Snotlout and the twins explains the entire situation, how the Sandbenders managed to capture the dragons. Out of everyone present, Hiccup was taking the worst of it, unsurprising since he had a much closer relationship to dragon then any of them.
"How could you guys let this happen?" Hiccup yelled in fury.
"Hey, we were facing against people who know the terrain," Snotlout pointed out. "Plus in case you forgot, I have very little experience when it comes to Sandbending. They completely overwhelmed us."
Valka looked grim. "This is bad, without transport we won't survive in the desert for very long."
"Who's the old lady?" Tuffnut asked.
Astrid immediately elbowed him in the arm. "Show some respect, this is Hiccup's mother. The previous Empress of the Empire."
"This does not help get our dragons back!" Hiccup yelled in fury.
Ragnar then approached Hiccup. "Hiccup, all of us miss our dragons, but Snotlout and the twins did everything they could."
"Is there any chance you can track them down?" Heather asked.
Astrid shook her head. "The wind would have covered their tracks already, if they hadn't bend the sand to cover them."
Hiccup looked immensely outraged. "I'm going to find them myself!" he said as he snatched Ragnar's staff.
Then before any you one of them could stop him, he immediately activated Ragnar glider and took off into the wind.
Valka sighed as she looked at everyone. "Don't take it personally, he's always had a deep connection to Toothless that only others can only imagine."
Astrid shook her head and looked to the others. "We better start walking, we are the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get this information to Meridian."
Soon of them began their long trek in the desert.
Meanwhile Eret and Bjorn were riding their horse, which proved to be a bumpy ride for Bjorn, who kept on making strange noises as they rode.
"Maybe we should make camp," Eret suggested.
"No, please," said Bjorn shaking his head. "Don't stop just for me."
However the noises you were making were clearly fake so Eret immediately came to a stop. The moment they stop Bjorn jumped off and sat down on the nearest rock could find. However no sooner had he sat down that there horse immediately looked up and Eret took up a fighting position.
"What now?" Bjorn groaned.
Suddenly appearing out of the woods and surrounding them were the Rough Rumblehorns.
"Colonel Sven," said Bjorn looking at them. "What a pleasant surprise."
Sven was the Firebender amongst the squadron and he looked squarely at Bjorn. "If you're surprised we're here than the Dragon of the West has lost a few steps."
Immediately each and every one of them pulled out their weapons.
"You know these guys?" Eret asked.
"Sure Colonel Sven and the Rough Rumblehorns are legendary," said Bjorn rubbing his shoulder, which was not completely healed. "Each one is a different kind of weapon specialist. They are also a very capable singing group."
"We are not here to give a concert," Sven snapped. "We are here to apprehend fugitives."
"Would you like some tea first?" Bjorn asked with a smile.
"Enough stalling!" Sven roared. He then looked to his men. "Round them up!"
Immediately the man with chains immediately tossed it towards Bjorn, but he immediately kicked him aside with his leg and they wrap themselves around the leg of the Rumblehorn belonging to the axe wielder. The archer immediately fired his arrows at Bjorn, but he rolled to safety and struck the Rumblehorn on the rear causing it to zoom off with the chain wielder in tow.
The archer then concentrated his fire on Eret, but he immediately sliced through the arrow with his hand and then unleashed a burst of flames at the archer. The flame shot right through his bow and cut his bowstring. Sven then appeared in front of him and fired several fireballs directly at them, but Bjorn kept on deflecting them.
While he was distracted, Eret went behind him and landed on his Rumblehorn, he then immediately performed a powerful spinning flame kick knocking him right off his saddle. Bjorn immediately grabbed the horse and jumped onto it and rode off towards Eret and he was soon followed by the explosive expert.
Eret jumped onto the horse and they galloped away and the explosive expert immediately tossed explosive towards them. There was a huge explosion right in front of them, but they kept on pressing forwards and used the smoke from the exposure as their cover.
"It's nice to see old friends," said Bjorn.
"Too bad you don't have the old friends that don't want to attack you," said Eret.
Bjorn frowned. "Old friends that don't want to attack me?"
