The Power of Gold Chapter 10
The entire tribe of the Bog-Burglars had to get involved in corralling the huge crowd of prisoners they'd taken from a late-night raid. The plan had been for the dragons to let just one of the eight warships through, and sink the other seven. That plan fell through when the surviving ships rescued the swimmers from the other ships instead of letting them swim; there had been no way to keep all the Vikings off the island, unless the dragons were willing to sink them all in deep water and let them drown. The dragons weren't ready to take that extreme step. So now the raiders had made landfall, minus all their military equipment, and the Bog-Burglars had a big problem on their hands.
Six, Faithful-brother, and Thing Two had expected a good tongue-lashing from Chief Bertha when they landed. But, to their surprise, Bertha initially took out her wrath on the Night Furies' human riders.
"Camicazi!" she nearly screamed. "Look at all these... these men! What are they doing here? Do you have any idea what you've done to us?!"
"It wasn''t me, Mother!" Cami shouted back. "The dragons changed the plan!"
"They had to!" Nagi added. "The raiders didn't do what we thought they'd do. If the dragons hadn't changed the plan, then all the raiders would have drowned."
"You make that sound like something bad," Bertha snapped. "Six-shooter! What happened out there?"
WE SANK THEIR SHIPS, JUST LIKE
YOU WANTED. WE TRIED TO SPREAD
THEM OUT, BUT THEY DID NOT
COOPERATE, SO THEY ALL
LANDED AT ONCE.
"I wanted one ship full of raiders to land!" Bertha exclaimed. "One, not the crews from all eight! Was it so hard to let the others drown?"
WE DON'T KILL UNLESS
WE HAVE TO.
"Well, you had to, and you failed!" the chief burst out. "How am I supposed to feed all these men? Where am I supposed to put them? Who's going to take time away from her usual workload to guard them? Did you even think about things like that?"
WE THOUGHT ABOUT WINNING, AND
WE WON. WE CAN PROVIDE EXTRA
FISH TO FEED THEM, AND WE CAN
GUARD THEM IF YOU PUT THEM
OUT IN A FIELD.
"Put them out in a field? Are they supposed to sleep on the cold ground? What if it rains or snows? And another thing – how is their tribe supposed to pay their ransom if they don't know their men have been captured? We could be stuck with these guys for weeks! Months! This is the most disastrous 'victory' this tribe has ever seen!"
WE CAN TAKE A NOTE TO THEIR TRIBE.
"You sure will!" Bertha snapped. "You Night Furies are going to take full responsibility for this mistake, and you're not going to get one wink of sleep or one bite to eat until you've made it right. Capeesh?" She turned to the dragon riders. "Did you even try to fight this battle the right way?"
"We don't control the dragons," Naginatta spoke up. "They do what they want. We were just along for the ride."
"The way they fight is very impressive," Alfrún added.
"The way they fight is going to ruin this tribe!" the chief spat. "All three of you, get some weapons and join the guards. We'll herd these guys into the Mead Hall for now; it's the only building that's even close to big enough to hold them all. They'll be crowded, but they'll be indoors. We'll see what these dragons come up with to undo their mistake."
Six turned to her mate, shaken. "Did I really blow it that badly?"
"You didn't blow it," Faithful-brother assured her. "You just didn't do things the Viking way."
"The Viking way is what Bertha was expecting," Six went on, "so in her eyes, I completely failed in my first battle. What are we going to do? She's probably thinking about kicking us all off the island."
"Do we know what tribe those raiders are from?" Faithful-brother asked.
"I heard them saying they were from the Thunderhead tribe," Thing Two answered. "Does that matter?"
"It might matter, for the idea I just came up with," Faithful-brother replied. "How far is that island from here by air?"
Six thought hard. "I think it's about three hours for a fast-flying dragon."
"That works," Faithful-brother decided. "If we combined our nest with the Berk nest, how many fast-flying dragons do we have?"
"I'm guessing around forty, maybe fifty," Six said.
"That'll do the job," Faithful-brother exclaimed. "Now, here's what I'm thinking..."
o
The Thunderheads were awakened around four o'clock in the morning by a series of rising whistles all over the village. "Night Furies!" shouted the guards. "Get down!" They awaited the crash of dragon firebolts that would take out their defenses and ruin their biggest buildings.
But no firebolts fell. Nothing fell except a rolled-up sheet of parchment, weighted with a stone. It landed in front of the biggest longhouse in the village, which was the chief's house. The chief, of course, was away on a raid against the Bog-Burglars. But his wife, Thordra, was awakened by the noise and the shouting, and stepped outside just in time to nearly get hit in the head by the falling stone with the parchment tied to it. She read it and sent her children as messengers to round up the tribe's women and whatever men hadn't gone on the raid. They met in the Mead Hall, where the chief's wife read the message out loud.
