Chapter 9: Pyrrhic
Astrid was buffeted by the wind as Hiccup spread his vast wings and launched into the air. Within a few wingbeats he had cleared the tops of the trees bordering the cove, and a mere handful later his silhouette vanished into blackness of the night.
If there was any doubt he was a Night Fury, she thought, that proves it.
"Stay safe, Hiccup" she whispered. A short week ago he had been an ungainly boy in a Night Fury's body, tripping over himself as he tried to flee. Now he was running and flying like he'd been a Night Fury all his life. She wasn't sure how she felt about that yet.
Astrid shook her head. Right now, her people were fighting for their very existence; she could sort out her emotions later. She took a step towards the gap in the cliffs and Stormfly looked over at her with a questioning chirp.
"Thank you for helping Hiccup," she told the Nadder, "But I have to get back to Berk."
Stormfly let out a squawk of alarm and stepped into her path. The dragon crooned and gently nuzzled at her neck, at the same time enclosing them both in her wings.
Astrid knew what Stormfly was trying to say; Stay here.
She took a half-step backwards and placed her hands on either side of the dragon's muzzle. "I can't," she whispered. "I know you care about me, and that's..." Impossible. Earth-shattering. "...Amazing, but I have to go, girl - they're my family; my friends."
For a long moment, there was silence, save for the distant clamor of battle.
Eventually, Stormfly whined sadly and dropped her wings. Astrid paused for a moment, her hands lingering on the Nadder's muzzle.
"I'll be back, girl" she promised, turning away and scrambling down the gully that lead out of the cove.
Astrid ran headlong through the forest towards Berk, her path barely illuminated by the flames rising from her home. Branches scraped bloody trails along her face and arms, and she swore she should have twisted her ankle when she tripped over an exposed root, but she felt no pain as she kept on running.
She made the journey from Hiccup's cove in record time, only to skid to a stop at the edge of the trees, struck dumb by what she saw.
Berk was in chaos. Nearly half the village was in flames and, from her vantage point, she couldn't see anyone working to put them out.
A chill went down her spine as she realised she couldn't see anyone fighting back at all.
It felt like several minutes before she eventually spotted a small knot of warriors fending off a pack of Nadders - although it looked more like a desperate fight for survival than an organised counterattack.
"No..." she breathed.
Movement caught her eye. A bloody-haired woman was fleeing down the main road towards her, pursued by a Gronckle. The rock-like dragon spat out a fireball which burst just behind the woman, throwing her off her feet. The Gronckle dropped to the ground, lumbering towards its downed prey.
"No!" she growled, clenching her fists and sprinting downhill towards the village. She would not give up hope; she was a Viking, as long as she drew breath she would believe the battle could be won.
Barely breaking stride, she dropped and pulled a sword out of the muck. Thankfully, its previous owner had fallen face-down so she didn't see who it was.
The Gronckle's jaws yawned open, an orange glow blooming in it's throat. Astrid let out a furious war-cry and the dragon span around, switching its target to her. The moment's distraction was all she needed. Rushing forwards, she buried her sword in the roof of its mouth. No sooner than she'd driven the blade home, she let go of the blade and dived to the side as molten rock spewed forth from the dying dragon's maw.
Breathing heavily, she turned to the fallen woman, only to freeze as she recognised the person beneath the blood and soot.
"Ruffnut!?" she asked, disbelieving.
"Nice of you to join the fun," her friend wheezed. "Sleep in, did you?"
"You're welcome, by the way," she replied, forcing a chuckle despite the pang of guilt in her chest.
She held out her hand and Ruff grasped it, pulling herself to her feet. "Yeah," she grunted, "Nice save."
"Where's Tuff?" Astrid asked, scanning the street.
"Dunno," the twin replied, picking up her spear from where it had fallen. "Gobber sent the two of us to gather up as many warriors as we could, and send them to the raid horn for a push to retake the main square. Astrid, it's…"
Ruffnut trailed off, but Astrid knew what she was going to say. If the centre of the village was lost, then things were worse than she thought. This wasn't a strategic move; it was a final stand.
"Let's go," Astrid told her. "You take point."
Astrid's gaze drifted to the chaotic skies as they cautiously moved through the streets. She couldn't abandon her people, but she prayed that Hiccup would have the sense to not get involved.
