‘Ziggerastica!’ screamed Hiccup. ‘HURRY UP!’
The Sharkworms were so close they were
nearly touching each other now as they swam round
and round. One of them let out a jet of fire like an
underwater torpedo and the barrel burst into flames.
‘And now, my clever friend,’ said Alvin,
watching the floating, flaming barrel with the four
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predators surrounding it, ‘O Defeater of the
Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus and the Mighty
Monstrous Strangulator – let’s see you get out of
THIS situation! I think I may safely say I’ve got you
now…’
All four Sharkworms reared out of the water
at the same time and spread out their wings.
They were a terrifying sight.
These two-headed beasts had eyes out on
stalks, rather like a hammerhead shark. They were
sometimes known as Thor’s Lapdogs because of
those hammer-shaped heads. Their back set of teeth
could shoot forward to grab prey and then retreat
back, dragging the unfortunate victim with them, as
the tongue of a lizard flicks out to catch a fly.
Their hammerhead eyes swivelled on their
stalks, their powerful tails lashed the water. They
drew back their first sets of teeth in vicious snarls
and the second sets shunted forward as if they had a
life of their own, madly snapping together like an
automatic killing mechanism.
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For a moment they hovered in a terrible ring,
their hammerhead eyes swivelling on their stalks to
focus in on their target.
And then they let out a scream and pounced,
all of them diving in on the barrel together…
CRACK!
The barrel split from side to side, and to the
utter amazement of the watching Vikings, the
audience, and the Sharkworms themselves… Hiccup
FLEW out of it.
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20. HICCUP THE GOD
The Romans flocked to the Circuses in their
thousands to be entertained.
They expected a glorious theatrical experience –
blood, guts, heroism, feats of astonishing physical
prowess.
They were certainly getting their money’s worth
NOW.
This was a sight no one had ever seen before.
A flying boy?
The crowd leaped to their feet, amazed.
Fishlegs nearly fell out of the boat.
And slowly, majestically, Hiccup rose up through
the rain with his arms spread out wide, as if held up
by magical forces.
‘Brilliant,’ whispered Camicazi. ‘I don’t know
HOW he’s doing it, but it’s brilliant.’
Hiccup rose and rose up to the metal ‘ceiling’ of
the amphitheatre, the netting
that the sharp teeth of the
Flashfangs had failed to bite
through in their terror…
At a single stroke of
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Hiccup’s
hand the
netting split in
two…
He burst through and hung in the air,
every awestruck eye upon him.
The Fat Consul fell to his knees. Even Alvin’s
jaw dropped.
‘MY NAME,’ boomed Hiccup, in a voice he
had never used before, ‘MY NAME IS THOR THE
THUNDERER, ANCIENT GOD OF THE VIKING
TRIBES!’
The crowd gasped.
‘WELL MAY YOU TREMBLE,’ bellowed
Hiccup. ‘FOR YOU ROMANS HAVE INVADED
SACRED VIKING TERRITORIES AND MADE ME
MAD…’
‘We’re very, very sorry…’ stammered the Fat
Consul.
‘FOR THIS,’ boomed Hiccup solemnly, ‘I HAVE
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SENT A PLAGUE UPON YOU AS THEIR
LEADER…’
‘AND I SHALL PLAGUE YOU FOR EVER
UNLESS YOU PROMISE TO GO FROM HERE
AND NEVER RETURN.’
‘We promise,’ said the Consul. ‘Here,’ he
sobbed, ‘I offer you my shield, O Mighty One, as a
sign of your protection from the Romans. Never
again shall we come this far north.’
‘I WILL TAKE YOUR SHIELD AS A SIGN OF
YOUR PROMISE,’ cried Hiccup, ‘AND ALSO THE
BOOK YOUR SERVANT STOLE FROM ME… OH,
AND ONE MORE THING…’
‘Anything, anything,’ pleaded the Consul.
‘I EXPECT YOU TO BE A STRICT
VEGETARIAN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.’
The godlike Hiccup flew towards the Consul’s
balcony.
Still on his knees, the Consul offered him the
rectangular Roman shield. Alvin put his trembling
hand into his breast pocket and found the tattered
copy of How to Speak Dragonese, the two halves sewn
together carefully with golden Roman thread.
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He fumbled to get rid of the booby trap he had
placed inside the book. For Alvin was a careful man.
He had slipped something very nasty indeed between
the pages, a nanodragon called the Venomous
Vorpent, so that anybody who tried to steal the book
would get a horrible shock. But one does not booby-
trap a god, and Alvin was desperately trying to shake
out the poisonous nanodragon, when he caught a
close-up sight of the shirt Hiccup was wearing…
‘Hang on a second…’ said Alvin.
