must have played this game before! But you
won’t be expecting… that…’
BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
BONG! BONG!
‘Oh!’ exclaimed the Hogfly in surprise, ‘you were
expecting that!’
‘Die, you fat little lapdragon, die!’ hissed the
Sand-Sharks, shooting even more darts at the Hogfly,
and of course that had absolutely no effect on the
Hogfly whatsoever, and the anger of the Sand-Sharks
led them to lose their heads, as anger often does, and
they shot at him recklessly, getting too close to each
other. The Vampire Spydragon watched, its red eyes
mesmerised.
With the Vampire Spydragon’s attention on the
battle, Hiccup squirmed around to the other side
of it. He gently picked up the rope trailing from the
Spydragon’s tail, and tied it around a gigantic rock
covered in big fat mussels. He tied it with the firmest
knot he could remember, which was the Unbreakable
Fast Reef Tough Knot, a knot his father had taught him
long ago.
How strange a universe is the human mind.
Hiccup couldn’t remember he had a father, but he
could remember the Unbreakable Fast Reef Tough
Knot.
He had just tied the last finishing touches to the
knot, when the Vampire Spydragon slo-o-owly turned
his head away from the riveting spectacle of the Hogfly
and back to the boat again.
Heart pounding, stomach churning, Hiccup
crawled away as fast as he possibly could in the other
direction, his forearm roaring with pain.
The Vampire Spydragon looked at the boat,
realised his teeth were not there, and swivelled round
to see Hiccup who had frozen still as a statue, in the
pathetic hope that the Spydragon would mistake him
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for a rock with a bit of seaweed on the top.
The sand-and-seaweed disguise wasn’t very
effective, for the Vampire Spydragon recognised him
immediately. The eyes of the Vampire Spydragon
glowed red…
With a spine-chilling scream, the Vampire
Spydragon leaped towards Hiccup, claws out, fangs
down, muscles rippling with impressive athletic power.
Hiccup screamed, and scrambled backwards, and
for one heartstopping moment it looked like he wasn’t
far enough away…
But in mid-leap, the Spydragon got to the end of
the rope and it yanked him back in the nick of time so
that his jaws clanged shut on thin air, inches away from
Hiccup’s nose. Hiccup was so close to having his head
bitten off that he actually smelled the bad breath of the
creature as he snapped his mighty jaws shut.
‘Yowwwwwww!’ screeched the Vampire
Spydragon in agony, for the rope tied round the rock
pulled on his tail in the most painful way, and having
your tail pulled, as everyone knows, is extremely
uncomfortable as well as undignified.
‘Yowwwww!’ screeched the Vampire Spydragon
again.
And then the Vampire Spydragon went mad.
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Bucking this way and that, it tried to get away,
and only succeeded in entangling itself further. It
tore at the rope, it heaved in all directions with all its
strength, it fought so hard that despite the pain in its
tail it actually managed to move the stone a couple of
inches. But the Unbreakable Fast Reef Tough Knot
held fast.
This is where every Viking father since the dawn
of time points out the importance of knowing your
knots properly. ‘There will come a time,’ says the Viking
father, ‘when you will thank your lucky stars that you
have used an Unbreakable Fast Reef Tough Knot rather
than a Slippy Slippy Slip Knot.’
And it is absolutely true, that when you have
tied up a Vampire Spydragon by its tail to a rock, it is
extremely important to use the right kind of knot.
However, it would be a better idea not to tie one
up in the first place, and Hiccup was about to find out
why. In fact, he was about to find out something new
about Vampire Spydragons.
A rather strange expression came over the
Vampire Spydragon’s face, as if it were making some
sort of momentous decision. And then it pulled forward
on the rock with the utmost of its strength, screwed up
its horrible bat-face, and crossed its red glowing eyes,
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so fierce was its concentration.
Uh-oh, thought Hiccup, looking over his shoulder
as he half-hopped, half crawled across the sand. I’ve
seen that expression before on other dragons. It’s dumping
its tail. I didn’t know a Vampire Spydragon could do
that…
The Vampire Spydragon was indeed dumping its
tail.
A few dragons have this ability, but they only use
it in very extreme circumstances, for most creatures are
very fond of their tails and will hang on to them except
in the most dire emergency.
The Vampire Spydragon’s long curly tail detached
itself from the rear end of the Vampire Spydragon, and
fell into the sand.
The Vampire Spydragon gave an evil smile. It was
no longer attached to his tail, so it was also no longer
attached to the rock.
It was free.
Free to get the horrible little tooth-burglar in its
jaws and…
It bounded forward like a great black tiger,
muscles gleaming, screaming with mad fury, head down
low, ready to pounce.
