Roger meanwhile was doing his best to keep up with Nimp and he realized that he wasn’t the only one. Their little group wasn’t in the best of conditions at all. Taog could barely run, even with the help of his brother, and both he and Mary were burdened with their respective rucksack and handbag responsibilities. Also, they had both exerted themselves well beyond their normal endurances, both physically from their crossing of the volcano’s interior, and also from their strenuous and unusual mental exertions of applying Dragon Lore and Witch magic.
They had barely run a hundred yards when Shlik was upon them again and closely followed by the armed wood-mill men. Nimp turned and saw the Black Imp closing in on the heels of Mary. Then Mary dived to the ground just as Shlik pounced. A jet of black and oily goo shot from the Black Imp’s mouth, intending to snare her in an oily mesh. But before the sticky mess got to her, a cloud of ‘dark’ exploded right on top of it. Nimp had hurled one of his ‘dark’ bombs just in time.
Roger sprang forward and helped Mary onto her feet again.
“Quick Mary, we’ve got to keep going, we’ve just got to!”
Nimp was now standing between the children and Shlik. The men were now running up to join them. Nimp hurled another ‘dark’ bomb, but this time he purposefully aimed it to explode behind Shlik. This now caused a big, boiling cloud of smog-like ‘dark’ to billow and boil between Shlik and the approaching men.
Nimp yelled to his friends, “Go now! Get to ver Woodz. Find ver Green Witch. I vill do vot I can to hold zem off here!” He then turned to Shlik. “You’z iz not goingz any further, Shlik. I knowz you. You and your kindz are a disgraze to all ver Imp races and you’z iz not getting my friendz today!”
Roger ran onwards with Mary. The last thing he saw as he glanced back, was Nimp and Shlik springing toward each other and clashing in mid-air. Then as they grappled together they were smothered by the smoky tendrils of Nimps ‘dark’ and he could see no more.
Yllib and Taog had managed to get a little further away now and Roger and Mary were doing their best to catch them up. The cries of the men pursuing them became faded and muffled as they too became momentarily entangled in the Night Imp’s cloud. Roger knew that if it hadn’t been for Nimp, they would have all been captive or dead by now.
Roger was running as hard as he could, pulling Mary along with him, but she was breathing very heavily now and obviously hurting. The two Hircumen waited and let them catch up and then they continued on together. But Roger could hear the cries of the men again closing on them. They would be upon them in mere moments.
But before the men could come upon them, Mr. Briggs suddenly arrived, in a blaring, glaring roar of engine and blinding, bright beams from his jeep. He had a couple of men in the back, holding long staves with vicious looking hooks on the end. Roger recognized these as tools the men used at the Wood-mills.
Mr. Briggs had driven at break-neck speed, ploughing straight through the clouds of ‘dark, all caution to the wind. He knew that his own neck was on the line as well as his foolhardy son’s, if he didn’t ensure these felons were captured.
The jeep spun about and skidded to a halt just in front of them and they were now cut off. Roger looked wildly about him but there was nowhere left to run!
Roger stood frozen and blinded in the blazing beam of the search-light. He looked away and shielded his eyes. Then he gasped. He could just make out that there were now several more jeep-loads of men approaching from the West and East Camps, their headlights stabbing through the sky as they hurtled across the blasted wasteland of the Black Heath.
Soon they were completely surrounded, as jeep after jeep arrived and dozens of brutish men jumped from them and quickly encircled the small group of valiant but helpless friends.
Roger could just make out the edge of the woods, tantalizingly close. They could be there in a few minutes, if they had a jeep. But they didn’t, they were tired and injured and it now looked hopeless. They had been caught. Roger felt in his pocket, fingering the magic tokens he kept there, but he knew that wasn’t how they worked. He still didn’t really understand how they did work. They certainly didn’t activate just because he wanted them to though, that was for sure.
He held Mary’s hand and turned back towards his father. He wasn’t going to face him like his wayward son, or as a mere boy, he was going to face him as a dragon!
CHAPTER 13:
THE GREEN WITCH
The wood-mill men nervously approached the captives but then stopped. The Foreman halting them, now awaiting directions from Mr. Briggs.
