2 THE EXTERMINATORS

2. THE EXTERMINATORS Hiccup swallowed hard. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh DEAR," he muttered to himself. "What has done that?" Dragons, you see, were normally very careful about how they used their fire. They used it to fight and catch prey, but they would never dream of setting fire to a whole landscape. Why would they? It was the land that supported them, and gave them food, and shelter. This must have been done by a "Rogue Species," a different kind of dragon entirely. Hiccup did not like to think of how dangerous such a dragon might be. "Ummm, sir," said Hiccup, "I think you should come and have a look at this... I think there's been a dragon-fire here." "Dragon-fire? Nonsense and gull-droppings!" Gobber the Belch snorted, as he came to look at the

2. 小嗝嗝使劲咽了口气。 “哦，天哪，哦，天哪，哦，天哪，哦，天哪，哦，天哪，”他喃喃自语。 “是什么造成的？”你知道，龙通常非常小心地使用它们的火。 他们用它来战斗和捕捉猎物，但他们从来没有想过放火烧毁整个景观。 他们为什么要这么做？是这片土地养活了他们，给了他们食物和住所。 这一定是“流氓物种”干的，一种完全不同的龙。 小嗝嗝不愿意去想这样一条龙会有多危险。 “嗯，先生，”小嗝嗝说，“我想你应该过来看看这个…… 我想这里发生了火龙事件。” “Dragon-fire ?废话和海鸥的粪便！”打嗝哥伯哼了一声，他过来看了看

destruction, his hands on his hips. "This will have been caused by a spot of summer lightning." "There hasn't been a storm lately," said Hiccup, "and look," he said as he knelt in the dust. "There's a sort of greenish tinge to the ash. It's definitely a Rogue Dragon Species." "Thank you, Hiccup," said Gobber, with heavy sarcasm, "for the helpful lecture, but I am the teacher here. GET BACK INTO LINE!" Hiccup got back into line. Snotlout smirked to see Hiccup being told off. "No dragon, however Rogue, would DARE to attack us here in the Hooligan stronghold of Berk. The idea is RIDICULOUS, ABSURD, BIZARRE. It is not the done thing," roared Gobber. "Each of you mount your dragons! On the double, QUICK QUICK QUICK!" Wartihog climbed onto his Marsh Tiger. Snotface Snotlout was riding the best dragon there, a smooth, evil-looking Devilish Dervish. Tuffnut Junior had a Rocket Ripper with go- faster stripes along the sides. "Hiccup the Useless and his fishlegged failure of a friend are really letting the rest of us down, Sir," sneered Snotlout. "Look at their pathetic riding dragons. They're a disgrace to the tribe!" Fishlegs and Hiccup had the runts of the group,

毁灭，双手叉腰。 “这可能是夏天的一道闪电造成的。” “最近没有下过暴风雨，”小嗝嗝说，“你看，”他跪在尘土里说。 “灰烬有一种绿色的色调。 这绝对是一个流氓龙物种。” “谢谢你，小嗝嗝，”戈伯带着沉重的讽刺说，“你的讲课很有帮助，但我才是这里的老师。 回到队伍里去！”小嗝嗝回到了队伍里。 小嗝嗝被骂了一顿，鼻子精傻笑起来。 “没有龙，不管多流氓，敢在流氓的伯克要塞攻击我们。 这个想法是荒谬的，荒谬的，奇异的。 这不是应该做的事。”戈伯吼道。 “你们每个人都骑上你们的龙！快点，快，快，快！”战猪爬上了他的沼泽虎。 鼻涕虫骑着那里最好的龙，一条光滑的、看起来很邪恶的恶魔。 小塔夫纳特有一辆火箭开膛枪，两边有加速条纹。 “没用的嗝嗝和他那没用的鱼腿朋友真让我们失望，先生。” “看看他们可怜的骑龙。 他们是部落的耻辱！”鱼腿和小嗝嗝是队里最矮的，

one an ugly, cross little Chickenpoxer so fat its belly barely cleared the ground, the other a nervous Windwalker with a wild look in its eye, and a pronounced limp. As the son of the Chief, Hiccup had first pick when they went to choose their dragons from the Dragon Stables a few days earlier. And he could have chosen the Devilish Dervish that Snotlout was smugly sitting on right now, a superb, shining muscular creature, who was clearly one day going to grow up into a magnificent animal. But something about the poor nervous Windwalker had caught Hiccup's eye. He knew no one else would pick him. And somehow he had the feeling that something awful had happened to the anxious creature lolloping crookedly in front of him. His legs bore the marks of

