Camicazi didn't like pitched battles. She preferred stealth and ambushes, encounters where her slim form and lack of strength weren't important. Pitched battles were the worst.
That didn't mean she couldn't have fun with it, though. She sawed her knife through a slack sail line on one of her tribe's ships and handed it off to a nearby warrior. "Take this," she instructed. "Hold on tight, and try to stab someone on the way down."
"I'll get more than you," the woman declared, taking her rope and awkwardly shuffling off to the side. The oversized mace dangling from her belt probably unbalanced her, but now was not the time to chastise bad weapon selection. If she could use it, she could have it.
The wind blew, and Camicazi focused on severing the next rope, looking up to be sure she wasn't about to bring the sail down on them. Her mother would be furious about the damage she was doing to the ship, but all would be forgiven afterwards so long as the sails remained up. Hopefully.
"Drinks on me for the one with the most kills," the other woman declared loudly, taking the offered rope.
"If we live through this," Camicazi chipped in briskly, taking the last cut rope for herself and tugging at it to be sure it wasn't loose. The choppy water between their ship and the Berserker vessel that had pulled alongside them was looking far more dangerous from up here, and a dunk in the ocean wasn't the point of all of this.
"Losin' your nerve?" one of them asked quietly. "Ye know the Chief wanted ye behind the line of battle on our side."
Camicazi shook her head. What kind of up-and-coming leader would back down from her own idea? It wasn't that dangerous; there were only a few large, slow Berserkers stopping their people from swarming over and taking the ship, and a couple of knives to the back would solve that problem with far less bloodshed than an outright charge, which her mother would soon be attempting.
"Alright then," her guard conceded. "See ya over there!"
A quick hop off the beam later, the three of them were taking a short airborne trip over enemy lines. She was thankful she had gotten a taste of riding dragons; compared to that, this was nothing. She let go as she flew into the enemy's sail, rammed her knife through the canvas, and held on tight to slow her fall while conveniently crippling the ship so it couldn't go anywhere.
The descent was rapid and bumpy; the larger women to either side of her were pulling the sail far more violently in their own slide downward, and she was too light to ignore the ripples they sent through the tough fabric.
Then she was falling freely, the sail having run out. She pulled away at the last moment, angling her descent and hoping she would hit right. A few broken bones were ignorable but not desirable if she could help it.
The pile of rope she had aimed for wasn't soft, but it did the job. She jumped up immediately, a knife in either hand, and ran for the nearest fat Viking jeering across at the Bog Burglar ship.
This was what she was good at. She stabbed him in the back of the knee and then the back of his neck as he fell, just as she had always been taught. Around her, other Berserkers were falling to similarly brutal ambush strikes, and the few remaining turned away from the Bog Burglar ship in an attempt to meet the ambush in their midst.
She grinned savagely at that; the whole point of this was to get their attention. Boarding planks began to span the gap the moment the last Berserker had looked away, special constructions made to be light thumping down onto the deck with muted impacts, cloth at the end dampening the sounds. Reinforcements would be across in seconds.
Those seconds were going to be dicey, though. She reluctantly stepped back and let her guards take care of fending off the remaining men; they were already back to the normal form of war, in which her small and light frame was a liability. Too bad.
Soon, the ship was devoid of living, conscious defenders, and Camicazi faced her mother. In the background, the noises of war were punctuated by angry, deranged screams from a certain insane Chieftain somewhere on a nearby ship. It wasn't the best time or place to be facing the music, though she could hope that her mother would feel rushed and go lightly on her.
"It worked, so I'll just say next time ye do somethin' like that, take more with ya," Bertha said angrily. "Ye'll be cleanin' out the decoy huts next raid. Alone."
"You assume we'll live to see that," she chirped. That was a harsh punishment, but who cared? Certainly not her. The badly-hidden pride behind her mother's anger was more than enough compensation.
"Don' joke," her mother responded somberly. "It ain't gonna be easy. This isn't over, and the Furies are busy over there." She pointed over Camicazi's shoulder.
"Over where?" Camicazi turned to look back at the island, confused. She had noticed a distinct lack of explosive blasts but had assumed the two dragons were just out of fire for a while. There didn't seem to be anything going on in the village; it was still lit and the docks were still barricaded and manned, the natives ready to make a stand if the line didn't hold.
"Exactly," Bertha grunted. "They flew off, and that girl isn't one to flee a fight, which means there's more fight to be had somewhere."
Well, she couldn't argue with that. It was too bad there was absolutely no way to get to the island from here in any decent amount of time; Camicazi would have liked to go find out what the Night Furies were doing. It sounded like they might need them back sooner rather than later.
"Careful, they might be expecting a run on the ships," Heather called out. She didn't know who was in charge of the strike force currently landing on the back end of the island, and if it was someone with more sense than insanity, anticipating a strike at one of their more vulnerable moments was more than likely.
'We're doing it anyway, right?' Berg asked, flying beside Einfari as they closed in on the targets. As they spoke, gangplanks were being lowered and the first of many Berserkers were setting foot on Mahelmetan.
'Definitely,' Einfari confirmed, tilting her body downward and beginning the final descent. 'Just try to pull out as soon as possible.'
Heather held on tightly through the next few moments, her heart racing as they dove toward the ships. There was no shriek of defiance, and the whine of Einfari cutting through the air with her wings was nothing compared to the shouted orders and noise from the docking ships.
