Now, I hadn't actually planned for this story to go this way, but it made a lot more sense than what I had originally planned. So thank you, GriffTalon, for giving me a much better idea through your review or this second chapter might've taken a lot longer to write.
Lost No More: Chapter 2 - Taken
"Toothless!" The shout left him before Hiccup could stop himself when an arrow came whizzing by much too close for comfort. It had almost hit the Night Fury's tail.
Glaring into the direction where the projectile had come from, Toothless snarled with his teeth bared as he came to face one of the men from the ship. His wings unfurled somewhat to make his size and strength be known in a show of intimidation, telling the unwanted human that he wasn't a dragon to be messed with.
Their new foe wasn't taken off guard in the slightest. As a matter of fact, he simply took another strange arrow from his quiver. He was adamant in bringing his prey down.
"Maybe we should go, Bud, back to Berk. My dad needs to know about this." Hiccup's hold on his saddle tightened. Should Toothless decide to suddenly take off into the forest, he would be ready.
It had been by pure luck alone that the dragon managed to avoid injury. Right as the arrow flew, he had turned to run deeper into the forest in search of a clearing and that move was what had saved him. This time, however, the hunter wasn't going to let them escape.
And he wasn't alone.
"Toothless..." The worry in Hiccup's voice caused the Night Fury to take a look around himself. In the growing darkness, he could see a whole group of the invaders surrounding them. There wasn't much of an escape to be made on foot.
"Get off the dragon, boy." One of the men spoke to him, but it only made Hiccup want to hold on tighter. No way was he going to let them separate him and Toothless. Even if it didn't mean much harm for him, it would be bad news for his dragon, who couldn't fly on his own.
"Get off that dragon now, boy, this is your last warning!" That same man seemed to cry out, though Hiccup couldn't pinpoint his location in this darkness.
It was becoming harder and harder to see and the boy felt more and more unnerved with the fact that he wouldn't be able to trust his eyes for much longer.
"Toothless, we have to get out of here. What do we do?" Hiccup would be lying if he said he wasn't scared in that moment.
"Shut your mouth, boy, and get off the damned beast!" Strings were pulled back and Hiccup once again sunk lower on his dragon, who glared at each of the men in front of him like a skittish animal. They were cornered and Toothless wasn't quite sure how to get them out of this.
Well, there was one thing a dragon did best, wasn't there?
Quickly gathering the gasses in his mouth, a blueish and purplish light ignited inside the Night Fury's throat before he shot a blast of fire into the direction of where Hiccup could only assume the majority of the uninvited visitors were standing.
Instead of letting their arrows fly, the targets in Toothless' range dove for cover with a shout just like he had hoped. And while then praying just as much that Hiccup was still secure on his back, he lunged for the newly created opening and in the blink of an eye disappeared into the vegetation.
As the moonlit ocean came into view in the distance, the rider realized they weren't running away from the other intruders, but straight for them.
"Uh, Bud?" Was there even time to question his dragon's motives?
"There they are!"
"Look! A boy on the dragon's back!"
"Don't let them escape!"
"Get them!"
A whole choir of voices broke out once Toothless left the safety of the forest and chose for the silent promise the sky gave them. Spreading his wings and beating them once or twice for lift off, Hiccup quickly knew that charging for the beach was simply a faster way of reaching for the air than searching the woods for a clearing would've been. Positioning the artificial tailfin, the two were off the ground soon enough.
But amongst the flurry of voices, there was one that stood out the most in how utterly gleefully they spoke.
"A Night Fury." The bald stranger said and he did so with a malicious smile, like a spider that found a squirming insect in its web.
"Capture that dragon alive! Even juveniles like that one will fetch us a hefty price of this species!" Hiccup and Toothless barely made it high enough before a series of bolas were thrown their way. One of them got hold of the reptile's tail while a second one wrapped around Hiccup, the impact of which caused him to lose his grip on the saddle and plummet to the ocean down below.
"Toothl-" The boy couldn't even finish before he fell into the freezing saltwater and accidentally swallowed almost a complete mouthful in his shock.
His dragon landed into a shallower part near the shore. Though it wasn't hard enough to hurt him, it was closer to the group of intruders and they did not wait to act. While Toothless struggled to go further into open water to search for his Viking boy, who had not yet resurfaced, chains were thrown around his neck by their attackers.
Roaring to be let go, Toothless felt himself be pulled back by the strength of several men. No matter how much he struggled, he wasn't getting anywhere like this, not with all those people pulling him back.
His urgent search for Hiccup had to wait until he could free himself first. He was already pulled up on the beach and continuing to fight them meant wasting the precious time that Hiccup might not be able to afford to lose.
So turning around to face those wretched invaders, Toothless charged with a plasma blast ready for use.
While the Night Fury had been struggling, Hiccup fought to free himself from the bola wrapped tightly around his arms and middle. His mind was wrecked with panic and his legs kicked wildly to bring him closer to the ocean's surface, but the burning yearning of his lungs for air remained unfulfilled. His eyes stung with the amount of salt in the water and the boy thought it was impossible to tell up from down in this darkness.
Only one other time had Hiccup ever experienced what it was like to drown and it had been at the hands of Dagur, the son of Chief Oswald the Agreeable of the Berserkers. What had seemed like an 'innocent' request from the older boy to go swimming had quickly taking a dark turn when all Dagur was really interested in was to torment the smaller boy some more.
Hiccup, aged ten at the time, had blacked out and didn't know who had saved him. Whoever had, had not made his dad aware of what had happened in the lake that day. For all he knew, it was Dagur who had grown bored and allowed him to breathe again.
Either way, that incident had not failed to give him the occasional nightmare once in a while and the teen had actively avoided going near lakes or any bodies of water whenever Dagur was visiting Berk. Swallowed by the dark sea now only served to further fuel his night terrors for the future.
