Georgius took an attack position and lifted the two swords.
The saber-tooth charged again. Georgius thrust the swords at the animal. He reached too far and almost lost his balance. The saber-tooth slashed its claws across Georgius’s upper arm.
Georgius cried out. One of the swords was knocked away.
“Somebody do something!” Patrick shouted.
But the soldiers were having trouble controlling their horses. Even Tarek fought with his black mare. He tried desperately to keep it from throwing Hazi and Sabra.
The saber-tooth came at Georgius again. Georgius stepped back. His foot caught on a root, and he fell. The beast roared and pounced.
Patrick watched wide-eyed. Beth screamed.
The great cat landed on top of Georgius.
Beth pressed her face into Patrick’s back. “I can’t watch,” she cried.
Patrick didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t bear to see Georgius hurt. And yet he couldn’t look away.
The saber-cat’s weight and muscle seemed to crush the soldier. But the cat didn’t move. Everything was still for a moment.
The beast shifted suddenly. Then it fell to one side and lay still on the ground. Georgius’s sword was buried deep in its chest.
Georgius slowly stood and looked over the dead creature.
Patrick dared to smile.
Cheers erupted from the soldiers.
Georgius staggered over to Lucius and knelt beside him. The prefect hadn’t moved during the fight. Georgius pressed his hand against Lucius’s chest.
“Hurry! His heart is still beating,” Georgius called out. “He’s alive!”
Lucius was taken to Tarek’s house in Silene. Tarek and Georgius tended his wounds.
Lucius’s shoulder and arm had been clawed by the saber-tooth. But Georgius announced that the prefect would live.
The next day, the soldiers placed Lucius on a stretcher. They carried him to a wagon for the return to Leptis Magna. The prefect seemed to be in pain. But he was awake.
Patrick and Beth came close to the wagon. They hadn’t come to say good-bye. They hoped only to hear what Lucius might say.
“Well, Lucius?” Tarek asked. “What will you do with Georgius? He saved your life!”
“A life for a life,” Lucius said. He gestured for Georgius to step forward.
Georgius came alongside the stricken man.
“You risked your life to save me. And I was going to put you to death,” Lucius said in a harsh whisper. “I don’t understand it.”
Georgius leaned forward. “It’s the way of Christos,” he said.
Lucius closed his eyes. “Yes, well, you give me something to think about,” he said. “The charges against you are dropped.”
“May God bring you back to good health,” Georgius said as he stepped back.
A soldier snapped the reins, and the wagon lurched forward. The soldiers on horseback followed the wagon. All of them saluted Georgius as they passed.
Good-byes
“Everyone looks so happy,” Beth said.
The four children and Tarek were in front of Tarek’s home in the village. They sat on cushioned benches beneath a canopy.
Everywhere she looked, people were dancing, singing, or clapping. Every shop in the village was open. Marvelous foods and drinks were freely shared on every corner. The carcass of the saber-tooth hung on poles in the square.
“Silene hasn’t been this happy in all my life,” Sabra said. She snuggled up next to her father.
“What happened to Aazan?” Beth asked.
“He was arrested. Aazan will sit in prison for a long time,” Hazi said.
“Yes,” Tarek said. “But we must be certain that Silene never again turns on itself. Georgius said he will establish a Roman outpost here. It will help to keep the peace.”
“Where is Georgius?” Patrick asked.
“We’d like to talk to him again before we leave,” Beth said.
“You’re going so soon?” Sabra asked.
Beth nodded. She expected the Imagination Station to appear at any moment.
“For that, I’m sad,” Tarek said.
“We all are,” Sabra said.
“Georgius has gone to the cells,” Hazi said. “He’s showing our builders how to construct more sturdy prison cells.”
Patrick and Hazi laughed. Beth wasn’t certain why.
“Well, then, my friends,” Tarek said, “we must give you something to remember us by. And to express our thanks for all your brave help.”
“No, you don’t have to do that,” Beth said.
“Don’t be silly,” Sabra said. “It’s our custom.”
