Chapter Four
The next day, Kili, dressed in Commander's gear, took himself to his brother's quarters once again, for a most important duty.
He knew that everything else aside, Fjalar was ready to leave the nest based on the way he'd been butting heads with his mother the past few weeks. There was a point when young lads just needed to be corralled and challenged by older and wiser males.
He did sympathize, but as he entered, he found Lady An in a standoff with her elder son, and that was not helping matters.
"Say goodbye to your mother." Kili leveled a stern glare at the lad.
Fjalar looked defiant for a moment, looking back at his mother as if he would refuse. But he took a second look at his uncle and bit back his words.
He set his carry bag down and walked to his mother. Lady An couldn't help pulling the lad into a tight hug, sniffing back tears.
"I'm just going to the cadet dorm," Fjalar muttered. "I won't even be that far away."
She nodded and smiled through her tears. "Work hard," she said. "And know we love you."
Fjalar nodded and after a moment, lightly touched foreheads with her.
Kili felt it was the best moment they were going to get for leaving on a good note.
"Come on," he said. "Cadets don't keep Commanders waiting." He held the door open, ignoring An's tears as the lad picked up his bag and followed.
In the outer hall, Kili stopped. Fjalar took two steps forward, realized it, and stepped back, looking at his uncle in confusion.
"When we step through that door, I stop being your uncle and start being your commanding officer," he put an arm around the lad. "Until we're off duty. Which for you," he smiled. "Won't be for six weeks. No pleas for leniency. Understand? I have to expect you to do everything the other cadet trainees do."
"I know. Da told me that, too."
"Good." Kili let him go and ruffled his hair, probably for the last time. "You get one concession: if there's anything truly serious that you need me to know, you come to my ready room and petition the steward for a meeting. They will have orders to let you in. Can't guarantee that you won't have to wait." Kili shrugged and Fjalar nodded.
"I expect you not to abuse the privilege. You're a prince and the King's heir, Fjalar, but while you're in training, that rank means nothing. The lads you meet today will be your brothers-in-arms for many years. You need to make friends with them. All of them. You can't afford to let them see you play favorites or allow a scapegoat. Even your best friends will turn on you if you pick on the weak."
Fjalar frowned, his brows drew together as if he'd not thought of that.
"True warriors sacrifice for each other. The one everyone thinks is weak today will take an arrow for you tomorrow. Treat them all with utter respect now if you ever want them to follow you when you're King. If I see you doing any differently, know that I will kick your backside hard, and I'll do it right in front of them."
Fjalar stared, his eyes wide. He nodded.
Kili raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"Good lad. Let's go."
Kili opened the door but did not hold it for the youngster as he might have done in the past. This time he strode through as a Prince and Commander, letting the cadet candidate scurry to catch up.
He walked his usual pace, which was faster than he would have walked with a child. But Fjalar was officially not a child anymore.
Once they reached Erebor's central hub, they took several flights downstairs, crossed on one of the open air bridges, and then climbed to the training complex. Kili took the stairs at a jog, counting off the two hundred and fifty steps without a break.
The lad had stumbled once and was winded at the top.
Kili smiled. "In six weeks you'll be able to do that ten times, no problem." He took Fjalar into the complex through a side entrance. No use getting in the middle of the other candidates and their parents—Kili didn't think he could do any more tearful mothers this morning.
"Skirfir?" he called, striding in with confidence.
Skirf had been waiting. "Yes, sir!"
"Cadet candidate Fjalar is ready for duty," he said. "Cadet Fjalar? Lieutenant Skirfir. You will obey his commands to the letter. I will see you both at training this afternoon."
And with that, he turned and walked away.
But once inside his ready room he stopped and sighed. He knew his brother had avoided this morning because he was genuinely unsettled at the loss of his little child. Truth be told, Kili was feeling a bit of that loss as well. He looked back toward the cadet hall and sighed more deeply this time.
He'd hand selected every trainer, officer, and lad in that class. Part of him wondered if Fjalar would be scared and lonely away from his family, especially his father.
But the other part of him knew his nephew well enough to know he would thrive. Kili picked up the stack of fresh letters and reports on his desk and smiled. He decided he was going to enjoy this time—watching the lad become a young warrior, and he wondered what his own uncle had thought on that day many years ago when he'd walked two young lads from their mother's lodge to the cadet quarters. Kili had been several years younger than Fjalar was now, and he'd been petrified at the transformation of beloved uncle into scary commander.
Kili sincerely hoped he wasn't quite as frightening as Thorin Oakenshield in exile.
Fjalar knew Skirfir already, of course. But he was treading carefully. He followed his friend (now his Lieutenant) into the cadet dorm. He wanted to do well, wanted to finally have the chance to show everyone that he was not a child anymore. But everything here was new to him and his uncle's words were spinning in his head.
"This is your bunk," Skirfir stopped at a two-level bed. "And my quarters are there." He pointed to a private room with an open door not ten feet away. "You have about ten minutes to pick your bed and stow your gear. I will call Cadets Ready, and you will line up with the others over there," he pointed to an open area on the other side of the dorm.
Then he winked and smacked Fjalar on the arm. "Welcome to the training ground, Cadet."
"Thank you, sir." Fjalar felt embarrassed, but he smiled back at his Lieutenant. They'd met on a battlefield, one he should have never seen, when the young archer had stood between him and a goblin. Fjalar had been horrified to see the lad knocked sideways and thrown ten feet, right in front of him.
And he would never forget carrying him two hours in the snow back to the western outpost.
