Hello, everyone!
Here's another quick update before things get busy again!
I want to thank Silverleone, CallMeUrmo, Mcluffcins, MysteryWriter175, and picothea for your wonderful reviews! You guys are the best!
I also would like to thank kwizjunior, Dragon Crusader, Anticept, Crysist, Samateus, Dys, LapisSea, and RS for all of your help with beta-ing!
I likely won't update for awhile after this. For now, enjoy, and have a wonderful day!
Chapter 24
Toothless
"I've been waiting a very long time to meet you."
The human looked like a bolt of lightning solidified. He was a mangle of jagged chaos: thin, sleek, dangerous, sharp edges blending incomprehensibly into each other, sickly-appearing but undeniably threatening. His colorless eyes nearly shone with their own light. He opened his paws wide to us in welcome, standing before a defeated Galewing, and…and…
"I must admit, both of you are much smaller than I expected. Two runts, bonded together. How delightfully poetic!"
No…no, my eyes…were deceiving me. This wasn't…this couldn't be what happened to him.
"Toothless," Hiccup whispered, "we're being surrounded from behind!"
I tried to meet my older brother's amber eyes, but as the white Shadow-Blender had described him, there was simply…nothing. He seemed like a wonder of human construction, something artificial, made to look and move like a dragon but with no soul within. He stared directly at me, yet did not meet my eye. Not a flicker of emotion crept across his face. He simply stood, passive and waiting, and if he looked at me, it was only happenstance.
He was collared. Like a dog held on a leash, subservient to humans.
"Brother," I gasped.
"Come now—you are still at least somewhat human, are you not? You've dressed yourself up so convincingly, but underneath all of that obscenity, there must be a boy somewhere. Or are you so far gone that you've lost your facilities of speech?"
"Only to people not worth speaking to," Hiccup snapped in Norse, his voice twinging with a slight anxious overtone. "But I'll make an exception for you. I take it that you're Grimmel? We know you have prisoners. Where are they?"
The human burst out into laughter. "Aww," he cooed. He picked up some sort of weapon from his belt. It glimmered with black dragon-scale paint, like so many of Hiccup's accessories. He studied it, musing, "How very characteristic for you to come rushing in with demands. Your people would benefit from learning how to negotiate. But! I am a civil man, so I will introduce myself." He put a paw to his chest in mock greeting. "Yes, I am called Grimmel in these lands." He pointed the weapon at Galewing. A purple fluid in a glass-thing on the weapon sloshed. His voice warped from jovial to threatening. "And I will be the one asking the questions here."
"My lord!" came a voice from within the nest, bouncing off the walls. "Here they are!"
A gaggle of humans streamed out of the inner part of the nest. In their paws, they held Galewing's eggs. When she saw them, she screamed and thrashed to no avail; she was held down by five dragons, all who seemed not to care for anything at all. Not even their own gaping wounds that flooded the stone beneath them with their own blood.
All of them, I noticed dimly, wore collars. Just like my older brother.
Even that, somehow, barely broke me from my trance. I watched him, gaping in disbelief and horror, as he stood aside and let Grimmel take an egg. The monster studied it, turning it around in his hands, holding it precariously far from his center.
"Grimmel!" Hiccup growled. "Just hold on—stop!"
"Ah, ah, ah!" Grimmel cut him off. He bent over and set the egg down. "There, see?"
Just as Hiccup relaxed, a horrible grin oozed across the monster's lips. He raised his foot and pounded it into the egg. It shattered with a gut-lurching guish, yolk and hatchling spilling out onto the ground. The hatchling squirmed, eyes still pasted shut, scaleless skin transparent.
Galewing wailed. Hiccup let out a choked sound.
I woke up from my stupor.
Without warning, I brought forth my fire and sent a barrage upon the hunter of dragons.
My older brother launched in front of it, wrapping his legs and wings around Grimmel and taking the full blow. He wheezed with pain. Scales pattered to the ground. A gruesome burn ate through his wing-shoulder, but he didn't so much as turn to lick it when he backed away from Grimmel, who stood as if nothing had happened.
