Chapter 20 #2
I suddenly remember how Goranov echolocated my impending arrival to Daria on Bualintur, despite the miles between them. Krasimir must have been positioned somewhere between the two, bridging the distance.
‘So where is he?’ I say warily. ‘Krasimir?’
Sophie eyes the sky. ‘He’s in the forest behind Canna House, letting his advance forces do the hard work.’
A group of wyverns streaks towards the beach and hooves thunder nearby. Ruth and Jasper are tearing towards us on horseback, a dragon behind them.
‘That’s Sargo,’ I say, reaching instinctively for my poison pouch.
The dragon flies lower, closing in on Ruth, but she doesn’t look back. She rides the horse bareback, her long hair catching in the wind. There’s a whoosh as Sargo is blasted from the air, crashing into the hillside. My eyes search for the source of the force and I hear it before I see it.
A joyous whooping.
A line of Speerspitzes has been erected on Sanday, each manned by a young boy.
‘See?’ Ruth says breathlessly as she pulls her horse to a stop beside us. ‘We’re the bait that keeps you safe.’
I turn to the others. ‘That’s what we need to do with Krasimir.’
‘There’s Freddie,’ Serena says.
Below, Freddie and a group of Ruth’s girls are dragging more of the dragon-killing guns through the rockpools.
‘Do you think you could fire one of those things?’ Atlas asks Serena.
She snorts. ‘How many times did I beat you at target practice, King?’
‘You should go and help them,’ I say, nodding. I glance at Marquis and Gideon. ‘You too.’
‘What about you?’ Atlas says.
I don’t look at him. ‘I’ll go with Sophie to be Krasimir’s bait.’
‘You can’t be the bait.’
‘Why not?’
He stutters. ‘I don’t want you to—’
‘That’s none of your business any more,’ I snap.
I glance at him, an awful part of me hoping that my words will hurt him as much as his have hurt me, but he’s glaring at me with no trace of the tortured, apologetic Atlas I saw last night.
‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘You’re not going.’
My eyes narrow. ‘Shall we send someone else instead? Who do you suggest should take my place?’
‘No one,’ Atlas says. ‘No more kids will be offering themselves up as food for dragons, all right?’
His defiant gaze lands on Hollingsworth and an understanding passes between them. Something else I’m not part of.
‘King is correct,’ Hollingsworth says.
She is still surveying the battle below, a cigarette smoking between her fingers. She turns to Sophie. ‘Now, Miss Rundell. Please direct me to your mark.’
‘You want to be the one to draw Krasimir out of hiding?’ I say incredulously.
‘Yes,’ she replies with a smile. ‘It’s about time I saw some battle.’
We all gape at her and Sophie shakes her head. ‘I – I don’t think Cormac would allow it.’
‘It’s a good thing Cormac isn’t the head of the Coalition, then.’ Hollingsworth stamps out her cigarette under the sole of her shoe. ‘Hop to it, recruit. We haven’t got all day.’
‘But why would Krasimir come out of his hiding place for you, Dr Hollingsworth?’ I say.
She laughs. ‘Do you think that, in the whole time the Bulgarian dragons have been occupying our country, they never once tried to contact me? They saw the weakness in Wyvernmire’s ruthless ambition and used it to their advantage.
But they found no trace of weakness in mine, so they tried to befriend me instead.
I too have been offered a place in the new world,’ she says, her eyes settling on me.
‘And I’m going to let Krasimir think I want it.
Perhaps we do still stand a chance, even without the wyvern Koinamens.
’ She glances down at the array of dragons, wyverns, humans and Speerspitzes on the beach.
‘The bastard won’t know what’s hit him.’
I grin.
‘I’ll go with you, ma’am,’ Gideon says, shouldering his gun as he looks to Sophie. ‘Lead the way.’
‘Gideon,’ I say. ‘There will be—’
‘Bolgoriths?’ he says weakly. ‘If I’m not killed by one today, I’ll never complain about dragons again.’ He glances at Sophie and Hollingsworth. ‘But if I keep them safe while they do what they need to do, then at least I can say I did something in this war.’
Sophie grabs my hand and squeezes, and the three of them start making their way down the hillside. Atlas’s eyes linger on their backs.
‘Right,’ Serena says. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘My group’s almost ready,’ Jasper says. ‘The Guardians are their target.’ He points further along the beach to where a big group of teenagers are hurriedly strapping all manner of flint-based weapons to their bodies.
A wall of white fog surrounds them, keeping them hidden from the Bolgoriths fighting just a few feet away.
I look up and see streaks of blue amid the rotating wall of cool mist.
‘The wyvern art of cloud-spinning,’ I say quietly.
I stare at Atlas and I know he knows what I’m thinking. I can’t fight like the others. I can’t track Krasimir or translate Cannair. There’s nothing that I, Viv Featherswallow, can do to help win this war. He takes a step towards me.
‘Just go,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll stay out of the way, don’t worry.’
I take in his tired face, the cuts on his hands from where he pulled me up on to the rocky ledge, the damp curls on his forehead. Right now, I don’t even care that he lied to me. All I care about is the fact that if he goes down on to that beach, he might not come back.
His eyes search mine.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he says softly, ‘except by saying I’m sorry.’
I suck in a breath. ‘No time for that.’
‘Viv, I want you to know. I . . . I –’
‘Please,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t say it. Not here. Not like this.’
He opens his mouth as if to protest, then gives a curt nod. Marquis is watching us, his eyes shining. I look at him and Serena and force a smile.
‘Bletchley Park to the rescue again,’ I joke as Marquis pulls me close.
