‘Who do you think this is, then?’
Camicazi sang the Hooligan national anthem
into Fishlegs’s helmet, in an uncanny impression of
Valhallarama’s booming, magnificent tones. The helmet
gave her voice the necessary deep, echoing quality:
‘Up with your SWORD and strike at the GALE…
‘RIDE the rough SEAS for those WAVES
are your HOME…’
Fishlegs looked at her with his mouth hanging
open. ‘You sound exactly like Valhallarama…’
‘Good, isn’t it?’ grinned Camicazi, ‘I’ve been
practising for ages…
‘WINTERS may FREEZE but our HEARTS do
not FAIL—’
Yes, it’s great, Camicazi, absolutely spooky, but
this is no time for doing impressions,’ said Fishlegs,
terrified.
Again, Camicazi ignored him. ‘So, Fishlegs, get
out your weapons, put on your hood, and I want you to
imagine you’re an army…’
‘Imagine I’m an army,’ said Fishlegs, getting out
his bow and arrows and pulling up the hood of his
fire-suit. ‘Imagine I’m an army… this is crazy…’
Camicazi kicked her heels, and the Deadly
Shadow swooped out from under the wooden platform
and into the open air of the cavern.
Fishlegs’s eyes were shut, and he was whispering
over and over again to himself, ‘I’m an army… I’m
an army… I’m an entire super-scary Dragonmarker
army…’
Camicazi urged the Deadly Shadow higher and
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higher, until it was hovering just below the icy ceiling of
the cavern.
Beneath them, the crazy twisted streets of Alvin’s
town were curiously beautiful, with flares lighting up
the edges of that maze of wooden platforms and the
dark shapes of the floating armada.
Little figures were shouting at one another, flares
in their hands, peering over the sides of the wooden
streets beside the Great Hall, looking into the sea.
‘FIND THE HICCUP BOY!’ the witch was
screaming, and the Bullguards shot out random
lightning bolts that formed a hissing, spitting, live maze
of death in the air to match the mazy streets below.
‘Calmly,’ whispered Camicazi, keeping Deadly
Shadow circling. ‘We have to wait for exactly the right
moment…
‘Now dive!’ ordered Camicazi. ‘Dive, Deadly
Shadow, dive!’
‘Hang on!’ panicked Fishlegs, ‘You can’t dive
now! There’s no way you’ll get through those random
lightning bolts! You can’t do it!’
‘ATTACK!’ ordered Camicazi, more
magnificently Valhallarama-ish than ever, shouting
into Fishlegs’s helmet in Valhallarama’s deepest
most commanding voice. Even the moustache had a
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jaunty Valhallarama effect. ‘DRAGONMARKERS,
ATTACK!’
‘Oh brother,’ whispered Fishlegs, putting his
hands over his eyes.
The Deadly Shadow dived.
14. A LITTLE LESSON FROM
CAMICAZI IN CAUSING
CHAOS AND CONFUSION
A few minutes earlier, the Alvinsmen had run out on to
the platform above the icy sea and scanned the waters
below for any sign of Hiccup.
‘He won’t be able to hold his breath for long!’
shrieked Alvin. ‘Get the Bullguards’ searchlights steady
on the water!’
Hundreds of hovering Bullguards illuminated the
sea around the Great Hall, revealing a heaving mass of
Winterfleshers in a feeding frenzy.
‘Look, Alvin, my darling! They’re eating
something!’ sang the witch happily. ‘It must be the boy!’
‘I want evidence!’ shrieked Alvin. ‘I want a body!
Anyway, that’s not Hiccup, that’s my new cloak, it fell
off earlier…’
Recently freed by Snotlout, Gobber and the
Dragonmarkers peered out the Great Hall door,
uncertain whether to attack or escape. There were
twenty-two of them, which wasn’t really enough to put
up a good fight in a straight battle with thousands and
thousands of Alvinsmen.
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‘Wait…’ hissed the witch, stiffening as if
something had stung her. ‘What’s that?’
From nowhere at all came the disembodied
sound of somebody singing the Hooligan National
Anthem.
‘Up with your SWORD and strike at the GALE…
‘RIDE the rough SEAS for those WAVES
are your HOME…’
‘I know that voice!’ spat the witch. ‘Surely it can’t
be… Surely it can’t be Valhallarama???’
On the song went, as jolly and as happy and
unconcerned as if the singer were singing round the
campfire on Berk.
‘WINTERS may FREEZE but our HEARTS
do not FAIL…
‘…HOOLIGAN… HEARTS…
FOREVER!’
Alvin, too, had frozen. ‘But… that means the
Dragonmarkers have found our war bunker!’
‘Impossible!’ screeched the witch. ‘Unbelievable!
Inconceivable!’
