Chapter 28 - Talking:
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
Asan's face, like Kormak's before him, went completely white.
The tense atmosphere stayed like that for a fairly long period of time, until Hiccup broke the silence and continued on.
"We do not believe the destruction was caused by a dragon raid." He repeated. "They simply don't attack like this. Polk might be able to give us clues as to what happened, but he's in shock and needs looking after for now."
Asan stepped forward. "I want to see it."
Hiccup nodded and stood up. "I understand. But Spark is very tired after the flights today, she must rest. We can go tomorrow."
"I need to see it now!" Asan raised his voice. Tears beginning to come to his eyes. Many of the crew began to look angry and they walked to stand next to the chief.
Hiccup took a deep breath in and out, trying to calm himself. "I'm sorry, we can't. We have to wait till morning."
Asan began to shake. "No no no no…" He mumbled, as several of the crew stood around and patted him on the back.
Hiccup remained where he was, not sure of what to do.
"So there's nothing left?" Toothless asked beside him.
Hiccup raised a hand and patted the Night Fury next to him, "No, there isn't. The only thing left were some trees and rubble. Although, Trader Johann said he found this when he arrived."
He withdrew the note out of his pocket and showed it to Toothless. "It says it's addressed to me, and then it has this huge letter written beneath. It's written in blood, and the letter is K."
Toothless sniffed the paper and looked at it thoroughly.
"What's that?!" Exclaimed one of the crew members suddenly, making Hiccup jump.
Immediately, all of the crew had their eyes on Hiccup and the note.
"Trader Johann gave it to me when I arrived at Dyflin. He told me that Polk saw this note nailed to a wooden pole." He answered truthfully.
One of the crew members came over and took it out of his hand. The man showed it to Asan, and then many of the crew suddenly said accusingly, "It's addressed to you!"
"I know." Hiccup replied. "I don't know anything about it. I don't know what that K even means."
Toothless hissed lowly, the crew on the boat seemed to be becoming more and more aggressive towards them.
"You liar!" Yelled one of them. "You come to us when you have many enemies after you, seeking help, and then you leave and thanks to our chief he helped you. Now we're paying the price!"
"Yeah!" Agreed another one, drawing his sword and facing Hiccup and Toothless. "You brought evil and destruction to us! Be gone!"
"Hey now! That's enough!"
Vali, who had after all this time remained silent and just kept being a quiet observer, suddenly gained all the attention of the crew as she walked around the boat and stood in front of Hiccup and Toothless defensively.
"This is not what it seems! I don't know the full story either yet, but I believe Hiccup is telling the truth! Don't forget what Hiccup showed you! Chief Asan told me Hiccup showed you what he did to your dragons that were caged! Remember he trained them? This young man is trying to do some good in this world! Sure things won't go his way easily, he never managed to convince me that he was doing something right either to be honest."
"You all saw me the other day when I was rude and arrogant when Hiccup tried to show me the dragons. But I changed quickly too, when I realised he was right. If Spark the Skrill hadn't shown me the true nature of what the corrupted in the world do, and what the filthy Myrkians have done, I probably wouldn't even be standing here right now."
Vali took a deep breath and continued. "When Spark first took me away, she took me to a cave. I left the cave not long after we arrived, and tried to make a run for it back to Myrka. But then it started storming so I went back to the cave. Spark started a fire and I was quite literally taken aback. I sat down in front of it and began to warm up."
"Then the dragon left suddenly for a while, and when Spark returned she had a mouthful of fish. She had brought me in from the storm, sheltered me, kept me warm and fed me. At this point I was beginning to get confused as to why this was happening. I was realising what I was and had been. How I was restricted and almost imprisoned in a way on Myrka."
"I began to realise that I was not free and couldn't make my own choices. I had to live life how dad wanted me to live it. While I was warming up in front of the fire, I realised I now had a chance to redeem myself. A second chance to start a different life. A life that wasn't restricted. A life that was free. And to help a cause focused on solving and eradicating the corrupted and evil upon the world."