Meanwhile Astrid was leading the others through the desert and the heat was already bearing down on them. Even Astrid came from a hot climate was getting affected by the heat and they were starting to lag behind.
Astrid immediately looked at them. "Come on guys, we've got to stick together."
The twins were literally stuck together as the sweat from their shirt had stuck to one another.
"If we get even sweatier, I don't think sticking together will be a problem," said Tuffnut as they tried to separate from one another.
"Yeah, I'm already stuck for him as a brother I don't want him to be part of me," said Ruffnut.
Fishlegs looked at Heather. "Heather do think we can have some water?"
"Okay, but we've got to try and conserve it," said Heather as she began to bend the water in her gourd out.
As she divided the water into mouthfuls and gave a morsel to each and every one of them.
Snotlout drank it and taste a funny tingling it. "We're drinking your bending water? You use this on the swamp guy!"
"It does taste swampy," Ragnar agreed.
"I'm sorry, it's all we have," said Heather.
"In hindsight before we should have stacked on water before we entered into a desert," said Astrid rubbing the back of the head.
"No point in talking about one what you should have done," said Valka looking at each and every one of them. "Right now we need to focus on getting out of this desert."
"Not anymore look!" Tuffnut pointed.
The old turned and saw a cactus growing just a few feet away from them. Immediately the twins rushed over to rid began slicing it with their spears. Once they took a piece of the immediately began drinking the liquid inside of it.
Ragnar stared at them. "Hold on, you should be eating strange plants!"
The twins ignored him and kept on drinking.
"But there's one trapped inside these," said Ruffnut handing a cactus will be water to the others.
Astrid looked concerned. "I don't know."
"Suit yourself," Tuffnut shrugged. "It's very first quenching though."
Then suddenly the two of them stopped in their eyes just stared off into the distance.
"Drink cactus juice, it will quench ya," said Tuffnut holding out the cactus.
"Nothing is quenchre! It is the quenchist!" said Ruffnut doing the same thing.
All of them just stared at the twins and Astrid immediately took the cactus away from them.
"Okay, I think you guys have had enough," she said as he pulled the liquid into the sand.
"Who lit Snotlout on fire?" Tuffnut asked.
"Hopefully it's temporary," said Valka.
"I doubt it," said Snotlout. "The twins were weird to begin with."
"Let's just find Hiccup," said Astrid as she began dragging the twins along.
Hiccup meanwhile was still flying around the desert trying to search for Toothless and the others, but with very limited success. Hiccup then performed a dragon cry in the hopes that Toothless was nearby to hear, but nothing happened.
"Toothless!" Hiccup called.
He then landed on the ground and looked around. "Toothless!"
Still there was no answer.
Hiccup then clenched his fist. "No. No!"
Then in anger he spread his arms out and pointed his mouth up with an immediately fire shot out in all directions.
The flames were so large that you could see them for miles and it caught the attention of Astrid and the others.
"What was that?" Fishlegs asked.
"Hiccup," Valka sighed. "I'm afraid his anger is getting the better of him."
"Can't say that I blame him," Ragnar sighed. "He was certainly far closer to his dragon and the rest of us were to ours."
"We best keep moving," said Astrid.
The twins just stared at the inferno with wonder.
"Oh, great giant flames," said Tuffnut.
"Show us to Valhalla," Ruffnut pleaded.
Meanwhile at the outpost, Balder and Ward were trying to get information on the location of Snotlout.
"Yeah, a black haired snobbish boy and her friends passed through here a few days ago," said the man they questioned.
"Did they give you any indication where they were headed?" Ward asked.
"Maybe you could give me some insensitive," the man suggested rubbing his fingers.
"You suggesting I break your fingers," said Balder narrowing his eyes.
The man immediately retracted his fingers. "They went into the desert, too bad there's almost no chance they survived."
"That's okay, because he wanted dead or alive," said Balder narrowed his eyes.
Ward immediately scold him. "We need him to find the location of Ida, which would be much easier if he was alive."
The man took this as his opportunity to get away from the two of them.
