Chapter Six: Where The Rot Lies
Nestor realized that he had inadvertently dozed off during the flight when he felt a comfortable warmness flowing around his body, the kind you felt when it was a brisk day and you had a sunbeam available to lounge around in. The warmth made him want to sleep more – it was the realization that shot him awake. There were no sunbeams to lounge in. In fact, the weather was sending cornflake snow his way, the floating ice crystals pelting him in a painless-yet-irritating fashion as they flew on. Thanks to living in the wilds for several years with Arc, he knew about the dangers of exposure and hypothermia. Getting warm again after being too cold was a sign of your body shutting down. It was a sign that death was giving you a fire to warm your way to the afterlife.
Coming awake, he made a second realization – the warmth was everywhere. He felt cradled by it, a babe in a blanket. His hands had feeling again, and when he placed them on Proto's metal surface he felt the pleasant heat pulsing up from the magic steel. It permeated the air around him and warded off most of the chill, though the wind in his face was potent enough to penetrate the heat cocoon.
Human Nestor awake, piped in Proto.
"That I am," agreed Nestor. "You're warming me up, I see."
Human Nestor's body temperature dropping below acceptable levels. Atmospheric conditions hazardous to survival. This unit increased proximity temperature to compensate.
"Much appreciated." Nestor allowed himself another smile. Customized seating and temperature control – he may never ride another dragon ever again. Too bad he couldn't get a meal on this flight, so he opened his mouth and tried to catch as many snowflakes as possible on his tongue. Most of it stung his nose and cheeks, but he tasted a good many of them and it took the edge off his hunger. Still, his stomach's complaining was reaching epic levels. He felt ravenous enough to devour an iceberg.
Speaking of icebergs, he noticed a flotilla of them in the direction Proto was traveling. Most of them were little more than raft-sized chunks ebbing and bouncing in the tide. Landing on one of them would likely crack or capsize it and spill anyone on the surface into the freezing Arctic waters.
Arctic waters…
Nestor had been feeling a serious case of the willies for most of the flight. While ninety-nine percent of the landscape was cold ocean, the few landmarks and other notable pieces of scenery were making him feel like he was in familiar territory. The icebergs seriously contributed to the idea. They formed a semi-circle in the water, expanding outward like they had once been a part of a bigger iceberg that had cracked into dozens of smaller one. They hadn't gone far – little real current by the looks of the calm sea – but give it a year and the ice would most likely disappear entirely from this spot.
Nestor wouldn't quickly forget the day he witnessed a mechanical horror erupt from the Isle of Frost, an ancient machine designed to win a war that had already been lost twenty thousand years ago. The Isle of Frost disintegrated that day, replaced by the Monolith. The machine had pushed aside the surviving icebergs as it emerged, and Nestor couldn't help but believe that the residual pattern of the ice down below was all that was left.
But that was crazy. Surely they couldn't be back at the Isle of Frost's former location. It was a big world with lots of secret hiding spots. The Artisans wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket. They wouldn't put two super-secret projects so close together that discovering one would jeopardize the other.
Unless…
Proto veered to the right so sharply that Nestor cried out in panic, sliding down further into his seat to avoid getting thrown off. Proto didn't repeat the maneuver and easily centered itself on a new direction. With the clouds obscuring the sun, Nestor couldn't deduce the new course exactly. He guessed they were now taking a southeastern direction.
"Proto, what's happening?" he asked.
Proto's head-tentacle, which had been fixed forward during the entire flight, swiveled around to stare Nestor in the eyes. Perhaps it was trying to be a courteous speaker, or it actually was curious about Nestor right now, but Nestor really wished it would go back to watching the airspace ahead. Less creepy that way.
429's trail leads this direction, Proto explained. Energy trail signals abrupt change in course, reasons unknown.
"Why would it come out here just to change course?" reasoned Nestor.
Proto paused, then shifted its head so that it was looking behind them, at the semi-circle of ice flows on the ocean below. Energy trail dispersion rate suggests 429 initiated search pattern activity through this region and then shifted direction after 3.334 hours. Probability high that 429 failed to find what it was searching for.
"Hmm… If I heard you right, 429 was looking for something here and left when it couldn't find it." It almost felt like good news. "Over three hours… are we catching up?"
429 still leads this unit, but lead distance diminished. Estimate is less than 0.23 hours lead-time.
