A faint POP sounded from behind him, and someone tapped him on the shoulder. Alfie whipped around. There was no one there, but further down the train was Red Robe, sitting cross-legged on the rocking carriage.
“Who are you?” Alfie shouted, stepping towards him. “Why did you help me get my bag back at Glastonbury?”
With an elegant flourish, Red Robe calmly pulled back his richly embroidered hood to reveal a leering face with bulging white eyes. Alfie took an involuntary step back before realizing it was some kind of mask. At least he hoped it was a mask.
“OK, enough showing off. This is my train, and I need to check your ticket,” Alfie said and sprang forward, his armour catapulting him into a super-powered sprint down the train.
But with a shimmer, like the very molecules in the air had parted, Red Robe disappeared, leaving Alfie grabbing at nothing. Red Robe was now at the other end of the train, sitting calmly again as if he was meditating in a temple. How did he DO that? Some kind of illusion? Teleporting? What? Red Robe stood up in a smooth, graceful movement and pointed at something behind Alfie.
“Oh yeah, like I’m falling for that old trick,” Alfie yelled over the rushing wind.
Red Robe jabbed his finger again, with more urgency this time. Alfie risked a glance behind. The train was heading directly for a road bridge! Correction, thought Alfie, the train is going under a bridge and I’ve got to—
JUMP!
Alfie leapt twenty feet into the air. Below him, the train thundered under the bridge as cars and lorries rumbled over it.
“Spurs!” Alfie shouted, and then remembered that in his rush to get out of the carriage he hadn’t put the spurs on. His stomach lurched as gravity reclaimed him, forcing him back down towards the train. His momentum had carried him forward and he was going to miss the bridge, at least, and—
CLANG!
With a bone-shaking impact, Alfie landed back on the roof of the train. He was in one piece; the armour had protected him. But as for Red Robe, there was no sign. Had his fun for the night, Alfie figured. He decided there and then to keep the strange encounter to himself. Whoever he was, Red Robe didn’t appear to mean him any harm – quite the opposite, in fact. It was more like the mysterious figure was watching over him. Alfie promised himself he would find out why.
Richard was desperate to escape. The Vikings had returned from the Cambridge raid to their crypt hideout and were singing. They hadn’t actually plundered all that much, but they’d caused some damage and spread a great deal of fear, and that seemed victory enough for them to justify the raucous singalong. Guthrum, on the other hand, still wasn’t happy, growling to Professor Lock that he wanted his promised gold, and lots of it. Richard wondered how the professor managed to be so close to the stinking Viking without being sick.
Richard found a quiet spot and leaned against an old tomb, belonging to someone called FRANNY MAY WHITE, DIED 1726, and closed his eyes. The cold of the stone seeped through his coat and into his back, reminding him of last winter. Term had just started again after the Christmas holidays and he was back at Harrow School, sitting in Professor Lock’s study. It was two weeks since he had learned the truth about his father. The king. The Defender of the Realm! How could his father keep such a secret from his own family? How could he let them become so ridiculed and even hated by so many in the country when he had such power at his fingertips? His own dad was a superhero, but he acted like he was powerless to do anything! Lock was right: the centuries had turned his family into cowards too scared to use their power.
“Do you want to do something about it?” the professor had asked, leaning across his desk and smiling at Richard.
“What can I do?” asked Richard. “I’m not even the heir. I’m nobody.”
“No, that’s not true. There is power sleeping in your veins. All we need to do is release it.”
That was when Lock revealed his greatest discoveries to Richard. Two relics, which he said could help them change the course of history. The first was the skeleton of the dragon he had dug up at the White Horse of Uffington. He explained how dragons were real creatures that had once wreaked havoc on the country, until they were hunted to extinction. Their bodies were highly prized, said to contain many incredible properties; men paid fortunes for a single scale. The second was a small fragment of a jewel-encrusted golden crown, which he had found at another chalk-figure site in Westbury. It was part of Alfred the Great’s original crown, imbued with immense powers by the ancient gods. Lock said he was working on finding the rest of it, but it already presented them with a unique opportunity, as he explained:
“Even a small part of Alfred’s crown has the power to awaken the dragon magic in these bones. But it cannot be used by just anyone. It takes someone special. Someone with royal blood.”
