Guess who's back again! Woop woop!

So I'm gonna set up a poll on my profile the moment this is posted based on what fic you want me to post after this. Basically, I've got too many on the go, and the moment I can just focus on one, the better. So I'll stick a list of fandoms up on the poll and you guys can vote on what one you want me to write next. All of them will be canon-followers, like this, just so you know :)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favourited, and followed the story! It still makes me smile every time :3

Anyway, here is Chapter 10!

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The shrieking grows louder and louder. Boromir runs to the door, just as arrows are shot at them. A near miss that has my heart pumping wildly. Aragorn drops his torch and begins to usher the Hobbits towards Gandalf.

"Get back! Stay close to Gandalf!"

He and I then run to Boromir and assist him in pulling the doors closed. As we do, a roar echoes towards us that makes my blood run cold. "They have a cave troll," Boromir states as soon as the doors are closed. He sounds remarkably calm for a man standing by an army of Orcs. In fact, I would say he sounds just... done. So done with everything in this cave, and the troll is just the cherry on top.

Immediately, Legolas begins tossing spears and axes towards us. We blockade the door with them and withdraw into the tomb, drawing out our weapons. I pull my bow off my shoulder and draw an arrow back, hands shaking with nerves.

Gimli leaps onto Balin's tomb, growling with a vicious fervour "Let them come! There is one Dwarf yet in Moria that still draws breath!"

"How about we try and keep it that way?" I respond, focused on the door. "You know, how about we make it out of here alive? That would be fun."

I stop talking as the Orcs begin breaking down the door. Legolas, Aragorn, and I begin shooting at them through the splintered holes in the wood, taking out a few just as the doors give way. Stowing my bow clumsily on my back, I draw my sword and hope my lessons paid off.

As the battle begins, I find it much easier to just descend into a sense of nothingness to fight. If you don't feel anything, nothing can distract you, and soon, I've made my first kill. And it's terrifying. Only a few seconds later, the aforementioned cave troll smashes through what little remained of the doors, swinging a mace around. Legolas shoots at it, but it simply growls at him, the arrow bouncing off.

I find myself fighting side by side with Boromir. He watches my back, killing Orcs that sneak up on me, and I run through any that try to get the drop on him. It's a simple system, but I can't help but worry about Romulus. I can't see him anywhere in the chamber, and it fills me with panic.

One Orc takes advantage of my distracted state and manages to catch me off guard, causing a gash on my upper arm. I barely feel it, the adrenaline pumping through me effectively numbing the pain and allowing me to dispatch the Orc that did it.

The battle seems to go on forever, and I'm tiring when I hear Aragorn shout "Frodo!"

I whip around to see Frodo dangling from the troll's hand, screaming for Aragorn. He manages to slice the troll's hand and it drops him. Aragorn leaps in front of the poor Hobbit with a spear, impaling the troll in the chest. It hits Aragorn, sends him flying across the room, and he collapses.

"Go help him," Boromir says calmly, running an Orc through with his sword and blocking a hit from another.

I nod and begin the task of fighting my way across the room to the stunned Ranger, while Merry and Pippin throw rocks at the troll to distract it from Frodo. I finally reach Aragorn, and begin shaking him to rouse him, but to no avail. He's on the brink of unconsciousness from what I can tell, but I don't know what to do except protect him until he wakes up.

And then, a horrific cry from Frodo almost brings the battle to a halt. The troll has impaled him on a spear. The Hobbit falls to the floor with a strangled cry, and doesn't move.

Shouts from Merry and Pippin, who leap onto the troll and begin stabbing it in the head, bring me back to my senses, just in time to dodge a blade. In the wake of Frodo's death, the Fellowship continues the attack with renewed vigour, attacking the Orcs and the troll with an almost scary anger.

As the troll grabs Merry and throws him off, Pippin puts in one last stab. The troll opens its mouth in a roar of pain, and Legolas takes aim and fires an arrow straight through the brain. It moans, staggers, then collapses to the ground, dead. Pippin is thrown off the troll and hits the ground hard.

The silence that follows is so tense I could feel it in the air. Aragorn, having fully woken up, crawls over to Frodo.

