An Unexpected Journey as seen by Petty Tyrant

Back in Gollum's cave Bilbo and Gollum's riddle game was drawing to a close.

Gollum was sitting on a ledge slightly higher than Bilbo who was pacing the cave floor below near the waters edge.

Gollum held a large rock in one hand and was eyeing Bilbo maliciously, “Ask us?” Gollum pressed Bilbo as it was Bilbo's turn to ask a riddle.

“Yes, yes,” Bilbo replied flustered and walked to the waters edge desperately trying to think of another riddle.

Absent-mindedly he slipped his hand into his pocket and touched on the Ring there, which he had forgotten about during the riddle game, “What have I got in my pockets?” he wondered vaguely to himself, “what have I got in my pocket?” he repeated, “Oh yes of course, it is that rin..”

“That's not fair!” Smeagol squealed, “Its not fair.”

“I was going to give you it back,” Bilbo said mistaking him, “I saw you had dropped it and I came back here to return it.”

“Its not a proper riddle,” Gollum pointed out, “What has it got in its pocketses, its not fair.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said realisation dawning, “I see, well I cannot be arsed thinking up a new one so it will have to stand, come on, what have I got in my pocket?”

Annoyed Smeagol leapt down to the cavern floor, “three guesses,” he muttered angrily, “It must give us three.”

“Fine,” Bilbo agreed, “guess away.”

“Handses,” Gollum cried despite the cave being more than light enough and his large eyes very good at seeing to be able to see that Bilbo's hands were not in his pockets.

“That was stupid,” Bilbo commented, “One guess wasted, two to go.”

Smeagol muttered and grumbled to himself, “A knife” he hazarded.

“Wrong again, last guess.”

Gollum thumped his hands on the floor in frustration, “A script rewrite no more than five minutes old precious or nothing,” he cried.

“Wrong both times,” Bilbo grinned, “Now you have to show me the way out.”

Gollum crawled to the waters edge where he could look at his own reflection just like he did in the films that cannot be named but pervade all else.

“Come on then,” Bilbo prompted, “you promised to show me the way out and I can finally give you this back,” he said reaching into his pocket for the Ring.

“Did we says we'd show it out?” Smeagol hissed, “What has it got in its pocketses?”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you, you dropped this rin...”

Smeagol reached to his loin cloth, and patted at it, “Where is it!” he cried interrupting, “where is it?” he hurled himself at the shores edge and splashed franticly in the water as if hoping to find what he had lost there, “Where is it!” Its lost!”

“I know,” Bilbo said “that’s what I’ve been saying, you dropped this rin..”

“What has it got in his pockets?” Smeagol hissed evilly at his own reflection in the water, “What has it got in its nasty little pocketses?” the he turned to Bilbo, “It stole it! It stole it!”

“No! No!” cried Bilbo, “this is all a terrible misunderstanding, I came to give it back to you.”

But Smeagol was screaming at him and grabbed  a rock and threw it at Bibo's head.

He only just ducked it in time and then saw Smeagol leaping across the cave floor towards him, he turned and fled back into the tunnels shouting over his shoulder as he went, “Honestly this really is just an awful misunderstanding.”

Smeagol gave chase.

Bilbo ran randomly down tunnels but he could hear Smeagol in hot pursuit, luckily the tunnels were as well and as mystery lit as everywhere else inside these mountains and he had no trouble seeing his way, nevertheless this did not stop him running straight down a tunnel that ended a short distance away in a wall of rock with only a narrow crack in it.

Behind Smeagol closed in. Bilbo squeezed himself into the crack, he had only made it but halfway through when his gold waistcoat buttons got stuck on the edge of rock, he tugged against them but they did not budge.

Further down the corridor Smeagol spotted him and decided to crawl very slowly towards him to give him ample time to escape.

Which was precisely what Bilbo did in a shower of gold buttons, and as he fell backwards through the crack crying, “Oh that’s happening now, that’s a shame.”

He hit the floor in the cave below and the Ring, which he had not been aware he even had in his hand all this time, and nor was anyone else, flew from his grasp and up into the air, “Bugger, well that’s gone then,” he thought, but as he watched it uncannily began to fall back down, right towards his finger, which for reasons that were even puzzling Bilbo, he had outstretched to receive it.

Immediately the Ring fell onto his finger he found he was in a phantom world where the edges of everything seemed to be getting torn at by a tempest and the air was full of sound, “Fuck me!” he thought, “this is terrifying!” and scrambled to remove the Ring but just then Smeagol slinked in, he crawled right by Bilbo without apparently seeing him, although given Smeagol's apparent previous eyesight problems this perhaps proved nothing.

“Thief!” Smeagol cried, looking about the cave and seeing nothing but himself, “Thief!”

“So I am invisible,” Bilbo thought, but was still shitting it at the harsh visuals.

“Baggins!” Gollum cried and ran from the cave through a far tunnel.


Bilbo got to his feet and followed.






The dwarves, led by Gandalf, were running across a series of rickety wooden bridges which seemed to criss-cross the cavern to no apparent end.

