How to Train Your Dragon Page 10

  The Green Death wasn't thinking too hard.

  He leaped at the Purple Death with his talons outstretched, breathing great bursts of fire, which lit up the landscape all around like lightning.

  The ground and the sea shook in great earthquakes as the two gigantic monsters lunged crazily at each other, swearing the most unrepeatable oaths in Dragonese.

  The Green Death's foot completely destroyed Wrecker's Reef with one blow.

  The Purple Death's wings caused great landslides to come tumbling down from the Headland's cliffs.

  Now that their job was done, the Viking boys were running away as fast as they could, their eyes popping with terror, in case one of the dragons survived the fight. Every now and then they looked back to see how the battle was going.

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  With ghastly, eerie cries, the Dragons slashed and bit and tore pieces off one another.

  The Sea Dragon is the most well-defended creature that has ever lived on this planet. Its skin is over three feet thick in places, and so encrusted with shells and barnacles that it almost has the effect of armour.

  It is also the most well-armed creature that has ever lived on this planet and its razor sharp claws and teeth can rip open its own iron crust as if it were made out of paper. . . .

  Now both Dragons had terrible wounds, and their green lifeblood was pouring out of them.

  The Green Death gripped the Purple Death around the neck with a deadly Throatchoker Grip.

  The Purple Death hugged the Green Death around the chest with a deadly Breathquencher Hug.

  Neither would let go -- and the grip of a Dragon is a terrible thing. They reminded Hiccup of a picture on one of his father's shields: of two dragons forming a perfect circle as they ate one another, each with a tail in its mouth.

  The Dragons thrashed around wildly in the surf, gagging and choking, with their eyes popping, their tails causing such tidal waves that the boys were

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  soaked, even though they were scrambling away from the Headland as fast as they could.

  Finally, with some last heaving shudders and grim gurgles, both mighty beasts lay still in the water.

  There was silence.

  The boys stopped running. They stood gasping for breath, watching the motionless beasts with dread. The boys' dragons, which were flying some way ahead of the boys, also turned, and hung still in the air.

  The Terrible Creatures didn't move.

  The boys waited two long minutes, as waves lapped gently over the great, motionless bodies.

  "They're dead," said Thuggory at last.

  The boys started laughing, rather hysterically, now that the terror was over.

  "Well done, Hiccup!" Thuggory slapped Hiccup on the back.

  But Hiccup was looking worried. He was squinting his eyes and straining to hear something. "I can't hear anything," said Hiccup anxiously.

  "You can't hear anything because they're DEAD," said Thuggory joyfully. "Three cheers for Hiccup!"

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  Halfway through the boys' cheering, Fireworm let out a terrible noise. "DESERT!" she shrieked. "Desert, desert, desert, desert!"

  The head of the corpse of the Green Death was slowly lifting up and turning in their direction.

  "Uh-oh," said Hiccup.

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  Chapter 16. THE FIENDISHLY CLEVER PLAN GOES WRONG

  Hiccup had been listening for the Green Death's Death Song, but he wasn't singing it yet.

  The Green Death was dying, but he wasn't dead yet.

  What he was was very, very angry indeed.

  Out of his bleeding mouth he hissed weakly, "Where is he?"

  And then he heaved himself on to his feet, and hissed a little more strongly, "WHERJE is he? Where IS tie Little Supper? I knew I recognized him, he was my doom, on wonder. Tie Little Supper has made a Supper of ME, tie Green. Death himself!"

  As the Dragon spoke, he was inching forward very slowly and painfully, his eyes fixed on the cliff top, where he could see little human beings beginning to run inland again.

  The Dragon threw back his head and SCREAMED a blood-chilling scream of pure horrid REVENGE, dark and torturous.

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  "I'LL supper HIM before I go, I will," said the Dragon, and he leaped forward.

  "R-U-U-U-N!" shouted Hiccup, but everybody was already running, as fast as they could.

