Oh my gosh, I'm lucky that I got to update this today, it's been a long day and tomorrow is going to be even longer.
I don't own Harry Potter
They rode towards the trolls' hidden cave, following the large footprints in the earth and the pungent odor that seemed to come from the eastern parts of the forest. They were led to a rocky cliff side where a large opening in the face of the rock. They dismounted the ponies, and horses leaving Ori and Dori to watch them.
They strode up to the entrance to the cave and instantly a much heavier waft of the trolls' odor struck their nostrils, causing a few of them to take a staggering step backwards. Fainas himself took several steps back away from the cave's entrance.
"Afraid Fainas?" smirked Nori as Fainas knocked into him lightly as he continued to back away from the cave. His answer was given in the form of Fainas hurrying over to a large boulder and becoming physically sick. "Ah...never mind."
"I don't think...I can take going in there right now." said Fainas weakly as he began to stand back up.
"I'll stand out here with the lad." said Oin leading Fainas away from the cavern. "Let's get you into some fresh air and have you chew a bit of ginger."
"Still sick Fainas?" asked Kili, but Fainas didn't answer back, having been taken away from the cave swiftly.
"He's still a mite weak from the illness, I suppose." said Bilbo thoughtfully. "Though this smell would put a dog off a butcher's wagon."
Oin had taken Harry down away from the cave's entrance and made him drink water in slow sips and had him chew on several bits of ginger roots. He had been almost completely healed thanks to the turquoise stone, he had forgotten that it had quite powerful healing capabilities and was intensely grateful to it. While it could not even hope to bring back the dead, a simple case of food poisoning wouldn't be much of a problem.
Though, the stench emanating from the troll hoard seemed to bring about some very sickly feeling in his stomach. Being away from the cave's entrance helped ease the shifting in his stomach, so Oin's prescription of fresh air and sips of water was doing a lot in curing his nausea. For this was a very inconvenient time to fall into any sort of illness or injury.
He knew what was coming, it was now only a matter of minutes of when it was going to happen. First they would be meeting Radagast, then they would be running for their very lives against an orc pack. While Harry was happy to meet the seemingly sporadic wizard, he was not so inclined to encounter the orcs that would be following close behind him.
Suddenly a crashing through the undergrowth of the forest came to Harry's ears; here came the wizard Radagast himself, he had better steel himself for the rest of the day, it was going to prove to be one heck of a long one.
The dwarves, also hearing the din coming from outside the cave, came rushing out, weapons drawn and prepared for another fight. Oin yanked Harry and Bilbo towards the center of the Company, where it was safer for the young and more inexperienced fighters.
Harry knew nothing bad was coming as of yet, but he still didn't want to seem that nothing was all that wrong, he was already slipping in the eyes of Thorin and quite possibly Gandalf and a few of the other Company members, best go along with the act.
He threw up a tight yet ample shield around the Company, not that Radagast would hurt them, but it kept the hoax up.
"Don't strain yerself lad." came Bofur's voice beside him. "We can defend yeh alright."
Before any of them could prepare sufficiently, Radagast and his sled came busting through the bushes, screaming wildly. "THIEVES! FIRE! MURDER!"
Gandalf went up to the haggard looking wizard and greeted him warmly at first, but then pulled him off to the side and began to speak with him in private. Thorin gave Nori a signal to try and get as close as he could without alerting the pair of wizards that he was eavesdropping. Though while his attempts were impressive, they did not go unnoticed by the Grey Wizard and he was sent back to the Company with a sheepish grin on his face.
The wizards discussed what had brought Radagast to them, but then the conversation turned.
"Who is the young man with you? It is not safe to be out in the wild at such a young age." said Radagast quietly, sending fleeting looks back towards the young man speaking to the dwarves.
Gandalf sent a look over to Harry as well, a slightly guilty smile playing on his face. "Ah, that is my new...apprentice."
"Apprentice? But neither you nor I have ever taken on a student." said Radagast looking at his companion with shock filled eyes. He then looked back at the young man, this time not hiding the fact that he was doing so. "Though I can easily see why you would keep him within arm's reach."
"Indeed?" said Gandalf quirking a brow. "Why do you think so?"
"Why the stones of course." said Radagast looking back at Gandalf with a surprised look.
Gandalf blinked and turned his head towards the direction of his young ward, he could not see the faint glow of the stones at this time of the day, could Radagast see them? He was always an odd fellow...but how did he see it while he currently couldn't?
