STORY
‘The Doomsday of Yule is in three days’ time,’ said
Snotlout. ‘And you are running out of time. I am
presuming you have an agreement with Valhallarama
that she will steal the nine Lost Things off Alvin, and
then she will meet you on the Singing Sands of the
Ferryman’s Gift on Doomsday Eve and hand them
over?’
‘That’s a very clever guess of yours, Snotlout,’
said Hiccup quietly. ‘My mother said all we had to do
was stay in hiding, and meet her there on Doomsday
Eve.’
‘Well,’ said Snotlout, ‘Alvin’s underground war
bunker is hidden somewhere so clever, so secret,
that Valhallarama and Stoick will never find it even
if they search for a hundred years. So your mother
Valhallarama and the Dragonmarkers have failed in
their Quest to steal the other nine Lost Things from
Alvin.’
There was a short, depressed silence.
‘Why should we believe you, Snotlout?’ asked
Fishlegs. ‘You could be lying. Valhallarama could
already have the other nine Things, and you could
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be sent here by the witch. If you joined our side, why
didn’t you get the Dragonmark?’
‘Hiccup isn’t the only one who uses his head, you
know, Fish-eggs,’ replied Snotlout. ‘I thought I might
be more use to the Company of the Dragonmark if I
appeared to be working for the other side.’
Stormfly gave a quick soft hiss of reluctant
approval. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Cunning and Trickery. Good
thinking.’ And then, remembering it was Snotlout
speaking, she frowned again. ‘If it’s true, of course.’
‘So I pretended to be on the witch and Alvin’s
side,’ said Snotlout.
‘I let them take me to their hideout. I found out
where they were keeping the Things, and ran away
to find you guys. I used this ridiculous Hogfly dragon
here to help me track you down. Hogflys may be
unbelievably stupid, but they are the best scent-dragons
in the world. I camped on a frozen lake upriver, the
lake must have unfrozen in the night, the Wolf-fangs
chased me… And that’s when you found me.’
‘If you know where the Lost Things are,’ asked
Fishlegs suspiciously, ‘why didn’t you steal them
yourself, when you escaped from Alvin’s war bunker?’
‘I couldn’t do it on my own,’ explained Snotlout.
‘The Things are guarded, and the Throne is heavy.
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You lot are useless, of course, but I have to admit,
your camouflaged-so-it-is-invisible and humungously
enormous three-headed Deadly Shadow Dragon will
come in useful in a burglary situation.
‘Together we can steal back the Things,’
continued Snotlout, ‘and even rescue that horrible
little Bog-Burglar Camicazi. We can be at the beach
at Hero’s Gap on Doomsday Eve, with all the Things,
and then the Guardian Protectors of Tomorrow will
make Hiccup the next King of the Wilderwest, and
humanity will be saved.’
‘How do we know we can trust you?’ asked
Hiccup. ‘How do we know you’re not going to betray
us, and deliver us straight into Alvin and the witch’s
hands?’
‘I suppose,’ said Snotlout, ‘you don’t. You’ll just
have to take my word for it. It’s up to you. I don’t really
care what you believe any more. If you want to think
the worst of me, go ahead! I’m going to sleep now, if
you don’t mind. It’s been a long couple of days.’
Snotlout’s clothes had dried entirely now, in
the steamy warmth of that dragon-and-fire-warmed
hideout. He yawned, wrapped himself up in one of
Fishlegs’s mother’s old blankets, closed his eyes and
pretended to go to sleep.
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But inside the blanket, his eyes were wide open.
‘C-c-can Toothless bite him?’ asked Toothless
hopefully. ‘Or would that be rude? Does it matter
being rude to a rude person? Or does it n-n-not
count?’
‘Yes that would be rude, Toothless, so you can’t
bite him, although I’m feeling a bit tempted myself, I
have to confess,’ admitted Hiccup.
‘Suffering scallops,’ said Fishlegs in disgust.
‘What do we do now? Do we trust Snotlout or not? I
still don’t see why, if he’s on our side, he doesn’t have
the Dragonmark.’
‘The Dragonmark is a symbol of SLAVERY!’
said the muffled voice of Snotlout. ‘I’m on your
side, but I don’t want to be marked with a symbol of
slavery!’
They all lay down to try and sleep, but this was
difficult when they were all so angry, confused and
frightened.
‘Did I make a mistake in rescuing Snotlout?’
Hiccup asked the Wodensfang. ‘Is that why Camicazi
was captured?’
The Wodensfang answered that question with
another question.
‘Can it ever be a mistake,’ replied the
Wodensfang, ‘for a human to answer the cry for help
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of another human?’
