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Chapter Fifteen
Under Hill
The goblins surrounded them in an instant, hundreds of slimy, bulbous bodies pressing close as they clawed and screeched, grabbing for the Company with abnormally long, gnarled fingers. Alison gagged on the horrible, rotten stench that the goblins brought with them; a combination of raw sewage and desiccated flesh that set her eyes watering.
The Company kicked and punched at the goblins as they were forced into the tunnel, but they were outnumbered ten to one. Alison stumbled on a loose rock in her path and shrieked when a hand with sharp talons dug into her scalp, burrowing into her hair and pulling on the roots. She could only gasp in pain and stumble on, borne by the tide of teeming goblins with the dwarves at her back.
They were herded along rickety, torch-lit wooden bridges and shambled pathways lined that Alison feared were going to fall through any second to the cavernous pits of the mountain's depths below. Her boots kicked against discarded bones, scattering them every which way, and she had a nagging suspicion that some of them weren't animal bones.
They came upon another small tunnel, and over the excited jabbering of their captors was a tumultuous roar of what sounded like a large waterfall. Alison's stomach contracted as they before emerged into another cavern, this one a hundred times the size of the first.
The roar turned deafening. Hundreds if not thousands of goblins lined the cavern, cackling, jabbing, and pinching at them as their procession marched along. The ones far above their heads jostled on suspended wooden platforms, waving their weapons with jeers and snarls.
Alison didn't realize she had stopped moving until a goblin pushed her roughly from behind. She stumbled into the back of the one in front of her, and before she could right herself, the goblin turned with a vicious backhand to her face.
She kicked out on instinct, catching the goblin in its stomach as she blinked back tears. The goblin shrieked and rushed her, rage glimmering in its bulbous black eyes, its claws curled and prepared to rip out her throat. She could only stand, shocked, until a body lunged in front of her.
Kíli grunted in pain when the goblin's claws slashed across his shoulder, but he managed to block Alison from the hissing goblins around them. She had no idea how he'd wrestled his way to her side, but relief flooded her body at the sight of the dwarf.
Her relief was short-lived. She'd forgotten about the goblins behind her, and she yelped when one clubbed her in the ribs, shoving her aside to get to Kíli. His intervention had halted their macabre procession, but the goblins were howling with bloodlust, advancing on them with terrifying shrieks.
The goblin had shoved her close to the edge of the pathway. Only a thin frayed rope kept her from plummeting over the side into utter darkness, and she gripped it with sweaty, trembling hands.
The goblins surged as the dwarves renewed their efforts to free themselves, but it was useless. They simply didn't have the numbers. The heaving mass of bodies pushed Kíli right up to the edge with her, and her heart wrenched when she saw the deep scratch above his right eye, bleeding sluggishly and matting his eyebrow.
"Stay close to me!" he ordered.
She nodded, too frightened to speak. She didn't even give a thought to her weapons. All she could do was stand, her mind screaming. It's happening it's happening it's happening—
The goblins heaved again, pressing Alison and Kíli into the rope. Underneath the cacophony of the goblins, a dull groan reached her ears before there was a sharp snap, and the rope gave way.
Alison, Kíli, and several goblins fell into empty air. Alison screamed, but her voice was snatched away by the darkness as she fell down, down, down…
"Alison? Mahal, Alison, please wake up."
For a brief moment, Alison thought she was still falling. Her stomach roiled like she had just dropped off the highest roller coaster in the world, and her body felt strangely weightless. She groaned, forcing herself up, but Kíli's voice cut through her haze.
"Don't move. It looks like you hit your head hard on the way down. You might be concussed."
Alison pushed against him as her stomach rolled again, her eyes still glued shut. Kíli tried to hold her down, but she shoved hard enough to flip on her side just as she retched. She emptied her stomach onto the slick, slimy rocks beneath her, vaguely aware of Kíli holding her braid and rubbing her back soothingly until she flopped down again, bile stinging her throat.
"How far did we fall?" Her voice came out in a rasp, and suddenly she wanted nothing else but water.
"A ways," he said. His voice was near and above her. He must have been crouched over her. "We were lucky; we landed in some sort of fungi and moss patch that softened the blow. The goblins… Well, I wouldn't look if I were you."
She'd already cracked open her eyes. To their right was nothing but stone, like what she'd vomited on. Though it was dim this far underground, her eyes were just able to make out several mangled bodies with jutting bones surrounded by splattered goop. If she hadn't already thrown up everything she had, she might've retched again.