“What will we give them, Father?” Hazi asked.
“I would offer you the saber-tooth carcass. But it has already begun to stink,” Tarek said. He reached into one pocket of his robe . . . then another . . . and another.
Beth wondered just how many pockets the man had.
“Ah, here they are!” Tarek said.
Tarek held out his hand to Patrick and Beth. In his palm were what looked like two oval pieces of metal. One gleamed blue in the rising sun’s light. The other shone green.
“What are they?” Patrick asked.
Beth recognized them. “Scales from the dragon,” she said.
Tarek said, “You may recall that Georgius struck the creature a hard blow. These scales broke free. They’re yours now.”
“Whoa!” Patrick said. He admired the blue scale. “This is amazing.”
Beth stared down at the purple scale in her hand. She thought about all that had happened. She’d trusted God and tried to defend Sabra. That decision almost cost her life. But God had taken care of her. He even used a dragon to save her!
Beth and Patrick found Georgius at the cells just as Tarek had said. The Roman soldier had a trowel in his hand. He was smoothing some kind of plaster on a new cell wall.
Patrick said, “You’re fixing the wall we broke?”
“Of course,” Georgius said. He placed the trowel in a bucket. “I broke it. Now it’s my responsibility to fix it.”
Patrick picked up a trowel. “I guess we’ll get to repay you after all,” he said.
He and Beth helped finish the wall repairs. The three of them worked silently. Soon the wall was fixed.
After they were done, Beth said to Georgius, “Thank you for everything.”
“I’m honored to have been found worthy to help you,” Georgius said. “God often takes me on adventures. But I never thought I’d face a dragon and a saber-tooth. And all in one night!”
“You’ve taught us a lot,” Beth said.
Georgius bowed slightly. “No more than you’ve taught me,” he said. “I’ve never met such brave children.”
Beth heard a low hum. The Imagination Station was nearby.
Patrick nudged her gently. “We have to go,” he said.
“Do you want me to escort you to wherever you must go?” Georgius asked.
“No, thank you,” Beth said. “We’ll be safe now.”
“In that case, go with the Lord,” Georgius said. “He is Maker of heaven and earth.”
Beth and Patrick went to the Imagination Station. The cousins took their places inside. Beth was just about to close the door. But something outside caught Beth’s eye.
Patrick had seen the same thing. “Look!” he said and pointed at the sky.
The sun had risen close to midday height. But the sky was a deep blue. In the distance flew two creatures.
Too large to be birds, Beth thought.
“The dragons,” she whispered.
Patrick pulled on a lever. The door closed the dragons out of view.
He pushed the red button. And everything went black.
Whit’s End
Whit was sanding a piece of wood at his workbench. He turned around as the cousins stepped out of the machine.
Their clothes had returned to normal. Both wore jeans and cotton T-shirts.
“Welcome
back!” Whit said. “How was your adventure?”
The cousins took turns telling him everything that had happened.
He listened with his hands shoved into his pockets. When they finished, he drew out his hands and opened them to Patrick and Beth. A shiny scale sat in each palm.
Patrick looked closely. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked. “We saw some of those in Silene . . .”
Whit nodded and handed the scales to Patrick and Beth.
They thanked him.
“So you got close enough to see a dragon’s scales?” Whit asked.
“We got close, all right,” Patrick said. “A little too close.”
“But you stood up to it,” Whit said.
Beth knew Whit was thinking of Rachel. And what had happened earlier with Leslie Wazzek.
“Yes,” she said. “And I learned that dragons don’t always have scales. Sometimes they’re Roman prefects. And sometimes they’re village bullies. And sometimes they have fur and really long fangs.”
Whit chuckled. “That’s true,” he said. “The point is to stand up for what’s right, no matter what.”
“But we don’t have to stand alone,” Beth said. “Georgius helped me remember that God is my help when I face trouble.”
“Then the adventure was worth taking?” Whit asked.
Patrick nodded.
“It sure was,” Beth said.
