Many thanks to my beta reader Sailorstar165!

Chapter 7: Garrán Nathair

Hiccup watched as the formation banked as one and turned towards him, gradually getting bigger as they approached. With a jolt, he suddenly realised what they were.

Five dragons, each of them with a rider on its back.

At first, he thought they were a search party from Berk. His heart soared, and he excitedly waved his arms above his head. "Down here!" he shouted. "We're down..." His voice trailed off as he finally made out the dragons' silhouettes; they weren't Berkian dragons.

The sound of movement behind him caught Hiccup's attention and he tore his eyes away from the riders. Astrid was on her feet, half-crouched in a ready stance, his knife clenched firmly in her hand. "What's going on?" she whispered.

Hiccup simply pointed. Astrid followed his arm, and her mouth dropped open. "They're not ours."

Astrid didn't get a chance to respond, as at that moment, with an eerily familiar whistle, the five dragons folded their wings and dove towards them. They snapped their wings open again a hundred feet above the ground, and all five of them touched down in the clearing in quick succession.

Astrid stepped up beside him. "Those are Forrest Furies," she whispered.

Each one of the green dragons carried a rider in a saddle not dissimilar from his own. However, unlike Hiccup, each of the riders was armed; three of them aimed recurve bows at Hiccup and Astrid, while the other two carried vicious barbed spears. A chill ran down his spine as he heard Toothless utter a low growl.

The three archers spread out around the clearing, effectively cutting off their escape, while one of the spear-carriers guided his mount towards Hiccup and Astrid. He stopped about three paces away and shouted something in an unfamiliar language.

Hiccup glimpsed Astrid adjust her grip on the knife out the corner of his eye and placed a restraining hand on her shoulder.

"Astrid wait," Hiccup whispered urgently. "They might not mean us any harm"

"Hiccup!" she growled back. "They're pointing weapons at us! That doesn't scream 'friendly' to me!"

"Look at them!" Hiccup almost shouted. "We can't fight them. They'd cut us to shreds!"

The man with the spear shouted again, angrier this time, and nudged his dragon forwards a step.

On Hiccup's right, Toothless uttered a threatening growl, and to his left he heard the rattle of Stormfly's spines snapping into position. The situation was rapidly spiralling out of control, and he had to do something quickly to stop it spilling over into violence.

Hiccup slowly raised his hands above his head and took a step forwards. He addressed the man who had shouted at them, assuming he was the leader of the group. "I'm sorry, we don't understand what you're saying," he said shakily. "We're lost here and looking for a way home. If we've trespassed on your lands, we didn't mean to."

The leader stared back at him impassively. However, one of the archers at the edge of the clearing reacted to his words. Lowering her bow, she exchanged a few quick sentences with the leader and guided her dragon forwards to stand alongside him. "You understand me?" she asked in strongly accented Norse.

Hiccup let out a sigh of relief. "Yes! Finally!"

"Why are you here?" the archer asked.

"My friend and I got caught in a bad storm about a month ago," Hiccup explained. "We washed up here, and we're trying to find our way back home. We come from an island called Berk. Do you know it?"

The archer turned back to the leader and spoke with him for a couple of minutes. Hiccup guessed she was translating their conversation. Eventually, she turned back to Hiccup.

"You ride these dragons?" she asked, glancing at Toothless and Stormfly.

Hiccup nodded.

"We take off, you follow us. You fly too fast or too slow, we kill you. You fly too high or too low, we kill you. You do anything we don't like, we kill you. Understand?" She punctuated her statements with sharp gestures of her bow.

"I don't like this," Astrid whispered beside him.

Hiccup glanced at her. "Neither do I," he replied, "but we don't really have a choice."

Astrid ground her teeth in silence.

The leader of the foreign riders made an impatient noise in his throat.

"Well?" asked the archer.

Hiccup looked back up at her. "We understand," he replied. "We'll follow you."

The archer said something in her native language, and the leader and the other rider with a spear took off and began circling above the clearing. As they did, Hiccup noticed several recent-looking scars in the leader's dragon's wing-membranes. Unsure of what to do, Hiccup glanced up at the archer. "Mount your beasts, then take off," she ordered. "We follow you."