"Then Spark left me once again. And this time when she came back, she didn't have any fish. Instead she showed me a note that the Myrkian High Command had just released and was sending to all Viking tribes. It was a note calling for my head dead or alive. At this point, I was now convinced I wasn't going to be returning to Myrka. I decided then and there that I wanted to change and join the Six."
"So, before you all try to kill us just because Hiccup told you your island was destroyed, think about this. Hiccup is trying to help. I'm guessing that he had no idea about this note and has absolutely no clue why Dyflin was destroyed." Vali glanced at Hiccup, who nodded at her, confirming what she was saying. "So, here's my promise to you. I'm out to help Hiccup and Kormak unite the Six together, and we will find what's responsible for this, and defeat it."
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
It was yet another sense of Déjà vu, this time for the whole crew.
"Well said." Spark interjected unexpectedly.
Hiccup gathered his wits and walked up to Vali. Holding out his hand.
She instead walked into him and hugged him.
Hiccup's insides did a backflip in his chest, overthrown with shock and warmth. He hadn't been hugged by a Viking in a very long time. Especially a girl.
Hiccup embraced her, just as he could feel everyone's eyes on him in the background.
"Thank you Vali. That means a lot to me." Hiccup whispered into her ear.
They separated and she winked at him.
"Well, I think we should all get some sleep." Vali began. Noticing that the sky had darkened considerably.
Most of the crew echoed her words, and Asan himself said nothing and stayed on the main deck. While some of the crew descended into the hull.
Afterwards, Hiccup and Vali went downstairs too and Hiccup led her to her room. Once she was there, Hiccup left and then came back within a few minutes.
Vali turned around and saw Hiccup holding something.
"This is yours. I believe you've earned it back tonight." He said.
It was her sword.
She walked straight up to him and took the sword out of his grip slowly. She unsheathed it, and looked down from the tip of the blade to the handle. Her eyes rested on the handle for longer than the rest of the sword.
Hiccup vaguely remembered his trainer Savas mentioning something about how the handle of a sword will always tell you where it was made or which clan the owner of the sword is from.
Myrkian swords have a green encrusted stone in the handle, as this sword did.
Vali stared at it for a while, before walking over to a bench and putting the sword down.
Hiccup had a feeling that Vali might try and knock the stone out of the handle someday. He took his cue to leave as Vali walked over to her hammock.
"Thanks."
The words forced him to stop moving as he held the door handle in his hand. He turned around and saw Vali facing the wall opposite him.
"You're welcome. Sleep well."
Vali then began to take her tunic off quite slowly from the top, and before too much skin was revealed, Hiccup gulped and left the room. Closing the door behind him as he then returned to his own room.
Vali smiled to herself when the sound of the door shutting happened. She got herself into the hammock, and fell asleep with a smile on her face.
On the ruins of Dyflin…
"There you go little man." Kormak assured. Tucking the sheets and blankets up to Polk's neck in bed. "You're safe now buddy. I'll just be outside."
"Don't lweave!" Polk mumbled, hiding his head more and more into the sheets.
Kormak sighed and patted his brother gently on his head. "I'm just outside the room. No more than twenty metres."
"I'm scared."
Kormak sat down on the bed, and knelt down till he was face to face with his brother. "So am I little man, so am I. But see this?" Kormak raised his right arm and pointed with his left hand at the dragon mark on his wrist.
Polk nodded.
"This is the mark of the Six. You remember Hiccup? He has a mark similar to this as well. This mark means we are part of a group of people who will soon be uniting and we are going to be the ones who will stop this sort of thing happening. We might even stop Myrka! How does that sound?"
Polk got up and hugged his big brother quickly.
They remained in that position for a while, till Polk let go at last and Kormak said a few more words to him and Polk fell asleep. Kormak stood up and stopped in the doorway.
Kormak looked at his sleeping brother as he stood there. He wished him happy dreams and a good sleep.
Once the door was shut, Kormak walked upstairs and onto the deck. Closing the hatch behind him.
He looked around and saw Trader Johann looking out to sea.
Kormak walked up to him and stood next to him.
"He's asleep. How's everything here?"
Johann turned to him, "That's good news master Kormak. Everything here is fine."
