Date: TA 2941
Thorin: 195 years old
Lina: 192 years old
The dreams followed Lina as the group travelled past the Shire and Bree. For the most part, they were uneventful. Lina only caught glimpses of her husband and snatches of conversations around the fire. So far everything seemed to be going smoothly. For the first time she caught a glimpse of the hobbit. He didn't look much like a burglar to her, but then, she was dreaming him up. How was she supposed to know what a burglar hobbit would look like?
Lina's company made good time. Occassionally they would come upon a place where a group had obviously rested for the night. At each place, Lina found Thorin's sign engraved for her. The sign was something the pair had used countless times during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. The sign had a number of different parts, each with a different meaning. The first part of the sign signaled the carver was alive. A second mark beside it indicated when the maker had been in that place. A final mark indicated direction taken. The three marks were simple to make, even when in flight. Thorin and Lina had taken great pains to create a simple way to let their loved one know they were alive and where they were going. To anyone else, they marks were just that, random marks. To Lina, it was a relief to see the sign again. As long as the sign appeared, Lina knew Thorin was alive.
Nearly a week into the journey, the company hit heavy rains. Even the assassin sibs with their sharp eyes could not see the road any longer. Lina was uncomfortable ending the journey so early in the day. Her band was to meet with Thorin's the next day. If they stopped now, the journey for both groups would be delayed. However, there was no help for it. The band would not risk their ponies in the deluge.
The dreams that night were different. Lina's darkness carried her through the deluge to a dilapidated farm house. Remains of a camp were scattered about. Ponies stood tethered in the darkness, tossing their heads nervously. Empty bedrolls rested around the dying remains of a cooking fire. What had happened to Thorin and his company? The darkness closes in around her once more.
There were sounds in the darkness. Three horrid voices speaking of cooking dwarves. Lina cried out in the darkness. Where are they? What has happened to Thorin? Where are her nephews?
The darkness parted only for a moment. There was that strange little hobbit again, hobbling around in a bag. The brief opening the darkness allowed Lina to glimpse Thorin. He was lying at the back near a rock. Then the darkness cut off her vision.
"Thorin!" Lina screamed blindly into the darkness. She was woken with a jolt. The assassin sibs were crouching over her, their faces, lit in the dim dawn light, shown with concern. None of the others in the camp had yet stirred.
"What's happened?" the sister, Nes, asked.
"We sensed something was not right," her brother, Kes, told Lina.
"A dream," Lina answered, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"It was no ordinary dream, was it?" Nes queried, watching her leader closely.
"No, none of them are anymore." At this both assassins looked worried.
"If you'll pardon the intrusion," Nes continued, "my brother and I have some dealings with strange dreams. Are they about Lord Oakenshield?"
"They are," she answered slowly. Her fingers played almost unconsciously with the stone ring upon her right hand. The movement caught Kes's attention. Rather abruptly he seized her hand and raised it into the growing dawn light. Lina watched in confusion as he examined the ring before dropping her hand back into her lap.
Neither sib had much more to say on the subject at that moment, both wishing to discuss it further though. Lina was slightly confused by the exchange, but then she often was when it came to the siblings. After training and fighting beside them for over eighty years, Lina still knew next to nothing about them. What they did and did not know about things not pertaining to dwarves was almost as big a mystery as their origins.
Lina sighed and rose, still feeling a bit jittery from the night's dream. Now that the rain had gone, she was anxious to get moving again. Her instincts as a woman and a warrior told her to hurry. Something had gone wrong.
If the rest of the dwarves noticed how agitated their leader was, they gave no sign. The group did pick up the pace, hurrying to where they were supposed to meet the dwarven company ahead of them.
It was nearly midday before they reached the remains of the camp. Lina was startled by how similar the scene was to that in her dream. The only difference was that all the dwarves' belongings and the ponies were gone. The band searched the camp. Lina found Thorin's sign on one stone of the old farmhouse's fireplace. He had been there very early this morning. The sign indicated he had moved into the forest.
Following their leader, the dwarves started into the forest on foot. Their ponies were tethered together and led by the beast handler. One of the skirmishers found the trolls first. With a startled yell, he had summoned the other dwarves. Running into the clearing, Lina came face to face with a stone troll. The creature's mouth was still open in a despairing cry. Carved directly into the palm of its outstretched hand was Thorin's sign. This sign was made shortly after the one found in the farm house. Whatever had occurred with these trolls, Thorin and his dwarves appeared to have escaped somehow.
Thorin's mark indicated the dwarves had moved further away from the main road. But to where? Lina growled in frustration as the dwarves spread out a bit.
"Look for a cave!" Kes called out suddenly. "If these trolls survived long enough in these parts, there's bound to be a horde nearby."
Lina wondered briefly why she had not thought of that. She had spent enough time with Kira to know that trolls could not be touched directly by the sun or they would turn to stone. There had to be someplace sheltered away from the sun for them to hide. As the other dwarves searched for the cave, Lina kept her eyes out for Thorin's mark. It was not until one called out in triumph that she found his mark. The mark was on a rock beside the entrance of the cave. It was made only a short time after the one on the troll's hand.
Most of the band had already entered the cave, searching out what treasure Thorin's band had left behind. Nes and Kes appeared with a set of bone knives each. These they tucked into their coats. A few of the other dwarves came out with golden trinkets or coins. Lina refrained from entering the cave. Her desire to find her husband overruled her natural curiosity. The assassins noticed her agitation and urged their companions to hurry. Following Thorin's sign led them to a small valley.
