Chapter 17
"It cannot be," Annelise heard her father say from a different tree.
She turned to see that her father was staring down at the pale orc with a look of disbelief and anguish on his face.
She turned back when Azog began to speak, unable to bear the sight of such a look on her father's face. She was glad that she was unable to understand the words coming from the vile creature's mouth, though she could clearly see the intention behind them.
Azog suddenly gave an order to attack and the warg pack was soon surrounding the trees that the members of the Company were sitting in.
The wargs quickly began jumping at the bases of the trees, pulling off the lower branches trying to climb up. They were causing them to rock so much, that the dwarves were struggling to keep a hold of them.
Annelise worried that soon the trees would fall under the force of the wards jumping on them. One of the wargs came very close to Bilbo's branch and suddenly their tree was falling into the others.
They quickly began jumping into other trees, until the entire Company was sitting in a large tree at the very edge of the cliff.
Annelise looked up to see Gandalf messing with some pine cones and his staff before seeing a spark of fire in his hands.
"Kili!" Gandalf said suddenly dropping the burning pine cone down to her cousin. She quickly realized what the wizard's plan was and began gathering pine cones from around her to light on fire as well.
Soon the Company was throwing the fire balls down at the wargs below them, causing the animals to back away. After a little bit, a wall of fire began to form between them and the wargs.
Azog roared in anger, and the dwarves cheered happily in response. Suddenly the tree beneath them began to be uprooted from the damage that had been done to it.
Annelise quickly reached down to grab a hold of Bilbo beside her to try and keep them both steady as the tree fell on its side off the cliff. She did not know how it was still holding on, but she was glad that it was.
Once she and Bilbo were secure, she looked around to the others. She could see Dori and Ori barely hanging on and watched as Ori suddenly fell, only catching himself by grabbing on to Dori.
"Mr. Gandalf!," she heard Dori yell just before he too lost his grip. She felt her heart stop for a moment as she watched Gandalf dive down and Dori catch the end of the wizard's staff.
She was so distracted by what was happening, she did not notice her father moving from the tree to challenge Azog.
"No!," she heard Balin yell, just in time to turn and see her father in the jaws of Azog's warg.
Bilbo had managed to get onto the truck of the tree and was standing on it, watching the scene before him. Annelise moved to follow the hobbit, but lost her grip and was now only hanging on with one hand.
She saw Dwalin moving to do the same, but the branch beneath him cracked, leaving him hanging as well.
"Addâd!" Annelise shrieked, struggling to pull herself up.
She watched as her father attempted to fight back and was thrown through the air by the warg onto the top of a flat rock. She heard Azog give a command to one of the orcs beside him and watched as the orc moved toward her father.
With this, she struggled even more to try to pull herself up onto the trunk so that she could help her father. She watched as Bilbo drew his small sword and began moving off of the tree.
Seeing the small hobbit's courage and her father struggling to reach his sword, she was finally able to get a good hold on the tree with her second hand and begin pulling herself up.
She gained her balance on the tree in time to see Bilbo tackle the orc standing with his sword raised above her father's head. She watched the small hobbit struggle with the much bigger creature and finally kill it.
She paused to pull Dwalin up onto the trunk before pulling her twin blades from her back. She then began to run to Bilbo's side where Azog and what remaining of the orcs were standing in front of the small hobbit, ready to pounce.
Knowing that the other dwarves were on their way to aid Bilbo as well, Annelise decided to run to her father's side and help Bilbo defend him. When she got there, she saw that he had fallen unconcious.
"Please be alright, please be alright," she kept muttering under her breath as she fought the wargs and orcs around her.
She saw Bilbo fall to the ground after landing on top of Azog's warg and quickly moved to try to help the hobbit. Suddenly she found an orc towering over her atop a warg.
Annelise quickly thrust her right blade toward the beast, while blocking a blow from its rider with her left.
The force from the blow reminded her of the wound in her left shoulder, as the still healing flesh was opened once more. The warg seemed to notice the weakness in her left side and quickly flung his claws toward her side.
Annelise managed to turn and avoid the main force of the blow, but the animals claws scratched across her already bleeding wound, opening it even further.
Before she had a chance to react to the pain, the warg and orc before her was suddenly lifted from the ground by what looked like a giant eagle.
