24 What the...

"THIS IS NOT THE SAME DRAGON" the Guard Captain decaled again, louder than the first time.

"And I'm telling you it is" Ruffnut argued "you were here when I took off; you saw that I left on a Nadder."

"Well assuming that this is a Nadder, as you call it, I still say that it is a different Nadder" the Guard Captain hissed.

"What is going on here?" General Karoc sounded very tired as he approached.

The stress of trying to transport a ship load of dragons on a ship full of nervous and jittery sailors was playing havoc, not only with the General, but also with the mood of the entire crew. Astrid winced as the two soldiers holding on to her arms, tightened their grip as they dragged her along behind General Karoc towards the argumentative Dragon Rider.

"This moron thinks I've returned on a different dragon to the one I left the ship on" declared Ruffnut as she stood next to a different dragon to the one she left the ship on.

"It is a different dragon sir" the Guard Captain begged "I was looking at the greenish tinge on the dragons legs before the girl left, but now look at them; they're almost a sky blue."

"Well of course they're a different colour now" Ruffnut clambered for a reason "Storm... err... Swiftwing is err..."

"She is much happier now she's had a chance to stretch her wings a little" Astrid piped in "More than one breed of dragon can change colour; some for camouflage and others, like Nadders, according to their mood."

"Yeah... that's right" Ruffnut agreed "she's more blue because she's not... um... feeling blue. That doesn't sound right."

"Well she's also a foot taller" the Guard Captain insisted.

"Growth spurt" Ruffnut declared adamantly.

"Growth spurt?" the General looked suspiciously at Ruffnut.

"Yes; growth spurt" everyone noticed the wild look that was developing in Ruffnuts eyes.

"I don't know what is going on here but..." the General began.

"Oh I think it's pretty obvious that none of you have any idea what's GOING ON HERE!" Ruffnut blew up "You know nothing about dragons or the nuances of the different breeds. Did you know that Gronckles like to chew on rocks, or that Nightmares can set themselves on fire? Boneknappers like to armour themselves with old bones and you would wet your pants if you ever set eyes on a Red Death. Do you think it would make a difference if you threatened to cut my toes off if I don't stop the dragons from growing? Well guess what bright boy? I CAN'T DO IT; I CAN'T STOP A DRAGON FROM GROWING SO GO AND GET YOUR DAMN TOE CUTTERS."

General Karoc was slightly taken aback, but there was no way that he would put up with such insolence from a prisoner, so he signalled two more soldiers standing near the railing; the men grabbed Ruffnut and dragged her away to the bilge.

"Please General" Astrid begged "she was just frustrated..."

"I've put up with a lot from you all, acting like rude swine, but what she just did was too much" Karoc warned "We should make port tomorrow and then I won't need you anymore. So if you want to keep living, I suggest that you all show me just how useful and cooperative you can be or, you may just end up back in the tower... or dead."

With a turn of his head, General Karoc signalled the men holding Astrid to take her away.

"Shall I put the dragon back in its pen General?" Fotherington asked.

"Who are you?" Karoc barked.

"Caruthers sir; Able Seaman Caruthers at your service."

"And you think you can handle this dragon by yourself Caruthers?"

"I can but try sir."

"Good man" the General smiled at last "we're going to need men like you, willing to jump in and learn how to handle these beasts. If you survive, you'll go far."

'All the way to Berk if I get the chance' Fotherington thought to himself as he picked up Stormfly's reigns and led her below deck.

Soldiers, sailors and guards all took their usual back step as the dragon passed by and all were impressed by Fotherington's apparent bravery; little did they know that he and the dragon were actually old friends.

The portcullis on the western side of the New Loren capital city was only minutes away from being closed for the night when three riders approached galloping along at high speed from the port road.

"HOLD THE GATES!" the lead horseman cried out "PRISONERS OF THE EMPEROR WILL BE ARRIVING WITHIN THE HOUR."

The chief gatekeeper strode out of the guardhouse to address the soldiers as they crossed the threshold and entered the city.

