by Paul Cude
43 A Captive Audience
It had all happened so suddenly, it was hard to make sense of it really. Having just stepped off the monorail at Salisbridge station with Tim (both in their human forms, with Tim having had intensive training over the last week or so about how to hold his complex alter ego together) they'd come back from a tour of the Purbeck Peninsula nursery ring, when all of a sudden they'd been surrounded by strange dark shapes, both dragon and human alike. Armed with lethal looking, dark coloured swords, it was blatantly obvious to everyone on and off the monorail that they had little choice but to comply with their demands. There were simply too many of them to do anything else. Marched from the station to the market square like lambs to the slaughter, nothing could have possibly prepared the two of them for what awaited them there. It was like something from a nightmare, but no nightmare on earth could possibly have been that bad. Off to one side, a group of very ordinary dragons lay surrounded by this new enemy. But that wasn't what turned theirs and the other detainees' stomachs. In the far corner of the square, a towering pile of butchered dragon bodies stood higher than most two storey houses. The sight made them tremble with fear, and they both started to gag as the smell of death wafted in their direction. As their group was marched across the market place, Peter knew things were as bad as they could get and that fate had conspired to put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, once again caught up in an unimaginable horror that couldn't possibly get any worse. How wrong he'd been! As the prisoners from the monorail were guided into the middle of another group of guards, Peter watched, fascinated by a structure that was being constructed at the far end of the massive square, some kind of metal monstrosity that required almost as many beings to build it, as were guarding the captives off to one side. As they continued walking and were about to enter the guarded area, two terrifyingly huge swords dropped down in front of both him and Tim, simultaneously.
"Not you two," barked the guard. "You two... over there!" he said, nodding his giant scaly head off to the left.
Terrified out of their minds, Peter and Tim headed off in the direction that had been indicated, hemmed in by their captors. Abruptly the crackling, spluttering and hissing of dragon flame caused them to look over their shoulders at the massive structure being built. Whatever it was, it was big. Strong as well, observed Peter. Taking his eyes off the construction effort, he'd turned round just in time to see his surrounding captors all part in front of him, like a pair of stage curtains. He'd thought this nightmare couldn't get any worse, but now knew just how wrong he'd been. Instantly his body started to shake of its own volition. His mind used all its conscious will to command his form not to urinate (which it really wanted to do right now) and to try and curb the shaking.
"Ahhhhhhh... if it isn't my young friend!" boomed a loud, terrifying voice from in front of him. It was a voice that featured regularly in his nightmares, a voice that he'd told himself had gone forever and he would never hear again, a voice he'd encountered on that cold, winter's night. A voice belonging to a being who had very nearly killed him.
Manson stood surrounded by an entourage of dragon, naga and human shapes. Terrified as he was, Peter's brain had the capacity to recognise that some of the human shapes with him were actually nagas.
'This is it then,' he thought, 'the big play.'
"How nice of you to join us," announced the most frightening voice in the world.
He knew this was it. The end. There was no possible escape, and out of the corner of his eye he could just make out a heap of executed dragons. Sure he was next, Manson would get exactly what he wanted, exactly what he didn't get last time, on that cold, chilly night, just above where they now stood.
"I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed that you and this entire place," he said opening his arms wide, grandstanding, "weren't wiped from the face of this planet with my little bomb. It seems, BENTWHISTLE, that your luck knows no bounds. Rest assured, this time though, your luck's run out. There's not even the tiniest sliver left."
The smallest fraction of his brain smirked a little at the way in which Manson always seemed to be able to make the word Bentwhistle sound like something someone else's cat was doing in your garden right now.
By now Peter had resigned himself to his fate, a painful death at the hands of the being he hated the most on this planet. With that in mind, strangely, his body calmed down, allowing him to take everything in for almost the first time. As well as the guards in all their various forms, there appeared to be more important beings surrounding his nemesis, he judged. A woman stood at the far end of the line, clad fully in skin tight black, the look in her eyes pure evil. Peter thought he knew danger when he saw it. She might as well have had a massive red neon sign above her, with that very word written on it, and was to be avoided at all costs he knew. Next to her was a wizened old man who, by Peter's guess, had to be a dragon as well. He looked frail and weak, sitting as he was on a bench made of rock. Moving on, a sight that just made him angry, angrier than he could ever remember feeling, greeted him. A reasonably small, light green dragon stood, looking more than a little cocky. A white shape like a delicate rose blossomed across his stomach. A dragon Peter recognised, one he'd dealt with and one who'd not only betrayed him, but the king as well.
