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Chapter 11
They emerged from the pit on the inside of the fence, Fili climbing to the top and pulling Nur after him. They walked, hand in hand, to the square, Nur feeling a little timid in light of Thorin's plan. Would she be able to do all that Thorin called for?
Squeezing Fili's hand, she willed some of his strength to come to her through the touch and told herself that she would soon belong to him alone and be sitting in the comfort of her described armchair with their fireplace aglow.
Fili's hold on her hand wavered, and she could see that he was glancing at his brother from far off.
"Please go to him." She insisted, releasing her grip. "If there's something we need to get straight right away it's that I won't ever be the thing that comes between you."
"You couldn't come between us." Fili chuckled.
"Look at me." She halted him with a hand to his arm and looking seriously at him, waiting for his full attention. "Your brother is more important than me."
"Nur—"
She shook her head quickly. "If we married and I died I would want you to move on, to remarry, and I'm sure that after years of loneliness that you would. You can't do that with Kili."
Fili looked intently at her, only whisking his head to look at the distant Kili for a moment before returning to her narrow gaze.
She sighed. "There's so much unknown happening here, so much confusion—but I don't want you to be confused about this. Take care of your brother if you can only choose one of us. Promise me you will."
Fili's face tensed. "What a thing to make me promise to my queen only minutes after I've proposed to her."
Nur blushed and shifted her weight, but eyed him expectantly.
"Then I'll grant it to you if you'll promise me something in return."
"Anything." She sighed happily.
Tucking a knuckle under her chin and drawing her close to his face in an determination, he whispered, "Don't get killed. Defend yourself But do whatever is necessary… and wait for me, I will find you when this is all over."
She nodded, trembling, while he bent closer and kissed her forehead. She hoped that he did not realize he was the source of her jitters and weakly pulled away to join a distant body of dwarves.
The sun was setting and an orange glow touched on whatever surface it could clasp before its descent. Kili sat in the same place as they had before, feet dangling over the edge of the inn's porch. Fili placed his hands on the edge and lifted himself to join his brother.
"Congratulations." Kili murmured.
"For what?" Fili stared at his feet, adjusting a bootstrap and slicing a cut onto the tip of his finger, which he held it up in amazement.
"Firstly, for being so incredibly witty," Kili smirked, retrieving a tissue-like cloth from his pocket and handing it to Fili, "as to do something like that."
"That's never happened before." Fili grumbled, sucking the drop of blood and waving off Kili's offer. "I don't need that, that's for your fletching; you've no need to dirty it with my blood."
"And secondly," Kili said, a little irked, pushing the cloth back into his pocket. "for your engagement."
Fili paused. "Thank you." He said a little hesitantly.
"I'm sure you'll be very happy together." Kili muttered under his breath.
"Well, that was morose. How can I be happy if you…" Fili's voice trailed off as he took in Kili's grimace. "…Kili, we've almost no light left in the day and already you're finding something to be upset with me about. I thought you wanted me to be with Nur."
"I do." Kili paused. "I don't."
Fili nodded. "That complicates things."
"No, you've complicated things." Kili said.
"Would dragons come down and cover me in flames! My brother is as stubborn as those same beasts…" But Fili became thoughtful again and tried to think like his brother did. It was a difficult pathway, trying to navigate Kili's logic, but not so difficult that Fili could not do it. "Things won't be the same."
Kili tried to avert his gaze, but Fili's words revealed his heart and lay his thoughts open before him. "Yes."
"Never in my life have I left you alone in such a way as this."
"Those are much sappier words than I would have chosen, but something to that extent…"
"I'm not sappy."
"Nur makes you sappy. You can admit it without shame."
Fili snorted. "Nur was the one who made me promise I'd look after you at her expense. To choose you over her if it came to it."
Kili picked at the edges of the cloth which had made its way out of his pocket again.
"She said you were more important to me than she is." Fili continued.
"It's not likely she's right—"
"But you are."
"Our uncle might poke fun at us for sounding like love-struck ladies, but you just took the cake."
"I hope you fall in love with an orc."
"I'll have to, have you seen the ladies court awaiting us?"
"Our mother is in that court." Fili defended.
"Brother, that would be incest."
"Are you lasses finished, yet?" A grumble moaned from behind them. They only needed to glance at the bulky legs attached to the voice to know who it was. "Take heed to what you speak about my sister."
