Silvertongue

by Charlie Fletcher

  He felt the scar in his hand twinge, and the vein of stone circling his upper arm throbbed in sympathy. The pain in his hand reminded him of the Temple Bar Dragon, who had marked him with the livid scar. He remembered the savage intelligence of that dragon’s piercing eyes. He looked into the eyes of the taint opposite. They were fierce, no doubt, but just as its body was more lumpen and blocky than the Temple Bar Dragon, so its eyes were different. They were angry and burning and . . . stupid.

  Sometimes when you’re out of choices, the oldest tricks in the book are all you have to work with.

  “Behind you!” shouted George, pointing.

  The dragon turned to look.

  George sprinted for safety.

  The dragon may have been stupid, but it wasn’t slow. It turned back with a roar of frustration, and blasted flame out of its mouth—not the multicolored wildfire that had spiraled out of the Temple Bar Dragon, but a workmanlike white flame, more like a blowtorch than anything magical. It jetted into the window and spread out wide, but George was gone.

  He was sprinting down the pavement beneath the canopy. He felt the blast of heat behind him, turned his head for a snatched look backward, saw the dragon stop flaming and start after him with a roar, so he just dug in and ran faster. Unfortunately the first thing he saw when he turned back to face front was the second dragon charging head-on at him from the other direction.

  “George!” cried a voice above him.

  He saw the Clocker leaning down off the edge of the canopy, reaching a long arm straight down, hand wide.

  George had no time to think, not if he was to avoid becoming a very squashed and messy filling in a dragon sandwich, so he leaped. His hand slapped around the Clocker’s forearm, and he felt the Clocker grip on and swing him up into the air like a pendulum just as the two dragons met in a head-on collision in the space where he had just been.

  The thunderous clang beneath his feet was still echoing around the silent street when he started to swing backward on the downstroke of his pendulum arc over the two train-wrecked dragons sprawled groggily beneath him. He caught a glimpse of their eyes trying to focus on him, and then he was swinging forward again. One of them tried a halfhearted slash of its claw at him as he passed over.

  “Let go!” George shouted. The Clocker released his arm, and he flew a short way forward and tumbled into the snow.

  Dictionary was sprawled in a drift ahead of him. Hodge was at his side, hissing toward George.

  “Run, boy!” shouted Dictionary.

  Hodge was not hissing at George, he was hissing at the dragon unsteadily lurching after him.

  Another dragon that was stupid but fast. And resilient.

  George jinked over a road-menders’ barrier, just avoided falling into the trench on the other side, and ran across the street, bobbing and weaving around snow-buried cars.

  The dragons didn’t weave. Nor did they bob. They jumped. And not around anything. Over everything. In a straight line. A rapidly shortening straight line at whose end was George. He grabbed another quick look back and saw the two of them springing over the roofs of cars, hot on his trail. They were gaining on him much too quickly.

  One of them landed with a thump painfully close on his heels, and he knew he wasn’t going to make it to safety on the other side of the street. In fact he couldn’t see any safety there anyway. And then he was face-to-face with a long station wagon, and he didn’t think at all, but ripped open the door and dived in, slamming it behind him. He had enough time to slam the door locks down, and then the side of the car was rocked by the impact of the dragon hitting it. Snow cascaded off the roof, and the car was, for an instant, still.

  He could hear the dragons snuffling outside the car. He scooted into the backseat, looking around for a weapon. There was a nearly full quart of bottled water and something that squished in his hand as he grabbed it.

  “Great. A banana,” he muttered, and then the side window blew in as one of the dragons smashed its head through the glass, and he was staring straight into the wide snarling mouth, so close that he could see the tongue of fire deep in its throat as it inhaled, ready to fill the inside of the car with flame.

  George rammed the bottle into the gaping maw, thinking it might plug the throat and make the dragon choke, then he squirmed over the back of the seat into the cargo area, which was both a bad move, because he realized as soon as he got there that he couldn’t open the back door from inside, and a good move, because it got him out of the way of the dragon’s blast.

  The dragon didn’t fill the inside of the car with a ball of incinerating fire. The flame belched up the dragon’s throat, met the plastic bottle George had shoved down it, melted the plastic, and thus hit the water within.

  Water hit the flame and turned to steam, and the dragon choked and spluttered, coughing out the now-empty top half of the bottle so hard that it ricocheted off the window on the far side of the car and hit George in the back of the head as he scrabbled for any other weapon on the floor of the cargo area. The bottle rocket shot out, not on a gout of flame, but on a steam jet. The air inside the car suddenly became very, very hot and impossible to see through. As the steam rapidly cooled, it also became very wet.

