Hello again! Here's a new chapter for you guys!
Doodler100: I hope you'll like this one better than the last one, although I'm not sure whether the less-quoting is better here, I'm afraid. I just annoyingly struggle with Goblin Town, really. But I appreciate your reviews, they are really helpful! :)
Sam0728: Is she stuck in this form forever? Maybe, maybe not, I won't tell that just now :D She won't turn into a wolf in this chapter though, but there is a little something that is triggered and that will be discovered soon :D
Teshka: First off: hello! :D And second: thanks for all those lovely reviews! Tarya and Kili have a shipper, weew :D If you'd like my professional opinion, I find Kilarya to sound a bit better than Tarili :D Tarili sounds kinda weird. xD
Thank you so much for your reviews also to Mignun, DwarvenWarrior, TheShawndaLee and Mistflower21! You're all awesome!
And as always, thanks to all the people who keep favoriting and following this story!
Now read and let me know what you think, I'd highly appreciate it :D
Tarya hadn't been prepared for the searing pain that had been brought upon her, the lashing that had ripped a distinct mark across her back. She groaned, falling forward and only just being able to keep herself up on her hands before she hit the ground.
"No! Leave her be!" she heard someone shout and didn't have to guess twice that it was Kili.
"Oh, oh," the Goblin King chuckled, raising his hand to stop his soldier from bringing his whip down on her another time. It gave Tarya time to try and breathe through the pain while the huge creature before her fixed his gaze on her stupid friend. "Now, if that wasn't the distinct sound of a lover's desperate heart," the Great Goblin continued sneering and Tarya raised her head incredulously. The sound of what? That Goblin King was clearly out of his mind and she would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so serious.
"Bring him to me!" There were loud protests and swears from the company as the goblins approached them to seize Kili but none of them could do much without their weapons at hand.
Tarya quickly scrambled to her feet, roughly pushing the goblins off of her with a strength she didn't know she had. "You will not lay a hand on him or any of them, you abhorrent bastard!" she shouted towards the Great Goblin who looked back at her slightly surprised.
"So protective," he mused. "Well, it would only seem fair that you endure the pain I was about to bring upon your wooer then, while we are waiting for our final guests to arrive." With that, he gave a gleeful look to Thorin. "And you will watch the loyal little harlot scream until she can't anymore. And if she screams well, maybe we will keep her for ourselves."
The goblins cheered at the announcement and Tarya flinched slightly.
"Call her a harlot one more time and I'll rip yo–" Kili's loud and angry voice was cut off when the Great Goblin made a quick, almost bored sign and Tarya was harshly whipped once again, this time hitting her across the shoulder. She cried out once more, stumbling to her knees and clenching her eyes shut for a moment, the pain overwhelming her.
"No!" she heard Kili roar before the sound of another whip erupted and she heard her friend groan in pain when it came down on the company. The Great Goblin laughed in amusement.
"Enough!" she snarled loudly then and raised her gaze. She was furious now. It was one thing to hurt her but it was a whole other to harm her friends. Kili especially. Nobody could do that and get away with it unpunished, not even if it was a tremendous ugly Goblin King in his own underground kingdom. Tarya felt rage boiling in her stomach, an angry heat quickly spreading through her veins and her whole body until she clenched her fists. The Goblin King looked down at her and his eyes widened ever so slightly, albeit she didn't quite know why.
But she didn't have time do dwell on the thought because just at that moment, a loud yelp came up from beside her and she watched confused as a goblin soldier all but threw a sword away from him. It landed a few feet away from her, sticking out of its sheath, glowing blue in the murk of Goblin Town.
"I know that sword! It's the Goblin-cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!" the Great Goblin howled loudly and scrambled back on his throne, squashing some of his own soldiers under his massive feet, when he saw the glowing blade lying on the floor. Tarya raised her eyebrows at him for a brief second before he roared at his soldiers, "Slash them, beat them, kill them all!"
And from one moment to the other, chaos erupted. The goblins charged at her and the company, whipping and clawing and jabbing furiously. Tarya quickly ducked beneath the raised arm of a goblin and dove for Thorin's sword, gripping it and turning around just to see the dwarf-king being brought down on the floor by some goblins.