She turned away from the bodies and picked out Kíli's white, pinched face above her. The distant glow of the torches from the goblin-tunnels lent her light, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her surroundings became more substantial.
They were in another cavern, different from the ones they'd passed through with the goblins above. The air down there was cooler and wetter, and she shivered. The roar of the goblins was long gone. "The others?"
He looked away. "I don't know."
She swallowed, her throat tight. This was all her fault. If she could only have convinced Thorin to take another path, this wouldn't have happened at all. Thorin…
She'd lost her temper with him. The last thing she had ever said to the person she was supposed to help—her entire reason for being sent to Middle-earth—had been nothing but vitriol.
And now she was going to die, alone and guilty in a dark cave that smelled like rotting fish and mold.
No, not alone. She had Kíli. But she was supposed to save him too. She couldn't let him die with her.
She struggled to sit up. "We have to find a way out of here."
Kíli stopped her with a firm but gentle hand. "You're in no condition to walk."
She got her elbows underneath her and pushed up on them. "Would you rather starve to death? Or be gutted by goblins?"
"Just…let me find something for your head. You lost a lot of blood." He rifled through his pockets. When nothing was suitable, he found the hem of his undershirt and tore off a piece of it. The sound of ripping fabric seemed eerily loud in the empty cavern. "Here. It's better than nothing."
The fabric was soiled and smelled of goblins, but she took it anyway and gingerly pressed it to the throbbing spot near her hairline. She winced at the pain, but no more blood leaked down the side of her face.
"Thanks." She held out her hand. "Help me up."
Kíli pulled her to her feet slowly. Every joint in her body cracked and popped, but nothing felt broken—run through a meat-grinder and spat back out, maybe, but not broken.
She swayed when nausea hit her again, but Kíli grabbed her free arm and tugged it over his shoulders, shifting so half her weight now rested on him.
She glanced around the cavern, avoiding the pulpy mess of the goblins. "Any idea which direction to go?"
He nodded ahead of them. "I think that way's west."
"You think?" She frowned. "Aren't dwarves supposed to be attuned to the underground or something? I thought this was your territory."
He snorted. "We are, to our homes. It's not like maps appear in our heads every time we enter a mountain, telling us exactly where to go."
"Lame. Well, lead on."
They shuffled into the semi-darkness of the far-below tunnels, keeping their eyes and ears open for any signs of the goblins, or something else. Alison thought of Bilbo, wondering if the hobbit was still with the Company, or if he had been separated and now gambled his life in a game of riddles in the depths of the caves around them. She thought of the Company, too, and hoped they would be able to escape the goblins' clutches. If the story stayed true, then they would be safe.
"The future is now a game of chance," Galadriel's ethereal voice reminded her.
Shut up, she snapped back.
She glanced sidelong at Kíli. He walked beside her, still supporting her, but his face was drawn, alert and wary. Underneath her arm, she could feel the tension in his shoulders, his muscles coiled tightly. In any other circumstance, she might've marveled at his strength, but the pain and fuzziness in her head kept her from focusing on it. All she wanted to do was lay down and close her eyes. She was exhausted. She just needed to sleep…
She shook her head. She'd never had a head injury before, but she was sure that going to sleep was not the right thing to do. She pressed down harder on her head wound, letting the pain wake her up some.
"I'm sure the others will be okay," she said to Kíli. They'd been walking for what felt like hours, but it probably had only been about fifteen minutes. The cavern yawned before them, leading them deeper and deeper into the mountains. She could barely even see the torchlight anymore. "They're fighters."
"I know." He kept his eyes forward, but his mouth thinned.
"Thank you," she blurted.
He glanced at her. "For what?"
"You protected me," she said, alarmed when her words came out a bit slurred. "From the goblins. Thank you."
"Any one of us would have done it," he said. "I just happened to be the closest."
His response nettled her for some reason. She thought back to the cave, in the moments before the goblins ambushed them when he'd given up his own blanket for her.
"Would any one of you had done what you did for me in the cave?"
He looked at her swiftly before his eyes darted away again. "Of course. You were cold. We couldn't let our divine Hero freeze to death, could we?"
