Текст книги "How to Train Your Dragon"

Автор книги: Cressida Cowell

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How to Train Your Dragon (The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III #1)

Cressida Cowell

CONTENTS

A Note from the Author ........... l

1. First Catch Your Dragon. ...... 2

2. Inside the Dragon Nursery 14

3. Heroes or Exiles ............................................. 31

4. How to Train Your Dragon 46

5. A Chat with Old Wrinkly, 6l

6. Meanwhile, Deep in the Ocean ........ 67

7. Toothless Wakes Up 69

8. Training Your Dragon the Hard Way, 81

9. Fear, Vanity, Revenge, and Silly Jokes 89

10. Thor'sday Thursday 103

11. Thor is Angry 127

12. The Green Death.............................................145

13. When yelling doesn't.........................................156

14. The fiendishly clever plan................................. 166

15. The Battle at Death's Head Headland 177

16. The Fiendishly Clever Plan Goes Wrong ............... l82

17. In the Mouth of the Dragon................................ 186

18. The Extraordinary Bravery of Toothless ... 190

19. Hiccup the Useful, 200

20. Epilogue by the Author 211

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[Map: Isle of Berk]

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[Map: Meathead islands ]

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[Page Blank]

1

A Note from the Author

There were dragons when I was a boy.

There were great, grim, sky dragons that nested on the cliff tops like gigantic scary birds. Little, brown, scuttly dragons that hunted down the mice and rats in well-organized packs. Preposterously huge Sea Dragons that were twenty times as big as the Big Blue Whale and who killed for the fun of it.

You will have to take my word for it, for the dragons are disappearing so fast they may soon become extinct.

Nobody knows what is happening. They are crawling back into the sea from whence they came, leaving not a bone, not a fang, in the earth for the men of the future to remember them by.

So, in order that these amazing creatures should not be forgotten, I will tell this true story from my childhood.

I was not the sort of boy who could train a dragon with a mere lifting of an eyebrow. I was not a natural at the Heroism business. I had to work at it. This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.

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Chapter 1 FIRST CATCH YOUR DRAGON

Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, had been feeling slightly sick ever since he woke up that morning.

Ten boys, including Hiccup, were hoping to become full members of the Tribe by passing the Dragon Initiation Program. They were standing on a bleak little beach at the bleakest spot on the whole bleak island. A heavy snow was falling.

"PAY ATTENTION!" screamed Gobber the Belch, the soldier in charge of teaching Initiation. "This will be your first military operation, and Hiccup will be commanding the team."

"Oh, not Hic-cup," groaned Dogsbreath the Duhbrain and most of the other boys. "You can't put': Hiccup in charge, sir, he's USELESS."

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the

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[Image: Gobber]

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Hope and Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, wiped his nose miserably on his sleeve. He sank a little deeper into the snow.

"ANYBODY would be better than Hiccup," sneered Snotface Snotlout. "Even Fishlegs would be better than Hiccup."

Fishlegs had a squint that made him as blind as a jellyfish, and an allergy to reptiles.

"SILENCE!" roared Gobber the Belch. "The next boy to speak has limpets for lunch for the next

THREE WEEKS!"

There was absolute silence immediately. Limpets are a bit like worms and a bit like snot and a lot less tasty than either.

"Hiccup will be in charge and that is an order!" screamed Gobber, who didn't do noises quieter than screaming. He was a seven-foot giant with a mad glint in his one working eye and a beard like exploding fireworks. Despite the freezing cold he was wearing hairy shorts and a teeny weeny deerskin vest that showed off his lobster-red skin and bulging muscles. He was holding a flaming torch in one gigantic fist.

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"Hiccup will be leading you, although he is, admittedly, completely useless, because Hiccup is the son of the CHIEF, and that's the way things go with us Vikings. Where do you think you are, the REPUBLIC OF ROME? Anyway, that is the least of your problems today. You are here to prove yourself as a Viking Hero. And it is an ancient tradition of the Hooligan Tribe that you should –" Gobber paused dramatically –

"FIRST CATCH YOUR DRAGON!"

