Author's Note: It has come to my attention that this site may be sticking half a dozen between-paragraph ads in random chapters of mine and other authors on this site. If you see this sort of thing, I highly recommend getting an adblocker (as I did 5 minutes after seeing this sort of ad for the first time). It's not something I can allow or disallow from my side as an author, annoyingly.
An ominous fleet sailed in the night, draped in shadows, the darkness offering a false sense of security. Any other enemy would have been caught completely by surprise for how nearly-invisible these ships were and would have less than half a day to prepare.
Heather smiled grimly, glad to see that her enemies were ready to fight Vikings. They had adapted a little, assuming that arriving with the morning would negate the natural advantage the night afforded Night Furies, and innovated no further. It wouldn't be enough.
"Be on the lookout for tricks," she whispered to Einfari, her voice almost lost amidst the rushing wind.
'There will be something,' Einfari said quietly, ' but I do not think it will be effective. They are not alert.'
'Alert enough, to be sailing right now,' Skarpur said, looking down at them sternly. 'How many are needed to keep their ships operating?'
"Less than half," Maour called out. "None if they decide to stick around and fight, but they're preparing for a morning battle, so most will be sleeping. You all know the plan, get in and get out."
"And have fun!" Ruffnut added from behind them. "No point if you don't have fun."
'The point is dealing out glorious mischief,' Boom corrected her.
Heather tuned them out, leaning over to stare at the fleet below. So many ships, arrayed in no recognizable formation, some separated from their compatriots by a fair distance, others almost touching with every wave that rocked them. Torches moved slowly across the decks, helpfully pointing each ship out in case attackers couldn't already see well enough in the dark.
"Choose your targets," Maour called out.
She wondered whether Maour knew he and Toothless were taking charge of the attack. It was a plan created by everyone, mostly the Nótts with help from the Svarturs, and officially there was nobody in charge, as everyone was taking part… But when it came to timing, reminders, and generally keeping the Myrkurs in line, Maour and Toothless stepped up, even though there were others with more seniority and experience.
'That one,' Einfari hissed. 'Far left, drifting away from the group, two lights that aren't moving.'
Heather could see the ship through Einfari's superior eyes. "Looks good," she agreed, gripping the saddle with both hands.
All around them, people were quietly calling out their picks. There were thirteen Night Furies in the air, five with riders, and the thirteen most vulnerable ships were quickly decided upon. Everyone had a target.
There was no dive, no furious screeching descent. Not yet. Einfari dove, but at a shallow angle, circling around to approach the fleet – and their chosen target – from behind.
Heather looked to either side, hoping for one last glimpse of the others before they were in the middle of the enemy fleet, but all she saw were fleeting shadows. Even with her enhanced perception, it was hard to see a fast-moving Night Fury against the constantly shifting backdrop of the waves and cloudy sky. The only light came from the ships, and that was no help at all.
Then they were passing heavy warships, and she had no more time to look for her friends. Einfari drifted to the side, so close to the water that they flew through the occasional spray from a collapsing wave, and approached the errant ship she had chosen.
The enemy expected that which Night Furies were known for, a diving screech, like they had done at the volcano. Dagur might have spread the story of how Togi had managed to break into a warship in secret, but without any prior warning, only the most vehement of his soldiers would be dutifully trying to spot such an attack, and they were not singling out those ships.
They were targeting the outskirts, the loners, the ships that were already damaged or substandard, and thus lagging or on their own. The easiest victories.
With two hard flaps of her wings, Einfari landed atop the rear cabin, her claws gripping the sodden wood without a sound.
'Three guards,' she reported. 'We have a little time.' Nobody was to strike loudly until they heard a commotion from another ship, thus ensuring both that everyone would have as long as possible to work silently, and that everyone would finish up what they were doing as soon as their cover was blown.
In the meantime, it was Heather's turn. She dismounted into a crouch next to Einfari and drew her bow. From where they stood, she had a view of the three Berserkers tending to the sails. There would be more below, dozens more, but only three were about at the moment.
'Conserve shots,' Einfari said. 'Hit something important.'
Important, in this case, didn't mean shooting at the Berserkers themselves. Heather had no chance of taking down all three before one sounded the alarm, not without Einfari's help, and Einfari didn't want to leap into battle if they could help it. Now was not the time for all-out combat.
Now was the time for sabotage, and that time could end at any moment. Heather pulled an arrow back, drawing and aiming as quickly as she felt comfortable with, and let go.
'Pull left,' Einfari advised as they watched her shot sail far beyond the ship to land in the ocean.
Heather nodded and drew again. This time her shot skimmed the important-looking rope holding the main sail to the wooden mast. She didn't know or care what the technical terms for said rope was; all she knew was that it clearly supported something, was tightly drawn, and was now vibrating, unnoticed by the men now leaning over the railings, staring at the horizon.
'It is fraying,' Einfari said. 'See?'
