How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel by Cressida Cowell (SAMPLE)

The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup the Viking

as told to

Cressida Cowell

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANYNew York Boston

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PROLOGUE BY HICCUPHORRENDOUS HADDOCK III

.You, dear reader, will need courage to read on. This is NOT the last of my memoirs. But the

story has become darker now, so dark that I need allmy courage just to write it.

I am looking back to that time when I wasfourteen years old and an Outcast.

The Red-Rage had taken over all the dragons inthe land and the dragon rebellion had begun. TheGreat War between humans and dragons had started.

The Vikings were being led by that dreadfulvillain, Alvin the Treacherous, who was guided by hiseven-more-dreadful mother, the witch Excellinor.

The dragon Furious was in charge of the dragonforces, and his aim was nothing less than the extinctionof the entire Viking race.

And the dragon Furious was winning. The Vikings’ only hope was for a new King to

be crowned King of the Wilderwest. A King who,according to ancient prophecy, would have all ten ofthe King’s Lost Things.

CourageCourage

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Nine of the Lost Things had been found.Only the Dragon Jewel, the most important,remained lost.

The Dragon Jewel had the power to destroydragons forever . . . It was the only thing the dragonFurious was afraid of.

Alvin the Treacherous had eight of the Lost Things. I, Hiccup the Outcast, had only one: my little

hunting dragon called Toothless. But I also hadGrimbeard the Ghastly’s map that showed the way towhere the Jewel was hidden.

And so I, “Enemy Traitor Number One,” wasbeing hunted throughout the Archipelago, by bothhumans and dragons alike. A proclamation calling formy death hung on hundreds of burned-out tree trunks.

My fourteen-year-old self was all alone apartfrom three dragon companions.

My Tribe had been driven out of their home onBerk by the dragon rebellion.

My father, Stoick, and my friend Fishlegs hadbeen turned into slaves and sent to the AmberSlavelands.*

You see why I call these my darkest times?

*Originally, they were in the Uglithug Slavelands. But when the witchfigured out where the Jewel was, she moved everyone.

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I had to have hopethat things would turn out well in the end, that the smallthings and the happiness ofpeacetime would return.

I had to rememberthis through the teeth andfire and talons.

I had to have .CourageCourage

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THE PROPHECY OFTHE KING’S LOST THINGS

The Dragontime is comingAnd only a King can save you now.

The King shall be theChampion of Champions.

You shall know the KingBy the King’s Lost Things.

A fang-free dragon, my second-best sword,My Roman shield,

An arrow-from-the-land-that-does-not-exist,The heart’s stone, the key-that-opens-all-locks,

The ticking-thing, the Throne, the Crown.

And last and best of all the ten,The Dragon Jewel will save all men.

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1. THE WARRIOR

One cold, moonlit winter night in the Flaming Forest, a gigantic Warrior sat high and still in a treetop, like anAngel of Death.

The Warrior was out hunting. It had been on thetrail of the Outcast for many days. It was intending tokill this Outcast, this enemy of the Wilderwest.

Its metal visor was down. Its sword was ready inits hand, searching for the kill. It was still as a statue,only its bright blue eyes looking down on the pathwinding through the woods far below it.

In those times, the humans and the dragons wereat war, so it was strictly forbidden for humans to ridedragons anymore.

But surprisingly, this Warrior was seated on theback of a dragon, lying lazy but alert along the length ofthe tree branch. The dragon was an Air Dragon of thepurest silver—very, very rare and very, very dangerous.

It too looked down at the snowy path below, onlyits pointed tail moving, slowly and rhythmically, like thetail of a cat.

All was quiet. After a little time, a noise washeard. The Warrior had closed its eyes, but now, buriedin the black visor, they snapped open.

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Way in the distance, a human wasmoving along the path through the woods.

The human was “the Outcast,” the enemy,exactly the person whom the Warrior was waitingto kill.

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The Warrior gave a grunt of satisfaction and satup a little straighter.

