Daughter of Starlight

Chapter Twenty Two: the King Under the Mountain

It took the rest of the day to reach the Lonely Mountain. It had been midmorning when Oin, Bofur, Fili, Kili, and I left the boat at the opposite lakeshore and began the trek upwards, and it was well into the afternoon when we agreed that we were halfway there. It was only in the earliest hours of the evening when we passed beneath the ruins of Dale.

The sight of the destroyed city, with its ghostly remains worn by the years it laid dormant, made guilt prickle inside me. Whoever had escaped had found refuge in Laketown generations ago, and many of their descendants had met the same fate last night. It was horrible to know we had brought forth the wrath of such destruction.

The thoughts of guilt were diverted and turned to ones of fear as we approached the entry gate to the dormant dwarf kingdom. It was completely demolished, and the only explanation was because it was how Smaug had exited the mountain. Inside it was dark, and no sign of life stirred within.

Did that mean . . . ?

No. It couldn't. Our friends couldn't be dead.

We ran inside, fearing the worst as we entered the mountain

"Hello?" Bofur called. "Bombur? Bifur? Anybody?" When neither of his brothers answered the call of their names and nor anyone else, we pushed on.

I followed the dwarves deep into the halls of dark earthen shades of stone, our footsteps echoing in the huge space. The more I saw of the winding staircases within the mountain, the more I realized how large this hidden kingdom was. The similarities to the Woodland Realm surprised me. They both were extensive carven underground kingdoms of sorts, however this one was angular and geometric compared to the flowing carvings of the Woodland Realm.

Suddenly we heard a voice yelling, "Wait! Wait!"

"It's Bilbo!" Bofur exclaimed happily.

"He's alive!" Oin was just as overjoyed, and so was I. A part of me had been fearful that our burglar had been burned alive, and there were no words sufficient enough to say how happy I was he hadn't.

But however happy we were to see him, it was obvious he wasn't happy to see us. For some reason, he seemed to be panicked.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" he said, skidding to a stop in front of us. "We need to leave. We all need to leave."

"We only just got here." Bofur was as confused by Bilbo's words a the rest of us.

"I've tried talking to him, but he won't listen," Bilbo said.

"What do you mean, laddie?" Oin asked, cocking his head towards the hobbit with his hearing device all bent out of shape, making it hard for him to hear Bilbo's soft speech.

"Thorin!" Bilbo said a little loudly, startling all of us. Then he spoke softer again, "Thorin. He's been down there all night and all day. He hasn't slept, he's barely eaten. He's not been himself. Not at all."

While Bilbo was speaking, I watched as Fili turned his head away from Bilbo to look downwards. When I followed his gaze, I saw a golden glow even deeper down in the mountainous caverns. There was only one thing that could be making that glow.

I was distracted by the light when Bilbo said, "It's this place. I think a sickness lies on him."

Dread made my blood run cold. No. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't.

"Sickness? What kind of sickness?" Kili asked with as much trepidation in his voice as there was in my mind.

I didn't have time to hear the answer, for I had bolted down the stairway with Fili at my side. Neither of us wanted to believe what we knew Bilbo was implying. We had to see it for ourselves.

"Fili! Laerornien!" Bilbo called after us, trying to get us to come back, but it was too late. I knew Kili and Bofur were following us, and Bilbo had no choice but to trail after us as well.

When we finally reached the deepest caverns of the mountain, we could do little more than stare. My mouth was agape as I looked at heaps upon heaps of gold, with precious gems plentifully dotted among them of every color. Torches lit up the piles dwarfish riches, casting a bright golden glow upon the entire hall. How could Thrór have gathered this much gold in his time as king? How was it possible to accumulate such a number of riches? I could hardly believe my eyes.

Then a single word broke the silence that had ensnared us all, softly uttered by a deep voice I knew too well.

"Gold."

My gaze landed upon Thorin as he stepped out of some sort of vault in the center of the spacious treasure room. He was clad in royal dwarfish robes lined in fur and embroidered with silvery geometric patterns and rings adorned his fingers. As he stepped out of the vault, every step stirred the coins and sent metallic sounds echoing throughout the hall.

"Gold beyond measure," Thorin continued, enraptured by the treasure around him. "Beyond sorrow, and grief."

Every word had been laced with the madness I knew gripped him, sickening me to the core, but when Thorin looked up towards the six of us, it confirmed what Bilbo and the rest of us had feared. There was only one explanation for the hungry look in his eyes and the hunched shoulders as he stood over his treasure.

Dragon sickness was upon him.

"Behold," Thorin spoke again, this time to us. "The great treasure horde of Thrór."

Suddenly he threw something at Fili, something that glittered red as it soared through the air. The elder Durin brother caught it easily, and we all saw that it was a large ruby.

"Welcome, my sister's sons," Thorin said, putting a hand to his chest. "To the kingdom of Erebor."

He extended his arms over the gold, the gesture conveying the supremacy of the treasure beneath his feet.His voice echoed in the hall, the sound so unexplainably agonizing to me. The dwarf who stood among the treasure of his grandfather was no longer Thorin Oakenshield. He was the King Under the Mountain.

This realization tore at something inside my chest, and for reasons unknown to me, it was all I could do to keep myself from breaking down and crying.