How to speak Dragonese (13 page)

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Flashfangs had failed to bite through in their terror ...

At a single stroke of Hiccup's hand the netting split in two ...

He burst through and hung in the air, every awestruck eye upon him.

The Fat Consul fell to his knees. Even Alvin's jaw dropped.

"MY NAME," boomed Hiccup, in a voice he had never used before, "MY NAME IS THOR THE THUNDERER, ANCIENT GOD OF THE VIKING TRIBES!"

The crowd gasped.

"WELL MAY YOU TREMBLE," bellowed Hiccup. "FOR YOU ROMANS HAVE INVADED SACRED VIKING TERRITORIES AND MADE ME MAD ..."

"We're very, very sorry ..." stammered the Fat Consul.

"FOR THIS," boomed Hiccup solemnly, "I HAVE

[Image: Hiccup.]

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SENT A PLAGUE UPON YOU AS THEIR LEADER ..."

The Consul scratched himself miserably. "AND I SHALL PLAGUE YOU FOREVER UNLESS YOU PROMISE TO GO FROM HERE AND NEVER RETURN."

"We promise," said the Consul. "Here," he sobbed, "I offer you my shield, O Mighty One, as a sign of your protection from the Romans. Never again shall we come this far north."

"I WILL TAKE YOUR SHIELD AS A SIGN OF YOUR PROMISE," cried Hiccup, "AND ALSO THE BOOK YOUR SERVANT STOLE FROM ME ... OH, AND ONE MORE THING ..."

"Anything, anything," pleaded the Consul. "I EXPECT YOU TO BE A STRICT VEGETARIAN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE."

The god-like Hiccup flew toward the Consul's balcony.

Still on his knees, the Consul offered him the rectangular Roman shield. Alvin put his trembling

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hand into his breast pocket and found the tattered copy of
How to Speak Dragonese,
the two halves sewn together carefully with golden Roman thread.

He fumbled to get rid of the booby trap he had placed inside the book. For Alvin was a careful man. He had slipped something
very nasty indeed
between the pages, a nanodragon called the Venomous Vorpent, so that anybody who tried to steal the book would get a horrible shock. But one does not booby-trap a god, and Alvin was desperately trying to shake out the poisonous nanodragon, when he caught a close-up sight of the shirt Hiccup was wearing...

"Hang on a second ..." said Alvin.

But it was too late.

Hiccup snatched the book from him (still with the Venomous Vorpent inside it, please note), and rose swiftly into the air.

He held the shield victoriously above his head and made his final speech.

"I HOLD THE SHIELD AS A SIGN OF YOUR PROMISE ... BUT IF YOU EVER BREAK THAT PROMISE, YOU CAN TELL YOUR CAESAR THAT THE FORCE OF MY ANGER SHALL REACH INTO

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THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE AND ROME HERSELF WILL BE SWEPT AWAY BY THE DELUGE ..."

Hiccup pointed his sword at the dam.

Right on cue a couple of cracks appeared.

And the dam split in half and numberless tons of seawater burst into the stadium.

[Image: Men.]

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21. YOU CAN'T KEEP A BOG-BURGLAR UNDER LOCK AND KEY

The spell that Hiccup had cast on the audience was instantly broken.

It was as if they had been sleeping, and had suddenly woken up to the reality that they were about to be swept away by the flood.

Furthermore, everyone had forgotten about the Sharkworms. The metal netting that should have protected the audience had been broken by Hiccup. The Sharkworms were back in the water again, and they were already nearly able to reach the wooden seating.

The audience screamed in terror as one of the Sharkworms leaped upward and was almost among them ... It lost its grip on the slippery edge and fell back into the water -- but the water was rising so quickly it was clearly only a matter of time before it succeeded in getting up to their level.

Suddenly the afternoon's entertainment of "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" had taken an

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interesting twist. The audience who had laughed so heartily at the tables being turned on the greedy Sidewinders didn't seem so amused to find they themselves had become the prey...

They stormed toward the entrance, shoving each other out of the way and screaming for the doors to be opened.

The pressure of the water on the doors caused them to open anyway. They burst apart, and the water poured out and down the hillside.

Fishlegs and Camicazi turned their attention to steering the boat.

The flying Hiccup descended and landed beside them on the deck.

Toothless appeared from nowhere and perched on his shoulder.

"I am lost for words," said Camicazi. "How did you do it?"

Hiccup pointed to his shirt. "Look a little closer," he said.

The Vikings craned forward. Hiccup's shirt seemed to have changed color. Indeed, when they looked closer still, it seemed not to be a shirt at all. It was made up of millions and millions of tiny winged

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creatures, all practically invisible to the naked eye and all clinging to Hiccup's clothing underneath.
This
was what had caused Hiccup to fly.

The numberless armies of Ziggerastica. The little nanodragon himself flew out from his position of command on Hiccup's chest to bow to the Vikings.

"This terrible, terrible plan," announced Ziggerastica joyfully, "has worked beautifully. I, Ziggcrastica the Mighty, have made it do this! How wonderful I am! How Glorious is my Empire! How numerous and powerful are my peoples!"

"We were lucky too," grinned Hiccup.

"I am almost sorry to leave you, O-Boy-With-No-Muscles-At-All," said Ziggerastica sorrowfully. "But we are quits now. I have saved your life in exchange for you saving mine and you are still a stinking HUMAN after all..." "Thanks," said Hiccup.

"But this has been a great day for the little creatures of the world...'

Ziggerastica gave a single command and the nanodragons instantly rose in a gray mass, like a small thundercloud, and disappeared into the sky.

[Image: Hiccup.]

