how to train your dragon cressida cowell

Meanwhile, in a Cavern deep, deep underground, a small Deadly Nadder was crying for its mother.

It had wandered away from its home in the cozy tunnels of the Dragon Nursery, and lost itself in the maze of the Caliban Caves below.

Gradually, as it flapped frantically down wrong turn after wrong turn, the happy hissings and squawkings of its fellow dragons had grown fainter and fainter. For the last hour it had heard only the unhappy echoes of itself as it crept deeper and deeper into the blackness.

What is more, it had the bad luck to stumble into a Cavern inhabited by a gigantic creature who was guarding something precious. This was a far larger and scarier killing machine than a mere Skullion. It was at least a hundred years old, and living for a century in such gloomy depths had done very little for its soul or its brain. It was lonely and bitter, and had a longing 85 for the light, which it had never seen. But most of all it was permanently hungry.

The little Nadder cried for its mother again, and hopped a bit farther forward.

A singularly unattractive sludgy tentacle curled its way around the small dragon and lifted it into the air.

The Creature did something to the Nadder to kill it, something most unpleasant, and the poor little animal let out a last shriek of absolute terror.

...

And then all was silence.

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