Chapter 33

It was chaos. Organized chaos, but still chaos. Gobber was inside the forge, virtually shoving weapons out the window and into the greedy hands of the awaiting crowd. Somehow, even though they were all reaching and pushing against each other, nobody got cut. Some were even organized enough to look around and trade others for weapons they liked better. Those who were satisfied were polishing helmets, down at the docks pulling boats to safer ground, or slamming their fists into shields to test for weakness. Typical Viking things.

Berk's children had disappeared, hidden inside homes or their designated hidey-holes. A Viking couple stood upon the village walls where they could see out across the water. One peered through his spyglass, and earlier he had whispered something to his partner, who had blasted a small horn in response. Around ten seconds later, Berk's taller-than-any-man, spiralling horn – our real warning horn – bellowed. The distant ships probably heard it, and would have known that we were preparing for them, but their crew didn't seem to be having second thoughts.

The dragons were in an uproar. They weren't stupid. They knew what drawn weapons meant. The question was whether they could tell where the threat was. Many of them obviously couldn't and were zipping through the village, or shadowing their owners. The calmer dragons were either perched on the walls and their associated guard towers, or on rooftops near the front of the village. They must have sensed the direction of the danger, but not all of them were facing the right way.

Dad climbed up the stairs to the top of the wall with a couple of senior Vikings. I landed next to him as he approached the spyglass-wielding man.

"That would be the Berserk's flag, all right," the man said.

Dad growled under his breath. "Ready the catapults. We want to scatter the fleet if we can."

"Why don't we just burn them?"

Everyone turned. We were surprised, but not really surprised to see the twins. They had a talent for sneaking about unnoticed.

"Their ships are made of wood," Tuffnut continued. "Our dragons breathe fire. Fire beats wood. Doesn't seem like much to worry about to me."

"We could just ask Toothless, or Hiccup, to blast them from here," Ruffnut said. "Sn-. . . We heard from someone that he had a pretty good shot."

No on commented on her little 'slip'.

"If these were the Romans, I would agree," Dad said. "The tribes wouldn't care about what we did to them. But if we were to destroy an entire army before they even came within reach . . . even if it was self-defense, the Chiefs are leery after what happened with Dagur. We would be too dangerous, and the other tribes would unite to cut us down. The Berserks must be allowed to approach Berk."

He hadn't summoned them, but at the sight of their Chief standing upon the walls, it seemed like every warrior had gathered below, awaiting his orders. My nose had told me they were there, but Dad knew either by instinct or experience. He turned, not betraying even the slightest hint of shock, and launched into his speech.

"We keep them outside the walls," he said. "Not a single one of them will be permitted inside. Dragon riders, you have permission to burn the docks, but you and your dragons keep the fight outside the walls. I don't want any fires in the village."

"Aren't we using our own warships?" someone asked.

Dad answered, "No. Our advantage is our dragons and their fire. I'd rather keep wood away from our side.

"We man the catapults, and force them to break formation and scatter their landings . Riders, once they are close enough that you can see the gender of their crew, burn the ships. Make them swim. They'll shed their heavy weapons and armour if you do. If those ships make it past you, we overwhelm the landers with fire and numbers. Force them back onto the ships or into the water. We'll break their spirit before the fighting even begins.

"And take off your helmets if they have horns. It's not dragons we're fighting anymore."

The orders had been given. Men and women scurried off to do his bidding. Astrid and Stormfly were the first of the dragon riders to take off, followed by the twins and their Zippleback, and then the slow Meatlug and Fishlegs. I could hear Grump rumbling, but I wasn't sure if Gobber whether would take the fat, lazy dragon into battle or he would prefer to fight on his two (err, one!) feet.

"Hiccup." When Dad said my name, I snapped to attention. "You stay with Toothless."

Easy. Toothless wasn't about to leave my side anyways.

Dad raised his hand and shouted, and the thunderous bark of his Rumblehorn answered. Skullcrusher hurdled up the wall's stairs, nearly shoving off a few unfortunate people. The dragon already had his saddle on – Gobber's doing, I bet – and there was even a helmet for his head, the fruits of Dad and Gobber's efforts to make it even more painful when he rammed things.

Unlike the other riders, he and Dad didn't stay in the air. They flew just enough to get past the walls, and then slammed down. They paced behind their army, Skullcrusher's height giving Dad room to see everything. With the incoming fleet still a ways off, the grounded Vikings took the time to psych themselves up. They joked, and laughed, and hit each other hard enough that the Romans would have thought that we knocked a few of our own out of commission. But these were Vikings. They were tougher than that. The dragon riders, with the teens in the forefront, made tight orbits near the shoreline. Every one of them had a spyglass handy.

