Chapter 7 #2
I had almost forgotten that part of him, the priesthood part.
Has he, I wonder? Did that part of him die when he did back at Bletchley Park?
When he exchanged his white collar for a rebel uniform?
Or is it still there somewhere, residing quietly even as he kisses me?
I look at the others, Marquis and Gideon smoking as they watch the sky and Serena fiddling with the radio.
It felt shamefully good to release my anger on to Chumana, but my skin prickles again when I remember how the other recruits were together on Eigg for three months, knowing that I was alone in London thinking Atlas was dead.
I sneak another glance at Marquis. Even he kept the truth from me.
I feel a distance between me and them, a cold remoteness that I can’t shake.
‘And you’re back with Sandy and Drake on your daily broadcast of Blighty Against Bolgoriths.’
Serena stops twisting the radio dial.
‘Our pitiful excuse for a Prime Minister sank her claws into her own capital yet again last night, with Bulgarian Bolgoriths destroying an entire South London quarter in search of rebels. But reports coming in tell us our Swallow has officially flown the nest on a mission that will soon deliver us from Wyvernmire’s raptors. ’
‘Who are Sandy and Drake?’ I say quickly.
Serena shrugs. ‘There are rumours that they’re a pair of Second Class university students who were banned from studying dragon tongues when the Babel Decree was instated, but who knows?’
‘Today we’re live with fellow rebel Drogo, somewhat of an expert in linguistics. What do you say, Drogo, to Wyvernmire’s statement that the dragons of Britannia must abandon their tongues in favour of Slavidraneishá?’
‘It is language assimilation,’ hisses a voice. ‘A group is forced to abandon its mother tongue, thereby severing its cultural roots.’
I look up from the radio in surprise. That voice belongs to a dragon.
‘Tide’s out,’ Gideon says.
Serena turns the radio off and we walk down on to the now-visible sandbanks that stretch across to Sanday.
Everyone except me has a pack and a gun similar to those the Guardians carry.
I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t got myself arrested, I would have my own set of supplies.
Gideon jumps whenever he sees a shadow on the waves, mistaking every seagull for a dragon.
Sanday’s huge, granite cliffs lean menacingly over us, taking the brunt of the chilling wind that blows in from the sea.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘They’re pretending no one’s home,’ Marquis says as we walk around one of the cliff faces, staring up at the seaweed and barnacles clinging to it.
The ground is full of small holes, rockpools that will fill with water at high tide, but for now are bursting with shells and edible treasures – mussels, starfish and tiny snails I don’t know the name of.
Our boots sink into the wet sand as we circle the mammoth rock, searching for a way up.
Atlas’s hand grazes against mine and I eye his gun again.
‘Do you know how to use that thing properly?’ I ask.
‘Better than Ralph Wyvernmire, I’d say,’ he replies with a smirk. ‘I don’t think any of his bullets got anywhere near us back on the beach, do you?’
‘Hmm,’ I agree absentmindedly as my eyes land on a footpath in the rock.
‘Why was he so desperate to get you back?’ Atlas asks. ‘I’m guessing it has something to do with that?’ He gestures to the loquisonus machine on my shoulder as if it’s as lethal as the weapon on his.
‘He thinks he has some sort of partnership with Goranov,’ I say, ‘and he wanted me to use the loquisonus machine to check Goranov isn’t double-crossing him.’
Atlas frowns. ‘A partnership?’
A bolt shaped like an arrow lands in the sand by my foot and I jump backwards, knocking into Atlas.
‘Crossbow,’ he breathes.
Ahead of us the others have frozen, more arrows at their feet. I look up. A girl appears on the clifftop above us, long hair billowing in the wind. She points the crossbow at us.
‘We’re part of the Human-Dragon coalition, rebelling against Prime Minister Wyvernmire and her Bulgarian dragons,’ Atlas calls out. ‘We’ve come to ask you what you know about the Hebridean Wyverns.’
The girl doesn’t move.
‘Jasper sent us,’ I shout.
‘What did you tell her that for?’ Serena hisses. ‘She probably hates him.’
‘Leave your weapons on the sand,’ the girl shouts.
We do as she asks and she hesitates for a moment before lowering her bow.
Two more girls appear behind her and when she nods at them, they run along the clifftop. Moments later they’re walking across the sand, beckoning to us.
‘I don’t like this,’ Gideon says quietly. ‘Too easy.’
We follow the girls, who remain a safe distance ahead, to the far side of Sanday where the low tide has pulled back to reveal a semi-circular bay, invisible from Canna. Standing in it, weapons raised high, are at least twenty girls.
