There and Back Again: A Girl's Tale

Chapter 14 The Pale Orc

Chapter 14 The Pale Orc

Nighttime fell as the company ran down the mountainside in a dead sprint. Elwen could hear some of her companions stumbling on the rocks and tree-roots, but her footing was swift. Thorin had an iron grip on her hand, and together they raced through the darkness. She could hear the wargs snarling their way through the forest, hot on their heels. They didn't have a chance of outrunning their mounted pursuers on foot.

A single warg leaped out of the darkness and charged Bilbo, growling deep in its throat and baring its long, terrifying fangs. Bilbo held his sword out in front of him shakily, and the warg leapt forward. Clearly wargs weren't of the highest intelligence, because it ran straight into Bilbo's blade and impaled itself, falling over dead. Bilbo looked as surprised as Elwen felt.

They reached a large outcropping of land filled with pine trees. It didn't take long to realize they had run themselves into a corner; a sheer drop down the mountain was their only means of escape, and as none of them could fly.

"Up into the trees, all of you!" Gandalf cried. "Come on, Climb! Bilbo, climb!"

Bilbo was still struggling to free his sword, which was lodged snugly in the dead warg's skull. Bifur threw an ax, killing a warg that had almost been upon him. Bofur jumped off a rock, grabbed a tree branch, and used Dwalin's head as a step stool to get himself into a tree.

"They're coming," Thorin shouted.

Gandalf climbed to the top of the furthest tree. Dwalin boosted Balin into the tree nearest him, and Thorin quickly followed. Elwen scrambled up a tree with Fili and Kili. Bilbo finally managed to yank his sword free and scrambled up a tree just before the pack reached him.

Elwen turned to make sure the entire company was off the ground and she saw Gandalf do a puzzling thing. He reached out with his staff and when he pulled back, there appeared to be an insect sitting on it. Elwen was startled to realize that her vision was suddenly clear enough to make out the slight fluttering of a moth's wings. She hadn't noticed it before, the sharpening of any senses. She wondered if it was because of the magic she had been exposed to in Rivendell.

She saw Gandalf bring the moth close to his face and it almost looked as if he were whispering to it. He formed an O with his lips and blew, and Elwen watched as the tiny creature flew away into the night.

Suddenly, the incessant growing ceased. Elwen whirled and her attention was now focused on the enemy. A ferocious, monstrously giant white warg stalked forward and came to stand on a large rock. And, just as the Goblin King had said, astride the great beast was a brutally disfigured pale Gundabad orc.

"Azog?" Thorin gasped, the shock evident on his face.

He hadn't believed what the Great Goblin had told them. Elwen hadn't either, at least she hadn't wanted to. She could no longer turn a blind eye to the visions she'd been having since arriving in Middle-earth. They were real, this was happening. And there was nothing she could do about it.

The white warg growled, a sound that sent chills up Elwen's spine. Azog stroked its fur slowly.

"Nuzdigid? Nuzdi gast?" Do you smell it? The scent of fear?

Elwen was sure she and Gandalf were the only two who could understand what the foul beast was grunting, but everyone sensed the pure malice in Azog's tone.

"Ganzilig-I unarug odob nauzdanish, Thorin, undag Thrain-ob." I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thrain.

Elwen felt a fury course through her veins like fire. I'll rip that beast's tongue out from between his teeth, she thought with a snarl.