Two Kings
Chapter 2
Thorin was drawn from his dark ponderings by a curse; on glancing down he saw a look of shame spreading across the face of the elf, who seemed to have recovered his senses enough to become aware of his undignified position.
Pretending there was nothing untoward about finding himself seated upon the ground with a despised elf in his arms, the Dwarf King wriggled his legs clear as gently as possible, grimacing involuntarily at the resultant pain in his own wounded foot.
"A fine mess this is," he muttered.
Thranduil rolled cautiously up onto one elbow, his other arm clamped tight against his injured side. "My apologies," he said stiffly.
"I do not need your apology." Thorin scowled at him. "Lie down, and I will bind your side. If you lose any more of that tree sap you use for blood, then your son will be the next Elvenking sooner than you intend."
"I fear that would displease him greatly."
Thranduil fumbled at the fastenings of his armour with an unsteady hand and Thorin batted it away.
"Lie down, elf. I've tended wounds before! Besides, you've most likely been waited on hand and foot for so long you haven't undressed yourself in years."
Thranduil glared at him, his eyebrows a fierce line across his brow, but maintained a dignified silence as he lay back upon the ground. Without further ado, Thorin moved the cloak aside and unclasped the fine armour, pulling the breast and back plates free with care and laying them on the grass. A man would have struggled to see with only the illumination of the moon, but dwarfish eyes were accustomed to picking out detail in dim light and Thorin could see well enough to make him wince. The jagged rent in bruised and bloodied skin was deep enough to show bone, the elf's life force still leaking slowly across rib and muscle. Somehow the sorry sight lessened the prevailing anger in the dwarf's heart.
"Did you come by this after Azog?" He asked, confident that the elf had not sustained injury at that time.
"No. Some hours before; my steed was slain beneath me..." A look of sorrow pulled at Thranduil's face and his words trailed away to silence.
The great elk, thought Thorin, surprised to realise that the creature had meant something to the elf, given his cold demeanour.
"You fought on, injured like this?" Perhaps the Elvenking was a warrior at heart after all, despite his refined manners. Thorin's thoughts skittered awkwardly around the solid block of his dislike for elven kind and Thranduil in particular, and he chastised himself mentally. Of course Thranduil was a warrior; he had been both warrior and king thousands of years before Thorin's birth. His youthful appearance and the unpleasant nature of their shared history were constantly distracting.
"Battles do not stop for such small wounds." Only Thranduil could sound so haughty, laid on his back as he was.
"This is not a small wound! Why did you not speak of it?"
"What would be the purpose?" Unspoken words behind the question. Why would you care?
"I could have given you aid. Yet instead you walk behind me, bleeding, and leaving a trail for any orc to follow!"
"It appears we both left a trail." Thranduil stared pointedly at Thorin's pierced boot. "Why did you not tend your foot?"
"I would not give you the satisfaction of knowing I was hurt." Thorin was startled by his own admission and the strength of his bitterness, but to his amazement, Thranduil smiled.
"It seems," the Elvenking said gravely, "We are both at the mercy of our pride."
The small peace offering was unexpected. Thorin looked at him thoughtfully, then spoke carefully.
"Pride has caused much damage between our peoples."
The Elvenking did not dispute that fact, merely returning his gaze. Thorin sighed, his thoughts drawn back to the events of the past few days.
"Is it a peril of being a king? An over-abundance of pride?"
Again the small curl of elvish lips. "I fear sometimes it is all we have left."
"Then we must hope none see us tonight, brought to our knees as we are."
"Indeed. Although as we are both kings, perhaps some things can remain untold?"
"Fear not, elf. I will tell no-one you fainted in my arms."
The jibe was a timely distraction, for it was at that moment Thorin tipped most of the contents of his brandy flask into the wound. The elf bucked, eyes flying wide, silent despite the shudder that ran through his frame beneath the dwarf's restraining hand.
"I have little by way of dressing," said Thorin apologetically.
