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

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,

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

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

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,"

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.