‘She was
taken alive,’ said
Snotlout, ‘by one
of the witch’s
Spydragons.’
5. THE BITE OF A VAMPIRE
SPYDRAGON
‘I saw it,’ said Snotlout, quietly. ‘She showed me
in here, but just before she climbed in after me, a
Vampire Spydragon swooped down out of nothing and
nowhere and it took her.’
‘Windwalker! Is this true?’ Hiccup turned to
the Windwalker, who was lying on the floor, his long
shaggy body riddled with Razorwing stings. Hiccup had
some vague desperate hope that Windwalker might
deny it, but Windwalker gave a miserable nod, and
continued that low, keening whining.
‘No…’ whispered Hiccup. ‘Oh no…’
He put his arms around his thin, white trembling
body, trying to comfort himself. His arm sang
with pain.
ALL MY FAULT.
Camicazi had trusted Hiccup's instinct over
her own. She hadn't agreed with his decision, but
trustingly, loyally, she had followed Hiccup into battle,
and now she had been lost.
What had the
Wodensfang said?
‘If you try and
save Snotlout,’ he
had warned, ‘you will
put us all in peril.
By being kind to
Snotlout, you may be
endangering the lives
of those who are loyal
to you, who never
betrayed you. Sometimes
kindness can be cruelty.
These are the kind of difficult decisions that a
Leader has to take.’
‘Well, what do you expect?’ said the cold, hard
voice of Snotlout contemptuously. ‘You made a
complete birds’ nest of the entire operation. You woke
up the dragons of the Dragon Rebellion. The noise
probably told the witch’s Vampire Spydragons that we
were there. What did you think was going to happen?’
Fishlegs was trembling with heaving anger, and
he turned on Snotlout.
‘We were only out there in the first place to save
your poxy little life! Why didn’t you at least try and go
after her, Snotlout? She risked her life for you, and you
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couldn’t even be bothered to follow her?’
‘Of course, I was dying to go after the dear little
Bog-Burglar brat,’ drawled Snotlout, ‘and I’d have
jumped on my trusty steed like a shot, you know what
a gentleman I am, Fishlegs, but my own riding-dragon
has most unfortunately been hit by Razorwing stings,
and can hardly move his wings.’
‘How do we know that YOU didn’t hand over
Camicazi to the witch? Maybe this has all been a trick
to betray us to the Alvinsmen!’
Fishlegs’s hot angry words said aloud what
Hiccup was thinking.
‘Why did we listen to your cries for help? You
probably gave her to the witch’s Spydragon! And you,’
shouted Fishlegs, ‘are not worth even a tenth of that
girl!’
Snotlout said nothing. His face was in darkness,
but perhaps there was a quivering
in his fingers when Fishlegs said
he was not worth a tenth of
Camicazi.
But then again,
perhaps not.
‘That little
Bog-Burglar?’ he drawled.
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‘Come on, she’s only a Bog-Burglar after all…’
It was as if Snotlout was deliberately trying to
provoke them.
That was when Fishlegs really lost his temper.
Snotlout had bullied Fishlegs all his life. Anybody
who has been bullied knows what that is like. Fishlegs
had spent all of his first ten years in pure fear, too
terrified to go out the door of his lonely little hut,
in case he got caught by Snotlout and his bullying
sidekick, Dogsbreath the Duhbrain, who would hit
him, and kick him, and take no notice if he pleaded or
cried.
And now they had saved Snotlout’s life, and
Snotlout had repaid them by betraying Camicazi, who
was one of the only two human friends Fishlegs had
ever had.
Fifteen years of being bullied, of hatred, of anger,
welled up in Fishlegs.
All of Fishlegs’s anxiety about where Camicazi
might be, the fear of what the Dragon Furious would
do if he found them in that hideout, all of his rage at
Snotlout came together in a white-hot rush.
‘We should throw you out of the hideout!’ roared
Fishlegs. ‘You are a LIAR! You are a TRAITOR! You
have betrayed Hiccup and us all, time and time again!’
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The three heads of the Deadly Shadow let out a
simultaneous scream, and lightning ricocheted around
the inside of the cavern, and the three heads inhaled,
ready to strike, for Fishlegs was their Master now.
BAM! Fishlegs hit Snotlout, plumb on the nose.
Snotlout looked completely and totally
astonished. He had never really thought much about
that weed, Fishlegs, apart from thinking up clever ways
to humiliate him. Fishlegs had never dared so much as
to pinch Snotlout, let alone punch him. Snotlout raised
his arms to hit back, and then paused as the gigantic
Deadly Shadow’s three heads screamed a warning
BAM! Fishlegs hit him again.
