And when a Hooligan loses his temper, he REALLY loses it. A Hooligan in a rage yells so loudly it makes his ordinary yelling sound like a baby's lullaby.
"I DECLARE A BLOOD FEUD!" yelled Stoick the Vast.
"Oh, brother." Hiccup raised his eyes to the heavens. "I do not believe this. .. this is all we need! Hang on a minute, Father, let's stay calm here. I really don't think this was from the Bog-Burglars. We haven't got their Heir, have we? So SOMEONE ELSE must have stolen her. I overheard the Romans saying they would pretend to be the Bog-Burglars so they can get us to fight each other. "
"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS, HICCUP!"
roared Stoick the Vast. "POLITICS IS FOR GROWNUPS! FETCH ME MY SWORD! SOUND THE WAR HORNS! I WANT EYERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD PRACTICING THEIR SWORD-FIGHTING NIGHT AND DAY FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS!"
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[Map: Blood Feud Table.]
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"But, Father," protested Hiccup, "please use your head here --"
"I AM USING MY HEAD!" roared Stoick the Vast, head-butting the wall. "IF THOSE BOG-BURGLARS SET ONE TOE INTO HOOLIGAN WATERS, BY THOR, THEY'RE GOING TO REGRET IT!"
Hiccup could feel himself getting cross too. He didn't stand up to his father very often, but he was so upset about Toothless that he got up and stood in front of Stoick with his hands on his hips.
"Why don't you BELIEVE ME?" he asked furiously. "I have told you and told you, this is the work of the ROMANS. I have even brought you back a Roman helmet to prove it."
Hiccup pointed to the Roman helmet, which was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. "We COULD send out a War Party to go and find these Romans, and Toothless too ... but oh no, you would rather stay here beating up the Bog-Burglars than believe the word of your OWN SON ..."
For a moment it seemed as if Hiccup was getting through to his father. Stoick's nostrils stopped flaring and he ceased to paw the ground with his foot.
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He looked at the Roman helmet. Maybe, just maybe, Hiccup was right...
But then he looked at Big-Boobied Bertha's letter and his temper returned.
"THE ONLY GOOD BOG-BURGLAR IS A DEAD BOG-BURGLAR!" shouted Stoick at the top of his voice, and he stalked out of the room.
"Don't blame your father too much, will you, Hiccup?" said Old Wrinkly sadly "He means well, but when things get complicated, he gets confused. By the way, aren't you going to be late for your Frightening Foreigners lesson?"
"Oh my goodness," said Hiccup. "So I am ..."
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8. THE FRIGHTENING FOREIGNERS LESSON
It was a glorious, blue, breezy day, but Hiccup had no time to admire it. He ran as fast as he could toward the Great Hall where the Frightening Foreigners lesson
[Image: Men.]
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was being held. Gobber hadn't arrived yet, so the young barbarians were making a gigantic racket. Sharpknife and Tuffnut Junior were having a swordfight in one corner. The boys' dragons were lying in front of the gigantic fire, snapping and snarling at each other. Snotlout and Dogsbreath the Duhbrain were sitting on Fishlegs while Fireworm set fire to a pile of Fishlegs's workbooks.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, you brainless brutes?" snapped Hiccup at the bullies, putting out the fire with his jacket.
"Thanks, Hiccup," panted Fishlegs. "Well, well, well," drawled Snotlout, removing his knee from Fishlegs's stomach and sauntering over to where Hiccup was sitting.
"Some Vikings you two are! I hear you couldn't even tell the difference between a Peaceable fishing boat and a seventy-meter Roman ship, and you have got to be the first pirates EVER to sink their own boat..."
"Har har har har," laughed all the other boys.
"And most pathetic of all," jeered
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Snotlout, "you lost your ridiculous fangless microbe of a dragon."
"Some loss," sneered Fireworm, sharpening her claws on Hiccup's helmet with an acutely unpleasant scritching noise. "That creature was a disgrace to us green-blooded FireBrothers of the Snake."
"Toothless was a fine, fine dragon," said Hiccup quietly, trying to keep his temper.