But it was too late.
Hiccup snatched the book from him (still with
the Venomous Vorpent inside it, please note), and rose
swiftly into the air.
He held the shield victoriously above his head
and made his final speech.
‘I HOLD THE SHIELD AS A SIGN OF YOUR
PROMISE… BUT IF YOU EVER BREAK THAT
PROMISE, YOU CAN TELL YOUR CAESAR THAT
THE FORCE OF MY ANGER SHALL REACH
INTO THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE AND ROME
HERSELF WILL BE SWEPT AWAY BY THE
DELUGE…’
Hiccup pointed his sword at the dam.
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Right on cue a couple of cracks appeared.
And the dam split in half and numberless tons of
seawater burst into the stadium.
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21. YOU CAN’T KEEP A
BOG-BURGLAR UNDER
LOCK AND KEY
The spell that Hiccup had cast on the audience was
instantly broken.
It was as if they had been sleeping, and had
suddenly woken up to the reality that they were about
to be swept away by the flood.
Furthermore, everyone had forgotten about the
Sharkworms. The metal netting that should have
protected the audience had been broken by Hiccup.
The Sharkworms were back in the water again and they
were already nearly able to reach the wooden seating.
The audience screamed in terror as one of the
Sharkworms leaped upward and was almost among
them… it lost its grip on the slippery edge and fell back
into the water – but the water was rising so quickly it
was clearly only a matter of time before it succeeded in
getting up to their level.
Suddenly the afternoon’s entertainment of
‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST’ had taken an
interesting twist. The audience who had laughed so
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heartily at the tables being turned on the greedy
Flashfangs didn’t seem so amused to find they
themselves had become the prey…
They stormed towards the entrance, shoving each
other out of the way and screaming for the doors to be
opened.
The pressure of the water on the doors caused
them to open anyway. They burst apart and the water
poured out and down the hillside.
Fishlegs and Camicazi turned their attention to
steering the boat.
The flying Hiccup descended and landed beside
them on the deck.
Toothless appeared from nowhere and perched on
his shoulder.
‘I am lost for words,’ said Camicazi. ‘How did you
do it?’
Hiccup pointed to his shirt. ‘Look a little closer,’
he said.
The Vikings craned forward. Hiccup’s shirt
seemed to have changed colour. Indeed, when they
looked closer still, it seemed not to be a shirt at all. It
was made up of millions and millions of tiny winged
creatures, all practically invisible to the naked eye and
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all clinging to Hiccup’s clothing
underneath. This was what had caused
Hiccup to fly.
The numberless armies of Ziggerastica.
The little nanodragon himself flew out from his
position of command on Hiccup’s chest to bow to the
Vikings.
‘This terrible, terrible plan,’ announced
Ziggerastica joyfully, ‘has worked beautifully. I,
Ziggerastica the Mighty, have made it do this! How
wonderful I am! How Glorious is my Empire! How
numerous and powerful are my peoples!’
‘We were lucky, too,’ grinned Hiccup.
‘I am almost sorry to leave you, O-Boy-With-No-
Muscles-At-All,’ said Ziggerastica sorrowfully. ‘But we
are quits now, I have saved your life in exchange for you
saving mine and you are still a stinking HUMAN after
all…’
‘Thanks,’ said Hiccup.
‘But this has been a great day for the little
creatures of the
world …’
Ziggerastica gave a single
command and the
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nanodragons instantly rose in a
grey mass, like a small thundercloud,
and disappeared into the sky.
As they rose, they sang a song that the Romans
would have been wise to listen to… but they were too
busy panicking.
A WARNING TO EMPERORS
Watch out
O Romans with your Empires and your Stinking Breath
Watch out for the smaller things of this world
For we are going to get you… one day
You live your lives up in the skies
Building your aqueducts and your coliseums
And you never think of US
Ticking away in the grasses
But we see you
And if you bend your ear you just might hear
The steady beat of countless feet that come to eat
The wall that curls a hundred miles across a continent.
That temple built with the tears of millions of slaves
And all your most mighty and splendid creations
Shall turn to dust in our mouths
So watch out
O Caesars with Fat Bottoms and Hard Hearts
Watch out
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‘Goodbye, O-Boy-With-Arms-Like-Pieces-of-
String…’ sang Ziggerastica, ‘and may the winds that
blow you be strong…’
And with that, he was gone.
‘Why did you let him go?’ shrieked Fishlegs. ‘I
hate to mention this but we’re not free yet, we’re still
stuck in an arena surrounded by Sharkworms!’