"Oh no..." He flips the Hobbit over, and we all crowd around them, just as Frodo gives a great gasp for breath. Sam runs over to him.

"He's alive!"

"I'm alright, I'm not hurt," Frodo confirms, panting slightly.

"You should be dead! That spear would have skewered a wild boar," Aragorn says in disbelief, leaning back on his heels.

Ever the optimist, eh, Aragorn? Romulus's voice both makes me jump and fills me with relief. I look down to see a limping Romulus, no longer recognisable as white, with a gash down his flank. I crouch down next to him and examine the gash, but due to all the Orc blood, it's difficult to see how bad it is.

"I think there's more to this Hobbit than meets the eye," Gandalf smiles mysteriously. Frodo glances at all of us in turn, before unbuttoning his shirt and revealing underneath a shirt made of mithril links. Sam touches it, wonder written all over his face.

"Mithril! You are full of surprises, Master Baggins," Gimli says gruffly. At that moment, the sound of Orcs reaches us again.

"To the bridge of Khazad-Dum!" Gandalf commands, and we run out the chamber once more. The moment we step back out into the great hall of Dwarrowdelf, we are pursued by a huge army of Orcs. They stream down from the pillars and the ceiling above us, crawl out from the floor, and head towards us from the direction we're moving in.

In what doesn't seem like a long time, we're surrounded, the Orcs shrieking at us in high pitches. I draw my sword as Romulus growls at them, and the entire Fellowship ends up back-to-back in a circle formation.

Then, just as I'm sure we're going to be attacked, a great, fiery light appears at the end of the hall. A thunderous growl follows soon after, and the Orcs stop shrieking to listen. Another pause, then they flee, scrambling in all directions in their panic.

The Orcs gone, we break formation to stare at the growing light. "What is this new devilry?" Boromir mutters beside Gandalf, who takes a moment to respond.

"A Balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you. Run! Quickly!"

With that, we turn tail once again and run, entering a passage which leads to a flight of stairs. When Boromir nearly falls into a chasm, Legolas manages to pull him back just in time. The Hobbits too barely stop short of falling to a painful death.

We take the flight of steps down, me carefully sticking by Romulus in case he slips. His wolf paws aren't as effective on the eroded stairs as our leather boots are, and once or twice he has a near miss that sends my heart pounding. It doesn't help that the chasm stretches far below us, and my stomach turns every time I catch a glimpse of it.

Another steep staircase down, there's a gap in the stairs. Without hesitating, Legolas takes a leap and lands safely on the other side. "Gandalf!" he calls. The wizard follows after a glance back up behind us, and Legolas safely catches him.

Arrows whistle through the air, striking the steps near our feet. One skims my boot, leaving a scuff in the leather, and after a brief pause to glance at the chasm, I take a step back and jump across the gap. Legolas grabs my hand, pulls me into a brief hug on the other side that flips my stomach, and then returns to shooting back at the Orcs with Aragorn.

"Romulus!" I shout at the wolf, who eyes me as though I'm insane. He takes a running jump, almost missing the edge of the stairs, and lands near me, momentum carrying him a few feet further. I pull my bow out and fire a few return arrows back at the Orcs, hitting several that I'm proud of, and noticing that my aim is improving.

Boromir jumps over with Merry and Pippin, and Sam is thrown across by Aragorn. Boromir catches him safely. Now, it's just Gimli, Aragorn, and Frodo left. Aragorn reaches down to throw Gimli, but the Dwarf refuses.

"Nobody tosses a Dwarf!" Before Aragorn manages to persuade him of the opposite, he leaps across, but loses balance and nearly tumbles backwards off the staircase. A quick move by Legolas means that the only thing stopping the Dwarf from falling to his death is his beard, at which he grumbles.

"Not the beard!"

Just Aragorn and Frodo. As they move to jump across, the stairs crumble at the edge, widening the gap and weakening the stair support below them. The stairs begin to wobble, and I can see Aragorn reassuring Frodo. The pair of them lean forwards, causing the stairs to tip across the gap and slam onto the other side. They are steadied by Legolas and Boromir, and as the stairs begin to collapse beneath us, we continue down to where a bridge awaits.

"Over the bridge! Fly!"

