Chapter 16. THE FIENDISHLY CLEVER PLAN GOES WRONG

Hiccup had been listening for the Green Death's Death Song, but he wasn't singing it yet.

The Green Death was dying, but he wasn't dead yet.

What he was was very, very angry indeed.

Out of his bleeding mouth he hissed weakly, "Where is he?"

And then he heaved himself on to his feet, and hissed a little more strongly, "WH?R?? is he? Where IS tie Little Supper? I knew I recognized him, he was my doom, on wonder. Tie Little Supper has made a Supper of M?, tie Green. Death himself!"

As the Dragon spoke, he was inching forward very slowly and painfully, his eyes fixed on the cliff top, where he could see little human beings beginning to run inland again.

The Dragon threw back his head and SCR?AM?D a blood-chilling scream of pure horrid R?V?NG?, dark and torturous.

"I'LL supper HIM before I go, I will," said the Dragon, and he leaped forward.

"R-U-U-U-N!" shouted Hiccup, but everybody was already running, as fast as they could.

In the distance, Hiccup could see four hundred warriors from the tribes of Hooligan and Meathead coming toward them from the Highest Point. They must have wondered at the boys' absence and come out to find them.

But they won't get here in time, thought Hiccup, and even if they do, what can they do?

?ust then, the Dragon landed with a crash on the cliff top and suddenly the sun was blotted out.

Twenty boys ran toward the shelter of the ferns.

The Dragon picked up the nearest with one claw and turned him over.

It was Dogsbreath. By the time the Dragon had tossed him aside, muttering "Not you," the other boys had disappeared into the bracken.

The Dragon was sick, but he laughed weakly. "You're not safe there, oh no, for though I can't see you to kill you, I can use my... ?IR?!"

The bracken caught fire with the Dragon's first breath and the boys ran out of it as fast as they could.

Hiccup stayed in a little longer because he knew the Dragon was waiting for him.

?inally the heat became unbearable and he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and ran out into the open.

He had run hardly a hundred yards before two of the Dragon's talons closed around his middle and he was lifted up. Way, way up, so the other boys looked like little specks beneath him.

The Dragon held Hiccup up in front of him.

"We are BOTH Supper now, little Supper," he said, and he tossed Hiccup high, high into the air.

As Hiccup somersaulted for the second time he thought to himself, Now THIS, this really IS the worst moment of my life.

Then he was falling.

He looked down. There was the Dragon's mouth, wide open like a great, black, cavernous tunnel.

He was going to fall into it.