I WILL HAVE WAR

It all felt so hot right now. Worse than the burns that ran up Jeanne's weak body. Yet, she believed this feeling was worse than nearly being boiled alive by Smaug. This time…something else was under attack. Burning up inside her and making her heart feel like it would give up at any moment. This pain was worse and harder to handle. Making Jeanne believe it would probably never be healed no matter how much time has passed.

Ah, so this is heartbreak, Jeanne thought while bowing her head.

She blinked the tears away from her eyes but still couldn't see Thorin. She knew he was standing before her, but his frame was blurred and disfigured. Completely unrecognizable. She attempted to reach out to him to see if it was actually him, but he only backed away from her gentle touch.

"So…You will have war?" she asked him in a small whisper.

"I…" Thorin chokes out, wrestling against the pain residing in his own heart. "I...will have war." He said much clearly. He brushed past her and could hear Jeanne make a sharp gasping noise to keep her sobs contained. He couldn't bring himself to look at her face anymore because that slight noise was enough to make his body feel weak. He couldn't imagine what her face looked like. "If…you do not wish to fight though…then no harm will come to you."

Jeanne swallowed hard. "You can't make such a promise, Thorin…when you've already broken it." She wrapped her arms around her body and rushed past Thorin, leaving him alone within the cold stone walls of his throne room.

Bilbo watched as Jeanne hurried back over to him, her face obscured by her hair. The Dwarves watched her anxiously, pondering what she would announce as she walked over to the balcony. She looks out to the armies waiting outside who were ready for war from a single word from their leaders.

Bard looked to the top of the wall and watched Jeanne come into view. "What is his decision?" he called out to her.

"He…" Jeanne shuddered at first before catching her breath. "He… he said….there shall be war!" she howled over the thousands of soldiers that marched upon the mountain.

As those words left her mouth, something dark flew across her vision and landed on the stone wall beside her. Jeanne held her breath and looked over, seeing a pitch-black raven. Her blue eyes grew wide, and she looked past the raven to the top of the hill, not yet seeing anything but knowing something was close.

"Jeanne?" Bilbo spoke up.

"We must leave. We must get off this mountain," Jeanne said in a single frightened breath. "War has arrived."

Almost on cue, the ground began to rumble as thousands of Dwarves, led by Dain Ironfoot, marched over the hill and descended into the valley where the rest of the armies waited.

Pushing through the crowd of Elves, Gandalf had finally arrived on the scene and looked around for his little friends. He turned his attention to the mountain's wall and still saw them standing upon it. Which was the last place they needed to be right now.

"One of you, get that Hobbit and girl down from the wall!" Gandalf ordered.

The Elves didn't move and instead looked to their King for permission. Thranduil didn't say a word but nodded his head instead. As two Elves rushed over to the wall to help Bilbo and Jeanne, Thranduil ordered the rest of his army to turn around and march toward Dain and his Dwarves.

"Who is that?" Bilbo asked. He stood back and waited as the two Elves slowly lowered Jeanne to the ground. "He doesn't look happy."

"I think that might be Dain of the Iron Hills. He's… Throin's cousin." Jeanne said.

"Cousin. Are they alike?"

Jeanne frowned and looked grimly at Bilbo. "Ah, I remember Gandalf say…that Thorin was the more reasonable of the two."

Bilbo immediately deflated and just stared at her for a moment. Hoping that she would be joking, but she never did. "Well, that's…helpful."

They both quickly rushed over to the advancing armies and right away found Gandalf in the crowd. The old gray beard quickly gathered his small friends together and kept them close as they marched onto the dwarven army. They spotted Dain riding at the front of the Dwarves upon a war-pig dressed in armor. Once the armies were in front of each other, they all stopped and stood their ground.

"Good morning. How are we all?" Dain announced the opposing army that stood between him and the mountain. "I have a wee proposition…if you wouldn't mind give me a moment of your time. Would you consider…just sodding off?!" he shouted with a mighty voice that made only the human army quiver with anxiety and fear. The Elf army was the only one to not even flinch or blink.

"Come now, Lord Dain." Gandalf called out while emerging from the army.

"Gandalf the Grey. Tell this rabble...to leave, or I'll water the ground with their blood!"

"No need for war between Dwarves, men and Elves." Gandalf tried to reason with the mad Dwarven leader. He knew this wasn't the place for such a dispute, not while they all had their guard down because of the mountain's mass wealth. "A legion of Orcs march on this mountain. Stand down."

"I will not stand down before any Elf. Not least this faithless Woodland sprite. If he chooses to stand between me and my kin… I'll split his head open! See if he's still smirking then." He raged on, pointing his massive hammer as a wildly entertained Thranduil.

"He's clearly mad, like his cousin," the Elf king mocked.

Jeanne dropped her head into her hands and groaned. "This is not the time…" she mumbled with distress in her voice.

"Did you hear that, lads? We're on!" Dain announced. He turned his mighty pig to the road down the long line of Dwarven warriors waiting eagerly. "Let's give these bastards a good hammering."

As the Dwarves and elves got into position, the ground below them suddenly began to rumble with the sound of the earth cracking and breaking apart. Everyone froze where they stood and looked at the hill as it burst asunder, and three massive worms erupted from the ground. A great war horn then pierced the air, so frighteningly loud that Jeanne had to hunch down and cover her ears.

"Were-worms…" Gandalf whispered.

"The hordes of hell are upon us!" Dain yelled.

The Dwarf directed his army around and headed for the open plains as a mass of Orcs emerged from the holes the worms made. The Orcs began to charge as the Dwarves created a wall of shields and spears against them, but as the Orc army was almost upon them, The elves leaped over the Dwarves' wall and landed right in the middle of the battle.

Bilbo looked around at where they were standing and quickly realized that they were in a bad spot. If they stayed any longer, they would surely be caught in the crossfire. "Uh, Gandalf? Is this a good place to stand?" He looked over to Jeanne and saw her standing up slowly, looking at something in the distance. "Jeanne?"

Jeanne stared at the top of a broken tower where a tall and pale figure stood. She locked eyes with the pale Orc, and even though they were far apart, she could still feel a sense of the overwhelming feeling of death from him. Perhaps it wasn't him that the awful feeling was coming from…maybe further beyond. Waiting in the shadows.

"Azog." Jeanne breathed out, turning back to Gandalf and Bilbo. "He's advancing onto the city. He's going to cut us off."

"All of you! Back to the city! Now!" Bard shouted to his army.

They all turned around and began to make haste back to Dale. Jeanne followed behind Gandalf and Bilbo when something suddenly tangled around her legs and made her fall over. She looked back and gasped sharply when she saw mini were-worms wrapped around her legs. They must've been digging underneath the ground and waited for the chance to grab her.

"What in that-"Jeanne let out a small shriek when she felt her whole body suddenly get yanked towards a hole in the ground that they made. They were trying to pull her in. "Bilbo!" Jeanne cried in distress as they pulled her more and more. She tried to stop them by digging her nails into the ground, but it was no use. She just didn't have the strength anymore. "Gandalf!" she screamed out with tears welling in her eyes.

Gandalf whipped his head around just in time to see Jeanne get sucked into the ground and disappear. "Jeanne! No!"