"Orcs," Kili said, holding out the arrows to show his brother. "How long since they were dropped here, do you think? Days?"

"Longer than that," Fili said. The iron points were rusted from the damp of the cave, but orc weapons were well-known to be unreliable narrators. Clean ones were likely freshly stolen, but age, rust and wear could not tell you how long a weapon had been carried or left to lie.

Fili looked down at the scrap of leather on the floor of the tunnel instead. He took out his knife and crouched down. He had no intention of touching the foul thing with hand or glove but poked at it with the tip of his blade. The leather was half-eaten by rot and glued down to the stone. He scraped at a corner and gauged the depth of the stain underneath.

"Not long enough, but not recent either," he said. He wiped his knife on his boot and stood up. "Several weeks, at least, probably several months, I would say."

"So, not since before we arrived here," Kili said, nodding. "They were probably left by some of the orcs that the old troll snacked on up above."

"We cannot count on that," Fili said. He put his knife away again, but looked darkly down at the crack in the wall. "We cannot count on anything in these caves, but I would bet my sword that there are living orcs nearby."

Kili sighed, his relief short lived. "We should move on, then. It will not be safe to stay long in one place."

"It will not be. It is not," Fili agreed, but he did not turn to go.

Kili eyed his brother curiously, then looked back over his shoulder toward Betta. She still stood beside the flat stone. Her eyes were turned toward the brothers, but Kili could not read the expression on her face. Her gaze was cold but distant and he did not envy her the thoughts she must be thinking to look at them that way. He looked back at Fili and knew why his brother hesitated.

Fili could feel Betta's eyes on him, and he thought that she was still angry. She had been very quiet since they had entered the tunnels; indeed, ever since they had begun to sleep side by side and wrapped in each other's arms, he had noticed her stubbornness softening but her anger only grew hotter and harder to read. Now that she knew that they had left behind the caves inhabited by Men, would she argue with him? Would she refuse to let him touch her?

He could feel Kili's eyes on him now and looked at his brother. "Well, what have you to say?" he asked, sharper than he meant to be.

Kili's smile was grim. "I only wonder whether the two of you will have your fight now or will you wait until after we have been captured by the orcs?"

"It has never been my choice to fight," Fili muttered. "I am tired of it." He snatched the arrows from his brother's hand and left the corner of the cave, walking quickly back to where Betta stood. She had turned her eyes back down into the pool, but Fili saw nothing there worthy of his attention.

"We must go," he said. "Are you ready?"

For a moment, Betta did not answer; indeed, she seemed not to realize that he was there at all. A drop dripped from the ceiling and struck the still pool. The sound it made echoed through the silent cave. Betta shuddered and shook her head.

She looked at him finally, and her eyes were dark and piercing. He knew the arguments that would come from her lips, but he could not stand to hear them.

"Fili, I…" she began.

"No," he interrupted her sharply. "No arguments. No more fighting. There are orcs in these caves." He held out the arrows for her to see. "I do not care anymore about quests or treasure, or anything else that you might use to dissuade me or delay me once more. My brother and I are going to find a way out of these damned tunnels, and you will come with us. I will see you back to Ered Luin. Where you go from there is your choice, but this is not. We are going. All of us." He cast aside the arrows, and they struck with a sharp clatter against the wall of the cave.

"Now, I ask you again, are you ready to go on?"

Betta stared at him and for a rare moment they were on level ground. The few inches in height that she had on him was very clear to them both; Fili felt then the true difference between their races in a way that he had refused to admit since admitting his love for her. She was not a Dwarf woman. Kili had warned him, and now Fili knew that he had no duty and no authority to protect Betta as he would with a woman of their own race. He had no right to order her to do anything for her own safety, and she had every right to refuse to follow him and to walk into the arms of death.

But he would not let her go. Fili braced himself for her anger. He knew that if Kili wished to watch a fight, this would be the one… but it was not. Betta stared at him for a long, tense moment, but there was no anger in her eyes. He saw sadness and resignation there and, if he looked very hard, perhaps a little regret.

"Lead on, then," she said softly.

He blinked at her. "Is that all you have to say?" he asked, convinced that he had misheard.

