9 The Land of the Polar-Serpents

9. THE LAND OF THE POLAR-SERPENTS The American Dream 2 puffed its way steadily north, and the weather got colder and colder, and darker and darker, until they were travelling through total blackness, day and night, and this was the home of the Wanderers. It was an eerie place. Icebergs drifted by, taller than the masts of the ship itself, cracking and splitting and creaking around them in the mist.

The crew fell silent as they went about their work, and even Norbert managed to lower his voice to a menacing whisper as he scolded and shook his axe threateningly at his men. For they had entered the world of the Polar-serpents. The Polar-serpents were great white dragons slumbering on the ice like over-sized walruses. They reminded Hiccup of the Sabre-tooth Driver Dragons the Vikings used to pull their sleds back in the Archipelago. Except that instead of sabre-teeth, out of the nose of each Polar-serpent grew a long white tusk like a unicorn or a narwhal. Polar-serpents swam under the icebergs, and when they found shoals of unwary seals and penguins resting on the surface above, they sawed great holes in the ice, so that the unsuspecting prey fell into their open jaws below. A Polar-serpent feeding frenzy was a terrifying sight. They could strip a mammal down to the bone far quicker than a shoal of piranhas, and as far as they were concerned, a human was just as tasty as a seal. Perhaps even tastier. Of course, the Polar-serpents weren't a threat when you were aboard a boat… but nonetheless,

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Hiccup swallowed hard as they steamed quietly past the creatures. And he noticed that all of Norbert's hunting-dragons were careful to stay close to the ship as well. They roosted on the masts like a row of malevolent starlings, watching the Polar-serpents, with the Polar-serpents watching them back. After a while Norbert slightly lost it with the Polar-serpents. 'STOP LOOKING AT ME, YOU BIG WHITE MAGGOTS!' he yelled, waving his axe at the dragons. 'OR I'LL CLIMB OVERBOARD AND CHOP OFF YOUR HORNS!' He grabbed the cauldron with the remains of lunch and shook it over the side of the boat. The statues on the ice sprang instantly to life. They slid into the water like big white crocodiles: thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, three hundred of them. Within about five seconds the water behind the boat was a thrashing, churning, manic froth of red as the Polar-serpents went into their feeding frenzy. They were so crazy in their bloodlust that they even attacked each other, tearing each other from limb to limb. Norbert went back to whispering.

All day long, Hiccup could feel the Slavemark pressing against his helmet. He hadn't told Fishlegs and Camicazi about it, because he knew he had to keep it a secret. The Law of the Archipelago was quite firm upon the matter. Anybody with the Slavemark was automatically an Outcast, whether it was their fault or not. And they certainly couldn't become a Chief. No, if Hiccup ever got back home (and it was a big 'if' at this point), this was a secret that Hiccup would have to keep to himself for the rest of his life. He couldn't tell anybody, because if someone like Snotlout were to find out… Hiccup pushed the thought to the back of his mind, because he had to concentrate on the more pressing problem of escaping.

And now, escaping had been made that much more difficult. As Camicazi had so helpfully pointed out, it was all very well trying to escape when there are three of you, but trying to get a hundred and twenty- two people off a ship without their captors noticing required a little more forward planning. 'We could escape so easily on our own,' complained Camicazi. 'Why are you suddenly bothering about those people? They're not even Vikings, they're WANDERERS, for Thor's sake, we might set them free and then they might kill us, you know what people say about Wanderers.' 'I told you,' said Hiccup grumpily. 'I had to make them a promise.' Hiccup sat up in the crow's nest of the American Dream 2, and thought and thought and thought, his legs swinging as Stormfly and Toothless chased each other round and round in circles.