Chapter 10

"Something's coming!" Thorin yelled out to the company.

Annelise and Bilbo quickly looked in the direction of the shout as Gandalf moved over to Thorin.

"Gandalf," Bilbo started saying, worry lacing his tone.

"Stay together!" the wizard yelled. "Hurry now! Arm yourselves!"

At these words, Annelise pulled her bow from across her shoulder and grabbed an arrow, setting it in place. She looked down and noticed Bilbo pull his small blade from its sheath.

"You are much braver than you believe yourself to be," she said quietly as the rest of the Company began running off after Gandalf.

Bilbo looked up into her eyes for a moment before nodding, a determined look crossing his face. With that he turned and followed the others, with Annelise right behind him.

When they caught up to the others, they stopped and prepared to face their foe.

What burst from the brush ahead of them was the last thing Annelise expected. A sled pulled by what seemed to be large rabbits burst from the foliage, carrying an old man who was yelling wildly.

"Thieves! Fire! Murder!"

The sled came to a stop in front of Gandalf and Bilbo. The man looked around with a crazed look in his eyes. Annelise found herself moving closer to the hobbit and tightening her grip on her bow.

Her posture soon relaxed, while the look on her face turned to confusion at the grey wizard's next words.

"Radagast! It's Radagast the Brown! Well... What on earth are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you, Gandalf. Something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong."

"Yes?"

With this the brown wizard opened his mouth as though he was about to say something and then suddenly paused. "Oh!" he said starting again and Annelise realised that he seemed to have forgotten what was so important. She couldn't help but roll her eyes slightly at the man's behaviour.

"Just give me a minute!"

At these words, the rest of the Company looked around at each other, lowering their weapons in confusion. Annelise lowered her bow and started rubbing her shoulder, realising that she'd forgotten about her wound. Bilbo noticed her motion and looked at her with worry, but she quickly smiled down at him and shook her head.

"Oh, I had a thought and now I've lost it. It-it was right there on the top of my tongue. Oh! It's not a thought at all," these last words said in a strange way that made Annelise think there was something in his mouth. Her thoughts were proved correct, to her disgust, as the brown wizard continued.

"It is a little...stick insect," he said sticking his tongue out. Annelise watched on as Gandalf reached out to his tongue and indeed pulled out a small stick insect from Radagast's mouth. She couldn't help but shudder in disgust and looked down to see that Bilbo wore the same look she expected was on her face at that moment.

Soon after that, Gandalf and Radagast moved away from the others to talk in private.

Annelise looked down at Bilbo and then to her cousins who were standing nearby before simply stating, "Well that was one of the more strange things I've seen in my life." With that, she casually moved over to her left and sat on a rock.

At her simple words, her cousins chuckled quietly and Bilbo moved to sit on the ground near her.

"So how old are you?" Bilbo asked quietly before realising what he'd said. "I'm sorry! That was rude! I-I didn't mean to say it like that or-"

"Bilbo it's alright," Annelise cut him off quickly, chuckling at how flustered the hobbit seemed.

"I'm not sure exactly how old I am. Father thinks I was around two or three when I was left with him and that was 22 years ago the week before we met. So I would say I'm 25," she said smiling down at the surprised look on his face.

"If you do not mind me saying, miss, you certainly look much younger. I thought you might have only been eighteen."

"You would not be the first to be surprised at my age. When my father first found me he thought I was only a year old from how small I was. As I got older he realised that I was aging slower than the other children around me. With how well I could speak and walk, he realised I must have been closer to three."

"And you know nothing of where you came from?"

Annelise looked up to make sure that her cousins and father were not within hearing distance before turning back to Bilbo.

"When I first met Gandalf in your home, something about him seemed familiar to me, like I had met him before. When I asked him, he told me that he had known me before I came to be with my father. I spoke to him again while he was cleaning my wound and he revealed that I had been born in Rivendell."

This bit of information caused the hobbit to raise his eyebrows in surprise. "Do you know why you were in Rivendell?"

"No but Gandalf said that it would not be long until I learned why," she said, glancing over to where the two wizards were talking. She saw Radagast handing Gandalf a long package wrapped in cloth and Annelise couldn't help but shudder at the feeling that passed over her when she saw it.

"Are you alright?" Bilbo asked, noticing her discomfort.

"Yes, I am just worried about how learning about my past might affect my father and cousins," she said quickly, not completely lying to the Hobbit.

"I am sure that everything will be fine," he said patting her hands that had begun playing with her bow string that was sitting in her lap.

Suddenly there was a loud howl echoing through the forest and Annelise quickly jumped up, with an arrow back in place looking around them.

"Was that a wolf? Are there wolves out there?" Bilbo asked with slight fear.

"Wolves? No that is not a wolf," Bofur said lifting up his weapon.

