"And WHOSE Beast has just sniffed out this door? YOUR Beast."
"S-s-see?" said Toothless. "Toothless is better s-s-sniffer than Fireworm."
"YOU are the True Heir to the Hairy Hooligans, Hiccup," said Alvin. "And so only YOU can open this door and live."
"But I don't want to open this door," said Hiccup. "If you give me enough time I'm sure I can get us out of here without opening it. What about the booby traps? You open Grimbeard's coffin and you lose your right hand.... We open Grimbeard's treasure chest and it triggers a smell that wakes up the Skullions.... I KNOW that if we open this door something REALLY UNPLEASANT is going to
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happen, sure as fish eggs are fish eggs. And the surprises are getting WORSE, if anything."
"I forgot to mention," said Alvin silkily, "if you don't open the door, you DIE."
He pressed the Stormblade forward a bit so that it pierced the skin just above Hiccup's heart.
"Let me get this straight," said Hiccup, "if I do open this door, you WON'T kill me or my friends?"
"I promise," said Alvin, "word of a Treacherous."
"Word of a Treacherous ... ," groaned Fishlegs. "It says it all really.... He'll kill us as soon as he has the treasure ... if there is any treasure behind that door...."
"But otherwise he's going to kill us now," Hiccup pointed out. "I haven't got a lot of choice."
Hiccup leaned forward, biting his lip, and slid the heavy iron bolt to the left.
"NOT a good idea, NOT a good idea, NOT A GOOD IDEA," repeated Fishlegs and Toothless to themselves, closing their eyes.
Hiccup slowly opened the door....
cr-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-a-k....
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Alvin, Fishlegs, Hiccup and Toothless stood there, their mouths flopping open and shut like fish in their astonishment.
The door had opened on to another GIGANTIC cavern. This was filled to the brim with more treasure than you could possibly imagine in your wildest dreams, even were you as greedy as Alvin himself.
So indescribably beautiful was this treasure that it drew them into the room like a magnet.
It was all piled up on top of itself in crazy giant mountains. Mound after mound of golden coins with Caesar stamped on one side and Neptune on the other. Heap after heap of rubies fat and ripe as scallops and emeralds green as a mermaid's eye. Gorgeous silver cups with seahorses galloping delicately around them and golden necklaces as plump as oysters and swords as sharp as a conger's tooth with octopus tentacles winding themselves around the hilt.
It was the sort of treasure you could get lost in, and forget yourself and your mind and this world at all.
"Oh my," breathed Alvin the Treacherous, stepping forward. "Oh my, my, my ..." And he reached out to grasp a cup, a glorious golden goblet, perfectly
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round in shape, with dolphins playing around the rim, so beautifully carved that it looked as if they were alive and leaping in a miniature golden sea.
Toothless, Hiccup and Fishlegs recollected where they were, and slowly backed towards the open door while Alvin was so preoccupied.
But Alvin caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye, and he stretched out and shut the door with the point of the Stormblade.
"Nobody leaves the cavern without asking Alvin," he said.
"Now, Alvin," said Hiccup nervously, "remember your promise. If I opened the door, you said you'd let us all live."
"Ye-e-e-e-s-s-s," said Alvin, considering the cup again, and then dropping it softly back on the pile. "The thing is, Outcasts don't always keep promises to other people. I blame our upbringing. My mother never really loved me, you know. But I always keep promises I make to MYSELF. And long ago, when that coffin lid snapped down and chopped off my hand, I made myself a very solemn promise indeed."
Alvin's pleasant eyes narrowed, and he sidled towards Hiccup like a predatory crab. "It's not that
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I dislike you personally, Hiccup, but I swore to myself," said Alvin, still smiling, "that I would FIND Grimbeard's precious Treasure, and I would KILL his precious Heir. That's fair, isn't it, an Heir in exchange for a hand?"
And he made a vicious swipe at Hiccup with the Stormblade.
Hiccup dodged out of the way in the nick of time. He leapt nimbly onto the nearest mound of treasure and started scrambling up it.
[Image: Toothless to the rescue!.]
"And with Grimbeard's own precious sword, too," chuckled Alvin. "Isn't fate ARTISTIC?"
"TOOTHLESS!" yelled Hiccup. "Get me a SWORD!"
Alvin climbed after him and made another wild lunge at his head.
Hiccup ducked behind a large golden chariot wheel.
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"TOOTH-LESS!" cried Hiccup. "HURRY UP!"
"Okay, okay," muttered Toothless, who had flown to a pile of weaponry not far away. "K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST."
Toothless tried to pick up three of the swords, all of them as big and beautiful and flashy as the Stormblade itself. But they were all too heavy.
So he turned to something smaller, an undistinguished but serviceable object, a bit rusty at the edges perhaps. He could lift it easily with both talons, and flew with it to where Hiccup was climbing. He was a quarter of the way up a hill of treasure, hotly pursued by Alvin, who had little red lights dancing in his narrowed eyes and was swishing that Stormblade like he was a human flail.
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Toothless dropped the rusty sword into Hiccup's hand, and he caught it just in time to parry a blow by Alvin so terrible that if it had actually connected with Hiccup's neck, it might have removed his head from his shoulders then and there.
Hiccup caught the sword in his LEFT hand, because, if you remember, his right arm was dislocated and in a sling.
"This isn't going to last long," he thought to himself. It was a case of Man against Boy, and Hiccup wasn't exactly the greatest swordfighter in the Inner Isles even with his right hand.
[Image: Hiccup.]
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"Keep your point UP, Hiccup," shouted Fishlegs, desperately trying to clamber up after them so he could help. "Eye on the swords at all times, a strong wrist, remember your footwork. ..."
Alvin the Treacherous gave a great swipe at Hiccup's belly, and Hiccup was surprised to find his left arm jerk up and his own sword block Alvin's in the nick of time.
Alvin was equally surprised, and he hauled his great sword over his wicked head and he brought it down towards Hiccup's neck, and Hiccup's arm flashed up and parried the blow just before it bit.
[Image: Hiccup.]
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Astonished, Alvin began raining blows thick and fast, swiping and slashing and lunging, and Hiccup's left arm parried every thrust as if it had a life of its own.
"Well, suffering swordfish," exclaimed Fishlegs. "Hiccup is LEFT-HANDED."
I would not have you think that this was a fight that Hiccup would be proud to look back upon NOW. For Hiccup would grow up to be a Master Swordsman, a Genius of the Art, and this fight, by comparison with the extraordinary skill with which he fought later, was clumsy work, mostly defensive strokes.
And although I would love to say that Alvin the Treacherous was a brilliant swordfighter, the truth is that he was just so-so at the Art, preferring to poison his enemy's cup or bash him from behind with a rock to fighting him face to face.
But he was still much older, stronger and more experienced than Hiccup.
And while it might not have been the best fight Hiccup ever fought, it was certainly the one he would look back on with the most astonishment and pride.