Erebor's Guardian

Chapter 19

My body felt like I was made of lead unable to move. The back of my head ached and my eyes felt like they kept spinning around and around in my head. Heat warmed my body as I slowly opened my eyes to a burning mountain side. My mouth felt dry and my body tingled all over as I forced myself to sit up grabbing the back of my head feeling it throb against my skull. Tears pricked my eyes as I blinked them away coaxing myself not to cry, to be strong. Dirt and pine needles dusted my body and my shoulder and hip burned from the road rash I got from the fall. It was going to bruise deep.

I turned to look over my shoulder to find the tree had toppled over hanging by a few strong roots over the cliff. The dwarves clung to their broken branches for dear life, their eyes locked on horror from the mountain side. I followed their line of sight to see Thorin take a full-frontal blow from a mace held by Azog astride his warg.

"No!" Balin's voice sounded so far away from me.

Azog's warg turned on a dime and scooped Thorin up in its jaws and chomped down hard. I heard the crunch of Thorin's ribs cracking from the bite force and Thorin cried out in pain.

"Thorin!" Dwalin cried out, trying to pull himself up as the branch he clung to snapped.

Thorin's bloody scream snapped something deep inside my chest as I realized he was dying. The king fought on slicing the warg's face with his blade, making the warg toss Thorin to a nearby rock where he lay motionless. For the first time since I've arrived in Middle Earth I felt this string pull on my soul in so many different directions but the strongest was towards Thorin. Deep down inside of my soul, inside of all my instincts I could smell it, I could taste it that he was mine. That he was my mate. And he just died.

I bit my lip closing my eyes away from the pain trying to forget what I saw. My mate tore into like a rag doll bleeding out on a rock. This small war cry woke up the fight inside of me. My head snapped up to see Bilbo defending Thorin's lifeless body holding his small sword as it trembled in his hands. My hand gripped the hilt of my sword and this growl escaped from my barred teeth as I launched towards the warg poised to kill Bilbo. I let out this war cry as I kicked the rider from his warg. My trailing sword sliced the warg in two and I came down upon the orc driving my blade into his throat before flicking it to the side nearly decapitating the creature. The pack turned on me as I readied my sword protecting little Bilbo behind me. I let out this snake like hiss causing one orc to flinch back dropping his guard and that's when I struck.

I fought cutting down wargs and orcs that came near. Being outnumbered, they cornered me leaving me trapped by three wargs as two more war cries arrived with the blinding blades from Kylie and Jenna. They worked like twins perfectly timing each strike defending the other while the one attacked. They were magnificent from all the time we spent with Dwalin and the young princes. Jenna even lowered her sword to send a ball of fire at a warg setting its fur ablaze.

Reinforcements arrived in the form of giant eagles that swooped down onto the cliffside and plucked wargs before dropping them to their deaths. The wind from their razor wings whipped past us as the creatures descended upon the enemy bringing nothing but death in their own ways. Some wargs fell, some orcs were skewered, some were crushed by trees and some were set ablaze from the redirected fire by the wings of an eagle. The eagles worked on extracting our company from the cliff side and the lone pine. I stayed back to ensure the eagle removed Thorin from the boulder where he lay without any attack from Azog.

Without warning an eagle scooped me up and dropped me on the back of another passing by and carried us away to the west. We flew over the mountains and I just cried and cried knowing that I failed my one goal. To protect Thorin but he lay unresponsive to his nephew's cries. That string of connection I felt earlier was dwindling to a whisper in the night.