a bit of action in this one. just a bit.
NATIONAL CAREER ASSESSMENT EXAMS ARE COMING AND I'M SCARED
AND THIS WEEK IS GONNA BE HELL WEEK
sooo, saying this, i probably won't be able to upload a chapter next weekend. which is why i'm gonna be putting up two chapters today. HAHAHA
All rights go to JRR Tolkien and Peter Jackson. (
Love you all!)
"Where the bloody hell is that hobbit?" Fheon muttered to herself, starting to get irked. "Bilbo!BILBO—!"
Her voice got caught in her throat when a monstrous shriek echoed down from above her. It was followed by a gurgling sound and a shadow appearing from behind the very thick canopy of branches. Instinctively, Fheon unsheathed her sword and brandished it, readying herself for whatever was coming. But then came the unmistakable sound of wood crackling, breaking apart; the shadow quickly became bigger and bigger, and she barely was able to dive to the side in order to save herself from being crushed. She brought her sword-arm up to keep large remnants of wood from falling onto her face, but literally jumped back onto her feet when she felt the ground tremble due to heavy impact.
Something had fallen from the trees above, and it was far too large to be either a dwarf or a hobbit.
Scrambling to regain her footing, a light throbbing sensation started in her shoulder, making Fheon grimace as she looked down at the beast that had fallen from above. It looked to be a spider; a very, very large spider—about the size of three dwarves compressed together. Though its legs were curled up, hopefully because it was dead, Fheon was positive that even those were longer than her own self. She raised her head and searched for anything else moving above her, perhaps another falling spider, but there was nothing apart from the rustling of leaves. She knew, then, that she had to find the Company before the rest of the giant spiders did.
However, just as she was about to, the spider's mandibles clicked together once, and then were followed by a twitch of its legs. Panicking slightly, Fheon rushed to the front of the spider and hurriedly brought her sword down on its head, right into its eye. A gurgling sound erupted once more from its mouth, but its legs curled up even more around its abdomen, and it stopped twitching. Fheon pulled her sword out and gagged inwardly when a spurt of blood sprayed across her face; the dark liquid smelled like the insides of a rotten fruit. She noticed that the blood was not only gushing forth from its head, but from its stomach as well, and she was positive that she had not been the one to stab it in the gut.
Warily, Fheon walked forward and regarded the wound on its belly with interest. There was a tiny gash right in the middle, barely enough to qualify as a fatal injury, but it looked to be very deep. She started wondering whether spiders killed their own kind, or if there was something else above past the canopy.
Her musings were further clarified, but not answered, when another shriek reached her ears, shadowed by the unmistakable sound of an iron blade. Recognition flashed across her face before she started scaling up a tree. And though Beorn's shoulder brace offered her extra support, she was thankful that the fungi growing on the tree trunks served as brilliant footholds. The higher she climbed, the more her anxiety grew. A wide expanse of whiteness came into view; before, she had thought it to be a reflection of the little sunlight that could have been seeping through the leaves above. Now she saw that it was, in fact, a vast stretch of spider webs.
Spanning across almost the entire forest ceiling, it looked to be thick enough for Fheon to be able to stand on it without falling. But the spider-bed being as large as it was meant there were more than just three giant spiders. There had to be a whole cluster of them. Gritting through the pain, Fheon scaled past yet another branch, and was nearing the bottom of the spider-bed—so close she could almost reach it—when something tore through the translucent material, just barely missing Fheon's head.
Her breath caught in her throat as she flattened herself against the base of the tree, unconsciously shutting her eyes as she heard the end of the branch she'd just passed, snap. It had been a rather thick branch as well; she already had suspicions that yet another giant spider had fallen, but she did not expect to see Bilbo scrambling onto his feet beside it when she glanced down.
"Bilbo!" she called down to him. "What happened?"
"I'm fine!" he said, not particularly answering her question. "You have to free the others!"
"Where are they?"
"Keep going up."
She did as he said, gasping when her hand slipped from the handhold. "How many are there?" she asked.
"A lot," the hobbit replied, and that was information enough.
