Heart of a Chief, Soul of a Dragon

Chapter 6

The temperature dropped once again as we entered the frozen part of the archipelago.

"Keep your eyes open," Hiccup instructed, looking down over the water. The cold bit at my face as I looked around, and I pulled the cloak against my body as I shuddered. They had abandoned their fort, so we instead tried to search the area in the water around there. We rounded a corner, and I saw a small ship, floating out in the ocean.

"Hiccup." I nudged him and pointed down, and once he followed my finger, we pushed our dragons to get closer.

The men on the deck spotted us, and immediately scrambled to fire their nets at us. Hiccup kept himself alert, dodging out of the way before any of them could even scratch us. We landed on the deck with a defiant clatter.

"And here I was worried we might turn up empty-handed," Eret chuckled, a dark expression crossing his face. I yanked out my sword and held it up to defend Hiccup and I, but oddly enough, the man next to me pushed it down to lower it. I sat up straight and looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he held his hands up in surrender.

"Nope. It's your lucky day. We give up." I shook my head at him as the crew exchanged confused glances. Was he trying to get us killed?

"That's one Night Fury, one Thunderdrum, and..." He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me down from Shriek, keeping a grip around me so that I couldn't fight him off, which he knew I would try and do. As we walked through the group of confused Dragon Trappers, Hiccup threw a net over my head, disorienting me and pissing me off just a bit more. "...two of the finest dragon riders west of Luk Tuk. That oughta make the boss happy, right?"

I grumbled in protest as Hiccup took my sword and shield and handed them to Eret, who was as confused as I was. I tried my best to pull back on him, but now that we were grown up, he was a bit stronger than I was, so he was able to pull me down into the live well.

"Excuse us."

"What are you doing?" I hissed as he forced me down the ladder. Toothless tried to follow us, peering down with big eyes.

"Toothless, stay." He flipped the latch to lower the gate, and as soon as we were on the ground, his arm snaked back around my waist. "Dragons don't really care for cramped spaces, so he'll just hang out with you. He won't be any trouble." I could hear the people pull out their swords and spears. "Unless you do that. Wooden boat, big ocean. How's your swimming?"

"Not good," someone answered. I could feel Hiccup shift, and he moved to climb up the ladder, stopping just before he could get out. He removed his blade from his belt, and shot it up through the grate, then put it away and opened the grate.

"Oops, almost forgot. Can't have armed prisoners." He handed his sword up to one of the crew members, and I shook my head again.

"How is this a plan?" The crewman holding the sword pressed the button to release the Zippleback gas, and I braced myself for what I knew was coming.

"Just what every dragon trapper needs. One end coats the blade in Monstrous Nightmare saliva. The other sprays Hideous Zippleback gas. All it takes is a little spark and..." I heard the blade click open, and instinctually covered my head as an explosion shook the ship. "Oh, yeah, there you go." I could hear Toothless happily gurgling from above. "Once they see you as one of their own, even the testiest of dragons can be trained, right, bud?"

"Give me that!" I could only assume that Eret took the blade from his crewman.

"What game are you playing?"