You don’t have to read the Hiccup books in order.
But if you want to, this is the right order:

ABOUT HICCUP

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was
an awesome swordfighter, a dragon-whisperer,
and the greatest Viking Hero that ever lived.
But Hiccup’s memoirs look back to when
he was a very ordinary boy, and finding
it hard to be a Hero.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Text and illustrations copyright © 2008 by Cressida Cowell
Cover design by Kristina Iulo
Cover © 2010 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning,
uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the
publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would
like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written
permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com.
Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
lb-kids.com

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by
the publisher.

First ebook edition: August 2014

ISBN 978-0-316-37746-1

E3

~ CONTENTS ~

1. A Proper Viking Swimming Race...................... 17
2. May The Fattest (and Least Stupid) Man
(or Woman) Win................................................. 29
3. Isn’t That Snotlout a Lovely Guy?...................... 50
4. A Really, Really Bad Situation.......................... 60
5. An Unpleasant Old Acquaintance...................... 74
6. The Axe of Doom Decides.................................. 86
7. The Quest to Discover America......................... 94
8. The Slavemark................................................... 107
9. The Land of the Polar-Serpents......................... 121
10. Toothless’s Adventure in the Cooking Tent.... 131
11. The Escape from the American Dream 2....... 136
12. R-R-R-RUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!!.............................. 142
13. They were in Its Territory Now…..................... 159
14. What Happened Back in the Murderous
Mountains........................................................ 168
15. It’s a Long Way to America............................ 177
16. Land Ahoy!!!!!!.................................................... 183
17. The Leviathorgan Strikes................................ 193
18. Up the Mast of the American Dream 2........... 206
19. Keep Kicking, It’s a Long Swim Home............ 223
20. The Ticking-Thing Starts to Tick Louder......... 236
21. The End of the Swimming Race...................... 241

THE CURSE OF BEARCUB’S
GRANDMOTHER

A long time ago, a small boy was dreaming.
He was dreaming of running through the
beautiful white wilderness that was his childhood
home, running and running through snow so perfect
you could hardly bear to touch it. But suddenly his legs
grew tired and so heavy he could hardly move them…
something was pulling him back… what was it?
And then he awoke and opened his eyes, and
he was about as far from home as he could possibly
be, lying in the darkness below the decks of a
great ship.
The boy was called Bearcub. He
belonged to a people called the Northern
Wanderers, and he had not always been a slave.
Only two weeks before, he had had miles and miles of
glorious icy desert to play in, as free as the polar bears
and seals that his people harpooned to eat and keep
them warm.
But then the Vikings came.
They had surprised the Wanderers by attacking
while they were asleep, dragging them aboard
their Viking ships and taking them away from their

13

homeland. Since that time, Bearcub had not had a
proper meal, and worse still for a boy full of fidgets and
used to running, he hadn’t taken more than a couple of
steps.
Bearcub’s father had been out on a hunting party
when the Vikings struck so he had not been captured.
‘Please father,’ Bearcub whispered into the
blackness. ‘Save me, father…’
‘HA!’ rasped the doom-filled furious voice of
Bearcub’s scary Grandmother, who was lying chained
beside him. ‘Your father cannot rescue you, for he
does not know where you are. And the gods must have
forgotten us, to let this happen. Vikings are vermin,
every single one of them,’ she spat into the darkness.
‘I never met a good one. Murderous, wicked, evil
people… oh, if I had one here I would do such things.
I could eat their livers I really could. I am Cursing this
voyage and everyone aboard this ship…’
‘WE are aboard this ship,’ Bearcub pointed out.
‘Do not Curse this voyage or you may be Dooming
us, too.’
‘YOU do not contradict your elders and betters,’
cried his Grandmother sternly (it is not pleasant to
be chained to a cursing Grandmother). ‘We are
DOOMED already… No, the only thing left for us

14

now is to Hate, and to Curse…’
And so Bearcub’s Grandmother had ALL of the
Wanderers Hating, and Cursing, and wanting to eat
people’s livers, baying out their fury in the rocking
darkness below the decks of the ship.
‘YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR STEP UP THERE!’
screamed Bearcub’s Grandmother, howling up at the
ceiling like a wolf. ‘IF ONE OF YOU MISSES YOUR
FOOTING AND FALLS DOWN THAT HATCH, I’M
TELLING YOU, WE’LL TEAR YOU APART!’
Only Bearcub was quiet, and in the blackness no
one could see the tears slowly rolling down his cheeks,
which was lucky, because Wanderers have the hearts
of polar bears and they do not cry.
And inside his head he repeated over and over
again, ‘Please, father,
please, help me… please,
gods, please, please, help
me… please… anybody…
if you’re listening…
help me… help me…
help me…’

1. A PROPER VIKING
SWIMMING RACE

One chilly spring day in the Barbaric Archipelago,
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, the Hope and
Heir to the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans, was standing
miserably on the West Beach of the Murderous
Mountains with absolutely nothing on but his helmet,
his sword, his waistcoat, and a teeny weeny pair of
hairy swimming trunks.
The Murderous Mountains were not the kind
of place you wanted to visit at the best of times. They
gave Hiccup the shivers. Tall, cruel-looking, dizzyingly
high peaks that were home to some unspeakably
dangerous dragons and mutant wolves, not to mention
the Murderous Tribe, the fiercest and most ruthless
Vikings in the uncivilised world.
The Murderous Tribe did not often receive
visitors. Perhaps it was their uncomfortable habit of
sacrificing unwelcome intruders to the Sky Dragons at
the point of Mount Murderous that kept people at bay.
But on this occasion, Madguts the Murderous
had taken it into his head to be hospitable, and to
invite two of the other Tribes, the Hooligans and the
Bog-Burglars, over to his island for a jolly little

17

Inter-Tribal Friendly Swimming Race.
It was a traditional Viking Swimming Race,
and the Vikings were a little bit crazy, so they were
going swimming with their weapons on: swords, axes,
daggers, that sort of thing.
It did not seem to have occurred to them that
this would make them less floaty.
So there they were, the entire Warrior
populations of the Murderous, Hooligan and
Bog-Burglar Tribes, hopping up and down on the
uncomfortable shingle beach, trying to pretend they

weren’t freezing their horns off, with the mutant
wolves howling cheeringly up in the mountains above.
There was a strong easterly wind that brought
goose-bumps to Hiccup’s skinny, freckled arms, and
whisked off helmets, cloaks and swords, and sent
them bowling briskly down the beach. Hiccup’s tiny
hunting-dragon, Toothless, was having difficulty
flying without being blown away.

Toothless
was a particularly
small Common-
or-Garden dragon
with large,
innocent greengage eyes.
‘Toothless w-w-wouldn’t go swimming today if
Toothless was you,’ he advised Hiccup. ‘Is very ch-ch-
chilly in there, Toothless has been in already and it
nearly froze Toothless’s wings off.’
‘Yes, thank you, Toothless,’ said Hiccup. (Hiccup
was one of the very few Vikings, before or since, who
could speak Dragonese, the language in which the
dragons speak to each other.) ‘Very helpful, I’ll bear
that in mind.’
Gobber the Belch, the teacher in charge of the
Pirate Training Programme on Berk, had stripped
down to his smalls, and was breathing in
the gale as if it were the loveliest
of summer breezes. ‘Lovely
swimming weather!’ he roared
delightedly, beating his chest
with his fist like a great
red-headed gorilla. ‘Gather

round and stand to attention, boys,
and I’ll explain the Rules of the
Race…’
The twelve boys stood
before their teacher in a
shivering line.
‘Now boys!’ boomed
Gobber. ‘A Proper Viking Swimming
Race is not like those pathetic little competitions
they carry out on the mainland. It is a test of your
ENDURANCE, your STRENGTH and your
SUICIDAL BRAVERY…’
‘Oh brother,’ moaned Hiccup’s best friend
Fishlegs, who was the only boy on the Programme who
was even worse than Hiccup at all the Viking activities.
He had legs as limp as two strings of spaghetti, and he
couldn’t swim. ‘I don’t like the sound of this…’
‘In a proper Viking Swimming Race,’ continued
Gobber, ‘the winner is the person who is LAST.’
There were gasps of surprise, and ‘oh sir, please
sir, that can’t be right, sir,’ from the line of boys.
‘In which case,’ sneered Snotface Snotlout,
a great bullying brute of a boy whose muscly arms
were covered entirely in skeleton tattoos, ‘Hiccup the
Useless will win, no problem. He’s always the last
at everything…’

21

Hiccup stood on one leg, tried to smile, and fell
over in the sand.
‘Aha,’ grinned Gobber, his beard bristling with
keenness. He laid one finger to his nose. ‘But think
carefully about this, boys… we all set out from the
beach and start swimming, and from then on it’s a
game of Chicken. Who can swim out the furthest,
the longest, into the deepest ocean, and still return?
Many are the Warriors over the centuries who in their
pride have misjudged the swim BACK, and who have
drowned as a consequence…’
‘Oh yippee…’ moaned Fishlegs.
‘But on the plus side, anyone who drowns in
the course of a Swimming Race will automatically go
straight to Valhalla,’ smiled Gobber, in the manner
of someone giving everybody a great big
birthday present.

‘Ooooooooooooh,’
exclaimed the boys in a
pleased way.
‘MAD,’ groaned Fishlegs,
swaying in the wind like a
small skinny tree about to
snap. ‘We are the only
sane people in a Tribe
of total LOONIES.’

‘Any questions?’ roared Gobber.
Hiccup put up his hand. ‘A small point, sir.
Won’t we freeze to death in about five minutes?’
‘Don’t be a softy!’ roared Gobber. ‘The
Blubberwing fat you have rubbed all over you
SHOULD keep you warm enough to prevent actual
DEATH… but it’s all part of the game, of course.
Can you use your skill and judgement to stay out long
enough to win the Race… but not SO LONG that you
freeze to death?’
Gobber walked up and down the line of boys
inspecting them before they went out to join the
competition. ‘Very smart, Snotlout… Chin up, Tufnutt
Junior… Haven’t you forgotten something, Clueless?’
‘I’ve got my sword, sir,’ said Clueless.
‘You do have your sword,’ admitted Gobber, ‘but
you DO NOT have your swimming costume. Put it on
quick, boy… I don’t think that Thor will be welcoming
you into Valhalla in the altogether. It really doesn’t
bear thinking about…’
He moved along the line until he stopped dead
in front of Fishlegs. ‘WHAT,’ roared Gobber in an
awful voice, ‘WHAT in Thor’s name are THESE?’
‘Armbands, sir,’ replied Fishlegs, looking
straight ahead.

24

‘Fishlegs can’t swim, sir,’ offered Hiccup in
defence of his best friend. ‘So we made him these out
of a couple of pig bladders. Otherwise he sinks like
a stone.’
‘Like a stone,’ repeated Fishlegs helpfully.
‘Oh for Woden’s sake,’ blustered Gobber, ‘what
are the Murderous Tribe going to think if they catch
sight of THOSE? I’ll lend you my cloak, Fishlegs, and
you can drape it over them, and let’s just hope nobody
notices. Thor give me strength…

‘Now, has everybody got their hunting-dragon?’
bellowed Gobber.
The boys had brought their hunting-dragons.
They were huddled on the beach, their wings over
their heads, shielding themselves from the rain.
‘Your hunting-dragon can fly over your head as
you swim. It makes you easier to spot from the beach,
and they can maybe fight off any predators… sharks,
Darkbreathers, that sort of thing… OK, you can fall
out now and get ready, and I’ll see you at the start line
in about five minutes.’
The boys began their last-minute preparations,
chattering excitedly.
‘Hi there, LOSERS,’ sneered Snotlout, a tall,
mean boy with nostrils so large you could stick a
cucumber up them (Toothless had actually DONE this
once) and the repellent beginnings of a moustache
sprouting on his upper lip like a little hairy caterpillar.
‘I hope ickle baby Hiccup has been practising his
doggy-paddle then…’
He gave Hiccup a big shove that sent him
sprawling in the sand.
‘Her her her…’ snorted Dogsbreath the
Duhbrain, Snotlout’s equally unpleasant sidekick.
Dogsbreath looked rather like a gorilla in goggles who

26

had been over-doing it with the doughnuts.
‘Very funny, Snotlout,’ replied Hiccup, spitting
sand out of his mouth.
‘You guys are normally so good at coming in
last…’ sneered Snotlout. ‘In fact this may be your only
opportunity ever to come in FIRST, for once… Just
try and at least go out of your depth, won’t you, before
you crawl back to the beach like the pathetic cowardly
little plankton you are? You don’t want to embarrass us
PROPER Hooligans more than you actually have to…
Nice armbands, Fishlegs, by the way…’
And Dogsbreath took the pot of slimy green
Blubberwing goo Fishlegs was holding in his hands and
poured it over Fishlegs’s head, before strolling off with
Snotlout, who had a rather basic sense of humour,
and was laughing so hard he could barely walk.
‘I hope a
Darkbreather gets him,’
said Fishlegs gloomily,
taking off
his glasses
and trying
to rub
off the
Blubberwing fat

with the edge of his swimmers, but only succeeding
in smearing it all over the glass so that they were
impossible to see through.
‘It would just spit him out again,’ replied Hiccup
even more gloomily, trying to rub the sand off himself,
but completely failing because the Blubberwing fat was
so sticky. ‘I bet he tastes horrible.’
PAAAAA-AARAAAP!
A musician from the Murderous Tribe sounded
the horn to summon the competitors to gather for the
beginning of the Swimming Race…

2. MAY THE FATTEST
(AND LEAST STUPID) MAN
(OR WOMAN) WIN

Hiccup’s father and grandfather came over to the boys
to wish them luck.
Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast, O Hear His
Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh, was the Chief of the
Hairy Hooligan Tribe. He was built in the traditional
Viking mould, six-and-a-half-feet high, belly like a
battleship, eyebrows blowing in the breeze like a
couple of large hamsters doing cartwheels. He was
horribly hearty, and full of the joys of spring.
‘Fabulous day for a Swimming Race!’ he roared
happily.
‘I’m not sure I agree with you,’ wheezed Old
Wrinkly, Hiccup’s grandfather, who was one of the
Judges in the competition. He was a wrinkled old
oyster of a man, whose ancient back had been blown
into a hoop by ninety years of Archipelago gales. His
long tangly white beard trailed behind him, picking up
shells and seaweed as it dragged in the sand.
Old Wrinkly had been trying to persuade Stoick
not to take part in the Race.

29

‘I have been looking into the Future and the
Omens are not good,’ whispered the old man.
‘NONSENSE!’ pooh-poohed Stoick the Vast.
‘Everyone knows you’re hopeless at looking into the
Future, Old Wrinkly. Now, I’m obviously going to win
this Race,’ said Stoick, who didn’t do modesty, ‘but,
Hiccup, I would like YOU to beat Snotface Snotlout
and that sort of thing…’
Snotface Snotlout was Hiccup’s cousin. He was
a good foot-and-a-half taller than Hiccup, incredibly
muscly and tough, and better at Hiccup at practically
everything. Hiccup had no chance of beating him in a
Swimming Race.
But Stoick often didn’t notice things like that.
Stoick gave Hiccup a kindly biff on the shoulder.
‘I KNOW you can do it, son!’ he said enthusiastically.
‘You may be small, but you’re wiry! And your legs
might be just a trifle on the skinny side, but you’ve got
the old Horrendous Haddock fight in those knobbly
knees! All you have to remember, lad,’ said Stoick,
taking Hiccup by the shoulders and looking into his
eyes, ‘is one thing. Repeat after me: KEEP KICKING!’
‘Keep kicking,’ said Hiccup slowly.
‘LOUDER!’ bellowed Stoick, punching the air.
‘KEEP KICKING!’ shouted Hiccup, punching
the air too.

30

‘That’s the spirit!’ beamed Stoick. ‘I know you’ll
make me proud, so don’t let me down, now!’ And he
marched off, beaming happily.
Both Old Wrinkly and Hiccup sighed as they
watched Stoick bustling off.
‘He’s a good lad Stoick, really,’ wheezed Old
Wrinkly, ‘but he never EVER listens.’
‘No,’ agreed Hiccup sadly, ‘he doesn’t. I haven’t
got a HOPE of beating Snotlout.’
Old Wrinkly turned his bright, razor-shell-sharp
eyes on his grandson. ‘We’ll see,’ said Old Wrinkly.
‘Now, this is very important, Hiccup. Have you got your
ticking-thing?’
‘Yes,’ answered Hiccup, surprised.
The ticking-thing was a strange round object,
with a front that was hard and transparent, like
ice. Behind it were all these rune numbers set
in different circles, and at least seven arrows, all
different colours.
Hiccup had discovered many uses for the
ticking-thing. One arrow seemed to tell the
time. Another always pointed north, which was
extremely useful if you were lost. And since it

was quite a changeable day, with the prospect
of this strong easterly wind blowing you off
course, Hiccup thought it might be handy on this
occasion. The ticking-thing was waterproof, too.
Hiccup’s only worry was that he was going to
LOSE it, so he had attached it to his wrist with a
long piece of rope, and then tucked it into his
waistcoat pocket.
‘Excellent!’ said Old Wrinkly. ‘Hand it to
me, for a moment…’
Hiccup took the ticking-thing out from his
pocket. Old Wrinkly opened the back of it and
began to fiddle with some of the little buttons
inside.
‘Now, Hiccup,’ said Old Wrinkly, ‘I haven’t
got time to explain, but you have to return to this
beach within THREE MONTHS, FIVE DAYS
AND SIX HOURS, do you understand me?’
‘THREE MONTHS, FIVE DAYS, AND
SIX HOURS?’ gasped Hiccup. ‘What ARE you
talking about? I’m not going to last more than
fifteen minutes out there!’
‘I’ve set the alarm for you,’ said Old

Wrinkly, putting the ticking-thing back into Hiccup’s
waistcoat pocket. ‘When you have less than six hours
left, it will start to tick louder. And if the alarm goes
off, well, then you will know you are too late… DON’T
BE LATE now, Hiccup, will you? I’m counting on you,
boy…’
And Old Wrinkly hurried off to the Judges’
Table, with Hiccup staring after him with his mouth
open. ‘Mad as a banana,’ said Hiccup.
All the competitors were crowded at the
start line drawn in the sand twenty metres
from the sea, chatting with each other.
Big-Boobied Bertha, the Chief of
the Bog-Burglar Tribe, was slapping
Blubberwing fat on to her arms, her gigantic
boobies flapping so buoyantly and joyously
in the wind that it looked as if any second they
might carry her up into the sky like a couple of hot air
balloons.
Bertha had a foghorn voice with the kind of
carrying quality that could be heard several islands
away. She was telling everyone within a two-mile radius
that SHE was Bertha the Unsinkable, the Archipelago
Swimming Champion, and that everybody else might as
well go home right now.

34

The Murderous Tribe were passing their swords
and axes and spears and hammers from hand to
hand in a thoughtful fashion. They reminded Hiccup
uncomfortably of a load of hairy cannibals waiting for
their dinner.
Madguts the Murderous, the head of the
Murderous Tribe, stood with his arm muscles rippling
menacingly. Even with a brisk wind blowing, he was
reeking like a three-week-old seal corpse. He was a
stinking seven-foot giant with unattractive blue-black
skull tattoos covering his cheek-bones.
One of the most terrifying things about Madguts
was that he never spoke. Nobody quite knew why.
Some say he lost his tongue wrestling a Stormdragon
with his bare hands. Others said that it was merely a
nasty cold caught when a small baby. Who knew the
reason, but he had never been known to do more than
grunt. His repulsive assistant Gumboil, an unpleasant
little pimple of a man, did all the speaking for him.
There were three Judges, one of whom was
Hiccup’s grandfather, Old Wrinkly, whose job was to
mark the timing of the race.
The Chief Judge, a sad, unbelievably wrinkly
little Bashem-Oik, cleared his throat and announced in
a high quivery voice:

36

‘O Hear Ye, Vikings of the Tribes of the Archipelago!
He who is the last to return back to this beach from
the moment I blow this trumpet shall be declared the
Last Man Back. He must be able to Swear, according
to ancient tradition, that he “did not seek aid by Float
or Boat”. And as a prize for this contest he may make
a single demand of the other two Chieftains. Do you
Chieftains swear that you will agree to this demand?’

37

‘We swear,’ swore Bertha, Stoick and Madguts
the Murderous.
Camicazi, Big-Boobied Bertha’s tiny tangle-
haired daughter, trotted over to wish Hiccup luck.
One of the best Burglars in the Archipelago, Camicazi
wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody.
‘Lovely day for a swim, isn’t it?’ she said cheerily.
‘I can’t wait to get in the water.’
Around Camicazi’s legs curled a beautiful
Mood-dragon called the Stormfly. A Mood-
dragon, as its name suggests, is a chameleon
that changes colour according to its
mood, and this particular Mood-
dragon was unusual
because it not only
spoke Dragonese, but
also NORSE, the
language of the
humans.

‘Hello, Toothless,’ drawled
the Stormfly, batting her beautiful
long eyelashes at him.
Toothless turned bright red.
He had a bit of a crush on
the Stormfly and immediately
he began to show off, turning
cartwheels in the air and blowing
complicated smoke rings that
went down the wrong way and
gave him a coughing fit.
As they were standing
there, Snotlout sneaked up behind them and whisked
Gobber’s cloak from off poor Fishlegs’s shoulders,
revealing the armbands for everybody to see.
‘Whoops!’ grinned Snotlout. ‘Silly me!’
‘HA HA HA HA HA!’ roared the crowd,
pointing at Fishlegs and jumping up and down in joy.
‘THERE’S A HOOLIGAN OVER HERE WHO’S
WEARING ARMBANDS!’

‘These aren’t armbands!’ shouted Hiccup,
desperately trying to save the situation. ‘They’re
weapons! Inflatable shoulder armour! Very strange and
deadly!’
Stoick the Vast blushed purple and swelled up
with anger and irritation. That ridiculous fish-legged
boy was bringing dishonour on to the Hooligan Tribe.
‘Isn’t that your SON, Stoick, standing next to the
little loser?’ grinned Gumboil.
Hiccup was quite a funny sight himself. Covered
in shingly sand from head to toe, he resembled nothing
so much as a skinny little breadcrumbed kipper ready
for the pan.
Stoick tried to stop himself from thinking, Why
does Hiccup always have to make such a spectacle of
himself? Why can’t he be friends with somebody suitably
violent and normal? And why is he covered head to foot
in sand? before yelling loudly and loyally: ‘My son is
right! The weird little Warrior is wearing the latest in
inflatable defence-wear!’
But he was shouted down by the crowd,
who were chanting: ‘THE HOOLIGANS WEAR
ARMBANDS! THE HOOLIGANS WEAR
ARMBANDS!’
And then to Stoick’s intense relief:

40

PPPPPPPAAAAAAAAARRRRRP! went the
horn to announce the start of the race, and the Viking
Warriors forgot about teasing the Hooligans, and the
crowd went wild as the Viking Warriors stampeded
through the wind and into the water like a herd of
runaway buffalo, plaits flying, bellies wobbling.
‘GO, BOG-BURGLARS GO!’
‘UP THE MURDEROUS!’
‘HOOLIGANS HURRAH!’
Snotlout sprinted through the shallows, flexing
his muscles and waving to the crowd, before making a
fancy swallow dive into the slightly deeper water and
setting off in a horribly efficient crawl.
Stoick tried hard to control his temper, and keep
the disappointment out of his voice as he walked over
to Hiccup and reproved his son sternly, ‘You are a
Warrior-in-Training now, Hiccup, and this is NOT the
moment to be playing in the sand.’
‘But I’m not!’ protested
Hiccup. ‘I’m just covered
in sand because…
because…’
… but Stoick
had already stalked
off.

‘Oh, jumping jellyfish!’ exclaimed
Fishlegs, in a wriggle of anxiety. ‘I can’t see a THING
through these glasses now!’
The Blubberwing goo Snotlout had poured over
Fishlegs’s head had so attached itself
to the glass that it was indeed like
trying to peer through a dense pea-
green fog. Poor Fishlegs staggered
forward, in completely the
OPPOSITE direction to the ocean.
‘Hang on,’ grinned Camicazi,
‘isn’t the sea the other way?’
‘Fishlegs!’ hissed Hiccup
anxiously. ‘You’re going
the wrong way!’
The
crowd was
divided
between cheering on the
Warriors and laughing at the
sight of the only three who hadn’t set
off yet, which were Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi.
Fishlegs was running increasingly fast in
completely the opposite direction to the ocean,

42

with his hands
out in front of him moaning:
‘I can’t see, I can’t see!’ and Hiccup
and Camicazi were running after him, saying:
‘It’s this way, Fishlegs, this way!’
So: ‘HA HA HA HA HA!’ yelled the watching
crowd, parting to let poor blind Fishlegs blunder on up
the beach.
Eventually Hiccup caught up with Fishlegs, who
tripped over somebody’s discarded trousers, and with
the help of Camicazi he managed to steer his friend
back in the direction of the ocean.
And such
was Hiccup’s
embarrassment at the
whole situation, that he was
almost RELIEVED to enter
the breath-quenching,
chest-burning chill of
the water.