They scurried from one oddly lit rendered light source to the next and the goblins were not only in pursuit but ahead of them too. There were literally hundreds of goblins- they scaled the walls, they swung from ropes, they hung off the bridges and they scampered behind and towards them.

This might have been problem if it were not for the fact the goblins appeared to have about the same weight as paper, thin grade paper, the sort schools used to put in the toilets.

As the dwarves ran along bearing a large pole of wood between them goblins were swept aside right and left with complete ease.

Bored with how easy it was all proving Dwalin dropped the pole and drew his axe and began instead swiping them away left and right with it, it didn’t make the slightest difference.

Still in a blood lust Gandalf hacked and chopped his way through the goblins then shouted, “Follow me over these increasingly rickety rope bridges!” and charged off with the dwarves behind him as hundreds ore goblins swarmed in to replace the hundreds already slaughtered.

“Wait!” cried Thorin, we should each get a turn to show off our fighting skills,” and to demonstrate he dispatched six goblins in a flurry of spinning moves, “your turn Balin,” he said and the old dwarf nodded and displayed his fighting skills on another half dozen goblins who had forgotten how to fight, “over to you Bombur for the comedy turn,” Balin shouted and Bombur took out his half dozen goblins by either bonking them comically on the head with a ladle in case anyone had forgotten he liked food and was fat, an the rest of the time he despatched them with his stomach and an accompanying 'boing', and before he could say who was next to get a go he never got a chance to say his line as Gandalf swept them on down the cavern towards even more goblins.


Alongside them as they ran through the cavern a whole team of goblins began to swing down on ropes and spun and swung in the air, the dwarves stopped to watch impressed as the goblins flipped acrobatically through the air, performed death defying leaps ad jumps and finally landed beside the dwarves, who broke into a round of spontaneous applause and then slaughtered them all before moving on.

They ran on and for reasons best known to themselves Fili and Kili, or it might have been Kili and Fili grabbed a wooden ladder and used it to humourlessly trap goblins by the head between its rungs, and when the wooden bridge they were on ran out of bridge and into a large gap over a precipice the ladder neatly fitted over it so they could all run across in safety.

“This is proving to be a remarkably lucky day,” Kili or Fili commented, “I mean what are the chance a ladder we randomly grab was just the exact size to cover that gap?” A hail of arrows whizzed straight at his sword and harmlessly clinked away, “I mean, ridiculously lucky day.”

“This way!” cried Gandalf, despite having shown no indication so far he actually knew the way.

They all followed him down a long slope but it only led to  a chasm and a wooden bridge that jutted out into it less than half way.

Despite this they all ran onto it anyway and Thorin cut the rope securing it so that the whole thing swung dangerously out across the chasm, when it swung over the other side half the dwarves jumped from it but the rest did not get time before it swung back to the waiting goblins who all jumped on.

The bridge swung again and Gandalf led all the other dwarves off before Thorin cut the swinging bridges rope and sent the goblins plummeting down.

“Everyone ok?” Thorin asked turning to the dwarves who all looked faintly shame faced.

“Still no a scratch,” Dwalin grumbled, “this is getting embarrassing.”

“No time for that!” Gandalf cried, “Look! Hundreds more goblins, this ludicrous sequence s no where near over yet.”

And indeed it wasn’t as Bombur, covered head to foot in goblins, all failing to kill him or so much as stick his huge body with a knife, went spinning by them like a dervish and then fell through the weak bridge, smashed through the one below that and thumped into a third before finally stopping.

They all looked through the hole but the only thing Bombur had hurt was the goblins. He was perfectly fine and gave them a cheery wave to indicate so.

Still they ran on and the tunnel began to slope downwards, “Anyone for a bet?” Gandalf cried.

“What now?” Thorin cried.

“Yes now,” Gandalf insisted, “I bet you I can kill more goblins in the next few seconds than in this entire stupid sequence so far.”

“Ok,” Thorin said gruffly, “you're on.”

They ran on down the slope until ahead they could see it was packed with goblins coming towards them, Gandalf jabbed at the ceiling with his staff which for the first time since they came into this cavern was handily in reach, and a huge, almost perfectly round boulder detached from it and rolled ahead of them down the slope picking up speed as it went and ploughing in to the goblins.

It rolled right through the goblins and even miraculously managed to negotiate a bend before it plummeted off the end leaving not a single goblin behind.

“I think I win!” Gandalf said smugly.

“That's cheating,” Thorin replied gruffly but there was no time to debate as hundreds more indistinguishable completely hopeless at fighting goblins were descending on them and once more they had to run across a series of rickety wooden bridges leading nowhere for no apparent reason.

They were halfway across one such rickety bridge when it erupted before them and springing up through the timbers came the Great Goblin.


“How did he do that?” Bifur demanded, “Has he got a trampoline under there?”



“You thought you could escape me,” the Great Goblin trembled at them and shook his testicle chin threateningly.

“Don’t think you can challenge me,” Gandalf said stepping forward, “not when everyone can see I am confronting the bad guy on a bridge over a chasm under a mountain just like in the film that ruins all else.”

“Why what are you going to do now wizard?” the great goblin demanded and Gandalf poked him in the eye with his staff.

