gratefully. ‘And T-t-toothless is the B-b-best One,’
whispered Toothless, straightening his back with some
of his old cheeky arrogance, and hopping on to the
Druid Guardian’s shoulder.
The Druid Guardian unrolled a great tattered
scroll of paper, so ancient it was nearly falling into
papery dust in his hands, and proceeded to read from
it, although Toothless could not work out how he could
do that, for the Druid Guardian was blindfolded.
Toothless tried to peer under the Guardian’s blindfold,
but no, he wasn’t cheating.
‘Hear ye! Hear ye! Listen to the Prophecy
of Grimbeard the Ghastly, read by me, the Druid
Guardian, on this, the Doomsday of Yule!
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THE PROPHECY OF
THE KING’S LOST THINGS
‘The Dragontime
is coming
And only a King can save you now.
The King shall be the
Champion of Champions.
You shall know the King
By the King’s Lost Things.
A fang-free dragon, my second-best sword,
My Roman shield,
An arrow-from-the-land-that-does-not-exist,
The heart’s stone, the key-that-opens-all-locks,
The ticking-thing, the Throne, the Crown.
And last and best of all the ten,
The Dragon Jewel shall save all men.’
‘My Prophecy,’ whispered the Witch Excellinor,
eyes shining. ‘The Prophecy passed down from age
to age and witch to witch… See, Alvin my darling? I
whispered that Prophecy to you when you were a tiny
babe… I rocked you to sleep with it… See how right
your mother was?’
‘One hundred years ago today,’ croaked the
Druid Guardian, ‘in this very spot on Tomorrow,
Grimbeard the Ghastly’s son, Hiccup Horrendous
Haddock the Second, and his dragon, the Dragon
Furious, were leading a peaceful Dragon petition to
plead with Hiccup the Second’s father to end the
misery of slavery. Grimbeard was tricked into mistaking
the Petition for Rebellion. He killed his very own son
by his very own sword, the Stormblade, and the blood
of his son was spilt on the seat of this very Throne.’
The listening humans shivered at the sadness of
this tale.
‘That was the beginning of the Curse upon the
Throne and the island of Tomorrow. The dragons
were beaten, and the Dragon Furious captured, and
bound in inescapable chains in the depths of a forest
prison. And Grimbeard the Ghastly, realising he had
been tricked, stood in the ruins of his burning Castle,
holding the body of his beloved son, and he swore that
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the next King of the Wilderwest should be a better man
than he was.
‘So Grimbeard created an Impossible Task.
‘He scattered ten of the King’s Lost Things to the
four corners of the earth. He hid these Things in the
very crooks and crannies of the Archipelago,’ croaked
the Druid Guardian. ‘Many of them were guarded by
the most terrible monsters that Grimbeard could find,
or hidden in riddles. Only a True Hero could gather the
Lost Things together and lift the Curse, and become
the next King of the Wilderwest.
‘Only a very great Hero indeed would have the
strength, the cleverness, the fighting power and the
wisdom to collect all these Things together, and claim
the Throne.
‘Only a Hero this great is worthy to be the next
King of the Wilderwest.
‘And looking at the perils that surround us,’ said
the Druid Guardian, wryly gesturing to the forces of
the Dragon Rebellion surrounding them all, ‘you can
see that we need a very great Hero indeed.
‘So who is this Hero?’ called out the Druid
Guardian in ringing tones. ‘Who is he who has found
these Things, who is a greater man than Grimbeard the
Ghastly, and who is the True King of the Wilderwest?
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‘If he is here, he should now step
forward and announce himself!’
Swollen with pride, Alvin the
Treacherous stuck out his chest, and
stepped forward, nearly falling over, for
his horrible Mother pushed him forward more
violently than was strictly necessary.
Alvin had lived his whole life for this moment. He
had tricked and stolen and murdered and betrayed.
And he had paid a terrible price for this moment,
losing along the way his eye, his arm, his leg, his hair,
his nose and… oh dear – his soul.
All for the sake of this one precious moment.
And it was worth it.
‘I am the Hero who found these Things,
and collected them together!’ shouted Alvin the
Treacherous.
The Alvinsmen cheered, a ragged proud cheer.
Valhallarama and Stoick the Vast shook their
heads at these lies, but they said nothing. What could
they do, what could they say? Valhallarama had spent
her whole life searching for the Lost Things, but they
never came to her, search though she may, and great
Hero though she was. She had failed.
Both parents had not been able to protect
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their son at the last.
They had both failed.
So they were mute, holding hands, heads bowed.
‘I am a greater man than Grimbeard the Ghastly!
I am the True King of the Wilderwest and I am here to
claim my Throne, my Crown and my birthright!’ cried
Alvin, leaping eagerly on to the dais.
The Druid Guardian lifted up the Crown, ready
to place it on Alvin the Treacherous’s gloating head.
