Chapter 1
Flying through a storm was never fun.
A blinding flash of lightning split the sky as sheets of piercing rain and hail pelted the dragons and their riders. They were flying low over the ocean, which was roiling beneath them as waves the size of cliffs smashed into each other, sending salty spray high into the air and drenching the riders further. Hiccup would have preferred to fly higher, but the stormclouds were so low that they'd just end up flying through them, with zero visibility and an even higher likelihood of being struck by lightning.
"Any sign of land yet, bud?" he yelled, fighting to be heard over the fury of the storm.
Toothless shook his head fractionally, concentrating on staying aloft as the strong winds buffeted them from all sides. Not for the first time, Hiccup was glad of the hooks that tethered him to his friend's back; anyone who fell into that furious ocean wasn't coming out again.
All the dragons were exhausted and he wasn't sure whether the riders were going to drown or freeze to death first. The rain was so thick that it made it hard to breathe, and if his exposed skin hadn't already frozen solid, he was sure that the hail would be drawing blood. Somewhere far above them, the sun must still be shining, but it had forsaken them for the time being. They needed to find somewhere to put down, and soon.
A violent gust of wind caught them, causing Toothless to drop suddenly, and Hiccup held on for dear life as the dragon lurched downwards. He knew Toothless would never let him fall, but even the Night Fury was struggling to stay in control, and if they fell into the water then that would be the end of them.
Just as he thought Toothless had recovered, the spray from a huge wave caught them. Coughing and choking as the spray hit his face, Hiccup couldn't even tell whether he was breathing air or water anymore.
"Up, Toothless," he shouted desperately, once he'd caught his breath.
Toothless flapped his broad wings again and again, trying to gain some height, but Hiccup could feel his friend's fatigue. They stabilised at a safer altitude and Hiccup patted the dragon's head gratefully, trying to ignore the pain in his frozen fingers. It was then that he felt a burst of energy go through Toothless, who was peering off to the side. A moment later, the dragon tilted and turned in that direction.
Hiccup stared as hard as he could, but he could barely see more than a few feet in front of him. It wasn't until another burst of lightning lit up the world momentarily that he saw it: a jagged mountain of rock sticking out of the sea some way ahead of them. Checking behind to make sure the others were following, he thought he could still make out four vague dragon-like shapes cutting through the rain, so he patted Toothless again behind his ear plates. "Let's go."
The journey wasn't pleasant, but at least it was short. Up close, Hiccup got a better view of the small island, which looked too rocky and mountainous to land on. It was nothing but sheer cliffs and steep slopes of shattered stone — not a living thing in sight, not even a tree, and certainly nowhere to take shelter. "Take us around it, bud," he shouted, but his hopes were already sinking. "Maybe there's a better landing site on the other side."
The dragons circled the island — which was more of a single, brutal shard of rock stabbing up through the ocean really — but it looked just as unwelcoming from the other side. But Toothless's sight once again saved them as he dived down towards one of the tall cliffs. As they got closer, Hiccup realised they were heading towards a cleft in the rock: the mouth of a cave.
Toothless touched down with none of his usual grace; instead, he just splayed out on the ground, breathing heavily, as rivulets of rainwater and seawater trickled along the seams between his black scales. Hiccup pressed his cheek against the dragon's back and stroked his side with one arm. "Great work, bud. We made it." He unhooked his foot and stretched his stiff, frozen limbs with a groan of relief.
The other dragons were in little better shape as they arrived one by one. Stormfly arrived next, landing on her feet but staggering as she took a few further steps into the cave to leave room for the rest. Hookfang just ploughed along the ground, his broad wings scraping the sides of the cave, but managed to heave himself a bit deeper into the cave after a moment. Meatlug arrived next, buffeting backwards and forwards in the hurricane wind outside, and bounced off one of the cave's walls and then the floor before coming to a stop. Miraculously, Fishlegs had managed to stay in his saddle, but he promptly threw up as Meatlug lay on her side, panting. Belch and Barf were last to arrive and simply collapsed in the entrance of the cave, spilling the twins forward and coincidentally blocking most of the rain from entering the rest of the cavern.
"Ouch," Tuffnut said half-heartedly, as he sat up and grabbed his helmet from where it had rolled away.
"At least it's a bit drier," said Astrid, leaning against Stormfly. She sounded as exhausted as Hiccup felt, though in the darkness of the cave it was hard to see for sure.
"Any chance of some light, Toothless?" he asked before carefully sliding off the dragon's back. Toothless lifted his head to peer at him before shooting a jet of plasma into the floor nearby, causing it to glow a dull red and give off some welcome heat.
Hiccup scratched Toothless under the chin in gratitude and hobbled over to bask in the warmth, sensation slowly returning to his extremities. The cave was surprisingly spacious, he realised, although it probably felt smaller than it really was now that it was crammed full of dragons. It looked like a natural fissure in the dark grey rock, with a very high ceiling — so high that it was hidden in shadow, despite the light below. The walls were surprisingly smooth, perhaps worn down by the elements, but the floor was uneven and dotted with loose rocks and pebbles.
The back of the cave tapered into gloomy darkness, heading further back into the mountain, so he assumed the cave was relatively deep; he thought about checking to see how far back it went, but then shrugged — all he really cared about was that it kept out most of the wet and cold. It was only late afternoon but the storm was so fierce and so thick that it was nearly as dark as night outside. With the wind howling past the cave's mouth, the hail shooting against the mountainside, and the fierce waves crashing into the cliff beneath them, it wasn't exactly quiet, but at least they could hear themselves think now. "Everyone okay?" he asked.
"I'm so wet I think my bones are waterlogged," Snotlout complained as he poured water out of one of his boots.
