!Warning: Spider Chapter!
Chapter 18
Flies and Spiders
Bilbo woke with an unpleasant start.
She had been having such a lovely dream of Bag End. Her father had been well and she had her dwarves, her favourite cousins and closest of friends all around for afternoon tea. It had been turning into such a lovely gathering too, when something long and hairy brushed against her hand – which she had thrown out and away from her body during her slumber – jerking her away from her pleasant dream and causing her to blink wildly in the darkness.
Something was moving above her.
And she could hear those awful voices again too. She couldn't distinguish what was being said, for it was not a language that she knew – nor was it one she would ever care to learn for the mere sound of it was evil – but it was all around her, speaking in whispers and clicks.
Another moment and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see large, bulbous shapes moving about the company's camp, and far worse, she could see hundreds of glowing eyes.
So Bilbo, being the sensible hobbit lass that she was, opened her mouth and screamed.
No words, she simply screamed with all the power of one who possessed a rather impressive vocal range. It was loud, it was shrill and it woke every single member of the company who had not yet been stung and started to be pulled away by the massive spiders.
And yes, it was spiders; Bilbo could make out the eight legs on each horrid bulbous shape as she scrambled madly away from the one who had just tried to sting her to shut her up – in an instant.
The next few moments were filled with a great deal of shouting and cries; of fury, of confusion, shock and eventually pain as one by one the company was stung and pulled away until only Bilbo was left standing and only because of the funny little ring that now sat upon her finger.
The spiders were quite frustrated that they could not find the screamer who had alerted their prey to them – and yes, for some reason, the moment Bilbo had slipped her funny ring on, she suddenly could understand the awful speech of the spiders – but after a time, they grew not to care, happy with their catch and Bilbo watched with ever growing horror as the spiders wrapped up the dwarves in webbing before pulling them away.
Breathing erratically, she gave chase the best she could after the spiders who were stealing away her friends.
It was not easy task; the spiders – even pulling away at dead weight dwarves – were much faster than she, their eight legs far more suited to clambering over roots and fallen trees, scuttling across webbing. But she did her best, and though she fell a far way behind the spiders, luck (and she had been born with a good share of it, as she was growing to learn) was on her side and she was able to find her company, wrapped up tight in web bundles as the spiders strung them among the tree canopy by great ropes of webbing.
Biting down upon her lower lip, she took great care in counting to make sure she had located all the dwarves. Some, the ones who appeared to be still struggling and needed more attention from the spiders, were strung up separately, a little ways off from the bundles that were still.
The bundle who seemed to be getting the most attention, the one that appeared to be putting up the most fight was also the largest, leading Bilbo to believe that it was Bombur, and that he had finally woken from his enchanted slumber into a nightmare. She was certain she could hear his muffled screams even from the forest floor.
"Ahh!" She heard one spider exclaim as she started climbing up the tree Bombur was strung from, "The meat's alive and kicking!"
"Kill them, kill them now. Let us feast."
Bilbo shuddered as a chorus of 'Feast! Feast' rang out around the tree tops.
She hesitated for a moment as she stood atop of the wide tree branch Bombur was hanging from, her head turning left and right, trying to think. She needed to distract the spiders, long enough to free the company and get away.
The branch she stood upon was littered with the bones of creatures who had long perished to the spiders. With a sick stomach, she picked up the biggest bone available to her and threw it as hard as she could, listening with satisfaction as it made a series of loud clanking noises as it hit tree branches and trunks before finally falling to the ground below.
For a long moment, silence reigned before there was almost an explosion of activity around her from the spiders who were excited over the prospect of gathering more food.
"What is it? What is it? Kill it! Feast! Feast!"
She duck low onto the branch as the spiders scuttled excitedly past her, chasing after imaginary prey.
She very nearly breathed a sigh of relief, only to stop when she saw that one spider still remained, circling Bombur's still struggling bundle.
"Fat and juicy." The Spider cheered to its self as Bilbo crept closer along the branch, "Just a little taste."
Bilbo did not have to reach far, not with her little blade, to stab the spider in one its many horrible eyes.
The scream of pain and outrage was horrific and shrill.
