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!
"Fili, we must move on," Kili said, standing up again. He began to circle the room, gathering together what he could of their scattered supplies. Most of what they had brought with them – the packs and bundles that they had thrown down in preparation for the battle – had been kicked and crushed under the heavy boots of the orcs, and much of their wood had been deliberately knocked into the river.
Betta's pack alone had survived unmolested. Somehow the orcs had missed it where it sat under the lee of the foundation-stone beneath the bridge. When he came to it, Kili hesitated, looking down at the well-worn, often-patched leather and tarnished buckles. She had carried it far across Middle-earth, perhaps even from as far away as Lebennin, but she would carry it no farther…
He shook his head and shook away the thought. "Fili, get up!" he said, turning back to his brother. "You have no time to sulk. There may be other orcs on the way, or that one may return. What good are you now in a fight?"
"No worse than I was before," Fili said. "She is dead." He had not risen from his knees nor turned his face away from the river, not since Kili had uttered those fatal words.
Kili put aside his own grief and the anger that had come from it. He did not blame his brother for lingering in sorrow, but they had other more immediate concerns. The light was fast fading and there was work to do. He walked up to Fili and crouched down between his brother and the river.
"We must move on now," he said gently. "We should gather our supplies and go."
"I will go with her," Fili said, his eyes on the cold waters.
"You will not!" Kili took his brother's face in his hand and forced Fili's eyes away from the swift-flowing stream. The waves were all shrouded in darkness, anyway, and they had little time left before the light failed them completely. They must cross over the bridge before then.
"You will not drown yourself, nor will you kneel here until you starve or freeze or whatever other fool idea you have in your head," Kili ordered. "Betta gave up her life to save you from dying. What would she say to see you like this?"
For a moment, Fili did not answer, but slowly his gaze focused on his brother's anxious face. "She would laugh and call me a fool," he said, and with that thought, Fili felt his heart harden against his grief. "That is what she would say, and then she would tell me to look after my brother."
Fili's face was grim and pale, but he rose up off of his knees and looked around. The fallen orcs were dark shadows against the dimming light. He picked up his swords and sheathed them again. "Yes," he said, "we must go." His voice was an echo of its former self and the light was gone from his eyes, but his words were firm. "What supplies do we have left? We must take what we can and go quickly through the northern passage that she…"
The words choked in his throat as his eyes fell upon Betta's bow where it lay on the ground. All her arrows had been spent and the empty quiver she had taken with her when she was washed away, but her bow had fallen from her hand when the orc imp had crashed into her on the ledge. Fili stared at it for a long moment then walked over to it. It had belonged to her father, he remembered as he picked it up and held it loosely in his hand, looking around. Once more, his heart was uncertain and he looked to Kili for answers.
"Most of the wood was kicked into the stream," his brother said quietly. "What is left should be easy enough for us to carry."
Fili nodded. His own back had carried nearly all their firewood, but Betta's pack held their cooked meat. They could survive underground without heat or light, but it was lucky that their food had not been spoiled by the orcs or fallen into the river.
The thought intruded before Fili could stop it, and he scowled at himself for his callousness. She was dead and all that he could think was how lucky he was that she had not died with their food upon her back.
Fili picked up Betta's pack and put it on his own back. He would have carried the whole weight of their supplies to atone for his failure, but Kili had already gathered up the few logs that were left to them and tied them with one of the empty slings to his back. He was anxious to get Fili across the narrow bridge, not knowing whether his brother would not reconsider and fling himself into the cold water, but Fili looked neither left nor right as he crossed, and they reached the other side just as the last of the light faded from the room.
Not that the brothers needed light to see by. They were in a strange place, but they had climbed these steps before and it was a simple thing to turn their faces toward the northwest tunnel that they knew was there. In his heart, Kili could not help but blame himself, thinking that if he had only fought his brother on the matter of which tunnel they would choose, they might have taken this road earlier and perhaps avoided the battle with the orcs.
Of course, his head was more rational than his heart, and he knew that it was not true. There was no magic in the bridge that would prevent the orcs from crossing and tracking them up into the tunnels. They would have been attacked from behind in cramped quarters where a battle would have been more difficult to fight. And yet…
His thoughts were interrupted as he set his foot down on the landing of the second tier and felt his boot strike something soft.
