From out of the campfire on the sandy shore, one piece of wood in particular held Hiccup's attention. The one log of firewood that he had had the strength to collect. That one simple task had cost him a surprising–and frankly, embarrassing–amount of energy. After that, Toothless had taken over, nudging Hiccup to the ground with a gentle but non-negotiable gesture.
But in all fairness, the poison had been far from a cure-all. Though it had pulled him from the brink of death, it hadn't restored his health entirely. He had still spent days wracked with poison and pain, had still crashed to the earth in a graveyard of burnt trees. Gods, he had even awoken from the crash to ravens hoping to feed on his corpse. He blinked at the log in the fire, trying to feel grateful that he had had the strength for that. Baby steps, he supposed.
He glanced at Toothless, who, for his part, was perfectly content with Hiccup's progress. The dragon lay within arm's length of Hiccup, purring beneath the warm afternoon sun, his eyes closed and his mouth open, tongue hanging out.
Hiccup smiled. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."
Toothless lifted his head, ears perked. He turned his gaze back toward the interior of the island, eyes narrowed.
"What is it, bud?" Hiccup asked. "Did you hear something?"
Toothless stood up, ear plates twitching in different directions as he listened with intense concentration.
Hiccup struggled to his feet and placed a hand on his dragon's back for support. He stood still and listened along, following Toothless' gaze. The waves breaking on the shore hushed them. The wind in the trees, too, whispered shhhh. The fire crackled softly at the edges of his perception. But there was no other sound, not that he could hear.
And yet Toothless had heard the sound again. He roared quietly at Hiccup, nodding toward the village and moving his body so that the saddle pressed against Hiccup's uninjured side.
"I hear you, bud." Hiccup slid into the saddle and leaned forward, pressing low to Toothless' back as they left the beach, wending their way through the forest outskirts and back to town. Toothless skidded to a halt around the corner of the healer's hut, and Hiccup shifted out of the saddle in silence. He edged forward and peered around the corner.
His heart skipped a beat and he clutched at the wooden wall of the healer's hut, sagging. There, right in front of him, was Snotlout, Hookfang dozing a short distance away. Hiccup laughed breathlessly and opened his mouth to shout out, but the words caught in his throat as something dawned on him.
Snotlout was standing in front of the well.
Hiccup stumbled forward a few steps, unnoticed.
Snotlout's arms were moving methodically, in time to a quiet squeak. He was pulling on the rope, raising a bucketful of poisoned water to the surface.
Before Hiccup knew what he was doing, he was running. "No!" he screamed. He slammed into Snotlout from the side, and the two of them struck the ashen earth and rolled.
Snotlout grabbed at him, grunting. Hiccup tried to wrestle away, but even on his best day it would have been difficult. His cousin had him in a chokehold within seconds.
Hiccup scrabbled at Snotlout's fingers, trying to pry them from his throat. He snatched a breath. "Snotlout!"
Snotlout released him instantly, wrenching his hands away as if burnt. He scrambled away and got to his feet, panting. "Hiccup?" he asked, mouth hanging open.
Hiccup raised himself up on his elbows. "Did you drink the water?"
"What? No." He shook his head dazedly, watching Hiccup in stunned stillness.
Hiccup let his eyes droop closed as relief washed over him like a tidal wave. "Okay, good." He opened his eyes and grinned. "Hey, then," he said, as Toothless padded over and growled at Snotlout.
"Gimme a break, Toothless!" Snotlout frowned at the Night Fury. "I didn't know it was him, okay? When someone tackles you out of nowhere, you fight back." He rounded on Hiccup. "And you!" He stabbed an accusing finger in his direction. "'Hey?'" he echoed.
"Uh, yeah, I mean, I haven't seen you in a long time, so…" Hiccup trailed off, watching Snotlout uncertainly. His cousin was opening and closing his mouth like words had failed him. "Uh, Snotlout?"
"Where in Thor's name have you been?" Snotlout exploded, his voice echoing off the buildings in the village square.
Hiccup gaped at him, speechless.
"We've been looking for you for ages! We've scoured every little crack and crevice on every stupid island from here to Berk!" Snotlout continued to rage on, gesticulating wildly, his face getting steadily more flushed as Hiccup stared. "We flew for hours and hours over the ocean, wondering if you'd drowned! Couldn't have sent a simple note, could you? Like this: 'Hey, guys, how's it going? I'm alive, in case you were wondering!'"