"He was a HOPELESS dragon," mocked Snotlout. "Never mind, Hiccup. He'll make a much better Roman handbag --"
"YOU TAKE THAT BACK, YOU SNOT-FACED, SNOT-NOSED, ELEPHANT-NOSTRILLED, BOTTOM-BRAINED BULLY!" yelled Hiccup.
The door opened with a gigantic crash.
"Excellent Advanced Rudery, Hiccup!" roared Gobber the Belch. "We'll make a Viking of you yet!"
"I hope you don't mind, sir," spat Snotlout, advancing on Hiccup with his fists raised and a nasty look in his eye, "if I just kill him for that one ..."
"But I do mind," said Gobber. "This is a Frightening Foreigners lesson, not a free-for-
all--
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SIDDOWN NOW YOU 'ORRIBLE LITTLE EXCUSES FOR VIKINGS!"
The boys scrambled for their places on the floor at Gobber's feet. Even Snotlout knew better than to disobey Gobber, and he sat down too, muttering darkly to Hiccup that he would get him later.
"This lesson is all about Taking Money with Menaces," yelled Gobber. "HICCUP! WARTIHOG! Stand up here in the front. Hiccup, I want you to be the Hooligan Invader and Wartihog to be the simple Gaulish farmer. What Terrifying Techniques can you use to get Wartihog's belongings?"
Hiccup got to his feet, but he wasn't really concentrating.
"Excusez-moi, mon brave, " said Hiccup absent-mindedly. "Mais pouvez-vous me donner votre -- "
Wartihog bashed him.
"OH FOR THOR'S SAKE, HICCUP!" exploded Gobber loudly "I TAKE BACK WHAT I SAID A MOMENT AGO! HAVE I TAUGHT YOU NOTHING? VIKINGS DON'T TALK IN SILLY FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THEY YELL, HICCUP, YELL!"
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Gobber controlled himself with an effort. "Sit down, Hiccup. Snodout, show PATHETIC Hiccup how to perform this perfectly simple exercise."
Two seconds later, to great cheers of "BRAVO!" from Gobber and the rest of the class, Snotlout had Wartihog in a Baggybum Bearhug and was removing not only his money but also his helmet, jacket and trousers.
Gobber put his hands on his hips, threw back his huge hairy head until the horns on his helmet touched the wall behind him and shouted with laughter.
"YOU SEE, HICCUP?' he bellowed in between great guffaws. "THATS HOW TO FRIGHTEN A FOREIGN --"
The door flew open.
Two enormous, masked Kidnappers crashed into the room with yells that froze the blood and made the hairs on Hiccup's head stand up like the spines on a sea urchin. They were dressed in traditional Bog-Burglar costume, but it was obvious to Hiccup that this was a couple of Roman soldiers in not a very good disguise. For starters Bog-Burglar soldiers were always women. But these were clearly big hairy muscly men in dresses with pigs' bladders stuffed down their blouses instead of bosoms.
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The First Kidnapper was holding a couple of double-headed axes the size of dinner plates, and he threw one of these as hard as he could in Gobber's direction. The axe flew through the air, missed Gobber's head by a hair' s-breadth, and pinned him to the wall by his beard.
"AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" gurgled Gobber, unable to move and gazing at the shining blade less than a centimeter from his nose.
"HE WHO IS MOVING, PLEASE, LOSES ZE HEAD, AND ZE DRAGONS ALSO," yelled the First Kidnapper, speaking very badly in Norse* and swinging the other axe round his head.
Not a boy or a dragon moved.
"Okey-dokey please," continued the First Kidnapper in a quieter voice. "Give us what we is wantings and nobody she gets hurt. Which one of you is being the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans?"
Everyone was silent.
"No make me get cross, please ..." warned the First Kidnapper.
"You no like her when she is cross," said the second one, fingering his axe lovingly.
*Norse is the language all Vikings speak.
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"Just tell me ... WHO IS BEING THE HEIR TO THE HAIRY HOOLIGANS?"
Nobody
answered them and now they started talking to each other in Latin.
"OK, Marcus," the First Kidnapper said to the Second Kidnapper.
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"They're not telling, but the Boss said the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans is a weedy-looking kid -- which one is he, then?"
[Image: The centurion a pig.]
The Second Kidnapper pointed at Hiccup. "It must be that one with the red hair," he said. "Look at him, he's got arms like spaghetti!"
