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It started barely an hour after the dinner at Rivendell. Dwalin fell horribly ill, vomiting profusely, with a horrible headache on top that entirely incapacitated him.
Soon after, Bifur and Bofur fell to the same illness, with stomach cramps and dizziness on top. Within an hour, every dwarf — except Thorin — fell so sick that they could hardly move. They also complained, between riddles of incredible headaches, about visions of dark eyes and horrible laughter. Their faces twisted in fear between their ramblings. A curse had fallen upon them, thought Thorin: a foul magic from beyond.
Bombur was the last to fall victim. His symptoms also seemed lighter than that of the others; he squirmed less and had a lesser headache; he could speak clearly when asked a question, but he did still complain of the same visions.
Worse still: Gandalf’s magic was unable to help, and while the elves had medicinal herbs and hospitable beds, they didn’t seem to quell the problem. They could only keep it from getting worse.
Bilbo and Thorin were the only short-folk who weren’t affected, so it was left to them to keep an eye over their compatriots. Thorin walked between the beds as though he was visiting gravestones, thought Bilbo, as the dwarven king’s colour drained further for every scream they heard and every twisted face they observed.
“Damned elves!” screamed Glóin suddenly — just after they’d gone past his bed. “They’ve — nngh — poisoned us!”
He spoke to no one. Or he spoke to anyone, whoever was there, but he was clearly shouting for himself more than the people around him. The elf who was tending to him at the time stepped back in shock; everyone else just halted whatever they were doing for a few, fleeting moments, then went back to their business more awkwardly than before.
And Thorin…
To an untrained eye, Thorin was worried. To Bilbo’s eye in specific, which had had a small bit of training across the time they’d travelled together, Thorin was still worried. But after Glóin’s outburst, Bilbo could see that the worry changed. It seemed to go deeper, more anxious, more afraid; Thorin dropped his eyes to the floor and his lips moved without speaking.
They moved away from that room and into the hallway, towards the next sickbed. It was only then that Bilbo dared speak. “Thorin —”
“Accursed fate!”
“Indeed. But I wanted to say —”
“All my men, wasting in elven beds! Gandalf, powerless! And you, halfling, the only one unbothered! It’s a beastly trick, an omen!” Thorin turned around, faced Bilbo head on, his expression wild and unfurling. “The Lonely Mountain has never been more distant! And now I find that even Gandalf cannot be trusted?”
Bilbo felt his mouth fall open. “Gandalf? But what has he done?”
“He leads us into a nest of snakes! If the elves have truly poisoned us, how can I trust him? Even if he was also fooled, his judgement cannot guide us if it leads us to such peril!”
So the thing Bilbo had been concerned about, had actually happened. A distrust of the elves had taken seed in Thorin, either from Glóin’s panicked screams, or earlier on as his followers collapsed around him. “Thorin, the elves haven’t poisoned us. They aren’t our enemies.”
The look Thorin gave him might have been the same one he reserved for orcs and goblins. “Our enemies? Our enemies? If you would align yourself with them, then you also render yourself my enemy,” he almost shouted, and the word ‘my’ was spoken with an incredible possessiveness. Like to him, in this moment, defining his enemies for himself mattered more than trust. It was paranoia, and paranoia born from fear and feelings of inadequacy. All his men were now lying sick in foreign beds, and his throne wasn’t even close to reclaimed.
Bilbo wet his lips, cautious. This needed careful negotiation. “I swear, I’m not your enemy. I, I only want to help. There’s got to be an explanation, a reason, for what’s happening, but if we blame all the elves at once, we can’t find that out. Maybe a specific elf did it, alone.”
It seemed to work, at least a little. Thorin’s expression relaxed into something calmer, more thinking, though it would be false to say that he looked calm. But a paranoid man was better soothed with gentle affirmation, because that gave his thoughts a path to follow, rather than the twisting spools it would spin otherwise.
“I will find out what happened, and who is behind this,” Bilbo continued. “And once I find out, I’ll expose the truth to you. I swear on my honour. And, I swear on Bag End. My home.”
For a moment, the swearing seemed to work. But then Thorin hardened again — not to the degree he seemed earlier, but enough to be concerning. “You shall have two hours, halfling. But if you don’t have a solution by then, you will rue that you ever tried to delay my justice. And if any of my men should die as a result of this…”
“Un—understood,” said Bilbo and gulped.
“Then get to it!”
Bilbo didn’t say another word. He just turned and ran, to somewhere he hadn’t even planned yet.