Hiccup opened his mouth to say something about the island's lack of Terrible Terrors, but Snotlout had already rushed on to his next complaint.
"And then we wasted so much time because Krogan tried to convince us that he had you!"
"What are you–?"
"Setting boxes on fire! Tying up stupid useless Dragon Hunters!"
Hiccup was thoroughly lost now, but it didn't seem to matter.
"What an idiotic waste of time!" Snotlout clenched his fists at his sides and started to pace. "And then we split up!" he shouted, continuing his aggressively fragmented narrative of their search. "Flying for hours in separate directions! Mala was no help! Hookfang is exhausted! We flew for hours!" he repeated emphatically, coming to a stop in front of Hiccup. "Lots of hours! A stupid amount of hours!" Snotlout's voice broke. He pressed his lips together in abrupt silence, his eyes glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. He was determinedly not looking at Hiccup.
Hiccup watched him mutely, taking in his widened eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, the strain carved into his hardened face. Snotlout's hands hung loosely at his sides, unclenched. They were trembling. Hiccup blinked at him, then slowly began to smile. He recognized this all too well. Snotlout's over-the-top anger was his go-to mask. His automatic coverup for insecurities, for perceived weaknesses. Things like fear, and worry. Hiccup relaxed into an easy slouch, regarding Snotlout with a sudden rush of fondness.
"I hate stupid search parties," Snotlout said, kicking halfheartedly at the ground.
"Snotlout."
"Why are they called parties, anyway?"
"Snotlout."
Snotlout finally looked up and met Hiccup's eyes. They watched each other for a long moment.
Hiccup smiled encouragingly. "I'm okay," he said.
Snotlout considered this, his eyes flicking up and down Hiccup's form for the first time. He frowned, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. "You look terrible," he said.
Hiccup sighed. "Granted. But I'm alive, and that's something, isn't it?"
Snotlout let out a long breath and sank to the ground opposite Hiccup. "Yeah," he said quietly, nodding. "You're alive." It was clearly more of a reassurance to himself than a response to Hiccup.
Hiccup bit back another smile, touched. They sank into several moments of companionable silence.
"What did you tackle me for, anyway?" Snotlout asked finally, standing up and frowning into the dark depths of the well. "I'm thirsty."
"You don't want that water," Hiccup told him patiently. "It's poisoned."
"Poisoned!" Snotlout jumped back from the well, wiping his hands on his pants. "How do you know?"
"Because," Hiccup said, grinning wryly, "I drank it."
"You know, there are only so many islands." Ruff shrugged as she and her brother walked through the sunlit forest, trampling the undergrowth. Barf and Belch crashed along behind them. "Eventually," she said, "one of us is bound to find him."
"Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you?" Tuffnut folded his arms and glared at the nearby bushes.
Something rustled on Ruffnut's side.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Eh, probably another wild boar."
"That's true. We should probably stop checking rustling noises. Hiccup doesn't rustle."
"Noted."
They continued their meandering path through the forest, scanning the scenery. The trees were widely spaced, allowing sunlight to spill through the canopy. Grass, bushes, and wildflowers grew in resplendence across the ground, hugging the tree trunks and stretching toward the sky, except in the places where they were worn down by the habitual paths of wild animals. Birds sang from somewhere high above, while the lower atmosphere hummed with insects.
Ruff slapped one that landed on the bare skin of her arm. "Ugh. Can't we search somewhere other than a forest? I'm starting to get sick of them. I want a change in scenery."
"Yeah, that would be nice," Tuff admitted. "Maybe we'll find Hiccup on a beach, or at a glacier, or–"
"In some caves?" Ruff asked, pointing. To their right, a mountain face was visible between the trees. A small crevice cut through the rock in a dark streak.
"Now that's what I'm talking about." Tuff exchanged a mischievous grin with his sister, then the two of them snatched up dried branches, hurried out of the woods, and ascended the rocky slope.
"See?" Ruff said as they reached the cave entrance. "Small but accessible. Safe. Secure." She ticked the qualities off on her fingers. "I bet we'll find Hiccup and Toothless in here." She held her branch out in front of Barf and Belch.
