How to View Your Dragons Chapter 12
The scenes that the dragons were watching changed again. Vikings were sharpening wooden stakes and planting them in rows in the rocky beach that surrounded the dragons' nest.
"Oh, brilliant!" Hookfang smirked. "Those will be really useful against us! Did somebody forget that dragons can fly right over those obstacles?"
A row of huge catapults loomed up in the background. They saw a battle plan drawn in the ashy sand. Stoick pointed at it with a sword. "When we crack this mountain open, all Hel is going to break loose!"
"And my undies," Gobber added helpfully. "Good thing I brought extras."
"What are these 'undies' that Gobber keeps mentioning?" Sizzle asked.
Barf and Belch started to tell him, but Toothless motioned for them to be silent. "Sizzle," he said kindly, "there are some things that dragons were never meant to know. Can you ask us something else?"
"Sure, I guess, when I think of something," the little dragon sulked.
"No matter how this ends, it ends today!" the Viking chief announced, and made a hand signal. One after the other, the catapults lobbed their stones at one particular spot on the wall of the mountain.
"What if that spot turned out to be solid rock a hundred feet thick?" Stormfly wondered. "How did they know where to shoot their rocks?"
"Maybe someone put his ear to the rock wall and listened for dragons," Meatlug suggested.
Rock after rock slammed into the wall, chipping away at its surface. Cracks appeared, and then the whole wall collapsed, revealing empty space inside. Stoick stepped up to the hole his people had just made.
"I thought of a question!" Sizzle burst out. "In all the scenes we've seen so far, Stoick carried a hammer. In that scene with the battle map, he had a sword. Now he's got a hammer again. Where did the sword come from, and where did it go?"
No one had a answer. Finally, Toothless suggested, "Darned if I know. Maybe it went into the scabbard that Prince Hans didn't have, but drew his own sword from, in the climactic scene of 'Frozen.' Let's see what happens next."
They saw Stoick try to look into the darkened space inside the mountain. He made one more signal with his hammer, and a catapult lobbed a flaming fireball into the hole so he could see for a moment.
"Boy, it's a good thing that fireball didn't fly a few feet lower," Stormfly commented. "The Vikings would have needed a new chief."
Meatlug shook her big head. "Given that Stoick was such a heartless jerk, maybe that would have been better."
"No," Toothless said flatly, "If that had happened, then I would have drowned, so would Hiccup, and the war would still be going."
"Are you saying that our world needed a heartless jerk?" the Gronckle wondered.
"I'm saying," Toothless corrected her, "that our world needed things to work out just the way they did. Even the unpleasant parts."
The light from the flaming fireball showed that the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cave were covered with dragons of all kinds. The moment Stoick charged at them with a yell, they all fled - some out the newly-opened hole in the wall, some out of another hole higher up on the mountain, and some out the crater at the top. None of them even tried to fight the humans who stabbed and swung at them with their weapons. Toothless watched them go from his place on the longship; he cringed, folded down his ears, and whimpered, "This is not going to end well."
"Is that it?" Gobber shrugged as he watched the last of their enemies flee.
"Oh, he thought the dragons would never come back to their home?" Belch scoffed. "Where did he get his tactics?"
"Brilliant thinking, Napoleon!" Barf added.
"Who's Napoleon?" Sizzle wanted to know.
"Don't ask," Stormfly advised him.
"It's a fair question," Toothless cut in. "Napoleon is a human who hasn't been born yet, but when he is, he'll probably be famous for coming up with clever strategies."
"How could you possibly know stuff that hasn't happened yet?" the Terror demanded.
"Umm..." Toothless stammered. "Never mind that; I think something important is about to happen."
"We've done it!" Spitelout shouted, and the Vikings all cheered lustily. All except Stoick, who heard another roar from within the mountain. Toothless heard it, too, and redoubled his efforts to break free from his collar and chains.
"This isn't over!" the chief shouted. "Form your ranks! Hold together!"
"Did that do any good?" Sizzle asked.
"I can actually answer that one," Toothless replied. "No, it did no good at all. They would have been better off running for their lives, right then and there."
"Why didn't they?" the little dragon wanted to know.
"Because they had never seen the Queen before," the Night Fury said, "and they had no idea who they were up against, or what she could do."
"Hiccup warned him," Stormfly reminded him. "What was it that Hiccup said in their big hall? 'You don't know what you're up against! It's like nothing you've ever seen! Dad, please! I promise you that you can't win this one!' Maybe Stoick was remembering that, and maybe wondering if he'd gotten in over his head this time."
