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

  ‘And also,’ he raised an eyebrow, ‘I’m going to

  be wearing my cunning disguise.’

  Hiccup had changed quite a bit after six months

  of living as an Outcast. He was thinner, taller, and his

  voice had deepened, and was unsteadily sliding all

  the time between a gruff and a squeak, so that was a

  disguise in itself.

  Now he took off his helmet, and

  brought out a rag from his rucksack

  and wound it round his left eye like

  an eye patch. He fixed a piece of

  pink-ish candle wax right on the tip

  of his nose, and it made a rather

  convincing wart. And he smeared

  himself with some Stinkdragon stink,

  that he had been keeping in a little

  pot, after carefully extracting it from a hibernating

  Stinkdragon in the Flaming Forest a couple of days

  earlier.

  The smell would stop people coming too close.

  ‘How do I look?’

  Toothless made his yuckiest ‘yucky’ face. ‘T-t-

  toothless not want to come near you. Is very, very

  yucky.’

  ‘Yes, well you don’t have to come, Toothless,

  if you don’t want to. It may be better if you didn’t,

  because it’s very dangerous for dragons in there,’

  said Hiccup. ‘And I want you to be safe. You can

  stay here with the Windwalker.’

  The Windwalker protested, ‘What do you mean,

  stay here? I’m coming too.’

  But Hiccup shook his head. ‘I’m afraid

  you can’t come, Windwalker. The

  Wodensfang and Toothless can hide

  down my waistcoat. But you’re

  far too big to hide and they’ll

  kill you if they spot you.’

  The Windwalker

  shut his eyes and put his

  tail between his legs. All

  of his spines drooped.

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  Hiccup hugged him affectionately,

  holding on to that warm shaggy familiar neck, smelling

  his lovely smell as if it might be for the last time.

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  The Windwalker smelled

  of drinking chocolate.

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  ‘Now, Windwalker, you must stay here and

  guard my helmet and the hide-out in the Forgotten

  Forest so that nobody finds it. We’ll be back before

  you know it.’

  Hiccup had been dreading this moment for a

  long time, because he knew that he might be about

  to see his father again. For Hiccup had inadvertently

  caused Stoick to be made an Outcast from his own

  Tribe, and turned from a Chief respected by all, with a

  comfortable life shouting out orders and eating a lot,

  to a life as a slave in the Amber Slavelands.

  Hiccup loved and respected his father, and it

  was almost unbearable to think of Stoick the Vast

  in this position, particularly when it was all Hiccup’s

  fault. Had the experience of slavery changed Stoick?

  What must he be thinking of Hiccup? And what about

  Fishlegs? Was he all right?

  Thoughts like these were a kind of torment.

  But sometimes the bravest thing a Hero has to

  do is not fighting monsters and cheating death and

  witches. It is facing the consequences of his own

  actions.

  Hiccup had to do this.

  ‘Toothless, are you coming, or staying?’

  ‘Toothless will come,’ said Toothless grandly,

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  pointing his wing at Hiccup, ‘because you need my

  h-help and what would you do without me? C-c-can

  Toothless wear an eye patch too?’

  ‘You don’t need to wear an eye patch, Toothless.

  Nobody’s going to see you.’

  ‘Is quite c-c-cool

  though…’

  ‘Toothless!’

  Toothless

  dived down

  Hiccup’s waistcoat

  with a squeal.

  A slave-ship was

  making its way through

  the reeds, delivering fresh

  slaves to the ravenous

  maw of the Slavelands.

  It was hurrying, for the tide was

  sinking fast, and as soon as it was in,

  the Dragon Rebellion would attack, and if the

  ship was still there, they would all be dead men.

  Hiccup took a deep breath, sank beneath the

  water, and swam after the ship. It was picking its way

  like a slalom through the dragon corpses.

  Hiccup swam after it, the Wodensfang puffing

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  into his mouth to give him oxygen every now and then.

  Hiccup surfaced at the back of the ship and hitched a

  lift by driving two daggers into the wooden sides.

  He could hear the snap of the whips of the slave-

  drivers above, the moans of the poor tired slaves as

  they groaned with the weariness of the long journey,

  and the splash of their oars.

  The ship stopped and someone shouted up to the

  tiny figures way way up on the battlements.

  CRREEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!

  With a protesting shriek of wheels and pulleys,

  the terrible door of Traitor’s Gate opened slowly.

  Above the door, these ominous words were

  carved into the stone, each letter the height of a man:

  FORGET ALL THOSE WHO ENTER HERE.

  The slave-driver snapped the whip again and

  screamed the command to row.

  Exhausted, the slaves rowed themselves through

  the door, and into their own oblivion.

  Slowly, and with dreadful finality, the iron door

  slammed…

  … shut.

  The Windwalker, crouched in the reeds, let

  out a whine of anxiety as he saw it. He stayed there,

  shivering and alone, until a sentry on Prison Darkheart

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  must have spotted him because there was a mighty

  blaze from the battlements, and something huge and

  heavy rocketed past the poor Windwalker’s head and

  exploded into the reeds beside him.

