Author's note: I promised you more action, didn't I? Here you go. I hope you don't hate me by the end of this chapter :)
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit or any of its characters.
Chapter VII
A nightly orc raid is a nasty business. An orc raid during a storm, especially when it catches you off your guard, is so much worse. As Kíli followed Tauriel out into the utterly black night, he was scarcely able to see a thing, the rain pouring down from the sky, running into his eyes. If at least his heart had not been beating so fast, every beat resonating loudly in his ears like the beat of a drum, he would have been able to listen for any sounds that would give away who was attacking them and from where they came. As it was, he had to rely on Tauriel and her invariably acute sense of both sight and hearing to guide them both through the darkness.
Their tent was located at the very edge of the camp and after sprinting across a couple of feet of muddy ground, Tauriel quickly pulled him against the side of a small wooden shed that the Dúnedain used to store their firewood. Crouching low, she spoke silently, her voice just loud enough to reach his ears over the combined noise of the storm and his own pulse in his ear. "It is definitely an orc pack. They are advancing from the other side of the camp." She whipped her head around suddenly and Kíli followed her gaze to watch a tall shadow carefully make its way between some of the tents closest to them, sword in hand. "It seems that the watch has alerted the remaining Rangers – so there is no need for us to do this," Tauriel whispered.
Kíli strained his eyes to look towards the other side of the camp. He thought he saw a bit of light there – torches, maybe? He let his gaze swerve to the right and thoughtfully looked at the low but steep incline that ran along one side of the settlement, covered in trees. "Do you think we can go around the camp in a circle, charge at them from a direction where they don't expect it?"
Tauriel followed his gaze and nodded. "That is a good thought. It might even give us the chance to take out some of them without the others noticing."
"Can you tell how many there are?" Kíli was worried. The conditions were really not good with the weather being what it was and with at least as many women and children in the camp as there were men, the Rangers would not be able to charge at the aggressors with full force. And Tauriel… he knew that there was no point at all in trying to get her to stay out of this. If he did, she would in all likelihood only find some way to do something even more dangerous, and if she had to fight, he would rather have her at his side instead of somewhere on her own.
Tauriel cocked her head to one side, straining her ears for sounds that Kíli could not hear. "Not exactly," she replied. "There are definitely a few, but they are trying to be quiet, so perhaps there are more than there seem to be."
Kíli frowned, not entirely pleased with the answer. "Let's go then," he said, tightening his grip on his sword. He thought he was doing quite a pathetic job at trying to protect her and their unborn child, but if it had to be this way, he swore to himself that he would not let her out of his sight and would behead anyone who dared so much as to touch a hair on her head.
He moved to straighten up, but was held back by Tauriel's hand grasping him by the collar of his shirt, drawing him down into a hard, breathless kiss. Her face was wet beneath his lips and when they broke apart, they stared at each other for a long moment, her eyes like tiny stars in the darkness. "We move fast," she whispered, "or as fast as the conditions allow us to. When we strike, we must be quick and precise. Follow my lead whenever you fear to lose your footing, I will try to guide us both." Her eyes never left his, and while her words were matter-of-factly, her gaze spoke something else entirely. Be careful out there – I could not bear to see you hurt. Not for my sake.
He responded with a squeeze of his hand on hers, even though, in his head, he disagreed with her. If that was what it took, he would not hesitate to throw himself between her and the enemy. "I'll let you be my ears and eyes where necessary," he returned, knowing that there was no use in arguing with her anyway. "We have one advantage after all – they will not expect a dwarf and an elf among those whom they attack. A former Captain of the Guard of the Woodland Realm, no less."
She smiled, caressing his stubbly cheek. "Do not sell yourself below your worth, prince of Erebor."
Exhaling deeply, he pressed his forehead against hers for a second and hoped that she was right and his fighting skills would suffice to get them both out of this unscathed before raising himself off the ground, their hands still joined. "I am ready when you are."
She nodded and let go off his hand, tightly grasping her weapons before dashing off into the night, Kíli following closely on her heels.
He realized quickly that, in addition to the challenge to his vision, the weather was not making it easy for him to travel the length of the incline framing one side of the camp, his boots alternately getting stuck in the mud or the ground sliding away beneath his feet. Tauriel, of course, seemed untouched by such troubles, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground as she proceeded ahead, pausing repeatedly to allow him to catch up with her.
As they finally reached a point where they - or Tauriel, rather, because Kíli was still unable to see much more than what was directly in front of his eyes - were able to overlook the camp, it became clear that the number of enemies was slightly greater than they had hoped, but not much bigger than they had anticipated.