But eventually he found salvation. Using the dagger he somehow pulled from the leather belt around his waist, Hiccup cut himself free from that infernal rope and he swam upwards for air as fast as he could.
Breaking through the calm waves, Hiccup gasped and coughed loudly. He tried his best to stay up and calm down now that he could finally breathe. Rubbing fervently through his stinging eyes, he longed to see what had become of Toothless while he was underwater.
If that draconic whining was anything to judge by, their situation had gone from bad to worse.
"Tooth-"
"I got the boy!" Cut off once more when a heavy hand pushed him back under, a distant and muffled cry of anguish reached Hiccup's ears when he disappeared from the Night Fury's sight.
That same hand grabbed hold of his brown hair and, writhing with all his might, Hiccup could not prevent this man from pulling him up on the beach. Before long he was thrown at the leader's feet.
"Hiccup..." Leaving the jovial 'master' behind him, Trader Johann addressed the teenaged boy and he, coughing and wheezing, looked up to his apparent captors.
"You know this boy, Johann?" The bald man asked with his heavy accent, pointing his blade towards the trembling youth.
"Yes, indeed I do. This is the scrawny heir I was telling you about. Stoick's runt." Hiccup tried to ignore the stinging in his chest at being insulted, but nothing could compare to knowing this longtime friend of Berk had every intention to betray him and his home.
The cold touch of the blade to his chin chilled his already freezing skin and Hiccup was forced to look the more intimidating man in the eye.
"An heir, huh? He doesn't look like much." Their words were simple in their cruelty, but were not any less effective in making him feel small and powerless.
But when had Hiccup ever let these kinds of belittling words stop him before?
Pushing the blade away from him cautiously, he gazed up at the seafaring merchant.
"Johann, I-I don't understand... What're you planning on doing to Berk? To me? What do you want from my dad? What's this 'King of Dragons' you're talking about?" His questions remained unanswered.
"Oh, he doesn't, does he? He's the son of an incredibly powerful chief and he just came riding in on one of those flying lizards. I hate to say it, but this boy may prove useful to us after all." Johann was stroking his beard in a way Hiccup shouldn't have liked, but his attention was elsewhere.
Scanning the beach, boy found his dragon pinned down, chained, and muzzled. They had overpowered him.
A powerful creature such as a Night Fury, rendered to such a sorry state in an amount of time as short as this? The sight made him both angry and fearful.
"Are you listening, boy?!" A painful kick to his ribs send Hiccup sprawling on the sandy shore. They were sure to bruise later and his chest was already hurting so bad.
Toothless growled in the background, but all it did was amuse the man further.
"My name is Ryker Grimborn and I'm a Dragon Hunter. And you, Hiccup Haddock, are going to tell me just how you managed to tame a Night Fury." The man, who Hiccup now knew for sure was called Ryker, spoke in such a decisive manner. He was apparently very certain he was going to get every dirty little secret out of the teen.
Well then, he hadn't truly met Hiccup Haddock the Third yet. His lips were sealed.
"Okay, sure, I'll tell you everything that I know." No matter how much it pained his tired body, Hiccup pushed his scrawny self up on his feet, removing the sand from his hands and person.
"Starting with the fact that I didn't 'tame' Toothless. And that my father, Stoick the Vast, is going to notice I'm missing and he will search for me. He would search for any missing Berkian, no matter who they are." At least, Hiccup hoped this threat would work. If just enough to buy him the time needed to think of a plan.
"I don't know why he'd go through such trouble for the likes of you, but one thing's for sure. Once you and your dragon are loaded onto the ship, your father won't find you unless we want him to." There was an awful truth to Ryker's words.
Stoick the Vast did not set foot off his island unless it was to search for the Dragon's Nest or to meet allied tribes for peace treaties. Hiccup hadn't been lying when he boldly stated his dad would come looking for his son, Gobber had often stated how he'd move heaven and Earth to make sure his only child would stay safe. The real question here was how long it would take the man to find him.
Hiccup wasn't so happy with his odds.
"Bring them both onboard the ship. We're setting sail for our home base immediately, so don't leave a single trace. We don't want Berk to have anything that can tie us to the disappearance of their heir. If they'll even look for him." After one last cruel chuckle, Ryker bid his farewel to Johann and the two went their separate ways.
Toothless struggled against his bonds as he was forced into an oddly coloured cage, but his efforts were in vain. Likewise, Hiccup couldn't fight the two men who grabbed him by the arms and lifted him from his feet, but as he wasn't tied up, he managed to land at least on solid hit with his left ankle.
"Oof! You cursed brat!" The man groaned as he sunk to his knees with his hands on his groin, where the boy had effortlessly kicked with all the might his thin body had.
Hiccup would've grinned mischievously if he had the time, instead he tried to pull himself free from the second Dragon Hunter, all the while calling for his dragon.
"Toothless, shoot! Fire! Do something about that cage!" For a brief moment he managed to wiggle his arm free after stomping on his captor's foot. His arms may not be much, but dragonriding had already done wonders for his legs. He ran for his Night Fury next, hoping he could come up with something plausible before he reached him.
However, that short moment of freedom was over all too soon.
"Oh for Gods' sake, just knock the brat out and be done with it!" The order barely had to roll of Ryker's tongue or Hiccup felt someone bash him on the back of his head.
Toothless, still muzzled, released a cry as he watched helplessly how his Viking fell limp to the sand.
Hiccup didn't understand why, but Johann had watched it all happen and he had done so in glee. He didn't know what he'd done to make the man hate him so, but it was the last thing he saw before blacking out.
Oh, look! Another cliffhanger! ;D