"AHA!" roared Norbert the Nutjob, his tic dancing for pure horrible murderous joy. "I'VE CAUGHT YOU, YOU REVOLTING LITTLE BLOND ASSASSIN! AND NOW I SHALL TEACH YOU NOT TO HIT PEOPLE OH THE HEAD WITH THEIR OWN VEGETABLE!"
Norbert the Nutjob raised his axe over Camicazi, and he was about to bring it down, when Hiccup said loudly, "I wouldn't do that, Norbert."
199
Hiccup felt in his breast pocket, and drew out the potato with the arrow still stuck in it. It was warmer this morning, and the potato, snuggled down the front of Hiccup's furry waistcoat, was no longer frozen.
Norbert glanced at Hiccup, and then gasped in astonishment, as right in front of Norbert's eyes ...
... HICCUP PULLED THE ARROW OUT OF THE POTATO.
For as Hiccup had suggested earlier to Norbert, the arrow slid out perfectly easily now that the potato had defrosted.
Hiccup pushed it in and out of the potato several times just to drive the point home. Norbert the Nutjob dropped his axe.
[Image: An arrow.]
"My father's Prophecy!" screamed Norbert the Nutjob, his head in his hands. "I don't believe it.... It can't be true! You ... you revolting little Hooligan Vegetable-Burglar ... you ... are the Chosen One? ... You will lift the Curse and rid us of the Doomfang ... ?"
200
Hiccup nodded solemnly, thinking, nutty as a fruitcake.
At that very moment, the sun came over the horizon...Rays of sunlight bounced off the snow and ice all around them, and off the Doomfang's Great Green Eye and dazzled Hiccup, so that he had to fling up an elbow to shield himself from the glare.
A sound like a million whips rang out, or a trillion axe blows, or a thousand of Thor's thunderbolts rolled into one.
The ice cracked from side to side.
201
16. THE DOOMFANG
A great jagged split appeared in the white frozen sea, a split that ran all the way from the Outcast Lands to the north, down to the Bog-Burglar islands in the south.
The world broke open like a big white egg.
"Aaaaaargh!" screamed Hiccup. "Quick! Get into The Hopeful Puffin!"
Norbert the Nutjob, Camicazi, and Hiccup bolted out of the sleigh, and leaped into the little boat, the ice giving way beneath their feet.
"LET DOWN THE SAIL!" screamed Hiccup, cutting the rope tying the boat to the sleigh.
The sail flopped down and the wind caught it, sending it billowing outward like a plump cushion. There was another enormous CRACK! and the ice in the Sullen Sea splintered into millions of tiny pieces.
202
The sleigh slipped gently into the grey-green water and was seen no more, and The Hopeful Puffin was afloat.
Through the jagged jigsaw of ice, between them and the Isle of Berk on the horizon, up rose the Doomfang.
It reared out of the sea, showering The Hopeful Puffin with water and shards of ice, telescoping upward to its immense height, which was impossibly, RIDICULOUSLY high, blotting out the newly risen sun.
[Image: Fire.]
The SOUND it made was unutterably awful, a sadness so extreme it made you want to weep yourself, a sound that crept up the spine like spiders' feet, and scuttled over the scalp, sending each individual hair on Hiccup's head prickling upward like the spines on a hedgehog. It was the glossy black of a gigantic, muscly panther, and when it opened its awful Cavern jaws to roar,
203
its serrated teeth were as green as its eyes, and the yellow frothy scum of its saliva steamed and smoked in the cold morning air.
Indeed, its whole body seemed boiling hot, and like the flanks of a horse that has galloped for miles, great clouds of smoke rose up from its tremendous gleaming bulk and into the sky.
"It's come for me ..., " moaned Norbert the Nutjob, in a tremble of fear.
"No, it hasn't," said Hiccup. "It's come for ME."
And the Doomfang did seem to be looking directly down at Hiccup.
It was as if Hiccup had always known that this was going to happen, that somehow he was never going to get in and out of Hysteria without meeting the Doomfang face-to-face.
"Don't look, into its eyes," warned One Eye.
