Astrid did her best to get comfortable in her cell. To be completely fair to Myre and his men, they'd provided everyone with quite a lot of straw to nestle in. It wasn't that hard to find a good position.
But gods, it irked her that every single person in the room had been beaten so easily by Myre's masked friend. It seemed like everyone they met these days was just immediately better than them. A single spin, and some of them had been cut and stumbled back, while others had fallen over, tripped up by a sweeping leg. Everything after that was a blur of memory.
Astrid frowned. No one should be that fast. Sorcerers, maybe, but Myre didn't have any working for him.
Did he?
The thought was filed away for later. They'd been imprisoned before, and they'd managed to escape every time. Of course, from what she'd seen, it would be tougher with Myre's guards. They seemed a lot better compared to all the other typical grunts they'd seen before. Alphas had managed it though, and done it a few times before, according to him and Omegas.
Shouldn't be that hard, then.
=0=
"What the hell is he?"
Hiccup just stared before his mind got over the confusion. Omegas was seemingly having much more difficulty with dealing with the about-turn in the situation.
"Omegas," Hiccup said, "think about it later. Right now, we need to do our part."
Omegas shook off whatever thoughts were clouding his mind, and nodded. "You're right. Sorry."
And he dived.
Hiccup watched before it occurred to him that he should also be doing something, and he urged Toothless forward, through the new hole in the barrier. About half the island was now unprotected, and dragons were storming past from both sides, getting entangled midair.
Toothless maneuvered through the various dragons, and eventually the tiny spaces opened up into a battlefield. Dragons were shooting and getting shot down. As Hiccup watched, he was jerked aside as Toothless rolled to avoid a harpoon.
Hiccup shook himself. Right. Focus.
"Toothless," he said, pointing to a harpoon cannon on Myre's ship, "take out those launchers!"
Toothless obliged, and fired. The person operating it dived aside as the contraption exploded into burning splinters, and Hiccup moved on to the next one. Toothless shot another time, and the next one was blown backward over the platform, shattering as it went.
They took out as many harpoon cannons as they could before Toothless hit his shot limit.
"Out of shots, eh bud?" Hiccup said, getting out Inferno. "That's fine."
He lit the sword, and the flames leapt up. Hiccup watched it, savouring the sight for as long as he could safely do so, then looked at the sails.
"Alright. Let's go."
Toothless shot forward, screaming.
Hiccup held Inferno out at arm's length, and right as they neared the sails, he tugged on the saddle. Toothless rotated, and Hiccup adjusted for the shift in position, holding the sword out in the direction over his head, which would have been classified as sideways by conventional standards. The tip of the sword dragged across the fabric, and it caught. Hiccup nudged Toothless back into proper position, leaving the sails blazing behind him.
He repeated the process on some of the other huge ships, before a warble informed him that Toothless had a bellyful of flames to hand out. Hiccup grinned, and turned the dragon around.
Something in a cage was being carried out by two Rumblehorns, themselves protected by a squad of unfamiliar dragons. The dragon in the cage had silver scales, and seemed to be made entirely of knives. There was nowhere Hiccup looked that didn't seem capable of impaling a man. The dragon had a low body and short, but stout legs, with sharp, curling protrusions from its lower legs. The tail was long and ridged, and spikes extended from every visible point.
And anywhere that Hiccup looked, it didn't seem to have eyes. The head was entirely silver, entirely covered with scales. Perhaps the dragon had foregone eyes in favour of more opportunity to stab things.
It screeched in the cage, and hurled itself against the bars. Wherever it touched, Hiccup saw a faint pink glow outlining the metal.
What had Alphas told him? A Sharp Class dragon, completely untameable, which he might see being set on Myre. This one was undoubtedly Sharp Class, it was being kept in a cage, so he assumed that meant no one had tamed it, and it was being carried out to the ships.
So this was an Enzare.
The riders of the Rumblehorns carrying the cage looked away from their target for a second, then nodded to someone and one of them fiddled with the cage, before the bottom dropped out and the dragon fell down onto Myre's ship.
Hiccup glanced around, then frowned.
Where was Myre?
He shrugged and looked back at the Enzare. Now that he had a clearer view, he saw that it didn't have any wings. Its feet were also rather large, tipped with some huge talons.
