Prodigal Son 5
Late the following afternoon, Astrid was striding through Berk on her way to the forge. She had dismissed the lesson early, much to the shock of her students, but she had other things on her mind. The smithy was occupied, as it always was. Astrid could hear the distant sound of Gobber's hammer from half a street away. The old Viking was always at the forge. Wheelbarrows full of broken weapons sat outside in strict order; his work was piling up.
Gobber was covered in sweat and blackened by charcoal. His moustache was smoking slightly, yet he huffed and puffed and toiled away, hammering diligently at a catapult's sling. He glanced up when her shadow blocked the doorway, but he didn't stop hammering.
"Hello, lass. Your axe needin' more repairs, then?"
"Actually no. I just came to talk."
"Really?" stopping in mid swing, the smith looked up from his work, his long, braided moustache swaying dangerously close to the sizzling metal. He looked stunned and curious, despite the dark bags under his eyes.
She nodded.
He studied her with a certain amount of apprehension and lowered his hammer. He set his work back in the forge and turned. "First for everythin' I suppose. Alright then, Astrid, what did you want ta talk abou'?"
Astrid took a deep breath and said, "Hiccup."
The smith's shoulders tensed. He pulled the tongs off of his stump and tossed them into his toolbox with a certain amount of excessive force. "The trouble with this town." He began harshly as he searched for a replacement hand, "Is that no one is ever bloody willing to let things bloody be."
"What do you mean?"
"Fishlegs was already here this morning, asking for a tour of the back room. No one's ever asked that. Odin's beard, it's been eight years! Why in Thor's name is everyone suddenly so interested in Hiccup?"
So Fishlegs was tugging on this thread too? Good. "We think Hiccup may have found something. A way to fight the dragons!"
"We've been inventing ways to fight dragons for three hundred years, Astrid." Gobber said, exhausted. He hobbled back over to the forge. "I'd wager we've found every method there is by now. If tha's all, then please go away. I have enough work to do as it is."
"Hiccup never hurt them, though." Astrid said, following him further inside.
"Course not. He couldn't exactly carry a weapon, could he?" the smith fixed an enormous striking hammer to his stump. He grabbed a pair of tongs with his other hand and resumed his work.
To her annoyance, Astrid found she was forced to shout over the sound of his hammering. "Thing is… I was thinking back on it, and… do you think he wanted to? Kill dragons, I mean?"
Gobber skipped a step in his rhythmic pounding, but he didn't stop. "O'course he did. Nothing would ha' pleased Stoick more."
"Yeah. Because Hiccup was a master at that." Astrid laughed, and immediately realized it was a mistake.
The smith's tongs landed on the ground beside him. Gobber leaned over the hot metal, the orange light throwing his face into menacing shadows. He said, "Tha's Stoick's fault. Not the boy's." he scowled, his expression one of distaste as he peered out at her from beneath thick blonde eyebrows, judging her inch by inch, head to toe.
Astrid swallowed.
"The biggest problem Berk has is tha' its people have forgotten to recognize tha' there's brilliance off the battlefield."
"That's our biggest problem? I guess you've forgotten about the dragons, then." Astrid shot back defiantly, feeling stung.
Gobber's eyes narrowed further. He gently set the striking hammer down on the anvil with a quiet clink, his stump fully exposed for her to see. He settled there for a moment, letting her take in the full extent of his injury. Ancient though it was, he lived with it every waking minute of every day.
"Care ta say tha' again, lass?" He growled.
Astrid opened her mouth stupidly; experienced as she was, she couldn't say she'd lost a limb to the beasts yet. She shut it and swallowed. "I'm sorry."
"Tha's wha' I thought." The smith was suddenly in motion again, limping across the forge as if nothing had ever happened. "Bu' you want ta know abou' Hiccup." He vanished behind a flap of leather, into the room behind his smithy. Into what had been Hiccup's study. Astrid could hear the shuffling of papers. He reappeared a moment later, turning sideways to fit through the narrow opening. In his single hand he was carrying an enormous yellowing sheaf of dried papers. "I wonder if yer really as thick-headed as ya like ta act."
Handling it with the utmost care, he handed the thick stack to her. Astrid took it as gently as she could, cuddling it close to her chest as she would a newborn child, knowing it was the only way to appease the angry smith.
"Tha's the last I have o' the boy. Ya damage those pages an' I will never sharpen or fix a weapon for you again." Gobber promised.
Astrid believed him.
The Hofferson household was hardly a place of peace and quiet. Astrid's family was large and tightly packed. There was always shouting and arguing and fighting of one sort or another goin on, though far less violent than the Thorston home. Even so, she was forced to search elsewhere for the necessary peace and quiet.
She settled in a quiet corner of the Great Hall, a bowl of stew in her lap and a jug of mead at her side. The only things on the table were a bright candle, placed some distance away, and the sheaf of papers which Gobber had handed her.
Astrid wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for. Another note, perhaps. Another sketch of the Night Fury. Something, at least. Some hint about what the boy had found.
