Sooo, I've had my second day of internship today and weeew, I like being all adult-job-earning-money-doing-stuff-like :D

And I have enough time now to give you guys a new chapter - which I hope you'll like and if you do, or also if you don't, review! :D

Beloved Daughter: Thank you! I was a bit worried that I might disappoint some of the readers with not giving out daily updates anymore but it's just not physically possible, really. So it's really nice to see that you're so understanding, thanks :3 And yeah, always these wizards with their background information about things... :D You'll find out what is going on eventually, though :D

Chilled Souls of the Forgotten: Is Radagast a pokémon now? Although he does remind me of psyduck a tiny bit now that I think about it... Well, anyway :D Thank you for understanding the whole internship-no-daily-posting-thing and of course for not wanting me to become a hobo xD It's alway nice to hear that :D

Well, so, now I'm done and the next chapter will probably be up on either Friday or Saturday, I'll see what fits better.

Enjoy!

Kili was looking at Tarya who was still concentrating on any suspicious noises coming out of the woods. She seemed different now than she had before even with the trolls and he didn't know exactly what had triggered it. He had been quite shocked to see Tarya rip apart that warg so easily, if he was honest. But he couldn't deny that he was impressed, too. He had not really thought about how much harm she was really able to do with her teeth and her paws.

Now was not the time to revel in these thoughts, though. There were other matters that had more urgency and at the moment, Kili was just happy that the Amarok was on their side. Without her, he did not want to know whether that warg would have gotten to his uncle or not.

"We have to get out of here!" Dwalin said urgently.

"We can't! We have no ponies! They have bolted!" Ori replied desperately and Kili felt a bit of dread creeping up in his stomach but he tried to suppress it.

"I will draw them off," Radagast offered then and they all sent him incredulous looks. The brown wizard seemed unimpressed by it.

"Those are Gundabad-Wargs," Gandalf said, "they'll outrun you."

Kili saw a grin spreading on the brown wizard's face. "These are Rhosgobel-Rabbits," he said, "I'd like to see them try."

The guy was crazy, Kili thought.

But with that, Radagast dashed through the bushes out into the lowlands. They waited a few moments and only when they saw that the orcs were chasing after the rabbit-sleigh, they emerged from their hiding spot and started to run across the field.

When they made it to the first big rock, they stopped and gathered to hide behind it. Kili looked around and saw Tarya standing in the back next to Ori, panting and looking around attentively. Then, they heard Radagast flash by and quickly moved on, running towards the next boulder.

That was until Thorin stopped dead in his tracks for a few painful seconds, seeing the wizard and the orcs crossing the land right in front of them. He looked on, shocked, but realized that they had not seen them yet and so he turned and ran after his companions and Gandalf in another direction. The wizard led them to another rock and the dwarf-king could only just grab young Ori by the collar in order to stop him from running further and getting seen by their hunters.

Thorin took a moment to look at his company then. They all looked worried, some scared. The hobbit looked positively terrified and he couldn't blame him for that. For a second, he crossed eyes with the Amarok. He didn't know if he should be surprised that she was still with them but he was. She obviously really saw herself as a member of his company and would stick with them even if times got a tad harsher. And after all, she had been quite helpful already if he thought back to just moments ago when she'd risked her life to save his from a warg-attack. There was more to be seen in that Amarok than he had thought, maybe even more than he had hoped.

"Come on!" Gandalf said then and motioned them to move ahead, ripping Thorin from his thoughts.

"Where are you leading us?" he asked but he didn't get an answer. Instead, they all hurried along the rocky landscape again, hoping not to get seen.

But arriving at their next boulder, there was suddenly a growl coming from top of it. They were all gathered at the bottom, trying not to move, not to breathe too loud. Thorin looked up cautiously and saw an orc astride on a warg, standing above them. Silently, he caught his youngest nephews gaze and motioned him to use his bow.

Kili took a deep breath before he quickly and noiselessly pulled an arrow from his quiver. Then he stepped forward while he simultaneously put the arrow in position and fired it off. It hit the warg in the chest and before the orc could sound his horn, Kili had shot a second arrow that hit the beast right in the shoulder. Warg and orc fell down the rock but – to everyone's horror – not as noiselessly as they had hoped.

The warg howled in pain and rage when it was killed by Thorin's axe and the orc kept screeching until the bitter end when Gloin buried his sword in his head.

They all knew that this had been too loud. Loud enough for every orc to hear and indeed, as they turned around, they saw the pack coming towards them in the distance.

"Move!" Gandalf urged, "RUN!"

And run they did.

Tarya saw the wargs coming at them. She couldn't help her fur ruffling up. Those were a lot of orcs and a lot of wargs that were heading towards them and she could only growl in frustration when she turned around and ran after the companions.

She felt like they had no idea where they were going but it didn't really matter just a second later because suddenly there were also orcs coming towards them from the other side. They were surrounded.

"There they are!" Dwalin shouted.

"This way!" Gandalf called out. "Quickly!"

Tarya ran behind Kili but it was to no avail. There were orcs coming from each side. Worriedly, she looked back and saw them approaching quickly.

