Hiccup was alive, though she would rather have died
than admit it.
‘And then,’ continued Fishlegs in an even smaller
voice, ‘even if he is alive, he can’t land on Tomorrow
because the Dragon Guardians are guarding it, and
he can’t be made King because Alvin has all the Lost
Things…’
‘Come on, Fishlegs, has Hiccup taught you
NOTHING?’ replied Camicazi briskly. ‘There is no
such thing as im-possible, only im-probable.’
She rubbed her dirty nose on her sleeve.
‘Besides, of course he isn’t dead. He is our Hero,
so he cannot be dead. And we cannot give up. He
would not give up on us, would he?
‘I remember what Hiccup said when
he was tied up in chains, rescuing me
from the Witch: “I will NEVER give
up fighting you even though it
is too late…” he said, “even
though all is lost… even
though it is impossible…
never never never!”’ And
Camicazi punched the
air, copying Hiccup, just as Stoick had done earlier.
‘Windwalker,’ she continued, asking the shaggy, gentle
riding-dragon for the twenty-somethingth time, ‘are you
sure you can’t get a scent of him? Not even the faintest
little whiff?’
The Windwalker was so tired that he kept on
accidentally falling asleep on the wing, and dropping
like a stone for thirty feet or so before Camicazi
hollered at him to wake up and he had to put his wings
out hurriedly to break his fall. He was just nodding
off again, but at Camicazi’s question, he opened his
drooping eyelids, and shook his shaggy head, and a tear
crept down his cheek.
So imagine the disbelieving excitement of
the panicked, terrified, weary Companions of the
Dragonmark, when all at once the Deadly Shadow’s
six eyes spotted something on the rocking water, and
for one sleep-crazed second he thought it was a lobster
pot, but no, it was a boat!
‘It’s Hiccup!’ said Camicazi, raising her head at
the Deadly Shadow’s instant joyful snort. ‘It’s Hiccup!
He’s alive!’
Fishlegs couldn’t believe it. ‘Are you sure? I mean,
Camicazi, are you really sure?’
‘Yes! Yes!’
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And the Deadly Shadow and the Stormfly
trumpeted with joy, and the Windwalker did a happy
little barrel roll in the air in his excitement.
But there wasn’t much time for celebration, as
the very next moment, they spotted the grisly little
army of dragons flying swiftly towards the tiny boat
from the direction of the Murderous Mountains.
‘Tongue-twisters!’ said Fishlegs in horror.
‘Hellsteethers… Brainpickers… Razorwings… that is
one nasty search party…’
‘They must have been sent by the Dragon Furious
to kill the person in that boat!’ shouted
Camicazi, ‘which just proves it’s Hiccup!
Don’t worry, Fishlegs, we’re closer than
they are, we can just swoop in and save
him before they get there…
‘COMPANIONS OF THE
DRAGONMARK TO THE RESCUE!’
One of the great advantages of
the Deadly Shadow
is his ability to
camouflage
himself so
effectively that he
becomes invisible.
All they had to do now was to pick Hiccup up off the
boat, and put him on the back of the Deadly Shadow,
and then they could all fade into nothingness, right in
front of the enemy’s eyes.
Imagine you have been searching, all night, for
someone you know in your heart of hearts cannot be
found… the only Hero who can change the course of
history… the Hero who also happens to be your Hero,
your best friend Hiccup… And suddenly, when you
have lost all hope, you find he is alive!
No wonder they went a little crazy as they
swooped down to save him.
‘Hiccup!’ roared Camicazi and Fishlegs in
cracked, broken voices, wild with excitement, as the
Deadly Shadow dived.
‘Hiccup! Hiccup! Hiccup!’ called Innocence,
Arrogance and Patience, and the three heads of the
Deadly Shadow shot triumphant bolts of lightning in
three directions over Hiccup’s head, so thrilled were
they to have found the boy at last.
But as the Deadly Shadow put out helpful talons
to pluck Hiccup up to safety…
Hiccup threw himself into the bottom of the
boat.
‘What IS he doing?’ said Camicazi, peering down
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in puzzlement. ‘Oh my goodness, he looks even more
terrible than when we saw him last time, I do hope he’s
not badly wounded…’ And then: ‘That is the MOST
unseaworthy boat I think I have ever seen… Dive a bit
more slowly, Shadow, and sort of hover above him, so
he can see who we are…’
So the Deadly Shadow dived slower this time,
and Camicazi and Fishlegs shouted down madly, ‘It’s
us, Hiccup, us!’ with Camicazi waving her sword in a
friendly welcoming fashion, but it appeared to make no
difference, and on the third dive, the badly wounded
Hiccup whacked the Deadly Shadow very hard on the
leg, and peppered them with Sand-Shark darts.
‘OW!’ yelled Arrogance as one of the darts
caught him in the flank.
