Smaug was in agony. From birth to this moment, he had never known pain like this.
Half his body was streaked with blood, and now Bella was turning to flee. How could he possibly stand it?
The dragon's eyes blazed red, fire gathering rapidly inside his body before bursting from his throat. He held the breath for nearly ten seconds, a conical wave of flame pouring forward.
Gold coins melted into rivers of molten metal. The blue-grey stone walls were reduced to ash.
Bella had foreseen this. She didn't even look back. The carpet shot ahead before Smaug exhaled, and by the time the dragonfire was tearing through the sea of gold, she was already several hundred meters away.
"I swear I'll kill you! Kill you! Tear your bones apart!"
The dragon thundered after her in a fury. The dwarves' underground kingdom was built on a vast scale, but Bella threaded her path through chamber after chamber: living quarters, halls, forges. The narrow spaces crippled Smaug's speed. His hundred-meter body was nowhere near as agile as her flying carpet. Though he was faster in open ground, no matter how hard he chased, the gap between them refused to close.
"I'm going to kill—" He never finished. A Black Arrow flashed across the air and buried itself in his wing, the spinning arrowhead punching clean through the membrane and tearing away several nearby scales along with a strip of skin more than two meters (6.5 feet) long.
That shot was the signal.
The whistle of metal slicing through air rose into a constant hiss. The elves worked their Wind Lances, sending Black Arrow after Black Arrow into Smaug.
Without an archer of Bard's precision, and a touch of luck from his ancestors, a single Black Arrow couldn't have killed Smaug. His hundred-meter frame wasn't for show. He was no parchment dragon. Beneath the scales lay dragon-hide, itself a byword for toughness, and beneath the hide, muscle and bone. He wasn't easy to bring down.
The elves worked the Wind Lances, sending volley after volley of Black Arrows into the dragon.
Reload. Loose. Reload.
They had shot arrows their entire lives. They barely needed to aim. Under the command of Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of the Woodland Realm, the elves' marksmanship was beyond reproach. Black Arrows came in from every direction, all of them aimed at the unscaled patches of Smaug's hide.
The shooting positions had been chosen with care, every one of them relatively safe. A quick sidestep or a roll behind dwarven architecture was usually enough to avoid the dragon's retaliation.
An arrow from the east, another from the west: Smaug felt as though elves were ambushing him from every side. He wanted to chase down these vermin, but they were like rats. For all his strength, he couldn't land a blow on enemies who never stopped moving.
"Ahhh!! Elves! Filthy elves! I'll wipe you all out! I'll burn your cursed forest to the ground!"
More than a hundred Black Arrows now pierced his body. Some shook loose as he rolled and crashed against the walls; others sank deeper as he thrashed.
Smaug had no room to maneuver in the underground kingdom. The premonition of death kept rising in his mind. He was like a fly in a spider's web. The harder he struggled, the more impossible it became to break free. His roars were thick with pain.
The Black Arrows had wounded him beyond reckoning. His body was riddled with punctures. Dragon's blood spattered everywhere as if it were worthless. He attacked like a creature possessed, his tail and wings hammering at everything around him. Even the nimble elves began to take casualties.
"I'll have my revenge! I'll have my revenge!" Smaug was pincushioned, bristling like a hedgehog. When he finally understood that this entire place was a trap built solely for him, he gave up on the elves. Ignoring the arrows still striking home, he charged for the exit and rammed straight through the sealed Front Gate of the Lonely Mountain.
"Loose!" Bella, who had been waiting for exactly this, shouted the order.
The adamantium chains the Balrog had once snapped were now reforged. The dwarves had melted them down and made them longer, thicker than before.
Five chains shot in from five directions, punching deep into the dragon's body, pinning the monster to the ground.
The dwarves wheeled the dwarf siege weapons into position, opening fire on Smaug's head and torso. The elves leapt out in unison, raising their own bows and pouring arrows into the dragon.
Arrows came down like a swarm of locusts. Both of Smaug's eyes were shot out, one by Legolas, the other by Bard. His maw was reduced to a torn ruin by the dwarf siege weapons, broken fangs scattered across the ground. He snapped three of the chains in succession, but as his wounds piled up, his strength and stamina drained away fast.
"Cowards… all of you, cowards… this isn't right… I refuse to accept this…" His voice had gone faint. The arrogance and rage were gone.
Refused to accept it? So what? Bella glanced down at Sting in her hand, then raised it experimentally toward Smaug's neck. No good. The blade was too short and the dragon's neck was far too thick. With this sword she couldn't take his head.
She clapped her hands. Pyramid Head strode out from the woods.
The Pyramid Head of today had taken on something of a hero-of-justice look, his bearing now carrying a touch of Buddhist Tantric solemnity, almost stately. He took up position beside Smaug, gnarled, knotted arms raising the great blade overhead. The dragon seemed to see his fate coming. The pits where his eyes had been turned in Bella's direction, almost pleading.
"Kill him!" Bella hesitated for a moment, but only two seconds passed before she gave the order. She couldn't control Smaug. Sparing him now would only mean retaliation days later.
Pyramid Head brought both arms down. The great blade slowed perceptibly under the resistance, but a single stroke severed Smaug's neck.
The head, the size of a small house, rolled more than thirty meters (a hundred feet) away.
The dragon's life force was extraordinary. Even after his head was gone, his body twitched on instinct. Bella turned to General Sögrin of the dwarves.
"Where's the machinery I asked you to prepare?"
The dwarves were beside themselves with excitement.
They had slain a dragon! They hadn't done it alone, but as participants, every dwarf was thoroughly elated. This was something to boast about for the rest of their lives, and their descendants would still be telling the tale.
These were Durin's dwarves, driven from their home by Smaug himself. Watching their ancient enemy's head come off, every last one of them was happier than Bella herself.
The dwarves swarmed in, driving piles, raising scaffolding. In short order they had erected a pillar more than a hundred meters tall. Pulleys, chains, and other gear went up quickly. Before long, Smaug's still-dripping head was hoisted up and displayed on the ground before the Front Gate of the Lonely Mountain.
Smaug was dead. And he had died miserably.
Eighty percent of his abilities never came into play before he went down.
In an aerial battle, in present-day Vanaheim, the dragon would have been unmatched. But he had insisted on hiding himself away in an underground city, and Bella had set the battlefield in advance. Every response, every attack of his had been anticipated. He'd had neither favorable timing, nor terrain, nor allies, and in the end, Bella had picked him apart with elegance.
The dragon's head hung above the gate. This was not the end. It was the beginning: the beginning of Arendelle.