"Cut his head off!" The Goblin King's voice echoed loudly through the underground and the goblin raised his blade to obey his king. Tarya's eyes widened and she was about to sprint forward and lunge at the creature when suddenly, there was a bright light followed by a strong blast that spread through Goblin Town, knocking her off her feet as well as everyone else, be it dwarf or goblin. Tarya's head hit the wooden floor painfully and she blinked for a few moments, white dots blurring her vision.
The next thing she heard was a loud, familiar voice pulling her back to reality. "Take up arms! Fight! Fight!"
She didn't have to be told twice.
Thorin pushed the goblins that had gripped him off and scrambled towards the pile of weapons together with the rest of the company. Weapons were being tossed to each other as the goblins started to charge at them. Hurriedly, Thorin seized his battle-axe and looked around for Orcrist while around him the fighting had already erupted. His sword was nowhere to be seen but as he swivelled around and wielded his axe to chop off a goblin's head, a movement to his left caught his attention and as he turned his head, he saw the Amarok quickly buckling her belt back to her hips. She was holding a dagger in one hand and – more importantly – Orcrist in the other. They caught each other's gaze for a moment and for a second the dwarf-king thought her eyes were practically glowing before she blinked and it disappeared. But before he could marvel at what had just happened, Thorin saw Tarya's eyes widen as she looked at something behind him.
"Thorin!" she yelled over the noise of the fight, clear warning in her voice and the dwarf-king quickly turned around to parry a blow by the Goblin King with such a force that the beast stumbled backwards and fell off the bridge. The next thing Thorin knew, Tarya was catching up to him and threw Orcrist towards him in the midst of running. He caught it in mid-air, twirled around and promptly slashed a goblin with it that had come too close.
They were following Gandalf now and fighting their way over narrow and creaky wooden bridges, no one except the wizard having even the slightest idea of where they were going.
He lost sight of Tarya then as they hurried along, the last thing he had seen of her being her drawing her second dagger and her furious face as she had pushed it into a goblin's stomach. He tried to push the image of the glowing eyes to the back of his head and not to worry about the girl, knowing that his youngest nephew would probably not be far if she got into trouble. And anyway, she seemed to be able to handle trouble quite well on her own so far.
As it was, Kili was not far behind Tarya as he sliced and slashed his way through their enemies, Fili being right behind him. As soon as he spotted her black shock of hair in the middle of the chaos, he made his way towards her, reaching her just as she pushed a goblin off the bridge.
"I thought I had told you not to risk your life again!" he shouted over the screeching and shouting of the goblins, now fighting side by side with the Amarok.
"I thought you knew I wouldn't listen!" she yelled back at him, kicking a goblin in the stomach so that it stumbled towards Kili who quickly slashed its chest with his sword before shoving it off the bridge.
He looked over at her for a brief moment, worriedly catching sight of a trail of blood coming from her forehead. He didn't have time to comment on it when they hurried along, following the others. They sprinted along the path, knocking off goblins that tried to climb up from beside them, jumping from one platform to the other, all the while fighting their way through. Kili looked around for a moment, catching sight of Bombur knocking some goblins off their feet with nothing but his huge belly. Kili would have been impressed if he'd had time for it but he suddenly caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He dodged the arrow just in time and instinctively moved in front of Tarya to shield her as two more came their way, knocking them off with his sword. He grabbed a ladder then, heaving it over his shoulder before dropping it on the approaching goblins. He pressed forward, the other companions by his side as they dropped the ladder over a gap in the bridge and moved over it. Dwalin waited for the rest of the company to cross the ladder before kicking it away to keep the goblins from following them.
Tarya felt her heavy breathing, her blood whooshing in her ears but she kept on going, not willing to die in this blasted place. She tried to keep up with Kili but after having crossed the ladder as one of the last, she lost sight of him, now finding herself behind Ori with Dwalin behind herself. They rounded a corner and Tarya could see an empty bridge before them, hope already rising in her stomach.
But that hope was squashed mercilessly when all of a sudden, the Great Goblin broke through the wooden plates, roaring in anger. They all came to a halt abruptly and she almost ran into Ori's back as their enemies surrounded them again. "You thought you could escape me?" the Goblin King said, wielding his hammer at Gandalf who stumbled back into the company. "What are you gonna do now, wizard?"
Tarya watched as the dwarves pushed Gandalf forward, the wizard stabbing the beast in the eye with his staff before slicing his sword over his stomach. Her eyes were wide and she was trying to calm her breathing when the Goblin King fell to his knees. "That'll do it," he muttered, before Gandalf slashed his neck.