There were definite signs of dwarven presence here. Two warg bodies were lying motionless in the small valley. One of Kili's arrows had been broken off in the throat of one and its head caved in, likely by a blow from a war hammer. A second had very obviously had its skull split by powerful sword blow. This was where the signs and trails became muddled. Thorin's sign sent the dwarves in one direction, but a set of tracks like those made by a sled went in another. After a moment of debate, the group split in two. Lina's group followed Thorin's sign while the other group followed the sled tracks.
Both groups suddenly found themselves out of the Trollshaws and on a vast, rocky, rolling landscape. The sled tracks were clearly visible to both groups. As were sets of tracks that seemed to be chasing the sled at high speeds.
"Warg tracks," the beast handler announced in disgust when his band rejoined Lina's. The sled trail was quickly abandoned once the assassin sibs had picked up the dwarves' trail. At times the two crisscrossed. Lina felt more frantic than she had ever before. The two groups had not even crossed the Misty Mountains and already they were dealing with a large warg pack.
The dwarves had paused behind a large rocky outcropping. Thorin's mark was cut hastily into it, signaling he was there. Lina ran her right hand over the mark, her eyes closing. Where was Thorin now? Image's flashed through her mind. The dwarves hiding as wargs raced past.
"Where are you leading us?" Thorin's voice growled. Lina's eyes flew open. Her hand jerked back from the sign. Nothing like that had ever happened before. This new development disturbed her. This not knowing and the strange dreams and visions were making Lina more nervous and uptight. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, making her quite nauseated.
The sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach only grew stronger when the band came upon the corpse of a warg. Lying stabbed, shot, and crushed beside the warg was the warg's rider, an orc. Here, too, was Thorin's mark in the stone. Lina dared not touch the mark this time for fear of what she might see.
Lina noticed her band starting to grow wary of following the trail any further. None of them were in the mood to take on wargs and orcs right now.
"How many of you desire to turn northward and continue on to the Fortress without meeting Thorin's company?" Lina asked finally, looking at each of her companions. Nearly all of them raised their hands.
"I'm sorry, Lady Firehammer," one of the berserkers told her. "But our little band isn't much good against orcs or wargs as things stand now. We signed up to follow you to the Fortress, to find out if the army there would help us reclaim Erebor. That mission can be accomplished without Thorin's company."
"We don't know how far this trail goes," another added. Lina nodded slowly.
"I will still follow the trail if you wish to turn north," Lina told them. "Stay with Kira until I come for you. She will give you shelter until I arrive."
"I will lead them north," Kes told Lina. Of all the dwarves following Lina, only he and his sister had been to the Fortress. Lina nodded.
"I will stay with you, if you will let me," Nes added, looking at Lina.
"Is this arrangement to your satisfaction?" Lina asked her companions. There was a general murmur of approval. She nodded, not entirely pleased at splitting the company.
The larger band left the two females behind, promising to wait at Kira's Fortress for Lina's return. Nes looked to her leader.
"They do not understand," Lina said softly, referring to the dwarves Kes was leading north. "Without Thorin or at least his nephews, Erebor will never be reclaimed. The only other dwarf with a claim to the throne has already refused to take part in this venture."
"We will find them then," Nes answered firmly. Lina gave a crooked smile as she set off in the direction Thorin's last sign had indicated.
It was nearing sundown before the two dwarves found another sign of their kin. An orc lay twisted over a bush, one of Kili's arrows embedded in his body. There were more bodies all around. Orcs and wargs lay riddled with arrows, but not dwarven arrows.
"Elves," Nes whispered as she crouched beside one body. "We're drawing near the borders of Rivendell."
Lina stood cautiously and gazed about the area in the dimming light. There was no sign of movement anywhere. Not even a breeze stirred the grasses. Had the dwarves been captured by elves? Lina could not believe Thorin would have gone quietly. At least one elvish horse would be lying dead nearby if that had been the case. The hoof prints near the orcs were too large for the dwarves' ponies and definitely nothing the orcs would have ridden. Yet there was no indication that the dwarves had actually seen the elves. Or, if they had, the elves had not seen them.
Darkness began to set in around them. Lina quickly pulled a shielded lantern from her pack and lit it. Nes followed suit. The two beams swept over the grasslands, following the trails of bodies to a rocky outcropping. The body of a warg disappearing into the ground signaled something unusual. Creeping closer, the two females discovered a passage, twisting through the rock some distance. Where it ended, neither was sure. Thorin's mark just inside the passage convinced Lina that this was the way to follow.
Both females drew their weapons. Lina left her hammer in place upon her back, it would do no good in such close quarters. Instead she drew a shorter double-sided axe from her belt. Nes eased a sword from its sheath. Neither had any desire to be surprised by anything in the passage way.
The passage went on for many miles. Just how far it went, Lina was not sure. Whenever she was just about to lose hope, she would find Thorin's mark upon one wall. By now the marks were nearly a day old.
It was shortly after complete darkness had fallen above and below the plains that the two realized they were not alone. Sounds from the rocks above them had both females on edge as they wound through the darkness. Someone, or something, was following them. Whatever it was, it kept well out of the light from the lanterns. Whenever the beams were turned to focus upon a sound, all movement ceased.
Lina was relieved when light began to appear in the sky high above them. The sounds of being followed ended as soon as it became possible to see without the aid of the lanterns. Whatever it was, it did not want to be seen.
Suddenly the passage opened up into a deep valley. Coming around a corner, the dwarves were met with the sight of an intricately built house set into the rocks and trees just above the floor of the valley. Rivendell. Lina's mouth went dry. Thorin's company had come here after all. Why? Thorin despised the elves.
Lina was tempted to turn around and avoid the elvish household altogether, but Thorin's mark further down the trail dissuaded her. If he had gone into the house, then she would as well. Nes fell easily into position, guarding Lina's back as the two descended into the valley. Elves could not be trusted.