The Mines had Orcs, The Orcs had a Cave Troll, and the Caves had a Balrog
Let's get down to business
To defeat the...orcs...
-Capt. Shang
13 January 3019, of the Third Age
22 Afteryule 1419, Shire-Reckoning Time...
As we began to venture into the mines, I became aware of skeletons of dwarves littered along the floor. I cried in disgust and horror, and grabbed Pippin's arm as Legolas pulled an arrow out of one of the bodies and examined it.
"Goblins," he announced, as Gimli cried aloud for the destruction of his people.
Then a tentacle shot out of the water and seized Frodo round the waist, surprising us all. "Frodo!" I cried, and ran after the thing with my sword. Sam was already swinging his sword and swiped a tentacle. I ran, slipping on the stones of the lakebed and swinging furiously. Of course, I was too clumsy and small to be a threat, and I kept missing. The thing tossed Frodo around a bit as Boromir and Aragorn rushed in with their swords and Legolas struck hits with his bow and arrows. Finally, the squid-like thing, in all the confusion, released a yelling Frodo and Aragorn caught him in his arms, ushering the rest of us to run. We escaped narrowly into the Mines of Moria, and the thing in the water sent an avalanche of rock blocking the way out.
Gandalf, in the lead, suddenly stopped and turned around. "We now have but one choice. We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world."
We continued on, traversing dark, wet halls and climbing stairs long since overgrown. Pippin slipped above me, and for a moment I saw our lives reflected in each other's eyes. Merry held onto him gently. "Pippin," he cried. It was a long while before we made it to a three-way hall.
"I have no memory of this place," Gandalf said as we stopped behind him.
It was not Gandalf's best day. He sat before each passage in thought, and we were allowed a rest again, thank goodness. Aragorn began a fire and Pippin, after lying down and trying to sleep, sat upright.
"Are we lost?" His little loud voice was enough to pierce a hole in rock, but I could tolerate.
"No," Merry replied, lying on his back, and rolling his eyes.
"I think we are."
"Shh!" Sam shut them up. "Gandalf's thinking."
I tried to sleep myself, but rock could only get so comfortable. After a few moments of silence, besides all the tossing and turning, Pippin spoke up again.
"Merry?"
"What?"
"I'm hungry."
I did manage a nap that evening, after the trek up Caradhras and the ordeal with the Thing in the water. Eventually I felt a hand shaking my shoulder. It was Merry. "Get up," he said kindly. "Gandalf's just remembered which way we need to go."
"Not remembered," Gandalf said with a smile, turning to Merry. "But the air doesn't smell so foul down here. If in doubt Meriadoc, always follow your nose."
Merry and I exchanged bemused glances as we walked slowly down the passage and Gandalf "risked a little more light." What we saw took our breath away—miles of stone columns and beautiful carvings into the mines that Gandalf named as the Dwarf city and realm of Dwarrowdelf.
"Now there's an eye-opener and no mistake," Sam gasped.
As we walked through the hall, looking about, Gimli gave a start and rushed towards a sunlit room where a white tomb and more corpses lay strewn. Gimli knelt by the tomb, reading the runes and began to sob, comforted by Boromir. I bowed my head in reverence, and Frodo looked longingly at the tomb.
"Here lies Balin," Gandalf began.
Frodo jerked on the spot, suddenly full of sorrow. "Bilbo knew him…"
"Son of Fundin, Lord of Moria," Gandalf translated quietly as we allowed Gimli his last respects. "He is dead, then. It's as I feared." He handed his hat and staff to Pippin, taking sight of a large and tattered book in the hands of one of the corpses. We watched as he carefully removed it from the dead dwarf's hand and opened to a dirty page with writing in a language of runes that no one could read, save perhaps Gimli.
"We must move on," Legolas hastened us. "We cannot linger." Gandalf ignored him. He began to read, slowly.
"They have taken the bridge, and the second hall. We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. Drums, drums in the deep." He turned the page and continued. "We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out...They are coming."
I felt the blood in my arms run cold as I shivered from the horror of being in a place where, long ago, dwarves had fearfully been trapped and waited for death.
A horrendous clatter shattered everyone's thoughts as I, along with the rest of the company, whirled to see Pippin, looking embarrassed and terrified as a skeleton slid into the well behind him, followed by a chain and bucket. Poor Pippin winced with each BANG heard far below in the mines, and finally, as the noise ceased, we were able to relax.
