Violence ahead. Extremely graphic violence. Dragons are enormous, fire breathing creatures, perfectly capable of killing in a number of utterly horrific ways. Again, I'm not one to shy away from things. People will hurt dragons in this story. Dragons will hurt people. People will hurt people. Dragons will hurt dragons, and none of it will be kid-friendly.
The next chapter is going to include a few ugly moments. If you are uncomfortable… then I suggest you find a story which is rated 'K', not 'T'. I'd rate it 'M', but I don't intend to put any sex in it. Violence in media, our society can deal with. Sex? Not so much.
Prodigal Son 11
It was the bells that woke her up, but Astrid knew immediately what was going on. The orange light flickering through her empty hall's open window was a clue, as were the incessant screams, the yelps and growls of barking dogs, and the furious cries of Berk's warriors. But the most telling clue was the acrid chemical smell which filled and burned her nostrils. Only one thing in the world made that smell: the flammable gel of a Monstrous Nightmare.
In less than a second, she was on her feet, retrieving her axe and marching towards the door. Her father's hunting bow, and a half-full quiver had been hung above it, which she slung over her shoulder. She tore the door open just in time to see gouts of Nightmare's liquid flame shoot from the windows of the Hrolfson hall. The building was aflame with such intense heat that she momentarily shielded her face. She could see nothing in the open windows beyond the roaring furnace, so like Gobber's forge at full heat. She felt her heart leap into her throat; there were over seventeen people in that family... how many of them had been in there?
Three blackened, burning, screaming people leapt out the door and through the windows, rolling on the ground as they tried to choke the flaming gel which coated their backs. Blinded, deafened, and in pain beyond the ability to scream, a tiny body shambled out of the flaming building, arms hanging loosely at its sides and burning from head to toe. That was little Sigerich Hrolfson, no more than seven winters old; one of Astrid's students. A Monstrous Nightmare had murdered one of her students…
The dragon itself, fully ablaze, was perched on the roof, blowing its liquid fire through a hole in the thatch, and watching the Viking family burn. As its youngest victim shambled out, charred nearly beyond recognition, it slithered down with its long neck and scooped the dying child up in its mouth. It took off, Hrolfson hall collapsing beneath it.
Everything she had learned the day before, what Hiccup had discovered; that Dragons were merely animals, things which could be reasoned with... it all flowed from her mind like water through a sieve. Putting her emotions in a box just as her uncle Finn had taught her, Astrid calmly notched an arrow, lead her target, and let fly. The small black arrow flitted into the broiling, smoke-filled sky and hit the Monstrous Nightmare in the wing joint, causing the beast to spasm and roar. The small body fell from its mouth and landed on the ground with a crunch which she also put out of her mind. The dragon went down just a few seconds later, demolishing a shed. It roared loudly. She hoped it was in pain, and there was plenty more she had to offer.
Astrid sprinted towards it, hefting her axe. The creature's long neck wound around and its slitted eyes narrowed as it found her - the source of its sudden pain. She knew what was coming, and she leapt, pushing sideways off a water barrel as its maw opened. An arc of the liquid gel zipped over her left shoulder, spattering a few droplets on her fur collar. The creature snapped at her as she flew towards it. Astrid swung her axe sideways, striking it across the teeth as its jaw snapped shut. Chunks of fang flew in all directions, and it screeched, drawing back in shock and pain.
She landed on her feet amongst the burning wooden planks which had previous held the Hrolfson family's farming tools. The dragon coiled around her as quickly as it could, but Astrid was slightly faster. She swung the axe down, sinking it deep into the monster's neck. It snapped backwards, sending her flying over its spiny, flaming body to land a few meters away. She rolled onto her back, fighting to get her bearings. The Nightmare twisted around and skittered after her furiously. Blackened smoke rose from the wounds as the dragon's flaming body vaporized the blood which was pouring out.