Heather checked her friend's point of view long enough to confirm that there was indeed a small notch in the side of the rope, about a quarter of the way through it. It would fray more and more with each gust of wind, so she let it go in favor of the next task.
'Quick, up,' Einfari hissed. Heather got back into the saddle and put her bow away, drawing her ax in its stead. She didn't intend to use it, but better safe than sorry.
Einfari dropped off the back of the cabin, landing on the small segment of deck between the cabin and the back end of the ship with a muted thump. She quickly leaped across the remaining distance, landing with her front paws on a conspicuous piece of wood.
"Perfect," Heather murmured. "Break it." This ship had lost its rudder, and the makeshift replacement was both obvious and poorly constructed. She didn't know much about woodworking, but even she knew that nails had to be driven all the way into the wood, not left jutting out all over the place.
It took Einfari all of a heartbeat to utterly dismantle the sorry piece of wood; she put her paws on one side and heaved, and that was that. The sodden crunch of snapped wood, however, was not nearly as quiet as everything else they had done thus far-
And it was immediately overshadowed by an explosive flare of fire in the distance, a hollow boom echoing out over the water.
'Time to go,' Einfari hissed, leaping straight over the railing in her haste. They were out of range in moments.
From the air, Heather could see chaos breaking out on each of the thirteen ships that had been targeted. Four were on fire, several more were outright sinking, likely the most damaged of their targets, and two were sailing in the wrong direction entirely, much to her amazement. The rest, such as hers, bore no visible signs of sabotage, but would falter and fall behind soon enough.
If that were all, she'd be satisfied with the night's work, but they weren't done. Einfari banked in the air, gliding over the fleet at high altitude, and growled dangerously. 'Middle of the right group,' she called out.
"No, the side," Heather argued. "They might fire into the air."
'Right. Side it is.' With that, they were diving again, once more lacking the distinctive Night Fury screech, but this time falling far more rapidly.
It was, Skarpur had explained to a somewhat intimidated group of Viking Chieftains back when they were planning, not necessary for a Fury to screech while preparing a strike. Strong instinct, but not necessary. The Berserkers were about to learn that.
Heather leaned into the saddle and closed her eyes just before Einfari fired, leaning with the abrupt and jarring jackknife to the side even as she heard the shot impact. It was all so fast, but they had practiced exactly this in preparation, and so long as she didn't get dizzy, she had no problems holding on.
The explosion didn't stop, multiple shots impacting all across the fleet in quick succession. She heard screams of pain and fury, the whistle of arrows in the air close by, and a loud splashing sound.
'Flaming boulder,' Einfari hissed as they turned. 'Not a crash.' Her voice was laden with relief. 'I see four, seven, ten- That's everyone!'
Heather opened her eyes and looked down, only to be blinded by a ball of fire rapidly speeding out over the open water, shedding flames as it went until finally it crashed into the ocean.
"Flaming boulder?" Heather repeated, confused.
'Burning stuff strapped to a rock and hurled into the air,' Einfari said. 'They will never hit one of us.'
'It is probably meant for light, however short-lived,' Skarpur interjected, flying up behind them. 'Unhurt?' she asked briskly.
'Untouched,' Einfari said proudly. 'They barely even tried.'
"Because we came in hot without any warning," Fishlegs called out, overhearing them. Night Furies were drifting in from all directions, congregating high above the enemy fleet. "We are not going back, right?"
"Nope, that's not in the plan," Maour confirmed. "Now, we go home."
Heather laughed to herself, thinking of how it must seem to the Berserkers. Awoken in the middle of the night by a stealthy round of sabotage, followed by a silent firing run. They would be up all night fixing what damage they could and waiting for another such strike. Getting no sleep, probably wasting arrows and catapulting boulders at every imagined sign of another attack, nervous and ready for a fight, and all for nothing, because their enemies were already gone.
The flight home was soberingly short, though, and by the time they reached the Nótt caverns, Heather was no longer happy about what they had done, just satisfied that the plan was going well. She knew better than to celebrate yet; they had only managed to needle the enemy, and there was far more to do before they were safe.
Dagur glared at the cloudy night sky. He couldn't see anything, and that was just what they wanted! They wanted him to get tired of seeing nothing and go to sleep, so they could strike again. Not on his watch.
"Eyes up!" he yelled. "Fire at will!"
A few of his men let loose immediately, firing into the sky at absolutely nothing. Or maybe dragons. It was impossible to tell, but the disappointing lack of shrieks or roars or yells of agony was telling.
"Sir, we're going to burn through our supply of arrows and crossbow bolts if we fire at random all night," Savage said worriedly. "We need those for the attack."
"That's why I said fire at will!" Dagur snapped irritably. "Shoot when you see something, not randomly! They could be anywhere, ready to strike at any moment!" He whirled, quickly looked at the top of the ship's cabin, and then darted to the rail to look down at the water in front of the ship. The first wave of sabotage had come from all directions, and struck every ship in a different way. He couldn't be too careful.
