a knot that will not unravel.
The wrinkly old man standing just two feet away
from Hiccup, hadn’t he said those words to Hiccup
some time before? Long, long ago? Who was that dear
old man smiling at him so sweetly, willing him to do
well? Hiccup was sure that he recognised him, sure that
he remembered other things that old man had said to
him…
The only thing that limits us are the limits to our
imaginations…
The little green dragon jumped up and down on
Hiccup’s shoulder. ‘T-t-tell them, Hiccup! Tell them
why you should be King! Tell them who you are!’ The
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little dragon gently turned Hiccup’s face towards him,
so that Hiccup could look straight into his eyes.
‘But I can’t tell them who I am,’ whispered
Hiccup. ‘I don’t even know who you are…’
Toothless’s little face fell ludicrously. ‘What do
you mean, you don’t know who I am?
‘I’m T-t-toothless.’
As soon as Toothless said the words, Hiccup
remembered.
It was as if the words pulled the final string on the
knot, and the door to his memories swung open
He remembered another time, another place,
another Quest when Toothless was his hunting-dragon
for the very first time, and had stared into his eyes with
that hypnotic gaze of his.
Toothless.
His very own hunting-dragon.
He looked into those hurt greengage eyes and
whispered back, ‘Toothless…’
Toothless!
Cheeky, irrepressible Toothless, the naughtiest,
sweetest, most maddening dragon in the whole of the
wide Archipelago… He hugged the delighted little
wriggly dragon with a smile of happy recognition.
He looked around the crowd, and he
remembered them all…
Stoick, his father.
Valhallarama, his mother.
Old Wrinkly, Baggybum the Beerbelly,
Humungously Hotshot the Hero, the Ten Fiancés,
Alvin the Treacherous, the Witch Excellinor, and right
at the back of the ruined Hall, the Deadly Shadow
dragon with Camicazi and Fishlegs making thumbs-up
signs on his back… All companions or enemies, on so
many of his past Quests, all gazing at him with furious,
or loving eyes, hoping or dreading that he could
somehow alter the inevitable, change the course of
history, catch the axe of doom before it fell, as he had
once before on the Isle of Hysteria.*
He remembered his name, too. HICCUP.
His name was Hiccup. That was the job of a Hiccup,
wasn’t it?
*This happens in Book 4: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
To change the course of history.
And then with a sharp jolt, when Baggybum’s
eyes were upon him, Hiccup remembered that
Baggybum’s son Snotlout had died only two days ago, and
Baggybum did not know it. Hiccup gave a groan as he
was swamped and engulfed by the pain of that memory
returning…
Snotlout: laughing, arrogant, fearless fact-of-life
Snotlout, had with unimaginable bravery, laid down his
life in order that he, Hiccup, should live and become
the King.
The very least that Hiccup could do was to make
absolutely sure that Snotlout’s sacrifice was worth it.
He HAD to do this.
Hiccup swallowed.
He did not have the King’s Things…
But…
Somehow the crowding burst of memories
reminded him of the ten great Quests that had brought
him the ten Lost Things, although at the time he hadn’t
even realised he was collecting them, or that he was on
a Quest at all.
‘You are right,’ said Hiccup at last. His voice
trembled, because surely this would not be enough. ‘I
do come here with empty hands. I have none of the
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King’s Things. All I can tell you now is what I learnt in
the finding of them.’
‘He’s talking!’ squealed the Witch, in a panic.
‘Don’t let him TALK! You can’t let the clever little rat
talk his way out of this one…’
‘Here are just some of the things I learnt from the
Quests to find the Things,’ said Hiccup, ignoring her.
‘One, the search for the fang-free dragon taught
me that fear and intimidation might not be the best
way to train dragons.
‘Two, the sword: that sometimes second-best is
best.
‘Three, the shield: that sometimes freedom must
be fought for.
‘Four, the ticking-thing: that when you fight for
your friend, you are also fighting for yourself.
‘Five, the ruby heart’s stone: that love never dies.
‘Six, the arrow from the land-that-does-not-exist:
that you must make things right in the Old World
before you go looking for the New, and sometimes the
things that you are looking for are right here at home.
‘Seven, the key-that-opens-all-locks: that
accidents happen for a reason.
‘Eight, the Throne: that power can corrupt.
‘Nine, the Crown: that you have to keep on trying
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even though you are beaten before you even start.
‘And Ten, the Dragon Jewel,’ finished Hiccup.
‘You need to know what it is to be a slave, before you
can be a King.’
There was a long, long silence.
How strange it was that all these Quests, which
had seemed so unconnected at the time, wild goose
chases even, some of them, twisting and turning this
way and that like Hiccup’s lost boat, The Hopeful
Puffin, wobbling across the ocean in eccentric fashion.
