It took me so long to get around to writing this. Hey, the last one was really long, so give me a break! Also, I've been away for a week without internet as well, so yeah. Anyway, this is my new story, might possibly be the last you hear from me on the HTTYD side of things, so make the most of it! However, if I can be persuaded, I have an idea for a sequel to The Runaway...
Okay, here goes:
This was fire like nothing else. The kind of fire that you could feel meters away, scorching your clothes and singeing your hair. Fire so bright it dazzled your eyes. Smoke so black it blotted out the sun and the sky above, choking everything around it. Ash floating like tiny insects on the hot wind, embers nipping your bare skin if you were stupid enough to get too close. Funnels of thick fumes reached miles into the sky; great, swaying black beacons.
The trees around the devastation curled into black husks, twisted charcoal fingers grasping at their life force as the flames drew it away. Somewhere in that mass of chaos, there used to stand a town. In fact, if you were to peer close enough, you would find the broken shadows of buildings still burning. The lower levels of the village still stood, the barns, harbour, water tower and nesting places still tucked away in a bubble of safety. Ships cowered between the long platforms of the docks, some cut loose and floating away, others used as escape vessels for the villagers fleeing their destroyed home.
Pounding footsteps disturbed the dust-covered grass that grew between the tall, thick pines. Spiky boughs shuffled and swayed as a blackened figure pushed them aside in her hurry to be away. She picked her way across the uneven ground, quick yet careful, jumping from rock to rock, grass to dirt, fleeing her village. Before her, she spotted an outcrop jutting out towards the sea, so close yet so far, twisting up into the sky, almost as tall as the trees themselves. With light precision, she scrambled up to the top, finally taking a moment to look back at the place she had fled.
Ruffnut doubled over, coughing wetly, spitting phlegm into the ashy bushes below. Her breathing was ragged and laboured, her lungs full of black. They had chased her clean through the village, between the rows of burning properties, relentless and cruel. The flames had blocked her view; she had been lost within her own home, such an unfamiliar feeling. Dashing from street to street, in a frenzy of fear and alarm...
Shaking her head, she tried to cleanse her thoughts of it, but every time she looked up at the smouldering wreck of Berk, it all came flooding back. Another bout of coughing consumed her, the taste of soot in her throat sharp and sickening. Everything she knew was gone. Everything; her friends; her family; her dragon: gone. She closed her eyes to the swelling feeling of tears, the heat rising in her cheeks. It felt like the end of everything, and yet, she still had to go on.
She could hear shouts, not far away. Soldiers. They were back. In one swift movement, as the thumping of their thick leather boots drew closer, she slid down from the rock and back onto the ground. Something made her run, forced her to keep going, but she couldn't tell exactly what it was. The will to survive? The hope that things would change? Anything she thought of seemed hopeless, and yet, there she was, still ducking between the trunks and dashing down the hills. Perhaps it was simply fear, raw and potent, keeping her strong despite her burning lungs.
They weren't far behind now, but she was used to the rough, hard ground, and she had nothing on her person to weigh her down. Her eyes stung, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, limbs burning and yet numb at the same time. Overwhelmed, she stumbled, and it only took a second before whatever force was pushing her on to dispel and send her crashing, hopeless, to the ground, where she lay and heaved for air, shaking from head to toe. The soldiers didn't need to search far to find her, curled up in a ball, trying to recover what little strength she had left.
"On your feet!" One snarled savagely, giving her ribs a mighty kick. She didn't even make a noise. If it wasn't for her trembling, they could easily have taken her for dead. She heard swords being pulled from sheaths as she struggled to move, to kneel, to stand. The face of hatred stared back at her with no mercy in his eyes. Swords were aimed straight for her throat.
Suddenly, it clicked again. That feeling, that pull. Get out. You have to get out. A panic rose within her that she couldn't quite quell, and it must have shown, for the soldier before her sneered unkindly. She heard the cocking of a cross-bow behind her. Cross-bow. Instantly, she knew what she had to do. Spinning around, she stared the archer straight in the eyes, a slight smirk threatening to crawl onto her face, and then stuck out her tongue in the most childish of ways, taunting. He answered with a snarl and a shot, the latter of which she ducked below, turning back just in time to watch the bolt enter the first man's sword hand through the knuckle and keep on straight up his arm.
He let out a cry of alarm and pain, dropping his sword as blood burst forth. Stamping on the tip of the blade, Ruffnut flipped the sabre into her grasp and swung around, cutting the cross-bow string. As the rest of the bunch of armoured men looked about themselves in shock, the twin made good her escape, dashing through the hole she had made in their defences and crashing off through the undergrowth, tossing the sword over her shoulder.