Balder then noticed something on the Billboard. "Hey, look. Empire wanted posters."
"So?" Ward asked.
Balder then turn towards Eret and Bjorn as though making their way to the tavern. "So… look who's here."
He then turned back to Ward, who smiled broadly.
Meanwhile Astrid and the others were still wandering across the desert and they were completely exhausted. Fortunately the sun was beginning to set and the temperature was beginning to cool, but our small comfort considering they were trapped in the middle of the desert.
They start when they saw Hiccup arriving and Astrid immediately rushed over towards him, looking immensely relieved. However, she could tell that Hiccup was still hurting after losing Toothless.
"I'm sorry, Hiccup," said Astrid apologetically and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's hard for you right now, but we need to focus on getting out of here."
"You know as well as I that we won't survive without our dragons," Hiccup pointed out.
Astrid looked him. "Where is that all Hiccup optimism?"
Ragnar sighed. "Sorry to say but he does have a fair point, we're completely stranded, I doubt we can survive another day."
Fishlegs was wiping the sweat off his brow. "And to make matters worse were the only ones who know about the solar eclipse."
"And you know what's worse?" Snotlout asked. He then pointed upwards. "Them."
They all looked up and saw flying above them were vultures.
Astrid looked at everyone and saw that none of them had any bit of motivation left.
Then a hand was placed on her shoulder and she turned and found Valka smiling at her. "It's never hopeless, you just need to remain calm and think of a way out."
Astrid looked at her and then nodded firmly before she turned to the others. "We're getting out of this desert and we're going to do it together. Everyone get up and hold hands, we can do this. We have to."
They all then grabbed each other's hand and were practically dragged along by Astrid.
They walked for a few more hours, until they came to a stop. Astrid noticed that the sun was about to set, she also knew that everyone else was tired and thirsty.
"I think we should stop for the night," she said.
Almost immediately everyone collapsed to the ground.
"Is there any more water?" Snotlout asked.
Heather pulled out her gourd and gave it to him. "This is the last of it, everyone can have a little drink."
She then immediately bend the water out of her gourd and disputed to everyone. Of course that meant that it was now completely empty.
Valka then pulled out a few parchments that she acquired from the library. "Hopefully with these we can find where Meridian is. We can use the stars to guide us, that way we can travel at night when it's cold and rest during the day."
"In the meantime we should try and get some sleep," said Hiccup.
No one needed any convincing the all practically fell asleep right away.
Meanwhile at the outpost, Eret and Bjorn were in the tavern looking at every single individual.
"No one here is going to help us," he said looking at Bjorn. "These people just look like filthy wanderers."
"So do we," Bjorn pointed out. Then something caught his eye and he pointed behind Eret. "Ah! This is interesting, I think I found our friend."
Eret turned and found that his uncle was pointing at a man sitting alone at a Maces and Talons gaming board.
Eret looked at him as if he was crazy. "You brought us here so that you can gamble at Maces and Talons?"
"I don't think this is a gamble," said Bjorn with a sly smile.
He then got up from the table and made his way over towards the man and Eret followed him. The two of them remain completely unaware that Balder and Ward were watching them closely.
"Let's take them now," said Balder getting to his feet.
Ward immediately grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down. "This place is filled with desperate characters. If they find out we are collecting a bounty, we might have to fight them all just to keep our prize. Patients."
Bjorn then approached the man. "May I have this game?"
The man nodded. "The guesthouse the first move."
Bjorn then sat down and the first piece he played on the board was the Dragon Rider.
"I see you favour the Dragon Rider gambit, not many still claim to the ancient ways," said the man looking at Bjorn.
"Those who do, can always find a friend," said Bjorn as they bowed respectfully to one another.
"Then let us play," said the man.
They then began to set pieces on the board, moving them around and Eret sat down and watched them play. Once they were done the pieces were positioned in a way that resembled that of a Night Fury, the Royal Crest of the Haddocks.
"Welcome brother," said the man. "The Dragon Riders opens wide to those who know our secrets."
