Dragon Shield (6 page)

Everyone else except for her brother.

Will saw the talons of his own dragon curl around the shield and felt his muscles ache as he tried to resist their unyielding strength. He felt like an oyster must feel as someone levers the lid off their shell. He knew exactly how soft and exposed he was going to be the moment he let go.

He did see Jo’s stick clatter to the ground next to him.

The sight of it filled him with dread, and the fear spiked his adrenaline. Without knowing why he did it, or even how he did it, he did the only thing that enabled him to remain free for the next few seconds.

He didn’t let go of the shield. He used every ounce of strength in his arms to push it in the direction the dragon was pulling, and then let go.

The dragon tumbled back in surprise as it yanked the shield into its own nose with such force that it lay on its back and shook its head in stunned shock. Then it roared and leapt for the spot on the sickly green outdoor carpet where Will had been.

Only Will was no longer there. He had rolled and bounced to his feet, hurdling the low railings into the playground and diving for the protective bars of the metal climbing frame.

He rolled in under the platform as the Dragon hurled the useless shield at him. It hit the bars with enough force to bend them and shower Will with paint flakes, but he was safe.

‘Jo!’ he shouted, scuttling this way and that, his neck craned as he looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of his sister before the dragon renewed its attack.

He saw her clutched in the other dragon’s talon, rigid and unmoving as his captor snarled a dismissive roar at him.

‘Jo!’ he shouted in despair.

9

Delivered by Dragon

The dragon carrying Jo landed in front of the great façade of the museum, swayed up the shallow steps between the pillars and banged on the open door with a bunched talon, peering into the gloom within.

As it waited, it gave Jo an irritable little shake, but she did not move a muscle. She was as stiff as a board. Whatever had protected her from being frozen like everyone else in the city was now clearly not working.

‘DON’T BREAK IT,’ said the everywhere-voice. The dragon looked up. The inner hall was still full of nothing but frozen people and shadows. ‘WE WANT TO SEE WHY IT WAS WALKING WHEN ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN OF TIME ARE AT REST.’

Then some of the shadows moved and became the stone lion-women. One of them walked up to the dragon and took Jo from its grip, turning her this way and that, almost as if she was looking for a switch. Then it held her close to its nostrils and smelled her.

‘She is nothing special,’ she said, turning to look at the others.

The cat appeared, looking bored as usual as it twisted between the legs of the lion-women. It lifted a paw and casually batted Jo’s shoe, which was hanging a foot off the ground as the statue held her in the air. Then it walked away, uninterested.

‘THEN IT IS THE BOY,’ said the everywhere-voice. All the lioness heads turned and looked at each other. ‘TAKE THE GIRL. PUT HER IN THE SARCOPHAGUS SO WE MAY QUESTION HER. IT MAY BE WE NEED TO USE HER TO BREAK HIM.’

As the one holding Jo walked away towards the Great Court one of the other lion-women walked up to the dragon and put a hand on its shoulders and looked deep into its eyes. The blue light blazing out of her own eyes sharpened and focused into a beam.

‘All the City dragons can hear me through you,’ it said.

It wasn’t a question.

‘All dragons. Find the boy. Bring him to us now. Do not fail us.’

The dragon made as if to leave.

The lioness held it steady.

For a moment the dragon looked surprised. And then, as the blue light beaming into its eyes intensified, it began to shake. The light seemed to liquefy and spill out of its eye sockets, running in thick streams down its silver scales, spiralling around its torso and dripping down its arms and legs.

The dragon’s spikey ears went flat like a dog being punished, and it began to whine in pain.

It was not used to being frightened, or hurt. And from the way the whines mounted shrilly and then abruptly changed to low whimpers, it was clear that the lion-woman was causing it a great deal of pain.

The dragon dropped first to one knee, then the other, and then reached out a stubby claw to try and stop itself falling sideways into the pillar. It slumped against it and held on, talons scrabbling at the smooth stone curve, trying to keep a grip.

