How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel

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by Cressida Cowell


  horrible moment when he could feel the Monster

  sniffing, sniffing at his ears…

  It’s going to start at the wrong end! thought

  Hiccup, desperately trying to think of a plan on the

  spur of the moment that would work on killing a

  dragon that was swallowing your head.

  But just as he was about to do something

  stupid like try and jump to his feet, he felt a sort of

  snuffling on his right big toe.

  The Monster had changed its mind, what there

  was of a mind of course.

  Now why did the Monster change its mind?

  I’ll tell you why.

  Because Hiccup was wearing his helmet.

  It didn’t want to start at the end with the long

  broken tickly thing on it.

  Well, the Wodensfang and Toothless will be pleased

  about that, thought Hiccup, slightly hysterically. They’re

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  always telling me not to forget the helmet…

  There was a click, click clicking noise.

  Hiccup could not resist opening his left eyelid

  the smidgiest of a smidgeon.

  He had seen many a strange and terrifying

  sight in his life, but this was one of the

  strangest and most terrifying.

  Squinting down his own body,

  lubricated in a strange luminous material

  like a liquid shroud, he could see

  his own feet, and beyond them

  the Monster’s head, opening its

  mouth and dislocating its jaws

  so it could take in Hiccup

  whole.

  It began to

  swallow.

  It is difficult to

  describe the

  sensation

  of being

  swallowed by a

  dragon. There really is

  nothing quite like it.

  Apart from anything else,

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  it makes the most disgusting sound, like a very rude

  liquidy slurping noise, and the feel of the suction

  pulling on your skin, as the mouth closes round

  your feet, and makes its way up your calves is both

  revoltingly wet, and also slightly painful.

  It was really very difficult for Hiccup to stop

  himself from trembling, and keep his arms rammed to

  his sides.

  UP the mouth moved, and Hiccup’s feet began

  to burn like he was on fire, as the dragon’s digestive

  juices began to work on him. Very, very slowly, the

  creature’s mouth moved around his calves, inching its

  mouth over his limbs painfully, bit by bit.

  Oh, Hiccup couldn’t wait much longer, but he

  knew he would have to; the dragon had to reach his

  knees at least.

  He sneaked a peek downwards. The animal had

  its arms stretched wide to steady itself, so its eyes

  couldn’t see him if he suddenly sat up, but he had to

  wait until j-u-u-u-s-t the right moment…

  It was agony by the time the mouth reached his

  knees.

  Hiccup had the horrible feeling that his toes

  might be dissolving. He had lost the feeling in his

  right foot. But he had to strike at exactly the right

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  moment…

  As the disgusting monster’s mouth crept over

  Hiccup’s knees, Hiccup slow-ly, care-fully wriggled his

  left hand around the handle of Camicazi’s spare sword.

  The monster tensed, perhaps sensing the

  infinitesimally small movement of his prey…

  It lifted up its arms. All ten eyes were focused

  on Hiccup. Was it Hiccup’s imagination, or did they

  see something there? Did they see something that

  made the Monster start, and the eyes open wide with

  amazement? And then as their talons poised to strike,

  the eyes on the talons opened wide with fury, and

  turned green and then black, as they suffused with

  blood…

  Hiccup only had one second, one chance.

  He sat up in one quick cat-like movement,

  reached out, and plunged his sword right in the middle

  of the creature’s forehead.

  For one awful moment Hiccup thought he might

  not have hit the right spot. Both the creature’s arms

  sprang up and out. Hiccup hauled desperately on the

  sword to try and get it out again so he could strike once

  more but…

  SQUERCH!!!

  There was a small popping noise as the weak spot

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  burst and…

  WHHHOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

  Out of the mouth Hiccup shot, because as the

  Monster died it let out a great shooting burst of sand

  and seawater and Hiccup raced on his back across the

  slippery glass floor, landing upside down at the end of

  the cavern in a swooshing tide of brine.

  Even upside down, Hiccup could see that the

  creature was dead, although it was still quivering and

  jerking all over, but Hiccup didn’t even stop to check,

  he was so desperate to get the creature’s digestive

  juices off him. He rolled and rolled in the seawater,

  rubbing and rubbing at his feet in particular, which

  were still burning like they were on fire…

  Eventually the burning died down until it became

  almost bearable. The creature was lying quite still now.

  Hiccup’s poor feet were in a very bad state though,

  he could see even in the dim Glow-worm light, and

  the little toe on his left foot would never be the same

  again. It had shrivelled into nothingness like a scraggly

  little pink worm with the stuffing taken out of it, and

  he couldn’t move or feel it.

  But at least it wasn’t Hiccup’s head that was a

  scraggly little pink worm. That would have been a

  disaster.

