The morning hours passed slowly, torturously slow for Kili who knew that he could not rest long in the warmth and comfort of the healer's hut. He must leave the camp, and soon. It would be a long walk, and he must return before the Lossoth broke camp on the following morning. Ix would not wait for one Dwarf… or two.
If morning came, and Kili had not returned, would Fili stay and search the hills for his missing brother? It would be a hard choice to make. Betta could not stay. She needed the care of a healer, and the long road west would be difficult enough for her on a dogsled. Last night, Kili had expected that the most difficult part of his plan would be how to slip away from his brother without too many questions, but Fili was distracted, wholly absorbed in his grief for Betta's loss and his struggles with Elm concerning her care, he hardly noticed his brother.
Kili sat in the corner, ignored unless he was being called upon to support Fili's position regarding this or that treatment. Nothing that Elm did was good enough for his stubborn brother, not the knot that he tied in her bandages or the thickness of the salve that he applied to her scratches and scrapes. Kili was very soon very eager to excuse himself, and he left the hut to stand outside in the cold. He watched the hunters at their work and listened to the muffled argument behind him until – inevitably – Elm ejected his brother from the hut once more. Fili obeyed only because he had promised Ix that he would; he stood sulking beside Kili and muttering into his beard.
"Honestly, Fili, for all the trouble you gave Betta when she questioned your healing methods, I would think that you would have more sympathy for Elm."
Fili shrugged his shoulders. "I only ask questions," he said. "Perhaps a bit forcefully, but I would not interfere in his work, and he knows it. If we are to be honest here, brother, then I might say that the old man enjoys being questioned. His own people respect him more than is good for any man and they do not argue with him. You know there is always a little excitement in having your skills challenged by another."
Kili shook his head. "Well, I will not be interfering between you, so long as you do not trouble Betta with your petty bickering." He saw Ix in the distance, speaking to Orn and another man, and he frowned. "No, I will not interfere," he repeat, "for I will not be around you much this day or even tonight. I may not see you again until morning."
"What is this?" Fili said in surprise.
"I have offered what strength I have left to Ix to help his people prepare for their journey, and he agreed. We are three mouths to feed and three more places on their sleds that they did not expect. It is the least that we can do for all they have done for us…"
"You will not sit with Betta?" Fili asked. He, himself, had never once considered going farther from her bedside than the food line.
"She does not need two dwarves taking up space by her bed," Kili said. "She has slept almost all the time that I have been here. She will not miss me, and you know that I do not sit well in a sickroom…"
Fili nodded and put his hand on his brother's shoulder. They both remembered the last days of their mother's life. Even in times after, when they had close cousins ill or injured, Kili would always refuse to visit with them until they were well or declared beyond hope.
"It is your choice to make," Fili told him. "I cannot say that I would not rather drive away my sorrows with heavy labor, but Elm has other work to do, and he cannot always sit with her. I do not wish her to be alone should she wake."
"You should stay with her, Fili," Kili said. "I will work hard enough for the both of us. These people are remarkably skilled in the skinning and butchering of beasts, but I think that some of the tall folk are going into the lower hills for more wood. Undoubtedly, I will be given my axe back and be sent with them up there."
"Into the hills?" Fili raised an eyebrow. "I would not go back into those hills for a mountain of gold!" he exclaimed.
"No, you would not," Kili agreed. "But I will suffer the hills for a chance to show these stone-faced hunters the famous axe-work of a Dwarf!" He grinned and was relieved to see his brother smile at him in return. Fili did not know that it was not firewood that his brother sought in the hills, but something both more and less useful to them.
"Well, be careful, in any case," Fili said, "and do not let pride grease your hands. We do not need another member of our company taking up space in the healer's hut."
"No, we certainly do not," Kili heartily agreed. "It is a long walk into the hills, and I will probably be at work for most of the day. I suppose that I will sleep in Ix's hut again tonight." He did not want Fili to feel any doubts should his brother not return by nightfall.
But Fili did not see his brother's anxious glances. He laughed at the prospect of Kili pressed once again between two of the tall folk. "Do not sound so excited about it, Kili!" he said. "I would bet my axe that Orn is better company than the old man in there." He aimed his thumb over his shoulder toward the painted hut.
"Come now, you," Elm said suddenly. He had put out his head just in time to hear what had been said, and Fili winced, but he bid his brother farewell and then ducked back into the hut. Kili watched him go; his heart was heavy, but he turned his back and walked across the camp to Ix who had seen him and waited.