"The men are on edge," Savage said in his most annoying voice, the one he used when he knew he was saying something Dagur didn't want to hear. Dagur tapped his ax on his palm, silently urging Savage to shut up.
"We should put the crossbows and catapults away until we know they are still here," Savage continued. "Send some of the men to sleep in shifts, so we're all able to fight tomorrow."
"Never!" Dagur bellowed. He looked to the sky and shook his ax. "Come near and I'll make you into a pincushion! Try it!" He would not be outwitted. Everyone would be on guard all night, ready for the inevitable follow-up strike. That was when the enemy would bleed and die for their underhanded tactics. They would have to get close to strike, and they would have to use the darkness to do it, and he would be ready!
Astrid stood at the prow of her ship, watching the sun rise. She didn't care in the slightest about the beauty of the scene, but it could provide a tactical advantage to the dragons, if they meant to use it. Attacking from the East now would provide as much cover as attacking in the darkness had, but unlike the darkness, it was a slim window of opportunity they were rapidly losing.
She looked back, examining her detachment of Berserkers. They were all arrayed behind her, ready to fire at her order, but not before. A few were slumping, and all had bloodshot eyes. They weren't in top form.
Hiccup's fault, or whatever his name was. This had his ineptitude written all over it. One strike in the night, but then too cowardly to send another, forcing them to stay up all night for nothing at all. It worked, but it was not as effective as a prolonged night battle would have been, not as bloody, not as satisfying. Not satisfying at all, the way it had gone. A whole night wasted, many minorly crippled ships, and several sunk outright. A loss.
She hated that the dragons had taken first blood in this fight, hated it with every fibre of her being. If she dwelled on it too long, her arms began to shake, and she got the urge to just kill something.
Said urge was one that had to be restrained; there were no dragons present to be killed. She rubbed her new armguards absently, and her thoughts turned to the one who had stolen from her. Dagur had killed a Night Fury, without her, and he had gifted her with its lower jawbone snapped in two and fashioned into armguards. Did he know he was taunting her with such a gift? Did he know she was torn between thanking him or stabbing him when she saw what he had done?
Probably; he knew how her mind worked, because his worked the same. She was glad she hadn't killed him; his people wouldn't yet accept her as his replacement. But he had stolen a kill, so his days were numbered, just like Hiccup's.
She knew what she was going to do. Raze the island, slaughter the Furies, bear his child to secure her claim to his throne, and then prod him into getting himself killed. That would serve the hunt best in the long run; sooner or later his goals would diverge from hers, and he would hobble her to serve himself. She wouldn't let that happen.
The first step to the hunt was razing this island to the ground. That was the plan, killing and burning and destroying all that resided on the deceptively still island in front of her. She liked the plan, she had made it and coerced Dagur into seeing it as a good idea. And it was, though it meant he would probably lose more men than he would otherwise.
Maybe he would even die in this fight. She put a hand to her stomach. It was far too early to tell, and she doubted she was carrying a child of his yet, so that would be inconvenient, a stumbling block in her path. If that happened she would have to seize control by force… Or at least more force than she was already planning on using. Savage would have to die, all of Dagur's most loyal soldiers would have to die, anyone who objected to her leadership would have to die, and those he had assigned to her would probably have to die too, just in case one of them was a plant.
At least she had one man she could trust. Gobber had abandoned his tribe to follow her, and was loyal without a doubt. He had proven his loyalty by keeping silent on Stoick, and she needed him.
The sun, she realized, blinking the afterimage out of her eyes, had risen. There would be no sneaky attacks using it to blind them.
"Idiot," she said to herself, meaning it to apply to Hiccup. She was no idiot; he had forced her hand, forced her to tire her men and herself before anything happened. He was already going to die screaming, but this was enough to make her wish she could do worse than she had planned.
"South!" one of her men yelled, startling everyone, even her, though in her case it was more of a knee-jerk reaction, as she ended up with her new ax lodged in his chest. His final gasp was one of surprise and shock. He should have known better than to startle her just before battle.
"Dragons," someone else said quietly, learning from their compatriot's failure. Astrid whirled to look South.
Sure enough, dark blots were gliding high above, headed toward the fleet. She felt a savage smile cross her face, and didn't bother forcing it away. Such blatant stupidity in her prey was cause for celebration. They could not get close without dying horribly.
"Fire as soon as they are in range," she ordered. "Gobber, man the catapult." It was a stupid thing, meant to provide light through flaming boulders and proven hilariously inadequate in the night attack, but it might be useful, and she trusted Gobber to know how best to take advantage of it.
"Aye, bu' what can they be doin'?" Gobber asked, staring up at the sky. "They gotta know this will be a slaughter for 'em."
