F I R E B O R N
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Arrival
There was nothing underneath his feet but air, just like it had been a few seconds ago. Nothing but air and darkness and death. He’d been falling towards it, through it, but not anymore. He was moving across the ground, forward at a slow but steady pace. It was almost like he was floating in the air.
Minutes, hours, heart-beats passed by — it did not make any difference to him — before Kíli started feeling alive again. Pain, a very familiar sensation by now, returned slowly, reminding him that he was not yet dead. His head was a chaotic mess of images, of Men and Dwarves and mountains.
”Kíli.”
The voice belonged to Dariah, but it seemed like it was coming from inside his head. Kíli tried to speak, but the hoarse noises that came instead were unintelligible. All this time since his kidnapping, and his throat still burned like a wildfire.
”Speaking won’t get any easier, so you might as well stop trying,” Dariah said plainly as if she was remarking the weather.
Kíli tried to imagine what it would be like to never say another word, but he was too dazed. As his head slowly cleared up and his thoughts settled, there was only one question resting at the tip of his tongue. With as much sound as he could muster, Kíli slowly breathed a single word.
”Why..?”
Dariah shifted position in front of him, and Kíli felt his body move with hers. He realized that they were on a horse. There were ropes tied around her waist and him, pinning him onto her so that he would not fall off the horse or escape. While Kíli tried in vain to loosen the bonds, Dariah started telling her story.
”I come from Naem,” she sighed. ”On the day I was born, there was a big fight between Men and Dwarves on who was to blame for the caving of Igrevien.”
Igrevien. Kíli had heard that name more than once before. Many years ago, a huge mine in the Blue Mountains had collapsed, trapping hundreds under tons of rock. It was clearly a sabotage, but neither Men nor Dwarves would take any responsibility for the caving. During the rescue a fight broke out between the races. Many who could have been saved lost their lives due to that fight. Dwarves and Men alike often spoke in whispers about the incident, and Kíli had always heard it in the words of his uncle, who by no means believed that a Dwarf would purposefully collapse a mine.
”My father died in Igrevien. My brother lost his life by the hands of a Dwarf when he tried to reach my father. I never got to know either of them. And only because some selfish Dwarf-scum did not want Men to share in the wealth of Ered Luin.”
Feeling hit by Dariah’s words, Kíli shook his head. ”No… t-tru…e…”
The horse came to a sudden halt and Kíli bumped his head into Dariah’s back. The woman quickly pulled a knife from her boot and severed the ropes attaching the young Dwarf to her. Too weak to support himself, Kíli slid off the back of the horse. The rough fall knocked all air out of his lungs and his head started spinning again.
Dariah jumped out of the saddle and came to stand beside Kíli, her full height towering over him. She unhooked the whip from her belt and the long, leathery tail unrolled onto the ground.
A crack like thunder deafened Kíli as the whip came down with immense power in the gravel only a foot’s length from his head. He rolled to one side, pulling his aching knees up to his face to try and protect himself as the whip once more hit the ground beside him, spraying sand into his eyes.
”The moment I saw you I knew you were his son!” Dariah raged as she pulled the whip high into the air before letting it lash down by Kíli’s knees. ”I knew it! He took my brother and father from me, so I’m taking his son from him!”
The beating of the whip suddenly stopped, and left to break the silence was only Kíli’s and Dariah’s synchronized heavy breathing. In fear of facing the whip again, Kíli kept his eyes shut and remained curled up and shivering on the ground.
He took my brother and father... I’m taking his son… Kíli did not understand what he was hearing. Did she mean to say that his father had murdered a Man? He had been a carver of precious stones, not one who took to violence easily. That’s the reason he died in the first place…
Dariah pulled Kíli up by the ropes to a sitting position. She knelt and held him up to her face, breathing heavily into his eyes. They were shut tight, not brave enough to face her hatred. She looked at the gash still trying desperately to heal on the young Dwarf’s cheek, the infection spreading under the skin, the deep cuts and greenish bruises from the fall he had suffered. Although he had been incredibly lucky, she enjoyed the sight of every single one.
