The London Pride

by Charlie Fletcher

  He didn’t move at all.

  The first dragon gave a huff of his own, which had a distinct ‘told you so’ edge to it.

  Next they both tried to lift together.

  The dragon didn’t budge an inch off the railings, but the railings themselves started to work free of the crumbling concrete in which they were embedded. The horizontal bars that held them in place began to bow upwards with the force the two dragons were exerting, but after a moment they gave up, and the railings whanged back into place with a loud concussion of metal on stone.

  The dragons looked at each other.

  One looked back at the transfixed dragon and cocked his head sideways, allowing his stubby arms to reach the top of his head and give it a puzzled scratch.

  He made a noise that sounded distinctly like ‘Ook?’

  The other one looked over his head, into the sky, and made an answering noise that was definitely an ‘Ulp …’ And it wasn’t any old ‘Ulp’. It was the kind of ‘Ulp …’ that clearly meant ‘Uh-oh …’ in any language.

  The head-scratcher followed his eyeline and saw the incoming shape gliding out of the sky.

  He stepped back and stood waiting with the other one. Both of them dropped their heads and folded their ears back, like guilty dogs about to be scolded for doing something unmentionable.

  The incoming third dragon snapped back his wings with a tremendous thunder-crack, and then beat downwards with such perfect timing that he killed his inbound velocity and landed with a delicacy that made him appear to have just stepped out of the air. He was, in fact, a whole different class of dragon to the silver ones busy trying not to cower in front of him like a pair of naughty schoolboys. They, like all the city dragons, looked rather stocky and mass-produced. This wasn’t their fault. It was how they had been ordered by the city fathers who had commissioned them. They were workmanlike and very effectively dragonish. Nine times out of ten the impression they created on the viewer was entirely satisfactory: they emanated a stolid aura and were – due to the bright-red and silver paint job – real eye-catchers. It was only when seen next to the other dragon (who was known as the Temple Bar dragon from the spot he normally occupied outside the The Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand) that people realised how much they lacked. The Temple Bar dragon was not stocky, painted nor mass-produced: he was the work of a far more talented artist than the municipal sculptor; he was wiry and spiky and savage and distinctly dangerous. He oozed peril. His face was haughty and commanding, his deep-set eyes terrifying and fiercely intelligent. He had the air of a steel mainspring flexed to near-breaking point, and the pent-up energy he exuded made him look like the worst trouble just about to happen: a cocked gun on a hair-trigger, a nightmare on the point of coming true in the most lethal fashion.

  He was the master of all the other dragons, brighter, sharper and more deadly. If they had been made to guard the city, he was the leader of the guard, and he was the reason the other two dragons were now looking both very shamefaced and anywhere but directly into his cold, unforgiving eyes.

  He stared at them until they found their gaze rising to meet his against their better judgement, forced to do so by the power of his will.

  ‘Ulp,’ said one, in answer to the unspoken question.

  ‘Ook,’ his companion added quietly.

  The Temple Bar dragon stepped across the pavement and looked at the disastrously impaled corpse. He exhaled slowly, like a very patient but still irritated steam-boiler. He rapped the knuckles of his fore-claws against the breastbone of the unmoving creature. He poked at the railings skewering it in place. Then he shook his head and looked at the two dragons with eyes that mixed disappointment with equal parts of pity and frustration.

  Then he took a long breath inwards, unnaturally long, inhaling so deeply that the air howled as it was sucked down the long stretch of his thin, muscular neck. He clamped his pointy jaws shut and let the hotness build in the fire-crop at the base of his throat, until his breastbone glowed red with the banked-up heat, and then he aimed his mouth at the base of the railings just below the messily spatchcocked dragon and breathed out.

  The multicoloured blast of wildfire that shot from within him was a jet braided from blue and yellow and orange and purple and red flames. He played it back and forth across the iron paling, carefully avoiding the dragon’s body, but getting as close to it as he could. As he washed the fiery stream over the railings, they themselves began to change colour as they heated up – going from black to grey, then to orange, red then pink and then, as the railings reached white heat, he snapped his talons at the other two dragons.

