Book 6 - Mystery of Shadow Mountain - Chapter 18: Unexpected Help

         The next morning started a lot better than the last morning.  Both guards were at least respectful of us about unlocking our chains.  They led us to each of our duties for the day.  Annabeth and I were stuck with Aberdeen for the whole day.  We did nothing but watch him remind us the whole time that we helpless and cannot do anything.  If only he knew.

         To be frank, I thought the day would be go slower than it did.  Before I knew it, Viggo wanted to have the meeting with me.  So, Aberdeen led me back to his meeting room where Viggo is waiting there by himself.

         “We won’t be needing you, Aberdeen,” Viggo states as Aberdeen starts to take a seat.  “I just want to talk to the boy.”

         “But-,” Aberdeen begins but is interrupted by Viggo who also raises his right hand while the left is behind his back, “I’m sure you have other business to attend to.  After all, it isn’t like you do nothing all day while your men work, hmm?  Of course not.  You are a viking with great leadership, busy doing the things that a mining camp would need done.  You can take your guards with you as well.  I’ll keep watch over the boy.”

         “Uh, alright.  Yes… Yes, I do have some… things that need to get done.  I will… I will get started on those.” Aberdeen stuttered because he has hardly worked in the last few days; so he tried to act as if he had several things to get done and then leave.

         Once Aberdeen had left, Viggo asks me, “Is he gone?”

         Slightly surprised he would ask me that, I look back out into the hallway and past to the main hallway and saw Aberdeen walking deeper into the caves.

         Returning to Viggo, I reply with a tone of slight hesitation, “Yeah, he is gone.”

         “Now that he is gone, we can finally get down to business,” Viggo said.  “Please, take a seat.”

         Upon doing so, Viggo opens his mouth to begin, but I instead curiously ask, “What do you want, Viggo?”

         Viggo smiles, “I knew that you were smarter than what Aberdeen gives you credit for.”

         “Thank you,” I answer.  “I think.”

         Viggo chuckles, “Jarl Mollerson.  Is that not correct?” I nod.  “I am glad we finally get to meet.  Hearing so much about your exploits, your mettle as a fighter and a solver of mysteries, you are one viking I just had to meet.  But our paths had never crossed, so I had to go about my business.”

         Clinching my fists, I reply, “Your business of Dragon Hunting, you mean.  Killing dragons merely for profit.”

         “Business is business,” Viggo shrugs.

         “I heard you are also here for Aberdeen’s Terbsten,” I state.

         “Ah, so you did over hear my meeting with Aberdeen,” Viggo answered.  “I was not sure if you did.”

         I add, “You are going to take Aberdeen’s Terbsten stock pile and use it to make your dragon proof metal that you use in your weapons, tools, and gear.”

         “While you would be right that I would take the Terbsten while keeping Aberdeen clueless as to what is going on,” Viggo acknowledged.  “I am not here for the Terbsten.”

         Now I understand, “You know Aberdeen is hiding something.”

         Viggo praises, “Very observant, Jarl.  Those small details would go unnoticed to most. But, yes, I am here for Aberdeen’s mystery.  While you are here, do you think you could help me solve his mystery?”

         “With you?” I question.  “Not a chance.  Why would I help you with anything?”

         “Fair point,” Viggo said.  “I was hoping we could spend more time to get to know each other better.  Dealing with Hiccup and his Dragon Riders while invigorating, a change of pace would be quite interesting.”

         “Sorry, Viggo,” I speak.  “Got my own problems and mystery to solve.”

         “You are on another mystery?” Viggo brings his right hand to his chin.  “Very interesting.  I suppose that is why you can this far south.”

         I reply, “First off, there is always a mystery or problem to solve every day.  This is just another day at the mill, grinding away.  Secondly, what if I told you I came here for something entirely different?”

         “For a viking of your talents,” Viggo complements.  “I’m sure you have found something else of interest.”

         “Figured you say something like that,” I add.

         “Too bad we could not share notes,” Viggo finishes.  “However, I shall not keep you any longer.”

         Shifting my head to the right, I give Viggo a suspicious look, “What makes you say that I have somewhere to go?”

