How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

by Cressida Cowell

  . . . ZZZZZZZZING!!!!!!

  . . . out of the billowing mustard-yellow smoke belching from the Volcano behind Alvin’s shoulder a white feathered arrow came singing, straight and true, toward Alvin’s upper arm. The white-feathered arrow sank deeply into the weak human flesh of his bicep, and he dropped Hiccup onto the ground with a cry of agony.

  The pure, clear noise of the young Vikings’ singing rose up and cut through the thunder.

  And then another voice joined in.

  A much deeper, rather painfully LOUD voice, WILDLY out of tune, and yodeling and zigzagging up and down the scale like a gigantic crow having a fit.

  Oh dear, thought Hiccup in surprise, something terrible really did happen to Humungous’s voice when he was in the Lava-Lout Jail-Forges . . .

  That sounds terrible!

  Through the smoke of the Volcano, Humungously Hotshot the Hero came riding.

  He sat up straight and tall on the back of the White Dragon, putting away his bow now, and drawing his swords.

  On his left arm he was wearing Alvin’s bracelet, snaking brightly around his arm.

  “Arm yourself, Alvin, you TREACHEROUS SNAKE!” shouted Humungously Hotshot.

  Alvin whipped his head around to see Humungous riding straight for him. His great swords the Fireflash and the Mooncut were held sternly above his head.

  Alvin started in horrified surprise and yelled out, “EXTERMINATOR!”

  The dreadful dragon heaved his claws out of the ground around Camicazi and Fishlegs and came bounding toward his Master.

  Alvin leaned down and dragged the arrow out of his arm with his teeth.

  It was not, unfortunately, a deep wound, and although it bled quite a bit, it did not stop Alvin from leaping aboard his Exterminator’s back and up into the air.

  And in the swirling smoke of the Volcano, the two Warriors faced each other for the first time. Alvin pulled down the visor on his Fire-Suit. The dragons, one white, one black, wheeled around each other through the sulphurous smoke, watching for an opening, waiting for a moment to attack.

  “Now, now, Humungous,” Alvin wheedled. “Don’t forget, I’m your old pal, Terrific Al. You wouldn’t hurt an old friend like me, would you?”

  But Humungous was full of righteous wrath.

  “Friend? HA! You never delivered my ruby heart’s stone! You kept it for yourself!”

  A ray of sun poking for a moment through the rain-laden clouds bounced accusingly off the ruby in the bracelet, which was now around Humungous’s arm.

  Both men let out a terrible scream, simultaneously, and they leaped together, the two Warriors’ swords meeting with an awful clang of metal against metal, Stormblade against Fireslash.

  At exactly the same moment, there was a great CRASH of thunder, the heavens opened and it began to POUR with rain.

  Fishlegs and Camicazi ran toward Hiccup, and all three Vikings huddled together straining to see what was happening up in the sky, who was winning the Battle in the Smoke.

  The Windwalker appeared out of nowhere, and dropped Toothless on top of Hiccup’s helmet. Toothless looked into Hiccup’s eyes upside-down, exhausted but thoroughly overexcited.

  “L-l-look, I brought H-H-Humungous, Toothless saved the day, Toothless a Hero, Toothless a Hero!” chanted the little dragon jubilantly, letting out a gloating cock-a-doodle-doo of triumph.

  “GUYS!” yelled down Humungous, performing the Grapple-lunge with full twist, as he fought all ten of the Exterminator’s sword-claws AND the Stormblade and Alvin’s hook on top, “DON’T FORGET THE QUEST!”

  (This may seem like rather obvious advice, but trust me, in the heat of the moment it is quite easy to forget what you came for in the first place.)

  “YOU’VE GOT TO GET THE FIRE-STONE IN THAT VOLCANO NOW, OR WE’RE ALL DONE FOR!”

  “Yes, well done, Toothless, but we’re not safe yet,” said Hiccup shakily, trying to find where Camicazi had left her waistcoat, but it was difficult to see in this driving downpour. “We have to throw the Fire-Stone in the Volcano . . .”

  “I think I put it somewhere over there . . .” said Camicazi, uncertainly, pointing vaguely to the right, “. . . or was it somewhere else . . . I can’t quite remember . . . I mean honestly you put something down for one moment and . . .”