"It says, 'If you want to see your men again, place at least 1000 silver coins' worth of valuables on a blanket on the roof of your Mead Hall and leave them there. Signed, Big Boobied Bertha, Chief of the Bog-Burglars.' "
"Could it be a trick?" another woman asked.
"Our men were headed for Bog-Burglar Island," Thordra reminded them, "so at least some of them got there, or else Bertha wouldn't know about the raid. We also know that the raid failed, because Bertha wouldn't be writing notes and making demands of us if she'd been defeated. I think it's genuine."
"How do the dragons fit into all this?" the second woman demanded.
"I have absolutely no idea," Thordra shot back. "They probably dropped the note. Beyond that... I don't think like a dragon."
"Are we going to give up all of our valuables?" a guard asked.
"When Vikings go raiding, you win some and you lose some," the chief's wife said. "I think we lost this one. When that happens, the winning tribe usually launches a retaliatory raid against the losers. This time, Bertha just wants a ransom payment instead. I say we pay it and get our men back. If we don't, then the Bog-Burglars will hit us while we're defenseless, hurt us even worse, and take our valuables anyway." That convinced the entire group. Two men got ladders and set them up against the Mead Hall, while everyone else rounded up various coins, fine leather goods, fur coats, and anything else of value. When Thordra decided that they had at least a thousand silver pieces' worth of stuff, they spread an old blanket on the roof and piled the goods on it. Then they returned to ground level and waited.
After a minute, they saw a black shadow descend onto the roof. A small person, perhaps a young woman, slid off the creature's back, gathered the four corners of the blanket together, and deftly tied them together with a rope that she was carrying. Then she climbed back onto the dragon, the dragon hooked a claw around the knot in the rope, and they flew off with their plunder.
"What if they keep the valuables and don't return our men?" someone asked.
"We can't do much about that," Thordra shrugged. "We had to take the risk and try something, or we'd never see our men again. If they don't keep their word, then maybe we could denounce them as dishonest deal-breakers at the next Thing. It will take at least a day for them to sail back here, so we won't know anything until tomorrow at the earliest."
About six hours later, the guards began shouting and pointing. Fifty-odd dragons were closing in on the island! The flying lizards had never attacked in daylight before. What was going on? The men who were left rushed to arm themselves against this new attack.
"Hold your fire! They've got our men!" someone shouted. Underneath each dragon dangled two or three Thunderhead warriors, suspended from the dragons' claws with ropes tied around their waists. The dragons formed into a single line and headed for a desolate part of the island. Then they swooped down, one after the other, and set their living cargo down on the beach. Then they headed for the clouds before any of the Thunderhead men could throw rocks at them. In less than five minutes, the dragons were all headed out to sea again. The men set out for their village, and met their women halfway there.
"What happened out there?" Thordra asked her husband after hugging him passionately.
"Dragons happened," the chief spat. "Just like Berk, the Bog-Burglars have their own pet dragons to do their fighting for them! We lost all our ships, our weapons, our armor... everything."
"They demanded a thousand silver coins' worth of ransom before they'd give you back," she told him.
"That's barely ten coins per man," the chief said after a moment. "What a bargain! I think they were eager to get rid of us."
"Did we lose anyone?"
"Two of the older men drowned before they could get to the shore," the chief told her. "The rest of us are fine. As if that would compensate us for the most disastrous raid in our tribe's history! We have to make more weapons and armor, and build some more ships, as soon as we can. I need to launch a successful raid to make the people forget about this one, or they'll start looking for a new chief."
"Who will we raid?" she asked.
"Someone who isn't the Bog-Burglars," he said firmly. "Our warriors are never going near that island again."
o
As they flew home, one Night Fury glided over to a cluster of similar dragons. "Dad, Full-of-surprises, thanks for coming through for me. I couldn't have done this without your dragons. I really owe you one."
"No problem," Hiccup answered. "That's what dads do for their daughters."
"I'll think of some way for you to pay me back later," Full-of-surprises said archly.
Mother-of-twins joined the conversation. "I don't think our dragons minded at all. It gave them something different to do for a change."
"Dad," Six said earnestly, "if you'd been in my paws, how would you have handled that raid?"
"Hmm." Chief-night-fury thought for a moment. "If I could have caught them closer to their own island, then I would have sank half their ships, wrecked the sails on the others, and let them rescue their survivors and row home. If they were already that close to my own island... I don't know. Sometimes there aren't any perfect answers. I probably would have done pretty much the same thing you did."
"So I need to send my patrols out further, so we can catch the raiders while they still have someplace to go, aside from my island?" Six nodded. "I can do that."
