Author's Note: This chapter's a little short, but trust me, the next four chapters after this one will more than make up for it.
For those constant readers out there, make note of November 8th (2013). That's when the final three chapters will be released.
Onwards.
Chapter Twenty: Revenge
As nice as it would've been to have a bed to sleep upon for the first time in months, Hiccup knew that yet another night out in the woods was in order. After a few final words between Nestor and Lord Dunkirk, they quietly left Lord Benzyl's manor in the same way they had arrived - airborne. The only people to have seen them come and go was Benzyl and Dunkirk, and they breezed off the manor's roof and out of the city like wraiths in the wind. Covert missions didn't get any more successful than this.
The three of them found a tree-covered cliff several miles out of town, and they made camp there. A small fire was allowed, mostly to keep the winter chill tolerable and any friendly predators away. Toothless's body heat held off the rest of the cold, Nestor resting next to Hiccup, the two of them nestled against the dragon's torso.
"Almost feels like old times," said Hiccup, too wound up to sleep despite the long day of travel and espionage.
"Indeed," said Nestor, absently looking out at the black waters of the ocean. "Camping out in the wilderness, impending battle in the morning – it scares me how often this happens."
"Any regrets?"
Nestor gave his friend a serene smile. "If this is the life the Fates wanted me to have, I can live with it. You?"
"Nah," said Hiccup. "Though I could've skipped the whole experience in the Desolation."
"So after all this, if you had the choice to make again, you'd still volunteer to come with me and save the world?"
Hiccup wasn't quick to nod his head, but he did nod his head. "I've seen so much, Nestor. I learned so much, about the world… and about myself."
"What new truths about yourself did you learn?"
"That I like my cold little corner of the world. I know Berk is going to seem almost tame after fighting the Alchemist or walking around Riki Poka, but that's where I want to be. Don't get me wrong, Nestor, you and Saga and Arc and all the rest, you've been amazing. But Berk is home, terrible winters and all. I'd like a calmer life than this one. I'm not sure I can stomach watching Astrid go off to battle all the time, or making her worry about me… not after what happened. You understand?"
Nestor chuckled. "I think I might. Say, help me look for my 'I told you so' sign. I seem to have misplaced it."
Hiccup laughed as well. "Yes, fine, you warned me half-a-dozen times. You win everything. But let's face it – I had to find out for myself." His face darkened all of a sudden as grimmer thoughts came to mind. "And here we are, talking like tomorrow is going to be easy-breezy."
"We're talking like two people who have something to live for," said Nestor. "Nothing wrong with that."
With the meager fire threatening to die out too early, Nestor got up to fetch another pile of bramble, using a little barrier-field illumination to avoid stepping off the nearby cliff. He soon disappeared into the wood, leaving Hiccup with a snoring Toothless. Hiccup envied how easily his dragon pal fell asleep. He thought it quite nice to be able to put your head down and rest where you lay, without fretting over the future and the battles to come. Having the time to plan out your strategy might help you win wars, but it also gave you time to collect a fair supply of sleep-inhibiting doubts before the main event. There was a certain blessing in having little time to act before you were engaging mountain-sized dragons or island-sized war machines in battle.
He already missed Astrid, even though it'd been less than a day since he'd seen her. He missed her comforting words, her loving presence, the reassurance she gave him right before he was about to do something stupid-crazy. He reminded himself that he would see her tomorrow, but that wasn't as pleasant a notion as it should have been, considering that they would be reuniting under rather strenuous circumstances. Tomorrow was the day that all the long weeks of travel and adventure and battle and turmoil had built up to. He and every member of their team were committed to the cause. They would meet the Alchemist in battle, all their strength against all of hers, and either they stopped the Alchemist dead in her tracks… or she would begin Scouring away the old world, and no one capable of stopping her would be left.
Hiccup had less than a minute to contemplate matters with himself before he felt Toothless's breathing change. The dragon's ears came up, his eyes flew open, and before Hiccup could react the dragon was jumping to his feet. Hiccup's reflexes saved him from an embarrassing spill to the ground, but embarrassment was the furthest thing from his mind. Toothless had his teeth unsheathed and bared, a low rumbling growl in his throat. The dragon was on high alert, looking every which way for the threat in their midst.
"What is it?" whispered Hiccup, scanning the trees for danger. He thought about calling out to Nestor, but that might tip off whatever was putting Toothless on edge. Hopefully the thing in the dark was a passing woodland resident, a wolf or a boar or even a wild dragon that had gotten curious about the strangers in its territory. Maybe a fireball was in order, a quick airburst to scare the creature away. They were far enough away from Riki Poka to…
The identity of the threat became obvious at the same time that a surge of white lightning erupted from the shadowed tree boughs near the cliff. The flash connected with Toothless, snaking current covering him for a split-second before lifting the dragon off his feet and propelling him into the nearest tree. The dragon bounced off the tree trunk and fell to the dirt, dazed and moaning.
