Nobody except for… Valhallarama.
Nobody can see one, so beautifully
camouflaged are they… But Valhallarama, that
indomitable breath-holding action woman, flew so
high, to such airy pinnacles of thinning cloud, that
she was looking down at them, not up, and she saw,
not the Deadly Shadow, but the three little humans
clinging to the back of nothing.
The three friends did not see her coming.
The Deadly Shadow’s senses were dulled
slightly, perhaps by the exhilaration of the moment,
and the fact that it was not expecting danger. Deadly
Shadows do not expect to be attacked, because
something so scary very rarely is.
Perhaps Arrogance caught a shining silver
streak of movement, screaming just above his eye-
level that caused him to stiffen and look up.
But it was too late.
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Valhallarama and the Silver Phantom, hiding high
in a cloud-bank, swooped down in a rocketing silver
howl, like a bright avenging Fury, the unstoppable,
relentless, screaming hand of Fate. Valhallarama’s
metal arm reached out and she plucked her son from
the back of the camouflaged Deadly Shadow with
the casual ease that she had plucked him, two weeks
before, from the back of the Windwalker.
The Silver Phantom rocketed on towards
Darkheart, unstoppable, uncatchable, for in open
skies the Silver Phantom was the fastest riding-dragon
in the entire world.
Guiding the Phantom with her knees alone, she
held Hiccup with one hand, and with the other she
took the Dragon Jewel on its necklace from around
Hiccup’s neck, and placed it around her own.
Hiccup, swinging from his mother’s stern
unyielding arm, was as shocked as if he had been
dunked suddenly in a tub of ice-cold water.
And once he had got over that, he was angry.
Oh, by Loki’s little lunatic leg-warmers, he was
angry.
‘What are you DOING?’ Hiccup roared up at that
unforgiving metal mask looming over him, looking
sternly, unwaveringly down at her target of Darkheart.
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‘I am not a child any more, how dare you
treat me like this?
‘I mean I don’t expect you to be HELPFUL
or anything, why would I expect that? You’ve never
BEEN THERE! Years and years of leaving my father
and me on our own, YEARS AND YEARS AND
YEARS! Not always answering my letters… Going
away even when I beg you not to… Not listening when
I speak…’
Purple in the face, kicking out with his legs,
Hiccup yelled, ‘I’ve got used to that over the years!
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I’ve had to get used to it! But the one thing I don’t
expect,’ bellowed Hiccup, ‘the one thing I don’t
expect, is for you to actually BETRAY me… Is that
really too much to ask?’
And there was a great deal more where that came
from, for when fourteen years of frustrated fury comes
out, it tends to come out in a rush.
But Valhallarama did not answer. She carried on,
regardless, grim, unyielding. They blasted through the
sky in a blinding silver rush of Hiccup’s boiling anger
and Valhallarama’s righteous determination.
Nothing was going to stop her.
She was taking Hiccup back, back, back to face
the music in the Prison of Darkheart.
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28. FACING THE MUSIC…
AND ALVIN AND THE WITCH
Night had fallen in the Amber Slavelands.
Outside the prison walls, the air was screaming
with dragons. The sentries along the walls were
barely holding them back.
The courtyard of Prison Darkheart was brilliantly
lit with flares. In the centre of the courtyard sat Alvin
the Treacherous and his mother, seated on twin
thrones.
Hundreds and hundreds of Warriors of the
Wilderwest and slaves stood carrying flaming torches
in their hands. The atmosphere was grim. Every soul
in that prison was listening tensely to the dragon
apocalypse outside.
Alvin had called this Grand Meeting of soldiers,
slaves, warriors and everybody, in order to conduct a
few executions to work off some of his anger at the
loss of Hiccup earlier in the day.
But they were interrupted in this amiable
diversion by an unexpected visitor. Over those
battlements flew the Silver Phantom, and on the
Phantom’s back was Valhallarama the Hero, and
swinging from just one of his mother’s metal arms,
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was the infuriated Hiccup.
‘Don’t shoot! Hold your fire!’ cried Alvin the
Treacherous, for he with his quick one eye had already
spotted the Dragon Jewel burning bright around
Valhallarama’s neck.
King Alvin’s face lit up with sudden joy. ‘Mother!’
he gasped. ‘She’s got the Jewel!’
The white witch stood up a little higher, her hair
trailing behind her in a blaze of glory. ‘I knew it!’ she
spat triumphantly. ‘I knew all my calculations could
not be wrong!’
The Silver Phantom circled round the courtyard
once, twice, glowing bright as the moon.