Fili blushed in utter embarrassment at his uncle's words while Kili let out a boisterous laugh.
"The sun has set." Thorin announced, making his way down the stairs. "Make ready to act in a few hours."
But before he could make it further to the square, they were met by a rushing Dul.
"We have a problem." The man breathed. He pointed to a gathering of petty-dwarves approaching the sand before it. They had left the comfort of their trees and now exposed themselves bravely, revealing their numbers to be twice that of the outpost. But, Fili commented in his head, these are the only ones we can see and there are likely more hidden.
"They can't come now." Dul murmured in a low voice as though he was afraid the petty-dwarves would hear them from this distance. "We're not ready."
"We have to be." Thorin snapped and started giving instructions. "We need to change our plans. Kili, you're still on watch. Just try to keep your aim true."
"You'll be right there with them." Kili argued. "My aim will have nothing to do with the distance; you'll be in the way."
"There's nothing we can do about that, now." Thorin hushed him with a hand. "We'll see what we can do, but for now you should aim for the rear, not the front. Smiddag and the others' goal is unchanged. Fili and Dul, you're with me—let's hope we can find some way to prolong talks to give the traders as much time as they can to flee."
Fili's muscles tensed and he shifted his weight. "That leaves Nur unprotected."
Thorin's sideway glance scolded him enough that he bit back the rest of his comment. "She can defend herself well enough, Fili. We don't have time for anything else."
They dispersed to their duties: Kili climbing the steps to the guard tower above the gate, dragging a bucket that splashed a with his uneven steps, and perching himself behind the open window while he clung to his waiting bow; Smiddag standing by bales of hay to the side of the gate, concealed from sight and watching Thorin intently; Nur and a group of twenty dwarves gathering together at one of the side walls behind a shop hut.
Fili chanced a look behind him while he followed Thorin to the gate, but Nur was already tending to huddled bodies beyond sight.
Returning his view to his uncle, Fili tried to stride calmly beside Dul and Thorin.
Low growls could be heard from among the petty-dwarves that stood before them and Thorin assessed the mood of the crowd to be one which would ignite to action, like a flash fire, if given the right spark.
Ibun and Khim stood a few feet in front of the tiny army they'd assembled while Gren stood slightly between them and the other bodies. The cluster held torches, but they also looked to be holding the handles of their weapons.
Khim bellowed before Thorin could speak, "Does Thorin, King under no mountain, believe his adversaries to be witless and blind? Or are you so hopeless that you do not bother to conceal your desperate acts?"
Thorin raised his hands peacefully, but spoke in irritation. "Speak your thoughts, I have no need for—"
"You have been buzzing like bees in the springtime!" Ibun shouted with an accusatory finger. "To and fro, you move about—"
"We have been gathering your articles as promised." Dul growled.
"You have had us in a chokehold for a year now. These people are anxious to give you what you want for their release."
"Their release?" Gren laughed from the small distance away. Ibun and Khim looked him with a sneer, but made no objection to him speaking. "Have our negotiations provided for that?"
"But we do not have to honor it if you are performing treachery." Khim spat on the ground. "Our crows have been watching your every move and declared to us that you have done nothing but wet the walls of your outpost and pack for your journey."
"Did you think that would still prevent us from burning them?" Ibun scoffed. "That water on wood would protect your precious fortress?"
Fili mustered all his self-control into stifling a smile. He hoped they did not see the rush of blood in his cheeks by their torchlight as his face was not as stony as his more experienced uncle's was. He was grateful at least that he could gloat in his head: It wasn't water on the walls.
Thorin bowed his head in false self-defeat. "You have pressed us to the breaking point, what was I to do?"
Ibun and Khim shared a look of pride and cackled at each other. "Perhaps you were wise in knowing us the other night, but we are the wiser now."
The horde behind them laughed in unison and Fili felt a stab of sympathy. It was not sympathy for Thorin's honor, he knew Thorin did not care, but because Thorin's only strategy for prolonging time was to almost goad the petty dwarves into mocking him. It bought the time needed to let the traders escape through the newly dug hole under the wall and into a section of forest. And oh, how he had far to go yet…
"I did not think to be outdone by petty dwarves." Thorin moaned, giving them an unnecessary scrap of credit for their "wit".
