This concludes the happenings of An Unexpected Journey... the exciting bits, that is. Next chapter will sort of be a transition chapter, AKA a filler chapter. But take note, there will be some bits in there that I'm sure you guys would love to see. Just sayin'. :)

Without further ado, here is Chapter 9.

[All rights go to JRR Tolkien and Peter Jackson, except for my featured OC's. They're mine.]

Falling from a great height was not familiar territory to Fheon.

She cursed loudly at the disturbing feeling in her stomach, wanting to close her eyes in fear, but not being able to because of the wooden debris that flew at her face. Her grip on the hand that had wrapped around hers was deathly tight as she struggled to keep the dwarves in sight. She was afraid that, if she let go, she would start falling slower than the rest of the Company and they would be lost to her; perhaps she would scrape against the rough stone walls to her sides, or be impaled by the debris flying at her. It was a senseless way of thinking, but her train of thought was travelling just as fast as their descent.

As yet another wooden splinter scratched at her face, Fheon brought her other hand up to grip the nameless dwarf's forearm. Abruptly, their descent slowed down, resulting in her smashing against said dwarf. The air was knocked out of her lungs, leaving her breathless and not able to ignore the ache in her shoulder and the newfound pain that had sprung up from her chest. She was able to register a faint tickling sensation on her face, causing her to wrinkle her nose.

"Well, that could have been worse," came the familiar voice of Bofur.

At the sound of groaning dwarves and creaking planks, Fheon came to a conclusion that things could have, indeed, gone much worse. Slowly, she cracked one eye open and was met with the sight of greyish brown fur hovering very close to her face, making her nose twitch. With her dazed senses, she almost thought that she was on a warg. But the hard flatness pressing against her chest was too cold to be an animal's body. Just as she was raising her head to see which unfortunate dwarf she had landed on—but also the dwarf that had kept her from falling away—an abrupt weight fell on top of her. The wreckage from their descent downwards dug painfully into her back, making her close her eyes tight and drop her head on said dwarf's chest again. Beneath her, the rest of the Company groaned in displeasure; they were sure to have gained fewer injuries than she.

The dwarves below her started shifting about, getting themselves back on their feet. Fheon was confused as to exactly how they were doing it considering the crushing weight on top of them. Despite the discomfort, Fheon was forced to acknowledge the urgency of their situation when the dwarf directly beneath her said, "Get up."

She could have recognized that gruff voice anywhere. Why would she not, when she had spent the last ten months journeying with him and his kin, having to see him as their leader?

Grudgingly, Fheon raised her head to glare at Thorin, the pain and the hormones getting to her. He returned her gaze with equal heat, but they were forced to look away when, below them, Kili shouted, "Gandalf!"

Fheon did not need to look to know it was the goblin army surging towards them. "Get up!" Thorin repeated, louder and practically yelling into her ear. Red-faced in exertion, she hastily dragged herself out from beneath the Great Goblin, off of Thorin, and onto the splintery hard ground below. She blinked away the spots in her vision as she felt someone helping her up. When the spots were gone, she found that it was her brother who had offered his arm as support. His eyebrows were furrowed in concern, face glistening with sweat.

"There's too many," said Dwalin, helping up an exhausted Nori. "We can't fight them."

"Only one thing will save us: daylight," Gandalf replied, hastily helping Oin out of the wreckage. "Come on! Here, on your feet! Move!"

The dwarves, with their steelier wills and stronger backbones, easily regained their footing and were soon trailing after Gandalf. Fheon held onto Elijah as they tailed the Company. Clutching her shoulder, she looked back and found what seemed to be the whole of Goblin-town chasing after them like hounds from hell. She bit back a groan and started moving her feet faster, doing her best to ignore the throbbing by her left shoulder blade. Gandalf led them into a dark, narrow tunnel that reminded her too much of the troll-hoard they had found mere days ago. Past the twists and turns of the passageway, however, the goblins' cackles soon grew to be far away. Another turn and light flooded onto Fheon's face, warming her instantly. She relished in the feeling before the sound of a separate being's shallow breathing reached her ears.

