Chapter Nine
Toothless's strong, steady wingbeats kept pace with the crow. Beneath them, the hills grew taller, the forests thicker and more forbidding, but for the places that had been engulfed in flame. The fires illuminated an otherwise dark night, though the top of Beinn Mor was still shrouded in blackness. It was there that the crow was undoubtedly leading them, and as they neared, Merida saw the familiar sturdy shapes of standing stones circling its peak.
Then, with a shock, she realized they weren't standing stones at all. The crow made to land on one, and Toothless slowed to alight in the center. Now that they were close enough to touch, Merida could see that the pillars were made of mortar and rocks, rotted wooden beams stretched out between them. The strange trio stood among the ruins of a castle that had long been forgotten.
Silently, Merida slid from the dragon's back, staring open-mouthed around the crumbling walls and empty windows. The stone under her feet may have once been a courtyard, or even a hall. Any decorative banners or tapestries that might have hinted at who had lived here had long since faded away.
Hiccup also dismounted, though he kept one hand on Toothless. Like Merida, he was awestruck, but struggled with a sense of foreboding. He had the unshakable feeling that they shouldn't be there-but couldn't put into words why. So he kept quiet, flinching when the crow took off again, the flap of its feathers breaking the silence.
The crow glided from beam to beam, out of a break in the walls and into a wider space. Here, the stone floor had collapsed, meaning that the ground here was hollow. The pit yawned like the mouth of an ever-hungry beast, but Merida crept close to the edge to try and see how far down it went.
She was surprised to find a ramp, built from earth and debris, worn smooth by the passage of something large and heavy, sloping down into the emptiness. Around the rim of the hole, the stone was blackened, as if it had been burnt, and despite the obvious wear of the entire structure, no creepers or grass had dared to grow on it.
"Are you seriously thinking of going down there?" Hiccup had come up behind her, and Merida was surprised to find herself already inching down the ramp.
"I, ah, I guess so," she replied, turning to look over Hiccup's head for the crow. For what, approval? A signal of some kind? But whatever she had wanted from it would have to wait-the bird had disappeared.
Beside Hiccup, Toothless had begun to growl. It was astonishingly loud, and the boy was frightened to see his friend's nose wrinkled, his lips curled back, teeth exposed and gleaming in the starlight. Eyes affixed on the hole, Toothless was almost feral, and refused to take another step closer.
His reaction disturbed Merida, too. "What's the matter with 'im?" She asked.
"I don't know," Hiccup answered, though he actually did. Stepping toward Toothless, hands raised in a calming gesture, he said, "It's whatever's down there. He doesn't like it."
"Well, then, keep watch." Merida faced the ramp again, and without hesitating, strode down into the dark.
Hiccup watched her go, though he was running his hands over the scales of Toothless's face, trying to reassure him. The dragon's tail thumped against the ground and he gnashed his teeth, the same reaction he'd displayed on the island of the Red Death. Could it be that this place was similar-the nest of the fearsome Mor'du?
If it was, it meant that it was only a matter of time before the beast returned. They had to leave, and leave now.
"I'll be right back, bud," Hiccup whispered, then sprinted for the hole that had swallowed the princess up. "Merida!" He shouted. "Merida! We gotta go!"
He expected to be blind down below, but was surprised to find himself in a wide tunnel, the walls piled with more fallen stones and ancient, tarnished armor, all illuminated by a familiar blue glow. All things considered, that light wasn't very assuring, and he shouted out for Merida again.
Then he saw her silhouetted some distance ahead, enraptured by something on the walls. Dancing motes of blue-wisps!-surrounded her like overlarge lightning bugs. As Hiccup ran to her, he heard the noise of his own footsteps echoing farther and farther down the tunnel, seemingly into forever. But even more affecting then the sounds was the smell; down here, it was thick with the odor of dragons, musky and scorched. His theory that this was Mor'du's nest was affirmed.
"Merida," he said once he was at her side. "We need to leave before he comes back."
