4 One of Hiccup’s Less Brilliant Plans

4. ONE OF HICCUP'S LESS BRILLIANT PLANS A few weeks after losing the map, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was lying crouched in the reeds on the edges of a tiny little island right in the middle of the bay that stood in front of Prison Darkheart– the bay called The Dragons' Graveyard. With him were the Windwalker, the Wodensfang and Toothless. They were crouching down beside Hiccup, wings shivering, cats' eyes peering fearfully over the ferns at the horror of the landscape all around them. 'You are n-n-not going in there…' squeaked Toothless, pointing a horrified wing at Prison Darkheart.

'P-p-please tell Toothless you are not going in there...' 'I don't see that we have any choice,' said Hiccup bitterly, 'now that my mother has betrayed us. I must say, I know she's always been a bit absent, but I never thought she'd actually fight against me.' Hiccup swallowed. The whole world was burnt to ashes, and here he was, feeling like crying over a wayward mother. But there was no other explanation. Valhallarama must have got her Phantom to carry Grimbeard the Ghastly's map to the witch because the witch was now in Darkheart, hunting for the Dragon Jewel. And so too were the Meathead, Murderous, Visithug and Hooligan Tribes. Hiccup had seen all the ships sail in over the past two weeks. Which meant that Hiccup's friend Fishlegs was in there, and Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast. And Hiccup was determined to get them out, now he knew where they were. It's my fault they're in there, so I'm going to get them out… 'Oh shiver my t-t-talons!' wept poor Toothless, so terrified he fell off Hiccup's shoulder and into

the sea Hiccup was crouching in. 'Look!' He pointed a wing at all the dragon corpses lying in the sea around them. 'The Dragon F-f-furious has been trying to get in every night! How are you going to get in if even he hasn't managed it!'

At one end of the bay was the gigantic prison that formed the only entrance to the great walled hunting-grounds of the Amber Slavelands. The walls that encircled the Amber Slavelands were not, perhaps, as long as the Great Wall of China, but they were certainly much higher, and a similarly miraculous construction of the Ancient World. In front of the prison, the tide was slowly sinking and gradually revealing the grotesque and pathetic shapes of thousands of dead dragons. Ancient dragon skeletons jutted from the waters of the bay like airy melancholy cathedrals, with seagulls shrieking through the long-dead ribcages. And there were fresh dragon corpses too, smelling to high heaven, and leaking green blood into the water, because every night now, the prison was attacked by some of the most ferocious forces of the Dragon Rebellion.

'This is a terrible plan! The witch and Alvin will catch you!' squeaked Toothless, in an agony of fear. 'Nobody's going to catch us,' said Hiccup soothingly. 'We'll just sneak in, see if we can find my father and Fishlegs and the Jewel, and sneak out again. Us Outcasts are good at sneaking. And if anybody spots us, I've got the Slavemark, so they'll just think I'm another slave. 'And also,' he raised an eyebrow, 'I'm going to be wearing my cunning disguise.' Hiccup had changed quite a bit after six months of living as an Outcast. He was thinner, taller, and his voice had deepened, and was unsteadily sliding all the time between a gruff and a squeak, so that was a disguise in itself. Now he took off his helmet, and brought out a rag from his rucksack and wound it round his left eye like an eye patch. He fixed a piece of pink-ish candle wax right on the tip of his nose, and it made a rather convincing wart. And he smeared himself with some Stinkdragon stink, that he had been keeping in a little

pot, after carefully extracting it from a hibernating Stinkdragon in the Flaming Forest a couple of days earlier. The smell would stop people coming too close. 'How do I look?' Toothless made his yuckiest 'yucky' face. 'T-ttoothless not want to come near you. Is very, very yucky.' 'Yes, well you don't have to come, Toothless, if you don't want to. It may be better if you didn't, because it's very dangerous for dragons in there,' said Hiccup. 'And I want you to be safe. You can stay here with the Windwalker.' The Windwalker protested, 'What do you mean, stay here? I'm coming too.' But Hiccup shook his head. 'I'm afraid you can't come, Windwalker. The Wodensfang and Toothless can hide down my waistcoat. But you're far too big to hide and they'll kill you if they spot you.' The Windwalker shut his eyes and put his tail between his legs. All of his spines drooped.