after them, and if they stopped it would already be
too late for someone to save them.
‘The dragon-claw-eye-periscope had
disappeared, but over their terrified shoulders
they could see five little humps of sand following
them, keeping pace with them, unhurried.’
Eggingarde’s hands got more and more
excitable as she conjured up this nightmare, as
if she were conducting a savage piece of music,
faster and faster.
‘The slave-boy and the slave-girl
oared on, and the five little humps of sand
followed, always keeping pace, patiently
waiting for them to tire.
‘The slave-boy and the slave-girl oared
their yachts for what seemed like hours. There
was nowhere to go, no trees to climb, no one
to hear. The sands went on for ever.
‘And then!’
And then???? Hiccup and Toothless and
Wodensfang leant forward, in horror…
Eggingarde swallowed, her arms momentarily
frozen, before carrying on, her voice even deeper.
‘Out in the most eastern part of the Evil
Reaches, right by the rock that looked like a witch’s
finger pointing upwards at the sky, the boy’s yacht
caught on the metal edge of a dragon-trap,
lying half covered in sand, waiting to catch
dragons.
‘The dragon-trap snapped shut, and
caught the rim of the yacht, and held it fast.
‘The boy’s yacht tipped over, and
smashed into the sand.
‘And the boy gave up, he lay down
on the sand and curled up into a little
ball.
‘The sands around him were
quiet.
‘Slowly, carefully, rose the
dragon claw with the dreadful eyes
on the end, burrowing out of the
sand by the boy’s foot.
‘The boy did not move.
‘And then the claw closed
around his ankle and gently pulled
him down below the sand.’
There was a long, long silence as Eggingarde’s arms
slowly dropped down to her sides.
‘What happened to the slave-girl?’ asked Hiccup,
horrified.
‘She carried on, back to the prison,’ sighed
Eggingarde.
Eggingarde pulled down the hood of her
bearsuit.
Underneath the bedclothes, Toothless and
the Wodensfang gave soft, unhappy whines. They
obviously hadn’t enjoyed the story either.
‘That’s a very, very sad story,’ said Hiccup.
‘Doesn’t the boy get away? Couldn’t you make the
boy get away, and give the story a happy ending?’
‘If I was living in a happier place,’ said
Eggingarde, ‘I might tell stories with happier endings.’
Hiccup was getting a very, very bad feeling about
this story.
‘It wasn’t a true story, was it, Eggingarde?’ asked
Hiccup.
Please don’t let it be a true story…
Eggingarde said nothing.
‘It wasn’t about Fishlegs? The slave-boy and the
slave-girl, they weren’t you and Fishlegs, were they,
Eggingarde?’
133
The dark was filled with silence.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Eggingarde. ‘It’s bad
for morale.’
Hiccup begged her and begged her, but she
would not say another word.
It was dark. It was quiet. Everybody else was
sleeping now.
A few moments later, snores came from the bed
beside Hiccup. It was all very well for Eggingarde. She
had got her story off her chest.
But Hiccup and his two little dragons lay awake
in that darkness, listening to the sound of the Dragon
Rebellion attacking the prison.
‘You don’t think that story was t-t-true, do
you, Master?’ whispered Toothless, his two eye-beams
shining like torches in the darkness.
Oh, how Hiccup hoped not. ‘I’ve never heard
of a monster like that one,’ Hiccup whispered back.
‘Although there are said to be some weird things
under the sands of the Amber Slavelands, things
that have been cut off from the rest of the world for
so long that they’ve developed in their own peculiar
way, like Brainless Leg-Removers, Shooters and
Slitherfangs. But I’ve never heard of a dragon with
eyes on the ends of its claws…’
134
‘So maybe it’s not true…’ said the Wodensfang,
to Toothless’s relief.
But although the little dragons eventually went
to sleep, the Wodensfang’s arms clasped rather sweetly
around Toothless, protecting him, Hiccup could
not sleep.
What if
Eggingarde’s
story is true?
thought Hiccup.
And what if it
happened to
Fishlegs?
Please don’t
let it be true…
Then Hiccup spoke sternly to himself. Fishlegs
is somewhere out there, and he is relying on me to stay
hopeful.
Hiccup was young and optimistic, and eventually
he persuaded himself that Eggingarde’s story was just
a story, but a very good one, and he too fell asleep.
135
~ STATISTICS ~
FEAR FACTOR: ..................... 5
ATTACK: .............................. 4
SPEED: ................................ 2
SIZE: ................................... 1
DISOBEDIENCE:................... 7
Brainless Leg-Removers are primitive
creatures that lurk beneath the sands of the
Amber Slavelands. Any sign of movement
on the sands above causes them to launch
upwards and snap shut their powerful
clam-like jaws, and then descend back
down into the depths of
the sands again.
