A/N: woah, woah, woah!? Part twenty-eight? Seriously? Do I spend too much time on here? I think I do...

PART TWENTY-EIGHT ~

"Well... it was an... accident," Arien began uncertainly after a quick glance at Fili, who urged her to speak with a reassuring nod. "You see, it was raining and thundering, quite badly, may I add, and we needed to find shelter. Your cave seemed like the perfect cover, obviously oblivious to the fact that this was your cave," she hastily added in a somewhat flustered manner. "We had no intention of disturbing your... affairs, of course. We merely needed to get away from the... storm.." She trailed off, helplessly, after heeding the bored and uninterested expression clearly displayed on the goblin's scrunched-up features. Why on Middle-Earth would he care about their needs of escaping the violent weather? It was hopeless; they would end up being put through some horrific torture. Unless they could find a way to get out of that treacherous...

"Fair enough, let them go!"

The words that rang through the uncomfortably silent cavern made the two prisoners gape in shock. An involuntary squeak even erupted from Arien's mouth as she started in surprise. The goblins clutching harshly at her arms suddenly loosened their grip and began guiding her to the small door by the dais. Fili was equally as dumbfounded and his gaze remained glued to the master's nonchalant expression as he was nudged after Arien.

Their story was actually worthy of release? This was insane. Mad. What the hell was wrong with these goblins? Confused thoughts raced through Arien's mind as the door was forced open and, much to the goblins indignation, sunlight flooded into the cavern. The goblin master seemed unfazed by the sudden light, but the other goblins groaned in protest, throwing a hand up to shield their eyes. The prisoners were suddenly deposited into the hollow it opened out into and the door was slammed shut behind them.

They both stood, in utter shock, staring at each other in silence.

Then Fili's jaw dropped even lower as he pulled his gaze from Arien's and inspected the scene laid out before him. The clashing and whining of metal upon metal and grunts and groans of protest suddenly burst the bubble of silence and brought Arien back to reality. She slowly turned her head and inspected the battle waging before her. Thousands of dwarves were locked into fierce combat with an army of reckless orcs, their weapons singing in greeting to one another as they danced amidst an ocean of steel.

At the head of the battle, Kili was greeting an Orc with the wave of his blade, striking it to the ground with a mere backhanded thrust, before spinning on his heel and parrying the oncoming assail from another armour-clad beast.

Fili's eyes were imbued with darkness and hatred; his hands were trembling violently under the rim of his sleeve. Arien hesitantly reached out an arm and clutched his hand with her own, much to the dwarf's surprise.

"It's okay, Fili. Your brother will manage," she soothed, looking the dwarf in the eye. "At the moment, we don't have any weapons. It'd be imprudent to charge into battle now."

Fili stared at Arien for a moment, before agreeing, breaking away from the gaze. "Okay. You're right," he mumbled, his hand still shaking slightly under Arien's grip. "We ought to sneak down and find some equipment."

"Sounds like a plan," she whispered, gesturing to the small slope leading out from the cave. Fili nodded and they began creeping toward the opening, hoping the warriors were too occupied with the battle to notice the unarmed human and dwarf crawling towards them. 

Fili went first, scrambling slowly down the dusty slope, before leaping into the grass when he reached the bottom, a few metres from the ground. He landed with a soft thump onto his feet, and heard Arien shuffling along behind him. He turned just as she jumped, and quickly thrust out his arms to catch her as she fell. She yelped slightly as her foot caught on a tangle of twigs and leaves and stumbled into the dwarf's embrace.

He chuckled slightly as she pushed away in embarrassment, her cheeks flushing red. He pushed away the awkwardness and busied himself by brushing down his dust-smothered garments. 

"I know it's not going to be very pleasant to do this, but we need weapons, so we have no choice..." Arien began suddenly, but trailed off and gestured to the struck-down corpses of dwarven warriors scattered along the field. Fili immediately caught her meaning and followed her lead as she crouched down and began scrabbling through the grass, toward a mound of deceased soldiers.

Upon reaching the bloodied bodies, they each picked up and sheathed a decent weapon and clad themselves in basic armour, before nodding to each other reassuringly and joining the battle.

~

A/N: Sorry for such a short part! I know I could have made the adventures in the goblin tunnels a lot more interesting, but I don't want to make this fanfic too long. I mean, there's still the main battles to come yet...

So, anyway. Work experience has finished at last! It's been a tiring week, and a boring one too, but it's over! And now I feel like hell; caught a cold. Great. 

Thanks for reading! I feel like this fanfic is getting boring, so I'll try and hurry it along with the ending, and then I can focus more on my Legolas story and start my Thor one. Yay!

Please COMMENT and VOTE! And watch Van Helsing 'cause Carl is amazing ;) And the rest of the film, obviously...

~  _imagine_fantasy_