Blue Eyes Clear Skies

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Toothless and Maaran followed Torch at a fast but steady pace in the darkness for hours followed by the cloud of dragons behind them and after all that flying, they all finally saw lights upon the horizon and an outline of the castle from lamps that were lit on the castle walls. "Halt everyone!" Stoick yelled as everyone slowed their flying to a hovering position in the air still a ways away from the island. Torch nodded to Maaran before flying over to join the main dragon mass while Maaran and Toothless flew over to Stoick. "Hiccup, I was you and Toothless to scout the island and tell me where the best spot could be to land an attack but also see if there is a place for our dragons to have a rest. Maaran, I want you and Astrid to see how many patrollers are on the castle itself. When we attack, I want to take out the long range weapons and the scouts to prevent a warning to get back to this king."

"We will do our best dad." Hiccup said as Astrid nodded before they went to do what they were told. Toothless and Hiccup shot into the air just below the cloud line as they approached the castle and after a few minutes, they reached the island and started surveying the area around it to see any weak points where they could start the attack. The island itself was heavily guarded nearest to the castle whereas the village and shops below it only had the basic guard patrol. If they hit the outer part of the island, they would definitely draw the attention of the guards but it would most likely make the castle near impossible to get into and the chances of rescuing Azora would be slim to none.

They surveyed around the island and spotted a dense forest behind the castle and carefully maneuvered their way down to see if it was safe enough for the dragons to land and take a rest before the attack. As they got closer, they noticed the sharp thorns and prickle bushes inside and around the forest itself which meant most of the forest would be impossible for people to go into but thankfully not most dragons and the ones that couldn't mainly were small enough to get a ride on other dragons so they could avoid getting hurt.

Toothless was happy to see the forest was expansive and ended at a cliff edge making it easy to get the dragon flock they had to enter the forest without notice and since they were a large flock, the forest would hide all of the raiding dragons safely before their attack plan would be put into action. He and Hiccup slowly ascended back up to the clouds and flew to Stoick. "We found a forest to rest in dad but we will need to do fly around to the other side of the island to get to it." Hiccup said. "The castle itself is heavily fortified but the village around it isn't;t making it most susceptible to any attack but also will alert everyone that we are here unfortunately."

"Well done Hiccup. And this forest you saw, it is safe for us all to rest in?" Stoick asked.

"It has thorns and prickle bushes all around and inside of it." Toothless said. "Humans cannot venture much into it without getting injured while most dragons can as the sharp thorns have no affects upon our scales. It is safe for us all to rest in and go over the plan of attack."

Maaran then returned and Astrid nodded to Stoick. "There are over three hundred or more patrollers upon the castle with minimal ones in the village area." She said.

"I saw at least twenty watch towers and archer areas with catapults but they are not manned consistently." Maaran added.

Stoick nodded. "Lead us to this forest and we will discuss further plans when we all settle." He said.

Hiccup nodded and Toothless flew in a wide arc around the island taking the safest route so that everyone would remain unseen. As they approached the cliff face, the sun was just starting to rise and cast almost a blood red look across the sky making the feeling of unease of the upcoming rescue grow. The dragons landed in the forest safely and while some Vikings got caught upon the thorns, they shook it off and just rested upon the dragons they were riding on. Stoick made sure that he was last to land while Hiccup and Toothless were the first so that every single dragon and Viking would be able to land in the best covered part of the forest so that they all would remain unseen to enemy eyes from ships.