They both crouched down on the ground, trying to assess the situation from their elevated perspective. "They are charging at the Rangers with full force, trying to push them deeper into their own camp. The Rangers are outnumbered," Tauriel murmured, staring out into the night in concentration. She let her gaze swerve over the grounds, the strategic warrior in her clearly taking over. "I say we try to break the pack up. Drive half of them towards the river while the men handle the rest of them and defend the camp."
Kíli nodded, seeing the advantages of her scheme, even while a doubtful frown spread across his forehead. "That is quite an ambitious plan," he said. "How do we drive them apart – just the two of us?"
Tauriel smirked confidently and straightened up, raising her bow. "Our first step is to make sure we have their attention. Those brutes are never able to resist provocation and the rest will play itself out as expected."
Kíli glanced at his own bow more than a little doubtfully. Tauriel looked down at him questioningly and once again he felt so helplessly pathetic – how would he be able to protect her when he could barely see where he was firing his arrows?
"Kíli." He looked up at her and saw on her face no doubt or condescension. "Forget about what you cannot see," she said, when she was sure that she had his attention, "and focus on what you can see. I have seen you shoot plenty of times and tonight is no different than all those occasions. You have never failed me or anyone else and you will not do so tonight."
She spoke with such sincerity that Kíli brushed off some painful memories of where he had indeed failed his family or friends in the past and pushed himself to his feet, his grip on his bow firm as he raised it. Tonight would not be one of those times.
He launched his first arrow in perfect synchronicity with Tauriel's first shot and, before the arrows had had time to reach their opponents, they both threw themselves forward and charged down the steep slope, firing arrow after arrow at the orcs down below. Kíli quickly found that there were ways in which the bad weather could be used to his advantage and where before the ground had slipped away beneath his feet, causing him to stumble, he now used the slippery mud to deliberately slide several feet at a time, the fluidity of his motions allowing him more time to get a good aim at the enemy. Tauriel, always staying within his line of sight, did the same thing even though she looked much more graceful doing it - obviously.
Reaching the bottom of the slope, Kíli saw that some of the orcs, who had before looked around in confusion when members of their pack had been hit by arrows of an unknown source, had by now registered their presence and were turning away from the camp while the remainder of the group was too engaged in battle with the Rangers to notice.
"Kíli! This way," Tauriel shouted somewhere to his right and he did not hesitate before sprinting after her, following her into the rough direction of the river. Looking over his shoulder he saw that Tauriel had been correct in her predictions. About half of the orc pack was pursuing them, their angry snarls probably expressing their dissatisfaction at being poked from behind by both elvish and dwarven arrows. Kíli decided to further increase their displeasure with the whole situation by turning to swiftly fire an arrow at the creature leading the group, smirking when the arrow hit its mark in the orc's head, taking it down.
Turning back around he kept running and saw that Tauriel had almost reached a line of trees behind which, Kíli knew from the hike they had taken together with Fendir when he had led them to the Ranger's camp, the ground fell away towards the river. If they could just manage to circle around the group and drive them down that slope, this would provide them with an invaluable advantage, because then they would be able to charge at them from above. And if they were lucky, some of them might even just fall into the river and be carried away by the current which had to be pretty strong after all the rain that had already fallen that night.
Tauriel had to be thinking the same thing because, after stopping to fire a few arrows in rapid succession, effectively taking out at least three of their assailants, she swerved to the left which caused her to end up on the far left of the pack while Kíli was positioned to their right. He did not like the amount of physical distance that this created between them, filled with some very angry orcs, but he had to admit that Tauriel's strategy was the most efficient in putting themselves between the pack and the Ranger's camp while at the same time making it easier to defeat the remaining dozen or so.
By now Kíli barely registered the problematic weather, his senses attuned to its visual and auditory challenges and he confidently drew his sword, beating back their attackers bit by bit, slowly closing the gap between Tauriel and him. After plunging his blade into the throat of a particularly foul orc he staggered back slightly as he withdrew his sword, but used the moment to grab a rock his eyes caught upon and launched it at another orc he had seen sneaking up on Tauriel from behind, hitting it in the head and causing it to drop to the ground with a gurgling sound. Tauriel whirled around, her blades raised threateningly, but stopped and frowned when she found her attacker on the ground already. Quirking an eyebrow in Kíli's direction, she took a second to smile at his not very graceful, but indubitably effective move.
Shrugging his shoulders with a grin on his face, Kíli did not hesitate to throw himself into battle again. His arms ached and his forehead stung from a small cut he had received on his temple, but by now he felt assured that they would beat back the enemy without much difficulty and without any real danger to themselves. That, of course, was the point where it all went downhill – and not just in the metaphorical sense of the word.
