The dragon launched itself forward, gouging deep furrows into the earth beneath its claws. Its back left leg was just close enough to Dagur's upper right arm for the dragon's claws to rake into Dagur's skin. He yelled in pain just as the shock from being trampled wore off. Dark crimson droplets of blood peppered the area around my feet, some of them landing on my peg.

Another shout caught my attention. It was short and panicking, coming from Gunnar's direction. He tried to smother the fire on his left foot using one of his hands. But as he brushed his boot, his left hand caught fire. And it was climbing rapidly up his left leg. As soon as it reached his knees, it spread to both of his legs. Gunnar screamed in agonizing pain as a gentle breeze blew past me toward him. We were deep enough in the cave system that any wind from outside wasn't going to reach us. This was the draft from the building fire. And Gunnar was its source.

"TOO HOT! TOO HOT!" he shouted. In panic, he slapped wildly at the building flames, only succeeding in feeding the yellow fire with more air. And more fuel. The slime from the dragon must have been stupidly flammable. Several areas around Gunnar had also caught fire, dotting his surroundings with miniature torches.

As Gunnar's skin on his arms and legs blackened, the flames reached his face, where he tried to scream again, but only a voiceless rush came out of his mouth. The draft that was a gentle breeze a second ago whipped into a much more considerable wind, enough to cause my pants to billow just slightly toward him. I slowly backed away from Gunnar to prevent myself from catching fire, but I couldn't take my eyes away from him. I kept backing away in fear, knowing my left hand and right shoulder were coated in the same stuff that was burning Gunnar alive. The heat was so intense I thought I was going to catch fire as well.

It didn't take long for the smell of burning flesh to fill the cave around us. It was quickly followed by a coppery smell as blood vessels beneath Gunnar's skin occasionally burst from the heat. I knelt, about to become sick to my stomach. I put my head between my arms and leaned on my sword to hopefully keep balance on my knees, the sight of Gunnar being immolated almost too much to handle.

After maybe a minute of pure agony, Gunnar's face quickly turned crisp black, and he slowly pitched forward. His face smashed into the ground, throwing small flames in all directions for a few feet. He soon toppled to his right, dead as soon as he hit the ground. His body stayed absolutely rigid. But the fire was still burning away, causing Gunnar's skin to crackle slightly. The wind around us was still strong, feeding the fire. The heat was still deathly intense. And the coppery smell was so thick I could literally taste it.

I slowly turned toward my dad, who had gotten to his hands and knees in pain and was starting to crawl out of the cave. Each time he moved, that same fuel stuck to his hands and knees.

I knew we had to get out of here soon. A roaring fire in a nearly-closed space like this was bound to suck all of the breathable air out of the surrounding area. And it wouldn't take long to pass out from lack of air.

I slowly stood, fighting back the wave of nausea in my stomach and throat, and turned toward Dagur. I was gonna grab him and get him out of there, regardless of whether he'd go to war with us in the future or not. As I got within five feet of him, I noticed his eyes were somewhat glassy and his face was turning red. Blood was slowly leaking out of right arm where the dragon had launched off of him. He wasn't breathing. And two seconds later, his teeth began chattering.

There was no way he could have been cold. Not in this setting.

"Dagur, we need to get out of here!" I shouted.

He didn't respond to me, except by quivering. It started in his head, which I thought was even more peculiar. He had a strained neck, but he was tense beyond belief, and yet he wasn't showing any pain at all. His quivering spread to his entire body as he started breathing again. Loud, hissing breaths, through clenched teeth. His eyes began bulging slightly as he stared straight ahead, like he was glaring past Gunnar's burning corpse and through the wall in front of him.

"Dagur, come on!" I shouted.

He sucked in a deep breath and leaned back into a howl. Like a wolf. Only, when a wolf howls, it's not blood-chilling. My abdominal muscles tensed slightly as I subconsciously went through the motions of emulating Dagur's howl. He was reaching some sounds that I could actually feel, rather than hear. I froze in abject fear, not knowing what to do, five feet away as Dagur howled at the top of his lungs. It was loud enough to start a rockslide, I was sure of that.

"D-Dagur?" I said haltingly after he had finished howling to Odin.

