Author's Note: I own nothing.

15 Webs

The next day or so went well enough, Bella's trick of climbing the trees to discover their route worked well. Bella, Kili, Fili and Ori were the ones who went up into the trees most as they moved a bit faster than the others. Bella could even climb the trees with her pack still on her back, unlike the dwarves. However on their fifth or sixth day in the woods something odd happened. They sent Fili up into the trees and he did not come back down. Kili climbed up after him and he too stopped responding to them. Ori was shaking like a leaf so Bella decided to go up next. Thorin frowned but helped her up into the tree without comment. She half drew her little sword just to check but it was not glowing, there were no Orcs or goblins in the area. It was a very good thing she'd had her sword on her mind or she might have forgotten about it entirely when she spotted what was happening above. Fili and Kili were nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a web, much more than the little lines of webbing Bella had been noting for the past few days. There were two large bundles of webbing that appeared to be wiggling but Bella didn't have time to check them. She was distracted as a massive spider, nearly the size of a pony, charged at her hissing. She screamed and pulled her sword swiping out at the creature as panic sounded from below. Fili and Kili had both been taken down without a sound. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she spotted other spiders rushing past her but she was busy with the one attacking her attempting to sting her.

Somehow she parried, burring her blade deep into the things thorax. Its legs curled up as it died, catching Bella's skirt and arms and both of them fell from the tree. Bella screamed again, the sounds of fighting died down as she fought her way free from the spider's corpse. She spun looking for the others. Instead she found several large spiders, though none of them seemed to have noticed her yet. She slipped into the shadows as one of the spiders skittered over to its fallen companion and began to wrap it in webs as well to be dragged away. She could only imagine that was what had happened to the dwarves for there were none of them left. She would be taken soon too if she was spotted. Slipping her sword free hand into her pocket she slipped on her funny little ring. She blinked as the hissing and chattering morphed into voices.

"Kill them!"

"Eat them!"

"Fresh meat!" The spiders were talking, worse they were talking about eating her friends, none of them seemed to realize that Bella had escaped. She stepped forward and blinked, she'd stepped on something metal. With a sense of deja vu, coming over her she looked down and snatched up the key to the hidden door. The chain Thorin normally wore it on looked to have broken. She slipped it into her pocket and scrambled after the spiders who were dragging away the last two bundles that must be the company. They were dragged to what had to be the nest, Bella following close behind as the dwarves were placed into the web and the spiders began to argue over who would be eaten first. Bella frowned, the spiders must have know they were there or they would never have been able to sneak up on Fili and Kili, much less the rest of them. How though she wondered and then answered her own question, the webs. She'd taken note of their presence since first climbing into the trees. She picked up a fallen branch and hurled it as far as she could in the opposite direction from the dwarves. It did as she'd hoped disturbing the spiders, sending them scrambling to find the source of the movement in their web. Careful as she could be to not get tangled in the webbing she rushed up the tree only to find that not all the spiders had left the nest. One of them loomed over the bundle that, by the size, could only be Bombur. He was wriggling and fighting the webbing but the spider was clicking its pincers.

"Fat and juicy! Just a taste!" It hissed, its stinger poised to plunge into the writhing bundle. Bella struck first though, sheering off the stinger with her little blade. The spider howled in pain. "It stings! It stings!" It shrieked. Bella was quick to silence it lest the other spiders come running at its cry. She slipped the tip of her blade into the mass of webbing and cut Bombur free, only realizing she was still wearing her ring when he looked most confused to have been saved by nothing.

"It's me! I have a plan. I'll cut the others down, you need to catch them the spiders won't be gone long." She said, and found that her voice sounded like a mere echo. Bombur seemed to have understood her though.

"Lass I never knew a hobbit could do this."

"No time to wonder. Move!" She commanded already scrambling over to the other writhing bundles. She got Fili and Kili free before the spiders began to return. "Free the others!" She called, chopping off a spider's leg, sending it howling searching for the culprit. She needed their attention off the dwarves and it was in that moment she remembered an old song that one of her Took cousins had sang to tease a young hobbit lass for her fear of spiders. Not thinking in that moment of the consequences she began to sing.

Old fat spider spinning in a tree,

Old fat spider, can't see me!

Thorin nearly froze as the voice echoed in his mind. What in Mahal's name was happening! Why would she be singing about spiders right now, unless. The voice grew louder, almost as if there was an echo. No not as if, there was an echo. The voice was not only in his mind, but around them as well. As someone cut him free from the tree he heard skittering and clicking of angry spiders, but they were focused on finding Bella. Her voiced echoed around them again.

Here I am, naughty little fly!

You are fat and lazy,

You cannot catch me, though you try

In your cobweb crazy!

Thorin shook his head, it couldn't be. But it was. He pulled the remaining webbing from himself as Bombur set him back on his feet so he could catch Nori and Ori. Everyone else, save Kili up in the trees cutting them down, was on the ground drawing weapons as Bella's song ended and Thorin's heart dropped. Had she be caught? Or had the spiders realized their dinner was escaping. Either was possible as several of the spiders rushed at them. It was then that the arrows began to fly. They were not Kili's arrows though. These were elven made, which was clear as those same arrows were pointed at them once the spiders were dealt with. And still there was no sign of Bella, even as the dwarves' hands were tied and they were ushered through the woods. Her voice had gone quiet and there was no talk from the elves of having found a strange woman, for it was unlikely they would recognize a Hobbit.