To Love a Half-Blood (A Kili Fanfic)

Chapter 53: Does It End Like this?

It is a long walk. The killing fields do not make for easy footing, and the snow that is sprinkling down from the sky isn't helping. But, by far, the worst part is the stench. The overwhelming, consuming smell of metallic-sweet blood and rotting meat. Maybe that was what forced me to hurry. Transferring from a walk to a jog to a run.

If I move fast enough I won't have to see their faces.

At this point of exhaustion, I'm not tired. I feel light, airy, almost unreal. My wounds don't hurt anymore. The healers bandaged my right arm quickly and wiped off the majority of the blood. But it doesn't matter. I need to see them. I need to see Kili's living face. I cannot bear to think of an alternative.

As I crest the hill and look down into the valley of fighting, my heart thunders in my chest. I take a deep breath, unsheathe my nicked and dulled weapons, and slide down the hill into the fray. I slowly work my way through the battle. Most are already engaged in fighting one on one. I steal a few kills from my comrades, gutting their opponents as they distract them.

It is much different from when I first started. The men are excited, you can feel the hope in the air. Most of the orcs are dead or have retreated and victory seems imminent.

After kicking out a goblin's knee and stabbing it quickly in the heart, I spot them, across the valley from me, on the front lines. The royal family is separated from the rest of the battle, seeking out and killing the goblin archers that shower down arrows on the rest of us. Kili and Thorin in the center, Fili and Ember taking the left flank and... Dain alone on the right.

Something about this situation seems off. I spin and hack off the arm of a small, hunched orc who tried to sneak up on me. I glance up from the bloody mess. Dain is straying from the group. Further, further. He steps behind a mass of boulders, invisible from the Sons of Durin. The orc is still moaning on the ground. A dwarvish shout from nearby prompts me to look up. I leap back just in time for the hunk of rock to crush my enemy and not me.

This gives me the pause in action that I need. I scrutinize Dain's movements in the setting sun. He is gesturing to someone, raising his axe above his head. Then I see it. The pale orc from Mirkwood. He is talking to Dain, towering over him at nearly twice my father's height. I wouldn't have recognised him if it weren't for the steel claw of a hand that he is waving towards the dwarf lord. He shoves the dwarf-lord to the ground with an easy stroke of his false hand. The traitor of a dwarf holds up his hands in protest. A small gasp escapes my lips as I watch my biological father run through with the monster's sword.

It was so quiet. Too far away to hear the scream. Too far to see the blood.

Dain is just a lump on the far side of a valley. If I hadn't already been sick once today, I think that would've done the trick.

But, to my horror, the Pale Orc doesn't stop there. He keeps moving across the hillside, towards my family.

oh no.

Everything is suddenly quiet. Now I know what tunnel vision is. I run, quickly and feverishly across the battlefield. My feet are moving so quickly I am scared to stop, scared to look down for fear of the delusion of coordination to disappear and that I will fall to the ground. But there is no time. I have nearly a mile to cover and several hundred bodies, living and dead, in my way.

It will be a bitter victory if the ones I love are slaughtered regardless.

I slide around in the snow and mud, refusing to slow my pace. Azog meets Thorin first. I see the King's head perk up at a noise. My shoulder slams into the back of a goblin, knocking it and the dwarf fighting it off their footing. I don't even look back.