35: It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

A sense of. . . something brushed against the edges of Tauriel's awareness, causing her to surface from the brief slumber she had forced her mind to succumb to. Forced, because she did not particularly want to sleep, but knew that even she should not head into what might yet turn out to be the biggest battle she had ever seen without getting some proper rest.

Now, she gently untangled her limbs from Kíli's in an effort not to wake him. She needn't have worried. His face was relaxed as she looked down at him, his lips parted slightly as he breathed slowly, evenly. It was doubtful that he would continue to sleep much longer once she was gone. The room was much too cold for that, a circumstance he would soon begin to experience once her body was no longer there to warm him. Still, she carefully tucked the blanket around him as she rose. Every minute of rest counted.

Resisting the urge to rub her hands up and down her arms to ward off the chill, she dressed swiftly and efficiently before tiptoeing to the door. With so many people gathered in the house and not all of them familiar, it was likely that her senses were simply playing a trick on her. The feeling which had woken her was still there, though, and if she had to put her finger on it, she would have said that someone had just been inside the house who did not belong there. There was no way she would be able to find any more rest before she checked.

With a last rueful glance at Kíli's sleeping form, she slipped into the hallway—and almost tripped on something that had been left right outside their door. She recovered her balance swiftly enough, but froze when she recognized the distinctive emblems on the items arranged in a neat pile in front of her feet. The uniform of a Mirkwood soldier, complete with the winged helmet she had so coveted as a young elfling.

Well, that certainly explained the strange presence she had sensed before. She pressed close to the wall as she gazed out the window which sat between Suri's and Ingolf's room and the one she and Kíli shared. It overlooked the square outside, but there was not much to see there. This came as no surprise. Whoever Thranduil had sent as a messenger would be long gone by now. How they had known where she was spending the night, she did not want to think about too closely.

For a little while, she stood staring at the bundle, a heavy weight inside her stomach. Then, with a small sigh, she picked up the uniform and carried it downstairs, taking care not to put too much weight on the creaking stairs.

The warmth conserved in the lower levels came as a relief to her stiff muscles and she rolled her shoulders as she walked silently to the kitchen at the back of the house. From the communal rooms she passed on the way the occasional soft snore could be heard, nothing else. Everyone was still asleep, it seemed. A glance at the sky outside the kitchen window revealed a steely gray sky, heralding the coming of dawn. Soon, everyone would need to be on their feet, but for now she was happy to let them rest and have a moment to herself.

She placed the uniform on the table in the center of the kitchen and took a few steps back until she was able to lean against the hearth. It still emanated faint traces of warmth from whatever cooking endeavors Nesrin and the others had undertaken the night before and Tauriel willed her body to absorb as much of it as possible in order to conquer the icy hold which this recent delivery had over her heart.

What was her king's objective, here? If he were anyone else, a gesture such as this might be interpreted as a peace offering, an attempt to make things right between them. But not Thranduil. No, he was pushing her to choose a side by dangling something she had craved for the longest of times right in front of her face. Honor. Glory. A place at his side when he rode into battle. His callousness did not mean that he did not care about her—if anything, he cared too much, perhaps, so much that he would rather put her in a golden cage than allow her to be happy, free. Or a golden armor, in this case.

She was still glaring at the uniform when Nesrin came into the kitchen a little while later. The woman paused in the doorway, taking in the scene before her. Then she proceeded to gently nudge Tauriel aside with her hip so that she could work the stove, pots clattering as she lit the fire and began to heat some water. Still absorbed in her ruminations, Tauriel was not entirely certain how much time had passed before a mug of something warm was pressed into her cold hands.

Nesrin took a seat at the table with her own drink cradled between her palms, blowing on it to cool it down. Tauriel raised her mug to her face and inhaled. Tea, strong and spicy. She arched an eyebrow.

"You brought this from Rhûn."

Nesrin shrugged. "Not everything was bad there. Just the things that really counted." She leaned back in her chair and nodded at the bundle in the middle of the table. "Quite an impressive uniform you've got there."

"It isn't mine."

Tauriel hated how small her voice sounded, how uncertain. Nesrin, of course, picked up on that.

"Are you sure? It certainly looks like it would fit you perfectly."

