The first watch passed quietly and before midnight, Fili woke his brother to take the second. The heat of the day was gone and without a fire, the night was so cold that it was almost painful to his bare skin. At least the wind had died down.

Fili lay down and wrapped himself up in his cloak and blanket; he pulled his hood tight so that only his nose and eyes peered out, but still he shivered. Finally, quietly, he moved to the place that his brother had left, and he lay with his back against Betta's body. It was not much, but the warmth of her side was better than cold air at his back.

As tired as he was, he could not fall asleep, and he lay awake for some time listening to the wind and the sound of Kili's footsteps as he paced over the creaking snow. Many leagues away, a lone dog howled, and it was a haunting sound that made Fili wish for a mountain over his head and walls at his back. He could see his brother's silhouette outlined against the sky. The fire was glowing embers, but the night was cloudless and the moon lit their hillside until it seemed almost as bright as day.

Had last night been the full moon? He could not remember. Certainly it must be soon if they had not passed it already. The silver face looked down on them like a round shield, pockmarked by many battles. It had been just past the first quarter on the day they left Ered Luin; although, on that night, the sky had been full of rain, and he had not been able to see it. Had they really been on this journey for less than two weeks? He found that hard to believe.

His thoughts were restless. Fili watched his brother, shuffling back and forth to keep warm. Kili might have died today, crushed under his pony; and before that, the orcs; before that, the thief at the inn with his sharp knife while Fili had been pinned under the other thief's club and unable to help him. What had Thorin said? That this would be a pleasure walk?

Fili looked over his shoulder and saw Betta lying beside him, so bundled up that she might have been mistaken for a piece of the baggage. Her face – what he could see of it under hood and scarf – was white with cold and only the rise and fall of her chest showed that she was still living. She too had been near to death in this cold land.

Kili treated the woman almost as a younger sister. Fili had not thought of it before agreeing to the job, but he had taken on the responsibility of protecting Betta as well as his brother. He had accepted her quest as a way to prove himself to Thorin, but he had not even known her name. Like his uncle, he had not thought there would be any real danger on this journey, or that they would go so far north. He certainly did not guess that he would come to know a human woman as well as he knew this one.

They had shed blood together battling the same band of orcs. He knew her family history, the land that she had been born in and the lands that she had walked through on her way to Ered Luin. He knew the strange way that she belted her knife upright against her back instead of at her side or on her arm. He knew that she would always have a smile for the trees and the stars and for Kili, but never for Kili's brother. Fili knew many things about Betta, but he still did not understand her, and that made him uneasy. His offer of a truce had been made honestly, but she had taken his words far more seriously than he had intended them.

Until now, there had been no reason for him to try to understand the race of Men. Kili spent more time in their towns than did Fili, who saw only the arrogance of these who came to the forges or mines of the dwarves to hire them for tinkering and horse-shoeing, work that they did not deign to do themselves. In the pub, when the barkeeper had brought them a message from a human woman, Fili had refused to answer it. It was not uncommon for the richer men's wives to want jewelry hammered on a dwarf's forge to show off to their friends, but only a desperate dwarf with no pride at all would agree to such cheap work.

Of course, Betta had also sent two mugs of good beer with her message, and that was not so common. Kili had been curious, as he always was, and it was Kili who had taken his brother by the arm and dragged him to her table. It took Fili many days longer than his brother to accept that she was not one of the boastful, blundering people that he had known in Dunland and towns of Ered Luin. She was honest, yet stubborn, sturdy and resourceful… almost she reminded him of a young dwarf-woman.

Yet Fili frowned at that thought. Betta was no dwarf. One honest woman could not settle the debt of an hundred years of humiliation at the hands of lesser folk. Was it any wonder that Thorin spent his days dreaming of the glory of Erebor where his people had been the masters of their own hands? Where the beautiful things they forged were for themselves and not sold as trinkets to these who hardly knew a good bit of work from a bad. When the Mountain was reclaimed, Thorin's people would take back their honor, and if Fili could be part of the taking back, then all the sweat and danger that he put into Betta's petty quest would be worth more than any weight of gold.