"'m not divine," she muttered, but he didn't reply. The cavern was narrowing around them, turning into another tunnel. Though her eyes were by then accustomed to the dark, the shadows there were thicker, impenetrable. Only Kíli's dwarven eyesight—made for deep tunnels beneath mountains, as Bofur had explained to her—kept her from panicking about the loss of her sight. "Are we going to be able to find our way out?"
He was quiet for so long that she thought he was ignoring her until he said, "I don't know."
She tripped on a rock and stumbled a bit. He righted her with an arm around her waist. In the damp, cold air, his body heat was like a lit torch hovering close to her side.
Alison sighed. "Goblins are gross."
Kíli snorted. "An understatement."
She frowned. "I thought we were on good terms now. What's with the cold shoulder again?"
"I'm a bit more concerned with other things at the moment than making conversation," he said drily.
"Oh. Right."
Their boots squelched and scraped on the damp tunnel floor as they picked their way through the belly of the mountain. Alison's steps faltered again, and she shook off her exhaustion irritably.
"My best friend back home is named Lexi," she said. She talked more to the darkness than to Kíli. She had to stay awake; she had to distract herself from the leeching cold and crushing fear and guilt over the Company. "We met in the first grade. We fought over a pink crayon, but then at recess, she invited me over for a sleepover, and we've been inseparable ever since."
Until now, she added silently.
When Kíli said nothing, she continued.
"We also hung out with two other people—a guy named Kyle and another girl, Victoria." Moisture dripped from stalactites, rapping on the floor and soaking their head and shoulders. She kept talking. "Kyle's hilarious. Everything he says and does is just…funny. And Victoria is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. When she found out that I loved oranges, she would bring me one with her lunch every day."
She didn't know what else to say. Even those small memories had carved a deep pit of homesickness in her belly, and she fell silent again as they journeyed through even narrower and slicker tunnels.
"Fíli has always been my best friend," Kíli said quietly, surprising her. She didn't think he'd paid attention to a word she'd said. "I've no idea what I would do without him."
Alison bobbed her head. It felt like holding up a thousand pounds on her shoulders. "You two are really close, huh?"
"As close as any brother can be," he said, a soft hint of a smile in his voice. She couldn't see his face, but she could sense him in the dark. "Our mother used to say we were one dwarf, joined at the hip as we were."
She grinned faintly. "I can see that." She hesitated before asking, "What's it like? Being a prince?"
"Exhausting," he answered immediately. "I was never as serious in my duties as Fíli or Thorin or my mother, so I always found some excuse to slip away and do something more exciting. Like archery or swordplay. Or drinking."
She huffed out a laugh. "What about your father? Didn't he have duties as well?"
He shifted beneath her arm. "My father wasn't a traditional royal. He had some long-ago connection to the Line of Durin, but nothing that granted him any title. He came from a modest family and became a part of the guard. When he worked his way through the ranks, he eventually met my mother, and the rest is history." He swallowed. "He died when I was very young. He'd been escorting my mother back to the Blue Mountains from the Iron Hills when they were ambushed by a group of vagabonds. He gave his life protecting her."
Alison squeezed his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't remember him," he said quietly. "As I said, I was very young."
She gazed hard into the shadows like she could actually see anything. "Sometimes I wonder if I'd feel better not knowing my own father."
Kíli hesitated. "Thorin mentioned your father had passed, as well. I'm sorry."
The pain in her head was excruciating now. She laughed bitterly. "That's one way of putting it."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, it masks the ugly truth," she said. She pressed against her wound so hard that strange shadowy shapes swirled in her blind vision. "Like he died of something natural rather than blowing his brains out and leaving his twelve-year-old daughter to find him."
"Alison," Kíli murmured. "I'm so… I don't know what to say. My apologies don't seem like enough."
"It's fine." She stepped on another rock and her knees buckled. "Oh, shit…"
She went down, hard, her knees cracking against the stone floor. Everything felt wrong. Her head swam, she couldn't see, and she trembled like leaves in a storm. She sensed Kíli kneeling down in front of her.
"Alison, come on, don't do this. Stay with me."
"I'm so tired." Her voice was so small. The Valar's chosen Hero, she thought derisively. A sad little girl with daddy issues expected to save the world. "I just want to rest."
"We can do that," Kíli said, sitting on the stone floor of the tunnel with her. "Just for a bit." His shoulder pressed into hers in the dark. "How's your head?"
"Heavy," she said thickly. "So, so heavy…"
"Here." He guided her head gently to rest on his shoulder. "Better?"
