17 What No One Wanted To Hear

After a hearty breakfast of sliced leftover boar and yak milk, Hiccup began to realise that he was actually beginning to miss Astrids multi-egg dishes, but nowhere near as much as he was missing Astrid herself. Nine days... nine long, long days she had been gone. It was true that he missed the others too, his father especially but no one was on his mind as much as... her... and their wonderful last night together.

Hiccup had tried his best to keep himself occupied with anything that could distract him; on the first day he took a team of Gronckles into the ever expanding Underground Dragon Stable, that was now taking shape between the village and the docks, to clear away (and also eat) the rocks from the last Zippleback Gas explosion that he had employed a few days prior.

As he watched the happy Gronckles going about their business, Hiccup noted that there was mostly gravel and dust near the centre of the blast zone, with the easier to move and more useful rocks, several feet away. He began to contemplate a different method of blowing out the rock walls by using a series of smaller charges, spread out over a wider area instead of one large volume of gas in the centre. This idea kept him mainly in his workshop for the next seven days, stopping only for food or to take care of any village problems; he even took to sleeping there with Toothless as his side. At the end of this week of invention, not only had he developed a small two inch metal tube, in which could sealed a large amount of compressed Zippleback Gas, but had also constructed a new multi-purpose leg with separate feet for walking and dragon control. This meant that more work had to be done on Toothless's tail controls to make it's interaction with the new leg smoother, and give the dragon greater freedom to glide without a rider.

On the eighth day, Hiccup was contemplating the concoction of Monstrous Nightmare sweat that Fishlegs had used to make the fast burning fuse, and wondered in what other ways it could be employed, so he bounced a few ideas off his dragon.

"What do you think Toothless... what would be more impressive; a weapon that could spit flames or... or..." Hiccups eyes lit up "a flaming sword?"

Toothless grunted and closed his eyes again; he could see that this was going to be another boring day in the workshop, and indeed it was as Hiccup experimented with sword and sweat till nightfall. Even Toothless was beginning to miss Astrid; at least she could have taken him flying.

Much to the dragons delight, the next day after breakfast, there was actually a problem in the village that Hiccup had to see to himself; it was nothing drastic, but it did get them out of the workshop for a while. One of the dragon feeders had slipped off its blocks when two heads of the same Zippleback had started fighting over the one fish and given the huge metal bowl a firm bash.

"It doesn't look too bad" Hoark the Haggard said with a huff.

"No... I think we if we could get a couple of Gronckles to push the low side..." Hiccup began.

"And maybe I could get Adelinde to lift at the same time?" Kara added.

"While I put the blocks back in place; that should work" Hiccup nodded.

Five minutes later, Hoark had fetched three strong Gronckles and Kara was hovering overhead on her Nadder while Hiccup got into position with the blocks, but before they could begin their little task, the familiar cry of another Nadder drew everyones attention.

"Hey it's Stormfly" Hiccup grinned as he stood up.

"So Astrid couldn't live without you after all" Kara smirked.

"Naturally; who could resist this... hang on..."

Everyone noticed at the same time that Stormfly was not going to land softly, and a few seconds later the exhausted dragon landed hard and collapsed.

"Freya!" Hiccup noticed the tiny rider passed out in the saddle "Kara, go and get Agnar, and Hoark... you see to Stormfly.

The others hurried to carry out their orders as Hiccup lifted the young girl from the dragons back and took her into his home. He placed her in Stoick relaxing chair and looked her over, but fortunately he could not see any blood. Agnar burst into the house a minute later followed closely by several other Vikings; he looked into her eyes, but Freya was not looking back.

"Her tongue's a bit swollen... get me some water" Agnar ordered.

Hiccup hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a cup and a pitcher before returning to Agnar and Freya; he half filled the mug and handed it over, but Agnar pointed to the pitcher first. He put his hand inside it and flicked some water onto Freya's face. At first the little girl began to stir slowly, but then she sat up with a scream.

"GET OFF ME; WHERE AM I?"

"It's all right Freya... you're home; Hiccup is here and" Agnar looked around "well... so is everyone else I think... now drink this."

Agnar took the cup from Hiccup and placed it gently to the girl's lips and with a soft slurp, she drank.

"Freya... what happened, can you tell us?" Hiccup asked as he sat on the unlit fireplace.

"Men came..." she began "in the night... on the ship... it WAS BURNING."

"It's alright" Hiccup tried to comfort her "you're home now... you're safe."

Everyone was desperate to find out what had happened, but Freya was just too upset to talk. Hiccup stood and paced around the room contemplating both the little he knew, and what he didn't; eventually he turned his attention to the others around him.

"We don't know where everyone is, but you can be sure that it isn't close; Stormfly looks like she's been flying non-stop for well over twenty four hours."

"So what do we do?" Starkard asked.

"I want to get as many dragon riders in the air within the hour with light survival packs only. I've got a fair idea of where we should start searching, but we'll still see if Freya can give us any more information before we leave. Ack and Phlegma, I want you to spread the word that all volunteers should get their dragons ready and meet me in the Great Hall as fast as they can manage; now go."

As worried as he was, Hiccups heart went out to the young girl resting in Agnar's arms so he knelt down to talk to her.

"Freya... we're going to leave soon and we won't come back until we've succeeded in finding everyone; and that includes your mother. I've got to go and get Toothless ready now, but if you think of anything that may help us, it doesn't matter how small, tell Agnar and he'll make sure that I know about it before we take off... okay?"

The tearful face nodded at Hiccup who then hurried off to get the rescue party ready.

