The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (38 page)

to you in the Den,” he whispered.

Zanna drilled him with one of her

famous stares. She cast a glance at Liz and stepped out onto the landing. “How could you say a thing like that about Lucy? Arthur’s not stupid. He can sense you’re lying. Maybe Liz can, too.”

“I’m not
 
lying
, Zanna.”

“No. You’re just being ‘economical with the truth’, as usual. It sounds to me as if Lucy’s in a heap of trouble. And what

about Tam? Is he… ?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“I don’t know,” David said, gesturing her to keep her voice down. “Somehow Lucy got away from the sibyl. She was helped by its familiar.”

“
 
What?
 
” Zanna was right in his face again. A sprig of hair jumped from a tuck behind her ear. “And you let that pass? Have you learned
 
nothing
 
about these women? How do you know Lucy’s not been tricked?”

“Grockle’s there now. She’s safe,” he

said.

She drew a breath. “That’s what you

said about Tam.”

Before either of them could speakagain, Alexa emerged from the Dragons’

Den holding two dragons out in front ofher.

“Lexie?” said her mother. “What are

you doing with them?”

The child was carrying Liz’s cherished dragon,   Guinevere,   and   its   male companion, which they appropriately called Gawain. In all the time Zanna had

known the family, neither of these dragons had ever  been removed from the Den, though Lucy had once told her how David had managed to break Gawain during his first few months in the house, while he was still innocent of Liz’s gifts. Of all the special dragons these two were arguably the most important, certainly the most mysterious, for they were always present when a new dragon was kilned. Yet no

one ever really talked about them – and Zanna had never heard either of them

speak. To see them being carried along the landing was an oddity indeed.

Alexa merely said, “Naunty Liz needs them.”

“In what way?” Zanna asked, but David touched her arm, indicating she should leave it.

Together they watched Alexa driftaway, as though she was a bridesmaidgoing up an aisle. She turned at a stiff rightangle into Liz and Arthur’s room. And thatwas that.

Zanna shook her head and slipped intothe Den, where the atmosphere seemed tobe remarkably composed. No boardgames today. Strangely, no chatter. “Tell

me about this familiar,” she said.

“It’s a cat, called Bella.”

“Bella?” Zanna paused.

“Is that a problem?” he asked.

Zanna narrowed her gaze. “There was

an email from  someone called Bella – on

Lucy’s computer. Some days earlier thanthe others, I think.” Her worried eyesfound his.

“Check it,” he said.

She folded her arms and backed out of

the room.

David, in the meantime, turned towards Gwillan. The little dragon was still on theworkbench. He tapped his foot as Davidapproached, as though he’d been waitingfor this moment for some time. David

glanced around the shelves and noticed the

absence of Gruffen, G’reth and Gollygosh – last seen doing housework (Golly had been shining the bathroom taps). But where on earth was Groyne? His orders had been to stay with Gwillan.

“You look well,” David said, drawing up a stool.

Hrrr
, agreed Gwillan, swishing his

tail.

David reached forward and touched his

thumb to the side of Gwillan’s snout. The

dragon looked down his nose at the digit, thought about biting, pulled away.

“How do you want me to address you?” asked David. He watched the scales around Gwillan’s neck change colour. Interesting. Was the youngster reading his mood?

Gwillan lifted his shoulders.

“Are you Gwillan or Joseph Henry?”

The dragon chewed its lip.
 
Hrr-rr
, he replied. Both – sometimes.

David nodded. The irony made him smile. “Your mother isn’t well.”

That made Gwillan look beyond him,as if he could stare through the walls at Liz. His handsome eye ridges crumpled alittle. His violet eyes gave a blink of

concern.

“She’s using all her strength to protect

you, isn’t she?”

Gwillan tilted his head.

“To control the darkness?”

The little dragon contracted his claws.

“If you let me take you North, theywon’t hurt you, Joseph. The illumined

dragons can help you to the light, just like they once helped me. Then Liz will be free again – and so will you. That
 
is
 
what you want, isn’t it?”

“David!” Zanna’s voice rang out from Lucy’s bedroom. Gwillan lifted his head, focusing hard on the direction of the sound. “David, get in here. You need to look at this.”

David put his hands between his legsand pushed himself leisurely off the stool. “Soon, there won’t be any choice, Joseph. You go with me – or the natural dragonstake you. Don’t let your mother suffer.”

With that he went next door, where Zanna was peering hard at the computer.

“Mmm,   glasses,”   he   said.   “I’dforgotten how cute you look in them.”

“Shut   up,”   she   said.   “This   is important.” She turned  the flat screen through forty-five degrees, so they could both read the email there. “This is from a

girl who signs herself Bella. See that?” She pointed to the header. “
 
Tales of Gawaine
. She knows how to spell it.”

“Go on,” he said.

Zanna scrolled down. “She gives a lot of basic stuff we already know about Glissington, but this is the crucial bit, here. She describes this as a legend, but it’s beginning to sound horribly real.” Her finger traced a paragraph of highlighted text. “
At the end of the last great Wearle, Gawaine, the Queen of Dragons, came to the valley in search of the unicorn, Teramelle. She
 
(Gawaine)
 
was heavily

pregnant and injured from a conflict with forces of darkness that had driven her from her eyrie in the ice lands of the North. The unicorn, Teramelle, protected her and tried to heal her wounds. What

strength the queen had, she put into bearing her eggs.”

“Eggs? Plural?” Now David was fully awake.

“Hang on,” said Zanna. “It gets worse.