“Ow! OW!” cried the Great Goblin, “Oh that was so cheap I didn’t see that coming.”

Gandalf swung with his sword and split open the Great Goblins huge sweating belly.

The Great Goblin paused, “oh my turn to do a comedy double take is it?” he said before doing a comedy double take.

Gandalf tried to slice his head off in his blood lust but only succeeded in embedding his sword in the Great Goblins bollock like chin and as he was trying to yank it back out the bridge began to give way beneath them.

It snapped suddenly right at Gandalf's feet and the half with Gandalf and the dwarves plummeted down in to the chasm.

It slid at increasing speed down the cliff wall, smashed into several more bridges and wooden structures as it plummeted, sending millions of shards of sharp wood into the air, and it crashed in to lit fires and soon the wood was in places a flame, and still it plummeted down into the mountain, down, down it went, it crashed through several more bridges and then finally shot out over a second gorge, crashed headlong into the opposing wall in a splintering of wood  and plummeted again downwards, scraping between the two cliffs of rock and collapsing under its own weight as it hit the ground at the every bottom.

Gandalf emerged from the rubble.

“Is anyone still alive?” Gandalf asked worriedly, thinking of course that after such a horrendous fall through so much the chances must have been slim indeed, but from various parts of the wreckage all the dwarves called out, “Absolutely fine,” and “Not a scratch still.”

“Yeah,” Bifur commented, “That could have been a lot worse.”

From several hundred feet overhead the Great Goblins huge corpse crashed down on top of them squashing the remains of the wooden bridge almost flat.

“Bugger, well that everyone crushed to death then,” Gandalf remarked taking in the carnage of the Great Goblins huge bulky body slumped on top of what had been wreckage full of dwarves, “and even if anyone could survive that they would be in serious need of medical aid, and besides it would  hours or more to move all this and get to everyone.”

“You've go to be joking!” Dwalin's voice came from within the wreckage, “we're still absolutely fine!”

The dwarves emerged unscathed from the rubble but Fili, or Kili, who was glancing up the way they had come, and which now oddly looked nothing like the slope they had fallen down, were hundreds more goblins.

“There's too many,” Dwalin said, “We can't fight them,” he paused, “What am I saying? We've been swatting them aside like gnats and we appear to be invincible and invulnerable. I could take them all on myself with nothing more than a toothpick and a bad attitude.”

“No we must go or this chase and fight sequence will have no ending at all,” Gandalf insisted and began to lead them away.

“Well it will go well with the complete lack of jeopardy,” Dwalin grumbled and tried scratching himself just to see if its was possible.

"Only one thing can save us now!" Gandalf cried.

"What's that then?" Thorin asked.

"Daylight!" Gandalf declared triumphantly.

They all stared at him.

"It was daylight when the orcs attacked us and chased your stoned mate on that ridiculous bunny sled," Thorin pointed out.

"Why must you always think about things!" Gandalf said with an angry shake of his head, "Just run!"

I had almost convinced myself the the Goblintown chase was just an indigestion-induced nightmare, but this brings it all back. ALL of it!   {{{good stuff though!  }}}

I'm off to the 18th century for the next week or two, so I'll miss all the DoS excitement. There's pluses and minuses I guess.

Alongside them as they ran through the cavern a whole team of goblins began to swing down on ropes and spun and swung in the air, the dwarves stopped to watch impressed as the goblins flipped acrobatically through the air, performed death defying leaps ad jumps and finally landed beside the dwarves, who broke into a round of spontaneous applause and then slaughtered them all before moving on.

Okay, all caught up

petty's going to have so much material in DOS  

Loved it, brilliant  
I love the denial of getting even a scratch, & now I have the Benny Hill "chase" music in my head
Thanks Eldo for the snippet !

''and before he could say who was next to get a go he never got a chance to say his line as Gandalf swept them on down the cavern towards even more goblins''.

why is it hey all have to be so distinct from each other if none of them get lines? they are just an amorphous mass anyway  

David H wrote:I had almost convinced myself the the Goblintown chase was just an indigestion-induced nightmare, but this brings it all back.  ALL of it!   {{{good stuff though!  }}}

I'm off to the 18th century for the next week or two, so I'll miss all the DoS excitement.  There's pluses and minuses I guess.

oooooooo! 18th century, will you be wearing a powdered wig and rouge   I wanna go too

Yeah poor Bombur- I read somewhere he doesnt get a single line in DOS either- so I guess that means the Mirkwood river scene is out

I think Id be pretty pissed off if I was the actor- you get told they are expanding the book into three long films and you still end up with not only less lines than in the much smaller book, but no lines at all.  

Well, at least he will have gotten to see a stuntman doing a lot of ninja moves as his character.

That is unless that was all done with cgi as well, of course.

David H wrote:I had almost convinced myself the the Goblintown chase was just an indigestion-induced nightmare, but this brings it all back.  ALL of it!   {{{good stuff though!  }}}

I'm off to the 18th century for the next week or two, so I'll miss all the DoS excitement.  There's pluses and minuses I guess.

