Chapter 4: HEROS OR EXILES
The Vikings scrambled over the slimy pebbles at the edge of the beach and back up Madman's Gully, the gorge they had climbed through a couple of hours before. This was a narrow crack in the cliff filled with large rocks. They tried to move as quickly as they could, but this is difficult when you are slipping and sliding over huge stones covered in ice, and they made painfully slow progress.
A dragon that hadn't put off by the snow came shrieking down into the gorge. He landed on Wartihog's back and started savaging him, sinking his fangs into Wartihog's shoulder and ripping red lines into his arms. Gobber bashed the dragon on the nose with the handle of his ax, and the dragon let go and flapped away.
But a whole wave of dragons replaced him, pouring into the canyon with awful, rasping cries, fire shooting from their nostrils and melting the snow before them, talons spread wicked it as they swooped downward. Gobber stood, legs wide apart, and whirled his big, double-headed ax. He threw back his great, hairy head and yelled a terrible primeval yell, that echoed down the sides of the gorge and made the hairs on the back of Hiccup's neck stick straight up like the spines of a sea urchin.
Individually, dragons tend to have a healthy sense of self-preservation, but they are braver when they hunt in packs. They knew now that they had the advantage of numbers, so they didn't check their flying for an instant. They just kept on coming. Gobber let go of the ax. Spinning end to end, the ax soared up through the softly falling snow.
It hit the biggest dragon of the lot, killing him instantly and then kept on going, landing in a snow-drift hundreds of feet away and disappearing. This made the rest of the dragons think a bit. Some of them scrambled over each other in haste to fly away, yelping like dogs. The others came to a halt, hovering uncertainly, screaming defiance but keeping their distance.
"Waste of a good ax," grunted Gobber. "Keep going, they could come back!"
They needed no encouragement to keep going. As soon as he got out of the gorge and onto the marshy land behind it, they broke into stumbling runs, every now and then someone fell flat on their faces in the snow. Some time later, when Gobber reckoned they were a safe distance from Wild Dragon Cliff, he yelled at them to stop. Very carefully he counted heads. He had to check, and make sure that he hadn't lost anybody.
Gobber had spent an unpleasant ten minutes standing at the mouth of the dragons' cave wondering why there was such a terrible racket and what he was going to say to Stoick the Vast if he lost his precious daughter and heir for good. Something Tactful and Sensitive, he supposed, but Tack and Sensitivity were not Gobber's strong points, and he took the first five minutes to come up with "Hiccup copped it. SORRY," and then spent the second five minutes tearing his beard out. Consequently, although secretly mightily relieved, he was not in a Good Mood and as soon as he could get his breath back, he exploded all over the place, as the teens stood, shivering violently, in a bedraggled line.
"NEVER... in FOURTEEN YEARS... have I come across such a load of HOPELESS BARNACLES as you lot. WHICH ONE OF YOU USELESS MOLLUSKS WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR WAKING UP THE DRAGONS?"
"I was," said Hiccup. Which all of them, except Gobber, knew was a lie. But they also knew that it would be worse if it was Fishlegs and not the daughter of the chief.
"Oh, that's BRILLANT," bellowed Gobber, "just BRILLIANT. Our Future Leader shows off her magnificent Leadership Skills. At the tender age of fourteen she does her best to annihilate herself and the rest of you in A SIMPLE MILITARY EXERCISE! EVERYBODY IS ON LIMPET RATIONS FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS." They groaned.
"SILENCE!" yelled Gobber. "THIS IS YOUR INITIATION, NOT A DAY OUT IN THE COUNTRY! SILENCE, OR YOU'LL BE LUNCHING ON LUGWORMS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES!"
"Now," continued Gobber, more calmly, "although that was a absolute mess, it wasn't a total disaster. I PRESUME that you do all HAVE a dragon after that fiasco...?"
"Yes," chorused the teenagers. Fishlegs took a sideways glance at Hiccup, who was staring straight ahead.
"Lucky for you," said Gobber, ominously. "So you have all passed the first part of the Dragon Test. There are, however, still two parts that you have to complete before you can become full members of the Tribe. Your next task will be to train this dragon yourself. This will be a test of the force of your personality. You will assert your will over this wild creature and show it who is Master.
"Your dragon will be expected to obey simple commands such as "go" and "stay" and hunt fish for you the way that dragons hunted for the Sons and Daughters of Thor since anybody can remember. If you are worried about the training process, you should study a book called 'How to Train Your Dragon' by Professor Yobbish, which you will find in the fireplace of the Great Hall."
Suddenly Gobber looked very pleased with himself. "I stole that book from the Meathead Public Library myself," he said modestly, regarding his very black fingernails. "From right under the nose of the Hairy Scary Librarian... He never noticed a thing... Now THAT'S burglary for you..."
Wartihog put his hand up. "What happens if we can't read sir?"
"No boasting, Wartihog!" boomed Gobber. "Get some idiot to read it for you. Your dragons will begin to go back to sleep, because this is still their hibernation time" -some of the dragons had, indeed, gone very quiet inside of the baskets- "so take them home and put them in a warm place. They should wake up in the next couple of weeks.
"You will then have only FOUR MONTHS to prepare for Initiation Day at the Thor's day Thursday Celebrations, and the final part of your Test. If, on this day, you can prove that you have trained your dragon to the satisfaction of myself and other elder of the Tribe, you can finally call yourself a Hooligan of Berk."
The teens stood very tall and tried to look like proper Hooligans.
"HEROES OR EXILE!" yelled Gobber the Belch.
"HEROES OR EXILE!" yelled eight boys fanatically back at him.
'Good question,' thought Hiccup and Fishlegs uncertainly.