Chapter 86
Hiccups POV:
It's been a week since I saved Alvin from those bandits and in these past seven days not much has happened so I was mostly trying to figure out why those bandits wanted ice tail pike. Yesterday was pretty average with me enjoying the day with my dragons while also working on my new dragon eye. I figured it'd be another dull day where nothing happened until sundown when I was practicing my sword skills in the dome. It was at that time Johan came to drop off some things but sadly the oil I asked him to collect wasn't one of them since he got sidetracked in a way that kept him busy. He was kind enough to give me directions to an island where I could find the plant I get the oil from however I grew the plant back on my own island. Using the arch, I went home to collect the oil which was not an easy thing to do even with all the practice I'd had with the other eyes. I didn't get back to the edge till the next day but when I did there was something going on that my blood boil. The edge was being attacked by a large pack of singetails but the thing that made my blood boil was I saw men on top of them using crops and dragon proof chains to force the singetails to carry them and attack my base. The dragons I had posted were Sapphire, Rubble, Scardain, Violet, Logi and Oracle who were no match for these dragons with their superior fire power.
Before I could signal them all into the arch so we could escape a stray fire ball from one of the singetails destroyed it so I had to signal my dragons to retreat for the time being since I couldn't risk hitting the singetails. We camped out at a nearby island till nightfall when I knew we'd have the advantage after I sent Logi back to defenders of the wing island with a message tied to his leg. This was both to warn the defenders of the wing and also to make sure Logi kept his hunger satiated since I knew what a hungry eruptadon was like. When nightfall came I was able to use Toothless' black scales to my advantage and catch those dragon flyers by surprise and send most of them screaming into the ocean. Sadly, when I was able to take a few of them out and thought I could take the edge back Krogan on the back of a titan wing singetail flew out of the smoke with more fliers. I knew I couldn't take them all on without hurting the singetails or risking my own dragons so we retreated for the time being to Defenders of the wing island but before we fled I was sure to go back and burn the plans for the new dragon eye and gather the parts. Mala was kind enough to offer me and my dragons shelter for the evening but requested a talk when the morning came. This brings us to where I am now, walking through the village with both Throk and Mala after finishing the tale about what happened on the edge. Mala looked at me and said.
"I was under the impression that you and only you were able to train dragons."
"Those dragons are not trained Mala." I clenched my fists. "Those flyers are forcing them to carry them using chains to steer them and crops to whip them."
"Forcing them to do their bidding."
"And his whole plan hinges on the fact that he knows I won't risk hurting his dragons." Throk then said.
"Not willing to take down the enemy if it means hurting an innocent is a noble trait Hiccup."
"I know Throk but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll have any other choice in the matter." Mala put her hand on my shoulder.
"Hiccup I know you'll find a way to deal with them without harming the dragons but these plans always take time to form."
I smiled at her but before I could reply there was a loud roar from above followed by the appearance of three flyres coming out of the clouds while letting loose flaming balls. Mala and Throk ran to help their people while I ran to find my dragons who were just waking up from their sleep. I immediately mounted Toothless and signaled my dragons to get into the air before we took off into the sky over the village giving me a full view which I did not like. Nearly every hut was on fire with people running around trying to dodge the singetails blasts or trying to get water to help extinguish the flames. My fists were clenched so tight on the saddle my knuckles were turning white as I looked down all the destruction. I turned back to face my dragons and yelled.
"WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE AND LEAD THE FLYERS AWAY BEFORE THEY CAN DO ANYMORE DAMAGE OR HURT ANY MORE PEOPLE!" They all nodded before we took off towards the great fog since I knew the singetails wouldn't follow us.
Nightfall
My dragons needed a rest so we stopped on an uninhabited island which gave me time to do some thinking about what to do. I looked at my dragons who were all slightly panting from the long flight and I knew landing to take a break was the right thing to do. As we sat there I kept wondering what I could do to take those flyers down without hurting any of the singetails. I knew I could probably take the flyers down with my spirit bow and the right arrow but I didn't have my quiver with me and I couldn't risk hitting the singetails. I knew with my eagle eye the chances of me just hitting the riders and not hitting the singetails were low but I still didn't want to risk it. I was brought out of my thoughts by fire explosions raining down on the beach signaling the arrival of the singetails. I looked up to see how many, seeing the three from before as I mounted Toothless before we took off. I signaled my dragons to the fog bank that lead back to the archipelago since right now my island was the safest place for us and along with that I needed to warn Berk about the flyers.
