The Night Rider

Chapter 34: The Casutalies of War

ASTRIDS POV
(Warning: this chapter is the most violent chapter in the book so far, so beware. But also enjoy.)

Astrid shut the door to Hiccups house behind her and took a few steps away from the door. The heat was almost unbearable instantly coating her in a layer of sweat. For a moment Astrid considered turning back around and going back inside with Hiccup, but she couldn't bring herself to move.

The sight was... horrifying. There was fire everywhere. Coating the buildings and lacing the ground in some places, the only thing that she could see more than that was chaos. There was chaos everywhere, anywhere her eyes landed there was chaos. In the air and on the ground Vikings and their reptilian enemies were engaged in a vicious battle each side hoping to inflict as much death on one another as possible. "Astrid!" Yelled a female Viking covered in ash and soot tossing Astrid one of her axes that was already slathered in dragon blood.

"Good of you to join the fight!" She said beginning to spin around using the momentum of the spin to hurl her axe into the nearest dragon killing it instantly. Astrid slightly grimaced at the sight, with as much time as she had recently spent around dragons watching them die was now... saddening. "Where did all these beasts come from?" Asked the woman pulling her axe out of the downed dragons corpse and then approaching Astrid. "Are you Angremonda?" Asked Astrid and the woman smiled. "Why yes I am." She replied. Angremonda and her sister were two of the best dragon fighters on Berk.

"Angremonda, move!" Yelled another slightly larger female Viking throwing two small daggers and as Angremonda moved the blades stuck guard deep into a Terrible Terror that had been inches away from sinking its teeth into Angremonda's heels. "Oh wow sister congratulations you killed a Terrible Terror." Angremonda said sarcastically clapping her hands together. "Oh quiet sister, if I wouldn't have killed that Terror it would have bitten down straight on your Achilles Tendon severing it and you would have never been able to walk again."

Angremonda rolled her eyes, "Oh please you and I both know that that Terrible Terror wouldn't have been able to get its terribly tiny teeth through my raw hide boots." She exclaimed which made the slightly larger sister who Astrid vaguely remembered her name being Gremonda walk up to her sister so that there was only an inch of space between them. "You know sister" Gremonda began speaking in such a hush voice that her words could barely be heard over the roaring fires.

"Sometimes I consider the option of letting a dragon or two take a bite out of you and maybe that will make you realize that your not invincible." Angremonda shoved Gremonda away her face turning beat red. "You think I need you?" She exclaimed, "if you died right here right now the only way that would effect my life is I wouldn't have to constantly cover your rear!" As famous they were around Berk for there dragon slaying, they were also quite well known for their bickering.

"Well if you died Angremonda the only way it would effect my life is I wouldn't have your horrid stench of misery and regret stinking up the house!" Angremonda in a flash punched Gremonda in the jaw knocking her to the ground. "Oh yeah sister! Well maybe if your were a little more like me musk and all maybe then some men would consider you as a possible spouse!" Gremonda scrambled up from the ground and shoved back her sister. "Oh please sister the only man who has ever wanted to lay with you is Joshnu, and I don't think after what you did to him he'll be coming back."

Angremonda, enraged charged her sister and was about to tackler her when in a burst of reflective dragon scales Gremonda was plucked from the ground by a Razor Whip and flown up into the air. "Ahhhhh!" Yelled Gremonda in pain as the Razor Whip tightened is tail. "Sister!" Screamed Angremonda throwing her axe up into the air missing the dragon by merely a few feet. The dragon roared and constricted its tail so quickly around Gremonda that even from the where Astrid and Angremonda stood that could hear the crack of her bones.