I breathe in the smell of him, just in case it’s the last time. One day, I hope, we’ll eat pierogi from Mama’s best china again. He pushes a small flint knife into my hand. Atlas gives me a long look and then the three of them dart down the hill towards the Speerspitzes on the beach.
I’m the only one left on Compass Hill.
I stand, painfully exposed, my eyes on the sky as the battle rises around me.
How long until I’m spotted by a Bolgorith?
I wish I could use a knife like Jasper’s kids or ride a horse like Ruth.
Instead, I have a head full of untranslatable Cannair words and nothing to show for it.
What is there left for me to do, apart from hide with the children on Sanday?
Every part of me is awash with terror as I see Atlas, Marquis and Serena reach the beach.
What if they’re killed in front of me? How can we stand a chance without the wyvern Koinamens?
I watch the patterns of battle emerge. The rebel dragons are fighting the Bolgoriths in the air while the humans take aim from below.
The rebels seem to have assigned one dragon and three humans to every Bolgorith, working together to exploit the creatures’ weaknesses.
I watch as one rebel punctures a pouch around his neck, filled not with poison but with blood.
Its target smells it immediately and changes course, while the other two rebel humans take aim.
They’re firing rifles, not Speerspitzes, but the Bolgorith’s inattention causes it to display the soft undersides of its pouch.
A rifle bullet slices through the skin and as the Bolgorith lets out a furious scream, the rebel dragon drags it to the ground.
Along the beach, someone emerges from one of the tents.
Wyvernmire.
So she is still here. Two Bolgoriths walk on either side of her, but this is no prime ministerial envoy. Her right shoulder drags, dislocated, and her sleeve is drenched in blood from what can only have been a bite.
They’re escorting her to another tent and just before she reaches the entrance, she lifts her face to the sky.
Her mouth twists into a horrified grimace.
What must it be like to know that the reason you cannot see the clouds through all the Bulgarian dragons is because you invited the enemy here?
What must it feel like to have failed your country so spectacularly?
She ducks into the tent, a prisoner of war.
The fighting lasts for hours, but it feels like minutes.
I crouch, shielding my head, and planes rattle above.
I can’t tell if they’re flown by rebels or by the Guardians being forced to fight for the Bolgoriths.
More dragons reach the shoreline. They plough through the sky like airborne giants, but their wings beat and curl with the effortless elegance of butterflies, as if moved by invisible currents.
My heart leaps at the sight of an immense Western Drake, so blue she’s almost black.
‘Bolgoriths?’ she bellows. ‘Bow!’
Dragons part as the solid mass of spikes and scales lands on the beach, her tail slashing the face of a Bolgorith that is battling two rebel Ddraig Gochs.
I stare in awe. So that’s where the rebel numbers have come from.
‘You dare defy the Monarch of the Deep Sea Isles?’ the Western Drakes snarls. ‘Victor of the last dragoning, Raptor of Britannia, Mother of Dragons, the Blue Baroness, Terror of Beatrice? Your Queen?’
I sink to my knees in relief.
Ignacia has joined the Coalition.
Her voice is coarse and vicious and the other British dragons appear almost small beside her.
She is the same size as the Bolgoriths that immediately launch an attack.
A shadow falls across me and I recoil behind the rock as more Bulgarians flock towards the Dragon Queen.
They descend on her like dogs and the battle suddenly shrinks to her perimeter as the rebels move to defend her.
I stare at the scene through the long grass.
Sand swirls in great golden gusts, Canna abundant with countless British dragons.
Children armed with knives and guns and crossbows dart between the huge scaly bodies and wyverns screech as they soar through the air like birds.
I spot Atlas and Cormac loading a Speerspitze together while, beside them, two Guardians are helping Serena to point her own skywards.
My body tingles. It’s no longer Wyvernmire against the rebels, but Britannia against the Bolgoriths.
And we might just win.
A rush of black.
Goranov streaks past me, another dragon on his tail.
Krasimir.
I jump to my feet, looking for Sophie or Hollingsworth, but there’s no sign of them.
Body parts swing from the rings embedded in Krasimir’s skin as he lunges at Ignacia, taking a bite out of her side.
She screams in pain as her guards force Krasimir backwards, one of them ripping a lump of scales from the regal’s face.
He springs towards the Queen again in a rush of blood and arrogance.
‘He is demented!’ snarls a voice.
Chumana flies over me. She glides through Ignacia’s defence line, and she must be echolocating because none of them try to stop her.
She whirls round to face Krasimir, her jaws an open grin as Ignacia’s tail flicks in recognition.
The Queen lets out a groan and then the two dragons launch themselves simultaneously towards Krasimir.
The sunlight blinds me momentarily. All I see is a flare of blue and red on black.
‘Death awaits you, oh great Regal,’ Chumana snarls.
They fight him side by side, the dragon who signed the Peace Agreement and the dragon who broke it.
Chumana bites down on Krasimir’s leg and he roars in agony.
Ignacia clamps her jaws around his tail and jerks him backwards, sending him spinning through the air.
The fighting has resumed but it’s almost half-hearted, every eye drawn to Chumana and Ignacia, the scene magnetising the attention of both rebels and Bolgoriths.
My blood burns with energy. I’m witnessing history.
I’m witnessing the best of Britannia drive the Bulgarian invaders from our land.
Ignacia lets out a blood-curdling scream as Krasimir strikes from behind.
Chumana’s talons rake across his back, but not before his jaws close around Ignacia’s head.
Krasimir rolls in the air, twisting the Queen’s neck.
She is decapitated in one swift jerk. Blood sprays as her body falls.
It collapses to the ground with a thump that reverberates beneath my feet.
As dragonfire erupts on the sand around her, Krasimir flies higher, parading Queen Ignacia’s head through the smoky sky.