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Chapter Text

Darkness.

Darkness and pain.

Hunger gnawed his belly like a rat desperate to escape a trap; teeth and claws scrabbling relentlessly at his guts.

Never again would he complain about Galion’s rabbit pie.

He licked moisture from the walls but it was never enough to assuage his thirst.

Even the dregs of sour wine from long forgotten barrels would now taste better than his fading memories of the finest Dorwinion red.

When he finally gathered the strength of will to master his weakness and explore his prison, Anglach found that he was not alone.

Rags came apart under questing fingers that then met cold, hard bone. With shaking hands, Anglach mapped the body of his long-dead companion.

Short, sturdy legs, arms that in life would have been powerful. A dwarf, he was sure of it.

The skull had rolled away from the body. Anglach retrieved it and cradled it in his hands, feeling the strong ridges over the brows, and tracking the line of a scar in the bone bisecting and fragmenting one eye socket; a wound that the dwarfed had survived long enough for the bone to re-knit. Examination over, he placed the skull reverently with the rest of the bones. From their position, he guessed that the dwarf had died with his back resting against the cold stone wall of their prison.

The dwarf’s right leg had been broken in three places; once below the knee and twice above it. From the slight ridges in the bone, its owner had lived long enough for those breaks to heal as well, but Anglach doubted any kindness had been at work there.

He certainly did not expect to find kindness in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. It was not through kindness that he had been taken alive. He wished with all his heart that one of his comrades had been able to grant him the mercy of a clean end under the trees with the light of the stars in his eyes and the smell of the leaves in his nostrils. Better that than the miserable, painful death that he knew awaited him beneath the earth.

He had no means of measuring the passage of time other than by the addition of yet more rats to the tribe attempting to chew their way out of his body. One additional rat for each day, maybe?

Thranduil had drawn the line at pet rats in his halls but even so he had studiously ignored the one with the injured leg that Anglach had nursed back to health, hidden in the corner of his clothes chest. When he finally released it into the forest, Galion had sniffed the air with an expression of deep disgust and had washed every item of clothing in the chest. No words had been said and, if possible, Anglach loved Galion even more for his forbearance. It was not possible for him to love Thranduil more, for his foster faster meant everything to him and could do no wrong in his eyes, then and now.

To pass the time, Anglach named the rats in his guts, hoping that befriending them would dull the pain. Biter was joined by Scratcher and Feisty. Then came Snuffles and Whiskers. If any of them became friends – more than friends –the small colony inside him would grow too fast for him to name them all.

Eventually, even the dead dwarf could remain silent no longer. “It is hunger that gnaws at you, elfling, not imaginary rats.”

Anglach sighed theatrically. “Shush! You’ll hurt their feelings.”

“Imaginary rats do not have feelings.”

“And dead dwarves do not speak.”

“And yet here I am, speaking to you.”

“You are dead. I’ve counted your bones. You’re definitely dead.”

“And yet, as I just said, here I am, speaking to you.”

Anglach narrowed his eyes in thought. The dwarf had a point. He would have to ponder this further. He wished Legolas was with him. He would know how to speak to dead dwarves. So would Laersul. And Thalos, too. He would no doubt debate the hind leg off a dead dwarf – which would not be overly difficult in this case, as none of the bones were attached to each other any more. And that thought made him feel sad. He liked dwarves, even though no one would ever agree to him keeping one of his very own. He just loved their funny accents and their cute little tunics and their dear little axes. Well maybe not so little. Legolas had been right about that. Their axes were formidable.

The thought of the dwarf dying alone in the dark dungeon, his spirit remaining there while his flesh and even his clothing mouldered to nothing made him sad and Anglach felt it would only be polite to make conversation with the dwarf, despite the pounding pain in his head and the sting from numerous as yet unhealed wounds and the bruises he’d received from the fists and booted feet of the orcs. They’d been a tetchy lot. He really didn’t like orcs. Or goblins. Even if they were Legolas’ long-lost kin. He’d certainly never wanted to keep a goblin as a pet.

“Did you know that there is a finger missing from your right hand? I have counted the bones several times and searched the floor, but it is not here.” Anglach’s hand flew up to his mouth. Maybe talking about missing body parts wasn’t polite, but Galion had never been strong on etiquette lessons other than please and thank you, so he had no idea how to make polite conversation with a dead dwarf. An imaginary dead dwarf. Did that make a difference? If he ever got the chance, he’d ask his foster father. Or maybe not. The elvenking had no particular love of dwarves. This was starting to make his head hurt even more. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the missing finger…

The dwarf sniffed disdainfully. “Well, you did mention it. And your huffing and puffing as you counted my bones was enough to wake the Sleepers. Did no one teach you not to mutter out loud when counting on your own fingers? Do stick your tongue out of the corner of you mouth when you read, as well?”

A hot flush mounted Anglach’s battered cheeks. He did, but that wasn’t the point. This dead dwarf was rude. Whereas he, Anglach, foster son of the elvenking had been trying hard to be polite. But even if he had forgotten his manners just a little bit, he could hardly be blamed when he was cold, hungry, burting and imprisoned.

He turned away, wanting to lick the walls again. The rats were thirsty as well as hungry. He was getting worried about them. Little Snuffles needed food as well as water, or she’d never grow up to be a big, strong rat.

“Get in the corner,” the dwarf said. “The jailors are coming. If they think you’re unconscious, maybe they will ignore you.”

At first, all Anglach could hear was the pounding in his own head but moments later the scrape of bolts being drawn back clawed at his ears and the click of a key in the lock felt like a spike being driven into his skull. He flopped onto his side, his head cradled in his hands, but with his face angled towards where he thought the noise had come from.

A sudden shaft of pale yellow light lit the cell.

Anglach took in the sad pile of bones to one side of the grim dungeon and then quickly counted two pairs of booted feet in the doorway. Men, from the smell, not orcs.

Something hard hit his shoulder and rolled away on the filthy floor.

Anglach showed no outward sign of having felt anything. He saw one of the men set down a bucket on the floor, and with a pang of hope he realised he was being given water.

“Think he’s dead?” one of the men asked. “Number Two won’t be pleased if he’s gone and died on us.”

“Ufthang’s lads didn’t rough him up that bad. Elves are tough bastards. He’ll be faking it – they usually do.”

The guard pushed his companion back towards the door. “I’m taking no chances.”

The sound of the key in the lock and the rasp of the bolts being rammed home was all the encouragement Anglach needed to scrabble silently for whatever had hit him on the shoulder. His eyes, almost blinded even by the weak torchlight were no aid to him now. One was so puffy and sore he’d barely been able to see through the blood and puss matting his eyelashes together. He really must look like a goblin-child now.

His fingers closed on the object and he sniffed his prize carefully. A burnt, hard loaf.

To him and his furry friends, the bread smelled like the finest food ever laid on the table of the Elvenking’s halls.

“Take a drink first,” the dwarf cautioned. “They’ll have pissed in it, but you’ll get used to that.”