Hiccup soared through the black sky. He beat his wings, glided for several heartbeats, then flapped again to maintain altitude. However, he had little time to enjoy the freedom of his newfound flight, as his eyes were glued to the unfolding destruction of his home below him.
From a dragon's-eye view, he had a unique and terrible perspective on the battle for Berk. On the ground, the actions of the raiding dragons had always seemed like the chaotic and random attacks of wild animals, however from above he could clearly see the sinister intelligence that directed the flock.
The dragons fought in loosely-organised groups, that would all attack the same area; if one of them encountered a defender, the others would converge, forcing the defender to retreat or face multiple dragons at once. When the Berkians rallied for a counterattack, the whole group would take wing together and attack someplace else. The groups of dragons flitted back and forth across the embattled village below him, and not one of them looked up and noticed him; whether that was due to his black scales or to them simply being distracted he didn't know.
From his viewpoint, he could see the battle was going badly. For the first time he could remember, the dragons outnumbered his former tribesmen and, to make matters worse, their warriors were scattered and disorganised, turning an organised defence into a hundred individual clashes of shield and steel against claw and fire.
Hiccup grimaced and tore his gaze away as a Nadder's claws laid open a man's stomach. He wished his Night Fury senses weren't quite so honed; even from this altitude he could pick out every gruesome detail of the bodies that lay in the streets. He didn't want to count them, but he could already tell that there were too many.
He twisted his tail and turned towards the outskirts of the village. Below him, a pair of figures picked their way down a side alley between two partially-demolished houses. He easily identified Ruffnut thanks to her distinctive barbed spear, while Astrid had clearly salvaged a single-bladed longaxe.
He followed them from the air as they made their way in a wide arc around the edge of the village, heading towards the raid horn, where a group of warriors was already gathering.
A waft of green mist caught Hiccup's eye as Astrid and Ruffnut crept around the back of a hay barn. His gaze darted to a pair of serpentine tails trailing out of the building's doors. "Astrid!" He yelled desperately.
Even if somehow she'd heard his roar and understood it, he was too late; in that moment the barn exploded in a near-blinding flash of yellow-white light, throwing Astrid and Ruffnut to the ground.
The next few moments unfolded in horrific slow-motion. The Zippleback lept out of the cloud of dust and smoke and pounced on Astrid. "No!" He cried in helpless frustration. He was too far away. There was no way he could get down there -
Hiccup didn't think. He flicked his tail and pulled in his wings, plummeting headfirst towards the ground. The world around him blurred, yet he could pick out every detail of the Zippleback in perfect clarity. His folded wings vibrated as a baleful shriek began to build. He cracked open his jaws. Air rushed down his throat, straight to the source of his fire, stoking the flames far hotter than his lungs ever could.
He fired.
The first thing Astrid knew of the explosion was when she suddenly found herself airborne, flying splinters of wood slicing gashes up and down her arms and legs. The breath was knocked out of her moments later as she hit the ground, then again as a Zippleback leapt from the ruined barn onto her chest.
Her gaze slid past the twin heads looming over her to the smoke-obscured stars far above. Hiccup, Stormfly, Orvar, she thought, I'm sorry.
Somehow, over the ringing in her ears, she heard a rising whistle.
There was a blinding flash of light and heat. Something heavy landed on her chest.
Several moments passed before she slowly blinked open her eyes.
One of the Zippleback's heads was lying unmoving on her chest, it's eyes glassy and unseeing.
With a grunt, she pulled herself out from under the dragon and stood up, looking around at a vision of Muspelheim. The hay barn was completely gone; burning motes of hay floated down around her like sinister snow, painting the scene in a ruddy light. The clash and clamour of battle was muted as if her head was underwater, granting a sense of twisted serenity to her surroundings
She turned around slowly. At the centre of the alleyway lay the body of the Zippleback, a bloody crater carved out of it's spine. She immediately turned her eyes to the sky, but saw no sign of the black dragon that had saved her life.
I guess that makes us even now, Hiccup, she thought.
Something landed on her shoulder, and she whirled around, fists at the ready, only to freeze halfway when she recognised Ruffnut.
The blond twin recoiled a step, her mouth moving up and down, but no sound reached Astrid's ears.