  What was that? What were these terrifying new

  weapons the humans were using against the dragons?

  The Windwalker did not stay to find out. With

  a terrified squeal, he launched out of the rushes and

  flapped for his life on sad raggedy wings, flying north

  to the Forgotten Forest. He looked mournfully over his

  shoulders at the horror of Prison Darkheart.

  But in the fear of the moment he left the stupid

  helmet with the feather on it behind in the reeds.

  Many hours later, something came winding

  through the melancholy cathedrals of long-dead

  dragons’ bones and landed next to the helmet and

  drank in the smell of it.

  You couldn’t see them, but the three heads of the

  camouflaged dragon smiled, and its talons sprang out

  like flick-knives.

  ‘Hiccup…’ hissed the middle head of the dragon

  with satisfaction. ‘Hiccup, Hiccup, Hiccup. He mussst

  be in there.’

  All three heads turned towards the Prison

  Darkheart. ‘And now,’ hissed the third head, ‘now

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  we have him trapped.’

  ‘He seems,’ said the third head, sniffing the

  helmet again and wrinkling his nose in di
sgust, ‘to

  have had an encounter with a Stinkdragon that is

  going to make him laughably easy to track.’

  The dragon took off in the direction of the

  prison, slowly flapping its wings and circling it like

  some greedy disguised vulture.

  And we know who that dragon is, don’t we?

  Because there aren’t all that many three-headed

  invisibly-camouflaged dragons in the Archipelago.

  It was the Deadly Shadow.

  5. THE WRONG SIDE OF

  THE DOOR

  Hiccup’s not-so-brilliant plan went wrong right from

  the beginning.

  The slaves on the ship on which he had hitched

  a lift were disembarking and slipping from under the

  gang-plank of the boat. Hiccup intended to melt into

  the shadows and explore the prison on his own. As an

  Outcast, he was now an expert at this kind of sneaky

  behaviour.

  But as he tiptoed away, the Wodensfang sneezed

  from his waistcoat. It was quite a quiet sneeze, but

  unfortunately Toothless called out ‘Bliss ta!’ – which is

  Dragonese for ‘Bless you!’ – very, very loudly.

  And then ‘Bliss ta! Bliss ta! B-b-blissta!’ as

  Wodensfang sneezed three more times.

  The prison guard on the gang-plank heard the

  noise and looked under the gang-plank.

  ‘WHERE D’YA THINK YOU’RE GOING?’

  yelled the guard, assuming he was an escaping slave.

  The guard gave him a crack of a whip sharper than the

  bite of a Squirrel-serpent, and invited him to join the

  long line of slaves sinking ankle deep into the sand as

  they disembarked from the ship.

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  ‘Toothless,’ whispered Hiccup furiously, holding

  on to his stinging shoulder as he shuffled down a

  maze of corridors into the dark belly of the prison’s

  central courtyard. ‘Please be quiet. Remember, we’re

  Outcasts… spies…’

  ‘T-t-toothless was being polite!’ protested

  Toothless.

  ‘Yes, I know, politeness is good. Politeness is

  very good. I’m really impressed by your politeness,

  it’s just if you could keep your politeness quite quiet

  at the moment, I’d be very grateful…’

  Chaos reigned in the prison courtyard.

  Hiccup looked around with his mouth open. It

  was as if he had stepped through the door into another,

  grimmer world.

  Long lines of tables with people sitting eating

  at them seemed to suggest that this was some sort of

  open-air dining room. The people were of all ages from

  six or seven upward, and had the S of the Slavemark

  on their foreheads.

  But around these people eating was the manic

  din of war, and the sheer mad noise of it caused ears

  to ring as if an orchestra in Valhalla had turned up the

  volume to ‘extra loud’.

  Screaming warriors ran hither and thither,

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  hammering swords and spears out of molten red-

  ended metal. Above Hiccup’s head, continuous rocket

  explosions sent out huge clouds of yellow smoke

  that stung his eyelids and crept inside his nose like

  sulphurous slugs, gagging his throat with the smell of

  rotten eggs.

  Lying around the place were enormous evil-

  looking dragon-traps, weird crazy inventions such as

  catapults that launched thirty-five spears at once, and

  Northbows that did the same with arrows. It was all

  so noisy you couldn’t hear yourself think.

  The guard shoved them all in there, before

  hurrying off, bellowing at them over his shoulder to

  ‘Eat well for the Seeking begins soon!’ – whatever

  that might mean. To Hiccup’s horror, the courtyard

  was absolutely packed to the brim with people he

  knew, from Tribes all over the Archipelago, and as he

  was the most Wanted person in the Wilderwest right

  now, he thought it would be wise to slide away into a

  side corridor.

  But things really weren’t going Hiccup’s way

  this morning.

