Homeward Bound Part One: An Unexpected Journey

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sound returned.

Thunder, lightning, the sound and feel of rain on rocks.

Why did she always lose people in the rain?

Thorin.

Thorin was screaming.

Bilba turned, her body stiff. Her mind was still blank, unable to form proper thought. Dwalin and Nori were holding onto Thorin who was screaming incoherently and lunging at the side of the cliff.

Her mother had screamed too.

Her eyes traveled back to see Ori cowering against the mountain, his eyes wide and horrified. Dori knelt next to him, one hand on the ground and the other on his face as he cried.

Next to him was a dark slit in the rock.

A cave. Of course there was a cave.

Her feet moved, taking her past Ori and Dori and into the entrance of the cave.

Moonlight lit it but she still did a walk around, ensuring it was empty before returning back outside.

She managed to get Dori and Ori up and pushed them into the cave before turning to the three still at the edge.

Thorin had collapsed to his knees and was screaming over the edge of the cliff. Dwalin and Nori still had hold of his arms.

Bilba walked to them.

She knelt beside Dwalin and grabbed his arm.

"Dwalin." He ignored her but that was all right, she had time. "Dwalin. Dwalin. Dwalin."

Her voice, each time she spoke was flat. It finally got through to him and he turned to look at her, despair etched in permanent lines on his face. She pulled at his arm, trying to get him up.

"I found a cave."

He blinked; focus coming back slowly into his eyes. He turned and said something to Nori. The two of them got a better grip on Thorin and pulled him up.

He began to fight again as they pulled him back from the ledge, struggling to break out of their hold.

Bilba watched for a few moments and then quietly stepped in front of him and wrapped her arms around him.

Moving, she pressed against him, laying her head against his chest. His heart beat frantically under her cheek and his chest heaved in frantic breaths.

He couldn't fight without risking pushing her over the edge.

Thorin stopped fighting.

Bilba was vaguely disappointed.

She pulled back and saw Thorin staring straight ahead, an empty look on his face. She wondered if that was how she looked.

Thorin and Nori got him turned around and escorted him into the cave.

Bilba watched and then turned back to the edge.

The rain had stopped at some point and the thunder and lightning had moved off somewhere in the distance.

A cold wind whipped around her, cutting through her wet clothes and lifting her soaked hair.

A tear leaked from her eye and ran in a hot streak down her face. It was soon followed by another and another still until a veritable river ran down her face, even as she stood in utter silence, unmoving.

The wind whipped down through the gorge below. It was too dark to see but she imagined they would be able to see the bottom once the sun rose.

Arms slid around her and she realized Dwalin and Nori had returned. She allowed them to escort her into the cave.

They had set Thorin along the side and they took her over and placed her next to him.

Thorin was catatonic, his eyes empty and fixed on nothing.

Dwalin said something to Nori and together the two began to build a fire from pieces of kindling and driftwood scattered about the cave.

Hearing a noise Bilba looked to see Ori sprawled across Dori's lap, sobbing.

Her own tears had stopped already.

She studied the floor, watching water from her clothing drip off onto the sand, turning it into mud.

A thin line grew outward from it, tiny lines branching out as the water soaked through the sand.

A larger, thicker line suddenly appeared, splitting through it and she frowned.

Her eyes watched as the line continued, racing along the floor to be joined by more lines, the sand falling in as though...

As though the floor were hollow underneath.

Panic snapped through the stupor in her mind.

"Dwalin!"

His head snapped up but it was already too late.

The floor opened up beneath them and then they were falling. Bilba grunted as she slammed into unforgiving rock and then she was sliding, almost as fast as she'd gone on the stone giants. Her body whipped around turns, bouncing off the wall or the others, sometimes leaving the chute all together and going briefly airborne. Pain sliced through her from a million cuts and the promise of future bruises.

Then the chute was gone and she was slamming into the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

Pure instinct had her rolling out of the way just as Thorin and Dwalin fell out into a heap. Nori, Ori and Dori followed soon after.

Bilba struggled to her feet, grabbing Thorin's arm and pulling him up with her as much as she could. He still looked dazed and unaware of his surroundings.

Which was probably a good thing as what seemed like an army of goblins was suddenly swarming toward them.

Bilba let out a shriek and grabbed her sword from its sheath. The second one hung in a small sheath at the small of her back but when she reached for it the sheath was empty, the small sword lost at some point.

Fili had given it to her, it was all she had left of him.

Dwalin and the others had also scrambled to their feet but the goblins were on them before they could draw their own weapons.

One lunged at her and she lashed out, instinctively dancing back as she'd been taught.

It didn't occur to her that Thorin was behind her.

Or that he was standing very near the edge of a massive drop.

She didn't think her bumping into him would be just enough to knock one heel off the edge and that would be just enough to make him lose his balance.

She felt him fall away from her, turned in time to see him flying backward, arms thrown out.

Bilba caught his arm in the idiotic notion that she could pull a fully grown and armored Dwarf back from the edge.

She could not.

One second she was standing while, around her, Dwalin and the Ri brothers tried to fight off an onslaught of goblins.

The next she was falling with Thorin into the dark.

She didn't even have time to scream.