Her head snapped to the side, eyes wildly searching a second channel that branched off to their left. Nothing seemed to be there, except perhaps a way back into Goblin-town. "Come, quickly!" she heard Thorin say. Scowling, she turned away from the second passage and followed the Company out onto a lush, green hill—out into broad daylight.

The slope of the hill was quite steep for Fheon's liking. Elijah was the only thing keeping her from tripping over the large tree roots, or tripping over her own feet. They did not stop to catch their breath until they were a few miles away from the entrance to Goblin-town, which by then, Gandalf had started counting the members of the Company.

"Five, six, seven, eight," he muttered to himself. "Bifur, Bofur—that's ten… Fili, Kili—that's twelve… And Bombur—that makes thirteen… one, two Rangers—good… Where's Bilbo?" The wizard looked around. "Where is our hobbit?" And the crushing reality of what had happened earlier on in the caves crashed over Fheon, filling her with a deep sense of sorrow.

"Curse that Halfling!" said Dwalin. "Now he's lost?"

"I thought he was with Dori!" said Gloin.

"Don't blame me!" Dori retorted.

"Well, where did you last see him?" Gandalf inquired with what sounded like true anxiety.

"I think I saw him slip away when they first collared us," Nori cut in.

Gandalf stepped forward. "And then what happened exactly?"

"I'll tell you what happened," Thorin abruptly snapped. "Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it. He has thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since he first stepped out of his door—"

"Do not speak of him like that," Fheon hissed, which, of course, drew all attention to her; even from Elijah, who softly murmured at her to calm down. But she would not have it. "When he slipped away, I was able to join him in the caves. He did not run away." She glared at Thorin, not being able to control her impatience with him any longer. "Then a goblin attacked me, and Bilbo helped it off. But doing so, he… he fell," she finished in a hushed tone, remembering her previous musings about him landing in a lake far below. If that had happened, then perhaps he would be able to traverse through the tunnels beneath Goblin-town, and maybe… She stopped herself there, looking up to meet Thorin's gaze once more. "I do not know if he is dead, or if he is—"

"Here."

The familiar soft voice startled Fheon. She whirled around, and then found her spirits lifted considerably higher when she saw Bilbo standing there, greasier and dirtier than she remembered, but unharmed. "I'm here," he clarified, and Fheon's face broke into a small smile.

"Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf exclaimed, beaming. "I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life."

"Bilbo," said Fheon, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'd given you up. Did you encounter any more goblins on your way out?"

He stuttered, "No—yes, well, sort of—"

"How on earth did you get past them?" Fili inquired.

"How, indeed," Dwalin muttered. Fheon narrowed her eyes at him and Thorin, whose faces suggested that they were suspicious of the hobbit.

Bilbo did nothing for a moment; he looked quite stroppy. But then he laughed lightly and pointed a playful finger at the dwarves, before pushing his hands into his pockets.

"Well, what does it matter?" Gandalf cut in with a wide smile. "He's back!"

"It matters," said Thorin. "I want to know." He looked at the wizard incredulously, and then switched his gaze to Bilbo. His voice turned soft, but equally as serious and challenging. He asked, "Why did you come back?"

Bilbo regarded the King Under the Mountain, an earnest glint in his eye. "Look, I know you doubt me. I know you always have," he said. "And you're right: I often think of Bag-End. I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home. And that's why I came back; because…" He shrugged. "You don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back, if I can."

The Company lapsed into an easy silence, each of them looking at Bilbo with utmost gratefulness in their eyes. Even Thorin, who dipped his head in respect to the hobbit. Elijah stepped up and wrapped his arm around Bilbo's shoulders, pulling the hobbit into one of his brotherly hugs. Gandalf smiled pleasantly and Fheon could have sworn she felt something in the air at that moment.

