F I R E B O R N
CHAPTER FIVE
The Trial
Elir was a skilled rider, Fíli gave him that much. He handled his big horse with grace through the forest, to the point where it was Fíli’s pony who trailed behind. Fíli had never planned on bringing a companion — Kíli was his brother and nobody else would get into trouble because of either of them. Still, Fíli was not used to being alone. He did not like it, simply because he did not feel existent with nobody around. That’s one of many reasons why he loved Kíli so deeply — his little brother, his other half, his constant from the day he was born.
Up until now.
Considering everything, Fíli had decided to let Elir join him. He did not know why, because in all honesty he could not care less. Fíli knew what he had set out to do — find the caravan, find Kíli and bring him home. A pair of extra hands could be helpful, yes. Fíli did not know who Elir was, but he knew of his father, Drebur of Narendor. Fíli had also noticed the impressive weaponry Elir was carrying. The sword hanging from his belt wasn’t his only weapon — there were axes, a war hammer and daggers packed into his saddle bag. Fíli could not help but glance at them, for they were crafted with great skill. He had only seen that kind of weaponry in the hands of his uncle, or Balin and Dwalin, all three of whom had once lived in the Lonely Mountain and carried weapons made in the forges of Erebor.
Fíli had to ask. ”Where did you get those?”
Elir had not expected Fíli to talk, but it seemed to relax Elir that he did.
”My grandfather is a blacksmith. He’s teaching me all about it. He was a blacksmith in Erebor,” he smiled, a smile so alike Kíli’s that Fíli could not bare to look at it. ”He was one of the best, so skilled at what he did that they asked him to make swords for our kings.”
Elir paused, glancing at Fíli and then back at the handle sticking up from behind his back.
”He probably forged the sword you are carrying,” he said finally. ”It belongs to king Thorin Oakenshield, am I right?”
It felt weird to hear someone address Thorin as king. Every single Dwarf in the Blue Mountains knew that he was the rightful King under the Mountain, but for Fíli, being reminded of his uncle’s heritage reminded him of his own place in the line to the throne.
Elir took Fíli’s silence as confirmation. ”Then how did you get it?”
”Doesn’t he know who I am?” thought Fíli. ”Then why did he come after me?”
Fíli was just about to reply when he saw light between the trees. He took off on his pony with Elir close behind. The path before them was getting wider, leading straight ahead to what Fíli soon found to be the end of the forest. Where the trees stopped, a vast landscape stretched as far as the eyes could see. Fíli came to a halt and Elir came up beside him.
It was night now, but the clear sky allowed a bright half moon to illuminate the world beneath it. The two Dwarves looked around. Behind them on their left, between them miles of field and forest, the Blue Mountains rose towards the stars, mist running down the mountainsides like waterfalls. Far away into the distance they thought they could hear the Baranduin river. Then there were the lights that Fíli had seen, bright and blazing in the distance — campfires.
”You think it could be them?” asked Elir.
No reply came from Fíli. His eyes were fixed on the small fires, and the slight movement around them. He could see the wagons parked around encampment, and he knew it was them. The spark in his eyes flashed again, and this time it set alight all the anger that had been boiling in his heart. He saw red, red as Kíli’s blood in the dirt. His hand went to the hilt of Thorin’s sword and in a swift motion he pulled it out.
Elir looked at him with fear. ”What are you doing?”
Fíli did not listen, but charged towards the camp with his sword raised and the light of fires in his eyes.
”You better not have killed him. You’re gonna pay for what you did but he can’t be dead!”
Fíli did not hear Elir calling after him, but the travelers did. As he closed in on the camp, Fíli saw how they looked his way, pointed at his sword shining in the moonlight and took up their own weapons. He kept going towards them, hoping that they would back away when they saw that he wasn’t going to stop. However, the outcome was quite different — the Men would not give up, but charged at the oncoming pony and its rider without fear. In the last second Fíli realized his mistake and tried to avert a direct attack, but it was too late. A bulky man in the front swung his sword at Fíli, whose own sword clashed with it.