The Elvenking was breathless with shock, his face stark in the moonlight as he gestured to a squat looking tree behind Thorin. "It... It will allow you to peel off some bark. The fibre within can be placed over the wound."
"It will allow me?"
"It is honoured to assist," noted Thranduil wearily. "But have a care, and take as little as possible."
Bemused, Thorin limped towards the indicated tree. There was a quiet chirr of metal against sheath as he drew out his knife and laid it against the trunk.
"No!" Thranduil was on his feet, horrified. "It is a living being! Are you so bound to the cold heart of rock that you cannot feel its pain!"
To Thorin's amazement the elf moved with admirable speed to insert himself between dwarf and tree, and there he clung for support, long fingers caressing the rough trunk, the ragged puff of his breath against Thorin's forehead as he scowled fiercely at him.
"There is no cause for a blade."
The elf picked with care at the bark with his fingertips until he could peel a strip loose. He then teased a fibrous substance from its inner surface before stroking the bark back into place, all the time his actions accompanied by a whispered stream of elvish that fell into the night air like the softest of raindrops.
"I have it." Thorin pushed him aside impatiently with his shoulder and set his fingers against the trunk. "Sit down," he added, catching a glimpse of the Elvenking's face out of the corner of his eye. "I do not wish to spend the night catching you."
"The wound is not severe," insisted his companion stubbornly. "It will take more than an orc's lucky strike to finish me."
For all his brave words, Thranduil allowed himself to slide down the trunk until he was seated at its base with his long legs stretched out before him, quite in the way of Thorin's attempts to remove bark. The dwarf limped around him, grinding his teeth in frustration at the delay, until he seemed to have enough strands to cover the wound.
"Stay there," he instructed the elf. "I will bind it where you sit."
It was as good a place as any, with the light of the sinking moon angling in under the branches, and he found that the fibres made a surprisingly good dressing, bound in place with strips cut from the Elvenking's torn tunic. When it was done, Thorin flopped down on the floor beside him and eased off his own boot with a grimace. His woollen sock was sodden with clots of half-congealed blood and came loose with difficulty. It was lucky, he thought, as he picked strands of wool from the injury, that the blade had missed bones and tendons, instead slicing cleanly through from the sole and leaving a purple exit wound on the top of his foot. Before he could change his mind, he tipped the last of the brandy into the injury, snarled viciously into his dark beard for the space of a few breaths, and then laid the remaining strips of inner bark over entrance and exit wounds. He was reaching for a strip of tunic when the Elvenking laid a hand on his ankle. Thorin's automatic protest died away as a soft golden glow spread from the elf's fingers, flowing down under the skin of the dwarf's foot until it filled and overflowed from the wound. The angry throb was gradually replaced by a soothing, warm glow.
"What was that?"
"I am a King, and a Sindar. I have some gift of healing, although I am not a healer." Thranduil leaned back in the shadows against the tree as he spoke, disappearing from Thorin's sight.
"You've...gone out!" It was the first time Thranduil had been truly invisible.
"Gone...out?"
"That cursed eerie glow you elves have. It's gone!"
There was a movement in the shadows, as though the elf may have stretched out his fingers to check them, although he didn't comment.
"Why do you not glow?" Thorin pushed, wishing he knew more elf lore.
"It is no cause for concern," said Thranduil quietly. "I am tired. Healing takes energy."
"If it has drained you to that extent, why did you tend my foot? I did not ask it of you."
"You have assisted me. Besides, it is as well that one of us is fully mobile. There are still dangerous creatures abroad."
Momentarily forgetting their past acrimony, Thorin leaned forwards and placed a hand on the Elvenking's forearm. The skin felt dry and icy cold beneath his calloused fingertips, and much softer than that of any dwarf.
"You have lost much blood." The dwarf's mind worked furiously. "You need water, and there is a stream nearby; I can hear it."
By the time he returned, tired and hungry but with his water skin refilled, the first cold light of dawn was stealing through the branches. Thranduil had not moved from his position against the tree, and Thorin was shocked at the elf's visible deterioration during the hours of darkness. His skin had taken on a grey hue and his hands trembled as he raised the water skin to dry lips.
