A/N: The Norse Vikings were actually a pretty hygienic lot. They took baths every Sunday and combed their hair every day. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxons believed that taking baths -- especially during the winter -- made you more susceptible to diseases. Can you imagine the smell?

Disclaimer: Quite unfortunately, I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell, although I really must to give Hiccup a big hug (and a cookie) for being such a good sport about this chapter.

Valkyrie

Chapter Three: A Foul Stench

Ketelbern brandished the key ring again and unlocked the other cuff. He was growling under his breath the whole time. The heavy manacle fell away and the blacksmith stowed the keys in a pouch on his belt. Right at his side under his hand where it would be hard to sneak away without attracting his attention.

"Get up!"

He returned the hunting knife to its scabbard with an ugly grimace plastered all over his face. His fingers twitched around the leather-wrapped handle and then he let go of it very slowly. His black eyes burned into Hiccup's own green, warning him.

"And wipe that smile off your face!"

Hiccup's smile gained a slightly sharper edge before he let it slide off his face. It wasn't going to do him any good to antagonize the blacksmith, however unintentionally. All the Saxons said was that he just needed to be alive. That did not necessarily equate to needing him conscious. And he had spent plenty of the last month being unconscious, thank you very much.

He rubbed his sore, reddened wrists gently, wincing at the tenderness and apparent fragility of his skin. It felt like it he rubbed too hard, the skin would simply break open. But at the same time, it seemed that it he didn't rub hard enough, the pain would never go away. There was an uncomfortable throb pulsing in the battered joint, giving the unnerving impression that his hands were going to drop off at any moment.

"Have you gone deaf?" Ketelbern growled, his face going red under the tangled beard. "I said, get up! Stand up!"

He seized the Viking by the arm and yanked him to his mismatched feet. Hiccup wobbled dangerously when the blacksmith released him. The boat's swaying was hardly noticeable now, though there was an odd thud at regular intervals that seemed to jar the entire ship's frame. But his legs weren't managing the balancing act all by themselves. He quickly shifted his weight to his good leg and leaned his body against the wall. He hadn't really used his legs all that much in past month, except for moving them around and stretching them out so they wouldn't get stiff.

Hiccup looked up at the blacksmith, wondering what was to happen next. Ketelbern was glaring at him with a most impatient expression and his narrow eyes darted down to the Viking's feet.

"Are you waiting for an invitation? Walk!" the huge man snarled, giving the smaller teen a hearty shove.

Hiccup careened sideways from the shove, only managing about two complete steps in the direction of the ladder before his balance teetered precariously to the side. Ketelbern gave a wordless snarl, seized the Viking by the arm and started to drag him towards the cargo hold's exit. Hiccup staggered along after him, trying to get his wobbly legs to cooperate long enough to get his feet under him so he could walk properly, but the blacksmith was taking long strides, crossing the distance to the ladder in what seemed like just a few steps.

Ketelbern shoved the Viking teen up the ladder and onto a deck that was bathed in late-evening light. The western horizon was sprinkled with stars. Hiccup blinked a little in the dying sunlight and stared at the sky. For the first time in a while, he felt like he actually knew what was going on. He had been kept in the dark -- quite literally. Finally being outdoors again was a liberating sensation. He would have liked to stand there and admire the open sky above him a little longer, but Ketelbern clamped a large hand over his shoulder and pushed him forward.

A rush of noise later and Hiccup realized they had docked. The ship was moored tightly to the pier by bundles of thick ropes. There were men who were somehow even dirtier than Ketelbern wrapping up fishing nets and pushing carts full of dead sea creatures away from the docks. Narrow, muddy streets were lined with cottages of varying sizes and shapes, all with thatched roofs and stone chimneys. Smoke rose from almost every chimney, turning the air slightly hazy. It was a sizeable town surrounded by rounded hilltops that gave the impression that the horizon was closing in on you. It was bigger than his village and much more compact.

The blacksmith's grip tightened sharply as he led Hiccup down the gangplank. He was holding on unnecessarily hard; like he didn't trust that the captive Viking wasn't going to try and make a run for it now that they were back on dry land.

Hiccup did consider running. For all of a split second. He vetoed the idea on the grounds that he probably wouldn't get very far and if he did, he would probably get mauled and eaten by the local wildlife before he could figure out which way home was. There were probably dragons around here too. And they wouldn't be nearly as friendly as the ones back home.

Anyways, he wanted to know what was going on.

