand caught onto his tunic and Thorin whirled, beheading the orc grasping him and turning again to see Bilbo raise a hand to Kíli's bleeding cheek tenderly, even as they ran for their lives.
Guilt poked at Thorin's heart, and even as his mind was dominated by battle he knew that he had judged Bilbo Baggins too harshly. He had been jealous of the way that Bilbo had seen his nephew grow up, jealous of the way that Kíli's eyes lit up when he saw the hobbit after a parting of even minutes.
Thorin Oakenshield needed to apologise, and he knew it.
Still, Thorin had wanted the life of the burglar to be preserved - largely for Kíli's sake - and if he turned back he would have the best chance of survival. Yes, that would be his excuse. The burning of Thorin's cheeks had nothing to do with the heat of battle as he realised that he - the son of Thráin, son of Thrór - was making excuses.
In his distraction a goblin slipped past his guard, wrapping around Ori's legs. Cursing his own inattentiveness, Thorin stabbed the creature and pushed the youth along before he could fall, running harder and faster and forcing those in front of him to do the same.
His mind whirring into that of a leader, Thorin did a quick head count, noting that Dori still had the hobbit slung over his shoulder while they ran. The older, more experienced fighters had formed a ring around the company's more vulnerable members, Kíli and Fíli included.
Over the incessant screeches of the goblins, Thorin heard Bilbo's protests.
"Dori, put me down, I won't have you risking your life for me! Please, put me down right now, I can run!"
As they rounded a corner, Thorin saw Dori relent, and he saw Bilbo begin to run for himself.
Then he saw it happen, in a flash of violent motion that he very nearly missed.
One of the hundreds of goblins climbing up the walls of the goblin tunnels reached up and grabbed the company burglar in an attempt to full himself onto the path, flinging Bilbo backwards into the abyss to do so.
The hobbit's cry of shock and fear as he fell was bad enough, but it was followed by the most heart wrenching sound that Thorin had ever heard.
"No!" Kíli's scream tore from his throat uncontrollably as he turned, fighting his was towards the edge of the path like a wild cat. "No, no, Bilbo! Bilbo!"
Thorin watched in helpless horror as Fíli caught his brother, dragging him away from the edge.
"Get off me!" Kíli howled, far beyond the edge of reason. "Bilbo, Bilbo!"
The scene was heartbreakingly familiar to Thorin, who remembered pulling a wailing dwarfling away from a river that he planned on diving into after his brother.
"Kíli-" Fíli started, but as Thorin watched Kíli smashed his brother's long nose with his elbow, fighting frantically to return.
"Fíli let me go, let me go!" Kíli begged, before forcing another long scream from his throat. "Bilbo! No, Bilbo, no!"
The company had no choice but to keep moving, and Fíli picked his brother up to do so. Thorin watched, pain burning in his heart as Kíli screamed and begged and pleaded and cried.
The dwarf-king stared over the edge of the seemingly bottomless pit in grief and regret as he passed, though neither appeared on his face. Only a miracle could save the hobbit now, and a large part of Thorin prayed for any miracle that could ease Kíli's pain.
The goblins continued to gain on them but the dwarves continued to run, eventually running over a wooden bridge that broke beneath them, sending tem crashing down what felt like fifty feet. Thorin groaned as they collided with the floor but quickly dragged himself out from beneath the rubble, ensuring that that everyone was able to free themselves from the wood as easily, while Gandalf kindly informed them that only daylight could save them now.
"Thorin!"
The dwarf ran to his nephew's desperate call as soon as he saw Fíli trying to shift an enormous beam off of his own abdomen while Kíli shuddered beside him, his face buried in Fíli's chest.
Thorin heaved the beam up with all his might, freeing both of his sister-sons, though Fíli had to drag Kíli bodily back to his feet before the younger would move.
"Run!" Thorin ordered, pushing the lads in front of him, and to his relief Kíli's legs moved and gloriously daylight shone ahead.
Finally they poured out into the sun, running down the mountainside as fast as they could. Thorin was surprised to see that they had crossed right under the Misty Mountains, but they had barely got halfway down when Fíli's call from behind him stopped the company short.
"Thorin!"
He turned, swallowing at the sight.
Kíli had collapsed to the floor, his entire body shaking with sobs and his hands still entwined in his brother's. Fíli sank down next to him, wrapping his arms around Kíli silently, allowing his younger brother to wail into his chest.
The raw emotion swallowing Kíli was merciless, and Thorin had to blink tears from his own eyes as he watched the world crumble around Kíli's ears. He reminded himself that Master Baggins had played more than the role of simply 'father' to Kíli over the years. He had been everything to Kíli and now Kíli had lost that, and Thorin would waltz into Mordor to see it given back.
Gandalf came next to Thorin silently, his face pained as he observed the two youngest members of the company. "Oh, Kíli..."
