The Black Sphere Chapter 9
Half of Berk village was awakened by a loud hammering of dragon claws on wood. It was Hiccup, now back to being Chief-night-fury, knocking not-so-politely on the door of Spitelout's house (and, to tell the truth, he would not have been upset if he'd knocked the door off its hinges). It was a little after eleven o'clock at night, and Spitelout was tired after a long day of browbeating people, threatening people, knocking people's heads together, and otherwise convincing them that he was now the man in charge. Some of the Vikings were just slow to accept the change. Others liked the way Chief-night-fury ran things; still others resented Chief Spitelout's leadership methods. Regardless, he was tired, and his irritation at being so rudely awakened turned to rage when he saw who was standing next to the dragon who was doing the knocking.
"Rangi son of Gunnarr?! Why aren't you headed for Outcast Island, you traitor?" he demanded.
Grunt, growl, double-growl. "Spitelout," Rangi began, "we are here to inform you that –"
"That's Chief Spitelout to you, boy," the older man snapped. "You're supposed to be on a slow boat to your new home in exile, and I'm going to file a complaint against that Night Fury for disturbing the peace! In the morning! For now, I am going back to sleep, because I deserve it."
Snarl, growl, unusually-vicious-snarl. "Chief-night-fury says he has business with you that won't wait until the morning."
"Chief-night-fury?" Spitelout scoffed. "There is no such chief! I'm the chief of Berk, Chief-night-fury turned back into Hiccup the Useless, and that dragon, whoever it is, is not the chief."
"Chief-night-fury may or may not not be his title at the moment, but it is his name," Rangi went on, undeterred. "And he is here to challenge you for the title."
"He can't do that!" Spitelout protested. "This is nothing but a dragon! The last time I looked, Hiccup was a scrawny, incompetent human again."
Gurgle, croon, snarl! "He says, 'Thank you for summing that up, but your facts are out of date.' "
"Besides," Spitelout went on, "Hiccup is infamous for avoiding violence whenever he can! He'd never challenge anyone to a duel. Especially me!"
Snarl-snap, snap-grunt growl. Rangi looked at the dragon, surprised. "Chief, I'm not comfortable saying that."
SNARL! "Okay, okay! He says, if it was just about what you did to him, he'd find some other way to deal with you. But because of what you did to me, that was the last straw, and you're about to find out what happens when a peaceful Night Fury runs out of peace."
"But, even if that's him, he still can't do this!" Spitelout argued. "It's against the law! He was defeated in a fair challenge, so he can't challenge me again!"
"You're a fine one for standing on the law," Rangi informed him loftily. "And Chief-night-fury was not defeated in a fair challenge. You challenged him well enough, but he was taken down by another Viking before he could accept or refuse that challenge. So he's still free to accept or refuse now, and he accepts."
"I take it back, for now," Spitelout growled. "I'll decide what to do with you in the morning." Spectators were gathering, drawn by the angry conversation. Some were simply curious; others anticipated another challenge for the chieftainship and wanted to see what would happen; still others were just hoping to see a good fight. He'd give them a fight, all right, but not in the middle of the night!
"I'm not sure whether Viking law allows you to take your challenge back," Rangi continued, "but even if you can, that just means it's Chief-night-fury's turn to challenge you! He is calling you out for breaking three of our our laws, and those laws are important ones, especially for a so-called chief. You exiled an innocent man without a trial, namely me. You violated the law about allowing spouses to accompany exiles. You siezed power when the rightful chief had not been lawfully defeated... and you did it all in your first hour of claiming to be in charge! One of a chief's biggest jobs is upholding the law and enforcing justice. You've done the complete opposite. You have disqualified yourself from being the chief of this tribe, and if you don't agree, then Chief-night-fury challenges you to prove it, right here, right now!"
Spitelout's eyes had adjusted to the dark by now. Just beyond the dragon and his boy translator, he could now see a square marked out on the ground by stakes and ropes, twelve feet on a side. A stack of three plain wooden shields lay nearby. Hiccup and his translator-boy had already set the stage for a formal hólmgang duel. An assortment of Night Furies and other dragons silently watched from the shadows.
"Seriously?" Spitelout scoffed. "You expect me to fight a duel against a dragon?"
"We expect you to fight a duel against the rightful chief of Berk, to settle his grievances against you," Rangi stated. "You were ready to fight that duel when you had a huge advantage; are you afraid of a fair fight now?"