It screamed so loud Hiccup twitched in his seat. A harpoon was launched at him, and Toothless lazily moved out of the way, then blasted the cannon that had shot it. It broke into pieces, which flew backward under the force of the shot. The shooter fell backward, yelling. Hiccup winced at the sight of the wood which had stabbed into him.
The Enzare was working its way through the ship. The entire thing, along with its crew, was being slashed apart with such little resistance that it took a moment for the cuts and gashes to register.
The Enzare leapt out, and then stopped with an iron clang as someone with orange hair shot a harpoon at the dragon. It screamed again, the sound like furious, high-pitched thunder, and launched itself at the man again. Hiccup patted Toothless, and pointed at the man. A purple blast turned the harpoon cannon to so many splinters, and the man jumped back, then looked up straight at Toothless.
Right as the Enzare landed.
=0=
"Are the cannons ready yet?" Alphas asked. The man being addressed shook his head.
"It'll take a few more minutes for them to be running red-hot."
"Damn," Alphas said, looking back at the ships. The sky had turned from clear and bright blue to overcast and gray. "Alright. I'll do my best to get you some time, but I want you to pour more magic into the circuits in the meantime. Get anyone you can."
The man saluted, then ran off.
Alphas looked to the edge of the island, where Myre's men were pouring in. He breathed out, then got his sword out, and ran down the streets.
=0=
He'd reacted in less than a second. A dagger was withdrawn and the Enzare slapped with the blade the moment it swiped at him. It had screeched, and then it had gone completely silent as the dagger was buried to the hilt in its shoulder.
Hiccup could feel the absolute pain radiating from the dragon's screeches, even from this far away. It was struggling to get away now, the rage overtaken by fear as a result of the agony. Its feet scored deep grooves in the wood as it scrabbled.
The man tilted his head, then pulled out his dagger and left the dragon to flee. He turned his eyes to Toothless.
Deadly calm.
That was all Hiccup saw in that expression.
He nudged Toothless, and they flew off to besiege another ship. He didn't want to go near that one anymore.
=0=
As the guard passed, Astrid signalled to Ruffnut, in the cell opposite hers, to grab the key. She did so without even the slightest clink. The guard went on without noticing. Ruffnut waited until he was out of earshot, then slowly unlocked her cell door and quietly came over to Astrid's. All the cells in Berk used the same key, simply because there were too many doors to carry separate keys for all of them. Berk had had a rich history of prisoners. You could feel it in the walls.
Astrid grinned at Ruffnut as she unlocked the door, then stepped out, stretching. A silent fist bump was enacted, and then they set to work with the rest of the doors nearby.
Alphas had chosen to rely on careful planning. Why bother with that, when Ruffnut was one of the best pickpockets in the Archipelago?
=0=
Alphas slashed someone in half from hip to shoulder, then turned to Leonidas.
"Cannons are taking some time to charge up. I'm covering for them while they get the circuits running full."
Leonidas nodded, then whipped around at the sound of patient footsteps. Someone who wasn't even bothering to hide themselves was someone to be wary of. Either they were very, very inexperienced or they were very, very good.
The difficult part was figuring out which one it was.
The man walked out of the steam, and Alphas started.
"It's you," he breathed.
The man tilted his head. "Yes, it's me. Hello again."
That damn smile was still there, as if he didn't have a care in the world.
"Tell me," the man continued, "when you fought me last, on Berk, did you have an idea of who I was, I wonder?"
"Do I need to know?" Alphas said, settling into a stance with his sword out in front of him, while Leonidas slipped knuckle dusters on his fingers. "You're all the same, anyways."
"It may be a topic of interest," the man smiled. He still hadn't drawn his sword.
"Really?" Leonidas said, fists out in front of him. "Tell us your name then. We'll be sure to put it on your gravestone."
"Oh? The service is appreciated. My name, then, is Myre Fang."
=0=
Hiccup swerved midair to avoid another dragon rider barrelling straight at them. They flew past without stopping, and there was a squawk as dragon and rider crashed into a ship. Hiccup and Toothless went on, blasting any and all harpoon cannons and setting fire to the sails on their way.
