How to Twist a Dragon's Tale Read online

  Hiccup’s Windwalker dragon didn’t want to go after the others.

  He was shivering all over and kept on looking up at the sky.

  For some reason, the Windwalker seemed to have lost the power of speech, so Hiccup couldn’t ask it what the matter was.

  “It’s all right, boy,” said Hiccup soothingly, his heart sinking. “What’s up with you? It’s a lovely day; what are you frightened of?”

  The Windwalker could not say, but he was certainly petrified of SOMETHING.

  “C-C-COME ON!” bawled Toothless indignantly. Toothless lacked a sensitive side. “Everybody else w-w-will have WON by now!”

  “NOBODY is going to be winning, Toothless,” said Hiccup, patiently persuading the Windwalker to move on and catch up with the others. “Herding isn’t a winning kind of thing.”

  “OK. Toothless’ll just scare the reindeer a little . . . k-k-keep em on the run . . .” said Toothless.

  An hour or so later, Gobber, flying on Goliath and slightly ahead of the others, spotted the herd of reindeer, nibbling quietly on the heather.

  He immediately flew back to the straggling line of boys on their dragons.

  “Sssh, everyone, I’ve spotted the reindeer,” said Gobber quietly. “Now, we have to stay very relaxed and orderly. We don’t want to alarm them and split up the herd. Call your hunting dragons to heel. Hiccup, in particular, I want you to keep good control of Toothless; we don’t want a repeat of the Sheep-in-the-Toilets incident.”

  “No, sir. Toothless, did you hear that?” whispered Hiccup sternly. “You’re going to stay very calm, aren’t you?”

  Toothless shuffled along Hiccup’s shoulders and looked deeply and solemnly into Hiccup’s eyes. He nodded eagerly. “Ohhhh, yes, yes, yes, T-T-Toothless will be v-v-very calm, oh yes.”

  Hiccup blinked. Dragons’ eyes are hypnotic, and he was already starting to feel dizzy. “You promise?” whispered Hiccup.

  “T-T-Toothless promises, cross his claws and hope to die . . .” And he licked Hiccup on the nose with his little forked tongue.

  Hiccup took a good firm hold of the little dragon’s body nonetheless.

  To do Toothless justice, he did TRY to keep his promise, turning round on Hiccup’s shoulder, so he wouldn’t be tempted by seeing the herd, humming and attempting to think of things OTHER than reindeer — mice, for example, and fish, and interesting animals with cloven hooves . . . BOTHER . . . back to reindeer again.

  All of the boys slowed to a trot. Their hunting dragons hovered in the air, close behind them. “These sheep have little pointy things on their heads,” Clueless pointed out.

  “That’s because these sheep are REINDEER, Clueless, Thor give me strength. Keep it steady there . . . No sudden movements . . . Fishlegs, try and stay the right way up . . . We just have to keep it very, very, quiet . . .”

  Toothless couldn’t resist . . . he sneaked a peek over his shoulder. There were the reindeer, so large, so fat, so fascinating . . . standing there so dopily . . . What would happen if he just stirred them up a bit . . . ?

  “Toothless . . .” whispered Hiccup warningly.

  Toothless hurriedly faced the other way again.

  “That’s it, boys,” said Gobber delightedly. “You’re doing a really good job now . . . they haven’t startled at all . . . we just have to keep riding calmly and silently for a few more minutes and —”

  “L-L-LET TOOTHLESS AT ’EM!” shrieked Toothless, unable to bear it for one moment longer, nipping Hiccup’s fingers with his sharp little gums to make him let go, and hurling himself at the herd, screaming like a little banshee.

  “Oh, for Thor’s sake!” gasped Hiccup.

  “WHAT IN WODEN’S NAME IS YOUR DRAGON DOING, HICCUP? CAN’T YOU KEEP CONTROL OF HIM? CALL HIM BACK RIGHT NOW AND THAT IS AN ORDER!!!! ” screeched Gobber in a furious strangled whisper. “STOP HIM!!! ”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir,” groaned Hiccup, urging the Windwalker forward after the charging little dragon in the sky.

  “TOOTHLESS!! STO-O-O-OP!!” cried Hiccup, trying to shout and be quiet at the same time,

  not easy.