"TOOTHLESS!" cried out Hiccup, and he would've run to the dragon's side had a coldly alien, yet dangerously familiar, voice warned him to stay put. Hiccup whirled around to see a horrific form descend from the trees, its metal hide glinting in the subdued firelight, its eyes pulsing with malice.
Dragon Rider, stated Cervantes, landing on a pair of bony feet and standing before the frightened young man. Hiccup had been informed by Arc that Cervantes had adopted this new body, a twisted variation of a Guardian made to look like a skele-dragon, and he had not had any urges to meet and greet Cervantes again. The necromancer was as terrifying as he had imagined, and he had quite the imagination.
So you are back from the dead as well, said Cervantes, his horrid eyes flaring with each word. The Void is falling down on its job, as no one seems to stay dead for long these days.
"How did you…?" stammered Hiccup, trying to muster up some Viking anger to counteract his terror. "How did you find us?"
Dumb luck, he answered. But then the Void works in mysterious ways. I had hoped to get a chance to repay you in person for your previous bout of interference, and here we are.
Hiccup glanced nervously at Toothless, lying on the ground and barely conscious, his legs twitching spasmodically. His pal was too out of it to come to the rescue, and Cervantes would fry him again if he tried.
Weren't there two of you? said Cervantes. Arc's lackey, or perhaps your blond-haired girlfriend, wandering off on an errand. Will your other allies be joining you soon? I assume your presence here is a harbinger of more Champions in the Alchemist's future. Cervantes's tone was downright mocking. I would love to watch Arc and the rest try and stop her. How entertaining would that be? Then again, I could drag you to her to win favor, put her off her guard for a longer time.
Cervantes swiveled his skeletal neck in a long arc, scanning the surrounding forest for the second part of Hiccup's two-person gang. He came back to Hiccup, looking unsatisfied. Hiccup hoped that Nestor was hiding and preparing an ambush, as supposed to casually walking back to camp with an armload of wood and none the wiser.
Decisions, decisions, said Cervantes. Then his dragonoid face grinned wickedly, an impressive move when your face was made of steel. His arms lashed out and gripped Hiccup at the waist, hoisting him off his feet. Cold metal fingers pressed against his skin, chilling him, as Cervantes whirled around and stepped towards the cliff face only a few dozen feet away.
Best to not waste the opportunity, said Cervantes. And I like to deliver my revenges with a dash of irony.
Hiccup called out to Toothless for help, and he saw the dragon stir and attempt to stand up. Cervantes swished his lengthy tail at Toothless and a quick flash of lightning zapped out of it, striking Toothless in the side. Toothless growled in pain and frustration as he slumped back down, struggling as hard as he could just to stay conscious.
Hiccup wanted to call out to Nestor, but he dared not try it. Surprise needed to be on Nestor's side if they were going to survive this. But as Cervantes neared the edge of the cliff, which promised a great view of the lightless ocean as you dropped a hundred feet into the raging surf, Hiccup knew the window of survivability was closing rapidly.
Then they were at the cliff, Hiccup's heart beating against his ribs as Cervantes extended his arms and held Hiccup over the edge, dangling him like a piece of meat over a pit of starving lions. The fall would be short and unobstructed, his end quick and final.
How many falls has your dragon saved you from, Hiccup? Cervantes mercilessly teased. How often have you escaped a savage splat due to your companion's aerial prowess? How terrible will it be for him to watch you perish in a perfectly preventable fashion?
"Uh… Don't you think this is a little too anti-climatic?" said Hiccup desperately. "I mean, after all our battles and everything…"
I'm saving my more creative mayhem for the Alchemist, Cervantes replied. Thanks to you, I have to work doubly hard to find a way to defeat her. Thanks to you, I have to play nice and practically grovel just to stay alive. With the Monolith in my possession, I had the power to destroy her. I could've stopped all this from happening. I could've stopped her. She was always my priority. You, on the other hand, are just a footnote in my history. Also, I've learned that talking for too long is counterproductive.
Proving that he really had learned from his previous defeats, Cervantes released his grip and let Hiccup slide out of his fingers. Hiccup had one second to give him a truly horrified stare, and then he fell past the cliff and into the darkness below.
Toothless weakly cried out in denial, which made Cervantes smile all the wider. He'd put down the dragon very shortly, but first he needed to hear the savage splat of his victim before he was satisfied.
