Chapter 37

Found

There was a whole lot of commotion after we had discovered the warg's paw print in the mud. There weren't any other tracks nearby, because the road was too hard. It was a mere stroke of luck – or bad luck, depending on your perspective – that this particular warg had left a print in one of the few muddier parts of the road.

It was an instant crisis situation, with weapons being drawn and Bilbo, Ori and I getting shoved into the middle of the group while the rest went into fighting mode, clearly expecting wargs to come jumping at us out of the many shadows. Of course we all started to feel a tad bit ridiculous when no warg was forthcoming. It felt quite anti-climax to me and I suppose that the same could be said for the others.

So when it became obvious that nothing was going to eat us right away everyone calmed down a little, but the relaxed mood was gone instantly. I suggested turning back, but was rewarded with a foul look from your father, one I am sure all of you are quite familiar with. In the end we – correction: Thorin – decided that we should press on, but all of us remained on full alert, weapons at the ready. After all, the warg had appeared to be heading east, but who was to say that it could not turn back? And who was to say that it was alone?

The atmosphere was tense and everyone was jumpy. I think that's the perfect summary of the days that followed. We had taken to moving as fast as we could. Thorin was setting the pace, effectively making sure that we all dropped at the end of the day from sheer exhaustion.

Those nights didn't get any better either. Making a fire was officially out of the question to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Instead we had two watchers out at all times – not that there was much to see in that blasted darkness of those woods – and grouped together as closely as we could, temporarily forgetting about propriety and customs. Staying alive was our main priority.

But days went by and there wasn't a warg in sight. We kept seeing the occasional paw print, but they were always at least a day old and always heading towards the east. Eventually I think we all allowed ourselves to hope that we would get out of this unscathed. And that was of course the most foolish notion of all…

Kate

Kate was starting to lose count of the days they had spent in this forest. After a while all the trees started to look the same and the days were so alike that after some time it became rather difficult to tell them apart. The mood was both glum and alert, the natural result of endless marches through this dark and depressing forest, the knowledge that there just could be an unspecified number of wargs and possibly orcs as well out there weighing heavily on all of their minds.

As a consequence there wasn't much talking and the time passed in an unpleasant silence. There hardly was any conversation and if there was talking at all, it was only about the practical matters and the word conversation was hardly an appropriate word for these curt and hurried exchanges of information. The only thing even approaching conversation was shared with Thorin and that too was mostly about the road ahead, guessing where they were now. These matters hardly mattered much since they had no book to go on and absolutely no way of knowing how far they had already advanced, but it helped to talk about it. Kate suspected they were merely keeping each other's spirits up, but that was not exactly an excessive luxury in these parts, more like a necessity of life.

It did however not mean that Dori suddenly approved of it. He was still under the impression that there was something going on between them – even if the bloody gossiping finally had stopped because of the much more pressing matters – and he kept sending glares in Thorin's direction that the dwarf either did not see or pretended not to see. Kate would not rule out the last option.

And when they would finally put Mirkwood behind them, the tongues might indeed find themselves occupied soon enough. She sometimes had discussions with Thorin that lasted till late at night. There was no shouting this time. Not only was that the best way to avoid unwanted attention, but the advisor didn't think they would have shouted even if they could have done so to their heart's content. Something had changed between them and she could not quite pinpoint when said change had occurred. But it had.

These days most of the discussions began as planning the quest, but eventually the topic shifted to either of their childhoods, family, hobbies, music. It were the things she would have talked about with friends and that was what they were now. She squashed the annoying voice that said that this was also the kind of thing one would discuss on the first few dates.

Maybe Mirkwood wasn't the place to talk about such things, but both of them felt the need for it, if only to distract themselves from the huge responsibility they were shouldering. Kate sometimes felt like an old woman because of all the burdens she was carrying around and it was not a pleasant feeling at all. This innocent chatter made her think of other things and as long as they kept their voices down the rest of the company would not wake.

