The Courtship of Toothless Chapter 13

It was a little before midnight when every adult dragon on Berk took wing and joined a huge circular formation, orbiting the two fire-towers that marked the entrance to Berk's harbor. The Night Furies hovered in the center of the circle.

"Listen up!" Night-fury bellowed. "We all know how to raid a human village. We thought those days were finally over, but the Outcast humans would rather keep the war going. Who wants to make them regret it?" The answering roar was unanimous, and it woke a few sleeping Vikings in the village nearby.

"There are a few differences between this raid and other raids. For one thing, we aren't going after food, although if you see any fish you can grab without risking yourselves, feel free to grab them. Our goal this time is pure destruction.

"The other big difference is that you've got four Night Furies leading the way." That drew another big roar of approval. For the first time, Guana was seeing how the average dragon really appreciated the Night Furies, and it humbled her.

"I've told you all about New-night-fury's four-phased battle plan, but I'll sum it up. When we go in, we're in Phase One, which means we focus on the catapults and other defenses. When I call 'Phase Two,' we shift to wrecking all the buildings. If the Outcast humans come out to fight, I'll call 'Phase Three,' and we'll focus on the warriors. Once they've been dealt with, Phase Four means we flame anything man-made on the island until we're out of shots."

New-night-fury added, "Remember to sink any ships you see. Anything that floats needs to stop floating. If they can sail to other islands, they can get supplies and rebuild themselves, and they can come back to Berk and hurt us again." As the dragons roared their rage, New-night-fury's voice rose above them. "Never again!"

"Never again!" they all roared back.

"It's time to remind them that it's a bad idea to make dragons mad!" Night-fury-mother-of-twins added. "Let's go!" The circular formation broke up into a confused-looking cluster of extremely angry dragons, composed of seventeen Nadders, thirteen Gronckles, three Zipplebacks and two Nightmares, with a finger-four formation of Night Furies flying point. Their target: Outcast Island.

Toothless closed on Guana. "There's one thing you can do without any help," he said, "and that's to encourage the others. We'll fly zigzags over and under the other dragons so they can see us; that gives them a lot more confidence. Then we'll fly in the lead for a while, and Hiccup and Astrid will make the rounds. It always gives me a chill, the way the others gain courage just from seeing us."

They separated; he dropped back to the left, and she pulled a 180 to the right. As soon as the rest of the dragons had passed her, she turned again and worked her way toward the front of the formation. She could hear the other dragons talking to each other as she passed above them.

"There's Lady-night-fury! I heard she's a natural fighter!"
"Four Night Furies! We're going to be invincible!"
"We never had more than two Night Furies before! This is amazing!"
"I've never felt so good about a battle in my life! Four of them!"

She felt like saying, "But I haven't done anything yet!" Instead, she tried to focus on her flying and not get distracted. When she got to the front of the formation, Toothless was waiting for her. The two of them took the lead, and New-night-fury and Night-fury-mother-of-twins took their turn weaving through the formation.

A shadow loomed up on the sea and grew steadily larger. "Land in sight!" Toothless roared. "Gronckles to the front! Night Furies, climb to strike altitude! We're in Phase One!"

The promontory where they made landfall was guarded by no less than five catapults. Three of them were torn apart by Night Fury blasts before they got a single shot off. The rest vanished in a hail of Gronckle lava-bursts. No dragons were hurt.

"Okay, split up and follow the coastline!" Toothless bellowed. "Watch for more catapults! We're still in Phase One!" The formation divided in two; half followed Night-fury and Lady-night-fury to the left, while the rest went right with New-night-fury and Night-fury-mother-of-twins. Every few minutes, they found another cluster of catapults, which immediately vanished in various kinds of dragon fire.

When the two groups met on the far side of the island, Toothless shouted, "That's it for their defenses! Gronckles, eat a rock and recharge your fires! We are now in Phase Two! Go for the buildings!" They roared across the empty part of the island, back toward the Outcast village.

Guana spotted a structure with an unusual chimney. That would be their forge – a worthy target! She lined herself up for a long, shallow dive, sparked a fireball, and let gravity pull her toward her objective. She thought she heard a faint whistling from her sub-wings.

Suddenly, the forge vanished in a reddish fireball; tools and pieces of roof flew lazily through the sky. A Zippleback had gotten there first! Guana scanned the ground in front of her for something else she could shoot. The only man-made object in her path was a wood-and-rope footbridge across a deep gorge. It wasn't a building, but she had to shoot something – she couldn't hold her fire much longer. She flicked her tail to alter her course, lined up on the bridge, and fired.

