How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Read online

  You don’t have to read the Hiccup books in order.

  But if you want to, this is the right order:

  ABOUT HICCUP

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was

  an awesome sword fighter, a dragon-whisperer,

  and the greatest Viking Hero that ever lived.

  But Hiccup’s memoirs look back to when

  he was a very ordinary boy, and finding

  it hard to be a Hero.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is

  coincidental.

  Text and illustrations copyright © 2013 by Cressida Cowell

  Cover art © 2013 by Red Hansen

  Cover design by Kristina Iulo

  Cover © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and

  electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy

  and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use materials from the book (other

  than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at

  [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  lb-kids.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First ebook edition: December 2013

  eISBN 978-0-316-33373-3

  We have not yet seen Tomorrow. We have not yet

  dared go there.

  There was once a thriving city on the island of

  Tomorrow. The flags of the Wilderwest flew bravely

  from the towers of its hundred splendid castles. It was

  a city built on the enslavement of men and of dragons

  but, like many a city before and after it, it was a

  handsome and glorious city nonetheless.

  But a century ago, Grimbeard the Ghastly, the

  Last King of the Wilderwest, did a truly dreadful thing.

  Grimbeard’s son Hiccup Horrendous Haddock

  the Second, with his dragon the Dragon Furious, was

  leading a peaceful Dragon Petition to plead with his

  father to end the misery of slavery. Grimbeard mistook

  the Petition for Rebellion. He killed his very own son

  11

  by his very own sword, the Stormblade, and the blood

  of his son was spilt on the seat of his very own Throne.

  That was the beginning of the Curse upon the

  Throne and the island of Tomorrow. The city was

  destroyed by the dragon forces that had come at first

  in peaceful protest. The hundred splendid castles

  were burnt to the ground, and the Dragon Furious

  was captured and bound in inescapable chains, in the

  depths of a forest prison.

  Grimbeard the Ghastly repented of his terrible

  crime. He swore that there would never be a King

  of the Wilderwest again, unless that King could be

  a better man than he was. So Grimbeard created an

  Impossible Task. He scattered ten of the King’s Things

  to all the four corners of the distant earth.

  Those Things would be guarded by monsters and

  dragons most terrible. Only a true Hero could gather

  the Things together, and lift the Curse and become the

  next King of the Wilderwest.

  In the unlikely event that there would ever be a

  Hero great enough to gather together those Ten Lost

  Things, the Hero could then be crowned, but only on

  the twelfth day of Doomsday, known as the Doomsday

  of Yule, which comes but once a year, and only on

  the island of Tomorrow, on the stumps of the Throne

  12

  where Grimbeard’s son had died.

  In the meantime, Grimbeard appointed human

  and dragon Warriors to be Guardians on the ruined

  island fortress of Tomorrow, so fearsome and so

  terrible that they can barely be imagined. All will kill on

  sight anyone illegally entering their territory.

  Now the Archipelago needs a King more than

  ever before. For the Dragon Furious has escaped from

  that forest prison where Grimbeard the Ghastly once

  enslaved him, and the Dragon is carrying out his own

  Curse on the humans that he now hates. His intention

  is to extinguish the entire human race.

  And the Dragon Furious is winning. He has

  torched the whole north of the Archipelago. The

  humans have been forced to live in hiding-places

  underground, for fear of the Dragon.

  Nothing can stop the Dragon Furious now.

  Nothing except for a new King, for a new King will be

  told the secret of the Tenth Lost Thing, the Dragon

  Jewel, a jewel that has the power to destroy dragons

  forever.

  There is only one time in the year that a possible

  King is allowed to enter the territory of Tomorrow.

  It is on one of the twelve mornings of the Twelve

  Days of Doomsday.

  13

  Today it is midwinter, and the morning of the

  ninth day of Doomsday.

  Here he is now, the extraordinarily tall figure of a

  lone Ferryman, rowing across from the dreadful island

  of Tomorrow, across the little Causeway of Hero’s

  Gap, to the mainland of the Murderous Mountains.

  The Ferryman is the Druid Guardian of the island

  of Tomorrow. He is blindfolded, and cannot take off

  this blindfold until a new King of the Wilderwest is

  crowned. The blindfold signifies his role as an impartial

  and implacable Judge, and his absolute commitment to

  his role as a Druid Guardian. But by some supernatural

  agency, he seems able to sense that there is a figure,

  with a little band of followers, waiting for him on the

  beach. The figure is UG the Uglithug. His hope rises.

