Chapter 7: Into Helheim's Gate
Waves crash as the fleet of Berkian ships dips into the fog, an endless snake slithering into the abyss.
The falling sun paints the world in pink and red, but all the colors are shifted and distorted inside the mist, collapsing into some drab gray. Stoick stands at the front of the foremost ship, having crossed boat after boat until he stood at the very head of the movement. Before him, the Terror flaps its wings, eyes in narrow slits. Both the Chief and the Viking manning the wheel keep their gazes on the Terror.
Each ship is swimming in fog. They make a slow, creaking procession, and a black shadow darts through the frame, just for a moment.
High in the air, Hiccup presses close to Toothless' back as the sun goes down. He has taken up again his fur-lined cloak, and the hood shadows his face. Hiccup has tucked the edges beneath his legs, so that the cloth will not fan out on the wind.
Hiccup looks over his shoulder and finds the sunset. In his green eyes, the sun dips into the sea, and night begins to fall over the ocean. Black night.
Perfect for a Fury, he thinks.
From his spot on the lead ship, high up on a sea stack, Stoick catches a glimpse of a Terror, darting out of sight. "Sound your positions. Stay within earshot."
One by one, Vikings call out from the ships. "Here."
"One length to your stern."
"On your starboard flank."
"Three widths to port."
"Ahead, at your bow."
". . . Haven't a clue."
Some try for laughs, but Stoick just huffs. Gobber walks up to his side and speaks. "Listen, Stoick. . . I was overhearing some of the men just now and, well, some of them are wondering what it is we're up to here- not me of course, I know you're always the man with the plan- but some, not me," he looks back and forth to Stoick as he speaks his own curiosity to the chief's thinking. "Are wondering if there is in fact a plan at all, beyond following the little beastie, and what it might be?"
Stoick rolls his eyes, and Gobber chuckles sheepishly.
The Terror suddenly whines, and snaps up against the chain, causing the entire thing to rattle. Stoick freezes. "Shhh." he hushes the two limbed blacksmith. He then orders the helmsman to follow the Terror's movements.
Above them, there was another flash of black–and one of leather. Roughly ten feet from the farthest ship, a large cluster of rocks move through the water.
Gojira lifts his head out of the water and glances to his smaller friends. Toothless growls quietly, glancing at the boy. Hiccup grips the handles of the saddle and takes a deep breath. "Okay, okay. Okay, Hiccup."
He nervously looks down at the ships, a mass of white sails and wood. Berkian ships. "Alright, we can do this, yeah? Oh, man. Okay."
Toothless growls again. Hiccup nods his head and keeps on rambling. "Yeah, you're right. I should...calm down." he says before speaking to himself. "I destroy stuff all the time, right? I've even sunk a few ships before. It's my skill. Why couldn't I do that on purpose? Just...start some fires. Come on. Hiccup the Useless. Just do it."
Gojira blinks in confusion. Toothless shakes his ear and thwacks the boy, but Hiccup hardly feels it. He's looking ahead. "Toothless Gojira." he whispers.
Boy, Saurian and dragon look ahead, and find, out of the fog, a trio of Deadly Nadders. Their eyes are needles, trained on the ships below, and the hottest dragon-fire the world has ever known begins to build in their bellies.
Hiccup's eyes dart down in time with the Nadders, as calls of "DRAGONS!" begin to rise off the ship.
Stoick's head snaps up, and he roars. "Archers! Take them down!"
Bowmen lines up on the walls of a near ship, and arrows fly–but they are too late. The first volley of arrows is swept away by a torrent of magnesium fire, orange, yellow, and white. The dragons torch the side of the ship, and the Vikings scatter, called by their fellowmen to leap to other boats as the vessel rocks. The Nadders move skyward, preparing for another pass.
It had been a valiant effort, but even with so many men, they'd been caught incredibly off-guard.
"Again! Someone get me a bow!" He races around the deck, helping men to cross ships, when suddenly– a high-pitched whistle ring out. It is a dark and terrible sound, one of terror of purple-fire, which heralds the Night Fury's coming.
One Viking cries out in fear, "Night Fury!" And others cry out with him as the leading Nadder bears down, jaws open with flames– only to be caught in the wing by a purple ball of plasma.
The Nadder shrieks, dropping altitude, as a shadow swoops by. Almost indistinguishable from the dragon's body is a small figure, pressed low to the dragon's back, the ends of a cloak coming loose. None of the Vikings catch sight of it.
But the Nadders do. The dragons soar higher with snapping fangs and snarls, giving chase to the black dragon.
When the Vikings look up, they didn't think much. At the time, the dragons turning on one another had been a blessing, beasts turning their rage inward instead of on the ships. But it was no animalistic brawl, but the Nadders giving chase, and it was Hiccup drawing them away on hs Night Fury friend.