Grimmel actually made a show of wiping his foot off. "Your Haugaeldr already tried that," he said with that unnerving cheer, manic grin flashing all of his teeth. "Come, take a look at the spoils of his efforts."
He whistled at my brother. He snapped towards him. The human twirled a finger around, and my brother got up and obediently spun in a circle, like a simple-minded creature doing a trick for food.
My stomach turned, a painful wrench in my abdomen that almost made me turn away. Revolted as I was, however, I owed my brother enough to watch. As he turned about, he revealed a series of fresh burns and peeling, dead scales licking down his back and across his wings. He must have been blazed at close range, and for a considerable amount of time, to earn such a wound.
A weak growl managed to escape my throat. Bile rose to the back of my throat.
That hatchling…poor Galewing…my older brother…all of it…oh, Dragoness of the Moon…
"Okay."
I glanced up at Hiccup. His skin had gone clammy-pale. The whites of his eyes shone beneath his dragon-self hood. He held both his paws out towards Grimmel. "Okay."
"Yes, yes, there's some understanding between us," the human praised. He flicked his hands at his men, who spread out before us. "Let's have ourselves a nice, calm discussion, shall we? Surely you are still capable of that, hm? There's simply so much I need to learn from you, dragon-boy of the North." His eyes trailed over my brother and then down to me. "And your little runt of a Night Fury. Are the rumors true, I wonder?"
Galewing still struggled fruitlessly. A winding moan like the dead escaped her, and never once did her eyes leave the shattered egg, with the poor broken hatchling still twitching and gasping on the ground.
When not a soul moved, Grimmel took a single stride forward. "Now! Let us begin—"
The snarl that erupted from deep within my chest was like nothing I had ever felt. It was the sound of a dragon twice my size, shaking the ground beneath my paws. "Get! Back!" I seethed, my words nearly swallowed in my terror and rage. I stepped back, pulling my wings and tail in close. Before he or his men could approach further, I reached within, down to my heart, my magic, my soul.
Hiccup gasped as the soulfire flared like the auroras along my spine. I wasted no time, spinning in a tight circle, pouring a stream of it at my feet. The fire thrummed in tune with my heartbeat, pulsating with my fear, my horror, my pain. The purple-blue flames rose to shield us from what so dearly frightened me, fading to a blinding orange at their tips. The heat of it was incredible, even to me, and at once I knew that Hiccup would not fare well if we stayed in this trap within traps.
Grimmel had his paws held casually at his side. "Soulfire. Impressive, yes, but showy. Anyways!" He held out a paw, and another of his men crept over with an egg, wincing away from the intense heat with half-closed eyes. "You, dragon-boy, are going to get off of that Night Fury, nice and slow, and leave that elegant fire-ring. Let's start with that, yes? Is that simple enough for you?"
My brother and I growled low, hackles rising.
"And then what?" Hiccup challenged. The confidence he thrust into his voice fell flat and false on my ears. "We have a tea party?"
Grimmel chuckled. "I've had enough of those, thank you." His grin snapped into a scowl and suddenly his voice rumbled with strength and command. "No, that will not do. Here is what will happen now. You will tell me everything that you have done to destroy the balance on your so-called paradise of Berk and where the other Fury is. If I am satisfied and convinced that you aren't lying, then I shall place the eggs back to their rightful place."
Just to emphasize his point, he set the egg down and put a foot on it. Galewing nearly went mad with anguish, shrieking around the collared dragon clamping her jaw down.
He would do it. A flash of vibrance spat through the soulfire, thin streams reaching out to him like claws, begging to stop the evil. I had never held it up like this, not even once, but it felt right. I had to protect my brother, I would never let him be captured again, and I would not let this disgusting creature get his paws on him!
Grimmel noted our hesitation and shrugged. "You can refuse. I honestly don't care. But atop all this needless bloodshed, you'll never see your father or the eastern dragon again."
Hiccup pressed his paw to the side of my neck, prompting me to tear my eyes away. I met his wide-eyed gaze.
