The Last of Her Kind (hobbit fanfic)

Back Down to Goblin Town

Oh. My god. I love you guys so much! You have no idea how much all the support you have given me from the last chapter and all the chapters before that. Just wanted to say a massive thank you to all you amazing readers. I am so sorry it has been so long and I so I just want to reassure people that no, I'm not dead, lately my life has been a bit hectic so I haven't really had much time and I'm goi through some serious writer's block. Again, I'm sorry but I hope this chapter makes up for it. And on with the story!

-WWM

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From the entrance to the cave in which the dwarves slept, Niatha watched. They were oblivious to her presence but she was there. She was there to stand guard over them if the goblins came knocking. She was started awake by the cranking of machinery and Thorin's panicked wake-up call.

"Wake up. Wake up!" he growled. Niatha hurried to shift back to her human form and dress herself.

Bilbo pulled his sword partway out of the sheath to see it glowing an iridescent blue. But before anyone could react to the cracks now slithering through the floor, it collapsed, bringing everyone down with it. So this was the new entrance to Goblin Town. She must be mad to go back in there... Niatha jumped into the hole after them.

Niatha landed on top of the dwarves in a large wooden cage. Yes. Just how she remembered it. Struggling and scrambling to get up, no one but Niatha saw the horde of goblins descending on them until it was too late. They took their weapons so no one had the means to fight back. Harshly, the dwarves were rounded up and dragged to their feet to be led, kicking and screaming, away.

Of all the odds, Niatha got one quick glance back to see all the goblins had completely missed Bilbo. She gave him a quick, terrified look before she too was hauled away.

Somewhere on the way through the vast caverns and winding tunnels of Goblin Town, an orc had managed to slip one of the collars they'd used on her people around her neck. Whenever she struggled too much he would give it a good, hard yank to make her stop. Eventually she had to stop trying for fear he would break her neck by accident...or on purpose.

They were taken to the throne room of the Great Goblin and there, in all his horrific glory, he sat. The grim throne was decorated with the skulls of humans, beasts and some that looked halfway in between. Niatha choked on a sob as in the realisation that these were the skulls of her people, her kin had been slaughtered and hung as trophies in this orc's home. The staff he waved around as he dismounted the tall throne, trampling some of the smaller goblins, jangled with the small craniums of what looked to be half lion, half human skulls. The girl's belly convulsed in remembrance: these were the heads of her king's children, rattling around his larger one.

"Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom?" the Great Goblin boomed, his roles of fat jiggling with the vibration. "Spies? Thieves? Assassins?"

"Dwarves, Your Malevolence." The leader of the horde said. Thankfully, Niatha had been forced into a kneeling stance, else the goblin would all have noticed her difference in height immediately.

"Dwarves?"

"We found them on the front porch."

"Well, don't just stand there; search them! Every crack, every crevice."

The goblins immediately began searching for hidden weapons and items in all the dwaves' hidden pockets and pouches. They even seized Oin's hearing trumpet and crushed it underfoot. Soon the searchers turned their attention on the woman. They lunged at her, groping and looking for places she may have hidden weapons. One even made the mistake of 'searching' around in her chest. That was the final straw. She headbutted the orc so ferociously he fell unconscious.