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But the next words were shouted, and to
everyone’s ears they were clearly the booming, clear,
distinctive tones of VALHALLARAMA the Mighty,
Valhallarama the Terrible, Valhallarama the Great and
Magnificent Warrior.
‘ATTTACCCCKKKKKKKKK!’ roared the
voice of Valhallarama. ‘DRAGONMARKERS
ATTAACCKKKKKKKK!’
Down swooped the Deadly Shadow in his
invisible dive.
Camicazi must have had the luck of a drunk or
foolish person, for how the Deadly Shadow made it
through that complicated mess of Bullguard lightning
bolts without being struck was an absolute miracle.
The witch went even whiter than normal.
‘Valhallarama’s forces…’ she whispered.
‘Quick… Counter-attack! Man the barricades!’
Pandemonium ensued, with the Alvinsmen
rushing for their weapons and firing randomly in the air
as something enormous and invisible swooped down,
sank a couple of lightning bolts into the Great Hall,
and soared upwards again.
Fishlegs opened his eyes shakily.
‘OK, Camicazi, I have to admit, that was kind
of brilliant.’
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‘You see,’ grinned Camicazi, ‘we’re an army!
We’re an entire Dragonmarker army…’
She winked at him cheekily.
‘Watch this…’
Camicazi took out a handful of little grey pebbles
and flung them in six different directions. They sailed
through the air, just normal little grey pebbles… but
when they landed… BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The little
pebbles exploded, creating the impression that the
town was being attacked in six different places, by six
different dragons, all at the same time.
BOOOOOOOOOM!
The sixth pebble caused a very large explosion
indeed, as it scored a direct hit on Alvin’s armoury and
hit the blacksmith’s fire burning merrily away in th
e
middle.
‘HOOOLIGANS FOREVER!’ bellowed Camicazi,
in what was supposed to be an impression of Stoick the
Vast. Even with the help of the helmet, it came out a
bit squeaky.
‘Your Stoick impression isn’t as good as
your Valhallarama,’ advised Fishlegs. ‘It’s about as
convincing as your blond moustache.’
Blind panic came over the Alvinsmen.
‘They’re using Stealth Dragons!’ roared Alvin
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the Treacherous. ‘Fire randomly in the air because we
won’t be able to see them coming! They’re coming
from the air you fools, the air!’
But it appeared these Dragonmarkers were
attacking from the land as well.
‘ATTTACCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!’ yelled
Gobber the Belch.
And the Dragonmarkers that Snotlout had
released leapt from the Great Hall and began to fight
the Alvinsmen.
They were massively outnumbered of course, but
fortunately most of the Alvinsmen army had already
launched into the air on dragonback to counter an
entirely imaginary Stealth Dragon assault.
They shot randomly in the air, mostly hitting
Bullguards, who then thought they had been hit by
Dragonmarkers and started shooting back.
So began the Battle Underneath the Waterfall,
which, thanks to Camicazi’s brilliance at causing chaos
and confusion, mostly consisted of Alvinsmen and
Bullguards fighting each other rather than the enemy.
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15. ‘YOU RANG, MADAM?’
Windwalker swam at immense speed through the
cavern’s inner sea. With intense precision, he broke the
surface for a few moments so that Hiccup could take
huge, coughing, gasping relieved breaths.
In the moment that they surfaced, Hiccup heard
Camicazi’s excellent impression of Valhallarama.
What is happening? thought Hiccup, confused and
disorientated. Surely that can’t be my mother?
And then Windwalker took him underwater
again, and Hiccup nearly passed out with the cold and
the lack of air.
Beside them swam the little pink Hogfly, like an
underwater bumblebee, and the Wodensfang.
When at last Windwalker re-surfaced, the floating
town was some distance away and they were alongside
the Barbarian Armada, quietly rocking in the icy water.
Windwalker gently spat Hiccup on to the nearest ship,
and there he lay like a baby, flat on his front, panting
on the deck, shivering uncontrollably, too cold to
move.
‘Thanks, Windwalker…’ whispered Hiccup,
closing his eyes. He was sleepy… too tired to take this
in, and shivering too much.
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‘Wake up, Master,’ whispered Windwalker
urgently. ‘Wake up! You can’t sleep now...’
A rush of hot air over Hiccup’s shaking body
made him open his eyes again. Blinking in the warm
breeze, he realised that the Windwalker was blowing
hot air over him to warm him. The steamy breath of
the dragon gradually heated his shaking limbs into
stillness, and he climbed to his feet, horribly lopsided
and as weak as a fawn finding its feet for the first time.
His left side was almost completely numb, and even his
thoughts seemed sluggish.
He looked back at the Great Hall, now a
confused mass of shouting, screaming Alvinsmen
Warriors fighting Dragonmarker Warriors and shooting
randomly into the air.