Such an admission would probably cost him the chieftainship in the eyes of his people, whether he kept it legally or not. "And if I refuse to play along with this game of yours?"
Grunt, growl, grunt-grunt. "If you won't fight, then that means you admit that his accusations against you are true, and you'll accept the punishment that you deserve. That's Viking law."
That punishment could be nasty, and Spitelout knew it. On the other hand, getting into the dueling ring with a Night Fury wouldn't exactly be a walk in the meadow, either. Spitelout weighed his chances and snapped, "Let me get my sword and my helmet." He stormed back inside and slammed the door.
"You think he run and hide from me?"
"Oh, he'll be back," Rangi reassured Hiccup. "Too many people just heard you call him out. If he doesn't fight, he'll be nothing on this island. Spitelout would rather be defeated than be nothing. It's more Viking-like." Hiccup nodded at that. Rangi went on, "Of course, you realize he'll probably fight dirty if he gets the chance, right?"
"Of course," Hiccup said grimly. "Hiccup the human would fear that. I can handle him now."
"Still, he's more experienced at hand-to-hand fighting than you are," Rangi cautioned him. "Be careful. A lot is riding on the outcome of this duel."
That includes your fate for the rest of your life, Rangi, Hiccup thought. Yes, I'll be careful. He thought he could see Anya in the crowd, looking anxious.
Five minutes later, the scion of the Jorgenson family strode out his door, armed and armored for battle. He felt better, now that he was fully dressed and ready for dragon slaying. Peering out the door behind him was his half-awake wife, Saybull.
Of the Vikings who were awake and watching, Gunnarr Hofferson stepped forward to serve as the referee. "You all know the rules for hólmgang, but I'll give you a quick reminder," he called out. "Each combatant gets three shields. The combatants take turns swinging at each other with their weapons, starting with the one who was challenged. If all your shields are broken, you can parry with your weapons. Dodging or dancing away from a blow is bad form. If you do it once, I'll warn you; if you do it too much, I have the authority to call a forfeit. The battle ends when first blood is drawn, or when one of the combatants leaves the ring."
"How can you be a neutral referee?" Spitelout demanded. "You're the dragon's father-in-law!"
"I have Viking honor," Gunnarr said proudly. "Cheating and taking sides is something I've never done, and everyone in this town knows it, including you. Besides, if I take sides, these spectators will call me out immediately. You'll have a fair duel, Spitelout; I promise you that."
"How can the dragon swing at Spitelout when he can't hold a sword?" someone shouted.
"Chief-night-fury will use his natural weapons," Rangi explained.
"That's not fair!" a woman exclaimed. "Spitelout can't breathe fire!"
"Chief-night-fury can't swing a sword or hold a shield," Rangi told her. "He'll be vulnerable to Spitelout from the first attack, while Spitelout has three shields with which to protect himself. Who really has the unfair advantage?" No one answered. Anyone who knew anything at all about Night Furies would know which of the combatants really had the edge, but Rangi had made the duel sound like something close to a fair fight. Hiccup decided that the young man had definitely earned the special gift that he would soon receive.
"Very well," Gunnarr said. "Combatants, enter the ring! Remember your Viking honor. Spitelout, you were challenged, so you will strike first." From the crowd, muted whispers and the clinking of coins could be heard. As with any hólmgang, people were placing their bets on the outcome.
Spitelout considered the big black lizard that almost filled the dueling ring. At this range, he couldn't miss! It was just a question of where he wanted to score a hit. He decided that he needed to end this quickly, so he raised his blade high and chopped down at the Night Fury's nose. Hiccup reared up, raised his forepaw, and caught Spitelout's descending wrist between two of his claws, blocking the blow in mid-swing. The blade stopped less than a foot from the dragon's nose. Spitelout pulled his hand back before Hiccup could tighten his claws together; the pressure from that could have broken the man's wrist.
"The blow was lawfully blocked," Gunnarr said solemnly. "Chief-night-fury, it is your turn."
"Would you stop calling him that?" Spitelout said, irritated.
"That's his name," Gunnarr said with a shrug.
Spitelout watched the dragon's claws carefully. With which paw would he strike? The answer was neither one. Instead, the Night Fury unleashed a shot of his blowtorch-breath and set Spitelout's shield on fire. He dropped it with cries of "Ooh! Ow! Hot! Hot!" He strapped on his second shield.
"It is Spitelout's turn," Gunnarr said.
