Chapter Ten: Mysteries in Mirkwood
Thorin and the Company turn toward the forest. "Come on. We must reach the mountain before the sun sets on Durin's Day." Dwalin nods, his face set determinedly
"Durin's Day. Let's go!"
"This is our one chance to find the hidden door," Balin says. The Company enters Mirkwood. Bilbo is last into the forest, and with every step he takes into it, his mind is getting cloudier, his walking more uncoordinated. They follow the paved path that started at the Elven Gate. Thorin leads. At one point, the path turns a corner.
"The path goes this way," Thorin said. As the dwarves and Bilbo keep following the path through the forest, it twists and turns over all sorts of terrain such as bare ground, high ledges, fallen tree trunks, and more. The color palette used is very blue/gray, and gloomy. Dwalin thumps the handle of his hammer on the ground to find the paving stones of the trail.
"This way." They continue walking. Bilbo notices that his companions seem to be affected by the forest, too, and tries his best to get their hopes back up, singing songs from the shire, telling stories, circulating between each of the dwarves, joking around with them. Bilbo is walking back to Fili and Kili who are towards the end of the group, when suddenly he groans, holding his head in his hands before he stumbled and fell to the ground. The others are by his side in a second, but Oin pushed them all out of the way.
"I can't find anything wrong with him," the healer said. "He just collapsed." Bilbo slowly sat up, rubbing his temples.
"I'll be fine," he said, repeating his earlier words. The dwarves look at him skeptically. Ignoring the pounding of his head, Bilbo raises his hands. "Really, I just got a bit overwhelmed. I'll be fine." Bilbo stood up and smiled, convincing no one, but they kept moving because what choice did they have? Bilbo tried not to let it show, but the others could tell that he was in pain by the way he stumbled every few feet and the fact that he stayed at the back of the group, no longer moving around. The dwarves started to feel even worse, the dark magic affecting their minds, and this time, no hobbit came around and cleared their heads.
"Air. I need air." Bofur said. Oin groaned.
"My head, it's spinning." The dwarves suddenly run into each other as Nori, in front, stops abruptly. "What's happening?" Thorin started shouldering his way to the front of the group.
"Keep moving. Nori, why have we stopped?"
"The path...it's disappeared!" The other dwarves share shocked looks.
"What's going on?"
"We've lost the path!" Oin cried out. They are standing in front of a steep cliff, and there is no path ahead of them.
"Find it. All of you look. Look for the path!" Thorin commanded and the others start looking around. The path is not far away from them, but on the other side of the cliff. They had unknowingly left it some time ago. The Company wanders through the forest. The forest is beginning to affect them even more, and they stagger about.
"I don't remember this place before. None of it's familiar." Balin mutters.
"It's got to be here." Dori shouts.
"What hour is it?"
"I do not know. I don't even know what day it is," Dwalin replied, answering his king.
"Is there no end to this accursed place?" The dwarves are all muttering and rambling as they wander about. Bilbo absentmindedly plucks a spiderweb; it vibrates, and the vibrations continue through the various linked spiderwebs and far off into the forest. Bilbo plucks the web again. He hears a strange whispering noise. [They continue walking; Bilbo looks down and sees himself walking backward, although it's actually just an illusion. He looks back at Dori, behind him, and sees himself. His entire vision begins shifting and tilting. Ori leans down and picks up a tobacco pouch. Dori then takes it from him.
"Look." Ori says to his eldest brother.
"A tobacco pouch. There's dwarves in these woods." Bofur takes the pouch from Dori.
"Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, no less. This is exactly the same as mine." Bilbo frowns.
"Because it is yours. You understand? We're going round in circles. We are lost." Dwalin scoffs.
"We're not lost. We keep heading east." Oin glares at the tattooed warrior.
"But which way is east? We've lost the sun." As the dwarves begin bickering indistinctly, Bilbo looks up and sees a bit of sun through the tree canopy far above him. He speaks quietly, and no one else can hear him over the bickering.
"The sun. We have to find the sun. Up there. We need to-" The dwarves have started fighting and pushing each other around. Thorin stands apart, listening. He hears the strange whispering sound that Bilbo heard earlier and mutters to himself.
