The Mysterious Frozen Fire - Chapter 4: That One Old Clue

The Mysterious Frozen Fire

Chapter 4

That One Old Clue

          “We’ll go out there right now and come back as soon as we either find him or find some answers,” stated Hiccup as he, Fishlegs, and I mounted our dragons and started off towards the campsite.  Nora then described her husband’s shield if we should come across it.

          I took point as I knew where exactly the campsite was.  We arrived there within a few short minutes, as we urged our dragons to get there at a fast pace.  The place looked totally different from the last time I was there.  Where I saw the “Frozen Fire” before, it was not there; an actual smoldered out fire was there instead.  The medium sized stones that were set up around the fire for benches were not where they were before.  There looked like there were several tracks of footprints scattered about.  However, there were so many footprints we could not distinguish whether or not they were dragon or viking.

          “This is not how I found this campsite early this morning,” I finally said after we had search the campsite and the immediate vicinity for any clues.  “Everything is all wrong, except for the fire spot.  That is the only thing in the same spot as it was this morning.”

          Hiccup then stated with a puzzled tone, “If Kark did come back here, we cannot see any trace of his whereabouts here.”

          “So why don’t we go back and start from square one,” Fishlegs said as he walked back to Meatlug, “That way we can… ouch!”  Just then Fishlegs had tripped over something and face planted in the snow.

          Hiccup and I rushed to his side and helped him up.

          “What’d I trip over?” asked Fishlegs while brushing the snow off his face and clothes.

          “It seems,” Hiccup started while picking up the object.  “you found Kark’s shield.”

          Hiccup then held up a large shield.  It fit Nora’s description of it to the big knot on the wound near the handle.

          “So Kark did come back here,” I thought aloud.

          Through out the past five or ten minutes we have been here, Toothless had been making his own search of the campsite.  When Hiccup, Fishlegs, and I where deep in thought about what to do next, Toothless then bolt upright after sniffing the fire spot.

          “What is it Toothless?  Find something?” questioned Hiccup.

          Toothless then looked back at Hiccup, gave a quick purr, walked over to him, licked him on the face, and started to walk back where he was; Toothless kept looking at Hiccup and then down the trail.

          “I think Toothless wants us to follow him down the trail a ways,” Hiccup deduced as he wiped his face off with his winter tunic.

          Following Toothless, we did not know what he saw; but whatever it was it was close by because we just crept along until the dragon halted.  It was about ten yards further northeast from the camp site.  We all knew this part of the trail pretty good.  The pathway was a slight incline to crest looking over small cove that was about seven feet deep from the crest of the hill.

          We were within a few yards from the crest when Toothless stopped and started to growl.  Hiccup and I knew, especially Fishlegs, that there might be some danger ahead.  Hiccup reached for his shield which is almost always on Toothless’s saddle.  I reached back and got my quiver and bow from Fredrick’s saddle.  I had recently fixed a place on the left side of his saddle where I could store my arrows and bow for quick access.  Fishlegs on the other hand volunteered to stay with the dragons.

          Hiccup and I then crawled up to the edge of the crest and looked down into the cove.  I was stunned and surprised by what I saw.  There was a sleeping Whispering Death with a man collecting logs for a fire along with another man who was tied up.  The man tied up, Hiccup and I both assumed to be Kark Asmolfr.  Kark looked to be either asleep or unconscious.  Both of us stayed there for a few more minutes, casing the area.  The kidnapper looked older looking, but did not have any gray hair so I thought him to be middle aged.  We then crawled back and regrouped with Fishlegs.  Relaying what we saw to Fishlegs noticeably made him frightened.  Although when Hiccup said that Fishlegs could stay with the dragons until Hiccup gave a signal for reinforcements, Fishlegs looked slightly relieved.

          Before returning to our perch, I told Hiccup that I have seen this dragon and man before.  When Hiccup asked, “Where?” I replied, I had seen him when my other friends and I had gone looking for the missing items back several months while tracking down answers to clues in the Missing Socks mystery.  Hiccup then asked if the man could recognize me.  I replied he could not, but maybe my dragon.  On the other hand, when we first “met”, it was only for a short, brief time and would be an easy thing to forget.

          Hiccup and I after going back to our perch, looking at the area, then crawled back down the incline to where Fishlegs was and devised a plan.  We all agreed the surprise element is in our favor; and as long as the Whisper is asleep, we should be fine.

          “If the Whisper did wake up, which I think it will once we start the rescue, I’ll keep it busy.  In the meantime you Fishlegs will rescue Kark and you Jarl will try and capture the kidnapper,” Hiccup explained in a hushed tone so as not to be heard.

          We went our separate ways and I got into position.  I saw Hiccup who just gave me the signal to start with the plan.  I really did not know the plan, Hiccup just said to capture the kidnapper.  I watched for a moment what the man was doing.  He was preparing a salmon on a slab of stone.  I knew if I tried to slide somehow down the embankment over the perch here, I would be sure to be seen.

