19 An Unexpected Development

19. AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT It was a good moment. It was a very good moment for Hiccup, perched up high on the back of the Dragon Furious, looking down on the Berserks, suddenly turned so small and so weak on their shaking rope bridges. For their part, the Berserks looked up in awe and absolute astonishment at the mighty dragon hovering above them, the tiny little figure sitting upright on its back. 'HALT!' yelled Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. 'HALT! The Beast of Berserk is now under MY power and control. DO WHAT I SAY or else with one lick of his flames he will turn this whole wood into fire and inferno.' The Chief Berserk's mouth fell open. 'The Beast…' he whispered. 'I don't believe it… the Beast… how did the boy do it? Is he magic? He must be magic!' Alvin couldn't believe it either. He had turned as white as his teeth. 'How does he do it?' he muttered. 'How does he do it?" 'RELEASE THE FIANCéS!' yelled Hiccup

Horrendous Haddock the Third. 'WINCH BACK FISHLEGS! RELEASE ALL THE PRISONERS HELD IN THE TREE PRISONS! RELEASE THEM OR THE DRAGON WILL SET FIRE TO THE VILLAGE!' 'How does he know about the tree prisons?' gasped the Chief Berserk. 'WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!' he yelled, shaking his fist up at Hiccup and the Dragon Furious. 'WE HAVE FIRE- SUITS, YOU KNOW! AND WE ARE NUTTERS!' 'WE CERTAINLY ARE!' yelled the other Berserks on the bridges. It was fortunate that Camicazi intervened at this point, because Hiccup had no real intention of setting fire to the forest. But Camicazi had wriggled along her tree branch until she was directly above the Chief. And now she dropped down like a little cat, timing it perfectly so she landed right on top of him. The Chief wasn't expecting a small blonde child to drop unexpectedly out of the night sky and hold a very sharp knife indeed to his throat. He let out a strangled scream. 'Listen here, you plankton-brained, clanking

Howl of a loser!' whispered Camicazi. 'Unless you do exactly as Hiccup says you won't need a Fire- Suit because I will kill you right now, with pleasure, and you can trust the word of a Bog-Burglar on this one…'

The Chief grew thoughtful. However nutty he was, he was still rather keen on making it through to the morning alive. 'Don't kill him unless you have to, Camicazi!' Hiccup called out. 'Oh, but I may have to,' grinned Camicazi. Camicazi had been the most difficult prisoner the Chief had ever had. Despite being so small, it had taken five grown Uglithugs to capture her, and she had been so rude when she arrived on the island that she had made one of the Berserks cry. The Chief had a horrible feeling that she meant exactly what she said. 'Ah… on second thoughts…' said the Chief with an apologetic cough. 'Perhaps you have a point… EVERYBODY DO WHAT THE RED-HAIRED BOY SAYS!' Now the Berserks may have been nutcases, but like all the Tribes in the Archipelago, they were obedient to their Chief. So there was pandemonium on the rope bridges as the Berserks galloped, clanking like a load of metallic elephants, to all of the prison cells all across the island. And you had to hand it to the Berserks, once they were given a task, they executed it very

faithfully indeed. They had spent the last one hundred or so years guarding these trees. Not a single prisoner had managed to get out in that entire time. Every Berserk would have happily have laid down his life to prevent an escape. And now they went about releasing the very same prisoners with the same mad keenness and energetic efficiency. If a prisoner was too weak to climb the rope that was let down into the tree, the Berserks actually descended the rope themselves, and brought the prisoner up in a fireman's lift on their massive shoulders. Some of the poor prisoners had been in there so long, they had forgotten what life outside was like, and they did not want to leave. But they were given short shrift. 'EVERYBODY OUT!' yelled a massive Berserk, shouldering a poor shrinking old man who had forgotten his name, and what Tribe he was, and did not want to leave the tree frogs who had been his friends for the past sixty years. 'BOSS'S ORDERS! YOU'RE ALL TO LEAVE ON THE DOUBLE!' So before long the rope bridges were packed with lines of confused shuffling prisoners in rags, some with renewed hope in their eyes, others scared and apprehensive, all blinking

in the unaccustomed daylight. 'UNLOCK THEM!' yelled Hiccup, as the Dragon Furious hovered above the scene of chaos, 'UNLOCK THEM AND SET THEM FREE! The dragons as well!' So even the Chickenpoxer and the Windwalker were unlocked from their chains by the eager Berserks. 'Do you want to know how old I am, you iron- clad ignoramus?' smiled Camicazi, still holding her knife to the Chief's throat. 'Not particularly,' said the Chief of Berserk. 'I am eleven and a quarter,' grinned Camicazi. 'And even though I am of course the toughest and most brilliant eleven-year-old in the Archipelago, how good does that make you feel, a great big Let's-Go- Crazy Warrior like you, to be beaten in battle by a titchy-witchy little eleven-year-old?' Not very good, actually. The Chief of Berserk felt a little like crying himself. And once the Fiancés and the prisoners were set free of course, they grabbed any weapon they could find and a pitched battle ensued between Fiancés and Berserks, a battle that is known in the Sagas as The Battle of the Treetop Madmen. The Berserks going crazy is an incredible, awesome sight. They swung