How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero
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Hogflys are very gentle and eager to please,
however they are one of the stupidest
dragon species in the entire dragon world.
They do, however, have an extraordinary
sense of smell, so they can make very good
tracker or scent-dragons, if you can
overcome their profound stupidity.
The ice-raft creaked as one of the Wolf-fangs
tipped it. Was it Hiccup’s imagination, or did the
dragons submerged along the edges of the riverbanks
move too, at the sound of that groaning ice?
At that moment, Hiccup noticed a very small,
very ugly, miniature scent-dragon sleeping innocently
beside Snotlout and the Hurricane on the ice. It looked
like a happy little pig. It was called a Hogfly, and
Hogflys are the stupidest, most good-natured dragons
in the entire world.
Nine pairs of eyes, dragon and human, looked at
Hiccup anxiously. Hiccup loved his friends. It was his
responsibility to keep them safe. But he couldn’t leave
a fellow human being, even if he was on the other side,
let alone a poor scarred riding-dragon and a sweet,
stupid little Hogfly, to a horrible fate at the talons of
the dragons of the Dragon Rebellion.
‘Let’s save him,’ whispered Hiccup. ‘Let’s save
him!’
‘Oh brother,’ moaned Fishlegs. ‘I know you’re
right, but oh brother…’
‘We’ll have to try and rescue him from above,’
said Hiccup. ‘I’ll get the Deadly Shadow flying directly
above the ice-raft, and then Camicazi can let down a
rope for Snotlout to climb up.’
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‘Let me just say that I completely disagree with
this decision!’ whispered Camicazi fiercely. ‘This is
MADNESS! This is CRAZY!
You’ve really lost the
plot now, Hiccup, you
Hooligan half-wit…’
In one of her
instant, bewildering
turns of mood, she
drew her sword.
‘I’d better
go down there,’
she resolved.
Before anyone could stop her, Camicazi tied
a rope to the Deadly Shadow’s saddle and lowered
herself until she was hovering above the ice-island like
a little black spider.
‘Was that part of the plan?’ Fishlegs asked.
‘Suffering scallops, no… Camicazi!’ Hiccup
hissed. ‘Get back up here!’
But Bog-Burglars can be surprisingly deaf when
they want to be.
‘Ask him whose side he’s on!’ Fishlegs whispered
down helpfully from above.
Camicazi dangled from the rope below the
Deadly Shadow dragon just above Snotlout’s head.
Holding on to the rope with one hand and stringing her
bow with the other, she shot a Wolf-fang one-handed
(one of Camicazi’s more show-offy moves).
‘Hello there,’ she said cheerily to Snotlout.
‘Hiccup thinks we should help you, but what Fishlegs
want to know is, whose side are you on? Because if
you’re on the side of the Alvinsmen, I just want to
leave you to it…’
Snotlout was busy fighting off the Wolf-fangs,
but he whipped round his head in amazement as he
heard this voice coming out of nowhere, and let out a
small, surprised noise of astonishment.
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Camicazi gave Snotlout a little, soothing wave,
and her biggest, brightest smile. Snotlout goggled at
her, for she appeared to be dangling in mid-air, and for
a second he thought he was seeing things. But then,
pointing a shaking finger at the terrifying sight of the
dragons sleeping in the riverbanks, he mouthed
with dazed relief: ‘HELP ME… but be quiet…’
Camicazi ignored this, talking in
her perfectly normal voice. ‘Yes, that’s
interesting you should ask that, because
we were just wondering whether
to help you or not,’ explained
Camicazi, swaying chattily
above him.
‘For Thor’s sake,
you little Bog-Burglar
madwoman… those are
Dragon Rebellion dragons...
Have you seen what those
dragons have done to this
forest? And if they wake up they
could call the Dragon Furious…’
Camicazi dropped
down from the rope and landed
like a little cat on the ice-raft beside
Snotlout.
‘You haven’t answered the
question,’ said Camicazi. ‘Whose
side are you on?’
Snotlout made a frustrated inarticulate gurgling
noise, as he bashed away at the paw of a grinning
Wolf-fang who had nearly made it on to the raft.
‘OK,’ he rasped, ‘I’m on YOUR side! Most definitely on YOUR
side! Indisputably on YOUR side! I came up here to find you so I could take you
to the witch’s camp so that you can find the rest of the Lost Things…’
‘He says he’s on OUR side!’ Camicazi shouted
up. ‘But I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw
him.’
‘I told you!’ whispered Hiccup from above. ‘But
keep it down a bit, Camicazi…’
‘Are you quite sure that we should save him?’ said
Camicazi wistfully. ‘He really is not very nice.’
‘Can’t you speak quietly, you horrible little Bog-Burglar…’ hissed
Snotlout. ‘Uh-oh…’
‘Uh-oh…’ said Hiccup.