Ohhhhhh suffering scallops, thought Hiccup.

"Our dragons are what set us apart!" bellowed Gobber. "Lesser humans train hawks to hunt for them, horses to carry them. It is only the

VIKING HEROES who dare to tame the wildest, most dangerous creatures on Earth."

Gobber spat solemnly into the snow. "There are three parts to the Dragon Initiation Test. The first and most dangerous part is a test of your courage and skill at burglary. If you wish to enter the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, you must first catch your dragon. And that is WHY," continued Gobber, at full volume, "I have

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brought you to this scenic spot. Take a look at Wild Dragon Cliff itself."

The ten boys tipped their heads backward. The cliff loomed dizzyingly high above them, black and sinister. In summer you could barely even see the cliff as dragons of all shapes and sizes swarmed over it, snapping and biting and sending up a cacophony of noise that could be heard all over Berk.

But in winter the dragons were hibernating and the cliff fell silent, except for the ominous, low rumble of their snores. Hiccup could feel the vibrations through his sandals.

"Now," said Gobber, "do you notice those four caves about halfway up the cliff, grouped roughly in the shape of a skull?" The boys nodded.

"Inside the cave that would

be the right eye of the skull is the Dragon Nursery, where there are, AT THIS VERY MOMENT, three

thousand young dragons having their last few weeks of winter sleep."

"OOOOOOOH,"muttered the boys excitedly.

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Hiccup swallowed hard. He happened to know considerably more about dragons than anybody else there. Ever since he was a small boy, he'd been fascinated by the creatures. He'd spent hour after long hour dragon watching in secret. (Dragon-spotters were thought to be geeks and nerds, hence the need for secrecy.) And what Hiccup had learned about dragons told him that walking into a cave with three thousand dragons in it was an act of madness.

No one else seemed too concerned, however.

"In a few minutes I want you to take one of these baskets and start climbing the cliff," commanded Gobber the Belch. "Once you are at the cave entrance, you are on your own. I am too large to squeeze my way into the tunnels that lead to the Dragon Nursery. You will enter the cave QUIETLY– and that means you too, Wartihog, unless you want to become the first spring meal for three thousand hungry dragons, HA

HA HA HA!"

Gobber laughed heartily at his little joke, then continued. "Dragons this size are normally fairly harmless to man, but in these numbers they will set upon you like piranhas. There'd be nothing left of even a fatso like you, Wartihog – just a pile of bones

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and your helmet. HA HA HA HA! So . . . you will walk QUIETLY through the cave and each boy will steal ONE sleeping dragon. Lift the dragon GENTLY from the rock and place it in your basket. Any questions so far?"

Nobody had any questions.

"In the unlikely event that you DO wake the dragons – and you would have to be IDIOTICALLY STUPID to do so – run like thunder for the entrance to the cave. Dragons do not like cold weather and the snow will probably stop them in their tracks."

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Probably?thought Hiccup. Oh, well,that's reassuring.

"I suggest that you spend a little time choosing your dragon. It is important to get one the correct size. This will be the dragon that hunts fish for you, and pulls down deer for you. You will catch the dragon that will carry you into battle later on, when you are much older and a Warrior of the Tribe. But, nonetheless, you want an impressive animal, so a rough guide would be, choose the biggest creature that will fit into your basket. Don't linger for TOO long in there –"

Linger??? thought Hiccup. In a cave full of three thousand sleeping DRAGONS?

"I need not tell you," Gobber continued cheerfully, "that if you return to this spot withouta dragon, it is hardly worth coming back at all. Anybody who FAILS this task will be put into immediate exile. The Hairy Hooligan Tribe has no use for FAILURES. Only the strong can belong."

Unhappily, Hiccup looked round at the distant horizon. Nothing but snow and sea as far as the eye could see. Exile didn't look too promising, either.

"RIGHT," said Gobber briskly. "Each boy take a basket to put their dragon in and we'll get going."

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The boys rushed to get their baskets, chattering happily and excitedly.