Fishlegs, who looked a bit blue, nodded. "Once I thaw out at least."
"I can hear water sloshing around in my brain," Ruffnut added, tilting her head side to side as she sat next to Barf.
Astrid nodded back at him too. "Better now that we're out of that storm." She looked up to the roof of the cave, then down into the darker depths of it. "Where are we, anyway? I didn't recognise this island."
"Neither did I," Hiccup admitted, and that was saying something; he and Toothless had explored the area around Berk pretty well, and they'd visited every island along the way. "But it's only a small island; maybe we've just missed it until now?"
"If so, I think we're the first Vikings ever to set foot here," Fishlegs said. He'd moved to sit next to the glowing rock and was warming his hands in its heat. "Erik the Explorer was said to have sailed to every island within hundreds of miles of Berk, and this one wasn't on his charts."
"I don't care as long as I don't have to go out into that storm again," Snotlout said, joining him. "We should have just stayed on Berk."
Privately, Hiccup wondered if he was right. When Mulch and Bucket's fishing boat hadn't returned on schedule despite the storm that Gothi had indicated was coming, the dragon riders had gone out to search for it. But none of them had expected the storm to grow so rapidly or so soon; Hiccup could only hope that Mulch and Bucket had made it to safety before it had got this bad. Bucket was usually first to sense an oncoming storm anyway, so they'd probably taken shelter at some other island by now.
"You okay, Toothless?" he asked quietly, moving around to crouch down in front of Toothless and place a hand on his nose. The dragon opened a sleepy eye and made a couple of reassuring noises that Hiccup interpreted as a yes. "Get some rest then, bud," Hiccup said, smiling at his friend and scratching him on his neck. "You deserve it for getting us through that storm."
"We'll just have to wait out the storm here," Astrid said, unhooking her satchel from Stormfly's back and bringing it over to the heated rock. "Hopefully it'll blow itself out soon."
Unfortunately, the storm seemed to have other ideas. They built a proper fire pit, getting the dragons to heat up the rocks to provide light and warmth, and then settled around it to rest. The riders had dried out and warmed up after an hour or so, and their dragons looked somewhat perkier by then, but the vicious wind just kept on blowing and the piercing hail just kept on falling. They'd spent another half hour having something to eat, but then they'd run out of things to do. By the time the storm had raged on for another couple of hours, everyone was bored out of their minds.
Ruff and Tuff had been shouting and arguing for the past half an hour, interspersed with occasional bouts of beating each other up; Astrid was fending off Snotlout's increasingly pathetic attempts at flirting with her, on the verge of seriously losing her temper; and Fishlegs was somehow nearly asleep despite the noise, resting against Meatlug's side. Even the dragons were getting restless, with Barf and Belch bickering as much as their owners and Hookfang peering almost eagerly into the downpour outside.
They needed something to occupy themselves, Hiccup knew. Toothless nudged him with his head, encouraging him to do something, so Hiccup moved towards the centre of the cave and said, loudly, "Can everyone just shut up for a moment?"
Amazingly, it worked, with even the twins falling silent. "We're going to be stuck here a while longer," Hiccup said, more quietly now that everyone was listening, "so we might as well try and fill the time with something fun." Then he looked at the twins' bruises and saw the death-glare Astrid was giving Snotlout. "Or at least non-violent."
Fishlegs yawned and looked at him hopefully. "Like what?"
"A wrestling contest!" Tuff shouted. "Yeah, I'll take you all on. Wait until you feel the mighty grip of my —"
"We don't want to know, Tuffnut," Astrid shot back, rolling her eyes. "And I doubt that's what Hiccup had in mind."
Actually, Hiccup was hoping someone else would come up with an idea for once, but as he looked around and saw them all staring at him expectantly, he sighed and started thinking quickly. He was as restless as the others, but they hadn't brought much with them beyond a little food and some medical supplies. He wasn't very fond of the wrestling match idea either, obviously. Staring at the fire pit in the centre of the cave, he was reminded of the old days during dragon training and how some nights they'd sit around a fire to eat. "Well, how about we tell each other some stories, just like Gobber used to do while he was training us?"
Snotlout looked at him, mouth curling in disdain. "Pfft. Stories? That's your big idea?"
"Give me wrestling any day," Ruff said, moving to grab her brother in a headlock.
Hiccup knew he was on the verge of losing them again. "Even... ghost stories?" he asked. "It is a dark and stormy night, after all."
"Ghost stories?" Fishlegs said, no longer looking so hopeful.
"Sure," Hiccup said, warming slightly to his topic now. He looked back at Toothless, who had perked up, and pointed at the fire pit they'd made; it was cooling down quickly, barely giving off any light now. "Care to do the honours again, Toothless?"
The Night Fury obliged, shooting another gentle plasma jet into the pile of rocks and causing it to glow a warm orange. The light, while dim, was enough to cast tall shadows against the walls of the cave, and Hiccup took full advantage of it by standing closer and holding his hands out like claws, giving his shadow a more threatening silhouette. "There are many tales of terror and spirits," he said in his best ghostly voice. "Stories of monsters and beasts that prey upon foolish Vikings." He smiled as an idea came to mind. "How many of you have heard the fearsome tale of the Troll Statue?" Given that Hiccup was making up the story on the spot, it was unlikely to be many of them...
A sarcastic grin appeared on Astrid's face. "Trolls? Really, Hiccup?"
Blushing slightly, Hiccup shrugged. "I am something of an expert on trolls, after all."
"Yeah, after all that time you spent running around the woods looking for them," Snotlout said in a withering tone of voice. But Hiccup at least had his attention now, and Ruffnut had even released him from her headlock.
