29: Behind Walls of Stone
Tauriel tried and failed to stop herself from pulling her shoulders up to her ears, an involuntary reaction to the icy wind which had greeted her the moment she had stepped outside the makeshift shelter she, Kíli, Dáin and the highest ranking generals in his army had spent the second half of the night in, poring over maps of northern Rhovanion. Perhaps she should have followed Ruari's example. He had preferred to spend the night around one of the large bonfires, drinking himself into what he called the warspirit. If she had, then the sinews in her neck would perhaps not feel like the strings on a lute, pulled as taut as they would go.
But of course abandoning Kíli in this situation would have been unthinkable, and so she had stuck by him through those long, dark hours. The other Dwarves had been wary of her presence at first, but a few observant suggestions of how they might approach the Mountain while keeping the risk of running headfirst into a trap at a minimum had earned her a grudging respect among Dáin and his men. Whether that would be enough to blindly rely on each other as they fought side by side only time would tell.
Now, with the hour of their departure for Erebor fast approaching, she had other things to worry about than her tenuous relationship to the Dwarves of the Iron Hills. Such as the two huffing, horned creatures that appeared out of the mist in front of her, led by none other than Ruari. Tauriel took an instinctive step back, the slit-like pupils with which the animals stared at her not exactly invoking trust.
"What are these supposed to be?"
"Our transport to Erebor," Ruari returned nonchalantly. "Or did you expect the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield to march as part of the infantry? Dáin's manners may at times be questionable, but they're not that foul."
"You mean to ride those things?"
"Yes, evidently. As will you and Kíli."
Again, Tauriel examined the animals' strange eyes and disproportionately large horns. Goats, she thought, but unlike any she had ever seen. One of the beasts gave an impatient stomp with one of its hooves, the air expelled from its nostrils forming a white cloud in the cold morning air. Tauriel turned to Ruari.
"I think not."
He had the audacity to laugh at her. "Now that's a first. I don't think I've ever seen you scared of anything that does not involve your precious princeling getting hurt."
Before Tauriel could protest this assumption, the tent flap behind her was thrown aside and Kíli emerged. "Don't call me that," he said to Ruari. Stepping around Tauriel, he reached out to thread his fingers into the thick fur on the side of one of the goats' neck, petting it. "The mountain goats have borne many generations of Dwarves into battle. They are bred for war—you will not find a mount better suited to the sort of terrain we are headed for."
She watched the goat push its massive head into Kíli's palm. Or perhaps it was simply trying to get its horns closer to his throat.
"I will be perfectly fine on foot, I think."
Like Ruari, Kíli saw right through her. Unlike a Ruari, he chose not to tease her about her discomfort around the animals. "It's alright. We can share."
Again, she studied the goat. Standing next to Kíli, it looked around the size of a small pony. Still. . . "I hardly think it will be able to carry both of us."
Now, Kíli did laugh."You hardly weigh more than a feather. Come on."
His grip on the animal's fur tightened, suddenly, and he swung himself onto the goat's back in one fluid motion. Before Tauriel had time to process what was happening, the animal had started forward, Kíli's arms reaching down to wrap around her waist. It was either go along with it or end up in a disgraceful heap on the swampy ground.
And that was how Tauriel found herself being carried towards where the Dwarven army was forming its lines on the back of a monstrous mountain goat, Ruari following close behind on the other. True to Kíli's word, the animal remained sure-footed even on uneven, slippery ground and, once she figured out that she might hook her feet into the leather loops dangling from a saddle which had so far escaped her notice, Tauriel found that riding astride a goat was not as uncomfortable as she would have imagined (not that imagining anything of the sort had been necessary, until today).
Still, she maintained a bruising grip onto Kíli's waist. It was not so much that she feared falling, for she knew, rationally, that a fall from this height was extremely unlikely to injure her. Rather, she expected that an animal with the goat's temperament would be impossible to control—and a loss of control was not something she enjoyed. At all.
Kíli, however, held the reins with unfailing confidence, never allowing the goat to place a single step out of line. It was only once they had ascended the small hill where the mounted forces were gathering and had turned around to overlook the formations of the infantry in the field below that Kíli's grip on the reins slackened. One of his hands covered Tauriel's on his hip.
