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There were only two questions.
Dáin and Khalei sat across from each other, surrounded by Erebor’s ruined halls. They were holed away together in the makeshift war-room that Dáin had set up, the stink of blood and must of decay thick in the air. No chairs, no grand tables; cracked misshapen pillars that had been brought down by Smaug served both needs.
“Was it quick?”
“Yes.”
“And was he avenged?”
“Yes.”
Khalei’s shoulders relaxed slightly, a tension and coiling anxiety unwound in those simple responses.
“Much must be sacrificed in war,” the Blacklock muttered tersely. His eyes slowly drifted from Dáin’s and fixed on the dusty floor. For the new king, the loss of his general, one of the greatest dwarves he had ever known, permeated the gain of the mountain and the reclamation of the crown. Dáin sighed and spat on the floor in bitterness. In the medical tent, Khalei’s husband, General Âr Baranul, lay next to Thorin, Fili and Kili, with his great-axe laid across his chest, clasped firmly in his hand and his helmet restored, covering the cavernous dent in his skull.
Dáin had heard second-hand of what had happened. Bivur had ran to him and pulled him aside, as the dregs of the rout were fading away and orcs were being dispatched left and right. His confidante pressed his lips to his ear and had whispered the story, gripping Dáin’s shoulder so tightly he felt it might snap. A single blow was all it had taken in the end. Anticlimactic really: he always thought Âr would go out in a blaze of glory, charging screaming towards a fully-laden battle line solo. But in reality, Dáin knew it was never like that. Death was indiscriminate, random and fleeting. One moment Dáin himself could be walking around and shaking the Red Axe of Durin at the sky, bellowing a war-cry; the next he could trip down a forgotten mine-hole and break his neck. Idri had avenged Âr immediately, cleaving the orc’s next in two and hacking its body up into carrion-fodder in a fit of rage. That was the most any dwarf could ask for.
The pyres. The fear, the tang of sweat, bile, and the stench of burning flesh - burning hair and charred skin, bones turning to meal—
“I am needed at the medical tent,” Khalei said wearily. Dáin’s head snapped back up, and immediately as he caught sight of Khalei, the memories of battles before faded away. The flames died. The smell left his nostrils.
“You can rest, if you need to,” Dáin said. He knew what was coming. Khalei shook his head, his face smeared in grime, blood, and other unnatural fluids. His long, dark hair, usually silky smooth, was encrusted with filth, and tied and plaited back out of his face, his short beard lopsidedly clasped. The dwarf tucked his helmet under one arm and adjusted the bandage around his left hand. Khalei, Prince of Ghomal, knew his place, and it was not to mourn while others died around him. Though his armour was bashed in places and caked in mud, his medical kit was still firmly slung over one shoulder.
“Not now,” he replied simply. The Blacklock nodded, and bowed, taking his leave of the king and picking his way among crumbling masonry back out to the battlefield.
Dáin watched his back mingle with the other soldiers; for that was what the prince was — another soldier. Another dwarf who had his obligations to the crown of Durin, agreed years ago with his brother. Khalei’s elder brother, King Varhi, should be notified of the death, Dáin thought. Each new thought pushed noisily into his mind, and, crow-like, circled. Things needed to be done, but there were things yet to do; anxieties and uncertainties. At the back of Dáin’s mind, the pyres still burned, flickering into life once more from quiet embers.
Khalei’s expression was inscrutable, black eyes cast downwards towards the bier where Âr lay in state. King Varhi stood next to him in a heavy Ghomali silver crown beset with emeralds, his curly, black beard decorated vividly. In the ruins of Erebor, he glittered like a vein of mithril. The two brothers, usually completely dissimilar in temperament, now echoed each others’ melancholy. Khalei’s face, often alight with a wry smile, was lined heavily — he had aged a decade in a month. Varhi’s stern frown was permanently etched onto his own face, but he gently held his younger brother’s hand. Sandar, Khalei’s daughter and King Varhi’s niece, hugged close to her remaining father. She looked so young. It was only now that Dáin truly appreciated how much she looked like Âr. She had his eyes and proud Longbeard bearing, flecks of his red hair tinting her deep brown beard.