  They leapt forwards and gripped the fallen dragon, sliding it cleanly off the spikes.

  As soon as it was clear, the Temple Bar dragon choked off the stream of wildfire and turned to look at the corpse, which the others had laid carefully on the ground.

  He bent and touched the smoking holes left by the railings, and shook his head in disapproval. He emitted a chuff of angry wildfire that bowled through the park fence and accidentally ignited the contents of a nearby rubbish bin. This made him even more irritated. He gestured to the other dragons, one of whom hopped the railings, stood over the bin and blew the fire out with one thunderous blast of air.

  They were, after all, city dragons, and no matter what the cat had got them doing, they were instinctively protective of the fabric of the place. Setting fire to London was the last thing they’d want to be caught doing, even by accident.

  By the time he hopped back over the railings, the Temple Bar dragon had stood straight and got his anger under control. He nodded to the others, who picked up their shields with one claw, and then each took hold of an arm of the fallen dragon with the other, clearly about to carry him away with them.

  The Temple Bar dragon coughed. His raised eyebrow and the talon he was pointing at their shields made the question clear: where was the shield of the fallen dragon?

  Clearly the ‘Ulp’ and ‘Ook’ he got in response was not satisfactory. He chuffed in irritation again. Then he waved them off. They stumbled their way into the sky looking distinctly and comically like two ungainly drinkers escorting a third, and much drunker, friend homewards. They headed south.

  The Temple Bar dragon didn’t look a bit comical. He looked deadly serious. He cracked his wings open and hurled himself at the night, heading west, towards the unnatural glow now surrounding the distant British Museum like a ghostly blue dome.

  5

  Dunkirk by chariot

  Running away was one thing, but running back was quite another kettle of fish. In fact, it was probably a pretty old and unrefrigerated kettleful, because it stank, especially when you were running back into the danger you’d begun by running away from in the first place.

  As the chariot bumped and swerved through the streets, Will caught Jo’s eye. She nodded, as if able to read his thoughts.

  ‘I’m trying to remember what Dad always says about being brave,’ she said. ‘That it’s not about doing something fearlessly, but being scared, and then doing it anyway. You know?’

  He nodded. His mouth was too dry to reply.

  She grimaced. ‘It sounded good when he said it. But it’s not really helping me much.’

  ‘I know,’ he grunted. It wasn’t helping him much either. Nor was seeing how white and drawn his sister’s face was.

  He looked down and found he was unconsciously rotating the scarab on the bracelet round his wrist. He stopped, suddenly aware the string was fraying a bit. He didn’t want to lose its protection. He should have it on something solid, like the metal loop his mother kept hers on, attached to her …

  ‘… Key ring!’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Jo.

  ‘Mum’s got another scarab on her key ring, hasn’t she?’ he said excitedly. ‘We could put it round her wrist and then she’d be able to move like us!’

  Jo sat up. ‘Brilliant.’ Then she sank back and looked at the passing streetscape, visibly hit by immediate
second thoughts.

  ‘But, Will, imagine her waking up in all this. I mean, we sort of eased into it as it first happened. It might shock her too much …’

  ‘You mean send her loopy?’ he said.

  ‘Or give her a heart attack or something,’ she said. ‘It is sort of like a vision of hell, or your worst ever nightmare isn’t it?’

  ‘We’d be there,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I mean, we could help her get her head round it …’ He didn’t sound convincing, even to himself.

  ‘So you’re saying we should go there now?’ she said, sounding equally tentative. ‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right.’

  It’s not always great when people agree with you. Especially when their voices are betraying the same doubt you’re feeling. He tried to think straight.

  ‘Well, I don’t think we should be going anywhere by ourselves,’ he said, backtracking a bit. ‘I don’t think that’s sensible or safe. And I think if we have the chance of going to help Mum, we should go with the Fusilier because he has a gun and can stand up to dragons, and we can’t.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘OK. That’s sensible. That’s a good plan too.’

