AN: Long time, no see. Life... sucks. Work, finals, more work...
Review answers:
Kanzo lush: Then write your own. If you don't like it, take it up with Demon-Kagetsuki.
Ltbutterfly287: Then don't read it. Simple as.
Mjoern: Not sure yet, though you gotta remember that Smaug is... big. Not Ancalagon big, but big.
Fogman66: If literally everyone around you that you cared about died, out of old age, poisoning, assasination, and the only people you had left were Dragons and Vampires, for fifteen hundred years... besides, I wasn't the one that wrote the intro, I'm only adapting the story for my own purposes. I appreciate that you think the story is promising, and I hope that you continue reading.
Brænna yelped as she smacked into the stone, and she just knew that she'd be covered in bruises by morning. She used the scales to her advantage, she tried to angle herself so her back was facing downward allowing for some semblance of protection from the rocks. She pulled the surprisingly heavy Dwarf toward her, wrapping her arms around him. They fell down the chute, sharp rocks tearing at clothing, until they landed heavily in a cage made of chains and wood, driving the air from her lungs.
Dazed, she groaned, and through blurry eyes saw a horde of the most disgusting looking creatures she had ever seen. She'd felt nothing but pity for the Falmer ever since she'd learned their story, though in the last thousand years they'd gotten almost civil, but these creatures… she shuddered, drawing in a breath of the rank, stale air, trying to at least sit up. She was violently shoved down though, head cracking hard against the stone. Nearly cross-eyed, her lips curled into a snarl before she heard Kíli's voice right by her ear, saying, "These are goblins! Don't bring attention to yourself."
Just as she tried to reply, or to defend herself against the goblins, the sword was ripped from her grasp, and she saw others being stolen from the other members of the company. Growling again, she tried to defend herself as best she could, kicking and clawing, driving more than one unlucky goblin off the rickety platform to their doom. They were surrounded by the repulsive creatures, set free of the cage, but being herded further into the mountain.
Desperate for a way out, she searched for anything, a crack with water behind it, a vein of magnesium, anything that would help to even the fight. With mounting despair as she was let further into the mountain, she saw none. As they were shoved, poked, prodded along the walkway, dread pooled in her stomach as she saw the sheer amount of goblins there were. They entered a large central chamber, and she nearly vomited in revulsion as she saw the walls crawling with the horrid little beasts. Everywhere she looked, they crawled on the walls, spitting, jeering and laughing down at the hopelessly outnumbered company.
When she felt a flash of pain on her cheek, and saw blood on her fingers after touching them to her cheek, she realized they had brought out whips and were cracking them above their captives' heads.
She snarled outright under her hood, thinking, If I'd recovered enough magic, I would char every single one of these bastards!
The lingering fury from what happened on the cliffside combined with the fury of what was happening currently set her blood aflame, and the dragons within her were no help. She was breathing heavily trying to restrain herself when she was completely thrown off by the sound of… singing?!
The company was herded onto a platform before what looked like a throne, upon which sat possibly one of the children of Namira herself. The massive, grotesque goblin was covered in rashes, warts, abscesses, all crowned by bulging watery eyes, the colour of pus. It stood, using the screaming bodies of its smaller subjects as a ramp to walk to the floor. Its massive stomach and chin performed a grotesque dance, jiggling as it stepped, beginning its song:
Clap, snap, the black crack
Grip, grab, pinch, and nab
Batter and beat
Make 'em stammer and squeak!
Pound pound, far underground
Down, down, down in Goblin Town
With a swish and smack
And a whip and a crack
Everybody talks when they're on my rack
Pound pound, far underground
Down, down, down to Goblin Town
Hammer and tongs, get out your knockers and gongs
You won't last long on the end of my prongs
Clash, crash, crush and smish
Bang, break, shiver and shake
You can yammer and yelp
But there ain't no help
Pound pound, far underground
Down, down, down in Goblin Town
The massive goblin, who she had noticed bore a mockery of the Jagged crown on his head, flourished his staff around, before slumping heavily back on its throne. "Catchy, isn't it? It's one of my own compositions."
"That's not a song!" cried Balin. "It's an abomination!"
"Abominations! Mutations! Deviations! That's all you're going to find down here!" crowed the Goblin King, taking it as a compliment.
