17 The Number Six Sword

17. THE NUMBER SIX SWORD For once in their lives Stoick the Vast and Big-Boobied Bertha were completely and entirely lost for words. Stoick the Vast's mighty jaw dropped in his amazement. 'By the Black Heart and Tricky Twisting Tongue of the Great God Loki!' he cried, for he had never seen a Stealth Dragon before, and his first thought was, that perhaps Thor had decided to save their lives by taking out his hammer and knocking a piece out of the sky to strike down the enraged Librarian. Even Big-Boobied Bertha's tremendous breasts heaved in their astonishment. And they only heaved the more at the sight of three little figures climbing carefully down from the back of the great shimmering mirage of Madguts's Secret Weapon. 'Ooooh, well done, you great magnificent hunk of a dragon!' cooed the Stormfly, fluttering around the Stealth Dragon's mighty head, batting her eyelashes. 'Brilliantly flattened!' 'Is not so b-b-brilliant just to s-s-squash

somebody!' hissed Toothless, in a jealous fury. 'Anyone can do s-s-squashing! Look! Toothless can do squashing too!' And the little dragon jumped up and down on the end of one of the Hairy Scary Librarian's long, quivering feet, poking out from beneath the beautiful gleaming bottom of the Stealth Dragon. 'Camicazi!' scolded Big-Boobied Bertha furiously. 'I might have known it! What HAVE you been doing with MY stolen goods!' Camicazi was clearly no more afraid of her mother than she was of anyone else. She put her hands on her hips. 'Well I like

THAT!' she exclaimed. 'We SWOOP down, saving your neck in the nick of time from being shot by this mad Librarian guy and all you can do is COMPLAIN!' 'AND WHY,' thundered Big-Boobied Bertha, in a fog-horn voice so loud that it made the ear-drums of the listening Vikings vibrate, 'IS THIS LIBRARIAN SHOOTING AT US IN THE FIRST PLACE? I TOLD YOU THE LAST TIME I RESCUED YOU FROM THE DUNGEONS OF THE DANGER-BRUTES, THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE YOU NICK FROM, LIKE THE PEACEABLES, AND THE QUIET-LIFES, AND CERTAIN PEOPLE THAT YOU DON'T BECAUSE IT'S JUST TOO DANGEROUS, I MEAN, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS, CAMICAZI.' Like many parents, Big-Boobied Bertha was making an EXCELLENT point that she would have done well to have listened to herself, for she was so busy scolding, and everybody else was so busy listening, that nobody had noticed a sinister, thuggish figure landing his dragon a hundred yards away, and nobody had seen him quietly drawing out his axes, a horrible grin on his ugly mug, and a truly unpleasant reeking smell of rotting eggs and stinking haddock pouring out from between his jagged and broken teeth.

Nobody, that is, apart from the Stormfly, who suddenly stopped mid-flutter, and wrinkled up her pretty little nose. 'Ooooh, yuck!' she exclaimed disgustedly. 'What is that revolting SMELL?' Smell is one of the strongest of our senses, and the powerful pong given off by the Murderous Tribe at close quarters reactivated the part of Stormfly's brain that had been shut off by the blow to the head in the Library, and her memory returned. 'Why, I do believe it's that human stink-bomb Madguts the Murderous!' she cried in delight. 'It's all coming back to me now! I am the Stormfly, and I spent my earliest dragonhood in their whiffy Murderous Mountains.' Stoick the Vast, Big-Boobied Bertha, Hiccup, Camicazi and Fishlegs turned very pale, and slowly round, and there he was, the revolting smell himself, Madguts the Murderous, his cold staring blue eyes like chips of ice. Madguts was not alone. He was accompanied, at a respectful distance behind, by about fifty or so crack Stealth Warriors, who had been dropped by their dragons on silent wings, and were now all training their Northbows straight at the chest of Big-Boobied Bertha. Madguts grunted something inarticulate to his

henchman Gumboil. 'The Number Six Sword, Your Viciousness?' replied Gumboil to his Master, removing the bag of weaponry from his back and searching through it. 'A very fine choice, if I may say so, Sir. Extra-Long, Super-Deadly. The Number Six will never fail you in a Revenge Situation.' Gumboil removed a truly evil-looking sword from the basket, and handed it to Madguts, who tested the point of it on his hand for sharpness, sending a bright sprinkle of blood down on to the ground. Bertha swallowed hard.