"But you know why I couldn't find them, right, Snotlout?" Hiccup felt a sly smile spread across his face. "They disguise themselves as rocks, you know. You just ask Gothi. The really big ones are the size of mountains and get covered with grass and trees and fall asleep for centuries, and you'd never know that you were walking up a troll's arm, or on top of its head." He gestured around at the damp cave they were in. "For all we know, we're taking shelter in a troll's ear right now."
"Pfft, yeah, right," Ruffnut said. "Tuff's girlish screams would have woken it up by now." She punched Tuffnut solidly on the arm, eliciting just such a scream. "See?"
"Ow! That is very much not girlish," Tuffnut, punching her back. "It's a very manly scream."
"Anyway..." Hiccup said, trying to redirect them back to the story. "I searched and searched, and I think I found some rocks that might have been trolls, but I could never wake them up, and I never saw one walking about. But Gobber once told me about a man who did — Old Gragar the Stonemason."
Fishlegs looked baffled. "Who?"
"It doesn't matter, Fishlegs," Astrid said, rolling her eyes. She'd relaxed a bit, leaning back on her arms by the fire with her legs crossed, and was watching him with amusement. "Just listen."
Hiccup sent her a look of silent thanks; at least she'd cottoned on to the plan. "He lived on Berk many years ago," he said. "Gragar used to love roaming the island for interesting shaped rocks to carve into statues. It was Gragar who apparently carved the stone Vikings that guard the harbour. Surprised you don't remember that, Fishlegs."
"Oh, that Gragar," Fishlegs said in a rather unconvincing tone. "Yeah... I know the one."
"Well, Gragar was determined to make the most perfect statue anyone had ever seen, one that would impress even the gods. And one day, Gragar found an ideal piece of rock — just the right size and shape for a perfect statue of a valkyrie." Hiccup was definitely warming to his theme and he sat down beside the fire pit with the others. Even the dragons seemed to be following the tale, although Meatlug appeared to have fallen asleep. "He dragged it back to his workshop and began working on it, secretly, wanting to surprise the whole village. Even his wife didn't know what he was working on."
He had their attention now. Fishlegs and Snotlout were gazing at him with interest, the twins were surreptitiously poking any troll-sized rocks around them, and even Astrid seemed to be enjoying the story.
"Night after night he'd sneak into his workshop and work on it, chiselling a bit here, a bit there, all according to the image he had in his head. And night after night, the valkyrie statue would slowly take shape." Hiccup mimed working with a hammer and chisel, adopting an expression of great concentration. "It took him weeks, but finally it was finished. Gragar was a master craftsman, and the valkyrie statue looked almost lifelike — except made of stone, of course. So that night, after his wife had gone to sleep, he carried the statue into his house to surprise her in the morning."
"I'll bet it was a surprise, all right," Snotlout muttered.
Hiccup smiled at him. "It was indeed. But not in the way he intended. Because the rock was really a troll, and when Gragar woke up the next morning, he found his wife was gone and the statue was gone too. All that remained was some bloody scratches where the statue had been."
Fishlegs glanced around uneasily. "What happened then?"
"Well, nothing at first. Gragar didn't understand what had happened — he figured his wife had hated the statue and had taken it away. Only as the days passed and there was still no sign of her did he begin to worry; he thought perhaps a dragon had taken her in the night, but why would the dragon take a statue too?" He shrugged. "They sent out search parties, of course, but never found anything. Just rocks in the forest. After that, Gragar stopped his stonecarving; he couldn't bear to carve something new after his wife had disappeared. But then he got a visit from his cousin, who thanked him for gifting them with such a beautiful valkyrie statue." Hiccup looked around the fire, staring at each of his friends one by one, deliberately dragging out the pause. Then, in a hushed voice, he continued: "But Gragar just said that he hadn't given them any such statue, that he hadn't done any stonecarving in days."
Hiccup clapped his hands, making them all jump. "Something awful must have happened, Gragar knew. He and his cousin rushed over to the other house only to find it deserted, with just some scratches in the floor to show anything had happened. It was only then that Gragar began to realise he'd made a terrible mistake."
"No kidding," Tuffnut said. "Who'd want to be a stonemason? Like, it's got to be the most boring job ever, right?"
Ruffnut smacked him on the helmet with a rock. "Shut up."
"Over the next few days, more and more people reported seeing the statue, and more and more people went missing without a trace," Hiccup said. "By the end of the week, every statue in Berk had been smashed to pieces, just in case. And for a while, they thought that had done the trick." Hiccup paused and held his hands out towards the warmth, rubbing them together, enjoying the way the others leaned forwards eagerly to hear the ending.
Surprisingly, Astrid's patience broke first. "And?"
"Well, everyone had blamed Gragar for the cursed statue. They thought he'd put some kind of spell on it, or offended the gods somehow by making it, so they all avoided him — especially those who had lost someone. Nobody trusted him anymore. If it hadn't been for his pride in trying to make the most perfect statue, all those people would still be around.
"So instead Gragar spent his days searching the forest, looking for his wife, always hoping she was still alive somewhere. He went on like that for months, until one day he just didn't come back," Hiccup said gravely. "It was the last anyone ever saw of him, and nobody wanted to risk going to look for him. The story goes that he'd eventually found the statue, just waiting for him in the forest, and it took away him like all the others — finally repaying its creator." Then he picked up a nearby rock, twice the size of his fist, and held it out in front of him. "But ever since then, people have occasionally seen a mysterious, lifelike valkyrie statue where there shouldn't be one. They might see it and think nothing of it, only to turn back and see that it's gone. And sometimes, those people disappear too." He tossed the rock into the fire pit and stared at it as it began to warm and glow red. "So be careful — you never know which rock might really be a troll."
