Chpater 4: Of steel and lesser metals
The winter was a wretched one, snow had begun to fall the day after they had left Archet for Whitewater Bridge and sometimes Boromir thought it had never stopped ever since. When they had left Whitewater the two young dwarves had found their hideout near Watchill occupied by a band of men and barred to them for this winter. Kili and Fili had taken this turn of events with a quiet acceptance that did not fit their characters otherwise. But in the weeks past Boromir had already learned that the brothers were good at keeping their temper in check and their heads down while in the settlements of men.
It was something Boromir found painful to watch. The brothers' skills as blacksmiths were always asked for, they could repair tools as well as craft blades or make horseshoes, and their work granted them permission to enter most settlements and villages. But that was all the welcome they could expect, they remained strangers expected to leave once work was complete and scorned for not belonging anywhere. Both were smart enough to know this. They usually camped outside the villages, keeping their presence among those they worked for at a minimum. Still it was painful to see how their usually open and cheerful selves vanished behind the subdued façade they wore when around men.
Until he came here Boromir had always assumed that Kili's stoic silence and calm had been the result of the horrific loss of his brother. Now he saw where Kili had learned that trait, where he had learned to not hear insults and take scorn with such utter silence. Sometimes Boromir was glad that hunting for food took so much time, he found it hard to not put some of these arrogant hill people down to teach them a lesson.
With their hideout taken the brothers had quickly resolved that it would be best to keep moving. There were a number of settlements up north, within the reaches of Carn Dum, not exactly nice people but they did hold winter markets and would gladly allow a blacksmith about even in the cold times. What they said proved true enough, though being on the road all winter was hard, even with their combined skills in surviving off the land. Boromir kept to hunting and the brothers were able to make a fire no matter how badly frozen the firewood was, so they neither starved nor froze. Still Boromir could see how much strength those long winter wanderings took out of his two friends. He had to be careful to not show his concern too openly, or Kili would pick up on it. "Don't worry it's not so bad," the young dwarf had told him after the first snowstorm. "as a matter of fact it is worse, but we still laugh a lot." Surviving on a fire and a few songs was an art those two had mastered definitely.
Around the elven New Year their travels had led them to a hidden settlement not that far away from the Ettenmoors. It was the first time Boromir saw a Dunedain settlement, hidden in the last reaches of the mountains. It was the first place where his presence garnered them open suspicion. All other people they had encountered so far might have speculated what the brothers did to keep him around, sometimes with truly lurid suggestions but had cared less what a mercenary, and that was what he was believed to be most of the time, would want with two dwarfs. The Dunedain had the keener eye, recognizing him as someone who, like themselves, was of Numenóran ancestry and became quickly distrustful. The debate had ended when Kili had told the leader of the settlement that either they accepted Boromir's presence or all three of them would leave and the Dunedain could wait for another blacksmith to repair their weapons and armor.
They had stayed five days in that place, the brothers having their hands full with work and Boromir gladder than ever that hunting took him out of the camp for hours at a time. While things had annoyed him so far, he had kept telling himself that the hill people were simply crude folk, men of lesser ancestry and could hardly be expected to show some noble spirit. Seeing the Dunedain here made things worse, while they would surely not use crude words or lurid suggestions about the three, they treated the dwarfs with a cool distance that made quite clear that their opinion of the wandering dwarfs was not very high either.
On that evening Fili had joined him, helping him with the fire where the young wild boar he had shot was roasting. "You were used to better, were you?" he asked, putting down a few large chunks of firewood.
"It's not that," Boromir replied. "I hate how they treat you. They should be glad you even came here, most common blacksmiths could not do half the work you do, you repair tools, mend pots and you repair swords and armor as well, better than many a smith of men I have seen… and they treat you like you are beggars on the road."
The older dwarven brother actually clasped Boromir's shoulder with his strong hand. "Meaning, yes." He said, a bit of sadness in his eyes. "It's not half as bad with you around. All your hunting alone made this year easy on us and… with you near we didn't get accused for every theft and thievery that happened while we stayed. Nice change to not get the lashes for it."