‘The Sharkworms seem more interested in the
audience,’ said Hiccup. ‘That’s why I got
Ziggerastica’s armies to eat through the metal netting
and to spend all night chomping through the dam. It
was all part of my plan, you see – now the dam has
cracked, we can simply sail out…’
Hiccup gestured to the open doors of the
auditorium. The water was pouring out of them in a
great river.
‘Brilliant,’ said Camicazi. ‘I’ve got to admit,
that’s brilliant…for a boy, of course.’
Hiccup was already at the tiller and he pointed
the ship towards the open doors of the stadium.
The Valhalla Express nosed its way towards the
entrance.
‘We’re going to make it!’ yelled Fishlegs. ‘We’re
nearly there!’
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The Valhalla Express was halfway through the door…
… but Alvin had spotted them trying to escape
and given the order to send the portcullis rattling
down. It cut The Valhalla Express in two. Fishlegs and
Camicazi and Hiccup were thrown into the water on
the wrong side of the bars. The sea was breath-
quenchingly cold.
‘AAAARGH!’ shrieked Fishlegs, almost rearing
out of the water, he was so terrified of the Sharkworms.
‘Climb the portcullis,’ ordered Hiccup.
The three young Vikings swam to the portcullis
and climbed it, Hiccup towing Fishlegs, and with
Toothless flapping behind them. Two metres or so up,
they clung, dripping and terrified, like four little
spiders.
Through the slippery bars they had a tantalising
view of the freedom of the open ocean, hopelessly out
of reach. All around them were the shrieks of the
crowd, and clouds and clouds of escaping dragons.
(The nanodragons had eaten the locks of those giant
cages too.)
The Romans were running to their ships and
setting sail back to Rome as fast as they could.
The Sharkworms were taking over the island,
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climbing over the battlements and destroying the
soldiers’ tents. One or two of them had already made
their way to the Fat Consul’s swimming pool and were
wallowing in the water.
‘So what do we do now, then?’ shouted
Camicazi, her teeth chattering.
‘I give up!’ Hiccup shouted back, a sudden gust
of wind nearly blowing him off the portcullis. His
fingers were so frozen he wasn’t sure how much
longer he could hold on.
‘This isn’t part of my plan. What more do you
want of me? It’s all up to you now. You’re the Master
Escaper, aren’t you? You’re Ze Great Camicazi, no
prison can hold you…’
‘Ze Great Camicazi will get us out of here,’
shouted Camicazi, ‘if you admit that girls are way, way
better than boys and always have been…’
‘Dream on, sunshine,’ grinned Hiccup.
‘OK!’ shouted Camicazi. ‘Ze Great CAMICAZI
will get us out of here anyway… You can’t keep a Bog-
Burglar under lock and key. Are you sure you want to
follow me?’
‘Lead on!’ said Hiccup, with a slightly mad
laugh. ‘We can’t hang around here for ever.’
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Camicazi craned her neck upwards. Some way
above them, tethered to the top of the amphitheatre
entrance, was one of those enormous Roman
observation balloons.
‘If we can’t sail our way out of here,’ she yelled,
‘I vote we fly!’ and she pointed to the balloon.
‘Ohhhh brother…’ moaned Fishlegs miserably as
he climbed slowly after the others, ‘if Woden had
meant us to fly he’d have given us wings… don’t look
down, Fishlegs – don’t look down.’
Camicazi climbed expertly upwards, and she got
to the balloon first, closely followed by Hiccup. They
scrambled into the basket.
It was empty except for a rather depressed-
looking Gronckle, trapped in a cage right underneath
the open mouth of the balloon. Every now and then
he shot out a burst of flame that heated the air, and
this would send the balloon bouncing upward for a
moment before it was stopped by the rope that
moored it.
‘Hello, Brother-of-the-Snake,’ panted Hiccup.
He looked carefully around the basket for any hidden
soldiers. ‘Are you on your own here?’
‘The soldiers are all watching the Saturn’s day
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Saturday celebrations,’ said the Gronckle. ‘Actually,
it’s nice to have some peace and quiet for a change.’
‘Well, I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ said Hiccup,
‘but we’re taking over this balloon – it’s a military
emergency…’
‘No problem,’ said the sad Gronckle. ‘It would be
my pleasure. Nobody’s bothered to ask me nicely before
– they usually just hit me.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Hiccup sympathetically. He hated
to see his fellow creatures trapped or ill-treated. ‘Of
course we’ll let you go as soon as we get home, but at
the moment we’re in a bit of a hurry.’
‘It’s not that I don’t like the job,’ the Gronckle
assured him. ‘It’s nice up here – peaceful, you know.
When would you like to leave?’
‘Very soon,’ said Hiccup. ‘We’re just waiting for
a friend.’ He peered back over the edge of the basket.