Hiccup was so busy with
the humiliation of this
moment that
he did not
realise what
had happened to
his father and Big-
Boobied Bertha.
What had happened
was this. Stoick the Vast,
Big-Boobied Bertha and Madguts the Murderous
swaggered out into the surf in a more leisurely way.
All three of them were certain they would win. Stoick
forgot about his disappointment with his son as he
remembered something amusing.
‘Tell you what, Bertha,’ whispered Stoick, giving
Bertha a friendly poke on the shoulder, ‘let’s agree,
whichever of us wins, we teach that Madguts a lesson.
We’ll get him to row across the Sullen Sea in a
bathtub, with his underpants on his head!’
Big-Boobied Bertha roared with laughter until
the tears ran down her hairy cheeks. ‘For once in your
life, Stoick, you old warthog,’ she bellowed, ‘you’ve
had a good idea! It’s a plan, then…’
When they were just entering the water, Madguts

44

grunted at Gumboil, his eye alight with sneakiness,
and Gumboil said craftily, ‘Madguts can’t help
but notice that you’re wearing that old-fashioned
BLUBBERWING FAT… it doesn’t keep out the
cold half as well as the Deepest Purple Fleshfang Oil
that Madguts is wearing… you put this on and you’re
never cold again. Lasts until next winter.’
‘Oh Toenail Clippings of Thor!’ exclaimed
Bertha, staring down at her luminous green body
in disappointment. ‘I thought I’d got the very latest
thing!’

Stoick gazed at Madguts’s glowing violet chest in
admiration and envy. Madguts was so warm under his
coating of Deepest Purple Fleshfang Oil that a light
steam was rising off his tattooed chest and blowing
away in the wind.
‘Madguts wants this to be a fair fight,’ smiled
Gumboil silkily. ‘Why don’t you try some of his stuff,
to make it all equal? We’ve left the pot just behind you
at the edge of the water… we didn’t need it any more,
because just the one application is sufficient…’
‘Well that’s mighty kind of you, Madguts!’
beamed Stoick. ‘But hang on, can we go back there?
Hasn’t the Race already started?’
Gumboil waved the thought away with one airy
hand. ‘Oh no…’ he reassured the Chieftains cheerily,
‘no, the Race doesn’t start until you actually start
swimming… didn’t you know that?’
Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha said, ‘Ah, yes, of
course,’ and nodded wisely as if they had really known
that all along, and turned back and waded out of the
sea to pick up the little black pot of Fleshfang Oil that
was sitting just a couple of feet beyond the water’s
edge…
‘That trickster Madguts!’ said Stoick, tut-tutting
in mild disgust. ‘Fair fight indeed! Look! There’s

46

absolutely nothing left!’
Nor there was, just the merest little purple smear
at the very bottom, hardly enough to cover Stoick’s
big toe.
It turned out that that wasn’t the only thing
Madguts had been tricky about.
Stoick looked up as he realised that all around
him the crowd was gasping in astonishment and
disappointment. The Hooligans, in particular, were
wrenching their beards in dismay. And standing right
in front of Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha was the
Chief Judge, looking more depressed than ever, his
spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
‘Commiserations,’ said the Chief Judge, gloomily
scratching their names down on the parchment in front
of him. ‘YOU are the First Man (and Woman) back. A
dead heat. How do you spell Bertha?’
Stoick laughed and patted the Chief Judge on
the head. ‘Oh no! Oh no, my good little Oik, I think
you do not understand the rules. The Race doesn’t
start until you actually start swimming…’
‘Of course I understand the rules,’ said the Chief
Judge calmly. ‘I am the Judge. If you get out of the
water, you’ve ended the race.’
‘But… but… but… of course we’re going back

47

IN again!’ spluttered Big-Boobied Bertha in horror.
‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ said the Chief Judge. ‘My
decision is final.’
Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha looked like they
were going to explode.
‘Old Wrinkly!’ gasped Stoick. ‘Tell him! We can’t
possibly have LOST the Race!’
Old Wrinkly surveyed the twenty sand-timers in
front of him. ‘I’m afraid you have,’ he said sadly. ‘And
in three minutes twenty-two seconds exactly. A new
Competition Record.’
‘But I’m the Archipelago Swimming Champion!’
shouted Big-Boobied Bertha, raising her great fist in
the air. ‘Bertha the Unsinkable!’
‘AND MADGUTS THE MURDEROUS SAID
IT WOULD BE FINE!’ yelled Stoick. Even as he
said the words, it finally dawned on Stoick and Big-
Boobied Bertha (who were not the brightest Chieftains
on the block) that they had been taken for a ride.
Two minutes before, Bertha and Stoick had been
strutting on the sand, all proud and puffed up like a
couple of fat cockerels, so certain had they been of
victory.
Now they deflated like the air leaking out of
a couple of large and handsome balloons. Bertha’s

48

boobies drooped, Stoick’s magnificent biceps sagged.
‘That rotten, low-down, cheating, Murderous
stink-pot!’ said Stoick from between gritted teeth.
‘He’s only gone and tricked us into losing the race!’

3. ISN’T THAT SNOTLOUT A
LOVELY GUY?

Hiccup and Fishlegs and Camicazi didn’t see what was
happening behind them.
They had some problems of their own.
Hiccup had set off as fast as he possibly could,
still hot with embarrassment at the scene on the beach.
‘Wait up,’ begged Fishlegs, sploshing after
Hiccup and Camicazi in a clumsy dog-paddle,

‘it’s really tricky trying to swim in these beastly
armbands. We don’t have to go too far you know,
we’re not Warriors, we’re only in this competition for
the fun of it… always supposing your idea of fun is
freezing your horns off in Sharkworm-infested waters,
of course…’
As soon as Hiccup got out of his depth, the
weight of his helmet and his sword made him drop
abruptly, and it was only by kicking madly that he was
able to keep his chin out of the water.
Even Camicazi was finding that swimming fully
armed took a lot of concentration. Her sword and
daggers weighed her down so far to the right that she
had a tendency to swim round in circles.
‘Oh BOTHER!’ complained Hiccup. ‘How am I
possibly going to beat Snotlout at this rate?’

They were so busy trying to keep afloat that they
hadn’t noticed Snotlout and Dogsbreath the Duhbrain
swimming up behind them. (Which shows how
distracted they were – Dogsbreath’s splashy crawl was
as noisy as a hippo in a bathtub.)
The two bullies overheard the last bit of the
conversation, and Snotlout was
laughing so hard he was in danger
of drowning. ‘You said it, Hiccup,
you loser!’ crowed Snotlout.
‘One of you three? Beat me?
I’ve never heard anything so
funny in my life!’
‘Her Her Her,’ grunted
Dogsbreath, snorting seawater
out of his nose.
‘The thing is, Hiccup,’ sneered Snotlout, ‘you
heard everybody laughing on the beach… you guys are
just an embarrassment to the Tribe.’
Snotlout’s eyes were alight with real murderous
malice. He looked over his shoulder to check that
nobody could see what he was doing. ‘I am now going
to give you, Hiccup, a lesson in being a Viking Hero,
and you, Fishlegs, a lesson in how to swim without your
armbands on…’

52

‘No!’
shrieked Fishlegs,
trying to swim away.
But he hadn’t a hope of escaping.
Both Snotlout and Dogsbreath were
big, burly adolescents and they caught him easily,
ducking Hiccup and Camicazi along the way. Snotlout
popped the right armband with his dagger and
Dogsbreath removed the left.
‘Now, Hiccup,’ purred Snotlout. ‘You can just
about make it back to shore on your own, but if
you try to do it holding Fishlegs, I don’t fancy your
chances. So… what do you do? I suggest you do us all
a favour, and ditch the LOSER, but it’s up to you,
of course.’

And the two bullies swam
away, laughing.

Hiccup
resurfaced,
gasping, and
thrashed through
the water towards poor
Fishlegs, who was going
under for the second time. With
the help of Toothless, Stormfly and Fishlegs’s hunting-
dragon Horrorcow, he got the boy upright with his head
out of the water, but Fishlegs was so terrified he was
struggling and in danger of dragging Hiccup under with
him.
‘STOP PANICKING AND RELAX!’ shouted
Hiccup sharply.
‘RELAX!’ shrieked Fishlegs. ‘HOW CAN I
RELAX? I’M DROWNING! DROWNING ISN’T VERY
RELAXING!’
But he stopped struggling, and forced himself to
go limp, and floated on to the surface with Hiccup and
Camicazi holding him by the shoulders.
‘OK,’ said Hiccup, in his I’m-trying-to-stay-calm-
but-really-I-want-to-run-around-in-circles-screaming voice,

54

‘now
I think
we might
have a bit of a
problem…’
As Hiccup bobbed upwards on the waves, he
could see the shoreline, and suddenly it seemed very
distant. Hiccup wasn’t sure that he could make that
swim back carrying Fishlegs all the way, even with
Camicazi helping.
This is the trouble with a Proper Viking
Swimming Race. It’s a game of judgment as well as
endurance. You have to be very careful that you
don’t go out so far that you run out of energy to make
it back.
‘We’d better get Fishlegs back to the shore,
then,’ Hiccup said with a confidence he was far
from feeling.

55

‘Carrot, anyone?’ smiled Horrorcow, sensing a
crisis and swooping down from above in a motherly
way. ‘It will help keep your strength up for the swim…’
‘Not now, Horrorcow,’ said Hiccup, and then
(trying to sound extra casual), ‘Horrorcow, maybe you
should just flap back to the shore and tell them to send
out some Rescue Dragons for us…’
‘Righti-ho,’ replied Horrorcow cheerily, and she
flapped off. ‘Keep kicking…’
‘Keep kicking… keep kicking… keep kicking…’
Hiccup lost count of the amount of times he said
this in the next half hour.
For a strange thing was happening. The more
they kicked, the FURTHER they seemed to be
getting from the beach. During the confrontation with
Snotlout and Dogsbreath, they had drifted into a tide
that was carrying them out to sea.
They could no longer hear the friendly shouts
of other Vikings. Apart from the sound of their own
splashing, they were alone. Alone in a stone-cold sea
that stretched out for miles around them.
‘I’m getting tired,’ said Camicazi, who was never
tired.
It is a little difficult to see how their situation
could get any worse.

56

But that, as anybody who has read Hiccup’s
memoirs before will know, is often a sign that things
are going to get REALLY, REALLY bad.
Suddenly Toothless, who had been fishing
for mackerel, shot shrieking out of the sea only
centimetres from Hiccup’s ear.
‘What is it, Toothless?’ gasped Hiccup, as the
little dragon hovered above him.
‘S-s-s-something n-n-nasty…’ stammered
Toothless, spiralling upwards on shaking wings,
‘something nasty down there!’
‘What sort of nasty?’ swallowed Hiccup.
‘Toothless not know…’ replied Toothless.
‘NASTY sort of n-n nasty… didn’t wait and see…
something b-b-black…’
‘What’s wrong?’
shivered Fishlegs.
‘What’s he saying?’

‘Oh,
nothing,’ lied
Hiccup carelessly.
‘You know Toothless,
he’s easily spooked… Keep
kicking, keep kicking,’ whispered Hiccup, looking all
around him, ‘but kick softly…’
‘Why softly?’ squeaked Fishlegs, beginning to
panic and sinking as a result. ‘There is something,
isn’t there? What is it? DARKBREATHERS?
SHARKWORMS? TERRORFANGS????’
‘It’s nothing,’ whispered Hiccup soothingly, ‘you
just concentrate on floating, Fishlegs…’
Then, suddenly Camicazi let out a
piercing scream.

‘AAAAGHHHH!’
She thrashed around
in the water for a second,
and then she was
dragged underneath by
some unknown force.

‘Camicazi!’ shrieked Hiccup, trying to hold up
Fishlegs and look underneath the water at the same
time. ‘Camicazi! Camicazi!!!!’

But she was gone.

4. A REALLY, REALLY BAD
SITUATION

‘Oh
for Thor’s
sake, oh for Thor’s sake…’
cried Hiccup, looking desperately around him. But
there was no sign of Camicazi.
Just the silent mists, and below them… why,
below them, there could be ANYTHING down there in
the water. It could be Darkbreathers, that liked to drag
their victims underneath the water and suck out their
blood. It could be Sharkworms, that killed with their
foot-long fangs, or grabbed a take-away of a dangling
limb, and swam on.
‘Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?’ Fishlegs
kept repeating, as if Hiccup knew the answer.
One terrified minute passed.
And then Fishlegs, too, screamed, and was
dragged under, out of Hiccup’s arms.

60

‘Fishlegs!’ yelled Hiccup.
Hiccup was alone in the cold grey ocean.
Never had his poor flapping feet felt so
vulnerable.
There was nothing he could do. He could not
run, or fly away (although Toothless was valiantly
trying to haul him out of the water by the back of his
waistcoat).
And then he felt the first searching nibble on
his ankle…
Hiccup screamed, and tried, clumsily, to splash
forward.
But whatever-it-was took a firm grip on his leg
and pulled him underwater.
Hiccup just had time to take a big lungful of air.
The water around him turned swiftly from green to
grey to black as he was dragged down into the sea.
So this is it… thought Hiccup… as he went
deeper still… This is what it is like to die…
Just as his lungs were about to burst, he was
pulled back the other way up, the water turned from
black to grey to green to white again, and he was
hauled out of the sea and into the sky.
Hiccup was being carried upside-down through
the air by a gigantic dragon, with a wingspan of about
seven metres.

61

All around him,
with great rasping shrieks, a
whole pack of the creatures
was leaping out of the sea,
shooting upwards as if they
were arrows being shot
out of Neptune’s bow.
The dragon holding Hiccup
was flying so low that Hiccup’s
fingers were scraping the surface of
the water. It swung him upwards as if
he were a piece of mackerel and let
him go, sending Hiccup
cartwheeling through the
air, and as he was JUST
about to hit the sea, another
dragon dived and caught him, this
time by the arms.
Out of the corner of his eye,
Hiccup could see Fishlegs and Camicazi
being carried by other dragons in the pack
in a similar fashion.

He tipped his head upwards to try and see what had
captured them. It was Raptortongues.

62

Raptortongues are
most peculiar.
They look like perfectly normal
dragons that have been accidentally
stepped on by a giant, and squashed
flat as a pancake. They are often used
by Vikings to spy on enemy Tribes,
because they can fly low and swift and
silent over enemy territory without anyone
realising they are there.

63

~ STATISTICS ~

COLOURS: Raptortongues are chameleons
ARMED WITH: The usual fangs and
talons.
FEAR FACTOR:...............................7
ATTACK:.......................................7
SPEED:..........................................7
SIZE:........................................7
DISOBEDIENCE:.........................5

Raptortongues live hidden in the deep
crevasses of the Murderous Mountains
or the Gorge of the Thunderbolt of Thor.
They have an extraordinary ability to flatten
themselves, which means they can squeeze
through surprisingly small spaces. They
make excellent spy dragons.

The pack was about fifty
strong, and they were carrying the
three young Vikings out into the
Open Ocean.
This was surprising, for
Hiccup knew that Raptortongues
were Archipelago dragons, not Ocean creatures
at all. WHERE, for Thor’s sake, were they taking
them? The Raptortongues flew on and on. Every now
and then, when Hiccup’s arms were aching so hard
he thought they would pull out of their sockets, the
Raptortongues would fling him upside-down again.
Hiccup attempted to talk to the Raptortongue
who was carrying him, but it merely adjusted

its grip, and snapped, ‘You say one more word, and I
will remove your head.’
Hiccup was an intelligent boy, and he judged
that it might be wiser to shut up.
Eventually a smudge appeared on the horizon,
gradually growing bigger and bigger as they drew
nearer. At first Hiccup thought it was an island with a
volcano on it, for it was belching out a thick grey-green
smoke. But as they grew nearer and nearer
Hiccup realised it wasn’t an island at all,
but a boat.
And what a boat it was.

Hiccup had never seen anything like it before,
and Hiccup had seen plenty of boats in his life.
Hooligan raiding ships, Bog-Burglar sneak-boats,
Roman Dragon-Rustling Galleons, Uglithug Slaving
Craft… you name it, Hiccup had seen it.
But this was something completely different.
It was truly immense. It was about six times the
size and depth of an ordinary Viking ship. It had not
one, but two masts. And planted right at the back
of the deck was a strange gigantic tube like a bent
chimney, out of which the smoke was curling.
Perhaps this was a ghost ship, or Hiccup had
stumbled into sleep and this was all merely some weird
nightmare.
The Raptortongues approached it through the
great drifts of smoke, and circled the gigantic vessel
twice before they landed, swooping low over the prow
of the ship.
UH-OH-UH-OH-UH-OH, thought Hiccup in an
agony of coughing as the Raptortongue folded back his
wings, preparing to land on deck. UH-OH-UH-OH-UH-
OH-UH-OH…
The ship’s deck was thronged with a particularly
unpleasant load of barbarians, who let out a cheer as
the Raptortongue let Hiccup go, and laughed wildly as

70

he sprawled on the deck, with Camicazi and Fishlegs
being dropped beside him.
‘COME BACK AND FIGHT LIKE VIKINGS,
YOU COWARDLY BATS!’ shrieked Camicazi, in a
twist of fury at being kidnapped by the Raptortongues,
and their new captors only laughed the more.
The young Vikings were wound around with ropes
as securely as chickens trussed up for slaughter and tied
upside-down to the central mast of the ship.
Even Toothless and the Stormfly had been
captured, and tied up next to their Masters.
So the mood of the three young Heroes was
gloomy, anxious, even terrified. They didn’t know what
their captors were going to do to them.
What was a VERY bad sign, however, was that
the entire crew was chanting, ‘KILL, KILL, KILL,
KILL, KILL! KILL THE CHILDREN, KILL,
KILL, KILL!’
Even Camicazi, who liked to look on the bright
side, could tell that this didn’t look promising.
‘Do you think they’re talking about US?’
whimpered Fishlegs.
‘Well, we’re the only children here, aren’t we?’
Hiccup pointed out, teeth chattering together like
crabs’ claws.

71

‘We should probably be planning our escape,’
chirped Camicazi, cheerily listening to the cruel
laughter and jeering of the brutes, who were now
merrily lobbing fish at the poor captives.
‘You’re right, Camicazi,’ admitted Hiccup, ‘but
it looks like there are at least two hundred of them…
They’re heavily armed… and I don’t know about you,
but at the moment I am dripping wet, unarmed, and
tied securely upside-down to a mast. I’m not sure how
we’re going to escape from this position. I guess we
could try reasoning with them, but they don’t look all
that reasonable to me.’

... shouted Camacazi.

The growling and chanting increased to double
the volume, and the air rained down with fish thrown
in their direction.
Shouts of, ‘You and whose army, blondie?’
‘Nice reasoning, Camicazi,’ said Hiccup.
One of the barbarians strolled over to a tent
built in the centre of the ship and shouted, ‘Bo-o-o-o-
ossss! They’re he-e-ere!’
‘It appears,’ said Hiccup grimly, ‘that we’re
expected. That’s not a good sign.’
‘NONE of this is a good sign!’ shivered Fishlegs.
‘Who do you think has kidnapped us?’
Hiccup wracked his brains. Who hadn’t been at
the Friendly Inter-Tribe Swimming Race? Bashem-
Oiks? Uglithugs?
‘I do hope it’s not Uglithugs,’ whimpered
Fishlegs.
But it was much worse than Uglithugs. For the
barbarian shipmates drew back the curtains on the
tent in the middle of the ship, and there, sitting having
a little light supper together, were three men who
were three strokes of Very Bad Luck Indeed.
Reading from left to right, they were Madguts
the Murderous, Norbert the Nutjob, Chief of the
Hysteric Tribe, and Gumboil, Madguts’s lovely
assistant.

73

5. AN UNPLEASANT OLD
ACQUAINTANCE

They were sharing a deer between them, and Norbert
and Madguts made a disgusting sight, sitting there
with their hands dipped scarlet in blood as they tore
the poor thing limb from limb.
Gumboil was a little more delicate in his
manners, and he was nibbling daintily
at a piece of deer liver on the
end of a long pointed black
fork.
Norbert the Nutjob
swallowed the last bits of
wine that he was drinking
out of a skull, chucked some
fleshy bits of deer over
his shoulder, and rubbed
his bloody hands on his
shirtfront.
‘Oh well done,
Madguts old chap,’ said
Norbert enthusiastically,
‘your Raptortongues have
brought us the victims.

Hiccup didn’t like the sound of the word
‘victim’. ‘What’s going on?’ he stammered.
‘Why have you brought us here? We need to get back
to our Swimming Race… And why
is Madguts here? He’s supposed
to be in the Swimming Race
too…’

Norbert got up and thrust his face
into Hiccup’s face. One mad eyeball stared
straight at Hiccup, red veins bulging all
over it like lines on a lunatic map, a violent
tic sending the pupil quivering and
trembling in a wild dance of rage.
‘Your race is over,’ said Norbert
with satisfaction. ‘Madguts and I have
made a little agreement. Madguts
has brought me YOU, and I, in
return, have put him up on my
ship here for a couple of hours.
He will then swim back to
shore well after the others,
making sure that HE is
the Last Man Back…’

‘But that’s cheating!’
protested Hiccup. ‘You’re not
supposed to seek aid by Float
or Boat!’
‘Of course it’s cheating!’
laughed Norbert. ‘You think
your ancestor, Grimbeard the
Ghastly, didn’t cheat long ago
in that famous Swimming
Race when he became King
of the Archipelago? It
isn’t physically possible
to carry on swimming
for THREE WHOLE
MONTHS…’

‘That is a long time,’ grinned Gumboil. ‘I’m sorry
to interrupt, but we’ll be off now, since you’ve got what
you wanted, Norbert. Madguts has rested enough, and
he has a race to come last in.’
Madguts the Murderous grunted and wiped his
bloody palms on the front of his waistcoat. He shook
Norbert the Nutjob by the hand, and did a few leg
stretches, before swallow-diving off the edge of the boat,
followed by the repulsive Gumboil, holding his nose and
doing a bomb. The Raptortongues unfolded their bat-like
wings and followed them.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the weird little red-haired
boy,’ smiled Norbert the Nutjob. ‘When last we met,
I seem to remember that you stole my ticking-thing,
burned down my Great Hall, chewed off my moustaches,
and fed Papa to the Squealers.’*
‘That was an accident!’ protested Hiccup. ‘An
unfortunate SERIES of accidents which we deeply
regret, don’t we guys?’
‘Mmff,’ snorted Norbert. ‘Didn’t I warn you that
the next time we bumped into each other I would
KILL you?’
‘Well, lovely as it is to see you again,’ said Hiccup
tactfully (you should always be polite to madmen carrying
axes),‘I didn’t exactly PLAN this meeting…’

* See How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse.

‘My Chopper has been aching to bite your
head off ever since…’ Norbert lovingly stroked
the double-headed axe that he carried with
him everywhere. One side of the axe was bright
and shining gold, the other a blackened twisted
mass of rotting metal. ‘And you guys too, of
course.’ He generously included Camicazi and
Fishlegs, in case they were feeling left out. ‘But I
can’t quite decide whether to kill you right now,
or take you on our little expedition and THEN
kill you… dear oh dear… life is full of tough
decisions…’
‘KILL THEM NOW! KILL THEM
NOW!’ shouted the watching
Hysterical crew gleefully.
‘Expedition?’ said Hiccup, his
heart sinking lower still. ‘What do
you mean expedition? Where are
you going?’

‘Oh… not far…’ Norbert the Nutjob gave a
peculiarly nasty grin. ‘Just a little light sailing, to try
out my new boat… I thought we might drop in on
AMERICA, you know…’
‘But there’s no such place as America!’ objected
Fishlegs. ‘The world is as flat as a pancake and if you
sail too far to the west you fall off the end of it!’
‘SHUDDUPPPPP!!!’ roared Norbert, a fanatical
gleam in his mad eye. ‘The world is round as an orange,
and I know there’s such a place as America because
I’ve BEEN THERE! I shall return in GLORY, with
WARRIORS and MIGHT, and I shall found a great
EMPIRE! Just picture me, Norbert the Great, Emperor
of the New World!’
Hiccup was picturing it. It was a horrible thought.
‘I shall call this new country Nutjob-Land,’ said
Norbert with satisfaction, making a grand gesture with
his axe. ‘But in order to get to America in the first
place,’ Norbert continued, ‘I need that ticking-thing
that you stole from me the last time we met. Only that
can show us the way. So… which of you has it?’
He jabbed his axe at them, one at a time.
‘Is it the funny-looking kid with the red hair and
the freckles… the little blonde lunatic… or the boy with
a face like a fish?’

81

‘It’s me, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the
Third,’ said Hiccup, ‘and you’re standing on it right
now.’
Hiccup was hanging upside-down, so the ticking-
thing had fallen out of his pocket, and it was now lying
on the deck with Norbert’s great big maniac foot on it.
‘My ticking-thing!’ cried Norbert delightedly,
untying it from Hiccup’s wrist and clasping it to his
chest.
‘And now, Hiccup,’ smiled Norbert, reminding
Hiccup that he had more important things to be
thinking of by pressing the blackened edge of his two-
headed axe against Hiccup’s throat, ‘as I said, I can’t
quite decide whether to kill you now, or once we get to
America… understand?’
‘Perfectly…’ gulped Hiccup.
‘The Axe of DOO-OO-OOM will decide!’ roared
Norbert, throwing wide his arms. (Wild cheers and
stampings of feet from the bloodthirsty crowd.) ‘I shall
throw it up in the air, and if it lands gold side down,
you come with us to America. But if it lands black side
down… why, if it lands black side down you die on
the spot!’ yelled Norbert the Nutjob. ‘How lucky are
you feeling today, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the
Third?’

