F I R E B O R N
CHAPTER SIX
The Wagon
There were many things going about in Kíli's head when he slowly returned to consciousness. Many questions wanted to be answered all at the same time. Where was he? What happened to him? Where was Fíli? Why was the floor moving? Why was his throat on fire?
It really felt like a fire blazing in his stomach, its flames climbing up his throat all the way to his mouth, burning with an agonizing intensity. Every breath was torture, only fueling the fire. Kíli fell into a coughing fit, so painful he thought he'd black out again. Someone patted his back as to help stop the coughing, and eventually it did. Kíli remained on the damp wooden floor, exhausted and panting, as the hand continued to stroke his hair.
Kíli looked up to see who his guardian angel was, half expecting to see the deep blue eyes of Dariah. It was very dark, only strands of cold light beaming through whatever walls surrounded them. However, Kíli could clearly make out that the owner of the comforting hand was a Dwarf, blond braids falling from his head.
"You're not Fíli," said Kíli, or at least that's what he intended to say. The gurgling sounds that came instead were impossible to understand, and the pain was enormous.
The blond Dwarf leaned forward so that a little more light fell into his wrinkled, bearded face. He had tender, golden eyes, but the skin was baggy and dirty, his cheekbones sticking out way too far for a normal Dwarf. The elderly helped Kíli into sitting position and put a finger over his lips. Kíli understood what he meant.
"Whatever they had me drink, I'm not meant to talk," he thought, feeling a bit disabled.
The thought startled Kíli and the memories flooded him. Dariah had come to see him, and he had ran off from home with her. They had been attacked. He remembered dark cloaked figures, Men by the size of them. He had struggled to breathe and then the attackers had forced something down his throat that burned. He remembered Dariah calling out for them not to hurt him. Someone had hit him over the head, let go so that he fell on his face on the path and the next thing he knew he woke up here.
Kíli's hand went to his face, one of the many places that hurt now that he had gotten used to the burn in his chest. The left cheek was ripped open, dried blood covering it. His left shoulder felt displaced, although he could still move it. He felt sore and utterly weak, as if he hadn't eaten anything in days. He probably hadn't, since his stomach felt turned inside out.
As Kíli's eyes got used to the sparse light, he found himself surrounded by faces. The little space, which he figured was a wagon of sorts, was crammed with Dwarves, all of whom were much older than Kíli. Some of them he recognized from Ewardor, like one of Oin the Apothecary's apprentices and a merchant from town. They all looked the same way Kíli felt — starved, bruised and scared. Some looked at him with pity, perhaps because he was so young compared to them.
A sound from beyond the wooden walls caught Kíli's attention. Over the noise of gravel and whining wheals, he could make out two voices, both male, whispering loudly to one another.
"How much farther do you think we'll need to go tonight?"
"As far away from that last farm we raided as we can, I guess."
There was a long silence, in which Kíli had plenty of time to imagine what raiding a farm could imply.
He leaned against the wall where he sat, looking around. The wagon was quite big, nothing a pony or even a small horse could pull. There were one window on each side, too high up to reach, covered with bars. New thoughts began to swirl through Kíli's head. He was looking upon the inside of one of the mysterious wagons from the caravan. Suddenly, it all became clear to him — why the travelers had acted so disrespectful towards Dwarves, why Beidon had stared him down after Kíli had gazed at the wagons, the attack on him and Dariah...
Before Kíli could make the final conclusion, the voices from outside started talking again.
"Seriously, I'm starving here. When are we setting up camp?"
"Shut up, Dorthan," the second voice snapped. "Do you want us to be discovered!?"
The first voice laughed. "Who would be so foolish as to try and follow us up he—"
Smack! The sound of skin hitting skin was so intense that Kíli could feel the blow to his own cheek. All pain was forgotten, though, when a new, female voice silenced the others.
"You will do best in keeping quiet or I will gladly feed your flesh to the Dwarves when we do set up camp."
Kíli felt a chill down his spine and crept up against the wall, pulling his knees tight to his chest while listening to the two male voices bickering quietly. He couldn't hear the woman anymore.
A cough and a groan of agony came from Kíli's right, from an elderly Dwarf resting on the shoulder of a younger male. The elderly looked as pale as moonlight, with dark stains of dried blood around his mouth. He coughed again, twisting and turning as the pain from his sore throat tormented him. More blood stained his face and beard, mixing with tears of pain.
