Chapter 8: A Challenge

Despite popular tales to the contrary, Vikings did not constantly duel to the death over every little issue. Indeed, they took considerable efforts to prevent unnecessary bloodshed among their communities and to ensure fairness between their members.

Political meetings, known as Things, had elaborate rules of conduct, designed to limit the potential for violence and the sparking of feuds. This was one of the functions of the ritual trial-by-combat, the holmgang; to settle and close disputes and feuds in a hopefully nonlethal manner, yet in a way that was acceptable to the martial Norse. This was done by means of creating the dueling area as a sacred space before the gods, defining the conflict, and rendering it such that what was 'slain' within the bounds of the demarcation was the opposing dispute. Rather than start a brawl over a dispute at a Thing—an act that was in violation of the rules of conduct—one disputant could challenge another to a trial by combat, after which the matter was settled. And to keep those with significant prowess from perverting the mechanics of the trial by combat against their intent, substitutions in the cases of gross mismatches were not only allowed, but encouraged.

Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631

That night, dressed in less muddied clothing, the sweet memories of being with Astrid in the cove put to the back of his mind, Hiccup stood in the mead hall next to Stoick, feeling extremely uncomfortable. His father was speaking first in the hastily assembled Thing, and was pretty angry.

"A year ago, we were suffering weekly dragon raids. We all remember what a toll that took on this tribe. Then, finally, my son brokered a peace, and the last seven months have been the greatest Berk has ever known since we first sailed to this shore."

He pounded the bench around the firepit. "And now, thanks to the glory-hungry deeds of a youth, we may face a new war, one not against dragons just interested in stealing food for the one holding their eggs hostage, but against a Christian kingdom, one that has already torn down sacred groves and temples to the All-Father, one that threatens to do to us what we planned to do to the Dragon's Nest."

He paused.

"WHY ARE WE GIVING THEM A REASON TO COME HERE?"

He looked at Snotlout, who cowered. Spitelout stood next to him, expressionless.

"If they come to demand your head, boy, I will give it to them. If you behave yourself, I may even let the rest of you join it."

Spitelout spoke up at this point. "How has my son broken the laws to deserve such punishment?"

"He raided without permission! Again! Against my explicit warnings!"

"Did you swear him to an oath?"

"That was your job as parent and clan-head!"

"You said not to raid a Viking village! He did not! He raided a Saxon town, one that other Vikings have tried and failed to conquer! We should be celebrating his accomplishments, not threatening them!" Spitelout proclaimed, spreading his arms wide… and turning to address the assembled tribe, not just Hiccup's dad. "Besides! The Saxons are weak! Their king squabbles over his crowns! Only a year ago, Harefoot and Harthacnut were two brothers arguing over who should lead, the seed of their father split!" He pounded the table for emphasis, a fervent light in his eyes. "They are and were weak and divided, more worried about their own grasp than they are about us! We have shown our strength! With twenty thanes, my son conquered one of their greatest strongholds outside London in an hour! They will come to us with treasure and tribute and beg for our allegiance!"

There was a murmur of assent and anticipation from a disturbingly large portion of the room.

"Or they will come with ships and armies and wipe us out before we trouble them again," Stoick said mildly. "It is easy to foretell vast riches and endless glory when one is not responsible for when it goes wrong. And I am still chief of the Hooligans." He thumped his chest. "I still lead, and my son is my heir. Regardless of what some may believe or desire," he glanced significantly at the Jorgensons, "in Odin's, Tyr's, and Thor's names, as chief, I aim to lead. And, in leading, I will balance wisdom, honor, justice, and glory, for the good of us all."

There was a larger and louder assent to this—even from the traditionalists, the ones that Hiccup knew he made uncomfortable with everything that he'd done, and who still looked down on him for being scrawny.

Stoick continued. "I have already made my great mistake there, making poor judgment from poor wisdom, not listening to one that knew better, which led to me leading us all into the maw of the Green Death. Will you presume on the generosity of the Norns to give us a second such chance to avoid the noose? Or will you depend on my son's gifts to save us once again from the outcome of such arrogance?"

There was complete and total silence.

Stoick chuckled. There was no humor in it. "Aye, I thought so. Calls for glory are easy to hear, until one remembers standing on a black beach and watching the spawn of Jormungand chase a 'useless' boy across the sky, a useless ax in your hand." He laughed again humorlessly. "But what would my boy and his dragon be able to do against a thousand longships of the Danes, come to sack our shores?"

"We have dragons too!" Snotlout said heatedly.

"Aye, you do. And they have archers. And, until last year, the Night Fury was the only dragon that we had never successfully killed. A Monstrous Nightmare, like your Hookfang, would probably manage about, hmm, say three longboats, perhaps four if you were lucky and smart. And then they'd bring you down with bolas, javelins, and bows, even if they know nothing about dragon-fighting. We know because we've had to fight dragons from longboats, boy. And we survived. So will any fleet." He slapped the table. "Is that how the story of Berk will end? We survive the Dragon War by luck and kindness, and throw away the gift of the Norns and Forsetti out of glory-seeking!?" He looked around the room. "We are a dying tribe! In my great-grandfather's time, Berk numbered over a thousand and a half! Now we are seven hundred and twelve! We have more elders of fifty winters than we have children under ten! My class of dragon fighting numbered thirty, and you, my nephew, were one of six."

He looked around the room, Hiccup besides him. "Thus, here is the new law: There will be no further a-viking raids by dragon riders. We are not weak, but we are tired, spent by our own long conflict. Twenty thanes may be enough to raid a stronghold, but they are not enough to hold one, and we cannot spare a single person now, man or maid, youth or elder. However, I will show mercy, and offer clemency for any past raiding. If those offended by those raids come, we will offer weregeld for their dead, a third from my coffers, the remainder from those who executed the raid. If provoked, we will defend ourselves. But we will not surrender our own to their justice, for I have heard what they do to 'pagans' who do not worship their tortured god."

To that, the entire room vocally agreed, as Stoick pushed Hiccup forward.

"Hiccup has something else to add regarding all of this."