She gave a noncommittal grunt. Even her tongue felt like it weighed a ton now. All she wanted to do was close her eyes…
"Alison, no." Kíli prodded her cheek. "I know you want to, but you can't sleep yet, understand? It's too dangerous."
"Tired…" she muttered.
"Tell me more about your world," he said wildly. "Your favorite food, your favorite place—anything. Talk to me."
She struggled to focus. "Big. Lots of water. But where I lived, it was dry and hot."
"Like a desert?" he asked.
She nodded. "Mm. And I like ice cream. Mint chocolate chip."
"What is ice cream?"
"God."
"Ice cream is your…god?"
She grunted. "No. It tastes like God."
"…Right."
"My favorite place?" She strained her mind. "Hm. I don't know. Don't have one."
"Everyone has a favorite place."
Books, she thought hazily. Worlds that aren't my own. Those are my favorite places.
Except now she was probably going to die in one of those said worlds.
She drifted again. Kíli shook her. "Alison? Alison!"
Oblivion called her. She rushed to meet it.
"Alison, don't you dare—come on, think—"
It distantly registered with her that he was talking to himself. She didn't really care. She just slipped away, piece by piece.
"Mahal be damned," he swore, and then he kissed her.
It was the last thing she expected, and her eyes snapped open instantly. He drew back quickly when she jolted, but the phantom touch of his lips lingered.
"Oh," she said, quite stupidly.
She saw nothing in the dark, but Kíli shifted uncomfortably.
"My apologies," he said quickly. "It was the only way I could think of—"
He broke off, tensing when voices drifted to them on the heavy air. He reached for his sword, but the voices were deeper than the goblins' high-pitched shrieks and cackles. Familiar.
"Come, quickly!"
Alison sat up. "Gandalf?"
"Thorin!" Kíli called.
Several moments later, light flooded their tunnel. Alison shrank back against Kíli, her eyes watering.
"Mahal! Kíli; Miss Alison!"
Alison couldn't believe her ears. The Company had found them. Squinting through the light, she saw them entering the tunnel, splattered with black blood, weapons drawn, and led by Gandalf himself, holding aloft his light-tipped staff and glowing elvish sword.
She wanted to weep as someone—Bofur, she thought—hauled her to her feet, but her relief was dashed when Thorin said, "We must keep moving. The goblins aren't far behind."
Her groan was lost as the Company moved forward, single-file down the tunnel. Bofur kept her upright, but her legs wobbled as she ran. Even her new burst of adrenaline wouldn't keep her exhaustion at bay forever.
They wound their way through more musty, wet underground tunnels, slipping occasionally on the moisture but maintaining their brisk pace. Though the goblins didn't seem near, their howls and snarls occasionally echoed through the tunnels, and Alison flinched at each one, remembering the vile creatures and their clawed hands and rotten stench.
Eventually, the air turned sweeter and fresher, and Alison almost sobbed when they rounded a corner and saw an opening at the end of the tunnel. Early evening sunlight poured forth into the cramped space as they made for the opening, passing out of the goblin-tunnels and into the open world again.
They continued running down the mountainside until the sun dipped low on the horizon and the dusky shadows gathered, though their pace was slightly slower now that they didn't have the threat of imminent danger on their heels.
Once they were a safe enough distance away from the exit of the goblin-tunnels, they began to slow for rest in a spacious clearing among the trees and rocks of the mountainside. Gandalf began to do a headcount as Alison nearly keeled over.
She gulped in a deep lungful of air, her head feeling close to spitting, but she didn't care. They had made it. They were alive. She pressed her hands to her face, unable to keep the smile from her lips as she repeated it to herself. They were alive. They had escaped the goblins.
Alison straightened just as the last of the Company jogged into the clearing, Gandalf counting them as they appeared out of the tree-line. "Six, seven, eight, nine. Bifur, Bofur, that's eleven. Fíli, Kíli, thirteen. And Bombur, that makes fourteen."
Suddenly, Gandalf looked around in confusion, his eyebrows crinkling over his bright eyes.
"Where is Bilbo?" he said. "Where is our hobbit?"
A cold sense of dread stole over Alison. She had completely forgotten about Bilbo in the aftermath of their escape, and her stomach flipped over in fear and guilt.
"Where is our hobbit?" Gandalf demanded in a sharper tone when no one answered.
Dwalin snorted from Alison's left.
"Curse the halfling!" he growled. "Now he's lost?"