"I'm going to get one of those Monstrous Nightmare ones with the extra-extendable claws. They're really scary," boasted Snotlout.

"Oh shut up, Snotlout, you can't," said Speedi-fist. "Only Hiccup can have a Monstrous Nightmare, you have to be the son of a chief." Hiccup's father was Stoick the Vast, the fearsome chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe.

"HIC-CUP?" sneered Snotlout. "If he's as useless at this as he is at Bashyball, we'll be lucky if he even gets one of the Basic Browns."

The Basic Brown was the most common type of dragon, a serviceable beast but without much glamour.

"SHUDDUP AND GET INTO LINE YOU MISERABLE TADPOLES!" yelled Gobber the Belch.

The boys scrambled into their places, baskets on their backs, and stood to attention. Gobber walked along the line, lighting the torch that each boy held in front of him from the great flare in his hand.

"IN HALF AN HOUR'S TIME YOU WILL BE A VIKING WARRIOR. WITH YOUR FAITHFUL SERPENT AT YOUR SIDE ...

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[ VIKING DRAGONS AND THEIR EGGS

THE COMMON OR GARDEN and THE BASIC BROWN

The Common or Garden and the Basic Brown are so similar that they can Be dealt with together. These are themost familiar breeds – theones we instantly think of whenwe say "dragons." pr They are poor hunters, but they are easy to train. These dragons are the best kind for familypets, although, as with a lion or a tiger, they should never he left unsupervised with very young children.

STATISTICS

COLORS: Green and yellow, all shades of brown

ARMED WITH :Basic teeth and claws 3

DEFENSES :Prickly spines 2

RADAR :None 0

POISON: None 0

HUNTING ABDLITY: Lethargic hunters 3

SPEED: Swift inretreat 8

FEAR AND FIGHT FACTOR: good when angry 4

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... OR BREAKFASTING WITH WODEN INVALHALLA WITH DRAGONS' TEETH IN YOUR BOTTOM!" screamed Gobber with horrible enthusiasm. :

"DEATH OR GLORY!"yelled Gobber.

"DEATH OR GLORY!"yelled eight boys back at him fanatically.

Death,thought Hiccup and Fishlegs, sadly.

Gobber paused dramatically, with the horn to his lips.

I think this could possibly be the worst moment of my life SO FAR,thought Hiccup to himself as he waited for the blast of the horn. And if they shout much louder, we're going to wake up those dragons before we evenSTART.

"PARRRRRRRRRP!"

Gobber blew the horn.

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[Image: Gobber and Hiccup]

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Chapter 2 INSIDE THE DRAGON NURSERY

You have probably guessed by now that Hiccup was not your natural Viking Hero.

For a start, he didn't LOOK like a Hero. Somebody like Snotlout, for instance, was tall,muscley, covered in skeleton, tattoos, and already had the beginnings of a small moustache. This consisted of a few straggly yellow hairs clinging to his upper lip and was deeply unpleasant to look at, but still impressively manly for a boy not yet thirteen.

Hiccup was on the small side and had the kind of face that was almost entirely un-

memorable. He DID have

Heroic Hair, which was a very bright

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red and stood up vertically however much you tried to wet it down with seawater. But nobody ever saw that because it was hidden under his helmet most of the time.

You would NEVER have picked Hiccup out of those ten boys to be the Hero of this story.

Snotlout was good at everything and a natural leader. Dogsbreath was as tall as his father and could do amusing things like farting to the tune of the Berk national anthem.

Hiccup was just absolutely average, the kind of unremarkable, skinny, freckled boy who was easy to overlook in a crowd.

So, when Gobber blew the horn and moved out of sight to find a comfortable rock to sit on and eat his mussel-and-tomato sandwich, Snotlout pushed Hiccup out of the way and took charge.

"Okay, listen up, boys," he whispered in a menacing fashion. "I'M in charge, not the Useless. And

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anybody who objects gets a knuckle sandwich from Dogsbreath the Duhbrain."

