‘My jealousy has made me destroy all the
things that in my heart of hearts I value…’
‘My honour. The respect of
Gobber. The respect of my father.
My whole world, the world of
dragons, dragons that I love.
‘If I stop being angry, I
have to see what I am, and
what I am now is what
the witch said. I am a
treacherous worm. I
am worthless, useless,
nothing of value. I am
not surprised that all
those people Turned
Their Backs on me.
‘I have Turned My Back on me.
‘I have Turned My Back on myself.’
Snotlout dropped his sword to the deck, where
it fell on the wood with an ugly clang. He put his face
in his elbow. His shoulders heaved with uncontainable
sobs.
There was a long and terrible silence.
Hiccup struggled to find the right words, for
it was truly awful and piteous to see a person in the
miserable state of having Turned Their Back on
themselves.
But somehow he found the words of a person
who was meant to be a King.
‘You are being too hard on yourself, Snotlout,’
said Hiccup at last. ‘A weaker person than you would
have killed me just now. You could have done that.
You won the swordfight, you disarmed me. But you
knew that the plight of the world was more important
than your own personal feelings. You put your honour
before your pride, and that is what Heroes do.
‘Do not take this all on yourself. This is not all
your fault. Fate and the stars have put us in a difficult
situation.
‘I know I am not what you wanted in a King,’
said Hiccup. ‘I know that it is hard for you to follow
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someone who is physically weaker than you are and,
what is more, your younger cousin. And it is not
surprising that it is hard. How can you follow someone
that in your heart you do not respect?
‘I wish I could offer you a King who is greater
than I am. I can’t turn into someone else, I can only be
me. But I have discovered that I too, am stronger than
I thought I was. I think I can do this. I think I can be
this King that the Dragonmarkers want me to be.’
‘What are you saying?’ said Snotlout.
‘I am asking you, once again, whether you will
join the Dragonmarker side,’ said Hiccup.
Another long pause.
Snotlout wasn’t expecting this at all.
It took him completely by surprise.
‘If you put your faith in me, I will try not to
disappoint you,’ added Hiccup.
‘Are you saying,’ said Snotlout, wonderingly
taking his face out of his elbow, ‘that you are still
prepared to take the risk and trust me, after I have
betrayed you again and again and again?’
‘I know in my heart that you are a Hero in the
making,’ said Hiccup. ‘We all make mistakes. We all
need second chances and even third, fourth and fifth
chances. Maybe you just needed to have that one last
fight with me, and then you’d be able to join our side.’
Another long, long pause.
It was like a door had suddenly opened in the
very dark and tiny room which Snotlout’s life had
become, a room in which he had been so trapped and
cramped and contorted, and he had not seen light for
such a very long time that he had almost forgotten light
existed.
At last Snotlout took his face out of his elbow
entirely and wiped it with his waistcoat. His face had
lost its ill, green colour, and he looked better than he
had in ages.
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‘You,’ said Snotlout, ‘are a very unusual person,
Hiccup.’
Well, it was better than ‘You are a little weirdo,
Hiccup,’ which was what Snotlout normally said.
‘I haven’t really allowed myself to think this until
now…’ Snotlout said awkwardly, and it was obviously
hard for him to get out these words, ‘but maybe you
might not be quite such a disastrous King as I used to
think you’d be. You were quite brave back there in the
witch’s camp, I thought.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hiccup.
‘And perhaps,’ said Snotlout, ‘perhaps Fate does
know her business after all. You aren’t the King that we
wanted, but maybe you are the King that we need.’
He bent down to pick up his sword, slowly, as if
he were beginning to recover from a long, long illness.
‘I guess I could be helpful to you, couldn’t I?’ said
Snotlout thoughtfully. ‘After all, you would only have
one paltry little Thing if it wasn’t for me. Not much
hope of being crowned King with one measly little
Thing. And now, thanks to me, you have all of them.’
‘Yes, it’s brilliant, Snotlout, I have to say, you’ve
done the most magnificent job,’ admitted Hiccup.
‘We’d never have got all the Things without your
help… My parents are going to be so pleased… We’re
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in with a real chance now.’
Snotlout drew himself up to his full dignified
height.
He turned to Hiccup, and bowed, like a Warrior
of old, following the ancient code of the Kings of the
Wilderwest, when they invited their greatest Heroes to
join them at High Table.
‘My sword is at your service, King,’ said Snotlout
to Hiccup.
Hiccup bowed formally back.
‘I am honoured to accept it,’ said Hiccup, in the
traditional time-honoured fashion.
