CHAPTER 8

Suddenly we all stopped as something flew past us, stopping right behind, all the while screaming:

"Thieves! Fire! Murder!"

Wait a goddamn second.

"Radagast?!" Hannah and I voiced in unison, shocked to see the wizard here and in such a state. We quickly sheathed our weapons, Gandalf following our example, the others slowly also letting down their swords.

"Radagast! Radagast the Brown. Ah." The Grey Wizard was obviously relieved. He came closer to the sledge. "What on earth are you doing here?" He sounded a lot more... annoyed and exasperated? The other wizard didn't miss a beat.

"I was looking for you, Gandalf. Something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong."

"Yes?" He seemed unsure whether to believe anything that came out of Radagast's mouth at all. Radagast opened his mouth to answer, but closed it. Opened again, closed it again. He forgot!

"Oh, just give me a minute. Um, oh, I had a thought, and now I've lost it. It was, it was right there, on the tip of my tongue." He paused, a strange look on his face. "Oh, it's not a thought at all!" He sounds funny, did he curl his tongue? I raised my eyebrows and looked over everyone's baffled expressions. "It's a silly old..." He opened his mouth wider and Gandalf lifted something MOVING out of his mouth! "...stick insect!"

"Huegh..!" I covered my mouth, trying to keep the vomit down. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew! Stop thinking about it! So gross! I barely noticed Hannah shaking off the thought violently next to me.

By the time I stopped gagging, Gandalf and Radagast had went off further away to speak (thank God) and the company started picking places to sit and wait for the wizards to finish and decide what we should do next. I smiled and headed towards Hannah to gossip about the icky insect, but stopped short when I noticed her sitting next to Kili. My smile fell. They've been hanging around an awful lot, and I barely ever got to speak with her anymore. Every time I tried, she just looked at me like I was not worth her time and found an excuse to trade me for her lover dwarf. Well fuck her then. Fuck all of them. I don't need them!

I huffed, turned around and climbed on some rocks further away from the company, but close enough not to be questioned (as if someone would care, hah!). From here I observed them all. The wizards were still talking (I wonder if they will mention us?). Thorin, Balin, Dwalin sat with Oin, Dori and Nori, sharpening their weapons and re-arranging their supplies. Bifur stood on a rock in front of me, keeping watch, Gloin doing the same on another rock further on my right, next to the ones I was ignoring, Fili, Bofur and Bilbo. Bombur and Ori sat on a rock on my left. Everyone seemed pretty bored. I sighed, and climbed up further on the rocky hill to look around, ignoring Bifur's gaze on my back. Maybe I'll climb a tree or something.

Suddenly an odd howl pierced the air around us.

"Was that a wolf? Are there- are there wolves out there?" Bilbo was awfully concerned. Many others were too; wolves were not famous for being a fun bunch.

"Wolves? No, that is not a wolf." By the sound of Bofur's voice I'd say whatever it was is probably worse than one.

A huge dog like creature creeped out of the bushes, alerting everyone of its presence with a deep growl, and leaped into the company from the side, knocking down one of the dwarves, about to sink its teeth into him. Thorin, however, sliced it open with his new sword just in time.

At this point another one of the creatures started to bound towards the dwarves from the direction I sat perched in a tree. Before Thorin could even turn around and yell for Kili, I had already slowed the fugly dog thing with an arrow to its side. Seizing the moment, I prepared my sword, pointing it downwards, and leaped from the tree straight onto the things back, right when it was under me, effectively finishing it off. I lifted off from the carcass, trying to ignore the awful stench of wet dog, and looked at the others, who were all gaping at me. I guess they didn't expect that.

"What the hell are these things?!" I broke the spell.

"Warg scouts! Which means an Orc pack is not far behind." Adrenaline has kicked in for Thorin already, battling an orc pack is either going to be fun, or very messy and dangerous, possibly both.

"Orc pack?" Hah, Bilbo's expression at this almost screamed 'you gotta be kidding me, what's next?!'. Gandalf, though, was awfully concerned.