  “N-n-no, you’re right!” screeched Toothless, wild with excitement, “Toothless get the Fire-Stone n-now . . . Toothless be the H-H-Hero for once!”

  “No, Toothless, hang on,” said Hiccup, clinging on to one of Toothless’s legs. “We’ll do it, Toothless, don’t worry, we’ll do it.”

  But the glory of Humungously Hotshot telling him what a great Hero he was had gone quite to Toothless’s head.

  “Hiccup not t-t-trust Toothless, that’s it, isn’t it?” squeaked Toothless huffily. “Toothless s-s-save Hiccup’s life and still HICCUP want to be the big Hero all to himself . . . Well Toothless a Hero now too . . . and Toothless can do it ALL ON HIS OWN, j-j-just you see . . .”

  Toothless leaned down and gave Hiccup a painful little nip on the knuckle, so that Hiccup let go of his leg with a sharp cry, and Toothless spread out his wings and soared through the rain, with Hiccup running after him shouting:

  “No! Toothless! Wait!”

  But Toothless didn’t quite catch the last bit because he was searching the ground for the Fire-Stone.

  “It’s here somewhere . . . s-s-somewhere . . . Aha!”

  The little dragon spotted the already sodden waistcoat with a gleam of gold in it lying sitting in what was now mud, not very far away, and he swooped up to it, claws outstretched.

  C-C-C-C-C-CRASHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  A great crack of lightning skewered through the black sky above.

  A tremendous rumble of something, it could have been thunder, it could have been the Volcano . . .

  “GUYS!!” shouted down Humungous, swooping down on a cringing Alvin, and performing the Grimbeard’s Grapple, the Piercing Point, the Half-turn Demi-Plunge, and the Deadly Double-Act, four entirely different and immensely difficult sword-plays in quick succession. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE? YOU REALLY, REALLY NEED TO GET A MOVE ON!”

  Toothless unwrapped the Fire-Stone from the waistcoat and took a good hold of it.

  He looked over his shoulder.

  Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi were running down the mountainside toward him through the driving rain, Hiccup still calling out: “NO! TOOTHLESS! I’LL DO IT! IT’LL BE—”

  Toothless gave a defiant little snort and a toss of his head.

  “Toothless d-d-do it on his OWN,” he said, and lifted the Fire-Stone up in his claws.

  But the smooth, golden surface of the Fire-Stone had become slick and slimy in the driving rain. And Toothless’s sharp, pointy little claws didn’t have the grip on it that they might have done when it was dry.

  “— SLIPPERY,” groaned Hiccup.

  Hiccup, Camicazi, and Fishlegs reached the waistcoat just in time to get an excellent view of the Fire-Stone sliding from Toothless’s clutching talons and beginning to roll down the mountainside that they had so painfully, so slowly, so bravely come up.

  “Whoops!” squeaked Toothless guiltily. “S-s-sorry . . . what a butter-claws I am . . . Don’t worry . . . don’t panic . . . m-m-me get it . . .”

  And he made another dive for it, getting in the way of Camicazi, who was just trying to tackle it from the other direction.

  “Got it!” cried Camicazi, in a split second of triumph, before Toothless crashed into her face, and knocked the muddy golden Stone out of her fingers.

  “Whose side are you on, Toothless?” howled Hiccup, as he passed Camicazi and Toothless sprawled in the mud, and pelted after the rolling Stone, now gathering speed and bouncing merrily down the steep slope through the soaking, drenching, drowning rain, lightning crashing all around it.

  On and on it rolled, and with every foot that it bounced, the success of their Quest was rolling further and further away from them.

 
Up in the air, despite being mounted on a far superior dragon, Alvin the Treacherous was being THOROUGHLY beaten in the sword-fight by Humungously Hotshot the Hero.

  Humungous had already thrust his spear into one of the Exterminator’s hearts, and although the Creature could still fly because it still had the other heart to keep it going, some of the fight had gone out of it. Can you blame it?

  Alvin was preparing to desert, for if ever a person knew how to run away when things looked bleak, it was Alvin the Treacherous.

  But Alvin looked down, and he saw the golden globe rolling down the mountain, with the three little figures and their dragon scrambling, sliding, and falling after it.

