The Power of Gold Chapter 13

Bertha watched as the Night Fury began to write on the ground, then hesitated. "Before you go any further," the chief demanded, "this is about getting rid of the gold, isn't it?"

Well, the chief had brought it up; that took the worst of the sting out of the situation. But now, Six had to face the hardest job of all: persuading a human to voluntarily give up great wealth. How to do it? Logic? An impassioned appeal? Reminders of past history? None of them sounded very convincing. But she had to try something, before the hostile gold-seekers overran the island.

WHAT GOOD IS IT?

Bertha stared. "I don't understand the question."

THAT GOLD FORCES YOU TO KEEP
EXTRA GUARDS ON DUTY. IT DRAWS
RAIDERS FROM EVERY POINT OF
THE COMPASS. WHAT DO YOU GET
FROM IT IN RETURN?

"It's gold!" the chief burst out. "You don't need a reason for gold. Gold, for lack of a better word, is good. If you don't have it, then that's bad. What else is there to say?"

BUT WHAT DO YOU GET FROM IT
THAT'S WORTH BEING RAIDED
OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

Bertha paused. "It makes us happy," Chelsea suggested.

"Can I say something?" Alfrún asked.

"Are you going to speak as a Bog-Burglar," Bertha asked her, "or are you going to speak as a friend of the dragons?"

"Yes," the younger woman answered. "I've been watching how you Bog-Burglars operate. When you pull off a successful burglary, it makes everyone on the island happy, even the ones who weren't connected to the deed. Everyone wants to hear how the successful burglar did it; how did she overcome the obstacles; how did her plan work out in reality? And once the tale has been told a few times, you put the stolen goods in the treasure house and forget about them. It's time to plan another burglary. Nobody lives on past glories around here."

"That's true," the chief nodded, "and rightly so."

"So why are you so determined to cling to those lumps of gold, long after the thrill of getting them has passed?" Alfrún demanded. "None of you will live long enough to spend it all, even if you live into your fifties and die peacefully in bed. It's not something you're likely to pull out of the treasure house to impress visitors. If you turned it into jewelry, there's way too much, even if every one of you wore as much gold as Mistertee the Pityfool! That much gold is good for nothing except to draw unwanted attention.

"As for it making you happy, I don't think it makes you happy at all. In fact, I don't think you own it. It owns you! There's no other explanation for why you'd willingly see your tribe face endless raids and invasions that are ultimately going to destroy you."

"How dare you accuse me of such a thing!" Bertha burst out.

"I know what I'm talking about," Alfrún said flatly. "I know what it means to be owned. And I also know how liberating it was to get out of that condition. Would I be right if I guessed that you've been losing sleep lately, wondering and worrying how to keep that gold safe?" She glared at the chief, who turned away and looked out to sea without answering. "I thought so. That gold is going to destroy your inner peace, as well as the peace of this island, for as long as it stays here."

"So what do you suggest?" the chief demanded, in a voice that wasn't quite as firm as before. "Do we just meet the raiders at the shore and hand them each a lump of gold and say, 'Here you go, boys. Don't spend it all in one place?' "

Six grunted for attention.

THAT WOULD STOP ONE RAIDING
BAND, BUT THE OTHERS WOULD
STILL EXPECT TO LAND AND RAID
US. WE NEED A SOLUTION THAT
MAKES THEM ALL STOP.

"I had an idea," Alfrún said with a hint of a smile. "What if the dragons took all the gold away and dropped it on the Mead Hall of some other tribe? Then the raiders would go after that tribe and leave us alone."

"I'm almost tempted by that idea," Bertha mused. "If we aren't going to keep the shiny stuff, then using it as a weapon wouldn't totally stink."

IF THE RAIDERS FROM OTHER
TRIBES DIDN'T SEE US
DO THAT, THEY WOULD
STILL CONTINUE THEIR RAIDS.

"True," Chelsea said, and Bertha nodded. "Do you have a better idea?"

I DO, BASED ON SOMETHING
THAT JUST HAPPENED ON BERK.

She spoke Forge to Alfrún, repeating and rephrasing until the woman got the idea past her limited Forge vocabulary. When she was done, Alfrún clapped her hands. "Chief Bertha, I think you're going to love this one!" She was right.

o

Half an hour later, five Night Furies lifted off and headed for the closest of the three raiding fleets. Three of the Night Furies carried riders; Cami and Nagi had not yet returned from their sailing trip to Berk, so Bertha and Chelsea rode Six and Faithful-brother. Both the chief and her sister were nervous; they weren't accustomed to riding dragons, and had never ridden one into battle before. Alfrún, on the other hand, had overcome her fear of flying with the excitement of a plan that was almost certainly about to succeed. Each Night Fury also carried one big lump of gold in his or her foreclaws.

They spotted the eight oncoming ships right about where they expected to find them. They were rowing into the wind, with sails furled. Six and Bertha dipped down to sea level, while the other four dragons stayed about a quarter of a mile up. The Bog-Burglar chief figured out which ship was the flagship, and Six (who agreed with her guess) sideslipped over until they were within hailing distance of each other. The Vikings on the ship were preparing to throw some spears at them, but the combination of the woman on the dragon's back and the shiny yellow metal underneath was enough to make them hold their fire.