Hiccup looked through the room packed with his tribemates, all of them looking at him, and felt his stomach promptly drop to somewhere around his boot.

He opened his mouth for a moment and then closed it, swallowing hard.

And then he saw Snotlout giving him a wicked leer from where he stood leaning up against one of the room's pillars, seeing that Hiccup couldn't speak, and he felt Astrid's hand at the small of his back.

Taking a deep breath and pulling confidence from somewhere, he stood up straight and spoke. "So… we haven't even had the dragons for a year now, first off. And I don't want to start giving them the idea that they need to start stealing food for us like they did for the Green Death."

There was a murmur at this thought—some for, some against. Apparently and unsurprisingly, a few people in Berk thought that it would be grand idea. Well, he was going to work on that.

"A Viking raid on a town… glory, lots of loot, Valhalla, and so forth. That's great. But I know I'd be pretty embarrassed if the dragons just started raiding the neighboring tribes because they thought that's just what we do, and they've slipped out of our control." He waves vaguely into the crowd and affected his father's accent, "'Aye, so what you're telling me is that his ram jumped the fence and bred with your ewes and yeh don't want to pay his stud fee? Why didn't yeh build the fence taller after the last time this happened?'"

There were some laughs and a few people choked at both his impression and his reference to one of the continual little spats between Mildew and Mulch. Mildew, for his part, had an expression on his face that suggested that he had just found half a worm in his apple.

"Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to have to explain that to a neighboring tribe? 'Aye, we didn't mean to steal your cattle. We just had some badly behaved pets over here who hopped the fence because their owners gave them the wrong idea. Wasn't our fault.'" He shrugged, trying for nonchalance but overselling it somewhat. "I know if someone tried that excuse on the chief, he'd just look at them. Like this." He gave his best impression of Stoick's unamused glare, being extremely familiar with it.

More than one person burst out laughing, including Gobber, and Stoick looked somewhere between amused and offended.

"Point being, Viking raid, great. Tradition, loot, honor, so forth. Dragons getting the idea of going raiding on their own? …probably not so great." He waved his arms around a bit for emphasis as he talked . "Besides, as someone pointed out, dragons are so very much like Vikings—smart, strong, clever. And if they're doing the raiding, who gets the glory in the eyes of Freya and Odin? The dragon, or the rider?"

That hit a nerve, Hiccup was glad to see. Hopefully they'd waste at least a year arguing it out.

"So I had an idea," he continued as nonchalantly as possible. "Just to keep things… peaceful. I'm going to fly around with Toothless to visit as many of the other villages in the islands, and probably the mainland too, as I can manage. Tell them who we are, where we live, and that if there's a problem with dragons, they should tell us." He smirked. "You know. Just to avoid any misunderstandings about where the glory should go if there's a problem," he said, looking dead on at Snotlout, who was staring back. "But I'm not going to raid anybody, and if I come back with anything, it'll hopefully be some more of the wild dragons out there that we haven't tamed yet."

He looked around the room, trying to meet people's eyes.

"Any questions?"

"Yes," Snotlout said, pushing forward. "You're telling us to not be Vikings. Well, I say that we are. I say that you're running away from glory like a coward."

The whole room seemed to take in a breath at once.

Hiccup just looked at Snotlout with surprise as Stoick said, "That sounded like a challenge, boy."

"Yeah. It was." Snotlout looked at Hiccup. "You want to tell us to stop being Vikings!? Then prove that you're a better one than I am. I challenge you! You and me! Winner gets to set our path!"

Astrid said heatedly before Hiccup could protest, "Oh, like that will prove anything, Snotlout!"

"Yeah, it'll prove which of us is right in the eyes of the gods!"

"You've spent years calling Hiccup weak! And he has a false foot!" she shot back. "You won't prove anything about rightness before the gods if you just use the holmgang to push Hiccup out of the way!"

The crowd seemed to murmur at this as Hiccup looked around wildly. It had, after all, only been seven months before that Hiccup had been Snotlout's bully-toy of choice. Odin, Tyr and Thor would not smile on such a verdict. Even the Jorgenson supporters seemed to find that point to be telling.

Snotlout was also looking around the room, and Astrid took her chance. "You want to prove rightness before the gods? Fine! Holmgang against me for Tyr, race against Hiccup for Thor, and a test of wisdom against Hiccup for Odin! Best of three!"

A few people shouted their approval, and others stamped their feet to indicate the same. Hiccup felt his stomach drop. This was what he had been afraid of.

Snotlout suddenly looked a bit trapped, and shouted back, "Fine! I won't go easy on you in the Holmgang! And the race has to be on foot!"

"On foot and dragon! Or do you really think that Thor would approve of a win against someone with one foot?" And Hiccup had just beaten Snotlout at exactly the same challenge days ago.

Stoick, who had been looking at Snotlout with displeasure, rumbled, "Aye. If you insist on a challenge to my policy, nephew, I'm not going to let you overturn it by attacking Hiccup's weak point." He looked at the crowd of watching Vikings, settling specifically on the Jorgensons and their supporters. "We will witness this challenge before the gods. And we will find the results binding! All of us!"

"But Snotlout against Astrid? How is that fair?" Spitelout demanded.

"I'm sure she won't hurt him too much for the next challenge," Stoick said grimly, which made people in the crowd chortle and snicker.

"But—" Spitelout started to protest.

"She offered herself in Hiccup's place," Stoick said. "I will not dishonor her by refusing to accept, and neither will Hiccup."

Everyone looked at Hiccup, who looked at Astrid, who was looking at him with an expression that was a weird mix of anger and defiance at Snotlout, and pleading with him. After eight months together, he understood it perfectly.

Please. Let me help you.

Hiccup nodded, and the crowd cheered.

###

Three days later, Astrid watched the final preparations for the holmgang and other challenges commence. The pale hide was stretched out, the ground was scored around it, and the hazel rods were placed, as the sacred words were chanted with each tap of the hammer.

Over the last three days, as was tradition, the soft-wood shields had been made, and both she and Snotlout had picked swords from the armory under supervision of their seconds.