But he didn't get it. In fact, the result was quite unexpected, as it wasn't normal to see a flightless human rise up in the air under his own power. Hiccup looked just as surprised as Cervantes when he cleared the cliff's edge and hovered in front of the metal necromancer, Cervantes too baffled to do anything logical like blasting Hiccup or flying away.
The air under Hiccup solidified into the shape of another Night Fury, and Cervantes immediately recognized the Alchemist's half-metal pet. Apparently, his special Guardian eyes couldn't see through a Cloak. That might have been a helpful thing to know before now.
Dark Star greeted Cervantes the best way she knew how – by opening her mouth and sending a thin beam of putrid-green energy his way, cutting through one of his central ribs and then straight into his spinal column.
Lightning-quick, the blast carved a nice, neat hole in the tree behind Cervantes. A similar hole now resided in Cervantes's spine, a foot below the junction where his neck "bones" met the rest of his body. The necromancer staggered as he lost all control of his limbs, stumbling forward as if suddenly intoxicated and then falling past the hovering Night Fury, plummeting down and down into the moist blackness of the waters below.
The only savage splat he heard was the one he made upon hitting the ocean.
Hiccup's level of what-the-devil shock was up there with how a worm might have felt if it had been rescued from death by a robin. He even forgot to climb off of Dark Star's back when she landed on the cliff and he had to be summarily booted off by the dragon with one good buck. Hiccup's plop to the dirt knocked some sense back into him and he scrambled to his feet, facing the half-metal dragon that had saved his life and in no way sure about how to deal with it.
The dragon looked at Hiccup with an air of indifferent detachment, its cold red eye frosting up his insides. Hiccup got the impression that Dark Star wanted nothing from him, that he was just the placeholder for the real object of Dark Star's attention. Sure enough, the dragon's gaze shifted when Toothless made his way to Hiccup's side, a measure of strength returning to the dragon as he slowly approached. Hiccup looked his pal over and, much to his relief, found no signs of permanent damage.
Hiccup hugged his bud around the neck to comfort the dragon and himself, Toothless reciprocating by licking his face once. Then he wrenched away from Hiccup and stepped in front of his rider, facing off against the Alchemist's right-hand dragon. Dark Star made no threatening moves, nor did Toothless growl out any warnings. For a time, the face-off was little more than a staring contest between the two Night Furies, between two members of an endangered species that had wound up on opposite sides of a larger conflict.
Hiccup knew better than to get in the way of this meeting, but it was nerve-racking to just stand and wait for one of the dragons to either fly off or go on the attack. It could only be one of those two possibilities. Hiccup held no illusions that Dark Star was joining his side, or that Toothless would betray him.
Toothless finally broke the silence by growling a few short utterances that sounded vaguely friendly. Dark Star responded by growling more curtly and shaking her head. She then issued a longer growl, the mechanical inflection in her false voice making it sound worse than it hopefully was. With her head, she gestured adamantly at the direction opposite of Riki Poka, and then growled one final time, this one more serious and hostile. But despite her tone, Hiccup was certain that he could see sadness hiding somewhere in that one natural eye of hers, a sign that she wasn't happy with what she had to do.
Toothless took her final bit of dragon body language hard, his face falling and his head bowing in sorrowful resignation. The conversation had come to an end, but not before Dark Star turned her frosty gaze on Hiccup and barked out a hideous cry at him. An unmistakable warning to him about remaining on her bad side. Hiccup knew enough about Night Furies to get the gist of what had transpired, and while it thrilled him that they were escaping the encounter with their skin and scales intact, this was nonetheless a heavy blow to Toothless.
With nary a flap of wings or a grunt of departure, Dark Star levitated into the air and shot away, a silver streak against the gray night sky.
As Hiccup proceeded to comfort his pal, he heard the crunch of duff coming from behind him. Momentarily afraid that Cervantes had come back from the dead, again, Hiccup calmed when he saw Nestor entering the firelight of the camp, a big pile of branches in his arms stacked to his forehead.
"Salo krebit, you wouldn't believe how lost I got," said Nestor, throwing down the wood near the fire and wiping his sleeves of pine needles. "I swear, the trees are moving around when I'm not looking and rearranging the landmarks."
He then noticed the look on Hiccup's face and the dragon's sullen demeanor, as well as the unnaturally neat hole through one of the trees, and the alarm bells in his head finally started ringing.
"Did I miss something again?" he asked.
Hiccup didn't like to consider himself the foremost expert on Night Furies, since it was easy to be an expert on something that was exceedingly rare and constantly in your company, but most people tagged him with that designation anyway, so he usually went with it. Tonight, he actually felt glad to be an expert because it was keeping the panic of Dark Star's arrival, and its implications, at bay.