She would have smiled if not in that moment, the bridge beneath her feet had begun to creak and crack suspiciously. "Oh no," she breathed before her voice transformed into a loud scream as the floor gave in again and they were sliding on the broken bit of bridge, down into the darkness. Tarya felt someone gripping the back of her tunic and keeping her in place when she was dangerously close to falling off their slide.
The few seconds that they were tumbling down felt like an awful eternity to the Amarok and when they finally hit the ground, the impact not as hard as she'd thought, she felt another person falling right on top of her, knocking the air out of her lungs. There had been too much falling this night, she decided and as she looked up with a groan, she saw that it was Dwalin who was lying on top of her. He had probably also been the one gripping her tunic before, she realized.
"Well," she heard someone say and couldn't bother to check who it was, "that could have been worse." She didn't have to check, she realized, when she heard the unbowed optimism. It was Bofur.
Suddenly, the air was knocked out of her lungs once more as the corpse of the Great Goblin came down on them with non-braked force. She heard Dwalin groan in pain on top of her. "You've got to be joking!" he growled before he awkwardly scrambled off of her, giving her a short look up and down after he'd helped her to her feet. She didn't bother to say that she was all right, when she heard Kili's desperate voice.
"Gandalf!" he screamed and once she saw him scrambling to his feet, she followed his gaze, her eyes growing as wide as her friend's. Hundreds of goblins came charging down the hillside towards them.
"They're too many!" She turned around to look at Dwalin, "We can't fight them!"
"There's only one thing that will save us now," Gandalf replied, helping Dori to his feet. "Daylight!"
Kili made his way out of the broken wooden panels and hurried down the path behind Tarya who had waited for him to catch up. They ran along dark, narrow tunnels, Gandalf leading them on with a small light on his staff.
It felt like an eternity until Kili finally felt a small breeze of air grazing his face and just a moment later, he saw the distinct light of a fading day reaching through a hole in the wall before they rushed through it and out into the sun.
They kept running, down the hill, around high trees and it was only a few moments later that they finally came to a halt on a small clearing. Kili looked at his brother as he slowed down and they exchanged a glance before he suddenly ran into Tarya's back, sending her stumbling forward with a little yelp, not having noticed that she had stopped already.
She caught herself and turned around to him with an accusing look. He raised one hand vaguely towards her. "Sorry," he panted, still out of breath from the chase.
"… and Bombur. That makes fourteen," he heard Gandalf say but didn't pay much attention to him as he held gaze with Tarya for a moment, the look in her eyes slowly shifting into relief before she sighed heavily, made a step towards him and put her arms around his waist in a tight hug. He wrapped one arm around her shoulder, carefully avoiding touching her whipping wound when he pressed her slightly against him.
The moment was cut short by Gandalf's agitated voice though, which couldn't be ignored. "Where's Bilbo?" he asked and Kili felt Tarya let go of him immediately, as she started to look around worriedly for her friend. He felt a little twitch of frustration, though he didn't know where that was coming from. "Where's our hobbit?!"
They all looked around but there was no sign of the hobbit whatsoever.
"Curse that Halfling!" Dwalin growled, "Now he's lost? I thought he was with Dori!"
Kili – as well as everybody else – looked over at the grey-haired dwarf. "Don't blame me!" he cried out.
"Well, where did you last see him?" Gandalf urged and Dori shrugged slightly.
"I think I saw him slip away when the goblins first collared us," Nori chimed in and Gandalf turned to him.
"Then what happened? Tell me!"
"I'll tell you what happened," Thorin growled, stepping over towards Dwalin and catching everybody's attention. "Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it! He's thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since he first stepped out of his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again. He is long gone."
Kili more heard than saw Tarya react to his uncle's words, a low growl escaping her as she stepped forward towards him. "That is not true!" she said loudly into the silence that had settled in upon the dwarf-king's words and Thorin looked over at her, scowling.
Kili could see that this was not going to end well. "Tarya…" he started but she shut him up with one single glare. He sighed silently.
"Bilbo would not leave us like that," she said, returning her hard glare to the dwarf it was originally directed at. Thorin narrowed his eyes at her.
"He would have done so already had we not been captured by the goblins!" he snarled, taking a step towards her himself. "He had planned on going back to Rivendell after the thunder battle, when the company was asleep, without saying a word to anyone, not even those who believe so fiercely in him."