The tribe assembled on the field to watch, while the dragons circled overhead, not knowing that their own fate was about to be decided. Hiccup's way, the way of peace, versus Snotlout's way, the way of war.

She scowled.

Hiccup was going to be her second in the formal duel and would be handing her her spare shields as she needed them. Spitelout would be doing the same for his son. Gothi was acting as the formal witness.

She walked over to her boyfriend, who was carrying her sword. Hiccup had sharpened it special this morning for her. He had said that he hoped she wasn't about to kill his cousin with it… but if only one of them walked out of the holm, he knew which one he wanted to be whole and hearty.

But hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. They didn't have the old duels anymore, the ones where anything went. The holmgang wasn't to the death. All she had to do was wound him enough that blood dripped onto the surface of the white hide or knock him past its edge and it would be over, and then it would Hiccup's turn to face his cousin.

Snotlout walked towards them as she gave Hiccup a peck on the cheek. Spitelout was following a short ways behind his son.

"I still can't believe that you're doing this," Snoutlout said to Astrid, "or that you accepted it," he scowled at Hiccup.

"And this is what's wrong with you, 'Lout" she said tauntingly. "You're so used to hitting on girls and getting hit that you're all confused on when you're supposed to hit first." Astrid smirked at him. He thought of himself as a warrior… and yet he didn't see shieldmaids—especially the pretty ones—as a threat. Instead, he just pawed at them, usually her, and got punched.

"I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a woman," he said, hefting his own blade.

"Good. You're in enough dishonor as it is," she said angrily.

"I'm in dishonor? How? I'm a Viking! I went out and proved our strength! What has he done lately?" Snotlout demanded, pointing at Hiccup behind her. "Prove to a group of thieves that we're weak and cowardly?" He made a face. "Yeah, sure, they'll be so impressed by giving them back their men and their ship."

"And you burning an entire fortress to the ground and killing half of the garrison proves what, exactly?" Astrid asked acidly.

"That we're strong and powerful! And that they should treat us with respect! If I win, we're going to load up every thane we can on dragons and fly straight to London, and tell that King that there had better be some Danegeld every summer, or else." He smirked. "It's actually funny, because he is a Dane, and he'll have to pay us to keep from raiding! Now that's justice!"

Astrid just stared at him, appalled, but managed to reply, "And when you lose, you'll do no such thing, on your own sacred honor." She wasn't actually sure that he would actually hold to his oaths… but the reminder didn't hurt.

"Yeah, yeah. But I won't lose," he said with bravado. He then looked her over in a way that made her want to visit the bathhouse. "So, after this is over and we're doing things my way, why don't you and I—"

She whirled around, grabbed Hiccup by the front of his tunic, and gave him a deep kiss right then and there, while making a rude gesture at Snotlout. A few people around them applauded and made calls of approval.

As she enjoyed the kiss with her boyfriend, who had quickly gotten over his surprise and was returning the kiss with enthusiasm and a little nibbling on her lip, she stomped on a wild thought of breaking the kiss and telling—taunting—Snotlout that it was thanks to his raid and his verbal attack on Hiccup that her boyfriend now knew what she looked like naked. While it would definitely be effective at putting him off-balance for the duel, there was no way she was going to tell him something private like that. The gossip that would result from it was barely even a consideration… but she didn't want to betray Hiccup's own trust.

Breaking the kiss, her cheeks flushed and breathing heavily, she just smiled pointedly at Snotlout, who was staring at her, his jaw hanging open a bit.

Before he could say anything else, though, they were called over to the holm.

It was time to begin.

Going to their respective sides of the staked hide, they readied their swords, had their first shields handed to them by their seconds, and then approached the holm.

People began to chant and pound their feet or their shields, a measured beat. Hiccup and Spitelout lifted the three shields apiece and carried them into the ring past the ropes strung between the hazel poles, next to their duelists.

The sacred words were spoken, and the two fighters entered the sacred space marked by the bounds of the white hide.

She tensed, sword and shield at the ready, preparing to attack. Snotlout had been the challenger, even though Astrid had somewhat challenged him in response, so she got the first blow.

As their tribesmates pounded out a steady rhythm and chanted, Astrid swung her blade with a grunt, aiming for Snotlout's right arm. He managed to intercept with his shield, which shattered the soft wood; he cast it aside and accepted another one from his father, and then swung at Astrid, aiming for her legs. She caught the blade on her shield, and it shattered. Hiccup passed her a shield as she threw away her previous one.

With a nasty smile, she attacked again, and swung her sword while bashing with her shield. He managed to intercept her blade on his shield, but her shield hit him full in the face. It broke into useless pieces, but sent Snotlout staggering back a foot, and made him start bleeding from a cut above his eye.

The beat and chant paused as the crowd went silent, watching to see if blood would spatter the white surface under their feet or if he would step off of it.

Snotlout wiped at the shallow cut with his sleeve, which soaked up the blood. He grabbed his third and final shield, as Astrid did the same; the beat resumed. His duty in the holmgang completed, Hiccup pulled back reluctantly, as did Spitelout. A quick glance at the shield as she strapped it into place, and an idea came to her mind.

Snotlout then swung at her with an angry grunt, and she caught his blade on the shield, the dull thump swallowed by the beat from the onlookers. With a grin of triumph, she looked at it; her idea had worked, and she had managed to catch the tip of his sword in the groove between the boards. With a grunt of effort, she twisted her arm, making the blade bend visibly before the soft wood shattered from the stress, leaving her unprotected. The shield essentially exploded, tearing up her armwarmers, but leaving her skin unmarked.

It was time to finish this.

She smirked as Snotlout pulled back his blade and looked at it with irritation on his face; the last handspan of the sword had been literally bent into a partial spiral. Then, with a war cry, she attacked. He managed to get his shield up in front of her swing, which shattered it, leaving them both equally unprotected; even better, the fury of her attack knocked him back to the very edge of the hide.

Howling, he swung his bent blade at her midsection, and she had to leap back to avoid it. She could feel the white deer-hide still under her feet, but she couldn't be more than a handspan or two from the edge.