One of the kidnappers hit his hand against the outside of the wagon. "Quiet in there!"
The younger Dwarf let the older one lay to rest in his lap, but the coughing fit would not end. As Kíli watched helplessly, blood started pouring from the elderly's mouth, his body shaking in convulsion. The younger tried desperately to help him, looking around with tear-filled eyes at the other Dwarves, asking silently for someone to help him. Oin's apprentice, whose name Kíli could not remember, sprawled over and started patting the elderly's back just as Kíli's blond guardian had comforted him. Kíli looked over to said Dwarf, and his distress seemed mirrored in the older's golden eyes. Turning back to the scene in the back of the wagon, Oin's apprentice seemed to have given up, knowing that there was nothing he could do in here to treat the injuries caused by the burning potion they'd all been given.
Three more loud bangs rocked the wagon. "Quiet, Dwarf-scum!"
"Silence them," Kíli heard a female command them, but it wasn't the same woman as before — he thought he recognized this voice though.
Before he could think about it, the wagon came to an abrupt halt and a door flew open in the back of it. Two vicious-looking Men stood there and scanned each Dwarf with their cruel eyes. When they found the source of the coughing, they climbed up into the wagon, pushed aside any Dwarf in their way and then pulled the elderly from the younger Dwarf's arms. The younger tried to call out, but only hissing sounds would come. He tried to get a grip around one of the Men's legs, but was instead kicked in the face and left bleeding on the floor beside Oin's healer apprentice.
Kíli felt rage bubble up inside him and made to rise up against the Men, but his golden guardian held him back. Kíli fought his hold briefly, but then saw the truth in the older Dwarf's eyes as clearly as if he had spoken the words.
"You won't be able to fight them. You'll only get the same treatment."
Outside the wagon, the elderly Dwarf had been thrown onto the ground, still shaking and coughing blood. Through the small door Kíli could see several pairs of Man legs standing around the Dwarf, probably watching him suffer. Then, without further due, one of the Men stepped forward and ran a sword through the Dwarf's chest.
Every Dwarf in the wagon flinched in shock, Kíli holding back a scream he knew would only make the situation worse. When the elderly Dwarf had stopped twitching and lay motionless and bleeding on the ground, the man removed his blade and motioned for the two vicious-looking Men to remove his victim.
"We don't have time to bury it. Just throw it in with the rest and we'll deal with it later."
The body was tossed mercilessly into the wagon, knocking down three Dwarves. The door flew shut and soon the wagon started moving again. The people outside gave no second thought to what was going on inside the wagon, as long as their captives remained silent. It sickened Kíli, knowing how little they cared. He had seen bar brawls and fights, but never war. And he had never had to witness brutality at this level. It had shaken him, and now he knew not what to do. Oin's healer apprentice had checked on the elderly Dwarf, now lying on the dirty floor with the younger Dwarf crying silently over his blood-soaked body. Kíli could not help but watch, frozen to the bone in terror.
"Who could do something like that?"
The question burned in his heart. He had always listened intently to the stories of orcs and goblins that uncle Thorin had told them when their mother was away. Their cruelty and malice was unequaled, Thorin had said. Now, Kíli was not so sure.
Two hours later, that felt like days to Kíli, the wagon train finally came to a stop. The Dwarves that had somehow managed to fall asleep were startled awake. Then they waited. There was a long while, many long and angsty minutes in which the silenced Dwarves didn't even dare to breathe, before the doors to the wagon flew open once more and the two vicious Men showed their faces again.
"Three of you, out here," he first one ordered, a scornful smile on his lips. "We've got work for you."
Nobody moved even an inch. The second man, more hot-tempered than the first, stepped into the wagon, towering over his captives to scare them into submission. "Well, who's gonna volunteer?"
Kíli, who had sat frozen in the same curled-up position since the unexpected execution, flew to his feet, ready to defend himself on reflex. Of course, he was immediately a subject of the Men's plans. Kíli's golden guardian tried to make him sit down, but it was too late. The man stepped forward, grabbed Kíli's tunic as he tried to back away and threw the young Dwarf out the wagon door with unexpected ease. Kíli landed roughly on the ground, which to his would-be relief was covered in grass and not stone, but was quickly pulled to his feet by the second man. The man, head as bald as Dwalin's but without the tattoos, glared down at Kíli like he was dirt, then threw a shovel into his arms. Kíli looked at the tool, not knowing what to think. The man pointed at something behind the young Dwarf, who turned around.
