The Big Four - One Life

Chapter 8 - Ice and Fire

A silence fell around the hall like a weight being dropped until the foreign dragon trainer whispered a name, unheard by everyone except the royals.

"Drago."

Fergus' head snapped up to look at him.

"What was that?"

"Drago," Hiccup repeated, "my father told me once of a great gathering of chieftains. Drago Bludvist entered, wearing a cloak of dragon skin and said that he alone could control the dragons, that he was a man of the people. He would help fend off the attacks if everyone bowed down to him. Everyone laughed at him, thought he was insane. He shouted 'then see how well you do without me!' and suddenly the roof was set alight by dragons, all bound in iron chains. The hall was burnt to the ground, along with everyone inside, apart from my father. He was the only one to escape."

Elinor stepped off the dais and down to Hiccup's level. She was ever so slightly smaller than he was, though she was a tall and elegant woman.

"Well, now we know who we're dealing with, we can start to send out search parties for the monarchs of Corona. We will postphone the games," she added as an afterthought, Fergus nodding his approval, "they can't possibly be held at a time like this. We will have to make more rooms available in the castle."

Merida's face split into a smile which Hiccup noticed out of the corner of his eye, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. It wouldn't be right to be smiling about such a thing in this kind of situation.

The queen turned to Merida, Rapunzel and Hiccup; Jack was hovering gently above in the rafters, listening intently to what the queen was about to say.

"I am putting you three in charge of the search parties and combat training," she said, her brows furrowed. "You are all the most capable hands we have for weaponry and you two know exactly what we are facing," she gestured to Hiccup and Rapunzel. "We need all the help we can get. And if that means my only daughter riding into battle, so be it. You may make requests for specific armour or weapons required and we will have extra smithy workers to help keep up with demands. Are there any questions?" Hiccup slowly nodded.

"May I have some paper, your Majesty?" The queen looked confused by this request but a servant fulfilled his request, bringing him several sheets of parchment. He set it down on the table, along with a stick of graphite. Gesturing for Merida and Rapunzel to sit, he sketched the basic outlines of several dragons and he tossed them to Rapunzel.

"Which ones look like the ones that attacked you and your parents?" Rapunzel peered down at them and pointed at a few of the more likely candidates, then Hiccup threw her the graphite. "Draw the armour they were wearing, as best you can. If we can see what they look like and which species they were, we'll have a serious advantage when we're trying to track them."

"You're cleverer than you look," Merida said with a wry smile as Rapunzel began to sketch tentatively, and he was glad the lights were lower than usual so she didn't see the light flush coating his cheeks.

When Rapunzel was finished, Hiccup peered at the drawings, his eyebrows furrowed.

"It looks like we're dealing with some Monstrous Nightmares," he said to the room in general, "some Nadders, for sure, probably a Zippleback or two and if we're unlucky we'll get some Whispering Deaths, but I don't know how hard they would be to control in that way. It's possible they've got one of the Alpha species on their side, but I don't know how likely that would be. The last time I saw one was five years ago and there was no way the Red Death would be allowed to be bound like the more common ones can."

"I'm just glad we've got someone here who knows what they're talking about," Fergus grinned and Hiccup smiled weakly. "We need to be taught then. Taught how to fight dragons. These ones won't be safe, they'll be hostile, won't they?" Hiccup nodded gravely.

"We can't take any chances with these ones; they'll have been corrupted and bent to Drago's will. Our only option for the majority of them is to fight them off. It's possible that we can capture some of the survivors and they'll revert back to old life but I don't know how likely that is; we've never faced someone like Drago in battle before. We just don't know his methods."

Elinor nodded.

"We'll talk to you all later for a meeting to discuss battle plans. Rapunzel, you need rest and some new dresses; we've got plenty of spares which we can lend you, Merida doesn't tend to use her formal wear, at all..." Merida grinned and her mother let out a sigh of slight disapproval. Rapunzel was lead up to the guest rooms and the council was dismissed, leaving just Merida, Hiccup and Jack alone in the Great Hall as the monarchs had gone to talk to the lords about the reschedule of Merida's marriage. They waited until there was no one there and then signalled to Jack to descend from the rafters. He swooped down, bringing a certain chill to the air that they couldn't explain.

"Gods," he muttered to himself, stretching, "I thought I was going to be up there forever. It doesn't do any good to your legs, being cramped up there."

"Poor you," Merida dismissed irritably, sitting back down at the drawings on the table. "I just want to get this dragon business all cleared up. Hopefully not too soon."

"People will die!" Hiccup looked at her incredulously, "We will all suffer for this, and you want to drag it out as long as possible? That's what you want? Your people to die for nothing?" She scowled at him.

"Of course I don't," she snapped. "I don't want to get married, and the longer we can fight these dragons off, the more I can put off the competition with me as the prize. The longer I am allowed to fight, the longer I stay free."

Hiccup glared at her. He'd sacrifice his freedom for his people, not willingly, obviously, but if it was for the benefit of others, then yes. He understood Merida's reasoning; he'd certainly fight against his father if he was used as a prize, an item, however he didn't have to be worried about that, he realised. Stuff like that was never a problem for men in society. What he didn't get was how she'd let innocent men suffer, purely because she didn't want to get married.

"Sounds like Red over here's getting a bit stressy," Jack grinned and Merida shot him a glare that clearly told him to shut his face. He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, don't take it out on me. I've got the worst of all of you here; I'm already dead!"

"And how exactly did that happen?" Hiccup asked, irritated. Jack leapt up so he was balancing one-legged on his staff, beginning his tale over-dramatically.

"I was a happy young lad," he said, clutching his heart melodramatically, "with a loving mother and younger sister, until one day we went out skating on the frozen lake. She was stuck on a piece of ice that was clearly about to break and I leapt to her aid and snatched up a branch, using it to push her to safety. I didn't realise that I'd danced onto the broken ice and it cracked from underneath me. The last thing I saw was my sister, reaching out to me, before I fell into the water and drowned."

"So you stepped on ice," Merida said dismissively. "You should've been more careful before letting a child out there."

"Shut it Red," Jack snapped, suddenly irritated. "I've been alive a lot longer than you. I've watched my family weep over my death, cry over my body. I watched them grow old without me and die, thinking they'd never see me again. I was always there; they just believed I could never come back."