Bentwhistle the Dragon in A Threat from the Past

by Paul Cude

  * * *

  The first thing he noticed was the cold. He was so cold it hurt... everywhere. Summoning up every ounce of strength in his body, he rolled over onto his side. Slivers of light illuminated the dark space he found himself lying in. Trying to push the excruciating pain to one side, he attempted to recall what had happened. Moments later, it all came flooding back to him. Miserably, he let out a long breath, which immediately condensed in front of him. Fighting against the pain, he tried to sit up, only then realising his hands had been bound behind his back, presumably, he thought, with one of the pairs of handcuffs he'd procured from the security bay.

  Flapping around like a stranded fish, eventually he managed to roll into a sitting position, his hands still behind his back. With adrenaline and fear trying to give the pain a run for its money, logically, he tried to take stock of his situation. It looked as though he was almost certainly in the back of the white van that he'd been standing by before being knocked out. He deduced this partly from the fact that he was definitely in some sort of van, but also because lying on the floor at the other end from where he was sitting, was the harness that he'd first noticed when he'd looked into the back of the white van. Apart from that the insides, lit only from the light shining through the gaps in the tiny rear doors, were totally bare. His head throbbed badly from whatever had hit him.

  'Almost certainly Casey,' he thought to himself.

  With hindsight, he could see that it was odd that it was just Theobald and Fisher. He couldn't remember a time when it wasn't the three of them.

  'That would also explain why I didn't sense the presence of anyone. A human, I would have sensed, but a dragon, well... I should have sensed them, but if there was magic involved, it would have been all too easy for me to have been blindsided. I'm such a fool,' he thought, overcome with a sense of complete failure. He felt so stupid. It was so obvious looking back on it now. Of course, Theobald, Fisher and Casey were in league with Manson. It made sense on so many different levels. Those three idiots were always after a fast buck. It would also explain how Manson was able to perform some of his so called 'tricks'.

  'It wasn't him doing it,' thought Peter, 'it was Theobald, Fisher and Casey. Manson himself must just be some low life, common criminal, who has just employed the three stooges to help out.'

  Although this moment of clarity about what had really happened had washed away the feeling of failure somewhat, the physical pain Peter was starting to experience was becoming unbearable. He tried in earnest to break free of the handcuffs, something which in normal circumstances would take little or no effort, even for a young dragon. The cold, though, was affecting him deeply. Looking down, he studied his legs. Still in the same shorts and hooded top he had been knocked out in, he was horrified to see the skin on his legs had turned a pale shade of blue from the cold. He hadn't been put in a freezer or anything, just dumped here. If that was the case, the cold he was feeling was just due to the fact that it was a chilly November day, and he was dressed in very little, meaning that he'd been here a fair few hours.

  Looking round, he tried to check his watch, but only succeeded in seeing that it had been removed from his wrist.

  'That's how cold I am,' he thought, 'I can't even feel whether I'm wearing a watch or not.'

  Leaning back against the inside of the van, he tried to think warm thoughts in the hope that it would clear his head, even a little. The problem was... the cold! There was just no way he could access any of his dragon abilities while his temperature was this low. So in effect he was stuck, at the mercy of Manson or his nursery ring bullies, or both. Not a pleasant thought either way. Determined not to give up, he forced himself to topple over onto his back so that his head was facing the harness. Tears rolled from his eyes as an agonizing pain ricocheted through the fingers of his right hand. Wiping the tears on the side of his top, slowly he used his feet to scoot along towards the harness. It was only eight or so feet away, but it seemed like a mile as his cold wrists and back dragged against the dirty, freezing floor of the van.

  Eventually, after two or three minutes, he reached the edge of the harness. Pushing himself up against the side of the van once more, he leaned forward to have a good look at the harness and all its fittings. Metal filaments, flexible and very tough, made up the netting. Every last part of the harness itself, from the straps to the linkages, was made from the highest quality leather. Nestled underneath was a giant, insulated, cocoon-like enclosure, fashioned from a dozen different sized, shaped and coloured high quality thermal jackets, a huge patchwork of very desirable arctic protection gear.

