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“So this is the great God-Killer ?” Viggo asked in astonishment, staring at the boy that couldn’t be more than 19 kneeling down in front of him with his hands behind his back. “The Bane of the Red Death?”
Hiccup looked taken aback. He looked at the Night Fury chained and muzzled next to him as if he would have an answer of some sort.
“That’s… what people call me?” Hiccup asked, words tentative.
“Is that not who you are?” Viggo questioned, crossing his arms over his chest. The boy didn’t look formidable in the least, but there was a sharp intelligence to his green eyes. Maybe he was mistaken, but again, maybe he wasn’t.
Hiccup shrugged. “Yes, I took down the Red Death, but—”
“How?”
Hiccup looked around. They were surrounded by Viggo’s Dragon Hunters. Hiccup and the Night Fury had been captured and were now being held aboard his ship. This conversation was happening on the top deck, even as the sky opened up and rain began to fall.
Viggo didn’t care about the rain, but Hiccup looked like he felt miserable being wet. He wasn’t having a great time anyway, captured, as he was.
“Can we talk inside?” Hiccup asked, shaking wet hair out of his face.
Viggo nodded. He made a motion to his men to get Hiccup up to his feet—well, one foot. Viggo had only just now noticed the prosthetic.
“Get that dragon in a cage and chain it down securely,” Viggo ordered.
“Toothless!” Hiccup shouted, realizing he was being separated from his dragon. He made a lunge for him, but Viggo grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him away.
“Not so strong without your dragon, are you?” Viggo was intrigued by this young man, but also… how could he possibly be the one he had heard the stories about? The one who had killed the Red Death, who had brought an end to a decades-long reign of terror? The one who had supposedly tamed a Screaming Death and used it in battle? There was a strength to him, for sure, but it wasn’t physical.
Unless the stories were all lies to boost up the heir of Berk and make the Hooligans seem like a tribe not to be trifled with. That was possible too.
Viggo took a struggling Hiccup to his office, only needing one hand to subdue him. The other, he kept folded behind his back.
The Night Fury, apparently inappropriately named Toothless, was taken a separate way, towards the dragon cells.
Once in his office, Viggo forcefully sat Hiccup down in the chair in front of his desk, eliciting a grunt from him. He sat across from him, tapped his fingers on the desk, then folded his hands neatly in front of him.
“So, Dragon Conqueror, God-Killer. You go by many names, Hiccup Haddock the Third.”
“None that are of my choosing,” Hiccup said, derision clear in his tone. He looked uncomfortable with these names. Was he too humble to accept them.
“Tell me how you did it,” Viggo said.
“I thought you would want to know about Dragon’s Edge,” Hiccup said, surprised. “About my Riders, our defenses, our plans, that sort of stuff.”
“Oh, I do,” Viggo said. He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other. “But please, regale me with this tale. I have time.”
“And why should I tell you?”
“To prove that you are who you say you are,” Viggo replied. He wasn’t doubting that now, but maybe he could learn more about Hiccup through this, learn about the way his mind worked. That would be as good as getting any information about their war out of him. He’d be able to find all his mental cracks and slither his way in. “I could have you untied, have wine and refreshment brought in.”
Hiccup was considering it; Viggo could see it in his eyes.
“All right,” Hiccup agreed. He cleared his throat, shook his hair out a little, spattering droplets of water onto the furniture, and some onto Viggo. “Well, it began when I was 15…”