The blow sent a flash of pain up his arm and the sword fell from his grip, landing in the grass by the bulky man’s feet. Fíli completely lost his balance and fell out of the saddle, landing flat on his back on the uneven ground. The fall knocked the air out of his lungs. While Fíli gasped for air, his fingers reaching for anything to protect himself with, the bulky man came up to him and put his blade against the young Dwarf’s throat.
”What is your business attacking us?” he demanded calmly. He looked at the assumed robber, seeing how young the Dwarf was, and a confusion came over him. He thought he had seen that face before.
”Stop!”
”STOP!”
The two voices had called out simultaneously from different directions. One was the cry of Elir, who had witnessed Fíli’s mindless attack. The other was a voice that infused first happiness, then vengefulness, in Fíli. The owner of said voice pushed through the crowds that had gathered around the scene, then knelt beside Fíli and helped the young Dwarf to his feet. It was Ric.
”Young master Kíli, are you hurt?” Ric asked, a sincere worry on his voice that confused Fíli so much he didn’t even bother to correct the man or answer the question. Ric then turned to the bulky man. ”Would you please be so kind as to explain why you were threatening our generous host?”
”He came at us on that pony, waving his sword like a madman.”
Meanwhile, Elir had arrived and was watching the scene in silence from high up on his mount, sword drawn but pointed downwards. Suddenly, Fíli remembered why he had come at the them with the sword. He pulled his arm away from a surprised Ric and backed away from him.
”Yes, I attacked you, and with good reason,” he declared to the masses. ”Now tell me where my brother is!”
”Has something happened to master Fíli?” wondered Ric, looking even more puzzled. Fíli did not buy it.
”I’m Fíli, and my brother is Kíli.” Fíli’s attention and anger was now fully directed upon Ric, the man he had liked and trusted and lead into his city. ”Last night he ran off with a woman from your caravan, and he never came back. Several others have gone missing, too. Then you leave without a word to anyone? They found...”
He trailed off as his anger suddenly imploded and tears sprang to his eyes. He forced them back and tried to keep his voice strong and steady. ”They found blood. And the locket. They found Kíli’s locket, covered in blood. He would never take it off willingly. He would never take it off!”
The last sentence echoed across the plain, vanishing into the night with the last of Fíli’s rage, leaving behind only hopelessness. In a flash he saw himself for what he had almost become — a mindless, violent beast bent on revenge. If his brother had seen him now, he would have been frightened. As Fíli realized this and looked into Ric’s sympathetic eyes, he realized also that he had been blind.
He looked around, seeing now what he hadn’t thought about earlier. There were only seven or so wagons parked around the campfires. The people standing around him numbered barely twenty. He recognized only a handful of them, and he knew why — because the faces he remembered had been full of hate towards him and his race. These people and their leader were looking at him with pity and understanding.
”You’re not with them anymore,” Fíli noted, barely audibly. He turned once more to Ric. ”Beidon. And that woman, Daliah?”
”Oh, Dariah, you mean,” said Ric, the tiniest of smiles curving his lips. ”That fine young woman was part of master Beidon’s crew.”
Fine. The way Ric had said the word had Fíli wondering about this woman. How many people had she enchanted besides his brother?
”What do you mean, Beidon’s crew?” he asked.
”Well, we are merely a group of travelers, going from place to place because we want to,” explained Ric, gesturing towards the caravan. ”Not two weeks ago we met with another caravan, a group of merchants, lead by master Beidon, who happened to be heading in the same direction. When they started packing up we decided it was time to move on, and we parted ways.”
The truth dawned on Fíli and a memory he didn’t know he had surfaced in his mind — something Kíli had told him after they had first met the caravan.
”I wonder what they have in the wagons. They seemed heavy. And some had bars over the windows.”