Our link blazed like the soulfire around us, and within it, a plan. Like usual, it was completely insane, half-formed, ended in more of a question than a statement, and could easily end up with the both of us dead. But it was something.
"I won't wait much longer!" Grimmel sang. He bent his knee, putting just a little more pressure on the shell. His eyes sparked with a strange curiosity—he had surely noticed our brief communication, and was watching us with an almost inquisitive interest.
"Fine!" Hiccup hissed. "You want me to come over?"
He stood up on my shoulders, and as he did, I reared up to my full height, wings spread wide, glowing with the soulfire that ached for him and my older brother.
Hiccup launched himself towards the monster, snapping his wings open, and tore through the soulfire. It trailed along his dragon-self as smooth as an ocean current and clung to him, my other half, my other heart, rippling along his body but never burning. There it stayed, cloaking him like a Flame-Skin in full rage. I distinctly felt the presence of a second piece of my soulfire, separate from the blockade encircling me, and forced my concentration into keeping it alive.
Hiccup flapped once and pulled into a swift landing in front of Grimmel and the egg. He spread his wings wide, sending blue embers careening every which way. I roared and poured strength into the soulfire, setting him even further ablaze, my heart pounding with the flames, and I could have sworn I felt his heart beating in unison.
The effect was immediate. Grimmel was forced to take a step back, his eyes momentarily betraying his surprise, his men stumbling away in undisciplined earnest. Hiccup let loose a low snarl of his own, lunging and swiping his flaming wings at Grimmel like a Flame-Skin. My older brother bolted to the monster's defense, leaping in front of him and swinging wicked claws. Hiccup leapt back, hissing, and flared his wings.
My older brother did not return the challenge—he simply looked but did not see.
But he wasn't the only one who was blind.
Everyone was watching them, even the humans at my tail. Which meant that not a single one of them was paying attention to me.
I reached within and begged the soulfire to spread outwards with a mighty push, push, push! The wall of flames blasted from me like a ripple in a lake, roaring hungrily towards the humans on all sides. The men behind shrieked with agony. Those within fared no better; though the monsters wore dragon-pelts and helmets, the soulfire seeped into them, searing them, roasting them within their armor.
The soulfire washed over Hiccup harmlessly. My older brother spun and leapt atop Grimmel, wrapping his wings around him, and—
Oh, oh, I could not!
The flames died out just as they touched his marred hide. They did not so much as whisper along his scales.
From within my older brother's wings, Grimmel let loose a sharp whistle.
The red-scaled dragons swung their heads towards me as one. "Attack…" they whispered. "Attack…attack…!"
As one sweltering wave, they released Galewing and rushed at me.
Galewing was on her feet and lunging before I could blink. Hiccup had a moment to take a single step back, and my older brother tore away from Grimmel to face her, revealing him standing with a single, tiny claw in his weapon. It sprung away, straight into her chest.
She dropped to the ground, jaw snapping mere inches from his foot, eyes rolling, limbs splaying, a choked rattle gurgling from her throat.
The red dragons were upon me. I did not see Galewing's end. The horrified cry that escaped Hiccup told me all that I needed to know.
I brought another bout of soulfire upon them, spinning in a circle, eyes narrowed and mouth gaping. It sputtered, less vibrant, reluctant as I was. The focus of love and self that was Hiccup's cloak flickered against my awareness. These dragons were collared, their eyes distant—I had to believe it was some affliction, that it wasn't their fault, because that meant it could be cured, and that meant—!
They jerked away, but the flames, however impressive, were useless. I could not hurt them with soulfire, not when I hoped with all my being that they were not responsible for this madness.
So I picked the next best option. I let the soulfire around me die, focusing all of it into protecting Hiccup, whose heart hammered with mine, whose movements felt like a muscle memory in my awareness, something not quite felt but still somehow real. He lunged forward, and so did I.
"Attack! Attack! Attack!"
A red dragon with one eye reared, pincher-claws snapping. I aimed a careful fireball at his neck, just at the collar. Six shots left. He leapt away, but not before the leather of the collar incinerated. Another came at me with a stinging tail, and she, too, I thrust my fire at. Five. She curled away and slithered low along the ground like an eel, distant eyes narrowed, teeth gnashing. I threw myself into her lunge, jumping atop her head even as she grasped my hind leg in her serrated teeth, and clawed at her collar.