  Alvin saw a chance to snatch Victory from the jaws of Defeat.

  To Humungous’s surprise Alvin stopped the Exterminator mid-charge (this was most certainly NOT considered good Barbarian Behavior, running out on a fight) and wheeled his dragon around, and swooped after the rolling, fleeing figures and the Stone.

  The ground was flattening out a bit, and the Stone slowed a little before colliding with a large rock and coming to an abrupt stop.

  The Windwalker got to it first and looked nervously up at Hiccup, waiting for instructions.

  “It’s stopped!” called out Camicazi in relief to the others, as she struggled and slipped downward. We can get it now . . . thought Camicazi.

  We can get it now . . .

  We can get it now . . .

  Three sets of fingers reached out for the Stone, and . . .

  “TOO LATE!” crowed Alvin, swooping down on his Exterminator, and reaching down with his Fire-Suit-gloved hand, he picked up the Fire-Stone and bore it upward, up and up as fast as he could in triumph.

  “You are TOO LATE. You will never stop the Volcano now.”

  They were too late.

  The Exterminator was swift of wing, even with a spear stuck in one of its hearts, and it soared up quicker than the White Dragon could follow.

  The Volcano gave an angry hiss and a snarl, and then a furious warning belch, in a truly gigantic rumble that sent the ground trembling like waves beneath Hiccup’s feet.

  Camicazi yelled, “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE! THIS VOLCANO’S GOING TO BLOW!”

  But that wasn’t what truly terrified Hiccup.

  It was the soft voice of the Windwalker, whispering his first words into Hiccup’s ear.

  “Desert,” whispered the Windwalker. “Desert.”

  17. JUST EXACTLY WHEN IS TOO LATE?

  Hiccup had been in some tricky situations in his time.

  But to be standing on a Volcano when the Volcano starts erupting has got to be the trickiest so far.

  “Camicazi! Fishlegs! Get on the White Dragon’s back!” yelled Humungous, swooping down toward them. He knew that the White Dragon couldn’t carry any more, particularly wounded as she was.

  “Will you be all right on the Windwalker, Hiccup?” asked Humungous anxiously.

  “Of course,” replied Hiccup, with a confidence he was far from feeling. “I was before, wasn’t I?”

  And then he remembered the Riddle of Lava-Lout Island, the piece of paper that Old Wrinkly had given to him at the bottom of the well, and that was now in his pocket.

  He whispered to himself.

  “It is never too late.”

  He turned to Toothless. “Toothless, I am trusting you with something now. It is not too late. Get the Fire-Stone from Alvin, I don’t care how, and throw it into the Volcano anyway. EVEN IF THE VOLCANO HAS EXPLODED ALREADY, Toothless, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.”

  And Hiccup climbed on to the Windwalker’s back and the Windwalker began to run down the mountain.

  The poor wounded White Dragon struggled to lift off carrying the three Vikings. But on the third attempt she achieved it, and fumbled into the air.

  Fishlegs had his eyes absolutely tight shut. This was his first flying experience, and it had to be said it was one that wasn’t likely to make him feel confident about flying. I think you would describe it as TURBULENT. The White Dragon would flap forward for a couple of moments and then drop like a stone for twenty meters, leaving Fishlegs’s stomach some way behind.

  “We’re going to die . . .” whimpered Fishlegs, as they plunged down toward the little sail of The Peregrine Falcon in the bay, which had now been joined by the sails of Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha’s boats.

  “Oh, stop moaning,” snapped Camicazi. “I’m much more worried about Hiccup.” For at least the White Dragon was FLYING, in a fashion. The Windwalker’s wings weren’t strong enough yet to take off with Hiccup aboard. Camicazi was peering at the tiny figure of the Windwalker running down the mountain.

  Hiccup clung to the Windwalker’s skinny neck.

  “Run,” he whispered. “Please, run, run, run.”

  “R-r-r-r-run!” squeaked Toothless, flapping furiously after Alvin. “Run, run, r-r-run!”

  BOOOMMMM!!!!!

  The Volcano exploded.

  18. HERE’S AN INTERESTING QUESTION. CAN YOU OUTRUN AN EXPLODING VOLCANO?

  Here’s an interesting question.

  Can you outrun an exploding Volcano?

