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

20.。这真是一个非常糟糕的夜晚……与此同时，当他们面前和周围的树木都在燃烧时，卡米卡齐不再戏弄狂暴者了。 “火!她喊道。“火! !“驶向港口！！！！。狂暴队长吼道。 囚犯、狂暴者、未婚夫——所有的人都从绳索桥上跑下来，离开火场的方向，奔向狂暴港的方向。 在他们上方，小嗝嗝往下，往下，无牙在后面追。 往下，往下，男孩从暴龙的高处掉了下来，如果不是风行者朝下落的男孩开枪，他就会掉下去摔死。 龙是伟大的飞禽。 它们进化出了在半空中捕捉猎物的能力，因此风行者的时机把握得非常完美，它用四个巨大的滑翔翅膀向上拍打，在小嗝嗝从空中坠落时抓住他的后颈。 嗯，他的时间几乎是完美的。 他抓住了小嗝嗝，使他稍稍失去了平衡，小嗝嗝的重量使他在空中打转

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,

恶龙继续往下坠入地狱，从一根树枝上弹跳而下，最后纯属侥幸地落在一座绳桥上，绳桥颤抖着，发出呜呜声，有断裂的危险…… 小嗝嗝被打晕了，风行者的一只翅膀被桥上的绳子缠住了。 无牙惊恐地尖叫着，落在主人的胸口上，疯狂地舔他的脸，想把他弄醒。 现在整个森林都燃起了火焰，那些花了几百年才长出来的树，瞬间从木头变成了篝火。 小嗝嗝睁开了眼睛。他摇摇晃晃地站了起来。 “我……嗯……需要帮助……”风行者结结巴巴地说，小嗝嗝拽了拽风行者翅膀上的缠结。 他几乎要把绳索挣脱出来了，而且是在关键时刻，因为索桥的两端都着火了，这时一个一瘸一拐的人影出现在桥的尽头。 忘记阿尔文是不明智的。 你应该时刻警惕他，他在暗处密谋，悄悄靠近你，斗篷像恶毒的蝙蝠一样在他身后飘动。 事实上，就在这时，他正爬到小嗝嗝身后，

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

他小心翼翼地踮着脚尖走在绳桥上，他的象牙脚几乎没有轻拍，暴风之刃固定在他的金属附件上，脸上露出愤怒的笑容。 你本以为艾尔文会趁乱悄悄逃走。 毕竟，阿尔文和那些藏在树干里的可怜的灵魂一样，都是囚犯。 他花了将近整整一年的时间为狂暴军做饭，他自己也有一部分时间是戴着镣铐，被迫顺从和彬彬有礼。 他当然不被允许离开。 那为什么艾尔文不趁混乱溜走去

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

自由?为什么他没有像其他人一样逃离火灾？ 答案是，多年来，阿尔文对小嗝嗝的仇恨一直在他的脑子里滋长，就像某种悄无声息的癌变杂草，把它的触角伸向每一个角落和缝隙。 现在，这念头变得如此恶毒、迷惘、令人头晕目眩，完全占据了他的大脑，使他的一切念头都窒息了。 即使是他的自我保护意识——这曾经是阿尔文最强烈的一点——现在也比他对小嗝嗝的仇恨更弱了。 (读者们，不要沾沾自喜。 阿尔文不是第一个，也不会是最后一个被仇恨吞噬的人，他宁愿自己死也不愿看到他的敌人活着再战一天。)在小嗝嗝后面，阿尔文和无牙爬了上去

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.

刚来得及喊一声：“在你后面！”在你后面!嗝嗝转过身来，拔出剑来，迎向阿尔文的剑，一刃对一刃。 两把剑碰撞出一个明亮干净的环：Grimbeard的最佳剑和次佳剑，暴风之剑和奋进号，男孩和男人开始战斗。

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.

这是他们的第三次剑拔弩张，但从来没有遇到过如此绝望的情况，桥的两端都在燃烧，而这里曾经是嚎叫的森林。 阿尔文冲了过去，咒骂着，向那孩子扑过去，每隔一段时间，希卡普就向风行者喊一声，他还好吗？他能挣脱吗？ 尽管浑身焦灼、疲惫不堪，但嗝嗝的剑术还是有了进步，他快要赢了。阿尔文越来越绝望地向他挥去钩子，这时绳桥的一根绳子被烧断了，桥突然塌了下去，把嗝嗝打得失去了平衡，他从绳索中掉了下去，一只手挥舞着，正好抓住了桥，所以他只剩下一只……一只手……一个人悬在熊熊燃烧的地狱上空。