Rue (A Thorin Oakenshield/Hobbit Fanfiction)

27

The Company raced through the forest once they heard the howls, leaping over rock and tree to evade the Orcs as best they could. A few scattered looks were thrown back to see what chased them, but the Wargs were as black as midnight and just far away enough to be out of sight. They all panted as they ran, wishing their terribly long night would come to an end. Thorin led the dwarves away while Talia remained closer to Gandalf and Bilbo, who all exchanged looks of unease as they ran.

"Talia!" Gandalf yelled, causing her to spare a glance in his direction. "You have escaped the Goblin Tunnels before; do you know what lies ahead?!"

"Not here!" She replied, shaking her head. "Last I was in these parts, I left from the other side of the mountain!"

They reached the edge of the woods, only to find that there was a cliff preventing any further escape. The Company skidded to a halt as the first few Wargs hopped over the rocks and in front of them, coming between the dwarves and the edge of the cliff. Thorin, Dwalin, and the other warriors made quick work of them—even Bilbo got a kill in, however unintentional it was—but it was clear that their victory was only temporary. They were surrounded by death on all sides, and had nowhere else to go.

Gandalf's hopeful expression fell upon seeing the cliff. "Well, now we know."

Talia grumbled at the sight, ripping her sword out of a Warg aggressively. "You've got to be joking."

Since their options on land had run dry, the wizard could only think of one other option. It would only buy them time, but time was the only thing keeping them alive at the moment. "Up into the trees. All of you! Come on, climb!"

"They're coming!" Thorin yelled as he scaled the tree closest to him, urging his Company to move faster. They did as he suggested, scaling the trees with ease that was surprising for dwarves and hobbits alike. The howls were getting closer, so close that they could hear the thundering of Warg paws on the forest floor.

Talia was the last to escape the snapping jaws of a Warg, kicking it away and causing it to yelp in pain and back away. Thorin grabbed her and hoisted her up next to him, helping her reach the other side of the trunk so that she could hold on. The Wargs now circled them underneath, and the King and Queen had no means of escaping them. Then, Talia's face lit up as she thought of a solution, for if the Company could not run on land, the only other way was up.

They would have to fly.

But before Talia could relay the plan to the wizard, she saw Gandalf already executing her thoughts from another tree. The wizard reached out with his staff and gently brought back a moth from the brush, whispering to it in an indecipherable language and volume. Within seconds, the moth was airborne, flying east with an important message to deliver.

Thorin saw the look on his wife's face, but before he could ask her about it, another being caught his eye. As the Company had expected, the Great Goblin's insufferable scribe had succeeded in relaying a message of it's own.

"Azog."

The Pale Orc rode astride a White Warg, just as the goblins had claimed. He donned little else but the silver blade embedded in his stump of an arm and the scars carved into his skin. The missing flesh that was one of his ears now was a nasty lump, but the other still formed a sinister point that told the Company of his Gundabad origin. His blue eyes, so fair they were nearly white, pierced into the King and Queen as he raised his chin, licking his lips and sniffing the air.

The Company was transfixed by the evil before them, for they had not seen a thirst for dwarven blood stronger than the Defiler's. They couldn't believe he hadn't killed them already, but more horror hit them as a new realization enlightened the Company. He didn't just want to wipe out the line of Durin like he had years ago, no— now, it was so much more than that. After Thorin had escaped him in Moria and Talia had escaped him in Dol Guldur, he wanted so much more from them than their deaths. He wanted to make them suffer. He wasn't simply planning on killing them; he was challenging them.