The princess shook her head once, then reached a shy hand to touch the wall. Following with his eyes, Hiccup saw that the entire length had been carved in intricate relief, made more dramatic by the shadows cast in the wisps' strange light. He recognized heavily armored people and the almost comical carvings of animals. Most of it was symbolic, however: forests of swords, spears, and standing stones were ringed by patterns of knots, and he couldn't see any sort of linear narrative until Merida pointed it out.
"Look," she said softly, pointing to three armed figures flanked by the towers of a castle. "They were brothers, and they were in a kingdom... This was their kingdom!" She could only mean the ruins above them. Sidling sideways, deeper in, Merida continued, the wisps keeping close. "But one of the brothers, he wanted it all for himself..."
A lone figure, a broad-shouldered man, stood with a sword in one hand and a banner in the other. On the banner was the unmistakable silhouette of a dragon.
"The Dragon King," Merida whispered, then leapt to the left, her fingers still brushing the stone. "And here, the wisps..."
It was the same figure, but surrounded by carved flames. The stone here was blackened, as if it was scorched. When Merida pulled her hand away, it was dusted with soot. Beneath the soot, the stone was webbed with cracks.
She followed them with her eyes, to where the wall had been mutilated by four long furrows. The picture that had once been carved there was now unrecognizable. The damage, however, was obvious to Hiccup: it could only have been caused by the claws of a dragon.
"We need to go," the boy urged her. In the blue light of the wisps, they were both frighteningly pale.
"I understand now," Merida turned to him, eyes wide with shock. "Hiccup, Mor'du... Mor'du was a man. This man." She pointed to the wall.
"What?" Hiccup looked up, then back to her. "No. He's a dragon, and he's going to come back and he's going to cook us for dinner if we don't leave!"
"But he did the same thing I did!" Merida's emotions were a mixture of wonder and horror; awe of the Old Ways, and shock that she and Mor'du were not so different. The ruins were ancient, meaning that Mor'du had never broken his spell. Did that mean there was no way to save her mother either?
"I have to find the cloak," Merida turned from the wall, beseeching the wisps silently. They floated from her, farther into the tunnel, where the walls and floor were so burned by dragon flame that they seemed to be made of solid blackness. She didn't notice the sealskin cloak until she almost stepped on it; it had been crumpled into a ball, stained by ash, and cruelly torn nearly in two. Seeing it was a terrible reminder of the Queen's condition, and the fact that Merida had been the one to blame. She hugged the skin to her chest and moaned.
"Oh, Mum."
Her anguish was almost palpable, down there in the dark. Oppressive and heavy, it wanted to drive her to her knees and leave her there while who knew what befell her burning kingdom.
But Hiccup was not so paralyzed. His hand on her arm brought her back to the task at hand, and they both made for the tunnel's exit. As they climbed up toward the sky, Merida risked one last glance back, searching for the wisps. In their place, she thought she saw the glowing figure of a man, but as soon as she tried to focus on the wavering blue light, it vanished.
The earth-shaking roar of a dragon echoed across the hills. Orange-tinged smoke now blanketed the sky like winter clouds, though instead of snowfall, it was ash. Toothless skated over the tops of the trees, a black phantom with two terrified teenagers clinging to his back. Ahead, tents still smoldered in the game field and a line of buildings in the village had been reduced to rubble, but most of the fires had been put out. On the road leading up to DunBroch, they saw the warriors of Clan Macintosh shepherding people to shelter in the castle's ancient cellars.
Merida clutched the skin tighter to herself, thinking of her mother in the tunnels beneath the cliffs. Had she made it to safety, or had her injuries proved too much to bear? The princess prayed that the skin she carried would be able to save her mother from the terrible wrath of Mor'du.
In front of her, Hiccup and Toothless kept their senses alert for any sign of the dragon. Smelling it out proved impossible-there was too much smoke in the air, blown about by a sea-borne wind, and as the roar faded, silence took its place. It had yet to show itself, but it would be a challenge for a dragon as large as this one to hide, especially when it was hunted by a Night Fury, the stealthiest dragon of all.
