ONE SHREK TO BRING THEM ALL
Chapter 18: "A Night to Remember"
"Shrek, no!" Princess Fiona shouted into the darkness of Khazad-Dum, her voice bouncing off of the stone structures. "Strider, where is he going? We have to stop him!"
Aragorn shrugged as he held back the Princess from running after the Ogre. "He has to save his ass."
Fiona stopped struggling and stared at him. "What kind of an Ogre is he?"
"One of a kind."
She pondered that for a moment until she realized that Aragorn's arms were still around her. She shoved him off of her. "Hello? Arwen?" she snapped, making the man's face redden.
Shrek, armed with his sword, picked his way through the goblin corpses as he followed in the direction Donkey and the Balrog had disappeared. A few goblins, still very much alive, shot arrows at him as he passed, but he managed to dodge them as he stuck to the task of finding his friend. Soon he came to a fork in the caves, which divided the stone pathway into two doorways.
It wasn't hard to figure out which one of these doors led to the Balrog's grotto. Shrek could probably have heard Donkey chattering from outside the mountain, he guessed. It seemed that the Balrog had amorous intentions on the small animal, from the nature of Donkey's yelps. The Ogre paused in the doorway, out of the Balrog's line of sight, to form a plan of action.
"Hey! What are you going to do with that? That's my tail, my personal tail. Aw, you're gonna rip it off!" Donkey sounded panicked as he tried to back away from the monster.
The Balrog merely made a loving whimper and breathed a smoke ring in the shape of a heart around her object of affection.
Donkey coughed. "I don't know if this is gonna work out. I'm an asthmatic, and if you're gonna be blowing smoke rings and all…" The animal caught sight of his friend in the doorway. "SHREK! SHREK! HELP!"
Shrek had intended to sneak up on the Balrog and take it by surprise with his sword, but Donkey had blown his cover. The Balrog turned suddenly, and its eyes narrowed as it spotted the interruption at the door. Angry at having its plans disrupted, it breathed a flash of fire at the Ogre, who dodged it by a mere inch.
He sheathed the sword he had brought with him, knowing that he could never use it against this creature. The Balrog would have him aflame before he could strike the first hit. Shrek glanced around quickly, and spotted the body of a goblin on the ground, just outside the door. He grabbed its weapons, a bow and arrows, and readied his shot.
"YAY SHREK! GO SHREK! TAKE IT DOWN!"
His first shot went wild, as the shouted words startled him. "Donkey!" Shrek yelled at the animal, who was cheering for him from the corner. "I'm never gonna make a shot if you keep screaming at me! I need to concentrate."
Donkey looked sheepish, and whispered, "Go Shrek. Yay."
Shrek rolled his eyes and shook his head, and got set to let another arrow fly. He had never been exposed to archery in his life, so it was a fifty-fifty chance that the arrow would even land near the Balrog. He aimed and fired, his arrow hitting the creature in the leg.
The Balrog screamed in pain, as flames shot up from the area around the arrow, and turned around, bending down to try to pull the arrow out.
Shrek took advantage of this situation to pull Donkey from the room quietly and run back to the bridge. They were almost across when the Balrog emerged from the room, even more fiery and angry than before. It screamed unhappily as its prey fled to the other side of Khazad-Dum. The others were waiting for them on the far end of the bridge, and grabbed Donkey and Shrek and pulled them to safety.
The Balrog was close behind, however, and Gandalf finally decided to be brave. He stood in the center of the bridge and muttered a few words as his staff glowed. The others watched as nothing happened at all. Gandalf looked very surprised. "That was my all-purpose 'Fling-Balrog-From-Bridge-Over-Flames' spell! What the - "
Suddenly the Balrog did begin to fall, as though an invisible pair of hands had shoved it off-balance. It screamed in mixed anger and terror, as it flailed its arms and legs, desperate to grab hold of something and break its fall.
Unfortunately, it grabbed Gandalf, who was too busy congratulating himself (because one of his spells had finally worked on this journey!) to notice the giant fiery claw heading in his direction.
The Wizard had a look on his face that could only be described as utter annoyance mixed with intense anger. "What a perfect ending to the perfect day!" He spotted the rest of the group looking at him, their mouths agape in horror. "What are you looking at? Unless Sam can toss me some aspirin, you'd better fly, you fools!" And then he was gone.
"Noooooooooooooo!" cried Frodo, as he was shepherded away by Boromir. Sam gave the man a dirty look and followed them outside.
The Fellowship ran out of the mines, and stopped about a mile from the base of the mountain, panting and wheezing. Except for Legolas, who wasn't even winded, of course. The Hobbits fell to the ground, sobbing for their friend, Sam trying to comfort Frodo. The Men and Fiona stood and looked nervously around, probably searching for signs of goblins that might have followed them out of the mountains. Gimli sat and washed the dried black blood from his axe in a nearby stream. Legolas looked at the mourning members of the group with sympathy, mostly because he had no idea how to deal with them without them clinging to him and weeping.
Shrek and Donkey leaned against a big boulder, trying to rid themselves of the guilt they felt about the disappearance of the Wizard. Each felt it was partially his own fault that Gandalf had fallen to his doom.
Aragorn finally announced, "Enough! We must move on."
Boromir looked at him angrily. "Give them a moment, for pity's sake!"
Aragorn stared at him, assuming command of the situation. "By nightfall these hills will be crawling with orcs. We must make it to the woods."
"Nightfall?" spoke up Fiona. "It'll take that long?"
Aragorn nodded, unsure why she was asking.
"Sh-shouldn't we stop to make camp?" Fiona fidgeted nervously and looked at the sun, which was getting dangerously low to the horizon.
"No…that would take longer. We can keep going." Aragorn turned to rouse the other members of the party. Fiona sighed heavily.
After another hour or two of walking, the sun was beginning to set. Fiona could take it no longer. She got in Aragorn's face and yelled, "I need to find somewhere to camp NOW!"
All chattering and sobbing in the group ceased immediately. Aragorn put up his hands. "Easy! All right, we'll camp." He shook his head. Mortal women were just as strange as Elven women sometimes.
After they had set up camp right outside the edge of the woods (with Aragorn muttering the whole time about how they were RIGHT THERE, certainly they could have taken a few more steps), and Fiona had her own tent, complete with door, everyone tried to rest. Legolas stood guard, as he wasn't quite as exhausted as the rest of them, being immortal.
For several hours, as the other members of the party dropped off to sleep, the watch was somewhat uneventful, and for that Legolas was thankful. Then suddenly, there was a rustle in the bushes at the very edge of the forest, followed by a strange noise.
"Who's there?" Legolas called softly, not wanting to alarm the rest of the group.
A low growling purr sounded from behind the closest tree, and Legolas readied his bow and arrow, cautiously approaching the forest. Just as he neared the tree, a small furry shape pounced from the shadows.
A/N: Guess who? Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been uninspired for awhile, just reading up on my favorite ff authors. :-) No promises, but I'll TRY to update sooner in the future. Hope you're still following this fic…thanks for the wonderful reviews I've gotten so far!