Barf and Belch slammed onto the rock shelf midway down the cliff, and Ruff and Tuff were thrown off their dragon. They rolled away, coming to a stop at the rocky edge.
The twins scrambled back to Barf and Belch, peering into the darkness overhead. They scanned the edge of the island, its outline threaded in silvery moonlight. Shapes moved along the rim. Red eyes glowed from the shadows. Draconic chirps cut above the low rush of the ocean. The Speed Stingers were watching, debating.
Ruff pulled out her mace, holding it at the ready. But after several moments, the shadows melted away, and the huffs of breath and curious trills faded, lost in the sounds of the night. Ruffnut sighed, lowering her mace and sagging against Barf's solidified neck. "They're gone," she breathed.
"Thank Thor." Tuff turned away from the island and examined the limits of their questionable shelter, toeing the edge and peering at the churning ocean below. He paced back to where the ledge hugged the side of the island. He frowned. A narrow path snaked away to the right, curving into a gap in the cliff face. It was impossible to tell whether the path reached the main island or not. He gulped, elbowing Ruffnut and gesturing at the path. "Do you think it leads back to the island?"
Ruff pursed her lips. "I hope not," she said. "Otherwise the Stingers might be able to reach us after all." She gave the shadowy path one last wary look, then turned and began rummaging through their saddle bag. A quiet squawk rent the uneasy silence. Ruffnut pulled a Terrible Terror out of the bag.
"Wow, that thing slept through all that?" Tuff asked, mildly impressed. The Terror hopped onto Barf and Belch's back, unfurled its wings in a long stretch, then curled up in a ball again, closing its eyes.
"Hey," Ruff said, poking it with the pencil she fished out of the bag. "You can't sleep yet; you've got a job to do."
"Can you see well enough to write?" Tuff asked, glancing up at the night sky. The glittering mass of stars streamed down on them, adding only slightly to the moonlight.
"Eh, it might be a little sloppy, but it'll have to do. I'll make it short." Ruff pulled a blank scroll of parchment out of the bag, then spread it flat on the rock ledge. She laid down beside it and began to write.
"How soon do you think Astrid'll get here?" Tuff asked, eyeing the cliff path. The darkness there was unmoving.
"Soon," Ruff said. "Stormfly's fast."
Tuff nodded. "Don't forget to tell her about Hiccup." He twitched his fingers, remembering the feel of the coarse fabric of Toothless' red tail fin in his hands. The tear down the middle. The frayed edges of the shredded fabric. He swallowed, seeing the flash of the vermillion stinger in his mind's eye. He glanced at Ruff, who was scrawling across the page with clear urgency. "Do you think they got them? 'Cause you know they're a package deal. If the Stingers froze one of them, they brought both of them down."
Ruff stopped at the end of the letter, holding the pencil above the parchment, the charcoal tip trembling slightly in her hand. She tightened her grip on it, taking a deep breath. "Hiccup and Toothless are probably hiding somewhere, like we are." She rolled up the parchment and stood, her jaw set, the muscles in her arms tense and strained. "We'll find them in the morning," she said, tying the note to the Terror's leg and sending it off. She stood beside Tuffnut, examining the cliff passageway, too. "If we survive the night."
Hiccup peeled the last of the bandages away from his torso, completely revealing the skin beneath. Its usual pale sheen was marbled with purple that deepened to black when the campfire guttered. A burn mark glistened in the firelight on his right side, the skin beginning to heal, but still raw in places. With each breath Hiccup took, his chest expanded, then relaxed, moving in a steady cadence. It was the only thing about him that could be described as steady.
Snotlout gritted his teeth. Even his cousin's weight had diminished. Hiccup had always been skinny, but his build now was different. He was no longer lean, but gaunt, his facial structure a little too clearly defined, his bones a little too outlined against his skin. Snotlout half wished that Hiccup had kept his tattered tunic on. He hated seeing this, hated being aware of every mark on Hiccup's thin frame, every lingering effect of illness and injury. Sure, he was no longer missing, and he wasn't dead, but he wasn't okay, either. Not by a long shot.
