~ Part Four ~
It felt like Ellía had just fallen asleep when she was awoken by frantic voices and the sounds of gears creaking. "Wake up! Wake up!" Thorin called. Ellía sat up quickly and glanced around at the others slowly waking up. Her eyes had just locked with a confused Ori's eyes when suddenly, she was falling.
The next thing she knew, she was tumbling down to a rocky surface and sliding down a slope with 13 yelling dwarves. After what had felt like forever, they all fell onto a wooden platform, making a pile. Thankfully, Ellía had landed after Bombur.
As they tried to find their bearings, the sounds of shuffling feet and shrieks were heard coming towards them. "Look out!" Dori shouted, but it was too late. An ugly pack of goblins were all over them. The group did their best to fight them off, but with half of them still pinned under Bombur, there wasn't much hope.
"Get off of me!!" Ellía growled as she grappled with a goblin who was trying to tear off her leather straps that held her swords to her back. The dwarves threw some punches and hurled insults as they were dragged along a narrow walkway and towards a huge goblin. Ellía received a hard punch to the gut and sharp nails to her cheek, throwing her focus and losing her grip on her swords.
The goblins had had enough of Ellía's squirming and three came up behind her and lifted her over their heads. "Put me down!!! Alyë yóns-o sunnis!!!" She screamed, catching some of the others attention. "Put the lassie down!" Gloin yelled as he was the closet and began to bash some of the goblins heads in, but there were too many.
Once they arrived to where the huge goblin was sitting on a large make-shift throne, he stood up and made the little goblin band begin to play music. The goblins holding Ellía threw her down to the ground as they began to dance and sing along to the song. The young elf was quickly helped her to her feet by Oin and Nori who pulled her to stand in between them.
Ellía grimaced as she watched the large goblin crush a pile of smaller goblins to sit up on his throne after his performance. "Catchy isn't it? It's one of my own compositions." The Goblin king said with a smirk. "That was not a song, it was an abomination!" Balin yelled. "Abominations, mutations, deviations. That's all you're gonna find down here." The revolting king said as the goblins threw their weapons down in front of his throne.
"Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom? Spies? Thieves? Assassins!?" The king yelled. "Dwarves, Your Malevolence. We found them on the front porch. And it is my belief, Your Great Protuberance, that they are in league with elves! They have a she-elf with them!" A goblin squared as he grasped onto Ellía's arm threw her down in front of the king.
The big goblin leaned down and looked Ellía over before asking loudly, "What are you doing in these parts, and with a group of dwarves at that?". Ellía was trying not to vomit at the smell of his breath with Oin stepped forward and pulled her back into the group saying, "I'll handle this.' The king sat back down in his thrown and demanded, "No tricks! I want the truth! Warts and all."
"You're going to have to speak up. Your boys flattened my trumpet!" Oin called. "I'll flatten more than your trumpet." The king growled, growing impatient and storming forward. "If it's more information you're after, I'm the one you should speak to." Bofur said as he jumped to the front of the group. While Ellía listened to bofur's rambling, only then did she realize what they were doing. The dwarves were trying to hide their king's presence.
"SHUT UP!!" The king bellowed. "If they will not talk, then we'll make them squawk!!! Bring up the mangler!!! Bring up the bone breaker!!!" He cackled earring exciting screeches from the goblins. "Start with the youngest and the elf!" he demanded. Ellía saw Ori's face grow pale and she felt her own heartbeat quicken.
"Wait!" Thorin called, pushing his way to the front and the goblin king immediately recognized him. "Well, well, well. Look who it is. The King Under the Mountain... Oh, but I'm forgetting, you don't have a mountain. And you're not a king, so that makes you nobody really." The big goblin said before pausing for a moment.
"I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Just a head. Nothing attached. Perhaps you know of whom I speak. An old enemy of yours. A pale orc astride a white warg." Th eking taunted with an evil glint in his yellow eyes.
Thorin glared up at him and growled, "Azog the Defiler was destroyed. He was slain in battle long ago." The king leaned forward and stared down at Thorin. "So you thinks defiling days are done, do you? Why don't you ask your young elf companion about her dear mother?" The king said with a wicked grin as he looked at Ellia.
"What?" Ellía whispered out. "Did you think I would not recognize the daughter of the Lady Celebrían? How is your dear mummy? Did she ever recover? And what of you, child?" The king questioned, leaning closer to the scared elf. Ellía could not form any words and tried to take a step back but stumbled into Kili, who caught her.
"Send word to the pale orc, tell him I have found his prize, along with and unexpected gift." The king commanded a small goblin sitting in a zip-line contraption. The little goblin gave a little shriek before zooming off, deeper into the cave. Ellía was deep in her mind, trying to process the words of the goblin king when he began to sing again as the torture machines were brought forward.
The goblin's song was cut off when a smaller goblin, that was looking at their weapons, unsheathed Thorin's blade. The king and his minions shrieked and moved away from the now dropped sword. "I know that blade! It is the Goblin-Cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!" The king cried as the company began to be attacked again.
