(A/N) Sorry this is up later than normal, I was trying to get this chapter edited by someone other than myself. That being said, it never happened so sorry if this Chapter isn't as good as my other ones.
Other than that, have fun reading and please review.
Chapter 7
Up here, he was free. Hiccup absolutely loved the wind in his face, the danger and the possibility discovering new things. With each new land he discovered, he'd find more dragons, more difficulties and the challenge of overcoming the odds. There were a few times he'd almost lost his head during one of his adventures in the last five months, but that would only make him more determined to overcome the obstacle.
More than the challenges Hiccup faced he loved the time alone with his best friend. Up in the sky he and Toothless could let loose the limitations of the ground. They'd perform barrel rolls, race between sea stacks, free fall, anything they could think of. It had resulted in a few minor crashes but nothing serious… yet.
Hiccup was content, and his spirits rose even more when he saw a land mass appear on the horizon in front of him. Though this wasn't the farthest away from Berk or Outcast island he'd ever been, he had been flying on and off for about nine hours and was sure Toothless could use a break.
"Looks like we found another one bud, want to go check it out?"
The dragon warbled his enthusiasm. As much as he was ready to give his wings a break, he also thoroughly enjoyed exploring with his rider and the dangers that came with it.
"You got it bud."
Hiccup couldn't wait to discover what lived there, boars? An unknown tribe? New dragons? His mind was ready to burst with curiosity by the time the duo landed.
He looked around, the island was rocky but lush at the same time. Moss grew readily on the stone and a forest had managed to find a place to root between the rocks. Giant cliffs rose from the north side of the island and waves did their best to claw their way up and take over the land. To the south the rocks gave way to rough beaches and shallow lagoons.
"Not a bad place to spend the night huh bud?
Hiccup turned around to see the Night Fury cautiously sniffing around, a low growl escaped his lips.
"What's the matter bud?"
The dragon turned and crooned at his rider with worry in his eye.
"What ever it is, I'm sure you can handle it." Hiccup praised. "It's either that or fly for a few more hours for the nearest land mass. Help me gather up some wood for a fire, that should keep any predators at bay."
With Toothless' help, and a lot of sweat, they soon had a large pile of wood ready to be burnt.
"There, that should be enough to last us the night, eh bud? None too soon as well." Hiccup commented as he stared out at the setting sun on the horizon. "We should get some sleep."
Hiccup pulled up some grass to use as a pillow and lay down. It wasn't long before he was snoring. Toothless however choose to stay up and keep watch. He didn't have to wait long.
o~0~O~0~o
Hiccup startled awake as his dragon nudged him over.
"Huh?"
Toothless gave his rider a nervous warble. Hiccup attempted to rub the sleep away from his eyes.
"What's going on."
Then he heard it. Little chirps, squeaks and shrieks could be heard from the bushes around them. In an effort to see better and scare off whatever was out there, Hiccup threw more wood on the dying fire. He then walked over to Toothless, ready to bolt into the air at a moments notice. His eyes strained to see into the bush, but nothing was revealed to his eyes.
The shrieks grew closer and Hiccup became aware that the woods were full of whatever it was on all sides. They were surrounded. Hiccup felt something he hadn't felt since he had left Berk. Fear and helplessness.
Nervously he hopped into Toothless' saddle, ready to fly away at a moments notice. Movement caught the corner of his eye and Hiccup tensed up, but refrained from taking flight. Curiosity was starting to get the best of him. Below him, in the saddle, Toothless was growing restless.
"Lets see what they are first bud."
The dragon huffed in annoyance and Hiccup could feel the irritation radiating off the dragon.
In the growing fire light, a green head finally revealed itself. Slowly, a body materialized behind the head.
"It's a dragon." Hiccup told himself.
The dragon was about the size of a man. It stood on two legs and had small wings on it's back that were obviously not made for flying and a sail on it's head. Red eyes shone in the fire light above a mouth that resembled a Venus fly trap. Sharp, pointed teeth were visible and a red tipped tail pointed towards the boy.
"Well, well, well… what are you?" Hiccup muttered. "I wish I had the book of dragons… or Fishlegs."
The dragon squeaked and backed up, for a moment. Dozens more of the dragons made themselves known. There was one however, that stood out from the rest. It was bigger and had red markings all down it's body.
"I guess you're in charge."
Tentatively Hiccup climbed off of Toothless' back and approached the leader.
"Easy, I'm not going to hurt you."
The dragon curiously followed Hiccup's movements.