Another dragon emerged from the smoke, this one pale yellow and shimmering slightly. It had a smooth, rounded head, like a watered down version of the Fireworm Queen. Unlike the Queen, it had no spikes on its head.
The rider saw them, and pointed.
Hiccup blinked, trying to dispel the afterimages from the intensity of that blast, then realized he was falling and panicked. He tugged at the release mechanism for his flight suit and immediately rose on the wind currents.
After a few moments of adjusting his eyes to not see morphing white everywhere, he looked around for Toothless, and found him on one of the ships, growling as soldiers advanced. Hiccup shifted and began to glide down in the direction of the ship.
A blast from Toothless blew the soldiers away, just as Hiccup landed on the mast. He began to climb down.
Something crashed into the ship, rocking the entire vessel, and Hiccup held on tightly until the motions subsided. The vibrations, however, continued long after the initial impact. Slowly, the dragon unfurled itself.
Hiccup grinned. They even had Quakens.
Hiccup climbed down the rest of the way while the dragon blasted at soldiers and batted them away without the slightest hint of effort. As he got down the last few rungs of the ladder, he swiped at the sails with Inferno. It caught fire, and the flames began to climb.
"Shouldn't have done that, kid."
The words were accompanied by a wide blade being stabbed deep into the mast right by his ear. Hiccup froze.
"Yeah," said a voice right behind him. "Good move. Don't even think about- aghh!"
Hiccup had kicked him between the legs.
The soldier collapsed without another sound, and Hiccup hurried over to Toothless. He greeted him with a croon. Hiccup patted him in reply, then swung into the saddle, and they took off again, leaving the Quaken to ravage the ship.
=0=
Alphas ducked as a blade spun over his head, and internally cursed. He'd known it when they first met, but Myre was good.
Leonidas whirled around and punched out. Myre just swayed away from the blow and hit him so hard under the jaw that Leonidas was lifted off his feet. Alphas was forced to defend against a rapid barrage of swordplay while Leonidas picked himself up.
Myre let off at the last second and spun under Leonidas' fist, somehow managing to land a kick in the stomach in the same movement. Leonidas crashed back down.
"I'd like to talk," Myre said, leaning away from a slash by Alphas, and responding with a swipe of his own that Alphas only barely avoided.
"You call this talk?" Alphas said, directing a riposte at Myre's head that he easily slapped away with his own sword. A ringing of steel followed the movement.
"I know I don't."
Leonidas slammed his fist down so hard his body was tugged into the movement, but Myre just shifted and let the blow pass harmlessly by his shoulder.
"It is regrettable," Myre agreed, "that we must resort to violence. Words are so much more useful, and far more effective."
He slapped Leonidas across the head with the flat of his blade.
"There's a very big disparity," Alphas told him, "between what you're saying and what you're doing."
"Hm?" Myre looked back at Leonidas, who was growling in rage while he held his head. "Ah. My apologies. I hardly noticed."
Something in Alphas almost snapped at those words.
"You said you wanted to talk," he said, trying to ignore the urge to scream in Myre's face. "What did you want to talk about? And put the swords away before anything else."
Myre's smile turned playful. "But I only have the one."
"You have another on your back. Cut the crap."
Myre laughed softly, and looked at him. The action sent shivers up Alphas' spine.
Myre had demons in his eyes.
Burning crystals of purest sanity. And someone who was completely, utterly sane, someone who was the epitome of logic, of rationality, was a different kind of mad entirely.
"Alright," he said. He threw his sword away with a clang, and the other one followed after a moment. Both were identical. They were wide and silver, of a decent length. They curved outwards, wider, towards the top, then tapered off into points at the end. As one-sided blades, one side was straight and flat, completely blunt. It was the other edge that had received all the attention to detail.
It was an altered kopis, Alphas realized. The shape was a little bit different, which was why he hadn't immediately recognized it, but upon a moment to consider the sword, a moment in which it wasn't swinging for him, it was clear.
Myre sat down cross-legged, waiting for them to join him.
And it was exactly that moment that Alphas realized that the worst enemy their kingdom had ever had was, effectively, inviting them for a friendly chat.
=0=
Astrid knocked a guard out against a wall, stole his knife, then shoved him into a recently emptied cell. She flipped the knife around in her hand, and crept forward. Behind her, almost all of Berk followed.
