The Wrong Side

Book 1: Chapter 1 - Red Eyes

The first thing that came back to him was his sense of touch. He could feel the hard rock on witch he laid atop. The next was the rumble. The ground had this slight shake back and forth, and up and down, like a herd of elephants were stampeding across it.

Dude!

Something was poking at the back of his head. Like a thought that he just couldn't grasp.

Hiccup, bro!

It kept getting louder, clearer, loosing it's fuzziness. It was still faint though, his brain unable to make a connection to the thought.

Get up, we gotta move!

A switch went off in his head. It wasn't a thought, but a voice. He was hearing someone call a name; Hiccup? He didn't know who he, or she, were. In fact, he couldn't remember his own name. Could he be the name's owner?

He felt someone grab his shoulders, shaking him a bit.

“Wake up!” the voice shouted again. It was definitely a voice. A male voice close to him. He must be the one looking for Hiccup.

The voice shook him again, harder and more forceful. His eyes fluttered, light seeping into them for a second, but running away as his eyelids clamped back down over his eyeballs.

“Oh, for the love of Thor! Please wake up!” the voice shouted, it sounded desperate. More sounds became evident as he grew more accustomed to this world. Explosions and battle cries sounded off in the distance from all angles. Battle cries made themselves noticed, as well as screams of pain and death.

He truly forgot who he was.

Pain swept across his cheek along with a “smack” sound. Did the voice just hit him?

“Hiccup Haddock III, WAKE UP!” the voice screamed. His eyes shot open, flickering back and forth taking everything in. A man was crouching over him; the voice.

Whoever he was, he had snapped him out of his trance. He was Hiccup Haddock III and he was 26 years old. He also had a best dragon friend named Toothless. Other then that, though, was a blank space. He must have gotten amnesia of some sorts; lost his memories.

Hiccup began to struggle. He was scared, lost and surprised. He had no idea who he was before and woke up in the middle of a battle! If it weren't for someone holding his shoulders tightly, he'd be thrashing his limbs in fear.

“The battle's lost! We gotta get out of here!” Voice grabbed his hand and pulled him up to his feet. “Glad to see your heart's still beating,” Voice said. He had a silver colored, metal helmet on. It covered his entire face and head. His eyes showed through small holes and his mouth could barely be seen through little cut out, vertical lines in the lower part of his helmet. There were three of them.

Voice kicked a sleeping black lump behind him. It took Hiccup a moment to realize it was Toothless. His head had been resting on its side. Voice wasn't trying to hurt the dragon, but get it to wake up.

Hiccup also noted a strange, red powder-like substance that was faintly scattered around Toothless and where he had been sleeping.

The dragon grunted as his eyes shot open. He quickly stumbled to his feet, his eyes panicking. He assumed an attack position and began spinning in circles, making sure no one was sneaking up on him. Voice was trying to calm him down, but wasn't succeeding.

“Hey, bud. It's all right, just calm down,” Hiccup said walking up to his dragon, his hands out comfortingly. The dragon spotted him and calmed down, rubbing his head against Hiccup's body purring like a cat. Hiccup laughed and patted his head.

“Sweet,” Voice said. “But we gotta move! Take your helmet off, Hiccup, I got a better one for you.” Hiccup touched the front side of his helmet. He hadn't even noticed he was wearing one. Half of it was gone, burnt where it was separated. Hiccup looked down, most of his armor was gone, blown of his body. Some spots, though, seemed to have been manually removed seeing as how some straps were undone. His green shirt was the last thing protecting his skin.

Voice threw him a new helmet he had stolen off of a nearby corps. Hiccup didn't recognize the man. He noticed a small patch on the body's arm, though. It looked like a sword with a black blade along with black angel wings coming out the side of it. Voice's helmet had the same crest on the right side of his forehead.

“I'm not wearing a helmet that belonged to a dead guy,” Hiccup said. A fire ball hit the mountain that was behind them. The blast let out a loud “boom”, sending rocks falling down the mountain. Hiccup didn't waist anymore time, he needed protection if he were going to get out of here alive. He put the helmet on.

“Aw, it stinks!” he said. Voice shrugged.

“Are you ready, princess? We really need to get out of here!” he said. Voice didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed Hiccup's wrist and headed off running, dragging Hiccup along. Toothless followed.