Hiccup tossed the old bandages into the fire with a deft flick of his hand—that, too, Snotlout supposed, was something steady—and glanced over at his cousin. He arched an eyebrow.
"What?" Snotlout asked defensively.
"Ah, nothing," Hiccup said with a slight shrug. Even his characteristically enthusiastic gestures had been scaled back, likely to avoid any pain from pulling at his injuries. But despite his poor condition, he was smiling, his tone amused. "It's just that you look like you want to murder someone." Hiccup's emerald eyes flicked up and down Snotlout, studying his demeanor. "Mad about something?"
"No." Snotlout snatched up the roll of fresh bandages. "Sit up straight."
"Yeah, yeah." Hiccup drew himself up, correcting the slight slump in his posture.
Snotlout held the bandage against his cousin's skin, then began winding it carefully. "Too tight?" he asked.
Hiccup shook his head, remaining silent.
Snotlout dropped his gaze back to the bandages and continued to wrap Hiccup's ribs, his movements illuminated by the crackling fire nearby. The warmth of it washed over them, along with the bubbling of the nearby creek and the quiet whispers of the wind in the pines. Their dragons' breaths huffed from their places behind them. The ocean waves breathed in the distance.
"Thanks for doing this," Hiccup said.
"Shut up, Hiccup. And you better not tell the others. I don't want them thinking I've gone soft."
Hiccup laughed lightly, making the bandage slip in Snotlout's fingers. "I don't think anyone would ever think you've gone soft."
Snotlout sighed inwardly. His dad would. He could almost hear Spitelout's indignant scoff, see the haughty arch of his brows. What do you think you're doing, boy-o? You're not a healer. You're not Hiccup's servant. Let him do it on his own. It's every Viking for himself, you know. Snotlout bit down on his rising insecurities and focused on the strength of their team. They were better together—all of them. They had proven that enough.
And despite the many times he had tried to quit, the times he had tried to force his will on the others, and the times his reckless actions had caused more harm than good, Snotlout had learned that he had a place among the riders. That, in defiance of the lingering voices hissing not needed and not good enough, he was accepted. Valued. Relied upon.
But trying to convince himself never worked half as well as these moments. Not the ones where Hiccup said, 'I need you, Snotlout,' or 'Great job today, Snotlout,' but rather the moments in which he said nothing. No protests. No questions. Just quiet, unreserved trust.
Snotlout dropped out of his thoughts as Hiccup began to tilt to one side.
"Hey." Snotlout snapped in his cousin's face, watching his eyes flicker open again. "You gotta stay upright for this."
"Yeah," Hiccup said, rubbing at his eyes and straightening his back. "Got it." He cleared his throat as he watched Snotlout finish the bandaging. "So, how is everyone doing?" he asked as Snotlout tied a knot, then tossed him the spare tunic he'd brought from Dragon's Edge. Hiccup pulled it over his head, obscuring the evidence of the hardships of the past few days. "How's Astrid?"
"Astrid!" Snotlout sprung to his feet and cursed, running to Hookfang.
"What? What's the matter?" Hiccup made to stand up, but Snotlout waved him down.
"Astrid's gonna kill me," he said, snagging the Terrible Terror from Hookfang's side and hurrying back to the fire. "I was supposed to write her as soon as I found you." He dropped to his knees at the fireside and dumped the contents of his saddle bag onto the grass. He seized a pencil and a roll of parchment. "Thanks a lot, Hiccup. Your insane poison story distracted me."
"Hey, wait. You're writing Astrid, right?"
"Yeah, duh."
Hiccup stretched his hand out. "Let me write it."
Snotlout hesitated.
"You know it'll make her feel better if she sees my handwriting. That way she'll know I'm okay."
"I wouldn't say 'okay,' exactly," Snotlout said doubtfully, but he tossed the pencil into Hiccup's waiting palm anyway.
"Yeah, whatever," Hiccup said as Snotlout rolled him the parchment. "You know what I mean." He unfurled it and began to write, scribbling quickly across the page. When he had finished, he rolled it up and gestured at the Terror in Snotlout's lap. "C'mere, little guy."
