The Dragons 3

by Colin Thompson

  After an hour sitting in the dungeon waiting for Urngristle to arrive with his prisoners, Tracyvere had finished her gristle sandwiches, drunk all of her flask of mead and fallen asleep. When her shouldermaiden tapped Traceyvere on her shoulder and woke her up, Tracyvere was in a very bad mood. The gristle had given her a stomachache and the mead a headache.

  ‘Why did no one wake me when the torture started?’ she snapped.

  ‘There was no torture, my lady,’ her shouldermaiden replied.

  ‘Were the tramps killed before they could be captured?’

  ‘There were no tramps, my lady.’

  ‘Yes there were. I saw them from the window.’

  ‘They were not tramps, my lady. They were your husband and two companions: one Prince Mordred, the son of your neighbours, and the other, the famous sea captain, Shortbread Silver.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Tracyvere snapped. ‘I know what my husband looks like. They were three tramps. You are a very wicked girl to say such things and I’ve half a mind to have you tortured to make up for me sleeping through the first session. I shall have your hair turned red and your whole body covered with ginger freckles, each one put there with a burning-hot knitting needle.’

  The girl collapsed on the floor weeping, but before Lady Tracyvere could do anything Urngristle arrived and explained what had happened.

  Tracyvere didn’t say sorry to her shouldermaiden. She was too cross at the torture being cancelled.

  Most of the things that had happened since Mordred and the Captain had been washed up on the beach had been stage managed by Merlin. His army of spies – crows genetically engineered to fly very, very fast yet be small enough to go unnoticed – had kept him informed of events. It had been Merlin who had put the rebellious thoughts into the three horses’ brains so they would refuse to carry their master and his friends. The rain he hadn’t made happen. That had just been a bonus, but he had added the vicious hailstones. He had also moved Culvert’s castle fifteen miles further inland and moved the footpaths so that Mordred, the Prince and the Captain traversed rougher terrain and turned into dead ends or went back on themselves. He was particularly pleased with the nastiness of the cave and very proud of his attention to detail, which had given the fleas much sharper bites than normal.

  His only disappointment had been the lack of torture. Urngristle’s devotion to his master had been too strong to overcome.

  Lady Tracyvere’s bad temper had brought her husband and his two companions out of their happy, relaxed state, so once again they were feeling miserable.

  ‘You mean, you actually murdered both your parents?’ she asked Mordred, with admiration in her voice, when everyone had told her their stories.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Mordred replied.

  ‘Oh well, that’s cheered me up to no end,’ said Tracyvere. ‘I couldn’t stand your mother with her stuck-up ways and her silly hats made out of kittens, as well as her forever coming over to borrow some peasants or a bucket of earth.’

  ‘And your father,’ she continued. ‘He was a rednecked sexist pig. I quite liked him. He had the most terrifying warts, though, didn’t he?’

  ‘Indeed he did,’ said Mordred. ‘They were his hobby. He was the president of the National Wart Society. He even had a paragraph in the Grimmest Book of Records.’

  ‘Though I think,’ said Tracyvere, ‘that I like him more now he’s dead.’

  ‘I certainly do,’ said Mordred.

  ‘Right, tomorrow we shall go to your home, Castle Laclustre, and you will fill our pockets with gold,’ said Tracyvere, ‘and you shall give me your mother’s diamond-encrusted eye-gouger that I lusted after each time I saw it hanging round her neck.’

  Back on the Diabolical Islands, it was three days after Rampart had been taken away before the cell door opened again. Once a day, the tiny grille in the door slid aside and two more turnips were thrown in, but that was it. Eventually Princess Floridian and Brassica got so hungry they were forced to eat them.

  One of Merlin’s spies sat outside the cell window and flew back with her report. The next day the turnips that had tasted only slightly disgusting began to taste exactly the same, even though they now contained a secret tasteless chemical that made the two prisoners put on massive amounts of weight.

  The Princess and Brassica were both extremely vain and the idea of putting on as little as fifty grams in weight filled them with dread. When they both woke up the next morning five kilos heavier, they were horrified, angry and depressed with themselves, with each other, with turnips and with the whole world.

  ‘I am never eating again,’ the Princess cried.

  ‘Me neither,’ sobbed Brassica as his trousers split up the back.

  But it made no difference. Thanks to Merlin’s spell, they kept gaining on weight whether they ate anything or not. They tried running round the tiny cell to work up a sweat, but they just kept crashing into each other and into the walls, so that by the end of the day they were covered in bruises and they looked like a pair of large, overripe aubergines.

  ‘I can’t see my feet anymore,’ the Princess Floridian wept.

  ‘I’ve got so many chins I can’t even tip my head down far enough to see your feet, never mind my own,’ said Brassica as his head sunk deeper and deeper into his shoulders.

  And then, to make matters worse, at six o’clock the door opened and in walked Rampart. He looked so smart it took Floridian and Brassica a moment to recognise him.

  Unlike them, he had lost weight, or to be more accurate, he weighed exactly the same as he did before, but where he had been almost exactly the same shape and colour as a turnip, he was now a lot taller and shaped like a magnificent statue of a Greek god. His hair, once the very worst shade of orange, was now dark brown and shone like coal. Even his voice, which had been a really annoying high-pitched squeak, was now deep and mellow. Princess Floridian and Brassica did not recognise him any more than he did them.