"You live and learn," Hiccup said sagely. "The best lessons I ever learned were from my disasters." He glanced at the islands below them. "I think this is where we turn and head back to Berk. Congratulations on your first victory, and I hope the second one goes a lot more smoothly for you."
"Thanks, Dad." The Berk dragons banked away, while Six's dragons stayed on course for home. As they approached Bog-Burglar Island, they overflew quite a bit of floating debris from the sunken Viking raiders. Faithful-brother swooped down and grabbed a barrel that looked like it was still in good shape.
"What are you going to do with that?" Six asked him.
"It's just another piece of plunder for the Vikings," he answered. "The more they get, the happier they are, and happy humans are good for dragons."
They landed in front of Bertha's house. The chief was nowhere to be seen, so Six wrote out a quick report in the dirt, explaining that the hostages had been repatriated, the ransom had been collected, and the Night Furies were free to eat and sleep again. They waited until the chief walked toward her house, stopped, and read the runes.
They waited while she stared at them and thought. At last, she spoke.
"It's pretty obvious that your way of thinking and my way of thinking are never going to meet," she said without looking at them. "How badly are you going to mess things up next time? I've reached my decision – there isn't going to be a 'next time.' Gather your young ones and go home. This experiment is over." She turned, walked into her house, and slammed the door, leaving the three Night Furies stunned and speechless.
"Now what do we do?" Thing Two finally said.
"We do what the chief said," Six said sadly. "We go home. We did our best, and our best wasn't good enough."
"Our best was more than good enough," Faithful-brother corrected her. "It just wasn't their style. You did nothing wrong; you just didn't do what Bertha would have done."
"Then why is Bertha punishing us?" Thing Two begged.
"Her house, her rules," Six sighed. "Say goodbye to your riders. Then we'll round up the dragons and we'll go back to Berk. I hope we can all find new sleeping places; the other dragons took ours."
Six's farewell with Camicazi wasn't overly emotional. "We had fun together, but my mother has made up her mind, and I guess that's that," Cami shrugged. "Maybe she'll change her mind the next time we get raided. Take good care of yourself, okay?"
I WILL
"And, speaking of changing minds, if you ever change your mind about learning how to burgle, I'm still willing to –"
THE ANSWER IS STILL NO.
"Well, you can't kill a girl for asking."
Naginatta had trouble finding words to say to Faithful-Brother. "I've kind of gotten used to you being around," she finally sniffed. "You scared the daylights out of me with that first flight, but I was getting used to flying with you. I won't forget my Forge, and if we ever meet again, then we can still talk. Okay?"
"Okay, is good," he answered. She hugged his thick neck.
When it was Alfrún's turn to say farewell to Thing Two, she refused to do so.
"No," the woman said firmly. "If you're getting kicked off the island, then I'm coming with you."
ARE YOU SURE?
"Do they keep thralls on Berk?"
NO, NOT A SINGLE ONE.
"Then I'm going there. I want to stay with you! You're the closest thing to a real friend I've ever had. I haven't been in this tribe very long; I haven't put down roots or anything. Berk sounds like a good place to live, and if you're going to be there, then I'm going there, even if I have to swim all the way!"
YOU WON'T HAVE TO SWIM,
BUT WE'LL HAVE TO TELL THE
CHIEF THAT YOU'RE LEAVING.
Bertha didn't like that message when Thing Two wrote it in front of her.
"You're just going to leave us and fly away on a dragon? After everything we've done for you? We set you free! We were teaching you a trade! We bought that dress you're wearing with the tribe's gold!"
"Then I'll leave the dresses, both of them," Alfrún snapped. "I saved my old rags, just so I never forgot where I came from, so I won't fly away naked. May the gods forbid me from taking anything that isn't mine! The only thing that's really mine is my life, and I'll live it where I want to. This dragon is a real friend, and that means more to me than your gold and your dresses."
Bertha was slightly taken aback by the younger woman's intensity. "Okay," she finally managed to say. "You can keep the dresses. Think of us when you wear them. If you ever want to come back, we'll find a place for you."
"If I ever come back, it will be with Thing Two," Alfrún said firmly. "I think you're making a huge mistake, throwing out all the dragons like this. But you're the chief and it's your island. I appreciate everything that you've done for me. But you're sending my best friend away, so I have to go, too."
"Your loyalty to your friend is commendable," Bertha said. "Too bad you can't be that loyal to your tribe."
"Thanks to you, I have to choose between the two. I've made my choice, and I know I won't regret it."
Alfrún climbed onto Thing Two's back, they joined the rest of the dragons, and they all flapped sadly away toward Berk. It didn't promise to be much of a homecoming.