The hated thing snapped with a good rake. I batted it off of her, noticing at once that a strange, purplish fluid in a glass-thing was also on it. She gasped and let go at once, shaking her head, blinking eyes suddenly vibrant with life.
My leg sang with pain. I grit my teeth and forced myself to ignore it. It could hurt later, but not now.
The dragon's companions didn't hesitate, bustling in as a solid mass, chanting always, "Attack! Attack! Attack!"
Another tail-stinger came for me. I ducked low, flinging a fireball at the dragon responsible. Four. She wheezed as she was pushed back, and I pounced at her, striking out with my claws, roaring with fear and fury, driving her back even as the others closed in. The moment she retreated, I jerked my head up, aimed at the stalactites above, and hurled a fireball at them. Three.
The ceiling rained down and the cavern trembled. I jumped out of the way just as the huge stones came crashing down, bashing at the dragons' heads and scale-armor, even pinning one down by the wing.
Breathless, I gathered my legs beneath me and leapt straight up towards the opening in the roof I had just created. There I hovered above the oncoming dragons. The freed female was standing a little ways off, jaw working soundlessly, eyes flitting between the others and Grimmel. Some semblance of sense must have snapped into her, because she suddenly threw herself upright and bolted out of the cave. The dragon whose collar I had flamed tore after her. The other three were already working their way out of the stone-fall.
A short distance from us, Galewing lay dead. The humans, too. My older brother stood protectively in front of Grimmel, shielding him from Hiccup, whose dragon-self blazed with my soulfire. Hiccup pushed his advantage relentlessly, clawing and snarling, ducking and dancing away from each returned swipe, his heart racing frantically with mine. I felt the moment he switched from targeting Grimmel to trying to break the collar, but my older brother was simply too tall for him to snatch it without dropping his defenses. There they stayed locked in their struggle, the soulfire flickering wildly with my straining concentration. Every inch Hiccup gained, my older brother snatched back, just in front of the eggs, in front of Galewing's still-steaming corpse, in front of Grimmel.
The evil man in question huddled behind my brother's protection and rifled with crystalline objects, swapping a purple-colored one for an orange one. He clicked it into his weapon, scowling with a deep rage he had no right to.
Wait—my older brother was watching Hiccup.
I brought my fire to my throat and flung it at Grimmel. Two.
I took a particular joy in seeing his face go blank with fear. He stumbled clumsily out of the way, tucking his head beneath his dragon-scale arms, but was still knocked aside by the forcewave. He let out a cry as he hit the ground and rolled, still clinging to his weapon. His white fur, the only flammable part of him, caught aflame. He swatted wildly at it, expression mangled with pain and fury.
"Oh, enough!" he spat. Still lying there, fur still smoldering, Grimmel thrust his weapon up.
Twang!
I screamed.
So did Hiccup.
Something monstrous and hungry came upon him. His heart lurched and burned. My soulfire sputtered, desperate to protect, but it was an extension of myself, an outward projection just like his dragon-self, and it couldn't help him! The agony sliced through him and straight into me, and it was too foreign, too ravenous, too much—
My concentration on the soulfire dissolved, disintegrating his protective cloak into a swarm of embers.
No, no, no, NO!
I flung my tail to swoop, to grab him, to just get to him. A dragon leapt from below, grabbing onto me, dragging me down! My vision blurred. With a lung-crushing WHAM!, I was on the ground, surrounded.
"NO!" I shrieked. My soulfire was gone—but I still had one refuge. I snapped open my weakened magic channels, holding my wings and tailfins close and wrenching this way and that, even sending a fireball into the face of an unsuspecting female. She dropped to the ground, dead.
One.
Hiccup, Hiccup—oh, Dragoness of the Moon—he was still screaming, he was hurt, he was hurt, he was hurt! I caught a glimpse of him curled on his side, clutching his head and writhing in agony. I had to get to him, I wouldn't let Grimmel hurt him any more!