Astrid shook her head, gesturing to her ears; Ruffnut nodded and held out her salvaged axe. Astrid took it in both hands and gestured for Ruff to follow her.
As the adrenaline began to fade from her system, the numerous cuts and scrapes she'd received in the explosion made themselves known. She grimaced, but pushed onwards through the pain; she knew she was lucky to have escaped the blast with only minor injuries.
Her hearing gradually returned, and a few minutes later she froze in dread at the sound of a rising note that struck terror into the hearts of fearless Norsemen. Moments later, a blue bolt streaked from the clouds and struck the roof of one of the few intact buildings, rendering its first storey into so much matchwood.
She heard Ruffnut urging her to keep moving, however, she remained rooted to the spot, remembering with a chill that Hiccup wasn't the only Night Fury in the skies over Berk.
Hiccup's wings strained and the flight muscles in his chest burned as he sought to regain the altitude he'd lost in his dive. However, he was too numb with shock to feel the pain.
He'd killed the Zippleback, he had no doubt about that. He told himself that it had been about to kill Astrid, that he'd had no choice but, the knowledge that it had been another innocent victim of the Queen - just like the Nadder in the cove - weighed heavily on his mind. It unsettled him just how easy it had been; all it took was a thought and a shift of his tail, then gravity did the rest. Worse, there was a small part of him that derived a dark, savage thrill from unleashing the power of the demon that haunted Berk's skies.
Below him, Astrid and Ruffnut picked themselves up out of the wreckage and continued down the alley, away from the remains of the barn.
His ear-fins perked, picking out a peculiar note from the cacophony of rushing wings. The sound grew in volume, and the Vikings on the ground reacted to it, throwing themselves to the ground or cowering behind shields.
A flash of recognition shot through Hiccup, followed by an icy surge of terror. He wobbled in the air as he swept his head from side to side, expecting to see the offspring of Lightning and Death itself screaming out of the dark towards him any moment.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, and his head snapped around to follow a black-on-black shape plunging out of the clouds. It unleashed its brilliant bolt of destruction, and for an instant the Night Fury was silhouetted - wings outstretched - against a flash of blue light. The next moment, she sped away into the night.
Hiccup took several deep breaths, realising he hadn't been the Night Fury's target.
On the ground, Astrid and Ruffnut joined with the group of warriors massing around the raid horn - he spotted Tuffnut and the rest of the fire crew among them.
He tried to turn away from the village and head for safer skies, telling himself that he couldn't do any more to help and that the longer he remained over Berk, the more he was at risk of being spotted by the Night Fury. However, the battle below drew his gaze like a gruesome lodestone, and he couldn't look away.
All too soon, that familiar, terrible whistle rang out once more and Hiccup watched in numb horror as an incandescent blue streak fell from the clouds, blasting a smoking crater into the ground.
Morbid curiosity drew his gaze to the impact site, where it suddenly became real curiosity; The blast had hit in the middle of the street, away from any intact buildings. His first thought was that impossibly, the Night Fury had missed.
It was only when he saw the blackened bodies thrown against the half-burnt wall of a nearby house that he realised what her target had been.
A chill ran down his spine; from time to time an unlucky person would get caught in the Night Fury's blasts, but she'd never directly targeted their warriors before. He swept his gaze over the burning village. With his father's nest hunt and the losses they'd already taken, Berk was critically short of defenders; they couldn't afford to let the Night Fury take out whole groups of men.
Hiccup beat his wings harder, rising up until he was skimming the bottom of the clouds. Gliding once more, he took a deep breath and began to scan the village below him.
Images of a night much like this one, searching for a black shape amongst the stars, swam through his mind. The last time he'd tried to bring down the Night Fury, it had cost him his humanity and very nearly his life; regardless, he had to try.
There! A flicker of movement on the edge of his vision. Hiccup put his faith in his newfound instincts and dove. He could see the Night Fury's target; a group men half-carrying, half-dragging an injured comrade towards the mead hall. He was coming in from above at a steeper angle, the Night Fury should have to -
A black streak passed beneath him. He adjusted his trajectory and fired. A blast of azure fire shot towards the Night Fury.
At the last moment, she screeched in surprise and rolled to the side, avoiding his shot by mere inches. He was so shocked by her sudden change in course that he froze for a moment, giving the Night Fury enough time to recover and throw open her wings.