Eret looked at them. "What are you old gasbag talking about? And why are you looking at the old crest of the Haddocks."
"I always tried to tell you that Maces and Talons is more than just a game," Bjorn smiled.
Balder had lost his patient and got to his feet. "I am not waiting all night for these geezers to finish yapping!"
Then before Ward could stop him he marched up towards the table.
"It's over!" he yelled. "You two fugitives are coming with me!"
The man immediately got to his feet and pointed a finger at Eret and Bjorn. "I knew it! You two are wanted criminals with a giant bounty on your heads!" he yelled loudly.
Eret immediately narrowed his eyes at Bjorn. "I thought you said, he would help?"
Bjorn merely smiled. "He is. Just watch."
The man immediately turned towards Balder and Ward. "You think you're going to capture them and get all that gold?"
Immediately everyone in the tavern looked up.
"Gold?"
Ward noticed that everyone in the tavern was drawing their weapons. "Uh, perhaps we shouldn't…"
Balder ignored him and made a step towards Eret and Bjorn, but then to thugs jumped right in front of him. He then quickly began to spin around and sent a rock from the walls directly at them knocking them aside with the greatest of ease. A man with a knife then charged at Ward, but he used his Earthbending to have the man sink into the ground. Balder literally had his hands full with several Sandbeners, but he easily tossed them aside.
In the confusion, Eret and Bjorn left the tavern with the man leaving Balder and Ward to clean up the mess they created.
Balder and Ward easily took down everyone in the tavern, but they then noticed that there pray had escaped in the confusion. In frustration Balder slammed his foot into the ground sending a Sandbender flying through the roof.
Meanwhile in the desert, everyone was starting to wake up as they were beginning then extract across the vast desert.
"Time to get moving," said Astrid.
Hiccup's eyes widened as he looked above them. "Toothless?"
However upon closer examination it turned out not to be Toothless, but a cloud.
"It's just a cloud," said Astrid sadly.
Heather immediately looked up. "Did you say a cloud?" She then immediately turned to Hiccup. "Hiccup do you think you can get up there and bend the water that clouded my gourd?"
Hiccup took her gourd and Ragnar tossed in his staff. Hiccup immediately activated the glider and took off into the air, they then watched as he began to fly around the cloud and piece by piece began to vanish. Once the crowd was completely gone he then made his way back down to the ground and handed the gourd back to Heather.
Heather examined the water. "Wow, there's hardly any in here."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Hiccup snapped. "It's a desert cloud, I did all I could!"
Valka placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hiccup, calm down. We are already enough trouble without tearing at each other's throats."
Hiccup relaxed slightly from her touch.
Astrid sighed. "Let's just get moving," she said as she grabbed one of Valka's star charts. "We need to head in this direction."
They then began to walk through the desert, but then Snotlout tripped and cried in pain as he clenched his foot.
"Ow! What idiot would bury a boat in the middle of a desert?" he roared in pain.
"A boat?" Astrid blinked.
"Believe me, I kicked it hard enough to get plenty of vibrations," Snotlout grumbled.
Astrid bent down to what Snotlout tripped over and carved wood was protruding out of the desert sand. Ragnar then stepped forward and blew away the sand with his Airbending and that's when they discovered buried in the sand was not about, but a sand glider.
"It one of the gliders that the Sandbenders us," said Valka as she looked around it.
Fishlegs immediately climbed aboard and found a compass. "It's got some kind of compass on it. I bet it can point us out of here." He then looked at Ragnar. "Ragnar, you can bend a breeze so that we can sail it, we're going to make it."
Meanwhile at the outpost, the man had led Eret and Bjorn into a building which was filled with plants. After making sure they were followed he closed the door behind and then bowed to Bjorn respectfully.
"It is an honour to welcome such high-ranking member of the Dragon Riders," he said respectfully. "Being a Grandmaster, you must know so many secrets."
Eret was beginning to lose his patience. "Now that you playing Maces and Talons, are you going to do some flower arranging or is someone in this club going to offer some real help?"
"You must forgive my nephew," said Bjorn as the water down the shop. "He is not an initiate and has very little appreciation for the cryptic arts."