Hiccup's blood went cold. With three archers following them in the air, they'd have a clear shot if he or Astrid tried to break away. Uneasy, Hiccup climbed onto Toothless's back. The Night Fury looked back at him and growled, echoing his rider's apprehension. Hiccup wordlessly reached down and patted his friend's neck. "You worry too much bud," he whispered, "we'll be fine."

Checking that Astrid and Stormfly were ready, he opened the tail and urged Toothless into the air.

As they rose to the level the leader was circling, he shouted something, and the two riders turned and began flying northeast. Hiccup didn't need a translator to know they were expected to follow. As Toothless banked around, Hiccup glanced behind him. The three archers were flying in a vertical triangle formation. The two riders that made up the base flew just below Toothless and Stormfly, slightly further apart than himself and Astrid, while the archer that had translated for him earlier flew in the centre, above the rest of the formation.

Turning his attention back to the riders in front of him, he watched as the second dragon wobbled in a slight crosswind; it was little more than a breeze and didn't affect any of the other dragons. With a start, Hiccup realised that its right tail fin was ripped and torn towards the rear. The injury wasn't enough to ground it, but it was enough to hinder its control. He looked behind him for a minute, then guided Toothless closer to Astrid.

"Astrid, look around," he said as quietly as he could while still making himself heard over the wind. "What do you notice?"

She glanced about for a few seconds, then turned back to him. "What am I looking for?"

"Look at their dragons," he instructed. "They're all carrying some kind of scar or injury."

She looked around again. "You're right!" she exclaimed, then paused for a second. "Hiccup! That Forest Fury I ran across while hunting was injured as well! It had a long scar down its muzzle."

"Something's going on here," he replied grimly, "and I don't like it. Stay close."

"Of course."

Stormfly silently slid closer to Toothless, staying just far enough away to avoid their wings clashing.

The foreign riders flew high and fast, and by midday they had already crossed over the edge of Hiccup's map and showed no sign of stopping. As they flew, the terrain beneath them gradually became more and mountainous; rocky crags frequently split the forest canopy, and on the horizon, Hiccup could just make out the shape of a distant mountain range. Still, they flew on.

Just as Hiccup began to wonder if they were expected to fly through the night, the Leader turned and led their formation down towards a narrow gap between two of the smaller peaks. At first, Hiccup was confused; where did the leader expect them to land? All he could see below them was dense forest and sheer cliffs. Then, as they passed between the cliffs, he and Astrid gasped in shock.

The narrow pass between the peaks opened out into a lush, secluded valley. A glacial stream started high up in the peaks at the far end, snaking down the mountainsides and along the valley floor, until it flowed out below them. Almost every available scrap of land on the valley floor was covered in field or pasture, and at the centre, packed along the banks of the stream, was a dense cluster of wooden buildings. The only word Hiccup could think of to describe the scene before him was idyllic.

For the first time since they took off, the archer that had translated for Hiccup earlier spoke up. "Welcome to Garrán Nathair," she announced. "You are the first outsiders to come to our village. We honour you."

"You have a funny way of making us feel like honoured guests," Hiccup muttered to nobody in particular.

The leader barked something in his native tongue. "We land now," the archer translated.

The seven of them began to spiral downward towards a large stone building on the edge of the village. Hiccup wondered what the purpose of the building was. Stone buildings were rare, both here and back on Berk. He quickly glanced around. In fact, this was the only stone building he could see in the village. On a hunch, he reached down, grabbed something from Toothless' saddlebag and stashed it underneath his tunic.

As soon as they landed, the archer instructed them to dismount. Before Hiccup's feet had even touched the ground, a group of people ran out of the building and launched into a heated debate with the leader of their group. Hiccup didn't understand them, but they frequently gestured to him and Astrid. He tried to ask the archer what they were saying, but she was fixated on the discussion and didn't answer him.

Evidently a decision was finally reached, as two men ran back into the building, and re-emerged carrying two metal collars, each of them attached to a length of chain. Toothless snarled viciously and fanned out his wings as one of them approached him. The second man cried out and jumped back as a volley of Nadder spines thudded into the ground at his feet.

Hiccup tried to run towards Toothless, but one of the men lashed out at his legs with the shaft of his spear and sent him sprawling in the dirt. As he fell, Toothless roared furiously and tackled the man responsible, pinning him to the ground with a claw on either side of his neck. Everybody started shouting at once, and immediately a thicket of weapons were pointed at him and Toothless.

