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The funeral pyres burned through the whole night, illuminating the entire valley with their flickering light. Many Dwarves decided to hold vigil, but even more were too tired after chopping down whole woods to build adequate pyres for so many dead.
There were so many. Too many.
The young prince was one of the Dwarves who had succumbed to sleep, but later woke up gasping, a hoarse yell in his throat. Dwalin was next to him instantly, gently rubbing Thorin's upper arm. Eventually the phantoms dissipated and he could see Dwalin's face without nightmarish blood and gore. He clung to the other Dwarf so hard he would leave a bruise. Dwalin spoke in hushed tones, as he hadearlier that evening, when they needed the warmth of their friendship. Their sleeping rolls lay close beneath the tent ceiling, and they had tried to occupy their minds with trivial things and stories of happier days.
But it was not enough. Dwalin might be his best friend, but he was not … he was not…
“I need to see Frerin.”
Dwalin nodded, and they left the tent with their coats thrown negligently over their shoulders. It was close to dawn, and only the largest pyres were still burning, those that held a dozen bodies or more. There hadn’t been enough dry wood to give each soldier their own fire, so they had stacked the wood into longer piles – some twenty feet long, and the bodies placed within almost touching. Thorin did not know what was worse, to burn the bodies – a violation of sacred practises – or the haste that meant the dead could not be mourned as they deserved.
The only pyres that held only one Dwarf were those for the royal family. King Thror, whose head had been recovered from the battlefield and the hurtful runes on his forehead covered with a leather helmet. Lord Náin, whose neck had been broken by the foul White Orc's mace. Lord Fundin, who died to save his younger son from a spear thrown directly at Dwalin's head. And Frerin, the sun of Thorin's life, who had not even seen his first century.
Thorin could still hear the voice of his little brother, telling him about all the adventures he would have once he was older. He remembered how Frerin had sung the old ballads about love and passion to the dwarrodam that Mahal had made just for him. How he had complained that his sword was not sharp enough, and how much he had insisted not to be part of the archers and stand on the sidelines of battle. Thráin had been adamant to keep his youngest boy safe, but Frerin could be very stubborn, and after two days of consistent nagging Thorin had been the one who had brought Frerin the clothes and armour of a simple foot soldier, telling him to sneak out of camp the next morning and join them for the big battle.
Which had ultimately sealed Frerin's fate. He had fallen, pierced by half a dozen arrows, but his death had come from a blade run through his chest. One of the orcs had seen the opportunity of a weakened Dwarf, kneeling on the ground and trying to rip an arrow shaft out of his arm, and had just thrust his knife deep into Frerin's flesh.
His death had been slow and painful. Thorin hadn't found him right away, the battlefield strewn with the bodies of friend and foe alike, but when he finally spotted Frerin lying half under another dead Dwarf, the young prince was still drawing breath.
Thorin had gathered the younger Dwarf into his arms, gritting his teeth as he remembered his dislocated shoulder, and had tried to drag Frerin to the healer's tents, but he was tired, and injured, and the tents were far away. In the end, he had just held his little brother and wiped away the frightened tears on Frerin's cheeks with his thumbs. The lad had been confused and had not recognised his own brother first, but then kept asking for his long dead mother, his father, pleading Thorin to make his pain stop, to chase away the cold.
By then, Thorin's own tears had mingled with those of Frerin, and it took an eternity until the Dwarf gasped his last breaths. Then Frerin lay completely still, his blood clinging to Thorin's skin, and they remained like this until Dwalin and Balin found them.
And then they had to strip Frerin's body of all armour, and burn him.
Dwarves did not cremate their dead. They buried them, in large tombs of stone, preserving the bodies with secret balms and what some might call magic. It was a crime to destroy the body of a dead Dwarf in any way willingly, but Thráin, as their new King, had given orders that they had no time to build tombs for so many dead, and instead burn them.
Which meant that for Thorin, there were now only ashes to mourn over.
Frerin's funeral pyre had been the one closest to the mountains and the farthest away from their camp. Thorin's shoulder was aching fiercely, but he felt the need to be there, to … say goodbye. When they had lit the fires, he had closed his eyes, not able to watch, and instead vanished into the tent he shared with his cousins and some other Dwarves.
