by Kim M Watt
“Yes, there’s a trick—” Amelia grabbed the thing and pulled.
“Ow! That is not a trick. That’s just you pulling it.”
“It worked before.” She tugged again, and one of his scales flaked sadly away. “Oops.”
“Amelia!”
“Sorry, sorry!” She examined the hungry flower, and gave it an experimental shake. “You didn’t see Gilbert on the way back, did you?”
“No – why?”
“He’s …” she hesitated, then stuck a claw into the middle of the flower. It released Mortimer and she hurled it across the cavern before it could snap at her. It hit the wall, scattering tools off their hooks, and bounced about the bench, snapping furiously. Mortimer had the uneasy feeling that it was growling, and he mentally crossed Harriet off the list of potential craftsdragons, unless they decided to diversify into unusual forms of home security.
“Thank you. He’s what?”
“He couldn’t stop fussing about the empty farm, and when you and Beaufort didn’t come back, he said he was going out to talk to the dryads.”
“How long ago?”
“A while.” Amelia fidgeted. “I’m worried, Mortimer. I mean, I know he doesn’t fly, so everything takes longer, but what’s he doing out there?”
Mortimer thought of the still, empty fields and Gilbert’s theories about experimental sites, as well as the young dragon’s propensity for stealing Christmas turkeys to stop them being eaten, and filling the grand cavern with chickens he’d “rescued” from what he thought was a terrible prison, but was actually a chicken rescue centre itself.
“Oh no,” he said.
The light was almost gone, but dragon eyes catch and refract the smallest amount of illumination, and as Mortimer and Amelia launched themselves off the ledge outside the cavern they could see the lake like a shivering mirror below them, reflecting the boulders as slices of darkness and catching the stars that were emerging from the thinning cloud. There were no other dragons out. They’d be sharing rabbits in the warmth of the grand cavern or curled into the security of their own, barbecues pumping heat across their scales and setting them into dream-filled sleep. Mortimer and Amelia flew in silence, their broad wings creaking in the still air, their scales taking on the colour of the night.
If they hadn’t been so quiet they would have missed it. An explosion of shouting from the grand cavern, filtering out through the entrance in such a way that one couldn’t be sure if it was cheering or fury, dimly heard and distorted. Mortimer looked away from his scrutiny of the ground, frowning.
“Did you hear that?” he called to Amelia, his voice low.
She was already banking toward the mount. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.”
Mortimer had a funny feeling he would. Gilbert was terribly unshakeable in his beliefs. Mortimer wasn’t at all sure the young dragon would stop to think that diving into a cavern full of dragons like Lord Walter (who was rumoured to be the last living dragon to have actually eaten a human) and Rockford (who felt they should never have stopped eating them), and announcing that humans were up to dodgy things on a nearby farm, might not be a good idea. And there were far too many dragons who were less extreme in their views, but still didn’t approve of their closeness to the ladies of the W.I. Not that they ever complained about the fact that closeness gave them barbecues and blankets and wool beanies, he added to himself a little sniffily.
But Gilbert wouldn’t be thinking that wars could be brought on by the smallest nudge in the right place at the right time – or the wrong place, wrong time, depending on how one looked at it. He’d probably listened to Nellie complain about bottles in her wells and cigarettes in her rivers for too long, or been convinced by the dryads that the end was nigh because there were yellow mushrooms where there used to be red ones. But whatever he was thinking, if he went rushing into the grand cavern shrieking the humans are coming, Mortimer wasn’t at all sure what the reaction would be. Or rather, he didn’t want to think what it might be. Not at all.
They crashed onto the ledge outside the entrance of the grand cavern with their wingtips a breath apart.
“I’m going to kill him,” Amelia said, and Mortimer had the sense that he was just catching up with a conversation she’d been having with herself for some time. “I can handle the vegetarianism, I can even handle that he can’t fly. But if he tries to get some sort of raiding party going …” she was already stomping down the passage, her words drifting back to Mortimer in a low, furious growl, and he found himself feeling a twinge of sympathy for Gilbert.