Mr. Briggs stepped forward and tried to turn his frown into something friendlier as he slowly approached his son.
“Now it’s alright, Roger, I understand. It’s very easy to get mixed up with the wrong sort; hot-headed youth and all that.” He wryly grinned, or at least tried to. What Roger saw was more a grotesque grimace of a grin, one that was obviously false and not at all holding any warmth or humor. He then held out his arms to Roger and said, “Come to me, Roger, let’s put all this nasty business behind us, shall we? Just walk over to me, Roger. You’ll be quite safe now, I promise.”
But Roger said nothing and just stood his ground. There was no way he was going to abandon his friends. They were his true family. While he had a single breath in his body he was going to do all he could to fulfil his oath to the Dragon Queen and the Tree King.
He’d rather die with them than lie with the likes of his father!
The lights from the jeep made it impossible to look ahead, so he stood still and silent, his eyes staring at the ground and Mary leaning wearily next to him. Then before anything further could be said, a group of men came running up. They were carrying two limp bodies.
It was Mr. Shlik and Nimp. They had both been run over by the careering jeep of Mr. Briggs as he’d sped through the cloud of ‘dark’ where the two Imps had grappled together in a death-lock.
Roger’s heart turned to lead. He didn’t know if Nimp was dead or just unconscious.
“Take them to two separate Jeeps,” Mr. Briggs curtly ordered. “Attend to and keep our Mr. Shlik here away from that other Imp. We don’t want them ripping each other to bits, do we? Well, not yet anyway. They’re all filthy freaks if you ask me,” he muttered under his breath. The men hurried off to deposit the two unconscious Imps in the back of two nearby Jeeps.
“Right, bring the boy and girl to me and tie up those two goat creatures and put them in the Jeep along with their Imp and follow me. We’ll take them back to West Camp right away.”
Roger remained unmoving and two of the men had to almost drag him to his father. Another two grabbed hold of Mary and took her and threw her in the seat behind his. Yllib and Taog were tied with their hands behind their backs and put in the rear of the following jeep that held Nimp.
“So, my boy, you’re still playing your silly games, eh? Giving it the silent, sullen, sulking treatment, eh? Well, we’ll soon see about that.”
Mr. Briggs forced Roger into the passenger seat of his jeep and ordered all the watch men to return to their stations and be ready to move out of the Black Heath first thing in the morning.
“You don’t want to be caught out here when the DDT planes arrive now do you?” he told them. “Nothing’s going to grow in this place after tomorrow. Not for a long, long while!”
Roger was scared, but not for himself. He realized that his father was trying to protect him, in his own warped way, from the worst consequences awaiting him, but what really terrified him was what lay in store for his friends and especially Mary. And how on Erf were they ever going to get Grannie Maddam back to her proper size and out of her hibernation? Things looked really grim.
Then Roger remembered Regor, hidden within his dragon egg, tucked up inside his rucksack. “Oh blithering, blistering Bunsens, what about Regor?”
Roger realized that they were bound to discover the dragon’s egg once they searched his stuff. “And maybe they already knew about Regor and what he meant to li
fe on and under Erf,” he thought, his mind now racing with the dreadful possibilities. “And what would they do?” he worried, chewing at his lip. “Would they just kill Regor outright, in his egg, or would they try and hatch him under controlled conditions and do horrible experiments on him? His dad had said something about experiments being done in Government Labs. That sounded very, very bad indeed.”
Dozens of jeeps now set off, to return to their Camps, but Mr. Briggs’ convoy with his prisoners, headed West. It was there that Doctor Mudfinger would be waiting and he would take charge of the prisoners. Also, he was the one that had the means to communicate directly to the Over Lord, this being the mysterious source of the great wealth and power that had been given to the trusted members of the Secret Cabal. Mr. Briggs included, of course.
Roger was at his wit’s end now. He realized that given time he could learn and become skilled in all the arts of Dragon Lore, but he didn’t have any time. There was just him, here and now, and all his friends, captive and about to be sent off for torture or execution or worse!