'ROSEBLOOM!' he thought, dark images of what he'd like to do to the so called councillor rising within him. Noticeably he still had that ridiculous looking, long, dark mane of hair rolling down the back of his head, currently tied into a ponytail, but he seemed to have lost the jewel piercings and the crazy wrap around glasses since their last meeting. On noticing Peter's interest, the councillor smirked in a very superior way. And that left Manson. Only it didn't, and Peter wasn't the least bit surprised to see his former classmate lurking behind Manson's right shoulder, skulking in the shadows, trying not to be noticed.
'CASEY!' he thought, his anger almost erupting. So many things ran through his mind. Normally a calm, kind, friendly being, an overwhelming instinct to KILL bubbled up inside him, something so sinister and primal he hadn't even been aware of its existence until now. But all dragons had it, some just controlled it better than others.
As Manson slowly strode forward towards him, his heart raced, the tap, tap, tapping of his cane against the rock getting steadily louder. Mouth dry, almost frightened out of his mind, he wasn't prepared for what happened next. Ignoring Peter, Manson walked straight up to Tim, grabbed him by the chin and started tilting his head from side to side.
"So this is it?" he enquired loudly, glancing back over his shoulder.
"It is!" replied the vicious looking woman that Peter considered death on legs.
"Hmmmmm," muttered Manson. "Doesn't look much... does it?"
"It's him Sire! Apparently he's still learning to be a dragon."
Manson burst into a cackling, raucous laugh that bounced and echoed around the furthest reaches of the market place.
"Ohhhh... it's just too easy!" he yelled to no one in particular.
Turning back to the newly confirmed dragon, looking him straight in the eyes, with menace in his voice, he declared,
"Some saviour you're going to be. You'll be lucky to see out the day!"
'Oh crap!' thought Peter. 'He knows... but how is that even possible?' Of course, it was obvious now, even to him. ROSEBLOOM! Once again, dark deeds crested his thoughts as he considered how he could punish the traitorous councillor, should the opportunity arise.
A stinging pain in his face followed by the most horrendous crunching sound snapped him back to reality, quite literally. Blood and tiny fragments of bone exploded out in front of him. For a split second, it seemed as though it had happened to someone else and he was just an unwitting onlooker. But not so. Manson had caught him square on the nose with a whole-hearted punch, his nose not so much broken, as mashed.
As blood trickled down his face, running onto his lips and into his mouth, a silver metallic tang ran over his tongue. Briefly, he wondered why it tas
ted the way it did? And did other beings' blood taste the same, or different? Mind wavering, thinking about blacking out, what came next almost made him wish he had. A vicelike grip grabbed him around the throat, before a sinister, evil, twisted looking face with a manic grin ground across it, appeared within his vision. Manson!
"Alright me old mucker?" barked the deranged dark dragon, sounding to Peter like some awful impression of a very dubious pirate. "I've missed seeing me old friend."
Off the scale, that's how bad the pain at the front of Peter's face was now, the grip around his throat so tight that he couldn't pull in a fresh breath. He hadn't known it, but he'd started turning blue. As he looked at the face he hated so much, the edges of what he could see started to go all cloudlike and fluffy. Before he passed out, he just managed to hear words that would have made him tremble, had he stayed conscious.
"We're all going to pay your mate the king a little visit. Won't that be nice?!"
All that had happened some time ago. How long? He didn't know for sure. But hours at least. Slowing, trying to catch a decent breath, a hurtful shove by something sharp, right in the middle of his back, brought tears to his eyes.
"NO STOPPING! MOVE!"
Stumbling slightly, he regained his balance, barely able to shuffle along in the three being wide line that he found himself in the middle of, marching through a ghostly, underground, urban area. Not one hundred percent sure, he thought it was the outskirts of London somewhere. At least, that was his best guess from what little he'd seen.
Swallowing hard, something stuck in his throat. Coughing violently, he hacked up a huge mouthful of blood from somewhere inside him. Pain blossomed around what remained of his nose. It was all he could do to remain upright. Desperately he began searching within himself for the tiniest trace of magic; all he needed was a trickle. That would be enough to repair his damaged face. But try as he might, he just couldn't find any. It felt as if it were swirling and writhing just beneath the surface, but the surface of what, he just didn't know. Perhaps it had something to do with the manacles around his wrists behind his back, which felt as though they were constantly burning him.
Taking a sneaky glance over his left shoulder, he could just make out Tim, surrounded by guards, marching unhappily along with everyone else, yet looking relatively unharmed. Just then his foot clipped an uneven piece of rock jutting up from the walkway they were on. Stumbling, he barely managed to keep himself upright. Quickly he resumed his previous pace, eager not to feel the pain in his back once again, that he knew the guards weren't shy about dishing out. Keeping his eyes on the guard in front of him, all the time watching the floor for any obstacles, he found himself carried on by the self styled army, getting ever nearer to the seat of power. Deep within himself, he hoped the king was safe, and that he had some kind of plan to thwart the oncoming threat.
