A Tale of Time

Chapter 24: To Prove Yourself

Chapter 24: To Prove Yourself

Her leg burns - burns like someone is holding a blue flame over the muscle and bones with each step. Her blades are tightly held in each hand, ready to strike in less than a moment's notice as she runs down the hill with the Dwarves, Wizard, and Hobbit. Wargs howl and growl behind them, a constant reminder that their heels are being chased. But they could never hope to outrun such a beast. It is a surprise to Gailien that she has not fallen to the back of the company already, the first to be slaughtered. But with each step, even though it burns, it also becomes numb at the same time. The pain becomes so much a part of her that to be without it seems an unsettling normal.

The wargs catch up in little time. Blood rushes to her ears as they hear the sound of flesh being cut. A slightly tingling sense crawls up her right arm and with instinct-driven nature, she changes her step, kicking off a tree to the side which launches through the air. Underneath her, where she stood less than a second ago, a large grey warg snaps its jaw up towards her. With a swift movement, while still in the air, one arm extends downwards, slicing through the beast's face.

She lands back on her feet, rolling out the momentum before sprinting again and the beast whimpers in pain – now blind. Then the edge of their path is met. A cliff, and to fall would be a terrible demise. Now they are trapped between two deadly options and the morbid thought runs through her mind – which would be quicker to die by?

"Up into the trees!" Gandalf cries. "All of you! Come on, climb! Bilbo, climb!"

With the trees as the only chance they have been given, Gailien runs towards them, Dwarves jumping up around her. A hand extends down from one of the branches in front of her and without delaying, her hand reaches to the sky to clasp it. They swing her up with her own momentum and for a moment, she is looking towards the dawning sky. Time slows as the branches still, her hair blowing behind her as her legs swing up in front of her. Then the sky disappears, replaced once again by the ground as her stomach hits the branch.

Pulling her legs over, she thanks the Dwarf. "Glad to see you still alive," she gaps out in short breathes to Fili.

"Could say the same to you," he grins.

"They're coming!" Thorin's roar calls to them. Gailien looks up as a boot falls into her vision and she is glad to find Kili sitting on the branch above them. And Bilbo's red coat is visible in the tree just in front of them. As the wargs circle them, there is no fighting below which is momentarily soothing, knowing that all the Dwarves have made it into the trees.

The wargs circle under them, surrounding but not yet attacking. Like the trained hunters they are.

Gailien is not a born fighter. She has not been training her whole life to fight in battles, nor has she mastered her own weapons. She's competent – and no more than that. Her foresight has been used to avoid conflict, the escape and use safe passages. Her body, a marred image of a half-Elf woman that knows how to swing a sword, how to take a life. But not the image of a warrior who has seen enough battle to know the taste of their enemies' blood.

So as she is circled, she does not feel pure rage fuelling her, preparing her to slaughter. No, she feels like the prey she is – being hunted. Yet the Dwarves around her, just as tall and half as young still look more like warriors than she ever will.

A white warg grazes its paws over a pointed rock, a tall pale, scarred orc sitting astride. Though she has never seen him before, tales she is told never leave her mind and the name pulsates through her head like a metal ball. Azog.

"Do you smell it?" He taunts. "The scent of fear? I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thrain." His raises his left arm which has been cut clean off above the wrist. In the place of a hand, a large metal spike has been forced through his skin before it healed. "That one is mine. Kill the others!"