Einfari jerked to the side immediately after letting off her shot, veering away from the ships. Even with that, Heather could hear the arrows whistling around them.
'Still too close,' Einfari huffed. 'And we can't go in for another shot.'
"Why-" She cut herself off as the reason became clear; a row of Berserkers was forming up on the shore, pointing crossbows to the sky. Another run with that waiting would be suicidal…
But they had to do something; a steady stream of Berserkers was disappearing into the forest.
'Are the humans in the nest able to stop this?' Eldurberg called out, rejoining them. 'Because mom would kill me if I got myself killed here. We can't go again.'
"Not this many," Heather reasoned, thinking of the defenses, which were all aimed to make a stand at the port. An attack from behind would be devastating, not even mentioning the village the Berserkers would probably raze on their way through, and the women and children who would be slaughtered. They needed to stop the Berserkers from reaching the village at all.
'So we stop them,' Einfari said, coming to the same conclusion as they glided over the forest. 'Somewhere along the way. They have to go through this little patch of trees and shrubbery, and then they have to cross a big, open field.'
"If we had a dozen Night Furies we could turn that field crossing into a slaughter," Heather said worriedly, "but two can't do it." The other Night Furies wouldn't arrive for a while yet; they couldn't count on help.
'If the field doesn't work, by extension that means we need to use the forest,' Eldurberg supplied helpfully.
'Neither of us knows fighting well enough to kill them on the ground,' Einfari objected. 'My mother or father could take them all easily, but we would just get stabbed the moment we made a mistake.' She sounded sure of that assertion, though Heather thought that it was a low risk. She wasn't about to question her friend, but it was something to bring up once they were out of danger.
'I know, but that's not what I meant,' Eldurberg explained. ''It's been dry here recently, right?'
'No rain for weeks,' Einfari purred, catching on. 'Lots of dead wood in there, and that which lives is ripe for burning. Plenty on the ground to spread the flames from place to place. Heather, any reason we can't?"
"If Rotison complains, I might consider letting you burn him too," Heather declared. This was war, and the forest was pretty much worthless anyway. "Go for it."
'But do it intelligently,' Einfari added, looking at Eldurberg. 'You go set fire to the border with the field; Heather and I will do the cliffs. If we do it right, we can trap them inside while it burns. And when they get out, we'll blast them out of existence.'
Eldurberg winced at that. 'That's kind of harsh,' he said slowly. 'Why can't we just let them flee and sail away? Maybe they will think twice about trying again.'
'I think you don't need me to answer that,' Einfari replied sternly, circling around. 'But just in case you do, here's why. Every one you let live and escape is one more that might drive a sword through your little sister someday soon.'
'Right, got it,' Eldurberg grunted, turning away and flying down toward the fields.
'Are you going to say I was too harsh just then?' Einfari asked.
"No. He needs to see the stakes." She had seen her village and people destroyed. She wasn't about to fret over trapping some of those same Berserkers in a burning forest. If anything, she would worry about not being able to do so thoroughly enough to actually trap them.
"I knew it'd come in handy," Gobber said quietly, entirely aware that now was not the time but not able to find it in himself to care. He was being quiet, and that was about as much as he could do.
"Shut up," Astrid hissed, jogging past him.
"I'll do wha' I bloody well want," he muttered the moment she was too far away to hear. They were tramping through a dark, scrawny forest on the way to what promised to be a raid like the bad old days. If things were different, he'd already be drunk instead of just pretending.
His peg leg snagged on another cluster of old, dry thorn vines, and he yanked it forward, relishing the thick snapping sounds. He liked this new peg, for all that it was just his normal wooden one with a sword blade embedded in the front; it was great for stomping through the undergrowth. So what if he had 'accidentally' put several particularly annoying Berserkers out of commission while testing it out on the ship? Accidents happen.
Besides, he needed his small victories, given the real reason he was here at all wasn't good for morale. If the dragons didn't have any other tricks up their scaly, nonexistent sleeves, he would be forced to watch the sort of thing that he had always preferred to leave in the bad old days, where it belonged. So far, it looked like Astrid was going to be having the time of her life, and there was nothing he could do to stop that.
Save for one thing… Astrid ran by again, and he made a show of stumbling, contemplating a single, vengeful strike. Nobody would ever know if his knife prosthetic found its way into her back. Accidents happened all the time.
But if he did that, even if he wasn't caught or suspected, he'd almost certainly be either cast out of the Berserkers or relegated to a position of no use in the war, not for the side he meant to support. He owed Hiccup far too much to throw away his position as a spy with almost uncontested power.
Not yet, anyway. Not until he had done his part. Then he could get on with the other reason for all of this. Avenging his best friend. Hiccup, or Maour, as he now liked to be called, wouldn't do it, but that didn't mean it shouldn't be done.
He wished he was drunk. Nothing was stopping them, and according to the scant information they had on the island, there were fields up ahead, which came with unrestricted lines of sight and a fearsome charge. Then there would be pillaging, looting, and far more unsavory things, and the side he supported would have been dealt a terrible blow, the death of allies under their protection-
A faint red glow caught his eye, and he dropped, years of training too far ground into instinct to be dulled by a few more years of relative peace. Several of the Berserkers behind him also dropped, following his lead.
But nothing came of it. He raised his head just high enough to see the flickering light, and tried to determine just what it was.
