The True Dragon

by Andy Holland

  "Perak," John said softly.

  The man laughed, clearly pleased that John knew who he was. "Very good! I'm glad that you know who I am. It saves me having to deliver a dull monologue on why I am here and why you have to die. Although you might want to enlighten your slow-witted friends. I take it this is the girl Crystal I have heard so much about."

  Crystal had no idea how this man knew anything about her, but John clearly wasn't at all surprised.

  "General Perak," John replied. Walking calmly towards Crystal and Natan, keeping his distance from Perak. "Mastermind of the surprise attack on the Red Dragon settlements outside of their cities. Leader of the Blue Dragon resistance and opposition to Prime Minister Kanesh. And the only dragon to have killed a True Dragon. Well, brought one down."

  Perak bowed mockingly. "At your service. Although my title should be General Perak, Head of the Blue Dragon Army and supreme leader of the Blue Dragon nation. Kanesh is an imposter and will be punished for his treachery."

  "What do you want with us?" Natan asked. "Shouldn't you be back home plotting against Kanesh rather than hiding in this city?"

  "I'm not hiding in this city," Perak snarled. "I was waiting. For you, as it so happens. I was selected by General Zygar to be his successor. I was to be the leader of the Blue Dragon army and we were poised to defeat the Red Dragons. Had you not disturbed those filthy beasts, the Red Dragons would no more and I would be preparing to become the next leader of our nation. For that, you must die. John, that is. I don't really care about you two, but of course, I have no intention of letting you live. But let's not pretend that you matter."

  John had reached the wall and was standing next to the lever that Natan had pointed out. "Perhaps you don't have a choice about that, Perak. Run!" He grabbed hold of the lever and pulled downwards with all of his strength. The ceiling above them creaked loudly and Natan just pulled Crystal back in time before it collapsed on where they had been standing. Natan didn't let go of her hand, continuing to run back into the hall and dragging her with her. It was lucky that he did. Moments later the rest of the corridor collapsed, raising up a great cloud of dust that blinded and choked them. It was some time before the dust settled and they finished coughing. As soon as she could, Crystal began to scream for John, realising that he was stuck on the other side of the rubble.

  "Don't bother!" Natan shouted, tugging on her arm. "He can't hear you and there's no way out. He's trapped in there with Perak!

  Chapter 13: The Extermination Group

  The early morning sun was only just reaching the city of Assembly when Mark began his descent towards the council building, having left his workplace in Sanctuary at the crack of dawn. Many other dragons were also in the air, rising from the buildings below and soaring in tight circles as they used the early morning thermals to gain height before beginning their journeys. They were probably messengers travelling to capital cities from the numerous embassies in Assembly. They paid no more attention to Mark than he paid to them. He was far more interested in the city itself. It had been some time since he had been here and it looked like good progress had been made on construction, but to his surprise, it appeared as if all building work had now come to a halt. When he was last here, the place was a hive of activity by this time of day, and there would be a constant deafening banging and crashing, sounds amplified by his heightened dragon’s senses. But now the place was quiet, and although they had done a lot, the work was far from complete. The central council building still dominated the city skyline, having been the first building to be completed, but there were a number of taller buildings that had been planned, and Mark had expected at least one to have risen above the council building. As things stood, it was likely to remain the tallest building for some time.

  Of course, although useful construction activity had stopped, political activity never ceased, and many dragons buzzed around the council building, going to and from the numerous half-built embassies. There were dragons of all races, although there were considerably more Golden Dragons than any other type of dragon. Their ability to take the form of any dragon rendered them far more useful in the construction work, and many of those working here were Golden Dragons. Indeed, the district set aside for their accommodation was the only area which looked as if it were nearing completion. Usually, Mark would head there first, but today he needed to go straight to the council building, for today was a General Assembly meeting, and the meeting was his reason for visiting the city.