‘Shake hands?’ said Snotlout, almost shyly.
Hiccup grinned.
Snotlout and Hiccup shook hands.
‘Oh that was well done, Hiccup,’ whispered
Wodensfang admiringly. ‘You could give that witch a
lesson or two in changing hearts and minds.’
‘Are you all r-r-right up there, Master?’ came
poor Toothless’s terrified voice floating up through
the floor-boards of the deck. ‘And wossit he talking
about, the One-With-the-Nose-So-Big-You-could-
Nest-in-There? Doesn’t he know Toothless is the
BEST ONE?’
Hiccup knelt down, and he could actually see
Toothless directly below him, through a crack in the
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deck. He was locked in a cage, poor Toothless, his
spines drooping, his eyes large and terrified.
‘I’m fine,’ Hiccup reassured him. ‘We haven’t
got time to break into the hold yet, we’re just going
to sail to a safe place and then we’ll get you out of
there, I promise, Toothless.’
‘Toothless not like being t-t-trapped!’ squeaked
poor Toothless.
‘Oh for Thor’s sake,’ said Snotlout wryly, ‘nothing
changes. Stop whispering and blowing kisses to your
cute ickle dragon and help me get this ship out of here.’
In all the drama of their swordfight, they had
forgotten that they were sup
posed to be running away.
‘Where are we going?’ said Hiccup, scrambling to
his feet again.
‘Across Wrecker’s Bay to the Dragonmarker
hideout,’ said Snotlout. ‘I’m presuming you do actually
know where that is, after the witch spent so much
trouble trying to get the information out of you?’
‘The hideout is in Coral Beach,’ said Hiccup with
a grin. ‘My mother told me that just before we split up
in the Amber Slavelands.’
‘OK,’ said Snotlout. ‘We’ll get there just in time
for you to sail across to Hero’s Gap for Doomsday Eve.
You really like to cut it fine, don’t you, Hiccup?’
Snotlout rubbed his hands together. He was
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cheering up in front of Hiccup’s very eyes.
‘OPERATION MAKE HICCUP KING is on its
way!’
‘We’ll have to be really lucky for this to work…’
said Hiccup.
‘You got any better Plans, O Brilliant One?’
snorted Snotlout. ‘Why don’t you just concentrate
on sailing this boat, and try not to sink it, eh, like you
always did with The Hopeful Puffin…’
It was as good a plan as any under the
circumstances.
18. A VERY SHORT CHAPTER
IN WHICH IT LOOKS LIKE
EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TO
GO RIGHT FOR FIVE MINUTES
The boys went to work, getting the ship sailing as fast
as possible, expertly handling the ropes like the young
Vikings they were. They had done this a thousand
times in Viking Sailing Practice. But never together.
They worked in surprising unison, for two boys who
had loathed each other all their lives.
Hiccup felt a weird sense of elation, for the first
time in his life to be working side-by-side with Snotlout
for a common aim.
They were not out of danger. No. But,
unbelievably, they had all the Things, every single one,
safely locked in the hold. If they could just get them to
Tomorrow… so close now that they could actually see
it, a dark shadow in the mist, tantalisingly within reach.
They had finally laid to rest their old quarrel, they
had got all the Things, there was a clear wind taking
them across Wrecker’s Bay, and for five whole minutes
it looked like everything was going to be all right.
It would have been even more inspiring if it
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hadn’t been for the sound of Toothless howling. Still
locked in his cage, Toothless had decided he was going
to die, so he had stopped singing the song about the
thousands of bottles, and he was now singing an even
sadder song, which went something like this:
‘Toothless is dy-y-y-ying… Poor Toothless is
dy-y-ying…’
‘Can’t you shut the gummy one up,’ said Snotlout
through gritted teeth. ‘It’s making me feel like throwing
myself off the ship or giving myself up to the witch.’
As they slipped out of the witch’s harbour, flocks
of dragons and seagulls flew screeching overhead,
screaming cries of warning, swarming in numbers like a
plague of locusts from the direction of the Open Sea.
An extraordinary noise followed them, a noise
unlike anything Hiccup had ever heard before, a deep
and elemental howl. For one second, Hiccup thought it
was the Dragon Furious, before realising that no living
creature could make that noise – not even a mighty Sea
Dragon the size of a mountain.
Only a true apocalyptic power could make that
noise. Like volcanoes and earthquakes and hurricanes,
that noise is one that tells the human being how small
and insignificant a pinprick is mankind, for all his
cleverness and ingenuity, in the face of the awesome
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power of Nature itself.