You should never look into a dragon's eyes. But in this case it was difficult not to -- they were so large and so close, like a couple of green suns. Hiccup was hypnotized for a moment, and his head spun so that he nearly lost his balance and dropped off the boat.
"What do you WANT?" Hiccup yelled desperately in Dragonese.
204
The Dragon opened its great mouth and tried to speak. But all that came out was a terrible unearthly howl of horror and SADNESS, and the foam dripped from its jaws in a revolting bubbly waterfall. It tried again, and the terrible sound came out again, only louder.
"What is it?" asked Hiccup.
But the creature could not say, and its struggle to speak made it angry, and it began shooting out with its blue flames, nearer and nearer to Hiccup. "What does it want me to do?" asked Hiccup frantically.
"We're done for," despaired Norbert, wringing his hands.
Camicazi patted the moaning Norbert soothingly on the back. "We'll be all right," she repeated over and over again, "we always are, Thor only knows how.... Hiccup'll have a Cunning Plan ..."
"Oh that's right," remembered Norbert. "Of course! My father's Prophecy! He is the Chosen One, and he alone can rid us of the Doomfang!"
But for once in his life, Hiccup did NOT have a Cunning Plan.
"What do you want?" asked Hiccup again, more to himself, this time.
205
206
The Doomfang made one last terrible attempt to communicate, coming out with a truly dreadful, garbled cacophony of noise, and then opened its jaws wide, sucking in its breath.
Hiccup did not know what they had done for the creature to have it in for them.
Perhaps it had gone crazy and turned into a Man-Eater? It had certainly killed Norbert's Papa, fifteen years ago, and was it now going to kill them too?
Because now it was aiming directly for them, and Hiccup braced himself for the Monster to breathe out its flames and set the boat alight like a little barbecue. But what shot out of the creature's mouth was not a Terrible Burst of Fire, not the frozen flames that would have sent all three of them, and Toothless too, straight to Valhalla in a heroic bonfire.
Curling and unfurling, quick and flexible as a gigantic muscly snake, out of the Doomfang's mouth came the Doomfang's TONGUE.
207
One hundred meters long, pink and pulsing, the Doomfang's TONGUE sped straight to Hiccup's left hand, and the wriggling, squirming, revoltingly WET forked end of it burrowed its way into his palm and wrapped itself around the potato.
Hiccup nearly dropped the potato there and then. But then he realized what the creature wanted.
He dropped the arrow, and grabbed hold of the potato with both hands. The juices of the Doomfang's tongue foamed disgustingly over his hands.
Hiccup p-u-1-l-e-d.
The Doomfang p-u-1-l-e-d.
There was only one potato, and both of them wanted it. Both of them NEEDED it. Desperately, Hiccup tried to get a better grip on the potato, slimy and greasy with the yucky bubbly saliva. He wasn't going to lose the quest, and Fishlegs's life, NOW, not when they were so close to home, not when the shadow of Berk was so tantalizingly near. He leaned right back, pulling with a might he never knew he had. But the Doomfang pulled too, and
208
the chances of Hiccup, not more than fifty pounds, winning a tug of war against a Dragon numberless pounds heavier were very tiny indeed.
Not im-POSSIBLE, but, let's face it, im-PROBABLE.
Hiccup did not let go. He would never have let go. He would have stood there all day and all night, if he could have.
But one fork of the Doomfang's tongue unpeeled Hiccup's desperate fingers, one by one, and the other fork gave a horrible squirm, and with a final terrible wrench, the Doomfang's tongue wrested the potato out of Hiccup's hands.
As Hiccup fell backward into the bottom of the boat, he saw with more despair than he had ever felt before in his short adventurous life, the revolting tongue retreat with a flick as quick as a toad catching flies, back into the Doomfang's mouth. The jaws shut over it with awful finality.
The Doomfang swallowed the Potato.
The quest was over.
[Image: A dragon tail.]
210
[Image: Hiccup and his friends.]
211
[Image: The middle of the sea.]
