𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠

Chapter 8 - Thanks for Helping

Hiccup trudged across the wastelands, his head hung low and his breathing laboured.

Every step, he thought of his father and the mistake he made, how could he have been so careless.

His father had given him so much, his love, his dagger and his undivided attention.

As the day drew into night, a lightning storm cackled up above, taunting the exiled Prince below.

Hiccup passed a tree, but as he did, a bolt of lightning hit the tree and the whole thing fell onto his left leg.

Hiccup screamed in pain as his leg was crushed and he heard the bones crack.

He tried to pull himself out, but his head grew dizzy from the shock and he soon collapsed onto the ground.

                     ~ Line Break ~

Hiccup lay sprawled out on the desert ground, his leg still trapped under the tree and badly broken.

A Cavern Crasher spotted the boy under the tree and licked its beak as it waddled over to him.

The dragon shoved the tree off Hiccup and sniffed at his wound, before licking it.

As the dragon did so a loud screaming sound could be heard from above, the Crasher looked up and spotted two black dots.

As the dots got bigger, the screaming got louder and the Crasher reared back from the boy.

The two dots turned out to be an adolescent Tripple strike dragon and a southern Rumblehorn.

The two dragons roared at the Cavern Crasher and the dragon hissed at them before digging back to the underground.

" Yeah and stay down there you overgrown egg eater!" A 15-year-old boy with wildly cut red hair yelled down the hole.

" Ha, I love this desert crawler chasing thing Dagur, who knew it was so fun." A 20-year-old man, with charcoal black hair and three-line tattoos on his chin, exclaimed.

" It gets them every time, it's why I came up with the game, Eret." Dagur brushed himself off.

Eret jumped off his Rumblehorn, Skullcrusher, he walked over to Hiccup and gasped.

" Ah, Dagur, you better come look." Dagur walked over to his elder friend and spotted the unconscious boy.

" Holy Guacamole, it's a kid!" Dagur fell back on his butt, Sleuthar, Dagur's dragon sniffed the boy and crooned.

" Oh, man he's injured, real bad." Eret pointed to Hiccup's leg and Dagur shook his head.

" Oh well, let's just leave him." Dagur hopped on Sleuthar and started to walk away, until Eret pulled him off.

" Are you stupid, we can't just leave him out here, he's still breathing." Dagur shrugged and tried to pull away.

" So what, let the Crasher have him." Dagur quipped, Eret slapped his younger friend.

" Nope, we're taking him back to camp with us and I'll be carrying him, since your being a deranged idiot." Eret picked Hiccup up and carefully hopped onto Skullcrusher.

" So what we're keeping him?" Eret scoffed and rolled his eyes, as they took off into the sky.

                        ~ Line Break ~

Hiccup lay on the floor of a medical tent, he had a damp towel on his head and blankets over his torso.

Hiccup slowly began to stir as a 10-year-old healer apprentice walked in and saw the boy moaning.