At the ceremonial feast, Dáin was quiet. This loss had hit him like he had been the one to take the crushing blow to the skull. It was odd, for a dwarf who had experienced so much death. The king knew death as well as he knew life: the cease of breath to Dáin as natural as the rising and falling of his own chest.
“He wants to stay here,” Varhi intoned in his low, gravelly rumble. Dáin raised his eyebrow and glanced sideways at the king.
“I assumed that he would go back with you, to Ghomal. And take Sandar.”
“You assumed wrongly, Your Majesty,” Varhi said. A spark of his brother was there — the dry comments that slipped out every now and again. The Blacklock took a deep drink of his wine and patted his moustache clean. “When he left my halls, he found not only his love in the Iron Hills, but his purpose with your people. He would see Erebor restored to glory — and I, for my part, think that a worthy cause. Do you not agree?”
Dáin sighed. “You miss him, though.” He imagined what he would feel like, if he had a brother who had settled a thousand miles away from home.
Varhi smiled sadly. “Of course I do. But — Khalei has always been his own dwarf. I cannot make him come home. And if he is happy…” the king shrugged. “Now you are king, I may visit you more often.” Dáin grinned and clinked his goblet with Varhi’s.
“Aye, and make sure you bring some hardy workers with you next time!”
It was the first time he had smiled since his coronation. The crown on his head felt less alien.
One year on, and Erebor had changed around Dáin. The magnitude of the work was so great, and so quick, that it seemed to the new king one moment he was standing in a pile of rubble, and the next he was wondering if a dragon had ever been there in the first place.
Dwarves from all Houses had descended on Erebor: smiths and ironworkers from Nazbukhrin; expert stonemasons from Harabza and architects and engineers from Ghomal; traders from Ugzharak bringing everything from ghaspar lanterns and oil, to cloth and fine tapestry, to whole families of dwarves ready to set hands-to. Not even since Azanulbizar had there been as much co-operation between Houses; and it wasn’t just due to the weregild being agreed as soon as Dáin had taken one glance at Smaug’s hoard. No: there was genuine camaraderie among Ironfist, Stonefoot, Stiffbeard and Blacklock. More than once, he had overheard a dwarf from another folk proclaim their intention to settle with their family once rebuilding was complete. Here and there, cultures intermingled: Longbeard quarriers joined in a takrak game, with the Gomalis scoffing at their beginner’s luck, and the scent of panfried Stiffbeard dumplings wafted from market stalls, the steaming buns eagerly being pulled apart and dipped in spiced sauce.
“Too spicy for you?” Khalei quipped. His sleek eyebrow was raised as he proffered one covered in sauce to Dáin, who preferred his plain. Side by side, they sat on the edge of a fountain in the royal courtyard of the king. The deep, fresh smell of water and its ever-present trickle invigorated the stillness of the air around them as the glint of greenish-yellow ghaspar lamplight caught the stud of silver above Khalei’s lip. He had replaced the heavy Ghomali mbouraz which had hung from his nose with the new piercing; a muted indication of his widowed status. Dáin’s own tragedy had grown back many years after losing his wife; his shorn hair and beard once clipped close to stubble now had grown freely down his chin again.
Would he have felt better had he worn his grief so permanently? Dáin didn’t know how Khalei could stand it sometimes, being forever reminded. The dumpling nudged his bottom lip playfully. He grimaced as he dabbed the sauce away, but he couldn’t help but notice a speck glistening on the corner of Khalei’s moustache.
“It is good,” Khalei said finally, “to have dwarves from across the kingdoms coming together in Erebor.” A smile twitched the corner of his lips, stretching the dark tattoos etched across his beardline and cheeks. “Âr would have liked to have seen Erebor restored again.”
Dáin caught Khalei’s eye — a little awkwardly. Their gaze held, but Dáin was relieved to see hope instead of grief. There was a quiet defiance there. In the midst of chaos, Khalei and his daughter were still here. And so was Dáin.
“Aye,” the king said, “he would have. He would have been proud of you, and the young dam Sandar is becoming.”
Khalei smiled tiredly. His hair was now, like Dáin’s, flecked with a little grey here and there, though it was no less raven dark. They had all been busy, with nary a time to stop and admire what they all had created together.
“And he would have some good words for you too, Dáin. He loved you, too.”
They sat in stillness for a moment, the dumpling steam wafting in the chill cavern air. Sometimes the dwarves in Dáin’s court talked too much, but, like Dáin, Khalei knew the value of shared silence for a while.
