Hiccup and Toothless flew farther, until they passed several more dragons, clutching fish or sheep in their teeth.
Toothless roared at them, and they roared angrily back, flying farther away.
"Toothless, what was that all about?" Hiccup suspected he must have known those dragons when he lived in the nest.
Toothless began following the dragons silently, and after awhile, they came upon a volcano.
The dragons flew straight down inside it, and Toothless followed them.
Hiccup didn't even try to get them out of there; Toothless knew what he was doing.
Hiccup saw a hole shrouded in fog in the center of the volcano. It glowed with a sort of reddish light, much more sinister than any volcano Hiccup had ever seen.
Toothless flew behind a rock formation so as not to be seen by the dragons.
Hiccup saw another fully-grown Night Fury drop a couple sheep into the hole and go off to a ledge close to theirs. Silver lurked on the ledge and smiled when he saw the Night Fury, whom Hiccup assumed was his father.
Silver's father shielded the baby with his wings and retreated farther away from the hole, Silver right behind him.
Toothless began to growl softly, and that's when it happened.
A Gronckle flew in, flying low over the misty hole, and opened its mouth.
A small, half-eaten fish fell out and the Gronckle flew higher, going for a nearby ledge…
And the teeth closed over the unfortunate dragon.
Hiccup saw a Zippleback shaking her head in anger at the Gronckle's death.
Disgusted, Hiccup drew back.
The teeth were longer and thicker than one of Stoick's muscular arms; the scales around the mouth and nose had been dirty and pale, as though the creature had not seen sunlight for many years, shut up inside the nest.
The beast's enormous nostrils flared suddenly; it smelled the familiar scent of a Night Fury, but beneath the familiarity there was a foreign scent.
A human? It thought with pleasure. Has one of the creatures of the night given me fresh meat?
It had been so long since it had a real human to feast on…hopefully this one would be bigger than the last one.
Yes, it had to be a human. A dirty one, the beast reflected. Traveling, maybe, on the run. But then, Vikings weren't very careful with their appearance.
But this human smelled much better than the last one, although his heartbeat was weaker…
It liked a strong, steady heartbeat that indicated the human would put up a struggle.
Would this one? The great beast wondered idly.
Its nostrils flared again and it opened its heavily fanged mouth and drew nearer to where the Night Fury was…
No, the scent was more familiar the closer it drew to the other dragon.
The Night Fury had the smell of a traitor all over him, and he carried the human on his back, instead of in his talons, the way any self-respecting dragon would.
Not to mention the dragon's nose caught the familiar scent of leather…its eyesight wasn't very good anymore, but it guessed the leather scent came from something on the dragon itself.
Was the Night Fury dressed in human wrappings? Was he shameless?
Had he come back to the nest to taunt her about getting away?
Well, she would teach him, the beast thought savagely, and lashed out at the ledge.
But the Night Fury flew away at the last second, swirling upward…
He made it, she thought bitterly, sinking back down into the nest. He had gotten away for the second time.
The first time she hadn't really believed he could have betrayed his kind so completely, but after smelling the human situated on his back…
She was good at sensing human emotions, but she saw the human had felt no fear. He had so completely trusted the Night Fury to get him out safely.
That was not the thought of someone that was about to be supper.
She sank back into the nest and glanced up at the moon. Just its faint light hurt her blind eyes.
And next time, she swore to herself, he wasn't going to get away.