The Potato was Gone
212
The quest was over
213
17. THE QUEST IS OYER
Tears pouring down his face, Hiccup watched as the Doomfang threw back its head and screamed as loudly as if it had been shot with a gigantic spear.
It sent a great sheet of freezing blue flame like an uphill waterfall shooting up into the sky. These flames shot so high they hit a small cloud up above, instantly freezing it, and turning it bright blue. And then, just like that, the Doomfang sank slowly beneath the waves, leaving nothing behind but a whirlpool of gigantic ripples, spreading wider and wider.
They spread toward The Hopeful Puffin, rocking it violently up and down. They spread wider still, and lapped the shores of Hysteria itself, and carried on down the Wrath of Thor.
Hiccup sat in the bottom of the boat, unable to believe that the Doomfang wouldn't rear up again, and maybe spit out the potato, or give it back in some way. But eventually the ripples got smaller and vanished entirely, and so too did Hiccup's last hope.
This really was the end.
The nearest potato was now thousands and
214
thousands of miles away, in the great country to the west, known as America to those who believe in such a place.
"Issa. g-g-g-gone!" whispered Toothless in amazement.
Up on the clifftops, the long line of watching, silent Hysterics began to shout: "THE DOOMFANG IS GONE! THE DOOMFANG IS GONE! HURRAH FOR THE WEIRD LITTLE RED-HAIRED BOY, THE DOOMFANG IS GONE!"
And softly, and silently, snow as blue as Gobber the Belch's nose rained down from the frozen cloud above Hiccup's head.
The blue snow rained down like confetti at a coronation, settling in Hiccup's hair, and on One Eye's white back, and in between Toothless's horns.
"YOU are the Chosen One," said Norbert the Nutjob, still unable to believe it. "YOU have rid us of the Doomfang. YOU have lifted the Curse of Hysteria?"
Hiccup was suddenly furiously angry.
Not with Norbert, but with the gods.
For six long months he had been longing for spring to come, praying to Thor for the ice to melt,
215
and now, just when he and Camicazi had been through so much, and nearly achieved the impossible, just at precisely the wrong moment, Thor had made the ice crack and freed the Doomfang.
And this ridiculous blue snow was just the icing on the cake. What was it Snotlout had said?
The snow will turn as blue as Gobber the Reich's nose before YOU become the Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe.
The gods were laughing at him now, playing with him for their sport.
Hiccup shook his fist at the Heavens.
"I don't WANT to be the Chosen One!" he howled at the blue sky above. "I don't WANT to be the Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe! I didn't WANT to lift Norbert's stupid Curse! I wanted to cheat the Curse on Fishlegs! All I want is my FRIEND ..."
The silly blue snow took no notice, and rained down steadily from above.
Hiccup began to cry.
"All I want is my friend ...," he sobbed. "Fishlegs trusted me. He thought I would make everything all right..." He turned to Norbert in sudden hope.
"Have you got ANOTHER potato?" asked Hiccup.
216
Norbert the Nutjob shook his head. "My father only brought back ONE of those Vegetables," he said between gritted teeth. "This is what made it so precious..."
Norbert the Nutjob shifted his axe uncertainly from hand to hand. The tic in his eye danced a wild fandango.
[Image: Hiccup.]
"I don't know what to do!" shrieked Norbert the Nutjob. "You have shot me in the bottom, stolen my American Vegetable, chewed off my mustaches, fed
217
Papa to the Squealers, and burned down my Great Hall!"
His shaking hands reached out, almost of their own accord, toward Hiccup's neck ... and then he stopped himself just in time.
"But on the other hand, it seems incredible, but you HAVE lifted the Curse on Hysteria, and I cannot ignore my father's Prophecy. So THIS TIME, I shall let you go free. But if you ever, EVER cross my path again, I warn you I will kill you on the spot."
"Don't worry," said Hiccup sadly. "I'm not that keen on seeing YOU again, either. I'm sorry about the Hall, and the mustaches, and the bottom, and ... I'm sorry about EVERYTHING, really ... I was just trying to save the life of my friend."