Pushing away from the counter, Tauriel crossed over to the table, her hand reaching out to brush her fingers over the carvings on the helmet but stopping just short of touching it. She balled her fist as she withdrew her hand. "I cannot wear this. It is just not who I am anymore."

Sharp, brown eyes locked onto her own. "And who's that, then?"

Glancing down the length of her own body, Tauriel ran her palms over the mismatched assortment of clothes she was wearing, some of them stolen, some of them given to her by allies she had made in the course of her journey. All of them well-worn and in desperate need of cleaning and as different as they could possibly be from the pristine uniform glaring up at her from the tabletop. She lifted her head, met Nesrin's gaze head-on.

"This, I suppose."

Nesrin nodded, once. "Then that's what you should wear."

And, when it came down to it, that was really as simple as it was, wasn't it?

Pushing the uniform aside with one hand, Tauriel pulled out a chair with the other and sat down at the table, her still hot mug in front of her. She wrapped her palms around it and smiled as the scent transported her back to warmer nights.

Outside, the sky was gradually beginning to lighten.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Kíli was already awake and dressed when she returned to the small attic chamber.

"There you are." He smiled when he saw her, but then narrowed his eyes as they traveled to the bundle she was carrying in her arms. His gaze snapped back up to meet hers. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, don't worry. This was left on our doorstep—it hardly matters."

She walked over to the bed they had not used and carefully placed the armor on top of it, tucking a sleeve that had come loose back in neatly. Perhaps, one day, if someone were to venture up here when all this was long over, they would find the uniform and come up with a story about an Elven warrior who had come to Dale to fight for the people there. A hero. She liked that idea, even if it couldn't be her.

Kíli stepped up next to her, looking down at the armor with a deep line between his brows. In the pale pre-dawn light, the golden hues of the breastplate and shoulder pads looked dull and cold. "Are you quite certain? This doesn't look like something that hardly matters."

Turning her back to the bed and the items sitting on top of it, Tauriel reached down to entwine her fingers with Kíli's, bringing their joined hands up to her lips to press a kiss to his knuckles. His skin was chilly against her lips. "It does not, though." Another press of lips. "This is what matters. You. And me. And those people downstairs, who, for some reason, are willing to stand with us through whatever storm we may need to weather today."

His eyes searched hers, for a moment, but then he nodded. "We should go, then." He shot an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the sky outside. "Doesn't look like we have much time left."

She agreed with him, but did not let that stop her from leaning in for a brief, firm kiss, trying to memorize the shape of his lips against hers, his taste, which lingered for a bit even after they pulled apart. Reluctantly, she dropped his hands. "Ready when you are," she said, even though she did not feel ready in the slightest.

Together they made their way downstairs, the mansion now alive with the sounds of people moving about. The mats and pillows which had been dragged into the communal space on the ground floor lay abandoned now, their occupants busy getting ready elsewhere in the house. Suri, Ingolf, and Ruari were waiting for them by the fireplace, its ashes still warm from the fire that had crackled happily there a few hours ago. Suri was helping Ingolf strap various bits of protective armor to his arms and shoulders while Ruari was sharpening a set of already rather deadly-looking knives.

For once, no quips or comments were issued about Kíli and Tauriel making a rather late appearance when everyone was already up and about for some time. Instead, their friends waited in companionable silence while they, too, finished putting on the remainder of their armor. Tauriel led their silent procession out the door when they were all done, Kíli following closely behind. The helmet she had brought all the way from the Iron Hills was a heavy weight under her arm, and yet, where before she had mostly thought of it as unnecessarily cumbersome, she now carried it with a strange sense of pride.

Outside, the party from Rhûn was already waiting for them, leaning on swords, axes, and spears while they spoke quietly to one another. When she noticed the four of them standing there, Nesrin stepped out from among the group, the rest of the Riavod people falling silent.

"Ready when you are."

Tauriel's lips quirked upward in a slight smile at the fact that Nesrin's words precisely echoed her own from just minutes ago. And this time, as she surveyed the lot of them—almost two dozen capable, very determined fighters—she felt a little more confident than before when she nodded.

"Follow me, then."