Kate thought it was their eighth night in Mirkwood – give or take a day or two – that they ended up taking first watch together again. There wasn't much to see, but they were the ones to be awake for the first half of the night, keeping an ear out for trouble since eyes were no use here. The others had gone to sleep as soon as the last light had faded, getting as much rest as they could get before another tiring day of marching. Kate's body protested the notion of more marching, but her head knew that the faster they walked, the sooner they would get to the other side. And that was a welcome thought indeed.

She was lying on her bedroll, arms folded under her head, staring off into the darkness. 'You know what I noticed?'

Thorin was somewhere to her left, close by, stretched out on his own bedroll, she supposed. It was impossible to see, but when he spoke his voice sounded close to the ground, indicating that he too was lying down. 'I am assuming that you are about to tell me within the next minute, whether I want you to or not,' came the amused reply.

This side to Thorin was still new to her and it wasn't easy to deal with, not after she had gotten used to shouting at him for so long. But their shouting days were behind them now, it would seem. Thorin could still be as grumpy and uncommunicative as he had ever been, but sometimes, when he was a little relaxed, this side came out. It made him sound younger, much more carefree than he usually was and that actually was something she liked in friends. It was strange still to think of him as a friend, but she just let it go and went with it and actually found herself enjoying it.

She snorted. 'Very funny, Thorin,' she commented. 'Well, I noticed that we don't appear to be surrounded by eyes, like the book said we would be.' At first it had not occurred to her. She had been too scared out of her wits by the darkness and the undefined noises that were coming out of these woods to pay much attention to what wasn't there. It was only after a few nights that she had started to realise that there was indeed something missing.

Thorin thought about that for a moment. 'You are right,' he said eventually.

The advisor smirked in the dark. 'You are aware of how many times you said that since we entered this dreadful place, aren't you?'

Had someone told her she was teasing a dwarf king – a supposedly famous fictional dwarf king at that – some months ago she would have accused them of consuming far too much alcohol or reading far too much fanfiction. Or both. But right now it almost felt like the most natural thing on earth to be doing. She remembered thinking that fighting with this dwarf had been like trying to swim upstream in a river with a strong current, fighting all the while to achieve some progress, fighting for every small victory. Since she had decided to quit fighting, things had clearly progressed a lot. Uselessness of fighting indeed. This almost felt as natural as breathing, not that she would ever be heard to say that out loud. No doubt the rumour mill would be up and running the moment they left this place and they had given it enough food these last few days as it was.

'If I recall right, you said it just as many times about me,' Thorin countered easily.

Kate chuckled. 'You've got me there,' she admitted. Had he said that a few months, no, even a few weeks ago, then surely she would have flown off the handle. But this was not a few weeks ago, this was now and in the here and now she could joke with the king of Durin's Folk every now and then. The world must have turned upside down without her noticing somehow.

Thorin joined in with that low amused chuckle of his own. 'But you are right about the absence of eyes around the camp,' he said, tone thoughtful once more now that they were discussing the more serious matters.

'Maybe there are only animals so close to the elven path,' the advisor suggested. 'What with elves loving everything that is nature.' She had not really been able to think up something else.

'Or maybe it is because we are closer to Dol Guldur than we would have been had we taken the northern route,' Thorin offered. 'Radagast said that nothing lives and grows near that fortress anymore.'

Kate took a moment to think about that. Thorin might just have a point there. The Greenwood is sick, the brown wizard had said and the advisor could see his point. The trees were still standing, possibly even growing and alive, but it wasn't a healthy kind of growth. The leaves of the trees and bushes were of a so dark green that it was almost black, especially with the way the light was in this blasted place and all in all it was rather threatening. It was all dark and black, at night more so than it was at day and it wasn't natural.

'We aren't that near Dol Guldur, are we?' she asked, turning on her side so that she was looking at him. Or she would have looked at him if this thick blanket of darkness had not obscured her view. True to the book she could not even see her fingers if she waved them in front of her face. The dark had been unnerving the first nights, but apparently it was something one could get used to over time. It still bothered her, but it helped to know that other people were within arm's reach. And if she was in danger of forgetting, then Dori's loud snoring on her right was always a good reminder.

