for all the gold || hobbit {completed}

chapter sixteen - i see fire

"We have no time; we must leave." The she-elf stalked back into the house. As if the cries from outside were not enough to get us moving.

"Get him up," Bofur called out, as Fili moved across to his brother, still laid out on the bargeman's kitchen table. Taking advantage of the distraction, I snatched the whiskey bottle from Bofur's hand and took another long swig of it. With a dragon incoming, I needed all the courage I could get. This long night was only going to get longer- that was if we made it through to dawn.

"Come on, brother." Fili began to help his brother up off of the table, but Kili only shook him off.

"I'm fine," he snapped. "I can walk." And indeed he could. Compared to how he had been an hour before, the fact he could even stand unaided was a miracle in itself.

"Fast as you can," the she-elf continued to nag; not that we needed the encouragement. Having decided to bring the bottle along with me, I made my way across the room and began to sort through our other things, grabbing the few items of clothing I had picked up from the Master's house. A thick cloak and some rusty pauldrons were hardly going to keep a burst of dragon flame off, but it was worth a try. It was hardly as if I had much option on the matter.

"We're not leaving!" The bargeman's lad was the only one of us willing to stand up to the she-elf, all earlier respect for her orc-slaying prowess long gone. "Not without our father."

"If you stay here, your sisters will die," the she-elf replied, bluntly, as if she wasn't standing right in front of the bargeman's two daughters. "Is that what your father would want?"

Grabbing up the rest of our group's things- cloaks mainly and Oin's medical things- I carried them over to the door and threw them down into the boat below. Out on the canal, people were already on the move, climbing into their own little wherries and barges and bringing out all of their own worldly possessions. The bells were still toiling; shouts continued to ring out from all around. Above the general din however came a deep grumble from the skies, one that momentarily silenced the noisy town as every face turned upwards.

"Look!" One woman exclaimed from just below our balcony. Looking up, I too saw just what had caught her gaze: a winged shadow, sweeping across the night sky, and not very far away at all. My stomach only sunk further.

"Come on!" Spinning around, I shouted to the others through the open doorway. "We've got to go. Now!"

If the she-elf was surprised by my sudden support for her nagging, she didn't show it. Rather she just herded the bargeman's daughters, both now heavily cloaked, to the door and down the steps to the small platform below. Then followed the bargeman's reluctant son and then my own fellow dwarves.

"Have we got everything?" I called out, as the others made their way down to the boat. Being the last one down, I thought to give the room one final scan. Just in case. The front room of the house having been trashed in the orc attack, it was difficult to guess just what valuables were being left behind among all the shattered wood and crockery. Then again, with the dragon's attack imminent, perhaps not saving anything other than ourselves was for the best.

"My doll!" The bargeman's younger daughter cried out, just as I joined the others already piling into the boat. Sitting up, she looked about herself in a panic.

"We haven't got time," the she-elf said, still as blunt as before. She was already in the boat and, to my annoyance, at its bow.

"But I can't leave her behind!" Already the girl was on her feet and looking set to climb out.

"Da will get you another one," her sister tried to reassure her. "You can't go back now. We've got to leave."

"It won't be the same one," the girl wailed. "Ma made it for me. It's the last thing I have of her."