Chapter 16:

The next day was rather uneventful. Most of the Vikings occupied themselves with personal tasks in preparation for the upcoming survey trip, not finding much extra time to visit one another.

Astrid sighed as she leaned against her house's back door. She'd just finished cleaning and feeding Stormfly and her mind wandered towards what else she had to do that day to get ready. Perhaps the most difficult task would be convincing her parents to let her escape for the better part of the day…again. Astrid had just been gone the previous day and although she was getting older, her parents still considered her their child, and both of them had difficulties with her leaving for such prolonged periods of time with no supervision- especially when dragons were involved. The Hofferson's had lived a large part of their lives in a time without dragon peace, and the new way of life was a struggle to grasp.

As she was thinking about the best time to break the news, Astrid was embarrassingly interrupted as the back door opened and swung inward, sending her straight onto her back staring up at her mom, a stupefied expression on her face.

Her mother smiled as Astrid quickly sprang up and wore a new look of annoyance, trying to act as if none of that had just happened. "Well hello, dear."

Astrid sighed. "Hi, mom. Do you need something?"

"I was just going to ask why you were spending so much time out here taking care of your dragon. Going somewhere so soon?"

Shit. Why did her mom have to be so perceptive? It appeared as though the right time to talk about things had already been decided for the girl. "Uh, uhm yeah…actually I am. Can we talk inside?" Her mother nodded and the two migrated into the sitting room.

"So where is it that you're going, darling?" Freya asked intently.

"Hiccup wants to count the dragons on that chain of islands to the east…I think you know it. It will probably take us most of the day…" Astrid finished quietly, not meeting her mother's gaze, afraid of what Freya might say.

"I see…" Astrid's mom sighed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh Astrid, it's just…you're getting to be such a big girl. Faster than I'm ready for. I mean, you're already going to be 16 just before Snoggletog this year. You being around less and less is a difficult change to endure, but I always knew it would be one you'd make sooner or later…just not with a dragon."

"Mom, you know Stormfly would never hurt me. And besides, my friends will all be there too. I don't think we'll get into much trouble." Astrid tried her best to sound convincing.

"I know she wouldn't, but I just want you to be careful. You said everyone was going? Even Arkyn?"

"Of course we'll be careful, and yes, everyone who can ride a dragon will be going." Astrid assured her mom.

"Well I wouldn't want you to be left out, now would I? Just don't come home telling me someone died. Do we have a deal? Freya smiled warmly at her daughter. She cared deeply for her safety, but even the older woman had been young and adventurous at one time, although in a different way.

"I promise you nothing like that will happen. We have a deal." Astrid appreciated the relationship she was able to have with her mother. It was certainly better than some other kids shared with their parents, and Freya's rationality usually showed a partiality in Astrid's favor, which was also nice.

Relieved with how that conversation had played out, Astrid did a final once over with Stormfly before leaving her house in search of more supplies she might need for the journey the next day.

The next day came and the dragon riders found themselves in the arena once again, this time to go over some last minute notes before departing east. They had all eaten dinner together the previous evening in the Great Hall, laughing the night away with stories of one another and a few lighthearted jokes. Turning in early to ensure adequate rest for the flight ahead, they showed up prepared for the arduous task of surveying the dragon populations.

Hiccup laid out the final points of the plan. "Alright, so here's how this is going to go. Everyone will be responsible for counting the dragons that match the species they ride, so Astrid will do Nadders, Fishlegs will do Gronkles, Arkyn will do Triplestrykes, etc. I don't expect there to be many Night Furies out there, if any at all, so I will count Terrible Terrors as well. We will start with the closest island and work our way farther east. If we see dragons in the air, count them for the island we're closest to at the time. If there are any more species other than the ones we ride, point them out to me. I'll see if I recognize them from the book of dragons and add them to the tally."

"Are you done yet?" Tuff interjected. "You've been speaking for about 4 hours already. Let's just go! Barf and Belch want to get off the ground at least some time today."

Hiccup grumbled atop Toothless. "Fine. We'll go, but if you have a million questions later it's not my fault." He commanded his dragon to spread its wings and the rest of the riders did the same.

Taking off, the group headed east towards the first island in the chain. They were lucky to have fair weather that day, and the skies shined a beautiful blue in the early morning light, barely a cloud visible. It was a fairly straight forward flight. Hiccup's map pointed them almost precisely where the first island was located, and once in sight the teens descended in altitude to get a better view of any potential dragons. Splitting up, they went in search of their respective species.

