For Milady

TWENTY NINE: Despair

The men, who were running around paused and one grabbed a crossbow, loading a Dragon Root arrow. Immediately, Toothless opened his mouth, purple plasma boiling there, ready to be launched at the foolish crewman.

"Over the side now or it's the last thing you see in this life!" Hiccup shouted at him, his eyes glittering. The Hunter paused for less than a second and then threw the crossbow and arrow over the side into the sea. The heavyset man who was yelling at the crew paused and his cruel face tilted in a scowl.

"Rumour has you Riders don't kill-you just sink the boat and let the Hunters go..." he sneered. Deliberately, Hiccup gestured and Toothless blasted one of the small boats to matchwood.

"Times change," he said coldly, his eyes never leaving the man's face. He figured the man was Captain Omar, master of the RedWing. "Release the dragons or you all go down on the ship..."

"He's bluffing..." a Hunter sneered and Hiccup leaned forward, a knife in his hand. Another was reaching for a bola and he suddenly yelled as the young Viking flung the knife with lethal accuracy, impaling the unwary Hunter's hand. He yelled, dropping the weapon and staggering back, gripping his pierced hand.

"You want to chance it?' he asked and there was a pause. The man stared into the fierce emerald eyes as the Night Fury opened his mouth once more, plasma boiling away: he urgently backed away as Hiccup gave a cold smile. "Release the dragons-and your prisoner!"

"What prisoner?" the Captain sneered.

"The girl on the Nadder," Hiccup said angrily. "The girl you captured on Healers' Island, where you captured the baby Changewings. Let her go-now-and I will spare your life."

"There is no girl!" the Captain yelled back.

"LIES!" Hiccup's voice was desperate now.

"No lies!" the Captain said, his voice more uncertain as the ship listed. He gestured his men to start opening the cages on the deck. "When we got there, there were some Nadder spines but no Nadder-or girl." Shaking his head, Hiccup glared.

"No-she was there," he insisted. "She headed there and she hasn't been seen since..." Six small Changewings zoomed past Hiccup, chirruped at Toothless and headed determinedly north, followed by a Gronkle, two Terrible Terrors and a Snow Wraith.

"There was a storm," the Captain shouted, staggering. His deck was now at a 45 degree angle and he had to hang onto the remains of the mast to prevent himself from sliding completely down into the roiling ocean. "It blew in from the east. She may...have been caught in it..." Staring at the man, Hiccup gestured him to the one remaining boat and then signalled Toothless to blast away the deck as soon as he had collapsed into the overcrowded space. As the tortured wood exploded upwards, he peered into the hold, seeing no prisoners or any other dragons just...dragon parts. He swallowed.

"No..." His chest tightened in utter despair. A part of him had been hoping the man was lying, that he would find her imprisoned and safe...but there was nothing. Toothless was crooning miserably and though they hovered over the sinking ship and he yelled her name, over and over, there was no answer-either human or Nadder. Toothless wasn't reacting either: she wasn't there. They weren't there.

He had been chasing a false lead and wasted Gods only knew how much time while anything could have been befalling his friend...his love and their unborn child. And now the trail was cold with one final, tenuous lead left...if he could guess where an unknown storm may have blown her.

"Astrid..." he breathed. "Please Thor...let her be alive. Let her be safe..."

Let me make it in time.