Torture & threat

While Bilbo and Clara had fallen down the chasm, met Gollum and one of them being captured by goblins, the dwarves had not been having a very good time.

They had been brought to a large cave, larger than the one before, and summoned to meet the goblin king.

The king was a huge goblin, almost ten times the size of the smaller ones. He was fat, fatter than they had expected, and his chin hung as if as a beard down onto his chest.

"Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom?" The king squinted at them through the light of the torches and leaned forward on his throne, built by the bones of earlier prisoners. The Great Goblin, as he was so politely called by his subjects, took a step down from his throne, his massive foot crushing smaller goblins as it was set down. "Spies? Thieves? Assassins?" He walked closely to the dwarves, his terrible breath causing them to flinch as it hit them.

"Dwarves, your Malevolence", replied Grinnah, one of his closest advisers.

"Dwarves?" The Great Goblin looked thoughtfully at his prisoners, as the goblins around them pushed them further forward.

"We found them on the front porch", said Grinnah, a smug smile on his ugly little face.

"Well, do not just stand there! Search them! Every crack, every crevice." The Great Goblin made a quick gesture with the mace he held and then watched as his subjects tore at the poor dwarves, throwing their weapons into a pile before the feet of the king.

"What are you doing in these parts?" The Great Goblin watched the dwarves carefully, his eyes searching for a familiar face. "Speak!" Not a sound was, however, heard at his demand. Sighing deeply, ignoring the glares he received from the dwarves, he called out to his fellow goblins. "Well then, if they will not talk, we will make them squawk!" The gathered goblins cheered loudly as he continued. "Bring out the Mangler! Bring out the Bone Breaker!" He smiled smugly, before he turned to point at Ori. "Start with the youngest."

Ori, with a frightened look on his face, took a quick step backwards, and Dori gripped his shoulder in a protective manner. He was not going to let his little brother get hurt.

"Wait!" The call came from Thorin, whom had been in the middle of the group and not seen until now, when he started to push his way to the front of the group.

"Well, well, well, look who it is." The Great Goblin grinned at the dark-haired dwarf. "Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain." The goblin chuckled to himself and bowed exaggeratedly. "Oh, but I am forgetting. You do not have a mountain. And you are not a king. Which makes you... nobody, really." He grinned as his words caused his subjects to roar in amusement. "I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Just the head, nothing attached."The Great Goblin met Thorin's gaze as he spoke, seeing both the confusion and fright in them. "Perhaps you know of whom I speak? An old enemy of yours. A pale Orc astride a white Warg." The goblin slowed his speech as he spoke the last words, making sure they really sunk in.

"Azog the Defiler was destroyed. He was slain in battle long ago." Every part of the dwarf's body was tense, as he tried to keep himself and his voice from shaking. He could not believe what he was hearing.

"So you think his defiling days are done, do you?" The Great Goblin laughed, before stepping back and turning to a smaller goblin, seated in a basket hanging from a rope. "Send word to the pale orc. Tell him I have found his price."

As the little goblin cackled to himself and pulled a lever, swooshing out into the darkness, the Great Goblin took his place on his throne. "Grinnah, Búrzglob, I am hungry. Bring me some fish from the lake." He turned towards the two goblin, that bowed before him. "I need something to chew on while I watch the show." His small eyes turned back towards the dwarves, while the two serving goblins grabbed a torch and headed towards the dark tunnels, leading down to the destined lake.

"Now you have really blown it, Clara", she murmured to herself, as she stared out into the darkness. She was lost. More lost than she had ever been in her entire life and she knew there were no guarantee she would get out alive. "You are going to end up like that snivelling Gollum down there. Living alone, catching fish while your eyes grow ever bigger." She sighed and pushed her sword into its sheath before seating herself on the ground, her back leaned against the wall behind her.

All she had tried to do, was to find a way out, while Bilbo and Gollum had held their game of riddles. She had decided to leave right when they started, so that she could have a chance to return before they finished.

But somewhere she had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a pitch black tunnel that never seemed to end.

As there were no goblins anywhere, her sword did not shine and she did not either find anything that she could use for a torch.

"Búrzglob, can you see something?" The goblin squinted out into the darkness, as he pushed his comrade in the ribs with his elbow.

"Where?" The other goblin grunted and raised his torch higher.

"There." Grinnah pointed out into the darkness, his finger showing Búrzglob in the direction of a body.

"It is a human." Búrzglob smelled the air, as the two quickly shuffled forward. Their claws made scrapping sounds on the stones bellow their feet and therefore alerted the human on their arrival. But before she had the chance to do something, the goblins surrounded her and pressed a filthy cloth to her mouth, immediately putting her unconscious by some hidden chemical.

"Yet she is not totally human", murmured Grinnah, as he took the torch from Búrzglob and watched as the other goblin tied the girl up and hung her over his shoulder. She was lighter than he had expected. "Something is wrong with her." The two goblins started of in the direction they had come from, their earlier mission to fetch fish from the hidden lake pushed aside. They knew the king could wait with his food when he was brought yet another prisoner. He already had thirteen dwarves up there in his throne room, but a fourteenth would not hurt him much. Not when it could be very useful for their torture of the others.

"Did I not tell you to return with my fish?" The Great Goblin looked down at the two smaller goblins by his feet, his eyes narrowed.

"I am sorry, your Malevolence", hissed Grinnah, as he nodded to Búrzglob to put their prisoner down. "But we found yet another prisoner for you."

The Great Goblin looked down at the girl, still unconscious from whatever had been in the cloth. He poked at her with his staff, causing her to move and her eyes flicker open.

"And why would I be interested in a mere human", asked the king, his words now also alerting the dwarves at what was going on. "I have Thorin Oakenshield in my halls, with the pale Orc awaiting his head with a grand sum. She will be of no use for me." His large foot kicked the girl over, causing her to roll over the dirty floor in the direction of his other prisoners.