"By my beard," he muttered. "Dáin really does not do things by halves, does he?"
Indeed, the Dwarven forces gathered below were a sight to behold. The infantry, which consisted of several hundred heavily armed Dwarves, was complemented by about half as many mounted soldiers, dozens of large war chariots, as well as a number of strange, cannon-like contraptions on wheels. An army, in every sense of the word.
"The enemy will not be expecting something of that scale waiting for them when they reach the mountain." The excitement in Kíli's voice was palpable. And it was true that Dáin's commitment to their cause already exceeded anything they had dared to hope for. Would it be enough, though?
Over Kíli's shoulder, Tauriel cast a wary glance westward, where the world was currently still shrouded in thick mist. Erebor was merely a couple days' journey away and, another day further, the Greenwood. If only she had a different standing with her king, if she had not butchered whatever familiarity might have existed between them by running off in the middle of the night, she could have appealed to him for his aid. A few hundred Dwarves were good, but an army of Woodland Elves on top of that would have been even better.
But no. Thranduil would never intervene on behalf of the Dwarves. There was nothing either her past or her present self could have done to change that and it would be best to let the matter of what they could have had go and focus on what they had—a fighting chance. Spreading her fingers, she allowed Kíli's to slide between them, their hands now firmly entwined.
"To Erebor it is, then."
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
The journey to Erebor might not have been a long one, but it was still miserable. Gusts of the same icy wind which had greeted Tauriel on that first morning kept whipping their hair into their frostbitten faces, fingers stiff where they clutched either reins or weapons. Complaining about the harsh weather would have taken a big chunk out of the Dwarves' pride; instead their general mood turned more sour with each mile and Tauriel began to feel that they would be lucky to reach the mountain before one half of the army had had the chance to kill the other half over some trivial disagreement.
Throughout it all, Kíli remained at her side—or her front, rather, seeing that they were still sharing the mountain goat Ruari had, with a completely straight face, named Lillybelle. Even though Kíli did not allow himself to be drawn into the petty fights of the Dwarves around them, Tauriel could tell that he, too, was under enormous strain. Which was not surprising, she supposed. For weeks he had labored towards the goal of being reunited with his brethren and now that the hour where that would happen was really upon them, fears for which he had simply not had any room before were taking hold of him.
"When I close my eyes, I keep seeing them all dead," he confessed to her as they reluctantly made camp for the second time since they had set out from the Iron Hills. The urge to reach Erebor as quickly as possible was strong, but a sleep-deprived, starved army would be of little use to those whom they had set out to save. "What if all of this was for nothing? What if Thorin and Fíli and everyone else have already been slain and all I am leading us towards is a death trap?"
She turned towards him, taking his cold hands in hers. The small fire they had built stood little chance against the frosty air. "Then you will have tried. And trying where we know failure to be a considerable risk takes courage. Courage which you possess, and courage which I admire you for."
If he was at all pained by the fact that she did not even attempt to deny the possibility of his worst nightmares coming true, he did not show it. They both knew that there was no use in trying to make their situation seem anything which it was not. Yes, they had come quite far already, but that did not mean that things could not still go horribly, disastrously wrong.
Turning her hands over in his, he leaned forward to press them against his face, breathing soft kisses against the inside of her wrists. Tauriel cast a furtive look around. By now, she supposed it was an open secret that she and Kíli were more to each other than strangers whom fate had tossed into the same boat. Still it could not hurt to exert a bit of caution. Oftentimes the looks which the Dwarves spared for the Elf in their midst were anything but friendly and it would not do to provoke them where it wasn't strictly necessary. Nobody was paying them any attention, though. Those who were not busy warming their stiff fingers on bowls of soup and hot mead had curled up in front of their own, pitiful fires for a few hours of exhausted sleep.
Emboldened by this lack of attention they were currently receiving, she cupped Kíli's jaw and pulled his face up to hers. The kiss they shared was barely more than a brush of lips, really, but it was enough to lighten the cold weight inside her chest, if only for a moment. Whatever might await them at the end of the road they traveled, at least they still had this.