  Toothless gave a flick of his tail and put his wings into “blur” mode. This meant he could shoot forward, only slightly slower than the speed of sound. It also, usefully, cut out the noise of Hiccup screaming.

  Toothless is just HERDING, explained Toothless to himself as he sped through the air. Just a little herding to keep those reindeer on their toes . . . they’re loving it, look, they’re smiling . . .

  He noticed, with delight, that the silly reindeer were beginning to run away.

  “CH-CH-CH-CHARGE!!!!!!” yelled Toothless joyfully as he flew.

  “Thighslaps of Thor . . . ,” growled Gobber, pressing Goliath to speed up, “the reindeer have started to run . . .”

  And as Gobber raced faster, so too did the other boys, and within no time, all calmness had left the Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback party. They were a wild primeval sight, twelve boys on twelve dragons galloping across the heather, with Gobber the Belch screaming like a maniac flying above them at the front, and before him, the shrieking hunting-dragons, baying for blood like dogs.

  “TO THE LEFT, HICCUP, KEEP TO THE LE-E-E-E-FT!” roared Gobber the Belch, as Hiccup disappeared into the distance on the back of his bolting Windwalker.

  “Halt! Whoa! Left!” screeched Hiccup as the mad, tatty little scarecrow of a Windwalker, rocking crazily from side to side on his three legs, sped faster and faster.

  Hooting furiously, Toothless hit the 360-strong herd of reindeer right bang slap wallop in the middle — which had the same effect as when the white ball firmly strikes the triangle of balls on a pool table.

  All 360 reindeer ricocheted off in 360 different directions, at 360 degrees of angles across the island.

  “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!” crowed Toothless in triumph. “W-w-well herded, Toothless!”

  And then he did three victory somersaults in a row. “S-s-stay and f-f-fight, you t-t-tree-headed COWS!” he shouted insultingly after the disappearing reindeer bottoms.

  Hiccup and the Windwalker came panting up and halted with a screech.

  “Too late!” sang Toothless. “S-s-slowpoke! D-d-did you see? T-T-Toothless got them ALL, with one shot, Toothless is b-b-brilliant, Toothless is the winner, Toothless is—”

  “Toothless is VERY NAUGHTY,” finished Hiccup. “I told you to stay calm, Toothless; I told you NOT to chase the reindeer, REMEMBER?”

  Ooooh, yes . . . Toothless remembered now. He stuck his tail between his legs.

  “Toothless was h-h-herding . . .” he said in a small voice.

  “That was not HERDING, Toothless, that was CHASING!” scolded Hiccup.

  Gobber was not pleased, to say the least.

  “HICCUP has very kindly given us an exhibition of how NOT to herd reindeer. That is absolutely the OPPOSITE of what you should be doing. RIGHT. We’ll just have to start ALL over again, won’t we? From the beginning.”

  “Oh Hic-cup,” groaned the boys, glowering furiously at Hiccup. “Hiccup shows how USELESS he is, yet again,” snorted Snotlout triumphantly.

  That was the start of an exhausting couple of hours.

  Toothless got hot, and overtired, and hungry. As the afternoon wore on, the midges came out in great, biting clouds, and Toothless crawled under Hiccup’s helmet to get away from them, from where he kept up a constant stream of echo-y complaints.

  “Toothless go home now . . . is no f-f-fun anymore . . .”

  As the day wore on, however, the reindeer seemed to be re-forming into larger groups and the boys began to get the hang of working together with the hunting dragons to guide the reindeer in the right direction. They were riding and herding much more expertly, and they were feeling extremely proud of themselves.

  Fishlegs hadn’t fallen off the Chickenpoxer for at least half an hour. And they had just managed to get control of a larger group of about sixteen or so reindeer, and were herding them
down the mountain to the shore in a really rather professional manner.

  Wartihog, Clueless, and Tuffnut Junior were driving the herd from the back, calling and whooping and clapping to get the reindeer to move forward. And the other boys had split up and were riding on the right and left flanks in semi-circles, so they were pushing the reindeer group along the path they wanted them to follow.

  Snotlout whistled to Fireworm as a big stag made a break away from the group. And Fireworm swooped down, talons outstretched, trailing warning smoke, and the stag trotted away to fall back in with the rest of the crowd.