"I'm not a threat." He told the dragon while slowly unsheathing the rusty short sword he had scavenged from Outcast's supplies and throwing it to the side.
"See, I'm no threat, there's no reason to get violent."
Hiccup was now less than five feet from the dragon and slowly stretched his hand out towards it's snout. Toothless didn't like what he was seeing and gave a warning growl to both Hiccup and the dragon. Hiccup chanced a glance at the growling Night Fury behind him and raised his other hand to calm the dragon.
"Easy bud, I know wha-"
Hiccup felt a sharp jab on his forearm and felt a numbing sensation start to flow through his body. Before he could yell out he found that he was completely frozen and helpless against the dragons circling the pair.
'Oh right.' He thought to himself. 'now I remember, Speed Stingers.'
With a shriek of fright for his rider, Toothless shot a weak plasma blast at the leader, hitting it smack in the face and throwing it back several feet. The pack, seeing it's leader take a hit, cowered a little, but when the small dragon leapt back to it's feet they began to attack. Toothless had taken advantage of the distraction and had gathered Hiccup up in his jaws, teeth retracted so as to not injure the boy, and leapt into a tree.
Without Hiccup he couldn't fly, but he could glide and that gave the dragon an advantage. He knew the smaller dragons were faster, but he also knew their wings were not made for flight, and that gave the larger Night Fury the edge he needed. Up in the tree tops Toothless could jump wide gaps from tree to tree while the Speed Stingers were forced to cover the same distance on the ground before attempting to climb after their prey.
All the Night Fury had to do was stay one step ahead of the predators down below.
o~0~O~0~o
Stoick was tired and grumpy. He'd spent the whole night before defending the village once again from a dragon raid and had lost a quarter of the flock. At least a certain someone had decided not to show up. Now he was up early cleaning up debris, gathering resources and organizing people into repair crews. As he looked around at the destruction he couldn't help but wonder if Hiccup could have indeed stopped all of this and brought peace to the village.
He was pulled from his thoughts as he heard his name called.
"What is it Fishlegs? Make it quick, I'm busy."
"Hello Chief." Fishlegs nervously greeted. "Y-you fought great last night."
"I'm not interested in praise right now Fishlegs. If ya got something important to say, spit it out or get back to work."
"Yes, umm… I've been watching the raids and I've been noticing a few consistencies that I think we can exploit."
"Ya think so do ya. These are animals Fishlegs, there's nothing consistent about them. I've been fighting them for longer than you've been alive, I don't need you telling me how to fight. At least not until you've got a few years of experience under yer belt first."
"I'd never think of telling you how to fight." The boy defended. "I'm not a fighter and you know that. But I have noticed things about them. For instance, have you noticed that the dragons always arrive from the same direction? Raid after raid they always come from the North East."
"No, I haven't, but now that you mention it… What does this have to do with us."
"I propose that we sacrifice a few men each night to serve as watchmen. We put a few boats out to sea at strategic locations to watch for the incoming dragons. When they see the swarm, they light a fire in board. When the next watchmen in line spot the blaze they light another fire. Depending on how many watchmen we put out there we'd have up to an hour to prepare for the raid. We could hide the sheep in caves, gather the young and the old to mead hall, gather weapons, get men manning the catapults. We'd be ready and willing for a fight instead of being caught with our pants around our ankles."
"Are ya sure about this?"
"Most assured Chief. I calculate that we could lower the casualty rate by about 52% and the food loss by about 78%."
"Interesting. I'll present this to the elders and see what they think. Thanks Fishlegs, we could use a brain like yours."
Fishlegs smiled at the praise, but he couldn't help but think to himself 'we could have used a brain like Hiccup's too.'
o~0~O~0~o
Toothless had seen the perfect place to defend from after about five minutes of running through the tree tops. There was an almost vertical cliff up ahead with a ledge about 30 feet higher than the tallest tree in the vicinity. With every ounce of his strength Toothless braced himself on a nearby tree and leapt straight up into the air. His wings stretched out and pumped the hardest he possibly could, straining with every beat of his wings to gain every inch of height he could. He needed to keep his rider safe.
Toothless hit the cliff face 10 feet from his goal. His claws grasped at the rock and tried to climb up the cliff face to the safety of the ledge. Below the Speed Stingers had caught up and were watching the Night Fury with interest as he started to slip down towards them five feet short of the ledge.
'No' the dragon thought. 'I can't let Hiccup down.'