Hiccup presses down on the tailfin mechanism, and Toothless spins around, loosing another ball of fire into the midst of the Nadder trio.
They led the trio to Gojira who lets out a terrible roar, which has the Vikings below dropping to shield themselves and the Nadders are sent fleeing.
Hiccup breathes hard, reaching forward to pat Toothless on his crown. An arrow careens through the air, spinning, spinning with a tip of iron. "Good job, bud. Now–AH!"
It's a good shot, a great shot, even, but it misses the offspring of lightning and death by inches. It does not, however, miss the arm atop said dragon's head.
Hiccup cries out as the arrow stabs through the back of his upper arm, tearing through cloak, tunic, and flesh, sticking out of the front. Hiccup leaps back in the saddle, lifting the appendage. The cloak falls away, revealing his tunic of jade, and the rip from which crimson begins to seep.
Hiccup stares, wide-eyed, as the patch of stark, vivid red grows. He looks back in shock to see where it had come from.
Down on a ship, Chief Stoick has his bow raised, peering up into the murk. All the Vikings can make out is the shadow of the Fury, and Stoick calls for another arrow while others take their shot.
He'd thought he'd missed. He hadn't hit the Fury, and he hadn't seen the little boy on the Fury's back.
Toothless beats his wings and flies higher, out of range–but suddenly, Gojira's nostrils flare. Slowly, ever so slowly, his head cranes around. The Saurian's yellow eyes find Hiccup, staring still at the ever-growing spot of red. Gojira looks down back at the ship.
A river of it has begun to leak out of his sleeve, rolling down his wrist and hand, onto Toothless' dark scales.
It is the scent of blood that fills the Fury's nose, as it does Gojira's and the sight that has their eyes turning to those familiar slits.
Hiccup finally reaches out, touching the tear in cloth and skin, and hisses. Both Gojira and Toothless let free a pair of terrible snarls. Hiccup reaches out for him, "It's okay. It's alright, Goji, Toothless–"–but his fingers are red with blood, and Gojira roars. It was unlike anything Hiccup had ever heard before in his life.
SSKKRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOONNNKK!
(Look up a YouTube video covering all of Godzilla's roar in Minus One.)
The Vikings all turn to the direction the roar had come from, eyes all wide in fear. Gojira snarls at them.
Then dives.
Gojira drops into the water, diving beneath a flock of arrows that flew to his direction.
Hiccup's eyes widen. "Gojira!" he shouts after him.
Hiccup wants the Saurian to stop, but Gojira doesn't listen. Toothless' jaws fill with purple fire, his eyes with the Chief of Berk.
Gojira growls as he swims underwater towards the Viking ships. He knows who fired the arrow in Hiccup's arm. He could smell the human and detected something else. He had Hiccup's scent as well. He was Hiccup's family, possibly his sire. Or as humans say, his father.
And that's what enrages Gojira the most out of the situation. Hiccup was defending the pack from enemies and his own father had injured him. What kind of reward was that?
The boy was protecting them, and his father shot him in the arm. Hurt him. Injured him. Spilled the blood of his own son.
Gojira lifts his head out of the water and roars directly in the faces of the Vikings on the ship roughly five feet from his jaws. The warriors all cower and cover their ears. Gojira felt some pleasure in that.
He slams his tail down hard on the water, causing a large wave to form. But then there was a sound of cracking thunder. When the tail rises, the spine on the very tip is glowing blue. A humming sound breaks through the air, growing louder and louder with each passing moment as the blue glow travels up Gojira's tail and spreads throughout the dorsal spines on his back.
Hiccup rocks in the saddle on Toothless, leaning forward to clutch the handles, as he spots Gojira's target.
Stoick hears the shriek, possibly understands, and waves for his men to back up. "Move! MOVE!"
The Saurian surges out of the night with a scream, and its volume is such that no human hears Hiccup's own scream. "No! GOJIRA! NO! NOOO!"
Gojira jerks his head, and the blast of blue fire that lights up the dark foggy area as it narrowly misses the Chief, just as his arrow had narrowly missed the Night Fury.
It sears his cloak and sets the edge aflame as the man leaps aside, rocketing through the ship until it strikes the mast. An explosion rolls outward, and the mast sings a song of death, cracking in two and toppling over. Gojira roars before turning away from the fleet as Vikings call to each other, scream of taking cover, and pray.
Gojira snarled as he moved away. In his opinion, the Viking who harmed Hiccup deserved far, far worse than a ruined cloak.
Snarling, Toothless shakes, turning to dive, but Hiccup wrenches the handles. "Toothless, no! He didn't mean to!"
Toothless ignores him, diving again, and Hiccup is forced to twist his ankle in the pedal so that the two do not collide with a sea stack. "It was an accident!"
