20 It's Not The End Of The World (it just feels like it)
Captain Pratt surveyed the activity going on around him from the Wheel Deck of his Clipper Ship. Ever since he had discovered that the King of Elydonia was one of the prisoners in the hold, he could not stop grinning. The look of delight on his face was hard to miss, but it did start to melt away when he noticed an old man about to enter the hold with a large box.
"YOU THERE; WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOU DOING?" he cried out.
"Food for the prisoners Captain" the man replied as Julius Pratt hurried down to the main deck flanked by two of his officers "bread and fruit; we want keep them nice and healthy, ready for the torture."
The old man laughed at his own joke as Pratt studied the contents of the box. As soon as the Captain was satisfied that there were no tools or weapons being smuggled to the prisoners, he stopped and considered what the old man had said. It was true that Emperor Scias would not be happy if his interrogation of the Dragon Riders was prematurely cut short by their premature deaths.
"Very well" he agreed at last "but don't give them all this; we don't want them too strong."
"Ahh... clever Captain... very clever" the old man cackled loudly as he continued on down to the brig.
Every eye looked towards the light from the hatch as the old man, still laughing to himself, approached the shackled prisoners."
"I've brought some food for you and your people Chief Stoick... oh and the Elydonians too of course."
Stoick said nothing as the box was set down and the food was distributed. Sigrid broke some bread and fed it to the Chief as he was the only one with his arms bound.
"We should arrive in New Loren tomorrow" the old man whispered "and you'll all be force marched to the Imperial Castle. Before we left the Warships behind, my apprentice managed to inform me that the young girl Astrid was able to get her dragon away with a child; if they made it back to Berk, we're hoping that Hiccup will get here in time to mount a rescue while you're still on the road."
"That is good news" Sigrid nodded "but why are you helping us; aren't you one of the Pratt's men?"
"My friends and I left New Loren last autumn and took up residence in Elydonia; General Karoc... well... he doesn't trust us running around free so he tried to capture and imprison us. When we found out that King Joric was going to give you a ship, we spent most of the year blending into the Elydonian Navy hoping that we would eventually get a ride to Berk."
"So you must be Darius Gershwin" Stoick pondered "Hiccup told me about you."
"At your service sir" Darius bowed.
"He also doesn't trust you... and neither do I; trying to trick your way to Berk. Just what are you up to anyway?"
"I merely wish for the opportunity to observe Astrid's training methods" the spy admitted "I'd never found anyone who could hide or track better than I...until I met her... and she's so young."
"Then why didn't you just tell us instead of all this sneaking around?" Stoick asked.
"Oh I did tell your son of my desire... but as you noted, Hiccup doesn't trust me."
The cry of the Night Fury echoed thought the dark streets of Bolthorn town as Hiccup and Toothless flew down towards the palace watchtower. Hiccup considered taking Toothless to the newly converted stables so the exhausted dragon could rest there, but the thought of trying to talk his way into the palace hours before sunrise seemed like too much bother for someone as tired as he was. Fortunately for him, the watchtower guards had become accustomed to the Dragon Riders coming and going at strange times.
"Welcome back Lord Hiccup" the head guard greeted him as Toothless touched down "we didn't expect to see you tonight, but I sent one of my men down with word of your arrival as soon as we heard your dragon approaching."
"Thank you and if it's alright with you, I'll leave Toothless here to rest for a while; he's just flown me all the way from Berk... almost non-stop."
"Yes of course sir" the head guard agreed as Hiccup knelt down and hugged his dragon's neck.
"Stay here and get some rest Toothless, you worked so hard today; thank you."
"If you'll excuse me saying sir" the guard continued "you both look quite exhausted; I'm sure your room is already being prepared for you."
"No time for that; I must see King Joric at once."
"But sir..." the guard began but it was too late as Hiccup threw open the trap door, and ran off down the tower stairs.
Toothless sighed a weary sigh and went through his pre-sleep ritual, turning around in a tight circle while burning the stone floor to a blackened, yet slightly glowing crisp, before settling down to rest. The two remaining guards inched a little closer to the dragon who was already emitting a sound from his snout that sounded a little like a purr, and a lot like a snore.
"Oh my but that feels good" one of them commented as the heat from the stones rose up around them.
"Why can't we have a dragon sir?" the subordinate asked seriously.
"It certainly would be nice on these cold nights" his superior agreed.
Hiccup leapt from stair to stair, desperate to get down the tower to the Kings rooms as fast as he could. He burst through the door from the stairwell and knocked over the watchtower guard who had been sent to announce the Dragon Masters arrival, and was now returning to his post.
"Sorry about that" Hiccup apologised as the guard picked himself up again.
"HICCUP!" Kylan called out from the main staircase as a one legged blur dashed by "what are you doing here so late at night; couldn't live without Astrid any longer huh?"
"I need to see Joric right away" Hiccup panted.
"But the King isn't here Hiccup; he and Sigrid decided to go on a little holiday with your father while his people were being trained in the operation of an Elydonian ship. Why; is there something wrong?"
"That would be an understatement" Hiccup informed her "Stormfly returned to Berk this morning with Freya's daughter; she told us they were attacked."
Kylans eyebrows rose up so high, they almost left her forehead behind altogether.
"GUARDS GUARDS!" she screamed out and within seconds men were running in from all directions.
"Rouse the Prince, as well as Sigfus and Boron; tell them I need to see them at once in the Kings library."
The men hurried off to their task as Hiccup followed Kylan back down the corridor.