The Terror hopped down and padded toward Hiccup, but before he could get halfway, a dark winged form streaked from out of the surrounding darkness and barreled into Snotlout.
"Ah!" Snotlout cried, jerking back instinctively.
It was another Terrible Terror. It tilted its head at him and gave a squeaky roar. There was a message tied to its leg.
Hiccup and Snotlout exchanged bewildered glances.
"Well, open it," Hiccup said, waving him on.
Snotlout untied the knot and spread the letter open, holding it near the light of the fire. "What the–?" He scanned the letter with mounting confusion.
"What is it?" Hiccup asked.
"It's from Astrid," Snotlout said, lowering the parchment with a frown. "She said she's gone to help the twins, and that the twins found you." He looked around suspiciously at the darkness encompassing the edges of the firelight.
"What? That's impossible," Hiccup said, glancing warily at their surroundings, too.
"I know." Snotlout shook his head, then guffawed. "Muttonheads."
But something had dawned on Hiccup. His eyes widened and he sat up onto his knees, looking more alert than he had for the last few hours. "Oh, no," he whispered.
"What?"
Hiccup shook his head grimly. The wind kicked up, whistling more sharply through the trees, swirling the fire into chaotic agitation. The flickering light crossed over the bags under Hiccup's eyes, the exhausted stoop of his spine, his hands planted in the grass to keep himself steady. "If they're not here, but they think they've found me, then they must be on my trail. Which means–"
"Oh, Thor." Snotlout gulped, catching on. He met Hiccup's pained gaze.
The campfire sparked, embers hissing.
"Speed Stingers."
Astrid wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt and readjusted her grip on the saddle. Something roiled in her stomach as a dark land mass blotted out the stars on the horizon.
"There it is, Stormfly," she whispered, taking one hand off the saddle to stroke Stormfly's scales. "We're gonna find him."
Stormfly chirped happily.
Astrid smiled tremulously, then patted her dragon's neck. "Come on," she said. "Reconnaissance time. We don't know what we're dealing with, but the twins are in some kind of trouble, so let's get a lay of the land."
Stormfly adjusted her course, sweeping upwards, away from the ocean. She dipped her wings, and the two of them began to circle the island, inspecting it carefully.
"Mostly forest." Astrid peered into the darkness, scanning the gaps between the trees. Something moved in the shadows. Astrid blinked and it was gone.
Stormfly roared uneasily.
"Yeah, I know, girl." Astrid ran a hand down Stormfly's neck in a soothing gesture. "Whatever that was, it was fast. Let's steer clear." Astrid leaned forward, trying to glimpse the rest of the island, its topography shrouded in night. "Caves," she noted as they swooped by a small stretch of mountainous terrain. They curved around the cliffs, skimming more forest lands. A branch snapped nearby.
Stormfly dropped altitude and roared quietly.
"What is it?" Astrid asked as Stormfly steadied herself. They were now flying by the island's cliffs, level with the forest floor. Astrid glanced down.
A short distance ahead, a rocky ledge jutted out from the side of the cliffs. A misshapen form took up most of the space. Astrid distinguished two familiar draconic heads.
"Barf! Belch! Ruff! Tuff!" She leaned forward in the saddle as Stormfly streaked closer, then hovered in place above the twins and their dragon. But there was no one else with them. No sleek black scales or glowing green eyes. No head of fluffed, wind-swept hair. No lean silhouette waving beside the twins. Astrid squashed down the disappointment that burned behind her eyes. "What are you guys doing down there?" she called.
The twins were jumping up and down on the ledge, waving—not in greeting, as Astrid had assumed, but in frantic warning. "Shhh!" they hissed, voices barely audible above the rush of Stormfly's wings.
Something lurched out of the forest ahead.
Astrid gasped and jerked away, Stormfly moving with her as a Speed Stinger leapt off the edge of the island. Its glowing red eyes fixated on her, its rows of teeth glinting in the moonlight, chunks of flesh hanging from the gaps between them. Astrid's knee-jerk movement had pulled her out of its violent trajectory, but it passed close enough that its putrid breath stung her nostrils. It slammed into Stormfly, then slipped over the edge of her wings, shrieking as it plummeted to the ocean below.