"What? What's that?" The whispering continues; Thorin turns and yells at the dwarves. "Enough! Quiet! All of you! We're being watched." Bilbo climbs up one of the trees nearby; as he crawls, he doesn't notice the masses of spiderwebs all around him. His head breaks through the trees and into the air; suddenly, it is as if a spell has been broken, and Bilbo's head clears. As he breathes deeply, he sees blue butterflies flying all around him. The sun is setting, and everything looks beautiful. Bilbo smiles and laughs. He then looks off into the distance and sees several landmarks. He calls down loudly to the dwarves below.
"I- I can see a lake! And a river. And the Lonely Mountain. We're almost there!" His face grows concerned when he hears no reply from his dwarves. "Can you hear me? I know which way to go! Hello?" Bilbo looks down, trying to see the dwarves. He hears a thumping noise in the distance and looks up. "Hello?" In the distance, trees move haphazardly under the weight of something approaching. The movement is coming straight toward Bilbo and the dwarves.
"What? What's that?" The whispering continues; Thorin turns and yells at the dwarves. "Enough! Quiet! All of you! We're being watched." Suddenly Kili jumps up.
"Where is Bilbo?" The others look around wildly, but no one catches a sight of their hobbit. Thorin swallows that lump that has formed in his throat.
"We have to find him." The company looks around and see a flicker of lights in the trees. Sharing a look with his family, Thorin is the first to step towards the light. The others leave the path and move toward the lights. They see elves sitting in a clearing around a fire, feasting and singing. However, the moment they burst into the clearing, the lights are snuffed out, and the dwarves can hardly find one another. The same thing happens twice more. On the last occasion, everyone becomes separated, struggling to find one another in the darkness. Balin is the first who notices that Thorin is gone, causing the others to start to lose hope. They were lost in a dark forest with both their ruler and the holder of their hope have disappeared. What were they to do?
Bilbo swings down from trees, falling clumsily to the ground when he landed hard on his feet. Groaning, he pulled out his sword, slightly scared to find out how heavy it was. "Okay. Time to find my dwarves." He set off into the forest, trying to keep an eye on everything around him. Bilbo falls to the ground several times, cutting himself up even more every time on the thick roots that line the forest floor. He steps forward, only to trip over a spiderweb and fall several feet, bouncing painfully against several trees, and yelling in pain and shock the entire time. His voice catches as he rolls to a stop on the cold floor beneath him, then watches in horror as a web parts to reveal a massive spider. As the spider opens its fangs and hisses at him, it grabs the hobbit in his arms, and throws him up and Bilbo lands in an even bigger spiderweb. He is stuck to it and is thus unable to resist as the spider wraps him up tightly. That last thing he remembered was what he could have sworn was Thorin's voice calling out for him.
Bilbo was pretty sure that hanging upside down for who knows how many hours couldn't possibly be good for his health. And for anyone who plans on being captured by giant spiders any time soon, make sure you have a good hold on your weapon. When the arachnine had launched the hobbit into the air, he had lost his grip on his sword and was now having to deal with the fact that trying to get a sword out of it's scabbard while covered in a spider's silk was a lot harder than he originally thought. Everytime he thought he almost got it, the cool metal would slip from his fingers and back into it's case. Eventually he did get it but almost drops it again when he feels a spider carrying the web-encased Bilbo high into the trees. It then reaches for him with its jaws, presumably to administer its poison. Bilbo realizes what is happening and just as the spider bends toward him, he manages to swing his sword, which he had been holding, straight up from his body, through the web, and into the spider. He guts it and flings it over the edge of the branch he had been lying on, sending it crashing to the forest floor. Bilbo quickly rips off the cocoon of web he has been wrapped in. Looking up, he sees the dwarves wrapped up and hanging from branches; he hides behind a tree as a spider climbs up the other side of the trunk. "Confound it all," he whispers. Bilbo pulls out his Ring from his pocket. "Valor, please forgive me," he says and slips it on his finger. In addition to becoming invisible, he enters the Ring's "other dimension," and he can suddenly understand what the spiders are saying.
"Kiilll theemm. Kiill theemm."
"Eat them now, alive and runny."
"Their hide is tough. There is good juice inside."