Her axe was embedded in its neck, but Astrid still had her father's bow. Lying flat on her back, with the Nightmare careening towards her, she notched another arrow. As the Nightmare, with its broken but still deadly fangs, snapped at her, she let loose. The projectile flew straight and true, entering its open jaws, ramming through the roof of its mouth, and ending its journey in the creature's brain.
The dragon flopped to the ground, its long neck twisting like the limb of a ragdoll. Its tail twitched a few times, but it was clearly dead, or wounded beyond its ability to further harm her village. Astrid got to her feet and dropped a few handfuls of dirt on her burning furs to choke the flames. She pried her axe from its muscly neck and began to hack at it until the head rolled and bounced down the hill towards Gobber's forge.
Astrid took a moment to survey the situation. Berk was in flames. Fire poured from several homes, and the night sky was black with towers of smoke. Viking warriors were clustered around the food stores and the entrance to the great hall, where those who couldn't fight were always sent during raids. The sky was rife with a dozen flitting shapes and the air was thick with smoke and death. Her mouth watering despite her disgust, Astrid wondered why the gods had made burning human flesh smell so much like roasting pork.
Outside the forge, Gobber and the Thorston twins (who always fought together) were facing off against a pair of Gronckles. On the hill near the Haddock hall, seven burly Vikings led by Snotlout were wrestling with another Nightmare, its flames extinguished. She could see the towering profile of Stoick the Vast as he crushed a Nadder's skull in with his mighty iron hammer.
Astrid charged down the hill towards the Gronckles, screaming at the top of her lungs. The plaza had some of the most tightly clustered homes around it, an easy target for angry dragons. And with their flailing tails, Gronckles were just as effective at damaging property and people as any Nightmare. Two of the buildings were already burning. Another one had been turned to splinters by one of the dragons' rear ends.
Hearing her approach, a Gronckle turned and coughed out a ball of molten rock, which tumbled towards her at high speed. Astrid dodged it easily enough, and she threw all of her momentum into an axe blow powerful enough to crack the Gronckle's skull. The creature groaned and stumbled sideways. Gobber took the opportunity to thrust a spear through its neck, putting the beast out of its misery. A few meters away, the twins were using their own spears to drive the second Gronckle back and away from the plaza. It took one look at its dead companion and took to the skies. An arrow from an unknown archer in one of the defense towers thumped into its side as it retreated.
Several seconds later a tangled, writhing, bloody mess landed near the forge. Astrid recognized it as a Zippleback, caught in a razorwire net. Flakes of blood, skin and scale landed all around as it panicked and writhed, cutting itself to pieces. Green gas began to fill the air around it, and was ignited repeatedly as it tried to burn the netting away. The twins immediately went after it, plunging their spears in again and again, stabbing it mercilessly, and celebrating in the carnage.
"Astrid!" Gobber huffed, grabbing her arm, "You're needed at the arena. A few of your young Bairns camped out there and Snorri saw a Zippleback headed their way."
Astrid didn't waste time thanking him. She rushed north towards the arena, dodging through a few alleyways. Recent memories came unbidden, and once again she watched the poor charred wreck of little Sigerich Hrolfson stumble its way out of his family's burning hall. She picked up speed, swearing on Thor's name that she would not let that happen to any more of her students.
Four hundred meters from the arena's bridge, Astrid found Snorri Sigurdrson, the warrior who had warned Gobber. He lay dead, propped against a tree, and festooned with Nadder spines, blue with green tips. His face beneath his beard was a pale, sickly colour; a sign of the Nadder poison having done its work. Astrid felt a pang of gratitude towards him for attempting to defend her students. Later she would have to thank his family, but at that moment, she was on the hunt. She picked up his shield and continued forwards, listening carefully for the chirping sound which Nadders made.
She reached the bridge not a moment later. The arena had been built a little ways from the town, on a sea stack which sat close to the cliff's edge. A sheer drop on three sides, with a narrow open bridge leading back to the mainland. This was a security measure taken to ensure that, should a dragon escape the arena, it posed as little a threat to the town as possible. The braziers which lay every few meters down its length were out, cutting her visibility. But that wouldn't matter to a dragon; she was horribly, horribly exposed. Especially if that Nadder was still in the area.
