Of Dragons, Dwobbits and Dwarves

Chapter Forty-One

Fili sighed and stopped in his tracks, digging the heel of one hand into his left eye as if he could physically push the headache currently residing there out.

I don't think that's how it works, Syrath's voice informed him, and Fili scowled.

"I'm a Crown Prince," he muttered, "it should do as I say."

"What was that, your Highness?" One of his guards straightened from where he'd been crouched a few feet away.

I think Bilba has been a bad influence on you, Syrath broke in, and Fili snorted.

You're one to talk, he sent back before turning to the guard to say, "Nothing."

They were all exhausted, but he hadn't heard a single person complain and certainly wasn't going to be the one to start.

The guard nodded and turned back to the corpse he'd been in the process of lifting, not that removing it would make much difference in the massive pile of bodies littering the slopes and valley of Mordor.

From where he stood on the slope, just under the wreckage of the ledge where Gothmog had met his end, all he could see were the dead. The battle had been brutal, and hadn't ended when Morgoth died.

It had become easier, though.

The orcs must have been able to sense the death somehow because, at the moment it happened, discord and chaos had erupted in the ranks. The organization the orcs had shown to that moment had collapsed and many had simply fled, or tried to. The rest had tried to fight, but hadn't gotten far.

The orcs hadn't been the only ones to receive word of Morgoth's death. With communication restored, word had been passed back from Erebor. The news had given the forces of Middle Earth the second wind they needed, while the tapering off of the rainstorm had given the dragons back their fire.

The orcs, exhausted and demoralized, had stood no chance and the fight had soon turned into a rout.

After that, all that was left was the cleanup.

A rush of air swooped by overhead and Fili looked up to see a dragon carrying another load of orc corpses to dump down the ruined crown of the mountain. The stone had long since stopped shaking, and the molten rock had stopped flowing, but a veritable lake of it still ran deep within and was more than adequate to handle the mass of dead orcs and the vermin they called dragons.

The others who had died were being burned on pyres. There was no possible way to transport them back to Erebor before decay set in, especially not when a second mountain of dead already waited there. Instead they were laid out respectfully and burned, a grim activity that had already been going on for the better part of a week now. The pyres lined the valley below, smoke giving an acrid sting to the air that caused his eyes to sting and his throat to burn.

Fili didn't know what was worse, the stench of burning flesh or the smell of the dead they hadn't yet reached, but he did know that both would be haunting his sleep for a very long time.

Shaking off his torpor, he trudged on toward another mound of bodies, to begin the long process of sorting, and identifying if possible, before they were consigned to the pyres. Rings, necklaces, weapons and other potentially sentimental items were removed first in the hopes they could be returned to loved ones.

Fili knelt stiffy, grimacing as his sore knees sank into the thick mud and glop still covering the area. The rain had been heavy, and the ground unwilling to soak it up leaving most of the battlefield covered in a thick layer of mud mixed with blood. Bits of broken armor and other debris littered it, forcing them to wear full armor in order to search. It was an added burden on an already exhausted army, but one they were shouldering in silence.