Anglach grimaced. “Did you have to tell me that?”

“Probably not.” Anglach thought he detected the merest hint of contrition in the dwarf’s voice. “No more than a mouthful, laddie. More and you’ll only throw it back up again.”

Keeping tight hold of the bread, Anglach shuffled over to the water, but he needed both hands to lift the crude leather pitcher to his lips. He felt as weak as a new-born kitten. He took a gulp of sour tasting water, then another…

“You’ll drown those blasted rats if you drink any more!” The dwarf’s yell reverberated around the stone cell, as loud and cross as the cook’s cries when he and Legolas had been caught filching pastries hot from the oven.

Guiltily, Anglach plonked the pitcher back down on the flagged floor. In his stomach, the rats jostled with each other to reach the precious water, even if it did taste like Galion’s blackberry wine. Maybe it was better to think of it like that. Blackberry wine. That’s what it was. He was pleased to see that the larger rats let the littlest ones have their fair share. Once they’d finished, he broke off a small piece of the bread – he’d had plenty of practice with Galion’s pie crusts – and dipped it in the blackberry wine to soften it. He didn’t want the rats to break their little teeth …

He'd certainly eaten worse on his last tour of duty in the East Bight. Even that small amount of food quietened the rats and he could feel them curling up sleepily. They were good rats. They understood the need to ration their food. And it was nice to know that the dead dwarf accepted them as real rats now.

He ignored the thought of his companion leaning against the wall, rolling his non-existent eyes.

Chapter Text

The only problem with drinking was the eventual need to piss.

Anglach was a soldier. He had no qualms about pissing in front of other men, but he knew it would make the cell stink.

“Use the far corner by the door,” the dwarf told him. “The flagstone is loose. I dug a hole in the earth beneath it. Drains away quite well, though I say it myself.”

Anglach struggled to his feet and limped to the corner of the dungeon. His left ankle was still badly sprained. He didn’t think it was broken, but he wasn’t wholly sure. With some difficulty that he had no intention of admitting to, he finally lifted the thick stone and smelled a waft of cold earth. Any other smell had long gone.

“How deep is it?” he asked before curiosity got the better of him and he reached down with his arm. His fingertips only just reached the bottom.

“Are you always that impatient?”

“Maybe,” Anglach muttered. “Laersul always says Legolas and I have neither brains nor beauty and we always rush in without thinking. But I’m sure he is only joking.”

“Laersul?” There was curiosity in his insubstantial companion’s tone. “You speak with familiarity of the King’s son?”

Anglach shifted uneasily, the need to piss temporarily forgotten. Maybe he had said too much? “We don’t stand on ceremony in the wood.” Laersul had long commanded the southern garrisons; the Nazgûl would doubtless know the names of those who opposed the servants of the dark.

The dwarf sighed. “You’re a terrible liar, elfling, has no one ever told you that?”

“Might have done …” The damned dwarf made him feel like a raw recruit again, squirming under his captain’s stern gaze. Why couldn’t he have a nice dead dwarf for a cell mate? He’d liked the ones he’d been charged with feeding and cleaning out when Thorin and company had enjoyed the King’s hospitality. Well, apart from the big bald one and his huge, stinking turds.

“You have seen Thorin Oakenshield?” The dwarf’s voice was low, filled with a desperate yearning that reminded Anglach of the look in Thranduil’s eyes when he thought of his long-lost wife in those unguarded moments when he believed none of his sons were watching.

“Stop reading my thoughts, it’s not polite!”

“You think so loudly that I could hear you even if I was asleep in the depths of the dwarrowdelf and you were standing in the Hidden Valley making big eyes at the daisies. Tell me, have you seen Thorin Oakenshield?”

“Why do you want to know?” Anglach asked, playing for time while he decided whether it was safe to tell an imaginary dead dwarf whether he had ever seen the equally long dead King under the Mountain. He had liked Thorin. He didn’t want to betray any confidences.

“Because he is my son!” the dwarf roared.

With that, Anglach decided he really did need to piss, and quickly.

When he finished, he lowered the flagstone into place again and shuffled back to his favourite spot by the wall opposite the door. The floor there was almost comfortable.

“Your son was nice,” Anglach offered, hoping the polite lie would suffice.

“Really?”

Anglach gave up. He was too tired to play games. “No. He was rude and arrogant, if you must know.”

“That’s better. Now I know you really did meet him. How did he die?”

The conversation was proceeding too fast for Anglach’s liking. “Did I say he’d died?”

“You used the past tense. That usually indicates someone has died, or at least it did when I was alive and learning my letters.”

“I’m sorry. He died at the end of the Battle of Five Armies before the gates of Erebor.”

The dwarf’s voice softened. “That sounds like a tale worth telling, laddie. Would you do me the kindness of relating the story of my son’s death?”

Anglach beamed in the direction of the bones. He was starting to like his imaginary companion and he found he could see the dwarf more clearly now; an insubstantial figure, pale grey in the enveloping dark, like morning mist hanging in the air over a deep pool in the forest. Long grey hair surrounded a weather-beaten face, as lined and pitted as the rocky crags of the mountains. Slate grey eyes held deep sadness alongside an unlooked for kindness. His bushy beard partially hid a mouth set in a firm but not unkind line. Anglach stared hard at him, squinting at first, before realising that he could see the dwarf better if he simply looked through him and let the mist shimmer and coalesce into the stocky, leather-clad figure of the dwarf as he must have been in life.

The dwarf positively bristled with weapons, two long knives hanging from a broad, worn leather belt, a two headed axe thrust though a loop at his side. A slender harness criss-crossed his chest, holding slim-bladed throwing knives and cunningly-wrought throwing stars that could sever unguarded throats with ease.

Anglach drew in a deep breath, ignoring the pain from damaged ribs.

“Once upon a time, thirteen dwarves set out to reclaim their ancient kingdom …”

The tale was a long one and had always been one of Anglach’s favourites. He thought he told it rather well … or he would have done if the dwarf had not kept rudely interrupting him with questions. So much for politeness. But for all the interruptions, the dwarf was an attentive listener, and he even laughed in all the right places when Anglach put on some of the dwarves’ silly voices and waved his arms about to emphasise this point or that.

By the time he finished, his voice was hoarse. “And now Thorin Oakenshield sleeps beneath the mountain with the Arkenstone on his breast,” he finished softly. “He was a brave dwarf.”

In the silence that followed, Anglach curled into a ball like one of his stomach rats and slipped into the solace of sleep, comforted by a gentle hand stroking his matted hair and a voice thick with emotion murmuring words of thanks.

Maybe he did like this imaginary dwarf after all.

He must remember to tell his new friend the story about the frog he put in Thranduil’s pocket …

The dwarf – Thráin – King Thráin II, actually, Anglach thought proudly, had laughed at the story about the frog and had told him some of the pranks he’d played on his own father as a boy. The one about the stoat was really funny. When Anglach was feeling down, usually after another visit from the guards, he asked for the stoat story again, and Thráin always obliged. The guards were less obliging, no longer taken in by Anglach’s pretence of unconsciousness.

