How to be a Pirate's Dragon (Hiccup) (12 page)

"Ye-e-e-e-s-s-s,"
said Alvin, considering the cup again, and then dropping it softly back on the pile. "The thing is, Outcasts don't always keep promises to other people. I blame our upbringing. My mother never really loved me, you know. But I always keep promises I make to MYSELF. And long ago, when that coffin lid snapped down and chopped off my hand, I made myself a very solemn promise indeed."

Alvin's pleasant eyes narrowed, and he sidled towards Hiccup like a predatory crab. "It's not that

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I dislike you personally, Hiccup, but I swore to myself," said Alvin, still smiling, "that I would FIND Grimbeard's precious Treasure, and I would KILL his precious Heir. That's fair, isn't it, an Heir in exchange for a hand?"

And he made a vicious swipe at Hiccup with the Stormblade.

Hiccup dodged out of the way in the nick of time. He leapt nimbly onto the nearest mound of treasure and started scrambling up it.

[Image: Toothless to the rescue!.]

"And with Grimbeard's own precious sword, too," chuckled Alvin. "Isn't fate ARTISTIC?"

"TOOTHLESS!" yelled Hiccup. "Get me a SWORD!"

Alvin climbed after him and made another wild lunge at his head.

Hiccup ducked behind a large golden chariot wheel.

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"TOOTH-LESS!" cried Hiccup. "HURRY UP!"

"Okay, okay,"
muttered Toothless, who had flown to a pile of weaponry not far away. "K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST."

Toothless tried to pick up three of the swords, all of them as big and beautiful and flashy as the Stormblade itself. But they were all too heavy.

So he turned to something smaller, an undistinguished but serviceable object, a bit rusty at the edges perhaps. He could lift it easily with both talons, and flew with it to where Hiccup was climbing. He was a quarter of the way up a hill of treasure, hotly pursued by Alvin, who had little red lights dancing in his narrowed eyes and was swishing that Stormblade like he was a human flail.

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Toothless dropped the rusty sword into Hiccup's hand, and he caught it just in time to parry a blow by Alvin so terrible that if it had actually connected with Hiccup's neck, it might have removed his head from his shoulders then and there.

Hiccup caught the sword in his LEFT hand, because, if you remember, his right arm was dislocated and in a sling.

"This isn't going to last long," he thought to himself. It was a case of Man against Boy, and Hiccup wasn't exactly the greatest swordfighter in the Inner Isles even with his
right
hand.

[Image: Hiccup.]

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"Keep your point UP, Hiccup," shouted Fishlegs, desperately trying to clamber up after them so he could help. "Eye on the swords at all times, a strong wrist, remember your footwork. ..."

Alvin the Treacherous gave a great swipe at Hiccup's belly, and Hiccup was surprised to find his left arm jerk up and his own sword block Alvin's in the nick of time.

Alvin was equally surprised, and he hauled his great sword over his wicked head and he brought it down towards Hiccup's neck, and Hiccup's arm flashed up and parried the blow just before it bit.

[Image: Hiccup.]

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Astonished, Alvin began raining blows thick and fast, swiping and slashing and lunging, and Hiccup's left arm parried every thrust as if it had a life of its own.

"Well, suffering swordfish," exclaimed Fishlegs. "Hiccup is LEFT-HANDED."

I would not have you think that this was a fight that Hiccup would be proud to look back upon NOW. For Hiccup would grow up to be a Master Swordsman, a Genius of the Art, and this fight, by comparison with the extraordinary skill with which he fought later, was clumsy work, mostly defensive strokes.

And although I would love to say that Alvin the Treacherous was a brilliant swordfighter, the truth is that he was just so-so at the Art, preferring to poison his enemy's cup or bash him from behind with a rock to fighting him face to face.

But he was still much older, stronger and more experienced than Hiccup.

And while it might not have been the best fight Hiccup ever fought, it was certainly the one he would look back on with the most astonishment and pride.

For it was the first time in his life that Hiccup realized he was left-handed.

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Imagine if you had spent the whole first part of your life trying to walk on your hands. The clumsiness of it, always falling over, always stumbling, always the last at everything. Imagine the joy of discovering that in fact you could walk on your feet after all.

That is what it felt like to Hiccup fighting with his left hand for the first time. So exhilarating was the feeling that he was even starting to enjoy himself.

Hiccup was helped by Toothless, who swooped down and attacked Alvin's head so that Alvin was constantly distracted.

"Unfair," smiled Alvin. "I never thought Grimbeard's Heir would stoop to TWO AGAINST ONE."

The excitement made Hiccup overconfident and so he called out, "Leave him to me, Toothless!"

"Leave him to you?" Fishlegs shouted up furiously. "What do you mean, LEAVE HIM TO YOU??? CARRY ON, TOOTHLESS, AND THAT IS AN ORDER! This is REAL LIFE, Hiccup, not a Swordfighting at Sea lesson, and you need all the help you can get. ..."

In fact, the practice from the Swordfighting at Sea lessons were a big help to Hiccup.

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The shifting, moving ground of the treasure mound was rather similar to the movement of the deck at sea. Hiccup kept his balance more easily than Alvin, who continually staggered and lost his footing.

Nonetheless, it was soon clear that although Hiccup was enjoying himself, he wasn't winning the fight, even with Toothless's help. With a grim smile on his lips, Alvin the Treacherous fought Hiccup back and back, eyes aglow with that red light, back to his old smooth self again.

"Come on, Hiccup," he wheedled, "don't be scared of your old pal, Treacherous. I wouldn't harm a hair"
(swipe)
"on your head"
(swipe).

"Listen, Alvin," urged Hiccup, as he parried each blow, "I'm sure we can all get away safely if you forget about the treasure. ..."

"Oh, I will," promised Alvin, "just as soon as I've killed you, I will."

