The guards pushed Ilèyn up the stairs.
Those elves who remained at the cells began to take the jackets and coats from the dwarfs and went deeper with them towards the cellar.
On the long walk through the palace, Tauriel joined the small group.
"Tauriel!" Ilèyn said angrily. "What's that supposed to be, where are you taking me?"
"Thranduil asked for you again." the Elf said and hurriedly strode alongside the dwarf. "He looked extremely... indignant."
"But what does he want from me, I can't help him. I won't either." Ilèyn said.
Tauriel was about to answer her when someone interrupted her and joined them.
"The King thinks about this a little differently, Ilèyn." Legolas said, who had now appeared next to the dwarf.
Tauriel on her right, Legolas on her left, guards at her back. Ilèyn frowned and looked grim.
"Great." she growled.
They were already on the plateau in front of Thranduil's throne. The king stood in front of the round staircase and watched the action.
The guards stopped and made Legolas, Tauriel, and Ilèyn step forward.
"You wanted to see her one more time, father." Legolas said and led the dwarf by one arm closer to the woodland king. Ilèyn pulled her arm out of Legolas' grasp and looked up at her uncle.
"Exactly." Thranduil said calmly, "That measly dwarf leader didn't thought it would be necessary to give me the information I was hoping to get." Ilèyn saw in the corner of her eye how Tauriel and Legolas exchanged a brief look.
"Are you sure you didn't lie to me?" the king asked in a razor-sharp voice.
"I don't know what you want from me, uncle." Ilèyn said "These disputes between you and Thorin Oakenshield are none of my business." It took Ilèyn a lot of effort not to start another heated discussion with her uncle.
"Execute me, banish me again, throw me to these spiders to eat, do what you want." She looked straight into Thranduil's blue eyes. "But don't lock me up."
"You..." Thranduil began to answer, but one of his guardsmen rushed over and interrupted him.
"Hîr Thranduil!"
The eyes of the four present flew to the Elf warrior.
"The dwarves escaped from their cells! We can't find them!"
The archer was frightened. She had to catch up with the company immediately.
Instantly Tauriel dashed off, three guards joined her.
Ilèyn looked at Legolas, who nodded briefly to her and ran off at that moment.
"Ilèyn! Dartho!" Thranduil shouted in foreboding.
The dwarf did not hear, attached herself directly to Legolas' heels and left her astonished uncle behind.
"She hasn't changed a bit." he growled to himself.
While Tauriel and the guard ran into the basement, Legolas and Ilèyn ran straight to the main gate.
"What you up to?" the dwarf called.
The warrior did not answer.
The two reached the palace entrance, the gate was already open. Legolas stepped onto the stone bridge and looked down the river. Ilèyn followed his gaze and saw several barrels being carried away by the water. Thorin and his followers sat in some of these barrels. Ilèyn couldn't believe her eyes. A guard leader appeared next to them.
Legolas immediately ordered to give the order to close the gate. The elf obeyed and blew a wooden horn. Its cutting sound penetrated down the river.
Ilèyn jerked her head and looked in panic at the small border bridge that led across the river. The elves posted on it took a defensive position, a small iron gate closed and prevented the dwarves in the barrels from their breakneck onward journey.
"Let them go, Legolas!" Ilèyn hurried to the blond elf with quick steps. "Please let them go!"
Legolas saw the despair in the dwarf's eyes, coupled with the fear for her companions.
He started to wrestle with his conscience. He wasn't going to disappoint his father because of his cousin. Wasn't he?
Ilèyn turned over and over, looking down at the border bridge. In the meantime the barrels had built up and the dwarfs were stuck in the narrow channel.
The Elven warriors were about to move when one of them tipped over without warning. With an arrow in his back, the soldier fell between the dwarves in the Mirkwood River.
Behind him the ghastly rifleman jumped onto the walls of the bridge.
Orcs.
Ilèyn's eyes widened.
"Legolas!" she roared.
The Elf spun around and saw the orcs in front of his eyes as they had already slaughtered the border guards.
"Come on!" Ilèyn called on and ran over the bridge to the bank of the river. There she climbed one of the trees over a large root, the branches of which protruded far over the river. Legolas was close behind her.
In the corner of her eye, Ilèyn recognized Tauriel's figure, who had left the cellar and now, together with the palace guard, was also in pursuit.
Ilèyn turned her gaze to the front, where a whole group of orcs had already jumped out of the bushes and immediately pounced on the defenseless dwarfs.
Ilèyn ran as fast as she could. She felt the air of Mirkwood revive her old hunting and fighting instincts. Even as a bounty hunter, she had never lost it, but the forest turned her back into the elf she was once trained to be.
"Kili!" At that exclamation, fear broke through the newly inflamed strength of Ilèyn's body. That was Fili's voice. As fast as lightning, Ilèyn's eyes searched their way through the confusing hustle and bustle between dwarfs and orcs.
She spotted Fili, unharmed, who was still trapped in a barrel in the river. She found new energy, she had to reach him immediately. Her eyes traveled up the bridge and another shock overtook her.
Kili was lying on his back in the middle of the border bridge with an arrow in his thigh. He was holding his right leg, his face contorted with pain.
It was obvious where the arrow was coming from.
A large orc, the obvious leader of the pack, held up his bow. With a dirty smile he was about to shoot another arrow at the brown-haired dwarf.
The branches of the trees ended, Ilèyn made a great leap, the bow in her hand. In the air she shot an arrow, it hissed through the air, straight at the great orc. The arrow he had placed on the string of his bow was struck by Ilèyn's arrow and thrown from the weapon. Startled and confused, the orc let go, the taut tendon gave way and hit his hand. He dropped the bow.
