Elsa couldn't tell if it was just her, or if the sun seemed to be setting faster and the dark growing stronger, but as the wargs came closer and closer, it certainly seemed as if doom itself was nigh approaching. At Gandalf's behest, she ran alongside the other dwarves through the trees and away from the approaching danger. Suddenly, her foot caught on a rock, and she fell onto the ground.
Lifting herself up, she saw the devil wolves sprinting down the slope at high speed, their teeth bared in hideous growls and their eyes glowing in the dark. She realized they couldn't outrun them—but fortunately she came up with an idea. Concentrating, she flipped herself on to her back and raised a wall of ice high into the air, surely enough to stop these beasts, as such a tactic had done in the past. But one of the wargs burst through the ice wall, flying over her, and landing a short distance away, dashing her hopes to pieces. Twisting its body around, the beast began to charge at her with terrible speed, only to be felled by a slash of Thorin's sword. Bofur and Glóin soon came to her aid. "Now miss, this is no time to be layin' down on the job," Bofur joked as the two dwarves helped her onto her feet.
They soon got back into a run, but by this time more wargs broke through Elsa's ice wall, forcing the other dwarves to fight them off. A quick glance to her left and she saw that Bilbo had apparently slain a warg as well, and now tried to pull his sword out of the skull of the dead beast.
Turning back to her path, she saw exactly where they were headed; the road, so to speak, ended at the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast valley. Where were they to run?
Gandalf provided the answer. "Up into the trees!" he shouted, "All of you!"
At his words, the dwarves started clambering up the tree nearest to them as fast as they could; even Bombur managed to jump up and snatch a branch in his thick arms. Elsa meanwhile, raised an ice column beneath her feet and elevated herself to the nearest branch for her to climb onto. From there, she climbed higher and higher along with the dwarves, hopefully enough to stay out of the reach of the wargs' jaws. From here, she saw another good reason for Gandalf having them climb up here; at the very least, she had a good vantage point. She could see a horde of at least twenty, if not more, wargs charging towards them through the forest below—as well as Bilbo, who had just barely managed to extract his sword, looking around helplessly.
"Bilbo!" she shouted, "Climb!"
At the sound of her voice, Bilbo turned and ran towards the tree she stood in, but as much as he tried, he couldn't reach the lowest branch. Fortunately for him, Elsa raised a column of ice beneath his feet and elevated him up as well, right as a warg snapped its jaws after him. Soon, the forest floor beneath them was crawling with the awful beasts, barking and growling after their desired prey in frustration. Elsa felt content enough to cast a mischievous smile at them in triumph.
But then, something else drew away the wargs' attention; they became silent, their backs arched and their ears lowered in submission. Elsa looked to see what they bowed to, and her eyes widened at the sight of a huge albino orc astride a warg as white as snow, flanked by at least six or seven others. He wore very little armor, exposing his deathly pale skin lined with huge scars all over his torso. A metal prong replaced the important part of his arm, running through the stub and coming out in a spike at the elbow. With his good arm, the orc held a vicious looking mace. While he wasn't the most hideous orc she had ever seen, Elsa did not believe that she had come across one more intimidating.
Thorin turned, and upon seeing the orc his eyes became wide with a genuine fear.
"Azog!" he whispered.
Elsa, meanwhile, turned to Bilbo, asking, "Who is that?"
"Azog the Defiler," Bilbo explained, "I've heard of him; he's supposed to be dead!"
The orc began to speak in a harsh language that Elsa did not understand, but at least could read the intent; through his deep, gravelly voice, this orc spoke with malice and pride, intending to drive the words into Thorin's heart.
"It cannot be," the Dwarf King said, horror staining his words.
Azog shouted a new command, and the rider-less wargs suddenly charged again, jumping into the trees with unbridled force and hunger, snapping their jaws after the company and even ripping off the branches with their teeth. Soon, the very trees themselves began to waver at the force of their weight; Elsa felt her tree beginning to slowly tilt.
"Move Elsa," Fili shouted at her, "Move!" She then found herself running with the tilt of the tree to the next tree, jumping onto it as the other one collapsed, which unfortunately, like a string of dominos, kept them all hopping from one tree to the next, until at last the entire company stood trapped in one single pine tree positioned precariously on the very edge of the precipice.