There was a long moment of silence, with all the others staring at the glowing rock, and then Ruff and Tuff began flinging any nearby rocks they could find into the fire pit too.
"Quick! Get rid of them all!" Ruffnut yelled, trying to kick away a particularly big stone only to stub her toe.
Snotlout also joined in, throwing a couple of rocks away, one of which bounced off the floor and hit Hookfang on the snout. The Monstrous Nightmare reared up in surprise and lit its scales on fire, lighting up the cave as though the sun had fallen to earth.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down!" Hiccup shouted, getting to his feet and holding out his hands in a placating manner. "There aren't any trolls in here."
"How can you be sure?" Fishlegs said, mouth quivering as he pushed up against Meatlug's sleeping body.
"I'm the troll expert, remember?" Hiccup said, giving Fishlegs a wry smile. "Besides, dragons can smell trolls. Everyone knows that, right? If there were any trolls in here, Toothless would have found them already." He turned around to face Toothless, who nodded and gave a confident growl. "See?"
That appeared to calm them all down, and Hookfang settled down and let his flames go out, though Hiccup couldn't help but notice how Astrid was trying to smother laughter with one hand. "Very good story, Hiccup," she said with a broad grin.
"Glad you liked it," Hiccup said, sitting down again. He glanced outside the mouth of the cave and sighed at the continuing fury of the storm. "Looks like we've still got more time to kill, though. So, who's next?"
Gradually, they all came back and sat down, though Tuffnut was still sending suspicious glares at every rock he could see.
"I-I've got a story," Fishlegs said, raising a hand tentatively.
"Go ahead, Fishlegs," Hiccup said, leaning backwards on his arms and waiting expectantly. This was going better than he expected; well, except for the bit where everyone started throwing random rocks around.
Fishlegs lowered his hand, but didn't speak immediately; instead he gazed into the glowing rocks for a few moments, allowing the raging noise of the storm outside to fill the cave instead. "It was on a stormy night much like this one," he began, "that Seabert the Salty went missing."
Hiccup looked over to where Toothless lay coiled nearby, a content yellow eye peering back at him, and smiled. Maybe this trip might even turn out to be fun in the end.
"Seabert was a sea raider, back before there were Outcasts, and he used to sail around the archipelago to steal, pillage, and loot whatever he could," Fishlegs explained, his voice low. They had to concentrate to hear him above the wind. "Seabert was the scourge of the Seven Isles, the swashbuckler of the salty sea, the..." and then he faltered.
"Scoundrel of the southern coasts?" Hiccup suggested.
Fishlegs smiled back at him gratefully. "Exactly. Seabert was a master swordsman, despite having a hook for a hand. He had a mighty ship with black sails, the Corsair, and a crew of vicious cut-throats. No ship could run from them, and if there was even a rumour that the Corsair was in nearby waters, nobody would put to sea at all."
"Sounds cool, I like him already," Snotlout said.
"No ship ever defeated him, and even when whole fleets were sent to track down the Corsair, Seabert either avoided them or crushed them. Seabert was so successful that he bragged that even the gods themselves couldn't stop him.
"But one day, Seabert and the Corsair just... disappeared," Fishlegs continued, making a vanishing gesture with his hands. "They'd just raided a village on a nearby island and were sailing away with their booty when a mysterious fog began to roll in, one that lay heavy on the seas and seemed almost to smother the waves themselves."
Hiccup had to admit, Fishlegs was pretty good at telling stories. He half wondered whether Fishlegs was really making it up or whether it was a real tale; knowing Fishlegs, it could well be something he'd seen in a book at some point.
"And the fog just swallowed them up. There were no more raids, and nobody saw Seabert ever again..."
Ruffnut snorted. "Some story then."
"...alive," Fishlegs said, frowning at her. "But that doesn't mean they never saw him or his ship again." He adopted a far-away expression and gestured outside. "It started when people began to find ships just abandoned at sea, perfectly intact, even with the sails still up — just nobody aboard. The first time, they thought it might have been a storm. Then, when more and more ships were discovered, they wondered whether it was some kind of new dragon or even some kind of sea monster. Of course, being Vikings, they started to send out warships to track down the cause."
Fishlegs shrugged. "Most of them came back empty handed. A few never came back at all, their ships found abandoned, just like the rest. Everyone kept thinking it was just a kind of dragon attack until one day someone survived."
"Survived the dragon attack?" Tuffnut asked in confusion. "Wait, I thought you were talking about a pirate? Or is this a pirate dragon? Because that would be awesome."
"There was no dragon," Fishlegs explained quietly. "The survivor was young, no older than us, and he'd escaped by jumping overboard. He washed up ashore a day later, having gone mad with fear. He just kept babbling about Seabert the Salty, how the Corsair had appeared out of nowhere and ghost pirates had attacked them.
"It went on for years, claiming only a few boats each year, but nobody knew whether it would be their turn to disappear or not. Eventually, people realised it happened only on nights with a full moon. First, the fog would start to appear, and then the wind would drop. Sailors would take up the oars if they knew what was good for them, but often even that wasn't enough to save them. Because next they'd see a ghostly ship cutting through the fog, black sails still billowing despite there being no wind."
Snotlout's mouth was hanging open, Hiccup noticed idly. Then he saw that Stormfly, sat behind Astrid, seemed on edge and was ruffling her wings nervously. Were even the dragons starting to feel the tense atmosphere? That heavy silence despite the howling wind and driving rain of the storm roaring against the side of the mountain?
He shivered and hunched forward again, checking to make sure Toothless was still behind him and keeping an eye out.
