for all the gold || hobbit {completed}

chapter five - old enemies

But the rustling did not come from any remaining troll. Nor did it come from any real dwarf-hungry monster. Rather it came from a wooden sledge, driven at high speed by a host of large rabbits and controlled in part by a mad-looking man with a large grey beard, a larger hat and what looked like the contents of a bird's stomach smeared across his face.

The wizard seemed to know him. His old face broke out into a smile, whereas the rest of us merely lowered our weapons and let out a relieved sigh. We had, after all, almost been run down by the great sleigh when it had burst through the undergrowth.

"Radagast the Brown," he said, before sighing. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you, Gandalf," the strange-looking man said. He seemed an anxious fellow: his little head bobbing up and down. "Something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong."

"Yes?"

The brown wizard seemed willing enough to speak, yet every time he opened his mouth, no words came out. If our own wizard was not speaking to him so pleasantly, I would have wondered if the man was a figment of my battered head's imagination. Yet I could see my own puzzlement reflected on the faces of all those around me.

"Oh!" the brown wizard moaned. "I had a thought and now I've lost it. It was right there on the tip of my tongue!" He paused and pursed his lips. "No, it's not a thought at all. It's a silly, old stick insect."

Mercifully enough, the grey wizard took his friend (and his various creepy-crawlies) aside and left the rest of us to set up a brief camp with what belongings had been salvaged from our last camp. By now, the lack of sleep from the few nights before were beginning to catch up on me and I was just content enough to sit quietly on my bedroll and to clean my sword with a scrap of cloth I had found. The others, meanwhile, talked quietly amongst themselves, other than the hobbit who, like me, was sat on his own and out of the way.

Looking up, I watched the hobbit stare at something in his own lap. If it had been one of the other dwarves, I may have felt inclined to ask what it was he was holding. Seeing as it was the hobbit however, and I still had yet to forgive him for his pact with the trolls last night, I merely ignored him and carried on buffing my sword.

And what a sword it was. Whatever man had made it certainly knew his way around a blacksmith's forge. As the dust and grime reluctantly came off, the real glow of the steel beneath became apparent.

Just as I began to work on dusting the hilt, I felt a familiar prickle on the back of my neck. Turning my head, I caught the Durin brothers talking to each other just across the clearing. Whatever they had been talking about, my sudden attention of them caught them off-guard as they stopped talking and sheepishly smiled in my direction. I cracked them a sheepish half-smile back and raised the sword just long enough for them to admire my handiwork from where they stood.

Before I could get any response from them however a great, ghoulish howl rose from somewhere uncomfortably close to the clearing. It sounded across the small space and brought us all stumbling up to our feet, weapons drawn.

"Was that a wolf?" the hobbit asked. "Are there wolves out there?"

"Not wolves," Bofur cried, clutching his mattock tightly. He looked around himself nervously. "No, that is not a wolf." Then what was it?

Not that we had to wait to find out. There was a cry of surprise and then a giant, rabid beast emerged from over the ridge; its lips curling back to reveal a huge set of fangs. Teeth bared and roaring, the beast cleared the ridge in two big strides before pouncing onto Dori and sending Nori's big brother sprawling to the floor. It did not have time though to take a bite as Oakenshield then appeared, swinging his blade down through the beast's skull with a sickening crunch.