Nestor was far more uneasy about Dark Star, understandably so, and so Hiccup explained why he was certain that Dark Star wasn't about to ambush them or set them up for a trap. It had to do with the Repository, that ancient hiding spot of old Artisan relics that Hiccup still had nightmares about. Toothless had pulled a noble act on Dark Star by arresting her uncontrolled fall after Arc had disabled her with his lightning, probably saving the half-metal dragon's life. Night Furies had long memories, very much human-like in their ability to remember those that had helped them or hurt them in the past, and Hiccup was certain that Dark Star's actions tonight was due to her desire to repay a debt to Toothless. It also might have something to do with Cervantes as well – considering how quick Dark Star had executed Cervantes, there clearly was no love lost between those two.
"So she saved me and then told me to leave," said Hiccup, sitting next to his sullen dragon and patting him reassuringly. Toothless must have hoped that Dark Star would have a change of heart, because he was still taking the aftermath hard, his head resting on his front paws and his eyes half-closed and wistful.
"I think she felt that she was doing me a favor by warning me away," he continued. "I doubt she'll look away again if we meet her over the skies of Riki Poka."
"No doubt there," said Nestor. "But it's not Dark Star I'm worried about. It's her eye, and what it can see, that I'm a tad panicked over."
Hiccup nodded his agreement. "I almost wish Heather hadn't told us about that. For all we know, the Alchemist already knows we're here."
"She'll know you and Toothless are here," corrected Nestor. "But that assumes she'll check on Dark Star's memory between now and tomorrow afternoon. She's going to have plenty of other matters on her plate. Worst-case scenario, she'll know you and Toothless survived the Repository and are hanging around Riki Poka. That's not much to go on."
"It'll put her on alert, though," said Hiccup.
"Let me run it by Arc and see what he thinks." Nestor broke away from the conversation and started touching the man-portable conduit device attached to his arm sleeve. Hiccup found it creepy to watch Nestor space out while he communicated with Proto all the way back at the cabin, and because Proto was acting as a relay between Nestor and Arc, the conversation took longer than usual and left Hiccup with little to do but twiddle his thumbs and comfort his buddy.
Nestor ended the space-out session a few minutes later, no longer feeling the panic but also not showing any renewed confidence in the situation. "Arc agrees that any knowledge Dark Star might give the Alchemist wouldn't be enough to ruin our plans. More to the point, we don't have any better options, and no more time left to make changes. Still, it'll be best if you two keep a low profile until the diversions begin tomorrow."
"Fine by me," said Hiccup, "but we should find a different camp site, just in case Dark Star spills the beans to her mistress and sends someone our way."
Nestor nodded, then glanced toward the cliff where the brief battle had taken place, the spot where Cervantes had fallen into the sea below. "You saw Cervantes hit the water, correct?"
Hiccup nodded, and that made Nestor frown, adding, "No explosions or disintegrations?"
Hiccup shook his head and sighed. "He's not dead, is he?"
"I wouldn't bet the farm on it. He's in a Guardian body, which will repair itself if given time. But he might have expired under the water. Impossible to tell from here."
"In either case, I'm not going down there to check," said Hiccup. "Let's find a safer place to sleep and hope the night's all out of surprises."
That could have gone better.
Cervantes certainly had cause to gripe about how quickly, and badly, tonight's surprise encounter had gone from everything-is-smelling-like-roses to my-roses-are-rotting-in-my-hands. But who would listen to his complaints? It was just him and his undersea bed of rock and barnacles, the surf crashing and churning a few feet above his head. The fish and resident crustaceans were wisely keeping their distance from the horrid thing that was lying on the sea floor.
But it could have gone worse as well. Dark Star had erred in her eagerness to destroy him, firing quickly but not wisely. She had not aimed for his powercore, which resided in his skull, nor did she create a negative-energy blast wide enough to sever his head from his torso. To her credit, she did succeed in disabling his motor functions, rendering him immobile. It was fortuitous that he had toppled into the drink, as Dark Star would have surely finished him off. Here, hidden under the frothy surf, his body would self-repair. Give it a few hours and he should be able to move again.
The real dilemma was what came after. The Alchemist would eventually learn that Dark Star had supposedly slain her old enemy, though whether or not she bought the idea was a different matter. More so, Hiccup's appearance around Riki Poka could only mean that there was a plan afoot, and hopefully Hiccup believed Cervantes had joined the Void as well. If all his enemies thought him dead, tt would give him the freedom he needed to sit out the festivities and wait for an opportune moment to strike.