"Usually there were no survivors," Fishlegs went on. "Rescue parties would just find empty ships, crews missing, sometimes abandoned mid-meal. The sailors were never found, but the stories spread because occasionally people would escape by hiding, or swimming away. Those that survived would report how the ghostly ship would draw up beside them, and then skeletal Vikings would board and take everyone away. Swords and axes were useless against them, and the catapults just fired straight through the Corsair, like it wasn't really there at all." Fishlegs paused dramatically. "Their leader had a hook for a hand, and that's how they knew it was Seabert the Salty, still roaming the seas after all this time."
Hiccup couldn't help himself and he asked, "But Fishlegs — where did all the missing people go?"
Fishlegs looked back at him sadly. "That's the scariest thing, Hiccup — nobody knows. They just... vanished."
To Hiccup's surprise, Astrid was nodding slowly. "I've heard that story from my grandfather," she said. "He told me that Seabert had been taken by Rán, the goddess of the sea, and that Seabert would hunt down those who didn't pay tribute to the sea before setting out on their voyages." She looked around at them all, eyes wide, and added, "It was meant to be a deal: if he collected enough souls, he and his crew would be released."
Okay, so maybe telling ghost stories wasn't the best idea ever, Hiccup reflected, as he stared uneasily out of the cave into the night. At least it wasn't foggy, though this high up the story mountainside, all he could see was clouds and occasional flashes of lightning.
"Who's next?" Tuffnut said, uncharacteristically solemn.
"My dad used to tell me a story about the Nightcrawlers," Snotlout said slowly, as if unsure whether he really wanted to tell the story or not. "He said it was a true story, though I don't know if I ever believed him."
"Go on, Snotlout," Hiccup encouraged him.
"It started when people began to disappear from Berk." Snotlout took off his helmet and placed it by his feet, then rubbed the back of his head tiredly. "Dad used to say that if I didn't behave when I was a kid, the Nightcrawlers would come and take me away."
For a moment — just a moment — Hiccup felt sorry for the other Viking.
"But in the story, it wasn't just misbehaving kids. It wasn't even just kids, though there were some. It was anyone. People would just go to sleep one night and then the next morning they were gone." Snotlout looked at Hiccup. "Often scrawny runts like Hiccup, who couldn't fight back so well, but not always."
Well, there went any sympathy Hiccup had momentarily felt.
But Snotlout just went on with his tale. "There was never any sign of what had happened to them, and usually the doors were still locked. No way in or out."
"Was it dragons?" Fishlegs asked. "They could just fly in the window."
"Sure, but why would they?" Snotlout shrugged. "Back then, dragons were more interested in stealing sheep and burning down the village. No need to kidnap Vikings." He paused as a peal of thunder rumbled through the cave, then said, "The only clue was a sound, a bit like this." And he started making gentle tapping noises on the ground, like some animal walking very quickly but very quietly. "Some people would hear it at night, often on the roof of their house. Sometimes on the walls. Sometimes underneath them." He stopped talking, but kept making the sound, making it louder and louder.
Fishlegs squeaked. "Okay, okay, we get it," he said, wrapping his arms around his knees and shaking slightly.
"Nobody knew what was happening to these people, but my dad finally found a clue: a trail of blood. One of the missing people must have been bleeding as they got taken away." Snotlout was grinning now, enjoying the effect his tale was having on the others. He made the tapping noise again, and even Hiccup shifted uneasily. "So my dad got his friends together — he wasn't much older than we are at the time — and went hunting to see what happened to them."
Tuffnut sneezed, making them all jump. "Sorry," he said. "I think I picked up a cold."
"Oh, great." Ruffnut shuffled away from him. "Just make sure you don't give it to any of us."
Snotlout glared at them until they shut up. "So as I was saying… My dad and his friends followed the trail into the forest, making their way to a cave deep in the trees, somewhere near the centre of Berk. It was a large cave, dark, and at first they hesitated. They didn't know what was in there, after all."
Something about this tale was beginning to ring bells for Hiccup. Maybe he'd heard it too once?
"But they were Vikings, so after preparing some torches, they went in," Snotlout said proudly. "And they went deeper into the cave, splitting up when the cave branched, until it was just my dad and one other who were exploring this one particular part.
"It was then that they found the webs."
"Webs?" Astrid asked, raising her eyebrows. "Like spiders?"
"Think bigger," Snotlout said. "Much bigger. Like ropes. Strands of web as big as your fingers. They cut their way through, but only slowly; the webs were sticky and hard to cut, even with the sharpest swords." He got to his feet and began to act out the motions dramatically, waving his arms around as if wielding a sword. "Hack and slash, slash and hack, with a bit more slashing thrown in for good measure."
Astrid rolled her eyes. "We get the picture, Snotlout."
"Then they began to hear the sound," Snotlout said, crouching down and tapping again, louder and louder. "And as they got deeper into the cave, they realised something was watching them. There were eyes in the walls, and on the floor, and on the ceiling." He stood up again and walked over to Hookfang, stroking him gently on the snout. "Eyes everywhere. And when they brought the torch closer, they found out what they belonged to: the Nightcrawlers." He turned back to the others and returned to the fire pit, sitting down again. "Creatures like you've never seen before. Big — as big as yaks. Six legs, but the front two were more like arms. And only two eyes, big ones, on the front of the head, which had a big mouth and really sharp fangs, as sharp as a dragon's. Long antenna, like ants. And big, fat, hairy bodies, all bristly and slimy."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Tuffnut said, and he did look a little green.
Ruffnut plucked his helmet off and held it upside down under his chin. "Just make sure you don't get any on me," she said, disgusted.
"Ah, I think I can hold it," Tuffnut said, nudging the helmet out of the way, although he still looked a bit queasy.
