How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero

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How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 19

by Cressida Cowell


  nasty burn and turned her lips blue.

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  The Guardian inspected the last Thing, the

  Dragon Jewel, at painstaking length and with reverent

  care, before laying it back down on the Throne.

  He raised his arms in the air.

  The Vikings on the beach leaned in, eyes wide,

  backs stiffened, in dread of the Druid Guardian’s

  judgement. Unconsciously Alvin cringed backwards,

  with his hook and arm protecting his face as if

  expecting to be attacked.

  There was a tense pause.

  ‘The Things are REAL!’ cried the Druid

  Guardian.

  The Guardian’s impassive face split with

  emotion, like a stern stone cliff suddenly struck by an

  earthquake.

  ‘After ninety-nine years of failure, ninety-nine

  years of searching, ninety-nine years of guarding the isle

  of Tomorrow, the Things are REAL! The Impossible

  Task has been completed!’

  The Alvinsmen on the beach erupted with

  excitement.

  The witch burst into tears.

  She threw herself into Alvin’s arms, punching

  the air with one emaciated skinny fist. ‘I knew it!’ she

  screamed, beside herself with triumph. ‘I knew it!

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  ‘Twenty years…’ panted the witch, ‘twenty years

  imprisoned inside that tree trunk, that little circle of

  hell. Twenty years I sang my spells, I mixed my poisons,

  I wove my tapestries of destiny out of rat guts and

  mice bones. Twenty years of longing, dreaming and

  murdering for you to be King… and you will be! MY

  ALVIN IS THE KING!’

  ‘GUARDIAN PROTECTORS OF

  TOMORROW!’ called the Guardian in a great

  joyful bellow, addressing the Guardians, those

  dragons-or-something-else lurking beneath the Singing

  Sands.

  ‘In twenty-four hours, when this King is crowned,

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  we shall be let loose from ninety-nine years of bondage!

  We shall be free to roam the skies and seas of the

  Archipelago, on airy careless wings and feet, with no

  limit, no boundary, no limitation…

  ‘And I,’ and here the Guardian’s voice really did

  crack, ‘I shall be able to take off this bandage that

  lies across my eyes at last, and see the shining colours

  of this Archipelago, as bright and new as if freshly

  painted!’

  Something extraordinary happened next.

  All around the Guardian’s outstretched arms, the

  sand began to sing.

  The Alvinsmen were too busy celebrating to

  notice, and the Dragonmarker prisoners-of-war too

  depressed.

  But the Singing Sands of the Ferryman’s Gift

  were singing once again.

  It was as if each little grain of sand were rubbing

  against its neighbour, like a million happy crickets

  singing a joyful hymn of praise.

  There was an innocent longing to that sound that

  brought tears to the eyes.

  ‘At last the Impossible Task has been

  completed…’ cried the Druid Guardian.

  ‘At last our bondage ends…

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  ‘At last WE HAVE FOUND OUR HEIR!’

  ‘It’s going to be me!’ sang Alvin joyfully, as the

  witch capered by his side. ‘It’s going to be ME! ME ME

  ME ME! And what an excellent choice that is!’

  ‘He who gathered these Things together must be

  a truly great Hero indeed,’ said the Druid Guardian.

  ‘But wait… I can hear other humans landing on the

  beach…’

  ‘Wait?’ said the witch, instantly terrified. ‘What

  do you mean, wait? We have all the Things, don’t we?’

  ‘HOLD ON THERE, MR DRUID

  GUARDIAN!’

  The Dragonmarker ships had indeed landed on

  the beaches now. Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast,

  great Chief of the Hooligan Tribe, vaulted over the

  edge of his boat, The Blue Whale, and on to the Singing

  Sands of the Ferryman’s Gift.

  The Guardian turned as Stoick came running

  forward, splashing through the shallows. Even in his

  late middle age, Stoick was an impressive figure, built

  in traditional Viking chieftain mould, with a belly like a

  battleship and a beard like a flaming gorse bush.

  Stoick was followed by thousands and

  thousands of Dragonmarkers, including Bertha of the

  Bog-Burglars, Humungously Hotshot the Hero, his

  fellow Hero Tantrum O’UGerly and his eleven fiancées,

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  Snotlout’s father Baggybum the Beerbelly, and Old

  Wrinkly, Hiccup’s grandfather.

  ‘WAIT!’ cried Stoick the Vast, out of breath.

  Running on sand is hard work, particularly once you

  have reached a certain age.

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  ‘Who are you?’ asked the Druid Guardian sternly.

  ‘We are the Dragonmarkers,’ Stoick puffed. ‘We

  represent half the Tribes of the Archipelago… and this

  man Alvin must never be our King!’

  The arriving Dragonmarkers cheered

  simultaneously, a great rousing shout from thousands

  of throats, to show the Guardian how many of them

  there were.

  ‘It sounds like you have more than a few little

  dissenters,’ said the Guardian to Alvin. ‘If these are

  half the Tribes of the Archipelago…’

  ‘But they are the less important half, Your

  Honour…’ replied Alvin.

