How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Read online

  No, Hiccup was not concentrating on this story,

  funnily enough.

  He was thinking about the rather more urgent

  problem of staying alive.

  The Wodensfang was still awake, which suggested

  that it would take at least five or six of those darts to

  put a sizeable creature like himself to sleep. A little

  way away there was the broken hull of a wrecked

  boat, within rolling distance. If he could just get to the

  shelter of that boat without being hit by too many of

  the darts, then it would give him some time to figure

  out what to do…

  But the Hogfly had other ideas.

  ‘Oh look, those dragons are playing Fetch!’

  squealed the Hogfly in excitement. ‘Fetch is my

  favourite game! Much better than Hide-and-Go-Seek!

  And I’m SO good at it!’

  Before Hiccup could stop him, the Hogfly dashed

  out from behind the rock and flew hither and thither,

  trying to catch the darts in his mouth.

  ‘No!’ warned Hiccup in frantic exasperation.

  ‘No, Hogfly, no! Don’t try and catch the darts!

  They’re drugged!’

  But the Hogfly

  didn’t listen. ‘Lovely

  darts!’ sang the Hogfly, his

  curly tail wagging in an absolute blur of pleasure.

  ‘Pretty little darts! COME to the Hogfly!’

  ‘The darts are BAD, Hogfly, they’re BAD!’

  screamed Hiccup, as the Hogfly launched himself

  at three or four more. Excitement always made the

  Hogfly buzz louder than normal, and he was so thrilled

  by this new game that he could not hear Hiccup over

  the sound of his own buzzing.

  ‘Bother!’ squealed the Hogfly, as he narrowly

  missed another dart.

  ‘Nearly!’ screamed the Hogfly, as his little piggy

  jaws snapped on thin air once more.

  Luckily, not only was the Hogfly not as good at

  the fetching game as he thought he was, he was in fact

  supremely hopeless at it. But there were so many darts

  flying around that it was really only a question of time

  before he got hit by one.

  ‘Ooh, I really am going to get this one…’ said

  the Hogfly to himself, narrowing his eyes as he spotted

  a dart coming right at him, and positioning himself

  cunningly so that he was right bang on target.

  Hiccup transferred his weight on to his right

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  foot, and with all his strength he launched himself in

  a Heroic HOP towards the Hogfly, flinging up his left

  arm in the nick of time so the dart landed in his floppy

  forearm rather than in the Hogfly, and then landing

  face down in the sand again.

  ‘Mother’s playing too!’ squawked the Hogfly.

  ‘Good catch, Mother!’

  The little dragon was so wild with excitement that

  he blew himself up and floated within an arm’s length

  of where Hiccup was lying. Hiccup reached up, caught

  the passing Hogfly by his curly tail, and half hopped,

  half rolled his way forward, taking himself, the drowsy

  Wodensfang, and the inflated, over-excited little

  Hogfly, into the shelter of the broken boat in a hail of

  arrows.

  Z-I-N-G! Z-I-N-G! Z-I-N-G!

  Three darts buried themselves into the shell of

  the boat as Hiccup ducked inside it.

  BONG!

  One dart landed on the Hogfly just before

  Hiccup got him into the broken boat but in his

  puffed-up, inflated state, it just bounced off harmlessly.

  The boat offered a bit more protection, but

  when Hiccup put his eye up to a small knot-hole in

  the hull, he could see the fins of the Sand-Sharks

  already beginning to circle the shipwrecked boat. Was

  it Hiccup’s imagination, or did they seem closer than

  before?

  Panting with fear, Hiccup checked the Hogfly

  anxiously. ‘Are you OK, Hogfly?’

  ‘I’m fine!’ squeaked the Hogfly happily. ‘One did

  hit me but I was UP so it just went BONG right off

  me! Did you hear it? Did you hear it? BONG!’

  Reassured, Hiccup turned his attention to the

  dart in his forearm. His whole left hand side was so

  numb already that it wouldn’t make much difference.

  Rather disgustingly, when he pulled the dart out,

  he noticed a couple of things already embedded in his

  arm. The things were white, and looked horribly like

  teeth. YUCKY.

  ‘Wodensfang, do you know why I have two

  TEETH in my arm?’ asked Hiccup, staring at the

  teeth in horrified fascination.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the Wodensfang soothingly.

  54

  ‘I forgot to mention, a tiny extra problem: you got

  bitten by a Vampire Spydragon.’

  A VAMPIRE SPYDRAGON? For Thor’s

  sake… Hiccup put his swollen eye up to the knot-hole

  again. More and more Sand-Sharks were slinking

  out of the grass on the bluff and sinking down into

  the sand, their fins creeping nearer, nearer to the

  shipwrecked boat…

  Hang on a second! What was that, just to the

  edge of the group? That wasn’t a Sand-Shark!

  Two red eyes were glowing in the grass, almost

  like they were levitating, and around the two red eyes

  there slowly materialised a far scarier animal than a

  Sand-Shark, a chameleon dragon with the head of a bat

  and the body of a monkey…

  Vampire Spydragon, said Hiccup’s brain.