But just before the Druid Guardian could crown
Alvin, they were interrupted.
‘Wait…’ came a very faint voice from the back of
the ruined Hall.
Valhallarama’s head lifted.
‘Wait…’ said the voice, fainter still.
The entire Hall of Dragonmarkers, Alvinsmen,
Guardians, Alvin, Witch, all turned their heads to see
where that voice was coming from.
There, in the aisle of Grimbeard the Ghastly’s
ruined Castle on the island of Tomorrow, stood the
ragged remains, the stumbling, shambling, wrecked
figure of…
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.
10. WHO IS THE KING?
Five minutes earlier, Camicazi and Fishlegs were sitting
on the back of the Deadly Shadow dragon, searching
for Hiccup, when suddenly they spotted him running
out of the bracken. Although the human Guardians
saw Hiccup too, they were inexplicably attacked by a
Deadly Shadow dragon firing lightning bolts at them,
so the human Guardians flattened themselves in the
undergrowth, and Hiccup was able to make it into
Grimbeard’s Castle without being caught.
Camicazi and Fishlegs, Windwalker, Stormfly and
the Deadly Shadow landed on the edges of the ruined
Castle just as Hiccup staggered down the remains of
the central aisle leadin
g to the Throne.
He was almost unrecognisable.
Two colours, half-purple, half-white, clothes
ripped to ribbons by talons and seas and winds, one
whole side of his body swollen so much that he could
barely stand, let alone stumble lopsidedly forward.
A wrecked scarecrow of a boy.
Alvin let out a gasp of horror. For one dreadful
moment, he really thought this boy was a ghost, the
spirit of the Hiccup he had killed, come back to haunt
him from Valhalla.
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Vikings lead frightening lives, so they are not
afraid of much, but they ARE afraid of ghosts. And
the ghost of a boy you had murdered in cold blood was
likely to be a ghost who was not happy, a ghost who was
coming back for vengeance…
So no wonder Alvin turned white and clutched
his cowardly neck as if to protect it.
‘AAAARRRGGHHH!’ screamed Alvin the
Treacherous. ‘THOR AND WODEN AND ALL
THE GODS SAVE ME FROM THIS PESTILENT
GHOST OF A BOY! I REPENT! I REPENT! ONLY
SPARE ME, SWEET GHOST! IT IS ALL MY
MOTHER’S FAULT!’
‘Steady, Alvin, steady,’ hissed the Witch
Excellinor, eyes narrowed, sniffing the air as if she
could smell out whether the boy was real or not.
She placed her bony hand over her son’s face to
stifle his terrified screams, so violently that she nearly
suffocated him. ‘Steady, darling… Don’t betray us,
now, when we are so near…’
‘Who is this?’ demanded the Druid Guardian.
‘Who dares to interrupt the solemn ceremony of the
Crowning of the next King of the Wilderwest?’
Hiccup limped forward, trembling.
‘It is I,’ said Hiccup, dragging his numb leg
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behind him. ‘It is I, H… H… H…’
For one dreadful moment, his mind was a total
blank. He couldn’t even remember the name the little
brown dragon had called him. Something beginning
with ‘H’?
All the faces of the huge, hairy barbarians
turned towards him, with expressions of gobsmacked
incomprehension.
No one recognised him.
This is ridiculous, thought Hiccup. What am I
doing? Look at me, I’m a wreck! How can I claim that
I am the True King of the Wilderwest when I don’t even
know who I am? I’m a fool… the little brown dragon
called the Wodensfang was just tricking me…
‘Wodensfang, are you awake?’ hissed Hiccup,
but the Wodensfang snored on, and Hiccup would
have to do this alone.
‘What am I called, Hogfly?’ Hiccup whispered
desperately. ‘Something beginning with ‘H’?’
‘Handshake? Hollybush? Human being?’ the
Hogfly whispered back, peeking out of the backpack,
rather over-awed by the number of people and
dragons gathered here in this ruined Castle, standing
in dumbstruck silence, as Hiccup stumbled down
the central aisle, wavering drunkenly from one
194
side to the other.
‘It’s… me…’ stuttered Hiccup. ‘H… H… H?’
And then he fell over.
Face in the mud, he contemplated just staying
there.
What was the point in carrying on?
But then, with tears pouring down his cheeks,
Stoick rushed down the aisle, and picked up the ragged
remains of his son, hugging him as though he would
crush him entirely.
‘It’s Hiccup! My son Hiccup! Hiccup
Horrendous Haddock the Third! He’s alive!’
‘Hiccup!’
‘It’s Hiccup!’
‘Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third!’ cried
the Dragonmarkers and joyfully, Valhallarama swooped
down and clutched him to her iron chest, crying
‘HICCUP!’ with such astonishing pride and joy in her
voice that Hiccup, blinking, bemused, was scarcely able
to believe it.
