To Hiccup’s relief, he found that he had the
courage not to tell her, after all. He shook his head.
‘Put him down again! This time for two minutes!’
‘He’ll never betray them,’ said Alvin gloomily.
It seemed that Alvin might be right.
Twice the boy was lowered into the water, and
still he would not betray his friends.
‘Patience,’ purred the witch. ‘One more dunking
will do it. I can see it in the boy’s eyes. Not even a fully
grown adult can take that water more than twice… and
he is just a boy.’
The third time the Alvinsmen drew the boy out
he was a pathetic sight indeed.
The witch lifted the visor. ‘Well? Will you talk?’
Hiccup was a little woozy. The witch was
swimming in front of his eyes, and he was so cold his
brain had turned to ice. Every part of him shivered like
he had the fever.
He looked inside himself.
Although a part of him was shouting, ‘Not back
down there! Please, I never want to go back there!’…
the more important bit of him would never give in.
You find things out about yourself in these rather
extreme circumstances.
Hiccup could barely stand, and he was as
blue-white as if he were already dead… But still
he shook his head, and would not say where the
Dragonmarkers’ hideout was.
And still there was not a mark on him.
‘What are you doing, you horrible little boy?’
snapped the witch, quivering with temper. ‘Are you
using some fancy foreign breathing technique?’
All around the edges of the room, the
Dragonmarkers were crying: ‘HICC-UP! HICC-UP!
HIC-CUP!’
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The admiration had begun to spread, so that
even the Alvinsmen were beginning to whisper among
themselves: ‘He’s very brave isn’t he? He’s small and
skinny, but he sure is brave…’
For there is nothing that Vikings admire more
than bravery, even in boys with arms like matchsticks.
And the fact that the Winterfleshers were not touching
him was giving Hiccup a supernatural quality that, at
that moment, the witch really could have done without.
‘How is he doing it?’ people whispered quietly
to one another. ‘The Winterfleshers aren’t touching
him… why do you think that is?’
‘Maybe there aren’t any down there!’ howled the
witch.
But the sea was so boiling with Winterfleshers
that, at that very moment, one of them jumped right up
through the trapdoor, and lay flapping, stranded on the
wooden floor, before Alvin angrily kicked it back down
through the hatch again.
‘I think your plan may be backfiring, Mother…
you’re turning him into even more of a Hero than he
was before…’
The exasperated witch ground her teeth. She
changed tactics.
‘In your heart of hearts you do not wish to
become King, Hiccup,’ she cooed. ‘For you know
that whoever does become King will have to make the
terrible decision to extinguish the dragons forever with
the Dragon Jewel… You don’t want to bear that guilt,
do you, Hiccup? For that guilt is the lot of a King…’
Hiccup’s heart nearly failed.
It was his darkest fear that he might have to do
that…
‘Well,’ purred the witch, ‘I can just take the
problem off your hands. We will let you and your
friends off the hook. We will give you and your
Dragonmarkers safe conduct. You can live free in the
Archipelago, anywhere you like. Berk, if you want…
imagine living a nice quiet peaceful life on Berk…’
Hiccup thought longingly of his childhood home.
Of the world before all this happened…
‘And the dragons…’ said Hiccup. ‘What
about the dragons?’
The witch’s voice hardened. ‘It is too late for the
dragons. The dragons will die anyway. But you have it
in your power to save the lives of all those you love…
Don’t let them die all THROUGH YOUR FAULT…’
This was the greatest trial of all.
It was far harder than withstanding the cold, the
lack of oxygen. For what the witch proposed was so
tempting.
Everything had gone very quiet and still. Hiccup
could barely hear the hubbub of stamping and
applauding Vikings in the background any more.
He was alone in the quietness of his own mind.
He did not want to be king. He did not want the
responsibility of it being all his fault when things went
wrong.
But then, his own voice spoke back to him, in
the quietness of his brain. If he was not the King,
Alvin would be the King. And Hiccup knew what that
meant now. That meant the horror of the dragons’
extinction. That meant the tyranny of evil dominating
the Archipelago and ruling over Tomorrow for this
generation and the next. He could not let that happen.
Even though he did not want it, he HAD to be
King now. He had to fight for it, not half-heartedly, but
with everything he had.
That was the moment Hiccup took on his destiny.
He lifted his drooping head.
‘I will NEVER give up fighting you even though it
is too late… Even though all is lost… Even though it is
impossible… Never never never…’
The witch had failed again.
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‘Leave
him down even
longer!’ yelled the witch,
quivering with temper.
