How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel Read online

  the Ghastly, more than one hundred years before. So

  now he looked back through time to remember that

  dreadful man, and what that look told him was that

  Grimbeard was the trickiest trickster since the great

  trickster god Loki put his Particularly Tricky Hat on.

  ‘Hmm…’ said the Wodensfang. It did seem

  exactly the sort of thing that Grimbeard would do. And

  suddenly a maze of mirrors seemed an unlikely thing

  to be finding in Prison Darkheart, which was probably

  furnished on the basic side.

  Then the Wodensfang raised a cunning eyebrow.

  ‘But it could be a double-bluff…’

  ‘So,’ said the soft gentle voice of the raggedy

  Windwalker, ‘if the Dragon Jewel isn’t in the Amber

  Slavelands, where then exactly is it?’

  ‘That’s why it’s not so simple,’ said Hiccup,

  waving wide his arms. ‘It could be anywhere!’

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  At that moment, there

  was a definite rustle from above,

  as the hidden Warrior and the

  hidden dragon craned forward with

  interest to see what was written on

  Hiccup’s map.

  The effect on the four

  companions below was

  immediate.

  The Wodensfang shot up a

  foot in the air, its tattered ears

  turning electrically rigid and

  purply red and pointing first

  west, then south, then east,

  then north.‘

  ‘Danger!’

  squeaked the

  Wodensfang in

  the loudest whisper he

  could whisper. ‘Danger!

  Quick! Hiccup, get your helmet

  on!’

  ‘Oh… no, guys, really…

  it’s far too big… I find it

  easier to fight without it…’

  But the dragons

  ganged up on him, three

  to one.

  ‘You need

  it!’ whispered

  the Wodensfang.

  ‘Remember back on Danger-

  Brute Island when you

  nearly lost your ear? And

  that poison dart that just

  missed you when you were

  undoing the Visithug

  dragon-traps?’

  ‘And what about the Head-lopping incident with

  the Head-loppers over in Nowhere?’ The Windwalker

  padded anxiously back and forward.

  ‘A helmet wouldn’t save you from having your

  head lopped off,’ argued Hiccup.

  ‘The Wodensfang is r-r-right!’ agreed Toothless,

  who was agreeing with the Wodensfang more and more

  these days. Squeaking, the Wodensfang and Toothless

  lifted the detested helmet from the back of Hiccup’s

  rucksack and with the help of the Windwalker they

  tenderly jammed it on Hiccup’s head.

  It was an old Visithug one that they had burgled a

  couple of weeks ago, and it was a very bad fit.

  ‘It’s really uncomfortable,’ grumbled Hiccup.

  ‘Plus the big feather thing-y makes me very

  memorable. I’m supposed to be undercover you know.

  An Outcast has to melt into the background…’

  ‘Sssh…’ The Wodensfang put his wing to his lips.

  ‘I told you,’ said the Wodensfang, ‘I’ve had this

  really bad feeling that the Dragon Furious has sent

  some new dragon to assassinate you… Something

  really terrifying…’

  ‘Yes, Wodensfang,’ said Hiccup. ‘You’re always

  getting these feelings, but listen, it’s all gone quiet.’

  ‘That’s the thing about this new dragon,

  though,’ whispered the Wodensfang. ‘It’s almost

  undetectable. It’s one of those tracker dragons.’

  The four companions stretched their ears

  out into the white muffled world of

  trees-and-snow.

  Nothing.

  ‘Maybe it was a

  false alarm,’ whispered

  Toothless.

  Up in the treetops the

  Warrior and the dragon sat still

  as stones. Not a leaf moved,

  the forest seemed to hold its

  breath…

  And then…

  With a scream as loud as a charging baboon, the

  Warrior hidden in the tree-canopy above exploded into

  action, erupting from the foliage and descending from

  above in a shower of leaves and broken branches like

  some swooping noble nightmare of revenge.

  Sssssppppppppppooooooooow! Zzzzziiiiiiiinggggg!

  If Hiccup and the Windwalker hadn’t been living

  on their nerves for the past six months, they might

  not have dodged backward so fast, and Hiccup would

  have been deader than a dodo.

  For the Zzzzing! that zinged past Hiccup’s nose

  was the zing of an arrow that missed him by inches

  and buried itself in a tree trunk a couple of feet

  behind him.

  CLANG! The dodging backwards brought his

  visor clanging down, where it jammed tight shut.

  Uh-oh, thought Hiccup, who was an intelligent

  boy. This person wants to kill me.

  BONG! BONG! BONG! Three more arrows came

  40

  raining harmlessly off the detestable helmet.

  Thanks, guys. The helmet was a good call, thought

  Hiccup as he jumped onboard the Windwalker, who

  shot off through the trees.