The man nodded in understanding and immediately knocked on the door. At once an opening appeared within the door and a man looked at them.
"Who knocks at the guarded get?" he asked.
"One that has eaten the fruit and have tasted is mystery," said Bjorn.
Immediately the door opened and the on and entered inside the room. Eret was about to follow them, but then the door slams shut on his face. Seconds later Bjorn's face appeared from the opening in the door.
"I'm afraid its members only," Bjorn explained. "Wait out here."
Eret was frustrated, but he waited though he had no idea what was going on.
Meanwhile Hiccup and the others were flying across the desert on the glider and were following the compass. Ragnar was generating enough wind to blow them across the desert and everyone was relaxing as they were no longer stranded on the desert.
"The need on this campus doesn't seem to be pointing north according to my charts," said Valka as he pulled out a star chart and looked at the compass.
"Maybe it's not pointing north," said Fishlegs scratching his head.
Snotlout stared at them. "What kind of compass doesn't point north?"
Before anyone could answer him suddenly appearing in front of them was several rock formations.
"That is what the compass is pointing to, those rock formations rock," said Astrid looking at the others. "It must be the magnetic centre of the desert."
"Maybe we can find some water there," said Heather cheerfully.
"Maybe we can find some Sandbenders," said Hiccup narrowing his eyes.
They soon stopped at the rock formations, but sadly they could not find any trace of any water.
"There's no water here," said Ragnar shaking his head.
Fishlegs frowned. "These rocks create a natural barrier to the heat so why haven't any Sandbenders call this place home?"
"That's actually a good point," Astrid frowned. "This place is easily dependable, plenty of shade…"
"And tons of treasure!" said Snotlout's cheery voice.
They immediately turned around the corner of a rock formation and found that Snotlout was looking at heaps of gold.
"Someone just left treasure here for strangers to take?" said Ragnar looking a bit concerned.
"Their loss are gain!" said Snotlout as he immediately snatched large piles of gold coins.
"I we need to leave this place," said Valka cautiously.
"Why?" Heather asked.
They then followed Valka and saw that she was staring at large piles of glass.
"We'd all this glass come from?" said Astrid in wonder.
"There's only one creature I know who is capable of this," said Hiccup looking deeply concerned. "A Sandbuster."
Fishlegs immediately panicked. "But they don't like sunlight. It burns their scales."
"And these rock formations hide the sun from them," Astrid pointed out.
The ground then began to shake and suddenly emerging from the sand was a dragon with a long, snake-like body. It had a large head with relatively small blue eyes. Its long neck had sharp rows of spikes and it had four legs, each ending with three sharp claws.
No sooner had its head popped out that it fired a blast from its mouth, fortunately they were able to dodge it. They then saw the blast hitting the sand and saw it turning immediately into glass.
"Don't get hit by that," said Ragnar as he pulled himself up.
Snotlout immediately turned and thrusted his hand forward firing a boulder directly at the Sandbuster, but it quickly sank its head back into the sand and his attack almost hit Astrid.
"Will you watch where you're aiming?" Astrid roared.
"Not my fault he moved," said Snotlout defensively.
The Sandbuster then emerged its head directly behind Hiccup, who managed to jump out of the way before he got blasted. Heather then used what little water she had to form a water whip, but it barely tickled it.
"I am out of water," Heather panicked.
"We need to get into the sunlight, it will follow us there," said Valka.
None of them wasted any time getting outside of the rock formations and just as Valka predicted the Sandbuster did not follow them. However, it kept on blasting them with his strange flames, but then suddenly erupting right between them and the Sandbuster what columns of sand the moment they were hit by the blast they turned to glass.
They turned and saw several Sandbenders looking at them.
Meanwhile Eret have been waiting outside the door all night and finally Bjorn emerged along with the man.
"What's going on?" he asked. "Is the club meeting over?"
"Everything is taken care of," said Eret as he bowed respectfully to the man, who did the same. "We are headed to Meridian."
"Meridian? Why would we go to the Earth Kingdom capital?" Eret stared.
