Dragon Shield

by Charlie Fletcher

  Before he could ask another question there was a sudden commotion as three more tin-helmeted figures pushed through the crowd with shouts of, ‘Mind your backs!’ and ‘Coming through!’.

  They looked like they were made of soot-blackened metal, and wore long double-breasted jackets with buttons running down each side of their chests. As they ran they carried a powerful looking fire-hose which they then unrolled and, with quick and practised movements, attached to a hydrant set into the pavement.

  Two of them braced themselves holding the nozzle of the hose and the third turned the tap. The hose sprung into life, like a great snake. The firemen bunched their muscles and directed the vigorous jet of water in a long arc up and over the park.

  At first Will thought the Spits below were going to be pretty angry at getting such a hefty soaking, but then he saw the water slam into the back wall of the spire in a great splash of white spray, and instead of seeing it fall straight back to the ground under control of normal gravity, he saw the Ghost Church take shape.

  The water did not drop vertically, at least not at first, and not in the way he expected: it flowed sideways as it pooled and spread down on either side of an invisible roof across the park, dripping and curling along and down the contours of the old church roof, and the walls and buttresses that had once stood there. The water licked around the outline like wet flames, casting a pale green light across the crowd assembled beneath. Will saw the empty trellises fill up with water and continue upwards to meet the newly revealed roof, and branching sideways to fill up the outline of a first-floor gallery that ran the length of the nave. Windows appeared, as did the unmistakable shape of a massive pipe organ at one end.

  As the firemen jacked off the water, and the flow stopped abruptly, the old church stood there in all its former glory, everything that been destroyed by fire now re-made of standing water that swirled and flowed as if it was alive.

  Will thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful. He was about to say so, when a shadow fell across him and a commanding voice snapped out over the heads of the crowd.

  ‘Will someone sort out this rabble! This is meant to be a serious meeting not a monkey’s tea party!’

  A man on a horse, in tight britches, and a cocked hat looked down at him, along a nose like the beak of an angry bird. Somehow Will did not need to be told that this was Hooky, the Duke of Wellington. There can’t have been two noses in London like that.

  ‘That’s a Regular!’ the Duke said. ‘That’s not a Spit, by god. The devil is he doing here when all other Regulars are stuck?’

  ‘He’s got—’ began Tragedy, but Will trod on his foot.

  He thought it might be a good idea to keep the secret about the scarab bead to himself. There was something so severe about the Duke that it made Will think he might just decide to simplify things by taking the scarab and turning him off like a switch.

  ‘. . . er he’s got no . . . idea,’ said Tragedy. ‘Not clear yet.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the Duke. ‘A most irregular Regular. Don’t like it. Keep out of the way, you too little imp. This is no place for children. We have a crisis to handle here.’

  ‘I’m not a child . . .’ said Will, but he was speaking to the Duke’s back. He’d been dismissed.

  18

  The Meeting

  The spits who were outside the Ghost Church filed in to join the others, and Will and Little Tragedy were caught up in the flow. They found a place about halfway back on a park bench, from where they watched the proceedings. The Duke rode his horse to the end of the church and turned to look at the assembled crowd.

  ‘Right,’ he barked. ‘Stand easy and listen up.’

  ‘Why’s he in charge?’ said Will. ‘I mean he’s a Duke and all but there are some other people wearing crowns in here.’

  ‘Just is,’ said Tragedy. ‘Greatest General ever they says. The Iron Duke!’

  ‘Leadership is not about titles, youngster ,’ said a voice from about knee level. He looked down to see the two Georges grinning up at them. ‘It’s about force of personality, and he is the big cheese because no one else has had the bally nerve to tell him he isn’t.’

  The Duke may have been in charge, but it was clear once he began talking that all the other Spits wanted to chip in and add their thoughts. Within a couple of minutes it had turned into a barely controlled shouting match, with the Duke as referee.

  The talk kept circling around the fact that time stopping had happened before, but that it had never lasted this long, and it was going on longer than before, what did it mean? And why were the dragons attacking when they should be defending the city? Some spits said the dragons had gone mad, some said they were under some kind of spell.

  Will gathered from the casual way they all talked about magic that there was quite a long history of magic going wrong in the city, because they didn’t seem especially surprised by it all. The problem was that none of them had any idea where the magic might be coming from, and if they did not get time back into joint before midnight it was also possible that Spits like Ariel and the Fusilier would not be regenerated and would be frozen for ever. Which gave him a horrible premonition about his mother and Jo.

  The general feeling was that they would eventually find out who was behind this and shut them down, but that London was too vast a haystack to find the needle in with anything like enough speed to avoid very serious damage.

  Will looked around the watery building and felt his frustration building. Too much talking, none of which really was helping, none of which he really understood, and certainly none of which was helping him get Jo or his mother moving again.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ he said to Tragedy. ‘It’s all talk. Nothing’s getting done. This is all—’

  Will had the uncomfortable feeling that everything had gone a little too quiet and that everyone was now listening to them. He looked up and saw the Duke glaring.

  ‘If the boy has quite finished talking?’ he said with icy politeness.

  ‘His name is Will,’ said the Georges in unison.