The goblins piled the weapons on the ground as the Great Goblin asked, "Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom? Spies? Thieves? Assassins?"
Rage continued to build within her as her bow was ripped from her back, and she gritted her teeth, trying not to rip the beast's head off with her bare hands.
"Dwarves, your malevolence," one of the Goblins announced, thankfully not having spotted her or Bilbo yet.
"Dwarves?" the King repeated.
In its raspy voice, the goblin explained, "We found them on the front porch!"
Noticing the skeletons piled around the throne belonged to not only goblins, Brænna realized that the King had obviously dealt with Dwarves before. "Well, don't just stand there; search them," the King ordered. "Every crack, every crevice!"
The search effort doubled, and she felt her boots' daggers get removed, along with those attached to her belt. They left her pouch alone, thankfully, but her luck ran dry when they ripped her hood off her head, yanking some of her hair with it.
Screeching, the goblin that pulled her hood off cried, "An elf! An elf!"
Leering down, the Goblin king leaned in and crooned, "And a girl, too! Tell me. What are a group of Dwarves and an Elf doing in these parts?"
"Don't worry, lads - I'll handle this," Oin offered, reassuring exactly nobody.
"No tricks!" ordered the abomination upon the throne. "I want the truth! Warts and all."
"You're going to have to speak up, your boys have flattened my trumpet," Oin said, raising the ruined instrument.
"I'll flatten more than your trumpet!" the King bellowed, the words echoing from the stone.
"If it's more information you're wanting, I'm the one you should speak to!" the Company's professional storyteller/liar/BS-er Bofur said as he shoved his way to the front. Now that he had the Goblins' attention, he began to spin his tale.
"We were on the road… well it's not so much a road as a path… actually, it's not even that, come to think of it, it's more like a track. Anyway, the point is, we were on this road, like a path, like a track, and then we weren't! Which is a problem, because we were supposed to be in Dunland last Tuesday."
As the rest of the company began adding to this tangled tale, Brænna winced as she saw the King getting progressively more and more annoyed.
"SHUT UP!" bellowed the Goblin, pounding his staff onto the ground. "Well then, if they will not talk, we'll make them squawk! Bring out the Mangler! Bring out the Bone Breaker! Start… with the elf," he leered.
She snarled outright, baring her fangs at the Goblins that tried to grab her. "Do not touch me, Krastov gaas!"
More goblins came to restrain her and drag her forward, and the Company began to fight back, protesting. In absolute shock she stared when she heard Thorin yell, "Wait!"
She turned and saw the Dwarf Lord restraining a murderous Kíli, passing him off to Balin before walking forward.
"Well, well, well, look who it is! Thorin! Son of Thrain! Son of Thror! King, under the mountain," the oozing heap exulted, bowing mockingly to Thorin. "Oh, but I'm forgetting, you don't have a mountain. And you're not a king. Which makes you… nobody, really."
"I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head," he drawled, with a smirk. "Just the head, of course, nothing attached. Perhaps you know of whom I speak. An old enemy of yours. A pale Orc, astride a white warg."
A chill ran down her spine as she realized who the Goblin was talking about. "Azog the Defiler was destroyed," Thorin hissed. "He was slain in battle long ago!"
"So you think his defiling days are done, do you?" the Great Goblin sneered, laughing wheezily. "Send word to the Pale Orc; Tell him I have found his prize…"
A tiny goblin on a little chair cackled gleefully, scribbling on a slate, pulling a lever that sent him and his contraption down a rope into the depths of the mountain.
"While we wait…" the Goblin King leered, stooping down to look Brænna in the eyes, where she was restrained by the Goblins, "We might as well have some fun. Bring the elf forward!" he ordered.
Brænna was torn from her shock by the claws of the goblins shifting from holding her to dragging her forward. Screeching in rage, vision clouding with red fog, she struggled against the Goblins, sending many to their dooms. A particularly large beast, however, planted a clawed foot in her back, yanking her wrists upward, and she screamed as she felt something tear in her shoulder. Glaring upward through her hair at the Great Goblin, she watched as he shifted his prodigious bulk, stepping down the squealing goblin ramp to leer right in her face, close enough where she could smell and feel his revolting breath right in her face.
By the nine, I'd love to crush that windpipe, she thought silently.
"Oh, my little Elfling, what brings you here? I thought there was a rift between your race and the Dwarves," the Goblin oozed, curious.
