Chapter Text
--Now--
"Uncle?"
The call came from back the way they had come. Back into the darkness.
As one, they ground to a stop, silent and still, straining to hear.
"Thorin!"
"Fíli?" Thorin gasped, moving back a few paces in the direction of the voice, before Bilbo managed to grab him.
"Don't," he cautioned.
"Thorin? Where are you?" The call echoed strangely; hollow and without direction, trailing off at the end.
"That's Kíli," Thorin said, straining slightly against Bilbo's grip. Dori moved to grasp his other shoulder.
"You know it isn't them, Thorin," Bilbo said, and he tried to be gentle, but he knew his tone was harsh. They had done this to them before.
Two levels down it had been Dwalin.
Navigating a tricky network of indoor roads and residences, it had been Bifur, calling for his cousins.
The crossroads way back, it had been Fíli again.
"It's not them," Bilbo hissed, yanking on Thorin's hair harshly. "And if you call to them, they will find us."
"They will find us anyway," Thorin said hoarsely. "They always find us."
"Fíli and Kíli would never want you to jeopardise the safety of the Company for them," Bilbo insisted, forcing himself not to flinch at the gutted expression he put on Thorin's face. "We must continue."
Thorin seemed almost incapable of anything, let alone ordering them forward, face torn in grief, and Bilbo allowed himself the luxury of cradling that face in his hands, coaxing Thorin's head down low enough to brace his forehead against Bilbo's, forcing their eyes to meet and take his attention off the occasional calls.
"We don't know their fate. They could be fine. They could be waiting for you to come and rescue them. But we can do nothing for them while these things pursue us still. We must be rid of them, before we can find the lads, and the rest of our Company. We must go on, Thorin. We must."
Thorin's eyes fell closed, and he stood silent for his harsh, unsteady breaths for a long moment. The others stayed silent also, gathering around and backing into the two, offering what comfort they could while staying ever watchful for signs they had been found.
At last, Thorin nodded, blinking back tears and straightening again.
"Yes, you are right. We'll go back, after, and find them. We'll find all of them."
Bilbo nodded numbly, letting his thumbs swipe just once over those beloved cheeks and then let his hands fall, stepping back and taking his place as they reformed their watchful circle, ignoring the almost sing-song calls echoing with a call for Uncle.
"We'll take the stairs on the right up along here, and there is a stately dwelling at the top of the rise. On the third floor is a window overlooking a chasm, and a wall and courtyard beyond. If we can jump to there, we can cut out much travel. The passages leading to the Zarârgharâf are at the end of the next lot." Thorin took a deep breath, gathering himself, and nodding once more to Bilbo. "Let's move."
--Then--
When they managed to barrel into the treasury, it was almost anti-climatic. The others were all where they had left them, rifling through gold, pacing and muttering, or sitting dejected and uncertain in corners. All present and accounted for.
It was a little odd, really, considering their terrifying dash from the library, but here they all were, unconcerned and quietly playing in the gold. Bombur still tiredly rifling, Glóin still angrily muttering to himself, Dwalin still dejected and weary.
Thorin still perched on his little ledge, high above the others.
Bilbo had not seen wrongly, before, he realised.
"Thorin!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, seeing the shadowy outline atop the corbel behind where his Dwarrow-King stood, gaze far off and helpless, completely unaware of the danger behind him. Until Bilbo screamed, however, and he stepped forward, face twisting into an irritated glare. "Come down, quickly, Thorin!" Bilbo insisted, whimpering a little when Thorin hesitated.
For once, circumstances were kind to Bilbo, and Thorin jumped down from his high up ledge, and Bilbo saw the statue now, and it's sword, and almost collapsed under the weight of relief.
How much longer before his Thorin would have been lost to him by way of its cold hands?
The others must have sensed the urgency, because they were all converging on the two panting, ankle deep in gold, and Bilbo thought for sure that perhaps they could escape this mess they found themselves in.
Before he noticed that in the so very brief time since they had skidded into the treasury, a statue had appeared in every doorway around the wall, and a few had emerged from shadowy recesses about the place, all still and silent and watching as Bilbo turned in a horrified circle.
"Ori," Bilbo said faintly, and Ori reached to grab his hand again, clinging tight.
"I see them."
"What is the meaning of this?" Thorin demanded, stalking closer to them.
"The-" Bilbo tried, throat tight with renewed terror. "The statues"
Atop his perch in the corner, not far from them, Bifur gave a low anguished wail, rocking back and forth, and the others spun, taking in the statues around them, a good two dozen now, appearing when none looked, and sneaking forward when no gaze was upon them.
"What...?" Dwalin asked, gripping an axe tightly in his hand, spinning with the others.
"I knew it," Balin whispered, his mace gripped to him tightly, shaking all over. "I knew it. We are cursed. They will kill us all and haunt our halls forever!"
"What?" Thorin said, bewildered, turning in an unsteady circle. "I... I don't-"
"The statues, they are cursed," Ori said, and gasped when he saw one had managed to move closer. "We must leave!"
"But," Thorin said, even as he backed away from the encroaching statues. "I don't understand."
"The gold is cursed!" Bilbo shouted in frustration. "And we need to leave before the things kill us all!"
"Bifur, come down," Ori pleaded, motioning. The others were either in states of complete terror -Bifur and Balin, mostly- or bewilderment, the state of affairs mostly still quite a mystery to them. They needed to gather the silly buggers together and get out.
"Come on, Bif," Bofur said, and Bilbo could see things catching up with him, the dour blankness draining away to a building fear.
"They've cut us off from all the exits," Dwalin cried, and there was the panic, now they were getting it.
"The armoury," Thorin said, grabbing for the lads, and yanking them backwards. "To the armoury!"
"It's all decorative armour!" Bilbo cried, but moved with the lot of them, letting Ori tug him down in a cascade of coins, jeweled chains wrapping around his ankles as he stumbled through the treasure, trusting Ori to guide him after the others so he could try and keep an eye on the surrounding stone Dwarrows.
"There's no such thing as useless armour when a Dwarrow does the forging," Glóin roared, yanking him through the door. Bifur barrelled in behind him, and they shut the door, barring it with a giant piece of dislodged stone. Bilbo grabbed a funny stone statue that was apparently used for displaying some of these armour bits on, and with Nori's help, yanked it to wedge with the lump of stone, just in time for a massive crunch to come, as if much weight had barrelled against the door all at once.
The others were arming themselves up, yanking on the best of the armour and taking down great axes and hammers.
"Do you really think any of that is going to do any good?" Bilbo asked incredulously. "They're stone!"
"Those few broke when we collapsed the shelves down onto them, and the two were knocked down broke easy enough," Ori reminded him, taking up a massive spiked hammer set with gleaming, blood red stones. Bilbo would be worried about the massive weapon next to the comparatively small Dwarf, but he'd seen Ori with Dwalin's war hammer several times since the goblin tunnels, and, well. Like the lad had said before, Ori grew up with Dori. Tough in a tiny shell did not even begin to cover it.
"Bilbo," Thorin said, pushing through them, and Bilbo could not help the great deep sigh of relief to see that Thorin had stripped off his Grandfather's armour, and was donning serviceable black leather jerkin and vambraces- serviceable, yes, though it sported some very fancy silver-and-shiny-stone studwork.
"That's not enough," Bilbo insisted, tugging at the leathers. "Very nice, but not thick enough to fend off a blow from a great stone axe or something like that."
"Never mind that," Thorin said, but his tone was fond, expression soft. "We must get you outfitted."
"What do I need armour for?" Bilbo demanded, glad he'd decided to wear his short elvish dagger to the Library. None of the weapons in here were very... petite. They all looked frightfully heavy. Not that he was sure he would be able to do anything about an enemy made of stone.
"Do you want to see whether a stone Dwarf dagger stabs just as well as a steel one?" Thorin asked in exasperation, holding a slinky, pretty looking shirt up to him. "Take this."
Bilbo eyed it dubiously. It was indeed very pretty.... but very thin. Almost see through!
"I... don't know if that will help?" he said helplessly, and nearby Óin snorted loud enough to sound as if his lungs were escaping his nose.
"It will do wonders," Óin said. "Best armour in the whole mountain, right there."
"It's see through."
"It's Sanzigil. Mithril, lad, True Silver! Ancient mined and forged in Moria. Nothing stronger in the whole mountain."
"Then Thorin should wear it!"
