"How many does this make?"

"Eight this year, Thorin-King."

The dwarf king kicked what remained of the wicked dwarf who had attempted to assassinate Smaug. When it became apparent that no army was great enough to conquer the Mountain while dwarves and dragon were allied, Sauron had turned to stealth. Thorin went nowhere without a guard of dwarves, but Smaug regularly wandered by himself in his half-human half-dragon form, with nothing but his claws, teeth, and fire to defend him.

Though many – indeed, most – dwarves refused to bow to Sauron, there were still some who would ally with him, for one reason or another. He sent them singly and in groups to try and kill the dragon while he roamed the halls of Erebor, but so far none had succeeded in even substantially injuring him.

Thorin let out a very dragonlike growl. "This has to stop."

"You know it won't," Smaug replied, "not until I'm dead. Sauron fears me as his enemy for the same reasons you did. You are King Under the Mountain, leader of the Seven Armies, but I am still the greater threat."

"What am I supposed to do, then? Throw you from the Mountain? Send you to wander the wilds? We both know you will not go, and you are too great and ally for me to ever willingly turn you out."

Smaug smiled a little at that. "I appreciate that you can actually say the words now." He glanced around, then stepped closer to the dwarf and lowered his voice. "In truth, I have been thinking of leaving for a while now."

"Why?!" the dwarf king hissed.

"Bilbo," the dragon answered, "In this world, he does not have the One Ring to sustain him. He's getting old, Thorin. The journey to Erebor and back gets harder for him every year, even when I take him by air the whole way." He shook his head. "If we keep this up, he's not going to last."

"You want to stay in the Shire," the dwarf realized, "and take care of him."

"Of course I do. He has allowed me to add him to my hoard, and he is the smallest but greatest of all my treasures. I would see him live, and pass into the West, where he might live forever, free and unburdened."

"Then how are we to conceal your disappearance? You can't simply vanish with no explanation. The Enemy would find it too convenient, too suspicious."

But Smaug simply smirked. "I have told you many things about me, Thorin-King, but I have not told you everything. I can appear completely human now, when I wish. I will simply leave here as a dragon, and come back as an Elf and take Bilbo home."

"That solves the problem of you hiding for good, but what about as a dragon? How does 'Smaug' disappear?"

"That's the easy part." His smirk widened. "I'm going to die."

"Any sign of him?" Thorin demanded, nearly thundering down the steps to the main hall.

"We went as far as the northern edge of Mirkwood," one of the scouts reported as they all swung down from their goats, "Nothing."

Thorin growled and dragged a hand down his face, then whirled on Gandalf. "What did you tell him?!" he demanded, "You brought news from the North – what did you say?!"

"I told him there were dragons gathering on the Withered Heath," the wizard answered at last, "I don't know whether they were summoned or gathered of their own accord, but the last time they came together in such numbers… was when Sauron ruled these lands."

The dwarf king ran his fingers through his hair, upsetting his crown. "It's been nearly a month! Surely it could not have taken so long to slaughter a few drakes!"

"If indeed he did go there to kill them," one of his less forgiving councilors muttered.

Bilbo may have been older, but he still had life to him. He whirled around and glared with such ferocity that the dwarves quailed before him. "Smaug has been a loyal ally for the past thirty years," the hobbit hissed, "It's thanks to him that this kingdom has been safe from the Enemy's armies, that you still have a king and heirs directly from Durin's line!"

"He burned Erebor!"

"If it hadn't been him, there would have been another!" Bilbo shot back, "Another dragon who would have come down from the North and taken the mountain! Another dragon who died that night in Laketown, and left us all to be butchered by Azog and his armies – or worse, lived and joined him!"

"I will go."

They all turned to look at the Elf who had joined them. He was tall and lean, with long, dark, wavy hair and amber eyes that glittered strangely in the torchlight.

"Gostir, you cannot," Bilbo protested, "With Legolas off in the Wilf, you are Thranduil's heir! You cannot go to the Withered Heath!"

"Neither can you," the Elf reminded him gently, "Besides, my opinion of his intelligence notwithstanding, I highly doubt my brother will do something stupid and get himself killed anytime soon, and I will just be scouting the Heath, not doing battle against every drake there."

The hobbit sighed heavily.

"Smaug means much to you, Bilbo Baggins," Gostir said, tilting the smaller male's chin up, "and I owe you a great deal for bringing my brother back to me, rather than my king. Let me do this for you."

He sighed again and nodded. "All right."

"I will go with you," said Gandalf, striding forward with staff in hand, "I got him into this mess. I will get him out, if I can."

"Hello at long last, little brother."

Smaug licked the blood from his jaws and let a low growl rumble in his throat. "Hello, elder brother. Mother never told me your name."

"I am Nithnaed."

The dragon before him was similar to him in so many ways, reddish in color, roughly the same size, with two wings and two legs, more like a wyvern than a "true" dragon. But there, the similarities ended. Nithnaed's armor was scarred with battle, and the last four feet of his tail had been bitten off. And he was thin, too thin to be completely healthy, brought on by the poor hunting in the North.

Same as the other dragons Smaug had already killed.