She frowned. Her oldest brother was less than pleased with the way Thorin and she kept seeking out each other's company and she knew why. Apparently a man and a woman could not be just friends around here or people expected that there was something more going on between them than just friendship. And telling him that nothing more than friendship was the matter here had done them no good so far. So now Dori had appointed himself as a chaperone of sorts, keeping an eye on his sister's virtue. She tried to find it annoying, but so far it was mostly amusing.

'Good point,' she admitted. 'But there are animals around here, I think. We can hear them move at night. They just don't come close to the camp. Not that you will be hearing me complain.'

She was rewarded with another chuckle. 'I would think not.'

'And we still haven't seen wargs or orcs,' she went on. 'And our provisions still seem to be sufficient as well. So far I'd say things are going swimmingly.'

Really, she wasn't going to cheer in advance, but this was a good way of keeping all of their spirits up. So far things had gone well. Thorin guessed that they were about halfway through the wood now, even though it was hard to tell for sure. The rations were strict and especially Bombur was moaning about the lack of food, but so far the rations lasted. Maybe her plundering of Beorn's pantry was going to pay off and they would be able to make it through Mirkwood with food to spare.

Thorin clearly knew what she was doing. 'We are not out of these woods yet,' he reminded her.

Kate reacted with a very unladylike snort. 'You're a little ray of sunshine, aren't you? Always the optimist around here.'

Had he still been relaxed then he might have reacted with a snort of his own. Clearly he had slipped into one of his thoughtful moods sometime between their discussion about Mirkwood and her remark about how well the quest was progressing. It was impossible to say what brought it on, one never could with Thorin Oakenshield, but once he was in such a mood, it was almost impossible to snap him out of it again.

'You have no idea how dangerous these woods are.' The tone was solemn now.

'I read about it,' she reminded him. 'I think I do know. And now that I'm here I can see it for myself. Or I would see it I it wasn't so bloody dark in here.' Somehow she couldn't help but react whenever someone said she was ignorant of one thing or another. It still reminded her too much of her own father and even when she had been able to teach herself not to fly off the handle anymore, it was still quite impossible not to try and contradict them.

Thorin sighed. 'There were stories about these woods even when I was a child,' he told her.

This made Kate frown. 'But when Radagast came to find us, he said it was a recent development, right?' Of course this was just another thing where book and movie disagreed. She should be used to it by now, even if it was confusing at times. She could never know what knowledge was the right knowledge. And it frustrated her to no end.

'Maybe it has grown worse than it was recently,' Thorin speculated. 'But these woods have been dark and threatening for nearly an age. There is a reason so few people travel by this road anymore.'

'I can see that,' Kate muttered. 'Good grief, I've almost forgotten what sunlight looks like.'

'We will see it again,' Thorin said. 'Once we get out of here.' He was silent for a little while. 'It at least proves that you are no dwarf.'

'What, because I love the sunlight?' She was quite sure the dwarf had not meant this as an insult, but to her it somehow felt like one, not that she would ever tell him so.

'No, because you cannot appreciate the dark,' came the reply.

She threw an incredulous look his way that he of course was unable to see. 'Don't tell me you've suddenly grown fond of this constant night. Last time I checked you weren't exactly at ease here either, or in Goblin-town, come to think of it.'

'It's different,' he told her with the air of someone who knows what he is talking about. 'Goblin-town was… an abomination, nothing as it should be. Erebor…' He was searching for the right words. The longing was back in his voice now. It was almost impossible for her not to hear how much he cared about his home. She could not quite understand how one could talk about one place with so much yearning, but he was absolutely genuine. She longed for home as well, but not in such a way. She just wanted to get back because she missed the people that made the place a home to her, not because of the place itself.

'Magnificent?' she offered, only the hint of a teasing tone to her voice. This meant too much to him to tease him about. 'Wondrous, beautiful.'

