16 ANOTHER FIGHT

16. ANOTHER FIGHT "AT LAST!" gloated Alvin the Treacherous, smiling down at the petrified Hiccup. "Now, see where your precious Heroism has gotten you. DEAD before you even get your first chest hair. Where is the Fire-Stone, before you die?" Hiccup looked straight up into Alvin the Treacherous's murderous, scarred face. Now that he knew he was about to die he wasn't scared at all, and he wasn't going to give Alvin the satisfaction of thinking that he was frightened. Hiccup began to sing. And for some reason the first song that came into his head was that ridiculous song that was one of Stoick's favorites, which just happened to be the lullaby that Hiccup's mother Valhallarama used to sing to him as a baby, when she was rocking him to sleep, snuggled up to her armored breastplate. It was a song that was said to have been made

up by Great Hairybottom himself, many, many centuries before, when he first settled in the Archipelago. "I didn't mean to come here... And I didn't mean to stay... It's just where the sea wind blew me One acci-dental day..." Alvin nearly dropped Hiccup, he was so surprised. Alvin expected a person facing death to beg, cry, plead for mercy. He didn't expect them to start singing songs as if they were casually sitting around a campfire. "...I was on my way to America But I took a left turn at the Pole And I lost my shoe in a rainy bog Where my heart got stuck in the hole..." Above them the thunderclouds were so dark they were almost blue, and lightning crackled between them. Below them the Volcano rumbled ominously in reply. It was almost as if the small boy's voice was

trying to placate the storm from above and the storm from below. "What are you doing?" hissed Alvin in baffled and furious astonishment, his arm holding the Stormblade hesitating above his head. "What ARE you babbling about? You're about to DIE here, you fool..." Beyond Alvin's shoulder, Camicazi and Fishlegs, pinned under the swords of the Exterminator, joined in the song: "...I've heard that the sky in America Is a blue that you wouldn't believe But my ship hit a rock on these boggy shores And now I'll ne-ver leave..." Alvin began to bring the Stormblade down, furious that Hiccup was going to die while apparently happily singing and enjoying himself, rather than afraid and alone, and as his arm carrying the wickedly sharp Stormblade swung down... ZZZZZZZZING!!!!!! ...out of the billowing mustard-yellow smoke belching from the Volcano behind Alvin's shoulder a white feathered arrow came singing, straight and

true, toward Alvin's upper arm. The white-feathered arrow sank deeply into the weak human flesh of his bicep, and he dropped Hiccup onto the ground with a cry of agony. The pure, clear noise of the young Vikings' singing rose up and cut through the thunder. And then another voice joined in. A much deeper, rather painfully LOUD voice, WILDLY out of tune, and yodeling and zigzagging up and down the scale like a gigantic crow having a fit. Oh dear, thought Hiccup in surprise, something terrible really did happen to Humungous's voice when he was in the Lava-Lout Jail-Forges... That sounds terrible! Through the smoke of the Volcano, Humungously Hotshot the Hero came riding. He sat up straight and tall on the back of the White Dragon, putting away his bow now, and drawing his swords. On his left arm he was wearing Alvin's bracelet, snaking brightly around his arm. "Arm yourself, Alvin, you TREACHEROUS SNAKE!" shouted Humungously Hotshot. Alvin whipped his head around to see Humungous riding straight for him. His great swords the Fireflash and the Mooncut were held sternly

above his head. Alvin started in horrified surprise and yelled out, "EXTERMINATOR!" The dreadful dragon heaved his claws out of the ground around Camicazi and Fishlegs and came bounding toward his Master. Alvin leaned down and dragged the arrow out of his arm with his teeth. It was not, unfortunately, a deep wound, and although it bled quite a bit, it did not stop Alvin from leaping aboard his Exterminator's back and up into the air. And in the swirling smoke of the Volcano, the two Warriors faced each other for the first time. Alvin pulled down the visor on his Fire-Suit. The dragons, one white, one black, wheeled around each other through the sulphurous smoke, watching for an opening, waiting for a moment to attack. "Now, now, Humungous," Alvin wheedled. "Don't forget, I'm your old pal, Terrific Al. You wouldn't hurt an old friend like me, would you?" But Humungous was full of righteous wrath. "Friend? HA! You never delivered my ruby heart's stone! You kept it for yourself!" A ray of sun poking for a moment through the rain-laden clouds bounced accusingly off the ruby in the bracelet, which was now around Humungous's

arm. Both men let out a terrible scream, simultaneously, and they leaped together, the two Warriors' swords meeting with an awful clang of metal against metal, Stormblade against Fireslash. At exactly the same moment, there was a great CRASH of thunder, the heavens opened and it began to POUR with rain. Fishlegs and Camicazi ran toward Hiccup, and all three Vikings huddled together straining to see what was happening up in the sky, who was winning the Battle in the Smoke. The Windwalker appeared out of nowhere, and dropped Toothless on top of Hiccup's helmet. Toothless looked into Hiccup's eyes upside-down, exhausted but thoroughly overexcited. "L-l-look, I brought H-H-Humungous, Toothless saved the day, Toothless a Hero, Toothless a Hero!" chanted the little dragon jubilantly, letting out a gloating cock-a-doodle-doo of triumph. "GUYS!" yelled down Humungous, performing the Grapple-lunge with full twist, as he fought all ten of the Exterminator's sword-claws AND the Stormblade and Alvin's hook on top, "DON'T FORGET THE QUEST!" (This may seem like rather obvious advice, but trust me, in the heat of the moment it is quite easy to