His uncle was right. A true warrior sacrificed for his brother-in-arms. He opened the locker next to the bed and dumped his carry bag inside, then looked back at his friend, off to guide another pair of trainees to their assigned bunks.
Fjalar already knew he would do anything for his Lieutenant.
"Top or bottom?" a voice behind him said.
Fjalar turned to see a beefy ginger-haired lad grinning at him.
He smiled back. The lad's face went blank a moment, then he stood a bit taller.
"Mieth, at your service," he bowed.
Fjalar returned the bow. "Fjalar, at yours and your family's. And I'll take the top," he said, not certain chubby Mieth could even get up there.
"Good. I don't like to climb," Mieth shrugged. "Axe or sword?" he asked, a gleam in his eye.
Fjalar stood back and let Mieth get to the second locker. "Sword. Definitely."
Mieth grinned. "Then I'll have a good time cutting your legs out from under you with my axe."
Fili looked up from finishing the last paragraph of a policy statement to see the office steward showing in his brother's intended, Nÿr.
His morning was not going to be over, he reflected, if the long string of people needing a moment of his time didn't come to an end. Because, of course, a moment ended up being half an hour if he was lucky, and two hours if he was not.
"Nÿr," he said. "Pleasant surprise." At least he didn't have to force a smile. He quite liked the young healer lass.
"I apologize for showing up in your antechamber."
"I take it this is official?"
She looked uncomfortable. "Well, at least…" she struggled for words. "Yes. Since I'm staying here while you're away and part of my duties are to watch over your brother…"
Fili nodded.
"I need to know one thing very clearly, and I feel like I need to hear it from you."
"Shoot."
"I have heard you say several times that Kili can not leave the lands of Erebor."
Fili finished the sentence he'd been writing and put his pen down. Stop doing three things at once, he chided himself.
"That's right," he said. "He can't. He's only protected from that curse in his blood if he stays here." He looked at his hands. "Look, I know he hates it." He met her eyes now. "For most of us, Erebor is a palace. But for Kili…" he looked away. "It's really just a big prison."
He looked back at Nÿr. The lass was fidgeting.
"What I want to know is, or what I need to know..." she said, her nerves apparent. She finally looked up and met his eyes. "Where exactly do the boundaries lie? I know he goes to Dale, and he's been out on the western slope. If he decides to ride to someone's rescue…how far can he really go? Where's the point of no return?"
Fili took a deep breath. This.
"You're right," he said. "You need to know that. Thanks for asking it." He stood, walked past the bookcases of legal tomes and led her to a range of map cases.
"Drawer number twenty-seven…" He found it, slid it open and drew out an oversized, detailed map that included Erebor. He wafted it over to the council table, setting several weights on the corner at his end. Nÿr did the same on the other.
"This is a map of the mountain showing the Stonesmith's charting of the rock. This is the key. What protects Kili is the great mass of spell-infused stone that is Erebor." He pointed to the mountain's core. "We see the rock in plain sight on the peak and on the ridgetops that radiate out, including the rock underneath Dale." He pointed to the grey colored areas on the map.
"But the stone actually runs underneath the soil for a wide area around the mountain." He pointed now to lighter shaded lands. "The stone extends beneath the long lake in the south, but not all the way to Esgaroth. It runs under the entire downslope into the greenwood on the west, and about a third of the way toward the Iron Hills in the east. Not very far north, however. Just to the base of these foothills, here."
Nÿr studied the map. "So, there is no concern for him as long as he remains in areas with this underlayment."
"That's correct. He's been out to the edges many times," Fili said. "We even tested going past once."
"What happened?"
"A dwimmerlaik. A wraith demon…almost immediately."
"How'd he survive?"
"I was there. Used firebrands until we made it back to soil with Erebor stone beneath. Lucky for us, we hadn't gone that far. I'm not sure how long a firebrand would have held off the demon, and I was petrified the entire time that more would show up."
Fili stared at the map in silence for a moment. "Mahal. We both had nightmares for a month after that," he said quietly.
Nÿr swallowed. "How do I keep him from crossing the line? He gets very headstrong…"
Fili raised his eyebrows. "Believe me, I know. Luckily, he has a very healthy fear of the wraiths. Just invoke the fate of Thrain if you really want to shake him up and get his attention."
"What did happen to Thrain?"
Fili sighed. "Gandalf the Grey visited us about ten years after we first came to Erebor. Did you ever meet Gandalf?"
Nÿr shook her head. "I've only heard the tales…"
Fili nodded. "Well, he was here for the better part of winter one year. Balin and I had long talks with him about Kili's curse and Thrain, and about the Mountain. Gandalf told us things then that I'd never heard before. That Thrain went adventuring on his own bearing one of the seven rings of the dwarf lords. Sauron reeled him in, took his ring, poisoned him with a morgul blade…at some point the wraiths took him and he became one of them."
"Because of the ring?"
"Gandalf believed that Thrain's ring drew Sauron to him in the first place, but once taken, it was really the morgul poison that trapped him." Fili shrugged. "Though he might have escaped had he not been bent on getting his ring back." He frowned. "It's speculative, really. Thorin always wanted it to make sense, wanted to pin down a cause that he could go rip apart in battle."
Fili sighed and looked away. "I am not as much like Thorin as I am like my mother." He looked at Nÿr. "I am far more interested in keeping my family and my people safe."
"And Kili is safe as long as he's home."
"The wraiths can not cross the threshold of Erebor stone. Its like the Circle ofAhyrunu."
"The…circle?"
"You haven't seen it?" Fili stood and stared at her. How had he missed that she would have the ability to invoke the circle? "Oh, Daughter of Durin. You need to see this. Let's go take a look."
.
.
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