The further they flew, the tighter the knot in Snotlout's stomach became.
He was caught between two crucial goals—protecting Hiccup, and rescuing Astrid and the twins—that seemed utterly incompatible. Like trying to put out a fire while needing to conserve the water supply, there was something lost in every gain toward one goal or the other. Every delay to favor Hiccup's ill health was a setback for Astrid and the twins, and every continued effort to help them took a visible toll on Hiccup.
Hookfang coasted alongside Toothless, half a dragon length behind—out of habit, but also so that Snotlout could keep a better eye on Hiccup. The cutting wind seemed to take a filleting knife to his cousin's spine, peeling his strength away like scales from a fish. As Snotlout watched, Toothless gave a quiet roar of alarm and fumbled in the air, accommodating for Hiccup's sloppy riding for the third time in the last half-hour.
"That does it." Snotlout urged Hookfang forward. "We're landing," he called, guiding his dragon to a nearby cluster of sea stacks.
Hiccup made a noise of protest, but Toothless changed course, the click of the automatic tail fin lost in the rush of the wind and waves.
"Oh, c'mon, Snotlout," Hiccup said as soon as their dragons touched down on the slick rock. "I'm sick of having this conversation. We're nearly there!"
"Hey! You agreed to my terms," Snotlout reminded him, sliding off Hookfang and stomping over to Hiccup. "And I say we need to figure out another way to do this, because I am not letting you get killed."
Hiccup's face flushed, bringing a ghost of color to his sickly pale skin. In the moonlight, he looked made of wax, like he'd crack in two if dropped. "Astrid and the twins need help," he said for maybe the hundredth time that night.
"Yeah," Snotlout agreed, "but you can't give it to them. You can't even fly straight. How are you supposed to swoop in and rescue them?"
This was enough to incense Hiccup into scrambling down off Toothless, a simple action that took way too much effort in his current state.
The anger drained away from Snotlout, leaving a bedrock of dry certainty.
Hiccup found his footing and opened his mouth to argue.
"Go stand on the moss," Snotlout said, cutting him off.
Hiccup stared. "What? What does that even—? Why?"
"Do it." Snotlout pointed at the bright green moss that blanketed the center of the sea stack.
"Fine." Hiccup shook his head and crossed to the fluffy ground cover. "If the only way we can continue this conversation is on the moss, then so be—Whoa!" His grumbling broke off into a strangled cry as Snotlout gave him a calculated shove, toppling his cousin onto the soft growth.
Toothless barked a growl, sweeping forward to intercept them, but Snotlout waved him down. "I'm not gonna hurt him, Toothless," he said.
"Too late," Hiccup groused. He moved to sit up, but Snotlout got on top of him, pinning him gently but firmly.
"Okay, Hiccup. If you can get up, we'll go."
"Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous! We're wasting time!"
Snotlout didn't move. "If you really think you can go on this rescue mission, prove it."
With a huff of annoyance, Hiccup started to struggle under Snotlout's hold, half-heartedly at first, then with purpose. Snotlout maintained a light grip, evaluating. Within seconds, Hiccup was panting with the effort, and Snotlout had not moved an inch.
"I don't think this is a very fair test," Hiccup managed between breaths.
Snotlout was unmoved. "Yeah, you can fool everyone else with your skinny physique all you want, but I haven't forgotten I lost two teeth to you."
Hiccup struggled for a few more moments, then relented. He dropped his head back onto the moss with a sigh, looking away to glare at the night sky around them. "Okay, fine. You win," he admitted. "I'm down."
Snotlout got off him immediately and rolled onto his back beside his cousin, feeling no pleasure in this victory. Speed Stingers were probably surrounding their friends even now.
"You should go," Hiccup said. His voice was hoarse, grated with defeat.
Snotlout had never wished more that he could be in two places at once. "I can't—"
"Snotlout. You swore you wouldn't leave me on that island, and you didn't. You did good. I appreciate you." Hiccup took a deep breath. "But I can't get into any trouble on a sea stack in the middle of the ocean, okay? You can leave me now."
