Toothless was lowered heavily onto the ground as Grimmel's airship touched down on Berk. He grunted, squeezing his eyes shut for the impact, and opening them again wearily to croon softly. Behind him, the airship slammed into the ground and skidded slightly, dragging Toothless along the rough grass patch they had found to land on.
"What?" Grimmel demanded in a growl, his feet stampeding from the airship as he whirled furiously around, scanning empty Berk. "Where are they?!"
The Deathgrippers rattled anxiously. Darling hissed, clambering out after her master as he stalked back to Toothless and stamped his boot on the Night Fury's head. "Where did they go, Alpha?"
Toothless laughed his low laugh and received another kick.
Darling shook slightly, her whole body shifting uncomfortably. Her tusks extended, and Toothless saw the movement with a curious glance, but the Deathgripper did not make another move.
—
When the Warlords and their fleet arrived, they had a similar reaction.
"Is this some kind of joke?!" Griselda snarled at Grimmel, stamping up the stone stairs to where he and his Deathgrippers were perched. "Where are they? What did you do?!"
"You promised us the flock," Ragnar followed on her heels, drawing his massive sword (two-handed for anyone but him). "And all you did was deliver us one Night Fury." He jabbed the sword at Toothless, who still lay in the trap on the stone entrance to the Great Hall, feeling very small on a Berk with no allies.
Grimmel sat, having calmed to a state of brooding, in the mouth of a statue, cutting slices from an apple with a knife. His eyes flicked to Toothless and then to the approaching Warlords as he bit into one and chewed slowly. His nose began to bleed and he wiped it away. "All I did?" he asked quietly. "All I did?" He stood, shouting this, his thin shadow looming over them. "All I did was free the world of fear of the Night Furies! All I did was capture the last Night Fury alive! I am the greatest dragon hunter the world has ever seen, and your petty need for a flock of dragons to intimidate your enemies is meaningless!"
"You're an outdated old man," Ragnar shot back childishly.
"We don't give a lily white rat's backside about your feud with the Night Furies. So you captured and killed all of them, so what? You did it with use of dragons, and all we asked, all we paid you and supplied you for, was to bring us the flock of dragons we were owed," Griselda drew her own short-sword. "So where are they?!"
Grimmel whistled through his teeth and two Deathgrippers lunged forward to pin each of the Warlords to the ground. Ragnar swung his sword at one of them and lodged the blade into its thick, heavy scale spikes, knocking it to the side. It screamed, tusks shooting out, and clawed its way up, stabbing its forearms down until they caught onto the sword and ripped it from the Warlord's hands, and then the Deathgripper was on top of him, drooling from inches over his chest.
Chaghatai Khan watched his two fellow Warlords go down, hands placidly behind his back, and glanced up again at Grimmel.
"The Berkians have left," Grimmel spat, waving a hand and pacing around the base of the statue. "Fled to somewhere they suppose will be safe."
"And where is that?" Griselda choked out from under the weight of a Deathgripper's claws.
Not knowing, Grimmel scowled and continued to pace.
Chaghatai Khan asked, "Am I too bold in assuming you have a plan?" Grimmel shot him a look and put two fingers in his mouth before he was interrupted again with, "We have one."
"You do?" Grimmel asked.
"We do?" Ragnar glanced backwards at him.
"You?" Grimmel repeated, and laughed. "You, a team of Warlords with nothing in their heads but battle, has a plan for how to find a missing people."
"Yes," the Warlord in red said simply. "Would you like to hear it, or should we leave you to finish off your Night Fury and do it ourselves? We have, after all, already wasted so many resources on our faith in you. Although I'm afraid you wouldn't get that fame and glory you so crave." He looked around, waiting for an objection, and then said, "We have two captured Berkians. And I'm betting they know where the rest went."
—
Hiccup and Ruffnut were separated.
As she was led away, she kicked and yelled obscenities at them. "Where are you taking me? You big stupid oafs, let me go! I can walk on my own!"
The guards hesitated at the stairs to the deck, allowing two Deathgrippers to squeeze down the passageway.
"Watch the other," Grimmel's voice commanded from above, and Ruffnut disappeared to wherever they were taking her.
The Deathgrippers prowled agitatedly around the small room.
"Hey," Hiccup said gently as one of them passed by him near enough to touch. "Hey, guys. Kinda close quarters, huh?" They squealed and shook themselves, and one of them lumbered up head-first to his cage, sniffing him dangerously. Then it opened its mouth and roared, spittle flying everywhere and startling Hiccup further back. But the dragon's cry turned into a whining, and it shook its head side to side, pressing its scales against the bars of the cage. Hiccup held his hand out a little and came back closer to it.
"Darling?"
She butted her face right up against the bars so that he could put his hand on her nose.
"You… Do you recognize me?" He glanced at her collar, pouring Grimmel's strange drug concoction into her neck. But she wasn't trying to attack now, anyway. He put his hands under her chin to lift her face a little so that she could look at him. Her pupils trembled trying to focus on him. "Hey, hey," he said gently again. "It's me. Remember me? It's Hiccup." He stroked her scales with his thumbs.
Her nostrils flared and her eyes locked onto his side.
"Oh, what, this? Nah, this is—it was just a little scratch. I've lost more. Don't worry about it."
While her head was lowered, he glanced at the other Deathgripper and reached through the bars to grab one of the injectors on her collar. The other one didn't move. His fingers closed around it, and he tried to twist his wrist as he yanked. It loosened and Darling's eyes blinked almost immediately. Hiccup reapplied his grip and pulled again, twisting, this time until it came loose and came out of the collar.
Darling rattled, shaking herself in confusion.
Hiccup pushed her head down, patting her to keep her calm while he loosened and removed the other two syringes. Then, all of them in his hands, he knelt and took her face in his hands again. "Look, I know you'll still listen to him. That's not your fault. He did this to you." Her pupils expanded, not as much as Toothless's usually did for him, and she watched Hiccup step on the needles of the injectors, pressing them to the ground, and then break them off.
He ripped bits of his shirt and plugged the leaks so that she wouldn't be accidentally spiked by shards he failed to clean off, and held the finished products up to show her.
"I'm gonna put these back in so he doesn't know something's wrong, okay?"
Darling tossed her head and pressed back up against the cage so that he could reach their slots again.
"Good girl, good girl." She looked up at his face finally, seeing him clearly, and he grabbed the bars of the cage, looking down into her yellow eyes. She gave a soft series of clicks with her tongue apologetically.
"Is Toothless alive?" Hiccup asked quietly. Darling turned to look at her fellow Deathgripper, who was nearly completely ignoring her to watch the entrances. Then she turned back to Hiccup, and nodded.