          An idea suddenly came to me.  I thought if I could get the drop on him, literally, maybe I could catch him that much quicker.  So I circled around to get closer to his position; then climbed a nearby tree.  The branch I took to crouch on near the trunk was very sturdy.  I gently crawled my way out further on to the branch.  By now I was over the small cove, nearly on top of the guy’s position.  I needed to get his attention somehow and get him away from the knife.  To do that, I shook the end of my branch a little bit so some of the snow on the leaves would fall off.  The snow fell just short of him; however, when I shook the leaves they made a rustling noise which actually got the guy’s attention even more.

          This guy then looked back, leaving the knife and walked back a few steps to now be directly under me.  I was surprised he had not looked up yet.  Slowly and smoothly did I turn myself so I was on the other side of the branch holding on my just my arms.  I had knocked most of the snow off the branch just before this.   The guy suddenly stood still, almost as if he were frozen.  He must have known something was not right; so in that moment I let go and fell on top of him.  He then cried out, which in turn had awakened his Whispering Death.  At this time Hiccup was on Toothless, came out and shot a small plasma blast next to the Whisper to get his attention.  Which it did and Hiccup led the dragon away from the small cove.

          “What the?” asked the man in great surprise.

          When he had regained his balance, he saw me standing in front of him.  I looked at him to remember what he looked like and saw something on the underside of his left wrist.  Before I could think of what I saw, the man rushed me.  I judged how fast he was coming by his stride.  Just before he got to me, I sat back real fast on the ground, stretched out my foot, and used my leverage to flip the man over me.  I thought that was pretty cool until I saw where the guy landed.  I was close by the edge of the cove wall.  So when I flipped the guy back he landed on like a “shelf” of the cove wall.  The guy knew he could not stay there and climbed up the rest of the wall.  He took off through the forest.

          “Well that was brilliant,” I sarcastically said as I took out after him.

          I thought quickly how I could get up there.  I saw that the slab of stone that had the salmon on was pretty long and was very close to the side of the cove wall.  I stood next to the wall, then stepped, planting my foot on the slab, pushing off in the direction back towards the cove wall, and got myself onto the “shelf” the other man used to get up the wall.

          I had just remembered after I pulled myself up the rest of the way that I had my dragon.  I sounded my call for my dragon to come find me while I started running after the kidnapper.

          “I still have to get used to the fact that I can use my dragon for then just flying around Berk,” I said to myself while running.

          The kidnapper had a large lead but, I still kept out after him.  I did notice that where I was running, the forest was so dense that Fredrick would not be able to come in after me.  So for now, I was on my own.

          Even though the man had a large lead on me, his tracks he made were the only ones in the snow.  Not even were there animal tracks this way.  This made tracking the man even easier.  I looked up ahead and the tracks made a hard left.  I then took a shortcut by cutting the corner.  Though I was not expecting there to be a small pond of ice there, but I was able to navigate it quickly by taking large bounds left and right off of medium sized stones sticking out of the pond.  However, the last stone I pushed off of must have had some ice on it as I lost my footing.  I started to fall to the ground, but somersaulted with my momentum so I could keep going.  I did stuff like this a lot, so I knew how to fall and regain my footing.  After my somersault, I still ran after the man; but noticed that he was running towards the edge of Berk on this side.

          “What could he gain by coming this way?” I thought.

          On this part of Berk there was a sharp steep cliff.  I also then realized I was a bit east of where we built the new catapults on this side several months ago.  I then ran alongside the cliff’s edge.  I looked up in front of me and saw twenty-five yards ahead of me was the kidnapper mounting his Whispering Death and flying away.

          “Oh you don’t get away that easy,” I stated under my breath, picking up my pace.

          Just then I saw Fredrick round the bend behind me and fly up the side of the cliff alongside me.  I knew I had to get on my dragon if I were to have any chance of catching the man.  Also I was running out of real state as I was near the next bend in the cliff very fast.

          “Fredrick!” I shouted.

          My dragon looked at me.  I used some hand signals he and I had been working on to get in front of me.  Fredrick understood leveled off his flying and got ahead of me slightly.

          “It’s now or never,” I thought to myself.

          I planted my feet on the last bit of snow-covered grass and jumped off the cliff!  I flew through the air.  I waved my arms and legs up and down like I was still running, but through the air.  I did this to keep myself up right and not over rotate myself and do a front flip.  My dragon was right below me and I landed on him.  However, my momentum was fast and when I landed on Fredrick’s saddle, I tumbled head first over the top of my dragon.  I reached back quickly and grabbed Fredrick’s large snout horn that all thunderdrums have right between their eyes.  If I had not grabbed his horn, I would be plummeting to the ocean below right now.

          “Thanks FK,” I replied to my dragon.  He then flipped his head back to twirl me back up on to the saddle.  “Now let’s go get that kidnapper!"