Tears of Mirrormere RPG

[Durelin]

Kór

Kór was not sure if he was more stunned by Trór’s sudden return to consciousness, or by the suggestion that retreat was necessary. He only half listened to Trór’s vehement rejection of retreat, for he was startled for different reasons. The reality of the battle suddenly fell on him, not only of the dire situation he had witnessed firsthand, but also of the empty eyes and the blood that shined on his chainmail… Kór felt weariness rush over him, as his body could not make up its mind if it was sweltering or chilled, and he began to shake all over, his muscles’ support seeming to melt away.

Kór was thus quite happy to obey Trór’s command, and let go of the Uzbad Khazaddûmu. The others lowered him to let him stand upright, but two remained supporting him.

“I am still Lord of Khazad-dûm and I still live!”

Kór, Grór and the others could only look at the Lord of Khazad-dûm for a moment or two, as each tried desperately to figure out how to argue with their lord and extremely stubborn dwarf. Looking into Trór’s eyes, Kór could not help but wonder if he was completely mad.

“With all respect, my lord,” he began quietly and calmly, feeling distant, “that will almost certainly change if you return to the battle. And if we do not retreat while we can, your soldiers will be limited to those you see here.” He gestured toward the wounded.

Kór was glad his sister had not gotten her way. He knew he could not assume she was not out in the snowy night beside it all, but he couldn’t think about that right now.

~*~*~

Kórin

No one was left out of the battle now. The regiment Kórin had adopted was attacked from the side, as the orcs poured around the dwarven forces, greatly outnumbering them. Taken by surprise and in disarray, they could only hope to maintain their position and fight for their lives. Kórin felt useless as she watched the dwarven ranks around her thin.

[Thinlómien]

They were fighting outside, she knew. She could hear the thundering even to the distant cavern where she was working. Dwarf against goblin, good against evil, defenders of their realm against murderers. Any other day, she should have been there, her beautiful sword and her strong arms, her fierceness and skill protecting Khazad-dûm like so many times before. She was enough of a warrior to have been summoned.

But she had been appointed with a duty even more important than fighting the enemy. Instead of revenging her lord's death she would be making him remembered, she, always a mason over a warrior, was carving his tombstone when they were fighting at the very gates. Ignoring the battles, momentarily forgetting the flickering flame and the echoes in the dark, she was fully concentrating in her craft, pouring her skill and love to the stone.

Memories, how they hurt. The scene in her room at night, the first time ever meeting him, all the days exploring the tunnels of Erebor with him. The memories would go, go to the stone and the stone would keep them, live through them, breath through them. His eyes when he explained his crew he had found a new tunnel closer to the top of the mountain, his laugh when she had suggested asking King Dáin for a special permission to break through a wall, his strong body carrying the heavy blocks of stone in the tunnels with pearls of sweat on his brow. All going to the stone, to the shape, the slight curving of the beautiful dark gray block. And his first speech to the colony in Khazed-dûm, the shadows of worry behind his bright eyes, his fierce swordstrokes in a goblin attack. All of them went to the perfectly, mlikily white slab of stone to be placed on top of the oblong dark rock.

And the last time he had looked at her, his eyes briefly passing over her face and the hint of a smile of recognition when he was leaving for the Mirrormere, never to return. That she kept in mind when she carved:

BALIN FUNDINUL
UZBAD KHAZADDÛMU

which would be read in later times by speakers of the common tongue as

BALIN SON OF FUNDIN
LORD OF MORIA