The statement left Boromir shocked for words, whenever Kili had ever spoken of his wandering years it had been more about the lands he had crossed, about working in the quarries when the Paros bridges had been built and being a bladesmith in the warcamps outside of Dol Amroth on the eve of another Umbar campaign, making horseshoes in Rohan, he had never spoken of the pettiness he had experienced, or the cold that met the wanderers. Suddenly Boromir remembered that evening in Ithilien after the battles. Kili had rather been willing to humble himself and kneel to Dáin, than let his people go back to life on the road. He had known all too well what it had meant.
"… Dwalin, is a mercenary." He heard Fili say. "He will be sure able to help you to get in with their crowd, there is always work to be found for a sharp blade."
"No." Boromir returned the gesture, clasping Fili's shoulder with his hand. "I am where I want to be, Fili and I won't wander off." Only now he realized that Kili had joined them as well, the wordless hug from both brothers said more than any well-chosen sentence could have conveyed.
Their wanderings had continued through most of the winter, until they had arrived in Bree again in early march. Snow was finally melting and the roads were a deep murk. The gates of Bree were opened during midday; the village was brimming with a number of strangers on that new spring day. "Look who it is!" A deep voice called out, as they passed through. Turning around Boromir saw figure with the first shadows of a respectable black beard among some packhorses, it took him a second glance to recognize Brea, daughter of Briga, who had called out to Kili and Fili.
The brothers greeted their fellow dwarf heartily. "You are out early, Brea." Fili said. "you usually don't leave before the roads are dry again."
The dwarven trader laughed. "Maybe I promised a poor mother to leave a message for her wayward boys." She said with a wink. "And there'll be a southern ship down at old Tharbad port by April and I have wares to trade." Her expression got more serious. "Something has your Lady Mother truly worried this time, you rascals. And she is not one to worry easily, or she'd be all grey with the two of you. Make sure you get back uphill and look after her, will you?"
"Promise, Brea." Kili said. "We were on our way back anyway."
"Good, I'd hate for Lady Dis to be distressed." Brea reminded them. "And Fili, you remember that stuff you buried three years ago? Dig it up and make use of it now, rumor has it there's a time coming for that."
Only when they parted ways Boromir noticed that Brea had not inquired about him at all. Even with all her light-hearted and direct treatment of the brothers, she did not resume to question their doings beyond delivering a scolding from their mother. "What did she mean with digging up what you buried?" he asked as they turned north, towards the Ered Luin.
Kili made a face. "Three years ago Brea ago attacked by a gang of robbers. Orcs mostly, we happened to be close at hand and helped out. But their leader…" He did not go on, clearly uneasy with the subject.
"Their leader was a dwarf," Fili interjected. "Stiffbeard by the looks of him, I called him out and put an end to his robbery days. He had some valuable possessions, along with some gold. But this one here.." he lightly poked his brother. "would not hear of us taking any blood-gold."
"It was Orc gold, Fili." Kili defended himself. "And who knows whom he all robbed to attain so much? We don't need that kind of coin."
"Eventually Kili agreed to let me burry it, in case we really hit a hard spot one day." Fili went on. "I don't know what Brea meant, though. If mother was not well she'd have told us straight away and probably told us to find our Uncle as soon as possible."
"She must have had a reason to say so," Boromir pointed out. The Brea he remembered was a level-headed dwarf, always planning three steps ahead and usually well prepared for all kinds of surprises fate might throw at her. She, like Fili and Kili too, belonged to the generation that had been orphaned with the battle of Azanulbizar.
"It is blood money, Boromir." Kili looked up at him with absolute conviction. "this dwarf used Orcs and some vile men to rob and pillage, not speaking of worse. Who knows whom all he hurt before Fili made an end to him? That coin is dirty; it was taken from his victims."
It was strange, back when they had first met, they had clashed over the question of some buried treasure in a ruin centuries old. "It is battlefield loot," Boromir pointed out, seeing that Fili did squirm a bit under his brother's fierce lashing out at the topic. "And it belongs to the victor. There's nothing dishonorable in that. And those these robbers killed… wouldn't they be glad to know it was taken by the one who avenged them?"
"We'll dig it up and then see what Brea was talking about." Fili decided as they went on. "Who knows what is happening at home."
