5 The Wrong Side of the Door

5. THE WRONG SIDE OF THE DOOR Hiccup's not-so-brilliant plan went wrong right from the beginning. The slaves on the ship on which he had hitched a lift were disembarking and slipping from under the gang-plank of the boat. Hiccup intended to melt into the shadows and explore the prison on his own. As an Outcast, he was now an expert at this kind of sneaky behaviour. But as he tiptoed away, the Wodensfang sneezed from his waistcoat. It was quite a quiet sneeze, but unfortunately Toothless called out 'Bliss ta!'– which is Dragonese for 'Bless you!'– very, very loudly. And then 'Bliss ta! Bliss ta! B-b-blissta!' as Wodensfang sneezed three more times. The prison guard on the gang-plank heard the noise and looked under the gang-plank. 'WHERE D'YA THINK YOU'RE GOING?' yelled the guard, assuming he was an escaping slave. The guard gave him a crack of a whip sharper than the bite of a Squirrel-serpent, and invited him to join the long line of slaves sinking ankle deep into the sand as they disembarked from the ship.

'Toothless,' whispered Hiccup furiously, holding on to his stinging shoulder as he shuffled down a maze of corridors into the dark belly of the prison's central courtyard. 'Please be quiet. Remember, we're Outcasts… spies…' 'T-t-toothless was being polite!' protested Toothless. 'Yes, I know, politeness is good. Politeness is very good. I'm really impressed by your politeness, it's just if you could keep your politeness quite quiet at the moment, I'd be very grateful…' Chaos reigned in the prison courtyard. Hiccup looked around with his mouth open. It was as if he had stepped through the door into another, grimmer world. Long lines of tables with people sitting eating at them seemed to suggest that this was some sort of open-air dining room. The people were of all ages from six or seven upward, and had the S of the Slavemark on their foreheads. But around these people eating was the manic din of war, and the sheer mad noise of it caused ears to ring as if an orchestra in Valhalla had turned up the volume to 'extra loud'. Screaming warriors ran hither and thither,

hammering swords and spears out of molten red-ended metal. Above Hiccup's head, continuous rocket explosions sent out huge clouds of yellow smoke that stung his eyelids and crept inside his nose like sulphurous slugs, gagging his throat with the smell of rotten eggs. Lying around the place were enormous evil- looking dragon-traps, weird crazy inventions such as catapults that launched thirty-five spears at once, and Northbows that did the same with arrows. It was all so noisy you couldn't hear yourself think. The guard shoved them all in there, before hurrying off, bellowing at them over his shoulder to 'Eat well for the Seeking begins soon!' –whatever that might mean. To Hiccup's horror, the courtyard was absolutely packed to the brim with people he knew, from Tribes all over the Archipelago, and as he was the most Wanted person in the Wilderwest right now, he thought it would be wise to slide away into a side corridor. But things really weren't going Hiccup's way this morning. 'HOY! YOU OVER THERE! SMELLY BOY! COME AND JOIN US AT OUR TABLE!' shouted a large fat man from a table nearby.

Hiccup jumped guiltily. And then he realised, in total amazement, that the large fat man shouting at him was in fact his own father, Stoick the Vast. It was the moment Hiccup had been dreading. The wart and the eye-patch and the smell were doing their job though, because Stoick clearly hadn't the faintest idea who he was. 'HOY! SMELLY BOY!' yelled Stoick again. 'GET OVER HERE QUICK OR ALL THE FOOD WILL BE GONE!' Slowly, Hiccup walked up to the table where Stoick was sitting. As he sat down, all the others at the table moved gently away from him like a sea parting, their noses wrinkling. This must be what it's like to have a highly infectious disease, thought Hiccup. Stoick grunted and pushed a large chunk of bread and a big handful of mussels at Hiccup, trying not to breathe in Hiccup's particularly ripe and luscious stink. 'Eat up, boy, before I change my mind.' At least his father was looking well. He looked a little sad around the eyes perhaps, with a few streaks of grey in his magnificent moustache

and he'd lost a bit of weight, but he could still be described as 'a hugely fat man with a beard as red and out of control as a forest fire'. And to Hiccup's passionate relief, Stoick seemed to be in some sort of position of importance and respect among the slaves, or at least in the group seated at this particular table.

Once a Chief, always a Chief. 'New boy, eh?' said Stoick, as Hiccup helped himself. 'What's your name, kid?' Hiccup forced himself to look his father right in the eye. This was awful. He was in two minds about this, because he was undercover of course, and it would be deadly dangerous if people started recognising him, but surely, surely, Stoick must know who he was? Valhallarama was away questing a lot, so she had some sort of excuse. But Stoick and Hiccup had sat together every single day at the breakfast table for thirteen years! How unmemorable exactly was he? For Thor's sake, he knew he'd grown up a little but it wasn't as if he was wearing a large curly false moustache or anything. But no, Stoick clearly hadn't a clue, not even the merest smidgeon of an idea that the boy he was sharing his supper with was his own only son. 'My name is… Warty McSmelly,' said Hiccup. 'Good name,' said Stoick approvingly. 'What Tribe were you, before the Slavemark?' 'The Lost Tribe,' said Hiccup, thinking fast.