The orcs enjoyed raking his flesh with their claws and thrusting his head into the water bucket, holding his face down until he went limp in their hands, no longer caring if he sucked in filthy water instead of air. The men kicked him and taunted him with all the things Number Two would do to him when he finally returned to the fortress from an important errand for their Lord..

Number Two – presumably the Nazgûl known as the Black Easterling.

Anglach shivered. He didn’t want to meet the Nazgûl. He didn’t sound nice. Or polite.

Maybe it was time for the story about the stoat again?

“You can’t just stay here and wait to be sliced up by that black-hearted bastard, elfling,” Thráin said softly.

Anglach stared around the darkness of the dungeon. “Have I missed a secret door? How silly of me,”

“Leave the sarcasm to me. I’ve had longer to practise.” The dwarf sighed. “This was an elven place long before the Necromancer took it for his own. Maybe the stones will harken to you in a way that I cannot fathom. We are in the deepest part of the fortress here. At times it almost has an elvish feel to it still …”

“This dank dungeon?”

“Didn’t they teach you any history as an elfling? Or were you too busy putting frogs in your foster father’s pockets? Think, laddie. Think.”

“Amon Lanc,” Anglach said, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he strove to remember Galion’s lessons. “It means Bald Hill,” he explained. “Bald like Dwalin’s head. Or Naked Hill. Naked like a dwarf’s arse. No trees, you see.”

Thráin sighed. “I see. Although I have never seen trees on anyone’s head, or their arse.”

“If that was meant as a joke, leave them to me. I’m better at them. Now listen, I have remembered more. Amon Lanc was the capital of King Oropher’s realm.” Anglach was hitting his stride now. “He built a great fortress here …” He stretched out his hand and laid it on the stone wall, sucking in a sharp breath in surprise as he felt a warm prickle of recognition beneath his fingertips. “These stones were laid by my people!”

“Go to the top of the class, elfling.”

Anglach stood up, and all his rats pricked up their ears, their woffly little whiskers and cute ickle noses twitching in barely suppressed excitement.

Snuffles promptly started trotting around the cell, snuffling, while Scratcher and Feisty tried out their claws on the thin dark line swhere the stones met each other.

Anglach decided to be systematic about his search, starting to the left of the door and working his way around the dungeon, feeling the stone, tapping on it and sometimes even kicking it, but he soon gave that up when he bruised his naked toes.

Snuffles gave him a reproachful nip, which Anglach took as ratty disapproval of disrespecting the masonry. Snuffles was a very polite rat. Anglach apologised to the wall. The wall appeared to accept his apology. Friends again. That was nice.

He reached the first corner, not having felt anything out of the ordinary. He levered up the flagstone and had a quick piss while he was there before carrying on his search in the thick darkness.

“What am I looking for?” he asked the dwarf.

“A way out.”

“Why would there be a way out of the dungeons?”

“Strongholds change hands, elfling. It’s a wise dwarf – or elf – who builds in an escape route. Is there no such thing in the elf king’s halls?”

There was, but although Anglach liked imaginary King Thráin II, he still had no intention of betraying any secrets.

He shuffled carefully around the wall, letting his fingertips take the place of his eyes. The stone was smooth, the joints flush with each other, perfectly positioned, each block cut to a regular size. Anglach was no stonemaster, but he knew good workmanship when he felt it beneath his hands. As he edged carefully around the cell, he began to see his prison in a different light – or he would have done if it hadn’t been as black as a wolf’s throat in there.

He had no idea what he was looking for, but maybe he’d know it when he found it.

When his bare toes nudged Thráin’s bones, Anglach politely stepped over them and carried on. When he finally reached the door, he shook his head sadly and shrugged.

“Try again,” his spectral companion urged. “Empty your mind of everything and just feel the stone. Try to sense what lies beyond it.”

Anglach sighed. He would get no peace unless he tried again, but he really was very tired.

He just wanted to curl up with his rats and go to sleep.

Chapter Text

Shrill squeaks and a nip on his arse jerked Anglach awake.

Scratcher and Feisty were in league with this insubstantial cellmate. That wasn’t fair. And biting his arse definitely wasn’t polite.

Anglach struggled to his feet and leaned against the door, wanting to tell the dwarf that he was tired and his ribs hurt from the last beating the guards had administered. At least three of them were cracked or broken and it hurt to breathe deeply, but he had tried hard not to give in to the pain and he didn’t want to complain. He was a warrior now and warriors didn’t complain. Well, apart from Naurion, but it wasn’t Naurion’s fault that he felt the cold more than the rest of them. That was why Anglach had lent him his overtunic during the night watch on the nasty creature.

Another nip dragged him back to the present and his boring task of searching the cell – again.

Snuffles ran up his leg, burrowed up under the torn vest and scampered onto his shoulder. Anglach imagined he could feel the rat’s thin whiskers brushing his cheek as the small, furry body snuggled up against his cold flesh. He could hear Scratcher and Feisty still searching the cell, testing each line of masonry with claws and teeth while Whiskers urged them on.

In the darkness, Anglach smiled. If they could carry on, so could he. He drew in a deep breath, ignored the hot pain that lanced through his chest and continued to pace step by slow step around the dungeon, his hands at shoulder height now, searching for anything he might have missed on his first traverse.

Maybe it was nothing more than his imagination, but the stone seemed to feel warmer now. Could there really be elven magic here that his captors knew nothing of? Anglach rested his head against the wall and listened to his breath rasp in his chest. He was under no illusions about his continued life expectancy if he failed to find a way to escape. If the guards didn’t succeed in kicking him to death or drowning him, then the Black Easterling would eventually pull him apart, nerve by nerve until he died, screaming in the dark.

A gentle nip on his earlobe brought him out of his morbid thoughts. Snuffles buried her nose in the hole behind his ear and promptly lived up to her name, her warm breath tickling his skin.

Anglach drew in a slow, steadying breath. He knew his waking dreams were becoming more vivid but he didn’t have the heart to tell his rat friends that they weren’t real. Without them and the equally imaginary dead dwarf, he’d be all alone in the dark and that would just be boring.

He drew himself upright, ignoring the pain in his chest and started moving again. When he reached Thráin’s bones for the second time, he took one step too far and quickly muttered an apology for scattering what felt like rib bones.

“Ach, forget it, lad,” Thráin said, sounding amused rather than annoyed. “They’re only old dry bones. They’ll crumble to dust eventually.” His rough voice took on a wistful tone. “I’d hoped to sleep under the mountain with my kin, but that wasn’t to be.”

Anglach leaned against the wall, imagining the old, broken dwarf taking his last breath alone in the dark with his regrets, and felt his chest tighten with emotion. He didn’t want to die down here, and he was sure Thráin had felt the same way.

“I said forget it,” the dwarf muttered. “I’m long dead. But you’re still alive. You and those daft rats of yours. You need to find a way out. So pull your finger out of your arse and start thinking!”

