"I will fight with you."
"Go!" He shouted, and pushed her toward the bridge. "You do more harm than good here."
"Fili!"
Torn from the empty, floating darkness that enveloped her, Betta woke to pain and fear. She barely recognized her own voice shouting and certainly had no time to remember where she was or how she had come to be there. Her body shivered violently, wracking her limbs with seizing fits, but her skin was hot with fever. Everywhere she turned, pain greeted her with stabbing knives. Her right arm was held outstretched and trapped in the grip of a vice; it seemed to be held over the white-hot flame of a Dwarven forge. With all her strength, she could not pull it out of the fire.
"Fili!"
She screamed the only name she knew. Anxious voices answered her, but in a language that she could not understand. Hands held her down and a thick strap was pressed into her mouth. She tasted leather and bit down, hoping to bite the fingers of one of her captors.
The voices hushed and, suddenly, the pain in her arm grew sharp. A single line of fire shot like a lightning bolt around her forearm and across her chest. She felt her heart would explode. Her body convulsed, but still the hands held her and another line of fire cut through her, burning hotter and hotter until she knew nothing else. She heard the crunch of grinding bone and screamed through the bit in her mouth. Darkness took her and she fell into the icy river of her dreams…
.
"Hold on, Betta! Hold on to me!"
"Kili?" she murmured. "Kili, I am sorry…"
She did not know whether the face she saw was a dream or if it was her memory returning as she woke from dreaming. She saw Kili's eyes widen with fear and sudden understanding as she twisted her hand out of his grasp. His face shrank away into the distance, rushing swiftly backwards as the cold water swept her away.
Betta opened her eyes. She lay on her back upon a hard floor. Dark shapes and shadows hovered near her, and the soft glow of embers lay on her right side. For a moment she thought that she was back in the old troll's cavern, lying in the little cave with Fili and Kili and that she had fallen asleep on her watch.
But no, the pain in her body was real. It was less than before, numb and smoldering beneath the surface of her skin, a fire waiting to be rekindled. She was tired beyond enduring and had hardly the strength to hold open her eyes. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and she could not speak.
The shadow of a man bent over her. For a moment his face was old and unfamiliar, but the glow of the fire touched him and his hair shone with a golden light. Fili smiled down at her and his mouth moved as he spoke, but she could not understand him. His words echoed far back in her mind, back to her childhood and a language that she could barely remember. She was too tired to remember.
Where is Kili? she tried to ask, but her dry, cracked lips would not form the words.
Fili held her up and raised a water skin to her lips. It was not water that she tasted on her tongue but something sweet and sharp. Her whole body was parched, drained of all fluid, and she would have drunk poison if he offered it to her.
She felt the strange medicine hit her stomach and what little pain was left in her limbs disappeared, but a dark veil was drawn over her eyes. Fili's face disappeared. She clung to his arm and fought the sleep that weighed her down, dragging her back toward the icy waters of the river. She had been able to let go before, but not now. Not when the hand that held her belonged to this brother. Not when she still heard Annandil's cries echoing in her ears.
"No, wait…" she begged. "Stay…" Her left hand held his arm, and she reached up with her right hand to touch his face.
The pain returned like sudden bolt, like thunder rolling up her arm and down into her body, knocking the breath from her lungs and striking her head like a hammer's blow. She looked down at her arm, expecting to see the flames returned, but there was no fire only a wad of bloody bandages.
She screamed. She screamed and fought, biting at the hands that held her. Fili held her down, but he was not Fili now. The old man had returned. His hair was long and grey, and his hands were strong. He spoke, but she could not hear his words. He gave orders to the air and more hands appeared, holding her as she thrashed upon the floor. The medicine bottle was forced between her teeth again and a different fluid poured into her mouth, thick and sour. She tried to spit it out, but the old man held shut her mouth and the moment that she swallowed, darkness fell again and she was thrown back into the river.
"Let go…"
.