"But what about the one with the face like a
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haddock?" objected the First Kidnapper, indicating Fishlegs. "That's got to be the weediest-looking kid I've ever seen in my life..."
"Oooh, it's a toughie," said the Second Kidnapper. "I think we have to take them both, just in case, If we get it wrong the Boss will be cross, and you know what he's like when he's cross..."
So the Second Kidnapper picked up both Hiccup and Fishlegs and put them over his shoulders.
"You must be doing countings to a thousands before you is leavings this room," the First Kidnapper warned the class of openmouthed Viking boys. "Or we be killings these boys! You be tellings your Chief that Big-Boobied Bertha sends you her lovings and is giving you this letter."
The Kidnappers handed Wartihog a piece of paper addressed to Stoick.
Gobber the Belch had turned purple in the face. He was still stuck to the wall by his beard with the Kidnapper's axe. A beard was a Hooligan's pride and joy. The redder, the hairier, the tanglier the better, as far as the Hooligans were concerned. It was a terrible insult to lay so much as a finger on another Viking's beard -- let alone pin him to the wall with it.
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"REVENGE!" bellowed Gobber, trying to pull himself free from the axe but only succeeding in tearing out pieces of his precious beard. "CHIEF STOICK
THE VAST WILL DECLARE A BLOOD FEUD ON THE BOG-BURGLARS WHEN HE HEARS YOU HAVE STOLEN HIS HEIR AND RUINED MY BEARD!"
"These aren't Bog-Burglars," warned Hiccup. "Bog-Burglars are always women. These aren't women. Look! That one's bosom's just popped. These are Romans! Be sure and tell my father that --"
The First Kidnapper clapped a large hand over Hiccup's mouth. But he didn't need to. Gobber wasn't listening to Hiccup anyway. He had gone into a blood-rage just like Stoick ten minutes earlier.
"THE BOG-BURGLARS WILL RUE THE DAY THEY DARED TO MESS WITH THE BEARD OF GOBBER THE BELCH! MAKE NO MISTAKE, I'M GOING TO SEE THE CHIEF ABOUT THIS!"
"You be doings that," grinned the First Kidnapper, and the Kidnappers left the room, taking Hiccup and Fishlegs with them.
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9. WELCOME TO FORT SINISTER
The Kidnappers ran down the hillside with the boys bumping on their backs. They threw them into the bottom of their boat -- a small, clearly Roman ship with a very badly made Bog-Burglar flag flying from the mast.
The Kidnappers set sail in the opposite direction to the land of the Bog-Burglars.
"Where are we going?" moaned Fishlegs.
"My guess is next stop Fort Sinister," replied Hiccup.
"Your weedy friend she is right," sneered the First Kidnapper, removing his false beard. "You are havings the honor to be kidnapped by the glorious Empire of Rome, and we is takings you to the noble Fortress of Sinister."
"Yippee," said Fishlegs gloomily.
"You can be shuttings up now," said the First Kidnapper, and the boys shut up.
The wind was very strong. Within an hour they had left the safety of Woden's Bathtub and were
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entering the tricky currents and needle-sharp rocks of the Mazy Multitudes. This was a bewildering muddle of thousands of small islands some miles south of the Isle of Berk, many with gigantic sea cliffs. Its eerie atmosphere led most Vikings to believe it was haunted.
Huge black mountains with grim scrabbles of rock rose on either side of them. The greasy sea swirled underneath, with every now and then a pointy rock appearing out of nowhere in the mist, so that the Second Kidnapper had to swiftly steer the boat clear.
The closer they got to the Roman Headquarters, the less wildlife there was around them.
Woden's Bathtub had been alive with dragons of all shapes and sizes, screaming and catcalling to each other and skimming across the waves, keeping an eye out for fish. Seals slumbered fatly on the rocks. Birds wheeled in the skies, zooming down on any morsels of fish that went astray during dragon fights.
But as they neared the fort, the seas around them became a desert. Not a bird called, not a fish jumped. The reason for this was clear when they spotted two dead Slither hawks all tangled up in a gigantic net, hanging from a cliff face.
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"And they call US barbarians," sniffed Fishlegs. Hiccup began to feel a bit sick.
