Dragon Shield (10 page)

As far as he could see in the infernal glow of the courtyard, they were exactly the same silver-painted dragons with the red lolling tongues, but they were only waist high.

And being smaller, they moved much, much faster.

At least two came over the roofs and dropped in on either side of the Fusilier, trails of wildfire pluming out of their nostrils and marking their descent like plummeting fireworks, and two more came through the main arch with a vicious turn of speed, talons scrabbling on the polished granite beneath.

And they clearly came prepared, not just because they had built up the flames inside their throats and were ready to spit fire as soon as they found a target, but because they had a plan, which was for them all to attack the Fusilier first.

16

Georges and Dragons

It was a good plan.

It was also fuelled by vengeance because the Fusilier had shot their brother dragon when rescuing Will back at the playground. Maybe that desire for revenge made their attack all the more savage. Maybe they would have done so anyway.

Whatever the reason, it happened so fast, and so brutally that Will couldn’t begin to move. It wasn’t even fear that froze him. It was pure shock. His mind just didn’t have time to catch up fast enough to think what his body should be doing.

The dragons that flamed in out of the dark sky landed on either side of the Fusilier with a colossal crash of metal on stone, shrieking streams of wildfire right at him. Shriek was the word. Where the larger dragons had roared as they attacked, in this case the spiralling jets of flame were accompanied by a high scream pitched so high and loud that the one thing Will’s body
did
do was slap its hands over its ears to stop the vicious sound needling into his brain.

The Fusilier managed to get his rifle off his shoulder, but as he tried to aim it at the dragon in front of him one of the other dragons leapt up onto his shoulder and chunked its fangs deep into his neck.

Metal sparked on metal as the teeth bit in and the creature worried at him like a terrier. As he tried to throw it off, another dragon shot its own jet of wildfire into his body.

The Fusilier staggered to keep on his feet, his torso wreathed in twining ropes of flame.

His eyes found Will.

‘Run!’ he shouted, his mouth gaping wide. ‘Run bo—’

The small dragon on his shoulder wrenched its fangs out of his neck and snaked its head round to fire a concentrated jet of fire right into his shouting mouth at point blank range.

Little Tragedy yelped in horror and ran away into the darkness.

The angel that had been holding Will whirled and scooped the nymph and the baby inside the protection of its arms and then, with a powerful beat of its wings that sounded like a thunderclap, lofted them all into the sky, away from the fire splashing across the courtyard floor.

She hung there, twenty feet above the dragons, each beat of her wings winnowing the flames flat against the stone in the downdraft, far enough for immediate safety, but close enough for Will to have a perfect view of The Fusilier’s fate . . . and what followed.

The Fusilier choked and stumbled, but the dragon held onto his neck, and one by one – horribly – the other dragons adjusted their aim so that the soldier was suddenly stuck in a kind of crouch, halfway to falling over as four jets of wildfire converged to a white hot point between his teeth. He gagged and jerked and then with a ghastly cough swallowed once. His neck melted and his head fell back, all the way back, so it was hanging down between his shoulder blades like a gruesome backpack, and he was still.

Will heard himself shouting ‘No!’ at the horror of it all, and then something ran beneath him and hit one of the dragons in the side.

The dragon choked off its fire-stream and looked round, snarling in surprise. One of the small bare-headed knights from the side entrance had run it through with his lance.

The small dragon now found itself fighting a human of the same scale. It was as small as him, but it was also as fast.

It tried to bite the knight, but the knight used the lance like a lever and threw the dragon across the courtyard, letting go of the shaft like a hammer thrower, so that it hit another dragon and knocked it flying. As those two dragons tried to untangle their wings and lashing tails and get back on their feet, he just kept on coming, his hand disappearing under his long chainmail coat and emerging with a broadsword clenched in his fist.

He leapt fearlessly at the tangled dragons, springing across the wildfire splashing over the paving stones, sword swinging in a merciless double-handed arc.

The dragons raised their heads just in time to meet the blade neck first. The heavy sword barely noticed passing through one neck, and kept on going right through the second. The knight skidded to a halt just in front of the two dragon’s briefly surprised – and now suddenly dead and headless – bodies, the momentum of his swing spinning him round, so that he ended up facing back towards Will and the other dragons.

