We flew to where the smoke was coming from, which happened to be an island about half the size of Berk, with a small village built on it which was now reduced to ashes. Every here and there there were still a couple of buildings still on fire, and no one noticed us in all the commotion to put the fires out. As I looked round I noticed a few people lying on the burnt grass, with terrible swollen burns on their hands, arms and even their faces.
It's only when I walked up to someone that they saw we were here. “What happened here?”
“Chief!” the villager immediately bowed when he recognised me. I motioned for him to stand up. “We were attacked! They set the whole village on fire!”
I clenched my fists. “Who?”
“A man with a black iron mask!” the villager said, trembling.
“A man with a mask?” asked Astrid.
“Yes!” nodded the villager. “We were going about our daily business, when all of a sudden a scream was heard. We ran towards the noise and there lay Ingrid, one of the women of the village, clearly stabbed to death on the ground. As we gathered round her, we were caught from behind and knives were put to our necks!” He took off his rag scarf and showed me and Astrid a clear, light cut all around the front of his neck. Not enough to die from, but enough to lose a lot of blood.
“He wanted you, Chief!” the man continued. “He wanted us to help them capture you, but we didn't betray you. We never would, Chief.”
“Thank you,” I said gratefully.
The villager started trembling again. “Seen as we wouldn't help him, He set the village on fire... Those who tried to stop him suffered a worse fate.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The man pointed behind us and we turned round to see what was there. It was a pretty terrible sight.
A handful of people, including women, had been strung up and were dangling from large flaming torches. To our horror we noticed that the ropes they were attached to weren't tied around their necks: they were attached to their hair. To make things worse they had suffered several deep cuts on their stomachs, maybe made whilst they were still alive, meaning part of their ribcages was exposed and a large pool of blood stained the ground beneath them.
Even Astrid, who was used to violence, gagged at this sight.
“What kind of a sick person would do this?” she choked.
“We want desperately to take them down and give them each a proper funeral,” continued the villager, nearly in tears. “But He said that he would come back tomorrow and if they had moved by so much as an inch we'd all die that way!”
I thought for a second. A good chief protects his people...
“Then I'll come too,” I said, clenching my fists.
“No, no, you mustn't!” cried the man, grabbing my shoulders. “That's what He wants! He wants to lure you here! You mustn't come or you'll be giving in to his plan!”
“I don't care!” I said sternly, gently taking his burnt hands off my shoulders. “I won't see you suffer like this. When will he come?”
“Around this time tomorrow.”
I scratched my chin. Would I have time to come here between chief duties? I didn't want to put any of the others riders in danger, and this was something a chief had to do, so somehow I also had to convince Astrid to stay on Berk...
“I'll be there.”