  ‘We, the Dragonmarkers,’ puffed Stoick, ‘have a

  claim to the Throne. We maintain that my son Hiccup

  Horrendous Haddock the Third is the true King of the

  Wilderwest!’

  ‘You have a son called Hiccup?’ asked the Druid

  Guardian with interest.

  ‘Don’t read anything into it!’ howled the witch,

  forgetting to be polite to the Guardian. ‘Just because

  he was called Hiccup, like Grimbeard the Ghastly’s

  son, doesn’t mean anything at all!’

  ‘Hiccup actually found the Things,’ said Stoick,

  ‘every single one of them, and this thief Alvin here, and

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  that devil his mother, stole them!’

  ‘Nonsense and cat-nerves!’ screeched the witch,

  spitting like a cobra.

  ‘My wife Valhallarama set out to reclaim the

  stolen Things from this horrible pair,’ explained Stoick,

  ‘and she will meet us here, along with Hiccup, whom

  we put into hiding in case these Alvinsmen killed them.

  Hiccup should be here any minute, along with the Last

  Lost Thing, the toothless dragon…’

  Stoick stopped.

  He had been so busy explaining, that he had only

  just noticed that the Things were already sitting there

  on the beach.

  ‘The Things are already here!’ said Stoick in

  astonishment.

  ‘Yes, they are, Stoick,’ smiled the witch

  condescendingly. ‘Well spotted.’

  Stoick was not the brightest barbarian in the

  business, so it took a while for this to sink in. His brow

  furrowed.

  ‘But where is my wife Valhallarama?’

  ‘Poor stupid Stoick…’
the witch said

  contemptuously. ‘Always late, always slow on the

  uptake. We caught your dear wife Valhallarama in the

  act of burglary and revolution in the early hours of this

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  morning, and I very kindly brought her along so she

  could have the pleasure of witnessing Alvin’s triumph

  before we executed her.’

  The witch snapped her fingers, and her Alvinsmen

  staggered over carrying a box on their shoulders. It was

  the same broken box that Camicazi had been kept in

  earlier, hastily mended, and wound round untidily with

  chains, which one of the Alvinsmen unlocked.

  Valhallarama exploded out of the box. She was

  a little crumpled, for a middle-aged woman (even one

  as fit as Valhallarama) is a little old for being folded up

  into boxes, but she still had her Warrior dignity intact.

  Stoick whitened. He saw for the first time, the

  Dragonmarker prisoners-of-war standing dejectedly in

  chains on the edges of the crowd.

  ‘Gobber… my dear fellow, what has happened

  to your beard? Valhallarama… my love, I don’t

  understand,’ said Stoick, bewildered. ‘Have you… have

  you… failed?’ he asked wonderingly, for it was unlike

  Valhallarama, that splendid Hero, to fail at anything.

  ‘Our son did not stay in the underground

  treehouse. He raided the witch and Alvin’s war bunker

  to retrieve the Things himself. He did not recognise

  me in my Alvinsman disguise and he took the Things

  from me just as I was in the act of reclaiming them,’

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  explained Valhallarama.

  Stoick beamed. ‘Oh well done, Hiccup! Very

  rude and disobedient of him, but after all, if he’s going

  to be a King, he can’t have his parents doing everything

  for him. I’m proud of the boy—’ He stopped, and his

  brow furrowed again, and he said:

  ‘But then… then why are the Things here? And

  where is Hiccup?’

  Valhallarama’s face was very, very grim.

  She turned her face to the witch.

  ‘Perhaps the witch will be able to answer both

  those questions,’ said Valhallarama, and her gaze was

  as cold and as implacable as iron.

  Yes,’ smiled the witch, purring with pleasure, ‘I

  can answer both those questions. I fear you are a little

  behind the times, Stoick. For you see, us Alvinsmen

  have ALL the Things now.’

  She whipped the black cloth from Toothless’s

  cage.

  Stoick recoiled as if he had been bitten, and the

  Dragonmarker crowd gave a sigh of distress.

  The exhausted little dragon was sleeping inside

  the cage, a pathetic sight with his wings shivering

  and dark circles under his eyes from the trauma of

  separation from Hiccup.

  359

  ‘The Druid Guardian here has just examined all

  the Things, he has found them to be correct, and he

  has declared my Alvin to be Grimbeard the Ghastly’s

  Heir. We will be crowning him tomorrow, on the

  Doomsday of Yule.’

  ‘That is true,’ acknowledged the Druid Guardian.

  ‘NO!’ cried Stoick, eyes round with horror.

  Howls and moans from the Dragonmarkers.

  ‘But, then… my Hiccup?’ said Stoick. ‘Where is

  my Hiccup?’

  The witch gave an infinitely nasty smile. ‘Your

  Hiccup is not coming “any minute”. He will never be

  coming back, I am afraid.’

  Valhallarama, proud Valhallarama, dropped to

  her knees. ‘No! Hiccup! No!’

  She had never collapsed before. Stoick leant

  down to support her…

  … and Old Wrinkly, Hiccup’s grandfather,

  looked thoroughly bewildered. ‘I don’t understand it,’

  he said.