She decided that it was not pure coincidence when, only a few seconds after, her ears impulsively perked up at the sound of a brusque voice speaking in Black Speech from behind her. A moment after, the barks and howls of wargs reached her ears. She whirled around to see the dark figures of at least half a dozen wargs running down the mountainside, straight for them.

"Out of the frying pan," said Thorin.

"And into the fire," Gandalf finished. "Run… RUN!"

The Company took off thundering away from the wargs. Fheon pushed Bilbo after them as she and her brother tailed the dwarves. Jumping over tree roots and running past shrubs, she felt exhausted. The adrenaline pumping in her could no longer replace the heavy feeling in her limbs. She was horrified to find that, when she took her bow in her left hand, it was nearly impossible to hold it up steadily without the pain in her shoulder being too much to bear. Had she gotten a bone broken? Huffing, she was able to register an alarmed yell from her brother, and then dove to the ground.

A warg flew over her head and landed a few feet away from her, kicking dirt onto her face. She got on one knee and drew her bow. Just as she was letting go of the string, agonizing pain shot up her neck from her shoulder. She watched as her arrow whizzed past the warg's head, almost hitting one of her allies instead. The warg growled, snapping its jaws as it approached her hungrily. Fheon was nocking another arrow with shaky hands when Elijah appeared from behind the warg and struck it down using his much larger sword. "Come on!" he yelled, pulling her to her feet.

"I can't shoot," she told him as they ran.

"Get your sword out—" He cut himself off by decapitating yet another warg with his sword.

Fheon slipped her bow over her shoulder and unsheathed her blade. She looked down at its thin frame uncertainly, wondering whether it would hold after slashing into multiple wargs. She was forced to focus again when Bilbo was somehow able to drive his sword into a warg's skull. Then he just stood there against a tree, wide-eyed and staring down at the warg. Fheon slashed at a passing warg's feet and let Dwalin finish it off with his axe. She surged forward and, switching the hold of her sword to her left hand, tugged Bilbo's blade out of the dead warg. It was only a little smaller than hers, but she did know how to wield one better. Handing the small weapon back to the hobbit, she decided to stick with him throughout the battle. Her bow would not be able to do anything for her with her bad shoulder.

Ori ran past them, jumping out of the reach of a warg's teeth and reaching his axe backward to cut into the creature's spine. Fheon thrust her blade into the warg's neck for good measure before trailing after Bilbo. He followed Gloin to the edge of a cliff, with a thousand feet drop below them. Their luck had run out.

"Up into the trees," Gandalf yelled. "Come on—climb!"

"Bilbo, climb!" Fheon ordered, whirling around and slicing into a warg's muzzle before burying her sword to the hilt in its skull. Seeing the hobbit still on the ground, holding his sword nervously, she yelled again, "CLIMB!" He jumped, startled, but nevertheless sheathed his sword and started climbing up a particularly tall tree. What seemed to be a rock flew past Fheon's head and hit a warg in the eye, dazing it. Fheon took advantage and surged forward to slice its neck open.

"They're coming!" Thorin shouted from behind her.

She slashed at another warg before she was being pulled back by the arm. She was given enough time to register that it was Elijah dragging her further up the cliff before she was practically thrown towards a tree. Sheathing her bloody sword, she quickly started scaling the tree, heartbeat pounding in her ears as multiple warg sounds came from below her. She cussed loudly as the throbbing pain in her left shoulder worsened, as she was forced to use both arms to pull herself up the tree. Sweat cascaded down her neck but she was finally able to rest on one of the thick, high branches. Panting, she looked for Elijah among the many trees littered around her and found him sitting on the one nearest to her right, on a far lower branch than the one she was on.

Beneath them, the wargs were circling their trees like vultures to a rotting corpse. But when they stopped and turned around at the same time, Fheon was forced to raise her eyes further up. She was met with the sight of a large, muscular, pale orc, mounted on a white warg. He was just as vicious as she remembered him, with the dozens of scars lining his body and the venomous look on his face. From the tree to her left, she heard an unbelieving whisper escape Thorin's mouth: "Azog." At least now he knew the truth.

