The Emerald Quest

by Gill Vickery

  To Mary and Fran, true DragonFriends

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One In The Drakelow Mountains

  Chapter Two The Traders Arrive

  Chapter Three Around The Traders’ Fire

  Chapter Four The Great Forest of Drangur

  Chapter Five The Great Spell

  Chapter Six Into the Town of Drangur

  Chapter Seven Malindra

  Chapter Eight The Magic Laboratory

  Chapter Nine Trapped!

  Chapter Ten Back to the Forest

  Prologue

  The little village of Hamar had never heard such a tumult! A great roaring echoed round the houses and a hot wind shrieked through the narrow streets. People hurried to see what was happening.

  ‘Stay inside the house,’ Tia’s father ordered as he ran to join the other villagers.

  Tia scrambled onto a chair so that she could look out of the window. In the fields on the edge of the village was a huge red dragon, bellowing and spouting flames.

  Tia had seen lots of dragons, but she’d never seen one lose its temper before. Why was he in Hamar? And why was he so angry?

  She wanted to find out. She scurried out of the house and ran to the corn field. There, she hid behind a hedge and watched as the red dragon turned round and round, churning up the corn.

  ‘Where is Ondine?’ he roared at the villagers.

  Tia’s father stepped forward and bowed.

  ‘I am Elio, mighty one,’ he said. ‘Ondine is my wife. What do you want with her?’

  The dragon hissed, hot little flames licking his cruel mouth. ‘She is one of the scheming thieves who have stolen our jewels of power!’

  The villagers gasped in horror.

  ‘No! Ondine would never steal from the DragonQueen!’ Elio said.

  ‘Then why isn’t she here?’ roared the dragon.

  ‘She went to the DragonQueen’s Keep to bring a gift – a swan’s down coverlet for her new eggs.’

  ‘And there she stole the jewels of power! Where is she now?’ the dragon demanded.

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Elio desperately.

  ‘You lie!’ The dragon thundered towards Tia’s father, the ground shaking with his angry steps, and snatched up Elio in his claws.

  ‘Stop it!’ Tia burst from her hiding place and ran towards the dragon.

  ‘No, Tia! Run!’ Elio cried.

  Tia took no notice. She beat at the huge scaly foot holding her father.

  ‘Leave my Papa alone!’

  The dragon roared again, dropped Tia’s father, and grasped her. She screamed and kicked at the iron-hard claws.

  ‘Enough!’ the dragon growled. He turned to Elio. ‘Ondine helped take our jewels of power, so I will take your witch-brat.’ He gathered himself into a crouch and sprang up and away into the sky.

  Far below, Tia saw her father cupping his hands to his mouth.

  ‘I’ll find you, Tia!’ he called. ‘I’ll find you and bring you back. Remember!’

  His voice faded and the village of Hamar grew smaller as the dragon flew up and up, his huge wings beating with a steady rhythm that boomed in the air.

  All of sudden and from out of nowhere, a great blast like an invisible storm sent the dragon spinning over and over in the sky. He flapped his wings frantically in an effort to stay in the air – and he lost his grip on Tia. Down and down she fell, the wind rushing past her, whirling her closer and closer to the ground.

  Through her screams, she heard the dragon roar. He was hurtling down towards her, but he was flying again, not falling.

  Just as she was about to hit the earth, the dragon scooped her up.

  ‘It was a spell!’ the dragon thundered. ‘The High Witches have used magic to drive us away from our lands.’ He was angrier than ever. He tightened his grip on Tia, wheeled around in the sky and flew swiftly towards the distant Drakelow Mountains.

  It was dusk by the time the red dragon landed at the ancient Keep where the dragons had gathered for safety.

  ‘I could not find Ondine, but I have her child,’ he said and opened his foot. Tia stumbled out; even though she was tired and afraid of the huge creatures towering over her, she kicked the dragon as hard as she could.

  He prodded her forward. ‘Bow to the DragonQueen,’ he ordered.

  Tia bowed solemnly to the golden-green dragon.

