by M E. Holley
With horror, Jonah realised that this was the whispering, faceless form of his nightmares, the robed shape he kept seeing. Under the hood, two yellow wolfish eyes gleamed out of blackness. As the shape moved, the folds of its robe flowed as if they covered nothing but shadows. Jonah backed against the pillar.
‘What do you want?’ he stammered.
A sound came from the figure, a gust of dirty air tainted with sulphur. Jonah recoiled, coughing. Then he began to make out words that seemed to whisper from an echoing cavern.
‘I am here to claim you. You are to come with me to the Abyss.’
‘No!’ Jonah pressed himself against the pillar, his hands feeling for something he could cling onto.
The figure laughed and the sound echoed around the corridor. The wolves panted, locking their greedy eyes on Jonah, daring him to run.
‘I am the Wolfmaster.’ The whisper travelled around the cloister. ‘In the Underworld, you will become what your destiny intends – the servant of the Black Lord of Komi. He desires the use of your gifts in his domains.’
‘What gifts—?’
‘The gift you have inherited from the Heart Eater. You will command the dragons at the Black Lord’s bidding. Come.’
‘No! I won’t!’ Jonah’s voice rose to a shriek.
The Wolfmaster stepped closer until Jonah could see nothing but the blackness under his hood. This time the echoing voice pierced the gloom like a blade of ice.
‘Do you think I and my wolves have scoured the earth for a thousand years and more to be denied now?’ The rasping whisper rose in the sighing wind and reverberated around the stone walls. ‘I have been tireless in my hunt for those with the gift of the dragon tongue. Many are the times that I endured cruel punishment when I failed to bring to my lord the prize of a Dragon Master.’ The robe shivered and swirled. ‘Then new word came of a boy whose ancestry might be revealed, if a Welsh dragon emerged from sleep. And, at last, the word was true.’
The figure made a throaty sound that Jonah supposed was laughter. As he turned his head away from the disgusting, rotting-egg smell of the Wolfmaster’s breath, Jonah caught sight of a helmeted figure peering across the quadrangle from the cloister opposite. The person suddenly straightened up and abruptly disappeared into the darkness, re-appearing at a door that opened on to the lawn. It was Erin! And she seemed unhurt. Jonah could hardly believe his own eyes. She started to run across the grass.
Jonah was frantic. ‘Erin! Go back. Go back!’
She hesitated. ‘I mean it,’ Jonah screamed. ‘You can’t help me. Run!’
Her hand flew to her mouth, as she realised that the wolves had found him. Then she turned and darted back into the corridor.
‘Enough. It is time to leave Earth’s surface,’ said the Wolfmaster.
From somewhere deep inside, Jonah felt a knot of anger growing. He clenched his fists and stood up straight. Let the hooded nightmare cackle! He wouldn’t sniffle like a little kid and meekly go to Hell with this stinking shadow and his demon wolves. They wouldn’t take him down to the Abyss without a fight.
‘Come,’ ordered the Wolfmaster.
‘Make me!’ said Jonah.
The Wolfmaster’s sulphurous breath made Jonah gag, as the shadowy figure laughed. He caressed the head of the dominant wolf.
‘Give the boy to me,’ breathed the Wolfmaster, and the animal demon lunged. Jonah kicked upwards as the wolf sprang, hitting its belly hard with the toe of his boot. It fell sideways, but one of its forefeet scraped Jonah’s temple. Blood poured down his cheek. The other wolves fell on him, knocking him to the ground. They trampled over him, biting at his clothing and trying to rip it off. One was trying to get his helmet off by gripping it with its teeth. Above the snarls and yapping, Jonah became aware of a swishing sound and feet running down the corridor. Something landed with a thud near his head, and pandemonium broke out.
The wolves turned from Jonah to snap and growl at a new threat. The Wolfmaster howled in anger. Jonah raised his head and gasped as Erin, brandishing a huge sword in both hands, brought it down on a wolf’s neck. The animal leaped away, squealing, and then shuddered and fell lifeless to the ground. A dark shape slid from its mouth and drifted up into the shadows. Erin whirled the sword again and rammed it under the forelegs of a wolf that was about to jump on her. It shrieked and limped away. The Wolfmaster’s shadow curled round the walls.