"There's more coming!" Kili shouted to his uncle and Tarya caught the worried look on Thorin's face but that look was replaced with a fierce expression just a second later.

"Kili!" The dwarf-king shouted over the noise of the approaching enemies. "Shoot them!"

The brunette dwarf immediately followed his uncle's order and fired an arrow at an approaching orc, hitting him right in the chest. Another arrow found its way into the warg's head just a second after.

"We're surrounded!" Tarya heard someone call out and she was quite sure it had been Fili. But she didn't have time to turn around and check for a warg without rider was charging towards her from the left, all of a sudden. With a loud snarl, she dodged its attack and buried her teeth in its hind leg. The warg fell but before she could finish it, an arrow flew past her and buried itself in the back of the warg's head.

She looked up to meet Kili's gaze. "You're welcome!" he shouted but it didn't sound as cheeky as usual and the smile had completely disappeared from his features by now. She just made a little bark to thank him before she took off, running through the fighting dwarves towards Ori who had trouble holding off an orc with his slingshot.

The orc was raising its sword now, laughing derisively, and when Tarya was only about two meters away from them, she couldn't hesitate any longer, so she jumped and ripped the orc right off its mount.

It was dead the second it hit the floor.

The warg itself had now lost interest in Ori but focused on the one that had killed its rider. Tarya turned around and looked at the creature challengingly.

The warg snarled deeply and Tarya understood exactly what it was telling her with this.

'You are going to die, wolf-scum.'

She just bared her teeth threateningly and growled at the beast. 'Try.'

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Ori had successfully retreated from the warg's side and was now further back with the rest of the dwarves.

"Where's Gandalf?" she heard someone shout, when the warg suddenly attacked her. She managed to dodge it but this one was fast, she realized. A bit too fast for her taste. So she turned around and ran towards a near boulder. The warg was on her heels immediately. When she had almost reached the big rock, she took a sharp turn to the right, slithering on the dry floor. The warg didn't have enough time to react. It ran straight into the rock, smashing its head in in the process.

Tarya didn't waste any more time there, though, but ran straight back to where the dwarfs were.

Coming closer, she saw that most of them had disappeared and she only realized on second look that Thorin was standing on a boulder, waiting for the rest of his companions to jump down into a cave.

It was then, when she heard him call out frantically.

"Kili! RUN!"

Tarya looked around, spotting her brunette friend firing another arrow at a warg before turning around and running towards his uncle. She approached him from the left but diverted her direction when she saw another orc coming far too close to him from behind.

The warg that was carrying the orc was growling in anticipation. It couldn't wait to bury its teeth in Kili - Tarya could feel it.

But that wouldn't happen if she had a word to say in the matter.

Kili could feel the warg's hot breath in his neck as he ran. His legs hurt and he was out of breath but he forced himself to keep on running. He just had to reach his uncle, which was all he was focusing on right now.

He forced himself to an even faster pace when he heard the growl of the beast behind him. He was far too close to it and the boulder his uncle was standing on seemed still so far away. He didn't even hear Thorin's calls anymore; the noise of the blood whooshing in his ears was too loud. He could only see his uncle's lips moving.

Kili felt a flush of hot breath in his neck again, this time he was sure that he'd be ripped apart and that he would die here, being eaten by a warg. That was not really the way he wanted things to end. Actually, he didn't want things to end at all.

But then, all at once, there was another growl, sounding a bit lighter than the one's from the wargs but equally as threatening. Maybe even more, Kili thought, but he didn't know if he was only making that up now in the heat of the moment. He didn't dare to turn and look when he heard a loud yelp and a thud. The snarling continued when he finally reached his uncle.

He tried to turn around and look out for his Amarok friend but the only thing he could see was a mass of black fur wriggling in the dry brown grass over something before Thorin pushed him down into the cave where the others were.

He was welcomed with a tight embrace from Fili and he closed his eyes for a moment to regain some power. His breath came in big gasps.

Suddenly, there was a loud yelp followed by an afflicted whining. Kili's head jerked up and he looked up to the cave entrance with big eyes.

In that moment, his uncle slid down into the cave and met Kili's gaze when he looked up. Thorin sighed deeply and hesitantly shook his head at him.

Kili felt his heart sink.

He couldn't believe it.

This could not be true.

He only twitched slightly when a dead orc fell down into their midst. Thorin pulled an arrow out of its neck and inspected it. "Elves," he spat.

"I cannot see where the pathway leads!" Dwalin called out to them from a little further ahead. "Do we follow it or not?"

"Follow it, of course!" Bofur replied quickly and moved ahead. After a short moment of hesitation, the rest of them followed.

"I think that would be wise," Gandalf murmured, looking at Kili who was still staring up to the cave entrance in disbelief. The wizard sighed slightly before turning around and following the pathway.

"Come on, brother," Fili said softly, waiting for his little brother to break away from his spot. "There's nothing you can do."

Kili hesitantly turned around and when he met Fili's eyes, the blonde one saw an expression on his brother's face that he had never seen before in this way.

Kili looked broken-hearted and absolutely miserable.

Fili didn't know what to say so he simply put an arm around Kili's shoulders as they followed the others down the cave.

Kili didn't speak for the entire way.