"It stings! Stings! Curses! Where is it? Where is it?" The Spider shrieked as Bilbo thrust her sword again into its terrible head before it curled its awful legs beneath itself and fell, quite dead to the forest floor below.
Bilbo stared for a moment after the spider, before looking at her little blade.
"Sting." She said softly as she cleaned off the black blood from her blade upon her already ruined red coat, "That's a good name." She gave the dead spider below a sharp nod. "Sting."
She moved to Bombur's side quickly. He was still struggling, bless him and she very nearly got knocked off of the branch in her attempt to help him.
"Bombur!" She snapped, "Stop moving this instant. It is me, Bilbo. I'm trying to help you."
The dear fellow settled some after hearing her voice and with great care she cut him free from the webbing and helped him onto her branch.
"Bilbo?" Bombur looked at her in confusion, almost a little frighten, "Where…"
Bilbo for a moment was bewildered by his confusion, before remembering that she was wearing her magic ring and quite invisible to all.
"I will explain later." She cut him off hurriedly, "right now we must free the others. We do not have a great deal of time before the spiders come back."
"I do not know if I will be of much help to you." Bombur cried, "These branches will not hold my weight for long."
"No," Bilbo agreed, as she listened to the creak of the branch that they sat upon currently, "climb down to the forest floor." She told him. "I shall cut down the others; you shall help them out of the webbing." She bit her lip as she looked down at the forest floor, some distance away. "Hopefully the drop will not hurt them."
"I will catch them best I can." Bombur reassured her and with that he was half climbing, half falling down to the forest floor, while Bilbo went to the next struggling bundles, Dwalin, Fili and Thorin.
Cutting down Dwalin and Fili was simple enough, but Thorin it turned out to be more difficult. He was a quite a distance away from the others, and when she cut him down, instead of landing on mulchy leaves, he landed with an awful thud onto an outcrop of sharp rocks.
"Oh…" Bilbo squeaked with horror, when Thorin's struggling form suddenly went still the moment he hit the rock below. Oh by the green lady, she had killed him!
"Oh, oh no." She scampered down the tree and ran to his side, "Oh no! Please, please don't be dead. Please, please, please don't be dead!" She tore at the webbing from his face.
"I resent that you believe a simple fall from a tree would be my demise." Thorin wonderful deep voice growled, though he sounded more than a little winded.
"Oh, thank goodness." She beamed down at him and then without thinking, she hugged him. Only for a brief moment, she shot away from him with a squeak of embarrassment when she became aware of what she had done.
"Sorry." She squeaked when she saw his perplexed expression. She was taken somewhat back when his next words were;
"Where are you?"
"Oh, yes, sorry." She pulled the ring from her finger. "Here I am."
Thorin stared at her for a moment or two, before giving a small shake of his head.
"Is this a previously unknown talent of hobbits? To turn invisible? If so, I can think of several occasions when its use would have been recommended and yet, it was not utilised?"
"Oh… it's a rather, um, recent skill I've acquired. Well, not so much a skill as, um…" she ran a hand through her sweaty curls, feeling nervous and panicked and she was certain she could hear the sounds of spiders returning.
"Explain later." Thorin ordered, as he pulled at the rest of the webbing from his body, struggling to his feet with help from his great sword and Bilbo. "First we must deal with…" He glared angrily at the returning spiders and the still hanging bundles of their company.
"Bombur, Fili and Dwalin are free." She told him, and he nodded. Taking a deep breath, Bilbo continued, as an idea formulated in her head, "I think I would be of better use as a distraction."
"What do you mean?" Thorin demanded.
Bilbo simply gave him her best reassuring grin before slipping on her ring and she turned invisible causing the great and mighty dwarf king to jump.
"I shall go and be a distraction while you lot rescue the others." She told him as she all but shoved him in the direction Bombur, Fili and Dwalin were in, hiding from the spiders and probably wondering where she was and why she was taking so long with cutting down the rest of the company.
"Bilbo…" Thorin said, his hand reaching out as if he hoped to catch her.