He quickly found out. A huge crack split the rock floor of the newly-opened cave, and a deafening bellow blew back the hair of the Vikings a hundred feet away. Even Gobber actually lost his imperturbable exterior and looked nervous. Then Stoick leaped back to ground level and shouted, "Get clear!" Whatever was coming, it was like nothing they had ever seen or heard before.
"Those mighty dragon-slayers look mighty scared now," Barf grinned. The would-be dragon conquerors scattered in panic as the Queen stuck her head out the hole, flexed her shoulders, and shattered enough solid rock to let the rest of her through.
"That's the Queen?" Sizzle quavered, and hid his head under his wings. "I'm all out of questions!"
Stoick stared at what he had helped to unleash. "Odin help us!"
"I'll ask the question that Sizzle would ask if he was watching this," Barf said. "Who's Odin?"
"I think he's one of the invisible, powerful beings that the Vikings believe in," Toothless said hesitantly.
"If he's invisible," Belch asked, "then how do they know he's powerful?"
"Humans are strange like that," the Night Fury replied. "They claim to put their faith in some kind of all-powerful invisible deity, but 99% of the time, they just do what they please, instead of doing what their deity told them to do. Then, the moment they get in trouble, they expect their deity to alter reality and rescue them. And as soon as they get out of trouble, they revert to their old ways of doing things. Most of them don't really believe in the deity they call on when things get rough; it's just a habit, something they do to make themselves feel better. They're as likely to use their god's name as a curse word as to call on him in prayer."
Barf and Belch shook their heads in unison. "That doesn't make any sense," Barf decided.
Toothless shook his own head. "If you're looking for humans to make sense, then you're looking in the wrong place. Even Hiccup can be totally illogical at times."
The Queen roared, "Who has damaged my nest? Who has released my dragons? You have made me very angry, very angry indeed!" The Vikings answered with catapults; their stones were like pebbles compared to the huge dragon that bit one of those catapults into matchwood. When some of the humans ran for their ships, the great dragon inhaled and shot out a flaming hurricane that ignited every ship in the Viking fleet. Men screamed and jumped overboard to put out their burning clothing. Toothless realized that his time was running out, even if the humans didn't kill him.
"Smart, that one," Gobber commented.
"We're all a lot smarter than you... think we are!" Belch called at him.
"I was a fool," Stoick grunted.
All the dragons chorused, "Thank you, Captain Obvious!"
The chief ordered all his people to the far side of the island, as if that might keep them safe from a dragon that could fly. Gobber refused to go with them. "I think I'll stay, just in case you're thinking of doing something crazy."
"Something crazy?" Meatlug asked. "Like father, like son?"
"If that's true," Stormfly answered, "then it's the first thing they've had in common since these moving pictures started."
"I can buy them a few minutes if I give that thing something to hunt!" Stoick growled.
"He was going to sacrifice himself for the others?" Barf asked. "Is that normal for humans?"
"It's normal for true leaders," Toothless answered. "I can't fault the man's courage."
"Then I can double that time," Gobber grinned, and the two old warriors clasped hands for what they assumed would be the last time. They ran at the Queen, shouting and waving their weapons to get her attention. Stoick succeeded when he threw a sharpened stake like a spear at her face, and nearly hit her in the eye. She lowered her head to stare in disbelief at these tiny creatures who were challenging her. Then she raised her head, roared at them, and...
...and the Queen bellowed in pain as her head was suddenly crowned with flame.
"What just happened?" asked Sizzle, who was watching through a narrow crack between his wings.
"That was my handiwork," Meatlug answered. "Fishlegs did some hand signals to show me what he wanted me to do, and I had no great love for the Queen anyway. I knew I couldn't do her any real harm, but just shooting her made me feel good. I found out afterwards that my timing was perfect; I saved Stoick's and Gobber's lives by distracting her with that shot."
"Were they thankful?" Hookfang asked.
"At the time? Probably not," the Gronckle said.
Stoick stared upward, wondering what had just happened to distract the Queen from eating him alive. From behind her head came four more dragons...
...with human riders! The background music burst into a triumphant fanfare.
"Here we come, to save the day!" Hookfang sang.
"What the..." Stoick mouthed. His son was riding the Deadly Nadder, and he was the one giving the orders to the others!
"I bet you never thought you'd see that day, did you, Mister Hiccup-Hater!?" Hookfang snarled. The four-dragon formation gracefully overflew the battlefield, then turned back as Hiccup snapped out commands to keep his group together.