"You have said yourself that you would not hear it if I did, but I do not," she said. "Lead on. I think that if any one of us is best fit to find a way out of this place, then it is you. If you are no longer looking for treasure, then I am no longer your guide."

He frowned, not liking the way that she said it. He looked back at Kili, who was equally confused and amazed by the change in the woman of their company; Kili shrugged.

"We should hurry," Betta said. "The orcs…"

"Yes. Yes, the orcs…" Fili agreed. He looked at her for a moment longer, but finally shook his head. "Right, then, we will go. Light a torch, Kili."

They needed the light to lead them down the narrow passage and back to the main tunnel. Kili went first with the torch in his hand and Fili followed, pressing Betta on ahead of him. When he could, he tried to catch a glimpse of her face, but the shadows were too deep and her expression unreadable. They had spent only a few minutes in the lighted cave, but something had changed in her.

Fili was not vain enough to think that it had been his own sharp words that finally convinced her to abandon her quest, but he hoped that this would not be yet another brief peace in the ongoing tale of their adventure. He watched the bobbing light in his brother's hand, putting aside his troubled thoughts. At any moment, they may need to fight for their lives, and he could not always be in doubt of himself.

.

The company found their supplies still piled, untouched, and exactly as they had left them. After the fresher air of the cave, the atmosphere in the tunnel felt thick and sour in their throats as they helped each other on with their burdens once more and prepared for another long march underground.

Fili himself set the heavy load of wood onto Betta's back, taking care to balance the weight and to be gentle with her. His hand rested lightly on her right shoulder, and he remembered the hurt that she had taken there during the battle with the wolves. Farther down, he knew, would be the ugly cicatrix, the remains of her orc wound from long ago that he had bandaged more times than he could count. It seemed like a lifetime that he had known her; it might as well have been one. His first adventure on his own in the wild had been more desperate and dangerous than he had ever imagined it could be, but Betta had stood by him through it all.

Fili tightened the last strap over Betta's shoulder and stepped in front of her again. He smiled at her, looking into her eyes. He did not know what it was that he hoped to see there, the old, angry fire or a new spark of something else, but all he saw was sadness. She did not smile back at him.

"What is wrong?" he asked quietly. Kili had started down the tunnel ahead of them.

She looked at him and seemed about to speak, but then she shook her head and said, "Nothing is wrong." She nodded over his shoulder. "We should hurry before your brother leaves us behind."

Fili did not press the point, but he felt sure that if he had, she would have answered him. "Alright. Let us go on," was all that he could say.

For the first time in a long time, Kili led their company down the tunnel. Fili was glad to let his brother lead and to walk behind with Betta. It did not take long before the fresh air from the cave was forgotten and her breath came shallow and quick once more. Her steps were slow and her shoulders seemed to sag under the weight that before she had carried easily enough. Fili made a note to take on some of her load when next they stopped to rest.

Kili's torch snaked on before them, leaving a trail of light in his eyes, and Fili followed with his jaw set in grim resolve. He would rather have gone on without any light – he and his brother could manage well enough in the dark, and guide Betta between them – but they could not fight in the dark. A light would lead enemies to them, but it would also prevent those same enemies from sneaking up silently behind, and Fili did not want the first sign of attack to be a knife in his back.

If he could have guessed where the orcs were, whether they had indeed abandoned these passages or if they were even now plotting an ambush somewhere in the dark down below, he might have risked telling Kili to put out the light, but he did not know and he made his choices as best he could.

As they walked, they did not speak or make any more noise than they had to, and at each crack in the tunnel wall, they hurried past and Kili did his best to shield their light from shining through to whatever may lay beyond. Neither dwarf could have guessed that the danger that was approaching them came not from the sides or along the passage behind, but from above. Balmuk's gang had found their trail. The orcs had been turned back by the falls, and their sharp eyes had not picked out the secret side tunnel that the company had crossed the bridge to reach, but there were other tunnels in the deeps, many narrow fissures far easier to follow for a sniveling orc scout with a nose for the drifting scent of smoke that a torch or cook fire might leave behind.