Spitelout knew that, if he tried another overhead swing, the dragon would block it just like he blocked the first one. This time, he would try a straight thrust at the base of the neck. If that blow connected, it would do more than draw first blood – it could easily kill its victim. So much the better. He drew his hand back and –
Before he could thrust with his sword, the Night Fury's tail swung around and swept Spitelout's feet out from underneath him. He was knocked off his feet and landed heavily on his backside. He angrily yelled, "Foul! The dragon broke the rules! You have to use your weapons to parry!"
"The tail is a dragon's weapon," Rangi called back. "If any of you ever got tail-whipped by a Monstrous Nightmare during the wars, or had to dodge the spikes from a Nadder's tail, then you know how true that is." Heads nodded all over the crowd. They remembered how effectively dragons could use their tails in close combat. Somehow, Spitelout had forgotten that little detail.
"No foul," Gunnarr decided. "Chief-night-fury? It's your turn." Spitelout prepared to parry; he knew that one of Hiccup's habits was that he never did the same thing twice, so he wasn't worried about his shield being burned again. Hiccup surprised him with another burst of blowtorch-breath. "Ooh! Ow! Hot! Hot!" Spitelout was down to his last shield.
"Be careful, Chief-night-fury," Varinn murmured, and several heads nodded in heartfelt agreement.
A few of the Vikings overheard Snotlout, somewhere in the crowd, quietly say, "Hiccup, please don't kill my dad!"
Someone muttered, "I just wagered ten silver coins on you, Spitelout. Don't make me sorry!"
"You'd better make it good, Spitelout," someone else added.
How should he make it good? Spitelout could think of only one course of action. Common moves like downward chops and straight thrusts had always worked for him in the past, but the dragon had somehow learned to parry them. Now it was time for his secret move, which he called the Jorgenson Jitterbug. He hadn't even trained Snotlout in this move yet, it was so secret. But it was time to unveil his secret if he wanted to win this fight. All he had to do was pass his sword into his left hand, then toss it upward while he made a full spin to the left, catch it in his right hand, and unleash a sideways backhand slash. Only a master swordsman could follow such a move if he did it right, and Hiccup was no master. A blow like that could decapitate a man. Against a Night Fury, he probably couldn't cut off such a big head with a horizontal swing, but that was okay. All he had to do was make the dragon bleed, and the duel would be over.
He passed the blade into his left hand, tossed it up, spun to the left... and while he was still spinning, the Night Fury shot a firebolt at his feet that blew the ground out from underneath him. He landed face-down on the ground. His sword came down next to him, pommel-down; he managed to grab it before it fell over. Somehow, that seemed important. It made him feel like he didn't fail completely. He spat dirt out of his mouth and climbed to his feet.
"Did that count as a blow?" someone asked.
"He didn't actually swing the sword," someone else said.
"He started to swing!" called a third.
"Let's ask Spitelout," Gunnarr said. "Spitelout, were you –"
"That's Chief Spitelout to you!" he snarled as he steadied himself.
"We are in the process of deciding if that's true," Gunnarr said mildly. "Were you doing a dance, or were you maneuvering to strike your enemy?"
Spitelout knew that any kind of dance was forbidden by the rules, so he answered, "I was maneuvering to strike the stupid lizard."
"Then his moves count as a blow that was parried by the dragon's weapons," Gunnarr ruled. "It is now Chief-night-fury's turn."
Spitelout quickly tightened his shield straps, raised his sword to a parrying position, and waited. He realized that the dragon could have killed him several times by now; Hiccup was only toying with him. Why did the creature have to be so hard to see in the dark? And how would it strike this time? The dragon, which barely had any room to move in the hólmgang square, slowly weaved its head from side to side like a snake examining its victim. Then, quicker than Spitelout believed possible, it lunged forward, shoved his shield aside, rammed its nose into Spitelout's midsection, and tossed its head. The man flew twenty feet through the air, sailing high above all the spectators, and landed flat on his back, hard enough to stun him for a moment.
Even in the darkness, Rangi couldn't miss Chief-night-fury's huge grin. "I'll bet that felt good," the young man whispered.
"You have no idea," the dragon rumbled back.
"The duel is over," Gunnarr called, and formally pointed at the dragon. The Night Furies and the other dragon spectators roared their approval, stamping their feet and lighting up the darkness with puffs of flame. The humans began to cheer, but stopped as the human combatant struggled to his feet.