  At last… in the nick of time… a Hero come to

  claim the Kingdom!

  For the Druid Guardian fears that the Dragon

  Furious is very close to extinguishing the human race.

  The Druid Guardian brings the boat to a

  sludgy halt on the Singing Sands of the Beach of the

  Ferryman’s Gift, and spreads wide his arms, and makes

  the declaration, as his father, and his father’s father,

  and his father’s father’s father have done every year

  before him.

  14

  ‘He-Or-She-Who-Would-Be-King, approach

  Tomorrow if you dare! Only the One with the King’s

  Lost Things can be crowned the King and live…’

  And then he turns to UG the Uglithug, and asks

 
these solemn words.

  ‘Are you He-Who-Would-Be-King?’

  UG replies, ‘I am.’

  ‘Are you the chosen representative of all the

  Tribes of the Archipelago?’ asked the Druid Guardian.

  UG nods.

  ‘Have you brought a gift for the Ferryman?’ asks

  the Druid Guardian.

  ‘I have,’ replies UG the Uglithug.

  The Druid Guardian says solemnly, but with

  eager hope, ‘Then show me the Things.’

  UG the Uglithug snaps his fingers to his followers,

  and one by one they bring forward the Things.

  They are: a fang-free dragon, Grimbeard’s

  second-best sword, the Roman shield, an

  arrow-from-the-land-that-does-not-exist, the heart’s

  stone, the ticking-thing, the key, the Throne, the

  Crown, the Dragon Jewel.

  UG the Uglithug’s followers lay them out on the

  beach before the Druid Guardian and retreat. The

  Druid Guardian steps forward to examine the Things.

  15

  A long, long

  time he spends,

  picking up each Thing

  with his long clever

  fingers, taking care to

  feel each individual

  object from all angles, to

  check whether it is right.

  And then he steps

  backwards. A grim note

  enters his voice as he

  declares: ‘These Things

  are FAKES. The replica

  of the toothless dragon is

  particularly poor, and it

  is unkind of you to

  do such a thing to a

  defenceless creature.

  We will give it a

  home on Tomorrow.’

  (UG the Uglithug has

  removed the teeth from a

  poor little Trotterdragon in

  order to pretend it is the real

  toothless dragon from the Prophecy.)

  UG the Uglithug turns as white

  as a sheep’s fleece. ‘As for YOU, UG

  the Uglithug,’ continues the Druid

  Guardian, ‘know this. He who dares to

  approach Tomorrow with a gift that is

  unacceptable, dies a quick and horrible

  death along with his followers.

  ‘ARISE, YOU GUARDIAN

  PROTECTORS OF TOMORROW!

  ARISE AND DO YOUR WORST!’

  All around UG the Uglithug and his

  followers on the beach, the sand begins to

  bubble. And then the land gives birth to

  creatures of unimaginable horror, huge and

  terrible, screaming vengeance. There is no

  time for reaction, no time for defence. UG

  the Uglithug and his followers have no time

  to see even what they are, whether they are

  dragons or something worse.

  These creatures take hold

  of UG the Uglithug,

  they take

  hold of the followers, screaming and

  struggling. They shoot upwards and

  ever upwards, up into the sky, up and

  up and up, into the clouds beyond, into

  the choking freeze of ice and fire of the

  upper atmosphere, and those people

  are then no more. They will return to the

  earth only as ash and purple rain.

  Such is the vengeance of the

  Guardians of Tomorrow on those who try

  to approach their shore without the

  correct Things.

  The Druid Guardian sighs. He gently caresses the

  head of the poor toothless Trotterdragon, reassuring it

  softly that all will be well. He mutters to himself, ‘Two

  more days… Only two more days for a Hero to arrive

  and save us all.’

  Wearily, he clambers back into his little boat. He

  is not really expecting that right Hero to come, you

  see. Why would he? This is a ritual that has taken place

  every year for ninety-nine years and only the unworthy

  have come. Wearily, the old man begins to row back to

  Tomorrow.

