Dragonfire

by Anne Forbes

  “Come, Archie,” beckoned the MacArthur. “You know the Ranger’s house. Go and tell him, or one of his children, what has happened. Ask him to tell Sir James that we have a prisoner in the hill and that his name is Dougal MacLeod.”

  10. Pigeon Post

  At first glance, there was really nothing remarkable about them at all. Two ordinary-looking pigeons sitting on the windowsill of an Edinburgh school was not guaranteed to excite much interest in passers-by at the best of times, and it had to be admitted that this was hardly the best of times. The weather had again turned cold and the thick mist, known to Edinburgh residents as the “haar,” had returned.

  Cars and buses, their visibility now reduced to almost zero, picked their way tentatively up and down the narrow confines of the High Street and the hardy citizens of the Canongate were far too interested in finishing their shopping to worry about a couple of pigeons.

  Had they been more attentive, however, they would have realized that the pigeons, on their lofty windowsill, seemed a strangely anxious pair. Their beady eyes missed nothing as the mist swirled coldly round the school playground. “I don’t much like this haar, Jaikie,” remarked one. “I think his lordship must have conjured it up!”

  “Ocht! You’ve got his lordship on the brain, Archie!” replied Jaikie. “Ever since Clara told us about that bird that attacked them on the hill.”

  “Well, who else could it be but Amgarad? Feathers like dirty rags, she said.” He shivered. “And Amgarad on the loose means that Rothlan isn’t far away!”

  “But why would he send a mist? Edinburgh weather is always changeable. It’s often like this,” Despite his words Jaikie was not nearly as confident as he sounded and looking rather anxiously around, shrank a bit further back against the window.

  “Aye. There’s probably nothing in it. Just another haar,” remarked Archie.

  “As long as Amgarad isn’t in it!” muttered Jaikie. “We’re pigeons, remember!”

  “Well, I didn’t ask to be a pigeon!” retorted Archie huffily. “I wanted to be an eagle, didn’t I? This pigeon business is just a dead loss. Why couldn’t we have been eagles instead of stupid pigeons? What a life! Nothing but cooo, cooo and peck, peck all the time. My feet, let me tell you, are blooming freezing!”

  “Archie! Will ye haud yer whisht! An eagle! We’re supposed to be unobtrusive, we’re supposed to melt into the scenery and you — you want to be an eagle! For goodness sake, this is the High Street, no’ the Highlands! We’re no’ here to cause a sensation and if it weren’t for your stupidity, we wouldn’t be here in the first place!”

  “I ken! I ken, but I’m that cold and starving hungry. How long do they keep these children in the classrooms for anyway?”

  Jaikie fluffed his feathers against the chill mist and shifted on his claws. “Don’t ask me,” he muttered, “but Hamish said we had to talk to Neil, so we’ll just have to hang around until they let him into the playground.”

  Archie eyed him sulkily. “Let’s do something then. What about taking a look through the windows to see if we can see him or Clara?”

  Neil, as it happened, wasn’t hard to find. The pigeons spotted him at the first window they looked through. The children in the class looked up as the birds fluttered against the glass.

  “Look, Miss! Pigeons!”

  “Yes,” agreed the teacher, “and you have all seen pigeons before, so don’t try to change the subject. Now,” she looked at the clock, “make a line by the door. It’s time for play.”

  A short time later Neil followed the rest of his class downstairs, full of excitement at seeing the pigeons. They’d never, ever, come to the school before. Something really important must have happened, he thought, for them to take such a risk.

  The school janitor, Old MacGregor, stood dourly by the playground door. Neil saw him peering suspiciously into the mist and hurried towards him. A thin, dirty-looking black and white cat seemed to be the object of his wrath. He stamped his foot at it threateningly as it tried to slink into the warmth.

  “Shoo! Shoo!” he shouted at it, “go on, off with you!” The cat miaowed pathetically and backed off into the mist.

  “Dinna you be feeding that cat,” the janitor called after Neil as he went into the playground. “I’ve seen you encouraging it with bits of sandwich!”

  “But it’s a stray and it’s starving, Mr MacGregor,” Neil protested.

  “I’m no’ having it here! Now mind what I say or I’ll be telling your dad on you!”

