As told by Hiccup

Chapter 10

I woke with a sudden pain on my face. Just by the feel I could tell that I had been struck with an armoured hand.

"Get up," a rough voice ground in my ear.

I tried to rub my head – it was aching fiercely – and found that my arms were chained.

The armoured hand struck me again across the face. I tasted blood.

"Get up."

I struggled to my knees and found myself looking into the face of a man. He was extremely thin – a rare trait for a Viking – and had no beard. He wore a helmet of a dull silver colour that covered the upper half of his face. His eyes gleamed hungrily from the holes that the helmet had to see out of, green sparks in the background of darkness. Something about him gave me the creeps – and adding to his quality of eeriness was the sensation that I knew him … that I had seen him before. But I had not seen him on Berk, of that I was sure.

"Where am I?" I gasped.

"Look around," he replied.

I did so, and found myself in a ship. It was made of a dark wood, and its prow was in the shape of a monstrous dragon, painted black except for the eyes, which glowed red in a pupiless glare. I was chained to a dark iron post with filthy, rusty shackles, which were attached at my ankles and my wrists. My foot and my hands were numb because the blood flow had been restricted.

The ship was in a harbour, but not one that I had ever seen. Our ship was moored to a slimy-looking pier. The pier led up to a beach with black and brown pebbles instead of sand, and past that beach loomed a fortress, carved out of solid grey rock.

"Where am I?" I repeated. The man did not reply but took a set of keys out of his cloak and released my bonds.

The man pulled me to my feet, and I almost fell over. My hands were non-responsive, and tingled as the blood returned to them, and my one good foot was unfeeling.

The man grabbed me roughly. I tried to pull away, but was helpless in his iron grip. He then seized my coat and dragged me along, stumbling to keep my balance. Every step was excruciating, for the blood had been kept back so long that my hands and foot felt like they were being stabbed with knives.

He led me up to the fortress, and through a door made of the same black wood.

He grew increasingly angry at my fumbling steps and when we came to a staircase and I staggered again, he drew a whip from his belt. I did not wince outwardly at the sight of the weapon, but inside my heart sped up.

"Step with care," he said, curling it around his hand.

I was yanked along through passageway after passageway, passing numerous Vikings with dark hair and olive skin. My foot grew gradually easier to handle, but even under normal circumstances, walking was not comfortable without my dragon, and here the floor was slippery and we were hurrying along at quite a pace. I paid for my numerous stumbles with deep cuts from the whip.

He pulled me along until we reached a part of the fortress where there were many guards in grey armour.

I cast a furtive glance around, and saw many iron doors with small barred windows in them.

I shivered. However my life was going to end, it wasn't going to be caged in a cell. Not if I could help it.

I fell to the ground, scraping my knee this time. The man bent down to pull me back up, but before he could, I had kicked his feet from under him, and started to scramble down the hall, back the way we had come.

I stumbled as fast as I could away from the man, using the wall for support, but before I had gone more then twenty steps, I felt a vicelike grip lock around my upper arm from behind, and a voice in my ear. "That wasn't smart, boy."

The man twisted my arm so far around I was sure it would break, and then dragged me along until we reached the door of a cell.

He chained me to the wall by a long fetter that clamped around my ankle. I tried to resist, but despite the fact that he was skinny, he was extremely strong.

When he had finished his work, I had given up my efforts to defy him, and was lying curled on my side as best I could – my back hurt too much from the whiplashes to lie on it – sore all over, on the damp floor.

"Now, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock The Third, I will answer all your questions."

I uncurled slowly, and rolled to face the man, and quickly looked away from his gleaming eyes, green even where the whites should be … or if there were whites, I couldn't see them.

"Where am I?" I asked, my cheek cold against the gritty floor. "How do you know my name?"

"Doesn't everyone of importance in the Five Isles know the name of Hiccup? The one they all want to kill … or capture at the very least?"

His cold eyes flashed with mirth at my confusion.

Berk is an important island. If you had the heir in your keeping, you could persuade his father to part with his kingdom … and if you had the heir's body in your keeping … oh, then the benefits would also be great. The island would have no heir, and when Stoick died – of old age or otherwise – Berk would be weak. But, fortunately for you, there are more risks with the second option. The other islands would notice that Berk was weak, for one. And Stoick could remarry and have other children."

I knew that the second risk was nonexistent. Stoick had loved my mother too much to choose another wife. If he were going to, he would have done it by now. But I wasn't going to tell the thin man this, or he might decide that option B was better. And then I wouldn't live to see the result.

I wet my lips. "I hope that my father keeps Berk instead of choosing me."

The man smiled. "Brave words. But tell me … truly, in your deepest heart, wouldn't you rather be with your father – not on Berk, but with your father nonetheless, – or would you rather have it that the last thing you ever feel be an arrow in your chest or a knife in your neck?"

"Being the chief's son, it most likely would've ended that way anyway," I shrugged, but I had a sinking feeling that if I dug past the outer layer of thoughts and feelings, tunnelled away through my hopes and dreams, broke up the thick covering of memories, and looked into the haze of the darkest, deepest, most unfathomable depths of my soul, I would find that I wanted to know that my father cared for me more than his land. I wanted a letter to arrive saying that he would give up Berk for his only son. But I feared that which I knew, and pushed it back down into the farthest corners of my mind.

The green-eyed man was standing. I remained on the ground, fighting back tears for Berk.

Either I would see my father again, but not Berk, or I would never see anything again.

Either way, the night sky I had seen when I went to say goodbye to Stoick and Toothless was the last night sky I had seen from Berk. That night had been the last time that I had felt the soft heather of the ground of my island spring under me. That night had been the last time I had looked at the dark forests spreading beneath me, and the last time I had smelled the clear air of Berk's high cliffs. The last time I had visited the clearing where I had met my dragon and my destiny.

That night, I tried to keep back the tears, but in the morning, I woke to discover that they had leaked out under my closed eyelids, burning salty tracks down my bruised face.

A penny for your thoughts?