All too soon, he was getting his wish. Ketelbern hauled him across town by the scruff of his vest. The town was really a squalid-looking little place; nasty, smelly and the streets were crowded out by the houses and other buildings. There was hardly enough room for three men to walk abreast and Ketelbern cut a large swath through the thinning throng of people. He really hoped that this was mud they were walking through. It had an unusual consistency that was not typical of mud.

He still hoped it was mud.

At the very end of the road was easily the largest building, standing on the edge of town. It towered over its neighbors, boasting a third level. It was probably the Saxon equivalent of a mead hall, judging from the amount of music and laughter that was pouring out the open doors. Warm, flickering golden light shone from wide open windows and there was the particularly appetizing aroma of sizzling meat wafting out. Hiccup's stomach emitted a twisted and slightly tortured-sounding moan at the first whiff of the tantalizing scent. Ketelbern sent him this sideways look as if sternly telling him to shut up. He rolled his eyes in return. There was no way he could make his stomach shut up.

The blacksmith shoved him none-too-gently through the doors of the great hall, one hand still holding tightly to his collar. Hiccup shuffled forward -- he had no choice in the matter -- and intruded onto a scene that could be described as demons dancing wildly around the fires of Hell.

The image faded almost as soon as it manifested and all Hiccup saw were women clad in tight-fitting dresses with a low cut that made him blush and men that were either in loose tunics or next to nothing at all. Some were eating that deliciously smelling meat (beef, chicken, and mutton, if he wasn't mistaken), sopping bread through the gravy and drinking deeply from large tankards. The dancers were all madly cutting capers around an enormous bonfire that raged in the center of the hall. They danced to the beat of a lively tune, strummed by a troupe of musicians in the corner.

The smell of sweat was atrocious.

It was the second thing Hiccup noticed. The hot, damp atmosphere rolled over him like an ocean wave and he staggered back a step. Ketelbern, on the other hand, appeared completely unaffected. He looked around, putting his massive height to good use as he looked over the heads of the constantly shifting crowd. Then his own head tilted in a nod.

A heavy tankard -- one that was still half full of a dark liquid that spilled out -- sailed across the room and struck one of the musicians clean upside the head, bringing the music to a stuttering halt.

From the very center of the madness, a man sprang to his feet, flinging his arms wide. He had high cheekbones, immaculate skin, and a thin skeleton covered in wiry muscles and pointy ends; his knees and elbows looked oddly dangerous. He wore the highest-quality clothes of finely spun wool. Judging from the way silence dropped in a number of places throughout the hall, he was someone of importance.

"Get out! All of you! Out! Now!" he shouted, waving his hands at the crowd like a shepherd trying to get his flock of sheep to obey. "I have urgent business that absolutely cannot wait! Clear out! The lot of you! Go home! Get!"

There was a quiet, collective groan and some disappointed mutterings, but the people moved to take their leave. They put down their food and drink, the musicians collected their instruments, parents gathered up their children and they all shuffled out in droves. Odd looks were cast every now and then towards Hiccup, but the majority of the passerbys simply shrugged and didn't spare him another glance. The last person to leave shut the doors when he walked out. This left just Hiccup, Ketelbern and the man who had shooed everyone away.

"As you requested, Lord Cynerīc." Ketelbern announced, just the barest trace of a growl in his voice. He gave the Viking teen another shove forward, releasing him this time.

So this was Lord Cynerīc. He didn't look at all like what Hiccup had been expecting. Granted, he had been expecting a Ketelbern look-alike -- lots of brawn and vast tangles of hair. Instead he got someone with pale hair cut short around his neck, not the slightest sign of a beard and who was almost as skinny as himself. Taller, but still dreadfully bony. His hands were wide, his fingers long and spidery. They were constantly fidgeting and flicking like the legs of an insect in the throes of death, even as he marched up to Hiccup, looking at him with abounding interest.

Lord Cynerīc started to circle him like the carrion birds Hiccup had seen on occasions, hovering above days-old kills. His dark eyes flickered up and down, his hands shoving the Viking back in place when Hiccup tried to turn on spot to follow the man's circular progress. He looked over the teen's shoulders, back, down to his legs and his mismatched feet. He even pushed the Viking's head down to look at the back of his neck. A disapproving clucking noise issued from the man's mouth. It made Hiccup shudder to realize that he was being inspected.

"Ketelbern," Lord Cynerīc had come to stand in front of Hiccup. He was frowning at the Viking teen, looking quite flustered. A hand rested on his chin. "What is-- What is this?"

Obviously, the Saxon lord did not like what he had found.

"Sir, what is what?" Ketelbern inquired in a remarkably polite voice that still held a trace of a growl.

"This! What is -- this?" The Saxon lord made several broad gestures towards Hiccup. "I'm asking you what this is!"

