"Kill!"
The Dwarves charged the remaining Orcs with short swords, hand axes, and war hammers.
They seemed to realize Morgan was protecting them, and fought with even greater courage.
Under Morgan's influence,
Kili, who had originally kept aiming at the nearest and easiest Dwarf to hit, began to follow Morgan's example.
He shifted his gaze to the members of the Company.
But shooting Orcs and Wargs who were tangled up with the Dwarves—without hitting his companions—called for great skill.
An archer needed not only excellent accuracy but also a steady hand when firing from awkward angles.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be saving anyone. He'd be killing them.
Of course, Kili only loosed an arrow when he was confident he could hit his target. He wouldn't fire carelessly.
He wasn't stupid.
With the Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, fighting back with all their might,
the remaining Orcs and Wargs were soon suffering heavy casualties.
The few Orcs left finally felt fear.
The fear of imminent death overwhelmed the fear of the death their superiors had threatened them with.
The Orcs turned and fled.
Perhaps influenced by the fleeing Orcs,
even the Gundabad Wargs, who had seemed fearless, began to retreat.
Morgan swiftly drew two arrows, nocked them, and fired.
"Whoosh!"
"Whoosh!"
Two sharp whistles cut through the air in quick succession.
The next moment,
an arrow struck a fleeing Orc in the back of the head, and he crashed heavily to the ground.
The other arrow hit a Warg racing away, right in the rump.
The Warg was already fast, but with an arrow in its backside, it ran even faster. It let out a yelp of pain and quickly disappeared into the distance.
After Kili brought down the slowest Orc with an arrow,
Thorin Oakenshield ignored the Orcs and Wargs escaping into the distance and hurriedly called out, "Move!"
Terrifying howls continued to rise in the distance.
The Orc reinforcements could catch up at any moment.
The skirmish had lasted less than ten minutes, brief but fierce.
Every member knew how dangerous things were. They were too exhausted to rest, and the wounded had no time to bandage their injuries.
They all followed close behind and sprinted deeper into the forest.
"Faster! Keep moving!"
Thorin Oakenshield, running at the front, repeatedly urged the Dwarves behind him on.
When the group raced near the cave of the three Trolls,
they came upon two somewhat distinct paths splitting through the forest.
Without a second thought, Thorin Oakenshield headed down the right-hand path, which seemed to lead farther from the Orcs behind them.
"Wait!"
Gandalf suddenly spoke. Thorin Oakenshield stopped at once and turned to look at him.
He knew Gandalf disagreed with him on certain matters,
but the wizard wasn't one to make trouble without reason, especially not in such a desperate situation.
The others immediately turned their eyes to Gandalf as well.
In the distance, the terrifying howls of the Gundabad Wargs still rang out, clear and constant.
"There's no time to explain. This way!"
Knowing everyone was waiting on him, Gandalf carefully examined both paths, then pointed to the one on the left, opposite the route Thorin Oakenshield had chosen.
After speaking, Gandalf looked at Thorin Oakenshield. The others all turned to him, too.
"Your call. Let's go!"
Thorin Oakenshield reacted decisively. As soon as Gandalf looked his way, he nodded.
As long as it wasn't a matter of principle or a bottom line concerning how the Dwarves dealt with the Elves,
Thorin Oakenshield possessed one of the rarest qualities of a good Dwarf king:
he could listen to his subordinates and others, as long as what they said made sense.
He also trusted an important ally like the wizard Gandalf.
Even in a crisis like this.
He knew better than anyone that a wizard had all sorts of strange abilities.
Gandalf's interruption might well have been because of one of them.
"Let's go."
Seeing Thorin Oakenshield nod,
Gandalf didn't waste a moment. He immediately led the way down the forest path on the left.
The group raced through the woods behind him.
"Awooo!"
The terrible howls continued to ring out behind them, relentless as a haunting.
But they seemed a little farther away now.
This eased the Company's nerves somewhat.
Half an hour later,
the members of the Company, still running, spotted a glow ahead.
They were nearing the edge of the forest.
The howls of the Wargs had grown more distant, and the forest's end lay ahead. It looked as if they might finally escape the Orcs.
But neither Gandalf nor Thorin Oakenshield said a word. They simply kept striding forward.
The other Dwarves felt like cracking a joke or two,
but this was a crucial moment as they fled the Orcs.
Seeing how stern everyone looked,
the Dwarves who had wanted to speak swallowed their jokes.
The Company continued making its way through the forest.
More than ten minutes later,
they burst out of the vast forest.
Beyond it stretched rolling, barren hills.
Perhaps for the sake of safety,
Gandalf didn't lead them far from the forest after they emerged. Instead, he continued along its edge.
The advantage was that if a large band of Orcs caught up with them,
the Company could retreat into the forest and escape.
Being surrounded by Orcs in the open hills was very different from being surrounded in a thick forest.
In the latter case, if the Company couldn't win, they might still be able to flee.
In the former, they would be in grave danger.
The Company continued along the forest's edge.
Before long, they saw a vast Stone Forest in the distance.
At last, a hint of delight appeared on Gandalf's otherwise unchanged face. Morgan, walking beside him, caught sight of it.
The delight vanished in a flash. Gandalf's expression returned to normal, and he continued leading the others toward the Stone Forest.
Thorin Oakenshield was puzzled that Gandalf had said nothing along the way,
but he trusted him and didn't ask.
The group headed toward the Stone Forest.
Just then,
a company of Orc Warg riders suddenly appeared from behind a hill.
When the Orcs spotted the Dwarves they had been chasing all this time right there ahead of them,
they immediately grew excited and began howling wildly.
The moment the Orcs appeared, Ori, who had been looking around as they traveled, spotted them.
"Orcs! Over there!"
Ori quickly shouted.
The whole Company was startled and immediately looked in the direction Ori pointed.
A huge, dark mass of fully armed Orc Warg riders was already charging toward them.
There were at least a hundred or two hundred Orc riders—nothing like the twenty or thirty Warg riders they had faced earlier.
What's more, they were now on a bare, hilly track.
For the Gundabad Wargs, this open terrain was as easy to cross as flat ground.
The group, who had only just begun to relax, immediately went pale.
Gandalf bellowed without hesitation, "Quick!"
"Keep up!"
"Everyone, stay together!"
Shouting, Gandalf sped toward the Stone Forest.
Thorin Oakenshield was puzzled. Why wasn't Gandalf leading them to the nearer forest for shelter, instead of to the vast Stone Forest farther away?
But time was desperately short.
At Gandalf's shout, the members of the Company immediately followed him, sprinting toward the Stone Forest.
Thorin Oakenshield knew that asking questions now would waste precious time they needed to escape.
So he didn't ask. He raced after Gandalf toward the Stone Forest.
Before you continue