Fheon finally reached a high enough spot to be able to peek above the spider-bed, sighing inwardly in relief when she found that none of the spiders were near there. Bilbo must have caused a distraction somewhere far off. Using this as an advantage, she pulled herself onto a branch and walked on it, making sure her foot did not catch on the many webs. She spotted several lumps of webbing on the mesh only a few feet away from her, and sprang into action as soon as she noticed them wriggling about. She ran towards the squirming protuberances and, pulling at the front of the webbing, dug her blade about a centimeter deep before sharply pulling her arm back. The webbing opened up to reveal Dwalin, gasping for air; she had previously noticed that it was one of the larger lumps.
"Free," he practically hollered. "Where are those bastards? I'll gut them open like a virgin on her wedding night—"
"Do you have your weapons?" Fheon interrupted impatiently.
"Aye—"
"Start freeing the others. We have to get out of here."
The dwarf immediately stood up and freed his battle axe from the webbing on his back. "Don't impale any of them," Fheon quickly added as she cut open another sack of web, this time revealing Thorin.
He looked up at her in surprise. "Fheon…?"
"I told you we were searching at the wrong spot," she muttered, pulling himself onto his feet. "Come, we don't have much time. Free the others."
She had ample time to notice the sparkle in his eyes as he looked at her for a long moment, before scrambling away. He did as she said immediately and cut into his first sack, freeing his nephew Fili. Ignoring the faint fluttering sensation in her stomach, Fheon softly called for her brother and rushed to the web sack that started writhing even more wildly at the sound of her voice. Piercing the thick mesh, Elijah's untamed hair sprung out from beneath the weave, followed by his hands as he ripped his sticky cage apart.
"Fheon," he said, making her subtly roll her eyes at the hint of astonishment in his voice. "How did you come by us? I thought you had run off to find the path—"
"It doesn't matter. The spiders will come back," she cut him off, and then turned to the others to find everyone freed from their webbed prisons. "Everyone, start climbing down—NOW!"
The clarification came when Ori pointed a finger to somewhere behind them, and everyone turned around to find at least a dozen of the giant spiders scuttling towards them. The webs did nothing to bother them, which was sure to be an advantage of theirs.
"DOWN!" said Elijah and the Company quickly latched onto any of the handholds they could find. They began scaling back down the dark trees of Mirkwood. Some of them fell, but it was at such a point that they could afford to, because the ground was not far off beneath them anymore. Elijah took the lead and started running. Fheon glanced behind her to make sure everyone was following, but her heart dropped when she remembered Bilbo.
A startled yell escaped Elijah's mouth and he stumbled backwards, barely keeping himself from being impaled by the leg of a spider that had appeared before him. He slashed at the leg, cutting it off, and then presumed to decapitate the spider itself. Fheon tugged sharply at his sleeve and redirected them to their east, but was halted by yet another spider looming over her. She hacked at its two front legs in a quick maneuver, making it lose balance. Then she whirled around to find Bombur pinned beneath one of the massive creatures.
Before she could do anything, eight dwarves suddenly rushed forward, with Gloin shouting, "Grab the legs!" And each of them did. "Pull!" And they all started tugging, with Bombur struggling to keep the spider's mandibles from eating his face off.
Fheon could watch no longer, as another spider had wandered too close to Kili. She ran up from behind it and jumped onto its back, digging her sword into its head.
Kili looked up from the spider he had killed himself and smiled widely. "Thanks," he said, and then hacked at another one of the creatures. Seconds later, the dwarves succeeded in pulling the legs off Bombur's attacker. Fheon jumped off the spider she had killed and repeated her technique with two more, before she noticed the Company turn back. Someone started pushing her and she saw that it was Thorin.
"Run!" he said, and she did not need to be told twice.
First checking if her brother was among the group ahead of them, she started running just as fast as Thorin. When two spiders tried to cut them off, Kili and Elijah were able to shoot them dead, but she deeply wished that she'd been the one drawing strings with her brother. Dwalin axed a wall of web into half to reveal Bilbo sitting on the ground, a dead, white spider in front of him. It was dead though, but it made Fheon wonder if it was somehow deadlier than the giant ones chasing them, or if it was just one of the newly-hatched.
"We're clear!" said Thorin, halting slightly to check behind them.
Just then, a spider suddenly lowered itself a few feet away from Bilbo. Seeing as the dwarves just froze on the spot, Fheon was the one to rush forward and pull the hobbit back. She swung her sword at the spider's leg, but it scuttled back just in time. She retreated behind Dwalin's larger weapon with Bilbo; she was waiting for the dwarf to hack at the spider's head and cut it open, but then a flash of yellow caught her attention.