Before he could recover and pull back from where he'd overextended himself, she counterattacked, using the energy from her acrobatic retreat to rebound into his space. She swung her sword into the opening that he'd left with his frenzied swing. The edge of the blade bit into the skin of his chest, cutting a line up the side of his right arm. A moment later, her momentum unspent, her left fist made a beautiful punch to his face for good measure. She felt one of the bones in her hand break as his head snapped back.

Blood droplets spattered the white hide, as Snotlout, stunned by her punch, staggered back. She watched, a savage grin on her face, as he stumbled backwards… and off the edge of the hide. He tripped on his own feet and landed on his ass on the grass.

She had won; around her, the beat ceased and people cheered her victory.

Breathing heavily, she looked down at the loser and said, "One down. Ready to lose again?"

Snotlout sneered and hopped to his feet.

###

An hour later, Hiccup and Snotlout stood on the starting line by the docks, just as they had a week before, at Thawfest, prepared to run up the length of the village.

Hiccup swallowed hard at a lump in throat. His stump would be in agony in a few minutes, even with the extra padding that Astrid had helped him place around the brace. She had helped him clean his stump when the scars on it had split open and bled after he'd done this exact same contest last week, and they were still tender. But she had said that she had faith in him delivering a repeat performance before the gods.

Astrid was standing a few paces behind him, and he was utterly, unspeakably grateful that she was there. She was his second, and while she couldn't help him with the race itself, she was going to be following him close behind to make sure that there was no cheating. The same went for Spitelout for his son, and a few others would be watching from the air.

The lump in his throat was still there, and he coughed, trying to dislodge it. Snotlout looked at him and sneered, while Astrid just put a comforting hand on his shoulder—not the freshly and temporarily splinted hand, thankfully. She'd managed to break two fingers on Snotlout's face.

Now all he had to do was run up the whole length of the village, all the way up the several hundred paces to the doors of the mead hall where the dragons were waiting … and then he and Toothless would have to beat Snotlout and Hookfang in a race through the sea stacks and back.

They'd done it last week, during the Thawfest…

And his stump still hurt from that. This would be agonizing to do again.

"Hey, Useless," Snotlout jeered at him. "If you want to give up, just say so. Nobody will blame you."

Hiccup looked at Snotlout… and then looked at the people hovering on dragons to watch their race. For a moment, he remembered what it was like to grow up under the threat of having dragons descend in the night and burn your home down around you…

He clenched his fists and the lump disappeared from his throat.

That wasn't going to happen anymore. Not if he had anything to say about it.

"Thanks for the offer, and I understand that you're worried about people seeing you get beaten by someone with a false foot again, but we kinda have to do this. So, even though you're my cousin, I'm afraid I have to turn down your offer to concede," he said with a straight face.

Behind him, Astrid choked, and then started to laugh.

Snotlout just blinked at him for a moment, and then started to redden—with embarrassment or anger, Hiccup couldn't tell. So instead, he just smiled at Snotlout, and got ready to run.

His dad dropped the ax, and they were off. Snotlout immediately pulled ahead, running flat out.

Hiccup jogged along gamely, deliberately pacing himself as best he could.

His foot and peg drumming on the wood of the ramp, he just focused on moving along. What was important was taking another step. Not the pain in his stump as it ground against the inside of his peg. Another step, as quickly as he could manage. That was what mattered.

His focus wasn't so absolute, however, that he didn't hear Snotlout's running slow down, and him gasping for breath on the tier of the ramp above him, followed by Spitelout's gasped admonition to keep going.

It sounded like someone wasn't pacing himself…

Hiccup just kept focusing on putting one foot in front of the other… even as he felt the first scar split open and start to dribble blood into the protective sock of his peg.

He inhaled sharply and just kept moving. Yes, it hurt. But that was an occupational hazard that he was just going to have to deal with. His biggest worry was not the pain… but that the slippery blood would make his stump slide out of the peg's socket again.

As he reached the middle tiers of the village, there was a gasp from the watchers, and he looked up to see Hookfang take flight. He grimaced and tried to run faster; last week, he'd reached the final bend in the pathway before Snotlout had managed to reach Hookfang.

Panting and grimacing at the pain, he ran up as quickly as he could to the mead hall, Snotlout and Hookfang already a dot in the distance. Swearing, he hopped onto Toothless's back. Nearby, Astrid hopped onto Stormfly to join the other observers who were already circling overhead.

"Let's go, bud!" he said, and Toothless took to the skies. They raced along the path, outpacing the watchers who did their best to keep up. While he would have another chance to beat Snotlout—and, being honest, he was hardly worried about Snotlout beating him at a test of wisdom—he wanted to shut his cousin down as hard and as thoroughly as possible. That meant winning all three, even though winning this contest would be enough to seal the decision.

Toothless poured on the speed, and Hiccup crouched as close down behind his neck frill as he could. Snotlout and Hookfang grew from a dot to a rider and dragon, along with their circling watchers.

Someone among the watchers ahead spotted them overtaking rapidly, and Hiccup saw Snotlout look back. For a brief instant, despite the hundreds of yards still between them, it was as if they had locked gazes, and Hiccup could almost feel his cousin's panic.

Hookfang sped up, obviously holding nothing back, and dove for the run through the sea stack maze, entering the first stone archway only a few dragon-lengths ahead of Hiccup and Toothless.

The maze of water-sculpted stone pillars and archways blew past at high speed… although not the highest speed that Toothless was capable of. Snotlout and Hookfang, showing greater skill than they had the week before, were working together to block each and every passing attempt by Toothless and Hiccup, aided by the bigger dragon's size.

Snotlout's strategy was obvious—keep Hiccup and Toothless behind him until the maze exited onto the harbor… and the finish line.

Hiccup tried to remember the routes through the maze that might let the two of them cut around Snotlout without leaving the approved route and being disqualified. He and Astrid had done this race enough over the winter that he had grown familiar with the pillars and archways.

He remembered one side route… just as it blew past, and he grimaced in frustration.

He was rapidly running out of time…

And then he remembered his chance.

He spotted his landmarks as best he could with Hookfang blocking most of his line of sight. Any… moment…

Now!

