Author's Note: Well, we have a computer again, so yay! Actually, it's pretty much been up and running again since Monday, but it was tied up for a couple of days getting all the programs reinstalled and everything. I probably could have posted this chapter yesterday, but…er…*blushes* I kinda forgot.
Chapter 25-Like a Roller Coaster, But Scarier
Karra awoke with a start. She stared out into the dark corridor, wondering why she was awake. As her eyes adjusted, she felt a shiver run down her back, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Someone was watching her. She nervously scanned all corners of the cell. Nothing. She looked out into the hallway. Still nothing. But the feeling remained. She felt eyes on her, but saw no one looking at her. Suddenly she heard a sharp noise from the hallway that sounded a lot like, "Psst!"
She jumped and strained to see who it was that had spoken. "Who's there?" she hissed.
"It's me, Bilbo." She heard the voice, but still saw nothing.
"Bilbo!" she cried. "I'm so glad you're alright! Where are you?"
"I'm right outside your cell," came the reply.
"But I can't—"
"I know you can't see me," he replied in a hushed whisper. "I can't explain now, just trust me. And for goodness sakes be quiet." Karra heard the sound of something clanking, and then the sound of a key grinding in the lock, but still saw nothing. The door swung open on its own. "Follow me," she heard Bilbo say. She hesitantly followed the sound of footsteps down the hallway.
"Where are we going?" she asked softly. "And why, and how are you—"
"Stop!" he whispered. "I had to get past the guards. And I'm getting you out of here." She glanced away for a moment, and when she looked back, Bilbo stood in front of her, his hand in his pocket.
"Wha—" she began, but Bilbo held up a finger.
"I said I can't explain," he said. "Just follow me." They rounded a bend, and Karra saw thirteen dwarves standing huddled in a group, all looking just as confused as she felt. "Come on," Bilbo whispered. Karra ended up in the middle of the group as they tiptoed as quietly as they could down the dark-ish hallway. She felt someone bump into her, and turned to find herself looking straight into Fili's eyes.
He took her hand and squeezed it gently. "Thank goodness you're here," he said softly. "I didn't know what happened to you." Bilbo turned and made a shushing motion with his hand, and Karra and Fili grinned at each other and followed silently.
The hobbit led them through mazes of elven hallways, past some empty cells, and down a couple of flights of stairs. It was obvious no one except him had any idea where they were going, and they all hoped he knew where he was going.
The hall widened out a little, and Karra began to see that they were no longer in the dark, narrow corridors of the dungeons. She saw large rounded shapes surrounding her, and it took her a moment to realize what they were. Barrels? What? Where was Bilbo taking them?
Bilbo led them further, doing all he could to keep them quiet. Karra was slowly beginning to realize that they must be in some sort of storage area, maybe a cellar of sorts. They passed a table with two elves sitting at it. Karra jumped, and then realized they were slumped over, sound asleep, with a couple of empty glasses lying beside them. They must be in the wine cellars, then. Karra raised an eyebrow at Fili, a little surprised that it was actually possible for elves to get drunk.
"We're in the cellars!" exclaimed Kili, looking around him. "I don't believe it!"
"Yeah, you're just now realizing that?" Karra poked him in the side and he grimaced at her. She gave him a little wink, just dying to make an 'I know who you have a crush on' comment, but she didn't. That could wait.
"You're supposed to be leading us out!" cried Bofur, though he didn't say it too loudly. "Not further in!"
"I know what I'm doing!" cried Bilbo exasperatedly, motioning urgently for them to follow him just a little further. They rounded a bend and saw a large stack of barrels in a room containing shelves and shelves of wine bottles. "In the barrels, quickly," Bilbo ordered.
Karra stared at him. "What?" she said. This made absolutely no sense. Everything Bilbo had done so far had been good, but climbing in empty barrels? What were they supposed to do, just sit there and hide and hope no one came and found them? She would have preferred to stay in her cell!
"I said I know what I'm doing!" protested the hobbit. "Please, you must trust me!"
Okaaay then. Karra stared at the barrels again. This didn't make any sense, but Bilbo's plans had always worked for them before, so…
A commotion in the near distance made them all turn. "Do as he says!" ordered Thorin. Karra dashed for the nearest barrel and began to crawl inside, only to catch her foot on the rim and trip. She got to her feet and found Bilbo practically pushing her inside.
"Alright, alright!" she protested softly. "I can do it on my own!" She crawled in a little clumsily and turned so she could see out the open end.
