"I'll wager the sun is on the rise," Bofur said from where he was still trapped in his cell, "must be nearly dawn."
Athena had woken up an hour earlier, unable to fully emerge herself into sleep from the sounds around them and the hard surface underneath her. Now she lay on the floor staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression, not just from what she had witnessed the day before but also because her bow was now lost to her and she was still trapped in these halls.
"We're never going to reach the mountain, are we?" Ori asked sorrowfully.
"Not stuck in here you're not," a familiar ally whispered to them followed by the jangling of keys, Athena rapidly pushing herself to sit up as a smile spread across her face at the knowledge that Bilbo was alive, and that he was helping them.
"Bilbo!" Balin cried in disbelief and relief, the rest of the Dwarves cheering him on.
"Shhh! There are guards nearby!" He hurried to quieten them down as he began to unlock the doors of the cells one by one, releasing each member of the company.
She smiled at him when he reached her door and flung it open, patting his shoulder affectionately before rejoining herself with the rest of the group.
"The stairs. You first, Ori!" Dwalin whispered to the group as they made their way from the cells to an opening and a set of stairs.
"Not that way, down here. Follow me," Bilbo hurried to say in a hushed tone, directing them away from the stairs and leading them in another direction he believed to be more inconspicuous.
She did wonder why they were heading further down into the Woodland Realm rather than outside of it, but she trusted Bilbo so continued to silently follow the Hobbit until they reached the wine cellar, two Elf guards fast asleep on the table with empty wine bottles strewn across the table.
"I don't believe it, we're in the cellars," Kili angrily mumbled to Bilbo and the others.
"You're supposed to be leading us out not further in," Bofur also commented as they made their way further into the cellar.
"I know what I'm doing— " Bilbo was cut off by Bofur harshly telling him to shush, Bilbo continuing to usher them forwards until they reached a room with empty barrels stacked sideways atop one another. "Everyone, climb into the barrels, quickly."
"Are you mad? They'll find us," Dwalin argued with him.
"No no, they won't, I promise you. Please, please, you must trust me."
While the rest of the Dwarves began to debate on what they should do she had already begun to clamber into one of the open barrels. Though she was smaller than the Dwarves in width she was bigger in height so it was still a tight fit as she struggled to conceal herself completely in the barrel, her head sticking out of the top while the rest of the Dwarves pushed themselves into the ones that remained after Thorin told them to.
"What do we do now?" Bofur asked, sticking his head out to look over at the one who had brought them here.
"Hold your breath."
"Hold my breath? What do you mean?"
His question received no answer, instead Bilbo pulled the lever beside the barrels and the floor they were once resting on titled to the side, sending the barrels rolling down the steep slope before the company was plunged into a river below them one by one.
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Athena grasped onto the edges of the barrel and pulled her head out from the top of it, wrinkling up her nose from the painful sensation of it being flooded with water as she took a sharp inhale of oxygen to return it to her lungs before blinking away the water that had settled on her eyelids. She was soaked from head to toe as were the others while they slowly headed down the river.
She smiled at Bilbo as he surfaced from the water and clung onto Nori's barrel after falling through the opening himself.
"Well done Master Baggins," Thorin congratulated him on helping them escape the dungeons, "come on, let's go!"
At his order they began to push against the rocky walls and paddle their hands in the water to force themselves further down the river, they were not yet out of harms way. Steadily the force of the water increased the further down they moved, soon enough they didn't need to push themselves forwards in order for them to move faster.
"Hold on!" Thorin instructed them once seeing a waterfall up ahead.
Athena obeyed his instructions, clinging onto the edges of her barrel as she went tumbling off the edge and plunging into the racing waters below, closing her eyes and mouth as she was submerged once more. She gasped for air when she felt her head was no longer underneath the surface, wiping at her eyes as she shivered from the freezing waters, continuing to move rapidly through the river while Bilbo clung desperately to the side of one of the barrels.
"Holo in-annon! [Shut the gate!]" She whipped her head around to Legolas who had called the order, spotting not only him but a group of Elves on their tails.
A horn resounded through the air. "No," she repeatedly whispered under her breath when the gate began to close in front of them, about to block their last chance at escape.
"No!" Thorin called when he reached the now sealed gate, the rest of the company piling up behind him in their barrels with no way for them to leave the Woodland Realm from their positions.
She was towards the back with the others, still floating down the river before her eyes widened as an arrow pierced through one of the Elves that stood guard, widening her eyes in horror as an Orc climbed over the top of the gate. More began to pile into Mirkwood with their weapons raised, cutting down everything that moved in their path. The gate was no longer their biggest problem.
"Gorid! Zib! Goridug! [Slay them all!]" The largest Orc in the pack called out, the Orcs rushing to the river and trying to take down the company as well as the Elves, but they had no weapons to defend themselves from the attacks, except for Bilbo who was luckily able to kill one that had made its way to the trapped company.
"Kili!" She cried out when seeing the Dwarf jump from the barrels and make his way to land.
She pressed her hands against her barrel with the intent to follow after him but she was grabbed from behind by an Orc, grabbing onto its arm that was wound around her neck as it tried to drag her into the water, she pulled her elbow forwards then thrust it back against the stomach of her assailant, the force causing it to loosen its grip on her which allowed her to send her head backwards and hit it against the face of the Orc which made it entirely let her go and fall back into the stream. Now free of the repulsive creature she hauled herself out of her barrel and jumped towards the land, collapsing onto the floor after she had lost her footing in the landing, no doubt causing some unseen scrapes to be formed across her knees.
