The next morning the company was grim and silent as they prepared for another day's hard labor. The sky overhead was overcast and the mountains seemed nearer and darker than ever before. There were many cautious looks cast between and among them as they swallowed that morning's crust of bread. It was too little food to call a breakfast and once the bowls were put away, it seemed to their grumbling bellies as if they had not broken their fast at all.
Betta and Fili were both distant; each avoided looking in the other's direction and their conversation was restricted to the packing up of the camp. Kili was absolutely confounded by it, but under the dreary sky, he had no intention of investigating. He was determined that whatever new feud had arisen between them, he would keep well away from it and leave them to work it out for themselves.
Of the three of them, it was usually Kili who greeted each morning with cheerful chatter, but that day, he was quiet. The low clouds and dark hills seemed to smother all sound and when he bid his brother good-morning, his voice sounded strange and hollow in his ears. He was reluctant to speak again but made sure to smile as often as he could to prove that he, at least, was in no foul mood. He did not even complain when Fili resolved to tighten the wrap around his chest and said that he should wear it during the day as well to support the weight of the pack on his shoulders.
When it came time to change the bandaging on Betta's orc-wound, however, they found that she had learned to be stubborn. She refused to sit down for it.
"It is not needed," she insisted.
Kili bit his tongue as his brother pulled tight the last bit of cloth and tied it in place. "It is needed," Fili said. "That is no scratch or clean cut you have there. An orc-wound needs tending or it will become infected."
"It might once have needed tending, but no more," she said. "You saw for yourself last night that the wound is healed and closed over. Even the scab has begun to fall away; the itch of it is insufferable. There is no better proof of healing than that! I need no more tending, and, what is more, I want none."
If she had stomped her foot and pushed out her chin like a child, Kili would not have been surprised, but she did neither. He had been prepared to laugh at her stubbornness and shame her into giving it up, but although she stood with her feet firmly planted in the snow, her eyes were cast down and to one side. She did not look at either brother. If he had not known better, he might have thought that she was not so resolute in her purpose as her words made her seem. Seeing her reluctance, Kili felt sure that she must have some good reason for refusing, but he could not think what it might be.
For his part, Fili was astonished at the sudden change in what had come to be a regular part of his morning and evening routine. He kept his eyes on Kili's bandages. "Your shoulder still needs healing," he reminded her. "If you think that it does not, then lift your pack with it and we shall see."
She glanced at the pack and shook her head. "But my shoulder needs no bandage."
Fili sighed, and then he nodded. "No, it does not," he agreed. "It needs only the sling, which you will let me tie for you, at least? If it is the cold that bothers you, you need not take off more than your coat."
Betta was reluctant to do even that, but she could not argue the point any further without earning their suspicion; Kili already sat half-naked in the cold and he did not complain of it.
"If it will silence you about the other, then yes, you may do that," she said, "but only that."
"I am not so deft a hand that I could sneak a bandage onto your arm without you knowing it," Fili said.
Kili had his clothes back on, and Betta took her turn allowing Fili to adjust the long cloth that wrapped around her arm and shoulder. She sat nearer to the fire than to him and he had to lean forward to reach the knotted cloth, but the fire was still lit and he reasoned that if she were cold, she would wish to be nearer it than to him. He had a difficult job of tightening the sling – her body was as tense and tight as a bowstring – but he made no comment and focused on the work.
Kili sat apart from them and watched them with interest and no small amount of concern. He had no intention of admitting to his brother all the things that he had let slip to Betta last night about Thorin, and about Fili himself, but he suspected that Betta's changed mood this morning had more to do with that than with any coldness in the air. He had assumed from the start that she knew the brothers' royal status among dwarves, and that she understood the importance of the title that Fili was set to inherit, but perhaps he had been wrong and she had not fully realized the weight of it. Certainly, Kili himself was only beginning to understand the responsibility that his brother bore as heir to the great Thorin Oakenshield.
Once the sling was tied, Betta put on her coat and left the brothers. She went to stand upon the hillside, her face turned eastwards towards the rising sun that was all but hidden behind grey clouds. She frowned as she looked up at the mountains in the distance.