‘Told you,’ Gideon says.
The youngest wear tattered dresses or long trousers held up by braces, but the older ones are swathed in sheepskin. Their weapons aren’t handmade like Jasper’s. Instead they carry crossbows, revolvers and what looks like the rifles used by the Guardians of Peace. But that isn’t what shocks me.
It’s the dracovols.
The miniature dragons are everywhere, perched on the girls’ shoulders, nesting in the cliffs around us and circling in the air in a way that makes them look like birds.
The girl with the crossbow comes forward.
She’s about my age, with tangled golden hair and a sheepskin cloak that reveals long, brown limbs and bare feet.
A purple dracovol chirrups on her shoulder.
There’s something ethereal about her, about all of them.
With their flowing hair and hard faces, they look like something out of a Greek painting.
‘Ruth?’ I ask the girl. ‘I’m Vivien Featherswallow.’
She glares at me. ‘Jasper sent you?’
I nod. She considers me for a moment, then strokes the tiny head of the dracovol.
‘Yes, I’m Ruth. What do you want?’
‘We thought it might be more fun to hang around here rather than with Jasper’s dreary lot,’ Marquis says with a grin. ‘We heard you’re a murderer.’
I glare at him.
‘Only in self-defence, of course,’ he adds hurriedly.
Ruth doesn’t reply, but a small smile plays on her lips.
‘That’s not why we’re here,’ I say. ‘We’re looking for the—’
‘Hebridean Wyverns,’ Marquis says, leaning against the cliff. ‘We’re wondering if you know where we might find them? And then we’ll be on our merry way.’
I shake my head in despair and Serena lets out a long sigh. Marquis raises his arms above his head and Ruth’s smile disappears. She reaches for her crossbow, and the other girls are just as quick as she is.
‘Steady on,’ he says, pulling a loaf of bread from his pack. He holds it out to the girls. ‘A gift. Doesn’t look like you have much wheat growing around here.’
Ruth reaches out slowly, takes the bread, sniffs it. She hands it to someone behind her and soon the loaf is being passed around like a trophy.
‘Only you can come in,’ Ruth says, pointing to me and Serena.
I resist the urge to give Marquis a smug smile.
‘In?’ Marquis says politely.
Ruth glances back at the cliff face that braces against the sea and I glimpse an entrance in the wet stone, a small crack just wide enough for a person to fit through.
Marquis bows, causing several girls to giggle, then pulls a cigarette out from behind his ear and lights it.
Atlas takes a seat on a rock as Gideon stares out to sea and mutters something about women.
‘You can help us, then?’ I ask Ruth. ‘With the wyverns?’
She gives me a cool look. ‘Might.’
I follow her into the bay with Serena, leaving the boys behind.
‘Might?’ Serena says. ‘I’ve had enough cryptic messages to last a lifetime, haven’t you?’
I smirk. Ruth leads us through the gap in the rock.
It’s dark and wet, the passage so narrow that it feels like the walls are closing in on us.
I keep as near to Ruth as I can as water submerges my feet.
There’s a faint fluttering in the air above me and I muffle a shriek as a long tail tickles the top of my head.
‘Dracovols, not rats,’ I hear Serena muttering to herself repeatedly.
We take a sudden left. Further down the tunnel, I see a light burning.
Beneath it is a circular staircase, cut into the rock and lit by candlelight.
I glance back at Serena and she gives me a look of disbelief.
We follow Ruth up the steps until we reach a long stone hallway with archways leading off into chambers.
‘Who built this place?’ I ask.
‘Old islanders, probably,’ Ruth replies.
‘You have the best spot on Canna,’ Serena says. ‘Does Jasper know about this?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Ruth replies sharply. Her hair glows almost ghostly in the candlelight. ‘And you ’ent to tell him. Not him, not any of them men you’ve got outside. Their lot like to take what ’ent theirs.’
She stares at us, expectant, and I give her a hurried nod.
‘I never suggested I’d tell anyone,’ Serena replies sullenly.
Ruth leads us through an archway. The floor of the chamber is lined with sheep’s wool, the ceiling studded with stones that twinkle like orange crystal.
More tunnels lead off into other rooms. I wonder how far this home for girls stretches, imagining the tunnels snaking through the entire land mass that is Sanday.
There’s a table made of smooth wood, so long and sturdy that it must have been built in this room, and several wooden crates full of canned food.
Mirrors and other trinkets decorate the walls – polished shells and faded illustrations of elegant women wearing ballgowns, ripped from a magazine.
Ruth sits on the table, her legs crossed beneath her. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Wyverns.’
