How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (Hiccup) (2 page)

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asked Gobber in exasperation. "They were supposed to be following us."

"I think they're over there, sir," said Fishlegs, pointing to a small, twisted tree a little way away.

The riding dragons were looking far from lively. They were lying in the shade, resting their heads on their paws, their forked tongues hanging out.

Gobber strode toward them, clapping his hands and shouting, "COME ON,
UP
YOU GO THERE, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE TERRIFYING, FOR THOR'S SAKE!"

And as the riding dragons got to their feet, and slunk toward their Masters through the browned and shriveled heather like a pack of surly lions, Hiccup realized something that really WAS terrifying.

Something that gave a small indication that perhaps the day might take an unexpected turn.

The tree the riding dragons had been sheltering under was blasted and twisted and reduced to carbon. All around the tree were scorch-marks. And when Hiccup moved a little closer to investigate, he found to his horror that the entire hillside behind had been burnt to a cinder and turned to sooty desert.

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Where once heather grew and swayed in the wind, covered with butterflies and grasshoppers and buzzing nanodragons, now there was only ashy stubble, scarred across with white, stretching out across the whole of the slope.

Only one thing could do
that
to a hillside, and it wasn't the sun, however fiercely it might shine.

It was FIRE.

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2. THE EXTERMINATORS

Hiccup swallowed hard.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh DEAR," he muttered to himself.
"What
has done
that?"

Dragons, you see, were normally very careful about how they used their fire. They used it to fight and catch prey, but they would never dream of setting fire to a whole landscape. Why would they? It was the land that supported them, and gave them food, and shelter.

This
must have been done by a "Rogue Species," a different kind of dragon entirely.

Hiccup did not like to think of how dangerous such a dragon might be.

"Ummm, sir," said Hiccup, "I think you should come and have a look at this ... I think there's been a dragon-fire here."

"Dragon-fire? Nonsense and gull-droppings!" Gobber the Belch snorted, as he came to look at the destruction, his hands on his hips. "This will have been caused by a spot of summer lightning."

"There hasn't been a storm lately," said Hiccup, "and look," he said as he knelt in the dust. "There's a

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sort of greenish tinge to the ash. It's definitely a Rogue Dragon Species."

"Thank you,
Hiccup," said Gobber, with heavy sarcasm, "for the helpful lecture, but I am the teacher here. GET BACK INTO LINE!"

Hiccup got back into line.

Snotlout smirked to see Hiccup being told off.

"No dragon, however Rogue, would DARE to attack us here in the Hooligan stronghold of Berk. The idea is RIDICULOUS, ABSURD, BIZARRE. It is not the done thing," roared Gobber. "Each of you mount your dragons! On the double, QUICK QUICK QUICK!"

Wartihog climbed onto his Marsh Tiger. Snotface Snotlout was riding the best dragon there, a smooth, evil-looking Devilish Dervish.

Tuffnut Junior had a Rocket Ripper with go-faster stripes along the sides.

"Hiccup the Useless and his fishlegged failure of a friend are really letting the rest of us down, Sir," sneered Snotlout. "Look at their pathetic riding dragons. They're a disgrace to the tribe!"

Fishlegs and Hiccup had the runts of the group, one an ugly, cross little Chickenpoxer so fat its belly barely cleared the ground, the other a nervous Windwalker with a wild look in its eye, and a pronounced limp.

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As the son of the Chief, Hiccup had first pick when they went to choose their dragons from the Dragon Stables a few days earlier. And he could have chosen the Devilish Dervish that Snotlout was smugly sitting on right now, a superb, shining muscular creature, who was clearly one day going to grow up into a magnificent animal.

But something about the poor nervous Windwalker had caught Hiccup's eye.

[Image: The Cross little Chicken poxer.]

He knew no one else would pick him.

And somehow he had the feeling that something

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awful had happened to the anxious creature lolloping crookedly in front of him. His legs bore the marks of having recently been in manacles.

"I wouldn't pick that one," advised Nobber Nobrains, who was in charge of the Dragon Stables. "We found HIM caught in a tree during a raid on Visithug Territory. We think he might be a runaway from the Lava-Lout Gold Mines, and runaways never make good riding dragons. The kindest thing really might be just to bonk him on the head and have done with it..."

So Hiccup had picked the Windwalker with the limp.

Both Fishlegs and Hiccup did not quite believe that the fire had been caused by lightning, but there was no arguing with Gobber in this mood, so reluctantly they mounted their dragons.

Fishlegs's Chickenpoxer gave a furious snort, pawed the ground, and bucked Fishlegs off the moment he sat on his back.

"Yippee," said Fishlegs morosely as he got back on board, and exactly the same thing happened again, only quicker, "I can see I'm going to like dragon riding ..."

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"
I
will be leading you on the back of my own dragon," shouted Gobber.

Gobber's dragon was a great warty Bullrougher known as Goliath.

He winced as Gobber plumped heavily onto his back.

"Sweet chest hair of Thor..." grumbled Goliath. "I do believe his bottom is even fatter than last week. It'll be a miracle if I can take off at all..."

"YOICKS!" yelled Gobber, squeezing his thighs to get Goliath going.

And the Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback party set off across the scorched wreckage of the heather, with Gobber enthusiastically shouting at the front, and everybody else following him in a more leisurely fashion.

Hiccup's Windwalker dragon didn't want to go after the others.

He was shivering all over and kept on looking up at the sky.

For some reason, the Windwalker seemed to have lost the power of speech, so Hiccup couldn't ask it what the matter was.

"It's all right, boy," said Hiccup soothingly, his

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heart sinking. "What's up with you? It's a lovely day; what are you frightened of?"