Two more Dwarves had been pulled out of the wagon, each carrying their own shovel. On the ground lay the body of the elderly Dwarf, now drained of all color and warmth.
Kíli's mind raced. "They are going to force us to bury one of our own, one who they killed!?"
He would not. He was a Dwarf, and more importantly he was of the Durin line. He would not disgrace himself by being a part of the defiling of his people. Kíli shot a warning glare at the two Men, so defiant that he hoped it would unnerve them. Then he gathered whatever strength there was left in his body and shoved the shovel so hard into the bald man's abdomen it sent the man flying backwards. A Dwarf's strength is not to be underestimated, but young and naive as he was and weakened from hunger, Kíli made the mistake of overestimating it. He hurled himself at the bald man's accomplice, knocking them both to the ground, and started hitting at him with the shaft of the shovel. But the man overpowered him, turning over on the ground so that his full weight came to rest on Kíli's chest, choking him. One of the other Dwarves tried to help by hitting the man in the face with his shovel. The other Dwarf made a run for it.
He didn't get far before a throwing knife had been planted in his neck, killing him before he even hit the ground.
"Stop!" called a female voice, but it wasn't the same one as earlier.
Kíli gasped for much-needed air when the man rose from his chest. When Kíli sat up and looked around, the scene had changed completely over the course of a few moments. His wounded cheek had been ripped open once more, the two Dwarves lay on the ground, one dead and one trembling in pain, nursing a horrible gash across his face. The man he had fought and the bald man had stood back, and a crowd had gathered around them. Kíli thought he could see Beidon in the background, enjoying the show just like the rest of them, but another figure soon stole Kíli's attention.
There, a few steps in front of the others, stood a woman dressed in a tight leather outfit, rolling up a blooded whip. She smiled softly down at Kíli, a smile so poisonous and evil he couldn't believe he didn't drop dead right there and then. Her eyes still penetrated him like spears, equally deadly.
It was Dariah.
"Don't hurt this one too much," she said with a sharp voice, nothing like how she had spoken to Kíli back in Ewardor. She pulled the whip through her closed hand to remove the blood from it. "He will be very useful to us alive."
Then, just like that, she was gone. Kíli remained on the ground, watching her as she walked away and vanished, shocked beyond belief. Part of him refused to believe that this was the same woman he had so quickly befriended back home, who he had practiced with, spoken to and followed. But those eyes of hers were unmistakable. Once he had looked into their intensity with delight. Now, when thinking about them, Kíli felt the sting of her whip crush his heart, his honor along with it.
"I trusted her," he thought, tears of denial springing to his eyes. "She was so... And I came with her. She was part of this all along. Was this her plan from the beginning? Did she get to know me just so that I would make an easier target? What if she--"
For a horrifying moment, Kíli feared that maybe the kidnappers had gotten Fíli, too. Dariah had seen his brother several times, and he had been all alone in the stable when Kíli had run off with her. It was incredibly hard, but Kíli decided that he couldn't afford thinking about Fíli right now since he could do nothing to help him if he indeed was here.
The bald man threw the shovel on the ground in front of Kíli. "Get moving, Dwarf-filth," he hissed, then went on to lifting the injured Dwarf to his feet and pushing him towards the body.
"I'll have to play along," Kíli thought, praying for Mahal to help him get through this.
Together, Kíli and the injured Dwarf, quite skinny and small for a grown male, with curly hair and a long beard the color of strawberries, lifted the body of the elderly Dwarf and carried it to where the Men lead them. When they had found a well-hidden spot behind a cliff face, they ordered the two Dwarves to start digging.
As he worked, Kíli observed his surroundings. The caravan had come to set up camp on a mountainside field, with sparse spots of grass, the rest just bare rock and earth. The mountains rose high into the dark sky all around them, with the mist and clouds hanging like a roof far above their heads. Kíli figured they were somewhere in the Blue Mountains, but they couldn't be too far up or the clouds would be closer to them. When he looked to the camp, he could make out more than a dozen wagons, and more men and women than he could keep count of. His heart felt heavy. He had thought about making a run for it. Now it all felt useless. If even half of these Men were as good fighters as Dariah, he would never be able to escape alive.
Kíli banished the fears from his mind. He couldn't give up, he just had to stay strong and make it through until he got a chance to escape. And surely, if his brother were not among the kidnapped Dwarves, then Fíli would certainly be out there looking for him. Thorin would, too.