… … … … …
But it wasn’t the elves. Of course it wasn’t. Elrond was a champion of the old alliance, and Gandalf was not so easily misled that he would lead them into an ambush. Their party had come here unannounced, too, so there wouldn’t be a plot against them. Admittedly, that meant the only other suspects were the dwarves themselves and also Gandalf, but… there just wasn’t any reason for the elves to do anything to the dwarves, unless they were that upset about the table dancing and crooning at dinner. Technically, there could be singular elves behind this, but… for the time being, Bilbo preferred to be neutral on the issue, to not cast any aspersions until he had an idea of what was happening.
Which also meant he needed to figure out what had happened, and how. It was true that everyone fell under this — sickness, curse, whatever it was — soon after dinner, but if the dinner was the cause, Thorin should also have fallen sick. Unless this was only targetted at the side tables… because Thorin sat at the main table with Gandalf and Elrond at dinner, while Bilbo and the other dwarves were spread out across the two others. Though, if that were the case, Bilbo should have joined the others in their illness.
It was his best clue, though. So he sought out Bombur’s sickbed, and found the dwarf lying flat on his back, in a state of near-consciousness as an elf dabbed at his forehead. Bombur was covered in sweat and seemed pale as death, his eyes closed above his tousled beard.
Bilbo greeted the elf with a cautious nod, and the elf stepped back; taking that as a good sign, Bilbo moved up to the bed and hoisted himself up on the chair next to it.
“Bombur. Can you hear me?”
“Aye…” It was half spoken, and half exhaled. Bombur didn’t turn to look at him.
“How — h-how are you feeling?”
“Barely. Poorly…”
The question was, though, why Bombur was less afflicted than the others. He ate the same food, after all. “Can you remember… anything you’ve done since you came here? Along with the others?”
Bombur breathed heavily a few times before replying, almost for long enough that Bilbo was worried he hadn’t heard the question. But then, he said: “Dinner…”
“Yes, yes, but… anything after that? Or right before?”
“No.”
Bilbo glanced up at the elf, who stood dutifully waiting in the corner. Could they really have poisoned the food? And if they did, why? Someone who carried a grudge against Thorin and his company would surely have targetted Thorin before the others, and it was genuinely ludicrous to think this was in direct response to the dancing and food throwing. It seemed too bizarre that elves, devoted to peace and tranquility, would willingly inflict twelve dwarves with a toxin that would make them shout and vomit into elven beds.
“There’s… one thing,” said Bombur eventually. “After dinner… we snuck ourselves to rations.”
“Rations?” said Bilbo, and perked up. “You mean, the food we carried with us from outside?”
“Aye… most of the others ate ver’ little elvish food… we wanted meat as well…”
There were packs of dried and cured meats in their bags, of course. Salty, hearty stuff that would get any dwarf salivating before, and satisfied after. And it was true that the dwarves had loathed the greens on their plates… except Bilbo could remember that Bombur, at least, seemed to enjoy it. So probably, he had needed fewer rations to keep himself fed… “Did you all eat from the rations?”
“We did… ‘cept Thorin… Dori thought we shouldn’t tell him.”
That was the commonality, then. Or at least, one possible commonality. “Thank you, Bombur. I — hope you get better soon!” Bilbo jumped off the chair and rushed towards the door, didn’t say another word to either Bombur or the elf.
He ran down the hallway towards where he had last seen their gear stored. It was before dinner, but it was probably still there, piled by the fireplace in that room to the southwest. But as he ran, he kept wondering… if the rations had been poisoned, wouldn’t it still have been the elves who did it? After all, nobody else was here with them…
The room was empty, and the bags dropped in an orderly and yet still chaotic way, the bottoms placed in a line but their tops carelessly flopped around. Some objects had also been taken out and left beside them, something that might indicate tampering to anyone who didn’t know what dwarves were like or, at the very least, what this particular group of dwarves were like.
But there was no time to worry whether or not tampering had happened in a generalised sense; he needed to find out if anything had happened to the rations in specific. So he threw himself over the various sacks and tried to dig out those meats, to see if he could find any clues. The first thing he found, though, was his own blade: the one Gandalf offered him after they escaped the trolls. For a moment, it almost seemed to glow blue; when he blinked, though, the colour faded away. A trick of the light, perhaps, the rising moon reflecting in its silvery hilt. Nonetheless, he wrapped it around his waist again, because if something went wrong…
… in all honesty, despite Thorin’s distantness, Bilbo wanted to be there for him. Whether that was a sense of duty or obligation, though, or a desire to prove himself, or just the necessity of making good with the man whose goodwill he was dependent on to continue his adventure, he couldn’t say. But it felt necessary, in some way.
