Down the Company went, sailing through tunnels, sliding down crudely made chutes, shouting in shock and yelling as their sides collided with one another.
As they fell into the murky darkness, glimpses of tiny red and orange lights could be seen in gaps in the walls and almighty screeches echoed around their ears, disorientating them, and their eyes blinked in perplexity and bafflement.
Without warning, the entire Company plummeted into a wooden cage, where it's jagged edges closed around them.
And the Company went eerily silent as the screeches grew forebodingly closer, and they drew their weapons, quick.
Morlia glanced over to Dwalin, who was standing in front of Bilbo, eyes hardened, and Thorin, who gave quick looks to his nephews.
Havoc was unleashed.
Goblins, in their thousands, came hurtling in on the Company.
Left, right, centre; they surged out from underneath them and bombarded them with biting nails and teeth and swords.
The Company were swamped; unable to lift their swords and axes in defence of their faces and exposed flesh, to the ripping and cutting hold of these ghoulish bodies, that kept tumbling on top of them.
Yells of the Company were drowned in the racket of the violence of these things.
The creatures viciously snatched their weapons and swept the Company onwards, along the winding dirty path, aligned with old, roped bridges, and the Company stumbled and fell as they were forced forwards.
Bifur yelled out in Khuzdul; Dwalin was red-faced and seething; Morlia whacked Goblins away from her, but more just clenched onto her arms, restraining her; Ori tried to elbow one; Gloin roared insults in every direction he could manage; Thorin duly waited until there was an opening before he lashed out with his arm and Fili kicked them as often as he could.
They were brought into a larger opening in the rock, and the darkness gave way to the musty orange of those tiny lights, and the damp smell of rotting, with hundreds of thousands of Goblins leering down at them, jeering and snarling, from the wooden walkways that were constructed into the vast cliffs that surrounded them.
The Goblins' skin crawled with malady, inflection and disease; their eyes bulged with red inflammation; their joints jaunted out and cracked when they moved, like horrid nightmares of broken bone, pressing against the skin. And you could see their thin spider-like bone structure, moving, beneath their translucent skins.
But then, the Company were slowed down and were shuffled onto a wooden court, that arose out from the misty darkness below, on several, uneven, wooden poles of scaffolding.
And the cavern rumbled as the Goblins crowed a terrible, deafening song:
Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grib, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down, down to Goblin town
You go, my lad!
Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, down underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!
Cackles taunted the Company.
However, it was then a thundering wheeze and cough sounded and the Goblins went a deadly quiet. The Goblins before them shrunk away, revealing a gigantic mass of accumulated sweaty Goblin flesh, jiggling slightly, as it let out one last hearty laugh.
"The Goblin King," muttered Gloin, with disgust, and the Company shifted uncomfortably.
"Catchy, isn't it?" the Great Goblin pondered, "It's one of my own compositions."
Balin looked at the King with distaste and shouted, "That's not a song! That's an abomination!"
The Goblins shrieked and snarled in outrage, raising their arms and spitting at the Company.
A grimy, tooth-broken grin burst out of the giant Goblin, as he stepped off his throne made of bones and onto the pile of his shrivelled servants that lay out before him.
The Company drew themselves as far back as they could go, and they tried to shield one another from the vulgar glare of the Goblin King.
"Who would be so bold, as to come armed into my domain?" the Goblin King demanded, his voice rebounding round the cave, as he eyed the dwarrows with malicious intent, "Spies? Thieves? Assassins?"
"Dwarves, your malevolence," spoke up a Goblin from behind them, as he shoved some of the Company forward.
The Goblin King widened his expression to that of disbelief, "Dwarves?"
The same Goblin, from before, nodded and stepped forwards slightly, speaking, "We found them on the front porch."
"Well, don't just stand there! Search them! Every crack, every crevice!" yelled the King, raising his arms up in outrage.
Once again, the Company was bombarded with Goblins.
"Get off me!"
Fili's daggers were taken from him.
"No!"
Nori's bag was emptied of it's stolen Elven riches.
"Stop it!"
Oin's trumpet was crushed.
"Filth!"
Morlia grabbed a Goblin by it's throat and shoved it away, but only more came to her.
