Apologies for the delay, not only in this but in getting on with the next story (Elrohir meets Thranduil- it's time, don't you think?) I have done quite a lot of research for this one, into forging and metals and steel and precious gems. But it's been fascinating to explore Erebor and Dwarven culture a bit more.

Maybe two more short-ish chapters in this fic. Although something else is brewing…

Lords of Fire, the Rîgakha-mesh

Billet- ingot of the steel that has been layered through welding previously.

Rigâ- a top fuller hammer for tapping, shaping the metal.

Azaghâls- like sledgehammers. Named after the famous warrior of the First Age of course.

Tumbukheled- magnifying glass

Tharkût- Craft/Smithing.

Rîgakha- Gunud, the Secret Fire that Gandalf speaks of, at the heart of the Universe.

WARNING FOR LANGUAGE AND LUSTY THOUGHTS. (Not explicit)

Chapter 6: Mithril

A month had gone by since the Elvenking's son had given Hallvarðr the commission.

He pulled the designs towards him now. They were looking a little dog-eared and there were a lot of scribblings over the pages now.

'I have asked Raggnr to make the haft,' he told Gilthrûn Sindri, watching the light fall upon her bronze coloured skin, admiring the black scything lines of her Gunud-Aglâb and letting his gaze dwell on her lustrous chestnut hair that fell in a thick plait over her strong shoulder. He wanted to enclose his hands around it, to feel the glorious thickness of it.

Everything about her was so strong, and sensuous, he thought besottedly. Every move she made was lissom and fluid, for she was a dancer as well as jeweller.

'The first time I saw you was at Durin's Day feast in the Ered Luin,' he found himself saying and she laughed. No. She chuckled. A deep, rich sound, like the loamy earth itself. 'You were dancing.' He remembered her bare feet, beringed and the tiny bells on chains about her ankles as she stamped and stepped and whirled about, her hands twisting and opening and fluttering like birds. He had been mesmerised. 'That was when I fell in love with you,' he blurted out before he could stop himself.

She did not move but kept her eyes fixed upon the designs but he saw her mouth tighten slightly and she blinked slowly like she was preparing to speak.

'Forgive me,' he said quickly, willing her to not speak, not to deny him, not to crush his heart like he knew he had crushed hers. 'Forgive me,' he said again. 'Too much of this stuff.' He indicated the sweet Rhovanion wine she liked. It was too heady for him but he drank it with her because it might please her.

'Hallvarðr…' she began but he interrupted quickly.

'Raggnr wants to make the traditional elm handle and encase it in steel and iron. He says that will protect it from harm in battle.' Hallvarðr knew he was gabbling but perhaps if he gave her no time to speak, no time to think, she would forget what he had said. Or forgive him. 'Raggnr says elm gives a better balance and better grip but I think iron is more durable and it can be covered with a soft, thick leather to ensure the grip.'

So she let him go, did not grasp him in her strong, firm hands and make him wriggle like a caught fish trying to explain, to apologise, to expiate. No. She was too kind for that. She let him talk, rambling stupidly about the benefits of wooden handles over iron and vice versa but the easy companionship of earlier was gone and when she left, Hallvarðr thought she would not come back.

0o0o

When Raggnr Wolfstooth finally deigned to visit, Hallvarðr heard his approach from as far away as the Second Level for he brought Dwalin Bonecrusher with him, and the two strode through the Deeps with no respect for the sanctity of Forge and Foundry. Hallvarðr would far rather that Dwalin had stayed home but where Raggnr went, Dwalin came too and so if he wanted Raggnr's expertise, he would have to entertain Dwalin a little at least.

Both drank a lot of beer before they even got down to business, even though it was only Hallvarðr's second best beer for the very best stuff was completely wasted in a couple of Zirâmuzbads like these two. Hallvarðr was already miserable from his gaff with Gilthrûn and was not really in the mood for head-butting with Dwalin, whose nickname was well deserved.

'The haft should be iron,' he said, at last bringing the talk round to business.