Almost in slow-motion the two heads of the dragons he had just decapitated dropped to the ground on either side of him and bounced to a standstill.

He didn’t even bother to look back at them.

Instead he sheathed his sword in one smooth move, dropped his freed hand, and found the haft of the spear still impaling the dragon.

He jerked it free, and charged the remaining dragons, reversing it pointy-end forward as he ran.

The first dragon spun to face him, and had enough time to put its shield up to protect itself.

Unfortunately for it, the other knight hurtled out of the flames to its side, chopping his sword downwards like an axe.

To give it its due, the dragon did – technically – keep hold of the shield but the talon that gripped it was cleanly sheared from its arm, so the shield dropped forward just in time to allow the incoming spear point to impale it in the centre of the chest. The second knight hurdled the spear handle and ran at the next dragon, sword arm already cocked for another blow.

The dragons had used surprise and speed to gain the first advantage. They had not expected a counter-attack, and certainly not one delivered so fast and so expertly.

The dragon spat fire at the incoming knight.

Will thought that was going to be the end of him, but instead the knight swung his sword straight in front of himself, holding it like an altar-boy holds a candle, and calmly charged ahead.

The sword’s blade split the wildfire so that it passed on either side of him.

The dragon’s eyes bulged in surprise and it redoubled the strength of the fire stream. But the knight gritted his teeth and leaned in, as if pushing his way relentlessly forward against a mighty wind.

He pushed in step-by-step until he was nose-to-nose with the dragon who now had to use its shield to stop his progress and try to shove him away.

The knight reached back calmly with one open hand.

‘Trouble you for your lance, old boy?’ he said, cool as a surgeon asking a nurse for a scalpel. The other knight yanked the spear out of the previous dragon and threw it underhand across the courtyard towards him.

It slapped into his hand, which closed with a sharp snap.

The dragon just turned and ran.

Its wings whirred behind it as it stumbled its panic-stricken way into the sky, climbing desperately for safety.

The knight sheathed his sword and hefted the spear with a rather disappointed look as he watched the dragon attain the height of the rooftops.

‘Two bob says you can’t, George,’ said his companion, sounding rather cheerful and not at all like a mediaeval knight ought to.

The dragon disappeared into the gloom above with a final silvery flash of wings and a distant shriek of defiance.

The one with the lance reached back like a javelin thrower and hurled it high into the darkness. He turned and grinned at his partner.

‘When did you ever have two bob, George?’ he said.

There was a thump and a squawk from the darkness above.

Both the St Georges squinted up into the night.

At first there was nothing, then there was a second squawk, and then a frenzied spiral of silvery wings and lashing tail as the dragon whirled out of the sky like a downed helicopter.

The first St George stepped calmly sideways and let the lifeless body slam into the paving stone he had just vacated. He looked at the ruin of the crash, casting a cool eye on the smoking debris.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Golly. That’s two bob you owe me there.’

The other St George stepped over and plucked the lance out of the wrecked dragon. He looked at it with visible disapproval. It was definitely now L-shaped.

‘You bent my bally lance, you clumsy blighter! It’s going to be the devil of a job to get it straight again.’

‘Wait until midnight, old bean,’ said his companion ‘Midnight heals all.’

‘Midnight’s a way off,’ said the angel, dropping back to the ground. ‘There will be more mayhem before then. And this boy needs our help.’

Tragedy, now he could see the danger was gone, slipped out from behind a pillar and wiped his nose, sniffing away his tears as if they had never been there.

The Georges and the angels stood around the broken body of the Fusilier while Will told them everything that he knew about what was happening. Which was not, he realized as he spoke, much.

Then the talk turned to what to do next, the first thing being to deal with the Fusilier before midnight so he could regenerate and be free of his wounds.

‘It may not be a midnight as we have known midnights to be,’ said one of the angels hesitantly. ‘It may be a dead midnight . . .’

Will didn’t like the sound of a dead midnight.

‘And with no true midnight those who are stuck or dead will stay as our friend the Fusilier here,’ said one of the mourning angels.

He could see from the looks that the Georges exchanged that they didn’t like this talk either.

‘Oh put a sock in it, old misery-guts,’ said one of them with a cheery grin. He clearly didn’t have a lot of reverence for the angel, who in her turn bristled visibly.

‘That’s no way to speak to an angel,’ she said.