The dark haired dwarf sobbed, his hands clutching Fíli's arm even tighter. The tremors wracking his body grew shorter and more intense and then he was howling at Thorin. "This is all your fault!"
Thorin recoiled but before he could so much as open his mouth, Kíli was screaming at him again.
"We were fine before you came along, fine! But you had to come and be… He didn't..."
Thorin stepped forward but Kíli crumpled, fresh horror dawned on his face.
"He didn't even want to come...This is all my fault... He didn't want to come, if it wasn't for me... He'd be safe if..."
"This isn't your fault, Kíli." Fíli murmured before Thorin could, stroking Kíli's hair gently. "This isn't your fault. Breathe, Kíli..."
A fresh keening sob broke free from Kíli's lips and he seemed to give up control of his limbs entirely as he went completely limp in his brother's arms, his only movement from the now silent sobs that wracked both his own body and his brother's.
After a few moments, Thorin took a few hesitant steps towards his nephews, crouching down before them and allowing all the grief and guilt he felt to flood his expression. "Kíli... Kíli lad, I'm so sorry. I am truly sorry."
Kíli sobbed but nodded, barely responding when Thorin put a hand on his shoulder.
"Gandalf, can we rest here a while?" the uncle all but begged.
"By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs..." The wizard said regrettably, before pausing. "We can wait until nightfall, but then we must move."
Thorin nodded tightly. "What happened to you, may I ask?"
"I had no desire to fall of a mountain, Thorin Oakenshield, and so I was forced to jump onto another stretch of more stable road. By the time I caught up with you, you were in Goblin Town." The wizard explained a good deal more wearily than how he usually spoke.
Silence descended upon the makeshift camp and Thorin sat next to his sister-sons, keeping a watchful eye on Kíli, who snapped at Óin childishly when the healer drew closer to look at his wounds. Thorin signalled for Óin to leave the boy a while and the old healer nodded remorsefully.
After a few minutes the desperate sobs ceased and Thorin took a closer look at Kíli. His innocent nephew was as pale as a corpse, and he rocked back and forth slightly in Fíli's arms, staring into space with blank eyes.
Dori approached him quietly. "Kíli, lad, I'm so sorry...if I'd of know that... I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault." Kíli mumbled as if in a dream, his eyes still staring into space.
His shirt lay tattered around his waist, leaving his back bare and his wounds open and glaring.
"I don't blame you."
Dori just nodded and backed away to give Kíli space, and Thorin ran a hand through his hair, before shrugging off his heavy furs and going to drape them over Kíli. When Fíli tried to give him the space to do so, however, Kíli just moaned and pulled him closer. Thorin draped the cloak over both of them instead, allowing Fíli to properly cover his brother.
Then Thorin dropped his head in his hands, and remembered.
He remembered receiving news of his grandfather's murder at the hands of Azog. He remembered fighting in a battle he was far too young to fight, and he remembered losing Frerin in the fray. He remembered running through hundreds of corpses towards a lake where he knew his brother would be. He remembered finding his brother's body, still warm and soaked with blood. He remembered cradling Frerin close, wailing, rocking his baby brother's broken body back and forth and back and forth as the most intense pain he had ever experienced devoured his heart.
He remembered wearily journeying to the Blue Mountains and forging a new home for his displaced people, all the while little more than a child himself. He remembered seeing off his father's attempt to reclaim Erebor, and he remembered Dwalin and Balin returning in defeat, without their king. He remembered the pain he felt losing his father...
He remembered Dis and her husband introducing Fíli and the light that the little boy brought into the world. He remembered the vet day Kíli was born, and he remembered fighting with the boys' father in a skirmish only five years later. He remembered holding his brother in law until he slept for the last time. He remembered telling Dis that her husband was dead and her boys were fatherless, he remembered the funeral and his sister's pain.
He remembered losing Kíli, and he remembered losing Fíli too, for a long while. He remembered making his decision to reclaim Erebor, and he remembered Fíli convincing first Thorin and then Dis to let him come. He remembered the fury he felt when Bilbo Baggins accused him of killing Kíli.
Thorin knew that the ghostly pain accompanying his memories and the ever throbbing pain of losing Frerin, his father and his grandfather was nothing compared to the fresh agony Kíli must have been feeling.
"Thorin..." Gandalf's voice snapped him out of his self-piteous reverie. "Dusk is closing in; it would be most wise to move while we still can."
Thorin nodded, getting to his feet reluctantly, rousing every other member of the company before he reached the brothers.
Dwalin gave him a grim nod, though Balin's nod was accompanied by a look of heavy sorrow.
Bifur was standing suspiciously close to Bofur as if the younger miner was leaning on his axe ridden cousin. Bofur seemed to have tear tracks down his cheeks, but knowing of the miner's friendship with the hobbit and having witnessed their final conversation, Thorin did not comment, instead murmuring quietly that they needed to move now. Bofur nodded with a sigh and a glance back up at the mountains, and Bombur joined him with a sorrowful look on his round face.