"What do we do now?" Bofur asked, echoing the thoughts of everyone else there.
"Hold your breath," Bilbo replied.
And before Karra knew what was happening, she found herself and her barrel rolling over and over until she barely had any sense of direction or balance anymore. The barrels clanked and the dwarves groaned and yelled and all in all they made a terrible racket, and suddenly they were falling through the air and landing with a splash into a stream.
Karra spluttered and spit out water, brushing her wet hair out of her face. There was a splash behind her, and as she turned, her barrel almost tipped her into the water. Bilbo popped out of the water, clinging to Nori's barrel. "Well done, Master Baggins," Thorin said with a nod Bilbo's direction. He raised a hand in acknowledgment, gasping and spitting water.
"Come on, let's go," Thorin ordered. Karra dipped her hands in the water, trying to paddle her barrel forward. She found herself tipping dangerously to the right. She leaned to the left and almost fell in the water. Finally, though, the current took over and pulled her barrel along with the others.
All at once they emerged from the elves halls into the sunlight. Karra blinked. She hadn't actually seen the sun in…who knows how long!
Almost before her eyes had time to adjust to the change, she found herself being catapulted over a waterfall. She clutched the edge of the barrel as hard as she could and by some miracle of physics managed to stay inside as they landed with a huge splash at the bottom. The raging current pulled them forward again.
It was all Karra could do to keep her barrel from tipping and dumping her out again. Most of the other dwarves seemed to be having the same problem, as they all tipped and bounced down the river.
They whipped around a bend so fast it almost made Karra dizzy and saw a gate in the near distance. Two heavily armored elves stood guard above it and Karra caught her breath. Over the noise of the river, a horn sounded, and Karra tried to push her barrel faster, as if that would do any good. Just as they were about to be pulled through the gate, it shut with a clang. The barrels bumped up against it, stopped at the last minute.
Karra glanced around at the other dwarves. What now? They would probably just get taken back into the prisons again, this time more heavily guarded. If they could only have gotten past the gate, they would be free now.
And then there was an odd noise, and everyone looked up. One of the elven guards fell, pierced in the back with an arrow. A couple of hideous creatures emerged from the trees surrounding the bank, all armed.
"Orcs!" someone cried.
Suddenly a crowd of creatures emerged from the trees and swarmed down the bank of the river, growling menacingly and making all kinds of horrible sounds. Karra thought she heard, "Kill them all!" among them.
An orc landed with a splash in the river right beside Karra. She jumped and tried to push her barrel backwards, but of course that failed and she was almost tipped into the water. Suddenly the orcs were all around and among them, throwing themselves at the barrels and slashing and stabbing with their weapons. Karra instinctively felt for her own sword, only to realize it wasn't there. She threw a hard punch at an orc, knocking it backwards. Rather surprised at her momentary strength, she tried to elbow another orc out of the way and found herself hitting a dwarf in the face. She was pretty sure she must have given him a bruise on the nose. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"Catch!" cried a dwarf, and Karra saw a weapon flying towards her. She reached out to grab it but missed, and it flew past her, making a lucky hit on an orc. Another weapon was nearly shoved into her hand, and she held it clumsily in front of her, for the orc sword was large and unwieldy. She hoped she didn't accidentally hit a dwarf with this.
It was all chaos in the close quarters near the gate, with the dwarves wrestling with the orcs and using their own weapons against them, trying to push them back from the little gate and into a more open area. Karra shoved her orc weapon as hard as she could the direction of an orc, but it dodged and grabbed her by her hair. She yanked her head away, letting out a cry of pain. She pulled free from the beast's grasp, but she was pretty sure it took a chunk of her hair with it. She barely had time to think. She was too focused on not getting wounded or strangled or smothered by an orc.
Without warning, the gate creaked open again. They all streamed through it and were thrown down another waterfall. Hitting the bottom of the river with a splash, Karra gulped in water without meaning to, and came up coughing and spluttering. The current pulled them on, and they tumbled down another waterfall. Karra felt her barrel turn upside down, and this time when she came up, she had no barrel.
She splashed wildly with her hands and feet, trying to keep herself from being bombarded by the current, but to no avail. She was irreversibly drawn towards the edge of the river and thrown hard against the rocky bank. Her head swam and she clung to the rocks, gasping. She felt blood dripping down her forehead, and she was sure she was going to have a terrible headache.