"It won't fit me," Thorin said, amused now, and did he already forget that they were being pursued by terrible monster dwarves? One would think that the pounding at the door would present a good reminder.
"Put it on Fíli, then! Or Ori!"
"That won't fit any of us," Fíli said impatiently. "Leave us out of this, and put the shirt on!"
"Leave you out of wha-" He was cut off when Dwalin yanked his jacket off from behind and Thorin took that as permission to shove the shirt over his head, and Dwalin whipped his little sheath off while Bilbo was still spluttering and untangling himsef, almost taking Bilbo's pants with him. Bilbo righted himself best he could and let Thorin strap a brand new belt bit thingy (that was entirely too pretty to be funtional, surely? Were they pearls?) for his sheath back over the shirt.
"There. Was that so hard?" Thorin asked with no small amount of exasperation.
"And what about you?" Bilbo demanded, stamping his foot on the ground at the obstinate expression on the other's face.
"This is all very nice," Nori interrupted, "but we have to find a way out of this little room. We're surrounded by dead dwarves! How is this even possible?"
"There's a passage, at the back there," Thorin said, taking a mailshirt of many funny silver dagger-shapes from Dwalin and allowing his friend to assist him with getting it on. "That is why I brought us in here. It will take us up to the palatial residences, and from there, we can make our way to the main gate, and leave the mountain."
"We must leave, yes," Balin quavered. "Our dead. He's turned our dead against us!"
"Will somebody please explain what is going on now?" Bombur asked plaintively, a flail in one hand, and a club-like thing in the other. Bilbo really hoped he knew how to use them.
Ori slammed the books they had gathered on the table in front of him and started explaining what he and Bilbo had deciphered and discovered so far, but Bilbo tuned him out, watching Thorin. He hadn't seen this Thorin for so long. His face was alert, eyes focused, posture straight and tall, and finally out of that ridiculous gold costume and that horrible crown, hands sure as he strapped a sheathed Dwarven sword to his person. If Bilbo could just fix his hair, it might be like the real Thorin was returned to him. Them.
"May I fix your hair?" he asked plaintively, eyeing that dangling clasp again, and the room stopped, staring at him strangely. "It's all... messy," he finished lamely, blushing deeply.
"I..." Thorin trailed off, flustered, and flushed a deep dark red, gaze dropping.
"We do not have time for the two of you to be canoodling," Dori said impatiently, and Thorin shot Bilbo one soft look and shook his head and worked at fixing his own hair, braids quickly tightened and neatened and the great mane of black finger combed back into order. Bilbo felt his own expression soften exponentially at the transformation of his Dwarrow king, now looking more himself than Bilbo had seen him in a long time.
"So, we have a plan?" Ori asked. "Do you remember how to get... well, everywhere? Out?"
"As if I had never left," Thorin said emphatically, clipping his clasps back into place.
"And if we encounter the, the statues?" Kíli asked, voice wavering. "Mutilating the dead is... it's profane, uncle. I don't know if I can."
"You will," Fíli said grimly, before Thorin had a chance. "You will, because if you don't, they will kill you."
"But-"
"Allowing Smaug to slaughter the line of Durin with our dead is profane, too," Fíli said shortly. "And if you let them harm you, or our King, I will never forgive you."
Kíli stared helplessly at his brother for a long moment, before he nodded slowly, gaze falling, and the group moved back to donning the last of their gear. Thorin spared his nephews one long look of sorrow, before his expression hardened, resolute.
"Let's move out."
--Now--
They were breaking in. The doors were bowing in at the force pummelling them from the other side, and Glóin threw himself at the door, shoving his body at the door as it buckled and heaved.
"Hurry!" he bellowed at them, and Nori growled, hands trembling ever so slightly from where he struggled with the intricacies of dwarven puzzle locks.
The lanterns were flickering madly, and Bombur started to sob, throwing himself at the doors alongside Glóin, joined by Óin, while Dori and Ori strained to haul a massive stone table along to prop in place, and then even Thorin ran to help, leaving Bilbo to hold the lanterns for Nori, exchanging grim looks with Bofur, who was holding a pile of tools out for Nori to swap out where needed.
So close. They were so close. The holy places had indeed been all locked down when they got here, but not to the point of unmanageable according to their expert lock-picker, and they had made it through the initial entrances to the wide waiting hall, outside the main Zarârgharâf. Nori just needed time to get them into the next room, and then they could relock what Thorin had assured him had been some of the most secure doors in the mountain, and they could be safe for just a little while, and plan what they would do next.
He'd been at it for a goodly time when they had been discovered. Now, it was a race again, to try and escape their cursed pursuers.
"I've got it!" Nori suddenly crowed, and dipped his fingers into some sort of pigmented powder, smearing quick runes across the lock, that shimmered and then dulled, and the door clanked and boomed, and then fell silent, and Bofur paused in shoving tools away in a pouch to stare at the door. Nori shook his head.
"Just wait."
There was a click, and then another, and then a series of thud-like movements, and the doors slid very slowly open, but stilling when there was but a gap only two Dwarrows wide, not that Bilbo minded. It would be easier to shut them if they were not open very much, as Bilbo was astonished to realise that the door actually went all the way up to the cavernous ceiling, far, far overhead.
"Come on," Nori yelled, and he and Bofur ducked forward into the dark.
The lanterns sputtered, and half of them abruptly darkened.
"Thorin," Bilbo, well, meant to yell, though it came out on a breath of terror. "Quickly!" he managed, regaining his voice. "You must all come now!"
Bombur and Ori managed to get the heavy table into position, wedged as best they could, and made for where Bilbo stood, beckoning them forward. Thorin gave up trying to relight any of the lanterns while leaning against a buckling door, and shoved Glóin forward with him, to stumble through.
The door bounced in its frame, and the heavy table they had placed skidded a foot away from the force of it. All but one lantern died, the last in Bilbo's hand sputtering and flickering dangerously.
Dori halted in his mad dash for the Zarârgharâf door, almost falling with the sudden stop and turn, throwing himself back towards the buckling framework.
"Go!" he yelled, pushing the table back into place and holding it firm.
"No!" Nori yelled, running back out the doors towards them, and Ori grabbed him, hauling him back. "Let me go, Ori. Don't, Dori, don't!"
"Du Bekar!" Óin yelled suddenly, pitching himself back the other way to slam into the table beside Dori, when the braided Dwarf's boots slid on the floor with the effort. "Brother, keep our King safe!" he bellowed, straining with Dori to hold the door shut as it splintered and one of the hinges cracked and broke away/
"Don't be stupid!" Nori bellowed, even as Glóin sadly saluted his brother and yanked Thorin backwards through the door, and taking Bilbo with them by the hold Thorin refused to loose in Bilbo's jacket.
"Ori, take your brother!" Dori yelled as the last lantern went out, plunging them into darkness, and the pummelling on the door changed from many thumps, to one louder, harder crash, and the squeal of the table slowly sliding forward on the stone floor. "They're coming," Dori said in the dark. "Please. Go."
There was scuffling ahead of Bilbo, Nori and Ori whimpering as they came, and then the groaning of the doors slowly closing, the pummelling of the stone statues growing faint, and then disappearing. Across the room, Bofur managed to get a lantern lit.
Nobody said anything. What was there to say? Nori and Ori clung to each other, Nori turned away from them, but his shoulders were shaking. Glóin stood still and grim, leant against a nearby wall, gripping his axe tightly, his face white behind his fiery red beard. Thorin went to stand with him, face turned down in sorrow.
Bilbo wanted to leave them to rest and grieve, he really did. They had lost more of their family, and the pain in his chest was almost crippling with the pressure of wanting to scream the injustice of it, but. But.
There was no guarantee that they were completely safe, even here, and they were fast running out of time. The longer they lingered, the more of their family were lost, and Bilbo could not bear it anymore. He shook himself sharply, burying the tears and the grief deep and stepped forward, eyes of the remaining Dwarrow swivelling slowly to him.
"What do we have to do?"
--Then--
They bolted around the next corner, risking a mad dash over an exposed bridge to the other end, and down a long road-like area. They were tired and panting, but Thorin's pace picked up, though his grip on his sword tightened, the weapon coming up to proceed him as he went, and Bilbo copied the motion, weapon raised, though he rather doubted it would have any effect on great bloody stone soldiers!
