So just an FYI, I pre-wrote the first 5 chapters. that's why I've been updating so much lately. It'll for sure slow down after that. Enjoy chapter 4! Things are going to start heating up now!

Chapter 4

"You there, wake up!" a voice ordered.

"Wha-what's going on, who's there?" Ukiah said tiredly, trying to get his bearings straight.

"The Thariin Guard that's who, now get up!" The voice said again, this time kicking Ukiah.

"The guard? I didn't call for the guard? Ukiah said rolling away as the foot made contact with his ribs. He was a lot more awake at this point and saw four heavily armed guards standing around him.

The leader of the group continued to say, "No one called us; you're under arrest for poaching on Strogg the Stone's land."

Ukiah's head snapped up "What!? Poaching?" Ukiah roared, jumping to his feet, "I haven't been poaching! I've been hunting the same grounds for years and have never been even bothered with issues such as this!"

"Well that's too bad, your charges have just been increased now…" growled the lead guard. "Looks like the arena for you…"

"No! I can't go to the arena! The place that I swore to never would go to again!" Ukiah screamed in his head "Wait! When did this become an issue? I'll pay whatever you charge!" exclaimed Ukiah.

The expression on his face must have shown the fear Ukiah had, making the guard feel bolder. "It's an issue now and you will pay by serving time in the arena. Now move!" the guard yelled, drawing his sword.

"Fine, fine…I'll come. Let me just put away my stuff…" Ukiah said moving towards his pack.

"Move now! I'll add five extra years to your sentence, supposing you live that long!" The guard yelled.

Ukiah was already sifting through his stuff and then like lightning, grabbed his crossbow and quiver and took off running.

"Halt!" The guard screamed.

In one smooth motion, Ukiah slung his crossbow over his back with a strap holding it in place. While running faster than he ever did before, he skillfully secured his quiver to his right leg with a strap attached to the quiver.

"You two, over there; don't let him get to those stairs." The lead guard ordered.

Realizing that he was trapped in the upper marketplace, he began looking below the wall he was running next to. There were a few market stalls right below him a good 20-30 feet. Praying that another crazy idea would work, Ukiah leaped on top of the ledge in one bound and without a second thought, jumped off the ledge and fell right on top of a table.

CRASH! The table collapsed at the sudden change of weight. Throwing Ukiah's balance off, he also rolled on the ground.

"NO! Get him!" screamed the lead guard, more panicked this time.

"I just need to get out of here and into the foothills; no one will find me once I'm out there." Ukiah thought, as he picked himself up and started to run again.

Ukiah's successful plan came with good and bad news, good news was he landed facing a dimly lit street, which provided cover for Ukiah, who was wearing his darker leather hunting jacket. The bad news was that the guards in the lower market place were now hot on his heels.

Ukiah by all means was in better shape and was carrying lighter things than what a Viking guard would be carrying.

Keeping his distance between him and the guards, he did a quick study of the streets. He was at an intersection that went three other ways, all of them with at least one guard running down it.

"Looks like I'll follow Kobaalt's method of getting away. Up." Ukiah said running on a stack of crates and then jumping onto a roof of a house.

Being unhindered by random objects in the streets, Ukiah was moving a lot faster than he was when he was on flat ground.

Jumping from roof to roof, he saw a place to where he could cross to the other side of the street. A thin plank of wood holding a single lantern might be able to hold his weight for a second.

In one bound he landed with one foot on the plank and then immediately jumping right after that, pushed off with the foot on the plank.

With another off the cuff plan working better than he anticipated, Ukiah laughed softly and began making his way back to where he came from.

He could hear the guards shouting obscenities about him and ran past where he hiding.

Making sure the guards had gone away; he continued to glide across the roofs. "I should have been a thief" Ukiah thought confidently as he continued his course.

At length, he was back at the intersection where he first climbed on top of the roof. Seeing the crates that he used to climb to the roof, smashed and tipped over, told Ukiah that the guards had unsuccessfully tried to follow him the same way.

Jumping down from the roof, Ukiah double checked the streets.

"Good, no torches." Ukiah whispered smugly.

"No, but one guard." A voice came from behind.

Those were the last words Ukiah heard before the world went black

"I think it's this way" Hiccup said turning down a street.

"Hiccup! Don't you remember that blacksmithing stand? We passed it 3 times already!" Astrid replied a little agitated that Hiccup wouldn't let her lead.

"Hmm? No, no, this is totally a different way; trust me I know where I'm going." Hiccup responded pathetically.

Astrid then walked over to the counter and kneeled down, picking something up. "What's this then?" she asked turning around and holding her dagger with the wolf carved in the handle.

"Oh well, um, that's a dagger that you, um…found?" Hiccups voice kind of cracked when he finished that sentence.

"Face it, you're lost. Let me try to find the way to the ship. Ok?" Astrid said in the most calm way that she could.

"Fine…" Hiccup said a little disappointed in his navigation skills.

"Come on, we'll go straight." Astrid said.

Before leaving Strogg and Stoick, they agreed that they would meet up back at the ship.

Looking at the keep, Astrid started to head the opposite way.

Walking for a half hour, they saw what looked like a big…arena almost.

"Wonder what that is?" Astrid said curiously, "Let's check it out real quick."

"Astrid, we really need to be getting back to the ship, can't we explore it tomorrow?" Hiccup replied a little nervously.