"You have decided, then?" Ix asked as he approached, and Kili saw that the Chief's eyes were wide and curious.
He nodded. "Yes. You are right and she will need more care than we can afford to give her once we return to our own lands. But you are sure that it is gold that you have seen? I have had more than enough of those haunted hills, and I do not wish to climb all that way again for a bit of yellow stone. We have found false gold once already in our journey underground."
"It is gold," Ix said. "In long years past, my people have harvested small amounts for our trade, when the hunt was poor or the fish did not swim their accustomed course. Only in greatest need may a Lossoth hand cut into the Black Hills, but you are a Dwarf. Your work is in rock and metal."
"It is," Kili agreed, "though I do not have the tools to do a proper mining of the cave you describe."
Ix shrugged. "A knife and a hammer will cut enough to fill a small sack. More than that, I do not advise you to take. What you bring back with you must be kept secret from all. Even when we return to the village, you must not say where you found this gold or who told you to look for it there. I trust you with a secret that none should trust to a Dwarf, if the stories of your race are true. But I said that I would pay a great price for the Dragon's Stone, and I have paid you and your brother. With this secret, I will provide for your woman also and my debt shall be paid."
"Your healer has already done much for her," Kili said.
"That was done before our deal was struck," Ix said sternly. "Elm would not demand payment for his services to her, and neither shall I. This trade must be done well or great harm will come to all concerned, this I know in my heart. What gold you bring back from those hills is for your friend. I trust to your honor that you will give it to her."
"I will give it all to her," Kili promised.
"Then I give you over to the care of Anam." Ix pointed to the man who was not Orn. It was the same second man who had shared the Chief's hut the night before. "He is leading a small party into the hills. He will make sure that you are well provisioned and set you on the right path. The trail is well-marked, but you must follow it alone." The Chief's eyes narrowed and he glanced back toward the painted hut. "Anam does not know what you seek. What have you told your brother?"
"Nothing," Kili said, "but that I would be helping your people throughout the day and I would be up in the hills chopping wood for most of it. I said that I would not see him until we break camp in the morning."
"He will believe you?" Ix asked. "Your brother's anger flies swift as an arrow, but it is not well-aimed. I do not wish for him to make trouble among my people should he seek for you while you are away, but know that I will deal harshly with him should he become violent."
"Fili will not be violent," Kili insisted. "Even if he thought me harmed, he knows full well that you have Betta under your protection." Kili searched the Man's face. He had instinctively trusted the Chief from the start, but if Ix had been less honest – or less seemingly honest – would he not have wondered why the man was so generous with his secrets and seemed so eager to separate two Dwarves from each other?
He had little choice, unless he meant to change his mind. Kili allowed Ix to lead him to Anam and to pass him on like a timid dwarfling handed over to his nursemaid. Neither Anam nor any of the other folk in his party spoke a word of the southern tongue, and Kili was once more lost in a sea of Lossoth words and gestures as they began the long, hard march into the hills.
.
Inside the painted hut, Fili pinched his nose as he watched Elm crush a bitter smelling herb into a bowl of sour looking porridge. He was surprised when the healer pressed the bowl into his hands and directed him to get a mouthful of the stuff into Betta each time that she woke long enough to swallow, then Elm went out again before Fili could protest; the man had other work to do and no time to argue with obstinate dwarves.
Fili tasted a bit of the porridge on his finger and gagged. He forced himself to obey the healer's orders, however, and twice managed to coax Betta into swallowing the sour gruel. She did not seem to notice the taste. When she opened her eyes, they were glassy and seemed to look through him without seeing, but her fever had gone and when she slept she rested peacefully without muttering or turning in her bed.
Slowly, the hours crept toward noon. Fili was glad to sit and rest and sharpen his knives, regaining his strength after the long, cold journey. He would rather have sat with his brother and had someone to speak to, but Kili was right and it was good that at least one of them would help the Lossoth in return for the care that they had given to Betta. However true to the letter of their agreement, it was wrong to insist that all their room and board should fall under the payment that Ix had offered for the pearl.
He frowned. Where was the pearl in all of this, he wondered. He had not seen it since he had run out of the shelter and left it with his brother and the Chief last night.
Well, what did it matter? It was Ix's pearl now. Let him look after his own; Fili would look after Betta. He brushed his fingers through her hair then pulled up the blanket that had fallen low to reveal her injured arm. He still could not bear to look at the wound.
