The door opened with a creak. "Follow me," a voice said simply. There was no check to make sure we were awake. No waiting for us to get ready. We were supposed to just jump out of the beds, stand at attention and march straight toward the Night Fury.

I grunted slightly and scrambled to a somewhat upright position. My middle back groaned in soreness, especially under my shoulder blades. The sky visible through the doorway was mostly dark, so I actually did catch some sleep. I blinked a few times, trying to resolve the two guards in front of me into actual shapes.

The two guards I was seeing slowly merged in to one person. Only one of the guards from earlier today was in front of me. The dark-haired one. The other guard was nowhere to be seen. Maybe his job was to accompany us on the tour of the island and that was it.

The guard turned and walked out of the door without saying another word. My dad and I slowly followed. As we exited the house, I noticed dusk had arrived with a chill in the air. Winter was still on its way out. The sky above us showed no stars whatsoever, so we had clouds hanging over us. The chill around us seemed to be exacerbated by the humidity in the air. Combined with the presumed clouds overhead, I figured we were getting rain within the near future.

I looked to my left, where one of the guards pointed and talked about dragons earlier, as if I could see something in that direction. Nothing of interest, except for more of Berserker Island. More houses. No forge. No dragons.

We hiked up a gentle slope and reentered the same large house Dagur was in earlier. And just like earlier, he was on the other side of the fire. Pacing. Three steps one way, turn around, three steps the other.

"They're here, sir," the guard said to Dagur.

Dagur stopped pacing and turned to him. Nodded. And turned to us. He had his usual three narrow dark scars running across his left eye in a diagonal line. He was still generally lanky, just like the last time I saw him, but it was easy to see he was also built. He glanced at us and silently motioned for us to join him at a table. Four chairs were arranged around the table. On the table was some kind of meat, cut into strips. Maybe chicken, perhaps? My dad nodded and gently put a hand behind my back, guiding me toward the table. My dad took a seat across from Dagur, while the guard and I were at his sides.

"Please eat," he said. Still refined. "We'll need the energy for tonight."

I figured my dad's message to me about keeping quiet was still in effect, so I simply picked up the meat and looked at it for a brief second. It wasn't greasy, like some cuts of yak meat are. The interior was white, like chicken. I guessed it couldn't be too bad and took a bite.

"Taste good?" Dagur asked.

I nodded. "Yes, sir," I said honestly. Definitely not chicken or yak. It was slightly tougher than what I was used to, but it went down without complaint.

"Have you ever eaten Nadder meat before?" Dagur asked.

I froze. With enough presence of mind, I averted my eyes downward and forced myself to continue chewing. This could have easily been Stormfly, had she and Astrid been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I swallowed.

"No," I said. "It's good, though." I forced myself to eat anyway so I wouldn't draw Dagur's suspicion. Above anything else, my dad and I knew we couldn't let the truth out about the dragons on Berk. Especially the truth about Toothless.

"I'm glad you like it," he said with a little smile. He moved his gaze toward his cohort and said, "I'd like to know what Night Fury meat tastes like. Maybe on our next visit to Berk we can hunt that Night Fury there and celebrate with a feast."

Dagur was still civilized as he spoke with the guard. He was casually taking drinks from his mug in front of him. He paused in the middle of his conversation with the guard and tilted the mug toward him slightly. The guard got up, took the mug to a wooden barrel and dipped it into the contents. He returned, the area around us now smelling strongly of alcohol.

I looked worryingly at my dad. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, holding my gaze. Do not get in Dagur's way, his look told me.

I continued eating the Nadder meat until I was moderately full. No sense in stuffing myself when I needed to be alert. If I ate too much, I'd be slow to respond to what might be a delicate situation. Maybe the dragon, if we found it tonight, would get spooked and panic. Maybe it would attack us in self-defense. I had to be ready for these situations. With a wild dragon in close quarters, a fraction of a second was the difference between life and death.

Dagur, on the other hand, was paying absolutely no attention to what he would need to do at some point later tonight. He was gleefully stuffing his face with the dragon meat like it was his last meal. Between bites, he turned to his cohort and excitedly said something about a Night Fury or a blood eagle. I was still bitter about being here, so I did everything I could to mentally block him out of my mind.

