9

It was nearly dusk. Despite the fact that the company had been walking all day, they had seen nothing that was edible, meaning that their stomachs were still empty and their moods no better for it. The only slight consolation that they had was that they had found a freshwater stream, which meant that while they still felt the pangs of hunger, they were no longer dizzy from lack of water. The closest they had found to anything even close to satisfying their empty stomachs was a small growth of mushrooms, which, after brief inspection, Gandalf had pronounced to be poisonous. Of course, most of the company were so hungry that they probably would have eaten them anyway if Thorin hadn't threatened to revoke vast quantities of treasure if they didn't move on - a threat he probably would not have carried out.

"Right, we're camping here for tonight," Thorin finally sighed. He was exhausted, any remaining energy spent after the escape from the goblin tunnels. His temper was wearing thin, and if he had to tell Bombur to keep going one more time, he would probably end up removing a limb from his companion. So in answer to all his problems, Thorin decided that they could stop, and he would send Bofur and Nori out to hunt food.

Fíli watched the pair go with a sense of relief. He had been shaken by Thorin's ire, and he had meant it when he'd sworn never to do anything of the sort again. However, Thorin had said no more on the matter, and Fíli was not going to bring it up with him. Instead, he sought out somebody who he owed an apology to.

"Thank you," he said softly to Gandalf, as the wizard prodded the fire they had started.

Gandalf looked up at Fíli, confused. "What for?"

"For persuading Thorin not to... not to..."

Gandalf smiled and held up his hand to stop Fíli's stuttering. "It's fine. Nobody got hurt, you've clearly learnt from it, and I think it's best if we put it behind us."

"Also, I'm... I'm sorry for what I said... back on the other side of the mountains. I was wrong. I shouldn't have taken my anger for what happened to Kíli on you. I was-"

"Grieving," Gandalf said calmly over Fíli's next word. "You had just lost your brother, and I had falsely reassured you about it, and I made a promise to you that I couldn't – and didn't – keep. Understandably that made you angry. I would have expected nothing less of you."

"But that doesn't make it-"

"Fíli, I forgive you. You apologised, and I accepted it. I cannot begin to understand how you felt, never having had a brother to lose, but your reaction was expected. So shall we forget the incident and focus on finding something to-"

He was cut off by a loud shout from Bofur.

"THORIN!" the dwarf yelled. "WARGS!"

All eyes snapped up to where Bofur was pointing. Sure enough, there was a pack of the wolves of Gundabad standing at the top of the hill, looking down on them. At Bofur's shout, the wargs started charging, urged on by the orcs riding them.

"RUN!" Thorin shouted. The company didn't have the strength left to fight them, and they knew that fact as well as he did.

There was a flurry of activity in the camp, as everyone grabbed their weapons, abandoning anything else that lay on the ground around them, and fled from the oncoming pack. It was complete chaos, all pride forgotten, as they ran as fast as they could through the trees.

Gloin, who had been the first to leave, and had essentially been leading the dwarves in a disorganised rabble, barely noticed the oncoming cliff until he nearly ran off it. He was pulled back by Ori at the last second, and the pair fell backwards into the others. But the advancing wargs prevented them from turning back and looking for somewhere else to go. They were trapped.

"Climb a tree!" Gandalf ordered, swinging into the branches of the nearest one.

"And what then?" Thorin snapped. "We'll still be as trapped as we are now!"

"Do you want to become dog meat, or not?"

The dwarves around them hauled themselves up into the trees, occasionally giving Bilbo a hand as they went. With no small amount of luck, they found themselves in the trees, out of reach when the wargs finally reached them.

The wolves slowed down when they saw that the dwarves were high in the trees, nestled uncomfortably in the branches. Instead, they stared longingly up at them, circling the bases – the wargs would get the dwarves eventually, that much was certain.

Gandalf looked down at the wargs, thinking hard. There was some truth in Thorin's earlier words. They were still trapped, still weakened by their imprisonment in the Misty Mountains, and still hopelessly outnumbered. There was only so long they could stay in the trees, and should it come to a stand-off, the wargs would not be the first to move.

And then his eyes fell on the broken branch next to him.