He sighed and looked toward the door. The air of the hut was growing close about him and his stomach grumbled to remind him that he had yet to regain all the fat and muscle that had been lost upon the road. He glanced down at Betta, but her eyes were closed and her breath was slow and steady. She had yet to wake longer than to swallow a bite and speak a few vague words toward him; he felt safe in leaving her for a short while to find food for his empty belly.
As if to encourage his choice, his nose picked out the faint scent of smoked meat that seeped in through the seams of the hut. He guessed that the hunters were also partaking of their midday meal and that he would not be out of place in seeking his.
Quietly, he stood up and laid aside Betta's hand that he had been holding. He crossed the hut and slipped quickly under the blanket, letting in as little of the cold as he could.
He stood upon the hard-packed snow and blinked in the bright light of day. It was as if he had once more emerged from the oppressive dark of the tunnels beneath the mountains; but this time, his heart was less heavy and he was greeted by a better sight than the desolation of the Forodwaith. The sun sailed down on the far side of the sky, and he realized that it was the early afternoon. Most of the hunters had already finished their meal, but a few late-comers still stood near the fire. Fili took up one of the bowls that he and Kili had left beside the hut after breakfast, and he joined the line.
He was not surprised to find ahead of him two men and also a woman of the tall folk. He was not surprised when he was ignored by all but the man who was ladling meager helpings of the morning's left-over stew from a large, shallow pot into their bowls. There was no bread this time, and as Fili walked away with little meat but plenty of fatty broth, he was reminded of what Kili had already said: that they were three more mouths to feed and he had done nothing really to earn his keep.
As he walked to and from the healer's hut, Fili looked around for his brother, but he saw no sign of any Dwarf among the many members of the camp. He did not question Kili's explanation however and did not worry yet. He believed that his brother was safely chopping wood in the low foothills to the south.
He ducked back into the hut and stopped short in surprise. There was more company than he remembered. Elm had returned and sat with Betta, but Ix was also there, seated upon a folded skin across the hut from them, and he had just tipped up a bowl to swallow the last of the broth from his own midday meal.
"Ah, good," Ix said, nodding to the bowl in Fili's hand. "I am glad that you are made comfortable. Come, eat with me. We have much to discuss." Reluctantly, Fili sat down beside the Chief. He felt awkward eating while others watched, but if Ix noticed his discomfort, he gave no sign of it. "Orn tells me that you have brought with you some of the strange food of the mountain," the Chief said. "It is a lichen, I think. I would be curious to see and taste such a rare item."
"It was wrapped in my brother's pack… well, it was Betta's pack first…" Fili stammered, glancing toward the woman in question.
Betta no longer lay prone under a mountain of blankets. She had been propped up against one of the poles of the hut and held a bowl of broth in her lap. There was a spoon in her hand and, though Elm sat nearby and watched her closely, he did not help her. Slowly and with many spills, she struggled to feed herself. The only aid that Elm would give was to adjust the thin cloth that served her for a bib and to wipe the drops from her chin when her hand proved too unsteady to reach her mouth cleanly. Her bandaged, right arm rested openly upon her lap and Fili winced to see it.
"You let her up too soon," he protested. "She needs to rest…"
"She needs more to recover her strength," Ix said, gently but firmly. "For a hunter, to lie long unmoving often hurts more than it heals."
Fili frowned and looked down at his watery lunch. Hadn't he himself been wishing that she would grow strong again? Her face was pale and strained from the effort of holding her left hand steady with the spoon, but she was more awake than he had yet seen her and her eyes were clear.
Betta swallowed the few drops that she had managed to carry to her lips, then her arm dropped to her side again and she shook her head. "I am no hunter," she said. "Not anymore."
Elm clicked his tongue at her and gestured back to the bowl. She frowned but once more began the long task of lifting her shaking spoon to her mouth. Ix caught Fili's eye and inclined his head toward the bowl in his hands. Without a word, Fili began to eat also, and he was glad to see that it seemed to encourage Betta. Ix and Elm spoke together in their own language while their guest and patient ate. Betta listened and only Fili was left out of their conversation. He did not like it.
After a short time, Ix sighed and nodded to Elm. "I suppose that your people do not throw the spear," he said to Betta, "but there are other weapons in the world, and the choice is yours whether you will hunt again or not. We are not here to speak of the future, however. It is the past and present day that concerns us. And this…" He reached into his pouch, taking out the pearl and setting it on the mat between them.