"Almost there," Thorin said, pace increasing again, and Bilbo put everything he had into the running, cursing the darkness and his silly stumbling feet. Not much farther and they would be free of the mountain, from the darkness full of danger.
Around one more corner, and Thorin slowed, feet faltering as they approached the blank rock wall ahead, no tunnel or road running off the area. Bilbo swore. If Thorin had gotten them lost...
"It's a dead end. Did we come the wrong way?" Bilbo asked, spinning about himself. What was the point in a tunnel if it didn't go anywhere? "Thorin? Are we lost?"
Thorin was staring at the blank expanse of wall, though, with a look of complete and utter horror, hands only now coming up to pat along the surface, and then pummel it desperately with clenched fists.
"Oh no," he whispered in horror. "Oh no."
"What?" Bofur asked from the back of the group, eyes widening at the sight of Balin whimpering and falling to his knees, collapsing against the wall.
"No," Dwalin said, eyes darting back and forth between his brother and his king. "No, they can't have. They can't have!"
"Can't have done what?" Bilbo demanded, pushing his way forward to grasp Thorin's shoulder. "What? What is it?"
"We cannot get out," Thorin said bleakly. "The mountain has been closed to the outside. There is no way out."
The group fell silent, nothing but the unsteady rasp of Dwarrows regaining their breath to hear as they all tried to process what Thorin had said.
"What... we're trapped here?" Kíli asked, suddenly, and Fíli gave one harsh, incredulous bark of humourless laughter, and slid down against the wall like Balin, knees pulled up to his chest.
"But," Bilbo spluttered, stalking past Thorin to pat his hand along the sheer rock face, looking for, he did not even know, anything really, anything at all to indicate that they had come the wrong way, that perhaps there was a door, a sign that they were not completely and utterly doomed.
"But you said that there were barely any that could do such a thing! You said... oh no. You said that you could not reverse it," Bilbo whispered, horrified.
How would they leave the mountain if there was no way out of the mountain?
"I can't," Thorin confirmed raggedly. "I knew the rune spell, and I am Durin's line, so I could lock down our last defence, but... I have no idea how to open it again. Adad said once that it was quite different, and much more difficult. He talked of bearing the weight of the stone on one's shoulders, but, beside that, I know no more."
"Even I do not know how to do either," Balin said softly. "My father knew, but he never told me, us, any of it."
"What will we do now?" Ori demanded, pacing back and forth. "We cannot just sit here. We must keep moving, find another way out!"
"What about the secret door?" Fíli asked tentatively.
Thorin and Dwalin exchanged long glances.
"Perhaps?" Dwalin said tentatively. "We closed it to hide from Smaug, but it could be that we could open it anytime from this side."
"And then what?" Dori demanded. "We cannot leave the mountain filled with these things! And what of Smaug? He has not come back, but he may if we leave again."
"Perhaps he is dead," Bombur said. "And our dead will become... dead, again, in time?"
They exchanged dubious glances and Thorin shrugged when all gazes eventually turned to him.
"Who can say?" he said. "For now, we concentrate on leaving this place, and then we figure out how to... un-curse the dead."
"Or the gold," Bilbo said absently, and Balin gave him a sharp look that turned thoughtful, and then he hummed and turned away, and looked far more confident than he had been since they had come into the mountain, focused and purposeful.
"We travel more cautiously, now," Thorin instructed, striding forward to face back the way they had come. "We are travelling back into the horde. We'll resume our circular formation, Ri brothers to the left, Urs to the right, Glóin and Dwalin at our rear."
"We're with you, Uncle," Fíli said, before Thorin could relegate him and his brother to the middle, and Thorin's jaw tightened for a moment before he nodded.
"Balin, you and Óin watch Bilbo in our middle." Thorin glared at Bilbo when he opened his mouth, so he shut it again carefully, and Thorin nodded gratefully. "We run."
--Now--
His Dwarrows all looked amongst each other slowly.
Bilbo... was suddenly not very confident in the plan.
"Are you trying to tell me," he said quietly, hands tightening around his darkened lantern, "that none of you know what we have to do now?"
"It was Balin's plan," Thorin protested weakly.
"But, but...." Bilbo flailed, and his eyes sought out Ori, who just shrugged, eyes red and swollen and looked away. "One of you must have some idea what must be done..."
"Óin had a general idea," Glóin said softly, eyes on the floor, and went silent.
Bilbo's eyes scanned the room, looking for a sign of, of something, but they all just sat there. Like fat useless lumps of uselessness.
"OF ALL THE STUPID-!" Bilbo suddenly roared, and threw is useless lantern against the wall to shatter. "What is wrong with you all? Has this place stripped every remnant of basic decency from you? I stand here and I do not see Dwarves, I see defeatists and cowards. Ones who would let the sacrifices of their kin amount to nothing-"
"How dare you!" Thorin suddenly bellowed, stepping forward, and Bilbo rounded on him.
"How dare you?" Bilbo bellowed right back. "This whole quest, the lot of you have insisted on throwing yourselves into ridiculously, and often completely needlessly, perilous situations again and again, with no regard for your own safety, all for the purpose of regaining a home for your people. And now that we are here and so close, you all seem to be ready to lay down and whine yourselves to death, and bugger the Dwarrows depending on you to see things through. Cut it out! Get up and make a plan, or so help me-"
Across the room, Bofur started to laugh, chortles that became belly deep laughter, rocking his frame with the force of it. A few of the others deigned to at least grin with him, and nobody faulted Bofur when there were a few tears mixed into his laughing release.
From his place half into an emphatic gesturing complete with aggressively jabbing finger, Bilbo still had his mouth half open to finish berating his pack of lunatics, but Bofur's reaction quite put him out of step. At least they were all losing that horrible blank resignation, so perhaps being interrupted so rudely when he had quite the strop nicely rolling wasn't so bad.
"Look at you now, eh?" Bofur said ruefully when he calmed, and Bilbo remembered to shut his mouth. "From a timid little thing that fainted in his own parlour at the mere mention of incineration, to the warrior of kings, filled with nothing but determination and courage. Consider me berated into submission, dearest Bilbo."
"Well," Bilbo said, and shifted in place, adjusting his Laketown-leant jacket carefully. "Well," he said again, at the lack of something useful to say.
"Hmm," Thorin said, and abruptly smiled at him, small and crooked, but there, and with something like a growing fire of his own determination. "I suppose then, with a lack of specifics in regards to the plan, we'll just have to get creative."
"Oh dear," Bilbo said, but it was with a great deal of sarcasm and relief, and everybody ignored him anyway, and Thorin started issuing orders.
"Ori, start looking about for any useful texts. Bofur, take your brother and Nori and start lighting this place up properly. Glóin, make sure that door is secure- nothing gets in."
"What about me?" Bilbo asked, as the others straightened and rushed to comply, looking grateful to have been handed purpose again. Thorin rounded on him, and raised an eyebrow at Bilbo in a most annoyingly amused way.
"I thought perhaps you might supervise and yell at us all when we fail to be suitably enthusiastic," Thorin said blandly, and Bilbo glared.
"I'll just go help Ori, shall I?" He very carefully stomped away from the idiot leader of their Company and restrained himself from punching Thorin right in his very big nose. They'd all had some very long days, no need to upset the others by making their king bleed.
--Then--
"Damn, buggering fuck!" Dwalin swore at a bare whisper, peering over the crumbling balcony from behind a part of fallen wall, holding a small spy glass to his eye. "There's a line of those things between us and the treasury." He eased back, taking a few steps back along the wall and behind a bit of broken stone wall to where the group was keeping a very careful watch about themselves. "We ain't getting anywhere near that door. We cannot get out that way."
"If we keep the lanterns lit, and keep our eyes on them-"
"The lanterns never stay lit," Glóin said testily, cutting his brother off with a glare. "And then we'd be amongst them in this unnatural dark of theirs and we'd be dead."
"We can't just sit here," Fíli said, a little hysterically, and Bilbo reached to pat his hand gently, chewing on his bottom lip worriedly.
"Which direction would you like to go in, then?" Dwalin asked testily. "Cause there ain't any way out that way!"
"Surely there is another way to get to the back door," Bilbo asked tentatively, flinching when it earned him a half dozen scowls- and possibly a lot more, since the rest of them were keeping a very keen eye out.