Have fun in the 18th century! Will you be at sea again? I'll expect a full report of your eventual viewing of DOS when you're back on dry land, sailor!

Thanks! This will be my last check in for a while. I'm just getting ready to throw my seabag over my shoulder.
{{And Mrs Figg, I think wigs and rouge might not be the best idea on board. No telling where it might lead.... }}

   no wigs and rouge, it aint the real 18th century then. You have to go to Sea with frilly cuffs and heels .

It's probabbly going to be one of those re-enactment things, Mrs Figg, where Dave and his fellows will be playing Revolting Americans and dressing in ghastly seadog frontier wear!


{{{Have you seen his pirate beard by the way? Rarther splendid but hardly respectable! }}}

Re-enactment? I wonder if they will be hurling Earl Grey teabags into the Sea

Bilbo hurried along the tunnel after Gollum, feeling thankful that they were so inexplicably well lit that he could easily follow Gollum at some distance and still easily discern him ahead.

Bilbo had got used to the swirly world of invisibility and the constant low level noise that seemed to accompany it, weird as it was and odd that he would take it so easily in his stride, but his thoughts were on Gollum. Who had stopped ahead at a junction in the tunnel.

Just beyond the junction was the light of day pouring through a doorway, a doorway that was as inexplicably unguarded as the lighting inside the mountains was bright.

Gollum had paused just before this junction and crouched low to the ground, the sound of hurrying footsteps could be heard approaching.

Suddenly Bilbo heard the voice of Gandalf, “Quick, quick!” And then Gandalf himself strode into view in the cross tunnel, he stopped with his back to Bilboand ushered the dwarves by and on down the tunnel, and mysteriously straight past the obvious exit Bilbo himself was making for, which was even odder has Gandalf had been standing facing it.

Bilbo stood opened mouthed as he watched Gandalf completely ignore an exit not ten feet from him and wave the dwarves one by one by him, with Bombur taking up the rear to emphasise yet again that he was the fat one with no lines.

Bilbo watched as Bombur passed by on down the tunnel and then they were all gone.

“I suppose I should really have just called out to them,” Bilbo thought, “after all I am sure Gandalf and all the dwarves could easily have helped me out with any problems I might be having with this one skinny little fellow, why didn’t I?” he mused , “Come to that how come Gandalf waved all the dwarves by and never noticed I wasn't there? It not even like its particularly dark in here? Has he given up on me and just left me here to die. What a bastard!”

But he had no time for further considerations as there was a sudden odd  view of the exterior of the mountains briefly inserted for no good reason.

Bilbo blinked as it incongruously passed by and then put his concentration back on Smeagol who was between him and the exit no one else could apparently see.


Bilbo crept invisibly up on Smeagol as Smeagol peered straight ahead at nothing for no other reason than to give Bilbo a good bit of time to seek up on him and consider his actions.

Bilbo considered them and slowly drew out his sword, he could just stab the creature in the back, run him through, that would be simplest, easiest to do, and in a narrow tunnel make the most sense.

Instead however he pointlessly stretched the blade out until it was almost brushing Smeagol's scrawny neck.  Then he drew the blade back over his own shoulder, having it seemed decided on the very tricky and highly improbable manoeuvre of swiping Smeagol's head off in one blow in a narrow tunnel.

But just then Gollum turned and faced him, and even though Smeagol had no idea Bilbo was standing there, ready to implausibly swing Gollum paused and choose just that moment to open his eyes as wide as possible and made them teary so he looked sad and pathetic.


Bilbo hesitated and then again pointlessly held his sword out to Gollum holding the blade just beneath the creatures chin this time as if about to give him a shave. Smeagol had now put on such a sad and pitiable face that he seemed to be nearly in tears.

It strongly gave the impression Smeagol knew fine well Bilbo was there, and that Gandalf had told him not to kill needlessly an that looking as wretched and miserable as possible was what would save his life, after all everyone knew he was in the later ones.

“Bollocks” thought Bilbo, “this looks like one of those times Gandalf told me about not killing needlessly, mind you is it really truely mercy when he is all sad in front of me, I mean if I was in fear of my life still, or he was still being nasty and I showed him mercy that's a big deal, this is like showing mercy to a small puppy giving you its best puppy dog eyes, does that even count?” Bilbo hesitated again, he looked down at his sword, “Guess I don't get to name you Gollum-killer after all,” he mused then slowly baked away from Gollum, “Fine,” he thought “I shall leap over him, but I'm at least going to get a good kick in the little bastards crying little face before I leave.

And with Bilbo began his ran up and just before he reached Smeagol he leapt up into the air, swung one leg so it connected sweetly and squarely with Smeagol's face sending him sprawling and Bilbo ran through the exit shouting, “Fuck you!”

Gollum scrambled on the ground behind him and screamed, “Curse it and crush it! We hates it forever!” then he paused and added as if to himself, “Shoudln't that be we hates it, we hates it forever. Precious?”

“And you can shut the fuck up too, yes you can my precious,” Smeagol snarled.

   

 

More to come later, probably, its so painful to write!   

You're almost done Petty! You can do it!

Yes but it only keeps getting worse the closer to the end it gets!   