“Why can't we just fly –“

“Look at Toothless's tail,” Voice said, cutting Hiccup off. Hiccup looked behind him; Toothless's artificial tail fin was gone, the metal rods were all that were left. Hiccup didn't remember what happened to the dragons real tail fin.

“Doesn't matter, a nightfury can still run faster than humans,” Hiccup said. He dug his heels into the earth, swinging Voice behind him. Voice got the idea and jumped and landed on Toothless's back. Hiccup didn't waste time to jump on in front of him.

Toothless sprinted off blindly, Voice telling them where to go. Hills were on both sides of them, providing fire cover from the enemies' dragons.

“Don't we have back up or something!” Hiccup yelled.

“Yeah, they should be waiting for us at the far side of the island. I told them I had to find you first and to wait.”

Hiccup looked back at him. “Why didn't you leave?”

“Brothers till the end.” Hiccup didn't respond, just kept looking at him. “You don't remember?” Hiccup shook his head.

“I only know my name and Toothless, everything else is gone,” Hiccup looked back in front of him.

“Oh...” Voice sounded upset. “Don't... don't worry, we'll get your memories back.”

“Honestly, I just want to get away from here as far and as fast as possible right now.” Voice laughed.

“Me too.”

“What happened?” Voice shrugged, but Hiccup didn't see.

“Tell ya later. Let's survive first. Take a right up here and head down the passage.” Hiccup did as Voice said and ordered Toothless right. An opening was getting closer to them. The hills ended a little farther up the passage, which meant their cover would end in a little, too.

Voice had Hiccup slow Toothless to a stop at the edge of the hills. They jumped off the dragon and crouched just at the edge of their cover, Voice in the front, then Hiccup and then Toothless. Voice peered around the bend.

He was met with the site of war. Or, more precisely, the after effects of war. Bodies littered the ground, both from Voice's side and the enemies. Hiccup peered around the bend as well.

“Holy...” He trailed off. Voice nodded.

“Yeah. It's a pretty horrific sight, isn't it?” Hiccup didn't answer, but Voice knew that he agreed.

A female worrier caught Hiccup's eye. She had blond hair, a spiked skirt and red shirt. That was all he could tell; she was to far away. She was covered in blood, but the battle-ax she wielded was dripping it. A blue dragon was following her. Hiccup racked his brain for the name of the species... nidder... fander... nadder? Nadder! Hiccup smiled as he remembered the name. It seemed he could remember a few species, his best friend, but nothing else. It was so annoying.

She looked tired, her head spinning in all directions. It looked like she was searching for something.

“Hey, she on our team?” Hiccup asked in a whisper, pointing to the girl. Voice squinted his eyes at the figure.

“The viking?”

“Is that what she is? Are we –”

“No, we aren't vikings. But, man, I wish she was on our team. She's a formidable warrior. Boy, a heck of a warrior. She been cutting us down left and right and her dragon isn't an easy foe, either.” Hiccup sighed.

“Pretty,” he said.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“You said something.”

“Oh, I said that out loud?” Voice rolled his eyes inside his helmet.

“Don't go falling for the enemy, bro. It'll just lead to bad things.”

Voice tapped Hiccup's side. “Now's our chance, when I say “go”, run to the other side of the opening.” Hiccup gave the “right” and waited for Voice to give the signal. Time seemed to stand still as soon as Voice said “go”. He, Hiccup and Toothless sprinted across the opening. They were so close to the other side, but an enemy viking suddenly called them out.

“Look, there they are!” an enemy yelled. Hiccup turned to look back over the battle field. He saw the female warrior mount her her dragon and take off after them. Voice saw it, too. He cursed.

“We better get out of here, dude. She catches us, none of us are getting home,” Voice said as he picked up the pace. This again? Hiccup though.

“Hey, stupid, we have a nightfury,” Hiccup called to Voice. He looked back.

Toothless took off at a full sprint with Hiccup and Voice on his back. They heard shouts and a dragon squawk. Hiccup looked behind him. Flying low to the ground was the female soldier on top of her nadder.