Afternoon the next day
We'd made it back to Berk early in the morning before I immediately called a council meeting which nobody was happy about but who could blame them since the sun hadn't even risen yet. My Uncle Spitelout told me that I better have had a good reason for waking them all up at that time but I just told him to sit down, shut up and listen. When I was done telling them what happened Gobber told me there was nothing wrong with me retreating or losing a battle since they'd done the same in the past but I never knew about them because Vikings didn't sing about their defeats. My dad just told him to be quiet before turning to tell me that it's not the battle that counts but the war and this one had just then turned to Gobber and told him to get to the forge to start making weapons overtime, he then told Sven to assemble the men and be ready for an attack and then turning to my Uncle Spitelout and ordered him to gather the men and prepare the catapults and ballistae. The men were quick to leave to get to work before my dad and I walked out the great hall as he said the singetails would not know what hit them. When I tried correcting him by saying he meant the dragon flyers and told him how we couldn't blame the singetails he told me the minute I tried to separate one from the other I'm a dead man. He then told me how we couldn't afford to limit ourselves or our people like that since the stakes were way to high before he claimed the fight was in his territory now and he need me to supply all the artillery and gronkle iron I could for the fight. After that me and Toothless went for a flight only to see everyone readying themselves to fight the singetails which was a sight that made my stomach churn so I returned to my island to so I could do some thinking about what I knew about the species.
All this brings us to where I am now which is laying against Sear in the forest as I gently rubbed his head. I told him what had happened on the edge and what might happen to his brethren and he was not happy in the least to hear about it. I told it was best to just relax and to let me know if he knew anything that might help with freeing them. I'd also used this time to use my golden falcons to check out how things were going on the edge and was glad I built those gronkle iron domes around my defenses since they were trying to break into them but failing miserably. For some reason though Krogan was sending men into the volcano looking for something which I heard was the dragon eye but I doubt it survived down there. I sighed and shook my head as I looked up at the stars while scratching his head thinking back to the day we first met and how I was able to train him. My eyes then widened in realization as I sat up saying.
"THAT'S IT!" Sear looked at me with his head tilted in confusion. "Sear when we first met you were setting up signal fires to summon other singetails." He growled. "We can use that to lure the other singetails away but how are we going to get the fliers off them?" I rubbed my hand through my hair before noticing a fly caught in a spider's web and then it all came together. "Come on Sear we've a team to gather, a trap to prepare and a load of singetails to set free." He stood up growling. "I'm going to need you more than ever for this plan pal but I highly doubt you're going to like your roll." He just tilted his head in confusion as I turned around and walked away to gather the team.
Nightfall
I was once again on the small island that was just a few seconds away from dragons' edge by flight and had spent over an hour preparing the plan. I didn't have a portal door on the island and the flyers destroyed the arch so I couldn't directly travel to the edge so I had to get here using Tephra to transport, me and my team which took four hours. My team consisted of Toothless, Tephra, Sear, Angel, Phantom and one of my most important members Webster who was responsible for making the traps that would capture the flyers. As for me, the equipment I was carrying was my spirit bow and my quiver but I was planning to only use my water and wind arrows since they would barely do anything to the singetails if they hit them but the flyers would be knocked right off. Now Tephra was waiting below the waves a good bit away from the island while I was standing in front of Toothless with Angel and Phantom at my sides as I looked up at Sear who was now in a netter trap glaring at me as I looked up at him with sadness and regret as I said.