When you looked at this Outcast close-up (whichthe Warrior couldn’t, not from that distance), he wasnot at all what you might imagine an Outcast to be.He was very different from the clever, confident figurehe cut when he was releasing dragons from right underthe Visithugs’ noses two hours ago.

He was a young boy called Hiccup HorrendousHaddock the Third, about fourteen years old, veryskinny and ordinary-looking, with the dark mark thatthe humans called the “Slavemark”—a tattoo in the shape of adragon—burningblue-black on one sideof his forehead.

Hiccup had beensleeping rough fora year now, in treetops orin caves, and all he’d hadto eat in that time wereberries and nuts and foodstolen fearfully fromsleeping Vikingvillages.


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Risking his life day after day undoing the dragontraps the Vikings had been setting for the dragons and constantly running away from the humans andthe terrifying hunting dragons of the dragon rebellionhad really taken it out of him.

So there in the moonlight, Hiccup looked likewhat he was.

Afraid, alone.He was dressed from head to toe in a dragon-skin

Fire-Suit, ripped and tattered by brambles andbranches. He was muddy and dirty, the strain and fearof being hunted showing in the stiffness of his bodyand the anxious tic in his eyes.

He had a black eye, and he was limping, as was the riding dragon trotting along beside him. TheWindwalker was exhausted, which was why Hiccupwasn’t riding him, and puffing out great wafts of tiredsteam.

Around Hiccup’s head fluttered two tiny hunting dragons. One very old one, the Wodensfang,with wings all tattered and torn. One very young one,Toothless, a bright grass-green—the naughtiest, mostfidgety dragon in the whole of the Archipelago.

They were talking together in soft whispersin Dragonese.


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“I’m telling you,Hiccup,” the Wodensfang said

in a light, quavery voice, “your Quest is very simple.

“You have to find the Dragon Jewel, go toTomorrow, get yourself crowned King of theWilderwest, and then the Tomorrow Men will tellyou the secret of the Dragon Jewel and you can stop this stupid war, and save the dragons and the humansfrom extinction.”

“Did you s-s-see me?” squeaked Toothless. “Didyou see me dive-bombing that Visithug? Wasn’t Iclever? Wasn’t I brilliant? Wasn’t I m-marvelous?”


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“Yes, you weremarvelous, Toothless,” replied

Hiccup, “but can you keep it downa bit? The forest dragons are

hibernating at the moment, and wedon’t want to wake them up.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighedbecause he was missing everybody so much. Being anOutcast was very, very lonely.

“The thing is, Wodensfang, nothing is ever thatsimple. People actually have to want me, a slave, anOutcast, to be King. I have to have actual humanfollowers, not just you three. And I have to have allof the Lost Things, and Alvin the Treacherousalready has eight of them.”

“You’ve got m-m-me!” squeaked Toothless,landing on Hiccup’s arm. “I’m one of the Lost Things,and I’m the best one!”

“Manners,” reminded the Windwalker gently.“Don’t forget, Toothless, no boasting . . .”

“Okay,” said Toothless, his brow furrowing.“Toothless is the best one . . . p-p-please?”

“The map says that the Jewel is in the AmberSlavelands,” said the Wodensfang. “Why aren’twe there?”


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“Because instinctively I don’t think the Jewelis there,” replied Hiccup.

“That is because your heart is not yet in yourQuest,” replied the Wodensfang solemnly. “At themoment, you are on a different Quest, the Quest tofind your friend Fishlegs and your father. Admitit—that’s why we’re here.”

It was why they were there. The Hooligans weresupposed to have hidden out in this country after Berkwas burned out by the dragon Furious.

“Okay,” admitted Hiccup. “I am worried aboutFishlegs. He’s always sort of relied on me.”

Fishlegs was a “runt” who had washed up on thebeaches of Berk fourteen years ago. He had noparents, so it was Hiccup who looked after him andstopped the other Hooligans from bullying him.

“And this is getting in the way of your trueQuest,” said the Wodensfang, “which is to find theDragon Jewel.”

“Not entirely,” said Hiccup, “because I stilldon’t think the Jewel is in the Amber Slavelands,whatever the map says.”

