19 The heir to Grimbeard the Ghastly

19. THE HEIR TO GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY 'So,' chatted Hiccup, 'while we're waiting for this poison to take effect, why don't you tell me how it works?' 'Well,' crowed the Strangulator, 'you will lose control of your tentaclesss ass they sssstart to sssstiffen…' 'I can feel a sort of tingling in my feet, like pins and needles,' admitted Hiccup. The Strangulator's own tentacles were leaping about wildly, as stiff as boards. 'The poissson turnsss sssome victimsss green before they die…' hissed the Strangulator gleefully. 'Is it just me,' said Hiccup, 'or is there a sort of greenish tinge to my left arm?' There wasn't. It was as white and freckled as ever. But a strange green cloud was building within the Strangulator's transparent body, gradually obscuring the unfortunate dragons he was digesting.'… and then as the poissson reaches the head,' continued the Strangulator, 'the nervoussss ssyssstem

sssssimply explodesss…' He looked at Hiccup hopefully. Nothing seemed to be happening. 'That'sss funny,' said the Strangulator.' It doesn't sssseem to be working…' 'Maybe some people take longer,' said Hiccup reassuringly. 'You're looking a little peaky yourself, maybe you should lie down.' The Strangulator looked down at itself. The green cloud had now blown into every crook and cranny of its body, and was finally approaching its tiny brain… screeched the Strangulator. The nervous system of the Strangulator simply exploded. All of its electric circuits lit up like light bulbs. It thrashed around like a mad thing, knocking out great chunks of rock from the sides of the cave and sending treasure flying through the air in all directions. Fishlegs hid himself underneath an overhanging rock in order not to be hit by the whirling coils. Toothless crawled into a crevice in the ceiling. For about a minute and a half the Strangulator threw

itself wildly off the walls of the cavern, screeching a strange primeval agonised shriek. Then all of its tentacles stood out straight and stiff and it fell to the ground. The Strangulator jerked a few more times in agony. Its tail with the dangerous tip lashed ferociously for a moment or two. And then all was silence in the Great Cavern. Huge clouds of dust gradually dispersed. Fishlegs crawled out of his hiding-place. He scrambled over slimy rock-falls, slimy treasure, and even slimier coils of Strangulator, looking for Hiccup. Hiccup was dazed but alive. He'd had a tidal wave of a ride, thrown this way and that way until his teeth rattled. But the great coils of the tentacle wrapped around his body had cushioned him from any hurt. He beamed at Fishlegs and Toothless. 'That was one STUPID Monster,' he said. 'How did you DO it? How did you DO it?' asked Fishlegs again and again in amazement as he and Toothless unwound the tentacle from Hiccup's body. For answer, Hiccup lifted up his shirt, and there, wrapped around his chest, was the very tip of the tentacle… and in the gelatinous transparent flesh of it was a giant needle puncture mark, with the green

poison clearly visible coursing underneath the skin. What Hiccup had done was to pull his shirt OVER the end of the tentacle while Toothless was distracting the Creature. The Strangulator had so lost sensory contact with the ends of its tentacles that it did not realise that it was in fact injecting ITSELF under the white material of Hiccup's shirt. 'That particular plan,' said Fishlegs at last, 'required a Fiendish Amount of LUCK.' 'It WAS lucky,' admitted Hiccup happily, 'but we're ALIVE, aren't we?' Fishlegs grinned back at him and Toothless did three back somersaults in the air and a congratulatory cock-a-doodle-doo. 'And that swordfighting. Where did THAT come from? You've always been grim at swordfighting.' 'Swapped hands,' mumbled Hiccup, beaming but a bit embarrassed. 'A left-handed genius who single-handedly defeated Alvin the Treacherous AND a Monstrous Strangulator,' gloated Fishlegs. 'This is going to look so GOOD when we tell everybody back home. I just can't WAIT to see the look on Snotlout's face when he sets eyes on this treasure. It makes that

poxy little box he dug up on the Isle of the Skullions look pretty measly.' 'Yeeees,' said Hiccup slowly. 'but we ARE still trapped in an inaccessible underground cavern, aren't we? We have to GET OUT OF HERE first.' Fishlegs's face fell. 'So we do,' he admitted. 'But the Creature must have some way from this cavern up to the caves in the Wild Dragon Cliff… I mean, look at those dragons in his digestive system, he must have been feeding off the Dragon Nursery for years. All we have to do is go through these Caliban Caves and—' 'N-n-no,' said Toothless firmly. 'T-t-toothless knows. Toothless grow up here. Other C-c-creatures in there much bigger and b-b-badder than that one…' 'OK then,' said Hiccup. 'We go back the way we came. Let's hope that door still opens.' The door did still open. As they were opening it, Hiccup noticed a piece of paper nailed on their side of it. It was a letter. It was written in the same scrawly handwriting as Grimbeard's riddle, and it was addressed to the 'TRUE HEIR OF GRIMBEARD THE GHASTLY'. Hiccup took the letter off the nail and read it.

DEAR HEIR. (said the letter) I have had a glorious Viking life. But now I am an old, old man I find I am not so happy with my fifty years of rollicking and robbery, fighting and fresh air. I wonder if I might have run things differently. This treasure for instance. The Sagas will tell you that the stealing of it was my Most Magnificent Moment. But since then, It has been tearing my once- happy band of burglars apart with GREED and LUST FOR POWER. We are just not ready to look after this treasure. So I have decided to get rid of it. I know that there will be men who will hear of the Legend of the Treasure and come looking for it, and for them I have buried a small chest on the Isle of the Skullions as a decoy, so that they will think that the hunt ends there. I have hidden the REAL TREASURE deep, deep in this underground cavern. It has taken many many months for my dragons to swim down here with it. It is guarded by water one way