"You don't think it's him do you?" whispered Radagast excitedly.
"It is possible, there are strange goings on in this world." said Gandalf thoughtfully. "But it would be unfair to him to pin all of our hopes upon him, he is only a fifteen-year-old boy."
Radagast did a comical double take and sputtered. "Fif-Fifteen?"
Before Gandalf could respond, a howl crept through the clearing and gripped at the traveler's hearts.
"Was that... was that a wolf?" asked Bilbo fearfully. "Are there wolves out there?"
"Wolf, no, that was not a wolf..." said Bofur, his eyes wide.
"That was..." said Harry looking around swiftly. "A warg."
Then he saw it, it was creeping it's way downward towards the dwarves and was about to pounce on poor Bofur. He threw a protective shield around the dwarves and with a wave of his hand brought a thick stalagmite shooting up from the ground directly beneath the warg. The beast died instantly from being impaled through its chest.
Suddenly, two more came bounding down the small hills and with the combined efforts of Kili, Dwalin, Gloin and Thorin, they were brought down before anyone could be injured.
"Warg scouts, which means an orc pack is not far behind." growled Thorin.
"Orc pack?" said Bilbo stunned
While Gandalf turned towards Thorin and berated him with questions on his discretion, Harry looked around and noticed Will-O-Wisp coming down swiftly with Ori and Dori close behind. "The ponies, they've bolted!" called Ori.
"One horse will not bear us all." said Dwalin looking at Will-O-Wisp.
"She tried to keep them all close, but they all panicked." said Dori, "I had never seen a horse try and wrangle its own kind before."
"Now's not the time to be impressed." said Dwalin sourly.
Hedwig came fluttering down to where Harry was and landed on his shoulder, hooting loudly.
"Think she's warning us that there are more on the way, we'll need to get going...now." said Harry.
"We'll be run down; we can't best an orc pack in a foot race." said Balin.
"I'll draw them off!" said Radagast and Fainas.
"No!" said the Company and Radagast looking at the young man.
"I can ride Will-O-Wisp in another direction with Mr. Radagast taking another way. They won't even think to go after a third party." said Fainas quickly.
"Absolutely not!" scolded Gandalf..
"Think about it, if I'm on horseback, I have a much better chance of getting away from anything than being on foot at this point." said Fainas.
"Hate to be the one to agree with him on this, but he has a point. I don't rightly fancy his chances being on foot when he's still recovering." said Oin. "But I would rather him not lead away anything and just stick with us."
"We don't have time to argue or debate this! I'll try and find you later." said Fainas climbing onto Will-O-Wisp's back. "Sorry, but I'm going either way, that way, all of us have a better chance of surviving this."
He turned Will-O-Wisp around to go in the direction they had come in earlier that day when Gandalf stopped him.
"Wait Fainas, take this map. Meet us here when it is safe." said Gandalf pointing to a valley on the map. "Don't do anything rash, protect yourself and only yourself." he added firmly.
Fainas said nothing and took off with Radagast going in the opposite direction.
"I don't like this." said Dori watching Fainas gallop away. "I don't like this at all."
"None of us do, but with some luck, Radagast and his rabbits will draw off more of them and Fainas can get away as free as a bird." said Balin. "With those shields of his, he should be fine."
"Ah, fellows..." said Fili uncertainly. They all turned towards the Durin Prince and looked to where he was standing. Fili tossed a rock lightly into the air and when it came back down, it bounced off of something unseen about three feet above them. "He left us a shield."
"Taller than me or not, I'm going to take that boy over my knee when I see him!" growled Thorin darkly.
"Come, we must hurry." said Gandalf leading the dwarves away from the clearing that they were currently standing in.
Harry galloped through the open plains, doing his best to lead the orc pack that trailed after him far away from the dwarves. They were not interested in him in the slightest so it took a little convincing on his part to get them to take on the chase. Harry had used the jade stone to take possession of a few of their blades and have them attack their owners. The remaining orcs had seen this and took after him, either for some revenge on their comrades, or just something to keep them occupied.
He was not above killing a few when he had the chance and took every opportunity that he could get his hands on. While he had six or so orc riders after him to start with, their numbers soon dwindled down to none by the time the afternoon had come around. He could sense that the bubble surrounding the Company was drawing closer to where he was. He didn't think he was getting close to where Gandalf was leading the Company, but he supposed riding around haphazardly and whacking orc and warg bodies was drawing him closer to his friends than he intended.