That was something to cheer about, though Nestor could barely muster the energy to yawn right now. If 429 could be delayed a little longer, they might have a chance. It might help if they could figure out what it was after.
"Proto, if you found yourself wandering around without orders, without anyone to rely on, and you were low on power, what would you do?"
Find an engineer. No hesitation at all. Engineer would supply energy, repairs, and new commands.
"So is it possible that 429 is doing the same thing?"
Probability is likely, though 429's corrupted command structure makes this conclusion unstable. Also explains why 429 would approach this location. Archived data suggests location was Special Project Site.
That's all Nestor needed to get his epiphany properly formed. The Monolith – Special Project Site. One of the nagging questions in Nestor's inventory of unsolved mysteries was why there weren't Artisan ruins on the islands near the Isle of Frost, or why all the Shadow Halls that had information on the Monolith had been hundreds of miles away from the actual machine the Artisans had been putting together. Practically, you left your tools at the blacksmith shop where you were building your wagon, not three kingdoms away.
That is, not unless you had a means to jump hundreds of miles instantly. If you had a T-Node and a working "network," whatever that meant, you could covertly get around the world and build your secret weapons without the Ancestors figuring out what you were up to. Clever… though not enough to turn the tide of the war, as it turned out.
Proto mentioned the T-Node site being forced to close down, forcing Proto and his Guardian brother to standby for further instructions, a wait that continued in vain for eons. Nestor remembered how abruptly the ancient diary of the turtle-loving siege engineer had ended, the diary that gave him and his friends the knowledge they needed to take out the Monolith. Maybe the two were connected – the engineer getting found and snuffed out, his diary left behind in the process, which then forced the Artisans to shut everything down, Monolith and T-Node network alike, to keep the Ancestors from finding and destroying them.
But what really rattled Nestor was his virtual certainty that he was back in Hiccup's home territory. To cross all the distance and fight all those battles, only to end up going in circles. That was some crazy Fate's Luck right there. On the plus side, there was Berk, a friendly village where he might elicit assistance from Hiccup's father and friends, though he had no idea what they could do for him or how he would explain to the Chief what had happened to his son.
It really didn't change anything, though. His best chance at finding Hiccup required that he recover the T-Node from 429. That meant figuring out 429's objective. It wasn't Berk, that was for sure. They were heading the wrong direction for Berk to be 429's target.
"If 429 is looking for its masters," mused Nestor, "it's safe to say it's not going to find them. What would be its alternative?"
If no engineer is available, 429 would then search for closest acceptable substitute.
"Closest acceptable…?" On the surface, the wording made it sound harmless, but Nestor had a feeling it was anything but.
Clarifying: In instance of significant internal command disruption, Guardian units are required to reconnect with Artisan Authority to gain new commands. 429 will seek out a human organism it deems to have authority and information compatible with its command structure.
"Okay, it's looking for someone to take charge. But… its command structure is corrupt, so we don't actually know who 429 will deem 'compatible,' will we?"
Human Nestor's analysis is correct.
Nestor leaned back into his warm spot, too wound up now to feel the tiniest bit like napping. They might have an idea about what 429 was after, but it didn't really help them much. Any way you sliced it, they still had a long chase ahead of them. It was the Arctic Circle on the edge of winter – who'd be out here for 429 to run into?
The Outcasts had a lot of rope at their disposal, and they went about using it liberally on the Dragon Squad and their dragons. By the time they were done, all three dragons had their legs, wings, and mouths bound up nice and tight. A good thing for the Outcasts, as Snotlout noticed Fenrir stirring just as the Nightmare's mouth was gagged.
Snotlout sat on the ground next to his friends with about fifty feet of rope wrapped around his arms and torso. Fishlegs had twice that amount, and at some point it occurred to the Outcasts that they were running low on rope because they decided to tie Ruffnut and Tuffnut together back to back. Snotlout wasn't sure why Alvin was bothering, as they couldn't escape without their dragons. Maybe Alvin had suffered too many defeats at the hands of Hiccup and had decided he wasn't taking chances today.