Still — he couldn’t make himself believe the elves were truly behind this. There had to be some other explanation. Could the food have been tainted in the troll caves, where they also found his new dagger? Could it simply have gone off? Maybe there was some other commonality?
But all those thoughts were blasted from his mind when he pulled out a wrapped-up package and could feel even from the outside that something was wrong. Cured, salted meat should not smell like this — like compost.
He unwrapped the covering and lifted it away, and almost gagged as he saw what was inside. The meat was simultaneously blackened and green, and almost seemed to be melting. And the stench was like that of a rotting deer.
… … … … …
“This is deeply troubling,” said Gandalf, pacing around with his hands tightly wrapped around his staff.
“Indeed,” said Elrond. He was sitting still in his council chair, but the way his hand worried his chin made it clear he was just as upset as Gandalf.
“Have you contacted Thorin about this?” said Gandalf, turning towards Bilbo.
Bilbo swallowed. “I haven't. I tried to, but he was nowhere to be found.”
“No doubt consumed by worry over his comrades,” sighed Gandalf. “And yet… how could the dwarves be so rash as to eat meat in this condition?”
“They were not,” said Elrond. He nodded towards the package, which lay open on the pedestal. The stench was horrendous, even as far away from them as it was. “I know this poison.”
“You do?” said Gandalf. “Tell us.”
“It’s an orcish poison. We have encountered it before, though not in over a thousand years… so much of our lembas bread perished to it, during the earlier wars. It has two purposes: the first is to render rations inedible, to break morale and force your enemy to go hungry. The second, though, is to poison and incapacitate the enemy. For the first hour after the poison is added, it seeps in slowly, and anyone who eats the food during this time will not notice that anything is wrong. But they will soon be put into tormentous pain and, if nothing is done… to death.”
“Death,” echoed Bilbo.
“Indeed,” said Elrond. There was doom in his eyes. “The dwarves are still in danger. Now that we know what is wrong, we stand a far better chance of saving their lives, but they will nonetheless be bedridden for days. It's a foul affliction.”
“Yet… if what you say is true, the poison must have been added to the food while we were here, at Rivendell,” said Gandalf. “Elrond, old friend, this place is among the safest in all of Middle Earth. No orc could get in or out of here without being discovered.”
“Indeed,” said Elrond. His nod was portentously heavy. “Which means…”
“… that the poison must have been put there by someone already here,” finished Gandalf, clearly trepidatious.
Bilbo stared between them. Were they truly suggesting that the poisoner was an elf? Admittedly, if there was no one else here, there was little else to blame it on… but even so…
“If that is the case,” Gandalf went on slowly, “we must consider that one of your people has a grudge against dwarves, Elrond.”
“We must,” said Elrond, nodding just the same again. “However… there’s also the possibility that Thorin might have poisoned his men. He left the dinner early, clearly upset. And now he is the only one left unharmed.”
“He would not!”
— the words shot out of Bilbo before he could command them out, a reflexive protest that was absolutely his, but that nonetheless felt dangerous for a hobbit to speak in the company of tall folk. Gandalf and Elrond turned towards him, mouths half open.
“… He would not endanger his men like that. It, it, it makes no sense. He loves them.”
“We must consider all possibilities,” said Elrond, in that voice that was starting to feel grating. The sideliner, the mediator, whose adherence to that position was more important to him than anything else.
“Well, excuse me for saying so, but there are some possibilities that are — are stupid.”
Gandalf stepped forward, raised his hand in mollification. “Elrond, I understand your view, but there is no way Thorin would do that. If we are to accuse him, then the finger should also be pointed towards me, and Bilbo.”
Elrond frowned deeply. “Perhaps we should also consider the halfling, then.”
“I would never poison anyone!”
“The alternative is accusing someone I trust deeply,” said Elrond.
“The alternative —” started Bilbo.
But then… there were always more alternatives, weren’t there? Elrond was convinced that no one had entered Rivendell that wasn’t allowed to. But if they were to truly consider all possibilities, they also had to consider the possibility that someone unwanted had come inside.
Slowly, Bilbo reached for his sword, and pulled it out of its scabbard. It glinted slightly, but there was no bluish glow to it anymore. Back in the room where he found the rations, had he truly seen it glow blue, like Gandalf had told him it would in the presence of orcs? Or was that just his imagination playing cruelties on him? It would be strange for an orc to be so close, and yet to not strike…
He became aware of a voice. “Bilbo,” it said. He blinked back to reality and saw — Gandalf, his hand reached out, and Elrond, halfway on his way out of the chair.
“What?”
“You must not raise your weapon from a mere accusation,” said Gandalf. He spoke slowly, cautiously, as though he was afraid.