On the far side, she could see the wide bulk of a Hideous Zippleback. It was perched on top of the cage, and both heads were inside the arena, presumably snapping at the children therein; Astrid could hear their frightened screams. She slung the shield over top of the bow across her back, hefted her axe, and charged across the bridge. She kept her eyes on the Zippleback, watching its rippling muscles and trying to keep her mind off of how easy it would be for any dragon to swoop past and knock her into the sharp rocks and churning ocean waves two hundred meters below.
She was half way across when she heard it: the chirping noise, followed by a half-dozen little whistling projectiles. Nadder spines peppered the stones around her as she ran. A few thumped into the back of her shield, the force of each blow making her stumble. She thanked Thor that her time off was spent practicing all of those flips and jumps and free-running, as it allowed her to keep her balance when it was so utterly crucial.
She reached the Arena as the Nadder flew around for another pass. Astrid sprinted up the ramps on either side of the arena's entrance, and ran across the wide lattice frame, bounding from strut to rusted strut. Somewhere above her she could hear the chirping as the Nadder circled, but that didn't matter to her nearly as much as the fact that both the Zippleback's heads were hanging through the gaps in the metal cage, and getting closer and closer to chomping up one of the frightened children beneath. She drew her axe as she reached the Zippleback and brought it down on the one of the creature's necks, lopping its head off. The creature reacted immediately. The dragon's one remaining head withdrew and in a lopsided, ridiculous way. It flapped pathetically towards Berk's forests, crooning in agony as its stump bled out.
This was lost on Astrid, however, as the Nadder circling above her chose that moment to grab her shield in its claws and throw her bodily across the cage. She rolled down the latticework to land painfully near one of the chain winches which were used to open the dragon pen doors. She heard the sound of Nadder flames rapidly approaching, and rolled to the side, just in time to avoid a gout of flame, though it passed close enough to singe her entire left side, and she could smell her own burnt hair. The flames hit one of the winch's chains, and melted a few links. The chain sprang loose with a clang noise, kicking up sparks as it hit the rock.
Astrid caught sight of a blue and green tail pass over her head, its spines protruding in all directions. It banked quickly, and blew a few gouts of fire, corralling and herding her, driving her off the edge of the cliff. Thinking quickly, or perhaps not thinking at all, Astrid grabbed the loose chain, near the end of the spool, and leapt freely off the edge of the sea stack, Nadder fire passed over her head, coming close to hitting the chain, but not close enough to melt it; a fact she repeatedly thanked the Gods for when she thought back on the incident). She hung tightly onto the chain, bracing herself for the moment it would come to a sudden and jarring halt, which it did, pinching her fingers between the links. She managed to maintain her grip, thankfully. The Dragon passed overhead, appearing stunned at its prey's odd choice.
Hanging twenty meters down the sea stack, Astrid flung the shield away, letting fall into the distant, grasping waves. She wrapped the chain around her right forearm, strengthening her tenuous lifeline. She had no idea where her axe was, but at that moment, she was too gratefully alive to care. With her left hand, she unslung her father's hunting bow and retrieved an arrow from the quiver. She could hear the deadly Nadder chirping and squealing far above her head. A few poisonous spines flew out of the inky darkness above, but she kicked away from the cliff wall and let them pass by harmlessly. The Nadder was following close behind them.
Gripping her father's bow, and the chain with her right hand, she notched another arrow and crouched against the rocks, aiming straight up at the sky, and at the oncoming Nadder, which had chosen to dive bomb her. She kicked off a second time, to get into its blindspot. As it swerved to compensate, she was treated to its profile, and she let the arrow loose. It flew wide of its mark, but ripped straight through the yellowish underside one of the creature's leathery wings. Wounded, the demon decided that this particular prey was not worth the trouble. It leveled out and flew almost lazily out towards Raven Point.
