"BRING UP THE MANGLER! BRING UP THE BONE BREAKER!"
Lori vaguely remembered those exact words. Was it hours? Days? Weeks ago, she'd heard them? … It seemed as if it was in another life, another world. Must have been a distant memory, come back to haunt her pain dazed mind. Those memories hung around her like a bad smell lately, never relenting, never leaving her alone.
"Start with the youngest."
Huh, that was new… She didn't recall the cancerous pustule mentioning anything about her age. The youngest of who? Her world started vibrating and shaking as she felt herself being moved. It was a strange sensation, almost as if it happened to someone else, for surely her tired, twisted and tortured body did not move its limbs.
"WAIT!"
This roaring voice didn't belong to any goblin.
"Well, well well! Look who it is…"
She knew the voice from somewhere… Somewhere important, but from very far away.
"Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror. King under the mountain."
THORIN! Every memory of the journey she'd started out on in Hobbiton came rushing back to her, kicking her into awareness in a rush of adrenaline.
Oh no.
He couldn't be here in this hell! There must have been some mistake. Consciousness was a relative term at this point for Lori, but she vaguely registered that the Mangler, her wooden torture rack, was bumbling across the uneven walkways on the shoulders of a heard of goblins. It came to a jarring halt as a couple of smaller goblins carrying the heavy load collapsed and got crushed under the weight. Good riddance, she thought with malice.
Lori cracked open one swollen and bloodied eye – the other one was an exercise in futility – and from her vantage point she could observe the Goblin King far beyond the masses. He seemed to be putting on quite the show for his guests, but Lori couldn't see the ones he was talking to. She prayed that the monster had been wrong in his assessment, but knew in her heart that she herself had recognized the voice as Thorin's.
A hush fell over the crowd and Lori only faintly heard talking back and forth between the Goblin King and the Thorin-voice, whenever the snickers and hisses of the crowd allowed it. Not until the Thorin-voice raised up to point out that someone was slain in battle long ago did she hear a clear word. And like a gust of wind across the marsh it blew the fog of doubt from her mind. This was surely Thorin himself or she had been riddled with madness.
Not an inconceivable idea, but not one she was ready to submit to neither.
She had to warn them. Tell them to flee this place, before the rest of her dear companions ended up on the slabs like her.
But how?
She could barely breathe for her broken and cracked ribs and every shallow breath was a gargling cough of blood and liquids.
Slowly, she tried to suck in a small bite of the foul air, keep it down, subdue the pain, and try not to cough.
Repeat.
It took some doing, but at long last, Lori had a lung full of air to push out in a loud, hoarse wail that vaguely resembled the word "RUN", before the excruciating pain drew her under the surface of consciousness once more.
..o00Ô00o..
Thorin heard an awful shriek echoing through the cavern as the mutilated scribe rushed down his slide. It was a howl of profound agony, making a chill run down his spine and the taste in his mouth sour. The gloating abomination before him seemed to become giddy with glee as he heard it; he even clapped his enormous hands in a grotesque mockery of an excited child.
"Oh, look! Look! They're here!" He pointed towards a perpendicular walkway where large, spiky machinery was being carried forth by a slew of goblins.
"MUSIC!"
The cacophony of banging and squealing instruments started up as the Goblin King started to orchestrate a gut wrenching melody with an even more chilling song attached to it.
Bones will be shattered
Necks will be wrung
You'll be beaten and battered
From racks you'll be hung
You will die down here and never be found
Down in the deep of Goblin-Town
Blood will be splattered
Veins will be ripped
In structures of iron
Your bones will be gripped
But your screams down here will never be heard
Down in the deep where goblins lurk
Teeth will be scattered
Legs will be hacked
You will whimper and grumble
Your skin will be cracked
You will lose your mind then soon to be mad
Down where the goblins quaff, my lad!
As the machinery slowly wobbled closer on its many legs, Thorin watched it warily. They were in a pinch and there wasn't any way to push past the horde of goblins without their weapons, not to mention that they had no way of knowing which way to go if they did.
But to let Ori get tortured was out of the question. The mere thought of any of his men dying whilst screaming in agony made Thorin's insides churn.
