Once the court had come to a stop, with the help of Gandalf, the entire Company leapt up and ran towards an opening in the rock, which didn't seem too far way, but of course nothing does when you only see the what's in front of you and not behind you. And in this case, was around a thousand angry, king-less Goblins. Which just so happens to be not too much of a good thing, and the dwarrows really could've done without it.
So the Company fled towards the exit, Dwalin and Morlia bringing up the rear.
Luckily for them, Goblins and sunlight do not agree with one another, so they could continue, with a little less on their shoulders.
They wandered on and on, till the sun began to sink westwards, behind the mountains, whose shadows fell across the dwarrows path.
The sky had taken on those shades of orange, that can only be glimpsed during the first and the last hours of the day, whose colour gives you hope that the sun will set only to rise again and again and again.
Looking onwards, they could see ridges falling towards dusky lowlands and grassy plains could be glimpsed occasionally between the trees.
Thorin gave a quick glance at his Company behind him.
All of them were quietly observing the land.
And Thorin continued, leading his Company out of the valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond; but all the while, a very uncomfortable feeling settled within him.
They had now reached a dell, right of the stony path that they had been walking along, surrounded in small bushes and huge pine trees.
Over the other side of the dell, the ground gave way to the slopes of the rest of the mountain range, light just about catching the peaks of the mountains.
"Thorin."
The sun had set.
"Thorin."
The fire was warm and crackling in the middle of their camp.
"Thorin Oakenshield, do not ask me to call your name once more!" Gandalf enunciated from the opposite side of the fire.
Thorin turned to him, eyes glaring; his mouth tasting the foul taste of burning pine.
"We cannot stay here, we must move! You know that an orc pack follows you, the cover of darkness cannot hide you."
"Orc pack? Those rogue orcs near the Trollshaws; they cannot pass the mountains."
Gandalf grumbled.
"… Fili, Kili… that's thirteen… and Bombur."
Gandalf opened his mouth to give Thorin a retort.
"Bilbo... Where's Bilbo?" Morlia muttered, from the top of the dell, her red, torn fingers holding out a four on one hand.
The Company slowly turned to her.
"My dear Morlia, what do you mean?" Gandalf asked, quietly, "Bilbo was… He was…"
Gandalf stood up, his face stricken, and passed by each member of the Company with a pointed finger and a swish of his cloak.
"Curse that Halfling, now he's lost," Dwalin grunted, from beside Morlia.
"I thought he was with Dori," called Gloin.
"Don't blame me!"
"Well, where did you last see him!" Gandalf shouted desperately to the rest of the Company.
The wind whipped through the pine trees above them, spraying a shower of needles onto the fire.
"I think I saw him slip away, when they first collared us," Nori offered.
The Wizard froze.
Thorin shook his head and his lips curled up in disgust.
"What happened exactly?" said Gandalf, raising his voice, storming over to Nori, "Tell me!"
"I'll tell you what happened," Thorin began, standing up and walking to the far side of the dell, "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 of his door!"
The wind whisked though the camp once again, making the fire swirl in a flickering red.
"We will not be seeing our Hobbit again. He is long gone."
The Company looked at each other. Kili looked at Fili; Balin gave a side-ways glance to Gandalf and Bofur looked rather unsure of himself.
"No, he isn't."
And there stood Bilbo. At the top of the dell, lips pursed, as the bushes behind him rustled in the wind.
"Bilbo?" asked Bofur, unbelievingly.
Bilbo nodded, then let out a small huff of a laugh.
"Bilbo!" cried Fili.
"Bilbo Baggins! I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!" exclaimed Gandalf, holding his arms up in delight.
Bilbo strode down to the fire and gave a small smile.
"Bilbo, we'd given you up!" Kili laughed.
"How an earth did you get past the Goblins?" Fili marvelled.
The fire popped.
"How, indeed," Dwalin pondered.
Bilbo scratched the back of his head, "Well..."
"What does it matter?… He's back!" Gandalf tried to explain.
"It matters," argued Thorin.
A pause of silence followed.
"I want to know," Thorin glared at Bilbo with accusation, "Why did you come back?"
Bilbo gave a timid smile and scuffed his feet together, on top of the pine needles that he stood on.