"You just gestured to all of me." Hiccup felt obliged to point out. The old familiar feeling of inadequacy returned, accompanied by the anger he always felt whenever someone felt compelled to point out that everything about him was wrong.

"Have you even got the right person?" Lord Cynerīc asked the blacksmith, completely ignoring the teenager. "I'd hate to think that you've wasted all this time and resources just to come back with the wrong person!"

"We had our eyes on that savage's village for weeks! I've never been more sure of something in my life! That's the boy!" Ketelbern replied, crossing his massive arms.

"But this is--" Lord Cynerīc folded his arms over his chest as well, one hand covering his mouth. He was slowly shaking his head in something like disappointment. "You've brought me a toothpick."

"I brought you the right boy!" Ketelbern shouted, his face flushing a brilliant shade of red. "I can guarantee that!"

The Saxon lord was still shaking his head. "There are so many things wrong with this, I'm not sure where I should begin." he said, tossing a hand out dismissively. "I was expecting something so much different."

"You weren't the only one." Hiccup muttered, rolling his eyes.

"You are a Viking, aren't you?" Lord Cynerīc looked sharply down at his unwilling guest. "From Berk, that horrible little spit of land that freezes solid in the winter, correct?"

"What, you've been to Berk often enough to find that out?" Hiccup wondered, taken slightly off-guard by the news. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised, though. The Saxons had spent a good decade hammering away at them in an effort to get revenge before giving up.

"I assure you; I didn't enjoy it." Lord Cynerīc replied flatly. "But let me rephrase my question. Are you the boy who tames dragons?"

Hiccup nodded slowly. Personally, he thought "tame" was a bit of a stretch. You could no more tame a dragon than you could tame another human being. He hadn't even considered riding Toothless until he was sure that the Night Fury trusted him and was not going to bite off any important body parts. The village was still working on building trust with the dragons they had once hunted so zealously and for the adults, at least, the progress was slow.

"You? The great dragon tamer of Berk?" The Saxon lord snorted in disbelief, his twitching fingers plucking compulsively at the collar of his tunic. "Ever since I first heard of you, I looked forward to meeting you. I imagined someone -- taller. With more muscles and plenty of brains. A savant, rather than a savage. Instead, I get this." Another broad gesture to all of Hiccup. "Do you know how insulting this is?"

"Not as insulting as you're being right now." Hiccup replied irritably.

"You're the size of a twig." Lord Cynerīc informed him flatly. "Your brain is probably proportionate to the rest of you and you're already missing a foot. You don't even look like a Viking!" His expression morphed from disbelief to anger so fast that Hiccup thought he had imagined the transition. "And you're still making us look like incompetent fools!"

His twitching fingers snatched a handful of Hiccup's vest, nearly yanking him off his mismatched feet.

"Tell me how you do it!" he demanded. "How do you tame a dragon? What's the secret?"

"Secre-- There is no secret!" Hiccup shot back. Except for killing their domineering queen, but he didn't think that counted here. "You can't out and out tame a dragon! That's impossible! If they get startled or angry, they're just going to revert back to their base instincts and attack!"

"Rather like you savages; no wonder you get along so well." Lord Cynerīc sneered. He released the Viking, pushing him back in disgust. He looked at his hands, grimaced, and then wiped them down his trousers.

Hiccup scowled, clenching his fists. He was tired of being referred to as a "savage". He was hardly savage. Stubborn as hell, yes. But he was cleaner than this lot; even after a month of not touching water or soap. The Saxon lord was fairly reeking of perfume, but that still didn't quite cover up the stench of something unwashed and abhorrently smelly.

"What is going on?" the Viking teen demanded through gritted teeth. "You've dragged me from my village and no one's told me the reason why! I don't understand what you want from me!"

Lord Cynerīc's expression flickered, his dark eyes blackened and his hands clenched spastically into fists. He lunged at Hiccup with a guttural growl. The Viking teen instinctively stepped back, balancing on his prosthetic foot, but he had forgotten about Ketelbern behind him. The blacksmith's hand landed squarely between Hiccup's shoulder blades, stopping his retreat cold. The Saxon lord's long fingers wrapped around his wrist. He didn't stop there; he kept moving forward, never breaking stride. Hiccup was spun around dizzyingly fast. His good leg slammed down just in time to catch up.

"Of course you wouldn't understand! There's no way on this green earth that you could comprehend what we've been through!" Lord Cynerīc ranted, ripping open the doors of the great hall and dragging the Viking out into the deepening twilight. Ketelbern followed. "You raided us time and again! You burnt down our homes! Stole our women and children! Dogged us mercilessly until we cringed at the mere mention of your existence!"