Now, he stood before the remaining ashes, some already blown away by the wind, but there were also some embers still nestled under bigger logs of wood, giving away a sickly light that couldn't compete with the brightness of the sun rising behind his back.
Thorin fell to his knees, and started to dig.
Thorin could feel Dwalin hovering behind him, and was grateful that the other Dwarf remained silent. If there had been questions, he wasn't sure if he could have found an answer, as he himself didn't know what he was even searching for. Dwarves might sometimes claim that they were made of Mahal's stone itself, but in the end there were just flesh and blood, which burnt just like the meat of any animal if the fire was just hot enough; all that was left would be the grey dust that was already sticking firmly under his fingernails.
But then his fingers found something hard. Thorin inspected it more closely in the early morning light, and first thought it to be a small rock, though it was strangely smooth and blackened from the fire.
Thorin needed a second to realise that he was holding a bone fragment, but then he dug only more vehemently, until he had his palm full of them, some larger, some smaller.
“Thorin, we should go.” Dwalin's voice was hoarse, but Thorin didn't hear him. He searched frantically for something in his pockets, anything, a piece of leather or cloth or...
His tobacco pouch.
The dried leaves ended up in a small heap on the ground and were quickly blown away by the wind. They were replaced by the carefully collected bone shards, and then Thorin went over to the patch of scorched ground were Thror's pyre had been.
“Thorin, this is madness!”
The King's body had been older, his bones thicker and even harder to burn. Thorin did not have to dig much to find pieces of a femoral bone, and something that could have been part of Thor's spine. Those fragments also went into the pouch, and only then Thorin turned around to his cousin.
“I will bury them, Dwalin. Properly.”
They returned to their settlement in Dunland as a ragged group of beggars, nothing left of the singing, cheering army gleaming in the sun that had left their wives and daughters behind in safety. Messengers had been sent to tell them of the victory that they had bought so dearly, and many of the dwarrodams waited for them at the gates, some already crying at seeing their dwindled numbers. Thorin was walking at the front of the group, supporting one of the injured Dwarves, who was taken from his arms as soon as he stepped inside the walls that marked the borders of their small dwarvish village.
He saw his sister waiting for him, her posture that of a royal princess, but she looked at him with watery eyes.
“Thorin? Are they … are they really gone?”
He bowed his head in shame. The letter to the settlement had also included a brief note to his sister, telling her about Thror and their Uncles and Frerin in as much detail as he could, including a few sentence of his father’s mysterious disappearance only shortly after the funeral pyres had been lit.
“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, and suddenly his arms were filled with his crying sister. He hugged her tight and did not let go of her for a long time, ignoring the tears soaking through his coat, mail and shift. His own tears threatened to drop on Dís' head, but he quickly wiped them away.
Around them he could hear many a desperate cry of a fresh widow, and Thorin felt their grief in his own heart, but there was a pang of jealousy at the relieved laughter of the few reunited families. Those that had gotten their loved ones back deserved every happiness in the world, and he had been able to smile honestly when he saw Dwalin embracing his sweetheart, but his sister and him had lost so much already that he thought they would never be able to feel cheerful again.
After a while, Dís looked at him, rubbing her cheeks clean.
“You're the King now.” Dís stated, still snivelling. She was not entirely right, as Thráin needed to be missing for more than ten years for Thorin to be crowned King, but until then he would still have to lead his people, be it into a shining future or into endless darkness.
He was not sure if he could do it. More than twenty years needed to pass until he would even reach his first century, and he felt like he had never learnt a single thing about politics, diplomacy, or taxes.
“You will have to help me, little sister.” Thorin felt the urge to show her the pouch in his pocket, wanted to tell her that even though their grandfather and brother would always be burned Dwarves he would bury them in proper stone, and maybe even in the mountain where they had been born.
But he saw the shadow of a smile fluttering over Dís' lips, and decided against it. Even more than sharing his secret, he wanted his sister to be happy, and not feel that it was her duty to share the weight he was carrying on his shoulders. Because he would fulfil his promise, no matter the cost.
Dunland had never been their home, and Thorin felt it more and more after he had returned from Azanulbizar. His people were not suffering, not starving and freezing, but they were not prospering either, and now that they had lost Khazad-dum again, Thorin wanted to have at least that. So he sat over old maps, his finger tracing the lines of mountains in east, west, south and north, and then he wrote letters to villages in all directions. The only answer he got was from a smaller city in the Blue Mountains, an old settlement of mostly Broadbeams and Firebeards, who would still accept a few hundred Longbeards. Thorin understood the resentment the other families had – the Longbeards had called for war, and they had killed them in their senseless war, not the orcs and goblins who had painted the ground with dwarven blood – but he was relieved that at least some Dwarves had not lost faith in the Line of Durin.