“Rude,” Anglach muttered, but he was grinning, and he presumed the dwarf knew that.

He and Legolas had gained entrance into the secret ways in the elvenking’s halls as children by a mixture of luck and dogged persistence. If Thráin was right and the builders of these dungeons had included an escape route, then he would find it …

His next circuit was even slower as he shuffled painfully around the cell on his knees, feeling carefully at the lowest of the stones. Legolas had once found an entry to a secret way like that, and they’d had to wriggle on their bellies for two body lengths before they had even been able to stand up. Stone by stone he went, his palms flat against the rock. Ten stones from the door, he felt something. Thin lines carved into the block. He traced each line with his forefinger. A simple triangle.

Snuffles snuffled. Her little face screwed up in concentration. Or maybe he was screwing up his own cheeks into his thinking face …

“What have you found?” Thráin demanded gruffly.

“Three thin lines making a triangle.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“Just hmm.”

Anglach rolled his eyes. The dead dwarf was as bad as Galion at times.

He shuffled along another three blocks, leaning on the wall with his left hand, and stroking the stone wall with his right. And then, on the row of blocks above the one he was concentrating on, he felt more inscribed lines, again making up a triangle. Snuffles was so excited, she turned a somersault.

“Another triangle!”

“Mason’s mark,” Thráin declared.

“Showing the way out?” Beside him, Scratcher was running in excited circles trying to catch his own tail.

“No, showing which mason prepared the stone. There are three types of mark…” An imaginary breath swelled the long dead king’s lungs and Anglach knew he was about to be treated to a long exposition on the art of stone masonry.

The words banker marks, assembly marks and quarry marks started to wash over him and blend into each other as Anglach learned more than he had ever wanted to know about the ancient art of stonework.

The only problem – well apart from being stuck in a sorcerer’s dungeon – was that the guards were also bored, and had painful ways of passing the time, under the guise of interrogation.

After another two beatings and a near-drowning to mark the passing of time below the earth, Anglach had identified three different types of mark carved into the stone blocks: the simple triangle, a six-pointed star, and an elegant swirl like the tightly curled frond of a fern, but he was no nearer to unlocking the secret of his prison, if indeed there was a secret to find. What he had learned was that not all blocks were marked and that there was no discernible pattern to the markings or lack of them. His tongue was now firmly sticking out of the corner of his bruised and bloodied mouth but even with that, he was finding it harder and harder to concentrate.

“Again,” Thráin urged. “We’re missing something!”

“I’m missing my breakfast,” Anglach complained.

“Bugger your breakfast, elfling!” The rough voice held a raw edge now. An edge of something that Anglach recognised as fear. But what did a dead dwarf have to be afraid of? “Didn’t you hear what those bastards said?”

“Sorry, I was too busy trying not to drown.” Anglach stroked Scratcher’s soft fur as the rat affectionately nipped his knee in an attempt to keep him from drifting off to sleep. His fingertips were bloody from their constant questing contact with the rock but he was very proud of his lack of complaint.

“The Necromancer is sending another captain to the tower as the Black Easterling is not expected back any time soon. Your time is running out. This one will want to impress his master. He will take everything you have to give and by the end you will be desperate for more to offer him. Trust me, I know what that feels like.”

“Did you give them everything?” Anglach asked. Somehow, he could not imagine the old warrior letting every secret be ripped from his bones. Dwarves were a tough lot.

Thráin let out a long sigh. “No, elfling, I did not give them everything. When I was captured, the idiots failed in their search and I was able to retain two last treasures long enough to hide them in here. They never did take that knowledge from me.” A slow, satisfied smile spread over the lined face and eyes bright with hatred gleamed in the darkness.

“So where are they now?”

“You stand on the brink of death and yet want to know how I cheated my captors?”

Anglach debated telling the dwarf that anything would be an improvement on another lengthy exposition on the subject of mason’s marks but decided that might be rude. He banged his head against the stone and muttered, “No, I was just showing a polite interest.”

The dwarf barked a laugh. “I like you, elfling.”

Anglach blinked in the darkness. He hadn’t expected that. “I … I like you, too.” He smiled. “I still can’t find a way out, though.”

“Then keep looking,” Thráin advised.

And so he did. But the stones kept their secrets well hidden.

Anglach curled up, arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to shield his ribs from the nailed boots of his captors as they taunted him with what the new captain would do to wring the knowledge of the Elvenking’s defences from him and each blow drove home why he was still alive. The enemy wanted to pick through his mind, removing, thread by thread, every strand of what he knew, taking from him everything he’d sworn never to divulge. Despite appearances, Anglach was no fool. He was a soldier. He knew that eventually, everyone broke. Some sooner. Some later. That was why it was as well not to be taken alive.

He should have refused the food.

Poured the tainted water way.

Ignored the clawing hunger pangs and the torment of thirst.

A sharp pain dragged him out of the mournful thoughts. Biter had just lived down to his name.

Anglach put his hand to his ear and felt a sticky dampness on his raw fingertips. An experimental swipe of his tongue brought the taste of rusty copper to his mouth.

The rats weren’t ready to give up yet, even if he was.

The next sharp nip was to the end of his nose.

“Oi! Not fair!” Anglach slumped carelessly down against the wall and, to his horror felt the crunch of bones beneath him. Clambering to his feet, muttering apologies to a long dead dwarf, Anglach did his best to tidy up the scattered remains.

“Leave them!” Thráin’s voice held the unmistakeable whipcrack of command. “I keep telling you, they’re dry bones, nothing more. Stuff the damn things in your pockets and keep them to play knuckle-jacks with – if you survive long enough. But keep looking. There’s something here to find. I know there is. And don’t think they won’t use those rats you’re so fond of against you. Do it for them!”

“They’re imaginary rats, remember? I’ve only been pretending they’re real to humour you as you seemed to believe in them. Even a sorcerer can’t use imaginary rats against me.”

“Do imaginary rats draw blood? The damn things are a sight more sensible than you, elfling. Carry on like that and you’ll hurt their feelings!”

Anglach huffed a tired laugh. “I hate you. And you’re imaginary too.”

“Move, damn you, elfling! We can debate metaphysics at leisure when you are out of this hill of dark sorcery. That’s if you really want to. For now, move your scrawny arse!”

Anglach rolled onto his hands and knees, his raw fingertips scrabbling to draw the bones into a pile. It seemed wrong to jumble them up, but he had no time for the niceties, not if he wanted to avoid the wrath of a long-dead dwarf. Steadying himself with one hand against the wall, Anglach tried to summon the energy to stand.

A sharp nettle sting prickle in his fingertips drew a gasp from his battered mouth.

“What?” Thráin demanded.