Kili watched his brother leave the hut then turned his eyes back to the Chief. Ix stared at him, and he could feel himself being measured under the weight of that curious gaze. He wished suddenly that Fili had not left, that he had stayed behind a little longer to hammer out the details of their deal with the Lossoth. But Fili had gone, and it was left to his little brother to treat with the two Men.
"Would you take food or drink?" Ix asked. "I have heard that you were given food upon the road, but I would not have you say that hunger untied your tongue against your will."
"I, ah…" Kili glanced at Orn. He was more than a little taken aback by the sudden change to courtesy. "I will wait for my brother," he said. He licked his dry lips and added, "But I would be very glad for a drink of water. I did not know that one could grow so thirsty trudging through snow." He smiled and tried to appear cheerful, but he was anxious and worried about Fili.
"It is sometimes more dangerous in cold weather," Ix said. He spoke to Orn and, though the hunter seemed unused to playing host to strangers, he took down a pitcher and a shallow cup from one of the many racks of tools.
Watching the man, Kili had the impression that Orn was only there because he felt the need to protect his Chief from the many dangers of Dwarves. Probably he would rather have called in a few well-chosen guards, but Ix had overruled him. There seemed to be an understanding between the two men and, although Ix would not agree to be guarded, neither would he order Orn away.
"Your captain served us a drink of warm tea during our stay in his very comfortable camp in the hills," Kili added, eager to keep the conversation going and to speak well of the hunter who so clearly seemed to bear him a grudge. "It was good and took the chill right out of me."
Ix asked Orn a question which the hunter answered with a single word. "Ah. It was generous of him to offer you our… tea, do you call it? Yes." He nodded again, frowning as he tasted the unfamiliar word. "That drink is made from a leaf that our healers gather during the warm season when the ice draws back from the sea."
Orn had taken the lid off of one of the tight-woven baskets nearest to the fire pit, and it was his turn to ask a question, and Ix's turn to answer. Orn dipped the pitcher into the basket and drew it out again dripping wet.
"I think that we shall give you only water for now," Ix explained to Kili, who was growing dizzy from looking back and forth between the two men.
Orn brought the pitcher and cup, and Kili held out his hands to take them, but the hunter set them on the floor and went back to his seat. Kili bit his tongue and pretended not to notice the snub. He poured himself a drink and set the pitcher aside. Ix, too, seemed determined to ignore Orn's rude behavior. He turned back to Kili and smiled again.
"The tea that you enjoyed so well we call nago, and it gives good healing, but too much will go to your head," he said. "I will not have it said that I took advantage of any man – or Dwarf – in business matters."
Kili nodded as he sipped his water, but he was surprised. He had not noticed any adverse effects from the drink that Orn had given them. But then he recalled how swiftly the cold had left them after they had tasted it, and it was then that he had first found himself thinking very much better of the grim Orn and his hunters. Kili wondered whether Fili had recognized the potency of the "tea" they drank. Surely, he would not have willingly negotiated with the Chief of the Lossoth if he thought his will was compromised.
Not that it mattered. Drunk or sober, Fili would have ransomed all they had for Betta's life, and Kili would not have stopped him. What else would have caused him to leave his brother alone among strangers and to run off without looking back?
Ix leaned forward, watching him; his chin rested upon his hand and his elbow upon his knee. He looked at Kili with an unsettlingly steady gaze and, though he smiled freely, his eyes were stern. He seemed to see his guest's discomfort and to think it only a part of the curious novelty of Dwarves.
"You may take back your dragon's treasure," Ix said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. He gestured to the coins and gemstones that still lay on the mat.
"Oh! Of course," Kili said, gathering them up and filling his pockets once more. He hesitated over the pearl and wondered whether the Chief was waiting for him to hand it over, but in the end, he let it lie. Ix made no move to pick it up, and Kili would rather leave it to Fili to make that choice for himself. He would not know whether their negotiations were truly over until his brother returned.
And still, Ix watched him silently. Orn took out what appeared to be the long tooth of some northern beast and was cutting marks into it with a needle. He appeared absorbed in his work, but Kili was not fooled.