And then his heart skipped a beat. He could hear the sound of dragons screaming, the same noise that they had heard through the mist in Woden's Bathtub ... It was a sound that chilled the blood and frayed the nerves, like a sword being sharpened screechily on a stone. He swallowed hard. "I think we're about to meet the Romans," he said.
[Image: Buildings.]
Sure enough, the appalling hullabaloo of terrified
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and furious dragons grew louder and louder and louder ... then they rounded a corner and there before them, impossibly huge and spooky, stood Fort Sinister.
Their mouths flopped open in astonishment.
Vikings are used to fairly simple living conditions. A Chief just has a larger hut than anybody else. So they had never seen anything the size of Fort Sinister before.
The Island of Sinister was surrounded by enormous black cliffs plunging dizzily down to jagged
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rocks. On top of these cliffs the Romans had built the biggest fort you could possibly imagine, covering the entire island.
The wind shrieked through its awful towers and great grim cages, the sea seeped through its iron gates and into its terrible dungeons; it was a fort as black and bleak as the rocks it was made out of.
In the middle was the Consul's Palace, a gorgeous villa built around a central courtyard with an ornamental fountain. Next to the Palace was an enormous wooden amphitheater, and beyond that were the soldiers' barracks.
Countless numbers of dragons were being held in fifty enormous iron cages, with no shelter from the wild wind and bitter cold of the Inner Isles. No wonder they were screaming.
Beyond that were slaves' quarters and kitchens and exercise yards for the horses and training grounds for the gladiators and little temples for the gods and heated swimming baths for the Consul and senior soldiers and stores of ammunition and gigantic equipment for breaking a barricade and field after field of crops.
And this entire, massive area was encircled by
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high wooden fences, with watchtowers manned by sentries every hundred meters. Four enormous observation balloons sailed overhead. These balloons were powered by the flaming breath of a dragon kept in a cage just above the basket, and they were manned with more sentries, keeping a sharp eye out for escapees or invaders.
"WOW'' breathed Fishlegs at last. "No wonder the Romans have conquered most of the world. It's just amazing they haven't conquered US."
"Yet," said Hiccup grimly. "And what I'm worrying about is how on earth we're going to GET OUT of here."
The Kidnappers sailed right up to the wooden entrance gates. These were in themselves impossibly huge doors, larger than some of the sea cliffs on Berk. As they neared, there were cries from the sentries in the watchtowers and the great doors opened to let them in. They sailed through the open gates, right into the heart of the Fortress, and the doors shutting behind them were like the closing of a shark's mouth.
The Second Kidnapper gave the boys a glittering mile as they moored the boat.
"We is welcoming you to Fort Sinister," he said.
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[Image: Fort sinister]
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10
. THE SECRET IDENTITY OF THE THIN PREFECT
The Kidnappers threw the boys over their shoulders again and strode through several large courtyards, busy with soldiers and cooks and horses and people selling things to each other. They walked up some steps and through a door into a brightly lit, gorgeously painted room. This was the Consul's Palace. Tapestries hung from the walls, couches were draped in silken covers, the mosaic floor was warm and toasty underfoot.
The Romans certainly knew how to make themselves comfy.
In one corner of the room, the Fat Consul was having his tonsils tickled with a feather so he could vomit and fit in some more Monstrous Nightmare Crème Brûlée for pudding. In another, the Thin Prefect was having his temples massaged. He looked up when they came in and gave an "Aha!" of evil satisfaction.
At the Prefect's feet lay a particularly large Gronckle, a dragon about two meters high with a spiny ruff around its neck. When they came into the room it heaved its enormous bulk onto its thick muscly legs
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and an ominous growling began deep in its thick bull neck.
It leaped at the First Kidnapper, who dropped Fishlegs with a scream.
"Stop!" shouted the Thin Prefect in Dragonese. Very poor Dragonese, but Dragonese nonetheless. The Gronckle had grabbed the First Kidnapper by the leg in his immense jaws, and the First Kidnapper uselessly drummed his fists on the gigantic creature's great, warty back. The Gronckle had been enjoying itself, gnawing away at the Kidnapper's knee, its great tail lashing from side to side; but at the Thin Prefect's command it reluctantly stopped.