The Enemy of My Enemy
Chapter One: Old Alliances
It was a rare warm sunny morning during the short summer on the island of Berk when chief Stoick awoke to a clattering sound coming from the roof of his home.
"That dragon," the chief muttered as he sat up in bed before stretching and yawning loudly.
It was the morning routine in the Haddock household. Nearly every morning for over a year now, Toothless the Night Fury would be the first one awake. The pitch-black dragon would climb onto the roof thru Hiccup's bedroom window and watch the sunrise. Then, in his excited anticipation, he would jump up and down, shaking the house until Hiccup awoke to take Toothless on their morning flight. Stoick would rise very soon thereafter, then meet Gobber in the Great Hall for breakfast before making his rounds on his trusty blue and gray Thunderdrum named Thornado.
It was only a few moments after sitting up in bed that Stoick heard the clumping of boots, well, a boot anyway, and the clicking of metal against wood.
"Morning, dad," Hiccup called from the bottom of the stairs.
"Good morning, Son," Stoick called back. "Off to the academy?"
"I have to stop by Gobber's first. The strap broke on Toothless' saddle last night and I have to make a new one. See ya, Dad."
"Hiccup, wait."
Stoick was sitting on the edge of the bed when Hiccup entered the room.
"Yeah, Dad?"
"I'll be needing your help this afternoon. I set sale for Ironfort first thing in the morning tomorrow."
"I know. Every three years you have to go to Ironfort and sign a treaty with the Adiarf'R tribe." Hiccup sighed. "I hope it doesn't go anything like the last treaty signing with the Berserkers." He shuddered at the memory of the young Berserker Chief, Dagur the Deranged, coming within seconds of killing Ruffnut and Tuffnut's Zippleback Barf-and-Belch.
Stoick laughed. "Don't worry, Hiccup. I can't believe I forgot to tell you this, but Trader Johan brought a note from Chief Ingialdr the Eccentric of Ironfort on his last visit. It said that they had heard of our dragon training and were actually quite curious about it. I'll even be bringing Thornado with me."
Hiccup smiled slightly. "Well, that's good news."
"You may very well have started a world-wide revolution, Hiccup. Now run along and get that saddle fixed. I'll need you both later."
Just then they both felt a slight shaking and heard the shrill, raspy call of a very impatient dragon.
"Sounds like Toothless is getting stir-crazy. Gotta go, dad."
Stoick only nodded and watched his son dash out of the room. He heard the front door slam and, within a second, the scratching of claws on the roof and a quiet thump on the ground just outside. A satisfied hum came from the dragon and Hiccup hurriedly spoke in words that Stoick could not quite make out. Then came a patter of four feet that quickly faded.
Apparently the boy and the dragon were not flying, and the chief wondered with a wisp of a thought why. Then he remembered. The strap. It was unsafe to fly with a lose saddle, and no saddle meant no tale rigging, and no tale rigging meant that Toothless was flightless, only able to glide very short distances.
Every so often, such as in that moment, Stoick let his memory drift to the reason why the Night Fury was crippled for life. Hiccup's old words echoed thru his mind.
Okay, but I shot a Night Fury.
Hiccup really had shot a Night Fury, and in doing so had destroyed its left tailfin. Stoick involuntarily chuckled at the strange irony of it all. At first they had literally tried to kill each other. Now they were connected, inseparable, and each completely reliant on the other. Such was not only the case with Hiccup and Toothless, but with Berk and the dragons as a whole. Had it not been for Hiccup's pureness of heart, Berk would still be caught in a continuous, never-ending cycle of death and destruction; a perpetual war of man verses dragon.
Stoick's heart swelled with pride at the thought. He truly was proud beyond words to call that "talking fishbone" of a boy his one and only son and heir.
The chief yawned one last time and rubbed his bearded face. He stood from his bed and when he did, he suddenly felt a strange sensation deep in his chest. It was not quite a pain, just a fluttering feeling. It traveled down to his stomach making it churn like he had eaten a bad bowl of chowder. After a moment or so and a few steady breaths is subsided, and Stoick went about his way without a second thought. He prepared himself for the day, donning first his chainmail, then his boots, belt, cape, and last but certainly not least his helmet. It was this helmet that carried the legacy of Vallhalarama, his beautiful and loving wife who had passed away from illness just weeks before Hiccup's fourth birthday.
He opened the front door to leave his home for the day and proudly took in the sight before him. Vikings and dragons alike were traveling across town, socializing, and peacefully going about their daily lives.
And there it was again, that lightness in his chest and twisting in his gut. Once again he brushed it off. He was a Viking, and a Viking chief at that. Stoick the Vast was not about to let a little wooziness keep him from doing his duty to his tribe.
