Symphony of Shadows

53. Shaken

A/N: Hi everyone! The next chapter will be out Friday at 8pm American Eastern Standard Time! 

As he stalked towards the source of the intrusion, Hiccup fought against commanding Toothless to blast the trapper where he stood.

He was livid.

What was supposed to be a special moment between him and Astrid was ruined by this moron. At least Astrid wasn't putting herself in harm's way since there wasn't much of a threat.

Eret, son of Eret, looked like he'd crawled through the darkest corners of Helheim.

"There you are! Just the people I wanted to see—"

Hiccup opened the Zippleback canister in his sword, and with the press of a button, it burst into flame. He pointed the sword at the trapper and snarled.

"Why are you here, and how did you find us?!"

Eret held up his hands in surrender and paled as it dawned on him that he wasn't exactly welcome.

A loud growl was all the warning Hiccup had before a Gronckle stomped angrily towards him. The day was growing more bizarre by the minute. The dragon bared its teeth at him and stood defensively in front of the dragon trapper.

What in the name of Thor?

Hiccup backed up and extinguished his sword. A territorial Gronckle was not to be messed with. Toothless gnashed his teeth in response to the threat and curled up at his side, ready to fight.

"Woah, Dreadash. They're our friends—I think."

Eret scratched the gray Gronckle's back, and it settled down. It seemed more content panting happily than being on the offensive. Astrid gave him a long side-eye as they shared the same thought. How had a dragon hunter bonded with a dragon? A sweet Gronckle, no less.

"Just give me time to explain. I promise, you're going to want to hear what I have to say..."

Hiccup sighed and gestured for him to get on with it.

"Alright. Let's hear it."

Eret gave him a small nod.

"Thanks, mate. Right, I'll start at the beginning. I wasn't always a trapper for Viggo. His brother, Ryker, came to the port a few months ago looking to hire any trappers in the area, and I never turn down a bag full of gold. He just told us he needed hunters for his new import business. He and his brother, Viggo, were businessmen and sold dragons off to the highest bidder. They also made all kinds of luxury products, from Zippleback hide boots to mounted Nadder heads."

Typical selfish humans. This was even worse than Berk or any of the other villages. It was pure cruelty. His blood boiled at the thought.

"Then one day we're trading a shipment when Ryker boards our ship and demands we take him to a business meeting at Meathead Island. We sail there without any issues, but he's stark raving mad when he comes back. Keeps on yelling on and on about how they'll pay for their answer. Didn't know what the fuck the man was going on about."

Hold on, they'd already been to Meathead Islands? What had the meeting been about? It clearly couldn't have gone Ryker's way if he freaked out. This was getting concerning.

"We go to Berserker Island and wait for him to come back. But he doesn't. We wait and wait and wait until I send one of my crewmen to ask around. Turns out the Berserker siblings murdered him in a rage. Apparently about a business deal gone wrong to get some traitor out of their skies. It sounded like a dragon rider, but I didn't know anything about it at the time."

Hiccup asked slowly, "So Ryker was going around to the neighboring tribes to make a deal for protection from the raids?"

He nodded.