"I'm sorry Sear but this'll help us lure the other singetails and with them the flyers so we can free your fellow dragon." He growled and lowered his head after letting out one last puff from his nose as if saying he'd do it but he didn't like it. "Thanks Sear and don't worry, you'll be out of there soon enough." I turned to face a large pile of wood. "When Toothless let's off three plasma blasts towards the island Krogan will have sent out all his flyers so it'll be time to light up the pile to draw in the others." He growled and nodded as I heard a something walking up behind me and turned to see Webster. "Are the webs set?" He growled and nodded making me smile. "Good work pal." Before I could say anything else I heard explosions and ran to the edge of the cliff to see a fleet of Berkian ships fighting the flyers but failing miserably and using my eagle eye I could see my dad was on the lead ship so I mounted Toothless. "LET'S DO THIS!"
My dragons roared before me and my changewings took to the air while Webster went into the trees. We charged towards the flyers as I readied my spirit bow with one of my wind arrows. Using my eagle eye I took the shot at one of the flyers who was getting ready to blast my dads ship and let the arrow fly but I held my breath as I watched it struck its target blasting the flyer off the singetail who threw off the chain and took off. I smiled and prepared one of my water arrows just as the flyers took notice of me but before they could do anything I let the arrow fly and blasted a flyer right off the back of a singetail who also threw off the chains before taking off. I then held my eagle shield in front of Toothless to block some of the fire blasts aimed for us to block them before I let out a whistle and smiled as my changewings made their appearance from behind the flyers. They flew up behind the men who were blasting at us but above the tails and grabbed two of the men and picking them up off the singetails and then dropping them into the ocean. When those two were gone I signaled my changewings to keep it up before I readied another wind arrow as I had Toothless speed forward past one of the flyers before I was able to nail the flyer in the back. It was then one of the flyers charged right at us before I could load another arrow so I had Toothless charge at him as well but before we collided I maneuvered Toothless into a corkscrew roll so we were flying upside down above the flyer giving me the opportunity to grab him by his shirt with my prosthetic and drag him down the singetails body and letting him go into the ocean.
I saw I now had the attention of all the flyers that were now doing their best to hit me and Toothless or my changewings. I smiled at the sight of my changewings sending two more flyers into the ocean below and how they dodged the flaming blasts using moves that I taught them in training. I ducked under another blast from one of them and returned fire with a water arrow blasting him off the singetail despite him using his shield to block the arrow. I saw my dad and the Berkians watching the fight from their ships and yelled.
"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, GET TO THE EDGE!" I smiled as my dad yelled.
"YOU HEARD MY SON, KEEP MOVING FORWARD!"
The ships began to slowly move forward as I turned to face the edge where more flyers were coming from and I could tell using my eagle eye that they were all the remaining flyers. I knew it was time to have Sear light the distress fire but I knew if I began to run now they'd suspect something so I whistled calling my changewings to my side and said.
"Get ready to fly back to the island and lure the flyers into the traps."
They growled and got ready while I readied my wind arrow before I let it fly blasting one of them off as I prepared a water arrow. I was able to take down four more flyers before we turned around and fled to the island while signaling my changewings to split up. Before we reached the island Toothless fire the plasma blasts signaling Sear to start the fire, which he was all too happy to do. This got the attention of all the singetails, including the ones that were still attacking the ships who abandoned their attack to come to the island in order to help Sear. I turned back and smiled at the sight of two flyers hot on my tail so I slowed down a bit to let them catch up a bit. When I felt they were close enough we flew into the forest and made a sharp turn right under a web but the flyers weren't quick enough and they flew right into the web as the singetails flew under it. I smiled at the sight of the two men trapped in the web like flies and muttered.
"All according to plan."
We then took off to lure more men into the webs and smiled as we past two other webs and saw more men in the same position as the men we caught showing my changewings were successful. We flew into the trees and saw three more men who spotted us and immediately came after us but I flew right away and under some webs getting the same results as the first time. This continued with Webster making more webs for more of the flyers but they also nearly caught me. When we caught what I believed to be the last of the men we flew above the forest and saw that the singetails who still had riders were knocking them off to help Sear. Before I could do anything else though I was barely able to dodge a fireball from one last flyer riding a yellow singetail. When I readied an arrow he pulled the singetail up to shield him so if I let it fly I'd only be hitting the signetail but it was then I remembered something I learnt when I was out flying with Sear. We dodged another blast and flew up into the air and kept going with the flyer following us as I planned. When we were high enough I smiled as the singetail began to struggle against its rider before flying back down with Toothless and I following. Toothless let out one last plasma blast hitting the flyers shield which knocked him off the singetail who then threw off the chains and flew off.