Strategy didn't come easy to Snotlout, but it did occur to him that Fenrir could burn off his bindings within seconds with one good burst of spontaneous combustion. Unfortunately, Alvin had two of his goons stationed to the left and right of the dragon's neck, where it wouldn't take them long to bring down their battleaxes at the slightest sign of fire. Snotlout had worked hard to get Fenrir not to burst into flames at the first signs of trouble, but he did have a word at his disposal that would command Fenrir to get flaming. He just needed to time it right.
Patience? Was that the idea here? Eessh. It felt too much like something Hiccup would do.
"You all comfy?" chided Alvin, standing before his men with his hands on his hips and a sneer of his lips.
"Could you tie me up to Fishlegs instead?" asked Ruffnut.
"Stop asking these guys already," said Tuffnut. "We're stuck, get over it."
"Let me explain a few things so that you four get an idea of how much work I've put into this plan of mine," said Alvin, pacing back and forth in front of the bound Vikings as he speechified, "and why I'll be deeply unhappy if I don't get what I want. For starters, Outcast Island is not a fun place to build a vacation cottage, much less live there, and I've wanted to come back home to Berk for some time. Greener pastures, revenge on Stoick and his son, my lost collection of petrified dragons eggs… all valid reasons. But I can't do this unless I train some dragons of my own, and my personal attempts to yell and threaten them into submission haven't borne fruit. But you all know this because all my plans up until now have revolved around that goal of mine. You're sick of it, I'm sick of it, and I'd gladly try something different except for the fact that somebody went and signed a peace treaty with the Gunnarr Clan that included mutual defense against… wait for it… me and my men."
Alvin got right up into Snotlout's face, his sour breath nearly overwhelming the lad. "Now I can't sail a longboat thirty miles from Outcast Island without getting fired on by a Gunnarr warship! This makes me cranky!" He backed off to continue his pacing, much to Snotlout's relief.
"But I have a few smuggling friends that share things with me. Like, say, that the Dragon Conqueror has left Berk and is traveling the world for some stupid reason. That means he's out and exposed. So I paid for a few mercenary spies to find a way into Berk, watch the habits of Hiccup's friends – that'd be you – and figure out a way to separate you from your village so we could have a private chat. It was nice of you to pick an island like this, by the way. This plan took a lot of gold and lot of patience – two things I don't have much of - and I want a return on my investment. So tell me where Hiccup is, and I'll let you all go back to your pathetic lives."
"We don't know where he went," said Fishlegs, "but even if we did…"
"Right, right, you wouldn't tell me." Alvin groaned at the predictable response. "I don't expect any of you to know his exact location, but you probably know his general direction. I can figure out the rest; a whelp on a black dragon tends to stand out in a crowd. People will see him and remember him. I just need a place to start."
"Personally, I'd love to give you directions," began Snotlout nervously. "I'm not exactly the best of friends with Hiccup these days. But we haven't heard from him since he left Berk, not a single letter or even a decent rumor. We're in the dark, all of us, and you can't squeeze blood from a stone."
"I tried that once," said Alvin. "The saying is true, but the stone suffered just the same… much like how you four will suffer if I don't get something useful in the next ten seconds."
Snotlout thought hard about any lie or half-truth that might sound plausible to the Outcast leader. Maybe he could say that Hiccup had gone to… uh, Denmark? Valhalla? His grandmother's house? It was times like this that Snotlout wished he'd paid attention to his dad's lessons on how to read a map instead of creating pickup lines for women… none of which actually worked.
"Go ahead and do whatever you're going to do," said Ruffnut defiantly.
"Uh…" stammered her brother. "She doesn't speak for all of us."
"He's going to do it anyway," said Ruffnut. "His name says it all."
"You must be the brightest of the bunch," said Alvin, chuckling at his own comment. "But at the same time, there are certain degrees of suffering you can avoid if you're cooperative. For example…"
Alvin went over to Chomps, the dragon's eyes half-closed with drowsiness but able to track the massive Viking as he took a battleaxe from one of the guards and balanced it in his hands. "I actually like Gronckles. They remind me of my mother – tough, ugly, and cursed with constant dragon breath. And just like my mother, I'm not afraid to cut her life short."
"No!" cried out Fishlegs. "We don't know anything!"
Alvin grinned savagely. "Not what I'm looking for."
