How to Speak Dragonese Page 7

  For a moment Toothless pretended that he didn't care --"Y-y-yucky - put me down!" -- and then he put his little dragon arms around Hiccup's neck and hung on for dear life, whispering in Hiccup's ear, so that only he could hear, over and over again, "Th-th-thank you ... thank you... T-T-Toothless would have died. if he spent one more hour in that h-h-horrible place... TH-TH-THANK YOU..."

  143

  144

  12. THE MASTER ESCAPER

  It may not sound like much, but one of the first facts you learn about dragons is that they are hardly ever grateful. This was the first time in Toothless's life he had thanked Hiccup for anything.

  He soon recovered himself, and to make up for this moment of weakness he gave Hiccup an embarrassed nip on the ear.

  He then became thoroughly overexcited and twirled himself around Hiccup's neck three times, before diving down Hiccup's shirt and running all over his chest and round his back and under his armpits, which made Hiccup laugh a lot, because the light pattering of a dragon's feet and the swirl of its tail is almost unbearably ticklish.

  "Stop it!" shouted Hiccup, in between gasps of laughter. Toothless emerged from the shirt and scurried onto Hiccup's head, his little green paws making Hiccup's hair stand up on end even more than it did already. Sitting high up on Hiccup's forehead, Toothless puffed out his chest and crowed three joyful

  145

  "Cock-a-Doodle-Doos" of triumph.

  Camicazi watched all this with interest, particularly the strange pops and whistles that Hiccup made with his mouth when talking back to Toothless in Dragonese.

  "Oh, I've heard about you," she said, "You're the geek who talks to dragons..."

  "Talking to dragons is not geeky" said Hiccup crossly. "Dragon-whispering is a very ancient and rare skill."

  "OK," said Fishlegs. "So if we've rescued Toothless, I have just one question -- who's going to rescue US?"

  "We're going to rescue OURSELVES, of course!" cried Camicazi, drawing her sword again. "We ESCAPE or we DIE!" she shouted with a mad gleam in her eye. "As it happens, I am the master escaper. This isn't the first time I've been kidnapped, you know."

  "The MASTER ESCAPER," snorted Fishlegs. "You Bog-Burglars are very pleased with yourselves. Who's kidnapped you before?"

  [Image: Hiccup and dragon.]

  146

  "Oh ... other Viking Tribes, mostly," replied Camicazi carelessly. She hummed a little tune and happily swung her sword around her head.

  "The Meatheads ... the Visithugs ... us Bog-Burglars are always quarreling with EVERYBODY ... we have anger issues ... Anyway, I escaped from the Visithugs, no problem ..."

  "No problem?" said Fishlegs. The Visithugs were supposed to be TOUGH.

  "I think you'll have a problem escaping from a Roman Fortress," said Hiccup, stroking Toothless, who was beginning to purr. "Roman Fortresses are built to be impossible to get into and impossible to get out of. Have you noticed the four perimeter fences? The four observation balloons? The guards at every watchtower? Not to mention the bars on this cell and the locked door. I don't think you've got a hope of escaping."

  Camicazi smiled confidently. "Nothing is beyond the powers of a master escaper," she assured them. "You can't keep a Bog-Burglar under lock and key. No prisons can hold us -- we're as wriggly as eels ..."

  "So why are you still here then if you're such a great escaper?" said Fishlegs.

  147

  "I suggest that we wait for my father to send a War Party to rescue us," said Hiccup.

  "He didn't send a War Party to rescue Toothless," Fishlegs pointed out.

  "Yes but I nearly persuaded him to," replied Hiccup eagerly. "I think I really got through to him ... And I am his SON after all, and not just a dragon ..."

  Toothless gave him a reproachful bite.

  "He'll come, I know he will," said Hiccup. "I think I'll just sit here and wait for him." And Hiccup sat down on a stool by the barred window that looked out over the sea in the direction of Berk. It was raining, a dull never-ending sort of rain that would have you soaking wet in two seconds if you went out in it. "He will come, I'm telling you."

