24 The Boy Hunt

24. THE BOY HUNT Camicazi was right. Hiccup needed all the hope and courage that he could get. Being pursued by the entire dragon army was the most terrifying thing that had happened to him in his whole life– and Hiccup had had some terrifying experiences. Screaming through the sky, crouched flat on

the Windwalker's back, his arms around the dragon's neck, he felt his end was coming. He couldn't get his feet in the stirrups so he was clinging on with arms so cold they were practically statues. Behind him the stupefyingly scary sound of thousands and thousands of dragons, in pursuit. The Red-Rage sound in itself had to be fought, for it numbed the brain into defeat and despair.

"Hunt the Human from the Sky Burn him UP and let him Die Hunt the human, hunt the human," 'Don't listen,' sobbed Hiccup. 'Don't listen, Windwalker, don't listen…' He made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder once and the sight was so terrifying it made his stomach turn to water. Thousands and thousands of dragons, murder in their eyes, the flames so close they were nearly touching him, a flying pack of ravenous and angry wolves, they'd tear him to pieces when they caught him. The Red-Rage was getting closer, Hiccup could hear it, louder, louder, always louder. "Give up..." the Red-Rage was telling him, and Hiccup tried to close his brain but the noise seeped in anyway. "You're lost already, Death is sweet, embrace it..."

The triumphant voice of the Dragon Furious. "We've got him! We've got him!!" The extraordinary, crazy, rock formations of the Gorge turned it into a gigantic slalom course. One second's lack of concentration and they would crash straight into a pillar of stone and knock themselves out of this world and into the next. On top of this, the Gorge itself was shaped, as its name suggests, like a lightning bolt, and the cliffs twisted and turned around corners in a wildly contorted fashion. Wooah, this needed advanced flying skills of the most extreme kind, super-extreme-advanced in fact, and if Gobber could have seen Hiccup picking his way through that Gorge like threading a needle at supersonic speed he would have been a very proud six-and-a-half-foot lunatic, very proud indeed. 'Toothless feel s-s-sick, slow down!' The little dragon popped his head out of Hiccup's shirt, screamed at the sight of an upcoming wall of stone that Hiccup steered the Windwalker wildly away from

it right at the last minute, and dived down the shirt beside the Wodensfang again, putting his wings over his eyes for good measure. OK, they weren't going to be able to out-run the pursuing dragons this way… So he'd have to go UP instead. 'Up, Windwalker, up…' The boy and the dragon shot up out of the Gorge like a firework, the swarm of dragons even closer now. Hiccup urged the Windwalker higher and higher. If we get high enough, a lot of them won't be able to follow, thought Hiccup. You see, Hiccup's short life spent studying dragons meant that he knew so much about them. Most dragons much prefer operating in what they call 'shallow air'. The air close to the land, just out of reach of the tree-tops, is their environment and their playground. Very few dragons are 'deep air' dragons, they don't like the higher air above the clouds, with its sudden winds, and lighter atmosphere. They don't like that at all. 'Toothless's ears are p-p-popping!' wailed Toothless's muffled voice from deep in Hiccup's shirt,

'and he's s-s-squashed!' 'Higher, Windwalker, higher,' Hiccup whispered to the Windwalker. He couldn't really breathe now. He tried not to think about what might happen if he passed out, because he wasn't tied on… Just a little higher… The Windwalker's wings swam ever upwards. UP, UP, UP… Hiccup's ears were popping too… but as he looked down, the dragons following them were fading in their pursuit. The Windwalker's wings were taking them further than they could follow. The beautiful black dragon sailed on and on through the clouds, higher and higher, further and further. The air was cold now… They were so high, leaving all of Hiccup's problems behind… Hiccup was extremely tired… He laid his face down on the Windwalker's back, and he slept. He woke up in a cave he did not recognize. What could he do now? Even his helmet was lost.