Not a big dragon, and not a Night Fury; it was normal fire, flickering and slowly growing in the distance. He wouldn't even have seen it in the day, it was so far away. Something from a Terror, maybe? He recalled Maour saying the littlest dragons truly were animals, but that didn't mean they couldn't be used for war.
Terrifying images of packs of Terrible Terrors ripping into men like swarms of gnats on a fresh yak pie assaulted his mind, and he squinted a little harder. He was far too experienced to expect to be spared by the opposing side; allies killed allies on the battlefield by accident without the added complications of spies and traitors.
"You, you, you," Astrid whispered from behind him, crouching just like he was and verbally selecting the three closest men. He hadn't even heard her approach. "Go find out what it is."
Three large Berserkers shambled off toward the light, trying to be stealthy and failing miserably. Gobber was more impressed that they tried at all; it was a measure of how much sway Astrid held over them. Berserkers didn't do stealthy.
Astrid did do stealthy, or sneaky, or outright tricky, whatever she thought necessary to best kill dragons. She also intimidated the men who often towered over her through sheer force of insanity and authority, so the men under her command didn't really have a choice.
Those men hadn't trained her, though. They hadn't watched her go from an upright, honorable warrior-in-training to unhinged madwoman with few inhibitions and no conscience. She didn't intimidate him, though she did often enrage or worry him.
"More to the other side," someone called out in a rough whisper. Gobber resisted the urge to turn and see; it would do no good, and everyone else would, so somebody had to keep watching the first firelight.
"Tha's jus' a normal fire," someone speculated. "Not a dragon."
Were he actually loyal to the Berserkers, Gobber would have silenced the man with a rap on the helmet and a kindly warning against annoying the psychotic woman hel-bent on ending all things dragon or annoying. He wasn't, so he held his tongue and listened to the hapless man doom himself.
"We should keep goin' while they're not waitin' for us," the man continued, louder now.
"You'll be the first to go anywhere," Astrid said coldly. "First to charge their village. And since you'll be first, you'll need to be fast. You will leave your weapons and your armor in this forest." She sounded as if she couldn't care less, but Gobber knew better. She was not good at controlling her mood swings, whatever Dagur was apparently teaching her, and that was the sound of her control splintering but not quite gone yet.
"Tha's stupid!"
A thick, meaty thud was the next and final sound from that particular Berserker. Gobber didn't mourn his passing; idiots who volunteered to travel with the crazy Chieftess and didn't learn to keep their mouths shut were asking for death, and it was one less Berserker to deal with. If only the rest of the tribe would provoke her in the same way.
The awkward, cowed silence was broken by the noisy return of those she had sent to check the light; they ran without a care in the world, stomping through the forest.
"Fire, everywhere," one of them explained. "Whole forest's burnin' past the hill yonder. We can' see it from here 'cause o' that hill."
"Passable?" Astrid asked tersely.
"If we're quick abou' gettin' there, yeah," the scout confirmed. "It's spreadin' though, and quick. It 'ad to 'ave been set in a couple o' places to get this big this fast."
"'Ow do you know that?" one of the others sent to scout asked skeptically.
"I like burnin' things," was the simple reply.
"We head forward," Astrid declared. "We can get out of this forest before that fire gets anywhere close."
Gobber knew he had to think quickly; this was an opportunity, putting aside the possibility that Hiccup had something trickier planned than hastening their trip through the woods. Gobber wasn't a schemer by nature, but he was pretty sure keeping the bulk of the Berserkers in the burning woods as long as possible was a smart move no matter what was meant to happen. Fire plus enemies made less enemies.
"That's what'll be expected," he interjected, catching Astrid's attention. She listened to him more often than not, and relied on his counsel. He'd be using that tonight. "Like herdin' sheep. Ye always expect 'em to go out the open gate, not over the fence."
"And?" She wasn't glaring at him, which was encouraging. He didn't fear death by her irate hands and ax, but it wasn't out of the question.
"Go to the fire, wait until it's almost too strong to pass, and then go at the last second," Gobber proposed. "They'll think we're dead and leave."
"That could work," she agreed. "Everyone, with me!"
Gobber knew he had to hide the dark grin spreading over his face, so he looked down at his peg leg and gleefully focused on shredding any poor, dry vine that got in his way. The problem with relying on someone else to check one's plans was that the other person might make mistakes too, or intentionally sabotage everything.
"Ready?" Astrid asked, leaning out toward the crackling inferno despite the painful heat rising off of it. The trees to either side of her were catching fire even now, and Gobber was feeling the heat.
This was it; the forest was burning around them, and while there was an open path back to the ships along the already burnt coast, retreat wasn't on the table right now. A run through just-catching forest was.
His intentionally faulty plan was looking awfully viable now. They could do it, and probably would. He had bought time, and nothing else. That was the problem with sabotage; he couldn't commit to anything, so all his tricks had to be just good enough to avoid suspicion.
A chorus of tense affirmatives rose above the crackling of the flames, and Astrid nodded, her eyes reflecting the fire and twisting it into something disturbing, a light that didn't belong in the gaze of any sane person. Her ax dangled loosely from a strap around her right wrist, and the sharp stake she always carried was grasped tightly in her left hand.