"The door, and passage, were secure, heavy with Dwarven magics. They led only to the treasury, and even if we wanted to mine our way into the passage from another direction, it would do no good," Thorin told Bilbo with a great deal of frustration, and Bilbo's face must have turned speculative, because Thorin shook his head almost immediately. "Do you think our defences so flimsy that we would allow outsiders the ability to cut their way into our mountains? That includes digging our way out."
"Some of us could lead them away," Dwalin said gravely. "Leave your way clear to escape."
"Forget it," Bilbo said at the same time as Balin and Thorin shot Dwalin a scowl and something curtly bitten out in their own language.
It might have devolved into an argument of epically whispered proportions, had Balin not hummed thoughtfully, and tilted his head in a way that made all of them stop and look at him abruptly.
"You have a plan?" Bilbo asked hopefully, and Balin shook his head, but stopped and nodded hesitantly.
"I... well, I have an idea. It is no plan yet, and I don't know if it is a solution to anything," Balin hastened to add when they all turned hopeful gazes upon him. "This smaller book you lads took from the Library," he said, flapping his hand at Ori until the lad handed it over, and flipping it open to a dog-eared page. He pointed to a section of the text, and Ori darted to look, mouthing through the translation silently. "It mentions a dragon's hoard as a thing stolen and perverted from the purpose Aüle intended of it."
"What of it?" Dori asked impatiently from his place as a watchdog, and Bilbo knew it was grating on him to be prevented from glaring at them all every two seconds.
"The wording of it. Gold as taken from Aüle's grace," Balin said meaningfully, and his face was one that was hoping someone else would make the same leap as he had, to make it less of a leap and more of an obvious conclusion.
"That is very much like the.... Oh," Thorin said, face lightening.
"Oh, what? What?" Bilbo demanded.
"Thror had given up the khejmar," Thorin said slowly to Balin, who brightened, and Thorin's whole posture straightened, and his face was once again focused and mind obviously whirring away at the possibilities. It would be nice if he would share, especially as some of the others were all starting to look hopeful.
"The what? What? What is that?" Bilbo asked impatiently, looking between Thorin and a satisfied looking Balin.
"Our Maker," Óin said. "He did not just make us, he made all that makes the basis of this world also, the materials of the world. All the rock, and all the metals and jewels."
"Normally, we would dedicate what we mine and bring from the earth to Mahal, gift it back to our Maker, and to Eru Ilúvatar, so they know that we treasure what they have provided for us, show that we understand it still belongs to them, and to their great purpose," Balin told Bilbo seriously. "It is a practice done by all Dwarrows, everywhere, regardless of clan or location."
"Towards the end of my Grandfather's reign, here, he was mad," Thorin said lowly, eyes dropping, face twisting with something like guilt. "He gradually stopped allowing khejmar services on our gold. He had it refined and made to coins and bars, as one would, and stamped with the Ereborian crest, and his own. Then stored in the treasury, over there. He gifted the gold to himself, even as he dedicated himself to the gold. Many say that is what brought Smaug down upon us in the first place."
"So maybe if we perform services on the treasure to Mahal once more, we will... unpervert it! And the curse will be lifted. And our dead will be dead again- and the mountain may open again!" Kíli blurted with great enthusiasm, and they all turned to stare at him.
"I was thinking... yes. Essentially that," Balin admitted.
"Aaand... how are we to do that, exactly?" Bilbo asked, as they all started to whisper amongst themselves with excitement.
"We must go to the Zarârgharâf, the Alters of Offering here in the mountain. It is the most secure place in all the mountain, and the way there is not easy," Óin said gravely, and they all turned very solemn once more.
"The most secure point in the mountain," Bilbo said with great speculation. "Like the treasury?"
"Not like the treasury," Thorin said firmly. "Our gold and our jewels, they are precious, but they are replaceable. Any good mountain can be mined well, and treasures can be recovered."
"Then why, exactly, did we travel all this way to Erebor for your stinking gold, then?" Bilbo asked, glaring at them.
"Because the Blue mountains are tapped out and unstable," Fíli hissed at him. "They were partially destroyed when Beleriand fell into the sea in the First Age!"
"The Durin's first home in these lands is infested with dark things, and the ancestral homes of the Firebeards and Broadbeams are long decayed and broken and crumbled," Balin interjected, explaining quickly. "Half of what is under those mountains now, is pockets of sea that slip in under land. Durin's mountains to the north are infested with Cold Drakes, and whole armies have fallen trying to reclaim the Grey Mountains from them. Even the Iron Hills to the east are becoming overcrowded and results of mining are dropping. The far Eastern mountains are claimed and all those surrounding Mordor are accursed. There are very few places left for us to go," he finished, patting Bilbo's shoulder gently when his eyes went wide and sorrowful.
"As I was saying," Thorin said testily. "Gold and jewels are ultimately replaceable, difficult as that is becoming these days. But the secrets our Maker gave to us when we were created, they are priceless, and must never fall into the hands of any other being. Imagine it," he said impatiently, when Bilbo's face was unconvinced. "Our maker was the one to build this world, and only he was successful in creating his own sentient species from nothing but his own thoughts. Only he understood the way Eru Ilívatar had done so when he made Elves and Men. Even Yavanna had to ask Eru to make her Ents, and all other creatures on this land are the result of breeding or perversion. Even yours."
Bilbo scowled, but really, he had no argument there. His people had been the result of 'breeding' as Thorin so crudely put it, between different species, until there had been enough of them to breed exclusively amongst themselves and they had become their own race. They had been bred deliberately of course, though Hobbits had their own beliefs on who had guided the course of love across species to eventuate in their existence, but they were still bred into being. Not made.
"We, Mahal's children, were gifted with many secrets hidden even from other Valar," Glóin said ominously. "Those secrets were entrusted to us with the understanding that we would guard them higher than all else. That is what we keep within the Zarârgharâf."
"The road there is labyrinth-like," Óin told him. "To slow down any that would take that place by force. And here, in Erebor, it is built into the great river-well, the Silver Fountains. Judging by the fact that they river flows to the valley as normal-"
"That's no guarantee," Balin interjected. "The flow could have long adjusted itself."
"Judging by the rivers flowing as normal," Óin said again to Bilbo, "and no tales told of it stopping after Smaug took Erebor, it is possible the Zarârgharâf is still there, and not been collapsed and destroyed when Smaug came. It is likely there was no time, and the keepers would not have been willing to open impenetrable doors to destroy it, when Smaug was already within the mountain."
"How impenetrable?" Bilbo asked suspiciously. Nori turned away from his post and grinned at him.
"Just impenetrable enough," Nori said and winked, and turned back to his watch, only to stiffen.
"Great plan, time to go," he said in a rush, and one of their lanterns started to flicker.
"For Mahals sake, Nori!" Dori hissed, and they all formed up again, Thorin herding them away from the three statues that had appeared when Nori had looked away from his end of the watch.
"So, Nori can get us in this place, but can you get us there?" Bilbo asked Thorin as they picked up their pace to a fast trot again.
"I can," Thorin said, stride quickening.
--Now--
"This is a stupid plan," Bilbo muttered, shaking his head. "This is a very foolish, very stupid plan!"
"Do you have a better one?" Thorin demanded, working a length of rope through an anchor that had been crudely hammered into a stone plinth.
"You, you realise this is a plan that sounds like Kíli would come up with, possibly while drunk?" Bilbo demanded, somewhat hysterically. He would have been ashamed at the flinch that caused, but he was a little too worried at this point. "You want to wash the gold!"
"You're the one that said we cannot sit about and wait to die!" Thorin insisted, and moved past him with a huff.
"I meant that we should die actually possible fixing the problem, but this just seems to be a way to die in a blaze of glory."
"No blaze," Thorin grinned. "More, a tidal wave."
"Unbelievable," Bilbo said, throwing his hands into the air and stalking over to Ori. "After all this time, this is when he chooses to prove he has a sense of humour."
"Nothing left to lose," Ori said with a shrug, fiddling with chisels and the odd mixture he had been spreading into his carefully marked grooves.
Bilbo growled and stormed off for a quiet sulk.
Honestly, it was like they didn't listen to him at all.
If he were being entirely truthful, there wasn't really anything left for them to do but what they were going to. This was the only plan that they had, and like it or not, Bilbo would do his best to help the lot of them pull this off, even if it were looking more and more unlikely that it would work. It was almost certain that they would all die in the trying, but honestly, that had always been very likely on this quest. At least... at least he had the thought that if the bare scrap of chance they had in success paid off, one day, Dwarrows would return to this mountain, and it would be a safe place, a place for them to thrive.
