XXXIII.
None of this should have happened.
There should never have been this dragon trapping.
Which should never have instigated the aggression of a draconic-minded Vigilante.
Which most certainly should never have initiated this horrible battle. This war.
Hiccup flew Toothless furiously over the scars of the earth. Where once sparkled snowdrifts, blackened ash charred the earth; where once unblemished white coated the terrain, now enormous gray and gruesome red gouges of war machines and fallen fighters stained the ground in gore; where once flew dragons, now dragons fell, and scores of bleeding men beside them. He heard the howl of men missing limbs and flinched. If only this could have been avoided. If only the trappers had not taken the offensive… if only his mother could have sympathized more with men.
Yet she had hesitated… hesitated many times when the two of them had spoken of the war. She had admitted she preferred peace, expressed regret for what she considered inevitable bloodshed.
It's not some future inevitable event now… it's happened… with terrible consequences…
War-torn ground. The earth ripped open as though through earthquakes. The toll of dozens dead amassed on the Vigilante's doorstep. A second mountain groaned, the Bewilderbeast moaning a missing eye.
Now seeing the cost of this, will she believe it's so necessary now?
He needed to find her. Needed to end this. He had to try. Some wars were necessary, but not this one.
Toothless and Hiccup raced over snow and corpses and struggling men and dragons.
She's probably near the Bewilderbeast, Hiccup reasoned, and as he and Toothless rushed forward toward the agitated animal, he scanned his eyes frenetically over the earth to try to locate any sign of his mother. And yet as he rounded Toothless toward the Bewilderbeast, his eyes noticed first the great red beard of the vast Berk chieftain, Hiccup's father facing an equally intimidating man who bore the Visithug crest on his cape. Drago, then.
Just a moment later he noticed the Vigilante fighting, struggling, straining against the hold of two men clenching each of her flailing arms.
Saw Drago point threateningly toward Stoick.
Valka break free. Run up. Whirl her staff. Face the battle-scarred alpha. Spun around, and as her arm stabbed the air in the direction of Drago Bludvist, the Bewilderbeast blasted out enormous torrents of ice. Spires plunged indiscriminately toward both Viking chiefs; the men scattered, ice spears chasing their heels. The world turned aqua green so Hiccup could see the fate of neither man.
Toothless dove.
"Stop!" Hiccup exclaimed as he and his dragon rushed straight toward the Vigilante. "Stop!"
Her pointing arm faltered, the Bewilderbeast's attack halted, and the rushing roar of blasted, freezing water gave way to the quiet of crackling ice.
Hiccup quickly adjusted his peg leg before slipping out of Toothless' saddle to approach the Vigilante. He pulled off his helmet for better visibility and tossed it to the ground behind him. The face mask of his mother gaped before him, watched him silently, expressionlessly, but nonetheless intently. Hiccup could see Valka's neck rotate to keep him in center view as he walked toward her. An eerie stare.
She crouched, poised to strike, just as they had when they first met. Yet the staff she held in her hand had not glistened red at its tip the last time he saw her in armor. Even in her first dragon raid, back when she abducted Hiccup from Eret's ship, she had not used the staff to pierce skin, to intentionally draw blood. She had fought Hiccup then to disarm him.
He could not be sure of her intentions now.
He hesitated.
His thumb briefly brushed the hilt of Inferno on his hip, which Stoick had returned to him shortly before the battle began.
This needs to be done, he reminded himself, and found the words to speak.
Those words came out angry. "All of this loss, and for what?" he challenged her. He gestured to smoke rising to his right, the Bewilderbeast still straining against bonds to his front left. "You and I both know that dragons – they – they are kind amazing creatures. To be loved. Protected." Continuing to gesture passionately, Hiccup called out, "Are your dragons any safer and freer now that you have killed a number of ours? And a number of yours as well? You've done nothing good for either Vikings or dragons."
"Is that what you think?" she hissed. It seemed so strange to hear her now-familiar voice, which once spoke so eagerly to Hiccup of mapping the world together and discovering new species, now spit venom against him. Hostility coated her words now. Fury. "I have fought against men who attacked my doorstep and tried to take down the alpha. What did you do? You joined them."
"Mom, I –"
"Don't call me that." Her voice was cold, her face hidden, her body language stiff, yet Hiccup heard the rejection in her words clearly nonetheless. "Stoick always said you would become the strongest of them all. But he was wrong."
Hiccup took a step back.
"I thought I had found someone who understood the importance of dragons, someone who would fight against dragon trappers, who would fly beside me in the air, forget the cold, and know what it feels like to be a dragon."
He took another step back as she took one step forward.
"How could you? I should have known. I should have seen the signs." She pointed to Toothless' tail, the red flag contrasting brightly with the dull-colored dirt beneath it. "You're not a dragon rider. You're a threat to me, just as much as Drago."
One step forward.
"I'm not a threat to you. I –"
One step back.
"You call yourself a dragon rider," the Vigilante spat the word, "but you fight for their captors."
Step forward.
"They wouldn't be ensnaring dragons if you weren't attacking them!"