“Am I doing a good job?” Dáin asked. He knew Khalei wasn’t a yes-dwarf. He wasn’t there to please anybody: even when their friendship had been new, he had never pulled punches with his opinions.
Khalei smiled widely. “You’re a terrible king — we should exhume Thorin and prop his corpse up on the throne as he’d probably do a better job.”
“Aye, thanks,” Dáin snorted. He plucked a dumpling from Khalei’s bundle and popped it into his mouth, sauce and all. It wasn’t bad.
“Stay still — idrib! ”
Dáin forcibly clamped his hands around his bulging thigh muscle as Khalei glanced up at him from beneath his fall of hair. Silver beads twisted around braids that swung in front of his face as he growled a low curse in response to Dáin’s fidgeting.
“It hurts,” Dáin mumbled. He grunted as Khalei gave the gash on his leg another wipe clean with a stinging liquid. His practiced hands were deft but rough, scarred from hard work on the backlines of battlefields saving the injured and dying.
“You may need stitches,” Khalei replied, his lips pursed in a thin line. The Blacklock prince’s back clicked as he straightened up with a sigh and stretched out, leisurely like a cat, as though the king wasn’t dripping a trail of blood onto the floor of the antechamber. Dáin sulkily slouched back, awaiting Khalei’s judgement. One dark eye cracked open and glared down at the king. “Stitches, I think. Better to be safe than sorry — I don’t want to chop off your leg because you got an infection.”
Dáin groaned. “I can bandage it myself—”
“Wait here,” Khalei said, ignoring Dáin with the delicate ease of one expert in his craft. The king’s eyes followed the dwarf as he left. He had no choice but to wait. The last thing he needed was for the court to question how he had come by his injury, and even less so his personal physician.
Eyrik was roaringly drunk, his beard stinking of beer and stale smoke. The dwarf stumbled into the king as he was coming back from the latrine, and offered him a pouch of tobacco, some of which he had been stuffing into his own clay pipe.
“Y’Majesty — a smoke?”
Dáin didn’t care for him, though to maintain good relations with the Firebeard nobility keeping Eyrik somewhat happy was on his unfortunate agenda. Dáin bowed slightly and retrieved his own pipe from a pocket in his plush blue robes, and thumbed in some of the Firebeard’s tobacco. Eyrik could hardly keep his eyes focused on the king, prattling on about something. Dáin hummed and nodded where appropriate, until one word caught his ear.
“What was that?” Dáin asked quickly.
“Khalei… that one—” Eyrik said, his eyes glinting. “Now there’s a dwarf who has been on his own for too long. Got my eye on him.” Eyrik laughed uproariously and slapped his chest. With his back momentarily turned from the king, he couldn’t see Dáin watching him like a hawk.
“His husband, General Âr, died a hero’s death,” Dáin said quietly.
“Oh—” replied Eyrik, “nobody’s doubting that. I saw it m’self. But surely he’s moved on by now. At least enough to have himself some fun. And what fun would I give him…”
Dáin took a long drag on his pipe, clenching it so hard between his teeth that it hurt. He blew a plume of smoke into the space between them.
“Really?”
Eyrik jabbed a hand laden with gaudy rings at the king’s bicep, his barrel chest straining as he puffed it out. “I’d be first in line! Though—” Eyrik leaned in conspiratorially, “he always has a dozen eyes peering his way.”
“I have not noticed,” Dáin lied.
Khalei was more outgoing than the king was. Ghomal did not have war threatening its borders like a wolf skirting a sheep-pen, and the royal Blacklocks could afford the safety of luxurious parties in their deep palace, and wild gatherings filled with music and dance that spanned several days at a time. Even in the Iron Hills’ easier times, Dáin had kept himself to himself and the dwarves on their toes. A feast occasionally, but food did not come as bountifully as it did in the East, and the Longbeards knew it.
When Khalei had moved to the Iron Hills, he was known for his sociable nature, getting along as easy with common dwarves as he did with Âr and those of Dáin’s circle. His relaxed manner and expensive taste was somewhat of an oddity – even now with more Eastern folk moving Westwards – and when he had settled in the Hills it was as though a colourful, exotic bird had come to roost.