Fighting two orcs at once, Kíli had by now beat them back so far that they were just inside the tree-line and he knew that just a few feet more and the chances were good of them stumbling and simply breaking their ugly necks in their fall. He did not even have to wait that long, however, since one of his opponents actually managed to behead its own companion with a desperate, misguided swing of the axe it carried. For a split second, both Kíli and the remaining orc stared at the slumped body on the ground in surprise and, for Kíli's part, bemusement, but then Kíli shook himself out of his stupor and leapt forward once more, sending the orc tumbling down the slope leading towards the river with a heavy blow to its broad, grimy chest.
He figured that if the vile creature had happened to have survived the fall – which he deemed unlikely - it probably would not make another appearance any time soon and so he did not pause before whirling back around, hurrying uphill to rejoin Tauriel. He was almost out of the trees and could see that by now there were only four orcs left which Tauriel appeared to be holding successfully at bay when his foot caught on something on the ground – a tree root, maybe – and he went sailing into the mud, a strangled grunt escaping his lips when his right shoulder made impact with the ground in the most painful manner.
From the white-hot pain that shot through his arm and shoulder, Kíli knew immediately that this was more than a mere scratch, but he tried to ignore the sickening pain and pushed himself back to his feet, stumbling forward. Upon hearing him cry out in pain when he fell, Tauriel had whipped her head around, and was now scanning the tree-line with a worried frown on her face. His eyes widening in horror, Kíli had just enough time to register one of the orcs running at her from behind and he opened his mouth to warn her, but only got out an unarticulate yelp when, again, his foot caught in some kind of tree root, only this time he could have sworn that it was actually pulling at his foot, causing him to fall forward once more. Without proper use of his right arm, he landed face first on the muddy ground, coughing when he swallowed a mouthful of it.
Hearing Tauriel yell his name from above, he pushed himself up again, mud, rain and blood – where was that coming from? – running into his eyes, making it almost impossible to see. Half running, half crawling forward, he saw Tauriel sway ahead of him, an orc having jumped on her back while the other three were advancing upon her and he cried out in desperation when he watched her fall to her knees with the orc still clinging to her back. He launched himself forward using of all his remaining strength, but was held back by something holding onto his leg in an iron grip, pulling him back.
He tried to see what was lurking behind him in the darkness and kicked at whatever was trying to get a hold of him in panic and frustration. Finally his foot impacted with something that gave a hiss and for a moment he was free. Whirling around to where Tauriel had fallen to the ground only seconds ago, he realized with gut-wrenching dread that she was gone, her or the orcs nowhere to be seen.
"Tauriel!" he screamed, his voice cracking on the last syllable. There was no answering call. Panic closed up his throat and the ground wobbled slightly below his feet as he spun around his own axis, desperately searching his surroundings for any sign of her or their assailants. Then – suddenly – he felt a shove between his shoulder blades and he was falling forward again, only this time not uphill but downhill, the trees around him becoming a jumbled mess at the edge of his vision. He tried to grab onto something that would break his fall, but his hands only found mud and leaves. When his body bounced off a tree, a sharp pain shooting through his ribs, he just thought that it could not get much worse, but then the back of his head hit something hard and sharp with a crack that echoed through his entire body like a clasp of thunder. Everything went black.
Kíli's head was pretty much made of stone. He knew so because over the years this quality had been put to the test more than once. He had fallen out of trees, tumbled down hills, had once even fallen off a roof, a rather complicated chain of events leading up to this particular incident. All of this had gone without him ever contracting any serious injuries. This time, however, he felt sure that he had finally done some serious damage to his head, the reason for this being the fact that, upon opening his eyes, he saw not one but two moons in the darkness of the sky above him.
He blinked, hoping that the action would normalize his vision, but no, the two white orbs he was seeing refused to merge and stubbornly stared back at him. He frowned, though, when his sight cleared up little by little and he realized that those two white planets were actually staring at him in the literal sense of the word. His thoughts were still quite fuzzy, but eventually he came to the conclusion that what he was seeing were no moons, but eyes - big, watery, blue eyes that fixed him in a cold stare.
He flinched back slightly when, below those unsettlingly large eyes, a wide mouth opened itself, revealing irregular yellow teeth. "Where is it?" a strange voice hissed, drawing out the vowels of each word, and it took Kíli a few seconds to associate the voice he was hearing with the creature crouching above him.
As some clarity returned to his thoughts, he also remembered what had happened right before he had seemingly lost consciousness and he sat up with an agonized groan, roughly shoving the creature leaning over him away, even though the action send sharp waves of pain through his entire upper body. "Tauriel!" He had meant to call out for her, but his voice came out raspy and barely above a whisper.
