An Unexpected Love: Book 1

15

The company smiled at him softly and Thorin looked down at the ground. I stood by Bilbo's side, proving to the company that I too shared his thoughts and feelings. Thorin looked back up at me and took a step forward. He reached his hand out for mine.

"Y/n, I-" Thorin was cut off from what he was about to say by a warg howling in the distance.

We had been found.

"Out of the frying pan." Thorin started.

"And into the fire." Gandalf finished, "Run!"

Instead of running ahead, Thorin grabbed my hand and pulled me with him. We sprinted further away from where we came, towards the end of the cliff. I turned around in time to see a warg jump in front of Bilbo. He unsheathed his sword and jammed it into the beast's head. It fell in front of him and he tried, with great difficulty, to pull his sword from the wargs head. Once he got it out, he started running after us as more wargs and orcs came into view.

"Up into the trees. All of you! Quickly!" Gandalf shouted.

I used all my upper body strength to climb into the nearest tree. It's branches acted as a latter and I kept going until I couldn't go any higher. Thorin sat behind me on the thicker part of the branch and placed both of his hands on my waist, steadying himself and ensuring I would not fall. I looked around to make sure everyone was here and noticed Bilbo had just started his climb.

"Bilbo hurry!" I screamed at him as the orc pack got closer.

"Azog!" Thorin said from behind mine.

I turned around to see where his eyes were focused on and followed his gaze to the largest of the orcs. It had pale skin and deep scars covering its body. I noticed its left arm was missing and had been replaced with a pointed metal spear. I grimaced. He had stabbed himself with a metal pole to replace his arm. Surely he was insane. I looked behind me again at Thorin and watched his face fall.

"It cannot be." He whispered, his grip on my hips loosening, "The pale orc."

I looked back down at Azog who pointed to the trees, instructing his pack to start attacking. They jumped at the trees, snapping the branches and creating large gashes in the trunks. They were weakening the trees and even as we climbed higher, the trees had started to topple over. I screamed in fear as the tree I was sitting on started to lean. Thorin tightened his hold, pulling me closer to him as we began to fall backwards.

"Bilbo?!" I called out for my brother.

"Y/n, hold on!"

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was safe. The tree leaned some more until we collided with the last tree behind us. The dwarves yelled in terror as they struggled to hold on. I did my best to reposition myself. Thorin helped me carefully get onto a new branch beside the two young dwarves princelings. As he attempted to climb up beside me he lost his footing and slipped, letting out a shout and holding tightly onto the truck of the tree.

"Thorin!" I yelled, leaning down and reaching my hand out.

"I'm fine!" He replied, not even attempting to accept my help, "Stay put, do not lean too much."

"Fili!" Gandalf yelled from above us, interrupting my chance to protest and try and offer Thorin more help.

He threw a flaming pine cone at the dwarf. Fili caught it and threw it at the wards. Gandalf had begun to toss more pinecones to the dwarves and Fili was yelling at those who could to start grabbing more. He lit the one I held out for him and with all my strength I whipped it towards the orcs. As more flaming pinecones fell, we were able to create a wall of fire around us. The dwarves yelled in excitement as the wargs started falling back, but I held back. That was much too easy and I couldn't help but feel this was far from over. Under the weight of our bodies, and the shaking of the branches, the roots of the tree started to give way. The tree fell completely on its side, only holding onto the cliff with some skinny roots. We were literally hanging on by a thread.