I smiled at the sight of the singetail flying away a now free dragon before I directed Toothless towards the edge so we could hopefully take Krogan down. As we flew there I saw Krogan take off on his singetail with someone else but I couldn't tell who from the back so I was guessing it was either a partner or a sidekick. We took after them while dodging multiple fireballs blasted from the tail as we flew around the sea-stacks and I had to admit that Krogan was a better flyer than I thought. When we were out of the sea-stacks we were able to catch up to him a bit but it was as we were right behind him I saw who his partner was and my blood froze. It was Viggo and he had the dragon eye in his hand but before I could get an arrow out to help me capture them the singetail raised it belly and let loose a stream of flames that sped it up allowing them to escape into the fog bank where I had no chance of finding them. I knew they had escaped but with an empty dragon eye since when I threw it into the volcano I made sure to take all the lenses out however if they were to find new lenses then there'd be trouble for a lot of dragons. I decided it best I get back to the edge for now since I needed to make sure everyone was all right, see what repairs were needed and flyers to lock up. I also needed to make sure the defenders of the wing were okay after the attack. We came to land on the stables landing platform where my father was looking at the edge. He turned to face me with a smile as he said.
"You did great son and not a scale out of place." I nodded.
"I know but we've got a bigger problem now."
"We do?"
"Viggo is alive and he has the dragon eye." He stroked his beard.
"That is bad son but I know you'll figure something out and if you ever need help, remember that my door is always open."
"Thanks dad but I do have some advantages over them."
"You do?" I nodded.
"My new dragon eye for starters and when it's finished it'll be able to do things the old one couldn't dream of doing and along with that I have dragons they've most likely never heard of, the god made weapons they don't know about and my eyes of Horus."
"They don't know about your god made weapons?"
"Up until now I've only used my star sword and spirit bow to fire explosive arrows so they don't know about my other weapons and they still assume my prosthetic is just a piece of armor I like to wear so this gives me the element of surprise in some cases." He patted my shoulder.
"Clever move son but remember you don't have to do this alone."
"I won't forget dad."
"Now what are you going to do about the dragon flyers you captured?"
"I'll have Webster cocoon them after giving them each a drop of speed stinger venom before transporting them all to defenders of the wing island to be dealt with."
"Just like the hunters you captured in the past and took from Outcast Island?" I nodded. "What did they do to them anyway?" I shrugged.
"They give them a trial before tossing them into a pit full of angry speedstingers one at a time."
"Sounds like a grizzly fate!"
"Yeah but I trust the defenders of the wing and I never go to view it, I just stay outside the cave where the pit is and let them do what they needed to do." He nodded.
"If you don't mind me asking son, what gave you the idea to do this?"
"Well I was laying down in my islands forest with Sear trying to figure away to deal with the flyers while I thought about the day me and Sear met which is when I remembered how he called all those singetails to the island before I noticed a fly caught in a spiders web and that's when it all came together."
"Pretty clever of you son and know you've made me proud today." I nodded before he walked off to help with repairs while I went to deal with the flyers.
Afternoon
I was now on Defenders of the wing island with Toothless on my right side, Mala on my left and Tephra resting in the water in front of me while the Defenders of the Wing walked into the ship and came out carrying struggling dragon flyers who were wrapped in thick cocoons made of Websters webs. Earlier today after letting Sear out of the net I began hitting the flyers with drops of speed stinger venom before I gave Webster the order to gather up all the flyers and load them up onto the ship after cocooning them. He did so quickly before we set off to defenders of the wing island with the captives. Mala watched as Angel and Phantom helped unload the last of the flyers as she said.
"This is quiet impressive Hiccup." I raised an eyebrow. "Capturing all these men without harming a single one of the dragons they were forcing to attack you."
"Thanks Mala but it wasn't easy to come up with."
"Still though I'm impressed as most people would've been forced to harm the dragons in order to defeat the flyers."
