He looked at the Roman helmet. Maybe, just
maybe, Hiccup was right…
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But then he looked at Big-Boobied Bertha’s
letter and his temper returned.
‘THE ONLY GOOD BOG-BURGLAR IS A
DEAD BOG-BURGLAR!’ shouted Stoick at the top
of his voice, and he stalked out of the room.
‘Don’t blame your father too much, will you,
Hiccup?’ said Old Wrinkly sadly. ‘He means well, but
when things get complicated, he gets confused. By the
way, aren’t you going to be late for your Frightening
Foreigners lesson?’
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Hiccup. ‘So I am…’
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8. THE FRIGHTENING
FOREIGNERS LESSON
It was a glorious, blue, breezy day but Hiccup had no
time to admire it. He ran as fast as he could towards
the Great Hall where the Frightening Foreigners
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lesson was being held. Gobber hadn’t arrived yet, so
the young barbarians were making a gigantic racket.
Sharpknife and Tuffnut Junior were having a
swordfight in one corner. The boys’ dragons were lying
in front of the gigantic fire, snapping and snarling at
each other. Snotlout and Dogsbreath the Duhbrain
were sitting on Fishlegs while Fireworm set fire to a
pile of Fishlegs’s workbooks.
‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own
size, you brainless brutes?’ snapped Hiccup at the
bullies, putting out the fire with his jacket.
‘Thanks, Hiccup,’ panted Fishlegs.
‘Well, well, well,’ drawled Snotlout, removing
his knee from Fishlegs’s stomach and sauntering over
to where Hiccup was sitting.
‘Some Vikings you two are! I hear you couldn’t
even tell the difference between a Peaceable fishing
boat and a seventy-metre Roman ship, and you have
got to be the first pirates EVER to sink their own
boat…’
‘Har har har har,’ laughed all the other boys.
‘And most pathetic of all,’ jeered Snotlout, ‘you
lost your ridiculous fangless microbe of a dragon.’
‘Some loss,’ sneered Fireworm, sharpening her
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claws on Hiccup’s helmet with an acutely unpleasant
scritching noise. ‘That creature was a disgrace to us green-
blooded FireBrothers of the Snake.’
‘Toothless was a fine, fine dragon,’ said Hiccup
quietly, trying to keep his temper.
‘He was a HOPELESS dragon,’ mocked
Snotlout. ‘Never mind, Hiccup. He’ll make a much
better Roman handbag—’
‘YOU TAKE THAT BACK, YOU SNOT-
FACED, SNOT-NOSED, ELEPHANT-
NOSTRILLED, BOTTOM-BRAINED BULLY!’ yelled
Hiccup.
The door opened with a gigantic crash.
‘Excellent Advanced Rudery, Hiccup!’ roared
Gobber the Belch. ‘We’ll make a Viking of you yet!’
‘I hope you don’t mind, sir,’ spat Snotlout,
advancing on Hiccup with his fists raised and a nasty
look in his eye, ‘if I just kill him for that one…’
‘But I do mind,’ said Gobber. ‘This is a
Frightening Foreigners lesson, not a free-for-all –
SIDDOWN NOW YOU ’ORRIBLE LITTLE
EXCUSES FOR VIKINGS!’
The boys scrambled for their places on the floor
at Gobber’s feet. Even Snotlout knew better than to
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disobey Gobber, and he sat down too, muttering darkly
to Hiccup that he would get him later.
‘This lesson is all about Taking Money with
Menaces,’ yelled Gobber. ‘HICCUP! WARTIHOG!
Stand up here in the front. Hiccup, I want you to be
the Hooligan Invader and Wartihog to be the simple
Gaulish farmer. What Terrifying Techniques can you use
to get Wartihog’s belongings?’
Hiccup got to his feet, but he wasn’t really
concentrating.
‘Excusez-moi, mon brave,’ said Hiccup absent-
mindedly. ‘Mais pouvez-vous me donner votre—’
Wartihog bashed him.
‘OH FOR THOR’S SAKE, HICCUP!’
SAID A MOMENT AGO! HAVE I TAUGHT YOU
NOTHING? VIKINGS DON’T TALK IN SILLY
FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THEY YELL, HICCUP,
YELL!’
Gobber controlled himself with an effort. ‘Sit
down, Hiccup. Snotlout, show PATHETIC Hiccup
how to perform this perfectly simple exercise.’
Two seconds later, to great cheers of ‘BRAVO!’
from Gobber and the rest of the class, Snotlout had
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Wartihog in a Baggybum Bearhug and was removing
not only his money but also his helmet, jacket and
trousers.
Gobber put his hands on his hips, threw back
his huge hairy head until the horns on his helmet
touched the wall behind him, and shouted with
laughter.
‘YOU SEE, HICCUP?’ he bellowed in between
great guffaws. ‘THAT’S HOW TO FRIGHTEN A
FOREIGN—’
The door flew open.