But something—Snotlout didn't know what exactly—prevented him from agreeing. They were so close to Astrid and the twins now, and Snotlout could easily fly off to help, then return with the rest of the gang. But the idea of it felt wrong, didn't sit right on his chest.
Something tugged at his memory. A rule, about the short term and the long term.
Snotlout gazed up at the glimmering sky, listening to Hiccup's labored breathing beside him, and the memory pooled around him like water: a dragon raid, in the years before the Red Death. His dad, framed in firelight, standing in place while a wave of Viking warriors broke around him, rushing on.
Snotlout sank into the recollection.
He was just a kid at the time, but allowed out during raids to tend to the fires that cropped up. He'd strayed from his peers to douse a fire near the village center when he'd seen it: the exact moment in which a Monstrous Nightmare raked an enormous talon across Stoick's middle. Snotlout had been half-afraid the chief would simply separate, pieces of him rolling away like cut timber. But Stoick only sank to the ground, doubled over with his back to Snotlout, so that he hadn't seen the blood.
Snotlout's dad sprang from nowhere and covered the chief, beating back the dragon's attacks with a roar of fury. Seconds later, the rest of their contingent of Vikings caught up and forced the Nightmare to retreat.
Stoick, Spitelout, and the rest of their group had been advancing toward Berk's grain storehouse, to hold the line there and prevent the dragons from igniting their precious reserves. But now, with Stoick down, the remaining fighters were looking to Spitelout for direction.
Snotlout held his breath, watching. Everything he knew about his father indicated that Spitelout would now lead the charge, sprinting toward the storehouse with a deep-throated war cry.
Spitelout raised a fist. "Protect the storehouse!" he yelled, and the clamor of a half-dozen blood-thirsty Vikings rumbled in the wake of his command, like thunder after lightning. Then they streamed to the storehouse, parting around the chief and Spitelout, who did not advance one single step.
Snotlout watched, confused, something akin to disappointment souring in the back of his mouth, as Spitelout knelt, helped the chief to his feet, and retreated in the direction of the Great Hall.
Later that night, Snotlout had found his dad celebrating with the group of Vikings who had successfully defended their grain stores. He was in high spirits, glowing with pride.
"There you are, boy-o!" Spitelout shouted upon seeing his son. He pulled Snotlout close in a rare affectionate mood. The scent of smoke, ale, and sweat stung his nose. "Come to celebrate with your father, eh?"
"Yeah," Snotlout said, pasting a smile on his face as his dad hauled him up onto the bench beside him. This was weird. Spitelout was normally at his happiest and rowdiest after racing ahead to do something on his own—proving his mettle, as he called it, usually while thumping his chest. Why was he so prideful now, having stayed behind?
When the boastful chatter had faded to a quieter level of camaraderie, Snotlout took the opportunity to nudge his father. "Hey, Dad?"
"What is it, boy-o?"
Snotlout shifted in his seat. "Why didn't you go to the storehouse with the rest of them?" Then he braced himself internally, expecting anger or indignation.
Spitelout surprised him for the second time that night. He patted Snotlout's back and leaned in conspiratorially, signaling that he was about to give him some important advice. Snotlout straightened, watched his father with wide eyes.
"Hear this, boy: There is no glory in a short-term victory that sacrifices long-term success."
Snotlout nodded, cataloging the words in his mind. No glory in a short-term victory that sacrifices long-term success.
"Sometimes, son," Spitelout continued, "you must send your might"—he thumped a fist against his chest—"ahead of you"—he punched a commanding finger toward the middle distance—"while you hold your ground, and guard the path beyond."
The path beyond. Snotlout scrunched his nose, trying to wrench meaning from this solemn pronouncement, to connect this explanation with what he'd seen in the village square. Spitelout standing resolute, the chief at his feet.
"Understand?" Spitelout asked.
Snotlout didn't want to look stupid. "I understand you, Dad."
His father clapped a large hand on his shoulder. "Good lad," Spitelout said, and warmth ran like spilled ale down Snotlout's front. He told himself he'd understand it later.