  ‘You’re very small,’ the DragonQueen said. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Old enough not to be scared of dragons!’ Tia said. But she began to shiver; it was bitterly cold in the mountains.

  ‘She’s shaking – she is scared, really,’ a young red dragon laughed.

  ‘No I’m not,’ Tia said, ‘I’m just cold.’

  ‘Be quiet, Torkil,’ the DragonQueen said. ‘She has spirit; that is surprising in such a young one, though perhaps not in a witch-child.’

  ‘I’m not a witch-child!’ Tia insisted.

  ‘Yes you are,’ Torkil said. ‘Witch-brat!’

  ‘The DragonQueen told you to be quiet.’ The mighty red dragon cuffed Torkil. ‘Go to your cave.’

  The dragons began to speak in strange clicks and hisses that Tia knew was their private language. She wished she knew what they were saying.

  The DragonQueen spoke in human language again. ‘Freya will take you.’

  ‘I want to go home!’ Tia said.

  ‘It isn’t possible.’ A green dragon grasped the back of Tia’s jacket in her mouth and carried her away to a cavern where a copper-coloured dragonet slept in front of a fire.

  Freya dropped Tia gently next to him. ‘Get warm,’ she said, ‘while I find something for you to sleep on.’

  Tia curled up next to the warm, spicy-smelling hide of the dragonet. Soothed by his even breathing she almost fell asleep herself and didn’t protest when Freya picked her up again and placed her on a rocky ledge covered in moss and leaves. Tia burrowed under them so that if she cried Freya wouldn’t see her.

  Her makeshift bed was prickly but warm. She’d almost fallen asleep when she heard a soft voice say, ‘DragonMother? Who is that human child and why is she here?’ It was the dragonet.

  ‘Her name is Tia and she’s a witch-child,’ Freya said.

  ‘Like the High Witches who have the DragonQueen’s jewels!’ the little dragonet said.

  ‘Yes, Finn, but this child has done nothing wrong. Andgrim couldn’t find the High Witches so he stole her away instead.’

  ‘That’s kidnapping!’

  ‘Yes,’ Freya agreed. ‘The DragonQueen wanted Andgrim to take Tia back but the High Witches have cast a powerful spell that prevents dragons from entering the lands of the Six Towns. So the DragonKing and Queen have decided to keep Tia until the spell is broken and the jewels are returned to us.’

  ‘How long will that be?’ Finn asked.

  Tia held her breath.

  ‘It may be many years,’ Freya said. ‘Tia will be lonely. Will you be a good DragonBrother to your new foster sister?’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ Finn promised.

  ‘Good. Now, go back to sleep.’

  Tia heard the scrape of two scaly hides as the dragons settled down together. Very soon all was quiet except for the crackle and hiss of the fire and the soft breathing of the dragons.

  Tia watched shadows dance on the cave walls and puzzled over why the dragons thought she was a witch-child. She wasn’t, she knew she wasn’t – her mother and father were just ordinary villagers. A fierce, empty feeling reminded her that she might not see her parents again for years.

  Tears fell down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily. The dragons would never know she cried, never ever, she promised herself.

  At last she fell asleep. In her dreams she heard a voice call
ing to her – I’ll find you, Tia! I’ll find you and bring you back. Remember! And in her sleep she whispered another promise: ‘I won’t forget you, Papa. I’ll never forget.’

  Chapter One

  In The Drakelow

  Mountains

  ‘Ow!’ Torkil, the red dragonet, squealed as Tia’s pebble bounced off his ear. He wobbled in the air and the dragonet behind flew into him. All the other young dragons had to wheel in the sky to avoid crashing.

  ‘What are you doing, Torkil!’ the flying master called, flapping his blue wings angrily. ‘Land immediately!’

  Torkil landed right in front of the rock Tia was hiding behind. She couldn’t resist letting fly with her sling again. This time she hit him on the nose. He roared and spun round.

  Tia jumped up from behind the rock, waving her sling. ‘Got you!’ she yelled.

  With another roar, Torkil launched himself at her. She dropped behind the rock and wriggled away down a tunnel as fast as she could. He was too big to squeeze down the narrow passageway.