He began to pull back the axe, Chomps eyeing Alvin with shaking fear and struggling to break free of the strong rope binding her wings. Alvin wound up for a big swing, one that would take the dragon's head clean off. Fishlegs cried out a tear-laced denial as the axe reached its zenith above Alvin's head and…
"Sir, wait!" shouted one of Alvin's goons, the surprise outburst making Alvin jerk and lower the axe before he could finish his chop. Alvin gave his subordinate an extremely dangerous glare, as if saying that somebody was losing their head right now, and it might not be the dragon.
"I think one of Berk's dragons has found us," continued the goon, pointing a dirty hand to the sky. Alvin and the other Outcasts reluctantly looked to the west, where there was a spec in the distance that was growing steadily bigger, coming this way at a rapid pace.
Snotlout twisted his head to watch as the flyer gained more definition. He also assumed it was a dragon; anything flying around these parts had a good chance of being one. But there was a shiny hue to this dragon, like its skin was metallic. No dragon he knew shined like that.
"I don't think that's a dragon," squealed Fishlegs. "It looks more like a…"
"Shh!" demanded Snotlout. "Let them figure that out." Thankfully none of the Outcasts had heard Fishlegs. Whatever it was, it might be the distraction he needed to…
"AIIEEE!"
The girlish scream originated from a particularly brutish Outcast, a reaction shared by most of his comrades as the flying object picked up a sudden burst of speed and dropped from the sky. It exercised enough control at the last moment to softly land before the Vikings with the lithe grace of a snowflake, in contradiction to the misshapen, shell-like hunk of metal it resembled. More shouts erupted when it suddenly formed legs from its sides and a snake-like head from its front, its three eyes of yellow blazing like torch fires at night.
"Steel devil!" cried out a different Outcast in an equally high-pitched tone. A chorus of curses and exclamations circled the dozen or so Vikings. Predictably they raised their weapons in threatening gestures as the steel monster took to the ground and swept its glowing gaze over them.
It seemed to be ignoring Snotlout and his bound-up friends, who were all staring at the mysterious newcomer with a fair shade of terror. Snotlout was still using his heroics during the Battle of the Monolith to get on the good side of the village girls… not that he stayed on their good side for long. He knew very well what those Guardian things could do. With their dragons immobilized, they were all kinds of helpless if it decided to crush their heads for amusement. The only bright spot was it'd start with Alvin and his bunch.
Alvin kept his mouth shut and his face emotionless, either pretending to be unimpressed or actually unimpressed. He hadn't really believed the tales of steel devils attacking Berk, mostly because the tales made Stoick and Hiccup out to be big heroes once again and he couldn't stand hearing any more stories about his enemies triumphing over and over. But it was hard to deny a steel devil when it falls from the heavens and lands in front of you. Then again, weren't devils supposed to come from below?
Skeptical but not stupid, Alvin looked over at his closest subordinate and said. "Do me a solid and approach the devil."
"I'd… rather not," pleaded the subordinate, which was possibly the worst thing he could have said to Alvin as the Outcast leader saw pleas as invitations to increase the cruelty.
Alvin's cruel smile returned, and the subordinate appeared to shrink a foot in that smile's presence. "Put it this way – what's the worst that can happen with that steel devil compared to the worst thing that can happen with me?"
The subordinate immediately snapped to it, his steps were slow and cautious as he walked toward the metal creature. It swung its head to the Viking and watched him close in, the Viking's face twisted in fear, his warmace at the ready. The Outcasts had heard a few rumors about steel devils and what they heard had them close to soiling their underwear.
The Guardian took two steps toward the Viking, a fairly harmless act that suggested curiosity more than hostility. However, one didn't reach the infamous state of being an Outcast by being friendly or having good impulse control. The Outcast freaked and raised his warmace above his head in preparation of a good smackdown. But the actual smackdown came from the other direction.
A tentacle erupted from the Guardian's body at lightning speed, its pinchers grabbing the head of the warmace and yanking the weapon effortlessly from the Outcast. A second tentacle ensnared the cursing Viking around his waist and lifted him off his feet. The tentacle retracted, bringing the squirming, swearing Viking within inches of the tentacle head, its eyes looking the man up and down as if sizing him up for dinner. Then the metal creature tossed the Viking away like it was discarding a chicken bone, the screaming Viking skidding on top of a bank of snow until a bigger bank stopped him amidst an explosion of ice and frost.