"Yeah my dad told me I could separate one from the other without becoming a dead man."
"And you proved him wrong!" I nodded.
"I did but he was right about some things."
"Such as?"
"This is now a war we're fighting now and as such I need to stop holding back." She turned to face me.
"You've been holding back?" I released my crystal spear making her jump back in shock.
"Oh trust me Mala the dragon hunters have only seen the kind side of me but now." I stabbed the crystal end into the ground. "I'm done holding back." As soon as I finished saying that crystals burst from the ground around me making Mala step back in shock while I smiled at her. "Those hunters and flyers aren't going to know what hit them."
3 weeks later
It's been three weeks since I battled the dragon flyers and in those weeks a lot has happened, starting with me helping make repairs the defenders of the wings village and repairing the edge, starting with the arch so I could call in dragons to help. I also spent a good deal of time sharing what I could do with Mala and Throk. Of course with every new weapon they demanded I tell them what I did in order to receive the gift from the gods which I was happy to tell. Then when it came to my arm they were shocked seeing it was a prosthetic and not just a piece of armour as they assumed. Telling them how I lost my real arm was the one story I didn't enjoy telling since it was a dark day for me since I'd lost an actual piece of my body and nearly lost Toothless. Still though I didn't tell them the capabilities of my weapons since I didn't want to risk Krogan and his men finding out somehow and they understood this.
Besides that Garf was finally fully healed to the point where he was hunting like an adult deathsong which always ended with me saving some species of dragon from becoming his meal. I decided to move him to a new island that I knew the hunters hadn't been to and at first it was pretty nice with lots of fruit and clean water for him to enjoy. Sadly it turned out the island belonged to a species of dragon known as slitherwings which resembled giant snakes with wings that had skin covered in poison. We were able to avoid their venomous strikes. In our escape though Toothless blasted one of the trees making it collapse on one of the sliterwings as the others fled. I knew I couldn't leave it like that since it may have been pretty badly hurt. At first it was pretty aggressive and didn't want me anywhere near it if its hissing and thrashing around to throw its poison around at us. When it tired itself out I was able to give it some dragon nip to calm it down enough to cut up the section of the tree that was pinning it to the ground. Once it was free I was able to train it since it saw I wasn't trying to hurt it. I gave it the name Cobra since when his wings spread out and he revieled his fangs he reminded me of a king cobra I saw in Arabia.After I named him I saw he was a red slitherwing with two black stripes on either side of a yellow line on either side of its body. After that we relocated Garf to an uninhabited island where he wouldn't be bothered, found or able to use his song to summon other dragons since no dragons travelled near the island. Other than that the only other thing to have happened was the changewing migration has come and gone with no problems since I knew if I left the changewings alone then they'd leave me alone.
This morning Dagur came by asking for me to help him decipher his fathers journal since he was worried about Heather getting hurt or worse trying to find their father through his journal. When I went through it I found pictures of sentinel dragon meaning Oswald might be on Vanahiem so after making sure Dagur understood he could not tell anyone about the island no matter what. He agreed before we took off but when we arrived I saw the large stone formations were'nt stones but the fosilized bones of a long dead bewilderbeast which was absolutley amazing since Glacia might grow to be this size one day. After that we walked into a forest through the skull only to be attacked by a species of dragon I'd never seen before that launched their teeth out at us. We were able to drive them off after I realized they weren't dieing but hunting for some reason. Soon after we found a small hut made from the remains of a Berserker ship and inside we found the body of Oswald. We gave him a proper burial before Dagur asked for some time alone to say goodbye to his father which I was happy to give him while I checked out his hut which brings us to where we are now.
Me and Toothless inside Oswalds old hut while Dagur stood outside mourning for his father. I looked up at the drawing of the dragons we saw before and noticed a book on the table. I picked up and opened it so I could begin reading and found it to be a journal with some enlightening information. I turned back to the open door and yelled.
"Dagur could you come in here." He walked in with his head down.
"What is it?"
"I found your fathers journal and it explains a few things." He raised an eyebrow. "Your father gave those dragons we saw earlier the name Grimgnashers and they prey on sick and elderly dragons while your father would help the sentinels drive them off." I smiled at him. "Your father was a hero Dagur." Dagur smiled.