Snotlout had almost forgotten this line of wisdom in the book of lessons he'd learned from his father (some of which, he was realizing lately, were better than others). But it came back to him now, and after growing in the years since, through the lens of experience, it made sense to him this time around.
The path beyond—the long-term future of the tribe—was the most important thing to protect, something that could not be sacrificed for the sake of a single battle. That night, Spitelout had sent his might ahead to protect the storehouse, while he himself had remained behind for the most important task: guarding their future. A future which hadn't been in the grain in the storehouse after all, but rather in the survival of the chief.
The reason Spitelout had held his ground while the Vikings raged into battle ahead of him that night was the very same reason Snotlout could not leave Hiccup here on this sea stack tonight.
Snotlout looked at Hiccup lying beside him on the moss and saw not the slightness of his build nor the exhaustion ringing his eyes, but the determined set of his jaw, the strength of will in the rise and fall of his chest. In under a week, he'd survived and endured three crash landings, a minor impalement, bruised ribs, malnutrition, fever, and a lethal dose of poison. He'd lived and investigated and even created through all of it. Unearthed and laid to rest a tribe's tragic history, fashioned a tail fin for Toothless from scraps, gambled for his own life—and won.
Growing up alongside scrawny, accident-prone Hiccup and now living in close quarters on the Edge, it was easy to take all that Hiccup was for granted. To mold into everyday mundanity the man who had ended hundreds of years of war between Vikings and dragons. But sometimes—in moments like these—Snotlout was snapped into a wider view.
Hiccup was the future of Berk.
And he'd noticed the staring. He turned his head to regard Snotlout with a crease between his brows. "What?"
Snotlout was far ahead of this moment, in the path beyond. Years, maybe decades from now. More lines on their faces, more hardiness in their bones. More, or maybe less, like their fathers. Hiccup, Chief of Berk. Snotlout, his right hand.
"I said I wouldn't leave that island without you," Snotlout spoke finally, "but what I meant was, I'm not leaving you until we're home safe."
He waited for Hiccup's protests or petulance, but neither came. Hiccup seemed to have clicked into that moment with Snotlout, the echoes of their future ringing back to haunt the past. Acceptance straightened Hiccup's spine and he nodded—curt, matter-of-fact, like Stoick.
"So where do we go from here?" he asked.
Snotlout tapped his fingers in the spongey moss. "Send your might ahead of you," he muttered.
Tuffnut's fingers ached. His fingertips were curled awkwardly around the rim of Ruffnut's helmet, which was filled with rocks they'd collected while deconstructing the thin ledge that snaked along the cliff face and back up to the main part of the island. Using Ruff's helmet and an odd assembly of stray parts from the supplies in their packs, Tuff, Ruff, and Astrid had cobbled together a makeshift sling. Rudimentary as it was, it was helping them. For now.
The muscles in Tuff's forearms burned as he and his sister held the helmet back, pulling against the tension of the sling.
The silence was near-deafening.
A bead of sweat ran down the back of Tuff's tunic.
Trills from the other end of the path—the Speed Stingers returning again, testing the waters.
"Hold," Astrid breathed.
The staccato of talons on rock. Curious. Cautious.
Closer now.
"Hold."
Tuffnut peered into the darkness ahead, past the gap they'd made in the ledge. Shadows shifted in the inky black.
A draconic shriek pierced the night, and the shadows surged.
"Hold."
Tuff could see them now, pale green skin spectral in the moonlight, jaws extended, scaly bodies rushing with inhuman speed—
"Loose!" Astrid shouted.
As one, Tuff and Ruff released the helmet, pelting the payload of rocks at the Stingers. Missiles clattered against rock, smacked into draconic scales. The Stingers hissed and retreated around the bend in the path. Again.
In the space before the next onslaught, Tuff and Ruff piled rocks into the empty helmet.
"This is the last load," Tuff reported. He glanced at the sky, willing the moon to track faster across its path, the dawn to come a little quicker. But it was no use. They were out of time, and out of tactics.
"Any chance they'll take the hint and leave?" Ruff asked quietly.