Determined not to stand by, Elsa tried aiming and launching bolts of frost at the wargs below; however, even deathly cold and ice couldn't deter the hounds from pursuing their master's command. But then she smelled the faint aroma of smoke; looking upwards, Elsa saw that Gandalf had lit a pine cone on fire. The wizard threw it down towards the wargs, and upon contact, the dry tinder on the ground burst into flame, driving them off. He lit more and handed them to the others, who lit their own and began a barrage upon the foul creatures; while Elsa wasn't quite as comfortable with fire, she too took one and launched it towards the enemy. Soon, the ground before them burned alight, and the wargs retreated from the heat of the growing flames, though some had the misfortune to catch their fur on fire. Azog, meanwhile, looked on furiously, his bloodlust thwarted.
The dwarves began to cheer at their victory; even Elsa let out a cry of joy. But a rumbling in the trunk of the tree cut their celebration short, followed by everything suddenly falling backwards as their one source of safety began to lean over the precipice. Elsa used all of her physical strength to cling on to a branch for dear life along with the others, staring down at what looked like hundreds of miles of empty space between her and the ground.
She noticed the thumping of boots close by and looked up to see Thorin Oakenshield wielding his sword and facing Azog himself, who looked on expectedly. Even from her low angle, she could see the look of righteous anger and determination on his face as he stepped forward off the tree, and began running towards the Pale Orc in a death charge. Her attention was fixed upon the Dwarf King as he raised his sword, ready to take on his enemy. Azog, meanwhile, smiled and spread his arms invitingly. Just as Thorin drew close enough, the orc compelled his beast, and the white warg leapt forward, knocking the Dwarf King onto his back. Thorin got back onto his feet again, only for Azog's mace to slam into his chest, sending him flying back into the air and yelling in pain. The dwarves around Elsa began to shout in shock and grief at the sight of their leader drawing closer to death's door.
She didn't notice until too late that Bilbo had gotten off the tree, and started running towards the battle.
The jaws of Azog's warg clamped around Thorin's torso and shook him around. Only a swift jab to the top of the muzzle freed him; the beast threw him into the air, and he landed a good distance away, too beaten to get up.
Azog then dismounted his warg. One of his warriors handed him his blade, and the pale orc began to approach the fallen dwarf, relishing the moment. He pressed his foot onto Thorin's chest, raised his blade…and then a side tackle from Bilbo knocked him over, forcing the blade out of his hand.
Taken by surprise, Azog fell onto his side, with the hobbit raising his glowing sword to land a killing blow. Grabbing him by the shirt, the orc captain threw him off like a rag doll. The warg, meanwhile, moved to defend its master, but found its paws frozen to the ground as Elsa moved in to save Bilbo, having gotten there just in time.
Enraged at the humiliation, Azog faced the two of them with hatred burning from his cold blue eyes. Elsa realized what sort of trouble she and Bilbo had gotten themselves into; this orc stood taller even than her.
The orc charged straight at them, raising his mace into the air. Elsa quickly raised a wall of ice into the air, thicker than before, but even that fell to the blow of the orc's weapon; the broken pieces landed on Bilbo, throwing him to the ground and trapping him beneath their weight. She summoned up spears of icicles, but they were smashed down before they could pierce his skin. Azog swung his mace down towards them, forcing Elsa to leap out of the way as his blow smashed into the ground. As she struggled to get up, she heard the sound of a heavy thud behind her. Suddenly, the orc's cold, clammy fingers were wrapped around her neck, and she felt her body being raised high into the air. Baring his pointed razor teeth in the most malicious of grins, Azog raised the barbed metal rod that served as his hand and Elsa had the horrible feeling that she knew precisely where he intended to plunge it. She closed her eyes, ready for the pain to take her into the embrace of death…
But it never came.
Opening her eyes, she saw the tip of Orcrist sticking through the ribs of the Pale Orc, dripping with black blood.
The orc's grip slackened, and Elsa fell to the ground, gasping for breath. She saw Thorin, battered and bruised, standing right behind Azog, with his sword embedded deep in the body of his old enemy.
"You have failed, Azog," the Dwarf King said in great pain, "Let's see you come back from THIS!"
He withdrew the sword, allowing the body of the once great and terrible fiend to fall to the earth. And with that, Thorin himself fell, exhausted from the exertion put upon himself.
Bilbo, having extracted himself from the ice, ran to Thorin's side.