With the threat now gone, Annelise looked around and saw that there were at least ten of these eagles flying around the battle, driving the enemy away or picking them up and throwing them over the cliff.
Soon she noticed that some of them were picking up members of the Company and taking them away from the flame-ridden cliff.
She watched as one gently slowed to pick up her father. With the knowledge that he was being taken to safety, Annelise looked around to make sure the others were being picked up as well.
She did not have time to react when one of the eagles came and grabbed both her and Bilbo before dropping them onto the backs of an eagle below.
As the eagles flew them above the clouds, Annelise looked to the west and saw that the sun was setting.
She then looked above her to the eagle she knew was carrying her father, and saw that he was still unconcious.
"Thorin!," she heard Fili yell loudly in concern, but she knew he would get no response.
Soon the eagles flew them over some mountain peaks into a great valley. Annelise looked ahead and saw that they were heading for a huge rock formation in the middle of the hidden valley.
She watched as the eagle carrying Thorin gently laid the dwarf down on top of the formation and saw Gandalf running over to him as soon as his feet hit the ground.
Annelise and Bilbo were the next to be dropped off, the hobbit staying back while the young woman ran to her father.
She reached his side in time to hear the wizard mutter a spell under his breath while holding his hand over her father's face.
She then turned to look at her father's face and watched as he slowly opened his eyes. Annelise breathed out a deep sigh of relief and relaxed her posture as she bent to press a kiss to her father's head.
"Don't you dare scare me like that again," she scolded with a soft smile.
He smiled back before turning to Gandalf at his side. "The halfling?"
"It's all right. Bilbo is here. He's quite safe," Gandalf reassured him, reaching down to help Annelise up, while Dwalin and Kili helped lift Thorin to his feet.
Annelise looked up to see the hobbit sighing in relief at the sight of their leader on his feet once more. But the smile on his face soon fell, at Thorin's next words.
"You. What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed!"
Annelise looked up at Gandalf in disbelief at her father's behavior.
"Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild? That you had no place amongst us?"
Annelise began to move toward her father, but was held back by a hand on her right shoulder. She looked back to see Gandalf holding onto her, motioning for her to wait.
"I have never been so wrong in all my life," her father continued, and Annelise stepped back with a smile on her face as Thorin grabbed Bilbo into a hug. The rest of the Company cheered, and she looked up at Gandalf with a large smile on her face.
But she saw that the wizard's attention was not on her face, but rather on the deep wound on her left shoulder.
"I will take care of it later," she said, moving her scarf and adjusting her clothes to hide the wound from her father. He was the one whose wounds they needed to be worrying about.
The wizard hesitated before nodding to her in acceptance, seeing that she did not want to cause unnecessary worries for the others. Besides he would be there to keep an eye on her.
"I'm sorry I doubted you," she heard her father say to Bilbo.
"No, I would have doubted me too. I'm not a hero or a warrior. Not even a burglar," this was said to the wizard, causing the others to chuckle lightly, before turning to watch the eagles fly off into the distance.
She then watched as her father's eye was drawn by something in the distance, and turned her attention that way as well.
"Is that what I think it is?" Bilbo asked.
Soon the Company began following behind Thorin as he climbed higher on the rock formation to look north over the vast lands before them.
It was truely one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. In the far distance, Annelise could make out a lone peak rising above the horizon, bathed in the golden light of the sunset, and knew that this was the mountain that she had heard so many stories of. This was her father's home. Erebor.
"Erebor," Gandalf echoed her thoughts. "The Lonely Mountain, the last of the great Dwarf Kingdoms of Middle Earth."
"Our home."
At these words, Annelise looked up to her father standing at the top of rocks, staring out at his home, and smiled. After the trials they had been through that day, to see such a look of hope and joy on his face made her heart glad.
"A raven!," Oin said suddenly, breaking her trance. "The birds are returning to the mountain."
"That, my dear Oin, is a thrush," Gandalf said smiling.
"But we'll take it as a sign," Thorin said looking back at his daughter and nephews. "A good omen."
"You're right," Bilbo said from beside Thorin. "I do believe the worst is behind us."
With these words, the Company turned back to look at the mountain that was was their destination.
'We are so close,' Annelise thought to herself. 'I do hope that Bilbo proves to be right.'