Knowing that her father would tear a strip off her if she lost it, Astrid very carefully slung the bow across her chest. Then, hand over hand, she used the chain to walk herself up the side of the sea stack.
As she winched up the heavy portcullis, Astrid felt a great sense of relief sweep through her. Her pupils, save little Sigerich Hrolfson, were all alive and well, and doing their part to help her lift the heavy gate. Eventually it was high enough to let her slip under, and she did so, feeling a lightness in her heart as the children gathered around her, wrapping their arms around each other in one giant group hug.
The arena was a mess. Blast residue from the Zippleback attack coated a large area of the floor. Most of the wooden barriers had been smashed to pieces, as had the water barrels. The long zippleback neck, with its bulbous head and lifeless eyes was draped over a low portable oak wall. Astrid spotted her axe amongst the wreckage, and thanked Thor.
"Is everyone alright?"
"Yes, Miss Hofferson!" they echoed.
"What were you all doing here?" she asked.
"Waiting for you, Miss." A few of the children answered. Astrid felt guilt stab at her.
"Sigerich went back to the village!" Osmand reported. "He said he was getting hungry."
Two dozen frightened little faces peered up at her, searching for some reassurance. Astrid closed her eyes against that image of the little burning body tottering out of the furnace. She took a deep breath and said, "I'll go back and look for him. But the village isn't safe. I want you all to get into the Nightmare's pen. I'll close the door to make sure no dragons can get to you."
She considered it a sign of how well trained they were that the young children followed her instructions without a single complaint or hesitation. All it took as a promise that she would retrieve them in the morning. As she climbed up out of the pen and let down the massive iron girders which were built to keep dragons contained, she let herself feel a little relief. That stall was built to contain a Monstrous Nightmare. Locked behind its massive iron doors, those children were now about as safe as they could possibly get.
Astrid collected her axe, and headed back to the village, keeping a watchful eye on the skies.
The battle in Berk was still in full swing, though it looked as though the Vikings had finally gained an upper hand. It was safe enough at last that bucket chains were rapidly forming. Stoick stood at the center of the plaza, organizing the defense, and directing the wounded to the shelters.
Astrid made to approach him, but was pulled into an alleyway by Fishlegs. "Astrid!" he said, sounding relieved. His furs were matted and wet; covered in blood, probably dragon's blood. There were chunks of scaly skin and skull embedded in his massive, dripping club.
"Fishlegs." She said quickly. "I've got to join the defense."
"Not so fast!" he hissed. "We have an opportunity here!"
They both ducked as a Gronckle swooped overhead and dropped a molten boulder through the roof of a nearby house. "Buildings are burning here, Fishlegs. An opportunity for what, exactly?"
He gave her a meaningful look and then pointed up at Haddock Hall, just visible between the buildings' profiles.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed angrily. She wanted to strike him, but knew he'd just shake it off.
"Stoick is distracted. The entire village is busy. Everyone thinks you're at the arena." He replied. I'd break in myself, but I can't climb. I have to go through the front door, and it's locked. I've tried already. If the lock's broken, he'll know!"
"It's treachery!" she snapped. "We could be exiled! Besides, don't we have better things to worry about right now than Hiccup's notes?"
He shook his head, "That building could go up in smoke during the next raid. Then we'd lose the chance forever. One warrior missing for a few minutes isn't going to make a difference to this battle, but what Hiccup knew could stop this entire war. Is that worth it to you?"
"Sigerich Hrolfson got burned to death by a Nightmare earlier!" She reported angrily, "And you want to make peace with the damned beasts? Hiccup was insane, Fishlegs!
"Kids will continue to get burned as long as Dragons continue to raid!" he replied in a measured, yet serious tone. "Someday perhaps it'll be my child. If you don't help me stop this insanity, then that'll be on your head."
They glared at each other.
"Fine." Astrid said shortly, gritting her teeth. "But if I get caught, if I go down, so do you."
"Of course." He said seriously. "We were always in it together, Astrid. I swear on Thor's Hammer."