“Toothless! We got company!” Hiccup shouted. Both the dragon and Voice looked behind them. Voice gasped and Toothless gave a surprised grunt. The dragon picked up the pace, but he wasn't fast enough. The nadder and its rider landed in front of them, the rider jumping off and pulling out her battle-ax at the same time. Toothless skidded to a stop, Voice jumping of right away, pulling out his long sword and taking the lead.

“Hiccup! Toothless!” the female worrier shouted. She sounded... happy?

“You're not taking them anywhere!” Voice shouted, bringing his sword up in a fighting position. The girl narrowed her blue eyes at him.

“Hiccup –” she couldn't finish as Voice screamed a battle cry and charged. The girls nadder squawked and shot a spike. It collided into Voice's shoulder; he cried out as the momentum of the spike sent him into the small stone hill. Hiccup's eyes widened.

“Hey!” he yelled. The girl seemed to give him an inquisitive look. “Toothless! Plasma blast!” The dragon obeyed instantly as he fired. The nadder gave a shocked squawked as it shielded her rider with its wing. The blast exploded on the creature, creating a smoke shield. Hiccup saw his chance. He grabbed the injured Voice and helped him onto Toothless, he then jumped on. Hiccup ordered his friend over the small rock hill.

Toothless jumped and grabbed the side of the hill, pulling himself over the edge. He jumped to the ground. The three sprinted at top speed, Toothless may not remember how he even got to the island, but he thought this must have been the fastest that he ever ran before in his life.

The smoke cleared in a few a seconds and the girl and her nadder were back in the air. They quickly found their target and began shooting spikes in front of Toothless, trying to slow him down. But the dragon ignored there tactics and kept running.

“Toothless is a fast runner,” voice said, pain in his voice. “But he won't be able to out run a flying nadder!”

“I know!” Hiccup shouted back to him. Voice looked over Hiccup's shoulder.

“We're close!” he yelled.

“What!?”

“Our escape! A small team stayed behind to help us escape. We're close to them!” Voice started searching his armor for something. The nadder was catching up. Toothless dodged a few more spikes. Voice was muttering under his breath, searching for something.

“Whatever you looking for, better hurry up!” Hiccup shouted. Voice dug some kind of odd looking object out of his armor. It had a tube on the other end of a curved handle. Voice grabbed the curved part and held it up in the air. He pushed some kind of trigger on the weapon and it fired. It sent a yellow streak high in the air, but it didn't hit the girl.

“You missed!” Hiccup said.

“Wasn't aiming for the girl,” was Voice's cool reply. Hiccup looked back up at the dragon flying above them. They were slowing down. He turned his attention back to where Toothless was running. He saw two gronckels headed their way.

“Uhhh, guy?” Hiccup said nervously. Voice looked over Hiccup's shoulder. He shook his head.

“Don't worry. Backup,” he explained. The two gronckels and their rider flew past them, spewing molten rock at the nadder. Hiccup and Voice didn't look back, but kept on moving.

They could hear the small battle raging behind them. The roaring and shouts along with the blasts of dragon fire. A particular painful yell came from one of Voice's and Hiccup's backup. Voice turned around just in time to see a gronckel crashing onto the earth.

“We gotta hurry!” Voice said. He pointed up ahead, “Right up over that ridge is our escape!”

“Got it!” Hiccup said. “Come on Toothless! Almost there.” The dragon snorted, sprinting as fast as he could.

They were getting very close to their escape when they heard another yelp not to far behind them. It was Hiccup who peeked over his shoulder this time, the second gronckel and its rider crashing onto the ground. Nothing was standing in the way of the girl and her nadder. Hiccup cursed under his breath.

“She coming!” he shouted to Voice.

“Just a little bit further,” he replied. Three more spikes landed in front of Toothless. He jumped two and ran through the third.

They made it to the ridge with the nadder only a few feet behind them. The ridge wasn't very tall, so Toothless gathered the remainder of his energy and jumped, his belly just making it over. His paws landed on a sandy beach.

Hiccup was shocked at was docked out in the ocean. Four huge ships had set anchor about 15 yards out into the ocean, two smaller boats were pulled up onto the beach. They had swords and crossbows raised when Toothless landed on the beach, but lowered them when Voice waved his arms at them, signaling not to shoot.

“Come on!” one of the men said, jumping out of the boat to help Hiccup and Voice in.