"What happened next?" Hiccup asked, curious despite himself. He wondered if he'd heard a similar tale from Gobber before; it definitely sounded familiar.
"My dad and his friend hacked a few to pieces, but there were just too many. They had to run back out of the cave, chased all the way by the Nightcrawlers. Some of the others met up with them at the entrance, and some never made it that far, but they held the mouth of the cave, stopping any more from getting past." Snotlout grinned smugly. "My dad said he'd never seen so many severed limbs before. The Nightcrawlers retreated, but it wasn't over yet.
"They returned to the village for reinforcements and more torches, then they began to search the caves. It turned out they were infested with Nightcrawlers; a whole nest of them, in fact. There were bones everywhere in the deepest caverns; yaks, sheep, birds, human… even dragons. And webbing was everywhere too, everything sticky. They had to burn through a lot of it with the torches, though it only kind of melted, and didn't burn very well."
"Did they find the missing villagers?" Fishlegs asked, looking around at the walls as if expecting to see eyes peering back at them.
"Some of them," Snotlout admitted. "Wrapped up in webbing and unable to move. The Nightcrawlers had bitten them and paralysed them. That was the worst part: if they got you, you were just helpless. They wouldn't kill you immediately; instead they'd wrap you up, and once you got tired of struggling, then they'd eat you." He shuddered, looking down at the rocky ground, and Hiccup realised just how much this story must have affected Snotlout as a boy. Hiccup was glad that his father had enough sense not to have told him stories like this as a child. Gobber, on the other hand...
"The other villagers must have been eaten already. Maybe that's where some of the bones came from. But my dad wanted to make sure no more villagers were ever taken, so he got everyone to build fires in all of the caves. He wanted to burn the nest out." Snotlout coughed in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his head again. "That just seemed to make them mad, though, and a really big one — the queen maybe — came out from the deepest parts of the nest. It was the size of a dragon and it chased them all right out of the cave, so they decided to block up the mouth of the cave so at least the Nightcrawlers would be trapped in there."
He mimed rocks falling with his hands and made a rumbling noise. "They pulled down the mountainside in a rockslide, blocking the entrance, and it seemed to work — there were no more missing villagers for ages. But according to my dad, sometimes you'd still here the tapping noise —" and again he made the sound to illustrate, "— of the Nightcrawlers looking for more easy prey to eat."
There was a long moment of silence when Snotlout finished his story. The fire pit was dimmer now, cooling down again, and the young Vikings were all hunched up around its remaining warmth, hoping that its fading light would keep away their fears. There was a resounding silence in the cave, despite the roar of the stormy sea outside, that made Hiccup shiver. Nobody was willing to break it by speaking.
Eventually, because he couldn't bear it any more, Hiccup got awkwardly to his feet and wandered past Barf and Belch to the cave's mouth. It was now so dark that he could barely even see the waves smashing against the cliffs below, and judging by the way the icy rain fell like angry needles on his skin, the storm was far from over yet.
"I think we could do with a bit more light," he said, turning round. "We're still going to be here a while yet."
Most of the others were on their feet again by now too, and Fishlegs went and patted Meatlug gently behind the ears. "Your turn, girl," he said, and the Gronckle obligingly vomited some superheated rocks into the fire pit, which began to heat up the others around it and sent new shadows flickering against the shiny walls of the cave. The silhouettes of the dragons were quite intimidating, even though the dragons themselves were mostly curled up in a circle around their riders, dozing away.
Tuffnut was pacing about nervously. "Can't we just go anyway?" he asked. "Storm doesn't look quite as bad, and I'm getting bored of stories now."
"Still bad enough, and the dragons are tired," Hiccup replied, moving to check on Toothless, who opened a sleepy eye to peer at him. "Why don't you tell us one next, Tuff?" It was clear that everyone was on edge now, and perhaps something a bit more comical — which, knowing Tuffnut, was exactly what they'd get — would help warm up the frozen atmosphere that had settled in the cave.
"Once upon a time, an evil dragon attacked Berk, but the mighty hero called Tuffnut vanquished it and all the girls wanted to marry him and he lived happily ever after. The end." Tuffnut adopted a heroic pose, head up, fist in the air, and held it until Ruffnut shoved him and he tripped over a rock. "Ow!"
"Any other stories?" Hiccup asked, suppressing a sigh. He sat down again, taking the weight off his aching left leg, and held up his hands to warm them in the renewed heat of the fire pit. This was going to be a long, long night.
"I've got one," Ruffnut said, now sitting on top of her struggling brother and periodically mashing his head down into the ground. "From when we were kids."
Astrid had her arms folded and was tapping her foot as she glared at the twins. "Maybe you ought to let Tuffnut go, or he'll only interrupt."
Reluctantly, Ruffnut released her brother, who rolled away with a disgruntled expression. "Better be a good story, or I'm going to get you back for that," he warned.
"When Tuff and me were just kids, we saw a huge black dog out in the forest," Ruff said. She crossed her legs, pulled out a knife, and proceeded to start picking at her nails as she spoke, seemingly uninterested in her own story. "And I mean huge, like, as big as Meatlug."
Fishlegs was frowning. "There are no dogs that big. Was it a wolf?"
"Doesn't matter," Ruffnut said, still talking as if she was describing a day spent chopping wood. "It was big, black, and dog-shaped. We only caught a glimpse of it once, and it was just stood there, staring at us. We didn't hang around to find out more."
"I remember that." Tuffnut was looking at her with an unusually serious expression on his face. "I thought we decided never to talk about it."
