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!

After the last bridge over the dry riverbed, the flat plains of northern Eriador gave way to a hard and hilly land that sloped higher and steeper until it finally reached the sheer and icy cliffs that guarded the fortress of Carn Dum at the westernmost end of the Mountains of Angmar.

At first, as the three rode on from the bridge, the hills were low and gently rolling under a white blanket of snow. It might almost have been pretty to ride along as the ponies picked out an easy path around and between the feet of the hills. They wound left and right, slowly climbing higher and higher into the hills until very soon the bridge and the lowlands below it were lost from sight. Harandir had told them that the Road would be found two days north of their then-camp, but Fili knew that a late start meant they may not reach it until the third day at least.

He was eager to ride ahead and Betta's wounded arm no longer pained her; she was healing well under his careful watch. That, and the lightening load of their remaining food stuff, gave them a speed that they had not been able to manage for many days, but the weather grew colder with every mile, and the sloping hills grew steeper. Soon their path would narrow and the ponies would not easily be able to climb between them.

Everyone, dwarf, human and animal, was painfully aware of how little food they had, especially for the ponies and whenever the company came across a bare patch of ground that had been blocked from the wind and snow, they stopped to let the ponies eat what stray blades of grass they could find. In many places, there was no bare ground and the winter storms had filled in the space between the hills, blocking the path with huge drifts of snow. If the drift was low enough, the dwarves would dismount and dig their way through; but, more often than that, they were forced to turn back and go around sometimes as far as a mile to seek an easier path northwards.

As hard as they pressed their ponies to speed, by nightfall they had travelled only seven leagues further. With their wood running low, Fili did not allow them to lay a fire. They camped in the cold under the silver stars, sitting silently with their hunger after a meager meal of raw food. Afterwards, Kili stretched out upon the hard ground and felt the ache of his bruises while Betta lay beside him, shivering so hard that he felt it through the many layers of cloak and blanket that separated them. She could not sleep and lay awake wishing herself back to the warm southern coasts, but wishes did nothing to warm her.

Fili sat high up on the hillside above them keeping watch as best he could with his shoulders hunched up to his ears. If it grew much colder, they would be forced again to use the shelter that they carried, and he was reluctant to do that. He still felt the itch between his shoulder blades that convinced him that they were being watched, but when he looked around, he knew that there was no place for enemy eyes to hide in these bare hills. Harandir was many leagues south of them by now, and Fili had kept a careful eye behind as they rode, making sure that the man was not following after them in secret.

As he searched the shadowy, white hills with his eyes, he sighed and told himself that he was being a fool; there was no one to watch them and no reason for him to be worrying. They were alone for miles around, far from aid but also far from attack, yet still he strained his ears for any sound of hoof or boot, of animal or man that might be creeping up upon them. He saw nothing but snow and heard nothing but the wind, and his brother turning restlessly in his sleep.

When it was Kili's turn at watch, Fili took his place beside Betta. It no longer felt strange to lie beside the body of a human woman, and he fell asleep quickly enough, but his dreams were troubled and strange, full of watching eyes and frowning faces. He woke often and heard the sound of his brother pacing back and forth, the creaking of his boots in the snow was like the grinding of stone deep down in the mines of Ered Luin where Fili would often go to work when he could no longer stand the sight of the sneering men who hung about the dwarf forges in town.

He slept fitfully, but he must also have slept deeply as well, for when he woke next, it was his brother's back pressed against his own, and Kili was fast asleep. Betta was on watch, but she never paced the camp the way that Kili did. Fili looked over his shoulder and saw her sitting above them on the hill, the same place that he had sat earlier in the night. The snow formed a nest around her small body, and her blankets were wrapped so tightly around her head and shoulders that she seemed almost to be a small, grey stone dropped from the sky. It was only that her head turned this way and that as she kept watch that showed she was still living.

In the gleam of the moonlight, he could see her eyes watching the land about them and sometimes, when the wind dropped low, he heard her singing quiet songs to herself. They were not the songs that Dis used to sing to her young sons back at Ered Luin - no dwarf song would speak so often of open fields and river streams, but the sound of Betta's deep voice soothed his raw nerves and slowly Fili drifted into a dreamless sleep.

By the shore, the gulls are crying

Over fields, the wind is blowing

The Eagles tell me this…

.

There is a land far over sea

Where green is grass and leaf of tree

Where beaches white

And silver light

Will shine a path from there to me

.