‘And don’t be so hoity-toity,’ he grinned.

‘Or so jolly gloomy,’ said the other George. ‘Very sapping to the old morale and all that bunk. Now, chop chop, the three of you get the poor old Fusilier here back on his plinth, and we’ll cut along to the meeting at the Ghost Church and take our new friend Will here with us.’

Will still thought the Ghost Church sounded pretty gloomy too, but decided now wasn’t the time to mention it. The other George pointed at Little Tragedy.

‘You coming too, young Tradge? Ghost Church, double-time. Hooky’ll want to know why he ain’t stopped like the other Regulars.’

17

Hooky and the Ghost Church

Putting The Fusilier back on his plinth didn’t take too long, since it stood in the middle of Holborn at the junction of Grays Inn Road, not far from where they were.

The three angels lifted him between them and flew him back out onto the dark street and down to where he usually stood. Will and Little Tragedy watched, eyes searching the sky for movement, in case more dragons came.

‘Don’t worry about the dragons,’ said a voice from below. He looked down to see the two small knights standing next to him.

‘George is right,’ said the other. ‘They’re unlikely to be stupid enough to attack you with a couple of likely lads like us travelling with you.’

‘Thank you, George,’ said the other. ‘Let’s get cracking then.’

And with that they led off into the street, threading their way through the frozen pedestrians and eventually finding a strip of clearer road along the central divider in the middle of the street, between the unmoving slabs of buses and cars.

‘Are you both called George?’ asked Will as they hurried along.

It was strange talking to these mini people as if they were normal.

‘Course we are, old bean,’ said the first. ‘Saint Georges really. Though George here and I don’t feel particularly saintly, to tell the truth. Bit of a disappointment to all the other Georges in that way I expect . . .’

‘There are lots of us dotted about the old metrop,’ said the second George, with a cheery smile. ‘Just as many of us as there are dragons, more or less.’

‘Old London saying,’ said Little Tragedy, ‘for every George there’s a dragon.’

‘Means for every solution there’s a problem,’ said the first George. ‘Or should that be the other way round? For every problem, there’s a solution? Yes. Sounds better.’

‘And that’s us,’ said the other one, cheerfully. ‘Solutions.’

‘Lucky for you,’ said Tragedy. ‘Know a thing or two about dragon-slaying do the Georges . . .’

‘I saw that,’ said Will. ‘Thank you.’

‘All in a day’s work,’ smiled the one with the lance.

‘It’s just our job,’ said the other.

‘And who’s this Hooky we’re going to see?’ said Will.

‘Duke of Wellington. He’s normally on a plinth outside the Royal Exchange. Military genius but a bit of a bully, so you know the drill, just look him in the eye and push back at him. He’ll back off and respect you for it.’

‘Absolutely,’ said the other. ‘That or have you tied to a gun carriage and given fifty lashes.’

Will didn’t like the sound of that, but he did feel safer moving through the time-stopped city with three companions, even if two of them were half-sized. Their cheery personalities seemed to make up for their lack of inches.

He felt in his pocket. Jo’s bracelet was there, and the sandwich he was saving was in the other one. The jacket was a bit useless since the dragon at the supermarket had ripped it down the back, but he kept it on for now. He looked at the frozen people they were jogging past and thought he might find someone his size and borrow their coat if he had time, but right now he needed to keep up.

As they turned down King Edward Street they met a statue of a warhorse topped by a knight. It stood in the middle of the road in a way that reminded Will of the mounted policemen he’d seen with his dad when going to football matches. Remembering his dad jerked him out of the now he was trapped in with a pang of dangerously sharp nostalgia; it made him realize he was getting perilously used to this bad-dream London with its frozen people and moving statues. He was getting so used to it that the normal world was already drifting away in his mind, like an island slowly heading for the horizon as he travelled in the opposite direction, an island he might never return to.

He felt sick at the thought.

The Knight – another St George, this one from Regent’s Park, as Tragedy helpfully told him – waved them on.

‘Pass friends,’ he rumbled through his visor, and turned back to his sentry duty.

They turned the next corner and Will looked up. His first thought was that the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral suddenly hanging above them must be the Ghost Church: it made sense. It was the biggest and most prestigious church in the city. But he couldn’t understand why the great crowd of statues he found himself approaching wasn’t going inside.

