‘You are important!’ said
Hiccup, urgently trying to
bring him back to life, by
rubbing his arms, his chest,
anything to try and warm
him up. ‘Your lobster-claw
necklace saved my life.’
‘Really?’ said Fishlegs.
He opened his eyes in
disbelief. ‘My necklace saved
YOUR life?’
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So Hiccup told Fishlegs the story of his mother,
Termagant, and the Stealth Dragon, and the lobster
pot lost in the mist fourteen years before.
Who says stories cannot bring things to life?
That story brought Fishlegs to life, all right.
He turned from grey to a pale pink, and his
heartbeat, so faint, flickered back into a steady rhythm.
‘So my mother, she did love me after all!’ said
Fishlegs, in surprise. ‘She wanted the best for me. She
wanted to meet me again, on Hero’s End!’
‘And she would have done,’ said Hiccup, ‘if she
had lived. And the Deadly Shadow dragon who has
sworn to look after you, is now your Deadly Shadow.’
Fishlegs had spent his whole life having the worst
of everything.
He had the embarrassingly vegetarian hunting-
dragon, the riding-dragon that was the size of a
Shetland pony. He had been bottom of the class in
absolutely everything, plus he had eczema, asthma,
knock-knees and short-sight. So it was a pretty amazing
moment to discover that somewhere out there is a
triple-headed, armed-to-the-teeth, ridiculously cool
Deadly Shadow dragon that had sworn to look after
you, and lay down its life for you.
For the final boost, Hiccup drew out of his
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waistcoat… the Dragon Jewel.
It shone like a warm golden star in the darkness
of that glass cavern.
‘Oh…’ breathed Fishlegs. He put out a hand and
touched it. ‘The Dragon Jewel,’ whispered Fishlegs.
He looked up at Hiccup…
… and smiled, with excitement, for the first time
in a long time.
‘Hiccup, this really has got to mean that you are
the King.’
Hiccup smiled back awkwardly. ‘Well, it means
I’m pretty good at finding the King’s Lost Things,
anyway. But don’t forget, you were here first.’
Fishlegs stroked the Dragon Jewel for a few
moments.
And then slowly, he got to his feet.
‘Right,’ said Fishlegs.
He pushed his smashed glasses determinedly and
securely on to his nose. ‘Now we have to get out of
here. I just can’t miss everybody seeing
me on the back of a Triple-
Header Deadly Shadow
dragon, I’m sorry, it’s just
too good
a moment.’
Hiccup grinned, and took out the blasted, ragged,
burnt and soaked remains of the disintegrated map to
look for the way out.
The two boys walked through the tunnels until
they found the one that Grimbeard had helpfully
marked as the exit.
And as they walked, the tunnels seemed to be
leading higher and higher, and there was a strange
light that wasn’t the light of Electricsquirms or
Electricstickys or Glow-worms, which had lit the cavern
below, and suddenly the light felt as if it were all
around them. And on the other side of the glass there
were suddenly fern-shapes, moving and waving…
Seaweed.
The glass tunnel had emerged out of the sand and
they were under the sea at the bottom of the ocean.
Great drifts and shoals of fish drifted past, swimming
in and out of the seaweed. Gentle jellyfish softly floated
by, and as the tunnel moved up it left the seabed like
a great glass snake, and they could see crabs scuttling
below them.
‘Wow.’ Fishlegs pressed his nose up to the glass.
The tunnel went up sharply now, and they slid
so much they couldn’t get a grip. Hiccup had to carve
little nicks into the glass so they could get a foothold.
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They were just in time, as it happens, for the
tunnel had one little loop that the sea had not yet
covered. Once the tide covered it and the tunnel was
entirely underwater, they would not have been able
to break the tunnel without the ocean rushing in and
drowning them.
But there it was, one lovely little loop that was
surrounded only by pure air.
Hiccup broke the tunnel with his axe, and
carefully they climbed over the broken shards and
into the surrounding ocean.
It was cold, that sea.
As they looked around them, they were just two
little heads bobbing beside the broken tunnel in the
middle of a vast expanse of ocean. Sea, sea, sea, as far
as the eye could see…
The tide had come in completely.
They had walked even further than Hiccup
thought – a mile, maybe more – into the open ocean.
To the west Hiccup could see a little smudgy grey
outline that must be land, the land of the island of
Swallow.
‘I’m never going to make it…’ gasped Fishlegs.
He was already turning blue again.
‘You will make it,’ said Hiccup between
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chattering teeth. ‘Swim!’
