"I Will Never Ever.... Stop Loving You"

Four

CHAPTER FOUR

ORCS TALE

●○●○●

We arrived at a sleeping place soon after the whole handkerchief situation, I was lying down with my head resting on one of my bags, not comfortable yet to lay with someone, so I stayed a little away from the dwarves. The rest of the group were asleep, except for me, Kili, Fili, Gandalf and Bilbo.

Uncle Bilbo stood up and walked over to his horse to feed her, trying to be sneaky which didn't work very well as most of the eyes which were awake were placed on him. Then there came an odd noise, like a screech of some sort. "What was that?", I asked Kili sitting up quickly, making me move from my rucksack.

"Orcs", Kili answered looking out of our sleeping spot and into the woods in front of us.

"Orcs?!", Bilbo exclaimed stepping through the sleeping dwarfs, at this Thorin and Balin awoke. "Throat cutters, they'll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them.", Fili said. "They strike in the wee small hours when everyone's asleep, quick and quiet no screams....just a lot of blood.", Kili said trying to scare us, Bilbo looked at Fili and Kili with a rather shocked expression, which sent the two young brothers into a little chuckle session but it was cut short by Thorin speaking up. "You think that's funny; you think a night raid by orcs is a joke." Thorin said getting up and walking towards us.

"We didn't mean anything by it", Kili said his smile dropped and his voice was saddened. "No you didn't, you know nothing of the world.", Thorin walked past us towards the cliff edge.

Kili's look of happiness, mischief and laughter soon turned into utter sadness and embarrassment. I shuffled closer to him placing a hand on his own with a small smile of comfort.

"Don't mind him laddie, Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs.", Balin said as we all looked to him and he started his story, "after the dragon took The Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarfin City of Moria, but our enemy had got there first. Moria had been taken by legions of orcs, led by the evillest of all their race Azog the Defiler. The Giant Gundabad orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin", he looked towards us with sad eyes, "He started by beheading the king", I had tears in my eyes tightening my grip around Kilis hand even tighter, he placed an arm around me, stroking circles on my arm before placing it back down on the floor beside him.

"Thrain, Thorin's father was driven mad by grief, he went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know, we were leader less, Defeat and Death were upon us...that was when I saw him, a young dwarf Prince facing down the Pale Orc, he stood alone against his terrible foe. The armour went welding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield. Azog The Defiler learned that day, that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken...or forces rallied and drove the orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast nor song that night for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived. And I thought to myself then, there is one I could follow, there is only one I could call King.", he finished and Thorin turned around to see everyone who was awake looking at him.

"But the Pale Orc?", Bilbo said our heads turning to him for a moment, "What happened happened him?",Bilbo asked before a voice near the entrance spoke, "he slunk back into the hole in which he came, that filth, died of his wounds long ago.", Thorin said all of our gazes turning to him.

We all nodded and returned to our previous activities, which for the most part consisted of napping or watching the burning fire which kept us warm. I leaned against Kili's chest, and instead of keeping his hands on the floor and looking upset, he wrapped one arm around my shoulder again, smiling down at me once more, looking into his beautiful, brown, soft eyes and I gently fell asleep to the sound of his steady heartbeat.