"What are you waiting for? After her!" The commander screamed, clutching his injury to his chest with shaking, bloody fists. As his men left him behind, he continued to groan and to attempt to stop the bleeding.
Meanwhile, Ruffnut was running as fast as she had ever run. She knew she couldn't keep it up, but she was hoping that, very soon, she would have the chance to hide somewhere before they closed the gap. However, the trees began to blur together and the ground swayed beneath her, faces leaping out of the shadows, sounds becoming confused. She stumbled. None of the breaths she was taking seemed to be taking in oxygen. Her chest tightened. Her head span. It was almost lucky that, at that moment, her arms were snatched by soldiers. Ruffnut's legs gave out as her whole world went black.
A moment later, she awoke on the floor, her head throbbing and her chest and limbs burning. She struggled to take deep breaths as she slowly, painfully looked up to find a pair of boots staring her straight in the face. Further up, atop heavily armoured, thick legs sat a broad torso, metal breastplate shining. She struggled to her knees, moving slowly to ease her aching limbs, finally meeting the face of a terrifying, battle-scarred, unforgiving man. Everything about him shouted 'leader', from the unforgiving look in his eye to the straightness of his posture, the authority in his voice to the way he held his shoulders. Ruffnut gulped: this man meant business.
"Bind her." He commanded simply, not moving an inch as the woman was hefted up to her feet and thrown back against a tree. Her wrists were roughly snatched and pulled back behind her, tied together so that she could barely move. She looked up helplessly into the eyes of her captors.
"The boss is gonna be very happy with us. You're the last free dragon rider, and we're the ones who're going to bring you down. Oh yes, Dagur will be very happy indeed..." The man chuckled to himself, causing the rest of his band to snort and chortle along.
Ruffnut raised her head, resisting the urge to choke. "Dagur? You're Berserkers?"
"Oh yes," He growled smoothly, "We're the Berserker tribe. The new owners of this wet heap of rock."
"Not yet, you're not!" She snarled meanly, baring her teeth in defiance. The leader simply smirked smugly.
"And what are you planning to do about it?" When no answer came, he laughed heartily and strode slowly away, metal armour gleaming. Ruffnut hung her head. What was she going to do about it? As she was thinking, she caught sight of a sudden flash of colour in the corner of her eye. Looking around slowly, she found herself face-to-face with a beautifully colourful, flame orange butterfly. It flitted and fluttered until it came to a rest gracefully on her shoulder. Ruffnut found herself smiling. Something about the arrival of the strange little creature made her feel just a little bit calmer, a little bit safer.
There was a loud snort, followed by a large hand shooting out and snatching the butterfly by one wing. The enormous man was back, a cruel sneer on his face.
"You know, in our culture, these can be very good luck." There was something about the nasty glint in his eye, the way he rubbed his fingers roughly along the creatures wing and played with the dust that told her it wasn't the little insect itself that they considered 'good luck'. "Look at it. Such a big, pretty one, eh? Shame the only way to get lucky is to do this..."
Ruff grimaced as he took the sparkling wing in his fingers and pulled, slowly and carefully, until with a sickening sound it came away from the body. She watched in horror as the helpless creature writhed in agony, its legs flailing, its long mouth-part curling and uncurling as its second wing was brutally ripped off. The man let the tiny, dusty appendages fall like twinkling leaves to the ground, then dropped the shiny black body along with them. Ruffnut continued to stare in horror. Something in her mind likened her to that tiny little thing, still squirming in the ash, barely visible now, like that was the precursor to her own doom.
"A-aren't you going to kill it?" She stuttered, feeling ever-so-slightly sick.
"Of course not! Everything a Berserker kills must die in agony. It must wish for death, beg for death, before we finally let it come to them." He spoke slowly, cruelly as he moved the toes of his boot ever-so-slightly, slowly pushing down until the crunch of a tiny body could be heard. He ground its remains into the dirt, that mean snarl still plastered on his face.
"That is our way. And now, it is your turn. We've not come to capture you, oh no. We've come to put you to death."
Cue the cat from Puss in Boots:
Oooooh!
Yeah, anyway. Will Ruffnut get away? Or will she get help from a very unexpected source? Find out in the next chapter! It's so good to be back...
A little side-note to one of my readers who asked, and generally to anyone else who is interested, The Runaway 2: Under Siege is not about Bryn's village being attacked, as you will hopefully soon see. It is set 4 years after the first one and... well, anything else I say will give away the plot! I may post a few little tasters here and there, probably on the end of The Runaway, so keep that story on your watch list for previews and more!
