Cressida Cowell - How to Train Your Dragon 03 - How to Speak Dragonese

How to Speak Dragonese (The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III #3)

Cressida Cowell

CONTENTS

1. The Boarding-an-Enemy-Ship Lesson .......1

2. Sharkworms..............................................11

3. Out of the Cooking Pot .............................32

4. Toothless to the Rescue ............................46

5. Back on Berk..............................................61

6. That Night in Sinister

Roman Fort Sinister .....................................74

7. The Nanodragon .......................................76

8. The Frightening Foreigners Lesson ...........90

9. Welcome to Fort Sinister .........................100

10. The Secret Identity of the Thin Prefect .108

11. The Bog-Burglar Heir.............................122

12. The Master Escaper ................................132

13. Back on Berk...........................................136

14. Camicazi's Escape Plans.........................139

15. The Coming of the Sharkworms.............152

16. The Cunning but Desperate Plan ............162

17. The Circus on Saturn's Day Saturday ....169

The Valhalla Express ................................172

19. Aaaaaaargh!..............................................187

20. Hiccup the God.........................................197

21. You Can't Keep a Bog-Burglar.............206

22. The Return of the Heroic Heirs ...............220

[Image: Stoick the vast.]

[Image: Dogsbreath.]

[Image: Ziggerastica (a nanodragon)

[Image: The thin prefect.]

[Image: Snot lout and fireworm.]

[Image: Fishlegs hiccup's best friend horrorcow.]

[Image: Hiccup toothless.]

[Image: Camicazi.]

[Image: Big-boobied bertha (chief of the Bog-Burglars.]

[Image: Hiccup and his sword, endeavour.]

Once there were dragons.

Imagine a time of DRAGONS -- some larger than mountainsides, slumbering in the depths of the ocean; some smaller than your fingernail, hopping through the heather.

Imagine a time of VIKING HEROES, in which men were men and women were sort of men too and even some little babies had chest hair.

And now imagine that you are a boy called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, not yet twelve years old and not yet turning out to be the kind of Hero his father would have liked him to be. That boy, of course, was really ME, but the boy I was then seems so far away to me now that I shall tell this story almost as if he were a stranger.

So, imagine that instead of being me, this stranger, this Hero-in-Waiting, is YOU.

You are small. You have red hair. You don't realize it yet, but you are about to set out on the most alarming episode of your life so far ... When you are an old, old man like I am you will call it "My First Encounter with the Roman Empire" -- and even at this distance in time it will still cause your old wrinkled arms to prickle with goose bumps as you remember the perils and dangers of that terrifying adventure...

[Image: Ships.]

1. THE BOARDING-AN-ENEMY-SHIP LESSON

Once upon a foggy day in a cold, cold country long, long ago, seven small Viking boats floated through the Sea-Known-as-Woden's-Bathtub. The fog had swallowed up the Peaceable Country to the north, and the Isle of Berk to the west, and, indeed, had swallowed up so much of everything that it was as if the boats were sky-boats, and had left the earth entirely, and were sailing through cloud banks way, way up in the air.

In the first boat, The Fat Boar, sat Gobber the Belch, a six-and-a-half-foot giant in teeny-weeny hairy shorts, who had leg muscles so enormous they had muscles of their own, and a beard like a hedgehog struck by lightning. Gobber was the teacher in charge of the Pirate Training Program on the Isle of Berk, and this sail through the fog was part of a Boarding-an-Enemy-Ship lesson.

The six boy-sized boats that were following The Fat Boar each had two boys in them, and these boys were Gobber's pupils, young members of the Tribe of the Hairy Hooligans.

"OK, YOU DISGUSTING GLOBS OF GIRLY SNOT!" yelled Gobber, in a bellow so loud it could be heard several miles away. "WE ARE NOW GOING

TO PRACTICE BOARDING AN ENEMY SHIP ON THE EASY TARGET OF A PEACEABLE FISHING BOAT ... CAN ANYONE REMEMBER THE FIRST RULE OF AMBUSH?"

"TAKE THE ENEMY BY SURPRISE, SIR!" shouted out Snotface Snotlout, a tall, unpleasantly smug-looking boy with gigantic nostrils and the beginnings of a small mustache.

"Very good, Snotlout," purred Gobber the Belch, and he continued at full volume: "IN A FOG THIS THICK YOUR VICTIM SHIP WILL NOT HAYE A CHANCE OF SEEING YOU COMING!"

They can hear us, though, thought Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, gloomily trying to peer through the fog, unless, of course, we have the luck to stumble across some completely deaf peaceable fishermen...

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is, rather surprisingly, the Hero of this story. I say surprisingly, because the first thing you noticed about Hiccup was how very, very ordinary he was. He was on the small side, with a slightly freckled, absolutely average face that would always get overlooked in a crowd.

His dragon, Toothless, who was at that moment asleep down the front of Hiccup's shirt, was just as average as his owner. The only truly remarkable thing about Toothless was how remarkably small he was. He was at least half the size of the other boys' dragons.

And, as you can imagine, this wasn't something to boast about.

Gobber's shouting woke the little dragon up. He poked his nose out of the neck of Hiccup's tunic. "W-w-what's happening?" he asked sleepily in Dragonese.

* Dragons spoke Dragonese. Only Hiccup could understand this fascinating language.

[Image: Hiccup.]

"Oh, nothing unusual," Hiccup whispered back, scratching Toothless behind the horns. (He loved that.) "Gobber is shouting, Snotlout is showing off, and. we're all out here floating in tie fog and the cold when we could be tucked up in front of a roasting fire ... Ton can go back to sleep if you like."

Toothless chuckled. "You V-v-vikings are as m-m-mad as mackerel," he said. "W-w-wake Toothless up when it's l-l-lunchtime..." And he burrowed back down to the nice warm spot just next to Hiccup's left armpit and closed his eyes again.

Hiccup was sharing his boat with his best friend Fishlegs, who was even skinnier than Hiccup and looked a lot like a daddy longlegs with asthma and a squint. Fishlegs put his hand up in the air.

[Image: Hiccup.]

"It's all very well that they can't see us coming, sir," he pointed out logically, "but how are we going to see them so we can board them in the first place?"

"Easy-peasy, o plankton-brain," boomed Gobber, very pleased with himself. "Peaceable fishing boats are always followed by flocks of Lesser

Blackbacked Seadragons, hoping for a bite. All you have to do is follow the racket they make and you'll have found yourself a boat. You then simply board the boat yelling the Hooligan War Cry: repeat after me ... YAAAAAAAAAH!" yelled Gobber the Belch.

"YAAAAAAAAAH!" yelled ten of the boys back at him, brandishing their swords like maniacs.

"Yaaaaah," repeated Hiccup and Fishlegs, without much enthusiasm.

[Image: Men.]

"The Peaceables are terrified of us Hooligans, Woden only knows why ... Right, lads -- you steal one of their helmets to prove you have completed the exercise, and report back to me. THIS IS GOING TO BE LIKE BURGLING BERRIES FROM A BABY!" boomed Gobber the Belch.

"Oh, I nearly forgot. Silly me ..." Gobber laughed carelessly. "The one thing you do have to bear in mind is that ON NO ACCOUNT SHOULD YOU LEAVE THIS BAY. This is VERY IMPORTANT because just to the south of here runs the Summer Current, a warm stream of water, and you all know what lives in the Summer Current..."