Paint Your Dragon (36 page)

And notices something. And suddenly feels a tiny bit better, because it suggests, somehow, that more than meets the eye is going on.

Because, in the back window of Saint George, somebody has stuck a little bit of shiny white cardboard, with five words written on it in red lipstick. They were:

Yes, mutters the dragon, suddenly and savagely cheerful. Isn't it ever.

 

Like a salmon leaping the waterfall of the sun, the great dragon soared; wings incandescent, fire streaming off his flawlessly armoured flanks, the scream of the slipstream drowning out all sounds except the exultant crowing of his own triumphant soul, which sang:

Sheeeeit! Wow! Fuck me
!
Is this a bit of all right, then
,
or what
?

Now bursting up through the clouds like a leaping dolphin, now swooping like a hunting eagle; now high, now low, as the intoxication of flight and power made his brain swim, his blood surge. Mine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

And then a light flashed soberingly bright in his eyes and he glanced down. There, on the desert floor below him, two men stood beside a Land Rover, on which was mounted a huge mirror.

Dragons have eyes like hawks - that's a very silly thing to say, because hawks are just birds, whereas dragons' eyes are the finest optical instruments in the cosmos; the point being, although the two men were a long way away, George recognised them easily. Chubby Stevenson and the man Kortright; he'd seen him about the place, though he didn't know who he was. Intrigued, he swooped.

‘Hey,' Kortright yelled through a bullhorn. ‘Where the fuck you been? Get down here like
now.'

It then occurred to George that they didn't know it was him. They thought it was the dragon - his, George's, enemy. Yet these people were supposed to be his friends, good guys. The hell with that! He filled his lungs and took aim—

No, they'll keep. Let's find out what's going on before we fry anybody we might be able to use later.

‘Hey,' George drawled. ‘Where's the fire?'

‘It's where it isn't that's pissed me off, man,' Kortright replied. ‘C'mon, get your tail in gear, we got people waiting.'

‘People?' George hovered, his front claws folded, a what-time-of-night-do-you-call-this expression on his face. ‘What people?'

Stevenson, he noticed, was looking a little sheepish as he leaned over and whispered something in Kortright's ear. The agent stepped back and stared at him.

‘You arrange the biggest fight of all time,' he said, ‘and you never get around to telling the contestants?'

George quivered; the word
fight
had hijacked his imagination and was demanding to be flown to Kingdom Come. ‘What fight?' he asked.

‘You and Saint George,' Chubby replied. ‘The rematch. I was, um, planning it as a surprise.'

‘You succeeded.'

Chubby scowled. ‘Dunno why you're sounding all snotty about it,' he replied self-righteously. ‘That is what you want, isn't it? A chance to sort that little shit out once and for all? I mean, that is why you came back in the first place, right?'

‘Sure thing.' George nodded vigorously. ‘Teach the little toe-rag a lesson he won't live long enough to forget.'

‘Well, then.'

A smile swept across the dragon's face, in the same way that barbarian hordes once swept across Europe. ‘I call that very thoughtful of you,' he said, ‘going to all that trouble just to please me. But what makes you think the little chickenshit'll have the balls to show up? If I was him, the moment I heard about the fight I'd be off.'

‘He doesn't know about the fight, stupid.'

‘You mean,' said George, grinning cheerfully, ‘you set him up?'

‘Yeah, yeah. Look—'

‘From the outset?'

‘Sure.' Chubby looked at him strangely. ‘What's got into you all of a sudden?' he demanded.

‘Not what. Who. But that's beside the point, we'll sort it out later. So, where should I go?'

Kortright pointed due north. ‘You'll know what it is as soon as you see it,' he said. ‘Hang round just out of sight till we show up with George. Then it'll be over to you, okay? And don't say I don't find you quality gigs, you ungrateful asshole.'

George nodded gravely. ‘I think I'll be able to handle it from then on,' he said. ‘Be seeing you.'

 

Not long afterwards, Chubby's helicopter landed beside the huge artificial mountain of packing cases that had appeared overnight in the middle of the desert, and two men climbed out, crouching to avoid the spinning rotor blades.

‘George,' they were yelling.
‘George
! Where is the goddamn ...?'

They found him fast asleep in a sort of masonry igloo he'd made for himself at the foot of the mountain. This made their job much easier. Chubby slipped the handcuffs into place while Kortright woke him up.

‘Hi, George,' Chubby said. ‘Look, no need for alarm, but we need you to do something for us and we really haven't got time to convince you it's a good idea before we set off for the venue. This way, we can convince you as we go, and you won't waste time by running away and hiding.'

‘Suits me.'

The two men looked at each other. ‘Good of you to be so reasonable,' Chubby said. ‘This way, then.'

In the chopper, Chubby explained that when he'd rescued George from the police in Birmingham, he'd had an ulterior motive.

‘You rescued ... Yes, sorry, me and my tea-bag memory. Do forgive me, carry on.'

‘Yup.' Chubby had a vague feeling that something was going wrong, but that was so close to his normal mental state that he ignored it. ‘You see, it's this damn dragon.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘Sure.' Chubby sighed, his face a picture of frustration and annoyance. ‘The bloody thing is starting to be a real pest, you know? Something's got to be done about it, before it ruins my business and destroys a major city or something.'

‘I quite understand,' said the dragon, nodding. ‘This planet ain't big enough for the three of us, that sort of thing.'

‘Three? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, of course, I don't have to tell you, you want to see the fucker gets what's coming to him as badly as I do. Well, now's your chance.'

‘Really and truly?'

‘Really,' said Chubby, smiling, ‘and truly. That's why Mr Kortright here -'

Kortright smiled. ‘Hi, George.'