“The dragon will ride on the other boat,” another man said. Toothless snarled at him, he wanted to ride with Hiccup. But the boat couldn't hold that much weight.

Hiccup looked at him and said, “It's alright boy, you'll still be able to see me. Go.” Toothless looked at him with an uncertain gaze, but did as he was told.

Voice's men got out and pushed the ship back into the water, all but ignoring the waves that crashed down on top of them. By the time they were rowing to the big mother ships, the girl had cleared the ledge.

“Voice!” Hiccup shouted. He looked over his shoulder.

“Crap,” he mumbled. Hiccup feared the the dragon would sink their boat. But he got an idea.

“Toothless!” he yelled, the dragon looked over from the other boat. “Take'um down!” Hiccup pointed the girl and her dragon. Toothless didn't waste any time providing fire cover from the boat.

One shot, two shots, three shots. The nadder had dodge all of them, but had fallen behind the boats.

“Almost there!” a man rowing said. All of a sudden, they heard a thundering “BOOM!” coming from the big ships. Hiccup covered his ears under his helmet.

“What was that?” Hiccup shouted. Voice looked at him.

“Canons,” Voice said, much calmer than Hiccup. “Our buddies on the S.S. Kick Butt are providing some cover fire.” The men on the boat laughed. It took Hiccup a second to realize that Voice made a joke.

The nadder seemed to stop coming after them after that, hovering halfway between the shore and the ships. Voice smiled and took off his helmet. “Well, she's a good fighter, but ain't stupid. She knows we're home free.” the guys on the boats cheered.

With the helmet off, Hiccup got to see the face of his rescuer, or, brother, as he said they were. Voice had black hair, an oval face with a defined chin. He had a handsome face, but you could tell he had seen his fare share of battle and hardship. But the thing that stood out the most was his red eyes. His iris' were blood red.

“Whoa,” Hiccup breathed. Voice narrowed his eyes at him.

“What, never seen someone with red eyes before?” he asked.

“Not that I can remember.” Voice laughed.

“That's cool, just wait till you look in a mirror.” Hiccup took off his helmet.

“Why?” Voice just shrugged his shoulders.

They reached the back of one of the ships. They looked even bigger to Hiccup up close. The back had to be thirty feet tall and twenty-five feet wide. The ship was forty-five yards long.

A loud clang sounded from inside the ship and a small portion of the back of the ship began to lower. It resembled a draw bridge castles would lower to allow people to cross a moat.

The door lowered all the way down to the water, creating a splash. Voice hopped out onto the door. He offered his hand to Hiccup to help him out of the boat. Hiccup accepted it and Voice pulled him out. Toothless jumped out of the boat and bounded over to Hiccup; he patted the dragon on the head.

“Hey bud, great work out there,” Hiccup said. Voice chuckled.

“Yeah, you saved our skin,” Voice agreed.

Voice led Hiccup and Toothless through the bottom part of the ship where they had boarded. It was just as big as it looked. People were scurrying from side to side carrying boxes and weapons.

The roof was probably fourteen feet high, allowing plenty of room for her occupants.

“This ship's quite the achievement,” Hiccup said. Voice laughed again. He seemed to do a lot of that. Hiccup would have thought that war would have put a damper on his mood, but he seemed to be the happiest person alive.

“You would think that,” Voice said. “You designed it.” Hiccup looked at him.

“I did?” Voice nodded. “Huh.”

Hiccup couldn't help but notice some of the strange looks he and Toothless received. It was hard to tell what they were thinking, each face seemed to have a different emotion sewed onto it. But Hiccup guessed it was because that he, Toothless and Voice made it back alive.

Hiccup cleared his throat as Voice brought them to some stairs heading to the main deck.

“So,” he said, “I... don't know your name.” Voice looked at him. He sighed.

“It's Joel,” he said. Joel... nope, doesn't ring a bell.

Hiccup and Joel and Toothless stepped onto the deck of the ship. It was even busier up here. But the ship didn't seem to be as high as he would have expected. They were still a good ways up from the water, though. Hiccup looked behind him and quickly knew why his expectations weren't met on the deck. From the point they entered was raised by, at least, ten-to-fifteen from the deck. At the top was a good old fashioned pirate steering wheel.

“We're pirates?” Hiccup asked.