"If you hear a Night Fury fire into the sky even if you can't see it, no warcries, and no quarter given," she instructed, turning her back on them. "If anyone downs a Night Fury or rider, they're mine. I want them alive so that I can enjoy their deaths… But if they look to be getting away, just kill them."
He grimaced at that; it would have been good if she left that last part out. She was too set on killing to make the classic mistake of demanding the enemy alive and captive or not defeated at all.
She stepped away from the inferno for a brief moment, moving as if something had just occurred to her, and gestured to it. "Go!"
The first, bravest and stupidest Berserker ran through the flickering tongues of heat, passing through the catching forest edge. Then the next. They were making it.
"Gobber," she said, pulling him aside as more and more of their strike force left the death trap he had tried to keep them in, "I want you to do something."
This was it. She had seen his deception and was about to order him to attack without weapons, or maybe she would just kill him here. He clenched his good fist, preparing to strike first if that was the case.
But she only spoke, and her words were not what he was anticipating. "If we can't make it to the village without heavy losses, I want you to organize a retreat. Go back the burned-out way."
"Wha'?" He couldn't have been more surprised. His fist unclenched.
"There aren't many dragons here," she explained, the fire gone from her eyes, for the moment mostly lucid. "An easy slaughter is fine, but if it's not going to be easy it would be a waste to force it."
"If I'm organizin' the retreat, what'll you be doin'?" he asked.
"Hunting." She turned away and darted through the closing flames, and he followed as best he could. He didn't know what she meant or what possessed her to speak of retreat now, but he knew what he would do. His conditions for 'not worth the effort' were not the same as hers. It all depended on what happened next.
'They are not fireproof,' Einfari said, watching the forest burn inward in a shrinking ring. It wasn't that big to begin with, and had been every bit as ripe for burning as they had thought. Somewhere in that shrinking open space, their enemies lurked… Or they were dead already.
"Definitely not." Heather paced all of two steps across the roof of the hut they had landed on, and then turned back again. Her eyes never left the flames in the distance. "I feel like we're missing something. They should have run out immediately."
'They should-' She spotted movement and leaned forward. 'There, by the cliffs.'
Heather was in the saddle in a heartbeat. "All of them?"
'Enough to be a threat.' They had alerted the people of Mahelmetan, and more makeshift reinforcements were being built between the outer row of huts, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to stop a few dozen determined Berserkers. The crowd she could see emerging from the ashes needed to be thinned out.
"Berg is coming in from the water, he sees them too," Heather reported. "Time to blast them to oblivion?"
'Strike hard, strike fast, and get out.' This shouldn't be too hard; they were scattering and running across the open field, clearly intent on reaching the cover the village afforded, but they weren't spread out enough yet, and as long as she got to them quickly, she could do immense damage with a single shot.
She knew better than to grow bored with diving and firing only to pull away again at the last moment, but she couldn't help the growing familiarity. There was no variation in what she did in a battle; it was all quick strikes with fire and nothing else, because her life was too precious to risk on the ground or within range of returning fire-
"Drop!"
She saw it at the same time as Heather; a scattered array of crossbow bolts and arrows soaring up through the air at them. This wasn't like before; they weren't aimed at one place so much as the air itself. Paradoxically, shots not aimed were far more dangerous; if she hadn't noticed, she would have flown right into some of them.
A sharp pain in her paw emphasized the danger, and she barked, dropping as much out of instinct as conscious decision, either way deeming the air too dangerous, jolting Heather in the saddle as she transitioned from steady soaring to pounding the ground with every stride. A thin stick snapped off the side of her left front paw, and she ignored the point buried in the pad. It wasn't enough to stop her, and she had more pressing things to think about. Such as how they were going to avoid being mobbed and killed on the ground.
Einfari wasn't too worried about that; she had a plan, though she couldn't say as much. There was no time to explain her methods, no time to tell Heather about what her father had taught all his children about sight, cover, and using one's scales to one's advantage. No time to explain that the gently rolling slopes of the field provided the perfect cover if one hunkered low. Heather got the idea, lying down in the saddle as she crouched.
If they couldn't strike from above, they would just have to do it from the ground.
Einfari could easily see the individual silhouettes of Berserkers running, their backs to the flames. However, they could not see her or Heather in the fading light. A dragon on the ground would be just one more nondescript lump to their eyes.
"Eldurberg is still up there," Heather whispered, shifting in the saddle.
'Don't worry about him now.' They were in actual danger; there came a time where one had to trust one's allies to have a small amount of common sense without being led by the nose. Really, she should just spring into the air and avoid this confrontation, but she was tired of firing and fleeing. This was safe enough as long as they were careful.
"Don't fire. Let me." There was a rustle of wood scraping against wood, and then of tough sinew bending wood just over Einfari's ears.
'Fire on the ones aiming at the sky.' She could see one in front of them, the bulky outline of the crossbow pointed skyward as he ran. It was a clever move, really, but only if one was facing mindless beasts that continued to dive toward those firing indiscriminately. At least they were compensating for their insufficient aim with numbers and randomness.
Heather hummed her assent, a sound that would have made Einfari chuckle if it weren't for the seriousness of the situation and the need to hold absolutely still for Heather. A few moments later there was a harsh, at least to Einfari's ears, twang… And nothing else. The Berserker in question continued to run across the field, passing by their position now.
Another twang; this time one of the men coming more in their general direction stumbled and fell to his knees.