         “Come now, my dear Jarl,” Viggo said walking over to me.  I stand up as he walks behind me; Viggo is at the entrance of the room getting ready to leave himself.  “I am not blind, although, some vikings here are oblivious the that fact that you are planning an escape.  By my observations, you should have no problems in escaping.”

         I just look at Viggo astonished that he knows our plan.  Yet, at the same time, why am I not surprised?  He is Viggo Grimborn for flying out loud.

         Viggo goes on, “I must admit, I am impressed how your friends have infiltrated Aberdeen’s compound.  Your plan of intentionally getting capture was brilliant.  By toying with Aberdeen and making him think he had all the hunters, you were saving your one soldier to get into position to take out the king.”

         “While you and your companion getting captured may have not been part of the plan, it was only a set back that led to opportunity to better understand what your opponent is up to; not to mention it gave us a chance to finally meet.  By the way, you can tell that girl down at the docks that I did not even what any of the Terbsten.  Smart of her to switch crates though.  I hope our paths do cross again,” Viggo finishes.

         “So that’s it?” I say not satisfied with Viggo’s antics.  “You’re not going to return me to Aberdeen, you are just going to let me go?”

         “Why would I not?” Viggo turned to face me.  “You have done nothing wrong to me, and I nothing to you… speaking directly to each other I mean.  We may have opposing views and beliefs, but there has been no reason for us to see each other again.  But I do hope that this will not be the last time.”

         Viggo takes a few steps out into the hallway, I abruptly ask, “Does the name Vixxen mean anything to you?”

         Viggo stops dead in his tracks, pauses for a moment, and then looks back over his right shoulder; his tone changes to a very serious one, “Now I know our paths will cross again.  I shall be looking forward to it.”

         Viggo continues to exit the carven and building.  I follow out behind him.  While outside the main gate, I look to the left and I see Dawn leading Fawn this direction.  Looking up from Fawn she sees me, I nod.

         As Dawn hops on Fawn, a guard calls out to me, “Hey!  What are you doing unsupervised?  Get back to work!”

         Back towards Dawn’s direction a menacing roar could be heard, I respond to the guard, “I would get back to work, but not when there is a wild dragon on the loose.  The food and the working conditions as well as the treatment I can put up with.  But I draw the line rogue dragons.  I will not work under these conditions!”

         Thinking I am an idiot, the guard starts to take a swing at me, but from behind me Fawn lands right in front of me and roars over top my head at the guard that spotted me.  Once knocking him down, Dawn has Fawn fire at everything in her path.  The guard then retreats.

         “See what I mean?” I call back to him.  I then stop for a second and say, “Wait a second, that’s not a Triple Stryke roar.”

         Turning around and looking behind me, I see a crystal blue Monstrous Nightmare!

         “Looks like you guys could use a hand,” a friendly voice stated.

         “Fira!” I exclaim.  “What brings you all the way down here?”

         “I would explain,” she answers.  “But I think it would be best if you guys get out of here.  I’ll only stay as long as I need to for you guys to get free.”

         “Alright,” I respond.  “But watch out.  There is another Dra-.”

         I am interrupted by what or rather who I was trying to warn her about.  It is Valk on her unique and slender dragon.

         Before I could tell Fira about Valk, Fira told me, “You guys go, I’ll cover you.”

         “You sure you can make it out?” I wonder as I start for the forest.

         Fira readies her Nightmare to attack position, “Oh, we will be fine.  Won’t we Crystal?”

         Her dragon replied with a roar and took off towards the other dragon rider.

         As I ran towards the forest area to catch up with the rest of the group, I saw that all of Aberdeen’s men is in a confused frenzy.  None of them know what to do, everything is chaos… Everything is going according to plan.

         By the time I get to the forest, I see dragon tracks and footprints leading into the forest.  The sets of footprints and the width between strides tells me that my friends are off running through the forest already.  I do the same.  Continuing to follow the tracks, I do catch up enough to see Dawn on Fawn racing through the forest about twenty yards ahead of me.  Then I hear them starting to dragon call their dragons; I proceed to do the same.

         For several minutes, we call out to our dragons.  No responses.  I then call out to my friends to hold up.

         Upon regrouping with them, I say, “Let’s dragon call now, stand still, and see if we can hear them.”

         We all let out our respective dragon calls to our dragons.  Upon stopping, we still did not hear a response.