He tried mentally prodding Regor again, to see if he could wake him up and get him to help in any way he could, but he was still fast asleep and just wouldn’t stir. “There’d be no help from that quarter,” Roger thought glumly to himself.
Mr. Briggs’ convoy, a dozen jeeps full of men, was now leaving the old Green Acre, turning in a wide arc and heading west, when all at once, Roger heard a loud explosion right behind him. He quickly turned around and saw that the jeep right behind them, the one carrying Nimp and the two Hircumen, was shrouded in a thick cloud of smoke and was careering away from them.
The jeep was wildly out of control and Roger couldn’t make out who was driving it.
All the jeeps behind had ploughed into the coiling, black smoke billowing out of it, and were now also going crazily out of control as their drivers found they suddenly couldn’t see a thing.
Meanwhile the renegade jeep had cleared the large, dark cloud that had erupted around it and now seemed to be accelerating and heading straight for them!
Then Roger gasped in surprise and relief. He could see the driver. The driver was Nimp!
The hardy, little Night Imp had regained consciousness and had quickly realized what was going on. Using his ‘dark’ arts he had managed to overpower the driver and guards, exploding them out of the jeep, then quickly freeing the two Hircumen from their bonds, he was now in hot pursuit.
However, he had to stand in front of the driver’s seat, in order to reach the pedals and that meant he could barely see over the lower edge of the windscreen. This made driving and steering the car very erratic, but Nimp was managing somehow and he was gaining on them.
Roger could see that he was aiming his jeep straight for them. He could also see that Yllib and Taog were standing up in the hurtling jeep, somehow keeping their balance, and were actually preparing to throw spinning coils of rope over them. It looked like they were intending to rescue him and Mary by lasso, just like cowboys in the Wild West!
Nimp gunned the jeep’s engine as hard as he could and came at them like a torpedo. He deftly swerved and came parallel to Mr Briggs’ jeep. The two jeeps now thundered along through the blasted landscape, neck to neck. Mr. Briggs was cursing and doing all he could to ram into the side of Nimp’s jeep, but Nimp was too quick for him.
“He seems to have got hold of this driving lark really quickly!” Roger thought.
The two jeeps carried on, side by side, speeding directly for the wood’s edge. Mr. Briggs could see the two Hircumen in his rear-view mirrors and understood what they were attempting to do. He now started to weave and swerve his car and so put them off their aim. But to no avail. Yllib’s lasso came arcing over and snared Roger neatly around his mid-torso.
Roger then stood on his seat, while Nimp brought his jeep as close as he could. Then Yllib yelled for Roger to jump and gave a powerful tug on the lasso at the same time. Roger found himself flying the few feet across to Nimp’s jeep and then landing with an ungainly thud at Yllib’s feet.
However, they still had to rescue Mary. Taog called to her to do as Roger had, but he’d forgotten that she was tied up. Taog hurled his lasso and caught her just as Yllib had done but then when she tried to stand up, she couldn’t keep her balance. There was no way she could make the same leap as Roger had done. Roger realized they’d have to get much closer, so they could pull her out or even make the much more dangerous maneuver of ramming her jeep.
But then disaster struck! This time in the very unwelcome shape of the black and oily Mr. Shlik. He too had regained consciousness. And he too had commandeered the jeep he’d been in. He now came racing up, right behind Nimp’s jeep. Roger could see by the expression on his face that he was very angry indeed. The old adage, ‘if looks could kill,’ flickered through Roger’s mind.
The snarling, vicious expression on Shlik’s face was one of pure hatred. Shlik was out for blood!
And soon Roger’s fears were realized. Shlik hurtled with uncaring ferocity straight at Nimp’s jeep, smashing right into it and forcing it into a screeching skid and spin. Then the spinning jeep hit a hidden tree stump and came to a juddering halt. The jeep was wrecked, steam billowing out from under its buckled bonnet and its front tires ripped and flat.
Yllib and Taog had managed to jump clear but Nimp and Roger had taken the brunt of the blow. Roger lay sprawled a few feet away, groaning and feeling dizzy and sick. He checked for broken bones and thankfully found he had none. He was just dazed, battered and bruised.