The day when they were to reach Erebor dawned crisp, and blue, and so bright that it hurt to keep one's eyes fixed on the road ahead. It had snowed during the early hours and now the trees proudly wore thin, sparkling layers of white on their branches, as if they had bedecked themselves in their finest jewelry to greet them. The Dwarves' mood, too, had shifted. Sullenness and misery had given way to an almost celebratory excitement, the prospect of getting to go up against an army of enemies conspiring to take what was rightfully theirs, lending even the more skeptical among the Dwarves renewed vigor to see the task done.
Tauriel's feelings about the impending end of their journey were more mixed, but she, too, benefited from the thrill that watching the shape of the mountain grow ever closer on the horizon brought. Forgotten was the cold, the hunger, the aches that clinging to Kíli on Lillybelle's back for days on end had left behind in various parts of her body. Not much further now.
They were approaching the mountain from the northeast, where, according to the maps, the foothills of Erebor would conceal them until they were almost at the gate already. Should the mountain already be beleaguered, this would give them the advantage of surprising the enemy. Unless, of course, they were one step ahead of them already and knew they were coming, but that was an eventuality they could not really prepare for.
A few days ago, Tauriel would have laughed had anyone tried to convince her that she would soon find herself grateful for the mountain goats, but as the ground beneath them continued to rise more and more steeply, she pressed her thighs into Lillybelle's flanks in what she hoped the animal would perceive as appreciation.
They were close, so close, when, over the ridge of the hill they were climbing, a black shape appeared, rushing towards them with impressive speed. A raven.
Just ahead of Tauriel and Kíli, Ironfoot's arm shot up with the speed of lightning, all but plucking the bird out of the air. The raven gave a startled squawk, but, at an utterance from Dáin which Tauriel could not make out, calmed down immediately and perched without resistance on the Dwarf Lord's forearm. For a few seconds Dáin and the raven appeared to simply stare at each other, amber eyes meeting black, then Dáin shook his arm and the bird took flight, disappearing as quickly as it had come.
"Erebor sends a call of distress."
A murmur went through the Dwarven army at their leader's words. Lillybelle gave a slight, aborted lurch, and Tauriel knew that Kíli must have reflexively pulled on the reins. Staying patient while Dáin surveyed his forces, his brows pulled down in thought, was hard, even for Tauriel. Yet he was the one in command, and if they wanted a chance to succeed in all this, then his word had to be law. For now.
The original plan once they reached the mountain had been for the army to lay low just out of sight of the gate while a small number of handpicked scouts was sent ahead. If all was quiet, Dáin and Kíli would attempt to make contact with Thorin and warn him of what was to come. If the mountain was already under attack, they would intervene. That simple.
Now, that plan appeared to be superfluous. Still, Dáin seemed hesitant to send in all of his forces at once. Instead, his eyes found Kíli's.
"Ride with me," he said. "I want to know what is going on down there before we throw ourselves into battle." He galloped along the lines of his army, barking orders to follow them to the ridge of the hill and wait for his command.
In front of her, Kíli was silent as he put on the helmet he, too, seemed to hold no particular fondness for. He had a point, though, and so Tauriel followed suit, her suddenly clammy fingers almost slipping on the heavy, iron piece of armor. Her heart was in her throat as she slipped her arms around Kíli's waist once more.
Looking up ahead, she found Dáin watching them, the expression on his face unreadable under all that facial hair and armor. For a moment, she was certain that this was where he would tell her to stay behind, that if she thought there was any way he, Lord of the Iron Hills, was about to allow an Elf to accompany him on this last, crucial stage of their journey, she was completely out of her mind.
Her muscles tensed, preparing for a confrontation, but then Dáin just turned his warthog around and dug his heels into the animal's flanks. Kíli sagged against her, only a little, and she realized that he, too, must have been holding his breath while he waited for Dáin to make up his mind. He recovered quickly, though, and within a blink they were galloping up the slope, each of Lillybelle's steps carrying them a little closer still to their fate.