"Wargs," Annelise spit out under her breath to the Hobbit.

She suddenly heard heavy footsteps behind her and turned as a warg started growling down at them. She quickly shot it down before the others had a chance to turn, knowing that she was able to hear it before them.

Another came running from behind her father and Kili shot it before it could reach him. Dwalin threw his axe down finishing the warg off.

"Warg scouts," he father said. "Which means an Orc pack is not far behind."

"Orc pack?" Bilbo said with disbelief.

"Who did you tell about your quest beyond your kin?" Gandalf asked angrily.

"No one."

"Who did you tell?" Gandalf yelled again.

"No one, I swear!" Thorin answered again. "What in Durin's name is going on?"

"You are being hunted," the wizard replied.

"We have to get out of here," Dwalin said from beside Annelise.

"We can't!" Ori yelled. "We have no ponies and the horses have run too!"

Howling continued around them as Annelise looked around with worry. 'Oh Silmë, please be alright,' she thought to herself. She had grown rather fond of the white mare.

"I'll draw them off," said a determined Radagast. Annelise turned to look at him in disbelief.

"How?" she said.

"These are Gundabad Wargs. They will outrun you," Gandalf said, turning to his brown counterpart.

"These are Rhosgobel rabbits," Radagast replied, pointing at the rabbits behind him. "I'd like to see them try."

Annelise couldn't help but released an impressed chuckle at the brown wizards words.

All around them, the howling of the Wargs continued causing Annelise to began to get a bit nervous about their chances of getting out of their current situation.

Radagast had left quickly on the back of his sled and she was glad to hear that the howls seemed to be getting further away. But she knew that they were not out of trouble yet.

Once getting out of the woods, Annelise could see the Orc pack following the wizard across a valley with no covering, except for a few boulders here and there. Once they got out there, there would be few places for them to hide.

"Come on," Gandalf said from the front of the group and they all moved to follow him out of their cover.

Annelise did not like feeling so exposed, even though Radagast was leading the pack the opposite way.

They continued running across the plains with Thorin and Gandalf leading. They stopped when they saw Radagast and the pack to their left.

"Stay together," Gandalf said before turning so that the pack was to their backs.

They kept running until they got behind a huge rock when Thorin yelled, "Ori no! Get back!," pushing the dwarf behind him and signalling for the others to stop behind the cover of the rock.

Annelise looked ahead and saw Radagast leading the pack away again.

"Come on all of you! Quick," Gandalf said to the group.

"Where are you leading us?" Thorin asked the wizard but Gandalf kept moving.

Annelise looked down at her father in confusion before following the wizard with Thorin right behind her.

Soon after leaving that rock, they were forced to hide behind another. As soon as they all stopped, Annelise looked up as she heard something from the rock behind her head. She kept listening and her eyes widened when she realised what the sound was. There was a warg on the rock right above them.

She could hear its steps and the breath of the Orc on top of it. Her father looked at her and saw the fear in her eyes. She nodded slightly and he turned his head to look up the rock.

She knew he had seen the warg when he looked over at Kili and nodded. Her cousin quietly drew an arrow before stepping out of his cover and shooting the warg.

Annelise saw the Orc reach for a horn and she quickly shot him as well causing the warg to fall down from the rock toward them.

The rest of the dwarves tried to take down the warg as quickly as possible but Annelise knew that its screams and growls had given away their position.

Her suspicions were confirmed when suddenly a great howl came from the pack as they began coming near them. She looked over to see Gandalf looking out at the plains before them as though he was looking for something in particular.

"Move! Run!" he yelled suddenly, causing the Company to jump into action at his words.

They ran even faster than they had before and Annelise was relieved when they reached a spot that had a few trees and hills even though it did not provide them with complete cover.

"There they are!" someone yelled and Annelise looked ahead to see that the pack had managed to get in front of them.

"This way!" Gandalf yelled, pointing to their right. "Quickly," he added, already heading in that direction.

Annelise quickly caught up with him because of her longer legs and asked, "Gandalf, where are we going?"

"You'll find out soon enough, my dear," he answered with a sad look in his eyes, before the look was replaced with determination again.

Annelise looked ahead again and saw that there were two Wargs ahead of them now.

"There's more coming!" Kili yelled from behind them and Annelise looked around to see that they had been surrounded.

"Kili, shoot them!" Thorin yelled to his nephew.

"We're surrounded!" Fili yelled to his uncle.

Annelise turned from looking at her father and cousins to look at Gandalf only to see that he had disappeared. She was worried for a moment but decided the wizard probably had a plan before she moved toward Bilbo who was standing by himself at that moment.

"Where is Gandalf?" Dori asked.

"He's abandoned us!" Dwalin yelled.

Annelise grabbed her bow and began shooting the Wargs while Kili did the same from where he was standing.