  Neil grinned at him, knowing that the threat was an empty one, and slipped with the rest of his class into the swirling whiteness of the haar. He walked to one side and had barely taken the sandwich from his pocket when he felt the cat rubbing round his ankles. Kneeling down, he undid the plastic bag and broke the sandwich up for her. Poor thing, he thought, she was so thin and the summer holidays were near. Who was going to feed her then?

  A burst of loud laughter told him that Graham Flint and his gang were nearby. The cat heard them too and alert to danger, disappeared before he could give her the other half of the sandwich. It was only when he looked round to call her that he realized how really thick the haar was. Fear gripped him for an instant as he remembered his last encounter in such weather. Quickly, he groped his way towards where he thought the school wall ought to be and sighed with relief when it loomed in front of him. Now that he had his bearings, he felt more confident. “Hamish!” he called quietly. “Hamish!”

  There was a sudden flap of wings as two pigeons fluttered down to land on his shoulders.

  “Hello, Neil,” said one. “Hamish couldn’t come. I’m Jaikie and that’s Archie.”

  “I thought it was you when I saw you at the window. What’s happened? Is anything wrong?”

  “We’ve brought a message from the MacArthur for you to pass on to your father and Sir James. That man, Dougal MacLeod, he got into the hill and discovered Arthur!”

  “Dougal MacLeod! In the hill?” Neil gasped at this particular piece of information. “Gosh! That’s a disaster!” he muttered, horrified. Then he visualized the effect it would have on Sir James. “Good Lord!” he whispered, “Sir James will go absolutely mental! But what happened? Where is he now?”

  “He’s in the hill. We have him prisoner. The MacArthur wants to see Sir James urgently.”

  “I bet he does,” said Neil feelingly, “but look, there’s a problem. I’ll not be able to leave school until half past three.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Jaikie, “as long as the message is passed on.” He flexed his wings as if to fly off, but Archie had seen the sandwich in Neil’s hand.

  “Hey, we don’t need to fly back just yet,” he said, leaning forward and rubbing his head against Neil’s cheek.

  “Don’t tell me, Archie,” grinned Neil. “You’re starving hungry as usual, am I right?”

  “I really am, Neil, and your mother makes grand sandwiches!” cooed Archie.

  Neil held up his sandwich as Archie and then Jaikie hopped down his sleeve and started to peck at it hungrily. They were still pecking away happily when Graham Flint and his cronies appeared suddenly.

  “Here he is!” said Graham Flint triumphantly. “Will you just look at him! He’s feeding the pigeons now! At least it’s a change from that manky old cat!”

  There was a burst of laughter as they crowded nearer. Jaikie and Archie fluttered into the air in alarm as the boys came closer but they had their own built-in means of retaliation. As they flew over Graham Flint, they dropped two rather large calling cards — and despite the mist, their aim was true.

  As Graham clawed the white muck from his hair, the pigeons soared above the school. “If only we had both been eagles,” was Archie’s regretful remark as they flew back towards the hill.

  11. Plots and Plans

  That evening, Sir James, the Ranger, Jamie Todd and the children sat grouped around the MacArthur’s throne in the Great Hall.

  “The thing is,” Sir James was sa
ying, “you can’t keep him here indefinitely. He’s a senior officer and is bound to have told someone where he was going.”

  “In other words,” confirmed Jamie, “if you’re not careful, you’ll have a visit from Customs and Excise. And not a social call either.”

  The MacArthur heaved a sigh. “We can’t have that!”

  Clara looked shyly at Sir James. “But if you let him go, won’t he tell the Excise people what he found and bring them straight here?”

  Neil looked at her in disgust. “Use your head, Clara,” he said. “If he tells them about Arthur, they’ll think he’s gone completely off his rocker.”

  “But don’t you see, Neil? He doesn’t need to tell them anything about Arthur. He just has to get them outside the distillery with metal-detectors and the pipeline will lead them straight here!”

  “You leave that side of it to me,” interrupted the MacArthur. “We have ways of protecting ourselves. The main problem was stopping Arthur’s supply and that has been done.”

  “How is Arthur taking it now that there is no more whisky?” asked Jamie.