  It had been several days since he and Gerald had left Safehaven after witnessing the destruction left behind by the True Dragon and Mark had not been idle. He had met up with Jude and learnt of the tragic encounter he and his unit had had, something that was still not common knowledge outside of the scouts. Recruiting Jude to his cause had not been difficult, not after the True Dragon killed so many of his fellow scouts and they had agreed that Jude would canvas the military commanders, through his friend Micah, leaving Mark to focus on the politicians. He had no doubt who had the easier task.

  He entered the council building through one of the wide doors on the balcony of the second floor and stepped into a long corridor that ran around the circular structure. Officials were rushing to and fro, carrying bundles of papers and trying their hardest to look busy, frowning as if what they were doing was too important to allow anyone to interrupt them. Many were Golden Dragons, too many in Mark's opinion if Assembly was ever going to be successful, but there were a few Red and Brown Dragons amongst them, and he even saw a Blue Dragon. But none of these junior officials could help him, so he ignored them all and headed for the council chambers. When he reached them, he found that they were almost empty, the schedule on the door indicating that the meeting wasn't due to start for some time. This wasn't a disappointment to him, on the contrary, it would give him a few minutes to catch up with his father who would be in the building. Unfortunately, he wasn't on the council, but Mark would be able to benefit from his advice anyway.

  "Ah Mark, good to see you," his father said in greeting, seeming unsurprised to see him. "How was your trip to Furnace?"

  "Not good, I am afraid," Mark replied as he sat down opposite his father. "You heard about Perak’s attack?”

  His father nodded. “Yes, I did. I understand that two of ours were killed. I was hoping that we would be able to avoid this sort of unpleasantness.”

  “Unfortunately the unpleasantness didn’t end there. I stopped in the City of Safehaven on the way back to Sanctuary. It had been attacked by the True Dragon. It was pretty grim."

  His father nodded glumly. "I hadn’t heard about that. Were many killed?"

  "No one knows the death toll. It would be very high. There was no warning of the attack."

  "But what about our scouts?" Paul asked. "They've been tracking it, haven't they?"

  "No," Mark replied. "Not for the last few days. They haven't been able to do so. It attacked Jude's unit a couple of days ago, killing all of them except him.”

  “That’s terrible!” His father replied. “And that was a few days ago? But we’ve heard nothing about this or the attack on Safehaven.”

  “They probably want to avoid creating a panic,” Mark replied. “And it could create panic. The strategy of tracking the True Dragon and trying to alert potential targets just isn't working. Even before this, they were struggling to give anyone much notice. Now they'll have to be even more cautious, but even that won't guarantee their safety, it'll just reduce their already limited effectiveness. On top of this, the creature is venturing further and further from the Circle. It's just a matter of time before it reaches one of the big cities or even our home."

  Paul looked aghast. "You really think that could happen? I thought the prevailing theory was that it would go home eventually and stay there."

  "The evidence suggests the opposite, at least in the short term. If we want to avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths, I think we're going to have to attack it."

  "You can't be serious!" Now Paul
really did look horrified. "That would be suicide and what would it achieve? You can't fight these creatures. They're just too powerful."

  "That Blue Dragon killed one," Mark pointed out.

  "So they say—"

  "So John says! You don't doubt his work, do you?"

  "I don't doubt his word, no, of course not, but John told us that it was still alive when he last saw it, and there was no body. If it were dead, we would have found the body by now. Besides, it was the smallest of the three, much smaller than the one you want to attack. It’ll be much harder to deal with. Don't do this, Mark. There must be another way. Are you sure you've considered all of the other options? This should be the last resort."

  Mark sighed, disappointed with his father. If there had been another way, he wouldn't be considering this. He was hoping for encouraging words and maybe some clever tactics to employ in the council, not words of caution. "This is the last resort. Father, sorry, but I have to go now. I have to attend the General Assembly. I will see you before I leave the city."