Her head snapped up to see a figure descending from the low hill up ahead, atop one of the spiders. Fheon could not be sure if it was man or woman, but the mane of light golden hair on its head assured her that it must have been an elf.
The elf stabbed the spider in the head, jumped off it, and then rolled onto his back to slide below the spider that had threatened Bilbo earlier. There was a sharp slicing sound and then the spider fell dead onto its stomach. The elf pulled himself onto his feet with such grace that Fheon nearly did not notice the arrow he had pointed at them. Instinctively, she raised her blade until the tip of it was aligned with the point of his arrow.
By then, she had been able to discern by his broad chest and hard facial features that the elf was, in fact, a male. But this did nothing to discourage her from keeping her weapon raised. Even when she heard the familiar sound of multiple bowstrings being drawn, she returned the golden-haired, male elf's gaze with equal coldness.
"Do not think I won't kill your dwarf allies, Ranger," he detachedly stated. "It would be my pleasure."
A hand settled on Fheon's shoulder, followed by the voice of Elijah. "Fheon," he said quietly, but with a lingering warning behind his one word. Gritting her teeth, Fheon was about to say something to the elf in front of her that was just as aloof, the perfect retort; before she could, a loud cry of help echoed into the clearing.
"KILI!" one of the dwarves behind her yelled, and her determined gaze faltered. Even more so when Elijah stepped up from behind her and literally pushed her sword-arm down. The warning look had become much more profound in his eyes, and his jaw was set. Fheon switched her glare to him, but let one of the elves push her closer to the dwarves so that their Company formed a huddle. It was only then that she noticed a dozen elves had surrounded them, if not more. Perhaps that was the reason Elijah had so urgently kept her from threatening the golden-haired one?
Barely a minute later, Kili appeared from behind a thick neck of trees, trailed by an auburn-haired she-elf who had her blade pointed at his back. Fheon narrowed her eyes at them, but otherwise let herself be turned around and searched.
It was a male elf who ran his hands across her body, but he did not seem to care about exactly what he was touching. He pried her sword from her fingers and grunted in Elvish, nodding at her bow. Naturally, she was reluctant; from the corner of her eye, she found Elijah practically giving away his bow, along with his quiver full of arrows. Scowling unhappily, Fheon removed her bow and quiver from over her shoulder and shoved them into the elf's hands. Then another elf started tugging at the pack on her back, making her hiss in pain.
"Careful," Elijah hastily said. "She's wounded at her left shoulder."
"Hand over the pack," the elf said to Fheon, in common-tongue, this time. Fheon sighed in exasperation, but otherwise slipped her pack off her back and gave it to him.
When he pulled out the three pouches of herbs Beorn had given her, however, she immediately stole them back. "I need these," she said, "For my shoulder."
"What's in them?" asked the elf.
"Coneflower, lemon balm, parsley, and some rosemary."
He glanced at his fellow elf, and for a while they muttered amongst themselves in Elvish, before he nodded. "You may keep them."
"Thank you," she muttered, pocketing the bags once more. She felt slightly grateful, but then was brought back to her bad mood when she was forced to give them her belt, along with her water canteen; then the elf felt at her injured shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, and she said to him with gritted teeth, "It's a brace for my shoulder. Please don't touch it."
For a long moment, he looked like he was going to ask her to remove it anyway. So she sighed, saying, "I don't have any more weapons on me. You have my word."
He regarded her with blank eyes for a while longer before saying, "And a Ranger of the North better keep her word." He nodded at the elf behind Fheon, said something in Elvish, and then left Fheon there, completely powerless and utterly weaponless. Biting the inside of her cheek, she glanced about and saw the rest of the Company in the same state, though they were much less subtle about their frustration. Elijah kept his composure, and Fheon struggled to do the same as one of the elves took Orcrist from Thorin and gave it to the golden-haired elf.
He said something in Elvish, looking down at the blade in his hands and brandishing it as if it was the most perfect sword in the world. Though, if Fheon thought about it, he was most likely thinking that, knowing that the sword had been forged by his , his gaze turned cold again as he turned his attention to Thorin. "Where did you get this?" he demanded.
"It was given to me," said Thorin.
