I had long since lost track of how long we had been in this forest. The trees were so thick that I couldn't even tell if it was day or night. I just kept following Bofur, checking from time to time if we were still on the path. In some places it was hardly recognisable. Thorin led the way, always tapping the ground with Orcrist at a fork in the road to find out where the path continued. I had long since begun to hallucinate. I no longer paid any attention to what I saw, sometimes I saw Azog, sometimes I saw my village being destroyed, I didn't pay any attention to it because I knew exactly that it was only a hallucination caused by the Bleak Forest. I was breathing much deeper than normal and my vision was slowly becoming blurred. This could also be due to hunger, two days ago we had run out of food. I could stand not eating for a few days, but hunger combined with the hallucinogenic fumes of the Bleak Forest were getting to each of us.
"We've found the bridge!" I heard Kili shout with a fan.
I shifted into gear. When I saw the bridge, I would have loved to shout out, for where there had once been a sturdy stone bridge, there was a huge gaping hole, making it impossible to cross the river over the bridge. "What now?" I leaned lightly against a tree trunk.
"We could just swim, couldn't we?" Dwalnin looked appraisingly at the water.
I just shook my head, one reason was I couldn't swim very well, how could I, I hated water and the second reason was, the water was enchanted.
Thorin too seemed to remember Gandalf's words "Have you forgotten what Gandalf said? The water is enchanted."
Bofur's brain seemed to be quite cooked by now "I don't have a wish right now."
I was too exhausted to laugh. Then my eyes fell on some branches stretching across the river. I rubbed my fingers over my eyes to clear my head a little and walked towards them. While the gentlemen were still discussing how to get across the river now, I put my first foot on the branch. The branch was more slippery than expected, but I managed to catch myself and jumped elegantly to the next one. I kept my gaze ironically forward, forcing myself not to look at the water, which would surely only show me some horrible images from my past again. Sizing myself up, I looked at a branch a little higher up, jumped up and catapulted myself to the other bank. I landed wide-legged and looked across to the other bank, where the discussion had degenerated into an argument. I rolled my eyes in disbelief and put my hands to my mouth in a kind of funnel "Hey, those branches are strong enough!" I yelled to the other bank.
For a second everyone just stared at me, then Kili made to climb over first.
"Kili wait." Thorin looked doubtfully at the branches, most of which I had just sailed over, "We sent the lightest one ahead."
All heads turned to Bilbo, who was standing by the bridge with his hair dishevelled, staring at the water. Then he seemed to notice that everyone was staring at him and he looked up. He seemed to realise " Seriously, now." he muttered, but went to the low hanging branches anyway and began to pick his way across with his huge feet.
"It's all right, I don't see any difficulty." he slipped and just managed to cling on with his feet "That was one." with quick steps he hopped over the remaining branches. He caught his foot on the last one and I took a step forward and caught him.
"Thank you." he quickly scrambled back up .
I mustered up some energy and managed a grin, which disappeared as soon as I looked up at the branches. "Please tell me you don't see that?" I really hoped I was hallucinating again, they couldn't all be that stupid to want to climb over the branches at once.
Bilbo turned and slapped himself lightly across the face a few times "If you mean our companions all trampling themselves half to death, then yes."
I sighed and looked at the spectacle before us. Fili and Kili were the first, as they were still reasonably young and agile, they helped each other. Thorin came next. All the others were climbing and jumping over each other, it was a miracle that no dwarf had fallen into the water yet.
Then suddenly a splash sounded, how could it have come otherwise, it had to be Bombur, of course, who had succumbed to the spell of the brook and fallen asleep.
"In the name of Eru, why?" I muttered, watching Bifur, Bofur and Dwalin struggle to fish the overweight dwarf out of the water. After doing nothing for a few seconds, I looked for some branches and tied them together with grains to make a stretcher for Bombur, I finished just as Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur and Thorin had hoisted the sleeping dwarf onto the shore.
Dwalin, who already had a few decades under his belt, dropped to the ground "Couldn't that have been Bilbo?"
He wasn't even that wrong, the hobbit was such a featherweight that even I could have carried him. Bombur was a different matter.
Thorin scratched his beard "Alright Kili, Fili, Dwalin, Bofur, Nori and Bifur take the stretcher, give your luggage to the others."
I exhaled in relief, I would certainly have collapsed under the weight. I took Nori, his bundle and some cooking utensils. After the unfortunate ones who had to carry Bombur had weighed the stretcher aloft, we went on our way.
Hours passed, or it could have been only seconds. In a daze I just kept walking, the forest had shrunk my brain functions down to a minimum so there was only room for one thought. Just keep walking forward.
"Hey look, there's a tobacco pouch!" Bofur held up his find "That's funny, it looks like mine."
"Well, it is yours. We're going round in circles, we're lost." Bilbo looked very pissed off, for some reason, the mist of the forest didn't seem to bother him as much as it did the rest of us.
"No we haven't." Thorin didn't look healthy at all, he was quite pale "We'll keep following the sun west."
At the word sun my mind jolted awake a little. And while the dwarves were already starting to argue again, of which the forest was certainly not innocent, I slowly developed a plan. "I have to find the sun." I muttered to myself. My gaze flitted to a tall tree, without further ado I dropped my pack, keeping only my weapons on my body, and began to climb the tree. To my surprise, when I reached the top, Bilbo was already sitting in the treetop. I greedily drew in fresh air for the first time in what felt like ages. Blue butterflies were flying around. "You must have had the same idea as me." I grinned at the hobbit.
"Seems so." Bilbo let his gaze wander and then seemed to spot something, pointing his finger at what could only be Erebor. "There it is."
I had to smile, yes that was it, the lonely mountain. We were almost there. The river that flowed into the lake on which Eskerot stood meandered through the landscape a few hundred metres beside us. "We're as good as there," I grinned at Bilbo. But then something struck me, it was quiet, too quiet. A few moments ago the shouting of the dwarves had been heard, but no more. "Thorin, I know which way we have to go!" I shouted down from the tree, hoping I simply still had sensory disturbances from the Bleak Forest.
Bilbo too seemed to notice something was wrong "Um Leona." he pointed ahead of us where branches were snapped, something was there, I suspected terribly. "Let's get out of here." I took a step, or rather I wanted to. My foot was stuck in a spider's web " Damn spiders!" I cursed at Khuzdul and fell down the tree. My hands looked for a foothold where there was none, the only thing that kept me from falling on the ground was a spider's web. Immediately I was stuck everywhere. I stretched my fingers to reach my daggers, and there she came. I looked into the face of a two-metre spider. It came crawling towards me and started to spin me. I screamed, I didn't want to go out like that, eaten by the spiders Do Gul Durs. The tighter the spider tightened the web, the less air I got, until my mouth just opened and closed uselessly. The last thing I saw before I passed out was a pair of rice teeth dripping with hunger saliva.