"The clouds seem darker in the east," Kili commented after they had taken down and bundled up the shelter.
"They do," Fili agreed. He put the last few items away in his pack and all that was left was to heft the baggage onto their shoulders and set out for the day's march.
"We are walking straight towards them today," Kili added.
"We are."
Kili sighed and shook his head. "Alright then, be as grumpy as our guide, but we need food. It is a wonder that we are not all as short tempered as she is today. We cannot cut our rations more than we already have and if I tighten my belt another notch I shall be split in two."
"I know it," Fili said, and he sighed. "We might have to give up a day's walk to hunt for game instead, but I do not like to do it. Anything that we find will hardly be worth the effort of hunting and cleaning it. We have not been on this journey long, but I feel the need to hurry…"
"We are hurrying towards starvation," Kili reminded him. "There are not many trees here, but there have been more as we go along. We should keep our eyes open for a larger wood between the hills where we might find some winter-loving animal to hunt or trap. I feel that I could bend my bow, but I doubt there will be anymore open ground to lay out Betta's net."
"No. There is too much snow in these hills," Fili said. He remembered Betta's words and looked up the hill to where she stood. He followed her gaze eastwards and thought that he saw a flash of lightening among the darker clouds. How far were they now from the old fortress of Carn Dum? Not far enough, Fili thought, and that was enough to dampen any mood.
"Would you like me to retrieve our guide?" Kili asked, but Fili shook his head.
"I suppose that it is my turn," he said. Ignoring his brother's exaggerated astonishment, he walked up the hill and stopped beside her. "Are you ready to begin the day's march?" he asked.
"More than ready," she said. "The sooner we set out, the sooner we shall reach the end of it."
There was a shadow over her face, and he frowned to see it, but nodded at her answer and turned to go down the hill again, thinking that she would follow. Suddenly, surprising him, Betta reached out and caught hold of his sleeve. He stopped and turned back to her but, just as suddenly, she let go and pulled her hand away, looking at it as if it did not belong to her.
"I am sorry," she said. Her cheeks were red and she did not look at him. "If I was too sharp before, I apologize. My grandmother would be ashamed to hear that I argued with a healer."
"She need not be very ashamed," he assured her. "I am no proper healer." He raised an eyebrow. "Will you let me see to your arm now?" he asked.
"No."
"Will you tell me why you refuse?"
She searched his face for a moment, and then shook her head. "No."
"Then we are still at crossed-purposes, but I am not angry. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we should continue to disagree even if we do not fight."
"I am not surprised by it," she said, and then she smiled and laughed, pointing down the hill. "We should move on. I think that your brother is growing impatient."
Below, near the baggage, Kili was pacing the camp and had worn a wide circle in the snow with his shuffling feet. When Betta returned, he told her what had been decided, that they would look for a wood to hunt and even give up a day to it if such a place was found. She did not argue against the need for food but it was clear that, like Fili, she regretted every hour that was lost in their journey east.
The company was in a better mood, barely, as Fili helped his companions on with their packs. Betta felt certain that hers was lighter than it should have been – lighter than it would have been if only the little food from supper and breakfast were missing – but she said nothing about it. As his own burden was settled onto his shoulders, Kili glanced at her, and she knew that he, too, felt that the weight was lessened, but Fili's face was set in stone as he put on his much heavier pack. He would suffer no more arguments that day.
In the early morning, they set out and walked for hour after hour without speaking. Ahead of them, the mountains of Angmar seemed to march forward to meet them. Before, as the company had walked or rode, they had often left some distance between them, even up to several yards in clear weather when there were no obstacles in the road, but now they huddled close together near enough that they might each have reached out to touch the shoulder ahead of them or back to touch the arm behind.
Fili and Kili looked from side to side as they marched, searching for any copse of trees greater than a dozen boles, but Betta kept her eyes above. There was no sign of animal tracks nor even a bird in the sky. They were utterly alone in the barren north and only Forodwaith could have been more dangerous to them than the land that they now entered.