83

‘Well I’ve been thinking about that,’ muttered
Hiccup, ‘and so far I reckon this has been just about
the unluckiest day I’ve had in years.’
‘Oh goodee,’ grinned Norbert the Nutjob, ‘I
HATE waiting for my treats.’
‘THROW THE AXE! THROW THE AXE!
THROW THE AXE!’ yelled the Hysterics joyously.
‘DEATH OR AMERICA!’ shouted Norbert
the Nutjob.
‘DEATH OR AMERICA!’ screamed the
Hysterics back at him.
‘Death or America,’ groaned Hiccup, Fishlegs
and Camicazi.
Hiccup closed his eyes as with a manic scream
Norbert the Nutjob threw the great axe high, high in
the air.
The Hysterics scattered in all directions.
The axe swooped upwards, turning over and
over, first the gold side up, then the black… up and up
it soared…
And then it seemed to hover for a moment
before it began the plunge downward towards the
deck. Was it the gold side down or was it the black?
Hiccup squinted anxiously through his salty
strands of hair, trying to see.

84

‘It’s the black! It’s the black!’ shouted Norbert
the Nutjob with mad glee. ‘Prepare to die!’
And with horror Hiccup realised it WAS the
black side plunging towards the deck. And there was
absolutely NOTHING he could do about it.

85

6. THE AXE OF DOOM
DECIDES

Hiccup’s mind raced desperately.
He couldn’t move, but inspiration suddenly
struck…
‘CAN YOU READ THE TICKING-THING,
NORBERT?’ screamed Hiccup.
Norbert looked at the ticking-thing… Curses!…
He couldn’t…

… but the axe
was steaming towards
the deck of the ship, and the Axe of Doom was never
allowed to be wrong… So Norbert the Nutjob gave
Verociously Violent a big shove so that Verociously
got in between the axe and the deck, getting a nasty
scratch on his arm in the process.
‘NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME
DO!’ roared Norbert the Nutjob. ‘OK, untie the

86

wretched little burglars!’
Muttering with disappointed bloodlust,
the Hysterics unwound the ropes tying Hiccup,
Fishlegs and Camicazi, who fell on to the deck, deeply
relieved to be the right way up again, but very dizzy.
‘Follow me,’ barked Norbert the Nutjob.
Hiccup followed Norbert to the central tent in
the middle of the deck.
This tent was Norbert’s cabin. Now, Vikings
normally travelled very light on board ship. And they
didn’t generally have cabins at all, just maybe a couple
of upturned landing-boats to shield them from the
wildness of the wind.
But Norbert was intending to sail to America
FOR EVER, so he had packed this ship with every
possible thing that a Future Emperor might need over
there in a New World. Tables, chairs, chessboards,
smashsticks-on-ice sticks, bashyballs, skis.
The walls of this tent-cabin of his were covered
with crazy drawings of Norbert’s latest inventions,
and also with maps. Norbert jabbed a fat finger at
one particular map with some little squiggly numbers
drawn on it.
‘THIS was the Map my father Bigjob used to go
to America,’ said Norbert.

87

‘He read those
funny little numbers,
and he checked the ticking-thing, and
that would tell him which way to go.’
Norbert handed Hiccup the map and the ticking-
thing. There were nine arrows on the dial.
The two little ordinary arrows told the time much

88

more
accurately than Old Wrinkly’s complicated
candlesticks. The little fat arrow always
pointed to the north, like the North Star.
The one with the round circle on the end was
a lie detector. Hiccup didn’t yet know what
the one shaped like a question mark did, or the
funny little jagged one like a piece of lightning.
But the remaining two told him how far to go
upwards, and how far to go westwards.*
He sat there staring back and forth from the
ticking-thing to the Map for such a long time that
Norbert grew impatient, and roared:
‘HURRY UP BOY, HURRY UP! We haven’t
got all DAY!’
‘The quickest way to America, if such a place
really exists, is in that direction.’ Hiccup pointed over
towards some distant storm-clouds to the north. ‘But
we’d have to go through the Ice Islands and there are
some really unpleasant Ice-Dragons we could meet
that way—’

* This suggests that the ticking-thing contains a device for calculating
LONGTITUDE (what Hiccup describes as ‘going westwards’). It was
previously thought that the first device for predicting longtitude was the
chronometer created in 1773, but Hiccup’s memoirs show otherwise.

‘WA-HOOOO!!!!!’
yelled Norbert the
Nutjob, grabbing the map
off Hiccup and running excitedly on to the deck. ‘Man
the main masts! Stoke up the steam-dragons! Put on your
winter woollies and set the course the way the little weirdo
is pointing! AMERICA, HERE WE COME!’
All around the three small dripping Vikings, great
burly Hysterics burst into rousing cheers, and began
to pull on ropes and climb masts and grab steering
wheels.
Great belches of smoke poured out of the
chimney tube, and filled the deck in a dense pea-
green fog, as slowly, slowly, the enormous ship
turned around like some great cumbersome whale
or wooden sea ceature. It set its nose towards the
north, and began to puff and breast the waves out
of the Archipelago and into the Icy Seas.

7. THE QUEST TO DISCOVER
AMERICA

So this was how Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs got
themselves kidnapped by Norbert the Nutjob, and
found themselves in a boat that was sailing out of the
Archipelago, never to return.
Of course, Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs did
not want to go to America. Besides which, there was
the tiny problem of crossing the Great West Ocean
which, Hiccup knew, was full of Sea-Dragons so large
and fearsome that they could swallow the ship they
were standing on in one gulp.
‘So… what do we do now then, Hiccup?’ asked
Fishlegs slowly.
‘Well,’ said Hiccup, through chattering teeth.
‘Let’s dry our wet things, first of all.’
The chimney at the back of the deck out of
which the smoke was pouring was hot to the touch, so
they leant against it for a couple of hours, letting the
lovely warmth penetrate their frozen bodies. The green
streaky remains of the Fleshfang oil on their cheeks
and arms made them look like three cold-blooded little
lizards baking in the sunshine. Their salty clothes were
stiff as cardboard, but at least they were dry.

94

When they had finally stopped shivering, they
began to explore their floating prison.
Hysterics are a Tribe of dreamers, lunatics and
inventors, so the American Dream 2 was not your
ordinary Viking ship.
The steam pouring out of the chimney was a
distinctive grey-green, so Hiccup suspected it was
dragon-smoke, probably coming from dragons hidden
within the belly of the ship. Hiccup would have loved
to see by what mechanism this steam powered the
boat.*
The dragons weren’t the only mad thing about
this vessel. There was a weird thing with wings
sprouting out of the side that a Hysteric called Red
Ronald told them was Norbert’s attempt at a Flying
Machine. Unfortunately it didn’t really work yet.
Several times during the day, Norbert ordered
three unfortunate members of his crew to try it out,
hauling the Machine all the way up to the top of the
Mast on ropes, and then launching it from the crow’s
nest.
It only stayed up in the sky for a couple of
minutes, before crashing spectacularly into the Ocean,

*Hiccup’s memoirs seem to suggest that Norbert had built a steam-ship,
many, many centuries before steam was used to power marine craft.
Similarly, the artist Leonardo da Vinci drew designs for a helicopter, a
trench-digging machine, a deep-sea diving suit, a revolving bridge, a
calculator, a hang-glider and a tank, four hundred years before any of
these things were ‘invented’.

and the crew members had to be rescued, and the
Machine mended again.
And then there was an extraordinary Machine
with a wheel that the crew took in turns to pedal with
their feet, which was attached to a large trumpet-like
funnel. It was very difficult to work out what the
purpose of this Machine was. At the moment it was
Verociously Violent’s turn on the Machine, because his
arm was still recovering from the gash he had received
from the Axe of Doom incident, so he wasn’t much good
at pulling on ropes and other tasks around the boat at
the moment.
Hiccup was so curious about what the Machine
did that he approached Verociously to ask what he was
doing.
‘Oh, this is the Keep-the-Boat-From-Sinking-
and-Scare-Away-the-Big-Sea-Creatures Machine,’
explained Verociously Violent, stopping pedalling for a
second to answer Hiccup’s question. ‘It stops the boat
from sinking and it also scares away the Sea-Monsters,
Great Terrorwings, Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus,
that sort of thing.’*
‘KEEP PEDALLING! KEEP PEDALLING!’
screamed Norbert the Nutjob, marching up, and the
Hysteric hurriedly resumed, so fast his feet were a blur.

* Some of Norbert’s inventions were more practical than others, because
the line between genius and total loopiness is quite a fine one.

‘And YOU,’ Norbert turned to Hiccup, ‘STOP
DISTRACTING THE CREW! If this man here stops
turning this wheel for even one
second, the boat will sink,
and we could be attacked
by one of the Ocean
Dragon-Mammoths.’
‘Fascinating,’
said Hiccup, very
politely, thinking,
nutty as an absolute
fruitcake.
‘Is there any
chance,’ gulped Fishlegs hopefully as
they walked away, ‘that that thing could
work?’
‘Yeah, right,’ replied Hiccup. ‘Like
a revolving tube with a funnel attached
is really going to stop a boat from
sinking…’
At the end of the first day of The
Quest to Discover America, the sun
sank in a glorious technicolour display
of pink and gold streaked with red. The
three young Vikings sat and worried…

98

and worried… and worried. (Actually, two of them
worried; Camicazi just played with Toothless.)
They worried until it was late at night, and the
Hysterics had built a fire on deck, and were singing
songs to the rising moon. The songs were about the
life of a Viking. You have to imagine Norbert the
Nutjob adding the HO!s, while banging his axe on
the bottom of an iron
bucket.

‘We could be safe at
hearth and home
Around a fire with loved ones near
Instead we brave the cold dark wave
The salty kiss of a Hero’s grave
Looking for a land we saw…
Once before… long ago…
HO!’

Norbert the Nutjob was sitting, a twisted shadow
watching the singers, his cabin shrouded close around
him. Only his eyes gleamed in the firelight, as he
watched and smoked from a long thin pipe that sent
a crooked plume of smoke up into the sail billowing
above him and on into the night sky.

‘We could take the easy way
Stay at home with loved ones dear
But here we are on rocking waves
Sails spread out like dragons’ wings…
Lost out in a hurricane…
Looking for a land we saw…
Once before… long ago…
HO!’

As the Hysterics sang on in the warm night,
Hiccup’s eyes began to close.
But they opened again with a start when the
deck beneath Hiccup’s feet began to vibrate with a
new noise. Strange voices were beginning their own
song. Weird voices, singing in a language that Hiccup
did not understand, the sound of something so Other
and unfamiliar that they were as alien as the music of
whales or dolphins calling to each other.

102

Voices coming from deep within the belly of the
ship.
‘What is that?’ whispered Fishlegs to Hiccup,
with round, scared eyes.
Hiccup’s heart plummeted.
He suddenly realised what it might be.
‘I wonder,’ replied Hiccup slowly, ‘if this ship is
carrying slaves on it?’
The Hysterics stopped to listen too. And as
they listened the song changed, to something much
more sinister. A shiver went slipping down Hiccup’s
spine like a cold drop of water. You did not have to
understand the language the slaves were speaking to
understand what they were saying.
Toothless let out a whine of fear, as if he were a
spaniel, and covered his ears with his paws.
They were laying a Curse on the ship. A Curse
on the voyage. A Curse on every single Viking man,
woman or child who was keeping them there, under
those decks…
The hairs stood up on the back of Hiccup’s neck.
They went right on singing, that fierce terrible
Curse, until Norbert strode to the centre of the deck,
and struck it with his axe three times, and shouted:

And then it was quiet again.
Hiccup lay in the darkness, his heart beating
quick. Oh how he longed to be Home…
It was very late when he fell asleep again, the
Hysterics still singing:

‘Glory comes not to the weak
A treasure land shines out so strong
We see it clear from far away
O Great and Brave and Mighty Thor
I hope that that was land I saw
Once before… long ago…
HO!’

The ship sailed on through the moonlit night.
Apart from four crewmen (one steering the boat,
one looking after the Steam-Dragons, one keeping
lookout, and one laboriously turning Norbert’s mad
Monster-Scaring Machine), all the human beings
aboard the American Dream 2 had fallen asleep now:
Hysterics, Hooligans, friends and foes, all.
What none of these little sleeping human beings
knew was how tiny they were compared to the vastness
of the world they were about to enter. Nothing seemed
to have changed on the quiet and peaceful surface of

104

the water… but in fact they had moved out of the safe,
shallow seas of the Archipelago, they had crossed an
invisible line in the ocean, and they were now sailing
over very deep waters indeed.
Waters fathoms and fathoms deep, a sunless,
black and watery desert.
But could it be that something was about to stir
down in the darkness? The unimaginable enormity
of the Open Ocean holds such strange and terrible
things, things which we cannot even dream of.
If you were a fanciful person, you could imagine
that something dreadful was about to happen. Some
dragon-giant of the abyss, sleeping all coiled up like
an unwoken tornado, was about to gain consciousness
and would move inexorably on the little ship puffing
its way across the water.
But we are not fanciful people, so we know that
cannot be true.

LEARNING TO SPEAK DRAGONESE
TOOTHLESS WANTS A PET

Nee-ah, Toothless, ta NA aca
un sweetie ickle tootsienipper
par un fluff-squees.
No, Toothless, you CANNOT
have a dear little rat for a pet.

Parsk me pappa na likeit.
Because my dad won’t be pleased.

Na un moonhowler, oo un deathscuttler plus DOUBLY
DOUBLY na un fangboggle-limb-scrumcher.
Nor a wolf, or a scorpion,
and DEFINITELY
DEFINITELY not a
shark.

Yow is a snakenipper
Yellfatter, plus
yow squeezeblood
ist conja da
sniffersludge.
You are a very mean
Master, and your
heart is made out
of bogeys.

8. THE SLAVEMARK

Hiccup was right, the ship was carrying slaves.
Hiccup asked Red Ronald about it the next
morning, and Ronald said there were one hundred
and nineteen slaves being kept in the hold, all of them
Northern Wanderers. Wanderers were very fierce and
wild, and they detested Vikings.
It made Hiccup shiver to hear the noise of their
Cursing, floating up out of a heavily barred Hatch in
the centre of the back deck, all day and all night.
Two days passed.
Each morning Hiccup would read the ticking-
thing for Norbert in his cabin, and then the three
young Heroes spent the rest of the time dreaming
of escape as the ship chugged steadily north and the
weather grew colder and colder.
There is no more exciting place for a lively young
dragon than a ship in full sail.
The two little dragons were now having a lovely
time, flying through the rigging, getting tangled up
in ropes, sliding down the sails, trying to nick things
from the Cooking Cabin without getting caught by
the Cook, dashing after mice in the hold, chewing
the arms off Norbert’s shirts and the bottoms out of

107

his shoes, and in the Stormfly’s case, flirting with the
hunting-dragons who were lined up, very dignified on
the mast-head.
But both dragons avoided the Slave Hatch.
Every time Toothless passed it, his hackles rose, and
he hissed with fear and alarm.
The three young Heroes had had time to think,
and so they were now quite optimistic about their
chances of escaping.
It was just a question of agreeing on a plan.
‘OK,’ said Camicazi breezily. ‘I’ve thought of
several ways to escape. I might dress up as a Hysteric
and trick one of those idiot guards into launching
one of those little landing-boats by saying we’d hit an
iceberg.’
‘That Hysteric guard isn’t going to think you’re
another Hysteric!’ scoffed Fishlegs. ‘However stupid
they are they’re not actually blind! You’re only four
foot tall, Camicazi, you’re blonde, you’re female, you
have no facial hair…’
‘Aha,’ said Camicazi, laying a finger against her
nose and looking very cunning, ‘but if I wear a very
long coat, and stand on your shoulders, and I’ll stick
one of Norbert’s bearskin knee-pads on to my chin as
a beard–’

108

‘There’s no way in a million years that that is
going to work,’ argued Fishlegs.
‘OK, so what’s YOUR idea, then, Mr Clever
Clogs?’ said Camicazi crossly. ‘I’m telling you,
I’ve escaped from more Uglithug Dungeons and
Murderous Cage-Mazes than you’ve had hot
dinners…’
Meanwhile, in the background, Norbert was
watching the crew feeding the Wanderer Slaves by
opening up the Slave Hatch and throwing food down
below.
‘Not TOO much of that bread,’ Norbert roared
greedily. ‘They’re refusing to row, and slaves that are
on strike should not be fed.’
Unbeknownst to Norbert, Toothless was showing
off his excellent hunting skills to Stormfly.
He had been chasing a fly through the rigging
for the past five minutes. He was now hovering about
a metre above Norbert’s head, only his wings and his
narrowed eyes moving as he watched the fly.
‘Bzzz… bzzzzz… bzzzzzz…’ buzzed the fly,
zig-zagging drunkenly around Norbert’s head.
Toothless crept ever so softly down in the air as
his muscles poised, ready to pounce.
The fly made a few more aimless buzzes…

109

… and settled on the end of one of Norbert’s
sticking-up hairs.
‘W-W-Wrrrewwwowwwwrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!’
With the smothered yowl of a kung-fu kitten,
Toothless launched himself, claws out, on to Norbert’s
head.
Norbert was not a relaxed personality. In fact,
you could describe him as ‘tightly wound’. So his
reaction when a dragon suddenly landed unexpectedly
on his head was to shriek like a fire-engine and
spring into the air, as if stung by a bee. One of his
flailing arms pushed over one of the Hysteric crew-
members… who then cannoned into Hiccup… and
Hiccup slid over, plunging down into the Hatch, just
managing to grab hold of the edge of the Hatch as he
fell, so he was still hanging on by one hand…
… until with a cry of ‘Hiccup!’ and Toothless still
attached to his head, Norbert blundered forward to try
and help, and in the process trod heavily on Hiccup’s
clinging fingers.
So that Hiccup let go and fell down the Hatch…
… the Hatch that Bearcub’s Grandmother only
the day before had been warning that no Viking should
fall down OR ELSE…
… down that very same Hatch Hiccup fell, the

110

door clanging shut behind him.

There was a short silence.
Then pandemonium broke out.

111

‘Aaaarrgh!’ screeched Norbert the Nutjob, seeing
his guide to America lost, and his journey going up in
smoke. ‘Get him out! Get him out! They’ll kill him!’
But the crew could not open the Hatch. Somebody
had lost the key and had to run off and find it.
Frantically, Camicazi and Fishlegs and Norbert
pulled and pulled at the bars, and tried to squint down to
see what was happening.
There was a horrible noise of shouting and
screaming going on down there in the darkness.
What was happening to Hiccup?
Hiccup fell down, down, down, into the blackness
of the hold, landing on the wood with the carrots, and
the bread, and the cabbages the Wanderers were starting
to eat.
There was a shocked silence for a moment.
Then came a roar of rage.
‘It’s a Viking!’ yelled one big Wanderer, shaking his
chains in fury.
‘Kill him!’ shrieked Bearcub’s Grandmother,
showing her sharp pointy teeth and seizing Hiccup by the
leg. ‘Crush him to death!’ She made a growling noise like
a wolf.
‘It’s quite a small Viking,’ said the big Wanderer
more uncertainly as he grabbed hold of Hiccup, and he

112

paused his raised hand.
Hiccup knew that all Wandering
Peoples could speak Dragonese as well as
they spoke their mother tongue.*
So he spoke to them directly
in the Dragonese language.
‘Please don’t kill me…’
whispered Hiccup.
There was
a moment’s
astonished
silence.

*Unlike Vikings, who had mostly lost the art of speaking
with serpents.

‘It’s a Viking that speaks Dragonese,’ said
Bearcub’s Grandmother in amazement.
‘Please don’t kill me,’ repeated Hiccup.
‘Why should we not kill you?’ asked Bearcub’s
Grandmother in a dreadful angry voice, her eyes as
wide and staring and hypnotic as those of a king cobra.
‘Your people have killed my people for as long as
my people can remember. They have robbed us, and
cheated us, and sold us into slavery. All of history is
against you, Viking. Why should we not kill you?’
Hiccup had never met a Wanderer before, and
she was an awful sight, her hair all askew like a bundle
of hay, and those terrible grim and gloomy eyes, always
staring into the far distance as if she’d just spotted
something terrifying.
She took Hiccup by the neck in one of her
skinny hands. ‘You are a Viking, and all Vikings are
vermin, wicked and brutish enslavers of dragons and
humans. You may be young, but you should be killed
now before you grow into a rat, or a fox,’ she said,
her voice shaking with fury. Her long fingernails dug
scratches into Hiccup and he was petrified she was
going to strangle him.
‘We’re not ALL like that,’ protested Hiccup.
When Hiccup fell down the Hatch his helmet

114

had fallen off, and it was lying on the wooden floor beside
him. Little Bearcub had been staring fixedly at Hiccup’s
bared head, and now he piped up, pointing at Hiccup’s
hair.
‘Look, Grandmother, he hasn’t got any horns.’
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Bearcub’s
grandmother.
‘You said that Vikings were devils that had horns
growing on their heads, which was why their helmets were
such a funny shape,’ said Bearcub. ‘But look, this one
doesn’t.’
‘Humph,’ snorted Bearcub’s grandmother, feeling
through Hiccup’s shaggy red hair. ‘Perhaps they are too
small to see yet. But, trust me, they are there. There’s
a few lumps and bumps here that could easily grow into
horns.’
‘If you don’t kill me,’ pleaded Hiccup desperately, ‘I
will help you.’
Bearcub’s Grandmother gave a bitter laugh
and shook her chains. ‘Nobody can help us,’ she said
in Dragonese, opening up her gloomy eyes. ‘We are
DOOMED… we are ALL Doomed, for I have put a Curse
upon this ship.’
‘Yes, I heard,’ said Hiccup nervously, thinking, not
another fruitcake. ‘But we are travelling north, where your

115

people come from, and when we get closer to your
country, I will help you to escape.’
There was a moment’s silence, and then
the listening Wanderers broke out in a chatter of
excitement.
Bearcub’s Grandmother was more sceptical.
‘How can you do that?’ she spat in disbelief. ‘You are
far too small…’
‘I will find a way,’ said Hiccup. ‘I’m pretty sure
I will, anyway. I’ve done this sort of thing before.’
There was a long, long silence. Everyone looked
at Bearcub’s Grandmother. She was staring at Hiccup,
boring into him with her eyes, as if a tiny hope was
struggling with a lifetime’s bitter experience.
‘You are a Viking,’ she said at last. ‘I think that
you are saying this so that we will let you go, and you
will climb back to freedom, and then forget about us.’
She jerked her head up at the Hatch above, which
the Vikings were still banging and clanging in their
desperate attempts to open it.
‘I give you my promise,’ said Hiccup.
‘A Viking’s promise is worth nothing,’
spat Bearcub’s Grandmother. She looked at him
thoughtfully. ‘What is your name, Viking?’ she asked.
‘Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third,’ replied

116

Hiccup. ‘I am the son of Chief Stoick the Vast, of the
Hooligan Tribe.’
‘Viking royalty,’ said Bearcub’s Grandmother,
sarcastically, but Hiccup had made her pause, and she
was thinking hard. ‘How interesting. We are honoured
indeed. King Rat. King Fox.’
Her eye caught a long, sinister-looking metal tool
leaning against one of the beams that propped up the
ceiling of the hold. It ended in the shape of an ‘S’, and
it was dipped in a dark blue ink.

‘OK then, Viking,’ said Bearcub’s
Grandmother, ‘you have got
yourself a deal. But it will
come at a price. In return
I will give you the
Slavemark. Hold him
fast, Wildthing
and Lonefox…’
‘No!’ screamed Hiccup,
struggling frantically.

‘The Slavemark is easy to
give,’ said Bearcub’s Grandmother
slowly, approaching him with the pointed stick, ‘but
impossible to remove.’ She pointed bitterly at the blue
Mark on her hand.

117

‘Take off his helmet,’ Bearcub’s Grandmother
ordered Wildthing and Lonefox. ‘And then he can hide
it from those devil-Vikings up there. We do not want
them to suspect that he has an understanding with us.’
So Bearcub’s Grandmother put the Mark on the
side of Hiccup’s head, some way above his left ear.
One second later and the Slavemark was there, a livid
blue mark that would stay for ever, a bit like a tattoo.
‘You will not be able to forget us now,’ said
Bearcub’s Grandmother with gloomy satisfaction.
The Hatch above Hiccup’s head finally burst
open and a great shaft of light poured into the
dark room.
Norbert the Nutjob’s furious red screaming face
appeared in the space. ‘IF YOU’VE TOUCHED A
HAIR ON HIS HEAD I’LL FEED THE LOT OF
YOU TO THE LOBSTERS!’ he roared. ‘CLIMB UP
QUICK THERE, BOY!’
A rope flopped down into the hold.
‘Swear by this Mark that you will help us
escape, or we will not let you go,’ hissed Bearcub’s
Grandmother.
‘I swear,’ gasped Hiccup, nearly crying. And then
he put both hands upon the rope, and was hauled up
through the Hatch.

