4 Two Red Eyes, Suspended in the Air

4. TWO RED EYES, SUSPENDED IN THE AIR There were two red eyes, suspended in the air, right in front of where the Deadly Shadow was hovering. Red eyes, narrowed to slits, with the pupils slightly shivering. Hiccup blinked, his brain unable to comprehend the sight of two red eyes floating before him. In the heat of the Dragon Rebellion chase he had forgotten that the humans– Alvin the Treacherous and his mother, Excellinor the witch– were also looking for Hiccup, and the witch was using Vampire Spydragons to hunt and spy for her.

Hiccup had never seen a Vampire Spydragon before, but he knew they were chameleons that could turn every part of themselves invisible– apart from their glowing red eyes. Slowly the rest of the Vampire Spydragon materialised around those two red eyes hovering in front of Hiccup.

It was a ghastly shrieking creature, with the head of a vampire bat and the body of an enormous monkey. For one second Hiccup saw this vision, and then there was a searing pain in his left arm. He looked down in confusion, as if it were happening to someone else, to see the head of the Vampire Spydragon attached to his arm. The creature did not have time to latch on properly with its clamping jaws before the Deadly Shadow turned its head and tore the Vampire Spydragon off Hiccup, throwing the bloodsucker into the air like a dog tearing a rat off its back.

One second the screaming monster was visible– the next it faded into invisibility again, red eyes descending into the gorge. Before Hiccup could move, or think, the flames of the Dragon Furious reached the forest. 'I WILL HUNT HIM DOOOOOOOWNNN!' A great horizontal wall of fire blasted across the night sky with such white-hot heat that it sheared off the top of the mountain behind the underground treehouse. The entire summit, tons and tons of rock and boulders, plummeted into the gorge below. The three mouths of the Deadly Shadow

screamed simultaneously as the fire poured on and on over their heads, and in a few swift flaps it shot through the ivy-draped entrance to the underground treehouse. Just in time. 'He's been hit… he's been hit…' Hiccup heard a shaking Fishlegs say as he helped Hiccup down from the Deadly Shadow's back, and because Hiccup was nearly fainting it sounded like Fishlegs was talking from a long distance away.

Outside, the Dragon Furious, full of vengeful hope, finally reached the place where the boy had last been seen. But his prey had disappeared, and Furious had been robbed of his victory once again. The Dragon Furious exploded in an Armageddon of anger, and as the Dragon Rebellion's fires of rage torched the battered remains of the landscape below, a trembling Toothless, Stormfly and Hogfly flattened themselves against the walls of the hideout around the entrance. Wodensfang popped his little ancient head above the hole to peer out, and swiftly ducked down again. 'He won't find us in here,' wheezed Wodensfang, trying to reassure himself as much as anyone else. 'He won't find us… He's hunted us before and he won't find us now…'