5 Something Nasty in the Cauldron

5. SOMETHING NASTY IN THE CAULDRON 'AAAAAAARGGGGHHHHHH!' screamed the Hooligans, the Murderous and the Grims, the Bog- Burglars, the Silents, the Bashem-Oiks, and the other Tribes of the Archipelago, stampeding around the banqueting hall like panicking water buffalos as the white hand stretched towards them. 'Ghosts and ghouls…' breathed Stoick the Vast through white lips, '…born out of the cooking pot…' Snaggletooth jumped right into Gobber's arms, and appeared to be trying to climb on top of his head. Baggybum the Beerbelly attempted to climb under a bench, and jammed there, tight as a cork in a bottle. In fascinated horror, Hiccup fixed his eyes on a second outstretched hand, white as coral, and covered with an unidentified grey-green slime of some sort, as it shakily re-e-e-eached out of the cauldron and grasped the edge of the rim. And slowly, slowly, up out of the cooking pot, there rose a human head as paper white and grinning

该页暂无翻译

as a skull. And as the figure rose higher and higher, they saw it was the figure of an old woman, with long white hair, and half-blind eyes covered with a thick grey layer of scum, and a nose as sharp as the point of a knife. 'A ghost! A ghost! A ghost!' screamed the Vikings. For the old woman was skinny as a skeleton, and her grey breast-plate and long white robes and malevolent expression were exactly the sort of things you might expect a ghost to be wearing. Hiccup was peering through his fingers now, and he let out a gasp as he suddenly realized that this wasn't a ghost at all. In fact, it was something considerably worse than a ghost. It made an undead warrior ghost from Valhalla look like a fluffy little kitten on a play-date. Still so painfully white, so drained of colour that Hiccup could hardly bear to look at her. The bones so

close under the skin that it was like staring straight at a skull, tapping fingernails tipped with iron. 'Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear!' exclaimed Hiccup in horror and surprise. 'It's Alvin the Treacherous's mother!' Well might Hiccup be horrified and surprised. For Alvin the Treacherous's mother was a thoroughly unpleasant and powerful witch, and Hiccup had thought that she was dead. If she was alive, that meant that her son Alvin was too, and this was VERY BAD NEWS INDEED, for Alvin the Treacherous was Hiccup's arch-enemy… 'Do you know this ghost, Hiccup?' asked Stoick the Vast in amazement. 'It's not a ghost at all,' said Hiccup. 'It's Alvin the Treacherous's mother, and she's a very dangerous witch.' 'It's not a ghost, guys! It's only a witch!' yelled out Mogadon the Meathead in relief. The dripping witch slithered her way out of the cauldron. In front of their astonished eyes she scuttled across the hall on all fours like a dog or a wolf, her iron fingernails clicking on the stone floor. Oh, it sent

a shiver down the spine, to see the way she moved, like a beetle or an evil thing, not like a human at all. She sat on the chair at the head of the table. She tipped her head to one side, waiting for questions. She got them. 'Madam!' bellowed Stoick the Vast, with a strong sense of injury. 'You owe us an explanation! What on earth are you doing popping out of cauldrons and frightening us at this late hour?' The witch's voice sent chills down the spine, something between a hiss and a whisper, with just that edge of evil to it that makes you sit up straight and check that your soul is still intact, and that she hasn't sucked it out of you while you weren't watching. 'My name is Excellinor, and I am the castle's witch. I do not like,' said the witch, her voice as dry as ice, 'either to pop into or to pop out of cauldrons. However, the castle was invaded by dragons of the most dreadful and dangerous kind. Flashburn and his Warriors were defeated and there were no survivors, apart from myself, for I had the foresight to creep inside this cooking pot, and hide myself just in time…' Hiccup looked around the room. No flame marks, no over-turned chairs, no blood, no sign of

a struggle of any sort. She lied. But why would the Vikings not believe her? They had just had the most terrible and bloody battle against Rogue dragons themselves. What was more natural than that Flashburn and his Warriors had been carried off by those very same dragons? Uproar in the banqueting hall. Cries of: 'Carried off, by my trousers!' and 'We must avenge!' 'But why?' asked a bewildered Grim-bod. 'Why is this happening? What is going on?' The witch's half-blind eyes gleamed. 'Someone has set free the Dragon Furious from the prison of Berserk, and he is bringing a Dragon Rebellion that will kill us all…' hissed the witch. Gasps of horror from the Viking Tribes. Oh dear, oh dear, OH DEAR… So that WAS the Dragon Furious who attacked us on the cliff, thought Hiccup. 'What you have seen in those dragons is the coming of the Red-Rage,' said the witch. 'And what,' asked Stoick the Vast, not really wanting to know the answer to this question, 'what exactly is the Red-Rage?'