"Stick it again! Stick it again! Finish it off!" The spiders surround one wrapped dwarf; the dwarf kicks, but can't do much when wrapped up so tightly. "Ahh! The meat's alive and kicking!"
"Kill them, kill them now. Let us feast." The rest of the spiders take up the chant, "Feast! Feast!" Bilbo, holding his sword in front of him, approaches the spiders. He ducks just in time as a spider crawls along a branch above him, going toward the dwarves. Bilbo throws a piece of wood away and to the side, causing all the spiders to rush after the source of noise. "What is it? What is it? Kill it! Feast! Feast!" One spider stays behind and prepares to eat a wrapped and squirming Bombur.
"Fat and juicy. Just a little taste." he spider drops Bombur to the tree trunk and prepares to eat him. Bilbo sneaks up and strikes it on its rear with his sword. The spider spins around and hisses, but Bilbo is invisible to it. Bilbo keeps slicing at it, slicing away a leg and part of its head. "Curses! Where is it? Where is it?!" Bilbo pulls off his ring, revealing himself to the spider. He gives a little smile before he speaks.
"Here!" Bilbo thrust his sword directly into the spider's head. Bilbo pulls out his sword and the spider, dead, crashes to the ground. Bilbo looks at his sword. "Honestly, this worked better than I thought it would, considering how I'm feeling at the moment." Bilbo really did feel like crap, his head pounding, blood dripping from his wounds and his chest still aching from his almost but not quite healed ribs. He looks toward where the dwarves are still wrapped and tied up. Bilbo uses his sword to cut down all the dwarves. They land on the forest floor and proceed to rip off their wrappings, cursing and yelling the entire time.
"Who saved us?" Bofur asked, looking around. Bilbo smiled.
"I'm up here!" Just then, a spider jumps at Bilbo from underneath the branch he was standing on, and it pins him underneath it. However, he manages to put his sword in front of him just in time, stabbing the spider through the belly. As the spider falls off the branch, Bilbo, entangled in its legs, falls with it. As the pair smashes against branches on their way down, Bilbo's ring falls off his finger and lands some distance away from where Bilbo lands. Bilbo gets up and begins stumbling toward where the Ring fell.
Meanwhile, the dwarves have freed themselves and they try to escape, only to be surrounded by the returning spiders. They fight against the spiders with their various weapons. Bombur is knocked to the floor by a spider, and it stands over him to bite him.
"Grab a leg!" Dwalin shouts. The others grab each of the spider's legs."Pull!" The dwarves pull at the spider's legs, and they manage to pull its legs right off its body. The dismembered body of the spider lands on Bombur.
Bilbo looks around for the ring, cursing under his breath. He never should have even use the cursed thing. "Where is it? Where is it? Come on. Where is it?" Bilbo slowly looks over his shoulder; he sees the Ring lying on the ground nearby. Relieved, he begins walking toward it. Suddenly , a young, odd-looking spider emerges from the ground just behind the RIng. The spider's legs push the Ring aside as the spider crawls toward Bilbo. Bilbo looks at it angrily, then rushes at it with his sword raised, yelling all the way. He begins to hack at the spider in a berserk manner, hacking and slicing all over the place.
The dwarves are still fighting the spiders. A spider manages to grab Kili.
"Kili!" Fili yells, trying hard to get to his brother. Bilbo continues hacking wildly at the spider, slicing off limbs, feelers, and more. He sticks his sword in its throat, ripping it out, then jumps and stabs the spider through the head and into the ground. As the spider falls, Bilbo pants heavily. He grabs the Ring off the ground, then holds it up and shows it to the dead spider.
"I'd let you have this. I don't want anything to do with this lump of gold. But I think that Vala would be mad at me. So no. You have to die." Using one of knifes, the hobbit swings it up and slashes it down on the large head, severing it from it's body. He looks down and, seeing his dwarves in trouble, is about to go and join the party, when suddenly he freezes at who just arrived to help them. A blonde Elf, runs through the treetops, then swings down a spider's silk in order to land on it and kill it. He slides on the forest floor under the spider facing Dwalin, slicing it in half, and comes up kneeling with an arrow nocked in his bow and pointed at the dwarves. Several other Mirkwood elves appear, drawing arrows and pointing them at the dwarves.