'All of those,' Thorin confirmed. 'And more, much more. Wait until you see it for yourself.'

She nodded, remembering just a second too late that Thorin of course could not see that. 'I will,' she said. And she was curious. The Lonely Mountain truly must be something of a wonder to behold to have one of the most taciturn men in the world almost bursting into song at the very mention of it. 'Let's just hope the dragon didn't leave the place in complete disarray, shall we?' She tried to go for a lighter tone. 'For one reason or another I don't think he's the type to do much housekeeping duties.'

The mental picture of a dragon scrubbing the floors of Erebor with a cloth and bucket and the optional apron tied in front of him did the trick of snapping Thorin out of whatever wistful mood he had been sliding into. The deep chuckle was back now. 'At least he would not have much trouble with getting the fire in the hearths going,' he commented dryly, almost sending Kate into fits of very girly giggles that would surely wake everyone in the camp if she allowed them to cross her lips.

Thorin had a very dry sense of humour from time to time, mostly when she least expected it. The first time she remembered him doing it was when they were in the middle of a rescue mission, trying to distract the trolls so that their companions could get away. She didn't quite recall how it happened, but Thorin had startled her and she had snapped at him that he had almost scared her to death, to which Thorin casually remarked that such an event would surely save the trolls the trouble.

'Cooking should not present much of a problem either,' she chimed in, going with the completely ridiculous things they were currently thinking up. 'Though he probably should take care not to burn his food.' It was only when no laughter was forthcoming that she realised what a dragon liked to eat for supper and that it was quite likely that he had consumed many of the dwarves of Erebor in such a fashion the day he took the Lonely Mountain. Her joke suddenly wasn't funny at all, especially when she realised that Thorin's own mother had died that day. 'Oh, Thorin, I'm sorry!' she blurted out, feeling like banging her head against a wall for having been so downright stupid. 'That was tactless of me. I didn't think. Really, I did not mean it.'

Ugh, why was her mouth always faster than her brain? How could she have been so stupid as to forget the crimes Smaug had committed that day? She had known he had destroyed an entire town, that he had killed countless men and dwarves alike on the day the Mountain was taken and Dale was turned to ash. It was the very reason why they were on this quest in the first place, but of course she had to try to be funny and forget all about what had happened before, probably re-opening old wounds. She had seen the grief in Thorin's eyes when he had spoken about his mother. She really ought to have known better.

The silence remained. 'Thorin?' Oh, dear, she had really done it this time, hadn't she? Had she said this at the beginning of the journey, she could probably not have cared less about Thorin's feelings regarding this subject, but they were friends now and friends didn't do things like this, didn't say things like this. It just wasn't done. 'Thorin, I didn't mean it!' she hissed at him, angry because he had not at all given her an answer, had not even acknowledged her apology. 'Oh, come on, don't give me the cold shoulder, will you?'

She was a little surprised when she suddenly felt his hand grab her wrist. 'Silent, woman,' came the hissed reply. Yes, he was definitely mad at her. Well done, girl, very well done indeed.

'I told you…' The rest of her reply was muffled by Thorin's other hand that clasped over her mouth with such accuracy as if he had been able to see it. What the hell was he doing?

'Silence,' he repeated, hushed this time. He must have moved closer somehow, because she could feel his breath on her face as he spoke.

She had no idea what was going on, but this was getting a little too intimate and threatening for her liking. He had both his hands on her and was probably whole lot closer than was considered appropriate. Dori would freak out if he saw it and this time Kate could not help but agree. There was something threatening about this treatment, even more so because it was dark and she still couldn't see a single thing, so that she had to rely on her other senses.

She took a deep breath through her nose, which wasn't exactly easy since Thorin's large hand had the annoying tendency to cover her nose as well, and then bit down on his hand, hard. The dwarf king let go instantly. She thought it was more of shock than of pain, since he seemed to be capable to keep running even with cracked ribs, but she had the surprise on her side this time.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she hissed as softly as she could, hoping that this would stop him from blocking her air supply all over again. 'Let me go, you big oaf. Dori's going to have your head for this if he finds out.' Not that her brother was about to find out, because he was still snoring the night away, but it was the idea that counted, wasn't it?