"We're here to surrender," Bertha shouted.

"You're what?" the chief shouted back. He had not expected this!

"We can't stand up to your raiding force," the woman chief replied. "We're here to give you our gold without a fight."

"On a dragon?" the raider bellowed.

"No, on five dragons," she countered. She pointed at the other four, who were circling the fleet.

The man's second-in-command leaned over and whispered, "You're not going to let a dragon land on our ship, are you?"

"Certainly not!" he grunted. Then he shouted at Bertha, "We'll take your gold, but you're not going to land on any of my ships! Just drop the gold on the deck and get out of here."

Six grinned a predatory grin, and Bertha smiled, too. "Okay, if that's what you want..."

They all gained height until they were about half a mile up. Gold is a very dense, heavy metal. Night Furies never miss.

Six's gold lump fell first. It struck the deck of the flagship, about four feet away from the chief, and smashed right through the deck. Water flooded in; the Vikings tried to plug the irregular hole with furs and blankets, with limited success. Soon, most of the rowers had to put down their oars and bail out water with their helmets. The flagship slowed to a crawl.

Faithful-brother's lump was the next to drop. He hit the ship right behind the flagship, with similar results. The Vikings on this ship had a better idea than furs and blankets. They ordered Bjorn the Big-Bottomed to sit on the hole and plug it with his nether regions. Bjorn complained bitterly about the coldness of the water, until someone reminded him that, if he didn't plug the hole, all of them would be in cold water up to their necks. Even Bjorn's nether regions weren't a perfect plug, and some of that ship's oarsmen became bailers as well.

Daughter-of-Six and Six's-Girl released their gold at nearly the same time. Both of them sent their precious metal straight through the decks of their chosen targets; one hit amidships, and the other managed to splinter the ship's rudder before it passed through the hull. The rudderless ship veered out of formation, while the other one just slowed down as one rower after another had to start bailing.

Thing Two was the last to drop her gold. She dropped her projectile at an angle, aimed at the mast lock, the heavy board that held the mast erect and could be removed to lower it. Her gold-bomb shattered both the mast lock and the hull underneath. The mast slowly sagged backwards; the crew dodged it as it fell across the sternpost, which slowed their reactions to the sudden rush of water through the hole in the hull. They came to a complete stop as they fought the flooding; the ship behind them had to maneuver wildly to avoid a collision.

Above the disordered fleet, the dragons and their riders watched the chaos their actions had unleashed. "Okay, Six," Bertha said. "Let's finish this." They dipped down so they were in calling distance of the flagship. The captain took a moment away from bailing to shout, "I can't believe you! You threw away your gold! You're actually using gold as a weapon?"

"It makes a great weapon, doesn't it?" Bertha called back. "We're going back to our island for more dragon-bombs. By the time we're done, we'll have no gold, and you'll have no ships!"

"You really must have tons of it, if you can afford to throw it away like that," the helmsman shouted.

"We did, until about a minute ago," Chelsea shot back. "Now we have just enough to finish what we started. Don't worry, we'll be back!" The five dragons gained height and raced back toward Bog-Burglar Island.

"Do you think they're bluffing?" the second-in-command asked.

"They weren't bluffing with those first five lumps of gold," the captain answered. "They've crippled more than half of our fleet, and they'll be back soon."

"I say we press ahead with the raid," the second-in-command said. "It will take us longer to get there and get home again, compared to turning around now, but think of all the gold we could steal!"

"There are five of them," the captain retorted, "and we have only three undamaged ships left. After they've punched holes in those ships, do you know what they'll do next? They'll hit this ship again. We can just barely keep up with the flooding from one hole; with two holes, we're done for. Even if we get to their island before they sink us, who's going to keep our ships from sinking when we go ashore to do the raid? If we leave half the men on board to bail, that means we raid with only half of our force, and we could lose on those terms. If we lose to a bunch of women, then I'll be unemployed before the sun comes up again! Call me selfish, but I'm against that idea."

The second-in-command started to object, but the captain continued. "There's another thing. If we land on their island, there won't be any gold for us to steal. They're dropping it all on us, and it'll all be on the bottom of the sea before the sun goes down. Raiding the Bog-Burglars just became totally pointless.

Again, the second-in-command began to speak, and again the captain held up his hand. "And one more thing. If we learned anything from that war with Berk, it's that fighting against dragons is a bad idea if the dragons have Night Furies leading them. We just got attacked by five Night Furies. They must have more dragons waiting for the word to strike. We're damaged already, and it will soon be dark, which is when dragons really love to fight. No, we're done. If the Bog-Burglars want to throw their gold away, then let 'em! We need to find an easier target, even if it's not quite as rewarding." He shouted his orders, and his fleet slowly came about and headed back the way they came. An hour later, they had to abandon the ship that Six's-girl had hit, and spread that ship's sailors around the seven that still had rudders. The extra hands helped with the bailing.