"Every bit the boar-headed, stubborn Viking you ever were!" Gobber complained, and Stoick could only nod.
Barf said, "He's probably wondering what new disaster his son was about to unleash."
Belch shook his head. "Whatever it was, it could hardly be worse than the disaster that the father had unleashed a minute ago."
Hiccup got his dragons into a tight circle and held a quick council of war. He gave each of the other riders their orders, and no one questioned him.
"Getting four different kinds of dragons into a tight circle like that is no easy feat," Meatlug observed.
"Getting five humans to take orders in the middle of a suicidal battle isn't so easy, either," Stormfly said. "Toothless, you called Stoick a true leader? I'd have to say that Hiccup was every bit the true leader his father ever was!"
"No argument," Toothless said quietly.
"Hey, wait a second!" Sizzle exclaimed. He had timidly stuck his head out from beneath his wings to see what was going on. "While all those other brave dragons were taking on the Queen, how come Stormfly was running away?"
"I was not running away!" the Nadder retorted angrily. "I was following my riders' guidance. After a few seconds, I realized that they were looking for Toothless."
"What difference would that make against the Queen?" the Terror said. "I mean, it's hopeless with four dragons; isn't it just as hopeless with one more?"
"When the 'one more' is a Night Fury, that makes all the difference in the world," Toothless said archly.
The Zippleback was the first to get into position. His riders shouted some human insults that would mean nothing to a dragon, but the Queen replied as though she understood them, with a blast of flame that Barf and Belch barely avoided.
"Nice dodge," Toothless said to them.
"We were motivated," Barf answered.
Now Meatlug and Hookfang got into position on either side of the Queen's head. To see them clearly, the huge dragon opened her other four eyes, prompting Fishlegs to shout, "Umm, this thing doesn't have a blind spot!"
"Of course she did!" Stormfly burst out. "Those other eyes didn't help her see under her own chin, any more than the first pair did!"
"Stormfly, did you ever wish you had two extra sets of eyes, so you wouldn't have a blind spot?" Hookfang wondered.
"What would I do with extra eyes?" she asked. "I can see just fine with the ones I've got, except for things that are right in front of me. And if I had eyes that would help me see what's right in front of me, those eyes would have to go where my nose is, and then how would I smell?"
Belch called, "You'd smell terrible, the same as always!" Barf laughed so hard, green gas came out of his nose.
Stormfly rolled her eyes. "Oh, ho ho and ha ha. Your riders' sense of 'humor' is rubbing off on you." She used her wingtips to make air-quotes around "humor."
"Hey, watch it!" Belch threatened her. "Those are fighting words!"
"There!" Hiccup shouted on the screen. Stormfly turned gracefully and overflew the ship where Toothless was desperately struggling against his restraints. Hiccup left Astrid in control of the Nadder as he prepared to jump.
"She looks kind of nervous," Meatlug noticed.
"I guess I'd be nervous, too, if I was suddenly in control of my former arch-enemy in the middle of a hopeless battle," Stormfly replied. "She adjusted pretty quickly, though."
The instant Hiccup landed, Toothless' facial expression changed. Gone was his terror; now he looked hopeful, even happy. Hiccup yanked off the leather strap that held the Night Fury's mouth shut, then began trying to pry loose the ring bolts that held Toothless' chains.
"Question," Stormfly said. "Toothless, once your mouth was free, why didn't you use your fire to blow those chains away?"
"Because, at that range, I would have blown Hiccup away, too," the Night Fury answered.
"Then why didn't you ask him to back off?" Hookfang queried him.
"For one thing, I didn't speak his language," Toothless said, "and for another, our ship was on fire at both ends. The only safe place was right in the middle, where we were. Hiccup couldn't back off; he had no place else to go."
"So, if he didn't get you free, you'd both burn or drown?" Meatlug concluded.
"Exactly," the black dragon replied. "It was all or nothing for both of us."
The scene jumped back to the Queen, where Snotlout and Fishlegs were banging on their shields with an enthusiasm they'd never found in the ring. "It's working!" they shouted to each other.
"Oh, yeah, it was working," Hookfang grimaced. Just the sound of the shield-banging from the flat panel was irritating enough. The actual banging had shattered their equilibrium; the dragons were unable to focus on anything, even on holding their position. Hookfang swerved and collided with the Queen's head, sending Snotlout flying. He slid across her scaly head, dropped his weapons, and nearly fell off the other side.