“Hell no,” Joel said. “Pirates wish they were us. We're part of a kingdom, Hiccup, a very big and prosperous kingdom.” he sounded very proud when he said this. “We are spanning rapidly, our armies unmatched. Well, they were anyway, but I'll get into that later.” At that point, Joel's stomach growled. “Oh man, you hungry?” he asked Hiccup. He nodded as did Toothless. “Well, lets go get something to eat and we'll discuss everything over dinner... or is it lunch time? Anyway, lets go. We even have enough fish for a hungry nightfury.” Toothless jumped and licked Joel at that comment. “Oh, gross!” Hiccup laughed.

Joel led them down again to a new room. Hiccup turned and looked back over the deck before he followed. There were people and dragons of different shapes and sizes helping one another. He couldn't help but smile.

Joel threw some food on two plates for him and Hiccup and gave a big bucket of fish to Toothless; the dragon was happy to accept. They were sitting at a table, a few other people and dragon were in...

“The mead hall, as everyone here on the boat calls it,” Joel said. He chuckled. “I don't even know what the real term for it is anymore.” Joel took a bite of his food and sip of water.

“So, if our kingdom...”

“Oh, it's the Blarder Kingdom,” Joel said.

“Blarder Kingdom... for real?”

“Yep. Doesn't it just strike your heart with fear?” Joel chuckled. Hiccup smiled.

“Anyway, if our kingdom is the most feared and best, how did we lose this battle?” Joel washed down some kind of meat with a chug of his drink.

“Well, it's impossible for an army to win every battle they wage, but I get what you're saying. Our kingdom isn't expanding just to expand, that isn't the purpose of King Harold. Were looking for something that could protect our kingdom, wives and children from ever facing hardship that the outside world threatens. The island of Berk doesn't understand that. They think it is to much power for one faction to have. But the king has the right use in mind.” Joel said.

“Well... I can see why Berk and other people would be scared if someone had that much power,” Hiccup said.

“Me too,” Joel said.

“If Blarder is such a strong kingdom, then why would we need to have anymore power anyway?”

“Once we find the power, we would stop expanding, stop the wars that rage through our own cities. Peace would flourish through Blarder and stay that way for a thousand years!” Hiccup nodded his head. He leaned closer to the table.

“What, exactly, is this power?” he asked.

“Dragons. Four very, very special dragons. They live far away in lands filled with beasts we've never seen. Each has a power unique to it: The Druider controls rocks in the earth, The Sploter controls water and the Blarder, the dragon we named our kingdom after, has the ability to control fire. And this isn't just shooting it out of his mouth or anything. The fire it creates will burn the flesh off your bones with out even touching it. Not to mention its ability to fire lightning out the tip of its tail. The last one, the Slicer, can turn invisible. It doesn't shoot fire, but air. It also won't hesitate to cut you up with it's razor sharp tail.”

Hiccup was impressed with the ability of the dragons.

“How would they bring peace?” he asked.

“We constantly have people outside our kingdom bashing us because of jealousy. They thing we have it so good. We don't. We have millions of people to feed and our trading carts, you know the ones that come back from trading partners. We actually have a lot of trading partners –”

“Joel,” Hiccup interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“Stay on topic, please.” Joel laughed.

“Of course. People outside our kingdom constantly intercept our carts before they enter our lands, taking everything. Food is starting to slowly become less and less a plentiful thing, most families are scavenging for food just to keep form starving to death. We get those dragon on our side, no one would dare mess with us and stay far away.”

“OK... now what about Berk? You said they were an island. How are they a problem?”

“You know those dragon and how they live with beasts we've never seen? Well, Berk's found them. They're protecting them from us! Those islands where the dragons live have there own set of... protectors, I guess you could call them, helping them fight us off. And I'm talking about elves, dwarfs, even some kind of weird dragon race. I think there called Dragonborn, or something.” Joel took in a breath. “Anymore questions?”

“One more thing... do I really have red eyes?”

“Check you reflection in your cup.” Hiccup did. The water didn't look to be the cleanest, but it did act as a way for him to see himself. Hiccup didn't really know how to react when he saw his red eyes.

“And were brothers?” Hiccup asked.

“Yep, you take after mom and me, dad.”

“Huh... So were like two albinos then?” Hiccup asked playfully. Joel slapped the table laughed.