The sudden arrival of Sylas's Dragons threw Saruman and his allies into disarray.
With deafening roars, the great beasts unleashed torrents of flame upon the black-scaled dragons bred in Mordor's pits under Saruman's command.
These spawn of Orthanc, cobbled together from dark craft and the sorceries of Mordor, were pale imitations of true Dragons. They breathed no fire, nor carried the icy dread of their Frost progenitor. They relied only on brute strength, fang and claw. Yet even that was no match for the fire-dragons Sylas had raised.
The skies above Isengard became a storm of wings and flame. Dragons tore at Dragons, their titanic bodies colliding like thunderclouds. True fire lit the heavens as Sylas's brood seized Saruman's creatures by the neck, raked them with talons, and burned them with molten breath. Dragon-blood rained down upon the ring of Isengard's wall, steaming where it fell.
Saruman's beasts shrieked in pain. One after another, they plummeted to the earth, broken and lifeless.
But the battle was far from one-sided.
The eight fell-dragons that bore the Ringwraiths were not ordinary creatures. Twisted offspring of Dragon and Fellbeast, they possessed no breath of flame nor frost, but they wielded a dread weapon of their own: a scream so piercing it shook the mind. Their unearthly shrieks split the air, dizzying Sylas's Dragons. Great fire-dragons faltered mid-flight, their wings beating unevenly as if the sky itself betrayed them.
Saruman's lesser dragons seized the chance. They lunged upon the staggered fire-dragons, jaws clamping around their throats. And then the Nazgûl themselves, cloaked in shadows, leapt with unnatural swiftness from saddle to prey. Their morgul-blades, blackened with poison and despair, struck deep into scaled hides.
One Dragon shrieked, its cry tearing through heaven and earth, before falling silent. Its body crumpled, plummeting like a star extinguished.
The battlefield grew heavy with death. Dozens of corpses—Dragon and fell-drake alike—thudded into the earth, shaking stone and soil.
From the tower, Sylas and Saruman alike winced at the carnage. Saruman's lips twisted with anguish; his precious brood, cultivated with years of labor, was being slaughtered before his eyes. Worse yet, Sylas's Dragons—true flame-breathers—proved mightier than his cold-blooded creations.
At the summit of Orthanc, Sylas felt the oppressive weight of the Ringwraiths' cries pressing against his own mind. The dome still shielded him, but the sound carried through like a plague, leaving his head spinning. He clenched his jaw, then seized the Horn of Victory once more.
The clarion note rang out across the battlefield, fierce and bright.
Immediately, his fire-drakes rallied. Their wings beat with renewed vigor, their roars rolling like thunder, drowning the wails of the Nazgûl. The shrieking sorcery faltered, and the black dragons of Saruman reeled, their strength broken. Flame consumed them anew, and the tide turned once again.
Outside the dome, Saruman snarled. The noise of the horn gnawed at him, rattling his thoughts, filling him with hatred.
"Enough!" he spat.
Beneath him, the Frost Dragon drew in a breath so deep the air itself froze. A torrent of killing frost poured forth, washing over the dome. The translucent wards of Sylas froze into solid ice, gleaming like crystal in the pale light.
Saruman raised his staff, its head sparking with storm. Lightning struck the dome again and again, cracks spidering across its surface like shattered glass. The combined assault threatened to break it at last.
Sylas's heart clenched. His wards, woven with so much care, were failing.
His hands moved quickly. From his side he drew the golden bow gifted by Morinehtar, one of the Blue Wizards. A silver arrow gleamed between his fingers, and he drew the string back until the bow hummed.
The release was like thunder.
The arrow flew swifter than sound, a streak of silver light tearing across the sky, aimed unerringly at Saruman's skull.
For a heartbeat, it seemed certain. But Saruman, eyes aflame with cunning foresight, moved with inhuman precision. One hand still gripped his staff, summoning storm, while the other rose sharply.
With a snap like iron striking iron, he caught the silver arrow mid-flight.
"Morinehtar gave you this bow? Then he neglected to tell you… I once wielded it myself."
But Sylas did not falter. Instead, a sly, knowing smile curved across his lips.
"Explode."
The runes carved upon the silver arrowhead flared with sudden light. A heartbeat later, the shaft erupted in a roaring blast.
The force hurled Saruman from the Frost Dragon's back, his robes torn to tatters, his face scorched and bleeding. The icy torrent of Hrívemir's breath faltered mid-gust, and the monstrous wyrm staggered, wings buckling under the shock.
Freed from the crushing cold, the warding dome shimmered and began to mend itself, its fractures sealing with renewed radiance.
