Ten
"Astrid!" Stoick yells in panic to her as he dashes thorough the living room, "The Outcasts are attacking the Village! They're after Hiccup! Get your dragon and come on! Now!" The desperation and urgency in his voice is plain and clear to anyone.
Astrid springs to her feet, eyes wide and teeth gritted in fury. How dare they come here!? Her axe is already in her hand and Toothless leaps up to follow; hiding his wince as his front paw hits the wooden floor.
"No Toothless." Astrid tells him sternly, spinning round in a whirl of skirt and taking in his narrowed green eyes, visible teeth and the way his tail flicks around like he's eager to get out there, in the thick of the upcoming battle to protect his rider. "You stay here." Toothless snarls at this. He will fight them off, he will. He'll protect Hiccup. "No! You're injured, and..." Toothless growls dangerously at her. "I need you to stay here to watch over Hiccup."
Toothless pauses, eyes widening, one ear cocked to the side, his head slightly tilted.
"She's right." Stoick agrees from the doorway. "Toothless, go up to his room, guard him. Keep my boy safe. Understood?"
The great black dragon sits back on his haunches and gives one, long, slow nod to show he realizes the importance of this, and then Stoick is gone out the door, Astrid hot on his heels.
Toothless pads softly up the stairs, careful to make his off-balance gait as soundless as possible to not wake the sleeping boy above, and he pushes the door open gently with his nose, wincing as it creaks loudly.
Hiccup lays unconscious in his bed, and as he pads closer, Toothless thinks the boy has never looked tinier. The great dragon goes to nose at the boy's side, but then thinks better of it, his wide, green eyes big and sorrowful as he takes in the white bandages and dark smudges of bruising that cover his rider. His best friend. Toothless's ears are sharper than any humans, and he can just hear the pained edge to the boy's breathing as it rattles thinly in his chest.
Toothless whines loudly and skitters backwards to the rock that usually serves as his bed, settling down with a blast of plasma fire. The dragon sinks down onto the warmed rock, crossing his forepaws and keeping his large green eyes fixed on the boy. If he so much as moves, Toothless will know about it. If anyone makes it past the people of Berk, and into the room. If anyone comes within so much of a foot of Hiccup. Toothless will know about it.
And Toothless will stop them.
...
Stoick the Vast growls lowly as the first of the Outcasts leaps from the boats into the water and begins swimming rapidly for the shoreline.
Looks like they're not even here to negotiate.
Stoick hefts his axe against his palm with an angry scowl, his eyes flashing dangerously. He tries his best to ignore the lingering exhaustion that still clings to his frame, and the headache that's pounding just behind his eyes that blur unfocusedly under its onslaught. Cries of 'capture the Dragon Conqueror' arising from the band of heavily-armed Outcasts are more than enough to convince Stoick of what they are here for, and how they'll easily resort to force to get it.
Well if it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get.
He won't let a single member of that gang of disgusting, foul-mouthed ruffians come within a hairsbreadth of his son.
"Charge!" Comes the strangled yell and Stoick's not even sure if he's the one shouting or if it's one of the Outcasts, but the two sides clash in a shriek of steel and blood-curdling battle cries all the same.
A thick bearded brute with a board sword that could cut a walking-fishbone like Hiccup in half with a single blow meets his end under the force of Stoick's axe. But just as quickly as the Outcast falls, another pops up in his place.
Over and over and over. They keep appearing faster than they can be cut down. The Outlaws might have the advantage of numbers, but many of them have little, if no skill with their weaponry. Looking around, Stoick sees Astrid and her little gang tackling Outcasts a few meters away. Their dragon's roaring loudly and swiping at the tiny figures of men in the way they used to do before they were tamed.
Before Hiccup...
A yelling, sword-wielding, dirty Outcast runs at the Zippleback from behind, catching it by surprise and unseating it's riders as it's heads twist around to try to see the little man bashing at one of its tails. The twins fall ungracefully off their dragon in a shriek of laughter and when Stoick next glances at them, Ruffnut Thorston is perched on her brother's shoulders, casually bashing the flat of her axe on the head of an unsuspecting Outcast, whooping loudly, and high-fiving Tuffnut as the man crumples into unconsciousness.
Their dragon recovers quickly enough, gripping the Outcast at his tail by the scruff of his jacket and tossing it over the heads of the invaders in a screaming blur.
A small smile creases the corner of Stoick's frowning mouth. Astrid's Nadder is in the air now, the girl's plait flying out behind her as she soars, reining spiky destruction down on Outcasts below. Man after man is felled by fire and spines as the others join her in the air.
