CHAPTER SEVEN.
We rushed forward under the moonlight, pressing ourselves to the shadows made by the trees. My heartbeat multiplied tenfold in my chest and my palms began to sweat as I gripped the ivory handles of the knives Fili gave me moments earlier.
Hiding stealthily in the shadows was definitely not a skill of mine. I tripped over several roots and rocks that shot up from the ground, and most of the dwarves turned to give me a stern scowl at my blunders. Kili grabbed my arm and pushed me up against the tree, pressing his forefinger over his mouth. In a normal situation, I might have flushed with color at his closeness, but I was too afraid out of my own mind to react.
"What are you?" An unfamiliar, quite loud voice rang through the woods. My body froze.
"I-I'm a burgle- a Hobbit." Bilbo squeaked. Kili's eyes widened as he peeked around the tree and mouthed trolls. The only trolls I'd ever heard of were supposed to be big, nasty things that lived under bridges. A lump formed in my throat and my mouth went dry. What in the hell was happening? His hand dropped from my arm and went to the sword at his belt. All around us the slow sound of metal being silently unsheathed cut through the forest.
"A burgle-hobbit? How many more 'o you are there 'round here?" Another voice boomed curiously.
"N-none. I'm the only one." Bilbo responded. Thank God, maybe they would buy-
"I say he's lying. Hold 'is toes o'er the fire!" The one that had spoken first cried.
Kili abruptly left my side, breaking through the brush and out from behind the trees. "Drop him!" Oh God, he's going to get himself killed. I couldn't say I fancied Kili- or any other dwarf really- getting himself flattened for Bilbo at that moment. Yelling and clashing of swords erupted through the night air, and even though my legs insisted on being jelly, I raced along with all of the others bursting through the clearing.
The trolls were massive creatures with twisted faces and clumsy stature, and boy did they stink. Scattered with the bones of various animals, the entire area hailed to be a mess unlike any proportion I'd ever seen. The one that previously held Bilbo captive in his large hand dropped him onto Kili and the two struggled to untangle themselves from each other on the ground. Complete and utter chaos surrounded the large campfire the creatures once sat about; dwarves ran to and fro about their legs and swung their swords at any chance they could strike flesh while the trolls yelped and tried their hardest to knock any of us off of our feet.
I caught myself frozen under one of the giants, staring at the blades in my hands like I'd forgotten exactly how weapons actually worked. Thankfully, the oaf fell behind me while Thorin proceeded to crack out some of its teeth.
"Lizzie," Thorin hissed, "now would be the time to put those to use!"
Just like I'd seen before in the scenes of some drastically intense movie where great battles were fought, I remembered how to use a knife. The animalistic instinct inside of me drove a blade into the foot of another troll who passed close, and I sent him crying mad. I couldn't begin to fathom what I'd just done as my insides were rushing in terror. Through the flinging of arms and weapons, he snapped me up into his hand and sent a glare straight into my face.
"An' what's this? I ain' never seen the likes 'o a little lass like this before." He eyed me and picked up one of my arms as if searching for something. "What a fancy little creature from the forest. Bert! Look wha' I got!"
Unfortunately, his companion called Bert dropped his attention from the fighting dwarves at his feet and directed his bug eyes at me. "What is that, William?"
"No matter wha' she is, she'd not even make half a meal!" The third one grasped Bilbo in his tremendous hand.
"Put her down!" Kili flew at the group of trolls, but they retaliated quickly.
"Drop your weapons or we'll rip their limbs off!"
The pack of dwarves stopped dead behind Thorin, all of them refusing to relinquish their weapons. Kili worked his way back to the group, never once turning his back on the beast, where all of them stood brooding silently until Thorin raised his own sword and drove it into the ground. Hesitantly but obediently, the rest of them followed suit, and stood in the firelight now completely helpless against the trolls. I wanted to yell at them for being so stupid and letting go of their weapons for perhaps the two most useless members of their company. Certainly in the long run it would not matter if I died. And if Bilbo were lost, well-
"Where are the bags an' the roastin' spit?" William, with his hand around my tiny frame laughed before he flung me onto the ground where Thorin's sword lay.