For added effect, the Guardian proceeded to crush the warmace between its pinchers until the head snapped into four pieces and fell to the ground. It quietly went back to watching the Outcasts quiver in heightened terror.
Alvin, on the other hand, laughed as if the Guardian had just told a great joke. "Ease up, boys. I think we better skip the usual pleasantries and see what it's here for."
"What if it's here for us?" asked another goon.
"Nah," Alvin confidentially stated. "If it was, it'd be ripping our hearts out right now. I've heard of these things, these steel devils, but everything I heard says they're all gone, wiped out by our tied-up guests." Alvin sent a contemptuous look Snotlout's way. "You want to see how a real man confronts a devil without a dragon? Watch and learn."
Alvin handed off his axe and took several confident steps toward the Guardian, as if daring it to try something. Oddly enough, the Guardian didn't, and it let Alvin get right up to its yellow-eyed face unmolested. Alvin put his hands on his hips and tried out his most intimidating glare on the thing. It was hard to tell if it was impressed.
"I'm Alvin the Treacherous, leader of Outcast Island. Is there something we can do for you?"
A loud burst of discordant noise came out of nowhere, forcing Alvin and his bunch to cover their ears in defense. With their hands bound up, Snotlout and his friends had to suffer through the irritating whine until he ended several seconds later. Shaking his head in a futile effort to stop the ringing in his ears, Snotlout watched as Alvin lowered his hands from his head and stared into the Guardian's eyes as if in a trance. A weirdly pleasant trance, if the smile on his face was any indication, one that went on and on with occasional nods or shakes of the head from Alvin, the Guardian's head entirely focused on the Outcast leader.
The duration of the trance went from seconds to minutes, Alvin's men choosing to hang back, mutter and whisper without lifting a finger to help their leader. They were probably scared of what the Guardian would do if they interfered… or what their psychotic leader would do.
Snotlout exchanged quiet glances with his friends, none of them offering any hope of a good plan. It occurred to Snotlout that now might be the time to unleash Fenrir and roll the dice that they'd catch the Outcasts and the Guardian off guard. But he and his friends were quite tied up, as were Chomps and the Zippleback, and Fenrir couldn't rescue them all before the Outcasts descended on them with their axes and hammers. Plus that Guardian thing seemed more dangerous than all the Outcasts combined. If Fenrir went down, they'd all die. But if Snotlout didn't do something, they were all dead anyway.
Not for the first time, Snotlout really wished Hiccup was around to do something smart.
Even if there hadn't been geysers of sand spouting into the air to pinpoint the Wyrm's progress across the Desolation, the sizable swath of earth displaced by the creature made trailing it a breeze. Hiccup's dilemma was what to do when they caught up… which, at current speeds, was in less than thirty seconds.
The creature was making a beeline through the sands for a distant location, with no thought or concern for the dragon tailing it from the air. Hiccup had Toothless take a parallel course to the creature rather than flying over it, in case the Wyrm tried anything clever. They had come into fireball range and he could order an attack at any time. He wasn't sure how fireproof the creature was, but even if it burned like kindling on hot coals the thing was far too big to take down that way.
He needed to test out how much it didn't like fire before he could come up with a better plan.
"Let's get its attention," said Hiccup, and he told Toothless to hit it directly. Hiccup hated using dragon fire on living things unless there was no other alternative. It was safe to say there was no other alternative.
Three plasma blasts darted out of Toothless and impacted the worm's hide seconds later. A flash of blue flame and a burst of smoke later, three black scorch marks adorned the impact sights, minute wounds when compared to the overwhelming bulk of the creature. The Wyrm didn't even bother to react, keeping up its frantic pace and paying the burns no heed.
Valha had kept silent during their flight, which didn't bother Hiccup so much as made him feel that much lonelier, once again stuck in the role of the man with the plan but with no insights into the Wyrm's behavior other than it had an ego.
"Its hide is too thick," Hiccup said, declaring the obvious. He thought about targeting the beast's legs, but he doubted he could injure enough of them to do much good. Thankfully, this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with colossal threats, and what worked once might work a second time.
"Get ahead of it, bud," ordered Hiccup to Toothless. "We'll take this to the head of the problem. Maybe we can convince it that this meal isn't worth having." Toothless waggled an affirmative and narrowed his profile to gain more speed. Toothless had been exceedingly cooperative during the whole flight, even putting up with a suspicious passenger. It was actually a little weird – Hiccup couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about Toothless didn't seem right, a little nuance that felt different. But he wasn't actually worried about it, not with the Wyrm and Valha to fret over, not when Toothless was utterly on his A-game.
