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Where Have All the Dragons Gone? - Page 12

© Michael Martinez

departed, their pool of strength would have been diminished. Their collective strength had been sustained and nourished by long centuries of hoarding gold and stealing it from the Dwarves. The Dwarves had been fleeing the mountains for generations anyway. What is the point in staying around a land where you're likely to be killed by a dragon? So if we assume that Sauron was behind the rise of the dragons, then he must have been pleased at first by Smaug's conquest of Dale and Erebor. And yet the consequence of Smaug's death would have been the loss of a great part of the dragon-power of the north. It's said that when Augustus Caesar learned that Quintillius Varus had been defeated by the Germans in the Teutoberg Wald, and that three Roman legions had been massacred, Augustus rampaged through his palace and cried out, "Varus! Give me back my legions!" Sauron might have felt a similar rage and despair when he learned about the death of Smaug. He need not necessarily have infused the dragons with any of his own strength (which, in his Ringless state, was precious and spare). But he may have expended a great amount of resources in nourishing them. Such a setback might have radically altered Sauron's plans. His hope of sending armies rampaging across the northern world would be diminished. The victory over Smaug thus heralds something more than a chance to restore the Longbeard Dwarves to their former glory. It signals the last time the dragons would be in alliance with an incarnate power greater than themselves. Sauron was overcome less than 100 years later, and though dragons survived without him they were utterly on their own. They would have to begin the long slow process of rebuilding their strength without help. But they would never again produce a Smaug or Scatha, or any worm capable of destroying an entire kingdom. At best they might terrorize the countryside or frighten off small tribes. And they would be without real purpose. Though something of Morgoth's will survived in them, there would be no outside direction from powers like Sauron and no harmony or real sense of community among them. The days of the dragons would thus be numbered, as eventually it would become possible for men to hunt them down and seize their hoards. And being hoardless they would eventually fall asleep never to awaken, and the last of Morgoth's enchanted creatures would recede into distant memory, folklore, and legend.

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