'Quiet,' the king growled. This was definitely a command, not a question and she obeyed almost on instinct. There was some wariness in Thorin's voice and she didn't think it was directed at her. Something in their environment must have triggered this behaviour. And that notion made her give up on her resistance right away. It meant that something was wrong, very wrong, or he would have taken the time to ask her nicely. 'Don't you hear?' he asked, softer this time, so soft she could hardly make out the words.

'Hear what?' she whispered.

'Listen,' he ordered.

She did. And at first there was nothing, nothing at all. There were the usual sounds of Mirkwood. They were disturbing in and out of themselves, but she had learned to ignore them. It was either that or lose her sanity to complete paranoia and she was not ready for that.

But there was something else as well. There was talking, talking in a tongue she could not understand. At first she stupidly believed that the elves must have found them after all, only to realise that elves didn't grumble like that, nor would they speak a language such as the one they were hearing now. And that left only one frightening possibility. Orcs.

Thorin

The dark was unnerving. He would never admit this when called on, but it was. It was like he had said to Kate, the deep halls of Erebor were so different from the threatening dark of Mirkwood and Goblin-town, not to mention the fact that Erebor was usually bathed in the light of torches. Dwarves could see reasonably well in the dark, but even his race needed some source of light, no matter how small, to see by. And there was no such source of light in this cursed forest.

But the talking helped, helped him to distract his thoughts from the seemingly endless night of Mirkwood, not that he would soon be heard to say that within anyone's hearing range. It helped him to relax and the relaxing helped him in falling off to sleep. And Mahal knew he needed his rest. Dwarves could handle much, but even they were affected by long marches, too little food and too little rest. The burglar seemed to handle it all rather well, even if he too did grumble about the lack of six or seven meals a day – or however many times a hobbit usually had a meal – and the long marches. For someone who was apparently used to go everywhere he went on foot, he was handling this rather badly.

The advisor wasn't at ease here either, but she managed so far. Thorin knew that her feet were sometimes aching, not because she said so, but because he could see it in the way she moved. But so far she had not been heard to utter one single complaint. It was as if she had decided now that she was truly part of the quest she had no longer a right to voice her problems. It didn't stop the company from noticing them anyway. Dori and Kíli – who had been remarking how skinny Kate was every other day since the beginning of the quest, getting on Kate's nerves a lot with that – had been seen to feed her from her own rations. Kate of course was not blind either and would slip it back to its rightful owners if she got as much as half a chance and if she didn't get a chance, it was deposited with either Ori or Bombur. It was an interesting redistribution of food and even more so because Kate and Thorin appeared to be the only ones to be fully aware of it.

He suspected that she had done it again last night, because the only sound coming from Bombur at the moment was his snoring and not the loud protests of his stomach. The forest was silent, or as silent as it ever would be, and that suited Thorin just fine. He had first watch with the advisor and for some reason they had ended up joking about Smaug's lack of skills in running a household. It was almost impossible for him to think of how they had ended up at a certain point of conversation in hindsight, but he found he enjoyed this. It also had the added bonus that imagining the dragon slaving away to make the Mountain clean distracted him from a whole bunch of problems that would demand his attention as soon as it would be light again.

'At least he would not have much trouble with getting the fire in the hearths going,' he remarked. No, breathing fire was one thing that did come easy to the fire drake.

To his right he could hear Kate trying and failing to stifle her laughter. But she was not the only one making a sound. Somewhere off in the distance he could hear other voices too. Or at least he thought it were voices. They were far away, hardly audible at all. It could just be the sound of animals in the forest, but for some reason that did not sound at all like a reasonable explanation.

'Cooking should not present much of a problem either, though he probably should take care not to burn his food,' Kate quipped. She obviously hadn't heard anything at all or she would have held her tongue.