"I thought he was with Dori!" Glóin said.
"Don't blame me!" Dori exclaimed indignantly.
"Where did you last see him?" Gandalf said.
"I think I saw him slip away when the goblins first collared us," Nori offered.
"What happened exactly?" Gandalf demanded. "Tell me!"
"I'll tell you what happened," Thorin said, striding forward. "Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it! He's thought of nothing but his soft bed and warm hearth since first he stepped out his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again."
"Don't you dare," Alison said, her hands curling into fists at her sides. "Don't you dare start this again. Bilbo is not as weak and sniveling as you keep making him out to be, so just stop with the insults—"
"Does it look like he is here, Miss Ashburne?" Thorin snapped. "Look around you; the sooner you face this fact, the better off you will be. Master Baggins is not coming back. He is long gone."
"No, he isn't."
She whipped her head around along with the rest of the Company, their eyes widening in shock as Bilbo stepped out from behind a tree, exhausted and dirty with a gaunt, pale look to his face, but otherwise unscathed.
"Bilbo Baggins!" Gandalf exclaimed. "My dear fellow! I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!"
"Bilbo!" Kíli said, smiling broadly. "We'd given you up!"
"How on earth did you get past the goblins?" Fíli said, gazing upon the hobbit with a look akin to awe.
"How indeed?" Dwalin muttered.
There was a slight pause in which Bilbo's smile plastered to his face. He gave a nervous chuckle, wagging his finger as his other hand slipped something into the pocket of his now button-less waistcoat, something that gleamed gold before disappearing…
"Well, what does it matter?" Gandalf said airily, giving no indication that he had seen what Alison had, but she had her suspicions that the wizard knew just as well as she of the magic ring that Bilbo had found in the goblin-tunnels. "He's back."
"It matters," Thorin said. He stared at Bilbo as if he couldn't quite believe the hobbit was there. "I want to know. Why did you come back?"
"Look, I-I know you doubt me," Bilbo said. He met Thorin's gaze earnestly. "I know you always have. And you're right." He shrugged. "I often do think about Bag-End; I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home. And that's why I came back, because…you don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."
A weighted silence met his words, but Alison smiled.
Too soon.
From high above them on the mountainside, there came a resounding howl that she recognized all too well, joined with a chorus of more howls that were far too close for comfort.
The orcs had found them.
"Out of the frying pan—" Thorin started, his hand clenched tightly upon the hilt of Orcrist.
"—And into the fire," Gandalf finished. "Run!"
Night had descended upon the Misty Mountains, blanketing the mountainside with shadows that warped and bent to the Company as they ran through the trees, and in any other circumstance, Alison thought it would have been the most beautiful night she'd seen since arriving in Middle-earth.
The sky was velvet, shimmering with different hues of deep blues and inky blacks, the glittering stars like broken shards of a diamond. The moon was full and bright, washing the landscape in a pure silver glow while the wargs' howls echoed behind them in pursuit.
Fear kept Alison upright, her legs and blood pumping as she blundered through the sparse pine trees with Bilbo beside her. Gandalf led the way, his staff and sword gleaming with light, while Thorin brought up the rear, Orcrist glowing blue in his hand. The rest of them could only sprint without slowing down or looking back, no matter how close the wargs and their orc riders bore down on them.
Though it was no longer bleeding, Alison's head still throbbed with pain every time her feet hit the ground. Her strange healing capabilities had finally seemed to kick in, for her wound felt warm and agitated like someone kept prodding it with blunt needles. Between a healing wound or getting torn to shreds by wargs, however, she'd gladly stick with the former.
But as the wargs gained on them, she came to realize that perhaps she no longer had a say in the matter.
She slammed into Nori's back unexpectedly when the dwarf came to a sudden halt in front of her. He barely moved, but she ricocheted off him and fell flat on her back with a yelp.
She was about to scream at him to keep running, but the words died in her throat when she looked up and realized with horror that there was nowhere left to run.
The mountainside disappeared a few meters in front of Gandalf, ending in a narrow sliver that jutted over the valley far below, a strip of cliff that pointed out like a finger in empty air with only a few bleak trees to accompany it. They were trapped.
Bilbo helped Alison back to her feet, his small frame trembling as his hands tightened on her arm. "What do we do?"
She had no answer. The orc hunters were now so near she could hear the wargs' heavy, powerful bodies crashing through the undergrowth behind them, barking and snapping and howling.