Hiccup seems to care little of the wound that had filled his sleeve with blood, arguing with the Night Fury about Stoick's innocence. But another round of arrows rise from Berk's fleet, and Hiccup can protest no longer. Determination takes his face, and he moves the pedal again.
The pair spiral safely beneath the arrows, and Toothless readies to blast.
Hiccup leans close to the Fury's ear. "The sails, bud!" And by the grace of the gods, despite his fury at the Viking who shot his rider, the Fury obeys him.
The next blow strikes the sails of a ship, which goes up immediately in thick flame. "Fire! THE SAILS ARE ON FIRE!"
Five minutes later. .
The arrows try, the spears try, Hel, even the thrown swords try, but nothing can touch the moving Night Fury in the dark.
Toothless seems to have taken on a new speed and moves like an unseen shadow. His claws grip one flaming sail and rip it towards another, where the fire spreads. Only in the view of the magic projection can it be seen that the hooded Rider is directing him, pointing his finger and pressing the tail pedal.
Another blast of plasma, one that sears through a sail, then the sail of the boat behind it, then the third. A perfectly lined-up shot, the result of Hiccup's direction.
The pair take again to the sky as Vikings panic and ships burn. Toothless makes to fire, but Hiccup pats his crown. "Gotta conserve those shots, Buddy." he says before pointing, "There, grab that sail–"
And they do. By the time the Vikings of the boat realize the Fury is upon them, they are forced to scatter from the flaming sail, for it is dragged in the talons of the Fury to fall upon a second ship. It is a transference of fire, a constant birth of new flames. Vikings dart about, filling buckets with seawater, while others try in vain to fight the Fury, but it is no use. A final plasma-blast takes the sails of four ships, and the fire is so thick in nature that it spreads of its own accord. Embers take flight and alight on sails, burning, burning, all of them.
A ship of flaming sail collides into a rock, stranding itself. There are two more ships right upon it, and the men of the first wave their arms. "Stop! Turn back!" The Vikings shout to the others. "Stop!"
But it is too late. The two ships collide, cracking wood.
It is not enough to sink the ship, but enough to put both out of commission, and to lend the fire from sail to sail. On and on it goes, fire spreading in the dark.
Oh, he knows it is wildly impressive, Hiccup can acknowledge that. But he only wishes that it wasn't his father's fleet that he had chosen to burn.
He also knows that he needs to strand that fleet. As many ships as he can. No Berkian must reach the Nest.
Toothless darts low, snapping silver fish from the sea and throwing them down his gullet. While he refuels his fire, Hiccup keeps low, surveying the ships. Calculating. By the time Toothless has finished, Hiccup has identified the next ship to strike, the next arrows to avoid.
The Berkian sails succumbs to fire.
And for extra measure, or just adding further insult, Gojira swung his tail and snapped the masts clean off the ships before swimming away from the fleet.
Toothless perches on a sea stack, and Hiccup slides to the rock beside him with Gojira climbing up the stack like a lizard, all three of them start staring at the chaos. As the trio watch, the scene fades as an hour passes. The flames are mostly smoke now, only a few ships still burning. Almost every sail has been ripped down and dragged to the water or has burned to nothing but the skeleton of rigging. The boats are charred, but floating still, and almost no Viking is injured, only reeking of smoke. Men grumble and curse, surveying the damage to the boats or watching the skies.
"We did a good job." Hiccup commends, nodding reluctantly and sighs. This is not the sort of thing Hiccup had ever imagined praising himself for.
On a boat, Stoick's glare is vile enough to make a dragon shudder. "How many are seaworthy?" he demands.
One Viking hesitates to answer. "Five, Chief."
Stoick stares at him before looking away. "Five."
The Viking grows a little nervous before proposing what he thinks is a solution. "The Meatheads are close. We can fill the able ships and send for help, boats to take us back to Berk–"
Stoick shakes his head. "No! We can't turn back now! We were almost there!" he said determinedly.
Hiccup looks up from his rock, furrowing his brows. The Viking is surprised, he can see that. "Chief. . . we just couldn't make it." he hears the man say. "Clearly, the beasts know we're here. It's not safe to stay."
Stoick shakes his head. "We need to push on! We cannot turn back!"
Hiccup jumps onto Toothless' back and urges him forward. The pair jump off the rock, gliding silently towards the ship on which the Chief stands. Gojira snorts before climbing down the sea stack and swims after them.
While Spitelout approaches, Toothless sets down on the top of Gojira's head, hidden by the dark. Near enough for the words to find Hiccup's ears with ease.
"With what ships?" Spitelout asked.
Stoick turns to him. "Five can make it through. We'll load up as many men as we can–"
Spitelout cuts him off with an annoyed expression and shout, "Oh, come on, Stoick!"
Stoick points to the distance. "–and camp out near the Nest until we've brought all of us ashore."
Spitelout grabs his arm. "Listen to yourself!" he shouts.