And the dragons without riders? They were still pretty confused.

Time passed, and Dad shouted at the riders to land. By this point, the boats were close enough that the people on them resembled black splotches. Not nearly close enough for the dragons to attack.

But that wasn't the point.

It was like a tree falling. That's how loud and creaky the wood was when the ill-used catapults came to life. Only a couple of them were in regular use, and for sports instead of war. But Gobber was good at what he did and unlike mine would have (once upon a time), none of the ancient machines exploded. A lot of the rider-less dragons still fled as if they had.

The whistle the flung boulders made was eerily similar to a Night Fury, and a few people ducked on reflex. The first stone hit the water. A white plume rose higher than the gunwale of the nearest ship, splashing those inside. The second hit water. Then the third. Then all the rest seemingly at once. A wall of water blocked the fleet from sight.

Then, a wooden dragon head broke through the wall. The rest of the fleet followed, popping out at various times and positions. Not a single one had been hit, but that wasn't the point. We didn't need to hit them, just scatter them so they were easier to deal with. Besides, aiming catapults at a moving target was hard. I would know.

"Load them again! Fire together!" Dad shouted. His cry was taken up by Vikings closer to the catapults, informing their operators of the Chief's orders.

I caught a scent. Whipping around, l glared at the children who had snuck outside to watch, and snarled, "Get back inside!"

They didn't understand me. Nor was I big enough to command them. But Toothless bared his teeth and growled, and the children scurried back to safety.

A second wave of boulders came. This time, one punched straight through a longboat's sail, snapping the mast. It tipped sideways into the ocean, bringing the longboat's momentum to a complete halt. It had oars, but unless they cut loose that massive sail dragging in the water, it would take some time to reach shore.

The third wave was the most successful. One longboat had its serpent figurehead beheaded, and the impact damaged the front part of the hull enough for water to start seeping in. Another boulder had crashed into the middle of a longboat, and its crew was already abandoning ship.

A light whisper drifted on the air.

The riders took off. They converged on the closest ship, Stormfly swooping in close –

Suddenly, the Nadder pulled back. A faint gleam of silver flew through the air next to her.

"Don't tell me . . ."

The Viking from earlier had left his spyglass on the wall. I snatched it up, leapt onto Toothless's head, and held it still with my paws so I could look through.

It was true. The Berserkers hadn't come completely unprepared. They had machines rolling about the deck; if I were to guess, they were crude bola shooters, and crossbows. Designed specifically to deal with dragons.

"Guys!" I knew they couldn't hear me, but I couldn't stop myself. "They're ready for you. Watch out!"

But when the bola shooters fired at Barf and Belch and missed, I realized something else. These were no dragon trappers. They weren't even me. They weren't experienced with using these things.

The riders still had a chance.

And they knew it, too. Astrid brought Stormfly around again, and the twins urged their dragon on recklessly. Many of the other, less experienced riders closed in, as well. Only a few of them, Fishlegs included hung back. They either didn't trust their flying skills, or – as in Fishlegs's case – the speed of their dragon. With the bola shooters guarding them, and Vikings running back and forth with barrels of water, the ship took longer than expected to catch. Finally, though, it did, and the threat disappeared in a show of collapsing wood and orange light.

It wasn't so easy after that. That one ship had been ahead of the pack, but the rest were in small groups. I don't think there was any particular strategy to how the riders split up to go after the ships. It was probably based on whichever their predatory instincts told them was the most vulnerable.

Another two ships went down. But the third one in their group made it through. It sheared a pier nearly in two, before falling back into the water with a slosh. The Vikings readied their weapons.

"Make way!" Dad shouted. Skullcrusher thundered toward the invading ship. "No need for missiles right now, Skullcrusher. Regular fire will do."

The remaining Vikings dove out of the way, and Skullcrusher parked himself on the edge of the pier. He planted his paws, took a deep breath, and when the first invader leapt onto the wood, exhaled a massive cloud of flames.

The warriors cheered. The invader's silhouette disappeared from sight. A couple of bold, rider-less Nightmares, spurred on by pack instinct or just plain aggression , joined in on the attack. Even from here, I could hear the crackling of the water-soaked wood.

"Toothless, I think this might actually work!"

I should have known better than to tempt the gods like that.

Nobody expected it, least of all the dragons. A orange-wreathed figure exploded out of the flames. Perhaps thinking he had missed, Dad readjusted Skullcrusher's shot, centering it on the Viking. The Viking . . . did something. I couldn't tell from here. But Skullcrusher's fire wasn't working, and the Viking was running straight through the flames.