Tuff did the same. "Gods, I hope so."
Barf breathed a small cloud of gas, Belch ignited it, and the twins pulled their makeshift torches away. Then they strode through the opening, the jumping flames bathing the cave walls in shifting orange light.
An echoing gurgle stopped them only a short distance away. Barf and Belch were trying to squeeze into the cave after them. Barf's head reached down the tunnel while Belch's neck craned awkwardly back to the opening, his head out of sight.
Ruff grimaced. "Not you two." She shooed them back. "Wait for us outside."
Their dragon retreated reluctantly, a misshapen silhouette against the fading afternoon light.
"C'mon," Tuff urged from deeper within the cave. "Let's search this place before nightfall. You know I'm not overly fond of the dark."
"Oh, you mean scared?" Ruff taunted, jogging to catch up to her brother. They reached a fork in the tunnel, and went left in unspoken agreement.
Tuff scoffed. "You're scared."
"Oh, please," she said. "If anyone around here is scared, pal, it's you." She jabbed her brother with a finger.
Tuffnut growled. The two of them stopped walking and banged their heads together in an antagonistic stare-down. The metallic sound reverberated through the caves, and then changed. The echo that reached their ears was not a metallic crunch, but an eerie draconic trill.
They turned as one in the direction of the sound.
"That wasn't Toothless," Ruff whispered.
The twins edged forward, following the winding paths of the surprisingly vast cave system. When tunnels branched off in new directions, they stood in silence, waiting for another stray sound. A huff of breath. The scrape of something sharp against stone. A low growl that carried through the cavern, amplified in the narrow passage.
They followed the sounds until the tunnel opened onto a spacious room, stalagmites reaching up from the floor and stalactites skewering down from the ceiling, almost meeting in the middle like monstrous open jaws. The draconic sounds they had been following echoed loudly through the room, filling the cool musty air, intermingling with drops of water that plinked quietly from the tips of the stalactites.
Their combined firelight permeated only a small portion of the heavy darkness. It danced in the cracks of the surrounding rock, and wrapped around pale green scales that gave way to menacing red barbs. This was the source of the inhuman sounds. A pack of sleeping Speed Stingers. Some lay curled on the floor, while others hung from stalactites, their stingers wrapped around the rock in an unyielding hold. One of the nearest dragons shifted in its sleep, its large gray talons scraping against the cave wall with a rasping hiss.
"Uh, how long do we have before dark again?" Tuffnut asked in a whisper.
Ruff swallowed. "Okay," she said. "Now I'm scared."
"I can't believe you poisoned yourself, again."
Hiccup shrugged, continuing to pour Monstrous Nightmare gel into the cracks between the stones that made up the well. The viscous green liquid seeped into each fissure, pooling down to the ground. "I mean, it worked, so…"
Snotlout scoffed, lathering the gel on his side of the well, too. "Doesn't mean it wasn't absolutely insane," he said. "You know, the twins are gonna worship you for that."
Hiccup walked away from the well, frowning. "Ah, yeah, let's not tell the twins about that," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't want to give them any ideas."
Snotlout hummed in vague agreement and came to stand beside Hiccup. "Ready?"
Hiccup nodded. "Toothless?"
"Hookfang," Snotlout called.
"Now," they said together.
Their dragons fired on the well simultaneously, igniting the Monstrous Nightmare gel in a whoosh of flame. The stonework separated and collapsed in on itself, dropping into the depths of the well. The wooden roof collapsed on top of the hole, now charred like much of the rest of the village, sealing off access to the water below. Toothless and Hookfang dropped more rocks over the top from the pile Snotlout had collected, effectively turning the village well into nothing more than a simple cairn.
Hiccup sighed, leaning back against Toothless and contemplating the pile of unassuming stones. The well's collapse brought a sense of closure to their time on the island. The village's horrors were buried in the past now, unable to be dredged up again. It was time for healing, for a new day.
Or at least, it would be. Hiccup glanced at the sun, sinking behind the tree line as sunset colors smudged their way into the skyline. Night was stealing closer, dusk at the ready. Hiccup turned back to the cairn, nodding appreciatively. "At least we got that taken care of."
