After the long river run, the Scoobies and Dwarves had been paddling in their barrels with their hands when the river had become calm.
"Come guys, keep paddling!" Buffy shouted as she kept on paddling.
"Spike, anything behind us?" Angel asked.
"Not that I can see." Spike responded.
"I think we've outrun the orcs." Bofur assumed.
"Not for long." Thórin stated.
"Oh god, we've lost the current." Percy informed.
Faith turns to see an open shore. "Make for the shore!" She shouted to the Scoobies and Dwarves. "Come on, let's go!"
The Dwarves and Scoobies paddle to the riverbank, and climb themselves out onto a slab of rock jutting out a bit into the river.
"I am so sick of this adventure!" Anya spat as she tried to dry herself. "Getting arrested by noble elves and chased by savage orcs!"
"Oh god, I think I bit my tongue." Cordelia groaned.
"Tell me about it Cordy." Harmony sighed.
When Kíli is on the rocks, he falls to his knees in pain from the arrow wound in his thigh. He tried to bound the wound with cloth, but blood was seeping through.
"Are you alright?" Gwen asked, checking on him.
"I'm fine, it's nothing." Kíli said.
"Oh my god, no your not." Gwen gasped in shock when she saw the wound. "Here let me check on it."
"On your feet." Thórin ordered everyone.
"Kíli's wounded." Gwen informed. "His leg needs binding."
"There's an orc pack on our tail." Riley said. "We have to keep moving."
"Wait, to where exactly?" Tara asked. "We're in the middle of nowhere."
"No we're not, we're right near it." Bilbo announced the news.
"Near what?" Lance asked.
"The mountain." Bálin answered. "But lake lies between us and the mountain. We have no way to cross it."
"Okay then, then I guess we'll go around." Xander suggested. "Won't be problem. We still have time."
"Those bloody orcs will run us down, as sure as daylight." Spike argued angrily.
"And what's worse, we don't have enough weapons to defend ourselves." Willow said, sounding nervous and worried. "What are we going to do?"
"I have an idea." Kyle suggested. "We can use the barrels to get across."
"Hey, that was my idea." Tor complained.
"No time to complain." Buffy said. "I think Kyle is right. Let's line up the barrels as fast as we can, and we'll go across."
"Fíli, bind his leg quickly." Thórin said to his nephew and turned to everyone else. "We all have two minutes."
While Fíli, Gwen, Scott, and Willow were binding Kíli's leg, some of the Dwarves and Scoobies were sitting down while Óri kneels by the river to empty his boot filled with water. Unbeknownst to them, a shadowed man sneaks up over the pile of rocks and aims an arrow directly at Óri. As the Dwarves and Scoobies soon realize that the man was behind them, Larry grabs hold of a branch and leaps in front of Óri. He raises the branch and begins to charge the man, but the man shoots his arrow and it embeds itself right in the middle of the branch, between Larry's hands. Angel raises a rock to throw, but the man shoots the rock out of his hand too.
"Do it again, and you're dead." The man threatened them as he quickly loaded his bow.
Bálin, who was standing near the edge of the group, sees a large barge, that had room for the Scoobies and Dwarves, floating in the river behind bowman.
"Excuse me, but, uh, you're from Laketown, if I'm not mistaken?" Bálin spoke to the man and approaches him slowly with his hands held in the air. "That barge over there, it wouldn't be available for hire, by any chance?"
The bowman climbs aboard his barge as the Dwarves and Scoobies approach.
"What makes you think I will help you?" The bowman asked while he loaded the short and tall barrels that the Dwarves and Scoobies were riding.
"Those boots have seen better days." Willow smiled. "As has that coat. No doubt you have some hungry mouths to feed. Um, so how many kids?"
"A boy and two girls." The bowman answered.
"And your wife, I'd imagine she's a beauty." Bálin smiled.
"Aye. She was." The bowman replied solemnly.
Bálin's smile faded and noticed what he meant. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say..."
"Oh, come on, come on, enough with the niceties." Dwálin interrupted him in a harsh whisper.
"Dwálin." Buffy hissed.
"What's your hurry?" The bowman asked them.
"Uh, we're not exactly in a hurry." Angel said. "Nothing at all."
"Well I would like to know who you are and what you are doing in these lands." Bard demanded.
"We are simple merchants from the Blue Mountains journeying to see our kin in the Iron Hills." Bálin explained, making up a false story.
"Simple merchants, you say?" The bowman asked.
"We need food, supplies, and weapons. Can you help us?" Thórin asked.
The bowman looks at the barrels and examines the various dents and nicks they received during the fight with the orcs. "I know where these barrels came from." He examined.
"What of it?" Thórin asked.
"I don't know what business you had with the elves, but I don't think it ended well." The bowman assumed. "No one enters Laketown but by leave of the Master. All his wealth comes from trade with the Woodland Realm. He will see you in irons before risking the wrath of King Thranduil." He boards the his barge and tosses a rope to Percy.
"Offer him more." Thórin mouthed to Bálin.
"I'll wager there are ways to enter that town unseen." Bálin stated.
"Aye. But for that, you will need a smuggler." The bowman said.
"For which we will pay double." Bálin offered.