Elir’s voice pulled Fíli from his thoughts. ”We need to move.”
One of the women from the crowds came to Fíli with his pony and he mounted it.
”Where did the other caravan go to?” he asked as the bulky man handed Thorin’s sword back to him.
Ric thought about it. ”They did not say.”
”They were very secretive about themselves,” said a man in the crowd.
”They wouldn’t even say what they were trading,” muttered a second.
Fíli looked to Elir, whose face mirrored his own despair. They would never find their tracks without a clue to where they were heading.
”Wait!” came a voice from in the back. ”I spoke with one of them in a bar. He said something about hoping that there’d be good weather or they’d never get through the mountains.”
The news hit Fíli like a kick in the stomach. If Beidon was taking the caravan, and most likely his brother and the other Dwarves, up into the Blue Mountains, then he had underestimated the dangers of his undertaking. This time of year, winter would soon come upon the mountains, bringing with it blizzards and storms that only fools would try to take on.
Once more he turned to Elir, at the moment completely lost for words. The older Dwarf looked at him like a soldier would look at his general, awaiting orders. Fíli reacted to something touching his chest, and saw that it was his own hand, grasping the lockets through his shirt. Two lockets, not always together but always near. Never one without the other.
”He’s my brother,” he said finally. ”I can’t abandon him.”
”We’ll bring them back,” said Elir, confirming that they would do this together.
Fíli pulled the reigns in the direction of the mountain. Before setting off from the camp into the darkness, he cast a last look at Ric. He tried to focus all of his regret into this one gaze of goodbye, hoping for forgiveness for what he had accused them of.
Ric smiled sadly back at him. ”Good luck to you, master Fíli. May you and your brother return safely.”
Fíli nodded a silent promise and drove his pony forward into a sprint. Elir followed on his horse, and they rode in all haste towards the moonlit mountains in the distance. Beidon and his pack were nearly a day ahead of them, so they had no time to lose if they were to catch up to them.
Over the sound of hooves, wind and night time noises, one thing sang clearly in Fíli’s mind. That was the silent promise he had given Ric, and the same promise he had given himself. It was a promise to Kíli, wherever he was and whatever had happened to him.
”I will find you, if it’s the last thing I do. And I will bring you home.”
Up until now.
Considering everything, Fíli had decided to let Elir join him. He did not know why, because in all honesty he could not care less. Fíli knew what he had set out to do — find the caravan, find Kíli and bring him home. A pair of extra hands could be helpful, yes. Fíli did not know who Elir was, but he knew of his father, Drebur of Narendor. Fíli had also noticed the impressive weaponry Elir was carrying. The sword hanging from his belt wasn’t his only weapon — there were axes, a war hammer and daggers packed into his saddle bag. Fíli could not help but glance at them, for they were crafted with great skill. He had only seen that kind of weaponry in the hands of his uncle, or Balin and Dwalin, all three of whom had once lived in the Lonely Mountain and carried weapons made in the forges of Erebor.
Fíli had to ask. ”Where did you get those?”
Elir had not expected Fíli to talk, but it seemed to relax Elir that he did.
”My grandfather is a blacksmith. He’s teaching me all about it. He was a blacksmith in Erebor,” he smiled, a smile so alike Kíli’s that Fíli could not bare to look at it. ”He was one of the best, so skilled at what he did that they asked him to make swords for our kings.”
Elir paused, glancing at Fíli and then back at the handle sticking up from behind his back.
”He probably forged the sword you are carrying,” he said finally. ”It belongs to king Thorin Oakenshield, am I right?”
It felt weird to hear someone address Thorin as king. Every single Dwarf in the Blue Mountains knew that he was the rightful King under the Mountain, but for Fíli, being reminded of his uncle’s heritage reminded him of his own place in the line to the throne.
Elir took Fíli’s silence as confirmation. ”Then how did you get it?”
”Doesn’t he know who I am?” thought Fíli. ”Then why did he come after me?”