"Oh come on Hiccup, we're already late, a few more minutes won't hurt, and besides if you wanted to get to the ship earlier, you would have asked the group of guards we saw walking in the marketplace. Or let me lead earlier" Astrid said almost accusingly.

"Well yeah, but, well, um...oh alright, fine." Hiccup said a lot more defeated than he was when he let Astrid lead.

Getting closer to the ring like structure, they soon realized by the banners and murals on the walls, that it was a dragon arena.

Almost hesitating against her own idea, Astrid kept on moving in.

Walking through one of the arch-ways, Astrid stood there gaping at the size of the place. With seats around the entire ring and a similar chain net, like the one at Berk, was over the actual arena; they both stood there amazed.

"You there! Halt!" a voice came from beside them, which startled Hiccup.

Both of them simultaneously turned to see a guard with a torch walking towards them.

"You shouldn't be here." growled the guard. "Why are you here?"

"We uh, were just looking around and um and…" stammered Hiccup.

"We were lost, trying to find the docks" Astrid inserted "while we were looking for them, we found this place by accident."

"You're not from around here?" asked the guard.

"No, we're from Berk. We're with Stoick the Vast." Astrid replied.

"Stoick?" the guard said puzzled, "I thought he was in the keep? What are you two doing out here this late?"

"Stoick and Strogg went into the keep to talk. We decided to visit the village and see what there was here." Hiccup replied.

"Yeah, we were supposed to meet back at the ship, but we got lost and found this place instead." Astrid affirmed, gesturing to the arena.

"Humph, maybe you should tell me your names and then I might believe you." The guard said a little suspicious.

"My name's Astrid Hofferson." Astrid stated with a hint of anger behind her voice.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the III." Hiccup followed up with.

"What? You're Hiccup the dragon killer? The guard said looking surprised and even more suspicious.

"Why do people not believe me!? Do they think that I lost my foot tripping over a rock or something?" Hiccup exclaimed angrily shaking his leg in front of him.

"No, no" the guard quickly changing his attitude and demeanor, afraid of offending a renowned hero even more. "I was just expecting someone…bigger."

"Yeah, everyone says that too." Hiccup said gloomily.

The guard burst into laughter and said "Well, I didn't think a hero such as you, would be the type to get lost."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Astrid threw in, looking at Hiccup with a smirk.

Hiccup just shook his head; it was a losing battle for him so he wasn't even going to try to save himself.

"Let me get a guard to take my watch, I can escort you to your ship." The guard said.

"Thanks." Hiccup replied still a little dejected.

"Horker! HORKER!" the guard yelled.

"Yeah? What is it?" replied another guard whose torch was the only thing visible.

"I'm going to guide some kids to the docks, cover my watch will ya?"

"Yeah, sure thing." The other guard yelled back, sounding a little annoyed.

"Come on, I think I may know where your ship may be, and if not, the dock master will." The guard said, beckoning the two to follow him.

"So is the arena used…often?" Astrid asked.

They've been walking for a few minutes and Astrid wanted to break up the silence.

"Well, not recently, we haven't had a dragon raid in a while, and the last criminal in the ring was lucky enough to get an axe into the throat of the Nadder."

"What!" exclaimed Astrid and Hiccup at the same time.

"Yeah, we use it to either execute criminals or dragons, either way we win." The guard said calmly, as if he was walking through a valley of flowers.

This disturbed Hiccup and Astrid greatly, because they loved their dragons and they never really thought of The Kill Ring as a form of execution.

To be honest, they never really had criminals either.

A half hour went by and any thought of conversation was quickly dismissed.

"Here you go you two, this should be your ship." The guard said looking at a paper he had acquired from the dock house.

"Thanks for your help." Astrid said with an expression of relief on her face.

"Yeah, thanks." Hiccup followed up with. A little depressed.

This obviously wasn't his night to shine. Then, looking up and seeing Astrid with her new headband, his mind quickly changed. Buying her headband was totally worth anything that may have happened tonight. She would have that for a really long time, because he threw away her old headband when she was adjusting her new one.

"No problem, if you two want, you can come back to the arena tomorrow and I can give you a tour of the arena if you want? The cages are all empty, even the criminal ones. Which is actually pretty rare" The guard offered.

"Thanks, we'll have to see about that." Hiccup replied.

"Well, have a good night!" the guard said walking off.

"You too!" they both shouted back.

The guard just waved his hand without looking back.

"Well, let's go get some rest. I want to go see Ukiah again tomorrow" Astrid said.

"Why?" Hiccup asked, a little alarmed at this.

"Well, he was nice, and he gave you a deal that you obviously needed." She said while pointing to her new headband.

"Yeah, well, that was…well…" Hiccup was lost for words again.

Astrid laughed "I just want to thank him for the headband, nothing more." Then grabbing Hiccup, she started to walk up the gangway

"Oh and maybe a kiss goodbye" She said calmly, grinning mischievously.

Hiccup looked at her with an expression of horror to which she just laughed at again.

Realizing it was a joke, Hiccup relaxed, smiling also.

Both of them were enjoying each other when faintly, they began to hear a familiar sound.

It was almost a faint whistling sound, which grew and began to turn into a scream.

Astrid, realizing what it was, looked at Hiccup whose face was pale.

"Hiccup, is that a…"Astrid began to say.

"NIGHT FURY!" a guard screamed from somewhere on the dock.

Suddenly a huge blue explosion went off in the middle of the town, right where the market place was at.