"Wait, Fili," he said, and heard his brother's footsteps halt two stairs above him. Kili crouched down and reached out with his hand. "It is the sling that Betta was carrying," he said, surprised, but of course she would have put down her burden before running in to join the battle. "She had the rest of our meat. It was not cooked, but here! These are our torches!"
"It seems she also left her luck here for us to find," Fili said bitterly. "It would have been better for her to carry it with her into the tunnels as I ordered her to do."
Kili kept his thoughts on that to himself. He guessed that if it had not been for Betta's arrows and the distraction that her arrival caused, the brothers may not have won their victory. The orc chief that had nearly killed Fili would have had two good arms, and the third imp, the crafty one, would have survived to cause a great deal more mischief than he had.
Without a word, Kili slung the bundle of sticks onto his back and took up the sling. Fili came down to him and took their firewood under his own arm so that neither brother carried more weight than the other. Kili guessed that they had just enough wood to cook the last of the raw meat and with only two mouths to feed, their food would last them longer.
The room was wholly dark now as the brothers climbed to the top of the stairs and stood before the mouth of the tunnel. Though Kili could make out the dim outline of the darker passage, he could barely see his hand before his face. The circle of sky far above their heads was still lit by the setting sun, and the orange and yellow rays reflected off the rim of the deep well. It seemed fitting that none of that fair light could reach down to the dwarves where they stood.
If Fili glanced toward the river before he entered the tunnel, his brother could not tell. Kili hesitated just before entering the darker shadows and looked back. He could hear the rushing of the waves and the occasional splash of a loose stone dropping from the broken ledge where Betta had fallen. As he looked, he hoped that she had been killed quickly, drowned or her head struck against a stone. He could not stand to think of her struggling for life as she was swept on and on through impenetrable darkness, or wounded and cast alone upon the barren shore of some forgotten lake. Betta feared the dark, and Kili's best hope was that she had passed beyond fear and shadow both, flying into the West, or to wherever the spirits of her race journeyed after death.
He turned and entered the passage, leaving the deep well behind.
.
Neither brother could say just how long they walked in darkness. Their thoughts were shrouded in grief and they lit no torch nor counted the hours. Fili trailed his right hand along the right wall of the passage, and Kili touched his left upon the left-hand wall, but they felt no openings, no caves or cross-tunnels broke the long, straight march of stone. The floor seemed to slope slowly but steadily upwards and to the northwest of the deep room that they had left.
Kili couldn't say how long they walked or how far they went, but he knew that their pace was slow. Fili walked ahead of him, dragging his feet against the stone, and Kili was reluctant to hurry his brother. He could only guess at what dark thoughts Fili's mind must dwell upon in the stifling air of the tunnel; Kili's own thoughts were painful, but Betta had been his friend. He had not loved her as dearly as Fili had.
There was little to do but think in the silence of the underground. Kili did his best to keep his ears sharp, for they did not know with certainty that the five orcs that they had fought were the only ones nearby, and it may be that the wounded survivor who had fled might yet come after them. At any moment they could hear the sounds of pursuit coming up behind them.
But there was no sound. All that Kili heard ahead and behind were the echoes of their own boots scuffing the floor and the creak of the packs they carried. When he guessed that they had put enough distance between themselves and the deep chasm, he called a halt. They had far to go and little time to waste, but they were both tired from the battle and needed food and rest if they were to go on.
"This is as good a place as any to make a camp," he said and reached forward to catch hold of his brother's sleeve.
Fili stopped and turned back. He said nothing, but Kili could hear him lowering himself slowly to the floor near the wall. With a sigh, Kili took the bundle of firewood from his brother's arm and lifted Betta's pack from his back – though that took more coaxing to get Fili to let go. He laid out the fire.
Probably it was not wise to light a campfire out in the open and so near to the room where they had met the orcs, but they had found no cave to shelter in and there were no cross-tunnels for the light to shine through. It was as good a camp as they were likely to find for some time and besides, Kili wished for light. He needed the cheerful warmth of a fire to raise his spirits and the light of the flames would shine on his brother's face and show him that Fili was… if not well, at least not so badly off.
