Chapter Twelve
Fili, Son of Durin, King Under the Mountain, stood on the western terrace of Erebor with his brother, a dozen King's Guard, and a battalion of warriors.
The sun was rising behind them, casting a pale early morning light across the downward sweep of the broad, wooded western slope of the Lonely Mountain.
The skies were clear, the air cold and still, and it was a beautiful view from their vantage.
But the woods below were hiding an incursion of Kolozh goblins and Slaghead dwarves from the southern Grey Mountains.
And somewhere out there was a young and frightened hostage prince.
Fili looked at the sky, raising his arm.
Tentative, sleepy quorks echoed around them. It was early for ravens, but that didn't keep the King from calling one.
A young hen skirted the rocky mountainside, landed on a rock, and considered.
And then flew to the King's arm, ducking shyly.
What he told her made her raise her head and stretch, as if startled. She paused, but the King nodded to her.
"Ready?" he asked. "I'll give you a boost." With that, he lowered his arm, the little hen crouched, preparing to spring, and then he launched her high into the air and she arrowed away.
The King turned to his brother. "Time to go!"
And with that, they stomped their boots into the fittings of short, narrow skid boards and tipped themselves downhill, leading the way for a battalion of dwarves on a long, speedy run down the snowy mountainside.
Skid-boarding came quite naturally to dwarves. With their low center of gravity, they maneuvered easily, their trails weaving tracks like long braids down the mountainside.
Fili caught air coming over a rock, crouched, and landed without losing speed. Behind him, Kili reacted to a downed log in his path by doing a quick boardslide, catching a bit of air, and landing neatly back on track.
But this downhill race was not about tricks, it was about speed and stealth, and they reached the base of the slope in minutes. They would have been whooping with the exhilaration of it had the situation been less dire. As it was, they simply raised their hands to each other and smacked palms before releasing the boards, making a quick check of their weapons, and taking off to pick up the trail left by a lone snow skid and a small group of kidnappers.
"Let me out now!" Fjalar yelled, kicking the inside of his little prison as hard as he could. He'd been packed inside this too-small crate all night, and he'd had enough.
His efforts were met with laughter.
"Our golden boy is alive and kicking," one of the men snarled. "Guess you didn't kill him with that knock-out juice after all."
The foreign dwarf picked up a pine cone and threw it at Fjalar's crate. It smacked the box, reverberating loudly. "Stop the noise, or we'll give you a real reason to howl!"
Fjalar didn't care. He switched to throwing his weight against the side, hoping he could rock the box off the snow-skid. It was awkward—he couldn't quite move enough to get any momentum until he got on his feet and pushed his back to the lid, moving his center of weight higher as he surged against the right-hand wall.
There, maybe a little bit of movement.
"You can't keep me locked in here!" he yelled, saying whatever came to mind.
To his surprise, one of the burly men was close enough to hammer the box lid. "Shut the hell up," he pounded, then smacked the lid hard enough for Fjalar to feel it on his back. "Or I'll drag you out of there myself!" Then he lowered his voice. "And when I do you little bastard, I'll be cutting your damn throat on sight."
The nearness of him startled Fjalar into crouching at the very bottom of the crate again, eyes wide. He'd never actually heard anybody threaten him like that before.
Mahal, he told himself. Making noise–not such a great plan.
He heard the man's boots crunching away in the snow. What now?
After a moment he tentatively rose to put his eye to the side knothole. The two men and the dwarf crouched by a campfire, the smoke thin and nearly invisible in the early morning light. They had broadswords. Knives. No bows that he could see.
He looked around the inside of the box, lit enough now that he could see that a plain, wooden cube of a shipping crate was all it was. Two knotholes…nothing else. Not even the tip of a protruding nail.
He slouched. Once again he felt that overwhelming desire for his father…wanted to see him, say how sorry he was, feel his father's strong arms around him…his deep, husky voice soothing him.There, lad. You're all right.
Fjalar closed his eyes.No. Can't. Don't wish for that. There was the whole point of his predicament. Those men wanted his father to come here.
Because they wanted to kill him.
Fjalar wrapped his arms around himself, wanting to roar in frustration but knowing he could not.
That's when he heard a light thump followed by the scritch-scratch of something on the crate top.
Cautious, he peered up at the knothole on the roof.
A small, black beady eye was looking in at him, the head of a young raven cocking this way and that, his sharp beak testing the knothole.
"Corax!" Fjalar whispered, getting up on his knees and poking the tip of his finger up to touch the bird's curious beak. "Corax! You wonderful, smart, beautiful bird!"