Now I was screeching, flailing, snapping, anything, anything! I managed to wrestle off a dragon without a stinger and sank my teeth around the snout of the other, thrashing him back and forth. The blood flooded into my mouth nearly made me gag. He wrenched away with a pained cry, and I twisted to the other dragon who was already charging, aimed for his eyes, and sent out another powerful shot.
No more fire. All nine shots, gone.
The male slid limply across the floor. Dead. Not his fault, not his fault, just like my older brother, but I had to and I would kill these dragons, if Hiccup was lying on the ground, crying out like he was being torn in two, spasming and writhing just as the white Shadow-Blender once had before forever-sleep took her!
I ignored the last of the red dragons, racing for my brother. Mid-leap, something heavy fell upon my tail, and I lurched to a neck-snapping stop. The one I'd bitten had leapt for my tail, and now dug his pincher claws into it, clawing his way up my body. The slicing pain was an afterthought. I writhed to gather my feet below me, lurched upright, and swiped at him. He leapt back but didn't let go, jerking me to the ground again. I roared in pain and terror and frustration—
The light from the entrance blinked out.
A bright flash, a magenta glow, a wave of heat—
BOOM!
The white Shadow-Blender leapt atop Hiccup, scooped him up in her paws, and rushed them both to safety.
"FLY!" she commanded.
Wheezing with relief and effort, I rung my claws along the red dragon's eyes. Finally, he flinched backwards with a squeal, one eye torn open and oozing. As I snapped away from him, I glanced over towards my older brother.
The ground was smoldering and glowing just where he and Grimmel had been standing. My older brother was standing far off to the side, holding Grimmel by his dragon-scale armor in his teeth. The human snapped his fingers, and my older brother's jaw hinged open, dropping him to his feet.
The monster met my eyes, his own crackling like lightning. His hand grasped for a glass-thing at his waist. I spared no more time.
I flung myself into the air, over the crippled and dead men below, and flew and flew and flew until I was well above the mountain, my heart pounding so fiercely that I was sure it would explode at any moment! The Shadow-Blender fled even higher above, racing for the safety of the clouds that beckoned us in the dying light.
When my courage returned to me, I risked a look downwards. I let out a soft whine.
Farflight was below, in a cage, staring straight up at me. Grimmel had raced to the entrance, my older brother at his side. All of them seemed to meet my eye: fear and hope, rage and disgust, and…nothing.
"I'll come back for you!" I said to the broken dragons, though I doubted they could hear me. The clouds stretched downwards, cooling the heat pouring from my wounds. I hovered, captured by those familiar, alien amber eyes.
"I promise," I whimpered. With that, my heart straining and cracking with the effort of it, I turned away and abandoned them there.
o.O.o
Stoick
I was weeping, my back pressed to the bars and curled over myself, when the crewmate came down with my sole meal of the day.
He said nothing. As he came down the ladder, someone called out to him in a language I did not know. He shouted back jovially. By his voice, he was young, likely Hiccup's age. As he plunked to the ground and walked over to me, I hunched over further, drawing deep shadows in front of me. A small glint of light was swallowed by the shadows I cast.
He hesitated a moment, footsteps stopping too far away. I bowed my head and sniffed. The boy sighed, coming closer, and set down something just next to the bars. He muttered something, and though I couldn't understand him, I knew that apologetic tone perfectly well. He stood up and turned away.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I spun and grappled him with such a speed that I had the table leg through the bars and jammed against his throat before he could even squeak. There I pinned him against the cell, pressing the rusty metal tight against his neck. He flailed, digging his fingernails into my hands and struggling to kick backwards at me. The bowl of porridge he'd brought me spattered across the ground.
Had he not been a boy, I would have gutted him. Instead, I kept the bar tight against his windpipe, waiting patiently as he floundered, gaping like fish out of water. Within a minute, he had gone completely limp.
Keeping him up with one hand, I groped around his pockets until I found my prize. There were only a few keys on his person. With a racing heart, I tested each one of them, my hands steady despite my mounting fear. The first didn't fit. The second did, but wouldn't turn. The same went for the third.
