Branch flew as fast as he could on Melody's back towards Dragon's Edge, a look of panic glued to his face. As soon as Heather arrived at the troll tree, the lifeless bodies of several of his team on Windstorm's back, she told Branch of the attack through tears and a panic stricken voice. After rushing their friends to the medical room the remaining riders and Peppy saddled up and flew to Dragon's Edge at once.
What he found brought Branch to instant tears. Scattered across the beach, laid out in perfect rows intended for Branch to see, was the remains of hundreds of dragons. Many of them had been beheaded, some of them where skinned, and others only their torsos remained, the rest removed to be mounted on walls or skins to be worn as a sick fashion statement.
Branch knelt down to the decapitated bodies of two dragons, they were a breeding pair, the last two known specimen of the rare ivory scaled barn burner. This breeding pair were the riders last hope that this species of dragons could be saved, now they were gone, the last of their kind slaughtered just in the name of sport. Their heads removed to be mounted on a wall like a sick trophy. A once plentiful dragon now extinct.
"This is my fault," Branch sobbed as he knelt before the row of deceased dragons. "I caused this."
"No," Poppy encouraged putting her comforting hands on his shoulders. "This was Grim's doing."
"But I let it happen, I thought he would live up to his word, only hunt on his island and leave us alone. And now," Branch got up and pointed to the rows of dragons that laid dead in the sand. "I have caused the extinction of at least one species of dragon and made the survival of several others near impossible. It was my duty to protect them, and I caved under pressure, and now several of my best riders might die, because of me, because of a poor decision I made!"
Branch knelt to the ground again and buried his head in his hands "Reby was right."
Branch felt another hand touch him on the shoulders. He looked up to see the Twins standing above him, Chenille's hand on his shoulder "Branch I know this is a bad time but…"
"What is it Chenille?"
"Great Grampa Oaken?" Branch heard Scarlett cry, and Branch's eyes instantly lit up in fear as he got up and ran towards Scarlett's voice.
When he arrived to Scarlett's location he saw Scarlett and Heather in tears, and a look of horror on Peppy's face.
"Branch I'm sorry." Peppy cried when Branch walked up. That's when Branch saw him, laying in a pool of blood was Oaken's body. His skin pale and void of any sign of life, he was gone.
"No," Branch cried kneeling over his grandfather. "Grampa Oaken no!"
"I'm sorry Branch," Biggie replied as he comforted Heather. "He's gone."
"I should have never left him." Heather cried buried her head in her hands.
"You would have been killed too," Biggie ensured "As well as everyone else."
"Branch?" Satin asked when the twins and Poppy arrived. Poppy gasped at the sight of Oaken's body. "What do we do now?"
Branch's tears soon became ones of anger as he growled through clenched teeth. "I tried to be reasonable. I offered them a truce, and they have spat it in my face." Branch got up and he turned to the rest of his team. "Grim wants a fight, I'm going to give it to him."
It was sundown before Reby and the others started to regain consciousness. The doctors worked frantically to get the deadly gases out of their symptoms, having the nurses go up to the mountains and collect wild herbs to crush down into medical tea that would combat the gas. It was a stressful several hours but once they got the medical tea in the trolls symptoms they all took a sigh of relief knowing the tea would do it's job.
Five hours after the trolls ingested the tea Reby opened her eyes, and was greeted by Branch who was sitting in a chair by her side, a look of guilt on his face.
"Hey Chief," Reby replied softly, still weak from her near death experience.
"You were right Reby."
"Come again?"
"I never should have trusted Grim to honor his word. My carelessness nearly got you killed. I am so sorry."
Reby sighed as she looked up at the ceiling, "It's not one hundred percent your fault. I should of tried to steer you a different way, had us all come up with a different idea instead of just attacking you the way I did. When you was just the leader of the dragon riders things were easier. You could just think of ideas that benefited the dragons and our team and nothing else. You didn't have to worry about the tribe cause that was what Rosiepuff was for. But your chief now, you do have to worry about the tribe to, and I was foolish not to take that into consideration. Your idea was still foolish but it came with good intentions, I failed as your team member and friend to help you see the error in your plan and help you come up with a different way of handling Grim's threats."
Reby sat up and looked over her friends, most of them still resting from the medicine. "Where's Heather did she….?"
"Heather's fine, she was the one that got you out of Dragon's Edge on time and saved your life."
"And Oaken?"
Branch lowered his head and Reby's eyes went wide as she gasped "Oh Gods? I'm sorry Branch."
"Heather told me on our way back here that Oaken forced her to leave him so she could get you out of there, he freed several more dragons just by himself. But sadly neither him or all of the dragons made it out."
