30 The Battle of Prison Darkheart

30. THE BATTLE OF PRISON DARKHEART No wonder they called this bay the Dragons' Graveyard. Indescribably sinister it was, this past and present battlefield, and the wind wailing through those dead dragon skeletons seemed to carry voices of a millennium of ghosts. Now the tide had risen again and the living dragons were waking. The red sand below the sea was giving birth to live dragons, swarming in their thousands out of the scarlet sand below and bursting out of the bay, and none of them were Hiccup's favourite species. Serpent-tongues writhed and twisted around the white dragon bones, shaking out their wet wings. Sandrazors, Hellsteethers, Darkbreathers and Tonguetwisters joining them from the Forgotten Forest and the Open Ocean. The darkest types of dragon species, the monsters, the ones that hated the humans most. They were chanting the beginning of the Red-Rage and sharpening their talons on the bones of their dead dragon brothers. They saw the little human ants and their terrible weapons of exploding fire and

spears departing from the battlements, and they knew their time had come. MAKE RED Your daus With HUMAN BLOOD. OBlITERATE the HUMAN Fith... Torch the humans like a loos The Rebellion is coming Crouching in the centre of the ghastly graveyard of dragons' hopes and dreams and lives, was the Dragon Furious. It is difficult to describe the beauty of Furious. Now that he was no longer a captive, his skin, though scarred, had returned to its former glory. It was a blue so blue that you have never seen that colour before. Deeper than the blue sky, more royal than cerise, brighter than sapphires. 'The humans are fighting among themselves,' whispered Furious, and his eyes blazed with triumph. And I mean, quite literally, blazed. An extraordinary feature of fully grown Sea Dragons is

that their eyes can catch fire and smoke. Little bursts of bright red flame, as sharp as lasers, darted from the pupils. 'ATTA-A-A-A-A-A-CCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!' roared the Dragon Furious to his second-in-command, a great Sea Dragon called the Thunderer.

'ATTACK!' And so began the Battle for Prison Darkheart. For the first time in a thousand years, the dragons of the Dragon Rebellion flew over the undefended battlements, and into the prison itself. The humans fighting each other were now in disarray. They could not reach their Exploding Things.

Their weapons of destruction were now being blown up by the magnificent winged serpents invading from above. Valhallarama, under attack from warriors of the Wilderwest and dragons simultaneously, killed four Sandrazors that were launching themselves with sword sharp wings pointed straight at her neck, and shouted, 'COMPANIONS OF THE DRAGONMARK! RETREAT FROM THE PRISON AND MAKE FOR THE SHIPS! OUR STRONGHOLD SHALL BE THE BOG-BURGLAR ISLANDS TO THE WEST!' Alvin and his supporters were now fleeing to the ships as well, and the witch was organising their own retreat to the Uglithug territories in the east. Everyone had to make their choice. West for Hiccup and the Dragonmark, east for Alvin and the witch. The Wodensfang and Toothless couldn't really choose of course, they were going with Alvin whether they liked it or not, for they were swinging in the amber-nets over Alvin's shoulder. 'We're going the wrong w-w-way!' squealed Toothless. 'We need to go with H-H-Hiccup! This is a disaster! Toothless is the most important Lost Thing, Hiccup can't possibly do without me!'

The Hairy Scary Librarian seemed to feel that maybe he was quits with Hiccup, and he had a new score to settle now that he had realised the emptiness of a witch's promise. So he headed west, to the Bog-Burglar Islands. In the middle of the battle, Gobber the Belch passed Snotlout, deep in thought, looking to west and east. Snotlout couldn't decide which way to go.