He was fire and ash and smoke and ruin.

He was death and destruction, a shadow of winged darkness swooping upon his prey.

He was Smaug, last of the fire-drakes, master of fire and darkness and death, and he bowed to no one and nothing.

He flapped his great wings, swooping for the human city upon the hilltop, the mountain slopes around him already burning. Faster and faster he flew, black fire searing through every existing thought and feeling until all that remained was his rage and his prey.

The paper mockery of a dragon that the humans had made flapped in the wind from his wings.

He incinerated it in one blast.

The humans began screaming. There were few sounds he enjoyed more than the crackling of flames or the clink of gold, but men's screams were one of them.

If he'd had a human mouth, he would have smiled.

He'd slaughter them all.

He swooped for one of the feeble stone towers, his wings tilting him as he flew. A pathetic human bowman shot an arrow from the tower.

Smaug sent a fireball crashing into it even as his claws shredded it to nothing.

His tail snaked behind him like a cloak as the screams from the town grew.

Shards of stone and flame rained upon the city.

These people were nothing more than a game to Smaug. A starter, before he swooped on to the main course. They were in the way of his path to Erebor, and therefore needed to be eliminated.

But he might as well have some fun doing it.

He passed over the town like a great black cloud, then banked and turned, sweeping for the stone city.

Men blew the city's trumpets, rallying the soldiers to fight. To kill him.

He'd like to see them try.

He tilted, sending a fireball into a domed temple, not needing to watch it burst asunder like nothing more than a child's toy.

Brittle and pathetic and nothing compared to his glorious, unstoppable flame.

Bowmen rallied, but their arrows stung no more than flies, only whetting his temper. He roared as he incinerated them.

His fire danced like rubies plunked into the darkness of his smoke. People's dying screams rang in his ears.

Why had he not taken more time over destroying that village in the Grey Mountains?

It would have been so much more entertaining.

Burning wood crashed onto the fleeing people, searing them to the bone.

None would be left alive by the time he'd finished with them.

He crashed into another stone building, shredding it to dust. And hissed in pain, genuine pain, as an arrow slammed into him. This one was sharper and longer and deadlier than the others. Sharp enough to have dislodged a scale under his left wing. He snarled. They'd pay. He didn't care which one of them had shot the arrow. They'd all pay.

But for now, he forced himself to ignore it as he sent another torrent of scorching flame into the town and swooped up, up, above the burning, screaming city, his fire like a beacon on the hilltop.

A message to those inside the mountain.

He was Smaug, lord of ash and flame.

And that gold was his.

So he began the second stage of his destruction.