How strange it was that when they were all added
up together, you could suddenly see them for what they
were.
The education of a King.
‘That’s quite clever, that is,’ said a lone
Quiet-Life.
‘It’s not clever at all! The important point here
is that Hiccup cannot be the King because he has NO
THINGS!’ hissed the Witch. ‘We’ve been through all
this before…
‘Hiccup may have acquired the Things in the first
place, but FATE has decreed that ALVIN should be
the King for excellent reasons. Look out there at our
beautiful world, burnt to a crisp!’
The Witch pointed a knobbly finger at the
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burning Archipelago. ‘The dragons are determined to
wipe us out, and only Alvin has the courage to use the
secret of the Jewel to defeat them. This boy is weak…
he would try to bargain with the Dragon Furious…’
‘The Dragon Furious is not a monster!’ shouted
Hiccup. ‘Maybe I could win him round! And even if all
ends in failure, is it not worth even trying to save the
dragons that we love?’
The Druid Guardian turned to the waiting,
watching crowds. ‘What say you, peoples of the
Archipelago?’
Barbara the Barbarian answered for so many of
the humans gathered there.
‘Once we would have followed you, Hiccup,’
she said. ‘In Prison Darkheart, many of us made that
pledge, and later I took the Dragonmark along with
many others. I hoped by your deeds, your Quests that
I had heard of, that you would be the Boy of Destiny
who would take us all into a new and glorious era…
‘But nearly another year of War has passed since
then. We have lost everything. The dragons have killed
our loved ones, destroyed our homes, uprooted whole
mountains,’ said Barbara. ‘They will not stop until we
are all dead. And even though I am a Viking…
I confess, I am afraid.’
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Barbara spoke for all of them. They were Vikings,
but they were afraid. Not just of losing their own lives,
but of losing their whole world.
‘In order to do what you want to do, Hiccup,’
Barbara finished with a kind of weary desperation,
‘Destiny would have to be on your side in a very big
way. Perhaps Alvin’s way is the only way now. And
perhaps that is why Destiny has given Alvin the King’s
Things.’
Do not be too hard on the peoples of the
Archipelago, dear reader. You cannot know how you
would react in the same situation, if put to the same
terrible test. They were homeless and hungry, and the
testing fires of War had burnt them so ragged that they
were not themselves any more. They had lost all hope
and arrived at a place of despair. And once you are in
that place of despair, it is harder to get out than you
might think.
The tired peoples of the Archipelago did not want
the extinction of dragons. They loved their dragons.
Until you have ridden on the back of a dragon, and
felt the wind through your hair, and seen the world laid
out beneath you in miniature, you haven’t really lived.
But…
Even though they were Vikings they were
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beginning to be afraid.
‘ALVIN FOR KING!’ roared a Danger-Brute.
‘ALVIN FOR KING!’ replied an angry
Bashem-Oik, and even the gentler Tribes, the
Quiet-lifes, the Meatheads, the Peaceables, they did
not cry out for Alvin, but they did not speak against
him either, because they were hungry and tired, and
desperate.
The look that the Druid Guardian gave Hiccup
was affectionate, if a terrifying blindfolded man could
ever be said to look affectionate.
‘You have learnt well the lessons of the finding
of the Things, boy.’ There was a yearning in the Druid
Guardian’s voice as if he would choose Hiccup, if he
were free to choose. ‘In times of peace, you might have
made a wonderful King. But in times of War, Kings
have to make difficult choices, have to do disagreeable
things in order to protect their people…’
I have said this many times before, because
important truths must be said more than once: maybe
we are lucky that we are not Kings and Heroes,
because we do not have to make the choices that Kings
and Heroes have to make.
‘I have to crown the King that Destiny and
Grimbeard the Ghastly have chosen,’ said the Druid
Guardian. ‘I have to have CONCRETE EVIDENCE
that Grimbeard intended you to be the King. And you
see, when all is said and done, you have no Things.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Hiccup urgently.
‘I HAVE to be the King. I HAVE to do it. You see,
Snotlout—’
‘Step aside, boy,’ said the Druid Guardian.
‘Is that all you’re going to do?’ raged Alvin. ‘Why
don’t you send down your Dragon Guardians to kill
him?’
The Druid Guardian pushed Hiccup aside, and
held wide his bat-wing arms.
‘COME GREAT POWERS OF DESTINY
AND DARKNESS!’ he cried.
11. GRIMBEARD’S LETTER
‘Excuse me!’
There was a scuffling at the back of the Hall. The
Guardians were trying to prevent a skinny boy who
looked like a daddy long legs from rushing up the aisle.