They crossed the ridge right behind Dáin and almost crashed into him where had stopped dead as soon as the gate of Erebor had come into sight. Down below, on the plain that funneled into the mountain, no hostile army was waiting for them. In fact, there was no one there at all, the barren land frozen over and empty. But no, that was not quite true, Tauriel realized. A single horse was standing forlornly in front of the closed gate, plumes of white air emanating from its nostrils as it stamped its hooves impatiently.
The owner of the horse was crouched in a somewhat awkward position in front of the gate, which was, upon closer inspection, not merely closed but blocked with huge slabs of dark stone that had been stacked upon each other with such precision that a natural cause could be eliminated. The mountain had been sealed off with purpose. The question was whether those barriers were meant to keep something from getting inside the mountain or out from underneath it.
While Tauriel puzzled over that question, the stranger straightened, banging a frustrated fist against the wall of stone in front of him. A man, she now saw, his drab, tattered clothing hugging a lean, yet muscular frame. His dark hair was pulled back from his not quite young, not quite old face and tied with a ribbon at the base of his neck. A citizen of Lake-town, if she had to guess, yet what he could be doing here, in front of the mountain and many miles north of his home on the lake, she could not fathom.
Unless. . .
Her gaze strayed south to the ruins of the city of Dale, once home to the ancestors of many Men of the Lake. That was when her heart caught in her throat. For there, on the crumbling walls of a once great city, she beheld not the silhouettes of the Lake-men she had half expected to see, but those of an Elven army. Thranduil's army.
"Oi!"
Before she had drawn sufficient breath to make her voice work again, Dáin had clapped spurs to his warthog and was now approaching the Lake-man down below. If he, too, had noticed the Mirkwood soldiers, he gave no indication of it.
Kíli, meanwhile, turned his head to the side to be able to speak to her without raising his voice.
"Do we follow, or. . .?"
"Follow," Tauriel replied immediately. Clearly, they had stumbled upon a situation they had not been prepared for and it was imperative that they got to the bottom of it before things took a turn for the worse. While Kíli closed the gap between them and Dáin, she inched even closer to him. "My king is here as well. And he has brought reinforcements."
With her chest pressed to his back, she felt his sharp intake of breath. "Is that good news? Or bad?"
"Of that I am not certain." She risked another glance over her shoulder towards Dale, where the rows upon rows of soldiers had not moved an inch. The sight was deeply unsettling. Which it should not have been, not for her at least, right? They were her own people, after all. And yet. . . "I cannot imagine why Thranduil would come here. But I have an odd feeling about this."
"I'm afraid there are very few things about this situation that are not odd, amrâlimé."
Despite her unease, a small smile touched her lips at the ease with which Kíli spoke the endearment. It was something he did more and more often these days, almost as if he did not even have to think about it anymore. She quite liked it.
Ahead of them, Dáin had cut off the stranger's path to his horse. The man's dark eyes widened as he took in the impressive figure which the Dwarf Lord astride his warthog cut. He raised his hand to his brow and for a bewildered moment Tauriel thought he might salute Dáin. Then he pressed his thumb and middle finger against the ridge of his nose and she understood that this was a gesture of exasperation rather than respect.
"I believe I've had enough dealings with your kind for one day," he muttered. His worn clothing and disheveled appearance lent him the looks of a simple fisherman, but his posture and manner of speaking suggested otherwise. Whoever this was, fisherman it not, there was nothing simple about him.
"If that is so," Dáin addressed him, "then perhaps I might suggest not to go and literally stick your nose in my people's business. They might end up chopping it off."
The Lake-man narrowed his eyes at Dáin's threat, but did not rise to the bait. "As I said, I am done trying to reason with Dwarves for the day. You may go and try your luck with Oakenshield, although I do fear that he is a lost cause."
"You spoke with Thorin?" At the Lake-man's words, Kíli had begun to slide out of the saddle.
Tauriel had the irrational impulse to hold him back, to keep him pressed against her for just a moment longer. She didn't, of course, and watched him approach the stranger while she, too, dismounted and came to stand beside Lillybelle.
"Spoke at him would be more appropriate." The stranger was watching Kíli with wary eyes, as if he could not quite make up his mind about him. "There is no getting through to him. He is intent on watching the world burn at his feet. I've tried to stop it, but it is beyond my power now."