Raggnr slammed his tankard down on the wide table and wiped foam from his mouth. 'Iron is for fools like this one!' he declared, jerking his head towards Dwalin. 'Only a bonehead would use iron. Iron has no give and causes vibration in the arm when it strikes. Elm wood is the best haft for any kind of axe. Battle or chopping.' He dug into his apron pocket, for he wore his craft apron as all did when in the Deeps, and slammed a small chunk of wood down between them. It was smooth, pale, the grain polished like glass.

Hallvarðr barely glanced at it; he cared nothing for wood.

Dwalin snorted contemptuously as if Raggnr had suggested they drink a small glass of wine. 'Elm?' he sneered, picking up the sample between his thick fingers and looking at it in disgust. 'It'll take no time for some Orc to chop it in half! What are you, some sort of half-witted treehugger?' He glared at Raggnr. Hallvarðr agreed with him but knew that these two old berserkers were squaring up for a prolonged posturing that both would thoroughly enjoy but that Hallvarðr would be expected to fuel with ale and beer and he was not going to break out the best stuff.

Sure enough, Raggnr roared with delighted fury and slammed his knife into Hallvarðr's long oak table. (It already had a lot of such marks on it from similar encounters.) 'Treehugger, eh?' He pushed himself slowly to his feet and glared at Dwalin.

Dwalin's eyes narrowed keenly and he drank his beer down in one gulp, (not a great feat for Dwalin but Hallvarðr admitted it looked theatrically impressive) and threw the tankard into the hearth. 'Treehugger,' he repeated provocatively, not that Raggnr needed provoking. They were both clearly enjoying themselves immensely. 'What Dwarf would choose wood over iron?'

Hallvarðr rolled his eyes and sighed. 'All the beer's gone, Dwalin Bonecrusher,' he said and upended the jug elaborately, showing that not a drop was left. 'So you can be on your way now while Raggnr Wolfstooth and I talk Tharkût.'

Dwalin grinned, unimpressed. 'Ach, you think?' he bellowed cheerfully. 'I happen to know that you have two more barrels in your cellar. And better stuff than this dragon's piss you've given us. He grinned again at Hallvarðr and waggled his bushy eyebrows.

Exasperated, Hallvarðr did not ask how Dwalin knew; it would give the old bastard far too much pleasure. Fortunately it seemed that Raggnr had sensed that Hallvarðr was riled.

He laughed and clapped his old friend, Dwalin, on the shoulder. 'Fuck off now, Dwalin. I'll come and find you in a bit. Go and gate-crash Gloín. He's just got a new consignment of beer and a bit of wine too, although what he wants that muck for I dinna know.'

When Dwalin had gone, swearing and cussing cheerfully and loudly enough that all Hallvarðr's neighbours knew who had been visiting, Raggnr grinned amiably. 'That thug knows fuck all about axes. He can use 'em but couldn't make a chair leg! Now. Go and get more beer and I'll explain to you why elm.'

Later when he had convinced Hallvarðr that elm was indeed the best material for the axe haft, Raggnr gave Hallvarðr a knowing smile. 'If only you had some mithril,' he said cheekily. 'I could chase the haft with a mithril casing so it will not be damaged in battle. It will never crack or shatter. Best of all worlds.'

Hallvarðr leaned back, crossing his meaty, hard muscled arms. 'Even if I had some, Raggnr Wolfstooth, you know that only Rîgakha-mesh are allowed to work it.'

Raggnr grinned slyly and said nothing more. Pulling the designs towards him, Raggnr peered at the haft sketched carefully on the fine milled paper. 'Yes- well I can carve the haft to make it look like that.' He jammed a stubby finger onto the thick parchment. 'It's like the tree that was on the Doors of Moria, is it not? Look.' He picked out a stick of charcoal from a deep pocket in his tunic and sketched over Thranduil's own drawing. 'See how the tree could start here…and its branches curve up to here.'

Raggnr was right; the haft could easily be carved like the scrolling trunk of the stylised tree beloved by the Elves. It did not need to sacrifice comfort or swing, and the blade itself would sit well upon it, with its steel like rivers of shining light and dark and blue. The seven stars of Durin would be etched upon the bevel, the same as were drawn by Celebrimbor upon the Doors of Moria. Perhaps Rûk-Shtôl would be a symbol of hope? Friendship from a past Age to represent a new friendship for the new Age?

