The Berserker War Chapter 07
It took the Berserkers over a week to make their way home. They were cold, hungry, and miserable. It didn't help that they'd watched from the shore, helpless to intervene, as a flock of Thunderdrums blasted the last of their ships out of existence as soon as they'd raised their sails. Some of them had died on the journey home; many others were no longer battle-worthy, mostly due to frostbite. The only things that kept them going were the hopes of a warm fire and a cold ale at the end of the journey, and Dagur's vicious outbursts at anyone who faltered along the way.
By the time he'd whipped them into something that looked like an army again, his overworked craftsmen had built enough carts and wagons to make something that looked like a supply train. He marched that army and supply train northward for the second time, this time with plenty of armed guards surrounding the carts and wagons. The shining dream of easy victory over Berk had faded for most of his men by this time. But Dagur was their lawful chief, he had given his orders, and no one dared speak of rebellion. Not yet.
Their march to the attack was hardly more pleasant than their recent stumbling retreat. They'd had to abandon their heavy-duty leather tents when they lost their first batch of wagons, so most of them had to make do with fabric tents that did little to stop the cutting northern wind. Of course, they didn't get much sleep in those tents anyway. They only set up the tents when they stopped marching for the night, and the night was when the dragons came.
It was another night, just like the nights before it. The guards were out in the open, alertly scanning the skies and the horizon for a sign of their hated enemies. The Berserkers who weren't on duty were just as wide awake, shivering in their tents and praying to their favorite deity that the dragons would leave them alone for one more night. There were no stars overhead to comfort them; the overcast blocked everything from view. The only good news was that they were on land and not at sea. If the dragons attacked them tonight, they weren't stuck in large, slow targets with no escape route except the ice-cold ocean.
At last, the sun's dim light began to show on the eastern horizon. To all military men, that meant it was time to get moving if they weren't moving already. It also meant the dragon threat was over; they never struck if there was enough light to see them by. Men folded tents and sleeping rolls, piled their burdens on the wagons, lined up at the chow wagons for some breakfast, and –
"DRAGONS!" "Dragons to the north!" Everyone dropped whatever they were doing, grabbed their weapons, and ran toward the sound of the lookouts' panic-stricken calls. Sure enough, they could dimly see a small flock of big Hideous Zipplebacks and Monstrous Nightmares gliding toward them, then partially turning away. It looked as though two of the big dragons had human riders! Maybe their chief was right – maybe the Berks really had forged an unholy alliance with the lizards! The heavy-weapons crews loaded their catapults and ballistas, laboriously cranked them down, and tried to aim them at their huge, distant flying targets.
They were completely out of position when the Gronckles and Nadders swept in from the south.
The Gronckles focused on the few men who were still in the way, sending them flying through the air with blasts of molten rock that burst at the Berserkers' feet. The Nadders focused on the wagons, which were now fully-loaded with ponies harnessed. Those ponies panicked as the dragons approached, and became uncontrollable when their wagons caught fire. They ran wildly through the camp, trampling men, spreading fire as the burning cargoes of their wagons fell off, spreading panic as Vikings threw themselves out of the way. The Berserkers who had run to the north side of the camp turned to face this new threat; the heavy-weapons crews tried to wheel their big weapons around to defend their own camp.
Anyone who knew Hiccup's way of thinking could have guessed what happened next.
"Night Fury!" "Get down!" There was enough light to barely see the silhouettes of six black dragons screaming almost straight down, out of the arcs of fire of the catapults and ballistas. Six of those weapons were suddenly blasted out of existence; then the black dragons swept away to the south. All the Berserkers' eyes were on them now. That was unfortunate for the Berserkers. They'd mentally written off the Zipplebacks and the Nightmares as nothing but a diversion. But Zipplebacks and Nightmares aren't diversions – they're dragons. They swept in and finished off the heavy weapons, now that those weapons were all pointed in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, the Nadders and Gronckles continued blasting anything that moved, or looked like it might move.
Then one of them roared, and all the dragons broke off their attacks and flew straight up. The Berserkers lobbed their Cloud of Death into the sky, but they couldn't throw anything high enough to catch the escaping fire-lizards. They waited for the follow-up attack, but the follow-up attack didn't come. They were left standing in the smoking ruins of their camp, watching the last of their ponies running into the wilderness with the last of their wagons and supplies, wondering what they should do next.
Dagur was shaking, speechless with rage as he looked around him. All his subordinates edged away from him, not wanting to be too close when the explosion came. He stared into the morning sky, trying to find some sign of a persistent enemy that refused to stand and fight. At last, he found his voice.