He looked genuinely distressed by this admission. Kíli, meanwhile, pressed on.
"What is?"
"The war which the King under the Mountain and the Elvenking are about to fight over that cursed treasure buried beneath the slabs of stone which you Dwarves call a kingdom," the Lake-man spat, his voice dripping bitterness. "And my people, once again, will be caught in the middle and will suffer for it."
Tauriel wondered if her face was as pale as Kíli's as their eyes met. She felt like standing on quicksand, the weight of the knowledge of what was about to happen preparing to drag her down into the depths of despair.
"A war?" Her own voice sounded as if it came from somewhere far away. "But they don't—they cannot—"
The Lake-man's laugh was harsh, his gaze still fixed on the mountain. "Oh, but they can and they will."
"No, you do not understand—"
He turned and looked at her properly for the first time then, gave a small start as his eyes skimmed over her decidedly un-Dwarvish appearance. Before he could ask what an Elf was doing here with two Dwarves, Dáin spoke up.
"What my two companions tried so inelegantly to convey, is that neither Dwarves nor Elves should be fighting any battles, because they may soon have another on their hands."
This, visibly, gave the Lake-man pause. "Another battle?"
"Aye. We have reason to believe that soon an army of Orcs will fall upon the mountain. That's why we've come—to warn Thorin. Didn't know that he was already making friends with his neighbors."
The joke went ignored. "An army. When?"
"It could be any day now." Kíli had found his voice again. "Or—we don't quite know, to be honest. We're just glad we got here before they did."
The Lake‐man took his time looking at each of them, one after the other. "That sounds a bit far-fetched, as you are probably aware." He sighed. "But—and I cannot believe I'm saying this—you three seem among the more reasonable individuals I spoke to today. So if you are prepared to talk, I am willing to—"
He never got to finish his sentence, for that precise moment was when a lone figure appeared on top of the barricade that blocked the entrance to the mountain. The resemblance to Kíli nearly pulled the floor from underneath Tauriel's feet. Older and more hardened, Thorin Oakenshield was the spitting image of his nephew, down to the color of his eyes and the way his hair curled at his temples. And yet there was something about him which she had never seen in Kíli, not once, not even during their most forlorn moments. A darkness, all-consuming.
"Cousin!" Oakenshield cried, his voice echoing loudly across the desolate plane. "I know you ride fast, but even you cannot be that quick. If it was not my missive that brought you here, then what else? You've come alone, I presume?"
The question was phrased innocently enough, but the manner in which his eyes roved across the lands stretching out at the foot of the mountain betrayed his disappointment. He had hoped for an army, but, to his knowledge, none had come.
Dáin glanced at the Lake-man, then at Kíli and Tauriel before turning to face Oakenshield. "I was almost here already when your raven reached me, cousin. It appears that there is a wee bit of trouble brewing in the North and I've come to warn you."
"Trouble? What sort?"
"Foul things—a whole army of them, rumor has it."
Oakenshield appeared to consider this for a moment before a grin spread across his face. It was not a pleasant one. He stretched out his arms to both sides. "Let them come, then. The mountain is impenetrable—let them wear themselves down to the bone trying to get in."
Kíli, who had remained frozen in place after his uncle had appeared on the barricade, started forward at that, but faltered in his step at a sharp glance from Dáin. Tauriel hadn't always been present while the two of them had talked about their strategy in approaching Thorin, but from what Kíli had related to her, they had both agreed to leave the initial contact to Dáin, in the not entirely unlikely case that Kíli's disobedience and subsequent disappearance might be clouding Thorin's judgment.
Assured that Kíli would keep his head down, for now, Dáin dismounted from his warthog and approached the gate, shielding his eyes against the unforgiving gray of the sky as he gazed up to where Thorin was looking down at all of them. "Listen, cousin, this won't do, I'm afraid. Come down and we'll talk some strategy, hatch a few plans on how we'll make those Orcs a head shorter. It'll be like the old days."