Satisfied, she turned and slunk through the shadows towards Haddock Hall.
As she moved, she tried to ignore the dishonor of her actions. She was disobeying a direct order from the Chief of her tribe to go through the possessions of a boy who was… well he wasn't dead, but…
If she were caught, then to the village there was no way this would look good. She'd be exiled. Thrown out of the village at spear-point and sent on a raft, hopefully find her way to Outcast Island. She'd have to join the ranks of Alvin the Treacherous and his barbarian horde. Not a happy thought.
She was careful to stay in the shadows and out of sight as she made her way to the wall of the Haddock family home. Fishlegs was right; everyone was so busy either fighting dragons or putting out fires that no Viking ever came close to spotting her. She clambered up the side of the building and hoisted herself through the open window, to land on Hiccup's tiny bed. Outside, she could hear the roars of the beasts, and the sounds of struggling Vikings. Her guilt increased tenfold.
Whatever Fishlegs hoped to find, it had damned well better be worth it!
She took quick stock. She was crouched on Hiccup's bed. To her left in the corner was a chest. Directly in front of her was a thin reed wall, covered in drawings of all shapes and sizes. More designs and plans for all manner of devices there to help the island. A treasure trove to rival the sketches in Gobber's forge. Yet Astrid was struck by the largest of them; an almost perfect sketch of her fourteen-year-old self. She quirked a smile as she recalled that old skirt (now owned by one of her younger cousins), and the way she'd chosen to have her bangs always covering one eye. She had thought it looked good at the time. That was important for a warrior, right? Now she saw it for the tactically crippling error it was. It reduced depth perception which made bows difficult to shoot, and leaps more difficult to judge. Her skill in both had increased significantly when she had finally done her hair up in one thick braid down her back.
It was an excellent sketch, she felt. Her younger self was posed with her axe, gazing intensely through the paper. It captured a younger Astrid's ferocity, as yet untempered by the real experience she would gain later. It was some of that same unbridled intensity which had driven him away, and yet again the thought troubled her.
An intricate heart had been drawn around it, with the words 'The most beautiful girl in Midgard' written underneath.
There wasn't much else in the room. A few shelves with trinkets on them. But nothing that looked suspicious enough for her to investigate. She poked through his papers, but didn't find anything, and she knew in her gut that he would not have been so stupid as to leave his Night Fury notes in plain sight.
The only thing left was the chest. It was full of rather expensive-looking children's clothing and a few more trinkets. She reached the bare wooden bottom and stared down into its emptiness, her hopes dashed. She sat back on her haunches and sighed to herself, staring unblinkingly at the chest.
…But something was wrong; the floor of the chest was significantly higher than the floor of the room it sat in. She reached back in and knocked on the wooden bottom, producing a hollow noise.
A hidden compartment! Clever boy!
Excitement coursed through her veins as she gently pried the false wooden panel upwards. Her heart pounded in her chest as dozens of detailed sketches were revealed.
There was the Night Fury, looking playful; there was the Night Fury looking as fierce as young Astrid had always tried to be; there was a sketch of it looking utterly adorable, with big, round eyes, and its ears or horns or whatever they were perked up like a puppy or a kitten.
What became immediately apparent wasn't just Hiccup's skill as an artist, nor the amount of time he had spent with his dragon, but rather it was a determination to capture the creature's personality. To repaint it as a playful animal instead of the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.
There was more. Other sketches were of the technical sort. It became immediately obvious that the Night Fury was missing a tailfin. That was obviously what had kept it grounded, and allowed Hiccup to train it. He had replaced the fin with a prosthetic. The mechanisms were there, planned and drawn in painstaking detail. Not only the fin itself, but the mechanisms by which Hiccup opened and closed it, and used it to pilot the beast.
So this was what he had been doing, all those afternoons he had raced away after Dragon Training! Great Odin's ghost… unbelievable! It was still so unbelievable! And how had they all missed it for eight years?
Because they never would have expected anything like it out of Hiccup the Useless, Hiccup the Screw-Up. Hiccup the Walking Disaster.