Hiccup and Toothless dropped the last thirty feet until they were skimming just above the water's surface, the spray of the waves drenching them both.

Snotlout tried to maneuver Hookfang to block them, but Hookfang howled and stayed on course.

It was his only option, really.

The sea stacks ahead had a double archway carved through them. One was high above the water and wide, the safe route for a dragon the size of Hookfang, and the other…

Toothless furled his wings to fit through the narrow arch, the top of which was barely above the lapping waves, and Hiccup pressed himself flat against his friend's back to keep from suddenly becoming a head shorter. A small spine of rock jutting from the ceiling still clipped his right shoulder, and his arm went numb from the impact, and he barely managed to stay on Toothless's back as his vest and shirt—and skin—tore; the impact still nearly dragged him from the saddle.

They burst out from the other side of the archway, bare inches above the water. Toothless unfurled his wings with a snap, and flapped for speed and altitude—and pulled right in front of Hookfang and Snotlout, who howled and cursed at them… all the way to the finish line.

###

The crowd along the cliffsides and packed along the paths of the village was cheering as Hiccup and Toothless did their victory lap. Elsewhere in the sky, the flying observers were catching up and coming into land, also cheering.

Hiccup just waved with his left arm; his right was tingling like he'd slept on it funny… multiplied several times over. It didn't feel like he'd broken anything… but he could feel blood trickling down his back, and the salt from the sea spray was making the wound agonizing.

Well… the shirt had been getting smaller on him anyway.

Astrid and Stormfly came flying up alongside them. She beamed at him… and then saw his back.

Hiccup just looked at her sheepishly. "Oops?"

"How did that happen?" she asked, turning Stormfly to try to get a better look at his back.

"You know that double archway, just past Heimdall's Spire?"

She looked at him for a moment, not making the connection, and then her jaw dropped. "You didn't."

"Did," he said with an unconscious shrug… which rapidly turned into a swallowed scream as his shoulder protested loudly.

"Hiccup…!" she said, exasperated. "You… you… argh! One bad wave, and you two would have drowned! It's high tide!"

He forced a smile. "Well… it worked!"

She blinked with a grimace and clenched her unsplinted hand on Stormfly's reins. "Go. Land. Now. I'm getting bandages."

He nodded, smiling painfully. She sped off to her cousin Nanna's house. From his vantage point in the air, Hiccup watched her land next to the Hofferson healer, gesture violently in his direction, and have the shorter blond woman reach into a satchel and hand her a roll of linen bandages. Nanna was visibly amused even at this distance, her hand covering her mouth as she grinned.

Hiccup sighed, and he and Toothless flew down to the base of the mead hall stairs where his dad was waiting, along with Snotlout, Spitelout and a whole mess of other people. Chestnut the Witty was there; he was going to mediate the next challenge, as a skald. Hookfang was standing on the grass nearby, giving leery looks at the Green Death's thagomizer where it was sitting next to the staircase.

Toothless landed lightly, but it was still jarring enough to make Hiccup grimace in pain. He dismounted and looked at his dad with a smile that he hoped was convincing enough.

Snotlout was just glaring at him, his teeth set in a grimace and his eyes narrowed in fury. But he didn't say anything, and Hiccup just smiled weakly back.

Astrid and Stormfly landed a few moments later, as the crowd continued to cheer. She walked up to him and hissed as she got a close look at his back. "You're going to need a new shirt."

"Well, I had fun. See the scar?" he said, still on the high of beating his cousin.

She snorted.

Stoick laughed. "Boys, come here."

Hiccup and Snotlout walked over to where his dad was standing on the steps up to the mead hall. Putting his hands on both of their shoulders, he called out over the crowd, "With two out of three challenges, I declare—"

"Wait! We still have one challenge left!" Snotlout shouted.

Stoick looked at him with a raised eyebrow as the crowd hushed. "The challenge was best of three, boy. You've lost two."

"I still want to complete the challenge!" Snotlout bellowed. "I don't want anybody to claim that I couldn't do it!"

Stoick sighed and turned to Hiccup. "You are the victor regardless, Hiccup. I am willing to forgo the challenge if you both wish."

Hiccup looked at his cousin and sighed. On the one hand, he wanted to give Snotlout a solid thrashing. On the other… he'd already won. What else did he need to prove? Rub it in like Snotlout would? Yeah, no thanks. A few minutes ago, he'd thought differently, but now…? Yeah.

"I'm not sure, but if it's so important to Snotlout, then I'll do it," he said with a nod. "But I don't see the point."

Snotlout looked out over the crowd, put his hands on his hips, and proclaimed, "Well, I still want to complete the challenge! I say we do it!"

"You are certain?"

"Yes, I am!"

Stoick sighed and rubbed his temples, and just gestured to Chestnut to get on with it.

Chestnut looked at the pair of them. "Wit and Wisdom are not necessarily the same things, but I can at least make an attempt. So, Snotlout, you have already lost the day… and yet you still wish to try to show that you are wise before everyone here?"

Snotlout sneered. "What? Do I have to keep repeating myself? Yes, I want to do the challenge!"

Chestnut shrugged. "And that means you just lost it, boy."

There was a pause.

"Huh?" Both boys gaped at the skald. Hiccup was confused, and Snotlout looked flabbergasted.

"Only a fool continues to fight after he's beaten. Only a colossal jotunn of a fool would continue to fight after he's beaten and in his area of weakness. You failed, boy. The wise thing to do would not have been to try."

"But…" Snotlout looked at the skald with mounting horror. "That's not fair…"

"And neither was your original challenge. But please, tell us what is so wise about fighting a battle already lost?"

Snotlout just babbled incredulously for a moment. Chestnut just looked at him pityingly. "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool… than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. Mind you, Hiccup here didn't manage much better in wisdom by giving in to an opponent's demands when he already had won, but he at least admitted that he didn't see the point. If you were wise, you would have recognized that literally nothing you could have said would have changed the final results to being more to your liking… and all you've done is make yourself the stubborn fool in front of everyone."

Snotlout was just standing there, staring at him, his eyes growing wider and his jaw hanging open, piteous noises coming from within.