Betta's hand froze halfway along its journey, and she stared at the stone, but in the dim light of the hut, Fili could not read her expression. He clenched his fist and bit his tongue, angry that Ix would spring such a shock on her without warning.
"What is that?" she demanded.
"You know it," Ix said. "I have heard from your companions that you carried it north to me."
She shook her head. "It cannot be the thing. That stone was lost." She looked to Fili to confirm what he had told her so many days ago, but he looked away and was ashamed to admit that he had not yet revealed that Kili had saved the pearl from being buried under snow.
"Your other friend has already told me," Ix explained, "how it was lost and how it was found, how it has been carried along the last leg of your journey and so arrived here, but I wish to know more…" He leaned forward, but Betta was not so eager to dig up the past.
"It is cursed!" she said, spitting out the words with more power to her anger than Fili thought possible in her weakened state.
"That may be," Ix said, unfazed. "The old tales tell us so."
"What tales?" she demanded. For a moment, to Fili's eyes, she seemed to be the same Betta that he remembered, determined and proud, demanding answers with impertinence.
The Chief smiled. "I will tell you what tales," he said, "though this is not the usual place for such things and never before have we told our history to a stranger. Yet you are a hunter in these hills, are you not? Well, but these things must be told in their proper order. I would hear your tale first, Betta. How did you come to me? Where did you come by this stone, and by that mark that you wear?"
She looked at Fili, and then own at the bowl in her hands. Gently, Elm took both bowl and spoon from her. "I cannot tell it again," Betta said finally, her voice was weak and her left hand balled into a fist. "It is too long, and I have not the strength to relive it…"
"Then perhaps your friend might speak for you in this," Ix suggested politely.
Fili gave the man a hard look. He had been wondering why so proud a Chief would condescend to include a Dwarf in what could have been a private conversation. It was quite clear to him that Ix had been waiting all through Betta's fever to speak with her and learn her story – had he not said last night that she had refused to speak to him except to ask for her friends? It seemed quite clear to Fili why Ix had been willing to send Kili up into the hills with his hunters. Probably the camp did not even need the extra firewood. It was all a plot to separate the brothers from each other and to trick Betta into speaking freely what she would otherwise have kept hidden.
"You have played a clever hand in this, Chief Ix," Fili said. "First you use Betta to get what you want from me and my brother, and now you use us to get what you want from her. I see that I have been too quick to trust the outstretched hand of a…"
"I think that you have trusted just quickly enough," Ix said sharply, "and you cease to trust too soon. There are no guards here, and I carry no weapon, though you have yet some few of yours." He nodded to the hidden knife in Fili's boot.
Fili felt his cheeks flush red.
"Perhaps it seems wrong that I would take advantage of my guests when they are yet weak and sick from their journey," Ix went on, "but I have little time left to me to decide. Tomorrow, we leave these hills. For three days, we will ride west and there will be little time for talk. Once we reach our village, we will be under a new law. My uncle is Chief there, and if I am to speak for you before him, then I must know all."
Fili was surprised. "Then you are not the Chief of your people?"
"I am Chief here," Ix said severely. "I have the power of life and death over you and your brother. Do not doubt that. But, once we leave these hills, my power begins to lessen. Treat now with one who would owe you a debt. My uncle is under no such obligation."
Fili might have argued further and demanded more answers, but Betta shook her head. "I do not doubt your word," she said to Ix. "You have been very patient with me, but if I were to speak for myself, it would take many days… the tale is long, and I am tired…" She sighed, and Fili would have gone to her, but she shook her head again. "Tell it for me, Fili, if you will. You have heard all my history. Hold nothing back or I will know it."
She gave him a sharp look and then a small smile. Fili sighed. He smiled at her but was serious as he reluctantly recounted the long journey from Betta's childhood in Lebennin to the place where they now sat. He did not look at her as he spoke, fearing to see the grief in her eyes as he told of the many losses she had suffered. He wove through her tale all that they had learned of her father's people and added to it the events of their journey north together from Ered Luin. It was late in the afternoon before he finished, but the day's tale-telling was not yet done. Ix left them for a short while to tend to his people, and Fili stood outside the hut while Elm changed Betta's bandages.