The greatest find was a small journal, bound crudely in reddening animal hide. In ink, written on the front in large letters were the words:
How To Train Your Dragon by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III
Her mouth filling with bile, and her thoughts confused with doubt and guilt, she slipped the papers into her belt. She put everything back as close to the way she'd found it as she could recall, and made to creep back out the window. She paused for one more second to take the drawing of herself. It was too tempting to resist. Then she crept out the window of Haddock Hall, and rejoined the fight.
It was drizzling the morning after. A thick wet mist hung in the air, and rain droplets pattered lightly all around Astrid as she stood outside her family's hall, staring across the wide dirt path
The Hofferson's had all made it through another one, thank Thor. However of the seventeen Hrolfson clan members, only two remained alive. One of them had survived the Nightmare's burning gel, and was with the wounded. The other was little Sigerich Hrolfson's father Hundolfr, who had been on the other side of Berk at the time of the attack.
Yet he was at his home now, or the lot-sized, charred nest of kindling which was all that remained of it. One of the building's corners had survived the fire, though it was a chest-high section of wall now. Hundolfr was huddled against it, his son's tiny, blackened body clutched in his arms, charred to the point of unrecognizable. The helpless tears streaming down his cheeks betrayed the depths of his grief.
Astrid had not had an easy night. She had killed more dragons including another Gronkle, a Nadder she had taken down with Gobber's help, and several Terrible Terrors. After the Dragons finally relented she had discretely passed Hiccup's notes to Fishlegs, and curled up in the lee of a shed's overhang to catch a few blessed moments of sleep. But thoughts of tottering children, covered in flaming Nightmare gel troubled her dreams, and she found sleep elusive.
"Hundolfr…" she said hesitantly, "…Mister Hrolfson?"
The man's grip tightened on his son's body.
"Mister Hrolfson, I'm sorry…" she murmured, feeling the pre-dawn chill setting in. It was made worse by the moisture. "I'm so sorry… I was in my hall… if I'd gotten out thirty seconds sooner…"
"A' leas' ya killed the beast." He said tonelessly, staring at the muddy ground.
Astrid glanced at the headless corpse. "Yeah…"
Hundolfr Hrolfson rose to his feet. He set his son's body down at the center of his burnt home, and began searching the wreckage.
"I was buying chicken meat." He said, pulling up fallen beams "Sigerich said he was hungry, an' I was across town buying chicken meat." He found what he was looking for, and seized it. The metal in what could formerly have been called a mace had melted and hardened into an indefinable shape. Yet it was still heavy, and hard enough to weild.
"I just wanted to feed my family!" the man declared, slipping haphazardly across the mud towards the nightmare's corpse. "I just wanted to feed my goddamned family, and these… these demons…" he choked out the last words as he reached the dragon's corpse. With a sickly thwock, he brought the melted mace down against the dragon's motionless side. Ribs cracked and a small amount of blood seeped out of the new gash the former father had created. The melted implement fell again and again, slowly turning what was left of the corpse to mulch, and with each blow the wild-eyed father cursed the creatures in the name of a different god.
Astrid turned away and slowly trudged down the hill. The plaza was taken up by rows of bodies. Around four dozen, according to her estimate. Around half of those were from the Hrolfson hall alone. The rest were warriors.
The children had been freed from the arena, and she had put them to work cleaning the wreckage. Charred timber was being toted up to the cleared area which the town used for the mass funerals which were always held after a raid. It was… an unfortunate reality that what usually made up the wood for the funeral pyres was the leftovers of the badly burned homes.
Fishlegs crossed her path toting two enormous timbers, and they gave each other grim nods.
Civilians were picking their way through the wreckage, tidying the place up and trying to get life back to some semblance of normal, as they always did after a raid.
"Astrid!" a voice called out. She spun around to find Tuff-nut Thorston motioning at her. "Astrid, the Chief wants us in the Great Hall!"
