How to speak Dragonese by Cressida Cowell

right," sneered the First Kidnapper, removing his false beard. "You are havings the honor to be kidnapped by the glorious Empire of Rome, and we is takings you to the noble Fortress of Sinister."
    "Yippee," said Fishlegs gloomily.
    "You can be shuttings up now," said the First Kidnapper, and the boys shut up.
    The wind was very strong. Within an hour they had left the safety of Woden's Bathtub and were
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    entering the tricky currents and needle-sharp rocks of the Mazy Multitudes. This was a bewildering muddle of thousands of small islands some miles south of the Isle of Berk, many with gigantic sea cliffs. Its eerie atmosphere led most Vikings to believe it was haunted.
    Huge black mountains with grim scrabbles of rock rose on either side of them. The greasy sea swirled underneath, with every now and then a pointy rock appearing out of nowhere in the mist, so that the Second Kidnapper had to swiftly steer the boat clear.
    The closer they got to the Roman Headquarters, the less wildlife there was around them.
    Woden's Bathtub had been alive with dragons of all shapes and sizes, screaming and catcalling to each other and skimming across the waves, keeping an eye out for fish. Seals slumbered fatly on the rocks. Birds wheeled in the skies, zooming down on any morsels of fish that went astray during dragon fights.
    But as they neared the fort, the seas around them became a desert. Not a bird called, not a fish jumped. The reason for this was clear when they spotted two dead Slither hawks all tangled up in a gigantic net, hanging from a cliff face.
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    "And they call US barbarians," sniffed Fishlegs. Hiccup began to feel a bit sick.
    And then his heart skipped a beat. He could hear the sound of dragons screaming, the same noise that they had heard through the mist in Woden's Bathtub ... It was a sound that chilled the blood and frayed the nerves, like a sword being sharpened screechily on a stone. He swallowed hard. "I think we're about to meet the Romans," he said.
    [Image: Buildings.]
    Sure enough, the appalling hullabaloo of terrified
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    and furious dragons grew louder and louder and louder ... then they rounded a corner and there before them, impossibly huge and spooky, stood Fort Sinister.
    Their mouths flopped open in astonishment.
    Vikings are used to fairly simple living conditions. A Chief just has a larger hut than anybody else. So they had never seen anything the size of Fort Sinister before.
    The Island of Sinister was surrounded by enormous black cliffs plunging dizzily down to jagged
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    rocks. On top of these cliffs the Romans had built the biggest fort you could possibly imagine, covering the entire island.
    The wind shrieked through its awful towers and great grim cages, the sea seeped through its iron gates and into its terrible dungeons; it was a fort as black and bleak as the rocks it was made out of.
    In the middle was the Consul's Palace, a gorgeous villa built around a central courtyard with an ornamental fountain. Next to the Palace was an enormous wooden amphitheater, and beyond that were the soldiers' barracks.
    Countless numbers of dragons were being held in fifty enormous iron cages, with no shelter from the wild wind and bitter cold of the Inner Isles. No wonder they were screaming.
    Beyond that were slaves' quarters and kitchens and exercise yards for the horses and training grounds for the gladiators and little temples for the gods and heated swimming baths for the Consul and senior soldiers and stores of ammunition and gigantic equipment for breaking a barricade and field after field of crops.
    And this entire, massive area was encircled by
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    high wooden fences, with watchtowers manned by sentries every hundred meters. Four enormous observation balloons sailed overhead. These balloons were powered by the flaming breath of a dragon kept in a cage just above the basket, and they were manned with more sentries, keeping a sharp eye out for escapees or invaders.
    "WOW'' breathed