一个是丑陋的，脾气暴躁的小鸡，胖胖的肚子几乎撑不出地面，另一个是神经兮兮的风行者，眼睛里有一种狂野的神情，一瘸一拐的。 作为酋长的儿子，几天前他们去龙场挑选龙的时候，嗝嗝第一个挑选。 他本可以选择现在正得意洋洋地坐在上面的那只“魔鬼苦行僧”，那是一只极好的、闪亮的、肌肉发达的动物，显然有一天会成长为一只伟大的动物。 但是这个可怜的、神经紧张的风行者身上的某种东西引起了小嗝嗝的注意。 他知道没人会选他。 不知怎么的，他有一种感觉，在他面前那个弯弯曲曲地蹒跚而行、焦虑不安的家伙身上发生了什么可怕的事情。 他的腿上有…的痕迹

having recently been in manacles. "I wouldn't pick that one," advised Nobber Nobrains, who was in charge of the Dragon Stables. "We found HIM caught in a tree during a raid on Visithug Territory. We think he might be a runaway from the Lava-Lout Gold Mines, and runaways never make good riding dragons. The kindest thing really might be just to bonk him on the head and have done with it..." So Hiccup had picked the Windwalker with the limp. Both Fishlegs and Hiccup did not quite believe that the fire had been caused by lightning, but there was no arguing with Gobber in this mood, so reluctantly they mounted their dragons. Fishlegs's Chickenpoxer gave a furious snort, pawed the ground, and bucked Fishlegs off the moment he sat on his back. "Yippee," said Fishlegs morosely as he got back on board, and exactly the same thing happened again, only quicker, "I can see I'm going to like dragon riding..." "I will be leading you on the back of my own dragon," shouted Gobber. Gobber's dragon was a great warty Bullrougher known as Goliath. He winced as Gobber plumped heavily onto his

最近还戴着镣铐。 “我不会选那个。”管理龙马厩的诺伯·诺布林建议道。 “我们在一次对Visithug领地的突袭中发现他被困在一棵树上。 我们认为他可能是从拉瓦卢特金矿逃出来的，而逃出来的人永远骑不上龙。 最好的办法也许就是在他头上敲一下，了结这件事……” 所以嗝嗝选择了瘸腿的风行者。 鱼腿和小嗝嗝都不太相信火是由闪电引起的，但在这种心情下，他们没有必要和戈伯争论，所以他们不情愿地骑上了他们的龙。 鱼腿的鸡粉愤怒地哼了一声，用爪子刨地，在鱼腿仰面坐下的那一刻就把它摔了下来。 “是啊，”鱼腿回到船上时，闷闷不乐地说，同样的事情又发生了，只是速度更快，“我想我要喜欢上骑龙了……” “我将骑在我自己的龙背上带领你们。”戈伯喊道。 戈伯的龙是一个巨大的疣状斗牛，被称为歌利亚。 当戈伯重重地扑通一声落在他身上时，他畏缩了一下

back. "Sweet chest hair of Thor..." grumbled Goliath. "I do believe his bottom is even fatter than last week. It'll be a miracle if I can take off at all..." "YOICKS!" yelled Gobber, squeezing his thighs to get Goliath going. And the Herding-Reindeer-on-Dragonback party set off across the scorched wreckage of the heather, with Gobber enthusiastically shouting at the front, and everybody else following him in a more leisurely fashion. Hiccup's Windwalker dragon didn't want to go after the others. He was shivering all over and kept on looking up at the sky. For some reason, the Windwalker seemed to have lost the power of speech, so Hiccup couldn't ask it what the matter was. "It's all right, boy," said Hiccup soothingly, his heart sinking. "What's up with you? It's a lovely day; what are you frightened of?" The Windwalker could not say, but he was certainly petrified of SOMETHING. "C-C-COME ON!" bawled Toothless indignantly. Toothless lacked a sensitive side. "Everybody else w-w-will have WON by now!" "NOBODY is going to be winning, Toothless,"