Einfari could hear Heather's unease, her worry and adrenaline; the way her heart beat so quickly and erratically, the way she exhaled with such force it seemed like an intentional act instead of instinct.
Another shaft of wood and sharp ends flew from behind Einfari's head, and the kneeling Berserker fell entirely.
'Good, but don't waste your shots on putting them down,' she advised dispassionately, watching the running figures carefully. She would have to move soon; a clumped-together group was on a path that would run right over them as they were, and revealing their position was asking for trouble. 'One per Berserker as long as he doesn't see you.'
"Good advice," Heather murmured. "We're not taking out very many, though."
'No,' Einfari agreed, creeping along the sloping terrain, low to the ground and slow in her movement. 'But we can take a few.' It was hard to tell for sure, but she thought the fire and aborted firing run had done more than enough to break up the massed charge and render it vulnerable to the hasty defenses the villagers had put up; they had done what they needed to on this front. What they were doing now was just extra, a little more help to those manning the barricades.
She couldn't seem to muster up any significant amount of worry over that, either. The people of Mahelmetan were ready to fight, and nobody expected her to save everyone. These particular people hadn't endeared themselves to her, so she wasn't all that attached to them aside from in the vague, general sense of disapproving of suffering inflicted by evil.
Heather felt differently, though, and Einfari wasn't about to voice her lack of deep regret over their failure to totally avert the attack. It wasn't something one said aloud.
"Einfari," Heather whispered. "See that one?"
Einfari flicked to Heather's vision long enough to get a fix on where she was looking, and then looked for herself. Another silhouette, but one significantly smaller and lighter, sneaking along and watching the sky intently.
"She's far, but not too far," Heather continued. "I'm going for it."
'Good luck.' She wasn't about to offer to get them closer; it was either Astrid or Dagur, and either was too dangerous up close to be safely dealt with. If Heather could kill them from afar, good. If not, oh well.
The first shot went wide; Einfari was fairly certain the target hadn't even noticed it. The second came closer; the sneaking, lithe figure stopped and looked around. A distinct ponytail flicked out behind the head, betraying Astrid's identity.
The third shot struck home; Astrid stumbled and clutched her arm. Heather was drawing a fourth when a familiar roar and flame lit the night.
"Bring me dragon riders and dragons!" Dagur the Deranged screamed, holding up something thankfully unidentifiable from where Camicazi stood. It was round and dripping and about the size of a helmet, which was more than enough to give it away, but she didn't feel like actually seeing it.
"Get to the rear supply ship," Bertha ordered sternly, gesturing with a blunted, bloody sword. "He's coming this way."
"I want to stick him," Camicazi objected. "And he's nowhere close."
"Do as I say," her mother retorted angrily, watching the battle. "I can see how this'll go, and he's gonna aim for you. He knows you're a friend o' Maour."
"Fair is fair, I say," she argued back. "I got Maour into plenty of trouble in the past. I guess it's my turn." Even if her mother was right, she wasn't going to retreat. They were supposed to win this fight, not slowly lose it, and maybe stabbing Dagur would turn the tide. It wasn't lost yet; they hadn't even lost most of their people or ships. It just wasn't looking good.
"It's nobody's…" her mother trailed off. A faint but recognizable sound was filling the air.
Camicazi grinned as two blasts of blue fire struck key Berserker ships around Dagur, decimating two crews at once. She couldn't see them, but clearly help had finally arrived… And in the process put quite the hard limit on how far away the Isle of Night could be from here, as she knew Maour would never be able to hold back reinforcements for the sake of preserving secrecy.
"Forward!" Bertha yelled, stomping up to the edge of the ship to yell across to one of her subordinates on another ship. "Push forward! Secure and hold their ships, and leave the reinforcements to the dragons!"
"Finally," Camicazi exhaled. "About time, Maour." Another two bolts struck at the Berserkers, doing even more damage. There was an intelligent, scheming mind behind those shots; she could see how the ships waiting to sail in and overwhelm key defending ships had just been taken out of the fight.
Two more shots. She frowned. Maybe this wasn't proof that the Isle was close enough to supply reinforcements this quickly; there were only two Night Furies striking, and she couldn't even be sure they were different ones from before.
But it didn't matter. She shrugged, flipped one of her knives, and started looking for a way back to the forefront of the battle. The tide had been turned.
Einfari reflexively shut her eyes as an explosion bloomed into fiery life in front of her; she lost track of everything as another struck behind her, covering her while she flinched.
Once she recovered, she immediately took to the air, trusting that the humans close enough to fire were far more disoriented, and flew up to meet the unexpected relief.
Nóttleiðtogi fell in on her right, and Nóttreiði on her left, the former berating the latter. 'You blinded her on the ground, surrounded on all sides! Think before you strike!'
'I'm sorry, it was instinct! I saw my sister in danger and reacted!' Nóttreiði whined, embarrassed, an emotion she rarely saw displayed so openly when it came to him. 'I'll do better!'
'You will.' Her father looked over at her. 'And you were on the ground why?'
'It was either that or be shot; they fire randomly,' she explained, trusting her father to understand. 'How are you here? Are the others here too?'
'No, they'll be a while yet,' Togi explained. 'Your brother and I were about to go out on patrol when your mother told me of what was going on. We came straight away, helped with the water battle, and then came here when you and Eldurberg weren't there.'