Perhaps it wouldn’t work and nothing would happen, Lock told him, but there was a chance, if Richard was brave enough to try. Richard knew that what the teacher was proposing was, by any normal measure, insane. But he also knew that he couldn’t just go back to his life the way it was before, not after everything he’d learned. He had to do something.
Lock combined the crown fragment with some of the dragon bones to form a rudimentary crown. Every night after lights out, Richard would creep to Lock’s study and sit in the darkness wearing the strange creation on his head for an hour or so. Soon it became routine, like doing his homework or going to rugby practice. But aside from the occasional tingling sensation, which could just as easily have been cramp from sitting still too long, he didn’t notice any change. Then, one morning, just as he was starting to think Lock’s experiments were a waste of time, Richard caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. He had always been broad-shouldered and strong for his age, but today the muscles across his chest looked much bigger than before. He flexed his biceps – they were large and rock solid, like he’d been working out for six weeks straight. That night Lock increased the time Richard spent wearing the dragon crown to three hours.
Soon Richard felt fitter than he ever had before. He could run faster, tackle harder, leap further – he actually had to start reining it in so that no one would notice. His skin had become so tough that he couldn’t even cut it with a knife. If this was what it was like to be a superhero, like the Defender, then he wanted more. He encouraged Lock to let him spend longer and longer wearing the dragon crown, until he was there almost all night. But even the lack of sleep didn’t seem to affect him any more; in fact he’d never felt more alert and quick-witted.
Then, one night, after he had returned to his room for an hour’s sleep, he woke in agony. It felt like there was a fire raging inside his throat. He crawled to the mirror and watched in horror as his body mutated, black scales appearing over his skin, his jaw growing and elongating like a lizard’s, his eyes turning thin and red. When he woke later that morning he was still on his bedroom floor. He must have passed out from the pain. His body was thankfully back to normal, but he could still feel the remnants of the fire burning deep inside him. That night, for the first time in months, he didn’t go to see Professor Lock. When Lock came to find him, Richard explained what had happened, but rather than sharing his shock, Lock seemed excited.
“This is even better than I had dared to hope. The dragon magic is combining with your blood, evolving your body into something new. There’s no going back now. The crown will help with the pain; it will only be worse without it.”
That night, however, Richard refused to wear the dragon crown. But Lock was right. And soon after, Richard, writhing in agony, was knocking on his door, begging to resume their experiment.
In time, Richard learned to control his lizard transformations, managing his emotions to hold back the symptoms until he was alone, or until he needed them. For as terrifying as it was at first, his monstrous alter-ego did come with certain advantages. The night Lock sent him out on his first mission to the Tower of London, searching for more of Alfred the Great’s lost crown, he felt invincible. Even
when he killed the Yeoman Warder, he didn’t feel bad about it; in that moment, he was the Black Lizard, and he would show no mercy to those who got in his way. His was a noble cause, to make the country he loved great again.
By the time he faced his own father at Stonehenge, Richard was evolving from Black Lizard into Black Dragon. Now when he transformed he had a heavy tail too. Every part of him felt stronger. His heart had hardened so much that he no longer thought of the man inside the Defender’s armour as his dad. He was an enemy who clearly had no love for him, so why should he feel anything but hatred back? Later, overwhelmed at the enormity of what he had done, he would have doubts, but in that moment when he killed King Henry, Richard was not himself. The Black Dragon was in control, and the creature had no such qualms; the Defender needed to die.