Fíli was just about to reply when he saw light between the trees. He took off on his pony with Elir close behind. The path before them was getting wider, leading straight ahead to what Fíli soon found to be the end of the forest. Where the trees stopped, a vast landscape stretched as far as the eyes could see. Fíli came to a halt and Elir came up beside him.
It was night now, but the clear sky allowed a bright half moon to illuminate the world beneath it. The two Dwarves looked around. Behind them on their left, between them miles of field and forest, the Blue Mountains rose towards the stars, mist running down the mountainsides like waterfalls. Far away into the distance they thought they could hear the Baranduin river. Then there were the lights that Fíli had seen, bright and blazing in the distance — campfires.
”You think it could be them?” asked Elir.
No reply came from Fíli. His eyes were fixed on the small fires, and the slight movement around them. He could see the wagons parked around encampment, and he knew it was them. The spark in his eyes flashed again, and this time it set alight all the anger that had been boiling in his heart. He saw red, red as Kíli’s blood in the dirt. His hand went to the hilt of Thorin’s sword and in a swift motion he pulled it out.
Elir looked at him with fear. ”What are you doing?”
Fíli did not listen, but charged towards the camp with his sword raised and the light of fires in his eyes.
”You better not have killed him. You’re gonna pay for what you did but he can’t be dead!”
Fíli did not hear Elir calling after him, but the travelers did. As he closed in on the camp, Fíli saw how they looked his way, pointed at his sword shining in the moonlight and took up their own weapons. He kept going towards them, hoping that they would back away when they saw that he wasn’t going to stop. However, the outcome was quite different — the Men would not give up, but charged at the oncoming pony and its rider without fear. In the last second Fíli realized his mistake and tried to avert a direct attack, but it was too late. A bulky man in the front swung his sword at Fíli, whose own sword clashed with it.
The blow sent a flash of pain up his arm and the sword fell from his grip, landing in the grass by the bulky man’s feet. Fíli completely lost his balance and fell out of the saddle, landing flat on his back on the uneven ground. The fall knocked the air out of his lungs. While Fíli gasped for air, his fingers reaching for anything to protect himself with, the bulky man came up to him and put his blade against the young Dwarf’s throat.
”What is your business attacking us?” he demanded calmly. He looked at the assumed robber, seeing how young the Dwarf was, and a confusion came over him. He thought he had seen that face before.
”Stop!”
”STOP!”
The two voices had called out simultaneously from different directions. One was the cry of Elir, who had witnessed Fíli’s mindless attack. The other was a voice that infused first happiness, then vengefulness, in Fíli. The owner of said voice pushed through the crowds that had gathered around the scene, then knelt beside Fíli and helped the young Dwarf to his feet. It was Ric.
”Young master Kíli, are you hurt?” Ric asked, a sincere worry on his voice that confused Fíli so much he didn’t even bother to correct the man or answer the question. Ric then turned to the bulky man. ”Would you please be so kind as to explain why you were threatening our generous host?”
”He came at us on that pony, waving his sword like a madman.”
Meanwhile, Elir had arrived and was watching the scene in silence from high up on his mount, sword drawn but pointed downwards. Suddenly, Fíli remembered why he had come at the them with the sword. He pulled his arm away from a surprised Ric and backed away from him.
”Yes, I attacked you, and with good reason,” he declared to the masses. ”Now tell me where my brother is!”
”Has something happened to master Fíli?” wondered Ric, looking even more puzzled. Fíli did not buy it.
”I’m Fíli, and my brother is Kíli.” Fíli’s attention and anger was now fully directed upon Ric, the man he had liked and trusted and lead into his city. ”Last night he ran off with a woman from your caravan, and he never came back. Several others have gone missing, too. Then you leave without a word to anyone? They found...”
He trailed off as his anger suddenly imploded and tears sprang to his eyes. He forced them back and tried to keep his voice strong and steady. ”They found blood. And the locket. They found Kíli’s locket, covered in blood. He would never take it off willingly. He would never take it off!”