The Outcasts have no chance. Their strength in numbers is ineffective against the might of the four destructive dragons.
But the riders were finding it hard to pinpoint their targets amongst the mass of Vikings. It was difficult to differentiate between friend and foe in the mass of yelling, weapon-swinging, foul-mouthed Vikings.
Stoick's about to call them down again, they were doing more good on foot, when they could see who they were fighting, when a shadow flickers oddly in the corner of Stoick's eye, and he wheels round to face a pair of cold, storm-grey eyes.
Stoick takes a long, empty moment to just look. The man before him is very different from any of the other Outcasts there.
Vastly different in fact.
Where the typical Outcast had thick, bulging muscles and small squinty eyes, this man was thin and lean and cloaked in darkness. His eyes cold and calculating and a long, thin rapier rests in his grip. This man was not one to be trifled with.
"You know." Shadow says, his voice surprisingly calm before the sight of Stoick, battle-hardened and bloodstained, wielding his huge, silver axe. Something at the edge of Stoick's consciousness notes the man is far younger than he'd first thought. Certainly not over twenty three. Still more of a boy than a man. The air he gives off is not dissimilar to when his own son is looking trouble in the eye and trying to put on a brave front. "For a man so big," The sharp glint of teeth at Shadow's mouth betrays his smile. "It took surprisingly little to fool you."
Stoick's eyes widen, taking a moment to fully absorb that statement and what it meant. No...
With a furious blood-curdling yell the two meet in a clang of weaponry and a shower of sparks. Stoick's eyes are like chips of greyed ice, a snarl ready on his lips and his expression twisted in fury.
"What." He spits out. "Have. You. Done."
"It doesn't really matter." Shadow's smile grows, savouring his victory, Alvin's victory. "By the time you get to the boy. It'll already be too late."
...
Hiccup moans in his sleep, his head listing sideways to flop against the pillow and Toothless is up on his feet in an instant; padding across the room and nosing urgently at the boy's cheek. His rider gives a weak, pain filled whimper, his brow scrunching in pain, and Toothless warbles softly, trying desperately to put the boy at ease, but knowing there's not much he can really do.
He doesn't really understand why the boy is so weak, so still. Only knowing it's because he's injured. Hurt. And badly. The dragon thinks, not for the first time, that he could have done more for Hiccup. Better protected him. Stopped him from falling. Saved his rider from this... horrible, terrible sickness that's wearing away at him.
Hiccup just seems so small, so frail, in the dragon's shadow. All thin limbs and pale damaged skin.
Toothless rests the tip of his snout gently on Hiccup's forehead, worrying at the strange foreign heat coming from the boy. It smells of sickness and pain and Toothless doesn't like it, not at all. The great black dragon inches backwards again, eyes big and green with concern, to sit on his haunches and watch over the boy.
As watching over him is all he can do.
Toothless slumps a bit in his sitting position, and hopes, feverently that Stoick will be back soon to look after the boy.
The dragon can't help but feel useless.
In the shadow of the window, a dark, hulking figure grits his teeth and scowls, unseen by the anxiously fretting Nightfury. Alvin hadn't been counting on the dragon's presence. It's going to make taking the boy so much harder than planned.
Nevermind. Alvin can work round it. He just has to find a way to get rid of the beast. Shouldn't be too difficult... right?
The sounds of the battle float in by the window and Toothless perks up his head, ears cocked, and a low rumbling growl in his throat. Alvin has to duck quickly under the window frame, praying the beast does not smell him. The Nightfury takes one huge padded step towards the window and every muscle in Alvin's body goes taught, high and thrumming with anxiety, hands tightly grasping the handle of his axe, ready to use it at any moment. But then the boy in the bed moans again, and the dragon's head whips round to stare in wide eyed worry at Hiccup again.
Stupid beast.
The boy tosses to one side, an arm falling limply out of its blankets to reveal a pale white hand and a limb that is tightly, securely bandaged to a sturdy splint that holds it at a perfect angle. Broken perhaps. Anxiously, the Nightfury nudges the arm back up under the covers, and the young rider gives a long whimpering groan of pain, his dragon's whines mingling with his.
Alvin drops soundlessly into the room behind the beast, his padded boots cushioning his steps perfectly. An idea he stole from Shadow in fact.
Toothless nudges Hiccup under the chin, eliciting yet another moan as the boy's pale face scrunches up with pain. Hiccup's eyes are ringed with dark smudges that match the deep purpled bruising and there's barely an inch of him not smothered with bandages. The boy seems tiny in his bed, tiny and weak, and for the first time it strikes Alvin that Stoick's boy might be really seriously hurt.
