waistcoat.
‘I don’t believe this… I don’t believe this…’
snorted Snotlout to himself. And then to Hiccup:
‘They’re after YOU, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Hiccup, slowly.
‘So I’ll dress up as you, O Lightning-Brain,’ said
Snotlout. ‘I’ll put on your helmet, and I’ll get on your
Windwalker, and I’ll ride out to meet those Bullguards
and their riders, and that’ll distract them for a bit…’
‘But that’s crazy!’ spluttered Hiccup. ‘If you go
out there to meet them, all on your own, you’ll get
yourself killed!’
Snotlout grinned. ‘Oh, you think my job is crazy?
While I’m distracting them, you get to steer this ship
into the Winter Wind of Woden, and if that isn’t crazy,
then I don’t know what is…’
Snotlout yanked on Hiccup’s waistcoat and held
out his hand for Hiccup’s fire-suit.
‘Are you sure about this?’ whispered Hiccup,
putting on Snotlout’s helmet.
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‘Listen,’ said Snotlout, struggling to fit into
Hiccup’s fire-suit and putting his great galumphing foot
through the knee before he got it on, ‘you’re always
hogging the limelight, Hiccup, but you know what? It’s
my turn to be the Hero.’
Snotlout laughed out loud.
‘I’m on your side now, aren’t I? I’m a
Dragonmarker. We’re going to make it out of here
with all of the Lost Things, and we’re going to get you
crowned King.
‘So the next time I see Gobber,’ said Snotlout,
standing up straight and proud, and speaking in
passionate earnest, ‘he will know that I am a Hero
after all. My father will be proud of me. They will all
be proud of me. They will Turn Their Backs round
again and look me in the eye, not with disgust but
admiration. The Sagas will sing my name, and they will
never forget me.’
Hiccup was now wearing Snotlout’s helmet and
body armour.
As a final touch, Snotlout hung his Black Star
around Hiccup’s neck.
‘There,’ Snotlout said, with satisfaction. ‘X marks
the spot. It looks good on you, Hiccup. It’ll give those
Guardian Protectors of Tomorrow something to aim
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at. You are only borrowing this, mind,’ he warned.
‘Don’t you dare lose it, however scary those Guardians
are. Look after it until we meet again. That Star is very
important to me.’
‘Hang on, Snotlout…’ said Hiccup wildly. ‘You
don’t have to do this. I’ll think of something…’
‘But I’ve thought of something,’ said Snotlout,
‘You’re not the only one who can make plans, Hiccup.
Let me do this!’
Hiccup had an appalling premonition of disaster.
‘Windwalker! Don’t take him!’ cried Hiccup.
Windwalker was an obedient dragon, and in
normal circumstances he would have obeyed Hiccup.
But Windwalker had followed enough of what was
going on to know that this was their only chance. He
gave his master an apologetic, slobbery nuzzle, and
knelt down so that Snotlout could climb on his back.
‘Why you have to have such a mess of a
riding-dragon, Hiccup, I really do not know,’ scolded
Snotlout. ‘You’re the son of a Chief, for Thor’s sake…’
Snotlout reached out and gave Hurricane a last
sweeping pat on one regal, shining side. He rested his
head briefly on the Hurricane’s flank and whispered,
‘You’re a good dragon, Hurricane.’
Before Snotlout climbed on to Windwalker’s
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back, he remembered something.
‘Give me the Dragonmark before I go,’ he said.
‘What do you mean, give you the Dragonmark?’
asked Hiccup.
‘I don’t want to be like that young Grimbeard the
Ghastly in the Wodensfang’s story,’ said Snotlout. ‘Too
proud to take the Dragonmark. I’m a Dragonmarker.
So give me the Dragonmark.’
‘How can I give you the Dragonmark?’
stammered Hiccup. ‘You have to have the brand…
That long thin thingummy that ends in an S.’
‘Improvise!’ said Snotlout impatiently. ‘You’re a
King, aren’t you? Do your King thing…’
Snotlout knelt in front of his cousin.
Hiccup put his finger in some charred charcoal
from a burnt bit on one of the masts. Solemnly, he
made an S shape on Snotlout’s forehead. Then he
searched for some suitably Kingly thing to say on such
an occasion.
‘You are, now and forever, a Companion of the
Dragonmark,’ he said at last.
Snotlout nodded shortly. ‘Of course, it’s only
temporary. Until I can get the real thing. But it’s
important that people know whose side I am on.’
Snotlout climbed on Windwalker’s back.
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Hiccup’s far-too-big helmet with the
far-too-big plume fitted Snotlout far better
than it had ever fitted Hiccup.
Snotlout pulled down the front of the helmet.
Suddenly he looked like a stranger.
Very noble.
A Hero of old.