Bertha had spoken the truth when she said she was going back to her island for more gold. But the raiders had assumed that meant she'd be back to attack them again, and that wasn't the plan. The Night Furies loaded up with five more golden lumps, with Thing Two insisting on taking the biggest one, and they set off in search of the second raiding fleet. This fleet had only seven ships, and they had the wind behind them, so they were sailing rather than rowing.

Again, Bertha offered to hand over the gold, and again, the captain of the raiders demanded that she just leave it on the deck of his ship. This time, four of the dragons copied Six's-girl and aimed for the hull near the rudder. With four harsh crunches, four ships became uncontrollable. Two of them collided before the Vikings could run out their oars and regain some control.

Thing Two had her own plan. "Are you sure this is going to work?" Alfrún asked her. The Night Fury nodded. She and her twin sister had played many pranks on the humans in their younger days; this would be just like old times, but with no chance of getting tail-smacked by her parents afterwards. She gained a bit more height, so her gold would gain more velocity as it fell, and scored a bull's-eye on the masthead of the fifth ship. The mast punched through the bottom of the ship like a pile-driver, and slid down until the yardarm hit the gunwales. Water spurted in around the edges of the hole, the sail fell on top of many of the sailors, and the mast sticking down underwater brought the ship to a sudden stop. There was no way to plug this hole; every time the ship rose or fell on a wave, it rocked, and that worked the furs and blankets loose from around the hole in the ship's bottom. After a few minutes, the crew realized that it was hopeless. They shed their arms and armor, jumped overboard, and clambered onto the other ships in their fleet, only two of which were seaworthy now.

The ones without rudders couldn't be controlled under sail power. The rowers could force each ship to follow a more-or-less straight line, but not if half of them were bailing out sea water. The raiders had no choice but to pile everybody into the two intact ships and abandon the others, but unlike the first fleet, those two ships kept coming.

Meanwhile, the Night Furies had returned home and loaded up with the last of the gold. They took out five ships in the third formation, much as they'd already done, aiming for the rudders. That last formation had only six ships in it. After consulting with the captains of the five crippled ships, the one good ship took one of the others in tow, the sailors from six ships fit themselves into two ships, and they slowly headed home, bailing like mad, defeated by the treasure they had hoped to collect.

"Are we done?" Daughter-of-Six asked as they winged homeward.

"Not even close," her mother told her. "Now we have to round up the other dragons, divide them into three strike forces, and make sure that all three raiding groups are either retreating or sunk."

"Sunk?" Thing Two asked her. "I thought you wanted to avoid bloodshed if you could."

"I do," Six answered, "but we're so badly outnumbered this time that I can't afford to play nice. If the raiders are smart, they'll run away. If they're stupid, then hopefully nobody will miss them when they're gone."

The dragon forces led by Six and by Faithful-Brother found that their targets were limping home, no longer a threat to the Bog-Burglars. Thing Two, on the other hand, found two crowded ships still on course for her new home. The dragons who flew with her growled and roared with excitement at the thought of flaming some real-live moving targets! But Thing Two couldn't get Six's words out of her head. "I'm a fighter, not a killer. If Bertha wanted a bunch of mindless murderers to protect her island, then she shouldn't have chosen us dragons to do it."

She grunted in Forge to Alfrún, then glided down next to the leading ship. "Turn around or you'll be destroyed," Alfrún shouted. The Vikings' answer was a volley of spears, which Thing Two was able to dodge without much effort.

"Have it your way," Alfrún said. "We're all out of gold, so now we have to use fire instead. Maybe you'll like that better." They returned to the flock of dragons that was flying in a circle a mile ahead of the ships.

"What should we do now?" Thing Two asked the dragons.

"You're the Night Fury," a Nadder answered. "You're supposed to come up with the plan, and then we follow you."

This was why Thing Two had left her home to follow her older sister – so she could learn to be a leader. It was time for her to learn Lesson Number One.

"Okay, here's the plan," Thing Two called to her dragons. "I want two Gronckles – you and you, thanks for volunteering – to hit the bow of the front ship from both sides at the same time. We have only one Nightmare in this formation; your job is to flame the sail of the second ship from long range. After that, we'll see if we need any more fireworks. Gronckles, hit 'em!" The stubby dragons lined up on their target and launched a pair of lava bombs at it. The ship's bow was completely blown off; it began sinking almost instantly. At the same time, the Nightmare set the other ship's sail alight. The Vikings had no way of putting out the fire, so they had to cut down the sail and let it fall overboard. Then they had to help rescue all the swimmers from the first ship. By the time everyone was aboard, the ship was riding so low in the water that they had to throw everything heavy overboard to keep from sinking. Weapons, armor, their only barrel of drinking water... it all went over the side. Then, as the dragons watched, they ran out the oars, came about, and began a long, slow, humiliating retreat.

"That's all," the Night Fury called. When the dragons began to protest, she quieted them. "Our entire plan depends on the Viking tribes hearing about how we don't have any more gold. It won't work if the eyewitnesses never make it home. These Vikings are the lucky ones because they were smart enough to retreat. I'm sure there will be others, and those others will get the full dragon treatment!" Mollified, the small flock allowed Thing Two to lead them safely home.