"How dare he."
She attacked with fervour, he opponent skilfully blocked her anger filled assault and then answered.
"well your majesty" the man panted "I think he was out of options, we are in a protracted war that
we can't win in the current circumstances, hell, we would be lucky to force a stalemate."
The blond princes screamed in frustration and launched into another frenzied assault. Before the
burly man could start his next sentence her rapier lashing out like a snakes head, he was just able to
deflect the stab towards his hart and rebalance himself as a kick caught him in his middle. He
doubled over, but before the enraged princes could put her rapier to his neck he rolled away.
Panting he stood back up, squared his shoulders and continued talking as the princes stalked over to
him "with the current state of the war combined with the sudden massive increase of raids on our
ports and trade ships, well, something had to change otherwise we will have lost everything by the
end of next year. Especially after the raid three months was any indication of what they are capable
off."
The blond princes growled, that had been a painful blow to the entire kingdom's pride.
It had been night, on the river to the capital and royal palace. No one had seen the three ships
silently going up the river. But the guards of the palace sure as hell felt it when they were attacked, it
came in the darkest moments of night, the Vikings had sneaked in taking out the guards on duty and
then only then they commenced their full attack. Before the night was over the Vikings had pushed
right through to the main chambers and started looting, only when reinforcements arrived they
would have been able to fight of the attackers. And when the reinforcements arrived the king
demanded their surrender. The defenders had expected a fight to the death, but the Vikings just
surrendered immediately, some of them even laughing and seemed joking in their language. The
largest of the invaders, a massive man with a flaming red beard that was braided, had walked up to
the king and extended his hand. The kingsguard had trained their weapons on the massive man when
he had started to move towards them the commander was about to give the order to attack when
the massive Viking spoke to them in a broken form of their language "Me am Boss Stoic the Vast,
Boss of Berk and Union Islands" the King and all his soldiers looked at him with stunned expressions.
The Vikings behind what appeard to be their leader were laughing so hard that some of them had
fallen to the ground, they were either laughing at their leader's garbled speech or at the stunned
expressions of the King and his men. The Kingsguard looked at their commander who looked at the
king, who had a thoughtful expression. "Put his men in cells but treat them well and escort boss
Stoick to the throne room" he turned around walked away. The soldiers looked at each other,
shrugged and did as ordered. They escorted Stoick the Vast to the throne room where he king was
sitting on his throne as his guards escorted the massive man in.
"so you are the leader of the barbarians raiding us?" the king asked with his deep voice.
"So be you leader of weaklings we doing raid" the massive man answered cheerily.
Anger flashed across the features of the king but he recomposed himself and changed the subject "So
how is it that a barbarian like you speaks our language?"
The massive man had to think for a short while over the king's question but then answered with a
soft smile tugging at the edges of his beard "Son of mine teach me"
This piqued the interest of the king, if it wasn't man in front of that had organised the attack but
someone else he would be very much so interested in meeting that person.
But his further thoughts were interrupted when the man standing before him continued speaking
"talking over son, if us not back tomorrow he go and find us"
The king scoffed at this "no offence but the entire city guard is on high alert and half of it is right here
in the castle, no one, not even Drago will be able to break through our walls" the massive man
slightly frowned at that sentence. However the king completely misplaced this as a sign of concern
about the man's chances of getting out. In front of the king the barbarian leader step forward and
growled "Drago Bludvist" the guards had escorted the man to the throne room and then had
retreated into the background lunged forwards to intercept him. Seeing this the giant man stopped
and glared at the man coming towards him. He towered over them, being at least two heads taller
than the tallest of the guards, who were at the same time probably regretting not chaining the
massive warrior. The king held up his hand signalling his guards to stop moving forward and turned
the man, now with his back turned to the king and was staring down the guards.
"You know him" he asked wary and at the same time, because from what he gauged from the
reaction from the man in front of him they probably weren't on friendly terms.
The man slowly turned his back to the guards to face the king again "yes, me know of mad man"
The king hummed and rose from his throne "I need to think this over" and walked over to a door that
when he opened it was connected to a plateau that gave a fantastic view garden over which the sun
had started to rise and motioned the leader of his personal guard to follow him. The barbarian leader
didn't see any of this, he had gone back to staring daggers at the guards still standing in a menacing
half circle around him. The king softly spoke softly to his commander "put him in a cell but make sure
they lack nothing because it seems that they aren't on good terms with that damned Bludfist. They
have proven to be formidable warriors and if we can make a deal with them it could swing this
cursed war in our favour."
The commander was about to take off but the king resumed speaking "also increase the guards
everywhere, we don't want our guests to take off now do we"
The commander nodded again and took of, standing his men down and politely escorting the massive
man to his cell. The king stayed on the plateau overlooking the garden.