A barrel bumped into the bank beside her and she heard Fili's voice yell over the raging river, "Grab on!" She gripped the edge of his barrel, and they were thrown back into the middle of the current. The barrel tipped sideways and Karra found herself sliding in behind Fili.
She gripped hard around his waist as they continued on down the river. The barrel rolled and dipped and even turned upside down once, nearly dumping them both out. Karra gripped Fili so hard she was afraid she was hurting him.
An arrow landed with a splash beside them. Karra looked up to see the outline of…was that an orc on the bank above them? Within a matter of seconds, more of these…well, Karra assumed they were orcs…appeared on the bank beside the first one, all holding weapons of one kind or another. Arrows began to fly.
A knife came flying towards the barrel, and Karra desperately tipped to the side. The knife just barely missed grazing the side of Fili's head. Her heart began to beat very fast. If she hadn't tipped the barrel out of the way like that, Fili could be dead.
They were thrown under water again before Karra had time to think about it, and they came up gasping and choking. Suddenly an orc came flying out of nowhere. Thorin neatly beheaded it with an orc weapon he just happened to have in his hand. The body splashed into the water beside Karra and Fili and Karra repressed an involuntary shudder.
She kept her hands tightly clasped around Fili's waist as they crashed and rolled through more rapids, dodging arrows and thrown knives all the while. Through the chaos, Karra glimpsed a familiar figure on the bank; it was Tauriel, shooting orcs left and right. Those were some pretty awesome archery skills there, Karra thought briefly.
Another orc came flying towards them, almost landing on top of one of the dwarves' barrels. A knife flew out of nowhere and pinned it to a tree trunk that spanned the river, and Thorin caught the weapon neatly as it fell. It was tossed back through the line of dwarves and finally came flying towards Fili.
"Let go," he hissed, and Karra unclasped her hands from around his waist just as he caught the weapon and cut an orc's feet out from under it smoothly. It fell into the stream with a yell. The barrel was pulled forward into the middle of the current again.
Ahead of them, Karra saw a low-hanging tree branch, piled with orcs. She braced herself as they flew towards it faster than she would have liked. With a couple of chops at the branch by various dwarves, it came crashing down into the stream just as Karra and Fili bobbed under it, taking all the orcs with it.
"Karra!" she heard someone call, and saw an orc knife flying towards her. This time she caught it clumsily and heaved it in the direction of an orc standing on the bank, managing to neatly embed the knife into the mud at its feet. She grimaced. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bombur leap rather gracefully, for Bombur, from the bank into an empty barrel. It dawned on her that that was her barrel he had just jumped into!
"Hey!" she yelled over the chaos, waving a hand to the big dwarf. "That's my barrel!" Fili turned and gave her a questioning look, and she just gave him a slight grin. She didn't really mind being in his barrel after all.
They were thrown down another waterfall, and as they hit the bottom and came up, Karra saw two elves on the bank, killing orcs as fast as they could. She made very brief eye contact with Tauriel, and saw that the other was a blond-haired elf that looked somewhat familiar. He was the one who had taken her key! She had the sudden urge to stick out her tongue at him. But no, that would have been a horribly immature and silly thing to do in the middle of a fight.
She stuck out her tongue at him.
The elf leaped gracefully from the bank to the river, landing on top of two dwarves' heads. Riding the dwarves down the river, he spun and shot about three orcs in the space of three seconds. Karra couldn't help thinking he was showing off at the expense of the dwarves. He leaped back onto the bank and Karra ducked as an orc carcass came flying towards her. It landed in the water with a splash and Karra got a distinct whiff of orc scent. Yuck!
The show-off elven archer leaped from the bank again and walked right across the river, using the dwarves' heads as if they were stepping stones. Talk about rude! Karra had to duck to keep her own head from getting stepped on. She didn't want someone's shoe that probably had dirty orc muck all over it on her hair!
As she ducked, she unwittingly pulled the barrel sideways, nearly dumping her and Fili out. He caught her by the arm as she slid into the raging river, pulling her back in behind him. "Thanks," she managed to splutter out.
"Very welcome," he replied with a smile. "The river's a danger in itself."
"And so are rude show offy elves," she muttered, glancing up at the archer who was now standing on the bank as if stepping on dwarves' heads was an everyday habit of his. Fili turned and gave her a grin.
Another orc carcass came flying into the river with a splash, and then there was silence. "What happened?" Karra asked, a little dazed and just beginning to realize that she was very tired. "Where are the orcs?"
