Chapter Forty-Four: The calm before the storm
Hiccup was pretty sure things would have gotten more smoothly if he hadn't mentioned the dragons.
Blondie had brought them to some small ships with which they had sailed from the Misty Island to a small neighbor island, only a few hundred meters away, which Hiccup had totally forgotten about.
It was inhabited by a community half the size of Berk and just like Berk it was fishing-village.
They lived from the trade and with Talkin just around the corner they had pretty much everything.
At least according to the maps and the things he'd read about.
As it turned out, the village was just a run-down piece of…junk.
It really looked bad and Hiccup felt a pang of pity in the depth of his stomach.
What had happened?
He'd never seen such a poor village.
Blondie lead them straight through town.
Many of the residents came out or stopped doing whatever they were doing. They all looked weathered and not really happy. They frowned when they walked past and as soon as they were out of sight they picked up their work again.
Hiccup soon noticed that there weren't much young people. Just the really young and the really old ones.
And Blondie with his squad of wanna-be-soldiers.
Blondie kicked the door to the biggest house open and they entered.
It probably once had been an enormous and well-crafted house. Now it was completely run-down and Hiccup couldn't make one step without stepping on a lose floorboard.
Once he'd adjusted to that, he looked up and saw a long table ahead. At its top sat a man that reminded him a lot of his father. Just this man wasn't that vast and blond and only had one eye. Besides that he was dressed in rags of what once probably had been fine clothing. In the belts he had strapped cross his chest stuck several daggers and he was missing his Pinkie and his ring finger on his left hand. Also his shoulders seemed to be on different levels.
All in all this man was a battle hardened veteran.
Somehow that didn't make Hiccup feel any better.
Next to him Josh swallowed hard.
"Chief. The patrol is back." Blondie said loudly and stood at attention.
The chief looked up and Hiccup sucked in his breath.
Something was familiar about that face. He just wasn't sure what…
"And?" the man growled. Now it was Blondie's time to swallow. "We found these intruders on the cursed Island while doing our patrol."
The chiefs' eyes now turned to Josh and Hiccup.
"Ah see." Then: "Bring 'em here." One of the guards punched Hiccup in the back.
Slowly he walked past the chairs on both sides on the table, which were occupied by elderly looking men with suspicious expressions on their face.
Next to the chief they stopped and Hiccup put on a determined face.
"Hello." The chief said calmly.
Both, man and boy eyed each other.
"Hello." Hiccup greeted back.
"What's your name?" "Who wants to know that?" "Me; obviously." "And who are you?" "I am the chief. The name's Hamish." "That's a Viking name." Hiccup noticed. The man laughed. "Very good. Yes. My ancestors came from the north. But that was a long time ago." "Interesting." Hiccup mumbled. "What did you say?" "Nothing."
Hamish eyed him closely.
"So, tell me your name." "It's Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third." There were no emotions in the man's' face.
"Interesting." He mumbled.
"What?" Hiccup asked warily. He'd learned the hard way that when people knew who you were before you knew, it usually was a bad thing.
"Nothing. Now tell me, what where you doing on that cursed neighbor Island of ours? Don't you know how dangerous it is? You were lucky that one of our patrols rescued you before it got dark." "Rescued?" Josh piped up. "More like kidnapped us! We were fine on our own." "Hush." The chief said and looked at Hiccup. But Hiccup ignored his question. There was something about this man. Something awfully familiar. Hiccup narrowed his eyes. What was the chief hiding?
"We were just resting. We are on a trip. We were flying for a long time and got lost in the mist so we…" "Flying?" the chief interrupted him and his eyes narrowed down dangerously. "What do you mean with flying?"
To late Hiccup remembered what Will had told him all those weeks ago.
"But there are places in the world that don't like dragons. They kill them. For fun, in self-defense, whatever. I know they think so in Durgonheim. And in the Archipelago and in Talkin."
Shit. Talkin was just a stone-throw away. And judging by the man's reaction they followed the same believes. He cursed under his breath.