"Wouldn't you like to know," she hissed between clenched teeth. "I'd tell you my name, though if you said it, it would never feel clean again."
"And a sense of humour, too!" he said, reaching forward to stroke her face with the back of his hand, yanking it away when she made to bite at it.
"Stop! Leave her alone!" she heard Kíli yell, and she clenched her eyes.
"Oh, so you're her friend! Maybe you'll enjoy the looks on her face when she's got the lash on her back? Maybe after everything is over and done with, I'll let you keep her head, just a little souvenir."
The large goblin on her back wrenched her around to face the company, tearing her shoulder more, her vision darkening for a moment with the pain.
What the company expected to see was fear and panic. What they saw, however, was a chilling cold fury. Though she jerked a little when the first lash fell, her thousand-yard glare only grew harder.
Keeping her silence was no hard feat. The scales on her back protected her from the lash, though she was annoyed that her freshly-repaired Nightingale Armor was now in shreds on her back.
"What is the meaning of this?" the Goblin King bellowed as he grew impatient with her lack of reaction.
She felt his heavy footfalls come closer, and felt his grotesque nails on her back. "So it is true. When the messenger arrived saying there was a new bounty on Oakenshield, of course I believed him. What I didn't believe was that Azog was looking for a Dragon Sorceress!" he exulted. "The messenger said there was a Sorceress who could breathe flames hot enough to destroy an army, and could control a Dragon."
"And you think that it's a good idea to be near me if I can breathe flame and call a Dragon?" she sneered. "You're as stupid as you're ugly. Besides, Orcs don't know the difference between a fire spell and the fires of Dragon Breath."
"Then what are these scales on your back?" he questioned, sending a shiver down her spine as he ran a fat knuckle down her back.
"I don't have to answer to each and every low-life dirt-dweller who asks, do I?" she asked sarcastically, though she was trying to warn the company away with her eyes. She had a plan, and it involved all of them, getting away from her for a long time.
"So you don't deny it?" she heard right by her ear.
She began laughing. "I don't have to take this for any longer," she said, knowing this was going to hurt a LOT.
Using her torn shoulder to her advantage, she slipped out of her captors' grasps, and lunged toward the Great Goblin, smashing her fist into his nose. Immediately, of course, she was restrained, but the Dragons inside her were screaming.
Clutching his now-broken nose, the Goblin roared, picking up a sword from the pile of Dwarven weapons, intending to behead Brænna for her insolence. As he unsheathed it, the light emanating from the sword seemed to blind him, and he dropped it with a pained howl, all of the other Goblins retreating from the sword.
"I know that sword! It is the Goblin-Cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!" he screeched as he clambered backwards up the throne. "Slash them! Beat them! Kill them all! Cut off the Dwarf's head!" he screeched.
A Goblin approached Thorin, sliding a stone knife out of… somewhere, reaching forward to behead the Dwarven Lord. He never got the chance.
"FUS RO DAH!" echoed throughout the cave, as the goblin, and several others, were sent flying over the edge of the platform.
Silence fell over the entire cavern as everyone except Kíli tried to figure out what just happened. He, however, only stared at Brænna, who was standing, legs shaking with effort, and her breathing heavy. She stared into his eyes, knowing that he knew very well what was coming. He saw her pupils narrow from round to slits, and he saw the scales crawling up her neck.
With the last of her control, she roared, "RUN!"
Chaos broke loose as she threw herself at a pile of goblins, trying to keep herself occupied as the others fled.
"Come on! We only have a little time before she tears through that group and starts looking for something else to kill!" Kíli yelled as his companions got to their feet.
Seeing the panic on his nephew's face, Thorin grabbed Orcrist and yelled, "Baruk Khazâd!" over the din.
The other dwarves picked up their weapons, making sure to take Brænna's as well, seeing as she was otherwise occupied with tearing goblins limb from limb.
Some of them turned back to convince her to follow them, but Kíli shouted, "You can't reason with her right now! She'll just kill you!"
To prove this point, the Dovahkiin turned toward the horde of Goblins heading down one of the bridges, and roared, letting loose a blast of flame that the rest of the company felt. The Dwarves, realizing that she was beyond reason, turned and fled down a bridge.