"Clara." Kili breathed out the name where he stood, in the front of the group next to his uncle. He took a step forward, as if to help her, but Fili's hand quickly pulled him back.

"We cannot put her in any more danger", his brother whispered in his ear. "As soon as he finds out she is with us, he will use her to put pressure on uncle."

"But..." Kili threw his brother a quick glance, only to see him shake his head warningly.

"You cannot do anything about it. You have no weapons, lad." Also Balin whispered quietly to him, having overheard the conversation from his spot behind them.

Miserable about the entire situation, Kili stayed back, his eyes glued to the girl on the dirty boards before them. Her eyes were open, but her look dazed and glazed, as if she was not really there yet. Whatever those goblins had done to her, they were truly going to pay for it as soon as he got his weapons back. That was for sure.

"Ah, here we have them!" The Great Goblin called out happily a moment later, his massive body flying up from his throne as he started singing and dancing a silly little dance. "Bones will be shattered, necks will be wrung! You will be beaten and battered, from racks you will be hung! You will lie down here and never be found, down in the deep of Goblin-town."

As the Great Goblin sung, dozens of his subjects carried instruments of torture towards them. While they looked rather primitive, the dwarves guessed that they would still be very painful when it actually came to it.

A sudden shriek in fear, suddenly cut through the noise and the metallic sound of a sword in its sheath, being thrown to the ground, echoed among them.

Grinnah, the goblin that had been one of the two to capture Clara, had been examining the weapons the dwarves had been carrying. He had reached Orcrist, the sword Thorin had found in the troll-hoard and it was this he had quickly thrown away. For as he had pulled the sword out a few inches from its sheath, the blue light of the elven blade had met his eyes.

The shriek had alerted the other goblins and they all, including the king, had quickly cleared a circle around it.

The Great Goblin had quickly returned to his throne and it was here he was now sitting, whimpering like a child at the sight of the sword. "I know that sword", he called, his eyes weak and shaking. "It is the Goblin-Cleaver, the Biter, the blade that sliced a thousand necks!" His subjects shrieked in fear, their eyes wide.

And then the fear passed and they started to beat the dwarves with their whips and swords. They leaped upon them, their claws tearing at their skin and clothes, their teeth biting everything their could.

Somewhere in this madness, had Grinnah reached Clara once more. The girl was slowly returning from her dazed state and she tried her best to fight of the sharp claws of the goblin.

"I am not leaving you until you have given me a little price." The goblin hissed in her ear as one of his hands gripped the braid her hair was in, tightly, and the other pulled a knife from its sheath. "Human hair are said to make nice rope. Especially such golden hair as yours." He pulled her head backwards and raised his knife, but another callfrom the Great Goblin stopped him and made Clara able to push him away.

"Slash them! Beat them! Kill them! Kill them all!" He pointed towards the dwarves, his eyes wide with anger. "Cut of his head!" The last sentence was directed towards the group of goblins that held Thorin down, and one of them quickly pulled out a knife of the same model as Grinnah's.

That was when Gandalf made his entrance. The wizard had been travelling through the Mountains at his fastest speed, the orcs ever at his heel, as he made his way towards the town of the goblins. He had known what had happened as soon as he had found the cave and the remnants of the dwarves short hours there.

Taking another way in, he had quickly travelled through the dark tunnels towards where he knew the biggest cave lay. His hands had held his staff and his own elven sword, Glamdring, shining ever brighter as he had closed in on the goblins and their prisoners.

He had seen the chaos and the poor state the dwarves were in and by a flicker of his staff, he had sent a bright wave of light through the giant cave. The wave, so bright and harsh, had thrown every goblin and dwarf to the ground, and they now slowly started to move again, looking in shock at the tall wizard whom stood before them.

"Take up arms", he called, his voice demanding and firm. "Fight. Fight!" He did not need to say that twice, for the dwarves were already quickly up at their feet, gripping their weapons.

"Are you all right?" Kili had been quick with getting to Clara, his hand gripping hers as he helped her up from the ground.

"I think so." She looked up at him, her free hand pulling her sword out of its sheath. She had been lucky the goblins had not taken hers away from her.

"He wields the Foe-Hammer, the Beater! Bright as daylight!" The Great Goblin had found Gandalf's sword with his eyes and he pointed at it, as he crawled backwards from the ongoing fight.

"Kili!" The call alerted the dark-haired dwarf and his hand flew out, catching the sword that was thrown to him.

"Come on." He swung the sword and pulled his quiver over his head, a cocky smile reaching his lips. "Let us get out of here." His hand dropped Clara's, as also she smiled and swung her sword, the edge of it cutting through a goblin as if it had been butter. She had only killed orcs at a distance before and this new meeting with killing, disgusted her. But she knew that it had to be done.

"Follow me." Gandalf called out over the battle, waving his staff at the dwarves. "Quick! Run!"

"Dago din!", Clara called, her sword cutting through yet another goblin as she ran after the wizard, her head barely registering that she spoke in Elvish. "Lacho calad! Drego morn!"

Author's note: All right, so I know that they parts are coming very often right now and if anyone doesn't like that, then I'm sorry. But I'm trying my best to finish the movie-part of it all before I leave on Friday and updates therefore come more often. I am planning for it to be at least two parts more of this thing, but depending on my mood, it can get longer and get extended to three or four. So if I'm lucky, I will be able to finish it before Friday, if not, then you will have to wait about two weeks before I can upload the last ones. But I will let you know which one it will be!

Dago din! - Kill them!
Lacho calad! Drego morn! - Flame light! Flee night! / May light flare! May darkness flee! (Personally I like the second one, which is the literal translation, better)