Following Merida's direction, Hiccup steered Toothless up and over the castle, spiraling down the cliffside toward the pebbled beaches at their feet. The loch was eerily still in comparison to the chaos raging on land, and the princess had to strain her eyes to try and see if her mother and her guardians had made it to the shoreline.
Only a small pale face, crowned with orange hair, signaled that the Queen was safe. The triplets waved from behind a large boulder that rested against the cliff face. In its shadow, Elinor huddled, wrapped in a blanket. Surrounding her protectively were the Lords' sons, their weapons gleaming in the light reflected off of the water. Merida saw them tense as Toothless made ready to land, though they relaxed some when they recognized the princess.
As soon as Toothless alighted, Merida flung herself from his back, pushing through the young men to fall to her knees at Elinor's side.
"Mum!" Her voice bounced harshly from the rocks. The boys scrambled around her, looking stricken as Elinor gazed at them. She was trembling, though from cold or pain it was hard to tell. Her face was drained of color, and the hair around her temples was damp with sweat. She reached out to Merida as if to embrace her-but at the sight of the skin, she recoiled.
"Oh, Merida!" She moaned unhappily, an expression of anguish crossing her face, unlike any Merida had ever seen before.
"I know, I know," Merida said softly, her own throat tightening with fear and remorse. "But ye have to, it's the only way you can get away-"
"I won't, Merida," Elinor cut her off, stroking her daughter's hair, her own face twisted as she fought back tears. "I won't leave you. Not ever."
Merida opened her mouth to respond, but her blood ran cold as another impossible roar tore the air. Still standing a respectful distance away on the beach, Hiccup and Toothless had their eyes to the sky, spinning in place to find the source of the noise.
It was like a thunderclap. A rush of wind buffeted the group on the beach as an enormous black shape appeared over the cliff, passing over where the castle stood. It swooped down over the water, gliding low over the silver water of the loch before veering right, blocking out the sky with its wings.
Hiccup had only seen a dragon this large once before: it had been the Red Death, an enormous, terrible beast that had very nearly put an end to everything. Mor'du, however, was more serpentine and lithe, his silhouette a fearsome display of spikes and sharp horns. Almost like a Monstrous Nightmare-but far larger. Its long tail, like the Read Death's, ended in a spiked club. Its head was so large that he could see its teeth when it opened its jaws and vomited fire into the air.
The group on the beach ducked low, though they could feel the heat through their clothes and against their faces. The rocks of the cliff face groaned and cracked, dust raining down at the force of the great dragon's passage. Toothless clawed the pebbles of the beach in fear, but still flung a wing over Hiccup protectively. As Mor'du wheeled around back over the loch, the boy threw himself into the saddle, glancing back to Merida and her mother before urging Toothless into the sky.
Merida didn't even notice when Hiccup took off; when Mor'du has flown overhead, Elinor had thrown up her bare arms with a pained, frightened cry. The thin lines of old scars showed white there against her pale skin, making Merida almost sick with fear and regret. Now, more than ever, she was determined to hide her mother where Mor'du would never reach her.
"Mum," the princess moaned, reaching her hands out to the ailing Queen. Elinor took them, too weak to resist as her daughter pulled her from the shelter of the stone and out onto the beach. The Lords' sons and the triplets followed, the former still watching the dragons in the sky.
Toothless and Hiccup needed to get Mor'du's attention somehow, but the beast was fixated on the defenseless Scots on the beach. With a clenching in his gut, Hiccup wished he had the other Hairy Hooligans at his side to help him with this fight-when it wasn't even really his fight. Of course, he would never leave Merida and her people to die at the claws of a dragon; and it wouldn't be very Viking of him to back down from a fight.