By the time Hiccup could react and halt his own descent, she was already above and behind him. His shoulders strained as the air tugged at his wings, but he pushed back against it regardless, trying desperately to regain altitude - he didn't need a dragon's instincts to know that below an angry Night Fury was a bad place to be.
He heard a telltale rushing of air above him and pulled in his right wing, throwing himself into a roll. He felt the heat of the fire blast on his scales as it passed, and was buffeted by the explosion a moment later.
No sooner had he righted himself, a blazing Nightmare leapt into his flight-path and he had to roll in the other direction to avoid it.
I need to get away from the ground, he thought desperately.
Ahead of him, one of the night vision torches had collapsed, setting fire to a row of houses. Hiccup angled towards the blaze, throwing in a couple of zig-zags in the hope of throwing off the Night Fury's aim.
The air over the fire was uncomfortably hot to his wing-membranes, and the smoke stung his eyes and throat, but he forced himself to turn sharply and remain above the fire. The thick black column of smoke would hide him from the Night Fury, but more importantly it was rising.
For the next few moments, Hiccup's world was consumed by hot, suffocating heat and choking, smoke-filled air. His lungs burned and his eyes watered as he climbed upwards in a tight spiral. Eventually, he could stand it no longer, and he set his nose level, bursting out of the smoke into glorious, clear air.
He barely had time to suck in a breath of fresh air, before he had to throw himself into a roll to avoid another fire blast screaming towards him
Craning his neck to the side, he tried to catch a glimpse of the Night Fury, but turning his head disrupted the airflow over his body and slowed him down, limiting him to momentary glances.
Another bolt flew past him, close enough that he could smell the metallic odour left in its wake, forcing him to focus on what was in front of him.
"Make no mistake, Night Fury!" The Queen bellowed from his pursuer's throat. "If you continue to attack my flock, I will destroy you!"
Hiccup's head-frills twitched in time with her words, but he didn't reply, focusing on keeping himself flying, despite the steadily growing burn in his flight muscles. Ahead of him, orange firelight reflected off the black ocean in Berk's harbour. He closed his eyes.
"Give up this pointless flight now, and I'll spare your precious human settlement!"
His head frills moved again, and his eyes opened. "Never!",he roared, putting on a burst of speed, and turning upwards into a tight half-loop. He came out of the maneuver just above the source of the Queen's voice; the Night Fury.
He folded his wings and completed the loop in a whistling dive, launching a blast of his own towards the black dragoness. The Night Fury avoided his blast, but Hiccup followed his shot down regardless.
At the last moment he adjusted the angle of his dive to take him over the cliff edge towards the harbour; if he couldn't down the Night Fury, he could at least try and draw her away from Berk long enough for the defenders to rally.
A murmur of fear passed through the warriors gathered around the raid horn, as monstrous shrieks sliced through the air above Berk.
"What's it doing?" Astrid heard one of them ask.
"Probably summoning more of it's kind," someone replied.
"No, it's Thor," another said, "He's-"
His voice was cut off by another roar - she thought this one had a slightly different timbre - followed by a flash of blue light and a thunderous peal.
Astrid looked up at the sky in silent anxiety like the others, but for an entirely different reason. The specter of the Night Fury didn't hold the same sense of unknowable fear it used to for her, instead she knew that Hiccup was up there, doing battle with the black dragon, despite learning to fly barely an hour ago.
"Listen up, ye bunch o' sissies!" Gobber yelled, clambering onto the stone platform where the great bronze horn was mounted. "So the sky's making a lot o' noise; are we wimpy southerners cowed by a thunderstorm, or are we Vikings?"
The smith's words fooled no-one. Above the smoke, the air was dry; and no storm roared like a dragon. However, his rejection of the facts in front of him in the name of bravado spoke to the Viking spirit, and drew a few hoarse shouts of agreement from the crowd.
"This is it." Gobber declared. "The children and the elderly are barricaded in the mead hall. We're going to push across the main square and make our stand on the steps. We'll hold the beasts there, or we'll give the skalds a reason to remember our names. Now, ready yourselves!"
With that, the smith dropped down from the podium and slowly made his way to the front of the crowd as they formed up into several loose ranks.
Astrid found herself standing in the second line. On one side of her was her father. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, pressing his lips to her forehead. "My daughter," he murmured against her skin, "I love you." He pulled away a moment later, and Astrid turned to her other side.