Afterwards Richard made his feelings clear to Professor Lock about what he wanted to happen next. Alfie and Ellie would not be harmed. None of this was their fault. Lock agreed – the plan was always to encourage the weak-willed Alfie to abdicate, clearing the way for Richard to become the Defender and rule the country as he saw fit, ushering in a new age and a new empire. Richard continued his evolution into the Black Dragon, scaring Alfie just enough in Edinburgh to make him seriously doubt his ability to be the Defender. Lock played his part too, prompting Alfie to think for himself, planting the notion of giving up the throne in his mind. Their plan worked and Alfie abdicated – for a while.
When Alfie came to Richard in the Abbey and told him he had changed his mind – that he did want to be king after all – Richard didn’t know what to do. What could he say? He couldn’t admit everything he had done to Alfie’s face, not yet. So he agreed. But as he stood alone in the ante-room, listening to the organ strike up, hearing the shocked murmurs from the crowd as they saw not him, but his hapless brother processing to the coronation chair, Richard felt a monstrous rage growing inside him. How dare his brother ruin everything? Richard couldn’t turn back now; he couldn’t be the “spare” again. Worse than that – the ridiculed substitute sent back to the bench. He wouldn’t stand aside. Even if it meant killing Alfie.
Placing the restored crown of Alfred the Great on to his head, his transformation into the Black Dragon complete, Richard was filled with immense power unlike anything he had felt before. He would destroy anyone who got in his way. But the surge of strength had made him too confident, and he was blind to his brother’s own increased power and cunning. The crown was severed from his head and he was trapped beneath tons of rock. If Lock had not been on hand to pull him clear and take his place, then he would have been captured there and then. Alfie would have known his own brother had betrayed him. But he had been given a second chance. Far from being defeated in the Abbey, his brief contact with Alfred’s complete crown had locked the Dragon’s power inside him, perhaps for ever.
After he had rested for a while and licked his wounds, Richard returned and rescued Lock from the Tower. His mentor helped him to see what had happened more clearly. It was all Alfie’s fault for thinking he deserved the throne more than his brother. But all was not lost. Richard could still have his revenge…
But when?
Richard opened his eyes and looked around. Apart from the deep rumbling of the Vikings’ snoring, the crypt was now strangely quiet. Richard stretched and was about to head for the staircase when he heard Lock’s hushed voice echoing down the stone corridors. Richard picked his away around the reeking pile of sleeping Vikings, following the sound. Maybe he and Guthrum had taken their argument off somewhere else. But the closer Richard got, the stranger Lock’s voice sounded. He wasn’t speaking Old Norse, and there was something else to his tone Richard couldn’t quite place. He crept through the cold chambers towards a small chapel that glowed with sputtering candles.
“Everything is going according to plan…”
Was he imagining it, or was Lock’s voice shaking? And if there was someone else involved in the conversation, Richard couldn’t hear them. But there was something else – not a voice, but a low-level droning, like a million flies buzzing their wings.
“The way will soon be clear. I promise.” Lock’s voice was tight and dry with fear.
Richard peeked around the corner to see Lock kneeling in front of a stone plinth, upon which stood his seeing mirror. He was staring at it like he was hypnotized, the fly-wing droning sound rising and falling. Desperate to see who Lock was speaking to, Richard slipped inside the chapel, trying to get an angle over the professor’s shoulder. The closer he got, the louder the drone became. He was so close to being able to see what was on the other side of the mirror, the edges of the glass were black and yellow, streaked with red, like something pulsing, alive and—
“Richard!” Lock sprang to his feet and whipped the velvet cloth over the mirror. The buzzing sound disappeared.
“Who was that?” Richard said.
“No one,” the professor snapped, his voice back to its commanding best.
“Didn’t sound like no one to me,” said Richard, pulling the cloth from the mirror. But all he saw in the glass was his own face staring back at him.
“I mean, no one that need concern you.” Lock sounded calmer. “Just know that we are not alone in this struggle. We have friends who also want to help you win the throne, Richard. Powerful friends.”