"Then they can wait outside by the walls until the sunrise" he informed them "Only orders from Emperor Scias can hold the gates."

"Then inspect this" the lead horseman handed over a small scroll "it bears Imperial Seal and the signature of Lord Borges."

The gatekeeper unrolled the scroll and studied it for a moment before raising his arm.

"HOLD THE GATES" he ordered.

Back at the long line of marching prisoners one of the guards had just finished counting the prisoners again; three times.

"Err... excuse me sir" he sought the attention of the Guard Captain "but you know how we had one extra prisoner at last count?"

"Yes... don't tell me we've got more."

"No sir but... well now we're missing one."

"So we now have the same number we left the port with?"

"That's right sir."

"Oh... well... you must have miscounted last time."

"Oh no sir, I'm sure that I..."

"Would you like to receive a minor disciplinary action for an incorrect head count, or a major one for losing a prisoner?"

The guard thought about this for 7/10ths of a second before he spoke again.

"My apologies sir... for miscounting last time."

While the line of prisoners and their guards marched on, the sun dipped below the horizon behind them and Darius Gershwin made his way down a dark track to an abandoned farm nearby.

"So... this is the New Loren capital" Gobber noted forty minutes later "impressive... don't ya think?"

"It looks better from the air" Sigrid declared as the prisoners marched through the torch lit streets.

"I always thought it looked like a round shield with long spikes in the middle" Snotlout gave his opinion "from up high anyway."

"HALLOO" Gobber smiled and waved to the citizens who stood opened mouthed as the prisoners were marched off to their cells "THIS IS A LOVELY PLACE YOU'VE GOT HERE."

"It certainly is clean" Stoick noticed "it'll be a shame when Hiccup and the rest of the Dragon Riders get here and have to mess it up a bit."

"How long do you think it will be before we are rescued mister Stoick sir?" one of the Elydonian sailors asked.

"Who knows" Stoick told the sailor what he did not want to hear.

"B-but... you're certain they will come and rescue us sir?"

"Oh they'll come lad" Gobber tried to comfort the worried sailor "I don't know how long it will be before Hiccup notices that we're late getting home, or finds out some other way that we've been captured, but it will happen and he will come; so just stick close to us and do your best to stay alive."

Several of the sailors ended up with Snotlout and Tuffnut hanging from one of the towers in cages while the rest were all taken down into the dungeon; there were so many of them that they had to be crammed in, six to a cell that was only built for two.

"Well isn't this nice and cosy" Spitelout noted "but I'll be happy to stand up for a while Gobber."

"Oh don't bother yourself; I'm quite comfy."

"Well I'm not... so GET OFF MY LAP."

In the cell next door, another one of King Jorics men chatted to Stoick.

"It strange the way things work out, isn't it Chief?" Hak noted "The first time we met, I was one of your prisoners and now here we are; fellow cell mates."

Stoick laughed at the observation and slapped Hak on the back.

"Oh... sorry about that" the Chief apologised as he helped Hak up onto his feet again.

"That's quite alright Chief... just give me a hand to pop me shoulder back in."

The conversation going on between the sailors up in the cages was very different to the ones in the cells below.

"Why did they have to p-put us up here" one of them asked "I hate high places."

"You're not telling me anything new" another shrugged "you always disappear when someone's needed to climb the mast."

"I'm a sailor, not a trapeze artist" the man protested.

"You're a sailor only as long as someone else takes care of the sails" a third one added.

The sailors all laughed at their friend, but the good mood ended abruptly when a loud thump was heard nearby.

"There's something on the roof" declared the hater of heights.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch" Snotlout shrugged "it's only Ghost."

"You know about the tower ghost?" the new voice called from inside the tower where two guards had been listening to the prisoner's conversations as they stood at their posts.

"Oh yes" Snotlout grinned "thanks to the fact that you once imprisoned one of my friends here, I know all about the tower ghost."

