The Green Death wasn't thinking too hard.

He leaped at the Purple Death with his talons outstretched, breathing great bursts of fire, which lit up the landscape all around like lightning.

The ground and the sea shook in great earthquakes as the two gigantic monsters lunged crazily at each other, swearing the most unrepeatable oaths in Dragonese.

The Green Death's foot completely destroyed Wrecker's Reef with one blow.

The Purple Death's wings caused great landslides to come tumbling down from the Headland's cliffs.

Now that their job was done, the Viking boys were running away as fast as they could, their eyes popping with terror, in case one of the dragons survived the fight. Every now and then they looked back to see how the battle was going.

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With ghastly, eerie cries, the Dragons slashed and bit and tore pieces off one another.

The Sea Dragon is the most well-defended creature that has ever lived on this planet. Its skin is over three feet thick in places, and so encrusted with shells and barnacles that it almost has the effect of armour.

It is also the most well-armed creature that has ever lived on this planet and its razor sharp claws and teeth can rip open its own iron crust as if it were made out of paper. . . .

Now both Dragons had terrible wounds, and their green lifeblood was pouring out of them.

The Green Death gripped the Purple Death around the neck with a deadly Throatchoker Grip.

The Purple Death hugged the Green Death around the chest with a deadly Breathquencher Hug.

Neither would let go -- and the grip of a Dragon is a terrible thing. They reminded Hiccup of a picture on one of his father's shields: of two dragons forming a perfect circle as they ate one another, each with a tail in its mouth.

The Dragons thrashed around wildly in the surf, gagging and choking, with their eyes popping, their tails causing such tidal waves that the boys were

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soaked, even though they were scrambling away from the Headland as fast as they could.

Finally, with some last heaving shudders and grim gurgles, both mighty beasts lay still in the water.

There was silence.

The boys stopped running. They stood gasping for breath, watching the motionless beasts with dread. The boys' dragons, which were flying some way ahead of the boys, also turned, and hung still in the air.

The Terrible Creatures didn't move.

The boys waited two long minutes, as waves lapped gently over the great, motionless bodies.

"They're dead," said Thuggory at last.

The boys started laughing, rather hysterically, now that the terror was over.

"Well done, Hiccup!" Thuggory slapped Hiccup on the back.

But Hiccup was looking worried. He was squinting his eyes and straining to hear something. "I can't hear anything," said Hiccup anxiously.

"You can't hear anything because they're DEAD," said Thuggory joyfully. "Three cheers for Hiccup!"

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Halfway through the boys' cheering, Fireworm let out a terrible noise. "DESERT!" she shrieked. "Desert, desert, desert, desert!"

The head of the corpse of the Green Death was slowly lifting up and turning in their direction.

"Uh-oh," said Hiccup.

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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 waswas 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, "WHERJE 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 ME, 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 SCREAMED a blood-chilling scream of pure horrid REVENGE, dark and torturous.

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"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?

Just 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... FIRE!"

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

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

Finally 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.

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[Image: Mouth of the dragon]

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Chapter 17 IN THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON

Hiccup fell into the Dragon's mouth, and its teeth snapped shut behind him like prison doors.

He was falling through complete darkness, surrounded by a smell so awful it was suffocating.

He jerked to a sudden halt as the back of his shirt caught on something and held.

Hiccup hung there in the darkness, swaying gently. By a thousand-to-one chance his shirt had caught on a spear still stuck in the Dragon's throat since his Roman banquet. Hiccup's foot brushed against the wall of what he presumed was the Dragon's throat. The Dragon's digestive juices stung like acid, and he snatched his foot away.

Above him, Hiccup could hear the Dragon's great tongue sloshing and lunging about his mouth, trying to find Hiccup so he could crunch him to death. . . . He hadn't intended to swallow him whole.

A disgusting river of green goo dripped down the puffy red insides of the Dragon's throat. Just across

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from where Hiccup was hanging, greeny-yellow steam was puffing out of two small holes in the slimy wall. Every now and then a small explosion sent little flickers of flame shooting out of the holes.

How interesting,thought Hiccup, who was strangely calm, because he couldn't quite believe that this was really happening. Those must be where the fire comes from.

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Viking biologists had wondered for years where the fire that dragons breathed came from. Some said the lungs, others the stomach. Hiccup was the first to discover the fire-holes, which are too small to see with the naked eye in a normal-sized dragon.