Riders of B E R K

Part 73: Darkest Day

Seventy Three: Darkest Day

I awoke in a cell. My head was pounding and my mind was blank. I really had no idea how I came to be here.

I blinked. My vision was very muzzy and coming in and out. When I raised my head, everything spun and intense vertigo assailed me. I swallowed hard, tasting bile. And miserably, I wished and hoped Hiccup was somewhere in here with me, to hold my hair and rub my back as I puked up.

But I was alone as I retched, as I emptied the miserable contents of my stomach and as I lay back, breathing hard and wiping my mouth, my vision finally cleared. I frowned-because I had seen this place before.

I was in Akureyri.

oOo

Snotlout refused to leave the little convoy of dragons as they flew slowly down the coastline of Norway, their nets weighed with every last egg and baby dragon from the caves. There was no longer any sign any dragons had ever been there and only the dead men, scattered in the cave and on the beach were any testament that anything had happened. The sergeant had his wounds patched up-which thankfully had been mitigated by his supposedly bulletproof flight suit-but it was clear that he was struggling on the long fight. Touching Toothless's head, Hiccup gently drifted the Night Fury closer to the brown Monstrous Nightmare, seeing Hookfang looking worried.

"How's it going, Snot?" Hiccup called.

"Shut up," the sergeant growled. "I'm good. Hookie's good. It's all good."

"No, it's not," his cousin told him with empathy, having spent a lot of missions wounded and in pain. "Snot-you need Major Gothi to see you. You need to get back to the Base."

"And leave you guys without Hookfang?" Snotlout argued stubbornly. They had already had this discussion three times and the stocky rider had stubbornly refused to countenance leaving his friends.

"We'll manage," Hiccup told him with equanimity.

"You only just manage now," Snotlout said. "I mean, you've lost Astrid and Stormfly already. You can't even consider losing a Monstrous Nightmare as well..."

Hiccup closed his eyes in pain.

"I plan on losing them both," he said evenly. "I can't send you back without an escort, in case your condition deteriorates further. And the best dragon to keep up with Hookfang is Fanghook."

"GUSTAV? You're planning on sending Gustav to babysit me?" Snotlout asked in outrage, half-turning to glare at Hiccup-and then wincing as he tugged on his bullet wounds.

"Someone needs to," Hiccup replied evenly. "I need to stay with the group, Bucket and Mulch are too slow and Eret would struggle as well. It has to be Gustav." And then he paused. "And anyway, you guys can get a really large number of eggs back safely so we are less of a target and make sure the Egg Storage area is suitable and the Hatching Pit is extra-reinforced. We may have more dragons on the way!" There was a pause and Hiccup watched his cousin wrestle with two competing problems.

In his heart, Snotlout didn't want to leave the group because he was now second-in-command and he knew instinctively that Hiccup was going to struggle looking after the others while worrying about Astrid but at the same time, he was in pain and knew he needed to get medical help relatively soon. He had minimised his injuries and not allowed Bucket and Mulch to see the second bullet wound, which occasionally leaked as he moved. Hookfang could sense he was struggling-stupid dragon-and he really didn't want to let anyone down but even he had realised that collapsing and needing to be carried back while they tried to manage a distraight Hookfang wouldn't help. And he liked Gustav, who had unexpectedly stepped up in this mission.