Daughter of Starlight

Chapter Sixteen: the Master of the Lake

By the time the guards dragged us outside, in front of what I assumed was the Master's house, an angry mob had somehow formed all around us. It seemed the entire town had woken up, spontaneously realizing that there had been thievery afoot in their town, and they didn't like it.

When we neared the house, I watched a short man with a tattered hat atop his greasy black hair and a hideous unibrow on his forehead poke his head out the front door. When he saw us, he went back in and slammed the door shut. A moment later, an obese man with a thinning hairline of orange that was fading to grey appeared in the doorway by the black-haired man's side. He wore a dirty fur robe over his dirtier clothes, and he didn't seem to happy to have been woken up.

"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded in a voice that reminded me of a rat.

"Caught 'em stealing weapons, Sire," the captain of the guard replied. So this was the Master.

"Ah," he leered at us. "Enemies of the state, eh?"

"These are a bunch of mercenaries if there ever was, Sire," the black-haired man said. I recognized his voice as Alfrid's, the weasel who had been tormenting Bard.

"Hold your tongue!" Dwalin spat the words out at the weasel. "You don't know to whom you speak. This is no common criminal. This is Thorin. Son of Thráin. Son of Thrór."

The King Under the Mountain. It was obvious everyone was thinking it.

Thorin stepped to the front of the company, an air of regality I had never seen before seeming to illuminate him. For the first time since I'd met him, I actually looked at his strong, confident stride, his dark eyes boring into the Master's with a righteous authority that demanded respect. Something akin to admiration filled me, but I couldn't quite understand what the feeling was, nor did I care to at the moment.

"We are the dwarves of Erebor," he said. "We have come to reclaim our homeland." He bravely stood before the Master, knowing he was a king who would not be stopped by anyone in his quest, much less this filthy rat and scheming weasel.

"'We' is a bit of a strong word, isn't it, Master Dwarf?" Alfrid suddenly asked. The meaning of his words was lost to us until he pointed directly at me. "That one looks a little too tall to be a dwarf maiden."

"She is Laerornien," Thorin jumped to my aid, knowing something bad would happen if Alfrid pursued the topic. "She is our navigator."

"No she's not," Bilbo suddenly spoke up. "She is every bit as royal as our leader. She is the princess of the Woodland Realm."

I stared Bilbo, whose loyalty seemed hardly containable in a hobbit whose head just reached my elbow, with wide eyes. I could hardly believe he had announced that for the entire town to hear.

"That title is no longer honored, though, is it Your Highness?" Alfrid spat out, descending the stairs before the house. "If I remember the stories correctly, you haven't been the princess for a very long time, have you?"

I glared at the short man who stood before me, wishing he was close enough for me to throttle him before he spoke the words that would reveal to the rest of the company what I had fought to keep hidden for so long.

"You have no right to speak of matters you know nothing about, utinu en lokirim." I spoke an elvish insult that meant "son of snakes," a perfect title for the horrible man standing before me.

Silence ensued between me and the disgusting excuse of a man when Thorin ordered me to stop engaging with him, knowing there was no need to escalate the scene any further.

"People of Lake-town," Thorin regained the attention of the citizens, and they listened to him intently.

"I remember this town in the great days of old," Thorin said. "Fleets of boats lay at harbor, filled with silks and fine gems. This was no forsaken town on a lake. This was the center of all trade in the north."