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Despite the icy temperatures, sweat caused Tauriel's hair to stick to the back of her neck as she threw herself forward with her whole weight, using the momentum to drive a spear she had picked up moments before through the sunken chest of the orc she had been fighting these past couple of minutes. Undeterred by the fact that it was impaled on a long, sharp object, the Orc—too stubborn to just die, it seemed—continued to come for her, and in the end she had no choice but to follow up on the spear with an arrow shot at close distance right into her opponent's skull.

She scowled as she leaned down over the fallen creature to try and salvage the arrow only to watch it break in half as she yanked it out of the Orc's head. What a waste.

Straightening up, she permitted herself a second to brush errand strands of hair from her forehead and grimaced when the back of her hand came away coated in black and red. Blood. None of it her own, thankfully, but still her gaze was laced with both unease and impatience when she lifted it to the gates of Erebor, as of yet barricaded with huge slabs of stone. What was taking so long?

She wasn't the only one wondering about that, evidently. "Your people are certainly taking their sweet time," Ingolf called in Kíli's general direction even as he grabbed the heads of two smaller Orcs with his large hands and knocked them together with enough force to render each creature incapable of further movement.

Kíli's groan as he wrenched his blade from the flank of the Warg he had just felled was probably born of equal measures of physical effort and frustration. Breathing heavily, his gaze was dark as he, too, turned to look upon the mountain. "They'll come," he said, but sounded less certain about that each time he'd had to repeat it since the enemy's troops had descended upon them with no warning other than an ominous rumbling of the earth, followed by the ground birthing giant killer worms in a bone-chilling twist of events.

Minutes before, the news that the Arkenstone was no longer in the possession of the Dwarves of Erebor had been received by Thorin about as poorly as expected.

"Thieves!" and "Traitors!" the Dwarves up on the barricade had cried while their king had seemed frozen in shock, his filmy gaze displaying none of the sensible clarity Tauriel had allowed herself to hope for after watching Fíli return to Erebor the night before.

That his senses were still clouded by whatever curse lay upon all that gold inside the mountain had been proven further by a strange glint which had taken over his features right after.

"It's just a ruse," he had proclaimed, "it's a dirty lie. The Arkenstone is hidden inside this mountain. This is a delusion."

"No, it's not a delusion." The silence which had fallen in the wake of this statement, uttered by none other than the hobbit Bilbo Baggins—who, to Tauriel's knowledge, had been supposed to be safely tucked away in Dale—had felt as complete and abrupt as a punch to the throat. "The stone is real—I gave it to them. I took it as my fourteenth part."

After that, things had quickly gone from bad to worse. Thorin had lunged for Bilbo, the words on his tongue swallowed by the distance between the group of Dwarves and the crowd below. In turn, Fíli, the shadows underneath his eyes even darker than they had been the evening before, had thrown himself at Thorin with an unintelligible cry and the two of them had gone down, out of sight, Bilbo swiftly disappearing after them.

How the rest of Oakenshield's company had reacted to this particular development remained a mystery, for that had been when the earth had begun to shake beneath their feet. Given the fact that the mountain had remained a silent witness to the bloodshed occurring at its very feet, Tauriel sincerely doubted that whatever was happening inside boded very well.

It was not as if twelve Dwarves and one Hobbit would be able to bring about a great difference in the easily apparent fact that their forces were vastly outnumbered by those of the enemy, Tauriel reasoned. Still, she could not help but feel that an intervention by Oakenshield would have a positive effect on everyone's dwindling morale, particularly that of the Iron Hills soldiers. They had fought valiantly since the first Orcs had spilled out of the holes the were-worms had opened in the earth, but were slowly driven back from the gate as their strength and numbers dwindled.

That, and perhaps her own king would be compelled to keep fighting by his desire not to admit defeat in front of Oakenshield if the Dwarf-king finally decided to show his face on the battlefield. For while Thranduil and his troops had fought with the skill and efficiency one might expect from them, the few glimpses which she had caught of her ruler since things had gone to shit (to use a phrase from Ingolf's repertoire), had revealed fear in his eyes. His gaze kept darting from the bodies of fallen Mirkwood soldiers to the horizon beyond Dale. He was thinking of retreat. And that, more than anything, would seal all of their fates with blood.