And he began to swim himself, towards that
smudgy grey outline on the very distant horizon.
‘Swim! Swim! Swim! You must make it…’
But the vast echoing sea was so large, and they
were so small, and the distant land mass was so very,
very far away…
26. A GHOST FROM THE PAST
Sometimes our little human splashings are not enough.
However hard we try, however strong our heroic
human wills (and us humans have such a capacity, such
a heroic capacity for believing that the impossible might
be possible), sometimes our ridiculously puny human
arms are too weak. Sometimes the world is just too big
for us, the hurricane too wild, the sea so huge, that it
wears out even the bravest of hearts, the strongest of
wills.
So it would have been with Fishlegs and Hiccup,
I have to tell you – they would have drowned that
day in the seas around the Amber Slavelands, despite
everything, despite their miraculous escape from the
Maze of Mirrors and the lair of the Slitherfang. Hiccup
would have sunk to the ocean floor with the Dragon
Jewel around his neck, and this story would have had a
very different kind of ending.
If it hadn’t been for one thing.
That one thing was flying right now on invisible
wings, above the oceans of the Amber Slavelands,
searching, searching.
A ghost from the past.
A ghost that was hoping to make amends, a ghost
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that was never going to give up because of the promise
he made to Fishlegs’s mother.
The Deadly Shadow would not give up.
‘There is alwa
ys hope,’ whispered Innocence.
‘Remember the last time this happened we gave up,
and Fisshlegss was still alive? You have to learn from
stories. We will not give up this time…’
Even the boundless optimism of Camicazi, riding
on the back of the Deadly Shadow, was fading.
Of course it was, for had she not seen with her
very own eyes, Hiccup dragged down under the sands
by some terrifying eyes-on-claws monster?
With a howl of terror, the Deadly Shadow had
dug at the spot with his great claws, and she had dived
down and joined in with her own pathetic human
hands, digging, digging, digging at the spot they last
saw him.
But sometimes the world is too big even for
dragon claws. The Deadly Shadow was an Air Dragon,
not a Sea Dragon, not an Earth Dweller – he was
not built for burrowing. He could not follow Hiccup
underneath the sand, however hard he dug. But on, on,
he and Camicazi dug, until the great tide swept in, and
swallowed up their pathetic diggings, their pointless
hole and turned the world to water.
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Hours and hours they searched the world-now-
turned-to-ocean.
I do not know what moral you can take from this
apart from one: they carried on, even though all hope
was lost, for it was impossible that Hiccup should have
survived being buried deep under sand and under
ocean.
‘But perhaps he wriggled out of the Monster’s
claws at the last moment,’ said Camicazi to the Deadly
Shadow. ‘Trust me, guys, I have seen Hiccup survive so
many other impossible situations…’
But yet again, this seemed like even more of an
impossible situation to survive than the last one.
Nonetheless, they carried on, and it was good
that they did, for as we know, despite all odds, Hiccup
had survived, and he and Fishlegs needed them now.
The Deadly Shadow had gone back in time.
He had forgotten that thirteen years had passed.
It was as if it were that very same day that he
promised his human, Termagant: ‘By our bright-green
blood and our shining claws, we will keep your baby
safe.’
Just such a day it had been, a day of blue, with
just a hint of clouds on the edge of the world.
‘We promise… We promise…’ Patience muttered
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to the others in Dragonese. ‘We promise, Termagant,
we will keep your baby safe…’
‘We promisse… We promissse…’ Arrogance
and Innocence whispered back.
Swooping over the blue expanse of ocean, the
endless waves that stretched for ever, they searched
for a little lobster pot, bobbing on the waves. Their
six Deadly Shadow eyes, the sharpest eyes in the
world, the eyes that can see a nanodragon moving
from a distance of half a mile, clicking, clicking,
scanning the ocean. Their senses all alert.
Then, with panic rising, they could feel the
clouds moving in, suddenly, a mist beginning to
form… Surely history could not be about to repeat
itself? Surely this was a day of second chances?
They swooped down further, desperately
looking for the little lobster pot. And the Deadly
Shadow found it.
Way down below, a flicker of movement, a
smudge of pink, of human life, a tiny wriggle on the
endless stretch of blue.
Down the Deadly Shadow swooped, joy
leaping in his camouflaged breast, and as they soared
closer, Camicazi could see it too, and she let out a
joyful whoop.