Arkyn circled the island several times as well as made several low passes across its diameter. It was a decent size, but nowhere near the size of Berk itself. Try as he might, the boy couldn't spot any Triplestrykes. Other dragons, sure. A couple Nadders here, a Zippleback there, but none that matched his own. He didn't get discouraged quite yet. The truth was, it didn't affect him that much if there were more of them or not, as long as he had his own. "Sorry, Stinger." Arkyn comforted his temporarily lonely dragon before meeting up with Hiccup and Toothless once again to report his findings.

Once back in a formation, Hiccup asked each rider for their counts.

"8 Gronkles." Fishlegs happily repeated.

"3 Monstrous Nightmares." Said Snotlout.

"Also 3 Zipplebacks." The twins conveyed in unison.

"I found 6 Nadders." Astrid reported.

Hiccup looked to Arkyn, who sheepishly shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry man, no Triplestrykes there."

"That's alright, it's not as if there has to be one of every species on each island. I didn't find any Night Furies either, but counted 12 Terrible Terrors." Hiccup said, marking down the information in one of his many notebooks. They proceeded to the next island at a leisurely pace to continue the process.

The second island was not only significantly larger than the first, but hosted a large forest with a surprisingly thick canopy accompanying it. This meant that to get a proper count, the teens would have to ditch their dragons on a nearby beach and fan out on foot throughout the trees, taking much longer to survey the land. It took a significant amount of time, 2 hours or more, but by the end of their expedition everyone was convinced that they'd canvassed the territory sufficiently enough to be satisfied with their new numbers.

The total count after the second island stood at 18 Gronkles, 7 Monstrous Nightmares, 6 Zipplebacks, 12 Nadders, 22 Terrible Terrors, and still no Triplestrykes nor Night Furies. The teens met up with their dragons once again and allowed Hiccup to note the new counts before taking off in the direction of the third island, which sat in a more southerly direction than the previous pair.

While in the air between the second and third islands, Hiccup looked down and spotted 2 Scaldrouns with his sharp eyes. They dipped above and below the sea's surface in the opposite direction as the dragon riders, leaving Hiccup to add them to the population of Island 2.

The survey of the next few islands went off without a hitch, but it wasn't until the 5th island that Arkyn finally found what he was looking for. Just before the group was about to leave he spotted it: Near the mouth of a small cave hidden by some overhanging rock formations, a single lone Triplestryke lay milling about, unbothered by whatever else was going on around it. "There! Stinger, let's go meet it." Stinger chirped happily and brought his rider in to land next to the cave.

The rest of his friends followed him down close behind, keeping their distance in case the stranger dragon didn't want to be friendly. Luckily for them, the sight of Stinger put the creature at ease, and although it initially stood up to defend itself the new Triplestryke instead greeted his counterpart with a loud squawk.

"He's not fully grown yet." Arkyn called back to the rest of the teens, noticing the dragon was smaller than Stinger. "I'd say…maybe 8 or 10 years old from what I remember. That's strange though, it should still have a parent at that age. Triplestrykes are very protective of their young and don't leave them until they're bigger and can properly take care of themselves."

"I wonder what it's doing out here all by itself." Fishlegs thought out loud. "You're sure you didn't see any others on the island?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Arkyn confirmed. "What about everybody else? No one came across a Triplestryke while counting their own species?"

The rest of the teens shook their heads.

"Strange…"

"Do Triplestrykes have any natural predators?" Hiccup questioned.

Arkyn thought for a moment. "None that I know of. Most dragons aren't big enough or strong enough to break through their armor plating."

"What do we do with it?" Astrid asked towards the back of the group.

There was a pause and some more thinking before Hiccup spoke. "I don't know that there's anything we can do. Not only would relocating it be difficult, but it might disorient it. I don't think it's old enough to be able to understand what was happening."

"So that's it then, we just leave it?" Arkyn sounded skeptical.

"I mean…look at it, Arkyn. It really doesn't seem too bothered by its situation. Nowhere near how Stinger acted when he first attacked us in the arena." Hiccup reasoned. He was right, too. The young dragon was surprisingly docile, and after some brief deliberations it was decided to let it be and move on to the next island.

"There's the next island!" Hiccup called to the other teens, folding up his map and placing it back in its pouch. Apart from the long trek on the second island, the group was making surprisingly good time, thinking they could make it home just before sunset began.

As they approached this particular land mass though, Hiccup squinted at a rather strange sight, turning around to face the other riders in the formation before setting his eyes on Arkyn. "Hey, um…there's something you need to see up here." He called, worriedly.

Arkyn did as he was told and sped up to fly just off to the right of Toothless' wing. The sight that met his eyes on the island below was astonishing. There were tons of Triplestrykes. At least 40 or more just by estimating from the air. Some were in groups, others by themselves, on the ground and in the air. It could only be described as a swarm. "What the…?" Arkyn exclaimed from his seat upon his own Triplestryke.