"Incoming!"

Tauriel's increasingly sinister thoughts were aborted abruptly by Ruari's cry of warning and she, Kíli, Ingolf, and Suri all jumped aside just in time to avoid being trampled by a raging Warg as it tried to throw off Ruari, who had embedded both of his knives deeply in the beast's furry back. A sharp twist of one of those knives later, the Warg went down with a yelp, Ruari rolling off its back in an admirably smooth move and landing on his feet. He was swiftly joined by Ingolf and Suri, who took alternate swings at the creature to ensure that it would never get back up again.

Nesrin and most of her crew followed mere seconds later, still in the process of taking care of the rest of the Warg pack. Leaving the others to it, Nesrin made her way over to Kíli and Tauriel.

"We might want to fall back to the city soon unless we want to risk for there to be nothing left to fall back to," she said while she cleaned black blood off her blade by wiping it on her trouser leg.

"They've breached the gate?" Tauriel's heart sank. What little attention she had been able to spare had been focused on the mountain, but now she realized that perhaps she should have been looking in the other direction all along.

"Not yet. But they are getting closer. And Bard's people are panicking—I fear it won't be much longer before they turn and run for the city. And when they do, the enemy will be hot on their heels."

Tauriel and Kíli exchanged a look. This wasn't great news, though it did not come entirely unexpected. And while they did not technically owe it to the city of Dale or its people to protect them, abandoning them to their fate seemed like a betrayal of all the convictions which had brought them here in the first place. With a sinking feeling, Tauriel recalled the appreciation in Bard's expression when they had met him in front of the armory shortly before dawn. And this despite the fact that there were hardly two dozen of them, all of them in mismatched armor and some of them carrying downright outlandish weapons.

"You did not exaggerate when you said that your friends could be an asset in what is to come," Bard had addressed Tauriel, the sincerity in his voice making her flush with pride. And somehow she had managed to hold onto that feeling even in the face of her king's palpable disdain as he beheld the company she had chosen over the place in his ranks he had offered her.

Now the time had come to stay true to her word. Still, she hesitated, her gaze once again flickering to the mountain.

"To Dale it is, then."

Surprised, Tauriel turned to Kíli when he spoke. He, for once, wasn't looking at Erebor, but at her.

"But what if—"

"They'll come, or they won't. And no matter how much I want to drag them out by their beards, I know I can be more useful elsewhere."

Her heart brimmed with affection for him as she made to give Nesrin her assent to lead the way to Dale. Any sound that might already have left her lips, however, was drowned out by an enormous crash from the direction of the mountain, followed by a chorus of cries.

"To the king!"

Kíli's eyes met hers, his gaze no longer firm and certain. Finally, finally his brethren were joining the battle fought, partly, on their behalf, and their attention had just been drawn elsewhere.

Never had Tauriel been as grateful for Nesrin's level-headedness as in that moment.

"I will lead our party to Dale," she said. "This will give you a little more time to decide where your effort is worth the most right now." She cast a look over her shoulder, a worried frown tugging at her forehead. "Do not take too long, though. Soon it might not be so easy to reach the city anymore."

Tauriel clasped Nesrin's shoulder. "Thank you. And be careful."

"You as well." Nesrin shot a look at Ingolf, Ruari, and Suri, who had drawn closer as they spoke. "Are you coming with us?"

"We're staying."

Ingolf's quick statement was augmented by a sharp nod from Suri and a grunt from Ruari. Tauriel's eyes stung—she knew she ought to tell them to head to Dale as well, but couldn't bring herself to do it. They were her family, and if this was to end in fire, they should all burn together.

She looked at Kíli as she tightened her grip on her blades. "You lead us, then." She might have more experience with leadership, but this would most likely end up being a fight between Dwarves and the enemy, for the most part. Kíli would best be able to anticipate the Dwarves' tactics.

He nodded, the hard line of his brows making him look older than he was. "Let's go."

Tauriel cast a last look at Nesrin and her party as they set off for Dale at a quick pace, praying to whatever force was listening that this would not be the last time they saw each other alive. In the distance, a gleam caught her eye—Thranduil, charging through the gates into the city, many of his soldiers following behind. Not fleeing for now, then, but certainly retreating. Well, at the very least this meant that Dale would not be as poorly defended as Nesrin had feared just moments ago.

