‘Windwalker!’ he screamed. ‘Fly! Windwalker
fly! Fly around his head to confuse him!’
Windwalker gave a snort of terror, but nodded
bravely. Windwalker had once been a very odd-looking
dragon, an extraordinary bundle of fur that looked
remarkably like a cross-eyed duckling mixed with an
anxious wolf cub. But over the last couple of years, in
his adolescence, Windwalker had gradually shed his
hair and become sleeker, faster and more aerodynamic.
His ankles had strengthened, his bending wings
became an advantage as he gained control and mastery
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over them, and he was now almost as fast as a Silver
Phantom. Soon he would enter a chrysalis stage,
and after that a truly extraordinary transformation
would occur… But that’s another story. For now,
the Windwalker had turned into one of the swiftest,
most manoeuvrable dragons in the Archipelago. Only
a dragon like the Windwalker could even think of
getting in so close to the Dragon Furious, and elude his
thunderbolts.
So as the thunderbolts were unleashed, the
terrified Windwalker zigzagged back and forth, back
and forth, so quickly that the thunderbolts barely
singed his wings.
‘Listen to me, Furious! Listen!’ Hiccup shouted
down, crouched low on the Windwalker’s back as the
Windwalker dodged and flickered and twisted around
the Dragon Furious’s head in an extraordinary display
of aerial artistry as the Dragon Furious swatted at him.
‘WORDS… CHANGE… NOTHING!’ screamed
the Dragon.
The Dragon’s eyes followed the Windwalker’s
incredible loops and turns like a jaguar following a
bluebottle, and then he grew still, and the Windwalker
hovered behind his great head, to avoid the
thunderbolts…
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‘No, Windwalker!’
squealed the Wodensfang, ‘Furious
has eyes in the back of his head!’
And so it was – oh, what a time to
find this out! – that adult Seadragons do indeed
have eyes in the back of their heads that begin life
as spots or moles, and grow into eyes as the Dragon
grows, and then as the dragon ages and gets smaller,
the skin closes over them, and buries them, and they
dwindle into nothing again.
But the eyes in a Seadragon the size of Furious
are very much there.
At the back of his head, behind his ears they
lurked, closed in sleep like tiny little dozing crocodiles,
but now they snapped open, and shot lightning bolts at
the boy and his Windwalker from the pupils.
With a great roar the Dragon whipped his head
around and let out a howling tornado of fire.
‘Fly Windwalker, fly!’ screamed Hiccup as the
valiant riding-dragon zig-zagged this way and that
trying to avoid the fiery thunderbolts.
And the Seadragon’s talon nipped
the Windwalker’s tail and flung him down,
so that the Windwalker spiralled down out
of the air and had to make an emergency
crash-landing on the Reef below, with such
out-of-control speed that Hiccup fell off
on the landing.
And then the Dragon
Furious pinned him down
on the Reef with two of
his talons, and Hiccup was
looking up, helpless, into
the implacable eye of
the Dragon.
17. SOMETIMES WHAT YOU
ARE LOOKING FOR IS RIGHT
HERE AT HOME
‘History repeats itself,’ said the Dragon grimly. ‘And
it will KEEP ON repeating itself, until somebody
like me steps in and stops it.’
The Dragon had stopped playing, and now meant
business.
He inhaled, about to send a flame of fire down to
kill Hiccup. The force of the Dragon’s inhalation was
so strong that it was dragging Hiccup towards those
open jaws… He could smell the rank fishy smell of the
Dragon’s breath…
Hiccup shut his eyes and waited for the terrible
pain of the flames.
The only thing that could save me now is the Dragon
Jewel, thought Hiccup.
And at that exact moment, the alarm on
Grimbeard the Ghastly’s ticking thing went off,
probably in protest at the Dragon dragging on it, in a
peel of tiny clockwork bells, ringing to the sound of the
Hooligan National Anthem.
A typical Grimbeard the Ghastly touch.
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You have to admit it, the guy did have STYLE.
Hiccup looked down, and two of the arrows on
the ticking thing, the one shaped like a lightning bolt
and the one shaped like a question mark, were going
round and round and round.
The Dragon Furious started, and was distracted
for one crucial second, trying to work out where the
sudden and unexpected noise was coming from.
And coincidentally – what are the impossible
odds against this? – the distant voices of the Vikings
on the clifftops were singing that very same Hooligan
National Anthem that the ticking thing was playing.
You could hear their tiny faint voices carrying on the
wind:
‘I didn’t mean to come here,
And I didn’t mean to stay…
But I lost my heart to these rainy bogs…
And I’ll ne-e-ever go awa-a-ay!’
The Dragon Furious suddenly realised what was
making the noise.