Two enormous, masked Kidnappers crashed into
the room with yells that froze the blood and made the
hairs on Hiccup’s head stand up like the spines on a
sea-urchin. They were dressed in traditional Bog-
Burglar costume but it was obvious to Hiccup that this
was a couple of Roman soldiers in not a very good
disguise. For starters Bog-Burglar soldiers were always
women. But these were clearly big hairy muscly men in
dresses with pigs’ bladders stuffed down their blouses
instead of bosoms.
The First Kidnapper was holding a couple of
double-headed axes the size of dinner plates and he
threw one of these as hard as he could in Gobber’s
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direction. The axe flew through the air, missed
Gobber’s head by a hair’s-breadth, and pinned him to
the wall by his beard.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ gurgled Gobber,
unable to move and gazing at the shining blade less
than a centimetre from his nose.
‘HE WHO IS MOVING, PLEASE, LOSES
ZE HEAD, AND ZE DRAGONS ALSO,’ yelled the
First Kidnapper, speaking very badly in Norse* and
swinging the other axe round his head.
Not a boy or a dragon moved.
‘Okey-dokey, please,’ continued the First
Kidnapper in a quieter voice. ‘Give us what we is
wantings and nobody she gets hurt. Which one of you
lots is being the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans?’
Everyone was silent.
‘No make me get cross, please…’ warned the
First Kidnapper.
‘You no like her when she is cross,’ said the
second one, fingering his axe lovingly.
‘Just tell me… WHO IS BEING THE HEIR
TO THE HAIRY HOOLIGANS?’
* Norse is the language all Vikings speak.
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Nobody answered them and now they started
talking to each other in Latin.
‘OK, Marcus,’ the First Kidnapper said to the
Second Kidnapper. ‘They’re not telling, but the Boss
sa
id the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans is a weedy-
looking kid – which one is he, then?’
The Second Kidnapper pointed at Hiccup. ‘It
must be that one with the red hair,’ he said. ‘Look at
him, he’s got arms like spaghetti!’
‘But what about the one with the face like a
haddock?’ objected the First Kidnapper, indicating
Fishlegs. ‘That’s got to be the weediest-looking kid
I’ve ever seen in my life…’
‘Oooh it’s a toughie,’ said the Second
Kidnapper. ‘I think we have to take them both, just
in case. If we get it wrong the Boss will be cross,
and you know what he’s like when he’s cross…’
So the Second Kidnapper picked up both
Hiccup and Fishlegs and put them over his shoulders.
‘You must be doing countings to a thousands
before you is leavings this room,’ the First Kidnapper
warned the class of open-mouthed Viking boys. ‘Or we
be killings these boys! You be tellings your Chief that
Big-Boobied Bertha sends you her lovings and is giving
you this letter.’
The Kidnappers handed Wartihog a piece of
paper addressed to Stoick.
Gobber the Belch had turned purple in the face.
He was still stuck to the wall by his beard with the
Kidnapper’s axe. A beard was a Hooligan’s pride and
joy. The redder, the hairier, the tanglier the better, as far
as the Hooligans were concerned. It was a terrible insult
to lay so much as a finger on another Viking’s beard –
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let alone pin him to the wall with it.
‘REVENGE!’ bellowed Gobber, trying to pull
himself free from the axe but only succeeding in tearing
out pieces of his precious beard. ‘CHIEF STOICK
THE VAST WILL DECLARE A BLOOD FEUD ON
THE BOG-BURGLARS WHEN HE HEARS YOU
HAVE STOLEN HIS HEIR AND RUINED MY
BEARD!’
‘These aren’t Bog-Burglars,’ warned Hiccup.
‘Bog-Burglars are always women. These aren’t women.
Look! That one’s bosom’s just popped. These are
Romans! Be sure and tell my father that—’
The First Kidnapper clapped a large hand over
Hiccup’s mouth. But he didn’t need to. Gobber wasn’t
listening to Hiccup anyway. He had gone into a blood-
rage just like Stoick ten minutes earlier.
‘THE BOG-BURGLARS WILL RUE THE
DAY THEY DARED TO MESS WITH THE
BEARD OF GOBBER THE BELCH! MAKE NO
MISTAKE, I’M GOING TO SEE THE CHIEF
ABOUT THIS!’
‘You be doings that,’ grinned the First
Kidnapper, and the Kidnappers left the room, taking
Hiccup and Fishlegs with them.
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9. WELCOME TO FORT
SINISTER
The Kidnappers ran down the hillside with the boys
bumping on their backs. They threw them into the
bottom of their boat – a small, clearly Roman ship
with a very badly made Bog-Burglar flag flying from
the mast.
The Kidnappers set sail in the opposite
direction to the land of the Bog-Burglars.
‘Where are we going?’ moaned Fishlegs.
‘My guess is next stop Fort Sinister,’ replied
Hiccup.