Hiccup watched the Wyrm's head surface and dive through the sands, like a dolphin in the ocean taking a breath before submerging. As Toothless took the lead, Hiccup saw that the creature's mouth opened as it surfaced, showing off its insanely large collection of teeth. Perhaps this was as simple as following a strategy that had worked wonders against a previous giant monster – give the thing a bad case of heartburn.
It was a narrow target though, the mouth opening for less than a second before diving into the sand. It meant two things – great timing and a head-on attack.
"I have a plan, bud. Hopefully it doesn't sound too crazy." Hiccup explained it, expecting a wary stare from his dragon buddy. He didn't get one, just another head waggle and Toothless putting on top speed. Hiccup had to put a protective hand to his eyes and duck down to reduce the quantity of stinging sand projectiles assailing him until Toothless had raced ahead of their target.
That little off-feeling again returned as Toothless gained a good mile lead and banked a one hundred and eighty degree turn, perfectly placing them in a collision course with the creature. Hiccup's heart increased its tempo, but neither Toothless nor Valha showed any signs of anxiety over the fact that they were speeding towards a one-swallow-and-you're-gone-sized worm. There was no reaction from the monster, nor did it adjust its heading – either it couldn't see them coming, or it didn't care.
"Wait for it, bud," Hiccup ordered. This was going to be tricky. The delay between his order and Toothless's reaction might trip them up, but there was no other way to send a fireball down the worm's digestive tract. Hopefully they didn't go in themselves.
The Wyrm closed in on them, the great rolling mass of flesh looming like a tidal wave of worm meat. Hiccup began counting to five in his head, knowing that reaching five meant the worm's head would be visible… he hoped.
The head emerged from the sand, climbing up to greet the incoming dragon and its riders. Its mouth parted wide and welcoming, an army of teeth poised to fatally greet Hiccup should this go wrong.
"Fire!" he yelled, right as he reached four. The next instant, a blue blaze of hot plasma flew from Toothless and crossed the distance to the Wyrm. The blast entered the mouth, frying off a pair of curved teeth before disappearing down its cavernous throat. The head submerged abruptly, as if reacting to the fiery meal by plunging into the sand once more.
Toothless veered off adeptly, missing the head by a few feet, as Hiccup watched the creature for more reactions, hoping for some sign of serious discomfort. Toothless sped away in case the Wyrm's reaction involved a lot of writhing and bucking about and sand spitting.
Indeed, there was a sign – assuming you counted the Wyrm changing course and putting on an unnatural burst of speed, its bulk causing a minor sand wave to envelop a half-dozen dunes as it turned around, its countless legs blurring together as it shifted its mass toward a new target – Toothless.
"It is following us," commented Valha.
"No, it's gaining on us," replied Hiccup, flabbergasted, feeling like the world lacked a lot of sense right now. The Wyrm's legion of legs had doubled their pace in a matter of seconds, its head bobbing up and down with ferocious determination as it came after them. He knew an angry monster when he saw one, and they had just cheesed off the mother of all worms something fierce.
"Full speed, bud!" Toothless obeyed immediately, the air buffeting them as the dragon blasted over the sands and whipped up little sand clouds of his own. Hiccup glanced over his shoulder and quickly wished he hadn't, for the mighty creature was somehow keeping pace with them, a storm of sand erupting behind it as it pursued.
"At least we've distracted it," Hiccup remarked nervously. They could ascend and get safely away, provided the Wyrm didn't have any wings up its wormy sleeves, but then the creature would merely go back to its original hunt: Valha's village. For now, having it chase them was a good thing. It just wouldn't stay a good thing for very long.
In trying to think of a new tactic, Hiccup's mind went to his returning off-feeling instead. In this case, it was Toothless's precise shot into the creature's mouth. Not the fact that it had done no perceivable damage, but that Toothless's timing had been perfect, firing right as Hiccup had spoken, almost as if Toothless had known Hiccup was about to say it.
It was too perfect a shot, even for Toothless.
"We cannot stay like this forever," said Valha, whose was certainly taking all this in stride. "The Wyrm will not tire, but your dragon will."