The page on top was none other than a sketch of a water-driven mill. The mill in question had been completed four years ago. It sat at the nearest river, a good five minutes from town. The building was one of the few which wasn't burned down by dragons every three weeks, and it had increased Berk's timber output by nearly tenfold. Raw resources had been suddenly made available for much-needed repairs. It was the first time in Astrid's memory that the Vikings had been able to keep up, even stock and save timber for the damages the Dragons caused.
The mill had been attacked once, but it was roofed entirely by thick layers of sand, mud and shale. The walls were stone, as were the pillars which held it up. No thatched roofs or wooden timbers for the Dragons to burn. An expensive proposition, tricky to build, yet it meant that the building was fireproof. Or fire-resistant enough to survive the attacks. The Vikings would always have wood available.
It had been built four years after Hiccup's departure. So how had he sketched it? It was definitely Hiccup's style, with long, broad, confident strokes. But how had he known about it?
She turned the page over and stared. There was the mill again, this time cut-away to show the intricate machinery inside it. Enormous cogs and gears driven by the waterwheel which was also housed in an enormous stone shell.
The mechanisms were broken down further in the pages beyond. Hiccup knew exactly what he was looking at. There were no smudged lines or corrections that Astrid could see. The boy had designed it himself, seen the images in his mind. An entire, fully operation watermill sat in his head and he had simply put it down on paper, with a list of the materials required to build it, and an estimate of the cost and time. Other calculations were there as well. A meticulous comparison between time spent collecting and cutting logs beforehand, and the time saved with the addition of the Mill.
And that was just the start. As Astrid flipped through the pile, she saw more and more designs. A system of trenches for getting fresh water to Berk's farms, a tower with a large bucket on the top and a nozzle underneath forming an artificial waterfall. So far as she could tell, it was so that the Vikings could bath more quickly. Who thought about that kind of thing? He had even devised a system to move water uphill using some sort of giant screw in a trough.
There were building plans. House designs unlike anything she had ever seen, which would keep Berk's houses toasty warm in the long, harsh winter, and cool in the summer no matter what the temperature. The secret lay in the way the opening and closing of various windows and doors affected the flow of air, which was drawn either from a strange basement forge, or a cool cellar with rat tunnels to the outdoors.
There were mechanical devices as well. On the civilian side, there were dozens of cranes and pulley systems all designed to ease the reconstruction process. Many of them were at work even today. Hiccup had recognized the springy quality of the siding planks on Viking longboats, and put it between the axle and the carriage of horse carts as a sort of shock absorber to soften the blow of uneven ground. It would probably cut the amount of broken wheels in half if anyone could be bothered to apply it. On the military side, Astrid recognized an incredible array of net-traps, ballistae, catapults, and trebuchets, all of which had been constructed and placed at strategic locations around Berk. She had grown up around them. Gobber had churned them out by the dozen. They were a staple of Berk's defensive strategy and they had all come from Hiccup? Out of that fourteen-year-old's brain? Thor almighty! She suddenly understood what Gobber had meant when he said brilliance off the battlefield.
It wasn't just completed designs, either. Astrid came across a ballistae which could fire an entire bundle of arrows, tied with thin twin designed to break under the strain of fire. It was difficult sometimes, to hit a dragon with one arrow. One had to lead the target and account for wind and other factors, all the while being careful that the Dragon wasn't after them. Yet with this machine… it would be impossible to miss! But it wasn't just one drawing. That design came with no less than twenty-six pages of revisions.
The door to the hall opened, letting in a gust of cold air. Laughter, giggling women and drunken shouting disrupted the silence. A great call echoed across the hall, and Astrid grimaced as she recognized Tuff-Nut's drawling, trollish voice. "Attention Hairy Hooligans!"
The Hall's few occupants, old Vikings and a bar maid or two, glanced up. Astrid kepther gaze fixed firmly upon the pages in front of her. Reading wasn't her usual activity, and she idly wonder if she'd be recognized at all.
A procession was entering the Hall. Two dozen young warriors came first, led by Tuff-Nut Thorston who had clearly found a new place for himself after Ruff-Nut's marriage inevitably separated the twins. The gangly warrior waved an arm and gave a majestic bow. "Second only to Stoick the Vast, I give you Snotlout Jorgenson, the Dragon's Bane. Second only to Chief Stoick the Vast himself!"
The older Vikings went back to their meals, unconcerned. Behind the bar, the maids began to fill their flagons, knowing what was coming. Astrid grimaced and stuck her nose further into the pages, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. The great hall had been a bad decision after all.
A gaggle of giggling women followed the warriors, with a brilliant white horse just behind them. Seated atop it… Ah. There he was, the other reason Astrid lived in the Dragon training arena. Gods how she hated him. Every inch of him. From his burly, bulging muscles to that aggressive spiky sideburns, to his horned helmet and smugly arrogant face. He was a spitting image of his father, lacking only in Spitelout's deference to roper authority. Snotlout wasn't interested in serving his chief, or his village. He was after glory.