Snotlout nodded. "And now it's your turn." He flipped open Toothless' saddlebag and began rummaging through the contents. "Anything useful left in here?" He pulled Hiccup's bag of medical supplies out and set them on top of Toothless' saddle, poking at the remnants of bandages and unscrewing the canister of salve. "And speaking of useful," he said, "why didn't you pack a spare tail?" He shook his head in mock disappointment. "You're getting sloppy, Hiccup."
"Actually," Hiccup said, "I did pack a spare." He gestured at Toothless' newest tail fin, its fabric hanging uselessly from the metal. "The one we wrecked when we crashed here was our spare."
Snotlout looked up, slowly lowering the metal container in his hand to the saddle. He blinked. "Then what happened to the original?"
The twins rushed through the tunnel, the flames from their torches leaping and popping wildly as they ran. The shifting light played tricks on their eyes, creating passageways where there were none, silhouettes with no one there, flashes of movement across solid rock.
"I thought you said you remembered the way back," Ruff whispered urgently, as they came to another fork in the tunnel and skidded to an uncertain stop.
"It looks different going backwards, okay?" Tuff stared at the path behind them with wide eyes, gesturing frantically his sister. "You lead the way if you want. Just hurry!"
"Don't shout unless you want them to find us faster." Ruffnut's harsh whisper echoed in the tunnel, grating against the rock walls in a serpentine hiss. She chose a path at random and barreled down it, Tuffnut on her heels. The firelight illuminated mere steps ahead of them, slowly filling in the nearest reaches of the darkness. "No!" She halted mid-stride, and Tuff knocked into her from behind.
"What?" he asked, whisking his torch away from her hair and directing it to the path ahead. But there was no path. A wall loomed before them, hard and unforgiving. Tuffnut cursed, running his hand along the wall, searching for an opening, a way through. "It's no use," he said, a tremor in his tone as he stepped back from the dead end. "We have to go back."
Ruff nodded, her jaw set, her skin pale even in the firelight. "Go!"
They turned and sprinted back the way they had come, the rough cave walls repeating their panting breaths, the slap of their footsteps, the roaring of their torches. And then another sound broke through–a low, guttural growl that raised the hair on the back of Tuffnut's neck.
They stilled in the middle of the passage. Ruffnut pressed a hand against her mouth.
The seconds dragged on in their own individual eternities as Tuffnut listened to the blood pounding through his veins, his sister's hitching breaths, the too-loud crackling of their only sources of light. Beyond the fire's reach, the caves were black, the dank air saturated with sounds of life. Quick, forceful breaths carried down the tunnel.
Tuffnut steeled himself and stepped forward soundlessly.
Ruff grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice barely audible, little more than an exhale. The loudest sound she dared to make.
"Maybe they're still asleep." Tuffnut matched her volume and took another step forward, his sister still clinging to his arm in a bruising grip.
Ruff stepped forward too, just as slow, and just as silent. "And if they're not?"
"Then they'll find us here, where there's no escape. If we try the other tunnel, we might have a chance."
Ruff stared at him for a long moment, her eyes searching, and then she nodded. They began to walk forward, quicker now, but no less quietly. Ruff kept her hand on Tuffnut's arm, and for once he didn't mind. He was glad of it, even. He concentrated on her presence as they moved through the cave system and around to the other passage.
They turned the corner, and stopped. There was light ahead–pale light filtering through a jagged opening in the distance.
Tuffnut closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, shaking with relief. Ruff's grip tightened around his arm for a moment, a celebratory gesture. They strode for the exit, increasing their pace as they neared escape, stealing silently through the rocky hall. The trill of a Speed Stinger drifted after them. But whether it was sleeping or awake, distant or near, it didn't matter; they were close now. Mere steps from a way out, from a fighting chance.
Tuffnut kicked something as he stepped forward. It rolled away and clinked against stone. The note rang through the caves, sharp and clear.
The twins waited in their tracks, meeting eyes as they listened.
A raspy, high-pitched roar echoed from the depths, followed by a series of draconic chirps.
"Run," Ruffnut whispered.
Tuffnut stooped to pick up the item he had kicked, then they sprinted the remaining distance to the exit.
They spilled out onto a wide rocky ledge, the wind rushing up to push against them with considerable force. It swirled around them in eddies, sending dead leaves, small twigs, and other detritus skittering in circles around the ledge. The light outside was gray now. They turned to the ocean in time to see the last rays of sunlight vanish below the horizon.