"So that's how he wound up on her head!" Stormfly remarked. "I always wondered about that."
"Did you think he jumped there on purpose?" Hookfang asked.
"That's the kind of thing Snotlout would do, isn't it?" the Nadder came back.
"Now that you mention it, yes, it is," the Nightmare nodded. "But not that time."
Now Meatlug went into a spin. Fishlegs made a good throw of his hammer to Snotlout as he rode her down. She skidded through the black gravel; Fishlegs raised his hands in triumph. "I'm okay!" Then her momentum rocked her forward until she rolled on top of him. "Less okay."
Toothless mock-scolded Meatlug, "You Gronckles will take any excuse to lie down and rest!"
"I still feel bad about that part," Meatlug said, "but, considering how little control I had, I think I did well just to land right-side-up." Then she gasped as the Queen took a step toward them.
"Was she trying to step on you on purpose?" Sizzle asked her.
"I don't know," the Gronckle said, "but if she did step on us, it wouldn't matter if it was deliberate or not." The Queen quickly became distracted as Snotlout found his courage and began hammering on her eyeballs, each of which was bigger than he was. Her footstep barely missed Fishlegs and Meatlug. She angrily shook her head, which sent Snotlout flying again; her tail wrecked the ship Hiccup and Toothless were riding, and then her hindfoot smashed the ship, sending Toothless to the bottom. Hiccup swam down and desperately pulled at the chain one last time, then began to drown...
...until something pulled him up to the surface. "Hey! Don't leave me!" Toothless shouted, but he was powerless to intervene.
"What happened to Hiccup?" Barf asked.
"Remember when I said there were things about Stoick that you didn't know yet?" Toothless explained. "You're about to learn a few of those things. This is why I can't completely hate the man." They saw that it was Stoick who had rescued Hiccup. Then the big man dove in again.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Meatlug burst out. "Are you telling me that Stoick the Vast went back in the water to save you, Toothless?"
"That's exactly what he did," Toothless said.
"Why in Tannin's name did he do that?" Belch exclaimed. "I thought he hated you with a passion! I thought he wanted you dead!"
"I don't know for sure," the Night Fury said, "but my best guess is that he wanted the Queen dead even more. He knew that he and his Vikings couldn't do the job, and he could see that the four dragons from his training ring couldn't do it, either. He also knew that the Night Fury is the most powerful of all dragons, he knew from my flying harness that his son could ride me, and he must have decided that Hiccup and me were the only hope for him and his entire tribe."
"Now that's a change from his usual Viking attitude!" Stormfly grinned. "A few hours ago, he disowned his son and cast him out of the tribe; now he's ready to put all his hope in Hiccup the Useless?"
"Desperation can change the way someone thinks," was all Toothless could say. They saw him on the screen, resigned to dying on the bottom of the sea. His eyes shot open when Stoick approached; what did the Viking chief plan? After a moment's hesitation, Stoick wrenched the wooden collar open, and Toothless was free. With an angry snarl of, "We're even; I owe you nothing," he grabbed Stoick and hauled him out of the water.
"He saved you, so you saved him?" Meatlug asked.
"Fair is fair," Toothless replied.
"So what's with the teeth and the snarl?" she pressed him.
"I still resented him for what he'd done to Hiccup," the black dragon answered. "You may notice that I didn't put him down very gently. Now it was about me and Hiccup. And the Queen."
He landed, shook himself dry, gestured with his head toward the queen, and roared, "Let's take her down!"
"You've got it, bud," Hiccup said eagerly.
"Did he actually understand you?" Belch exclaimed.
"I thought he couldn't do that," Barf added.
"He understood my gesture," Toothless told them. "Besides, you've probably noticed that we think alike many times. That was one of them."
"But why was he so eager to fight the Queen?" Hookfang asked. "He could have gotten on your back and flown away to safety. His tribe still thought he was useless, and his father hadn't told him about any changes of heart yet."
"Good point," Meatlug nodded. "The two of you could have gone on a little vacation, forever, like he planned to do earlier, and no one could have stopped him. I might have done that if I was in his shoes."
"But that's not how Hiccup thinks!" Toothless burst out. "Even though they all rejected him, he still felt like he should protect them and fight for them. He's totally unselfish. That's another of his traits that gets him in trouble sometimes... but I wouldn't change him for all the fish in the sea."
They watched Hiccup spring into the saddle and set his feet into the stirrups as the Queen bellowed again.