Hiccup had managed to let the one other nation that disliked dragons know that they were riding them.
And Josh decided to confirm it.
"What, what do you mean? We mean our dragons of course. And guess what, the dragon I'm riding… it's that Misty-Dragon that can make your nightmares come true. Cool eh?"
Oh how dearly Hiccup whished Josh somewhere had a leverage that you could pull so he would shut up. Some sort of mute-leverage.
"What…did you say?" the chief asked dangerously slowly as he got up, as all the other did too.
"Ahm…dragons?" Josh asked silently and looked at Hiccup for confirmation.
"You're in league with those devils?" Hamish roared.
"And there comes the Viking blood forward." Hiccup groaned.
"Sir, I know that you are probably not at best terms with dragons but…" "PROBABLY? SIZE THEM!" Hiccup had no time to finish his reasoning.
He was roughly grabbed and his hands were chained behind his back.
"No, please, you have to hear what we've got to say! It's important." "I don't deal with you lot. You are all traitors! Dragons are beasts! And now get them out of my sight!"
With dreadful finality the iron-bars closed and the guards left.
"For a village in such a poor state they have a good prison!" Josh said. "Everybody has hobbies." Hiccup muttered.
They were sitting in some kind of cages, which, very much to their both dismay, were hanging three meters above the ground.
Not very high but still; it sucked. No matter how much or little you moved, the whole thing just moved with you.
"Is it too early to ask how your brilliant escape plan is coming along?"
Hiccup just shot his a dirty look. "Why don't you help me?" "Already told you. I'm more for fighting. Not thinking." "Just take your flute and make them release us and the chief listen to us." "Sorry mate. But my flute's still with my other stuff and that's probably still back in the other island with the dragons and Kate and…" "Holy mother of Thor! We forgot about Kate!" "No kidding mate!" "What do you think she's going to do?" "You tell me, you've known her longer." Hiccup ran his hands through hair trying to think what to do." "Well, she will know by now that something's off. And I think she will search for us. And she will find this island, probably even the village but…I don't know. If she comes here and asks for us she will be caged too! And when she comes with dragons…they probably will kill them. But Kate
probably doesn't know, so there's…no way telling what will happen, concerning her." "And concerning us?" "We have to make the chief listen. Only then we stand a chance." "Last time you tried make people listen to you, you were marked as a slave. And the time before that you burned down a palest and made a King very angry. You sure we can rely on your diplomatic skills?" "Well, what good have you done for our situation? If you would have let me do the talking we probably wouldn't be here in first place!" "Why don't you just melt the iron and get us out of here?" "So I can give them a reason to shoot me down?" "Whatever." Josh growled and leaned back. Imminently his cage started swinging wildly.
They didn't speak for what felt like hours. Josh was still sulking and Hiccups brain was working overtime.
The sun was already setting as far as they could see through the small windows in the roof, when the door to the prison opened again.
Both boys tried to see who it was and both groaned in disappointment when they spotted Blondie.
"Oh great. What does he want now?" Josh asked through clenched teeth.
Blondie, still dressed in deep blue and his armor, strolled down the aisle and stopped in front of them.
"Hello there Losers!"
Hiccup just groaned and leaned back so he didn't have to look at the guy.
"Go away." He just said annoyed.
"Now look at this." He could hear the smirk in the guys' voice. "Not so high and mighty anymore." Hiccup looked down at him through the bars of his cage. "Actually we're still higher up than you, come to think of it."
As an answer Blondie hit his cage with a long iron pole and Hiccup was thrown from side to side. "Stop it you brainless piece of seaweed!" he snapped.
"Oh, that's not very nice." "Yeah, not as nice as throwing innocent people into jail." Josh growled. "But you're not innocent." Blondie's voice hardened. "Listen Blondie, I give a damn what you think of me. Just go away and annoy someone else." Hiccup advised.
Another blow shook his cage.
"Get yourself a private life." Josh added which resulted in him swinging back and forth too.
"You are so stupid. How you made it this far is a miracle." Blondie sneered. "And it's a miracle your parents kept you after you were born." Josh taunted.