"They're gone—defeated," Fili said. "At least for now."
"Keep moving!" Thorin ordered. "More orcs could attack at any moment!"
"As if we could do anything but keep moving," commented Karra. Fili grinned. The river still pulled them forward with great speed, and they tumbled over another small waterfall. Karra had to cling to Fili to keep from getting thrown out. She swallowed another gulp of water and came up coughing and spluttering once again, accidentally spitting water all over Fili's hair. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"It's not like I could get any wetter," Fili said with a grin, and Karra giggled. She pushed her wet hair out of her face and hoped they would all get a chance to dry out soon.
The rapids gradually slowed, becoming smaller and smaller until eventually the river was fairly calm. They floated along, trying to keep their barrel upright. None of them wanted another dousing. Karra began to shiver. Her wet hair made her head feel heavy, and her clothes clung to her body, chilling her as they floated along. She wrapped her arms around Fili's waist and buried her head in his shoulder, but it didn't really help, because he was just as wet as she was.
Fili turned around as best he could with Karra's head on his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I'm cold," she said quietly. "And tired."
"I don't blame you," he said with a small rueful laugh. "I think we all are."
They just floated along for a moment, her head resting on his shoulder. Eventually he turned and said, "I need to paddle, the river's not carrying us very fast. Would you mind…?" Karra sighed and lifted her head, unwrapping her arms from around his waist. He leaned over the edge and tried to push the barrel along with his hands, but it didn't seem to be doing much good. The other dwarves seemed to be having the same problem, so it wasn't like they were falling behind. Karra wondered at the fact that the river could have gone from wild rapids to almost unbearably calm in what seemed like less than an hour. Or maybe it had been more than that, she didn't know.
"Anything behind us?" Thorin called to the group.
"I don't see anything," Karra called.
"Nor I," Balin reiterated.
"I think we've outrun them!" cried Bofur.
"Not for long," reprimanded Thorin. "We've lost the current."
"And we're all half drowned," complain Dwalin disgustedly. Now that was true, Karra thought.
"Make for the shore," ordered Thorin. "Come on!" They managed to paddle their barrel painstakingly over the bank of the river, and after climbing out himself, Fili gently helped Karra out. She collapsed on the bank, exhausted from the day, the roller coaster barrel ride, everything.
Kili pulled his barrel up beside them and climbed out, but seemed to be having some kind of trouble. As soon as he was on the shore, he fell to his knees with something like a wince. Fili was at his side in an instant.
"I'm fine!" Kili protested. "It's nothing." But his strained voice portrayed that it was assuredly more than 'nothing,' and Karra saw a bit of blood seeping through his trousers. He must have gotten wounded in the fight with the orcs.
"On your feet," ordered Thorin almost coldly, turning to his nephew.
"He's wounded," protested Fili. "His leg need binding."
"There's an orc pack on our tail," Thorin said mercilessly. "We keep moving."
"To where?" asked Balin.
"To the mountain," Bilbo spoke up. Karra followed his gaze to the shadowy outline of the mountain above them. "We're so close," he said softly.
Fili looked up at Thorin. "Uncle," he said. "He needs help."
Thorin gave a long look up at the mountain again, then back at Fili, Kili, and Karra sitting there on the bank. The others seemed to be discussing something, but Karra was fixated on the little silent confrontation that seemed to be going on between Fili and his uncle.
"Bind his leg quickly," Thorin finally ordered. "You have two minutes." He turned away, his face harsh.
"What's with him?" Karra asked quietly, hoping the 'him' in question wouldn't hear.
"We're so close to the mountain—our home," Fili replied, pulling a cloth from his pocket to bind Kili's wound. "He's anxious to get there."
"Well, we all are!" cried Karra. "He doesn't need to be so crabby about it!" She scooted closer to watch what Fili was doing. Gently wiping the blood from the wound, he quickly bound the cloth around it. Kili bit his lip as if repressing a cry of pain.
"What happened?" Karra asked.
"An arrow," replied Kili. "An orc arrow." Karra nodded. She could see he didn't want to talk about it.
They heard a faint noise behind them. All three heads turned, and they saw that the other dwarves seemed to be looking at something. Karra followed their gaze and saw a man standing on the river bank above them, and arrow notched on the string of his bow. And the arrow was pointed straight at them.
I just want to give a little thank you shout-out to my guest reviewer, if you're reading this, who told me about the OC character tag. I didn't actually realize that existed, so thanks for that information! :)