#uncorruption

Clothes, perhaps? In the moment’s glance at the wizard, as his intense flames reached out, he had seen… robes, a hat, and a staff that glowed with light and might and power.

Perhaps it was the staff that was part of it?

Regardless, either the wizard was dead or he had received a clear warning to never return. The light was dim, here in the depths of Erebor, and there was smoke aplenty, but the glow from the scorch mark was sufficient that Smaug could identify two of the burning cinders as parts of a snapped wooden staff.

But there was something else odd, as well, and Smaug leaned more closely.

The glow of his scales, sign of the flames that burned within him, flared a little lighter. It illuminated the stonework, and Smaug’s paw picked up the metal circlet.

In the dim light, it looked… quite pleasant, really. Understated, a golden band with a red ruby set in a housing. Perhaps it was some sort of diadem, if wizards were prone to wearing such things… and, more than that, it was a trophy of his victory.

Toying with it, Smaug realized after a few seconds that it was of a size to fit onto his foreclaw, and slid it into place. It fit quite snugly, and he chuckled.

If wizards were going to bring him such trophies, he could almost look forward to the next visit.

-Smaug awoke with a jolt.

His paws clenched into claws, and he growled, then shook his head.

There had been something he was dreaming about – something that had woken him up.

But what had it been?

He tried to remember, turning his mighty mind to the task, but it was a struggle… for all that he tried, it seemed that the details attempted to slip away regardless of how much effort he put into holding onto them.

It had involved… flying, Smaug was sure. Soaring above the earth below, with clouds all around him, such as he had not done since he had first burned his Devastation many years ago. Flying, wings caressing the air, carrying his immense but light form in sweeps through the clouds.

And there had been… other dragons, as well. Drakes of different sizes and colours, winged cold-drakes and fire-drakes alike, soaring between the mountains that ringed the Withered Heath…

...but as he tried, the last elusive details slipped through his claws, and Smaug’s paw smote the gold of his hoard. Gold coins and halves of gold coins flew everywhere, and there was a minor avalanche, but Smaug cared little.

There was an ache in his heart, and it took him a long moment to work out what it was.

Loneliness.

He growled, and thrashed his tail against the wall.

He was a mighty fire-drake, greatest of the dragons. He should not be feeling this pain over loneliness!

Smaug needed nobody else.

Smaug had nobody else.

And that had never bothered him before.

The faint light filtering into the hall told Smaug that it was during the day. The dwarven hall was well designed, and it allowed shafts of light in so that the burning torches that would have thrown light were an adjunct, rather than truly necessary. They would have needed them by night, but not while the sun was in the sky or even when the clouds veiled it.

And Smaug rested his great bulk up on one of the high places, a mezzanine thirty feet and more above the main hall which was filled with his hoard, and he glowered down at it.

As if it had offended him.

As if it posed an impossible challenge.

Because… in the final analysis, what was he going to do with it?

He was a mighty dragon, that much was obvious. The greatest of the dragons that yet lived upon Middle-Earth. He had won this hoard, mighty gold and treasures almost beyond counting, himself.

It was his.

And yet… since winning it, all he had done was sleep in it.

“This is foolishness,” he growled, then almost winced at the echoing sound of his own voice – so long had it been since he had had cause to speak.

But it was foolishness.

He had everything a dragon could ever desire! As a young drake in the Withered Heath, he had dreamed of wealth, and the hoard of the Lonely Mountain was greater even than he had dared to dream.

And all he had done was sleep on it, sleeping away a hundred years and more. He wasn’t even sure of the exact number, just that… he had dreamed his dragon dreams submerged within the wealth that had been his goal, and it no longer brought him the least pleasure.

It might as well have been a pile of rocks.

After a moment’s thought, Smaug shook his head, for – no, it was not the case! Gold was gold, and rock was rock, and no dragon would ever sleep on a pile of rocks!

Except… all the others.

If there were others.

His thoughts were going around in circles, and he growled, then looked down at the hoard again.

What was he going to do with it?

Sleep here, buried in gold that would never again do anything, until he was too large to fit through the door? Or until the ages of Middle-Earth had turned again, and again, and the Lonely Mountain itself wore away and there was nothing left? Never gaining anything from the gold beyond a sleep that was troubled by unquiet dreams anyway?

Or go elsewhere, use the gold to do something?