And then he landed on his back legs, placing
Hiccup carefully on the ground before the witch, and
Valhallarama leapt lightly from the Phantom’s back
and stood there beside him.
Hiccup threw himself away from her, shook her
arm off him as if it were poisonous, still too angry with
her to be frightened.
The Phantom was limping slightly from an arrow
wound in his foreleg.
The crowd was silent until they spotted the
Dragon Jewel around Valhallarama’s neck.
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‘The Jewel! She has the Jewel! We’re saved!’
All around the courtyard the crowd began to
cheer: ‘VAL-HALL-ARA-MA! VAL-HALL-ARA-MA!
She has the Jewel!’
Valhallarama was the most popular Hero in the
Archipelago, even more famous than Humungously
Hotshot or Flashburn. And she had found them the
Jewel! Even the slaves were rattling their chains in
appreciation.
Valhallarama reached for her iron helmet and
took it off, throwing it into the crowd, so that all could
see her face.
A proud white face, cut as if it were made of
granite. Daunting to look upon, like a particularly stern
cliff.
And then she stood with her arms crossed in
silence.
‘Leave it to me, Alvin,’ hissed the witch, trying
to see through that suit of armour, that granite face,
to what might be Valhallarama’s weaknesses. ‘Leave it
to Mother… This is a slightly sensitive situation, and it
calls for a witch’s tongue…’
It was a slightly sensitive situation – a mother
delivering not only the Jewel but her son to his
likely death.
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&nb
sp; ‘Congratulations, Valhallarama!’ said the witch,
holding up one bony white arm in salutation.
‘I have to confess, Valhallarama,’ continued
the witch, ‘I underestimated you. I did not tell you
that the Traitor of the Wilderwest was your own
son, in case you let family feeling get in the way of
your duty. I should have known that a great Hero
like yourself would put your Kingdom above mere
personal whims. Three cheers for Valhallarama!’
The courtyard rocked with applause.
Valhallarama said nothing.
‘Give Alvin the Jewel that will save us all,
Valhallarama,’ said the witch, trying to sound casual
and as if it were not an order.
But Valhallarama did not give Alvin the Jewel.
Instead, she withdrew a single arrow from her
quiver. An arrow with black raven feathers on it.
She twirled it round and round on one finger,
thoughtfully.
Valhallarama said nothing, her Hero’s face
impassive as she twirled that arrow round and round.
There is a power in silence, especially when you
have as charismatic a presence as Valhallarama.
The power of silence is that it forces others
to speak.
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The witch moistened her lips, her half-blind eyes
taking in the movement of the arrow.
‘I see you have the arrow that an unknown soldier
may have accidentally shot your Silver Phantom with,
after the Phantom so very kindly delivered us the
map…’ said the witch smoothly. ‘We are so glad that it
did not hurt him badly, aren’t we, Alvin?’
Alvin showed his teeth in a charming smile. ‘My
relief is beyond words.’
‘It was an accident. We were furious with the
soldier in question. Indeed, he lost his life. I need not
tell you, Valhallarama, that our promise that we gave
you still holds,’ purred the witch. ‘Alvin promises that if
you give him the Dragon Jewel, he will use it merely as
a threat, not to destroy the dragons for ever. Is that not
so, Alvin?’
‘Word of a Treacherous,’ smiled Alvin.
‘Unless of course,’ the witch continued, sweet
and smooth as butter, ‘the Dragon Furious gives us no
choice…’ She shrugged her shoulders, indicating the
roar of the Rebellion outside. ‘Alvin is realistic, and he
would have the strength to act decisively if he is forced.
Look around you at the Archipelago. Our perfect
world, burnt to a crisp by dragon fire. The dragons
would kill us all!’
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Hiccup could keep quiet no longer. He turned
on the witch.
‘It is YOU who have inflamed that situation!’
yelled Hiccup passionately. ‘I have seen your dragon-
traps! Destroying dragon eggs, killing them in their
thousands with your explosive weapons! No wonder
so many dragons have joined the Rebellion!’
Hiccup’s words rang out in the courtyard.
‘And I ask you, what is this perfect world that
you are talking about? Is it perfect to have humans
and dragons dying in chains?’
Hiccup pointed at the Silver Phantom.
‘Are creatures as beautiful as this to be made
extinct for all time?’ cried Hiccup.
‘Are dragons never to sail through the skies
again, on jewel-coloured airy wings, or light up the
world once more with the glory of their fiery breath?
‘Are we to say goodbye for ever to the magic,
and the dreaming and the flying of our childhoods?