On the trees, the leaves are sighing

In the fields, the grasses growing

The Eagles tell me this…

.

The second day of their riding was their slowest yet; the ponies were not happy with the growing cold and there was less and less grass for them to eat their fill. At midday when the company stopped for their meal, Fili opened the first bag of feed that they had brought for the animals. The ponies were glad, but the dwarves were not. Even Kili had begun to count the days and weigh them against the supplies at hand. Betta looked on without speaking, but Fili saw in her eyes that she had much to say. Early in their journey, she had often muttered that they had not packed sufficient food for winter travel, and she had never accepted his decision to use ponies rather than their own two feet.

She said nothing about it now and had not complained aloud for several days, but still Fili felt her eyes on him. He had chosen ponies for speed, knowing that he and his brother needed to be back at the mountain before Thorin set out, but Betta did not know that. He had not expected to be riding so far north without a clear path. How could they plan their supplies if they did not know where or when or to what end their journey would take them?

He remembered Kili asking many of the same questions that Betta had asked before they had so hurriedly set out from Ered Luin but, as always, Fili had had his own way.

While he prepared the feed-bags for the ponies, Kili and Betta stood apart and spoke together. That morning as they rode along, Kili had consulted her at length regarding traps and netting, and she had been more willing to answer his questions now that hunger was creeping up on them. Fili watched Betta show his brother how to stretch a square of fine, knitted string that he guessed was of her own devising for he had never seen anything like it before. Dwarves could hunt their own food at need, of course, but they preferred the mountain and mines to the forest and farms, and they relied on their axes and bows. They did not have the patience to wait for traps.

"Are you sure you understand now?" Betta said. "I should do this. I am not invalid, and I can lay this net with one arm."

Kili smiled. "I must learn someday, and today is that day. Besides, I would feel safer knowing that you were not wandering alone in the snow. There may yet be another storm, and we cannot risk losing our guide again."

She looked up at the cold, cloudless sky and shook her head at him, but she did not argue. Kili took his bow and left the camp, nodding to his brother as he passed by. Fili nodded back to him, but as soon as Kili had gone, he shook his head.

"It is hard to believe that he will catch anything with that bit of tangled string," he said aloud. He looked at Betta, but she only shrugged and did not speak. She had not spoken any word to him directly since the night they met the Ranger. Fili had a good guess why. Disappointed, he went back to his work.

Kili was not gone long. He returned in time to sit down to eat with the others, and as they ate he told them that he had found a small clearing of scrub grass and thistle that was free from snow. He had looked for the marks and twisted grass that Betta had described, and he had laid out the net in the way that she showed him, bracing it with pebbles where the tracks were the thickest before he returned to the camp.

Betta agreed that he had done it right, but spoke little else. Kili was not discouraged; all through their meal he cast sneaking looks at her until, eventually, she joined in and they were smiling back and forth at each other like children who had played some great prank. Fili smiled as well and shook his head at them, playing the indulgent parent, although he did not believe that the net would catch anything but grass. Kili was glad to see his brother join in their fun, but Betta refused to look Fili's way.

After their meal but before they rode on, Kili slipped away again. He was gone much longer this time – long enough to be sure that the packing-up would be done by the others – but before Fili could worry enough to go looking for his brother, Kili had returned with a smile on his face and the net in his hands. Four small, thin ground rats were wrapped up in it, caught by the neck. They would have fresh meat in their stew that night, not much but it was something.

.

That afternoon, the ride was as cold and uneventful as the morning had been. But as they rode farther and farther north, a dark cloud seemed to gather about them that no amount of fresh meat could dispel. It was not from the clouds that gathered in the sky, though they were dark enough. A feeling of foreboding had drifted in on the company and put a shadow over their hearts.

To Fili, it felt as if some power in the north was looking down upon them and was angry, but he bent low in his saddle and was determined to press on. Betta followed after him, twisting her hair about her fingers and frowning at his back. Kili came last in their party, and he was the only one of them who held onto any bit of cheer, but even he spoke little and kept his thoughts to himself, frowning more often than he smiled.

At first, Fili tried to make conversation, but his brother was too often too far behind for them to speak without shouting, and Betta either did not hear or refused to answer his words. He knew that she was angry with him for revealing her secrets to Harandir, but he was growing tired of her silent treatment and thought that her behavior was more suited to a spiteful child than a grown woman. In fact, both woman and dwarf were disappointed that their truce had not lasted longer, and all three of the company waited apprehensively for the dam to break on this latest grudge.