  And then he couldn’t believe his eyes when he

  looked over his shoulder and saw the dragon that was

  following them.

  Oh for Thor’s sake.

  You couldn’t mistake that particular dragon.

  It was the Silver Phantom.

  Even though it was the dead of night, every silver

  scale was lit up and shone brighter than was strictly

  possible in real life. The Silver Phantom seemed to

  give off its own light, like the moon. Its scream was so

  high and so loud that it felt as if it was setting fire to

  your ears.

  And as it screamed it poured out a jet of bright

  blue flame that blasted the trees in front of it, burning

  their leaves as bright as green stars before dropping to

  the ground in powdery black smithereens.

  The Silver Phantom was absolutely unmistakable.

  It was unique.

  It also just so happened to be the riding-dragon

  that belonged to Hiccup’s mother.

  41

  Which meant that the Warrior currently

  re-loading her Northbow and taking careful aim at

  Hiccup while guiding the screaming Phantom by the

  strength of her Warrior knees alone – that particular

  Warrior, was in fact…

  42

  ... Hiccup’s own mother

  Valhallarama.

  ~ STATISTICS ~

  FEAR FACTOR: ..................... 10

  ATTACK: .............................. 10

  SPEED: ................................ 10

  SIZE: .................................... 10

  DISOBEDIENCE:................... 10

  Some of the Air Dragons fly at such high alti-

  tudes that humans have never even seen

  them. A Silver Phantom is one such dragon:

  glimpsed very rarely at

  astonishingly high distances, these sorts of

  dragons are sometimes known as ‘ghosts�
� and

  some people doubt they exist at all.

  2. A FEW LITTLE

  COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS

  ‘STOP! MOTHER! IT’S ME, HICCUP!’ shouted

  Hiccup.

  But of course the visor on the beastly helmet was

  down, and so it came out more like: ‘Mff! Mff! Mff!’

  Hiccup grabbed at the visor and tried to yank it

  up, but it was jammed absolutely tight shut. It would

  not budge.

  Oh for Thor’s sake.

  This was not a good situation. Apart from

  anything else, Valhallarama was a truly magnificent

  Hero, one of the very, very best, so they were in big

  trouble if he couldn’t tell her who he was.

  The thing was, Valhallarama was away questing a

  lot.

  Hiccup was never quite sure what she was

  questing for exactly, but his father, Stoick the Vast,

  always assured him it was very important.

  As a result Hiccup hadn’t seen her in a very long

  while, perhaps for as long as two years now. So she

  very well might not be aware that her only son was

  the one who was now known as the Outcast and the

  Enemy of the Wilderwest. Let alone that Stoick was

  46

  now a slave, and Hiccup had the Slavemark himself,

  and a whole load of other things Hiccup was hoping to

  explain to her gently in a quiet moment.

  He had hoped that if he ever did get a chance

  to explain the whole thing to her, about how what he

  was really trying to do was save all the dragons from

  extinction, she might be one of the few people who

  would actually be on his side. (Hiccup had a hopeful

  nature.)

  Because Valhallarama loved dragons.

  Hiccup knew she loved dragons.

  At least, he thought he knew she loved dragons.

  It suddenly occurred to Hiccup, in that moment

  as they were screaming through the forest at breakneck

  speed in the dead of night with his mother shooting

  arrows at him almost continuously, that perhaps he did

  not really know his mother all that well.

  She had been away questing a lot.

  The Wodensfang and Toothless were both

  exceptionally speedy so they were flying not at their top

  speed but on either side of Hiccup’s head, like twin

  dragonly guardian angels.

  ‘You have to admit he is a marvellous Warrior,’

  quavered the Wodensfang admiringly.

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  ‘How big do you think he is? Six foot three?

  Six foot four? I don’t think I’ve seen a better

  Warrior since Squidshanks the Frightening… It was a

  bit before your time, maybe six hundred years ago...’

  ‘She’s a she! Not a he!’ Hiccup shouted back.

  But through the helmet it just sounded like ‘Mff!

  Mff! Mff!’

  We’ve all been in this situation. Well, maybe not

  precisely in this situation. But we all know what it’s

  like to have something important to say to a

  loved one, but something seems to be

  getting in the way.

  The truth is, it is often difficult

  to explain things to a parent. And most

  definitely it is particularly difficult when

  your mother is hunting you at top speed

  through a dark forest under the impression

  that you are the Enemy of the Wilderwest.

  The Windwalker had grown into an

  exceptionally fast dragon, and it was smaller

  than the Phantom, so its more manoeuvrable

  size meant it could just about keep ahead,

  flicking through the maze of trees.

  But still the Phantom was gaining.

  ‘He’s going to catch us if we stay

  down here,’ said Toothless. ‘Why d-d-

  don’t we go up?’

