Angel
Chapter 21: Moria, Part II
Authoress' Notes: YAY! I'M UP TO A HUNDRED REVIEWS!!! Now if only I could get more of my reviewers to come back… *Sweatdrop* Anyway, special surprise for you people this chapter… did you ever wonder what if someone had saved Gandalf before he fell? :D
"Gandalf, where are we?" Tersa whispered, into the ominous dark that had recently engulfed them in the small, cramped tunnel starting to scare her a bit.
"You will find out soon Tersa, it is just up ahead." Gandalf said.
"Fear not little hobbit! We shall receive a grand welcome from Balin!" Gimli said optimistically. "You may not know much about the dwarves, but we are not called 'craftsmen of the mountain halls' for simply digging into rock." He added as they came into a wide opening, with a great many stone pillars and high ceiling.
"And with that, I give you the Dwarven city of Dwarrowdelf!" Gandalf exclaimed, letting the crystal in his staff shine a bit brighter so they could see a bit more of the cavernous hall around them.
"It's amazing." Tersa breathed, looking around.
Suddenly Gimli let out a choked sound and started running for the room a few meters in front of them.
When the rest of the fellowship caught up with him, they saw what had him so upset.
"Balin Son of Fundin, Lord of Moria." Gandalf read sadly from atop the stone crypt. He then took a large book from one of the many skeletons lying on the floor and read a bit from it, but was soon interrupted by a certain skeleton crashing down a well. Only this time, it was both Tersa and Pippin's fault.
"Fool of a Took, both of you!" Gandalf snapped, taking his staff back from Pippin. "Throw yourselves in next-"
Bom.
The fellowship stared around at each other in horror.
There was a moment of silence, then the drums started beating as loudly and as quickly as possible.
"BAR THE DOOR!" Aragorn shouted.
"Draw your swords." Gandalf ordered calmly, speaking to the hobbits that had gathered behind him.
Soon the battle started, and even Tersa managed to kill at least one of the orcs, and wound several others. However, soon the battle was over, but while everyone else was spazzing out over Frodo being nearly skewered by a cave troll, Tersa ran over to see if Pippin was still alive, as he had just gotten thrown halfway across the room by a cave troll. However, they both managed to limp over to where Frodo was as soon as he opened his eyes again and showed everyone the mithril shirt he had on under his regular shirt.
"And we limped over here for nothing, you're perfectly fine!" Tersa sighed. "Stop scaring us like that you dratted lunatic!"
"Oh shut up." Frodo said, getting to his feet.
They then ran out to find their way to the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, were met by more orc friends, but ran as soon as they saw their orc friends running, because whenever orcs are scared of something, you probably should be too. They then started down the gigantic stairs, which I'm not going to go into detail on because you all already know what happens. Anyway, they all managed to fight their way to the bridge, but were met by a very unfriendly Balrog.
"GANDALF YOU IDIOT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Tersa screamed from the far side of the bridge as Gandalf turned to face the Balrog, fighting against Aragorn's strong hold on her pack. Gandalf just ignored her and continued with his speech/incantation.
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" He ended, then slammed his staff down onto the bridge so that it cracked and broke beneath the Balrog. Just as he turned around…
"LOOK OUT!" Tersa shrieked, seeing the beginnings of the whip coming up through the darkness, then broke free of Aragorn's hold by letting her pack fall off her shoulders too the ground, then ran over to Gandalf and yanked him backwards just in time for the Balrog's whip to barely wrap around the tip of Gandalf's foot, in which case she kicked at the fiery whip until it let go, burning the bottom of her foot. When she stopped panting from fright and came back to her senses, she heard a number of cheers and whoops coming from behind her.
"GO TERSA!" Merry yelled over Legolas's cheering in elvish behind him.
"Fool of a Took." Gandalf said from behind her, shaking his head. "You will get yourself killed one of these days."
"I'll die eventually." Tersa said woozily with a shrug, and fainted.
The next chapter will be posted soon, I'm not going to leave you hanging like this for long!