As Fheon forced the nightmarish memories down to the deepest parts of her mind, the Pale Orc sniffed the air and regarded the Company with smug, dangerous eyes. He spoke in Black Speech, next, and so Fheon could not understand. But it was obvious he was speaking to Thorin, for his bloodshot gaze was on this particular dwarf only. And in his garbled speech, Fheon was able to discern the title "Thorin, son of Thrain". He pointed his mace at the Dwarf King, growling words that were meant to threaten. And then he spun his weapon about his head, yelling in the Black Speech. He and his warg bared their teeth, before the mass behind him sprung forth.

The wargs immediately made for the trees, clawing at the bark and trying to jump high enough to reach the dwarves perched on the branches. Fheon pulled herself up to stand on the branch, supporting herself on the trunk. "Elijah!" she yelled, horrified to see a warg only mere feet from reaching him. He swung his sword at the warg's snout, making it yelp, before proceeding to climb higher up into his tree. Fheon glanced down to find two wargs clawing at her tree, rocking the trunk to its roots. They jumped higher and higher, biting the branches off beneath her so she would not be able to climb back down. Fheon scrambled higher up her tree, yelling in alarm when her fingers slipped from their handhold. When she reached the highest branch she could, she tried drawing her bow again, but the pain was much worse this time.

"Shoot them!" she called, specifically for Elijah and Kili. They had to at least lessen the amount of wargs if they were to keep the trees from tearing out their roots and completely falling over.

Cursing herself, she returned her bow over her shoulder, looking down anxiously at the wargs that had begun clawing at the roots of her tree. She called for Elijah again, and an arrowhead sprung from one of the warg's skulls. Only one. When she turned her head she saw that Elijah was dealing with his own troubles, with the distance between him and the wargs ever so lesser. They were not able to reach him before the roots finally gave way. A crackling sound registered to Fheon and she glanced down to find the roots of her own tree appearing from beneath the ground. She hastily hopped from branch to branch until she was adjacent her previous position. As the tree was falling backwards, she counted to three in her head and timed her jump onto a different tree.

Head reeling from the impact of a branch to her sternum, she was able to register the fact that all the other members of the Company were standing on this lone tree, which was looming just over the edge of the cliff. The branch in front of her bent downward and Elijah appeared from the top, breathing heavily. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and gave it to him urgently. He nodded once before drawing his bow and shooting a warg in the eye. It fell dead instantly. Only moments afterwards, what seemed to be a flaming pinecone flew past their heads and to the ground below. Fire spread across the grass immediately, forcing the wargs to back up. Another half dozen pinecones were thrown, forming a line of fire in-between the Company and their enemies. Elijah kept firing arrows, downing wargs one at a time. Fheon seldom ever felt so helpless.

Azog roared in outrage, which was met by the dwarves' yells of glee. But as Fheon had concluded minutes ago, their luck had run out.

The branch beneath her turned uneven and soon she was lying with her back on the trunk as the tree fell backwards, its roots digging themselves out of the soil. Clutching the bark, she changed her position so that she was facing downwards, and therefore looking down the cliff side. She found the dwarves hanging perilously on the branches. Ori was dangling by Dori's legs, and Dori did not have a decent grip on a branch. Their tree uprooted itself further, and then Dori slipped from the branch altogether. In a split second, Gandalf had stretched his arm out, and Dori was able to get a grip on the end of his staff. The dwarves all struggled to keep from falling, including Elijah.

Seeing him dangling on a branch with only one arm wrapped around the bark was unnerving. Fheon searched wildly for a way to get to him without risking their chances of survival, but there was none. "Can you hold on?" she shouted at him, and was slightly relieved when he was fine enough to throw her a thumbs-up. Then his gaze veered from her to something behind her, and she was surprised to find Thorin marching down the trunk of the tree, sword at hand and not looking to stop any time soon.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, swiping at his feet.