Though for all the shiny exterior — the fine Ghomali fabrics dyed in rich purples and woven with golden thread, the filigree silver coronet, and the sapphires hich hung from his ears and adorned his neck — Dáin knew another side of Prince Khalei Iskbanâl. He had brought himself to the Iron Hills, but he had also brought a wagon filled with countless books of healing and herbal lore, and had given his own personal wealth to refurbish the hospitals in the Hills with beds, medicines and tools, even paying for Ghomali doctors to bring new surgical techniques to those of Durin’s Folk. Khalei told little of this to others, being seen more often with a glass of Eastern wine in his hand, but Dáin knew behind his eyes was a keen mind and a giving heart.
Though it was not his heart that these dwarves were attracted to. Dáin was neither blind, nor was he stupid.
“You haven’t noticed, your Majesty? I saw Ilvar grab at his arse yesterday — and Prince Khalei smacked him something good, let me tell you. He packs a punch!”
Dáin’s hand stilled on his pipe and he felt a flush rise in his cheeks that wasn’t the result of overdrinking.
“Ilvar did that, you say?” Fury unraveled itself inside Dáin like Smaug awakening from slumber, burning as hot as dragon-breath.
“Aye,” Eyrik said unabashedly, “I would try it on with Khalei myself, though I’d wager he’d need to be plenty drunk before he’s loose enough to screw me.”
It all happened very quickly after that.
Khalei returned to the antechamber with a bundle of clean cloth. He set it down and laid out the tools — to Dáin’s untrained eye, it looked like a sewing kit, but with finer thread and a sharper, slightly curved needle.
“Eyrik did this?” Kaheli’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at the wound on the king’s leg. “Eyrik isn’t usually one to tussle, even when he’s drunk. That’s more Gurd’s way.”
Dáin shifted uncomfortably but maintained a stoic silence. He knew that Eyrik wouldn’t say anything about their scrap to anyone else, but he would still need a way to explain the two black eyes Dáin had given him. The cut on his leg when Eyrik had pushed the king into a broken marble bench was relatively inconspicuous albeit bleeding like a stuck pig; he would see to Eyrik’s punishment when there was less blood on his robes.
“He got on my nerves with his talk,” the king shrugged. “A few stitches, medic, and I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of the night.”
Khalei gave Dáin a look that he imagined he would give a young cousin who got into a fight in the schoolyard. He sighed and kneeled down in front of the king, and Dáin was suddenly incredibly sober, very much aware of the prince’s proximity to his body. He could almost feel the Blacklock’s breath on his skin.
“Well, let us hope for both our sakes that he doesn’t continue to… talk. He has a big mouth. You should just ignore him.” Khalei unstoppered a bottle and poured a few drops of clear liquid onto the cut. It burned for a few seconds, before cooling the king’s skin rapidly like the wound had been surrounded by ice.
“He was… using language that is not appropriate,” the king grunted.
“For your ears? He must have been,” Khalei laughed as he inspected the cut. Dáin chewed the inside of his lip. He didn’t want to draw attention to what other, more base, dwarves said about the prince. He knew Khalei could handle himself.
“Alright,” Khalei said, after a few moments had passed. He prodded the skin around the cut, and Dáin was surprised that it was numb. “Nothing? Good.”
Dáin watched as Khalei worked. The candlelight was dying, but the glow of Khalei’s eyes shone as he moved his head this way and that to inspect the cut, and to adjust his maneuvers as he sewed along the wound. His assortment of gold and silver earrings glinted gently along with the stud in the bow of his lips. Every so often, his tongue would moisten them. Dáin looked away.
“You handle this better than Âr ever did. He never stand the sight of blood, even his own,” Khalei said pensively, finishing the stitching with a flourish and a satisfied smirk.
“Really? I would not have known.”
“No,” Khalei said, “he almost fainted before once, when I had a bad nosebleed. But on the battlefield, that was a different Âr.” Khalei’s fingers lingered on Dáin’s thigh, and the king could feel the warmth of each pad press into his muscle. Khalei stood slowly, admiring his handiwork.
“I won’t kiss it better,” he said lightly.
There was something in his tone. Dáin was stuck trying to latch onto it, like a buckle that just wasn’t closing right…
“No… what do you healers call it — germs?”