Either way, she could not allow what was behind her to distract her from the task ahead. And so she fell into step behind Kíli as he led them back into the fray of the battle, Ruari and Suri to her left and Ingolf to her right. Their conversation with Nesrin could only have lasted a few minutes at the most, but as they rejoined the battle proper, she found that the mood on the battlefield had notably shifted. Yes, the Dwarves were rallying and fighting with renewed vigor. At the same time, though, the enemy's attention had returned to the Mountain with some of the battalions that had been pressing towards Dale just moments ago turning back. There was a sea of hostile creatures between their small party and the gates of Erebor and trying to move closer to the mountain felt like swimming against the current.

"Stay close together! Watch each other's backs!"

Kíli's command was almost swallowed by the uproar of yet another wave of Orcs as they crashed into it. Even as she kept thrusting her blades into body after body, Tauriel found the time to gaze in horror at the blind trolls mounted by goblin soldiers as they plowed through the masses, headed unerringly for where she knew Oakenshield and his company where putting up a valiant, yet increasingly doomed effort to defend the mountain.

"We're never going to get through," Ingolf cried from behind her. "There's simply too many of them."

He was right. The retreat of the Elves and simultaneous surge of the Orc army towards the Mountain had left them surrounded by enemies, too far from the gates to have hope of reaching them anytime soon.

Kíli whipped his hair, slick with sweat and other substances none of them wanted to put too much thought in, out of his face. His gaze as he looked towards the mountain was filled with murderous intent, and for a moment Tauriel thought he would be stubborn and insist for them to keep trying. But then his eyes slid to the side and narrowed.

"If you do not stand a chance against the current, swim with it," he said.

Tauriel used a momentary lull in the enemy's attack to follow his line of sight. There, on the hill that housed the crumbling ruins of a watchtower, the leader of the Orc army was signaling his commands. Azog the Defiler, sworn enemy of the line of Durin.

"You want to go after him." She did not voice it as a question—by now she knew the look of determination in Kíli's eyes all too well.

"If I cannot help my kin by fighting at their side, I can do this instead. Cut the head off the snake." Kíli swung his blade to strike down the single Orc rushing towards him and turned towards his four companions, breathing hard. "This is going to be dangerous. I wouldn't fault you if you wanted to stay behind." His eyes flickered to Tauriel and held her gaze. "Any of you."

Before Tauriel had a chance to deliver the indignant reply on the tip of her tongue, Ruari hefted his blade onto his shoulder and stepped forward.

"And leave all the fun to you? Forget it."

Kíli looked at the rest of them, finding matching expressions of resoluteness on their faces. "To Ravenhill it is, then."

This time, when they set off at a brisk pace, Tauriel fell into step next to him. Strategically, this wasn't ideal, but if this should turn out to be the last fight they ever fought together, she wanted to spend as much of it at his side as possible. And either way, Kíli had been right. With their path now leading them around the battlefield rather than across it, they met with much less resistance than they had before, the ominous shape of Ravenhill growing larger ahead of them with each passing minute.

For a short while, Tauriel entertained the thought that perhaps they would simply be able to rush straight up to the bottom of the hill and start climbing it without anybody trying to stop them. This, of course, was when their luck turned.

Ahead of them, a makeshift bridge had been built across the river cutting through the otherwise barren landscape. The bridge provided a direct access from Ravenhill to the main battlefield. Since the river was frozen anyway, Tauriel would normally have said that they ought to climb down and go across the ice rather than attempting to cross a narrow bridge controlled by the enemy. Only, it looked as if a small group of Lake-men was trapped on the bridge, fighting for their lives against snarling Orcs coming at them from both ends of the rickety construction.

Tauriel could only speculate that they had been attempting to flee west, and thereby escape the horrors of the battle. What else would have caused them to wind up at such a distance from Dale, where Bard was sure to be reinforcing his walls with every man available? Deserters or not, though, simply abandoning them to their fate was not an option.

