Chapter six
"Tallis, are you alright?" It was Bilbo.
"Yes," I lied.
"Do you think Gandalf will come back?"
I smiled at him gently. "Yes," I turned and looked at the dwarves still talking laughing away. Thorin sat among them, but did not join in the tomfoolery. It was odd seeing him in all this metal and fur. In Ered Luin, he had worn only his loose-fitting leather britches and a rough blue linen shirt with the laces undone at the top. I suddenly realized the absence of Kili's and Fili's voices. I turned to Bilbo. "Get some food to Fili and Kili –I'm surprised they didn't come looking for food themselves. They must be starving. They've never been so diligent with the ponies before."
Bilbo nodded and pattered off and I was on my own again.
I wasn't sure what I was to do next. There was little I could do about Thorin, so I got up, dusted myself off and strode towards the warmth of the fire.
"And where have you been, lassie?" Bofur insolently called as I approached.
"Sitting on a piece of wood," I replied brusquely.
"Have yer now?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Go wipe your arse with your beard," I snapped and turned away from him, catching a ghost of a smile on Thorin's face for a moment. My heart gave a little shout of triumph.
Oin had not heard my sulky replies and shouted across the fire, "Tallis! Tell us of how you met Thorin and Dwalin and Gloin!"
Not again. "You can tell it yourself by now," I answered. He looked disappointed and I couldn't bear it so I started reluctantly. "I was riding in the woods trying to take down a buck –,"
Dwalin cut in, "With a few elves," and he spat. I wasn't worried. He did that every time I told the story.
"–And, I strayed from the group as they pursued a herd. I charged my horse through a thicket after a buck that had broken away from the group."
"You chased after it for a day and a night!" Ori exclaimed.
"Not quite that long,"
"And you heard the sounds of a fierce battle being waged up ahead, so you left the buck and went galloping towards a clearing." Gloin grunted nonchalantly.
"There I found three dwarves who had been fighting against at least a dozen orcs. Most of the orcs lay dead or dying, and Gloin was out cold –,"
"Feinting," He corrected.
"Of course. As Gloin feinted bravely with his face in the dirt, I stepped out hesitantly. One of the dwarves was badly wounded, and blood was seeping from his side."
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.
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"Elf!" Thorin had cried at the sight of me and was too hurt to lift his sword. Balin was poised to throw and axe. I dropped my bow.
"I'm not an elf!" I had cried and lifted my hair up and back to reveal my rounded ears.
"You're dressed like one," Balin snarled.
I was confused. What was that supposed to mean? "Your friend needs help –I can take him to Rivendell –,"
"NO." Thorin had stopped his shallow panting long enough to utter the one word. He blue eyes had been clouded with pain.
"Well, you're going to die, otherwise," I replied.
"Dwarves are not as breakable as you humans are," Dwalin grunted. "Just leave us."
"I won't until I see that your friend is out of danger and the other wakes up. I have some healing skills –,"
"Keep your distance,"
"Fine," I sat down.
The two dwarves glared at me. The other one still lay with his face in the dirt.
"You should turn him on his side," I suggested. "The one on his face, I mean,"
Dwalin was silent, but turned Gloin over anyway.
"You do realize that your friend won't be going anywhere with that gaping hole in his side without bleeding to death."
Dwalin watched me warily.
"You could at least clean his wound and stitch it close."
Dwalin stared at me. Thorin blinked with glazed eyes. Dwalin sighed and had begun to undo Thorin's belt. He struggled to keep Thorin from collapsing onto the ground and remove the belt at the same time. I got up. Dwalin's free hand jumped to his axe again but I moved towards him slowly anyway.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I knelt down slowly on Thorin's left side and began undoing his brigandine shirt. Thorin had tried to push me away, but I persisted and he soon gave up. His eyes burned with a feverish hate. I returned it with a toothy grin. He looked a little lost after that.
Dwalin silently began to undo Thorin's belt and the right side of the brigandine shirt. I glanced over and saw that it had once been crushed before and not been fixed, so an orc blade had found an easy way to tickle his ribs. Slowly, we lifted the brigandine shirt off of him and carefully tore the linen shirt he had on underneath. The cut was not too deep, but licked up from his waist to his arm.
"Start a fire and give me your wine bag," I ordered.
Dwalin obeyed. After I had sewn Thorin up, and stopped a newly awakened Gloin from trying cut my with his axe, I asked their names. They replied in turn. Thorin watched me still with a disbelieving dislike, but thanked me.
"I am in your debt," he paused, "woman," he ended. Well, he didn't know my name.
"Tallis," I corrected.
"Tallis," he said my name, tasting it for the first time. "Thank you,"
"I won't tell the elves," it was more than obvious that these dwarves had a quarrel with them.
Thorin nodded.
"I'm off then," I had gotten up, wiped my bloody hands on his torn shirt and gave it back to him.
