The Hobbit: Unseen Shadows

Chapter 4

Nolya looked over in shock as she saw a werewolf standing where Meril once was.

"What the hell?" Nolya called out, making the Orcs turn to see what happened.

The Orcs were shocked as well, where did a werewolf come from? There hadn't been any in such a long time. Why here?

"Is that a werewolf?!" one yelled out.

"Why is there a werewolf among the Elves?!" another yelled.

The wolf threw out its hands and let out a blood curdling howl, right before it charged the Orcs and killed them. The wolf then sniffed Nolya a moment, making sure she was okay.

"M-Meril? Is that you?" Nolya asked, shocked.

The wolf stared at her with yellow eyes, then after seeing Nolya wasn't hurt too bad, ran to help the other elves.

They were all shocked, and went to fire arrows on the wolf until they heard Nolya scream out.

"Don't shoot the wolf! That's Meril! Please! Don't shoot!"

Nolya lost consciousness as the last sight she saw was a wolf cutting through the 100 Orcs attacking them. Once Meril cut through every last one and searched the area for more, she grabbed a passed out Nolya, cradled her against her chest, and ran back to Rivendell.

The wolf howled once again as it moved faster than the elves following behind.

As Gandalf and Elrond were talking, they heard the first blood curdling howl and jolted up out of their seats.

"A wolf?! This close?! Impossible!" Elrond said and looked at Gandalf.

"There hasn't been a wolf for years! Where ever did one come from?" Gandalf also was shocked.

As they heard the second howl, it was much closer now.

"Did the Orcs somehow bring a wolf here??" Elrond was now worried for his people.

Suddenly, the wolf appeared in front of them, jumped up to the ledge they were on and softly put down Nolya.

"It saved her?" Elrond said.

"Is that...-" Gandalf started.

The wolf and Gandalf stared at each other a moment. Gandalf stared into the yellow eyes, feeling a dark familiarity. But before he could finish his sentence, the wolf suddenly began to fall and transformed back into Meril. Meril lay unconscious next to Nolya, covered in Orc blood.

Gandalf and Elrond shared a shocked look, then one of the scouts from the battle appeared.

"You didn't kill her did you?" he asked. "She just saved us. Their were at least 100 Orcs, and they brought Trolls too. One of the Trolls slammed Nolya into a broken tree, and suddenly she just... she changed into the beast!" the scout was surprised. "If it wasn't for Nolya calling out we wouldn't have known."

"Get them to the doctor and make sure Meril is alright," Elrond said then turned to Gandalf. "I'm going to summon the council."

"I'll go with Meril and Nolya and see what I can do," Gandalf said.

Elrond went to go summon the council, and Gandalf picked up Meril as the other scout picked up Nolya. Once again he was carrying her to be healed.

They got to the medic area and Nolya was brought in. Thankfully the blade she was stabbed with wasn't laced with poison, and the tree didn't do much damage to her arm.

Right away they worked on stopping the bleeding and wrapping the wounds. Gandalf looked down at Meril in the bed, covered in Orc blood.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

As he stared at her, he heard the doctor say Nolya was stable and going to make it. The doctor came over to look at Meril.

"She doesn't have any wounds," Gandalf said, having checked to make sure she didn't get hurt.

"If it wasn't for her, we would have lost a lot of men," the doctor said. "Who knew she wasn't human?"

Gandalf wondered about that, how she transformed. She wasn't a shifter, he knew where the last living shifter was. What was she then? Who was she?

***