CHAPTER 5

I was rudely awoken by Bilbo's shrill voice shouting for our merry sleepy caravan to stop. The good thing about that though, was that I won the bet, which means money for me! Unfortunately, that meant I had to get up and collect my winnings from my fellow travelers. Raising up from my position on the pony (and feeling painful sensations in my legs from my poor position) I wearily blinked my sleepiness away and backhandedly moved my hair out of my face. Hearing a giggle that no doubt came from my only female buddy of the two legged variety in the company, I turned my head, still looking like a zombie, and blinked at the sickly adorable sight before my eyes.

Kili's pony was walking as close as possible to Hannah's, so close that it actually looked quite uncomfortable for them. As if that wasn't enough, the rider was also leaning over to my friend, who was blushing and giggling. I've never seen anything like it. Disgusting.

Since everyone in front of me stopped, I had no other choice but to stop as well. If Bilbo caught up with us, I haven't even been asleep for an hour. I feel like I should just fall down and die. Seems like I won't be starting this adventure on a cheery note.

I vaguely heard Thorin command a pony to be given for Bilbo, while trying to keep my eyes open. Hannah I heard a lot more clearly, as she rode her pony next to me.

"Still asleep?"

"..Uhuh..."

"Need some help?"

"Just kill me, please..."

"Okey dokey!"

Next thing I know, my cheek hurt. Mother ducking wench slapped me!

"Thanks... But this sooo calls for revenge later on, you know that, right?"

"Great..." She winced, riding away from me, cradling her palm, which probably stung like a bitch, just like my face.

The convoy started to move again, so I waited long enough to barely catch a sack of coins flying my way before I fell on my face to sleep again. Just before blackness overtook me I felt Fili take my reigns from my limp hands and murmured a thank you in his direction.

Riding, riding and more riding was what I had to live with ever since I woke up when we stopped at noon near a spring for twenty minutes, enough to eat and drink and do your business and move on. We rode all day, trying to cover as much land as possible without tiring out the ponies. Don't get me wrong, the view of this land we were magically cast off to was beautiful, but my but has honestly never been so sore in my life. When we finally stopped it had been just before nightfall, so we quickly set up camp on a cliff and lit a fire (even though I disagreed with it, as it cast a light and made our location pretty obvious for anything or anyone that looked in this direction from miles away).

This was how I found myself playing with sticks in the dirt, trying to stave off boredom and occasionally chatting with Fili as all of the youngest ones have been assigned with watch duty. Gandalf chose to sit up with us, probably because it was hard to fall asleep over the snoring of our companions anyway. My dear buddy assumed her position of flirting with the beardless (or at least kind of) dwarf next to the fire. It was a surprisingly cold night, and the moon lit up my drawings of stars and smiles in the dirt nicely. Adding a last smile to my masterpiece I sat up. Throwing my drawing utensils to the side, and walked closer to the fire to warm my numb hands. I figured I had sat enough during the day, so I chose to stand in front of Hannah on the other side of the fire.

Just after I saw our hobbit tip toe next to his pony, the screeching started. My hand immediately fell onto my dagger, ever present on my waist, guard up, back straight, eyes taking in everything around me. Thorin, just like me, jumped up from his place on the ground, alert.

"What was that?" Bilbo was just as alarmed as we were. Hannah was tense, holding onto Kili's arm, looking ready to bolt on the first sign of trouble.

"Orcs." One of the brothers answered between the far away screams. Bilbo echoed the word, slightly alarmed, yet also confused.

"Are those the fugly goblin things?" I wondered quietly, a bit more calm since I didn't see anyone being too alarmed by the sounds we were hearing, but not ready to relax either.

"Y-yeah, I think so..." Timidly answered Hannah. She was visibly nervous and getting closer to Kili. I frowned, concerned. Seeing how we were unsure, the other brother decided to "explain".

"Throat-cutters. There'll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them." He seemed perfectly fine with the idea, like it was nothing to worry about. Yeah, "throat-cutters" sounds like nothing to worry about at all! Kili also added to that.

"They strike in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet; no screams, just lots of blood." He emphases his words with a shake of his head and an intense look into Hannah's eyes. Now she was really obviously scared, at least to me.

And then they started laughing. Laughing right now seemed the last thing to do. Did they think this was funny?! Or did they only care about how hilarious the scared look in Bilbo and Hannah's eyes was?!