‘Jonah,’ she yelled, as the wolves snarled round them. ‘I brought a candle. Quick, light it. Do what Mike did. Hurry up!’
Jonah scrambled to his feet. The massive white altar candle was easy to see in the gloom but he couldn’t find any matches.
‘There by the pillar. To your left a bit!’
Erin backed in front of him, swinging the sword to hold off the wolves, while he dropped to his knees, feeling wildly round the pillar. His hand closed on the box she had thrown down. Jonah’s fingers shook while he fumbled to take a match out and light it. The first one flared up and then died.
‘Hell!’ He tried again but the next one would not light. He could hear Erin grunting with effort as she whirled about, hacking at the snarling animals.
‘Jona-a-ah!’ Erin was panicking. She couldn’t swing the heavy sword much longer.
The third match stayed alight. He held it to the candle, made sure the flame was burning steadily and then painfully scrabbled to his feet. A wolf jumped out of Erin’s reach and leaped at him. He was knocked off his feet but managed to ram the flaming candle at its muzzle and, as it threw itself sideways, he swept the flame along its flanks. Immediately its coat caught fire and it fell heavily on top of Jonah, its hide blazing. With all his strength, Jonah heaved and pushed it off. The wolf, now a screaming fireball, ricocheted around the quadrangle until it fizzled upwards, like a firework, into the night sky.
Erin was flagging from the effort of holding the sword. She leaned against the pillar for a moment, panting for breath, while Jonah edged in front of her, still brandishing the candle at the wolf pack. Two more wolves dissolved into howling balls of flame, as Jonah swung the candle round, desperate to keep the creatures off. Erin raised the sword again.
‘Let’s finish them,’ she said.
The children forced themselves to pace steadily, side by side, towards the Wolfmaster and the last three demon wolves. Growling horribly, the animals crouched, ready to spring.
Jonah suddenly remembered the charm paper in his pocket. He pulled it out.
‘Say the spell!’
They walked determinedly forward, side by side, chanting loudly. Erin brandished the sword while Jonah’s large white candle threw flickering shapes on the walls. The Wolfmaster, eyes blazing with rage, tried to reach out for the children, but the candle and the sword held him off. He lunged at the children again and again, but he couldn’t reach them across the candle flame and the glow of the sword’s blade. As they chanted, the Wolfmaster seemed to shrink. His wolves slunk behind him, whimpering.
As they saw the demons’ power diminishing, Jonah and Erin’s confidence grew. They kept advancing, holding the sword and the candle high. Then, quite suddenly, it was all over. The Wolfmaster’s robe began to fold and slip towards the floor. A terrible, moaning wave of sound swept over the walls of the cloister and a dark, formless shape blew up towards the roof of the arcade, hovered for a moment by the stonework and then floated out of the cloister and up into the dark night.
When Jonah turned back to the wolves, they were nowhere to be seen. The hooded robe lay empty on the stones.
The children, gasping in lungfuls of air, stared at each other and lowered their weapons.
‘They’ve gone,’ Erin panted.
‘Thanks to you. You saved my life! He was going to take me down to the Underworld. Erin, you were fantastic.’ Jonah grinned at her as she propped the huge sword against the wall. ‘Hey, where did you get that?’
‘I was wondering where my sword went,’ said a familiar voice, as Mike Golding came along the corridor towards
them.
CHAPTER 26
JONAH SETS A CONDITION
Erin flushed as she lifted the sword and held it out to Mike. She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have touched it, but I didn’t know what else to do.’
Jonah was open-mouthed. ‘You’re sorry? If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead by now.’ He turned to Mike. ‘You’re not mad at her, are you? She totally saved my life. If she hadn’t come back with your sword, that evil hoody-thing would have taken me down to Hell.’
Mike smiled at them both and patted Erin’s shoulder. ‘Of course I’m not mad with you. You seem to have been amazingly brave. Both of you.’ He weighed the sword in his hand. ‘I’m surprised you could lift it, Erin.’
She beamed up at him. ‘I just had to. You can do – like – impossible things if you have to, can’t you?’
‘Certainly seems so.’ Mike gave her a wink and turned to Jonah. ‘What were you doing in the cloister?’
‘The ape-gargoyle threw me off the roof.’ Jonah explained what had happened after Ffyrnig had put him down in the quadrangle. ‘I thought it might have killed you,’ he said to Erin. ‘How did you get off the roof? How did you find me?’