With the fourth key, the lock clicked and the door slid out of its hold.
I put the boy on my cot and took off the blanket, beneath which I had hidden the disassembled pieces of the foot-table Grimmel had so foolishly placed in my cell. I pocketed the legs as rudimentary weapons, and held up the wooden plate of its surface. It would do for a shield, but barely.
I set the boy on the cot, eyeing him long enough to make sure he was still breathing. Once I confirmed he was still alive, I pulled the blanket over him. Then I left the cell and locked the door behind me. For a moment, I held my breath and listened.
Ever since the cacophonous commotion some time ago, an eerie silence had settled over the ship. The steady plunking of sailors had diminished to almost nothing. The boat had stopped drifting as well; we had made landfall. Based on the unmistakable sound of dragon-fire, the growling, and the pained cries of the men, a dragon had attacked. I had heard a muffled, somewhat recognizable voice—my heart had even lifted, thinking it was Toothless I heard screaming up there—but then the sound of wings. Whoever had taken on the ship had flown away.
Now, it seemed, only a threadbare crew remained. Based on each unique footfall-pattern, I counted only three men. One, the boy, was already incapacitated. The other two must be posted somewhere to keep watch over the ship. I figured that one was in the crow's nest, but wasn't certain where the other would be. Most likely at the stern, where he could have a full view of the deck and anyone trying to come onto it.
Well, there was an easy way to solve that problem.
I walked over to one of the opened cells, grabbed the door, and began to slam it open and shut with a tremendous BANG BANG BANG!
I let loose a fierce battle cry, trying to drown out the banging with my voice and vice versa. For a few seconds, the cacophony rang against my eardrums, but not enough that I didn't hear the frantic pounding of feet above. I stopped and leapt in the shadows behind the ladder, crouching low to the ground. When the boy had opened the door, it cast a shaft of light towards my cell; standing behind the ladder would obscure me completely to someone looking in from above.
There were indeed two remaining crewmates judging by their cursing and shouting. They scrambled to the door above, swung it open, and a young man called warily into the din. When his friend didn't respond, he cursed, whispering a harsh question. A gruff-sounding man grunted a response and leapt fully down into the brig. He straightened and approached my old cell, barking out demands, while the boy crept down the ladder.
The young man shakily reached the floor. His eyes lifted and met mine in the darkness.
I lunged. He shrieked. His fellow spun around, drew his sword—and stopped short.
I held the young man against me with one hand and the table leg to his neck in the other. "Drop your weapon!" I growled, nodding at his sword.
He narrowed his eyes. With a savage roar, he rushed me.
With a curse, I flung the young man aside and met his sword with the table shield. The sword cut deep into it but didn't split it. I thrust the shield out towards him, stepping inside his defense and swinging the table leg for his head. He leapt backwards, and at that very moment, his crewmate unsheathed a measly sword—more of a long dagger, really. He held it shakily by the hilt and came at me.
He swung wide. I stepped out of it, parrying the blow with the table leg. The sword either had very poor craftsmanship or a very inexperienced handler; either way, it rang terribly as it met the table leg. A chip flew off of it. The young man's eyes widened, and I would have taken advantage of his distraction, if only his superior hadn't wisened up to the same opportunity.
He lunged before I could wrest the young man's sword away, aiming for my gut. I smacked his sword with the table surface and danced sideways. This time, instead of swinging the table leg, I thrust it straight at him.
The man had eased into the mindset of swordplay, and seeing his opponent launch his weapon at him threw him completely off-kilter. He froze only a breath, but a breath too long. He tried to fling himself away, but the table leg still smashed right into his temple, sending him staggering backwards. He tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground.
The young man cried out and rushed in front of him, his stance wobbly and his sword held clumsily in his hands. I wrenched the second table leg from my belt and flipped it in front of me, letting it spin a long moment before I snatched it out of the air.
Though he'd only gotten one good swing in, he was breathless with fear. I stood tall over him, not even winded.
