Bilbo was running out of breath, trying to escape a thunderous roar that seemed to be chasing him... and, in fact, it was. Miquella and Malenia were not engaging in a frontal fight of annihilation; after realizing that their attacks barely managed to scratch the surface of the reinforced scales, they had moved into a strategic withdrawal phase. They needed terrain they could mold in their favor—a place where Smaug's immensity would become his own trap.
Little by little, alternating between attack, defense, and evasion, the siblings moved away from the chamber. However, the distance did not lessen the brutality of the encounter. Miquella had deployed spells from various schools, systematically testing the dragon's limits, and the results were discouraging.
Smaug's Splintered Ring was a disturbingly advanced version of the one worn by the Goblin King. It not only boosted the wielder's natural faculties but seemed to have mutated its instincts, allowing it to develop additional abilities, such as that flame designed to devour life.
The only thing offering Miquella a respite was noticing that the power increase, though massive, had a saturation limit. Although Smaug had gained more brute strength than the Goblin King, the proportional increase was smaller. It would have been an absolute disaster if the artifact had exponentially multiplied the dragon's already insane attributes.
Even so, the ring functioned as a capacitor: in addition to its passive benefits, Smaug could use it to unleash bursts of momentary power. Although the artifact needed time to recharge after each discharge, those brief moments of omnipotence had already taken a toll on the demigods. Neither of the two was yet at 100% capacity to face him; Malenia, in particular, refused to unleash the true horror within her, knowing that the Scarlet Rot could condemn the entire mountain before killing the dragon.
Under the protection of Miquella's magic, the siblings managed to evade what would have been fatal blows, but the wear and tear was evident. Miquella's immaculate body now showed violet bruises and deep burn marks staining his tunic. For her part, Malenia's unalloyed gold armor featured critical dents, and her prosthesis creaked, damaged by impacts that would have pulverized common steel, hindering her martial fluidity.
Smaug was not unscathed either, though his pain was invisible to an untrained eye. The scales, reinforced by the glow of the ring, remained intact, but the dragon felt his flesh shudder beneath his skin at the kinetic force of Malenia's attacks and Miquella's arcane explosions. The King Under the Mountain was suffering inside, but his overall power remained an unstoppable tide pushing them toward the darkness of the tunnels.
...
In the great forges of Erebor, the battle against the two dragons had changed. The initial momentum of the charge had died out, giving way to a struggle for pure survival.
Several dwarves lay motionless on the cold stone; the air was so thick with smoke and the smell of blood that it was difficult to discern who was still alive. Among the Eldens, Dane and Thiollier had suffered devastating injuries that prevented them from fighting. Sheltered behind the rubble of collapsed walls, they crawled to rescue fallen dwarves, trying to get them under cover before the next torrent of fire turned them to ash.
Thorin Oakenshield was bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth, his face blackened by soot. He remained standing only thanks to his robust constitution and an iron will that refused to let go of Orcrist's hilt.
Legolas had a broken left arm. Despite the blinding pain, he continued to fire an occasional arrow, resupplied by the agility of Latenna, who traversed the battlefield on her wolf like a provider shadow.
Dwalin had a deep wound slicing across his bald scalp, revealing white bone beneath the red blood. Far from being cowed, the warrior roared with a berserker fury, launching increasingly violent attacks against the beasts' scales.
Hornsent had lost part of a foot and one of his swords, but his ferocity remained intact. He was perched atop one of the beasts, tearing at its wing membrane.
The dwarven sisters remained nearly untouched in elevated positions, maintaining a constant rain of arrows alongside Tauriel—who fought with fractured fingers—and Latenna.
Of the dwarves enhanced by the troll runes, only Bifur and Bofur remained in the fray; the rest had been overcome by exhaustion or impact. The group in charge of explosives had been silenced after a devastating flare swept their position; they weren't dead, but their burned bodies could no longer produce more ammunition.
In the midst of this chaos of torn flesh and fire, Freyja and Ansbach stood as the firmest pillars of the Eldens. Nearly unharmed and with their eyes fixed on their goal, they led the last coordinated siege.
Despite their ferocity, the dragons had also begun to decline. One of them was covered in torn flesh and open wounds; its movements were clumsy, slow, and its fiery breath had been reduced to a dying ember. Even if it managed to survive the battle, the cold embrace of death would claim it soon after. The second, however, retained much of its vigor; with a partially severed wing but its pride intact, it continued to represent a lethal threat to the exhausted warriors.
In that moment of tense silence, where metal barely clashed against metal, a soul-shaking roar echoed from the deep chambers. It was a roar of such magnitude that even the dragons stopped their attack, turning their heads uneasily toward the source of the sound.
It was then that Bilbo burst into the forge. The hobbit fell to his knees, lungs burning and heart hammering against his ribs, relieved to have escaped that clash of titans... until he looked up. The sight froze his blood: his companions were mutilated and covered in soot, facing not one, but two more dragons. Everything he had tried to avoid was right there, concentrated in a single nightmare hall.