218
Norbert the Nutjob pulled Hiccup's sword out of his belt and threw it down with a curse on the floor of The Hopeful Puffin. He then climbed back on board his sleigh and sped back to Hysteria, a land which ships could now sail in and out of as freely as they liked for the first time in fifteen long years, all on account of Hiccup lifting the Curse, which wasn't the quest he set out to do in the first place, but, there we are, these things happen to a Hero-in-Training.
With hearts sorrowing and despairing, Hiccup and Camicazi set out in The Hopeful Puffin toward the distant little Isle of Berk.
[Image: A ship in the middle of the sea.]
219
Camicazi took the helm because Hiccup was too depressed.
There was a brisk wind and The Hopeful Puffin fairly flew over the waves. They had to dodge the floating icebergs, and if Hiccup had been happier, he could have enjoyed the warmness of the breeze now blowing in their faces, for he had been waiting for this moment for six months.
For six long months they had been trapped in winter, and to Vikings who are used to being surrounded by the never-ending rocking of the sea, this frozen white stillness had been terribly eerie, as if time itself had forgotten to tick and was caught in a Hibernation Coma. There was nothing, no smell, no sound, no movement, just a painted white world that stretched out forever and a cold that made Hiccup's helmet burn against his forehead as if it were made out of fire.
Hiccup had longed and longed for it to end, and now spring HAD come and broken the spell. The sea was alive again and the wind whirling through the marshy grasses carried with it the catcalls and whoops of Dragonese and the lovely fresh smell and taste of salt.
And Hiccup had never been so miserable in his life.
220
"I don't understand," said Camicazi, after they had sailed in silence for half an hour. " Why did the Doomfang eat the Vegetable-That-No-One-Dares-Name? Why did it suddenly leave the Wrath of Thor when it had been hanging out there for the past fifteen years? What just happened?"
Hiccup sighed, raising his head from his chest for a moment. "Well," he said, "I don't KNOW of course, because, how can we know? But my guess is that the DOOMFANG ITSELF HAD VORPENTITIS." Camicazi's jaw dropped.
"It had all the symptoms," continued Hiccup. "Crazy behavior. Bloodshot eyes. Foaming mouth. A very high temperature. Doomfangs can live to be thousands of years old, so fifteen years is only two minutes in the life of a Doomfang. It would explain how desperate it was, and how ill it looked. And once it had eaten the Potato, it was instantly cured, so it didn't need to hang around anymore. That was it, end of Curse."
"Who is to say that your friend's life is worth more than a Dragon's?" said One Eye, who was taking up most of the deck.
221
"It's worth more to me," said Hiccup. "Because I didn't know the Doomfang personally."
The temperature was very pleasant, and for the first time in six months Hiccup found he was sweating in his furry overcoat. He took it off, and Toothless lande
d on his shoulder, and started trying to tuck his head under his wing.
"It's a bit late to go into Hibernation Sleep now, Toothless," said Hiccup, scratching the little dragon affectionately behind his horns. "It's just about to be spring again."
Toothless grunted grumpily.
Hiccup squinted up at the sun. Now that it was out, he could tell the time fairly accurately from the sun's position in the sky. They were at least two hours away from ten in the morning, he reckoned. Not that it mattered what time they got back now, of course.
Hiccup's heart was beating fast in anxiety and sadness, and he suddenly realized he could actually HEAR it beating.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock went his heart.
How very peculiar, thought Hiccup.
And then he remembered the funny round metal thing that Camicazi had found lying in the casket next
222
to the potato. He reached into his breast pocket and drew it out.
TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK went the metal thingamajig.
It was a beautifully made, strange little object, slightly smaller than the potato. The front was transparent and hard, like ice, and behind it were all these rune numbers set in different circles, and at least seven arrows, all different colors. When he stared at it for some time he realized that some of them were actually moving, very slowly, but all on their own.
[Image: The funny round metal thing.]
223
He opened up the back to see if it was a tiny nanodragon making the ticking noise, and found inside nothing but lots of little delicate metal wheels that all seemed to be moving. Perhaps they too had been frozen by the ice, and now that it was warmer again, they had woken up ...
How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse (The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup the Viking) Page 9