"I'm open to suggestions."
"I fear I have none."
Hiccup groaned in irritation. "Well, we better come up with something."
"Vill zis vork?"
For a second, Hiccup thought Valha had adopted a brand-new accent. Then the shimmering image of a large dragon shape whipped over his head, flying straight at the rampaging Wyrm. The shape quickly developed color and texture, resembling a spike-clad black dragon that Hiccup was very glad to see.
The dragon came within a few feet of the Wyrm's head, skimming over it like a daredevil with a death wish. Several lances of electricity erupted off the dragon's body, the lances raking the creature's body as Lothar traveled down its length, the creature recoiling and heaving in response. Lothar completed his attack run by fading into the sand storm behind the giant worm.
Fire in the gullet might not have impressed the beast, but electricity did the trick. The Wyrm's head reared up like a bucking horse, a massive gout of sand and worm spit spewing from its mouth in a great arc, the enraged monster blindly lashing out at its attacker. The Wyrm came to a halt as it threw its head around, a cloud of sand enveloping it as it thrashed and writhed in rage over the sting it had received.
With the Wyrm stopped in its tracks, Hiccup had Toothless slow down to a relative crawl and begin circling the sand cloud where the Wyrm continued its mad thrashing. He watched for any telling signs of shimmering air and found one coming toward him, Lothar de-Shrouding and forming up on the right. Though Hiccup hadn't had much practice with reading the facial cues of a Skrill, Lothar had a disgruntled look that was hard to mistake for anything else.
"How'd you find us?" asked Hiccup, trying to sound grateful and hoping to head off any incoming scathing remarks about not sticking to the watering hole.
"Hard to miss ze sandstorm your new friend creates in its passing," replied Lothar. "Did I not tell you to sit tight, zat bad zings happen in ze Desolation? Now you have acquired a girl and a giant vorm."
"Yeah, long story."
"Explanations later. I understand zat you and ze vorm are not getting along?"
Hiccup didn't immediately answer. The way Lothar had said explanations later… Too similar to the way somebody else in Hiccup's life used that phrase…
"Dragon Rider, attention!" Lothar's harsh voice snapped Hiccup back to focus. "The vorm vill soon realize I am not in its proximity."
"Right. You ever fought something like this?"
"Vorms are not my specialty, but I'm open to new experiences."
Hiccup went back to watching the Wyrm chase phantoms in the sand cloud, his heart growing heavier as he considered his options. Even after dealing with villains like Cervantes and the Alchemist, even with his soul overflowing with grim emotions, he didn't want to outright kill the creature. Even if Valha said it was a monster at its core, a being that desired worship at the cost of the lives of the innocent, destroying the Wyrm felt too much like the kind of path a Gunnarr or an Outcast would pursue. A path that led to your heart lying crumbled in your chest, trying to slate the void in your spirit by seeking the destruction of others over and over.
But there was another want inside him, one speaking with a bigger voice. He wanted his life reset to two months ago, when all threats were gone and everything was good. He wanted the weight to go away and never return. He wanted to have his future back, his Astrid back. And if he couldn't have that, then he wanted someone, or something, to pay for it.
And the Wyrm was right there, as good a scapegoat as any.
"Can you hit it with more lightning?" asked Hiccup.
Lothar gave him a questioning look. "Yes, but to vat end?"
"Distract it, keep its head out of the sand and exposed. I'll do the rest." Sending more fire down the creature's throat was the only tactic that seemed workable. The Wyrm had pursued Toothless after one fireball appetizer, so it must not have liked it. Maybe a whole volley would do the trick, and with Lothar here to assist they just might be able to pull it off.
Lothar nodded grimly. "I vill do this. Make your shots count, Dragon Rider."
Lothar broke away and sped towards the east, preparing to attack from the opposite direction. Hiccup explained to Toothless what the plan was, and Toothless agreed without question. Pretty simple as plans go – expose the head and fire every bolt of plasma Toothless had left into its mouth. It might not kill the creature, but it might wound it enough to slow it down until Hiccup and Lothar could think of a better attack plan.
"Is this wise?" asked Valha. "This puts Lothar in harm's way."
"He's a Hyperion. He knows how to handle himself." Hiccup didn't like the tough talk coming from his mouth. Lothar might be a lightning dragon like Arc, but his electricity was limited to his skin, requiring close-range action. Lothar was endangering himself for a plan that Hiccup wasn't sure would work.