'Now then, you sly old dog.' Raggnr belched and winked. 'What's the story with Gilthrûn Sindri? I hear she has forgiven you for your bone-headed stupidity.'

Hallvarðr stared at him. 'Who told you that?' he demanded miserably. Then his head dropped forwards a little towards his chest. 'I am a fool,' he confessed. 'You know me too well, Raggnr. I ran from what I should have grabbed with both arms and held tight to my chest, and now I have driven her off with my clumsy stupidity.'

Raggnr grunted and poured more ale into both their cups. 'All true,' he said. 'It was Erydísa who told me.' He glanced at Hallvarðr slyly. 'And they are great friends. So I think it time for you to stop being a bloody idiot and whatever you think she thinks, you need to tell her that you are a useless prick without her and let her decide if she can bear to be with you. Stop dancing around like a bloody pixie and get on with it.'

And even when Hallvarðr told Raggnr of his last, disastrous meeting with her, Raggnr simply repeated that he was a useless prick. 'And Mahal's truth, Hallvarðr, if you don't lay your claim, then I will see her as fair game and strike a pitch myself.'

0o0o

The next morning found him lighter hearted and more pensive at the same time.

Tortured by the memory of his last encounter with Gilthrûn Sindri, and plagued by Raggnr's declaration, Hallvarðr had sought out Erydísa, partly to engage her work on the engraving for Rûk-Shtôl but in the course of their conversation, he had managed to tease out of her confirmation of what she had said to Raggnr.

'I tell you now though, Hallvarðr Oddresson, if you hurt my girl again as you did before, I swear I will cut out your heart and throw it out upon Ravenshill,' she had said with a glint in her green eyes that was testament to her lineage, granddaughter of Thraín and Thorin Oakenshield's niece.

So he had bowed his head humbly and said, 'And I swear to you Erydísa Frerindottir, that if I hurt Gilthrûn Sindri I will let you.'

In the workshop that was adjacent to the forge itself, ten beautiful, thick billets of steel had now carefully placed on the long, oak workbench. Each billet was layered with dark nickel steel and light carbon, and the lovely blue fáinn running through. Hallvarðr had inspected each one critically, pushing them this way and that, discarding them until he chose one that was absolutely symmetrical in its layers, the patterning perfect, and the steel flawless.

'This one,' he said and pushed the others into an iron bin to be used on lesser projects.

On the long workbench were two thinner billets, already selected in similar fashion; one for the bevel with the Durin's Stars pattern secretly embedded in the layers, and the other hard vanadium carbide steel for the cutting edge.

Hallvarðr imagined it as he had described it to Gilthrûn Sindri: like rivers of blue running through the whole of the double blade and spreading out into the bevel, the cutting edge, and the layers of fáinn and nickel steel with high carbon steel. It will be like skeins of mist parting to reveal Durin's stars.

The apprentices were washing their hands and tidying up the workshop for they were tired and it had been hard work to finish the billets and although they knew only one could be used, it was hard to see the rest of their painstaking work so easily dismissed.

Hallvarðr gestured to Sigrúnda before the journeyman took off his leather apron. 'Come. We have not quite finished,' he said, smiling when he saw Sigrúnda's tired resignation.

The apprentices closed the heavy iron door between the workshop and Hallvarðr's hall and their voices drifted away as they went to find supper and their beds deeper in their Master's chambers. He led Sigrúnda back into the workshop and lifted a cloth. Beneath it was a stack of ten layers of metal, each one as finely and thinly cut as silk. An iridescent sheen glowed softly over the well-worn oak of the bench.

Raggnr had been right of course.

Sigrúnda gasped. 'Mithril?' he breathed. 'Where did you get that from? Mithril can only be found in Khazad-dûm and that had long been lost to us.'

Hallvarðr nodded, pleased at Sigrúnda's' reaction. 'This is from Erebor's existing treasury. It was ….very costly.' Breathtakingly expensive is what Hallvarðr thought. 'Thranduil has paid. His son's life, it seems, is worth more than jewels, more than gold,' he added quickly for Stonehelm had paid nothing towards this great work and Hallvarðr thought him cheap for it. Let the Elvenking have the glory, he decided and found a less grudging respect for the Elf. 'These will be the ripple of moonlight through Durin's Stars,' he said fondly stroking the stack of layers. 'The last layer of the damascene.' He smiled for the young Dwarf's face was lit as much by his own wonder as the mithril itself.