Nithnaed's eyes narrowed sharply. "I heard that you gave up the hoard in your Mountain," he hissed, "'Too much like Uncle Gostir,' I thought, but even he would never have sunk so low as to allow anyone to ride him like a common beast of burden!"

"I have given up much of my gold, it is true," Smaug growled, shifting to better shield the Wizard who was strapped into his harness, "but with every day that passes, the dwarves bring me more. And I have gained a treasure more valuable than all the gold in Arda."

"Impossible!" the other dragon snarled, "There is no such thing!"

"Maybe not to you," Smaug replied, and lunged. Nithnaed met him with teeth bared and claws flashing. Smaug used his momentum to whip around and add force to his tail swing, enough to knock his brother off his feet and throw him into one of the sheer cliff faces partially surrounding the Withered Heath. Then he leaped at the other dragon, but Nithnaed jumped into the air.

Smaug followed, and they dueled in the sky with fang and claw, for dragonfire was no use against another dragon. They seemed equally matched, Nithnaed making up for his weaker body with greater experience fighting other dragons. He went for Smaug's wings right away, trying to ground the other dragon so he could get on top of him and bite and break his neck, but in his preoccupation with his brother, he forgot about the Wizard.

Gandalf blasted him away before he could slice the membranes of Smaug's wings, sending him spinning out of control through the air. He righted himself quickly and breathed a short stream of smoky fire, trying to cloud the battlefield, but the Wizard put an end to that, too, chanting a quick spell to increase the strength of the draft coming off Smaug's wingbeats. Nithnaed barreled out of the thinning smoke, aiming for the Wizard this time, but Smaug rolled with his attack, tangling their legs and tails together and sending them tumbling toward the ground.

Nithnaed shrieked in fright and tried to writhe free, but that just gave Smaug greater control. The younger dragon beat his wings just before they hit the ground to lessen the impact on the Wizard. The elder dragon hit with Smaug on top of him, and lay stunned for just long enough for Smaug to find the back of his neck and bite down. Even their armor was no match for the crushing power of another dragon.

Smaug waited for the last of Nithnaed's death throes to die down before he released his grip. Then he stood over his brother's corpse for several long minutes, panting.

"It's over, then," Gandalf said at last, "You are the last of all the dragons."

"So it would seem," he rumbled, "Now to cover our tracks."

With Gandalf's help, Smaug managed to wrestle his brother's body into his harness and then onto his back with his head flopping over one shoulder. He bit through his throat just enough to cause a long, slow bleed and began crawling from the Withered Heath and into the Grey Mountains. Eventually, they reached the place they had scouted out before any battles had begun: a skylight, a dark hole in the roof of an underground cavern. Smaug threw Nithnaed's body down into it, and the corpse vanished into the dark, eventually hitting the distant ground with a heavy thud.

"That should be adequate, don't you think?"

Smaug's crawling and struggling had left long, clear drag marks in the soil, and the blood that spilled from Nithnaed's throat left pools and smears behing, marks of severe injury. If anyone else came looking, they would find unmistakable "evidence" of Smaug's "demise."

The hall fell silent when they returned, and came to stand before the king. They were obviously without Smaug, and so there was only one conclusion anyone could reach.

Thorin was an admirable actor. He swallowed thickly, then clenched his teeth and steeled himself. "What did you see?"

"There was a great battle on the Heath," Gandalf answered quietly, "Dozens of dragons slain – possibly all of those left in our part of the world. But victory… came at a price."

Gostir began unwrapping the bundle he carried. "He won all his battles with the other dragons, but was gravely injured. We followed his trail as far as we could… and found this."

It was a ring, a large steel ring, slightly warped, with a bloodstained leather strip sown onto it, ragged at one end where it had been ripped free of Smaug's harness.

There were gasps all around, murmurs through the crowd. "It is as I feared, then," said Thorin, "He is dead."

Bilbo sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

"How long do you think it will take us to get back to the Shire? Now that we're going completely by land, I mean."

"At least four months, maybe longer. But we'll be waiting until next spring to set out."

"S-Gostir, it's barely June! We have plenty of time!"

"That's not it, Bilbo. This is the Year 2977 of the Third Age." He cupped the hobbit's face in his hands. "This is the year Bard dies."

Bilbo remembered enough of the medicine of the Old World to give everyone regular check-ups, and the Man was hale and hearty – until he wasn't. This sickness came on so suddenly that at first they all thought he had been poisoned. Thranduil sent his best healers from Mirkwood, then came himself when it became apparent that it was simply Bard's time.

They all gathered in his chambers with his children and grandchildren, and waited. They had all been together so long that there was nothing left for them to say.

Bard breathed his last in the early hours of the morning on September 3, TA 2977. Bilbo and Gostir stayed long enough to see Bain crowned King of Dale, then departed for the Shire.

A/N: Nithnaed comes from Old English, "niþ", nith, meaning hatred, and "nædre" meaning snake or serpent. Thus, "hated serpent," a fitting name for a dragon. (I don't know if this is the proper pronunciation - may Tolkien forgive me if it's not - but I say it as "Nihth-nay-ed." Also, I'm interviewing for a new job, so expect updates to come slower, but I'll try to make up for that by cutting the LotR series down into smaller chapters rather than doing it movie by movie.