”You have a brother too, don’t you? That blond one with the limp.”
Kíli’s eyes flew up as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stared into her blue eyes with the horror of a child among monsters. His reaction was confirmation enough.
”You look nothing alike,” she spat. ”No matter — you’ll see him again. I’ll make sure of that. You’ll be watching when I crush his head under a rock, just like your father did to my brother.”
The imagined sound of bones breaking had Kíli close his eyes again, and the coldest of shivers went through his body.
Dariah lifted Kíli and flung him back up onto the horse, binding the severed rope to the back of the saddle. She pulled herself up in front of him and kicked the horse into a careful sprint, following a narrow path with edges that sloped downwards on one side and rose vertically into the sky on the other. Kíli tried to sit upright to avoid touching the heartless creature in front of him.
In his heart he felt a surge of hope. ”She thinks Fíli is alive. Then she can’t have killed him. He must have survived!” He kept this in his mind, letting it bathe his hopeless situation in warmth.
They kept riding downwards now. The sun rose from behind the mountain on their left and drowned them in shadow as it departed on the other side of the valley. Kíli’s strength was diminishing by the hour. Whenever they stopped for short rests, Dariah would give him small scraps of salted meat and let him sip from her water pouch. She tied him to a rock or a mountain tree and drifted right off to sleep.
Then the downward slope fanned out into a flat bottom of a ravine and their path became so wide it’s edges were lost in the thick mist that never seemed to lift. Kíli rested his head against Dariah’s back and stared tiredly into the clouds. Nothing could live down here, he thought. Never in his life had he seen such a desolate, abandoned place — not even in the past few weeks of captivity.
”They will never find me here.”
Wherever the mist did not block the view, mountain sides rose like walls on either side, so high that no force could climb them, steep like mounds meant to keep them here… maybe forever.
”Welcome to the Prison Plains,” Dariah said, looking about them. ”Nogrod, I think the Dwarves called it once.”
Nogrod — a hundred lifetimes ago it had been a city of Dwarves in the Blue Mountains, perhaps large and prosperous enough to compare with the Erebor that had always been in Kíli’s dreams. But he could not believe that anything had ever been merry or golden here.
Kíli felt the horse’s pace quicken and Dariah’s muscles tensed in front of him. The mist was still thick and he saw no movement. But he heard it before he saw who they belonged to — voices of Men. The horse came to a halt and Kíli heard the clinging of metal in front of them.
”Egylen,” said one of the Men. ”We were told not to expect you.”
Kíli knew he recognized that name from somewhere, but at the moment he could not place it. Was the Man addressing Dariah with that name? He dared not move his head to look at them, and instead pretended to be dead.
Dariah snorted. ”Back off, Gala. Let me through.”
”Not until that Dwarf is cleared and accounted for,” said another Man, his voice very formal and calm. ”Why you bothered to risk your life for one slave I will never understand.”
Dariah hesitated, then untied the ropes from around her waist and held them out. The Man with the calm demeanor, white blond hair hanging heavy on his shoulders, came into Kíli’s field of vision and looked at him. Kíli looked back, to tired to be scared, but did not find himself intimidated by this Man. He had dark grey eyes, or was it just the light?
Kíli did not have time to figure it out before the blond Man tugged at the ropes and Kíli fell once more onto the gravelly ground. He landed face first and small rocks and sand buried itself in his badly healed cheek wound. It stung, but not as bad as Kíli’s back which had taken one too many bad falls lately.
The next few things happened so fast that it was all a blur to Kíli. The blond Man lifted him by the ropes and forced him with a steady hand to walk in front of him. They left Dariah behind with the other Man, Gala, and instead they came upon a huge, open gate that Kíli had not seen through the mist before. The doors were propped open with huge rocks that had broken free from the ceiling. Kíli recognized the patterns and designs from home — this gate had once been part of Nogrod.