  ‘It’s me, Rampart,’ he said. ‘I have been having the most wonderful time. This place is paradise. Who would ever have thought there was a land where turnips were worshipped above gold?’

  ‘WHAT?!’ screamed the Princess.

  This was not a question – just an explosion of sheer anger.

  Here is a list of things the Princess thought were bad enough:

  She, a fabulously beautiful, clever and brilliant princess, was locked up in a prison cell.

  She, a fabulously stunningly beautiful, clever and brilliant princess with a figure to die for, was now the size and shape of a hippopotamus.

  Brassica, who she had kind of, sort of, found herself beginning to maybe like a bit – even though he was way too young – was also the size and shape of a hippopotamus.

  Rampart, her other cellmate, who had been a big fat stupid lump with less brain cells than a mushroom, was now extremely good-looking and clever.

  Rampart, who she thought she might, probably, yes, definitely did, fancy could see her looking like a lumpy purple pillow.

  And here are a few things that were even worse:

  It had got extremely cold during the night. Their turnips had frozen so hard it was impossible to bite them. This of course was a curse and a blessing.

  She, The Magnificent Princess Floridian, had just wet herself.

  It had run down her legs and into her shoes then had overflowed, covering the floor in VERY SLIPPERY frozen wee.

  And here are a few things that could have been worse:

  At least Brassica was as fat and purple as she was.

  At least she hadn’t started growing a moustache.

  At least she hadn’t slipped over on the VERY SLIPPERY floor.

  Which of course she then did.27

  The Princess sat in the middle of the cell, her dress frozen to the floor, and burst into tears. They ran down her face and added themselves to the ice-rink of her wee.

  Brassica lost his balance and landed on the Princess, who hit him round the head so he fell
off and froze to the floor, where he wet himself and burst into tears. The ice-rink got thicker and even more slippery.

  And all the while Rampart stood there looking down at them with a happy smile on his very handsome face.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I have good news. You were right, this is not a hotel. It is a prison, but now I have been appointed Minister of Turnips and All Other Vegetables, and as you are friends of mine, you are free. So come on. I’ve been given a lovely house where there is a roaring log fire and a fine turnip banquet awaiting us.’

  ‘I can’t get up,’ said the Princess. ‘My clothes are frozen to the floor.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Brassica.

  ‘Guard?’ said Rampart, turning to the two soldiers who had come in with him. ‘Any suggestions?’

  ‘No problem, boss,’ said the first soldier.

  He poured a can of petrol over the floor and told Rampart to stand back while the second soldier lit a match.

  This was followed by quite a bit of screaming and the smell of burning clothes, skin and hair, but all the tears and wee melted and the two fat prisoners were set free.

  ‘I think I would rather have just slipped out of my clothes and escaped in my undies,’ said Brassica.

  ‘Except you were both much too fat to slip out of anything,’ said Rampart cheerfully. ‘I mean, I’m not sure how we’re going to get the two of you through the door.’

  The two soldiers got behind and pushed. This at least sorted out the problem of the Princess and Brassica being covered in burnt skin. It all got scraped off on the very rough, splintery door frame. The two of them were now red-raw and in quite a lot of extreme pain. They both made the mistake of tearing at their hair, which being burnt came out in great handfuls.

  When the Princess and Brassica were led upstairs to the waiting crowd, instead of everyone falling about laughing, the crowd stood in wide-eyed admiration. Princess Floridian and Brassica were the very image of two Avalon Accolade turnips: fat, soft and purply-red.

  The crowd cheered.

  When Rampart explained why, the Princess cried, ‘But we are in agony.’

  ‘All the more admirable,’ said the crowd, ‘to suffer for your art.’

  Brassica asked through his tears if it meant they had to stay like that forever, but everyone said no, great art was just a fleeting moment, and they took them away to a dark, cool room and covered them head to toe in soothing Turnipolene Ointment that not only healed their red-raw skin, but nourished them too, so they didn’t have to eat anything, which meant that they lost weight.

  In no time at all – about seventeen weeks – they were healed. They were slimmer than ever and had skin smoother than the inside of a baby spaniel’s ear.

  ‘This was not an accident,’ said the Princess. ‘Someone spiked those turnips and I suspect that evil old wizard Merlin had something to do with it.’

  She set a trap and the next morning there was a crow in it.

  ‘Right, tweety,’ she said, grasping the black bird by the throat. ‘You and me are going to have a little talk.’

  ‘I think that should be you and I,’ said the crow.

  ‘Grammar is the least of your worries, scraggy,’ said the Princess. ‘You are going to tell me who you are working for.’

  ‘Anyone,’ said the crow. ‘Make me an offer.’

  ‘No problem. Here’s my offer. Tell me who sent you here to spy on us and I won’t bite your head off.’

  ‘I was thinking more of sparkly jewels, actually,’ said the crow. ‘A nice necklace with a great big red ruby.’