Blondie's face grew hot red.
"Shut the hell up you worthless piece of s***! You know nothing!" Josh rolled with his eyes. "Oh, let me guess, problems at home? As if I care. Just get lost and let us do our job." "Josh. That's enough." Hiccup stopped him.
Josh grumbled something under his breath but stopped.
Hiccup looked at Blondie. "What do you want anyway?" he asked. "You probably didn't come to pay us a visit and entertain us, did you?"
Blondie sat down on a barrel and leaned against pillar.
"I'm curious." He just said. "Curiosity killed the cat!" Josh sang happily. Blondie rolled with his eyes.
"Where are you from?" he asked. "None of your business." Josh growled. "What do you want?" "Classified." Hiccup answered. "We won't go down without a struggle." Blondie said determined.
Both Josh and Hiccup looked at him with equally irritated faces. "What?" they asked simultaneously.
"You and the devils won't get us. We've suspected it for a long time now. We are ready."
Josh looked at Hiccup with one raised eyebrow. "Do you know what the heck he's talking about?" Hiccup shook his head. "No, but he kinda reminds me of Dagur the Deranged of the Berserker-Tribe."
"Just play dumb. I know your true intentions."
With that Blondie left.
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Kate was sure her head was killing her.
When she regained consciousness her head throbbed and hurt like hell. Or like that time Nightlight had given her a clout. Accidently of course…
She tried to figure out where she was and what was the matter.
She was lying face down on the surf. So much she could tell by the sand and the wet feeling around her waist.
And she was pretty sure her hair and cloth were a mess.
She also found out that she could barely move.
So she raised her head, which hurt like hell, and tried to see something through the wisps of hair falling in front of her eyes.
"Nightlight?" she asked weakly. Indeed she was pressed against the back of her dragon. She could feel her deep breaths in her back.
With the confirmation that her friend was still alive she fell back into oblivion.
The next time she came around things were clearer.
The sun was standing low and she was cold.
"Nightlight?" A deep comforting purr sounded next to her. "I'm glad you're alright girl." The dragon made soothing noises.
Kate shook her head so she could finally see fully. A bola was wrapped around her and her dragon. And the more they struggled, the tighter the bonds got.
"Great." She cursed. She tried to reach her knives but it was difficult. She had to twist her elbow in a very unnatural angle. Also her fingers were numb and stiff.
She ended up cutting herself badly in the hand but at least she had one of her daggers to use.
Her arms were without any energy and her movements were slow and sloppy and it seemed to take ages before the first rope snapped.
By then the sun nearly touched the horizon.
While cutting the ropes her mind wandered off, trying to remember what had happened.
Images flashed through her mind.
She was flying high above the water.
The outline of Talkin rising in front of her.
But it was surrounded by a barricade of ships.
The people on board had shot her down, before even coming close.
What was going on there? What did that mean?
And where the boys?
The last cord snapped and she rolled away, getting on all fours and carefully she sat up.
She just realized how lucky she was not to have landed in the ocean. They would have drowned.
Clumsy she sat up and turned around.
"Nightlight!"
Though the sun was setting and it got darker by the minute, she could clearly see the dragoness lying in the sand.
Though she was awake she looked weak and it was very likely that she still was hurt.
"Girl!" she called and hurried to her friend's side.
"Where does it hurt?" The dragon mewed and raised her right front paw which looked swollen and was bleeding.
"Oh. Okay, hold on." Kate jumped towards the saddle-bags which, thankfully, had survived the fall.
She grabbed the closest piece of cloth and hurried back to her friends' front.
"Okay girl, this going to hurt but I need to wrap this around your paw until I find Hiccup and he can have a closer look at it, okay?" In respond the dragoness carefully nudged her in the belly and purred.
"Good." Kate sat to work. It was difficult, because she didn't want to hurt Nightlight anymore.
Miraculously she had gotten away with just some minor injuries. Cuts and bruise, maybe a slight concussion and a sprained wrist at the most.