He hurried after Amelia, and the sound of raised dragon voices grew to a roar as they turned the corner in the passage and ran to where it let onto the broad stone floor of the cavern, the vaulted arches of the ceiling smudged with smoke from the fire that burned constantly below the stone seat of the High Lord. Once, the smooth stone that formed the raised seat had been crowned with a throne of broken armour and rusting swords, but Beaufort had done away with it as soon as Mortimer introduced him to barbecues. Instead, a gleaming stainless Weber, one of the big ones with two levels for different foods and an attachment for a spit, stood proudly atop the seat, draped with fireproof blankets that almost obscured the gas bottle beneath. Beaufort sat next to the barbecue with his tail curled around his paws, regarding the cavern with the puzzled look of any older person who just can’t comprehend Kids Today, and below him Gilbert was surrounded by jostling young dragons, and Lord Walter was bawling at the top of his not-inconsiderable old lungs for everyone to just be quiet, old ones take you, and Lord Margery had the young (but very large) Rockford by the ear, and Lord Pamela was threatening tail tweaks to the lot of them, backed up by furiously puce Lydia.
“Oh no,” Amelia said, stopping so abruptly Mortimer almost fell over her. “We’re too late.”
Mortimer opened his mouth to say that maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked, when Gilbert shouted, “And as well as poisoning the sheep, the dryads say some were slaughtered! They’re going to clear that land, and then what? What comes next? The forest? The lake? Our home?”
“Oh, wow,” Mortimer said, and gave Amelia an anxious look. She was rapidly going to the same shade as Lydia.
“We have to stop them!” A young dragon with multicoloured spines shouted. “Humans are a scourge on the earth!”
“Scourge!” half a dozen dragons cheered, not sounding very upset about it.
“I told you humans are the worst!” Rockford bellowed, his voice bouncing off the walls, then let out a rather unimpressive yelp as Lord Margery twisted his ear in her claws.
“The worst!” the chorus agreed.
Amelia covered her snout with one paw. “Where does he find these dragons?”
“He’s … he seems to attract dragons with funny ideas,” Mortimer offered.
“This one could get very unfunny, very quickly,” Amelia replied.
“Down with humans!” the multicoloured dragon shouted – Isobel, if Mortimer remembered right. “Protect our land!”
“Down with humans!” the dragon chorus shrieked.
Gilbert gave them a startled look. “I don’t mean down with them. They’re very nice, mostly. We just need to stop these ones.”
“Scourge!”
“I was sleeping!” Lord Walter bellowed. “Shut up, you ridiculous little hatchlings!”
“Down with humans!”
“Um, hang on,” Gilbert said.
“We need to rise up,” Rockford roared. “Become true dragons ag— Ow!”
“Shut up you horrible monster,” Lord Margery snarled at him. “Beaufort! What do we do about this?”
“Scourge!”
“If I don’t get my sleep in the next ten minutes, I’ll eat all of you!” Lord Walter thundered, baring some very worn and unimpressive teeth.
“Rise up!”
“Let Rockford go, you bully!” Isobel shouted at Lord Margery, then ducked behind a handy boulder as the bigger dragon glared at her. “Human-lover!” she sque
aked from safety.
Beaufort just stayed where he was, regarding the uproar with the same interest he showed in Miriam’s TV when they showed documentaries of far-off countries.
“It’s past your bedtime!” Lord Walter bellowed.
“Down with the humans!”
“If we don’t stop the humans now, they’ll destroy everything!” Isobel shrieked.
“Yes, but we can’t hurt them!” Gilbert shouted back. “They’re our friends!”
“They are no one’s friends! They’re monsters!”
“Monsters!”
“A virus!”
“A virus!”
“No,” Gilbert protested, but he was drowned out by Rockford shouting for action, Lord Margery threatening to descale him, Isobel demanding a revolution, and Walter giving up on diplomacy and hitting the nearest young dragon with one very old but very large paw.