  ‘Your soothsaying was always a little suspect,

  Wrinkly,’ sneered the witch rudely.

  ‘It was Snotlout,’ said Gobber flatly, standing

  chained at the back of the crowd. ‘Snotlout betrayed

  us all.’

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  ‘Traitor!’ cried Grabbit of Grim. Boos and

  catcalls from the Dragonmarkers. ‘That treasonous

  traitor of traitors!’

  Baggybum the Beerbelly, Snotlout’s father, put

  his head into his hands and whispered, ‘I’m sorry. I’m

  so sorry. I’m ashamed to be his father.’

  ‘So you see how ridiculous it was of you

  Dragonmarkers to come here trying to steal Alvin’s

  Throne from him!’ sneered the witch. ‘You have

  nothing, nothing! And the Hero you are waiting for is

  dead.’

  Valhallarama of the White Arms was whiter than

  a corpse, her hands clasped together.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  ‘I saw the arrow hit him full in the chest myself,’

  said the witch. ‘But as a precaution we have had our

  Bullguards and Ravenhunters diving for his body in the

  Bay ever since, so that we can prove that the runt is

  finally dead. They have not recovered it yet, but what

  they have found is this…’

  She produced Hiccup’s helmet, like a conjuror,

  from under her cloak.

  ‘No…’ begged Valhallarama and Stoick, and

  Stoick dropped to his knees too.

  The two great Warriors knelt together in the

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  sand, as if they were getting married once

  again, holding the helmet, silent tears creeping

  down their old Warrior cheeks.

  Valhallarama then jumped to her feet

  and shook her fist fiercely.

  ‘YOU killed him!’ she roared at the

  witch. ‘You fiend!’

  ‘All’s fair in love and war,

  Valhallarama,’ cooed the witch. ‘Did you

  not try and kill my own son Alvin with

  your very own arrow back in the Amber

  Slavelands? Perhaps you should have

  given your son triple-depth chest

  armour, and maybe he would be

  alive today… but then maybe

  you are more of a careless

  mother than I am myself.

  You were never around

  much, were you?’

  The witch

  had much to pay

  Valhallarama back

  for, and that

  particular poison

  dart really hit

  home. The poor crushed Warrior showed the hurt in

  her wounded blue eyes.

  Valhallarama whirled around, and in one flowing

  movement, she swiped an axe from an Alvinsman

  standing behind her.

  She raised the axe above her head, and roared:

  ‘BLOOD FEUD!’

  The massed crowds of Dragonmarkers drew their

  own axes in sympathy. A battle between the Alvinsmen

  and the Dragonmarkers was about to take place.

  Until, with surprising agility and extraordinary

  strength for one of his age, the Druid Guardian leapt

  forward, removing Valhallarama’s axe from her hand

  just before she could kill the witch.

  He stretched to the height of his full seven feet

  and spread wide his arms, bellowing in a voice of

  electric command:

 
‘In the name of Tomorrow, STOP! OR SO

  HELP ME THOR, I SHALL CALL UPON THE

  GUARDIAN PROTECTORS OF TOMORROW

  AND THEY SHALL CARRY YOU UP INTO

  THE OUTERMOST REACHES OF OBLIVION

  AND YOU SHALL NEVER SET FOOT ON THIS

  SWEET EARTH AGAIN!’

  A speech which in itself caught the attention,

  even without the Guardian’s fingers twitching on the

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  end of his outspread arms, and the sand underneath

  the warring humans beginning to bubble and sink

  beneath their feet as if something were happening

  under there…

  Anger turned to fear in an instant.

  ‘Put down your swords!’ ordered the Guardian.

  ‘This is sacred land! You are quarrelling on the Singing

  Sands of the Ferryman’s Gift, and if you are not careful

  I shall give you a gift that you most certainly haven’t

  asked for and that you will never be able to return!’

  Both sides grew quiet, mute with terror at this

  invocation of the supernatural, and as they did, the

  sinking sands fell silent and were still and firm beneath

  their feet again.

  ‘That is better,’ said the Guardian.

  ‘I am in command here on these Sands and on

  Tomorrow. Until such time as the King is crowned,

  my word is absolute, and if my wishes are disobeyed,

  my punishment is total. In my capacity as a private

  individual, I can be very reasonable, but unfortunately

  my role as Guardian takes me beyond the reach of

  reason, and I act only as the Law.’

  Everyone stayed very quiet.

  ‘Madam.’

  The Guardian turned to Valhallarama.

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  ‘I understand the rage and fury of a mother’s grief,

  but you must put this aside now. The Dragon Furious

  has grown too strong, and the very existence of the

  Archipelago is at stake.’

  He did not speak loudly, but he spoke with

  such authority that it seemed to come from the gods

  themselves.

  ‘We Vikings are known for our proud

  independence and our quarrelsome natures. It is the

  very essence of our beings. But now the Dragon has

  come, we must give up our personal sorrows, our petty

  blood feuds, and stand together against a common

 

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