"Who did you tell about your quest, beyond your kin?"

"No one."

"Who did you tell?!" The old one was angry! Thorin, on the other hand, was lost.

"No one, I swear! What in Durin's name is going on?"

"You are being hunted." We are being hunted, Gandy, WE. We're all in the same boat, hun.

"We have to get out of here." Dwalin announced, glancing at me as I walked down to stand next to him.

"We can't! We have no ponies; they bolted."

"We'll have to run then." My input received some groans. Though how we were going to outrun these wargs was beyond me.

"I'll draw them off." My head snapped to face Radagast, who had a very determined look about him.

"These are Gundabad Wargs; they will outrun you." Gandalf was against the idea.

"These are Rhosgobel Rabbits; I'd like to see them try."

I hate running so much. And running around boulders and such, trying to evade the fricking Orc pack! At first, the adrenaline helped, but after a while it just got boring and exhausting. I mean, we haven't eaten in like, a day! Or slept for that matter! At least we had some water in our packs, but breaks were short and few while we ran. And honestly, Radagast sucks at distracting. By now we've been running for a few hours, and the orcs were still near us! I suppose it's hard to evade them, but could he please just go in the other direction?!

We've been running for a couple of hours by now, following Gandalf's lead to an unknown place (probably that Hidden Valley place where Thorin didn't want to go). We've had a few close calls already, once or twice someone (mainly Thorin) had to pull someone (mainly me or Ori) back so as not to be noticed. Right now we were waiting for a chance to run undetected again, just behind a huge rock. I huffed a bit leaning on the rock, when small rocks came crumbling from above me. All of us froze; we knew a warg was above us. Thorin gave a small nod in Kili's direction to take it down, preferably silently. I readied my bow, just in case, and span around along with the young dwarf.

Kili's arrow went loose first, hitting the warg in the shoulder. I was momentarily delayed by the sight of the creature on top of it; THAT was an orc?! Damn, they fugly. The bastard raised a hand with a horn to signal the pack, I was quick to let loose an arrow, knocking him and the warg off of the boulder. Against our luck, though, the warg started screeching. Its rider jumped up, swinging his sword, but was met with a team of dwarves, hitting and slashing, and both he and the warg were soon silent. But the silence came too late, they had obviously heard us.

Again, we were off running, after an hour or so, we reached the plains, where there were only small hills and pine trees to cover us form our demise. We kept running

It was early afternoon, judging by the sun, when they caught up with us. We were forced into a clearing, surrounded by hills which had wargs upon them, with one large boulder at our backs. It was time to panic.

"We're surrounded!" Fili announced.

Loading up an arrow, knowing long range weapons would be handy, and glancing at Hannah to make sure she was protected (even if she was an disloyal bitch), I waited for the right moment to attack. Kili, I noticed, was doing the same.

I let loose arrow after arrow, making sure all of them hit their mark, but I don't run out quickly.

Some orcs and wargs fell, some were merely slowed down. My proudest moment was when I hit a warg in the eye (accidently, but still!).

"Where's Gandalf?!"

"He's abandoned us!" Crap, we lost the wizard?

"Gandalf wouldn't leave us!" Is it just me, or is Hannah speaking up for the first time?

"Yeah, yeah, shut up and do something useful Oh Great and Magical one!" I shouted snidely in her direction, not taking my eyes off of the danger.

"What's your fricking problem?!" I received a shout back. Oh ho ho, this was gonna be good.

"MY PROBLEM, BITCH, IS YOU SNIVELLING AND HIDING BEHIND YOUR BOYFRIEND ALL THE TIME WHEN YOUR SUPPOSED MAGIC COULD HELP US!"

"Finally, someone said it!" Bofur, you are officially my new best buddy if we survive this!

"This is not the time! Hold your ground!" Thorin made us focus again onto the task at hand. I kept shooting. The others were getting ready to hit and slash, when a voice shouted from behind us:

"This way, you fools!" Gandalf! Hooray hidden safe path! The company was quick to react.