The  birth weakened  the  matriarch

further. Knowing she would have no strength to rear the wearlings, and fearing she would die if she did not

enter…
  
I   don’t   know   this   word:

coelacanthis?
 
”

“Stasis,” David said.

“Stasis,” she repeated, “
 
before the

wearlings   could   be  hatched,   she entrusted the eggs to the sanctuary of two agents of Teramelle. One, the eagle Gideon. Two, the red-headed girl who combed the creature’s mane and looked

to its needs. Gideon flew his egg back to the ice lands where some say the wearling hatched and lived secretly for a time among humans untainted by the darkness. But the girl was murdered by the forces who sought to end Gawaine’s life. A black witch
 
– sibyl anyone? –
 
dressed in the likeness of the girl, stole the second egg, blinding the queen in one eye with the girl’s poisoned tears so that the dragon could not easily pursue her. The egg was broken and spilled in sight of the queen. Distraught, she lay down to

die, but was kept alive by the wishes of the unicorn which also chose to lay down close by
 
…  blah, blah, blah…  Do you know what this means?”

David was already backing towardsthe door. “A black witch dressed in the

likeness of the girl. When Gawaine sees Lucy she’s going to remember how she was betrayed.”

“Hurry, David,” Zanna said, tears breaking from the corners of her eyes. “Please hurry.”

He clicked his fingers and the narwhal tusk materialised on Lucy’s bed. He closed his hand round it and shook it three

times.

“I love you,” he said to Zanna.

Then he was gone.

Union

Grockle took off a second too late.

Perhaps it was his juvenile inexperience. Perhaps he was awed to be in thepresence of a dragon so mighty. Mostlikely he simply believed there was noreal reason for Gawaine to attack. It was

the scent of hydrocarbons coming up from her throat (too subtle for any human to detect) and the vast suck of oxygen as she bore towards the hill that convinced him

she did not intend to simply fly by. He flew to intercept her, and for several seconds the advantage was his. He had lifted off, silently, on her blind side, and was gaining on the matriarch faster than she was gaining on Lucy. But the olfactory

senses of the queen were profound, and as she closed in on the girl she supposed to be a traitor she grew fully aware of the counterattack. Claws spread, Grockle merely intended to pinion her body and carry her aside. But with the agility of one many years her junior, Gawaine tilted (with no disruption to her wing beat) and struck the young dragon behind the ear, not with open claws, but with a strong, closed fist. In terms of weight, it was little more than a cuff. But the effect on Grockle was

spectacular. She had knocked out his centre of balance,  located (like humans) in the inner ear. The more he flapped, the dizzier he became. He spiralled down through a palette of greens and browns and crashed onto the hill forty yards away

from Lucy. The impact righted his senses a little, but as he adjusted his pineal radar and prepared to fly back to re-engage the queen, he saw Lucy engulfed in a yellow cone of flame. Too late. It was over. The

girl was surely dead.

But amazingly, she wasn’t. Grockle blinked and tested his optical triggers, hardly able to believe that the child was on her feet and apparently unharmed. One switch of his wings took him back to within six yards of her. The queen had flamed from twice that distance and was

standing, dumbstruck, her fire receding in bright orange scribbles underneath her tongue. She turned her head and spat viciously at Grockle. In a strange, archaic variant of dragontongue she ordered him

to come no nearer. Wary and unbalanced, but mildly optimistic, he bowed and turned his gaze on Lucy.

She was quivering and in shock, making the pathetic whimpering noises humans were so fond of. But not a jot of her, not even the garments she was wearing,   had   been  ruined   by  the matriarch’s fire. The same could not be

said of the surrounding grass, which bore a scorch mark as long as Grockle’s tail. It would  not grow again for many a year, he thought.

Gawaine rumbled deep in her throat. Her anger had lessened, but not her curiosity. She blew a thick gobbet of phlegm onto the ground. It sizzled like a hot wet coal, consuming yet another patch

of Wiltshire land. Grockle stood by, reverent and inert, praying that the queen would not lose patience and chew the girl’s head off in one quick bite. In truth, he could have done little to stop her. But the sight of her cleansing her nostrils gave him hope that all Gawaine intended was to scent the girl – though, he reminded himself, a dragon liked to smell its food before it ate.

Gawaine’s head swanned down and

her giant breathing holes scanned the full length of Lucy’s body, plucking so much air from around the girl that she was pulled forward a step onto the cindered earth. Where she had stood, the green shape of her feet remained.

The Queen of Dragons reared back in

confusion.

Once again she swept her nose over thegirl, concentrating now on two distinctareas: a single pocket of Lucy’s coat andthen her thick red hair. To Grockle’s

despair, he saw the matriarch flip her tail so the isoscele was pointing like a blade. One quick thrust and Lucy would be opened like a gutted rabbit. He leaned closer, ready to launch a final, probably fatal, defence. But in an  act of supreme tenderness, Gawaine passed her tail right around the quaking girl (making the shape of a ‘G’) and touched the isoscele to her heart.

Making a sound between a stifledscream and the need not to choke on the

dragon’s breath, Lucy finally uncovered

her face. At the same time, Gwendolen climbed out of Lucy’s pocket and settled in Lucy’s hands. Whatever fate awaited them, awaited them both.

Traumatised and held on her feet by terror, Lucy somehow found the will to look into the penetrating eye of the monster, then down at the dagger tip pressed against her heart. She closed her eyes again, certain she would die. But the monster simply tilted its head, twitched its nostrils in disgust at Gwendolen, and spoke to Lucy, saying,
 
Where is my son?