‘Even if Snotlout is lying,’ said Hiccup in Norse,
‘he’s the only one who knows where the witch’s camp
is. So we have to trust him anyway, because he’s the
only one who can lead us to Camicazi. Oh I do hope
she is all right…’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Fishlegs miserably. ‘I’m really
worried about her too. I keep trying to tell myself that
she’s going to be all right… Look how many times she
has escaped from prisons. She is an Escape Artist, after
all…’
‘Yes, but the witch and Alvin are getting worse,’
said Hiccup anxiously. ‘They’ve been killing people.
I’ve seen Dragonmarker helmets hung from the trees
of the forest outside as a warning that they are trying to
claim this territory for the Alvinsmen…’
It was true.
Out in the forest there were long stakes,
driven into the ground, and hanging on the end of
each stake were either the heads of dragon rebels
or Dragonmarker helmets that had been taken as
trophies, and put there to warn other Dragonmarkers
that this land was claimed by Alvinsmen.
Quite apart from all these worries, the sound of
the Dragon Furious and the Rebellion outside wasn’t
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exactly a lullaby: that noise of the blackened remains
of the forest being torched once again, the flickering
of flames, the roar as they turned from flickers into a
great storming, roaring conflagration, burning so hot
and high that the firelight from down below poured
upwards and inwards, through the window of their
hideout, to dance wickedly on the ceiling.
‘I will HUNT you down, boy!’ thundered the
Dragon Furious. ‘I smell your rotten human blood!
NOWHERE is safe for you! No cave, no rock, no
island. I shall turn this whole world into
ashes thrice
over in the hunt for you… You can hide all you like,
you cannot hide forever… All it takes is one mistake
and…
… I SHALL HUNT YOU
DOWN IN THE END!’
Oh yes, it was hard not to remain wakeful while
that destructive roar exploded in your ears like one
of Thor’s worst thunderstorms, and the world burned
outside.
How were they ever going to get out of there, to
find the rest of the Things and Camicazi?
From the sound of it, the Dragon Furious was
never going to give up.
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After a while of everyone tossing
and turning, the Wodensfang’s wheezy
voice cut through the darkness and the
terrible noise.
‘As no one is sleeping,’ said the
Wodensfang, ‘allow me to tell you a
story about a boy from the past who
reminds me of this boy Snotlout here.’
‘Wodensfang!’ said Hiccup, sitting bolt upright
in surprise. ‘You’re speaking Norse! I didn’t know you
could speak Norse! I thought it was only Stormfly here
who had that gift.’
‘So did I,’ said Stormfly sadly. It was a bad night
for Stormfly. Her mistress had gone missing, and now
there was this revelation that somebody else shared her
unique gift.
‘Why have you never spoken Norse before,
Wodensfang?’ asked Hiccup.
‘Just because you have
a gift, it doesn’t mean you
need to tell everyone about
it,’ replied the Wodensfang
simply. ‘I think the
boy Snotlout might be
interested in this…’
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And in the darkness, the Wodensfang told the
story of how the Dragonmark became the Slavemark.
‘Once upon a time,’ said the Wodensfang, ‘I was
not the wrinkled little thing that you see before you
now. You see,’ explained the Wodensfang, ‘I am a
Sea Dragon…’
Hiccup gasped. ‘YOU??? A Seadragonus
Giganticus Maximus???’
‘That’s s-s-silly!’ squeaked Toothless.
‘You’re even smaller than T-t-toothless! How can
you possibly be a Sea Dragon?’
‘There are many silly things that turn out to be
true, Toothless,’ said the Wodensfang, smiling.
‘Sea Dragons start out small,’ the Wodensfang
continued in Norse, ‘but they grow to immense
size, like the fat full moon. And then they wane
again…
‘Once upon a time, Hiccup, a thousand or so
years ago, when I was young and about the size of
a Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragon, I met your ancestor,
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the First, and I gave
him the Dragon Jewel and trusted him with the
Jewel’s Secret.’
‘You told me this,’ said Hiccup.
‘I did,’ said the Wodensfang. ‘I told you how
Hiccup the First used the Secret of the Jewel to
gain power over dragons, and train them.
‘But what I did not tell you was that in return
for the Secret, Hiccup the First put a Mark upon
himself.
‘He put a Mark upon himself on the side
of his forehead. It was a Mark in the shape of a
dragon made out of his blood and the blood of
his dragon-brother. My blood. The Mark was
the symbol of a promise, that the two of us were
brothers, that we thought as one, that we would die
for one another.
‘As symbols will, it also became the symbol of
the Kingdom of the Wilderwest. All the Warriors
wore the symbol, blazing on their foreheads, so they
were known as the Dragon-Riders.