That last bit was said almost fondly and had an immediate effect, though it was not the one Dáin had probably been hoping for. It was as if someone had drawn the shutters on Oakenshield's face, his expression turning from proud and somewhat hesitant to downright hostile within the blink of an eye. "Has Bard put you up to this? To lure me out of the mountain? So that he can jump me and rob me like the common thief that he is?"
Tauriel's momentary confusion over who Oakenshield was talking about lifted when the Lake-man beside her bristled at Thorin's words. Bard. She wondered if she had heard the name before, wondered if he was—
Before she could finish that thought and before either Bard or Dáin could protest against Thorin's absurd accusations, Kíli's capacity for restraint ran out and he stepped forward, tearing his helmet off in the process. "If you are not willing to listen to Dáin, who has come all this way just to help you, then perhaps you are willing to listen to me, uncle."
For the first time since she had set eyes on him, Tauriel thought she detected a flicker of genuine emotion on the hardened mask that was Oakenshield's face. It was really only a flicker, though, and gone as fast as it had come. With his hands braced on the barricade, he leaned forward, fixing Kíli with a steady gaze that betrayed neither surprise nor relief at his presence.
"And so the lost nephew returns. Welcome, then, to the glorious kingdom of Erebor. Although, admittedly, from where you are currently standing, it must not look like much. Will you come inside then, to see with your own eyes what your forefathers have built? Or will you stand out there, side by side with thieves and liars?"
Tauriel's heart hammered against her ribcage. None of this had been part of their plan. Neither had they anticipated that the Dwarves would have barricaded themselves inside the mountain, nor that Oakenshield would be so openly hostile towards the world outside his kingdom. Distrustful, perhaps, and not entirely without reason, but whatever had happened between Kíli parting ways with his company and now had clearly driven Thorin beyond the borders of sanity. That Dwarf, up there on his barricade, was not the one Kíli had told her about during many conversations about his past. He was dangerous, and Tauriel feared that if Kíli followed his invitation, Erebor would swallow him whole, rip him away from her side in the most brutal manner. Alive, still, but beyond her reach entirely.
Kíli's fists clenched at his side. To Tauriel's relief he remained frozen in place—for now, at least. "Dáin wasn't lying. The warning he came to deliver was mine. This whole time, I've been held captive by Easterlings trying to build up forces to move against the West. It was from them I learned that an army of Orcs, Wargs, and whatnot is seeking control of the Lonely Mountain. It is through sheer luck and Dáin's willingness to come when I asked him to that we made it here before our enemies did."
The speech was met with silence. Thorin's eyes flickered from Kíli, to Dáin, to Bard, to the ruins of the city of Dale, where Tauriel suspected the Elven soldiers were still standing at attention. She lowered her head before his eyes could skim across her face beneath her helmet—the presence of an Elf at his nephew's side would not increase Oakenshield's willingness to listen, that much was for sure. Perhaps she should have stayed behind after all. But then again, letting Kíli face all this on his own would have been unthinkable.
"Perhaps you have not noticed," Oakenshield spoke eventually, "but our enemies are already at our doorstep. If there really is an army of Orcs coming, let them deal with it. I shall not cry over a single drop of blood spilled from either of them."
This time, Kíli did start forward. "But they are not our enemies," he cried. "Uncle, you do not know the things I have seen, the things I have suffered. The only reason I survived these past few months is that I wasn't alone in all of it. There were others with me—Dwarves, Men, and, yes, Elves. And you know what? When it came down to it, we were all the same. And we made it out because we stuck together. This is no different."
"Oh but it is," Oakenshield spat. "Those whom you so lightheartedly proclaim to be our allies have treated our people like dirt, time and again. And I will not—I shall not—" He stopped himself there, visibly fighting for his composure with a trembling hand against his brow. When he lowered it, his gaze was stormy still, but it was a storm held at bay, for now. "I see they have gotten to you with their lies and schemes. You are young and know no better, perhaps. Come now, come back to your family, Kíli, while you still can." He glanced to the side, at something Tauriel could not see from her vantage point. When he looked back at Kíli, the smile which touched the corners of his mouth was almost cruel. "Your brother is waiting for you."
At that, several more Dwarves stepped onto the barricade beside their king. Some of them gazed with curiosity at the small group gathered in front of the gate, others kept their eyes trained on Thorin. A few did not look up at all, staring at their feet with a mixture of discomfort and fear.