118

‘You see, Grandmother!’ said Bearcub excitedly,
‘We are not Doomed after all! I asked for someone to
rescue us and he has!’
‘You are not rescued yet,’ said his Grandmother
sternly.
The Hatch clanged shut and they were left in
darkness again.
‘And wipe your nose,’ came the voice of
Bearcub’s Grandmother in the blackness. ‘It’s running
most dreadfully.’

119

9. THE LAND OF THE
POLAR-SERPENTS

The American Dream 2 puffed its way steadily north,
and the weather got colder and colder, and darker
and darker, until they were travelling through total
blackness, day and night, and this was the home of
the Wanderers.
It was an eerie place. Icebergs drifted
by, taller than the masts of the ship itself,
cracking and splitting and creaking
around them in the mist.

The crew fell silent as they went about their
work, and even Norbert managed to lower his voice to
a menacing whisper as he scolded and shook his axe
threateningly at his men.
For they had entered the world of the Polar-
serpents.
The Polar-serpents were great white dragons
slumbering on the ice like over-sized walruses. They
reminded Hiccup of the Sabre-tooth Driver Dragons
the Vikings used to pull their sleds back in the
Archipelago. Except that instead of sabre-teeth, out of
the nose of each Polar-serpent grew a long white tusk
like a unicorn or a narwhal.
Polar-serpents swam under the icebergs, and
when they found shoals of unwary seals and penguins
resting on the surface above, they sawed great holes
in the ice, so that the unsuspecting prey fell into their
open jaws below.
A Polar-serpent feeding frenzy was a terrifying
sight. They could strip a mammal down to the bone
far quicker than a shoal of piranhas, and as far as they
were concerned, a human was just as tasty as a seal.
Perhaps even tastier.
Of course, the Polar-serpents weren’t a threat
when you were aboard a boat… but nonetheless,

122

~ STATISTICS ~

COLOURS: White with faint grey markings.
ARMED WITH: Talons and spear-like horn.
FEAR FACTOR:................6
ATTACK:...........................7
SPEED:..................................7
SIZE:.......................................5
DISOBEDIENCE:.....................6

Polar-serpents live in the north, basking like
seals on flat icebergs. Their beauty hides a
cruel streak. A pack will even attack a polar
bear. They nest in snowdrifts, crevasses and
on the tops of icebergs. They windsurf across
the ice on their tummies and reach
extraordinary speeds doing this.

Hiccup swallowed hard as they steamed quietly past
the creatures. And he noticed that all of Norbert’s
hunting-dragons were careful to stay close to the ship
as well.
They roosted on the masts like a row of
malevolent starlings, watching the Polar-serpents, with
the Polar-serpents watching them back.
After a while Norbert slightly lost it with the
Polar-serpents.
‘STOP LOOKING AT ME, YOU BIG WHITE
MAGGOTS!’ he yelled, waving his axe at the dragons.
‘OR I’LL CLIMB OVERBOARD AND CHOP OFF
YOUR HORNS!’
He grabbed the cauldron with the remains of
lunch and shook it over the side of the boat.
The statues on the ice sprang instantly to life.
They slid into the water like big white crocodiles:
thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, three hundred of them.
Within about five seconds the water behind the
boat was a thrashing, churning, manic froth of red as
the Polar-serpents went into their feeding frenzy.
They were so crazy in their bloodlust that they
even attacked each other, tearing each other from limb
to limb.
Norbert went back to whispering.

124

All day long, Hiccup
could feel the Slavemark
pressing against his helmet.
He hadn’t told Fishlegs and
Camicazi about it, because he
knew he had to keep it a secret.
The Law of the Archipelago
was quite firm upon the matter.
Anybody with the Slavemark
was automatically an Outcast,
whether it was their fault
or not.

And they certainly couldn’t
become a Chief. No, if Hiccup ever
got back home (and it was a
big ‘if’ at this point), this was
a secret that Hiccup would
have to keep to himself
for the rest of his life. He
couldn’t tell anybody, because
if someone like Snotlout were to
find out…

Hiccup pushed the thought to the back of his
mind, because he had to concentrate on the more
pressing problem of escaping.

125

And now, escaping had been made that much
more difficult. As Camicazi had so helpfully pointed
out, it was all very well trying to escape when there are
three of you, but trying to get a hundred and twenty-
two people off a ship without their captors noticing
required a little more forward planning.
‘We could escape so easily on our own,’
complained Camicazi. ‘Why are you suddenly
bothering about those people? They’re not even
Vikings, they’re WANDERERS, for Thor’s sake, we
might set them free and then they might kill us, you
know what people say about Wanderers.’
‘I told you,’ said Hiccup grumpily. ‘I had to make
them a promise.’
Hiccup sat up in the crow’s nest of the American
Dream 2, and thought and thought and thought, his
legs swinging as Stormfly and Toothless chased each
other round and round in circles.

126

Me has b-b-buckets di belly-scream.
I am very hungry.

Me isna burped si ISSA middling
o di zuzztime.
I don’t care if it IS the middle
of the night.

Me needy di grubbings SNIP-SNAP!
I want food RIGHT NOW!

Oo mes’ll do di
yowlyshreekers too
fortissimo theys’ll earwig me
indi BigManGaff.
Or I’ll scream so loudly they’ll hear me in Valhalla.

Me needy di S-S-S-S-SALTSICKS.
I want OYSTERS.

Yow g-g-grabba di saltsicks low indi Landscoop. Sna
staraway.
You can get oysters from the Harbour.
It’s not far.

M-M-Me gogo ta yowlshreek…
I’m starting to scream…
(three quarters of an hour later)

Yow me p-p-peepers undo!
You woke me up!

Wah is DA?
What is THAT?

Da na goggle com s-s-saltsicks…
That doesn’t look like oysters…

DA goggle com sniffersludge…
THAT looks like bogeys…

Sniffersludge p-p-plus di squidink tiddles…
Bogeys with black bits in them…

Me no likeit di squidink tiddles.
Issa y-y-yuck-yuck.
I don’t like black bits. They’re disgusting.

Watever, me is tow zuzzready
por di scrumming.
Anyway, I’m too
tired to eat.

Mes’ll zip di peepers.
I’m going to sleep.

10. TOOTHLESS’S ADVENTURE
IN THE COOKING TENT

It was Toothless who provided the answer to the
Escape Problem.
One afternoon Hiccup looked down from
the crow’s nest and spotted Stormfly and Toothless
creeping out of the Cooking Tent. They had sneaked
in there while the Cook was having a thoughtful chat
with Norbert, as Norbert checked his Great Map of
America.
Both dragons were flying extremely erratically.
Stormfly had turned every colour of the rainbow, and
was letting out little hiccups in fiery explosions of
golden smoke as she somersaulted and cartwheeled
through the air.
Toothless appeared to be flying upside-down.
He too was hiccupping, and with every hiccup, a
little stream of golden bubbles blew out of his nose.
‘What ARE they doing?’ asked Camicazi, in
danger of falling off the mast as she peered down at
the little dragons’ eccentric progress.
‘They look like they’re DRUNK,’ said Fishlegs in
amazement.
Toothless got entangled in the rigging, and the

131

Stormfly was so helpless with giggles she could barely
free him.
‘Isshh v-v-very TANGLY, thish air,’ Hiccup
could hear Toothless saying.
Eventually they got going again, and they flew
past Hiccup’s perch.
‘Who ISH this tall gentleman?’ asked
Toothless, as he bashed into the mast for the
second time. ‘He keepsh getting in my way.’
‘Toothless! Stormfly!’ Hiccup called out.
‘Come over here!’

‘That b-b-boy over there s-s-seemsh to be calling
you,’ Toothless advised the Stormfly. ‘Hic… whoops…
shorry…’
They flapped over to where Hiccup and
Camicazi and Fishlegs were sitting, and they were
burping and swaying and exploding with bubbles.
‘What have you been doing?’ scolded Hiccup. ‘I
TOLD you not to go near that Cooking Tent…’
‘I haven’t been anywhere near the Cooking Tent,
have you, Toothless?’ drawled Stormfly.

The upside-down Toothless nodded so hard
great streams of golden bubbles poured out of his ears.
‘Absholutely NOT,’ he said solemnly, his eyes
crossing. ‘T-t-toothless NOT go into the Cooking
Tent… Toothless N-N-NOT open the lovely shcrum-
diddly-delicious j-j-jar of lemonade with the l-l-lovely
tickly bubbles… oooh... hic… tee hee… there goes
another one… Toothless not there… Toothless…
Toothless…’
He searched his rather addled brain for a really
good excuse this time, and came up with a BELTER.
‘Toothless in R-R-Rome,’ he said at last.
‘Really?’ said Hiccup politely, carefully turning
Toothless the right way up, and settling him in his
arms.

‘OR up the chimney,’ said Toothless, not
quite able to decide which was more convincing.
‘With Toothless’s good friend, the s-s-senator.’
And with that, both Toothless and the
Stormfly fell asleep, so suddenly and deeply
that the Stormfly fell off her perch, and
Camicazi only just caught
her in time.

They were both snoring like two little hibernating
grizzly bears.
All around their mouths was a slightly sticky
browny-yellow substance.
‘Dragon-nip,’ said Hiccup thoughtfully. ‘There
must be a jar of dragon-nip down there in the Cooking
Tent.’
Dragon-nip was a perfectly harmless but sleep-
inducing substance gathered from the sweat glands of
the Loafer dragon.
‘A spot of dragon-nip in the dinner, and anybody
who eats it will be out for the count for the next
twelve hours…’ said Hiccup. ‘OK, guys. I think this
could be a good night for us to escape.’

11. THE ESCAPE FROM THE
AMERICAN DREAM 2

The full moon shone down on the great boat steaming
through the icebergs. The crew of the American
Dream 2 feasted well that night, on a stew which,
unbeknownst to them, was heavily laced with
dragon-nip.
Hiccup had crept in to the Cooking Tent, and
poured it into the bubbling cauldron of dinner.
For a while the Hysterical crew ignored their
spooky surroundings, and sang out loud songs to the
moon above, banging their dinner plates on the deck,
and Norbert the Nutjob fiddled madly on his Viking
violin, and the Hysterics did wild jigs, and the Polar-
serpents sat on their icebergs, quiet statues, only their
eyes following the mayhem.
And then, one by one, the dragon-nip’s heavy
fumes overcame the Hysterics. Sleep overtook them so
quickly that they dropped as they stood, in the middle
of whatever they happened to be doing at the time,
and fell to the deck in grotesque attitudes of slumber.
Norbert lay snoring, the violin still tucked under
his chin. Goggle-eyes the Gory was clasped fondly to
the breast of Verociously Violent, who was under the

136

sleepy delusion that he was three years old again, and
this was his mother.
Red Ronald was pedalling the wheels of the
Keep-the-Boat-from-Sinking-and-Scare-Away-the-
Big-Sea-Creatures Machine slower and slower until
he stopped entirely and drooped snoring over the
handlebars.
And the Ship’s Cook collapsed face down in his
snail and jellyfish pie. (He would still be picking bits of
snail shell and egg out of his nostrils three days later.)
Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs waited till
everybody on the deck was completely still – and then
they waited five minutes more, just to make sure. Then
slowly, quietly, they slipped down the rigging of the
mast. Hiccup was carrying the sleeping Toothless in
his breast pocket, and Camicazi had the slumbering
Stormfly draped around her shoulders like a scarf.
They tip-toed across the deck of the American
Dream 2, carefully, carefully picking their way through
the sleeping, snoring Warriors lying strewn on the
boards, the sweet yellow-brown smoke from the
cauldron billowing across the ship and making their
eyes water. Cautiously, gently, Hiccup took the ticking-
thing from around Norbert’s wrist, and tied it back
again to his own.

137

Quietly, softly, Camicazi removed the large
bunch of keys from Norbert’s waistband with her
quick, light little fingers, and she opened the lock of
the Hatch that led down to the hold where they were
holding the Wanderers. It took all three of them to
lift up the Hatch, which they did with a whining C-C-
C-CREAK! And then they threw down a rope and the
keys to the Wanderers below, Hiccup whispering as
loud as he dared to tell them to unlock their chains
and climb up, one by one.
The first two out were Bearcub and his
Grandmother.
Bearcub was in a state of high excitement, and
danced round his Grandmother squeaking, ‘I TOLD
you! I TOLD you he would rescue us! You see! You
see! Not ALL Vikings are wicked, and we’re not
DOOMED after all!’
Bearcub’s Grandmother was torn between her
delight at being rescued, and her annoyance that her
prophecy of DOOM wasn’t being fulfilled. ‘Mff,’ she
sniffed. ‘We’re not rescued YET. If just one of those
Vikings wakes up, we’re all as dead as dinosaurs…
DOOMED, the lot of us… a one-way ticket to the
happy hunting grounds…’
‘Can you work out how to get back to your home

138

from here?’ asked Hiccup, consulting the ticking-thing
anxiously. ‘And take us back to Berk when you’ve
got there?’
The scary white wilderness all around them
seemed an unlikely sort of home to Hiccup, but there
was a happy glint in Bearcub’s Grandmother’s wild
eyes, although she tried to hide it. She breathed in the
air, as cold as needles, and peered through the mists as
if looking at something very familiar. She nodded. ‘A
Wanderer is never lost,’ she said. ‘We don’t need that
silly little bauble of yours to take us home. I could have
showed that ridiculous Viking with the axe the way to
America, if he’d had the intelligence to ask me…’
Hiccup tried to organise launching the landing-
boats in a QUIET sort of way, which was impossible,
and Hiccup hopped from foot to foot in anxiety as
the Hysterical Warriors mumbled in their sleep with
every crash of the oars. They were heavily armed, with
swords, and wicked axes, and every sort of dagger, and
Bearcub’s Grandmother did have a point: Hiccup had
no doubt that if awoken, they would deal out death
with a vengeance.
But it seemed that luck was with the escapers.
The seven landing-boats plopped into the water
without any of the Hysterics opening their eyes.

139

The Wanderers filled the boats, and the first
boat began to row through the mists, Bearcub’s
Grandmother standing up straight and tall at the front,
pointing the way with one outstretched arm.
The last landing-boat had filled up, apart from
Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi.
Fishlegs was watching Hiccup, as Hiccup got
ready to climb down over the rim of the American
Dream 2 and into the last landing-boat.
There were flat icebergs very close to the left
and right of them. Camicazi had taken over from the
snoring Red Ronald, and was steering the American
Dream 2, making sure the ship was moving forward in
a straight line so that it didn’t bump into the icebergs.
She had tied the slumbering Stormfly to her chest, and
the little dragon suddenly stirred violently in her sleep,
jogging Camicazi’s arm on the steering wheel… the
American Dream 2 swerved suddenly and violently to
the left…
… just as Hiccup was dangling over the edge on
a rope, preparing to let himself drop into the little boat
filled with Wanderers below.
‘Wooooahhhhh!’ gasped Hiccup, as the rope
swung him forward, leaving the landing-boat behind.
‘Watch where you’re going, Camicazi!’

140

But Stormfly seemed to be
having some sort of nightmare, and
was squirming around wildly, so that
Camicazi was struggling to see over
her wriggling tail as it flapped in
Camicazi’s face. In those vital
seconds, the
American
Dream 2
careered
erratically
forward,
glancing off an
iceberg to the
left, before
Stormfly

settled down and Camicazi got the
boat under control again. In the
meantime, when the boat hit the
iceberg, Hiccup had lost his grip on the rope
he was dangling from, and plunged downward…

141

12. R-R-R-R-UUUUNNNNNN!!!!!!

… and landed, rather painfully, on his bottom, RIGHT
in the middle of a circle of Polar-serpents.
Slowly the Polar-serpents’ heads turned one
hundred and eighty degrees, like the heads of owls, to
look at Hiccup.
‘OK…’ stammered Hiccup. ‘Easy now… nice
Polar-serpents… sweet Polar-serpents… what lovely
sharp horns you have…’
‘All the better,’ whined the nearest
Polar-serpent, ‘for spearing
you with.’

‘R-R-R-R-
R-U-U-U-U-U-
U-U-U-UNNNNNN!!!!!!!’
shouted Camicazi from the
deck of the American Dream 2.
Hiccup didn’t need to be told.
He scrambled to his feet, slipping and sliding
on the slippery ice.
The Polar-serpent has a very strange way of
manouvering across the ice floes, and if Hiccup hadn’t
been right in the middle of fleeing for his life, he might

142

have admired it. Half the pack of Polar-serpents
spread out their wings like the sails of ships, braced
their talons, and then shot forward on their smooth
bellies, rocketing after Hiccup, their noses pointed
straight toward him like darts for a dartboard. The
remaining Polar-serpents slid into the water, swift and
silent as alligators, and joined the chase from under
the ice.
‘Don’t fall over, don’t fall over, don’t fall over!’
begged Hiccup, clasping Toothless to his chest to stop
him falling out of his waistcoat as he ran. He could
hear the Polar-serpents whirring closer and closer,
their nails screeching on the ice.

Now the shadows of those that were swimming
under the ice swooped like swallows under his feet.
The American Dream 2 was still steaming
alongside the iceberg.
‘Hang on, Hiccup!’ shouted Camicazi at the
steering wheel. ‘We’re coming to rescue you!’
But Hiccup had no intention of hanging on. He
was running faster than he ever had done in his life.
‘Mfff,’ sniffed Bearcub’s Grandmother. ‘It
doesn’t look good.’ She tut-tutted. ‘He’s not
long for this world, you mark my words.’
She held up a skinny finger. ‘He’s
DOOMED, I tell you, DOOMED.’

It seemed a fairly safe prediction, under the
circumstances.
CCCC-CCC—RRUNNNNNK!
A great horn speared up through the ice right in
front of Hiccup.
He swerved around it in the nick of time.
CCCC-CCCCRUNNNNK! CRRRUNNK!
CRUNNNNKK!!!!
Three more appeared, and Hiccup slalomed
round them too.
‘Kill them!’ shrieked Camicazi.
Fishlegs had got hold of one of Norbert’s great
bow-and-arrow harpoons.

It is unclear how he thought he was going to kill
FIFTY Polar-serpents with the one harpoon, but he
was pointing it in the general direction of the Polar-
serpents with the bow upside-down, and his eyes shut.
As the harpoon went off Fishlegs fell backwards,
letting go of the bow, which ricocheted across the
deck, and jammed itself under the rim of the boat.
The harpoon sailed through the air, missing the
Polar-serpents by at least ten metres.
But it was right bang on target for Hiccup, and
would have hit him splang in the chest if the rope
hadn’t run out and pulled it to a sharp halt, sending it
crashing to the ice with a clang.
‘Why are you shooting at me?’ howled a sprinting
Hiccup. ‘Haven’t I got enough problems?’
The harpoon clattered in front of him, setting off
little sprays of snow as it bounced across the ice.
‘Oh I see…’ panted Hiccup, and he launched
himself at the harpoon as it dragged off…
But he just missed catching hold of the rope with
both hands.
‘Great God Thor… ow!… I could do… with
some HELP here…’ begged Hiccup, his chin in the
snow.
But it seemed the Great God Thor was

146

temporarily deaf. The Polar-serpents were closing in
for the kill, sending out thunderbolts of flame that only
just missed incinerating poor Hiccup.
Hiccup scrambled to his feet. The harpoon was
way out of reach now, his last hope of getting back
on board the boat. The iceberg stretched out flat in
front of him. He knew he couldn’t outrun the
Polar-serpents, who were already gaining on him.
To his left there was a gigantic cliff of ice, with an
enormous dark Cave at the bottom of it, like the open
mouth of a monster.
Hiccup ran full tilt into the Cave.
The Polar-serpents followed.
He could hear their talons clicking and scraping
on the ice, and their quick, fast breathing, so close
that they were trying to grab hold of the ticking-thing
bouncing along behind him, like great cats pouncing on
a tasty morsel tied to the end of a string.
What’s that up ahead? thought Hiccup. Oh Woden
the Great and Magnificent, I am begging you, please don’t
let that be a wall, the finish of the Cave, a dead-end, in
which case I really am dead…
It was a wall.
But as Hiccup ran closer still, he could see it was
a rough and craggy wall with nooks and crannies and

147

ledges and knobbly bits, and if he could climb up it
before the Polar-serpents caught him, surely there
would be a tunnel up there somewhere…
O Bending Biceps and Quivering Quadrapeds
and Twitching Toenails and Little Hairy Curly Bits of
Thunderous Thor!!!!!
It wasn’t a wall at all. It was a DRAGON.
He was running straight, full-tilt, as hard as he
could towards a truly immense sleeping Sea-dragon, so
huge that its head filled the entire cave in front of him.
Hiccup put the brakes on.
He skidded abruptly, screeching on the ice, slid
forward, arms waggling desperately, trying to
stop before he bumped into

the thing, because he really did NOT want to wake it
up…
… and he came to a halt just in the nick of time,
feet away from the dragon’s sleeping chin.
Hiccup stopped.
But the ticking-thing attached to Hiccup’s wrist
did not stop.
Momentum carried the ticking-thing UP from
the ice where it had been bouncing along behind

Hiccup, sailing o-o-o-over Hiccup’s head, and on
and on and up… and landing, sharp and precise, on
the closed eyelid of the sleeping dragon, as if it were
politely, but firmly, knocking on a door.
‘Oh brother… oh brother… oh brother…’
whispered Hiccup, reeling the ticking-thing in and
around his wrist.
The eyelid fluttered.
It stayed down, as Hiccup backed slowly away.
‘Please stay closed… please stay closed… please
stay closed…’
And then the eye opened.
In the darkness of the Cave it was like turning on
a great yellow searchlight, and Hiccup was blinded by
the glare.

How quickly the hunters
become the hunted.
Hiccup was now running
TOWARDS the Polar-
serpents, confusing them
considerably… until they
too realised that that bright
light was in fact the eye
of an enormous, no-longer-
sleeping, dragon.

Yowling
and screeching
like a pack of
wolves, the
Polar-serpents came
tumbling and somersaulting to
a stop and turned to run back the
other way, with Hiccup belting after
them, arms and legs going like pistons.
And behind them the terrible
beginnings of a great rumbling
R-R-R-ROAR…
The American Dream 2 had passed on from

150

the iceberg now, and was some distance away, and
Camicazi was trying to get it to turn around.
Fishlegs looked over his shoulder to see the
entire pack of Polar-serpents shooting out of the great
Ice Cave like arrows shot from a bow.
Followed by Hiccup, running flat out.
‘What’s… going… on?’ asked Fishlegs, knowing
that whatever it was, it was Very Bad News.
The flat iceberg stretched out in front of Hiccup,
far too big for safety. There was nowhere to go, no
trees to hide under. No rocks, no tunnels for shelter.

So there wasn’t really any point in running.
But the young Viking and the Polar-serpents still
ran, nonetheless, hoping to put off their deaths for one
moment, one second even.
For to Fishlegs’s horror, two great yellow eyes
slowly appeared in the darkness of the mouth of the
Ice Cave.
Whatever it was, it was huge.

Something
like a moving
mountain with
wings exploded
out of the Cave.
The cliff erupted
into a volcano of
snow, as this Something burst out
of there. A great mass of raw
energy, a roar of wild triumph
screaming from its throat,
sending snow and ice
exploding in all
directions.

It was so big it momentarily blotted out the
moon as it sailed through the air, and landed,
screaming, on the iceberg Hiccup was running across.
So big was this Thing, that when the Thing
landed, it crashed through the entire iceberg, sending
great slabs of ice, and fountains of water, shooting up
into the air. And Hiccup and the Polar-serpents were
catapulted upwards.
The Polar-serpents ricocheted off in all directions
like fireworks.
And up and up Hiccup sailed… o-o-o-o-o-over
the surprised, sinking Monster’s head… across the
sea… up and towards the deck of the American
Dream 2… where he just missed catching on to the
rim of the boat with his flailing fingers, and fell down,
down, the side of the boat, and into the sea.
Where he would have remained if the harpoon
that Fishlegs had shot earlier hadn’t snagged into the
back of his waistcoat, and dragged him along as if the
boat had caught itself
a fish.

Hand over hand, Hiccup heaved himself up the
rope, and Camicazi and Fishlegs hauled him up and
on to the deck of the American Dream 2, steaming
westward with its still-sleeping crew. And as he
clambered, dripping, over the edge of the boat, heart
racing like a rabbit, scarcely able to believe that he was
still alive…
‘The Machine!’ he gasped, and immediately ran
to the Stop-the-Boat-From-Sinking-and-Scare-Away-
the-Monster-Sea-Creatures Machine. ‘Help me get this
guy off it, Fishlegs.’
The two young Vikings dragged the dead-to-
the-world Red Ronald off the Machine, and Hiccup
looked fearfully over his shoulder. The Monster had
disappeared underneath the broken remains of the
iceberg it had shattered. But was it his imagination,
or could he see a racing, shooting, white line of water,
beginning to TURN AROUND, and move back in
their direction…?
Hiccup thrust his trembling feet into the pedals
of the Machine and circled them furiously, making the
ridiculous trumpet-like thingy revolve like a whirligig.
‘I thought you said that Machine was useless,’
panted Fishlegs.
‘Well, hopefully I was wrong,’ gasped Hiccup.
‘Because otherwise we are DEAD.’

