Chapter 14 #2
Serena has reached the top of the hill before me. I stride up after her and my stomach drops. Dead dragons litter the hilltop. Their huge bodies are still as we walk between them, each lying on a patch of blood-soaked earth. They are Western Drakes and Sand Dragons, Ddraig Gochs and Silver Drakes.
‘British dragons,’ Marquis croaks.
A piece of black cloth is tied round one of the dragons’ talons, the white swallow stained red. ‘Rebels,’ I say, blinking back tears.
We cross the rest of the hilltop in silence, occasionally glancing at each other in wordless horror as we walk past dragons missing a limb, or whose entrails are spilling out on to the ground. The smell of blood is metallic.
‘Krasimir’s gone rogue,’ Marquis says.
I shake my head. ‘He can’t have done this alone. If the rebels launched an attack on Canna, it means they have no other choice. The Bolgoriths aren’t biding their time any more.’
‘You mean you think they’ve overthrown Wyvernmire?’ Atlas says.
I nod, feeling sick. ‘Sending her Guardians to attack the wyvern tunnels must have been a last attempt at finding me and keeping a sense of control.’ I lay a hand on the cool scales of a Silver Drake. She’s young – too young to be dead. ‘But meanwhile, the Bulgarians were doing this.’
I jump as a loud groan sounds beside me. The Silver Drake moves her head and her huge eyes meet mine, pleading.
‘She’s alive!’ Marquis says, dropping to his knees beside the dragon. ‘We have to help her.’
My eyes flit to the huge gash in her stomach and I shake my head. It’s too late. I press my lips to her ear. ‘You fought bravely,’ I whisper in Harpentesa, the mother tongue of her species. ‘Rest now.’
The Silver Drake lets out another heavy breath, then goes still.
I move to the next dragon, a Western Drake, and whisper in Wyrmerian.
He’s already dead, but at least the last words spoken over him will be his own tongue.
I feel eyes on me as I move to a Ddraig Goch.
I don’t speak Talwynn, the national dragon tongue of Wales, but I do know one word.
‘Gadvalen,’ I murmur, my breath catching in my throat.
Farewell.
‘The Swallow is alive and well. I repeat, the Swallow is in flight.’ Serena is speaking into her radio transmitter. Her eyes meet mine and her lip curls. ‘And she has a message for Wyvernmire’s Bolgoriths.’
I stand up.
‘Britannia may be burning, reduced to smoke and embers, but embers are as hot as the fire that created them. And every fire starts with a single spark.’
‘Shit. Look,’ Gideon says quietly.
My heart jolts when I see what he’s pointing at. A black Bulgarian dragon standing among the trees. And at his side, a human.
‘Goranov and Ralph.’
‘Viv!’ Marquis says as I stalk across the field towards them.
I ignore him. I have to find out what they’re saying before they leave again.
How many losses have the rebels suffered since we went underground?
I feel an awful pang of dread. As I get closer to the forest, I can hear Goranov talking in a low, rasping voice that sets my teeth on edge.
Ralph replies, but I can’t make out what they are discussing.
The others are following silently behind me.
I glance back at them, then drop into the long grass.
I crawl to the treeline on my stomach and a stench like stale urine and burnt leather hits me.
‘Three days of battle,’ I hear Goranov snarl in English. ‘We did not expect such numbers.’
‘The rebel movement has grown,’ Ralph replies softly. ‘But you won. We won.’
Goranov lets out a grunt and they both fall silent.
I hear the rustling of leaves as Goranov’s tail moves across the ground, but I can see nothing but the back of the dragon’s head and the line of spikes along his spine.
Are they whispering now, too quietly for me to hear?
I move closer, dragging myself through the dirt.
Then, as I pull myself around a bush, I catch a glimpse of Ralph’s hair.
He’s lying in the shadow of the tree trunk, both his arms extended in a spread-eagled position. A numb horror floods me.
Goranov has killed Ralph.
He’s eating him.
No. Something here doesn’t make sense. I see Goranov’s blood-covered snout, pinning Ralph to the ground by his arm.
But he’s not dead. Ralph’s sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, revealing the white crooks of his arms. On the ground beside him is a small knife, responsible for the neat gashes that are pooling with blood.
And Goranov is licking it from Ralph’s skin, sucking and swallowing like a baby at its mother’s breast. I don’t dare exhale.
Something taps at my foot. Atlas is behind me, crawling on his stomach.
When he reaches my side and sees what I’m seeing, he pales.
Ralph’s head lolls to the side and his eyelids flicker as he lets out an involuntary, ‘Oh.’
