Flight to Dragon Isle (3 page)

Quenelda sighed. As long as he returned before she had to go to the Court.

‘But I still don’t understand,’ Root whispered to Quenelda. ‘Not on an operation? What difference does High Sky make?’

The Earl grinned wolfishly at his daughter’s esquire. ‘Wait and see, lad. Wait and see.’ He looked at Tangnost. ‘Take care of them, Bearhugger,’ he said, before turning back to his officers.

The hangar deck rose slowly up to lock into the landing pad with a metallic boom. The Imperial dragon resting there was already armed and carrying a full complement of armoured Bonecrackers. Head craned upwards, Root thought he had never seen anything quite so huge in his life. How had he
ever
thought Chasing the Stars was scary? She was the size of a midge compared to this giant battledragon. Quenelda stepped forward confidently, heading for the Imperial’s head, but Root hesitated on the gantry, trying to still the frantic beating of his heart. He reached out tentatively to touch the tip of a huge tailspike, then suddenly remembered that these mighty dragons had magic of their own and stepped hastily backwards into Tangnost.

‘Root …’ the dwarf said softly. ‘No need to worry, lad. I’ll take care of you. Follow me.’

The young gnome swallowed, trying to keep his breathing normal and slow as Tangnost led him to the base of the tail and up the half-dozen rungs driven into the dragon’s armoured hide.

‘Up you go, lad. I’m right behind you.’

It was Root’s first ride on one of the great battle-dragons. As he climbed up and up the Imperial’s tail, he felt his knees start to wobble, the fear of flying and heights creeping up to ambush him just when he thought he had conquered it. It was like climbing a mountain, a rocky boulder-strewn mountain. The Imperial’s pebbled armour plates were utterly different to the smooth hide of Chasing the Stars, or the scales of Two Gulps.

Three hundred nervous recruits were buckling up onto the twin spinal plates as Tangnost led Root the entire length of the dragon’s spine.

‘Right, lad,’ the dragonmaster said, strapping the gnome securely into his seat. ‘I’m going to be right there beside you.’ He pointed towards the seat behind the navigator’s chair, before going to inspect the last of the men climbing up the dragon’s wings, roaring, ‘This is your first experience of the Drop Dead Manoeuvre. If you survive this final test, you get your SDS wings and are ready for active service! Make sure all your equipment is tightly stowed. This ride is going to rattle every bone in your body.’

‘D-D-Drop Dead?’ Root squeaked, but Tangnost had moved out of earshot.

Meanwhile Quenelda was greeting the dragon:
May the wind always sail under your wings, Tempest Talonstrike …

May you ride the stars for ever …

Tempest Talonstrike’s reply was courteous, but then the dragon turned her mind back to her tasks and the commands of the Dragon Lord to whom she was bonded. High overhead, without being aware of this conversation, the pilot and navigator went through their pre-flight preparation.

‘Warming up …’

‘Navigation … Wind speed … Cloud density at three thousand strides …’

‘Black One, Black One, this is Seadragon Tower. You are cleared for immediate takeoff. Flight path one six niner …’

Talonstrike stretched out her wings, ready to warm up. Quenelda quickly climbed the rising wing to sit down beside her pale-faced esquire, who was fumbling with the helmet he had been given.

‘What is the D-Drop Dead Manoeuvre?’ he asked nervously, knowing that whatever the answer was, he was not going to like it.

‘Ummm … it’s like what we did when we flew here. When the dragons lose height rapidly, only instead of gliding down, we drop.’

‘Drop?’

‘Mmn,’ Quenelda nodded. ‘Straight as a stone down a well. It’s’ – Quenelda chose her words carefully to reassure her friend – ‘it’s not as scary, because on the Imperials it’s as if the landscape moves and not you. The dragon’s so big you can’t see yourself dropping. The Imperial’s own magic will keep you safe.’

As Tangnost strode up to take his seat, it took a few heartbeats for Root to realize that Talonstrike had already taken off. Then they fell away from the pads with mind-numbing speed, but it was so smooth that he wasn’t feeling at all airsick.
This isn’t so bad
, he thought.

Then the pilot gave the Imperial her head. With a sound like a thunderclap, the dragon’s great wings rose and fell. The speed was breathtaking. Familiar landmarks streaked past in a blur. Quenelda, so familiar with flying on Stormcracker, had never flown at speeds like this: the mountain peaks sped by and the battledragon ate up the leagues.