         Suddenly, just as Dawn was going to say something, I heard something, “Wait!” I hold up my hand.

         After listening for a second, she asks, “Who was it?”

         Staying quiet for a few more seconds, we listen.  A faint dragon call could be heard, even Fawn perks up as she heard it too.

         Annabeth quickly questions, “Where is it coming from?”

         The faint call could be heard again.  Fawn’s ears twitched and turns her head slightly to the right.

         Dawn replies, “She may not be a Tracker Class dragon, but any dragon can track the nearby call of a dragon in distress.”

         Dawn nudges Fawn in the direction of the faint dragon call; it did not take much encouragement to get Fawn going in that direction.  The rest of us ran in behind the Triple Stryke.

         About five minutes later and running a dead sprint, we come to the shoreline.  The dragon in distress calls out again.

         My eyes widen as Dawn replies first in joy, “That sounds like Fredrick.”

         The call came across very clear and loud, which indicates he is very close.  Looking around in our general vicinity, I see a large rock face jutting up from the ground.  Upon closer inspection, it is a cave.  What is even more promising is dragon tracks leading around to the front near the harbor.  The rock face extends into the harbor some, but right in front of us is a crack wide enough for us on foot to fit through; Dawn flew around and enters on the front side.

         Being the first to walk through the crack, I call out, “Fredrick?  Fredrick, I’m here!”

         Immediately after I spoke, I heard Fredrick plain as day roar in relief.  We could all hear feat moving, actually sounds like more than one set.  The moment I see the open area of the cave, I am greeted by a face full of Fredrick happy to see me, licking me.

         “Yes, yes,” I smile.  “I’m glad to see you too.”

         Even though the cave is dark, there is enough light from the afternoon sun that I can make out more larger figures in the cave with Fredrick.  One by one, fires were ignited.  Our dragons!

         Fire Song, Winter, Sun rose, and even Sparklebolt created enough light by their fire type to show that all of our missing dragons are here.  Well, at least the ones that had been captured by Aberdeen are here.  Giving our dragons a quick once over, we see they are unharmed, thanks to Dawn and making sure they were taken care of.  We mount our dragons: I on Fredrick, Cazi on Sparklebolt, Hannah on Winter, Garth on Riptide, Hyrith on Sun Rose, Ali on Undyne, and Annabeth on Fire Song seeing how Dawn is currently riding Fawn.  This also reminds me; UV and Sirena are still out in the forest somewhere on the other side of the island.  While still in the cave, Garth makes sure to distribute each of our weapons back to all of us.  Garth grabbed them as he escaped out of the Armory as he intentionally spent the day there just so he could do that.

         One by one we each fly out of the cave.

         Knowing it is good to be back on a dragon, Dawn did not waste any time to bring is back to the present, “Viggo is still here or at least leaving.  We cannot let this opportunity to slip by and not take him out.”

         Before I could say anything otherwise, Dawn flew to the west down the shoreline back the way we came.  Within minutes, we arrive back at Aberdeen’s camp, still swamped with chaos; Aberdeen’s men still struggling to get their weapons operational as well as his men getting organized to go searching for us.  Not only do see no sign of Fira and Valk, but no sign of Viggo’s ship.  It did not take Dawn a second moment until she started flying out away from the island in search of Viggo’s ship.  To assist her, I signal to the rest of the group to pan out and search and make mention to give the fire signal if they found something.

         No success.  We fly out several miles in every possible direction for this side of the island.  No ship.  Middle of the afternoon and bright sun with no clouds, not a trace of a ship.  Not even a water disturbance to indicate a ship has been sailing in the area.

         I pat twice on Fredrick’s head with my right hand and he lets off a “call back” or “regroup” roar.  My friends hear it and return back to me.  Dawn is the last to return.  Knowing her, she is besides herself for not finding Viggo.  We circle around each other while our dragons hover in place.

         “He could not have just vanished,” Dawn annoying states.  “We can see for miles into the horizon.  No ships… no nothin’.”

         I counter and remind, “As good as it would have been to capture Viggo, we cannot think about that right now.”

         “Wait,” Dawn shakes her head and responds.  “Don’t tell me you are thinking about going back.”

