Heir and Pride

Chapter 43

Forty-Three.

The fourth day of the voyage had Hiccup starving, denied food since he had argued with Dagur and cursing and fighting after the Berserker had tortured his dragon. Hiccup had been heedless of his own safety, attacking Dagur with all his limited strength and taking the beating it earned without complaint because his desperate forest green eyes had been locked on the dragon, seeing the whimpering, bloody shape slumped at the bottom of the cage, green eyes pleading with his Rider. The sight had broken Hiccup's heart.

He scarcely looked up as Dagur opened the door of the cage and motioned his guards to haul the boy out. Fierce grips tightened on his arms as he was dragged onto the deck and he raised his bruised face to stare into Dagur's wild expression.

"Hic-cup!" he sneered, his cold pale green eyes sliding over the skinny shape before him. "Feeling more co-operative today?"

"Dagur, I gave you my answer before," Hiccup sighed in a rasping voice, his throat dry from lack of water.

"Wow. You must really not care AT ALL for this dragon!" the Berserker sneered, pointing to the cage with the Night Fury in. Hiccup stared in horror at the shape: thinner and weak from lack of food and water, his wounds still open and fresh...or were they fresh? His horrified gaze swung up to stare into the sneering face of the older man and he swallowed.

"Dagur...what have you done?" he asked in a shaking voice. Dagur smirked and walked over to inspect the dragon. Then he lifted his wrists and displayed new, black vambraces.

"Genuine Night Fury skin..." he crowed and Hiccup felt sick. "And plenty more when that came from..." Stealing a glance at the brutalised dragon, knowing that brave, faithful Toothless would never leave him, no matter how useless he was in protecting his best friend, Hiccup finally sagged, his eyes blurred with utter defeat. He had no one else, nothing else. His Tribe was lost to him, his father wanted to imprison and destroy him and Astrid was...no more. He had nothing except Toothless.

"No more," he whispered. "Just-just stop torturing him, Dagur. You win. I'll train your dragons."

oOo

Astrid was screaming and shouting in rage, her legs kicking over the thousand foot drop and hands clawing at the powerful claws holding her in place.

"LET ME GO!" she screamed. "I have a young boy on my dragon! He can't fly without me! He'll fall to his death!"

But the shape standing on the strange four-winged dragon merely gestured with his staff and Astrid craned her neck...to see another dragon of a type she didn't recognise holding Henryk in his claws. He looked scared to death, his scruffy fair hair ruffled in the cold wind.

"Are you alright?" she shouted to him, seeing Stormfly being escorted in by four other dragons, who were flying above and below, in front and behind her so she had nowhere to go. Henryk gulped.

"Is this supposed to happen?" he shouted back, his eyes frightened.

"Not really...but as long as we don't panic, all we have to do is get Stormfly back and then we can get back to rescuing Hiccup!" she shouted. "The only problem is that we'e heading in completely the wrong way!"

The freezing flight continued for another hour, until Astrid knew she was on the brink of hypothermia. Henryk had stopped talking some time earlier and she was genuinely worried for the young boy: she felt responsible for him, even though he had insisted on coming, because she was the closest to a family that she had left. Kicking her legs made her tired but did seem to warm her up and she continued with grim determination until the dragons swooped under a hole in a glacier-to see a small island crowned by huge green spikes of ice, forming an enormous structure the size of the mountain.