"Look, Alvin," reasoned Hiccup, "it's never too late to change. You've still got a chance to live life differently, make friends, start a family. ..."

"Stop it," said Alvin, "you're making me laugh.
You
give
me
a second chance? That's really funny, that is. You're a heartbeat away from the abyss,

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a mere child fighting a fully grown man, and
you're giving me
second chances? It's too kind of you." He made a particularly violent lunge that Hiccup just managed to dodge, and very nearly lost his balance doing so.

"It's too late for me," laughed Alvin. "I'm rotten to the core and I like being rotten. The treasure has got me and I like being got." He raised his sword way above his head as Hiccup clutched desperately at the shifting coins to steady himself.

"But I appreciate your concern," said Alvin, bringing the sword down with such savage force that it would have cut Hiccup in half -- if he had not spotted it coming and made one last leap out of the way.

So that the blow, instead of separating Hiccup into two pieces, caught Alvin completely off balance, and he stepped back onto the treasure mound behind, one on which they had not fought before ...

... and the treasure unexpectedly reared up beneath him, as if it were alive.

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18. GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY'S FINAL SURPRISE

The entire mound reared up and shook itself, cups and jewels and swords and coins cascading down the sides like molten lava.

And something that looked like a big white rope reached out of the treasure and wound its way around Alvin's waist.

It wasn't a rope.

It was a singularly unattractive white tentacle that looked as if it were made out of a quivering piece of fat. The tentacle was dotted with small indentations out of which there oozed a disgusting whitey-gray sticky sludge that smelt indescribably awful.

Alvin shrieked in horror as the treasure dropped away to reveal the creature that had been sleeping underneath it, a creature they had awoken with their swordfight.

It was Grimbeard the Ghastly's last surprise, his FINAL booby trap.

He had left it there to guard the treasure, a monster that Hiccup had heard of in Legends,

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but never seen before, and one that he sincerely hoped he would never, ever have to see again.

It was the same animal that surprised the little lost Deadly Nadder, the day before, if you remember, and it was called a Monstrous Strangulator.

A Strangulator was a gigantic Monster genetically related to dragons, octopuses and snakes. It had tiny withered dragon wings and tiny crippled dragon legs that were basically useless, as it heaved its great body through underground tunnels like a serpent, leaving a trail of gooey slime.

It had never seen daylight and was the color of nothing. Its tentacles had obviously found a way up through to the upper caves of the Wild Dragon Cliffs, for it was transparent, and you could actually see the forms of unfortunate dragons it had eaten moving through its digestive system. Some, further down the Strangulator's great length, were lying quite still. Others that he had eaten more recently were jerking about, and one was trying to fly, trapped in the Monster's great throat.

The naturalist in Hiccup automatically identified the species -- Monstrous Nightmare, Deadly Nadder, Common or Garden times three -- making their slow

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progress through the Serpent's alimentary canal.

So small was the Creature's brain in proportion to its size that it had difficulty in keeping sensory track of all of its squirming tentacles, and they wandered about as if they had independent lives of their own. The Creature had to concentrate hard to make the tentacle that was holding Alvin move very slowly up to its head so it could have a look at him, unsure of what to make of this weird new animal.

"Isss food?"
hissed the Serpent musingly to itself.

[Image: Fishes.]

Hiccup practically cried with relief. For the creature was speaking a dialect of Dragonese, a very ancient form of it, but Dragonese nonetheless.

And Hiccup was of the opinion that if you could talk to your killer, you were in with a chance.

Alvin struggled wildly and slashed at the great squeezing tentacle with the Stormblade.

"Jickle me with your prickle, would you?
said the Creature. "
Then I'll tickle you with
mine.
..."

And languidly, it dangled the tip of its tail in front of Alvin's face.

Hiccup had seen such a tail on much smaller

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animals. It was filled to the tip with a grass-green venom, pure as glass. There was a plunger a little way down, and the tip just had to penetrate its victim, the plunger go down, and it was goodnight sweet world, hello Valhalla.

"Oh
excellent,"
thought Hiccup to himself. "A
poisonous
Monstrous Strangulator. My favorite kind."

Alvin fainted as soon as he set eyes on that deadly tail. He was frightened of needles.

So the Strangulator didn't even bother to inject him. It just swallowed him whole, alive, just as he was, Stormblade and all.

In fascinated horror, Hiccup watched the now awake and struggling form of Alvin traveling down the Strangulator's transparent throat.

"So," thought Hiccup, "the Eater of Human Flesh is eaten himself. Isn't fate artistic?"

Sometimes it is harder to force yourself to stand still than it is to run away, but Hiccup knew that he wouldn't have a chance if he tried to escape. This animal was just too big. So Hiccup froze, in the hope that the Creature's eyesight was poor, like other beasts that lived solely underground.

Hiccup was probably right, but one of those

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constantly moving tentacles accidentally bumped into him, and as soon as it made contact with his warm body it automatically wrapped itself around Hiccup, and lifted him into the air.

"A Plan!" Fishlegs shouted out wildly from below. "You need a Fiendishly Clever Plan!"

"Thank you, Fishlegs," said Hiccup, his mind flicking about like a shrimp in a net, and trying to ignore the terrible squeezing around his chest. "I'm aware of that... TOOTHLESS! Come up here!"

The tentacles were turning Hiccup over and over. Toothless flapped up, and hovered as close as he could. Hiccup shouted something into the little dragon's ear.

"That's a t-t-t-terrible plan," moaned Toothless, shaking his head.

"Just do as you're told. for ONCE in your life," yelled Hiccup.

While the Creature remained unconscious of having caught anything, Hiccup still stood a chance of escape. With his sword, he jabbed away at the sticky tentacle that was encircling his trunk and it seemed to be loosening....