Good. The Outcast snorts.
Toothless's ears prick up and Alvin freezes, not even daring to breathe. There's a long, empty moment where they both just stand there, and then the boy moans again, and the dragon jerks back into nuzzling at the child like it's an injured hatching.
Alvin supposes that in a way, to the dragon, the boy probably is.
His large feet slide soundlessly over the wooden floor and Alvin can't help the wide, toothy grin on his face as he raises his axe. He's not quite tall enough to hold it upright, so he holds the blade horizontally, arm muscles rippling, just above the dragon's head.
Alvin's smirk grows.
With all the force in his huge, powerful body, Alvin brings the flat of the axe crashing down on the dragon's head with an almighty CRACK.
There's a long, empty moment where nothing happens.
Then the beast crumples to the ground with a thud like a tonne of bricks. Alvin freezes, mentally daring the disgusting creature to get up again. There's a pause. The beast doesn't move. He's killed it. A slow smile spreads itself back across Alvin's space as he steps arrogantly over the corpse.
Or what he thought was a corpse.
Quick as lightning, Toothless lashes out. But his visions skewed and his aims all wonky and his paw goes a mile wide of Alvin's blurry form. The dragon staggers up and back, growling loudly deep in his throat and limping heavily on his forepaw as the silver blur of an axe swings in his vision accompanied by an assortment of Alvin's finest expletives.
Toothless tries to shake his head to clear it, but just ends up reeling to the side, ears ringing painfully and vision still off kilter, stumbling painfully backwards to get away from the deadly silver blur. He snarls at it, teeth sharp and jagged in his mouth. He must protect Hiccup from this man! Then the flat of the axe crashes into the side of his face with all the force of a Monstrous Nightmare and Toothless is thrown to the side under the strength of it.
"Dam bloody beast!" Alvin snarls waving his axe triumphantly, then, not wanting to waste any more time on the dragon by trying to kill it, scrambles quickly over to the boy still resting limply in the bed and grabs him roughly by his broken arm. Hiccup gives a soul-shattering howl of pain, his green eyes wide and unseeing as he writhes in Alvin's agonising grip. No! Toothless sends out a panicked bark to his master, stumbling upright, his paws in all the wrong places as urgency makes his heartbeat pound quickly and loudly in his ears. But not loud enough that he doesn't hear Alvin say; "Don't you dare move a muscle, beast." With a cruel smile. "Or I'll kill the boy."
And Toothless's blurry vision can just make out Hiccup's form dangling limply in the man's grip, the silver smudge of the axe pressed dangerously against the boy's throat.
...
The two men break away from each other in a shower of sparks that sends Shadow stumbling backwards.
"What do you mean!?" Roars Stoick into his face, spittle flying as he advances on the skinny figure of the man before him. "What will be too late?!" Fear pulses through Stoick's veins, turning his vision red with anger and throwing a terrified tremor into his hands. His heart beats out a wild, thrashing rhythm in his chest and ears, and his breath comes in short panicked pants and his spins wildly, looking around him for any man that might have gotten past him or his warriors.
He sees only Outcast corpses.
"What have you done!?" Stoick snarls, whirling back round to face the Shadow-man, but finds the dark figure has vanished without a trace. "Hiccup..." Stoick breathes, completely forgetting about his opponent in a second. His axe feels like it weights more than a thousand men in his hands, his limbs tremble and his heart pounds in his chest. "Hiccup!" And then he's running, flying over the familiar terrain of his hometown. Towards his house. Towards his son. Towards; "HICCCUP!" Stoick's pain filled, agonisingly desperate cry wrenches the air apart before him. "HICCUP!" his fists clench and the handle of his axe gives a loud crack and his whole body feels like its being stabbed over and over and over by fear. Terrible agonising, painful, fear. "HICCUP!"
The door to his house is shut, and he throws it open, pounding up the stairs and into his son's room before he has time to register crossing the threshold.
And there's Alvin.
With an axe to his son's throat.
...
A.N: *chuckles evilly* but look! A update! Sorry this one was a little slow, I was working on a cover image for you! Hope you like it! :D
Better quality version of the cover can be seen at: http colon forwardslash forwardslash lenleg dot deviantart dot com forwardslash art forwardslash Crevice-358756515
You'll have to type out the link though, as this website doesn't allow url's.
Anyway, yes,
Thanks so much for reading, drop me a review to let me know what you think! :D
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
- Lenle