"Well we didn't get much opportunity to give the new leg and tail controls much of a test Bud" Hiccup commented to his dragon "but I think they'll both work fine, at least I hope they will."

Toothless could see quite clearly that something was wrong, and very wrong indeed as Vikings rushed about and dragons were prepared for a long journey. He got his first idea as to how serious the trouble really was as Hiccup lead him towards the Great Hall and on the way, Toothless saw Stormfly.

"How is she Hoark?" Hiccup asked as Toothless nuzzled the Nadders face while giving a soft whimper.

"I'm sure she'll be much better after a bit of a rest. She taken some water, but is seems too exhausted to eat just yet, but this is what really worries me."

Hoark the Haggard lead Hiccup around Stormfly's left side and showed him two small cuts on her upper thigh.

"It looks to me like she was jabbed with a spear... or spears as I've found a few more like this on her chest and three on her tail. I've cleaned her up, but you were right about how long she's been flying because the wounds are sealed with dried blood, so when I used Olvors cleaning fluid, she didn't even give a peep."

"Hmm... it looks like whoever did this wasn't trying to kill Stormfly, but to herd her; capture her even."

"Do you think it could be those poachers you told us about?"

"No... I mean... it could be, but they didn't have any broad bladed spears with them."

"That was more than eight months ago... things change."

"True, but they had enough trouble with several Dragon Riders, so I don't think they would have taken on half of Berk without getting their butts whipped. Listen Hoark, I have to get up to the Great Hall and then take off with the search and rescue party; can I leave Berk in your capable hands while I'm away?"

"I'll protect the village, and what's left of its people with me very life, so you just do your best to bring the others back and don't worry about Berk."

Hiccup continued on to the Great Hall trying his best to be concerned about everyone, although the one face he kept seeing in mind's eye, was a certain young blonde woman who could melt his heart with only her smile. There were many Vikings waiting inside the hall and still more were running in behind him. Hiccup did not feel inclined to wait until everyone was present; it may take days to find their friends, but he still did not want to waste a single minute unnecessarily and besides, Vikings were very good at picking things up on the go.

"Okay then" he started by laying out a large map on the largest table "they've been gone nine days and consensus is that Stormfly's been in the air more than a day getting back here, so if my father managed to stay on schedule, they would have finished with the Battle of Staggshund memorial, attended a few parties around the country, launched the Mighty Ivar and left Elydonia; so they would have been at sea for a few days at least. King Joric said that he was planning to send along a small group of his best sailors to help Dad and Olaf learn the eccentricities of a big Elydonian ship before they sailed her back to Berk."

The Mighty Ivar (for those who came in late) was a ship that had been under construction in the Elydonian town of Port Yoric during the reign of King Rekkur, and was destined to be his flagship. That was until Stoick, Hiccup and the other Dragon Riders took great offence at Rekkurs attempt to turn Berk and the Islands around it into the start of the First Elydonian Empire. When Rekkur resisted every overture of peace from Berk, and even attempted to execute Hiccup and Snotlout in the process, Stoick was left with no choice but to remove this warmonger from the throne by force. In the short lived civil war that followed, the only Dragon Rider killed in the Battle of Staggshund was Ivar; although Gobbers pet Gronckle named Pigg, was also lost on the same day. When King Joric the Fifth was crowned as the new ruler of Elydonia, he decided to honour those from Berk who had given their lives for peace between the two powers, by gifting two ships to Chief Stoick; the first was the only ship to invade the islands around Berk, now named the Noble Pigg and the second was the huge flagship, but not until its construction was complete (naturally).

"Two days out" Ack sighed "that's a lot of ocean for us to cover without knowing what heading they took."

"True, but I think Dad would have sailed in the general direction of Lookout Island, which is where we will head to first... for a start anyway; from there we can search the entire area till something turns up. They may have just sailed in local Elydonian waters, or they may have made straight for the island; My Dad said that he may ferry Joric's sailors back home by dragon to save him three or four days unless there were too many of them... or if they were too scared to fly."

"So we fly with all speed to Lookout Island then?" Starkard asked.

"Not quite... the only area we know well is this archipelago between Berk, Lookout Island, up around Dragon Island and across to Elydonia" Hiccup drew a line with his finger down to the southeast "so I intend to fly straight towards Lookout Island till early afternoon. I want every Dragon Rider spread out on either side of me at a distance of about a half a mile or more between wingtips; just keep the rider on either side of you in sight. If you should spot an island on the way, by all means go and check it out, but this is very important; if you see anyone who is not from Berk, just do a flyover; DO NOT LAND UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! I cannot over emphasise this because if you get downed or captured then the rest of us will not know about it and won't be able to help. We'll all meet around noon on... let me see... Here... Liars Island; we'll report anything of interest to each other there, before we then make our way to Lookout Island."

"Right then everyone" Starkard called out "you heard the Chief, now everyone get to your dragons."

"Err... Starkard" Hiccup motioned as the Vikings hurried out of the Great Hall "please don't call me that; I choose to believe that my dad is still alive."

"As do I lad, but it's important that everyone knows who to look to. You did a good job of organising this rescue trip at such short notice; your experience with the young riders really shows, so it's plain to see that we have someone we can trust in charge till we get Stoick and the others back... so just go with it."

The fear of leadership began to wane a little as Hiccup realised that he was not alone in this, and he just had to keep his head and be a central figure who everyone could work around; Stoick trusted his warriors, and so could Hiccup.

Ah... so few reviews; I had to go back and read some of the old ones from the other stories to boost my moral (sigh... I am such a drama queen...err... king?).