"You do not look well, elf."
"I heal quickly." Thranduil assured him, looking more likely to topple over than recover in the near future. He was shivering in the torn remains of his tunic, the black cloak still wet with sleet and blood and no doubt providing little in the way of warmth, even for an elf.
Rather resentfully, Thorin removed the fur from his own shoulders and dropped it around those of the Elvenking. Startled blue eyes were raised to meet his flinty gaze, then Thranduil dropped his chin, his long hair falling around his face as though he wished to hide from the dwarf's sight. The elf had every reason to be ashamed, thought Thorin viciously, with a renewed surge of rage. Thranduil's actions at Erebor had cost the lives of many of his folk. The raw anger of their meeting in the Elvenking's Halls was never far from his mind, and now, fuelled by grief and exhaustion, it rekindled with the speed of wildfire.
"I do not know why I aid you. You have much to answer for."
The elf's head came up then, a glint of steel in his eyes. "You brought the danger on yourselves. On us all. I warned your father of his greed, but he did not listen."
"You were there! You had an army at your back! You turned away."
"Yes, dwarf, I turned away. Do you not think that memory haunts me? That I left you there, with your dwarf wives and your young? I had no choice."
"No choice!" Thorin's voice rose to a furious shout. "You had every choice! But you chose to turn your back, because of some worthless gems!"
"The gems were not worthless to me," Thranduil said coldly. "For all that, they had little bearing on my decision. I am a king; the elves of Mirkwood put their lives, their immortal lives, in my hands many centuries ago. So many have already been lost; I had no right to throw more lives away in a battle we could not win. It would not have saved you, the spilling of elven blood; it would merely have prolonged your misery. It was far better that you ran.
"You are the one who ran, back behind the safety of your borders!"
"And if I could live that day again, I would do the same."
Without thought, Thorin backhanded him across the face with all the pent up hatred of the intervening years behind the blow. Thranduil's head snapped to the side, but he made no move to retaliate.
"I should kill you now!" Thorin loomed over him, his control almost completely consumed by rage.
The Elvenking looked up at him, icily calm. "You may try." A tiny movement of his hand drew Thorin's attention to the silver sword lying unsheathed across his lap.
The dwarf spat. "To slay you, when you are so wounded, would be without honour."
Thranduil's eyes seemed to bore into him. A thin trickle of blood seeped from his nose and was ignored. "Have you never acted to safeguard your kinfolk? It seems to me it was not so long ago you stood behind your barricades and refused to fight, even though it was your own cousin, Dain, on the field below."
Thorin glowered at him, knowing it to be true, and knowing also that the dragon sickness had only been partly to blame. The safety of his kin had been paramount, and perhaps the desire to watch the elf and his kind slaughtered. And now, those dearest to him were dead, their fate inevitably influenced by his actions. Instead of watching the elf torn apart they had fought a common foe, and now Thorin owed him the debt of his life, yet still a dark and vengeful part of him wished to see the Elvenking die. It seemed Thranduil knew the direction of his thoughts.
"Do not let my incapacity, or a simple sword strike at Azog, stay your hand." As he spoke the Elvenking rose gracefully to his feet, the sword on his left raised but the other hanging sheathed at his side. That he could hold himself ready for battle at all was remarkable, although despite the icy control of his expression he was unable to disguise the tremble of his limbs.
Thorin found, to his surprise, that his own sword was drawn, the point quivering close to the pulse beating in Thranduil's throat. Before he could thrust it forwards, the elf was gone, slipping to the side in a movement so fast that Thorin was still turning when the silver blade sliced away one of the braids from his beard.
"Begone dwarf! Or I will still your miserable heart and someone else will rule your mountain!"