I shudder. Whatever we’re watching is perverse. Unholy. Atlas begins backing away and I do the same, not standing up until we’re in the field. Then we all bolt, running in silence until we’re back among the dead dragons.
‘He was drinking his blood,’ Serena whispers as we duck behind the body of a Sand Dragon.
I struggle to find the words to describe what I’ve just seen.
‘Is this what Ralph meant when he said Goranov needed him?’ I say.
‘But why would a dragon need to drink a human’s blood?’ Atlas replies. ‘Have you ever seen this, Gideon?’
Gideon shakes his head, pale-faced.
‘But why would Goranov drink Ralph’s blood when he could just eat him?’ I say slowly.
The birds are singing in the trees.
‘What if it’s like fireblod,’ Marquis says slowly, ‘but in reverse?’
‘In reverse?’
‘Fireblod has to be taken from a live donor. That’s why the dragons had it banned in the Peace Agreement. Atlas, the fireblod that saved you was made from Chumana’s blood, and that’s what Ralph is giving Goranov.’
‘Do you think Goranov is injured?’ I say hopefully.
Marquis shrugs. ‘Maybe the blood strengthens him.’
‘Why not suck Ralph dry, then?’ Gideon says.
I wrinkle my nose in disgust.
‘Because Ralph is a replenishing source,’ Serena says slowly.
‘Canna isn’t exactly bursting with humans to eat,’ I say. ‘The children here have too many tactics to avoid the dragons now. And like Marquis said, perhaps there’s something about human blood that makes it stronger when it’s taken from someone who’s still alive.’
I remember the way Goranov licked Ralph back at Canna House. Now it makes sense.
‘But why would Ralph give his blood to—’
‘Because Goranov has promised Ralph everything,’ I say. ‘His life when the Bulgarian dragons eventually destroy Wyvernmire and her government; power when they imprison or eat any human who opposes them; and status when they eventually run Britannia the same way they do Bulgaria.’
I try to imagine a country where humans are not only a dead food source but a live one.
We keep walking and I can’t ignore the twinge I feel at leaving the massacred rebels behind.
They – the dragons – are the strength of the rebel army.
How can so many of them be dead? I wonder what their names were, where they were hatched.
How many more are we going to lose? My heart sinks. We were supposed to stop this.
It rains as we reach the graveyard where we hid from Krasimir. I stuff my cold hands into my pockets, glancing at the names etched into the small rocks left in place of headstones for Canna’s children.
John, Peter, Josie . . .
Ivy grows across them, stretching its leaves out over the ground so that I almost miss the flash of emerald green beneath them.
I stop. Lying on one of the graves is a long, stiff piece of cloth woven in threads of green and gold.
It’s tweed, worn from age or the elements and stuffed with several large, browning scrolls of paper.
As Marquis and Serena tread a path in the grass and Gideon and Atlas wander from grave to grave, I kneel by the tapestry and pull the ivy away. A shock shoots down my spine as I read the words stitched across the tweed. How did I miss this last time?
Patrick Clawtail, 1827–1866.
‘But . . . he’s not supposed to be buried here.’
Gideon turns to look at me. ‘Who?’
I gesture to the grave.
‘Aodahn said the government never left a body. So what’s he doing here?’
Atlas’s eyes widen. ‘That’s Clawtail?’
‘With a memory tapestry on his grave?’ says Marquis.
I look at him, then back at the grave. ‘But how . . . ? The wyverns couldn’t possibly . . .’
‘They must know he’s buried here,’ Serena says.
‘But why would Aodahn lie?’ says Gideon.
‘The grave is probably empty like the rest of them,’ Marquis says.
I crouch and run a finger down one of the scrolls. The paper is thin and brittle. When I try to unfold it, to read a memory of Clawtail’s life, it disintegrates in my hand. I reach for the one that is fresher, still white, and begin to read.
‘It’s written in English, not Cannair,’ I say.
Beneath a sky taut with stars and bullets, Patrick cradles his daughter Marguerite, who has been shot.
He begs the wyverns to help her. He has discovered their secret and knows what it can do.
It is the last thing he will ask of them, as government Guardians storm the island, and they know it.
So they gather en masse, wing-to-wing, around the girl and let Patrick witness what no human has seen before: the healing of a child through an ultrasonic dragon language.
On the day Patrick dies, Marguerite lives.
This is how he will be remembered: a linguist who trusted in the power of language, even the kind he would never understand, until the very end.
I stare at the memory scroll. This is impossible. I scan the words again.
An ultrasonic dragon language.
‘This was written by a human, not a wyvern,’ I say slowly.