That night those guards on the east wall, the wall closest to the cells, could see a burst of purple
blueish light streak through the air just before a dizzying and stomach churning mist enveloped the
wall and the men on and close to it, while an explosions shook the foundations of the entire palace.
everyone in the palace and around it were woken and ran towards the commotion while the men on
the other walls could see winged shapes swoop in from the air. Next morning when the damage
could be assessed it became clear that the explosion had blown a hole in the wall of the cells. No one
knew what had happened, and the soldiers who claimed that they had seen winged shapes swooping
in and then taking off again had been questioned again and again. After that their testimonies had
been dismissed as being drunk on duty and then had been punished accordingly.
Yeah she remembered it well, for most part she had been there, in the shadows and servant
passages and for the parts she had been there herself she had pulled the information from others
who had been there.
Opposite from her, her friend and closest confidant, knight Johannes Leopoldson from the knightly
order of The King's Blade, was waiting for the princes to snap out of her memory. When she did he
started talking "you know your majesty"
"come on Johannes, just call me Astrid" she snappily interrupted him.
"that is improper" he stated, with a slight smile ghosting his lips, as they continued one of the most
frequent arguments they had.
"might be but you have known me since I was born and are my closest friend and confidant, also you
are one of the very few I trust."They had had this argument so many times that it had become joke
between them, from time to time he would indulge her and then just a bit later he would go back to
calling her, her majesty, again. On other time she would indulge him in his formal manners and call
him Sir Leopoldson. It had become their joking banter. The knight had been assigned to the Princes
when she was born as her protector and later on in her live he had also taken up the mantle of
personal adviser and confidant as well as teacher in the martial arts when she wouldn't stop
badgering him about not being able to fight. Her father had not been happy about it but then
conceded the point when he saw the joy in his daughter's eyes as she trained and got better and
better at wielding weapons. Also it was a good way for his sometimes temperamental daughter to
vent her frustration, like she was doing just a few minutes ago.
Now she had lowered her rapier and sighed "you know I really don't get why he did what he did"
Before sir Leopoldson could answer she continued "actually I get why he did what he did but I mean
couldn't he warn me or something before he made that damned deal"
Now sir Leopoldson spoke up "honestly I think that your father hadn't been planning to make that
deal when he went there to deal with the Vikings but when he heard what kind of military might
could they could bring to bear he just had to secure it for our side of this godsforsaken war"
The princes had scoffed at the words military might "they are barbarians"
"they might be barbarians, which I am not completely sure of, I mean they venerate the same gods
as us and yes it is true that they live in a tribal society they have laws and rules that are fairly similar
to ours." Astrid was surprised at hearing all this, this was way more information than she had been
able to pry out of the diplomatic team. She plopped down on the sandy floor of the training ground.
"okay, how do you know all this?" she asked.
He smiled at her question "well with the first diplomatic mission there also went a few spies with
them" then the knight's expression turned sour "however our spies weren't as successful as we had
hopped. What was especially painful was that the day after the diplomatic spies crew had returned
and made their report to the king and note had been placed on his throne stating and I quote here
'next time you want to spy on us you better sent some better people, not that bunch of amateurs."
Astrid groaned in annoyance "so basically we need to assume that all the info that our spies gathered on that trip is what they wanted to feed us"
"yes, on top of that is the diplomatic trip your father made."
Astrid perked up at this "no one has told me anything about that trip, except that they ride dragons, which I still find extremely hard to believe. A of course that rather unpleasant part of news" however sir Leopoldson had stopped listening to her and was looking slacked jawed at something behind her. Astrid stood up and turned around, what she saw had her stunned as well.
Two women are walking towards them, one short, shapely formed, blond, with a slight quirk at the edge of her mouth, obviously armed with a multitude of knives and a short sword at her hip. The other tall, leanly shaped, with dark nearly black hair that gleamed in the sun, with a slight frown on her face and just as obviously armed with axe strapped on her back. But that's not what had Astrid and sir Leopoldson slack jawed, no, behind the two women are two beings that can only be described as flying lizards, more commonly revert to as, dragons.
Despite the frown on her face the voice of the raven haired one was still polite "your future husband has a name you know"
First actual story in a damned long while, this is idea what I have been toying with in my head for some time now. Sorry for the messy layout of the story but my word is no longer licenced so I had to continue on sites writing platform.
Let me know what you think, I will try to update this story twice a month but I make no promises for I travelling (yeah me)
All my other still ongoing stories are on hiatus because I am afraid to confront my past mistakes (I know I am a pansy) but that's how it is for now, so yeah, sorry to all who were hopping for a update on those. Please don't burn my ass to hard in the reviews, cause I want to be able to sit after I upload this. Love to all of you, Danny.