4 THE FIGHT

4. THE FIGHT Round and round the shapes circled, closer and closer, growling to each other in contentment, delighted with their victory. Until finally one pushed its head through the flame. It was a dragon, but not any dragon that Hiccup or Gobber had ever seen before. A dragon created by a god in a bad mood. Fire licked from its blood-streaked eyeballs, came smoking off its forehead and crackling out of its nostrils. Its skin was semi-transparent, so that you could see the black veins bulging furiously in its temples, like a thick, pulsing spider's web. It held its paws up in front of its face and... ZING! ZING! ZING! ZING! ZING! ZING! Six talons came shooting out of the ends of its stubby reptilian fingers, talons as long and broad and sharp as swords, and smoking hot.

Black saliva dropped slowly from its jaws. Green flames flickered up and down its talons. It bent down low in the fire, mouth agape, ready to spring at Hiccup, and... and an expression of acute surprise came across its face. And it disappeared back into the flames as quickly as it had emerged. For another, even more terrifying figure had sprung up in the inferno. The figure of a pure-white dragon, with a single horn set in the middle of its forehead, rearing up, wings stretched wide. Astride its back was a gigantic Man with a sword on either hand. But what MAN could ride into a bonfire and live? Perhaps, Hiccup thought, they had died and gone to Valhalla already, and this was Thor or Woden riding out to greet them. The black dragons had fallen back in shock, but now they re-formed, growling hideously, and in front of Hiccup and Gobber's disbelieving eyes, an astonishing fight began in the fire. Hiccup had never seen a fight quite like it. It was half dragon-fight, and half sword-fight, and the Man on the White Dragon was outnumbered six to one. Hiccup had never seen a man fight quite like this

Man. The black dragons used their talons like swords, springing at him from above, from aside, from below, slashing and thrusting. The Man on the White Dragon had no shield, and he controlled his dragon with his knees alone. Roaring like a god, his arms moved so quickly that you could barely see them. His swords were there to meet every blow, every attack, every thrust. "OK, Toothless come out now," said Toothless, in a muffled way from beneath the helmet. "Toothless need to do a p-p-pee-pee RIGHT NOW!" "It's really not a good moment right now, Toothless," said Hiccup nervously, holding his helmet firmly to his head. "You should have gone earlier..." "Let me out! Toothless c-c-come out now or Toothless do a pee-pee on Mean Master's H-HHEAD!" screeched Toothless, furiously drumming his heels against the metal. One second the Man on the White Dragon was parrying the lunges of twenty-four sword talons simultaneously. The next his arms shot out to the left and right and two black dragons lay dead in the flames. And all at once the remaining four abandoned the fight, shooting up into the air like gigantic dark bats, and the Man on the White Dragon galloped out

of the fire and into the circle where Hiccup, Gobber, and the Windwalker were crouching, and where Goliath lay dead. "PERSON WITH THE ENORMOUS BELLY!" roared the Man, taking off his cloak. "Climb on the back of my dragon!"

"The boy must go first," said Gobber the Belch. "Can't carry all of us!" bellowed the Man, above the roaring of the greedy flames, creeping nearer and nearer, "but the boy will be safe, you have my word for it!" "Swear," said Gobber. "I swear," said the Man. He threw Hiccup his cloak. "Wrap yourself up in that, boy, and your own dragon can carry you out of the fire." Slowly, Gobber stood up. Carefully, he removed his helmet from his head, and placed it very gently on the chest of the dead Goliath. And only then did he climb on to the back of the White Dragon, which immediately leapt into the air. "Wrap yourself tight!" the Man called down to Hiccup. "It's fireproof!" Hiccup was alone in the circle of fire, so close now about him that his sleeve caught on fire. The flames surged forward to swallow up the last little piece of unburned land as Hiccup leaped onto the Windwalker's back, pulling the cloak over his head, with both his sleeves burning. The flames snuffed out instantly. The cloak was as cold as the ocean and smelled comfortingly of fish. It was like wrapping

yourself up in the sea itself, and Hiccup gasped with the delighted shock of it. He tucked the cool ends firmly around every part of him, so that not a finger, not a toe, not a morsel of his body would be exposed to the fire. He threw his arms around the Windwalker's shivering back. "Run, Windwalker, run," whispered Hiccup. And as the whole of the mountain was consumed with the flames, the Windwalker ran.