It gave Kíli hope remembering this. He just had to be patient. His life depended on it.
It really felt like a fire blazing in his stomach, its flames climbing up his throat all the way to his mouth, burning with an agonizing intensity. Every breath was torture, only fueling the fire. Kíli fell into a coughing fit, so painful he thought he'd black out again. Someone patted his back as to help stop the coughing, and eventually it did. Kíli remained on the damp wooden floor, exhausted and panting, as the hand continued to stroke his hair.
Kíli looked up to see who his guardian angel was, half expecting to see the deep blue eyes of Dariah. It was very dark, only strands of cold light beaming through whatever walls surrounded them. However, Kíli could clearly make out that the owner of the comforting hand was a Dwarf, blond braids falling from his head.
"You're not Fíli," said Kíli, or at least that's what he intended to say. The gurgling sounds that came instead were impossible to understand, and the pain was enormous.
The blond Dwarf leaned forward so that a little more light fell into his wrinkled, bearded face. He had tender, golden eyes, but the skin was baggy and dirty, his cheekbones sticking out way too far for a normal Dwarf. The elderly helped Kíli into sitting position and put a finger over his lips. Kíli understood what he meant.
"Whatever they had me drink, I'm not meant to talk," he thought, feeling a bit disabled.
The thought startled Kíli and the memories flooded him. Dariah had come to see him, and he had ran off from home with her. They had been attacked. He remembered dark cloaked figures, Men by the size of them. He had struggled to breathe and then the attackers had forced something down his throat that burned. He remembered Dariah calling out for them not to hurt him. Someone had hit him over the head, let go so that he fell on his face on the path and the next thing he knew he woke up here.
Kíli's hand went to his face, one of the many places that hurt now that he had gotten used to the burn in his chest. The left cheek was ripped open, dried blood covering it. His left shoulder felt displaced, although he could still move it. He felt sore and utterly weak, as if he hadn't eaten anything in days. He probably hadn't, since his stomach felt turned inside out.
As Kíli's eyes got used to the sparse light, he found himself surrounded by faces. The little space, which he figured was a wagon of sorts, was crammed with Dwarves, all of whom were much older than Kíli. Some of them he recognized from Ewardor, like one of Oin the Apothecary's apprentices and a merchant from town. They all looked the same way Kíli felt — starved, bruised and scared. Some looked at him with pity, perhaps because he was so young compared to them.
A sound from beyond the wooden walls caught Kíli's attention. Over the noise of gravel and whining wheals, he could make out two voices, both male, whispering loudly to one another.
"How much farther do you think we'll need to go tonight?"
"As far away from that last farm we raided as we can, I guess."
There was a long silence, in which Kíli had plenty of time to imagine what raiding a farm could imply.
He leaned against the wall where he sat, looking around. The wagon was quite big, nothing a pony or even a small horse could pull. There were one window on each side, too high up to reach, covered with bars. New thoughts began to swirl through Kíli's head. He was looking upon the inside of one of the mysterious wagons from the caravan. Suddenly, it all became clear to him — why the travelers had acted so disrespectful towards Dwarves, why Beidon had stared him down after Kíli had gazed at the wagons, the attack on him and Dariah...
Before Kíli could make the final conclusion, the voices from outside started talking again.
"Seriously, I'm starving here. When are we setting up camp?"
"Shut up, Dorthan," the second voice snapped. "Do you want us to be discovered!?"
The first voice laughed. "Who would be so foolish as to try and follow us up he—"
Smack! The sound of skin hitting skin was so intense that Kíli could feel the blow to his own cheek. All pain was forgotten, though, when a new, female voice silenced the others.
"You will do best in keeping quiet or I will gladly feed your flesh to the Dwarves when we do set up camp."
Kíli felt a chill down his spine and crept up against the wall, pulling his knees tight to his chest while listening to the two male voices bickering quietly. He couldn't hear the woman anymore.
A cough and a groan of agony came from Kíli's right, from an elderly Dwarf resting on the shoulder of a younger male. The elderly looked as pale as moonlight, with dark stains of dried blood around his mouth. He coughed again, twisting and turning as the pain from his sore throat tormented him. More blood stained his face and beard, mixing with tears of pain.
One of the kidnappers hit his hand against the outside of the wagon. "Quiet in there!"