Her blast wasn't as big as Toothless' fireworks, but it was more than enough for the footbridge. The middle third of it just ceased to exist; the outer ends flopped against the cliffs and hung there, beginning to burn. She admired her handiwork for a moment, then did a quick zigzag in case anyone on the ground was getting ready to throw something at her.

When she regained strike altitude, Toothless was waiting for her. "You made a good recovery when you lost your primary target," he commented. "I was about to scream at you for making yourself an easy target, but then you threw in that zigzag. That was a nice touch.

"Now I've got something special for you to do. There's a small group of juvenile dragons who are taking target practice in the harbor. They've gotten overconfident and they're taking too many chances. I want you to fly cover for them, and bail them out if they get in trouble."

"I'll do that," she nodded, and banked away toward the harbor. Could she do this? He wouldn't have given her the job if he thought it was beyond her. Or was he sending her on this errand to keep her out of danger? It didn't matter; she'd do her best. Besides, the harbor would have plenty of worthy targets in it. She'd just gotten her first taste of fiery destruction, and the dragon side of her wanted more.

The harbor wasn't hard to find; three or four ships were already burning like beacons. She could see two Gronckles, three Nadders, and a Zippleback flying in a big circle, taking turns to drop down and flame something every now and then. Toothless was right – their formation was absurdly predictable, and they were low enough to be easy targets. She looked around to see if any Outcasts were taking aim at them.

There! One of the ships at the docks was armed with three medium-sized catapults, and she could see two of them being winched down. She sparked a fireball, put her head down, and fired. The blast wasn't very impressive – any Gronckle could have done better – but it served two purposes. It scattered the humans for a few seconds, and it drew the dragons' attention to the threat they hadn't seen. They scattered. One of the Nadders circled back, fired, and ripped the catapult-ship in half before the humans could return to their weapons.

"Thanks, Lady-night-fury!" one of them called. "We didn't see that one."

"All of you, climb up here and circle around me," she called. They obeyed readily.

"Are we in trouble?" one of the Zippleback heads asked.

"No, but it's a wonder you aren't all dead," she replied. "You're flying low, slow, straight and predictable. You're just begging some Outcast to take a shot at you! You need to keep changing direction and height as you fly, and make quick, slashing attacks instead of long, drawn-out firing passes. And keep your eyes open for danger, as well as targets." It was just two days ago that Toothless had taught her about fighting, and now she was the teacher.

The other six dragons nodded. A Nadder said, "Part of our problem is that we were never in battle before – we were too young to fly on the raids during the War. We don't know what we're supposed to shoot at."

"We know that a ship with a dragon's head on the front means dragons should burn it, but that's about all," added the other Zippleback head.

"When Night-fury said 'you all know how to raid a human village,' why didn't you say something?" she asked.

"We didn't want to sound stupid," a Gronckle answered, embarrassed. "We thought we'd figure it out when we got there."

"Okay, then," she nodded. "I'm kind of new to battle myself. I'm not as destructive as the other Night Furies, but I know what kinds of targets the Outcasts need the most. So I'll tell you what – I'll mark the targets for you, and then you can destroy them."

"Awesome!" the seven heads of the other six dragons all exclaimed at once.

For the next half hour, Lady-night-fury and her six youthful charges ranged up and down the coast of Outcast Island, laying waste to Outcast sea power. Warships, cargo ships, fishing boats, ships under construction... they burned everything. She would tag a target with a small firebolt, and one of the others would swoop down to ignite it for keeps. They took turns shooting so they wouldn't reach their shot limits too soon. She saved her own shots by adding commands like, "...and get the one next to it as well!" Her shots weren't very destructive, but they started small fires, they pointed out targets to the inexperienced dragons, and they helped her uphold the Night Furies' honor in the most important way – she never missed.

Well, almost never. The group had a close brush with danger when a trio of Outcasts with crossbows burst out of a cave, looking for targets in the moonlight. Lady-night-fury had been lining up a targeting shot on a barge of some kind, but when she saw the Outcasts, she shifted targets and fired at them instead. Her hastily-aimed shot went wide by several yards; the men were showered with rock fragments, but were otherwise unhurt. But they saw the firebolt lance out of the darkness toward them, tried and failed to see the dragon that launched it, screamed "Night Fury!" and dashed back into their cave without firing a shot. The other dragons assumed she meant to do it that way, and she never told them otherwise.