No Dwarf stayed behind; the settlement was dismantled and everything packed on carts and the backs of oxen and mules. The caravan would be long and not easy to guard, but the one his grandfather had guided south after Erebor fell had been even longer.
At the thought of King Thror, Thorin's hand went to the pouch hidden in the inner lining of his shift, which made it look like he was rubbing his chest. Then he looked around, into the grim face of his sister who was carrying half her household on her own shoulders, and Dwalin who was sitting on one of the few ponies they still owned. He gave them a curt nod, and Dwalin signalled the trek to start moving.
The journey north was long, and they had some casualties; a smaller group of orcs attacked them, but they only managed to kill two draught animals, and one of the older Dwarves died of a chest infection. But the efforts and hardships were redeemed by the sight of the Blue Mountains in the distance, and Thorin, though his heart still felt heavy and he longed for guidance and for someone to lighten his spirits with a lewd joke, smiled for the first time in months.
Living inside a proper mountain again was a relief. They had managed in Dunland, but they were Dwarves, who felt the most comfortable when surrounded by stone on all sides. And once they had all settled in their new homes, opened new mines, built forges and workrooms, and took up trade with other dwarven settlements and the humans in that area, Thorin almost felt … at home.
And for a while, he thought it was enough of a home to empty the pouch in one of the burial chambers deep under their city, to put the bones to rest inside a small casket of stone and gems, but it still didn't feel right. Instead, he hid the pouch under his spare clothes, far in the back of his wardrobe. He almost forgot about it when he went about his daily business, standing in the forge or sitting with traders and ambassadors, but at the end of the day he always gazed at his wardrobe and repeated his promise silently.
Somehow, the years passed more quickly now. He saw his sister grow into a beautiful dwarrodam with light brown hair that shimmered in sunlight like fire agate, and he feared that he would have to fight off countless suitors. Before that could even happen Dís was already betrothed to a simple miner. The name of the lad was Víli, and Thorin learnt later that he was the cousin of a survivor of Azanulbizar, the one that had lived even though he had an axe sticking in his skull. First, he could only frown at Víli, remembering his trade and status, but then he saw how Dís smiled, and laughed, and danced again when Víli was with her, and in the end it was him who put their hands together, wedding them with the whole kingdom as witnesses. Thorin wished that he were not the only one to hug Dís that day and welcome Víli into their family, but he still felt that Thror and Frerin and their father would approve of his decision.
And by Mahal, how right his decision had been. The day Thorin held his little nephew in his arms for the first time, all the grief over the family he had lost receded into a far distance. The boy blinked at him with clear blue eyes, yawned and then caught a strand of Thorin's hair with his tiny fist, and pulled at it so forcefully that Thorin yelped in surprise. The lad was destined to be a strong Dwarf in the future, and Thorin was right: Fíli grew to be an excellent fighter, just like his little brother Kíli. Seeing the two boys grow up, doing all kinds of mischief and playing pranks on their whole city reminded him so much of his long dead brother, but Thorin could think about Frerin with a smile by now.
When Víli died, it was Thorin who brought him home and held Dís while she cried and cursed and cried even more. The boys were crying too, not quite children anymore but not yet adults either, and Thorin looked at Fíli and saw himself after Azanulbizar. The laughing, happy boy had not vanished, but Fíli suddenly had that air of responsibility about him that spoke of lost innocence, of the sudden realisation that he could do nothing against the passing of time and that there would come a day when his mother and uncle would leave him behind too.
At least Fíli still had his brother. They cared so much for each other, and stuck together like lodestones.
During Víli's funeral, Thorin once again thought of burying the pouch along with his good-brother, but remembered that Víli hadn't even known Thror and Frerin; they deserved their own grave. Instead he called for Fíli and Kíli that evening, and officially named them his heirs, which only seemed to surprise Kíli, whereas Fíli frowned, his lips turning into a slim line. He looked like he wanted to say something, but remained silent as not to hurt his beloved uncle.
