Chapter Text
To think at one time a splinter from old Mungo’s chair had once been the most infernal bother! To Bilbo it seemed in some other existence, common sense and nothing more had been the chiefest means to preserving life and limb. In the heat of battle (a thing which, by now, Bilbo hoped he was very much through), one does not run headfirst into an axe blade.
Avoiding dwarves and their doings altogether would have been far more advisable in hindsight. Ill met by cold, slippery stone the ragged Company sought to regain themselves ashore, free of danger. Each dwarf was soaked to his skin, bruised in every bone and wearied beyond any hardship their path had thus far lead them. That they were still alive was the real marvel, Bilbo decided. They had been whalloped and rollicked down a perilous river pursued by a legion of warlike Elves and that, really, was quite enough for one afternoon!
The unexpected siege of orcs was sugar atop a boiled sweet in Bilbo's wretched estimation. The valiant hobbit stood shivering in his badly torn waistcoat, ears still ringing from their narrow escape. How desperately he longed for the comforts of hearth and hole as he attempted, feebly, to wring out his hopelessly ruined garments. He had almost righted himself, and shook the last droplets from his toes, when a sudden cry of anguish froze his heart.
A black shaft had pierced Kili, Thorin's youngest nephew, during the melee. Now the brave archer knelt panting and trembling on the wet stone, having barely hobbled four steps from the river’s edge. At once, the company looked to their fallen.
“Kili is wounded!” Fili, rarely more than three steps away from his brother, was first to speak. “His leg needs binding!”
“We make haste!” If the sight of his injured nephew affected him, the Dwarf King gave no sign. “There is an orc pack directly behind us!”
“Haste indeed.” Bilbo overheard Fili mutter crossly. “Give a body half a chance before his lifeblood drains away!”
“Peace, Fili.” Kili’s youthful face was ashen and drawn as though warding off some malady that cut deeper than flesh or bone. “It is nothing.”
However battered and worn the Party were from their ordeal, poor Kili had got the worst of it. Helpful Bofur moved in closer to see if he might be of use.
“Bad, is it lad?” He knit his brow.
“It is not deep.” Kili would speak no more, lips pressed into a hard, bloodless line. He ground a torn bit of rag into the gaping wound to begin stemming the blood.
“Bind his leg.” Thorin ordered. “You have two minutes.”
Bilbo scampered frantically across the rocks, taking great care not to slip as he approached the brooding leader of their Company. He was shaken and not a little alarmed by Thorin's manner.
“Whelp should be thankful he still has his life!” The Dwarf King’s eyes were like two flints, cast beyond the edge of the forest.
“Thankful? Thorin, we ought to be thanking him!” Bilbo spluttered, catching his breath. "Was it not his valor that breached the gates? Is it not his blood that stains the riverbed?"
“If there be blood, then it stains his own hands!" Thorin replied. "I give no thanks for fools in my company!” At first, Bilbo was quite taken aback and knew not what to say. But the overwhelming pity in his heart for poor Kili’s suffering made him bold and from this growing well of courage did he speak his next words.
“Who was his tutor in that, I wonder?”
The little hobbit steeled himself as though expecting a blow and indeed, Thorin's great fist did quiver at his sides. But the Dwarf King only curled his lip, and his anger swiftly turned its course.
“I need no counsel from a halfling! Gather yourself and make ready!”
Disgusted, he took his leave, storming well away from the hobbit to bark stern commands at his wearied band. Bilbo thought this for the better. Many eyes were on Fili as he tended his brother's wound. Dwarves are expert fighters and, as such, possess knowledge of healing unknown to men or elves. With great care, Fili deftly wound a layer of wet sinew and linen around the injured leg. Soon the sinew would shrink and grow taut, tapering off the bloodflow and preventing further injury.
Kili’s lips set in grim determination when the task was done, the price for his boldness etched all too clearly across his pale face. Though his kinsmen offered aid, he would take none. When at last he had regained his feet, he did not meet the eyes of his Uncle, though he had been savior of them all.
Without any means to cross the water, the road to Erebor stretched ever farther from their reach. Durin’s Day was at hand and time had now become infinitely more precious than all the gold in Thrain’s kingdom. Doubtless, such fell thoughts weighed on Thorin’s mind beyond love for his kinsman.
‘A hurt as grievous as this’, Bilbo thought to himself, ‘will take no small amount of physic to set right.’
Of a habit (for hobbits are nothing if not resourceful) Bilbo searched the fauna around the dense patch of forest by the bank. Not so much as a fern seemed even remotely familiar. This was strange country to him and he had never encountered the wild grasses and brambles along the banks of any river in the Shire. Back home, a hobbit could concoct a remedy from bits and bobs in his own larder, recipes passed down from generations. Bilbo himself knew how to mix a passing salve from honey and rendered fat, applied with tincture of foul-smelling sap. Alas, Bilbo's own knowledge did not extend farther beyond treating a bout of occasional indigestion or burn from a cookstove. Arrow wounds were as foreign to him as dragon speech.