"Well, it's better than your story." Ruffnut shrugged and continued. "We ran back to the village. We were about nine or ten and had never seen anything like that. The first person we bumped into was Gobber, and we told him all about the big black dog in the woods." She paused in her nail-picking and although she was still staring at the fire pit, Hiccup got the feeling that she was seeing something different. "You should have seen the look on his face. It terrified us more than the dog had ever done."
"He grabbed us by the hands and dragged us off to see Gothi without saying a word," Tuffnut said, picking up the story. He was staring off into the shadows, away from the others, and his voice was low and almost sullen. "We kept asking him what was wrong, but he wouldn't answer."
"When we got to Gothi's hut, he told her that we'd seen the Black Shug." Ruffnut was just idly spinning the knife around in her hands now. "When we asked what that was, he just said it was an omen."
"It's more than that," Fishlegs said in a quavering tone. "I read about it once, in the book of omens. It's a sign of impending death. If you see it, it means you're going to die that day."
"Well, obviously they didn't," Astrid said, gesturing at the twins.
Snotlout laughed. "Not that we'd miss them." But his laughter died away quickly when he realised nobody else had joined in. "Only kidding," he added uncomfortably.
"Gothi painted our faces with black and green and drew some runes on a piece of wood that she burned," Tuffnut said, not rising to the bait for once. "Then she scribbled something on the sand and Gobber translated it, saying that we had to make an offering to Odin or the big black dog would come in the night and eat our souls."
"What sort of offering?" Hiccup asked softly. He'd never seen the twins like this.
Ruffnut flicked her eyes up to meet his. "A live one."
Hiccup looked away, feeling slightly stunned.
"So we went back into the forest," Ruffnut said, "and had to hunt something we could use as an offering. Gobber told us that whatever it was, we had to offer its soul to Odin in exchange for ours, and hope that it would satisfy the Black Shug."
Tuffnut grunted with remembered irritation. "It was like the forest was empty of animals that day. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. The streams were empty, the birds all flown away, and even the worms seem to be hiding. But in the end we came across a wounded boar, hiding in a bush."
"You know, I'm not really sure I want to hear the end of this story," Hiccup admitted. He'd never expected the twins to start telling such a personal story — a real story, unlike his daft tale about the troll statue.
"Too late now," Ruffnut said, still with that same bored tone of voice, like this had all happened to someone else. "Besides, there isn't much more. We chased the boar down when it tried to run. It didn't get far. After that, we made an offering of the boar to Odin, like Gobber had told us, and then waited."
"We heard it first," Tuffnut took over. He flicked another pebble into the fire pit and cleared his throat. "The forest was so quiet that we heard the rustling of the bushes, like it was stalking us. Then we saw its red eyes, and then we saw the rest of it as it walked up to us, real slow like."
"It stared at us and then just sniffed at the boar. We –" Ruffnut's voice cracked, but she paused and then continued as it nothing had happened. "It picked up the boar with its mouth, showing off teeth the size of my knife —" and she held it up to illustrate, "— before just wandering off. The moment it was gone, the forest seemed to come alive again, with birds and animals and stuff."
Tuffnut looked over to his sister. "That night we didn't sleep. We didn't know whether we'd done enough, so we just lay in our beds, waiting to see if the big black dog would come and eat us after all. We waited up all night, right until the sun came up again. But it never came."
Nobody knew what to say after that. Snotlout shifted uncomfortably, and Fishlegs cleared his throat loudly. Astrid looked like she was on the verge of speaking before changing her mind, and Hiccup found himself uncharacteristically lost for words. In the end, it was Barf and Belch that broke the tension; each head slithered up beside its rider, nudging them and making little rumbles of support.
"Thanks, Belch," Tuffnut said with a sad smile, wrapping an arm around the Zippleback's head. "At least we've got you and Barf to keep away any more black dogs."
"Yeah," Ruffnut said. She scratched Barf's chin and the dragon narrowed its eyes in contentment.
"Well, I'm glad you're both still with us," Hiccup said after a few moments. "And thanks for telling us that story, I guess. It was certainly creepy."
"What about you, Astrid? Have you got any stories?" Fishlegs asked, obviously eager to change the topic. "One about sunbeams and rainbows and unicorns would be good right about now."
Astrid shot him a warning look and Hiccup had to suppress a laugh. Sunbeams and rainbows? Astrid? As if.
"As it happens, there is one story," Astrid said, looking around the fire pit. "About my uncle, Fearless Finn."
"It's not the one with the Flightmare, is it? Because we all know that one," Snotlout said. Hiccup noticed he'd kicked back, lying beside the fire with his one arm folded under his head.
"No, Snotlout, it's not. But didn't you ever wonder why everyone called him Fearless Finn before the Flightmare?" Astrid shot back. "He didn't give the name to himself, you know."
"I would have," Tuffnut said, his face scrunched up in thought. "If I could think up a cool word beginning with T, at least."
"Troublesome Tuffnut?" Astrid suggested, rolling her eyes at the interruption.
"No, I was thinking something more heroic," Tuffnut said. Then his eyes widened — " Terrible Tuffnut! Because I bring Terror to my enemies."
"Or because you're just terrible," Ruffnut said, grinning.
"Guys, come on, let Astrid finish her story," Hiccup said. He was keen to hear it, actually, especially if it was going to be another true story. This was turning out to be a night full of surprises about his friends.
"Thank you, Hiccup," Astrid said, nodding at him. "So, as I was saying, Uncle Finn was fearless long before the Flightmare. One of my favourite stories of his happened when he went on a long sea voyage, nearly a year, chasing a vicious white sea dragon with two heads. It had terrorised Berk's fishing boats for months, and he vowed that he'd hunt it down, no matter how long it took."
Hiccup remembered the attacks on the fishing boats, but only just; he was probably only about 5 or 6 when this had all happened, and he didn't remember anything about a white sea dragon. But he kept his silence.