Thorin ignored him, as he already knew what Fíli wanted to accuse him of. He had no other choice though, and wished that Fíli would not share the same fate as Thorin had had. Hopefully, there would be many more years until Fíli had to take on the full responsibility of a King.
And indeed, more than a dozen years passed until the day Thorin heard rumours about a Dwarf who had been seen somewhere close to the Misty Mountains, and decided to search for some traces of his lost father, which led to a meeting with Tharkûn and the beginnings of a plan which sounded so insane that it might actually work.
When he packed his things for the long way across Middle-earth, to a Mountain he hadn't seen since his childhood, he put a certain pouch at the bottom of his bag.
The sky loomed above him in a dull grey, with only some clouds discernible, and all of those rushed across his vision like they were chasing each other. He felt his lids becoming heavier and heavier, and though his eyes were still open, the light was fading.
He felt the cold seeping into his clothes, the ice and snow he was lying on slowly melting because of the blood flowing from his wound.
Thorin knew he was dying, and he could do nothing against it.
By now he was hardly feeling anything of his body. The foot that this monster of an Orc had impaled with his metal claw was nothing but a dull throb, and he only remembered that his chest had been pierced through when he tried to take a proper breath. Which was a difficult task anyway, as he could already taste blood on his lips.
He knew it wouldn't take long to die. He just wished he were not alone, even if he didn't deserve it. Fíli had died alone, hanging from the hand of that filthy orc, and they didn't have enough time to retrieve his body. To mourn him for at least a second. And Fíli had been so young, this battle not his, Erebor not his home to fight and die for.
It had all been Thorin's plan, his madness that had killed them.
Them, all of them. Thorin was sure that Kíli, Dwalin, Balin, all of his company were dead by now. There were simply too many orcs, and even without Azog, their foes would manage to kill them.
And Bilbo. Kind, soft Bilbo was lying on the snow with a broken neck, because he had tossed him from the battlements.
No.
No, he hadn’t done that. He’d stopped, he hadn’t strangled Bilbo and thrown him to his death. Bilbo had come to him during the battle, and had watched Fíli dying, standing right next to Thorin. And then Thorin had gone to kill Azog, to avenge his family.
His family.
Somehow, Thorin found the strength to move his left hand, and his numb fingers managed to slide under his armour, feeling for a hidden pocket in his shift. Through all the misadventures on their journey, their lost ponies and packs and those blasted Elves leaving them with nothing but their undergarments, he had not lost the pouch. He had sewed it into his clothes again in Rivendell, wearing it over his heart just like after Azanulbizar.
And by some miracle, it was still whole.
Thorin's fingers stroked over the fabric as he closed his eyes. No, he was not alone, his family was still watching over him.
Breathing was getting harder. He coughed, and suddenly there was a noise, someone panting and the soft sound of feet on stone and ice.
Brown curls, a blue coat. The hobbit was alive. Alive.
“Bilbo.”
Speaking was even harder than breathing, and Thorin couldn't stop the cough rattling through his lungs. There was even more blood in his mouth now. With his last strength he grabbed the pouch with his left hand, while Bilbo put his small fingers over Thorin's other hand.
The hobbit was babbling, and Thorin was trying to right at least some of his wrongdoings. He apologized, every breath a cough and every word another stab through his chest, as he told the Hobbit to go back to his home. Bilbo had helped to reclaim Erebor, just like he promised. There was nothing else that Thorin could give him now.
The world would be indeed a merrier place if more people valued their home and food just like Hobbits did.
“No. No, no, no...”
Bilbo's broken voice was the last thing Thorin heard, and blood and Bilbo’s cracked lips the last thing he felt in this world.
The King under the Mountain was laid to rest besides his sister-sons, deep in the heart of Erebor, in a chamber tomb chiselled by dwarven masons, all masters of their art. Bilbo laid the Arkenstone upon his chest, snivelling and rubbing furiously at his eyes. The Elves had brought Orcrist, cleaned of Azog's blood, and placed it at his feet.
But it was Dwalin, the only other Dwarf who knew about it, who had recovered the small bag from Thorin's wrecked clothes, and now put it into his King's cold hand, wrapping Thorin's fingers around the worn leather. Dwalin gazed at his dead cousin for a good while, before he leaned forward and whispered into Thorin's ear.
“Now they're buried properly.”
~fin~