The younger Dwarf let the older one lay to rest in his lap, but the coughing fit would not end. As Kíli watched helplessly, blood started pouring from the elderly's mouth, his body shaking in convulsion. The younger tried desperately to help him, looking around with tear-filled eyes at the other Dwarves, asking silently for someone to help him. Oin's apprentice, whose name Kíli could not remember, sprawled over and started patting the elderly's back just as Kíli's blond guardian had comforted him. Kíli looked over to said Dwarf, and his distress seemed mirrored in the older's golden eyes. Turning back to the scene in the back of the wagon, Oin's apprentice seemed to have given up, knowing that there was nothing he could do in here to treat the injuries caused by the burning potion they'd all been given.
Three more loud bangs rocked the wagon. "Quiet, Dwarf-scum!"
"Silence them," Kíli heard a female command them, but it wasn't the same woman as before — he thought he recognized this voice though.
Before he could think about it, the wagon came to an abrupt halt and a door flew open in the back of it. Two vicious-looking Men stood there and scanned each Dwarf with their cruel eyes. When they found the source of the coughing, they climbed up into the wagon, pushed aside any Dwarf in their way and then pulled the elderly from the younger Dwarf's arms. The younger tried to call out, but only hissing sounds would come. He tried to get a grip around one of the Men's legs, but was instead kicked in the face and left bleeding on the floor beside Oin's healer apprentice.
Kíli felt rage bubble up inside him and made to rise up against the Men, but his golden guardian held him back. Kíli fought his hold briefly, but then saw the truth in the older Dwarf's eyes as clearly as if he had spoken the words.
"You won't be able to fight them. You'll only get the same treatment."
Outside the wagon, the elderly Dwarf had been thrown onto the ground, still shaking and coughing blood. Through the small door Kíli could see several pairs of Man legs standing around the Dwarf, probably watching him suffer. Then, without further due, one of the Men stepped forward and ran a sword through the Dwarf's chest.
Every Dwarf in the wagon flinched in shock, Kíli holding back a scream he knew would only make the situation worse. When the elderly Dwarf had stopped twitching and lay motionless and bleeding on the ground, the man removed his blade and motioned for the two vicious-looking Men to remove his victim.
"We don't have time to bury it. Just throw it in with the rest and we'll deal with it later."
The body was tossed mercilessly into the wagon, knocking down three Dwarves. The door flew shut and soon the wagon started moving again. The people outside gave no second thought to what was going on inside the wagon, as long as their captives remained silent. It sickened Kíli, knowing how little they cared. He had seen bar brawls and fights, but never war. And he had never had to witness brutality at this level. It had shaken him, and now he knew not what to do. Oin's healer apprentice had checked on the elderly Dwarf, now lying on the dirty floor with the younger Dwarf crying silently over his blood-soaked body. Kíli could not help but watch, frozen to the bone in terror.
"Who could do something like that?"
The question burned in his heart. He had always listened intently to the stories of orcs and goblins that uncle Thorin had told them when their mother was away. Their cruelty and malice was unequaled, Thorin had said. Now, Kíli was not so sure.
Two hours later, that felt like days to Kíli, the wagon train finally came to a stop. The Dwarves that had somehow managed to fall asleep were startled awake. Then they waited. There was a long while, many long and angsty minutes in which the silenced Dwarves didn't even dare to breathe, before the doors to the wagon flew open once more and the two vicious Men showed their faces again.
"Three of you, out here," he first one ordered, a scornful smile on his lips. "We've got work for you."
Nobody moved even an inch. The second man, more hot-tempered than the first, stepped into the wagon, towering over his captives to scare them into submission. "Well, who's gonna volunteer?"
Kíli, who had sat frozen in the same curled-up position since the unexpected execution, flew to his feet, ready to defend himself on reflex. Of course, he was immediately a subject of the Men's plans. Kíli's golden guardian tried to make him sit down, but it was too late. The man stepped forward, grabbed Kíli's tunic as he tried to back away and threw the young Dwarf out the wagon door with unexpected ease. Kíli landed roughly on the ground, which to his would-be relief was covered in grass and not stone, but was quickly pulled to his feet by the second man. The man, head as bald as Dwalin's but without the tattoos, glared down at Kíli like he was dirt, then threw a shovel into his arms. Kíli looked at the tool, not knowing what to think. The man pointed at something behind the young Dwarf, who turned around.
Two more Dwarves had been pulled out of the wagon, each carrying their own shovel. On the ground lay the body of the elderly Dwarf, now drained of all color and warmth.