"Up into the trees!" Gandalf commanded the Company. He pointed to the measly cluster of pines near the cliff's edge; not Alison's first choice for a place of defense, but it might help them all live a while longer yet as the snarls of the wargs came ever closer. "All of you, climb!"
They sprinted the last ten meters to the trees just as the wargs leaped out of the undergrowth, snarling as they tore after the Company.
"Go! Up!" Thorin shouted.
Alison and Bilbo leaped for the nearest tree, their hands catching the lowest branch just as a rider-less warg lunged at their heels. Alison thought she might wet herself at the warg's hot breath on her legs, but she managed to scramble up the branches with Bilbo right beside her, breathless with terror.
With the Company now taking refuge in the trees, the wargs circled below them angrily, their predatory eyes gleaming like sparks in the darkness as more appeared out of the trees they'd run through, bearing fearsome orc riders upon their backs that surveyed the Company's position with sneers and hoarse rasps of laughter. A moth fluttered past Alison's face, but it was a dust mote compared to what awaited them in the clearing below.
This is it, she thought, numb. The quest ends here. I can't save us.
As Alison watched with a detached sort of horror, a figure emerged from the trees, a huge, powerful profile that rippled with muscle and malice, astride a warg that was twice the size of the others, with thick fur that gleamed white in the moonlight and yellow eyes that glowed like lanterns. As the warg prowled closer, its rider loomed even more fearsome than before: an orc with skin as white as the moon itself etched with deep, ugly scars that were arranged in too neat of a pattern to be anything but self-inflicted. The orc's left arm was missing from the elbow down, and Alison's stomach turned when she saw that a wicked mace now hung there instead, melded into the orc's very flesh.
Even over the menacing sounds of the wargs and the orcs, Alison still heard the sharp intake of breath from below her, where Thorin crouched on a branch next to Balin. Thorin's face was bloodless, his eyes wide and disbelieving, and Alison suddenly recalled the story Fíli had told her weeks ago, about a pale orc Thorin had fought—and allegedly killed.
Azog, she remembered.
She thumbed through the pages of her brain, trying to find even a mere memory of Thorin's foe from the book, but she came up blank. She couldn't remember this orc at all, and it terrified her. If he wasn't in the book, then what did that mean for them? For her?
The Pale Orc inhaled. The sound rattled through the clearing, and Alison thought with no doubt that he could scent their fear. He began to speak a harsh, guttural language she didn't know that rasped down her spine like razor blades, cold and cutting. She picked out Thorin's name amidst the awful language, and the dwarf king went rigid below her.
Azog's flat, lifeless gaze swept over the Company, and he smiled. He said something—a command—for in the next moment, the wargs began throwing themselves at the trees the Company sheltered in, their powerful claws shaking the trunks and ripping off strips of bark as they snapped and howled.
The trees were too thin and weak to handle the wargs' onslaught. Alison's pine creaked and shuddered, and with a start, she realized that the tree was coming uprooted as it began to list and fall.
"Jump!" Thorin ordered. He leaped from one tree to another, joining the other members of the Company, and the rest had no choice but to follow.
Alison smacked into a sappy branch and stuck to it, clinging for dear life as the tree that they had just abandoned fell entirely over the cliff's edge. There was no way the other two trees the Company occupied would not share the same fate, and ultimately them as well. Already their new tree groaned and swayed, bending toward the edge and the empty air below it as the wargs continued their assault. The orcs watched them hungrily, weapons drawn, knowing as well as Alison that the Company now had two choices: either fall to their death from the cliff or die standing against the orcs.
Alison desperately racked her brain. There had to be something that could help them. Her eyes drifted to Bilbo, who had landed below her when they jumped, but his ring could hardly save them from plummeting to their death. She glanced at Gandalf, but the wizard, at least, had found some way to make himself useful—even if he was only using his staff to set a pinecone on fire.
He lobbed his flaming pinecone at the surrounding hunters as she watched. The dry grass beneath them instantly caught flame, and the wargs reared back with snarls and yelps as the fire swiftly grew.
The fire formed a barrier between the Company and their hunters, and the dwarves cheered as the wargs and the orcs were forced back. Unfortunately, the blazing fire was spreading fast, eating everything in its path—including the few trees that now stood between them and imminent death.
