by Andy Holland
"I suggest we hold a vote on the condition of ten captains and one hundred volunteers," Moab said. "Any objections? Excellent. Chairman, shall we vote?"
"All those in favour of the motion raise your hands? All those against? Motion carried."
"Well done, Mark," Solomon said without any enthusiasm. Like most people in the room, he probably suspected that Cain and Moab had set the bar too high. "If you can raise five times as many volunteers as Cain did, you may proceed with our blessing. You may leave."
Mark smiled, nodding politely at Solomon, and throwing a quick glance at Cain. "Thank you all for your time and your blessing. We anticipated that you would require a significant force for this mission and we already have a list of one hundred and twenty volunteers and the required number of captains. Noah will submit the list to the chairman. We will leave first thing in the morning. Goodbye."
There was uproar in the chamber, but Mark didn't wait to listen, walking swiftly from the room with his head held high, feeling pleased with himself. The motion had passed and they had the approval they required. Cain would be furious but there was little that he could do now. He rushed back to Immigration House and hurried up to Arthur's room, impatient to tell them the good news.
"Arthur, we have the approval from parliament and can leave when we want. Please go and organise the others. We will not leave this land till tomorrow but we will leave the capital immediately. I will not give them the chance to reverse the decision they just made. We'll head for the border immediately."
Arthur was sat in a chair, reading a book, with his bags packed beside him. He was clearly waiting for this news. "Could they do that? Reverse the decision?"
Mark shrugged indifferently. "I don’t know. They deliberately set conditions they thought I couldn't meet, and given time, they might be able to find a legal loophole that stops us. Either way, I don't intend to give them the opportunity. Will all of you come?"
Arthur looked surprised by the question. "Of course! Why wouldn't we?"
Mark looked at him soberly. "Arthur, you're going back to a war zone and this war is one which you might not win. If you lose the war or get yourself captured, you'll die. For the girls, they might end up in the camps. Now, let's be honest: none of you are ready to fight. You haven't the experience or training. The only reason to go back is to introduce us to your leaders. After that, you would be best advised to seek refuge in the West, wait for the end of the war and just hope that you win. Why take all of you back now? You could go alone and leave the others here till the war is over. If you win, then we would bring them back. If you don't, then they would be welcome to stay here indefinitely."
Arthur shook his head sadly. "The same thing has crossed my mind. The only one you might convince is Jenna, but I don't think even she will stay on her own. No, we will all return."
Mark shrugged. "Can't say I blame you as it is your home, but I think it is the wrong decision."
Arthur frowned. "There's something I meant to ask you about. I asked Naomi if she knew of your father's friend, Noah, and she said that he was a hero from the war with the Banshee Dragons. They're not mentioned in any of the books I've been reading while I've been here, and John has never mentioned them and I thought you had good relations with all of your neighbours."
"John probably doesn’t know about them," Mark replied. "The war happened while he was away and it was the first time we'd even heard of them. They're from the Forbidden Quarter. It's called that because we're forbidden by law from going into it and that law is there for our own protection. It's a mixture of jungles and swamps populated by some of the strangest dragons you'll meet. One of our neighbours borders the Forbidden Quarter and the Banshee Dragons attacked them while a delegation from our government was with them. They killed a number of our people so we ended up fighting with our neighbours against the Banshee Dragons. The war didn't last long but it was pretty unpleasant. Both Noah and I fought in that war."
"I assume it was pretty easy for you," Arthur commented. "Who are the Banshee Dragons?"
Mark shook his head. "You really don't want to know. They're as unpleasant as the place they come from. If they weren't utterly crazy they'd be more dangerous than the Blues. We did beat them, but not without losses. But anyway, back to our current war. On this trip, please, just do me one favour, will you?"
"What's that?"
"Make sure all of you obey me and the other captains. If you feel like you're being treated like children, well, please just put up with it. The only thing that matters is your safe return, not your pride. I heard about what happened in the caves on the way here and we can't afford to take those sorts of risks. Can you agree to that?"
Arthur stood up and put the book into his bag, before closing it securely. "Yes, I can agree to that and I can make sure the others follow my lead. But when we're home you'll have to defer to me. You won't be trusted and I apologise for that, but you may as well get used to that fact now."
Mark laughed. "Don't worry, Arthur, you may not have known about us, but we've know about you and your ways for a long time. Now go, get the others. It's time to leave!"
Chapter 17 - Attacking the Prison Camp
"John, John, wake up!"
John opened his eyes and jumped up in alarm. He hated oversleeping, preferring to be the one waiting rather than be the one holding everyone up.
"Sorry, Theo. I must have overslept."
Theo laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “You haven't overslept, John. But we do have work to do. Come join me and the others."
John dressed in a hurry and stumbled out of his tent into the darkness. Theo, Dinah, Reuben and the Daves were sitting near a low fire, eating their breakfast.
"What's happening?" John asked as he sat down next to Theo. "When did you all arrive?"