And the joke was hardly funny at all. Thorin would not have laughed at it in normal circumstances. He might even have snapped at her, given her a tongue-lashing that she would not forget in a hurry for not remembering that a lot of Thorin's people had died in Smaug's terrible fire. As it was, it hardly registered in his mind now.

He strained his ears, trying to hear anything, blocking out Kate's instant apologies as she realised what it was that she had actually said. Well, it was good to know that she had come to see that her actions just now had not been what she would call a smart move, but it was not his main priority at the moment. It was much more important to find out if they had indeed been found out. He hoped not, of course he hoped not. They had lasted for more than a week in here without being discovered and part of him had started to hope that they would pass unnoticed by anyone. That hope was about to be stamped into the ground.

'Nothing but stinking squirrel for five days!' a voice complained rather loudly. 'How often do we need to tell the commander that there isn't any decent meat in here?'

Thorin's heart stopped, or at least it was in danger of stopping when he realised that it was the orcs' language he was hearing. He had suspected that there may be elves coming their way – it was their forest after all – but this changed things. Yes, he had known that there were orcs travelling the Men-i-Naugrim as well, but all the tracks they had found so far had pointed east and it was obvious that they were travelling faster than the company, because every paw print they found was a little older than the one they had found before. He had honestly come to believe that whatever party was taking this road had business in the east, and was not truly searching for them at all.

But this party – consisting of at least two orcs, taken into account that the talking one was complaining to someone – was probably not hunting for them either. By the sounds of it this was a small hunting party, tasked with providing meat for a larger unit. Thorin had dealt with enough of that foul race to know a little of how they functioned. But to them dwarf would still make for a nice bit of meat and the dwarf king was not at all planning on being turned into an orc's dinner, not at all.

Kate was still apologising and if she went on like that, she would certainly alert the approaching orcs to their presence. 'Silence, woman!' he hissed impatiently. Had she truly not heard?

The advisor was trying once again to make herself heard, ignoring his command entirely, forcing him to repeat it, to absolutely no avail. He had already taken her wrist in one hand to get her attention, but now he found himself forced to clasp his other hand over her mouth to force her to shut up. Ten to one she did not like it and sent him a glare that he fortunately could not see right now, but her mood was of no importance to him.

He was about to explain to her what was going on when she distracted him and sunk her teeth into the hand he still held over her mouth. He cursed under his breath and moved the hand away. It didn't really hurt much, but it was a rather stinging sensation and a little unpleasant.

And she was furious, no doubt about that. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she hissed. She sounded a little like an angry snake when she spoke like that. 'Let me go, you big oaf! Dori's going to have your head for this if he finds out.'

He wanted to snap at her to sort out her priorities, but that would doubtlessly land them in an argument they could really do without right now. Instead he ordered her to listen. At first she did not seem willing to obey, too furious about what she certainly thought of as his unfair treatment, but eventually she went still and quiet and she listened.

'Well, if you hadn't been so stupid as to scare off that deer we saw yesterday, we would have had meat now!' another voice snapped. 'And then we would have been long back to the group by now, so don't you dare start blaming me!'

'You're blaming me then?' the first voice demanded, full of righteous indignity.

Kate had gone rigid beside him. He could feel it since he still had her arm within his grasp. Thorin could feel her pulse underneath his hand and it had sped up the moment she realised what was going on. Even if she could not understand the language the orcs were using, she still understood that they were coming their direction and they could not see a thing, nothing at all.

'Wake the others,' he told her. 'Do it now.'

This command snapped them both out of the shock. Kate turned to Dori to shake him awake and Thorin turned left to wake Fíli. It was a system they had worked out after the first night. They could not make any light and shouting was not advisable either, so they needed a system which allowed them to wake quickly and quietly in case of an emergency. So now they slept in a circle and if there was danger they would each wake the person next to them until everyone was awake.