.
The road was straight-cut, but every league or so it would veer suddenly south and pass in a wide circle around some particular hill or mound. There was no reason that Fili could see why one hill would be cut through and another avoided, but there was an ill-omened feeling to these places, and the oppressive air would thicken like a lump in his throat as he led his company past. More than once, he felt the need to look back to be sure that Betta and his brother were still with him and that they had not disappeared.
Just after midday when the sun was at its peak, there rose up in front of them a steep mound that was taller than all the others but its head was sheared off suddenly at the top. From the road, Fili thought that he saw a crown of blunt stones set about the rim of the plateau, but as he looked closer he had the terrible idea that they were not rocks but the black teeth of a gaping mouth that opened wide to swallow the sun as it was passing overhead. A shudder ran through him from the back of his neck to the tips of his toes and he would not have been surprised to see the whiskers of his beard curling up in fear.
"They are barrows," Betta said. She had been walking behind Kili, but now Fili looked round and saw that she stood beside him and his brother had fallen back a few yards behind her.
"You recognize this devilish thing? I would bet pure gold that it is no natural formation."
She nodded. "They are burial mounds. I have seen them in Rohan, and in the north of Minhiriath, but these are so large…" She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun and looked up at the stone teeth. She did not shudder, but her face was sad. "How many men must be buried there…? A whole army, it would seem."
Fili looked up at the stones again, and wondered that any folk would be so pitiless as to bury their dead in the ground and leave them to be tread upon by passing strangers. Again he felt a shiver run through him.
"I thought that you did not believe in ghosts," Betta said, seeing his pale face. "This quest has changed you."
He tore his gaze from the stones to look at her and was strangely comforted to see no fear reflected in her eyes. "Has it not changed you?" he asked.
"Yes, in many ways…"
She might have said more, but Kili had caught up to them and he had heard their words. "If men are buried here, then I say do not disturb them." He spoke in a hushed voice. "Let us walk on, and walk more quietly!"
The company hurried past in silence. Or, in almost silence. Fili thought that he heard Betta singing softly behind him, but though he tried to make out the words, he could not be sure that it was her voice even and not the wind whispering in his ears.
In spite of the frightful barrows, the company walked openly upon the road that day; there was no hope of hiding in the northern land. The snow showed their tracks too clearly, yet they did not dare to make camp more than a stone's throw from the road for fear of losing it. The darker the sky grew and the deeper the snow drifted, the more the gray hills matched the gray clouds above; every clump of tree or bush looked the same as the one that had come before it, and if Fili had closed his eyes and turned around three times, he would have lost his direction until the sun or stars came out again.
That night, they curled up under the winter shelter and ate their meager meal. Betta still refused to have her orc-wound tended, but Kili no longer hesitated to bare his skin and he did not care who looked, for he wanted the bruises healed as quickly as possible before danger found them again.
By the light of their cooking fire, Betta worried over her map but would not say what it was that she looked for. Kili saw that it was not the map that she looked at longest, but the tiny writing on the back of the pages that she had never fully translated to the dwarves' satisfaction. Fili noticed it, too, but he sat quietly, sharpening his swords, and when the night arrived, he went out to take his watch without a word to her.
He looked at her before he passed out into the cold, but her eyes were on her pages. Only after he had gone did Kili see Betta look up and look after him. She was frowning and seemed to be thinking hard on something, but then she shook her head, dismissing the idea. When she realized that he was watching her, she hid her frowns and bid him good night, putting away the pages and laying down on her blanket with her back to him. Kili went to his rest soon after.
There were no deep conversations that night. The company slept long and deep when they were not taking their turn at watch; and when they were, they sat upon the hillside, shivering under the watchful eyes of ghosts. The little that they had to eat was not enough to fill their bellies day or night and food was always on their minds and invading their dreams. Fili guessed that they had no more than two days before they would be forced to turn back toward habitable lands or risk not make it home at all.
A special thanks to those wonderful readers who have offered advice and put up with my pestering questions. This story will be much improved by your comments and critique.
-Paint