The tinderbox had been in Betta's pack, and once the flames were well fed, Kili looked through their supplies to see what they had left. There were the iron skewers, which he handed to his brother with a slab of raw meat and a knife to cut it. He was only a little comforted that Fili did not stare at him blankly but took the meat and began to prepare it for the fire. It was a small start, but a good sign.
Kili looked over their remaining food-stuff and guessed that with only two mouths now to feed, they had meat enough to last them a week of careful rationing. They had meat and, at the bottom of Betta's pack he had found two dry carrots and a potato only half-ruined from having been frozen at one end.
There was no more firewood – they would burn the last of it here – but he counted out two dozen sticks for torches. At the very bottom of Betta's pack, Kili found what he thought was a bundle of linen, the remains of her old sling, but when he unwrapped the cloth, he found that it had been folded very carefully around the mirror and straight razor that she said had belonged to her parents. There was also the small, silver box that had long ago begun their quest. These last items, Kili kept hidden from his brother; Fili needed no sad reminders of her yet. What they did not need now, he returned to the pack and covered again with cloth.
By then, Fili had cut many strips of raw meat and filled the iron skewers full of it. He reached forward to lay them over the fire, but pulled back his arm with a hiss of pain.
"What was that?" Kili said, looking up and seeing his brother cradling his right arm close to his chest. "You're hurt!"
"It is nothing," Fili said. "A scratch."
"An orc wound is never nothing," Kili insisted. Fili winced at his brother's words, remembering a night long ago under the hills of Evendim when he had said much the same thing to Betta after she had taken a far deeper cut from an orc's filthy blade.
Kili took out their full water skin and a bit of the spare cloth from Betta's pack, but when he moved to tend his brother's wound, Fili shook his head. "We must save the water for drinking," he said.
"There is no point in saving it," Kili told him as he rolled up the sleeve from Fili's arm. "You will need far more than we have here when you're lying in fever from a poisoned blade."
Fili knew that his brother was right, and he had no more strength left for arguing. He clenched his teeth and watched his brother wipe clean the cut and wrap his arm. The wound was long but shallow, and there did not seem to be any poison in it.
"That is another point in our favor," Kili said, tying off the bandage. "I thought those blades looked familiar. The orcs must have come down through the old troll's cavern and scavenged their weapons from his hoard. There were many swords of brittle iron and poor make, most good for nothing but scrap. At least they did not have time to add their poisons. We were lucky."
"Luck!" Fili said angrily, pulling his arm from his brother's hands. "Have you no feeling at all, Kili? It is easy for you to sit and joke and talk of luck, but Betta is dead. What luck did she have!?" Fili turned his face away and hung his head.
Not for the first time or the last, Kili swallowed the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. Fili was right and he had spoken too lightly of their troubles, but Kili had always been the more cheerful of the two brothers and, perhaps, that was what made it easier for him to set aside his sorrow while there were other dangers yet to be faced. Kili was older now than when their mother had died, and he no longer had the luxury of wasting long days sobbing out his grief into his pillow.
"I know that she is dead, Fili," he said gently, "and if you think that the death of my friend does not grieve me, then you do not know me, brother. If you think that I do not feel my guilt as keen as any knife-wound…" His voice broke and he looked away. "I could not hold on to her," he whispered. "I tried… If I had only been stronger, I might have drawn her out of the water and still had time to defend myself against the orcs, but I…"
Kili clenched his fists and shook his head. "I could not," he said, and his voice was firm again. "I could not pull her up, and she knew that unless one of us let go, I would take an orc's blade in my back. We would both be lost, she and I and probably you as well."
Fili had turned back to look at him, and in the flickering firelight, he saw his brother's eyes brimming full of tears. "I do grieve for Betta," Kili told him, "but I will not dishonor her memory by doubting the choice that she made. She fought bravely, but we cannot lay her in a finely carved tomb with the respect that her body has earned. At least she might lie here in the home of her ancestors with a mountain for her memorial. She was a loyal friend."
Kili's tears began to fall, and Fili's cheeks were already wet. Each brother saw mirrored in the other's eyes the same guilt and grief that he himself felt, but there was also resolve. Fili nodded. "We will carry her story home with us," he said, "and even Thorin must admit that she was an honorable woman, whatever her race or her past."