"It's not over!" Spitelout shouted as he made his way through the crowd to the ring. "We have to fight until first blood, and I'm not bleeding!"
"You're kind of scratched up," someone commented.
"I don't think scratches count," someone else said.
"The rules are, you fight until first blood or until one combatant leaves the ring," Gunnarr reminded them all. "Spitelout, you just left the ring! In fact, you probably just pulled off the most epic ring-leaving in Viking history. The hólmgang is over and Chief-night-fury is the winner." Most of the crowd let out hearty cheers, and a bit of money changed hands.
How to salvage this disaster? Spitelout tried to think. "Fine, the fight is over," he finally admitted. "But that means that Berk has no chief until a new chief is formally confirmed by Gothi. No one can make any decisions until we have a lawful chief." That would give him a few hours to come up with another plan before Hiccup could do anything, and Hiccup was a lawful-goody-good who would never break the law.
"That's not true!" Rangi shouted. "The rightful chief was never legally deposed, so technically, he has been in command all along. Now he's back where he belongs. Long live Chief-night-fury!" Others took up the shout. "Long live Chief-night-fury! Long live Chief-night-fury!" By law and by popular acclaim, the dragon was in charge again.
"Chief-night-fury, what are your orders for your people?" Gunnarr asked when the cheering died down.
Snarl, grunt-croon. "The chief's first orders," Rangi translated, "are for Spitelout to give back those silver cloak clasps that he took while Chief-night-fury was human and unconscious. After that –"
"You can't reclaim those!" Spitelout protested. "I took them from you, fair and square. They're mine now. It's called 'plunder.' I wouldn't expect a Viking failure like you to understand that."
Grumble-snarl, snap-croon. "Oh, he understands the concept perfectly," Rangi translated. "So if it's okay to take people's stuff while they're out cold, then there won't be a problem if he beats you senseless and then claims his father's cloak clasps, your weapons, and every stitch of clothing that you're wearing, right?" When Spitelout went wide-eyed, Rangi continued, "Or you can just give back the clasps and save yourself a beating." He paused and leaned over toward the much bigger man. "Just between you and me, I think the chief would rather give you the beating. It will be sweet payback for what you did to Orn and those other three men. A few good smacks from that tail of his, and you'll be out until this time tomorrow." Wordlessly, Spitelout removed the clasps and handed them over; Rangi took them and stuck them in a belt pouch for the time being.
"Now that we've settled that," the young man went on, "we have to prepare Spitelout for exile. He is a brave and true Viking, but he is also a lawbreaker who can't be trusted to live by the laws that the rest of us obey. For the good of the tribe and the village, we have to send him away."
Okay, that was bad, but it still could be worse. "So you're getting even with me for sending you to the Outcasts?" Spitelout called. "That's petty. You won't earn any respect from the other Vikings that way."
Growl-snarl, gurgle-growl. "The chief says you are not being banished to the Outcasts," Rangi explained, trying not to grin too hard. "You will be exiled to the Bog-Burglar tribe."
"No!" Spitelout couldn't help blurting out his shock and dismay. They were sending him to an island where women ruled everything, and men were second-class citizens. How could he ever work out a proper Viking man's destiny in a tribe like that?
"And," Rangi added triumphantly, "in accordance with the law, your wife is free to go with you if she chooses to do so."
Spitelout glanced at Saybull, saw the malevolent grin spreading across her face, and his blood ran cold. For years, he'd been trying to keep her barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, with limited results. Once she was surrounded by Bog-Burglar women who would encourage her to dominate her husband, there would be no limit to the demands she'd make or the orders she'd give him. He would get no help or support from the Bog-Burglar men, either. His domestic life was about to become a living Hel.
Why didn't Hiccup just kill him instead? It would have been quicker and much kinder. That dragon was a complete and total sadist.
o
By the next morning, the word had spread across the entire village that Chief-night-fury was back. Most of the Vikings of Berk welcomed the news; their dragon chief ruled with a light hand (well, a light paw), he worked with the other dragons to protect the island and the fishing fleet, and he encouraged profitable trade with the other Viking tribes. A handful of Vikings might have preferred human leadership, but after Spitelout's repeated violations of the law became public knowledge, no one would openly speak in his favor. The other three men who had tried to become chief swore an oath that they had done so to oppose Spitelout, not because they wanted to replace Hiccup, and they were reinstated in the tribe. The chief extended full pardons to them, and also to Orn and Rangi, so none of them was under the sentence of banishment that Spitelout had imposed.