When he got close enough, Skullcrusher shut off his fire and bared his teeth instead. But the Viking flung out his red-hot shield and slammed his hammer against its center-

The sound stunned Skullcrusher and the two Nightmares. The next strike would have broken the Rumblehorn's skull if Dad hadn't leapt. He sprung across his dragon's head, driving the flat of his blade into the invader's armoured forehead. He swung his blade as Skullcrusher shook his head, trying to recover himself.

And then Dad fell back.

Others were running out of the flames with drawn weapons. They tripped in those places where the fire had weakened the wood, but otherwise seemed unaffected by the flames and heat.

"What's going on?"

Berk's warriors fell upon the invading party. Maybe they were immune to fire, but they weren't to steel. They were quickly forced back down the burning dock. But after seeing Skullcrusher's failure to stem their advance and realizing something had gone terribly wrong, many of the riders – Astrid and Fishlegs included – had fallen back to help. Only a few riders, primarily the twins (who for once may have been doing the smartest instead of the most distributive thing) continued to attack the ships. That meant that many of them got through, and they rolled into shore. It was when one of those ships landed, and its unhampered crew leapt ashore that I saw it: the glimmering, leathery material that made up their armour.

Dragon skin.

These weren't the Berserkers.

These were the Lava Louts.

How . . .? That flaming sail definitely bore the Skrill emblem of the Berserk clan. But none of these attackers seemed to belong to that tribe. They couldn't have . . . No . . . they wouldn't . . .

My skin crawled. If I had fur, it would be on edge. So many of the enemy ships had been set on fire, but the Lava Louts barely seemed to care. As if they knew it didn't matter, that they had another escape route . . .

That they weren't alone.

They were both here . . .

A Berserk flag, charred black along the bottom, fluttered in the breeze.

They were downwind.

They were in the forest.

"Toothless!"

I didn't wait for him. I took off, landing before the dark pines that bordered the village's east side. I didn't see anyone, and I didn't smell much beyond mulch and pine needles. But where else could they be? Where else could they have hidden long enough for this? They could have been camped out here for days, for all we knew.

My first instinct was to run to Dad, but the odds of me getting across my point in the middle of a raging battle weren't very high. That was assuming, of course, that Dad let me speak and didn't throw me into the house or something. Same went for all the other Vikings. They wouldn't know until Berk was besieged on both sides.

"We need dragons. Toothless, I need more dragons!"

I blew a ring of smoke, barking and hopping. Toothless cocked his head one way, then the other.

"Dragons, like us!" I pointed to myself, then laid my paw on his snout.

Toothless backed up a few steps.

And he howled.

It was similar to that low-frequency echolocation he used, only this one crawled under your skin. It gave me a feeling I didn't quite understand and actually made me a little . . . scared. Toothless snorted, scanning the village with a self-satisfied growl.

The first dragon appeared.

They were Terrors, Gothi's, I expected. They crawled out of a chimney, blinking with those wide, mischievous eyes. As more and more of them crawled out, they jostled for space, until a couple of them tumbled off and down the roof.

Gradually, more and more dragons appeared. Dragons of all species and sizes. They watched Toothless like a pack of dogs watching their master. Toothless stared at me, chin lifted smugly as if to ask, 'Is this what you meant?'

"Let's go."

They followed Toothless, and Toothless followed me; a hundred dragons took flight, all in pursuit of a common goal. We darkened the skies, and frightened birds with the sounds of our wingbeats.

It was harder than I thought. The forest canopy made searching for even an army difficult. I don't think any of us actually saw them, but a Rumblehorn picked up a scent and sounded the alarm; it had. Now that I knew where to look, if I squinted hard, I could see movement through the trees on the ground.

I looked back, telling Toothless with my eyes to follow my lead.

It wasn't like shooting rabbits. The rabbit didn't move until my flame flung them into the air. These Vikings moved; these Vikings knew what a dragon's shot sounded like. My shot burst against a tree trunk, showering the ground with motes.

But it was just the beginning.

The dragons around me fired into the woods and they, in turn, inspired the dragons around them to fire, so that a wave radiated outward, with me at the center. Toothless's shot hit first (almost before mine), lighting up the canopy from below with purple and white light. Solid, fire missiles left smoky trails as they ripped through the trees and pounded the forest floor. If the shouts were anything to go by, at least a few met their marks.

But the forest was doing a good job at hiding the Berserkers, and the dense foliage blocked the more conventional fire of dragons like the Nadder. Several of them, under the cover of the long-ranged dragons, tore through the canopy to get at the Vikings underneath. I'd rather we had all stayed up here in the safety of the clouds, but they were right. We needed to stop the Berserkers from reaching he village.