Boromir had never seen the dwarven settlement in the Ered Luin, when the conquest of Moria began it had been all but abandoned with all the populace supporting the reclaiming of Dwarrowdelf. When they finally rode into the long stretching vale the waters of the lower Lune had cut into the mountains he was surprised to see two weathered stone statues greet them. Those figures depicted dwarven warriors but they were battered and broken, a third lay on the ground like some great upheaval had felled the mighty stone warrior long ago. It was impossible to decipher who they had been depicting, their faces were worn away by the wind and rain of many centuries. The road wound past the old figurines and towards a rock face at the end of the valley. "Welcome to the valley of Cardemir," Kili said with a small smile. "once known as the Katûb-Melhekhin Khuzdíl."
"The Home of the Dwarven Kings?" Boromir could hear that this was ancient Khuzdul, using a few forms that had fallen out of use, but the meaning of the line still remained. "Then this is the valley of Belegost?" The great dwarven Kingdom of the First Age was said to have been destroyed when Beleriand sank beneath the waves.
"It is indeed, the ancient ruins were where we began to make our new home." Kili explained. "It is an inhabited ruin essentially, but its home."
His words proved right quickly enough, because beyond the stone door that led into the mountain lay no regularly dwarven city, but first a patched bridge that led into a maze of ruins, cave-ins and new homes, strewn in between. Boromir had no doubts that two ages ago Belegost had been a splendid city, but now it was a crumbling ruin that made Moria look stable and orderly by comparison. Still the industrious dwarves had stemmed failing ceilings with new support beams, cleared away rubble and remade old homes for their use. The heavy smell of fires, furnaces and hot iron told Boromir also that the air shafts of the city could not be half as intact as Moria's.
The brothers led the way down a spiraling road that had mostly workshops left and right and while Boromir attracted a fair number of stares, no one asked questions, not even the patrol of two old warriors that passed them. The road took another turn and they crossed a mended bridge to reach a single home and forge sitting on a rock spire standing in a chasm. It was a dead end; to three sides a dark chasm surrounded this pinnacle. "Kili! Fili!" A figure emerged from the open workshop to greet them.
This time Boromir had a hard time not to stare. What he had known of Kili's mother, Princess Dis, had come from a handful stories and the song of Willow Tree. He had always imagined her as a Lady of the Dwarves, a Princess. He certainly had not expected a broad-shouldered person, short even for a dwarf, with wild dark hair and the entire stature of a blacksmith.
Dis embraced both of her boys in a fierce hug, holding them close, happy they had returned home. She had even darker hair than Kili but her eyes were the same shade of intense blue that Fili shared. "You look good for someone who had to traipse around Eriador all winter." She said with a broad smile. Her gaze fell on Boromir, then went back to her sons. "A new friend?"
"Yes," Kili answered. "Mother, this is Boromir, Boromir, Dis daughter of Thrain…"
Boromir bowed courteously, but Dis waved it off and clasped his hand firmly. "Welcome to Stormwyrd Hall, Boromir. You must be tired from the journey… no, don't lie, I know these two, the wild wind spirits must have been their cradle guardians the way the like to roam."
"I've yet to meet hardier travel companions," Boromir admitted, finding a way to turn it into compliment.
"Mother," Fili joined in. "how we met is a long story…"
Dis laughed heartily. "You know the rule, Fili; long stories are for after dinner. Show your friend where he can wash up and where he can rest. Unpack the horses before, though."
Stormwyrd Hall proved to be a maze of broken and fixed stone chambers. Most of the living rooms were below ground in the pillar, with the workshop above ground. The brothers shared a subterranean chamber at the dead end of a broken hallway, and Fili showed Boromir to a similar place opposite of theirs. The rooms were small, but the dwarves had managed to make them comfortable nevertheless. The chance alone to wash up and have a roof overhead was a luxury to be enjoyed.
That evening when they set in front of the roaring fire, Dis asked her sons to tell her the whole story. Boromir watched the brothers with their mother as they told the entire story. It was not a stark, short tale, both brothers animatedly and colorfully described the details from the moment they had met fighting the orcs, often they alternated between telling parts of the story. He had to admit, it took someone used to them to follow the whirlwind tale they made out of their meeting, Dis laughed more than once, often her questions would make her sons recount something in greater detail.