"We can use the help," Heather said, speaking up for the first time since they were ambushed by their own side. Her voice was unusually loud, and Einfari suspected she had been temporarily deafened by the blasts. "I don't know if I got Astrid or not, and they're all running for the village. We should thin them out."
'They're not,' Nóttreiði grumbled. Einfari glared at him, and he glared right back. 'They are turning around now. Look for yourself.'
Sure enough, she could see exactly that; one was yelling something indistinct, and the rest were breaking off their advance, turning and fleeing. There was fighting among the outermost wooden structures, but even as she watched, it died away. This front was all but done for.
'They know we have just arrived and seek to escape to dangerous airspace before we can capitalize on our numbers,' her father summarized. 'The ocean portion of the fight is also ending. We have only arrived in time to trigger the end of the battle.' He sounded dissatisfied with that.
'But it is an end, so it's good,' Einfari reasoned. 'Should we strike at them as they retreat?'
'You tell me,' her father replied, 'but do so quickly if you want the option.'
She considered the idea and reluctantly dismissed it. 'They've been smart with their air coverage all night. It's not worth the risk. This might even be a ploy to bait us into making ourselves vulnerable.'
'And the Eldurs consider themselves the most intelligent of us,' Nóttreiði scoffed. 'So much for that.'
As they watched, Eldurberg dove down and made a firing run on a retreating group of Berserkers. A hail of sharp bolts and arrows rose to meet him, he dodged-
And fell with a shriek, one of his wings folding inward while he was still in the air. He hit the ground and bounded upright almost immediately to flee to safety.
Einfari observed all of this in a detached way, feeling strange. Moments ago they had been in the thick of an ongoing fight with no end or victory in sight, but now she was gliding with her father above a battle they had definitely won. She felt like she had been yanked out of one world and thrust into another where everything was different. Things looked different from afar. Eldurberg was clearly safe; there weren't any enemies close enough to harm him.
"I don't see Astrid," Heather said. "I don't know what happened to her."
'Maybe one of the blasts killed her?' It would be nice if that were true, but she knew it probably wasn't. Aside from the fact that it just felt too easy, which she knew was a flaw in her reasoning because real life didn't care whether something felt like it should be harder, the blasts had struck far too close to her to reach Astrid.
'I see a human from the wooden caves waving for us,' Nóttreiði said sourly. 'We can just stay up here, right father?'
'No, remember what I said. We are cooperating with our human allies, not ignoring them and doing our own thing. That always leads to catastrophe.' Togi fixed his son with a stern look. 'You promised me you would try and do better.'
'And I will,' Nóttreiði huffed. 'Let's go.'
Einfari hummed curiously. 'That,' she said quietly, meaning her words for Heather alone, 'is promising.'
"Togi's trying to make him change," Heather agreed. "I guess now is a good time. The fight's pretty much over on this end."
Nóttleiðtogi and Nóttreiði convened just off the docks in a small clearing that Heather suspected usually housed trade goods from newly-docked vessels. It was currently empty, but the stray ropes and empty barrels off to one side told the story well enough.
She couldn't care less about the place, aside from being sure there weren't any hidden Berserkers waiting to spring out at them. What she cared about was the smoldering fire that threatened to explode if she wasn't careful. Togi and Nóttreiði were in the middle of a human village.
She almost couldn't comprehend the sight of Togi slinking along the edge of a hut; it just didn't seem right to see him with a backdrop of undeniably human nature. He certainly seemed as ill-fitted to the place as she thought he should be; he looked ready to flee or burn everything to the ground the moment someone looked at him the wrong way.
He looked afraid. She didn't like seeing his fear, his lingering trauma. It felt like a private thing, not one that should be on display in front of callous, uncaring Vikings. Seeing him like this made her feel… Protective was the only word for it, though he was more capable of doing the protecting if any needed to be done.
Nóttreiði, on the other hand, just confused and worried her. He seemed more at ease, less viscerally bothered by his surroundings, but she didn't need Einfari to tell her that under the surface, he was nowhere near as calm as he seemed. He slunk along behind his father, emulating the older dragon.
In contrast, Eldurberg couldn't be more unconcerned by their surroundings, both at ease with the humans and more worried about something else. He was muttering to himself from behind Einfari, presumably speaking to Fishlegs and probably Eldurhjarta, his injured wing spread out to the side, displaying a small hole near the tip.
The Chieftains were gathered on the other side of the small clearing, Rotison facing the other four belligerently. Heather slipped off of Einfari, feeling it her duty to at least try to bridge the gap, metaphorically speaking. Her tribe was a part of this too.
"Welcome lass," Mogadon grunted as she joined the huddle. "Tell me, what'd ye think o' the battle?"
"Mogadon," Bertha scowled, "we already told you why."
"I wanna hear 'er opinion. They fled the moment the tide turned in our favor!" he thundered. "Berserkers don' just turn tail an' run!"
"They do when it's a strike of opportunity gone bad," Aldir retorted. "This wasn't their full strength, and they know they've got another chance. They bloodied us, tested our strength, and then pulled out. It's obvious." He had a bloody wound under a soaked bandage on his forehead, and seemed aggravated.
"They're Berserkers, they don' do retreat," Mogadon stubbornly retorted. "Not wit' lunatics at the helm."
"I agee," Sigvard interrupted. "We should check the island over for forces hiding out. It would be just like them to strike the moment we lower our guard."