Gandalf slammed the book, or diary, shut, throwing Pippin a ferocious glare. "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"
Pippin cast his eyes down and sat alone while we prepared to leave. Suddenly, though, drums sounded from far away, echoing from below. Terror-stricken, I ran to the well and leaned to peer in, but could see nothing. Gandalf took me by the cloak and pulled me away from it with a warning glance.
"Frodo!" Sam cried suddenly, and we turned to him. Frodo pulled his sword out of its sheath to see it was glowing blue.
"Orcs!" Legolas spit out.
I pulled my own sword out, ready to fight, while Boromir approached the door. Immediately, arrows were shot at him, and we all jumped back. Aragorn gathered us hobbits together.
"Get back! Stay close to Gandalf!" He pleaded, and ran to block the door.
"They have a cave troll," Boromir said bluntly, and gathering axes, used them as bars for the door.
As the rest of the Fellowship drew their weapons, Gimli tossed his axe from hand to hand and leapt atop Balin's white tomb. "Aaargghh!" He cried. "Let them come! There is one dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath!"
While we stood back, Legolas and Aragorn shot arrows through holes in the door and, from the cries of pain that followed; we knew they'd met their marks.
"Well met!" I had to shout, and sure enough, the doors were broken down by the mass of orcs. It didn't take long to get the hang of fighting. Boromir's training had done me well; Pippin and I fought back-to-back and stayed close to Gandalf, as we promised. As we continued the battle, a monstrous cave troll smashed its way in, swinging at us with chains. I was nearly chopped to bits by one, and only ducked out of the way in time, pulling Pippin down and slaying several orcs in the process.
"What a way to spend my day," Pippin incited.
Something about being in battle changed me that day. I don't know whether it was pride or just the glory of the fight, but being able to defend myself made me stand firmly rather than cower behind Aragorn or Gandalf as us hobbits were prone to do. The same difference was seen in Pippin and Merry and Sam, who understood at last that this was no matter of lighthearted play; we'd left the Shire for possibly forever and were now in a life-or-death adventure that for now had no end.
"Let's go!" I cried, shattering my own thoughts by catching sight of Frodo on the ledge of the room, trying to avoid the troll. Pippin and I seized Merry's arm and he followed us, attempting to stab it, but ended up cornered. And, being of miniscule size, it did little good; the troll tossed us away from Frodo as easily as the Ringwraiths had done.
I shook my head clear and saw Frodo duck behind a pillar, turning one way and then the other, until the troll picked him up and held him above the ground.
"ARAGORN!" He cried frantically. "ARAGORN!" Using his head, he stabbed the troll's hand and escaped. I busied myself with the rest of the orcs in the room, casually glancing back in time to see Aragorn stab the troll with a spear. By now, my sword was soaked with black blood and I was sure we'd won the fight, until someone screamed, "FRODO!" And Merry and Pippin and I froze, seeing him slumped over with the spear in his chest.
"YAAAAAAAAAH!" I cried, and Merry and Pippin followed suit. We leapt atop the troll, stabbing at it with our little swords in a blind fury. Our efforts did hardly more than to agitate it, as he picked Merry up by his leg and dropped him to the ground, and seized me, though I cried for help, and found myself falling through the air to the hard stone ground. Pippin stayed aboard, avoiding capture, and kept stabbing its head. I crawled to my sword, which I'd dropped when the troll dropped me, and slowly got to my feet, running to Frodo's side and attempting to revive him, with assistance from Sam.
The troll, in pain, had opened its mouth and Legolas delivered an arrow shot that killed it. The rest of the orcs, seeing the massacre, fled immediately, and as the troll swayed from side to said and fell, Pippin let out a cry, for he was thrown roughly to ground.
Tears welled in my eyes; I stepped away as Sam cried "Frodo!" Aragorn, free from his head wound, joined Frodo's side and lifted his limp body gently.
To all of our surprise, he coughed and sputtered and gasped, "I'm all right! I'm not hurt!"
"You should be dead," Aragorn said softly. "That spear would have skewered a wild boar."
"I think," Gandalf said with a little smile, "That there's more to this hobbit than meets the eye."
Frodo, looking from me down at his chest, began unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a shimmering mail of some metal.
"Mithril," Gimli gasped, before finally taking his eyes off the shirt and grinning at Frodo from behind his thick beard. "You're full of surprises, Master Baggins," he added, and a sudden clatter of orcs sent us on our way again.
As we got to our feet and ran, Gandalf threw instructions at us. "To the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm!"
Terrified, we followed, but could not ignore the tens of thousands of orcs climbing down columns and running after us. Soon we were surrounded and attempting to stay calm, until a fiery light from far down in the hall chased everything away. We did not move, but sidestepped and pranced a bit, as a leering shape of fire and smoke began forming from far off.