The last sentence echoed across the plain, vanishing into the night with the last of Fíli’s rage, leaving behind only hopelessness. In a flash he saw himself for what he had almost become — a mindless, violent beast bent on revenge. If his brother had seen him now, he would have been frightened. As Fíli realized this and looked into Ric’s sympathetic eyes, he realized also that he had been blind.
He looked around, seeing now what he hadn’t thought about earlier. There were only seven or so wagons parked around the campfires. The people standing around him numbered barely twenty. He recognized only a handful of them, and he knew why — because the faces he remembered had been full of hate towards him and his race. These people and their leader were looking at him with pity and understanding.
”You’re not with them anymore,” Fíli noted, barely audibly. He turned once more to Ric. ”Beidon. And that woman, Daliah?”
”Oh, Dariah, you mean,” said Ric, the tiniest of smiles curving his lips. ”That fine young woman was part of master Beidon’s crew.”
Fine. The way Ric had said the word had Fíli wondering about this woman. How many people had she enchanted besides his brother?
”What do you mean, Beidon’s crew?” he asked.
”Well, we are merely a group of travelers, going from place to place because we want to,” explained Ric, gesturing towards the caravan. ”Not two weeks ago we met with another caravan, a group of merchants, lead by master Beidon, who happened to be heading in the same direction. When they started packing up we decided it was time to move on, and we parted ways.”
The truth dawned on Fíli and a memory he didn’t know he had surfaced in his mind — something Kíli had told him after they had first met the caravan.
”I wonder what they have in the wagons. They seemed heavy. And some had bars over the windows.”
Elir’s voice pulled Fíli from his thoughts. ”We need to move.”
One of the women from the crowds came to Fíli with his pony and he mounted it.
”Where did the other caravan go to?” he asked as the bulky man handed Thorin’s sword back to him.
Ric thought about it. ”They did not say.”
”They were very secretive about themselves,” said a man in the crowd.
”They wouldn’t even say what they were trading,” muttered a second.
Fíli looked to Elir, whose face mirrored his own despair. They would never find their tracks without a clue to where they were heading.
”Wait!” came a voice from in the back. ”I spoke with one of them in a bar. He said something about hoping that there’d be good weather or they’d never get through the mountains.”
The news hit Fíli like a kick in the stomach. If Beidon was taking the caravan, and most likely his brother and the other Dwarves, up into the Blue Mountains, then he had underestimated the dangers of his undertaking. This time of year, winter would soon come upon the mountains, bringing with it blizzards and storms that only fools would try to take on.
Once more he turned to Elir, at the moment completely lost for words. The older Dwarf looked at him like a soldier would look at his general, awaiting orders. Fíli reacted to something touching his chest, and saw that it was his own hand, grasping the lockets through his shirt. Two lockets, not always together but always near. Never one without the other.
”He’s my brother,” he said finally. ”I can’t abandon him.”
”We’ll bring them back,” said Elir, confirming that they would do this together.
Fíli pulled the reigns in the direction of the mountain. Before setting off from the camp into the darkness, he cast a last look at Ric. He tried to focus all of his regret into this one gaze of goodbye, hoping for forgiveness for what he had accused them of.
Ric smiled sadly back at him. ”Good luck to you, master Fíli. May you and your brother return safely.”
Fíli nodded a silent promise and drove his pony forward into a sprint. Elir followed on his horse, and they rode in all haste towards the moonlit mountains in the distance. Beidon and his pack were nearly a day ahead of them, so they had no time to lose if they were to catch up to them.
Over the sound of hooves, wind and night time noises, one thing sang clearly in Fíli’s mind. That was the silent promise he had given Ric, and the same promise he had given himself. It was a promise to Kíli, wherever he was and whatever had happened to him.
”I will find you, if it’s the last thing I do. And I will bring you home.”