"Control your beasts!" the archer shouted over the noise.

Toothless reared up, preparing a plasma blast.

"Toothless, no!" Hiccup shouted, scrambling to his feet.

A small firebolt impacted the ground a foot away from the downed warrior's head, splattering everyone nearby with sods of dirt. The Night Fury that had just missed turned and looked at his friend questioningly.

"Toothless, let the man go," Hiccup said gently, slowly moving towards him.

The black dragon released his captive, sat back on his haunches and crooned sadly.

"I know bud," Hiccup replied softly, reaching up to pat his friend's nose. "You were just trying to protect me. It's not your fault."

The warrior carrying the collar tried to approach Toothless again. The Night Fury started to growl, but Hiccup stopped him with a hand on his jaw. Hiccup stared into those massive, questioning green eyes for a long moment. It almost broke his heart to say his next words. He gripped either side of his friend's large head. "I need you to go with them for a bit bud," he said quietly. "Please don't cause any trouble."

With a metallic click, the warrior snapped the collar around Toothless's neck and led him away. Hiccup tore himself away and walked over to where Astrid was standing, watching Stormfly being taken. All the while, he felt his friend's emerald eyes boring into his back.

I'm sorry bud.

"Don't say it," Hiccup told her in a dark undertone. "I like this even less than you, but we don't have a choice."

Before Astrid could respond, a pair of warriors behind them shoved them forwards. "Follow us," barked the archer from in front.

The warriors marched them through an iron gate set in the side of the building and down a long, dark passageway, lit only by daylight filtering in from both ends. Heavy doors were set into the walls of the passage at regular intervals, but they were all closed and locked.

Eventually, they marched up a slight incline and reached the far end of the passage. They paused on the threshold for a moment, and the guards behind them gave them a hard shove, sending him and Astrid stumbling into the light. Hiccup turned around in time to see their guards slam another gate closed behind them, then retreat back down the passageway.

"Hiccup..." Astrid breathed.

He turned away from the gate and looked around. They were in a circular stone pit, roughly ten feet deep and three hundred across. A net of heavy chains covered the opening of the pit. With a chill, Hiccup realised where they were.

The sound of a ratchet being turned, followed by an angry hiss caught his attention. On the opposite side of the pit, a large iron and wood door was being slowly cranked open. He desperately scanned the arena. They had no weapons and nowhere to hide.

With a final click, and a furious hiss, an angry four-headed dragon burst into the arena.

"Dah-de-dah, we're dead," Hiccup announced.


"Hiccup!" Astrid shouted urgently, her heart rate soaring as her fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. "What on Midgard is that thing?"

"Snaptrapper," he replied emotionlessly, "fear class, prefers ambush attacks, lures in its prey with a sweet smell, then..."

He trailed off as the dragon reared up and spat a glob of noxious green fluid at them. The liquid sizzled as it splashed on the ground at their feet.

".. And apparently they can spit acid too," he deadpanned. "Wonderful."

She grabbed him by the arm and started running. Half a second later, a pair of acid projectiles shot through the space they'd occupied. "You can update the Book of Dragons later!" she told him. "First, we have to stay alive!"

They ducked as a fourth acid shot flew over their heads, splashing against the wall of the pit.

"Please tell me you have a plan!"

"I have an idea," he replied, patting his tunic, "but I'll need to get close to it."

Astrid risked a glance behind her. The Snaptrapper was hanging from the chain roof, pursuing them at an alarming speed.

"And how do you intend do that without getting your face melted off?" she asked.

"I'm still working on that part!"

Astrid thought quickly. "I'll try and buy you some time. If we split up..."

"No use," Hiccup panted. "Four heads."

"It can't use its acid attack effectively at long range," she shot back. "It'll have to chase one of us!"

The far wall of the pit was rapidly approaching. "You go right, I'll go left," she told him. "On the count of three. One... Two... Three!"

She shoved Hiccup to the right, then broke off to the left, waving her arms above her head. "Hey, flower breath!" She shouted, "Over here!"

Immediately, all four of the Snaptrapper's heads snapped around to look at her. It let go of the ceiling and dropped to the arena floor, twisting its body in mid-air. An angry hiss issued from all of its mouths simultaneously.