For what seemed like hours, the Man pushed Kíli further and further into the mountain side. The farther they walked, the louder became the sounds of metal on metal and the muffled noises of a big crowd. Kíli stumbled on, still too numb with fatigue to do anything but comply. That it, until he saw what lay in the heart of his Mahal forsaken city of old — what the Men had turned it into.
Dwarves. Hundreds of them, maybe. Each and every one in chains, each with their hair cut off at odd lengths. They blood stained the rock wherever Kíli turned, their sweat mixed with the fumes of fire and gore into a nauseating odor. Kíli’s head started spinning again, but not from the concussion.
”How could this have happened? Where do these Dwarves come from? What do the Humans want with us?”
”Move, Dwarf,” the blond Man ordered Kíli and shoved him forward when the young Dwarf stopped to seek eye contact with a Dwarf pouring molten iron into a mold.
Kíli was so caught up in the thought of the shape of the mold — two deep, round holes like bowls — that he did not notice when the blond Man was replaced by a Woman and a Man. They used large filet knifes and cut his ropes and instead put his arms and feet in chackles. The Woman held on to the chains, and Kíli did not struggle. Not until the Man grabbed onto his thick mane of raven hair and pulled it upwards, but by then it was too late. The Man placed the filet knife by Kíli’s neck and carved upwards, severing the hairs like butter. Before Kíli knew it, his long, black locks lay forgotten and trampled in the mud as he was pushed ahead of the Woman to the next ’station’. Kíli felt estranged by the lightness of his head and could not grasp that his hair had been cut — hair was after all one of the Dwarves’ great prides, and Kíli had always had little of it. He was so abashed by this that he did not notice the Woman pulling a long, metal rod from a fireplace beside him.
With a light kick, the Woman had Kíli lie face down on the ground. Then, with one hand she smoothed away the short strands of hair from Kíli’s neck and placed the white-hot end of the rod onto his skin.
Kíli would rather have drunk a pint of that lava like potion that burned his throat than feel the fire that ravaged his neck right then.
Minutes, hours, heart-beats passed by — it did not make any difference to him — before Kíli started feeling alive again. Pain, a very familiar sensation by now, returned slowly, reminding him that he was not yet dead. His head was a chaotic mess of images, of Men and Dwarves and mountains.
”Kíli.”
The voice belonged to Dariah, but it seemed like it was coming from inside his head. Kíli tried to speak, but the hoarse noises that came instead were unintelligible. All this time since his kidnapping, and his throat still burned like a wildfire.
”Speaking won’t get any easier, so you might as well stop trying,” Dariah said plainly as if she was remarking the weather.
Kíli tried to imagine what it would be like to never say another word, but he was too dazed. As his head slowly cleared up and his thoughts settled, there was only one question resting at the tip of his tongue. With as much sound as he could muster, Kíli slowly breathed a single word.
”Why..?”
Dariah shifted position in front of him, and Kíli felt his body move with hers. He realized that they were on a horse. There were ropes tied around her waist and him, pinning him onto her so that he would not fall off the horse or escape. While Kíli tried in vain to loosen the bonds, Dariah started telling her story.
”I come from Naem,” she sighed. ”On the day I was born, there was a big fight between Men and Dwarves on who was to blame for the caving of Igrevien.”
Igrevien. Kíli had heard that name more than once before. Many years ago, a huge mine in the Blue Mountains had collapsed, trapping hundreds under tons of rock. It was clearly a sabotage, but neither Men nor Dwarves would take any responsibility for the caving. During the rescue a fight broke out between the races. Many who could have been saved lost their lives due to that fight. Dwarves and Men alike often spoke in whispers about the incident, and Kíli had always heard it in the words of his uncle, who by no means believed that a Dwarf would purposefully collapse a mine.
