20 This Really Had Been a VERY Bad Night

20. THIS REALLY HAD BEEN A VERY BAD NIGHT… Meanwhile, as the trees burned before them and around them, Camicazi stopped teasing Berserks. 'FIRE!' she yelled. 'FIRE!!!' 'MAKE FOR THE HARBOUR!!!!' bellowed the Chief Berserk. Prisoners, Berserks, Fiancés– all stampeded down the rope bridges away from the direction of the fire, towards the direction of the Berserk Harbour. And above them, down, down Hiccup plunged, with Toothless shooting after him. Down, down, the boy fell from the heights of the Dragon Furious, and he would have plunged to his death if the Windwalker hadn't shot upwards towards the falling boy. Dragons are magnificent flyers. They have evolved to catch their prey mid-air, and so the Windwalker timed it perfectly, shooting upward in four great gliding flaps of his wings, catching Hiccup by the back of his collar as he fell through the air. Well, he timed it nearly perfectly. He caught Hiccup slightly off-balance, and the weight of the boy sent him into an aerial spin, and boy

and dragon carried on plunging down into the inferno below, bouncing off a tree branch, and landing, by pure fluke, on one of the rope bridges, which shivered and whined, and threatened to break… and held. Hiccup was thrown unconscious, and the Windwalker had entangled one of his wings in the ropes of the bridge. Squeaking wildly in alarm, Toothless landed on his Master's chest, and licked his face frantically to wake him up. The entire Forest was in flames now, and trees that had taken hundreds of years to grow were turned in an instant from wood into bonfire. Hiccup's eyes opened. He staggered groggily to his feet. 'I… er… need help…' stammered the Windwalker, and Hiccup tugged at the tangles that were holding the Windwalker's wing. He had nearly worked it free, and in the nick of time too, for BOTH ends of the rope bridge were now in flames, when a limping figure appeared at the end of the bridge. It is never wise to forget about Alvin. You should always be aware of him, plotting in the shadows, creeping up behind you, cloak flapping behind him like a malevolent bat. As indeed he was creeping up behind Hiccup right at that very moment,

tiptoeing so carefully on the rope bridge that his ivory foot barely made a tap, Stormblade fixed in his metal attachment, furious grin on what remained of his face. You would have thought that Alvin would have used the pandemonium to quietly escape himself. After all, Alvin was as much a prisoner as the poor souls hidden in the tree trunks. He had spent nearly a whole year cooking for the Berserk army, partly in chains himself, forced to be subservient and polite. He was certainly not allowed to leave. So why did Alvin not take advantage of the chaos to slip away to

freedom? Why was he not, like the others, fleeing the fire? The answer is that over the years, Alvin's hatred of Hiccup had been growing in his brain like some quiet cancerous weed that sprouts its tentacle shoots into every nook and cranny. Now it had grown so poisonously, mazily, dizzily strong that it had taken over his brain entirely, choking the life out of every other thought. Even his sense of self-preservation– which used to be Alvin's strongest point– was now weaker than his hatred of Hiccup. (Do not feel too smug, readers. Alvin is not the first, nor shall he be the last human being to be so consumed with hatred that he would rather die HIMSELF than see his enemy live to fight another day.) Up behind Hiccup, Alvin crept, and Toothless

only just had time to shout, 'Behind you! Behind you!' for Hiccup to turn, and draw, and meet Alvin's sword, blade on blade. The two swords clashed with a bright clean ring: Grimbeard's Best and Second-Best Swords, the Stormblade and the Endeavour, and the boy and the man began to fight.

This was their third swordfight, but never had there been such desperate circumstances as the bridge burning at both ends in the remains of what was once the Woods That Howled. Alvin thrust and swore, and lunged at the boy, and between every parry Hiccup called out to the Windwalker, was he all right, and could he get free? Even burnt and tired, Hiccup's sword-fighting had improved, and he was winning the fight, and Alvin was swiping increasingly desperate hooks at him, when one of the ropes of the rope bridge burnt through, and the bridge plunged suddenly downwards, knocking Hiccup off-balance so that he fell through the ropes, and with one flailing hand ju-u-ust caught the bridge, so he was hanging over the blazing inferno with one… hand… alone.