After many days spent among hundreds of Dwarves, not even the most extravagant beards or other typically Dwarven features had the ability to astound Tauriel. Still, she found herself fascinated by how different the members of Oakenshield's company were in both appearance and demeanor. One, she thought, had an axe stuck in his skull.
Even from behind, she could tell that Kíli only had eyes for one of the Dwarves up there, though.
Oakenshield's hand rested on the shoulder of a younger Dwarf, almost as tall as he was, and, in the way Tauriel had come to appreciate since meeting Kíli, handsome in a manner the other members of Thorin's company were not. He was fair where Kíli was dark, and thus the resemblance between them was not quite as obvious as that between Kíli and his uncle. Still Tauriel, who had spent many hours—both at night and during the day—memorizing each and every of Kíli's features, would have known this to be Kíli's brother even if she had not just been told that he was.
Fíli and Kíli were much alike—but, and this was what made Tauriel's heart sink even more than the vehemence of Oakenshield's resistance to their pleas, there was something in the older brother's face she had not once seen on Kíli's. The same darkness which held Oakenshield in its grip had also cast its shadow upon Fíli's fair brow and he was looking down at Kíli with a hardness in his gaze that the Fíli Tauriel had gotten to know through Kíli's narrations should not have been capable of.
"Fíli. Brother." The sounds which escaped Kíli's lips were more like those of a wounded animal than proper words. And then, when Fíli merely gazed impassively at his younger brother, "It's me, Kíli. Do you not recognize me?"
Fíli's lips parted ever so slightly, and for a moment Tauriel hoped that this would be when whatever dark spell he was under would be broken. But then her sharp eyes registered the miniscule movement of Thorin's hand on his older nephew's shoulder. The two Dwarves exchanged a glance, a silent communication passing between them. When Fíli's gaze returned to Kíli, his pale eyes were like ice.
"Make up your mind, Kíli. Come inside, and we'll talk. Or stay out there and continue to have your mind poisoned by the lies of Men and Elves."
Tauriel was certain that this would be the last straw. That now Kíli would leave her behind to join his family behind the masses of stone she would never be able to penetrate. And although it would break her silly heart, she could not even fault him for it. For months, being reunited with his brother had been the one thing Kíli had longed for the most. In the name of the Valar, she herself had even helped him to get here, had pushed herself above and beyond all her boundaries to make sure that they reached Erebor in time.
Still, she felt her blood run cold while she waited for Kíli to take those fateful steps that would return him to the waiting arms of his brethren, those steps that would remove him from her grasp. But, as he had done so many times since that fateful day when she had woken up in a dark, dank cell with him as her neighbor, Kíli surprised her. For the steps which he took did not bring him closer to the barricade, to his brother, his uncle, but backwards, until he was so close to her that she could have touched him by merely flexing her fingers.
"No. I will not hide behind a wall of stone while others fight our battles for us!"
He had begun quietly, but towards the end his voice had risen, loud enough now to shock Tauriel out of her momentary stupor. She did reach for him then, pressing her palm against the small of his back. He would barely be able to feel it through the layers of his armor, but if there was anything she could do to show him she was on her side, she would. And indeed, he leaned back into her touch, seeking and finding her support. He lifted his chin, his eyes flickering from Fíli to Thorin and back. "It is not in my blood. And it is not in yours, either."
And with that he turned his back on the mountain, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly with the breaths he gulped down. Realizing how much his decision had cost him tugged at Tauriel's heart and for a moment she almost wished they were back in one of the many prisons they had shared over the months, cut off from the rest of the world, just so that she might take him in her arms and make him forget, even if only for the briefest of moments, the cruelty of the realities they had to face each and every day of their lives. As it was, she merely met and held his gaze when he raised his eyes to meet hers, hoping that he would see in them how much she admired and cherished him for his courage.
After a long moment, he took a last, shuddering breath before tearing his gaze away to look at Bard, who had been watching the entire exchange with a carefully neutral expression. "Does your offer to talk things over still stand? I believe we have much to discuss."