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A smashed and broken lobster pot, attached to
the back of a boy swimming, a boy with a lobster-claw
necklace around his neck. The boy was supporting
another boy with broken glasses, and even at the
height it was flying, the dragon could see in the face
of that boy, the smudged and vague outline, the wet
bedraggled memory of a human it had loved.
Termagant’s child!
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‘We’ll meet again, Termagant! We’ll
meet again!’ snorted the three heads of the Deadly
Shadow triumphantly, shooting out bolts of lightning
as he swooped ever downwards.
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‘We’re being attacked!’ whispered Fishlegs,
shielding his eyes and looking upwards, as the
Deadly Shadow made a rather clumsy crash-landing
beside them, due to over-excitement.
Hiccup and Fishlegs were nearly dead, and the
shock of a highly camouflaged dragon landing nearly
right on top of them out of the blue, practically
finished them off. But as they gasped and coughed
up water, the dragon plucked them out of the sea
and deposited them on his back, still gasping and
coughing up water… but alive.
‘I don’t believe it!’ crowed Camicazi, with
shining eyes. ‘I mean, I do believe it, because you’ve
done it so many times before, but this time I really…
do… not… believe… it…’
Hiccup smiled because he didn’t really believe
it himself either, what with one thing and another,
and panting, he drew the Dragon Jewel out of his
waistcoat.
Well of course, Camicazi couldn’t believe that
even more than anything else. She made him take
it out, and put it back again, and he let her hold it,
and she turned it over and over, saying: ‘I DO NOT
BELIEVE IT… I DO NOT BELIEVE IT… How do
you do it?
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‘What are you going to do with it?’ asked
Camicazi.
Hiccup sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure,’ he admitted.
‘I have to think of some way to use it so that I can
stop this war.
‘Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup, as the dragon took off
into the sky, ‘this is your mother’s dragon, the Deadly
Shadow. The head on the left is Innocence, the head
on the right is Arrogance, and the one in the middle
is Patience, because that’s what he has to have.’
Fishlegs was sprawled on the Deadly Shadow’s
back, holding on for dear life, his clothes already
steaming as the dragon’s back was as warm as an
oven. He felt his whole body coming back to life.
‘How do you do?’ whispered Fishlegs. ‘Excuse
me if I don’t sit up… I’m a bit tired.’
Something about this dragon made him feel
secure, and even in his weakened state he struggled
to sit up, the wind blowing back his wet hair, the
Slavemark burning bright on his forehead. ‘So… you
are my mother’s dragon?’
‘I was!’ sang the Deadly Shadow. ‘But now I
am yours. Yours for ever. I promise I will never
leave you. I am at your service… I will serve you
faithfully, from now until death.’
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Hiccup translated.
Wow…
Fishlegs’s back straightened. His eyes shone.
Things were looking up. He, Fishlegs, the ex-most-
despised-member-of-the-Hooligan-Tribe, the slave,
the orphan and runt, was now the proud owner of
literally the coolest dragon he had ever seen. ‘And my
mother… was a Chief’s daughter?’ asked Fishlegs.
‘The best and truest human that I ever
met,’ said Patience.
‘She was a poet, too,’ explained Hiccup. ‘And
half-Berserk, as we always thought.’
Even in his ragged, hungry, cold state, this put
so much heart into Fishlegs. His mother was a poet!
That must be where he got his bard-skills from. His
father was a Hero! Well, that was a bit of a mystery,
but…
… finally he knew who he was.
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~ STATISTICS ~
FEAR FACTOR: ............................. 3
ATTACK: ...................................... 6
SPEED: ..........................................4
SIZE: ............................................ 5
DISOBEDIENCE: ............................1
These dragons
make excellent
guard-dogs and baby-
sitters. Fishlegs was
looked after by one of
these dragons when
he was a baby.
Relax for a Second...
If you want to end the story here, please feel free.
In a way it would be best.
For what could be a happier ending than this, the
three friends soaring up into the clouds, the Dragon
Jewel safe around Hiccup’s neck?
It has been a long, long day, and that really should
be the end of it.
But I have to confess…
… it isn’t.
So if you really do want to carry on to the bitter end,
I suggest, dear reader, that you take a little break
for a moment.
Drink a large glass of water. Have a nibble of
something sustaining, with slow release energy,
a snack perhaps with oats in it.
Relax for a second.
There.
Then here we go…
27. THE STORY ENDS AS
IT BEGAN...
This story, you see, began with Hiccup being
ambushed by his mother, Valhallarama.
And that is also how it ends.
Nobody can track a Deadly Shadow dragon.
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel Page 17