  The answer is, if you survive the initial explosion, you can, depending on the type of lava.

  Some lava runs extremely slowly. Some lava runs horribly quickly.

  It depends, in short, on the Volcano in question.

  And you can’t really tell what kind of Volcano it is until the Volcano actually explodes.

  When this particular Volcano exploded, the whole of the top half of the mountain blew right off. A great mushroom of cloud ballooned up into the air and rolled out across the clear blue sky. The entire island vibrated, churning up the seas roundabout and sending The Peregrine Falcon, The Blue Whale, and The Mighty Momma rocketing up and down the gigantic waves, and sending the hearts of the two parents aboard those ships plunging up and down with it.

  Great chunks of burning mountain were blasted up into the air and rained down to the ground and into the sea. The Windwalker screeched to a halt as a truly gigantic flaming boulder that could have squashed them flatter than two pieces of paper crashed to earth right in front of them, close enough to graze the Windwalker’s quivering nostrils.

  The Windwalker leaped on, dodging the flaming rocks falling out of the sky, and now running over the Exterminator Eggs that stretched before him in a great carpet all the way down to the sea.

  Hiccup looked over his shoulder.

  Burning rivers of hot molten lava were shooting out of the top of the crater and racing down the sides of the mountain.

  It really wasn’t Hiccup’s lucky day. Depending, of course, on the way you look at these things, whether you are a “glass half full, or glass half empty” kind of person. You COULD, for instance, say that Hiccup had been really rather lucky to survive the day so far.

  It turned out, as bad luck would have it, that the lava on Lava-Lout Island was the extremely fast-running kind that races in a red-hot river of death at speeds of over seventy miles per hour, much, much faster than a man can run — but was it faster than a Windwalker? It already seemed to be catching up with them.

  “R-R-R-R-R-R-RUNNNNNNN!!!!!!!” screeched Hiccup again, as if the poor Windwalker needed telling, already running as fast as he possibly could, ears back, smoke steaming from his nostrils, taking great gasping breaths as he rocked forward in his extraordinary, limping run.

  The lava streams shot down the mountain, horrible, steaming bright-red rivers.

  And it wasn’t just the lava that was chasing them.

  You’d have thought that things couldn’t get any worse — but things can always always get worse.

  The Exterminator Eggs were HATCHING the instant the lava touched them.

  So that out of the red-hot streams came bursting thousands and thousands and thousands of Exterminator fledglings.

  You might have thought that these newborn creatures would be still sleepy, still shaky, after lying curled up in those Eggs for nearly two hundred years, but
no, it was as if their long gestation had been driving them MAD, so eager were these animals to be off and killing, even in their first few seconds of life.

  They burst out of the lava streams still curled up like fiery Catherine wheels, and unfurled themselves midair in a shower of sparks, shaking the lava from their unfolding wings.

  And the first thing they saw as their carnivore eyelids snapped open was ALVIN, hovering at the top of the exploding Volcano, holding the terrifying flame-gold Fire-Stone in his hand.

  For the previous three months, they had been trapped in their Eggs, looking up at the great statues of Alvin scattered all over the island.

  Now here was this familiar face in the flesh, aboard one of their own, screaming at the top of his voice “AFTER THEM!!!!!” and pointing with his terrible copper-red sword at the shaking, terrified little figures of Hiccup and the Windwalker, fleeing from the lava streams like a fox from the Hunt.

  The Exterminators didn’t need much encouragement to obey. An ancient memory stirred in their tiny brains. They knew what THIS was.

  This was PREY.

  Ten sword-claws leaped from the ends of their fingers like switchblades, and the Exterminator fledglings took off in hot pursuit of the fleeing Viking and his dragon, shrieking as loudly as the Furies having their hair pulled.

  Down shot the lava streams, rushing closer and closer, nearer and nearer, catching up with Hiccup.

  Down, too, flew Alvin and the Exterminators, in their hundreds of thousands, like a gigantic cloud of homicidal bats.

  Hiccup remembered what Humungous had said about Exterminators. They would attack everything, anything that moved, set fire to every blade of grass, every bush, every tree. There wouldn’t be a single living thing for hundreds of miles in every direction.

  Even if they survived (and at this particular moment, this seemed unlikely), the Quest itself had failed.