"Aye," Bertha agreed, sounding thoughtful. "But all mine are needed to salvage the fleet. Unlike some o' us, all of mine are passable at carpentry, and there's lots to be done."
"It's their island," Mogadon said, pointing at Sigvard. "Let 'em search it."
"We're busy clearing the roads and making sure the village is safe. You have extra men, you do it."
"I'll go," Sigvard volunteered. "I'll take a few men and check the coastlines right now. Send some o' the dragons to scout the ocean, check for sneaky doubling back. A lot of their ships are leavin' slowly. Bu' I want a dragon wit' my search crew."
"Why?" Heather asked skeptically. "You'll be checking from the ground."
"To be blunt, lass, I wan' one so that my men can see 'em pullin' their weight in this war," Sigvard grunted. "I been hearin' complaints. This'll set 'em at ease."
"Fine. Einfari and I will be checking over the back end of the island," because she still hoped to confirm whether Astrid lived, and that was where she would have gone to get off the island, "so…"
"So?" he prompted.
"Give me a moment." She left their huddle and approached Togi, who flicked his ears and nodded.
'I heard and understood,' he said without preamble. 'It would be best if you went, but barring that, do not send Eldurberg. He cannot fly if the need arises.'
"That's what I thought, but that leaves you or Nóttreiði, and I don't know if either is a good idea."
'One of us,' Togi confirmed. 'Nóttreiði, you will go with the humans checking the coast. Remember your promise.'
Nóttreiði growled loudly, but hung his head when his father glared at him. 'I must walk with them?' he asked.
'Just that. Sniff out any hidden enemies for them, if you can, but don't get too far from our allies.' The danger of Astrid hiding out and leaping upon an unsuspecting, lone Fury could not be ignored. She was crazy enough to stay on the island and risk her life for something like that.
'I do not understand them,' Nóttreiði said. 'And I do not want them touching me.'
"Understood." She hadn't seen Nóttreiði in a few months, and clearly his father had been working on his attitude, so she knew she shouldn't be surprised, but she still was. It seemed Einfari was just as surprised judging by her disbelieving bark.
'I have been working with him,' Togi said dryly in response to his daughter's surprise. 'Do not undo that work by mocking him.'
'It's not mockery, it's pleasant surprise,' Einfari said sheepishly. 'Heather and I are checking the retreating ships for trickery, and Nóttreiði is going to scope out the shores. What about you?'
"I am going to fly over the island and see what there is to see. It feels like something more is soon to come."
Heather nodded, feeling the same in the pit of her stomach. This didn't feel over.
'Act like a Nótt,' Nóttreiði said to himself, walking alongside humans he didn't know and didn't care to know. 'Keep an open but calculating mind. Don't assume.'
He had more such lines, thanks to his father, but these were the most applicable if he wanted to be smart and not stupidly blind, if he wanted to make his father proud instead of guilty and ashamed.
He shouldn't be guilty; Nóttreiði considered his failings his, not his father's. He was fairly certain his father knew that and didn't care, but it was the truth.
He would make his father proud. Even if that meant sucking it up and patrolling alongside a bunch of humans that made Heather seem positively innocent and clean by comparison. He stalked alongside them instead of behind mostly to avoid the smell. It was comparable to that of a hatchling if said hatchling was raised in a waste pit and doused in blood, and somehow didn't smell like vulnerable innocence and family.
Yes, Heather was fine in comparison. He was sure driving that in was one of his father's many reasons for sending him along.
The group of men and one distracted dragon rounded the edge of a cliff, and one of the men leaned over and looked down. He called back to his companions, and they moved on. Even not being able to understand their words, he understood the message; nothing was there.
Nóttreiði wished he could understand the humans; they were talking now, and for all he knew they were plotting his demise-
But no, he had absolutely no proof of that. Looking at it logically, they had all the reasons in the world to stay on his good side, and absolutely no reason to risk hurting him. It was known that they had left with him, and no lie would stand up to his father's wrath or his sister's persistence… And Heather would help them uncover the truth.
He did believe that; it was hard not to when his father was so adamant about throwing away his preconceptions and starting again when it came to her. He had avoided her in the days they spent together, back before she had come here to represent the pack, but even that wasn't enough to avoid noticing just how normal she acted.
Not normal like everyone else. Normal for a Nótt. She schemed in little ways, saw through the motivations of others, but never turned it against anyone in the family in any way other than harmless and playful, which was fine.
Nóttreiði didn't know what he thought, or really who he was, but he did know he was getting there. Trusting his own reasoning, not hating blindly, acting like a Nótt… That was him. Even if he didn't like most humans, and never would, these were fine.
They crested another small hill and looked down on yet another cliffside, this one with a little path. There was a small ship anchored at the bottom, and figures moving on it.
Nóttreiði crept over to the edge, turning his back on the humans he was with, and looked down on the enemy, wondering what they were up to.
Then a sharp biting pain introduced itself to his tail. He whirled to snap at the offender and something heavy slammed into the back of his head.
'They really are going slowly,' Einfari observed, gliding high above the water and the retreating fleet. 'I don't see why, though.'
'The island's interior is clear, and there are no large ships anchored anywhere,' her father agreed. 'I don't see a reason either, unless they expect some insurgent hidden on the island to steal a small vessel and come out to meet them.'