He never looked at me. He turned to his left and yelled at the top of his lungs again. No words, only a primal battle cry. Dagur took off, sprinting straight toward the crevice where the dragon had disappeared just a few moments ago. He had his sword in his right hand, but left his shield near my peg.

"Dagur, no!" I shouted. I jumped over his shield in an effort to stop him. I couldn't think of anything else to persuade him with, but he had already done what I thought only dragons could do. He had turned manic.

No.

He was berserk.

I froze maybe with my left hand maybe a foot behind his shoulder. There was absolutely no stopping him. As he squeezed through the crevice, I heard a loud roar come from behind the rocks. It was the dragon. It shot a fireball straight at Dagur. I heard it collide with something soft, silencing Dagur. I heard him pull in a gasping breath and yell at the top of his lungs at the dragon. His primal scream ended as I heard his sword lodge to the hilt in something. Either rocks or dragon, but I couldn't tell which.

Dagur was gasping and exhaling with no control over his voice. But the dragon didn't match him at all. I never heard it make a sound after that last roar. It didn't take long for a wet, sickening crack to echo its way through the cave. It definitely wasn't Gunnar's body because it came from where Dagur was. Another crack. Followed by another. About one every five seconds or so. I stood rooted to my spot as each sound filled the air above Gunnar's burning corpse.

There were at least twenty of those cracking sounds. Because of the echoing in the chamber, it took me a while to realize those sounds were from bones breaking. I closed my eyes in horror and took a step backward. Dagur had killed the dragon without a second thought but didn't stop there. He was turning it from a dragon into a blood eagle.

Open the ribcage from the back. Peel the ribs away from the spine. And whatever else before offering the blood eagle as a sacrifice to Odin.

I collapsed on my knees and finally hurled, that horrible sour taste comparable in intensity to the smell of burning flesh and blood from earlier. And Gunnar's corpse was still burning.

I groaned as I stood up and hobbled toward my dad, who was still slowly crawling his way out of the cave. I used the wall as support, unmindful of the dragon's fuel attaching itself to my skin and clothing.

Within half a minute, I had reached my dad, who was entirely focused on crawling his way out of the cave. I was weak at the knees from what had transpired in the cave and probably lack of air, but there was no other option. I whispered a short prayer to Thor for strength and crouched, pushing myself underneath my dad's chest. Pulled in a quick breath and stood, using my legs to do most of the work. I held onto my dad's arms and looped them over my shoulders. And started walking slowly toward the Berserker village.

My dad was struggling to even keep his eyes focused. I kept looking at his face, hoping for a moment of clarity from him, but he simply kept staring through the ground. Walking with support was more than enough for him at the moment.

We slowly exited the cave, night still saturating the air around us. It felt like we were in there for hours, but time is a bizarre thing. In reality, we had maybe spent thirty minutes in there at most.

Outside of the cave, a light drizzle was falling. Where firelight illuminated the ground, I saw a bright sheen of water on the grass and dirt. Visibility toward the village thankfully wasn't limited, but it definitely made the air around us much colder.

A loud, echoing howl came from deep within the cave. Same chilling tone as earlier. Dagur must have finished what he was doing to the dragon. I couldn't believe how intense his yells were. There were times when my dad was trying to get himself excited for a battle and yelled at a dragon, but it was never this crazy. I now understood what he was saying about keeping out of Dagur's way. Not only would I never be able to stop him, but I'd be lucky to survive such an encounter.

As luck would have it, the brown-haired guard who was showing us around earlier today was strolling around the outskirts of the village. Probably on patrol, just like we did at Berk.

"HEY!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. Couldn't think of anything else to say, and I couldn't whistle anyhow. It caught his attention, and he wasted no time in running toward us.

"Where's Dagur?" he asked. He completely ignored me and my dad. Both of us were coated in the dragon's slime, and my dad was leaning heavily on my shoulder, probably within seconds of falling over.

I didn't answer his question. "Please, sir, can you help us?" I asked. "This is urgent."

The guard took one look at my dad, turned around and backed his way underneath his left arm without saying a word. We supported him on either side as we walked him back into the village. My dad groaned in pain again, a fresh headache wracking him. I felt my eyes watering, feeling his pain and not being able to do a thing about it. It was that same feeling I had when Toothless was torn from me in the arena during my rite of passage. It was what I should have been feeling watching Gunnar burn to a crisp, but everything happened so fast I couldn't react. And I should have felt the same way about the dragon. But none of that mattered anymore. My dad was the only thought on my mind. Get him help somehow.