Snotlout half laughed, because however hard
Fishlegs tried to hit, his scrawny weedy little arms were
not really going to do any damage. That enormous
three-headed monster of his, though… Well, that
could do Snotlout some real damage. Snotlout eyed it
fearfully.
‘How does it feel,’ said Fishlegs through gritted,
furious teeth, ‘to know you are completely at someone
else’s mercy?’
Not good, as it happened.
Snotlout looked at Fishlegs’s howling,
Berserk-like face, and at the dreadful roaring
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three-headed nightmare of a Deadly Shadow beside
him. He paled a little. ‘Come on now, Fishlegs,’ he said
uneasily, ‘you can take a joke now, can’t you? I was
always only joking…’
‘Oh, it was a joke was it?’ spat Fishlegs. ‘Well
then I’m just joking too! How does it feel to know that
whatever you do, whatever you say, however you plead,
someone is NEVER… GOING… TO… STOP?’
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Fishlegs hit him again and again and again.
‘Stop!’ said Hiccup, grabbing Fishlegs’s arms.
‘STOP!’
Fishlegs finally stopped. The red rash of anger
disappeared from his face and he dropped his arms.
There is something truly dreadful about this war,
thought Hiccup, in weary horror. It had made even
gentle, un-warlike Fishlegs, who wanted to be a bard,
actually strike Snotlout in anger.
‘Snotlout would kill us, wouldn’t he? He
has tried to kill you, on many
occasions,’ said
Fishlegs flatly.
‘You can’t be
weak, Hiccup.
You
can’t give
him so many
second chances.’
‘That is the way
that Alvin and the witch
talk,’ said Hiccup, flushed
because he felt so guilty
about Camicazi, and yet
with a horrible suspicion
that Fishlegs might be right. ‘You have
to give people a chance.’ He was still holding on to
Fishlegs’s arms. ‘You have to keep on giving people a
chance.’
Fishlegs looked at Hiccup, startled.
And then Fishlegs sighed, and pushed his
curly hair out of his eyes. The last peppery speck of
Berserk-anger faded from his cheeks, and he scratched
a little eczema patch inside his left elbow, and
whispered despairingly, ‘You’re right… It’s this war. It
does things to you after a while. ’
Snotlout was absolutely white, stiff with anger
and humiliation because he had been hit by that weed
104
Fishlegs, and the three-headed Deadly Shadow dragon
had actually scared him, and everyone in that cave had
seen that he was scared.
‘Talk about giving a Viking a bad name!’ he
jeered bitterly. ‘Talk about giving people a chance! I
know we’ve been enemies in the past, but I too have
risked my life to come up here to warn you, even to
help you…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But if you
don’t want to believe me, then don’t, see if I care!’
‘Let’s calm down,’ said Hiccup quietly. ‘We’re
not going anywhere at the moment. We can’t find
Camicazi until the Dragon Furious goes away…’
If the Dragon Furious ever DOES go away, for it is
sounding like he will not rest this time until he has fried us
in our beds…
‘… and lots of us are wounded,’ said Hiccup.
‘Let’s see to that, and then Snotlout can tell us his side
of the story.’
Most of the injuries were Razorwing poison darts,
which had to be removed, leaving a numbing pain that
hurt more than the sting of a bee or a hornet.
But more seriously, a great purple-black bruise,
like a spreading flower, was making its way up Hiccup’s
left arm where the Vampire Spydragon had bitten him.
And when Hiccup took away the rags that Fishlegs had
wrapped around the wound a couple of minutes ago so
105
that he could put some herbs on the injury to heal it, he
started in horror.
The bite was not deep.
But a single tooth from the Vampire Spydragon
was embedded inside his arm.
Hiccup was a dragon-watcher, so he knew a great
deal about the various dragon species, and the way
they hunt.
Vampire Spydragons catch their prey a little like
Komodo dragons. They bite their victim, leaving one of
their teeth in the wound, and let go. The poison in the
bite then slowly paralyses the prey, and the Vampire
Spydragon locates its dying and helpless victim by the
tracking device of its own tooth.
‘Don’t try and get the tooth out!’ warned the
Wodensfang. ‘Your body will work to reject it, and in
time it will fall out naturally. The tooth has serrated
edges, so if you try and dig it out in the meantime you
will just do yourself more damage.
‘There will be a lot of numbness, paralysis even,
for a bit, but it is not a deep bite, so you will not die.
The same applies to the Razorwing stings… the stings
are painful but not fatal…’
But in the meantime, that Vampire Spydragon will
be tracking me, thought Hiccup.
Toothless had no real idea what was going on, but
he understood that his Master was upset, and lovingly
he went and sat on Hiccup’s head. ‘D-d-don’t be sad,
Master, Toothless is here,’ Toothless reminded him,
sliding down to Hiccup’s shoulders, and he put his
wings around Hiccup’s neck with a tenderness that
nearly strangled him.
