How to Speak Dragonese recap

A training exercise in boarding an enemy ship puts Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Fishlegs aboard a Roman vessel, and the two boys and Toothless are taken prisoner and shut up in a Roman fort. Advising the Romans is Alvin the Treacherous, who survived the previous book and knows precisely who Hiccup is. In captivity they meet Camicazi, a tiny and fearless Bog-Burglar girl already several escape attempts into her own imprisonment, and the three of them break out together. The Romans' plans reach well beyond the fort, to the Viking tribes and to their dragons, which forces the quarrelsome Hooligans and Bog-Burglars into the same fight. Weapons are not what decides it: Hiccup's secret ability to speak Dragonese is. The Roman scheme collapses, Alvin escapes to try again, and Hiccup goes home to Berk with a new friend in Camicazi.

Previously: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is the small and unheroic heir of the Hairy Hooligan tribe on the island of Berk. He passed the tribe's initiation with a tiny, disobedient dragon called Toothless and saved Berk from a monstrous stranded sea dragon, and he has since been through a treasure hunt into the tomb of his pirate ancestor Grimbeard the Ghastly. That hunt brought him up against Alvin the Treacherous, who was left for dead in the tomb. Hiccup's one real advantage is a secret he keeps to himself: he can speak Dragonese, the dragons' own language, in a tribe that believes yelling is the only way to deal with a dragon. His friend Fishlegs is anxious and allergic to reptiles, his cousin Snotlout still despises him, and his father Stoick still hopes the boy will turn into a Viking he can boast about.

A lesson in boarding an enemy ship goes badly wrong. The vessel Hiccup and Fishlegs board is not the harmless target they were promised but a Roman ship, and the two boys and Toothless are captured and carried off to the Roman fort. The Romans are in the archipelago for profit, they are interested in dragons and in Viking hostages, and the man advising them turns out to be Alvin the Treacherous, who did not die in Grimbeard's tomb after all. Alvin knows exactly who Hiccup is, and what the son of the Hooligan chief might be worth to the Romans.

Held in the Roman fort, Hiccup and Fishlegs meet another prisoner: Camicazi, a very small Bog-Burglar girl who has already made several escape attempts and fully intends to make more. The three of them start planning a way out, with Toothless and Hiccup's Dragonese doing what brute force cannot. What they learn inside the fort matters more than their own captivity. The Romans' interest in captive dragons is part of a larger plan aimed at the Viking tribes of the archipelago, and Alvin the Treacherous is helping them with it.

The three prisoners get out of the fort, but escaping is not the end of the matter. The Roman scheme threatens the Hooligans and the Bog-Burglars alike, and both tribes are drawn in, which means Stoick the Vast and Camicazi's mother, Big-Boobied Bertha, have to cooperate despite being unable to hold a conversation without it turning into an argument. Against a plan built on captive dragons, the only tool that is any real use is the one thing Hiccup's tribe has always considered beneath a Viking: the ability to talk to dragons.

The Roman plan fails. Hiccup uses Dragonese where weapons are useless, the tribes and the dragons together turn the day against the fort, and the Fat Consul's ambitions in the archipelago come to nothing. Alvin the Treacherous escapes yet again, worse off for it and no less determined to settle with Hiccup one day. Hiccup returns to Berk with his secret still largely a secret and with a new friend: Camicazi, who from now on makes a third with him and Fishlegs. The Hooligans and Bog-Burglars part on better terms than they met, and Hiccup is no nearer to convincing his tribe that the useful thing about him is his head rather than his sword arm.

The Roman plan is broken, and it is Hiccup's Dragonese rather than any feat of Viking arms that undoes a scheme built on captive dragons. The Fat Consul's ambitions in the archipelago end with it. The Hooligans and the Bog-Burglars come out of the fight on the same side, more or less, although Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha resume quarrelling at the first opportunity. Alvin the Treacherous escapes once again, badly the worse for the attempt and considerably angrier, and remains the standing enemy of the series. Camicazi's friendship with Hiccup and Fishlegs survives the escape and holds afterwards, which makes the three of them a settled group for the books that follow. At home nothing much has shifted: Hiccup is still the least likely heir on Berk, still keeps quiet about being able to talk to dragons, and still has a dragon who takes no notice of anything he says.