  ‘The only problem with that,’ said the Princess, ‘is that when I’ve bitten your head off you won’t have a neck left to wear a necklace round. Now talk.’

  Crows may be double-crossing sneaky creatures, but they can also be quite stupid and not have a very good judge of character. This crow saw a very pretty young girl and thought to itself, Pretty young girls don’t bite birds’ heads off.

  This was the last thing it thought because Princess Floridian bit its head off.

  She had more luck with the crow she caught the next day.

  ‘Look, birdie,’ she said. ‘This is what happened to your friend when she wouldn’t answer my questions.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the second crow. ‘She won’t be wearing any more necklaces, will she?’

  ‘Answer now, please,’ the Princess said, baring her teeth. ‘Who sent you here to spy on us?’

  ‘Merlin.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Princess and bit its head off.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said Brassica. ‘She told you it was Merlin.’

  ‘Yes, and then she would have flown back to him and told him we knew,’ the Princess explained. ‘Besides, I quite enjoyed it.’

  Because the two of them were sort of heroes on the Diabolical Islands, it was fairly easy for them to gather recruits for an army to attack Avalon.

  It was agreed that they would invade Avalon on the shortest day of the year, when they would have the most darkness to cover their arrival. In the meantime, boats were sent out to attack and hijack other boats to build up their fleet.

  ‘The more boats we have, the more mercenaries we can take,’ said Bloat.

  ‘Are there turnips in Avalon?’ was the most common question, followed by the same question about gold, precious jewels, enchanted things, potatoes and bacon.

  ‘Avalon is a land overflowing with milk and honey,’ said Princess Floridian.

  ‘Don’t like milk,’ most people said, ‘or honey.’

  ‘Well, it’s overflowing even more with turnips and gold and precious enchanted things and there’s more bacon than you can shake a stick at – even for you at the back there with that really enormous stick,’ said Brassica.

  ‘Wow!’ said everyone and signed up.

  Meanwhile, at another sadly neglected meanwhile, trouble was brewing.

  Back in Avalon, in the dragons’ valley, everyone had become really, really bored.

  ‘It’s all very well having peace treaties with the humans,’ said Spikeweed, King of the Dragons. ‘I know it’s a lot less pressure and hassle, but what are we supposed to do all day?’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said his wife, Primrose, ‘and I really miss that sweet smell of thatched cottages full of screaming peasants burning out of control.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Spikeweed, ‘and baby-shaped soy tofu burgers are no substitute for real babies. Neither are organically woven spinach kittens anywhere as good as the real thing.’

  ‘You’re right,’ all the other dragons agreed. ‘Whatever you say, the only real substitute for warm flesh dripping with blood is warm flesh dripping with blood.’

  Things could not go on as they were with a whole generation of young dragons growing up and never having tasted flesh. It had been decided as part of the peace treaty that the dragons wouldn’t eat any meat in case the temptation proved too great for them.

  ‘Vegetarian dragons,’ Spikeweed snorted. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing! Globally, dragon-wise, we’ve become a laughing stock. Can you imagine our Italian cousins putting up with it?’

  ‘Another thing,’ Primrose said. ‘I didn’t see the humans becoming vegetarians. They still tuck into lamb and chicken and pterodactyl.’

  ‘I think you’ll find they’ve eaten all the pterodactyls,’ said Spikeweed. ‘But chicken is bad enough.’

  The only one of the dragons who wasn’t fed up with the endless monotony of their lives was Spikeweed’s ancient mother, Gorella, who spent every day the same way as she had done for the past two hundred or more years. She sat in a dim cave talking to a patch of green slime on the wall and leaking dragon wee everywhere. She thought the green slime was her long-dead husband and that the wee was wee. She was as happy as an armpit of fleas.

  ‘Something’s got to be done,’ said Spikeweed and everyone agreed.

  Spikeweed and Primrose’s son, who had been called Bloat, had gone through one of those naughty stages
most young dragons and quite a few humans go through called ‘teenager’, but then he had settled down. He had changed his name to Ambrose and become a very bad poet but, at the same time, the most famous dragon poet that had ever lived on account of being the only dragon poet that had ever lived. Sure, his poems rhymed, but they were extremely boring and hardly ever made any sense.

  Here is an example:

  There was a young dragon from here

  Who decided to move over there.

  Once she’d moved over there

  It became over here

  So she ended up being nowhere.

  On Thursday.

  Ambrose had absolutely no sense of rhythm or balance.

  Lately his poetry had begun to take on a more dragony and violent tone. He had also decided that he didn’t want to be called Ambrose anymore and changed his name back to Bloat. His father was delighted and even began to dream of his son becoming a rugby player.28 His mother not so much.

  Here are a couple of Was-Ambrose-Now-Bloat-Again poems from his transition period:

  There was a young dragon from here

  Who saw a young girl in a chair.

  So he set her alight

  And to his great delight

  The chair was one of those old-fashioned

  ones stuffed with really flammable

  dangerous foam that burns like crazy AND

  gives off terribly toxic fumes.

  He said, ‘I don’t want to boast

  But she ended up toast.

  With burning foam in her hair’.

  and

  Jack and Jill went up the hill