"What?" Ruffnut said, "You expecting me to kiss you as well?"
"Ruff," she choked out, past the lump in her throat. "If..."
"I know," the twin replied, meeting her gaze. "I'll see you again in Valhalla."
They shared a brief nod, and both turned to face forwards, readying their weapons.
Astrid took a deep breath as she hefted her borrowed axe, forcing thoughts of her friends and loved ones from her mind. This is what I trained for, she told herself, I'm not afraid of death.
"For your families!" Gobber yelled. "Charge!"
With a bellow, the assembled Vikings raised their weapons in the air and pelted across the cobbled space. The few dragons prowling around the square took flight at the sight of a mass of charging warriors, who made it to the steps without incident.
"Form up!" Gobber barked; despite his peg leg, he'd still managed to keep pace with the last rank. "Get ready!"
The group hastily scrambled into a rough semicircle at the base of the stairs, weapons facing outwards. The village had gone strangely quiet. The sounds of battle ebbed for the moment, but Astrid could see monstrous shapes gathering in the shadows on the edge of the square. The tension in the air was palpable; in a moment the stillness would snap and be replaced with furious action.
A hoarse voice rang out from behind her. "What are you waiting for, you overgrown lizards?! Bring it on!"
The shout was taken up by the gathered warriors, and soon the square rang with overlapping, taunting battle cries. Astrid joined in, releasing the fear and anger that roiled within her in a single, wordless cry.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
Then, with a roar and a burst of flame, the flock responded.
The last Night Fury dove towards the black waters of Berk's harbor, chasing a swift-moving dark speck. The speck opened his wings at the last instant, and for a moment his path was traced out by a V of white water.
She tried to pin her wings to her side, and let gravity carry her to oblivion, but the Queen was in total control, and her wings snapped open just before she hit the waves. A second cloud of spray was thrown up in her wake as she pursued the dark blur ahead of her.
The Night Fury wished she could somehow detach herself from her body, so she wouldn't have to watch what would inevitably happen to the black dragon she was slowly gaining on. She couldn't help wondering where he - some half-forgotten instinct told her he was male - had been all these years; It had been so long since she'd last hunted one of her kind, she'd thought she was the last. And why did he choose now - over an embattled human village - to appear? Surely the humans hadn't managed to capture him?
The Night Fury ahead of her turned sharply, and she banked to follow him - her wingtip nearly clipping the waves below her. Ahead, she could see he was making for a dense cluster of sea-stacks that rose out of the ocean.
Her jaws opened, sending air to the fire-source in her chest. She cringed inwardly, awaiting the dreadful screams of a burned, half-dead dragon falling helplessly from the sky, which had been etched into her memories countless times.
A moment later, a blazing bolt of blue fire left her maw. Every time, she told herself not to care, but she couldn't stop the surge of hope she felt when the shot sailed past him, and struck the base of one of the stacks, sending it crashing into the ocean in a cascade of boulders.
The Night Fury ahead of her panicked, and came to a near standstill in mid air. She was nearly on top of him by the time he recovered and dove through the gap between two adjoining stacks.
He led her on a breakneck chase through the maze of stone pillars. She banked left, then rolled right, then beat her wings to maintain speed. Then, the briefest moment of respite, before she turned again to avoid the next column of stone.
In a moment of detachment, she found herself studying the other Night Fury as he darted between the stacks, just barely staying ahead of her. As the seconds passed, measured in frantic turn after frantic turn, something began to niggle at the back of her mind. For the most part he flew with the natural grace that had made her species the feared and respected arbiters of dragonkind; however, every so often, there was a moment of almost hesitation when he became unstable and ungainly in the air, like a hatchling unfamiliar with his wings.
Her thoughts were dragged back into the moment as she rolled to avoid yet another rocky pillar and fired two shots in quick succession, collapsing a pair of stacks in front of her prey.
Hiccup's heart pounded in his chest as he desperately wove between the unyielding towers of stone. It felt like a lifetime ago that he'd been gliding stealthily over his home, watching the battle unfold, and he'd been flying at nearly top speed ever since.