‘The Corkscrewwww!’ Quenelda helpfully informed Root as the world about them tipped and spun three times.

‘
Aaaarrrgh!
’ Root’s petrified shriek was lost among the cries of three hundred recruits, and then they were climbing vertically at a ferocious speed, held in place only by their strong harnesses. Someone’s shield was swept away, ricocheting off a spinal plate before disappearing into the blue void.

Up …

And up …

And up …

Talonstrike took Quenelda and Root higher than they had ever flown before, up to where they could see the horizon of the One Earth curving away below. The air was freezing, and the snow-covered highlands, lochs and islands below looked like an exquisitely rendered map in white, russet and heather-purple. As they climbed ever higher, the vivid icy blue about them slowly grew darker. Soon stars appeared, and the heavens spun with them. The battle-dragon glided soundlessly. Frost cracked on her wings.

‘Right lads,’ Tangnost bellowed into the thin silence. ‘Drop Dead!’ And then the dragon raised and folded her outstretched wings to her sides and they plummeted down.

Down …

And down …

And down …

And as the dragon’s wings levelled out, to her deep embarrassment, Quenelda was heartily sick.

‘Dragonsdome to Tempest Talonstrike. You are cleared to land on pad one. Wind light and easterly. Approach vector clear …’

‘Locked on and closing,’ the navigator responded.

As the battledragon swung around the Black Isle and slowed on her final approach to Dragonsdome, Tangnost came for them both where they sat frozen and shaking, blood drumming through their heads, fingers numb, teeth chattering. He helped them with their buckles.

‘Come on.’ He grinned as they both stood on wobbly legs and followed him slowly up to the withers of the great beast.

‘My lady,’ the pilot said, unbuckling his harness and then standing to one side, ‘would you care to pilot us in?’ He gestured to the elaborately sculpted pilot’s chair, the arms inset with a sophisticated array of battle runes and marks.

Quenelda stared. ‘Me? Truly?’ And then she realized that this was Tangnost’s idea, a Yule gift from the heart. She turned and flung her arms about him.

The corners of his mouth kicked up in acknowledgement. ‘You earned it for what you did in the Cauldron. Most final year cadets on Dragon Isle couldn’t have done as well.’

As Quenelda lowered herself into the chair, the navigator stood up, lifting the fearsome visor of his dragon helmet. ‘Root Barkley,’ he said solemnly, ‘would you like to navigate?’

‘Me?’ Root’s head spun. First he was given a dragon of his own and now
this
. He stepped into the huge navigator’s chair with its baffling set of instruments. The world changed as the Dragon Lord placed his helmet on the gnome boy’s head. The helmet was heavy, and then the visor’s display filled his vision with scrolling graphs and grids and bright runes that flickered swiftly and then were gone.

Heart thumping, the cold forgotten, Quenelda held the reins lightly. She knew that this great battledragon could land without her help, but she was the one in the pilot’s seat! She was the one flying a fully operational and crewed Imperial Black towards Dragonsdome’s great keep.

‘You are cleared for landing …’ The voice rang in Root’s ears. ‘Vector approach two zero five …’

The Earl’s dragonpad was anchored halfway up the keep. Red landing lights flickered on and off. The blast of a horn reverberated across the dragonpads and gantries as the deck crew stood by. Tempest Talonstrike’s rear claws were splayed, seeking contact with the decking as the mare raised her wings and dropped the final twenty strides. And then they were home – to a collective sigh of relief!

The knifing wind blowing in from the sea was sharp with salt and the promise of yet more snow. Wrapped in a heavy cloak and warmed by the Dark Magic that coursed through his veins, the Grand Master, the Lord Hugo Mandrake, stood on the clifftops of Roarkinch and watched the sea break on the rocks below. Here, on this desolate storm-lashed island north of the mainland, lay the true centre of his power. Following his failed attempt to kill the Earl Rufus, the Grand Master was here in the north, supposedly raising two regiments of Bonecrackers for the planned attack on the Westering Isles. Instead, he was making sure that the SDS would never return home from the forthcoming battle with the hobgoblins. Turning abruptly, he crossed his castle’s inner bailey and descended the rough-hewn rock steps that led down into the ancient dragoncombs.

