Chapter 5 #3
I look over my shoulder. Ralph is running behind me, his expression furious.
The fires are being extinguished and the Guardians are regrouping.
One of them points at me. I scramble on to the path that leads up the cliffside as panic overwhelms me.
Have the Bulgarians killed Chumana? My boots slip on tiny rocks and I skid downwards on to the beach, barely managing to keep a grip on the loquisonus machine.
‘Recruit!’ Ralph screams at me.
He’s just a few footsteps away, his white helmet glinting.
A low whistle.
The world slows as it sounds again, then a third time. My eyes frantically search the cliff face, blinded by the sunlight. I’d know that signal anywhere. And then I see it between the rocks. A familiar face. I could cry with joy.
Marquis.
Chumana appears again, two Bulgarian dragons on her tail, her roars filling the air as fire and blood rain down on to the tents.
The flames draw circles across the sand, keeping the other Guardians from reaching me.
Marquis is gesticulating, his face frantic as he points urgently to something behind me.
I hear a loud stamping and turn around as a tall figure emerges from the smoke.
Not a dragon, but a horse. Its rider looks down at me, the sun shining behind his head.
Terror ices my veins and I feel my knees buckle as I reach for the swallow around my neck.
Because what I’m seeing just isn’t possible.
The figure slides from the horse and comes towards me, his arms pulling me upwards.
I try to shake him off as tears blind me, because surely he must be a vision, a ghost. But he’s as solid as I am, his hands warm on my waist. The smoke envelops us like it did in his final moments, but I see him as clear as day.
The crooked smile, the smell of peppermint, those deep brown eyes.
His voice is soft as he cups my face in his hands.
‘Hello, Featherswallow.’
From the private papers of Patrick Clawtail
June 1862
We have been with the Hebridean Wyverns for six months, since we fled the government’s forced eviction of Canna.
There were whispers that the Prime Minister intends to make the island into a prison, and now every person we ever knew here is gone.
June and I are slowly learning the wyvern tongue, aided only slightly by the fact that we speak Scottish Gaelic, from which it is descended.
I have taken the liberty of naming it Cannair, and little Marguerite is already fluent.
She is young enough to learn straight from the wyverns’ mouths, deciphering the meaning of words from context like small children do, whereas we possess the tiresomely ingrained habit of translating inside our heads.
I remind our daughter that as with any language, the dictionaries never reflect its entire flavour.
To truly taste a new Draconic tongue, one must live among its dragons.
September 1863
In spending time with the wyverns and coming to know their intelligent, inquisitive spirit, I find myself seeking reason for it in their physical stature.
It is peculiar that God has given such wild attributes to creatures who ponder the arts as deeply as any human, whose understanding of language is on an almost spiritual plane and whose traditions could bring order and peace to any civilisation or society.
Their wings are used, of course, for flying.
Each day little Marguerite and I seek a sunny spot on the hillside to watch them soar through the air, accompanied by swarms of Grayling butterflies and trailing clouds like a stage magician might utilise smoke for a magic show.
They have a strange command of the air, an ability to bring a water-soaked fog down upon us, or to clear an overcast morning with the sweep of a sun-kissed tail.
Their tails are a tool used for balance and impressive speed, which must have put the Roman scourge to shame.
I have also seen one sever the life from a fleeing sheep.
Their huge eyes give them night vision, as many a ceremony takes place after dark in Canna’s cool, salty starlight.
But what is the purpose of the long index claw?
I have watched them use it to dig in the dirt for materials – clay for sculpting, minerals for medicine.
I have seen them use it to shear the wool from the sheep they hunt, ready to be wound on to the loom.
But does that mean God intended for them to be creatures of artistic pursuit?
And if that is the case, why did he not give humans pens in the place of fingers or the ability to paint landscapes with our eyes?
Are we not the most artistic of all species, called to create like our creator?
It is a curious mystery.
June 1866
Government ships have been sighted. The wyverns are taking June and Marguerite to a hideout, but I await my accusers in a cave on the shore.
It is my intention to argue with them, to defend my right to record the wyvern tongue and share it with the world.
Britannia has already relegated Scottish Gaelic to the corners of the most tenacious Third Class homes, hoping that it will die out.
And so it comes as no surprise to me that they do not wish to hear of its Draconic descendant, Cannair, which Abelio