8. HUNTING FOR THE AMBER
IN THE AMBER SLAVELANDS
Very early the next morning, the slaves gathered in the
prison courtyard for the Seeking.
Toothless was very tired and very scared, peering
out of Hiccup’s waistcoat. ‘Toothless not want to go
on this Seeking.’
Nor did Hiccup.
‘OPEN THE DOORS TO THE AMBER
SLAVELANDS!’ cried Alvin the Treacherous.
C-CCREAK!
The great doors opened on the east side of the
courtyard of Prison Darkheart and Hiccup got his first
view of the sands of the Amber Slavelands.
It was the volcanic rock that had turned them
that extraordinary bright scarlet red, like blood, and
with the sinking of the tide they stretched out for miles,
encircled by the arms of the Slaveland walls, as far as
the eye could see and beyond.
‘DIG FOR YOUR LIVES! HUNT TILL
YOUR EYES DROP OUT! BUT TAKE CARE
OF YOURSELVES FOR THOR’S SAKE… We’ve
been losing a lot of slaves recently,’ cried Alvin the
Treacherous, and the cold clear note of the bugle rang
138
out. ‘THE SEEKING BEGINS!!!’
All around the edges
of the courtyard, tucked
away behind the crazy jumble of weaponry and
dragon-traps, were rows and rows of sand-yachts.
The crowds of slaves rushed and jostled for them
now, for the witch’s prize of freedom was far more
precious than her punishment of death.
‘Calmly, Amber-Hunters!’ said Stoick the Vast,
holding up his great hand. ‘Calmly! There is plenty of
time.’
So the Amber-Hunters got to the sand-yachts
after the first undignified rush.
Eggingarde showed Hiccup his sand-yacht. ‘This
one hasn’t got an owner,’ said Eggingarde.
Hiccup swallowed.
‘What happened to the last owner?’ asked
Hiccup, although he already knew the answer.
‘I really can’t say,’ said Eggingarde, but her eyes
seemed to say ‘Lo-o-o-o-st…’
‘Don’t tell me, it’s bad for morale,’ Hiccup
finished for her.
The sand-yacht was a wobbly, skew-whiff thing,
with a basket balanced on one end to put the amber
in, and a long pole, again slightly skew-whiff, to pole
along the sand with.
139
In his mind Hiccup called this little yacht The
Hopeful Puffin 2, because it reminded him so much
of The Hopeful Puffin, the little boat he used to have
on Berk, long ago. Before the war…
To give himself courage, and to remind him
of that happy time he hoped would come again, he
took out a piece of chalk from his rucksack, and drew
a picture of The Hopeful Puffin on the side of the
sand-yacht.
‘You have to take care of your sand-yacht,’
explained Eggingarde, ‘because if your sand-yacht
breaks a mast or something, there’s no way you can
get back to Prison Darkheart without the tide
catching you.’
Every team had a prison guard. Alvin had put
Snotlout in charge of the Amber-Hunters.
‘But I’m a Chief and a dragon-fighter!’
complained Snotlout furiously. ‘I’m not a slave or a
guard! I should be out there, beyond the prison walls,
killing dragons for you, King. I’m way too important to
this war effort for you to lose me on the sands.’
‘Silence!’ yelled Alvin. ‘Are you
disrespecting my orders, Chief Snotlout?’
Snotlout was silent. He was not
a fool. He knew what happened
140
to people who disrespected Alvin’s orders.
‘Thank you,’ purred Alvin. ‘We’ve lost a lot
of prison guards recently and we have to find that
Jewel soon, my mother has seen it in her dreams, and
Mother’s dreams must be obeyed.’
So it was Snotlout who addressed the Amber-
Hunters’ party before they left. ‘RIGHT, you ’orrible
lot! You heard what Alvin said: hunt until your eyes
drop out! And Stoick, Baggy and Gobber, please keep
up. I don’t want you old guys holding up the whole
team,’ he sneered.
So they followed the great army of yachts on to
the sands.
Every now and then one little team ahead
of them broke off to begin working on one of the
pointless holes, or hunting for the amber, so as they
travelled farther and farther east across the sand, the
army of yachts grew smaller and smaller.
Until it was just the Amber-Hunters.
For hours and hours they sailed.
They had long left the islands and the land
behind.