‘Excuse me, your Magnificence!’ shouted
Fishlegs, struggling in the Guardians’ grip.
‘Who is this who dares to interrupt our solemn
Ceremony for the second time?’ demanded the Druid
Guardian, a little crossly. ‘I’m trying to crown a King
here, for the first time in a hundred years!’
‘This is nobody! Nobody at all!’ screeched the
Witch. ‘He is just a runt like the Hiccup! We shouldn’t
listen to him…’
‘My name is Fishlegs No-Name, and I have
CONCRETE EVIDENCE that Hiccup is the King, in
the form of a letter written by Grimbeard the Ghastly
himself, written in his very own hand!’ shouted Fishlegs.
Suddenly it seemed as if Destiny might be
listening and taking a hand in the affairs of the humans
after all. A letter written by Grimbeard the Ghastly,
written in his very own hand!
‘You do?’ gasped Hiccup.
‘Let the boy approach the Throne!’ ordered the
Druid Guardian.
Trembling, Fishlegs came forward. He
took out the ragged remains of a letter from the
tattered lobster-pot that he had converted into his
Running-Away Suitcase*. A letter that had been torn
by dragons’ talons, burnt by volcano lava, drenched in
Slitherfang saliva, and been through all of Fishlegs’s
and Hiccup’s adventures with them, but somehow, like
Fishlegs and Hiccup themselves, it had survived, a little
raggedy and burnt at the edges, but more or less
intact.
‘Hiccup was going to leave this letter where we
*A letter which is printed in full at the very end of Book 2: How to Be a
Pirate, so exactly TEN BOOKS AGO, if you are an observant reader of
these stories.
found it in the underground Cavern with Grimbeard’s
Treasure,’ Fishlegs said, ‘but I secretly took it with me,
in case we ever needed to prove that Hiccup was the
true Heir to the Hooligan Tribe.’
Fishlegs adjusted his glasses so that he could see
out of the non-smashed parts. ‘This is the relevant bit
here,’ he said, reading from the letter. ‘Grimbeard the
Ghastly says:
‘A Dragon-whisperer can only really refer to
Hiccup, because Hiccup is the only one here who can
speak Dragonese.’
It was impressive evidence, there was no doubt
of it.
‘This boy Hiccup speaks Dragonese?’ exclaimed
the Druid Guardian in surprise.
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The listening crowd were moved, in spite of
their fear, in spite of their hunger, in spite of their
desperation. They swayed and whispered like a restless
sea. Grimbeard the Ghastly had been dreaming of an
Heir who was a Dragon-whisperer, a sword-fighter?
Was Hiccup really the Heir that Grimbeard had been
dreaming of? That would change everything! Mayb
e
there was a chance for a Boy-Who-Would-Be-King, if
Destiny was on his side?
‘Oooh, that is quite something…’ gasped
the crowd. ‘It’s a good point… Hiccup does speak
Dragonese… that’s a very unusual skill…’
‘Don’t be impressed!’ hissed the Witch. ‘Alvin can
speak Dragonese just as well as the Hiccup-boy. And
Hiccup hasn’t harnessed the power of Thor’s thunder,
apart from anything else, that wouldn’t be possible…’
‘Yes he has!’ argued Fishlegs hotly. ‘One time
when Norbert the Nutjob chased Hiccup up the mast
of the ship we were sailing, Hiccup got one of Thor’s
lightning bolts to strike Norbert’s axe of Doom at
absolutely the right moment!’*
Harnessing Thor’s thunder! That was quite
something, wasn’t it?
‘Well if that is all harnessing Thor’s thunder is,
anyone could do it!’ raged the Witch. ‘All you have to
*You can read about this in Book 7: How to Ride a Dragon’s Storm.
do is go out in a storm carrying something pointy!’
But nobody was listening.
‘I remember, that lightning-bolt was when Hiccup
went to the Land-that-doesn’t-exist and rescued us
from slavery!’ called out a little Wanderer named
Bearcub from the back of the crowd. ‘I was there! That
was when Hiccup saved my life!’
‘And mine, he saved mine too!’ shouted his elder
sister Eggingarde, and a chorus of other Wanderer
voices. ‘And mine! And mine! And mine!’
‘Oh no!’ hissed the Witch, looking round
anxiously at the crowd. Oh no… Not again… ‘Oh no….’
But it was too late.
There was a murmur of appreciation from the
listening crowds of Vikings, and they began to whisper
to one another…
‘That’s clever, that thing about the lightning-bolt.
Very clever…’
‘Wasn’t that when Hiccup won the Inter-Tribal
Swimming-Race? He was the only person to keep
swimming for three whole months and the last person
to do that of course, was Grimbeard the Ghastly
himself…’
‘Do you think it could be a sign?’
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