Beneath the full moon, atop the peak of Erebor.
Do not be fooled by Gollum's gaunt frame or his fractured mind; when it comes to killing, he is as ruthless as any beast.
Moving on all fours like a flickering shadow, Gollum closed the distance to the first Orc scout in a heartbeat. He snatched up a heavy, jagged stone and brought it down with a sickening crunch. The Orc's skull shattered instantly. Before the second scout could even draw his breath to scream, Gollum lunged again, repeating the brutal performance.
"The Precious is MINE!" Gollum hissed at the corpses. He shoved the bodies off the ledge, watching them tumble down the steep western slope.
Normally, if he were still in the lightless tunnels of the Goblin Kingdom, he would have kept the carcasses for a feast. But lately, his palate had been spoiled. A quick trip to Dale provided all the fresh bread and roasted meats he could want. His stomach was now too "fancy" for the foul, bitter stench of Orc flesh.
Roll... bounce... thud.
The bodies tumbled. One was caught by a jagged outcropping halfway down, but the other rolled all the way to the base, landing just yards away from Azog the Defiler.
Azog's fist clenched. His face contorted into a snarl as he looked up at the moonlit peak. He could see a silhouette standing there—small, hunched, and definitely not draconic.
"Cursed Dwarves!" Azog growled, assuming only a Dwarf or a Goblin would be so small. "Why are there Dwarves on the heights?!"
He waved a hand at the Orcs on his left. "Go! All of you! Kill that thing!"
The Orcs climbed reluctantly. They were halfway up when Gollum began his "artillery" phase. He didn't just throw pebbles; he used his spindly strength to lever loose boulders and send them screaming down the slope.
"Agh!"
"That's no Dwarf!"
"Watch out—!"
Within minutes, the second squad was wiped out.
However, their deaths confirmed one thing for Azog: the creature on the peak was something else entirely. His rage cooled into a sharp, predatory focus. He decided to handle this personally. He spurred his Pale Warg up the rocky incline. The beast was far more agile than a standard mount, and Azog's iron grip kept it steady on the treacherous path.
Gollum saw the Pale Orc approaching and realized his stones wouldn't stop the Defiler.
"Precious! It's the white one! We cannot kill him alone! What do we do?"
"Run! Get the others!"
"Yes! Let the Elveses and the Filth-kin fight him!"
Gollum scrambled down the inner shafts, reaching the deep pit where the Great Goblin was currently lounging. "Goblin King! The Defiler is on the heights! Go kill him!"
The Great Goblin nearly choked on his grog. Kill Azog? Is the creature mad? He signaled his lieutenant to lie. "The King is... uh... very ill! He cannot move! Tell the Elves to do it!"
Gollum cursed them fluently. "Stupid Goblinses! I will tell Smaug! I will tell the Master you are cowards!"
Terrified of the dragon's fire, the Great Goblin panicked. "Fine! Send five hundred scouts! Just go! If Smaug asks, we were in the vanguard!"
The chaos spiraled. Gollum raced to the Elven camp near the new forest. "Nasty Orcs! The Defiler is here!"
The Elves were instantly alert. "Azog? Here?" They immediately dispatched messengers to Thranduil. The peace of the Mountain was shattered.
But it was Beorn who acted first.
The skin-changer, currently in his massive Great Bear form, had caught the scent of Orc on the wind. The stench of Azog was a needle in his soul. With a roar that shook the valley, the Great Bear charged toward the peak.
The humans of Dale woke to the sound. Bard rushed to his balcony, saw the movement on the mountain, and immediately rang the alarm bells. "Azog the Defiler is here! Man the walls!"
Azog, reaching the summit, was met not by a sleeping dragon, but by a crescendo of alarms, bells, and a wall-shattering roar from a bear the size of a cottage.
"Smaug! Show yourself!" Azog bellowed, his voice booming like a war drum.
No dragon appeared. Smaug was currently leagues away, mocking Wizards.
Instead, the Great Bear crested the ridge, eyes glowing with a murderous hatred. Azog froze. He had come with only a handful of Orcs and a bribe of gold. He hadn't expected a fortified city, an Elven garrison, and a vengeful skin-changer.
"Cursed worm!" Azog spat, realizing he had been led into a trap—not by Smaug, but by his own assumptions.
Realizing a duel with the Bear was suicide, Azog wheeled his warg and fled down the back of the mountain. Beorn, lost in his berserker rage, thundered after him. They tore across the waste, the Bear gaining ground with every leap.
Azog was forced to abandon the gold chests to lighten his warg's load. He barely escaped into the darkness of the East, Beorn's roars echoing behind him for miles.
As dawn broke, a panting, angry Beorn returned to the mountain.
Gollum, watching from the shadows, saw the abandoned gold at the foot of the slope. His eyes lit up.
"Precious... look at the yellow metals! Nasty Orcs left them!"
"Smaug likes the yellow metals. If we gives them to him, he gives us the Precious!"
"Yes... yes! A trade, precious! A fair trade!"
Gollum began leading a group of confused Goblins down to "salvage" the bribe.
Meanwhile, the Stone Giants—who had watched the whole thing—vibrated with a slow, rocky laughter.
"This place is much noisier than the High Pass," one rumbled in the Stone Tongue.
"It is lively," the Queen replied, absorbing another gemstone. "The Dragon brought us here to be his wall against the Shadow. I see the Shadow is already sniffing at the gate."
"Do we leave, Queen?"
"No," she rumbled. "The Shadow is bad for sleep. And the Dragon's gems are quite tasty. We stay. We fight when the time comes."