  In the distance, Hiccup could see four hundred warriors from the tribes of Hooligan and Meathead coming toward them from the Highest Point. They must have wondered at the boys' absence and come out to find them.

  But they won't get here in time, thought Hiccup, and even if they do, what can they do?

  Just then, the Dragon landed with a crash on the cliff top and suddenly the sun was blotted out.

  Twenty boys ran toward the shelter of the ferns.

  The Dragon picked up the nearest with one claw and turned him over.

  It was Dogsbreath. By the time the Dragon had tossed him aside, muttering "Not you," the other boys had disappeared into the bracken.

  The Dragon was sick, but he laughed weakly. "You're not safe there, oh no, for though I can't see you to kill you, I can use my... FIRE!"

  The bracken caught fire with the Dragon's first breath and the boys ran out of it as fast as they could.

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  Hiccup stayed in a little longer because he knew the Dragon was waiting for him.

  Finally the heat became unbearable and he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and ran out into the open.

  He had run hardly a hundred yards before two of the Dragon's talons closed around his middle and he was lifted up. Way, way up, so the other boys looked like little specks beneath him.

  The Dragon held Hiccup up in front of him.

  "We are BOTH Supper now, little Supper," he said, and he tossed Hiccup high, high into the air.

  As Hiccup somersaulted for the second time he thought to himself, Now THIS, this really IS the worst moment of my life.

  Then he was falling.

  He looked down. There was the Dragon's mouth, wide open like a great, black, cavernous tunnel.

  He was going to fall into it.

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  [Image: Mouth of the dragon]

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  Chapter 17 IN THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON

  Hiccup fell into the Dragon's mouth, and its teeth snapped shut behind him like prison doors.

  He was falling through complete darkness, surrounded by a smell so awful it was suffocating.

  He jerked to a sudden halt as the back of his shirt caught on something and held.

  Hiccup hung there in the darkness, swaying gently. By a thousand-to-one chance his shirt had caught on a spear still stuck in the Dragon's throat since his Roman banquet. Hiccup's foot brushed against the wall of what he presumed was the Dragon's throat. The Dragon's digestive juices stung like acid, and he snatched his foot away.

  Above him, Hiccup could hear the Dragon's great tongue sloshing and lunging about his mouth, trying to find Hiccup so he could crunch him to death. . . . He hadn't intended to swallow him whole.

  A disgusting river of green goo dripped down the puffy red insides of the Dragon's throat. Just across

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  from where Hiccup was hanging, greeny-yellow steam was puffing out of two small holes in the slimy wall. Every now and then a small explosion sent little flickers of flame shooting out of the holes.

  How interesting, thought Hiccup, who was strangely calm, because he couldn't quite believe that this was really happening. Those must be where the fire comes from.

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  Viking biologists had wondered for years where the fire that dragons breathed came from. Some said the lungs, others the stomach. Hiccup was the first to discover the fire-holes, which are too small to see with the naked eye in a normal-sized dragon.

  Way down below him, Hiccup could hear the distant rumbling of singing from the Dragon's previous meal. A Seadragonus Giganticus obviously takes a
long time to digest, thought Hiccup.

  It was indeed still going strong:

  Humans can be bland, but if you have some salt to hand, A little bit of brine, will make them taste div-I-I-I-ne. . . .

  The spear was gradually bending over with Hiccup's weight. It was only a matter of time before it broke and he fell to join the breezy optimist in the stomach below. . . .

  What was worse, the fumes and the heat and the smell were starting to confuse Hiccup so that he no longer really CARED. The terrible noise of the Dragon's heart beating had entered into Hiccup's

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  chest and forced his own heart to follow the same rhythm.

  A Dragon has to live, after all, he found himself thinking. And then he remembered the Dragon's words to him as he stood on the cliff top: "You'll find that you come round to my point of view once you're inside me...."