‘Uh-oh?’ groaned Fishlegs, who had covered his
face with his hands in his horror. ‘What do you mean,
uh-oh? UH-OH is never good. Please take back that
uh-oh, and give me, instead, a hearty, relieved hoorah.
I hardly dare ask, but what’s wrong?’
‘The Hogfly,’ Hiccup explained. ‘I think the
Hogfly is waking up…’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ Fishlegs
whispered back. ‘Hogflys aren’t dangerous.’
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Too late.
The Hogfly woke up with three wet, splashing
sneezes. It bounced up from the stomach of the
sleeping Hurricane and shot out its wings so it hung
in the air, buzzing like a fat pink bumblebee, its curly
pink tail wagging vigorously as it looked to the left and
right.
‘Woof! Woof! WOOF!’ barked the happy Hogfly.
The Hogfly was so stupid it thought it was a dog.
Was there a stiffening of the Dragon Rebellion
dragons all along the riverbank at the sound of that
last, jolly little bark?
‘Hogfly!’ Hiccup whispered down to the Hogfly.
‘Yoo-hoo!’ the Hogfly called back, waving an
exuberant pink trotter.
‘I can se-e-e-e-ee you! Hello Grandma! Where’s
the toothbrush?’
It buzzed back and forth, its snout snuffling up
and down.
And this time there was a definite quiver from
the Dragon Rebellion dragons all along the riverbank,
; limbs moving, eyes on the edge of opening.
‘OOOOOh!’ sang the Hogfly, its little snout
trembling in excitement as it recognised Hiccup’s
scent. ‘I KNOW THAT SMELL! I WAS LOOKING
FOR YOU! I WAS TRACKING YOU!’ shouted the
Hogfly, and to Hiccup’s anxious ears, that shout was
about as quiet and peaceful as the honking bellow
of his old teacher, Gobber the Belch, umpiring a
Bashyball game, or the love-call of a Giant Walrus-bog
calling out to another love-sick Walrus-bog across a
mile or two of ice floes.
‘Me and the Human-with-the-Big-Nose were
playing a game and I was looking for you, tracking
you all the way up the river! Look,
Human-with-the-Big-Nose!’ sang
the Hogfly triumphantly to Snotlout,
pointing at Hiccup with all four of its
trotters. ‘I’VE FOUND HIM! I’VE
FOUND HIM! I’D KNOW THAT
SMELL ANYWHERE!’
‘Can’t you shut that thing up?’ hissed
Snotlout, bug-eyed with terror.
‘Hogfly!’ Hiccup whispered
down from the Deadly Shadow’s
back. ‘Well done, clever you, but we’re
playing a DIFFERENT game now… a
very DIFFERENT game… The new game is the
“Being-as-Quiet-as-Possible” game… It’s a really fun
one. Will you play with us?’
‘OOoh, I’ll play!’ squeaked the Hogfly. ‘Let ME
play! Look at me playing!’
‘Quiet as possible… quiet as possible…’
reminded Hiccup, putting a finger up to his mouth.
‘Ssshhhh…’
The Hogfly concentrated very hard, clamped its
little mouth shut and held its breath, turning purple
until it had swelled to almost three times the size,
before deflating suddenly with a loud POP!
And opening its eyes again in surprise.
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‘Pardon me… Is it your birthday? I WON!’
squealed the Hogfly.
‘Yes yes yes yes yes…’ whispered Hiccup, looking
nervously at the edge of the river. ‘But remember, quiet
as possible… quiet as possible…’
‘Quiet as possible…’ repeated the Hogfly
good-naturedly. ‘Tee hee hee… this is a very funny
game.’
It concentrated very hard again, holding its
breath, and hovering in the air, and swelling, two, three
times. Hiccup bent down from the back of the Deadly
Shadow, and tried to catch it, for it was floating within
arm’s reach, but just as he made a grab for it…
POP!
The Hogfly deflated again, zooming out of the
reach of Hiccup’s outstretched arm, and tumbling
around in circles in the air, shrieking with giggles.
‘PARDON ME! How’s your father! I WON!
I WON! I WON!’
The revolting
Dragon Rebellion
dragons were moving
restlessly in their sleep.
The Hogfly
fluttered innocently up
to one grisly little group:
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a Tonguetwister with its giant hairy tongue hanging
out, a Brainpicker with its ‘pick’ fixed into the head
of a poor dead badger and a Razorwing sleeping low
and evil in the shallows like a lurking velociraptor, its
body submerged but its razorsharp wings skimming the
shallows.
Happy and giggly and bustly, the Hogfly ignored
Hiccup’s strangled cries of: ‘Hogfly!
Come back here, Hogfly!’
‘Ooh!’ it squeaked
in delighted confusion,
‘you all look so
lovely! How am I to
choose which one of
you to be my friend?’
