15 You Rang, Madam

15. 'YOU RANG, MADAM?' Windwalker swam at immense speed through the cavern's inner sea. With intense precision, he broke the surface for a few moments so that Hiccup could take huge, coughing, gasping relieved breaths. In the moment that they surfaced, Hiccup heard Camicazi's excellent impression of Valhallarama. What is happening? thought Hiccup, confused and disorientated. Surely that can't be my mother? And then Windwalker took him underwater again, and Hiccup nearly passed out with the cold and the lack of air. Beside them swam the little pink Hogfly, like an underwater bumblebee, and the Wodensfang. When at last Windwalker re-surfaced, the floating town was some distance away and they were alongside the Barbarian Armada, quietly rocking in the icy water. Windwalker gently spat Hiccup on to the nearest ship, and there he lay like a baby, flat on his front, panting on the deck, shivering uncontrollably, too cold to move. 'Thanks, Windwalker…' whispered Hiccup, closing his eyes. He was sleepy… too tired to take this in, and shivering too much.

'Wake up, Master,' whispered Windwalker urgently. 'Wake up! You can't sleep now...' A rush of hot air over Hiccup's shaking body made him open his eyes again. Blinking in the warm breeze, he realised that the Windwalker was blowing hot air over him to warm him. The steamy breath of the dragon gradually heated his shaking limbs into stillness, and he climbed to his feet, horribly lopsided and as weak as a fawn finding its feet for the first time. His left side was almost completely numb, and even his thoughts seemed sluggish. He looked back at the Great Hall, now a confused mass of shouting, screaming Alvinsmen Warriors fighting Dragonmarker Warriors and shooting randomly into the air. Excellent. Fishlegs and Camicazi had gone ahead with their Diversion. And it sounded like Hiccup's mother and the Dragonmarker army might have joined them. The second part of Plan B was going to be a little trickier. Because the success of the second part of Plan B relied on the Hogfly. Hiccup looked dubiously at the Hogfly hovering eagerly before him, spraying Hiccup with water as he

shook himself dry. 'Hogfly?' said Hiccup. 'You rang, Madam?' said the Hogfly. 'Hogfly, we really need you now. Everything depends on you.' 'Woof woof!' squeaked the amiable little creature, but he looked anxious. Even the Hogfly seemed to realise that a Plan that relied on him might be a Plan in jeopardy. 'Hogfly, I need you to fetch,' said Hiccup solemnly. He reached into his backpack, and pulled out the sad remains of Toothless's torn, burnt, coat. Hiccup had hidden it for precisely this purpose, so the Hogfly could follow Toothless's smell, and find out where the Alvinsmen had taken him. 'That,' said the Wodensfang admiringly, 'is a Clever Plan, Hiccup.' The coat was sopping wet, of course, and Hiccup had to hope that this wouldn't affect the scent. 'Give it a good sniff, Hogfly. I need you to fetch Toothless. Fetch Toothless, good Hogfly.' The Hogfly gave a sigh of relief. His little piglet tail wagged so fast it was nearly a blur. At last he could be helpful! This was something he understood! This was something he could do!

The Hogfly snuffled the coat all over. 'Hmmm…' sneezed the Hogfly in a deep little voice. 'Fruity…' His sniffer nose sniffed up and down, taking in great, woofing breaths, as if it had a life of its own. A couple of years ago, Hiccup had taught this particular Hogfly how to 'fetch'. It had taken a long time, for Hogflys are not bred for their intelligence. Their minds hop from subject to subject like butterflies. But once they have learnt the skill of 'fetching', they are, quite simply, the best scent and tracker dragons in the entire world. The piggy snout of the Hogfly, snuffling away, could smell smells that you and I cannot even imagine smelling. He could smell the shoal of Winterfleshers, currently passing underneath the boat they were

standing on. He could smell the birds sleeping in the pine trees, way, way in the distance on the faraway shoreline. His extraordinary little sniffing nose could sort out those smells like an experienced gambler sorting through a deck of cards. And somewhere in among those smells, in between the smell of a spider scuttling up the mast of one of the ships one hundred feet away, and the twenty-four slightly different smells of the twenty-four slightly different nanodragons currently hibernating in one of the same ship's biscuit barrels, he caught a tiny little whiff of something that smelled a lot like Toothless. 'Fetch Toothless!' trumpeted the Hogfly, and zoomed after that smell as if he were being dragged through the air by a Silver Phantom. The Windwalker and Wodensfang could barely keep up. The little speeding Hogfly, like a jet propelled piglet, flew above the boats that were moored at the edges of this floating city.

'FetchToothlessfetchToothlessfetch-ToothlessfetchToothless… Sorry Grandma!' This last remark was addressed to a ship's mast that the Hogfly dodged in his single-minded quest. 'FetchToothlessfetchToothlessfetchToothlessfetchToothless…' There must have been at least a hundred of those Viking war ships, rocking dark and ghostly on the black water, as lifeless and silent as death boats. But right at the end, so near to the edge of the cavern that it was right next to the waterfall… were there dim signs of life? Were there tiny moving