Anglach ran his hand over the stone wall, caressing it tentatively with his palm. This time the sensation was more like the jolt from over-brushed hair. But it felt … elven. He laid his hand firmly against the stone. Now he could feel the taste of gooseberry wine fizzing on his tongue – the good stuff, not Galion’s special vintage that tasted like old bedsheets stewed in elderly cat’s piss. His nose twitched and he could smell a sharp tang like newly shattered rock. He drew in a long, slow breath and remembered what Galion always used to say about using the magic word.

“Please,” he said as politely as he could. Galion would be proud of him.

He held his breath, repeating his plea over and over again in his head and doing his best to smile. Galion had always told him a smile was worth a thousand words.

The stone block moved under his hand, sliding effortlessly and soundlessly away from him.

The sudden nothingness under his hand pitched him forward and Anglach sprawled headlong on the flagged floor, the pent-up breath exploding out of his lungs. While he lay there gasping, small paws scurred over his back and shoulders, tickling the top of his head in their haste to explore beyond the confines of their shared cell.

“Mahal’s hairy balls!”

“Elbereth’s creamy tits!” Anglach muttered, feeling the occasion demanded a suitable response. “You were leaning against it the whole time.”

“Damned elf magic,” Thráin muttered. “Secretive bastards, the lot of you! Will you fit through?”

“Wriggled through smaller culverts,” Anglach retorted, neglecting to mention that those exploits had been done without the hinderance of four broken or cracked ribs.

“Then what are you waiting for, fool of an elfling?”

Chapter Text

What was he waiting for?

A hero out of legend to come and rescue him? Two chances of that, as Galion always said. Fat chance and no chance.

From what he knew of legendary heroes, they’d all been two busy starting wars over jewellery. Too fancy to give a rat’s rompers about the likes of him.

Dying in a tunnel trying to escape was better than sitting on his arse and waiting for someone else to kick him around like a pig’s bladder. And anyway, he had furry friends to look after … Even the nice dwarf said they were real, so it must be true. He didn’t want any harm to come to them.

Anglach struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain lancing through his chest as he hauled the remaining rags of his ripped and befouled undershirt over his head and proceeded to gather up as many of Thráin’s bones as he could find, tossing them into a hastily fashioned bag as he steadfastly ignored the urgent squeaks of his rat friends and the irate spluttering of the dead king. Finally, with the skull safely stowed in his makeshift burden, and the smaller bones piled inside it, Anglach knotted the ripped rags together as best he could and shoved the parcel in front of him, hearing the bones scrape and rattle along the stone floor.

With his hands acting as his eyes, he wriggled into the square hole, feeling the ancient magic prickle over his naked back and shoulders. The rock scraped his flesh and sent fire jolting through his chest, but the excited squeaks of the rats urged him on. Where head and shoulders went, the rest of his abused body eventually followed, despite his empty stomach roiling with nausea at the waves of pain crashing through him from head to toe. The turn into the passage was tight; Anglach’s breath hissed in his throat as he inched forward, gaining precious ground until finally his feet scrabbled into the hole and he belatedly realised that above him was no more than empty air.

“Close it behind you or they’ll sniff you out like a rat in a trap!”

“Hush-a-bye, ratlings, don’t listen to the nasty dwarf. There’s no traps here,” Anglach murmured, coughing as his ribs grated against each other as he did his best to twist on to his back as he groped around in the dark, mapping the inside of the tunnel with his hands. There would be a spring setting somewhere, he knew it. No master builder would fail in such a simple endeavour. A secret tunnel that remained open for the next person to happen that way would not remain a secret for long.

His questing fingers found the balance point and all it took was a slight pressure to slide the stone back into place. Trusting to the makers of the tunnel, Anglach allowed himself a moment to let his heart settle back into its accustomed rhythm.

The air in the passage was fresh, less heavy than the feel of the dungeon. Less cloying. Less evil. More elvish.

He was free of the cell. Now all he had to do was stay out of the hands of the Black Easterling’s minions.

He clutched the bag of dry bones to his chest, breathing as deeply as he could, notwithstanding the spikes of pain.

Thin whiskers tickled his nose. Their owner was living up to her name again.

“On your feet, elfling! You need to be far away from here before they notice you’re gone.”

Anglach bit back a sarcastic response. Galion had drilled into him that there was no point arguing with a dwarf – dead or alive. A stubborn, bear-headed race.

Galion almost certainly wouldn’t approve of him arriving home with a dead dwarf in a sack, but he could hardly leave his companion behind. The steward would probably be better disposed to a pocketful of rats … not that the rags still clinging to his filthy body had any pockets to keep them in …

Feisty nipped the end of his nose.

“Concentrate you star-gazing leaf-muncher! Start moving, if you want to save your scrawny hide.”

Anglach blinked in confusion. “What sort of insult is leaf-muncher?”

“A mild one! Yon rats have got more sense than you, you addle-pated dim-wit! I’ll debate insults with you when you are safe in your king’s halls, but for now, crawl as if your life depends on it, for trust me, it does!

“Is it true that dwarves fart gravel?”

“No, we fart rocks, and if you continue to lie there clutching my skull I’ll prove it to you …”

Urged on by the insistent clamour of the dwarf in his head, Anglach rolled painfully to his knees and by means of waving one hand above his head, discovered that he could come up first into a painful crouch and then into a stoop without bashing his head too hard. With one hand held in front of him, he was able to make slow progress along the passage. At first, the stone-lined tunnel ran straight, sloping gently downwards, then after nine hundred paces – or maybe more – it turned abruptly to the right. A further 800 or so steps later, Anglach hit his first serious obstacle.

A pile of rocks blocked the tunnel.

Placing his carefully-guarded package on the stone flagged floor, Anglach mapped the extent of rockfall with his hands. From floor to roof lay a jumble of stone. The spell-guarded escape route had been torn apart by some movement of the earth leaving him with no way on.

He swore under his breath, invoking rather more than Elbereth’s tits, as he felt the occasion demanded something a little more forceful.

Trapped. Enemies behind him. Ahead, a rockfall of unknown depth.

He sucked in a deep breath and promptly coughed, the dust of shattered stone assaulting his nostrils and throat.

The rats jumped off his shoulders and milled around, chittering to each other.

Loose rocks shifted under his knees, sending pain spiking up his legs.

Anglach swore again, louder this time. He was tired of adventures. If he ever saw his home in the Elvenking’s halls again, he’d spend the rest of his life learning needlework and looking after injured baby animals. Adventures were over-rated.

“Are you going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself or are you going grow a pair of bigger balls and start digging your way through? I’ve seen young dwarrow no higher than your waist that could make short work of that pile.”

“I’m a lily-livered star-gazing leaf-muncher, remember?”

“Don’t take names onto yourself or they might stick. Did I say you were lily-livered? No, I did not. But I might if you don’t start digging. Pull rocks from the top of the pile and build them up behind you.”

“So if anyone does follow …”

“Mahal save us, it does have a brain behind that pretty face! Yes, elfling, now dig!