‘Hi, Mr Kortright. Haven't we met somewhere?'

‘Quite possibly, George, quite possibly.'

‘Mr Kortright,' Chubby went on, ‘and I have arranged this, um, fight to the death. You and Mr Bad Guy. We built you an arena and everything. You're gonna love it.'

‘Quite,' said the dragon. ‘Only, and I hate to seem downbeat here, don't you think the fight's going to be ever so slightly one-sided? I mean, him with the wings and the tail and the fiery breath, me with a sword? Not that I'm chicken or anything, but...'

Kortright chuckled. ‘Tell him, Chubby.'

‘We've sorted all that,' Chubby said. ‘We've got you some back-up. The best, in fact. The name Kurt Lundqvist mean anything to you?'

‘No.'

Chubby shrugged. ‘After your time, I guess. Well, just as the dragon comes hell-for-leather at you out of, so to speak, a cloudless sky, Kurt “Mad Dog” Lundqvist'll be poised and ready in a concealed bunker under the press box with a very nasty surprise for Mr Dragon. He won't know what hit him. And neither, more to the point, will the punters. They'll think it was you. Neat trick, huh?'

‘Chubby.' The dragon looked shocked. ‘Surely that's
cheating.'

‘Yes. You got a problem about that?'

The dragon's eyes gleamed, and if Chubby failed to notice, consciously at least, that they were yellow with a black slit for a pupil, that was his fault. ‘Ignore me,' the dragon said. ‘I think it's a wonderful plan. Thank you ever so much for arranging it all. You must let me find some way to pay you back.'

‘George,' Chubby said, ‘my old pal, forget it. I mean, what are friends for?'

The dragon shook his head. ‘Chubby,' he said, ‘and Lin. This is one favour I won't be forgetting in a hurry, believe me. Okay, let's go. I can hardly wait.'

K
urt had allowed himself twenty minutes to get from Birmingham to the heart of the Gobi Desert. Thanks to the small flask of concentrated Time which Chubby had issued him with, it proved to be ample.

An imposing figure was waiting for him round the back of the gents' lavatory. It was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit over its lurid, misshapen body, and a pair of dark glasses perched on the bridge of its beak.

‘Hi,' Kurt said. ‘Sorry if I kept you waiting.'

‘Bang on time, Mr Lundqvist,' replied the Captain of Spectral Warriors, handing over a suitcase. ‘Here's the doings. Best of luck.'

Kurt grinned. ‘Luck,' he said, ‘is for losers. You got your boys standing by?'

‘In position. You can rely on them to do a good job.'

Kurt picked up the suitcase. ‘Be seeing you, then.' He started to walk away, but the Captain stopped him.

‘Mr Lundqvist,' he said. ‘I'm curious.'

‘Yeah, but don't let it get to you. The shades help. A bit.'

‘I'm curious,' the Captain went on, ‘about which of them you're gonna take out. Yeah, sure I got my orders, I don't actually need to know at this stage. I was just wondering...'

Kurt grinned, a big, wide grin that'd make a wolf climb a tree. ‘Watch this space,' he said. ‘Then you'll know for sure.'

 

George circled, keeping high'.

Born yesterday? Not him. Came down in the last shower? You must be thinking of somebody else. He hadn't slashed a path through the red-clawed jungle of combat theology to a Saintship without knowing when a situation was well and truly hooky; and if ever a set-up stank, it was this one. Souls don't just float up out of bodies for no reason; it takes big medicine to work a trick like that. And for it to happen just before a major set-piece battle between Good and Evil? Some of George's best friends were coincidences, but that didn't mean he trusted them as far as he could spit.

Well, he said to himself. And what would I do if I were fixing this fight?

Easy, I'd position a sniper somewhere in the arena. That way, when I come rushing in to scrag my enemy, the sniper blams me just as I'm about to put my wings back and dive. It looks like Saint George has killed me. Good triumphs over Evil for the second time running. Yeah. Well, we'll see about that.

He gained a few thousand feet and looked down. Below him, the huge arena looked like a tiny scab on the knee of the desert. It was packed with people; high rollers and fight aficionados from the length and breadth of Time. George chuckled. The way he saw it, spectator sports are at best a rather morbid form of voyeurism. So much better if you can participate directly in the action.

He started to dive.

The joy of it was that the deaths of all the people he was going to incinerate, by way of a diversion, would be blamed on the dragon (representing Evil, and doing a pretty spectacular job) rather than noble, virtuous Saint George (representing po-faced, one-hand-tied-behind-its-back Good). Given the dragon's track record, nobody would have the slightest problem in believing that he'd decided to zap a whole stadium full of humans for the sheer hell of it.

He took a deep breath.

 

In the white corner, the dragon lifted his helmet, blew dust from the liner and put it on. It was hot and stuffy and smelt of mothballs, and it wasn't made of asbestos. Bloody silly thing to wear in a dragon-fight, he couldn't help thinking.

With a sharp pang of anger and loss, he saw a familiar shape, far off in the harsh blue sky. Here he came, the bastard.

‘Okay,' he said to the armourer. ‘I'll have the sword now, please.'

The armourer grinned at him. ‘Get real, buddy' he said. ‘You gotta try and kill that thing, and you're planning on using an overgrown paperknife? Man, you're either stupid or crazy.'

The dragon was about to speak, but decided to look instead.

‘Don't I know you?'

‘You may have heard of me,' the armourer replied. ‘My name's Kurt Lundqvist.'

The dragon stared at him. ‘But aren't you meant to be down there somewhere? With a gun or something?'

Kurt shook his head. ‘That, my friend, would be a bad move. I'd hate my last thought before I die to be,
God how could I be so fucking stupid?
I'm gonna stay right here, where it's safe.'