Down he crept, through galleries piled with coins and cups, emeralds the size of fists, and suits of armor crushed like tin. And there, at the heart of it all, lay the dragon.
Bilbo cleared his throat, and the sound echoed like a pebble in a tomb. “I have come to admire your… your magnificence, O Smaug il Fuocosauro. To see the splendor of Erebor reborn under your wise… uh… custodianship.”
“Bene,” rumbled the voice, low as an avalanche. “Un ladro. O forse… un regalo avvolto nel silenzio?”
Bilbo froze. The Ring’s power hid him from sight, but not from smell, nor from the ancient cunning of a wyrm. lo.hobbit 2 la desolazione.di.smaug ita
Before Bilbo could lie, Smaug reared. The cavern shook. Gold rained like hail.
The dragon flew low, belly scraping the lake’s mist. Its voice boomed across the water: “ Cerco il mio uccellino… ” I seek my little bird.
Bard the Bowman nocked an arrow made from a family heirloom, a black shaft forged in the lost city of Dale. Down he crept, through galleries piled with coins
Below, Smaug spread his wings. The great gates of Erebor exploded outward. Laketown’s lookouts saw a second dawn rise over the mountain—a red, hungry light.
Bard did not answer. For three nights he had seen it: a flicker of wings, too vast for any bird, circling the peak. The old songs called it Smaug , il Calamità di Fuoco . The Desolation.
Bilbo ran. He tumbled through passages, the Ring nearly slipping from his finger. Behind him, the furnace breath grew brighter. A column of flame licked the tunnel’s roof, turning stone to dripping wax. “I have come to admire your… your magnificence,
“Laketown sleeps,” whispered his eldest, Bain, handing him a leather waterskin. “But the Mountain never does.”
That same night, thirteen dwarves and one halfling slipped through the hidden door on the mountainside. Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of the Contea, felt the heat before he saw the glow. His hand trembled on the hilt of a small elvish blade— Pungolo , it was named, for it glowed blue when Orcs were near. Now it remained dim. But something worse than Orcs waited below.
Fine della prima parte.