Rangi had had a joyous reunion with his wife. Now he looked across the village as men streamed toward the Mead Hall for lunch. Everything seemed just the way it was before this series of unfortunate events had descended on them. "So, we're back to normal?" he asked.
"Pretty much," his chief said. "We get iron from Breakneck Bog, so no iron crisis anymore. Black dragon crisis go away, too. Full-of-surprises says Fun Club for young Night Furies is over. They say we ruin all their fun."
"That's what adults do, right?" Rangi asked with a smile.
Chief-night-fury nodded. Then he glanced out to sea and groaned. "You right. Nothing changes. We back to normal." Rangi was puzzled by Hiccup's tone. He followed the Night Fury's gaze, and groaned himself. A ship from the Lava-Louts was approaching the docks, flying the chief's pennant.
"Here we go again," Rangi sighed as they walked side-by-side toward the docks. Astrid joined them after a minute, ready to strike if Lunklunk tried any treachery this time. They waited while the longship pulled alongside and tied up. They waited while one of the Vikings announced Chief Lunklunk's arrival, at great length, with many florid adjectives. At last, the Lava-Lout chief stepped onto the docks and strode toward them.
"Where's Chief Hiccup?" he demanded.
"Chief-night-fury is standing right here, looking at you," Rangi answered, with a gesture at the Night Fury beside him. Hiccup bared his teeth; it wasn't a smile.
Lunklunk glared at the dragon for a second. "Can't you make up your minds who your chief is? Or what your chief is?"
"We had a bit of a power struggle here," Rangi explained. "But everything is settled now, and we're waiting patiently to find out why you're honoring us with another visit."
"You know darned well why I'm here!" Lunklunk snapped. "I want my thralls back! All of of them!"
Croon, growl. "Which thralls would those be?" Both Hiccup and Rangi were acting as innocent as possible.
"The thralls that you and your dragons set free last night!" the Lava-Lout chief roared. "I spent every gold coin my ancestors ever saved, so I could buy that black sphere and have an infinite source of free labor! And then you and your dragons came along, you did something I don't pretend to understand, and now all my thralls are gone! Their huts look like they just stepped out for a work detail; they didn't even take their few belongings with them. All I got in return is a big hole in the ground. Are you going to pretend you had nothing to do with it?"
Grunt-grunt, snarl-snarl. "The chief says that the Viking laws about thralls are all about people, not dragons. Your so-called thralls were dragons before you caught them, they're dragons now, and they're completely out of your reach, both physically and legally."
"Not for long," Lunklunk growled. "If any of them are on this island, then I'm within my rights to reclaim them. My men brought nets and bolas this time, so we're ready to recapture our property, whether you help us or not. Now stand aside."
Chief-night-fury sat down, and Rangi folded his arms; both plainly meant to go nowhere. Rangi didn't need his chief to give an answer to that one. "Permission denied. On Berk, dragons have the same rights as any other citizens. If you want to claim one as your own, then you'll have to convene a hearing and prove that the dragon belongs to you."
"I'll do that right now!" the Viking chief bellowed.
"So that means you're agreeing that dragons have the same legal rights as people?" Rangi asked archly.
Lunklunk bit off his reply and thought for a moment. If he said "yes," then he was taking Berk's side in the question of how the dragons fit into Viking society. That would open a legal can of worms that he very much wanted to keep shut, and siding with Berk was a hateful idea in any case. But if he said "no," then he forfeited any chance of getting his thralls back.
While he hesitated, Rangi added, "Besides, even if you can somehow prove that one of our dragons belongs to you, and even if you can capture him without turning all our other dragons against you, what then? Do you think a dragon will willingly stay on your island and be your thrall and do your work for you?"
"That's what my black sphere is for," Lunklunk said quietly.
"Ha!" Rangi crowed. "That little gadget will never enslave another intelligent being again!"
"What!?" Lunklunk blurted out. "What have you done to my sphere?"
"Your black sphere ran up against a black dragon, and the dragon is still undefeated. Think of something else."
No more black sphere? That idea refused to sink into Lunklunk's head. He'd dropped the sphere a few times by accident, and he'd never even scratched it. The seid-kona, the witch-woman who'd sold it to him had assured him that it was indestructible. He'd thought it could stand up to anything. What could Berk have done to it?
