Bilbo POV

I come up gasping for air.

"Well done, Lady Aerlinniel." Thorin says to Aerlinniel. "Come on, let's go."

The dwarves paddle with their hands as the river pulls the barrels along. The Elves are rushing along passages in the Woodland Realm. We come out into the sunlight.

"Hold on!" Thorin yells. I look and see a waterfall.

The barrels plunge through the rapids, then go quickly down the river.

I hear a loud horn sounding and when we turn a corner, I see a guard post that is built above the river. There are heavily armored elves standing guard and one of them pulls a lever, causing a heavy metal gate to block the river. We all come to a stop at the gate, unable to go further.

"No!" Shouts Thorin.

The barrels pile into each other. The Elven guards draw their swords, but one is suddenly shot in the back with a black arrow and I jump. Then a Orc appears. I am terrified. Several growling orcs swarm over the guard post, killing the Elves. More of orcs run in from the bushes.

"Watch out! Those are orcs!" Bofur warns.

"Gorid! Zib! Goridug! (Slay them all!)" One of the orcs shouts. I wonder what he said.

The orcs begin throwing themselves at us; I manage to kill one with Sting, and Dwalin elbows another in the face. I see Kili get out of his barrel and run up the stairs towards the lever. He is unarmed, so he has to duck as an orc swings at him.

"Kili!" Dwalin yells his name.

Dwalin, managed to grab a sword from one of the elves or orcs, and he throws it to Kili, who then fights his way to the top of the stairs. As Kili fights an orc, another one leaps up from behind him, and raises its spear to stab him. Fili throws a dagger and kills the orc, which allows Kili to fight the other orc and kill it.

Kili reaches for the lever, but right as he is about to pull it, he gets shot in the leg with an arrow. Kili stands still for a moment.

"Kili!" Fili shouts, concerned.

Kili groans in pain and strains to pull the lever, but he falls over on his back.

"Kili." Thorin says, looking shocked.

An orc leaps over to kill Kili, but an arrow suddenly flies into its head. I look over and see an Elf running through the bushes. She shoots another orc, then kills more with her knife.

"Gor'-ash! Gor golginul! (Kill her! Kill the She-Elf!)" The same Orc from before yells.

Several orcs rush at her and more Elves appear from the bushes and shoot them down. As the Elves fight the orcs, Kili manages to grab the lever and pull it, opening the gate and letting us through. Kili then falls on his back again in pain. Some of the dwarves and Mallory and Imryll fall down another waterfall and float down the river.

"Khozdayin obguryash! Abgurid! (After them!)" The Orc shouts.

"Kili!" Fili shouts to him. Trying to get him to come before the river takes us all through.

Kili manages to slide himself off the ledge and into his empty barrel. As he lands in it, the arrow in his leg breaks off on the edge of the barrel. The remaining dwarves, Aerlinniel, and I plunge over the waterfall and continue going down the river, the orcs follow us on land.

The dwarves try to paddle and steer with their hands, but it does not work. The river is running too fast. As they come to a narrow part of the river, orcs on either side begin shooting arrows at us.

An orc leaps at Thorin in his barrel, but he manages to kill it with a sword he grabbed earlier. An orc jumps from an overhanging tree branch toward Balin, but Thorin throws his sword and pins the orc to the tree. As the orc drops its weapon, Thorin catches it while going under him, and he throws back to Bombur, who throws it to Nori, who throws it to Fili, who kills an orc with it.

An orc leaps onto Dwalin's barrel, only for Dwalin to headbutt it off and grab its axe. There is a low hanging tree branch stretched across the river in front of them, with a few orcs on it.

"Cut the log!" Thorin says.

As he going under it, Thorin hits it with his sword, then Bofur hits it with his weapon, and Dwalin, right behind him, hits the branch with his axe, breaking it and causing the orcs on it to fall into the river. I manage to climb on top of a barrel.

"Bombur!" Dwalin calls his name and throws his axe to him.

Bombur kills an orc that had just jumped onto his barrel. The Orc's spear ends up pinning it to an overhanging tree branch, the other end of the spear catches onto Bombur's barrel and throws it into the air and onto the side of the river, where the barrel rolls and tramples a lot of orcs. The barrel flips through the air to the other side of the river, where it tramples more orcs. Eventually, the barrel comes to a stop, and orcs surround it. However, Bombur kicks out the bottom, then sticks his arms out holding axes through the sides. He then starts spinning rapidly with the axes extended, hitting down all of the orcs around him. He then runs toward the river, tosses his axe to one of the dwarves, then jumps into an empty barrel.

The Elves have caught up to us. One of the Elves leaps over the river and lands with his feet on the heads of two dwarves, from this vantage point, he starts shooting orcs on both sides of the river. He aims carefully, and manages to skewer two orcs through the head with one arrow. This Elf is very good with a bow. He continues fighting orcs, using the heads of floating dwarves as stepping stones to get across the river. While he is preoccupied fighting an orc, another orc runs up behind him and raises its sword to kill him. Thorin, from his barrel in the river, throws his sword and manages to kill the orc behind the Elf. The Elf stops coming after us as we continue going down the river.

The river has finally calmed down, and we are now paddling along with our hands.

"Anything behind us?" Thorin asks.

"Not that I can see." Balin answers him.

"I think we've outrun the orcs." Bofur mentions.

To which Thorin says, "Not for long, we've lost the current."

"Bombur is half drowned." Dwalin says.

"Make for the shore! Come on, let's go!" Thorin tells us.

We paddle to the side of the river and climb out of the barrels.

"Come on!"

When Kili gets out, he falls to his knees in pain from the arrow wound in his thigh.

"I'm fine, it's nothing."

Thorin tells him, "On your feet."

"Kili's wounded. His leg needs binding." Fili says to Thorin.

"There's an orc pack on our tail, we keep moving."

Balin asks, "To where?"

"To the mountain; we're so close." I tell them

"A lake lies between us and that mountain. We have no way to cross it." Balin says to me.

"So then we go around." I suggest.

"The orcs will run us down, as sure as daylight. We have no weapons to defend ourselves." Dwalin points out.

"Bind his leg, quickly. You have two minutes." Thorin says.

While they bind Kili's leg, some of the dwarves sit down. The dwarves look at something and I turn around to see a man aiming an arrow at Ori. The Dwarves jump up, and Dwalin, holding a branch, leaps in front of Ori. He raises the branch and begins to charge at the man, but the man shoots his arrow and it embeds itself right in the middle of the branch, right between Dwalin's hands. Kili raises a rock to throw, but the man shoots the rock out of his hand too.

"Do it again, and you're dead."

~~~~~~

Yay! An update! :D I had soooo much fun writing this chapter, I hope that you guys enjoyed reading this! I should update again within the next few days. :)

Love you my elves from the realm of llamas,

~Ellethwen <3