Erebor's Guardian

Chapter 17

"Wake up!" Thorin yelled, causing me to jump up out of my sleep in time for the floor to collapse from under us. I clung to the floor scraping my nails against the rock to stop myself from falling with no anvil.

We fell down into a tunnel that bounced us from wall to wall like ping pong balls in the bingo scrambler. Light found us at the end of the tunnel that dumped us onto a wooden platform. I landed with a huff of air forced out of my body and then again once more with the company landing on me.

"Look out!" Nori cried as a hoard of goblins came rushing towards us.

The goblins yanked us away from each other, pinching, pushing and pulling us down a long winding wooden scaffolding used as a sidewalk. I tried to fight them off but there were too many. I could barely keep on my feet from the force of them herding us and the uneven boards snagging my toes. They brought us into a huge cavern with a wooden platform standing on thin stilts going down into the depths of the darkness. A throne sat at the edge of the platform made of bone and wood with an enormous goblin sitting upon it. The creature had a bone crown on its bald head. Its overly fat body was riddled with warts and pimples. Meanwhile this thing of overgrown skin and possibly a tumor hung from its neck like a turkey's wattle. The goblins pushed us all in the center before encircling us waiting for their king to speak.

"Lakota," Jenna whispered into my ear. "Look, the king has a scrotum for a beard." She giggled between her fingers.

I bit my lip holding back my laugh as tears welled in my eyes. "I hate it when you're right." I whispered back.

The goblin king nearly fell off his throne as he stood towering over us with his foul body odor. "Who would be so bold to come armed into my kingdom?" His voice rose in pitch as he talked. "Thieves? Spies? Assassins?"

"Dwarves, your malevolence." One goblin spoke, stepping up to its king. "We found them on the front porch."

The king huffed. "Well, don't just stand there! Search them! Every crack! Every crevice!"

The goblins pinched and dug their grimy hands into our pockets taking even the smallest piece of lint. One creature dumped Nori's bag onto the floor revealing the stolen items from Rivendell.

"It is my belief, your majesty, that they are in league with elves!" The goblin handed a silver candlestick holder to the king.

The king examined the fine metal. "'Made in Rivendale'. Second age, couldn't give it away." He tossed the candlestick into the abyss.

We all glared at Nori who shrugged his shoulders. "Just a couple of keepsakes."

"What are you doing in these parts?" The king inquired. "Hm?" He waited but none of us spoke. "Fine. If they will not talk, we will make them squawk! Bring up the mangler! Bring up the bone breaker! Start with the youngest." He pointed to Ori.

"Wait!" Thorin's growl echoed through the cavern. He pushed forward standing before the king.

"Well, well." The goblin king grinned. "Look who it is. Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror. King under the mountain." He bowed mockingly. "Oh, wait, I'm forgetting you don't have a mountain. And you're not a king. Which makes you nobody really." He laughed at Thorin. I went to step forward to rip his head from his shoulders but Jenna held me fast. "I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Just a head, nothing attached. Perhaps you know of whom I speak? A pale orc...astride a white warg?"

"Azog the defiler was destroyed." Thorin growled. "He was slain in battle long ago."

"You think his defiling days are done, do you?" The king turned to a smaller misshapen goblin hanging from the ceiling on some rig of transport. "Send word to the pale orc. Tell him I found his prize." The smaller goblin pulled a string and vanished quickly down a dark tunnel.