"You think that's funny?!" The fury filled sentence flew out of my mouth at the same time as Thorin's, making our voices entwine, causing us to glance at each other momentarily, before Thorin continued. I may be wrong, but I think I saw a respectful glint in those yes! Nah, I was probably wrong.

"You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?" It certainly was not. Immediately my overactive imagination started throwing different scenarios of such a raid at me. I shook my head to clear the thoughts of the blood and those same scared eyes. Hannah scooted away from Kili, but kept close to the wall and fire. Good, she's not letting her guard down too much.

The brothers thankfully had enough sense to look a bit embarrassed.

"We didn't mean anything by it."

"No, you didn't. You know nothing of the world." Thorin grumbled angrily, walking away from the fire. I walked around the flames, careful to not singe my clothes, threw a glare Kili and Fili's way (hopefully they'll feel even worse), and stood next to Hannah, back to the wall, observing my surroundings, hastily pushing my glasses up, to be sure I wasn't going to miss anything.

Hannah scooted closer to me and rested her head against my leg, seeking comfort. In my angry state, that was annoying, but I couldn't deprive her of that, so I calmly rested my palm on her shoulder.

Our brief overview of the noises of the night apparently had a bigger audience than I thought, because not even a minute after, Balin came forward, closer to the fire.

"Don't mind him, laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs. After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first."

His speech was full of memory, of sorrow, like remembering those days was painful, but necessary.

"Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs lead by the most vile of all their race: Azog, the Defiler." EW, nasty name, I did not wanna know what he did to get it. "The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began by beheading the King." That looked like it was painful to say. Those six words raised tension all around the camp, and I spied some of our sleeping companions already with their eyes open, listening to the tale, remembering, ghosts of the past flashing across their dimmed eyes.

"Thrain, Thorin's father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and death were upon us." It was obvious from the looks of the dwarves faces (which were all no longer in a horizontal position), who had been in this old battle. Most had the same look of past despair and terror, the creeping feeling of defeat reflecting in their faces, others- looks of respect, grief and understanding.

"That is when I saw him." The smile and look at Thorin turned the sorrow into pride, at least partially. "A young dwarf prince facing down the Pale stood alone against this terrible foe, his armor rent…wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield." OH, Oakenshield! THAT's what that was about! I thought that was just a fancy last name!

"Azog, the Defiler, learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken." So... is he dead? Clarify, please! I don't want a big pale ass of orc trying to hunt me down!

"Our forces rallied and drove the orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast, no song, that night, for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived." The tension, grief and sorrow in the air hit me like a ton of bricks again. Hannah's arm squeezed my leg - I was not alone in this.

"And I thought to myself then, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King." Man, Balin could make Thorin president with this speech! Well, King, but whatever.

I could barely see Thorin behind the other dwarves that got up from the ground during the speech and were standing in silence.

"But the Pale Orc? What happened to him?" Yes! Thank you, Bilbo, for reminding me! Is the bitch dead or not?!

"He slunk back into the hole whence he came. That filth died of his wounds long ago." Thorin grumbled moodily. This concerned me. He did not see the body, so the chance of the orc still being out there, trying to hunt him down was still there, even if it was small. My thoughts must have reflected on my face, because I noticed Gandalf looking my way with the same worried and wondering expression. This is really not sitting well with me.

Since everyone was awake, I figured it was alright to let my guard down and sleep for a bit. Gandalf and Dwalin were supposed to wake us up earlier than others for our first lesson tomorrow.

I sat my butt down next to my friend, our shoulders leaning together.

"You ok?" If I didn't show any concern she would have gotten angry like she was my girlfriend or something. Silly girl.

"Yeah, I'm fine, this just suddenly seems a lot more real, you know?"

"Yeah... But to tell you the truth I think its better this way. We're more focused now."

"I guess so..." She looked down, shrugging. Sighing I threw my only blanket over our shoulders.

"Get some sleep; we have a long day tomorrow." She sighed too, accepting the warmth I was offering.

"Goodnight."

"Night."

We slept, the cries of the far away orcs still echoing in our ears.


A.N.: Short chapter, sorry. You may have noticed that I don't update regulary, but collage has been a bitch. I know this is what everyone says, but I would very much like to ask you to review. Tell me whats wrong, what you like, what you hate, how I could improve my writing and the story, please! Also, reviews give me motivation to update, so please, tell me what you think! :)