The Goblin King leered over them and cackled, before stamping his staff against the floor (which looked as though it could snap in two with just the King standing upon it), "What are you doing in these parts?"
The Company hesitated.
"Speak!"
"Don't worry, lads," Oin assured them, clasping Thorin's shoulder as he pushed towards the front, "I'll handle this."
"No tricks!" the Goblin King called, pointing at them, accusingly, from his throne, "I want the truth! Warts and all!"
Oin frowned and squinted at the King, then spoke loudly, "You're going to have to speak up. Your boys flattened my trumpet."
The King hefted himself off of his throne and flung his staff across the floor, sending Goblins flying, as he bellowed, "I'll flatten more than your trumpet-"
"If it's more information you'll be wanting," Bofur piped up, stepping in front of Oin, "I'm the one you should speak to!"
The Great Goblin paused, his staff mid-air.
Bofur pursed his lips and scanned the cavern for ideas, "… We were on the road…well," he continued, raising his eyebrows at the Goblin and giving a brief smile, "… it's not so much of a road, as a path..."
Morlia closed her eye and let out a deep breath.
"… actually, it's not even that, come to think about it- it's more like a track-"
The King grumbled.
"- anyway, point is, we were on this road, like a path, like a track… and then- we weren't!" Bofur concluded.
The King grumbled again.
Bofur saw fit to continue, "Which… is a problem actually," he swallowed, "because we were supposed to be in Dunland last Tuesday-"
"-visiting distant relations!" chipped in Dori.
Bofur nodded quickly, "Some inbreds on my mother's side-"
"Shut up!" yelled the Goblin King, standing from his throne, brandishing his staff, while all the Goblins screeched and drew away from him; leaving Bofur to face the King.
Bofur bowed his head and pursed his lips again.
"Very well! If they will not talk, we'll make them squawk!" crowed the King, relishing in the sound of his subjects shrieking and jeering in excitement, "Bring up the mangler, bring out the bone breaker! Start with the youngest!"
He pointed a fat, grubby finger at Ori.
"WAIT," hollered out a voice, silencing the cliffs of gabbling Goblins
Thorin stepped out from the Company, ignoring their complaints, eyes fixated on the Goblin before them.
The Goblin King grinned, maliciously, "Well, well, well, look who it is! Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain."
He stepped forwards and bowed mockingly; chin wobbling; eyes bulging out.
Thorin observed him with a cold stare.
"Oh," the Great Goblin gasped, "I'm forgetting- you don't have a mountain. And you aren't a king," he shook his head, keeping his eyes on Thorin, "Which makes you... nobody, really."
The Dwarrows yelled and shouted in outrage, in defence of Thorin's honour, but the Goblin King's smile just got wider.
"But..." continued the Great Goblin, hand waving aloof, "I do know… someone," he turned to glare at Thorin, "who would pay a pretty price for your head."
The cave suddenly chilled.
Thorin's jaw clenched.
"Just the head, nothing attached. Perhaps you know of whom I speak," the Goblin grinned again, "An old enemy of yours."
The Goblin King glared at Thorin.
"A pale Orc, astride a white Warg-"
"-Azog the Defiler was destroyed," Thorin stressed, cutting across him, "He was slain in battle long ago."
"So… you think his defiling days are done, do you?" challenged the Goblin King, before he broke out into a loud laugh.
He then abruptly stopped and turned to a small Goblin next to him, muttering, "Send word to the Pale Orc, tell him; I have found his prize."
The entire cavern echoed with cackles and grunts and snarls, as the smaller Goblin rode off on a roped contraption into the darkness below, carrying possibly the one most dangerous threat and worry that the Company have faced so far; a letter, to the Pale Orc.
The Goblin King was so close that Morlia could see the evil in his eyes. The wicked spite was obvious.
The foul stench of this deep hollow, embedded in the might of this mountain, burnt at her nostrils and had fully cemented her hatred for it, and all that lived in it.
"And… who else have we got here?" breathed the Great Goblin, releasing the foul stench of decomposing flesh all over the Company.
The Company wrinkled their noses, but kept their mouths firmly shut.
The Goblin King gave an exasperating sigh, before squinting at the Company, "What a wide range of… personalities," he grinned, "Why are you so stretched for numbers, King of Nothing?"