'This why you allowed the apprentices to go,' Sigrúnda said. He reached out and marvelling, stroked the glossy metal. 'Am I to assist you in this?' he asked, looking up suddenly.

Hallvarðr nodded, pleased that Sigrúnda understood the honour he was bestowing in allowing a mere journeyman to assist. By right he should ask a fellow Master. 'Sigrúnda, you are the best journeyman I have ever had through this workshop. Soon you will be a Master and I would teach you to work with mithril now in readiness.'

Sigrúnda's gasp of delight was reward enough. 'Master!' he exclaimed and bowed so low that Hallvarðr thought his beard must be sweeping up all the flakes of scale and iron filings. 'Mahal keep you and …'

'Yes, yes. You will bless me forever and may my beard never fall out and my hair never catch alight in the furnace and all that,' he interrupted gruffly and waved away his journeyman's' effusive gratitude.

Now, in his renewed good mood, he showed Sigrúnda the trick to layering mithril in the billet, how to stack it so that not a drop was lost and once he had explained, it was Sigrúnda who applied the weld so the layers would not separate in the furnace.

Nodding approvingly, Hallvarðr worked the bellows with careful precision to ensure the furnace maintained the precise heat for mithril. Too hot and the mithril would shatter when it cooled, too cool and the folds would not take and mithril would peel away.

While Sigrúnda waited for Hallvarðr's signal, the journeyman smoothed a hand over his severely braided chestnut hair and tucked his forked beard into his belt carefully to ensure nothing caught fire. He held the newly welded billet in readiness with the tongs and then when Hallvarðr gestured, Sigrúnda opened the iron door with his free hand and leaned in to push the steel and mithril billet into the furnace's hot yellow throat. The furnace roared hungrily like Smaug himself, and its flames lit up Sigrúnda's cheerful, kindly face as he quickly shut the iron door with a clang.

Hallvarðr smiled. This was what he loved: the physical slam of heat from the furnace, the smell of hot metal, and the hiss of borax on the molten billets.

They folded the mithril several times into the layered billet, pounding it hard with azaghâls to weld the steel layers tightly together, cutting them, heating and hammering them until the billet was four hundred layers. Unimaginable to anyone but Dwarves. But then, who but Dwarves would imagine such damascene as Mahals Firestorm or Durin's Stars?

Thranduil had, thought Hallvarðr, and found himself admiring the King for his generosity, his imagination. His faith in Hallvarðr's craft.

At last the newly made billet lay cooling on the workbench and Hallvarðr pulled a plain clay bottle from the drawer of his workbench. It was unmarked but for the sign that showed it came from the Grey mountains. Hallvarðr dropped two thick glasses next to it and uncorked the bottle with his teeth. Pouring a glug into each thick glass, he handed it to Sigrúnda with a salute.

Sigrúnda spluttered and spat. 'Mahal's bollocks,' he swore uncharacteristically. 'What the fuck is this?'

Hallvarðr liked him more for it and laughed and thumped him on the back. 'Rigâzaram. From the Grey Mountain where folk are fierce and hard-headed,' he told him. 'I discovered it when I fled there from the Dragon. I have grown used to it I fear.' He had hoped that Sigrúnda would too.

'I have heard of it,' said Sigrúnda hoarsely. 'It's terrible stuff. Give me some more.'

They had drunk half the bottle when Sigrúnda fell asleep with is head on his arms, folded on the long oak table in Hallvarðr's wide hall. Hallvarðr threw a thick woollen blanket over him and let his sleep well into the next day and gave his apprentices a day off to visit their families and do whatever young men did on their rare days off.

Hallvarðr spent the time in his forge, alone. He was making.

He made a ring of white gold and set with white gems given him by Laersul. He spent time on it, crafting it carefully, singing it into existence, invoking its spirit and the sprit of the Elf who would bestow it. He thought about Laersul as he forged it, his link with Erebor, the story of his arrival in Esgaroth when the Dragon struck and his stand with Thorin in the Battle of Five Armies. He thought about the story of his capture by the Orcs and his rescue by the Bears of the Carrock and what sort of man deserves that sort of respect and loyalty. Then he thought about the Elf he had met, his quiet certainty, respectful and amused. He layered all this into the ring, and made it steadfast, generous, brave. To be worn by the woman he had given his heart.