  ‘His name is not of great interest to me,’ said the Duke, ‘but his situation is. I am reminded that we have not yet established why he alone moves when all the Regulars don’t.’

  Everyone turned to look at Will with interest. He felt suddenly very alone and uncomfortable under this mass scrutiny. The Duke pointed at Tragedy.

  ‘Little Tragedy. Is he otherly gifted? A Maker, a Shifter, or even some hitherto unseen species of boy-Glint?’

  ‘No, your grace,’ said Tragedy. ‘He’s a perfectly normal boy just like me. Standard issue. He’s worried about his sister though. He’s a good egg.’

  ‘Are you, Mr Will?’ said the Duke. ‘A good egg?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Will.

  ‘Well, what else DO you know? Do you for example know why or how time has stopped in the city?’ said the Duke.

  Will shook his head.

  ‘Do you know who has stopped it?’

  Again Will shook his head. The Duke sighed with disappointment and cleared his throat.

  ‘Then if you have none of those pieces of information, perhaps you would do us the great favour of sitting quietly back there and letting your elders and betters try and solve this problem before it gets out of hand.’

  ‘OK,’ said Will, ‘I don’t know why, or how or who. But when you want to know where I think all this is coming from, let me know. I mean if you want to find the needle in that haystack you’re all talking about.’

  The Duke blinked and watched him sit down.

  ‘Right’ he said. ‘I’ll bite. Stand up and say your piece. You have my attention.’

  ‘Good,’ said Will, staying in the sitting position. ‘And now I’d like your word.’

  ‘Careful,’ said Tragedy under his breath. ‘Old Hooky has a temper.’

  ‘And why would I give my word to an insolent puppy?’ said the Duke.

  ‘Because if I’m right, I need your help,’ said
Will. ‘If I can help you find out who’s doing this by telling you where I think it’s coming from, then I’d like you to do something for me.’

  ‘Very mercenary,’ said the Duke. ‘Rather distasteful. Not a gentleman’s attitude.’

  ‘I just want you to help get my sister back,’ said Will. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the Duke, and harrumphed.

  Will had never actually heard anyone harrumph before: it was an embarrassed clearing of the throat mixed in with a cough and a grunt.

  ‘Is that all?’ said the Duke. ‘Well. Apologies. Does you credit, I’m sure. And I’ve no doubt we should have done that anyway in the normal course of things, once this is over. But yes . . .’

  He looked round the phalanx of soldiers in front of him. All the heads nodded.

  ‘. . . we will of course help a lady in distress.’

  Will decided not to say she wasn’t a lady, she was only a Jo, a very annoying and often quite rude sort of a sister, but he decided not to.

  ‘OK,’ he said, fishing in his pocket and pulling out Jo’s broken bracelet. ‘If there’s magic behind this, then whatever stops the magic must be the same kind of magic, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said the Duke.

  Will held out the bracelet.

  ‘You know what that is?’

  ‘A bead?’ said the Duke.

  ‘A coffee bean,’ said one of the Georges.

  ‘It’s an Egyptian beetle,’ said Will. ‘It’s called a scarab.’

  The Duke looked at Will.

  ‘I know what it is because there’s a huge one in the British Museum. My mum took me there. There’s a whole room, in fact there’s lots of huge rooms full of Egyptian stuff. And when my sister was wearing this, she wasn’t affected by the magic. She moved like me. Then when it was torn off she stopped like everyone else. So it must be Egyptian magic, and if it is, then the first place you should look is in the British Museum.’

  ‘How do you know the beetle works?’ said the Duke. ‘Do you have a beetle?’

  ‘Scarab,’ said Will and held up his wrist. ‘And yes.’

  ‘And your sister was taken?’ said the Duke.

  ‘I just told you: she froze the moment the bead broke off her wrist,’ said Will. ‘I saw it. It was horrible. And then I had to slip it off my wrist to avoid getting taken by another dragon, and I froze until Tradge here put it back on for me.’

  ‘I did,’ said Tragedy proudly, looking round at the crowd. ‘I did! Me! He was froze and then I brought him back to life!’

  ‘That proves it was the bead,’ said George. ‘And the bead says it’s ancient Egyptian magic. There was also a stone hawk that looked very Egyptian that was with the cat Hodge, and the place where there’s most Ancient Egyptian stuff is . . .’

  ‘As you say, in the museum,’ finished the Duke. ‘Good thinking. Not final proof by any means but . . .’

  He raised a hand to stop Will’s objection.

  ‘. . . but, by an embarrassingly long chalk, the very best idea we’ve had so far. Right, volunteers. I want a scouting party . . .’

  The Duke might have been a stiff-necked snob when running a meeting, but once he had a plan to make, Will could see he was something else entirely. All the other spits stopped arguing or trying to have their say and just listened to him. In a few clear and short sentences he had outlined what he wanted, who should ‘volunteer’ and how they should proceed.

  The only problem was that none of the planning seemed to involve Will being part of the group.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

  No one heard. So he shouted.

  ‘EXCUSE ME!’

  Everyone stopped and turned to look at him again.

