Did Anybody See That? Chapter 7
"Hiccup! Hiccup, wake up! Wake AAAUGH!" Astrid's shout turned to a wail of terror as a huge black shape leaped out of the darkness and pinned her to the ground. All she could see was one huge, angry eye, and part of a tooth-filled mouth. No fugitive from justice ever had a more alert defender, or a more loyal one.
"Toothless, you've got to get Hiccup out of here! The Vikings are coming! Can you understand me?" A low, deadly growl was the only answer she got. She was suddenly unsure whether she was going to survive her own attempt at a good deed.
Thankfully, Hiccup awoke. "Toothless? It's cold in here without you, bud! What's going on?" The dragon let out a snarl in reply.
"Hiccup, please get him off of me!" she begged.
"Astrid? What are you doing here? I could get a bad reputation from girls dropping in on me in the middle of the night. Toothless, let her go." The dragon backed away, but not far.
"This isn't funny, Hiccup. The Vikings are making a warband; they'll be headed this way at first light. You've got to get out of here!"
Hiccup scratched his head. "Why are they coming here?" He suddenly stared at her. "You didn't...?"
"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I... I didn't do such a good job of staying silent. I'm sorry."
"Not half as sorry as I am," he sighed. "Now that you've cleverly ruined my life, where am I supposed to go now?"
She looked around, as if there might be another hiding place in the cove. "There has to be another cave somewhere on the island, doesn't there?"
Hiccup shook his head. "With all this snow covering everything, it could take weeks to find a cave. This is a bad time of year to be without shelter."
"Well, what about another island? There's got to be – "
"Shhh!" Hiccup ordered. In the sudden silence, they heard the sounds of many men walking through the snow, getting closer.
"I thought you said they were coming at first light!" he hissed.
"That's what I thought they were going to do," she whispered back. "Who in his right mind would send out a warband in the middle of the night?"
"Who?" Hiccup echoed. "Someone who has an up-close-and-personal hatred for dragons, that's who. Come on!" He caught her wrist and led her toward Toothless.
"What do you mean? I can't go with you!"
"You have to," he replied. "They'll get here and find me gone, and they'll hear your footsteps and find your tracks, and they'll know you warned me. That will make you a criminal, just as bad as me."
"I'm not a criminal! I just wanted to help!" she protested.
"Keep on 'helping' me like this, and we'll both wind up on Outcast Island! Astrid, if you leave with me now, they won't know you were here, and I can bring you safely home later." He suddenly pointed; they could see the torches of the leading men in the warband. "There's no more time for arguing! Come on!" He led her to Toothless; she gave up resisting and climbed onto the dragon with him. They soared into the night sky barely a minute before the warband reached the edge of the cove. They wouldn't find the way in until daybreak, but they still would have trapped him with no escape.
"Okay, now what?" she asked as they floated through the darkness.
"Now, we try to stay out of trouble until the sun comes up and we can see. Then... I'll think of something. Toothless, take us up higher. I feel safer there."
The clouds were different at night. They had no color, just shades of gray; they seemed lifeless and vaguely threatening compared to the fluffy white shapes against the blue sky that she'd experienced earlier today. Instead of skirting around them, Toothless went right up through them. She could feel the slight moisture, but she couldn't see anything in the murk.
Then they broke out above the cloud layer, and everything changed. The light of the almost-full moon nearly hurt her eyes. It illuminated the clouds with a cool light, not like daylight but pleasant in its own way. Off to her left, the Northern Lights added some color to the scene. There were no landmarks, nothing man-made. They were almost certainly the only living things around.
"I can see why you feel safer up here," she said, finally breaking the silence. "Do you come here a lot?"
"Every chance I get," he answered over his shoulder. "Usually, I have the place to myself. You're the first 'real' Viking who ever got this far."
"Do you like being alone that much?" she wondered.
"It's not so much that I like it. It's that... I'm used to it. It's all I've ever known. I don't know if this makes sense, but being alone when I'm all by myself is easier than being alone with a bunch of people around."
She tried to imagine what that kind of loneliness felt like. Then she slid forward and wrapped both her arms around him, leaning her head on his shoulder. He tensed up for a moment, then relaxed. They flew that way in silence for a minute or more.
Suddenly, Toothless went rigid. He put a wing over, and dove back into the clouds and out the bottom of them. They could hear some kind of rhythmic chirping sounds all around, but it was too dark to see.
"Toothless, what are you doing?" Hiccup asked. The dragon shook his head with a quick snarl and continued on his own course.
"Is he trembling?" Astrid asked. She was already nervous; if the dragon was also nervous, then that was really bad.
"Something's wrong," Hiccup answered. "What's the matter, bud?"
Seemingly as an answer, Toothless swerved hard to the left, barely avoiding an irregular shape that loomed up out of the darkness. They had almost collided with another dragon! It was a Monstrous Nightmare, and it was carrying some kind of sea mammal in its claws. It glanced at them for a moment and kept on flying.
A moment later, they swerved toward it. Another dragon had overtaken them on the left; this one was a Zippleback, and it appeared to be carrying a goat. She could make out the dim silhouette of a Nadder in front of them now, carrying something fish-shaped. They were surrounded by dragons! From every direction, she could hear those chirping, trilling sounds, some high-pitched, some low. Astrid was grateful for the heavy overcast, and for the darkness they were flying through. She didn't want to see what was all around her.
The great flock dove and began swerving through wild-looking rock formations. They all seemed to know where to go; there were no mid-air collisions. An island loomed up, with a glowing volcano in the middle of it. They all headed straight at it, and funneled into a narrow crevice that took them into the heart of the mountain.
They emerged into a huge, dimly-lit cave filled with dragons of every kind. Those that were carrying animals or fish dropped them into the mist that covered the bottom of the cave. Those that carried nothing, like Toothless, stared downward in terror and tried to hide as quickly as possible. The Night Fury found an unoccupied ledge and tried to look small.
"If my dad thinks he can take this nest, he's biting off more than he can chew," Hiccup whispered to Astrid. A moment later, his words were horrifyingly brought to life – a Gronckle dropped a single small fish into the mist, and was quickly repaid for its laziness by being eaten alive by a dragon bigger than either of them could ever have imagined.
"What... was that?" Astrid gasped.
The huge head started to sink back into the mist, but stopped. It sniffed the air. Its tiny eyes focused on where the Night Fury and his two riders were hiding.
"We've got to get out of here, bud! Now!" Toothless leaped into the air and surged up into the empty volcanic cone. If all the other dragons had done the same thing, he might have blended in with them and escaped. But all the other dragons cringed and hid as the giant dragon leaped out of the yellow murk and chased the Night Fury up, out of the volcano, and into the night sky.