In a flash, the elf had the blade pointed at Thorin's throat, and it was all Fheon could do to stay pinned on her spot. "Not just a thief," said the elf, "but a liar as well." A rough quality entered his voice as he said something to his followers in Elvish, and then before Fheon knew it, they were being led out of the clearing. She trailed behind the Company, beside her brother. One of the elves constantly prodded at her back, and she finally allowed a scowl to creep onto her face. They were led back to the Elven road, to the very same spot Fheon had found when she had originally ventured away from the dazed Company with Bilbo.
Remembering the hobbit, she glanced about their Company and became slightly unnerved when she found that he was not in their ranks. Had he not been with them when the golden-haired elf slid into their midst the first time around? Fheon was positive that Bilbo had been clutching her wrist just as the elf had descended from the string of web. Surely no spider had gotten him, for the elves seemed to have slain every last one of the spiders. So where had he gone?
She came to the conclusion that at least half of the Company had also noticed, for they were looking around with wild, searching eyes, resulting in the elves handling them much less gently. "You didn't see a hobbit, about yay high, walking around here, did you?" Fheon heard Bofur ask, to which the golden-haired elf only scowled and shoved him forward, barking something in Elvish.
A reflection of his scowl eased onto Fheon's face.
All the while, the dark trees surrounding them slowly turned lighter, the forest ceiling becoming thinner and finally, for what seemed like such a long time, the Company was once again touched by the warmth of the sunlight. Judging by its position in the sky, Fheon assumed it was more or less late in the afternoon, perhaps only a few more hours until the sun went down. Beneath her dragging feet, the stone pathway seemed to glow. The sound of rushing water entered her ears, and the thick undergrowth before them ultimately broke away, revealing two pillars seemingly made from wood, but looking like marble nonetheless—an entrance. The pathway continued onto a bridge, with a clear river running beneath it. To their left, there was a waterfall. Fheon was not sure if it was small for Middle Earth's standards.
The stone pathway continued, branching off in different directions, but the elves only pushed the Company forward. This particular Elven palace, it seemed, was found within a series of caverns. Pillars had been made to support the stone passages, but everything else seemed as though nature had made it for one purpose only, and that was to serve as something people could roam around easily. But like in Rivendell, the paths did not have rails to keep anyone from falling off; this time, Fheon could not help but to look down. She had her head drooped in exhaustion. Her shoulder throbbed incessantly, most likely because of the unneeded amount of climbing she had done.
"You are in the Halls of King Thranduil," said the unnamed, golden-haired elf. "Speak ill of him, and you will be met by death." Beside her, Fheon heard Gloin grumble to himself, but it was so incomprehensible that she was forced to assume he had spoken in Khuzdul—the name of their language, apparently.
Sunlight streamed into the cavern through the jagged cracks that lined the ceiling, but up and down the cavity, there were lit lanterns that provided the sufficient amount of light. Everything vaguely reminded her of the Goblin Tunnels in the Misty Mountains, enough for her chest to tighten in anxiety.
Eventually, the narrow pathways widened, and a sort of throne room was revealed to the Company. Yet there was nothing that could separate this particular hall from everywhere else, except for the large chair in the middle of the room on which an elf with a large crown sat.
He had the same light tone of golden hair as the elf who had led their capture in the woods, the same grey eyes, and the same stormy expression. Fheon assumed that they were father and son, and that he was the esteemed King Thranduil. His crown looked to be made of small wooden branches, with small berries and ferns popping out here and there. His throne seemed to encircle his body, as if it was forged for him and him only—made of smooth wood that craned over his head, almost protectively.
Elven guards were lined up and down the hall. They had looked down at the dwarves once or twice already, and Fheon found it hard not to return their challenging gazes. When she did raise her head, Thranduil was staring down at them with cold eyes. But it was only for a short while. Then he waved his hand and said something in Elvish, and by that time Fheon was starting to become frustrated at how she had not been taught the language, despite her status.
The elves that had captured them turned them around and started pushing them back down the pathway. They stopped when their king barked another order at them, and it offered Fheon little reprieve when she was able to discern the word "Oakenshield" in his statement.
One of the elves separated Thorin from the group, and then surprisingly did the same for Fheon and Elijah. The rest of the Company was led back down the stone halls, leaving them anxious and confused and glancing over their shoulders at their King Under the Mountain.
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