“Oh, wow,” Mortimer said again, and hoped Beaufort was going to do something, but the High Lord was nodding slightly, as if enjoying a very frank exchange of views on the subject, rather than what looked likely to dissolve into a dragon brawl.
Then a voice cut through the cavern, rising above the clamour with a note of pure fury.
“Gilbert of Cloverly, what did you do?” Amelia roared, and everyone turned to look at her, her four paws planted firmly on the hard floor, talons drawing white lines across the stone, her wings wide and trembling. Gilbert flushed an alarmed pink.
“Well, look—”
“Don’t you ‘look’ me! What’ve you been up to?”
“Er—”
“I rather think you should answer your sister,” Beaufort said mildly, still looking more interested than alarmed.
“Scourge?” a very small dragon, probably only in his forties, offered, and Lord Walter lifted a paw. The little dragon dived behind a barbecue and fell silent.
“I … well, I was worried! So I went to have a look, and talk to the dryads, and they’re all so upset!”
Beaufort nodded. “I see. Well, lad, dryads are …” He stopped, considered for a moment, then finished, “Yes. They’re well-known drama queens.” He smiled in satisfaction. “I really am getting to use this phrase a lot. Humans have such wonderful expressions.”
“Okay,” Gilbert said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that sheep have been killed, others are missing, and the humans from three farms are gone. Three of them! That can’t be just a coincidence.”
“You may be right, lad. It doesn’t mean anything terrible is necessarily going to happen—”
“But I spoke to a dryad who saw earthmoving equipment! They’re going to destroy the land! Maybe the woods! Maybe our home!”
All eyes went to Beaufort. He nodded, apparently not at all bothered by being interrupted midsentence. “Maybe. But none of that suggests we should risk our secrecy. And none of it warrants you coming in here, upsetting everyone.”
“And ruining my kip,” Lord Walter grumbled, scratching his saggy belly. “Damn kids.”
“But sir,” Gilbert started, and the High Lord raised a paw.
“No. This was most educational, but when it comes to actual decisions I think older and calmer heads than yours are called for, Gilbert.”
Gilbert looked down at his toes, and Mortimer could see the unhappy lines drawn deep between his eyes.
“Everyone as you were,” Beaufort said. “Nothing Gilbert is saying is news to me, and none of it is any cause for alarm. I’m monitoring the situation.”
“Damn humans,” Lord Walter declared. “Wouldn’t put this rubbish past them, though. Bet they’d love to smoke us out.”
“They don’t even know we exist, Walter,” Lord Margery said.
“Bah! When I were a lad—”
“A dragon could still get some respect, and a nice sheep here and there,” the other dragon said. “Yes, we know. That was then, this is now.”
Lord Walter grumbled, but he limped back to his barbecue, snapping at a young dragon who was standing too close and making her squawk in alarm.
Lord Margery looked at Beaufort. “As always, we trust to your judgement.” Her voice was level, and Beaufort nodded.
“And I shall endeavour to be worthy of that trust.” He waved at the cluster of younger dragons below the seat. “Off you go, then. That’s quite enough fuss for one night.”
The dragons dispersed slowly, padding out into the night to their own caverns, and Gilbert tried to sneak away with Isobel between him and Amelia.
“Don’t even think about it,” she hissed at him, and pointed at the ground in front of her. “Get over here.”
He shuffled over, looking at Mortimer instead of Amelia. “I had to check,” he pleaded.
“So why didn’t you come to us?” his sister demanded. “Or even go to Beaufort directly?”
“Well, um—”
“Beaufort’s cool and all, but he’s like, the authority, you know?” Isobel said. She’d stopped a couple of paces away, waiting for Gilbert. “And you two are like, puppets, you know?”
Amelia and Mortimer looked at each other, then Amelia said, “And you’re like, talking rubbish. Gilbert, this is ridiculous! I can’t believe you’ve got all caught up in this!”
“Hey,” Isobel said. “Gilbert’s a revolutionary. He’s the new generation, you know?”
