9 The Evil Reaches

9. THE EVIL REACHES So Hiccup and Stoick and Eggingarde set off to the east, and within a surprisingly short time they were on their own, the other members of the Amber- Hunters Team merely specks on the distant horizon. Oooh dear… Already this was really spooky. No birds called over those sands. Not one. Why was that? It must be because they sensed the danger that was below. It was a horrible feeling, racing over those sands, because any minute Hiccup felt that something might reach out of them unexpectedly, and grab him by the ankle, like in Eggingarde's story. Eggingarde didn't help his nerves either, because every time there was a perfectly harmless sucking noise, which was probably the draining of the tide or the 'glopping' of a scallop, she would roar at it, 'ROAR!', with a loudness and a suddenness that made you practically fall off your sand-yacht. (It probably rather alarmed the scallop too.) The hood of her bearsuit was so low down over her face that she couldn't see where she was going.

Hiccup would be sledging along and he'd suddenly realise Eggingarde had sailed off in the other direction so he'd have to go and collect her and put her back on course. Eventually Stoick slowed down and started looking for amber. Hiccup leaned out and scooped up something glinting in the sand, and then brought the net up to examine what it was. No, not amber at all, just a big old bit of crab shell. He threw it over his shoulder. He sighed, looked warily around him at those bubbling sands to check there was nothing horrible rising out of them and moved forward. Half an hour passed, and he had found only three pieces of amber, all quite small, and none of them the Dragon Jewel. He was suddenly bowed down by the hopeless ambition of what he was supposed to be doing. 'How am I, in this whole vast wilderness of sand, supposed to find one single Jewel?' whispered Hiccup. 'Your heart must be in your Quest,' said the Wodensfang, which was all very wise and supportive, but was actually also, to be honest, a little vague and not particularly helpful. Hiccup sighed and carried on hunting. It was quite an odd situation, to be out there on

the endless wilderness of the red sands with a father who doesn't realise you are his son. 'Go on, Hiccup,' whispered the Wodensfang encouragingly from inside Hiccup's waistcoat. 'Talk to your father. Tell him who you are, and why you are here. Tell him about your Quest…' 'It isn't so easy,' Hiccup whispered back. He tried to push out of his mind the memory of Baggybum saying to Snotlout, 'I am ashamed to be your father.' Stoick wouldn't say that would he?

Perhaps he would, thought Hiccup. He felt slightly sick. First I'll just try and get a sense of what he's thinking, Hiccup decided. I'll just check that he's not too angry with me… Eggingarde was off at a little distance, roaring at scallops and picking up the amber with a pole nearly twice as long as she was. But Stoick was examining some amber a couple of feet away. Hiccup walked up behindhim and said, as casually as he could, as if he were just interested in an off-hand sort of way, 'So, Chief Stoick, are you really the father of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the boy the witch is searching the Wilderwest for?' Stoick threw a piece of amber over his shoulder. He sailed on, checked the sands all around him to see that there was nothing alarming rising out of them, and Hiccup followed him. 'Why do you young people ask all these questions?' grumbled Stoick the Vast, putting out his net and scooping up amber, examining it, and throwing it over his shoulder again. 'OK!' gulped Hiccup, his voice sliding up from a gruff to a squeak, because it had been behaving in that uncontrolled manner quite a lot recently. 'I've changed

my mind! You don't need to answer my question!' But Stoick seemed to need to get something off his chest. 'When I was young I never asked questions,' boomed Stoick. 'I just did what I was told, I followed the traditions, I stuck to the Barbaric Code. I walked in the path of my own father, and my father's father, and my father's father's father.' For five minutes he worked in silence, seeking the amber, grimly. 'I tried to bring up my son by the same Code,' said Stoick. 'Even though he was so different, and he always asked so many questions.' Stoick sighed and shook his head. 'But it is not always easy

being a parent. You do your best, of course…' I know what he means, thought Hiccup, thinking of how hard it was training Toothless. 'So when my son asked the question, "Father, if you were King, would you free the dragons?" I told him the right answer. The only answer. The answer a King should give. Free the dragons? Nonsense! It strikes at our very livelihood, the world that we grew up in!' Stoick shook his head, incredulously. 'But what does my son Hiccup do? He rejects my answer, beats his father in a swordfight! And goes over his father's head and asks for freedom for the dragons on his own!'