And so Anglach dug. He followed Thráin’s relentless instructions, digging with raw, bleeding hands, opening the barely healed flesh of his nailess fingers, doing his best to lock the pain away in the oaken chest in his mind where he’d buried all the other hurts and indignities that his captors had heaped on him. There were times when the pain threatened to break free, but when he needed them most, warm furry bodies would press against him and a dead dwarf would find a new insult to goad him on. Anglach was storing up all the insults for when he saw Legolas again. He also learning to swear in Khuzdûl. The nice dwarves that he hadn’t been allowed to keep as pets would have been so proud of him.

With new vocabulary constantly echoing in his throbbing head, Anglach finally succeeded in clearing a small hole into which he could just about force his protesting. He was able to worm his way inch by torturous inch over the top of the pile, feeling ahead with his hands and pushing the sack of bones in front of him. Once able to lift his head slightly he could feel a slight change in the air and started to sniff like a hound on the scent of game at an earthiness in the air that hadn’t been present on the other side of the blockage. It brought to mind the thick, loamy smell of leaf piles at the base of old oak trees where each layer pressed down on the one beneath, forming a thick mat, that became darker and richer year on year.

He was finally able first to crawl, then to stoop and then stand again and for a while the going became easier. The tunnel now ran straight; no deviations and no more rockfalls. The rats scampered alongside him and Thráin eventually stopped urging him on with the creative use of insults and started to mutter about the change in the air. Anglach could feel the treacherous stirring of hope in his heart, more dangerous even than the pain. For at least pain was a constant companion and wouldn’t leave him, whereas hope would at best be a false friend, bestowing naught but a tantalising kiss before dancing away into the forest never to be seen again.

A sharp nip to his left buttock and an irate squeak told him that his friends didn’t appreciate the morbid turn of his thoughts.

Anglach bundled hope up and stuffed it into the oak chest in his mind, slamming the lid down after bidding it play nicely with pain.

Feisty chittered approvingly, and Snuffles scampered up to perch on his shoulder again, her little nose ticking his ear.

The dead end came as no surprise to any of them. He’d known hope would play him false.

He sat down heavily and tried hard not to give in to the urge to scream, but he’d screamed enough at the hands of his tormentors and his throat was still raw, so instead, he petted the rats and let Thráin’s lesson in the finer points of obscenity in Khuzdûl wash soothingly over him.

After what felt like an age in the dark of the world, he summoned the last of his dwindling store of energy and rolled onto his knees, letting his ruined hands come into their own again as he mapped the extent of the smooth rock at the end of the narrow passage. Even if an enemy managed to find this hidden way from the outside, they would die in droves trying to storm the haunted ruins, as a handful of defenders could hold back thousands here, using the bodies of their opponents to black any further onslaught.

Despite the setback, the air was fresher than it had been for a while and he felt the tiniest stirring of hope.

“Follow the draught,” Thráin snapped.

“There isn’t one.”

If the dead dwarf king’s exasperated sigh had come from living lips, Anglach would have been bowled over by the gust.

“Feel, you dope of an elfling! Turn your cheek one way then another. Think with your skin. Remember the wind in the trees. You must have followed the flow of air in your father’s caves. Think back to that. Forget your hands, forget everything! Just feel the air …”

On his shoulder, Snuffles sniffed the air, her whiskers ticking his neck as she twined her claws in his matted hair while Anglach angled his head and shuffled his feet in a slow circle.

For the barest instant, his bruised face felt a touch as soft as a new lover’s first tentative kiss.

Snuffles squeaked loudly and jumped off his shoulder.

Anglach turned his head, straining to follow the faintest movement of air as warmth bloomed inside his battered body. He took a blind step towards what he desperately wanted to believe was the sought after draught and not just an accidental rat’s fart – and smacked his head on a rock and stumbled back in the darkness, coming to rest on a pile of loamy earth and leaves, sloping down to the wall of the tunnel..

And where there were leaves there was a way out to open air…

He started to clamber blindly up the slope, feeling again with his hands and sniffing like one of the rats. The warm, rich scent of the earth drew him on despite the pain in his fingertips and ragged hands as he started to claw at loose rocks, letting them tumble past him as his furry companions squeaked in excitement. After what seemed an age, he felt the unmistakeable feel of cold, clean air on his cheek, caressing his dry skin like the finest of the nettle silks that decked his foster father’s halls.

“You’re nearly there, elfling!” urged Thráin. “Get one arm and your shoulder through and the rest of your body will follow as surely as day follows night.”

“Learnt that by now, or weren’t you watching?” Anglach muttered, worming one arm past his head and feeling for something to grab hold of. Leaves provided no purchase, nor did the soft soil, but then his fingers felt something solid, the gnarled root of an old tree holding hard to rock.

He grinned in the darkness of the hidden passage and promptly let go, slithering back down the slope to land in an ungainly sprawl at the bottom, enjoying Thráin’s splutters of outrage. A moment later, his questing fingers found the prize they sought … the bag of old bones he’d pushed, dragged and carried through the forgotten tunnels.

“Leave them, you ridiculous child!” Thráin spluttered. “You don’t need a sack of my bones.”

“I’m not listening to you!”

After an inelegant struggle, Anglach finally succeeded in pushing the rough bundle out of the hole leaving him free to make his own ascent. This time his hand found the root with relative ease and he was able to able to start the laborious business of hauling himself out of the tight hole. A sharp rock scraped painfully over the skin of his chest, scoring each rib, but Anglach didn’t care. He could feel the wind ruffling his matted hair and had the scent of something in his nostrils that wasn’t the rank odour of his own unwashed body and its waste.

One final, sinew stretching heave and he was through.

Slumped against the rough bark of an ancient yew tree, Anglach dragged in a long breath that tasted of freedom.

The tree enfolded him in its dark evergreen needles and hid him from any unfriendly eyes as Anglach felt it lend him what strength it had to spare.

The rats snuggled in the crook of his arm and he ran the fingers of his free hand through their soft fur, heedless of the blood streaks he was doubtless leaving behind from the wreckage of his fingers.

“You’re not safe yet, elfling,” Thráin murmured in the softest tone he’d yet heard from the dead king. “But take a moment to rest. The tree does not serve the dark master of this hill and it has friends in the forest.”

“Thought you didn’t like trees.” Even to Anglach’s own ears, his words sounded slurred and without waiting for an answer, he slid gracelessly into an exhausted sleep.

“Foolish child,” the dead dwarf king said fondly. “I have no quarrel with trees. This one will guard you, and the rats will wake you if danger comes too close. So sleep and I will see what can be done to find aid in this benighted land, for aid you need and swiftly. May Mahal guide me and may your star lady keep you safe …”

Chapter Text

Laersul’s arrow took the orc in the throat and the creature dropped without even knowing its life had been about to end.

A second black-fletched arrow followed in a movement faster than a mortal eye could have followed, then a third and a fourth …

“You could have left some for the rest of us,” a voice complained from a sniper’s perch in a nearby tree. “Don’t be greedy.”

“Then loose your arrows more speedily, my friend,” the Elvenking’s eldest son replied, his eyes still roaming the trees in search of another mark. “What do you see from your perch, little birdie?”

