Morwinyon did not technically fight when Thorin dragged her away from Fili, but she did not make it easy either, nearly overbalancing him when she managed to get her feet back under her.
He opened his mouth as if to issue an order but had to duck an orc's swing before it actually escaped. Morwinyon punched it somewhere in the vicinity of its face on instinct and Thorin ran it through, and Dwalin had gone somewhere but there were many fewer orcs now anyway.
Orvaie lay some ways away. Morwinyon would consider that later.
"Sword?" she asked.
Thorin shook his head. She supposed her knives would do. It was lucky Azog could not handle a bow, or they would probably all be dead like –
She shook her head.
An arrow shot by, taking another orc in the eye, and Kili nocked another arrow as he ran up the stairs towards Azog. Had he seen, or was he just taking the opportunity? Either way, she charged after him, ignoring Thorin's shout.
She had forgotten how dulled her knives were from climbing Smaug. She remembered when they did not cut quite as cleanly when she fought her way through the dwindling group of orcs, and when one caught on rusted chainmail and stuck for a moment. They could still kill things, she reasoned. They could still kill Azog.
She desperately wanted to kill Azog.
A flight of stairs ahead of her another orc, a large one, leapt at Kili as if from nowhere. She leapt over them where they tussled on the landing and kept running up, taking the steps two, three, sometimes four at a time, why did dwarves make their stairs so small -
There were two orcs with Azog when she finally reached the top. She used her momentum to slam into one, sending him stumbling off the edge and down below, and kicked the ankle of the other. He did not stumble, but he did step close enough that she could slash at him. Her knife skidded off rusty mail, but she brought her other hand up and into the slit in his helmet. He fell, knife in his eye, and she faced Azog.
"Hello, brat," he said, sounding amused. "Does Thorin Oakenshield now send children to do his work? Or did he not realize just how young you were?"
"No one sends me," Morwinyon retorted, stepping closer.
"I saw you, when the dwarf fell," Azog continued as if she had not said anything. "Have dwarf-elf relations come so far, since last I heard? Or was that one special?"
Morwinyon could not help but snarl at him.
He nodded slowly. "I see. Well." He held up Delu, which was when she noticed that he has discarded his own sword. "You should not have thrown this away, brat. It might have helped you."
When Morwinyon had asked Tauriel to train her as a scout she had known what it was she asked - Tauriel had even then been the best. It was not, Tauriel told her, because Tauriel was inherently better or more skilled. It was because Tauriel was a fighter, in ways perhaps even Laeriel had not been.
"When all else fails," Tauriel had told her young friend, "use your teeth, or your nails, or headbutt your enemy. Use rocks or chairs or whatever. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is more important than your goal, which in this case is you getting out of whatever fight you are in, and getting out alive."
The last bit, of course, was Tauriel's advice to Morwinyon, not how she handled herself. Morwinyon knew it. It did not mean that Morwinyon had not embraced the idea, though Tauriel probably would have wished that she had embraced the second part more.
Morwinyon's goal was Azog's death. Azog stood before her. He probably did not expect the rock she hurled at his head.
He dodged it, but had barely enough time to avoid her knife when she used the split second of distraction to get in close. The long, jagged tear in his cheek gave her some satisfaction before he twisted Delu and she ducked aside, earning a quick stab to the elbow instead of one to the throat. When Azog yanked her mother's sword back it left a rent in the chainmail shirt over her shoulder, and she felt the thin trickle of blood run down her arm.
She drove her knee into his groin. When he curled up to avoid most of the impact, she brought her knife down on his hand. If she could make him drop Delu…
But he moved, and Delu's point found its way to her calf, and she rolled away, trailing even more blood. Her leg did not want to support her when she stood, wobbling, but she did not let give way.
Azog smiled at her, Delu hanging lazily from one hand. She realized why: she was on the very edge of the tower overlook. She would not die if she fell, but it would hurt.
"I hardly have to do a thing," he said, almost wonderingly. "Tell me, was Laeriel Glingaerien truly as skilled as they say, or was it all to do with this?"
Morwinyon charged him again, but he kicked out, planting a foot solidly against her chest and shoving. She stumbled back to the edge, catching herself just before she went over. The edge crumbled, pebbles tumbling down.
Fine. Delu wanted blood. Azog wanted hers. Let him have it: she wanted Azog's, and she did not have to survive to meet her goal. If he ran her through, he would be close enough for her to do something.
"That is an interesting question for someone who cannot kill me even with it," she said.
He ignored her. "Just because you brought me Curufin's sword," he said, "I will kill you quickly."
Laeriel's sword, Morwinyon thought, but she shifted her weight so when she pulled Delu in she might not be moved off too quickly. All she needed to do was stab him in the throat.
He lunged. Morwinyon braced herself. The edge of the overlook gave up entirely, sending her plummeting even as Delu sliced.
Now the mountain decided to help, she thought furiously as she fell.