Oh no…
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Oh no, wept Hiccup, hearing the soft,
bounding footsteps behind him, coming
nearer, ever nearer. Hiccup staggered on to his
one good foot and hopped down the beach as
fast as he could, but let me tell you, it is quite hard
to travel very quickly down a wet soggy beach when
you can only hop on one leg.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…
‘Hogfly, help!’ screamed the
hopping Hiccup.
The Hogfly was already at the Vampire Spydragon’s
shoulder, buzzing with concern. ‘Excuse me, Mr Scary
Bat-Dragon, but I think you might have dropped
something?’ squeaked the Hogfly, helpfully pointing his
trotter back to the abandoned tail.
The Vampire Spydragon ignored the polite
question of the Hogfly, and sprang after the hopping
Hiccup, in great tigerish leaps, dripping jaws wide
open…
The Hogfly flapped after him, shouting,
‘You’ve forgotten your tail, Mr Bat-Dragon! You’ve
forgotten your tail!’ as loud as he could, in case the
poor Bat-Dragon was deaf as well as forgetful. The
obsessed Sand-Sharks were still sending a volley of
darts in the Hogfly’s direction, all of which sprang back
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off his bafflingly invulnerable round-ness like stones
thrown at a roof.
BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
BONG-ZING!
The Vampire Spy
dragon stopped dead, mid-leap
with a startled exclamation of rage as one of the darts
rebounded off the helpful Hogfly BONG-ZING! and
stuck into the Spydragon’s back leg. ‘Yowwwww!’
yelled the Spydragon. The Hogfly caught up with the
Spydragon, panting.
‘That’s right, sir, it’s just over there!’ squeaked
the Hogfly, pointing back with all four trotters at the
sad sight of the dropped tail.
But the Vampire Spydragon didn’t appear to be
listening.
BONG-ZING! BONG-ZING! Two more darts
bounced off the Hogfly and stuck quivering into the
bottom of the Spydragon, a bottom that was still
feeling rather sensitive after the whole tail-pulling and
tail-dumping incident.
‘YARRROOOOOOOOOOO!’ squealed the
Vampire Spydragon, jumping right into the air with all
four legs outstretched. It stared down in disbelief at
the darts. It could already feel its leg and its bottom
going numb.
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It forgot about Hiccup.
Its red eyes glowed.
It stretched open its mighty
jaws, bared those dripping fangs,
and with a mighty scream it
turned and charged at the
Sand-Sharks.
With screams of alarm,
the attacking Sand-Sharks
hurriedly retreated, flying
up and into the air, firing
darts over their shoulders
at the Vampire Spydragon
as they went. Ten, twenty
darts sank into the Vampire
Spydragon but still it
charged, catching up with
and ruthlessly eliminating
any Sand-Shark it could
reach.
It wasn’t until there
were thirty darts buried in
its skin that the Spydragon
finally stopped, shivered a
couple of times, and keeled
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over in the sand,
heavily asleep.
The Sand-Sharks
disappeared into the sky, shrieking furiously.
All that remained on the beach were the sleeping
Vampire Spydragon, the still bodies of about seven or
eight Sand-Sharks, the buzzing little Hogfly wondering
where everyone had gone, and Hiccup Horrendous
Haddock the Third, covered with sand and wearing a
very silly bit of seaweed on his head for a hat.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Hiccup. ‘I don’t believe
this… have we won?’
It appeared that they had.
‘We’ve won!’ said Hiccup, punching the air in
triumph. ‘We’ve won, Hogfly, we’ve won!’
‘Have we?’ said the Hogfly, uncertainly, and
slowly, slowly deflating, and landing on Hiccup’s
shoulder.
‘I’m quite surprised,’ admitted the Hogfly,
‘because the others seemed to be doing quite well…’
‘I’m quite surprised too,’ said Hiccup, making a
fuss of the Hogfly by tickling him on the tummy. ‘All
your brilliant “it” playing was ever so helpful.’
Hiccup was impressed
with himself.
He had defeated all of those Sand-Sharks! And a
Vampire Spydragon! All on his own with only a Hogfly
to help him!
Maybe he really was the Hero that this
Wodensfang said he was.
Maybe, wounded and unarmed and helpless as he
was, he could do this.
But then his momentary joy evaporated as fast as
the deflation of a helpful Hogfly.
For behind the departing shapes of the
Sand-Sharks, now as small as seagulls as they flew away
through the fog and the smoke, the mist had thinned.
Hiccup could see right through to Murderous
Island for the first time, and what he saw made his
stomach flip over queasily, like it was doing somersaults
on the deck of a ship at sea.
