Rhavaniel was rapidly depleting her third and final bundle of arrows. She would not be able to keep up this pace much longer. She still had the tent, and she and Warg could slip deeper between boulders and cover themselves until the end.
She looked up at the Lonely Mountain.
That is when she saw them - The Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield had been fighting their way down the mountainside. Was Kili with them? She began to count, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...Warg growled and snapped and she turned back to the goblins that were sneaking up on her. She had to kill a dozen before she could turn around once more. The Dwarves were lower on the mountain. She counted again. Thirteen. Kili must be alive.
She put the last arrows in her quiver, and threw the tent over Warg.
"Stay." she told him.
She broke from behind the cover of their position. She cleared a path for herself with her last dozen arrows. Once she had entered the battlefield, she thought she had entered what her elders described as the eye of a storm. Bodies closed in around her but it was as if no one could see her or if they did, she did not register as a threat. But like the eye of the storm, she could see nothing past a few feet in front of her. She was on level ground, and could not see Kili or any of the other Dwarves.
She pulled an arrow from an Orc body. It was one of hers, and came out easily, intact. She shot another Goblin and leaped over his body. She was knocked to the ground by accident, as Man and Orc struggled in hand-to-hand combat.
She leaped up again, looking for more arrows. She found three of her own that she had put in a particularly large Orc. She wiped off a bit of gore so that they would fly straight, and shot them carefully at three goblins. She darted forward in the break that their deaths created.
She kept moving forward in fits and spurts, looking for arrows and openings. She hoped she was moving in the right direction. She ducked a sword blow from a Man. He was blinded by blood in his eyes, flailing at anything.
She found a pile of Orc bodies so full of arrows, they looked like a grotesque pincushion. She pulled arrows out, some were Elf-made, and she could still use them. Thranduil's forces may be moving forward on this position. She would have to be careful.
She crawled to the top of the heap, pulling more arrows out of bodies. The arrows of Man, with their barbs, were useless - they did not pull out. She used her recovered Elf arrow on a goblin trying to sneak up behind her. She was out again, and too far away from her fallback position to find any more of her own. Then she saw it on the other side of the Orc pile - three Elf arrows bound together, with bright orange fletch. Only Kili had arrows like that. He had to be close.
She made one more leap forward and the battle seemed to fall away behind her. She had entered a portion of field where no one was fighting because all had fallen or retreated to more strategic positions. The last few standing were the Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield, and a contingent of huge, hideous Orcs. She heard a great roar behind her, and a massive animal raced past her, knocking her down. It was...a bear?
She was flat on her back looking up when she saw them - the giant Eagles Kili had told her about. The birds had saved the Dwarves once before, and now they had joined the battle. They were beautiful. They would lift the Dwarves away from the Orcs, as they had done before, in Misty Mountains, wouldn't they?
Rhavaniel rolled over and stood up on the uneven ground. She looked for Kili, and finally saw him. There was no mistaking him - his helmet had been knocked off. He was with Fili, fighting back-to-back against the Orcs that surrounded them. She ran toward them.
Then she saw him - a tall Uruk-Hai wearing a helmet shaped like a bird mask, with a fierce beak. Unlike the ugly armor of typical Orc, his armor was beautiful. The back was made of beaten gold feathers, shaped like a bird's wings. He swung a hook on a chain, like she had seen back on Burnt Ridge, only larger. It wrapped around Kili's sword arm. The Orc pulled Kili with such force, he was lifted from the ground and torn away from Fili as easily as a toy taken from a child.
Rhavaniel heard Fili scream for his brother, but that scream was cut short. A large, pale skinned Orc pierced Fili through the back with a spear.
The hideous bird-Orc lifted Kili by the throat and looked at him, as if inspecting him, staring into those warm, dark eyes. Kili tried to kick loose, but the Orc forced him down to the ground on his knees.
Rhavaniel was still too far away. She screamed and threw her knife at the Orc. It bounced off his exquisite armor, and he paused long enough to turn and look at her. Kili turned, too. He saw her. She wasn't invisible to him. He knew she had come looking for him. She was the last thing Kili saw when the Orc plunged his sword into Kili's neck and down into his chest.
Rhavaniel screamed in grief. Men and beasts were screaming and dying all over this field, but the screams of a girl were different, somehow. She was no longer invisible, as if a spell had been broken. Eyes turned on her, as she collapsed on the field. She thought she saw the Orc that killed Kili approach her. It didn't matter, she had no fight left in her.
She felt a shadow fall on her, and heard a roar. It was Warg. He heard her voice and ran from his safe place to find her. He would not let the Orc come near her, not without a fight.
Rhavaniel heard more roaring. The bear had come back, and the Orcs retreated from him. This much she was aware of. Then she heard running. The Orcs were in full retreat. She laid on the bloody ground and sobbed, and Warg curled up over her.