The Windwalker could not say, but he was certainly petrified of SOMETHING.

"C-C-COME
ON!"
bawled Toothless indignantly. Toothless lacked a sensitive side. "Everybody else w-w-will have WON by now!"

"NOBODY is going to be winning, Toothless," said Hiccup, patiently persuading the Windwalker to move on and catch up with the others. "Herding isn't a winning kind of thing."

"OK. Toothless'll just scare the reindeer a little... K-K-Keep em on the run..." said Toothless.

[Image: Animals.]

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An hour or so later, Gobber, flying on Goliath and slightly ahead of the others, spotted the herd of reindeer, nibbling quietly on the heather.

He immediately flew back to the straggling line of boys on their dragons.

"Sssh, everyone, I've spotted the reindeer," said Gobber quietly. "Now, we have to stay very relaxed and orderly. We don't want to alarm them and split up the herd. Call your hunting dragons to heel. Hiccup, in particular, I want you to keep good control of Toothless; we don't want a repeat of the Sheep-in-the-Toilets incident."

"No, sir. Toothless, did
you
hear that?" whispered Hiccup sternly. "You're going to
stay,
very calm, aren't you?"

[Image: Animals.]

Toothless shuffled along Hiccup's shoulders and

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looked deeply and solemnly into Hiccup's eyes. He nodded eagerly. "Ohhhh, yes, yes, yes, T-T-Toothless will be v-v-very calm, oh yes."

Hiccup blinked. Dragons' eyes are hypnotic, and he was already starting to feel dizzy. "You promise?" whispered Hiccup.

"T-T-Toothless promises, cross his claws and
hope
to did..." And he licked Hiccup on the nose with his little forked tongue.

Hiccup took a good firm hold of the little dragon's body nonetheless.

To do Toothless justice, he did TRY to keep his promise, turning round on Hiccup's shoulder, so he wouldn't be tempted by seeing the herd, humming and attempting to think of things OTHER than reindeer -- mice, for example, and fish, and interesting animals with cloven hooves ... BOTHER ... back to reindeer again.

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All of the boys slowed to a trot. Their hunting dragons hovered in the air, close behind them. "These sheep have little pointy things on their heads," Clueless pointed out.

"That's because these sheep are REINDEER, Clueless, Thor give me strength. Keep it steady there ... No sudden movements... Fishlegs,
try
and stay the right way up ... We just have to keep it
very, very, quiet...
"

Toothless couldn't resist... he sneaked a peek over his shoulder. There were the reindeer, so large, so fat, so fascinating ... standing there so dopily ... What would happen if he just stirred them up a bit...?

"Toothless
..." whispered Hiccup warningly.

Toothless hurriedly faced the other way again.

"That's it, boys," said Gobber delightedly, "You're doing a really good job now ... they haven't startled at all... we just have to keep riding calmly and silently for a
few more minutes
and --"

"L-L-LET TOOTHLESS AT 'EM!" shrieked Toothless, unable to bear it for
one moment
longer, nipping Hiccup's fingers with his sharp little gums to make him let go, and hurling himself at the herd, screaming like a little banshee.

"Oh, for Thor's sake!" gasped Hiccup.

[Image: Deer.]

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"WHAT IN WODEN'S NAME IS YOUR DRAGON DOING, HICCUP? CAN'T YOU KEEP CONTROL OF HIM? CALL HIM BACK RIGHT NOW AND THAT IS AN
ORDER!!!!" screeched Gobber in a furious strangled whisper.
"STOP HIM!!!"

[Image: Men and dragons.]

"Yes, sir, right away, sir," groaned Hiccup, urging

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the Windwalker forward after the charging little dragon in the sky.

"TOOTHLESS!! STO-O-O-OP!!" cried Hiccup,

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[Image: A man and a dragon.]

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trying to shout and be quiet at the same time, not easy.

Toothless gave a flick of his tail and put his wings into "blur" mode. This meant he could shoot forward, only slightly slower than the speed of sound. It also, usefully, cut out the noise of Hiccup screaming.

Toothless is just HERDING, explained Toothless to himself as he sped through the air.
Just a little herding to keep those reindeer on their toes... they're loving it, look, they're smiling...

He noticed, with delight, that the silly reindeer were beginning to run away.

"CH-CH-CH-CHARGE!!!!!!"
yelled Toothless joyfully as he flew.

"Thighslaps of Thor ...," growled Gobber, pressing Goliath to speed up, "the reindeer have started to run..."

[Image: A dragon.]

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And as Gobber raced faster, so too did the other boys, and within no time, all calmness had left the Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback party. They were a wild primeval sight, twelve boys on twelve dragons galloping across the heather, with Gobber the Belch screaming like a maniac flying above them at the front, and before him, the shrieking hunting-dragons, baying for blood like dogs.

"TO THE LEFT, HICCUP, KEEP TO THE LE-E-E-E-FT!" roared Gobber the Belch, as Hiccup disappeared into the distance on the back of his bolting Windwalker.

"Halt! Whoa! Left!" screeched Hiccup as the mad, tatty little scarecrow of a Windwalker, rocking crazily from side to side on his three legs, sped faster and faster.

Hooting furiously, Toothless hit the 360-strong

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herd of reindeer right bang slap wallop in the middle -- which had the same effect as when the white ball firmly strikes the triangle of balls on a pool table.

All 360 reindeer ricocheted off in 360 different directions, at 360 degrees of angles across the island.

[Image: A dragon.]

"COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!" crowed Toothless in triumph.
"W-w-well herded,
Toothless!"

And then he did three victory