A glance shared with her companions was enough to assure herself that they were on the same page as her. They did not slow their step, but went right onto the bridge instead, barrelling into the group of Orcs closest to their end with the full momentum of their rush towards Ravenhill. Once again, the Orcs outnumbered them, but in this case, this might actually turn out to be to their advantage. With the bridge as packed as it was, it did not take much of an effort to push their opponents off its sides and into the icy valley below.

"Go back to Dale!" Tauriel cried once they reached the men huddled together at the center of the bridge. "Both Bard and the Elvenking are within its walls. Your chances will be much better there."

To be fair, she had no idea if that was still true or if perhaps Thranduil had abandoned the battle entirely by now. A sliver of hope seemed better than leaving those people out here to fend for themselves, though. And indeed, they did not need to be told twice. With the path to the end of the bridge cleared, they got out of there as swiftly as their feet would carry them, leaving Tauriel, Kíli, and their friends alone on the wooden planks to fight the Orcs. Which was just as well, seeing that the wood was already creaking ominously under their combined weight.

"Let's clear the path and cut that bloody thing down once we're across!"

Kíli charged forward, ramming his shoulder into the chest of the nearest orc, which sent it and the one lingering behind it over the edge and into the abyss. Suri elected a more elegant approach by dropping down and kicking her opponents' legs out from underneath them while Ingolf and Ruari cheered behind her. With a chuckle, Tauriel drew back the string of her bow and took aim. She did not feel particularly good about using up her arrows even before they made it to Ravenhill, but if she was able to take out a few of the Orcs waiting for them on the other side of the bridge sooner rather than later, this would surely speed up this whole business. With a bit of luck, she would be able to retrieve the arrows once they actually reached said other side.

Her first shot struck its mark perfectly. The second one missed, though that wasn't really her fault. Her legs nearly buckled as the bridge underneath her tipped first left, then right, making her wonder, for a moment, if perhaps she had received a blow to the head that was now affecting her balance. But no, Kíli and the others were performing a similar, awkward dance in order to stay on their feet. An angry howl finally drew her attention to what was happening below her and she realized that the biggest troll she had ever seen had torn the bridge from its fastenings and was now waving it above its ugly head like a grotesque flag.

This wasn't good. She was fairly confident that she would be able to survive a fall from this height relatively unscathed. About the others, she wasn't so sure, though. The ice, at least two dozen feet below, was hard and unforgiving, and being shaken around by a maniacal, giant troll would make a controlled jump very difficult. Perhaps, if they could bring the beast down, they would be able to jump off at a lower height and then run for it before the ice cracked.

"Hold on fast!"

Planting her feet apart to gain a more secure footing, she aimed her bow downward and tried to shoot the troll through the gaps between the wooden planks underneath her. Her first shot ricocheted off the side of the creature's massive skull like a pebble thrown against a tall wall of stone. The second arrow fared a little better and embedded itself in the flabby skin folds just underneath the troll's jaw. Not a lethal shot, sadly, and it had the unpleasant side effect of making the troll angry enough that his waving turned into more aggressive shaking.

"I don't think he's very happy about that!" Kíli, on all fours, was clinging to the slowly disintegrating bridge for dear life.

"His emotional equilibrium was not very high on my list of priorities!" Tauriel shouted back over the roar of the troll's cries and nocked another arrow.

"Leave it an Elf to carry a list into a battle such as this," Ruari quipped even as Ingolf hauled him up by the back of his cloak to prevent him from going over the side of the bridge.

Tauriel ignored all of them and took aim yet again. Last chance, she told herself. This time, she succeeded at hitting the troll's neck at an angle that caused her to hope that she might have injured something vital. And indeed, the troll gave an almost pitiful wheeze which suggested that breathing might just have become a lot more difficult. Unfortunately, the arrow stuck in his throat also prompted him to remove one hand from the bridge and bat at the missile instead.

The bridge tipped sharply to the left, the last few Orcs which had been clinging to it toppling onto the frozen river. Tauriel fell flat on her stomach, one palm wrapped firmly around splintery wood while she reached for Suri, who was closest, with the other. They were still too high up—this would not end well.