If they pulled this off.
"Alright," Bilbo said, taking a deep breath and gathering himself. "Alright. Let's do this stupid, stupid thing."
Another fifteen minutes, and they were all finally in position, and Bilbo looked down on where Thorin was slowly strapping himself into his ridiculous excuse for a safety harness, and tightened his grip around the door frame, far above the intricately tiled floor.
This was the stupidest plan.
Just, the stupidest plan.
Unfortunately, Bilbo was a whole lot better at telling people their plans were stupid than he was at coming up with brilliant plans of his own, and in this case, he had absolutely nothing to offer other than flailing and 'this plan is stupid'. Their logic made a weird sort of sense; dedicate the gold to their Maker, dislodge any curse lying upon the hoard, and hopefully, no more cursed dead chasing them around the mountain. As far as Bilbo was concerned, though, there was no guarantee that the dead would suddenly be dead again, very little evidence to suggest that dedicating the gold to Aúle would dislodge any curses laid on it, and no guarantee that the mountain would suddenly open up and let them out even if the curse was released.
It might even be a good plan, if the plan did not involve explosives and diverting a river through the part of the mountain they were currently in to bless it, and flood the mountain they were trapped in.
The alternative, he had been told, was for Bilbo, as their resident burglar, to sneak back and forth a few thousand times, and bring a sackful of gold each time for them to do their rituals safely. Of course, that way would only take, oh, a few decades or so, if he wasn't brutally murdered by cursed stone Dwarrows the moment he stepped out the Zarârgharâf, of course. He'd snottily mentioned dying of starvation before that, but been told that the well that dropped into the silver fountains would supply them, so if he was happy to live on fish and water for the rest of his natural life, they could do it the 'safer' way.
He'd let them get on with planning their death by drowning in great detail after that.
Bilbo was a learned gentleman, of course he was, and he knew his mathematics; he had enough tenants that he had to be good with numbers to balance the rents and the expenses and manage the estate, but what he had just been subjected to in their explanation had been more than his poor Hobbity brain could comprehend. Thorin and Glóin had assured him that the calculations were a simple thing, that the mountain would flood where they wanted it to, and not for very long, if the secondary charges went off when expected. Bilbo had been stunned to see Thorin and Glóin submitting their plan for Bombur's approval, of all people, as apparently the rotund Dwarf was an engineer of great skill. And then it had become apparent that Bofur had experience with the same basic knowledge required through his Mining work- which was evidently more complex than simply hitting rocks with a pick axe and hoping for shiny- and had jumped into the argument with relish.
It hadn't helped when Nori and Ori had also showed off a ridiculous depth of knowledge of the exact force required to blow each particular type of rock that needed to go. The Ri family, Bilbo discovered, were all Stone Masons, and the mathematics of force and angles was a part of stone work, and the entire argument had become so laden with technical terms and odd diagrams and extreme lengths of scribbled numbers, that Bilbo had found a quiet corner and let himself lay down for a bit, ignoring the evidence that while Dwarrows may be rash and uncouth and socially inept, and really, really quite smelly, they were also exceptionally brilliant mathematicians.
Bugger the lot of them.
So although Bilbo was quite sure this was the stupidest plan in existence, it was the plan they were enacting, because what the heck else were they to do?
Ori and Nori had just spent a good hour chipping lines of their strange runes into the beautiful flooring, carving and copying quite extensively from a few different sources from around the Zarârgharâf, carefully marking out what they said would hopefully bless the water that washed through the holy place and over the inscriptions, and carry that blessing to the gold.
It was such a stupid plan.
Into those lines of what was he had been told was sacred script -that they had asked that he not examine too closely- they had daubed a special mix, and chanted over, or at least, it sounded like chanting to Bilbo. It was some sort of prayer of theirs, a promise, that everything that the water touched was dedicated and promised to their Maker. Bilbo had thought that it would be enough.
It couldn't be that simple, though, could it.
This was a really stupid plan.
"It has to come through here to work, Bilbo," Ori said from his place wedged up beside Bilbo who was definitely not having a panic attack. "It must go this way."
Bilbo ignored him and kept glaring at Thorin.
"He has to be down there," Ori said softly. "You know I volunteered, but-"
"Yes, I was there," Bilbo gritted out.
"Someone must be in contact with the rune sequence when the river flows over it for it to work the way we want it to," Ori tried again.
"He's weighted down with rocks, Ori, held in with makeshift straps. Exactly how am I to be confident in his odds of survival?"
"He'll be fine," Ori insisted, but he did not sound terribly convinced himself. "We'll all be just fine. All of us."
Bilbo bit his lip and said nothing, knowing that Ori was thinking of his brothers. Truthfully, Bilbo thought there was no point in worrying about the others much at the moment, as they were most certainly about to all die horribly.
So he was ever so slightly terrified of drowning. Anybody would be after that disastrous trip along the river from Mirkwood clinging to the outside of a barrel. Anybody would have developed a healthy fear of rushing water.
Except his stupid Company of Dwarves, obviously.
"Bilbo," Ori said, and he startled, almost losing his grip, and Ori glared at him. "Pay attention Bilbo! Do you remember what you have to do?"
"Hold onto you while you try and open the door so we don't all drown inside the temple," Bilbo gritted out, glaring right back. "Yes, I remember."
That was about the extent of it. Hold onto Ori- who was strapped into the harness with Bilbo- so that Ori could haul the door open faster than it would open on its own, great thing that it was. Oh, and his stupid Dwarrows had decided that magic would be helping Ori with hauling great stone doors open, with some other rune sequence or another.
(He was aware that it was fairly illogical to believe that the statues chasing them were cursed with Dragon magic, while scoffing at the idea of his Dwarrow having their own mysterious brand of magic, but he was not feeling particularly logical at this point in the proceedings. Magic was such a frivolous, illogical thing to be something Dwarrow would rely on, surely? Not to mention the uncertain looks they all sported when speaking of such magics.)
"Be ready," Ori said then, bracing himself and taking hold of the excessively massive chain he was to yank with one hand, the other dipping into the mix of rusty red paste Bofur had given him before they had climbed up beside this silly door. Because he had to write his magic sequence. Before he hauled three storey high stone doors open by himself. As soon as the gushing waters of death headed towards them and over Thorin. Opening the doors at the last minute, because if they did so too soon, those creatures outside would be on them before they could complete their plan. But not too late, because they might impede the force of the water and it wouldn't make it along the path they were apparently setting for the water to take right up to the gold.
This was most surely the stupidest plan that he had ever heard.
"A count of eight after the first chargers detonate, and we pull the door," Ori said again nervously, talking mostly to himself. "As long as Nori and Bofur managed to get to the spot for the second set of charges, the water will go where we want. Glóin's third set of charges go, setting the river's flow back to normal, and we get out of here in case the Zarârgharâf comes down on us."
Bilbo made a noise that he hoped sounded like an affirmative, wrapping his arms around Ori and bracing himself into the feeble excuse for scaffolding they had banged into the stone wall near the head of the door- a few bits of odd metal scraps scrounged and ripped from features around the Zarârgharâf, bent and hammered into the rock. He'd attempt to reassure Ori, who was repeating the plan again to himself, but he was fairly sure he was incapable of any sound other than a terrified whimper at the present, the weight of what they were about to do rendering him all but frozen in terror.
Nori and Bofur had actually lowered themselves down the deep narrow well inside the temple, into the terrifying roaring rush of water that was the water that spilled down the mountain as the Silver Fountains, pouring down into the Long Lake, and then flowing on to become the great River Running. All in an effort to leave the Zarârgharâf without leaving through the only door, to go and set a second lot of charges. They were most surely already dead, as the current has swept them away faster than Bilbo had thought possible and Ori and Bombur both had spent long moments weeping over the well their loved ones had willingly gone down, before setting themselves back to their allotted tasks.
This was the most stupid plan in the whole history of Middle Earth. They were all going to die horribly and all for nothing when this plan failed to work.
"This is the most stupid plan in the whole history of Middle Earth," Bilbo wheezed around his terror-constricted throat, clutching Ori as he frantically started smearing runes over the doors to the sound of a deep boom, and a roaring rush, counting as he went. "We're all going to die horribly and all for nothing when this plan fails and doesn't work."
