Flight to Dragon Isle (13 page)

‘Of course not.’ Darcy smirked with satisfaction. ‘I told her that dragon would not be taken by the Grand Master, and it won’t. I have other plans for her precious dragon.’

He turned to call a servant over, unaware of Armelia’s shocked expresion. ‘Command my father’s Dragonmaster to attend me – now.’

Time to drive an everlasting wedge between Quenelda and Tangnost.

Thunder rolled over the mountains. Lightning stabbed, its forked branches like blue veins in the sky. Root was soaked to the skin, at his wits’ end. He and Quester had searched the roosts and the stables, then the paddocks. No one had seen Quenelda since she had fled the Great Hall.

‘She’s taken Two Gulps.’ Root was shaking with cold and fright. ‘She can’t fly in this!’ He looked at Quester. ‘Can she?’

His friend nodded his head, knuckling water from his eyes. ‘If anyone can, friend Root, it’s Quenelda.’

The storm was ferocious. Quenelda’s mood was as wild and unpredictable as the dark roiling clouds, her thoughts spinning like the wind.

Papa, where are you?
The same plea kept going round and round in her head.
Where are you?

The sudden storm had come out of nowhere, forcing Two Gulps to land on the deep snow-bound slopes of the glen. Freezing water ran in rivulets between his gleaming scales, and Quenelda was long since drenched to the bone. She had no idea where they were. She had fled without thought to where she was going, and the big Sabretooth was becoming increasingly concerned. It might be raining, but it was still freezing and could turn to snow in a heartbeat.

We must return to the roost
… Two Gulps’ thoughts were gentle but insistent as the temperature dropped. Quenelda had yet to shed her soft juvenile skin for scales, and Two Gulps was increasingly anxious.

Dancing with Dragons … we must return to our roosts or you may also die
… The thoughts nudged at her.
Dancing with Dragons …?

The battledragon could feel the Earl’s daughter slipping away from him, just as his previous master had done when they were both badly wounded in a skirmish on the Isle of Midges. He did not want to lose her too: they were bonded for life, and he wanted to be at her side when she spread her own wings and flew for the first time.

When he had first met Quenelda, Two Gulps had been confused. She had the soul of a dragon and spoke the language of the Elders, but she was definitely the wrong shape. She was neither dragonkind or mankind, he realized with awe, she was Onekind – what the No Wings called a Dragon Whisperer. And she was powerful: the ancient magic of the Elder Days coursed through her veins. He could see it shining from her like a star at night, and knew that it was up to him to protect her until she came into her power.

Two Gulps gravely considered what to do. He had called out to brothers and sisters, but there were none nearby; no doubt all were settled down in their cosy roosts and caves, where all sensible dragons should be in weather like this. This bitter cold cracked his scales, and his stubby wings had no control in the crazed wind that pushed him this way and that, but he had to protect his mistress. He knelt on the icy boulders and nudged her.
Mount, Dancing with Dragons. We must fly
… He blew warm breath over her. She stirred.

T-T-Two Gulps? Quenelda was shaking now with shock and cold. Dimly aware, as if in a dream, she did as he commanded, collapsing over his wings and neck. Two Gulps sprang up into the storm.

The weather and his small wings forced him to fly low, but even so the wind snatched and grabbed at him. Trees loomed, branches slapped at them, and then they were clear and skimming scant strides above the ice-bound loch towards the Black Isle. Hailstones rattled down on the ice. Rising up and up, Two Gulps wove between the spires and chimneys of the city, and was heading over Dragonsdome towards the battleroosts and warmth, when a powerful gust caught him. Dragon and girl were swept up towards the underside of one of the landing pads, where the great chain-link anchors swung. As Quenelda slipped from his water-licked back, Two Gulps turned and swooped after her, arresting the virtually unconscious girl’s fall. Then, as he scrabbled frantically, Quenelda began to slip down, leaving him with the empty jerkin. Desperately, Two Gulps lunged and caught her in his open mouth, great serrated teeth holding her tenderly; he scrambled frantically onto the edge of the landing pad careful to keep her safe.

The sky lit up. Root squinted up through the stinging rain, wondering if he had really seen a dragon landing on the Earl’s lowered pad … Yes, he’d swear just for a moment he’d seen something – some frantic movement.

‘Quenelda! Quenelda!’ It was useless. The wind snatched the words from his mouth, drowning them out with its banshee shriek. Root turned, peering through the hail. ‘Quester, I think she’s up there!’