Pine hardly ever grew in the shire, and it's intoxicating sappy smell filled the camp.
"Look," he started, "I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you're right. I often think of Bag End."
Bilbo gave another wry smile, and stared at his hairy feet and his crusted nails.
"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."
When Bilbo looked up, he would've seen the warm smiles of the dwarrows, and all their tears and thanks and relief.
Fili would be cheery and smiling along with his brother.
Gloin would be reminded of the innocence of the young and under equipped, with likeness to his son, Gimli... Oin would smile, even though he would have not heard a word of what Bilbo had just said, though he would be smiling nonetheless.
Morlia would give a nod and would've been reminded of someone she once travelled with, therefore greatly receiving what Bilbo had to offer.
Bifur would be clasping Bilbo's shoulders and patting his back, smiling; Bombur would be probably bloody sobbing by now, along with Dori.
Ori would be looking melancholy, and Nori would be punching him lightly in the shoulder.
Dwalin would have his arms crossed tightly, his fingers gripping the sides of his arms in effort to look just that bit more masculine.
Balin would be glancing at Gandalf; Gandalf would be smiling.
Bofur would be Bofur.
Thorin- well, Thorin- he would have been…
Well, it didn't matter what any of the Company would have been like, for that is not what they looked like at that moment.
Fear had pierced them, and they stared at the tops of the mountain side in an absolute terror.
"Out of the frying pan," Thorin muttered, hand tightly gripping the hilt of his sword.
"And into the fire," finished Gandalf, hurriedly sweeping his eyes over the rock that lay about them.
On top of the hill, was the Pale Orc, smiling in all his malice, as his Wargs scattered the slopes; snarling; growling; howling.
"RUN," yelled Gandalf.
The Company ran as fast as they could down the mountain, leaping bushes and rocks; the Wargs tailing them, and rapidly catching up.
Bilbo felt like his lungs were going to collapse, and he was so lost in the adrenaline rush, he suddenly found that he had no control over what his legs were doing, and he promptly tripped, dragging pine needles with him.
He hurriedly hid behind one of the rocks, whipped out his sword and tried to slow his breath. Then, he realised that he had no idea of how to use the damned thing, and widened his eyes in panic as he heard a Warg's claws scratching against the rock above him.
He stood up. And held out the sword in front of him.
And surprisingly it worked.
"Bilbo!" shouted Bofur, beckoning him over to where the Company were making fort.
Bilbo rushed to him, and he was huddled into the middle of the barricade.
Morlia and Dwalin were taking care at the front, with Thorin closely behind; Kili making full use of his arrows.
One by one the Wargs came and were killed.
"Gandalf!" yelled Morlia, over the sound of the dying Warg in front of her, "We cannot survive the night if we do not do something!"
"UP! UP INTO THE TREES! ALL OF YOU!" bellowed Gandalf, after a moment of thought, grabbing his staff and swiftly hurrying the Company along.
The Company helped each other to pull themselves up into the pine trees, hands scrabbling at the branches, feet scuffing and slipping as they did so, and they cried out to other's to grab their hands.
Dwalin saw that Bilbo was having trouble getting into the tree and hoisted him up into the arms of Bifur, who passed him upwards.
Morlia was just about holding the Wargs off them, with the help of Thorin.
"UNCLE!" cried Fili, "GET UP THE TREE."
Thorin shared a look with Morlia. She nodded.
And on the count of three they both legged it down the slope and leapt into the tree; Dwalin and Nori catching them.
The Company started to panic when the first group of Wargs made it to the tree.
All the Wargs were launching themselves at the dwarrows; teeth bared, snarling, trying to snatch away each member of the Company.
Then the Company shouted and yelled as the tree started to break and splinter, and they leapt onto the branches of the next pine tree, just before they all fell.
Once Bilbo had gained a foothold on the tree, he looked upwards towards Gandalf, whose white beard whipped around him like a sort of fog.
"Gandalf?" Bilbo murmured, his face forlorn.
Gandalf did not reply, but simply tapped his fingers repeatedly on his forehead.
Then he stopped quite abruptly and plucked a pine cone from the branch next to him, twirling his staff round the edges of it and muttering incantations. Flames sprouted from it.
