Chapter 8

Before anyone knew what was going on, the Dwarves and Bilbo were all sliding down deeper and deeper into the mountain before landing painfully in a spherical iron cage.

Bilbo was most remorseful to find himself once again in the awful goblin kingdom of the misty mountains. Even more, disquieted with the knowledge that he was going to have to spend much more time then he would like in the nasty place with truly one of the most pitiful, nasty creatures he had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

There came a glimmer of red light before them as Goblins began to surround the cage. One of the Goblins pulled a lever and the party was dropped out of the cage and onto the floor. Immediately they had Goblins on them pinching and biting at them as they dragged the Dwarves up and started dragging them to meet their king.

Bilbo took his chance and in the chaos of the Goblins and Dwarves, slipped behind a rock and waited until he could no longer hear the chanting of the Goblin or the shouts of the Dwarves down the tunnel. But then something happened that Bilbo did not intend. A hand landed on the Hobbits shoulder and he whipped around to see the distressed face of Bifur.

Apparently he had not managed to slip away as quietly as he thought.

Bifur started speaking tensely in Khuzdule, seemingly under the pretense that Bilbo had slipped away to try to sneak out of the mountain without the company.

Before the Hobbit had any time to formulate some kind of response a Goblin swung down from the rocks above them and launched itself at Bifur and Bilbo who had no time to pull Sting out before they were all three of them tumbling off the rocky landing and ever deeper into the caverns below.

Bilbo awoke with a groan, a deep throbbing in his head. He reached up to his hairline and hissed with pain pulling back his fingers to see them stained with blood.

Evidently falling from very high heights can sometimes result in injury. Go figure.

Bilbo sighed. He couldn't hardly make out anything in the darkness of the Goblin tunnels. He started to crawl around, carefully feeling things, hoping to find some trace of (an alive) Bifur. What he felt instead as he moved his hand across the ground was something small, smooth, cold and dripping in malice.

He had found the ring.

He supposed the ring must have wanted to be found by him once more. For that was the only reasoning he could think of for finding it with such ease.

A low groan from behind him had Bilbo's head snapping up, panic quickly spreading through his body, before he heard a string of, what he could only assume were curses, being uttered in Khuzduhl.

Well Bifur was alive at the very least. That was something. Bilbo could not imagine that his return would be at all welcome if it came with the news of a fallen brother.

"Bifur? Bifur are you quite alright?" The Hobbit asked, coming over to where he presumed the Dwarf was. Bifur said something Bilbo surmised meant that he was alright.

Before Bilbo could say any more the pair heard the sound of feet scuffling closer to them. The hobbit quickly pulled the both of them behind an outcropping in the stone wall just as a pair of large bright eyes almost seeming to glow in the darkness came into view.

The gangly decrepit creature Bilbo instantly Recognized to be Gollum crawled up to the unconscious goblin that had fallen with them and started dragging him away muttering to himself all the while.

As soon as Gollum was out of sight Bilbo hurried out of their hiding spot and gestured to his companion to follow the awful creature. Bifur, understandably, looked quite alarmed at the notion but conceded at Bilbo's insistence.

So the unlikely pair set off after Gollum. Bilbo could only hope he was making the right decision.

After what felt like hours of following Gollum but was probably only minutes, they were met with sight of an underground lake. Gollum set the body down on the bank of the lake, still muttering to himself, and was about to take a bite out of the goblin when Bilbo jumped out, making himself known.

"Um-Hello there" he managed around the frog in his throat.

Gollum's huge blue eyes snapped to him before narrowing. He gulped