Kíli's mind raced. "They are going to force us to bury one of our own, one who they killed!?"
He would not. He was a Dwarf, and more importantly he was of the Durin line. He would not disgrace himself by being a part of the defiling of his people. Kíli shot a warning glare at the two Men, so defiant that he hoped it would unnerve them. Then he gathered whatever strength there was left in his body and shoved the shovel so hard into the bald man's abdomen it sent the man flying backwards. A Dwarf's strength is not to be underestimated, but young and naive as he was and weakened from hunger, Kíli made the mistake of overestimating it. He hurled himself at the bald man's accomplice, knocking them both to the ground, and started hitting at him with the shaft of the shovel. But the man overpowered him, turning over on the ground so that his full weight came to rest on Kíli's chest, choking him. One of the other Dwarves tried to help by hitting the man in the face with his shovel. The other Dwarf made a run for it.
He didn't get far before a throwing knife had been planted in his neck, killing him before he even hit the ground.
"Stop!" called a female voice, but it wasn't the same one as earlier.
Kíli gasped for much-needed air when the man rose from his chest. When Kíli sat up and looked around, the scene had changed completely over the course of a few moments. His wounded cheek had been ripped open once more, the two Dwarves lay on the ground, one dead and one trembling in pain, nursing a horrible gash across his face. The man he had fought and the bald man had stood back, and a crowd had gathered around them. Kíli thought he could see Beidon in the background, enjoying the show just like the rest of them, but another figure soon stole Kíli's attention.
There, a few steps in front of the others, stood a woman dressed in a tight leather outfit, rolling up a blooded whip. She smiled softly down at Kíli, a smile so poisonous and evil he couldn't believe he didn't drop dead right there and then. Her eyes still penetrated him like spears, equally deadly.
It was Dariah.
"Don't hurt this one too much," she said with a sharp voice, nothing like how she had spoken to Kíli back in Ewardor. She pulled the whip through her closed hand to remove the blood from it. "He will be very useful to us alive."
Then, just like that, she was gone. Kíli remained on the ground, watching her as she walked away and vanished, shocked beyond belief. Part of him refused to believe that this was the same woman he had so quickly befriended back home, who he had practiced with, spoken to and followed. But those eyes of hers were unmistakable. Once he had looked into their intensity with delight. Now, when thinking about them, Kíli felt the sting of her whip crush his heart, his honor along with it.
"I trusted her," he thought, tears of denial springing to his eyes. "She was so... And I came with her. She was part of this all along. Was this her plan from the beginning? Did she get to know me just so that I would make an easier target? What if she--"
For a horrifying moment, Kíli feared that maybe the kidnappers had gotten Fíli, too. Dariah had seen his brother several times, and he had been all alone in the stable when Kíli had run off with her. It was incredibly hard, but Kíli decided that he couldn't afford thinking about Fíli right now since he could do nothing to help him if he indeed was here.
The bald man threw the shovel on the ground in front of Kíli. "Get moving, Dwarf-filth," he hissed, then went on to lifting the injured Dwarf to his feet and pushing him towards the body.
"I'll have to play along," Kíli thought, praying for Mahal to help him get through this.
Together, Kíli and the injured Dwarf, quite skinny and small for a grown male, with curly hair and a long beard the color of strawberries, lifted the body of the elderly Dwarf and carried it to where the Men lead them. When they had found a well-hidden spot behind a cliff face, they ordered the two Dwarves to start digging.
As he worked, Kíli observed his surroundings. The caravan had come to set up camp on a mountainside field, with sparse spots of grass, the rest just bare rock and earth. The mountains rose high into the dark sky all around them, with the mist and clouds hanging like a roof far above their heads. Kíli figured they were somewhere in the Blue Mountains, but they couldn't be too far up or the clouds would be closer to them. When he looked to the camp, he could make out more than a dozen wagons, and more men and women than he could keep count of. His heart felt heavy. He had thought about making a run for it. Now it all felt useless. If even half of these Men were as good fighters as Dariah, he would never be able to escape alive.
Kíli banished the fears from his mind. He couldn't give up, he just had to stay strong and make it through until he got a chance to escape. And surely, if his brother were not among the kidnapped Dwarves, then Fíli would certainly be out there looking for him. Thorin would, too.
It gave Kíli hope remembering this. He just had to be patient. His life depended on it.