Not long after, Ix rejoined Fili, and they entered the hut again together. It was the Chief's turn to speak of what he knew, and Elm spoke for Ix. The old healer told a long tale, and Fili listened in rapt attention to the history of Takani and the foul worm of the Forodwaith. Betta struggled to stay awake for it, but Elm had given her some drink that strengthened her resolve. She had her answers, finally, and Fili knew now what it was that he had carried for so long. He did not doubt that it was the same dragon that had attacked the hall of Magha's ancestors and, perhaps, still swam beneath the too-warm lake that had drowned the ancient kingdom.
At the end of it all, when the night had grown old and the fires around the camp had been abandoned by the hunters in favor of their beds, Ix told them of his dream, how he had been instructed in the regaining of the Dragon's Stone for his people and the means by which me might win blessings upon his village. He explained his offer of payment and also why he had been reluctant to speak fully the night before. He had wished to hear Betta's full story and to confirm for himself that the pearl was indeed the ancient stone that he sought.
Fili thought that Betta would be glad to hear all that was spoken, but by the end of their long speech, she lay down again and would not look at him.
"I am glad, at least, that I have lived long enough to seen an end to my journey," she murmured into the thick, folded fur that was her pillow. "Though, I suppose that any woman might say that… once she had reached her end…"
"Your adventures are not ended yet," Fili told her. "I said that I would see you safely returned to Ered Luin, and I mean to keep my promise."
"I have freed you from that promise many times already," she said. "What does it matter where I go from here?"
"It matters to me," he insisted. He moved to her side and took her hand, but her eyes were cold when she looked at him.
"Also, my promise lies only half-fulfilled," Ix said, standing. "You cannot free me from it without taking back this stone. I have promised safe passage for your friends and for you, and shelter beside the shining bay of Forochel. Would you have me break my word to them? Do you wish to take back what your companion has offered?"
Betta shook her head. "Your promise has little to do with me," she said. "I gave that pearl to Fili long ago beside Evendim before we were friends. It is his to do with as he would, to cast it away or to give it to you. Your agreement is with him."
"And his agreement is with you," Ix said, smiling. "And so, we are all bound up in this together and only you are determined to shirk your part in it. Come now, Betta, at least you must live long enough to explain to my wife why I have tarried so long here in these hills. We might have left two days ago if you had not demanded that I produce your friends."
Betta sighed. "You have done well in that," she admitted. "Even if my demands were made in the fever of a dream and relayed to you through your gentle spy." She looked at Elm. "Well, I do not intend to die tonight, if that will satisfy you all. Yet I have little hope left for my life. This quest was meant to kill me, but it has only left me maimed, one-handed and weak."
"You have one hand, but a determined heart will strengthen the weakness of the body," Ix said. "And in my village you will meet at least one one-handed man who has yet to be a burden." He bowed to her. "I must go to my rest now. Tomorrow we will break camp and leave these hills. Perhaps some of us never to return."
He nodded to Elm and turned to go.
"You will bid my brother good night for me," Fili said. "I would tell him myself, but…"
Ix seemed to hesitate then, but he nodded. "I will tell him when I see him," he said, and then he left the hut.
Elm tended the embers of their fire, then laid out his mat and lay down for sleep. Fili stretched out beside Betta and searched the dark shadows of her face for some sign that she would not be gone when he woke.
"What do I do now?" she murmured to the air.
"Rest," he told her. "Rest and grow strong. Return with me to Ered Luin."
"And then what? Live with you in your mountain halls where none of my race are welcome?"
"There is a place for you there, with friends that I know, and in future days you and I will journey together through Middle-earth. We will make our own home or live as wanderers in the wild. We will be happy together. What more shall we need?"
And then, speaking in soft whispers, Fili told her the long, sad tale of Nan and Gilon, the oft-forgotten Dwarf-woman and her human husband. By the end of it, Betta was fast asleep and her hand held tight to his. Secretly, hidden deep in his heart, Fili allowed himself to wish that there were no Quest to Erebor, no future adventure that would take him away, but it was a foolish thought. Without Erebor, he would not have met her, and without her, he may as well lie dead in the belly of a dragon. He would not be half so happy with a mountain of regained gold as he was to lie beside her now.
I'm sorry it took so long to post this time. One of the transformers blew outside my house and zapped most of my electronics, frying my wireless router and destroying my TV. Good times. I have been without TV and internet for almost a week, but that gave me plenty of time to write. The last few chapters should be out pretty quickly now – two chapters and an epilogue – and then… the end.
-Paint