It seemed like they had INDEED done it, as they burst into the Open Sea, One Eye pulling into that Great White Wilderness at terrific speed, the Wrath of Thor left behind them, the potato safely in Hiccup's breast pocket, and Berk only a three-hour sleigh ride away.
And then everything went wrong.
"What's th-th-that???" stammered Toothless, pointing with one wing to a shape on the ice behind them, coming closer by the second.
That was an enormous, leaping Driver Dragon, far bigger and faster than One Eye, pulling a gigantic sleigh with one man in it. A very cross man, with an arrow wound in his bottom, a lump on his head, chewed-off mustaches, and a double-headed axe in one hand.
In fact it was Norbert the Nutjob.
Before Hiccup had time to think, Norbert was upon them.
197 His sleigh drew alongside the galloping One Eye. And then he reached over, and with one blow of his axe, he cut the reins and tackle attaching One Eye to the sleigh.
One Eye bounded on, but the sleigh, and The Hopeful Puffin behind it, came to a shuddering halt.
"Oh, suffering scallops" moaned Hiccup.
There they were, as still as a stone, in the middle of a Great White Desert that stretched for miles and miles and miles. In front of them, Norbert the Nutjob was pulling on his Saber-Tooth's reins to wheel his sleigh around for the attack. Below them was the Doomfang. For the first time in fifteen years, the Doomfang had left the Wrath of Thor.
It, too, had stopped when the sleigh stopped. In fact the sleigh had come to rest right in the center of its terrible green eye, as if it were a target.
198 And a target it was, for Norbert the Nutjob. Norbert leaped into their sleigh, tall and terrible and COMPLETELY CRAZY.
"AHA!" roared Norbert the Nutjob, his tic dancing for pure horrible murderous joy. "I'VE CAUGHT YOU, YOU REVOLTING LITTLE BLOND ASSASSIN! AND NOW I SHALL TEACH YOU NOT TO HIT PEOPLE OH THE HEAD WITH THEIR OWN VEGETABLE!"
Norbert the Nutjob raised his axe over Camicazi, and he was about to bring it down, when Hiccup said loudly, "I wouldn't do that, Norbert."
199 Hiccup felt in his breast pocket, and drew out the potato with the arrow still stuck in it. It was warmer this morning, and the potato, snuggled down the front of Hiccup's furry waistcoat, was no longer frozen.
Norbert glanced at Hiccup, and then gasped in astonishment, as right in front of Norbert's eyes ...
... HICCUP PULLED THE ARROW OUT OF THE POTATO.
For as Hiccup had suggested earlier to Norbert, the arrow slid out perfectly easily now that the potato had defrosted.
Hiccup pushed it in and out of the potato several times just to drive the point home. Norbert the Nutjob dropped his axe.
[Image: An arrow.] "My father's Prophecy!" screamed Norbert the Nutjob, his head in his hands. "I don't believe it.... It can't be true! You ... you revolting little Hooligan Vegetable-Burglar ... you ... are the Chosen One? ... You will lift the Curse and rid us of the Doomfang ... ?"
200 Hiccup nodded solemnly, thinking, nutty as a fruitcake.
At that very moment, the sun came over the horizon...Rays of sunlight bounced off the snow and ice all around them, and off the Doomfang's Great Green Eye and dazzled Hiccup, so that he had to fling up an elbow to shield himself from the glare.
A sound like a million whips rang out, or a trillion axe blows, or a thousand of Thor's thunderbolts rolled into one.
The ice cracked from side to side.
201