Snotlout urged Windwalker upwards with his
knees, shouting at the top of his voice,
‘HEROES LIVE FOR EEEEEVERRRRRRRRR!’
20. THE LAST SONG OF
GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY
Neighing in terror, the valiant Windwalker leapt
into the sky, carrying his helmeted rider towards the
oncoming army of Alvinsmen.
For each Bullguard with a rider, there were five
more attached to the riders’ wrists by long chains, like
horses pulling racing chariots in the air. The Bullguards
halted, wings humming, not quite sure what to make of
a lone boy attacking them. Were there more invisible
Deadly Shadow dragons backing him up? Surely he
could not be alone? Did this impudent human not
know how terrifying they were?
Hiccup picked up the backpack with the still
sleeping Hogfly in it, and put it on his back.
‘Don’t worry, Toothless!’ he called through the
locked hatch to his little dragon. ‘It’s all perfectly
fine…’
Hiccup turned the ship straight south now, out
of the protection of Wrecker’s Bay, directing its furling
sails towards the screaming hurricane of the Wind.
Further back and invisible to all, Camicazi
and Fishlegs had just left Alvin’s underground war
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bunker and were urging the Deadly Shadow forward.
They weren’t quite within range of shooting at the
Bullguards yet.
‘Oh for Thor’s sake!’ moaned Fishlegs. ‘That’s
Hiccup! Why is he riding at Alvin’s army?’
The witch herself was seated on a Queen
Bullguard, a dragon rather larger than the rest of its
species. Her white cloak streamed out behind her.
Alvin was on a King Bullguard by her side.
She, too, thought she recognised Hiccup.
>
‘It’s him…’ she whispered. ‘The Hiccup boy… his
dragon must have saved him… But what is he doing
now? Has he turned mad?’
It was typical of Snotlout, somehow, that even
in a situation of desperate peril, he was still showing
off. For as he flew towards the swarm of hovering
Bullguards, Snotlout threw in an entirely unnecessary
somersault.
It was one of Flashburn’s favourites, a
Loop-de-Loop Special, and highly difficult to carry out
at the best of times. You had to grip very tightly indeed
on to the dragon’s back with your knees in order not to
fall off when the dragon was upside-down.
‘You see!’ Snotlout called over his shoulder for
Hiccup’s benefit, though Hiccup could hardly hear
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him. ‘I’M THE BEST DRAGON FLYER IN THE
WORLD!’
He then tried to get up on his feet, another
Flashburn trick, but the Windwalker was flying too fast
now for that one, and he hastily re-seated himself.
As Snotlout rode straight at the Bullguards,
Hiccup could hear him singing Grimbeard’s song, the
song that Grimbeard sang once, long ago, when he
sailed into the west on his ship The Endless Journey,
after he had killed his own son and broken up the
kingdom of the Wilderwest.
Here is that song that Snotlout sang:
I sailed so far to be a King but the time was never
right…
I lost my way on a stormy past, got wrecked
in starless night…
But let my heart be wrecked by hurricanes
and my ship by stormy weather
I know I am a Hero… and a Hero is…
FOREVER!
Hiccup could feel the sea beneath the ship
picking up more strongly as he sailed closer and closer,
nearer and nearer, to that howling hurricane din, the
Winter Wind of Woden.
In another time, another place, I could have been a
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King
But in my castle’s ruined towers the lonely
seabirds sing
I burnt up my Tomorrows, I cannot go
back ever
But I am still a Hero… and a Hero is…
FOREVER!
The Bullguards hovered suspiciously. Their
whiskers were out, feeling the air.
‘What is he doing?’ hissed the witch suspiciously.
‘It could be a trick…’
But Alvin was sensing imminent triumph. He
screwed in his favourite hook.
‘No, he knows he’s trapped,’ Alvin gloated.
‘That’s Grimbeard the Ghastly’s Last Song he is singing
there… He knows he is trapped and he is going down
fighting… He is going down like a Hero, trying to
make us look bad, the little rat.’
For behind their leaders, Alvin was acutely aware
that the Alvinsmen were whispering to one another,
‘Wow, he’s still alive… and he’s singing that song….’
‘ATTACCKKKKKK!’ roared Alvin the
Treacherous.
The Bullguards let out a simultaneous scream,
terrible to hear. And the Bullguard and Alvinsman army
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shot after Snotlout and the Windwalker like a vast
swarm of hornets, with the witch still shrieking, ‘No…
Wait! It could be a trick! It could be a trick!’
Screaming like a madman, Windwalker beneath
him glazed with terror, Snotlout fled through the sky,
pursued by the Alvinsman army.
‘Oh, for Thor’s sake,’ whispered Hiccup,
petrified, scared to look over his shoulder but looking
nonetheless. ‘Oh for Thor’s sake…’
On Snotlout charged, howling joyful insults
over his shoulder and firing arrows at the pursuing
Bullguards.