  That would explain why this hunting party had

  found him so easily. Vampire Spydragons hunt in quite

  a similar way to Sand-Sharks.

  But instead of using darts, they bite their victims

  with their teeth, leaving one or both of the teeth in

  the wound before letting them go. The poison in the

  bite then slowly paralyses the prey, and the Vampire

  Spydragon locates its lame and helpless target by the

  tracking device of its own teeth, which tick like clocks

  inside the bitten body of the victim.

  I’m sorry. It’s yucky, but it’s true.

  ‘Oh for Thor’s sake, oh for Thor’s sake, this just

  gets worse and worse…’

  ‘Back to the story,’ squeaked the Wodensfang,

  bug-eyed with alarm. ‘YOU have to get to the Island

  of Tomorrow, Hiccup, and be crowned King instead

  of Alvin!’

  ‘Forget about the story!’ snapped Hiccup. ‘The

  story isn’t important right now! You can tell me the

  story later—’

  ‘Stories are always important!’ shrieked the

  Wodensfang. ‘These dragons right here right now are

  just a minor problem, I’m trying to fill you in on the

  big picture here—’

  ‘These minor problems are going to kill us!’

  panicked Hiccup.

  With shaking hands, Hiccup picked up a couple

  of stones that were lying underneath the boat, and

  threw them as far as he could in the direction of the

  attacking dragons. He could hear the dull thump as the

  stones landed uselessly in the sand.

  ‘YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME, HICCUP!’

  begged the Wodensfang, so d
esperate now, that with

  an immense effort he dragged himself up Hiccup’s

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  waistcoat and planted himself on Hiccup’s face, putting

  his wings on either side of Hiccup’s cheeks, and staring

  into Hiccup’s eyes.

  Now he had Hiccup’s attention. Something about

  looking into the hypnotic yellow eyes of a Seadragon

  always commands attention.

  ‘If Alvin the Treacherous is made King,

  he will use the power of the Jewel to

  destroy dragons FOREVER!’ shrieked

  the little brown dragon, in a frenzy

  of anxiety. ‘So YOU have to stop

  Alvin! YOU have to go over to

  the Island of Tomorrow, and

  YOU have to be made King

  instead of him! And then

  YOU can ride out and

  meet the Dragon Furious

  and try to persuade

  him to call off the

  Rebellion!

  That’s why it’s so urgent! That’s why we’re in a hurry!’

  ‘OK, OK…’ said Hiccup, stroking the little brown

  dragon’s back because he seemed so very upset. ‘I’ll do

  it, I’ll do it…’

  ‘And it’s QUITE TRICKY!’ shrieked the

  Wodensfang. ‘Because you haven’t got a BOAT, or

  any of the LOST THINGS, or any WEAPONS...’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Hiccup, ‘I’ll do it…’

  ‘The fact that Fate has led us to Hero’s End is

  important, Hiccup. I can’t tell you exactly why, but

  this is where Grimbeard the Ghastly was buried. The

  humans don’t know you’re alive yet, because Alvin

  killed your cousin Snotlout yesterday and everybody

  thought it was you...’

  The Wodensfang was sounding very tired now,

  and he was gabbling away as fast as he could, aware

  that he was about to fall asleep. ‘In a nutshell, trust

  NOBODY. They all want to kill you. The Dragon

  Furious, Alvin, EVERYBODY’S TRYING TO KILL

  YOU...’

  ‘I won’t trust anybody,’ said Hiccup soothingly.

  ‘And finally, Hiccup, when you get to

  Tomorrow you mustn’t la—’

  But the Wodensfang couldn’t say any more. The

  sleepy substance in the Sand-Shark’s dart was making

  the Wodensfang’s eyelids droop, and his forked tongue

  flop in his mouth.

  He tried again. ‘You mustn’t la—’

  But it was too late.

  The Wodensfang collapsed with his eyes closed

  before he could finish the sentence.

  Which was unfortunate, to say the least, because

  the sentence he was trying to say was: ‘When you get

  to Tomorrow you mustn’t land on the beach, because

  the Dragon Guardians of Tomorrow are guarding it.’

  And that was quite an important sentence.

  The Wodensfang was quite right.

  However bad things seem to be, they

  can always get worse.

  3. THE MINOR PROBLEM

  Five minutes earlier, the Wodensfang had been trying

  to wake up the unconscious boy.

  Now the positions were reversed.

  ‘Wake up!’ whispered Hiccup, gently shaking

  the Wodensfang and tickling him behind the ears.

  ‘Please… wake up! I don’t know what to do!’

  The drug in that dart hadn’t killed the

  Wodensfang, but it was strong enough to send the

  little dragon very soundly to sleep, and he snored on,

  surprisingly loudly and snortily for such a small dragon,

  happily oblivious to the impending dragon attack.

  Think POSITIVE, think POSITIVE.

  On the enemy side: thirty Sand-Sharks and one

  really creepy Vampire Spydragon.