"My dragons?" Reby gasped "How much gone?"
"Almost half, including the last two Ivory scaled barn burner."
Reby put her head in her hands and sobbed over the loss of many of her dragons that she worked so hard to save.
Seeing how upset Reby was Branch let her be and left the infirmary, where Poppy and Scarlett waited for him outside. Raider and Jo was outside with them too, having arrived back shortly after Branch did. Branch had filled them in on everything, including Oaken's death and the destruction of Dragon's edge.
"So how are they?" Poppy asked
"They'll live, that's the only good thing I can say right now. Reby took it hard, I fear how the rest of them will handle the news."
"I can't believe Oaken's gone." Raider replied "That old fool survived every attack Blood threw at him, he was a one man army. I should have been there."
"It wouldn't have done you any good. Grim is far worse than Blood, he has the law on his side and three tribes at his back.
"So what's the plan now?" Jo asked.
"Honestly, I don't know. I was so certain that Grim would be a honorable man and keep his word. I was foolish and what is happening to them is on me. But I will fix this, but I will need my team at full strength if we are going to beat him. These guys aren't like any hunters we've faced, and if we are going to beat him it's going to take all of us."
Raider sighed, she had a plan but she didn't like it. "There is one thing we can still do. Even though the dragons won't let us trolls into the hidden world we could still send the dragons over there. It will be a one way trip and we would never see them again, but if it means the survival of the dragons and us it may be all we have."
Branch sighed "The team won't like it."
"Neither do I but it may be all we got. Grim won't let up, and if he's as bad as you say we might have no choice. It might be time we say goodbye to our dragons."
The next morning was Oaken's funeral, the whole tribe showed up as they mourned the lost of the husband of their former chief. As hard as it was for Branch, who led the funeral and fired the first flaming arrow into Oaken's boat, lighting both the body and boat on fire as it started to drift into the sea, Heather took the loss of Oaken harder than anybody. She still blamed herself for his death, if only she had been more persuasive, if only she had came back for Oaken after she got the others on her dragon? She knew Branch told her not to blame herself but she couldn't help but to.
As Reby approached Heather, she drug Heather from Biggies side, catching the attention of both Creek and the twins.
"We still doing your plan?" Heather asked.
"Now, more than ever."
"Maybe we can let Branch in on this, you two have made peace he can help."
"You want to tell Branch that we are going to attack Grim's tribe and set fire to his island? Branch would never go for that. We need to do this in secret. Them bastards killed Oaken, they killed my dragons they nearly killed us. This is how we stop him, we lay waist to his island, we send fear to his tribe, if he is half the chief to his people that Branch is to his, then he will back off.
"You girls are planning something aren't you?" The girls jumped when they heard Creek's voice. Turning around they saw Creek and the twins staring at them, their arms crossed. "You two are secretly planning to do something stupid and crazy that Branch wouldn't approve of are you?"
"Well um…?" Reby started to stutter.
"Creek, please don't tell Branch." Heather pleaded with fear.
"I want in."
"What?" Both Reby and Heather gasped.
"Before what happened at Dragon's edge I would have called you two nuts and totally reported your butts, but that jerk weed tried to kill us after he said he accepted our truce. I want payback, and you two seem just the right amount of crazy to pull something off."
"Um, thanks I think?" Heather replied.
"We're in too." The twins replied "We're all about crazy and stupid, that's what we live for."
"We could use all the help we could get to pull this off." Reby replied "Okay, we will let you in as long as you swear not to tell Branch or Poppy what we are doing."
"Our lips are sealed" Chenille replied as all three of them pretended to zip their lips shut.
"Very well then, let's do this."
When I first started this trilogy it was meant to be just a parody of How to train your dragon. But when I started Savoir of dragon I discovered that Hiccup came across as a environmentalist, a wildlife warrior, and as a environmentalist myself I decided to use both Savior of Dragons and Legends of Dragons and instead of making a straight parody use them to send a environment message. In Savior I tackled poaching, in this one it's big game hunting. I'm not one hundred percent against hunting, if your going to hunt for food I won't say anything, but hunters especially those who go after big game like bears and wolves I can't stand. Why would anyone think it's cool to kill a animal just to put it's head on their wall? It's sick, and those who travel to Africa for those hunting safaris and kill a lion just for sport are the worst of all. It's sick and shouldn't be legal but sadly is, and that's why I'm tackling the topic in this installment and that's why both this and Saviors of Dragons is so different from the movies they are based off of. Hope you still enjoy it and I will see you next chapter.