She didn't want to listen to him, but that was the reason he was around, so she forced herself to think about it. "Maybe they are stupid," she offered.
"Maybe they've got somethin' else in mind," Gobber countered. "I don' know wha', exactly, bu' somethin' tha' assumes we can't fire on 'em. Or maybe turns us against each other?"
"Don't use the catapult." She saw what he meant; a few stray boulders fired at them could easily be baited into hitting other Berserker ships. She could only hope Dagur was smart enough to realize the same thing.
"Oy… Are they carryin' something?" Gobber asked after a moment. "Somethin' grey and brownish?"
Astrid had a hard time seeing what he meant, the dragons were still so far overhead, but she thought she could make out a discoloration under each of them. From there, it didn't take long for her to figure out what was coming; she just had to think of the most dishonorable, sneaky tactic possible.
"They're dropping rocks," she spat angrily. "My orders stand, fire as soon as they fly over." Maybe one would fly too low.
"They're not gonna be low enough," Gobber said morosely, even as the first flight of arrows left the leading ships of the fleet. The dark clouds rose and fell in an arc, never coming close to the necessary altitude. The first dragon dropped its boulder, and the large rock, about the size of an average Viking torso, struck one of the ships with a crash she could hear, even from the back of the fleet.
"New plan," Gobber yelled. "Brace for impact! Everyone drop yer weapon and find somethin' to patch big holes wit'!"
"Do that," Astrid agreed, backing her second in command almost without thought. She took a dropped crossbow for herself and aimed at the rapidly approaching group of dragons. There were thirteen in all, and she wanted to gut and mutilate every single one before she killed them, if they would only fly lower!
One of the dragons in particular caught her eye, the only one with a rider. She gritted her teeth as that one released its rock high above her ship. The rock fell fast, dropping through the air and forward at the same time, and struck the ship directly next to hers with a crash, bowling the mast over in a single strike.
"I'll kill you," she muttered to herself, glaring at the dragons, and the rider in particular. They were ruining her hunt, crippling her ships, making the fleet weaker and more disorganized, and she hated them for it. They would all die, and their island would burn, and whatever else she could think of to make them suffer as much as possible. Nobody interfered with her hunt, least of all the prey!
'I told you I was aiming right,' Toothless grumbled. He wasn't really bothered; Maour's worry had only made it more satisfying to see his rock take out an entire mast and cripple a ship.
"That's what I get for trying to correct a Night Fury's aim," Maour laughed. "But in my defense, I thought your claws had slipped. We weren't even over them yet!"
'Oh, come on,' Boom said. 'Every halfway-decent prankster knows how to drop things from a height. They keep moving forward after you let go.'
"Unless they're light and catch the wind," Blast added. "Then it's up to luck." He nodded to himself, possibly hearing some quip from his currently absent rider.
'Maour is not a prankster, so of course he did not know,' Toothless snorted. 'Weren't you all going to race back to the mountain for your next rocks?' It would probably be better if they staggered their attacks, just to keep the enemy on alert longer.
'I vetoed that,' Skarpur growled. 'Waste of energy, and they're liable to drop a rock. We don't have any to spare.'
'If only some people had spent more time blasting out usable boulders,' Einfari sighed. 'Yours are great, Berg, but only you can lift them, and I bet they took longer to get than the others.'
"It's worth it," Berg retorted.
Toothless looked back at Berg, who was flying at the back of the group, and saw a smug, toothless grin. 'How much damage?' he asked curiously.
'The whole ship was under the water by the time we left,' Berg purred. 'It went right through.'
"I think maybe we should have gotten more boulders for Berg," Maour said approvingly as they neared the mountain.
'I can only carry so many before my wings start hurting,' Berg admitted. 'Fishlegs, get the twins off of my next rock!'
Toothless looked down at the mountaintop and quickly spotted the twins leaping from rock to rock, taking advantage of the natural obstacle course that had been assembled there, lines of boulders ranging in size and position. Fishlegs rushed one of the substantially larger rocks and began laboriously rolling it away from the others, removing it from the twins' reach.
'I wish I could carry those,' he said to Maour. 'Maybe we should have been strength training all these years, like they did.'
"Keep in mind, Berg is the slowest of all of us," Maour whispered back. "It has tradeoffs."
'Such as being able to sink ships from above without any danger,' Toothless snorted. He didn't really want to be like Berg; he quite liked his own sleek, powerful form. It was just very useful in this particular situation. His own strengths would likely be just as useful later.
'Mine!' Berg roared down at the twins, who were now trying to roll the largest boulder back to the rest. He landed with a flare of his wings, flapped a few times to drive the twins off, and pounced on the rock, wrapping his muscular limbs around it before taking off again.
'Sink another one,' Toothless called out encouragingly, looking down and selecting a smaller rock of his own. He hoped Berg could do more damage than he could; a few knocked-askew masts wouldn't be enough to turn the tide in their favor, even if it was helpful.