"King-but-not-King?" Corax muttered. "Trapped in box?"
"Yes!" Fjalar spoke, as hushed as he could. "I need help, Corax. Can you get me help? But not the King! Fly to the king…tell him not to leave the mountain. Tell him it's an ambush! It's a trap, Corax!"
But then there were shouts from the men. Someone threw another pine cone and it smacked the box near Fjalar's ear and he flinched.
Corax vanished.
Fjalar stared at the knothole. Did Corax understand the message?
Or was he just frightened off?
Nÿr had backtracked nearly a mile before the ravens started circling her. At first it was only two, then a half dozen. Before long, there was an entire flock leap-frogging along in the trees beside the trail.
"Go away!" she told them. "I know this was a bad idea…I'm going home. Just…let me keep going." She really didn't want to talk to them.
Two different ravens came close and hovered, expecting her to raise her arm for them to land, but then flapped off in confusion when she did not. She didn't understand them—this was not normal raven behavior.
Finally, one cheeky bird swooped straight at her. Instinctively she ducked, felt the furious flapping of wings against her head, and tried to twist away, ending up on the ground and spitting snow.
"What in Mahal's Hammer…?"
A young raven was literally trouncing her with his feet, trying to get at her face. She raised her hand as a shield.
He pecked.
Hard.
"Ow," she sat up, take a swipe to fend him off. He was right back, and she finally raised her arm, mostly in self defense, to see if he'd just land and stop the harassment.
He leapt to her arm imperiously. "Hen-Hen listen!" He screeched so loud that her ears rang. "King-but-Not-King in a box!" He repeated it, over and over.
Hen-Hen. She remembered Kili's grin about this. "Never can tell what name they'll pick for you." He'd shrugged. "They have their own weird logic. They just know you're a lassie, I guess." He'd winked.
Oh, Kili.
Nÿr forced her brain to recall everyone's ravenspeaker names. Fili was just called King, Kili was Raven Prince. Dwalin was Nut Head. The challenge there, as Kili had told her, was not to laugh. "It's because he's bald and they don't have a word for that. They just think his head is smooth, like a nut."
King-but-Not-King…
In the study. The night before Kili left for Dale, lying against him in front of the fireplace, that languid spooning after making love...bare skin against each other, hands clasped loosely. The gentle pride of an uncle speaking quietly about his nephew's ravenspeaking lessons…how she had wondered what it would be like someday to hear him talk about a son of theirs in that way, to see his joy and pride in a child of his own. It had been a dreamy, sated moment, a little fuzzy in her mind.
He'd been talking about his nephew…
King-but-Not-King.
Fjalar.
"Fjalar?" She asked the raven on her arm. "In a box? Show me."
That seemed to do the trick. The ravens streaked away, back in the direction she'd just come. "This way! This way," they called.
"Are you kidding?" But she got to her feet, wiped the blood from the back of her hand, and followed. Something had really upset them, and she couldn't help a growing feeling of dread.
She found the energy to run, ravens leading the way.
When they veered from the trail, she followed, slowing when she finally reached a thicket where they congregated in absolute silence.
Again, this was not normal raven behavior.
She edged herself into the thicket, quietly trying to see what they were looking at.
There, in a clearing, a couple men and a dwarf with a loaded snow skid. Travelers, stopped for food…or maybe waiting for someone else. They were sitting around a campfire, smoking. There was a cookpot and a kettle.
And ravens. They were congregating on one of the boxes on the skid. They pecked at it, jockeyed for position on top of it.
King-but-Not-King in a box, she realized.
Suddenly feeling desperate to get the ravens to calm, she put up her arm to invite one to her.
"Quiet," she said to it. "Tell everyone. Be tricky birds. Hush. Fly up into the trees and watch." The bird she had spoken to flew off. Moments later the group on the box scattered.
She considered the scene before her, sizing things up. Nÿr knew she was no match in a fight with two grown men and a dwarf…but as a healer, she knew their weaknesses better than they did. She had one chance, she decided. In her pack, she had a small flask of 80 proof ambershine…brought along to stave off cold. If she added a certain combination of powders from her healer's kit, she could drop them in their tracks.
At least for a while.
How to get them to drink it would be the challenge.
.
.
.
*Guess what? Dwarves can snowboard! :D *
If you're new to this story, welcome! I know it can be awkward to drop into a fic mid- or post-story, but feel free to leave a comment just on the chapter or PM me, doesn't have to be a long or detailed note. Huge thanks to everyone who's liked, followed, reviewed, and been reading! Means a lot. –Summer *