  ‘I’m going too,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the Duke. ‘You have no training. You’re not a soldier. Leave it to those who are. Your use has been in giving us what may be useful intelligence. Now stay out of the way, please.’

  ‘But, no, that wasn’t . . . that’s not the deal!’ protested Will, the bitterness of betrayal choking him.

  The Duke pinned him with a steely eye.

  ‘The deal, young man, was we would help you to find your sister and free her. There was no talk of you coming along. The best way you can help us help you is to stay back here and let trained men, grown men, take it from here,’ he said.

  And with that he turned away and continued his briefing. Will felt more frustrated than he’d ever felt in his life. A tiny part of him was sort of relieved that he wasn’t going to have to fight more dragons, but he knew that was the scared part of him, and the need to get Jo back was much bigger than that. He couldn’t just stay behind. But nobody wanted to hear him.

  He looked down at Tragedy, who just shrugged.

  ‘Best do as he says,’ the small boy muttered uncomfortably.

  Will felt utterly alone, as nastily alone as you can only really be in a large crowd that’s ignoring you. All he wanted, all he felt he needed, was for just one person to back him up. But Tragedy was avoiding his eyes and the Georges had disappeared into the group surrounding the Duke.

  ‘No,’ said Will. ‘No.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said a woman’s voice that he heard in the same instant he felt the wind from the downbeat of a pair of wings landing behind him. He turned and saw the Finsbury Victory standing behind him. She smiled grimly and put a hand on his shoulder.

  It may have been a grim smile, but Will felt it light him up like sunshine.

  ‘You came,’ he said.

  ‘I said I’d try,’ she agreed. ‘Now let’s get these men organized!’

  She stuck two fingers in her mouth, and let rip a loud and most unladylike whistle that cut through the hubbub like an axe.

  The Duke looked up and as he stared at her all the other soldiers followed his gaze.

  ‘You have something to say, ma’am?’ he said.

  ‘I do. I was telling the boy he is right,’ she said. ‘And now I’m telling you.’

  ‘And what are you telling, ma’am?’ he said, dangerously polite.

  ‘I’m telling him he is right to want to go with your scouting party. How else can they identify his sister from the multitude of people no doubt frozen inside the museum? He’ll definitely have to go along, if only so you can keep your word to him.’

  ‘He’s just a boy,’ said the Duke. ‘This is man’s business.’

  ‘He killed a dragon,’ said Victory. ‘I saw it. If you don’t believe me, it’s stuck to the railings at Coram’s Fields. Show him the shield, boy.’

  Will raised the dragon’s shield. The soldiers muttered amongst themselves. It was a rather impressed kind of muttering.

  The Duke met her eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’d be a rotten kind of general if I spent my time arguing against victory I suppose. Very well. The boy goes too.’

  Will had that conflicted, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach again. He was elated and terrified at the same time. In fact now he’d won the argument, that tiny scared part of his brain seemed to be expanding at breakneck speed. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping like a bass drum. He had the nasty thought that whereas these spits could revive if they were hurt and put back on their plinths by midnight, he had no option to play again.

  He couldn’t revive.

  For them, if things went wrong, it would just be a fight.

  That was why they were so cheerful.

  For him it would be Game Over.

  And no reboot.

  19

  The Raid

  The soldiers who were chosen for what the Duke called ‘the scouting patrol’ came together through the milling crowd of other disappointed statues and began to organize themselves. Will felt dwarfed by them as they clustered around. It seemed there were soldiers from all periods in Britain’s history, from sword-bearing knights to men in tin hats and serious-looking rifles.

  A World War One officer carrying a raincoat untangled himself from
a binocular case and handed the coat to a tough-looking companion with a groundsheet worn over his uniform like a cape.

  ‘Hold these for me ’til we get back will you, Gunner?’ he said. ‘Don’t think it’s going to rain . . .’

  The Gunner took them and winked at Will.

  ‘Just a bleeding valet, me,’ he said.

  The Officer turned and shook Will’s hand.

  ‘Don’t worry young shaver,’ he grinned. ‘Stick close and you’ll be fine. We’ve got heavy cavalry and air support.’

  He pointed at two full-sized knights with lances, introduced as more St Georges, one from Regent’s Park, the other from somewhere called Dorset Rise.

  ‘And you know this fellow, I gather,’ said the Officer, pointing downwards.

  ‘Hello old thing,’ said one of the small Georges looking back at him. ‘Fancy meeting you here. Welcome to the bunfight and all that rot.’

  ‘And this is the Pilot. He’ll be watching over us,’ continued The Officer.

  Will saw a flyer in a World War Two flying helmet and a life jacket. His arms were attached to wide spreading wings that hung over them, blotting out the view of the watery church roof above them.

  ‘What ho!’ said the Pilot. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll just stooge up over the museum roof and have a bit of a shufty. Be a piece of cake.’

  Will definitely wished people would stop talking about cakes and bunfights because it reminded him of how hungry he was, but most of all he wanted them to stop telling him not to worry, because all that did was remind him of the very many things he should be worrying about.

  He was still thinking this and feeling even more starving a quarter of an hour later, as he found himself moving through the backstreets of Bloomsbury at the centre of a tight squad of soldiers who had closed round them like well-armed brick.