  She wriggled on until she came to a small cavern lit by sunlight streaming from openings in the roof.

  The cavern was Tia’s secret den. She wound up her sling and put it with her bag of pebbles on a rock shelf. Then she lit her fire, sat on a pile of cushions and picked up her runes book.

  She meant to practise writing but she couldn’t concentrate.

  That morning she’d asked Freya, ‘How long have you been my DragonMother?’ and Freya had told her, ‘Eight years.’

  Eight years! She could hardly remember anything from her human past. She did remember her father’s voice calling, ‘I’ll find you, Tia… and bring you back.’ But there had been no sign of him.

  Perhaps he thinks I died when Andgrim dropped me, she thought sadly.

  Tia had forgotten almost everything about her parents – even their names. The only reminder she had was a locket on a chain that she’d been wearing on the day she was kidnapped. Inside were portraits of her mother and father. They looked so kind.

  Most of the dragons were good to her. She was respectful to them and never complained about how cold and hard it was living in the mountains. She worked at her lessons and obeyed the dragons’ orders.

  But she was a hostage: until the witches returned the DragonQueen’s necklace with its jewels of power, the dragons wouldn’t return Tia to her parents. And Andgrim insisted that she was dangerous. Freya had told her, ‘Andgrim’s brother, Thor, disappeared trying to recover the necklace from the High Witches. Because some of your family are witches, Andgrim thinks you are dangerous too.’

  But Thor had also been Freya’s husband, and Freya didn’t believe Tia was dangerous. She sighed again and went back to writing runes. The book was almost full; she’d need a new one soon.

  She jumped up. The Traders were due to arrive today and Freya would buy her a new book from them. She always made sure the Traders provided everything Tia could want: food and clothes, blankets and cushions, books and pens – even a special iron claw to fit over her finger so that she could write runes in the mud of the teaching cave floor just like the dragonets. The Traders had also taught her how to ride horses, defend herself, light fires, use a sling shot, and cook what she could catch and gather.

  She had once asked them to help her escape from Drakelow but they said they couldn’t; they needed to be friends with everyone – dragons, ordinary humans and the High Witches – so that they could trade freely in the whole island of Tulay.

  Tia ran to Freya’s cave, keeping a look out for Torkil on the way. I hope Torkil and his friends don’t take it out on Finn, she thought. Poor Finn was tormented by the other dragonets because he was her foster brother. Worse than that, he was small for his age and a strange colour. He wasn’t green or blue or red as the other dragons were; he was a sort of coppery shade, and he sometimes changed colour, which none of the other dragons did: that really made the dragonets laugh and the more they laughed, the more the colours swirled over Finn’s hide.

  Tia reached her foster mother’s cavern. Although it was huge inside, Freya kept it warm and cosy; a fire burned in a hearth at the centre of the cave and blue smoke curled straight up and out through a vent in the roof. The green dragon was dozing against the far wall when Tia burst in.

  Freya opened her glittering golden eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked kindly. ‘Have the dragonets been chasing you again?’

  Tia nodded. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said quickly in case Freya thought she was complaining. ‘But I don’t want Torkil to bother Finn.’ She told Freya what she’d done to Torkil.

  ‘That wasn’t very sensible,’ Freya said getting up from her couch. ‘But don’t worry about Finn; he’ll stand up for himself. And as for you, my little DragonDaughter…’ Freya nudged Tia gently with her nose. ‘Be patient.’

  Tia climbed up onto the high ledge of her sleeping platform so that she was level with Freya’s head, and showed her the runes book.

  ‘You’ve filled it up,’ Freya said.

  Tia held up her pen. ‘This is wearing out too.’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing that the Traders have arrived.’

  Tia flung her arms round Freya’s green muzzle and kissed her nose. ‘Can I go and see them?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll go with you as far as the flying ground to see how Finn is doing.’

  Tia laughed. Torkil and his friends wouldn’t dare torment Finn in front of his mother – Freya was the DragonQueen’s sister, after all!

