Chapter 5: Hatching of a plan
It was late in the afternoon the next time Kíli woke up. Grumpily he sat up in his bed and waved away a dwarf – an assistant healer that had probably watched over them during the night, in case Thorin took a turn for the worse – that had been about to come to his aid.
As far as he could tell it was only his arm that had taken some damage, which was why – without the disapproving presence of Óin – he was perfectly fine swinging his feet out of the bed and slowly standing up.
For a moment he swayed on his feet, the assistant healer hovering at his side making worried gestures as if he wanted to interfere. Once he managed to get his balance, Kíli quickly took stock of himself. He had been stripped of his armour and was – just as Fíli and Thorin – only clad in his underthings. A quick look around showed that some of his clothes had been stacked on a chest in the corner of the room.
Dressing with one arm was a challenge, but Kíli scowled at the dwarf when he tried to mention helping. He wouldn't submit himself to that indignity, even if that meant his trousers were only loosely held together by a badly tied string of leather and his shirt hang a little askew on his frame. Especially since he didn't move his right, injured arm through the sleeve. He wasn't stupid, and taking chances to make an injury to his main hand worse? Nah. He loved archery too much for that.
If someone didn't look at him too closely, they wouldn't even realize it. Probably.
A commotion outside the tent attracted his attention. Curious as ever Kíli didn't hesitate and lifted the flap of the tent out of the was with his left hand, stepping out into the fresh air and right next to Dwalin who was frowning at two armed guards that had very nearly collapsed in front of him, babbling something about wargs and camps and other things.
"What's going on here?" Kíli tried to channel as much I-disapprove-of-your-behaviour-and-you-better-have-a-damn-good-reason voice that Thorin used whenever he and his brother had gotten into another particularly stupid adventure that led to completely unforeseeable and unfortunate circumstances. It worked as the two dwarrows nearly scrambled over themselves to stand straight.
"We spotted a warg." one of them said, the other adding "We think there might be more in the area. We have no idea how it could have gotten this close to us without us noticing."
"Close?" Dwalin growled "What is 'close'?"
The two of them exchanged another, uneasy look, before one of them turned back to Dwalin.
"Close to the gates of Erebor." he hesitatingly admitted. And that was... that was pretty close, Kíli admitted. And... hadn't Óin said...?
"Where exactly?" Kíli's voice had taken a harsh edge, that even Dwalin looked at him in surprise. When the two dwarrows exchanged another look Kíli lost the last of his patience, his left hand striking out and grabbing the more informative guard by the front of his armour, drawing him closer and pulling his attention to Kíli alone.
"I asked a question, guard. Where. Exactly."
"T-the halflings camp!" Kíli's grip slackened and the dwarf immediately took a step away from him.
"It was in the small camp the halfling made and ran off before we could kill it."
"No." Kíli felt fear pierce his heart but tried to power through. There was no proof of anything.
"What about the hobbit?" even before he finished his question one of the guards shook his head and pulled a tattered, bloody piece of clothing out of his pocket.
Kíli took the small stripe of clothing into his hand and looked at it for a moment, feeling numb.
It was the waistcoat that he had jokingly put nettles in, sometime before he had really gotten to know the hobbit and appreciate his friendship. A fabric that had survived trolls (and their snot), goblins, orcs, wargs, Mirkwood, a barrle ride and a dragon.
His hand balled around the tattered piece and he looked up to Dwalin, both of them probably thinking the same thing. Bilbo against a warg on his own? Not good.
Dwalin nodded at the guards and send them away, ordering more guards to comb the area and look for any other signs that there might be an ambush waiting for them, while Kíli still reeled at the situation.
After they disappeared to spread the word, Dwalin turned back to Kíli.
"Yer alright, laddy?" Kíli shook his head, swallowing several times before he could trust himself to speak.
"No." taking another breath he tried to hide how shaken he was. They had all survived the battle. It should have been safe. Bilbo would have been safe, if he had been with them. In their camp. Maybe even in this very tent, fussing over them like the mother-hen he refused to admit he was.
"I need... I need to see. Maybe... maybe he's still alive?"
"Laddy..." Dwalin grumbled "Even one warg? 'gainst Bilbo? Tha' like putting a cat against a caterpillar."
"But Bilbo is clever. He might not even have been in his camp. No body, right?"
Dwalin let his gaze trail down to the strip of bloodied clothing and then back up to Kíli with a rather disbelieving look on his face. Kíli was not about to let his hopes be crushed that easily and shook the offending article in Dwalin's face.
"That blood? Not fresh." Dwalin was going nearly cross-eyed to actually be able to see what Kíli was talking about. It was a funny picture, and if the situation hadn't been so dire Kíli would have laughed in Dwalin's face, even if that meant Dwalin would probably cuff him over the head "Besides these rips? They don't seem to come from fangs or claws..." Kíli looked at the waistcoat, noting the ripped seams with confusion. Whatever the hell had happened, a warg wouldn't bother to carefully destroy the seam with precision. It looked ripped and yes, there were cuts but those seemed to have been made by a sword, clean cuts and not the ragged lines of a warg tearing through it. Looking up he raised a challenging eyebrow right back "Maybe Bilbo used it to cover his scent or something." finally he could see Dwalin begin to have his own doubts and tried to suppress a small grin.
"How about I take a look and investigate?"
Dwalin barked a harsh laugh and then crossed his arms.
"How about no. What'cha think Thorin will do ta me if he finds I let ya run off nilly willy into the wild, injured like that?" Kíli huffed and glowered at his hidden arm.
"Compromise, laddy. How 'bout we get some of our people together and then yer can investigate?"
Kíli grinned. That was why he liked Dwalin, because he wasn't scared of Thorin after all.
And screw patience.
Notes:
Day 5, Chapter 5. Enjoy!
I've reached the end of my preplanned chapters, so from now it's going to be a surprise for all of us, myself included. Muse is still working overtime, but can't seem to settle on one path, jumping back and forth between decisions and despairing at her options. Whoops.
Well, anyways. I don't think I will update daily from now on, but this story is honestly so much fun I think it will continue to grow at a much more rapid pace than I anticipated or wanted.
Your thoughts are always welcome and as always I will try to answer each and every comment :)
