Returning Home: A Hobbit Fanfiction

Chapter 45 - Fire and Water

~~ Elena ~~

The Lord of Silver Fountains, 
The King of Carven Stone. 
The King Beneath the Mountain 
Will come into his own.

"Bring her to the boats," the Master declared with some difficulty, once he had regained control of himself some minutes later, and Elena had been suitably restrained. 

Or, to be more accurate, her guard - a very familiar looking guard - was holding her quite tightly by her healing arm, and she was gritting her teeth to keep from doing anything rash. "I'm not leaving without her, and if that beast inside the mountain really is going to wake up, I want to be far away from here before it does. Do we have anyone else who can afford to pay the tax?" he asked one of the guards.

He shook his head. "We got the last of it here, my lord," he said, pulling a small bag out of his pocket and jingling it in his hand. "Everyone who could pay went on the last boats this morning."

"Good, good, now give it here," the Master commanded, tucking the bag away into one of his inner pockets. "Start loading up a boat for me, and make sure you get all my belongings! Don't want one of the greedy beggars who lives here going through my belongings when I'm not around to protect it. Where's Alfrid?"

"He's with the group going after the other dwarf, my lord," one of the guards answered, tightening his grip on Elena's arm and yanking her towards the docks. "Come along, dwarf. Why the dwarf king brought along a useless female, I'll never know, but the Master has need of you."

She glared at him, but went along without resisting, biding her time and trying to brace herself for what she was planning to do. She just needed to let them continue to think of her as stupid and weak for a little bit longer, and then she could go find Fíli, wherever he was. Hopefully he'd gotten away. 

Bofur and Óin were watching Bard's children, and still hadn't been able to get the Black Arrow to the top of the tower with the wind lance needed to shoot it. Which meant that they would be focused on that, and not on Fíli and Elena. 

For the time being, they were on their own.

She stumbled to a halt when her guard threw her towards a small barge against one of the docks. "Get in, dwarf. This is where you'll be staying until we arrive." 

"Good man," the Master praised him, tossing him a small gold coin. "Send the rest of the guards off to help collect all my belongings. We've taken her two small daggers, and she is too small to defend herself adequately without them. You should be enough to watch her." 

He smiled greedily as the guard turned to do his bidding, and the other three guards took off at a trot for the Master's house. Already the barge was piling up with bags and boxes of valuables, most likely stolen from the people of Lake-town at one point or another. 

"I don't know why your leader really left you here in Lake-town, but I suppose it doesn't matter now," he told her, weighing the bag of gold happily in his hand. "His loss is our gain. Though doubtless he will even know it's a loss. Dwarves are greedy creatures, and if he knew what he could gain by having you in his possession, he would never have left you here with only one pathetic dwarf warrior to protect you."

Elena grit her teeth and stalked to the edge of the boat, gripping the railing with one hand and using that to block his view of her as she slid the other up inside her coat. Fíli had helped her hide the dagger he'd given her earlier, and given that not even the elves had managed to find all his hidden knives, she wasn't too surprised that they'd missed it in their cursory sweep of her.