‘Ow!’ squealed Stormfly as she was hit in the
wing, and Camicazi only just caught her as she fell out
of the sky.
This wasn’t quite how Camicazi and Fishlegs had
imagined the happy reunion.
‘Well his throwing has got better at least,’ said
Camicazi, removing the dart from Stormfly’s wing.
‘That was pretty accurate (for a boy of course)…’
She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice,
because when you have been up all night, searching
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for someone you love, and finally, oh, heart-thumping
joy, against all odds, you find them, you sort of hope
that they will give you a big pleased-to-see-you hug, not
attack you with oars, and throw Sand-Shark darts at
you.
What in Freya’s name was Hiccup doing?
Why was he attacking them?
Didn’t he recognise them?
At the very least, Hiccup ought to recognise
Shadow, because there weren’t that many three-headed
Deadly Shadow dragons in the Archipelago.
To be precise, there was only one.
But they’d had a brief vision of Hiccup’s terrified
white face as he struck the Shadow with his oar, and it
was quite clear he hadn’t a clue who they were.
‘We can’t dive again until he knows it’s us,’
Camcazi decided. ‘We nearly sank the boat that time.
He must be finding it hard to see with two black eyes.
Stormfly, you fly down and tell him it’s us…’
‘HA!’ huffed Stormfly pointing at her numb
wing, ‘I can’t fly with only o
ne wing, and I have to say,
if ungrateful Heroes are going to go around throwing
painful darts at dragons who are trying to save them,
they can jolly well save themselves.’
‘OK, Fishlegs,’ said Camicazi, ‘you steer the
Shadow and I’ll wing-walk and try and shout down to
him…’
Camicazi leaped on to the Deadly Shadow’s wing,
and walked along it as sure as a cat, and shouted down
at Hiccup, crossly waving her arms about:
‘It’s US, you LUNATIC HOOLIGAN, OPEN
YOUR EYES! IT’S US! WE’RE TRYING TO
HELP YOU! WE’RE TRYING TO STOP THOSE
DRAGON REBELLION DRAGONS FROM
KILLING YOU!’ and Hiccup threw a whole load
more darts at her, while Hogfly barked in an excitable
fashion.
The truth is, it is extremely difficult to rescue
someone who doesn’t want to be rescued.
‘Too late!’ squeaked Fishlegs, pointing ahead.
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The treacherous fog parted, showing that the
search party of Dragon Rebellion dragons was getting
way too close for comfort.
‘OK, OK,’ said Camicazi, thinking fast. ‘Time for
Plan B. It’s a shame because Plan A would have been a
whole lot simpler…’
‘We have a Plan B?’ said Fishlegs in surprise.
‘There’s always a Plan B,’ said Camicazi. ‘Plan
B is, we change from being the Companion of the
Dragonmark Rescue Party, to the Companion of the
Dragonmark DIVERSION Party.
‘We’ll have to distract the Dragon Rebellion
dragons so that Hiccup can get to the beach of
Tomorrow. Those dragons won’t dare follow him there
because they’ll be scared of the Dragon Guardians.’
This was completely true. Tomorrow was the
only island that the Dragon Rebellion did not dare
attack, because they were so frightened of the Dragon
Guardians.
‘But what will Hiccup do about the Dragon
Guardians?’
‘Well, Hiccup must have some clever Plan to deal
with those Dragon Guardians, mustn’t he, because he’s
already heading to the beach,’ argued Camicazi, with a
touching faith in Hiccup’s intelligence.
133
‘Hiccup will know what he’s doing.’
‘And what do you mean by distract the Dragon
Rebellion dragons?’ moaned Fishlegs. ‘Does distracting
them involve going anywhere near them, or is it the sort
of thing we can do safely, from a distance?’
‘Wait for them to get a bit closer, Shadow,’ said
Camicazi, crouched against the dragon’s three necks,
eyes sparkling with excitement, ‘and make sure you’re
completely invisible. Then, when they’re within earshot,
we’re going to…’
She whispered something into the Deadly
Shadow’s six ears.
The Shadow could understand Norse, though
none of his heads spoke it, and all three heads enjoyed
a little trickery.
‘Very good,’ hissed Arrogance, eyes alight with
enjoyment.
‘Nice touch,’ purred Patience.
‘Earshot sounds quite close,’ said Fishlegs, putting
his hands over his eyes.
The Dragon Rebellion dragons closed in on the
ridiculous, half-sinking little boat, eyes gleaming with
mischief.
‘We have to wait…’ whispered Camicazi,
sitting invisible above them. ‘We have to wait until
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they can all hear us…’
‘But they’re getting really close….’ moaned
Fishlegs.
It wasn’t just a silly little band of Sand-Sharks
attacking Hiccup this time.
