Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!

This chapter contains descriptions of violence that may be upsetting to some. Reader discretion is advised.

On the fourth day of their riding, the weather turned cold again. The sky was as gray as the morning before had been blue, and the wind was cold; billowing down from the north and east, it pushed against them as if it meant to turn them back. Fili pressed on, still hoping to reach the river and cross the ford before night fell.

Little was said that day. Kili spoke once or twice to Betta, and she responded. Fili knew that his brother wanted him to speak with her as well, and he would have if he could think of anything to say.

A few leagues out from the river, they began to see trees along the road, little copses of pine and spruce, but here and there an elm or a proud oak stood alone, sundered from its kind. They road on entering land where there were more hills, rolling and grassy or rocky outcroppings that the road cut through. There was one great hill, so tall and steep that the builders of the road had not attempted to cut into it. Instead, the road ran for half a mile around the hill on the northern side and passed through a small wooded glen with low hills on either side.

As they approached the covered way, Kili hesitated. His pony whinnied and shook its head, reluctant to enter the trees, and there was something strange in the air. Kili pulled his pony to a halt and sat still, turning his head to one side to listen.

Fili was a length ahead of his brother when he heard him stop. "What is it, brother?" he asked. He turned his pony aside and looked back at him. At the end of their line, Betta rode up to join them. She, too, frowned and was listening.

"The bird song," she said quietly.

Kili's brow furrowed, but he nodded. "Yes," he said. Now that she had said it, he knew what it was that had puzzled him. There had been many different birds chirping during all their daylight travel; but near the hill, the songbirds were silent, and they heard instead the loud arguments of carrion crows.

"We should choose another way," Betta said.

"Wait here," Fili said. "I will ride ahead and have a look."

"You should not go alone," Kili told him.

"Stay with the… with Betta," Fili said. "Probably it is only the carcass of some wild animal, and I will interrupt the crows at their feasting."

He rode ahead. Kili wanted badly to follow him, but he knew that his brother was right. If Betta would not go forward, at least one of them had to stay behind with her. She was looking up at the sky, worried, and when Kili looked up he saw a flock of the same carrion birds, black crows and a few large ravens whose coughing cry could be heard over the cackling noise. They rose up in a cloud from the glen, flew into the air and then settled in the branches of the tall fir trees, scattered but not yet willing to leave whatever they had been feasting upon.

"He should not be alone," Kili said, gripping the reins. "If there should be a danger…"

Betta clenched her fists, but she nodded. If there was danger, two Dwarves were better than one, and she was as useless in a fight on the road as she would be in the trees. At least there, she might take cover and use her bow.

They rode forward, following Fili's path and joined him around the hill where the crows were gathering. Fili had left his pony at the edge of the trees and they saw him a little way into the copse. He was crouched beside something on the ground.

"What is it?" Kili asked.

Fili stood up. "See for yourself," he said.

Kili dismounted and joined him there. On the ground, half-hidden in the brush, lay two bodies of Men. One lay on his face, his back bloodied and covered with wounds made from a jagged blade and then widened by the beaks of crows that had begun picking at the dead flesh. There was a black arrow in his neck. The knife wounds were bloodless; his body had been hewn after he had been killed. The second man, Fili had rolled onto his back. His throat was cut and there were many cruel wounds on his face and chest, but it was the two-day old shallow cut along his shoulder and jaw that would have been familiar even if his face was unmarked.

"These are the men who attacked us at the inn," Kili said.

Fili nodded. "I wonder what brought them so far east. Were they following us?"

"If they were, then we would not meet them ahead on our road; they would have overtaken us from behind. What I wonder is why they are dead and what killed them? And where has it gone? That is an orc arrow or I am a fool." Kili pulled the shaft from the man's neck and looked at it.

"Both things could be true, brother," Fili said. "They have not been dead longer than a day. Probably they were killed early last night." He frowned down at the ground, looking for tracks to read, but the bed of dried pine needles showed only that there had been a struggle, not what or how many or where they had gone.

"There is a camp here," Betta called. She had dismounted and walked farther into the trees.

Fili followed her and caught hold of her arm. "You should not wander," he told her.

She said nothing but pointed into a clearing.

There was indeed a camp site there. The needles had been brushed away and the remnants of a small fire lay cold and black in the center. Several packs and blankets were scattered around, torn and searched, in many places smeared with black and blood. Worse, though, was the body of the young kitchen boy that lay at the edge of the clearing. The shirt on his back was stained brown with old blood, and Fili recognized the deep gash that an axe would make when thrown from a distance. The boy had been felled as he fled, and the heavy boot tracks that approached his body told that whoever had killed him had returned for the axe. There was the muddy print of a boot on the dead boy's back.

"I did not want this," Betta said. She knelt beside the boy and touched his hand.

"You did not do this," Fili told her. "Fror was right. The lands have grown dark. We must take more care. I did not think that we would meet the threat still on the western shore of the river. Do you regret your journey now?"

Betta looked up at him angrily. "This is not my doing, but can you say that it is not yours?" she demanded, standing up to look him in the eye. "They came this way to ambush us! To steal the pearl that you flashed in their faces! This boy should not be dead; he should not be here. My brother should not…" She closed her mouth and turned her back on him.

Fili stared at her in surprise. He looked to his brother, but Kili shook his head. They stepped to the other side of the camp to give her space to herself and spoke quietly together under the trees.

"Do we go on?" Kili asked. "We promised Thorin that there would be little danger, but I begin to feel that Betta is right. These men were waiting for us here. It is the only reason they would come before us and yet along our same path."

"It is not the only reason, but other enemies have taken care of that problem for us," Fili said. "Many travellers use this road. Even if these thieves were set to ambush us, that danger is gone. If it was orcs, or other wild men, we knew that we might face threats of this kind. It changes nothing. We must go on, or return to Ered Luin with our tails between our legs like beaten dogs and Thorin will leave us behind tied to the fence when he goes to take on the dragon."

Kili thought about that silently for several moments. He looked back at the bodies of the men and their blood that had long since soaked into the dirt. "If you mean to go on, then I will follow you. You are my brother," he said finally. "What about her?"

Betta had knelt on one knee beside the body of the boy. Fili wondered who the men of the south prayed to in their grief, or if her head was even bowed in prayer and not in memory of some other young man whose death she felt more keenly than that of an unknown kitchen boy.

"If she will go on, then we will go on," Fili decided. "It would be better if you told her. She will think that I am demanding if I ask her to decide. Whatever way she chooses," he added, "we must move soon. It is not safe to linger here."

Kili nodded. He went to Betta's side and waited for her to rise. Fili watched them from a distance. He did not hear what they said, but he saw the stern expression on the woman's face. She meant to go on. He knew it without waiting for Kili to bring him her answer. For the first time, Fili felt a sliver of respect for her. She was made of sterner stuff than he had at first believed.