Behind them, people in the crowd were whispering… and starting to laugh.

The someone—Ruffnut, it sounded like—started to sing. "Little pup with little paws…"

Snotlout let out an agonized scream of fury, whirled and looked out over the crowd, his chest heaving with savage indignation.

Someone laughed.

And he froze again.

Hiccup heard him swallow hard, and he turned again, hands clenched at his sides, his knuckles white with rage, and stiffly marched to Hookfang.

Hiccup watched his cousin mount his dragon and fly off, and grimaced. "Well… I guess that's that, then," he said. He hadn't been expecting that at all… and some of him—more of him than he'd expected, really—was feeling pity and sympathy for Snotlout. He knew so very well what it was like to be laughed at by the whole village…

A hand touched his shoulder, and he jumped in surprise… and then landed awkwardly. With a disgusting squelching noise, his stump popped free of the peg, sending him sprawling.

Before he could clout his head against the stairs, however, strong hands caught him, and slowly lowered him to the ground.

He looked up to see Astrid and his dad giving him concerned looks. Then his dad stood back up from his crouch. "My son is the winner of the challenge! We will follow his way with the dragons, as witnessed before the gods!"

As people cheered and applauded, Astrid sighed. "Let's get you over to Nanna's house. Here." She produced the roll of linen bandages and started to wrap him up in them. "First, stop the leaking."

Hiccup gave her a sardonic thumbs-up to keep from looking at his stump, which was covered in a layer of drying blood, the protective soft-leather sock and the additional padding soaked through. "Red stuff on the inside, got it."

She swatted at his uninjured shoulder and then smiled fondly at him. "Love you."

He heaved himself to a sitting position and kissed her.

###

Fishlegs stood with the twins outside of Nanna Hofferson's house as they listened to Hiccup yowl with discomfort as the healer stitched up his shoulder inside. Toothless was thrashing his tail back and forth, and every time Hiccup made some other exclamation of pain, the slits of his eyes narrowed and he growled and hissed. At least he was being better behaved now than he'd been during those ghastly moments when Nanna had sawn off Hiccup's shattered leg last autumn. That had needed six thanes and Stoick to hold the Night Fury down as Hiccup had screamed from the pain, even when he'd been unconscious.

This time, at least, Hiccup had managed to explain to the dragon what was going to happen, as Nanna had flatly refused to work with the Night Fury present.

It still had been left to Fishlegs to stand in front of the door and keep Stormfly and Toothless at bay while their riders were treated inside.

Tuffnut was giving Toothless a backscratch, which the Night Fury was conditionally accepting. "So… um… what happens now?"

Fishlegs shrugged and said, "Ask Hiccup."

Ruffnut smirked. "He's a touch occupied right now."

Inside the house, Nanna was scolding Hiccup, saying that if he didn't hold still, the next stitch was going someplace more sensitive.

Tuffnut snorted and then turned to Fishlegs. "Hey, 'Legs…"

Quirking an eyebrow sardonically, Fishlegs looked up at him. "Yes?"

The other boy gave him a smirk. "So…" He lowered his voice. "You hang out with those two all of the time." His smirk deepened. "Have they… you know?" He winked.

Fishlegs stared at the other boy, appalled, and then Ruffnut kicked him.

"Hey! I was just wondering!"

With a scowl, Fishlegs leaned in and said, "One, I don't know. Two, if I did know, it would be none of my business. Three, it's definitely none of yours."

Ruffnut chimed in. "And four, you get to ask Astrid when she walks out of there with splints on two broken fingers."

Tuffnut suddenly had a trapped look. "So, um… Sis, what is Hiccup doing with all of that gas from Barf?"

Fishlegs and Ruffnut shared a glance, and she quirked a questioning eyebrow, wordlessly asking if they should let her brother change the subject. Fishlegs thought for a moment, rolling his eyes up in consideration and then gave a tiny nod.

Rolling her eyes, Ruffnut shrugged and looked back at her brother. "Storing it somehow," she said. "He said something about experimenting with it."

With a shrug of his own, Fishlegs said, "He had Meatlug carve out a boulder so that it can be filled with water on the inside, like a pair of washtubs on top of each other, or a ball with a hole in the side like a well, and," he motioned with his hands, trying to express the two halves of the hollow stone ball and the wide shaft that came out of the side, "he has Barf spew the gas out underwater, so it collects up near the top, trapped by the water. Then he has a spigot up at that point that he did something with—I think he took some sap from wild endives to help make it as airtight as possible—and that pushes the gas into bladders or canisters or things like that, for him to experiment with."

Both of the twins blinked at him.

Ruffnut, almost despite herself, asked, "And what's he been doing with it?"

Fishlegs shrugged. "Mostly setting things on fire by accident."

With a snort, Tuffnut said, "We could do that on purpose!"

Fishlegs rolled his eyes. "He has this idea for a lamp that sprays out a little bit of the gas at a time so you get a small flame—"

Tuffnut yawned. "A small flame? But where's the fun in—"

"Oh, hey, Astrid!" Ruffnut said with a wide grin. "My brother has a question for you."

Fishlegs turned to see that the door had opened behind him. Astrid was looking at them, a pained grimace on her face. Her broken hand was in a ludicrously oversized splint. Judging by what he'd overheard, that was Nanna's way of making a point about not punching people in the face.

Astrid sighed and looked at Tuffnut. "What? I'm going to the chief's house to get Hiccup a new shirt. Is it important?"

Tuffnut just shook his head negatively, as Stormfly came over and sniffed at the splint.

"Hey girl. Yes, I get to keep the hand. It's just on loan to my cousin for educational purposes," Astrid said, stepping down the steps and starting up the hill.

Ruffnut opened her mouth to start saying something to the other girl, and Fishlegs gave her a glare and shook his head. "Let Tuff dig his own barrows, Ruff," he said in a low, intent tone.

She looked at him, grimaced… and then slowly nodded.

Fishlegs just looked up at Astrid, who was walking up the path to the top of the hill. "So… how is he?"