Fishlegs, however, was less polite. "There are no white sea dragons," he said. "All Tidal class dragons are either blue or green, you know that."
"Fishlegs..." she said threateningly.
"Okay, okay," he said hurriedly, holding his hands up in surrender. "Carry on."
"This wasn't a normal dragon," Astrid explained. "Maybe it wasn't even a dragon at all; it didn't see to fly, just swim. But it was white, and huge, and would coil itself around the ships, often snapping them in half. So they laid a trap for it — a bunch of our best warriors, led by Finn, sailed off in a fishing boat and pretended to be fishermen.
"Sure enough, the white sea dragon attacked them, coiling itself around the boat and throwing people overboard. They hacked at it and chopped at it, but it was like a snake; it would coil around you and crush you or stop you from being able to fight until it bit your head off." At that point Astrid snapped her jaw shut loudly; Stormfly, seeing it, did the same, making a sound like a tree branch cracking and causing them all to jump.
"Yeah, just like that," Astrid said, grinning. "Thanks Stormfly." The dragon trilled happily, preening herself as she watched the Vikings around the glowing fire pit. "So it wasn't enough. The ship sunk, and only Uncle Finn survived, paddling back to Berk on a piece of mast, using part of the rudder as an oar. But he vowed to try again — no mere dragon was going to get the better of him."
"So how did he beat it?" Snotlout asked.
Astrid gave him a grin. "Well, the sea dragon would coil around the ship and sink it, right? So Finn had the idea of grounding a ship on some shallow rocks — that way the dragon couldn't get underneath it.
"It almost worked, too; the white sea dragon found them and tried to attack, but couldn't coil around the ship like last time. The only problem was that the ship couldn't move either, and it ended up a stalemate: Finn couldn't really get to the dragon, and the dragon couldn't get to Finn."
Pausing for a moment, Astrid brushed her hair out of her eyes and shrugged. "By this time, Finn was determined to stop the monster. It was like it was personal now, and he wasn't going to stop until he succeeded. So this time he went to Gothi for advice, and she suggested he put sharp spikes and blades all over his armour."
"Clever," Fishlegs said. "If it coiled around him, then it would cut itself to pieces."
"Exactly," Astrid said, really getting into her tale now and leaning forward eagerly. Hiccup found himself just watching her, noting how the warm glow lit up her face, causing her eyes to glitter and her hair to shine, and he watched the smooth, strong movements of her hands as they moved about to illustrate points enthusiastically. It was only when she glanced over at him, making a serpentine motion with one arm, that he realised he'd missed whatever she was saying. Feeling his cheeks warm, Hiccup cleared his throat and tried to concentrate again.
"So after the sea dragon had pulled Finn's boat for miles and miles, it finally got exhausted, and Finn began to reel in the rope, getting closer and closer to it," she was saying. "The dragon turned to fight back, coiling around Finn and the boat, but just as Gothi said, the spiky armour tore it apart, and the dragon released Finn so that he could attack it properly. Leaping onto its back, he raised his axe and brought it crashing down —" which she mimed with one chopping hand, "— and cut off one head. The other tried to bite his arm off, but instead Finn managed to jam his axe in its jaw. Pulling out his backup axe, he finished the job and sailed back to Berk, keeping one of the heads as a trophy. And so the white sea dragon never attacked anyone ever again."
"Wonder what type of dragon it must have been," Fishlegs muttered. By this point he was lying back, using one of Meatlug's legs as a pillow, with his hands behind his head. "Some kind of rare Seashocker, maybe. Is the head still around?"
"No," Astrid said. "It got destroyed in a fire." Not surprising, Hiccup thought; after all, until recently, pretty much every house in Berk got burnt down regularly.
"Pity; you can learn a lot from a dragon's skull," Fishlegs said. Meatlug grunted and turned her head to look at him, but Fishlegs just patted her near the ear, saying, "You've got a beautiful bone structure, girl, don't worry."
Hiccup covered a long yawn with one hand and realised that he wasn't the only one looking tired; Snotlout seemed to be asleep, snoring gently, while Tuffnut was dozing against Belch. "Maybe we should get some rest. Hopefully the storm will have blown over by morning and we can just fly back," he said.
"Sounds good to me," Ruffnut said, making herself more comfortable next to Barf.
Looking over at Astrid, he saw her pulling out her satchel to use as a pillow, setting it up between Stormfly and the fire pit. "Well, goodnight then," he said to nobody in particular. Getting stiffly to his feet, he hobbled over to where Toothless was already asleep. Tugging Toothless's tail aside slightly, Hiccup made room for himself and settled down, resting his head on the tail. Away from the fire pit, he was starting to feel the chilly air and the cold seeping through the hard, rock floor, but Toothless was always warm and he snuggled up as best he could against the dragon's side. Without opening his eyes, Toothless moved his front leg up to rest on Hiccup's side, helping to keep him warm. "Thanks bud," he whispered.
He didn't fall asleep immediately, even though he did feel tired; the noise of the storm was still pretty loud, echoing around the cave, and there was still that eerie atmosphere after telling each other spooky stories all night, but Hiccup felt an odd sense of contentment. As miserable as the storm was, it had actually been quite a fun night, and he'd enjoyed the time spent with his friends.
But then he heard a quiet tapping noise, and for a second his breath caught in his throat. "Snotlout, cut it out," he said. "I'm too tired for your pranks."
There was no reply, but the tapping noise did stop. Hiccup felt his eyes grow heavy and he lay there listening to the gentle snoring of the dragons and Vikings, the whistle of the wind, and the pounding of the waves far below them. Before he knew it, he was asleep.