"The city is filled with refugees, no one will notice two more," the man explained.
"We can hide in plain sight there," Bjorn explained. "And it's the safest place in the world from the Empire, even I can break through to the city."
Suddenly they heard the door opened and a young man holding a pair of tickets approached them.
"I have a passport our guests, but there are two men out on the street looking for them," he explained.
They looked through the opening in the door and saw Balder and Ward holding a wanted poster of them out to anyone they passed by.
Meanwhile Hiccup and the others were being questioned by the Sandbenders.
"What are you doing in our land with a Sandbender sailor?" the chief asked looking at them suspiciously. "From the looks of it you stole it from the Sand Rider Tribe."
"We found the sailor abandoned in the desert," Astrid explained. She then gestured towards Hiccup. "We are travelling with the Avatar."
The chief's eyes widened.
"Our dragons were stolen and we have to get to Meridian," Astrid continued.
A young man then narrowed his eyes at them. "You dare accuse our people of theft while you ride in on a stolen sand sailor."
Ragnar looked at him curiously. "We didn't say that your people store are dragons."
"Indeed," said the chief narrowing his eyes of young man. "If what they say is true, we must give them hospitality."
"Sorry father," said the young man apologetically.
Snotlout then leaned in towards the others. "I recognise the son's voice, he's the one who stole our dragons."
Astrid looked at him. "Are you sure?"
"It would explain how he knew that our dragons were stolen by Sandbenders," said Ragnar quietly.
Hiccup then immediately marched towards the sun and drew Inferno. "You stole our dragons! Where are they? What did you do to them?"
Son was immediately fearful and looked to his father. "They're lying… they're the thieves."
In rage Hiccup immediately unleashed a fireball destroying one of their sand sailors.
"Where are our dragons?" Hiccup demanded.
At the flower shop the young man from earlier exited the store with two large pot plants. A few moments later, Balder and Ward approached the store and Balder slammed the door open.
He then immediately approached the store's owner. "Hey, you… where are these men?" he demanded showing a wanted poster of Eret and Bjorn. "I got a tip that there in your shop."
"As you can see no one's here, but us," said the store's owner calmly.
"We know all about your secret backroom," said Ward and then looked at Balder. "Kick it down."
Balder immediately charged towards the door.
"Hey, that room is for members only!" said the store owner.
Balder ignored him and literally kicked the door down, but inside they found nothing except for a Dragon Rider piece.
"Some unlucky soul has an incomplete Maces and Talons set," said Ward picking the piece up.
Balder knotted out of his hand in rage. "Let's carry on finding that boy."
Unbeknownst to them, Eret and Bjorn were actually inside the large pot plants and were currently making their getaway without anyone knowing.
Meanwhile Hiccup was losing his temper to the Sandbenders, who are now very scared.
"You will tell me where they are!" Hiccup roared and immediately fired another fireball destroying yet another sand sailor.
The chief looked at his son. "What did you do?"
The son shook his head defensively. "It wasn't me."
"You said put a muzzle on them," Snotlout glared,
Hiccup now was enraged. "You put a muzzle on Toothless!"
Hiccup's eyes then immediately glowed and he unleashed yet another fireball destroying the last of their sand sailors.
The son was now utterly terrified. "I'm sorry. I didn't know they belong to the Avatar."
"Tell me where they are!" Hiccup demanded his voice very deep.
"I traded them… it some merchants," he said cringing in fear. "They're probably in Meridian by now. They were going to sell them there." Hiccup's eyes narrowed and the son was practically begging now. "Please, we'll escort you out of the desert, we'll help however we can."
Wind then began to blow around Hiccup and Ragnar and everyone else, minus Astrid, rushed over to the Sandbenders. "Just get out of here! Run!"
The Sandbenders do need to be told twice and immediately ran for it at Hiccup began to float in the air. He probably would have blown everyone aside if Astrid had not appeared and grabbed his arm.
Immediately he began to calm down and fell into her arms. Soon the storm stopped and Hiccup's eyes returned back to normal.