  Chapter Two

  The Traders Arrive

  The Traders had settled on the edge of a grassy plateau encircled by the lower slopes of the Drakelow Mountains. Their tents and stalls, decorated with brightly coloured flags, were pitched close to the dragons’ stony caverns in the mountainside. The flags snapped in the spring breeze and the Traders’ shaggy little horses happily munched the grass behind the tents.

  Tia saw her friends, Kizzy and Florian. She ran up and hugged them.

  ‘My DragonMother’s given me some silver coins to buy a new book and a pen.’

  The three of them went to Kizzy and Florian’s tent where their mother welcomed Tia with a big hug.

  ‘And how is my favourite DragonChild?’ she asked with a big smile.

  ‘I’m fine thank you, Zora. I hope you’re well too and that trading is good?’

  Zora pressed a sweet drink and a piece of honey cake into Tia’s hands. ‘Trading is not as good as it used to be,’ she said sitting down on a bench covered in bright rugs. ‘The High Witches have made the country wretched and poor. Now they’re quarrelling among themselves and things are getting even worse.’

  Zora shook her head angrily. ‘Malindra, the High Witch of Drangur, makes things hardest for us. You know that she took the DragonQueen’s emerald and uses its power to talk to animals?’

  Tia nodded. Drangur was the nearest of the six towns to the Drakelow Mountains, and Malindra’s ways were well known.

  ‘She combines it with her magic and forces the animals to do as she wants,’ Zora went on. ‘She sends dogs and wolves to worry our horses so they take fright easily and then she says they’re not worth paying a good price for.’

  ‘We won’t sell our horses there now,’ Florian blurted out. ‘She treats them badly.’

  ‘She sends rats to chew the goods on our stalls,’ Kizzy said. ‘They make our leather and cloth look shabby. People think we’re trying to cheat them into buying poor goods.’

  ‘Don’t you explain to them?’ Tia asked.

  ‘They don’t want to listen. They’re afraid of Malindra’s spies,’ Zora said.

  ‘Animal spies,’ Kizzy added. ‘They follow you on quiet little feet. You never know if the dog or cat you see in the street is a pet or one of her spies.’

  ‘The birds are the worst. They can look down on you from anywhere and you never even know it,’ Florian said.

  ‘Those High Witches have a lot to answer for,’ Zora said. ‘But take heart – they are
falling out because they can’t get the jewels to work properly. They can keep the dragons away from the lands of the six towns, and force the people of Tulay to do what they want, but they have to work hard at it. They don’t enjoy their power.’ Zora laughed.

  ‘Do you think the High Witches will ever be defeated?’ Tia asked.

  ‘Only if the jewels are restored to the DragonQueen,’ Zora said. ‘Enough of these sad tales. What have you come to the Traders for, Tia?’

  ‘To see my friends,’ Tia said, hugging plump Zora. ‘And to buy a book for writing in, and a pen.’

  ‘Come with me, we have just the thing!’

  Zora’s husband, Hanzi, rummaged among the hats and jewellery and jackets and belts and books heaped in piles on his stall. He pulled out a beautiful leaf-green, leather-bound book.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ Tia took the book and turned it over and over.

  ‘And here’s a pen to go with it,’ said Hanzi, holding out a black pen with a pale grey point that shimmered in the sunshine. ‘The point is made of silver and will write for as long as you need it to.’

  Tia paid him then turned to Zora. ‘I’d better go now. Thank you for the honey cake and drink.’

  Kizzy caught her hand. ‘You’ll come to the bonfire tonight to hear the stories and songs, won’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for anything!’ Tia said. The Traders were famous for their stories. She waved goodbye and ran home to Freya’s cavern.

  Chapter Three

  Around The Traders’ Fire

  The bonfire lit the night sky, flames roaring upwards as though they were reaching for the stars.

  All two hundred dragons had settled around the plateau; some crouching on the ground and some looking down from their caverns. There were big dragons, nearly five centuries old, and small ones not much older than Tia. Even the Queen and King’s little dragonets were allowed to lie between their parents’ feet and listen.

  The Traders picked up their instruments and Hanzi started to beat a drum, the sound booming round the plateau. The dragons’ eyes glittered in the firelight like rubies.