He spurred Wil-O-Wisp onward towards where the dwarves were. He wasn't all that confident he could remember the way to Rivendell and he couldn't even begin to hope to read this map that was in his pack. If he had been left to his own devices the first time he had come to Middle Earth, he would have been hopelessly lost, it didn't help that Harry couldn't read elvish, which is what this map was written in. He wasn't willing to tell the dwarves that he was partially bluffing when it came to following them by remembering the map. He could follow the map, but it would have include some help from one of the stones.
He heard a screeching sound that drew his attention, a cry of pain. Thankfully that wasn't one of the Company, but if he could hear it, then the rest of the orcs could and were going to be drawn to it. Using the Beryl stone, he could see clear out in the distance he could still see Radagast going around with his sled of rabbits, but the orcs were slowly pulling off him and out to chase down whatever caused that cry.
They were now aware of the dwarves nearby. Harry would have to hurry if he wanted to do more help than what he was already doing.
He and Will-O-Wisp galloped faster until they came to where the Company was surrounded by a dozen or so orc riders. They leaped off the stone they were standing on and down onto the grass in the middle of the orc pack circle.
"FAINAS!" shouted the Company.
Harry drew his sword once again and charged the warg riders.
"No you fool!" shouted Dwalin. "You'll be killed!"
Harry, mentally using the opal (disregarding what the dwarves saw at this point or not), rushed at the orc and with a mighty swing of his sword sliced the orc's head clean off before it could even raise its own weapon.
Dori tried to run towards the lad and bring him closer to the rest of the Company when a staggering sight came to him. There was a bright shimmering light of soft rainbow speckles in the air. He moved his hand to shield his eyes but found them to move with such slow speed that he was almost convinced that he was swimming on dry land.
He looked over at Fainas and saw that he himself was moving at such an alarming speed that he was sure was physically impossible. His arms moved like lightning as he struck at the orcs surrounding him and Will-O-Wisp herself was even faster than that.
What sort of magic was this?
"Go, Dori! Go!" shouted Harry as he turned towards Dori to look down at him.
Dori gazed at the lad, his mind stunned.
With a gesture, Fainas pushed back Dori with a blast of wind, knocking him back to his little brothers.
"Come on!" said Ori pulling Dori along. "Fainas!"
"Will-O-Wisp can't go down there, go ahead, I'll hold them off." shouted Fainas.
"Get over here now!" shouted Thorin as he shoved the last of the dwarves down the hole.
Once again, Fainas sent a blast of wind back. Thorin was expecting it and dug his feet into the rocks. What he was not expecting was Fainas to manipulate the stones around him and send him sprawling down the hole, accidentally twisting the dwarf king's ankle.
"Arrgh! Fainas!" shouted the Dwarf King towards the opening above him.
They heard a new sound coming towards their hiding place, the galloping of more hooves, more screeches and the whinnying of a horse.
"Fainas!" shouted Gandalf.
But Fainas did not reply, the only thing that was sent in lieu of any response was the body of an orc sent tumbling down, a feathered arrow lodged in its head.
Dwalin helped Thorin to his feet and they both looked down at the arrow sticking out of the orc's skull. Thorin yanked it out and looked at the feathers and shaft.
"Elves." muttered Thorin, tossing the arrow aside.
"So Fainas was captured by the elves?" said Fili swiftly, drawing one of his many blades.
"If the elves have him, then they have not captured him, but saved him." said Gandalf shortly. "They will take him to Rivendell where he will be safe, far safer than gallivanting across the plains by himself."
"This tunnel keeps going, do we follow it?' came Nori's voice.
"Follow it, of course!" said Bofur after watching Kili and Ori try and scale the wall before them, back to where Fainas was last seen. "We cannot go any other way!"
"Do you really think Fainas is safe?" asked Bilbo quietly as he and the wizard followed the dwarves through the tunnel. Not noticing that the limping Thorin in front of him was listening. "That he's with the elves?"
"I dearly hope so, Bilbo." said Gandalf quietly. "I dearly hope so."
Thanks for reading, please review!
Question of the Chapter: What do you do to unwind from a long day at work/school/whatever?
I personally read some of my favorite fanfictions and listen to music.