"Shoot harder!" Dagur screamed, berating his men with every breath of air he could obtain. "Aim higher!"
None argued with him, though they all knew his commands to be pointless. He had already decapitated one reluctant Berserker that morning, and they knew to obey.
He longed to walk out from under the cover of the cabin and strike another, maybe push him overboard or crush him with the rock that had broken their mast and tore a hole in their deck, but he knew better. He wouldn't show himself until an actual battle began; to do otherwise was to ask to be targeted by a dozen honorless boulders. He wanted to kill, not to be squashed like a bug. So long as they didn't know which ship he was on, they wouldn't directly target him.
So, he settled for screaming from the doorway and slamming his ax into things at random. His cabin would never recover from his wrath, but who cared about that? The jagged shards of wood were good for throwing at his men.
He was in the middle of cutting through a table when Savage arrived. "Tell me they have landed and are fighting," he gritted, yanking his ax from the devastated piece of furniture. The map with the battle plan dangled off the tip of his ax.
"They have landed and are fighting, sir," Savage said.
"Really?" Dagur exclaimed.
"No, but they have not gone back for more boulders this time," Savage admitted, ducking as soon as Dagur twitched. "The enemy fleet is still approaching."
"Fine," Dagur groaned, his anger fleeing in an instant, replaced with pure anticipation. "How many did we lose?"
"Four ships sank, three with destroyed masts, and several dozen with holes in their decks or minor leaks," Savage reported. "Your wife says her ships are fine, regardless of that."
"As they should be." Losing four ships and having many more crippled was an infuriating prelude to the glorious battle, made even more so by the last attack, but all of these strikes were like bug bites, insignificant. So what if his fleet had been weakened a little? That would just make the fight closer and therefore more intense!
"We are going ahead as planned, Sir?" Savage asked.
"Duh," Dagur replied, shaking the map off his ax. He didn't need it; he could see a sickeningly green island in the distance, a mountain rising behind the snivelling excuses for Vikings sailing toward them. By the end of the day, that green jungle would be a charred, smoking bonfire. Possibly sooner, given the battle plan.
By noon, the fleets were closing in. The Berserkers formed a triangle-shaped wedge with their ships, the most crippled and worthless at the very back, lagging behind as they struggled with the damage done in the previous strikes.
Looking at the enemy fleet from the deck of one of the Bog Burglar ships, it didn't look like their two initial strikes had done anything to weaken the enemy, but Heather knew that was an illusion. Trust the Berserkers to look and act like they hadn't suffered a scratch when in reality they had already been bloodied. Any Viking would do that, but the Berserkers would do it even when they were badly wounded. Their insane Chieftains drove them forward.
"I know my warriors will keep to the plan," Bertha said, "but it's not all that Vikingly. Ya might not get what ya want from everyone else. Blood gets hot, the plan goes out the window and into the outhouse."
"It shouldn't," Heather retorted. "This is the only way we win for sure." She didn't care if it was less honorable than just fighting it out. They couldn't afford to be honorable when they were outnumbered at least two to one on the human side of things.
'We have only a few more moments before we need to be in the air,' Einfari called down. She was perched atop the ship's cabin, so as to get a slightly higher viewpoint, and Camicazi was perched beside her.
"I'm not sayin' my people will toss it aside," Bertha assured her. "I like the plan, and I like that ye got a woman makin' it. Woman dragon. Close enough." She hefted her sword and swung it through the air a few times.
Heather didn't see why that mattered all that much, and considered telling Bertha that Skarpur had consulted her mate, a male, in thinking up said plan, but decided against it. It didn't matter why Bertha was happy with the plan so long as she was, and it shouldn't matter that the Vikings in general didn't like it. Their chieftains had sworn to follow it, and they would follow their chieftains, even if that following would involve more retreating than they might prefer.
"Hey, Heather," Camicazi called out. "If this all goes horribly wrong, want to come join our tribe?"
"Not particularly, but ask me again if the time comes," Heather suggested. That was probably the best of a bad set of options, should such a thing happen. She didn't want to think about how this might go wrong.
'It will not happen,' Einfari growled.
"It's not going to happen," Heather echoed, taking her friend's words to heart. She wouldn't lose another island, another home, another family, not to Dagur, not to Astrid, not to anyone!
From above, the two clashing fleets looked like nothing more than a bunch of toy ships bumping together in a rippling pool of water. If Maour squinted, he could almost believe that was all he was seeing. A line of two dozen toy ships crashing against another line of two dozen, that line backed up by more ships behind it.
The noises, though, could not be misinterpreted or ignored. The war cries, the yells, the manly shouts and exclamations of pain and triumph.
Toothless angled downward and circled the battlefield, if one could call a mash of Viking warships a field at all. Arrows rained out from the enemy fleet, but none came close. They were not yet in range. None of the Furies were.