"Do not think I won't kill you, dwarf. It would be my pleasure." The dwarves look around and see that they are completely surrounded and outnumbered by Mirkwood Elves, all with drawn bows aimed at the dwarves.
"Help!"
"Kili!" The dwarves whirl around and see a spider pulling Kili away by the foot. A female Elf, runs through the forest. She kills three spiders with her bow and knife, then kills the spider pulling Kili with an arrow. She turns to attack another spider behind her, and yet another spider rushes toward Kili.
"Throw me your dagger! Quick!" She scoffed.
"If you think I'm giving you a weapon, dwarf, you're mistaken!" The elf kills her spider with her knife, then spins and throws the knife, killing the spider that was attacking Kili. Kili looks on in amazement. The blonde elf tilted his head when Dwalin starts to lift his weapon.
"Please do attack us. It would be so easy for me to kill you."
"It would be easy for me to kill you, too!" Everyone spins around to see Bilbo. The hobbit has an arrow almost pressed against the elf's head. "Don't think I won't you, your highness. You attacked my friends; it would be my pleasure." Dwalin, who seems to be the only one not completely shocked at the fact the hobbit is alive speaks up.
"You know this elf?" Bilbo nods.
"Prince Legolas of Mirkwood. Almost an even more annoying elf than his father."
"Then why don't you just kill him?" Bilbo snorts.
"I'm not really in the mood to die at the moment. If you had looked around you, Master Dwalin, you would see that all of the other elves all have their weapons on me. The moment I release this arrow, I am dead." The dwarves looked around and found that his words were true. Every single one of the elves had their bows pointed at their hobbit, who was getting paler each second. "And really, what did you guys do to be captured by elves? You would think -" Suddenly Bilbo doubles over, his weapons sliding out of his hold as he starts breathing heavily. At first the dwarves thought that the elves has shot their friend, but they were as confused as the Company was. Bilbo looks up. "I think I am going to be sick." And he is. All over the back of Legolas' tunic. When he is done, the hobbit stands up and leans against a tree, holding his head in his hands, before sliding to the forest floor.
"Bilbo!" Oin, Fili, Kili, and Ori try to reach him, but they are forced back by the elves. Legolas, while completely disgusted by the sick that his dripping off of his clothes, kneels down and looks at the hobbit curiously.
"You are not a dwarf, but you are traveling with a band of them. You look like a halfling but do not act like one. Who are you?" Bilbo manages to sit up and sends the elf a smirk.
"Like I would tell you." Legolas growls.
"Bring them to the palace. Father will want to meet them." He turns to look at Bilbo, who is being dragged to his feet by several of the warriors. "Especially you."
The Company is led through the raised wooden walkways of the Woodland Realm. The entire place is built out of tree roots in a subterranean cavern. Down and down they go until they finally reach the dungeon. The dwarves are pushed, protesting, into several cells.
"This is not the end of it! You hear me?" Dwalin shouts.
"Let us out of here!"
"Get off me! The elf in charge of Fili finds another large dagger hidden in his coat, and Fili sighs in frustration. Kili addresses Tauriel as she locks him in his cell. "Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers."
"Or nothing," She replies. As Tauriel haughtily slams the cell door shut and walks away, Kili looks after her and smiles a little. As one of the elves are about to throw Bilbo into a cell, Legolas holds up a hand, stopping him.
"Wait, Father will want to speak to this one. Bring him with us." Bilbo looks up startled, having understood what he said, but the dwarves looked around confusedly.
"What did he say?" Bombur asks the elf. One of the guards club him over his head and push him into the cell.
"Your little friend is to be brought before the king. You better hope he tells him what he wants to hear, or it is unlikely you will ever see him again." As the elves drag Bilbo away, Dwalin and several other dwarves throw themselves against their cell doors, grunting in their effort. Balin finally yells at them.
"Leave it! There's no way out. This is no Orc dungeon; these are the halls of the Woodland Realm. No one leaves here but by the king's consent."
Thorin wished that they had never gone into this cursed forest. The moment he had been separated from the group as the chased silly lights, he was ambushed by a group of elves, who took him to their castle and brought him before their king, Thranduil.