At the very least, he had something to contemplate while he put himself back together.
The night offered up no further surprises to Hiccup and Nestor, and they greeted the sunrise with a profound sense of relief for having gotten through the evening in one piece. The sun gods must have made a deal with all the rain gods because the morning haze was already fading by the time the sun poked its head above the horizon. Nary a cloud in the sky, nor a fog bank skirting the ocean. Today's battle would be fought in the clear, visible for all to see.
Hiccup didn't see the clear day as a blessing. Cloud cover would have been helpful. Then again, a clear sky meant no sudden storm fronts that could mess with a dragon's flying ability. All in all, the weather was as favorable as it was likely to get.
The three of them managed to get in a few hours of shut-eye, but Hiccup didn't feel any better for it. Too much anxiety flowing through his blood for him to rest well. He was on the cusp of one of the most important battles he'd ever fight in his life, so naturally his stress levels were higher than normal. Hiccup and Nestor had decided not to discuss battle-matters further until it was time to act, in case Cervantes or Dark Star was listening in, so they packed up the camp with a tense silence hanging over them. They boarded Toothless at less than an hour past dawn and were airborne three heartbeats later.
Hiccup had Toothless fly at stealth-altitude, right above the treetops of the forest, until the three of them reached a recognizable clearing along the hills ringing the city. It was the clearing their group had used to access the trails down to Riki Poka all those eventful weeks ago. It seemed like a lot more time had passed since then. Hiccup felt aged in ways that defied explanation, like he'd had a lifetime's worth of adventure and discovery crammed into him. So many experiences, so much knowledge, and so many battles stuffed into his nooks and crannies that he might just burst at the seams if any more were added. And yet here he was, hours away from the biggest one he might ever know.
Toothless landed to allow Nestor to dismount, but Hiccup had to stay in his saddle. This wasn't a nostalgia trip – this was where they parted ways for now. Nestor checked the clearing for trouble signs and found none, the trail down to the city covered with overgrown brush and grass. No one had been this way in some time.
"You sure I can't take you in all the way?" said Hiccup.
"No sense risking it," Nestor replied. "I can Shroud myself, but not you two."
Hiccup tried to keep the worry off his face, and he was pretty sure he was failing. "I still don't think this is smart. There's a good chance you'll be all by yourself for some time." Nestor's look of resignation did little to make Hiccup like this plan any better.
"We need as many distractions as possible, Hiccup," said Nestor. "I'm pretty sure I can provide a big one."
"That's what worries me. They'll come at you with the heavy stuff."
"Story of my life." Nestor's smile had no mirth behind it, but there was confidence. "Good thing I carry protection."
Hiccup and Nestor chuckled at that, but the chuckling had too much tension in it for Hiccup's taste.
"I meant what I said last night," he said sincerely. "No regrets, Nestor."
"And I still thank the Fates that I met you, Hiccup," said Nestor, smiling with actual feeling this time. He came over to Toothless and gave the dragon an affectionate pat, Toothless getting in a solid lick to Nestor's nose in return.
"You take care of him, Toothless, no matter what," he said quietly. "Somebody has to have a happy ending."
Nestor went up to Hiccup and gave him the kind of handshake men give each other when a hug was more in order but felt like too much sentiment to express. He turned and began to jog down the trail, Shrouding as he encountered the foliage, disappearing as if the plants had gobbled him up right there.
Hiccup sighed as he ordered Toothless back into the air, the dragon carefully skirting over the army of evergreens below him as they made their way toward a private hillside that afforded them a great vantage point of Riki Poka. They would hold up there until the time was right, and since no one would be sending up any smoke signals he'd have to use his good judgment to determine when to go on the attack. Hiccup reasoned the right moment would be painfully obvious.
There were times and places where Hiccup relished being alone with Toothless, collecting and chewing on his own private musings without fear of others pestering or judging him. But right now, he really could've used more company. True, he had Toothless, and he didn't fear for his safety so long as his dragon pal was close. But there was so much uncertainty now, so many people he cared about heading into the dragon's mouth, so many lives in mortal jeopardy, that it was almost too much to bear. Toothless was as good a friend as he could ever ask for, but there were some topics that he didn't express opinions about, or reassurances that he couldn't give. Right now, Hiccup felt he could use every reassurance in the world.
"We're going to beat the Alchemist, Toothless," he said aloud. "We have to."
Much to Hiccup's dismay, Toothless didn't waggle his head in response. While Hiccup decided to chalk it up to the dragon concentrating on not flying them into a tree, it definitely wasn't the reassurance Hiccup desired.