"Yeah," Tuff said. "Maybe they'll decide they've had enough this time, and go pick on some easier prey."
Astrid, always strategy over solace, shook her head. "These guys are too smart. They'll keep testing our line until they find a way in. And they're about to, next time."
Tuffnut cursed. "It totally sucks we have to go out fighting dragons, after we've stopped actually fighting dragons."
"I know," Ruff agreed. "Rude."
Astrid waved them quiet. "Ready."
They pulled the helmet back.
"Hold."
The Stingers advanced.
"Loose!"
Rocks.
Hissing.
Retreat.
Tuff, Ruff, and Astrid moved the sling back by their paralyzed dragons, out of the way. It was close combat now. War. Any minute, those Stingers would come back down the path and find them open to attack at last.
Tuff wiped the sweat off his hands, grabbed his mace.
"Shield wall," Astrid commanded.
The three of them held their shields in their left hands and stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the width of the path, readying their weapons on their right. The tight wall of wood and metal would allow them to stand against the Stingers longer. But Tuff held no illusions about the outcome of this fight; they were outnumbered, overpowered, and unprepared.
Tuff exchanged glances with his sister, and understanding passed between them. They would go out together, and they would go down hard.
"Loki!" Tuff clanged his mace against his shield, relishing the way the impact reverberated up his arm. "Let me claim five enemies before I go!"
"Loki!" Ruff cried. Another jolt of iron on wood. "Put ten enemies under my feet!"
Tuff and Ruff looked to Astrid, whose grim smile was sharp. Ferocity edged her features, burned from beneath her skin.
"We'll go as Vikings should," she said. "We might even be able to stop the Stingers from getting to our dragons. They're only getting Stormfly if they go through me first."
"For Barf and Belch!" Ruff yelled.
"Yeah!" Tuff drummed his mace on his shield again, and when he stopped, the silence filled with draconic trills. The Stingers were advancing again.
"The All-father smiles on deaths like ours," Astrid said. "I'll see you two in Valhalla when this is over."
Valhalla. Tuff fancied he could hear the roar of the feasting halls even now.
An idea occurred to him. "Do you think that's where Hiccup is?"
The Stingers edged closer, testing their limits, meeting no defenses this time.
Ruff shook her head. "I don't know, that doesn't sound right to me somehow."
They looked to Astrid.
"Either way"—Astrid twirled her axe—"we're about to find out."
A Stinger shrieked; their forces thundered down the path.
"Hold the line for as long as you can," Astrid reminded them as they tightened their wall. "Once they break through, they'll pick us off fast." She braced against her shield in preparation for the impact, and Tuff and Ruff followed suit. "For Berk!" she screamed.
"FOR BERK!"
The first wave of Stingers jumped the break in the path, then slammed into their shield wall.
Tuff was glad he'd braced, or their wall might've broken immediately. As it was, his boots slid back a few inches on the gritty rock face, but he renewed his efforts and kept the right edge of his shield tight against the left edge of Ruff's.
"Forward, forward!" Astrid chanted, her yell almost lost beneath the cacophony of snarling and spitting. "To the breach!" She pounded a steady beat against her shield, and Tuff and Ruff did the same, marching in time to the drums of war. Blood roared in Tuff's ears. His panted breaths parched the back of his throat.
They were gaining ground, slowly but steadily pushing a group of Stingers back toward the gap in the path. Claws and stingers thunked futilely against the wood of their shields. As Tuff, Ruff, and Astrid marched, they could feel the resistance ebb; dragons at the rear of the advancing party were starting to fall to the water below.
"Yeah!" Tuff yelled, a wild hope sparking in his chest, and he lurched ahead in a moment of light-headed fervor—but he'd lost the beat.
Too late, he tried to fall back in step with the others, but the slimmest of cracks had opened in their wall, and a blood-red barb darted in and out in the space of a single heartbeat.
Tuff met eyes with Ruff, too stricken to make a sound, as his sister's skin muted to gray and her look of surprise solidified to stone.
Their wall buckled, and with it, their last line of defense snapped.