return

1412 the return of the king
gathered in Azanulbizar. They took the head of Azog and thrust
into its mouth the purse of small money, and then they set it on
a stake. But no feast nor song was there that night; for their dead
were beyond the count of grief. Barely half of their number, it is
said, could still stand or had hope of healing.
None the less in the morning Thráin stood before them. He had
one eye blinded beyond cure, and he was halt with a leg-wound;
but he said: ‘Good! We have the victory. Khazad-dûm is ours!’
But they answered: ‘Durin’s Heir you may be, but even with
one eye you should see clearer. We fought this war for vengeance,
and vengeance we have taken. But it is not sweet. If this
is victory, then our hands are too small to hold it.’
And those who were not of Durin’s Folk said also: ‘Khazaddûm
was not our Fathers’ house. What is it to us, unless a hope
of treasure? But now, if we must go without the rewards and the
weregilds that are owed to us, the sooner we return to our own
lands the better pleased we shall be.’
Then Thráin turned to Dáin, and said: ‘But surely my own
kin will not desert me?’ ‘No,’ said Dáin. ‘You are the father of
our Folk, and we have bled for you, and will again. But we will
not enter Khazad-dûm. You will not enter Khazad-dûm. Only I
have looked through the shadow of the Gate. Beyond the shadow
it waits for you still: Durin’s Bane. The world must change and
some other power than ours must come before Durin’s Folk
walk again in Moria.’
So it was that after Azanulbizar the Dwarves dispersed again.
But first with great labour they stripped all their dead, so that
Orcs should not come and win there a store of weapons and
mail. It is said that every Dwarf that went from that battlefield
was bowed under a heavy burden. Then they built many pyres
and burned all the bodies of their kin. There was a great felling
of trees in the valley, which remained bare ever after, and the
reek of the burning was seen in Lórien. 1
1 Such dealings with their dead seemed grievous to the Dwarves, for
it was against their use; but to make such tombs as they were accustomed
to build (since they will lay their dead only in stone not in earth) would
have taken many years. To fire therefore they turned, rather than leave
their kin to beast or bird or carrion-orc. But those who fell in Azanulbizar