Ellía caught a whip to the back and stumbled forward. Bifur grabbed her arm and pulled her to the middle of the group for some sort of protection. "Slash them! Beat them! Kill them! Kill them all! Cut off his head!!" The king ordered making Ellía look behind her to see Thorin being held down on the ground with a goblin rearing back with a jagged knife.
Just when she thought all hope was lost, a bright light burst out into the cave and a wave of power knocked everyone down. Ellía kicked a limp goblin off of her so she could sit up and see what had happened. A smile grew on her face as she saw the silhouette of Gandalf, gripping both his staff and sword, standing on the bridge.
"Take up arms. Fight, fight!" He yelled as the goblins began to regain consciousness. This spurred the company to jump to their feet and lunge for their discarded weapons. Ellía grasped threw her leather belt on and unsheathed her swords just in time to cut down two goblins charging her.
"Kili!" she yelled to the dwarf when she saw he had not found his sword yet. Kili turned to her and Ellía tossed him one of hers and continued to cut down goblin after goblin, making her way to stand beside Gandalf. The young elf was amazed at how the dwarves fought like one as they weaved through the hoard and helped each other fight off their attackers.
"Follow me! Quick! Run!!" Gandalf called and began running across the bridge. Kili ran up beside Ellía and returned her sword now that he had found his own. "Thank you, El." He told her with a thankful smile. Although they were running and fighting for their lives, Ellía couldn't help but smile at the nickname Kili had called her. Maybe they were finally becoming true friends?
The farther they ran, the more goblins followed. At one point a group veered off with Gandalf leading and the other followed Ellía. She powered ahead, gracefully cutting down any goblin that approached while the dwarves fended off that were gaining on the from behind.
The groups joined back together after a few moments and Gandalf took the lead once more. They all ran onto a rickety and unfinished part of a bridge that was being held up by ropes tied to the cave ceiling. Once everyone was on Dwalin cut the rope holding the platform to the side, and they swung across the ravine and to the other side of the bridge.
"Jump!" Thorin commanded and a few dwarves leaped forward and safely across before the platform swung back to the other side where goblins were waiting to hop on. Ellía was towards the back where the goblins were along with Ori and Fili. The three turned to fend cover the rest of the groups retreat.
The goblins wasted no time throwing themselves onto the platform and attacking the company. "Get ready!" Thorin yelled as the platform began to swing back. Hearing his king's voice, Ori got distracted from the fight and looked to where Thorin was. Ellía saw and yelled at him to watch out, but knew he wouldn't be able to dodge the goblin's jagged sword in time. With only a second to decide what to do, she lunged in front of the dwarf with her back to the goblin's attack and pushed him towards Fili.
"Jump!" she yelled as she saw the platform and moved to follow, but was stopped short when she felt the goblin slash at her back. "Ahhh!!" she cried out and stumbled, but whirled around and cut the revolting creature's head off before using her elf agility and jumping off the goblin infested platform and towards the safety of the cliff.
She landed hard and was stabilized by the you dwarf princes who had helped Ori across and had been waiting for her. "Come, Ellía." Fili grunted as he pushed her in front of him and behind Ori as Kili lead them towards the rest of the group who were already fighting again. Gandalf had the brilliant idea to break off a large boulder and let it roll in front of the company, squashing and approaching goblins.
They took a hard left and ran up a slanted bridge and towards a tunnel entrance. "Almost there Ori!" Ellía encouraged the young dwarf when she noticed his slowing pace, but they were all brought to a stop when the Goblins King burst through the bridge in front of them.
"You thought you could escape me?" He growled out and swung his club at Gandalf who quickly backed up. "What are you going to do now, wizard?" he taunted. In flash, Gandalf had stabbed him in the eye with his staff and slashed him in the belly with Glamdring.
The king fell to his knees and shrugged his shoulders. "That'll do it." He said plainly before the wizard slashed his throat and he fell on his face, dead. The weight of the monstrous king caused the half of the bridge that the company was standing on, to fall down the cliff face and into the ravine below.
Ellía will never be sure how it happened, but they all made it to the bottom one one piece as the broken platform worked almost like a sled. Thankfully, she had climbed to the top of the platform as it was falling, and now simply hopped down to the ground below and helped Gandalf stand up. "Well that could have been worse." Bofur said, trying to lighten the mood, but the comment did not age well.
A second later, the dead Goblin King landed right on top of them. "You've got to be joking!" Dwalin growled. As Ellía hurried forward and helped pull the dwarves out, she heard a blood curdling noise. She looked up to see hoards of goblins pouring down towards them. "Gandalf!!" Kili yelled once he had seen them too.
"There's too many! We can't fight them!" Dwalin explained as he hauled Nori to his feet. "There's only one thing that will save us, Gandalf. Daylight." Ellía said quickly as she ushered the dwarves onto the next bridge. "Come Master Balin, quickly." Ellía said nervously as she helped him to his feet and brought up the rear of the group along with Fili and Kili again.
"There! Light!" Ellía exclaimed as she caught sight of an exit and turned left down a tunnel, now leading the group. Within few moments the company reached fresh air and continued to run a short distance away from the cave entrance, just to be safe.