第四章：小嗝嗝的一个不太聪明的计划(11)

into his mouth to give him oxygen every now and then. Hiccup surfaced at the back of the ship and hitched a lift by driving two daggers into the wooden sides. He could hear the snap of the whips of the slave- drivers above, the moans of the poor tired slaves as they groaned with the weariness of the long journey, and the splash of their oars. The ship stopped and someone shouted up to the tiny figures way way up on the battlements. CRREEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!! With a protesting shriek of wheels and pulleys, the terrible door of Traitor’s Gate opened slowly. Above the door, these ominous words were carved into the stone, each letter the height of a man: FORGET ALL THOSE WHO ENTER HERE. The slave-driver snapped the whip again and screamed the command to row. Exhausted, the slaves rowed themselves through the door, and into their own oblivion. Slowly, and with dreadful finality, the iron door slammed…

… shut. The Windwalker, crouched in the reeds, let out a whine of anxiety as he saw it. He stayed there, shivering and alone, until a sentry on Prison Darkheart 
must have spotted him because there was a mighty blaze from the battlements, and something huge and heavy rocketed past the poor Windwalker’s head and exploded into the reeds beside him. What was that? What were these terrifying new weapons the humans were using against the dragons? The Windwalker did not stay to find out. With a terrified squeal, he launched out of the rushes and flapped for his life on sad raggedy wings, flying north to the Forgotten Forest. He looked mournfully over his shoulders at the horror of Prison Darkheart. But in the fear of the moment he left the stupid helmet with the feather on it behind in the reeds. Many hours later, something came winding through the melancholy cathedrals of long-dead dragons’ bones and landed next to the helmet and drank in the smell of it. You couldn’t see them, but the three heads of the camouflaged dragon smiled, and its talons sprang out like flick-knives. ‘Hiccup…