The Ring still on his finger Bilbo fled down the mountainside.
Ahead of him, even though they should, running at such a speed and being slightly taller and much hardier, and having a five minute head start, be miles away in front were the dwarves and Gandalf.

“Mother fuckers!” Bilbo cursed to himself under his breath, “they've still not noticed I'm missing.”


The Dwarves came to a halt as Gandalf began to count them, “Bombur" he said as the fat one came in last, “that makes thirteen.”

Bilbo, still invisible, crept up behind a nearby tree.

“Where's Bilbo?” Gandalf asked looking around.

“About bloody time,” Bilbo thought shaking his head.

“A thought he wis with Dori,” Dwalin said in an accusing tone.

“Don't blame me in a pathetic attempt to vaguely reference my better and more humorous role in the book regarding carrying that hobbit because they’ve left it out and replaced my character with a single easy to remember trait. I'm the prissy one. Look at my hair. So don't try to blame me.”

“So where did you last see him?” Gandalf demanded, despite having been there and not having bothered once in the long and ridiculous escape from sega town and the goblins to check for a  hobbit, not even just to check a horde of goblins were not eating him for lunch.

“I think he slipped away down some apples and pears when they collared us guv,” Nori said in his best criminal thief type voice.

“Tell me!” Gandalf demanded.

“I just did guv, straight as houses,” Nori frowned.

“I'll tell you what happened,” Thorin declared stepping forward and bristling from the top of his head to the end of his beard, so about the same distance as the length of his face, “Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it!”

“Yes I did,” thought Bilbo proudly behind the tree, “I evaded escape when you all got captured, I outwitted that weirdo in the caves and I escaped undetected, whilst you lot have probably brought a horde of goblins behind us.”

“He has thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since first he stepped out of his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again,” Thorin proceded with same sort of certainty he did that Azog was dead.

“Oh, you fucker Thorin,” Bilbo thought from behind the tree.

“He is long gone,” Thorin added with the sort of finality combined with being utterly wrong that was his trademark now.

“No he is not” Bilbo said suddenly stepping visible out from behind the tree to prove Thorin wrong again, “he is right here” he said smiling smugly at Thorin.

“Bilbo Baggins,” Gandalf said smiling warmly, laughter in his voice, “I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”

“You've got a fucking cheek. You didn't even think to count or check until you were half way down the outside of the mountain!? What’s that about then? And don’t give me some crap about there not being time, I saw you standing waving all the dwarves by in the tunnels and even then you didn't notice.”

“We'd given you up,” Kili, or maybe Fili said by way of explanation.

“I know that,” Bilbo exploded, “I can bloody well see that for myself can't I?”

“How did you escape the goblins?” Fili, or possibly Kili asked.

“How indeed?” Thorin added suspiciously.

“Because I'm stealthy, when the foley people remember, and that’s why Gandalf brought me along, and you are a noisy dwarf with the IQ of a stunned squirrel,” Bilbo replied.

Thorin leant in close to Balin and whispered, “Is that a a lot?”

Balin shook his head and Thorin frowned at Bilbo, who decided now was a good time to put in a clunky reference to the film that cannot be named and distract everyone.

He put his hand in his pocket and to the Ring concealed there and Gandalf looked suspiciously with arched brow at him doing so, as if sensing something there to trouble him.

“Well, what does it matter?” Gandalf said eventually, “he's back now. Lets move on from that clunky reminder.”

“It does matter,” Thorin insisted, still angry at the stunned rodent remark, “I want to know. Why did you come back?”

Balin tugged his jerking, “that wasn't actually the original question, it was how did he get out?”

“Shut up Balin,” Thorin growled, then frowned confused, “why did you come back?” he eventually settled on for saying again.

Bilbo hesitated, “OK, I know you don’t like me, even though you have inexplicably saved my life on at least two occasions before then telling me to leave, so bit of a mixed message there, and I do think of home, its in the book and we have to have something from that in this somewhere I suppose. So that's why I came back, because you don’t have a home, and I am going to help you get it back in the hope it will end this farce one way or the other. So I will help you take it back, if I can.”

All the dwarves hung their heads ashamed, for quite some time as it took the camera several seconds to get round everyone and eventually to Gandalf, who was doing his impressed with hobbits face again but strained from having to hold it for so long.

Suddenly the moment was broken by howling in the air.

Upon a ridge above them was a warg pack and at their head, clear as day and easy to see was Azog upon his white warg.

“Its Az...” Balin began to cry and stopped when he saw the look in the Thorin's eye,”Its a random bunch of unknown orcs on wargs” he offered.

“Run!” Gandalf suggested and they took their heels through the pine trees as the wargs and gobins crested the ridge and pounded after them

“We can never outrun four legged super large wolf things over rough terrain in the semi dark, “Bilbo yelped as the sun rather suddenly set.

Just then a huge war leapt over a rock and almost caught Bilbo, he stumbled to the ground, “See, I told you,” he yelped as he scramled to his feet and drew his sword. The warg charged towards him and his sword embedded through its chest and  it fell to the ground dead.

“I shall name you Warg's Bane,” Bilbo declared proudly to his sword still sticking from the warg.