"Why the hell are there so many?" Astrid called, flying on Toothless' left side now.

"Damned if I know." Replied Arkyn. "There's almost no other species here though, it's like they took this one over." The group of dragons was easily the largest number of a single type the group had run into that day. "We have to get lower for a closer look."

Hiccup nodded and led the formation down for a flyover of the island. There were definitely too many dragons there for the size, and everyone began to wonder how they'd been living there all this time with that little space. "So if all these guys are here, what was that little one doing all by himself on the last island?" Snotlout yelled.

"No idea…" Arkyn was just as dumbfounded himself. "Ok, how about this. The twins and I will count all the ones on the mainland, Fishlegs and Snotlout, you take the ones in the river or on the beaches, and Hiccup and Astrid, you two count the ones in the air. Meet back on the western shore once you're done." The teens were surprised at his suddenly assumed position of leadership, but nobody had a better idea so they simply nodded and did as they were told, wanting to move on as soon as possible.

Once finished, the group indeed found themselves on the western shore of the island, and after everyone had shared their findings, Hiccup marked down a total of 48 Triplestrykes in his notebook. On top of this the other species were counted as well, and after the book was closed on the 6th island it was found there were 39 Gronkles, 16 Monstrous Nightmares, 20 Zipplebacks, 57 Nadders, 2 Scaldrouns, 60 Terrible Terrors, and still no Night Furies. Puzzled by the discovery but satisfied with the numbers, Hiccup ordered the riders skyward once again and began to lead them towards the next island.

Oddly enough, it was the first island in the chain that had its own name written on the map, which Hiccup related to the rest of the group en route. "It says here the next island is called Sunstone Island. There's even a note next to it that says it's supposed to have great beaches. Has anyone ever even been out here before?" The teens echoed negative responses, much to Hiccup's confusion. He supposed whoever had chartered the map had certainly thought the island was special, but he also figured he'd find out why once they arrived.

Roughly 10 minutes of flight time had passed when Astrid squinted over the sea and spotted movement on the horizon. "There's something out there." She relayed her information to the group.

"I see it too." Replied Arkyn. "What is that?"

The mass was getting closer at an alarmingly fast pace, and after just a few moments the teens made the astounding discovery that the movement came not from one creature, but many. A pack of dragons- no…several packs of dragons, each a different species, were huddled together in a frenzied panic, screeching and chirping and squawking and roaring in unison, frantically flapping their wings in the opposite direction of the riders as though the devil himself were chasing after them.

Hiccup's eyes got big as he realized what was about to happen. "Dive! Now!" He ordered his friends, but it was too little, too late. The position of the two groups came to a head and the teens were caught in the swarm of angry creatures. Dragons flew around them, completely boxing them in amongst the skies. Talons flew past at breakneck speeds as everyone ducked as low as they could on their own dragons to avoid getting sliced in half by a stray claw. It didn't last more than a few seconds however, and the hoard was gone almost as soon as it had thrown itself upon the group of riders.

"Hiccup, doesn't this remind you of something?" Astrid yelled after everyone's safety was accounted for.

"Yes! It does! The dragons fleeing the Red Death after my dad opened the mountain…they acted just the same." He hurriedly replied. "But there's nothing chasing them…where are they going?"

Arkyn piped up next. "I don't know where they're going, but they were coming from the exact direction of Sunstone island. We need to get there. Now."

Nodding in agreement, the teens pushed their dragons harder than they ever had before to get to the next island as fast as possible. A short while later, the land mass came into view. But something was…off.

"Well I must say the beaches are a bit of a disappointment…" Hiccup remarked as he landed on the small rock that stood in place of what Sunstone island appeared to be on the map. There was barely room for everyone's dragons as they descended on the peculiarly shaped landform.

"Did we get lost?" Ruffnut asked, confused by the situation.

Hiccup sounded offended. "What? We couldn't have! I've been following this map the same way the whole time and all the other islands were exactly where they should've been. This is Sunstone island…if you can even call it an island at all."

"Maybe it's some kind of joke." Fishlegs reasoned, although he sounded increasingly worried. "A washed up cartographer just wanted to pull some dumb prank on the Chief, perhaps."

"I can't imagine that would be the case, but what other explanation is there?" Hiccup questioned.

There was a long pause. Astrid had landed Stormfly next to Arkyn and Stinger, and as she tried to make sense of the situation he caught her eye. His face was pale. His gloved hands gripped Stinger's saddle with vice-like force. He said nothing. "What is it?" She whispered to him.

"I can think of one explanation…" He said, just barely loud enough for everyone to hear. All eyes were on him now, every person in the group now expectantly awaiting an answer.

"The Screaming Death."