Fili and Kili saw no more sign of orcs along the path they followed, and they hoped to themselves that their fears were unfounded. Their only sight was of stone walls and stone floor, and the only sound they heard was the soft scrap of their boots as they walked swiftly forward. Both dwarves had their hands on the hilts of their swords, but Betta did not take out her knife. It was still sheathed on her back under her cloak, and her bow was slung over her shoulder. She struggled forward, lost in thought, but every time she stumbled or seemed to slow, Fili was there with a hand on her back, urging her along.

They made better time in two hours than they had in the whole day before, but still it seemed as if as fast as they were going, it was only to go nowhere. The path under their feet now ran level, neither rising nor falling as they went along, but the air that had been cold before now held a sharper chill that they did not expect and gradually the musty smell seemed to give way to something cleaner that gave them hope.

No one spoke, however. The dwarves knew without speaking that to say the word would be to curse their chances. They were too deep under the mountain to find any door to freedom, but there was no denying the change in the air. Even at the back of their line, Fili felt a cool draft upon his face, a breeze.

Several yards ahead of him, he saw Kili stop short and heard his brother mutter a curse that would have been more at home upon their uncle's lips. Betta was too lost in her thoughts to notice; she walked on, but Fili caught her arm and pulled her up short.

"Wait," he ordered, before hurrying to his brother's side. His hand was on his sword, and he had begun to draw it when Kili stopped him.

"You do not need that," he said, knowing without looking, the sound of Fili's blade as it slipped against its sheath. He raised the torch higher and Fili followed his gaze.

There, at their feet, the path ended. The road that they had been following steadily for so long bent suddenly downwards and into darkness. They had come to the top of a steep stairwell and the gentle breeze that they had begun to feel blew up the stairs towards them, catching in their hair. The flame of the torch guttered in the wind.

Five steps were lit by the feeble light of the thin torch in Kili's hand, and another two could be barely seen through the gloom, but beyond that they did not know. The tunnel was still wide going down, but each step was almost a foot high and half of that wide; there was no rail.

Kili sighed. He had firmly believed that if they would only walk far enough for long enough, their path would begin to rise again and it would lead them out. These were not the first stairs that they had met, but they were the longest and at the sight of them leading forever down into shadows his heart nearly failed him. It seemed a hopeless road to follow.

"What now?" Kili asked, looking to his brother for answers.

Fili saw the despair in Kili's eyes, but he had no reassuring words to say. He shook his head. "I do not know. We cannot go back," he said, and it was true enough.

"We will not go back."

Both dwarves turned and were surprised to see Betta standing behind them. Her face was hard as stone and the expression upon it had been carved by a skilled hand. She was grim and determined with the same stubborn resolve that she had shown before only it was not her own quest that she followed now, but theirs.

"All stairs have a bottom," she said. "All paths have an end. If we cannot go back, then we will go forward. Haven't I said it all along?"

Fili stared at her in surprise, and she smiled at him. "You really are a thick headed dwarf," she said, shaking her head. "Who will go first?"

Kili laughed and raised his hand. "I will, gladly," he said.

"No," Fili told him. "We will break out the rope once more, and then I will go first to scout our path, Betta second because she is the lightest, and Kili, you will be last."

"I think that I should go…"

"You go last in line, Kili, because you are the strongest of us," Fili said. Kili ceased to argue, but his mouth hung open in astonishment. Fili laughed and put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You have taken less hurt than either of us, and if either of us should slip, it will be up to you to hold our weight and keep us all from falling to the bottom which Betta assures us is there."

He smiled at her. "Does that satisfy you?" he asked her, and she nodded.

"The rope is in Kili's pack."

.

It took some time before Fili was confident that the knots that he tied were strong enough to bear their weight, and then, a few more minutes were spent showing Betta how to unfasten the knot herself if anything were to go wrong. All three members of the company understood that to "go wrong" meant that one of the other of them had fallen and were beyond saving, to unfasten the rope would mean letting fall whoever was at the other end – and for Betta, that would mean cutting Fili free. But no one said it out loud. A great deal of their troubles had gone unsaid in recent days, but that did not mean that they each did not realize the great risk that they were taking.

They adjusted their packs in preparation for the descent. Though the stairs were steep, they were also very sturdy. In the middle of each step, the stone was worn into a gentle, slippery curve, but on either side, the edges were still sharp and rough. Fili chose the left-hand side, seeing more cracks in that wall that he might hold onto. He took a deep breath and then started down.