"Hold me!" Ori yelled, abandoning his pot of paste and wrapping his hands in the thick beaten chains. Bilbo spared one terrified look at the wall of water appearing at the far end of the Zarârgharâf, and Thorin, so tiny in comparison, on his knees and still chanting, hands hooked into the deep grooves of their invocation. One last look, and then he buried his face between Ori's shoulders, and clung tight, hooking his ankles around his metal scaffolding as Ori hauled and hauled, muscles straining.
The water was surely the loudest sound Bilbo had ever heard, and he had been subject to some terrifying sounds on this trip. This was louder than a herd of stone giants in the midst of a thunder storm, louder than a horde of goblins descending on them, louder than a battle with orcs, and the bellows of an enraged dragon, louder than his awful escape from the dungeons of Mirkwood clinging to the side of a barrel, and louder than Glóin, Bombur and Kíli's snores combined.
A second more and the door finally opened all the way, and Bilbo felt more than saw or heard the water crash into the stone door now between them and the water, a second and Bilbo realised their mistake, unhooking himself and Ori from their make-shift harness and throwing the both of them backwards as the door slammed into the wall where they had just been, rocketed forward by the blast of water.
A second to see before he was under, and Ori slipped from his grip, and Bilbo was tumbling head over feet, spun around and around and then dragged along by the water and quite unable to do anything but let the flow carry him. He reached out, blindly seeking purchase, but encountered only brief glancing touches of walls before he was pulled away, moving too fast to reach and hold for anything.
A glancing blow against a wall, and he just barely tucked himself down to avoid beheading himself on the arch of a doorway, and he reached desperately, searching for a handhold, for if he let himself be carried with the water, he would surely not survive it. His hand brushed by something, and his head swivelled, eyes widening, and just barely holding back a scream -that would have resulted in losing the only breath of air he had right now- as several statues went tumbling with his overhead, their bodies and faces twisted and almost agonised, black eyes glinting maliciously at him a moment before they were gone with the water, and Bilbo flailed, reaching and reaching, praying for a miracle.
Ahead, there was a bright flash of red light, and a rumble just barely heard over the roar of water in his ears, and Bilbo spared a second to be astonished that Nori and Bofur had actually made it on their most-likely-to-kill-them quest before the water had him abruptly yanked around the corner that the second set of charges had made, and he did scream this time, before the water slammed him into a wall hard enough for him to go limp, the world far away and quiet for a moment.
Clarity came with the screaming of his lungs, and he flailed afresh, reaching desperately for anything, his fingers brushing something that a second later slipped past his gaze, Bilbo's eyes widening at the sight of first Bombur's long, thick, red braid, followed not long after by the Dwarf himself, who reached for him but was swept away before they could attempt to join hands.
The edge of Bilbo's vision was starting to blacken and sparkle all at once, the roar in his ears dimming somehow, becoming more manageable, even as Bilbo's flailing started to lose strength. The bottom of his stomach plummeted abruptly, and Bilbo was left with the odd sensation of flying, the world golden and glowing around him.
And then he slammed into a pile of gold, the pressure of the water holding him pressed against the metal for long moments while all Bilbo could do was be limp and try not to breathe more of the dark water in. And then the pressure eased, and he was swirling and tumbling again, and then his body breached the water, and he was met with air, blessed air.
He retched, water spewing out his chest, and then gulped quickly and greedily, taking one, two, three deep breaths, and a fourth, before the water slammed into him again and he went tumbling, spinning around and around and around, gold and rock and the occasional glimpse of something else that may have been dwarf, may have been dwarf-shaped-statues all swung past him in a dizzying array of flashes, coins and jewels swirling around him like schools of tiny, glittering fish.
And then just like that, it was over. The water dumped him on a pile of gold, and he sat perched for a moment in shock, before he doubled over and concentrated on hacking up a gullet full of water and who knew what else, unaware to care of anything but what he was able to clear from his lungs and stomach for long long moments.
The roar of the water was dying away rapidly, the great gush of water draining down through the gold and out the many doors of the room, though odd golden pools remained all around, some with tiny little shelled creatures swimming frantically within as the water very slowly sunk down, rock dust and silt covering near everything around him. It was a mess.
A long, long time, it felt, he gasped and gasped, until the room was quiet again, save for the drip drip of water off of stone, and the gurgle and clink of piles of gold bobbing and shifting as if sitting on the top of an ocean, and then gently settling into place.
"Well, that went well," he rasped snarkily to himself, and someone coughed a wet sort of chuff of laughter somewhere behind him.
"Not bad at all," Nori said, and Bilbo twisted as much as his very sore body allowed, to watch Nori haul Bofur to his feet, the miner grumbling and moaning all the way. They had, it seemed, been smart enough to tie themselves together with a short length of rope. If only Bilbo had tied himself to Ori, instead of depending on their harness tied to wall. Then he might know where the lad was.
"That was horrible," Ori's voice said, nearby, as if summoned by Bilbo's thoughts, and the littlest Dwarrow came clambering slowly out of a sodden puddle of water, the liquid draining away amongst the treasure. "No more water. None ever- I don't care what prison I am in, or what gold needs blessing. No more water. I may never bathe again," he said glumly, squeezing his sodden scarf forlornly.
"Oh thank goodness," Nori breathed at the sight of his little brother, face melting into one of pure relief, and Bofur absently patted him on the shoulder, even as he himself worked on coughing a few more lungsful of water out.
"LOOK!" Glóin bellowed behind them, and Bilbo near jumped out of his skin, whimpering when the involuntary movement hurt him everywhere. "Look what I found!"
What Glóin had found was his own very damp -and dazed- looking brother, and one very unhappy looking Dori- Unhappy, that was, until he caught sight of his brothers, and descending on them in a cloud of clucking, and Bilbo couldn't help a few hoarse chuckles at the sight of Nori's teary admonishment to his older brother to stop fussing (even as he clung tightly to his elder brother), Ori plastered to their sides. At least two sets of brothers had come thought his unscathed, then.
"Dori had miner's paste in his kit," Óin told his brother dazedly, while Glóin patted him down and sniffled happily. "For the lanterns. And there was a little access vent for one of the vent systems, and we blocked it... the thing suddenly filled up with water though...."
"Nori, how many knots did you put in this rope?" Bofur demanded, wrestling with the thing. "I've got to go find Bom. Glóin, you were with him setting charges. Is he still in the Zarârgharâf?"
"I saw him in the water," Bilbo told his friend wearily, managing to climb his way to his feet and stagger over. "Not long before the water spat us into the treasury. He has to be here somewhere."
Nori managed to free himself from his brother huddle long enough to slice through the rope, that was apparently the only thing keeping Bofur upright, as he staggered and fell face down in a pile of damp gold again, groaning miserably.
"Got to find my brother," Bofur said miserably. "And find out if the plan actually worked."
Bilbo had been shuffling forward to try and help Bofur up, but at that, he slowed, and he could see the others freeze a little themselves, all turning and backing into a tight formation as they looked about themselves.
The treasury was dim, but surprisingly, still lit. The majority of the lamps were out, some broken and smashed from the force of the water, and some still swung unsteadily in place, though their paste had evidently been washed away. A few still glowed softly on, however, and for the first time since Bilbo had arrived at this place, it was actually.... easier to see?
The gold did not glow so terribly fiercely, but the shadows of doors and corners did not seem so deep and harbouring strange things. To Bilbo at least.
"Does this place seem.... nicer?" Bilbo asked dubiously, eying a pile of gold nearby that was really quite filthy now, with over a century of accumulated dust and old rock and silt having been washed over it. Funny how things worked, wasn't it?
"It's lighter," Ori agreed.
"No statues," Dori said slowly.
"I got to find Bom," Bofur said over Bilbo's shoulder, and Glóin nodded.
"We need to stick together, find as many of us as we can. We have to find Thorin."
Bilbo felt his stomach lurch at that, trying very hard not to think about it as he had been. The last he had seen of Thorin was his King being swallowed by a great wall of water, so tiny in the face of such a enormously wild force.
"I came out from about there," he said, clearing his sore throat, trying not to think of all the things the water had washed into his lungs and stomach. "And like I said, I saw Bombur right before the water spat me out onto the gold. He'd be around here somewhere."