The idea felt like a sore tooth.

Anything else he tried to do with it would mean giving it up, surrendering it, letting it slip out of his control. It was… a sickening thought, one that made his stomach roil.

What else could a dragon value but his hoard?

But… in what way could a dragon value his hoard?

It was a bed.

A bed.

Smaug yawned, wings half-flaring, and clambered down from the mezzanine.

He was tired, and sleep might bring him more insight. Or a solution to his conundrum.

Though it would… probably not. He had had these thoughts too often, lately.

The feeling that something was missing. And that what he had was… nothing.

Sunlight slashed into the main entrance of Erebor’s dwarf hold, and Smaug held a fine coat of silvery mail in the light. It was tiny, to him, a mere trinket.

But he knew what it meant.

He knew, roughly, how it would have been made.

Every one of the links was made of mithril, a metal that was difficult to find and difficult to smelt. First it would need to be mined, the ore taken from the ground, by miners who tunnelled through the rock with pickaxe and hammer and chisel, and that would give them rocks.

To smelt the metal would have required… charcoal, or coal, cut and burned once to make it into truly black material that could be used in a forge, and then burned again to fuel the forge. Turning the ore into a bloom of the metal, then shaping the metal into wire, then turning the wire into links of tiny metal.

The links of this particular coat were so fine that Smaug could barely see them, even when he looked his closest, and there were a lot of them.

Then they would all have to be fit together, tens of thousands of rings, all assembled and held together with tens of thousands of rivets.

And it was just one item. One part of his hoard.

The artisans of Erebor had been able to make so many things, with their skills at working wood and metal and stone. Beautiful things. So many things that were so beautiful, not merely mining out gold but then shaping it into the things that were far more appealing.

He would not have been so pleased with a bed of lumps of solid metal. It was that they had been turned into coins, or finer things, that gave them much of their value.

And… he had killed so many of those dwarves. Struck them down with flame and tail and claw, and driven out the rest.

For what?

For his hoard, of course, which was his by right. But… Smaug could not help but look at this tiny, exquisite suit of mail.

And wonder what they could have made for a dragon.

Wonder if something that had been made for him, at his direction… would have closed the ache inside him.

Wonder why he had never even considered it, before.

“Are you sure that this is a good plan, exactly?” Bilbo wondered, looking up at Thorin.

Thorin grumbled.

Bilbo supposed that, really, that was all he could hope for.

The original plan had been for each of them to get an enormous part of the share of a dragon’s hoard, and Bilbo’s role had been… well, to put it simply, to be a thief.

But they had been captured by Elves, and one thing had led to another, and after a rather significant amount of negotiation and a rather more significant amount of arguing between Thorin and Balin and Gloin, with Bilbo’s assistance, the way it had all worked out was that now the shares they were going to get of the dragon’s treasure were somewhat less enormous – but still sounding like quite a large amount of gold, all things considered.

The Elves would be getting some, for their own help – a fine way of saying that they would release the Company from captivity and accompany them to Erebor, while keeping them safe from spiders and goblins alike in the dangerous Mirkwood – but they would not be getting the Arkenstone that Thorin so valued and they would not be getting the mountain itself, either.

Bilbo still remembered the decisive question that had turned the trick – which was when Balin had asked Thorin what he would give to restore Erebor to its old glory.

And Thorin had admitted… he would give much. Even, when pressed, half the treasure from the dragon’s hoard… a deal which Thranduil had rejected, as too generous to the Elves.

Bilbo didn’t quite like Thranduil, because he could only compare the Elven king unfairly to Lord Elrond of Rivendell who was rather more like the sort of Elf that Bilbo liked. But he was rather taking a shine to the Prince.

Not least because Legolas seemed willing to actually tell him things.

“Is it a good plan?” he asked, then, looking back at the noble Elf.

“Perhaps,” Legolas replied, with a slight shrug. “A lot depends on if there is a dragon there.”

“Do you think that likely?” Fili asked.

“It hasn’t appeared in over a century,” Dori noted.

“I think it more likely that goblins have moved in,” Legolas suggested. “And if they have, we will be glad of our outriders.”

He looked up. “...though it seems trouble may be on our way.”

“Why do you say that?” Thorin asked, roused out of his general sullen mood.

“Hoofbeats, moving fast,” Legolas explained, then looked around. “There’s a ridge – there. We should get a good look.”