What? Romulus's voice inside my head confirms the sudden feeling of Déjà Vu.

You dreamt it too? I reply, not wanting to show my panic as we cross the bridge carefully. A nod from the wolf is enough to make me worry. We reach the other side and turn back to see Gandalf halfway across the bridge, facing down the Balrog. It looks terrifying. The giant flame beast is somewhat humanoid, with great horns protruding from its head. Other than the fire, the Balrog is a charred brown-black, and it has great eyes filled with hatred.

"You cannot pass!" Gandalf says fiercely, facing it without fear.

"Gandalf!" Frodo cries out behind me. I realise now that this is going to turn out exactly as I dreamt, and I take a step forwards, but Legolas catches me, an arm snaking around me and stopping me from going any further. I fight him, but stop as a great white light radiates from Gandalf's staff, illuminating everything in the area.

"I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you! Flame of Udun!"

The Balrog attempts to strike down at Gandalf with a flaming sword, but Gandalf parries it with his own sword, Glamdring, shattering the Balrog's sword.

"Go back to the Shadow!"

I fight again as the Balrog produces a great flaming whip, lashing it menacingly.

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Gandalf strikes his sword and staff down on the bridge, and the Balrog pauses for a moment. Then, it steps forwards. But the bridge collapses underneath it. The beast falls down into the chasm, growling. Exhausted, Gandalf turns around and leans on his staff. For a moment, I'm unsure. Is he going to fall?

At the last minute, the Balrog lashes the whip up from the depths of the cavern. It winds around Gandalf's ankle, dragging him over the edge. He grabs hold of the edge of the bridge, straining to pull himself but, but isn't able to.

Frodo rushes forwards to help him, but Boromir restrains him, similar to how Legolas refuses to let me go. "Gandalf!" Frodo lets out a heart-wrenching cry and all I can think about is how I didn't tell Gandalf that I knew what was going to happen.

"Fly, you fools!" a command that is barely above a whisper. Then, he lets go, falling deep into the darkness. I stop fighting, letting out a choking noise, and Legolas clasps my hand and drags me out of the cave. The rest of the Fellowship follows soon after, and as the bright sunlight hits us, the Hobbits break down.

I find myself sitting blankly near a small stream, busying myself with rinsing the dirt as best as I can out of Romulus's fur. The river water runs red-pink with blood as he stands patiently. The feeling of his fur as I run my fingers through it keeps me anchored, and I manage to push tears back.

So you dreamt it too? I ask him, voice quiet even in my head.

Yeah. Weird coincidence? Or something we should be worried about?

I shrug at him, wincing as the water reveals the extent of the gash. It's not bleeding so much anymore, just a sluggish stream that looks worse than it is thanks to his wet fur.

I don't want to stitch it in case I make it worse, I frown, digging around in my pack for something to dry him with. Eventually, I pull out the spare blanket and wrap it round him, gently massaging until his fur is dry enough to work with.

Then, after extracting bandages from the medical kit, I wrap it around the wound as best as I can, tying it off and making sure it stays when he moves.

Sorry I couldn't do more, I hug him carefully. He licks my cheek, drawing a small smile from me.

It's fine, he replies, This is fine until we get somewhere to stop properly.

"Legolas! Get them up!" I hear Aragorn shout, even from here. Boromir replies heatedly, much louder.

"Give them a moment, for pity's sake!"

"By nightfall these hill will be swarming with Orcs! We much reach the woods of Lothlorien. Come Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, get them up."

I sling my bag back on and we head back over to the group to Aragorn, who has essentially appointed himself new leader. Not that that's a bad thing – of anyone in the group, I trust him the most to lead us in the right direction.

I'm the first over there, and upon seeing the rough bandages around Romulus, Aragorn promises to stitch him up at the first stop. I give a thankful smile, still grateful of the fact that I can't feel my own cut.

Soon, the rest of the Fellowship is gathered back together in varying states of exhaustion. And with a quick glance around, Aragorn has us back on the move towards Lothlorien.

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So let me know what story you want to see next on the poll!

If you really want, you can review, favourite, or follow! It's entirely up to you :3 let me know what you think!

Much love,

-CC-