The lioness let go and stepped back.

Instantly the blue liquid covering the dragon disappeared as the connection was broken and it slid off the pillar and fell back down the steps in an untidy jumble of wings and whimpering.

‘Do not fail us again. Or you will all feel the Pain of Sekhmet,’ said the lioness, turning to rejoin the shadows within.

‘Bring the boy before midnight.’

10

The Fusilier

Tragedy had led them into a trap. Probably not on purpose, but accidentally he had bottled them up in a space almost entirely constructed from dead-ends.

Will couldn’t really blame the little imp for running off and saving himself. He too wished he was away, instead of stuck here.

Hiding in the cage under the climbing frame was not the most sensible thing to have done. Will could see that now. When he ran – a moment ago that already felt like a lifetime – he hadn’t planned further ahead than getting to a place of immediate safety.

On the plus side the bars around him were sturdy. They had already stopped the hurtling metal shield the dragon had spun at him. Without the bars to save him, Will would probably have lost his head already.

But the problem with the bars, brightly painted though they were, was that they were bars: bars have, by definition, gaps between them. Bars can stop big solid things, but they’re not so good with other stuff.

Like fire.

Dragons, on the other hand, are very good with fire.

Will could see the dragon was building heat inside the crop in its neck. The silver painted metal was beginning to blush pink with the growing pressure of the wildfire trapped beneath it. Curly tendrils of smoke were starting to emerge from its nostrils.

Will reached through the bars, trying to scrabble a hand-hold on the shield, hoping against hope that he would be able to repeat the trick he’d used last time, redirecting the jet of flame back on the dragon, but as he got his fingers on the very lip of it the dragon stepped forward and jabbed a single talon down onto the other side of the shield and very deliberately scraped it back just out of his reach. It did so with a kind of controlled malice in its eye, its lip curled into a sneer.

He scrabbled backwards. The other thing about a cage is that though it’s only averagely good for certain kinds of protection, it’s
very
good for being trapped in. If the dragon started blasting fire he was going to be burned to a crisp.

He scooted through a narrow gap and stood poised to dodge either way, keeping the climbing frame between him and the dragon.

The dragon stepped sideways and just stared at him.

It looked amused.

Will edged further to his left, so that the broad steel slide that came off the upper level of the climbing frame was blocking the dragon’s view of everything but his head.

He was going to have to run.

It was hopeless anyway, but his dad once told him that a moving target was harder to hit, and whether or not that was true, there was no question that if he stood still he was toast.

At least on the outside. Outside he’d be burned and crispy. Inside he’d probably still be squishy. But cooked. Like a marshmallow at a bonfire party.

Yes.

He’d have to move. If he could get six metres to his left, running past the swing-set with its weirdly frozen girl sticking out into mid-air, there was a wall. He thought he could jump and scramble himself over, and then he could perhaps find shelter in the narrow space between it and the houses behind.

There was a clang and a scrape as the dragon put its front foot on the slide, testing it. It was in no hurry. It knew it had him.

It slid back a bit, but stopped itself by jagging the talons of its foot into the thin sheet of metal, punching holes as easily as if it were paper.

That wasn’t good either.

In two steps it was on top of the climbing frame, looking straight down at him.

All that Will could think of doing to distract it was bound to fail. It was bound to fail because it was the oldest trick in the book.

But sometimes the oldest trick is the only one left.

Sometimes it’s all you have.

Will looked to the left of the dragon and waved frantically.

‘Hey, yes! Help me!!’

The dragon turned to see who was there, and Will ran.

He ran faster than he’d ever run before, 0–60 in two strides, muscles bouncing and legs pumping like trip hammers as he punched forward through the air, heading for the brick wall beyond the swings.

He heard the dragon roar behind him, but that didn’t make him look round. It made him run faster. It made him jump higher. It made his outstretched hands hold the top of the wall in a stronger grip, and it made his arms pull his body over the top in one fluid movement.