‘I say NO!’ cried Hiccup, red in the face, shaking
his fist.
‘Dragons
should be free,
just as every
single human
being in this
building should
be free!’
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All around, the crowd was murmuring to each
other like an unhappy sea.
Valhallarama twirled that black arrow in her
hand, faster and faster, listening intently, with her
head on one side.
‘So speaks your son, Valhallarama, Hiccup the
slave!’ sneered the witch, even whiter than ever.
‘Like father, like son, for I know you will be
shocked when I tell you, Valhallarama, your husband,
Stoick the Vast, has also become a slave.’
The witch pointed out poor Stoick, who was
looking at the ground.
But still Valhallarama said nothing.
Why won’t she speak? thought the witch, feeling
increasingly desperate.
She sent out her words like
poisoned arrows, still
trying to find that
fatal weakness in
Valhallarama’s
armour.
‘I feel saddened
for you,
Valhallarama,
such a Great Hero
as you are,’ sorrowed
the witch pityingly, ‘that
your family has let you
down so badly, and brought
disgrace upon their Tribe and
the Kingdom.’
And now the witch looked
very crafty.
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‘But then, I read your destiny when you were a
little girl, and you were never meant to marry Stoick,
were you, Valhallarama? Stoick the Vast was never
worthy of you…’ cooed the witch in her sweetest voice.
Valhallarama’s face did not change. You could
not tell for one second what she was thinking. Round
and round the arrow whirled, faster and faster, as if it
were a spinner in a game, and no one knew where it
would stop in the end.
‘If circumstances had not intervened with destiny,
you would have married Humungously Hotshot the
Hero, a man of your own calibre, and if you had done
so, none of this would have happened: the second-best
husband, the unfortunate runt son, the disaster that has
hit the Archipelago,’ sighed the witch.
‘It’s tragic, really. I cannot bear to think of
your girlish disappointment, waiting and waiting for
a Hero who never came.’ The witch shook her head
sorrowfully. ‘A maiden’s tears are so particularly
touching. It positively melts my witch’s heart to think
of it.’
Excellinor paused. ‘But then, time moves on,
does it not? I hear Humungous has married at last, a
lady twenty years your junior.’
Valhallarama did not react.
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The witch gave a cruel smile. ‘What a shame
destiny has taken such a crooked course. But now you
have a chance to move on yourself and put things right,
Valhallarama. Look, see how Fate has marked my son
Alvin out as our saviour, by giving him eight of the
Things already!’
The witch finished her speech with a final ringing
flourish. ‘You are a woman of sense and principle. You
brought us the map because you knew that this was
right, and you could help us stop this war that has torn
our perfect world apart. We want to put that world
back together ag
ain, make it good as new. And who
knows? Perhaps without certain things it might be even
more perfect. Complete your Quest, Valhallarama.
Fulfil your destiny and give Alvin the Jewel!’
For Thor’s sake, surely the great metal she-mountain
has to speak NOW? thought the witch. Has she gone
dumb? The suspense is killing me.
Valhallarama put up her mighty hand. At last, she
stepped forward. She spoke.
And herein again, lies the power of silence. When
a person who has been quiet speaks, people tend to
listen.
The crowd leant forward to make sure they
caught every single word of what she was saying.
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‘The witch has said her piece, and now I shall say
mine,’ said Valhallarama.
‘I have been absent from the Archipelago’s history
for some considerable time. What I am about to offer
you is an explanation for my absence, and I am not
explaining this to you, witch, or you, Alvin, or even to
you, the assembled Tribes of the Archipelago.’
She bowed to the silent watching crowds, and
those crowds include us, the readers, the listeners, the
invisible watchers of this story.
‘I am explaining this to my son Hiccup,’ said
Valhallarama.
She turned to her son Hiccup, who was still
standing with his fists clenched, bursting with anger,
and she looked straight at him.
‘I have spent most of my life Questing,’ said
Valhallarama.
‘When I was a child my father, the soothsayer Old
Wrinkly, foretold to me in secret that the Archipelago
would face a dreadful peril and the only one who could
avert it would be a new King of the Wilderwest. He
told me the Prophecy of the King’s Lost Things, kept a
secret only among the wise, so that the Things should
not be found by one who is unworthy.
‘I was brave, I was intelligent, I knew that I was
340
worthy. My father had brought me up as a Hero, and
a potential King, and though my father’s dreams went
awry as many parents’ dreams do, secretly, I dedicated
the rest of my life to Questing for those Things.
‘And perhaps,’ sighed Valhallarama, ‘if I am
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