Patrick held up his dragon scale. “Maybe I’ll put this on a chain,” he said. “It’ll remind me to be brave.”
Beth looked down at the dragon scale in her hand. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’ll do that too.”
“I’ve got one more thing,” Whit said. He went to a shelf and pulled off a book. “I think you’ll find this story familiar.” He handed the book to Beth.
Beth took the thick blue book. She showed it to Patrick. The title was The Many Legends of Sir George and the Dragon.
Patrick blurted, “Was Georgius really Sir George?”
Whit tapped the cover. “The legend has many forms. In some of them, George is a knight. In others, he’s a Roman soldier.”
“Does the dragon die in any of the stories?” Beth asked.
“Some of the time,” Whit said. “But often Sir George tames the dragon and brings it to the village.”
“I like our version,” Beth said. “I don’t think a real dragon could be tamed.”
Whit raised his white eyebrows. “What about humans who act like dragons?” he asked.
Patrick answered, “I think Lucius finally learned to listen to Georgius.”
Beth looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. It was hard to admit that she should try to be friends with Leslie Wazzek.
“Beth?” Whit asked.
She said slowly, “I think I’ll give my dragon scale to Leslie as a gift. Maybe it’s time I told her about Christos.”
Whit smiled at her.
Patrick said, “About these new dragon scales . . . The ones we got on our adventure disappeared in the Imagination Station. Where did you get these two?”
“From a dragon,” Whit said. “Where else?”
Beth asked, “But how . . . ?”
Whit had a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Let’s go upstairs for some ice cream, shall we?”
Questions about Dragons
Q: Are dragons mentioned in the Bible?
A: In Revelation 12, the Bible describes a red dragon with seven heads. The creature will appear during the last days of the world.
Q: Could dragons have been a kind of dinosaur?
A: Some people believe that dragon legends arose from ancient sightings of flying dinosaurs, called pterosaurs. But no dinosaurs breathed fire.
Q: Was Georgius (Sir George) a real person?
A: History books are full of stories about brave knights and soldiers. However, Sir George was probably not a real person.
For more info on dragons and Georgius, visit TheImaginationStation.com.
Secret Word Puzzle
Beth and Patrick found a dragon in this story. Now you can go on your own hunt. Find the Hunt for the Devil’s Dragon words in the letter grid on the next page. (The words are hidden top-to-bottom or left-to-right.) Cross out the letters of those words. The leftover letters will show you where to find: “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Write the leftover letters, in order, on the spaces below. The answer is the secret word (Don’t key in any numbers.)
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ 121:2
cave
Christos
cell
dragon
file
horse
prefect
rope
saber
soldier
wagon
P P W S C A D C
R S A C A F R H
E A G E V I A R
F B O L E L G I
E E N L L E O S
C R R O P E N T
T M H O R S E O
S O L D I E R S
Go to TheImaginationStation.com Find the cover of this book. Click on “Secret Word.” Type in the correct answer, and you’ll receive a prize.
Author Wayne Thomas Batson divides his time between family, teaching, and writing. He also likes to read, golf, play video games, travel to the beach, play electric guitar, and create 3D artwork.
Author Marianne Hering is the former editor of Focus on the Family Clubhouse® magazine. She has written more than a dozen children’s books. She likes to read out loud in bed to her fluffy gray-and-white cat, Koshka.
Illustrator David Hohn draws and paints books, posters, and projects of all kinds. He works from his studio in Portland, Oregon.
Interview with Rachel Batson, an author’s daughter
Q: What’s it like when your dad is writing?
A: He makes me get him soda, refill his ice water, or get him snacks.
Q: What creative contributions did you give to Hunt for the Devil’s Dragon?
A: In the first draft, my dad had the kids playing Slaves-and-Masters. I told my dad I thought they should play Hide-and-Seek instead. Well, he left in Slaves-and-Masters, and the editor changed the game to Hide-and-Seek. See? I was right.
For more of this interview, go the TheImaginationStation.com.
Hunt for the Devil's Dragon Page 5