Richard stared at Lock for a moment. “What’s in all this for you?”
The professor seemed taken aback, as if he were insulted by the question. “Nothing. To serve the rightful king and true Defender, Richard the Fourth.”
“Spare me the sales pitch,” said Richard. He was tired of Lock talking to him as if he were still just one of his pupils back at school. “What do you really want from me?”
Lock leaned against a stone arch and smiled. “All right. I suppose you are old enough to understand these things. You know what they called me at university? Loony Lock. People laughed at my theories. How history as we are taught it is a lie. How magic exists. How dragons once soared in our skies. How kings once wielded power beyond imagination before they became too afraid. I learned soon enough to keep my mouth shut and play along, pretended I’d come round. But I could still see them sniggering at me, talking behind my back. I want to prove those people wrong.”
Richard met Lock’s defiant stare. He had a feeling there was still something the professor wasn’t telling him. But then what did it matter, if he got the throne?
“GULL!”* Guthrum’s voice boomed through the crypt, coming towards them.
All at once, the huge, smelly Viking was filling the chapel door, stamping his feet like a toddler having a meltdown.
“GULL! GULL! GULL!”
“You’ll get your gold, you stupid, dead Norseman!” Lock said.
“GULL!” Guthrum yelled again, filling the small chapel with his dead breath.
“This is NOT the same Britain you and your men knew a thousand years ago!” Lock shouted back.
He’d either forgotten Guthrum spoke no English, or he’d given up on explaining in Old Norse.
“If you just listen to me, I will tell you about somewhere really worth raiding!”
“Another raid?! Why?” shouted Richard, flabbergasted. “So they can wreck more of the country before I even take the throne?”
Lock held his hands up. “Patience, Richard. It’s all part of my plan.”
Richard laughed bitterly. “So you keep saying. What plan? Do anything to keep Captain Dead and his zombie morons happy? I’m out of here.”
Richard tried to shoulder-barge his way past Guthrum but the vast Viking wouldn’t budge and grabbed Richard by the neck, lifting him off his feet.
“NO! PUT HIM DOWN!” yelled Lock.
But it was too late. Richard’s eyes flashed red and with a terrific cracking of bones he transformed into the Black Dragon and turned the tables on Guthrum, pinning the Viking lord against the crypt’s vaulted ceiling with his clawed hand. The rest of the draugar rushed into the chapel and surrounded the Drago
n, snarling and cursing, but he simply flexed his wings to keep them at bay. None was brave enough to charge him first. Fire glowed hot in the Dragon’s throat as he flicked his tongue over Guthrum’s face.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t burn this stinking corpse?” hissed the Dragon.
Guthrum went for his axe, but the Black Dragon swatted it with his tail, sending it clattering away.
“Because if you do, you will never be king,” said Lock, his voice like ice.
The Dragon paused, then tossed Guthrum to the ground. The rattled Viking chief got up, spat a wad of green bile at their feet, and returned to his men, grumbling at them for their cowardice. The Dragon returned to his corner, slowing his breathing, and transformed back into Richard. He pulled on his spare clothes and made for the exit.
“Where are you going?” asked Lock.
“I have somewhere better to be,” Richard shot back and stormed out.
“If you see your brother, just remember this: we need him alive, for now,” Lock called after him. “Richard!”
But Richard was gone.
* * *
* “GOLD!”
Alfie was still sitting in the car. They were parked at the end of the long approach to the majestic Windsor Castle, which had been hung with lanterns for his sister’s birthday party. He was late, but Alfie needed to collect his thoughts first. It was always so hard talking to Ellie when he couldn’t tell her anything about the whole Defender half of his life. He felt like the secret had put an invisible wall between them.
“Not in the party mood, then?” asked Brian, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Have you seen Ellie’s friends when they get excited?” Alfie replied.
“Fair enough. Did you invite Hayley?”
“Hayley?” The thought hadn’t even occurred to Alfie.
Dark Age Page 9