  But Hiccup was anxious. His father had been so disappointed with Hiccup's report. Maybe his father thought that Snotlout, who always got 10 out of 10 in everything, would make a better Heir than Hiccup ... Maybe his father was relieved Hiccup had gone ... Maybe, just maybe, his father wasn't coming at all...

  148

  13. BACK ON BERK

  Back on Berk, Stoick the Vast sat in front of the table in his Chiefly Hut with his head in his hands.

  "A Chief feels no pain ..."he was saying to himself over and over again. "A Chief feels no fear ... A Chief is above mere weak personal feelings ..."

  But oddly enough this didn't seem to make him feel any better.

  "There will be other sons ..." he said to himself. And the wind howling across the ocean and through the wet bracken and blowing open the doors in a flurry of rain seemed to call back to him...

  "... but not like Hiccup."

  What kind of a Chief am I? he thought to himself wretchedly. Grimbeard the Ghastly would never have hesitated like this! Grimbeard the Ghastly would know it was the Bog-Burglars' fault yet again. He'd have been over there bashing those Bog-Burglars all the way to Valhalla by now...

  But then he caught sight of the Roman helmet, and doubts started to creep in.

  149

  150

  Could it possibly be that Hiccup was right and the Romans had found their way into the Inner Isles and were trying to make trouble?

  Sighing, he picked up the piece of paper sitting on the table in front of him. On it he had written:

  Plan A: Sale to the land of the Bog-Burglars and starte bashing everybody.

  He picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink and wrote:

  Plan B: Send a War Partty to look for A Romman Forte.

  But which was the right thing to do? Being a Chief was a lonely business.

  151

  14. CAMICAZI'S ESCAPE PLANS

  For the next week Hiccup sat by the barred window looking out for his father's War Party.

  Toothless came and sat on Hiccup's head. This was a familiar ritual to both of them, as it was Toothless's usual seat when Hiccup was dragon watching at the Wild Dragon Cliffs. Hiccup would draw and write in his Dragonese book, while Toothless perched on his head, one eye shut, the other half open, watching out for careless rabbits or small mice that he could catch. They could sit there for hours in happy, companionable silence.

  152

  Now they sat looking out the window, searching, searching, for the boats that were not there.

  They were being held in a barred tower room high in the air. The one good thing about being held prisoner was that they didn't have to go outside.

  [Image: A man.]

  Because outside it was raining. Not your ordinary, average kind of spitty little rain, but rain such as you only really get in the Barbaric Archipelago, one

  153

  of the wettest places on this good green earth. For the whole week it rained as if the sky above was one big endless bucket of water, pouring down without stopping on the poor souls beneath.

  The Romans are excellent travelers, but they are not used to this kind of weather. Nobody is. Hiccup watched with interest from his tower window high above as the soldiers' training grounds turned into one big puddly mess of black mud. The Consul's heated swimming baths overflowed into the horses' exercise yards. The kitchens were knee-deep in water. Even the Tower itself seemed to sink a few centimeters as its foundations softened and oozed.

  [Image: Curtains.]

  The one good thing about the rain was that it silenced the screeching dragons being held prisoner in the giant cages down below. Dragons tend to sleep

  154

  through rain. Their skin is waterproof, so they put up their wings like umbrellas, and sleep underneath them.

  Inside the Tower room, although it was bare, it was at least dry. The
young Vikings were allowed to keep their swords and shields to practice for their appearance in the arena on Saturn's day Saturday.

  A soldier brought them food every day. There was lots of it, although it was all a bit too rich for Hiccup's liking. Pig stuffed with dormice stuffed with baby frogs carbonara and oysters fried in cream is a bit of an acquired taste. They all refused to eat it when it was fried dragon pie or Common-or-Gardens in batter.

  Toothless hardly ate at all. Hiccup tried to persuade him, but Toothless put his nose up.

  "Roman f-f-food YUCKY," he said. "Too much g-g-garlic. Want some good f-f-fish. Want mackerel."