I sat there, trying to shut out the noise when the door opened some twenty feet away from me. The lighter-haired guard walked in and whispered something to Dagur. After trying to keep myself closed off, it was awfully distracting to see someone whisper something to Dagur. My curiosity took over, and I slowly looked upward toward them.

Dagur turned to me and began cackling. A sadistic grin spread over his face. He looked up and continued laughing maniacally. This is how the Berserker in him starts, I thought. Dagur slowly stopped laughing, which made me feel completely out-of-place. He was so lost in his own mind that he was completely ignoring everyone. Dagur was making a statement to the world, and the world was supposed to know how to translate his laughter.

"Gunnar says he's just seen the Night Fury," he said glaring directly into my eyes. Dropped his voice to a menacing whisper. "Let's go dragon hunting, Hiccup." He quickly downed the rest of whatever he was drinking and slammed the mug onto the table. And stood up, wiping his drink off his lips. Dagur's mouth opened slightly into a vicious smile as he stared through the door.

I looked briefly at the lighter-haired guard, who was apparently named Gunnar. His gaze was still locked onto Dagur, so I got no information from him about the Night Fury whatsoever.

Gunnar turned, motioned with his right hand, and led us out of the house. Stacked against the wall were four wooden shields and four swords. He passed them out to us and put a finger to his lips. This was to be a sneak attack on the dragon.

I looped my right arm through the handles in the shield and grabbed a sword with my left hand. We started walking. West, if I was correct in my sense of direction.

The last thing Gunnar did as we set off toward the dragon was grab a lit torch from the outside of the house.

Dagur, Gunnar and my dad all were at least decent about being quiet as they walked. But I had a peg. Every other step onto a hard surface was a sharp clink, making me wince slightly. There was no way I could be quiet during this hunt. It didn't seem to matter anyway. The only way I could ever sneak up on Toothless was if he was asleep. And if Gunnar had just seen a Night Fury, I doubted it would be asleep. The dragon would have found a hiding place completely out of sight to rest. Something wasn't adding up, but I couldn't voice any concerns because I had to be a "good sport" about all of this.

Dagur and Gunnar switched positions at the front of our little group. Dagur took the front just as we approached a cave on the edge of the village. Briefly, I turned back around to check how far people might have lived from the dragon. The nearest house I could see was about fifty feet away. So my answer was very close.

Dagur suddenly turned around and glared at each of us. He was frontlit by the torch light, so we could see his expression. He put a finger to his lips, just like Gunnar had done previously. He slowly turned around and crept into the cave, followed by Gunnar, my dad, and me bringing up the rear.

It didn't take us long to reach the stifling darkness within the cave. The torch in Gunnar's hand was doing a halfway good job at lighting up the immediate area, but after about ten feet, the darkness hid everything. We took a few more steps forward when Dagur whispered, "Stop."

I froze, not daring to breathe. Something must have caught Dagur's attention. Over the silence of the cave, I heard a rhythmic sound, almost like ocean waves marching toward the shore. But we had entered the cave away from the ocean. I listened more closely and heard a quiet rumbling sound echoing through the cave.

I blanched when I realized I was probably listening to a dragon breathe. This had to be the Night Fury that Dagur and Johann were talking about. And of all things, it actually sounded a lot like Toothless.

Without feeling it, I slowly crashed into the wall on my right because I was about to pass out from holding my breath. The shield in my right hand clanked against the wall, the sound seemingly splitting the air in two. The blow was just enough for me to grunt and scramble to stay upright, and the sound made all three of the Vikings in front of me jump. I used the knuckles on my left hand to push off the wall, but when I pulled my hand away, I felt a thick fluid connecting me to the wall. After a few seconds, my right shoulder felt the same way.

"Hiccup, what are you doing!?" Dagur whispered.

As I caught my breath, I heard a low constant rumble coming from the same direction as earlier, but this time, it sounded like a warning. I was still dizzy from that near fainting spell when panic gripped my mind. I couldn't take more than extremely shallow breaths, so I began panting with my mouth open. It was audible, both to me and the other Vikings. And not to mention the dragon. My breathing wouldn't calm down, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I was safe. And that scared me more than the dragon did. I felt sweat building on my forehead, and not long after that I felt rapid vibrations thrumming up through my right hand. I was shaking so badly that my sword was rattling against my shield.

"Would you stop that!?" Dagur whispered. I was powerless to respond to him. Couldn't even look at him. He finally took the initiative and grabbed my left hand, pulling it away from the shield and exposing my chest to any attack. His eyes showed considerable frustration as he adjusted my arms to keep from making any more noise.