Kíli waited a few seconds, sad at what his friend had become, before following the company. Brænna caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, and had to suppress the urge to follow the rest of the company.
As the Dwarves travelled across the suspended pathways, they ran into Gandalf who was dispatching some goblins with Glamdring at the moment.
"What has happened? What was that noise?!" he asked Thorin.
"Your Dragon-Slayer has let loose," Thorin responded, glaring at the Wizard.
Another roar shook the earth around them, cutting off anything else Thorin was going to say.
"Quickly then, we must not waste any time," Gandalf said, whirling around. "The exit is this way!"
Chased by the possibility of dragon fire, hundreds of Goblins were running toward the exit, blocking the Dwarves path. Dwalin called, "Post!" as he cut up the guardrail, the others catching on to the idea. They grabbed the free guardrail, sweeping Goblins left and right off of the path. Just as they dropped it, the way cleared they heard an inhuman screeching, and some turned around to see Brænna leaping from bridge to bridge, like some kind of big cat, eyes slitted and fangs bared at the Goblin she was savaging.
She turned toward them, charging up a Shout. Gandalf bellowed at the Dwarves to cover their ears and turn away. He slammed the butt of his staff onto the wood of the bridge, and from the crystal upon the staff came a bright explosion of light that sent the wrathful Dovahkiin flying down to claw her way up from a lower level.
"Quickly now!" Gandalf hollered once he was done.
Kíli tried not to think about his screaming friend, concentrating at the fight in front of him, using his sword to skillfully deflect arrows that several goblins had fired at him. He grabbed a nearby ladder, catching more of the arrows, but one struck him in the shoulder, slicing through the leather and deep into his skin. With a yelp that faded into a pained hiss, he dropped the ladder on the incoming goblins, and with the others' help, turned the ladder into a battering ram, driving it forward.
The ladder/ram seemed to be a blessing from Mahal as the company approached a missing area of the path, the company dropping it to become a bridge. Dwalin quickly destroyed their impromptu crossing once everyone was safely across, but the Goblins were not the only pursuers to be concerned about.
Brænna had caught back up, having clawed her way back up to their level, and Shouted the goblins out of her way. She wasn't concerned for a moment about the broken path, leaping across with ease, and a small part of Kíli noticed her loping, animal gait, rather than running like a Human.
The passages were labyrinthine, a maze of twists and turns, the Company finally reaching a point in the path where the trail was suspended by ropes from above. After they crossed, Thorin hacked at the ropes, sending half of the path swinging into the abyss. Timing the arc of the pendulum, Brænna swung, dislodging Goblins as she went, before leaping upwards with inhuman strength, her black claws digging into the stone of the mountain and pulling herself up. Down the corridor another bridge awaited, and thanks to the time Thorin had gained, he tried the same tactic, but miscalculated; Kíli was left swinging on the Dwarves' side of the bridge, Nori and Balin reaching down desperately out to him.
Brænna finished her stare-off with Thorin atop the bridge, leaping down instead at the apex of swinging on Kíli's side of the bridge. She caught the young Dwarf by the ankle, the planks under his hands cracking underneath their combined weight.
"Kíli!" screamed Fíli, dropping to his belly and hanging half over the edge, hand out to his brother, only to be roughly yanked back by the collar. He whirled on his "saviour," only to freeze and blanch as he heard the sickening twang of thick rope being cut, and the unnatural screech and roar of betrayal that left their Dragonslayer's throat, slowly fading down into the abyss.
"KÍLI NO!" he spun again, only to be roughly grabbed by Thorin and Balin.
"Fíli! Pull yourself together!" Thorin yelled in his face, grief shining in his own eyes. "You're needed here. Kíli would want you to keep going."
Nodding dully, the screeches of Goblins finally reaching him in his dazed state, he started jogging along, drawing his twin swords and wielding them with a never-before seen ferocity, leading the charge against the Goblins. The remaining Dwarves and Wizard continued sprinting through the caverns. When they leapt onto a bridge between two walls of a chasm, the Goblin King suddenly bursting out of the planks beneath, dragging his impressive bulk up to stand in front of the company, with hundreds of other goblins converging on the small area.
"You thought you could escape me?!" he screeched as he swung his mace, sending Gandalf stumbling backwards. "What are you going to do now, Wizard?" he asked, leeringly.