“Correct,” Khalei said. He held out his arm, and Dáin took it, bowing to the other dwarf as he got to his feet.
“Good as new. My thanks, Prince Khalei,” the king said.
Swiftly, before Dáin had a chance to take stock, Khalei pressed a kiss to the king’s forehead. Dáin stopped breathing momentarily, and as the other dwarf stepped back, his head spun and the room became suddenly very bright.
“Behave your kingly self for the rest of dinner,” Khalei said quietly. “Try not to batter anyone else.”
Dáin touched the Blacklock’s forearm fleetingly, then let his fingers drop. His breathing hadn’t quite recovered.
“I promise,” he said.
Fire: all he could see was the towering, raging fires. Dáin was trapped by walls of it on all sides, each burning hellpit stacked high with bodies of dwarves. Youngbeards and oldbeards crumbled as they lit alight like kindling, their fat hissing and popping, and their faces contorted and blistered beyond recognition. Among the pyres, Dáin ran like a crazed rat in a maze, his legs never taking him anywhere, as though the mud of the rain-soaked battlefield of Azanulbizar had sucked his legs down into the earth. And the crown — with each step he took the crown pressed down deep into his skull, heavy like an ogre’s foot about to crush his brain into jelly—
Dáin awoke with a shout, sweat dripping down his back. The vision took minutes to slip from his eyes, and his heart galloped to a stop. His shoulders fell.
Sometimes, it was that dream. Dáin, for what it was worth, had a few that were on rotation, as though some perverted part of his mind requested it nightly like he might request a minstrel play a different song. There was always one constant: the feeling of losing, and being able to do nothing. People he loved died around him, and he was powerless to save them. This time, it was visions of his fellow soldiers who, like him, were bairns given axes; sometimes it was his wife hemorrhaging after birthing Thorin, and Dáin clutching desperately at her hand as her skin turned grey. Blood and fire; fire and blood. These were the two constants in Dáin’s life and in his dreams.
Naked, he stalked across his chambers and poured himself a cup of water from a pitcher. In the moonlight, he could see the raw cut on his leg, and as he took a sip to calm himself, he flexed his thigh muscle. It was a little sore, but it felt settled and clean, and the handiwork was impeccable. It would fade, like they always did, into the network of scars and tattoos that criss-crossed the dwarf’s body. One more for the collection.
In a sleepy daze, he wondered fleetingly what scars Khalei had on his body. He had tattoos enough — the ones across his cheeks that every Blacklock had marked in dark rich black ink, signifying his royalty and lineage, and symbols on his fingers and wrists. For strength? For dexterity? He had tried to ask about the arcane patterns, but Khalei always rebuffed him. The Blacklocks kept their secrets even more jealously than the Longbeards did and for that Khalei had even more of Dáin’s respect. He hadn’t seen below Khalei’s undershirt though… or what could be—
Dáin gulped the water and slammed the cup down, finding his way back across his room and into bed.
Throwing himself against his pillows, he closed his eyes and pushed thoughts of Khalei and his skin out of his mind. In the last moments before slumber took him, he mused on their similarities, aside from the ink that both told their stories on their flesh. What trauma, what blood had Khalei seen in his tenure as a battlefield doctor? What loved ones, and young ones, had he been unable to save as they bled and died around him? Âr, like Dáin’s beloved Yura, had died. Khalei’s mother, too, had succumbed to an incurable sickness when the prince was a young dwarfling. Did Khalei dream about it, taunted by memories? Was there something in that Ghomali medicine bag he carried that could take away his pain each night and force him into a dreamless spell of unconsciousness? Or, did he dance his way through life, accepting the fleetingness and unfairness of everything he went through with a smile on his face?
The next day, Dáin awoke, and those questions were still on his mind.
“You didn’t draw blood this time,” Khalei remarked. Dáin took the dig in good faith and snorted, reaching out to pat the ledge beside him. He had stopped to refill his pipe and take a moment away from the heat of the Feasting Hall.
“That old tale, again, Khalei? Eyrik’s eyes have remained bruise-free for nigh sixty years,” he groused, groaning as he stretched his bad leg out in front of him. His knee was locking up as the cold weather settled into the bones of the mountain. He had been particularly well-behaved this time: it was, after all, the state wedding, between Prince Khalei’s only daughter, Sandar, and the Crown-Prince of Nazbukhrin, King Fara’s eldest. Fortunately, it had gone to plan and without complaint (like butter, as his old pa would say). And, as the Eastern king had no plans to marry his other child off to Ereborian nobility any time soon, King Dáin felt his stress levels ebb substantially.