Dori was still pale, with guilt etched into his face as clearly as his nose, but he got up soon enough, helping up Ori who had not even pretended to wipe away his tears. Nori's expression was unreadable to Thorin, but that was nothing new. He looked solemn enough, but that was the only thing that Thorin could judge from his face.
Glóin was grimacing as stood, looking at Óin and exchanging glances of bitter grief - though their grief was neither as strong nor as painful as that of those that had known him better.
Finally, Thorin reached Fíli and Kíli. Fíli looked up at his uncle's arrival, tears sticking his hair to his face and reddening his cheeks, and he gently nudged Kíli.
"We have to go now..."
Kíli shook his head slightly, leaving his face buried in Fíli's chest.
"Kíli..."
Slowly, Fíli's brother stirred, his movements slow and cumbersome as he unwrapped his arms from his brother, turning to Thorin and asking in a low voice that barely sounded his own. "What will they do to his body? If they find it?"
Thorin swallowed. "Kíli..."
"Please..." Kíli whispered, his hollow eyes flickering up to meet Thorin's.
"I do not know." Thorin lied roughly.
He could not tell Kíli that his guardian's body would likely be stripped and devoured. Some things were better left unknown.
Kíli bowed his head, his voice cracking pleadingly. "I can't leave him here..."
"I am so sorry, Kíli." Thorin whispered, automatically embracing his nephew briefly.
To his shock, Kíli hugged him back for a brief second, before his arms fell limp to his sides. With a heavy heart, Thorin began to lead the company down the mountain, well aware of the gathering darkness.
"Wait! Wait!"
Thorin paused at the voice, certain that he was imagining things, but when he turned he indeed saw the hobbit racing down the hill towards them.
"Wait for me!"
As Thorin watched, Kíli's mouth fell open and he recoiled slightly, before apparently being convinced by this strange apparition.
"Bilbo? Bilbo!"
As Thorin watched, the hobbit reached the company and was promptly snatched by Kíli, who ran his hands over Bilbo's hair and face as if assuring himself that his hobbit was genuine, before pulling the hobbit into a crushing hug.
While Bilbo wrapped his arms around Kíli, Thorin saw his nephew fall limp like a child, melting into the embrace of his father figure. Confused but relieved and strangely happy, Thorin watched the hobbit chuckle softly; stroking Kíli's hair gently and holding the young dwarf close.
"My dear Bilbo, I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life!" Gandalf chuckled, and Thorin watched Bilbo smile at the wizard over Kíli's shoulder, leaning in slightly to rest his cheek on Kíli's hair.
The young dwarf's face remained buried in Bilbo's neck as the hobbit spoke wearily. "I could say the same thing to all of you."
"Whatever happened to you?" Gandalf frowned and Bilbo sighed heavily.
"The drop was shorter than I expected, and quite luckily I landed on some interesting looking mushroo-"
A howl tore through the air and Thorin snapped into action, making sure to speak in a soft tone. "It is a story we all want to hear, Master Baggins, but first we must get out of here!"
"Gladly." Bilbo replied, still returning Kíli's embrace.
Thorin whirled around and began to run down the hill before stopping himself short, deciding to take up the rear again. After checking that everyone else was in front of him, Thorin finally chased them down the hill, a few wargs coming too close to him and Orcrist.
"It's a dead end!" Nori yelled, and Gandalf replied in Thorin's stead.
"Up the trees, climb, quickly!"
Thorin was quick to second that argument, and as he watched his people needed no more convincing. Nori used Dwalin's head as a stepping stone to fly into the trees and Bifur and Bofur helped Bombur up. Fíli scrambled up the nearest tree to himself, craning his neck to ensure that Bilbo and Kíli were coming. Thorin was unsure if Kíli was dragging Bilbo or Bilbo was dragging Kíli, but somehow the pair managed to get up into the tree without even letting go of each other. In fact, it looked like Kíli was able to give Bilbo a little smile…
Ori and Dori clambered up into a tree with Óin and Glóin, and then Thorin himself joined Balin and Dwalin in the same tree as Gandalf, and they waited for their attackers to catch up.
And then Thorin saw him and his blood ran cold.
"Azog…"
Well I hope that wasn't too anti-climactic… I was going to have Bilbo's survival revealed in the next chapter but I felt bad for Kíli! This was written pretty quickly and on a bus ride as well so I hope it's good for you, and I hope I got some of Thorin's internal struggle in here.
I think I like this chapter but it's not my best. I know it's pretty angst heavy right now so I'm sorry if that's not really your thing :(
He's going to try to like Bilbo, if he ever gets out of this skirmish with Azog…
I went for a bit of the book verse here in Goblin town and I hope you enjoyed it!
Leave a review if you fancy, I love everyone that I get!