It perched on
the sinister swoop of the
Razorwing’s nose.
‘Where’s my biscuit? Are you married? Be my
valentine… ’
‘I can’t bear to watch…’ groaned Fishlegs,
It was like seeing an enthusiastic bunny
rabbit trying to make friends with a heavily armed,
bunny-eating cobra.
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The Razorwing did not open its eyes.
But slowly, slowly, slowly, its jaws opened a tiny,
tiny crack.
And out of the jagged crook of its mouth, like the
noise from a ventriloquist’s dummy, came a horrible,
screechy little croaking voice, speaking very, very softly:
‘Ooh that’s a nice song,’ said the Hogfly, ever
polite, but suddenly a little nervous and
confused,
for the
song of the
Red-Rage is
not a nice song
at all.
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And all around the riverbanks, the other Dragon
Rebellion dragons did not open their eyes but their
mouths, and in similar croaky voices they joined in this
disgusting robotic chant.
‘Oh brother… oh brother…’ whispered Fishlegs.
‘Here we go… this is going to be bad…’
The dragons began the chant again, louder this
time.
And…
SNAP!
The eyelid of the Razorwing snapped open, and
the eyeball of the Razorwing fixed on the Hogfly with a
thoughtful gaze just about as kindly and as reasonable
as the stare of a great white shark.
The Tonguetwister dragon opened its eyes
simultaneously, and stretched out its long, repulsively
thick and hairy tongue towards the Hogfly’s frantically
blurring wings, hoping to twist one of them off. I am
sorry, but it’s true.
Slowly, slowly, the cavernous jaws of the
Razorwing opened to their widest extent, to reveal two
little poison darts lurking like little evil gnats in the
fire-holes at the back of its throat.
This time, when the chant got to the part about
‘torching the humans like a wood’, the poor stupid
little Hogfly finally realised what was happening. These
dragons were not friendly or nice dragons at all. In fact
they were quite the opposite.
His expression of
good-natured bewilderment
turned instantly to absurd alarm.
His jaunty little tail uncurled in
drooping dismay as he backed
away, whimpering, ‘Sorry,
uncle… Where’s the exit?
Did someone sneeze?
Bite the bullet!
ABANDON SHIP!’
Swooping
down invisibly
on the back
of the Deadly
Shadow, Hiccup
snatched the Hogfly out
of the air, put him in his
backpack and soared upwards
again immediately.
In the absolute nick of time, for:
ZING! ZING!
Little electric-yellow and ink-black darts
whizzed over their heads as the Razorwing exhaled
swiftly from his fire-holes.
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The only good thing that happened
then, was that the Wolf-fangs stopped attacking the
ice-raft. At the first sign that the Rebellion had woken
up, the Wolf-fangs sprinted away and melted back
into the darkness of the mutilated for
est, while the
ones that were in the river, with their snouts over the
edge of the raft, sank back down into the water and
scattered like fish. They knew trouble when they saw it.
Snotlout was not grateful to see the Wolf-fangs
disappearing. But then again, gratitude had never been
Snotlout’s strong point.
‘What are you doing, you jellyfish-brained
IDIOTS? Is this your idea of rescuing someone? You’ve
woken up the Dragon Rebellion dragons!’ he hissed
in horrified disbelief. ‘And they’re going to fetch the
Dragon Furious!’
The situation spiralled out of control with
terrifying rapidity.
The dragons came out of their frozen sleeping
stillness at the edges of the river into wild, frenzied life.
The hideous chant of the Dragon Rebellion exploded
around the young Vikings as the little ice-raft holding
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Snotlout, Camicazi and the sleeping Hurricane dragon
sped downstream. The excruciating pitch and loudness
of their battle hymn became in itself, a form of attack.
Screeching like harpies, the dragons screamed at
decibel levels that were painful to the ears.
‘Rapids…’ breathed Hiccup in horror, looking
down at the churning, foaming water, and the sharp
evil-looking rocks ahead of Snotlout and Camicazi
pointing upwards like devil’s incisors.
And even worse, there was a distant booming,
roaring sound, clearly audible in the still night air. What
was that noise, that warning rumble like the beginning
of a thunderstorm?
Oh, for Thor’s sake.
Hiccup suddenly remembered that when this
particular river got to the ocean, it fell off the cliff in a
gigantic waterfall that was the largest in the
Archipelago.
‘The waterfall!’ yelled
Hiccup, because there was no
point trying to be quiet now.
‘YOU HAVE TO GET
OFF THAT ICE-RAFT
BEFORE YOU HIT THE
WATERFALL!’
3. PLAN GOING WRONG
The dragons of the Dragon Rebellion attacked with
full mind-numbing force, their chant at an unbearable
pitch, diving, swooping, shrieking, shooting poison