Page 199 - The Hobbit

Still more suddenly a darkness came on with dreadful swiftness! A black

cloud hurried over the sky. Winter thunder on a wild wind rolled roaring up and
rumbled in the Mountain, and lightning lit its peak. And beneath the thunder
another blackness could be seen whirling forward; but it did not come with the

wind, it came from the North, like a vast cloud of birds, so dense that no light
could be seen between their wings.
"Halt!" cried Gandalf, who appeared suddenly, and stood alone, with arms
uplifted, between the advancing dwarves and the ranks awaiting them. "Halt!" he

called in a voice like thunder, and his staff blazed forth with a flash like the
lightning. "Dread has come upon you all! Alas! it has come more swiftly than I
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guessed. The Goblins are upon you! Bolg of the North is coming. O Dain! whose
father you slew in Moria. Behold! the bats are above his army like a sea of
locusts. They ride upon wolves and Wargs are in their train!"
Amazement and confusion fell upon them all. Even as Gandalf had been
speaking the darkness grew. The dwarves halted and gazed at the sky. The elves

cried out with many voices.
"Come!" called Gandalf. "There is yet time for council. Let Dain son of Nain
come swiftly to us!"

So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five
Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild
Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves. This is how it fell

out. Ever since the fall of the Great Goblin of the Misty Mountains the hatred of
their race for the dwarves had been rekindled to fury. Messengers had passed to
and fro between all their cities, colonies and strongholds; for they resolved now to

win the dominion of the North. Tidings they had gathered in secret ways; and in
all the mountains there was a forging and an arming. Then they marched and
gathered by hill and valley, going ever by tunnel or under dark, until around and
beneath the great mountain Gundabad of the North, where was their capital, a vast

host was assembled ready to sweep down in time of storm unawares upon the
South. Then they learned of the death of Smaug, and joy was in their hearts: and
they hastened night after night through the mountains, and came thus at last on a

sudden from the North hard on the heels of Dain. Not even the ravens knew of
their coming until they came out in the broken lands which divided the Lonely
Mountain from the hills behind. How much Gandalf knew cannot be said, but it is
plain that he had not expected this sudden assault.

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Son of Azog