The Great Beyond

Chapter 39: Defenders of the Wing, Pt. 1 (Hiccup)

Okay, I'm gonna skip over the Hunter raid at the beginning, just because it's so short.

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The thrill of a raid still coursed through me when our group of Riders landed back on the Edge, tending to their dragons. We'd managed to free every single dragon the Hunters had taken captive, and destroyed all their ships in that fleet in the process. Sure, it couldn't replace finding Berk's gold, which we still couldn't track down even weeks later, but at least there were more dragons that wouldn't be forced into worse fates than death.

Of course, not every raid went off without a hitch. Though I didn't really have an update on the other Riders, Fishlegs and Meatlug had gotten grabbed by a chain with a dragon-proof winch, forcing Toothless and I to blast the deck at the last second. We'd managed to rescue them, but any later and they would've been captured. Feeling a little guilty it had taken so long, I approached Fishlegs and Meatlug.

"How's she doing?" I asked. Meatlug was panting, but at least didn't appear to be injured.

"You know, her feelings are hurt." Fishlegs shook his head at me. "You guys were cutting it a bit too close. Minor wing sprain, but she'll be fine."

I was about to apologize to Fishlegs, when I caught movement behind him. Heather had her older sister's hand in her own, squeezing tight as the latter limped across the arena. Reign was clearly trying to hide her pain, but whatever happened was crippling her severely.

"Are you limping?" Reign flashed her panicked gaze over to me for a second.

"No," she answered shortly.

"She got shot in the leg." Reign glared at Heather, silently yelling at her for blowing her cover. However, I was grateful for it—not that Reign had been shot, of course.

"What?" Imbibed with concern, I rushed to her side, standing straight across from her and staring her down.

"A Hunter arrow was gonna hit Shriek, so I blocked it," she shrugged, trying to treat this like something casual.

"With your leg."

"It just grazed me. I'm fine." She tried to put some weight onto the leg, but her face immediately crumpled in pain and she collapsed onto me a bit, forcing me to reach out and catch her.

"All right, has anyone else been hurt recently? Who didn't tell me?"

I had expected maybe Heather and Astrid to raise their hands, but instead, the entire group stuck their hands in the air. We'd been on quite a few raids, recently, more than there were members of our team—which most likely meant everyone had been hurt on multiple occasions. I shook my head as it lowered into my hand.

"Oh, gods," I muttered.

"We all know the risks, Hiccup." Heather spoke as though that would just make everything instantly better.

"And let's not forget we freed a couple dozen dragons this week," Astrid piped up.

"Okay, guys, new rule. From now on—"

When I stuck my hand up, something pushed down on it. At first, I thought maybe it was Reign, but when I glanced over, I was instead greeted by a Terrible Terror. I feared it was a note from Berk, more specifically, my dad, but when I unrolled the scroll attached to the little dragon's leg, I was greeted with something far worse.