The Warrior Who Waited

Trolls, Rabbits, and Wolves, Oh My!

Key -

Italics; internal thoughts

Kili pops out of the brush first, slashing at the troll's legs. "LET HIM GO!"

"You what?!" One of the trolls asks astonished at the other tiny man waving about a small sword.

"I said, drop him" Kili reaffirms. The trolls chunk Bilbo at him, and Kili drops his sword trying to catch the Hobbit. They both collapse to the ground in a dull thunk, ouch that hurt, causing Thorin to jump out of hiding grabbing them both back to stay away from being killed by the trolls. The rest of the company comes jumping out of the bushes, running to attack the trolls. Silently shrugging my shoulders to myself, I grip my sword and unsheath it, jumping into the fray.

I land near Fili, just as a troll's arm swipes at us. Somersaulting over it, I slice the troll's hand clean off, my weapon much sharper and nicer than the others. I continue to deliver blows to the troll's stomach area, knowing it's the weakest part of their bodies. While doing so, I notice two things; the company can fight pretty well together, just a few looks lost, and two; Bilbo keeps getting in the way while trying to hide. I work my way near him, hissing his name to gain his attention. Our eyes make contact, causing him to come closer. I nod my head toward the shadowed tree line, hoping he will understand, and seemingly he does. As he moves I see a troll take notice of him. Shit. I try to make my way toward him while fighting, I somersault over the fire and continue to fight over toward him as the troll nears him, making a move to grab him. Not again, please not again. I lunge at Bilbo, pushing him aside, causing me to be backhanded by the troll's grab force. It slams into me, sending me flying into a tree and hitting my head with a thud, a stab in my right shoulder before I hit the ground on that same side. My hope that Bilbo was out of harm's way is distinguished as everything goes blurry as I see a troll grab Bilbo. NO!

Groaning, I awake to a dull headache, as I try to remember how I ended up unconscious. Attempting to sit up, I notice that I'm restricted by both rope and a cotton sack. Once I realize my predicament, adrenaline starts pumping, and I hyper-focus on my senses. The groans and whines of males, specifically dwarf males to my left and right, nasally voices to the right, a heat and light source also to the right, the feeling of a warm liquid running down my side and back, and feeling of pain at every breath I take. Taking a shallow breath I sit up and listen to the conversation going on, ignoring the shooting pain in my shoulder.

Focusing on the voices first, I hear Bilbo's voice stand out exclaiming, "Wait you're making a big mistake!" I notice that he has stood up, but his figure is a bit blurry, I tune everything else out and keep my concentration on him. Damn this concussion must be worse than that one time Thrandy slammed his shield into my face. The gifts and amount of apologies I got out of that made it worth it, and I got to miss hell month during training. Heh, I never got to thank him for that.

More muffled voices continue to argue before Bilbo speaks again, "I meant with the uh-the-uh seasoning." Another voice reasons, now I can recognize it as one of the trolls, but I still can't make out the sentence.

"Well have you smelt them? You're gonna need something stronger than sage before you plate this lot up!" He refutes, I snort at the insult to the dwarves, even if hurts my ribs, as my vision of him clears.

"Well look who's awake, the elven warrior. Going to save us now, are ya?" I hear a sarcastic baritone to my right, Thorin.

Grunting, I move to sit up and turn to see the grueling dwarf. I attempt to glare at him, but it ends up being a painful grimace at best. Before I can retort back, my attention is drawn back to Bilbo and the trolls.

"...The secret is...to...skin them first!" Bilbo stutters out. The dwarfs shout in protest. Ah, he's buying time till the sun rises. Smart Hobbit.