What it didn’t do was make him drop to safety on the other side of the wall.

There was no drop.

And that’s where his plan hit its own particular wall and stopped dead.

There was a flat roof, a dank mossy expanse of roofing felt with a shallow puddle in the middle of it. He slid to an embarrassing halt in the scrape of water, wet and painfully aware that the only thing between him and a very angry dragon was the lip of the wall, maybe 15 centimetres tall, enough to have hidden the treacherous roof behind, but no use for hiding anything else.

He scrabbled back until he hit the façade of the house and stared at the lip of the wall.

He couldn’t see the dragon.

Then he saw twin tendrils of smoke rise up over the edge of the bricks. And then he saw the silver-painted ears, and then the angry red little eyes pop up and stare at him, and then the wings cracked out behind it and the dragon’s neck and chest came into view, and now that he had tried the oldest trick in the book his list of options seemed to be terminally blank.

He’d run himself into a corner with no way out. The wall behind him was solid. It felt like the end.

He caught a glimpse of the shield he had dropped on the green astroturf behind the dragon. He should not have dropped it. Just another in a long line of stupid mistakes that had got him here. He was drowning in a sea of mistakes.

‘Stupid,’ he said. ‘Really stupid.’

The dragon cocked its head. Suddenly he had a thought. And when you’re drowning every thought is like a life-belt. So he grabbed at it and clung on, and the thought was this: he wondered how stupid the dragon really was. It was deadly, sure, but might it not also be a bit . . . thick? After all. it had fallen for the oldest trick in the book once. Maybe it would—

He pointed over its wings.

‘Look!’ he said. ‘Behind you!!’

The dragon was not that stupid.

It shook its head, drew it back like a snake about to strike and then jerked it forward, mouth starting to open screamingly wide – so wide he saw the fireball beginning to roil out of its gullet and jet towards him—

BLAM

The gunshot echoed round the narrow courtyard, and the dragon’s head was knocked sideways by the impact of the bullet, so that the wildfire jerked and hit the wall just to Will’s right. His arm was splashed by the fire, but the bullet saved him, stopping it from taking the full blast. As the flames bit into his coat and the arm beneath, he dropped and rolled into the puddle, which extinguished the fire in a damp sizzle. As he did this the jet of flame made a long fiery paint splash for the next five metres as the dragon’s head continued to move, until—

BLAM

The second bullet hit it in the body, knocking its legs out from under it so that the head suddenly disappeared as it dropped like a stone, hitting its chin on the lip of the wall, snapping its neck upwards with a sharp crack as it disappeared from view. The last that Will saw of it was a final burst of wildfire vomitted straight into the air like a blazing fountain that geysered upwards before making a nearly perfect umbrella shape, and falling straight back down to earth.

Will didn’t move.

He’d seen it. His ears had heard the gunshots. His brain had just not managed to take it in.

‘You still with us then, nipper?’ said a man’s voice with a cockney edge to it.

Will scrambled to the edge of the wall and looked down.

A statue was looking up at him. It was a soldier in a First World War uniform, made of brass that was black with age and spattered with pigeon mess much as Victory had been. He had a tin helmet and a pack, and was standing over the sprawled and immobile dragon with his rifle pointing at its head. There was a long and very pointy bayonet, almost like a sword, fixed on the end of the gun.

He had one eye on the dragon and one on Will.

‘There you are. Good. Thought this blighter might have roasted yer . . .’

The dragon tried to lift its head.

Without thinking the soldier lunged and stabbed the dragon.

‘No no,’ he gritted. ‘Can’t be having that, matey. ’Cos my mother said . . .’

Stab.

‘. . . you shouldn’t go aroun’ . . .’

Stab.

‘. . . trying to roast up little boys . . .’

Stab.

‘. . . all aroun’ the town.’

