Date: TA 2941
Thorin: 195 years old
Lina: 192 years old
"Where's the hobbit?"
Immediately accusations started flying. Dori was supposed to watch him. Well, he had been occupied with goblins. The dwarves looked about them, hoping to see him standing behind them. The absence of the hobbit had not even dawned on Lina until Gandalf had mentioned it. After all, she had never truly met the small being.
Thorin went stiff in Lina's arms at the mention of the hobbit. His whole manner changed, and not for the better.
"He's thought of nothing but his home this whole journey," Thorin snarled. "He's taken his chance to escape."
Lina was startled by her husband's words. When had Thorin become so bitter? He could be jealous, true. Harsh, occasionally. But where had this bitterness come from? Lina had not seen bitterness in her husband like this since the day the elves abandoned them and the city of Erebor. But then, he'd become more skilled in hiding his emotions than she liked to admit.
Before anyone could say anything, a different voice came out of nowhere. Lina was shocked when she turned to find the hobbit she'd seen in her visions standing not more than an arm's length from her. Even Nes was startled by the hobbit's sudden appearance. To get past an assassin was a great feat indeed. Lina could not help but be impressed with what she had seen of the burglar in person.
The hobbit's speech further impressed Lina. His promise to help them reclaim their own home even made Thorin smiling slightly.
That small victory for the hobbit was cut short by a piercing howl. Lina's heart began to race. Wargs. She took off down the hill, following the other dwarves. The wargs were rapidly gaining on them and darkness was falling. As if to add insult to injury, the dwarves found themselves trapped at the edge of a high cliff.
"Up into the trees!"
Lina stayed beside Thorin, making sure both of her nephews reached the safety of the trees. Nes easily scaled a nearby tree with Bofur before leaning down and helping Bombur up from the low branch to which he was clinging.
"Get in the tree, Lina," Thorin ordered hoarsely. He widened his stance, bracing to meet the wargs as he waited for his wife to reach safety. Lina obeyed, but stayed on a lower branch until Thorin had climbed up beside her. Together they moved up the tree trunk. Seconds later the first of the wargs began milling about the base of their tree, snarling and snapping up at them.
On a low ridge, the warg riders appeared. For a moment, Lina thought she was seeing a ghost, and her blood ran cold. It could not be Azog. They watched him die at the hands of Dain Ironfoot. No. It wasn't Azog, but another like him.
"Azog!" one of the other dwarves gasped, not quite realizing that Azog had died many years before.
"Not Azog," the orc snarled in his harsh language, "Bolg, the son of Azog."
At that the company was stunned. Lina almost forgot her fear of the creatures still below her. What could the son of Azog want this far south? The dwarf who had killed his father was far to the east.
"I will destroy the line of Durin, as my father failed to do," Bolg called out over the trees. "You will all die at my hand as Thror died at my father's, as I helped destroy Thrain."
At those words a great cry rose from the dwarves. Their fear of the wargs below held them in the trees, but the embers of the anger long buried had been fanned into flame.
"Kill them all, but that one," Bolg announced, gesturing at Thorin, "is mine."
Immediately the wargs were leaping up into the trees, tearing off limbs, forcing the dwarves higher to avoid the snapping jaws. The tree holding Fili and Kili was the first to begin falling. Lina's tree fell shortly after. The dwarves leapt into the next tree and the next, trying to keep beyond the reach of the wargs. It was not long before all fifteen dwarves were in one tree with the hobbit and Gandalf.
"Lina! Catch!" Lina looked up in time to grasp the smoldering pine cone. She shared the heat and flames with Nes who had perched beside her. The pair joined the rest, lobbing flaming pine cones at the wargs below. Howling and yelping in terror, the wargs retreated rapidly. Cheers rose from the mouths of those trapped in the tree.
The victory, however, was short lived. With a groan, the tree began to fall over the cliff edge. Nes sank her hand spikes into the bark, and wrapped her legs tightly around Bofur's waist as he started to slide from the tree trunk. Lina was not so fortunate. Her hands, sweaty and bleeding from the fight in the goblin tunnels and from climbing the rough-barked trees, could not grip the tree. Only her husband's watchful eye and quick reflexes kept her from falling to certain death.
"Thorin, don't," Lina whispered when she saw the look in his eyes. Whether or not he actually heard her, Lina did not know. But he understood the plea in her eyes. Don't go after Bolg. Not now. He isn't paying attention though.
Lifting her up to grab a branch, unable to draw her onto the tree trunk, Thorin released her hands and rose to his feet. His sword was drawn.
"Thorin! No!" Lina clawed at the tree trunk, trying to pull herself up. Horror filled her heart as Bolg urged his warg forward to meet the dwarf charging at him. As Thorin was knocked backward, other voices joined her cry. Branches cracked beneath the weight of Lina and Dwalin as both struggled to join Thorin. The jaws of the white warg closed around Thorin, tightening and drawing a cry from the warrior's lips.
Lina screamed in anguish and rage at her husband's cry. She tried desperately to scramble up the dangling branch, to defend her wound mate. One of Bolg's followers was moving in for the kill. A brief ray of hope filled Lina's heart as the small hobbit raced to Thorin's aid, launching himself at the orc and knocking it away from Thorin. Now, however, her fight to join the defense was only renewed.
"Give me yer hand," Bofur called out. He stretched out his hand toward Lina, Nes's legs still wrapped tightly about his waist. Nes nodded to her commander and gritted her teeth as Lina's weight was added to the strain on her arms. Bofur boosted Lina up until she could stand on his shoulders. Using the strength of his arms, he pushed her up by the soles of her feet until she could scramble up onto the tree trunk.
The female grasped Bofur's hand and pulled him up Nes's body until he was safely on the trunk. Bofur turned to help Nes while Lina scrambled along the rough bark to Dwalin. She grasped his massive hand. The dwarf climbed up beside her. Fili and Kili appeared, having been rescued by Nes. Together, the four dwarves charged the orcs massing to attack the hobbit defending Thorin's limp body.
Anger at the orcs for what they had done and fear for Thorin's life drove Lina. Her hammer dislodged one orc's head before whipping around to crush the skull of a charging warg. A shriek from high above sent chills through her body, freezing her where she stood. Everyone, dwarves, wargs, and orcs, stared up in shock as massive birds, eagles, descended from the night sky.
Lina found her ability to move in an instant. Ducking wargs as they dangled from talons, she raced to her husband's side. He wasn't moving. He was barely breathing. Her hands flew, trying to stop the flow of blood as it welled up from the deep puncture wounds inflicted by the warg's teeth.
"Thorin, wake up," she cried breathlessly. "Wake up!" By now Lina had lost all sense of what was happening around her. Her focus was only on Thorin. Talons pulled her, struggling and crying, away from Thorin's body. He needed her. The only comfort she had was seeing a second eagle lifting his body from the stone it had fallen upon.
Soon her eagle had flown far enough from the other that the darkness of the night obscured her husband from view. Lina ceased struggling. It would do no good. Closing her eyes, Lina forced herself to calm down. Panicking had done Thorin no good while she had been at his side, and it would certainly do him no good now.
Where the eagles were taking them, Lina had no idea. The journey extended far into the night. Lina gave up trying to mark the passage of time as she was carried over the distance. Her exhaustion caught up with her. There in the eagle's talons, Lina fell into unconsciousness and she knew nothing more.