The younger Prince of Ghomal sat down beside the king and looked out from the balcony down into the inner courtyard of the palace. Far below them, surrounded on all sides by the tall stone walls of the palace quarters, were twisting, dark pools flecked with the gentle blue radiance of algae and the mirrored light of glow-worms, and guarding watch over them from high positions along the walls were marble statues of the many rulers of Durin’s line, their axes clasped in folded hands and their heads bowed in reverence. One day, Dáin’s own statue would be committed here. Dáin sighed. This day was to be a happy occasion — not one to reflect on the past, or on an uncertain future. The rumours of impending war in the South, and the restlessness of dark creatures stirring in Mordor, was never far from his mind these days as more and more of his scouts reported strange tales. He turned to Khalei, who had leaned back against a pillar, eyes shut briefly. His face glistened in sweat; dark, curly hair plastered down to his forehead and his skin was flushed. Dáin couldn’t help himself from looking.
“What?”
“What?” replied Dáin petulantly. Khalei’s eyes opened. That stare that he had come to expect was already fixed on him sternly.
“I can tell when you’re looking at me,”
“Am I not allowed to?”
Khalei remained silent, and Dáin turned away again. Recently, his eyes seemed to stray to Khalei more often than usual of late.
The chatter of the Feasting Hall echoed around the corridor as a door opened and closed sharply in the distance. In unison, they looked around, and caught each other’s eye for a moment.
The soft hand which touched the top of his knuckles almost made him jump where he sat. It was so gentle that at first Dáin hadn’t noticed it, but now he was acutely aware of how close their bodies were — knees pressed together slightly, and Khalei’s shoulder just inches away. His old heart sped up as he searched those dark eyes, as dark as the pools below them, and glittering with their own warm light.
No.
Tonight was about unity of two distinguished dwarven houses, about sharing time with family and friends not seen in many years, about celebrating love with endless platters of food and toasts of honey-beer. He wouldn’t tarnish it by wallowing in his yearning.
“Why have you been single so long?”
King Fara had started on the wine as soon as he had changed out of his travelling clothes. Lying sprawled and half dressed in a plush chair in King Dáin’s private quarters, his colleague and friend inspected him over the rim of his glass. A notorious lightweight, he was three cups in, and that was two cups too many. He couldn’t deny his friend a drink, though; it was his eldest’s wedding on the morrow, after all.
Dáin stepped over Fara’s discarded overshirt and heavy outer robes. He knew that for all the splendour the king radiated — his golden robes and shining mail garnering him the name ‘the Sun King’ — Fara didn’t care for clothes or appearances. He had, on more than one occasion, hissed in Dáin’s ear at the feast table that his crown was too cumbersome, and it now was carefully placed on the mahogany table in the middle of both dwarves like a miniature temple constructed out of finest gold and onyx. Lazily, Fara fiddled with an edge of his impressive, thickly locked beard.
“Do you think you don’t deserve happiness?” he pressed.
“Don’t play drunken philosopher with me tonight, Fara,” Dáin muttered. Fara sat up and swung his legs down from where they had been crossed over the arm of the chair. Dáin rolled his eyes. He had stoked the fires now, and Fara’s wine-loosened tongue would be difficult to still.
“I am not playing at being a drunken philosopher, Eternal Majesty: I am a drunken philosopher. And I am asking you why— why you won’t just say it.” Fara took a deep breath in, his ebony dark skin shimmering with beads of perspiration and a determined light in his eyes.
Dáin looked at him, a frown deepening. “Say what?”
Fara was on the edge of his seat, both hands grasping his drink like a toddler, squinting at the Longbeard king, his compatriot, as though he was trying to communicate with the dwarf through the powers of his mind. He was silent for so long that Dáin thought he had fallen asleep where he sat.
“Why don’t you just tell Khalei, Dáin? The worst he could say is no.” Fara tipped the goblet of wine down his throat and poured another one before Dáin had time to register what he had said.
