The Dragons 3 (11 page)

‘I think our two visitors in the turnip cellar will not cause any more trouble,' said Merlin, taking out his pocket crystal ball again and passing it round the room for everyone to see.

‘We'll deal with them later,' he added. ‘In the meantime, some more visitors are on their way up the River Stycks.'

FAMOUS DRAGONS OF THE WORLD
BELGIUM
COUNT FLATLUENT VON BROCCOLI

And in that meantime, having cut the Sargasso Island into narrow strips, the entire population of the Diabolical Islands were about to try sailing their very long raft upstream against a very strong current that didn't want them to.

It was obvious to everyone, except ninety per cent of those on board who were dead thick, that there was no way they were going to make it to Camelot in time for the longest night of the year.

Everyone lined up on either side of the raft and pushed against the river banks with long poles, but for every metre they moved upstream, they moved almost a metre back downstream each time they lifted their poles to put them in place for the next push. After four hours they had covered eight hundred centimetres.

So they sent men ashore to collect, borrow and steal every horse, cow, sheep, dog and cat they could find to tie to the raft to drag it along. This worked a lot better. In the next four hours they advanced four whole metres.

‘Of course,' said Princess Floridian, ‘we could just leave the raft and walk.'

‘Do you realise how far it is?' said Rampart. ‘I have walked the distance with my father when our boat sank from carrying a load of turnips that had a very high lead content. It took more than a week to reach home, not to mention all the hundreds of groats everyone charged us to walk across their land.'

‘So if my calculations are correct and it took a week to walk to Camelot, and if we stay on the raft at the rate we are going, it will take about a year to get there.'

‘Well, in that case we would get there in time for the longest night of the year,' said Rampart.

‘Yes, next year,' said Ruthra. ‘Very funny.'

Their rapid progress with all the assorted livestock dragging the Sargasso raft got slower and slower, as the animals attacked each other, chewed through the ropes and ran away or simply dropped dead from exhaustion.

And then their progress stopped altogether. There was a bend in the river that was sharper than the very, very long raft could negotiate and it became totally stuck. Bits of the raft fell off and raced back downstream, carrying people with it. Other bits of the
Sargasso raft jammed up close to the rich, welcoming earth of the river bank, sent out roots and began to grow.

Eventually everything that was floating, sailing or generally drifting down the river from Camelot jammed up against the front of the raft, and as more stuff came up behind it, everything was forced together tighter and tighter until it made a dam. A family of beavers, who had been contemplating evolving into a race of creatures that might enjoy damming up rivers, took the opportunity to add bits to the raft until it was not exactly watertight, but dense enough to stop most of the water getting through.

The river flowing down to the harbour shrank to a stream, while the water level behind the raft got taller and taller. It climbed over the riverbanks and began to spread across the surrounding countryside.

‘Not exactly what we had in mind,' said Blind Pew, ‘but I suppose if we wait long enough, we could probably flood Camelot and drown Arthur and everyone.'

‘And by the way,' he added, ‘I think I should tell you that I'm not blind.'

‘WE KNOW,' shouted everyone within earshot. ‘WE'VE ALWAYS KNOWN.'

‘Well, you never said anything,' said Blind Pew. ‘I suppose I ought to change my name then.'

‘We will call you Bright Eyes,' said everyone.

‘Bright Eyes?' said Blind Pew. ‘No Pew bit? I mean, it's an old family name.'

‘OK,' they said. ‘From now on you shall be known as Bright Eyes Pew.'

‘All right,' said Bright Eyes Pew. ‘So what do you all think about the flooding Camelot idea?'

‘I think,' said Ruthra, ‘that by the time the water's high enough to do that, I will be a very old man.'

‘Yes,' said Princess Floridian. ‘Love the idea. Beautiful image, the thought of the turrets sticking out of the water as the olms circle round and round, waiting for the tallest tower to vanish beneath the waves and the last of the bodies to float out. But, as Ruthra says, it will probably take years to happen.'

‘Besides, they would all see it coming and have time to escape,' said Ruthra.

‘Fair point,' said Bright Eyes Pew. ‘So what's your plan?'