“You cant be counting that laddie,” Balin said coming up behind him and casually swatting a second warg to death that had leapt at him by flicking his axe backwards over his own head and into its skull, but without breaking his flow, “that was more suicide than a kill laddie,” Balin pointed out, as behind him Dwalin spun round a tree and head butted another warg to death in mid air, “that one doesn't count.”

“You wouldn't let me have goblin cleaver because it was taken, you wont let me have wargs bane, I think you just don’t want me to get a name for my sword,” Bilbo said crossly.

But just at that moment they realised they were still in an action scene and it had started again. Balin sprinted off after Gandalf.

Unfortunately they had run out of land and stupidly also seemed to have run down an increasingly narrowing spear of land that thrust out over a great height on the distant land below. It was also sheer just to drive the point home.

By now the sun had set and it was night, therefore blue.

“Quickly up in to the trees,” Gandalf commanded waving his arms upwards, “All of you. Especially Bilbo who I should be  looking out for but haven’t bothered to.”

Leaping on rocks and into branches, or using each others heads as stepping stones the dwarves made their ways up into the branches of several neighbouring pine trees near the cliffs edge.

Bilbo was still back at the warg carcass were his sword without a name was stuck in the warg.

Bilbo pulled on it, but it did not budge, he put one foot on the still warm fur of the body and heaved at the sword. It finally came free in his hand and he spun round  from the effort and was confronted with a wall of oncoming wargs.

He looked about him and saw nobody.

Fortunately for him however whilst he had been drawing his blade from the warg, he, and the warg, had mysteriously moved in space so it was now right beneath one of the very trees containing some of the dwarves, and indeed Gandalf himself, perched at the top, the perfect fairy on the Eramus tree.


“Well thats as odd as it is handy,” Bilbo thought and wasted no more in scrambling up in to the trees lower branches. And only just in time as the warg snapped at his over sized heels.

What do we do?” Bilbo cried up to Gandalf as the wargs leapt and snapped at them from below.

“We have another unnecessary allusion to the film that must not be named,” Gandalf  shouted back down and reaching out his staff he poked it gently into a limb of the tree and retrieved on the end of it a moth.

As if this was not enough Gandalf then proceeded to whisper to it in exactly the same way he would one day in the film that cannot be named, thus ruining that too when the time comes, and the moth took the air and flew away in exactly the same manner it would one day in the film which haunts and ruins all.

“What good's that supposed to do?” Bilbo demanded as the wargs began to snap off branches and tree limbs that were within their reach.

“You'll see soon I hope,” Gandalf replied, “unless you've already seen the film that we cannot name in which case you already know and I just ruined this scene too,” he paused a moment and frowned, “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo said, “but something more proactive might help,” he suggested hopefully.

Below them a white war strode towards the trees, and upon it rode Azog the pale orc and mobile toasting fork.

Thorin stared at him incredulously, “Azog!” he said in shock.

“Oh my!” Balin said trying to sound surprised, “why there's a surprise is it not lads?”

There was  a chorus of muttered agreement from the trees nearby and exclamations of “aye, caught me totally off guard,” and “what a shocker, never saw that coming.”

“Do you smell it?” Azog said in Black Speech, sounding as if he was indoors not out, somewhere with good reverb and a bit of echo, “the smell of fear,” he looked directly up at Thorin clinging to the tree, “I remember your father reeked of it Thorin son of Thrain.”

“It cannot be,” Thorin said and there was a chorus if sighs and groans from the surrounding trees.

Azog pointed his large spiked mace head toward Thorin, “That one is mine!” he warned the others and then they charged.

The wargs leapt up in to the trees, and the dwarves scrambled ever higher.
Branches were broken in the wargs mouths as they bit and snapped at their heels.

“Something useful any time soon would be good Gandalf,” Bilbo cried as a warg nearly bit his legs off, he scrambled panting even higher in to the tree which was shaking violently now.

The tree began to sway and suddenly Bilbo realised the wargs had bitten through the very trunk itself, they had done likewise with the other trees but in a careful line and in an ordered sequence so that they fell in time, like dominoes.

Leaping like a circus act from tree to tree as each fell into the next all the dwarves and Bilbo finally, implausibly all ended up in the same tree, the only tree left standing right on the cliffs edge.

“I think I might know where this is going,” Bilbo cried out fearfully looking down at the immense drop below them.

“Everyone knows where this is going,” Gandalf replied, perched still at the trees top,  he grabbed a pine cone from its branch and put his staff to it. The tip of the staff glowed and Gandalf blew on it as if he were lighting kindling.

The pine cone began to glow hot and Gandalf hurled it down towards the base of the tree where it struck a warg and exploded in fire, sending the beast howling away.

Quickly Gandalf made more glowing pine cones and distributed them out and he and the others threw more and more down at the encroaching wargs until there was a blaze of fire and yelping below them.

“Well, what do you think of that Bilbo?” Gandalf asked grinning.

“They would have been better with a bit of colour to them I feel,” Bilbo shrugged and looked down, the tree was beginning to sway again, the lower trunk and branches were engulfed in flame, “and you appear to have set fire to the tree we are in.”