Step back.
"I am attacking them because of generations of Vikings harming dragons!"
Forward.
Back.
Forward.
"The world wants peace," Hiccup argued, stumbling over the ground as he inched away from the Vigilante. From a dragon – the mask stole her persona – she was Viking woman no more. An angry dragon now. But Hiccup persisted. "And we have the answer back on Berk. Just – let me show you –"
"No," she said. She stopped moving forward. "No." Reiteration. "Let me show you. In the face of it all, your bond with dragons –" she held up her staff – "means" – pointed it toward the alpha – "nothing" – and drew a line in the air with that staff from the alpha to Toothless, who stared at the entire proceeding with great trepidation.
Your bond with dragons means nothing.
And Toothless suddenly began to struggle in the dirt. His eyes jerked away from the alpha, and he squeezed them shut tightly, and then he started shaking his head as though warding off an attack. The dragon backed up as Hiccup, worried, asked, "Toothless?" And though Hiccup tried to reach forward to comfort his dragon, Toothless squawked out pitiably, lashed out backward against an unseen aggressor, and stumbled away from Hiccup's reaching hand. He rolled onto the ground with a short, sharp roar.
Hiccup, glancing upward toward the looming face of the Bewilderbeast, flinched as its enormous eye bore through Toothless.
"Toothless, you okay bud? What's going on?"
Toothless' struggles increased to agitated flails.
What is the alpha doing to him? That had to be what was happening – that somehow the alpha was trying to take control over Toothless.
Valka kept her staff raised and pointed straight at Toothless, an imposing dragon herself in her spine-covered armor.
Toothless' quavering halted.
He rose his head from the ground. And when he opened his eyes, they were mere slits, mirroring the Bewilderbeast's own narrowed pupil.
Your bond with dragons means nothing.
The Vigilante's staff shifted from Toothless to Hiccup, and Toothless' gaze shifted from the Bewilderbeast and Valka to his rider.
No, not Toothless. This could not be Toothless. Could not be dragon who tore off tree branches to draw scribbles in the dirt, who spent three days in the ocean fishing out Hiccup's fallen helm, who wrestled in the dirt with him, slobbered all over his face, tried to steal his food, flew to the skies with him, flew in the air where the two of them were free, free, free, together exhilarated as they corkscrewed through clouds, this was not him, this was not that Toothless, this could not be Toothless at all. Even when they were enemies, Hiccup and Toothless, and a naïve fifteen year old Viking had first trapped Toothless in bolas, and Toothless never trusted Hiccup to touch his scales… even then that hostility dimmed in comparison to the slitted green eyes staring at Hiccup now.
This dragon – this non-Toothless – gazed at Hiccup both with dead intent and a strange, haunting vapidness, almost as though no mind processed who Hiccup was.
Perceived Hiccup, but knew him not.
A blank stare, but one with a goal in mind.
Toothless crouched down, crept forward, and began stalking his own rider.
The fear of being prey clouded Hiccup's mind. He felt his heart race, and as he held up a hand between himself and Toothless, he noticed every finger shake, arm unstable and jittering in terror. He found himself crouching downward, trying to edge away, trying to slip from that stare, stepping backwards, stumbling backwards up against a chunk of ice, catching himself, standing back up only to keep creeping backward, keep inching away from Toothless, this non-Toothless, this pair of menacing eyes, this horror.
How had he forgotten the size of a Night Fury? Its daunting size. The sharp talons its feet. Its enormous wingspan. The parallel rows of sharpened teeth.
The words of an old dragon manual began to play unbidden in the back of Hiccup's mind.
Night Fury: speed unknown. Size unknown.
"Toothless, come on," he begged. He kept his hand outstretched as he continued backing up – though whether that hand was to reach out to a friend, or shield himself against an enemy, he did not know. "What's the matter with you?"
A growl escaped the dragon's jaw.
The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.
"No no no no no… what are you doing? Knock it off!" He could hear his voice rising, distantly, in the small part of his mind not paralyzed from fear. "Stop!" He threw out his hands. They were outreached for defense now – he knew it – defense against a threat. "Snap out of it!" And the dragon's mouth opened with an antagonistic snarl, and from behind the tongue came a faint blue glow, a familiar glow… the glow of a plasma blast…
Never engage this dragon.
"Toothless, no!"
A blue glow rising from its serrated teeth.
"Toothless!"
The sound of a screech beginning to rise in the dragon's maw.
Blue.
"Don't!"
Your only chance: hide and pray it does not find you.
Death advancing.
Brighter blue. Fringes of purple and white.
And in the back of his mind Hiccup heard a shout, calling out his own name. He jerked his head left. There, rushing forward, his father. "Son!"
Screeching loudening.
Blues. Whites. Purples.
Coming death.
A Night Fury never misses.
Someone – "Dad!" – a screech – is – Stoick hurling forward – going – "No!" – pounding heart – to – pounding footsteps – die.
A blast of light.
A sonic boom.
Impact.
Then… nothing.
His ears rang and he was aware of nothing else.