“Four dead orcs.”

“Small for a raiding party.”

“That is because they were searching, not raiding. The smaller one you took out was a tracker.”

Laersul knew better than to question Irnion’s word, but he still strode through the dark pines and turned the corpse over with the toe of his boot out of morbid curiosity. Dead eyes surrounded by stubby lashes stared up at him with a faintly surprised expression. The mottled dark skin was cut by raised pale scars scored in regular patterns across the unlovely face, starting on the bridge of a flattened nose with wide flared nostrils and crossing the broad cheeks. The beast was dressed in rags, its feet bare with soles that looked leather hard, but one clawed hand clutched a scrap of finer fabric, as dark as the ivy that joined the red berried holly on his father’s brow for Yule. On one edge, in a fine tracery of pale grey nettle silk, young maple leaves formed a border. The material, once part of a soft undershirt to be worn over a vest and beneath a warm outer tunic, was marred with a dark stain. Blood, long dried.

He remembered Galion sticking his tongue between his teeth in concentration as he cursed that pattern in the candlelight of Thranduil’s rooms, wishing he had chosen something simpler. His skills with a needle were almost on a level with his baking ability, that is to say legendary – for all the wrong reasons.

Laersul sucked in a desperate breath, fighting the urge to scream his grief aloud in the silence of the dark forest. Not here, not now, not so close to the rocky hill with its black fortress wreathed with dark magic.

He went down on one knee and snatched the precious scrap from the goblin’s grasp, burying his face in this last remnant of one who had been as family to him. His youngest brother’s closest friend had died many leagues from there, guarding the worthless ill-favoured creeper left with them by Mithrandir. Killed as much by his own kind heart as by the orcs that had ambushed the guards standing watch, refusing to believe that the beast would not eventually respond to kindness, like all the other hurt strays he had brought home to be nursed back to health.

But what was this scrap doing here, so far to the south?

Thoughts of the past collided with the present and left him reeling as memory flooded back like the unleashed waters of a breaking dam.

The orc attack has been as brutal as it had been unexpected.

Laersul had not seen Anglach die, but he had watched helplessly as Silaros was struck down by a blow from a war hammer that had left him witless to this day, still cared for devotedly by his young wife, even though the healers held out little hope of his recovery. Anglach and Naurion were standing back to back by Celdir’s prone body, fighting like cornered polecats despite their youth and relative inexperience. Laersul had been too far away to lend aid to either them or Legolas who had become separated from his friends as more orcs swarmed out of the undergrowth, forcing his patrol into a desperate fight for their own lives against ever-mounting odds.

Then as quickly as they had come, the orcs disengaged, dragging a screaming captive with them, forming up around their prize and leaving behind two dead, dismembered and badly disfigured bodies. In a decision that still haunted him, Laersul had left it to Legolas, the finest archer of them all, and the one best placed to take the shot, to deliver mercy. And his youngest brother had hesitated for a heartbeat, a heartbeat too long. The orc band had pressed on with relentless speed, moving as a tight-knit band, leaving them to tend to the living and the dead as speedily as they could and to raise the alarm in case more orcs lurked nearby.

Only once those duties had been discharged could Laersul lead the pursuit of the orc band with his younger brothers at his side.

When Thalos’ trackers reported that the creature named Sméagol appeared to have broken away from the orcs and heading towards the Gladden Fields, with a smaller group of orcs close behind him, seemingly seeking to reclaim their prize, Laersul had tasked him with the creature’s retrieval while he had pressed on ever south, drawing closer to the accursed tower that had plagued their southern borders for all too long.

Some stragglers they picked off with what remained of their arrows, but the unusually orderly phalanx had allowed no sight of their captive. Laersul and his hunters had finally been beaten back when half of the orc band had turned to carry the fight back to their pursuers and two Nazgul had ridden across the ancient causeway, a foul mist wreathing them and their mounts. With darkness and sorcery clouding their senses, Laesul finally had to admit they were overmatched and Naurion was lost to them.

The knowledge that the young elf was doomed to torment and a cruel death was a bitter draught to swallow.

A hand on his shoulder dragged him back from the past and he looked up into Irnion’s grey-green eyes, the colour of a winter pool. “Laersul?”

He held up the scrap of fabric. “It was Anglach’s.”

Irnion nodded. “And we believed Anglach to be buried in the King’s Grove where no orc will ever tread while our kingdom still stands.” A strong hand gripped him hard enough to bruise. “Think, Laersul. The scrap was in the hands of a tracker following a scent. These orcs were hunting the living, not the dead.”

Thoughts buzzed in Laesul’s head like a swarm of angry bees. Their father and Galion had buried Anglach’s ruined body wrapped in the thick fur trimmed winter cloak he had been so fond of, with his tattered patrol blanket holding together what Lagorúthon had been able to salvage of his remains. They had never found his arms, despite a day and a half searching the woods. So how did a scrap from his undershirt come to be here, several days journey from where he fell, and several months later than the night of his death?

Abruptly, Laersul turned and vomited into the rank grass. He had only learnt the grim details from the old guard commander several weeks later over more flagons of wine than had been good for either of them.

With the sour taste of vomit in his mouth, Laersul clambered to his feet, all grace deserting him.

Imion held out a small flask of liquor capable of stripping the bark from an oak tree. Laersul took a gulp, grateful for the way his roiling stomach promptly surrendered and quietened under the sudden onslaught of a superior foe. The bees fled his brain as well, no doubt seeking a safer refuge.

“No one has ever escaped the clutches of the Hill of Dark Sorcery …”

“It is said that Mithrandir walked there once and returned.”

“Wizards go where they will,” Laersul said bitterly. “But if the orcs were tracking an escaped prisoner, then we had better find them first.” He gripped the tattered scrap tightly. However it came into the orc’s possession, they would not leave a fugitive to be hunted like prey.

They would not fail a second time.

Chapter Text

Less than a league from where the orc troop died, the ghost of a dead dwarf king stared into the many eyes of one of Mirkwood’s great spiders while the creature chittered the words, “Cake, cake, cake,” in a high-pitched but perfectly intelligible voice as it stalked towards the unconscious elf slumped against the trunk of an ancient yew tree.

“No, you don’t,” Thráin declared, drawing himself up to his full, albeit insubstantial, height and drawing his ghostly axe from his belt. “Leave him be or I’ll … I’ll …”

“Cake,” the spider repeated. “Spider-friend always has cake.”

“I am not a spider friend and I do not have cake!” Mahal’s thick cock, he’d asked for aid, not an half-witted over-sized arachnid with a cake fetish.

The spider waved one leg in the air. “Dead dwarf not spider-friend. Lob not stupid, dead dwarf.”

“I never said you were!” But he must be if he was arguing with a spider who wanted cake. “There is no cake here, so please leave.” There, he’d even said please. The polite elfling would be proud of him. He’d used the Magic Word.

The spider waved its leg again, gesturing to the yew tree sheltering the elfling. “Dead dwarf want help?”