Kormak looked at him, and Johann didn't look very sure of himself. "What is it?" He asked.
Johann sighed, "It's just that I don't understand. You see master Kormak, sixteen years ago I saw this exact same type of destruction on an island." Johann turned around and gestured at Dyflin.
"It was a tiny village that was there but the island was huge. Several weeks before I sailed to the island I was speaking with Bertha whose the Bog Burglaring chief, and she told me about a small village called Lowtov on that island."
"So I decided to go there as the more tribes that I trade with the better. But before I left, I asked Bertha if she knew anything else about the island. And she told me that when her crew arrived there the only time they did, the village's people were hiding something. She said they unfortunately never found out for certain, but Bertha told me there was once a rumour that a dragon rider took refuge there."
"Now when you and Hiccup arrived here today on a dragon, at first I thought you might have been the one in question, but thinking about it Hiccup is sixteen years old and would've only just been born at the time, so that rules him out-"
"Johann let me just stop you there." Kormak interrupted him. "I have never rode on a dragon in my life. Today was the second time. The first was only a few days ago when Hiccup rescued me out of Myrka. I wasn't the one you're thinking of."
Johann nodded. "I wouldn't have thought so, you would have been very young too. At the time. Anyway, this was the first time I had even heard of the words dragon rider. So naturally I was nervous and took several weapons with me just in case. And when I arrived, I found it was destroyed just like Dyflin here. With no survivors."
"Since then the island has been called Lowtov in remembrance of the village, but no Vikings live there anymore. The island itself wasn't destroyed unlike Dyflin, its forests, caves and its one mountain remain. Only the village was destroyed. But since that time, I had never heard the word dragon rider until recently before I left Berk and of course today."
Kormak suddenly widened his eyes. "Berk?! You've been to Berk? What's it like? That's where Hiccup comes from!" He wondered excitedly, wanting to find out information about Hiccup's hometown.
Trader Johann looked a little sad when this topic was brought up.
"Well Berk is a fairly large sized island in the middle of nowhere to sum it up. I mean it. The closest island to Berk with Vikings is Dyflin here. Berk is towards the east. It has an average population, I'd say about half of the Bog Burglars and Myrka's."
"However, Berk is mainly unknown to most Viking tribes in the archipelago. As it's so remote and its surrounding seas are treacherous most of the year. The only tribes that know Berk exists and where it is, are Dyflin, the Bog Burglars and the Remola's."
Before Johann could continue, Kormak added, "And now Myrka."
Johann looked taken aback. "What?! How?"
"Long story. But I don't think Myrka knows where Berk is, for now at least." Kormak answered.
They both sat down on a seat, and stared out towards the unseen horizon.
"It's a beautiful night, much unlike the last one." Trader Johann noted. He looked to Kormak, who had his face in his hands.
Johann sighed, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He couldn't think of what to say, so he just kept patting him on the shoulder. Kormak wept rather quietly.
Trader Johann glanced in the direction of the ruins of Dyflin.
He was almost angry with himself for not weeping too. He felt out of place, or like there was something wrong with him. One of his best trading tribes has just been destroyed along with all his friends there.
He did feel sad earlier, but now in the company of Kormak he just kept his presence and remained silent. The temperature of the night was strangely warmer than usual, for Johann would normally have gone to bed or stayed inside his ship by now.
But he was wrapped up in quite a few coats so he didn't seem to feel the cold as much.
All of a sudden something gave the boat a little nudge from behind, and loud whoosh sounded. The little force was enough to make the boat wobble combined with the movement of air.
Johann and Kormak spun around, but saw nothing.
"What was that?" Kormak wondered out aloud.
"Gust of wind maybe? Or a big fish or shark or something knocked the boat under-" Began Johann.
In the quickest amount of time, both Johann and Kormak saw several black figures just from the light of the moon before they received a blow to their heads, knocking them unconscious. They were both blind folded and searched, but only Kormak's hands were tied around his back, immobilising him.
The boat was searched, and when the young boy Polk was found, it was decided that they would leave the boat where it was with Polk and Johann still there. Kormak however, was going with them.