They spoke very little after that, though they rested for more than an hour while their meat cooked and the fire burned low. When that was done, they reshuffled their baggage – it was very light now, but that was no comfort. They had little hope of finding their way out of the labyrinth of tunnels, but not once did either brother think of giving up, of laying down and dying in the dark. More than ever, Fili was determined to return to Thorin and Ered Luin, and to see his brother safely home.
.
Me'lad gasped and groaned as he dragged his broken body back up the tunnel toward the cavern. His paralyzed right arm hung limp at his side and he hugged the dwarf quiver close to his chest. Balmuk's gang had taken many twists and turns to get down to the deep well where they had confronted the dwarves, but the journey back seemed twice as long. Me'lad was desperate and tired and slowly beginning to wonder if he was not lost as well.
He growled and looked back anxiously over his shoulder. It was unlikely that the dwarves would try to chase him down to finish him off, but he was not one to take chances. He had seen the way that the dark-haired dwarf-filth had disemboweled Balmuk, spilling his entrails onto the floor. Me'lad licked his lips, but he was not eager to taste dwarven steel tonight.
He must have run for over a mile by now, though these paths wound on and on and were not at all like the tunnels beneath Carn Dum. Still, there came no sound of pursuit from behind him and gradually, Me'lad slowed his steps and began to catch his ragged breath. His left arm was injured also and gave him a great deal of pain, but he refused to let go of the quiver to tend to it, and he was hobbled by the arrow still in his back.
Me'lad muttered a curse as hot as any he knew. The wounds would have to be taken care of before he could return to his old life at the fortress. Dwarf-killer or not, he knew that he would have to fight for his place again, and that could not be done with half an arm to use.
The tunnels were pitch black and Me'lad had been raised in the smoky, fire-blazing halls of Carn Dum. He could see very little, only shapes and shadows, but he limped on, peering left and right until he found the darker shape of an opening. There had been many little caves and dead ends along the paths that they had followed down from the cavern; he ducked into the first one he found and crouched down with a grunt, listening.
There was silence only to greet him, and he laughed quietly to himself, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He would need his arm for this and was forced to set the quiver down on the floor.
"Filth!" he hissed, and spat on the thing for good measure, but he kept his foot on it, determined not to lose his prize in the dark.
With the stone wall to leverage his elbow against, Me'lad was able to force his left arm back far enough that his hand could finally grasp the offending shaft of the arrow. It took much careful twisting and pulling to work it loose, but he was finally able to pull the thing out. There was a sickening pop as the point came free, and he felt a thick, wet warmth spread down his back as blood and fluid flowed from the wound, but the fingers of his right hand began to tingle, and he found that he could move them a little once more.
It would take time to heal fully, but he was yet a young orc and still strong. He would not be forever wounded and any orc-scum who dared to question the courage of Me'lad would soon regret his words.
But for now, Me'lad sagged against the wall, indifferent to the dirty stone pressing against his wound. The open puncture had already begun to fill with puss and to itch, and it felt good to scratch his back against the rough rock. He sighed… and then he stopped and sat up straight, his ears pricked up and listening.
What had it been? There was a sound just then. As he had been shuffling against the wall, from somewhere in the darkness, he had heard something moving, scuffling and snuffling in the tunnel behind him. Could it be that the dwarves had indeed followed him?
Me'lad scowled and took up the old quiver again. They were clever filth indeed to have followed him all this way without making a sound, but he had them now. They would not know where he lay hidden in the shadows of the cave. His long, sharp scimitar had been left behind, dropped from his weak hand when the arrow struck him, but he was not weaponless. Me'lad took from his belt a short, blunt knife. It was no good for a weapon in face-to-face combat – if you got close enough to stick such a knife into a maggot's belly, then the maggot was close enough to bite back – but it was the perfect thing for stabbing an enemy in the back when he did not expect it.
Quietly, Me'lad crept back to the mouth of the cave and stood still, holding his breath and straining his ears. For a moment, all was silent, but then, sure enough, he heard another sound. Only a few yards from where he stood, Me'lad heard the quick, soft crunch of a careless boot stepping on a loose stone.
Smiling to himself, he held his knife tight in his hand and waited for the scum to walk past his cave.
