Another Nightmare Book 3: Facing Nightmares

Chapter 21

The village had gotten busier. It always did in spring with traders arriving again, but now things were a level above that with the dragon hunters wandering into the village daily from the base they were building next to Fjoll. Wooden fortifications had already been erected around a small area casting long shadows in the light of the rising sun. Multiple new piers reached out to the water much further than those on Fjoll's harbour. Several of the hunters' large ships were attached to them.

The hunters themselves marched through the village like they owned the place, same as some of Hakon's, the chief Hakon's, warriors. They were not exactly wrong, at least one of the groups was not.

Heather stepped closer to the walls of the surrounding buildings and turned her head slightly as another group of armed hunters approached ahead. Right now, they were in charge, so she was not going to get in trouble with them.

Not all realized to do that. Heather walked past the market where Eira sold fish at, or apparently refused to in this case with two dragon hunters being her intended customers. One of them chose to just take a fish only to have another one be slammed in his face hard enough for the man to stagger back and drop his catch. Another small group of hunters nearby laughed at the man. One of them shouted at the fish thief.

"You know how to pick em Lars. At least this one has some meat on her. Better than that one-legged twig last year." The shout sparked even more laughs from the group. Eira gave them a scowl.

One-legged? Heather grimaced and slowed to listen for more, but there was no more shouting.

The man called Lars recovered right away and pulled his sword pointing its tip right at Eira's neck. He was saying something Heather couldn't hear. Impressively Eira stood her back straight without flinching as she responded. Heather didn't need to hear the words. Eira's facial expressions were quite sufficient to translate the verbal whipping she was giving to the man. Heather failed to hold back a smirk.

"What's so funny?" Someone asked. Heather turned around to face two of the village's, more like Hakon's, warriors. Heather thought his name was Gunnar. She blinked but quickly gathered herself.

"Just amazed that a fish seller manages to stand up to a big strong dragon hunter. I am sure you as warriors are proud of the strength of the villagers."

Gunnar opened his mouth as if to say something but couldn't. Arguing against Heather would have meant calling people of Fjoll weak and warriors tended to act like they were from the greatest strongest village. Heather controlled her face better than before to keep up a neutral expression. Gunnar scowled.

"You should watch out how you act around the hunters. Unlike some people here they still know what a true Viking is supposed to do to the beasts," he paused. "Didn't you spend a lot of time with that Hiccup kid?"

"I was told to help treat his injuries, and then the fishbone showed up at our training sessions," Heather said and quickly added. "Too bad we don't have those anymore."

"You might if, Manning hadn't turned traitor to the chief Hakon. Not that it matters. The village has us so little girls don't need to think they can fight."

A worse response than Heather had hoped when directing the conversation. She bit her teeth together but didn't let that stop her from focusing on her response. She said it with her most innocent and friendly voice.

"True, I guess, and with the chief's decisions to submit us to the Grimborns there isn't even much need to fight. Not many chiefs would be willing to take such a strike to their pride to protect the village. No need to worry about dragons either."