And it helped to have a routine, some sort of plan, even if it wasn't much of a plan. It still was something to fall back on and hopefully the orcs had not yet heard them. So far they had been rather quiet and the orcs were still busy trying to attach the blame for the failed hunt to one another, which gave them the opportunity to wake. Their enemies weren't moving fast, Thorin could tell. He didn't know if they were on foot or riding a warg yet, but either way they would not be able to move too fast in this darkness, lest they collided with one of the many trees or low branches. That might just give them what they needed to get ready for an attack.

'Orcs,' Dwalin's voice spat somewhere on the other side of the circle, summarising the problem rather effectively.

'Possibly two, not certain about the presence of wargs.' Thorin quickly filled in the rest of the blanks. 'Get to the side of the road, take all the packs with you. Do not stray into the forest, whatever you do.' He felt like he was echoing Gandalf and Beorn at the moment, but that hardly mattered now. What mattered was that they needed to come out of this adventure alive. 'Go, do it now!' he urged them.

He got up, grabbed his belongings with one hand and Kate with the other, after which he dragged both to the edge of the forest. He had forced himself to remember where that was, so he could easily guide them there now. Close by he could hear his companions do the same.

It was easy to tell when they had reached the side of the road. It was partially overgrown with plants that Thorin did not really want to know about what they were and it was easy to trip over them and land face first in the nearby bushes. He knew that if he really wanted to escape the orcs' notion, they should move away from the road entirely, but Gandalf's warning never to leave the path was too present in his mind to ignore. The wizard had given that warning for a reason and he also remembered what had happened in Kate's book when the company had left the relative safety of the path. He could not risk that.

'Duck,' he ordered the advisor, but several others who had chosen to wait it out on this side of the road did the same. Thorin followed his own advice and knelt down between Kate and someone else. In the dark it was impossible for them to determine who was where. If they did not talk one did not know who it even was that was sitting not half a metre away.

'Next time find a better way to shut me up, will you?' Kate hissed. She was angry, but quite possibly mostly scared if his experience with her was anything to go by. It was her way to try and think about other things rather than the dangerous matter at hand.

'Next time I will just let you go ahead and let you alert every orc in Mirkwood to our presence,' he shot back, finding himself unable to let it go, in spite of the fact that there were still orcs approaching and both of them should be keeping quiet. 'Be silent now, woman.'

He didn't need to hear her reply to feel the indignity radiating off her at being called woman, what she seemed to take as an insult, and although it wasn't exactly as bad as that, it wasn't a compliment either, so maybe she did have some point with it.

But it didn't matter now. What did matter was the orcs that came closer. It was hard to see anything in this wretched darkness, but when the light of torches found its way to where they were hiding, it was hard to miss. Thorin's eyes weren't used to light so bright and strong as that, not after more than a week in this damp forest without a fire and his first reaction was to blink until he was used to it. But he needed to be alert now and that would not do any of them any good.

The lights were dancing in a way that suggested they were carried by people who were sitting on a warg. They were at approximately the right height for that as well. And this was bad news. If it had been only orcs then they might have just passed them by, but with wargs it was another matter entirely. They would smell them out no matter what.

Their only luck was that there only seemed to be just the two orcs and their wargs and they were a company of fifteen. They had the upper hand and hopefully the element of surprise if they acted quickly. It would be difficult with so little light to go on, but not impossible. They had been given bows and arrows by Beorn, even if only half of them would be able to use them. Thorin knew that Dori and Fíli were what Kate called an absolute walking disaster zone when given a bow and the same could be said about at least six or seven others.

He nudged the person next to him. 'Yes?' He was in luck today. It was Kíli who responded.

'There are two wargs, two orcs,' he reported, although it was likely that his youngest sister-son had already worked that out for himself. 'Shoot the wargs first.'

'Aye,' was the simple reply. The lad may be young still, but he was good with the bow and he would see to it that no warg would come any closer than necessary. Thorin would readily admit that he had had his doubts about taking both Fíli and Kíli with him, but they had proven themselves many times over already. He knew he could rely on them. If only they weren't so prone to jump into the danger headfirst from time to time. The dwarf was quite sure some of his grey hairs were the direct consequence of their youthful enthusiasm.