Dwalin glanced over to Thorin, who had become quite still.
"Oho aha! You even brought a woman and some children with you!"
Fili's and Kili's mouths twitched, in conjunction to Thorin's horrified realisation.
He leaned over to Dwalin and hastily whispered, "You take the Company out when I give-"
Bones will be shattered,
Necks will be wrung!
You'll be beaten and battered,
From racks you'll be hung!
You will die down here and never be found,
Down in the deep of Goblin Town!"
Dwalin eyed the Great Goblin with disgust and shook his head, "No, Thorin, we will get out of this-"
A screech erupted behind them.
Thorin shared a meaningful look with Dwalin.
"Thorin," came a hurried whisper to the left of them.
"Any way out?" Thorin asked, voice hushed.
"None safe. We will either be killed by falling or be skewered up by one of these lot," replied Morlia, her face grave, "I hate to say it, I really do, but, we need to make negotiations-"
"-No, we can't-"
"-No, we have to," interrupted Balin, who stood to the right of them, "We need to, Thorin."
Thorin gave one more glance to Morlia, before turning to Dwalin, who nodded.
They, then, all suddenly leaped into the air, as the Goblin King screeched a terrible howl, silencing the cave.
"I know that sword!" he bit out, pointing a quivering lump of a finger at the pile of the Company's weapons, "It is the Goblin Cleaver! The Biter- the blade that sliced a thousand necks-"
In Orcrist's blade, a deformed reflection of the Great Goblin howled again, as the dwarrows were hit and bashed around.
"Slash them," he cried, "Beat them! Kill them!"
The dwarrows could do nothing but try to cover their heads from the beatings of the rabble around them: efforts to fight were useless.
Bombur tried to cover his family; Dwalin and Morlia turned to shield Fili and Kili; Balin tried to help Ori off the floor- but then Thorin was pulled out of the chaos-
"CUT OFF HIS HEAD!"
The Company's blood ran cold.
"NO!"
Thorin was slammed down onto the floor; neck held tightly in a bony grip; head pinned down by his hair-
"STOP!"
Thorin's eyes went wide as he strained with all his might to lift the Goblin off of him.
"THORIN-"
A rusty, curved blade was revealed from the waist of the Goblin that trapped him; whose face was shrouded in inflammation, that crept round the back of his head, and whose grimy, jagged teeth, snarled.
Dwalin roared, his face red, as he struggled to wrestle Goblins away from Thorin, but he too, was forced to the ground.
The Goblin King leered over Thorin and sneered, before nodding to the Goblin that held him.
"NO-"
And just at that moment, all the lights flickered out.
And a thundering howl echoed around the silent cavern.
And a thud sounded, against the wood, under the Company's feet.
The cavern lay still for several seconds as the dust settled.
"TAKE UP ARMS! FIGHT. FIGHT!"
"Gandalf?" asked Bofur, peering through the darkness.
"The very same, Mr. Bofur."
He struck his staff against the floor, in likeness to that of a match, and the shadows were whisked away, for light beams streamed out of the end of his staff, whizzing and screaming in yellows and blues and whites as they soared over the Goblin thousands, who wailed at the same pitch of the vibrant entities.
The dwarrows looked upon their wizard with a stunned awe as they watched the light fill the court, and they raised their eyebrows and laughed in joy and relief when they saw the dead Goblin King overturned on the floor.
With a crack and another thud, the wooden scaffolding holding the dwarrows up splintered and snapped.
"HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!"
Morlia grabbed her sword and threw herself against the side of the wood, pulling the nearest dwarf with her, and she whipped her head round as the court started falling. Goblins, so many damn Goblins, had started to crawl down the walls towards them, hundreds and hundreds of them.
"Look, Leia, if I die today-"
"Stop gabbling, you old fool," Morlia stopped to lash out with her sword and chop up one of the Goblins, "Gloin, you cannot start this every time we go into battle. I had it up to about here," she gestured above her head, "last time."
Gloin grumbled.
"Sorry, what was that?"
Morlia slashed at another Goblin to her left and turned to a bitter looking Gloin.
And as they reached the bottom of the cave, Morlia laughed.