  ‘Running off to Mum now, not knowing what was watching us in the dark would be thrashing,’ he said. ‘It’d be … foolhardy.’

  Never in his life had he used the word ‘foolhardy’ before. He must really be reaching for excuses, he thought, caught between the tug towards his mother and the knowledge that if her extra scarab was indeed their one big chance, it was important to make sure they got it safely, rather than lose it by snatching hurriedly at it.

  And even as he thought this, a weasel voice at the back of his head sneered at him and told him he was making excuses for his cowardice.

  ‘I’m just saying that if there’s a chance of doing it with an armed escort …’

  ‘Will,’ Jo said, half laughing. ‘I get it! Armed escort? Good idea. You’re barging through an open door! It’s what Dad would say, right? The 7Ps.’

  Their dad always went on about the 7Ps, which was an army training thing to remind you why charging ahead without a plan was a really bad idea. In fact, Will had also realised that the 7Ps were a good thing to remember when gaming, to avoid thrashing. So Jo bringing them up now was spot on the money and made him feel good again.

  ‘Proper Prior Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance,’ he grinned, reciting the 7Ps like a comforting spell. ‘Maybe the Fusilier will—’

  The thing dropped straight out of the night sky above them without warning, filling the road with its wings, stopping them like a roadblock.

  It happened so fast that they were all thrown forwards into the front of the chariot, and by the time they had untangled themselves enough to peer over the edge, Will had convinced himself that a large black dragon was waiting to roast them and then tear them to bits.

  It wasn’t a dragon. It was another winged woman, with a stern face and flowing robes and the wingspan of a light aircraft. She was already talking earnestly to the three firemen who were standing in front of her looking up into her eyes.

  One of the strangest things about her was that she had another winged figure held under her arm, like a piece of luggage. With a nasty shock Will recognised the flying helmet of the pilot who had crashed to earth when the Mighty Bast had cursed all the military statues into immobility. He could still hear the terrible metallic crashing KER-DOING the pilot had made as he hit the courtyard flagstones.

  ‘Right,’ she was saying in a clipped and commanding voice like a severe schoolteacher addressing a rather slow group of students. ‘We’re clearing all the casualties out of the museum front yard first, and then working our way back from there. We don’t know what’s going on in the museum but that’s where the danger’s centred. You three cut along there now and see what you can carry.’

  ‘That’s my Victory,’ said Quad, turning to Jo and Will. ‘She’s normally on top of us on the arch.’

  Will could remember how the statue on top of the Wellington Arch normally looked, with the winged angel at the highest point so that it almost looked like she was driving the chariot. Most people didn’t notice the yelling Quad holding the reins beneath her.

  ‘She’s got huge wings,’ said Jo.

  ‘I know,’ said Quad approvingly. ‘Keep the rain off me, they do.’

  ‘I am not your umbrella, young Quad,’ said the Victory, her eyes snapping up and catching Jo and Will. ‘Ah. I had heard there were two regular people still moving. I hadn’t expected them to be so … small.’

  ‘Small?’ said Jo, with just the hint of an edge to her voice.

  Will put a hand on her shoulder. This didn’t seem a good time to be making an enemy of a thirty-foot angel.

  ‘We’re here to help,’ said Jo.

  The Victory raised an eyebrow and cocked her head on one side.

  ‘The soldiers helped us,’ said Will.

  ‘We thought we could handle the little St Georges,’ chimed in Tragedy. ‘Free up some of you bigger ones to deal with the larger soldiers. And they want to see the Fusilier who’s down near the St George’s plinths, see? See if they can talk to him after midnight heals all.’

  As he heard Tragedy explaining, Will felt as though his plan was quite well-joined up. His heart lifted a bit.

  The Victory uncocked her head and lowered the eyebrow.

  ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Though we do not yet know if midnight will heal the broken and remove the spell too. We’ve never seen magic like this.’

  Will’s cheerfulness lurched downwards again.