The Wyrm had finally decided that his attacker had flown the coop, moving around in a circular pattern as if trying to make up its mind on where to go next. The sand spouted less vigorously, the clouds around the creature settling as it formed a rotating circle of worm meat and legs. A strange alteration from the previously single-minded tactics of the beast.
Hiccup now felt uneasy about the plan. The Wyrm was up to something, like it was expecting another attack but didn't know where. But there was no way to warn Lothar now. The Skrill had Shrouded, his distinctive form fading into the background of the endless dunes.
Maybe he was worrying over nothing. Lothar was a Hyperion – long-lived, smarter than your average human, and endowed with all sorts of nifty powers. If the dragon smelled a trap as well, he'd call off the attack.
Off to the south, a show of electrical power lit up the air and made the sand jump and dance as Lothar's nigh-invisible form swept over the circling worm. As before, the worm's skin writhed under the lightning assault – in fact, it writhed too much.
The section of the worm under attack jerked upward at a frightening speed, catching Lothar before he could react and batting the dragon around like a club batting a rock into the air. Lothar's lightning and Shrouding quit instantly as the dragon tumbled out of control, still airborne but just so. Hiccup watched as the struggling Hyperion sought to get his wings straightened out, and it was with considerable effort that he did, arcing back into the air a heartbeat before plowing into the sands surrounding the Wyrm.
The head of the Wyrm was waiting for him, aiming its cone-shaped mouth at Lothar and unleashing a funnel of grit right at the flailing dragon. It was Lothar's turn to writhe as the sand clumped to the Skrill's wings and disoriented him. Hiccup thought he heard a forlorn cry as Lothar twisted in midair, desperately trying to fling off the sand and half-succeeding. But the dragon was so occupied with ridding his body of the intrusive grit that he failed to notice his current heading, or that the Wyrm's head had shifted to intercept him.
Valha gasped behind Hiccup as they watched Lothar half-tumble, half-glide into the monster's maw, the Hyperion barely reacting as he crossed the opening. Just like that, the dragon disappeared as if he had never existed. No death scene, no final words. The Hyperion had gone down the monster's throat as easily as a cod slipped into a Night Fury's craw.
Speechless, demoralized to the extreme, Hiccup watched the creature resume its original direction towards the horizon. Hiccup swore the Wyrm looked satisfied as its head dived back into the dunes. He didn't bother to order Toothless to pursue, though the dragon went ahead and did so anyway, maintaining the same speed and heading as the traveling worm.
"A brave dragon," said Valha mournfully. "A brave, brave dragon."
Hiccup knew now that there was nothing he could do to stop the Wyrm. Even if Toothless's full spread of fireballs could do anything other than inconvenience the creature, it wouldn't give up its desire to wreak vengeance on Valha's village. It was too big and too powerful. There were no more clever tricks he had at his disposal, no more allies to act as distractions. The best-case scenario was that it could be delayed for a time, but such efforts would lead to their deaths eventually.
Without Lothar to lead them out of the Desolation, they would all die in the wastes anyway.
Back to the miserable state he was in before Lothar arrived, Hiccup let Toothless do the flying while he sat back quietly, ignoring Valha's occasional questions about what they were doing next, ignoring the blistering heat that slowly baked him, ignoring the repeating faces of the dunes below him or the slapping sand that nipped him from time to time. It was too much for him. This enemy was too much for him, like the Alchemist had been too much. Everything was too much for him…
The barrier field.
It came to him as suddenly as one of his typical bouts of inspiration, but it wasn't inspiration. It was more or less deduction, the culminations of several subtle clues that had pestered him all morning. This one clue, this important one, succeeded in cutting though his despair better than any clichéd advice or false hope.
Lothar's barrier field… or more accurately, the lack of one.
Even in abject misery, Hiccup's mind still held that one enduring trait that defined him – his desire to tinker, to discern past mistakes and get around them, to find a solution to an insurmountable problem. If you couldn't lift an axe, build a machine to lift one for you. If your dragon can't fly without a rudder, build him a replacement. If the rulebook says you can't win a battle, rewrite the rulebook.
And when something doesn't smell right, that usually meant it's rotten. The question was, where did the rot lie?