But the Stinger was not the only one plummeting. Stormfly's scales grayed and hardened beneath Astrid's hands.
"No!" she cried, but they dropped like a stone. Stormfly smacked against the rim of the twins' rocky ledge, tilting preciously, and Astrid was propelled off of her, skidding to the edge.
She screamed as she toppled over the side, but a strong hand latched around her forearm. Astrid looked up, breathing heavily.
"Hang on," Ruff grunted, reaching another hand down to bolster her grip. She pulled Astrid back onto solid rock. Together with Tuffnut, they shoved Stormfly closer to the side of the island, balanced more safely on the ledge.
"Speed Stingers." Astrid sighed and slumped against Stormfly, running a hand down her face. "It had to be Speed Stingers."
"Tell me about it," Tuff said quietly, dropping to the floor, too.
Astrid rubbed her temples. "I thought you said you found Hiccup."
Ruff tossed something to Astrid.
She caught it. Her breath hitched. "Hiccup's spyglass," she whispered, turning it over in her hands. The third stitch from the bottom was loose, the leather starting to pull apart. He had wanted to fix that. "Where'd you find this?"
"In the caves," Ruff said. "And we found something else, too."
"What?" Astrid asked, looking around curiously, but the twins produced nothing further.
"Toothless' tail fin," Tuff said, frowning down at his boots. "It was split down the middle."
Astrid clenched her fists, tensing against the cold fingers of dread that brushed against the base of her neck. She swallowed and nodded once. "Then the Stingers missed. If they got the tail, they didn't get Toothless. Hopefully they never did."
"We think they're hiding somewhere on the island, like we are," Ruff said.
"Wait a minute." Astrid shook her head. "Unless one of them got stung, there's no reason they should be here. Hiccup packed a spare tail fin. They should've just flown away in the morning."
Tuff growled. "Oh, great. So they're either paralyzed, or…"
"Or gone." Ruff cursed. "I thought we had him."
"We still might, if they weren't able to leave." Astrid stood, pacing the limited distance of the ledge. "I sent word to Snotlout; he should be here by the morning. Once it's light, we can search the island and determine for sure whether they're here or not. Then we'll either have found them, or we can rule this island out." She sighed and glanced down at Hiccup's spyglass. The lens reflected the scattered stars overhead. "All we need to do," she said, "is wait out the night."
"Uh, yeah, about that…"
Astrid turned, frowning at Tuffnut's tone. "What?" she asked.
He gestured to the side of the island, heading to the boundary of their ledge with Ruffnut.
Astrid followed them, coming to a stop at their side. What she had thought was a boundary was instead a small path, the narrow passageway twisting up into the cliffs and out of sight. "Okay," she said, with another long-suffering sigh. "Looks like waiting out the night just became a lot harder."
Ruff hummed in agreement. "We don't know if the Stingers can reach us that way or not."
Astrid tramped back to Stormfly and retrieved her axe. "Better safe than sorry," she said. She rejoined the twins and examined the path. It was sturdy and thick, but at least it was narrow. "We've gotta take this down," she said. "Then we know we're secure. If they find this path and come for us, we have no defense."
The twins pulled out their own weapons, regarding the pathway doubtfully.
"We've gotta bring it down with nothing but our close combat weapons?" Ruff asked.
Astrid advanced up the path and knelt down. "Yep," she said. "Our dragons are out of commission, so unless you have a better plan…"
Ruff sighed and dropped to her knees beside Astrid, skirting the outer contour of the passage. "We'll only be able to work two at a time."
"Then we'll rotate." Astrid brought her axe down against the rock. It cracked, a tiny, shallow fissure running through the surface.
Ruff smashed her mace against the pathway with a crunch. The crack splintered more. A sliver of rock broke away. "This is gonna take all night."
Astrid hefted her axe, glancing at the shadowy reaches up ahead. "We don't have all night."