With smooth, determined strides, Lord Cynerīc hung an immediate right so fast that Hiccup barely avoided falling into the questionable mud-like substance on the ground. They marched past the great hall, following the mud-strewn path out into the hilly region surrounding the town. One particular hill stood out from the others due to its incredible width. They probably could have fit the entire town on top of it with room to spare. And then there was the fact that its top looked like it had been hacked off by an axe.

Hiccup squirmed, his wrist twisting under the Saxon's bruising grip as he struggled to break free. Breaking the opponent's hold on you was a lesson that was always taught in childhood, but it wasn't one that he had stuck around to learn. Now he really wished that he hadn't skipped out on those lessons to go hunting for trolls instead!

"Then we found the dragons. They were a godsend! That's what we thought at first." Lord Cynerīc went on, anger and resentment coloring his tone quite vividly. "Powerful, fire-breathing lizards; some with poisonous fangs, others with razor-sharp claws. A swift death to anyone who crossed paths with one. It was perfect! It was just what we needed to put you savages back where you belonged! You know what happened next?" he asked, shooting a sharp glare over his shoulder.

Hiccup shook his head.

"Nothing! It didn't work! Nothing worked!" Lord Cynerīc found a small rock and kicked it a good twenty feet ahead. It bounced off a pair of wooden, double doors that had been built into the side of that wide, flat-topped hill. They were probably wide enough to accommodate a Monstrous Nightmare.

"One hundred years we've captured dragons! One hundred years we've worked to tame those beasts! One hundred years and we've barely had any success! Any dragon we break is still impulsive and disobedient! We have to fight with them just to get them to accept us touching them! Never mind a saddle! Never mind a bit! Never mind any of that! For all our hard work-- We still can't destroy you!"

He let out a scream of rage and threw the teen against the double doors. Hiccup hit them with a hollow *thud*, rattling the chains holding the doors shut. He regained his balance quickly, scrambling back to his feet to face the Saxon lord and straightened his shoulders. Intuition told him to maintain a confident front; to look unafraid, unruffled. He couldn't let on that his innards were twisting up on themselves; that his heart was pounding so hard that he thought it might burst; that locking his knees was the only way to keep them from quaking.

This was worse than when he had almost been killed by the Monstrous Nightmare in his graduation ceremony. He didn't know how, but it was worse. Probably because he knew what to expect from death by a Nightmare; teeth, claws, or fire and it would be quick.

But from another human...

"And then you!" Lord Cynerīc boomed, drawing himself up. His hands were fisted tightly at his sides. "You turn up on a miserable little island in the middle of nowhere, riding a Night Fury-- A Night Fury! -- and acting like everyone oughta fall at your feet and worship you!"

"I do not act like that!"

"In a few short months, you accomplish with hundreds of dragons what we can barely manage with just a dozen!" Lord Cynerīc shouted over him, his face now a brilliant red. "What do you have that we don't?"

Spittle flew from his lips. He heaved angry breaths as he waited for the answer he so dearly wanted to hear. He had been waiting all winter for this. He knew there was a trick to it. A trick that these savages had discovered but weren't going to share with anyone else. He knew that he was going to hear of it, one way or another. He wasn't going to let this Viking go until he knew it.

Hiccup said absolutely nothing.

"Very well. I'm a patient man." Lord Cynerīc said in a would-be calm tone. He nodded to his blacksmith.

Ketelbern stepped up and retrieved the key ring from his belt pouch again. He examined the keys for a moment and then selected the one that was slightly longer and more jagged-looking than the others. He inserted the key into the padlock and twisted. The padlock clicked open and Ketelbern unwound the chains from the handles. He pulled the doors open. Dry air wafted out of the dark hole, accompanied by a familiar, musty smell that Hiccup couldn't quite place...

"Inside." Ketelbern made an 'after-you' gesture.

"W-What?" Hiccup jerked back from the doorway. Were they going to lock him in there?

"Stupid savage is deaf." Ketelbern muttered, sharing a knowing look with Lord Cynerīc. "Get in there, you useless runt!" he roared.

Getting shoved around seemed to be the theme of the day. The blacksmith swatted Hiccup on the back with one large hand, sending him staggering forward, just inside the doors. Lord Cynerīc placed his body on the threshold and looked down at Hiccup imperiously.

"You're going to stay here, savage. You're going to stay here for as long as it takes." he announced.

"For as long as what takes?" Hiccup asked, almost fearing the answer.

And when he heard it, he figured that he was quite right to fear it.

Lord Cynerīc gazed down at him, coldly superior.

"You're going to tame our dragons."