Just then the whole tree toppled over backwards and held only by the last of its roots it hung out over the void and off the edge of the cliff.

The momentum threw some of the dwarves from their lodgings and Dori found himself hanging from a branch over the abyss with Nori clinging from his legs.

“Oh, so its everyone whose going to be dangled off it!” Bilbo said in realisation and shook his head despondently.

Suddenly with a cry of “Mr Gandalf” Dori  slipped from his branch and plummeted but quick as a snake Gandalf shot out his staff and somehow Dori managed to grab the end of it and even more amazingly hang onto it with Nori still hanging a dead weight of his leg.

Azog smiled at their plight, because he was the villain.

Thorin stared at him angrily, them he saw that the tree was lying now at an angle he could walk heroically down, the fire was inexplicable only burning on two sides, which meant he could dramatically walk between the flames.

He took the chance and got to his feet and came towards Azog wreathed in smoke and lit by the glow of flame either side.
As he began to break into a charge, drawing his sword the world went into slow motion.

“Now you'll see the warrior that leads us,” Dwalin said to Bilbo with a nod.

“Aye laddie, you'll see why I followed him that day,” Balin added.

Thorin charged, slow motion flames flickered dramatically forming a slow motion tunnel of fire that he charged through, closing in on Azog astride his white warg.

Thorin raised one arm shielded in his oaken shield, he branch from his first encounter with Azog which had inexplicably turned up now just for this one fight.

Thorin snarled in hatred at Azog and drew back his sword as he closed.

Azogs warg leapt, straight at him and knocked him flat on his arse. And he groaned in pain.

“Um, just a mishap laddie,” Balin said apologetically to Bilbo, “you'll see what a great warrior he is when he gets up.”

And indeed Thorin was getting unsteadily back to his feet. He turned to face Azog just in time to get Azogs mace in the side of his face as Azog swept by on his warg.

Thorin hit the ground again.

“Well that’s his jaw shattered to bits,” Bilbo observed.

“No!” Balin cried in slow motion for heightened drama as Azog circled the fallen Thorin.

“You better go save him,” Dwalin cried to Bilbo.

“Why me?” Bilbo said incredulously.

“Because the rest of us are either hanging off a branch or by a sheer unlikely chance trapped between branches and unable to get out in time, so it has to be you.”

Bilbo looked towards the stranded Thorin, Azog's white warg chomped down on his body, its teeth, each some three inches long.

“I think he is probably dead by now,” Bilbo remarked.

“Just get one wi it,” Dwalin yelled.

Uncertainly Bilbo drew his sword, “well,” he said to it, “at least I'll get a name for you yet,” and with that he charged between the walls of flame.

The warg, still with Thorin in its mouth raised him off the ground and bit down some more and there was a crunching sound, Thorin yelled in pain as Azog smiled atop his mount.

But Thorin managed to draw a long dagger from his side and he stabbed at the wargs head with it, it tossed him aside and he sailed through the air ten feet or more before his broken body came down heavily on his back atop a slab of solid stone. He groaned in agony.

Azog turned to one of his subordinates and said in the Black Speech, “Bring me the Dwarf's head.”

“But I thought you said you wanted him, I mean you expressly told us no one else but you was to kill him?” the subordinate reminded him confused.

“Just do it,” Azog growled.

The other orc shrugged and drew a curved sword and leapt from his mount, he approached the incapacitated Thorin lying on the ground.

Thorin tried to reach out for his sword which lay only a short distance from his outstretched arm but such were the severity of his wounds that he could not even manage to move a millimetre closer to it, though he struggled to.

The orc drew back the blade to hack off his head. And Bilbo careered right into it and he and the orc went tumbling over in a pile.

The orc crawled at Bilbo but Bilbo stabbed it in the chest and they rolled over again so Bilbo was top most.

The orc looked to Azog and groaned, “Its like you knew this would happen,” and Bilbo stabbed him  again and a third time, and a fourth and then a fifth whilst Azog seemingly watched on and did nothing.

On the ground Thorin's eyes flickered and closed.

Bilbo leapt from the fallen orc and faced Azog, several more orcs on wargs had formed up behind him, Bilbo brandished his sword at them.

“Kill him,” Azog ordered, but instead of doing that the orcs just slowly edged their wargs towards Bilbo even though at least two of them were armed with spears and could have killed him, from where they were.

Bilbo swished his sword ineffectively before himself, hell it had worked in Goblin Town, but he didn’t have to find out if it would here too as suddenly all the dwarves leapt from the tree and hacked in to the orcs.

“Oh now you are all mysteriously freed are you?” Bilbo shouted annoyed and angry and taking his sword he began gratuitously hacking at the nearest wargs, slaying it, then swinging round he took a whack at Azogs white warg but it turned its head and knocked him to the ground.

The white warg prowled round him, for despite Bilbo having just risked his life to save Thorin not one of the dwarves seemed interested in helping him or in fighting Azog and they were all occupied elsewhere as Bilbo slowly crawled away backwards on the ground from the approaching warg.