"Come on, give us something to shoot at," Maour murmured, hunching low in the saddle. Boarding planks were being lowered on both sides, Vikings swarming across to meet in the middle and grapple, others peppering the enemy with arrows and forcing them to return fire, an unvikingly tactic that would have caught the Berserkers by surprise had so many of them not already been armed with a ranged weapon-
One of the Berserker ships' sail caught fire, something none of the Berserkers aboard cared about in the least, caught up in the thrill of battle. It was no danger on its own, likely to burn away without setting anything else alight, and they were far too busy returning fire and taking the fight to the enemy, pushing the Meatheads back across the gang planks until they were fighting on the Meathead ship.
'Go time,' Toothless barked, seeing the same thing. Maour flicked the tailfin in as they plummeted, gaining speed and losing height at equally rapid paces. They leveled out just above the waterline, moving so fast Maour had to duck his head and look through Toothless' eyes.
The ship with the burning sail was directly ahead, on the outskirts of the fight, and Toothless was there in moments. He fired twice on the first pass, and then swung out around the back of the defending line of ships.
'Did we get them?' Toothless asked. 'I couldn't tell.'
"You were the one firing!" Maour laughed.
As they gained height over the conflict once more, Maour could see that the burning ship was rapidly sinking. Now the Meatheads were surging forward, forcing the Berserkers to remain on their doomed ship.
That was the plan, or at least a big part of it. Engage, retreat enough that nobody on their side was on the Berserker ship, and hold them like that. On its own, that would ensure a profitable but likely dangerous strafing run could be attempted.
Another two sails caught alight, and two more Furies dove to strike the ships in question, steering clear of the Berserker ships not yet caught up in the forefront of the fight. The archers on the ships under attack were all busy holding their own against the archers on the defending side, not looking for Night Furies, and thus the way was clear.
"It's working!" Maour exclaimed. The ship he and Toothless had hit was sinking, clearing the way for the next Berserker vessel to sail up and engage, intent on avenging their fallen tribesmen… and likely falling into the same trap.
"Go, go, go, drop those boarding planks!" Dagur screamed, his blood pounding in his ears. His ship jockeyed into position against the Meathead vessel, taking the place of the sunken, dragon-razed ship that had preceded it. "Eyes on the sky!" he continued, spinning to address his contingent of dedicated crossbowmen.
Then he spun back, unbalancing his new helmet, which was still unwieldy. The top half of a Night Fury skull did not sit easily on one's head, no matter how much leather padding was added. His next skull helmet would be smaller, more easily worn. Maybe with horns, or something.
Dagur almost forgot about the battle raging around him as he contemplated replacing the floppy ears on his current helmet with spikes. It was only the thumping of gangplanks that jolted him back into the present.
"Death and glory!" he yelled, shoving aside a few of his men to rush onto the gangplank. The Meathead opposite him went down in an instant, an arrow in the side of his neck, but his replacement carried an unusually large shield, a rectangular one instead of the normal circle.
Dagur stopped just short of the shield and kicked at it, readying his ax. His metal-toed boot did no damage to the shield, of course, but it sounded like he had hit it with metal.
The moment the Meathead moved his shield aside, Dagur lunged, jabbing forward with his ax and totally ignoring the sword the man was trying to bring around to bear on him. It was hard to hit anything when one's throat was in the process of being cut, as the Meathead was finding out.
Two arrows whistled by as Dagur discarded the man's corpse, pushing it over the side of the wide gangplank to clear a way. Some of his men returned fire, blatantly disregarding his orders to watch the sky, not the fight. He was tempted to turn around and instill some discipline-
The next Meathead stomped forward, his mighty weight making the gangplank shake with every step, and Dagur was forced to focus. He chose to close the distance, taking three quick steps toward the man, and then dropped low.
Sure enough, the Meathead threw his mace out in a wide arc. Such a move would have knocked anyone who blocked right off the gangplank, such was the force behind his swing, but Dagur just leaped forward on his hands and knees, stabbed his ax through the man's boot, and then shoved him aside when he lifted his foot, pulling his remaining leg and pushing in opposite directions. The man toppled off the gangplank, and Dagur caught some air as the wooden pathway bounced from the impact and then subsequent disappearance of so much weight.
More arrows passed through the air around him, coming from both sides, and he decided that he was going to kill his crossbowmen once this was all over. They weren't covering the ship, and any moment now a Night Fury was going to fly by and destroy it.
Some idiots thought a Chieftain should go down with his ship, but Dagur wasn't one of them. He hurried forward along the gangplank, taking advantage of a momentary lack of Meatheads blocking the way, and made it almost to the edge of their ship before another stepped out of the seething mass to block his way-
No, to kick his way out from under him! Dagur lunged forward just as the gangplank was knocked to the side, slammed his ax into the man who had tried to take him out, and grabbed onto the edge of the ship with his free hand. He hauled himself forward and pulled the corpse over the side in the same movement, switching places with the man he had just killed in a move he would be proud of if he weren't so intent on the fight. There was no time for thinking about what he had just done, or how unlikely it was that he would survive.