And with that he put a hobnailed boot on the dragon’s neck and yanked the long sword-bayonet free for the last time.

Wildfire spilled out of the wound, its energy spent, dribbling like a liquid, pooling on the ground around the dragon’s head, melting the sickly green astroturf before dying out entirely.

The soldier looked at his bayonet, then down at the dragon.

‘Ugly brute, isn’t he?’

Will’s mouth worked silently.

‘Something you want to say?’

Will swallowed.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

The soldier tipped back his helmet and fixed his eyes on Will’s with a stern look.

‘That’s the first thing you want to say is it?’

He scratched his chin. He looked very grim.

‘Oh well. Kids these days, eh? Ain’t got the manners of a butcher’s dog, have you?’

Will swallowed. The soldier exhaled and shrugged

‘Who am I? Well sonny, I’m Corporal thank-you-very-much-for-saving-my-bacon-from-the-big-nasty-dragon-that-was-trying-to-turn-my-ungrateful-little-hide-into-nice-crispy-pork-crackling is who I am.’

Will felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. The soldier relaxed his face a millimetre, so that it at least looked like a face that
could
smile, maybe one day in the long distant future, even though it wasn’t letting much of that show right now.

A familiar voice piped up from behind the big soldier.

‘But you can call him Fusilier. Everyone else does.’

Will’s jaw dropped in surprise. It was Little Tragedy, grinning so wide his face was close to splitting.

‘Right,’ said Will. ‘I mean thank you. For saving my bacon. Hide. You know . . .’

‘I do know,’ agreed The Fusilier, hanging his gun over his shoulder by the sling. ‘Same as I know you should thank this little devil for coming and getting me.’

Will looked at Tragedy who was beaming back at him, hopping nervously from foot to foot.

‘Thank you Tradge,’ said Will.

‘Pleasure,’ he replied, and then he put the sad mask over his face, ‘And I’m sorry about your sister an’ all.’

Will nodded. All the relief at having survived the dragon drained out of his boots at the mention of Jo, and he felt suddenly very shaky and hollow. The Fusilier looked at him closely.

‘Right chum. Need to get that arm seen to. We know just who to take you to, right Tradge?’

‘You do?’ asked Will. His arm was throbbing badly.

‘Ho yes,’ grinned Tragedy. ‘What you need is a ministering bleedin’ angel.’

‘So come down off of that roof, careful like, keep your eyes peeled and follow me,’ said The Fusilier.

‘And don’t argue,’ said Little Tragedy. ‘No more arguing please.’

Will rolled to the edge and lowered himself to the ground. It was very odd stepping over the dead dragon and seeing the happy smiling faces of the couple watching their daughter frozen on the swing, unaware of the mayhem that had just passed in front of their unseeing eyes.

‘Right,’ said The Fusilier. ‘Let’s scarper.’

Will remembered how he’d wished he’d kept hold of the shield, so he ran over and picked it up.

‘Seriously sonny. We need not to be here,’ said The Fusilier. ‘Dragons are all brothers, least them silver ones are. They’ll know something’s up with one of theirs and be flocking over here for a look-see.’

‘Come on,’ said Tragedy. ‘Why aren’t you moving?’

‘Wait,’ said Will. His eyes had seen something else on the ground. ‘Just wait a moment. Please.’

That wasn’t the question, thought Will, remembering how frozen and lifeless Jo had suddenly looked in the dragon’s talons. He could move if he wanted to; it was Jo that wasn’t moving. Why?

He knelt and pulled something familiar out from under one of the exercise bicycles.

It was Jo’s bracelet.

He stared at it. Something clicked in his head, like a puzzle piece landing in place. He looked at the scarab on his wrist.

‘What?’ said Little Tragedy.

‘I think I might know why Jo stopped moving,’ said Will slowly.

‘Who?’ said The Fusilier.

‘My sister. And I think that means I know why I’m moving and everyone else is frozen in time.’