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  However, as he looked round the underground

  cavern, Hiccup realised he was still in a serious fix.

  He was in a glass cavern, underneath the sand,

  and presumably up there on the surface the tide had

  come in and so he was underneath the sea as well.

  How was he going to get out of here?

  But even as he was looking around at the

  extraordinary glass cavern, and the tunnels that ran

  off it, he had a tingling at the back of his head as a

  thought fell into place.

  He reached into his fire-suit, and took out the

  raggedy remains of the map. It was looking a little

  worse for wear, that map, because like Hiccup himself,

  it had had rather a hard time of it. It was burnt, torn

  by poisoned fingernails, and covered in seawater and

  dragon digestive juices.

  MAZE OF MIRRORS.

  Oh for Thor’s sake.

  The red herring at the top of Grimbeard’s map

  now seemed to be winking as well as laughing at him.

  The Jewel was here.

  Of course it was.

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  24. THE WINK OF A RED

  HERRING

  You know how it is.

  You search high and low in the Archipelago

  for something, and it’s only when you’re looking for

  something else that you accidentally find it.

  Squinting very hard at the map, Hiccup thought

  the lines and scribbles might indicate a way through ther />
  maze. Limping and slithering on the wet glass, Hiccup

  went through the exit of the cavern, and made his way

  through a warren of tunnels, following until the lair of

  the Monster opened out into a great glass chamber,

  and Hiccup let out a cry of wonder.

  There it was, the Maze of Mirrors, the creature’s

  secret chamber of treasures. How could such a

  primitive creature create something so very, very

  beautiful? Maybe the Wodensfang was right. There

  must be poetry, even in Monsters. For the glass in that

  chamber was woven with such artistry, and polished

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  so fine that it had turned into mirrors. The ceiling was

  woven with glass like a spider’s web, and then in the

  centre of the chamber was column after column of

  mirrored glass, as beautiful as columns on a Roman

  temple.

  When you got closer still you could see, encased

  in the glass, the Monster’s treasures that must have

  been stolen from generation after generation of poor

  Viking amber-collectors.

  The Monster must have attacked Romans too,

  for there were gorgeous Roman silver cups floating

  in the columns like flies in amber. And speaking of

  amber, there was quantities and quantities of the

  stuff studded in the glass columns, the colour of

  honey, the colour of gold, the colour of fire, some

  with little creatures stuck in the golden liquid.

  But Hiccup ran through that maze without

  even stopping, guided all the way by the squiggles

  on Grimbeard’s map and his own gut. It was very

  confusing, just as confusing as looking into the eyes

  of a Triple-Header Deadly Shadow, for some of the

  columns were glass and some were mirror, and it was

  very difficult to tell what was see-through and what

  was a reflection.

  On he slipped and slid through that sliding

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  mirror maze, searching, searching, for he knew what he

  was looking for now. And heart lifting with hope…

  … he found it.

  Wonder of wonders.

  Water into stone.

  A single glass column, shining, pure as a drop of

  water.

  And right in the centre, suspended there as if it

  were floating, a little higher than Hiccup’s eye level,

  was the dark red heart, the dark red Jewel… the

  Dragon’s Jewel.

  The Jewel that spelt the destruction of the

  dragons, and the humans’ only hope.

  The Jewel was hanging on a necklace, encased

  in the glass in such a way that it was as if the necklace

  was hanging on the neck of an invisible ghost. And as

  Hiccup circled round the column, nose pressed to the

  glass, his imagination filled in the torso of a gigantic

  bearded man: Grimbeard the Ghastly.

  As Hiccup circled the column, he could just

  make out, on the golden backing of the necklace, the

  scratched initials: G.G.

  Hiccup felt in his waistband for Camicazi’s

  sword.

  He took it out and took a good aim at the

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  column of glass about a foot or so below where the

  Jewel was suspended, swinging at it with all his might,

  as if he were swinging at a tree in the Hooligan forest.

  The first swing took a big glass chunk out of the

  column.

  The second, a larger bite.

  And on the third swing of the sword Hiccup

  ducked as the entire column of glass came down

  with an almighty musical crash, tinkling little pieces

  raining down on him, and the echoes ringing out

  in that gigantic underground mirrored cavern like a

  pealing of bells.

  Before Hiccup reached out to take it, he

  hesitated.

  What if he were to take the Jewel, and it were

  then to fall into the wrong hands?

  But what if he did not take the Jewel, and there

  was nothing then to stop the anger of the Dragon

  Furious?

  He put his head in his hands.

  How I wish that I were not the one who finds

  the Lost Things! thought Hiccup passionately. Why

  does it have to be me who makes these choices?