This was a fight, and he was going to fight it out, not worry about it. What point was planning if one didn't get to live for the moment once it came?
A sword descended toward his head, so he swung his ax, and then stepped to the side as a knife came flashing in from that direction. He was beset from all sides, but thanks to the bulk of his enemies, that really only meant fighting two or three at once, and from the sound of it, he was not alone in having stormed their ship.
His ax met unguarded flesh and stuck there, so he pulled himself forward, driving the Meathead to the ground and shoving his ax deeper still before twisting it and yanking it out.
A blunt object struck him in the back, a glancing blow, and he growled like an animal before turning and swinging his ax all in one motion, in turn glancing off the helmet of a short Meathead with two maces and a lack for self-preservation that Dagur admired. No wimpy shields for this one.
Though, he thought as he punched the man's nose and subsequently disemboweled him, a shield might have served this particular Meathead better than a mace. The man clearly hadn't been expecting such a quick response.
Done with his latest victim, Dagur was momentarily devoid of enemies, a situation that confused him more than the melee he had found himself in up to this point. He looked around, noticing that he was in a small circle clear of corpses, and the only people he could reach were wearing Berserker armor.
His men were being held off by Meatheads with more large, rectangular shields, and it seemed they were at a temporary stalemate. "Push them back!" Dagur yelled, contemplating climbing up the back of one of his larger Berserkers and leaping into the fray once more.
The crackling sounds of a fire, somehow loud above the guttural grunts of the fight, caught his attention, and he turned to see his ship's sail alight, burning fiercely. His men weren't bothering to put it out, all busy either swarming aboard the Meathead ship, or firing at their suddenly defensive ranks. Not a single one was watching the sky.
As if summoned by their very lack of a proper defense, a black blur darted down from somewhere and flew low, disappearing between the two ships. Dagur didn't see the explosion, but he saw how his ship rocked, the gangplanks all dislodged, and then promptly began to sink in a way any decent Viking knew meant it was unrecoverable, rapidly tilting to one side as it descended into the depths of the ocean.
More than half the men on his ship were out of the fight just like that, doomed to either drown or cast off their armor and weapons to survive. He shook his bloody ax at the dragon as it darted away, so quick that he couldn't even see if it had a rider, and wished he had a crossbow in his hands, for all the good it would do him.
"Sir, breach," one of his men shouted, and Dagur whirled, his agitation forgotten, to see a break in the shield wall. He charged forward with a trio of his best warriors, screaming at the top of his lungs. Their charge shattered the shield wall, every man in it in turn beset from the side and dispatched like a rolling wave. Dagur laid about himself with his ax, losing sight of everything except the blood and the enemies and the thrill of battle flaring in his veins like fire. He took wounds and ignored them utterly, and dealt far more fatal blows in return, and in what felt like no time at all, his men were backing away from him as his ax sought enemies and found none.
This was the worst part of battle, in a way, and one he almost forgot only to experience anew every time. The urge to kill was not yet satiated, and the desire to just keep going clouded his mind, maybe turning him against his own people and striking his own tribe if he gave in.
That was what pulled him back, as always. The thought that he would be attacking his tribe. He cared little for any individual, but the tribe, the Berserkers, his purpose? That was worth any amount of sacrifice.
Dagur threw his ax down, still very much hungry for blood and death, and sat on a corpse. "Report," he said raggedly, craving something to bring him back into battle.
"We've secured this vessel, Sir," someone said. "Lost more than half our men, but some might have survived the sinking of our ship, and there's armor and weaponry here to outfit them."
"Battle as a whole?"
"Hard to tell," the man admitted. "We still far outnumber them, but your wife's contingent is staying back, so we're facing them on equal terms."
"Good," Dagur grunted. That was part of the plan. "And the dragons?"
"Firing on ships when our archers are distracted, sinking them and wiping out whole ships worth of fighters. Not all of them, the fighting is on our ships in a lot of cases, but some."
"We need to end this," Dagur decided, speaking to himself more than his men. He stood, retrieved his ax, picked up his Night Fury helmet from where it had fallen at some point during the fight, and strode to the ships' helm. "Get this thing turned around! We're ramming them!" The dragons and their craven allies were playing a sneaky tactic, and he hated them for it. The best way to stop it was to just forge ahead and kill all who got in the way. Astrid could handle the strategy on their side; he was just here to kill as many as he could to draw attention.
As his men turned to the sails and rudder, taking control of the ship as quickly as they could, Dagur scaled the mast, hoping to get a good view of the battle. He stopped low on the mast, unwilling to go too high when he might have to leap off if anyone noticed him and decided to take a shot, but he was high enough to take in the chaos.