With an intensity he had not felt since the day at the kill ring when he and Hiccup had left Berk, Toothless ground his claws into the rock. And slowly made his way up the last few feet to safety. Panting he set his rider down and looked over the lip at the frustrated pack below. They were desperately trying to climb the cliff. Some of them were making it pretty far, their speed generating enough momentum to propel them 20 feet up the side of the cliff before gravity took over. But each time they fell back to the ground, the more determined than ever they were to get at the dragon who had stolen their meal.
Toothless took the respite to glance at their surroundings. The ledge was protected from above by an overhang, though it was not impossible it would be hard to attack from above. To attack from below was a fruitless attempt. The dragon reasoned that the only way to effectively launch an attack against them was from the sky. The ledge had no smells indicating the ledge belonged to another dragon, so they shouldn't have to worry about an attack from the air, especially with so many Speed Stingers near by.
Toothless heard a shrill shriek from below and glanced down to see the leader squawking at several of the followers below. He watched as several members of the pack broke off and ran away leaving only a few guarding the forest floor below.
'What are they up to?' He wondered.
His questions were soon answered when a green flash fell from above about a half hour later. It flew by with a brief squeak before disappearing from view. Toothless looked up to see the small dragons lining up to take their turns leaping for the ledge. He glanced a look below to see a guard race off and the jumper take its place.
'This is goanna be a long night.' He mused.
Dragon after dragon fell from above through the night, desperate at getting their stingers on their prey. Only one got close. It was just after Hiccup had twitched his fingers for the first time since he was stung. The sun was just about to rise above the horizon, a purple glow was visible in the night sky. A Speed Stinger made a lucky leap and managed to land two feet on the lip of the ledge, only to be immediately met with a plasma blast.
The small dragon was thrown back several feet and fell. It was thrown against a tree and landed on the ground poorly. Even Hiccup could hear the sickening crunch of bone breaking and the shriek of pain from below. It wasn't long after that the attacks stopped altogether, yet the squeaks of pain lasted until the sun made its appearance.
o~0~O~0~o
Is wasn't until around two pm that Hiccup was finally able to function relatively normal again.
"Thanks for the rescue there bud, I wasn't sure if that sting would wear off at all." Hiccup commented as he took stock of himself. His clothes were dried with dragon saliva. "Do you think this will wash out?"
Toothless warbled a dragon laugh at the boy as if to say "nope."
Hiccup smiled at his dragon. "Anyways, what do ya say we get out of here?"
The Night Fury crooned his agreement.
"My thoughts exactly."
Hiccup climbed up into the saddle and the two took off, anxious to get out of there. As the two took flight, Hiccup glanced down to the forest floor below. There he saw one of the Speed Stingers resting below, a leg was bent at an odd angle and he wouldn't be surprised if the were a few broken ribs as well. He felt pity for the dragon awaiting its death below.
"We can't just leave it there Toothless, without our help it will die."
The dragon shot him a look like he was crazy.
"What? I seem to recall a time when you were injured and helpless and I took pity on you."
Toothless sighed and started to turn around.
Back on the ground Hiccup started looking over the helpless dragon. It was young, but still dangerous. There was indeed three broken ribs, which constricted the dragon's breathing to short gasps. When he tried to move it the Speed Stinger woke up and started to hiss. Hiccup was forced to dodge the Stinger's tail, but was still determined to help the dragon. He slowly made his way closer to it.
"Easy there little guy."
The Speed Stinger made a show of presenting the dangerous red barb that was the tip of it's tail. With a lunge Hiccup dove for the tail and pinned it to the ground.
"Toothless, little help her."
The dragon came forward and stepped on the tail, freeing up Hiccup's hands to make a splint. It was a little awkward with the dragon thrashing beneath him but he managed to tie a couple sticks to the broken leg with a vine from a nearby tree.
"Let him go Toothless."
Cautiously Toothless removed his foot and backed away. In an instant the speed stinger was on it's feet and taking a few careful steps to test out the splint. Due to the broken ribs, it wasn't able to move too fast and it walked with a limp, but it was still deadly.
"Easy there, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help."
The dragon hesitantly took a step towards Hiccup. Toothless gave it a warning growl which Hiccup waved off.
"Lets try this again." he mumbled to himself.
He tentatively reached out a hand and turned his head away, fully knowing that he was in danger again. Toothless tensed, knowing he might have to save his crazy rider… again. Hiccup could feel a drop of sweat form on his forehead as he waited for the dragon to make up it's mind. After a few more tense seconds, he felt the warm contact of dragon scales on his skin. He glanced back to Speed Stinger, it's snout resting against his palm, and smiled.