The door to the hall opened to reveal nearly every able-bodied warrior Berk had left. They were gathered in a giant crowd around the central bonfire, and the circular table. Above them all, the golden statue glittered. It depicted a dragon being impaled by a sword. Astrid could hear Stoick's booming voice, and she pushed through the crowd until she was at the table, almost directly across from him. He was bruised and blackened with smoke, but as imposing and inspiring a figure as ever.
"Either we finish them, or they'll finish us! It's the only way we'll be rid of them!" he cried. "If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave. They'll find another home." He planted his dagger in the map. "One more search. Before the ice sets in."
"Those ships never come back!" one warrior called out.
"We're Vikings." Stoick declared. "It's an occupational hazard! Now, who's with me?"
The warriors were hesitant. Muttering could be heard across the chamber as the collected Vikings weighed their options, and their lives. Stoick frowned, but brightened when he spotted Astrid. He called out, "How many dragons did you kill last night, Astrid?"
"Five dragons and a pack of terrors!" she answered back loudly. "And I drove a Nadder from the arena." Technically she had driven the Zippleback away as well, but with one head missing, it wouldn't last a day. Its carcass was out there, somewhere in the forest.
The muttering ceased as people looked to her, impressed. She spotted Snotlout standing beside his father. He had crossed his arms sourly; the previous night he had only managed to kill four dragons, all of them with assistance from his entourage.
"And will you sail with me to Helheim's Gate, Astrid Hofferson?" Stoick asked.
"I will, sir!" she said immediately, glad for a chance to serve, and regain some of the honor she felt she had lost the night before.
"Astrid Hofferson is with me!" Stoick called out to the indecisive crowd, "And the rest of you? Are you with me?"
Hands raised across the chamber, accompanied by grim and determined faces. Cries were heard of "To the ships!"
"Gather your bags, and gather supplies. We leave in an hour!" Stoick cried.
The hall emptied as the warriors left for their homes, or what was left of their homes. Astrid was charging down the hill towards Hofferson Hall when Fishlegs pulled her aside again. He handed her an oiled leather bag, the most water-proof container they had. "I made copies of what I could." He said. "But here's some of his original notes. You have the original Journal."
She opened it. The journal was indeed inside, along with a few extra sheets of paper. "Thanks, Fishlegs."
"Don't get caught with it." He warned quietly.
"I won't." she promised. "I'm off to war."
"War?" He frowned. "A counter-attack? He's not sailing to… Helheim's Gate… is he?"
She stayed silent. It was the only answer he needed.
"Don't go." He said. "Those ships don't come back."
"Fishlegs, last night I stole from our chief." She replied. "I have to do this!"
"You're probably walking to your grave."
"Then I'll die with a sword in my hand." Astrid shook her head. "You stay here. Teach the children, raise your kid! And find out what the hell Hiccup was up to."
He sighed. "Are you sure?"
"Never ask me that question." She declared quietly. She looked him up and down. "What are you going to do?"
"Find a dragon. Catch it. And train it." He answered shortly. He took her hand and shook it. "Good luck, Astrid. I'll make a sacrifice for you guys."
"You too, Fishlegs. And thanks." She took a few awkward steps away. "I've got to gather some things… we leave in an hour."
Well I hope you guys enjoyed that action scene. It was the first of a few which will be included in this story. But it also sets the tone.
I'm not sure if anyone has seen videos from the Pacific theatre of World War Two, but those flamethrowers caused some of the most horrific wartime images that exist. Second only to the holocaust death camps and even then by a narrow margin. It was these images I turned to when I wrote about the Monstrous Nightmare's attack.
According to USA defense department memos circa WWII, The Japanese flame throwers actually used Kerosene, the active ingredient in Nightmare spit.
The reality of being raided by these dragons is not nice, and it would be a lot uglier than the movies and the kid's TV show are allowed to depict.
Ten chapters in and all the pieces are finally in play. Now I can finally get this story going. Let me know if you guys spot any errors or anything please. And I always appreciate your comments and inputs and whatnots. :)
Cheers,
-CC