  This was the life.

  They were all wishing their fathers could see them now.

  Hiccup rode along, nice and easy, with no hands, feeling ten feet tall.

  The reindeer poured down the mountain in a gleaming brown river, moving at a nice even pace. They cleared a small, dried-up stream, and bounded on downwards, into the woods, moving easily, evenly, very relaxed . . .

  When SUDDENLY, the Leader of the Herd reared up in alarm as the woods in front of him burst into flames.

  A long line of flames springing out of nowhere.

  The reindeer bellowed in alarm and terror, and in a flurry of flaring nostrils, hooves, and horns, they swerved past the fire and on down the mountain.

  The Vikings were not so lucky.

  By the time they reached the fire it was already burning three meters high.

  “Quick!” yelled Gobber. “Down to the shore! Run around the flames and down to the shore!”

  But it was already too late.

  In front of Hiccup’s eyes the line of flame swooped across the entire landscape, moving faster than a man could run.

  And then Hiccup saw the truly terrifying thing that he had been most afraid of all along. Every single hair on his neck stood up like the spines on a sea urchin.

  There was something dark shooting through the trees, something that was making those flames.

  Hiccup caught a brief glimpse of them.

  Something like large black winged panthers, bounding low in the forest.

  3. THE FIRETRAP

  Only Gobber was riding a dragon big enough to fly him over the fire and out of the danger.

  But there was no question of him abandoning his pupils, who were riding on dragons whose wings were TOO WEAK to take off.

  They were trying desperately to do so, but only Snotlout’s Devilish Dervish could muster up enough strength to carry him any height at all, before it collapsed to the ground again.

  The Vikings on their dragons galloped down the line of flame, hoping to find a place weak enough to jump through.

  But the woods were dry as a bone, and the fire burned fierce and quick.

  On and on the flames ran, and then they began to bend around in a circle, forcing the boys back and herding them up the hill, just as they had herded the reindeer only moments before.

  The herders were becoming the herded.

  Both ends of the circle of fire joined together.

  They were now trapped on the top of the mountain.

  All at the same time, the boys removed their swords from their scabbards.

  Even the stupidest among them realized that they were now under attack.

  The dragons were not terrified of the FIRE of course, for dragons’ skins are fairly fireproof,* and most dragons play in fire as joyfully as dolphins in water.

  What the dragons did not like was those black shapes prowling IN the fire.

  This is what terrified them, and sent them snarling backwards, their hackles rising. The boys dismounted their riding dragons, for if they remained on their backs, there was a real danger the dragons would plunge them straight into the inferno in their fever to get away, for dragons are only obedient up to a certain point, and they will not stay and fight if their lives are in danger.

  And, indeed, the instant the boys got off, the dragons fled upward, making Hiccup’s heart sink even lower, for dragons have a strong instinct for the presence of mortal danger.

  One by one they fled, all of the riding dragons — the Devilish Dervish, the Marsh Tiger, the Rocket Ripper, and with a final bad-mood, Shetland-ish snort, the Chickenpoxer.

  All of the hunting dragons — Fireworm (Snotlout’s Monstrous Nightmare), Seaslug, Horrowcow, Forktail, Snakeheart, Bogflyer.

  Until only Goliath was left.

  And the Windwalker.

  Rather surprisingly, for he had been running away all afternoon, now that there really was a reason to flee, the Windwalker stayed by Hiccup’s side, its wings trembling and shaking nervously and looking over its shoulder.

  Toothless, too, remained, hidden under Hiccup’s helmet, and his muffled muttering could be heard echoing through the metal. “D-d-don’t know why we’re here anyway . . . t-t-too midge-y . . . Toothless being bitten to death . . . Toothless thirsty . . . Toothless hungry . . . issa way past Toothless’s bedtime, but n-n-nobody thinks of p-p-poor thirsty T-t-toothless, oh no, they’re all so s-s-selfish, worrying about their own s-s-silly problems . . .”

  The Vikings peered into the flames, up into the smoke-filled sky, waiting, waiting, waiting for the first strike.

  It didn’t take long.

  There was a petrified scream from behind them.

  They whipped around, just in time to see a reindeer fall down dead on the spot, from what looked like a long sword wound to the throat.