”My father died in Igrevien. My brother lost his life by the hands of a Dwarf when he tried to reach my father. I never got to know either of them. And only because some selfish Dwarf-scum did not want Men to share in the wealth of Ered Luin.”
Feeling hit by Dariah’s words, Kíli shook his head. ”No… t-tru…e…”
The horse came to a sudden halt and Kíli bumped his head into Dariah’s back. The woman quickly pulled a knife from her boot and severed the ropes attaching the young Dwarf to her. Too weak to support himself, Kíli slid off the back of the horse. The rough fall knocked all air out of his lungs and his head started spinning again.
Dariah jumped out of the saddle and came to stand beside Kíli, her full height towering over him. She unhooked the whip from her belt and the long, leathery tail unrolled onto the ground.
A crack like thunder deafened Kíli as the whip came down with immense power in the gravel only a foot’s length from his head. He rolled to one side, pulling his aching knees up to his face to try and protect himself as the whip once more hit the ground beside him, spraying sand into his eyes.
”The moment I saw you I knew you were his son!” Dariah raged as she pulled the whip high into the air before letting it lash down by Kíli’s knees. ”I knew it! He took my brother and father from me, so I’m taking his son from him!”
The beating of the whip suddenly stopped, and left to break the silence was only Kíli’s and Dariah’s synchronized heavy breathing. In fear of facing the whip again, Kíli kept his eyes shut and remained curled up and shivering on the ground.
He took my brother and father... I’m taking his son… Kíli did not understand what he was hearing. Did she mean to say that his father had murdered a Man? He had been a carver of precious stones, not one who took to violence easily. That’s the reason he died in the first place…
Dariah pulled Kíli up by the ropes to a sitting position. She knelt and held him up to her face, breathing heavily into his eyes. They were shut tight, not brave enough to face her hatred. She looked at the gash still trying desperately to heal on the young Dwarf’s cheek, the infection spreading under the skin, the deep cuts and greenish bruises from the fall he had suffered. Although he had been incredibly lucky, she enjoyed the sight of every single one.
”You have a brother too, don’t you? That blond one with the limp.”
Kíli’s eyes flew up as if he had been punched in the stomach. He stared into her blue eyes with the horror of a child among monsters. His reaction was confirmation enough.
”You look nothing alike,” she spat. ”No matter — you’ll see him again. I’ll make sure of that. You’ll be watching when I crush his head under a rock, just like your father did to my brother.”
The imagined sound of bones breaking had Kíli close his eyes again, and the coldest of shivers went through his body.
Dariah lifted Kíli and flung him back up onto the horse, binding the severed rope to the back of the saddle. She pulled herself up in front of him and kicked the horse into a careful sprint, following a narrow path with edges that sloped downwards on one side and rose vertically into the sky on the other. Kíli tried to sit upright to avoid touching the heartless creature in front of him.
In his heart he felt a surge of hope. ”She thinks Fíli is alive. Then she can’t have killed him. He must have survived!” He kept this in his mind, letting it bathe his hopeless situation in warmth.
They kept riding downwards now. The sun rose from behind the mountain on their left and drowned them in shadow as it departed on the other side of the valley. Kíli’s strength was diminishing by the hour. Whenever they stopped for short rests, Dariah would give him small scraps of salted meat and let him sip from her water pouch. She tied him to a rock or a mountain tree and drifted right off to sleep.
Then the downward slope fanned out into a flat bottom of a ravine and their path became so wide it’s edges were lost in the thick mist that never seemed to lift. Kíli rested his head against Dariah’s back and stared tiredly into the clouds. Nothing could live down here, he thought. Never in his life had he seen such a desolate, abandoned place — not even in the past few weeks of captivity.
”They will never find me here.”
Wherever the mist did not block the view, mountain sides rose like walls on either side, so high that no force could climb them, steep like mounds meant to keep them here… maybe forever.
”Welcome to the Prison Plains,” Dariah said, looking about them. ”Nogrod, I think the Dwarves called it once.”