Great, I've got its attention, Astrid thought. What was stage two of this plan?

The Snaptrapper reared up to attack, and she put on a burst of speed. A moment later, she heard an acid projectile splash against the ground behind her, then another.

"I've been spending too much time around Hiccup," she muttered to herself. "I'm starting to sound like him."

With a frustrated hiss, the large green dragon turned towards Hiccup. As it did, it lashed out at him with its forked tail. Hiccup didn't even see the blow coming. The dragon's tail caught him in the back of the legs and he went flying. As soon as he hit the ground, all four of the Snaptrapper's heads converged on him.

"Hiccup!" she screamed.

Desperately she looked around for something, anything she could use against it. Her gaze landed on a small, loose stone in the floor. Without thinking, she snatched it up and lobbed it at the dragon as hard as she could.

Her many hours of axe-throwing practice paid off, and her aim was true. The stone struck the Snaptrapper squarely on the back of one of its heads. Forgetting Hiccup for the moment, it spun around to face her.

Long years of training kicked in, and Astrid instinctively dived to one side, rolling as soon as she hit the ground. The bare skin of her arms flared with pain in a hundred different places as she was splattered with small droplets of acid, but she forced herself to continue the motion.


Hiccup screwed his eyes shut and waited for the end. The Snaptrapper had been right behind him when he fell. It would all be over in an instant.

Odin, he prayed, I don't know if you can hear me, or if Norse gods care for Dragons, but please, watch over Toothless.

With that final thought, he waited.

...and waited.

Still nothing happened. He flipped onto his back and cautiously opened his eyes, just in time to see the Snaptrapper spin around and launch a pair of acid projectiles towards Astrid. She barely managed to dive out of the way in time.

Thanking the gods, Hiccup quickly scrambled to his feet. As he did, his false leg slipped, the metal foot letting out a piercing screech as it skidded along the stone floor. Immediately, one of the Snaptrapper's heads whipped around towards him. It hissed angrily and snapped at the air.

Why didn't it use its acid? He thought as he ran to the relative safety of the other side of the arena.

Suddenly a pattern in its previous behaviour lit up in his mind. "That's it!" he exclaimed.

"What!?" Astrid shouted from the opposite side of the dragon.

"After it's fired four shots, it can't use its acid for a few seconds!" he replied.

Astrid darted around behind the Snaptrapper, ducked under its tail, and re-joined Hiccup. "How does that help us?" she panted.

"It gives me a chance to get close to it," he said, turning to run in the opposite direction.

Astrid grabbed him by the arm. "I know that look Hiccup," she said. "Promise me this won't go wrong."

"I'm about to get up in the face of an angry, acid-spitting dragon, without a weapon or a shield," he replied with a sarcastic smile. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Before she could reply, the Snaptrapper hissed angrily, and they both scattered to avoid a glob of acid flying towards them.

"One shot down, three more to go!" Hiccup shouted.

The Snaptrapper lashed its tail in fury, fanning out its wings and letting out a low hiss. As it did, Hiccup noticed that its wings were tattered and torn by countless injuries. Some of them were old and partially healed, while others looked recent. What happened to you? He wondered. The dragon began to slowly creep towards them, its claws clicking on the hard stone floor.

"The damn thing's clever!" Astrid's voice echoed across the arena.

"We need it to use its acid!" he shouted back. "We have to make it angry!"

"You do know what usually happens to people that make dragons angry?" she replied, then turned and ran towards the dragon. "Hey!" She shouted, "Bet you can't hit me!"

One of the dragon's heads darted towards her, faster than Hiccup could follow. Astrid anticipated the attack and nimbly dodged out the way. "You'll have to do better than that!" she taunted it. The dragon followed up with an acid shot, which she easily sidestepped.

Halfway there, Hiccup thought. He tried to remember what Gobber had taught him about engaging dragons in hand-to-hand combat. No point in looking for a blind spot, it's got four heads, and we don't have any shields to make noise with...

He tried picking up a stone and tossing it at the Snaptrapper, but his shot went wide. So much for that idea. The tip of the dragon's tail caught his attention as it turned to follow Astrid, and an idea dawned on him. It was crazy, and probably stupid, but, given the right circumstances it might just work. The Snaptrapper launched another acid bolt, narrowly missing Astrid as she rolled to safety. Then it spread its wings and she was hidden from view.