‘What is that?’ shouted Snotlout, his face turning
a little green.
‘That,’ said Hiccup swallowing, ‘is the Winter
Wind of Woden.’
Just to make their escape a little more interesting
than it was already, the Winter Wind of Woden was
starting to blow. What were the chances?
Hiccup made some calculations. They might
avoid the Winter Wind of Woden if they were fast –
and lucky.
Doggedly, quietly, the two boys set the ship
in the direction of the Dragonmarkers’ hideout and
moved out of the Harbour, streams of dragons and
birds shrieking above them like shooting stars, and the
clamour and explosions and fireworks of the Battle
going on behind them.
19. EVERYTHING GOES
WRONG AGAIN, VERY
RAPIDLY
While Hiccup and Snotlout were fighting, everything
else had fallen away. They had been so focused on each
other and their ancient quarrel that they had forgotten
about the peril they were in, their flight from the witch
and Alvin.
But now the outside world forced itself on their
attention once again.
Just as they had got the ship on course, sailing
towards the Dragonmarker hideout, Snotlout stared
with an arrested expression at something back at the
waterfall, on the shore they had just left, and nudged
Hiccup.
They were half way across Wrecker’s Bay.
Halfway to Coral Beach and safety.
But a little group of black specks had crawled out
of the calm, distant waterfall like bluebottles creeping
out of a crack in the wall.
Tense with anxiety, Snotlout and Hiccup stared
at the distant land, hoping against hope that they were
mistaken, that the little black specks were just tricks of
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the light
and the wind.
But as the specks flew nearer,
there was a hollow feeling in Hiccup’s heart.
He knew what they were.
Ravenhunters.
A flock of the witch’s
Ravenhunters, pursuing
them like an inescapable,
unwearying Fate.
Ravenhunters
were too small
for riders,
but they acted as spies for the
witch. On they came, with remorseless flaps.
Flying dragons can easily outpace a ship.
Nearer… nearer… nearer…
‘SHOOT THEM!’ yelled Snotlout, grabbing his
bow.
Windwalker and the Hurricane leapt bravely
from the deck of the ship to confront the Ravenhunters
mid-air as they flew overhead.
Snotlout shot five of them – even
Hiccup, with one dead hand, shot one.
Windwalker and the Hurricane took out even more,
diving after them as the remainder flapped back to the
witch, squawking. But there were too many to catch.
‘They’ll fetch reinforcements,’ shouted Snotlout.
‘And this time they will bring Bullguards with riders.
Those Bullguards are quick. They’ll catch us before we
get to the Dragonmarker hideout, if it’s where you say
it is.’
It was too cruel.
Ev
en half an hour later, and they might have got
to safety.
They were so close, SO close to getting
away with it, sneaking those Things
away from underneath
the very noses of Alvin and the witch…
Hiccup scanned the horizon.
The Winter Wind of Woden, blowing like an
angry god, was closer than the Dragonmarker hideout.
‘Could we steer the ship into the Winter Wind?’
asked Hiccup. ‘They’d never follow us in there.’
‘There’s a reason for that,’ said Snotlout, with
a hollow laugh. ‘It’s a guaranteed death sentence.
Besides, I don’t think there’s time. Look! I can see the
Bullguards coming out already. They’ll reach us before
we get to the Wind.’
The two boys looked at Windwalker and the
Hurricane.
The Things were trapped. They were locked in
the hold.
But the boys themselves did have a choice.
They could climb on to the riding-dragons’ backs
and fly themselves to safety. Both Windwalker and the
Hurricane were faster than Bullguards.
But that would mean abandoning all of the Lost
Things to Alvin and the witch. Including Toothless.
What else could they do? Stay here and die?
‘W-w-wossgoingon?’ came the voice of
Toothless, floating up from the hold of the boat.
‘It’s OK, Toothless,’ Hiccup shouted down.
‘We’ve just hit a little hitch… nothing to worry
about.’
Hurricane gave an unhappy whine, his spines
drooping, his tail between his legs. Automatically,
Snotlout put out a hand and soothed the Hurricane’s
splendid, drooping head.
‘It’ll be all right, boy,’ he said. ‘It’s all going to be
all right.’
Snotlout stared into the distance, thinking.
‘Oh for Thor’s sake,’ he swore, bending down,
picking up his sword and putting it back in his
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scabbard. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this…
‘Swap clothes with me, and give me your
helmet!’ Snotlout ordered Hiccup, taking off his own
helmet and shrugging off his waistcoat.
‘Why?’ shouted Hiccup, taking off his own
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 16