I wandered off back to my horse and with a last wave of farewell and a glance at the stunned dwarves, I rode away.
A day later, I wandered aimlessly around the bridge the elves had set as our meeting point lest anyone wandered off. I was a little earlier on arrival and I threw stones in the river for a while until they arrived. Huredhiel was Lady Arwen's handmaiden I had grown close to and she thundered over the bridge when she saw me skipping stones.
"Where have you been? We brought down enough for the Autumn feast!"
"I was held up," I paused so she leaned nearer, "You can't tell anyone."
"What is it?" Huredhiel's eyes shone. She was intensely young for an elf –only 500 years old. She had not quite grown into her patience or her tranquility, it seemed. Sometimes I wondered if age really brought wisdom. She had stayed in Rivendell for most of her life and only was allowed to venture a day's ride from the vale. She itched constantly to run off.
"I –I met some dwarves three days ago."
She gasped. "Dwarves!"
"And they had fought a dozen orcs at least. I didn't ask why they were there or fighting the orcs. One of them had a serious wound, so I sewed him up."
"Were they hairy?"
I frowned at her, "Yes,"
"Were they handsome?"
"Is that all you think about?"
"What else can I do? I live forever."
"Maybe," I thought about a pair of feverish blue eyes, a deep voice, and a chiselled chest the torn shirt had revealed.
Later when we ate our provisions, she had turned to me and mused quite frankly, "I wonder if what they lack in size they make up for in their manhoods."
I violently inhaled a piece of my bread.
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After I finished the story at where I left the dwarves in the clearing, Bombur and Ori had fallen asleep. The dwarves cheered as I got up and bowed.
"Get up! Get up! Trolls! Trolls got Bilbo and the ponies!"
We all spun as Fili came flying out of the trees.
"Where's is Kili?" Thorin demanded as he unsheathed his sword.
Fili gasped out, "He stayed behind just in case if the trolls –,"
"Go!" Thorin shouted.
We raced after Fili and plunged into the forest. Sword in hand, I outstripped nearly everyone with my longer legs. Thorin barreled under the branches beside me, but I had to duck frantically to avoid the smacks of the branches to my face. I realized with a start that it was the first time Thorin and I would have ever fought together. There was a clearing up ahead lit by the light of a great fire and the sounds of a scuffle. A few deep, growly voices grunted and argued. A taunting reply reached our ears. It was Kili.
"Come get me fatheads!"
Oh no. A few loud yells and crashes travelled to our ears as we neared. I could see the great forms of three monstrous trolls swatting and stomping about. Thorin roared and we all raised our weapons and barreled into the clearing. I had barely a second to glance about before I had to hit the ground and roll as a fist as big as a boulder swung at me wildly. I dove between a pair of legs and sliced horizontally and scrambled out of the way as a knee buckled and drove into the dirt. I was about to congratulate myself when the leg straightened and the rest of the troll it was connected to uttered a few curses in my direction and stomped towards me.
"What's this?" It thundered, "I fink it's a nice tender layday for the pickin',"
Cutting uselessly at its horny hands as it bore down on me, I cried out in frustration.
It suddenly squealed as Bifur slammed his axe into its gonads. I leapt around it and hacked mercilessly at its hindquarters before it knocked me over towards the fire. Dodging the flames, I crouched down as Bofur leapt over me and poked another troll in the side with his axe. A stone whistled past an inch from my face. I turned sharply as Ori made a face of pure terror and apology in my direction and scuttled about dodging legs and arms and axes. Dwarves were furiously cutting and stabbing and running and rolling in every direction. I leapt back up and dove at a wayward troll foot and the big fool stepped right on my sword as I rolled away. The sword was still in the troll's foot as it hopped haphazardly around and knocked over Bombur and Balin. Suddenly realizing the error of my judgment, my hand jumped for my bow, but I had left it back in the camp. I had two daggers and nothing else then. I threw one at an incoming hand and it struck flesh. The troll roared but swiped at Fili without hesitating at the pain. Fili gave it a devilish grin and tumbled away and swiped at its ankles. One dagger left. I suddenly found Thorin at my side as two trolls closed in on either side of us each with a horde of dwarves dancing about their feet. I felt his back meet mine. As two pairs of hands descended, we both dove sideways and came up with a slash, simultaneously parrying away the trolls. I jumped and kicked off of one troll's shin and barreled into the other's thigh and my dagger made a satisfying rend before I was flung off. It staggered back and I turned to the other that Thorin, Kili, Gloin and Oin were preoccupied with.
"STOP!" It was a troll. Two of them had Bilbo by the arms and legs, stretching the poor hobbit like a sheet. We all scrambled towards him. Thorin stood at the forefront of the gathered company, trying to hold back Kili.