"Ugh," grunted Dogsbreath, pounding his fists together in happy excitement. Dogsbreath was Snotlout's chief sidekick and a great, big gorilla of a boy.

"Bash him, Dogsbreath, to show what I mean ..."

Dogsbreath was delighted to oblige. He gave Hiccup a shove that sent him sprawling headfirst into the snow, then ground his face in it.

"Pay attention!" hissed Snotlout. The boys dragged their eyes away from Dogsbreath and Hiccup and paid attention. "Rope yourselves together. The best climber should go first..."

"Well, that's YOU of course, Snotlout," said Fishlegs. "You're the best at everything, aren't you?"

Snotlout looked at Fishlegs suspiciously. It was difficult to tell whether Fishlegs was laughing at him or not, because of his squint.

"That's right, Fishlegs," said Snotlout. "I AM." And, just in case he hadbeen laughing at him: "Bash him, Dogsbreath!"

While Dogsbreath pushed Fishlegs down to join Hiccup in the snow, everybody started roping themselves together.

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Hiccup and Fishlegs were the last to be tied on, just behind a flushed and triumphant Dogsbreath.

"Oh, brilliant," muttered Fishlegs. "I'm about to enter a cave full of man-eating reptiles tied up to eight complete maniacs."

"If we. getto the cave ..." said Hiccup nervously, looking up at the sheer black cliff.

Hiccup put the lighted torch between his teeth to leave his hands free, and started climbing after the others.

It was a perilous climb. The rocks were slippery with snow and the other boys were thoroughly overexcited, making the ascent far too quickly. At one point Clueless missed his footing and fell – luckily onto Dogs-breath, who caught him by the back of the trousers and heaved him back on to the rock again, before he brought the whole lot of them down.

When they finally made it to the mouth of the cave, Hiccup looked down briefly at the sea pounding the rocks way below, and swallowed very hard . . .

"Untie the ropes!" ordered Snotlout, his eyes popping with excitement at the thought of the dangers to come. "Hiccup goes into the cave first because

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HEis the son of the Chief. ..." He sneered. "And, if any of the dragons ARE awake, he'll be the first to know about it! Once we're in the cave, it's every man for himself. Only the strong can belong. ..."

Although he wasn't your usual mindless thug of a Hooligan, Hiccup wasn't a wimp, either. Being frightened is not the same as being a coward. Maybe he wasas brave as anyone else there, because he went to catch a dragon despiteknowing what dragons are like. And, when he had climbed perilously to the mouth of the cave and had found that inside there was a long, twisty tunnel, he stillwent down it, despite not being too keen on long, twisty tunnels with dragons at the end of them.

The tunnel was dripping and clammy. At times it was high enough for the boys to walk upright. Then it would close down into narrow, claustrophobic holes that the boys could only just squeeze through, squirming on their stomachs, with the flares held in their mouths.

After ten long minutes of walking and crawling into the heart of the cliff, the stench of dragon – a salty stink of seaweed and old mackerel heads – got stronger and stronger, until finally it became

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unbearable and the tunnel opened out into an enormous cavern.

The cavern was full of more dragons than Hiccup could ever have imagined existed.

They were every possible color and size, and they included all the species that Hiccup had heard of, and quite a few more that he hadn't.

Hiccup started sweating as he looked around him at pile after pile of the animals, draped over every available surface; even hanging upside down from the roof like giant bats. They were all fast asleep, and most of them were snoring in unison. This was a sound so loud and so deep that it seemed to penetrate right into Hiccup's body and vibrate around his soft insides, churning his stomach and bowels, and forcing his heart to beat at the same slow dragon pulse.

If one, just one,of these countless creatures were to wake up, it would raise the alarm to the others and the boys would meet a horrible death. Hiccup had once seen a deer that had wandered too close to Wild Dragon Cliff torn to pieces in a matter of minutes ...

Hiccup closed his eyes. "I will NOT think about it," he said to himself. "I WILL NOT."

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None of the other boys were thinking about it.