  Oh no! thought Hiccup. The Dragon's digestion! It's already working!

  "I need to live, I need to live," he repeated to himself, over and over again, trying desperately to block out the Dragon's thoughts.

  There was a horrible creaking noise as the stout Roman spear began to split in two. . . .

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  Chapter 18. THE EXTRAORDINARY BRAVERY OF TOOTHLESS

  And that would have been the end of Hiccup, if it had not been for the extraordinary bravery of a certain Toothless Daydream.

  Toothless, if you remember, had refused to join in the battle at Death's Head Headland. He was intending to fly off somewhere down the coast a bit and lie low till all was safe again, but he stayed at the Highest Point for a while, terrorizing birds and rabbits.

  He must have been having a lovely time doing this, for he did not hear the approach of Stoick and the entire Tribes of Hooligan and Meathead until Stoick grabbed him around the neck.

  "WHERE IS MY SON?" asked Stoick.

  Toothless shrugged his shoulders rudely.

  "WHERE IS MY SON???" bawled Stoick with an awe-inspiring yell so loud that Toothless's ears trembled.

  Toothless pointed to Death's Head Headland.

  "SHOW ME," said Stoick grimly.

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  Under Stoick's fierce eye, Toothless reluctantly flapped off toward Death's Head Headland, followed by the two Tribes.

  They arrived just in time to see the Terrible Monster throw Hiccup high in the air and catch him in his mouth like a whelk.

  So much for the Fiendishly Clever Plan, thought Toothless.

  He was about to use the opportunity of Stoick's obvious distraction to sneak off to a place of safety when something stopped him.

  Nobody knows what that something was.

  It was a moment that changed the whole world-view of the Hooligan Tribe. For centuries we had believed it was impossible for dragons to consider a selfless thought or a generous action. But what Toothless did next is impossible to explain as being in his own best interests at the time.

  All his fellow domestic dragons were now flying somewhere over the Inner Ocean. As soon as they heard Fireworm's cry of "Desert!" those who were hiding in caves or between crevices or crouched in the ferns rose up in a great swarm and abandoned their former Masters as fast as their wings could carry them.

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  The wild dragons from Wild Dragon Cliff had left hours before.

  But something kept Toothless from flying after them -- maybe it was Stoick's heartrendingly powerless cry of "N-N-N00000!!!" that caused him to pause. Or maybe somewhere in that self-centered green dragon heart of his, he really was fond of Hiccup and grateful for the hours that he had spent looking after him, not shouting at him, telling him jokes and giving him the biggest and juiciest lobsters.

  "Dragons are S-S-SELHSH," argued Toothless to himself. "Dragons are heartless and have no m-m-makes. That's what m-m-makes us s-s-survivors."

  Nonetheless SOMETHING made him turn right

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  around and SOMETHING made him fold his wings back and fly like a dragon blur to the Great Monster on the cliff tops. Which really was not in Toothless's best interests, as I said before.

  Toothless flew right up the Monster's left nostril and started flying up and down the inside of his nose, tickling it with his wings.

  The Sea Dragon lunged up and down, wrinkling his nose like crazy and bellowing.

  "A-A-A-AAAAAAAH..."

  The Creature stuck his great talon up his nose in a disgusting fashion and tried to winkle out the tickling flea that was irritating him.

  Toothless didn't quite get out of the way of the talon in time and it scratched him on the chest. He hardly felt it though, he was so excited, and carried on tickling regardless, dodging the probing dragon claw.

  "A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AAAAAAAAH..." bellowed the Sea Dragon.

  Meanwhile Hiccup was being thrown this way and that inside the Dragon's throat as it shook its head from side to side. He was trying desperately to hang on to the spear, which was in danger of becoming dislodged any second.

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  [Image: Toothless diving]

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  "... choooooooooooi "

  The Dragon finally sneezed and Hiccup, the spear, Toothless, and a great deal of perfectly revolting Snot were scattered over the surrounding countryside.