The clatter of hooves cut across the troll's wails and was quickly joined by another, staccato sound like a series of bolts being driven into a wall in quick succession. Only when the troll's knees finally buckled did Tauriel understand that it really were bolts, in fact, that were being launched from a strange contraption fastened to the front of a chariot which came hurtling towards them across the ice. Only they weren't embedding themselves in any sort of wall but in the troll's flesh instead.

"It's them!" Kíli was holding onto the bridge with only one hand and yet managed to sound absolutely elated.

And indeed, as Tauriel's gaze shifted from the odd cannon to the ones operating it, she found heads with bushy hair and long beards, one of them a golden blond that could only belong to Fíli. By then, the ground was coming closer at an alarming rate. It was all or nothing, now.

"Jump!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

It was rather a matter of letting go than actually jumping, but everyone obeyed her command instinctively, and the five of them were dropping down from above just as the chariot swerved sharply right to avoid crashing into the swaying troll. Landing on the chariot knocked the breath from Tauriel's lungs—the steel-lined side of the chariot was digging into her upper stomach, and the twinge she felt upon breathing in made her fear that she might have cracked a rib. There was no time to dwell on that, though. Ruari had missed the chariot by just a bit and was clinging to its side with one hand.

Ignoring the pain in her chest, Tauriel launched herself forward and grasped Ruari's arm just above the elbow. Her grip was secure, but as she tried to pull him in, the agony shooting through her ribcage nearly caused her to black out. Perhaps she did, for a split second, because next she knew, strong arms were wrapped around her waist from behind, anchoring her to the chariot so that she could help Ruari onto it without putting additional strain on her ribs.

Ruari went down on what little space there was on the floor of the chariot, panting loudly. His grip on Tauriel's arm tightened briefly before he released her. "Thank you."

"Anytime." She, too, was breathing hard when she finally turned to Kíli behind her and found him looking her up and down with worry shining in his eyes.

"Are you hurt?"

She considered denying it, but knew that it would be foolish to do so. From here on out, things would only get more dangerous, and if she had a weak spot, he needed to know. As much as it ground on her pride to admit it. She lifted a hand to the right side of her ribcage. "With any luck it is just a bad bruise."

He nodded, grimly. There was no time to inspect, much less care for any injuries right now. Still, his fingers lingered on hers a moment before he turned around to meet Fíli, who was climbing towards them from the other side of the chariot. Which was not an easy feat—with five additional passengers, the small vehicle was more than a little crowded.

"Kíli." Fíli drew his brother into a short embrace with the arm that wasn't holding onto the chariot. "I thought we'd never find you in this mess."

"We drifted too far towards Dale. Couldn't make it to the gates once you came out."

It was said without reproach, but still Fíli grimaced. "Sorry that took so long. We—"

Whatever he had been about to say next was cut off by a shout from the front of the wagon. A short Dwarf with startlingly white hair was peering over his shoulder. "What's happening back there? Feels as if we've suddenly acquired a lot of additional weight."

"It's Kíli," Fíli shouted back.

Just then a pack of Wargs coming at them forced the goats pulling the chariot to swerve right, the chariot itself tipping onto two wheels from the sudden change of direction. Without thinking about it, Tauriel drew back her bow and took out one, two of the Wargs as they passed them. Squashed against the back of the chariot with Ingolf and Ruari, Suri managed to gain enough freedom of movement to launch one of her knives across a considerable distance and hit one of the Wargs right between its eyes. Those following behind it stumbled over the limp body and went crashing onto the ice themselves.

Fíli's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. "It's Kíli," he cried again, "and he's brought some friends."

"Family, in fact," Kíli corrected his brother, earning himself a beaming look from Suri and a bemused glance from Fíli. He shrugged. "It's a long story."

"I'm sure it is." Another Dwarf was leaning over the firing device from the other side of the chariot. Tattoos covered his bare scalp above a set of dark, straight eyebrows. "But wherever those fuckers came from, there are sure to be a lot more following any moment. So your lovely tale will have to wait, lad."

The other Dwarf's tone was brusque, but Kíli smiled widely. "And it's good to see you too, Dwalin."

"Here they come!" Ruari had spotted another pack of Wargs running at them from behind. They were catching up quickly—too quickly.

"We're carrying too much weight," the older Dwarf called from up front. "At this rate, they'll be upon us any second."