Another column of rock loomed before him, and he barely managed to roll fast enough to avoid smashing his wing on the stone. As soon as the Night Fury dodged his first shot, he'd known he had no chance of out-flying her in open air, so in a last-ditch effort to stay ahead of her he'd flown into the stacks. The craggy pillars had rushed at him so fast that several times he had to rely solely on his new, untested instincts to avoid a bone-shattering collision.
His sensitive ears picked up the soft gasp as the Night Fury drew in air. Before he could react, two stacks in front of him exploded in flashes of azure light, blocking his path with a wall of falling rocks. He cast his gaze from side to side, but he had nowhere else to go. He angled his tail and pitched upwards carrying him over the jumble of fallen rocks.
He barely had time to realise that he was exposed before he heard another shot screaming through the air towards him. He pulled in his wings and rolled to avoid it.
A wall of force hit him, driving the air from his lungs and sending him into an uncontrolled spin. It took him a moment to realise that rather than streaking past him like the ones before, the fireball had detonated in mid air.
As he struggled to right himself, Hiccup caught a glimpse of a black shape climbing almost vertically upwards. By the time he managed to wrest back control of his flight, the Night Fury was nowhere to be seen. He immediately angled away from the black waves and sought to regain altitude, but it was in vain.
That all-too-familiar rising note met his ears, and a great weight hit him from above. He felt the Night Fury's legs wrap around him and he thrashed in her grip, but her limbs were like iron. Together they plummeted towards the ocean.
"Fool!" The Queen snarled into his ear. "You throw away the power of an Alpha to protect a human village that would sooner see you dead!"
Hiccup could make out the crests of individual waves, picked out in reflected firelight. He felt the Queen's grip on him shift. "Time to die, Hiccup."
Blinding pain shot through him and he let out an agonised cry as the Night Fury bit down on his wing-shoulder, teeth easily punching through his scales and puncturing the flight muscle beneath.
For an instant he was in free-fall.
Then everything went as back as the ocean he hit.
Astrid fought. A Nadder lunged at her, and she tried to dodge, but her foot slipped in a pool of blood - she didn't know if it was dragon or human - sending her sprawling on the cobbles. The dragon loomed over her, preparing to strike. She threw her arms out in front of her.
The Nadder's jaws snapped shut on the haft of her axe, inches away from her face. With a grunt, she wrenched the beast's head to one side, then let go of her weapon and rolled in the other direction.
She came up beside the dragon's head, dagger in hand, and without thinking drove the blade into the soft spot in its neck scales. Blood spurted out around the knife, and she tried not to think of how the same spot had felt under her gentle caress a few hours earlier.
"Astrid!" She turned around to see Ruffnut shove her way through the line towards her. "Are you okay?"
Astrid looked away as she pulled her knife out of the Nadder's neck, the dragon crumpling to the ground. "I'm fi-"
A deep roar shook the ground around her, and at the same time Ruffnut yelled "Look out!"
She dropped, wrestling her axe out of the Nadder's mouth. As she turned, she saw a Nightmare reared up on it back legs, wings spread. Flames began to flicker around its jaws. With a hoarse cry she drove forwards and upwards, swinging into the dragon's chest with a two-handed, overhead blow. She heard a grizzly graunch, and felt a shock run up her arms as the axe struck the creature's breastbone.
She pulled her weapon free and backpedalled, and as the Dragon fell forwards, Ruffnut finished off with a spear thrust through the eye.
Astrid swept her gaze from side to side as more dragons emerged from the smoke and darkness. Ahead, a pair of gronckles prowled towards them, and to her right, several Terrors turned bloodstained muzzles in their direction.
She rested her hand on Ruffnut's shoulder. "Back to the line!", she shouted over the din.
Together, they retreated to the relative safety of the Mead Hall's steps, and two warriors who had been resting behind the line stepped up to take their places. Somebody pressed a skin into her hands, and she drunk greatfully of the warm, stale water within.
Astrid looked around as she panted for breath. Several other warriors were slouched on the stairs nearby, watching the battle with haunted expressions, as their chests rose and fell with their breathing. She tried not to let her gaze linger on the motionless bodies lying on the steps behind them.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that they couldn't last, even resting some of their fighters as they were; she could see that there were less warriors in reserve than the last time she rested.
All too soon, one of their warriors staggered backwards exhausted, and she stepped up, taking his place in the line.