  Toothless remembered, as he was shooting through the air, that boys can't fly.

  He folded his wings and dived after Hiccup, who was rapidly heading toward the ground.

  Toothless grabbed hold of Hiccup by the arm and tried to take his weight. Dragons' talons are extraordinarily strong and he was able to break Hiccup's fall, not entirely, but enough so that when Hiccup crashed into the heather he was traveling reasonably slowly.

  Stoick came plunging frantically through the grass.

  He picked up his son and faced the Monster, holding his shield over Hiccup's unconscious body.

  Toothless hid behind Stoick.

  The Green Death had recovered from his sneezing fit. He shuffled forward, bleeding horribly from fatal wounds to his chest and throat. He lowered his terrible head till it was on a level with the cliff top, and his evil, yellow eyes looked straight at Stoick.

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  "Time to did for all of us," purred the Green Death. "You can't save hi s life now, you know. You are quite, quite helpless. My FIRE will melt that shield like butter...."

  The Green Death opened his mouth. He slowly sucked in a breath. Stoick tried to grab on to chunks of heather to hold them fast, but Stoick, Hiccup, and Toothless were being dragged slowly but surely toward the gigantic black tunnel that was the Monster's open jaws.

  The Green Death paused for a moment before he blew out again, enjoying their terror.

  "This is what h-h-happens if you don't listen to tie Dragon Law. ..." shrieked Toothless to himself in horror as he peered around the side of Stoick's cloak.

  The Monster puffed out his cheeks and Stoick and Toothless waited for flames to consume them.

  But no fire came out.

  The Green Death looked very surprised. He puffed out his cheeks and blew a little harder.

  And again, no fire.

  He tried once more, and now his head seemed to be turning a strange purplish color with the effort of blowing, and it seemed to be swelling, bigger and bigger,

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  as if he was being pumped up with air from the inside.

  The Monster had no idea what was happening. He thrashed around wildly and his eyes bulged larger and larger until with a bang that could be heard for hundreds of miles in every direction . . .

  . . . the Green Death blew up, right in front of their eyes.

  This may seem like some sort of miracle, or an intervention on the part of the gods. But in fact there is a logical explanation. When Hiccup was hanging in the Sea Dragon's throat, desperately repeating "I need to live, I need to live" to himself, he had taken off his helmet and had plugged the horns as hard as he could into the fireholes.

  It was a perfect fit.

  So, when the Dra
gon tried to use his fire, the blockage caused a build-up of pressure that eventually grew so great that the Green Death simply exploded.

  Now there were pieces of Dragon flying in all directions. Stoick and Toothless were incredibly lucky not to get hit by anything, standing as close to the explosion as they were.

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  But a single, burning Dragon Tooth, eight feet long (one of the Monster's smaller ones), exploded straight toward Hiccup. The boy had been dragged out from under the shelter of Stoick's shield by the intake of the Monster's breath, and was now lying on the ground a couple of feet in front of Stoick and Toothless, completely exposed.

  Stoick caught the movement of the Tooth out of the corner of his eye and flung himself and his shield forward. Only a Viking could have gotten there in time. Shooting woodcock with a bow and arrow develops very quick reflexes.

  So Stoick's shield did save Hiccup's life after all. If it had not been there, the Tooth would have impaled Hiccup like a prawn on a stick. As it was, it buried itself deep, deep, deep into the bronze center of the shield, and quivered there, blazing with green-edged Dragon flames.

  Stoick lifted the shield, terrified that the Tooth might have pierced through to his son. But Hiccup was unharmed. His eyes were open and he was listening for something. He was listening for a strange sound that seemed to be coming from the flaming tooth itself. It was the sound of wheezy, echoing singing, like the

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  wind blowing through coral caves, and it went something like this:

  I tell the mighty Big Blue Whale, fa life is over soon, with one swish of this armoured tail