This was going to be fun.
She rounded the corner.
"Going somewhere?"
She had the knife out in a flash, but it was ripped out of her hand with immense force and a rod with a hook on the end materialized in front of her eye. She froze.
"Back to your cells now, all of you. I don't tolerate this sort of thing."
She knew better than to challenge an expression that unhinged.
=0=
Toothless swooped through more dragons, while Hiccup kept his body low and close. They rose up into the sky, then Toothless rolled over himself until he was pointing straight down at a normal-sized ship. Gathering a blast in his throat, they dived.
At the last minute, Toothless shot and pulled up. The supercharged explosion hit the ship with such force that the instantly blackened ruins of the vessel were momentarily half-submerged in the water, before bursting back up with a huge spray of water.
Hiccup surveyed their work with some satisfaction before noticing that the air was quite a bit emptier than before. The only riders nearby were from Myre's army, judging by the uniforms.
"Hey chief, get up!"
Hiccup looked around until he found Omegas, gliding past above him on Spiral. He was frantically gesturing for Hiccup to come to him.
Confused, Hiccup steered Toothless upward, and got to Omegas' side.
"What?"
Omegas pointed at the island. Hiccup looked.
The towers of the castle were glittering with points of colour. Red and black, green and white, twinkling around the turrets.
"Is that mag-"
A beam of pure power shot forth from the castle, the colours of magic raw and intense. It swept through the ships like a sickle through a field, turning them to firewood. The ocean boiled where the magic hit. Clouds of steam rose behind the scything energy, the hiss like a symphony to its power. The very air vibrated around the beam.
And just like that, it thinned and faded.
And then a new one shot up, swinging around in an arc to incinerate an entire forest's worth of ships.
Toothless yelped as the energy passed beneath his paws, and tucked them close to his body, beating his wings a little harder to get away.
Hiccup could feel that heat, deep and overpowering. The air itself had turned scorching.
The sea blazed red below him. He stared with dread at the boiling fog, the burning ships.
He'd had a question in the back of his mind ever since he first saw magic.
Why rely on regular weapons, even if they were specially treated, magically made, when you had magic itself to use as you wished?
The absolute horror of what he saw now, as another stream of magic ravaged the fleet, told him why.
=0=
"You want us… to join you?" Alphas said incredulously.
"I did just say so, didn't I?"
"And which god assured you that this would work, exactly?"
Myre smiled at Leonidas, who had asked the question.
"I have no gods to turn to."
"Right," Alphas nodded. "I can safely say that your offer is rejected."
"Is that so? Disappointing," Myre sighed. "May I know why?"
"You want the reason? You know as well as I do why we're not going to join you."
Myre tilted his head. "No, I'm afraid I really don't."
Alphas slammed his hands down and leaned in. Myre didn't budge an inch. "No, I'm sure you remember what you did last year."
"Ah. Killbay."
"Yes," Alphas said through gritted teeth. "Killbay is the reason you're not going to have us on your side."
He leaned back. "Now get off our island."
"Have you heard of the saying," Myre asked, "that goes, "if you can't beat them, join them"?"
"Never. Now get lost."
"That," Myre said, ignoring the latter sentence entirely, "would be because I just made it up."
"Good for you," Leonidas said, standing up with his fists out. "Away, Myre."
"You misunderstand," Myre said, unfolding himself to slowly stand up. "One way or another, I must have you on my side."
He dodged Leonidas' punch and slammed his head into Alphas' nose as he leapt up. Then Leonidas made history by being the first person to punch Myre Fang, directly in the jaw. He stumbled back, a hand at the injured area, and grinned at Leonidas as he closed in.
Irritation showed itself on his face for the first time.
"You," he said as he caught the next punch, "need to stop."
And then he struck the Commander of Nisi's military so hard he fell to the ground, unconscious. He turned to Alphas, holding his nose as blood trickled between his fingers.
"You wouldn't still be up for discussion, would you?" he asked, his face alight with bland amusement.
Alphas gave a guttural snarl.
"Thought not."
Myre jumped and kicked him in the stomach. Alphas flew back, sprawled on the cobbles. Myre advanced casually while Alphas got back up.