"I, ah… thank you for what you have offered us," he stammered. "It is a very generous price to pay for a single stone."
Ix frowned. "Then you do not know what it is you have?" He turned toward the empty place on the bench beside him, but the old man had gone. For a moment, Kili saw through the stern demeanor of the Chief and realized that, for a Man, Ix was still quite young and unused to the politics of leadership, but it was only a moment and he would not make the mistake of underestimating so powerful a Man.
"Well," Ix sighed, "I suppose that there will be time enough for that in the coming days…" He shook his head. "I will only say that what I offer is as much as I am able to give at this time and if or when I have more, then I will offer more." He smiled. "Is there something more that you would have?" he asked.
Kili stared at him in surprise. He certainly had not meant to ask for more. "Oh, no," he said. "Nothing more than that, unless… my brother's arm was wounded in the tunnels. We treated it as best we could, but perhaps your healer might do more for him?"
Ix nodded. "Elm saw your brother's injury," he said. "He will be tended once he has visited with the woman of your company, but is there anything I can do for you? You seem to have held up well on your long journey."
Kili shrugged his shoulders. "I have had my share of bumps and bruises," he said. "But if you are determined to offer something to me, then I would ask for information. Where is Betta? Is she alive? You speak as if she is, but you will not say so in plain words. When the orcs attacked us under the mountain, she fell into a river and was washed away. We thought that we had lost her."
"Lost her, you did," Ix said, "and two of my hunters found her. It is good luck that I could offer you this help before even I knew that you were in these hills."
"Yes, good luck," Kili said slowly. It was not lost on him that the Chief had once again avoided saying whether Betta were alive or dead. He frowned at Orn, who seemed not to notice, then looked back at the Chief. "You told my brother that I would be kept as surety against his good conduct. Why do you need such surety? Why would my brother behave any less friendly after he has seen Betta than he did before? If she is dead, you would have been safer to tell him outright than to lead him to her body and set a guard against his grief."
Ix frowned then and, for the first time since Fili left them, the Chief seemed to doubt his resolve. "It is very strange to me that two Dwarves should show concern for a woman not of their own race," he said slowly.
Kili shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was not the first time that one of the tall folk had expressed concern for Betta, but Ix raised his hand before he could protest. "No, I do not doubt you hold her dearly," he told him. "One of you, perhaps, holds her more dearly than the other. It speaks well of your race, but the land is cold and cruel. It does not smile upon gentle hands, and it was not I who saved your woman. I saw how deep were her wounds, and I would have let her die."
"Then she is alive!" Kili said.
"She is alive," Ix assured him, "though death was upon her when we found her. Elm has hardly left her side for three days and three nights. We treated her with what resources we had. What more would you have us do for a stranger?"
Kili frowned at the careful way that the man chose his words. Even Orn had looked up from his work and his face was grim and sad. Whatever had happened to Betta was terrible enough to darken the faces of these two hardy Men. But where was Fili? However troubling was the reunion that he faced, he must face it alone; Kili was stuck, held hostage to ensure that his brother did not let his temper get the best of him.
Ix saw the anxious thoughts on Kili's face. "Your brother has a noble bearing," he said gently, "but even a wise man may act rashly when he is faced with unexpected anger. Your woman is alive, if alive you call it. She has lain long in fever and now will not speak except to Elm. She will not answer my questions or speak to me except to ask for her friends and no other in our camp understands the southern speech."
Ix shook his head sadly. "Now that her friends are here, I hope that she will be at peace and better able to heal from her wounds, but if you and your brother cannot wake her from her grief, then I do not expect her to survive the journey to our village. She is alive, but for how long I cannot say..."
I know, I know, I know... but the reunion scene ran long and I'm not comfortable posting an 8k word chapter. I hate that. And then the editing process got a little out of hand... and I had to take a couple sick days... but I promise the next one is all Fili and Betta, and you'll get it tomorrow... Okay, maybe Saturday morning, but definitely by Saturday. Promise.
It's really good you guys ;)
-Paint