The deep growl of the thunder vibrated through the dragonpads, tingling through Root’s hands as he clambered up the outer gantry stairs. A stray tendril of energy coursed through the metal, snapping Root’s hand back in a flurry of tiny sparks. With a cry, he stumbled heavily against the steps, his braided hair radiating out like a dandelion. Ignoring his burned hands, Root stumbled on, scrambling up as fast as his legs would go.

‘She’s up here! She’s up here!’

Quenelda lay unmoving on the deck. Two Gulps stood protectively over her, wing outstretched to shield her from the storm, anxiously nuzzling, calling to her.

Dancing with Dragons …?

Root swallowed. How was this protective battle-dragon going to react if they tried to take Quenelda from him?

‘Quenelda?’ The girl didn’t respond to his urgent call. He squinted into her face. Her eyes were open, black and unseeing. He shook her, but still she gazed past him at some inner horizon.

Root realized with horror that she wore no cloak and her clothes were ragged and ripped. Her skin was chalk-white, blotched with red where hailstones had struck her. She had gone out without a flying suit on! Her face looked thin and pinched. Clumsily Root pulled off his cloak and threw it round her shoulders. It slapped back against his face like a deranged bird.

Quester laid his cloak down on the landing pad. ‘You lift under her arms, friend Root, I’ll take her legs. We need to get her inside and send for the physician.’

‘Here, lads’ – a familiar, comforting voice came from behind them – ‘give her to me.’ Tangnost briefly searched the girl’s blank face. He had seen that distant look many times before on troopers who had seen too much for their battered minds to take in.

Root anxiously held out a hand to touch her ice-cold face. ‘Quenelda?’

‘It’s no use, lad. She can’t hear you.’

Lifting her effortlessly, the dwarf swaddled her in his cloak. ‘Quester, do you think you can take Two Gulps to his roost? Get the flight deckhands to lower the pad down as far as it will go. C’mon, Root,’ he said, nodding towards the keep. ‘We need to get both of you inside.’

Tangnost strode up the wide avenue through the drizzle, the sound of his hobnailed footsteps dulled by the freezing fog. Moisture pearled on his jerkin.
A foul day
, he thought bitterly,
for foul deeds
. Behind him, the dragon surgeon, Professor Willowfellow, coughed loudly into his long grey beard, his sharp-nosed face a mask of outrage.

Dragonsdome’s Dragonmaster looked as if he had not slept a wink. His eye was shadowed and bleak. He had failed to deter Darcy from taking his revenge on Quenelda; failed utterly. The Earl-in-waiting had been furious when the Grand Master had demanded to know why his dragonmaster, Knuckle Quarnack, had been driven from Dragonsdome’s battleroosts – by Darcy’s little sister and his own Dragonmaster.

‘How dare you?’ Darcy’s colour was high. ‘How dare you defy my express orders? The Grand Master said you threatened violence …’

‘My Lord, any violence was of his own making.’

‘I am Earl!’ Darcy shouted. ‘You will obey me.’

Tangnost’s temper was rising. ‘The SDS are regrouping. Commander DeBessert has ordered that all dragons of fighting age are to be sent immediately to Dragon Isle. They will take to the field come the thaw.’

‘Who are you to countermand my orders? It is the Grand Master’s lands to the north that will be attacked first, come spring.’

‘My lord, none but the SDS may raise an army. It has been the law since the ancient Mage Wars. The Grand Master cannot ignore this.’

‘You,’ Darcy spat, ‘a commoner, to instruct me on the law! You presume above your rank. A time is coming when you and your kind will learn your place in the order of things.’ He was in the wrong and he knew it, but to be thwarted in his own hall in front of his friends!

Tangnost regarded Darcy with undisguised contempt and then turned to go. ‘Our remaining battledragons must be sent to Dragon Isle. I have work to do.’

But the worst had yet to come. Tangnost had listened to Darcy’s next order with disbelief and had immediately refused in horror. But what could succeed in the face of such reckless hatred? Darcy was implacable, bent on revenge.

‘You do as I command,’ Darcy threatened. ‘Otherwise that sister of mine will be sent to Grimalkin’s, where they will curb her wayward behaviour. Until she comes of age, it is my right as her brother to see that she is educated as a daughter of nobility should be. She will be sequestered behind the academy’s high walls. She’ll not see a dragon, let alone fly one!’