All these people he did not recognise… All these
kind, unfamiliar faces cheering him, delighted to see
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him, proud of him. How could this be possible?
Drooping and shivering on the Druid Guardian’s
shoulder, Toothless blinked at Hiccup, as if he were
a vision from a dream. And then he gave a squeal of
excitement, and…‘H-h-hiccup! M-m-master!’ he
squeaked and he cartwheeled through the air, throwing
himself at Hiccup with such eagerness that he nearly
knocked him over again, and licking his face lovingly all
over so that Hiccup could barely breathe.
‘You’re A-A-ALIVE!’
And Toothless jumped up and down on Hiccup’s
already thumping and aching head, shouting:
‘He’s alive! He’s a-a-alive! He’s alive! HE’S
ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE!’
The Vikings cheered until their throats were
hoarse at this extraordinary, delightful, incredible twist
of Fate. The Hiccup boy was alive! Even the Alvinsmen
stretched out to feel the boy’s fingers, his arms, his
chest, to check he was warm and breathing.
How could this be? They had all seen with
their very own eyes the boy fall from the back of the
Windwalker into the sea with an arrow in his chest.
Very-Vicious the Visithug had his own little
surprise. Like many tough men, he had a soft spot,
and in his case the soft spot was a dear little
Hogfly who had gone missing a couple of days earlier.
When all the world around him was falling into pieces,
the thing that Very-Vicious was really mourning was the
loss of his dear little Hogfly, and he had been wearing
a black armband in remembrance of the creature, who
he had presumed had been killed in one of the recent
battles.
‘MY HOGFLY!’ boomed Very-Vicious joyfully,
opening wide his tattooed arms. ‘HE’S ALIVE!’
The Hogfly had the memory of a goldfish, so he
had forgotten that Very-Vicious ever existed. But now
he remembered, and he popped out of the rucksack
and flapped towards Very-Vicious, and the terrifying
Warrior Chieftain grunted with excitement at the
return of his pet, tickling him behind the ears making
soft cooing un-Warrior-like noises such as:
‘Did da liddle Hogfly miss his big
Hairy Master, den?’
There were others less pleased with this
unexpected turn of events.
‘He’s alive!’ cursed the Witch.
‘But how can that be?’ swore Alvin the
Treacherous, regaining his composure now he realised
that this was not a ghost after all, but the wretched
Hiccup-boy who had eluded death yet AGAIN, curse
him. ‘It’s impossible!’
‘There’s no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Alvin,’
sighed the Witch. ‘Only im-PROBABLE…’
‘But we murdered him!’ stormed Alvin.
‘Now, now, Alvin,’ cautioned the Witch, with
an eye on the Druid Guardian. ‘Murder is such an
ugly word… It was collateral damage, an unfortunate
side-effect
of the Total War scenario…’
‘He was DEAD!’ yelled Alvin, with a strong sense
of injury.
‘Alive or dead, no matter,’ said the Witch. ‘The
boy is nothing. A runt… an accident… a detour! One
of Grimbeard the Ghastly’s red herrings! The boy
changes nothing!’
‘HICCUP! HICCUP! HICCUP!’ chanted
the Dragonmarkers and the jubilant Valhallarama
and Stoick deposited Hiccup in front of the
Druid Guardian.
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‘We would like to present our son HICCUP!’
roared Stoick the Vast. ‘Our son HICCUP who is the
True King of the Wilderwest!’
The Druid Guardian put out his skinny hand and
felt the son Hiccup, his scrawny little chicken bone
arm, and the other swollen one, the raggedy remains of
his fire-suit…
‘His name is Hiccup, is it? Ah, that is a name to
conjure within this Castle.’
‘The name of the boy is not important!’ howled
the Witch.
‘So, Hiccup,’ said the Druid Guardian, ignoring
the Witch. ‘You come here claiming to be King, and
yet you carry none of the King’s Things. You know the
penalty for those who come with false claims to the
Kingship…’
‘DEATH!’ interrupted Alvin eagerly. ‘The penalty
is DEATH!’
‘What have you to say for yourself?’ asked the
Druid Guardian.
‘Don’t ask him!’ hissed the Witch uneasily. ‘You
mustn’t let the little rat talk! He’s a clever little rat, and
you must never let him talk!’
Hiccup swallowed. What could he say? He had
known that this would be a sticking-point from the
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moment the little brown dragon told him the problem
back there on the beach of Hero’s End.
How could anybody who didn’t have any of the
King’s Things claim the Crown?
Besides, he had no idea who he was, let alone
how to make an argument that he should be the
rightful King of this Wilderwest country.
But…
There is no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Alvin.
Only im-PROBABLE.
The Witch’s words tweaked a memory in
Hiccup’s brain, like tugging on a little piece of string in
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 10