As one, they shuffled tiredly forward, gaze sweeping over the odd mountains and valleys that the dulled grimy gold made. Óin mumbled something about cleaning all the gold off, and Bilbo mock glared over his shoulder at the elder dwarf. They'd already tried washing the gold, and he'd thank them all not to try it again.
A shout above distracted them from their dull eyed looking, and they swivelled to look up, all stock still and wide eyed at the sight of a grumpily exasperated Dwalin staring down at them, two Durin lads tucked under one arm, and his brother and an Ur cousin tucked under the other.
"What in Mahal's forge did you lot do?" he demanded.
Bilbo and, er, his group of Dwarrow stared at Dwalin's little group, who stared back just as silently a moment. Bilbo was not entirely sure what to say to that, but was saved from trying when Bifur yelled and pointed beyond them, worming his way free of the others to hobble for a fallen balustrade and hop down in several jumps onto the gold.
From there, he dashed to haul Bofur along with him, clambering his way across the piles, and Bilbo dithered for a moment, watching the others descend, before he chased after them.
They didn't know if they were safe yet.
"Where is Thorin?" Bilbo heard Balin cry behind him, but he ignored it and headed after the two Urs. He couldn't think of it yet.
What Bifur had seen, evidently, was a long twist of red braid snaking in amongst the gold, and the two did not hesitate to take a hold of the hair like a rope, and haul their kin free of the treasure. Bombur came loose with a great slide of dull clinking and a long groan of dismay.
"I didn't like that at all," Bombur said with a slight whimper, making no moves to rise from the sprawl his brother and cousin had hauled him into. "I did not like that one bit."
"Nobody liked that," Bofur scolded, clutching his brother to him for a moment.
"Best plan we had," Glóin said gloomily, and Dwalin glowered.
"And what fool came up with this plan?" he demanded, though he rolled his eyes almost as soon as the words left his mouth, and nobody bothered answering.
"Where is Uncle?" Fíli asked. "Is he alright?"
"Oh, he'll be around here somewhere," Bilbo said, trying for optimistic, but perhaps falling somewhat flat off the mark, by the way the lads faces fell. He'd be terribly relieved that he could even have the opportunity to see their ridiculous faces again, given that he had thought them well and truly lost, them and every dwarrow in this room, but for the fact that he was terrified that they still had not found Thorin.
"Right," he said firmly, drawing their attention. "We have yet to have any evidence that the curse has been lifted of the statue-dwarrow, and we still need to find Thorin, and make plans to escape this mountain before we starve to death. So, we go that way."
"That way?" Dori asked dubiously, but he and the others all located and redistributed what weapons they had between them, forming themselves up around Bilbo and made for the door.
"Lanterns aren't flickering," Dwalin commented, axe up, his second having been shoved firmly into his brother's hands.
"That could be because they have all descended on our King," Balin said ominously, and they picked up the pace, steadily working their way out one of the doors and to a staircase, the gold spilling in every which direction now, and Bilbo tried not to twitch too badly when they passed an odd fish with hooded eyes flapping uselessly in a shallow puddle of water.
"Dinner," Nori commented idly, and Ori spared a second to thump his brother with a sigh of exasperation. From there, they were mainly quiet, peering around corners, and treading as silently as they could down corridor and up stair.
Finding Thorin was almost anticlimactic. Almost. He was sat in the middle of a corridor, after all, sodden, but quiet and straight backed. A little worrying, but anticlimactic, that is, until they noticed the statues.
They were strewn everywhere. All along the stretch of corridor ahead.
Haphazardly propped against each other, and upside down in corners, limbs detached and sitting in odd places, and crumbling everywhere. But no longer fierce with glittering black eyes, oh no. Now, the statues had arms held aloft, as if to fend off the flame that had burned them to stone, and still others cowered and huddled from a danger they had not escaped, long passed now. All still. All lifeless and cold.
Bilbo trod carefully closer to lower himself next to Thorin, eyeing the stone babe cradled in Thorin's arms in dismay.
Thorin said nothing.
"I think that little lad might be better in his mother's arms," Bilbo said, nodding towards the statue of the Dwarrow in the long skirts, cowering with arms cradled close, and bare. "They're free now. You know that, yes?"
Thorin said nothing still, but nodded, and Dori, sniffling now, came forward for the stone babe, moving it carefully across to slide it amongst the stone arms of its mother.
"Remember the living, yes?" Thorin said with a deep sigh, quirking one eyebrow at Bilbo and smiling slightly, though his eyes remained sad. "Or would you berate me in some other manner?"
"Nope, that was about what I would have gone with," Bilbo sighed, "That, and that we found these horrid boys of yours."
Thorin had one moment to twist suddenly, and take in his completed Company around him before the lads were upon him, and Bilbo retreated to give them some privacy when the lads sounded awfully like they were beginning to sob into their Uncle's shoulder, and Thorin breathed small prayerful endearments in Khuzdul into their raggedy filthy locks.
Bilbo studiously avoided looking back, instead, working his way along the corridor, moving limbs back to statues that seemed to own them, righting them to more dignified positions. He had quailed a bit to see them here at first, and there still lurked in him a cold dread and a cautious suspicion, but as he worked his way down the hall amongst them, it faded further and further from his mind. These were no cursed creatures haunting halls and coming to tear the very souls from intruders. Instead, as he went, more and more he could only find sadness in him to see the faces and twisted forms, and at last he saw what his Dwarrows had seen when they had first come to the mountain.
The poor souls.
If he had not hated the dragon before, he did now, and he felt something fierce in him knot at the thought of what would happen if Smaug returned to the mountain. Would these poor departed souls be possessed and enslaved to Smaug's evil again, or would this be the fate of his friends?
A glimmer at his feet, cradled in the hand of one poor stone hand, and Bilbo frowned, leaning down to pocket the lump half covered in dust. Huh. Well, they'd have to deal with that later.
"We need to see if we can leave," he declared loudly, and quite pointedly, though he kept his gaze away from where he knew all the Dwarrows were wrapped around beloved family. "We must see of Smaug returning is a possibility, and if we may leave or not."
"So we must," Thorin said by his shoulder, and touched one hand very gently to his arm.
The journey to the gate was very different to their last. There was no buzz of success from their victory, for it seemed rather hollow in the face of what remained, and what they had been through, no matter what they had achieved, and they trooped wearily and slowly forward, quiet and contemplative of what they left behind, and what lay ahead.
"I see light," Ori said, a small note of enthusiasm entering his voice, and as one, they moved to a trot, climbing a crumbling stair to an airy hall... that lead to a wide open balcony, overlooking the gates.
"We did it," Bofur said, with no small amount of astonishment, and they trooped eagerly across the hall and stood and stared at the open sky for a moment, all laughing slightly, before staggering forward as one.
Bilbo's first breath of fresh air was... not fresh.
"Ugh, what is that smell?" he demanded, fisting his ragged and damp sleeve over his face.
"Smells like burning Orc," Dwalin said, sniffing deeply.
When they had crossed the barren valley to the Lonely Mountain, it had been empty of all life, dry and dusty and void of anything but cracked blistered earth. None were stupid enough to live in the shadow of a dragon after all.
That had changed.
"Umm..." Bilbo said, eyes wide and bulging at the sight of great armies made camp in the valley below. There were signs of carnage everywhere, from what were indeed great piles of still smoking corpses, and the number of Men, Elves and Dwarrows wandering around with splint and bandages adorning their person.
"What in all of Middle Earth...."
"HO, THERE!" a voice bellowed from below, and Bilbo's gaze dropped to quite the oddest looking Dwarrow he had ever seen. Quite one of the broadest, too, with a red mane that stuck in every which way, a piglet held securely under one arm -a piglet wearing a horned helmet?- and was that a metal stick where the fellow's leg should be?
"HO THORIN!" the odd fellow bellowed again, beaming at them from under some impressive ginger eyebrows to match the intimidating moustache.
"Who... is that?" Bilbo asked faintly.
"That's my cousin Dain," Thorin said in astonishment.
"COUSIN! YOU MISSED QUITE THE FUN, YOU OLD SCOUNDREL!"
"Huh," Bilbo said.
--Bonus: Then--
"Thorin," Bilbo said, turning back to where his King stood, resolute, and the others hurried to their positions. "I just wanted to... well. I just wanted to tell you something, before we did this. As it is likely that one, or both of us, will not survive this.
"Tell me what?" Thorin asked absently, checking over his harness-with-rock-weight-combination-thingy again.