‘Your weedy friend she is right,’ sneered the
First Kidnapper, removing his false beard. ‘You are
havings the honour to be kidnapped by the glorious
Empire of Rome, and we is takings you to the noble
Fortress of Sinister.’
‘Yippee,’ said Fishlegs gloomily.
‘You can be shuttings up now,’ said the First
Kidnapper, and the boys shut up.
The wind was very strong. Within an hour they
had left the safety of Woden’s Bathtub and were
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entering the tricksy currents and needle-sharp rocks of
the Mazy Multitudes. This was a bewildering muddle
of thousands of small islands some miles south of the
Isle of Berk, many with gigantic sea cliffs. Its eerie
atmosphere led most Vikings to believe it was
haunted.
Huge black mountains with grim scrabbles of
rock rose on either side of them. The greasy sea
swirled underneath, with every now and then a pointy
rock appearing out of nowhere in the mist, so that the
Second Kidnapper had to swiftly steer the boat clear.
The closer they got to the Roman
Headquarters, the less wildlife there was around them.
Woden’s Bathtub had been alive with dragons
of all shapes and sizes, screaming and catcalling to
each other and skimming across the waves, keeping an
eye out for fish. Seals slumbered fatly on the rocks.
Birds wheeled in the skies, zooming down on any
morsels of fish that went astray during dragonfights.
But as they neared the fort, the seas around
them became a desert. Not a bird called, not a fish
jumped. The reason for this was clear when they
spotted two dead Slitherhawks all tangled up in a
gigantic net, hanging from a cliff face.
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‘And they call US barbarians,’ sniffed Fishlegs.
Hiccup began to feel a bit sick.
And then his heart skipped a beat. He could
hear the sound of dragons screaming, the same noise
that they had heard through the mist in Woden’s
Bathtub… It was a sound that chilled the blood and
frayed the nerves, like a sword being sharpened
screechily on a stone. He swallowed hard. ‘I think
we’re about to meet the Romans,’ he said.
Sure enough, the appalling hullabaloo of
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terrified and furious dragons grew louder and louder
and louder… then they rounded a corner and there
before them, impossibly huge and spooky, stood Fort
Sinister.
Their mouths flopped open in astonishment.
Vikings are used to fairly simple living conditions.
A Chief just has a larger hut than anybody else. So they
had never seen anything the size of Fort Sinister before.
The Island of Sinister was surrounded by
enormous black cliffs plunging dizzily down to jagged
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rocks. On top of these cliffs the Romans had built the
biggest fort you could possibly imagine, covering the
entire island.
The wind shrieked through its awful towers and
great grim cages, the sea seeped through its iron gates
and into its terrible dungeons; it was a fort as black
and bleak as the rocks it was made out of.
In the middle was the Consul’s Palace, a
gorgeous villa built around a central courtyard with an
ornamental fountain. Next to the Palace was an
enormous wooden amphitheatre, and beyond that
were the soldiers’ barracks.
Countless numbers of dragons were being held
in fifty enormous iron cages, with no shelter from the
wild wind and bitter cold of the Inner Isles. No
wonder they were screaming.
Beyond that were slaves’ quarters and kitchens
and exercise yards for the horses and training grounds
for the gladiators and little temples
for the gods and
heated swimming baths for the Consul and senior
soldiers and stores of ammunition and gigantic
equipment for breaking a barricade and field after
field of crops.
And this entire, massive area was encircled by
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high wooden fences, with watchtowers manned by
sentries every hundred metres. Four enormous
observation balloons sailed overhead. These balloons
were powered by the flaming breath of a dragon kept
in a cage just above the basket, and they were manned
with more sentries, keeping a sharp eye out for
escapees or invaders.
‘WOW,’ breathed Fishlegs at last. ‘No wonder
the Romans have conquered most of the world. It’s
just amazing they haven’t conquered US.’
‘Yet,’ said Hiccup grimly. ‘And what I’m
worrying about is how on earth we’re going to GET
OUT of here?’
The Kidnappers sailed right up to the wooden
entrance gates. These were in themselves impossibly
huge, doors larger than some of the sea cliffs on Berk.
As they neared, there were cries from the sentries in
the watchtowers and the great doors opened to let
them in. They sailed through the open gates, right into
the heart of the Fortress, and the doors shutting
behind them were like the closing of a shark’s mouth.
The Second Kidnapper gave the boys a
glittering smile as they moored the boat.
‘We is welcoming you to Fort Sinister,’ he said.
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10. THE SECRET IDENTITY
OF THE THIN PREFECT
The Kidnappers threw the boys over their shoulders
again and strode through several large courtyards,
busy with soldiers and cooks and horses and people
selling things to each other. They walked up some
steps and through a door into a brightly lit, gorgeously
painted room. This was the Consul’s Palace. Tapestries
hung from the walls, couches were draped in silken
covers, the mosaic floor was warm and toasty
underfoot.
The Romans certainly knew how to make
themselves comfy.
In one corner of the room, the Fat Consul was