The Last of the Guardians Part 2 - A Hobbit Fan Fiction

Chapter 22 - Kingsfoil

Kili's brow was burning up. Sweat beaded on his skin and soaked through his tunic.

With a gentle hand, Fili dipped the cloth into the bowl of ice water and held it to his brother's forehead. "There now, little brother. Everything is going to be alright." A fierce tremor ran up and down Kili's body, as if in answer to Fili's lie.

Nothing was going to be alright. Their uncle was gone with the rest of the company to enter the mountain without them. A dragon most likely lay in wait beneath those stone halls, ready to burn them off the face of the earth. Fili could see it in his mind's eye the fellow dwarves he so cared about, whom he had come to see as his extended family, killed in one fiery breath.

And he would be powerless to help them.

Kili's hand shot up to grip Fili's arm as another spasm rocked his body. It hurt - Fili felt his arm growing numb but he did not attempt to pry his brother's fingers away. Kili's pain was greater than his own, and Fili was determined to suffer it along with him. He would not leave him alone, not for a second.

"What's happening to him?" He asked, throwing a fearful look at Oin as a gasp ripped itself from Kili's throat.

Oin had been cutting away the cloth around Kili's wound so he could get a better look at it. The leg of his breeches was sopping wet with sweat and dark blood. "Those orcs poisoned their arrows," the older dwarf replied, trying to wipe away the worst of the blood so he could get to it's source. "If it was just the wound giving him trouble I could fix him up fine but poison is different. I can't do anything without the right herbs and I lost all those when the elves caught us."

Frustration filled Fili's heart. He turned his gaze back to watch the pain etch itself across his brother's face. If only Nema was here, he thought bitterly. She had healed him, so why not his brother too?

His heart began to beat out a tense rhythm at the thought of her, and so he tried to push her out of his head. She did not love him, and thinking of her when his brother needed him would help no one.

"What is it you need?" Bofur asked. His hat was askew and his face was flushed from running back and forth fetching fresh water to clean Kili's wound. "Maybe Bard knows where we can get our hands on some."

The man at the window flinched at the sound of his name. He had been lost in his angry thoughts, glaring through the glass at the windlance, its body illuminated by the moon. Beyond it loomed the mountain, shrouded in darkness.

"Kingsfoil," said Oin. "I need kingsfoil."

Bard shrugged, not taking his eyes off the windlance. "It's a weed. We feed it to the pigs."

"The pigs?" Bofur set a new bowl of clean water on the bedside table and hurried to the door. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He darted down the rickety stairs and into the cold night.

Through the open door, Fili glimpsed the hulking form of the mountain. Its tallest peak was so high it pierced the moon. For a moment, Fili's mind wandered from Laketown to Erebor, through the secret door, down into the great halls of his forefathers. 

But then the door swung back to clatter in its frame, cutting off Fili's view of the mountain. His mind was thrust back across the lake and into Bard's house, where he felt his brother's hand clenching tighter around his arm. 

He almost cried out, but the look on his brother's face as he turned back stole the air from his chest. Kili's brow was so low and so furrowed with pain it was all Fili could do to not look away. His mouth was twisting in a beastly way, his lips parting to bare clenched teeth before mashing together again. But his eyes were what held Fili's heart with a grip so tight it could barely beat.