Tritimore and the Company, The Hobbit Fan Fiction (Temporarily On Hold)

Chapter Ten

We ran for the trees near the edge of the cliff. Wargs were hearty climbers, but we would still have a greater advantage if we were high in the trees. We scaled them as quickly as we could; the Wargs were only a few hundred feet behind us. I almost slipped, but Thorin caught me and pulled me up to the branch he was sitting on. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me back into him to steady me.

The small army of Orcs had jumped down from their perch atop the entrance to Goblin Town and was racing towards us. And then, suddenly, a booming voice told them to stop. The Wargs and Orcs halted, surrounding the bottoms of the trees. On that perch, a pale Orc astride a white Warg appeared.

"Azog," Thorin whispered in sheer disbelief. "No. This cannot be."

The white Warg jumped down and began slowly walking over to us.

"You smell that?" Azog asked, his question directed to his army. However, they remained silent. They seemed just as scared of him as we all were. "That's the smell of fear. I hear your hearts pounding, your blood rushing. I see you, Thorin Oakenshield." Then his attention turned to me. He licked his dry, cracked lips and bared his teeth. "I will make you watch, Thorin Oakenshield, as I rip her to shreds. I'll hear you scream. Beg for her life. And then I'll do the same to you. Those two are mine! Bring them to me. Kill all the others! Drink their blood!"

The Wargs began climbing up the trees, trying to bite and claw at the dwarves on the lower branches. They were still out of the Wargs' reach though; just barely. I tried to take out my wand, but my fingers were too shaky. I was afraid I might drop it.

One of the trees the company was occupying began to shake, like the roots weren't holding it in place any longer. And then I realized that the Wargs were trying to pull us down from the trees, they were trying to knock over the trees altogether. We'd tumble to the ground and be dead in a second.

"They're trying to take down the trees!" I shouted. "Jump!"

The first tree began to collapse and the dwarves that were in it managed to jump to the tree that Thorin and I were in. My relief was short lived when I saw the Wargs move on to our tree. They threw their strong bodies against the trunk over and over again and the tree began to tremble.

Gandalf and a few other members of the company were on the tree right behind us. Gandalf was telling us to jump, but we couldn't clear the gap. We didn't have much choice though when our tree began to topple over. We waited until we were close enough and then we all jumped. We didn't have the luxury of another tree behind us, though. When this one went, we'd all go over the cliff.

I looked up at Gandalf and saw he had a moth on his finger and was whispering to it. I had no idea what he was doing. The moth flew away into the night.

I was shaken out of my thoughts when the tree began to shake. This one seemed sturdier than the other two, though. I got distracted when I saw a flash of orange up above me. Gandalf had lit a pinecone on fire and then threw it directly into the pack of Wargs, setting the ground and one of them on fire.

"Kani!" Gandalf called down to me, indicating for me to follow his lead. It was ingenious.

I climbed up onto a higher branch that was filled with pinecones. I lit one on fire and then tossed it and a few more pinecones to the other dwarves so they could light the rest on fire. I jumped over to another branch that had pinecones on it. I began to light as many as I could on and I tossed them to the ground. Soon, we had fought off most of the Wargs, but the ground surrounding the trees was ablaze. They couldn't get to us. A simple spell would push the flames away from our tree and then it would be a battle of waiting. But, before I could make that a reality, our tree began to become uprooted.