         “No offense, Jarl,” Hannah speaks up.  “But you want us to go back to the place where we were captured for three days?”

         “We have our dragons now,” I point out.  “Of course, we have to go back.  As much as we cannot let Viggo go on with whatever he has planned, we cannot let Aberdeen go on with his.  Those people on that island have no idea what Aberdeen is going to do.  We have to warn them and stop Aberdeen.  Not to mention that UV and Sirena are still on the island.”

         Dawn sighs heavily, “I know.  I am understanding better, but I just can’t get over the fact that we keep going back for more.  Yet, I admit I would go back for more if it was Viggo, Vixxen, or the Dragon Hunters.  And after we’ve seen Aberdeen do, I think he is in the same list now.”

         “Hold on,” Hannah raised her arms.  “You still want us to go back?  Come on.  I mean, I can see going back for UV and Sirena, but why stick around.”

         “Jarl’s right,” Abbie declared. “Vikings never leave another viking behind, not even if we hardly know or know nothing about those on that island.  If they are in need of help, someone has to help them.”

         This time Hannah sighs, “I hate it when you’re right.  I just don’t want to get captured again.”

         Annabeth looks at me and questions, “So, you are going back for Aberdeen?”

         “We have too,” I reply.

         “I know,” she added.  “I just want to make sure we are readier than we were last time.”

         Hannah then inquires, “Because we are going back, we better have a plan.  Do we?” she looks at me.

         “Not at the moment for Aberdeen,” I answer.  “But if we are to basically overthrow Aberdeen, we need help.”

         “Overthrow?” Cazi echoed.  “I’m liking where this is going.”

         Hannah wants an explanation, “Overthrow.  Like in taking out the one that is in charge kind of an overthrow?”

         I nod my head, “Just fighting Aberdeen is nothing unless we have the people backing us.  If the people are backing us, Aberdeen has nothing to stand on or for.  Aberdeen would be outnumbered.”

         “May I remind you, Jarl,” Annabeth says.  “Those people look at dragons as we once did.”

         “I know,” I respond, realizing the seriousness of the situation and the choice I knew was coming.  “Look,” I address my friends.  “I am not asking you to put yourselves and your dragons in danger, but for us to help those people overthrow Aberdeen to stop him and his plans, we have to convince those in Aberdeen what it is like to be a friend of the dragon and have the dragon be a friend to us.  If this doesn’t work, we could be surrounded on all sides.”

         I stop to see if anyone will respond.  No one does.

         Finally, Hannah speaks as if I missed something obvious, “And that stops us now because…?”

         “Well,” I take a breath. “I just didn’t know if you guys would agree to it.  This is something new to us.  We have never had to convince so many people about any one thing.”

         “Jarl,” Annabeth looks at me as if I did miss the obvious.

         “I mean,” I explain.  “I knew you guys would know.  But I wanted to know that I know you knew.  And I further wanted to know that you to know that I knew you know.”

         Annabeth rolls her eyes but smiles, “Alright.  Let’s get to it shall we?  What are we waiting around for?”

         Garth asks, “So, what is the plan?”

         “I have a message for Aberdeen,” I replied.  “Then we go back to town and settle this thing once and for all.”

         I take point and lead everyone in a V-formation back to the island.  Upon arrive back within ten minutes, we see Aberdeen has most of his forces regrouped and ready for battle.  But we bombard his catapults and weapon stations.

         We fly once over, swing around to the right, and come back over.

         This time we do not shoot at anything, but I break off to get low enough for Aberdeen to hear me, “Aberdeen!  Meet me at the village in thirty minutes.  Let’s settle this thing like true vikings.”

         Not staying for a response, I meet back up with my friends.  Knowing Aberdeen and his pride, he cannot refuse; especially after what we did to him in front of Viggo.

         “Why thirty minutes?” Hannah wonders.

         “It is only fair to give the guy enough time to get back to the village as it is a pretty fair walk back,” I answered.  “Plus, we need to make sure we pick up UV and Sirena.  In case we need to retreat at a moments notice, we would have nothing keeping us there.  However, seeing some familiar markings in the caves, the third major clue to our Shadow Mystery has got to be inside that mountain.  If we are to have any shot at finding out what the mystery has still in store for us, we have to defeat Aberdeen.”