As Dagur finished positioning me, my dad caught a glimpse of my right shoulder. He pointed with his sword and asked, "What is that?"

I looked at my right shoulder and noticed a thick, stringy fluid was connecting me to the wall. I shuffled to my left, and the liquid strings broke with no effort.

"It's from the dragon," Gunnar said. And left it at that.

Dagur took the torch from Gunnar and switched his sword to his shield hand. He moved his shield further up his left forearm to free up his hand. Held the torch up slightly, peering to his right around a corner.

A smile plastered itself across his face in the torchlight. "Hello, dragon," he said menacingly.

I saw his eyes focus on something just as a rumble crescendoed into a loud, echoing roar. I was the only one who shrunk back in fear. The other three Vikings weren't fazed at all.

In my fear, I somehow noticed the roar that was echoing through the cave didn't sound at all like Toothless. There was no higher register in the sound. This dragon's roar was only mid-to-low pitch. It's not a Night Fury, I thought. I opened my mouth to say something when a bright flash struck Dagur's shield and dissipated.

Dagur sadistically laughed it off and immediately charged around the corner, Gunnar following close behind. Within a second, the jaunting motion of the light on the walls had stopped. Dagur must have dropped the torch, because I heard him grunt at the same time as a hollow whoosh met my ears. He was swinging his sword at the dragon in front of him. Soon after that came a heavy digging sound that lasted about two seconds.

"WHERE ARE YOU, DRAGON!?" Dagur shouted after a few seconds. I heard him breathing heavily, totally engrossed in the fight that was about to happen. He stormed back around the corner, glaring daggers at me and shouted, "WHERE'S THE DRAGON, HICCUP!? WHERE IS IT!?"

I froze again, just as the initial panic wave that gripped me was about to subside. "I…I…I…don't know," I stammered, wasting Dagur's precious time. I subconsciously closed myself off to his attack, causing my sword to rattle against my shield again.

"Don't play games with me, Hiccup! You know exactly where the dragon is!"

Gunnar stepped back out from behind the rocky wall, distracting me for a couple seconds. He wasn't paying attention to where he was stepping and slipped, his left leg disappearing from view up to the knee. He shouted in panic as he tried to save his fall, but ended up pitching forward. My dad ran over to help him.

"Hiccup, we don't have a lot of time!" Dagur shouted. "Tell me where the Night Fury is, or I'll…"

"Dagur, stop!" my dad shouted. He grabbed Dagur from behind by the chest and heaved him backward. "Do not threaten my son!"

As Gunnar was slowly getting up from where he had fallen, I noticed the same stringy liquid clinging to his entire front, including his face. He ineffectually used his hands to clean his face, not realizing they were coated in the same material. After a few attempts at cleaning himself off, he groaned in disgust.

Dagur noticed too, turning his attention toward his cohort. "You see this, Hiccup!? You see this!?" His eyes were growing wider as he glared at me.

I paused for a second longer than normal, letting my mind clear itself. The panic was gone. At least for the time being.

"Yeah," I said. "It's from the dragon." I walked over to the other three Vikings and was about to say the dragon wasn't a Night Fury when a loud roar echoed through the cave. This time, it was on our left instead of the right. And on our left was a rock wall. There was no place for a dragon to hide.

My dad jumped in surprise and immediately turned toward the wall, his eyes darting all over its surface, trying to catch a glimpse of the dragon. If it was somehow as intelligent as Toothless, I figured it would have roared at us, then approached from a slightly different angle to take advantage of our distraction.

The ground under my dad's feet gave way without warning. He tried to jump backward, but couldn't react fast enough and ended up sprawling on his back. The back of his head crashed into the ground, causing him to grunt in pain, but he was coherent enough to scramble away from the collapsed floor on his back. Once he was on solid ground again, he sat up and squeezed his eyes shut, holding tightly onto the sides of his head. His helmet slowly fell off of his head and clattered on the ground. My dad made absolutely no effort to pick it up.

Something inside me clicked all of a sudden. My mind realized I was no longer the rear of the group, but my job was now to guard someone. A deep calming presence settled over my shoulders, making me hyper-aware of my surroundings. The areas that were pitch-black just a few moments ago were now dark shades of yellow-gray, thanks to the torch light. But most importantly, I was ready to fight to defend my dad. I stepped over his legs and had my sword and shield at the ready.