"Okay, everyone!" I squawked. "Follow my lead!"

I tilted myself downward –

"Whoa!"

I stopped short as something whizzed past me, close enough that my air under my wings wobbled. Whatever it was, it flew past me, growing slower each second, until a Nadder snatched it up.

An arrow.

That wasn't good.

"Hey, look at me!" This time, I aimed my squawk directly at a group of Zipplebacks. "Cover us."

I lit my mouth up, as if I was going to flame something. They mimicked me, and noxious gas leaked from their jaws. I needed to direct them, but I couldn't speak to them, and I don't know if they understood pointing with a paw . . .

Ears. I had ears.

I flicked my ears at the trees.

The Zipplebacks spewed their gas. It descended on the forest, covering it with a thick blanket. More arrows flew at us. Some dragons cried out, but I'm not sure if anyone was hit; I didn't dare check.

"Here we go . . ."

I fired into the gas cloud.

The rolling waves of gas became rolling waves of fire. It roared into life, flowing over the treetops and dripping through them like water. There was no way that anyone could see us through that. More importantly, there was no way that any arrows could pass through that intact.

This was our chance.

I plunged through the flames. The forest was thick with smoke from the Zippleback gas, and the dragons who had gotten here before us. Things were even more chaotic under here than they were at Berk. Fire fell from the sky; trees, bushes, moss, even mushrooms were on fire in random places, and it was that light that illuminated the battlefield, not the sun. Vikings were screaming. Dragons were screaming. With my dragon-enhanced hearing, I heard every one.

Toothless barrelled past me and into a Viking. He grabbed her by the arm, and shook almost playfully. Her axe fell from her hand, but she had a shield in her other one, and tried to bang it against Toothless's head. Toothless, seeing this, spat her out and fired into her armoured chest, slamming her up against a tree. Her head snapped back, hit the trunk and she fell unconscious.

I hovered, and stared at the thrashing shadows around me. They were everywhere. Every living thing in this forest was fighting except for me and Toothless, who was underneath me, arching his back and just daring anything to get near. He'd even lash out at a dragon if he thought it could be a threat.

"We can't stand here. Let's go!"

With my colour and size, it was easy to keep out of the Berserker's sight. Toothless was bigger, but he was dark too, and he had pure speed on his side. He ran behind me, snapping out wings and tail to whip whomever we passed, and fired a few shots at Vikings he couldn't quite reach.

"Hey!" I stopped before a Nightmare. "Over there! Help him!"

I pointed with my ears, and the Nightmare listened and lunged at a Viking about to execute a fallen Thunderdrum. The axe impaled the ground just shy of the Thunderdrum's neck. Whimpering, it fled with a clearly injured wing.

Toothless helped the Nightmare take the Viking down. I looked around. There was another dragon in trouble. I squawked at Toothless and the Nightmare, and directed them to the dragon's aid.

I don't know whether it was adrenaline, instinct or if my unconsciousness had finally put the pieces together, but directing the dragons was easy. Squawk to get their attention. Flick the ears to guide them. Blow smoke to get them to breathe fire. They listened, too. Whether it was because they were thankful for the guidance or because they remembered I wasn't like them, I didn't care.

But it wasn't enough. I had dragons and fire, but the Berserkers had their minds. They grouped together naturally while the dragons worked alone unless guided, and I couldn't be everywhere at once. And the Berserkers had their experience. Fighting dragons wasn't new to these people, and their success and bloodlust intimidated the dragons. We were slowing them down greatly, but we weren't stopping them.

I saw an axe swing in the corner of my eye. Toothless knocked me aside and grappled with my would-be attacker. I pushed myself up to my feet. Okay, Hiccup, time for a clever plan. We were too far for the battle to be heard. Berk still didn't know the Berserkers were here. Assuming any remaining dragons weren't distracted by the fight with the Lava Louts, they wouldn't smell the Berserkers either because they were downwind –

They were downwind.

I had a plan.

Review Response:

Guest (#2): Thanks!

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Noctus Fury: Wait, where are you talking about? I didn't use blue eyes in the last chapter, according to ctrl+f.

Yep. Serious relationship tension there. I don't think it's so much Hiccup overreacting to what she did, but more that he's under-reacting to the fact that Snotlout literally tried to sell him into slavery. Granted, neither of them saw it that way, but it was still very much not a good thing.

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Jazz: It would be up to the king. Of course, if Valka found out what happened, she would probably chase him out herself (and perhaps the king would help).

Hiccup's done being torn. He's 100% ready to go back to life as a human

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Guest (#1): Astrid is proactive, but she can also be mentally rigid, which as you pointed out, is not a good combination.

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Snowflake: . . . Why?