Fara was a bad liar. Perhaps that was why he was trusted so much by his people in Nazbukhrin: he was known to be a truth-teller, and wear his heart on his sleeve for his people. But apparently it was Dáin who was the one struggling to hide his feelings.
“Is it that obvious?” he asked. Fara barked in laughter.
“Yes. King Varhi and I were talking about it last time we were here. He wouldn’t disapprove, you know.”
“Charming. Do you often talk about the other kings behind their backs?” Dáin asked, a little peeved that he was being gossiped about.
“None of them are as interesting as you, and none of them we like enough to talk about in our free time,” Fara huffed. His eyes gradually sobered a little. “Do you think you don’t deserve happiness?” he asked again.
Dáin studied his own cup. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this conversation.
“Maybe it is happiness that doesn’t deserve me. I have been a miserable shit most of my life.” He looked up somberly at Fara. “I — I cannot be healed enough, Fara. I will just be king for the few remaining years I have, and then die. That is it.”
The black dog was salivating, nipping at the king’s heels. He knew Fara, too, had suffered from sickness of the mind, but every so often it was so overwhelming that Dáin couldn’t see past the morning. He could feel the darkness blackening his vision, the sadness creeping across his stomach and chest like a spectre. Fara scooted closer, kneeling on the carpet in front of Dáin and he felt his strong forearm gripped with equal strength. Fara forced Dáin’s chip upwards, a little roughly in his inebriated state. But when Dáin looked into his eyes, they were clear.
“If you are so set on death, then what do you have to lose by telling him? If he says no: we both know war is brewing and a gallant death awaits. If he says yes: at least your last years will be the best you have had in a while.”
The black dog… backed away. Dáin felt a laugh bubbling up inside him; it didn’t fully make it out, but he did chuckle.
“Perhaps there is some sense in this philosopher tonight,” he conceded.
King Dáin had everything. Decades had flown by since the retaking of Erebor, and in that time bountiful resources had poured from the mountain and into the mountain from the surrounding lands and the blooming city of Dale. Crafting and smithing had been perfected with the renewed motivation of thousands of eager dwarves and the economy ignited as cold forges ran hot once more at all hours of the day and night. New veins of ore and precious metals and minerals been discovered, and Dáin’s good fortune had surprised even the dour king himself. He and his family had wanted for nothing. He had the honour of his line’s kingdom restored. Wasn’t that enough in his waning years?
“The Feasting Hall will be wondering where you’ve gone,” King Dáin mumbled quietly, once he had unstuck his dry throat. That dry smile crossed Khalei’s full lips again.
“All will be deep in their cups, judging by the rate at which the ale has been disappearing this evening,” replied Khalei. Somehow, the prince was even closer than before, sitting chest to chest, his fingers still slightly twisting with Dáin’s. He could smell the faint, musky scent of the prince’s rich perfume, see how the lantern light played across his skin, unmarred by age except the lines of laughter at the corners of his eyes.
When had he returned his grasp? The king held his breath, and the moment that spanned between the two dwarves was as delicate as the wings of a moth, threatening to rip with the slightest clumsy movement. It was rare that King Dáin had no words, and right now, none fitting came to mind.
“Then,” he said, pulling away with a forced grin, “we must see that they leave some for us — or we’ll be the only sober ones left!”
Something like satisfaction crossed Khalei’s face, but he did not break his hold on the king’s hand. Every bone in Dáin’s body, every inch of flesh, every quaking beat of his heart, longed for the moment… to end, to continue? He did not know.
What do you have to lose by telling him? If he says no: we both know war is brewing and a gallant death awaits. If he says yes: at least your last years will be the best you have had in a while.
“And how many pigs did you get in? The butchers have culled a whole herd it seems. A whole noble line of pigs wiped out, generation by generation!” Khalei shot him a mocking look over his shoulder as the prince took the lead back to the Feasting Hall. “How could you?”
Dáin followed him with heavy, tentative steps: the moth edged closer to the flame.
“Aye, we must wage war on our deadliest — and tastiest — foes,” Dáin quipped, clapping his hand on Khalei’s strong shoulder, muscles hardened from years of military service.
He was old. And for the first time, he realised that he did not care. One day soon, they both would be called to Mahal’s own Feasting Hall. Was all of this really so serious? The wall of darkness broke apart, lifting like an afternoon’s sun clearing morning fog on frosty ground.