The white warg, meanwhile, howled miserably for the death of its master, and in return, a dozen more growls arrived in return. The heroes found themselves surrounded by the remaining orc warriors, the lust for vengeance gleaming in their twisted, malformed faces. Bilbo swung his blade defiantly at them, while Elsa cast a line of frost before them, but neither tactic succeeded in intimidating the gang of orcs.
Suddenly a gust of wind blew up a storm of dust and fire. Elsa turned to see a massive golden-brown eagle, the biggest she had ever seen, swoop down and snatch one of the orcs and his warg and carry them into the air, dropping them to their deaths a ways off. The sky above suddenly became alive with the giant eagles, which set upon the wargs with uncanny ferocity by also fanning the flames onto the beasts with their wings and slashing at them with their hooked beaks and talons.
One of the birds, having driven off the orcs, flew straight towards her and Bilbo, and despite their best efforts to escape, picked both of them up in its talons, flew over the edge of the cliff, and dropped them safely onto the back of another eagle. As the great bird flew away and around the scene, she could see that the eagles, in addition to driving off the wargs, were also picking up the other dwarves as well, carrying them away from the flaming battleground and across the valley. Awed and intimidated, Elsa could feel the raw strength and power of every beat of the eagle's wing as it carried the two of them away into the night, far away from that terrible mountain.
As night changed to dawn, Elsa felt her fear and panic ebb away into pure wonder as she experienced that mystical thing called flight; looking down at the world passing by below, she could never have truly imagined how small she was until now, here on the back of such a majestic bird. How many kings and rulers would desire to be in her place right now at this time?
They soared over vast snowcapped mountains, over ranges and rivers, and through valleys of green, until at last they arrived at a tall ridge of pillars of rock, where the eagles landed, dropping off their precious cargo. Upon touching solid ground, Gandalf turned to the Eagle that had born him aloft and said, "Many thanks and blessings to you, Lord of the Eagles. We would not have survived that night, had you not been there to help."
"We had seen the fires from afar," the Eagle replied (much to Elsa's surprise), "And when we discovered you, we were only obliged to assist the one who assisted us long ago. May your quest end in success, noble Istar." And with that, the Eagle took off into the air, while the others delivered the dwarves as well. One eagle flew in low, carrying something in its talons; Elsa saw an unconscious Thorin, still clutching the elven blade in his hand. Gently, the bird dropped him onto the ground, and Gandalf moved quickly to his side. The wizard waved his hand and muttered some strange words, and soon the dwarf was breathing again, much to Elsa's relief.
He stood back up, helped onto his feet by the others, and looked straight in the direction of Bilbo. "You," he said, "What were you doing? You know you could've gotten yourself killed? Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild? That you had no place amongst us?"
Bilbo looked down at the ground, ashamed. Elsa, however, felt indignation at these words, almost ready to give the dwarf a piece of her mind.
But then he said, "I have never been so wrong in all my life," catching the hobbit by surprise with a great embrace, arousing a cheer from the rest of the dwarves. Pulling back, Thorin said, "I'm sorry I doubted you."
Bilbo replied, "No no, I would have doubted me, too. I'm not a hero, or a warrior," he looked at Gandalf, "or even a burglar."
Thorin then turned to Elsa. "That goes to you too," he said. "You both saved my life. And on top of that, you both helped in the conquering of my enemy"
Elsa smiled, "Pretty impressive for a woman, right?"
The dwarf king then turned to his brothers, and shouted, "Azog the Defiler has been slain at long last! No more will his shadow haunt the house of Durin!" This resulted in a loud cheer from the dwarves, glad at last that the orc was gone.
In the midst of the raucous applause, Elsa turned to view the landscape around them. Far in the east, she could a single, solitary peak rising in the midst. "Is that…?" she began.
"Erebor," Gandalf answered, "The Lonely Mountain, the last of the great dwarf kingdoms of Middle-Earth." The others turned to see as well; tears were seen in the eyes of some, especially Balin.
"Our home," Thorin whispered.
Bilbo looked on in awe as well, but then he turned to Gandalf, asking, "Why couldn't we have just ridden on the eagles all the way there?"
"The Lord of the Eagles is an ally," the wizard explained, "not a servant. Besides, I think we can manage from here, just fine."
In a way, Elsa felt that he was right; the mountain seemed so far off and distant, but at the same time, she realized how far they had gone and how hard they had fought to get here, and with that in mind, it didn't seem too far away after all.
But fear yet again welled within her; a dragon probably still laid at the end of the road, waiting for them.