Hiccup realised her mistake a moment before she did. True to its name, the Snaptrapper had trapped her between its outstretched wings and the wall of the arena. She had no escape. Here goes nothing, he thought, turning and sprinting towards the dragon. The Snaptrapper's final head reared up, ready to unleash its deadly payload. Hiccup put on a last burst of speed, then leaped at the dragon's tail.

Hiccup caught the tail with both arms. A heartbeat later, he heard a splash as the Snaptrapper unleashed its final shot. He didn't have time to consider whether that shot had hit its intended target, as at that moment the dragon lashed its tail furiously, trying to dislodge its unwanted passenger.

Hiccup held on for as long as he could, then let go, and dropped to the unyielding stone floor. As he did so, he reached for the bundle he had concealed in his tunic earlier. The Snaptrapper was on him in an instant. A heavy, taloned foot landed on his chest, crushing the air from his lungs. He thrust out his arm and clamped his eyes shut, certain that, this time, he was about to meet his end.

For a few frantic seconds, Hiccup felt the Snaptrapper's warm, sickly sweet breath on his face. Then, amazingly, the pressure on his chest lifted. Hiccup began to slowly open his eyes, then quickly opened them as he found himself face-to-face with all four of the Snaptrapper's heads, all of them sniffing excitedly at his outstretched fist.

If he had any air left in his lungs, he would have let out a sigh of relief. Instead he slowly opened his hand, revealing the tuft of Dragonnip clenched within. Taking a deep breath, he cautiously clambered to his feet. "Nice dragon," he said in a shaky voice, reaching out to stroke the nearest head. "Nice terrifying acid-spitting reptile."

Hiccup risked a glance away from the Snaptrapper for a moment, and spotted Astrid watching wide-eyed from a short distance away. Turning back to the dragon, he noticed one of its heads was missing the tip of one of its mandibles. As he studied the creature more closely he noticed several more scars and recent wounds covering its heads and necks. It didn't take a genius to work out what the source of its injuries were.

"I'm sorry," Hiccup whispered to it. "What they did to you... it's not right."

Suddenly, the Snaptrapper jerked away from him, spinning to face the door it entered the arena from. The door was open, and two dozen warriors were storming into the arena from it. Half of them carried nets and ropes, and moved towards the Snaptrapper, while the other half carried axes or spears and advanced towards Hiccup and Astrid.

Before either of them could react, a command rang out across the arena. Hiccup didn't understand what was said, but whoever said it spoke with obvious authority. Immediately, the approaching warriors stopped in their tracks and lowered their weapons. Hiccup turned around to see a figure, flanked by two bodyguards walking towards him from the gate he and Astrid had entered through. However, before he could process this new arrival, Astrid grabbed both sides of his head and kissed him fiercely.

The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but once it was done his heart was pounding like he'd just run all the way from the Dragon Academy to the centre of Berk. "You didn't even hit me that time," he said breathlessly.

Astrid smiled back at him. "That was for getting out of there alive," she replied, equally out of breath. "And this," she continued, half-heartedly punching him in the arm, "is for scaring me. I thought you were going to die!"

Hiccup opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a polite cough from behind him. "I hate to interrupt this heartfelt moment," said a voice, in perfect Norse, "but I believe I owe you an apology."


Author's Notes:

Friendly Greetings! Sorry about the long wait between chapters again, I won't bore you with excuses, just know that with a sudden influx of work and my procrastination (read: Dragon Age: Inquisition), I haven't had a chance to do much writing for a couple of weeks, so I decided to split the chapter I was writing into two and post the first half now, so that you'd get something, at least. Hence why this chapter is shorter than the last couple.

I know Snaptrappers spitting acid isn't a strictly canonical ability, but I needed something to make the dragon more threatening to Hiccup and Astrid, so I borrowed the idea of Snaptrappers spitting acid from Cke1st's 'Lightning and Death Itself' saga (Another great read, if you've got the time for it).

The name 'Garrán Nathair' comes from the Irish for 'Snake (or reptile) grove' (Strictly speaking, it should be 'Nathair Garrán', but it sounds cooler the other way around)

Anyway, until next time, as always, thank you for reading, and please leave a review no matter what you thought of the chapter!

~Superbun

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