The creature before him bobbed its head in obvious agitation, its eyes growing even wider. "What?!" it demanded, sounding almost excited. "What is it saying?"
Kíli glanced at the creature in confusion, still having trouble to make out much more than its eyes in the darkness that surrounded him. He could not quite tell what kind of species this was, but he honestly could have cared less, his anxiety over Tauriel's whereabouts cancelling out any other coherent thought. "Tauriel," he croaked, looking around him in desperation, "where is she?"
At this the creature suddenly sprang forward again, thrusting its face into his own. "No, not SHE," it cried, its disturbing eyes threatening to pop out of their sockets. "IT! Where is it? What did it do with it?"
Kíli recoiled from the stench that wafted off the creature, a combination of fish, moist earth, and rotting flesh. Taking a moment to take in its appearance, small, bony and covered in sickly pale skin, he thought that, to top things off, he now also had to deal with some kind of physically impaired, clearly demented orc. Oh, his luck.
"Leave me alone," he said, scrunching up his face in distaste. "I do not know what you want from me."
He tried to turn away, but the little orc leaped forward quickly and he felt its ice cold hand wrap itself around his throat. "Bagginses!" it screeched. "Where is it? Where did it take it?"
Kíli frowned. "Bag- hold on, what? What are you talking about? Who did what with what?"
The grip of the long fingers on his throat was loosened slightly. Kíli made use of the moment to use his good arm to carefully feel around on the ground next to him for his weapons. He found nothing, but thought that his fingertips brushed against the uneven surface of a rock.
"Bagginses," the creature howled in obvious distress. "It stole it from us. Our precious. Gone, gone, GONE!"
Bagginses. Kíli briefly wondered if the creature could possibly be talking about Bilbo and if yes, what it thought that Bilbo had taken from it. But he knew better than to ask because for one thing he had more important matters on his mind and also this guy did not exactly strike him as a sensible conversational partner. Trying to stretch his arm a little further in order to be able to wrap his fingers around the stone on the ground without the thing on top of him noticing, he shook his head. "I cannot help you. I know nothing of this Bagginses or of any treasure."
"Oh, but it does know!" the creature exclaimed, shaking him by his throat and causing him to fall back flat onto the ground. Cowering on his chest, the creature stared down at him. "It has been with it. Bagginses. We can still smell it. We followed it and the nasty red elf, oh yes, we did. Tell us where Baggins went, TELL US!"
Kíli narrowed his eyes at the creature, a realization forming in his head. "Wait, that was you in the woods before, wasn't it? You pushed me down the slope."
The little orc cackled. "Bumpety bump, down the hill it went. Now it can't help the ugly elf no more."
At that Kíli felt white hot rage surge through his entire body, making him forget the pain in both his head and his right arm and shoulder for a moment. With an angry growl he threw himself to the side, closing his hand around the stone he had been trying to reach and smashed it into the side of the creature's head as hard as he could from his disadvantageous position on the ground.
With a sound not unlike that of an injured animal, the filthy little creature rolled off Kíli's body, immediately scrambled to its legs – or arms and legs, rather – and dashed off into the undergrowth, where Kíli could hear it continue to wail. "It hurt us, oooh, it hurt us badly," it sobbed. And then, its voice suddenly stern, "Shut up! Go back and make it pay for what it did." A pause and then another wail. "But no! What if it hurts us again?"
Despite the anger still hot in his veins, Kíli frowned. Something was seriously wrong with this strange little orc. But he would not stay to find out what it was. Using the rush of adrenaline that the struggle with his maniacal opponent had brought about, he pushed himself to his feet and staggered blindly off into the night.
Looking around frantically, he realized that he did not know where he was. Possibly the creature had dragged him away from where he had originally landed after his fall and so he could not be sure which direction to go into. And even if he had known his exact location, he had no idea where Tauriel was, nor where to begin looking for her. So his best hope was to find a way to return to the Ranger's camp. Maybe, just once more, he would be lucky and would find her there, alive and well.
He tried not to allow any other thoughts into his head, but as he continued his staggering journey through this unfamiliar landscape, fear and panic made it more and more difficult to breathe. Or maybe this shortness of breath was caused by the dull pain in his left side – he was not able to tell his emotional pain and his physical discomfort apart anymore.
Either way, as he reached the top of a slope he had been climbing, hoping to find the Rangers' camp on top of it, he realized in a very painful manner that his sense of direction had been rather off. Because once he reached the top of the steep incline, the ground did not give way to the plain which housed the Ranger's camp, but fell away again immediately instead, and so Kíli, his reflexes more than a little impaired by fatigue and injury, stumbled in the dark and fell downhill for the second time that night. He only hoped that the fall wouldn't be too deep. If only this night would finally end.
To be continued...
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