“Yes, I want help!”

The spider chittered too rapidly for Thráin to make out, although he was certain the word ‘cake’ appeared somewhere in the tirade. Thráin nodded, privately thinking the spider was as mad as the elfling and that the pair would be well-matched. With a final chittered ‘cake’ the spider took off into the trees, moving from branch to branch with frightening agility despite its bulk. If the creature did no more than feast on any roving orcs, it would have served a useful purpose.

Despairing of finding aid in what he’d come to think of as Angband’s arsehole, Thráin returned to the elfling’s side and hovered protectively, somewhat relieved by the regular rasp of the foolish, brave child’s breath in a throat long rendered harsh by screaming.

“Ware, spider!” Imion called softly, nocking a shaft to his bow in readiness, before a chittering litany of ‘Cake, cake, cake,” reached their ears.

“Prince Lob,” Laersul said, smiling. “It has been too long.”

“Cake?” his foster brother’s adored former pet said hopefully.

Laersul dug in his pack for a round of Galion’s Last Resort, as the troops had taken to calling that particular culinary offering, and tossed it to the spider who caught it deftly and promptly munched on the prized delicacy, spraying crumbs in a wide arc.

“Follow Lob,” the spider commanded, scuttling off without waiting for an answer.

Laersul shrugged helplessly and did as he’d been bidden, Imion and the remainder of their troop at his heels, leaving behind the dead orcs as a warning that the border patrols had neither forgotten nor forgiven, nor would they do so until the breaking of the world.

“More cake?”

Thráin turned quickly and stepped out from the shelter of the yew’s dark branches, the leaves still studded with what remained of its blood-red berries. Never in his long life – and even longer death – had Thráin son of Thrór, heir to the lost kingdom of Erebor, been so thankful to see a company of elves, dressed in the greens and browns of the border patrols, armed with long bows, spears and fighting knives.

He waved one insubstantial arm and called out to them.

Unsurprisingly, they neither heard nor saw him. His frustrated cries disturbed none but the spider. The creature, hairier indeed than the Maker’s arse-crack, turned and waved a leg in greeting.

“Dead dwarf says hurry,” it said to the elves, politely missing out Thráin’s slurs on their parentage, the size of their cocks and their fighting prowess (lack of), proving – if more proof had been needed – that the furry but seemingly well-intentioned monstrosity had spent time with the elfling.

Their leader, a tall elf with watchful blue-grey eyes and sun-kissed hair held back in tight warrior’s braids, muttered, “Dead dwarf?” as he scrambled up the slope and barrelled straight through Thráin without even a simple by your leave or a polite at your service.

“King Thráin II son of Thrór King under the Mountain, delighted to make your acquaintance,” Thráin intoned, taking refuge in sarcasm.

The spider promptly and faithfully repeated his words, followed by its standard refrain.

The elf’s eyebrows collided with his hairline at speed as his sharp warrior’s eyes scanned the low cliff-edge for threats while he did his best to process what the spider was saying.

“Mind the rats!” Thráin ordered as the looming figure of the elf sent several of the small creatures scampering for safety while Snuffles stood her ground, leaping to the elfling’s shoulder and baring her small white teeth. Emboldened by her bravery, the others turned back, tails swishing, preparing to defend their friend. “Mind the rats!” Thráin bellowed again. “They’re his friends.”

“They would be,” the elf said, clearly beyond surprise by now, as the spider translated. “Anglach, I won’t hurt your rats.”

Anglach’s eyes fluttered open for a moment and he smiled. “Laersul, you came …”

The elf named Laersul gently gathered Anglach in his arms, careful not to squash any rats, and pressed a kiss to his pale brow. “I came, little brother. We never stopped trying to find a way onto that wraith-haunted hill. But we thought you dead. We … we buried you …”

“Lent Naurion my over-tunic. He was c…cold. I wasn’t. S…sorry to scare you. Did you think he was me?”

Laersul kissed him again. “We did. And he sleeps now in the King’s Grove. I’m going to pick you up – and your rats – and I’m sorry if it hurts. We’re taking you home and then I’m going to mark both of your legs myself! In fact I’ll probably mark every inch of your body …”

Anglach, being Anglach, looked dopily happy, wiped his dripping nose on Laersul’s shoulder and promptly passed out again.

“This is still hard to believe,” Thranduil said softly, staring intently at his foster-son’s sleeping form, curled up on his side in his own bed at last, wrapped in the softest, most luxuriant blankets that Galion could find. The steward had even made a warm lambswool nest next to him for the rats.

Galion smiled and tenderly brushed a stray lock of hair away from Anglach’s face. “It is everything I never dared allow myself to hope for.” He let out a disgusted snort. “The Sit-on-your-Arse White Council should have torn down that thrice-damned haunt of wraiths stone by stone when they had the chance.”

On the other side of the room, a spider the side of a large pony was contentedly chomping another huge portion of Galion’s rabbit pie, as Laersul had nobly forgone the share offered to him, stating that Lob deserved a reward for accompanying them all the way back from the southern border, ostensibly to provide an intermediary between the prince and the ghost of King Thráin II, former King in Exile of the dwarves of Erebor.

“If I had hands, I would do it myself,” Thráin said, his words relayed somewhat indistinctly by Lob, who had never really mastered the art of talking with his mouth full. Two of the rats promptly hopped off the bed and made short work of carrying the crumbs back to their nest.

Thranduil nodded at where he thought Thráin was standing. “When the time finally comes, we will do it as much for you as for my son, Your Highness, you may trust us on that.” He gave a respectful bow.

No one, not even Galion, knew what the protocol might be for hosting a very definitely deceased royal visitor, but for now a large red velvet cushion had been hastily procured and out inside a wicker basket placed on a carved wooden chair in Anglach’s bedroom with the old dwarf’s bones neatly arranged on top. Thranduil had to admit that even by the standards of a household that had played host to the childhood antics of his youngest son and his foster sibling, this was all rather unconventional. But any dwarf – dead or otherwise – who had watched over one of their own was more than welcome in his kingdom.

“No need for ceremony,” Thráin said. “I’ll watch him for you now. Prince Lob will come for you if he wakes.”

And so leaving Anglach in the care of a dead dwarf king, a nest of rats and a prince of the spider-folk, Thranduil and Galion finally retired to the elvenking’s rooms and gave in to the wholly understandable urge to drink a positively indecent amount of the finest Dorwinion vintage to be found in their cellars.

No tale relates the eventual reunion of Anglach and Legolas under the trees of Eryn Lasgalen, but rest assured there was much laughter as well as some choice insults in Khuzdûl – and yes, Legolas was impressed. There was also much Dorwinion red.

Some weeks later, Legolas and Gimli accompanied Anglach to Erebor where King Thráin II was finally laid to rest with much ceremony beneath the Lonely Mountain, to sleep at last with his kin, thus bringing to an end the story of two prisoners and their escape from the dungeons of Dol Guldur.