  The MacArthur heaved a sigh. “It was bad enough when he noticed that his lake was shrinking but when it disappeared altogether he went wild. Roared around slurping up all the wee pools he could find and then rampaged about blowing fire and smoke everywhere. I’ve had my fill of that dragon, I can tell you!”

  “But he seems quite resigned now, does he?”

  The MacArthur grinned. “Well, according to Archie, he still hangs hopefully around the tap but I think he’ll be all right as long as no one,” and here he glared at Archie, “gives him any more whisky.”

  “Och! I’ll no’ be doing that again in a hurry, MacArthur. It’s just that Arthur is more depressed than ever now.”

  Clara sounded sympathetic. “Is there nothing else that would cheer him up, Archie?” she asked.

  “I ken fine what would cheer him up but it’s a pretty impossible dream.”

  “Tell us anyway,” asked Clara.

  “Well, he’s always talking about his lady-love. A beautiful dragon she was, but after the troubles he doesn’t even know if she survived. Bessie, her name was.”

  “Bessie!” she repeated thoughtfully, her head tilting to one side. Then her eyes sharpened. “Archie, did you say … Bessie?”

  “Aye.”

  “Now think carefully, Archie. Did Arthur ever call her … Nessie?”

  “Now that you mention it, I believe he did.”

  “My … Goodness!!!” whispered Sir James.

  “The Loch Ness … Clara! Do you realize what you’re saying?” gasped her brother.

  The MacArthur, at a loss to know what was happening but aware that he had missed something vital along the line, gave a thunderous roar. “Will – You – Tell – Me – What – You – Are – All – Talking – About?” he screeched.

  Clara said excitedly. “You see, MacArthur, we think we know who Arthur’s Nessie is! Wouldn’t it be great if we could bring them together again after all these years? Then Arthur wouldn’t be lonely any more.”

  The MacArthur looked as though he were about to burst a blood vessel. “I am not,” he stated, “I am not going to have another dragon in this hill! One is quite enough! Two would be two too many! I won’t have it, I tell you! I am not giving a home to any more dragons and that’s flat!”

  “But I wasn’t thinking of bringing Nessie here,” explained Clara, her eyes alight. “I was thinking of taking Arthur to Nessie!”

  Sir James almost had a fit. “Are you quite out of your mind, Clara? How on earth do you suppose that we could get a dragon from one side of Scotland to the other without anyone noticing? On a lead?” He threw out his hands helplessly. “Dragons, may I remind you, aren’t exactly everyday objects, you know. It would be bad enough transporting an elephant. People at least know what elephants are. But a dragon?” He shook his head. “It’s quite impossible!”

  The MacArthur coughed. “Where,” he asked, “where does this other dragon live?”

  “Up in the Highlands,” answered Neil. “They called a loch after her, Loch Ness.”

  “Humph,” grunted the MacArthur, “did they now. Nothing new in that! Why do you think this hill is called Arthur’s Seat, eh?”

  “The Highlands,” Archie crooned. “My, I’d love to see the mountains again.”

  “We are not going to the Highlands, with or without a dragon, and that’s final!” snorted Sir James.

  The MacArthur drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t very high, and said authoritatively, “I am in favour of it!”

  “You would be,” said Sir James, “but …”

  “I am, too,” announced Jamie Todd. He quailed at the withering glare that Sir James shot at him but continued bravely. “Well, I am, Sir James. This here dragon has been nothing but a pack of trouble for as long as I can remember. If we can get rid of him for good then I think we should take the chance!”

  “Well spoken,” said the MacArthur, slapping his knee. “My sentiments entirely!”

  Sir James looked stunned. “You’re in favour of it? You must be out of your minds. All of you! Even if we did manage to get a vehicle big enough to carry him, what on earth would we do when we got to the shores of Loch Ness? Whole expeditions with the latest equipment spend months patrolling Loch Ness, hoping for a glimpse of her! What would we do? Stand at the edge of the water like complete ninnies shouting ‘Nessie! Nessie!’”

  “Och! I can solve that problem,” said the MacArthur. “If Arthur’s Nessie is in that loch then there will be faeries looking after her. Dragons can’t fend for themselves at all. Actually, my daughter, Ellan, is visiting the Highlands at the moment and I will have her make all the arrangements.” He broke off in annoyance. “Weel, Hamish? What is it?”

