J.M.J.
A/N: Hello again! I know it's been literally ages since I've updated this. Seriously, when I started it, I had these grandiose ideas of a huge collection of stories. I'm not sure whether that's ever going to happen or not, but in the meantime, here's another story to add. Hope you enjoy!
This one takes place years before The Hobbit. Fili and Kili are the equivalent of human teenagers around fourteen or fifteen or so (I'll confess, I'm not well-versed enough in Dwarven-to-human age ratios to even make a guess at how old this would actually make them).
The First Battle
Thorin Oakenshield was sitting at the entrance to the hall where he lived when he wasn't on the road somewhere. His sister, Dis, lived there all year round with her young sons, Fili and Kili. It was embarrassing, really, to have the last of the Line of Durin living in a hovel like this. As far as men's standards went, it wasn't so bad, especially compared to anything in Rohan, but it was certainly not a suitable place for Dwarven royalty to make their home. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Thorin was on the road so often: to forget the miserable circumstances his people were forced to live in since the Dragon had taken their home.
He had just returned from one of his journeys. That had scarcely been three hours ago. Of course, the moment he had arrived, Fili and Kili had rushed up to him and asked him to tell them all about his journey. Fortunately, Dis had shooed them away, telling them that Thorin would tell the whole story later. They had been disappointed, of course, but they had listened and wandered off somewhere.
Where they had been all this time, Thorin couldn't say, but now he could see them practicing with swords right in the middle of the village, and doing a poor job of it, too. Kili didn't seem to have any idea what to do with his feet, and Fili was flailing so wildly with his sword that it would be a wonder if he didn't kill his brother right now.
What a humiliating end to the Line of Durin, to have the last two in a direct descent from the mighty Dwarf king to kill each other through their own incompetence while practicing with swords. Thorin was just going to have to step in and stop that from happening.
In Fili and Kili's view, they weren't doing so badly. They had been at it for over a quarter of an hour now, and so far had not inflicted any minor injuries on each other. Whether that was an improvement or not (after all, the idea of sword-fighting was to inflict injuries) was hard for them to say, but they took it as an improvement. It did mean that their control and technique had improved enough that their blades landed where they wanted them to.
Thorin had seen their skill (or lack thereof) before, and so he had no way of knowing that this was an improvement. Out of the corner of his eye, Kili saw his uncle get up from his seat before the door and stalk over to them a moment before he shouted, "Fili! Kili! What are you doing?"
Fili hadn't had the moment of warning that Kili had had and was so startled by the demand that he dropped his sword. Kili was in mid-swing at the moment and hadn't time to check it. The tip of his sword cut through Fili's left sleeve, which darkened with a small trickle of blood.
"You don't even have the sense to practice with blunt weapons." Thorin shook his head in disgust.
Fili and Kili glanced at one another sheepishly. The idea of practicing with dull weapons hadn't even occurred to them.
"No, uncle," Fili admitted. He clasped a hand over the scratch (that was all it was, really; Dwarves have very thick skin), which was stinging a little.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Thorin asked.
He wasn't even making an effort to cover up his annoyance, but his nephews somehow didn't understand.
"We've been teaching ourselves," Kili said with obvious pride.
"You've taught yourselves?" Thorin folded his arms in disapproval. Why hadn't Dis seen to it to have her sons properly instructed in the art of bearing arms? "Has no one taught you anything of fighting?"
"You did, when you were here last," Kili reminded him. "Balin and Dwalin do whenever they're about, but as you know, they're often away from here."
"We're getting better," Fili added.
"Better?" Thorin repeated. "I don't think what I just saw could be better than anything. Fili, pick up your sword again. Watch my footing, Kili. It's a wonder you haven't tripped yourself before now."
He began sparring with Fili as Kili watched intently not only Thorin's footing, but the way he used his sword as well. However, he didn't have much time to watch. It took Thorin less than a minute to disarm Fili. That disheartened him all the more. These two nephews of his were truly abominable swordsmen.
"How did you do that, uncle?" Fili asked in wonder. He had never seen such a sword trick before, and had anyone besides his uncle played it on him, he would have been mortified at the shame of being defeated so easily. As it was, he regarded Thorin as the greatest swordsman there was, and so the sting of this defeat was not so sharp.
"It's very simple," Thorin told him. "Both of you have much to learn about the use of weapons. Perhaps it is not too late."
He spent several hours longer instructing them in proper techniques and footing. They had to unlearn most of what they had taught themselves, but by the time Thorin judged them to be too exhausted to gain anything further from this session (and it is no easy thing to exhaust a Dwarf for they are hardy people), he could already see some small improvement in them. Being an honest Dwarf, he knew that this was more from their eagerness and willingness to learn than from his skill in instruction, and that pleased him. They were still very young, after all, and with their spirit, he could make warriors out of them yet. He would need to spend more time with them, though, and ensure that their training was correct.
As for Fili and Kili, they were delighted by the attention that Thorin was paying them. For the next several weeks, he worked with them daily, and in the evenings, he made it a point to tell them about the history of the Dwarves and particularly Erebor, which from their childhood had been a name that had always filled them with a sense of wonder and adventure and greatness. As they listened to these tales of the warriors of old, they longed to use the skills they were gaining in battle and prove themselves.
The chance for this came sooner than they expected. The year was waning, and as the weather became colder, Dis sent her sons out to gather firewood to build up their woodpile. Being very young yet, they felt adventurous as they headed out into the forest with axes strapped on their backs and swords at their sides. They need not have gone for from the village, but in their longing for adventure they walked a good deal deeper into the woods than they had to before they got to work cutting wood.