‘It’s Grimbeard’s ticking-thing, sounding out
the second of your death, with the Hooligan National
Anthem…’ said the Dragon bleakly.
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‘I’ve heard
that the sky in
America
Is a blue that
you wouldn’t believe,
But Berk is my lobster after all,
And now I’ll ne-e-ever leave…’
The Dragon inhaled again, ready to unleash his fire.
But a little bell had gone off in Hiccup’s brain,
like the alarm on a ticking-thing.
That Hooligan National Anthem, what did it
mean? The same thing that Hiccup had learnt when he
returned from the Quest to find the sixth Lost Thing,
the arrow from America, and he saw the little isle of
Berk for the first time after a long absence.
Maybe there are lands with bluer skies and richer
soils somewhere over the horizon… But sometimes what
you are looking for is right here at home.
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And what was that nonsensical bit in the anthem
about a lobster?
Hiccup’s left hand was holding on to the lucky
lobster necklace that Fishlegs’s mother gave to the
baby Fishlegs long, long, ago when she was forced to
put him out to sea in an old lobster pot because he was
a runt…
What had the Dragon Furious just said when he
was jeering at Hiccup?
‘You little human King, you, all dressed up
with the King’s Things. The Crown… the shield…
the second-be
st sword… the lobster necklace… the
ticking-thing. You are Grimbeard the Ghastly to the
life!’
Why did the Dragon Furious mention the lobster
necklace? It was a bit odd for him to say that because
the lobster necklace wasn’t one of Grimbeard the
Ghastly’s Lost Things. Was it?
WAS IT?
BUT WHAT IF IT WAS?
The Dragon Furious had known Grimbeard the
Ghastly well. He obviously remembered Grimbeard the
Ghastly wearing a lobster necklace.
What if it had been this one?
And then a perfect storm of interlocking thoughts
and questions came jostling into Hiccup’s head, all
pointing at how to unravel Grimbeard the Ghastly’s
riddle, all of the Questions and the Answers he had
learnt during the course of twelve long and exciting
Quests…
Love never dies… When you fight for your
friend, you are also fighting for yourself… The
fang-free dragon… You have to keep on trying even
though you are beaten before you start… Sometimes
second-best is best… Accidents happen for a reason…
And SOMETIMES WHAT YOU ARE
LOOKING FOR IS RIGHT HERE AT HOME.
What if what he was looking for had been with
him all along?
Hiccup had never had to look for the Things,
they just found their way to Hiccup, as if they were
seeking him out. What if the lobster necklace had
kept Fishlegs safe all those long, long years ago not
because it was lucky, but because it was searching for
Hiccup?
Accidents happen for a reason…
What if the Dragon Guardians had not dropped
Hiccup by accident after all, but because they knew
he was carrying the last and most important of the
Lost Things?
What is within is more important than what is without…
Those were the words written on the back
of the Map to find the Jewel. What if those words
were in fact, a clue, a riddle to the real Jewel’s true
whereabouts? The Dragon Jewel had been hidden
for so long in the hilt of a sword, what if it were now
hidden INSIDE something else?
The Dragon Furious was inhaling again, ready to
shoot those fatal thunderbolts…
A fang-free dragon… Why a fang-free dragon? How
did that fit into the pattern?
‘Toothless,’ said Hiccup, very calm, very stern,
‘I want you to pretend this lobster claw is a walnut.
Crack it with your jaw without harming what is
inside.’
A fang-free dragon has a huge advantage in
cracking a walnut without breaking the precious
interior.
Toothless’s hard little gums were the neatest,
most efficient little nutcrackers in the whole of the
Archipelago.
Toothless was so terrified he did not even argue.
For once in his life, he obeyed without question.
He reached up his little shaking neck, took the
lobster claw in his fang-free jaws and bit it once, and
into Hiccup’s hand there fell what had
been hidden there all the time,
something small and light and
bright and golden, a piece
of precious amber with
two little dragons caught
forever in the gold: one
dark and one light, and
each with a tail in the
other one’s mouth…
The alpha and
the omega.
In my end is my beginning.
Past and present and future all together in an
instant.
Toothless and Hiccup blinked at it in amazement.
Wodensfang let out a sigh of relief.
Above, the Dragon Furious was on the brink of
expelling his thunderbolts…
But he saw what Hiccup was holding in his
hand, checked himself just in time and loosed his grip.
Hiccup leapt to his feet, holding the bright amber up
in one shaking hand, and the Dragon gave a snort of
terror as a sudden shaft of sunlight sliced through the
clouds and fire above and made the piece of amber
wink up at the Dragon Furious, so that he recognised
what it was.
The Dragon Jewel.
The real one.