"Ofcourse he was." He crossed his arms. "He was a Berserker!" Toothless then pulled a chest down from a high shelf onto the ground opening it and dropping out two scrolls which Dagur picked up. "One for Heather and one for me." I put a hand on his shoulder.
"It might hold the answer to your questions."
"Yeah it might."
"I'll give you some time alone to read it."
"Thanks brother but I think I'll go up to the watchtower my dad built to read it." I nodded and stepped aside to let him through as he gave me one more smile and left while I watched him and then looked around.
"I might as well check out for any notes on the sentinels."
Half an hour later
Oswald had quiet a lot of knowledge on not only the sentinels but on the fruit they ate since he had over a hundred different recipies on how to prepare it. He also had notes on the grim gnashers and how they kill any of their own pack that they consider to be too weak. I put all his notes int Toothless' saddlebags so I could study them back on my own island. It was then I heard a blast from outside alongside Dagurs battle cry as I ran out of the hut and mounted Toothless to see what was going on. When we were in the air I saw Dagur was surrounded by grim gnashers. I had Toothless fire a plasma blast making them back off before I had Toothless charge at them as I released my spirit bow with a wind arrow. I let it fly sending one into the other and both into the ocean. Before we could do anymore though the sentinels showed up and helped us fight them off with their wing blasts and ramming into the grim gnashers. I was worried they weren't going to allow us to leave but they flew aside and let us pass as Dagur asked.
"What are they doing?"
"I think they're thanking us." As we passed them they bowed their heads as Dagur saluted.
"As you were."
"Dagur they're blind." He smiled as we flew away from the island before he held up the letter to Heather.
"I need to give this to Heather."
"Well when you do you might be able to bring her back here to say goodbye to your father since from what I can tell we've earned the sentinels respect."
"I earned respect?" I nodded. "I'm so used to demanding it."
"Dagur, going into that hut was the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do and I've fought monsters that have slaughtered hundreds."
"Well I couldn't have done it without all your guidence and if you ever go on a seemingly impossible wild goosechase and need a little company you can always count on this axe brother."
"Yeah but with my luck and the crazy situations I get into I doubt you'd come back with all your limbs." He chuckled before pointing at my saddle bag.
"Hey looks like there's something sticking out of your bag." I looked down and saw a piece of parchment sticking out of my bag.
"Oh while you were reading your fathers message I collected his notes on dragons."
"I get that but if you find anything about me and Heather let me know." I nodded as I pulled the parchment to see what it was and my eyes widened seeing drawings of dragon eyes and according to the parchment Heather had one so I quickly turned to Dagur.
"We need to find Heather quick." Before Dagur could ask why I held up my hand. "I'll explain later."
Nightfall the next day
I collapsed on my bed groaning from todays events and who could blame me after what happened. Krogan had captured Winshear and held her hostage unless Heather gave him her dragon eye lens. She did so only for Krogan to then push Winshears cage into the ocean with Heather diving in an attempt to save her dragon. We arrived just in time for Dagur with the help of his triplestrike pulled the cage out of the water so I could crush the lock with my prosthetic. Once Windshear was set free we went after Krogan but with the help of his flyers he was able to escape with the dragon eye lens. When we got back to the edge Dagur told Heather about their father and she didn't take it well. I offered them to stay the night on dragons edge since I felt it better they not travel and have time to mourn without flying. I looked up at the ceiling and knew this wasn't over and if anything this war was just beginning.
AN: Hey everyone I know I skimmed a lot of parts and skipped some episodes but this was the last chapter for the season and now we'll be moving onto the last season of Race to the Edge meaning we're on large step closer to 'How To Train Your Dragon 2' plus after this it'll be back to travelling, saving people, fighting villains, discovering new dragons and maybe meeting a girl to settle down and have a family with. Till next time please review kindly and to some of you please do me a favor and ACTUALLY LEAVE A REVIEW BECAUSE DESPITE ALL THE FAVS AND FOLLOWS I'M LUCKY IF I GET FIVE REVIEWS A CHAPTER!