"The Daves arrived late yesterday afternoon and have been hiding away producing this masterpiece," Theo said, pointing to a large and detailed map spread out on a table. "And Reuben arrived just before nightfall, after you had already retired for the evening. They've set up another camp not far from here for the new arrivals."
"New arrivals?" John asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Who do we have?"
"Only twenty of ours, I'm afraid. If our hosts were insulted I wouldn't blame them, although so far that seems to be far from the case. Apparently they understand our government very well. We have two other groups; forces from the Sandy and Wasp Dragons. As far as we can tell from Dinah's talks with the prisoners, they're the only races represented in the camp other than the Red Dragons."
"Makes sense," Reuben pointed out. "The only other neighbours they have are the Rhino Dragons and they've never had any success against them, fortunately."
"Quite," Theo agreed. "We have three hundred Sandy Dragons and about five hundred Wasp Dragons. So good luck to the twenty unfortunate fellows trying to police those two groups. Those two races are not good friends."
"Eight hundred sounds pretty good," John said. "What about the Dark Browns?"
Theo's eyes twinkled as he smiled at John’s question. "Gul promised ten times whatever those two brought. I would expect about ten thousand of his country folk to take to the air at first light."
John whistled. "I'm beginning to feel surplus to requirements."
"Don't," Theo replied, suddenly deadly serious. "I'm not sure how we've found ourselves in this position, but effectively we're charged with starting a war between the Blue Dragons and three of our neighbours—neighbours who incidentally hate each other and would otherwise happily tear each other to pieces. So we have to somehow navigate our legal requirements which pretty clearly forbid what we're trying to do, and police three groups of angry dragons, who outnumber us almost five hundred to one, who will almost certainly commit what we would consider war crimes and are just as likely to kill each other as fight the Blues."
Reuben laughed hollowly. "War crimes! What a ridiculous notion! It doesn't mean anything. The whole concept of war crimes is based on the
premise that nations adopt some sort of civilised agreement on how they should fight wars. No other nation ever agreed to this notion, and since then we've passed so many restrictions on fighting in a war, that our laws make fighting in a war effectively illegal, so any act of warfare could be described as a war crime. These dragons don't fight by any rules that would make sense to us and the sooner we recognise that the better." He spoke bitterly and stared at the fire after speaking.
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. "Can someone tell me what he's talking about?" John asked.
"Do you know what these camps are for?" Dinah asked. She was smiling at him, but her voice had a hard edge to it.
John looked down and nodded. "I know what they're for; why do you ask?"
"Well, we didn't see this when we were there, but the girls we brought back told us all about it. At any one time there will be a large number of the children produced by the camp still in the camp. They were probably moved first, which is why we didn't see any. The babies are allowed to stay with the mothers for a few months before being taken to another camp."
John shrugged. "Alright, so what does that mean for us? A bit more carrying?"
Reuben laughed again. "No, John, it doesn't mean that. There may be a thousand of these little Blue Dragons. The girls may see them as their innocent babies, but the Brown Dragons will not. There's twenty-five of us. Even if we wanted to, we couldn't save many of them."
"Even if we wanted to!" Dinah snapped angrily. "These are innocent babies. What sort of civilised person wouldn't want to save them?"
"Innocent now, yes," Reuben replied darkly. "Although they are the result of the systematic and brutal rape of girls who will be murdered as soon as they are too old to produce any more offspring. They'll do the same when they're older."
"You're lecturing me about rape?" Dinah replied. "Have you forgotten who interviewed those girls? I know exactly what happens to them and it is worse than anything you could imagine."
"And perpetuated by the monsters they produce. As soon as they're old enough they'll be joining their fathers crossing the borders, wiping out whole cities and collecting thousands more little girls to keep in these camps."
"Sounds to me that you're justifying murdering babies," Dinah said angrily. "How does that make you different from the monsters?"
"It doesn't matter what I think," Reuben replied coldly. "I'm explaining to you what thousands of Dark Brown Dragons will think."
"Let's calm down a little," Theo pleaded. "I think we can all agree that the Browns will want to kill them. The question is what can we do about it?"
"And the Sandy and Wasp Dragons," Reuben pointed out. "We'll have no allies on this."
"Something you don't seem particularly bothered about," Dinah snapped.
Theo raised his hands, appealing for calm. "That's not helping, Dinah. What would you have us do? I don't disagree with you, I just don't see an answer."
Dinah looked away, saying nothing.
Theo nodded. "I thought as much. Much as I agree with you, I suspect we may find that we have many other problems to contend with beforehand, starting with how to stop these three nations killing each other instead of the Blues. John, I will be going to see Gul now to see if there any changes to our plans now that everyone is here. Come with me; you may be of some help as you know these Blues and the Reds better than anyone."
John nodded, still contemplating the fate of the children in the camp, and stood up to join Theo, as did Reuben, who apparently was coming as well. Dinah was still looking infuriated and ignored them as they left. John was still dwelling on the subject when they sat down with Gul in his command tent in the centre of the camp.
"So Gul," Theo began, addressing the old man sat opposite them on a rather grand looking chair, "have you brought the numbers you promised?"