He tried to inch backwards to where they'd unceremoniously dumped all of the dwarves' precious weaponry, including Orcrist. Not that he'd ever admit to it, but the elvish sword was by far the best one he'd ever had, and that was saying something for a master smith among dwarves. They would need to get their hands on steel before making an attempt to flee.
Just as he was about to reach the weapons pile, several things happened at once. One after one, the dwarves started to shout out Lori's name as they realized it was her mangled body on the machine. Cold dread started to ripple through Thorin at the thought of finding her in this place. He hoped with all the will of his dwarven stubbornness that his company was mistaken, that the goblins had somehow tricked their minds, or that he was dreaming.
Yes, dreaming. A terrible nightmare that had an innocent woman caught in a cave filled with vicious goblins. Perhaps he should, in fact, be worried that his mind could cook up such horrible scenarios, and he wasn't even going to think about what the dream meant in terms of psychological interpretation. Dís would be worried when he woke in his warm bed in the Blue Mountains and told her about it over breakfast.
Best to close ones eyes and pinch ones arm right about now, before everything fell apart and his men convinced him of such awful truths. Surely Lori would be safe in a cave somewhere else in the mountains. Perhaps she had already made it over the pass and was sitting peacefully at a camp fire on the banks of the Great Anduin River.
But the men did not quiet down.
Their agitation only rose and they were being pushed, beaten and herded back towards the throne, the opposite direction of their attention. Finally, their desperate shouts penetrated Thorin's denial, and when he saw the short, butchered strands of golden hair – the ones that weren't mattered with filth and blood – Pure white rage roared through him.
"NOOO!" He surged forward, but the crowd of dwarves stood in his way, unable to part or move forward to accommodate his need. For the first time ever he was tempted to physically lash out at his men. They did their best to funnel him through, but to no avail. All he saw were those golden strands on a head smeared in blood, unrecognizable, but still hauntingly familiar.
The world had frozen and there was nothing he could do.
Behind the company however, the industry of their captors was still full at work. The grubby goblin who was looting through their belongings found Orcrist, and in greedy fascination drew the blade from its sheath. He screeched loudly when the blade's elvish magic burned him, and the Goblin King scurried back onto his throne in panicked horror.
"I know that sword! It is the Goblin Cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks! Slash them! Kill them! Kill them all! Cut off his head!"
The wardens who had whips in their hands started to beat the dwarves mercilessly, as terror of the legendary blade gripped the goblins and drove them into a frenzy. Every dwarf tried in vain to shield himself or the man next to him from the punishment, but still got caught by the sting of the whip.
Thorin felt his courage fail as the sight of the once beautiful creature on the wrecking machine drowned under a sea of bodies and the smart of the whip drove him to the floor. He feared he would never see the light in her eyes again, and the thought was devastating in a manner he had never expected.
As he lay on his back and a blade was nearing his throat for a final caress, his heart filled with regret. He wasn't sure if it was regret that he hadn't stopped her from joining in the quest, regret that he hadn't made more of an effort to teach her to fight, regret that he had made her leave the company, or regret that he had pushed her from his heart. There wasn't time to contemplate these things.
Thorin prepared himself to join his father and his grandfather in the halls of Mahàl, wondering if Lori would be there to greet him, if she would join him shortly.
If Mahàl would even let her in.
After all, she was not solely of his own creation, nor was she part of the dwarf clan her ancestors hailed from. But he still hoped that she would be honored with a seat after all, when she'd given her life in service to the dwarven race.
To him.
A sudden pain pierced him at the thought. It wasn't right, any of it. She should never have been put in harm's way. To think that nobody would ever know what it was like to see her light up in a smile, or hear her voice. No one would ever know what a precious treasure had been lost in the goblins' caves this day. Moreover, she would never know peace, family nor home. The injustice of the thought made Thorin's chest swell with anger.
As he closed his eyes and waited for the sting of the blade, a great white flame suddenly exploded through Goblin Town with a resounding boom that tore asunder all evil that dwelled there. Every goblin was knocked down, and the Mangler itself fell apart as if from the lack of will to exist any longer.
The wood and metal that held Lori crumbled, and she fell to the ground in a limp heap of bones, barely wheezing in short gasps of breath.