  Over the past

  six months they had often

  eluded dragon pursuers by

  climbing up into the higher air, too

  high for other dragons to follow. Most

  dragons prefer shallow air, the air nearest the ground.

  Very few can operate in the higher atmosphere.

  Apart from the

  Silver Phantom.

  Hiccup wanted to tell

  them that this would be pointless.

  The Phantom was an Air Dragon.

  They were among the best flyers

  in the dragon world, and they flew

  the fastest and the highest.

  Valhallarama had trained herself not to pass out.

  But of course he couldn’t tell them that because of the

  jammed helmet.

  The Windwalker slightly mistimed a slalom,

  swayed crazily, and the pursuing Phantom caught him

  by the leg, but didn’t quite get a good hold, so the

  Windwalker wriggled desperately out of the grip and

  shot upwards in a blind panic.

  ‘Oh no…’ breathed Hiccup, desperately trying to

  get him to fly downwards again, but the Windwalker

  was crazed with fear and panicking madly, so he just

  climbed up and up and up.

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  Hiccup looked down. The forest was already a

  dark smudge beneath them.

  And out of that smudge burst the Silver

  Phantom, shooting upwards in a glorious silver arc.

  Up, up, it soared with two mighty swoops

  of its silver wings. It was way too fast for the poor

  Windwalker, and leapt o-o-o-over their heads in an

  athletic silver leap, and as it leapt, Valhallarama leant

  over and plucked Hiccup from the Windwalker’s back

  with her left arm.

  Down swooped the Phantom, with Hiccup

  swinging from his mother’s arm, back through the

  canopy of trees, landing on the forest floor.

  Still holding Hiccup by the scruff of his

  waistcoat, she bounded from the Phantom’s back,

  leant Hiccup against a fallen tree trunk, removed the

  map from within Hiccup’s waistcoat and threw it to

  the Silver Phantom.

  Oh for Thor’s sake, thought Hiccup. I really

  should have hidden that map a bit better. What was I

  thinking? Some undercover Outcast I am…

  In a pouring silver motion, the Silver Phantom

  caught the map in mid-air, and then shot up, up, out

  of the trees and away.

  While Valhallarama was momentarily distracted,

  52

  Hiccup wriggled out of his waistcoat and ran out

  of reach. Valhallarama drew her sword, the mighty

  Nevermiss, with a great swaggering swish.

  Hiccup drew his own sword.

  He was beginning to feel a little hurt that she

  still hadn’t recognised him. He was her son, after all.

  You’d have thought some kind of mother instinct

  might have kicked in by now.

  But then Valhallarama really hadn’t been

  around that much, thought Hiccup bitterly, trying

  to ignore the rising lump in his throat as he

  remembered how many times he’d written to her as

  a child asking for her to come back home for some

  reason or another, and how many times she’d written

  back to say how important her Quest was.

  More important than me, thought Hiccup. No

  wonder she doesn’t recognise me. I haven’t seen her in two

  years.

&
nbsp; Valhallarama lunged at him.

  Hiccup met the lunge directly and replied with

  one of his own, rather more courteous and less deadly,

  but a joy of sword-work nonetheless.

  He could see the surprise in Valhallarama’s

  bright blue eyes above him, which was a source of

  satisfaction, however difficult the circumstances.

  53

  It is always gratifying when your mother realises you

  are a worthy opponent.

  Because swordfighting was the one thing he was

  really gifted at. And over the past six months he had

  had pretty much twice-daily practice against people

  and dragons who weren’t just fooling around, they

  really and truly hated him and wanted him dead.

  So it was a hymn to the gods of war to watch

  him now, like listening to a singer with the voice of

  an angel.

  54

  Plus he was left-handed, and a good leftie always

  has an advantage over a good rightie.

  However his faithful dragon companions

  weren’t leaving anything to chance.

  They had now arrived on the scene, and

  the Wodensfang, his eyes lit up with surprising

  excitement at the battle, considering his great age,

  shouted, ‘Number 4, guys! Number 4!’

  Number 4 was one of the many manoeuvres

  they had worked out during an exciting six months of

  fighting in forests, among other places, and it was one

  of the more successful ones.

  ‘Mfff, mfffff, mfff, mfff, mmmmmmmmmfffff!’

  shouted Hiccup desperately. (Which meant: ‘Guys!

  Please, no, guys! We don’t want to kill her! This is a

  big misunderstanding! She’s my mother!’)

  But his dragons had absolutely no idea what he

  was saying, so they put Number 4 into action.

  The Windwalker bounded around the two

  fighters, barking excitedly, to confuse them.

  And then Toothless dive-bombed

  Valhallarama’s head, biting into her metal arm (giving

  himself a gum-ache), while the Wodensfang set fire

  to the bottom of a tree just behind her.

  Even Hiccup’s incredible swordfighting skills

  56