Home Is Where Your Heart Is (DISCONTINUED)

Chapter Seven: The Valley of Imladris

A/N: My deepest apologies to those of you who love a certain dark-haired archer, I just couldn't resist... My only defence is that I wrote this before I saw DoS... so there's only my own evil mind behind this one. *ehem*I hope you won't hate me too much after this chapter ;)

Sara's POV

Gandalf led us from one rock formation to another as if he was looking for something. Thorin, who made sure to stay close to me, had a dark look on his face but followed the Grey Wizard anyway. We had to change our direction many times when we were about to run across with Radagast and wargs.

"Where are you leading us?" Thorin asked the Wizard when we once again were forced to change our course. He got no answer.

Soon after that we got stuck behind one large rock formation when one of wargs jumped on it. There was no way we could slip away so that it wouldn't see us, especially not when it had a rider.

Thorin turned to look at Kíli, nodding first at young dwarf's bow and then at the warg above us. Kíli nodded, readied his bow and took a deep breath. Then he took three quick steps out of the protection of rocks, turned and fired.

Kíli's arrow found warg's shoulder and that foul creature -and its rider - fell in front of us. Dwalin and Bifur killed both quickly, but it wasn't silent job. There was no way that noise would go unnoticed.

And it didn't. Wargs' howls started to come closer.

"Move!" Gandalf yelled. "Run!"

And so we did. But it was just avoiding the inevitable fight.

Thorin stopped abruptly when he saw wargs cutting the way in ahead of us.

"There's more coming!" Kíli shouted from our left side.

"Kíli! Shoot them!" Thorin yelled.

"We're surrounded!" Fíli called from somewhere right to us.

I turned to look around us and saw wargs in every direction. Everyone else had their weapons in their hands and readied themselves for the fight, and it made me feel so useless. I wanted to fight, too! I wanted to do my share! Were I in shape to channel, I'd be able to take all those wargs and orcs down single-handedly, if not without my sa'angreal, then with its help surely. And knowing that made me angry. Light curse that snake that had spooked Moonshadow!

"Where's Gandalf?" Someone asked.

"He's abandoned us!" Another called.

No, Gandalf wouldn't do that, would him?

"Hold your ground!" Thorin commanded and swung his new sword. He looked very majestic when doing that.

FOCUS, Sara! This is no time for admiring looks!

"This way, you fools!" I turned to look at the direction of sound to find Gandalf standing in the middle of rocks.

"Come on, move!" Thorin grabbed my hand and pulled me where Gandalf was. There was a hole in the ground and without warning Thorin pushed me in. Bofur, Bilbo, Balin and everyone else followed close behind. Everyone except for the three heirs of Durin. I had no idea what was going on up there and it was very unnerving.

"Kíli, run!" I heard Thorin's voice shouting. Kíli yelled something in reply but I couldn't make out what it was. Whatever it was that he had said, soon after that first Fíli and then Thorin slid down to the cave, both turning their anxious faces back upwards the very second they had landed.

And then everything went horribly wrong.

Kíli appeared in our stone-restricted view with his bow in hand, an arrow still notched. The very last second before he got into safety I could hear a thud-sound, like something hitting flesh, and then Kíli tumbled down very ungracefully. When he hit the rocky floor he laid there, unmoving, with a broken arrow shaft sticking out of his lower back.