"Hold your ground!" her father yelled, brandishing the Elvish sword he had acquired.

The Wargs began closing in as Annelise pulled Bilbo behind her so that he was in the middle of their circle.

"This way, you fools!" Gandalf suddenly yelled from Annelise's left, popping out from behind a rock.

"Come on, move!" Thorin yelled at the group before moving toward where Gandalf had disappeared to again.

Thorin stood atop one of the rocks and ordered the rest of them down into the hole that was below it. Bofur was the first in, followed by Bilbo and Balin. Annelise and Kili stayed back covering their escape, though Annelise was slowing inching her way toward her father.

One warg got through and reached Thorin before he quickly disposed of it.

"Kili! Run!" her father yelled back to his nephew. Annelise was standing next to her father now, covering her cousin's retreat as the pack drew in closer.

"Annelise, go now!" he father ordered.

"But Kili-"

"Now!"

Annelise reluctantly nodding to her father before sliding down the hole to join the others. Once she was on her feet, she turned to the entrance and drew her arrow back again, waiting for her cousin with fear coursing through her body. She relaxed a bit with relief when she saw Fili, Kili, and her father slide down soon after her.

Once they were all standing, a strange horn sounded across the plains. Although she could not place it, Annelise was surprised when she realised that she recognised it. She looked to Gandalf, about to question him on the sound, when they began hearing arrows being released and the sounds of the Orc pack being taken down.

They all kept a wary eye on the entrance to the hole, that Annelise realised looked more like a tunnel now that she was down in it. Suddenly an Orc fell down the hole and landed amongst them. Gandalf quickly put his staff down near its neck in case it was not dead, but Annelise could see the arrow sticking from its neck.

Her father bent and pulled the arrow out, examining the tip. "Elves," he said throwing the arrow down in disgust.

Annelise turned sharply to look at Gandalf, realising where he must have been leading them. He looked back at her with the same sad look in his eyes that he had given her earlier, before nodding slightly so that only she would see it. She inhaled sharply and her father looked to her with a question in his eyes. She shook her head at him, reassuring him that she was fine. He glanced over her once to make sure she was not injured before nodding and turning to Dwalin as he came running back to the group.

"I cannot see where the pathway leads. Do we follow it or no?"

"Follow it, of course!" Bofur yelled back, heading to where Dwalin was standing.

The rest of the Company began moving as well.

"I think that would be wise," Gandalf said hanging back as Annelise had made no motion to follow. "Come, little one," he said, holding his elbow out for her to take.

She looked at him with a bit of fear in her eyes, knowing that this was the beginning of her own journey to discovering her past.

"We will do this together. For you are not the only one who fears the road ahead."

Annelise could see in his eyes that he was afraid of something as well, though she could not think what the great wizard would be afraid of where they were going.

With that thought, she placed her hand in the crook of his arm and he smiled down at her softly before following the Company.

Soon the pathway got too narrow for them to walk side by side so Gandalf urged Annelise to go ahead of him and she found herself directly behind Bilbo.

They continued walking and Annelise couldn't help but notice the feeling that had come over her suddenly. She could hardly describe it. She felt peace and joy and ... magic. That was the only way she could describe it. Magic.

She was looking up at the rock that rose above them to the sky and saw Bilbo doing the same.

"Gandalf. Where are we?" he asked suddenly and Annelise realised that he must being feeling it too.

"You can feel it?" the wizard asked, causing both Annelise and Bilbo to stop and look back at him.

"Yes. It feels like..."

"Magic," Annelise finished for him.

"That's exactly what it is," the wizard replied looking between the two standing in front of him. "A very powerful magic."

"There's light ahead," Dwalin said, breaking through the silence that had surrounded the three, before they began moving again.

Soon they broke out of the rock and Annelise saw a sight that she would never forget. A valley filled with trees and waterfalls more beautiful than she could have ever imagined. And among those trees and waterfalls sat an Elven kingdom that looked as though it had grown right out of the mountain.

She found her breathe stolen at the sight of the beautiful place and couldn't ignore the tugging feeling in her brain that said she knew this place. That this was her home. She moved to the front of the Company and looked out across the valley in front of her and breathed in the sweet air. She subconsciously grabbed her necklace out from under her scarf and held it in her hand.

She did not notice her father looking up at her sadly when he saw her reaction to the sight before them. He knew in his heart that their lives were about to change.

"The Valley of Imladris," Gandalf said suddenly, though his words did not interrupt Annelise's thoughts. "In the common tongue, it's known by another name."

"Rivendell," Bilbo said and Annelise found herself sighing when the word reached her ears.

"Here lies the Last Homely House East of the Sea." Gandalf continued and Annelise found that she could not stop the one word slipping from her lips as a whisper.

"Rivendell..."