The battle became a blur for her; she knew that she killed dragons and received several minor injuries, but she lost count of both. All she knew was that she hurt and that there was always another dragon to take the place of the ones she slew.
She fought, she bled and she killed, her axe steadily growing heavier in her hands, until, at last she stumbled, and somebody dragged her back behind the line. For several minutes, she lay there on the flagstones, her heart pounding in her ears, and her chest heaving. Then another warrior fell, and she dragged herself to her feet and took his place in the line.
Again, she fought until she could barely stand, and again she staggered back for a few precious moments of rest, before wearily taking up her axe again.
As she pulled her axe from the body of a fallen Nadder, the note that signaled Berk's doom rang out, and a building on the edge of the square exploded in a flash of blue light and a flurry of splinters.
It can't be... she thought.
"To the forest!" A terrified voice cried. "Save yourselves!"
"No!" Gobber bellowed hoarsely. "Hold the line! Protect your families!"
She stared up at the sky, paralyzed by the creeping realisation that Hiccup was likely dead, and Berk would soon follow. There was a roar of flame and a blazing projectile arced overhead, smashing into the flank of an airborne Nightmare. In its wake, several more projectiles - both incendiary and stone - followed, raining down on the Dragons. Snarls of pain and roars of agony rang out as the deadly hail smashed skulls and shattered wings.
Astrid looked towards their catapult towers - had someone managed to break away and retake them?
No, those towers had been destroyed in the last raid. Anyway, the shots hadn't come from that direction, they'd come from the direction of -
The Harbour!
Her gaze darted across the body- and rubble-strewn square to the ramps leading to the docks; those catapult shots had to have come from a ship. A Nadder charged past her, and Astrid saw her opening. A flare of hope revitalised her and, disregarding the protests of her companions and abused muscles, she put her head down and sprinted for the ramps.
A pack of Terrors tried to stop her, but she bulled through them, ignoring the pricks of their needle-sharp claws. Seconds later, she skidded to a stop at the edge of the plaza, on the cliffs overlooking the harbour.
Lit up like a beacon by a multitude of lamps and hand-held torches, a single longship was moored side-on to the end of the longest pier. The ship's square sail was emblazoned with a familiar image of a crimson dragon impaled on a pair of crossed swords. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking the copper-haired giant of a man who leapt down onto the docks, warhammer in hand.
"It's Stoick!" Astrid cried, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks. "He's back!"
A weary cheer went up from the haggard semicircle of defenders, and moments later an answering bellow echoed up from the docks as warriors began to stream off the packed deck. Stoick raised his hammer and, with their Chief at their head, the returning warband pounded up the ramps towards their homes.
Astrid wanted to fall to her knees in relief, but she knew the battle wasn't over yet, so she pushed aside her fatigue, raised her axe and joined the returning warriors in their charge back across the square.
She found herself alongside the Chief as they reached the steps of the Great Hall. Without a word, his warriors spread out along the line, relieving the shattered defenders, while the Chief pushed through the crowd, aiming for one figure in particular.
"Odin's Beard! Yer' a sight for sore eyes!" Gobber exclaimed, clasping hands with his childhood friend.
"Glad I made it in time," Stoick replied. "How is it?"
The smith's face darkened. "It's bad. I got everyone I could into the hall, and we've been holding here ever since, but..."
"You did the best you could," the Chief replied, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Now, let's make them pay."
Gobber raised his axe-hand in a threatening gesture. "Yes, let's!"
Astrid took two more turns in the defensive line that night but, from the moment Stoick returned, it was clear that the tide of battle had turned in the Berkians' favour. With the addition of the reinforcements from Stoick's ship, they were able to shore up their line and, with more men at their disposal, they were able to more effectively rest their fighters.
The dragons seemed to realise this, and their attacks on the beleaguered line turned from a continuous assault into a series of waves. Gradually the assaults grew less and less frequent, until, as the first tendrils of dawn began to tint the sky, a great cry went up from the flock. As one, the remaining dragons took flight, winging their way northwest towards the hidden nest.
A few hoarse victory cries followed after them, but most of the warriors around Astrid simply let out a sigh of relief. She heard several metallic clangs as some of them dropped their weapons and fell to the ground at their feet out of sheer exhaustion.