On Dyflin's boat sailing on the seas in the morning...
Bang! Clang!
Hiccup hastily opened his eyes, to be greeted by a young woman holding two swords.
"Finally! You're a heavy sleeper!" Vali sighed in relief, putting the two swords down on the ground. "I had to clang the swords together to wake you up!"
"I'm sorry." Hiccup replied automatically. "It's not like I can help it."
"Whatever." Vali responded, suddenly grabbing Hiccup's sheets and pulling them back. "Hurry up they need you upstairs."
"Hey, do you mind!" Hiccup grabbed the sheets off her and pulled them around him as he got out of bed. He wasn't wearing very much.
Vali shook her head. She seemed desperate for something, bobbing up and down on her feet like there was something she was bursting to tell him. "What's the matter?" Hiccup asked her.
"You sleeping in that's the matter!" She barked. "And also the crew said the dragons look worried up on the deck."
"Okay, I'll be up in a minute." He said, wondering what Vali was on about, she seemed strangely eccentric.
She spun around and walked out the door, closing it behind her.
He got dressed, and walked out and up onto the deck.
The sun streamed into his eyes, more than he thought it would. The sun was definitely already up, which surprised him. He had never slept in that much before.
He looked around and noticed the Skrill on the edge of the boat at the front, leaning out with its ears facing directly east. Toothless was standing next to her with his own ears raised.
"Hey bud, Spark, what's going on?"
The Spike Bolt spun around at the sound of Hiccup's voice. As did Toothless.
"We both heard-" Spark and Toothless both began speaking at the same time. They stopped and looked at each other, before Toothless continued saying, "We heard the sound of a horn again, towards Dyflin. It was softer this time, I don't think the crew heard it."
Hiccup began to worry. Now what? He thought. "All right. How about we just have some food before we-"
"We've all eaten." Vali, the crew and the dragons spoke at once.
"Okay well may I have something to eat before we go?"
So for the next twenty minutes or so, Hiccup spent eating bread, mutton and fish. Till his stomach was almost ready to burst. During which time he never saw Asan, he was beginning to worry about him.
"I'll go with you." Vali spoke up, as Hiccup finished his breakfast.
"You sure?" Hiccup asked. "It's not a pretty sight at Dyflin."
Vali took a deep breath. "Yes."
"All right."
Toothless was not fond of the idea at all, he did not want to be separate from Hiccup again. As he worried about him constantly.
While Hiccup and Toothless were standing on the main deck constantly discussing what to do, Spark just remained lying down on the other side of the boat.
Her eyes scanning the boat and everyone on it. Not really doing anything in particular. When out of the corner of her eye, she saw some movement in the skies above.
She stood up and looked up straight towards the sky, squinting. Suddenly she noticed many of the flying figures started rapidly descending down towards them.
"LOOK OUT!" Spark screeched.
Hiccup jumped at the yell, and turned to Spark who was staring up into the sky, he followed her line of sight then he saw several dragons descending towards them.
"HALT!" Toothless roared into the sky, just as Spark was about to fire at the dragons.
Immediately, all the dragons halted their advance, and instead began to hover on the spot. Hiccup and Vali became afraid, but they both walked next to Toothless to stay with him. Most of the crew retreated further back with their weapons drawn, while Spark and Toothless were at the front.
"There's the Spike Bolt and Night down there." Spoke one of the dragons, which was a Deadly Nadder. It had its head turned back towards most of the dragons, and each dragon passed on the message through the flock of them. There were many types of dragons Hiccup did not recognise.
Unexpectedly, one particularly large dragon of a species Hiccup had not seen or heard of before, rose from the ranks and flew above the other dragons then arrived at the front.
Hiccup and Vali gasped when they saw there was a human like figure standing on top of this dragon. It was covered in dragon like spikes, camouflage, and a mask. It was not possible to see the person's face or any part of its body under the dragon outfit.
The outfit appeared to look like chest armour and have large armbands with talons above the hands. The mask had an X shape like horns around the facial area.
The human figure was holding a bow, and had a quiver of arrows strapped to its back. Hiccup grew nervous, not knowing what the draconic figure would do.