Snotlout Dragon's Bane held up a hand and his entourage quieted down. He slipped off the horse, which was promptly removed and guided back out the door by his cousin Gustav. Snotlout strutted confidently down the length of the great hall. The rest of his group followed a few paces behind.
Astrid buried herself even further in the pages, and to her dismay the movement caught his eye. He sauntered over and leered at her.
"Hey Astrid."
She didn't look up. "Snotlout."
Across the table, a chair was pulled back. The man slouched into it, eyeing her up.
"What are you doing?"
"Reading."
"Reading?" Snotlout snorted. "Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?"
"What if it was a book about farming?"
"I'm not a farmer, Astrid. Neither are you. We're both great warriors. I mean… you're obviously not as good as me, but there's no shame in that. No one else is either." He reached over to pat her hand sympathetically, but she lifted it off the table and sat on it. The man shot her a dirty look and crossed his arms. His chin was stuck out in an unsympathetic pout.
He said, "What would you say if I told you I was thinking of signing up to teach Dragon Training?"
"Nothing civil."
"I think the younger generations could benefit from my knowledge." He said, flexing visibly.
Astrid ignored him, mostly because she had no response to that. On the one hand, an entire village of miniature Snotlouts was a horrific image. She couldn't stand the man. On the other, once one stripped away the incredibly thick layers of ego, the man was a genuinely useful warrior. He did kill dragons. A lot of them. Not as many as she did, but Astrid was less interested in boasting than she was in seeing that the beasts did not steal their livestock, or burn their homes. Or eat any more children.
She was sorry to realize that Snotlout was still speaking. "You can stay too. I need an assistant. Someone needs to clean the arena after me and my Snot-Drops finish learning how to kick dragon ass."
"Snot-Drops?"
"My devoted students, obviously."
"Urk."
A barmaid came by and set a flagon of ale down in front of the burly Viking. He took several long gulps, then set it down and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"Your mother turned down another one of my marriage offers."
"I'll have to thank her. Again. I didn't even know you'd made one."
"C'mon, Astrid. You and me? We belong together. Don't you want to be one of my Snotmen?"
She shot his entourage a withering glance. "With a name like that, how could I not?"
"I know, right?" he sat back and crossed his arms with a confidant grin. "I thought of it myself."
"I bet that took a while."
"Actually not at all." Snotlout said proudly. "It just rolled right off the tongue. I guess I'm just that brilliant."
"Yes. Yes you are."
"Exactly."
"Yep." Astrid kept her attention on the papers.
Snotlout huffed in frustration and leaned forward to grab the sheaf of papers. Without any warning a knife slammed down into the table, a mere inch from severing his pointer finger. Snotlout yelped and pulled his hand back. Holding his shocked gaze, Astrid let go of the weapon and went back to her reading. It remained there, fixed in the table.
"That's impressive aim, babe!" He said. "You hit right between my fingers."
"Don't call me that. And it was all luck; I wasn't looking."
For the first time since the conversation started, Snoutlout's confidence faltered. He said, "You weren't even looking? But… you could have taken a finger off!"
"All the more reason to keep them to yourself next time." She leaned forward. "It has to be obvious, how much I hate you. Go away."
Red slowly spread across the hairy hooligan's cheeks. He sat there, wide-eyed and huffing in fury. Astrid thought for a moment that he was winding up to hit her, but instead he slammed his mug down on the table and launched himself to his feet. He jabbed his finger at her. "One day, Astrid! One day!" Then he turned and stalked back to his admirers.
It was a vague threat he made once every few weeks. Unconcerned, Astrid resumed her examination of Hiccup's drawings. Across the bar, Snotlout and his companions set about drinking their evening away.
The remainder of the pile proved to be just as startling as the sizeable portion she had already read. Hiccup had invented tools of every variety, and solutions to a vast array of everyday problems which Berk still struggled with. There were building tools which used winches, levers, slings and ropework to lift enormous weights high off the ground with safety and control. There was even a fire suppression system. Metal pipes lead down from a lake high on the mountainside. The network would run high above the heads of Berk's citizens, a web of piping with each individual branch ending on the roof of a building. The water would flow out a spigot atop each building, with a wide spray nozzle designed to soak the entire structure with a fountain of droplets spraying in every direction.
Hiccup had specified that each spigot be sealed with a thick wad of candle wax. That way, the mere proximity of dragon fire would melt the wax. The water would come bursting through and soak anything nearby, but only when it was near dragon fire.
Gods above, he was brilliant! How much property could this system have saved? How many buildings? How many lives? For the first time, Astrid felt a twinge of guilt. How badly she had treated him. This was a mind they could have nurtured much to Berk's benefit. Yet she had been so set on Dragons, on fighting and war…
The boy's loss was not a gift to Berk, despite his frequent accidents, it was a tragedy.
Equally disappointing was the fact that Gobber's collection, while fascinating, and something she intended to bring to Berk's attention, held no clues as to the Night Fury diagram, nor of Hiccup's other mysterious additions to the Book of Dragons.
Astrid was going to have to search closer to the source. She was going to have to talk to the Chief.