"What is this new devilry?" Boromir inquired.
Gandalf bowed his head, holding his staff steady, his eyes closed while a slow thud-thud-thud told me the fiery thing was on its way. "A Balrog," Gandalf replied, clutching his staff in a way that made the rest of us shiver with worry. "A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you..." He raised his head and yelled, startling us all to sprint. "RUN!"
We dashed down a passageway and flight of stairs that suddenly curved off into the abyss. Boromir nearly made the same mistake we did over five months before, in Maggot's farm, when he slipped at the edge. That careless act made my heart heavy with longing to see the Shire again, not quite noticing when we picked up our running again.
"Swords are no use here!" Gandalf cried. My heart skipped a few beats, I think.
"This is the end," Sam groaned behind me.
"Not yet," I said, offering him my hand, where we had to stop abruptly to avoid running straight into a second pit, where the stairs had been broken in two pieces. Legolas, being an elf, leaped easily over the gorge and Gandalf followed easily as well. The rest of us looked up at Aragorn and Boromir, for Gimli could not take us. Boromir took Merry in one arm and Pippin in the other and thrust himself over with a cry, and Aragorn half pushed-half threw Sam over to Boromir, who caught him like a sack of potatoes. Aragorn jerked the back of my hood, for I was ready to jump, but Gimli had held up his hand first.
"Nobody tosses a dwarf," he said gruffly, and with a shout, jumped as far as he could, landing on the very edge of the chasm and nearly falling backwards in. Legolas took it to himself to grasp Gimli's beard and help him back up.
Aragorn pulled me back again suddenly, for the edge of our steps began to crumble and fall away. Alarmed, I turned around. The fiery thing called a Balrog was coming, and as it did, several heavy pieces of stone fell from the ceiling and walls of the mines. Behind us, a particularly huge and heavy stone fell and destroyed the other side of the stairs, so that we were on some island in the middle of a huge pit. To my terror, the whole piece began to sway, and Aragorn tightened his grip on my cloak, pulling me next to him and holding my waist firmly. On his other side was Frodo.
"Stay there," he said. "Hold there, Mandy. Hang on! Lean forward!" It rocked back, then forward again, coming close to the others, and we ran across before the entire section fell into the pits. The Fellowship continued its terrible run, across the bridge, where Gandalf instructed Aragorn to lead.
"Over the bridge! Fly!" Gandalf shouted, turning to face the Balrog. It wasn't until we were across that we turned to see what was happening. "You cannot pass!" He screamed at the Balrog, holding his staff and sword in front of him. A giant bull, as it looked like, with smoky wings and a fiery whip approached, releasing smoke and sparks from its nostrils. The thing itself seemed to be made entirely of fire.
"Gandalf!" Frodo cried behind me.
We jumped back as Gandalf's staff illuminated, stopping the Balrog in its tracks, but I could tell it still wanted to go across and kill us all.
"I am the servant of the Secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun!" Gandalf parried a strike with his sword and the Balrog's sword shattered. "Go back to the shadow," he added, as the Balrog advanced menacingly, lashing his whip.
"YOU…SHALL NOT…PASS!" Gandalf screamed one more time, striking the bridge with his staff, where it collapsed under the Balrog. As he watched, and we with him, the Balrog delivered its one last whip strike, while Gandalf was turning to join us. The cries that echoed told me that everyone knew what was happening, though Gandalf could not see. The whip curled around his foot and pulled him to the edge of the broken bridge. Frodo lunged after him but Boromir grasped him round the chest and held him back.
"GANDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALF!" was Frodo's pitiful scream.
Horror-stricken, I held Merry's cloak and he wrapped his arms around me, watching Gandalf hang there.
"Fly, you fools!" He said, and released his grip into the dark abyss.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Frodo cried, hollering as Boromir picked him up. He struggled and cried. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Aragorn!…" I heard Boromir's voice in slow echo, like some kind of faraway dream, while Aragorn stared in a daze at the place Gandalf fell.
The orcs shot at us as we ran. Merry took my hand silently, avoiding eye contact, for he was in tears, and Pippin took my other, running furiously until we were out in the daylight once more.
Outside, I couldn't take it anymore, and fell to my knees, holding my face in my hands, sobbing uncontrollably, unaware of the rest of the Fellowship's actions. Merry fell beside me and consoled me as well as Pippin, who lay across our laps, wailing Gandalf's name while we held him. Sam was a little ways off, weeping, and we knew at that moment we could go nowhere, for Gandalf had been lost.