by Royston Wood
Chapter Eight
Into the blue
Bunsen stands at the top of the tower, now open to the sky, with his stupendous wings unfurled and his neck stretched high, RRRROOOOOAAAAARRRRRING at the sky!!
As the dust and rubble showering down on Tim and me begins to clear he rumbles, “Come Victor, climb aboard and we will fly like the wind to destroy Cretin the Cruel.”
I gaze up at Bunsen’s magnificence. Towering above me, lazily flapping his humungous wings to keep his balance as his claws rake at the stone of the tower top, he is a totally awe inspiring sight. Truly awefull.
Quickly, using Bunsen’s scales like a ladder, I scramble up his foreleg and across his shoulder. It would be a lot easier without the sword hanging at my hip, which keeps getting tangled between my legs but I soon find myself a seat, wedged between his neck and the thick mass of muscle that forms the place where his wings join to his body.
“Tim, I take back my words. You are not such a fool as I believed,” Bunsen bellows at Tim, who is sat in a pile of smashed stone, his hat crumpled beneath him.
“I’m not so sure,” grumbles Tim, brushing dust and small chunks of stone from his armour plated head. “Look at my room!”
“I wish I had come back to you earlier rather than sulking! But I’m afraid we must leave you to clear up this mess. There’s no time to lose!”
“Wait!” shouts Tim, scrambling to his paws. Grabbing his battered hat from the floor he rams it on his head. “You must take me with you. If you hope to succeed you’ll need a wizard!”
“Hummmph! Well quickly then. Climb up.” snorts Bunsen.
“I’ll just gather a few things,” says Tim, starting to scrabble about through the wreckage, tossing bits of crushed furniture aside. “I’ll need my staff and some scrolls. Oh, and my magic rings...”
“There’s no time for that!” snaps Bunsen. Clamping his teeth into the back of Tim’s robe he hoists him into the air and plonks him, flailing and kicking, behind me.
Then the whole world seems to sway as the huge muscles in Bunsen’s back legs bunch and, with a surge that leaves my stomach behind, he thrusts us skywards, great wings beating against the air.
I grab at the edges of Bunsen’s scales, frantically trying to keep my seat. It would be a lot easier if Tim wasn’t clutching onto my sword belt with one paw. I glance over my shoulder to see him stretched out behind me, flapping like a flag on a pole, with his other paw clasping his hat to his head.
Below us is the shattered tower, raining stone and rubble down onto the rest of the palace. And spread out beyond the palace is a sizable city.
I only have a second to take this in before we slow in our upward flight and seem to come to a hanging stop.
My stomach has just managed to catch up when we tip forward and Bunsen plunges towards the city below us, neck and tail arrow straight and wings tight to his sides.
The air rushes past so fast it feels like my eyelids are being ripped off and all I can hear is my scream, “AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!!”
I’m gripping Bunsen’s scales so hard now the sharp edges are cutting into my hands. I can’t feel any pain but I can see little trickles of blood being pushed across the back of my hands in the rushing air, a bit like those paintings you do as a kid by blowing at a blob of paint through a straw.
I’m amazed I even notice such a tiny detail when the world is rising up to splatter me to a pulp. But my head does seem to be dealing with stuff quite fast, like it’s trying to get as much out of life as possible before I go splat.
I’m still screaming, and I think Tim is also having a go, but it’s like a background noise as my head tries to sorts out what’s going on.
When we started to fall we were so high up I could see the whole city below us. It looked like a map or maybe a birds’ eye view model: lots of brown wiggling lines, all criss-crossing each other, with the spaces between them crammed with grey blocks and the odd green patch. There was a blue line swished roughly through the middle of it that stretched beyond the city walls, out into the countryside.
In moments I couldn’t see the countryside any more as the city rushed up to meet us.
Soon I could easily make out that the blue line was a river and the brown lines were muddy streets.
Seconds later the roofs of individual building emerged out of the blocks of grey and I could pick out trees and bushes in the green patches.
Now I can see one of the grey patches transforming into a busy marketplace as it grows larger and larger right before us.
There are markets stalls filled with colour, carts piled with goods and crowds of people milling about.
As we zoom down upon them people look up in surprise. Their surprise instantly turns to fear and they start to scatter, pushing past each other, dashing for the safety of the streets leading off of the marketplace or diving under stalls and carts.
My gaze locks with one bloke who is frozen in terror. His head is thrown back, his eyes bulging at the rapidly approaching dragon and his mouth wide as he screams.
My own screaming cuts back in as we are about to splat. “AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!!”
With an ear pounding thwapping noise, like the noise you get when you flick a wet towel at someone (but a million times louder and without the OW!), Bunsen thrusts his wings out. There’s an horrendous rushing, ripping noise as the air batters against them and I feel like I’m being crushed into Bunsen’s back as he swoops out of his dive.
For a second or so we level out, just a couple of metres above the ground. The screaming bloke is knocked to the ground by the turbulent air we create as we rush past. Glancing over my shoulder, past Tim’s wide eyed grimace of terror, I can see that our wake is so strong it’s dragging stalls and carts to bash together behind us. Anyone who has ever stood on an underground railway platform when a train has sped past and felt the pull of the air as it disappears down the tunnel will have some idea of what I mean. But it would be, like, a train for giants going at supersonic speed.
With tiny flicks of his wings, Bunsen dodges obstacles as they flash towards us and then we’re surging upwards into the sky, away from the marketplace.
And straight towards a bell tower!
Bunsen lets out a RRRROOOOAAARRRR, rolls, tipping us upside-down for a split second, and swerves by the tower, just clipping the top with one claw.
My scream of terror has transformed into a WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!! of joy. I feel every part of my body tingling and want to jump up and down and race around (but don’t, obviously). There’s the biggest grin ever on my face and even though it hurts I can’t stop it. That was the most awesome ride ever! No rollercoaster or death drop or gyro tower is ever going to top that!
If this is what librarians get up to at work maybe they’re not such a bunch of boring geeks after all!
