For Milady

TWENTY THREE: On Dragon Wings

TWENTY THREE: On dragon wings

Arriving back at Stippling, Astrid had needed to use all of her limited culinary skills to follow the recipe for the Eel Pox cure. All her instincts screamed at her to throw the ingredients in, boil it and dollop it out as quickly as possible...but the recipe was very precise. So making sure Stormfly was resting and that she had taken some water and a bite of yak jerky, she set to work in the village Plaza, keeping out of the tainted house where the old woman had died. The village was quiet and though she had checked on the Chief, he was delirious and had barely registered her words: she knew she was running out of time.

So quietly, she had tripled the measures and slowly brought the mixture to the boil, watching it simmer. Patience, she reminded herself. The mixture will cook at its own pace and trying to force it will ruin it. And I didn't go to all that effort to get all the ingredients to mess it up at the end. And all these people will surely die if I don't try...

When the mixture had simmered and reached the desired consistency-without congealing into a burnt mess-she doled it out into smaller flasks and then firmly fixed a mask over her nose and mouth. Pulling her hood up and making sure she was ready, she headed for the Chief's house.

It was dark and noisesome, the man and his wife huddled in a bed, both delirious while their children lay quiet and almost motionless in their cots. Astrid stared at them in shock, then swiftly set the fire and watched the flames rise, before she drew water and laid compresses on their scorching foreheads. Finally, she dribbled fluid over their cracked and parched lips and slowly and determinedly fed them then cure, washing it down with water she painstakingly dribbled down their throats. Making sure there were flasks of cold, fresh water laid by their beds, she gently pulled the door to and headed to the next house.

As dusk fell, she had been round most of the village but she persisted, even after dark, using a lantern and Stormfly as sources of light. But it was as the stars burned brilliant overhead and her breath came in clouds that she felt the world tilt and her vision swim. She staggered, her limbs numb with weariness as she felt a warble and the warmth of the dragon propping her up.

"S'okay, girl," she mumbled, blinking. "Almost done. Two more houses and then I can rest..."

Stormfly nudged her worriedly but she shook her head, the famous Astrid Hofferson stubbornness driving her to straighten up, even though her back was aching and unfamiliar pains were aching through her pelvis. She adjusted her mask, then headed into the next but last house, finding two older people lying cold and still in their cots, eyes staring and no longer candidates for the cure. A small child lay scarlet with rash and delirious and she spent a while sponging the little boy cool and feeding him water and the cure before she made her way to the last house, rapidly treating the family within. And then, finally, she made her way to the fire, gave herself a double dose of the cure and forced herself to wash, drink and eat more jerky before curling by the fire, surrounded by the protective wings of her dragon.

oOo

Hiccup was seething. He had flown on Toothless almost the length of the Archipelago with Heather and Windshear straining themselves to keep up. They had braved the worst storm he had ever flown through and when they finally reached the seastacks north of Berk, where the letter asked for a rendezvous, the others had acted as if he was expected to attend and merely treated his absence as a holiday of sorts, rather than the hardest life-choice he had been forced to make. And worse, there was an extra person present-because Camicazi was flying with Fishlegs and the twins, rather uncertain on her pretty bronze and green Nadder but irrepressible and smiling as if she was one of them. And her reasoning-that she was now betrothed to Snotlout so she was only protecting her assets-made him clench his fists and grind his teeth. Her affections and determination to marry Hiccup had switched so efficiently that he felt fury course through his veins that she had been so obdurate when he had desperately needed her to help him...but now, she expected his help to further her personal ambition...using a man she clearly had no true feelings for.