44 Pulled Into The Abyss
As the leader of this squad, he supposed it was his duty to go and investigate; after all, he was constantly telling the others he would chip in, do his bit, whatever the task, nothing was too menial. But with the noises coming from the other side of the door, none of the others wanted to even take a look. They were too terrified of the being in there. And rightly so, as far as he was concerned. She was a dangerous beast, of that he had no doubt. But they'd been assigned to protect her, and protect her they would. He assumed, as he opened the door to the room, that meant even from herself. Watching from the doorway, he felt uncomfortable just looking. Lying on the bed, she twisted and turned, writhing this way and that, all the time babbling, as that was the only word to describe it, babbling about dragons coming for her. Clearly asleep, for the briefest of moments he thought about waking her up, but decided against it. Knowing he wasn't brave enough for that, so closing the door back up without even a hint of a noise, he left Earth to her own accord, somewhere far off in the distant past.
On an ordinary night, mere days after the incident in which her husband had saved the shopkeeper's daughter from a head on collision with the out of control car, the couple slept soundly in their elusive, out of the way hideaway, unaware that fate was about to catch up with them.
Swarming out of the cave into the darkness, some five miles or so from their target, their human shaped bodies were entirely shrouded in black. Under normal circumstances they would have exited the dragon world nearer and not had so far to travel on foot, but this was the nearest exit, entrance, call it what you will, to their target, for some considerable distance.
Fifteen in all, it was nothing short of overkill to capture two renegade dragons, especially given the fifteen's training. They were members of the elite Crimson Guard, the specialist force answerable only to the king himself. And they were here in the icy cold of West Wales to bring to justice the two rogue dragons who'd hindered the war effort so much, as well as escaping from high security dragon containment facilities. Their superiors had no idea how they'd accomplished such a thing (insider help hadn't been discounted) and was one of the many questions they were eager to ask the pair. Limited information regarding the fugitives implied new and unusual talents, something they neither understood or tolerated. Hence the reason the fifteen troops had been dispatched. The group, as one, continued to march silently along the windswept shore, closing in on the unsuspecting couple.
At around two miles out, the group split into three units of five, with a view to outflanking them and cutting off any pre-planned escape they might have. Their leader, known only as 'One' (they all had numbered designations) continued with his group along the beach, using the soft sand to mask their approach. Both of the other groups cut inland at different points, circling around the countryside to the other side of the cottage that was their target, using their infra red vision to see where they were headed. A mile from their target, all three groups ran across variants on a theme. Several sets of interconnected web traps formed a barrier to their progress. While appearing to have been constructed with great care and cunning, they were no match for each of the team's considerable talents. Both the inland teams reported their situation to One. He gave both the go to continue their assault. Simultaneously the teams began to take down the traps, silently pitying the two targets for their rather simplistic approach to security. Unbeknown to them, the traps were much more than at first they appeared.
A mile away, two sets of eyes shot open at exactly the same time.
"We've been discovered," they both whispered.
With not a moment to spare, they leapt out of bed, quickly pulling on a set of clothes each, eager to be protected from the bitter cold outside. Gloves, boots, and hats followed, and while this was a little time consuming, they both knew the bitter weather had the potential to be as deadly as their attackers. Grabbing a small backpack from a secluded, secret cubbyhole, there for just such an occasion, containing money, jewels to sell, weapons and some chocolate, they opened the back door and silently slipped out into the darkness. Using touch telepathy for fear of being discovered, the two discussed how they would proceed, while swiftly traversing the landscape towards the beach, all the time holding hands.
"We should make a run for it," he said, sending a calm reassurance across their link.
"NO!" Earth replied. "We stand and fight. Give them exactly what they came here for. I'm tired of running, and more than a little disappointed at being discovered here and once again having to give up everything we've worked so hard for."
"But..." he started.
She wasn't having any of it.
"NO MORE! We take them on here. Teach them a lesson. Make the cost of them finding us hurt them dearly. So there are three groups... so what! A maximum of three each, that's only nine at most. I don't think we should have any trouble taking care of nine, do you?"
Annoyed because he let her question go unanswered, she could feel him trying hard to shake off the devastation he felt at having to give up this place. It seemed inevitable that their discovery was almost certainly linked to the rather unfortunate ac
cident last week. If only he'd done nothing, or stayed inside the shop a few seconds longer. Fate, in their bitter experience, had a way of knocking you back down flat, just as you thought everything was going along so well.