‘This is what we will do,' said Rampart, taking charge. ‘We are only a few minutes away from the harbour. So a couple of us will go down and get a small boat, sail it up here, haul it across our raft to the other side and then sail it up the river to Camelot.'

‘We'd never get a boat big enough to carry us all,' said Ruthra.

‘No, so we will just go on with a few of us,' said Rampart. ‘We'll travel through the night and reach Camelot before dawn, then enter the castle through the back door. When my father and I delivered vegetables to Camelot, I often went that way and now know the place like the back of my hand. Our main weapon is that no one will be expecting us. There is no doubt that Merlin has spies and he'll know we are stuck here in the river. Even Blind Pew could see this raft …'

‘Well, duh,' said Bright Eyes Pew. ‘One, I am not blind and two, I am actually standing on it.'

‘It was a figure of speech,' said Rampart. ‘What I mean is, Merlin will be watching the raft. He won't notice a tiny boat slipping through the night.'

‘What sort of vegetables?' called a voice in the crowd.

‘What?'

‘What sort of vegetables did you deliver?'

‘Which hand, left or right?' called another.

‘What?'

‘The inside of the castle, you know, like the back of your hand, which hand is it, left or right?'

‘I think you all need to go and have a bit of a lie down,' said Princess Floridian. ‘It's been a long day and you're all obviously very tired.'

‘The figure of speech,' called a third voice. ‘What figure is it? Is it a seven? I hope it's a seven. That's my lucky number.'

There were a lot more questions and a huge argument over which vegetable would be your favourite one to deliver if you were actually a deliverer of vegetables, which no one was because none of them had had training for it.

While this went on, Rampart and Ruthra cut a large log free from the tail of the raft and floated back down to the harbour, where they stole a small boat.

‘We do not want the sleekest, fastest boat,' said Rampart. ‘We want the darkest one. The one that will be best for slipping unnoticed through the night.'

This was, unsurprisingly, the undertaker's funeral boat. Every square inch of it, including the sail, was pitch black. It was so dark that Ruthra and Rampart crashed into it because they hadn't been able to see it.

‘Perfect,' said Ruthra as he threw the solitary night watchman overboard.

‘Perfect,' said Princess Floridian when they got back to the raft.

‘Where is it? I can't see it,' said Bright Eyes Pew as they dragged it out of the water and along the river bank past the raft.

‘I wonder when they'll be back with a boat,' said quite a lot of people on the raft, who couldn't see a thing as the funeral boat was dragged right past them. ‘Because we need to get ready to go.'

‘Go? What do you mean go?' said someone. ‘They won't be taking you. They're only getting a small boat. There'll only be room for about six of us.'

‘Us, us? What do you mean us? You won't be coming.'

A MASSIVE, HUGE fight broke out on the raft, which was still going on as Rampart pushed the
funeral boat back into the water and everyone climbed aboard to slip up the river to Camelot.

Everyone was:

• Ruthra.
  
• Princess Floridian.
  
• Rampart.
  
• Bright Eyes Pew.
  
• Two of the biggest, strongest, thickest people from the raft.
  
• A chicken called Marion who had appeared as if from nowhere.
  

As Rampart had predicted, they reached the back of the castle just before dawn. They hid the boat in the same bulrushes as Mordred's group had, but with one slight difference. When one of the two big, strong, thick men said, ‘I wonder why they are called bulrushes?' and a huge bull rushed out and charged him, it was the bull that ended up dead. It ran headlong into him and broke its head.

‘I'm glad that's cleared that up then,' said Bright Eyes Pew.

They slipped into the dark tunnel, but, unlike
Mordred, Rampart knew exactly where he was and what to do. He told everyone to keep quiet while he let out a strange deep whistle that echoed along the tunnel until it reached its destination, which was the left ear of the fourteenth assistant turnip polisher, who had just fallen asleep and totally failed to hear it.

‘That's strange,' said Rampart. ‘She always comes when I whistle. We have an understanding. I whistle. She wakes up and comes down here with a lamp and then I give her a little turnip, one of those sweet baby turnips that girls simply adore. Then we go up to the kitchens and she gives me a wonderful pie.'

But the girl did not wake up because she was no longer in charge of her own brain.