  His father nodded sadly. He was a calm man, very much like John and didn't like arguing. "Well, I hope you'll reconsider. Please call in again before you leave."

  Mark shook his extended hand and headed to the council chambers, trying to put his father's negativity out of his mind.

  When he arrived, he found that the room was already filling up quickly, so he took the first available seat, which happened to be next to a Golden Dragon he knew well from his time working in the Sanctuary.

  "Hello, Jediah," Mark said cheerfully. "How's progress on your roads?"

  "Hello, Mark, it's good to see you here," Jediah said in reply. "Slow going, I'm afraid. The Brown Dragons I work with are an agreeable bunch, but their political masters are reluctant to provide the necessary funding. It'll be quite a while before any of the New Cities are connected by road. I didn't realise you were attending this session. Are you delivering an update on Sanctuary?"

  "No, I wasn’t scheduled to present anything," Mark admitted. "But I do have something important to discuss, and the Chairman was kind enough to let me speak today. I'll bring it up when we get to any other business."

  "I'll look forward to it," Jediah replied with a laugh. "Hopefully it will be more interesting than the rest of the agenda. I'm surprised that there are so many people here today. They must not have known what we will be discussing."

  "Why, what are we going to be discussing?" Mark asked.

  "Wait and see!" Jediah replied with another laugh. "Let's just say that you might regret having turned up!"

  Jediah wasn't wrong about the nature of the meeting. It was incredibly tedious and were it not for the custom of not allowing attendees to leave meetings till they finished, Mark doubted most attendees would have stayed till the end. Most of the topics related to road and sewerage construction, with the obligatory request for more resources thrown in for good measure. But if the dull agenda had sent anyone to sleep, they soon woke up when Mark began to speak.

  "Thank you, Chairman," Mark began, acknowledging the Magpie Dragon that had granted him the opportunity to address the council. Mark had known the chairman from his time spent working in the Gold Dragon capital in what was now referred to as the old sanctuary, the district assigned to refugees. The chairman, who like all of his race, had a rather startling appearance with his black and white checked skin colouration and shocking white hair, had been one of the Magpie Dragons elders and Mark’s main counterpart.

  "I have something to bring to the attention of the Assembly. Two things, to be precise. I recently visited Safehaven, only to find that it had been devastated by the black True Dragon. I don’t know how many it killed, but the death toll would be in the hundreds. This was a terrible, unprovoked attack and an attack without any clear motive. Those girls posed no threat, and it didn’t eat them, it just killed them. It incinerated them and their tents, leaving nothing but scorched earth.” Mark paused for a moment for the expected gasps of horror, but was disappointed by the lack of response. Were they indifferent to the fate of those girls, or had they just heard too many reports of the True Dragon killing people?

  “The attack was also one that came without warning,” Mark continued, “which is the second thing I wanted to bring to your attention. Our scouts can no longer track the creature. Just a few days ago, the creature attacked one of the units and killed all but one of the dragons in the unit. The scouts were unusually far from the Circle so didn’t have anywhere to take refuge, but even so, the fact that it could kill so many with just one scout escaping shows how dangerous this creature is."

  "That's terrible, Mark," one of the Assembly Members commented. "That's five dragons killed, isn't it? I understood that they were overstretched already."

  "Six," Mark replied. "But I'm not here to plead for new scouts. That's not my responsibility, but more importantly, I don't think it is what is needed. The strategy is not working. The scouts can't give anyone any real warning and if it chooses it can catch and kill them."

  Hal, a Brown Dragon Assembly Member that was well-respected across the different nations, addressed Mark. "But what would you do differently, Mark? The scouts have definitely helped my people. Even a minute's warning can make a difference and give us time to get to safety. I wouldn't want to simply give up on the program."