"Yah! Run away, you cowardly dragons! You know you can't win if you face me! You fly away because you're afraid of me! So run! Run before I catch you and slice your heads off and feed them to the sharks! You can't run forever! I'll catch you one of these days, and when I do –"
He was cut off by a rising whistle. He looked around in a panic to see what the Night Fury's target might be, decided that he was the target, and hid inside his tent, as though that might help.
In fact, the target was on the other side of the camp. It was a wagon with a metal tank mounted on it, very much like the one that had given Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang his name. Toothless had spotted it and decided it would be fun to make a heck of a bang himself. The sun hadn't fully risen yet, and the Berserker camp was still in shock. His target was motionless and unguarded. He smiled and unleashed his last shot of the day.
Something went terribly wrong.
The first tank had been made of thin metal, which had vaporized when its contents exploded. This tank was made with much thicker metal on top, and when the tank exploded, that thick metal was flung skyward in razor-sharp chunks. One of those chunks sliced through Toothless' left wing as he pulled out.
High above him, the other Night Furies saw the explosion, saw Toothless stagger in the air, heard him scream over the receding roar of the explosion. Without hesitation, Hiccup shouted, "Cover me!" and wheeled over into a quick dive. The other four followed a moment later, looking for targets that might threaten Hiccup or Toothless.
Hiccup pulled out of his dive and flew next to his friend. The wound was a bad one, extending halfway through the outer-panel wingsail skin. If he tried to flap too hard, it would tear even further. The pain was obvious on Toothless' face.
"We're going to get you out of here, bud! Stay with me!" Hiccup shouted.
"I can't fly home like this!" Toothless shouted back. "Get out of here! Save yourself before somebody down there finds a crossbow!"
"Toothless, this whole thing started when you and I flew tail-to-tail," Hiccup called. "Now, we're going to fly wing-to-wing!"
"How is that going to work?" Toothless asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea," Hiccup called back. He slid sideways in the air and pressed his right wing tightly underneath Toothless' injured left wing. Instantly, the pressure of the air on the wound was relieved; some of the pain subsided.
"That's better. Thank you," Toothless exclaimed. "But we're way too low to glide all the way home, and there's no way we can flap together."
"We can flap our outer wings together, and glide on the inner wings, and gain some height that way," Hiccup answered.
"Hiccup, that's insane! That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of!"
"Actually, it doesn't even make my Top Ten for crazy ideas," Hiccup shot back, "but Astrid can tell you about those later. Now let's try this! One... two... three... flap!" Hiccup's left wing and Toothless' right wing came down, almost perfectly together; they lurched to one side. "Again! One... two... three... flap! One... two... three... flap!" They quickly worked out a rhythm together. Slowly, agonizingly, they began to gain height.
"I can't believe this is working!" Toothless exclaimed.
"Me neither," Hiccup gasped. "But my left wing is helping hold both of us up, and I'm getting tired."
"Then let's trade places," came a voice from behind him. "I can fly with him for a while." Astrid and the others had overtaken them and watched what they were trying to do.
"And what happens when your wing gets tired?" Hiccup had to know.
"Then I'll fly with him for a while," Guana interjected. "He carried me through the sky once; it's only fair if I return the favor."
"Kids, don't even think it," Hiccup exclaimed. "You aren't quite big enough for this job."
"Fine," Night-fury-six-shooter said. She and her brother whispered to each other, and they both shot ahead, moving far faster than the burdened Night Furies could follow.
For miles they crawled through the sky together, the three healthy ones trading places every five minutes or so as they shared the burden of their injured friend. It was nearly time for Hiccup to take another turn when he saw specks ahead. The specks grew wings, then legs and bodies. Their children had brought the entire flock of dragons back to them.
"Why aren't you at home, resting after a busy morning?" Astrid half-scolded them.
"Your children told us that Night-fury was hurt, and that's all we needed to know," a Nadder answered.
"That looks like hard work," a Nightmare observed. "Can I carry him for a while?"
"Yes!" all four adult Night Furies exclaimed at once. Guana helped Toothless glide down until the Nightmare took up his weight, then sideslipped away. Toothless gratefully folded his wings and rested them.
"Thank you," he sighed. "Thank you so much."
"After all the things you've done for us, this is nothing," the Nightmare answered. All the other dragons rearranged their formation into a protective sphere surrounding that Nightmare and his unlikely rider. They returned to Berk that way and landed.