"Not happening; the docks are crawling with our people, and they have Eldurberg to fire on anyone that needs blasting. No ship can sail fast enough to escape that." Heather shrugged her shoulders. "But maybe they don't know that. Maybe they're waiting for a ship we already sank."
'Or maybe they are waiting for one we didn't see,' Einfari countered. 'We should fly around the island again, close to the water this time. It might be hidden from above.'
'I see no problem with that,' Togi rumbled, turning back to the island. 'It is not as if we can get close enough to do any damage. Tell me about that.'
'Them firing on us as we dive to shoot?' Einfari asked.
'Yes, that.'
'There's not much to tell.' She shrugged her wing shoulders. 'They fling sharp objects into the air, either at us or at random, and we don't have stiff scales, so one hit could down us. We have to be very careful.'
"It doesn't help that we're not experienced in combat," Heather added. "I bet Maour and Toothless could do way more than we can. Toothless would know how to avoid getting shot out of the sky, even if it does boil down to not being seen and not sticking around."
'We also might do better with more dragons,' Einfari mused, thinking about the problem. 'There were only two of us; they could keep track of our locations and save their projectiles. If there were many of us, they couldn't do any of that.'
'My thoughts exactly, though they could very well down a few of us even then,' Togi huffed. 'I think the optimal strategy is to strike when they cannot spare the attention to watch the sky. Send in the human allies first, and then attack once the fight begins. That is something to do next time.'
They were flying around the island now; Einfari eyed the beach where the invasion ships had landed, now empty of anything but dried blood and splinters from the few shots they had managed to get off.
'Striking from pure darkness, or when eyes are too busy to notice us,' Togi huffed. 'It is good that we have the humans. This isn't a war we'd win on our own.'
"That was the idea," Heather agreed.
'Starting a war we couldn't win without help?' Einfari quipped, hoping to get Heather's mind on the lighthearted side of things before she started thinking about how she had in a sense started all of this.
"Sure, in an epic plot to bring dragons and humans together with a common enemy," Heather deadpanned, for a moment sounding very much like Maour in tone if not voice. "Somehow I think there would be less bloody ways to do that if that was the plan."
'Speaking of plans, I see something,' Togi growled. 'A small ship, there. Humans on a path up the mountainside.'
Einfari looked where her father was staring and saw what he was speaking of. Two groups of humans on a narrow path, a wriggling mass covered in canvas in the grips of the ones closer to the ground, no fighting yet.
"A hostage?" Heather guessed. "They probably want safe passage off the island."
'But they are not moving…' Einfari could see waving limbs, but from this distance even her good eyesight wasn't enough to make out anything more distinct, and she of course couldn't hear what was going on.
Then a ripple passed among those standing on the path down, the ones closest to the top shoving a dark, limp mass forward. Fear clutched at her heart.
The trade was over in moments, and the human hostage passed over to the traitors who had just given Nóttreiði to the enemy. Einfari felt Heather crouch in the saddle and instinctively leaned into an upward climb-
'No,' her father said in a voice like ice. 'Turn around.'
'Explain or I will not,' she barked stubbornly.
'I see humans looking to the sky. I see contraptions like those you described. I see our only chance to fix this slipping away if we let on that we know.' He had begun slowly but was speaking more and more rapidly with every word. He snarled out, 'Heather, is he alive or dead?'
"How would I know?" Heather cried out, unnerved by Togi's cold yet frantic words. Einfari couldn't blame her; she had never seen her father like this either.
'Reason through it,' he commanded coldly.
"I don't think he's dead," she said slowly, twisting in the saddle to look at the scene. "No, definitely not, they'd just drag his body down the path or throw it off the cliff, not carry it. We can go get him if we're careful, they only have a few dozen men-"
'And they are expecting it; this was a premeditated betrayal,' Togi snarled. 'It is clear to me now. The human alpha brought up the idea of taking a dragon for an excuse. He arranged for a dragon to be on the ground with his people, alone other than that. Now he has exchanged my son for a hostage, someone precious to him. My son is still alive. But he is captive, because I sent him with them.'
"This isn't-"
'It is my fault, and it is yours, but we are not the biggest holders of blame, that would be the faithless one who betrayed us,' Togi snapped. 'We have no time. How far are you willing to go to help this family?'
"As far as necessary," Heather said without question, more than a hint of hardness entering her voice. "You're not freaking out because you already have a plan, don't you?"
'I do. Skarpur will have my head for it afterward, and maybe yours for going along with it, but it must be done.' A tremor entered her father's voice with those words, one that betrayed the fragile nature of his calm exterior. 'We must be quick, and we must be deceptive, and we must do what is necessary. I will not allow my son to suffer like I did.' A faint blue glow lit up along his back as he spoke. 'Not now, not ever.'
Author's Note: Ugh, this chapter just wouldn't come out right. I hope I've beaten it into shape well enough to be enjoyable; I don't know what it was about it, but something just wouldn't click. Also, in case anyone's bemoaning the lack of concrete, physical action, I'd like to point out that this was only the first of several large-scale engagements. The opening blow, as it were.
Update: And I've gone over it again less than 48 hours later; a small scene has been added, a few little details changed, and some good suggestions taken in the process. For those of you who read the original version, it might be worth going back over again, but it's not crucial. There's only one thing I can think of that's important, and it's just a confirmation of something previously left unknown for no real reason.