‘Leave him for eight minutes!’
‘Eight minutes is murder!’
bellowed the furious voice of Gobber
the Belch.
But the Alvinsmen lowered Hiccup
down into the sea, and left him down there
for five minutes, six minutes, eight minutes.
Gobber the Belch feared he must be dead.
No ordinary human being could survive
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underwater for eight whole minutes. The Vikings held
diving competitions in the summertime, so they knew
that it was impossible.
But when the Alvinsmen pulled Hiccup up, and
heaved him out of the water, the boy was absolutely
blue, yet he moved inside his chains. He was still alive.
There was a silence of wonder and awed respect
in the Great Hall.
The witch pulled up Hiccup’s visor with a snap.
This had turned from a trial for Hiccup, to a
trial for herself. It was no longer a testing of a single
individual, but a duel of their two wills. And Hiccup
was winning.
She shook him.
‘Well, you horrible little Hiccup-y brat? Will you
215
tell us where the Dragonmarkers’ hideout is now, or
will I be reluctantly forced to leave you down there
forever?
‘I am trying my best not to kill you, you
ungrateful little so-and-so,’ grated the witch,
‘but if you remain so absurdly stubborn,
I
shall have to go ahead and do that…’
‘There is nothing you can do to
me,’ panted Hiccup, ‘that will make
me change my mind.’
At that the witch’s eyes
gleamed. ‘AHA!’ she said
triumphantly. ‘Of course! Why
didn’t I think of this before? I
have been conducting this trial on
the wrong person. We all have
our little weaknesses, don’t
we, Hiccup?’ she gloated. ‘And
yours is soft-heartedness. You
care more about other people
than you do for your runty self.
So how about we throw this
box containing your dear little
Bog-Burglar friend into the
water instead of you?’
At last Alvin felt that his mother was thinking
along the right lines.
‘This is why you will always be weaker than I am,
Hiccup. Camicazi is a very good friend
of yours, isn’t she? And although she
is a great little Escape Artist, even she
will not be able to get out of a box,
wrapped in chains, and thrown into
the sea.
‘She is not a magician, after all.’
Six burly
Alvinsmen threw a
rope around the box, with
Camicazi’s voice shouting, ‘Stay
strong, Hiccup! Don’t worry, I can get out of
this! Don’t betray everyone on account of me!’
SPLASH!
The box went into the water.
‘Think of something clever, Hiccup,’ begged
Gobber.
‘I will haul up this box, Hiccup,’ said the witch,
very, very patiently, ‘the minute you tell me where the
Dragonmarkers’ hideout is. For the last time, will you
tell me where it is?’
Silence, while the Dragonmarkers
strained forward.
Don’t give in, Hiccup… Don’t give in…
Don’t give in….
Please don’t give in…
But Hiccup looked broken.
He nodded. Yes, he would tell her.
Perhaps we all have limits to our
endurance.
There was a groan of despair from the
Dragonmarkers in the cages.
Their Hero had been found wanting
after all.
‘It was too hard a test,’ murmured
Gobber forgivingly to himself. ‘Far too hard a
test for one young boy.’
‘You see…’ smiled the witch, faint with
relief that at last she had triumphed. ‘All it
took was a little bit of light persuasion…
‘YOU SEE!’ she glowed, holding wide
her victorious arms.
‘THE BOY IS HUMAN AFTER ALL! JUST
A POOR SQUIGGLY WORM LIKE THE REST OF
US!
‘Now talk! Talk! Talk!’ yelled the witch.
It appeared that Hiccup was coughing too much
to talk.
‘Show me on the map!’ yelled the witch. ‘Show
me on the map where the Dragonmarkers’ hideout
is…’
Hiccup tried to indicate with his head where the
hideout was on the map.
‘He’s too exhausted to talk… Untie his arms
from the chains so he can point!’ snapped the witch, in
a fever of impatience.
‘No!’ said Alvin.
The witch ignored her son. ‘Leave the chain
round his ankle… bar the doors… he’s only one boy…’
Hiccup’s arms and legs were untied.
He stumbled forward, his left-hand side trailing
behind him, a dead, unconscious weight.
220
And then he sprang.
To the witch’s
astonishment,
Hiccup suddenly
leapt into awkward,
limping life, like a
shaking ghost, and
used his good right
hand to slap the map
up into the witch’s face.
He dodged clumsily past two Alvinsmen,
and hauled himself up the Dragonmarkers’ cages with
one hand, one leg, and a reserve of strength he did not
know he had.