155

‘Full steam ahead!’ shouted Camicazi, rushing
back to the steering wheel of the boat, and the
American Dream 2 surged away from the iceberg.
‘I… think… it’s… working…’ panted Hiccup.
Thor only knew how the Machine worked,*
but that white wake of water seemed to slow down…
and slow down… and slow down… and finally turn
away. So whether or not Norbert’s Machine would
prevent a boat from sinking, it did seem that it was
not quite as loopy as it looked, and it really could scare
away a Monster Sea-dragon.
With a massive sigh of relief, Hiccup turned and
he looked back over his other shoulder… to see the
seven boats of Wanderers oaring away from them as
quickly as possible in the other direction.
‘Hey!’ cried Hiccup in alarm. He showered
Fishlegs with drops of seawater as he waved his arms
at them. ‘Fishlegs, take over, and for Thor’s sake
DON’T STOP PEDALLING…’
Hiccup swapped places with Fishlegs, and ran up
and down the deck shouting: ‘Don’t leave us! What
are you doing? Come and get us! What are they doing?

* In his later memoirs, Hiccup suggests that the ‘trumpet’ attachment
emitted an unbearable noise at a pitch too high for the human ear to hear.
Other sources say that the hearing of the larger Sea-dragons was so acute
they could pick up the noise of a shrimp breathing several miles away,
and this would certainly explain why the Machine worked on the
‘Dragon-Mammoths’, but not on smaller dragons such as Polar-serpents.

Camicazi, turn round and go after them.’
‘Are you CRAZY?’ interrupted Fishlegs.
‘What about that THING? We have to get out of here as
quickly as possible.’
‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING?’ Hiccup cupped his
hands and shouted through the swiftly descending sea
mist at the Wanderers, fast disappearing in the other
direction. Hiccup’s heart sank. He couldn’t believe
the injustice of it. After ALL that he had done, ALL
that they had risked to save them from slavery, the
Wanderers were running away, abandoning them!
‘COWARDS!’ yelled Camicazi over her shoulder.
‘YELLOWBELLIES! TRAITORS!’

For a few minutes, Hiccup could still see
Bearcub’s Grandmother, standing straight and tall on
the edge of her boat.
And then she disappeared into the mist.

13. THEY WERE IN ITS
TERRITORY NOW…

So that was the end of the last hope of Escape from
the Quest to America.
All hundred and nineteen of the Wanderer
Slaves escaped.
But Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs did not.
Hiccup saved Bearcub.
But who would save Hiccup?
They had their work cut out over the next five
hours or so, trying to prevent the great boat from
crashing into an iceberg in the mist. And by the
time the mists lifted it was nearly morning, they had
steamed out of the land of the Icebergs and into the
Great West Ocean, and the Hysterics were beginning
to stir in their sleep.
It was astonishing that they had all slept through
the whole thing, but they had, even Toothless, who
had snored happily through being chased by Polar-
serpents and bumping over icebergs and submerged in
ice-cold water, without so much as opening an eyelid.
Red Ronald was the first to wake up, to find
Camicazi pedalling the Keep-the-Boat-from-Sinking-
and-Scare-Away-the-Monster-Sea-Creatures Machine.

159

‘I won’t tell Norbert, if you don’t,’ said Camicazi,
climbing off the Machine and letting Red Ronald climb
back on again. Red Ronald was so pathetically grateful
he practically cried, for he knew if his Boss found out
he had fallen asleep on the job he would quickly find
himself on the wrong side of the Axe of Doom.
Hiccup re-tied the ticking-thing to Norbert’s
wrist, so that Norbert would never know he had tried
to steal it, and then he judged it best that the three of
them should be out of the way when Norbert made
the discovery that all of his slaves had escaped into the
night.
So, once Hiccup’s clothes had thoroughly dried
on the chimney, they crept back up to the crow’s nest,
where they fell asleep, curled around the comforting
warmth of the two dragons, who gave out lovely waves
of heat like two little hot water bottles. They were only
awoken by Norbert’s great roar of rage.
At first Norbert was sure that it was all Hiccup’s
fault.
‘THAT WRETCHED WEIRD LITTLE RED-
HAIRED BOY! I SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM
WHILE I HAD THE CHANCE!’ screamed Norbert
the Nutjob. ‘HE’S MADE OFF WITH ALL OF MY
SLAVES!’

160

Hiccup put his head over the top of the crow’s
nest.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he called down. ‘I’m up here…’
Norbert was so furious, he swiped at the mast
with his Axe as if he were chopping down a tree,
taking a big slice out of it. ‘WHAT HAVE YOU
DONE WITH MY SLAVES???!!!’ he roared.
‘I haven’t done ANYTHING with your slaves,’
Hiccup called down. ‘If I had done, I would have run
away myself.’
This was quite a good argument, but Norbert
wasn’t in a listening kind of mood and he took another
swing at the mast.
‘Now, now,’ Hiccup shouted, ‘we need that
mast, you know, and I’m the only one who can read
the ticking-thing and get us to America, aren’t I?
So without me, you can’t create your Land of the
Nutjobs… your Empire…’
With a massive effort, Norbert managed to stop
himself from cutting down the mast. But nonetheless,
Hiccup thought he might stay up in the crow’s nest
until he felt Norbert had calmed down.
Toothless and Stormfly both woke up much,
much later, when the sun was high in the sky, and the
two little dragons had absolutely no recollection of

161

what had happened.
The ship was way out in the Great West Ocean
now. The world around them had turned to water.
Nothing but water, water everywhere.
It was as if a Great Flood had taken place and
washed over every precious piece of land. And now
there was nothing but sea below and clouds above, and
their tiny little speck of a boat crawling across it, like a
bug across a window pane.
It was as if they had left this world entirely and
were sailing through space, looking for another star.
There was no way of contacting other humans. They
were on their own, in a universe of water that went on
for ever.
And what was worse, was that the ship now
seemed to be being followed by something.
From high up in the crow’s nest, Hiccup,
Fishlegs and Camicazi saw it first.
It was the white wake of a GIGANTIC
Sea-Monster.
‘SEA-DRAGON ON THE EASTERN
HORIZON!’ screamed Norbert from down below
on the deck. ‘GET PEDALLING!!!!! OR I’LL FEED
YOU TO THE MONSTER WITH MY OWN FAIR
HANDS!!!’

162

The crew took it in turns to pedal the Scare-
Away-the-Big-Sea-Creatures Machine so fast that the
Machine’s spokes and wheels whined a screeching,
creaking, out-of-control complaint, and the trumpet-
attachment thingy whirled so crazily, it looked in
danger of falling off.
But the Sea-dragon was not scared away. The
sound the Machine made was so physically unbearable
to the Monster that it kept a safe distance from the
boat. But it did not stop it from following them.
All of the rest of that day the Sea-dragon followed
the American Dream 2, and all of the night.
The crew went to sleep at their battle-stations,
upright in their armour, harpoons at the ready.
As they closed their eyes in sleep, it was the last
thing they saw on the horizon, the long thin line of
a white wake, and the great spiny back of one of the
Great, Deadly Terrors of the Deep, rising and falling as
it swam inexorably after them like some ghastly Fate.
They were in ITS territory now…
… and IT knew it.
All it had to do, was to be patient.
The only thing preventing the Sea-dragon from
moving in for the kill, and tearing apart the American
Dream 2 with its mighty jaws as if it were a child’s toy,

163

was a dilapidated, cranky, over-worked little Machine.
A Machine that was looking increasingly creaky
and wonky as each crew member pedalled it furiously
to death.
If a screw came loose on one of those wobbling
wheels, that whirligig trumpet thingy would come
whizzing off and…
It didn’t bear thinking about.
EVERYBODY had nightmares that night.
And it made Hiccup’s heart skip a beat or two
when he woke to see the wake of the Sea-dragon on
the horizon. It was still following them.
Hiccup crept down from the crow’s nest, and
over to the Steering Deck where Norbert was staring
at it too, through his looking-glass thingy.
‘Norbert,’ said Hiccup nervously. ‘I just have a
feeling that that Sea-dragon doesn’t like us for some
reason. Don’t you think we should go home?’
For a moment, Hiccup didn’t think Norbert
had heard him, for Norbert carried on looking at the
horizon, muttering to himself slowly: ‘That… is the
largest Sea-Monster I have EVER seen…’
And then Norbert took his looking-glass thingy
from his eye and looked straight down at Hiccup.
‘No dragon, however big, is going to take away

164

my dream,’ ground out Norbert the Nutjob from
between clenched teeth, shaking his fist in Hiccup’s
face. ‘I’ll jump down that Thing’s throat and personally
remove its wishbone with my axe if I have to. You
understand me, boy?’
Hiccup nodded.
‘DEATH or AMERICA!’ roared Norbert the
Nutjob. ‘Now read me the ticking-thing, and stop
talking treachery.’
Hiccup climbed despondently back to the crow’s
nest, and relayed the bad news to his friends.
‘This just gets worse and worse, it’s like some
sort of nightmare…’ moaned Fishlegs. ‘We could
have escaped on our own, but, oh no, you have to
choose to try and escape with a hundred and nineteen
Wanderers, very subtle, and they aren’t even Vikings…’
‘I made them a promise,’ replied Hiccup
automatically.
‘And look how they repaid you!!’ Fishlegs pointed
out. ‘So you’ve saved a hundred and nineteen not-very-
nice complete strangers, but you’ve doomed your two
best friends in the process. Nice choice, Hiccup. Any
escape plans, Camicazi?’
Even Camicazi, who had escaped from practically
every Tribe in the Archipelago, seemed to have run out

165

of hope that she could escape from this situation. ‘I
think the safest place to be right now is on this ship,’
she said. ‘Because out there, is that Sea-dragon. Do
you think it’s the same one that chased you in the land
of the Polar-serpents?’
‘Definitely,’ said Hiccup. ‘I recognised the spines
on its back. Those kind of spikes are mostly seen on
dragons that are now extinct.’
‘What kind of dragon is it, anyway?’ asked
Fishlegs.
‘I don’t know,’ said Hiccup slowly. ‘It was
difficult to tell because it was so dark, but it wasn’t
a species I recognised. It reminds me of some of the
ones that I’ve heard about in the ancient Sagas. A
Leviathorgan, or a Gorgenghast.’
‘Aren’t those just mythical creatures?’ asked
Camicazi. ‘You know, made-up, like unicorns and
mermaids and things?’
‘Maybe they’re not made-up,’ said Hiccup.
‘Maybe they just haven’t been seen for a long time.
Just because we don’t know how that Machine works,
doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. Just because we’ve
never seen America, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We’re
in waters that we’re not used to now, the waters of the
Great West Ocean. There could be all sorts of terrible

166

things down there in the fathoms below us, who
knows?’
It was not a cheerful thought.
To keep their spirits up, they thought about what
everybody would be doing back at home.
The Hooligan Tribe would be back on Berk now,
playing Bashyball in the mud, preparing for the spring
shearing, painting the boats for the summer sailings.
‘I wonder who won the Inter-Tribe Friendly
Swimming Race?’ mused Fishlegs.
‘My mother is the Archipelago Long Distance
Swimming Champion, Bertha the Unsinkable!’ said
Camicazi. ‘She’d have stayed out there for days!’
‘And why wouldn’t my father have won?’ argued
Hiccup loyally. ‘He’s just as good at swimming as
Bertha…’
‘NO WAY!’ insisted Camicazi.
And so they argued, back and forth, not that
it mattered, of course, but it passed the time, and it
helped to be thinking of what might be happening
at home.
They did not realise, of course, that in fact
neither of their parents had actually left the beach, let
alone won the Competition, on that fateful morning
several weeks ago…

167

14. WHAT HAPPENED
BACK IN THE MURDEROUS
MOUNTAINS

Several weeks earlier, back in the Murderous
Mountains, it looked like Madguts would have the
glory of being Last Man Back. He lasted for forty-one
hours out there in the water, which, even when covered
with a thin layer of Deepest Purple Fleshfang Oil, is an
almost superhuman feat.
He was greeted by a cheering crowd of Viking
Tribesmen on the Long Beach as he strode out of the
waves, arms held above his head in victory, Gumboil
trotting a few steps in front of him.
The Chief Judge, the sad little Bashem-Oik,
rushed up the beach to meet Madguts. He gave him
a golden medal, and a pipe that Madguts jammed
between his lips as he made a Victory Lap of the
Beach, acknowledging the cheering.
Gumboil bowed towards the Inter-Tribal Friendly
Swimming Race Committee. ‘My Master greets the
Judges, and claims the Victory of being the Last Man
Back in this Swimming Contest. And as Last Man
Back, according to the Rules, he may make a single

168

demand of the losing Chieftains, Stoick and Bertha.’
Poor Stoick was sitting with his head in his
hands. Stoick was not a natural worrier, but he was
now terribly concerned about the fate of his son,
Hiccup. Now he got to his feet and roared, ‘But
Hiccup is not back! My son may yet return and claim
the prize himself!’
It was a desperate hope, but Stoick was clinging
to it. Madguts grinned an unpleasant grin with not
enough teeth in it. He whispered in his assistant’s ear.
‘My Master points out, respectfully,’ Gumboil
bowed in the direction of Stoick and Bertha, ‘that
Stoick’s son, Hiccup, Bertha’s daughter, Camicazi, and
the odd looking boy they call Fishlegs, are most likely
to have DROWNED in the very first hours of the
Competition…’
‘NO!’ bellowed Stoick, with an anger born of
fear.
The Inter-Tribal Friendly Swimming Race
Committee nodded wisely and sadly to each other. It
did seem likely at this point.
‘This is true,’ admitted the Chief Judge solemnly.
‘For Snotface Snotlout here reports that he and
Dogsbreath the Duhbrain saw Hiccup and the other
two in difficulties. He tried to help them…’

169

‘We did our best,’ said Snotlout,
sorrowfully and nobly, ‘but we were
swept away by the force of the current,
weren’t we, Dogsbreath?’
Dogsbreath grunted, and removed
his helmet out of respect for the dead.
‘It’s a tragedy,’ sighed Snotlout.
‘Hiccup was like a brother to me…’
Stoick gave a groan of sadness,
terrible to hear, and turned away.
‘Don’t worry, Stoick, my
dear chap,’ Bertha comforted him
awkwardly. ‘Camicazi is with him,
and, trust me, she always turns up all
right… She could escape from Valhalla
itself…’

‘And so Madguts demands
his prize,’ smiled Gumboil
silkily. ‘And he demands…
the kingdoms of Stoick and
Bertha, who should be taken
immediately from this beach,
and up to the Sky Burial Place
on the clifftops to be sacrificed
to the Sky Dragons!’

‘Whaaaaaaaat?’ roared the Hooligans and the Bog-
Burglars in fury. Uproar on the beach.
‘But… but… but this is outrageous!’ stuttered
Bertha. ‘He can’t ask for that!’
‘I hope you’re not going to go back on your
word, Bertha,’ Gumboil wagged a warning finger at the
apoplectic Bog-Burglar Chief. ‘Don’t be such a bad
sport. I am presuming that if YOU had won, you would
have expected Madguts to do YOUR bidding…’
‘This is just a Friendly Swimming Race! We were
only going to ask for Madguts to cross the Sullen Sea in
a bathtub with his underpants on his head!’ yelled Bertha
indignantly.
‘More fool you,’ smiled Gumboil. Madguts is only
asking what Stoick’s ancestor, Grimbeard the Ghastly,
asked of Madguts’ ancestor, way back in the bad old
days…’
Old Wrinkly had been trying to interrupt for some
time. He got to his feet and cleared his throat.
‘A small technical point, Your Wheeziness,’ said
Old Wrinkly to the Chief Judge. ‘Let me tell again that
story from the bad old days, the Saga of Grimbeard the
Ghastly and the Swimming Race. Just in case there are
some people here who do not know it.’

171

GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY
and the SWIMMING RACE

Grimbeard the Ghastly was Stoick’s great-great-
grandfather, a wicked, successful pirate who became
the last King of the Archipelago. One day, Murderous
the Magnificent challenged Grimbeard the Ghastly to a
swimming race, and the two chiefs agreed the winner should
be granted a single demand.
So one cold morning they set out from the Western
Beach of the Murderous Mountains. Murderous the
Magnificent finally swam back to the same beach in seventy-
one hours and forty-two minutes, nearly three days in total.
His face had swollen to twice the size and his body was so
covered in wrinkles he looked like he had been pickled in
the brine.
The Hooligan Tribe waited on the beach hoping
and hoping for their chief to return. After a week, they
accepted that he must have drowned, and conceded
the victory to the Murderous Tribe. Murderous the
Magnificent claimed the Kingdom of the Archipelago, and
that, everybody thought, was the end of the matter. However,
three months later, Murderous the Magnificent was conducting
a night-time banquet on that very same beach. The highlight of
the banquet was the human sacrifice under the stars.
Just before the sacrifice took place, Grimbeard the

Ghastly came staggering out
of the surf. He was barely recognisable.
Half-human, half-monster, with skin like a dragon,all
entwined with seaweed, and he had shark’s teeth around
his calves like bracelets.
Grimbeard the Ghastly staggered up the beach
and collapsed. Murderous the Magnificent raised up his
sword to kill what he thought was some kind of demon…
then he saw that the monster was wearing around its waist
Grimbeard the Ghastly’s famous sword, the Stormblade!
The next words that Grimbeard spoke, as he lay
gasping for breath on the sand, can be repeated proudly by
every Hooligan schoolboy, so well-known are they:
‘Stay your hand, Murderous the Magnificent.
I am no ghost. It is I, Grimbeard the Ghastly, who have the
Greatest Stomach after all. I have survived the Open Ocean,
by the will of Thor, without seeking aid from float or boat, I
am the last man back, and I am come to claim my Kingdom
for the Hooligan Tribe!’
I am afraid that Grimbeard the Ghastly, who was not
a nice man, then insisted as his demand that Murderous the
Magnificent should be sacrificed to the Sky Dragons. The
Annual Inter-Tribe Swimming Race has been held every
year in memory of this historical event, but over the years it
has become more of a friendly competition.

‘There you are, you see!’ said Gumboil triumphantly.
‘For one hundred years the Murderous Tribe have
been waiting for our revenge, and now finally, the time
has come, and our pride shall be restored.’
‘Stop interrupting!’ snapped Old Wrinkly
‘Now, Grimbeard was, among other things, a terrible
trickster, a practical joker and an all-round cheat.
But however he achieved this extraordinary stunt, he
returned to this beach, Last Man Back (the Committee
might like to check the Sagas for this), exactly THREE
MONTHS, FIVE DAYS AND SIX HOURS
later! There ARE still three members of the race
unaccounted for, namely Hiccup, Fishlegs and the very
small Bog-Burglar they call Camicazi. I would propose
that if Grimbeard the Ghastly could stay out that long,
then, technically speaking, they could too… so we need
to wait three months, three days and eleven hours
before Madguts can claim his prize.’
Gasps from the crowd.
The Judges went into a ‘Thinking Scrum’ to
consult upon this matter.
‘OK, then,’ said the Chief Judge, emerging from
the Scrum and banging on the drum. ‘HERE IS
THE VERDICT of the Inter Tribal Swimming Race
Committee. As long as Madguts has stuck to the Rules

174

of the Competition, trickery played within those Rules
is a perfectly repectable Viking characteristic.’
Cheers of greedy joy from the Murderous Tribe.
Howls of sadness and fury from the Hooligans
and the Bog-Burglars.
‘I haven’t finished!’ cried the Chief Judge.
‘Madguts the Murderous is granted temporary custody
of Big-Boobied Bertha and Stoick the Vast. And we
Judges will stay on the beach to keep watch for the
three missing competitors. But the rest of you can go
home. And you will return back to this beach exactly
three months, five days and six hours from the start of
the race. If in that time no one has returned alive from
these waters, Madguts the Murderous will be declared
Last Man Back, the Berk and Bog-Burglar islands will
fall into Murderous hands, and Stoick and Bertha, I
am afraid, will be sacrificed to the Sky Dragons…’
The Chief Judge banged his staff upon the
ground. And so it was.
The three old Judges sat patiently on the beach,
through wind and rain and storm, looking out to sea.
The rest of the Bog-Burglars and the Hooligans
sailed sorrowfully back to their islands.
And poor old Stoick and Big-Boobied Bertha
were not playing Bashyball in the mud, or supervising

175

the spring shearing, or painting the boats for the
summer sailings, as Hiccup had imagined.
They were incarcerated in the deepest and
darkest Murderous Cave Dungeons, so cramped and
dark that they could barely move a muscle.
There was a tiny barred window in Stoick’s
dungeon, which had a good view over the Great West
Ocean and Stoick would fall asleep sometimes, looking
out over this view, and dream that his son was alive,
and swimming back to him across the sea. But then he
would wake up, and it was nothing but a dream, and
all there was was water, water, stretching out for ever,
and the cold lonely cry of the seagulls.

15. IT’S A LONG WAY TO
AMERICA

Now follows the part of the story in which Hiccup
travelled across the Great West Ocean.*
It would take far too long to tell you what
happened every minute, every hour, every day.
Thousands and thousands of miles the Great
Ship travelled, the puffing fiery furnace sending them
skimming across the water far quicker than sails alone.
Thousands and thousands of miles across the Ocean,
sometimes in sunshine and glass-flat sea and windless
skies, sometimes in gales and hurricanes and driving
rain, surging up and down on the back of the white-
topped waves as if they were aboard a great galloping
horse.
Travelling across the Great West Ocean is a
VERY long way indeed.
It is indeed such a long way, it seemed to Hiccup
to be like stepping off the edge of the World and into
Forever. And through wind and sun and frost and rain,
this Sea-dragon followed the doomed ship, constant
as a meteor orbiting the earth, just as if the ship were
a planet that had its own particular moon, slowly and
predictably circling it.

* The Atlantic Ocean, as we now call it.

The Hysterics were still hale and hearty, wolfing
down their smoked reindeer with gusto, and washing
it down with a nice dose of bull’s blood and strong
cabbage BEER.
They were in fine, violent spirits, joking with
one another, and sometimes going too far, and so the
whole deck erupted into fisticuffs, and Norbert had
to break up the fights by storming into the centre of
the trouble, whirring his axe above his head like the
propeller of one of his mad inventions.
The Hysterics sang all day and night long, of
their sweethearts at home, of Jellybelly’s bright eyes,
and Grimhilda’s magnificent chin, and fortunes to be
made, and blood to be spilt, in the New World called
America.
And at night, as they slept, their dreaming minds
drew maps of America and each map of this paradise-
on-earth was drawn according to their own desires.
To Nutjob it was a place of GOLD, where all his
inventions worked like clockwork, and he could rule
on a golden throne with a golden crown on his head
and a golden axe in one hand.
To lazy little Toothless, it would be a land of
FOOD, with small furry animals in such abundance
that you barely had to raise a claw to catch them.

178

You just opened up your little tooth-free jaws, and
they elbowed each other out of the way to crowd down
your throat, and troop downwards, squeaking, into
your fat little stomach.
To Fishlegs, it was a world where nobody tried to
make you play Bashyball.
To Camicazi, it was a land full of sword-fights,
and kidnaps, and mad, hairy opponents to burgle and
tease.
And as for Hiccup…
Why, strange to tell, Hiccup’s map of America
looked a lot like Berk.
Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi often slept at
night by the warmth of the ship’s chimney, and then
spent their days up in their treetop house at the top
of the mast, or played upon the rigging, only coming
down for Hiccup to read the ticking-thing, or to have a
meal.
As the ship puffed south, the weather grew
warmer, and they could take off some of their stolen
furs and hang them out on the crow’s nest.
The Sea-dragon followed them still.
The creaking, clanking, shambolic little wreck of
a Machine was held together by bits of old sea rope,
and ancient twine. With every revolution of the pedals,

180

the trumpet-thingy seemed in trembling danger of
falling off…
… but by some miracle, the wheels still turned,
and it hadn’t fallen off…
… yet.
Every evening just at sundown, Norbert would
summon Hiccup to his tent to read the ticking-thing.
There he would be, pacing up and down on the
rocking deck in front of his maps, all spread out on the
bearskin tablecloth, and as the days went on he grew
more and more impatient, clapping his great hands
together, and muttering to himself, ‘Nearly there now!
Nearly there!’ before Hiccup told him the reading for
the day. Norbert wasn’t a very patient man, and this
waiting was killing him.
He had a tiny replica of the American Dream
2, exquisitely made in every detail, but only about
eight centimetres high. It had a real working sail, and
the writing on the side was so tiny it looked like it
had been drawn by a flea. Norbert used his axe to
push this boat across the surface of his great map,
according to Hiccup’s reading of the ticking thing, so
that he could see where they might be on the Great
West Ocean. Every day it drew nearer and nearer to
the great landfall Norbert had drawn on it and called

181

‘AMERICA’, until it was now, according to the map,
only a day or two’s sail away, and Norbert could barely
contain his excitement.
Hiccup was very uneasy. He remembered what
Norbert had said about how they were only safe for
as long as Norbert needed him to read the ticking-
thing for him. Now they were so close to America,
a nasty look came into Norbert’s eye when it rested
on Hiccup. Norbert had taken to polishing the dark
side of his axe until it gleamed like ebony, whispering
to it as if it were a precious pet: ‘Not long now my
darling… soon you shall be fed…’
Hiccup did not like the sound of this at all, and
he took the precaution of getting Camicazi to steal
them back their weapons. He had a nasty feeling they
were going to need them.
So there was a great knot of anxiety in Hiccup’s
stomach. Especially as he watched the crew while they
were having breakfast outside the Cooking Tent the
next day. The Hysterics were in an excitable mood,
singing their songs with great gusto:
‘There’s LAND ahead lads, LAND ahead, a
LAND of milk and HONEY,
‘We’ll soon be off these rocking waves and
rolling in the MONEY…’

182

16. LAND AHOY!!!!!!

A storm was brewing.
Ominous clouds were building up in the skies
above, like a god with a headache, and the boat was
already beginning to rock beneath their feet as the
swell grew larger, and the wind picked up.
Suddenly, there was a great flash of lightning
that lit up the sky.
Hiccup could see distinctly in that sudden flash
the black back of the great Sea-dragon on the horizon.
And just as the lightning struck, there was a great
gleeful cry of JOY from the lookout on the first mast:
‘NUTJOB-LAND AHO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-Y!!!!!!!!!’
And the Hysterics rushed to the edge of the boat,
jostling and trampling and elbowing each other out of
the way.
They wanted to be the first to catch a glimpse of
that glorious, mythical, land, that mysterious place they
called ‘America’.
That first sighting was just as wonderful as they
could possibly have imagined.
Above them, the storm was breaking, and rain
poured down on their heads, as the ship bucked up
and down on the back of the plunging waves.