Ruff cursed. "How do we get down?" She leaned over the side of the ledge, but there was no clear path down, not even handholds in the crumbling rock. They were suspended a fair distance above the forest below. It was too high to jump. "Don't just stand there," she said angrily, rounding on her brother, who had offered no help.
He was staring down at the thing in his hands. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.
Hiccup's spyglass. Ruff swallowed as she turned it over in her hands, her fingers exploring the familiar stitching in the side. "Okay," she said. "We just have to find him before they find us." She gestured to the cave opening, still empty.
Tuffnut nodded and turned to consider the opening, too. The wind swirled again, pushing the endlessly rotating debris against Tuffnut's boot. He glanced down, shaking the twigs off with a small frown. A dash of color caught his eye.
Tilting his head, Tuffnut leaned down, snagged the tatter of bright red, and pulled. "Oh, gods," he said. The unmistakable red fabric of Toothless' tail fin fluttered in his fingertips, the painted white design cleaved through the middle by something sharp and serrated.
Ruffnut watched the fabric quiver in the wind, then raised her wide eyes to meet Tuffnut's. "We need to move quickly."
Tuffnut nodded and let the wind tug the fabric out of his hand. He watched it drift away, settling somewhere in the forest below. "We need a way down," he said.
"You see Barf and Belch?" Ruff asked, scanning the sky.
"No." He shook his head, eyeing the cave entrance, still dark and silent.
"Should we call for them?" Ruff asked, peering at the opening, too. It was a gamble. If Barf and Belch could reach them in time, they'd be able to get away. But if the Speed Stingers heard, and got to them first…
Tuffnut squared his shoulders. "Let's do it," he said.
"Barf!" Ruff screamed.
"Belch!"
A roar resounded from the darkness of the caves.
Ruff and Tuff retreated to the edge of the cliff, staring into the shadows. Another roar. Frantic, restless chirps. An excited trill.
And then, clicking. Long, lethal talons clicking against rock as the Speed Stingers closed the distance between them.
The first one melted out of the darkness of the aperture of the cave, its mouth open, jaw unhinged grotesquely, far at the back of its neck. It turned its head, considering them with one red eye, the pupil a terrifyingly cold slit.
"Don't move," Ruffnut whispered. But there was nowhere for them to go; their backs brushed against the whistling wind, their heels sticking out past the ledge, over empty space.
Two more Speed Stingers crept into the fading light of dusk, flanking the first Stinger on either side. One clicked its claws against the rocky ledge, an agitated, impatient rhythm.
A powerful rush of wind battered them, bringing with it a new sound. Wings.
"Yes!" Ruff and Tuff cheered together as Barf and Belch swept low to the ledge. The twins leapt off the rock face and jumped onto their dragon's back as the Zippleback flew away.
"Thank the gods," Tuffnut breathed. "I thought–"
A reptilian growl guttered in the wind.
The twins whirled. One of the Stingers had jumped on Barf and Belch after them, and was advancing up their dragon's tail, making its way to the riders, head low, stinger raised. A hunting stance.
"No, you don't!" Ruff yelled, producing a mace from nowhere and swinging it at the Speed Stinger with wild violence. The Stinger shrieked and fell off their dragon, but not before it had buried its blood-red barb deep into Barf and Belch's scales.
The Zippleback solidified beneath them, green scales washing gray and hardening with a sickening crackle.
They plummeted to the forest below, the twins screaming, Barf and Belch unable to make their distress known. Paralyzed, the Zippleback crashed through the canopy, and the momentum threw Ruff and Tuff away.
The twins cracked through sticks and twigs, eventually slamming into branches solid enough to hold them. They clung to the tree, panting with effort as they scrambled up to safety.
"Barf!" Ruffnut shouted. "Bel–!"
"Shhh!" Tuffnut scrambled over to her and clapped a hand over her mouth. "We don't want the Stingers to find us again," he said.
For a moment, Ruffnut shook with a mixture of rage and anguish, but then she nodded. Tuffnut removed his hand.
"Do you think we lost them?" Ruff asked in a whisper, leaning over the branch and peering down into the dark undergrowth. In the oncoming night, the forest floor was barely visible.