He scrambled up the rock with a grace that was enviable for anyone, and especially enviable when the one doing the envying was a Hobbit, and Bilbo did his best to follow.

Then Dori picked him up, and did his best to follow, which worked a little better.

By the time they reached the top of the ridge, though, Legolas was already scanning the northern horizon in worry.

“There,” he said, pointing, and Bilbo squinted.

There was a sort of smudge, he thought.

Thorin’s expression was stormy.

“A goblin host,” he said.

“Yes,” Legolas agreed. “I make it eight or nine thousand.”

Bilbo looked back at the Elven army, which was significantly weaker – maybe sixteen hundred, all told. They were better armed and equipped, he knew, but a difference of this size was going to be a large problem.

“We should find a place to deploy,” Balin said. “Set up where they can’t-"

“They’re closer to the Mountain than us,” Thorin pointed out. “If they’re going for it, we need to try and head them off.”

“They have wargs and warg riders,” Legolas warned. “We have scarcely a hundred horse, we don’t want to fight in the open plain.”

He pointed. “Our outriders are coming in. Father will be asking them…”

His voice trailed off.

“What is it?” Thorin asked. “Out with it.”

“Dust, on the horizon,” Legolas said, nodding to the northwest. “There’s another army coming this way – I doubt they’re friendly to us.”

“It’s the wrong direction for the Iron Hills, that much is true,” Balin said.

Then a flash of movement caught Bilbo’s eye, and he turned to look – and his jaw dropped.

A massive creature with red-golden scales was emerging from the mountain, huge wings flaring, rising into the air like a hawk taking flight, and it had to be well over a hundred feet in length though Bilbo didn’t have a great sense of scale. It circled once, then swooped down towards the goblin army, and Thorin made a grim sound.

“We will have to sell our lives dearly,” he said. “Elvish prince – can you or your elves put an arrow through the scales of a dragon?”

“It’s not something I’ve tried yet,” Legolas admitted, as the dragon – as Smaug – hovered over the goblins, presumably having some sort of fell conversation. “But I’m sure I can find my mark.”

He reached for his bow, then paused.

“Look!” he said.

Bilbo followed Legolas’s gaze, and a jet of green and scarlet flame flashed down from the enormous dragon… and doused the goblin army in flame.

“They were loosing arrows at it,” Legolas said. “At him. Then he just… destroyed them.”

Bilbo could only see smoke, now, hovering over the ruin of what had once been a mighty force of goblins. Then Smaug’s wings cut the air, sweeping away the smoke in coils, and he approached them at speed.

It had to be at least two or three minutes that the dragon took, to reach them, but to Bilbo it felt like an onrushing avalanche. Then the massive creature landed on the far side of the slope, wings flaring before they furled like those of a bat, and Bilbo found himself regarded by a head that rivalled for size the largest entire creatures he had seen.

“Greetings,” Smaug said. “Hmm… two Elves, thirteen Dwarves, and a creature I know not. And an army, besides… what brings you to the Lonely Mountain?”

“Revenge,” Thorin replied.

“Revenge, is it?” Smaug asked, sounding quite amused. “Revenge, on me, I’d assume? Well, I’ll admit that I assaulted your mountain, and slew many Dwarves – and Men, as well – but I don’t recall killing any Elves, and nor do I know what that other fellow’s race is at all. So what brings hither the Elves, and their army, terrible with banners?”

Thranduil had ascended the hill, as well, and Bilbo realized that Legolas must have informed his father about the… battle… that had its smoking ruins in the distance.

“We are here in alliance with the Dwarves,” the King of the Mirkwood Elves declared, and Smaug nodded.

“A reasonable thing to do,” he said. “If, that is, you were planning to fight goblins. But one of the goblin armies here has been destroyed, for they made the mistake of attacking me – and that is something I will not abide.”

His eyes flashed. “Of course, I could leave you to fight the other goblin army yourself, if you wished. They seem at least twice as strong as the one I destroyed, and I do not think you would have brought so few to fight so many… so let us dispense with the subtleties. You are here to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, and to take from me the hoard that I took from the Dwarves of Erebor so many years ago. Am I wrong?”

“Revenge is not the least of our motives,” Thorin said, displaying a lack of concern for his own safety (and the safety of everyone else who was in flaming range) which quite worried Bilbo, but Smaug raised a paw to his chin.