Eventually she asked Boromir and Kili to show her the marks on their arms. They complied and Dis examined them in great detail, paying close attention to the smallest detail. "There is little doubt," she eventually said, for a moment a sad glance touching her younger son. "this is a grave responsibility, Kili and expect you to live up to it." Then she looked at Boromir. "Your fate was sealed to our family's, you will be welcome here as long as Stormwyrd Hall abides."
The next morning brought another dwarf with a message for Dis before actual dawn could be up outside the underground city. Dis frowned hearing it. "I will have to see Gloin's wife," she told her sons. "She has not been well of late, not with losing her baby last autumn. I may send Gimli over for a while, if it is too bad." Swiftly Dis began to pack up a few things. "Kili, the forge is ready for you, you know what to do, Fili, it's axeblades for you. The steel is horrible, much of it was the worst orc junk; I already put it through the smelter and back into iron rods. But you'll have to do your own refining. But I saw you brought some good material on your ponies along with more Orc steel."
Her two sons laughed. "With no thanks to the orcs providing all the material." Fili remarked.
Dis shook her head. "Ranwen should come by today, bringing more iron junk," she said. "Boromir, when he does, have an eye on him. He thinks that he does not have to listen to anyone, and often is drunk when he should be working. Make him unload his cart and have him on his way without tarrying." With that Dis hurried out of the house to take care of one of her fellow dwarves.
Boromir accompanied the brothers to the forge, he could not do much more than take a sharpening stone and do weapon's maintenance, but he liked watching them work their craft when there was nothing else to do. This morning it was not long that they were joined by a young dwarf, a youth not yet grown into even a semblance of manhood. He had red hair and only a faint red trace on his chin. Gimli greeted both brothers enthusiastically, happy to see them again and was allowed to help around the smithy as far as he already could. He mostly helped Fili, who allowed him a grand-brotherly manner certainly practiced on Kili in years past.
Kili used a tong to turn three different iron rods in the fire, then securing their ends within one tong that seemed nearly too large for him to handle. He made a face, but his brother was busy with own work.
"Need someone to hold that?" Boromir asked, he knew not much of their skill but Kili had declared him fit to hold the heavy tongue in the past.
"Gladly," Kili waved him over, pointing him to take the tongue to keep the intertwined three red hot iron rods still on the anvil. "I will need both arms for the hammer."
"I heard you brought back real gold from your trip," Gimli said excitedly, when he joined Fili on the other anvil. "not just some iron but gold. True treasure."
Kili had twisted the three glowing iron and steel rods together tightly, so tight Boromir had found it hard to hold them still. The young dwarf brought his hammer down on the braid of steel and iron beginning to hammer it flat. "This," he said between two powerful strokes. "this the true treasure of Eriador. Iron. Only most people are too stupid to make good steel from it. Gold is a lesser metal, Gimli," another set of hits made the whole braid of twisted metal into a flat form. "it can't be made into tools, nor weapons. It is dark. The blacksmith's curse is welded on gold and written in coin." His breath heaved when the whole piece was flat and he put it back on the fire pit for heating it up again, adding a fourth rod that had taken longer to reach full heat.
"But gold is the better coin," Gimli insisted. "And it makes people rich. Father often speaks of the treasures of old."
Kili twisted the flat piece with the white hot blacksteel rod, looking at Boromir. "Ready for another round?"
The warrior gave him an encouraging nod. It took all his strength to keep this thing still, but watching held its own rewards. Boromir had always been fascinated by the art of making weapons, and had sometimes watched when Kili worked in the spellforge of Moria. But this here was of a different fascination, Kili worked with a fire and a passion for his craft that seemed to spark its own magic at times, unafraid of the flame with the glowing metal reflecting in his dark eyes.
"What is rich?" Kili asked the younger dwarf, while he began the process to hammer the twisted piece flat again. "When they bury Daz that old merchant, people will come and pay their respects at his grave, out of respect for such a successful trader. When they bury Bofur down from Deeproads crossing his friends will be there and they will weep, not because he was rich, but because he was their friend and they will miss him. Who would you rather be?"
"You always get irritable when it comes to that." Gimli said, it was clear that he did not want to argue with his two big friends but that it was a topic where he did not understand them. "Being rich is nothing bad is it?"