Tuffnut examined the ground around them, too, sweeping his gaze across the lush landscape, the previously pleasant swathes of green now ominous patches of unfathomable shadow. Near the trunk of the tree across from them, something moved. Leaves rustled in a telltale whisper.
"There!" Tuffnut breathed, tapping Ruff's shoulder and pointing down at the shifting shadows. The silhouette moved, then huffed.
"It's a boar," Ruffnut said, dropping her voice to a more cautious volume. Something else moved along the path behind it, but it made no rustle. No sound at all. The small figure tracked the boar.
The clouds shifted overhead and finally exposed the moon, filtering silver light down through the treetops and illuminating the scene below. It was a Speed Stinger, trailing unnoticed behind the boar.
"It's being hunted." Tuff clenched the branch tighter, leaning forward for a better look.
"By just one Stinger?" Ruff asked, peering around her brother.
Tuffnut shook his head. "No," he said. "They're never alone."
The Speed Stinger hissed, loud and menacing. It startled the boar, which ran forward. Tuffnut recognized the briefest flash of movement, and before he could process what was happening, two Speed Stingers streaked out of the foliage on either side of the boar. One of them jabbed it with its stinger, and the boar froze, paralyzed instantly.
The three Speed Stingers circled the boar, chirping curiously, their sharp talons snagging in the long grass.
One of them lunged forward with a vicious snarl, and sank its teeth around the boar's neck.
Tuff and Ruff gasped, pulling back and ducking low to the branch, out of sight. They stared at the gnarled bark, breathing shakily as the Stingers devoured the boar, the sounds of their feasting clearly audible in the trees. Tuffnut flinched as something snapped. The Stingers' growls were muffled. Something tore wetly. Teeth gnashed on flesh, clicked hollowly against bone.
And then, movement in the grass. Sliding.
Tuff peered through the branches. The three Stingers were dragging the remainder of the carcass away. He watched them go, muscles taut, heart pounding. Only when they were out of sight for several minutes did he begin to relax.
He leaned back and met eyes with Ruffnut. "Speed Stingers were already scary," he said.
"But these ones," she whispered, "are hungry."
Tuffnut shuddered. "We need to find Barf and Belch. They're defenseless while they're paralyzed, and–" He remembered the snap of bone, and blanched.
Ruffnut nodded, looking sick. "Let's go," she said.
The two of them scaled down the tree and tracked back to their dragon, carefully avoiding the glistening path in the grass where the Stingers had headed for their nest. They jumped at every broken twig, paused at every rustle of the bushes, stood back to back defensively when claws scrabbled against bark. But they made it to Barf and Belch with no sightings of the Speed Stingers.
Their dragon had crashed at the very edge of the forest, just a body's length away from the edge of the island and the ocean below. The moonlight illuminated their rigid scales, their useless wings, their unmoving eyes.
"Oh, Barf," Ruff whispered. She patted Barf's head comfortingly while Tuff stroked Belch's neck.
"Any ideas?" Tuff asked, flicking his gaze back to the surrounding forest.
Ruff frowned. "I wish they avoided something other than daylight. We've got nothing to fend them off." She sighed and paced around Barf and Belch, Tuffnut mirroring her movements in the opposite direction.
They stopped with both of them on the island's edge, toeing the rocky cliffs, listening to the ocean thrash below. They exchanged glances–the beginnings of an idea–and dropped to their hands and knees, peering safely over the edge.
"Yes!" Ruff cheered in a whisper. Tuff waved his arms in a silent triumphant dance.
Below the cliff's edge, about a quarter of the way down to the ocean, was a rocky outcropping similar to the one outside the cave exit. The rock shelf was nearly invisible in the dim moonlight, but it looked large, wide enough to hold the twins and their dragon, with room to spare. Best of all, it appeared to be inaccessible from the ground, unless the Speed Stingers were crazy enough to jump and strand themselves.
The twins shared conniving grins and circled back around their dragon.
"You think it'll hold all our weight?" Ruff asked.
A stick snapped in the forest behind them. Something glowed red out of the darkness.
"It'll have to," Tuffnut said.
Speed Stingers sprang out of the shadows, but the twins were already running. With an almighty yell, they shoved their combined force into Barf and Belch, and the three of them rolled over the edge of the cliff, vanishing into the inky blackness below.