The guards looked at each other and shrugged. They knew nothing about Astrid, or Rose as she called herself back then, or her time in the tower with Victor. The only thing they knew was that the ghost of the tower had not been heard from for many months but if it was back, they were glad to be safe inside the tower and not hanging in a cage outside.

They would not be feeling so smug and safe if they knew exactly what Snotlout was thinking at that very moment, and it did not take Dylan the psychic spider very long to pass on Snotlouts thoughts to the Changewing.

People all over the city were in their homes with their families and enjoying their evening meals, or on their way to one of the many taverns to drink away the stresses of living under the iron fist of Emperor Scias and his soldiers; every last one of them stopped what they were doing and froze as a familiar roar (one they had not heard since the end of last summer) thundered out from the direction of the palace towers and echoed through the streets below. Up in one of those towers, two guards almost jumped out of their skins while a few of the sailors in the cages outside, each had a little accident.

"W-what the hell was that?" asked the one who had been crammed into a cage with Tuffnut.

"Oh come on; don't you recognise a dragon when you hear one by now?" Tuffnut answered "You've been on a ship full of them for almost a week."

"B-but there aren't any dragons... oh."

"We call him Ghost" Tuffnut grinned.

"An invisible dragon" the sailor shrugged "eh... why not?"

Over on the roof of the tower, Ghost moved on to the next task Snotlout had given him to do. The guards had drawn their swords at the sound of the dragons roar, but when the tiles covering the conical tower roof began to fall away, torn off by the Changewings claws, the men quickly abandoned their post and ran for their lives down the wooden spiral stairs slowly being pursued by an armoured spider; shouting and inaudible battle cry and waving a pin.

"HA!" Tuffnut cried out in delight "That was brilliant; what's he gonna do next?"

"Just watch and see" Snotlout smiled mischievously.

The prisoners did not have to wait long to find out as Ghost flew around the tower and began to spit acid onto the hinges and bolt locks of all the cages hanging down the sides of the wall. As the cage doors fell down to the palace roof far below, the Elydonian sailors all kicked open the window shutters and climbed back into the tower.

"That was fun" Tuffnut could not hide his joy "so what do we do now?"

"Oh I think your gonna like this" Snotlout smiled as Ghost started demolishing the top of the tower all around them

"It must be my birthday" Tuffnut bounced with joy "although it's not the usual level of mayhem and destruction I like to see, it is a good start."

"Okay; listen up everyone" the sailors gathered closer to Snotlout to hear him, while doing their best to keep clear of the rubble falling around their feet.

"Those guards are going to tell their boss that the ghost of the tower has returned and is tearing up the tower, so hopefully no one will try to come up here for now. I'm going to take Ghost and head back to where we were first attacked."

"What for?" Tuffnut asked.

"I know the Noble Pigg was sunk but there's a good chance that Olaf and his crew would have managed to row the Sharktooth onto the island before she went under; so I've got to find out what has happened back there. Astrid managed to get Little Freya away on Stormfly, so reinforcements may be on the way if she made it back to Berk; we've got to find out for sure."

"Shouldn't we try and rescue the others in the dungeon first?" one of the sailors asked buoyed by their initial success.

"Half a dozen sailors, two Vikings and a Changewing are no match for a palace full of guards and a city full of soldiers" he told them.

"So what do you want us to do?" Tuffnut asked.

"Hold this tower; if anyone tries to climb up the stairs, make noises like you're being devoured by the 'Ghost of the Tower' and if that doesn't work, throw rocks and rubble down onto them."

"More mayhem' Tuffnut smiled and nodded "I like it."

Snotlout climbed onto Ghost's back and flew off to the west. As he left, he could hear Tuffnut singing as he picked out a good lump of throwing stone.

"Happy birthday to me..."

Okay... well... I've saved the best one for last.

On one bright sunny day about 30 years ago, my friend Stuart and I had a little day trip planned to Second Valley. This little seaside town has tall hills and rock cliffs right on the water's edge so it is a wonderful place for snorkelling, but because we had no boat to take us out to a better dive sight, we both went Scuba Diving there (it is also quite close to Rapid bay where the Jellyfish incident occurred).

