Sunlight, Afterglow, Nightsky and Snowfield

Chapter 8 - Fight and Flight

Some time passed and Bofur said: "I'll wager the sun in on the rise. Must be nearly dawn!"

Ori sighed. "We're never gonna reach the mountain, are we?"

"Not stuck in here you're not!"

This voice was very familiar to me, a voice I didn't hear for quite a time.

"Bilbo!", shouted Balin.

Surprised, I turned around and saw Bilbo holding the keys to our cells. He opened one cell after the other and the dwarves ran out. He reached me last.

"Bilbo, you are just the greatest!" I embraced him. "However, I can't go. They took my staff. I can't leave without my staff!"

"You mean – this staff?" He opened his jacket and took my dear staff out of it.

Delighted, I embraced him again. "You're incredible! How did you do this? Where did you find this?"

"I found this down the wine cellar. I guess the elves wanted to deliver it with the empty wine barrels down there and to sell it! By the way, the wine cellar is the location we need to go to!" Bilbo said.

"Why the cellars?" Someone asked, while we ran as fast and as quiet as we could after Bilbo.

"Trust me!" He just answered.

And he led us in front of the empty wine barrels he had talked about.

"Everyone, climb into the barrels, quick!" Bilbo said.

"Are you mad? They'll find us!", Dwalin shouted.

"No, no. They won't! I promise you. Please, please, you must trust me!", pleaded Bilbo.

"Do as he says!", commanded Thorin.

"What about me? The barrels are too small for me!" I said.

"Not this big one, it isn't!", said Bilbo, indicating to a barrel standing beside the others.

As we climbed into the barrels, Bofur asked: "What now?"

"Hold your breath!" Bilbo simply said and opened the floorboards bearing the barrels. We just had time to catch our breath, before our barrels collapsed into the water underneath the floorboards. A short time afterwards Bilbo fell into the water as well. He grabbed one of the barrels and we started to row and to move our barrels out, through a river and downstream.

"No!" Thorin suddenly shouted.

And soon I found out, what was the problem. My heart sank. The elves appeared to have noticed that we had escaped and they had closed the gates. Our barrels just clashed at the closed gate, like water on stone – fruitless, without any use.

Again, I thought the things couldn't get any worse. And again, the destiny proved me wrong. Some other actors entered the play – ugly, foul creatures with pointed ears, one of them was –

I gasped loudly and grabbed the edge of my barrel to prevent me from fainting.

A big orc with an ashen skin, scars covering a face like a monkey's and a white eye. The orc who haunted my worst nightmares. The orc who had killed my parents, who had destroyed my happy childhood. The orc was –

"Bolg!" I shouted.

The big orc ordered the others to run into battle and thus, they attacked both the elves, who wanted to capture us again and the dwarves in their barrels. Looking back to this, I was glad that I was still able to protect them with a barrier spell, because I was paralyzed on the sight of Bolg and my body trembled in fear. My thoughts were blocked, but as soon as I could think clearly something shoot through my head, which send another shocking jolt through my body – where was Kili? His barrel was empty!

I looked around and saw that he ran towards the switch, which could open the gate, which trapped us.

Suddenly, I felt a slight foreboding. I put a barrier spell on him, but the arrow flying towards him was too strong. It shot right through the barrier and into his leg.

"Kili!", shouted Fili and I let out a deafening shriek.

Looking into the direction the arrow came from I saw Bolg with a bow in his hand.

I roared and tried to climb out of my barrel, my staff risen.

"No, Aurora, stay in there! The drift is too strong!" Balin said.

"I can't believe this! Why is it always ... Bolg?" I shouted. Then, I looked at Kili again. It seemed he was protected by the red-haired elf woman, whom the others called "Táuriel". And between all my worries about Kili and my anger towards Bolg, apparently, there was still some space left for envy. I couldn't protect Kili with my barrier, but that Táuriel could protect him from the attacks of the orcs.

Kili was successful in opening the gate and then he fell back into his barrel. Together, we swam the river downwards and we were able to flee both from the orcs and the elves. A few moments passed and we landed ashore and climbed out of the barrels.

Kili staggered a few steps, before he fell down with a groan, holding a cloth on the wound on his leg. When he noticed that Bofur was looking at him, he said: "I'm fine, it's nothing!"

"Let me through!" I ran towards him with water cupped in my hands and washed his wound. He took a very sharp breath.

"I said I'm fine!", he repeated indignantly.

"Oh, that's news to me – the patient telling the healer that he's fine! You will be fine when I tell you, that you are!", I said, bending down and lowering my mouth to his wound.

"Oi, what are you doing?" He wriggled his leg out of my reach.

"I need to disinfect your wound and since all my medicine was taken away by these elves, I need to use my saliva instead!" I explained and put my mouth back to the wound.

"On your feet!" Thorin started pacing. "There's an orc pack on our tail. We keep moving!"

"I need to heal Kili's wound first!" I said.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine?" Kili snapped.

I acted as though I didn't hear him. I raised my staff and spoke a simple incantation. A white light came out of the staff and healed his wound.

"There now!" I said softly.

"Thank you!" said Kili, without looking at me and with a rather nasty tone in his voice, as if he wasn't grateful at all.

"Oh, you're welcome!" I answered in the same tone, as I was offended by his lack of gratitude. Then I turned to Thorin: "Now we can move and –"

I heard a buzz in the air and in the next moment, arrows attacked us. First, I thought it was another orc, or – even worse – Bolg, but it was a man with long, black hair.

Directing an arrow at us, he said: "Move again and all of you will be dead!"