Chapter 9
The Red Death
"Astrid met me at the arena the next day. It was supposed to be the big fight, but I had another plan. Astrid wished me luck with everyone, as that's what I really needed."
Hiccup sighed and looked out at the Hooligans again. "They were all cheering for me. It was deafening. And it felt like I was being crushed by the expectation that I would fulfill the lie. I waited for the gate to open — not even a dragon could lift it — and while I waited Dad made a speech."
She looked down at her plate again. She no longer had an appetite, but she couldn't look up — couldn't look at her dad. "All I remember is him telling the crowd how embarrassed he used to be, but how proud he was now. But it wasn't me he was proud of, it was this image that they had assumed about me. I wasn't that image, I was still the embarrassment he announced to the village. It . . . It was hard to hear."
She felt an arm wrap around her shoulder and she looked up in surprise as Astrid hugged her. She hugged her back. "It's alright, I'm okay."
Astrid pulled back and used a thumb to brush away one of Hiccup's tears. She hadn't even realized she was crying. She caught a glimpse of her dad staring at his plate with his cheeks colored.
"Anyway." She looked back at Kiefer. "Once I got into the arena, Gobber released Hookfang — well, the Monstrous Nightmare, he didn't have a name at the time. I did the first thing I do with all the dragons: I dropped my axe. They always give me this look, like, 'What're you doing?' But now I could hear people saying that from the watchways. But just like with Toothless, it's the first step to proving that I'm not a threat. From there it was easy to calm Hookfang. He even purred.
"I told the other Vikings. I told them dragons weren't what we thought. I explained that they could be peaceful, that Hookfang was proving it. I thought they would be able to see, to understand that we were all wrong. We could save so many lives if we lived together; how many Vikings had died? How many dragons did we kill?
"But it didn't happen. Dad yelled something and slammed his warhammer into the bars over the arena. Hookfang thought he was under attack and panicked. I had to get out of his way. I grabbed a shield and ran. I wanted to calm him, but he was throwing flame at me.
"Somehow Astrid got inside the ring and managed to distract him. She threw a hammer at him (hit him, too) and drew him away from me. Then I see Dad holding the gate up almost effortlessly, yelling at us to get out. Astrid made it, but just as I reached it Hookfang caught me in the chest with his tail, threw me back into the ring, and left a wall of fire where I had been, between me and the gate.
"Then there was this enraged scream — not from Dad, but from Toothless. He had gotten out of the cove. He'd never been able to do that without me on his back. And I don't know how he knew I was in trouble . . . I mean, the cove isn't exactly close by. He blasted his way into the arena and tackled Hookfang. They fought and eventually Hookfang retreated.
"But when I looked around at all the faces in the watchways, all I saw was the look of betrayal." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I had failed. I knew that. And if we'd stayed there, Dad or Spitelout or someone would have killed Toothless. So I jumped on his back and we escaped through the hole he'd created. We returned to the cove, where I had left my packing. I admit I was a bit panicked, and I ended up staying there for far too long. Eventually Astrid caught up to me."
"When Hiccup took off, Stoick turned to me for answers." Astrid put a hand on Hiccup's shoulder and squeezed it. "I didn't tell him about the cove. I had promised Hiccup that I wouldn't let anyone find Toothless. I did tell him about how Hiccup had learned to tame dragons, how she used that to become the best-in-class. But then I told him about the nest and he didn't care about Toothless anymore. We've been looking for the nest for generations, and when I said we'd been there, he couldn't hear anything else. I tried to tell him about the Red Death, that it was too big, that we couldn't defeat it. We couldn't even kill a Night Fury, how could we kill a dragon the size of a mountain? But he didn't hear me at all. I tried to tell him that our only chance was with Hiccup's help. I said we should get his daughter back."
Astrid could still hear his voice booming through the Thingstead, "I don't have a daughter!" right before he slammed the door. She felt herself flinch again.
"He disowned her and ordered the fleet to ready. He took one of the Nadders that had been captured the night before, since I had told him only a dragon could find the island. I knew he was just going to get everyone in the fleet killed, so I ran for the cove. I'm lucky that Hiccup stopped to cry —"
"Oh, thanks." Hiccup shot a look at her. "I was trying to gloss over that."