Bilbo considered himself lucky that he was even in the tree at all, but he was not entirely comfortable about being on one of the lowest branches, and certainly below all the dwarves. He pulled his legs up out of self-preservation when the wargs started snapping at them, but he was struggling to balance, and was worried that he might fall at any second.

And he nearly did out of surprise when the flaming branch fell from above, narrowly missing his arm.

The branch exploded in a shower of sparks as it hit the warg below him, igniting the beast's coat, sending it howling back to its fellows. The orc leapt from its back as the branch hit the warg, but the orc fell a second later as a second branch was thrown by Gandalf with surprising accuracy.

"Balin!" Gandalf called, tossing a branch to him for him to throw.

Catching on to Gandalf's plan, the dwarves began breaking off sticks from the trees they were sitting in, either asking Gandalf to light the tips or igniting them from other burning branches, before launching them like javelins at the orcs.

The flames lit up the night, the bright orange painting streaks on the darkness like a meteor shower. The wargs pulled back, retreating from the flames and slinking back into the shadows, and for a moment, the company thought they had won. But then, out of the darkness came the orcs that had previously hung back. And in the centre, astride a white warg, sat a figure that had haunted Thorin's nightmares for years. A figure whom Thorin had long believed dead.

Azog the Defiler glared up at him.

"Now, this is a rare sight," Azog said quietly, though his voice carried over the scene more clearly than if he'd shouted it. "Thorin Oakenshield... hiding in a tree."

A couple of the surrounding orcs laughed.

"You only really know if somebody's a coward or not if you face them with death," Azog continued. "There are those who will try and fight it – they will face it head-on, and they are the strong ones. And then there are those who...hide. The cowards. The ones who flee from death, running from it like the moon flees from the sun. It's strange – I always thought that the great Thorin Oakenshield would be a fighter. But now I see that he's as much of a coward as his grandfather was."

The mention of Thror cut through Thorin more effectively than a knife. A long-dormant rage awoke inside him, and almost without thinking, he drew Orcrist from its sheath. This would end here. Azog would see no more nights. He would not flee from another sunrise. Nobody else was going to die at his hand.

He pulled himself to his feet, and leapt from the tree, the Goblin-Cleaver aimed for Azog's head.

Azog raised his sword in answer, and there was a crash as the blades met in mid-air. Thorin fell to one side as he landed painfully, the force of the impact sending shockwaves up his legs. He staggered, before the white warg launched itself into his chest. Thorin fell back, Orcrist flying from his grip, and Azog pressed the tip of his blade against Thorin's neck. The fight was over before it had really begun.

"You fool, Oakenshield," Azog breathed. "And to think I once believed you to be a worthy opponent."

Azog raised his sword to deal the fatal blow –

"AZOG!" screamed a desperate voice from the shadows, where the other orcs were waiting. "YOU LIAR! I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL!"

Azog looked up, and beckoned one of the orcs to come forward. It was only now that Thorin noticed the figure being dragged along by the side of the warg by their wrists, bouncing off the floor, making no attempt to gain his footing.

"My life in exchange for theirs!" the person was screaming. "That was what we agreed!"

As soon as the warg was within reaching distance, Azog sliced the bonds holding Thorin's saviour to the warg, before grabbing the figure by the neck.

"Your life is already mine!" Azog hissed. "Why should I buy something that I already own?"

Azog threw the figure down next to Thorin, and the person raised their head to look at the King under the Mountain.

And Thorin finally recognised him. He was scarred, and his armour was gone, and he was only wearing a tattered shirt, leggings and boots, but there was no mistaking him. Everything suddenly clicked into place. Why the goblins adamantly refused to believe him when he had told him that he didn't have a son, it all made sense now. He had been a fool not to see it before.

The goblins hadn't had his son.

They had had Kíli.


A/N: This isn't the entire product of the six-and-a-half-hour car journey, which actually turned out to be an eight/nine hour car trip. There is another chapter, but that was such a perfect place to put a chapter break! Thank you all again for all the lovely reviews, and yes, they finally found Kíli! (I know, it took a while...) And crazy stuff's going down next chapter! Yay!

Also, apologies for the warped timings and medical anomalies. Tolkien once said that you lose track of time in goblin tunnels, and so I'm using... artistic license... to get around the mild technical hitches that have occurred. Meh, reality schmeality.