The tide made a strange kind of sucking noise
as it sank, and it seemed as if it was bubbling,
bursting, and maybe it was Hiccup’s imagination
playing tricks on him, but it seemed as if there really
might be something DOWN there, something that
was incubating, that the sands were about to give
birth to something dreadful…
There could be Brainless Leg-Removers down
there… There could be Rocket-Rages… There could
be something even worse than these…
The scary thing was that all the other slaves
seemed to think the same thing. They were very, very
jumpy, looking over their shoulders all the time.
Toothless and the Wodensfang peered anxiously
out of Hiccup’s waistcoat.
‘Do you think Eggingarde is right and there
142
is that Monster down there?’ asked Toothless,
querulously.
‘Now, Toothless,’ said the Wodensfang. ‘If there
is a Monster, we shall just have to try and reason
with it. Us dragons are just as capable of evolving
into more civilised beings as humans are…’
Yes, that was all very well, thought Hiccup, but
I would put a bet on that dragon not being very
reasonable.
Chief Snotlout found it hard to keep up with the
Amber-Hunters.
The prison guards had wider, bigger sand-yachts
and Snotlout hadn’t yet mastered the rhythm of his.
Even Hiccup was faster than Snotlout, despite
the fact the falling-apart The Hopeful Puffin 2 was
impossible to steer in a straight line, and wobbled its
way forward in desperate zig-zags. (And in this it was
very like The Hopeful Puffin 1, a valiant little boat, but
it tended to go round in circles.)
‘Stop! Slow down! Wait for me!’ shouted
Snotlout, waving his whip.
But nobody bothered waiting for Snotlout.
He fell further and further behind.
So when they finally reached the most evil of the
Evil Reaches, way, way to the east, it was Stoick who
143
addressed the Team with the customary Team Leader
address.
‘Ahem.’ Stoick cleared his throat. ‘Company of
Amber-Hunters! We may be slaves, but we can still be
the best slaves that we can be!’
Even the droopiest little Wanderer straightened
his back at this.
‘Present your kit for inspection!’ ordered Stoick.
There was something heroic about the pathetic
little line of yachts that arranged itself in a line out
there on the desolate horror of the red sands, and the
raggedy human backs ramrod-straight, presenting
themselves proudly for inspection.
Stoick walked calmly up the line as if he were
inspecting a war party back on Berk.
Snotlout came panting up.
‘How dare you… puff puff…’ He flapped his
whip in an exhausted way. ‘This is an outrage. I’m in
charge here, not you, Stoick!
‘We want to get as much amber as possible, you
lazy slaves, so let’s get you working as widely as we
can,’ puffed Snotlout, re-asserting his command.
‘I’ll stay here, where it’s a bit safer, with a few
of you as bodyguards, but the rest of you guys spread
out as far as possible – your lives don’t matter. Stoick,
144
when we get back to the prison I shall put you on
report.’
Snotlout pointed a shaking whip at Stoick.
And then something unexpected happened.
Gobber the Belch stepped forward and
calmly
wrestled Snotlout’s whip from him, broke it in half,
and gave it back to him.
‘We are not in prison now, Snotlout,’ said
Gobber the Belch.
‘Out here,’ said Gobber the Belch, ‘Stoick is in
charge.’
Crossing his arms,
Gobber looked sternly
down into Snotlout’s
eyes, as Snotlout
swallowed, realising
that these words
might have a sinister
significance.
It was true,
they could not
even see the prison
out here, just the
red sands that
stretched out for
ever in all directions and the little group on their
sand-yachts standing silently in the wilderness, many
of them past their prime, but still old Warriors whose
fighting ability Snotlout knew well.
And there were fifteen of them and only one of
Snotlout.
‘We have to go back sometime,’ hissed Snotlout,
shaking his broken whip. ‘We cannot stay out here
for ever. And when we do, I’ll have you killed as a
revolutionary…’
Gobber gave a dismissive snort, as if a fly
was speaking, and turned to Stoick and gave the
Hooligan salute.
‘What are your orders, Chief Stoick the Vast?’
‘Thank you, Warrior Gobber,’ said Stoick the
Vast, very dignified, straight-backed, every inch a
Chief, the warrior he had been before he got the
Slavemark. He saluted Gobber back.
Hiccup grinned in delight as the Amber-Hunters
broke into applause, and Stoick bowed solemnly
to them all. It was so lovely to see his father back in
command, even if it was only temporary.
Stoick the Vast, O Hear His Name and Tremble
once again, considered the situation.
It was much safer for all of them to stick together
146
in case You-Know-What attacked. (Stoick would not
allow his mind to dwell on You-Know-What, whatever
that was.)
But then perhaps it was worth taking a few risks
because if they found the Jewel, they would win the
ultimate prize. They would be free…
Stoick thought longingly of the idea of freedom.
Freedom. Dignity. Maybe perhaps he could
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel Page 7