Toothless searched for something that might
cheer Hiccup up.
‘I’ll wear my c-c-coat if you like?’ said
Toothless. ‘Look! Toothless will wear his coat… That
will make you feel better…’
He fetched his coat, which was half charred
because Toothless had hidden it helpfully in the fire.
‘Does that make you feel better, Master?
Toothless is c-c-cute and he won’t catch cold now…
A-a-a-tishyoo!’
Toothless sneezed a large amount of dragon snot
right in Hiccup’s face.
‘W-w-whoops! Sorry…’
‘Thank you, Toothless,’ lied Hiccup
automatically, wiping his face and putting a hand out to
the little dragon. ‘That makes me feel much better.’
The Hogfly nestled under one
of Hiccup’s arms and squeaked
sympathetically: ‘Tickle my
birthdays… It’s bathtime… Hold
the peanut…’ It didn’t make
much sense, but Hiccup was
touched that both dragons,
in their different ways, were
trying to comfort him.
Snotlout watched
them all moving about,
quiet and sad, wounded
~ STATISTICS ~
FEAR FACTOR: ..................... 8
ATTACK: .............................. 9
SPEED: ................................ 7
SIZE: ................................... 5
DISOBEDIENCE: .................. 7
Vampire Spydragons are chameleons that can
turn invisible apart from their red eyes. They
have bodies of monkeys and heads of gigantic
vampire bats. There is nothing more terrifying
than being surrounded by floating red eyes in
the darkness of a forest – often the last thing
their victims see before they die.
and frightened, as the rage of the Dragon Rebellion
roared on outside. At least they had each other. He
was out of place and out of time, shut out from their
companionship; an interloper, watching them from the
shadows.
Snotlout had a deep cut on his right arm and one
or two on his face, both near misses with a Razorwing’s
wings, but nobody was going to help him clean or dress
his wounds. The hatred in the room towards Snotlout
was so thick and heavy that you could reach out and
touch it. Both dragons and humans avoided looking at
him, as if he had a nasty smell. Snotlout had to tear bits
off his own shirt and wind them round his gashes, and
his pride made him pretend they didn’t hurt too much.
It is only that wimp Hiccup who is giving me a
chance, thought Snotlout resentfully.
‘Does anybody feel like helping me finally unpick
the lock on my chain?’ he drawled. ‘And then I can tell
you my side of the story, and you may just find that I
was on your side all along…’
‘If you are on our side, where is your
Dragonmark?’ demanded Fishlegs, still very hostile.
‘Show it to us, you traitor!’
Snotlout cool
ly took off his helmet, to show a
forehead entirely free of any tattoos whatsoever.
‘I have no Slavemark,’ said Snotlout. ‘But I am still on
your side.’
‘HA!’ snorted Fishlegs and the dragons joined in
the disbelief with smoky sniggers of derision.
‘GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN!’
shouted Hiccup.
‘Thank you,’ said Snotlout, bowing to
Hiccup ironically.
Your dragon can feel a little threatened when a new
dragon enters the household. Be patient and he
will get over it. Hopefully…
Toothless: Hogfly ne-ah com sweetie-giggly com
T-T-Toothless.
The Hogfly is NOT as cute as Toothless.
You: Simple ne-ah, Toothless. TOOTHLESS si la Mos
Xcellent Oos. May noos ava be keendlee a di fella.
Of course not, Toothless. TOOTHLESS is the Best One.
But we have to be nice to him.
Toothless: Simply, simply. Toothless willa be B-B-BIG-
TIME keendlee a di stupidissimo lacksmart greenblood.
Of course, of course. Toothless will be VERY nice.
Pause.
Toothless to Hogfly: H-H-Hogfly,
pishyou, yow goggle com un squeal-
munch plus yow est plusdim com un
snot-trailer.
Hogfly, please, you look like a pig, and you
are more stupid than a snail.
You: TOOTHLESS!
TOOTHLESS!
Toothless (whining): May Toothless speekee pishyou!
But Toothless said please!
Another pause.
Toothless: Hogfly, yow wantee a
play Hidey-plus-Looky? Y-y-yow
hide oppsthere wi di keendlee ickle
Wettingsgreenblood, undi Nod-
dle-Scratchers, plus me adda a pon-
der o marvels und cum opps und loc
yow…
Hogfly, do you want to play Hide-
and-Seek? You hide out there and
play with the sweet little Seadragon
and the Brainpickers, and I’ll count
to a hundred million and then I’ll
come out and find you…
Hogfly (tail wagging happily):
Woof! Woof!
6. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 5