Ignorance is very useful in such circumstances. Their eyes were popping with excitement as they walked through the cave, hands over their noses to keep out the revolting smell, looking for the biggest dragon they could find that would fit in their basket.

They left the torches in a pile at the entrance. The cavern was already well-lit by the Glowworms – huge, sluggish animals dotted here and there that shone with a steady yet dim fluorescence, like a low-watt light bulb. And the Flamehuffers gave off extra little bursts of light that flickered on and off as they breathed in and out.

Predictably, most of the boys headed toward the plug-uglies of the dragon world.

Snotlout made a big fuss about grabbing a vicious-looking Monstrous Nightmare, smiling nastily at Hiccup as he did so. Snotlout was the son of Baggy-bum the Beerbelly, Stoick the Vast's younger brother. He was intending to get rid of Hiccup sometime in the future so that he, Snotlout, would become Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. And a gruesome and terrifying Chief, as Snotlout meant to be, would need a properly awesome dragon.

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Wartihog and Dogsbreath got into a loudly whispered fight over a Gronckle, a heavily-armored brute with fangs like kitchen knives sticking out in such numbers that it couldn't keep its mouth shut. Dogsbreath won, then managed to drop it as he was trying to bundle it into his basket. The weaponry of the beast made a horribly loud clatter as it landed on the floor of the cavern.

The Gronckle opened its evil, crocodile eyes.

Everybody held their breath.

The Gronckle stared ahead. It was difficult to tell from its blank expression whether it was awake or fast asleep. Hiccup realized, in an agony of suspense, that the gossamer-thin third eyelid was still down.

And there it stayed for a few heart-stopping moments, until. . .

It slowly closed its upper eyelids again.

Amazingly, not one of the other dragons woke up. A few grumbled groggily before making themselves comfy again. But most were in such a stupor that they barely even stirred.

Hiccup let out his breath. Maybe these dragons were so dead to the world that nothingwould wake them from their slumber.

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[VIKING DRAGONS and THEIR EGGS

GRONCKLE

The Gronckle is the plug-ugly 0f the dragon world. But what it lacks in looks, it makes up for on the battlefield. They can

be slow and, dare I say it, stupid ~ and sometimes they get so fat that

they are unable to take off.They are also prone to dragon acne.

STATISTICS

COLORS: Snot green, bogey beige, pooey brown. ARMED WITH: All the best in dragon weaponry. Fangs like daggers, extra spike on neck, hallwith spikes on end of tail 8

DEFENSES: Super-thick, flame-proofand scratch-proof skin 9

RADAR: None 0

POISON: None 0

HUNTING ABILITY: Gronckles are slow to maneuver in the air 0

SPEED: See above 5

FEAR AND FIGHT FACTOR: Terrifying inaction 9]

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He swallowed hard, muttered a prayer to Loki, the patron saint of sneaky exploits, and edged forward cautiously to grab the most unconscious-looking dragon, so he could get out of this nightmare as fast as possible.

It is a little-known fact that dragons grow colder the deeper they sleep.

It is even possible for dragons to go into a sleep coma in which they are icy cold, with no obvious pulse, or breath, or heartbeat. They can stay in this state for centuries, and only a highly skilled expert can tell from looking at them if they are alive or dead.

But a dragon who is awake or lightly sleeping is very warm indeed, like bread that has just come out of the oven.

Hiccup found one that was about the right size and fairly cool to the touch and maneuvered it into his basket as quickly and carefully as he could. It was a very basic Basic Brown, but at that moment Hiccup could not have cared less. Even though it was barely half-grown, it was surprisingly heavy.

"I DID it, I DID it, I DID it!" he chanted happily

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to himself. At least he wasn't going to be the only boy in the class who didn't have a dragon. Everybody seemed to have gotten themselves one by now and they were all making their way quietly toward the exit. Everybody, that was, except for . . .

Fishlegs, who was already covered in a bright red, itchy rash, and was at that very moment approaching a pile of knottily entangled Nadders on very loud tiptoes.

Fishlegs was even worse at burglary than Dogs-breath.

Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks. "Don't do it, Fishlegs – PLEASE don't do it!" he whispered.

But Fishlegs was fed up with Snotlout's taunting and of being sneered at and jeered at. He was going to get himself a really cool dragon that all the other boys would respect.

Squinting so hard he could barely see the pile of dragons, his eyes streaming, and scratching himself violently, Fishlegs reached slowly toward the bottom-most dragon, took one leg in his hand, and gently . .. yanked.

The entire pile came crashing down in a furious

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tangle of limbs and wings and ears. Every boy in the cavern gave a horrified gasp.

Most of the Nadders snapped crossly at each other before settling back down to sleep.

One brute bigger than the others opened his eyes and blinked a few times.

Hiccup noted, with great relief, that the third eyelid was still down.

The boys waited for the eyes to close.

And then Fishlegs sneezed.

Four GIGANTIC sneezes that went echoing and bouncing off the cavern walls.

The big Nadder stared sightlessly ahead, frozen like a dragon statue.

But very faintly, an ominous purring noise began in his throat.

And very slowly . . .

. . . the third eyelid slid upward.

"Uh-oh," whispered Hiccup.

The Nadder's head suddenly whipped round to face Fishlegs, its yellow cat's eyes snapping into focus on the boy. It unfolded its wings to their greatest extent and stealthily advanced, like a panther about to

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spring. It opened its mouth wide enough to show the forked dragon tongue and ...

"R-R-R-U-U-U-U-U-N-N-N!" shouted Hiccup, grabbing Fishlegs's arm and dragging him away.

The boys ran for the exit tunnel. Fishlegs and Hiccup were the last to get there.

There was no time to pick up the torches, so they were running in the pitch dark. The basket with the Basic Brown dragon in it was bumping on Hiccup's back.

They had two minutes' start on the dragons because it took a while for the first dragon to wake everybody else up. But Hiccup could hear a furious roaring and flapping as the dragons started to pour into the tunnel after the boys.

He ran a little faster.

The dragons could move faster than the boys because they could see better in the dark, but they were held up when the tunnel got smaller, and they had to fold their wings up to squirm through.

"I. . . haven't. . . got. . . a . . . dragon," panted Fishlegs, a couple of paces behind Hiccup.

"That," said Hiccup, as he scrambled frantically on his elbows through a narrow bit, "is the LEAST ... ow... of our problems. They're gaining on us!"

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"No ... dragon," repeated Fishlegs stubbornly.

"Oh, for THOR'S SAKE," snapped Hiccup.

He thrust his basket into Fishlegs's arms and grabbed the empty one from Fishlegs's back. "Have MINE, then. Wait here."

And Hiccup turned and went back through the narrow bit even though the roaring was getting louder and closer by the second.

"WHAT... ARE ,.. YOU ,,. DOING???" screamed Fishlegs, frantically dancing up and down on the spot.

Hiccup came back through the hole again precious moments later. Fishlegs grabbed hold of an arm to help haul him through.

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They could hear a horrible snuffling that sounded as if the nose of a dragon had entered the other end of the hole. Hiccup bunged a rock at it and it squealed indignantly.

They turned a corner and suddenly they could see light from outside at the end of the final tunnel.

Fishlegs went first, but, just as Hiccup was kneeling down to follow, a dragon pounced on him with a flap and a shriek. Hiccup hit it and it fell back enough for him to crawl toward the light. Another dragon – or maybe the same one – sank its fangs into Hiccup's calf. He was so desperate to get out he dragged the animal through with him.

As soon as Hiccup's head and shoulders were through into the light, there was Gobber. He grabbed Hiccup under the armpits and hauled him out, dragons pouring after him.

"JUMP!" yelled Gobber, as he stunned a dragon with one blow of his mighty fist.

"What do you mean,JUMP??" Hiccup hesitated as he looked down at the dizzying drop into the sea.

"No time to climb down," panted Gobber, banging a couple of dragons' heads together, and bouncing three more off his gigantic belly. "JUMP!!!"

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Hiccup closed his eyes and leaped off the cliff.