“I did not —”
Then Bilbo realised what this must look like. To anyone else, he had pulled his weapon.
“You misunderstand,” he said, and lowered it. But he did not sheathe it. “Elrond — if we have to consider all possibilities, we should also consider that someone might, just might, have come to Rivendell unannounced.”
“Like who?” said Elrond, clearly still agitated.
Bilbo paused for a moment. He really was about to insult a very important elf by suggesting what he was about to suggest, and he didn’t even have any reason other than, ‘My blade glowed for a little bit’. It made no sense, either, because an orc or goblin should have tried to attack him, given that he was on his own, but…
… he wasn’t important. He was an insignificant halfling. But right now, Thorin was alone.
“Like an orc,” said Bilbo. Then he set off running again.
… … … … …
It was a devious plan, and Bilbo could see it so clearly ahead of him as he ran through the halls of Rivendell, calling Thorin’s name. An orc, who had followed them unseen, had used an ancient poison on their rations while they were at dinner. And the rations would either perish unseen, leaving them in the wilderness without, or it would perish here and cause unrest with the elves. Either way, the conflict in the wake of that could give many opportunities for someone to pick them off one by one. And if the poison actually killed someone along the way, all the better, and all the better for causing that conflict. Thorin now distrusted the elves, and the elves distrusted Thorin, and nobody knew there was an orc waiting for them except Bilbo, the least capable warrior out of everyone currently present in Rivendell.
Even so, he could not stand by and do nothing. If Thorin was truly in danger, then it would be damnation not to try and rescue him — more than that, it would be damnation to fail.
“Thorin!” he shouted, running across the gardens. “Thorin! You are in grave peril!”
And then, suddenly —
He heard a twisted, gurgling scream. It didn’t sound like Thorin, nor any of the dwarves, but nonetheless he ran towards it as fast as he was able; it was near the end of the garden, hidden behind a copse of trees, on the outskirts of Rivendell itself. Fear carried his feet and he could see the blue glow from his sword now, growing stronger with every step, until he turned the corner and saw…
… Thorin. Grim, but alive, breathing heavily, with a bloodied Orcrist in his hands.
Their eyes met briefly. And Bilbo slowed down, relief spreading warmly through his chest. He could see, at Thorin’s feet, an orc lying flat on the ground in a pool of its own blood. Thorin himself looked haggard and tired, but unhurt; there was a bruise on his cheek, but no more than that.
“Thorin!” shouted Bilbo. “You’re all right!”
“I am not made of straws,” replied Thorin. He bent over to wipe the glowing Orcrist clean on the grass. “Hah! Damned elves… first they poison us, and now they send an assassin after me?”
“It wasn’t the elves! The orc planted the poison in our rations,” said Bilbo. “He…”
But a thought appeared to him. Because Orcrist was still glowing a sharp blue, and so was the blade in his own hands. Would it glow like that for a deceased orc? And… would the defences of Rivendell, if breached for a single foe, still hold for all other foes?
A sense of dread sank over his thoughts even before he spotted the second orc. Of course there would be multiple infiltrators; they had been pursued by a band of orcs before they came in here. And a single orc, while fearful for a hobbit, wouldn’t be a danger to a king of dwarves — but an ambush…
The moonlight glinted in an axehead. And Bilbo didn’t have time to think; he only had time to shout, “Thorin! Behind you!” as he charged forward. Before the orc could finish emerging from the trees, Bilbo had interposed himself in front of Thorin, blade raised in terror and defiance.
But he was an insignificant hobbit. Not a warrior, certainly not someone who could fight an orcish warrior and win. The axe glanced off his glowing dagger and lodged itself in his left shoulder. It was unbearable, an explosion of pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before, and he staggered backwards as the orc pulled back the axe, snarling its hatred at him, and he heard a cry: “Bilbo!”
His eyes blurred. His head felt like fireworks were constantly going off inside it. But he steadied his feet again and raised the blade once more, defiant and very possibly delirious. He would not let Thorin die, and he would not abandon the dwarves.
Just as the orc readied for another swing, though, he heard the same voice as before — Thorin’s, he realised: “You will not claim him!”
And then, Thorin charged past him with a mighty yell, and his blue sword shone as it carved its way into the orc’s stomach.
Bilbo fell to his knees, clutching the wound. It was damp, and hot and cold at the same time. Distantly, he registered a swing of the axe that went wide, and another slice with Orcrist that cut into the orc’s arm. Thorin had the upper hand; he was a true warrior, a true king of dwarves. And it was all Bilbo could do, as his consciousness left him piece by piece through the blood spilling from his shoulder, to notice that the orc lost an arm.