WIANWIANWIANWIAN
"How high do you think we can go, Bud?" Hiccup shouted over the whistling wind to Toothless, who flapped his strong black wings sending a whoosh of air and cloud around them. An inquisitive purr rumbled in the dragon's chest, telling Hiccup that he was not certain just how high, but that he was more than willing to find out.
"Alright, Bud. Let's Go!" Hiccup clicked his customized prosthetic in the stirrup to adjust Toothless' tailfin, and the pair darted straight upwards with a sudden burst of speed that almost made Hiccup lose his breath. Almost. He was used to the rush after over a year of riding Toothless many times a day. Yet at the same time he was never used to it. He no longer felt the dizziness or the motion sickness that most often accompanied their flights in the early days. That was one good thing. Another good, no, great thing was that Toothless never ceased to amaze him. The physical and emotional pleasure-high he always experienced while flying on the back of his dragon never lost its luster, nor did the pure closeness that he felt with his best friend; the first true friend he had ever had.
He was glad he had repaired the saddle stronger than it had been before, because this was exactly how it has snapped the previous night. They were higher now than they had ever been before. Even the battle against the Red Death had not taken them up this high.
"Whoa, Bud," Hiccup said, patting head and slowing them down. "Let's call this high enough."
Toothless stopped their accent and glided thru the semi-dark cloudy thickness. It was icy cold and brutally windy. Hiccup had to wrap his slender arms around Toothless' neck to keep from being blown away by the sheer force of the straightwinds at their altitude.
"Okay Bud, let's get down from here."
Toothless nodded in agreement as best he could with his rider's arms restricting his head movements.
Hiccup looked down thru the clouds at the expanse of sea beneath them. It was fascinating. He could see for miles and miles. Not just Berk, but Outcast Island, Dragon Island, even Ironfort, the outermost Island of the archipelago, were all visible to him. Just off the shore of Ironfort, Hiccup could just barely make out the tiny forms of ships in what appeared to be a fishing formation. He very carefully unwrapped one arm from Toothless and reached into his satchel to retrieve his spyglass. Now that he had a better view, he could see another group of ships approaching the small fishing fleet. These ships, however, were not peaceful vestals. Their straight-line lead by a flagship was unmistakably an attack formation. Toothless must have seen what Hiccup saw with a much keener vision. The way he flattened his earflaps against his head and bared his teeth told Hiccup that Toothless did not like the sight of this any more than he did.
"Toothless, ease down a bid, Bud. I want to see this."
Slowly the dragon descended, but the wind and the cold did not ease.
"Those are Berserker ships," Hiccup observed aloud. Toothless growled maliciously in understanding. Neither of them had forgotten Dagur's attempt to kill Toothless when they had met by chance on Dragon Island. It was that meeting that had exposed Berk's lie that they were still a dragon-killing culture and proved that they were, in fact, training dragons.
Hiccup tensed. Toothless felt it and questioned him with a curious hum.
"I don't like the looks of this."
As the two continued to watch, a terribly sight unfolded miles and miles beneath them. They watched in horror as the Berserker ships suddenly and relentlessly opened fire on the Adiarf'R fishing fleet. Hiccup wondered why they did not fight back until it occurred to him that fishing boats would be unarmed. Helplessly they watched as their allied men sat just as helplessly and defenselessly as they were bombarded by flaming catapults, booming cannons, as souring arrows. The fishing fleet, unable to defend itself against the merciless onslaught of war machinery, was doomed. Ship by ship the entire fleet burned and sunk in a matter of minutes. They had not even had a chance to escape. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the Berserker warships sailed away.
A strange, unwelcome feeling that Hiccup barely recognized as not just anger, but pure rage and hatred flared up inside of him. He knew without a doubt that every. Single. Fisherman aboard those ships had just been killed; slaughtered without cause or provocation. Those people were his allies and had been so for a century.
A century ago the Hooligans, the Berserkers, and the Adiarf'Rs had all been enemies of one another. Then, by circumstances long lost in history, the Hooligans of Berk and the Adiarf'Rs of Ironfort formed a peace pact to protect each other from the Berserker army. Together, they kept their mutual enemy at bay for fifty years. Then came the first treaty between the Hooligans and the Berserkers. As a condition if this treaty, neither tribe could make any act of war against Ironfort and the Adiarf'R tribe.
This, Hiccup knew in his very soul, was a turning point in history. Even after the mash-up on Dragon Island, the Hooligan's treaty with the Berserkers still stood as far as Stoick was concerned. But now things had changed. Now Dagur the Deranged had broken a treaty of a half-century.
This would undoubtedly mean war.