Stoick had finished his oysters before Hiccup had even started his, and was looking at his son’s oysters, his mouth watering. His hands reached out for a particularly plump one . . .
. . . and Humungous shouted out, “DON’T EAT THAT OYSTER!”
Stoick looked at Humungous with Royal Disapproval. This guy was going TOO FAR this time. He’d got the whole Hooligan Tribe all decked out like girlies, and now he was trying to tell Stoick what to eat.
“I SHALL EAT WHATEVER OYSTER I LIKE!” roared Stoick the Vast, bringing the oyster up to his mouth. Humungous reached out and made a grab for the oyster.
Stoick the Vast hung on in fury. There was an undignified scuffle, and Humungous had to swallow the oyster himself to prevent Stoick from eating it.
“RIGHT, THAT’S IT!” boomed Stoick the Vast, rather relieved, actually, to have hit on an excuse to sack the irritatingly perfect Humungous. “YOU’RE FIRED!” Humungous finished swallowing. “Bad oyster . . . very bad oyster . . .” he gulped. “I could tell just by looking at it . . .”
“WOW!” gasped Hiccup. “He just saved YOUR life, now, Father. He ate the bad oyster that you would have eaten! What a Hero!”
“Oh, yes, very good . . .” mumbled Stoick gruffly, thinking, just by looking at it, who is this maddening superman?
“So he’s not fired, is he, Father?” said Hiccup anxiously.
“No, I guess not,” said Stoick, thinking, curses.
“In fact, perhaps you should give him a MEDAL or something. Are you feeling all right, Humungous? You’re looking awfully green.”
“I think perhaps I should just have a little lie-down . . . for a moment, you know,” said Humungous, and he staggered out of the room, leaning on Hiccup’s shoulder, with Hiccup chattering all the time, “that was SO BRAVE, Humungous, and how could you tell it was bad, is it like mushrooms or something? I do hope you’re going to be all right . . .”
Stoick pushed the oysters moodily away from him. He had quite lost his appetite.
Humungous was thoroughly ill for the next two days.
Which was just fine, as far as Stoick was concerned.
During this time, all the other Tribes began to arrive at the Meeting which the Vikings called The Thing, held to celebrate the midsummer Festival known as Sun’sday Sunday.
The Bog-Burglars, the Meatheads, the Peaceables, the Grim-bods, the Bashem Oiks, the Silents and the Glums, the Terrormongers, and the Frothifists.
Everybody, in fact, apart from the Outcasts, the Rudeboys, and the Lava-Louts, who were a totally lost cause.
Soon Hooligan Harbor was absolutely crammed with Viking ships, and the tiny island of Berk was jam-packed with tents of all colors of the rainbow. Market traders had set up shop in the sweltering, baking heat, trading ship-fulls of stuff, from octopus lollipops to hunting bugles, to open-toed sandals, to dragon-skin bootees for your Viking baby who has everything.
The night before Sun’sday Sunday, Hiccup lay awake in the suffocating warmth for what seemed like ages and ages, as floating in through the window came the sounds of the Bashem-Oiks and the Bog-Burglars partying, and the shriek and scratch of dragon-fights.
Down at Hiccup’s feet, Toothless lay awake too, his claws stuck into his ears, wriggling and complaining, so wafting up in a muffled way from underneath the sheet came the sound of “Issssssssss r-r-ridiculous, R-R-IDICULOUS . . . b-b-barbarians . . . H-h-humans . . . s-s-so noisy . . . so s-s-selfish . . .”
But after a while the bedclothes fell silent, and the only sign of Toothless’s presence was a warm little mound at Hiccup’s feet that gently rose and fell, and the odd soft sleep-filled murmur of “Isss r-r-ridiculous,” accompanied by a little indignant smoke ring that crept out from under the sheet.
Hiccup watched the smoke rings as they rose up to the ceiling, or drifted slowly out the window into the sultry star-crammed night, and eventually he, too, fell asleep.
He dreamed uneasily, of fire, and omens, and dragons with talons like swords that pursued him through the hot feverish night.
In the middle of the night, Hiccup woke up with a silent scream.
There, standing beside the bed, stood the terrible figure of Humungously Hotshot, standing over Hiccup like an Executioner, his two swords raised, poised to come down on Hiccup, his head in darkness.
He was muttering to himself loudly, in a voice that was awful to hear. “Should I do it? Should I NOT? Should I do it? Should I NOT?”
“What are you doing?” asked Hiccup in terror. “Bardiguard . . . STOP! What are you doing? Humungous! Humungous!”
Humungous appeared not to hear him. He went on talking to himself, in that awful voice, over and over again, something about a promise he had to keep.
He was wearing the hood of his Fire Suit rolled down, so you couldn’t see his face, or his eyes, which made it more awful still, and the moonlight glittered on the razor-sharp metal of his swords.
It was a dreadful moment.
Humungous’s hands were shaking.
He brought them down.
He stopped them.
“I should NOT,” said Humungous, with decision.
Something shot out from the sheet and bit Humungous heavily on the thigh with sharp, sleepy little gums.
Humungous let out a cry of pain and dropped one of his swords on his foot.
“ISSS R-R-RIDICULOUS!” snorted Toothless, sleep-flapping round the room for a bit. “CAN’T A D-D-DRAGON GET ANY S-S-SLEEP AROUND HERE? YOU HUMANS SO N-N-NOISY! SO SELFISH! KEEPING POOR T-T-TOOTHLESS AWAKE ALL NIGHT . . .”
Toothless then crawled back under the covers and dropped off to sleep again.
Hiccup leapt out of bed, grabbing his sword from his scabbard as he did so.
Humungous hopped around the room holding his foot and his thigh.
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow . . .” cried Humungous.
The moment had passed.
All the fight had gone out of Humungous.
He peeled off the hood of his Fire Suit, and now that Hiccup could see him in the moonlight, he didn’t look scary anymore.
He was still rather green from his illness and he looked very tired.
“I can’t do it,” said Humungous. “I gave my solemn, Hero’s promise that I would kill you, but I can’t do it. It doesn’t feel right . . .”
“So you mean,” said Hiccup in astonishment, “you’re my Bardiguard, and you’ve been trying to kill me?”
“That’s right,” said Humungous. “I made a promise.”
Hiccup gave a slightly hysterical laugh.
Somehow it was very like Stoick to accidentally hire a Bardiguard who was supposed to be looking after his son, but was, in fact, trying to kill him.
“But WHO did you promise to kill me for?” whispered Hiccup. “And why?”
Humungously Hotshot sighed. “I see I will have to tell you my story,” he said.
And in the quiet stifling darkness of the night-time (for even the Bog-Burglars and the Bashem-Oiks had fallen asleep by now), Humungous the Bardiguard began to tell his tale.
7. THE TALE OF HUMUNGOUSLY HOTSHOT THE BARDIGUARD
“A long, long time ago, it seems like a lifetime away now,” said Humungously Hotshot, “I was happy. I was a young Hero who fell in Love with a beautiful young woman.”
“Uh-huh,” said Hiccup cautiously. He wasn’t very interested in stories about Love.
“Oh, but she was beautiful!” sighed the Bardiguard. “Her lovely fat, white, muscly legs! Her thunderous thighs! Her soft little beard! Her excellent sword-arm!”
“Yes, yes,” said Hiccup hurriedly. “Do get on with it.”
“She loved me back (or so I thought), but her father had some ridiculous idea that she should marry somebody CLEVER , I have no idea why THAT was important, so he set me an Impossible Task, which, if I completed, the reward would be her hand in marriage.
“The Impossible Task he set me,” said Humungously Hotshot, “was to steal the Fire-Stone from Lava-Lout Island, and the reason that this i
s impossible is that the Lava-Louts have been looking for the Fire-Stone for many many years.
“Before I set off on the Impossible Task, my Love and I met in secret. My little double-chinned Sweetheart had a singularly beautiful ruby, shaped like a heart, that she always wore around her neck. She had cut this ruby in half, and she gave one half to me, and kept the other.
“‘Go on this Quest if you must,’ whispered my Darling. ‘But I have an awfully bad feeling about this, and if by any chance you happen to be captured by those pigs-in-pajamas, the Lava-Louts, just send this ruby to me in the mouth of Xellence, your hunting dragon, and I will come to rescue you.’
“My Love, you see, was not half bad at Questing herself.
“I promised her, and rode off on my white dragon to carry out the Impossible Task, but by terrible bad Fortune I got caught by the Lava-Louts, just as my Love had feared, and my white dragon and I were thrown into chains, and into a jail on Lava-Lout Island.
“Even worse luck, my faithful hunting dragon, Xellence, was killed during the Quest, and so I could not send the half-a-heart ruby to tell her I needed rescuing.
“For a couple of months I worked in those Lava Jail Mines, utterly in despair. And then I made friends with this prison guard. His name was Terrific Al. He was such a nice guy, Hiccup. So smiley and sympathetic. I told him my story, and I asked him to take the ruby heart to my ladylove and explain that I needed her to come and spring me from jail as quick as her dear, fat little legs could carry her.”
Humungously Hotshot’s voice deepened and saddened. His face looked green and ill in the moonlight.
“Terrific Al said that he would do this for me, if I promised to do him a favor at some point in the future. He took the ruby heart and I waited in hope, Hiccup, in the heat of the mines, peering out of my barred window in the nighttime, yearning for her to come. Days turned to Months. Months turned to Years. Hope turned to Despair. She never came. Fifteen years I waited, Hiccup. Fifteen years. And then, a couple of months ago, imagine my surprise when Terrific Al turned up on Lava-Lout Island as a prison guard again. One night he sought me out, and he told me what had happened to my ruby heart.”
Humungous’s voice was so quiet now that Hiccup could hardly hear it.
“Terrific Al told me that he had taken the ruby to my Love, and told her that I was captured and needed rescuing. And to his surprise, my dearest Darling, who had sworn the solemnest oath of True Love For Ever, took that ruby heart and THREW IT OUT OF THE WINDOW AND INTO THE SEA. And as she did this, she said these heartless words:
“‘There,’ she said. ‘I already threw out the other half when I heard Humungously Hotshot had FAILED in his Impossible Task. I have found another Lover, who has already brought me the Fire-Stone, and I am going to marry HIM .’”
“No!” cried Hiccup. “How terrible of her!”
Humungous nodded sadly. “Yes, I have never forgotten the words which Terrific Al repeated that day. They will remain with me as long as I live. And from that moment on, Hiccup, I vowed that I was through with Love.”
“I don’t blame you!” said Hiccup.
And then a truly awful thought struck Hiccup, a thought that had Hiccup’s heart sinking within his chest like half a ruby heart’s stone sinking to the bottom of a seabed.
Suddenly he had a horrible feeling that he knew a way that this story might be going, a dreadful, snaking, corner coming up, a Twist in the Bardiguard’s Tale.
“Um,” asked Hiccup nervously, really, really not sure that he wanted to know the answer to this question, “what was the NAME of your ladylove, exactly?”
“My Ex-Ladylove,” corrected Humungous. “The name of my Treacherous Ladylove was . . .
. . . Valhallarama.”
Valhallarama was Hiccup’s mother.
8. THE TWIST IN THE BARDIGUARD’S TALE
“No,” whispered Hiccup. “It’s not true . . .”
“Yes,” replied Humungous, sighing, “I’m afraid it is. And the story gets worse.”
“How can it get worse?” asked Hiccup through white lips.
“Your father did manage to steal the Stone. He found it INSIDE the Volcano, which was why the Lava-Louts had never discovered it before, despite digging holes all over the island. But what Al told me was that the Fire-Stone released certain chemicals that kept the Volcano dormant. Without these chemicals, over the last fifteen years, the Volcano has become more and more active, until finally, RIGHT NOW, it is ready to blow.”
Hiccup sat lost in thought.
While they were talking, the blackness at the window had turned to grey and then to turquoise, and the sun was coming up fast on what would be another roasting day.
“This Terrific Al of yours,” asked Hiccup, “what is he doing now?”
“Well, he’s gone a bit bananas, since you mention it,” admitted Humungous. “But then the poor chap has had a difficult time of it.”
Humungous returned to his Tale.
“Shortly after Terrific Al returned as a prison guard, and as the rumbles from the Volcano were growing louder and louder, the Exterminators did start to hatch. The Lava-Louts abandoned the island, and left us prisoners to fend for ourselves, and we too made a bolt for it. All except for Terrific Al. He’s got this wild idea in his head that he’s going to TRAIN these creatures. He’s built these gigantic statues all over the island, and he seems to think that when the Exterminators hatch they will think that he is their Leader, and will do everything he says.”