"It is something you most likely will not be terribly interested in, being a Dwarf, whereas I am but a Hobbit," Bilbo dithered, nervously clenching his hands by his sides. "And truly, I meant to say nothing, as it was likely even before this that there could be no good come of expressing my feelings. But, like I say, we are most certainly going to die, and I wish to say it just once," he finished with a decisive nod and a sniff.
"Say what?" Thorin asked, his attention now well and truly on Bilbo's fidgety and half-defensive form.
It had been a spur of the moment decision, to do this, because Bilbo really truly was convinced that this was the last opportunity he would ever had to say what he had before decided really aught to stay unsaid. If they were all to die, what could it matter? But here and now, finding the words was proving... difficult, to say the least.
"I just wanted you to know..." his voice wavered, and he dithered for all of about three seconds before he gathered his courage and stepped forward, and reached for Thorin's shoulders, using them as leverage to go to his toes and brush one hesitant kiss across the bewildered-looking King's mouth.
"If nothing else," Bilbo said. "If you have found nothing else on this quest, at least know that I, that. That you are loved. You are a good dwarf, a wonderful person. I thought that you should know, that you are so dearly loved, for something other than an old crown and a mountain full of gold. Just for you, Thorin, dearest Thorin."
He took a step back from the wide-eyed object of his affection, and then another, and shrugged.
"As poor a gift as it is, from a Hobbit.... You are loved, and you are thought well of. Never forget that," he finished firmly, and nodded decisively.
"Bilbo," Thorin said, but Bilbo was already turning away, hurrying back to his assigned post in this most-likely-doomed plan.
It was unlikely that anything could have ever come of his silly emotions, even if they were not to be drowned to death, but...
It didn't really matter now.
--Now--
Hours later, safely ensconced in tents within Dain's set-up, the lads still would not let go of their uncle.
Correction, none of the assembled Dwarrows would let go of their most beloved of kin, Bilbo noted, as he silently padded into the tent back from his thorough interrogation by Gandalf and Thranduil (and firm admonishment that he'd had enough to deal with today without letting the Men and the Elves get into a squabble with his Dwarves over treasure, so they'd best behave themselves. He must have looked terribly, as the Big Folk had rushed to assure him that there would be only peaceful talks of the future, they promised. After his Dwarrows recovered, of course!). Finally free of Big Folk and their ridiculousness, Bilbo had walked into what he could only describe as a Dwarven cuddle party, by the look of things.
He grinned softly at the sight of them, all wrapped up around each other, grateful expressions still not abated, and his own smile turned wistful, but he took a deep breath, and a step backwards, making to sneak from the tent before he disturbed the family bonding time with his presence.
"Bilbo," Thorin said lowly behind him, and the Hobbit in question startled, spinning to find the whole tent of Dwarrows straightened and twisting to look at him.
"Sorry!" he said, holding his hands up in apology and taking a casual step backwards. "I didn't mean to, er, interrupt. I'll, ah, just be going, yes?"
He spun again to leave, and was then promptly tackled from behind.
"Ack," he said into the thick mats that made up the layered flooring, and squirmed. Twin whimpers into his shoulders made him still, and then the lads were hauled off of him and he was being passed around the circle, hugged from all.
By the time he had made his way around the circle of his silly Dwarrows a few times, brought to helpless tears over the sight of most of them -and spending a good five minutes alternating between thumping Dwalin and hugging him tight- some of Dain's people had turned up with a meal, and he was safely wedged into Thorin's side, the lads all plastered over Balin and Dwalin beside him.
"I'm not about to forget, you know," Thorin said low and rumbly into his ear.
"Hmmm?" Bilbo said around his mouthfull, keeping his eyes well and truly on his bowl and away from Thorin's gaze. Surely he wouldn't do this here, and now? With the Company right here?
"You love me," Thorin said, thoroughly proving that he really was in possession of little to no tact. Why did he love this lump again?
He wasn't exactly sure of what to say to that, either, especially since his horrible pack of blighters were all quiet and studiously pretending to be most fascinated in their dinners. Ridiculous eavesdropping buggers. A distraction was in order.
Thorin stared at the dusty glowing lump of gem he yanked from his pocket and thrust into the Dwarf King's hands for a long while, face wondering, before his abruptly shoved it in his own pocket and went back to his dinner.
"Don't try and distract me with such things," he scolded Bilbo, scraping his bowl clean and reaching to refill it from the pot in the middle of the tent.
"Did I find the right gem or not?" Bilbo demanded. Honestly, he thought this thing was what Thorin wanted. Surely he could leave off long enough to admire his shiny thing?
"The Arkenstone," Thorin nodded, digging into new bowl of dinner with relish. "But we have more important things to discuss, do we not?"
Damnable Dwarrows. Bilbo reached to refill his own bowl and Bombur's. Thorin was still looking at him with one demanding eyebrow raised imperiously at him, and Bilbo settled for a noncommittal hum in response, that sounded more like a strangled squeak, if he were to be honest with himself.
"It was very rude of you," Thorin mused around a bite of stew, and Bilbo spluttered.
"Rude?"
"Yes, rude! One does not confess great feelings for another, does not kiss them, and then run away!"
"I did not run away!"
"You did."
"I did not. I walked. Quickly."
Thorin snorted loudly. At this stage, none of their audience was even vaguely pretending not to be listening.
"We were in the middle of your idiot Kíli-like plan. I had to get to my spot and be ready for the signal," Bilbo huffed, and scooped the last of his dinner into his mouth with a pout, ignoring Kíli's loud shout of objection that the plan had worked, therefore a Kíli-plan must be a good one and not idiotic at all.
"If you'd just given me a minute to reciprocate-"
"How was I to know that you were to reciprocate, and we had a plan-"
"You're so impatient-"
"Says you-!"
Dori gave a great heaving sob and blew his nose very very loudly, and all eyes swivelled to him.
"It's just so beautiful," he managed around his kerchief, and Nori patted his brother gently on the back.
"It certainly solves the problem of keeping our Hobbit in Erebor," Balin said, rocking in place in satisfaction.
"I wasn't worried about that," Ori said smugly. "He got just as washed by the blessing waters as the gold did. He's ours now."
"Cleverly done!" Bofur exclaimed, looking pleased. Bifur grinned and produced a large fresh roll from someplace and handed it to Bilbo, patting him happily on the back.
"He still might have tried to leave, though," Glóin mused. "This way he'll me more inclined to stay."
"Of course I was going to stay-"
"You were?" Fíli asked, head popping up over Dwalin's shoulder to stare at him wide eyed and wondering. "Really truly really?"
"For realsies?" Kíli chimed in to ask.
"For realsies," Bilbo said with a huff. "At least for now, anyway. I did promise your uncle I would be helping him build a new home here, and a Baggins keeps his promises, you know."
"But you're also staying because you love me, yes?" Thorin asked, peering at him suspiciously, and Bilbo threw his hands in the air in aggravation.
"Well, of course! Need you point that out at every opportunity?"
"I don't understand why you are so aggravated-"
"Well, you're the one being smug about it-"
"There is a difference between smug and pleased," Thorin huffed. "I am allowed to be happy that you return my feelings."
"Retur- no, no no no, that isn't how it works," Bilbo said, frowning. "I confessed my feelings first, that means if you reciprocate, you return my feelings."
"There's no rule that says that's how it has to work," Thorin argued. "You love me, and I already knew I loved you, so that means you return my feelings."
"Will you still stay knowing he's a complete numpty?" Dwalin interrupted to ask. "And completely unrelated question: the biscuits in the sweets jar in your home..."
"Yes, I shall bake you sweets," Bilbo said with a great deal of feigned exasperation, expression melting into one of wearied fondness. "And I most certainly will be staying, lump of a King or no. But mostly, a lump of a King," he hurried to say, when Thorin's face fell. "As long as there are no more ridiculously dangerous infestations in that mountain to take care of," he finished with a laugh.
Nobody laughed with him, and his chuckle cut off abruptly.
"Well, actually," Kíli said slowly. "When we fell down into the lower levels...."
"You saw the claw marks too?" Balin asked the lads, and half the group nodded.
"What...." Bilbo trailed off, not even entirely sure what he was asking, a shiver working loose when Thorin took one of his hands gently.
"Er, Bilbo. Have you perhaps ever heard of Mine-Dwelling Borgies?"
****DONE FINITE NO MORE THE END****