The orcs were closer now and Thorin could see them by the light of their torches. One of them was rather large and he was obviously the one in charge, as seemed to be the way of the orcs. The other was smaller and he was the one who was still whining about the lack of decent food, that was not readily available in this forest, as any member of the company could tell them. They were a long way from Mr Baggins's pantry.

The wargs they were riding were both grey and just as ugly as their riders. The biggest one, the mount of the largest orc, had its nose almost pressed to the ground. It would not be long now before it would be able to pick up their scent; they were nearing the campsite that was entirely abandoned now, but everyone with eyes in their head could see that a large group had camped here not that long ago, even without the smell of dwarf all over the place.

Thorin let go of Kate's arm and gripped his sword with both hands, ready to storm out and attack these intruders at a moment's notice. He would have told Kate to stay where she was, had he not thought he would give away their location by speaking out loud. Hopefully she would be sensible enough to get the message without someone needing to spell it out to her.

The largest warg stopped and started growling, effectively distracting the orcs from their discussion. 'What's going on?' the smallest orc asked, sounding a little annoyed. 'Hungry again, stupid beast?'

'Kíli, now!' Thorin hissed.

Kíli's arrow hit the largest warg right in the eye, felling it before it had even the chance to stir up any more trouble. Its rider was thrown over its neck and onto the forest floor, landing with a loud groan. Kíli had an arrow in the other warg's neck before that beast even got the chance to react. By the light of the torches Thorin could see the archer vaguely, just enough to make out the complete concentration and determination with which he fired those arrows. This was no longer a child that knew nothing of the world, as Thorin had accused him of several months ago. He had grown up, all the younger members of the company had, and for some reason it made him feel sad, like he had lost something extremely valuable.

But this was not the time to ponder such things. They were still in danger. One of the wargs was dead, the other probably close to following. It was howling in agony and anger, thrashing wildly to get away from the pain the arrow caused. Kíli quickly fired another arrow and this one hit the beast in the eye, cutting off the loud howling rather abruptly.

This only left the two orcs and that they could deal with. The smallest was still struggling to his feet, but the other was already moving, ready to attack, and Thorin was not going to wait for him to assault them. This time the fight would go on their terms.

He practically launched himself out of the bushes and onto the middle of the road again, Orcrist drawn. He left his shield with Kate so that he could have both hands available to swing the sword around. He could hear some of his other companions moving now as well, but the voices sounded as if they came from a distance. Maybe it was because they were not important.

The only thing that truly mattered now was that he put an end to these monsters before they could run back to whatever master they served to report a group of dwarves moving over the Men-i-Naugrim. That was a risk they could not take and it was that exact thought that kept Thorin going. He had failed to protect his men so far, had always needed the help of others to get them out of a tight spot again, but not anymore. He could do this, had to do this, if only to prove to himself that he was worthy to be even called the leader of this company.

Dwalin was at his right, Balin at his left, the way he liked it. Fíli and Kíli were not far behind. The big orc did not laugh as Azog had done, but he was not afraid of them either. Nevertheless his attempts to defend himself against an entire company of dwarves proved rather fruitless. It didn't take them long to get the monster down and somehow it felt like a relief to the dwarf king to know that he had been the one to deal the killing blow.

'It was a hunting party,' Thorin explained to his men. He was quite sure Balin understood the language as well and the same was true for Dwalin, although to a lesser extent, but the rest must be fearing that they were Azog's scouts or something worse.

The orcs had dropped the torches, but they had remained alight, bathing the road and its occupants in a rather spooky light. Along with the three corpses on the floor it made for an altogether grim scene.

It was only then that Thorin and most of the others realised they were a corpse short. The smallest orc had gotten away.

From Thorin's notes: How in Durin's name have we been able to miss that one?

Once again, thank you all for reading. It really means a lot. Next time decisions need to be made. In the meantime, reviews are still very welcome. Your opinion really matters to me.