  Camicazi carried on with her escape plans. They were all completely crazy.

  For the first one she persuaded Hiccup and Fishlegs to help her knit their waistcoats into two ropes and she attached one end of a rope to a fish head and the other to one of the bars in the window. She then spent three nights in a row throwing the fish head out the window, hoping for a passing dragon to catch it.

  155

  Finally her patience was rewarded when it was snapped up by a hungry Gronckle who flew off with it, the rope pulling out the bar in the window before it snapped. Camicazi squirmed out the window and down the rope, which dangled twenty meters above the ground. She held on for as long as she could, but eventually had to let go, and landed on a fat soldier playing dice under an umbrella with a dozen fellow soldiers below.

  They were then moved to another, supposedly more secure, cell on the ground floor.

  [Image: A girl.]

  156

  Camicazi wasn't about to give up with this little setback, though. She spent four days tunneling her way out of their new prison with Hiccup's helmet. Unfortunately the tunnel came out right slap bang in the middle of the Consul's bathroom. A naked Fat Consul screeched for reinforcements and they were moved back to the Tower room again, where the window had been repaired.

  157

  Her third plan was the craziest of all.

  She ambushed the soldier who brought them their food every day, knocking him out with his own food tray.

  She was planning to wear his clothes to pass herself off as a soldier.

  [Image: Men.]

  "It'll never work," said Hiccup. "You'll get caught. You're a girl for starters. And you're only four

  158

  feet high. There are no four-foot-high soldiers. They don't let them in the army."

  "Oh, you're always bringing up PROBLEMS," grumbled Camicazi, putting on the soldier's helmet, which was so big she could hardly see out of it.

  "And let's face it, they're going to be really cross you knocked out one of their men," Hiccup pointed out, looking at the soldier slumbering peacefully in his Roman underwear on the floor.

  "Why don't YOU face it?" snapped Camicazi. "Look at you, staring out the window all day long. Your father is NEVER GOING TO COME ..."

  Hiccup flinched.

  "He'll come," he said defiantly.

  Camicazi had to turn up the sleeves of the soldier's shirt four times. The tunic trailed some way along the ground behind her. She looked like a very small military person in a wedding dress.

  "Ze great CAMICAZI will be back home, guys, while you are facing those gladiators on Saturn's day Saturday ..."

  She took three steps and fell flat on her face.

  The boys tried very hard not to laugh.

  With great dignity Camicazi got back onto her

  159

  feet again. She picked up the front of the tunic like she really was a bride. "You can't keep a Bog-Burglar under lock and key," she said, taking the keys from the tunic pocket and unlocking the cell door. With a final bustle of skirts she was gone.

  Hiccup looked out the window again.

  [Image: Hiccup.]

  "He'll come ..." said Hiccup. The rain was being blown through the window at such a rate that he had been driven from his usual post. But now he peered through the bars, seeking, seeking, for the sails that were not there. There was only rain and more rain, pouring down relentlessly on the ocean, drumming on the rocks, sogging up the heather, and filling the

  160

  pockets of the poor sentries as they stood, sandals full of mud, dreaming of Roman sunshine.

  The wind shrieked across the ocean, up over the grim black cliffs, and through the Roman courtyards of the fort. And as it came through Hiccup's barred window, blowing in great drenching streams of water, it seemed to be answering...

  "... but he's late ..."

  Camicazi didn't return that night. Hiccup and Fishlegs wondered with amazement if she really had escaped this time. But the soldier who brought their food that evening

  very grumpily told them she had been caught within two seconds of leaving the Tower and put into solitary confinement for three days.

  "And serve her right, the little barbarian," said the soldier, rubbing the lump on his head.

  "Three days!" said Fishlegs excitedly. "At least we'll have some peace and quiet around here."

  161

  " ...dreaming of Roman Sunshine..."

  "Camicazi's all right, really," said Hiccup.

  "Mmmm," said Fishlegs, unconvinced. "But she's very pleased with herself and she never stops talking. I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet night."

  [Image: Men and a woman.]

