The tattoo was inked deep and dark into his wrists, so that he could neither put on nor take off his knuckle dusters without seeing it, and it said simply, hold back.

Dwalin walked of out the cell without looking back, because what was there to see?

Rumour went on wings rather than feet, it was said, and this seemed to be the truth, for his fellow guards stepped aside for him a bit more smartly, and prisoners moved a bit further back in their cells to avoid his attention, and everywhere eyes turned away from him as he passed.

The summons came a little later than he expected, but it came nevertheless.

'How exactly do you suppose we get the information we need from a dead criminal, Dwalin?' Korin, Captain of the Belegost Guard, growled at him.

Dwalin shrugged, and glared back at her. 'One less back on the streets.'

Korin's dark expression did not change. 'You're an interrogator, not an executioner. Don't make a habit of it.' She left the room, but Dwalin stayed there, unmoving, for a long time.

There was extra space around him now, filled with silence in his presence and whispers when he left, and in the weeks after he had killed the prisoner Dwalin drank alone in the evenings when his work for the day was done.

He had not meant to do it. He had not even been angry, and in any case he had learned long years before to keep his beast on its chain. He had been doing only what he was required to do: apply force to extract information. It was a different kind of mining, somewhat more bloody but no less fine a skill than that of the gem- and ore-masters who could play the music of taps and echoes so that the radiant secrets of the mountains poured out. A misjudged blow and a fortune could be lost, or a life.

Or a life. He had misjudged that blow, for no reason other than carelessness, and the side of the Dwarf's already-bloodied face had crumpled like tin under the hammer and she had sagged in her chains, head hanging down at an angle he knew too well.

His usual sparring partners now made excuses. On his own Dwalin trained harder and more frequently than ever: drill after drill with axes and knives and his own knuckle-dustered hands. The time was coming when he would have to face a dragon beside his king, and in the meantime this was the best solution he had to fill the emptiness around him.

Late one evening, when a powerful blow struck him on the back of his head, Dwalin reeled around to find Thorin there, a wooden practice sword in his hands.

'Well, that was a fine way of letting me know you're back.' Dwalin rubbed the sore spot; there would be a bruise in his not too distant future.

Thorin smiled, and that was too rare a sight these days. 'May I join you?'

Dwalin hesitated. Thorin was a match for him, true; a little smaller, a touch lighter on his feet, and his strength was that of a Dwarf who could forge a sword as well as wield one. But he was Dwalin's oldest friend - and more than that, his king.

'I was just about to finish,' he said.

'That's not true.'

Dwalin shrugged, and leant on his axe.

'I've heard what happened.' Thorin gave Dwalin an appraising look. 'Is that why you're here alone?'

Dwalin's smile was grim and did not make it to his eyes. 'Aye, maybe.'

'Then it's time you had a sparring partner again.' And swift as lightning Thorin swung the wooden sword, cracking it across Dwalin's knees and spinning round to land it on his back, and the bigger Dwarf grunted, turning and parrying the next blow with the haft of his axe.

'It's a bad idea, Thorin. Leave it be.'

Thorin stepped back and slammed the sword into Dwalin's side. 'You don't need to hold back with me, my friend.' Another blow. 'And you'd better not, if you want to have ribs tomorrow.'

'Thorin -'

'Don't hold back.'

'Hammer and coals -'

But Thorin would give him no quarter, and in the end Dwalin did not hold back - because, after all, he did not really want to report to the guard room the next day with broken ribs. He did not hold back, and Thorin was all right, he was laughing, and when they had finished sparring Dwalin felt more relaxed than he had for weeks.

Yet he could not afford to forget.

The tattoo was inked deep and dark into his wrists, so that he could neither put on nor take off his knuckle dusters without seeing it, and it said simply, hold back.

FIN