“Oh dear, oh dear.” Bilbo wrung his small hands. “This is terrible.” In a day or two the wound would fester and then surely, a fever would take him. He prayed Oin still carried something useful in his small leather scrip that would preserve Kili until they reached fairer shores.
"We're like naked bernes in a blizzard!" Dwalin cursed. "I feel like me best arm's been hewn off without me axe!"
"We'll forge you a new one as soon as our home is reclaimed." Balin assured him.
“We'll never reach the mountain at this rate!” Gloin, ever an optimist, grumbled.
“Aye, we’re in need of a raft! I don’t fancy getting my beard wet a second time!” Oin, the more pragmatic of the two in Bilbo’s estimation, offered up his solution.
“But a raft will take days to build!” Ori objected. “Surely we’ll be too late!”
Kili’s dark eyes were watchful though he did not voice his thoughts.
Thorin had that moment raised his hand as though to address the party when a tall shadow crept over his features. All were startled at the approach of a tall figure dressed in a tattered hide coat. In both hands he bore a long bow and a single notched arrow was aimed directly at Thorin’s heart.
“Who are you? What are you doing in these lands?”
It was Balin, eldest and most temperate among them, who addressed the strange dark man. With a fleeting wink to Bilbo, he whispered. “Providence, my lads. It appears our luck is finally beginning to turn.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bard the Bowman was not at all keen on the notion of smuggling thirteen dwarves and a burglar through the guarded waterways to Laketown. His coat, however, spoke of hard times and such men are easily swayed by gold. Still, Bilbo thought his eyes were not unkind as he spoke with Balin. Kili had been first to offer up what coin he had, Fili quickly following suit. The hard man's reluctance swayed when he saw the riches offered up by the ragged company to vouchsafe their passage.
"I will see to it that you enter Laketown unharmed." Bard vowed and Bilbo trusted somewhere in his heart that the Bargeman was a man of his word.
“I can manage.” Kili shook off his brother's guiding hand. Though it looked to Bilbo that his face grew paler and his breath came shorter, the injured archer wended his way aboard the deck by his own strength.
Bard spoke rarely, one hand on the rudder as they drifted forth from the shore and down towards the yawning expanse of the lake.
“We reach the first checkpoint within the hour, Masters.” Bard's words cut above the excitable flurry of dwarvish chatter. “When we do, you will follow my command all without question.”
Thorin remained silent though his followers all nodded their assent with an “Aye.” or a “Hell.”
Kili rested on the broad shoulder of his brother, staring out into the mirror of the lake that bore them onward. He stirred only when Fili roused him to offer up his waterskin. Kili drew from it gratefully, wetting his chin in his thirst.
“The sun will set ere we reach the town.” Fili drew his cloak tight about his shoulders. “I would our passage were gentler.”
The wounded dwarf made no sound, nor seemed to hear Fili's words though his limbs shook violently with cold. His gaze was distant, as though a tiny voice hidden away had called his name.
“Kili? Kili!”
A rash of troubled murmurs spread swift throughout the party. Alerted by Fili’s cry, Thorin moved stormily from his hushed conference with Dwalin to investigate.
“What ails him?” He demanded, placing a hand on Kili's head.
“Leave me. I am well enough.” The young dwarf muttered, fighting to stay awake as Thorin fell to one knee beside him.
Thorin’s brooding countenance did not betray his heart. To Fili he spoke sharply.
“Get a fire going.” Tearing away his own cloak, he draped it around the shoulders of his nephew. “Ori, water. Now.”
Ori rushed forth with a waterskin and a tin mug somehow secreted from the Elvish guard of Mirkwood. With the aid of Bilbo’s scrounging (he was a burglar after all), Fili managed to find scraps dry enough to build a steady blaze, using what little he could find on deck to contain the meager flames. Oin, rummaging through his scrip, sighed and shook his shaggy gray head.
“I’ve nary more than a sleep draught left.” Said he to Thorin. “We’ve no herbs left to tend a sniffle, let alone a battle wound.”
“Dig deeper. Find anything.” Thorin looked up to meet the eyes of Bard. Their nervous bustling had not gone unnoticed by the bargeman.
"That one." Bard nodded to the hunched form of Kili. "Looks a bit peaky, aye?"
Thorin’s reply was colder than a winter sky, his manner brusque and guarded.
"Took a fall by the river. He will mend in a week's time."
“I know an arrow wound when I see one, Master Dwarf.” The bargeman's gaze was grim but not without pity.
“His hurt is our affair, sir.” Spoke Fili, trying to rouse his brother to small avail.