The frustrated growl of a Monstrous Nightmare echoed through the bowels of the ship Mighty Ivar and mixed eerily with the sounds of other dragons shuffling nervously in their pens. If it were not for the fact that they were so well trained and had been ordered by Astrid to stay put, they would have all been fighting their way out hours ago. But even Astrid's word could only hold them for so long, and time was running out.
"I just wish I knew what Stoick's plan was" Astrid declared in frustration "at least it would make the waiting easier to take."
"He's probably waiting for Hiccup to bring reinforcements from Berk" Fishlegs offered.
"Nice idea" Astrid noted "but we've got no way of knowing if Stormfly and Freya made it back or not, and she couldn't tell Hiccup where we are anyway. Are you sure you got Stoicks instructions right Ruff? Tell me again what he said... word for word."
"Not again" Ruffnut sighed "He said that we should take care of the dragons, and do whatever General Karoc told us to... and that's all."
"Were you alone at the time?" Astrid asked.
"No... Karoc and two officers were there, I was being held by a couple of guards and Stoick had four or five trying to hold him back."
"Are you sure that was all he said?" enquired Fishlegs.
"YES! He said everything would turn out alright if we would only follow his orders; just like we did on Dragon Island."
Astrid and Fishlegs were stunned and stared at Ruffnut blankly.
"What... why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
"Think Ruffnut" Astrid tried to get her friend to understand "On Dragon Island... did we follow Stoicks orders...ONE LITTLE BIT."
"Well no, we came flying in on the dragons and saved everyone from the... oh."
"Right... so Stoick really wants us make a break for it if we can" Astrid realised.
"We'll have to come up with a plan" Fishlegs thought "and try to make Karoc think he can use us."
"I'm sure Fotherington can help us with that" Astrid revealed.
"Oh come on... how did you know I was here?" the young spy commented from his hiding place.
"If Darius Gershwin couldn't hide from me, what makes you think that you can?"
"Are you telling me there was someone here all this time and you didn't tell us?" Fishlegs said indignantly.
"You all had the same clues as I did, so don't blame me if you didn't notice anything" Astrid grinned.
"What clues?" Ruffnut asked as Fotherington emerged and sat down with the Dragon Riders.
"Sound, smell... that kind of thing" Astrid informed them as Ruffnut leant over and sniffed.
"He doesn't smell bad" she commented.
"You don't have to smell bad to have an aroma" Fishlegs pointed out.
"Unless your name is Meatlug" Ruffnut smirked "So this is one of those spies you told us about when you came home from Sigrids wedding huh?"
"Sure is; so then Fotherington, what can you tell us about our situation" Astrid asked "are the other two spies on this ship as well?"
"The Master is now posing as a deck hand on the same Clipper Ship your father Stoick is on, and I last saw Victor on your Longship, the Sharktooth."
"Stoicks not my father... yet" Astrid shook her head.
"He likes to tell people he is" Fotherington noted.
"Honestly, Stoick is almost as bad as Snotlout" Astrid sighed "At least he has stopped telling everyone that he's gonna marry me some day."
"Ah; but you WILL be Stoicks daughter" Ruffnut pointed out "Unless I can convince Hiccup that he could do better."
"When we get out of here, I'm gonna fill your knickers with Gronckle Lava" Astrid threatened.
"So you came here as part of the Generals fleet" Fishlegs asked Fotherington in a desperate attempt to get back on track.
"Oh no" Astrid pointed out "they were all posing as Elydonian sailors ever since we left Port Yoric; in fact it was Darius, the man Fotherington calls Master, who raised the alarm about the attack over on the ship Noble Pigg."
"So you knew they were here... and you didn't tell anyone?" Fishlegs was surprised.
"At first I wanted to see what they were up to; Hiccup doesn't trust them fully so I wanted to find out if that mistrust was well founded or not. As the days passed, I noticed that they were acting more like people on a holiday than spies waiting for an attack."
"We were planning to stay on board when Stoick returned King Joric and his people to Elydonia" Fotherington admitted "then we would finally get to sail off to Berk; the Master was really looking forward to honing his tracking skills with you and your dragon... but then this had to happen."
"So how long have you been in Elydonia?" Astrid asked.
"Oh we snuck across the border less than a week after you escaped from the tower in New Loran; we've been pretending to be locals and gathering information ever since" Fotherington nodded "when we found out about the new ship that was being given to your father... I mean... your Chief, we all began posing as Elydonian sailors; we even forged our orders to get posted to the Berk Fleet, as it was dubbed."
"I'm with Hiccup" Fishlegs eyed Fotherington "I don't trust this guy."
"Well... we will soon see if he can be trusted or not" Astrid smirked "I have a little plan."
Well... it's time to come clean about some of the claims I made in the Author Notes of chapter 19. This time I will cover swimming with a twelve foot Hammerhead shark.
As you would imagine from reading these claims, I do like spending time in the sea (or any water for that matter) to escape the heat of the Australian summer. About 30 years ago I decided to learn how to Scuba Dive, so I took a few courses in 'Open Water' and 'Advanced' diving (pretty common these days). On one of the deep training dives, the Dive Master took us several miles off Port Stanvac where the water is just over 100 feet deep. The four of us had just entered the water when the Boat Master called out that there was a Hammerhead Shark about 30 feet away. Since none of us had ever seen one before, we all began swimming towards it. We never got to see more than its fin and tail because as soon as it saw that four strange blobs were advancing, it took off like a shot and we never saw it again.