Thranduil's longer reach kept him just clear of the wild swing of Thorin's blade, but soon his steps were faltering and his sword dipped. Without care for his own safety, the dwarf rushed at him, ducked beneath a blocking stroke that was slower than it should have been and crashed bodily into the taller figure. They hit the ground hard, Thranduil unable to restrain his cry of pain as Thorin landed atop of him. Much of the fight went out of him at that moment and the Dwarf King laid his sword across the long throat without difficulty. He held it there, applying just enough pressure that a few drops of blood wept over the blade and ran into the elf's long hair.
"You should have let Azog kill me," he snarled.
"That may be so." Thranduil shifted beneath him, sweat shining above his lip. "Should I do so now, and leave both our peoples without a king?"
Thorin swallowed, becoming uncomfortably aware that the Elvenking's sword tip pressed lightly into his jugular. "Why did you not let me die?"
"Dark times are upon us. It seems your folk would benefit from a strong king."
Thorin stared at him, squinting his confusion. It was not the response he expected.
"You overcame dragon sickness and put right your foolish ways." Thranduil's voice was grave. "The future is uncertain. A strong King under the Mountain is no bad thing."
"Even if the ruler of Mirkwood is counted as his enemy?"
"Even then. Although if Mithrandir's fears are proved correct, it appears dwarf and elf will have need of each other."
"How can I forget your treachery; my kinfolk suffered greatly at Erebor."
"As mine have suffered, for many centuries. I could not ask it of them again that day, not with our numbers so depleted and with darkness rising in the east. Soon I fear the free folk of Middle Earth will need all their combined strength to withstand it."
"How do you propose that we combine our strengths, when all you do is retreat behind your borders?"
"I think the time for that is past," said Thranduil in a faint voice. "If the wizard's words are as wise as I fear, none will escape the evil that descends upon us." He shifted again, his rib cage pushing up against Thorin's sternum, seeming not to care that it caused the dwarf's sword to bite more deeply into the skin of his throat. Seeing the renewed trickle of red across the blade, Thorin pulled it clear, frowning at the face inches from his own as Thranduil's sword fell away, the sharp clatter of its landing ringing in the cold air.
"You do not defend yourself?"
"If you do not intend to cut my throat…in the name of the Valar, get off me."
Too late, Thorin recalled the elf's injury, pressed now between his weight and the hard ground; he must be in excruciating pain. The dwarf rose with a curse and sheathed his sword. At his feet, Thranduil rolled to one side with a groan and retched miserably, bringing up the water he had so recently consumed. It seemed the fates had decreed they must be allies, and with that thought foremost in his mind, the kinder side of Thorin's gruff nature reasserted itself, and he found himself pitying the elf's predicament. Bad enough to be injured so cruelly, but far worse to have only an enemy to give aid.
He leaned down, the rough skin of his fingers snagging a little on the silken strands of elven hair as he lifted it clear of the mess upon the ground. He expected to be rebuffed, but Thranduil was too wrapped in pain to care, making no protest when Thorin took him beneath the arms and dragged him back to lean against the tree. There the elf rested, breath sawing in and out in distress.
"They must be looking for us," murmured Thorin, thinking aloud. "Surely your son will be seeking his father?"
"Legolas will…not be coming." Thranduil bent his head, too slow to hide the vulnerability in his eyes. He dug his fingers into the dressing over his wound, almost as though the physical pain was preferable to whatever torture existed in his mind.
It was possible that in the aftermath of battle, none had seen the direction they had been taken by the eagle. Perhaps none had seen them taken at all. There were flakes of snow on the chill wind; staying any longer in that exposed location was not an option. Thorin stroked his beard thoughtfully, rueing the loss of his fine braid as he eyed the terrain between their hillside and Lake Town.
"It is mainly downhill," he noted. "Can you walk?"
Thranduil pushed himself slowly upright and retrieved his sword, but did not return it to its sheath.
"I fear we will need to do more than walk," he said quietly. "Soon orcs will be upon us."
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I thought this would be a two chapter piece, but apparently the characters had more to say to each other than I expected. It is often the case! Chapter 3 to follow.
Thank you so much for reading. Huge amounts of appreciation to those who took time to review.