Suddenly Hiccup understood what the
Wodensfang had been trying to tell him. These
Sand-Sharks, this Vampire Spydragon, they were just
minor problems.
The REAL PROBLEM lay ahead.
Murderous Island had mountains that pointed
straight up to the sky like witch’s fingers, and that
island was teeming with dragons.
Hiccup had never seen so many dragons.
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There were thousands and thousands and
thousands of them, smothering the island in such thick
dense numbers that you could barely see the rock
beneath.
Dawn was breaking, so the dragons were
beginning to wake up, rising above the mountains in
great choking clouds, wheeling, and screeching and
fighting and hovering, like a swarm of angry locusts.
With the same ease with which he could speak
Dragonese despite not knowing who he was, Hiccup
found that he could identify the different species
of dragon from their wing shapes, and their cries,
and their ominous outlines, and they were the most
terrifying species in the Archipelago.
They were like a vision from a nightmare.
Fire Starters, Breathquenchers and Poison
Darters. Brain Pickers, Tongue-twisters and
Flamehuffers with their long tongues lolling
out, Rhinobacks, Razorwings, Riproarers and
Raptortongues, Sabre-Tooth Driver Dragons and
Polar-serpents and Driller-Dragons and Dreaders and
Darkbreathers and…
There was such a bewildering number of
dangerous and violent species, that it was almost
impossible to take in.
Oh for Thor’s sake, weren’t those Snubbed Nose
Hellsteethers? And Savagers… and… Triple-Headed
Rage-blasts… and the long, terrifying necks of Thor’s
Thunderers, shooting lightning from their nostrils…
And… Oh, by the Great Curly Whiskers and
Hairy Armpits of the Mighty God Thor!
Wasn’t that the gigantic form of a
Woden’s Nightmare, surfacing
in the waters in front
of the island? Woden’s Nightmares were many-eyed
giants that lived in the dark and wild depths of the
Open Ocean and they never came this far into the
inland seas. Their eyes shot lasers and they were, as far
as Hiccup knew, invincible…
All around the great grim shape of the Woden’s
Nightmare in the water, were the dreaded sight of the
serrated fins of Sharkworms…
Hiccup could see the faint outlines of other
islands in the Archipelago way in the distance, all of
them in flames, smoking like they were volcanoes, and
over every island there hung a cloud of more
dragons, more and more and more
of them, stretching on
forever…
Oh for Thor’s sake.
Every single word the Wodensfang had said was
true. This was the Dragon Rebellion. This was the last
day of Doomsday.
Hiccup may have just won a victory over a few
Sand-Sharks and a Vampire Spydragon.
But the Sand-Sharks were flying back to the
Murderous Mountains, back to the Dragon Furious,
back to the Dragon Rebellion,
and they would tell this
Dragon Furious where Hiccup was.
And the Dragon Furious wouldn’t send
Sand-Sharks to get Hiccup this time, or even a Vampire
Spydragon.
No, he would send
Tongue-twisters, Gorebreathers, Brainpickers – all
the most fearsome dragons in his dragon army, and
they would fly across the little strait of the sea to hunt
for Hiccup, and on an island this small there would be
nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to, and no way for a
Hiccup, a Hogfly and an unconscious Wodensfang to
fight back.
What had the Wodensfang said he had to do?
Hiccup tried to think back to the Wodensfang’s
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story. It had been a little difficult to take in, there had
been so much going on at the time…
Hiccup had to get to an island called Tomorrow.
He had to be crowned King instead of somebody
called Alvin.
And then he had to persuade this Dragon Furious
to call off the Dragon Rebellion.
In one day.
And he didn’t have a BOAT, or any
LOST THINGS, or any WEAPONS.
The Wodensfang was right.
This was a problem.
4. THE LARGER PROBLEM
Meanwhile, lying half-submerged in the waters of
Wrecker’s Bay, just to the north of the Island of
Tomorrow, there was the most gigantic dragon.
The Dragon was very, very still, as if
War had turned him into a mountainside, a
volcano perhaps, for great yellow clouds
of sulphurous steam rose from his
battle-scarred body, gouged and scraped
with many wounds and burn-marks.
A great smoking mountain, he was. Nothing on him
moved, not a whisker, not a muscle, not a ripple on his
skin, not even a beating heart, to show he was alive and
not made out of rock, just that steady smoking.
But what was that, up at the top of the
Dragon-mountain? A crack splitting in the rock… The
Dragon was opening his eyelids, just a tiny, tiny sliver,
and you could see the buried fire in the eyes that lay
beneath, seething and raging like lava in a hole.
War had changed this Dragon, and not for the
better.
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 4