"We don't have to fight," I told him. I pointed at his sword and then the ground. "That, there." Then I pointed at his chest and the open cell. "You, there."
He risked a glance over his shoulder at his crewmate. The man was groaning on the ground, holding his head. Though the light was dim, it caught a deepening pool of vibrant red. His eye was already swollen and clamped shut. A gruesome cut from his brow to his temple gushed blood. He would be lucky if he wasn't blinded.
"You've lost," I said. "Give up, boy. I don't want to hurt you, too."
He was wise enough to see that without translation. He held his hands up in surrender, legs shaking, and let his sword slip from his grip and into the pool of blood. When prompted, he emptied out his pockets. He had keys as well, along with some coins and papers. I stepped over to him, keeping a wary eye on his superior, and patted him down to make sure he wasn't trying anything. Then I did the same to the bleeding man, retrieving another set of keys, his sword, more coins, and what appeared to be a map.
Once they were stripped of their belongings, I motioned for the young man to go. He grudgingly slunk into an open cell. I hefted the man over my shoulder and set him down on the cot in the same cell.
The young man was already stripping the blanket of the cot into bandages as I locked them both in. I should have separated them—but by the time anyone came to help, I planned to be long gone.
I climbed the ladder and took a cautious glance around, squinting in the bright light. Nobody was on deck. I climbed aboard, shut the door, and fumbled with the keys until I found the lock for that, too.
Southerners, I thought with a shake of my head. Arrogant fools.
By then, my eyes had adjusted to the light. We were anchored in a bay, the ocean waves lapping at the hull of the ship. The sun was beginning its descent towards a towering mountain range. They loomed so grand that they seemed to be close enough to touch, though the great hulking things were actually a long distance away. A few other ships bobbed in the waters, and some fishermen were visible out at sea. A well-off village hunkered down all the way to the mountains, each of the houses built on stilts. Their architecture was fit for houses on Berk, sturdy and squat. Already, the long shadows of the mountains were stretching over the houses, bringing an early night. Many houses glimmered from firelight within.
Well, at least this would save us a trip to the southern mountains. How kind of Grimmel to bring us here on his own.
"Haugaeldr," I called out softly in clumsy dragon-tongue. "Haugaeldr, Haugaeldr…"
I glanced about the deck, taking in all of the cages—and then caught a flash of gold. I ran over to him.
"Haugaeldr!" I said. He was oddly silent, which I would have considered a blessing any other day. As I fumbled with the keys to his cage, I took immediate notice of two things. One: his saddle, sandbox, and bags were all missing.
Two: he had some sort of collar wrapped tight along the base of his skull. A vial with vibrant magenta fluid rested at his nape.
I swung the door open, snatched the collar, and wrested it off.
A wicked needle protruded from the vial, coated in blood. As I stared at it in horror, Haugaeldr jerked where he stood, blinking rapidly and shaking his head.
"What?!" he gasped. His eyes settled on me. He brightened like a boy seeing his father come home from a long voyage. "KING!" he shouted. He leapt upon me, nearly knocking me onto my back, and began to lick every single inch of my face.
"Haugaeldr!" I laughed, sparing a moment to return the embrace. "All right, all right, off with you." I pushed him back to his own four feet. "What happened? What is this?" I held up the collar with the needle embedded in it. Blood dripped from the tip, spattering the ground.
He bared his teeth and gums at it. "Grimmel—it—dragons—! I saw—dragon—Night Fury—and Hiccup—not Toothless—there!" He pointed with a finger-like claw at a door on the deck, which led to the space under the raised stern.
Though I scarcely understood the first half, the second was what mattered. I ran over to the door and tested it. Locked. No problem; I had keys.
Except none of them worked.
With an irritated scowl, I stepped back, rolled my shoulders, and squared myself. With a thunderous kick to the door, it went flying off its hinges.
"I can do that," Haugaeldr muttered, sounding disappointed.
"You are very good at breaking doors," I told him pointedly. He gave a sheepish grin.
We stepped inside the room, which looked like some sort of working space. There was a desk with some glowing mushrooms, an amazing collection of glassware, several chests and shelves, and nothing else.