It was an extraordinary sight, and he stopped, even as the small Georges carried on greeting old friends – some mounted, most not – amongst the throng of metal and stone statues loitering in the street in between the unmoving City workers, a crowd that spilled across the pavement into a small park.

The mass of spits contained characters from all of London’s long history. He saw a Roman soldier talking to a pair of Guardsmen in tall bearskins, and a caped nurse with a severe face telling off a king in a long curly wig. There was a bunch of soldiers like The Fusilier in rounded tin helmets that mirrored the dome above them, and they clustered together, but mainly the effect was of a great mixture: kings, politicians, explorers, nymphs, writers and at least two Peter Pans flitting about between them all.

‘Why don’t they go in?’ he said to Little Tragedy, pointing at St Paul’s.

‘Oh. That’s not the Ghost Church, silly,’ said the boy. He pointed behind Will. ‘That is. Was a real church before it was flattened in the last war. Will be again. Once the Firemen arrive. You’ll see. It’s a right laugh watching them build it. Like fireworks but with hoses . . .’

Will turned and looked at the city park area behind him. It looked like it had been jammed in between towering buildings in much the same way the recreation area where Jo had been taken was, but then he realized that the tall spire and the side wall were the derelict ruin of a church, and what he had taken to be a park was in fact laid out inside what would have been the nave. As his eyes adjusted he saw there were regularly spaced wooden trellises in the shape of square columns with creepers climbing up them where the old stone pillars of the church would have run down either side of the aisle.

Before he could ask another question there was a sudden commotion as three more tin-helmeted figures pushed through the crowd with shouts of, ‘Mind your backs!’ and ‘Coming through!’.

They looked like they were made of soot-blackened metal, and wore long double-breasted jackets with buttons running down each side of their chests. As they ran they carried a powerful looking fire-hose which they then unrolled and, with quick and practised movements, attached to a hydrant set into the pavement.

Two of them braced themselves holding the nozzle of the hose and the third turned the tap. The hose sprung into life, like a great snake. The firemen bunched their muscles and directed the vigorous jet of water in a long arc up and over the park.

At first Will thought the Spits below were going to be pretty angry at getting such a hefty soaking, but then he saw the water slam into the back wall of the spire in a great splash of white spray, and instead of seeing it fall straight back to the ground under control of normal gravity, he saw the Ghost Church take shape.

The water did not drop vertically, at least not at first, and not in the way he expected: it flowed sideways as it pooled and spread down on either side of an invisible roof across the park, dripping and curling along and down the contours of the old church roof, and the walls and buttresses that had once stood there. The water licked around the outline like wet flames, casting a pale green light across the crowd assembled beneath. Will saw the empty trellises fill up with water and continue upwards to meet the newly revealed roof, and branching sideways to fill up the outline of a first-floor gallery that ran the length of the nave. Windows appeared, as did the unmistakable shape of a massive pipe organ at one end.

As the firemen jacked off the water, and the flow stopped abruptly, the old church stood there in all its former glory, everything that been destroyed by fire now re-made of standing water that swirled and flowed as if it was alive.

Will thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful. He was about to say so, when a shadow fell across him and a commanding voice snapped out over the heads of the crowd.

‘Will someone sort out this rabble! This is meant to be a serious meeting not a monkey’s tea party!’

A man on a horse, in tight britches, and a cocked hat looked down at him, along a nose like the beak of an angry bird. Somehow Will did not need to be told that this was Hooky, the Duke of Wellington. There can’t have been two noses in London like that.

‘That’s a Regular!’ the Duke said. ‘That’s not a Spit, by god. The devil is he doing here when all other Regulars are stuck?’

‘He’s got—’ began Tragedy, but Will trod on his foot.

He thought it might be a good idea to keep the secret about the scarab bead to himself. There was something so severe about the Duke that it made Will think he might just decide to simplify things by taking the scarab and turning him off like a switch.

‘. . . er he’s got no . . . idea,’ said Tragedy. ‘Not clear yet.’

‘Hmm,’ said the Duke. ‘A most irregular Regular. Don’t like it. Keep out of the way, you too little imp. This is no place for children. We have a crisis to handle here.’

‘I’m not a child . . .’ said Will, but he was speaking to the Duke’s back. He’d been dismissed.