We trudged up the hill toward the village center, where the guard led us through a doorway. I didn't care what was inside the house, just as long as we could help my dad.

"Right there," the guard said, motioning with his gaze toward a wooden bed. It was empty, so I guessed we had reached the house we were staying in earlier.

We turned around and sat my dad on the bed. Moved his legs into a straightened position and gently laid him down. The guard removed his helmet and propped my dad's head up using a folded animal skin.

"Let him rest here for the night," the guard said.

I backed away and sat down in a chair with an exasperated sigh. And let my shoulders droop. I hung my head, staring at the ground. A tear slowly made its way to the bridge of my nose before dropping to the floor below.

"Where's Dagur?" he asked again.

I waited for a brief moment. Took a deep breath, but never looked at him. "Hunting the Night Fury," I finally mumbled. I had just enough presence of mind to call the dragon what the Berserkers thought it was. There was no point in arguing about what species the dragon really was.

"What about Gunnar?" he asked as he sat down at the foot of the bed.

I paused. And closed my eyes. Involuntarily, I was giving him the exact answer he didn't want to hear. "The dragon killed him," I finally said quietly toward the floor.

"How?" he asked.

I mulled my answer over in my head before settling on it. There was no need for details. So I kept it simple. "Burned him," I said. My tone of voice suggested I didn't want to go any further.

There was a long silence, so the guard must have gotten my message. I didn't hear anything from outside the house. The guard eventually said something to break the vacuum that was between us. "Dagur really wanted to kill that dragon. He thought it would make him invincible if he could kill a Night Fury. Especially after he saw the one on Berk."

I was so drained that I had almost forgotten where I was. I slowly moved my gaze toward the guard and was a split-second from asking him, Oh, you mean Toothless? My mouth was open to say something, and I had gotten the first syllable out. And I realized almost too late that I was about to give away my most precious secret to someone who was probably an enemy. "Oh…w-well…" I trailed off, not knowing how to salvage my broken thoughts.

"Hm?" he asked.

"…Never mind. It wasn't important," I lied, looking slightly away from him.

"Dagur brought Gunnar with you because he thought he needed to improve at dragon hunting."

"Who, Dagur?" I asked in confusion.

"No, Gunnar. He knew this would be dangerous, and he knew his skills at dragon fighting weren't sharp enough for this."

"Why didn't he just say 'no'?" I asked. I came dangerously close to reciting one of my dad's favorite phrases: We're Vikings; it's an occupational hazard. But I quickly decided against it. Now was probably not the time for levity.

"He still wanted to be like Dagur. He thought Dagur was the most amazing person to ever set foot on this island. Saying 'no' would have caused Dagur to lose respect for him. And to Gunnar, that respect was important."

This was eerily similar to Gustav's view of Snotlout. "So he shouldn't have gone, but he did it anyway," I translated. I briefly wondered if something like this would have happened if we didn't have dragons freely roaming around Berk.

The guard sitting across from me nodded somberly.

"What about us?" I asked, motioning between me and my dad.

"What do you think?" he asked sarcastically. Before I could say anything, he continued. "To show you and your father how strong and invincible he was. And by extension, the entire Berserker Tribe."

"He did that, all right," I said under my breath, breaking eye contact with him again.

"He went berserk, didn't he?" the guard asked me, picking up on my little comment.

I nodded, not looking at him.

"And I bet he turned that dragon into a blood eagle," he continued.

I shrugged. "I guess. I only wanted to get out of the cave at that point. I didn't watch."

"You'll see it tomorrow. It takes Dagur about an hour to come out of one of his trances, so he's got plenty of time to bring that dragon into the middle of the village."

"Good luck getting it out," I mused sarcastically.

"In his current state? He'll find a way. It's an offering to Odin, so it needs to be placed where he can see it." He paused. Dropped his voice for effect. "And you'll need to act like you're impressed with it. That's my advice to you."

I recoiled in disgust. "I'd rather avoid it, thank you."