It was here that he had first tapped into the Maelstrom; here too that he had conjured an elixir that allowed him to wield the immense corrosive power of dark destruction that would otherwise have long since killed him. Instead, immortality and a new Dark Age beckoned. But first the kingdom’s ancient guardians must fall. The supposedly invincible SDS must be destroyed, their reputation and power broken. To whom, then, apart from himself would the Queen turn to guard her northern shores against the hobgoblin swarms? He would first claim her hand in marriage, and then usurp her crown.

To this end, using the Maelstrom, he had been crossbreeding stolen pedigree battledragons and hobgoblins. He gave these evil creatures shape and form and a name: Razorbacks. A dragon conjured to carry its most hated enemy, the hobgoblins. The Grand Master paused to consider a young Razorback brood that slithered and coiled unceasingly below him, the rasp of their sharp spines rattling like shale on the shore. Feeding on a diluted Maelstrom brew, already they were large, each the size of a full-grown bull, growing daily. Soon they would exceed the size of a Sabretooth; but unlike Midnight Madness, the unstable rogue dragon he had unleashed at the Winter Jousts, whose dark side was hidden, these foul creatures were evidently as much hobgoblin as dragon: amphibious, carnivorous, voracious pack hunters who were bound to serve him. And they spewed Dark Magic the like of which the SDS had not seen since the Mage Wars; forbidden Dark Magic. And none would know how to fight it. The Seven Sea Kingdoms would fall and ultimate power would be his!

Passing on, he moved out through the caverns to the shore, where a hobgoblin awaited him. The sea around them boiled with Razorbacks, black against the rocks of the shoreline. Clinging to them like limpets were thousands of pale hobgoblins.

‘Have you done as I commanded?’ the Lord Hugo demanded of the hobgoblin messenger whom Galtekerion had sent.

‘Asss you commanded, lord,’ the hobgoblin hissed, keeping its head bowed before the masked warlock. ‘One of our championsss was sssacrificed. His body bears the marks of the thirteen tribessss and carriesss the great tooth of the warlord. We placed trophiesss and weaponry from the tribesss about him. His ssssacrifice will be honoured.’

‘And you are certain they will find him?’

‘Yesss, lord. Hisss body was left in the great cavern at the heart of the mountain in the Howling Glen. The SDSSS sssscouts will find him.’

The Grand Master nodded, finally satisfied that the trap was set. The SDS would take the bait.

‘Lord …’ the hobgoblin said uncertainly, afraid of exciting this warlock’s wrath. ‘Our warriorssss are sssstarving … many are dying … those who have gone into winter sleep will never awake in the ssspring.’

‘It will not be long. Sacrifice the old and the weak. Tell your master that his warriors will soon feed on rich dragon meat. The Earl is bringing four regiments to the battle, numbering twenty thousand dragons.’

‘Even the mighty Imperialsssss …?’ The hobgoblin trembled at the name of that most feared of dragons.

‘Yes.’

The hobgoblin’s pale eyes glowed in the growing dark. ‘Lord …’ it hissed as it looked upon the Razorbacks. ‘They will recognize usss? They will obey only usss? Not the Dragon Lordssss …’

The Grand Master nodded. ‘They will obey only you.’

And you
– the Lord Hugo Mandrake smiled as the hobgoblin mounted a Razorback and disappeared below the dark cold waves –
you will obey only me!

The last note of the bard’s harp thrummed to raucous applause. Beneath the holly and berries that adorned the upper table, the Queen beckoned him forward. The bard, an elf from the Eastern Kingdom, bowed gracefully as he accepted a purse of gold, then bowed again to Quenelda, seated beside her father and to the Queen’s right. As the palace had been decorated for the twelve-day celebration of the Yule Festival, the Court had buzzed with chatter, finding the Lady Quenelda and her unusual esquire a welcome distraction from the gloomy talk of war.

Quenelda had refused the jewelled and silk dresses and caps offered by the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, choosing instead a simple kirtle of sky blue. Her straw-blonde hair was worn loose, and brushed for once. Quenelda was overwhelmed by all the attention as she stood to acknowledge the applause. Her woollen skirts itched and the pointed shoes that the Queen’s ladies assured her were all the rage at Court pinched her toes – they were bound to raise a blister. It was a better curtsy than the one she had managed at the Winter Jousts, but it was awkward and stiff nonetheless. Behind her chair, Root bit back a grin when he saw the hot, jealous glances cast her way by the Queen’s younger ladies-in-waiting and her half-brother, Darcy. Only Root and the Earl knew just how much Quenelda longed to be back in breeches and boots and up and away on the back of Two Gulps.