"No, it isn't." Kili gave in to not upset his younger friend. "But there are other blessings. I'd rather be free, even if I am a wanderer, than being rich in coin and having to live in one of those cages they call villages." He had completed the process three times now, and nodded at Boromir. "Thank you, I can take it from here." He took the glowing end of the raw form with a lighter tong as he began to work a blade from the steel.
Leaning against one of the beams that supported the workshop, Boromir watched him, the red fire casting warm lights of Kili's youthful face, eyes shining brightly as he worked on the blade of his anvil. There was no temptation of greed in him, what he had just said; it was what he had lived in later life. Why had the curse of gold to affect him of all people? It gave Boromir hope that he could save Kili from the curse, that Durin's Bane could be broken, but seeing him like this made the memory hurt all the more.
"Boromir?" Kili had put the blade back on the coalrack, putting aside the hammer. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, why do you ask?" Boromir could read worry in Kili's eyes and feel it in the bond.
"You were so sad all at once, like something drowning you in pain." The young dwarf replied, walking up to him. "If… if it is this place… you don't have to stay here all day."
"No, it was nothing. Just a memory." Boromir said, focusing on Kili here, on their friendship, on good thoughts to calm the bond. It had never been so intense before, but maybe it did not have yet the time to settle properly. "I like being around your forge."
During the late afternoon, Fili had finished a number of axe blades, while Kili's work was shaping up to a fine longsword, they were interrupted by another dwarf. He had the same red hair like Gimli and his clothes left little doubt he was a very well to do dwarf. Gloin greeted his son with a clap on the shoulder, pointing him to stay working. "Your mother is still over with Grís," he said. "I owe her thanks for being there for her like that. There are few that understand like that." He cast an approving glance on Fili's work. "I hear you two had some adventures up North this winter."
"None that bear repeating, Gloin," Kili replied. "just the usual, Orcs, villages and the odd troll in between." He did not mean it unfriendly, he actually liked the other dwarf, but their story was nothing to spread before all and everyone. At least not until Uncle had heard of it.
"Lad, that sword looks mighty fine," Gloin appraised the work he saw. "Black steel with two layers of iron and one of moonsteel; that will be quite the blade. Where has that lad gone that would hate doing the welding?"
"He grew up," Kili replied. "first he worked for his Uncle in the forge until he wished he could run away with the travelling people and then the fire found him and he grew to love the work." He thrust the blade into the water barrel to finally cool it down, his right arm exposed in the dim light of the forge.
"Lad, what is that?" Gloin stepped closer, actually getting ahold of Kili's wrist to see the mark more closely.
With one fluid move Kili yanked it free. "That's a long story, Gloin."
The dwarf's shrewd eyes went from Kili to Boromir, and it was easy to see that he made the right connections quickly. "Forgive me, Kili," he said more formally. "I did not mean to presume. But this is sign, Óin was sure it would come. But to have it appear so close… of course it would be someone from your noble house."
Now Kili looked at him perplex. "Gloin, what do you speak of?" he put aside the tools as the blade needed to cool fully before he could continue.
"Lad… Kili," Gloin audibly tried to not fall back on talking to him like to one of the boys. "this is better explained by my brother, he knows the signs as none other can. Would you come to Wyldfire Hall tonight, with your brother and your..." he looked to Boromir. "man-at-arms," he decided on a term. "to hear what Óin has to say? I will have Balin there too, if you'd like that."
The whole speech made Kili uneasy, Gloin had always been a friend of the family, a distant relative and he usually treated Kili much like a youth, a distant nephew, but suddenly he had reverted to treating him like a young warrior, even more towards his birth rank, the offer to invite Balin if Kili so wished was all but unheard off. "I would appreciate it if Balin could join us in that discussion," Kili replied, speaking the way his Uncle had taught him to.
"Then I'll arrange everything." Gloin walked off with the air of a man about to get busy.
Author's Notes
Harrylee94 was amazing again, helping me to untangle so many plot chaos. You rock, my friend.
The metal twisting/welding technique - it is one of the techniques that is often inaccurately ascribed as "to damascene" but actually and at least according to the books sitting all around me, is older and more varied than often assume. I am not an expert on bladesmithing, though.