They had walked such a long way now that theystopped right underneath the tree the Warrior wassitting in. Hiccup got out the map.




The map was quite complicated. It showed anice, distinct picture of the Amber Slavelands, andthere was a Maze of Mirrors and Prison Darkheart,and in the heart of the prison was the Dragon Jewel,helpfully pointed out with a large arrow and capitalletters.

The three dragons peered at it. So too did theWarrior and the dragon perched high, invisible andmenacing, in the treetops above Hiccup.

“Look,” said Hiccup, pointing to a large fish atthe top of the map—a fish so long that it took up theentire space from left to right.“What is that?”

Trust seafaringcreatures like dragons andVikings to know their fishspecies.

“It’s a member ofthe herring family,” saidthe Wodensfang.

“And what color is it?”“R-r-red!” said Toothless proudly.

“Ask me another one! Toothless knowsall the colors,” he confidedconfidentially to the Windwalker.

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“You see,” said Hiccup, “in the human world a‘red herring’ is another way of saying a false start,or a wrong direction. My knowledge of Grimbeardthe Ghastly is that he was a tricky man, and this is his way of saying that the Jewel isn’t in theSlavelands at all. What do you think, Wodensfang?”

The Wodensfang was the only one of the four ofthem old enough to have actually met Grimbeard theGhastly, more than one hundred years before. So nowhe looked back through time to remember thatdreadful man, and what that look told him was thatGrimbeard was the trickiest trickster since the greattrickster god Loki put his Particularly Tricky Hat on.

“Hmm . . . ” said the Wodensfang. It did seemexactly the sort of thing that Grimbeard would do.And suddenly a Maze of Mirrors seemed an unlikelything to be finding in Prison Darkheart, which wasprobably furnished on the basic side.

Then the Wodensfang raised a cunning eyebrow.“But it could be a double bluff . . . ”

“So,” said the soft, gentle voice of the raggedyWindwalker, “if the Dragon Jewel isn’t in the AmberSlavelands, where then, exactly, is it?”

“That’s why it’s not so simple,” said Hiccup,waving wide his arms. “It could be anywhere!”

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At that moment, there was adefinite rustle from above as thehidden Warrior and the hiddendragon craned forward withinterest to see what was writtenon Hiccup’s map.

The effect on the fourcompanions below wasimmediate.

The Wodensfang shot upa foot in the air, its tatteredears turning electrically rigid

and purply red and pointingfirst west, then south,

then east, then north. “Danger!”

squeaked theWodensfang in


theloudestwhisper hecould whisper.“Danger! Quick! Hiccup, getyour helmet on!”

“Oh . . . no, guys, really . . .it’s far too big . . . I find it

easier to fight without it . . . ”But the dragons

ganged up on him,three to one.

“You needit!” whisperedthe Wodensfang.“Remember back on Danger-BruteIsland when you nearly lost yourear? And that poison dart thatjust missed you when you wereundoing the Visithugdragon traps?”


“And what about the head-lopping incidentwith the head-loppers over in Nowhere?” TheWindwalker padded anxiously back and forth.

“A helmet wouldn’t save you from having yourhead lopped off,” argued Hiccup.

“The Wodensfang is r-r-right!” agreed Toothless,who was agreeing with the Wodensfang more and morethese days. Both squeaking, the Wodensfang andToothless lifted the detested helmet from the back ofthe rucksack, and then the Windwalker helped themtenderly jam it on Hiccup’s head.

It was an old Visithug one that they had burgleda couple of weeks ago, and it was a very bad fit.

“It’s really uncomfortable,” grumbled Hiccup. “Plus the big feather thingy makes me very memorable. I’m supposed to be


undercover, you know. An Outcast has to melt intothe background . . . ”

“Shhh . . . ” The Wodensfang put his wing to his lips.“I told you,” said the Wodensfang, “I’ve had

this really bad feeling that the dragon Furious hassent some new dragon to assassinate you . . .Something really terrifying . . . ”

“Yes, Wodensfang,” said Hiccup. “You’re alwaysgetting these feelings, but listen, it’s all gone quiet.”

