More Than Meets the Eye

Chapter Twenty-Three

Arielle didn't miss the way Thorin's fingers tightened about hers as they stood at the foot of the rocky outcropping that led to the fortress of Ravenhill above. She looked over at him, the wind catching her hair to blow it across her face and she clawed it free to see him just staring up at the tower as if seeing ghost.

"We don't have to do this," she told him, turning to catch his hand between hers.

"I have to, Arielle." He didn't look at her, didn't take his eyes from the gray stone edifice rising through the mist. "I need to face it and to make peace with it and I cannot do that from Erebor."

"You could have brought Miss Caisys here. Didn't you say she asked you to?"

"She did not want to hear the truth about what happened, about what I chose to let happen. She wanted to hear tales of war glory and war is anything but glorious. It's vile and wasteful and it still shames me I chose it because of my own personal greed. If I told her that, I've no doubt she'd have told me I'd chosen wisely, that the treasure hoard should have remained mine and mine alone, and by my marrying her, she'd have access to it as well."

"I don't understand that," she told him, catching another handful of hair to drag away from her eyes. "I know you, you aren't greedy or a war hawk."

He looked over at her then and shook his head. "I wasn't the same dwarf then that you see now."

"What happened?"

He gestured toward the fortress with his free hand. "I'll tell you on the way."

"Very well. Lead on."

They began moving once more and he said, "I was still a young man when Smaug came, not quite a boy but not much older. He was here for a century and a half, sleeping on the treasure hoard of Thrór for a good portion of that time."

"I've heard the stories from those who survived the first attack," she told him, watching her steps as they mounted slick steps carved into the rock. "Dale was destroyed as well, they said. And Erebor was taken and you and your people were left without a home."

"We were. I earned my keep as a blacksmith, believe it or not, and wherever I could find work, I did. In time, we all settled in Ered Luin—the Blue Mountains, which is how Belle came to know Dis. And when the Company and I returned here for Durin's Day last, that hoard had been tainted. Badly. Dragon sickness, you know. It drove me into a sort of madness for a while and that's when I invited war to Erebor." His fingers tightened about hers again, but only briefly. "Watch your step, the next few stones were badly damaged in battle."

They reached the top, over looking a low courtyard of sorts, rectangular in shape and ringed with a high stone wall, with more steps carved into it. The earth was slowly reclaiming it, however, with grass and weeds springing up between the stones of the floor, in the ivy winding along the wall and the base of the first circular tower. The wind whistled along softly, as if welcoming them and beckoning them closer.

"Here, I stood with Dwalin and Fili and Kili and I sent them to scout that tower. Told them to keep low. To avoid engagement and to get their butts back to me if they ran into trouble of any sort." He let go of her hand and stepped away, pointing off to the north. "An army of goblins descended but goblins are easy targets—vicious, but slow and stupid— and Dwalin and I dispatched them in quick time.

"But, what I didn't know was that Azog wasn't alone. His son, Bolg, had come from the north and trapped us." He turned toward the tower. "The Defiler ran Fili through up there. Kili was down around the far side, where he met up with Bolg. But we were lucky. A Woodland she-elf, Tauriel, and Thranduíl's son were nearby. Tauriel's quick thinking saved Kili, saved Fili, and eventually," he looked over at her, "saved me."