Poison-Darters, Riproarers, Tonguetwisters,
Hellsteethers, Driller-Dragons, Brainpickers and many
more of the most feared species of the Archipelago
circled Hiccup in his tiny boat. The Hellsteethers softly
rattled their teeth, with that dreadful warning rattle
that turned Vikings’ hearts to ice when they heard it
surrounding their ships in the dead of the night.
The many-eyed Tongue-Twisters pushed out their
disgusting lolling tongues, strong enough to twist off
a man’s arm, the Brainpickers slowly, slowly put out
their dreaded picks, the Driller-Dragons set their drills
a-turning…
Three gigantic Thor’s Thunderers slowly emerged
from beneath the waves and stretched their long necks
into the sky, like giant beanstalks growing out of the
ocean. Up, up, up those beanstalks grew, long tentacles
trailing beautifully from their necks, every one of those
tentacles tingling with poison as strong as a man o’ war
jellyfish.
Softly, grimly, Darkbreathers broke the surface
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of the waves. Darkbreathers have lived so long
in the darkness that it has entered their very
souls and twisted them forever…
Luna had chosen her assassins
well. There are some dragons that
really are monsters. These were the kind
of dragons that killed without thinking,
without remorse, and almost for the pleasure
of it.
They had a sense of drama, too. Slowly they
circled that little boat, holding back their flames,
their poison, their electric lightning bolts, so that
the miserable ragged little pink worm of a human
being should see them in their glory, and know
what was about to happen…
Hiccup was almost paralysed with
fear. He crouched down in the bottom
of his ridiculous little raft, which
seemed to have more sea
inside it than outside it, heart
pounding, pathetically
trying to shield the
terrified Hogfly.
This was it, then. This must be the end.
There was a dreadful pause while the Dragon
Rebellion dragons contemplated their prey with
revolting relish.
And then out of nowhere, spooky voices cried
out of the fog around them, wailing like Valkyries,
screaming like Furies:
‘We-e-e-e are the Dragon Guardians of
Tomo-o-o-o-rrow…’
Camicazi had a good sense of drama too.
The voices belonged to Arrogance, Innocence
and Patience of course, but the Dragon Rebellion
dragons weren’t to know that. The dragon search party
found themselves struck by bolts of lightning that
seemed to come from the very fog
itself, followed by sheets of
shooting flame, and
a rain of very
accurate
arrows from Camicazi’s bow shooting them in the legs,
the shoulders, the sides…
You cannot blame the Dragon Rebellion dragons
for assuming that they really were being attacked by the
Dragon Guardians of Tomorrow. After all, they were
only within a hundred yards of Tomorrow’s beaches.
And even the Thor’s Thunderers were frightened
of the Dragon Guardians.
The Dragon Rebellion horde that only seconds
earlier had been regardi
ng their prey with smug
satisfaction, now responded with what can only be
described as total panic. They screamed in horror,
and confusion, and whirled round, trying to escape
their Dragon Guardian attackers and get away from
Tomorrow as fast as they could.
There was absolute chaos in the stampede to
get away. Thor’s Thunderer tentacles flew everywhere,
lightning bolts exploded at random, darts and flames
and spears and arrows rained down in waves, while the
terrible tails of the panicking beasts lashed the ocean
into a frothing, foaming, thunder-bolting storm.
Hiccup looked upward with his jaw
hanging open.
What in the name of Freya and Woden and all
the other gods was going on? He wasn’t going to wait
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to find out. He leaned over the side of the sinking boat
and paddled it towards the beach of Tomorrow as fast
as he could.
As the Dragon Rebellion dragons retreated,
the Windwalker and the Deadly Shadow gave chase,
shooting lightning bolts and screaming insults. Every
now and then the Deadly Shadow got over-excited,
and chased a Darkbreather under the water before
re-surfacing again.
‘BOG BURGLARS FIGHT FORE-E-EVER!
Take that, you big-tongued, hairy-backed,
bully-alligators!’ yelled Camicazi, re-loading her bow
with delight. ‘Let me know when Hiccup has got to the
beach, Fishlegs…’
‘He’s nearly there,’ panted Fishlegs, spitting out
seawater and looking back at the shores of Tomorrow.
‘Hang on… his boat’s half underwater but he’s almost
there… Oh dear… now the boat’s sunk… but it’s all
right, he’s swimming the last bit… he’s standing up…
he’s there! He’s on the beach!’
‘He’s ON TOMORROW! WE’VE GOT HIM
TO TOMORROW! Thanks to CAMICAZI THE
MAGNIFICENT, who has just saved the day ONCE
AGAIN!’ crowed Camicazi, punching the air.
‘Camicazi,’ said Fishlegs anxiously, screwing up
his eyes to see what was happening through the fog,
‘I really hope you’re right and Hiccup has a plan for
what to do about those Dragon Guardians… He’s just
wandering up the beach…’
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 7