Gilbert looked rather pleased with himself, and Amelia swung her head toward Isobel, threateningly low. “What I know, is that if you don’t get out of here and stop interrupting, I’ll smack your silly head in.”
Isobel looked as if she wanted to argue, but when Amelia took a step toward her she shrugged and said, “Whatever. Laters,” and ambled away down the passage.
Amelia looked back at her brother. “Come with me,” she said, and marched up to Beaufort. “Here he is,” she said. “What do you want to do with him?”
Beaufort regarded Gilbert with his old gold eyes and said, “I doubt I’m as frightening to him as you are, Amelia.”
Amelia went deep orange with pleasure, and rounded on her brother again. “Do you have anything else to tell us? And think long and hard about it, Gilbert. I’ll know if you’re lying.”
Mortimer revised his sense of feeling a little sorry for Gilbert, and felt truly bad for the young dragon as he wilted under his sister’s glare.
“I … might have slashed a few tyres,” he said.
“On what?” Mortimer demanded, as Beaufort raised his eyebrow ridges. “Did you go to the farm?”
“No. That would’ve been a really long way to walk. But there were all these cars parked up at the edge of the wood, and I’m sure they were like enemy scouts or something.”
“You … you just slashed some random tyres?” Amelia asked. Her colour was fading rather rapidly.
“Well, they weren’t random! I mean, they must’ve been up to something, right?”
“Or they may not,” Beaufort said. “They were just parked by the woods?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it was still light?”
“Yes.” Gilbert’s voice was getting quieter and quieter.
Beaufort folded one paw over the other and said, “Might there have been a walking path nearby?”
Gilbert looked up with round eyes. “Um. Maybe?”
“I see.” The old dragon’s voice was solemn, and he looked up at the ceiling. For one moment Mortimer thought Beaufort was trying to control his temper, but when the High Lord looked down again the corners of his mouth were twitching. “And how many tyres did you slash?” he asked, his voice still grave.
“Well – all of them?”
“Ah.” Beaufort licked his lips, nodded, then said, “Well. Not much to be done now.”
“What?” Amelia demanded. “That’s it?”
“Yes,” Beaufort said. “I’m more interested in the fact you said farms, Gilbert.”
“The dryad said there were two other farms the man in the car had gone to, and they were both empty too.”
“How inter
esting.” The High Lord nodded. “How very interesting.” He looked at Mortimer. “You can punish him.”
“Me?”
“Him?” Amelia and Gilbert said.
“Yes, have him clean the workshop or something.” Beaufort yawned. “Now let old dragons get their sleep.”
“For the gods’ sakes, yes! Go away, the lot of you!” Walter bellowed from his own barbecue, pulled up to the fire. He refused to sleep anywhere else, because he said Things needed to be kept an eye on.
“Alright,” Mortimer said, and led the way out of the cavern, Gilbert trying to avoid Amelia, who was suggesting more and more extreme punishments as they went.
Mortimer wasn’t listening. He was thinking, three. Three empty farms.
15
Alice
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Thompson asked, as Alice’s phone continued to shrill on the counter.
“No.”
The cat squinted at the screen. “It’s DI Adams.”
“That’s why I don’t want to get it.”
“Trouble in the ranks?”
Alice finished rinsing her cereal bowl and set it to drain. “She’ll merely attempt to dissuade me from returning to the council.”
“She could have good reason. You don’t know what she found out from the latest dead body.”
“I never thought a feline would be one to advocate following instructions.”
Thompson snorted, stretched, and jumped to the floor. “If you get offed, I’ll have to find someone else to feed me. Scallops, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“And caviar.”
“That was not agreed.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The cat stepped sideways into nothing in that disturbing way he had, leaving behind only the soft whisper of air rushing to fill the gap where he’d been, and a few stray hairs drifting onto the phone. Alice clicked her tongue and brushed them off.
In the quiet left behind, there was a rattly sort of knock at the kitchen door, and Alice peered out the window over the sink to see Miriam fidgeting on the step, trying to untangle her long skirt from a variety of foliage that seemed to have made a claim on it.