The second to last thing he felt before he fainted, was that his blade — which he had still managed to hold on to, somehow — stopped glowing.
And the last thing… was strong, supple arms that lifted him up gently, and carried him back through the trees.
… … … … …
It was daylight when he woke. Sun spilt in through a window and made it almost painful to open his eyes, but he also had the pain in his shoulders to distract him from that.
And furthermore he had Gandalf, who sat there with a little smile hidden in his beard.
“Bilbo Baggins,” he said. “How unexpected you are.”
“Are the dwarves fine?” said Bilbo.
“Now that is something I did expect.” Gandalf chuckled. “They are not fine, and I think some of them would object to being called ‘fine’ even while they’re at their best. But their symptoms have calmed and they will make a full recovery, with food and rest.”
“And… Thorin?”
“He is deeply upset. But uninjured.”
Bilbo sighed, fell back into his pillow. Then — then things would be all right. He had kept his oath to Thorin, and not a single dwarf from his charge had perished.
“Are you all right with company?” asked Gandalf. “Or would you prefer rest?”
Strangely, the answer didn’t appear to him straight away. He was so used to being a homebody, someone who could lock his door whenever he didn’t want visitors, and smoke his pipe by his crackling hearth. He had never been severely injured before, but he imagined that would be at least a two-pipe problem, if not more. Something where the only person he would let through his door would be someone learned in medicine.
And maybe that was why it took so long for him to realise that he truly did want company, that the only reason he’d acted today was because he wanted that company to stay together.
“I do,” he said. “At least, I want some company. I, I might not be ready for a crowd,” he added afterwards, pointlessly, because from what Gandalf said most of the dwarves were still bedridden. He only wanted to make things clear.
“Oh, just the one should be plenty for you,” said Gandalf and winked. “I will go and fetch him.”
“Oh. I see.”
But Gandalf had barely set his foot in the doorway when Thorin rushed past him, into the room, with a look on his face that Bilbo couldn’t have recognised even with a hundred years of practice. Not until Thorin dropped his arms to the floor and said, “You! Hobbit! With your comfortable bed and your opulent pantry!”
Bilbo shrank together, almost pulled the duvet over his chin in a futile effort to hide. “Ye-ye-yes? I assure you, I would be up and running if not for this injury…”
“To think,” said Thorin, and stepped closer. And for every step he took, the sharper parts of his expression melted away, piece by piece and level by level. “To think that someone like you would have the bravery of ten good men… I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“… What?”
“You saved my life,” said Thorin. He closed his eyes and went to his knees beside the bed, leaving only his head visible. “And that of all my men. I am indebted to you.”
Well, this was unexpected. “I did very little,” murmured Bilbo. “I only got myself injured…”
“Had you not been there, I would have been cut down from behind,” said Thorin, shaking his head slowly. “Even if all you did was call out to me, I would have been cut down from the front. But you put your body and your blade in front of the axe. Such courage is rare, even among my own kind.”
“It’s not just courage,” said a voice from the doorway — Elrond stepped in right after, smiling gently. “This little halfling showed the cunning of many elves by figuring out what happened, and why. He forestalled a conflict between us, and showed a trust in everyone that even Gandalf could not muster. Without him, Thorin, your company might already be short several dwarves. Bilbo Baggins… you are truly one of a kind.”
“And you did all this after all the threats I made against you,” said Thorin. He bowed his head, too, and his black locks fell carelessly in front of his face. “I am truly sorry.”
“Thorin…” said Bilbo, unsure what to even do. A king, or at least a king-to-be, was kneeling in front of him and apologising… and he didn’t have any words to give in return.
Perhaps he just didn’t think. Or perhaps he thought, and came to a conclusion faster than he could register. But he knew that his fully-himself self would never have done the thing he did, which was to reach out his hand — the one connected to his injured shoulder, no less, so he grunted in pain from the effort — and place it upon Thorin’s head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t blame you, Thorin. I know I haven’t done my part yet. I’m sorry to have worried you.”
Thorin didn’t seem to mind the hand. But at the word ‘sorry’, his hand reached up and grabbed Bilbo’s wrist — fiercely, but still mildly.
“Never tell me that again,” he said. “My worry is mine to give.”
“… Okay,” said Bilbo, defeated. He rubbed his hand against Thorin’s scalp, and found it strange that Thorin didn’t protest. Even more strangely, he enjoyed it himself.
Elrond let out a little laugh. “I can see that the two of you don’t want to be disturbed. I will leave you to it.”
And he left them.
And somehow, Bilbo didn't mind that either.