When they ran out of floating targets, they returned to the harbor and wrecked the shipyard from end to end, using up the last of their fires on cranes, stacks of seasoned timber, and sheds full of sails and cordage. When the main flock flew over a few minutes later to finish the job, they quickly saw that the job was already finished, and flapped away in search of other targets. Lady-night-fury and her team made their way inland, avoiding trouble because the six younger dragons were out of shots, and eventually linked up with the bulk of their force.

"We're in Phase Three right now," Night-fury explained quickly, "but that isn't going to last much longer. There's no fight in them! I think they're used to dragon attacks that are nothing but random, unguided food raids. We're hitting them with an organized plan, and they don't like that so well."

"Have we taken any losses?" she asked.

"Three or four of the big dragons have holes in their wings from crossbow bolts, but nothing serious," he answered. "I actually heard a Nadder tell a friend, 'It's only fun if you get a scar out of it.' Night-fury-mother-of-twins seemed to think that was funny for some reason. Well, it's about time for me to call Phase Four."

"You'd better make that Phase Five," she corrected him.

"Huh? There is no Phase Five!"

"There is now." She pointed with her wing.

Outcast Island was home to more than just humans; it was also the location of a small nest of feral dragons. Without a Night Fury to help settle their disputes, they resolved everything by tooth and claw. They were greedy, selfish, and prone to get angry at just about anything, especially the Outcasts. Now they saw Berk's dragons flaming the human part of the island, and they recognized a chance to join the action and strike some blows at their most hated enemies at minimal risk to themselves. They were about two dozen strong, and they were flying from the far side of the island in line abreast, launching gouts of flaming death at anything that looked man-made.

"Berk dragons! Gain altitude! Circle up!" Toothless roared his commands, and the other dragons passed the word so everyone got the message. They quickly formed a big circle high above the island. Below them, they could see countless fires that they'd set, with more breaking out every minute as the Outcast dragons vented their rage on their unfriendly human neighbors. The entire human side of the island was smoking like a volcano.

New-night-fury conferred quickly with Night-fury, then flew into the center of the circle formation. "Dragons, I have two words for you. Mission accomplished! The human Outcasts wanted to play games with dragons; I hope they liked this game. I know I did! Better yet, they didn't bring down a single one of us! Let's go home and let the local dragons finish the job. We've had a busy night."

The dragons' rage was sated. They were feeling subdued now, even though it was thrilling to look down and see what they'd accomplished. The entire formation turned away and flew lazily back to Berk. Most of them would sleep late that morning.

The Night Furies glided around the formation, accepting the thanks and the wing-taps of the others for the protection and security they'd provided. It was a tradition among dragons returning from raids; even if a raid went badly, the dragons would thank the Night Furies that it hadn't gone worse. Guana was surprised to be treated just like the veterans.

"Why are they making such a fuss over me?" she asked Toothless. "It's not like I won the battle, or destroyed anything important."

"Why are they making such a fuss over you?" Toothless smiled. "I'll tell you why. You see, I've been listening to their talk, and I've put together a pretty good picture of what you did back there.

"One: you took an inexperienced band of young dragons into battle, and led them out the other side, without a scratch on them.

"Two: you personally saved their lives by your actions, not once, but twice.

"Three: you took a simple defensive assignment – protect the inexperienced dragons – and turned it into a very successful search-and-destroy mission, entirely on your own initiative.

"And four: you've invented a new way for us dragons to make war on our enemies. We've always attacked all at once, in one big group. You've come up with something different – a small band of dragons acting on their own, taking out special targets separately from the main force. I guess we never tried it before because we never had any Night Furies to spare. If we ever have to attack anyone again, I think we're going to include your idea in our plans.

"And you did it all without knowing how to dive!"

"Does that make her an awesome fighting dragon?" Hiccup asked, with a hint of a smile. "You called me that, when I started my first raid."

"Yes, does it?" Astrid repeated. "That's what you called me after my first raid."

"Yes... yes, I suppose it does," Toothless nodded.

"That's the highest compliment he'll ever pay anyone," Hiccup grinned. Guana was speechless. How had the shepherd girl turned into a first-rank warrior?

Far below them, Alvin the Treacherous looked out from under a safe ledge as his entire village was reduced to ashes. He shook his fist at the sky and bellowed, "I HATE DRAGONS! ALL OF YOU!"

Then a feral Gronckle's lava-ball splashed into the ground near him, and he had to hide again.