"It will be fine. I will buy you time to save the others. Trust me." She tried not to plead, but she knew she was still seen as she a burden to Thorin and while this plan of hers did not need his trust in it at all for it to work, it would be just nice to know that he did in fact trust her.
"I do." Thorin said without a moment's hesitation, "I do trust you. Go, and stay safe. We will free the others."
"See you soon." And then she dashed off into the forest, throwing branches and stones at trees and webbing, spiders madly chasing after her while Thorin organised Fili to climb up and cut down their still trapped companions.
All around her she could hear them, their curiosity, anger and excitement. They chattered and clicked as they tried to locate her as she threw more stones and branches at them or their webs. And as she threw rocks and sticks, dancing as she was among the trees, she started to sing a song that she knew would infuriate them while also amusing her, boosting her spirits as she tried to accomplish this terrifying task that she had set herself.
Old fat spider spinning in a tree!
Old fat spider can't see me!
Attercop! Attercop
Won't you stop,
Stop your spinning and look for me?
It wasn't the best tune she had ever come up with, but she was making it up on the spot in a rather stressful situation. And it was doing the job of angering and distracting the spiders away from her companions rather well.
Maybe a little too well, in fact, for the spiders, now very angry with being insulted as they were in her song, were moving quickly and Bilbo was just barely able to dash out of reach of them. It was terrifying, but she was determined.
Here am I, naughty little fly;
You are fat and lazy
You cannot trap me, though you try;
In your cobwebs crazy.
She jumped out of the way of spider who rushed her, shrieking in outrage as it did so. They were truly furious now and Bilbo knew she needed to be very careful so as not to become boxed into a corner, for she maybe invisible, but that would be of little use to her if she became trapped in too small an area and the spiders were able to find her via touch.
She ducked down low underneath the belly of a furious spider and started creepy back as quietly as possible towards the sounds of the company. They were calling for her to come back, and luring the spiders back to them too with their racket, but they were all free from the sounds of it, maybe a little worse for wear, but still ready and able to fight the spiders now that they were aware of their existence and able to see in the dim forest light.
"Bilbo!?"
"Coming. Coming." Bilbo whispered to herself as she ran silently back to them.
She frowned when she heard noises that were different to those of the dwarves fighting and the spiders biting.
She tripped and fell forward when an elf landed gracefully in front of her and slew a spider Bilbo had only just seen coming towards her at the last moment.
Bilbo's mouth dropped as the elf killed the spider neatly with their blade before they were leaping off, killing two more spiders with a single arrow that they shot from their bow.
And with that Bilbo found herself witnessing a three way battle, dwarves and elves fighting off spiders. Not necessarily together, the dwarves and elves very much kept to their own fights, but they were still efficient at killing the spiders whom were now roaring out of the trees all round them
"Help!"
"Kili!" Bilbo's head snapped around at the sound the frighten yells of Fili and Kili. She spotted Fili first, desperately trying to kill a spider that stood between him and his younger brother who was being pinned to the forest floor by a massive spider, no obvious weapon in hand. The boy was struggling to keep the spider from bitting him, his hands thrown out in front of him, catching the snapping fangs and trying to push them away.
Drawing Sting, Bilbo made to run to help him, being that she had no spiders attacking her thanks to her invisibility only for the spider to drop quite dead upon Kili, an arrow sticking neatly out of the back of its head.
Bilbo lifted her gaze and stared at the red-headed elf maiden who was leaping down from the tree tops, her graceful movements were almost memorising. In quick succession she had killed three more spiders with her bow, before slewing a fourth with a long, slim knife.
"Throw me a dagger." Bilbo looked back at Kili who was looking between the elf maiden and at another spider that was charging for him, "Quick!"
"If you think," The elf-maiden snapped, spinning gracefully around to face Kili, her expression fierce "I'm giving you a weapon, dwarf, you're mistaken!"
But even as she spoke, her tone filled with mistrust and anger, the knife she had been holding was moving elegantly threw the air before becoming impaled right through the spiders open mouth, killing it instantly.
Kili looked between the spider dead at his feet than at the elf-maiden with a look Bilbo had seen on many a young hobbits face, sometimes directed towards another hobbit, others… towards Grandma Took's famous apple pie.