And that was what bothered Fili more than anything. He understood well what his own goal was on this quest, he knew the desires of the Dwarves, but why was Betta here? Not for honor, he would bet a stone of true silver that it was not for that; and not for treasure, either, or she would have taken back the pearl when he'd offered it. Where did her interests lie, and for what did she risk her life in the northern cold?

There would be no answers got from the night, and Fili needed sleep. He turned his face to the south again. Only two hundred leagues from the frozen wastes of Forodwaith were the green fields of the Shire. Below Evendim, even, the trees would still be clinging to their leaves against winter's cold. From where he lay, all that Fili could see was snow, and in the moonlight it shown like a blue blanket full of dips and drifts, hills and hollows; but when he looked west, he saw the black stones of the bridge not quite half a mile from their camp.

The cold and the night weight down on him and his eyes began to drift. But just as he was on the edge of sleep, he saw something move upon the northern bank of the dry riverbed. Fili blinked his eyes, but a single shadow remained there.

He sat up and stared hard, thinking that it was only his tired eyes playing tricks, but now he saw that the shape was moving with a purpose. He stood up and walked to the south side of their camp, shielding his eyes against the moonlight. "Do the wolves of the north not hunt in packs?" he muttered, loosening the axe at his belt.

When his brother stood up, Kili had turned toward him. Now he followed Fili's gaze and looked across the snow. He saw the same movement that had woken his brother, but Kili had a guess for what it might be; it was not a wolf, but it was not good. He stooped down beside Betta and shook her hard until she woke.

She was used to Kili waking her for her watch, and so she did not reach for her knife, but she was tired and confused and knew that it was too early.

"What…?"

"Hush." He motioned for her to be quiet, and then he went to stand at his brother's side. His bow was in his hands and his arrows were ready. After the orc attack only three nights ago, they would not take any chances.

They waited, staring down the hill as the shape drew nearer and, as it did, Kili saw that it was neither bird nor wolf, but it was no ghost either. It had left the bridge and was moving toward their hill with speed. Both dwarves could see that the shape was that of a man, tall and walking with a long, quick stride. If he had moved with stealth before, now that he saw them watching, he ceased any attempt at concealment and approached their camp openly with his hands held out before him.

The stranger carried a bow on his back and a sword at his belt. His cloak was thick and lined with fur. He was dressed all in gray, and under moonlight it seemed that he blended with the snow and shadow of the hills as he walked. Fili found it hard to keep his eyes on him until he came very close. His boots were tall and thick, well-worn from far wandering, but over his shoulder he carried only a light pack and a thick bundle of wood.

At first, Fili guessed that the stranger was an elf, so arrogantly did he approach their camp. Fili fingered his axe with a frown. He had been raised by his uncle to give no willing welcome to elves, even if they were starving in the desolate north.

"A Man," Kili said. He fit an arrow to the string of his bow. "He is very tall."

Fili was not ready to admit that his brother had the keener sight, but Kili's eyes were not clouded with sleep, and he had several hours of rest behind him.

He relaxed his grip on his axe a little, knowing that it was a mortal he saw and not one of the elf-kind. He did not like to meet any stranger in the barren lands, but the moon was bright and they could see far around their camp. There was no sign of any other men who might be lying in wait to ambush them, and Fili did not believe that one alone could be a danger to two armed and ready dwarves.

The man now stood only a dozen yards from their camp, down the slope of the hill. Kili bent his bow and took aim. "Stop!" He called. "Stay where you are."

The man pushed back his hood and looked up at them. The moonlight glinted like a star upon the clasp of his cloak, but his dark hair and clothes were otherwise unadorned. He held out his hands with his palms forward. "Why do you raise your weapons against me?" the man asked. "I have offered no challenge."

"An enemy will not offer challenge before he attacks," Kili said.

"An enemy would not walk openly across the snow in full view of well-armed dwarves," the man answered. "Will you shoot me, or will you spare a moment's heat from your embers to warm the cold hands of a weary traveler? I promise, I mean you no harm."

Fili frowned, but although he could have refused aid to an elf – and indeed, an elf probably would not have asked for help from any dwarf – they had no excuse for turning away a man. "Come, then," he said. "You may warm your hands, but set your weapons aside."