"Some may imagine that a noble quest is at hand," Thranduil said. "A quest to reclaim a homeland and slay a dragon. I myself suspect a more prosaic motive: attempted burglary, or something of that ilk." He looks closely at Thorin. "You have found a way in. You seek that which would bestow upon you the right to rule: the King's Jewel, the Arkenstone. It is precious to you beyond measure. I understand that. There are gems in the mountain that I too desire. White gems of pure starlight. I offer you my help." Thorin, who would rather be back out in the forest with Bilbo and the dwarves, replies slowly.
"I am listening."
"I will let you go, if you but return what is mine." Thorin turns and slowly starts walking away.
"A favor for a favor," he said sarcastically. He wonders if being around Bilbo so much has made him more like the hobbit. But thinking about his friend - more than a friend, actually - made him feel like crying, so he turned his attention back to the elf king.
"You have my word. One king to another." Thorin stops walking. Still facing away from Thranduil, he speaks. His voice gets louder and louder as he speaks, everything that has happened over the past few weeks forcing him to blow up on someone.
"I would not trust Thranduil, the great king, to honor his word should the end of all days be upon us!" Thorin spins around and points at Thranduil. He is now shouting. "You lack all honor! I've seen how you treat your friends. We came to you once, starving, homeless, seeking your help, but you turned your back. You turned away from the suffering of my people and the inferno that destroyed us! Die a death of flames!" Thranduil leaps down from his throne and puts his face right in front of Thorin's.
"Do not talk to me of dragon fire. I know its wrath and ruin. I have faced the great serpents of the north." As Thranduil speaks, his face contorts, and we see his face covered with what appears to be burns and scars from his past encounters with dragons. His left eye is milky and unseeing. He draws away, and his face returns to normal. "I warned your grandfather of what his greed would summon, but he would not listen." Thranduil turns and walks up the steps to his throne. "You are just like him." A commotion coming from the doorway draws the attention of the two rulers, who both turn around to see who was interrupting this oh so 'important conversation'. Several guards along with the king's son, Legolas, entered the room, but it was who they had with them that made Thorin's heart stop. Bilbo, covered in blood, spider guts, and looking dazed, was stumbling along next to two of the elves, who had his arms in a tight grip. While most would have been repulsed by the sight of the hobbit, to Thorin he was beautiful. Forgetting all about the elf king behind him, Thorin started running forward.
"Bilbo!" The hobbit stopped abruptly, looking up with green eyes filled with surprise. The dwarf king reached the group and easily pulls the hobbit out of the hold of the stunned and confused elves. Holding Bilbo in a tight hug, Thorin buried his head in a shoulder, hiding his eyes that were threatening to spill tears. Bilbo held the dwarf just as tightly, whispering things in his ear.
"It's alright, we're fine. We are all fine." Before Thorin can respond, he feels Bilbo being pulled out of his arms while he is being pulled away as well. The dwarf tries to fight against the elves, but he, along with Bilbo are forced into kneeling positions on opposite sides of the room.
"Well, well, well, who do we have here." Thranduil glides down from his throne and stands before Bilbo. "You don't look like a dwarf, but you have gained the affections of their king," He said, turning the hobbits face side to side. Thorin growls, having flashbacks about the goblin caves, where Bilbo was being examined just as he was now.
"Don't touch him!" The dwarf shouted, causing Thranduil to turn around and smile at him.
"My, my, you really do care for him. Perhaps we can exploit this rather convenient coincidence." The elf king starts to walk closer to Bilbo when suddenly something on the hobbit's arm catches his eye. "What is this?" Thranduil nods to a guard who in turn takes off Bilbo's shirt. Bilbo doesn't respond, only continues to stare into Thorin's ice blue eyes, trying to tell him that everything will be alright, Thranduil kneels down beside the hobbit, grabbing one of his arms. Suddenly, the king gasps and stumbles back a few steps. Legolas looks concerned.
"Father, what is it?" Thranduil's already snow white skin pales considerably.
"His tattoos." The other elves just look at their ruler with confusion lining their faces.
"What about them? What do they mean?" One of the guards ask. Thranduil regains some of his composure and rises gracefully to his feet.
"He is the chosen one of the Valor."