‘OK, little one,' said Merlin, looking into his crystal ball, ‘time to wake up.'

The girl, who was groggy from the sleep Merlin had put her under, went down without her lamp.

‘My lamp is in the workshop getting serviced,' she whispered in a voice that sounded very similar to the voice of the person she was supposed to be, but wasn't. ‘Join hands and I will lead you to the kitchens for a big feed.'

The air was filled with the alluring and irresistible scent of an enormous, freshly baked turnip pie. It was totally captivating, which was exactly what it was supposed to be. Everyone joined hands and walked carefully through the darkness, except for the two big, strong, thick men at the back, who totally failed to miss the open trapdoor that several of Mordred's gang had earlier totally failed to miss. Bright Eyes Pew only just managed to wrench his hand free, otherwise he would not have totally missed the trapdoor too. However, in pulling his hand free he lost his balance and fell backwards and did fall down the hole he had just narrowly missed.

So now there was just Rampart, Princess Floridian and Ruthra being led along in the silent darkness. Each of them had wild thoughts racing round their brains, but neither of them could bring themselves to speak.

They stopped.

‘Wait here a moment,' said their invisible guide, letting go of Rampart's hand.

Silence.

Quite a lot of silence followed by some more silence and then a bit with no noise in it at all and
finally some sort of fabric-rustling noise.

Then their guide either turned to face them, or took off a mask, or there was someone else there, because a pair of green eyes appeared.

‘Ready now,' said a voice where the eyes were.

A trapdoor opened and Rampart, Princess Floridian and Ruthra fell down into further darkness to land on tepid water that came halfway up their thighs. To be accurate, they all fell slightly differently. Rampart fell straight down and landed on his feet. Princess Floridian fell flat on her back, swore a lot, splashed about a lot, staggered to her feet and swore a lot more.
⁵⁴
Of course, the trapdoor was in the rook of the Number Twelve Turnip Store where Mordred was imprisoned and Ruthra landed right on top of him. The two of them, who were about the same age and size, fell over, then swore a lot more than Princess Floridian, who was delighted to learn at least fifteen new swearwords she had never heard before. After
they had splashed about a bit and knocked Rampart and Princess Floridian over several times, Ruthra and Mordred finally managed to stand up and shout at each other.

‘Have you any idea who I am?' they both shouted.

‘What? Do you mean you're so stupid you can't remember?'

‘When we get out of here I will have you thrown back in here,' they both shouted.

In fact, they both kept doing this until Princess Floridian managed to get them to shut up for a minute.

‘Who are you?' the two boys said.

‘Who am I? Who am I?' they both said. ‘I'll tell you who I am. I am the rightful King of Avalon. That's who I am.'

Each time they spoke they said exactly the same thing. It was as though there was an echo in the room.

Finally, the Princess managed to get them to shut up long enough so they could tell each other exactly who they were.

‘But I am of royal blood,' said Mordred. ‘The wretched child King Arthur is my cousin. I have priority.'

‘But I was King when your wretched cousin was nothing more than a dirty little kitchen boy,' said Ruthra. ‘I have priority.'

‘Doesn't count,' said Mordred. ‘I have royal blood.'

‘Only if you accept that Arthur is the true King, which I do not. I am the true King,' said Ruthra. ‘Your cousin is an impostor and a puppet of that evil Merlin.'

‘Calm down, boys,' said the Princess. ‘Here is something we all agree on: Merlin is evil and must die. Let's concentrate on that and worry about who is going to be King when we've killed him and Arthur and the others.'

‘Yes,' said Rampart. ‘Good idea.'

Rampart did not actually think it was a good idea. He tried to remember how he had got tied up with all the rebellion and Brat, as he had been called, and the Princess. If he remembered correctly, he had gone off with them because he wanted to escape his boring life working for his father the blacksmith and have a bit of adventure. They had also threatened to kill him. He certainly didn't remember any plans to
kill the King, who he actually thought was lovely and had a cave painting of, stuck on his hovel wall back home. Rampart had just gone along with everything, expecting that after a while he would go home again.

Now he was stuck in a wet dungeon with three seriously dangerous terrorists and three hundred and forty-seven turnips that were beginning to go slimy in the warm water.