  ‘Now, stay back here and wait,’ said the Victory. ‘We’ll bring them to you. No idea what’s in the museum or when it might come out fighting.’

  ‘It’s a cat,’ said Jo. ‘A cat with earrings. Egyptian. And it has lion-headed women as its soldiers.’

  ‘Does it indeed,’ said the Victory. She nodded to herself. ‘Egyptian cat, eh? Interesting.’

  ‘See?’ said Tragedy. ‘They’ve already been useful.’

  ‘They have,’ said the Victory. ‘Thank you. We shall ponder it. Now, wait back here and we’ll bring you the Georges. We’ve a lot of soldiers to move before midnight or it will be disastrous. It’s going to be Dunkirk all over again, except by land.’

  She rose, wings swirling the air into a down draught that buffeted them as she turned and flapped towards the museum.

  ‘Dunkirk?’ said Tragedy. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘It’s not a he,’ said Jo.

  ‘She, then,’ said Tragedy. ‘Pardon me. I ain’t educated like some.’

  ‘It’s a place,’ said Will, remembering his history lessons. ‘In the Second World War the army got stuck on the wrong side of the English Channel and all the little boats and ships of Britain went over and brought them home, all higgledy-piggledy, little yachts and pleasure-steamers and coal barges and whatever floated. Ordinary people did it, saving the soldiers. Because they couldn’t save themselves.’

  Tragedy looked round.

  ‘Well, we’re ordinary enough,’ he said. ‘We better get on with it.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I should like to take a peek round the corner though.’ Tragedy stepped off the chariot. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Will?’ said Jo.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ he replied. ‘It’s just up there; I’m not going far.’

  He followed Tragedy the fifty metres to the corner and looked around. There were figures moving everywhere, stone and bronze statues of all ages and sizes weaving through the forest of frozen humanity, gingerly carrying the unmoving bodies of military statues as they wound their way through the maze.

  Will had felt torn about coming to see this, worried about leaving even fifty metres between him and Jo, but when he saw the crowd of helpers working together to rescue the fallen, he knew he’d done the right thing. Of all the weirdness he had witnessed since time stopped and the dragons began moving, this was the most strange, and he would not, he admitted to
himself, have missed seeing it for anything.

  He was watching two worlds impossibly coming together, not colliding, but passing through each other. The statues took care not to knock any of the people, but only in the way you wouldn’t want to walk into a tree trunk if you were walking through a forest, and the people … Well, as far as he knew, they could not see any of this, and if they did, they would not remember it when they started moving again. If they started moving again.

  He saw strange combinations as they passed – bewigged politicians and aristocrats carrying tin-hatted soldiers from both world wars on their shoulders as if they were carrying a boat between them. He saw winged Victories and angels labouring in flight just below the level of the rooftops as they carried away stiff bronze bodies hanging from each hand. He saw a statue he recognised as the Officer from the Artillery Memorial, the one who had led the sortie against the museum, being trundled past on another chariot, this one driven by two fierce girls in flowing robes.

  ‘Oi!’ said Tragedy. ‘Icy Girls, where’s your mum then?’

  One of the girls looked at him.

  ‘She stopped moving like these ones. We left her behind.’

  As they passed, Tragedy turned to Will.

  ‘Their mum. Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni. Call her the Red Queen, we do, cos she was such a warrior. S’pose that’s why she’s stopped too.’

  The firemen ran up. They were carrying two small statues and a big one of a soldier in a tall bearskin hat with a long bayonet on the end of his musket.

  ‘Come on,’ they said. ‘No time for standing round gawking with your mouths open. Thought you wanted to help!’

  They put the big statue into the back of Quad’s chariot and wedged the two smaller ones on either side of it. They were indeed the St Georges who had made friends with Will, and he had seen that they made up for their size with speed and bravery: they wore armour but had their heads bare, heads that looked much too modern for their medieval get-up, like a couple of ‘jolly good chaps’ from the 1920s. Which is, in one way, exactly what he had found them to be: jolly good and willing to sacrifice themselves to help rescue his sister.