‘I knew it! CATCH HIM!’ bellowed Alvin in
horror as Hiccup climbed.
‘Don’t panic!’ shrieked the witch. ‘He can’t go
anywhere! He’s got a chain around his ankle!’
Hiccup hung off the top-most cage, a lopsided
scarecrow, his right fist clenched and defiant.
‘I will… NEVER… betray my friends, witch!
And the dragons must never be destroyed! NEVER!
NEVER! NEVER!’ shouted Hiccup.
All around the edges of the room, the
Dragonmarkers burst out cheering.
‘NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! HICCUP!
222
HICCUP! HICCUP!’
The witch gave a shriek of fury. ‘But we can
still kill him! Alvin, you were right! Forget about the
politics! Kill them all! Kill everybody! SHOOT! SHOOT
YOUR ARROWS! SHOOT HIM DOWN!’
With a cry of delight, Alvin gave the order, drew
out his own longbow, ready to shoot…
But he was too late.
Hiccup looked down at Snotlout.
‘I did not Turn My Back on you, Snotlout,’ he
said. ‘Remember that.’
And then Hiccup threw himself off the edge of
the cage, down through the trapdoor, and into the icy
sea below.
‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ screamed Alvin,
hurling himself at the chain still attached to Hiccup’s
ankle.
Alvin hauled on the chain, desperate to reel
Hiccup in, hand over hook, screaming for help. Three
burly Alvinsmen rushed to assist. The chain was coming
up easily, for after all, there was only one skinny young
boy on the end of it.
Beside them three more Alvinsmen were hauling
up the box that had Camicazi inside it.
‘Two more strong drags and we’ll have him!’
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panted Alvin in relief.
But Camicazi’s box
came up first – or rather the
remains of Camicazi’s box.
The padlocks and chains were
broken, the dripping wood was
split open wide, smashed to
pieces by some great mystery
force, and there was no
Camicazi inside.
The little blonde Escape
Artist had made her most
daring escape.
‘Nooooooooooo!’
howled the witch. ‘Where has she gone?’
And then the chain that was supposed
to have Hiccup on the end of it jerked once,
twice…
It was as if Alvin and his Alvinsmen
were out in the Open Ocean, fishing for
mackerel, and the line was suddenly taken
by a gigantic shark. The chain was wrenched back with
such ferocity that it heaved all four Warriors off their
feet, and up into the air, and dragged them right to the
edge of the trapdoor.
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‘Take the strain!’ screamed Alvin hysterically,
leaning so far backwards that he was practically
horizontal to the ground. More and more Alvinsmen
joined the end of the chain, heaving for all they were
worth.
To t
he onlookers, it seemed like an almost
mystical tug-of-war.
Red, gasping, his masked face bulging, Alvin’s
foot and helplessly scrabbling ivory leg could not get a
grip. He and his Warriors were towed inexorably nearer
and nearer to the open trapdoor.
‘PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT!’ screamed
the demented villain, and the room watched
open-mouthed, unable to believe what they were
seeing. Who was this boy, to drag so many mighty
Warriors across the floor?
‘It’s a miracle…’ breathed an Alvinsman,
mightily impressed despite himself, for one of the
ancient qualities of a Hero in the Viking Sagas was
superhuman strength.
One last colossal heave, and SNAP! The chain
broke. All ten of the Alvinsmen fell flat on their
backs with a suddenness that dragged Alvin’s brand
new cloak into the water, while Alvin screamed,
‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
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Crazed with disappointment, Alvin drew up what
was left of the chain. The broken remains were as light
as a crabcake. There was nothing on the end.
‘AAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!’
screamed Alvin.
Killing Hiccup had
become his obsession; it
filled every waking and
dreaming moment. And was
the boy to be plucked from
his hook in the nick of time
once more?
It was too cruel.
The witch’s plan had backfired
most spectacularly.
‘He’s escaped! He’s escaped!’
‘HIC-CUP! HIC-CUP! HIC-CUP!’
‘Alvin, my sweetest… Alvin, my
darling… Alvin, my honeypot,’ said the
witch, trying to soothe herself as much as
her son. ‘He’s dead… he must be dead,
don’t you see? Some large underwater
sea creature must have got him,
that is what will have broken
that chain…’
‘Out! Out to the boats! Search every corner!
Launch the Bullguards!’ howled Alvin, shaking off
the witch’s arm, and leaping to his feet. ‘NO MORE
TALKING! SHOOT THE BOY ON SIGHT!’
The witch was quiet for
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 11