As we looked around the sea floor, I noticed a cave mouth in the base of the granite cliff and decided to have a look inside. Hope was rising that this would be a large and impressive cave but as soon as I entered, the roof arced sharply down to meet the sand, and the sand arced up to meet the roof. Even though it was no bigger than a mini van inside, it did contain a large school of very interesting little fish. They were about the size of a fist and triangular, with huge eyes (I assumed they would only leave the caves at night).

As I drifted in to have a closer look at them, I was surprised to find that I was moving involuntarily towards the back of the cave with increasing speed, and so I expected to feel my head hit the angled cave roof any second. What happened instead was a complete surprise and shock; the wedge shaped cave turned out to be the mouth of a blowhole in the rock. The volume of water compressed into a long upright tunnel that was about a yard wide and as I looked up, the bright sunlight I saw was only broken by the lumps of granite that protruded all along the inside wall of the blowhole tube. It became instantly apparent that at the speed I was currently being pushed upwards, my skull would be crushed if it came into contact with any one of those rocks, so I pulled my arms in tight to my sides, and kept my legs straight as I could manage.

As mild panic set in, every horrid possibility flashed through my mind. The airflow regulator on my air tank could also strike one of the rocks and break off; the air pressure in the tank would then shoot it into the back of my head. The air bottle itself could be split open and explode, but if I managed to avoid all that, then I would soon be shot out of the blowhole to fall back onto the rocks while wearing a heavy air tank and a lead weight belt, resulting in broken bones and internal injuries.

As I waited to find which of these fates would befall me, the water suddenly slowed and stopped with the top of my head about five feet from the top of the blowhole tube. It was then that I remembered that the sea was abnormally calm that day. On a normal day the waterspout from this blowhole would be a spectacular sight but even on a day of dead calm, there was still enough surge to send me from over twenty feet below the surface, to being about ten to fifteen feet above sea level; it was at this point that I did the most stupid thing of all.

Without thinking, I assumed that I was trapped in this vertical cave and would have to try and climb out, so I put my arms and legs out onto the wall of the hole. It was at this time, that the water level fell away as the sea outside ebbed away, leaving me standing over a deep, dark and now empty hole.

"Oh *expletive deleted*" I said to myself not knowing exactly what I should do next.

I looked up at the blue sky several feet above me and began to wonder if I should commence climbing or not, when the face of a boy appeared, as he looked into the hole.

"MUM; THERE'S A MAN DOWN HERE! He cried out.

All of these experiences were so new to me, that every development came as a complete surprise. The next one of these surprises was when the water returned, and flowed back around me again. I realised at last, that the water would always continue to flow in and out, so if I could manage to keep the air tank from hitting the rocks one more time, I might just make it out; so I quickly pulled my arms and legs in again and as the water began to recede, I dropped with it back into the cave.

Once I saw those little, big eyed triangles again, I began to feel safe at last so I swam out of the cave before the whole thing started all over again. Back in open ocean again, I saw Stuart nearby and swam over to him. As soon as he saw me, he gave the signal to return to the surface and so we swam up.

"Where the hell did you go?" he asked "I saw you swim into that cave but when I followed, you were gone. Then when I came out again, you followed me out a few seconds later."

I explained about the blowhole and he declared me to be the luckiest person in the world, before we returned to our dive.

I told a few people about my experience and then forgot about it for about 15-20 years, until I remembered it during a conversation with some other friends about diving. The thing I find myself still wondering is what happened to the kid who saw me in the blowhole? Did his mother believe him, or did she think he made it all up? As I am now in my fifties, he would be middle aged by now; perhaps he is sitting alone in a padded room somewhere, just rocking back and forth repeating to himself over and over...

"There was a man down the hole... There was a man down the hole... There was a man down the hole... There was a man down the hole..."