‘Well, when you began to slide down, the ape was over the moon – it obviously thought you would be killed – and then, when Ffyrnig caught you, it started screeching and swearing. I was so scared! It watched Ffyrnig fly away with you and then it started coming back for me. All the other demons had been driven off by then, but two angels heard the noise it was making. Luckily for me they came to see what it was shrieking about and saw me lying there. Before the demon knew what was happening, one chopped its stone body in two – just with one swipe. It didn’t stand a chance! And the other one carried me down on to the Green. He healed the demon’s bites.’ She laughed, and stretched gingerly. ‘I bet I’ll still have some lovely scrapes and bruises from being banged about on the roof, though. I’m starting to feel really sore.’
‘But how did you know where to find me?’ Jonah asked.
‘The angels saw Ffyrnig fly behind the cathedral with you, so I started to look for you. And then, when I saw you in the cloisters with the wolves, I remembered Mike – erm – Saint Michael’s sword—’
‘Oh, not Saint,’ Mike cut in. ‘“Michael”, if you really must.’
‘I’d noticed it lying on the altar steps, when I’d run up the nave to start looking for you.’ She looked up at Mike. ‘Did you put it there to kind of get its strength back?’
‘Something like that,’ Mike nodded.
‘Anyway, I dashed back to get it, Michael, and I remembered how you used fire on the wolves in the valley, so I took an altar candle as well.’ She blew her cheeks out. ‘Our luck was really in, Jonah. If there hadn’t been any matches near the candle-stand, we should only have had the sword.’
Jonah sighed. ‘I can’t believe it’s all over.’
‘Well, it is. And no small thanks to you two. You have been incredibly brave.’ Mike put an arm round Jonah’s shoulders. ‘Come on. I believe there’s some hot drinks and cake waiting for you two in the bishop’s palace.’
They had just come into the bishop’s sitting-room, when Bryn with Claire and Rhodri, Emlyn and Gwen were shown in.
‘You’re squashing me, Mam,’ Erin giggled, as Gwen hugged her again and again. After the hugs and the exclamations had died down, the two families and the cathedral clergy, with a couple of police officers and two or three SAS officers, sat down to hot drinks, sausage rolls and cake. Jonah was ravenous but, at last, over his second hot chocolate, he and Erin started to tell the whole story of the awakening of the Last Great Dragon and the emergence of the demons. The adults kept exchanging glances and shaking their heads. ‘Unbelievable,’ they murmured.
The Dean of Hereford leaned towards Jonah. ‘And who exactly was this Wolfmaster? He sounds like the essence of evil. Blood-chilling.’
‘He was awful.’ Erin shuddered.
‘He said he had orders to find me,’ Jonah said thoughtfully, ‘And it sounded as if he had been looking for other boys like me – you know, descendants of Heart Eaters – for hundreds of years. He said his master wanted me to control other dragons for him.’ He swivelled round to look at Mike. ‘Who’s the Black Lord? Because that’s who I was supposed to work for.’
Mike shook his head.
‘I don’t know. Lots of evil spirits might call themselves that. Maybe I’ve heard of him under another name, but the Wolfmaster is a puzzle, I must admit. Still,’ he smiled and looked round the room, ‘they have gone and I doubt they will be back in Hereford. They know now that they cannot use the Great Dragon to frighten human beings, so I don’t think you will have anything else to fear. Thanks to Jonah and Erin and Ffyrnig, you can all sleep well tonight – or what’s left of it!’
‘Ffyrnig!’ Jonah jumped up. ‘Oh, poor Ffyrnig. Where is he? I’ve got to go to him.’
‘He’s fine,’ said the bishop’s wife kindly. ‘He’s a wonderful beast, isn’t he? He’s having a meal on the lawn. Mr Parry – Rhodri, that is – only just got back from Credenhill barracks. He thought the dragon would be hungry, so he went to get some meat for him. Ffyrnig seems very content.’
Jonah’s face lit up. ‘Oh, thank you. That’s really kind. Would it be all right if I went out to him?’ The bishop smiled. ‘Of course. May I come with you and make his acquaintance?’ Jonah and the bishop strolled out into the palace garden. The sky was beginning to lighten.