"Okay, this should do it, at least for a while. Now we must find somewhere for you to stay while I search for Hiccup and Josh." A thought struck her. What had happened to Toothless and Zhang? She had told the dragons to stay put but had they listened to her?
Well, it wasn't like Toothless could fly away but what if he went to search for the boys himself? Would Zhang have accompanied him?
And where were the boys? Why hadn't they come back?
As far as they all had assumed the Island had been uninhabited. Had they been wrong? Maybe cannibals?
Kate clutched her head.
Too many 'If's' and questions circled through her head.
One step at the time, she told herself.
So she made mental list in her head:
Find shelter for her dragon.
Find food
Find out where I am
Search for lost friends
Find and kick lost friends in the butt
Shouldn't I come as far to 4. then I should search for the dragons
Shouldn't I find them I'm screwed
She stood up straight and scanned her surroundings.
Behind her rose the sand dunes all along the shore-line.
Behind her was the ocean.
Left and right the stony beach went on.
So she turned around and climbed the dunes.
There was not much. Straight ahead there was mostly flat land, fields of grain with wildflowers in between and a small forest behind those.
To her left there seemed to be a rather large furrow. To her right the land seemed to make a sharp turn and she could only see the ocean and flat land.
So left it was.
She walked over to the furrow. It was deeper then assumed and much narrower.
At the bottom seawater had gathered and it looked pretty muddy. But it seemed to lead into a gorge.
She slithered down the slope and carefully entered the small gorge.
There were many caves but none that was big enough.
She was about to give up when she found a cave the right size. Still small but big enough for Nightlight.
She was about to hurry back when she heard the unmistakable sound of human voices. She froze. So this island wasn't uninhabited.
She thought about showing herself but she decided against it. She didn't know if these people were friend or foe and she still had to care for her dragon-friend.
"Girl! I found somewhere for you to stay but we have to hurry. Can you walk?"
The dragoness heaved herself up and followed her through the sand dunes into the gorge.
Faintly she could make out the shine of torches coming her way.
"Faster!" she whispered, still looking up.
The light was getting closer.
"In there!" she advised her dragon before diving in the next dark corner.
Holding her breath Kate listened to the approaching footsteps.
Soon she could hear the conversation going on only a few feet above her.
"I don't know. But I don't like it. It's been too silent in the last time, don't you think?" "Be glad George. It's not like I'm looking forward a battle." "Their plotting against us! I tell you!" this George guy said. "You are so paranoid." "You are not careful enough." There was a short silence in which the two males walked closer.
"Do you really think it's because of them?" "Of course! I tell you, bad things are about to happen." George grumbled. Kate would love to know what they were talking about. "Bad things already happened. How can it get worse? There is the barricade, there are the raids, the taxes, and the uneven politics…No you think those two boys are going to give us trouble too?"
Kate's heart stared racing. Two boys? Trouble? Definitely her two boys! So at least they were alive.
She perked up, not wanting to miss a single part of their conversation.
"Oh yes." George continued with a sneer. "But they don't look like much." The other man noticed. "So did Charles." The other man paused before he said. "But that was different." He said eventually. "Not in my eyes. They are all traitors."
They continued walking and Kate saw herself forced to follow them.
She shot Nightlight one last glance.
"I'll be back!" she mouthed and followed the two men.
The men walked a long time in silence.
Then the other one said: "I'd say we give the boys a chance. We had no problem with the beast for ages. I mean of course there were raids and we had to fight for our share of fish and wild-life but we got along most of the times."
"They're beast and beats will always be beasts. They're no pets." George said venomously. "Then how come the rest of the world gets along with them?" "Not the whole world." "You know what I mean." "They're under a spell probably. Did you never hear of the beasts hypnotizing abilities?" "Those are just fairy-tales." "And the monster from that cursed Mist-Island? And all the other dragons that live there? Are they fairy-tales?" "All I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't take everything for the truth!" "What do you know?" George asked through gritted teeth.
The other man just sighed. "Let's head back." He said and their steppes started to veer away from where Kate was crouched between rocks and tall grass.