183

But on the horizon,
the long grey smudge of
land that seemed to stretch infinitely
from west to east was bathed in sunshine under the
bluest of blue skies.
America.
The land of dreams, it really did exist, and in that
wonderful moment, it was just as it should be.
No sooner had Norbert clapped eyes on this
country that he had waited so long, and journeyed so
far, to find, that he drew his axe in order to exact an
old revenge.

‘Now, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third,’
grinned Norbert the Nutjob, with the light of triumph
glowing in his manic eye, ‘I have no need of YOU any
more… and now you will feel the sharp end of the Axe
of Doom… PREPARE TO DIE!’
Hiccup leapt up on to a barrel so that everyone
could see him. ‘DON’T KILL ME JUST BECAUSE
I’M A RED-HEAD, NORBERT!’ shouted Hiccup as
loud as he could.

The Hysterics crowded at the ship’s rail turned
around.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Verociously Violent,
whose hair was a great shock of scarlet, flaming like a
fiery furnace.
‘What are you talking about?’ blustered Norbert.
‘NORBERT, HERE, DOESN’T WANT ANY
RED-HEADS TO BE LIVING IN THE PROMISED
LAND!’ yelled Hiccup. ‘HE’S GOING TO KILL US
ALL WITH HIS AXE OF DOOM!’
It just so happened that, by coincidence, quite a
lot of the red-headed members of the Hysteric Tribe
had suffered at the hands of Norbert’s wild temper
and his experiments. (For instance, Norbert had sent
Verociously Violent and Goggle-eyes the Gory up in the
air to try out his Flying Machine experiment TWENTY-
SEVEN TIMES, and every single time, the Flying
Machine had crashed into the sea two minutes after it
took off.) So the red-heads drew their swords with an
angry rumble of revolt.
For their part, the Hysterics with blond hair had
always had a secret feeling of superiority. Now that
Norbert had brought it up, what could be better than
a whole Tribe of blonds, storming into the Future, hair
brighter than the cornfields?

186

So they too drew their swords, and within
a couple of seconds, to Norbert’s open-mouthed
amazement, the entire Tribe of Hysteric Warriors were
fighting each other as if they were desperate enemies.
It was a terrible battle indeed. Thor’s thunder
rolled out across the black and angry stormclouds,
and great jagged splinters of lightning cracked open
the skies and punched down on to the swelling seas
all around them. Huge frothing waves spilled over the
sides of the boat and across the deck, upsetting the
combatants as they fought in the drenching rain.
Camicazi joined Hiccup in fighting Norbert.
‘YOU, Norbert,’ teased Camicazi, ‘have the
mental capacity of a jellyfish with a lobotomy. You
have the leadership skills of a lemming with a learning
difficulty. You couldn’t run an Empire larger than my
toilet without making a complete dog’s breakfast of
it… which is a bit of a problem for a dictator…’
Hiccup lunged forward with a Left-handed
Heartseeker, and Norbert was so distracted by
Camicazi’s insults that he only just parried it in time.
And while he was occupied with the parry,
Camicazi leapt in and tickled him under the armpits.
‘Oooh, nice muscles, Norbert, have you been
working out?’

187

With a howl of fury, Norbert shook her off, and
Camicazi sprang backwards, and ducked his furious
swing of the axe.
‘Temper, temper…’ she scolded, and so mad
with rage was Norbert that he didn’t even
see Hiccup’s Twirling Double-Point until it
removed the bottom half of his beard, and
meanwhile, Camicazi sneaked in under his
left arm, and stole the ticking-thing from
out of his pocket, cutting the rope that tied it to
Norbert’s wrist.
‘Is this yours?’ asked Camicazi,
dangling the ticking-thing in front of him.

‘Tut, tut, you need to be careful with it, or someone
might steal it…’
‘Give it here!’ roared Norbert, slashing away at
her randomly.
‘Come and get it…’ sang Camicazi, twirling the
ticking-thing around her head, and bonking Norbert
on the nose with it, before she threw it to Hiccup, who
caught it neatly.
The only problem with Camicazi’s fighting
method was that it tended to make the opponent
REALLY REALLY MAD.
Norbert turned as red as a tomato, and
LAUNCHED himself at the two young Vikings,
howling like a dog.
The swords flashed together, in and out, lunge
and parry.
Norbert was a terrifying opponent, with his
sword in one hand and his axe swiping in the other.
But even though they were young, as you can
see, Hiccup and Camicazi were a formidable fighting
duo.
Who knows what would have happened, if
Toothless hadn’t taken it in his head to be helpful.
Toothless grabbed Norbert’s big map of America
from the table in his Tent, and flapped unsteadily, like

190

a large ungainly moth, over to the scene of the fight.
He hovered for a second over Hiccup, Camicazi and
Norbert, and then shook his head as he dropped
the map, so it spread out nicely as it fell, and
floated gently…
… on to the head of Norbert the Nutjob,
covering him from the top of his helmet to the bottom
of his midriff, like a mysterious lady of the Eastern
deserts.
‘Oh well done, Toothless!’ Toothless
congratulated himself, clapping his wings together in
an ecstasy of excitement. ‘Nice swooping!’
The deck heaved violently on the swell of a wave.
Norbert staggered, trying to regain his balance,
but with a map upon his head, he couldn’t see where
he was going…
He lurched violently to the left… and then wildly
to the right, bashing into Red Ronald, still pedalling
faithfully away on the Stop-the-Boat-from-Sinking-
and-Scare-Away-the-Big-Sea-Creatures Machine,
with such force that… Red Ronald… and, most
importantly, the MACHINE… the creaky, cranky little
Machine that had by some extraordinary chance held
together all this way…
… fell over the rim of the boat and into the sea.

191

There was a mighty pause.
‘Oh, Toothless…’ moaned Hiccup, with his hands
over his eyes.
They were so close to America that it had ceased
to be a pale grey outline, and was a long swoop of
white beach, with great grey waves crashing upon the
shoreline, and trees above, and you could even see tiny
little mysterious figures moving upon the sand.
But now the Machine was no longer giving out
that unbearable high-pitched noise, the Sea-dragon
on the horizon – the Sea-dragon that everybody had
forgotten about in the heat of the fighting – was finally
released.
And with a mighty, terrible shriek, it shot towards
the boat.
Having regained his balance, Norbert took the
Map off his head and blinked twice, first at the spot
where the Machine had disappeared over the rim of
the boat, then at the Truly Gigantic Dragon moving
purposefully towards them.
Nobody was fighting now. Red-heads, blonds,
lunatics, all had recognised a greater danger, and were
crouching down on the deck in fear.
‘HERE IT COMES!’ shouted somebody.

192

17. THE LEVIATHORGAN
STRIKES

The Hysteric nearest to Hiccup fell to his knees,
gasping: ‘Thor save us!’
All they could see of the Creature were the
spines on its back drawing closer and closer in the
water.
It was aiming straight for the boat.
But at the very last moment, it changed direction,
and swam alongside it. And it was only then that they
realised how truly enormous it was.
It was IMMENSE.
As the Dragon passed the boat, it rolled slightly
on its side, and one terrible yellow reptilian eye stared
at Hiccup, pinpointing him, picking him out. There
was a curious expression in that eye, of intelligent
humour mixed with the purest fury. It was as if it
hadn’t forgotten the incident in the Ice Cave, and
something in that eye seemed to say, ‘You’re going to
pay for that, boy, and I’m going to enjoy it… You can’t
get away from me now.’
And then it moved on, muscles rippling, as it
swam sinuously as a panther through the water. It
swam so close to the boat, that it was almost as if it

193

were showing off how big it was. That long, glorious
back with the cruel, primeval spikes, went on, it
seemed like, for ever…
Oh for Thor’s sake, thought Hiccup, his heart in
his mouth, it must be twice, no nearly three times as
long as this boat…
It was a Leviathorgan, all right.
Like all the ancient Sea-dragons, it had probably
been alive since the age of the dinosaurs, and it
had the look of something dug up from the past.
Blackened crustacea festooned its spiny armour like
rust. Parts of its body were so encrusted with coral,
and trailing with long drifts of seaweed, that it was like
a living, moving reef.
The heart-stoppingly huge length of
the Leviathorgan swam beside the boat.
And then it turned away, and swam
on past them, and disappeared
below the water, the casual,
contemptuous flip of its tail
creating such a great white
washing powerful wake that
it swamped the deck with
a wave that covered
their knees.

‘Where’s it gone?’
Many voices called out the same question from
the ship.
There had been a look in that Dragon’s giant eye
which Hiccup had seen in the expression of Toothless
when he had cornered something smaller than himself,
like a mouse or a rabbit.

Like cats, dragons have a cruel streak, and they
like to play with their food, before they kill it.
‘It’s going to play with US…’ thought Hiccup
with foreboding. ‘Grab on to something on the boat!’
he yelled out, winding a rope attached to the mast
firmly round his wrist.
‘Oh brother,’ moaned Fishlegs, as he did the
same, ‘how did this happen? We just went out for a
simple little SWIMMING RACE, is there NO safe
activity in this uncivilised world?’
The dragon had dived under the water, and there
was no sign of it, just the roaring of the wind, the
crashing of the thunder, the drenching rain.
‘WHERE IS IT? WHERE’S IT GONE?’
someone shouted frantically.
There was an explosion of white water to
Hiccup’s left, as the Leviathorgan LEAPT out of the
sea. It flew right over the boat, and hovered there.
Again, it was almost as if it were showing off how
big it was.
It was so enormous that hovering above the great
ship’s mast, the tips of its great wings just grazed the
surface of the water as they beat downward on either
side.
Its eyes bored down at the Viking ship. Gently

196

it reached out its gigantic talons, and took hold of the
mast of the American Dream 2, like an eagle grasping
a stick.
And then it lifted the entire ship completely clear of
the water…
It looked down into the boat to see the reaction
of the inhabitants.
Most of them were screaming.
The great Sea-dragon gave the ship a little shake,
sending the Vikings inside it catapulting around the
deck like marbles… and then it dropped the American
Dream 2 back into the water again.
The Monster hung above them still, blotting out
the sky, and now it stretched wide its great ancient
mouth, far wider than would have seemed physically
possible, so that it became a great black cavern,
opening up in front of their eyes.
Like an enormous spitting cobra, the Sea-dragon
began to hiss.
First a gentle sssssss… getting louder and louder,
SSSSSSS, until it built up into such a sinister, angry
intensity that it was as if the entire ship were crawling
with nests of serpents about to strike. The sound
sent goosebumps all over Hiccup’s body, and every
individual hair on his head stood up as if charged

197

with static electricity.
The Creature’s eyes bulged, its throat worked.
It was looking straight at Hiccup, and
instinctively, Hiccup ducked behind the mast.
Something flew through the air, and sunk itself
quivering into the wood.
With round, terrified – no, petrified – eyes,
Hiccup peered round the mast to look at it.
It was the sting of the Leviathorgan.
Hiccup had heard of this in legends. Like a
gigantic bee, the Leviathorgan carries stings within its
body, but in its throat, inside the fire-hole rather than
its abdomen. It can propel these stings from its mouth
at astonishing speed, like a rocket launcher.
The sting of a bee is no more than a couple of
millimetres long. The sting of a Leviathorgan is roughly
the length of a spear.
It had sunk quite eight centimetres into the
wood, and remained there, shivering and on fire. It
seemed to be made out of some kind of bone as hard
as metal, but it was difficult to tell because the flames
flickered along its length. A great scarlet-black stain
was spreading out on the mast as the poison from
the tip leaked out, and Hiccup was just taking off his
jacket to smother the flames before they set fire to the

198

mast, when the Leviathorgan entered the water on the
other side of the boat.
This time it slapped down its tail with such
deliberate force that a wave tipped the boat violently
to the left, so much so that the tip of the mast itself
nearly reached the water.
Barrels, the Cooking Tent, cauldrons, brooms,
Norbert’s precious Map Table, his table and chairs,
his rugs and his birdcages, Hysterics, forks, pails, and
vegetables, all were washed away in a flood of thigh-
deep water as the boat dipped so crazily that it almost
seemed in peril of tipping over entirely.
Both Fishlegs and Camicazi had lost their grip on
what they were holding on to and were washed off by
the force of the wave. But the ticking-thing had caught
around the mast, and Hiccup remained on the boat.
For a second it seemed as if the boat would
up-end completely… and then it righted itself again,
and swung back, equally wildly, in the other direction,
flinging Norbert back over the edge and spinning him
to the centre of the deck.
Again it seemed uncertain that the ship
would find its centre of balance, but it rocked back
eventually, and rolled drunkenly forward, direction-less
now that there was no one at the wheel.

199

Most of the crew was washed off into the stormy
seas.
The deck was ankle-deep in water, stained a
bloody red (I’m SORRY for those of you who are
squeamish, but it was).
Those crew that remained were either
concentrating in putting out the fire on one of the
sails before it spread (the Leviathorgan had shot out
another flaming sting before it dived back into the sea,
and it had passed straight through the end sail, setting
it alight), or they were on their knees praying to the
great god Thor.
Some, indeed, thought that the Leviathorgan
was the incarnation of Thor himself, come down in
judgment upon them for their temerity in daring to
cross the Uncrossable Waters, and its stings were
Thor’s lightning bolts raining down upon them.
Many had now abandoned the American Dream
2 as a hopeless cause, a lost ship, and were even now
striking out for land as their only hope of survival.
Camicazi and Fishlegs were in the sea.
Fishlegs had got hold of one leg of Norbert’s
Map Table, which was floating upside-down in the
water, and he looked down, and found himself staring
at the great black form of the gigantic Leviathorgan

200

swimming just ten metres below him.
‘It’s all right!’ screamed Camicazi. ‘It’s going for
the boat!’
And then they both turned white.
Hiccup was still on the boat.
Hiccup had unfortunately tied the ticking-thing
to his wrist a little too carefully, with one of Stoick’s
Foolproof Never-Go-Wrong Slip-Knots, and he was
having difficulty untying himself.
‘Come on… come on… come on…’ he muttered,
desperately trying to untangle himself.
‘Help me bite it apart, Toothless,’ he said, and
the little dragon worked at the rope with his sharp
little gums, to no avail.
‘Hurry up, hurry up!’ screamed Hiccup.
‘OK, that’s it,’ said Toothless, folding his wings,
and stopping biting. ‘Toothless not
help the big Mean Master if he
be cross with p-p-poor Toothless.’
There was a great crash from
below of splintering wood, and the
boat rocked crazily, and another
crash, and the boat listed to the left
and then sank a couple of metres
into the water.

‘Aaaaghhh!!!! It’s holed the boat, it’s holed the
boat! ABANDON SHIP!!!’ yelled one of the crew,
belly-flopping over the side.
‘Toothless! Help me!’ shrieked Hiccup,
scrabbling frantically at the rope, trying to untie it,
and only succeeding in making a complete bird’s nest
of the thing. ‘I didn’t mean to sound cross, I was just
frightened!’
‘Is no r-r-reason to be RUDE,’ complained
Toothless, in a huff. ‘And Mean Master still sounding
cross.’
‘I’m not cross!’ squealed Hiccup. ‘Get biting! Get
biting!’
Toothless wagged a wing at Hiccup. ‘First, Mean
Master say he v-v-very sorry…’
‘I’m very sorry!’ screamed Hiccup. ‘Very, very,
very sorry! I couldn’t be sorrier!’
‘Say, I am a big, wingless idiot and T-T-
Toothless the handsomest, cleverest k-k-kindest
dragon in the WHOLE WORLD…’ said
Toothless, giggling naughtily.
‘I-am-a-big-wingless-idiot-and-Toothless-
is-the-handsomest-cleverest-kindest dragon-in-the-
whole-world!’ gabbled Hiccup.

Norbert was lying in the centre of the deck in a
crumpled heap, and for a moment Hiccup hoped, as
he frantically worked at the knot, that he was actually,
finally, completely dead.
But Norbert seemed to be indestructible. He
quivered a little, and then rose like a nightmare from
the deck, as he did in so many of Hiccup’s dreams,
a limping sack of bones and muscles with murder in
his eyes.
His clothes were in dripping tatters around him,
his face was contorted in fury.
Hiccup could tell from the crazy light in
Norbert’s eye that he had lost the plot. He no longer
cared about escaping the frightful peril of the Creature
determined to destroy the boat, or about reaching the
American shore, so temptingly close, and yet still so
far away.
All he wanted now was the head of Hiccup.
‘YOU…’ spat Norbert, as he staggered forward,
panting hard. ‘You, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the
Third are my nemesis… my Curse… If YOU were not
in this world I would be a RICH man, counting my
American gold… an Emperor perhaps, of the New
World… but you and your wretched little flying lizard
have foiled my dreams once more. I mean, can’t a man

204

DREAM for Thor’s sake? All of my dreams YOU have
turned to ashes, time and time again.’ Tears of self-
pity rolled down Norbert’s furious face, as he waded
through the knee-deep water.
He staggered forward, his sword raised above
his head.
‘… and when we get home, I am going to let
Toothless have his very own p-p-pet, a dear little rat…’
finished Toothless.
‘And-when-we-get-home-I-am-going-to-let-Toothless-
have-his-very-own-pet-a-dear-little-rat-help-me-Toothless-
or-I-am-going-to-DIE!’ screeched Hiccup.
At the very last minute, Toothless finally
unwound the ticking-thing from the mast. Hiccup
looked desperately around him as the lightning shook
the sky… there was no escape now, nowhere to go
but… UP.
In an instant, a Plan popped into Hiccup’s mind.
The Archipelago was a dangerous place to live, and
Hiccup had spent many years coming up with one
desperate plan after another, but this was a plan too
crazy even to be given the name ‘desperate’, so let us
call it the Suicidal Plan.
Sheathing his sword, the Endeavour, Hiccup
began to climb the mast of the American Dream 2.

205

18. UP THE MAST OF THE
AMERICAN DREAM 2

He shinned up the mast like a little monkey, as it
reared up and down like a great plunging tree on the
back of the waves. He was in terrible danger of being
blown off by the shrieking wind that tore at his clothes,
and froze his fingers till they nearly lost their grip, but
up, and up he climbed.
Norbert halted at the bottom of the mast for a
second. He was laughing as he did this, shouting up
the mast, ‘Where are you going, you small boy? Don’t
you know you’re going to run out of mast, and I shall
get you in the end?’
And then he began to climb after Hiccup.
Up and up Norbert climbed in pursuit. He was
surprisingly quick, for he had an interesting technique.
Every few metres or so he let out a scream of effort as
he sank his axe deep into the mast above. And then
he hauled himself up, almost entirely with the strength
of his upper arms, worked the axe out, and dug it into
position a few metres further up.
Hiccup had run out of mast.
He curled the rope of the rigging around his arm

206

(he was careful not to tie it this time), drew his sword
again, and waited for Norbert.
Down in the sea, Fishlegs and Camicazi were
watching him, open-mouthed.
‘What is he DOING?’
‘I think,’ said Fishlegs slowly, ‘he’s going to fight
Norbert on the mast.’
Hiccup’s fight with Norbert on the mast top has
passed into Viking Legend.
Never had a fight been undertaken in such
difficult circumstances as these, on top of the rigging
and mast of a ship that was rapidly sinking, in the
middle of a thunderstorm, and under attack from
below by one of the major Monsters of the Deep.
Norbert drew his blade with his left hand as soon as
he was level with Hiccup, and aimed a great swinging
swipe at the boy, which Hiccup parried at the last
moment, and the two great swords rang together.
‘It’s not too late, Norbert,’ panted Hiccup, as he
parried a Flashburn Fancy-Thrust, and nearly fell off
the rigging while doing so. ‘Can’t we put this off till
later? This boat is SINKING.’
As if in response to this statement, the boat gave
another lurch downward, and Hiccup was hanging only
by one arm for a second before he got his feet back on

207

the ropes, slippery in the drenching rain.
‘I’ve BEEN patient!’ howled Norbert, slicing
through the air with a Double-wristed Heartbreaker.
‘Fifteen years stuck on Hysteria! And then two
American Dreams built and destroyed by YOU!
Everything was all going to plan, if YOU hadn’t come
along.’
‘Well, be fair,’ argued Hiccup,
steadying himself on the mast as he
performed two quick Wristflickers and
followed them up with a Grimbeard’s
Grapple, ‘we had to defend ourselves,
because you were going to kill us,
weren’t you?’
‘Oh you’re always full of
excuses,’ howled
Norbert
furiously.

‘Maybe I wouldn’t
have done. I will now,
of course,’ and as
if to emphasise this
point he narrowed
his mad eye, and
followed up a
Perfectpiercer
with a wild lash
with the axe.

Hiccup
desperately
avoided the axe,
helped by a
gust of wind
that
threw
him
backwards a little. He lost his footing, was hanging
on by one hand again, and Norbert bashed away at
the fingers with his foot.
Camicazi and Fishlegs could hardly bear to
watch as they bobbed in the sea below.

But Hiccup threw the ticking-thing upwards, and it
whipped through the air, and the rope wound itself
around the horizontal beam of the mast a little further
down. Just at the moment that his hand gave way, he
swu-u-ung on the rope, yelling out the Hooligan War
Cry, and landed safely a little distance away.
‘Oh Bravo, Hiccup!’ cheered Camicazi excitedly,
‘That was a really cool move.’
Toothless flapping into Norbert’s face gave
Hiccup the time to regain his footing on the rigging.
Hiccup followed up with some graceful Left-Hand
Lunges, one of which was so close to disabling
Norbert’s sword arm that it ripped off the right sleeve.
‘I think he’s winning, you know, Fishlegs,’
chirped Camicazi.
It was an extraordinary sight.
Great crashes of thunder from Thor at his most
furious, the distant grey outline of the American shore,
the majestic half-sinking ship still pouring steam from
its chimney, and then high, high on its mast, the two
tiny figures, who had now climbed even higher, and
were fighting in the crow’s nest…
‘Oh for Thor’s sake,’ gasped Fishlegs, as he
clung like a half-drowned little spider to the Map
Table. ‘What’s THAT?’

210

The Leviathorgan had been repeatedly battering
the ship from below, and it must have been very well-
made, the American Dream 2, for it was only now that
the hull gave way into splinters, and the head of the
great dragon appeared through the deck, screaming in
fury, and chomping away at the wood with its fangs. It
threw back its head and let out a great roar, shooting
three of its stings upwards simultaneously. One of
the flaming spears of bone shot straight through the
swordfight, the other narrowly missed Norbert’s
bottom. (That would have been uncomfortable.)
As if woken from a dream, Norbert looked
down to see the deck destroyed, with the head of the
Monster thrusting right through it, and looking up at
him and Hiccup.
An appalling stench of long-dead seal and
rotting porpoise reeked off its fangs (these large Sea
Monsters always smell bad, I’m afraid, owing to their
carnivore diet), and the feet of an unfortunate Hysteric
crew-member could clearly be seen disappearing down
the black cavernous gullet.
Norbert’s concentration wavered for a second as
he realised he had been carried away by his own anger,
and Death was now staring him straight in the face.

211

Hiccup had a
moment in which to act –
and to Camicazi and Fishlegs’s
astonishment, watching far down
below, he did NOT use it to press
home his sword into Norbert’s momentarily
undefended heart.
No, he looked up at the Heavens, sheathed
his sword, shook off his shoes and scrambled up
to the very pinnacle of the boat.
‘What is he doing?’ asked Camicazi,
scandalised. ‘He’s sheathed his SWORD!
Oh by Freya’s Beard, no GIRL would
ever do that… boys… I don’t know…’
How anybody could have the
stupidity to sheath their sword
under these circumstances
was completely beyond the
understanding of Camicazi.

