A Ruby's Shine (Thorin Oakenshield X OC)

13. Crazy Wizard

I quickly tighten the strap of my bag, so glad I spent a ton of my time roaming by foot so I would have the endurance for running a lot, like we were about to have to do. Radagast hopped onto his rabbit sleigh and raced off to the north away from us, to catch the attention of the Wargs. I kept my sword out as we all began to carefully move through the woods, keeping sound to a minimum as we reached the treeline, watching the empty plains carefully.

I did not like the idea of running through plains with little cover, but we didn't have many others choices. At least in the open we will see our enemies coming, instead of being ambushed in the woods. The only plus side of this plan is the plains were full of oddly familiar rock spires...

Where do I know this place from? Possibly I walked along it at some point in my travels.

"Wait." Gandalf whispered quietly, each of us taking to hiding next to a tree as Gandalf watched the plains. No one was watching behind us, so I made sure to watch the woods behind us.

No reason to be ambushed again.

Constant chills and echoes of pain raced through me with each erie warg howl echoing through the forest with a thirst for blood. By my estimate, just from listening to the howls, we are dealing with a decent sized pack, I would guess at least over ten wargs. No telling exactly how many, or how many orcs are among them.

The howls gradually grew louder and louder, making me tense even more as I wondered if the crazy wizard was bringing them straight for us. They were close enough now that the howls reverberated through my ears, making them faintly ring.

I was as tense as a wire, sword clenched so tightly in my hands I have no doubt my hands were turning white. I felt eyes on me and looked out of the edge of my vision to see Thorin studying me with no expression. I gritted my teeth and focused on watching our backs once more, annoyed that the stubborn royal dwarf keeps trying to uncover secrets from me.

This is a particular secret that I am still angry at myself for, not something I plan on revealing.

"Come and get me!" I heard Ragagast yell from a distance away, pulling my attention from the woods behind us to the plains, seeing a rabbit pulled sleigh race out over grass, a dozen wargs or more chasing him before the pack vanished in the rocks.

"Go, go." Gandalf said, pushing the dwarves out to start running as we all took off out of the trees. I am a good runner, so I could out run them all and be at the front but I decided to stick to the back and watch over the slower dwarves such as Ori and Bombur, as well as Bilbo who, while he can run, has probably never faced running to avoid dying before.

We ran among the rock spires, running an a jagged line as I focused on the landscape, keeping an eye out of Radagast and the pack of orcs and not seeing much, though I could hear them in the distance. Half my focus was towards keeping my gift well closed off. While I cannot read the emotions of magical or dark creatures, I can still sometimes glimpse the surface, like generally where they are, if they are awake or asleep, if they are eating, if I really try to do so. If I am really lucky I can pick up emotions, or vague ones, but that is rare. It's like magical creatures have some sort of barrier to prevent me from reading their emotions fully.

I never knew if magical or dark creatures could pick up on my unintentionally released emotions like normal animals could, so I decided it is best I block off my gift, just to be sure. I pushed my bag up my shoulder again, throwing it over my other shoulder too now that Fairfin is in my pocket. Even while running, I still used the straps to tie the two straps together and out of the way so I don't loose my pack.

My thick coat, which I purchased because I knew this adventure might last months and I might need warm clothing, was slowly getting soaked in sweat from my running, the cloth holding my hair back as sticking to my head as well. I didn't bother with running silently like I knew I could, a lesson learned from the elves to be light on my feet, because these dwarves were stomping their feet down pretty heavily and running lightly would be a waste of energy. Still, Bilbo and I were not quite as loud as the rest of the dwarves, probably due to us not wearing huge clunky looking boots, or in Bilbo's case, no boots.