"DORI!" Gandalf bellowed before dropping the pine cone down a couple of feet into the dwarf's outstretched hands.
Gandalf grabbed two, three, four more pine cones and repeated the same incantation and twirled the pine cones round each other, spreading the fire and handing the dwarrows more and more of them.
At first the dwarrows were quite baffled at what they were meant to do with them, but soon after Morlia had lobbed hers at a Warg, effectively setting it alight, they soon knew what to do.
They were lobbing the pine cones with all of their might, trying to, with desperateness, hit the Wargs, hoping that it would be enough to at least distract the creature from it's prey.
But truth be told, the pine cones mostly just irritated the Wargs, and the Company soon realised that their plan was not thought though well enough, when the bottom of the pine trees started growing flames.
The fire was now spreading upwards, destroying the roots, making the trunk crunch and snap, forcing the Company to jump to yet another tree, and another and another, until they realised, to their misfortune, that they had run out of tree and were precariously dangling off the edge of a cliff.
Bilbo's hands were shaking.
Dori held a hand to his mouth; Dwalin roared for more pine cones.
Thorin looked up and down at his Company; fire roaring; tree shaking; the faces of his Company charred with panic and fear.
And the tree started to fall yet again.
Kili yelled out as he almost slipped, and the entire Company clawed at the branches of the tree, struggling to find a grip- if they did not, it was a long way down.
Thorin looked down into the darkness, swirling and winding as it went down and down and down.
The blackish fuzz of the night's sky flittered in and out of the way of the red sparks and the orange embers from the fires as they floated up and away.
Past mountains; past lakes; past forests; lay a mountain. Lay a Kingdom.
Thorin glanced at his Company again.
A tear drifted down Dwalin's face as he lifted Kili with all his might back onto the branch; Morlia cried out in relief; Bilbo sat there, watching, his shaking hand clasped round his mouth.
The air was filled with the stench of burning pine. It tasted bitter.
A howl.
It echoed around Thorin's ears.
A roar.
He whipped his head around, his braids lashing out across his face.
There was no air left to fill his lungs.
"It cannot be."
His words left like a wisp of smoke.
"Azog."
The world halted.
Thorin did not feel, as he gradually stood; sword in hand; feet apart.
It all came flooding back.
His father. His grandfather. His family. Almost burnt to their dying roots and forced to the edges of the world, thanks to this creature, this beast, this monster.
And how dare he show his face to his nephews.
This was never meant for them; this was not for their time.
A roar ripped itself from Thorin's throat.
His fist clenched Orcrist.
His eyes mirrored his blade: sharp, filled with the fire which swirled around them.
His boots thudded heavily against the wood as he ran.
His sword raised itself to the sky.
A grin appeared from Azog: his scars pulling at his mouth.
Thorin leapt of the log, his roar was deafening.
"THORIN-"
"NO!"
Thorin couldn't hear, couldn't see; blinded red in rage.
And as Azog grew closer, fear stabbed him.
Thorin suddenly felt very small.
Azog's eyes glared; his nostrils flaring; his Warg racing towards Thorin; claws pounding at the rock.
Thorin's senses flooded back to him, his heart pounding in his ears, his nose and eyes filling with smoke-
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
-Dwalin was calling to him.
And all in that one moment he realised how stupid it all was.
The Warg clamped it's snarling jaws round Thorin; teeth piercing into his chest.
Sharp pains shot up his spine and Thorin yelled out in utter agony. Saliva poured down his arm, as he was thrown to the side; rock colliding with the back of his head.
Thorin's arms moved numbly to push himself up; the world span before him as he stood.
Orcrist tumbled from his fingers and he found himself once again on the ground.
The rock was jutting into his skull. A garish face appeared in his darkening vision.
Thorin strained, as he outstretched his hand, in desperation, for his sword. Yet he only felt dirt between his fingers.
In and out, his breathing became constrained.
He felt the cool press of a blade against his neck.
A tear slipped down Thorin's cheek, as he panicked, and he craned his head to help find Orcrist, letting the blade nip at his skin.
Black edged it's way round his eyes, swimming in spots of unconsciousness-
And then he saw Bilbo.