Then he looked around and saw that Nimp hadn’t been so lucky. He lay slumped unmoving over the jeep’s steering wheel, his legs dangling down, looking like a discarded, dirty old dishcloth.
Shlik’s vehicle hadn’t fared any better, but the deadly and determined Black Imp wasn’t about to let a mere car crash get in the way of his revenge. He wanted Nimp, and he intended to kill him, as horribly and nastily as he possibly could.
As Shlik jumped away from his wrecked jeep and made his way towards Nimp, Mr. Briggs stopped his own jeep and then quickly reversed it back to where Roger lay sprawled in the dirt. Roger though, pulled himself to his feet and tried to get to Nimp before the vengeful Shlik did.
But Mr. Briggs called out first, before either of them got to the helpless Night Imp.
“Stop! Both of you. Mr. Shlik, I understand your anger but believe me when I remind you that our Master the Over-Lord would much prefer that this Night Imp is questioned. You will then have plenty of time to torture him to your black heart’s content. And you will be rewarded.”
Mr. Shlik stopped and brought his rage under control. He knew that what the Humdrum Elder, Mr. Briggs, said was true. He didn’t want to get on the wrong side of his terrible Lord and Master. That would be very bad for him, and very painful too, he had no doubt.
“OK, just surrender and bring your Night Imp friend over to me, Roger, I’ll keep him safe here; and do remember, I still have your grubby, commoner of a girlfriend, so please don’t try anything foolish, or Mr. Shlik might just have to be let loose on her instead.”
More Humdrum jeeps were now pulling up behind him and Roger could see they were rapidly being outnumbered. “Oh! by Archimedes’ Screwy Screws!” he thought. “We were so close too!”
Then he turned toward his tyrant of a father, realizing there was nothing to do now but surrender.
But before he could get more than a single syllable out, he suddenly squawked and stopped, frozen to the spot. He stared straight ahead, mouth agape and wide-eyed in wonder. Then he slowly smiled and said, “I don’t think so, Father. I think it’s you who should surrender!”
Then all at once a charging horde of Hircumen, led by the indomitable Captain Caprinus, burst out from the trees. They came leaping over the Humdrum’s jeeps and knocking the men for six, left and right. But it wasn’t only that. What had really made Roger’s heart leap with joy, more than anything else, was seeing their old friend and mighty steed, Jericho, the
Sabre-tooth Tiger.
But this time Jericho wasn’t running away, he was charging, and upon his back sat an elderly and tall, willowy woman with wild and wavy, green hair. She was dressed in long, rippling robes of erfy green and in her right hand she was wielding a glowing wand of twisted green-wood.
The Green Witch had arrived in the nick of time!
Jericho came hurtling on toward Mr. Briggs, who sat dumbstruck with horror and sheer disbelief. The mighty Sabre-tooth Tiger charged right at him and then with a sudden twist of his huge and curving tusks, flipped the jeep over onto its side, tumbling its contents onto the ground.
“Careful!” Roger cried out in alarm, running to the jeep. “Mary’s tied up in there!”
Roger quickly found her sprawled on her stomach, wriggling and trying to free herself from her bonds. She was obviously in a very foul mood now, despite being so bone-weary and bruised. He could tell this by the stream of colorful swear words she was screaming to all who could hear.
Roger got her untied and quickly told her what was happening.
“It’s alright, Mary! I think we can make it now. Caprinus and Jericho are here … and … and … they’ve come with the Green Witch herself!” he finished breathlessly.
But they weren’t out of the woods yet … or more correctly, in them. They still had Mr. Briggs and all the other jeep loads of workmen to contend with, not to mention the evil Mr. Shlik.
The Green Witch called out to Captain Caprinus, “Get your Hircumen to take the boy and girl and Imp to safety back at the Observer Tree! Jericho and I will deal with these Humdrum fools!”
Caprinus immediately charged towards Roger with several of the Goat-men, all ready to scoop up the embattled companions. But then Shlik, seeing them swiftly approaching and ready to take his hated enemy, the Night Imp, away from him, screamed at them in a mindless rage.
Dragon's Flight Page 13