Bard inclined his head. "I cannot promise that our Elven friends will be very hospitable. But I can say that in my house at least no harm will come to you as long as you mean no harm to us."
"That will do, for now." Kíli turned to Dáin. Throughout the altercation with Thorin, the Dwarf lord had remained uncharacteristically silent. Even now, his expression remained rather stricken, which clearly did not escape Kíli's notice, his voice softening as he addressed him. "And what about you? Is this where we will part ways or are you prepared to stand with me still, as we pick our way through this new, unforeseen mess?"
Dáin's eyes lingered on the mountain for a few seconds longer, hesitating. He shook himself. "I need to speak to my men; got to let them know that they have to stand by for a little longer. Might send out my scouts after all, see what they can find out about any hostile armies. I'll meet up with you in the city." He looked towards Dale, his bushy brows furrowed. "Can I count on not being shot on sight when I approach?"
"I'll make sure of that," Bard replied with the hint of a smile in his voice. To Kíli and Tauriel he said, "Come, then. I'm not sure it is safe to linger here any longer than we already have."
As if on cue, the gigantic head of a stone statue was pushed off the top of the barricade, crushing the bridge which ran up to Erebor's gate. Whooping and shouts could be heard from the other side of the barricade and the heartbroken look on Kíli's face made Tauriel want to punch something. Instead, she placed her hand on Kíli's shoulder and gently directed him towards where Lillybelle was still waiting for them. Dáin, meanwhile, hopped back onto his warthog and set out for the foothills at a brisk pace.
Mounting the goat behind Kíli did not feel as strange as it once had after so many hours on the road and so she did not immediately notice the half curious, half amused look Bard shot her from the back of his horse. She smiled and ducked her head, for once grateful for the helmet that would hide most of her blush.
"I have pieced together quite a lot, I think, from everything that has just been said," Bard said as he directed his horse into a trot which Lillybelle would be able to keep up with. "What I have failed to gather, though, is how an Elf in Dwarven armor comes to be here, on this fateful day."
Before Tauriel had a chance to deliver this last piece of the puzzle to him, their path was cut off by a rider astride a giant elk Tauriel would recognize anywhere. For what felt like the hundredth time within the span of just a few minutes, Tauriel's chest clenched tight with a surge of panic. An encounter with her king had been inevitable, but she had hoped that she would have at least some time to compose herself before it did. Too late for that now. Although, she realized as his eyes roved over their small party to settle on Bard, Thranduil had yet to recognize her underneath all that outlandish armor.
"What is the meaning of this?" he hissed, his nostrils flaring in indignation. "I was willing to let you indulge in your little fancy of being able to reason with Oakenshield. Bringing even more members of their foolhardy race back to the city was not part of our agreement."
Bard looked remarkably unfazed by the Elvenking's wrath and Tauriel found her respect for the Lake-man growing by the second. "They have some crucial information regarding a possible invasion by an army of Orcs from the North. We would be fools not to at least give their warning some consideration. At Dale, we will be able to speak undisturbed."
"An army from the North?" Thranduil gave a huff of indignation. "Can you not see this for what it is? A ploy by Oakenshield to distract us?"
"For someone who insisted to me not an hour ago that Thorin was beyond reasoning, you sound remarkably like him."
Tauriel's admiration of Bard's bravery in the face of her king's fury quickly melted into dread over the altercation she sensed coming. An altercation for which they simply did not have time. Before she could change her mind, she slid out of the saddle behind Kíli, her fingertips pushing underneath the seam of her helmet.
"If you are not willing to listen to them, then perhaps you will be willing to listen to me."
Freeing her locks of hair from where she had kept them stuffed underneath the helmet felt better than she would have expected, the cool air brushing against her scalp and the sides of her face doing wonders to put her thoughts, which had been spinning out of control, to a stop. And for the first time in months, she raised her eyes to meet the gaze of her king—something she had, for a while, not been sure she would ever do again.
A/N: We've finally made it to Erebor! My story operates under the assumption that, due to Kíli's decision to go to Dáin, the Iron Hills army arrives a little earlier at the Mountain. We'll see how this will affect the events which are to come :-)