Astrid turned around and gave them a tired look before doing a deadpan imitation of her cousin's acerbic tones. "'You're lucky that you didn't break the collarbone, or your shoulder-blade. Thanks to that thick leather epaulet you wore, it's pretty likely that the muscle isn't torn irreparably. But if you don't stop squirming and let me sew up this muscle before you tear it worse—'" She sighed. "It was messy, and he's a terrible patient."

Ruffnut snorted.

"I threatened to sit on him," Astrid said… and then blushed slightly when she realized what she'd just said. "Um—you know what I mean. If he didn't stop bouncing—uh…" Turning bright red, she shut her mouth with a click.

Ruffnut giggled evilly. "Oh?"

Astrid, taking a deep breath, looked at Ruffnut and said, "Look. He's hurting. And I know where your mind went with what I just said, and that this is some kind of a joke to you. But, no, we haven't done anything like that."

Fishlegs gave her a polite but questioning glance, eyes pointing out towards the cove where he'd left them the other day, and she quirked an eyebrow back at him with a small shake of her head.

Well, that answered that question. It still wasn't his business, but… on some level, Fishlegs found himself oddly angry with Snotlout for having put Hiccup so far off of his feed that even being alone in that cove with his girlfriend for over an hour hadn't helped.

Ruffnut caught it and looked back and forth between them. "So… what did you do?"

"I held his hands while Nanna stitched him up," Astrid said curtly.

"Not what I meant. What did you do?"

Astrid put her fists on her waist. "You want to know?"

"Yes?"

"We talked. Got to know each other better. But," she reached up and flicked at her circlet, "no, despite what you're thinking, I still can wear this." She smirked nastily. "Turns out that Hiccup actually cares about more than just getting laid." She quirked an eyebrow at Ruffnut. "How about that, right?"

Ruffnut looked like she was about to say something. Fishlegs just felt like his face was going to char and melt from the blush.

Then Ruffnut sagged and said, in a quieter voice that was very unlike her, "Yeah. That's something."

Astrid smiled and turned to continue up the hill.

Fishlegs looked around. Nobody seemed to have overheard them; most of the adults were off doing the spring planting and other necessities after the morning's contests. They couldn't stop working just because of a formal challenge, even an important one.

As Tuffnut gave a heaving sigh of relief to not have been punched by Astrid, Fishlegs just thought to himself as he watched Astrid walk off.

This was the difference between treating someone with respect… and not.

He made a private note to himself that he'd do the same. He'd find somebody someday, and, when that happened… he'd base his own behavior on Hiccup's… not Snotlout's. And that wasn't just because, going by observed results, the two of them were happy and Snotlout was off somewhere sulking. Astrid and Ruffnut were his friends too, and, well… Snotlout basically treated them both like… like they weren't people. Or at least not like anyone that he respected.

And Fishlegs knew what that was like enough to be able to commiserate… and understand what it was like to be treated that way.

His own thoughts were interrupted by one of the younger Jorgenson kids who worked in the Broodery coming running up to him. "Fishlegs, Fishlegs, come quick!"

"What is it, Picknose?"

"The eggs! They're making noises!"

###

A week later, Ruffnut stood behind one of the rows of houses in the village, watching her temporary partner in pranking flap down to her.

"Thanks, Toothless," she whispered as she took the hatchling Nightmare from his paws and slipped it under her arm.

Toothless gave her an evil-sounding chortle and flapped off a short way, landing on a nearby rooftop to watch.

The baby dragon in her arm cooed at her and she crooned right back at it, before slipping over to the Jorgenson's house. Glancing from side to side, she saw that the coast was clear. She popped open the cellar shutter and tossed in the hatchling. It landed with a squawk and immediately made a beeline for Snotlout's bed as the nearest cover.

"Have fun, little guy," she said with a smirk, and closed the shutter.

Then the door to the house opened and closed, with footsteps echoing inside, and she froze, pressing herself up against the shingles. Her ear against the wood let her hear everything inside.

"So what's this about, Stoick?" she heard Spitelout say.

"Yeh heard Hiccup's plan. He's going to visit some of the local villages as soon as his shoulder heals up."

"Yes, I know," Spitelout replied dryly.

"And he still hasn't been told about the village that yer son raided back in the winter. But he's planning on visiting." More footsteps, walking towards her, and she kept very, very still. "So I think that we should consider not making his job harder… and I think that we should send them some compensation."

"You already—"

"Aye, I know, I passed judgment. And I'll pay some of the cost meself, as will the Thorstons. But—" There was suddenly a sniffing sound. "Do yeh smell smoke?"

Ruffnut bolted.

Toothless flew down and she hopped onto his saddle. A minute or so later, he had run them both back up to the mead hall, where Gobber was finishing up his net across the doorway, with Hiccup and Astrid stringing up another one across the inside of the mead hall's entrance, with a short gap between them.

"Hey there lass. Did yeh catch him?"

She shook her head. "No, he ran into the Jorgenson house."

"Blast," Gobber growled, just as another pair of adorable baby Gronckles—one green, one light red—made a bid for freedom through the open door, only to run into the netting.

Gobber sighed, just as Duckquack Ingerman, Fishlegs' younger brother, ran up and caught both of the runaways. The two cute dragons prompted turned and attempted to crawl up over him, licked at his hair and cheeks. Everyone laughed; Duckquack sputtered through his own laughter and said, "That tickles!" Turning, he ran back to the door that led down to the Broodery—and to the temporary dragon nursery that they'd set up down in one of the larger side chambers.

Toothless just sat down on the steps and rolled onto his back, laughing.

Hiccup just gave his dragon a half-amused, half-irked expression, with his lips drawn together in an exaggerated frown, but his eyes were crinkled with laughter. "Some help you are! You let a baby outrun you!"

Astrid snorted. "These little guys can scuttle like lightning. He's only the offspring of lightning and death."

Toothless made a protesting noise, his expression exaggeratedly offended.

Hiccup, cocking his head to the side, considered for a moment. "I see the joke, but it doesn't quite work. No points."

Astrid gave an exaggerated pout at him, and he smirked.

Ruffnut felt a pang of jealousy at their banter, especially when Astrid dropped the pout and gave Hiccup a peck on the cheek.