The fresh silence was a balm to the ears, even as the goblins started to moan and groan around Thorin. Courage washed through him once more, and a deep breath lifted the chains of despair from his limbs.
"Take up arms. Fight." The familiar and heartening voice of Gandalf the Grey implored, and then turned to command. "FIGHT!"
Thorin threw off his would-be-executioner and dove for the weapon pile to his right. When he reached it, he started tossing knives, axes, swords, glaives, mattocks and hammers to their owners, who wasted no time before lashing out at their enemy.
Gandalf swiftly joined the melee, and as he felled the first of the goblins, the monstrous creature on the throne shouted in renewed terror; "He wields the Foe Hammer! Beater. Bright as daylight!"
The wizard carved a path straight to his apprentice and Thorin followed him single mindedly. As the pair of them finished off the last obstructing goblins and rushed to Lori, they fell to their knees and carefully looked for sign of life in the battered form. They sighed heavily in relief when a weak cough wracked her body and Thorin quickly shrugged off his cloak to wrap around her protectively.
"It's all right Lori," He crooned. "I'm taking you out of here now. Just hang on for me… Hang on."
Gently, he wrapped her entire body in a bundle, crossed her arms in front of her and arranged her legs in a fetal position, then covered her head and tied a knot to hold in her limbs. Gandalf looked at him questioningly, but Thorin just shrugged.
"We need to carry her, and we have a fight on our hands. We haven't got the luxury of care, and this will protect her somewhat."
Thorin hoisted the rather large pouch carefully onto his back as if it weighed nothing, and tied it around his body. He and Gandalf rose and turned to the dais, just as the goblin king had seen the theft of his entertainment, and now came racing towards them with a sneer and a raised arm holding his grizzly scepter.
"Indeed!" Gandalf said.
Thorin saw his chance for vengeance upon the swine who had done such atrocities to this innocent woman, and braced for battle against the much larger enemy. His company was complete and he was armed and ready for a fight. With a mighty swing of the elvish blade, he blocked the goblin king and sent him reeling back, over the edge. The force of the staggering blow surprised him, and he hoped to Mahàl the monster was dead from the fall, but he did not have time to check.
"Follow me, quick!" Gandalf ordered. He led the dwarves through the fray, but even with the entire company at his back, there were several occasions where a goblin came too close to Thorin for comfort.
"Dwalin! Stay at my back! They're going for Lori!" Thorin shouted to his brother-in-arms.
"Aye!" Was all the gruff warrior could reply before being set to the task by another attack wave.
The company took up speed and ran through the caves, beating, slashing and shooting at the masses that seemed determined to overwhelm them. It was a symphony of violence and elegant brutality, spiced with dwarven ingenuity that never gave the goblin a real chance.
Even when the monstrosity that was the Goblin King pounced on them and proved that vermin was not so easily killed, Gandalf disposed of him rather nonchalantly. Unfortunately, the weight of the bulbous glutton caused the scaffold they were standing on to collapse and plummet into the abyss below.
Every dwarf held on for dear life on the rough ride down, and Thorin managed to sling Lori's pouch around to hug her protectively to his chest. He was roaring his lungs out in fear with the rest of them, but was still comforted by the fact that he would not die at the hands of a goblin underling.
Gravity was a much more worthy foe.
They hit walls of granite, changed course and bounced around violently until coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the ravine.
Thorin hurried to jump out of the structure as Bofur aired a thought they all shared; "Well, that could have been worse."
Just as Thorin's boots hit the ground, the massive corpse of the Goblin King crashed atop of his company, and he whirled around in shock, sword at the ready. He was relieved to find the malcontent dwarves all able to moan and complain about their new predicament, and almost smiled at the humor in it, until Kili alerted Gandalf to the oncoming horde of goblins.
"Only one thing will save us now," Gandalf claimed. "Daylight. RUN!"
And run they did.
..o00Ô00o..
GAH! This chapter almost killed the story for me! But hey, I'm still here…Sorry if it sucks - next chapter should be better. And apologies for the long wait. Who's up for waking Lori in the next one?
Song lyrics of the Goblin King borrowed –in part- from Radagast-Aiwendil.