They clawed upward; as expected, Toothless could fly faster than Mor'du, if only because he was so much smaller. But the larger dragon didn't seem to notice them as it winged over the loch, preparing to make another pass over the beach. Beating back his fright, Hiccup tried to use his scholar's mind to figure out just how to fight the beast: did it have a shot limit? A weakness in its armor? He searched his memory, wondering if there was any such dragon in the Book back home. And as he thought, Toothless banked sharply to the left, narrowly avoiding a mid-air collision.
Mor'du did not so much as blink. It was then that Hiccup realized it only had one eye-and a potential weakness.
It was almost upon the beach again, where Merida and her mother now sat exposed. Hiccup had to act quickly, and he nudged Toothless back around. The dragon understood immediately, opening his mouth, fire burbling up from the depths of his stomach and shooting out as Mor'du prepared to make his own. Instead, the great creature snarled, the missile searing along his black-scaled flank, head snapping around to discover what had dared to attack it.
Hiccup patted Toothless's neck, urging his best friend to turn back over the loch and hoping Mor'du would follow. With a bellow of rage, the great black dragon wheeled over the cliffs, its tail smashing into the walls of ancient stone, and fell into pursuit.
Merida and her companions cried out as large chunks of stone rained down on them from the cliffside, young Macintosh raising his shield over the princess and queen to protect them from the worst of the deadly fall. The cold water of the sea loch now picked at Elinor's blanket, tugging at it the same way it tugged Merida's dress. The princess was in the water up to her knees, pulling Elinor after her, the sealskin draped over her shoulder. Just as before, Elinor was shaking her head.
"Merida, please! You don't know what you're asking me to do!"
Overhead, the dragons screamed at each other.
"I'm askin' you to save yourself!" Merida sobbed, her throat aching from the strain of emotion and breathing smoke-filled air. "I can't let you die because of..." Her mouth was as twisted as her gut. "Because of something I did!"
Elinor's blanket fell away, pushing against her legs as she was brought further out to the water. The Lords' sons looked away, but Hubert, Harris, and Hamish looked on, their own faces red and tearful from confusion and distress. They did not understand what was happening to their mother, or what their fate would be from the terrifying dragon above.
Elinor stumbled, falling to a crouch, though she didn't seem to feel the chill. She drew her daughter to her, holding her close, and for a moment Merida imagined that her mother was as strong as she'd been when she'd been much smaller and able to crawl into her lap.
"Merida, this is not your fault," the queen's voice had become a whisper now. "You can't change what I am."
The princess choked. What I am. What her mother was, had always been, and always would be was something beyond her understanding. A part of an ancient and mystical world that Merida could never be a part of. All of the stories that Elinor had told her, the tales that Hiccup scoffed at, were true, but beyond Merida's reach.
"I will always be your mother."
It shot through them both like an arrow. With a cry, Merida held Elinor tight. At some unspoken cue, the boys threw themselves into the water, fighting the waves to cling to their mother and sister. Even as force of air from Mor'du's great wings threatened to bowl them over they clung to each other, and none could say for how long.
As the noise from the fighting dragons grew worse, they finally separated. Elinor's expression was devastated, but resigned. The triplets clung to Merida's skirt as she unfurled the skin, its brown length flapping in the wind like a flag. The gash in it looked awful, and for a moment she feared that would keep it from working. There would be only one way to find out, and with a final, shuddering sigh, she threw it around Elinor's shoulders.
One moment, the skin had been in her hands, warm and slippery. The next, it had vanished, along with her mother. She was aware of a forceful push against her legs, making her nearly fall, and a murky shape under the waves that appeared to be going farther out into deeper water.
Her brothers' quiet sniffling quickly escalated into loud, unbearable wails. Merida herself felt strangely numbed, slogging her way back to shore with two boys in her arms and a third clinging to her legs. The Lords' sons rushed forward to help her, their expressions equally awed and troubled. They weren't quite sure what to make of what they'd just seen, but they wouldn't have time to sort it out either: the shadows of dragons passed over the beach once more, and Merida turned her face skyward.
AN: okay the final battle was originally gonna be just one chapter but this thing got way too long.