"Come on, move! Quickly, all of you! Go, go, go!" they dropped into the hole one after the other. I stood my ground with Kili and Hannah (what?), keeping the brunt of the attack off of them with arrows and small fire balls (wait what?!). Kili pushed Hannah behind him though and soon she dropped into the hole too. I noticed a warg I failed to slow down running towards the hole.

"Thorin, behind you!" My warning was quick enough, thankfully, and another warg fell.

"Kili, Alice! Run!" I pushed Kili behind me, slowly going after him, making sure to keep the last of wargs from following the others down the hole. I heard two thumps; Thorin and Kili were safely down. I heard some shouts of my name from below, but I had to stay and make sure they were not followed. I shot the last of my arrows into an orc astride a warg in front of me, killing it, but the warg and the others around me noticed that I ran out. I unsheathed my sword; I couldn't follow the others, that would just lead the orcs to them. I had to make sure they had enough time to get ahead at least.

The pack of fuglies, though, realized I was alone against them, and seemingly completely forgot that there used to be others with me. I slashed the wargs as soon as the got too close, keeping them at bay, but the orcs were harder to defend myself against.

And then the horn came.

It distracted the orc in front of me long enough for me to slice its neck, making him drop next to his fallen warg. Two wargs with orcs were still against me, but the others went off to handle a larger threat (one that had bows and arrows, since some orcs fell off their 'horses' shortly after the horn was blown). I heard hooves behind me, but did not turn back from the sword swinging down on my head. I deflected it, but failed to notice a second one swinging down on my side. The hit slashed through my armor and chainmail, barely stopped at all by them, and sliced my flesh over my ribs, possibly marking those too, making me scream and drop onto my back.

Well, that's it folks. This is how I die. And it fucking hurts. The last thing I'd ever see is gonna be a fugly orc, raising his sword above me to finish me off. Oh, the humanity. I closed my eyes.

And opened them, once I heard the sound of an arrow hitting its mark right above me, making the orc fall on his back, dead. Woohoo! Staying alive this time!

I rose up, carefully, noticing the lack of enemies near me, tacking my chance, and gripped my sword, using it to lift up further. Ooh, lookie, a warg saw me! Come to mama!

Ignoring the pain, I dodged a giant paw, slicing the wargs side (I think we matched in wounds now!). It growled and spun around, his fugly snout facing me, just when I slashed its nose in half, making it screech and swing another paw at me. I jumped back, out of the way, groaning in pain. One hand still pressed to my side I raised my sword, hoping to use my last strength to kill the son of a bitch. I was just about to win this glorious battle with a final swing, when the bastard dropped in front of me, an arrow stuck in its brain. I let out a displeased "whaaat?" and turned around.

"Bitch, you stole my kill!" I shouted, before dropping once again onto the ground, sitting with my legs under me, breathing hard. Oh boy, I think I might be bleeding to death. Dizzy.

The sounds of battle died around me, but I ignored it, trying to fight the dizziness, head down to the ground. I opened my eyes (when did I close them?) when I heard footsteps approaching me. Oh shit, who?! I raised my head quickly, regretting it immediately when my vision swam, making me blink like crazy trying to clear it. The blurry shape in front of me soon came to focus as the odd man crouched before me. Was this even a man? He did not look human, he was too pretty. Blonde, straight hair reflected the sunlight, mesmerizing me for a second. Oh, wait, he was speaking!

"...I did not understand any of that." I huffed out. The creature furrowed his brows. Uh-oh, he's getting blurry again. I don't feel so good. Though my side doesn't hurt as much anymore. I can't feel my fingers.

When my vision cleared there was another man before me, this one was with dark hair and a crown, no less beautiful then the other one, though. This one, I could understand.

"Speak, child. Who are you, why are you here?" My tongue seemed a bit numb, too, but I tried to answer as much as I could. I knew I was running out of time (and blood).

"I'm... Alice. Gandalf and the others...they... went down the hole... I stayed." I tried to look to my right, towards the hole, but swayed and almost fell, stopped only by a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Be calm. Rest. We will take care of you, Alice." His gentle voice was the last thing I heard.