Tarya looked a bit taken aback by this comment, maybe even a little hurt, Kili thought but her expression quickly turned back into anger. "Even so," she said, "he was with us as we fell into Goblin Town and if he is still in there, we have to go back and find him! He is a member of this company! He is a friend! And he does not deserve this disdain you treat him with!"
The king and the Amarok were by now glaring daggers at each other and next Thorin spoke, his voice was colder than ice. "Should he still be in the mountain, he will be dead by now and it would be suicidal to venture back for him," Thorin uttered, looking into Tarya's eyes sternly. "The Halfling has abandoned us and you'd do best accepting this rather sooner than later. He has left us, you and your friendship behind."
Nobody dared to say anything as the eyes of the Amarok bore into their king's, anger flashing brightly in them.
"No, he hasn't," a voice finally piped up and they all turned their heads to see Bilbo Baggins standing in their midst.
A relieved smile spread across Tarya's face as she caught sight of the hobbit. And she was not the only one. Bofur let go a happy chuckle upon seeing him and Fili and Kili were smiling broadly, albeit surprised.
"Bilbo Baggins!" Gandalf sighed, smiling. "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!"
She couldn't hold herself back then and rushed forward, gripping the hobbit in a tight hug that he returned, laughing quietly. "I knew you wouldn't leave us," she whispered and felt him pat her back slightly while he nodded on her shoulder.
"Bilbo! We'd given you up!" she heard Kili say and released her friend to send the dwarves pointed looks, lingering a little longer on Thorin who caught her gaze shortly, raising an eyebrow. He seemed unsure of what to make of the situation, obviously not having expected to see the hobbit again. That served him right, she thought. Maybe now he would finally start to see how valuable and loyal Bilbo truly was.
"How on earth did you get past the goblins?" Fili asked with raised eyebrows.
Tarya looked at Bilbo who hesitated a moment before letting go of an uncomfortable chuckle. She frowned slightly when he raised his hand to his pocket but was distracted by Gandalf who spoke up again. "What does it matter? He's back!" the wizard said and Tarya nodded slightly, although looking at the wizard's face, she felt like she had missed something.
"It matters!" Thorin said, then and Tarya sent him a warning look, which he deliberately ignored. "I want to know. Why did you come back?"
"Look, I know you doubt me... I know you always have." Bilbo said after a moment of hesitation and Tarya watched him curiously. Finally, he was standing up to Thorin, she thought. "And you're right, I often think of Bag End. I miss my books. And my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home. And that's why I came back, because... you don't have one. A home. It was taken from you, but I will help you take it back if I can."
Tarya felt a warm feeling in her stomach when the hobbit ended and as she looked up, she saw Thorin incline his head slightly as if in shame. She smiled warmly then as the company remained in stunned and touched silence for a moment. Maybe now they would finally accept Bilbo as a sincere member of this company.
She walked over to a small rock then, making her way through the company and let herself slump down on it. Now that the adrenaline rush was slowly dying down, she felt the throbbing pain on her back and in her head return.
"Tarya!" It was – whom else would it be she thought – Kili who was coming to stand in front of her, looking down at her worriedly. She glanced up at him and saw Oin and Fili standing by his side. She frowned a bit, seeing the brunette dwarf's expression but gave him a little tired smile nonetheless.
"You've been hurt rather badly, lass," Oin said quite loudly and Tarya caught sight of his ear trumpet for a moment, which was completely ruined and trampled from their little trip to Goblin Town. "I'd have you let me take a look at your injuries, if you will."
Tarya huffed slightly. She didn't really need to be taken care of, she thought. After all, she was an Amarok and her wounds healed rather quickly. Kili had pointed that out himself when they were still in Rivendell. But seeing the worried expression on her friends' faces, she couldn't find it in herself to discuss this. They would feel better if they could tend to her and she didn't mind if they did. So she shrugged slightly and nodded.
But before Oin could take a step to look at her back, loud howls echoed over the mountainside they were on and Tarya's head jerked up. She'd recognize those sounds anywhere and felt a growl of frustration and anger leaving her throat. She couldn't fight wargs in a petty human body!
She immediately got up from her spot and didn't need to hear Gandalf's urging before she set off running down the hill, followed swiftly by her companions.