‘Nearly morning,’ the bishop said. ‘And the dawn of a much more hopeful day, thanks to you and Erin and the Last Great Dragon of Wales.’
Ffyrnig was lying under the trees, lazily licking at the last of his meat.
‘I’ll tell him you would like to meet him, shall I?’ Jonah asked the bishop.
‘Please. And say how grateful we all are.’
As they began to walk over to the dragon, Mike joined them. ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry. We are always watching over you.’
Jonah had a sudden thought. ‘Mike, can we use phones and the TV now? I’d love to phone my parents.’
Mike shook his head. ‘Not yet, I’m afraid. The enchantment the demons placed on your communication systems will take a little while to lose its power. But with no evil spirits around to keep it strong, the systems should be back to normal in a few days.’ He turned to the bishop and bowed his head. ‘My Lord, I believe Hereford and the Radnor Forest are safe again.’ Then he took Jonah’s hand with a huge smile. ‘Well done, you and Erin. Everyone is going to be very proud of you. In fact, I think that you and Erin and Ffyrnig are going to find yourselves pretty famous, when the radio and TV come back on.’ He grinned. ‘Be brave and put up with it!’
A light glowed round him. Jonah saw the outline of the Archangel’s wings and the gleaming gold of his hair, and then Saint Michael had gone. The bishop drew a deep, tremulous breath.
‘Shall we go to meet Ffyrnig?’ Jonah asked quietly.
The bishop nodded and they walked over to the dragon, who was looking towards them eagerly.
‘Ffyrnig, I have brought the Bishop of Hereford to meet you,’ said Jonah.
As he hissed and crackled to translate what the man and the
dragon said to each other, Jonah thought the bishop hid his amusement very well. Jonah told Ffyrnig what everyone had talked about in the palace.
‘But even Saint Michael doesn’t know who the Wolfmaster was,’ he said. ‘All we know is that he wanted to kidnap me for some Black Lord.’
Ffyrnig’s eyes snapped open. ‘Black Lord?’
‘Yes. Do you know who he is? The Wolfmaster said he had been punished before now, because he couldn’t produce someone who could talk to dragons.’
Ffyrnig puffed out a fiery breath. The bishop took a step backwards.
‘Steady on, Ffyrnig. What’s the matter?’
‘Did the demon just talk about a Black Lord? It wasn’t the Black Lord of Komi, was it?’
J
onah thought for a moment. ‘I think that was the name. Yeah.’ He turned to the bishop. ‘Ffyrnig’s saying he knows who wanted to kidnap me.’ He looked at the dragon again. ‘So where is this Komi?’
‘It’s a beautiful land in the North. They say there are forests, and many rivers, and many herds of reindeer. Good hunting for my kind.’
‘Does this Black Lord rule the country then?’
Ffyrnig turned his head from side to side. ‘No, he who calls himself the Black Lord of Komi is a dragon.’
‘A dragon?’ Jonah was astonished.
He explained to the bishop what Ffyrnig had just said. ‘This is so weird,’ he said to him. ‘Why would a dragon actually spend years and years looking for someone who could control him?’
Ffyrnig was looking thoughtful. ‘The Black Dragon of Komi is a Great Dragon, like me. I didn’t know he was still on Earth, Master. Perhaps he wanted you to keep order among lesser dragons who might rebel against him. He’s supposed to be a vicious creature. You must beware of him and his demon slaves.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jonah, stroking the dragon’s neck. ‘The Night Creatures have gone and we’ve got the angels to watch out for us now. We’re all safe, and you are going to be so famous! The whole world is going to want to visit you. We’ll have to think of somewhere you can live, to get a bit of peace. Oh!’ A thought struck him. A surprisingly unpleasant thought. ‘You won’t want to go down underneath the forest again, will you?’
Ffyrnig threw him a sideways glance. ‘Would that not please you, Master? I’d be out of your way.’
‘Oh, Ffyrnig. I don’t want you out of the way. Erin and I would miss you so much. Can’t you stay in the valley? Please!’
Jonah threw his arms round the dragon’s neck and hugged him, while he told the bishop what they had been saying
Ffyrnig squeezed his eyes shut happily.
‘Oh, Master, I should like that very much.’
‘Wonderful! But, well, there is one condition.’