She managed to stumble, a few paces away, to the first of the steps that led up to the mead hall before she let her axe slip from her fingers and half-slumped, half-sat on the stairs. She stared out at the slowly brightening sky, between the pillars of smoke, in an exhausted haze. There were less fires than she remembered; she supposed that with no one to fight them, the flames must have simply burnt themselves out.
Her gaze drifted downwards to the blood-stained cobbles of the square. The bodies of dragons were thick on the ground; in places they'd been pulled together into makeshift barricades. And a very human leg hung out from one of the gruesome palisades.
Her stomach turned, and she hunched forwards, spilling bitter bile onto the ground before her.
Sometime later, her father came and sat beside her, and she found herself sobbing softly into his shoulder. She'd been a member of the fire crew since she was thirteen; she'd seen the raids and death before, but those skirmishes hadn't prepared her for this war- no, this butchery - that had unfolded in the square before her. Ever since she could hold an axe, she had trained to fight and kill dragons and, before she'd met Stormfly, she had joined the village in praising the warriors who managed a particularly impressive or skillful kill. But there was no time for skill or celebration when the dragons outnumbered you two-to-one, and the next one was upon you before the first had even stopped bleeding.
She watched in numb silence as Stoick began to pick his way through the crowd of exhausted warriors. As she followed his movements, a detached part of her mind picked out her friends; Snotlout, The Twins, even Fishlegs. Ostensibly, the Chief was checking on his people, offering condolences and words of encouragement here and there, but she could see in his face that he was searching for someone - a search she knew would ultimately be futile.
Eventually Stoick came to stand beside Gobber. "Where is he?" he asked in a hushed voice, that she just managed to overhear, "Where's Hiccup?"
The smith hesitated, before gently touching Stoick's arm with his remaining hand. "I'm sorry, old friend, we couldn't find him. I'll -"
"No," Stoick cut him off, "My son..." The chief took in a great, shuddering, breath. "Hiccup... is dead."
Pyrrhic - Of, relating to, or resembling Pyrrhus, king of Epirus; a victory won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor.
Skald - Poets who performed in the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age. Akin to the bards in Celtic societies.
Author's Notes:
Mwhahahaha!
Okay, I MAY have slightly gone into 'evil author' mode with where I placed the ending of this chapter, but everybody loves a good cliffhanger, right? :P
Anyway, joking aside, this chapter was a ~6,700 word battle scene, and I don't have much experience writing fight scenes longer than a couple thousand words, so I hope this wasn't too boring for you. I know I may have gotten a little bit gruesome with some of the descriptions, especially from Astrid's POV, and I might be slightly straining the bounds of the 'T' rating, but I felt it was necessary to properly convey Astrid's first experience of the real, brutal, horror of war. (Plus, I admit, there is a certain sense of satisfaction that I get out of writing a particularly visceral description)
I did promise you lovely readers some more 'Toothless', and I gave you a few hundred more words from her POV, although I feel that may not have satisfied what some of you were hoping for. I might not have made this clear earlier, but the concept of this story was for a transformation fic, where Hiccup doesn't have another Night Fury to help him through it. So, while 'Toothless' does have an important part to play in this story, it's still going to be a little while before she gets to take centre-stage.
My fanfic recommendation for you this time is another venerable classic of this archive; the wonderfully titled To Soar into the Sunset: A Night Fury's Odd Memoir by the equally cleverly named Fjord Mustang. To Soar into the Sunset is a retelling of the events of the first movie through the eyes of Toothless. The author took heavy influence from classic science fiction author Robert Heinlein in writing the story, and while I've never read any Heinlein, the sci-fi elements show through strongly, with its portrayal of the dragons ('The People' as they're referred to throughout) as a truly alien species, with a society and culture very different from that of humans.
To Soar into the Sunset is also a touching tale of Toothless' coming-of-age and of an outcast Night Fury's growing friendship and bond with an outcast Viking. I'd even go so far as to say it's probably the second-best depiction of Hiccup and Toothless' bond I've seen in fanfic (after The Antic Repartee's 'Hitchups', which I've discussed previously in these notes). There's also a side-story/sequel entitled Blind Spot which stars a dimension-travelling, telepathic horse (long story) that I've sadly never been able to get into.
Finally, as always, thank you to everyone who's read this far, and please leave your thoughts on the chapter in a review!
~Superbun