  On Hiccup’s side: an unconscious Wodensfang, a

  half-numb Hero who could only hop or crawl and who

  was embedded with a rather revolting tracking device,

  and one very sweet but extremely stupid little Hogfly

  panting expectantly in front of him with his tongue

  hanging out.

  Closer and closer crept the Sand-Sharks.

  Closer and closer crept the Vampire Spydragon.

  The nearer the Vampire Spydragon got, the more

  Hiccup’s forearm burned with pain, as if the teeth

  could sense the presence of their owner. They quivered

  inside Hiccup’s arm, and their little serrated edges

  made this agony for Hiccup.

  And then he could hear horrible sniffing noises

  on the other side of the boat’s wooden hull. Oh for

  Thor’s sake, they were so close now he could hear the

  dragons panting. He had to take one more look.

  Just in the nick of time, Hiccup drew back

  from the knot hole, for to his absolute horror, the

  gigantic eye of the Spydragon was peering

  into the boat from the other side.

  Trembling, Hiccup waited for the eye to

  disappear, and then he looked through the knot hole

  himself.

  The Vampire Spydragon was right in front of the

  boat, so close that Hiccup could see its nose snuffling

  as the saliva dripped down its vampire fangs. It was

  making that dangerous chuck-chuck noise that a dragon

  makes deep in its throat when it is about to pounce…

  Its long curling tail was wound with some kind of rope,

  and that rope was trailing behind it in the sand.*

  Hiccup had to do something, anything, or they

  were doomed.

  He had a sudden desperate idea. Those darts

  hadn’t worked on the Hogfly when he was inflated…

  He could get the Hogfly to distract the Sand-Sharks

  while he dealt with the Spydragon.

  ‘Hogfly, I need your help here,’ whispered

  Hiccup urgently. ‘I want you to play a game of “it”…’

  ‘Oh I LOVE playing “it”!’ squeaked the Hogfly

  enthusiastically. ‘Who’s “it”? Is it me or you?’

  ‘The Sand-Sharks are “it”,’ whispered Hiccup.

  ‘Are they the ones singing that pretty song?’

  asked the Hogfly.

  ‘That’s them,’ said Hiccup. ‘But you must puff

  yourself UP, Hogfly…’

  *The rope was left over from Hiccup’s battle with the Spydragon in the

  previous book.

  ‘Like this?’ squeaked the Hogfly, concentrating

  very hard and swelling up like a balloon.

  ‘Like that,’ said Hiccup. ‘And then I want you

  to go out there, and you mustn’t let them catch you…’

  ‘Okey dokey!’ said the Hogfly, as circular and

  as purple as an enormous fat grape, if you can picture

  a grape with a curly tail and an eager little piggy face.

  ‘I LOVE playing “it”! I’m even better at “it” than

  “fetch”! They’ll NEVER catch me!’

  ‘Wait until I give the signal,’ whispered

  Hiccup, taking the unconscious Wodensfang out of his

  waistcoat and putting him into his backpack, so he’d

  be safe. Hiccup grabbed a large bit of seaweed and put

  in on his head, and smothered himself with sand and

  muck.

  The Hogfly hid just below the rim of

  the boat, round as the moon, and giggling

  excitedly to himself. ‘They’ll get such

  a surprise…’ gurgled the Hogfly.

  Hiccup put his eye
to the knot-hole. The Vampire

  Spydragon was crouched down low, ready to

  pounce…

  ‘Now!’ whispered Hiccup.

  Over the top shot the Hogfly, squeaking,

  ‘Can’t catch me!’

  BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

  BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

  The Sand-Sharks let off their darts

  simultaneously, and every single one

  of those darts ricocheted

  off the circular body of

  the inflated little Hogfly and landed

  harmlessly in the sand.

  The Vampire Spydragon started, paused in

  his pouncing, and turned his red eyes towards the

  extraordinary sight of the puffed up lapdragon flapping

  speedily through the air.

  ‘Oh good shot!’ the Hogfly twittered generously,

  dodging this way and that, like a Bashyball with wings.

  ‘But I bet you can’t catch me now!’

  BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

  BONG! BONG! BONG!

  ‘Good shot again!’ chirruped the Hogfly in

  good-natured surprise. ‘But now I’m going to make it

  a bit trickier for you all by doing this…’

  BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

  In that second when the Spydragon was staring at

  the Hogfly in astonishment, Hiccup crawled out from

  behind the shelter of the boat, heart thumping, his

  forearm singing with such pain that he had to bite his

  lip to prevent himself from crying out. Covered in sand

  and muck with the seaweed on his head like a rather

  jaunty hat, Hiccup squirmed forward in the sand as fast

  as he could slither, dragging his swollen side behind

  him.

  The Sand-Sharks had never come across anything

  like the Hogfly before. The more they shot a battery

  of darts at the Hogfly, the more they bounced off his

  spherical little body. It was baffling. They had shot

  so many darts that a cute little lapdragon as

  small as this one ought to be stuffed full with

  the adder’s bite of the sleep-drug and lying

  dead upon the sand, not flapping

  around above them making

  happy conversation.

  ‘Oh you guys, you’re so good at this, you