Haugaeldr crept in warily. "But...Hiccup here?"
"As a dragon," I said solemnly. The darkness of the room seemed to press in and stifle my voice.
"Yes. But…" He sniffed the floor. "No smell Hiccup. Smell Night Fury...and other dragon."
Thor strike me down, but my heart lifted. "So the dragon...wasn't Hiccup?"
"Dragon was small—um—um—" he pointed at the wooden floor. "This Night Fury."
"A small, brown Night Fury."
"Yes, right!" He shot me a proud grin. "You understand! Good!" He pointed at the floor and enunciated, "B-r-o-w-n."
I was grim and silent. Haugaeldr began to step around the small space, nosing everything. As he did, he occasionally shook his paws, flinging off…
As he investigated, I bent down to the ground and ran my fingers along it. My fingers brushed along something soft and frail. It crumbled away as I picked it up and held it in the light.
"Dried mud," I noted. I stood up and stepped out of the doorway, bringing forth a great shaft of light.
It was dirt. Everywhere. Looking closer, I could even see that there was a trail of it leading out onto the open deck.
Haugaeldr sniffed one of the mushrooms and jerked away, snorting and shaking his head. "Grimmel use this," he grumbled. He rummaged around the desk and let out a cheer, "My sandbox!"
He lunged for it, hugging it like a child with a precious toy. Then he set it down, reset it, put the pencil-holder on, and began to write. As he did, I looked further about the room, rummaging through the tidy space. There was a fortune's worth of glass. One locked drawer, which I wrenched open easily enough, had what looked like a small oven and some sort of miniature toy cannon. Another had Haugaeldr's saddle and saddle-bags which, of course, had been emptied out. I cared much less about that; we could find food and spare clothing later.
It took quite a bit of searching through drawers, but eventually, I found my hammer and shield. With a relieved sigh, I grabbed them both, abandoning the sword and table plate. The table legs I kept, just because they were good for throwing.
I had promised myself that I would never, never wield a sword again. Holding it, even for only a few minutes, had left a sinking in my gut. Now I felt freed of that weight, more capable, more in-control.
"King!" Haugaeldr chirped. He gestured at his sandbox. There, he had cramped a very long message with delicate, careful pen-strokes that would put most Vikings on Berk to shame.
I saw a small, brown Night Fury wheeled in here. Grimmel can speak Dragonese. He has a Night Fury trapped like I was. He has other dragons. He used a distilled solution of mushroom spores to poison me. I don't remember anything else.
"Grimmel can speak Dragonese?" I repeated. Why would a man who hated dragons, not as mere beasts but as threats to humanity, know their language?
Haugaeldr nodded with a growl. He reset the sandbox and wrote again.
He said that I'm not a person. That dragons must be slaves to men.
"Yes, I was told much the same." I put a hand on his head. "He's wrong."
Haugaeldr nodded, eyes shining militantly. He wrote again:
The dragon scents here aren't Hiccup and Toothless. I don't know if transformation would alter Hiccup's scent. But we need to help the other dragons, too!
I eyed the mud on the ground. Was it a brown Fury?
Hope rose within me. I pressed it firmly underfoot. No. I needed to best this right now, before Hiccup ever saw me struggle with it. If he was returned to his dragon self, then he would see me happy for him, as I should be—not wrangling with my own selfish desires.
"First, we must find Hiccup and Toothless," I decided. I held up his saddle. He turned his side to me so that I could put it on. "If they're here, they've set markers. If Grimmel has dragons and that Night Fury with him, we also don't have the benefit of flying away from danger. We need to leave carefully."
Haugaeldr waited for me to get the straps around his shoulders. He shook himself, testing the saddle's grip, and grinned excitedly.
I have an idea! he wrote. He went on writing as I took one more cursory glance of the office space. On a whim, I snatched the mushroom-pot and shoved it into the largest saddlebag. What I would do with it, I had no idea; but some spiteful part of me wanted to ruin Grimmel's day. I turned back to Haugaeldr, who stood proudly in front of his message.
I think I have learned the trick of magic. I can use it to help us!