Heart of Embers (Thorin Oakenshield Love Story)

Chapter 43

Arien coughed as smoke shoved its way into her nostrils, the thick black stuff obscuring her view of the mountain. Figures swam in her foggy vision as she stumbled clear of the smoke and reached a small, ash covered clearing where dwarves –– soldiers, miners, women, children –– were huddled together. Obviously a place where they were gathering once they had got out.

Which Arien had done. Slipping through the main gates and running from the mountain concealed by the shadows of the rocks, she had obeyed Thorin's order to get out. To flee. And now...

She squinted through the thick black smoke, eyes stinging, scanning the faces of the dwarves, but... nothing. Thorin was not here. Fear struck her like a hammer. She peered at the dwarves again, and...

There.

Dis, Fili and Farin were huddled together by a rock. She also spotted Balin and Dwalin a little way off at the same as moment Dis called, in a croaking, choked voice, so unlike her usual tones.

"Arien! Come over here."

She made her way over. Dis's face was smudged, her black hair limp. She gripped Arien's elbow.

"Where is Thorin?" she asked in a panicked voice. "Where is my brother? And my mother and father. Where are they?"

"I don't know," Arien managed to say. "Frerin...?"

"He's fine," Dis told her. "He's here."

"And Thror?"

"We don't know. No one's seen him."

"And..." Arien swallowed. "And Thorin? No one's seen him either?"

Dis shook her head.

Arien turned away. Thorin... He could not be dead. That light could not have gone out.

She sunk to her knees as a small whimpering noise came out of her. It could have been his name, she didn't know. She'd heard it –– the boom as the dragon burst through the gates. And Thorin... Thorin had been there. Thorin had been there, leading the King's Guard, and... and...

No.

If he was dead...

He could not be dead. He could not be dead.

Arien would not leave this place until he came.

She would wait for the rest of her damned life if necessary.

She would always wait for him.

She would not leave.

***

Thorin was ahead of the last stragglers of the fleeing dwarves as he and his grandfather hurried for the ruined gates.

He'd been right about Thror going to save the Arkenstone. And the gold. He'd found the fool in the treasury, trying to grab the Arkenstone that he'd dropped in the gold where the dragon was thrashing. Thorin had dragged him away, and now they ran for the gates. Thror had not said a word to him.

Thorin nearly choked as the gates came into view and revealed the bodies littering the floor. He could have prevented this. It was his fault, and...

A dwarf knelt on the ground, head bent and shoulders shaking with tears, a body cradled in his arms. A small gasping noise came from Thorin as he realised who it was that wept. As he realised that if he was crying, if this of all dwarves, all people, was crying, then... Then it had to be something monumental.

"Father," he said as he hurried to Thrain's side. And stopped dead as he beheld the face of the woman his father cried over.

"No," he whispered, sinking to his knees. "Please, no."

Not her. Anyone but her.

Thrain lifted his head and met his son's gaze, face tear-stained and eyes bleak. Thorin began shaking his head, as if he could somehow undo this, somehow stop his father from saying the words that would confirm this death.

"She's dead," Thrain whispered, his voice cracked and shaking. "She's dead."

Thorin's heart fractured completely. And he could only stare numbly at the body, could only dig his nails into the rock so hard they cracked, could only continue shaking his head.

Because it couldn't be true.

Because the woman that lay there, cold and still as a pale morning still gripped in winter's chill...

It was his mother.