  A worried-looking Hamish, who had been trying to get a word in edgeways, now bowed low before his master. “MacArthur,” he said anxiously, “please give the matter some thought. Is it wise to let Arthur go?”

  The MacArthur had the grace to look uncomfortable but stuck firmly to his guns. “I’m fed up with that confounded dragon, Hamish!” he growled. “Completely fed up! And I don’t see what difference it will make if he goes or stays. As long as we have the firestones, we are perfectly safe. We don’t need Arthur!”

  Wishing fervently that the MacArthur’s daughter, the Lady Ellan, had not chosen that particular time to visit her mother’s family in the Highlands, Hamish persisted in his argument.

  “Nevertheless, MacArthur, I don’t think it’s a good idea for Arthur to leave us. It’s too risky now that Amgarad has been seen on the hill. Lady Ellan would be the first to tell you so! Master,” he sounded anguished, “there are too many questions that remain unanswered! How did Amgarad break out of Jarishan? Why is he here? Is Lord Rothlan’s power returning? I beg you; please keep Arthur here in the hill. This has been his home for hundreds of years. I’m sure Lady Ellan would agree.”

  But the MacArthur, annoyed perhaps at the implication that his daughter knew better than he did, was adamant. “If we can get Arthur to Loch Ness,” he said flatly, “then he’s going! And if it’ll make you any happier then you can take the firestones into your care the minute Arthur leaves the hill! But he is going, Hamish.” He put his hand on the top of his head. “I’ve had that dragon up to here!”

  The Ranger then chipped in. “Actually, I think I can solve the transport problem,” he said. “A farmer friend of mine often grazes his sheep on the hill. He’ll be bringing a flock down tomorrow and he owes me a few favours. There’ll be no problem about us having the use of his transporter for a few days. It’s a massive thing!”

  “Hang on a bit, Dad,” interrupted Neil. “Before we make any plans, hadn’t we better tell Arthur? After all, he might not like being shut up in a big lorry and bumped over half of Scotland!”

  “Don’t you worry about Arthur!” said the MacArthur grimly. “He’s going whether he likes it or not. Did you say that th
e transporter will be free tomorrow, Ranger?”

  “Aye! Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Then,” said the MacArthur, “if everybody is in agreement, I suggest we plan ‘Operation Arthur’ for tomorrow night!”

  12. Operation Arthur

  It was a dark night, for which Sir James was profoundly thankful. As he and the Ranger stood beside the enormous transporter, waiting for Arthur to appear, Sir James shifted impatiently on his feet. “I wish they’d get a move on,” he muttered, looking round.

  The Ranger too surveyed the scene with some misgiving, for the side of the hill was more than a trifle crowded. Apart from the flock of sheep that had been off-loaded from the transporter, the slopes were also home to a mass of MacArthurs who were being regimented here and there by their agitated chief.

  Sir James eyed the proceedings apprehensively. “I don’t like the look of this,” he said to the Ranger. “It’s busier than Piccadilly Circus up here! What on earth is the MacArthur up to?”

  The Ranger swept an eye over the ranks of the MacArthurs. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “You’d almost think he was expecting trouble!”

  Sir James muttered something under his breath.

  The Ranger’s lips twisted in a smile. “How is everything going at the distillery?” he asked in an attempt to divert Sir James’s mind from the anxieties of the present.

  Sir James’s face brightened. “Jamie,” he answered, sounding considerably more cheerful, “is just finishing things off for me. He’s done a wonderful job. We’ve managed to retrieve most of the whisky; so much so that I doubt if anyone will be able to tell that there was ever any discrepancy.”

  “Pity he’ll miss seeing the dragon, though,” remarked the Ranger.

  Clara rushed over to them, brimming with excitement. “Arthur’s coming now, Dad. And he’s really something. Look … there he is!”

  The dragon emerged from the tunnel, his brilliant colours caught in the light of the MacArthurs’ torches. They watched as he moved forward across the hillside, flexing his wings in joy at being above ground. As he felt the breath of the cool night air, the dragon lifted his great head, stretched his powerful wings and flapped them experimentally.