  Most of us are lucky not to be Kings and Heroes,

  because we do not have to make the choices that

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  Kings and Heroes have to make.

  Hiccup chose to take the Jewel.

  Hiccup tore a piece off his shirt and wrapped

  his hand in it so he could draw the Jewel out of the

  mound of shards of glass.

  He held it up, so that the light shone brilliantly

  off the golden amber depths, and carefully swept off

  the powdered glass with one finger before putting

  the amber Jewel around his neck and dropping it

  down his fire-suit so it wasn’t visible.

  And then he said:

  ‘Thank you, Grimbeard the Ghastly.’

  I don’t know why he said it, for there was no

  one there of course.

  But there was a beat of about two seconds.

  And the hairs on the back of Hiccup’s head

  stood up.

  ‘Hic-cup…’ said a faint, spooky, echoing voice.

  ‘Hic-cup…’

  Oh for Thor’s sake.

  What was that?

  It couldn’t be the voice of the Dragon Furious,

  could it? Hiccup’s mind went back to the Dragon

  chasing him through the cave warren of the Flashburn

  School of Swordfighting.

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  No, it couldn’t be…

  But so spooky, so echoey was the voice that for

  one mad minute Hiccup thought it might be the ghost

  of Grimbeard the Ghastly, come back to haunt him for

  taking his Jewel.

  ‘Hic-cup… Hic-cup… Answer me… Hic-cup…’

  And then, Hiccup stopped dead and started to

  run back through the cavern, checking column after

  column.

  ‘Hic-cup… Hic-cup…’

  The voice was weak, despairing.

  There, in one cloudy glass column was the

  outline of a human boy.

  A boy like himself.

  Was it just a trick of the echoing

  mirror maze?

  Hiccup pressed his palm against

  the glass.

  And as if the boy were a

  mirror image of himself, a hand

  on the other side of the glass

  pressed back, hand-to-hand.

  Gently Hiccup pushed his

  forehead with the Slavemark on

  it on the glass. And as the boy

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  inside the column dropped

  his head forward too, the

  two Slavemarks touched, on

  either side the glass.

  The boy was Fishlegs.

  25. I DON’T THINK I’M DEAD...

  Fishlegs’s weary face was looking back at him

  through the smoky glass of the column.

  ‘Oh, Fishlegs!’ cried Hiccup. ‘I thought that you

  were dead!’

  ‘No,’ said Fishlegs. ‘I’m not dead. At least… I

  don’t think I’m dead…’

  His voice was very, very weak.

  ‘Though I have to admit, I’m not feeling at my

  most lively. What with one thing a
nd another I’ve had

  better weeks in the Archipelago.’

  Hiccup laughed, shakily. ‘No, you’re not dead,

  Fishlegs. You’re in the lair of the Monster of the

  Amber Slavelands. The Monster likes eating fresh

  meat so it must have been keeping you alive.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Fishlegs. ‘I knew I had a feeling I

  wasn’t in a great situation…’

  ‘Lean against the other side of the column,

  Fishlegs,’ Hiccup ordered, and he began to swing

  his axe, gingerly cutting through one side of the glass

  column, being very, very careful, for he did not want

  to hurt Fishlegs when it broke.

  Thor’s birthday, it was cold down there. Hiccup

  shivered as he swung his axe, the damp

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  seeping through his sandals, the cold of the

  underground glass tunnels penetrating right into his

  heart.

  ‘Put your hands over your head, Fishlegs,’

  whispered Hiccup. (He didn’t know why he was

  whispering – the Monster was dead but it was

  SPOOKY down there, in the dark, in the cold.)

  Chunk! Chunk! Two more swings of the axe and

  the glass column encasing Fishlegs fell away. His friend

  was standing there, curled over in a slight ball, his

  hands over his head. Slowly he brought down his arms.

  It was as if Hiccup was bringing a frozen statue

  into life. A bedraggled, weary figure he was. Tear-

  stained, rags flapping around him like the tatters of a

  scarecrow ripped to shreds, nearly

  blue with cold, his smashed

  glasses falling

  off his nose.

  Hiccup was the very mirror-image of him.

  Neither of them were Vikings now. Lost Tribes,

  lost dragons, lost everything. Hungry, thin as brooms,

  the Slavemarks proclaiming their slavedom, both runts,

  the two boys stood looking at each other, swaying on

  their feet.

  Fishlegs was cold as ice, and Hiccup rubbed his

  purple arms, trying to get his circulation going.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Fishlegs

  through chattering teeth.

  ‘Looking for you…’

  ‘But I’m not important,’ said Fishlegs weakly

  and drearily. ‘You ought to be on your Quest… Your

  destiny. What about the Dragon Jewel?’

 

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