Now on the ground she quickly looted the body of one of the Elves, they did not need their weapons as much as Athena did right now. She pulled out a dagger from the corpse of the Elf and shoved their bow around her back before turning around to witness Kili fall to the ground in pain, a large arrow lodged into his leg.
"Kili!" She called out, her cry being echoed by Fili as they watched in horror. She moved forwards to try and get to him but was distracted when the cry of Bilbo now reached her ears.
"Athena, behind you!" Bilbo yelled, her whirling around only to come face to face with an Orc that had snuck up on her, her jumping backwards to dodge what would have been a fatal blow.
It swung it's blade once more, Athena having no time to dodge the attack but instead being forced to counter it, using her measly dagger to block the powerful blow. She fought against the force of the Orc, but no matter how hard she tried she could not push back the blade that inched closer and closer to her with each passing second, the blunt side of her dagger beginning to dig into the palm of her hand. The Orc was snarling in her face, a smug smirk appearing on its wretched expression as it knew it would win this fight, however the smirk was wiped clean when it toppled to the floor, the fletching of an arrow poking out of the side of its face. She turned her head to spot Tauriel with her bow in hand, shooting at an Orc that was also gaining on Kili.
There was no time to thank her, Tauriel was already engaged in close combat with another Orc and Athena was making her way towards Kili, rolling underneath the arm of an Orc before turning and using her dagger to slice its throat. She heard a grunt of pain come from Kili once he had managed to use the lever to allow the gate to open again despite being injured, picking up the pace as she ascended the steps to the lever with the blaring sound of battle resonating from each side of the river.
She turned the corner and spotted Kili lying on the floor, another Orc heading his way. She pulled her dagger back and threw it, the Orc stopping in its tracks as it looked down at the dagger in its chest before falling over the edge and into the river down below.
"Come on," she whispered to Kili, bending down to lift his arm over her shoulder and pull him over to the edge of the bridge, him painfully using his other leg to assist Athena while she partly dragged him over to their only escape route.
"Kili!" Fili cried once more when spotting them, him crawling to the edge with the help of his friend before he slid off the edge and into an empty barrel, Athena flinching as the arrow snapped in half from the collision of him and the barrel, "Athena, you too!" Fili yelled afterwards, holding onto a rock to keep his barrel from floating away until he knew she was safe as well, her sliding down into her barrel when it drifted through the opening, them once again being hurled over a waterfall and diving into the raging waters below them, the river only becoming more ferocious the more they moved downstream, the Orcs waiting for them and following after them from behind.
They continued to move down the river with the Orcs shooting at the barrels, Athena ducking to avoid an arrow that was shot towards her head before being submerged underwater again, surfacing a moment later. The river was not predictable and it had a vast array of smaller waterfalls awaiting them. When she was no longer being dragged under the water every few seconds she pulled the bow from her back to try and fight back against the Orcs, her face dropping when she realised she had been stupid enough to forget to take one of the Elves quivers of arrows with her. Her line of vision moved down to her barrel which had a multitude of arrows sticking out of it, as much as she didn't want to have to use Orcish weapons she knew she had no time to be picky, leaning down to pull one of them from the wood and nocking it into the bow. The arrows were a little different to the ones that she normally used but they'd have to do.
She fired the prepared arrow at the first Orc she saw, shooting it down as it leaped through the air just before it managed to get to Thorin at the front of the group, pulling another arrow out to replace it and getting ready to use it as well.
"Cut down the log!" She heard Thorin yell, ducking underneath the log without hacking at it, seeing as she had left her stolen dagger back in the Woodland Realm inside the body of an Orc.
The log collapsed behind her with the combined efforts of the Dwarves, turning back to the front with wide eyes as she watched Bombur be launched into the air before going onto dry land, knocking over a line of Orcs as he bounded across the riverbank, across a log, across the riverbank again, over the heads of the Dwarves, and then back onto the riverbank before finally coming to a stop. She watched in silent fear as the Orcs began to surround him, smiling to herself when Bombur pushed himself to stand on both his feet before wielding an axe and a sword to take down the Orcs around him, the barrel that was still around him protecting him from the group as he made his way back to the stream and jumped into another empty barrel that was floating with them.
They went down another miniature waterfall but when Athena blinked the water from her eyes she saw a sight that she didn't think she would see, Legolas perched atop the heads of Dwalin and Dori while firing his arrows at the Orcs that ran alongside them. Elves were known for being nimble and almost weightless but this was something new. A rock appeared and separated the two barrels, Legolas being forced to use only Dori to keep himself afloat. Even though she wasn't the biggest fan of the Mirkwood Elves she had to admit that him and Tauriel were phenomenal fighters. He returned back to land to slay the Orcs that shot at him from there, returning back to use the heads of the Dwarves as a path while he made his way to the other side.
Once there he engaged himself into battle with the Orcs again, one Orc raising his weapon from behind the Elf. Even if they had imprisoned them the Elves had not harmed them and she would be unable to forgive herself if she allowed any of them to die when she could do something about it, so she aimed her bow at it before shooting the arrow she had prepared earlier at the foul creature before it could reach him, he did not acknowledge the assistance though, whether it was because he was too busy with fighting or because he had not realised she did not know.
Their barrels continued their journey downstream and away from the Woodland Realm, the Orcs still hungrily chasing after them.