The Hope of the North: Dwarves 1

(Hace un tiempo empecé a escribir una historia ambientada en la Tierra Media para el foro oficial estadounidense sobre Tolkien. La idea era escribirla entre varios en común, con varias acciones en varios lugares, que irían convergiendo hacia el final, pero no llegó muy lejos, jeje. La iré poniendo aquí para tenerla toda junta. Está en inglés, así que garlic and water, jiji)

THE HOPE OF THE NORTH

26 October 3017 Third Age
Dáin and the Ringowners in Erebor
By Rogorn

Three dwarven rings to be recovered and three dwarven lords. That had always seemed neat to Dáin II, very dwarvish. A dwarf never forgets even the smallest trinket in his hoard, but even the less wealthy cannot have all his possessions in mind all of the time. All these years the Seven Rings had started to become more a legend of old than a story of recent times. Until tonight.

Seven were made. Four had been destroyed, along with their owners. Only three remained. And even when they had not been in the keep of the dwarves for a long time, the memory of the Khazad still remembered who were their rightful owners, passed from generation to generation, always listed as the last item in the count of possessions that their new keepers were bequeathed. The last, but not the least. And yet, they were just rings, of seemingly no particular importance among the riches that came with the lordship of a house. When the dwarves had them, they did not seem to matter so much, but now that the rightful owners could not hold them in their hand, the desire for them grew all the time. Elvish making, beautiful, after their own fashion, and a work to be proud of, no doubt. But still, they had not been made by dwarves. So what was the attaction they provoked? King Dáin looked at the three dwarves sitting around him.

'What is your counsel then, Himli?'
'No-one should be able to buy us with treasures that are already ours, my lord.’
Gimfur was not so convinced. ‘The property of those rings is highly debatable. How is it to be established? By who made them, by whom were they given to, or by who possesses them now?’
Himli’s face went all red. ‘What kind of nonsense is that, Master Gimfur? The only thing that should matter to us is that we don’t have them! And now that some intelligence has come to us from an unexpected quarter, what are we waiting for? The Halls of the Dwarves were never made great by waiting and pondering.’
Fróin wanted to keep the peace. ‘But the way you go about it matters, my dear Himli. Thorin did not recover this kingdom from the orcs only by the strength of his weapons. In fact, it is because of his hot temper that he could not see the glory of Erebor restored with his own eyes and died trying.’

Dáin kept silent for a while, and the rest followed course. So it had been for an hour already: the three Ringowners, Gimfur, Himli and himself, the King under the Mountain, all locked up in an enormous room called Thorin's chamber, taking counsel together, without attendants or record-keepers. Only Fróin, his trusted nephew, had been added to the small group. The company was so reduced not because of secrecy (everyone in Erebor knew what had happened that night) but because Dáin knew that reaching an agreement was going to be difficult. ‘Three dwarves, four minds’, as the saying went. It was much better to keep the number down. Besides, how often a dwarf who had spoken too lightly in front of an official council had been unable to change his mind once he had declared his still unfinished thoughts? That was another reason to banish even the council members without the right to speech from the room. This way, if someone said something they would regret, there was time and a chance to take it back. No, not take it back. Never. ‘Adopt a better counsel’ was more like it. ‘Never trust an elf’. ‘Men never finish anything they start’. ‘Our glory will be easily restored and our enemies utterly defeated.’ He had heard hasty words like these spoken by his brethren before. Even Thorin, the Great Restorer, whom Fróin had just mentioned, was rumoured to have rejected the idea of using Bilbo the Halfling to recover the... to recover the...

Of course!
Dáin’s mind started racing. News of the rings had been heard; a surmise of their whereabouts had reached Erebor; that something should be done about it seemed to be the only point agreed upon so far; and strength of war was discouraged in favour of subtler means... It all pointed in the same direction... Yes, that could work! It had before, why not now? Let us find Bilbo the Master of Thieves, and he will find those rings for us. And he worked for a pittance, that part of the story he remembered very clearly. He had fooled Smaug the Golden Dragon, according to all accounts. What creature worse than that could lurk outside of the Mountain? And he even knew the forest of Mirkwood, with its spiders and whatnot! Think, quick, who was still alive and around from that glorious expedition? They had to be summoned to the council as soon as possible!

Dáin looked up and realised that there were three pairs of eyes looking at him strangely. He started at this. As his thoughts had unfolded inside his mind, his eyes had been staring into the air in front of him, wide open, as if seeing something that the others could not. One of his hands was spread palm down on the table, and the other was gripping his golden cup so tightly that the wine inside could be seen rippling against the sides.

He composed himself. ‘Hm. Quite so. Yes. I am grateful for your presence here. Now I need to take counsel with myself. We will continue tomorrow.’