I landed rather uncomfortably with a thump and quickly Kili rushed to my side to help me from the ground. Not but a second after he'd pulled me up had the trolls put us in sacks with drawstrings tied roughly around our shoulders, and thrown us into a pile. Conveniently, for me at least, I ended up on top of Bombur and between Kili and Bilbo. Bofur, Nori, Ori, Dori, Oin, and Gloin did not possess as much luck as we had, and were roasting over the fire on the spit the troll named Bert turned.
If the odor the camp reeked of was offensive, even more disgusting and wretched were the sacks we'd been tied in. I had to keep myself from gagging right on top of poor Bombur while the others struggled without success to free themselves from their bindings.
"Oi, why don't you hurry up? I don' fancy bein' turned to stone." The one who'd picked me up- William- complained, hitting Bert on the shoulder.
Bilbo's face glazed over with some sort of sense of knowing and he struggled to hop to his feet. "Wait!"
"They're half-wits, you can't reason with them!" Ori yelled from the spit where I'd imagined they'd all been getting dangerously hot. Each of them wriggled like live fish out of water, desperately trying to somehow slip from the rope.
"Let 'im talk." William leaned over and peered at Bilbo, who was fidgeting nervously as he stood.
"You see, that's not the way to cook a dwarf. You're doing it all wrong!" Each of us still on the ground shot confused looks at one another.
"Then how do you 'spose we do it?" All of his attention now focused on the Hobbit. Bert scoffed, and the other one who's name we'd figured was Tom, began rummaging through a pile of bones around the edge of the fire.
"Well the secret is to..." Bilbo trailed off while all three seemed to wait on his answer impatiently, "to... skin them!"
A rumble of moans broke from the spit and where we lay among each other in sacks, and several shouts of 'traitor!' and 'betrayer!' shot through the air.
"Tom, get the filletin' knife!" William bellowed. A wide and very pleased smile danced across his face.
"Oh, I can't wait much longer, I say we eat 'em raw! Nice an' crunchy they'll be!" Bert clambered his way over to the pile of us resting up against the rock, and I began to scoot wildly in the direction furthest away from him as possible. Kili somehow caught my sack with his arm and tried his hardest to flip me away from the approaching troll, who madly grabbed into the lot of us and pulled Bombur up by his feet. Luckless Bombur's ginger beard hung upside down as he squirmed in Bert's grasp, dangling just above his mouth.
"N-not that one!" Bilbo cried, hopping closer to the trolls, "He's infected! H-He's got worms... in his... tubes!"
Bert released out a disgusted roar- if it were actually possible for the vile creatures to be disgusted- and instantly sent Bombur tumbling right back onto the heap he came from.
"I-in fact, they're all infected! I wouldn't mess with the lot of them!" Bilbo's accusations had the entire group of dwarves reeling with insult.
"I don't have worms, you have worms!" Kili's expression was one of complete disdain toward the Hobbit. At this point Thorin understood what Bilbo was trying to play, as the sun barely began to rise just over the hill. He took a moment to knee Kili in the back and all of our expressions turned eager with new found realization.
"Oh, yes I've got lots of worms! Probably more than you could even count!" I cried, wriggling around in my sack. The tie around my shoulders just began to loose.
"Mine are as big as my arm!" Balin called.
"I've got huge parasites! Mine are the biggest!" I couldn't help but to let out a snicker at Kili's desperate voice.
"An' what would you 'ave us do then, let 'em all go?" William sneered at Bilbo.
"Well-"
"He means t' take us for fools!" Tom wailed, unsheathing what looked like a very large makeshift filleting knife.
As the sun now rose decently in the sky, a shadow burst forth across all of us, and Gandalf appeared high on a rock above the camp. "The dawn will take you all!"
Gandalf brought his staff down upon the huge rock, cracking it in half and revealing the inkling of sunlight that began to wash over the sky. Bert, William, and Tom riled and shaded their faces from the sun, wailing and cursing the lot of us. Their bodies became stiff and turned the dusky grey color of stone before they were completely immersed in sunlight. I let out a long sigh of relief since we weren't going to be turned into troll dinner. Indeed, it would have been an anticlimactic ending to our journey after all.
Alright, shorter than the other chapters, but more of a movie plot-following filler. I've got quite a bit to cover in the next chapters so I just figured I'd separate this from the others. I've got a lot of material to pull out of my hat, because I will be following the book and making my company stay in Rivendell for more than one night. Anyway, love you all, and your reviews. Reviews make my world go round :)