“That’s the thing about this new dragon,though,” whispered the Wodensfang. “It’s almostundetectable. It’s one of those tracker dragons.”

The four companions stretched their ears outinto the white muffled world of trees and snow.


Nothing.

“Maybe it wasa false alarm,”

whispered Toothless.



Up in the treetops the Warrior and the dragon sat still as stones. Not a leaf moved; theforest seemed to hold its breath . . .

And then . . .



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With a scream as loud as a charging baboon, the Warrior hidden in the tree canopy above exploded into action, erupting from the foliage anddescending in a shower of leaves and broken branches like some swooping noble nightmare ofrevenge.

Sssssppppppppppooooooooow! Zzzzziiiiiiiinggggg!If Hiccup and the Windwalker hadn’t been living

on their nerves for the past several months, they mightnot have dodged backward so fast, and Hiccup wouldhave been deader than a dodo.

For the Zzzzing! that zinged past Hiccup’s nose was the zing of an arrow that missed him by inches and buried itself in a tree trunk a couple of feet behind him.

CLANG! The dodging backward brought hisvisor clanging down, where it jammed tight shut.

Uh-oh, thought Hiccup, who was an intelligentboy. This person wants to kill me.

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BONG! BONG! BONG! Three more arrows cameraining harmlessly off the detestable helmet.

Thanks, guys. The helmet was a good call, thoughtHiccup as he jumped onto the Windwalker, who shotoff through the trees.

And then he couldn’t believe his eyes when helooked over his shoulder and saw the dragon that wasfollowing them.

Oh for Thor’s sake. You couldn’t mistake that particular dragon.It was the Silver Phantom.Even though it was the dead of night, every silver

scale was lit up and shone brighter than was strictlypossible in real life. The Silver Phantom seemed togive off its own light, like the moon. Its scream was sohigh and so loud that Hiccup felt as if it were settingfire to his ears.

And as the dragon screamed, it poured out a jetof bright blue flames that blasted the trees in front of it,burning the leaves as bright as green stars before theydropped to the ground in powdery black smithereens.

The Silver Phantom was absolutely unmistakable. It was unique.It also just so happened to be the riding dragon

that belonged to Hiccup’s mother.


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Which meant that the Warrior currentlyreloading her Northbow and taking careful aim atHiccup while guiding the screaming Phantom by thestrength of her Warrior knees alone—that particularWarrior was in fact . . .



. . . Hiccup’s own mother,Valhallarama.


Some of the Air Dragons fly at such highaltitudes that humans have never evenseen them. A Silver Phantom is one such dragon: Glimpsed very rarely atastonishingly high distances, these sorts ofdragons are sometimes known as ghosts,and some people doubt they exist at all.

~ STATISTICS ~FEAR FACTOR: ......................... 10ATTACK: .................................. . 10SPEED: ...................................... 10SIZE: ........................................... 10DISOBEDIENCE: ...................... 10


This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of theauthor’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,living or dead, is coincidental.

Text and illustrations copyright © 2012 by Cressida Cowell

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, andelectronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracyand theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (otherthan for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017Visit our website at www.lb-kids.com

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

First U.S. Edition: April 2013Originally published in Great Britain in 2012 by Hodder Children’s Books

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cowell, Cressida.How to seize a dragon’s jewel : the heroic misadventures of Hiccup the Viking / as told to

Cressida Cowell.—First U.S. edition.pages cm.—(How to train your dragon ; 10)

“Originally published in Great Britain in 2012 by Hodder Children’s Books”—Copyright page.Summary: In exile, and hunted by dragons and humans alike, can Hiccup the Viking find the

dragon’s jewel and save the world from destruction?ISBN 978-0-316-24409-1 (alk. paper)

1. Vikings—Juvenile fiction. [1. Vikings—Fiction. 2. Dragons—Fiction. 3. Humorousstories.] I. Title.

PZ7.C83535Hmu 2013[Fic]—dc23

2012044032

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

RRD-C

Printed in the United States of America

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How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel by Cressida Cowell (SAMPLE)