"Yak's left the barn on that." Astrid brushed away another tear from Hiccup's cheek. Flustered, Hiccup dabbed the hem of her dress against her cheeks and sniffled. Astrid returned her attention to Kiefer. "I did try to comfort her, but I still had to deliver the bad news. Though she wasn't too affected by Stoick disowning her."
"I knew he would," Hiccup said. "I had already spilled my tears over it. And with my plan to leave back in effect, what did it matter? I told her I was going, as soon as the sun fell. I figured that it would be better if we could slip off unseen. I asked her if she would come with me."
She looked over at her friend, wondering again if she would have. So much had changed between them. It was like they were little kids again, going on adventures like sisters.
"Obviously you didn't leave," Kiefer said.
"No," Astrid said. "I told her about her dad gathering the fleet. I told her it was different now, that I had slipped up and told him how to get there. She changed in an instant. There was this fire in her eyes, and I knew that she wasn't going to let the Red Death kill him. It was all I could do to convince her not to rush off immediately. I told her we needed help.
"We waited until nightfall, like she planned, but instead of heading south we returned to the Dragon Arena. She taught me how to train dragons. I bonded with my Nadder, and I named her Stormfly. We slept in the pens and the next morning I gathered the rest of our class. Together, Hiccup and I convinced them to learn, and to go along with us to save the fleet. Hiccup was a lot more confident in herself after she trained me, which made it easier to convince them. The hardest was Snotlout, but once Hiccup convinced him he'd get to be a hero, he went along with it. We trained for the rest of the day and, for such a short time, I think we did pretty well. We set off at the end of the day and arrived at dawn the next day."
"It was fine timing, too," Stoick said. He leaned forward, clearing his throat. "The fleet made landfall a few hours before they arrived. The Nadder, Shellquake's his name now, he would twist left or right as we sailed toward the island, and by adjusting our heading to follow his movements, we managed to avoid the rock pillars around the island.
"We set up a defensive line and some catapults, then got everyone ready to attack. I went ahead of the group and found a cave filled with hundreds of dragons. They didn't seem out of the ordinary, so I thought it was going to be a hard fight, but we'd have a decent shot at winning it. So I ordered the attack. But the dragons didn't defend themselves. They ran. Thousands of them swarmed out of every hole in the mountain and just flew away.
"The others thought we'd won, that we'd driven them off. But Shellquake, even bound as he was, desperately bucked and tried to take flight with the others. I realized that it wasn't us they were running from, and I yelled at everyone to make ready.
"That's when the Red Death emerged. It roared like one of Hel's creatures, a deafening sound that shook your bones. Then it smashed its way through the cave that was too small for it, boulders falling around us like rain, and I knew that I had made a mistake. Astrid was right — Hiccup was right. We couldn't defeat it. I ordered a retreat around the island so that it wouldn't be drawn to our ships, but it still smashed them. Gobber and I tried to draw it off the other way, so at least some of our people would survive. I prayed to Odin to protect the others, to protect my daughter, and maybe smile upon our final fight. And he smiled upon us. He gave me my daughter back. She did me proud."
Her dad looked at her with a genuine grin. She smiled, her chest feeling much lighter.
"When we got there," Hiccup said, "we could see the Red Death chasing Dad and Gobber. I had Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins distract it. Astrid and I separated to make sure our people would keep well away from the fight. I ordered Dad to keep away from the dragon, to listen to me for once in his life, and — shockingly — he did. Once we had regrouped, I set about making it mad. Getting it to follow me.
"I succeeded pretty well at that. It spread its wings, each as large as three ships, and took flight to chase Toothless and me. Of course, I knew we couldn't take it in a straight fight, so I drew it into the fog around the island. Toothless was much faster, much more nimble, and with the fog he was invisible. The Red Death was not — it was so massive we could see its shadow through the fog. I used that to our advantage.
"We hit it hard and fast. Swooped from above and put fireballs into its wings. Tore half a dozen holes into them. Finally it had enough and just burned the fog. I saw its form twisting about throwing orange flames all around it, until this wall of fire swept over us. Toothless took the brunt of it. He was fine, but it had also caught the prosthetic on fire. We only had one chance.
