6 The Other Side of the Story

6. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY 'The Doomsday of Yule is in three days' time,' said Snotlout. 'And you are running out of time. I am presuming you have an agreement with Valhallarama that she will steal the nine Lost Things off Alvin, and then she will meet you on the Singing Sands of the Ferryman's Gift on Doomsday Eve and hand them over?' 'That's a very clever guess of yours, Snotlout,' said Hiccup quietly. 'My mother said all we had to do was stay in hiding, and meet her there on Doomsday Eve.' 'Well,' said Snotlout, 'Alvin's underground war bunker is hidden somewhere so clever, so secret, that Valhallarama and Stoick will never find it even if they search for a hundred years. So your mother Valhallarama and the Dragonmarkers have failed in their Quest to steal the other nine Lost Things from Alvin.' There was a short, depressed silence. 'Why should we believe you, Snotlout?' asked Fishlegs. 'You could be lying. Valhallarama could already have the other nine Things, and you could

be sent here by the witch. If you joined our side, why didn't you get the Dragonmark?' 'Hiccup isn't the only one who uses his head, you know, Fish-eggs,' replied Snotlout. 'I thought I might be more use to the Company of the Dragonmark if I appeared to be working for the other side.' Stormfly gave a quick soft hiss of reluctant approval. 'Ah,' she said. 'Cunning and Trickery. Good thinking.' And then, remembering it was Snotlout speaking, she frowned again. 'If it's true, of course.' 'So I pretended to be on the witch and Alvin's side,' said Snotlout. 'I let them take me to their hideout. I found out where they were keeping the Things, and ran away to find you guys. I used this ridiculous Hogfly dragon here to help me track you down. Hogflys may be unbelievably stupid, but they are the best scent-dragons in the world. I camped on a frozen lake upriver, the lake must have unfrozen in the night, the Wolf-fangs chased me… And that's when you found me.' 'If you know where the Lost Things are,' asked Fishlegs suspiciously, 'why didn't you steal them yourself, when you escaped from Alvin's war bunker?' 'I couldn't do it on my own,' explained Snotlout. 'The Things are guarded, and the Throne is heavy.

You lot are useless, of course, but I have to admit, your camouflaged-so-it-is-invisible and humungously enormous three-headed Deadly Shadow Dragon will come in useful in a burglary situation. 'Together we can steal back the Things,' continued Snotlout, 'and even rescue that horrible little Bog-Burglar Camicazi. We can be at the beach at Hero's Gap on Doomsday Eve, with all the Things, and then the Guardian Protectors of Tomorrow will make Hiccup the next King of the Wilderwest, and humanity will be saved.' 'How do we know we can trust you?' asked Hiccup. 'How do we know you're not going to betray us, and deliver us straight into Alvin and the witch's hands?' 'I suppose,' said Snotlout, 'you don't. You'll just have to take my word for it. It's up to you. I don't really care what you believe any more. If you want to think the worst of me, go ahead! I'm going to sleep now, if you don't mind. It's been a long couple of days.' Snotlout's clothes had dried entirely now, in the steamy warmth of that dragon-and-fire-warmed hideout. He yawned, wrapped himself up in one of Fishlegs's mother's old blankets, closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.

But inside the blanket, his eyes were wide open. 'C-c-can Toothless bite him?' asked Toothless hopefully. 'Or would that be rude? Does it matter being rude to a rude person? Or does it n-n-not count?' 'Yes that would be rude, Toothless, so you can't bite him, although I'm feeling a bit tempted myself, I have to confess,' admitted Hiccup. 'Suffering scallops,' said Fishlegs in disgust. 'What do we do now? Do we trust Snotlout or not? I still don't see why, if he's on our side, he doesn't have the Dragonmark.' 'The Dragonmark is a symbol of SLAVERY!' said the muffled voice of Snotlout. 'I'm on your side, but I don't want to be marked with a symbol of slavery!' They all lay down to try and sleep, but this was difficult when they were all so angry, confused and frightened. 'Did I make a mistake in rescuing Snotlout?' Hiccup asked the Wodensfang. 'Is that why Camicazi was captured?' The Wodensfang answered that question with another question. 'Can it ever be a mistake,' replied the Wodensfang, 'for a human to answer the cry for help

of another human?' 'Even if Snotlout is lying,' said Hiccup in Norse, 'he's the only one who knows where the witch's camp is. So we have to trust him anyway, because he's the only one who can lead us to Camicazi. Oh I do hope she is all right…' 'Yes, I know,' said Fishlegs miserably. 'I'm really worried about her too. I keep trying to tell myself that she's going to be all right… Look how many times she has escaped from prisons. She is an Escape Artist, after all…' 'Yes, but the witch and Alvin are getting worse,' said Hiccup anxiously. 'They've been killing people. I've seen Dragonmarker helmets hung from the trees of the forest outside as a warning that they are trying to claim this territory for the Alvinsmen…' It was true. Out in the forest there were long stakes, driven into the ground, and hanging on the end of each stake were either the heads of dragon rebels or Dragonmarker helmets that had been taken as trophies, and put there to warn other Dragonmarkers that this land was claimed by Alvinsmen. Quite apart from all these worries, the sound of the Dragon Furious and the Rebellion outside wasn't

exactly a lullaby: that noise of the blackened remains of the forest being torched once again, the flickering of flames, the roar as they turned from flickers into a great storming, roaring conflagration, burning so hot and high that the firelight from down below poured upwards and inwards, through the window of their hideout, to dance wickedly on the ceiling. 'I will HUNT you down, boy!' thundered the Dragon Furious. 'I smell your rotten human blood! NOWHERE is safe for you! No cave, no rock, no island. I shall turn this whole world into ashes thrice over in the hunt for you… You can hide all you like, you cannot hide forever… All it takes is one mistake and… …I SHALL HUNT YOU DOWN IN THE END!' Oh yes, it was hard not to remain wakeful while that destructive roar exploded in your ears like one of Thor's worst thunderstorms, and the world burned outside. How were they ever going to get out of there, to find the rest of the Things and Camicazi? From the sound of it, the Dragon Furious was never going to give up.