"Hiccup, trust me. You don't want to get on the wrong side of the Berserkers." He said that with a tone of voice that suggested he wasn't a "Berserker."

I picked up on his tone and asked, "You mean your entire tribe?"

"No, not everyone here does that. There are maybe twenty people here who can actually go berserk. And before you ask, I'm not one of them." He was making every effort to distance himself from the rest of his tribe.

I looked at the guard with a sideways glance. Yeah, right, I thought. They were called "Berserkers" for a reason.

"Because of them, the name sticks to us," he continued.

"Yeah, sounds great," I said dismissively. "If you can somehow convince Dagur to sign the peace treaty, we'd really like to get back to Berk tomorrow."

The guard chuckled. "You have no idea how easy that's gonna be."

"What? Are you saying I should just walk right up to him and hand him the treaty and say, 'Here, sign this'?"

"You don't know what happens afterward, do you?" he asked.

I just looked at him with a confused expression on my face.

"Nobody can keep that berserk state for very long. Once he's done with it, Dagur's practically not going to move at all for the next two or three days. You'll be able to get him to agree to almost anything."

"Liar," I said quietly.

"I'm not lying, Hiccup. Tomorrow, we'll get the treaty signed in the morning. You'll be heading back home before noon."

I sighed. "Okay, fine," I conceded. "Just…just lemme get some rest."

"I'll be back here tomorrow morning for the treaty," he said. Stood up. And walked out of the house, closing the door quietly behind him.

I sat there for a moment, letting the night sounds filter in through the walls. I really wished Toothless were here right now. Or Astrid. Somebody who could make me feel secure. Somebody who could make me forget about what happened for just a little while.

I groaned slightly as I stood. Began surveying the house. In one corner was a deep basin filled with fresh water. Immediately, I stopped surveying and walked over to my knapsack and pulled out the bar of coarse soap. Brought it back to the basin and washed my hair and face. The soap stung a little as it attacked my skin, but it did what it was supposed to. The slime that was beginning to crust over my right knuckles was no match for it.

I washed the soap out of my hair and skin and removed my shirt. The right shoulder was crusted over with that same material. I wondered how the dragon produced so much of it. I also wondered why the fire it created was a vivid yellow. Something like looking at a lemon and creating fire with the exact same color. It just seemed unnatural that a fuel like that could be any color other than light orange or the occasional blue flicker.

As I let the water drip back into the basin, I stared at my reflection in the water. The dripping water from my face turned my reflection into wavy patterns, but when the basin was still, I saw my face staring back at me. My eyes were the first thing I noticed. They were sullen, maybe sunk into my head just a fraction. Underneath were slight dark spots I hadn't noticed before. My skin was generally whitish, just like it was supposed to be.

But my eyes told me everything that went wrong today. There must have been something I could have done to prevent the dragon from immolating Gunnar. I should have gotten Dagur out of there sooner so he couldn't have gone berserk. I should have fought that dragon. Even if it would have been a brief scuffle, I should have distracted the dragon so Gunnar could have gotten to safety. But I didn't. I intentionally stayed away from engaging the dragon. I wondered what kind of impression that was gonna make to Dagur.

Here's Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the Viking who courageously saved Dagur the Deranged from a Night Fury attack on Berk. And the exact same Hiccup was a terrified wreck during a dragon hunt a year later.

There'd be no way Dagur could ignore the way I handled tonight's hunt. Or that guard…whatever his name was.

I continued staring at my reflection, wondering how long this Hiccup was going to be around. This Hiccup, who constructed an elaborate lie to help his tribe keep their pet dragons alive. And this same Hiccup, who inadvertently exposed said lie and condemned his tribe and their dragons to near-certain death at the hands of the Berserkers.

I finally broke the staring contest with myself and glanced at the shirt I was holding in my right hand. The one with the slimed shoulder. Better to get rid of it. Or wash it when we returned to Berk. There would be no time to clean and dry it here. And if I did anyway, I'd have to stay here longer. If the guard was right about the blood eagle, that meant I'd have to spend more time acting like it was the most amazing sight ever.

I walked over to my knapsack and pulled out another shirt. Same dull green color as the previous one. I pulled it on and walked over to the other bed in the house. I lay down, but I couldn't sleep.