  "I think you need to understand the limits of our scouts," Mark replied. "They can’t outfly this creature. If it turns on them their only chance of survival is getting to shelter. That’s why they’ve dug hundreds of tunnels in a ring around the Circle. They use them every night to sleep in, and they’ve had to use them several times after being chased. But while they sleep, that thing still flies. And it is venturing further and further from the Circle, travelling to areas we thought it would never reach and places where there are no escape tunnels. That’s how the scouts were killed, caught flying in a place where they had nowhere to hide. And it’s staying away from the Circle for ever longer periods of time. It just spent four days flying outside of the Circle, soon it will be staying out for a week at a time. You know how far it could travel in that time. There isn't a city it couldn't reach, and even with our scouts trying to track it, if it found you at night, you would have no warning that it was about to attack. Not even a minute."

  This statement caused an uproar in the chambers, members standing up and shouting. It was some time before the chairman regained order, using a disconcerting method that Magpie Dragons were renowned for, emitting a loud and startling hiss that silenced the hall immediately.

  He turned to Mark and nodded politely.

  "Mark, you didn't answer Hal's question. What is it that you want us to do?"

  "Kill it," Mark replied simply, ignoring the astonished gasps. "A single Blue Dragon took down one, so it can be done. Yes, this one is larger, faster and more dangerous, but that just makes the task more urgent. Put together a team to train, hunt down and destroy this creature before it starts doing to our cities what it did to the Blue Dragon army."

  Instead of shouting and arguing, this time there was quiet murmuring to be heard throughout the chamber. Hal stood up again.

  "Mark. We Brown Dragons probably have more to lose than anyone. We have endured more attacks since the end of the war than any other nation, and we have more of our people living in harm's way than anyone else. But this feels like a suicide mission. We have more experience with these creatures than you and know them much better than you. A year ago most of you were unaware that there was more than one of them. Now, you think you can kill them? I don't think it can be done."

  "We have already killed one of them!" One of the Blue Dragon members roared. "General Perak brought one down single-handedly. I don't know how many people the Browns have lost to the True Dragons, but I'd wager that it is a tiny fraction of what we have lost. The Golden Dragon is right, it is time for this monster to die!"

  The other Blue Dragons cheered their support, and to Mark's surprise, a number of the other members
murmured their agreement. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was being supported by the Blues, but right now he would take any support he could get. Another Brown Dragon stood up.

  "I'm afraid I can't agree with my esteemed colleague, Hal. He is right that we Brown Dragons are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the True Dragons, but he is wrong in believing that they can't be killed. The rebel Blue Dragon may have killed one, but he only did it leaning on the experience of our great nation. Ours was the first and only other race to have killed a True Dragon, and it was our method that he employed. It has been done twice, and I believe it should be done a third time."

  Hal shook his head in disapproval, but the majority of the chamber was moving towards supporting Mark's proposal. A Golden Dragon stood up, but it wasn't a member or someone that Mark recognised. He was a handsome man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, perhaps a little older. He looked around the room confidently as he waited for silence, his fierce eyes appearing to be challenging anyone to question his authority to speak. He smiled broadly before addressing the council.

  "I'm Captain Gabriel, head of the scout program assigned to track the True Dragon. I've long held the view that we would eventually have to go down this path, although I've hoped that it wouldn't be necessary. But it clearly is necessary. We in the program may not have the years of knowledge that the Browns do, but we do have the most recent experience and are best placed to lead this mission. I propose that we are charged with continuing our operations but with a new objective, to kill this creature."

  Gabriel smiled smugly as the chamber applauded, bowing with false humility. Mark hadn't met him but knew of him through Jude. Gabriel and Jude were the same rank, but as Gabriel had been put in charge of the operation, Jude had to report to him and didn’t hide the fact that he hated it. According to Jude, Gabriel was arrogant, pompous and stupid and had only progressed as he was a very skilled warrior. Mark could see that Jude wasn’t being entirely fair and his success was probably also due to his evident self-confidence. He might be smug but people were clearly impressed, and the chamber had applauded warmly, however not everyone was convinced.