"We flew toward it and got its attention, then dove past and made for the ground. The Red Death followed us. We didn't dive too fast — we didn't want to lose it. We must've been halfway to the ground when I heard this great rush of wind, rather like a storm, as it opened its jaws and drew in an enormous breath, readying to flame us anew. It was the moment I had been waiting for, and at just the right time I gave the signal.
"Toothless spun around and shot a fireball straight down its gullet."
"Ah!" Kiefer pounded the table and sat back with a grin. "You shot its open gas sack! That must've torn up its insides. Dragons aren't exactly hardened against fire behind their spark tongue."
"Exactly!" Hiccup's face pinked at his recognition. "I noticed that when Toothless got into a spat with a Terrible Terror. But that wasn't all!
"Moments later, we emerged from the fog cover. We were exactly where I wanted us to be — over the beach. Dad and the rest of the Hooligans were well out of the way. Toothless opened his wings and slowed, and the Red Death tried to do the same, but . . ."
Kiefer's eyes widened. "The holes! Ingenius, his wings were shredded."
"Yes! It couldn't fly, and, well, like I said, 'not flying' while in the air is bad. It hit the ground and exploded! But as Toothless tried to avoid the collapsing carcass of the Red Death, I realized that his prosthetic wasn't responding. The control line must have burned through or something, I didn't really have time to look. Its bone tail struck us, and I was thrown off. That's the last thing I remember before waking up back home with Astrid over me, wiping my head with a cloth. Toothless was laying next to my bed, dragons had been accepted into the village . . . the only thing that told me it wasn't some fever dream was when Astrid pointed out that I'd lost my leg."
"I had noticed that." Kiefer nodded, looking at the table as if to look through it at her prosthetic. "It's quite a bit more complicated than the second in command's. Gobber, I believe?"
"Yeah, it's made to latch into the pedals and it's got a spring to absorb hard landings. I may have made improvements on Gobber's design." She smirked. "You don't seem bothered by it."
"I've seen people maimed by work and war. They — you — deserve respect for enduring." He turned to look at Astrid. "What happened while she was unconscious?"
Astrid looked at Stoick, and it was he who answered. "We didn't see how she got to the ground. We saw her and the Red Death breach the clouds and the fireball, but I lost sight of her and Toothless. Once the flames had settled, I ran to the site to search for her. I found Toothless, but she wasn't on his back. If she wasn't with him . . . I was sure she couldn't survive the fall. I thought I lost her. I'm not ashamed to say that I broke down and cried. I apologized to the dragon and Hiccup's ghost for everything I'd done.
"Toothless . . . Forgave me. He opened his wings; he'd caught Hiccup and brought her to the ground. She was burned, but alive. I thanked Toothless and we took her to the other wounded from the earlier fight. Her leg had been crushed, likely when she was knocked off her dragon's back, so the healer had to remove it. The rest of her burns were minor — easily treated."
"You weren't the one who spent two weeks changing bandages and applying the lotion, Sir," Astrid said. "But they were healed by the time she woke."
"Of course, you're right. You took the job of being her nurse, and you did well at it." He nodded his thanks. "After that, we were trapped on the island. The Red Death had smashed and burned most of our ships. Shellquake had been rescued and Astrid taught Flurbold to bond with him. Dragons started returning to the island now that the Red Death was dead, and half our warriors ended up bonding with dragons. Most of us flew to Berk on their backs while the wounded were loaded onto the few ships we could make seaworthy again."
"People saw us coming in riding dragons," Astrid said, "even our greatest warriors with dozens of dragon kills were astride their backs. The story of how dragon riders saved our people spread through the village. People were cautious, of course, but it really helped everyone to accept dragons and by the time Hiccup woke up . . ."
"Yeah, that was a shock." Hiccup looked at Astrid. "I mean, losing my leg was a surprise, but just something that happens. Opening the front door and seeing the village overrun by friendly dragons? I mean, Dad and Gobber were working with a couple Monstrous Nightmares. I'm still not entirely sure I've woken up. But by now most people have accepted dragons.
"The war is over."