They had a pony with them, of course, that could carry and drag far more wood than they could. It was a gentle creature, getting to be a little elderly but still strong. Fili had been leading it, and when they reached the spot where they decided to go to work, he set the lead on the ground and left the pony standing there untied. It would stay there on its own.
"I'll bet that I can cut more wood than you in the same amount of time," Kili challenged his brother.
"Impossible," Fili replied. "I'll bet five pieces of gold that you can't."
"All right," Kili agreed, and they both began working with their axes as quickly as they could.
They were so focused on their work that they didn't notice the pony growing uneasy. It flicked its ears back and forth, stamped its hooves, and looked all around it suspiciously. It could smell danger approaching and very much so wished to be on its way. In its long life of service to its young masters and their mother, it had never moved from a place where it had been commanded to stay. It had learned to trust them, and so it remained where it stood, though the scent of danger was growing stronger every moment.
Finally, something crunched in the brush behind the pony. By this time, the vile scent was closer than ever. The pony cocked an eye and an ear back to look. What it saw was clearly not pleasing to it, for it tried the pony's gentle nature to the point that the animal jumped with a shrill neigh of alarm and took off at a straight gallop into the woods and toward its home, contenting itself to the idea that whatever service it owed its masters did not include sacrificing its life for them.
However, even in abandoning them, it did them a valuable service. Its shriek and sudden flight finally attracted their attention, and they both turned rapidly to look. This was a fortunate thing, for right at that very moment, a small pack of orcs was sneaking up on them. They were too cautious to go near the village, but they saw no danger in honing their hunting skills by ambushing two young Dwarves who were so foolish as to wander this far away. Just as Kili turned to look at what was bothering the pony, one of the orcs let an arrow fly at the point where his head had been a moment before.
Not without a certain amount of thrill at finding themselves in sudden danger, Fili drew his sword and plunged straight into the thick of the pack of orcs with Kili following a moment after him. It was no doubt a foolish thing to do since they had no idea how many or even, right at first, what their attackers were. Luck was on their side, though, for the orcs hadn't expected to miss in their cowardly ambush, and so were ill-prepared to defend themselves.
Even so, there were about half a dozen of them, hardened things from living in the wild and fighting and hunting for their survival. The odds against Fili and Kili were high. Yet they fought with all the enthusiasm and courage that lay in the heart of a young Dwarf, using everything that Thorin had taught them over the last weeks.
Fili killed one of the orcs right away in his first charge, and Kili cut another legs off at the knees so that it was unable to contribute further to the fight. Three of the others surrounded Fili. Another confronted Kili, and fifth one hesitated. Perhaps it realized that it was needed most in fighting Kili but was too afraid for its own skin to take on the Dwarf that was fighting less opponents.
Whatever its reason, its moment of hesitation gave Kili the chance to defeat his solitary opponent. In truth, it was managed mostly by luck, since Kili forgot the footing that Thorin had been teaching him and succeeded in tripping himself over his own feet. He felt the orc's blade swing inches over his head as he fell forward against his opponent. He knocked the orc from its feet, surprising it enough to give himself time to drive his sword deep into its body.
Then he turned his attention to the three orcs that were attacking his brother. The fourth, the cowardly one, joined those three. If it was too afraid to take part in a fight that was two against one, it was certainly too afraid to fight one to one.
Fili was having the worst of his battle. He was remembering what Thorin taught him better than Kili had, which was fortunate for otherwise he would never have survived. Even so, four to one and with no experience in a real fight was too great odds.
Kili plunged in the the skirmish just in the nick of time. He took one of the orcs by surprised and killed it before it knew that any attack was coming from that direction. The cowardly orc, seeing the tide of the battle turning, took off running, abandoning its companions to their fate. With the odds so significantly reduced, it took only a minute or two for Fili and Kili to finish off the remaining orcs.
Once that was done, they looked around them and panted, for now that the excitement was done, they found themselves a bit winded. Even so, they were both grinning broadly. They had fought their first battle and despite being outnumbered had suffered no worse than a few minor cuts and scrapes.
"Thorin will be proud when we tell him," Kili said.
That was the first thing on Fili's mind, too. "We should take one of their heads back to show him."
The gory suggestion set well with Kili, and they chose one whose head had been severed in the skirmish. One of the orcs had been carrying a spear, and so they used this to mount their gruesome prize.
When they reached home, they found their mother standing in front of their home, evidently watching for them with a worried expression on her face.
"Mother! Uncle!" Kili shouted, holding up the spear and its grisly burden. "Look what we've done!"
Dis took a moment to call into the house, "They're back!" before she ran forward to greet her sons with a hug. Though Dwarf women usually had a stoic view of the danger their brothers, sons, and husbands (and sometimes themselves) encountered, Dis worried about her sons ever since the death of their father when they had been very small.
"Mother," Fili protested, "we were hardly even gone long enough to cut the wood." His voice trailed off a bit at the last words. He and Kili had forgotten to complete their task.
"Blossom came back without you an hour ago," Dis told them. "She would never do that unless something had happened to you. Thorin was just about to go out and look for you."
As she finished explaining, Thorin came out and joined them.
"Look, uncle." Kili held up the spear again. "We were attacked by orcs out there. Six or seven of them, but we fought them all." He then proceeded to launch into a largely exaggerated account of the fight, with Fili throwing in a few details to emphasize his part in the affair.
Thorin couldn't hide a proud smile as he listened. He knew not all the details his nephews were giving him could possibly be true, but then all warriors exaggerated the tales of their adventures. Yes, indeed, he might be able to make warriors of these two after all.