And glorious chaos it was. The tidy battle lines were gone, save for Astrid's ships lying in wait, mostly untouched, and the ragged line of defenders. Dragons flitted around, firing on weak points and being fired at in turn, though not nearly enough to deter or even hit them. Some had landed; he could see two fighting on a ship, terrors ripping his men apart with a ferocity even he could respect. All the while, ships were pushing and shoving at each other, blood was being shed, bodies dumped or pushed overboard, the occasional unarmed, unarmored soldier clinging to the side of a ship, trying to rejoin the fight or at least survive the battle…
It was glorious, and he couldn't wait to get back into it. There was a Bog Burglar ship to one side of the one he had just taken over, and a Waxear ship to the other side. The Waxears were fighting a full shipload of Berserkers, but the Bog Burglars were steadily beating back their opponents, much to his disgust.
"We're going that way," he announced, dropping off the mast. They would ram the Bog Burglars, give his men there a chance to rally, and then charge in to slaughter whatever remained. From there, they would go to the next ship, and the next, until their numbers properly overwhelmed the defenders.
But he couldn't forget about Night Furies. "You, you, and you," he said, selecting three men at random and pointing them to the nearest corpses, "get us crossbows and bolts." He'd pick a few more men, arm them with nothing else, and give one the sole task of firing on his compatriots if they stopped watching for dragons. That would keep them on their designated task.
An impact rocked the ship, and Dagur laughed maniacally, hefting his ax. "Once more into the bloodbath," he sighed happily. They had turned and rammed the Bog Burglars, just as planned-
A loud shriek alerted him to the incoming strike, and he dove behind a small pile of bodies, reacting on pure instinct long since drilled into every Viking warrior. Said instinct saved him from the bright blue detonation that scattered many of his warriors, most in multiple pieces, and ripped the rudder from the ship.
"Fire!" one of his men yelled. The ones he had set to scavenging crossbows hastily aimed and fired at the rapidly approaching dragon, sending out the most pathetic volley Dagur had seen all day, barely half a dozen bolts in all.
The dragon shrieked and flared its wings, trying and failing to turn. The sunlight shining through one of its dark membranes was enough to give Dagur a rush of heady exhilaration, though he only saw it for a heartbeat as the creature struggled to avert its dive and land in friendly territory. It failed to do anything like that, only barely remaining in the air long enough to hit their mast.
Dagur was forced to dive out of the way again as the mast fell with a crash, obliterating a portion of the deck and quite a few of the corpses as it hit. He rolled to his feet with glee and rushed the dark mass sprawled across the deck.
Said dragon wasn't dead, as Dagur almost immediately discovered. It whipped its tail at the closest Berserker, disarming him in a neat move that was followed by a brutal bite, immediately killing him. The dragon hunched in on itself, clearly injured and enraged, and struck out at anyone that came near.
Though it was against his very nature to hesitate, Dagur forced himself to stop outside of its reach for a moment. He eyed it, looking for a weakness, a place to strike that it couldn't protect. It didn't really seem to have any, not when it was wary and ready to strike with deadly force.
That didn't mean he was giving up. It was a dragon, he knew how to fight and kill dragons. He crouched to pick up a shattered shield with a metal rim, and began slamming the rim against the blunt of his ax.
The dragon shook its head, disoriented, and snarled at the dozen or so Berserkers left alive. It wasn't flying away, which Dagur attributed to its injured wing, and now it wasn't seeing straight.
"Charge!" He ran slower than the rest of his men, letting them be catapult fodder to test its reactions.
The first to reach the dragon died to a small bolt of blue fire, losing his head in an instant. The second was rent by claws. The third got in a few hits to the torso, and then Dagur was in range, hacking at the underside of a raised paw, and then striking inward, to the armpit, or whatever passed for an armpit on a beast like this. Blood fountained out-
And then blood covered his face as the dragon reared back, snarling loudly, and leaped on them. Its toothy maw ripped apart a Berserker and then clamped down on Dagur's shoulder, piercing deep.
"Ha!" Dagur yelled savagely, driving his ax up into the soft, vulnerable part of its chin, piercing up into the head. He shoved harder, glaring into its frenzied yellow eyes, and yelled victoriously when the light faded from them.
They collapsed together, its teeth still buried in his left shoulder and arm. The ship rocked with another impact, though Dagur knew not what, only that it wasn't another Night Fury. That was good; he couldn't handle another just yet. He needed someone to take the teeth out of his shoulder, stitch him up, and get him to another ship's worth of Berserkers to lead.
But all of that was going to happen; they were winning the fight. This was just the first of many Night Furies he would kill this day. Astrid had better hurry if she wanted to claim any of the glory for herself.
Author's Note: I'm well aware that it's almost impossible to tell how the overall battle is going; that's intentional. Also, no, I will not say who Dagur just killed. There are two facts that will help you narrow it down quite substantially, but I'm not going to confirm or deny anything.