"Nothing could harm that sphere," he finally decided. "You've stolen it, you've hidden it somewhere, and I will spend the rest of my days looking for it until I find it. It doesn't matter if you buried it on this island or sank it into the sea. I'll hire another seid-kona to tell me where it is, I'll recover it, and then... pow!"
Rangi shrugged. "If you want to waste your life, that's fine with us. Go ahead and ignore that huge new crater on your island where your sphere used to be! But you can't look for anything on Berk unless you file an official complaint of theft against us with the Law-Speaker. That will mean admitting what the sphere was for. Have you changed your mind about telling all the tribes that you're a seidr-user?"
Lunklunk bit down on several unpleasant adjectives. They still had that leverage over him! Well, he wasn't done. "We'll set that question aside for now. There's still one runaway thrall who was never a dragon. He keeps eluding me, but that ends today! Where is Orn? And don't try to tell me you don't know where he is! I'm sick of hearing that line!"
Growl-grunt, growl. "Fine, we won't say it. We know exactly where he is, and you're welcome to try and claim him, if you can."
"Where?" Lunklunk burst out. The dragon and the boy both looked upward. About two hundred feet up, two Gronckles were flying in circles around each other. One was beige, and was ridden by a stocky young man with small horns on his helmet. The other dragon was dark brown, and its rider looked very familiar, if somewhat bruised and battered. The stocky young man was calling out suggestions about how to ride a Gronckle safely. It looked like they were all riding well together.
"Orn!" shouted Lunklunk. "Get down here right now and come back to your home, where you belong!" Orn leaned over and thumbed his nose at his former chief. The dragon waggled her tongue at him for good measure. The rider smiled and patted the dragon on the shoulder; then they both returned to their flying lessons.
"I don't think they want to come down," Rangi observed innocently.
The Lava-Lout chief lost his temper. He ran back toward his ship, grabbed a spear from one of his guards, and hurled it at Orn and Gronckle-Emma. It didn't fly forty feet before it was struck and blown into three pieces by two quick Night Fury firebolts. The pieces of the spear tumbled uselessly and splashed into the water of the bay.
"Try that again, and it won't the spear that gets shot," Rangi warned him. Two angry Night Furies growled and pawed the docks to emphasize that point. Rangi went on, "You're lucky the Gronckle hasn't eaten any rocks lately, or she would have flamed you to ashes where you stand. In any event, you're on Berk now. Our island, our rules. Leave the dragons alone, and don't mess with their riders, either."
Lunklunk was beside himself, but he struggled to maintain his composure. "He can't stay up there forever! I've already invested too much time in chasing that runaway to give up now; I'll wait right here until Ragnarok comes if I have to. I will reclaim my property!"
Croon-snarl, grunt. "The chief wishes you good luck. But he also informs you that, when a dragon chooses a human rider, the dragon gets very attached to that rider. If you try and take Orn away, you'll also be dealing with an angry Gronckle who will gladly shoot several holes in your gut if that's what it takes to protect her human. The Law-Speaker can't protect you from that."
"I'm not afraid of a Gronckle," Lunklunk blustered as he walked back toward Rangi. "I've taken them down before, and I still remember how to do it!"
"Then you probably also remember," Rangi lectured him, "that all the dragons look out for each other. As soon as you try anything against that Gronckle, you'll be fighting every dragon on Berk faster than you can say, 'Thor, help me!' That's a lot of dragons. Think twice before you start a fight that you can't possibly win."
"The Lava-Louts can handle dragons," Lunklunk said defiantly.
"Can you handle a dozen Night Furies?" Rangi challenged him.
No, he couldn't, and he knew it. Chief Lunklunk racked his brain, trying to think of some way to avoid complete defeat. Only one option was left to him. "I don't need to handle any Night Furies," he spat. "I will file a formal complaint against you with the Law-Speaker, charging you with aiding and abetting a runaway thrall. Orn is going home, and you are going down!"
Rangi looked to his chief, who growled and rumbled at some length. "Oh, really?" the young man translated. "How are you going to explain why you can't reclaim him when he's in plain sight and not running away? Will you admit that the thrall is being protected by a dragon whom you used to control with seidr?"
"I won't reveal that part!" Lunklunk argued.
Growl-snarl, grunt-grunt croon. "But we will," Rangi smiled, "and that will be the end of any sympathy you might get from the Law-Speaker. I remind you that, in a formal hearing, we have to tell the whole truth, not just the parts that support the story we want to tell. The bottom line is that we haven't done anything to stop you from reclaiming your thrall. All we've done is try to give you some good advice, which you have ignored, and now you're left with just about nothing. You can charge yourself with being stupid, Lunklunk, but that's not a crime... not yet, anyway... and you can't accuse us of any violation of the law at all."