回来。“托尔甜美的胸毛……” 抱怨哥利亚。“我相信他的屁股比上周更胖了。 如果我能起飞，那将是一个奇迹……” “哎呀！”戈伯叫道，一边挤着大腿让歌利亚走起来。 在龙背上放牧驯鹿的队伍穿过烧焦的石南丛残骸，戈伯在前面热情地喊着，其他人则悠闲地跟在他后面。 小嗝嗝的风行者龙不想去追其他人。 他浑身发抖，不停地仰望天空。 由于某种原因，风行者似乎失去了说话的能力，所以小嗝嗝无法问它出了什么事。 “没事的，孩子，”小嗝嗝安慰地说，他的心一沉。 “你怎么啦？”今天天气很好；你害怕什么？”风行者说不出话来，但他肯定被什么东西吓呆了。 “快——快——快！”无牙愤怒地大叫。 无牙缺乏敏感的一面。 “其他人——现在应该已经赢了！”“没人会赢的，没牙的。”

said Hiccup, patiently persuading the Windwalker to move on and catch up with the others. "Herding isn't a winning kind of thing." "OK. Toothless'll just scare the reindeer a little... k-k-keep em on the run..." said Toothless. An hour or so later, Gobber, flying on Goliath and slightly ahead of the others, spotted the herd of reindeer, nibbling quietly on the heather. He immediately flew back to the straggling line of boys on their dragons. "Sssh, everyone, I've spotted the reindeer," said Gobber quietly. "Now, we have to stay very relaxed and orderly. We don't want to alarm them and split up the herd. Call your hunting dragons to heel. Hiccup, in particular, I want you to keep good control of Toothless; we don't want a repeat of the Sheep-in-the-Toilets incident." "No, sir. Toothless, did you hear that?" whispered Hiccup sternly. "You're going to stay very calm, aren't you?" Toothless shuffled along Hiccup's shoulders and looked deeply and solemnly into Hiccup's eyes. He nodded eagerly. "Ohhhh, yes, yes, yes, T-T-Toothless will be v-v-very calm, oh yes." Hiccup blinked. Dragons' eyes are hypnotic, and he was already starting to feel dizzy. "You promise?" whispered Hiccup.

小嗝嗝说着，耐心地说服风行者继续前进，赶上其他人。 “放牧不是一件能赢的事。” “好吧。没有牙齿只会吓到驯鹿…… 让他们——让他们逃命……” 无说。大约一个小时后，戈伯骑着歌利亚号略微领先于其他人，发现了那群驯鹿，它们正在静静地啃着石南花。 他立刻飞回那群骑着龙的男孩身边。 “嘘，各位，我发现驯鹿了。”戈伯平静地说。 “现在，我们必须保持非常放松和有序。 我们可不想惊动它们，把鹿群分开。 叫你的猎龙们乖乖就范。 特别是小嗝嗝，我要你管好无牙；我们不想让羊粪事件重演。” “没有，先生。没有牙齿，你听到了吗？”嗝嗝严厉地小声说。 “你要保持冷静，是吗？”无牙在嗝嗝的肩膀上拖来拖去，严肃而深沉地注视着嗝嗝的眼睛。 他急切地点点头。“哦，对，对，对，无牙会很冷静的，哦，对。” 打嗝眨了眨眼睛。龙的眼睛具有催眠作用，他已经开始感到头晕了。 “你答应？”嗝嗝低声说。