"Finishing what I should have ages ago," he said, not even turning his head to look at her.

She stared after him in exasperation, watching as he marched right through the path of branches, past the flames, and then took off running towards the Pale Orc. Azog waited smugly until he was close enough, and then his white warg jumped over Thorin's head, giving his head a ferocious scratch with its claw.

"You have to help him," someone from behind Fheon yelled. She glanced over her shoulder to find Kili's upper half splayed across a branch, with his brother beside him; both looking at their uncle in desperation. "You have to help him," Kili repeated. "Please."

Fheon looked to Thorin and found him already back on his feet, only to be knocked back down again by Azog's mace. And then she looked to Elijah, an urgent and questioning expression on her face. Before he could even say anything, Bilbo had stood up and started racing down the trunk of the tree, past Fheon and hurling through the flames. Without even glancing at her brother again, she knew what she had to do. As she was running after Bilbo with her sword in hand, she muttered unhappily to herself, "Dwarves, hobbits, and their bloody reckless bravado."

An orc had dismounted his warg and was holding his blade to Thorin's neck. As he was about to swing, a hawk's cry pierced through the air. Caligula swooped in from above, raking at the orc's eyes and no doubt blinding him. Azog roared in anger. When Cali was finished with the orc, Bilbo actually launched himself onto its back, therefore saving Thorin, but endangering himself. Fheon made quick work with the orc's warg, ears perking up at the sound of Bilbo pulling his blade out of orc skin. Three more wargs appeared behind Azog, accompanied by their riders, and she was forced to retreat back to Bilbo's side, splaying a throbbing arm across his protectively. But he had grown bold; he pushed her arm away and sliced at the air in front of him, daring the orcs to come closer.

Growling, Azog said something to his companions, and the three wargs behind him walked forward. Their eyes were set on Bilbo and Fheon. "Coward!" Fheon barked at the Pale Orc, scowling. "Scared to face a girl?"

Azog bared his teeth and said something in Black Speech—perhaps an acknowledgement that he remembered her from when she was a child—but he did not move from his spot. His underling wargs crawled forward. Just as they were about to attack, several dwarf cries echoed from their right, before the Company descended on the wargs. Fheon saw her brother among them, and was filled with a renewed sense of vigor. She leapt into the fray, quickly killing off two wargs and then stabbing at their riders as they fell to the ground. Beside her, Bilbo hacked at a warg's muzzle, before swiftly ducking beneath its rider's swipe. However, doing so brought him face to face with the White Warg, which flipped him onto his back.

Fheon thought that Azog would just leave him there, but he approached him with a deadly look in his eyes. Instinctively, Fheon surged closer to the White Warg and stabbed its backside, burying her sword straight to the hilt. It roared in pain and fury. In a split second, faster than Fheon could act, it had whirled around and rammed its paw into Fheon's face, throwing her to the ground. She had not yet regained her footing when she felt its maws close around her body. As its teeth were pricking against her skin, she lamely brought her sword up and swiped her blade across its snout, surprising herself when her attack drew blood. The White Warg yelped and let her drop to the ground, where she remained, dazed and in pain. The White Warg was just returning to finish off the job, looming over her with drool dripping from its mouth, when a caw echoed in the distance. It was followed by another, which was much closer.

Azog's eyes widened just as his Warg ducked. A giant eagle flew over its head, taking a warg and its rider into its talons and then flying away. Suddenly, Fheon was being dragged to her feet and forced to run, but she could not. She stumbled back onto the ground; her eyes drooped closed in exhaustion, and then she was left there. But the next time she was picked up, it was not by any human hand. Blinking one eye open, she found that an eagle had picked her up. She could feel its talons digging into her hips, but it was not as painful as she thought it would be.

Finally finding a reason to allow herself to rest, she closed her eyes again, and let her body go limp inside the eagle's feet.

Next chapter will come in a week or so...

Reviews pleeeease! ^^