The trunk of their pine splintered and cracked. Smoke stung Alison's eyes and throat, and she coughed, tears streaking down her face. Their moment of victory was now snuffed, for even though they had successfully fended off the wargs and the orcs, they had nowhere left to go except to the last tree, leaning precariously over the cliff's edge.
With monumental effort, Alison gathered her legs beneath her and vaulted into the last tree, crying out when it tipped dangerously from the influx of weight from the Company fleeing the fire.
Sparks licked at her face, the fire roaring below when she closed her eyes and prayed.
Help us, she pleaded. Don't let our quest end here. Please.
She'd prayed several times since landing in Middle-earth, but they had been empty prayers. She'd never known exactly who she was praying to. But this time, she thought of the Valar; the ones who had picked her, had sent her to their world; the ones who had given her ancestors the gift of Hero blood. She thought of them, faceless and nameless to her, but pictured herself speaking to the stars.
If you truly brought me here to change things, don't let our journey end here.
Azog was laughing as the Company struggled in their half-uprooted tree. They dangled over the cliff, hovering in the air, as the fire turned their tree into cinders. They had only seconds before the tree well and truly plummeted over the edge.
Above the fire and smoke, a cool nighttime breeze that smelled of pine and fresh mountain air touched her heat-scorched face.
The tree ripped free of the mountain with a splintering crack, and the Company spiraled into nothing just as a shriek cut through the roar of the fire.
Eagles—great, soaring eagles the size of small airplanes—swooped upon the mountain with thundering cries that echoed through the night. A dozen of them darted and snatched the falling Company from the tree as it tilted over the cliffside, their great wings beating back the fire and smoke that threatened to choke them.
A clawed foot ripped Alison away from the splitting trunk and dropped her. Her stomach flew to her throat, but a second later she had landed on something solid and feathery. She looked down and saw an eagle beneath her, its wings spread as it glided through the air, away from the burning cliff and the orcs.
The eagle cawed, and its brethren fell into formation with it, each with one or multiple members of the Company upon their backs as well. Alison peeked over her shoulder.
The Misty Mountains were already fading into the darkness, but a bright patch remained where the fire still raged. The wind howled in her ears, blocking out any other sounds, but she thought she heard a faint voice speaking through the cold mountain air that rushed through her hair and lungs.
A debt, Alison Ashburne. From Eleon to you, it must now be paid.
Alison said nothing. She buried her face in her eagle's warm feathers and shut her eyes.
When next she opened her eyes, dawn was breaking over the mountains.
She had no idea how long they had been flying for, but when she looked around, the great eagles still flew in formation, and she could just make out the silhouettes of the Company on their backs. She did a quick headcount and breathed a sigh of relief that was lost to the rushing wind when she realized that everyone had made it off the mountain.
Unease ripped into her gut as she remembered the fire and the plunge from the tree. The Pale Orc's frightening face swam in her vision, and she shivered with a cold that had nothing to do with the air high above the mountain peaks. And the voice she'd heard…
Somehow, the Valar had answered her prayer. They'd saved her and the Company, but not without a price.
A debt, Alison Ashburne.
Her fingers dug into the soft, cold feathers of her eagle. She didn't know what debt was to be owed, a debt that seemed to be passed down to her from Eleon Ashburne himself. But her prayer had saved them from dying on that cliffside, and she had to be grateful for that.
They flew for another hour, leaving the mountains behind as the sun well and truly rose. Alison spotted a towering mass of rock in front of them, like a naturally carved stone platform, and the eagles made for it, circling around it as they went one by one to deposit the passengers on their backs.
She nearly crumpled to the ground when a wave of dizziness washed over her. She touched a hand to her head wound. There was no blood and no pain, just a strong urge to itch it as her skin magically knitted itself closed. The healing process also did nothing to deter the hunger and exhaustion gnawing at her bones, but she forced herself to stay on her feet as the rest of the Company landed around her.
An eagle perched beside her and Kíli jumped down from its back. He looked fine except for the cuts and scrapes he'd received from the goblins, then their escape from the tunnels and the orcs. Dried blood crusted around his eye and a bruise bloomed on his left cheek, but he rushed forward and gripped her elbows, his dark eyes scanning her face.
"Are you all right?" he asked. He pushed back her hair to examine her wound, and despite her aching body, a little thrill went through her. "How is your head?"
"Fine," she managed to croak. Her throat was dry and scratchy from the smoke. "It's healing, but I've got a massive headache."
Kíli looked around. "Óin!"
