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The sunlight was increasingly bright. Searing his eyelids. Even in closing his eyes there was still a blaring orange. He took a heavy breath, feeling pain in his side. He was sure he was laying against a solid surface, maybe not entirely covering his back. He could feel his shoulder hanging.
"Keep an eye out! We want to make sure the job got done properly." He heard him shout from the air.
Viggo forced his eyes to stay open, even if the sunlight caused him to squint. There was the urge to run coursing through him, but his body wasn't fulfilling the command. Wanting to stay still, reminding him of the other weight keeping him pinned. Sure, it would take a good effort to push away what had collapsed over him, but that would mean exposure.
Besides, being trapped in rubble was inevitable. That had been their strategy, explosion after explosion, devastation forcing them back. He'd retreated, knowing they would have thought Hunter Isle being the last place standing.
There was a sudden shuffle some ways to his left. He found strength enough to stiffen. And the slight movement must have been enough, because a dragon screech followed some seconds later. He recognized what it meant. There's someone there. The few shadows the fallen debris provided was taken away, and his hand began to slide behind his waist.
"Look where the coward has fallen. Oh but look Toothless, at least he's alive. Not like the rest of his men."
"It had to be you." He said in an exhausted whisper.
"And you're not looking so good." Hiccup responded.
"No, but that's what you wanted. This much destruction, to prevent anyone fighting back."
"Well it was a better alternative to what you wanted. Us struck down from the sky in an inferno, or impaled with arrows."
He ignited his sword as he neared a pace. "We struck first."
"It was simply, business."
“Tell me Viggo. Your armies are fallen. You might be the last standing.”
“You can’t be sure of that-”
“That’s what my friends are looking for. How will the leader of the Dragon Hunters proceed?”
His fingers tightened on the hilt as he saw Hiccup approach wielding his own weapon. A sword he knew held the ability to be lit aflame. A worthy weapon of his adversary, but he wasn't appreciating of where it could be embedded.
"You found the other base." He ground out.
"You abandoned your former stronghold. But dormancy was far too out of the question. Both of us were preparing to end this."
"It seems like you've won, doesn't it."
"It really does." Hiccup looked animatedly around the burning wreckage, his eyes easing shut and grinning as the cries of freed dragons pierced the sky. "But you're still breathing. Toothless and I didn't have the luxury of finding your burned corpse. No," The sword neared Viggo's throat, "we get you still capable of trying to act like you have the upper hand."
Viggo's eyes gazed at the sword, then they flicked back up to Hiccup.
"Do you wish it would have killed me?"
"Now you've left me with a dilemma. You know this wasn't your only base to fall, and how many Hunters you've lost. Perhaps the ones who've fled. We've reached this point of the game, Viggo. The Viking King is the one who has to give the final command to strike down his opponent. When he's sacrificed so many of his own for his own self-preservation."
Then he glanced slyly backward. Looking to the ground, then eyes skimming the ground. His head slowly eased back to watch the lying victim, and with a click of the hilt, the sword ignited.
"They don't have to know I found you like this." He said in a malicious whisper.
Viggo had pressed his head back. Able to feel the flame inches from the skin of his face. The wooden panel he had been leaning against creaking from the pressure. If the sword was this close, there wasn't a point in begging for mercy. Yes he knew. Knew how many ships had fallen, how efforts to regain supplies had also been interrupted. Figured out too late how the Riders' decimation had been to close in on him.
And in this final stroke, a flamed sword in the hand of a teenager preparing to deliver a searing end.