Gandalf, who hadn't been in the mood for fighting and had elected to stay sitting in a tree hanging dangerously and precariously over a drop into which it could plummet at any time whilst holding onto Dori and Nor by his staff, instead of say helping them back up, watched on in concern to goings on below, but not enough concern to actually go and help.

But just then the  moth returned and flitted into his line of sight and it was just at that moment Dori and Nori choose to slip and fall.

They plummeted into the empty darkness below and right onto the back of a passing giant eagle, who was not to happy about it but hadn’t been given a voice in this version to make its feelings known with.

Suddenly the night air was full of eagles, they swept in and grabbed wargs and orcs alike and swept them off the cliff top in their talons and dropped them to their doom, well except for Azog who was needed in the next film and so got away.

One by one the dwarves were plucked from either ground or tree by the eagles, some were tossed from eagle to eagle as if the birds were Middle Earth Harlem Globe Trotters and the dwarves the ball.

Bilbo was plucked up in talons and the ground swept away from him, but before he could get over the shock  the eagle let him go.

“You bastard!” Bilbo managed to cry as he spun through the air and then had the wind knocked out of him when he thumped into the back of another eagle, only just managing to grab a clutch of feather to cling onto.

Finally only Gandalf was left in the tree as being a show off he had timed it to be the most dramatic so that he had to leap from the burning branches just as the tree finally uprooted and plunged off the cliff.

The eagles circled away from the cliff as the sun began to rise dramatically before them, bathing them in an orange glow.

“Didn’t the sun just set?” Bilbo remarked puzzled, “this is terrible!”

But he did not have time to think about it as the eagles were circling round a massive high pillar of rock jutting from the land below, it was shaped roughly in the outline of great bear head.

One by one the eagles put down the dwarves, and lay down the unconscious Thorin atop the pillar.

“Couldn’t they have let us off at the bottom?” Bilbo questioned peering over the edge and at the long, steep and crude carved staircase cut into the rock below, “I mean this is almost as high as the cliff they rescued us from.”

Gandalf however was not paying him any attention, he had rushed over to Thorin and was kneeling by him. The rest of the dwarves had gathered round. Gandalf was leaning over Thorin and muttering.

“I wouldn't bother,” Bilbo said, “I saw him take a mace in the face and that warg chewed him up pretty bad, twice and then chucked him away like a rag doll, he's gone.”

Gandalf leant back and Thorin sat up, he looked absolutely fine apart from a few scratches.

“You’ve go to be fucking kidding me,” Bilbo said exasperated.

Thorin got to his feet, “You!” he said turning to Bilbo, “What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed. Did I not say you did not have a place amongst us?” he said sternly with frowning face, “I have never been so wrong in my life.”

He  opened arms wide and smiling embraced Bilbo and all the dwarves cheered and clapped and music swelled.

Thorin released Bilbo, “I am sorry I doubted you.”

“Well, that’s our character arc over a bit sooner than I expected,” Bilbo said with a shrug, but Thorin had spotted something behind him and strode past him towards the rocks edge.

Bilbo went over to Gandalf, “So the moral here is what exactly? Violence makes you friends? Killing gives you acceptance with your peers?”

“Be quiet Bilbo,” Gandalf replied crossly and strode past him to join Thorin

Bilbo shook his head sadly and turned and went to join them in striking a heroic pose at the rocks edge, although he did so with deep regret.

“Is that what I think it is?” Bilbo said amazed looking to the horizon.

In the far distance was a pointed mountain.

“Erebor,” Gandalf said, “the dwarf kingdom.”

“Hang on,” Bilbo said with a frown, “how big is it? I mean to see it from here, it must be the biggest mountain in the world.”

“I thought I told you to be quite Bilbo,”  Gandalf admonished crossly.

“It is our home,” Thorin confirmed.

“Bloody big home,” Bilbo muttered, “I'd hate to have t pay your heating bills.”

Just then a small bird tweeted past them.

“A raven,” declared Oin holding his ear trumpet to the side of his head,” the birds are returning to the mountain.”

“Are you blind as well as deaf? And didn't you lose that trumpet in the goblin halls?” Gandalf snapped, “that was a thrush, a raven is a completely different shape, at least twice as big and black with a hooked beak, really if you don't know what your talking about best maybe not to talk at all.”

“Well we'll take it as a sign,” Thorin said watching the bird fly off in the direction of the mountain,” a good omen.”

“You're right,” Bilbo agreed looking out towards the mountain,”I do believe the worst is behind us.”


Although he could not have been more wrong about that.

Damn; damn; damn.

Going to catch up on this tomorrow, Petty.

Read a few lines and it's epically good.  

Absolutely brilliant Petty ! Almost every line was So fooking funny ! It was a joy to drag myself...er... read thru it ! I even laughed out loud !
"and indeed Gandalf himself, perched at the top, the perfect fairy on the Eramus tree."    very tongue in cheek !
I loved Bilbo "mother fucker-ing" all over the place, I could see Martin Freeman, in my mind, saying all that. I cant praise it enough, a real good laugh. !     

Thanks Azriel- glad you enjoyed it- and Im glad its over!! (for now)