The boy was absolutely besotted.
Bilbo felt a hysterical giggle build in her chest as she stared helplessly between the two; Kili with his smitten expression and the elf-maiden… who now that she had stopped fighting and was simply looking back at him, looked… adorably torn between clearly thinking Kili was quite handsome while desperately trying to remember her elvish sensibilities.
It was probably the cutest thing Bilbo had seen in… months.
Oh… this is only going to end in tears.
She pressed her face into her hands before quickly ducking away to hide out of the way as she watched the elves kill the last of the spiders before rounding up her friends. Not that the elves had a easy job of it, Bilbo's dwarves refused to go quietly, yelling and struggling and just making a general nuisance of themselves towards the elves taking them captive.
Which… fair enough.
Bilbo thought that was quite reasonable given the fact they were being taken captive for no readily apparent reason.
She couldn't quite figure out if it was because they had left the path and were now possibly considered trespassing into elven lands, or because they had aggravated the spiders. Either way, she felt the level of aggression being shown towards her dwarves by the elves was rather uncalled for.
She scowled darkly when Orcrist was taken from Thorin by a tall and majestic looking elf, who proceeded to call Thorin a liar and a thief – which given what Bilbo knew about Thorin and his life, and in truth that was still very little, but she knew enough to know that comment would be a low blow to the dwarf king – after Thorin said that the sword was given to him.
She wondered if it would have made much difference if he said he found the blade in a Troll's Cave… probably not, these elves did not appear to be interested in listening to anything the company said, whether it be insults or the truth.
She watched with an ache in her chest as her dwarves were bound and blindfolded, their weapons and any other possessions they had on them taken from them before they were forced to march in single file, with elves all around them.
Bilbo followed after them, keeping her distanced to avoid being detected – she had had the red-headed elf-maiden look back in her direction more than once – but desperate to keep them in sight, so as to not lose them.
Bilbo had to speed up to a full sprint when there was a break in the trees, opening up into something of a clearing, with sunlight blazing down upon a bridge that crossed a ragging waterfall. On the other side of the bridge was a large gate that had been open upon the arrival of the elves and dwarves, but would very obviously close once the last member of the elf party passed inside.
Bilbo gave the blonde hair elf carrying Orcrist a wide berth as she ran past him and through the gate, narrowly missing gate closing upon her upon his orders.
Breathing hard, she pressed a hand over her mouth to try and muffle the sound as she tried to catch her breath.
She didn't have much time to do this though, as the elves and their captives were moving again through the Woodland Realm, which was a quiet, eerie place. In every way, the Woodland Realm was different to Rivendell, where though an ancient city itself, still had a warmth and almost homelike feel to it. The Woodland Realm… felt more like tomb and it made Bilbo shudder.
Her heart started to pound in panic when Thorin was suddenly being marched away from the group – he didn't speak a word but the company seemed to sense their leader was being taken away started shouting out in protest as they were pulled down a different set of passages ways.
Bilbo could only agonise over who to follow for a moment or two before chasing after Thorin, for no better reason than he was alone while the others had each other.
She took care to fall in step with Thorin, hesitating for a moment before lightly tapping his hand to let him know she was there. He didn't even twitch, to the point where Bilbo wondered if he even knew, but then his head moved briefly in her direction, and though his was still blinded folded, he gave her the same shallow nod he had given her when he figured out her plan for "dealing" with the trolls.
So together, side by side, they were marched into a large cavern that Bilbo guessed was the throne-room of the Woodland Realm and where perched upon a throne, raised high above the platform they had climbed up to, sat the elven king of Mirkwood.
29/03/2020 Author's Note: This was a fun chapter to write. My strongest memories of the Hobbit as a child were Bilbo's encounter with Gollum (because of course), the Trolls and the Spiders, so yeah, this chapter, was fun. It did end up more movie based then I originally planned, but I managed to get some of Bilbo's singing in there, so I'm pretty happy with that.
I hope all of you and your families are staying safe during this trying and rather scary time.
Next chapter, grand entrance for Thranduil into the story.