Tauriel bit her lip as guilt surged up inside her. They should have thought of that, but in the face of being flung into an almost certain death by an angry troll, there simply hadn't been enough time. Even as she spoke to the other Dwarves, she only looked at Kíli, trying to convey an apology with her eyes for what she was about to say next. "We can jump off. We'll be able to detain them long enough for you to get a headstart." Her gaze shifted to Suri, Ruari, and Ingolf, still squeezed together at the rear end of the chariot. "If we take out enough of them, we might be able to climb out of the valley once more." Or, in other words: This wasn't a certain death sentence, merely a likely one.

Before any of them had a chance to react to her plan, the white-haired Dwarf chipped in again. "We can't take the chariot where we need to go anyway. Take the goats; cut them loose. I've still got enough ammunition to make life miserable for anything that tries to follow you." To his Dwarven brethren, he added: "Find Thorin. He shouldn't be going up there alone."

Fíli's face had grown hard as he exchanged looks with Kíli and Dwalin. "Are you certain, Balin? There must be another way we can—"

"There isn't," the Dwarf, Balin, barked. "Just as there isn't any time left. Go now or we will all become a proper feast for those Wargs."

The Dwarves did not look happy, but did not appear to require more convincing. Fíli went first, clapping Balin on the shoulder as he clambered across and jumped onto the back of the first of the six goats pulling the chariot. Dwalin followed suit, leaning down to speak a few words Tauriel could not make out into Balin's ear.

Kíli turned to Ingolf, Ruari, and Suri. "You're next. Tauriel and I can hold them off a few seconds longer. Get out of the valley as fast as you can—we'll regroup once we're on solid ground once again."

Ruari took the command in stride, climbing to the front of the wagon straight away. Ingolf straightened up and looked at the goats—their breath steaming in white plumes in the cold air—with something close to exasperation. "I cannot believe this is happening," he muttered, but went ahead nevertheless, Suri following closely behind. Tauriel readied her bow for the moment when they would cut the ties which joined the goats to the chariot, intent on increasing Balin's chances by reducing the number of Wargs he would have to deal with by at least a little bit. She managed to get a few good shots in before Kíli tugged her backwards by her elbow.

"Let's go."

They climbed onto the back of the remaining goat with practiced ease, the feeling of the animal's stout body and bristly fur no longer strange to Tauriel. As Kíli leaned back to cut the ties, she turned as well to find Balin nodding his head at them with grim determination written across his features. A slice of Kíli's blade and off they went, Balin and the chariot quickly disappearing in the dense mist above the frozen river. Another soul for whose safe deliverance Tauriel could merely hope, their fate taken out of her hands.

The goat had no trouble scaling the frozen walls of the valley, causing Tauriel's appreciation for its species to increase even further. Once they reached level ground, Kíli turned the goat around to look back down towards the river. There was not much to see there except dense mist and the vague form of dark shapes moving within it. She tightened her arms around his waist.

"He seemed to know what he was doing."

"Aye. If that can be said of anybody, then it's Balin." Still, he did not quite manage to keep the same guilt she was feeling—despite not even really knowing the old Dwarf—out of his voice. He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. "Just so you know, I would have jumped off that chariot with you. No questions asked."

Words stuck in her throat, she let her forehead sink onto his shoulder for a moment, smiling when he pressed a kiss to her temple. It was just as well that their tender moment—entirely misplaced in the middle of a raging battle—was interrupted by Fíli's voice calling out to them.

"Kíli! Over here!"

Taking up the reins once more, Kíli coaxed the goat a little deeper into the mist surrounding the river bank where, one by one, the rather distinctive forms of their companions became visible. Fíli met them halfway.

"Everyone made it out in one piece. What about you? Are you both alright?" His eyes flickered from his brother to Tauriel for a moment and he gave her a slight, almost bashful smile which she answered with a bow of her head.

"We're fine." Kíli seemed distracted, looking over Fíli's shoulder into the white nothingness surrounding them. "How are we supposed to find Thorin in this?"

"No need," a voice cut through the almost unnatural silence around them. "He's already found you."

A/N: Chapter title inspired by Florence + The Machine's "Shake It Out". Also, some small bits of dialogue are borrowed from "The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies."