just waking from it.
There they all sat, mourning the past, enjoying
the present, and planning hopefully for the future.
Come close before we leave them, take my hand,
and hover above them, as if we were a couple of
nanodragons, and you can hear them still.
‘Ah, Snotlout, I am so proud of him,’ sighed
Baggybum the Beerbelly, tears rolling down his face.
‘What a boy, what a fine, fine boy…’
‘He was the greatest student I ever had,’ replied
Gobber the Belch. ‘To get a Black Star for courage
when he was only fifteen years old! It’s unheard of…’
‘The Dragon Furious… I wish you could have
seen him when he was young, in Hiccup the Second’s
time…’ the Wodensfang was telling any of the dragons
who would listen.
‘Now that my old Hut has burnt down,’ said
Stoick the Vast to Mogadon the Meathead, gulping
down his supper with such relish that a lot of it was
ending up in his beard, ‘I intend to build the largest
Chiefly Hut on Berk that this Archipelago has ever
seen.’ And he drew his Plans for this great building
with a stick in the ash in front of them.
‘T-t-toothless fought the Dragon Furious
all on his own using his SPECIAL POWERS,’
Toothless boasted to Stormfly. ‘The Dragon Furious
was terrified when Toothless suddenly t-t-turned
invisible in a big puff of black smoke and poured out
his poisonous darts and let rip his lasers and exploded
his rockets and…’
Toothless and the rest of the Ten Companions of
the Dragonmark were gathered around King Hiccup on
his Stone, Old Wrinkly smoking his pipe close beside
them.
‘You can have your lobster necklace back, if you
like, Fishlegs. I don’t need the luck anymore, now Alvin
has gone,’ said Hiccup.
‘Can you think of anything nice about Alvin at
all?’ asked Fishlegs rather wistfully.
‘He was INVENTIVE,’ said Hiccup kindly.
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‘That’s true,’ said Fishlegs in excitement. ‘He was
inventive, wasn’t he? That might be good for my poetry.
And he was a distant cousin of yours, Hiccup, so that
means we are related, which is good…
‘Also, Alvin did get worse, didn’t he, over the
years?’ said Fishlegs. ‘He didn’t start out quite so bad
as when he ended up. Maybe we could have saved him
if we had got there in time.’
‘That’s true,’ said Hiccup. ‘He wasn’t so bad
when he was just Alvin the Poor-but-Honest-Farmer.
But I have to admit, Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup gently, ‘that
even back then, it was already too late for Alvin.
I remember the first swordfight I ever had with him,
he said: “The Treasure has got me, and I like being
got,” and that wasn’t a good sign if you think about
it…’*
‘It’s typical,’ said Fishlegs. ‘Fifteen years looking
for your father and he turns out to be the meanest
man in the entire Archipelago. There is absolutely NO
WAY I am calling myself Fishlegs the Treacherous.’
‘Maybe you could turn that name around.
Like when the Slavemark became the Dragonmark,’
suggested Camicazi.
‘Nothing can turn that name around,’ said
Fishlegs. ‘Nobody’s going to say: “Have you met
*You can read about this in Book 2: How to Be a Pirate.
Fishlegs the Treacherous, he’s such a nice guy” are
they?
‘I’m starting my own Tribe,’ said Fishlegs firmly.
‘It’s called the No-Name Tribe. Shadow has already
joined. And we have some great new mottos, don’t we
Shadow? “Be of Good Cheer, ALL Welcome here” and
“We are all Kind, None Left Behind”.’
‘But that’s just what I want to do with this new
Kingdom of the Wilderwest!’ said Hiccup
enthusiastically. ‘“None Left Behind”! No more slavery.
People like the the Quiet-Lifes, and the Peaceables,
and the Wanderers all having their say at the Thing…
‘And you and Camicazi shall be the first Warriors
of my Wilderwest. And when I have my first Warrior
Ceremony, I shall give you an extra name to add
to your own: Fishlegs the Faithful, Chief of the
No-Names.’
Hiccup put his hand on Fishlegs’s shoulder, as if
he were naming him already.
‘And Camicazi the Courageous, Heir to the
Bog-Burglars… First Warriors of the Wilderwest…’
As Hiccup put his hand on Camicazi’s shoulder,
Camicazi turned red as a beetroot.
‘And T-t-toothless is not going to hide,’ said
Toothless to Hiccup. ‘T-t-toothless and Hiccup will
454
never leave each other.’
‘Never,’ agreed Hiccup. ‘I will never give you
up, and you will never give me up. I hope that whole
hiding-thing will never have to happen, Toothless.
And it would only be right at the end of my life, if
at all. This is a whole new beginning. The Witch is
dead, Alvin is dead… Peace has begun, and a whole
new world is starting.’
At that very moment, like a bird of peace,
Horrorcow came flapping up from the direction
of Berk. Horrorcow was Fishlegs’s vegetarian
hunting-dragon.
‘Horrorcow!’ said Fishlegs, hugging her in
delight, ‘Where HAVE you been?’
Hiccup grinned and translated for Horrorcow.
‘She says she doesn’t like Wars and she’s been hiding
underground on Berk until it was all over.
‘You see!’ said Hiccup triumphantly. ‘It’s a sign!
War is over, and Horrorcow is our bird of peace. Our
dragon of peace, if you like.
‘EVERYTHING will
change from this moment
on!’
‘Ah, will it?’ wheezed
Old Wrinkly, puffing on
his pipe in an interested
fashion.
‘Anyway,’ said Fishlegs,
‘I’ve finished my Quest
to find out who my parents are, and even though it
didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted, I can now
concentrate on new horizons. LOVE to be exact.’
Fishlegs was writing a poem to Barbara the
Barbarian.
‘I thought you were in love with Tantrum
O’UGerly?’ snorted Camicazi. ‘I thought you said after
Tantrum married Humungously Hotshot the Hero, you
would Never Love Again…’
‘Yes, well, that was before I saw Barbara the
Barbarian,’ said Fishlegs, sharpening a piece of
charcoal on the edge of Hiccup’s Stone. ‘Can you think
of anything that rhymes with muscles?’
‘How about brussels?’ suggested Hiccup. ‘As in
“brussel sprouts”?’
‘This is a love poem,’ said Fishlegs crossly. ‘I can’t
start whiffling on about not-very-nice vegetables in the
middle of a love poem!’
His expression suddenly changed.
‘Oh my goodness! Barbara’s looking in our
direction!’ he squeaked.
‘She’s moving! She’s coming our way! Be cool,
everybody! Be cool!’
‘Hi guys,’ said Barbara the Barbarian. Her black
cat Fearless miaowed threateningly as she walked
past, followed by her six bodyguards and her frowning
father, Ballistic, the hairiest, scariest Chieftain in the
Northern Archipelago.
Fishlegs turned red as a sunset, and then pale as
a piece of chalk, and then white with bright pink spots,
as even this very brief encounter with Barbara’s cat had
given him an instant allergic reaction.
458
He gurgled something that was intended to be
suavely charming, but in fact sounded something like
‘Urrgghghhh…’
Then he tried to itch his face, forgot he was
holding the charcoal, accidentally shoved it up his nose,
and fainted on the spot.
Barbara the Barbarian looked over her shoulder
at him in a puzzled sort of way, saying to her nearest
bodyguard, ‘Who is that weird boy? What has he got up
his nose, and why does he keep falling asleep?’
‘Wow, Fishlegs, you’re a real sweet-talker,’ said
Camicazi. ‘Fainting and itching and shoving charcoal
up your nose, that is the way to impress a Viking
Warrior-princess.’
‘Do you think she might love me back?’ said
Fishlegs, getting to his feet, removing the charcoal and
scratching himself violently .
‘Hmmm,’ said Camicazi, pretending to think.
‘SHE is a six-foot Amazonian daughter of a Chief,
permanently attached to a murderous feline and
well-known for her bare-knuckle fighting skills…
While YOU are an unknown bard-in-training at least
three years younger than she is, who faints dead away
whenever he talks to her, and who is, to top it all off,
completely allergic to CATS. You’re made for each
459
other! This is Fate! It’s written in the stars!’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Fishlegs anxiously.
‘NO!’ laughed Camicazi. ‘Face it, Fishlegs… You
have NO HOPE.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ said Fishlegs,
resettling his glasses sadly on his nose. ‘Never mind,
being unlucky in love is good for my poetry.’
‘Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup, suddenly uneasy,
‘remember what happened when you fell in love with
Tantrum O’UGerly? Her homicidal maniac of a father
sent me on that mission to the forest of Berserk, where
I accidentally released the Dragon Furious.’
‘You can’t blame this whole Dragon Rebellion on
me!’ objected Fishlegs.
‘I’m just saying,’ said Hiccup patiently, ‘don’t you
think you should try and fall in love with somebody
who doesn’t have six bodyguards and a father who is a
homicidal maniac this time? I have this nasty feeling
that this is going to get us into trouble all over again…’
‘You can’t choose who you fall in love with,’ said
Fishlegs, opening wide his arms enthusiastically. ‘Love
just happens!’
A little crowd of girls came up to the Stone –
Camicazi’s old team of Bog-Burglar Escape Artists.
Sporta, Typhoon, Harrietahorse and Beefburger – all
460
giggling and blushing and punching each other.
‘We were just wondering if the King wanted to
dance with us?’ asked Harrietahorse, giggling in what
Camicazi felt was a very irritating fashion.
‘The King is BUSY,’ said Camicazi firmly,
drawing her sword for emphasis. ‘He’s doing important
Royal Business. With ME. Go on there, SHOO!’
And the girls scrambled away, for no one wanted
to get on the wrong end of Camicazi’s sword.
Camicazi nodded her head darkly. ‘It’s a bad
business, this “love” business, a bad, bad business…’
462
‘So things are going to change, are they?’ said
Old Wrinkly, his eyes bright with amusement. ‘Peace
will break out? Civilisation will appear, just like that?
You don’t think that maybe, a little like love, life just
happens?’
Sitting on his Stone, King Hiccup looked out at
his subjects, feeling suddenly a little uneasy.
Everything had begun as merrily as anything, but
even on a night as glorious as this one, you couldn’t put
all of the Tribes of the Archipelago in one ruined Castle
all together without the odd argument breaking out.
A little way away, Bertha of the Bog-Burglars was
boasting about how she could fly from the mainland to
the Castle on Tomorrow in less than ten minutes on the
back of her new Bullrougher, and Valhallarama said
she could do it in nine on the Phantom, and Bertha
said: ‘Would you like to make a small bet on that,
Valhallarama?’
And Mogadon the Meathead
was kneeling in front of
Stoick the Vast’s Plans
for his new Chiefly
Hut, looking for easy
points of access,
for he was
already making his
own Plans for future
Burglary and Raiding
expeditions that he would be
making to the little Isle of Berk…
And Tantrum was in a sulk with
Humungously Hotshot the Hero, because Valhallarama
was there, and Valhallarama had been Humungous’s
first, lost love.
‘But of course I love you more, Tantrum my
darling!’ said Humungously Hotshot the Hero gallantly,
down on his knees before her. ‘She may have been my
first love, but you are my last. How can I prove my love
to you? I will get you anything! Anything you want!
I will tear down the sky for you. I will bring you the
moon… ’
Tantrum tossed her hair petulantly. ‘OK then,’
said Tantrum. ‘You can steal me that Hogfly. I’ve always
wanted a Hogfly.’ And she pointed at the Hogfly being
petted on Very-Vicious the Visithug’s lap.
Humungously Hotshot swallowed. ‘Does it have
to be THAT particular Hogfly, Tantrum my sweetest?’
And up in the Castle’s ruined turrets, a dragon
464
fight was breaking out, entirely caused by Toothless
and Stormfly, who had worked out a brilliant new
method of stealing food from dragons larger than
themselves which involved Stormfly biting their
bottoms and Toothless waiting on the other side
for them to drop their food out of their mouths in
surprise.
Effective, but troublemaking.
‘I think,’ said Old Wrinkly, smoking his pipe
comfortably, ‘that you are going to need all those
lessons of kingship that you have learnt so painfully
over the last couple of years, Hiccup.
‘What was the first one again? Lesson number
1, the search for the fang free dragon: that dragons
can be trained without fear and intimidation…
‘Back then you were just trying to train one
sma
ll disobedient dragon. Now, you will be trying
to train an entire disobedient nation.’
Oh thank you, Old Wrinkly, very helpful.
465
‘OK,’ said Hiccup slowly, looking out over
his quarrelling, fighting, stormy new citizens of the
Wilderwest. ‘We can’t expect them all to change
OVERNIGHT, can we? Civilisation will take time…
They are Vikings, after all.
‘And now I come to think of it,’ said Hiccup
thoughtfully, ‘perhaps until they get used to this Peace
business it is quite a good idea that most of these
Vikings will be going home to their different islands
tomorrow.
‘In the meantime, I know what will stop them
arguing… Barbara,’ said Hiccup now, ‘could I borrow
your foghorn?’
King Hiccup stood
up on his Stone, and blew
the foghorn as hard as he
could. The thrilling sound of
the fog-horn, when blown at
full-blast, was so magnetically
loud that it hit the ears like an
electric shock. It sent the hairs on
the back of the neck electrically
upwards, and the old ear-drums
jangling. Even in the midst of their
fighting, the dragons and the humans paused, as if
turned to stone by the noise.
‘Citizens of the Wilderwest!’ yelled Hiccup the
Third. ‘I remind you that this is a CELEBRATION
– the Celebration of the Black Star – not a time for
fighting!’
The various combatants, dragon and human,
moved apart guiltily.
‘I suggest we SING!’ said King Hiccup the Third.
‘Sing our hearts out, every old Archipelago song that
we know! Beginning with the Hooligan National
Anthem!’
The Vikings thought that this was an excellent
idea, and fighting turned to singing in the magic of an
instant.
‘I didn’t mean to come here…
And I didn’t mean to sta-a-ay…
But I lost my heart to these rainy bogs…
And I’ll ne-e-ever go awa-a-ay!’
All of the Vikings joined in, their melodic voices rising
up with such beauty that it brought tears to the eyes.
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 25