  He will call for a Hero to come and claim the

  crown for two more days. If a Hero does not arrive on

  the eleventh day, on Doomsday Eve, then it will be

  too late. Grimbeard’s rules set down a century ago, are

  inviolate. The borders of Tomorrow will close again,

  until the following year.

  And next year really WILL be too late. By then

  the Dragon Furious will have grown too strong. This

  year is their only chance.

  A Hero must come to claim the Throne, with all

  of the Lost Things, by the eleventh day of Doomsday…

  … Or all is lost.

  22

  PROLOGUE BY HICCUP

  HORRENDOUS HADDOCK III,

  THE LAST OF THE GREAT

  VIKING HEROES

  These last two books of my memoirs take place over

  only forty-eight hours, during the last two days of

  Doomsday when I was fourteen years old, and I warn

  you that they are the darkest and most terrifying, and

  were the most difficult to write. For this was the time in

  which I faced both Grimbeard the Ghastly’s Guardian

  Protectors of Tomorrow, and the true might and anger

  of the Dragon Furious.

  This was the time in which the dragons faced

  extinction.

  At the beginning of this book, war has come to

  the Archipelago, the dragons and the humans are trying

  to obliterate each other, and I am being hunted down

  by both the terrible dragons of the Dragon Rebellion,

  and by the witch and Alvin the Treacherous.

  I look back at that pale, skinny, fourteen-year-old

  Boy-Who-Once-Was-Me, and I feel such anxiety for

  him, for he does not yet know what is coming to him.

  He is living through this dreadful war, so he has seen

  25

  death already, but he has not yet lost someone that he

  loves. He is beginning to understand what it means to

  bear the burden of the guilt and responsibility of being

  a leader. But he has not yet accepted that burden as his

  fate and his destiny.

  Will he be able to save the dragons in the end?

  I yearn to help him.

  I want to reach out across the chasm of space and

  stars and time and hold his hand to help him through

  it. But of course he is living in the past, that distant

  country, and however hard I shout, he will not hear me.

  Now I am an old, old man, looking back on

  my life, I can see the pattern and the reason for the

  darkness of that time.

  Great things are only made out of love and out of

  pain.

  A great sword must be made out of the very best

  steel. But what truly makes the sword great, is what

  happens to the sword after it is made.

  We call this the ‘testing’ of the sword.

  The sword is bashed and hammered and hollered

  into shape by the bright hammer. It is thrust into the

  fierce heat of the fire, where it softens, and then it is

  quickly quenched in water, where it hardens again. The

  higher the temperature, the fiercer the fire, the tougher

  26

  and the greater the sword eventually becomes.

  The whole testing process can make a sword, or

  break it.

  The same could be said for the Making of a Hero.


  1. YOUR MOTHER SAID NOT

  TO LEAVE THE HIDEOUT

  It was a chill and foggy night in the Murderous

  Mountains.

  A good night for treachery.

  Humans should not have been out in the forests

  of the Murderous Mountains in those times of war. If

  the dragons of the Dragon Rebellion caught even one

  hint that there were humans moving in the burnt trees

  of those misty mountain passes, they would hunt them

  down and kill them.

  But somewhere deep in that forest, far away

  from any aid, a terrified human voice was shrieking,

  ‘Help! Help! Help!’ and a little party of brave but

  foolish humans and dragons had set out to offer their

  assistance.

  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was

  sitting on the back of a Deadly Shadow dragon, flying

  so low over the treetops that every now and then the

  slow downward beats of the dragon’s wings brushed

  the scorched topmost twigs of the trees.

  Deadly Shadow dragons are chameleons, and so

  this beautiful three-headed dragon was exactly the

  colour of the midnight sky, complete with stars slowly

  shifting across its shining sides.

  Hiccup’s knees were trembling with the effort to

  keep a grip on the saddle.

  Hiccup was a very

  ordinary looking boy,

  for one so sought after

  by so many people. A

  ragged little string-bean

  of a teenager, his fire-suit

  torn to ribbons, his face

  bruised and scratched,

  with the wild hair and

  scared eyes of one

  who had been

  hunted by too

  many for too long. War and exile hadturned him into a

  scarecrow of a boy.

  His sword was drawn, his ears ringing from the

  piercing coldness of the biting wind – and he was

  peering over the Deadly Shadow’s wing as it flew, his

  heart beating horribly quick at the blackened wasteland

  down below. He was trying to work out where that