How to Twist a Dragon's Tale (Hiccup) by Cressida Cowell Page A
Authors: Cressida Cowell
Toothless couldn't resist the opportunity of teasing them, of course.
He flapped right up and landed on the Eggs, sticking his tongue out and making faces at the imprisoned beasts, which drove them into extremities of temper, and they tried to throw themselves at him, but the most they could achieve, of course, was to make their Egg rock slightly in its bed of burned-out carbon.
Toothless thought that this was a very good joke, and carried on doing it, despite Hiccup telling him repeatedly NOT to infuriate the Creatures any more than they had to.
Dragons have a cruel streak, and I'm afraid that Toothless even made up a song about the Exterminators, which he sang as he cheekily swooped over the Eggs making farting noises, and setting them rolling down the hill with his nose.
[Image: A dragon and a fire stone.]
"Can't c-c-catch me
O w-w-weedy little Extermi-babies
159
Frogs without legs
Tadpoles in your cradles
I can see youcrying in your Eggs
But you c-c-cant... catch... ME!"
Everywhere they walked there were these grim entrances to the Fire-Gold Mines, out of which great clouds of steam mixed with gold dust were billowing. Hiccup swallowed hard, peering down the sinister dark holes, cruel bright streams of magma snaking through the bottom of them, and imagining the poor Windwalker forced to crawl down there, struggling like a fly without wings.
The Lava-Lout Village gave an even grimmer vision of what the life of Humungous must have been like, kept for fifteen years as a slave by these greedy savages.
[Image: A dragon and a fire stone.]
There were CAGES everywhere, manacles, chains, whips, weapons of all description. Huts with
160
barred windows, beds of stone or iron. No wonder poor Humungous didn't want to step on this cursed island again.
Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi walked on, Fishlegs lagging slightly behind, puffing away like anything, but still stubbornly dragging his Running-Away Suitcase.
Every now and then they came across these unusual man-made Statues, of the kind that Humungously Hotshot had been describing, raised up high on a prominent rock so that they were clearly visible to all the Eggs round about.
They were Statues of a Face, three times as large as any man, and the Face did look just a little bit like what Hiccup remembered Alvin the Treacherous looking like.
But there was no sign of Alvin the Treacherous himself.
161
It had all been surprisingly easy so far.
They were now only four or five hundred meters from the top of the Volcano, and they had reached it without bumping into anything nasty at all.
All they had to do now was get to the summit, throw the Fire-Stone over the edge, and then run back down to the Harbor.
... They were nearly there ...
They were nearly there...
Only fifty meters to go, when Something put its black foot over the lip of the Volcano above them.
[Image: A dragon and fine stones.]
A black foot with five claws sprouting out of it,
162
each claw as broad and sharp and gleaming as a SWORD.
Out of the top of the Volcano, like a gigantic slimy slug, slithered the revoltingly muscly figure of a huge EXTERMINATOR , three times as big as a lion. Green saliva frothed from its fangs. Great clouds of steam snorted out of its flaring furious nostrils.
Its face was contorted in a ghastly grimace of anger, eyes popping with a fury that burned like acid. Its tail and its horns appeared to be on fire. It reared up on its hind legs, slicing through the air with its ten terrible sword-claws, and through the transparent wall of its fireproof chest you could see its two great black hearts pumping its boiling-hot black blood, sending it shooting through its body at twenty times the speed and pressure of the blood of any other living creature.
It opened its terrible mouth to ROAR , and it was a noise that sent shivers screeching down the Vikings' spines and set their hearts racing as quick as a panic-stricken rabbit's.
It seemed impossible that a Creature this wild
He flapped right up and landed on the Eggs, sticking his tongue out and making faces at the imprisoned beasts, which drove them into extremities of temper, and they tried to throw themselves at him, but the most they could achieve, of course, was to make their Egg rock slightly in its bed of burned-out carbon.
Toothless thought that this was a very good joke, and carried on doing it, despite Hiccup telling him repeatedly NOT to infuriate the Creatures any more than they had to.
Dragons have a cruel streak, and I'm afraid that Toothless even made up a song about the Exterminators, which he sang as he cheekily swooped over the Eggs making farting noises, and setting them rolling down the hill with his nose.
[Image: A dragon and a fire stone.]
"Can't c-c-catch me
O w-w-weedy little Extermi-babies
159
Frogs without legs
Tadpoles in your cradles
I can see youcrying in your Eggs
But you c-c-cant... catch... ME!"
Everywhere they walked there were these grim entrances to the Fire-Gold Mines, out of which great clouds of steam mixed with gold dust were billowing. Hiccup swallowed hard, peering down the sinister dark holes, cruel bright streams of magma snaking through the bottom of them, and imagining the poor Windwalker forced to crawl down there, struggling like a fly without wings.
The Lava-Lout Village gave an even grimmer vision of what the life of Humungous must have been like, kept for fifteen years as a slave by these greedy savages.
[Image: A dragon and a fire stone.]
There were CAGES everywhere, manacles, chains, whips, weapons of all description. Huts with
160
barred windows, beds of stone or iron. No wonder poor Humungous didn't want to step on this cursed island again.
Hiccup, Fishlegs, and Camicazi walked on, Fishlegs lagging slightly behind, puffing away like anything, but still stubbornly dragging his Running-Away Suitcase.
Every now and then they came across these unusual man-made Statues, of the kind that Humungously Hotshot had been describing, raised up high on a prominent rock so that they were clearly visible to all the Eggs round about.
They were Statues of a Face, three times as large as any man, and the Face did look just a little bit like what Hiccup remembered Alvin the Treacherous looking like.
But there was no sign of Alvin the Treacherous himself.
161
It had all been surprisingly easy so far.
They were now only four or five hundred meters from the top of the Volcano, and they had reached it without bumping into anything nasty at all.
All they had to do now was get to the summit, throw the Fire-Stone over the edge, and then run back down to the Harbor.
... They were nearly there ...
They were nearly there...
Only fifty meters to go, when Something put its black foot over the lip of the Volcano above them.
[Image: A dragon and fine stones.]
A black foot with five claws sprouting out of it,
162
each claw as broad and sharp and gleaming as a SWORD.
Out of the top of the Volcano, like a gigantic slimy slug, slithered the revoltingly muscly figure of a huge EXTERMINATOR , three times as big as a lion. Green saliva frothed from its fangs. Great clouds of steam snorted out of its flaring furious nostrils.
Its face was contorted in a ghastly grimace of anger, eyes popping with a fury that burned like acid. Its tail and its horns appeared to be on fire. It reared up on its hind legs, slicing through the air with its ten terrible sword-claws, and through the transparent wall of its fireproof chest you could see its two great black hearts pumping its boiling-hot black blood, sending it shooting through its body at twenty times the speed and pressure of the blood of any other living creature.
It opened its terrible mouth to ROAR , and it was a noise that sent shivers screeching down the Vikings' spines and set their hearts racing as quick as a panic-stricken rabbit's.
It seemed impossible that a Creature this wild
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