Nogrod — a hundred lifetimes ago it had been a city of Dwarves in the Blue Mountains, perhaps large and prosperous enough to compare with the Erebor that had always been in Kíli’s dreams. But he could not believe that anything had ever been merry or golden here.
Kíli felt the horse’s pace quicken and Dariah’s muscles tensed in front of him. The mist was still thick and he saw no movement. But he heard it before he saw who they belonged to — voices of Men. The horse came to a halt and Kíli heard the clinging of metal in front of them.
”Egylen,” said one of the Men. ”We were told not to expect you.”
Kíli knew he recognized that name from somewhere, but at the moment he could not place it. Was the Man addressing Dariah with that name? He dared not move his head to look at them, and instead pretended to be dead.
Dariah snorted. ”Back off, Gala. Let me through.”
”Not until that Dwarf is cleared and accounted for,” said another Man, his voice very formal and calm. ”Why you bothered to risk your life for one slave I will never understand.”
Dariah hesitated, then untied the ropes from around her waist and held them out. The Man with the calm demeanor, white blond hair hanging heavy on his shoulders, came into Kíli’s field of vision and looked at him. Kíli looked back, to tired to be scared, but did not find himself intimidated by this Man. He had dark grey eyes, or was it just the light?
Kíli did not have time to figure it out before the blond Man tugged at the ropes and Kíli fell once more onto the gravelly ground. He landed face first and small rocks and sand buried itself in his badly healed cheek wound. It stung, but not as bad as Kíli’s back which had taken one too many bad falls lately.
The next few things happened so fast that it was all a blur to Kíli. The blond Man lifted him by the ropes and forced him with a steady hand to walk in front of him. They left Dariah behind with the other Man, Gala, and instead they came upon a huge, open gate that Kíli had not seen through the mist before. The doors were propped open with huge rocks that had broken free from the ceiling. Kíli recognized the patterns and designs from home — this gate had once been part of Nogrod.
For what seemed like hours, the Man pushed Kíli further and further into the mountain side. The farther they walked, the louder became the sounds of metal on metal and the muffled noises of a big crowd. Kíli stumbled on, still too numb with fatigue to do anything but comply. That it, until he saw what lay in the heart of his Mahal forsaken city of old — what the Men had turned it into.
Dwarves. Hundreds of them, maybe. Each and every one in chains, each with their hair cut off at odd lengths. They blood stained the rock wherever Kíli turned, their sweat mixed with the fumes of fire and gore into a nauseating odor. Kíli’s head started spinning again, but not from the concussion.
”How could this have happened? Where do these Dwarves come from? What do the Humans want with us?”
”Move, Dwarf,” the blond Man ordered Kíli and shoved him forward when the young Dwarf stopped to seek eye contact with a Dwarf pouring molten iron into a mold.
Kíli was so caught up in the thought of the shape of the mold — two deep, round holes like bowls — that he did not notice when the blond Man was replaced by a Woman and a Man. They used large filet knifes and cut his ropes and instead put his arms and feet in chackles. The Woman held on to the chains, and Kíli did not struggle. Not until the Man grabbed onto his thick mane of raven hair and pulled it upwards, but by then it was too late. The Man placed the filet knife by Kíli’s neck and carved upwards, severing the hairs like butter. Before Kíli knew it, his long, black locks lay forgotten and trampled in the mud as he was pushed ahead of the Woman to the next ’station’. Kíli felt estranged by the lightness of his head and could not grasp that his hair had been cut — hair was after all one of the Dwarves’ great prides, and Kíli had always had little of it. He was so abashed by this that he did not notice the Woman pulling a long, metal rod from a fireplace beside him.
With a light kick, the Woman had Kíli lie face down on the ground. Then, with one hand she smoothed away the short strands of hair from Kíli’s neck and placed the white-hot end of the rod onto his skin.
Kíli would rather have drunk a pint of that lava like potion that burned his throat than feel the fire that ravaged his neck right then.