In a fraction of a second, Ilèyn had reached the scene of the fight, Legolas and Tauriel had not yet caught up with her.
"Kill her!" she heard the angry command of the hurricane leader "Kill the She-Elf!"
The whole orcs rushed towards her, several of them she shot down from a safe distance, when the creatures came too close to her, she massacred one by one with her daggers.
Legolas, Tauriel and the palace guards also reached the border bridge and began to slaughter their way through the orcs.
Legolas wanted to fight his way through to his cousin, but Ilèyn was driven further away from him. Tauriel struggled to approach the bridge, orcs kept jumping between her and her target.
One of the creatures lunged from the bridge at Ilèyn, crooked sword raised. Ilèyn ducked under the orc, flicked her bow and shot him straight through the head.
She stood with her back pressed against the stone wall and her eyes wandered briefly down to the river.
Immediately she met Fili's eyes. Anger and fear shot up at her.
At that moment an orc ran towards the dwarves, ready to throw himself into the river. He jumped and the moment he was able to strike Fili with the knife in his hand, Ilèyn sank another of her arrows deep into the creature's chest.
That had distracted her, because orcs were already approaching her again from the bridge, one of them rammed his elbow into Ilèyn's face, which made her stagger, but not make her fall. Her bow was knocked out of her hands.
For one second she heart Fili calling her name in panic. She drew the knife on her belt and drove it deep into the orc's throat. When another orc wanted to hit her, she turned and pulled the orc, which she was still holding the knife in the throat, in front of her. A strained exclamation broke out of her mouth. The creature that had reached out for her now struck its own soldier with the sharp iron in the chest with all its might.
Ilèyn let go of the orc, had put the knife back on her belt and was now diving for her bow, which was lying on the ground a little behind her. As she fell, she drew an arrow, got hold of her bow, turned nimbly on her back to avoid the sword of the orc, which struck her one more time, placed the arrow and shot her opponent. The orc fell down to her, she kicked him into the river, right next to her.
Lying on the hard stone, Ilèyn only saw how Kili had managed to pull the lever on the iron gate. The barrels with the dwarves in them picked up speed again and began to race down the rapids of the river.
"After them!" the huge orc roared and immediately set out to pursue the dwarves.
Breathing heavily, Ilèyn got to her feet and looked after the barrels. She grabbed her upper right cheek, where the orc hit her, just below the eye. The skin was torn and a smaller elongated laceration had formed. She was only bleeding a little, so the dwarf paid no further attention to the injury.
"Ilèyn!" Legolas shouted hurriedly.
The blonde looked around at him immediately.
He and Tauriel had reached the bridge and were fighting their way up on it. Orcs were still coming out of the forest and attacking the elves. Now Ilèyn heard another suspicious grunt behind her back. Immediately she spun around, the orc that came up to her roared at her. Ilèyn parried his sword strike with both daggers, kicked his legs and brought him down. She slit his throat and beheaded the two creatures that had followed him.
No more orcs came out of the forest and the situation at the bridge had suddenly calmed down. The whole crowd was now on the hunt for the dwarves.
Legolas jumped down the bridge, Tauriel turned. She and Ilèyn exchanged a brief, meaningful look, then the redhead followed the Elf Prince.
Ilèyn sprinted to the bridge and jumped down the other side of the wall, she was now on the opposite side of the river, like Tauriel and Legolas. She looked across the river and could see the two of them running down the river.
On Ilèyn's side, the great bleak forest trees rose again in front of her. The dwarf climbed the branches and easily kept up with Legolas and Tauriel on the other side of the bank, who were already fighting the first orcs that came towards them.
Ilèyn ran along the gigantic branches, they reached far out over the river. The dwarf concentrated on catching up with the company in the barrels, which was not so easy as the water carried the barrels into the valley with an incredible speed.
The first orcs now appeared on her bank and Ilèyn shot them down from the trees before the creatures could pounce on the dwarfs in the barrels.
The forest grew lighter the further they went down into the valley. Meanwhile, Ilèyn had to leave the trees and continue running on the rocks. The orcs that came towards her she pushed into the river or drove her daggers into their bodies. She didn't stop and kept running.
Legolas just leapt down in front of her eyes. When Ilèyn reached the ledge behind which he had just disappeared, she saw him, balancing on the heads of two dwarfs, sinking arrow after arrow into the orcs on the river bank. In doing so, he gave Ilèyn an advantage on her shoreside, as she no longer had to fight the creatures.
She jumped over the rocks, shot at orcs that burst out of the bushes next to her and gradually came closer to the barrels.
Legolas now started to make big leaps with which he came from the heads of the dwarfs back to the bank.
Now Ilèyn had the orcs on her side again. With daring leaps she beheaded one, shot the other and smashed another with a strong kick against the rocks protruding from the river.
One of the orcs in front of her lunged at Thorin. He reached the dwarf leader and held onto his barrel. Ilèyn sprinted forward until she stopped on a rock from which she could fix the orc. She immediately shot an arrow at him. The orc fell from Thorin's shoulders, who looked up at Ilèyn before falling into a rapids again.
The path towards the valley ended on Legolas' and Tauriel's bank. Legolas fired the last arrows at the orcs that were within his range.
Ilèyn paused briefly on her side and looked over at him. He looked at her seriously and resolutely. He had protected the dwarves and paved the way for them. There were no more orcs in front of her. Only behind her and the dwarfs.
Ilèyn nodded briefly and put her right hand at heart level. Legolas returned the gesture.
The dwarf jumped down a large ledge and dashed along the bank, after the barrels.