The ground that had collapsed a few moments ago exploded in a cascade of dirt, rock and the same fluid that was coating the walls. The dragon scrambled out from the ground and roared, shooting a fireball directly at my head. Instinctively, I moved my shield upward to deflect the blow, which thrummed through my arm and made me take a step backward. My peg bit into the rock, arresting my movement.

As the vibrations cleared themselves, I lowered my shield, glaring at the dragon and standing between it and my dad. It had no wings, and its body was generally circular, almost like a turtle if its shell were internal. It had four legs, each foot tipped with sharp black claws. Its legs were somewhat splayed from its sides, unlike Toothless, who normally kept his legs directly underneath himself. The dragon had vicious-looking lower teeth extending slightly outward and overlapping its upper jaw. Its beady eyes were yellow with cat-like pupils. And it had several yellow stripes, beginning from its eyes and running down the length of its sides.

My inescapable conclusion: This was definitely not a Night Fury.

Whatever the dragon was, it glowered at me. I wasn't going to try to train it, not when Dagur the Deranged was nearby. My only goal was to keep the dragon from attacking my dad. And to do that, I was gonna stand my ground. I took a step forward, causing it to intensify its rumbling. Suddenly, Dagur leapt for the dragon with a loud battle cry, almost rivaling the dragon's roar. He had his sword cocked behind his shoulder and stepped forward, bringing his weapon down with another hollow whoosh. The sword clanked into the ground as the dragon moved out of Dagur's line of attack.

The dragon slipped past Dagur and began heading for a small crevice in the rock wall, maybe just wide enough for my shoulders. But definitely not wide enough to accommodate the dragon, no matter how it approached the gap.

"Pin it there!" Dagur shouted. "It's got nowhere to…"

He stopped as the dragon quickly squeezed itself into the gap, barely disturbing any of the rocks on either side.

"How in Odin's name did it do that?" Dagur asked slowly.

Gunnar was panting behind me, his front side still covered in the fluid from the dragon.

"How does a Night Fury do that!?" Dagur shouted, directing his question at me.

"It's not a Night Fury," I finally said.

"I told you not to play games with me!" he shouted back.

"I'm not," I said. I was still focused. "That's not what a Night Fury looks like."

"How do you know that!?"

"It doesn't have any wings," I pointed out simply. I could have described how it had yellow stripes, or its body profile was too circular, or how its teeth weren't retractable. But I chose the most apparent difference. "A Night Fury will fly off if you attack it."

Dagur took four strides toward me, his sword at the ready. "Your dad's not here to defend you now, Hiccup." He brought the business end of the sword about a foot from my face. "How does the dragon fit into that space?" he asked slowly through clenched teeth, like my life depended on this answer.

Another heavy burrowing sound caught our attention. Dagur's head snapped toward the source, causing his neck to pop audibly. He grunted in pain and dropped his sword, grasping the back of his neck with a grimace. "No, not now," he groaned. He tried to move his neck and head, wincing with certain movements. It took me a few seconds to realize he had pulled a muscle in his neck.

"Let's get out of here," I suggested. "You can't turn your head, and my dad isn't in good shape either."

Dagur glared at me from the corner of his eye and said, "Don't even think about it. We're finishing this tonight, or Berk becomes ours tomorrow."

I gulped. Injured or not, Dagur was still willing to go to war with Berk, and he was forcing me to cater to him.

In the background, my dad groaned, the pain in his head becoming more intense.

That heavy burrowing sound came back, this time directly behind me. I had no time to get around the dirt and rocks that were seemingly boiling. Within a second, the dragon reappeared between me and my dad, facing me.

"Out of the way!" Dagur shouted. He shoved me aside with his shield and took two steps toward the dragon. The dragon, instead of running for cover again, bullrushed Dagur before he could get his sword ready. Dagur toppled onto his back, screaming in pain and fear as the dragon trampled him. There was nothing I could do. If I somehow got the dragon's attention, it had every reason in the world to attack Dagur, who was still lying prone and in shock.

The dragon quickly turned toward Gunnar and glared at him for a split-second, rumbling. And launched a fireball at his feet.

Gunnar reacted too slowly, and his left boot was quickly enveloped in bright yellow flames.