Exile

Condemned

Two.

"Me," Hiccup said in a faint voice. "He's saying I must have tried to kill you, Dad."

Gobber glanced up and his expression gave Hiccup no comfort at all. Gobber had known him all his life and he looked more than half convinced. The others, clustered around, all looked totally convinced. Hiccup looked up into a sea of unfriendly and accusing faces, hard eyes inspecting the skinny boy and hands hovering over weapons.

"We at least should search the boy's room," Ulvang added the murmurs of approval of the others.

"And what will you find there?" Stoick asked heavily. "He has a knife: we all do. His dragon is obvious."

"Maybe poison?" Lars suggested. Hiccup felt his skin grow cold and he stared at the elders. This was an absolute nightmare, his world collapsing around him as he watched. Everything that happened seemed to make him look more guilty and he could guess what was going to happen now. Even though no sane poisoner would keep the evidence in his bedroom!

"Follow me!" Ulvang shouted and led the crowd of villagers back up to the Chief's house. Hiccup made to follow but Sven grabbed his arm.

"I think you should stay back!" he said. Hiccup struggled as his father and Gobber followed the crowd up the hill. Hiccup was held back as they poured into the house and began to tear his room apart:scattering his papers and diagrams, overturning his bed, turning out his cupboard and ripping through his notebook and the Bork papers. He winced and then he heard the sounds of murmuring. Sven was shouted and he found himself dragged up the stairs like a prisoner. He paused and stared at the chaos of his room.

It was worse than he had imagined and he glanced painfully at the Bork papers. They were scattered and he longed to pick them up and look after them. He cast a glance at Gobber, asking their former custodian to help him out but the man wouldn't meet his eye. Lars showed him something: a tiny ink bottle he had got off Trader Johan ages before. Hiccup knew it was empty-but Lars brandished it.

"This contains the poison!" he announced. Hiccup gaped.

"What? No!" he said. "That's not possible!" How could you know?

"And this details the attack," Ulvang added, showing his notebook. At the back was a diagram with notes showing the angle of attack for the Night Fury at the Great Hall. Hiccup felt lightheaded with shock. Then Stoick turned to face his son.

"These were found in your diagrams," he said in a grim voice. Hiccup stared at them, scared to even wonder what else they had found. The evidence wes letters from Dagur the Deranged, the Chief of the Berserkers to Hiccup, discussing how Hiccup could kill his father as Dagur had killed his own father, Oswald the Agreeable. Hiccup had always had the unenviable job of keeping Dagur busy during Treaty talks and the boy had suffered a really miserable time at the hands of the deranged Berserker. If anyone, for one moment, thought being almost drowned or used for knife target practice made him Dagur's friend, they were more deranged than the Berserker! Hiccup stared, wordless. "Son..." The tone was absolutely flat and Hiccup realised his father believed the evidence he had found. He knew his father had despaired and despised him for years but he thought his Dad had finally seen what kind of person Hiccup was. Yet now, he seemed far too willing to believe that his son would plot his death. He found his throat was almost too thick to speak.

"Dad-please..." he breathed hoarsely. "I-I would never..."

"Then how do you explain these?" Stoick asked, displaying the letters. Hiccup was shaking his head in disbelief.

"Dagur hates me!" Hiccup told him desperately. "On Dragon Island, he tried to kill me!"

"Which no one witnessed!" Lars added. "Just your word, if I understand. But what it looks like now is that you threw your lot in with the Berserkers. What did he promise you, lad? A Treaty? Rule of Berk? And all for the price of killing Stoick?" Hiccup was shaking his head.