29 An Unexpected Development

29. AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT Outside, the Dragon Rebellion roared, but inside, the courtyard was spellbound with quietness. The witch was, quite simply, flabbergasted. She staggered back on her throne. 'What are you doing?' stammered the witch, thoroughly confused. 'You have turned yourself into a slave! What does this mean?' 'A Mark is just a symbol, witch,' said Valhallarama. 'And symbols can change. This is no longer the Slavemark, but the Dragonmark. I take this Mark as a sign of my love and my faith in my husband and my son.

AND I CALL UPON ALL THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE HICCUP AS THEIR KING TO TAKE THE DRAGONMARK WITH ME!' 'So you have the situation under control do you, Mother?' spat Alvin, savagely. 'Is this your idea of control?' 'It's preposterous…' spluttered the witch. 'Ridiculous… The Slavemark is the Slavemark. It's been like that for hundreds of years. What do you mean, the Dragonmark? You can't just change things like that. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A DRAGONMARK! Valhallarama just made it up!'

Hiccup could not quite believe what was happening. He looked around at the free Vikings' faces. Some of them were looking at the Silver Phantom. Others were looking at the floor. It was impossible to tell what they were thinking. Valhallarama was taking a huge gamble. It was asking way too much for someone to voluntarily take on a Mark that had been considered the ultimate in shame for as long as they could remember, to put at risk his Viking honour, out of mere concern for the fate of non-entities such as slaves and dragons. Who would do such a thing, especially for someone like Hiccup? 'You see?' sneered the witch, regaining her composure, as she realised no one was stepping forward.

'Nobody wants your so-called Dragonmark, or your runty little son as a leader, Valhallarama…' Well, that's a good reason why Valhallarama should have hung on to the Dragon Jewel and nominated herself as the true King, thought Hiccup. She's the kind of person that people will follow into battle, the kind of person people will lay down their lives for. But Hiccup had never been able to get anyone to come on to his team for Bashyball, let alone been the kind of person people risked their lives and honour for… 'I will take your Dragonmark!' came a ringing cry from the back. Thuggory the Meathead strode forward, all six foot three of him. Thuggory was the Heir to Mogadon the Meathead. He was about sixteen years old, a huge hulking adolescent, who was thoroughly admired across the Archipelago as the very pattern of what a young Viking Hero ought to be. Many a Viking Chieftain had wished their own sons could be a little more like Thuggory. Now his father Mogadon thundered out, 'Thuggory! I am ordering you as your father and your Chieftain! Do not dare take that Mark!'

But Thuggory strode forward nonetheless. The crowd stood back to let him pass. 'I am sorry, Father,' cried Thuggory solemnly, and he bowed formally to his father as a son should. 'But Hiccup is right. If the dragons were free, they would not make war on us. It is time for a new world, a better one.' Thuggory stopped in front of Valhallarama, very brisk and soldier-like, and knelt and removed his helmet as if he were becoming a Warrior. Valhallarama put the Dragonmark on his forehead. 'Hiccup for King!' yelled Thuggory, jumping to his feet and punching the air. 'Well, only one person!' scoffed the witch. 'You're not going to get very far with only one foll—' 'Hiccup for King!' roared a whole cohort of young Meatheads, clearly friends of Thuggory. Suddenly all around the courtyard, the young teenagers of the Tribes pressed forward to get the Mark. Camicazi landed in the courtyard with Fishlegs on the back of the Deadly Shadow, and had to push her way to the front and threaten several Danger-Brutes to get her Dragonmark first. Because even the young of the conventionally

vicious Tribes such as the Danger-Brutes and the Visithugs were clamouring for the Mark now. How was this possible? Well, a strange thing had happened during the six months of Hiccup being an Outcast. Hiccup had turned from the most unlikely, scrawny, puny little Viking ever, into a romantic figure of rebellion. Many of the younger Vikings had been secretly following his progress as Hiccup set free dragon-traps and eluded the forces of the Wilderwest in yet another brilliant and hair-raising escape. They had been whispering in secret stories of Hiccup's adventures, and suddenly they were whispering them not as evidence of what a weirdo he was, how bizarre, how freakish, but of how clever, how extraordinary, how bravely unusual he was… 'Have you heard how he discovered the Land That Does Not Exist?' they had been whispering. 'Have you heard how he defeated the Sea Dragon? The Strangulator? How he tricked the Romans at the Fortress of Sinister? How he stopped the Exterminators at Lava-Lout island? How he slipped through the witch's fingers once again in the land of Nowhere? How he found EVERY SINGLE ONE