As he plunged through the air, the dragon that was attached to his leg released its jaws with a squawk of alarm and flew off.

Hiccup was traveling at such speed by the time he hit the water that it didn't feel like water at all, more like something hard and painful, and so cold that he nearly passed out.

He spluttered to the surface, amazed to find that he didn't appear to be dead, and was immediately drenched by the gigantic splash of Gobber the Belch landing a couple of feet away from him.

Shrieking furiously, the dragons swarmed out of the cave and dive-bombed the floating Vikings.

Hiccup pulled his helmet as far down as it would go. There were horrible scraping sounds as dragons' talons raked across the metal. Another one landed, hissing, on the water right in front of Hiccup's face. It took off again with a screech when it felt how cold the sea was. The dragons didn't like flying through the snow and, with relief, Hiccup watched as they flew back to scream terrible dragon insults in Dragonese from the warmth of the cave entrance.

Gobber started to pull the boys out of the sea

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and onto the rocks. Viking boys are strong swimmers, but it is difficult to keep afloat when you have a basket full of trapped, terrified dragons on your back. Hiccup was the last to be saved – just in time, as the cold was beginning to put him to sleep.

Well, at least that wasn't DEATH,thought Hiccup as Gobber grabbed him by the neck to rescue him, nearly drowning him again in the process – but it certainly wasn't GLORY, either.

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Chapter 3 HEROES OR EXILES

The boys scrambled over the slimy pebbles at the edge of the beach and back up Madman's Gully, the gorge they had climbed through a couple of hours before. This was a narrow crack in the cliffs filled with large rocks. They tried to move as quickly as they could, but this is difficult when you are slipping and sliding over huge stones covered in ice, and they made painfully slow progress.

A dragon that hadn'tbeen put off by the snow came shrieking down into the gorge. He landed on Wartihog's back and started savaging him, sinking his fangs into Wartihog's shoulder and ripping red lines into his arms. Gobber bashed the dragon on the nose with the handle of his axe, and the dragon let go and flapped away.

But a whole wave of dragons replaced him, pouring into the canyon with awful, rasping cries, fire shooting from their nostrils and melting the snow before them, talons spread wickedly as they swooped downward.

Gobber stood, legs wide apart, and whirled his big, double-headed axe. He threw back his great,

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hairy head and yelled a terrible primeval yell, that echoed down the sides of the gorge and made the hairs on the back of Hiccup's neck stick straight up like the spines on a sea urchin.

Individually, dragons tend to have a healthy sense of self-preservation, but they are braver when they hunt in packs. They knew now that they had the advantage of massive numbers, so they didn't check their flying for an instant. They just kept on coming.

Gobber let go of the axe.

Spinning end to end, the axe soared up through the softly falling snow. It hit the biggest dragon of the lot, killing him instantly, and then kept on going, landing in a snow-drift hundreds of feet away and disappearing.

This made the rest of the dragons think a bit. Some of them scrambled over each other in their haste to fly away, yelping like dogs. The others came to

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a halt, hovering uncertainly, screaming defiance but keeping their distance.

"Waste of a good axe," grunted Gobber. "Keep going, boys, they could come back!"

Hiccup needed no encouragement to keep going. As soon as he got out of the gorge and onto the marshy land behind it, he broke into a stumbling run, every now and then falling flat on his face in the snow.

Some time later, when Gobber reckoned they were a safe distance from Wild Dragon Cliff, he yelled at the boys to stop.

Very carefully he counted heads again, to check he hadn't lost anybody. Gobber had spent an unpleasant ten minutes standing at the mouth of the dragons' cave wondering why there was such a terrible racket and what he was going to say to Stoick the Vast if he lost his precious son and heir for good.

Something Tactful and Sensitive, he supposed, but Tact and Sensitivity were not Gobber's strong points, and he took the first five minutes to come up with "Hiccup copped it. SORRY," and then spent the second five minutes tearing his beard out.

Consequently, although secretly mightily relieved, he was not in a Good Mood and, as soon as