"Naturally," Gul replied proudly, summoning three of his men with a click of his fingers. They hurried over with chairs for the three Golden Dragons, then retreated back to the corner of the tent, bowing low all the time as they moved. "This mission of mercy will be led by my people, as is their right. We hope you will provide us with the support you already pledged, but we do have the capability of winning this ourselves."
"What would winning mean to you, sir?" John asked as he sat down next to Theo.
Gul looked a little surprised and frowned at Theo. "The young man speaks out of turn. Perhaps you need to explain to him how things are done here."
John ignored the comment and continued to press Gul. "This camp is very exposed, so we can't sneak up on them. If you have the numbers you claim then you'll outnumber their forces two to one," John continued. "They'll see you coming and they'll know that they're outnumbered."
"What's your point, John?" Theo asked.
"I was wondering how many of the prisoners will be alive by the time Gul arrives. What's to stop them killing every single prisoner before you even land?"
Gul turned to face John with a wry smile. "I see the young man continues to speak out of turn. If you're not going to stop him, let us hear what he has to say."
John turned to face him. "We need to secure the prisoners first, before the main force arrives. Let us go ahead of you. We can enter the camp without them realising, in the same way we found the camp. Give us a little head start so we can find the prisoners and prepare to defend them. When they see you coming, it will be too late for them to slaughter the prisoners."
Gul laughed at him. "You'll secure the prisoners, will you? What, you and twenty others? I thought there were thousands of prisoners in this camp. How do you expect to guard them all?"
John met his eyes. "There might not be thousands when you arrive if we do nothing. If they think that they're going to lose the prisoners, I think they'd prefer to just kill them all."
"You still haven't answered my question," Gul replied. "There are too many for you to guard."
"So we will guard the ones we can," John replied. "We'll slow them enough to save many of them until you arrive, after which they'll be more worried about not getting killed themselves."
Gul paused to consider the plan. "I assume you will take the form of the Teradon, no?" He didn't wait for a reply. "That may work—for a while at least. It is a long flight, is it not? As I thought. I don't know if I can spare enough time to give you a head start."
Theo smiled at this. "We won't need a head start. We will leave with you at dawn, but arrive before you."
Gul frowned. "So who will lead us there? We have seen your maps, which are very nice, but I think I would prefer a guide. And who will watch over all of these others you have brought? That was the agreement, no?"
Theo nodded. "We will leave you these two as guides," he said, gesturing to the two Daves. "They drew the maps and know the area better than anyone now. I think just a few escorts should be enough. Perhaps three for the Sandy Dragons and five for the Wasp Dragons?"
"Make it five and ten," Gul replied, "and we will have an agreement."
"Leaving eight for the advance party," Theo added, hoping to negotiate an increase. "Not a lot, just eight, for such an important part of the mission."
"Very true," Gul agreed sympathetically. "And not a lot to act as peacekeepers either. Perhaps you should have brought more troops with you."
Theo winced at this comment and John knew that they were well short of the number that they had expected to have formed the Golden Dragon contingent. "Alright, so we're agreed then. Other than this change, we shall continue with the plan as agreed last night?"
Gul nodded and rose to his feet. "Next time we meet it shall be in battle as allies. This is a first, is it not?"
"A first indeed," Theo said, rising as well. "And here comes the sun. Looks like a fine day ahead."
"A fine day for battle," Gul agreed. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go to my commanders." With that, Gul left, accompanied by his guards and entourage.
"Interesting fellow Gul," Theo commented as they walked back to join the others. "Didn't
think for a second that he'd personally lead this attack. Few leaders would do something like that, especially at his age. He was impressed by you, John, regardless of what he said. He wouldn't have agreed to change our plans otherwise."
"Are you sure?" John asked. "He's not letting us take many with us."
"He's giving us as many as he thinks necessary. He's right about the peacekeepers as well—we're not leaving many. Fortunately, we do have some very experienced diplomats who know the leaders well. They should be able to keep them all apart. Not that you need to concern yourself with that as we have something else to worry about. Come, it's time for us to go."
The sun had just emerged above the horizon and as soon as the light struck him Theo transformed, his Golden scales twinkling in the dawn sunlight. The others took his lead and transformed quickly, ready for his command.
Daves, you know what to do. You need to go after Gul and accompany him and his troops there. They'll rely on your directions. We won't be with you though; we'll be going ahead, but you'll have most of our dragons. Go now. We will see you soon.
The two Daves didn't reply, merely nodding before taking off to fly after the Dark Brown leader and his men.
Theo turned to the other three. Dinah, Reuben, John, we need to visit the other camp now and explain the change of plans to the others. Follow me.
Theo took off, beating his wings quickly to gain height before flying swiftly towards the next campsite, where all of the Dark Browns were based. John had not seen this campsite before and was impressed to see how large it was and how many tents and people were gathered there. Theo explained the new plan to Dinah and Reuben as they flew and John was surprised by how little they said in response, as if they were expecting something like this to happen.