"You made my thrall a citizen of Berk!" Lunklunk burst out.
Gurgle-growl snarl-snap. "That's what he is, for as long as he chooses to stay here," Rangi answered. "If he ever went back to Lava-Lout Island, then that status would change. But he doesn't want to go there, and we won't make him go. Making your slave economy work is your job, not ours, Chief Lunklunk. Don't blame us because your thralls want to be free, and don't ask us to do your dirty work for you. The Law-Speaker won't support you in that. I don't think anyone will."
Again, Chief Lunklunk tried to come up with a way to salvage this bizarre situation. He came up empty. His sphere was gone. His captive thralls were gone. The one thrall whom he could legally claim had made himself untouchable. Always hanging over his head was the fear that his seidr-using ways would be exposed, backed by the threat of destruction from above, thanks to those triply-accursed Night Furies. At last, he turned and stomped back down the docks to his ship, which was soon headed back to Lava-Lout Island.
"He didn't even say goodbye!" Rangi said with mock-sadness.
"Just as well," Chief-night-fury replied. "I hate long goodbyes."
"So now everything is really back to normal?"
"Almost," the dragon grinned. "There is one more thing we have to do. Meet me at forge in one hour."
That made Rangi nervous. Like most people who knew Hiccup well, he suspected impending disaster whenever Hiccup acted mysterious. He spent the hour at home, speculating with Anya and Thing One about what he might have done wrong. They came up empty. At last, the three of them made their way to the forge. Hiccup's tail was sticking out the door, so he was already there, waiting for them. So were Gobber, Astrid-the-dragon, her father Gunnarr, and Rangi's brother Varinn.
"Welcome," Hiccup began. He didn't seem to be in payback or punishment mode, so Rangi and Anya relaxed slightly.
He went on, "In past few days, I got cut by dagger." He held up his foreleg, which showed a quickly-healing cut in the same place where Orn had sliced Hiccup's human arm. "If ever happen again, I not want wound from stranger. I want it from friend I trust." He turned to Varinn. "Give to him," he ordered.
Varinn nodded, turned, and picked up the embroidered cloth bag that used to hold the black sphere. He opened it and pulled out a short sword in a fancy leather scabbard. When he drew it, the color of the metal clearly marked it as one of Smith-flies-for-fun's special dragon-forged blades. A weapon like that was extremely rare, deadly in battle, and easily worth twice its weight in gold. Anya went wide-eyed and gasped as Varinn formally presented it to Rangi, whose hands were shaking.
"You earn this several times over," Hiccup went on. "Is best 'thank you' I can give." Rangi stared at the sword, speechless.
"By the way," Varinn added, "the other day, Gobber was wondering where I disappeared to. I was hiding so you wouldn't see me doing the inlay on the other side of the blade. Chief-night-fury told me what to engrave; he said you deserved it before this crisis happened, and now you deserve it more than ever." Rangi turned the blade over. Inlaid in gold were three words:
Faithful and True
Rangi was too much of a Viking to be seen with his eyes watering in public. So he got down on one knee, so no one could see the tears, and hoarsely shouted, "Long live the chief!" Everyone else took up the shout. "Long live the chief! Long live the chief!"
Astrid sidled up to her partner as they cheered him. "You know, it's ironic. As a human, you looked more like a traditional Viking chief than you do now. But 'long live the chief' is more appropriate for you as a dragon – you'll outlive every one of these Vikings by a century or more."
Hiccup looked thoughtful. "Someone once said, 'It's not just about living forever. The trick is living with yourself forever.' As a human, I don't think I could live with myself anymore. It's not who I am. I'm not sure it's who I ever was. If that last attempt to destroy the black sphere hadn't worked, I really don't know what I would have done."
"I'm glad that didn't matter," she said, and wrapped a wing around him. "Like Rangi said on the docks, you're still undefeated."
"Is that why you love me?" he asked mischievously.
She swatted him with her tail. "That's for even questioning why I love you!" she burst out. Then she relaxed and leaned against him. "I love you because you're you, no matter what body you're in. But I definitely like this body better."
"Me, too," he sighed. He closed his eyes and blew out a deep breath. "Me, too."
The End
(of this story arc)