Leaping forward, Gandalf struck the Great Goblin in the eye with his staff, before slicing the enormous gut as the Goblin clutched his face in pain.
As he fell to his knees, the Goblin clutched at his stomach, and nodding in shock, speaking for the last time, saying, "That'll do it."
Gandalf swung at the goblin's neck, causing him to fall. The sudden shift of weight caused the bridge to start shaking, and the section that the Company stood on broke away and slid down the side of the ravine like a demented carriage, demolishing everything, and every goblin in it's path. Seeming to leap from side to side of the ravine as it fell, it slowed, so when it finally came to the bottom of the cavern and broke apart, it was slow enough to only leave the Dwarves covered in loose timber, rather than smashing them flat.
"Well, that could've been worse," Bofur grunted, before the walking tumour that had once been the Goblin King landed on them.
"You've got to be joking!" Dwalin cried.
Everyone was only beginning to lift themselves up when Fíli looked upward, and saw the mass of goblins converging on them from above.
Dwalin, having done the same, cried, "There's too many! We can't fight them!" as he helped Nori to his feet.
"Only one thing will save us: Daylight! Come on! Here, on your feet," Gandalf urged as he pulled a Dwarf out of the splintered bridge. They rushed along a slim crevice until a mote of light flickered in the distance.
"I see it! I see the exit," Gloin hollered to the rest, who redoubled their pace to escape the swarm of Goblins.
They exited the dark mountain and ran down the face away from the entrance to escape any Goblins foolhardy or brave enough to venture into the sunlight. Gandalf began counting the remaining dwarves with them while the others caught their breath.
"Five, six, seven eight… Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, that's eleven, Fíli, Kí…" he said, wincing as he remembered the youngest Dwarf's fate.
"He's gone. He's gone and I have to tell Mother," Fíli moaned as he unconsciously pulled out a smooth stone from his pocket, falling to his knees. "I couldn't keep my brother safe." Noticing the stone in his fist, he clenched it in his hand before shoving it roughly into his pocket.
"Where's Bilbo?" Gandalf asked, head whipping from side to side, desperately searching for the Hobbit. "Where is our Hobbit? Where is our Hobbit?"
Dwalin snarled, "Curse the Halfling! Now he's lost as well?"
"I thought he was with Dori!" Gloin interjected.
Whirling on the oldest of the trio, Gandalf asked, "Where did you last see him?"
From Gandalf's elbow, Nori said, "I think I saw him slip away, when they first got us."
"I'll tell you what happened," growled the Durin. "Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it. He's though oft nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since he stepped out his door. We will not be seeing our Hobbit again. He is long gone," he said, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "They are all long gone."
"No, he isn't," a voice came from behind them.
Stepping out from behind a tree, Bilbo revealed himself, much to the shock of the company. Thorin's eyes widened with a glimmer of hope that if Bilbo had survived…
"Bilbo Baggins!" cried Gandalf with a laugh. "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!"
Bilbo glanced around, silently counting to himself as well. "Where are… where are Kíli and Brænna?" he asked, his concern deepening as he saw the sorrow on everyone's faces.
"They fell," said Gandalf somberly, and quickly explained the fate of the Dragonborn and the youngest Durin. "But how did you get past the Goblins?" Gandalf asked, once he had finished his recounting.
"How indeed," Dwalin drawled.
With a nervous laugh, Bilbo tried to think of what to say, and put his hands on his hips. Only Gandalf seemed to notice as Bilbo slipped a small, golden ring into his waistcoat pocket.
"Well, what does it matter? He's back!" Gandalf said.
"It matters!" Thorin shouted. "I want to know, how did you come back? Why did you come back?"
Bilbo, eyes pinched with sorrow at his friends' fate, took a deep breath and explained, "Look, I know you doubt me. I know you always have. And you're right, I often think of 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, 'cause you don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help to take it back if I can."
Silence reigned as the Dwarves pondered what Bilbo said, and came to terms with their loss. Gandalf only had a moment to smile, before a piercing howl echoed against the mountain, having come from the forest behind them.
"Out of the frying pan-" said Thorin, remembering the Goblin King's messenger, pulling Fíli to his feet.
"And into the fire. Run! RUN!" Gandalf bellowed.
AN II: Will try to update more often, but no promises. Y'all got twice a day updates for a week, now life's caught up with me.