Khalei stopped short of the entrance to the Feasting Hall, turned, and his hands encircled the king’s waist. From beyond the doors, music was still playing.
“A dance first, my king?”
“My leg—”
“Is it that stiff tonight?”
It wasn’t. Dáin stepped in close, sinking into the Blacklock’s touch, his lips so close to Khalei’s dusky cheek, reddened with beer and heat. Slowly, they turned — clumsily at first — and then Dáin was laughing in low rumbling gasps as Khalei spun, raising their arms high in the air. Flashes of silver glanced off of the prince’s bracelets and the tips of his braided hair. After a few minutes, the music died away, replaced by boisterous shouts of laughter and cheers for the minstrel and band to strike up another jaunty tune, but Dáin found himself still dancing with Khalei, his face buried in the dwarf’s shoulder, their echoing feet pattering their own drumbeats, his heart skipping in time.
“We should go back in,” Dáin mumbled.
“Eventually,” Khalei commented measuredly, “they can be without a king for a few moments, at least. But I need my king right now. And for a while longer, if he would like it so.”
Dáin looked up from the soft pillow of Khalei’s hair and raised an eyebrow quizzically. Khalei grinned.
“Fara told me you may need some convincing.”
Dáin growled, making a mental note to ensure King Fara had the worst hangover of his 190 years in the morning.
“He had no business telling you anything,” Dáin groused.
“Unfortunately, telling the King of Nazbukhrin a secret does as much good as telling a wizard not to speak in riddles,” Khalei said, leading Dáin not through the Feasting Hall doors, but towards the corridor that led to the palace’s guest chambers, “besides, I will make it up to you tonight, and possibly — if you can handle it — into the early morning.”
‘Then about a year ago a messenger came to Dáin, but not from Moria — from Mordor: a horseman in the night, who called Dáin to his gate. The Lord Sauron the Great, so he said, wished for our friendship. Rings he would give for it, such as he gave of old. And he asked urgently concerning hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt. "For Sauron knows," said he, "that one of these was known to you on a time."
'At this we were greatly troubled, and we gave no answer. And then his fell voice was lowered, and he would have sweetened it if he could. "As a small token only of your friendship Sauron asks this," he said: "that you should find this thief," such was his word, "and get from him, willing or no, a little ring, the least of rings, that once he stole. It is but a trifle that Sauron fancies, and an earnest of your good will. Find it, and three rings that the Dwarf sires possessed of old shall be returned to you, and the realm of Moria shall be yours for ever. Find only news of the thief, whether he still lives and where, and you shall have great reward and lasting friendship from the Lord. Refuse, and things will not seem so well. Do you refuse?"
'At that his breath came like the hiss of snakes, and all who stood by shuddered, but Dáin said: "I say neither yea nor nay. I must consider this message and what it means under its fair cloak."
'"Consider well, but not too long," said he.
'"The time of my thought is my own to spend," answered Dáin.
'"For the present," said he, and rode into the darkness.
Deep in thought, the king of Durin’s Folk looked out over the gate of Erebor. It was a cold autumn night, and the messenger had just departed. He pulled his cloak around him against the biting chill. Beside him, a familiar presence stood as ever, straight-backed, sour-faced and proud, who had been regarding the messenger like a pile of dung left at the doorstep.
Dáin turned to Khalei. His lover had also awoken with the king when he was called to the battlements - Dáin had tried to get him to remain in bed, but Khalei would not be moved.
“Well,” Dáin said. “War has come at last to our doors. Mordor knocks, and the shadow of its tendrils reach out further than before.”
Khalei spat over the wall; the rider was already lost in the folds of night.
“His words are poison, both their menace and deceit. The power that has re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it has betrayed us. He could be offering the keys to Khazad-dûm itself with Durin’s lost crown on a pedestal, and I would not take either.”
“Nor I,” Dáin sighed. He massaged his temples. “Nor I.”
Khalei pulled Dáin close and kissed him. Hard. Defiant. Tender. Enough to still Dáin’s churning mind. After a long, breathless moment, they parted, but Khalei still held him tightly.
“We will weather it,” he said. “Whatever comes.”
At least your last years will be the best you have had in a while.
“Whatever comes,” Dáin repeated, with a smile.