Again the crowd roared with laughter. Khim and Ibun were practically rolling at the honor he'd "inadvertently" given them. Fili tried to keep his face looking distraught, but he was sure it looked more like disgust. Surely, Dul looked disgusted.
"No, my Lord." Dul stepped toward Thorin. "Do not give them the hope that they can gain victory over you."
"But we have!" Khim spoke through his red, frazzled mane. "That was your counterplan? Defense was your only thought in withstanding us? Then it is no wonder you have not yet taken the mountain! What sorry tactics you were taught by those who clearly didn't know any better themselves!"
This struck Thorin to the heart—they could wag their tongues regarding him, but now they began to belittle the sacrifice of his father and grandfather. He did his best to check his anger, turning as though dishonored, to face the guard tower and lock eyes with Kili.
Kili shook his head and mouthed the word "no". The traders were not a safe distance away yet. Thorin turned again, bracing himself for more jabs.
"But come." Ibun calmed with a gleam in his eye. "You may yet save yourselves the trouble of our occupation within your walls. Give us what we came for and you might avoid it."
"No," Fili gripped his uncle's shoulder. "Do not let them enter the outpost!"
Thorin ground his teeth. "Fili, they will do it anyway."
"My Lord," Dul pleaded. "Give them the parchment."
Thorin scowled in Dul's direction, stepping back from him and looking resigned.
Ibun stepped forward and opened his hand expectantly. Reaching into his fur-lined jacket, Thorin pulled out a small roll of thin animal hide.
Snatching it from his hand, Ibun withdrew to his brother's side and they observed the unrolled document together.
Gren took a step forward to examine it himself and nodded a little warily. While their attention was occupied, Thorin looked over his shoulder at Kili again, who now nodded quickly.
Thorin nodded back and returned his gaze to the smaller dwarves just before Ibun, not looking up from the parchment he held, motioned for his band of dwarves to enter the gates.
"Wait! What are you doing?" Fili panicked as he watched them pass by. "We've given you what you wanted!"
"I've got my doubts as to whether this parchment is as honest as you pretend it to be." Ibun said, finally looking up. "So as an extra precaution we're going to be holding some interrogations."
"But they don't know anything." Dul pleaded, watching the last of them trot into the square. He raised his head to make a subtle nod to Kili.
"I think closer examination of them each will reveal another story." Khim grinned. "Especially Gren's betrothed."
Fili's mask changed and the false panic he portrayed suddenly bloomed into a terrible scowl. Gren brushed past Fili's shoulder with a bump, following the striding Ibun and Khim as they left the three standing there unguarded. The petty dwarves were not afraid of the three running off, knowing they wouldn't abandon everyone in the outspost.
"Now, Kili!" Thorin shouted, losing no more time and enclosing his arms around Fili.
The next moment was short, while also feeling as though it stretched on endlessly. In the slowness of things, Fili could see Kili raising his bow to aim at the sand where they stood, the tip of his arrow immersed in fire.
He watched in curiosity as time had lagged enough to let him watch a swift release become an arrow moving at the speed of an ant crawling on the ground. He could see Kili's familiar jeer as the dwarf's releasing fingers stayed by the corner of his mouth and waited for the fletching to pass the bowstring; the twang of the bow sounded numb and muted in this suddenly sluggish world.
Fili felt the hands of his uncle around him, Thorin's body shielding his, and Dul moving to do the same to Thorin's back as the arrow made its clumsy impact in the dirt only fifteen paces from them.
There was a fierce eruption of fire and a boom that made Fili's ears hurt as the black powder mingled into dirt. A mound of gravel shot up in a secondary wave and Fili was pressed to the ground, Dul absorbing most of the impact and smashing Thorin further into his nephew.
There were fragments of something that hit Fili in the head, but he didn't feel them as much as he should have, so warped were his senses. His vision clouded around the edges and was sharpened in the center, taking in the speed of time which had returned to normal.
He saw Kili running down the stairs.
He saw the petty-dwarves flung back and forced into the center of the square, far from the gate and far from escaping.
He saw Smiddag lighting the walls with a torch.
He saw the other handful of dwarves lighting their set positions of wall on fire with their own torches.
He saw two hefty traders shoving their weight against the gates to help them close that much faster.
He saw Ibun and Khim being closed inside, unmoving as they'd caught the majority of the blast.
He saw the gate angrily consumed in flame.
And then he saw nothing.