Chapter 15: Without a Hope

A loud groan escaped Bella as she opened her eyes to the starry night sky above her. Every part of her body ached and stung from the multiple burns. At the sound of her awakening, a figure with icy blue eyes and long black locks blocked the sky from her view. "You're awake!" Thorin gasped, reaching up and gently cradling her face. "You need to stop worrying me like this."

"I'm sorry," Bella murmured as she turned her face into his hand.

"Don't apologize. I need to stop allowing you to put yourself in such dangerous positions," he said. As she began to sit up, the large dwarf pushed gently on her shoulders. "You need to rest, and you probably shouldn't move. Oin put some ointments on your burns, but it's not going to do much if you are up and moving."

Bella shooed his hands away and sat up. "I'm not a piece of china, Thorin," she grumbled as she held his hands in both of hers. "Besides, we cannot stay here; for I fear Smaug will soon be on the move." Glancing over, she spotted the old thrush sitting on a rock nearby with its head cocked on one side, listening to all that was said.

"Why what has happened?" cried the dwarves who had created almost a circle around her and Thorin, happy that she was finally awake. "Go on with your tale!"

So Bella told them all she could remember, and she confessed that she had a nasty feeling that the dragon guessed too much from her riddles added to the camps and the ponies. "I am sure he knows we came from Lake-town and had help from there; and I have a horrible feeling that his next move may be in that direction. I wish to goodness I had never said that about Barrelrider; it would make even a blind rabbit in these parts think of the Lake-men."

"Well, well! It cannot be helped, and it is difficult not to slip in talking to a dragon, or so I have always heard," said Balin. "I think you did very well, if you ask me – you found out one very useful thing at any rate, and got home alive, and that is more than most can say who have had words with the likes of Smaug. It may be a mercy and a blessing yet to know if the bare patch in the old Worm's diamond waistcoat."

That turned the conversation, and they all began discussing dragon-slayings historical, dubious, and mythical, and the various sorts of stabs and jabs and undercuts, and the different arts devices and stratagems by which they had been accomplished. The general opinion was that catching a dragon napping was not as easy as it sounded, and the attempt to stick one or prod one asleep was more likely to end in disaster than a bold frontal attack. All the while they talked the thrush listened, till at last it silently spread its wings and flew away. And all the while they talked and the shadows lengthened Bella became more and more unhappy and her foreboding grew.

At last she interrupted them. "I am sure we are very unsafe here," she said, "and I don't see the point of sitting here. The dragon has withered all the pleasant green, and anyway the night has long since come with the cold. But I feel it in my bones that this place will be attacked again. Smaug now knows how I came down to this hall, and you can trust him to guess where the other end of the tunnel is. He will break all this side of the Mountain to bits, if necessary, to stop up our entrance, and if we are smashed with it the better he will like it."

"Why has Smaug not blocked up the lower end, then, if he is so eager to keep us out?" asked Dori, clearly in a foul mood. "He has not, or we would have heard him."

"I don't know, because at first he wanted to try and lure me in again, I suppose, and now perhaps because he is waiting till after tonight's hunt, or because he does not want to damage his bedroom if he can help it – but I wish you would not argue. Smaug will be coming out any minute now, and our only hope is to get well in the tunnel and shut the door."

She seemed so much in earnest that the dwarves at last did as she said, though they delayed shutting the door – it seemed a desperate plan, for no one knew whether or how they could get it open again from the inside, and the thought of being shut in a place from which the only way out led through the dragon's lair was not one they liked. Also everything seemed quite quiet, both outside and down the tunnel. So for a longish while they sat inside not far down from the half-open door and went on talking.

The talk turned to the dragon's wicked words about the dwarves. Bella wished she had never heard them, or at least that she could feel quite concern that the dwarves now were absolutely quite honest when they declared that they had never thought at all about what would happen after the treasure was won. "You shouldn't listen to dragon speak," Thorin murmured to her. "It has a dark way of manipulating the mind and making one believe and worry over needless things. You'll get your fourteen share, and we'll make sure it stays with you."

A slight pulse of anger coursed through her as she let out a frustrated sigh. "Have you heard nothing of what I have said, Thorin?!" she said loudly, silencing the rest of the dwarrows who were engaged in conversation. "I have no love of gold or gems, and I do not intend on accepting payment when this is all over. Do not think me so shallow! Gold is something that everyone finds so valuable, but what good is gold going to do when you die trying to achieve it?! Why live life chasing gold that will do you nothing once dead, when you could spend your limited time alive, living?"

Some of the dwarves looked angry at her for saying this, but she did not miss the look of understanding that passed through their eyes as well; even Thorin's. Standing up, with a string of curses from the sudden pain of her flaring burns, she snapped at Thorin who reached up to help her. "Don't touch me!" she gasped as she clawed at her charred flesh underneath her clothing. "Ever since we've gotten relatively close to this damned Mountain, you've changed! When I had managed to escape the dragon, you did not ask how I was! You asked about the gold!" She spat the word out as if it were the lowliest filth to have ever escaped her mouth.

The dwarves were shocked into silence, but none were as frozen as the mighty King himself who looked up at her in surprise. She continued. "You've strung me along, Thorin, and it will not do any longer. Keep to yourself until we've reclaimed this forsaken Mountain, clear through your feelings, and then talk to me. Because until then, I've got nothing to say to you." With that, she turned and hobbled off a ways until the dwarves were beyond hearing distance.

Taking a seat on the cold stone floor, she began to cry heartbroken sobs that threatened to rip her into two. It was over an hour later when two dwarves sat down next to her. It was Fili and Kili. "We've just shut the door," Fili murmured softly as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

Kili let out a sigh and placed his forehead against her temple in a comforting gesture. "What you said to Uncle was the best thing you could have possibly told him. The gold sickness is taking hold of him; has been for quite some time now."

"But you… it has been you that keeps some of the old Thorin here with us," Fili said softly. "There will come a time when he may even say some terrible things to you when we get among the gold, but remember that none of it is coming from him. The Uncle we know feels just as strongly for you, as you do him."

"The dragon sickness," Kili added, "poisons the mind and turns a dwarf into a mad-man. But it is not actually him. It is a dark, evil being that has been around for many generations, and it resides inside the Arkenstone." At this, Bella stiffened. Of course! It was the Arkenstone. The Arkenstone was responsible for the dragon-sickness, not the gold itself.

Suddenly a blow smote the side of the Mountain like the crash of giants. The rock boomed, the walls cracked and stones fell from the roof on their heads. They all fled further down the tunnel glad to be still alive, while behind them outside they heard the roar and rumble of Smaug's fury. He was breaking rocks to pieces, smashing wall and cliff with the lashings of his huge tail, till their lofty camping ground, the scorched grass, the thrush's stone, the snail-covered walls, the narrow ledge, and all disappeared in a jumble of smithereens, and an avalanche of splintered stones fell over the cliff into the valley below.

Smaug had left his lair in silent stealth, quietly soared into the air, and then floated heavy and slow in the dark like a monstrous crow, down the wind towards the west of the Mountain, in hopes of catching unawares something or somebody there, and of spying the outlet passage which the thief had used. This was the outburst of his wrath when he could find nobody and see nothing, even where he guessed the outlet must actually be.

After he had let off his rage in this way he felt better and he thought in his heart that he would not be trouble again from that direction. In the meanwhile he had further vengeance to take. "Barrelrider!" he snorted. "Your feet came from the waterside and up the water you came without a doubt. I don't know you smell, but if you are not one of those of the Lake, you had their help. They shall see me and remember who is the real King under the Mountain!"

He rose in fire and went away south towards the Running River.