Stoick and Gobber ran up to them. "You were gone so long, we were afraid the Berserkers had gotten all of you!" the chief exclaimed. He almost hugged his son's thick neck in relief.
"Do ye have any wounded this time?" Gobber asked, with Gothi at his side. Astrid made a low rumble and gestured with her head at Toothless, who was gingerly climbing down off the Nightmare, trying to move his wing as little as possible. Gothi looked at the torn wing and shook her head. Then she wrote quickly on the ground with her staff. Gobber read what she'd drawn and hurried away.
"Can a dragon recover from a wound like that?" Astrid asked quietly.
"I've never seen it happen," Toothless said, even more softly. "I think I'm grounded for life."
"Oh, no, you're not," Guana said decisively. "I've still got my Power, and I'm going to use it!"
"Guana, no!" Toothless cried out. "We're still in a war – you might need that Power to save someone's life!"
"I'm saving your life!" she shot back. "You'll die if you can't fly! Don't try to deny it – I know you!"
"Everybody, hold it!" Hiccup called. "I think Gothi had an idea. Let's see what the humans can do for us before we do anything irrevocable."
"Do you think she can stitch up a wound that big?" Astrid said doubtfully. "I watched her working on small puncture wounds from our last major battle. Her hands were barely strong enough to grip the needle! I don't think she can do this."
"But she's found someone who can," Guana said as she saw Gobber returning. With him was Yunibrau, the town's master leatherworker, with a bag full of thongs, sinews, and heavy-duty needles.
"Let them try it, bud," Hiccup advised his friend. "If they can't do it, Guana can still use her Power on you. If they can, she can save it for another day."
Toothless looked at the leatherworker's needles. "This could hurt more than the wound," he said hesitantly.
Hiccup looked around until he found Fishlegs, and wrote in front of him:
GET LOTS OF DRAGON-NIP
"You've got it!" the husky young man shouted, and ran to the dragon training ring, where he kept a supply of the special grass. Within ten minutes, he was applying the grass to the wounded dragon's nose, apologetically explaining, "This will make you feel better, Mister Toothless" as the dragon went limp. Gobber gently stretched out the injured wing, and held it out so the healer and her new helper could work on it.
The operation lasted almost two hours. The leatherworker wasn't used to sewing living tissue, and the healer couldn't speak to explain her wishes. Fishlegs stayed near Toothless' head the whole time, and applied more dragon-nip whenever the Night Fury stirred. All the other dragons of Berk were gathered around the scene, watching silently, looking very nervous. Most of them had had bad experiences with Vikings and Viking weapons in the not-so-distant past; the idea that a Viking could use a sharp object to help a dragon was hard for them to swallow.
At last, Gothi dismissed Yunibrau and cleaned both sides of the wound with a cloth dipped in some kind of herbal fluid. She gestured to Fishlegs, who stepped away, and wrote something in the dirt for Gobber to translate. Toothless was beginning to stir as the smith read out loud:
"She says he can't even try to fly until the wound is completely healed, but he should be able to use the wing again. It will take at least a week."
Astrid translated for the other dragons, who let out grunts and growls of relief. The Night Furies took turns rubbing noses with Toothless, who was still woozy from the dragon-nip, and whose wing was beginning to ache.
"Guana, you need to fly back to your nest and tell your dragons what's happened to Toothless," Astrid suggested.
"I'd rather stay here with my mate, if you don't mind," she replied.
"Fine. Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang, you're still a little bit faster than your sister; you take the news to Dragon Island, and then come back here. We may have to attack the Berserkers again tonight if they're still headed north."
"I'm on my way, Mom." The yearling Night Fury quickly vanished in the distance.
Toothless spent the rest of the morning walking around Berk, greeting all the dragons and thanking them for helping to protect him and bring him home. They all wanted to trade wing-taps with him; he had to be careful to offer them his healthy wing. Guana was never far from him. When she found that the fish in the trays weren't as fresh as he liked, she flew out to sea and brought back a fine sea bass for him.
A little after high noon, sharp eyes among humans and dragons spotted a strange dark cloud approaching Berk from the north-northwest. The cloud soon resolved itself into dozens of dragons, the entire adult population of Dragon Island, along with Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang. When they landed in Berk, they left almost no room for the people. It was evident that they were very, very angry about something. Their leader, Two-heads-green-very-bossy, stormed up to the Nest and looked both Hiccup and Astrid in the eyes at the same time.
"We have just two questions for you," she demanded. "Who are the people who did this to our Night-fury, and when are we going to pay them back for it?"