Title: A tale about friendship, Part 27?

Author: Dís Thráinsdotter

E-mail: Overall rating: M, for violence and orctorment. This chapter: M

Summary: A group of children are told the tale of their friendship with the dwarves in general and the Folk of Durin in particular.

Warnings: The overall rating of this fic is R, as parts of it deals with violent battle and torment. There are also Original Characters in the fic, but no Mary Sues. Unbetaed, all mistakes belong to me.

Disclaimer: I don't own any one of Tolkien's characters, never have, and never will. The only ones I own are the people you have never met before.

Chapter 27, The Warg-glade

Balin smiled when he remembered that evening and said to the children "we walked south through the forest on the eastern foothills of the Misty Mountains going in a brisk pace as we were heading to a certain place but we felt no rush. The evening light waned and darkness fell but still we kept going. When we had gone through the night for a while Bilbo asked if we were going much further, he said among other things that his stomach felt like an empty sack and Gandalf answered that we didn't have far to go. Hobbits can eat six meals a day if they can get them."

Gandalf said to the children "Bilbo´s grandfather Gerontius Took, who was a friend of mine invited me to the party he had when he celebrated his 120th birthday. He had invited all his relations and a large number of his friends and it was a joyous occasion. The party began at 10am and from that hour the Hobbits ate and drank continually through the day. There were regular meals marked by the fact that everyone was sitting down together, at other times they were standing in groups, eating and drinking together."

The children couldn't help laughing and Thráin said to Balin "now I understand what you mean when you say that we eat like Hobbits".

Balin agreed with the children and then he continued with the story. "We kept walking for a while and suddenly we came to a glade. At first it felt like any other glade but suddenly we felt that the glade wasn't a nice place and then we heard Wolves howling in the distance, closing in on us. Bilbo asked if we had escaped the Orcs only to be eaten by Wolves and Gandalf told us to get into the trees as quickly as we could. Soon all of us were safely sitting on a tree branch each, save Bilbo who couldn't reach up to the branches of any of the trees. Finally Thórin told Dori to give Bilbo a hand up and he was rescued from the horrible Wargs who came into the clearing. It didn't take long for the Wargs to surround the trees we sat in while most of them sat in a circle and listened to their chieftain. It was horrible to listen to him and I saw that Bilbo almost fell out off his tree at times."

Gandalf added, "The chieftain of the Wargs told his people that they were to attack a village of Woodmen together with the Orcs. He couldn't understand why the Orcs were late and why we were there, he told them that we could be spies sent by the Woodmen and he had no intention to let us get away so we could warn them. When he said to them that the Orcs were on their way I was certain that we hadn't escaped them. In the meanwhile I had no intention to let the Wargs have their own way. I took pinecones from the tree I sat in, started fires in them and threw them down on the Wargs. As each of them fell some of them fell on the ground sending sparks on the Wargs and others hit the Wargs. One of the pinecones hit the Wargchieftain on the nose and he bit some of the others because he became angered and frightened.

A number of the Wargs caught fire and they spread the fire to dry trees in the area when they went searching for water. Suddenly the Orcs came, they had heard the howling and the clamour from a distance and wondered if a battle was going on. When they found out they decided to encircle us with fire and they put dry leaves and ferns around the stems of the trees. They sang about us, if it can be called singing, and danced around the fire. Finally the fire caught in the trunks of the trees.

But when I thought that we had met our end and I was about to fly down on the Orcs I was caught by the Lord of the Eagles, whom I told about the others and they were rescued by some of his people while the others attacked the Orcs and Wargs, scattering them and making sure that their plan was foiled."

Balin nodded and said "Dori and Bilbo were the last to be rescued from the trees, we climbed as high up in the trees as we could and the Eagles picked us up. Soon after Dori and Bilbo were rescued the trees we had been sitting in were ablaze, so we had indeed been rescued in the nick of time."

"Where did they take you?" Frerin asked and Balin answered

"The Eagles took us to a place they called ´the High Shelf´ and we found out that the Lord of the Eagles and Gandalf were friends. The Eagle lord was happy that he had been able to stop any evil plans that the Orcs and Wargs had and he was also happy to come to Gandalf´s aid but he wouldn't send his people to the villages of Men. The Lord said that they would be firing arrows at his people suspecting them to attack their sheep but Gandalf asked the Lord to take us to another safe place. In the meanwhile the Eagles provided us with food and fuel, which we prepared for all of us. Gandalf started the fire because Óin and Glóin had lost their tinderboxes but it didn't take long for us to eat our fill and we went to sleep, knowing that we were safe and that we would soon be out of reach for the Orcs."

TBC