‘Come and get me, you buck-toothed, pig-ugly
grandmas! Catch-me-if-you-can, you lickspittle,
worm-wriggling night-creatures!’
Hiccup was too far away to hear what the insults
were, but he almost grinned as he imagined them, for
Snotlout had always been brilliant at insults on the
Pirate Training Programme.
‘Take that, you mangy, hippo-slow
vipers-for-handbags! Can’t catch me, you vile,
rabbit-hearted loser-snakes!’
Hiccup was steering the boat very close to the
Wind now. Snotlout was sailing very close to the wind
himself, for though the Windwalker could fly much
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faster than the Bullguards, Snotlout was deliberately
flying the dragon slowly to make himself a more
tempting lure to chase.
The maddened swarm converged on Snotlout
so closely that Hiccup thought for one heartstopping
moment that they might have caught him.
And then Snotlout pulled out an impudent Death
Dive, steering Windwalker down, down, like he was a
peregrine falcon diving, at over one hundred and eighty
miles per hour, towards the sea.
The Bullguards followed, plunging after him like
arrows falling from the sky.
At the absolute last minute, Snotlout brought
Windwalker out of the dive, so late that the
Windwalker brushed the tops of the waves with the tips
of his wings.
A large number of Bullguards could not correct
themselves in time, and went plunging into the water.
Many others put the brakes on in the nick of time,
but were put off course, and went spiralling into other
Bullguards. When the swarm righted itself, squawking,
and set off in pursuit once more, they had lost about a
third of their number, who were picking themselves up
out of the sea.
‘Ha ha! You chocolate-coated pig-dragons! You
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can’t even fly!’ jeered the distant Snotlout.
‘OK, now, Snotlout,’ whispered Hiccup to
himself, watching the tiny figure gesticulating rudely
on the back of the Windwalker. ‘I’m nearly there. You
need to get yourself to safety… Fly to Coral Beach and
the Dragonmarkers can defend you…’
It was almost as if Snotlout could hear him, for
he now crouched down low over Windwalker’s back,
and he whispered a word, and Hiccup could see the
Windwalker leaping forward.
The only dragon that could have beaten the
Windwalker now in a straight speed chase was the
Silver Phantom.
He streaked away in the direction of the Coral
Beach.
Hiccup heaved a sigh of relief.
And then it happened.
Almost leisurely, one of the Alvinsmen shot an
arrow.
It sang through the air…
… and Hiccup saw it clearly. Snotlout was
turning, to shout insults or to see how close his
pursuers were, and the arrow struck Snotlout full in
the chest.
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Then
a burst
of flame
from one of the
Bullguards hit him,
and burnt through
the safety stirrup, and
Hiccup’s poor raggedy
fire-suit could not hold up
to the onsla
ught – the fur
underneath caught fire… the
boy went up like a candle… and
fell from Windwalker’s back.
Down he fell, flaming, like a
falling star…
Down into the cool sea
below…
… and Snotlout’s
light was quenched.
‘NOOOOOOOOOO!’
Hiccup shouted. ‘NO! NO! NO!
NO! NO! NO!’
Windwalker gave a shriek of horror.
He was going so fast that by the time he
had wheeled around in a screeching turn and
plunged towards the sea to look for Snotlout, the
entire pack of Bullguards was in his way.
They were no longer pursuing the Windwalker,
for the Boy-They-Thought-Was-Hiccup was the
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real prey, and they knew they had killed him. Now
they needed the body to prove it to the witch, so the
riderless Bullguards were let off their chains so they
could dive for the body.
‘YEEESSSSSSSS!’ screeched Alvin in victory.
‘Did you see that, Mother? We’ve got Hiccup at last!
We’ve GOT HIM!’
‘Very clever,’ hissed the witch. ‘Well done, my
boy…’
The Bullguards screamed too, gloating cackles of
victory and triumph and glee most dreadful to listen
to. They swarmed, curdling through the sky and diving
into the sea, looking for the body of their impudent boy
enemy.
So many, many times, when all seemed lost,
things had come back from the brink. Hiccup had
almost come to believe that he and his friends were
invulnerable.
But…
Sometimes time cannot tick backwards.
Sometimes you cannot put a dragon back in a
forest, nor a witch back in a tree-trunk, nor the breath
back into a friend when all the breath has gone.
War really does have terrible consequences.
DOWN to the ocean floor, Snotlout sank swiftly,
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for he was weighed down by his sword and other
weapons.
His limbs spread out like a star, he was flying
through the sea, falling and ever falling, like soft snow
through the air, into another world.
‘Heroes who die in battle go straight to
How To Train Your Dragon: How to Betray a Dragon's Hero Page 17