Hiccup edged out on to the mast
like a tight-rope walker, the wood cold
beneath his bare feet, his arms flapping outwards
for balance, the wind tearing at his clothes.
He put up his face to the furious storming black
Heavens. ‘OK, THOR!’ shouted Hiccup. ‘THIS IS
YOUR CHANCE TO SHOW ME. ARE YOU ON
MY SIDE, OR ARE YOU NOT?’
The small boy wobbled, teetered, on the mast of
the sinking ship, with his arms stretched up and out, it
wasn’t quite clear whether for balance or in prayer to
the storming skies above.
For one second, the boat seemed to stop sinking.
The Leviathorgan, with its paw hauling its great body
up the mast, greedy jaws a-gape, froze like a statue,
even the storm seemed to ease for a second.
‘Norbert!’ shouted Hiccup above the howling
of the wind. ‘If it is, as you say, all my fault, then Strike
me Down Now, for then at least one of us shall die
happy!’
Another pause.
And then everything happened very quickly.
Norbert hauled himself up high on the pinnacle.

214

Hiccup was right, at least he would go to
Valhalla in a moment of triumph.
He raised the Axe of Doom above his head
with a scream of victory, ready to bring
it down on the unarmed boy
with the outstretched arms
and upturned head.
The air above
fizzed with
electric energy,
crackling,
bursting,
searching,
seeking for a
path down to
the sea.

And it found it.

There it was,
the Axe of Doom,
now standing
exactly one metre
thirteen centimetres above
the mast of the sinking American Dream 2,
the highest point for miles and miles around,
and constructed from the finest metal that Norbert the
Nutjob could get hold of at the time.
The perfect lightning conductor.
A crooked bolt of tremendous lightning jagged
down from the clouds, and struck the blackened point
of the axe.
The second before it struck, Hiccup’s toes left
the mast as he sprang off and out in a (not quite
perfect) swallow dive.
The lightning struck the Axe of Doom, and
three-hundred-thousand volts of electricity ran
sparkling down the arm of Norbert the Nutjob,

216

bristling down the mast, and straight through the body
of the Leviathorgan.
Sparks flew from Norbert’s nose and jumped
crazily off the wood of the mast, setting it alight, and
frazzled around every spiny tip of the Leviathorgan’s
jerking body, in a beautiful impromptu firework display.
The body of Norbert the Nutjob fell from the
peak and down, down into the sea.
The Leviathorgan crashed down too, through the
hull in another cascade of water and wood splinters.
And then DOWN went the American Dream 2, and
down in style, with her sinking mast in flames.
Down went the largest, most technically
sophisticated boat that a Viking has ever
built, already turning into a
wooden skeleton, a
ghost, as she

sank slowly
through the cold,
grave fathoms to the
sea-bed below. And
nestled within her in
the darkness, as if she
were his coffin, was
the dead body of the Leviathorgan.

It had tried to eat the boat, but ended up
with the boat eating it, its white picked-
clean bones sleeping for ever more in
the belly of the ghost ship on the
sea-bed. And a boat like that
has never been made again
by the Vikings, as far
as I know.

Norbert the Nutjob may have been a maniac,
but lunacy and genius are very close together, and it
had to be admitted, he was a great Dreamer.
Perhaps the inventor-madmen of the Future will
dream its like again.
But for now it was no more, and down it went,
the death of Norbert’s Dream, the sinking of all his
hopes.
And, incidentally, the only way they had of
getting back to the Archipelago.

19. KEEP KICKING, IT’S A
LONG SWIM HOME

What happened to Hiccup?
As I said, he jumped off the mast in a not-very-
perfect swallow dive. Toothless dived after him, folding
back his wings. It was a long way down, and by the time
Hiccup reached the breath-stoppingly cold sea, he was
moving at quite a speed.
Momentum took Hiccup quite a way downward,
and as he resurfaced, he hit his head on a cauldron,
which was slowly sinking down to the bottom. Hiccup
spat out water, gasping and confused, not sure where
he was, or who he was or what was going on. Blood was
pouring into his eyes, and he fainted.
Toothless let out a scream of alarm to Camicazi
and Fishlegs, and dived down to pull his Master
up so that his face was out of the water. Camicazi
immediately set out in her sprawling crawl to try and
help, but she was some distance from where Hiccup
had landed, so she was never going to be able to reach
him in time. Fishlegs, on the other hand, was very close.
As Hiccup disappeared under the water for the
second time, Fishlegs let go of the table, and splashed
haphazardly across to his friend.

223

He hauled Hiccup up, still unconscious, and
heaved him a couple of metres or so to the relative
safety of the floating table.
‘Oh for Thor’s sake, oh for Thor’s sake… is he
all right?’ asked Camicazi as she reached them. Hiccup
was sprawled floppily on his back, still breathing but
with his eyes closed, and one arm trailing into the
water.
‘I don’t know…’ replied Fishlegs anxiously.
‘He’s still alive, but he’s been knocked out. I think he
hit his head on something under the water.’
‘We need to get him out, fast,’ cried Camicazi.
‘and get him warm.’
The storm had passed as suddenly as it arrived,
and was already moving on to the land called America,
leaving chaos in its wake. It was as if an angry god
had turned the ship upside-down, shaken out its
contents, and tossed the boat to the depths. All around
them, the surviving Hysterics were striking out for
the American shore, swimming around the myriad of
objects floating in the waters.
Saucepans, chairs, tables, hammocks,
chessboards, stools, fishing equipment, pairs of
trousers: Norbert had been very ambitious about the
amount of STUFF that he was taking to America.

224

And they were all now strewn about the waves, and
would be washed up for many years on those white
beaches, and I wonder what the native American
peoples made of them when they found them.
Camicazi tried to pull the table towards the
land, but Fishlegs was wondering what the little figures
walking about on the beaches would make of THEM
when they swam up the shore.
It is one thing to turn up in a new country in all
the pomp and circumstance of a great big boat, heavily
armed, and laden down with good things to eat and
trade. It is quite a different thing, as poor refugees
throughout history will tell you, to turn up practically
naked, unarmed, defenceless and with nothing in your
hands.
As strangers from an alien nation, would they be
greeted with interest and mercy? Or would they be
greeted with fear, and a hail of arrows?
‘No!’ cried Fishlegs, pulling in the other
direction. ‘No! I think we should swim over there!’
And he pointed out to sea.
‘Are you out of your tiny little mind?’ asked
Camicazi. ‘The Archipelago is thousands and
thousands of miles away across the Great West Ocean.
You think we’re going to SWIM to it????’

225

‘No, of course not,’ gasped Fishlegs, accidentally
swallowing a big gulp of sea-water. ‘But I think I can
see the outline of a boat on the horizon… I just have
this really strong feeling it wouldn’t be a good idea for
us to land on that beach…’
The faint noise of shouting coming from
the beach in question seemed to underline
that feeling.

‘Oh I don’t know,’
shivered Camicazi, faint with
weariness and cold.
‘OK, let’s swim out
a little further, we can
always change our minds,’
she agreed.
So they began to
swim away from the
beach.

‘But you can’t live in the ocean!
Humans haven’t got gills!’ Stormfly pointed out.
Toothless fanned Hiccup’s face with his wings, to
try and get him to wake up. ‘We n-n-need you
M-m-master! These h-h-humans don’t know what
they’re doing!’
The thing is, after a while, as they swam out
further and further, it became clear that they couldn’t
necessarily change their minds.
They were so weak with cold and exhaustion that
they weren’t swimming fast at all, particularly because
between the two of them they
had to push the table along
the water and over the
waves. And there must
have been a strong, unseen
current beneath them, for
they were moving out to
sea at a very rapid rate.
And the sails that Fishlegs
thought he had seen seemed
to vanish in the sea-mist as
they swam towards them,

228

until Fishlegs began to doubt he had
ever really seen them at all.
They didn’t speak of it, though they both knew
what was happening.
They were too frozen and too tired to speak, and
they needed all their energy to keep kicking.
‘Keep kicking… keep kicking… keep kicking…’
Fishlegs muttered.
Strange how a story sometimes seems to end just
how it started, in a circle.
They had set out, swimming away from the beach
at the bottom of the Murderous Mountains, many
weeks before.
And now here they were, swimming out into the
very same Ocean, from the opposite direction, and
from a very different shore.
After a while, the land behind them had been
covered by mist. And they had become just another
strange floating object in an alien environment, two
Viking children pushing a table with another child’s
body on it across a vast and lonely Ocean.
Above them hovered two dragons, wings spread
wide and tossed up by the wind.

229

There was still quite a swell, so they were riding
up the waves, and then having to hold their heads up
high as the wave washed over them, until they dropped
down and were picked up by another one. Their feet
were so cold they could barely kick now, and they had
lost all feeling in their arms.
Toothless tried to help by catching fish and
offering it to them, but poor humans, they are so
helpless, they didn’t even seem to want to eat it.
After about half an hour Camicazi said through
numb and frozen lips, ‘You DID learn to swim there,
though, didn’t you? You pulled Hiccup out without
holding on to anything. I told you you could do it!’
‘I did didn’t I?’ gasped Fishlegs. ‘I didn’t even
think about it.’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘Well, this has
all been worth it then, hasn’t it? What a way to learn to
swim!’
Camicazi started laughing, hysterically and faintly,
and then she said, ‘Maybe we should go back now.’
‘In a little while, perhaps,’ said Fishlegs. ‘Keep
kicking… keep kicking…’
After another twenty minutes, Camicazi said, ‘I
think I might have a little nap, I’m feeling very tired…’
‘All right then,’ said Fishlegs, ‘We’ll just sleep a
little while, and then we’ll carry on.’

230

The two dragons fluttered down, and landed on
two of the table legs, sitting up straight and stiff like
two guardian angels on a bedstead. The two Vikings
laid their tired frozen heads on the table, and Fishlegs
was just dropping off when he saw
through half closed eyes…
… a ship, surprisingly
close, looming out of the
mist.

‘Over here,’ he whispered, his voice-box so cold
that noise could barely come out of it, and then a
bit louder, and dragging himself up on to his elbows,
‘OVER HERE!’
He shrugged off his waistcoat, and half-stood
up on the table, waving the waistcoat over his
head. ‘OVER HERE! OVER HERE! OVER HERE!
Camicazi, wake up, there’s a ship, there’s a ship!’
‘Oh go away and leave me to sleep…’ muttered
Camicazi, not opening her eyes. ‘It isn’t morning time
yet.’
The people on the ship seemed to hear the
shouting, for there were cries in a strange language
from aboard, and it moved towards them, nearer and
nearer.
‘Wake up, Camicazi, wake up! There really is a
ship!’ cried Fishlegs. ‘In fact, more than one ship!’
And when Camicazi opened her eyes, there they
were, seven ships, and standing on the front of the
deck of the first one, straight and tall as a figurehead,
and holding aloft a flare in her right hand so they
could see through the mist…
… was Bearcub’s Grandmother.
‘I hope we’re not too late,’ she said. And then
she saw Hiccup’s prone body on the table. ‘But I see

232

we may be,’ she said, with sorrow, but also perhaps a
certain amount of gloomy satisfaction.
There were seven Wanderer ships that had
followed the American Dream 2 across the Great West
Ocean. Wanderers are the best trackers in the world,
so they are good people to have following you.
They had known they were getting close to the
American Dream 2 for the past hour, because they had
begun to pick up a trail of the wreckage strewn in the
sea. Candlesticks, barrels of vegetables and jars of
beer, chairs, oars, maps, cups, swords and saucepans –
all the mad remains of a doomed voyage.
They picked up all that they could find, in case
it would be useful or valuable, because Wanderers are
not a wealthy people, and this was riches to them.
One of the ships had even retrieved Norbert’s
defective Flying Machine, and balanced it on the back
of its deck, so that it looked as if it were about to take
off into the sky.
Bearcub’s Grandmother had begun to think
that Hiccup had drowned, or landed on the shore
of America, when they spotted the floating table
in the distance.
It turned out that Bearcub’s Grandmother was
a surprisingly good nurse, for one so good at Cursing.

233

She was much better at it than Old Wrinkly, the
doctor of the Hooligan Tribe, whose cures and potions
of seagulls’ droppings mixed with spider webs often
made you feel somewhat worse than you did before
you went to see him.
A couple of hours and some of Bearcub’s
Grandmother’s medicine later, and Hiccup’s eyes
opened, to see the faces of Fishlegs, Camicazi,
the Stormfly, Toothless, Bearcub and Bearcub’s
Grandmother looking down at him.
‘I thought you had left us,’ said Hiccup to
Bearcub’s Grandmother, in surprise.
‘Why did you think that?’ snapped Bearcub’s
Grandmother. ‘We could not follow you in those titchy
little landing-boats, we had to fetch some proper ships.
We Wanderers are a people of our word, unlike some
other people I can mention.’

20. THE TICKING THING
STARTS TO TICK LOUDER

Again, I will not weary you with the details of the long
journey home, the dragons they saw, the storms they
survived, the perils of the crossing, or we would be
here for ever.
Every day, Hiccup checked the ticking-thing.
As they grew closer and closer and closer to home,
their hearts were lifting with excitement.
But something had begun to worry Hiccup.
It was something that Old Wrinkly had said on
the beach, on the day of the Inter-Tribal Friendly
Swimming Race. He had told Hiccup that he had to
be back within three months, five days and six hours.
Now, why would Old Wrinkly say that?
It may seem obvious to you, dear Reader, for you
know all the facts, but it never occurred to any of them
that the Race they had been participating in was either
particularly important in itself (it was only a Friendly,
as far as they were concerned, after all, and there were
always Competitions going on in the Archipelago), or
that the Race could still be going on all that time later.
So Hiccup didn’t know why Old Wrinkly would
say such a precise time. And it was concerning him,

236

because according to his reading of the ticking-thing,
they had now been gone for three months, four days
and thirteen hours, and they were still at least two
days’ sailing away from the Archipelago.
‘I don’t know why you’re worrying about this,’
said Fishlegs, who was in a hugely happy mood now
they were nearly home. ‘It probably didn’t mean
anything at all. You know Old Wrinkly, he’s not that
great a soothsayer, and he’s sometimes a bit batty.’
‘But what if it did mean something?’ insisted
Hiccup. ‘What if Old Wrinkly had seen what was
going to happen to us… he knew we weren’t going to
come back that day, didn’t he? And look, we’re nearly
coming in at exactly the time he said, it’s just that
we’re going to be a bit late, and he particularly told me
not to be late…’
The next day, Hiccup was even more worried,
and the ticking-thing began to tick louder, as Old
Wrinkly had said it would.
TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.
‘Look!’ said Hiccup anxiously. ‘That means
there’s only six hours left, and even though it’s a very
windy day, we’re at least…’ he checked the ticking-
thing, ‘TWENTY-FOUR-hours’ sailing distance
away… we’re going to be late!’

237

‘Late for what?’ asked Fishlegs in exasperation.
‘There’s nothing we can do about it, anyway, and Old
Wrinkly probably didn’t mean anything when he said
it.’
Hiccup fiddled and fiddled with the ticking-thing
as he worried, and the back of it fell open, and for
the first time he noticed, along with the little delicate
moving wheels on the inside, there was a tiny little
inscription. Two letters. G.G.
Hiccup’s heart beat a little quicker, for he had
seen those letters before, and he knew what they stood
for.
Grimbeard the Ghastly.
Hiccup had assumed that this ticking-thing had
been made by Norbert’s father, Bigjob, and he had
always felt a little guilty about stealing it from Norbert.
But it seemed that Bigjob had perhaps stolen it
himself.
For this ticking-thing, surely, belonged to the
Heir of Grimbeard the Ghastly, and the Heir to
Grimbeard the Ghastly was…
… Hiccup.
And now he was absolutely sure that there was a
precise reason for the time that Old Wrinkly had given
him. He did not yet know what the reason was, but

238

he was certain that somehow there was some kind of
pattern to it that he did not yet understand.
Some way in which everything interconnected,
like the little tiny wheels revolving in the instrument in
front of him.
Six hours.
TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK
went the ticking-thing, a little louder still.
They were never going to get there in six hours…
by boat.
Hiccup looked up and his eye caught Norbert’s
defective Flying Machine, salvaged from the sea by the
prudent Wanderers, and now lashed to the figurehead
of one of the other Wanderer boats.
There was a very strong wind today.
Hiccup knew from the time that he had spent in
a Roman Observation Balloon (it’s a long story, don’t
ask)* that flying was much quicker than sailing.
If only that Flying Machine actually WORKED.
Fishlegs saw what Hiccup was looking at, and
guessed what he was thinking. ‘Oh no, Hiccup, oh,
seriously, you have got to be JOKING! Remember how
many times they tried that thing out on the journey?
And how many times it fell out of the sky like a stone?
That Flying Machine doesn’t work.’

* Please read How to Speak Dragonese.

‘We thought the Stop-the-Boat-from-Sinking-
and-Scare-Away-the-Big-Sea-Creatures Machine didn’t
work, didn’t we?’ Hiccup pointed out. ‘And we were
wrong.’
‘But we’re so close now… so close… and so
ALIVE which is the important thing,’ gasped Fishlegs.
‘what is the POINT of risking it all right now, after
all that we’ve been through, when we’re so very
nearly there? No, I’m putting my foot down this time,
Hiccup, I can’t let you do it…’

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-
TICK-TOCK went the ticking-thing.

21. THE END OF THE
SWIMMING RACE

On the windy clifftops of the Murderous Mountains
stood the proud figures of Stoick the Vast and Big-
Boobied Bertha, their arms in chains, surrounded by
Murderous Warriors. They were too dignified to show
fear. They would show Madguts the Murderous how
bravely a Chieftain could die. Before them was the
Sky Burial Place, where they would be strapped down
and left, helpless, for the Sky Dragons to attack them.
Nothing would be left of their remains.
Above their heads, the Sky Dragons were already
massing in their hundreds, with shrieking, hungry
vulture cries.
Down on the beach, the Tribes of Hooligan
and Bog-Burglar stood, depressed and silent, holding
burning flares in their hands, looking up at the
silhouettes of their Chiefs on the clifftops.
The deaths of their Chieftains were not the
only things at stake here for the two Tribes. Madguts
was about to take over their lands. The Hooligans
and Bog-Burglars had packed up all their belongings,
and loaded them into their own ships standing in the
Harbour. These ships were piled high with every

241

possession they owned:
favourite swords and armour,
stools and clothing,
clucking hens and pigs
and goats.
The Hooligans
had never intended
to settle on Berk in the
first place. Berk was not the
most comfortable, the most
luxurious, the most civilised place
to live in the world. It was a funny,
boggy, shaggy little heap of heather and
rock, where the wind buffeted so strongly
that you might as well be on the sea in a
ship, and when it wasn’t raining it was often
snowing.
But Berk was where they had grown up,
where they met their sweethearts and brought up
their children, and when it came down to it, they
found that they didn’t want to leave.

242

So they stood there, sunk in the profoundest
melancholy.
The sun was going down on this day, and Old
Wrinkly’s big sand-timer was running out of sand, and
his complicated candlesticks were running down to
little stubs, marking the Final End to the Competition.
The three Judges sat solemnly at the table.
Three months, five days, three hours and twenty-
four minutes… Three months, five days, three hours
and twenty-five minutes…

Norbert’s defective Flying Machine worked rather
better than Fishlegs had expected.
But he hadn’t expected much, it had to be said.
Fishlegs and Camicazi insisted on going in the
Machine with Hiccup, Camicazi because it was the
kind of crazy thing she particularly enjoyed, Fishlegs
because despite all the complaining he wasn’t going to
desert Hiccup, who was the closest thing to family that
Fishlegs had.
The Wanderers had to haul the Machine up
to the top of the mast so they could take off in it,
and Bearcub’s Grandmother predicted Doom and

244

Destruction would be the outcome. ‘Vikings – they’re
all mad… even the small ones…’
But Doom and Destruction did not follow – not
immediately, at least.
It was a very windy day, and when the Wanderers
let go of the Machine, lift-off was instantly successful.
The wind caught underneath the wings and launched
the Machine almost vertically up into the air, like a
kite.
‘Wahooooooooo!’ cried Camicazi, as they soared,
legs dangling, hair blown back in the wind, up and up
into the big blue sky.
‘If Thor meant humans to fly, he’d have given
them wings,’ recommended the Stormfly, swooping
alongside them in an amused way.
The wind was strong, the young Vikings were
light, and they quickly left the seven boats with the
cheering, waving Wanderers on them far, far behind.
They were heart-stoppingly high.
Hiccup had flown on the backs of dragons
before, but never at this height.
They were so far up in the sky that it was difficult
to see how fast they were flying, apart from the marker
of the little boats, now only specks way behind them in
the distance.

245

It was cold up there, so cold that Hiccup was
glad that they had tied themselves to the Machine,
because their fingers were so numb they might have
fallen out, and the sea was a very long way down.
And they were up there for such a long time,
that after a while, even Fishlegs began to feel that they
weren’t going to plummet out of the sky like a stone,
and opened up his eyes to look about him, at the blue
above and below, stretching out for ever.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-
TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK went the
ticking-thing, getting louder and louder and more
insistent with every passing moment. I hope we’re going
to make it… thought Hiccup.

And after a long, long time, a grey smudge
appeared on the horizon before them, and Hiccup
shouted over the wind, and pointed towards it, and as
it slowly became larger and greener, it was clear that it
was the Murderous Mountains.
‘HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET DOWN?’
shouted Fishlegs, because they were still so high that
he had a sudden vision of them sailing right over the
Archipelago and beyond. But a sudden SNAP! from
one of the wings of the Machine above them provided
the answer to Fishlegs’s question.
The Machine lurched violently to the right.
They lost height with such rapidity that Hiccup’s
stomach lurched and his ears popped. And Norbert’s
defective Flying Machine folded up its wings, and
plunged in a nose-dive towards the sea.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!’
screamed Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi.

Madguts the Murderous strode up and down the
beach, his cape whirling, Gumboil trotting after him,
rubbing his black-gloved hands together.
In fifteen minutes, the Murderous Tribe would

248

have the revenge for which they had waited a hundred
years…
Fourteen minutes… whispered the Judges
together, staring at the sand-timers.
Thirteen minutes…
On the stroke of thirteen minutes, Old Wrinkly
thought he caught a sound coming from out to sea. He
shielded his eyes from the rays of the setting sun with
one gnarled and wrinkled hand, and cupped the other
behind his ears. Was it just his imagination playing
tricks on him? Was it just the beat of his old heart
making the sound that he so longed to hear?
For the first time in three months the old man
got to his feet, his ancient legs shaking as he leant
heavily on his staff. He stumbled forward in the sand,
straining, longing, willing it to be the sound he wanted
it to be… and there it was.
Coming from out of the sea, soft but getting
louder every second.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

To the astonishment of the watching crowds,
the old man let out a cracked old laugh, and began
to dance in the sand on his bent old legs, his clothes
flapping around him like a scarecrow doing a jig.

249

He’s really lost it… they thought, as Old Wrinkly
bustled back to the Judges’ Table, his eyes now
brimful of merriment and excitement.
And then came a shout from the clifftops.
Stoick shouted out something, and pointed, and
the crowd could not hear what he was saying, but they
looked where he was pointing, towards the long rolling
waves coming in from the West. There was nothing
there but the path of the setting sun lighting up the
tops of the long waves rolling in from the west.
But then there came a cry, from Nobber
Nobrains maybe, ‘Look! Over there!’
And there, distinctly, far into the bay, were three
little heads bobbing in the waves.
‘What is this?’ snarled Gumboil, screwing up his
eyes to try and see what they were looking at out there
in the water. ‘Those are just SEALS.’
‘Seals with horns?’ asked Gobber the Belch, with
hope rising in his chest.
‘Deer, then,’ argued Gumboil.
But as the little heads swam nearer and nearer
it became clear that they were not deer. Those
were VIKING helmets on their heads, and hovering
protectively above them, were the distinct shapes of
two small hunting-dragons. And as they came nearer

250

and nearer still, Old Wrinkly cried out: ‘Remember!
They must land here unaided!’
His warning was unnecessary for it was as if the
crowd had been turned to stone, so dumbfounded
were they.
The three figures swam closer and closer until
they got into their depth, and then they put their feet
down on the sand of the Archipelago, and they waded
waist high through the crashing waves.
Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs staggered out
of the water of the Great West Ocean, exactly three
months, five days, five hours, and fifty-eight minutes
after they had entered it.
They were totally bewildered to find everybody
on the beach, flares in their hands, apparently waiting
for them, and absolutely silent and stunned.
They had entered the Ocean all that long, long
time ago, a laughing-stock. The smallest contestants
in the Race, jeered at, pointed at, humiliated and
embarrassed. Now the same crowd that had laughed
them so uproariously into the water, greeted them with
awed, wide-eyed wonder and amazement.
Slowly, the huge adults on the beach removed
their helmets as they passed, the ultimate sign of
respect. They fell back in wonder at the soft footprints

251

in the sand. They murmured their astonishment as
great hairy forearms were raised in admiring salute.
It was the proudest moment in Fishlegs’s life.
He had left this very beach an object of ridicule,
unable to swim and wearing those ridiculous
armbands. Now all those who had laughed had
watched him as he swam, entirely unaided, up the
whole depth of the bay. Even though he was so tired
he could barely put one foot in front of another, his
back was straight, his head
held high.

As he passed
he heard one
Hooligan whisper
to a Bog-Burglar…
‘That’s Fishlegs,
there, the one on the
right…’ in a tone of
recognition and
admiration.