Then he began a new piece. It would not be finished so quickly. This was for Gilthrûn Sindri. No ring for her, for she would not acquiesce to anything that signified a binding of any sort. No. For her it would be a simple gift; expecting nothing in return but a tribute to her. It would be rich, decorative. Showing off his skills, showing off her beautiful arms. A thick band of gold and jewels, he had dreamed, that wound from her broad shoulder to her elbow. A dragon, he thought. Gold and set with the rare dark sapphires only found in the secret mines of the Grey Mountains, for Gilthrûn Sindri's eyes were dark like Kheled-zâram, and they reflected the sky in all its moods.

0o0o

Legolas allowed Arod to amble through the long grass, nipping the heads off the white flowered faunloth. Gimli was heavy against his back and he thought the Dwarf was snoozing for every now and again he would jerk awake and then nod off again. The sunshine was warm and he too felt drowsy, the scent of the flowers was heady and the path easy for they wound their way along the Anduin and the Gladden Fields, up the side of the forest. They followed Celeborn's advice to take this path and to journey between the Misty Mountains and the Anduin to the old ford at Rhosgobel.

But he knew that once he reached the Old Ford at Rhosgobel, his heart would yearn to turn left and instead cross the High Pass. Less than fifty miles to Imladris, he thought. Elrohir would be in Imladris.

He sighed and thought of his beloved, beautiful Elrohir. The light would catch in his night silk hair, black like a raven's wing. Black with blue lights. And his eyes like molten silver, no, mithril (although Legolas had never seen molten silver let alone mithril) burning into Legolas' with desire. Fuck, he thought with lustful yearning that made him hard and tight, and he thought of Elrohir's strong swordsman's shoulders and muscled chest, flat belly and lean hips and long legs… oh, Legolas liked Elrohir's legs, wrapped tightly about his waist… He chewed his lip, and squeezed his cock, feeling the swell and throb of it. He looked down at his hopeful cock mournfully and tried to think of something less arousing for there was no relief to be had right now with a Dwarf dozing at his back and Arod ambling through the meadows.

He owed it to Gimli to travel with him. It would take a month before they were home. Already it was October for they had lingered in the warm days of Autumn, first in Fangorn and then in Lothlorien. They should reach home before Yule.

So along the forest road they would go until they came to the river Celduin, that Men called the River Running, and then to the unimaginatively named (as Laersul always said) Long Lake. and there would finally part, each to go their sperate ways, for a while at least.

It hurt suddenly to think of that parting. He had become so used to Gimli at his back, literally and figuratively. For had they not saved each other time and time again? It had begun upon the banks of the Bruinen with a wager*, and Gimli had intervened between Legolas and Elrohir's incandescent fury, and seen them through Moria when Legolas had dragged Gimli from Balin's tomb, in Helm's Deep, and countless battles where each guarded the other. And if Gimli had not been there, Legolas wondered if he would ever have come out of the catacombs of Minas Tirith.

'Are you sleeping, Elvellon?' he murmured softly.

A quiet, rumbling snore greeted him and he smiled. Was ever a Dwarf so beloved by an Elf? He wondered and thought of Celebrimbor and Narvi. Then he reached back and clasped Gimli's hand, warm, square and immensely capable.

Gimli stirred and jolted awake. 'I wasn't asleep' he said immediately. 'Dwarves never sleep.'

Legolas gave a shout of laughter at the preposterous announcement that shook him. 'Ah, Khazad-milui,' he declared. 'If I do not love you, may I grow a beard as lustrous and thick as yours!' And Arod shook himself suddenly awake and broke into a canter that had Gimli clinging to Legolas' belt and shouting loudly in his ear but Legolas pretended he could not understand and they galloped through the Gladden Fields, spray from the marshes glittering in the sunlight and the wild birds rising up in great flocks, slowly wheeling and settling back amongst the reeds again.

0o0o

Artworks can be viewed on Archive of Our Own.