  ‘HOY! YOU OVER THERE! SMELLY BOY!

  COME AND JOIN US AT OUR TABLE!’ shouted

  a large fat man from a table nearby.

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  Hiccup jumped guiltily.

  And then he realised, in total amazement, that

  the large fat man shouting at him was in fact his own

  father, Stoick the Vast.

  It was the moment Hiccup had been dreading.

  The wart and the eye-patch and the smell were

  doing their job though, because Stoick clearly hadn’t

  the faintest idea who he was.

  ‘HOY! SMELLY BOY!’ yelled Stoick again.

  ‘GET OVER HERE QUICK OR ALL THE FOOD

  WILL BE GONE!’

  Slowly, Hiccup walked up to the table where

  Stoick was sitting.

  As he sat down, all the others at the table

  moved gently away from him like a sea parting, their

  noses wrinkling.

  This must be what it’s like to have a highly

  infectious disease, thought Hiccup.

  Stoick grunted and pushed a large chunk of

  bread and a big handful of mussels at Hiccup, trying

  not to breathe in Hiccup’s particularly ripe and

  luscious stink. ‘Eat up, boy, before I change my mind.’

  At least his father was looking well.

  He looked a little sad around the eyes perhaps,

  with a few streaks of grey in his magnificent moustache

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  and he’d lost a bit of weight, but he could still be

  described as ‘a hugely fat man with a beard as red and

  out of control as a forest fire’.

  And to Hiccup’s passionate relief, Stoick seemed

  to be in some sort of position of importance and

  respect among the slaves, or at least in the group

  seated at this particular table.

  Once a Chief, always a Chief.

  ‘New boy, eh?’ said Stoick, as Hiccup helped

  himself. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

  Hiccup forced himself to look his father right in

  the eye.

  This was awful.

  He was in two minds about this, because he

  was undercover of course, and it would be deadly

  dangerous if people started recognising him, but

  surely, surely, Stoick must know who he was?

  Valhallarama was away questing a lot, so she

  had some sort of excuse. But Stoick and Hiccup had

  sat together every single day at the breakfast table

  for thirteen years!

  How unmemorable exactly was he? For Thor’s

  sake, he knew he’d grown up a little but it wasn’t as

  if he was wearing a large curly false moustache or

  anything.

  But no, Stoick clearly hadn’t a clue, not even

  the merest smidgeon of an idea that the boy he was

  sharing his supper with was his own only son.

  ‘My name is… Warty McSmelly,’ said Hiccup.

  ‘Good name,’ said Stoick approvingly. ‘What

  Tribe were you, before the Slavemark?’

  ‘The Lost Tribe,’ said Hiccup, thinking fast.

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  ‘Welcome to the Company of Amber-Hunters,

  Warty McStinky,’ bellowed S
toick, giving him a hearty

  slap on the back.

  ‘McSmelly,’ Hiccup corrected him, choking

  slightly on his mussel.

  ‘You have to belong to a group here, McSmelky.’

  ‘Smelly…’ Oh for Thor’s sake, his father couldn’t

  even remember his fake name! He was going to forget

  it himself at this rate.

  ‘Otherwise you won’t last a day out there on

  the Sands,’ bellowed Stoick importantly. ‘We are the

  Amber-Hunters. Listen up, Amber-Hunters! We have a

  new boy here! This is Portly McSpelly, late of the Lost

  Tribe.’

  Hiccup looked at the Amber-Hunters and then

  around him at the courtyard, and his heart sank right

  down into his sandals.

  Everything was back to front and upside down.

  All the wrong people were in charge. Up at the High

  Table were the Warriors of the Wilderwest, swaggering

  around in their purple and yellow sashes, and amongst

  them Hiccup recognised some of the more unpleasant

  Hooligans from his own Tribe, the new chief, Snotface

  Snotlout, and his cronies Dogsbreath the Duhbrain

  and Clueless.

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  And down here in the Slave-Pit were many, many

  noble, respected men and women, who six months

  earlier were proud Warriors of their Tribes, and were

  now wearing the Slavemark.

  Many were Peaceables, Grim-bods, Quiet-Lifes.

  But here on Stoick’s own table, in his Company of

  Amber-Hunters, among the Silents and the Bashem-

  Oiks, were one or two Hooligans that Hiccup knew

  well. The Vicious Twins. Hodgepodge the Loony.

  And Gobber the Belch, Hiccup’s old teacher.

  Gobber the Belch was a most respected Warrior

  who had fought bravely for his Tribe on numerous

  occasions and was, once upon a lifetime away, in

  charge of the Pirate Training Programme on Berk.

  Hiccup had a great lump in his throat as Gobber

  looked up and wished him a kindly hello, and he saw

  the horrible ‘S’ on his teacher’s forehead.

  Who had done this to him? How dare they!

  And to make matters worse, even Gobber didn’t

  recognise him. Had he really changed that much?

  Lonelier even than he had felt as an Outcast,