  “What was that?” asked Fishlegs, quivering.

  But no one could answer him, for it was too quick to see what had happened exactly.

  “I think I saw something,” whispered Clueless, “something black, a dragon maybe, came shooting out of the flames, killed the deer, and sprang back out of the circle again . . .”

  Silence again, and the boys were rigid with tension, peering from left to right in the circle of smoke to try and guess where the next attack would come from.

  Hiccup was sweating so hard he had to wipe his left palm on his waistcoat, because his sword was slipping in his hand.

  And then there was another scream from another reindeer, and again the boys whirled round, and again the reindeer was already dead, this time from sword wounds both to the heart and the head.

  “OK,” said Gobber, “we need to evacuate this area NOW.”

  “How many of us can you take on your back at once, Goliath?” asked Hiccup.

  “Two, I’d say,” grunted the big Bullrougher. “One if it’s a fatty like that one,” and he pointed a wing at Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.

  “He said he could take two,” Hiccup told Gobber.

  Interestingly, Gobber did not tell Hiccup off for speaking Dragonese in this emergency.

  “Fishlegs and Speedifist,” ordered Gobber, “get up on Goliath’s back.”

  The two boys scrambled up, and the big riding dragon spread its wings and took off, up over the flame barrier, and out of the firetrap.

  Now the remaining Vikings had their work cut out trying to avoid being trampled to death by the hooves of the terrified reindeer, or speared by their antlers, as they panicked and stampeded around the circle, rearing up at the flames and squealing in terror.

  Silence again, and the boys were rigid with tension, peering from left to right of the circle of smoke.

  Was it Hiccup’s imagination, or did the circle of fire appear to be closing in on them?

  By the time that Goliath returned, the flames were definitely inching forward, making the circle they were standing on ever so slightly smaller.

  “Snotlout and Wartihog, you go next,” yelled Gobber the Belch.

  Five times, Goliath flew out of the circle, with two boys on his back each time.

  The sixth time he could only carry Dogsbreath the Duhbrain.

  And the flames were burning higher than four tall trees on top of each other, terrible great towers, flaming all around them in a fiery circle so close that Hiccup’s eyes watered and his cheeks burned as hot as if they were on fire already.

  “Me tired,” complained To
othless from under Hiccup’s helmet, still unaware of what was going on. “W-w-when we going h-h-home?”

  “I think you should go home now, Toothless, while you still can,” said Hiccup, trying to take his helmet off, but Toothless held it down with his gripping little claws and squealed in indignation. “G-g-go away, m-m-mean Master, is too midge-y for poor Toothless out there; Toothless be eaten alive if he go out there!”

  “Come on, Goliath, come on,” muttered Gobber the Belch, “you great SLUG of a reptile, we’re going to be Viking hamburgers at this rate, get a move on . . . ah, here he is, thank Thor.”

  The great beast flew out of the flames up to the scrabbly pinnacle of mountaintop where the boy and his Master were kneeling. The boy’s dragon, his Windwalker, was pressed up beside them both, with its wings outstretched, trying to protect them from the heat of the flames.

  “On you go, boy,” growled Gobber the Belch, helping Hiccup onto the mighty dragon’s back. He gave the boy a half smile, and the Hooligan salute.

  “See you on the other side,” said Gobber the Belch, as cheerfully as if he didn’t know perfectly well that there probably wouldn’t be time for Goliath to come back and rescue him as well.

  That’s a Viking Hero for you.

  For perhaps, when Death was burning so close and so fierce only feet and minutes away from him, perhaps even Gobber was more frightened than he seemed to be.

  But you couldn’t have told it from his face, as he whistled carelessly and slapped Goliath on the backside for the last time. “Off you go, you Alligator-Featured Slowpoke!” he roared.

  “Out of my way then, Red-Sprouting, Jelly-Bottomed Walrus-Face!” snorted Goliath in reply. The great Bullrougher spread his wings and prepared for takeoff.

  Nobody saw the black shape sneaking out of the fire, leaping toward Goliath with a flash of swordlike silver held out in front of it, and springing back again.

  It was as quick as that.

  The powerful, roaring, barrel-chested dragon took two strides forward . . . and sank to his knees, and onto his side.