Free How to speak Dragonese by Cressida Cowell Page A

his head in his hands.
    "A Chief feels no pain ..."he was saying to himself over and over again. "A Chief feels no fear ... A Chief is above mere weak personal feelings ..."
    But oddly enough this didn't seem to make him feel any better.
    "There will be other sons ..." he said to himself. And the wind howling across the ocean and through the wet bracken and blowing open the doors in a flurry of rain seemed to call back to him...
    "... but not like Hiccup."
    What kind of a Chief am I? he thought to himself wretchedly. Grimbeard the Ghastly would never have hesitated like this! Grimbeard the Ghastly would know it was the Bog-Burglars' fault yet again. He'd have been over there bashing those Bog-Burglars all the way to Valhalla by now...
    But then he caught sight of the Roman helmet, and doubts started to creep in.
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    Could it possibly be that Hiccup was right and the Romans had found their way into the Inner Isles and were trying to make trouble?
    Sighing, he picked up the piece of paper sitting on the table in front of him. On it he had written:
    Plan A: Sale to the land of the Bog-Burglars and starte bashing everybody.
    He picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink and wrote:
    Plan B: Send a War Partty to look for A Romman Forte.
    But which was the right thing to do? Being a Chief was a lonely business.
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    14. CAMICAZI'S ESCAPE PLANS
    For the next week Hiccup sat by the barred window looking out for his father's War Party.
    Toothless came and sat on Hiccup's head. This was a familiar ritual to both of them, as it was Toothless's usual seat when Hiccup was dragon watching at the Wild Dragon Cliffs. Hiccup would draw and write in his Dragonese book, while Toothless perched on his head, one eye shut, the other half open, watching out for careless rabbits or small mice that he could catch. They could sit there for hours in happy, companionable silence.
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    Now they sat looking out the window, searching, searching, for the boats that were not there.
    They were being held in a barred tower room high in the air. The one good thing about being held prisoner was that they didn't have to go outside.
    [Image: A man.]
    Because outside it was raining. Not your ordinary, average kind of spitty little rain, but rain such as you only really get in the Barbaric Archipelago, one
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    of the wettest places on this good green earth. For the whole week it rained as if the sky above was one big endless bucket of water, pouring down without stopping on the poor souls beneath.
    The Romans are excellent travelers, but they are not used to this kind of weather. Nobody is. Hiccup watched with interest from his tower window high above as the soldiers' training grounds turned into one big puddly mess of black mud. The Consul's heated swimming baths overflowed into the horses' exercise yards. The kitchens were knee-deep in water. Even the Tower itself seemed to sink a few centimeters as its foundations softened and oozed.
    [Image: Curtains.]
    The one good thing about the rain was that it silenced the screeching dragons being held prisoner in the giant cages down below. Dragons tend to sleep
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    through rain. Their skin is waterproof, so they put up their wings like umbrellas, and sleep underneath them.
    Inside the Tower room, although it was bare, it was at least dry. The young Vikings were allowed to keep their swords and shields to practice for their appearance in the arena on Saturn's day Saturday.
    A soldier brought them food every day. There was lots of it, although it was all a bit too rich for Hiccup's liking. Pig stuffed with dormice stuffed with baby frogs carbonara and oysters fried in cream is a bit of an acquired taste. They all refused to eat it when it was fried dragon pie or Common-or-Gardens in batter.
    Toothless hardly ate at all. Hiccup tried to persuade him, but Toothless put his nose up.
    "Roman f-f-food YUCKY," he said. "Too much g-g-garlic. Want some good f-f-fish. Want mackerel."
    Camicazi carried on with her escape