‘The Mark was known as the Dragonmark.’
The young humans in the cave gasped in
amazement.
‘So the Mark was originally called the
Dragonmark in the first place!’ exclaimed Fishlegs.
Snotlout was very still, but his eyes were open.
He was listening.
Hiccup touched the Mark, blazing purple on
his forehead.
‘So the first Dragonmark,’ Hiccup whispered,
‘was made out of your blood, Wodensfang?’
The Wodensfang nodded.
‘For over a thousand years, it seemed like I had
made the right decision to entrust the Secret of the
Jewel to the humans. The Kingdom of the Wilderwest
was a place of peace and prosperity, in which dragons
and humans lived in harmony with one another. The
Secret was passed down from generation to generation,
and its power was not abused. I grew huge as a
mountainside, so large and splendid that I had to live
in the ocean for a while.
‘Ah… It was a golden age…’ sighed the
Wodensfang.
‘Even as I began to shrink into my old age, many
hundreds of years ago, I was still content that I had
founded a new dynasty, a dynasty of happiness that
would last forever… and then…’
‘And then?’ Hiccup whispered.
‘And then, it seemed like I might have made a
mistake in entrusting the Secret of the Dragon Jewel
to the humans after all. You see, not all humans are as
good as Hiccup the First.
‘About a century ago, when I had shrunk to the
size of a Viking hunting dog, a new King inherited the
Throne. He was too young really… about your age.
‘His name was Speedfast,’ said the Wodensfang.
‘Speedfast was not a bad character as a boy, but he
was quick of temper and he had a tendency to bully his
inferiors.
‘This is the boy that reminds me so much of
Snotlout here. He even looks like him. Like Snotlout,
this boy refused to take the Dragonmark when he came
of age.
‘ “A King is brother to no man or dragon,” said
the boy, arrogantly. “The dragons shall take the Mark,
to show loyalty to their King, but I shall not take it.”
‘That was all it took.
‘The Mark that had been the symbol of
brotherhood between man and dragon, became a
symbol of enslavement.
‘For where the King went, his followers went too.
The Boy-Warrior, the future of their Tribe, refused
to take the Mark, and in time the older generation
became ashamed of the tattoo that had been a source
of such pride, and wore their helmets low upon their
foreheads.
‘And so it was with everything else. One by one,
all the achievements of Hiccup the First were spoilt
and ruined.
‘And I… well, looking back, I do not think that I
helped matters.
‘For I did judge Speedfast harshly, then and now.
‘I nagged him constantly about what he was
doing. I told him he was betraying the memory of his
ancestors. I scolded him, morning, noon and night.
‘There is one particular time that I remember.
‘Speedfast was sleeping in the King’s bed. No
one was supposed to disturb him. But I did not follow
those rules. Why should I? I was his great-grea
t-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s
blood-brother.
‘I flew in the window, perched on the bedhead,
and waited for him to wake.
‘He opened his eyes, and there I was, stern and
grave.
‘ “Why are you here?” said Speedfast, yawning,
his handsome face instantly resentful.
‘He spoke in Dragonese, the language he had
learnt since babyhood.
‘ “You know why I am here,” I said gravely.
“You refuse to take the Mark. You use the
Secret, entrusted to your father, to enslave my
dragon-brothers. You have just passed a Law
making slavery of humans legal again. You mark
them with the Mark, which you now call the
Slavemark.
‘ “Your ancestors spent their lives building
the Kingdom of the Wilderwest. Are you to
throw that all away? You are betraying the work
of men greater than you are…”
‘The boy’s face was as red as his hair.
‘ “And I shall be a greater man than my
ancestors ever were!” Speedfast shouted back
at me. “How dare you talk to me of betrayal! I
shall make this titchy Kingdom of the Wilderwest
a truly great empire, one that stretches to the
very edges of the Rus to the east, and down to
the borders of Rome in the south. I will re-take
the land that my ancestors lost when that cursed
Hiccup the First was born, the rich farmlands of
the east, rather than these rocky island nothings.
‘ “Even now I am building a great city on
the island of Tomorrow, a city that shall rival
Rome in glory and in power. But for that I need
slave-power, dragon slaves and human slaves. So
do not talk to me of betrayal! Tomorrow shall
prove what a truly great king I shall be.”
‘I scolded him again, too harshly perhaps.
I said that he would never be as great a man as
his ancestors, and a lot of other stern and severe
things.
‘Speedfast put his hands over his ears.
“Silence!” he screamed. “I am banning the
speaking of your devil language, Dragonese! Then
I will not have to hear your forked-tongue nagging
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 6