Imagine that, for a boy used only to being ignored or
laughed at!
Fishlegs, Hiccup and Camicazi had equalled
Grimbeard the Ghastly’s record, but they did not look
like they had spent the time pickled in the sea. Their
hair was so stiff with salt water it stuck out like broom-
brushes. Their faces tanned dark brown. They were
a little taller maybe. (Well, it had been three months,
and pre-teens can grow a great deal in three months.)
They were, without question, this skinny, unlikely
threesome, the last three competitors to return alive to
the Archipelago.
The Last Men (and Woman) Back.
Hiccup staggered forward to the Judge’s Table,
too tired to ask questions, almost too tired to think,
the ticking-thing dragging behind him in the sand,

TICK-TOCK-TICK
TOCK-TICK-TOCK
TICK-TOCK…

He stopped at the Judges’ Table, and wound
the rope of the ticking-thing around his wrist, placing
the ticking-thing carefully before the dumbfounded
Committee.
Softly, the two small hunting dragons folded their

253

wings, and landed on the Table their eyes fixed on the
ticking-thing in the centre.

TICK-TOCK
TICK-TOCK…

… and the alarm on the ticking-thing finally went
off, in a peal of tiny clockwork bells, ringing to the
sound of the Hooligan National Anthem.
A typical Grimbeard the Ghastly touch.
You had to admit it, the guy did have STYLE.
Old Wrinkly reached out and turned it off.
‘I wasn’t late,’ said Hiccup.
‘No,’ said Old Wrinkly. ‘You were just in time.’
The Bog-Burglars and Hooligans were so amazed
they just stood there, eyes open wide as saucers,
staring at them.
Madguts was looking like a thundercloud.
‘I do not believe this!’ spluttered Gumboil.
‘Madguts does not believe it… These are just
CHILDREN… and quite odd looking children at that.
They can’t possibly be the LAST MEN BACK.’
Nobody could believe it. Snotlout was lost for
words. How did Hiccup DO it? Yet again, it had
seemed certain that he had kicked the bucket, and

254

yet here he was, turning up very much alive and in
a horribly glorious manner. Even that weed Fishlegs
seemed to have somehow taught himself to swim.
‘Yes, well they’re not the Last Men Back are
they, unless they are able to take the Oath that they
did not seek aid by Float or Boat,’ Snotlout pointed
out meanly, so eaten up with jealousy that he spoke
without thinking.
Snotlout’s own father, Baggybum the Beerbelly,
shouted: ‘Shut up Snotlout!’ and there were cries of
‘Shame!’ and ‘Whose side are you on, Big Nose?’ And
even the Murderous Tribe booed and hissed him, for
nobody likes a traitor to their Tribe. Snotlout turned a
bright and unattractive red, and muttered sullenly, ‘I
was only saying…’
‘Yes, as Snotlout so kindly reminds us,’ said Old
Wrinkly, shooting Snotlout a venomous look, ‘for any
of you to be declared Last Man Back, you have to take
the Oath. Can you take the Oath?’
Hiccup, Fishlegs and Camicazi at last realised the
significance of what was happening. They looked up at
the clifftops, at the long line of little figures standing
silent below the wheeling, shrieking Sky Dragons.
They looked around at the serious, intent faces of the
Tribesmen. They looked at each other.

255

Well… the Oath said that you were not allowed
to ‘seek aid’ from Float or Boat.
None of them had asked to be kidnapped by
Norbert the Nutjob. And only Fishlegs and Camicazi
had ‘sought aid’ from the Wanderers, to take them
back to the Archipelago. Hiccup had been knocked
out, unconscious at the time, not in a condition to seek
aid from anyone. And a Flying Machine was neither a
Float nor a Boat.
So, technically speaking, Hiccup COULD take the
Oath.
Fishlegs and Camicazi pushed Hiccup forward.
Hiccup put up his left hand.
Total silence from the crowd.
‘I solemnly swear by this my sword-arm,’
said Hiccup, ‘that I did not seek aid by Float or
Boat… I did not plan to win this Race by trickery or
deception… and that any assistance I received was
by the favour of Fortune, and the gracious will of the
great god Thor.’
The crowd erupted with joy.
The Chief Judge signalled to the Murderous
Warriors on the clifftops, and reluctantly they let
Bertha and Stoick the Vast free of their chains, and
the two Chieftains walked proudly down the cliff-paths

256

to the beach, heads held high.
Cheers rang out along the bay, and ‘SILENCE!’
yelled Old Wrinkly, bursting with pride, for it is not
every day that a grandson returns to you from out of
the water, a Competition is won, and a prophecy is
fulfilled.
(And he was rather proud of his soothsaying skills
on this occasion – Old Wrinkly’s soothsaying did not
always turn out this well.)
He turned his grandson around to face the
crowd.
‘He did not seek aid by Float or Boat,’ cried
Old Wrinkly solemnly in his ancient old quavering
voice. ‘And therefore I declare that the winner of
this Competition, and the Last Man Back, to be…
HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE
THIRD!’
Old Wrinkly held Hiccup’s arm up in the air
victoriously.
‘This is preposterous!’ spluttered Gumboil. ‘This
is impossible! He can’t have done it! He must have
cheated!’
Gumboil found himself grabbed around the
throat and lifted up in the air, his little legs dangling
like a frantic beetle.

257

‘Are you suggesting, that MY ancestor,
Grimbeard the Ghastly, and, more importantly, MY
SON AND HEIR, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the
Third, are LIARS?’ spat Stoick the Vast, pressing his
face menacingly into Gumboil’s.
‘Erm… no… not exactly…’ gargled the strangled
Gumboil, his voice squeaking like a five-year-old.
Oh, how the Hooligans and Bog-Burglars cheered
then, throwing their helmets up into the air, and
clapping Hiccup and Camicazi and Fishlegs on the
back, and Bertha and Stoick hugged them hard, and
they all made ready to leave for their boats moored in
Wrecker’s Bay, because, frankly, they had had enough
of the Murderous Mountains to last them a very long
time indeed.
‘Wait!’ called the Chief Judge, the sad little
Bashem-Oik. ‘Before you go, there is just one more
thing,’ he said. ‘And that is the question of the
demand of the Last Man Back. According to the Oath
declared by all, the Last Man Back may demand a
request that cannot be denied from the Chieftain of
the opposite Tribe.’
The cheers died down and the mood darkened.
And Madguts had gone very silent and still, as he
realised his trick had turned on himself, and he had

258

played into his Enemy’s hands. Stoick’s grin turned to
a thunderous frown, Bertha’s hands were on her hips.
‘What is your request, Hiccup? You can ask
anything, anything at all.’
Madguts the Murderous had turned rather white,
and he fiddled nervously with his sword. He did not
have a leg to stand on, and he knew it. He only had
himself to blame for the situation in which he now
found himself.
The faces of the Bog-Burglars and the Hooligans
were hard and set and seeking Revenge. They drew
their weapons and tapped them on their thighs, and
the air was filled with menace. Up on the clifftops the
Sky Dragons circled. They didn’t care WHO they ate.
‘What will it be, Hiccup? What is your demand?’
asked Old Wrinkly.
Hiccup thought for a long, long time, looking out
over the waters.
The thing about history is that it has this nasty
habit of repeating itself. If he did to Madguts what
Madguts was intending to do to them, well, Madguts
would only be getting his just desserts. But then the
cycle of revenge would just start anew. In a hundred
years’ time, did he want Madguts’ Heir and his own
Heir to be playing out the same tragedy all over again?

259

At some point it might be a good idea to say goodbye
to the Bad Old Days…
‘I demand,’ said Hiccup slowly, ‘that Chief
Madguts the Murderous should sing a love song
at the next Thing* while dressed as an ickle pretty
shepherdess.’
A pause. Everybody looked at Stoick to see what
his reaction would be.
For a moment Stoick remained purple with fury,
the angry flush of the Blood-Rage still engorging his
face, his hand shaking with righteous wrath.
And then Stoick’s thunderous brow lightened,
he sheathed his sword, and threw back his head in a
tremendous guffaw. He patted his son on the back
affectionately. ‘That WOULD be
funny,’ he admitted.

*The ‘Thing’ was a meeting of all the local
Viking Tribes.

‘Very funny,’ grinned Big-Boobied Bertha, her
great biceps rippling in her amusement. ‘Even better
than the bathtub-and-underpants idea!’
And the Tribes of Hooligan and Bog-Burglar put
away their weapons, their love of a good joke turning
away their anger. Tragedy turned to comedy in an
instant.
History, you see, is like the interlocking wheels
turning in a ticking-thing. Something unexpected
happens, some sort of hiccup… the wheels are
jogged… and then they set off again, beating out the
time in a new pattern.
‘So there you are then, Madguts!’ yelled Stoick
the Vast. ‘My son has made his demand, and you’ll
just have to carry it out… No hard feelings, eh?’
Madguts the Murderous shook Stoick’s hand,
unable to believe his good fortune. He’d thought that
he was a dead man for certain.
You couldn’t say that he was happy at the
prospect of standing up in front of the Thing dressed
as an ickle pretty shepherdess.
The pride of the Murderous Tribe winced at the
thought of it.
But on the whole, it was better than being picked
to death by Sky Dragons.

261

And the Hooligan Tribe made their way down to
their ships and returned to Berk.
Going back to Berk now, when they thought they
had lost it for ever, in their boats laden with all their
belongings, it was as if they were discovering it for the
very first time.
A beautiful little island, all lit up under a canopy
of stars.
Maybe it was a little rainier on Berk than you
might wish for. Perhaps it was a trifle on the windy,
boggy, rocky and heathery side. No doubt there were
lands with bluer skies and richer soils, somewhere over
the horizon. But Berk was the Hooligans’ home, and
perhaps that is what really matters, after all.

EPILOGUE by Hiccup

So that is the story of how I went to the New World.
I crossed thousands and thousands of miles of
ocean, starving and baking on the deck of the ship,
slew monsters and fought battles with my life hanging
on the thinnest of threads… I cheated death so many
times on that journey… and then finally, FINALLY,
I saw with my very own eyes, the dream land, the
imaginary place, that was no dream after all… it WAS
true!
Despite what it may look like, the world is not
really as flat as a pancake. There is no waterfall at the
corners. There are no edges to the globe on which we
live and struggle and laugh and die.
The world is a circle that has no end.
I know that, I have been out to the West and
seen with my very own eyes the white beaches and lush
green trees of America… and yet I never quite landed.
I was so CLOSE to landing, that if I swam just a few
hundred metres more, I could have put my foot on
American sand.
But I did not.
What Glory it would have been to have
discovered America! To have founded an empire there!

263

To have your name live for ever in the history books…
to have little schoolchildren chant your name, saying
‘America was discovered by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock
the Third…’
But within touching distance of the Ultimate
Quest, I turned back.
I went home. I took the quiet way, back into the
shadows, to be forgotten by future generations.
It may seem to you, perhaps, dear reader, that
my Quest was not a success.
To have travelled so far… such a very long, long,
long way… and at the last minute, within sniffing
distance of the prize… to have not discovered America
after all.
What a failure!
But this is not how it seems to me. Again and
again I have been on Quests that I thought were
for one thing, and turned out to be something quite
different.
For it was on that Quest that I first truly
discovered MYSELF, and my destiny.
We were not ready to build a New World.
How can you make a fresh start in a New World
when you are carrying with you on your boat all the
same problems, the same frustrations and inequalities

264

of the Old World?
Let’s face it, any country ruled by Norbert called
‘The Land of the Nutjobs’ would have turned out to
have the same problems as the Barbaric Archipelago
quicker than you can say the words ‘half crazed lunatic
carrying a double-headed axe’.
What that trip taught me was just how very many
things were wrong with that Old World of ours. And
I returned the long, long, way back to the Inner Isles
with a new determination. The boy that went into the
Atlantic Ocean that day was a very different boy than
the one who came out three months, five days and six
hours later. I had been immersed in the waters of the
Western Seas, and came out a different person.
I had always known that I had, one day, to take
over my father’s job. I had always felt reluctant, even
cross, about this. Always felt that it was something I
didn’t really want to do. Now, for the first time in my
life I really wanted to be a Chief. And not just a Chief,
but a KING.
I knew for the first time that I was Grimbeard
the Ghastly’s True Heir… and I would be such an
Heir that he had never dreamed of.
I wanted to be a King who would found a New
World, not in some misty country far across the seas,

265

but right here, right now, at home. I would make the
Barbaric Archipelago a place in which Might was no
longer Right. Where the weaker Tribes could have
their say and their vote at the Thing. Where small
children would not live in daily fear of death by
wolves, by dragons roaming wild, by starvation and by
war. Where the rule of Law would apply to bully boys
like Snotlout and Nutjob himself. And, the first thing
I would do as a King, would be to abolish slavery for
ever from the Viking Lands…
The Slavemark has been a great burden to bear,
and made my task so much the harder. But Thor was
right to give me the Slavemark. I could never rub it
away, never forget the promise that I made, because
there it was, in indelible purple on the side of my head.
Maybe all Kings should bear the Slavemark, to remind
them that they should be slaves to their people, rather
than the other way around. And to help them never
to forget what it feels to be a child… to be small and
weak and helpless.
Perhaps my vision does not seem so revolutionary
to readers of the Future. But you have to remember
the savage wildness of the world in which I grew up. It
is quite extraordinary for one small boy with red hair
and nothing very remarkable about him to think that

266

he can change the world to that extent.
I did not realise at that time what a gigantic task
I was setting myself, what a huge enterprise, so much
larger than merely crossing the Western Ocean and
back again… How much easier it would have been to
have rubbed along as my father had, shrugging at the
injustices, closing an eye to the Bad Things… But that
way is not my way. My story is all about being a Hero
the Hard Way.
We are all not so very different from Norbert
the Nutjob. We need a vision of a New World to help
us carry on. And in all that I have done, I have been
dreaming of those white beaches. All my life I have
struggled to found a New World, a better world, for us
to live in. I have struggled to make us ready, to make
us good enough, to return once again to that country
that I saw, long ago, across the sea.
We are still not ready. Maybe we will never be
ready. But we are a bit closer now than when I was
young.
Now I am an old, old man, the world that I
created has no need for dragons. They have retreated
from the civilisation that I brought, along with the
wolves, and the Berserks, and the monsters of my
childhood.

267

But when I sleep, I am no longer a Great King
but a child again. I slip into a longship that sets out
across the oceans far far away, sails spread out like
dragons’ wings.
On and on we sail, unimaginably far. And if the
dream is a good one I see again those white beaches,
those green trees, with the bluest of blue skies above.
Always sailing, sailing, sailing… never quite reaching…

Glory comes not to the weak
A treasure land shines out so strong
O Great and Brave and Searching Thor
I hope that that was land we saw…
Once before… Long ago…
HO!

This is all stirring stuff, but how is Hiccup going to keep
the Slavemark a secret for ever and ever? If Snotlout
finds out about it, Hiccup will never get to be a
CHIEF, let alone a KING.

And why does Fishlegs appear to have no family?

And is that the last we shall see of that inventive
maniac, Norbert the Nutjob? And what about Hiccup’s
arch-enemy Alvin the Treacherous, who we last saw
being swallowed by a Fire-Dragon that dived down into
the burning waters of the Earth’s core?

I have a nasty feeling that Alvin might
have survived that frightful experience,
Thor only knows how…

Watch out for the next volume of Hiccup’s memoirs,
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart

MIDSUMMER STORM

There are many storms in the Barbaric Archipelago.

But this was the greatest storm in over one
hundred years.

It came, without warning, at the height of
midsummer.

For three days it raged without stopping, howling
like a god in pain, blowing over houses, tearing up
trees, picking up ships and tossing them down into the
depths of the ocean as if they were matches, caring
nothing for the tiny human habitations clinging like
ants to the barren island wildernesses, mowing them
down as if they were nothing.

A storm like this causes many things to be lost,
and many things to be found.

Many a boat can be dragged down in the tempest.
And many a strange object that everyone had forgotten
about can be dragged up from the depths of the ocean
and tossed up on one of the beaches along with a
whole heap of driftwood.

This particular Storm caused someone to be lost.

Camicazi, the tiny, intrepid, tangle-haired
daughter of Big-Boobied Bertha, Chief of the

Bog-Burglars, was out on the sea, alone in her boat

The Stormy Petrel,* when the storm struck.

Even before the tempest was past, the

Bog-Burglars were out looking for her. And when
the winds finally dropped and the Tribes of the
Archipelago were waking up to the devastation of
flattened cowsheds and walls and houses and

upside-down trees, and were wearily getting down
to the task of rebuilding their lives again, the Bog-
Burglars were already scouring the very edges of the
Archipelago in their black-sailed boats, shouting:

‘Caaa-aaaa-m-a-c-aaaaaaaaaaaaziiiiiiiiiiiiii!’

‘Caaa-aaaa-m-a-c-aaaaaaaaaaaaziiiiiiiiiiiiii!’

‘Caaa-aaaa-m-a-c-aaaaaaaaaaaaziiiiiiiiiiiiii!’

But answer came there none.

* The Stormy Petrel is the smallest of the sea-birds. They were so named
because sailors thought they warned of incoming storms.

1. THE LOST CHILD

And so it was that one summer evening, two Hooligan
ships were going round and round in circles around

the little island of the Quiet Life in the Eastern
Archipelago.

It was odd for Hooligan ships to be in the
Eastern Archipelago, for that part of the world is
exceptionally dangerous, and the Vikings tended

to avoid it at all costs.

There are many many horrors in the Eastern
Archipelago. The only reason the Hooligans were there
at all was because they were helping Big-Boobied
Bertha search for her missing daughter. And now
evening was drawing in, and in their quest to find the
lost child they had travelled far, far, far from their safe
cosy little home on the Isle of Berk, and it was
too late to go home.

They would have to drop
anchor and spend the night in
the Eastern Archipelago,
never a happy
thought.

But where
could they camp?

All the lands to
the north and east were part
of UGLITHUG territory, and
the Uglithugs were slavers, and
the wickedest pirates in the Barbaric
World, and they had a tendency to kill
any uninvited visitors on the spot. Besides,
a lot of their beaches were haunted.

Of course, there was the island of Berserk.

But then again, the Berserkers went crazy on
a full moon and howled like dogs and fed people
in baskets to some nameless thing that lived in the
wildness of the wood…

So that left the island of the Quiet Life as the
only safe place in the Eastern Archipelago to spend the
night.

Which was why the Hooligans had spent the last
hour and a half going round and round it in circles,
searching for the Perfect Camping Spot.

‘HALT!’ shouted Stoick the Vast, O Hear His
Name and Tremble, Ugh, Ugh, the Chief of the Hairy
Hooligan Tribe. He was an impressive figure with a
magnificent red beard like a lion’s mane that had been
vigorously back-combed by maniacs.

‘REST YOUR OARS A MOMENT!’

Stoick turned to his son, Hiccup Horrendous
Haddock the Third, who was standing beside him on
the deck of The Fat Penguin, peering anxiously over
the figure-head, shielding his eyes from the setting sun
as he scanned the horizon.

Hiccup was a most unlikely Heir to the Hooligan
Tribe. An ordinary looking boy, with red hair, and

long skinny limbs, and the kind of anxious freckled

face that was easy to overlook in a crowd.

‘Now, Hiccup,’ said Stoick importantly.

‘I want you to watch what I do carefully

here. A Chief has to be ABSOLUTELY

SURE that he finds a safe spot to camp. The

wellbeing of his entire Tribe depends on him

finding the PERFECT camping spot.’

‘Yes, but we’ve been looking for ages

now,’ Hiccup pointed out. ‘And there was a

place back there on the island of the Quiet

Life that looked really quite nice.’

‘Too exposed,’ pronounced Stoick

gravely. ‘The perfect spot should be sheltered

from wind and sudden storms.’

‘Yes, but Father, we’re all quite tired

and it’s getting

dark and

the Eastern

Archipelago

is very

dangerous,’ Hiccup said. ‘What about all those other
places we looked at?’
‘Too muddy, too many jellyfish, not enough

places to pitch the tents, no lookout area…’ said
Stoick. ‘You need to look for the PERFECT spot,

Hiccup.’ He patted Hiccup condescendingly on the

back. ‘That’s why I’m the Captain, son. Watch and

learn, my boy, watch and learn.’

Stoick stalked off enthusiastically to look for

other suitable spots, while his crew rested their weary

arms and grumbled mutinously. Somebody said that

perhaps if Stoick was so keen to find the perfect

camping spot he might like to take

over at the oars.

But they said it very quietly, so

that Stoick wouldn’t hear.

‘I hate camping,’ said Fishlegs,

Hiccup’s best friend. ‘It does terrible

things to my asthma.’ Fishlegs was

a tall, spindly runner-bean of a boy,

who had eczema as well as asthma,

and was allergic to wheat and dairy.

Not to mention dragons.

‘This is all your fault, Useless*…’

snarled Snotlout, Hiccup’s cousin. Snotlout was a large

arrogant adolescent with a natural air of leadership and

a lot of skeleton tattoos. He spat thoughtfully into

the sea.

* Hiccup the Useless was Snotlout’s nickname for Hiccup.

‘We wouldn’t be out here looking for a lousy

little Bog-Burglar, if you hadn’t turned your father

soft, so that he made allies with those mud-trotting

female no-hopers,’ sneered Snotlout. ‘Before you

started interfering, there was an excellent saying, “the

only good Bog-Burglar is a dead Bog-Burglar”. And

what I say is, if we find her dear ickle Bog-Burglar

corpse floating down that gorge over there tomorrow

morning, I, for one, will not be blubbing into my

cocoa.’

‘Har har har,’ snorted Dogsbreath the

Duhbrain, Snotlout’s friend and fellow

bully.

‘You’re such a charmer,

Snotlout,’ snapped

Hiccup. ‘No wonder

you make friends

easily.’

‘But seriously,’ drawled Snotlout, ‘look around

you, Useless. You and your father have really put us in

danger here. We’ve drifted into UGLITHUG territory.

See that island over there?’ Snotlout pointed to an

ominous, brooding dark shape to the south, from

which a strange, humming, drumming noise seemed to

be coming. ‘You want to know what that is, sweet-pea?

That’s BERSERK, that is. And this beach that we’re

drifting into now? This is the Beach of the Broken

Heart…’

Dogsbreath the Duhbrain stopped giggling

abruptly, and turned an unattractive shade of green.

‘The Beach of the Broken Heart?’

he stammered. ‘But isn’t

that… supposed to be…

haunted????’

‘Sure is,’ grinned

Snotlout.

‘Haunted????’

squeaked Fishlegs.

Snotlout opened

his eyes wide and leaned

forward to Fishlegs,

whispering conspiratorially. ‘That’s right, you weed.

The Beach of the Broken Heart is haunted, so they

say, by a ghost-lady in a ghost-ship… searching for

ever for her lost, dead child… and if she finds YOU

instead… why’ – and he paused, for effect – ‘she

reaches into your chest with her horrible ghosty

fingers…’ – Fishlegs and Dogsbreath both covered

their chests hurriedly – ‘… and she takes out your

beating heart and sails with it back to the ghost-world,’

finished Snotlout with relish.

Dogsbreath was so anxious that he dropped

his drawn dagger rather painfully on to his toe.

‘OOOOW…’

‘That is such RUBBISH, Snotlout,’ said Hiccup

loudly. ‘That’s just a myth, created because the

marshes behind the beach are home to a rare kind of

bird called the Neverbird, and it makes a sound like a

crying ghost.’

Snotlout leant back and crossed his tattooed

arms casually. ‘Is it rubbish though?’ he said. ‘We

could be in serious danger here. And all for a dirty

little Bog-Burglar who has nothing to do with the

Hooligan Tribe. I repeat. All your fault, Useless.’

And it was just at that moment that Hiccup’s

hunting-dragon Toothless returned to The Fat Penguin

from

a scouting

mission, making a

clumsy crash-landing on

Hiccup’s head.

Hiccup had sent Toothless ahead to investigate

coves and rocks and beaches and likely places where

a small boat might have been blown and wrecked by a

mighty storm.

If Hiccup was an unlikely Heir to the Hooligan

Tribe, Toothless was an even more unlikely hunting-

dragon-to-the-Heir. He was a Common-or-Garden

dragon, the least rare of the dragon species (although

he claimed to be something much more exotic),

and he was at least half the size of the other young

Warriors’ hunting-dragons. He had no obvious

weapons and, as his name suggests, no teeth.

At the moment he was genuinely anxious, but

the drama of the search, and the lateness of the hour,

and the importance of him, Toothless, leading the hunt

from the front, not to mention the fact that he had

missed two meals and two naps, had led him to cross

the line into hopeless, fidgety, over-excitement.

He was wound up tighter than a tick who had

feasted on several, large, sugar-laced cups of coffee.

Toothless always had a stammer, but now he

was so beside himself he couldn’t even get the words

out. He just jumped up and down on Hiccup’s head,

pointing his wings at the Beach of the Broken Heart.

‘What is it, Toothless? What is it?’ asked

Hiccup.* Stoick, who was squinting all around him,

and discussing with his second-in-command the

relative merits of different camping areas, spotted

Toothless pointing, and turned his telescope towards

the Beach of the Broken Heart.

‘Well that’s not a suitable camping spot,’ Stoick

grunted but then he stopped. ‘Hang on a second.

What’s that? THERE’S SOMETHING ON THE

BEACH OVER THERE!’

* Hiccup was one of the few Vikings before, or since, who was able to

speak Dragonese, the language the dragons spoke to each other.

www.cressidacowell.co.uk

This is Cressida, age 9, writing on the island.

www.HowToTrainYourDragonSeries.com