"Get up, hobbit... you still have a role to fulfill."
A ghostly whisper, sweet as the scent of lilies and cold as mist, brushed Bilbo's ear. He instantly recognized the voice of St. Trina, Miquella's enigmatic "other half." Exhaustion threatened to plunge him into unconsciousness, but he felt invisible, light hands helping him stand.
"They will hold... for now. Use your ring and follow me," the voice ordered. Out of the corner of his eye, Bilbo spotted a wisp of purple light gliding elegantly toward the side tunnels.
Without the strength to question, and with survival instinct guiding his steps, the hobbit vanished from sight and began to follow that misty trail through the stone.
Most of the combatants didn't even notice Bilbo's fleeting appearance; they were too busy trying not to die. The healthier dragon, seeing its prey's weakness, puffed out its chest to launch a final flare at a group of dwarves who no longer had the strength to cover themselves.
But before the fire escaped its jaws, a burst of blue Glintstone shards streaked through the air with a sharp whistle. The magical projectiles struck with surgical precision: one of them sank directly into the beast's healthy eye, interrupting the attack and transforming the roar of triumph into a shriek of blind agony.
All eyes turned toward the source of the attack. There, emerging from the shadows of the tunnels with feverish urgency, appeared Miquella. The demigod paused for barely an instant, just long enough to see the state of his people: warriors with armor fused to their skin, soot-covered dwarves rising with broken bones, and elves whose light was fading.
Without hesitation, Miquella raised both hands. In one, he held a Sacred Seal that began to vibrate with a holy frequency, while in the other, his ring generated an invisible vortex sucking the remaining energy from the air. Light did not just gather in his hands; it seemed the entire hall was being stripped of its shadows to feed what was to come.
Then, the power exploded.
A blast of golden light swept the room, enveloping every ally in an aura of comforting warmth. Above Miquella's head, the radiant image of an Erdtree manifested, surrounded by protective runes spinning in the air. The demigod's voice, now multiplied by his divine power, chanted the incantations.
Waves of energy surged through the bodies of elves, dwarves, and Eldens alike. They felt a jolt of adrenaline that burned and froze at the same time. Before their very eyes, open wounds closed in seconds; third-degree burns transformed into pink skin, and the weight of fatigue was ripped from their shoulders.
But Miquella did not stop there. The dragons tensed, gripped by an instinctive fear at the aura of this being who radiated unbearable sanctity. Even the most wounded beast tried to roar at the demigod, but the Eldens, with renewed will, stepped in like a wall of living steel, preventing anything from disturbing their lord.
Several more waves of energy surged from Miquella's amulet, which began to crack under the pressure of the overexertion. Everyone present was enveloped in layers of mystical protection: golden barriers that granted resistance against impact and near-total immunity to fire.
The light extinguished as quickly as it was born. Miquella, whose vitality had been drained to fuel his spells, nearly fainted, barely holding himself up with his hands on the floor. His consciousness fluctuated, kept awake only by Trina's whispers in his mind.
Despite his deplorable state, the demigod stood up clumsily. Staggering like a wounded man, he began to run again toward the deep tunnels, forcing himself to catch his breath. He had to go back; he knew Smaug was still waiting.
Miquella disappeared into the shadows of the tunnels, leaving a trail of flickering light behind as he forced himself forward.
In the forge, the Company took a few moments to process the miracle. Legolas felt the bones of his arm knit together with a warm snap; Thorin, for his part, experienced a surge of vitality that repaired his internal organs, eliminating the agony.
Dwarves who had been given up for dead opened their eyes. Bombur emerged from the rubble that had buried him, pushing aside rocks as if they were pebbles, and Dwalin stood up with a roar of disbelief, wielding his axe once more. Although some were not in a position to resume the fight, they were out of critical condition.
With renewed energy and enveloped in Miquella's protective aura, the dwarves let out a war cry. Before, the fire had decimated them like dry straw; now they walked through the flames almost unscathed.
The healthier beast managed to catch Dwalin in its colossal jaws, attempting to snap him in two with a single closure. However, the dragon's teeth screeched against a supernatural resistance; the dwarf's skin and bones, imbued by Miquella's spell, refused to give way. In that instant, Bombur launched himself from an upper platform, dropping several heavy ore containers onto the dragon's back.
The impact forced the beast to spit Dwalin out. The warrior lay there, with deep wounds piercing his armor, but Miquella's magic still pulsed in his injuries like a thread of gold, keeping him alive and trying to heal him even after such atrocious damage.
The situation turned critical for the mountain's occupants. The other dwarves carrying the Troll Runes leapt in unison onto the back of the wounded dragon. When the beast, desperate, opened its jaws to incinerate its attackers, Thiollier saw his chance. With impeccable aim, he threw a grenade loaded with poisonous powder directly into the creature's open throat.
The effect was immediate and devastating. The fire was extinguished in a gush of black smoke as the unbearable sting of Thiollier's poison inflamed the dragon's respiratory tract. The creature began to thrash violently, suffocating, as air became a luxury it could no longer afford.