"Drop your weapons, or we'll pull 'im to pieces,"
I watched Thorin as he glared back at the troll, his sword still raised and unmoving. We waited. He growled in frustration and stabbed his sword into the dirt. Kili cried out in rage as we all threw our weapons down. The third troll who was not holding Bilbo picked my sword from its foot and deposited it in a bush. By their conversations, the leader seemed to be the biggest one names Bill. The one I stabbed was smaller and the other two smacked him around. He was Tom and the other one was Bert.
Soon, we were tied up tightly in burlap sacks. Thorin, Bilbo, Kili, Fili, Gloin, Oin, Bombur, and Balin were thrown in a pile while Bifur, Bofur, Ori, Dori, Nori, and Dwalin were stripped down to their underclothes and tied to a massive spit over the fire. Tom picked me up.
"She won't need no cookin',"
"YES I WILL!" I screamed in his face.
"Oh, very well, then, if that is what you'd like," he said, a little taken aback.
"Put her on the spit," Bert said.
So my boots and leather jerkin and armour all came off.
"There's no space," the Tom complained.
"Just tie me up on top, I'm thin," I suggested desperately.
They tied me on top of Dwalin. He was highly unimpressed.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, as I accidentally put my foot in his face. I was lashed on with my head between his legs and his between mine. I was going to die of humiliation. I hoped we got cooked fast. Every time they turned the spit, Dwalin's weight shifted onto me and I was so close to the fire I thought I was going to be licked by the flames. Just as my hair began to singe and my torso felt like it was to be ripped from my limbs, the spit would turn and I would have a few moments of relief before I went under again.
"We don't have to cook 'em, let's just sit on 'em and squash 'em into jelly!" Bert grumbled.
Bill slapped his belly, "They should be saut ed and grilled with a sprinkle of sage."
"That does sound quite nice..." Tom licked his lips.
"Never mind the seasoning, we don't got all night!" Bert cried. "Dawn is not far away. Let's get a move on, I don't fancy being turned into stone."
"Wait!" It was Bilbo's voice. I craned my neck, trying to see. He had stood up in the sack. "You are making a terrible mistake."
"You can't reason with them, they're half-wits!" Balin warned.
"Then what does that make us?" Bofur yelled back.
"I meant with the seasoning." Bilbo continued.
"What about the seasoning?" Bill squinted at the hobbit. He stopped turning the spit and luckily Dwalin and I were settled nicely on the top, while Nori cooked uncomfortably below.
"Well, have you smelt them? You're going to need something stronger than sage before you can get close to these ones," he said.
"What do you know about cooking dwarf?" Bert challenged.
Bill snarled at Bert. "Shut up, let the burglahobbit talk."
"Well," Bilbo hesitated, "Well, the secret to cooking dwarf is, I mean, the secret, to cooking a dwarf is –,"
"Go on," Bill was leaning down closer and closer to Bilbo. Bilbo looked like he was going to faint again.
"Is, ah... uh... you –you have to skin them first!"
I groaned and Dwalin roared and I heard Kili scream traitor at the top of his lungs as the rest of the dwarves struggled and cursed and cussed in Westron and in Dwarvish.
"This is takin' too long!" Bert growled. "I've eaten raw things before –boots and skins. A bit of raw dwarf would be fine," He dragged Bombur up by his legs and held him head first over his gaping maw. "I like the look of this one!"
Bill turned the spit again. Down under I went again.
"No! Not that one! He –he's infected.' Bilbo said. 'He's got worms in his tubes.' The troll dropped Bombur right on top of Kili and Oin. "In fact," his eyes lit up, "They're all infested with parasites. It's a terrible business. I wouldn't risk it I really wouldn't."
Bill slowed the turning as he contemplated Bilbo's words. No, no, nononono. I hung directly above the fire as he stopped. I started to drip with sweat.
"What? –We don't have parasites, you have parasites!" Kili shouted and all the other idiots joined in. I heard some scuffling and a thump and Kili went quiet for moment.
"I've got parasites as big as my arm!" Gloin cried.
Kili was louder. "Mine are the biggest parasites, even my parasites have parasites!"
"We're riddled!" little Ori bawled from where he was tied to the spit.
"Well, what would you have us do then, let them all go?" Tom asked, irritated to the extreme.
"Uhhhhh..." Bilbo began.
Bill roared back before Bilbo could say a word. "Did you really think you could fool us, burglahobbit?!" He reached towards Bilbo and the dwarves and everyone in the clearing began to shout and scream again.
"The dawn shall take you all!" The voice of Gandalf echoed through the forest.
"Who's that?" Tom whined. "Can we eat him?"
There was a sudden thundering crack, but I could not see a thing, since my face was still inches from the spiting flames. Then there was an odd sound of crackling, like ice or stone, and then silence.
We all cheered.
Dwalin relaxed with relief and I dropped a little closer to the fire.
"Get me out of the fire!" I yelped.
After a few more agonizing moments, Gandalf put out the fire with a bit of magic and I sagged with relief. As the spit was turned and everyone was untied one by one, they saw the position Dwalin and I were in and laughed for a good while before untying us.