“And what is he going to do with the Exterminators once he’s trained them?” asked Hiccup.
“Good Works, he says,” replied Humungous, shaking his head in admiration. “He thinks he’s going to stop them from killing everything in sight. Oh he’s a lovely, lovely guy, that Terrific Al, even if he is as mad as loon. Well, I tried to persuade him to leave with me but he wouldn’t. And that was when he asked me to do the favor that I had promised him all those many years ago.”
“What was the favor?” asked Hiccup.
“To kill YOU,” replied Humungously Hotshot. “He said you were this PRINCE OF DARKNESS, a Devil Child, who would grow up to bring untold evil on the Archipelago. He said you had fed him to this Monstrous Strangulator that made all his hair fall out . . . And thrown him out of a balloon into a sea full of Ravenous Sharkworms . . .”
“That was all HIS fault!” protested Hiccup, who was beginning to put two and two together.
“But as I have gotten to know you, over the last couple of weeks, I have gradually begun to think that he must be mistaken about you,” said Humungous. “I tried to kill you, but I kept on saving you at the last minute. At first I thought it must just be my Heroic Impulses kicking in, but then I realized — I like you, Hiccup.”
“Thank you,” said Hiccup.
“And I’m not angry with you about what happened. I’m not even angry with her . . . well, maybe just a little bit . . .” admitted Humungous, “and why she had to marry that barbarian, Stoick, I will never know . . .”
“That’s my father you’re talking about!” warned Hiccup, “and he has many excellent qualities, once you get to know him.”
“Well, I hate to let good old Al down,” said Humungous, “but you seem to me like a Good Egg, and I think that Al has just got off on the wrong foot with you.”
“What does he LOOK like, this Terrific Al of yours?” asked Hiccup, already sure that he knew the answer.
“Fifteen years ago when I first met him he was extremely handsome,” replied Humungous. “Tall, dark, took very good care of his moustache even in jail conditions. And he had all of his LIMBS at the time, which does help. Now . . . he’s not so pretty. Bald, put a bit of weight on, a hook instead of a hand, a stump instead of a leg, a patch instead of an eye —”
“ALVIN THE TREACHEROUS, AS I LIVE AND BREATHE!” interrupted Hiccup. “You gave your ruby heart’s stone to ALVIN THE TREACHEROUS!!!”
Alvin the Treacherous was Hiccup’s arch-enemy, and the wickedest, most da
ngerous man in the Archipelago. Hiccup had assumed he was dead when he fell into the sea with those Sharkworms, but Alvin was a difficult man to kill.
This meant that Valhallarama was not the traitor that Humungous thought her. Alvin would NEVER have delivered that ruby heart’s stone. He would have pocketed it himself, and then made up all those wicked lies that he told Humungous about her throwing it into the ocean.
“Alvin the Who?” asked Humungous blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alvin the Treacherous is the evilest man in the Archipelago,” said Hiccup.
“Now, then, that’s not fair. Al has got you wrong, Hiccup, but you must admit, who can blame him, what with the Sharkworm incident and everything,” said Humungous. “I just know if you guys could get together you would really get along.”
Hiccup sat thinking, wondering what he should do next.
“Now I understand why Old Wrinkly is sitting at the bottom of that hole,” said Hiccup.
“Who is Old Wrinkly?” asked Humungous.
“Old Wrinkly is Valhallarama’s father,” said Hiccup, “and my grandfather. He must have been the one who set you the Impossible Task of finding the Fire-Stone.”
“HA!” said Humungous bitterly. “This whole mess is his fault in the first place!”
“Well, he obviously feels that too,” said Hiccup. “About a month or so ago, he started talking about some DOOM coming on all of us, and how it was all his fault because he had interfered with Fate. And then he said he was going to take a Vow of Silence and sit in a hole until the whole thing was over, for good or worse, so he couldn’t interfere again.
“None of us took a lot of notice at the time,” said Hiccup, “because Old Wrinkly can be a little eccentric, but suddenly it’s all crystal clear. I’m going to go and get his advice. Which will be tricky, because he has taken a Vow of Silence, but I have to try.” Hiccup woke up Toothless, put the sleepy little dragon on his shoulder, and turned to Humungous. “Are you coming? You are still my Bardiguard.”
Humungous blushed. “Are you sure you still want me to be your Bardiguard?”