The older dwarf approached them. His trumpet had been flattened, but Kíli's gesture had alerted him without needing to hear. Behind him, the Company had gathered around Thorin and Gandalf, the latter looking as if he were speaking to one of the eagles while the rest banked and soared in the golden sky. Alison looked back to Óin as Kíli motioned at her. "She hit her head in the goblin-tunnels. Will she be all right?"
"I just told you I'm fine," she said, wiggling out of his grasp.
Óin looked between them uncertainly.
"The lass does possess some rather…peculiar healing powers," he said. "She proved that before we reached the mountains. Odds are that she's fine." At Kíli's look, however, he added hastily, "A few of my ointments survived the tunnels. I'll see what I can do for her."
Kíli nodded. At Alison's pointed look, he stepped back from her, dropping his hands. "I'll be with the others. We lost all our supplies in the tunnels. We'll need a plan."
He walked away, leaving her alone with Óin. She bent her knees slightly so he could examine her. His voice turned brusque as he worked. "Any blurriness? Dizziness?"
"I'm a little dizzy," she admitted. This close, Óin could understand what she said without needing his hearing aid. "No blurriness."
"Nausea? Missing memories?" he prodded, turning her chin side-to-side.
She thought back to the cliffside and the fire, and then beyond. The storm, the giants, the cave, the goblin-tunnels… Her face flamed as she recalled that Kíli had kissed her in the dark of the tunnels when he'd thought she was going to fall unconscious. Even though it had been the briefest, most chaste kiss of her life, and he'd only done it to keep her awake, her belly still squirmed.
"No," she said after clearing her throat. "Like I said. I'll be fine."
Óin nodded and removed a small jar of salve from the pocket of his cloak. "A swab of this to prevent any scarring and we'll call it a day."
He swiped a finger over the shrinking gash, and the irritating warmth flickered and cooled as the salve went to work.
She sighed in relief. "Thank you, Óin."
He gave her a smile and a pat on the shoulder before leaving to join the others. The eagle Gandalf had been speaking to had taken to the skies again. It shrieked in farewell before soaring away, the other eagles following in its wake. Alison joined the assembled Company as the last eagle disappeared into the mountain mist.
"The Eagles have informed me that this is the Carrock," Gandalf said, nodding to the giant spire of stone they stood upon. "Here marks the beginning of the Wilderland to the east of the Misty Mountains."
Alison glanced around them. Behind, the Misty Mountains stood, snow-capped and imposing, while ahead and stretched on either side of the Carrock were vast swathes of mist-cloaked plains and sparse woods. Farther north, she could make out a dark blotch that looked like a great forest, and beyond…
"Is that what I think it is?" Bilbo breathed in awe.
Far off in the distance, a lonely peak jutted into the sky, silhouetted against the dawn sky like a beacon that awaited them, and Alison realized with a jolt what she was seeing a second before Gandalf spoke.
"Erebor!" the wizard said as everyone stared at the peak in wonder, so far away but closer than it had ever been since the start of their journey. "The Lonely Mountain. The last of the great dwarf kingdoms of Middle-earth."
"Our home," Thorin said, his voice soft with emotion. He gazed at the mountain with an expression of such joy and longing that Alison ached to reach out and touch him.
"Look!" Óin said, pointing above them to a bird that fluttered overhead, flapping in the direction of the Lonely Mountain. "A raven! The birds are returning to the Mountain!"
"That, my dear Óin, is a thrush," Gandalf pointed out, amused.
They watched the bird fly away, chirping a morning song that, to Alison, sounded hopeful.
"We'll take it as a sign," Thorin said, turning his gaze back to the golden horizon. "A good omen."
"You're right," Bilbo said as they all stared out at the Lonely Mountain together, the rising sun spilling forth and lighting up the mountain like a flame, beckoning them forward on their journey. "I do believe the worst is behind us."
Alison frowned. She hadn't the heart to tell him just how laughable his statement was.
Instead, she gazed at the mountain and felt the weight of her swords more vividly than ever, heavier now with the burden of her debt to the Valar.
From Eleon to you, it must now be paid.
I've kept Azog in the story because I actually enjoy his part from the movies. Sue me. Will his part remain the same? That's to be revealed...
And so we've reached the end of Part I and An Unexpected Journey! Next, The Desolation of Smaug and Part II begins. I have a lot planned and things really deviate from here on out, so I hope you stick around for that!
Please review! Until next time!