"Perhaps you would like to know why I want you to join me so badly. I'm sure," he said, turning away for a moment to look in the direction of his own forces, "that the Viking you have granted asylum is wondering the same thing."
He glanced back at Alphas, who was standing loosely, hands hanging. Blood trickled freely from his nose.
"It's because of the legend of the First. Both of you are implicated in what I need."
"The Virst is a byth." Alphas managed a laugh. "Don'd dell be you agtually believe. It's a vairydale."
He grinned, his mouth a crescent of blood. "You're doing all this for a bedtime story?"
"Mock me for it," Myre said peacefully, "but behind every lie is a grain of truth."
For the first time, his smile was wild and excited.
"And I know the truth."
"Zhure," Alphas said, passing a bloody finger over his palm. "But do you know how do die?"
And he released a thick wave of purple, the colour of the glaring cosmos, the colour of a starlit sky, at Myre.
It folded around him and evaporated.
It folded around him and evaporated.
It folded around him.
It evaporated.
It folded around him and evaporated.
"Surprised?" Myre said with a damning little smile, and jumped out, using Alphas' head as a platform to simultaneously vault over him and slam him down into the ground face-first.
"I was born with antimagic."
=0=
"Your majesty, I realize this may not be the time," Larisa said, hurrying over, "but I think I know what you asked me to find out."
"This is a suitable time," the king assured her. "Any information you can give us on Myre and his army will come in useful."
"There is no defense against this that we know of," Larisa informed him. "It bears great resemblance to the warlock killer in the story of how our society broke off from the normal world."
She opened the book that she was holding to the marked page, and cleared her throat.
"But the sigils did not glow, and yet the warlock felt his power leave him," she read. "And before his hunter finished him, he asked to know what had been done to him, for he was a man of knowledge. And his hunter revealed to him that which was not just the absence of magic, but its opposite, its predator."
She looked back up at the king. "Someone in Myre's army has the ability to nullify all casting. As well as magic, antimagic also serves him."
Beneath the thick beard, the thick mustache, the thick eyebrows, the king's skin had gone visibly white.
=0=
"Ah," Myre said as colours burst over his head in a thick column, "that would be yours, I imagine. Useful."
Alphas gasped, barely managing to hold in a whimper. Sharp agony had exploded in his face when he crashed down into the street. His already broken nose had flashed with white-hot pain, and still felt like it was being continually stabbed.
He sat up, doing his absolute best not to make a single sound.
"You don't have to pretend," Myre said without even a glance his way, still looking up at the cannon beam with his hands stashed in his pockets. "It obviously hurts."
He sighed. "You seem to have me at rather a disadvantage at the moment. I suppose I shall leave you be for now."
He looked at him with a radiant smile. "We shall, perhaps, meet another time."
He skipped backward and kicked Alphas straight in the face.
Burning knives ripped through Alphas' entire head as he collapsed onto the ground, and it was a moment before the white noise of pure agony faded to allow him to hear his own screams.
"I'll be gone, then," Myre said placidly, and walked off. Alphas watched his black boots walk past, unable to even turn his head for the intensity of the pain. The footsteps faded, and Alphas was left alone, his blood staining the street.
The footsteps returned, and Myre's boots entered his vision again. He saw the hand reach down to pick something up from the ground. A sword. Two swords. He heard the sharp, clean sound of them sliding into their sheaths, and Myre's face appeared, wearing an apologetic smile.
"Almost forgot," he said. "Goodbye now."
Alphas watched his boots leave.
=0=
The moment Leonidas woke up, he felt a throbbing pain in his forehead. Moving his hair out of the way, he pressed a hand to the area, then rolled over onto his back and sat up.
The sight that greeted him was, on one side, Alphas lying on his back, blood dripping from his face onto the ground, and on the other, Myre walking calmly away, all while a cannon beam raged in a now sunset sky.
He got up, careful not to make a sound, and crept after Myre, readying his fist for a fatal blow.
And then Myre waved his hand at something in the distance.
There was a little glimmer from the blue-gray fog, and then Leonidas was treated to a close-up view of an arrow tip, coming at him straight on, obscuring all the rest of the body except for the feathers. It sliced straight through with an audible schick.
The pain rose in a wave, and crashed down.