Saruman, coughing, was snatched out of the air by another dark drake before he struck the ground. He clung to its neck, a ruin of dignity, his once-proud robes little more than scorched rags.
Rage boiled in him hotter than any flame.
"Tear apart his brood, then smash that cursed shell to dust!"
The Frost Dragon bellowed. With a sweep of wings it turned upon Sylas's Dragons. Frost-fire blazed from its jaws, an unrelenting storm of winter.
One fire-drake dared to answer with its own torrent of flame. It was crushed in an instant. The blaze died in the frost, and the beast was frozen solid, its wings stiff as glass before it plummeted to the earth, shattering into ice-splintered ruin.
The others scattered, but even their flight seemed feeble beneath the weight of the cold.
Despair began to take root, until a roar rolled from the western skies.
All eyes turned as a golden shape rose from the horizon, wings blazing in the light of the sun. Smaug the Golden soared, his vast body glittering like molten metal. Clutched in his talons writhed a colossal green serpent, the Basilisk Herpo, coiled in readiness. And above them, riding the wind with effortless grace, came Thorondor, mightiest of the Eagles.
Saruman's laughter rang out, mocking and cruel.
"So the usurper crawls forth at last. Smaug, a hatchling of the Third Age, an insect compared to the Dragons of old. Do you think him a match for Hrívemir, who endured the wrath of the Valar themselves?"
He thrust his staff toward the west. "Hrívemir, kill him!"
The Frost Dragon wheeled, its vast wings splitting the sky, and met Smaug head-on.
Neither flinched. The air screamed as fire and frost collided. Smaug loosed his furnace-blast, flames hot enough to melt steel and stone alike. But Hrívemir's ancient breath poured forth, a storm of deathly cold that froze the very air.
Ice and fire clashed in the heavens, boiling clouds into steam, shaking the world with thunder. Slowly, inexorably, Hrívemir's frost forced Smaug's blaze back, closer and closer to the golden Dragon's heaving chest.
Saruman's eyes glimmered with victory. "Yes… freeze him."
But upon Smaug's shoulders, the Basilisk stirred. The serpent slithered up the Dragon's neck, coiling about his horns as if in a throne of scales. Smaug did not resist. Instead, the great wyrm tilted his head, offering the serpent its place.
Herpo opened his eyes.
The Frost Dragon instantly seemed to suffer a heavy blow, letting out a tragic shriek before crashing down, smashing a hill outside Isengard and collapsing it into rubble.
"My Dragon!" Saruman stared at the scene in disbelief.
Smaug, sensing the moment, struck while the iron was hot. He dove at the fallen Cold-drake, spewing a torrent of scorching dragonfire, intent on burning the Frost Dragon to death.
But in the next heartbeat, the iron crown on the Frost Dragon's head erupted with a powerful dark aura.
At the same time, a shadowy figure flickered within its pupils, dark strands like spider silk wove across its eyes, covering them in black mist and filling them with a baleful, unnatural glow.
Smaug felt the danger and banked sharply away, retreating.
The Frost Dragon, Hrívemir, rose from the ruins of the hill, its aura now heavier, colder, and more sinister. Black vapour streamed from its nostrils, and its eyes gleamed with malevolent light.
"A dragon and a serpent with a killing gaze… you've managed to wound me, truly unexpected!" Hrívemir's voice rolled across the sky like an avalanche.
Herpo the Basilisk hissed and stared again, but the black mist veiling Hrívemir's eyes blocked the deadly magic. The drake's voice dripped with dark amusement. "Give up this futile struggle. My master's army has room for such as you."
"Sauron!" Smaug snarled, instantly recognising who was speaking through the drake.
"Clever dragon," Hrívemir rumbled, his eyes flashing with a predatory gleam. "Smaug, I know you are bound by an oath to your current master. Submit to me instead. I can break that spell and restore your freedom. In Mordor, I will give you treasures beyond counting. What say you?"
Smaug snorted, flame curling from his nostrils. "If it's all about submission, why betray my master only to serve you?"
"It is not the same," Hrívemir said smoothly. "If you serve me, you will not be shackled like a pet or a mount. You will be my warrior, my lieutenant, as mighty Ancalagon once was. Not like now, bound and humiliated."
Smaug's great eyes flickered with the faintest trace of doubt. "You truly can undo the oath? Or is this another deception?"
Hrívemir's cold voice oozed confidence. "It is a small thing. The oath binds your soul; I have studied the shaping of souls. I can shift the binding to a fragment of yours and sever it. The chains will fall away. You would be free."
.....
Stones Plzz
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