  'I'm not sure I want to meet whoever knitted that thing together, or more importantly, who, or whatever it was intended for,' he mused, trying keenly to rub back some heat in his wrists, aware that he could feel blood running through his fingers.

  He now had some kind of goal, something to aim for. He figured that if he could open up the cocoon enough, he might be able to snuggle up inside and get warm enough to access his missing abilities, all of course providing he remained bad guy free for long enough. As he managed to wiggle across the metal netting, once again causing a great deal of pain to his hands and wrists, at the same time leaving a smudged trail of blood, he noticed that the small slivers of light coming into the van from outside were slowly getting dimmer.

  'Oh great... it's getting dark outside.' The only consolation was that he now had a vague idea about what time of day it was, and just how long he'd been unconscious for. Knowing it was starting to get dark turned his thoughts towards the fireworks display that was due to start at the sports club in about two hours’ time. At that precise moment he'd have given anything at all to be there with Tank and Richie.

  After what seemed like three hours, but his best guess told him it was more like half an hour, he'd managed to rip enough of the thermal material to create a gap wide enough for him to wriggle inside. Of course, getting in there was a whole different matter. After another twenty minutes of trial and error in the pitch black, he'd managed to get as much of his body in the cocoon as he was going to get. Using his teeth to close it up as much as he could, he curled up against the material, trying again to think warm thoughts in the hope that it would speed the whole process along. The temptation now was to fall asleep, something he was focusing on avoiding at all costs. The moment he had enough strength to break out of the handcuffs, he wanted to be free from all of this. He planned to get out of here as soon as was physically possible, with a view to leaving whatever was going on at Cropptech, firmly to the dragon Council. He would contact them as a matter of urgency, and let them deal with it.

  Trying to keep track of time proved of little success, but after a while he was sure he was starting to warm up. He was beginning to feel sleepy and could all but feel the metal of the handcuffs chafing his wrists. In the haziness of his mind, he started to imagine he could hear voices. Voices that were gradually getting louder, or closer.

  Startled fully awake, he realised it wasn't his imagination. There really were voices emanating from somewhere outside the van and disappointingly they were most definitely getting closer. Concentrating like mad, he gave everything he had in an effort to bring forth his dragon abilities into his frail and human shaped body. Flexing his arms, he tried with all his might to break the handcuffs holding his hands in place behind his back. After a few seconds, it was clear that he was still too cold. Silently, he swore to himself as he waited for whoever the voices belonged to, to open the van's tailgate.

  Closer now, Peter couldn't make out the exact words, but it sounded as though they were in a rush. Two doors opening, one after the other, became clear, quickly followed by them closing again shortly afterwards. With a lacklustre rumble, the van's engine jolted into life.

  'We're going somewhere,' he thought to himself. 'I've still got a chance, as long as the journey's a reasonably long one.'

  Peter snuggled up as much as he could in the giant patchwork cocoon, hoping that the journey, whe
rever they were headed, would give him enough time to warm up. Right about now he found himself getting a little bit mad about everything. So much so, he was even contemplating turning into his dragon form, if he ever got warm enough to do so. Very unlike him. But he kept telling himself that desperate times called for desperate measures and that the dragon Council would fully understand, once they found out the full circumstances; well, just maybe they would.

  As the van started to twist and turn, he tried to imagine where they were headed, every left and right turn played out in his mind, but truth be told, he was lost long before they'd even left the Cropptech site.

  Trying feverishly to warm himself up, not knowing when the unexpected journey would end, he struggled as the handcuffs would only allow him to rub the tips of his fingers together as he slid about in the back of the van. Rubbing his knees and legs together, while at the same time massaging both his feet, he tried to have a positive outlook.

  'Another hour like this and things will most certainly be looking up.'

  But did he have another hour? All too soon he would find out.