  162

  15. THE COMING OF THE SHARKWORMS

  As the long night wore on, something strange and frightening was happening in the seas around Fort Sinister.

  The rain poured down without stopping, and for several days the heated swimming baths of the Fat Consul had been overflowing, sending a stream of hot water pouring down the hillside and into the ocean. And this warm current was attracting some unwelcome visitors... SHARKWORMS.

  From far and wide the Sharkworms came. Terrible creatures half out of nightmares, but only too true, I'm afraid, propelled not only by the tremendous force of a shark-like tail, but also by thick, muscly alligator legs that poured through the water, sending them forward at extraordinary speeds.

  They were swimming toward the Roman Fortress, not just in ones and twos but in tens of thousands, and when the sun came up on the morning before Saturn's day Saturday there was a boiling mass

  163

  of black fins with jagged edges, circling like vultures around the island of Fort Sinister.

  It was as if they were waiting for something. Sharkworms are ancient animals, and their brains were formed in who knows what dark and terrible furnace. They knew not why they waited, only that they smelled warm water, and blood-yet-to-be-spilled, and guts-in-the-offing, and trouble-about-to-happen.

  And so they waited, patiently and greedily, waiting and waiting and waiting for some awful event to unfold in the future that would bring them their supper.

  164

  16. THE CUNNING BUT DESPERATE PLAN

  Camicazi returned the day before Saturn's day Saturday.

  She was not as cheerful as usual. She drooped around the cell, sighing. Even Fishlegs was worried. Camicazi came and sat next to Hiccup beside the barred window.

  "Maybe," she said sadly, "maybe you can keep a Bog-Burglar under lock and key. I don't understand it. I'm the MASTER ESCAPER -- no prison can hold me ..."

  "The Romans make good prisons," replied Hiccup.

  "The only good Roman is a dead Roman," said Camicazi.

  Hiccup sighed. "That isn't true. I'm sure there are loads of good Romans. But all the good Romans are probably quietly minding their own business back in Rome. Anyway, Alvin isn't a Roman, he's a Viking just like us."

  165

  "Your father really ISN'T going to send a War Party, you know, Hiccup," said Camicazi gently.

  Hiccup looked out the window. Camicazi was right. HIS FATHER WASN'T COMING. Maybe he thought that Hiccup wasn't worth it...

  "OK," said Hiccup, trying to keep them from despairing. "I think it's time we made another plan."

  "I know what we do!" cried Camicazi, drawing her sword with her old
swagger back again. "We practice our sword-fighting! We die, yes -- but we die in STYLE!"

  "No," said Hiccup.

  "But you're a great sword-fighter -- for a boy, of course ..." said Camicazi, disappointed.

  "I only sword-fight when there's a point to it," said Hiccup. "No, this is the plan. I have this dragon called Ziggerastica who owes me a favor ..."

  "OOOooh, Ziggerastica -- he sounds scary," said Camicazi. "Do you think he can help us?"

  "I don't know," Hiccup admitted.

  Hiccup felt a bit silly shouting to someone who wasn't in the room, but he did so nonetheless, calling "ZIGGERASTICA!" three times at the top of his voice.

  166

  "How is this dragon going to get IN here, when we can't get OUT?" asked Camicazi. "You'll see," said Hiccup. Nothing happened for about three hours. Hiccup wasn't really expecting this plan to work, in his heart of hearts -- he was just trying to cheer Camicazi up. But then there was a faint rustling noise, and the tiny black and red dragon squeezed through the double bars and fluttered around the room.

  "Don't tell me," said Camicazi, "Please don't tell me that THIS is the dragon who owes you the favor ..."

  "Yup," said Hiccup in astonishment. "That's definitely him.

  167

  How amazing that he came when I called!"

  "This dragon," said Fishlegs "is even smaller than Toothless -- that's really going to help us, isn't it? The entire Roman Army is going to be shivering in its shoes when it sets eyes on a dragon the size of a bumblebee. How can a dragon not much larger than a beetle help us fight a whole Roman Legion?"