It was a slow climb. Fili descended to the end of his length of rope, and then he would stop and wait for Betta to join him and then for Kili to join them. Kili would brace himself against the wall and stone stairs, and then Fili would descend another rope's length, about six steps each time. It was difficult work, but the best way for them to be assured that a fall would not take them all down.

Fili could not easily carry his torch and climb, and so he had to set it down on each step and remember to take it up again before he passed beyond reach of it. Twice his boot slipped on a crumbling step, but both times Betta and Kili were able to brace themselves against his weight and keep from falling after him until he could find his footing again. Their baggage was the hardest part to manage and the second time that Fili slipped, two logs broke free from his sling and fell, rolling and banging down the stairs to the bottom.

The company froze, straining their ears as the loud noise echoed up the stairwell and into the tunnel beyond. It was loud and faded slowly, but after many anxious minutes, they could hear no answering sound. The tunnels were silent and, eventually, the company released the breaths that they were holding and Fili motioned for them to go on.

Kili counted thirty steps before his brother called up that he had reached the bottom. Soon they were all once more standing with shaking legs upon level stone. They rested, breathing in the deep, clean air. There was no longer any doubt that they had found another vent, and a much larger one at that.

"It might only be another deep chasm," Fili said, holding down his hopes.

"It must be very deep indeed to reach us down here," Kili said. "The vent in the cave was cut through at least half a mile of stone to reach us."

"Perhaps," Fili answered, but he was not convinced. He put on a brave face, however, and added, "At least in this we can be sure, that any exit we might find at this point will not lead us onto a tall cliff or enclosed ravine too high up for us to climb down. If we find a way out, it will be into a valley or lowland, and that should encourage us."

"Encouraged or not, we can only go forward," Kili said, "whether to safety or into an ambush of orcs. Are you well rested, Betta?"

She sat on the bottom stair, lost in dark thoughts and frowning. Her hand was buried among the loose locks of her hair in what Kili guessed was the old habit that he had seen before. It was too dark for him to see that her hand held the last of the braids that Fili had tied more than a week ago, the only one that she had kept carefully fastened, and the golden bead that hung there.

"Betta?" Fili said gently. "Are you ready to go on?"

She sat up with a guilty start and saw them watching her. She stood up and said quickly, "Yes, I am ready. Lead on."

Fili frowned and nodded to Kili. Once more, he hung back with Betta as they made their way forward along the tunnel, but they did not have far to go. After only a few dozen yards, they saw ahead of them what would have seemed like a dead end if it were not for the faint, diffused light that shone through from the right and told them that it was a corner and not an end.

They reached the corner and turned, then stood blinking in the sudden light that shone through from a wide doorway at the end of the passage.

"It cannot be," Fili muttered as he shielded his eyes and followed his brother's silhouette. He heard running water and felt the fresh breeze. They reached the end of the tunnel and stepped out of the claustrophobic darkness, but the sight that greeted him sank his heart down to his knees.

It was, indeed, another chasm, but this one taller and with steeper sides. They stood, it seemed at the bottom of a great well, many yards across and almost perfectly round, but the rounded walls were cut sheer and rose up more than a mile before they were capped by the crystal clear, blue sky above. The cold air whistled overhead and a thin breeze that was caught within the well came spiraling down to them, but there was no climbing up. Once more, they were trapped and the window far above taunted them with how near and yet how very far away was their freedom. Not even the small warmth of the afternoon sunlight could raise Fili's spirits above the trap he now found himself in.

"Two steps forward and one step back," Kili muttered, looking back at his brother. "Where do we go now?

So close, and yet so far away, but we're not even close to the end of our tale, dear readers. Whether for good or ill.

Thank you all for continuing to read, and especially to Agent Five, whose two lovely reviews are so well-written and generous that they are worth an hundred. Thank you! I am so glad that this story continues to surprise and delight you, and I hope that it will continue to do so in the future. You flatter me far too much and, I swear, I am still blushing from your high praise. I will do my best to live up to it.

As always, some of the best parts of this story have come from the comments that you all leave for me. I read each and every one and keep them in mind as I map out future chapters. So, don't be shy!

-Paint