Seconds ticked by and the silence of the tunnels grew loud in his ears. Still, Me'lad waited and waited, but no more sound came. Gradually, his smile turned to a frown. They should have passed his hiding place by now. He should have heard something… unless they had already passed by. They had walked quietly enough that he had missed hearing them until now. Could they have walked before his very cave without making a sound?
With a soft, angry hiss, he realized they must have slipped by him in the dark. No matter. He could just as easily creep up on them from behind. And if it was not them, if the sounds that he had heard were only cave noises, dripping water and falling stone, then Me'lad must still find his way back up to the troll's cavern. There, there was meat and firewood for warmth. He would be laid up for a few days, gathering his strength and licking his wounds before he made his triumphant return to the fortress.
And so, still wary but thinking of his glorious return, he stepped out of the cave and into the tunnel to continue on his way.
He had hardly gone a dozen yards when he stopped short. There it was again, the same soft scuff of boot on stone. And there, a quick tap as if some small hammer had struck against the stone only just behind him and to the right.
Me'lad spun around with a hiss and swung his knife, but the blade cut only air. "Who is there!?" he hissed, his eyes searching the dark shadows. And then he clapped his hand over his mouth. Fool! he thought, to give your position away.
But there was no attack, no challenge given or sign that there was anyone around to have heard him. There, again, was the tap-tap on stone, echoing up the tunnel. It was behind him now. Me'lad spun again, swung his knife again and, again, cut the empty air. He cursed and stumbled back, away from the sound, but the tapping followed him. The walls had picked it up, and echoed it all around him, before and behind and from all sides. He put out his hand, feeling for a wall to put his back against, but there was nothing there and he fell to the floor in a cross-tunnel.
Me'lad hissed, his eyes darting around in confusion. There should not be a tunnel, he thought. He could not remember seeing one this wide on the journey down when he and Balmuk had run behind the orc imps with their torches lit.
The tapping of the hammers went on and on, echoing now inside his head until he was nearly mad with the sound, but there were also the scuffing of boots, many boots. There was no point in hiding now. The two dwarves they he had left down below must have had company, friends that had tracked him down and cornered him here in these winding caves.
With a roar, Me'lad jumped to his feet, his knife thrust before him. He crouched down as if he meant to spring forward, but at the last moment he spun on his heels and barreled headlong down the wide tunnel, swinging his knife to cut a path in front of him, eyes searching for enemies in the dark and finding none. The tunnel was empty, the sounds ahead of him gave way and those behind pursued him.
Me'lad cried out again and spun back around. "Where are you, filth?" he shouted. "Show yourself, cowards!"
The noise stopped. The tapping stopped. Silence surrounded him and Me'lad heard only the sound of his own ragged breath. He saw nothing and, too late, heard the whistle of an axe cut the air behind him. There was no time to turn and if he had, it would not have saved him. The wide, heavy blade sank into his back, cutting a neat line through the crusted puncture wound left by the arrow. Me'lad's head jerked back and the crack of his neck echoed down the passage as he was thrown forward by the force of the blow.
The great orc's body lay splayed out on the cold ground, his limbs twitched as the last of his life drained out of them. Somewhere in the distance, a light had been lit, but already, Me'lad's vision was going dark. His last sight was of a dim, shadowy figure squatting down beside him and reaching out to take hold of his head by its lank braid of greasy hair. The figure stared into Me'lad's twisted face.
"Urkhs," a harsh voice cursed, and the hand dropped his head again.
That was the last sound that Me'lad would ever hear. The light was put out, and his body was dragged away down the tunnels into the darkness while other hands took up his dropped knife and Kili's old, brown quiver. The sound of scuffing boots faded away. The tunnel was silent and empty once more as if no orc had ever set foot there.
Wow. Thank you all so much for your lovely comments. Who'd have thought I'd have to kill a character to get such a great response ;)
And hello to Nursenan, Welcome! Don't worry, it definitely won't take 3,000 chapters to finish this story, only 150 or so (I hope). The more encouragement I get, the more motivated I am to update faster :)
As for the rest of you, if there's anything I've learned from watching way too many TV dramas, it's that until you see a character's body with a clearly visible, clearly fatal wound, anyone can come back from the "dead" at any time. We'll just have to wait and see which way the muse takes me.
Much love,
-Paint