‘Hebridean Wyverns,’ I say. ‘Have you ever seen one? I’d wager you’ve got a good view of Canna from the top of Sanday?’
‘Last time I saw a Hebridean Wyvern was a few years ago. There are plenty of Greens about, but the Hebrideans are different.’
‘So you have seen one?’ I say, trying to keep the disbelief out of my voice. ‘Was this before you were banished by Jasper?’
Ruth shrugs. ‘Sure.’
‘Different, how?’ Serena asks. ‘And what’s a Green?’
‘Green-Spotted Wyvern,’ I say. ‘But I was told the Hebridean Wyverns haven’t been sighted at all since 1866.’
‘And the person who told you that lives on the island, do they?’ Ruth says.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘But—’
‘It’s true that the Hebrideans keep to themselves. They nest way across the island – the Skye side, not the Rùm side. But those of us who actually live here sometimes see ’em. Rare as fairies, but they exist.’
I want to ask Ruth how she could possibly have seen wyverns that live on the other side of the island when she can’t leave Sanday, but I remember the way she handled that crossbow as if it were an extra limb and decide against it.
‘We’ve seen maps that show where the wyverns could be nesting,’ Serena says flatly, looking Ruth in the eye. ‘You haven’t told us anything they haven’t.’
‘If you have maps, why did you come to me?’
‘The maps are old,’ I say quickly, before Serena can fit in another snarky reply. I think of the maps in Clawtail’s journal. ‘The landscape has probably changed since they were drawn, or the wyverns might have moved.’
‘Course they’ve moved,’ Ruth says.
I blink.
‘The wyverns are tunnellers.’
Serena sighs. ‘And that’s supposed to mean what, exactly?’
‘Don’t they teach you about dragons on the mainland?’ Ruth says.
I bite my lip and fight the urge to snap at her. Ruth runs a finger along her thigh, joining up the many freckles there with an invisible line. She’s enjoying knowing what we don’t. Beside me, Serena bristles.
‘All wyverns are tunnellers,’ Ruth finally says, ‘but Hebridean Wyverns have a particular knack for it.’
I shake my head. ‘Clawtail – he’s the author of a journal about the wyverns – never wrote anything about tunnels.’
‘Cormac didn’t mention tunnels, either,’ Serena says.
‘Have you been to Canna House?’ Ruth asks.
I look up.
‘It’s hard to miss – the grandest house on the island. Ransacked a hundred times over, course, but none of the kids here are interested in what you’re looking for.’
‘We haven’t got time to be visiting old houses,’ Serena says through gritted teeth. She looks at me. ‘We should have found the wyverns weeks ago.’
‘They used to study dragons there,’ Ruth says. ‘I’ve seen sketches of wyverns.’
My heart leaps. If people used to study dragons in Canna House, then we might find information about where exactly the wyverns live. Ruth slips across to the far side of the room, to a small alcove.
‘Look,’ she says.
There’s a small hole in the wall, a perfect circle, intentionally made but inconspicuous. Cool air flows through and when I press my eye to it I see the wet beach we crossed to get here. Beyond it is Canna, glowing green beneath a brewing storm cloud.
‘Find the bay where the Guardian boats come in, then the flag with Wyvernmire’s crest,’ Ruth instructs.
I spot the famous W entangled in a wyvern’s tail.
‘Now look up. Do you see it?’
I do.
A tall house nestled between the trees, only a couple of miles from the coastline.
‘Thank you, Ruth.’
Ruth accompanies us back outside. A group of girls are sprawled out on the grass, their noses buried in some very tattered, watermarked books. Every so often one of them sneaks a look towards the boys, who are all watching the cave entrance as they smoke.
‘Jealous that you couldn’t come in?’ Serena smirks.
‘Not exactly,’ Marquis says.
Gideon puffs on his cigarette, his ears red, staring pointedly away from the shrieks coming from the beach below. I peer out at the distant tide. Slender, brown bodies are jumping around in the frothing waves, all delighted shrieks and whipping, wet hair.
‘Are they . . . naked?’ I ask.
‘As the day they were born,’ Atlas says.
His eyes don’t move from the cave.
The girls reach down into the water, then bring their arms over their heads like ballerinas, pulling up nets full of purple, oval-shaped shells.
‘Mussels,’ Ruth says. ‘They’re delic—’
Her eyes fill with horror as she stares at the horizon. Marquis jumps up, reaching for his gun. Down in the water, the girls begin to scream. I follow Ruth’s gaze, scanning the cloudy shoreline until I see it. A silvery shadow on the sea.