18. THE PAST NEVER LEAVES
US…
Back on the cliffs of Tomorrow, the Vikings were
singing their hearts out, willing their King and Hero to
do well in this single combat, although they knew that
the outcome of the battle would not be good.
They stood there, singing and peering through the
fog and fire, hands shielding their eyes, trying to work
out what was going on.
Stoick was watching what was going on through
his telescope-thingy,* so he narrated the news very loudly
to everyone else.
‘He’s doing very well… he’s flying brilliantly…
Oh well done, my boy, well done…’ And then: ‘OH
NO!’ as the Dragon Furious pulled Windwalker out of
the sky… ‘OH NO OH NO OH NO! HE’S DOWN!
THE DRAGON HAS GOT HIM DOWN!’
Stoick handed the telescope-thingy to
Valhallarama because he couldn’t look any more.
Her arm trembling very, very slightly, that iron
woman Valhallarama put the telescope-thingy to her
eye. ‘The Dragon seems to be about to fire…’ she said
grimly. ‘He’s throwing back his head… We should go
OUT there! We must save him!’
*This first appears in Book 8: How to Break a Dragon’s Heart and allowed
him to see things from far away a bit more clearly.
‘But that would be breaking the laws of single
combat,’ gloated the Witch. ‘And a King could not
break such laws, or the world ends. It’s a shame, a real
shame…’
‘SING THE HOOLIGAN NATIONAL
ANTHEM!’ ordered Gobber the Belch.
‘HANG ON A SECOND!’ cried Valhallarama.
‘Hiccup is holding something up. He’s jumping to
his feet. OH BY THE BEARD OF FREYA THE
MAGNIFICENT! THE DRAGON IS HOLDING
HIS FIRE! THE DRAGON LOOKS AFRAID!
WHAT IS GOING ON?’
The Druid Guardian snatched the
telescope-thingy from Valhallarama to look for himself.
‘Well bless my soul,’ cried the Druid Guardian.
‘Hiccup has found the Dragon Jewel after all! He really
IS a wonderful King!’
‘What do you mean he’s found the Dragon
Jewel?’ said Valhallarama, in a bewildered sort of way.
‘HICCUP’S FOUND THE JEWEL!’ Stoick
roared. ‘HE’S FOUND THE REAL DRAGON
JEWEL THIS TIME! WE ARE SAVED!’
And the Vikings broke off singing for a second
and erupted in cheering, stamping applause.
‘Impossible!’ hissed the Witch. ‘The real Dragon
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Jewel can’t just turn up suddenly on that Reef over
there for the little rat to find it at exactly the right
moment!’
A sudden feeling came over the Witch. Like
Hiccup, she was good at riddles. She gasped, and
nearly dropped to the ground.
‘Unl
ess… Unless… UNLESS HE HAD IT
ALREADY!
‘Alvin!’ said the Witch urgently. ‘I just had this
horrible vision! Tell me again, Alvin, where did you find
Grimbeard’s coffin?’
‘I’ve already told you this, Mother,’ said Alvin
impatiently. ‘I heard a rumour that some girl and
her dragon had discovered Grimbeard’s grave, but
were keeping it a secret out of respect for the dead. I
disguised myself as a poor fisherman, romanced the
girl, and persuaded her to tell me where the grave was.
It was on that little island over there, the little Isle of
Hero’s End. And after she had shown me, I sneaked
back and dug it up. Very clever of me.’
‘And what was in Grimbeard’s coffin?’ hissed the
Witch. ‘The coffin that you opened long, long ago, the
one that was booby-trapped and took off your hand?’
‘I fail to see why this is important. We’ve been
over this, Mother,’ answered Alvin. ‘There was no body
323
in the coffin. The body had vanished. It was just the
map to Grimbeard’s Treasure and the riddle.’
‘So there was nothing, nothing else?’ asked the
Witch. ‘Nothing there at all?’
‘Nothing of importance,’ said Alvin, turning
white now, as a slow creeping realisation like a little
shiver came over him, ‘Certainly nothing worth losing
my hand over… but there was… I suppose there was
something… but it didn’t matter…’
‘What was it?’ shrieked the Witch, clawing at him
as if she wanted to strangle him. ‘What was it? I told
you to tell me EVERYTHING, Alvin…’
Alvin swallowed hard. ‘But it was nothing. It was
just a smelly old pair of lobster claws hanging on a
chain. A necklace fit for a slave. Typical Grimbeard the
Ghastly, he always had a nasty sense of humour.’
‘WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?’ screamed the
Witch.
Alvin was now a horrible sickly yellow. ‘Well, now,’
he said, ‘it was a long time ago… fourteen, fifteen years
ago. I thought it wasn’t important. Just an old lobster
claw, one of Grimbeard’s unpleasant little practical
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Fight a Dragon's Fury Page 17