Tangnost’s weathered face grew pale. Anger sparked in his eye. To see that bright free spirit trapped in a cage … Quenelda would languish and die like those wild dragon fledglings that were kept in cages or on the leash as the latest fashion accessory.

‘You would barter your sister?’ he said contemptuously.

‘One way or another,’ Darcy threatened, ‘I shall clip her wings, or you shall do it for me.’

Gritting his teeth, Tangnost bowed his head bitterly. If he wished to protect Quenelda as the Earl had bade him, then Two Gulps must die – as Darcy had just ordered.

‘He dies tomorrow at dawn when she attends my Investiture Ceremony,’ Darcy said curtly, and then dismissed Tangnost with an imperious flick of his wrist.

And then my sister will be sent to Grimalkin’s anyway, and will for ever curse your name
…

Tangnost and the Professor passed beneath the stone-vaulted roof and into the busy surgery, where half a dozen apprentices were already hard at work. Some were immersed in the deep ceramic sinks, cleaning instruments and scrubbing down benches. Two were bandaging a griffin’s injured fifth toe in one of the medic alcoves. There were five huge operating cradles slung from pulleys and extendable winches attached to the huge oak ceiling beams. A further four critical-care cradles hung in deeply recessed alcoves; drips and tubes, valves and funnels hung above them.

The bony, bespectacled surgeon crossed to his workbench, littered with diagrams and drawings, bones, stacks of books and papers. ‘Where did I put it?’ he muttered as he rummaged about, sending barkscrolls and sheaves of papers tumbling to the floor. ‘Tooth and nail!’ he swore as a flask smashed on the tiles.

‘Professor?’ A rosy-cheeked apprentice bowed. ‘Are you looking for your keys, sir?’ he offered tentatively. ‘They’re—’

‘Ah! I have them,’ Professor Willowfellow said, brandishing a large ring heavy with keys. ‘How do you want to do this?’ he asked Tangnost harshly. His job was to save life, not to take it, and he could hardly believe the dragonmaster had agreed to this. ‘Fast and painful, or slow and gentle? He’ll just go to sleep but it won’t be quick.’

Anger sparked in Tangnost’s eye. ‘Gentle, damn you!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want to be doing this any more than you, Willowfellow. It’s nothing less than murder, and I know it! But what can we do but obey? We’ve lost half our dragons to that … to the Grand Master already.’

The surgeon’s eyes softened. ‘Your pardon, Dragonmaster,’ he said, bowing his head, the bells on his cap tinkling gently in his agitation. ‘I know how you love each and every one of your charges.’

Tangnost shook his head to clear the red mist of anger that clouded his eyes. ‘Your pardon also, old friend. This is an ugly business and no mistake.’

The professor nodded and led the dwarf along a corridor to a heavily barred door. A tap of his staff and the application of the correct key, and the heavy door swung silently open. Taking a deep breath, Tangnost stepped into the deep thick-walled vault that housed the raw ingredients for battle munitions, hexes and curses. Concoctions distilled from dragon venom were sealed with powerful spells.

Selecting one and resealing the vault, the professor led Tangnost towards the battleroosts.

Two Gulps and You’re Gone nickered in recognition, smoke curling from his nostrils in welcome.

‘Here, boy.’ Tangnost laid his hand against the dragon’s chest. He could feel the slow beat of the twin hearts.

Boom boom … Boom boom
…

His own heart was racing as he stepped up to the watering trough. He unstoppered the vial with shaking hands and closed his eye. Would Quenelda ever forgive him? he wondered. Would she understand that Dragonsdome would be utterly lost and her life would be changed for ever if he disobeyed Darcy? The vile purple drops swirled on the surface and then were gone.

‘Here, boy,’ Tangnost croaked, the words sticking in his throat as he encouraged the dragon, his knees suddenly weak. ‘T-take a drink, boy …’

Supported by Root, Quenelda made her way slowly down the avenue towards the battledragon roosts. She felt lightheaded with fatigue, and although Root had made her dress warmly in a heavy flying suit, she felt cold and shivery. She had no plan other than to flee Dragonsdome and find her father. She was not going to Court to watch her brother made Earl: it would betray her father’s wishes utterly. Instead, she and Root were leaving with their dragons; they would be gone before Darcy returned triumphantly. The only thing she had to do was see Tangnost. He was like a second father to her. The idea of leaving him behind, of being without his strength and wisdom, made her heart thump fearfully in her chest. Maybe she could persuade the dragonmaster to come with them? He bore no love for Darcy.