“Oh, indeed.” Now Bard drew from his pocket a small pouch of oiled leather and held it before the Dwarf King. “Then he hath no need of this.”
“What is it?” Bilbo's eyes shone bright.
“Willow bark. Our people learned to break fevers with roots that stretched below the earth. It may not render him whole again but it should ease the pain until we reach port.”
“We are in your debt again, Bargeman.” Thorin muttered reluctantly though he dipped his head. Bilbo, knowing his place, bowed low to the Bargeman as Hobbits know well when courtesy is due.
Oin hummed, receiving the pouch from the bargeman with a gruff doff of his wet cap. “It will serve. Though pity we’ve no beesweets or treacle to improve the taste.”
“The pits with the taste!” Kili groaned, eyes closed fast against the pain. “I’d trade every ore in Dain’s Iron Hill for a moment’s rest!”
“Bear it a moment longer, my lad. By my beard, you shall have your rest.” Oin quickly set to his task, crouched by the small fire with the tin cup and handful of bitter bark to boil.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By luck or by blessing the winds blew quieter and the tide in its rumbling fell low, for the company were all too well acquainted with rough waters. The gray and gloomy water matched Thorin's stoic countenance as the Dwarf King surveyed his band. Kili's dark hair lay damp across his brow and he could not be roused again. The brew from the bargeman’s pouch had taken effect though none truly knew its course. Fili kept watch over his brother with a stalwart eye, rarely moving but to comfort his kinsman. Kili's breathing grew slow as the lake's fouler temper gentled and he slept.
“He burns. Is there naught we can do?”
Bilbo crouched by Kili’s side, offering in his hands a second mug of the dark willow brew. Oin had ordered another dose upon examination of the wound which had grown foul by some vile taint.
“Burning is not always so bad a thing?” Bilbo quipped helpfully though Fili's expression did not waver. “Fevers serve their purpose oddly enough. At the very least he is warm and that is better than I can say for my poor toes.” He placed a small hand on Kili’s shoulder in an attempt to wake him.
“Come, Master Kili. It's time for more foul-tasting medicine.”
To his surprise, Kili stirred. Blinking slowly in confusion at his surroundings, he did not appear to recognize the face of the hobbit nor even his kin beside him.
"Are the forges lit already?" He murmured, dark lashes fluttering, still wandering in dreams. “It is so warm.”
Bilbo looked to Fili in alarm. He stretched out a hand to quiet him.
“Hush. Be still.”
Bilbo offered up the cup of bitter brew but Kili turned his head. Sweat gleamed on his brow.
“Don’t be an infant. It will make you well again. ” Fili, forcing the cup from Bilbo’s hand, held it to his brother’s lips and bade him drink.
The dark tea trickled down Kili's beard as he swallowed it down to the last. Finally rid of the bargeman's strong brew, he settled once more against the deck and was soon lost once more in sleep.
"Wish I had my pipe." He mumbled, eyes closed. "Thieving elves. Would give my own right hand for it again."
"We're all bereft the small comforts of pipes and flasks." Fili said quietly. "For me, I would be happiest with a full belly."
Bilbo remained a moment longer, watching his charge as he breathed quietly. At the helm stood Thorin, gazing out upon the lake as still as carved stone. What dark thoughts weighed on his mind, Bilbo trembled to guess. That their quest could be doomed so close to its end made Bilbo’s heart faint indeed. Would Thorin choose the life of his nephew over the call of the Mountain?
Fili spoke once more as his brother slept beside him.
"Since our roving age, I have been charged with his care.” Fili’s hand brushed aside damp strands of dark hair from Kili’s brow. “In that golden time, our cares were few and we knew little the perils of the Outside. We made study of the craftsmen while they labored at the forges. My brother would have fallen straight into the ore pit were it not for my watch." Fili's blue eyes shone with remorse. "I have failed him.”
“Failed?” Bilbo was dumbstruck. "Not at all!"
“If he should perish--"
"Oh surely not!" Bilbo cried. "Not with the devotion of his kin!"
"I fear even that may not be enough." Fili’s gaze turned to his Uncle. "I have lived to watch good dwarves fall. One by one, I have seen our family diminish, felled by foes in battle or lost to the gold sickness. But by Durin's bane, I will see my own death before I see his."
It was then that Kili stirred, muttering fitfully in his dreaming.
"Uncle? Is it night?" He blinked dazedly, groping for some hazy vision that was not there. "Who has the watch...?"
"Shhh. It is the mist.” Bilbo quieted him, keeping his fears tucked safe and deep in his back pocket. “Sleep. We will soon reach shore. I for one will be thankful indeed to be on dry land."
"Land..." Kili sighed, his weary head falling back down to his breast. "I should very much like...to see land again."