Excellent. Fishlegs and Camicazi had gone ahead
with their Diversion. And it sounded like Hiccup’s
mother and the Dragonmarker army might have joined
them.
The second part of Plan B was going to be a little
trickier.
Because the success of the second part of Plan B
relied on the Hogfly.
Hiccup looked dubiously at the Hogfly hovering
eagerly before him, spraying Hiccup with water as he
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shook himself dry.
‘Hogfly?’ said Hiccup.
‘You rang, Madam?’ said the Hogfly.
‘Hogfly, we really need you now. Everything
depends on you.’
‘Woof woof!’ squeaked the amiable little creature,
but he looked anxious. Even the Hogfly seemed to
realise that a Plan that relied on him might be a Plan in
jeopardy.
‘Hogfly, I need you to fetch,’ said Hiccup
solemnly.
He reached into his backpack, and pulled out the
sad remains of Toothless’s torn, burnt, coat. Hiccup
had hidden it for precisely this purpose, so the Hogfly
could follow Toothless’s smell, and find out where the
Alvinsmen had taken him.
‘That,’ said the Wodensfang admiringly, ‘is a
Clever Plan, Hiccup.’
The coat was sopping wet, of course, and Hiccup
had to hope that this wouldn’t affect the scent. ‘Give
it a good sniff, Hogfly. I need you to fetch Toothless.
Fetch Toothless, good Hogfly.’
The Hogfly gave a sigh of relief. His little piglet
tail wagged so fast it was nearly a blur. At last he could
be helpful! This was something he understood! This
was something he could do!
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The Hogfly snuffled the
coat all over.
‘Hmmm…’ sneezed
the Hogfly in a deep little
voice. ‘Fruity…’
His sniffer nose
sniffed up and down,
taking in great, woofing
breaths, as if it had a life of its own.
A couple of years ago, Hiccup had
taught this particular Hogfly how to ‘fetch’. It had
taken a long time, for Hogflys are not bred for their
intelligence. Their minds hop from subject to subject
like butterflies.
But once they have learnt the skill of ‘fetching’,
they are, quite simply, the best scent and tracker
dragons in the entire world.
The piggy snout of the Hogfly, snuffling away,
could smell smells that you and I cannot even imagine
smelling. He could smell the shoal of Winterfleshers,
currently passing underneath the boat they were
standing on. He could smell the birds sleeping in the
pine trees, way, way in the distance on the faraway
shoreline.
His extraordinary little sniffing nose could sort
out those smells like an experienced gambler sorting
through a deck of cards. And somewhere in among
those smells, in between the smell of a spider scuttling
up the mast of one of the ships one hundred feet away,
and the twenty-four slightly different smells of the
twenty-four slightly different nanodragons currently
hibernating in one of the same ship’s biscuit barrels, he
caught a tiny little whiff of something that smelled a lot
like Toothless.
‘Fetch Toothless!’ trumpeted the Hogfly, and
zoomed after that smell as if he were being dragged
through the air by a Silver Phantom.
The Windwalker and Wodensfang
could barely keep up.
The little speeding
Hogfly, like a jet
propelled piglet, flew
above the boats that
were moored at
the edges of this
floating city.
‘FetchToothless-
fetchToothlessfetch-
ToothlessfetchToothless… Sorry
Grandma!’ This last remark was addressed
to a ship’s mast that the Hogfly dodged in his
single-minded quest. ‘FetchToothlessfetchToothless-
fetchToothlessfetchToothless…’
There must have been at least a hundred of those
Viking war ships, rocking dark and ghostly on the black
water, as lifeless and silent as death boats.
But right at the end, so near to the edge of
the cavern that it was right next to the waterfall…
were there dim signs of life? Were there tiny moving
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shadows that might have been people, and a
faint flicker of light that could have been the
light of a torch?
The Hogfly was heading straight for
this boat.
OK, thought Hiccup. So that must be
where the Alvinsmen have taken Toothless…
and if Toothless is there… it will also be where
they have hidden the other nine Lost Things…
Hiccup had to stop the Hogfly now. The Hogfly
would not understand about being quiet, and sneaking
up on this boat. He would give them all away.
Hiccup kicked his heels gently on the
Windwalker’s sides. Windwalker leapt forward and
drew alongside the little speeding Hogfly.
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The Hogfly was muttering ‘FetchToothlessfetch-
ToothlessfetchToothlessfetchToothless…’ to himself
with impressive determination.
Hiccup leaned down, grabbed the Hogfly
under one arm, and put his hand over the Hogfly’s
nose. Hiccup’s hand got in the way of the smell
track the Hogfly was following, and once a Hogfly’s
concentration was broken it could be easily distracted.
After a few squeals of reproach and ‘Woah, that
tickles!’ the Hogfly forgot about Toothless and licked
Hiccup’s hand, nuzzling it affectionately.
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 13