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As they rose, they sang a song that the Romans would have been wise to listen to ... but they were too busy panicking.

[Image: Birds.]

A WARNING TO EMPERORS

Watch out

O Romans with your Empires and your Stinking Breath

Watch out for the smaller things of this world

For we are going to get you...one day

You live your lives up in the skies

Building your aqueducts and your coliseums

And you never think of US

Ticking away in the grassed

But we see you

And if you bend your car you just might hear

The steady beat of countless feet that come to cat

The wall that curls a hundred miles across a continent.

That temple built with the tears of millions of slaves

And turn to dust in our months

So watch out

O Caesars with Fat Bottoms and Hard Hearts

Watch out

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"Goodbye, O-Boy-with-Arms-Like-Pieces-of-String..."sang Ziggerastica, "and may the winds that blow you be strong..."

And with that, he was gone.

"Why did you let him go?" shrieked Fishlegs. "I hate to mention this but we're not free yet, we're still stuck in an arena surrounded by Sharkworms!"

"The Sharkworms seem more interested in the audience," said Hiccup. "That's why I got Ziggerastica's armies to eat through the metal netting and to spend all night chomping through the dam. It was all part of my plan, you see -- now the dam has cracked, we can simply sail out..."

Hiccup gestured to the open doors of the auditorium. The water was pouring out of them in a great river.

"Brilliant," said Camicazi. "I've got to admit, that's brilliant... for a boy, of course."

Hiccup was already at the tiller and he pointed the ship toward the open doors of the stadium.

The Valhalla Express
nosed its way toward the entrance.

"We're going to make it!" yelled Fishlegs. "We're nearly there!"

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The Valhalla Express
was halfway through the door...

... but Alvin had spotted them trying to escape and given the order to send the portcullis rattling down. It cut
The Valhalla Express
in two. Fishlegs and Camicazi and Hiccup were thrown into the water on the wrong side of the bars. The sea was breath-quenchingly cold.

"AAAARGH!" shrieked Fishlegs, almost rearing out of the water, he was so terrified of the Sharkworms.

"Climb the portcullis," ordered Hiccup.

The three young Vikings swam to the portcullis and climbed it, Hiccup towing Fishlegs, and with Toothless flapping behind them. Two meters or so up, they clung, dripping and terrified, like four little spiders.

Through the slippery bars they had a tantalizing view of the freedom of the open ocean, hopelessly out of reach. All around them were the shrieks of the crowd, and clouds and clouds of escaping dragons. (The nano-dragons had eaten the locks of those giant cages too.)

The Romans were running to their ships and setting sail back to Rome as fast as they could.

The Sharkworms were taking over the island,

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climbing over the battlements and destroying the soldiers' tents. One or two of them had already made their way to the Fat Consul's swimming pool and were wallowing in the water.

"So what do we do now, then?" shouted Camicazi, her teeth chattering.

"I give up!" Hiccup shouted back, a sudden gust of wind nearly blowing him off the portcullis. His fingers were so frozen he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on.

"This isn't part of my plan. What more do you want of me? It's all up to you now.
You're
the Master Escaper, aren't you? You're Ze Great Camicazi, no prison can hold you ..."

"Ze Great Camicazi will get us out of here," shouted Camicazi, "if you admit that girls are way, way better than boys and always have been ..."

"Dream on, sunshine," grinned Hiccup.

"OK!" shouted Camicazi. "Ze Great CAMICAZI will get us out of here anyway .. . You can't keep a Bog-Burglar under lock and key. Are you
sure
you want to follow me?"

"Lead on!" said Hiccup, with a slightly mad laugh. "We can't hang around here forever."

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Camicazi craned her neck upward. Some way above them, tethered to the top of the amphitheater entrance, was one of those enormous Roman observation balloons.

"If we can't
sail
our way out of here," she yelled, "I vote
we fly!"
and she pointed to the balloon.

"Ohhhh brother ..." moaned Fishlegs miserably as he climbed slowly after the others, "if Woden had meant us to fly he'd have given us wings ... Don't look down, Fishlegs -- don't look down."

Camicazi climbed expertly upward, and she got to the balloon first, closely followed by Hiccup. They scrambled into the basket.

It was empty except for a rather depressed-looking Gronckle, trapped in a cage right underneath the open mouth of the balloon. Every now and then he shot out a burst of flame that heated the air, and this would send the balloon bouncing upward for a moment before it was stopped by the rope that moored it.

"Hello, Brother-of-the-Snak," panted Hiccup. He looked carefully around the basket for any hidden soldiers. "Are you on your own here?"

"The soldiers are all watching the Saturn's day

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Saturday, celebrations," said the Gronckle. "Actually, it's nice to have some peace and quiet for a change."

"Well, I'm so sorry, to disturb you," said Hiccup, "but we're taking over this balloon. -- it's a military emergency ..."

"No problem," said the sad Gronckle. "It would be my pleasure. Nobody's bothered to ask me nicely before -- they. Usually just hit me."

"Oh dear," said Hiccup sympathetically. He hated to see his fellow creatures trapped or ill-treated. "Of course we'll let you go as soonas we get home, but at tie moment we're in a bit of a hurry"

"It's not that I don't like tie job," the Gronckle assured him. "It's nice up here --peaceful, you know. When would you like to leave?"

"Very soon," said Hiccup. "We're just waiting for a friend." He peered back over the edge of the basket. He could see the top of Fishlegs's head, making painfully slow progress up the portcullis. Below him, the excitable Sharkworms leaped, and the crowds stampeded. "FISHLEGS! Will you get a move on!"

"I'm climbing as fast as I can!" Fishlegs shouted back up indignantly. "I'm not stopping to admire the view or anything!"