A baby Timberjack scuttled across the floor, making for the door, with Fishlegs in hot pursuit. Hiccup braced himself to tackle it, but the bigger boy caught it before it could slice its way through the netting, the way the other one had back at the door to the Broodery, at the back of the hall. He carried it back off, scolding the dragon.

Gobber sighed. "Next year, I'm hanging chain netting. These ropes aren't cutting it."

Ruffnut smirked. "Or, rather, they're being cut."

Gobber made a face at her, of the aren't you so clever type. She grinned.

Stoick and Spitelout came walking up a minute later, Stoick holding the baby Nightmare cradled in his arms, both of them smelling lightly of woodsmoke. "Another escapee," Spitelout said crossly. "This one managed to set half of my son's room to smoking."

As they passed the baby dragon in through the nets, it cooed at Ruffnut, and she gave it a friendly pat. Then a baby Nadder hopped up on a nearby table and launched itself at the netting, angling itself just right to try to pop through the holes in the net.

It half-succeeded, and they all had a good laugh as Ruffnut carefully detangled the little dragon from the hemp rope around its neck.

Fishlegs, having returned, sagged into a nearby chair before accepting the Nadder. "Well, this has been interesting."

Hiccup laughed. "Yeah, that's one word for it."

As he spoke, Tuffnut, looking a trifle singed, walked up the stairs with Barf and Belch and four wriggling escapees. The baby Changewing was curled up around the horns of his helmet, snoozing adorably.

"Are you sure that this isn't going to start spitting acid?" he asked, pointing at his head.

Fishlegs shrugged. "They didn't at first. But I think that that line in the old Dragon Manual must have been talking about hatchlings who were sleeping in their shells, like we've seen them all do, instead of actually freshly hatched ones, because there were points where I could tell that they wanted to, but couldn't."

He reached up and removed the sleepy dragon from Tuffnut's head. It burped and a dribble of acid bubbled out of its mouth and onto the table, sending up a wisp of smoke. Her brother's smile turned sickly.

Stoick was trying hard not to laugh at the commotion. "Aye, and I thought that human babies were a handful!"

Fishlegs spoke up, as Ruffnut took the baby Zippleback from her brother and gave it a bellyrub. "They were so well-behaved at first! They ate and slept in their shells! Then they all decided to start going exploring at the same time!"

Astrid snorted from nearby, holding a hammer in her right hand and a nail between two of the working fingers on her left. "At least they haven't started flying yet."

"And that's going to be all sorts of fun when they start doing that," Hiccup said with a smirk.

Snotlout came running up from the Broodery in hot pursuit of a trio of baby dragons. Ruffnut watched with a smirk as he did an impromptu juggling act in the back of the room, with one dragon in arm, one having wriggled free and riding on his back, and one on the floor, with the three of them trading places each time he caught the one on the floor.

After watching the comedy act for a minute or so, she called out to him, "Hey, Snotlout! This little fella managed to get into your room and set it on fire!" she said, patting the snoozing Nightmare from where it was curled up next to her.

He looked at her and walked over, picked up the baby dragon, and began to coo at it in baby talk. "Aww, was oo scared of the big mean hoomins? No, oo wasn't scared, oo went expworing, yes oo did." He scritched the purple-and-black baby dragon, which made it purr, and leaned to bump his nose gently against its snoot. "Did you like my place? Did it smell like your cousin Hookfang? Aww, who's the bravest little explorer? Is it you?"

Ruffnut just watched, jaw hanging slightly open.

So much for that prank.

Two of the dragon hatchlings that he'd been pursuing hopped up onto his shoulders when he crouched, and the third wound its way around his feet, and he carried the four dragons back down into the Broodery space.

"So, Hiccup, what happens next?" Stoick asked.

Ruffnut just stared at the door to the Broodery, still in a bit of shock at the utter failure of her prank. Then, shaking it off, she moved to intercept as a few more dragons found their way up into the mead hall. Just about every kid in the tribe and a fair number of the smaller adults were down in the Broodery now. The hatchlings, after a week of peacefully staying in their eggshells, had decided to start exploring, and the humans had promptly tried to keep them out of trouble. That had ended up creating an epic game of hide-and-seek in the process. There were only about a hundred and fifty of the little dragons, but they sure could move!

Hiccup sucked in a breath. "Well, we need to put together some kind of nursery for them, probably in the Broodery, just to keep them safe. And then Gobber gets to make that chain netting to keep them from chopping their way out again."

"Aye, I'll get on that," Gobber said. "And then—hey! That tickles!" A baby Nightmare, this one blue-and-black, was climbing up his back determinedly, and Gobber promptly danced as he tried to dislodge it.

Mulch and Bucket came in a few minutes later carrying another net, this one full of fresh fish, and set it on the floor near the Broodery door. The hatchlings that were already loose in the mead hall dove towards the meal and began to feast, but only a few more stragglers came up from below.

Then Astrid laughed. When everyone looked at her, she said, "There's still hot air coming up from below. They can't smell it down there—it's upwind."

That made things a bit more complicated, but not by much, and Ruffnut took a bowl of fish down with her and started a walk through the stone tunnels. By the time she had reached the bottom levels of the Broodery, she had two dozen hatchlings following her—and occasionally trying to crawl up her legs and back. Similar processions followed the others.

Within maybe ten more minutes at most, every single hatchling had been gathered up and were digging in on the fish. And, like most babies, their table manners were terrible.

Ruffnut sat and laughed at their antics as Hiccup and Fishlegs tried to count the swarm, Astrid threw fish in the air for them to catch, and Snotlout mock-wrestled and played with the ones that had finished eating. Then she tried not to scowl as Snotlout tried to sit down next to her, a baby dragon in his lap.

She wondered how much of it was an act to impress her and Astrid… and how much of it was real.

But, either way… he was treating the baby dragons with more respect than he did her, a thought that came to mind when she saw one of them snap at him for holding it wrong, and he apologized to the week-old reptile.

And the fact that he could do that for the dragon… and not for her or Astrid…

Well.

That spoke for itself.