Hiccup whispers to himself yet hopes that Stoick can hear his plead. "Dad. . .just stop."
Stoick goes on, again Vikings have stubbornness issues and Hiccup is the most stubborn on the island. "We'll attach the Terror to a new–"
Gobber speaks up. "Uh, Chief–"
The Chief spins to him. "What?!"
Gobber points to the right with his hook. "The Terror is gone, Stoick." Stoick spins around to the front of the ship. . . but it's true. The chain is still there, blue-green, and the collar too, but the Terror is gone.
Had he been less angered, he might have further questioned how the dragon was freed without breaking the chain. But Stoick hurls his axe with a roar, and it embeds in what remains of his ship's mast, landing just beneath the point where the mast ends in a jagged mess.
Hiccup winces at his father's anger and as he does, the blue Terror peeks over his shoulder, claws poking in his cloak.
Stoick shakes his head a determined and angered glare. "We'll catch another!" he declared.
Hiccup shakes his head as well with a frown. "No. No, you won't." he whispered. I'm sorry, Dad, but I won't let you catch another dragon if I can help it, he thought.
Gobber shrugs his shoulders and lifts his hook-hand in a questioning manner. "Where?"
"We're in Thor's-damned Helheim's gate!" Stoick bellows. "We'll find one."
Hiccup whispers to his father from the distance. "Stop."
Gobber walks to the chief sternly. "Stoick! It is over! You have to stop." he was no longer speaking as an old friend, now as one of the Chief's advisors. "All the men are looking to you. Don't fall apart on them now."
Stoick shakes his head. "We can't sail back, Gobber, we can't."
Hiccup nods his head softly. "Yes, you can." Because he left them just enough ships.
Stoick looks back and forth between Spitelout and Gobber. "What will we do, come winter?"
Hiccup shakes his head. "There are hardly any raids in the winter. We'll be fine."
"And in the spring?"
"We'll figure it out, Dad." Hiccup shakes his head. Stoick had been ranting and raving, and all the while Hiccup had been speaking to him. Wasn't that just their entire life? Wasn't that Hiccup's?
Stoick looks to Gobber. "We can't take another year of this Gobber, we can't quit now." he now sounds less angry and more pleading and desperate to carry through the voyage.
"You have to!" Hiccup shook his head.
"And to sail to the Meatheads with our tails between our legs, our entire fleet lacking sails. . . " Stoick trails off with a sigh. "You know Mogadon tends to follow our lead on the dragons. If he sees that we brought our entire fleet and scarcely made it past the gates. . .he'll never take the Meatheads to try."
Hiccup nods his head. "Good. That's a good thing. We can't win this one, Dad."
Stoick looks back to Gobber. "Back me up, Gobber, we'll take the five ships, find the Nest, make camp, and send those the ships back for more." he said adamantly.
Hiccup lets out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair. "Why won't he just...stop?"
Gobber shakes his head. "No, Stoick. We're done." he replied to Stoick. "We have to go home..." Gobber's voice trails off into quiet, and only Hiccup is left, watching.
Hiccup looks to Stoick's frame on the ship, sees how stubborn his father is. "He can't stop." Both Toothless and Gojira croon in confusion. "He's never going to stop. Never."
Gobber stands before Stoick, speaking still, but no sound is heard. The world is quiet, out of focus as Stoick slowly nods, slowly concedes.
Hiccup had walked away from the ledge. His draconian and Saurian friend watching his movements. "They'll make their way home, sew new sails. . . " he mutters to himself. "And he'll try again in the spring. And again, and again, and again, until it kills him."
Toothless' tail swishes, brushing Hiccup's side, but the boy stares at his father from their spot of darkness, and is not comforted. "Until it kills everyone." After a moment of silence, Hiccup shakes his head. "No. Not happening."
Hiccup turns away from the Berkian fleet. Gojira and Toothless' eyes follow the boy as he walks to the edge of the sea stack, as he peers into the fog. As Hiccup looks towards the place where he knows the Nest of Dragons resides.
Hiccup is flying, then, on Toothless' back, and the ships grow smaller behind them. One might think the duo headed for Berk, but the sea stacks only grow more numerous beneath them, and it is clear that the two are flying deeper into Helheim's Gate.
So, that happened.
After talking to himself, Hiccup and Toothless defend the voyage from a trio of Nadders, Gojira scares them away and then Stoick shoots the boy in the arm with an arrow.
Gojira almost attacks the fleet, came close to killing Stoick himself and Hiccup sees his blue fire for the first time. But then the trio of friends manage to stop the voyage.
It almost doesn't seem that Stoick is undeterred and is determined to keep going and Hiccup makes a decision that we HTTYD fans are very familiar with.
Next time, the Red Death will be revealed and dethroned.
Here, we will really diverge from cannon.
Until then, tell me what you think.
GojiraFan455516 out.
Peace.