Daughter of Starlight

Chapter Eleven: The Bargeman

It felt like hours before we managed to get away from the orcs. We had lost speed until we were all just floating idly down the river. Finally, Thorin called back to the company, "Anything behind us?"

"Not that I can see," Balin answered.

Bofur suddenly surfaced from beneath the rim of of his barrel, spitting out a mouthful of river water. "I think we've outrun the orcs!" he said excitedly.

"Not for long," Thorin then said. "We've lost the current. Make for the shore!"

We all began paddling our way towards a rock that jutted out of the water and extended onto land with our hands. After a minute or two of tedious paddling, we finally made it to the rocky shore.

Fili graciously extended his hand to me as soon as he climbed out of the barrel, helping me clamber onto land after him. When I stood on solid ground, I gathered my hair in my hands and squeezed the water out of it. After that I walked away from the water, and my gaze followed Kili as he collapsed to his knees, his hand to his bloodied thigh.

I blanched as he attempted to get the orc arrowhead out of his leg. His face portrayed his obvious pain, which made me even more worried about the state of his wound. Fili's and Bofur's facial expressions matched mine exactly, and when Kili noticed us, he brushed his pain off.

"I'm fine," he told us. "It's nothing." But I wasn't convinced.

I knelt down beside him to study his wound, and at that moment Thorin came by, seeming anxious to get out of here. "On your feet," he told Kili as he passed, not even looking at him.

"Kili's wounded," Fili told his uncle, taking his turn at getting the arrowhead out of his brother's leg. "His leg needs binding."

"There's an orc pack on our tail," Thorin said intolerantly. "We keep moving."

I looked up at Thorin, wondering what had gotten into him. Normally he would be concerned for his nephew if he got hurt. I then became more concerned with the fact that Fili wasn't having any luck with the arrowhead, either.

I gently pushed Fili's hands out of the way and got a grip on the arrowhead, despite how slippery it was from the blood. It proved to be harder to get out than I anticipated, since it had dug itself deeper into Kili's leg than I originally thought.

"To where?" Balin asked Thorin.

"To the mountain," Bilbo stated optimistically. "We're so close."

Balin seemed to sigh at Bilbo's cluelessness of the difficulties we still had to overcome to get to the Lonely Mountain. In truth, we were not "so close" at all.

"A lake lies between us and that mountain," Balin told Bilbo. "We have no way to cross it."

"So then we go around," Bilbo countered.

"The orcs will run us down as sure as daylight," Dwalin interjected gruffly. "And we have no weapons to defend ourselves."

I finally managed to get the stubborn arrowhead out of Kili's thigh. More blood began oozing out of the wound once the piece of jagged stone was out.

Thorin at last took notice of the extent of Kili's injury. He looked at me and Fili and said, "Bind his leg, quickly. You have two minutes."

I found myself waiting for Thorin to thank me for getting the arrowhead out of his nephew's leg, but he only turned away. That stung me a little, though I had no idea why. I decided to ignore my suddenly disappointed feelings and focus on helping Kili.

Fili tore off a piece of his tunic and began carefully wrapping his brother's leg so as to staunch the flow of blood.

"Thank you," Kili said to me, sounding glad to have the arrowhead out of his leg.