“But not the most of it, either, I think,” he replied. “As you would have brought far more if you wished to fight me.”

Incongruously, Bilbo noticed something on Smaug’s forepaw.

It was a ruby ring, which caught his eye, though he knew not why.

“So consider this,” Smaug went on. “What makes me different from someone else, who came in with fire and the sword to conquer a land and make it their own? The Men and Elves and Dwarves did the same, as did the Orcs and the Goblins – history is a long tale of battles fought and agreements made.”

“Do not try to bewitch us with your words, worm,” Thorin said, and Bilbo noticed that several of the other Dwarves were edging away from him.

“Would you prefer we argue?” Smaug replied. “But, very well, then… the mountain is yours, and the contents.”

It was such a sudden shift that Bilbo practically fell over.

“...what?” Thranduil asked, completely baffled, and not the only one.

“However,” Smaug continued. “I will be offering protection, in return for which I would appreciate tribute. Not acres of gold, but… fine things, few in number and wrought with a purpose.”

“You give us back our ancestral home, and then ask for some of our wealth back?” Fili asked. “I’m – don’t get me wrong, I’d rather not be set on fire, I’m just very confused.”

“What is a kingdom?” Smaug asked, his voice stern. “An empire? Any state, or monarchy? It is, at the core, farmers who grow food, and an organization which takes the surplus food from them, in the form of tax. Surplus Men and Elves and Dwarves, to work its armies. And it uses that food to support those who do not farm, for a purpose… and that is how art is made, and how you all can enjoy yourselves, and march to war wearing weapons and armour and clothes that would take you all years or decades to make yourselves… if you can. You offer protection, and you take tax, and sons, and horses, and that is how your kingdoms work.”

He stretched his wings.

“I am proposing the same thing… but I will not demand sons. All else, all the specifics, are negotiation.”

Thorin still did not look happy.

But… Bilbo had seen that expression before.

It was quite possible that the Dwarf could be… brought around.

The peak of the Lonely Mountain was just the right size, and – after decades – there was now a ridge around it, in just about the right place. It was perfect for a dragon to rest on, and to curl around, and that was exactly what was happening.

King Smaug the First, Smaug the Golden, King Over Mountain and Dale and Lake, was looking out over the Long Lake, at the spot about halfway from the nearer end to the further.

Water splashed and fire spurted, and though it was far too far for him to hear, he could imagine the shouts of laughter and growls of protest rippling across the smooth waters of the lake.

Two of the six young dragons down there, he was fairly sure, were his children. His journeys to the Withered Heath had resulted in a few dalliances, and a few recruits only, but… the example was slowly taking hold.

The amount of gold and treasure a dragon got from the new arrangement was far less than it would have been under the old. But he now bore a chain of electrum and gold around his neck, and a mail coat of his own, and they were really quite precious to him.

The other four young drakes down there… cold-drake or fire-drake, they were young, and they were interested. And, right now, they were playing.

Smaug lay his muzzle on his paw, feeling fond, and lounged in the evening sunlight… then his head twitched, as he heard the sound of someone ascending the stairs.

A white-robed figure, white-bearded and carrying a slender white staff with a latticed shape at the top, came into view, and halted some steps below the top of the mountain.

“Greetings, King Smaug,” he said, sounding pleasant enough. “I must ask you the same as I asked King Thorin – have emissaries of the Dark Lord come this way?”

Smaug considered, then nodded slightly.

“They did,” he confirmed. “I bade they leave immediately.”

Smoke leaked from his nostrils. “Then they offered me one of the remaining Dwarven Rings, and I set them on fire.”

The white stranger nodded.

“I see,” he said. “Thank you for your answer.”

Smaug tilted his head, slightly.

“You are Gandalf, aren’t you?” he asked. “At first I thought you Saruman, but the staff is wrong…”

“Quite,” Gandalf confirmed, pleasantly enough. “I also wished to ask you if you were willing to help with the defence of the Free Peoples, beyond the Mountain, Dale and Lake. There is a war coming, and it is not known where the Enemy will strike.”

Smaug frowned.

“I will think on it,” he said. “I have a responsibility here.”

Then something occurred to him, and he raised his paw – showing the ruby ring.

“Do you want it back?” he asked. “I… suspect that this is yours… originally, at least.”

Gandalf smiled.