𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 || 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐁 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐊

ɴᴜ'-sᴀsᴇᴋʜ

The Fellowship walked on for an unknowable length of time, always resting for only a few short minutes, and sleeping just once more in the darkness of Moria.

On what Robb assumed to be their third day, they reached a giant hall, of which Robb could see neither walls nor ceiling when they entered it.

“Let me risk a little more light,” Gandalf whispered, tapping his staff on the floor.
For just a brief moment, a blazing light lit up the room before dimming a little.

Robb gasped—and he was not the only one. This sight was truly amazing.
Mighty pillars of stone upheld the ceiling, which was far, far above their heads. Before them lay a huge hall, empty save for the pillars, with black walls that were polished and smooth as glass. It stretched on farther than Robb could see, and he did not think the dark was to blame in this case.

When Gandalf spoke, his voice—though quiet—echoed throughout the room.

“Behold! The great realm and Dwarf-city of Dwarrowdelf.”

“Well, there’s an eye opener, and no mistake!” Sam exclaimed.

They made their way across the hall much more slowly than they had moved before, both cautious and admiring, until—

“NO!”

To their right was a set of doors, smashed in, with black arrows embedded in the timbers. Half-rotten corpses littered the doorway. Gimli had taken off to the room beyond; a chamber with a white block of stone in its middle, lit by a narrow shaft of sunlight coming from a small hole near the ceiling. Robb caught a glimpse of a well in the far left corner, and… more corpses. Dozens of them.

Gandalf called for Gimli to return to their group, but it was too late.

“No,” the Dwarf sobbed, falling to his knees in front of the slab of stone. “No, oh no!”

The Fellowship cautiously entered the chamber behind him, Gandalf walking up to stand by Gimli’s shoulder.

“Here lies Balin, son of Fundin,” he said quietly, and Robb realized he was reading out the runic inscriptions on the stone, “Lord of Moria.”

So it was a tomb. Robb closed his eyes.

“He is dead, then. It is as I feared.”

The company spread further around the room, silent in their sympathy for Gimli and, Robb was sure, in their own mourning. The Hobbits kept close to Grey Wind, as they had for the entirety of their time in Moria, and in doing so, kept close to Robb.

“We must move on,” Legolas whispered to Aragorn, and Robb silently agreed. Nobody could know where the Orcs had gone, how far away they were. “We cannot linger.”

Gandalf began to read aloud again. He had handed his hat and staff to Pippin, before crouching down and opening a book that rested in the skeletal hands of a dead Dwarf. A few pages fluttered to the ground.

“They have taken the bridge and the second hall,” Gandalf recited. “We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums… drums in the deep.”

Robb closed his eyes, swallowed. Was this how Bran and Rickon had felt? They, and everyone else in Winterfell?

“We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming.”

A resounding crash rang through the room. Robb whipped around.

There was Pippin, standing beside the well, his eyes closed tightly and twitching at every clang. Next to him, an armoured skeleton was crumbling down the shaft of the well. It pulled a metal-fitted bucket and its chain down with it.