  George’s hands found a curved plastic handle underneath him, attached to a spindly shaft wrapped in material and even spindlier ribs of metal. He knew instantly what it was, and as he made out the dragon’s head coughing and spluttering and turning to look for him through the steam cloud, he pulled the handle free and stabbed it between the dragon’s teeth, straight down into its throat.

  The dragon stumbled back, jerking its head out the door. It staggered into its partner, short arms reaching for the handle of the umbrella George had just choked it with.

  One of the very useful things about an umbrella in this situation is the fact that the ribs of the canopy act like a lot of tiny barbs, so that when the dragon tried to rip it free, they caught in its gullet and made it choke even more. It thrashed its head from side to side, making increasingly desperate coughing and hacking noises as it continued to try to pluck the spiny obstruction from its throat.

  George couldn’t see any of this clearly, because the windows of the car were obscured with condensation from the steam, but he knew this was his moment to escape. He scrambled over the seat back and fumbled with the rear passenger door handle. As he did so the door on the other side of the car was tugged and shaken as the other dragon tried to wrench it open, and suddenly there was a great screech of protesting metal ending in a sharp crack as the door was torn clean off its hinges.

  For a moment there was nothing but light and snow in the empty doorway as the dragon stumbled back and tossed the door to one side; just as George got his door unlocked, the empty space was rammed full of a different but equally snarling dragon.

  George felt the door at his back open, and he tumbled out of the car as the second dragon bulled his way inside, trying to reach across the wide bench seat. George’s feet were almost clear of the car as he crabbed swiftly backward into the snow, when something red darted out of the dragon’s mouth and wound itself around his ankle like a whiplash.

  The dragon’s tongue tightened and tried to pull him back into the car. His hands found the raised edge of the curb, and he flexed his fingertips around it, trying to anchor himself.

  The dragon, meanwhile, just kept trying to barge its too-large body through the width of the too-small car. The velour seat was ripped to shreds as the dragon dug its talons in and endeavored to shove it farther forward, and the thin sheet steel of the roof buckled and split as the dragon tore and wrenched after George.

  George’s fingers weren’t strong enough to fight the dragon’s pull. Just as they were ripped free of their tenuous purchase on the lip of the curb, the dragon smashed its way out the door by snapping the door pillar and emerging in a hideous pop of destroyed metal.

  Its tongue loosened for an instant as its body lurched forward, and George tried to throw himself out of
the way. A foot talon stamped down, missing his ankle by less than an inch but jagging through his trouser leg and pinning it to the ground. George was stuck, desperately hoping the material would rip and free him. He pulled against the impaling claw as if his life depended on it. Which it did.

  The dragon cocked its head to spit fire at him . . . and then something small and furious leaped onto its head, sharp bronze claws slashing at its eyes.

  The cat Hodge clung to the taint’s head, obscuring its vision and using every ounce of feline fury to tear at the vulnerable eyes. The dragon tried to shake it off, but four sets of claws gripped its head and refused to be dislodged. For extra grip, Hodge sunk his teeth into the dragon’s ear and held on, yowling wildly as he did so.

  Dictionary lurched between George and the dragon and ripped George’s trouser leg free of the claw.

  “Quick, boy . . .” he puffed, unused to the exertion, “while Hodge remains under the happy misapprehension that the dragon is a big bird.”

  He grabbed George, and they started to run across the pavement toward a narrow alley, when something sprang over their heads, twisting in the air as it went, a trailing foot knocking Dictionary flat on his face. It landed on the turn, wings still swirling around it like a matador’s cape as it blocked the alley and gagged angrily at them. The dragon would have been a purely terrifying sight but for the small imperfection of the umbrella handle sticking out of its mouth. As if conscious of this fact, it reached up, gripped the handle, and gave a final almighty wrench, tearing the umbrella inside out as the barbed ribs bent back on themselves and came free of its throat.

  George didn’t wait to see what it did next; he turned and started to run.

  Before he got half a step, the dragon had grabbed his hand and yanked him back. And now there was nowhere to hide or run or do anything to save himself, because the metal claw gripped him like a cuff, and he was forced to look once more into the dragon’s mouth. He again saw the inhaled breath and flicker of ignition in the back of the throat as the dragon prepared to burn his face off.

  He instinctively put his free hand up to ward off the inevitable, only to have it numbingly smashed aside as Dictionary threw himself between them, his meaty hands grabbing the dragon’s muzzle and chin and forcing the mouth shut. As he did so, Dictionary caught sight of something gold and blue trapped in the dragon’s claw, jammed in the gap between skin and talon. It looked familiar, but just as he realized what it was, the dragon jerked its head violently, trying to shake itself free, and all Dictionary could think about was holding on.

  “By God, no!” he gritted, as the dragon tried to open its jaws.

  A short brutal trial of strength followed between them. Smoke started to curl from the sides of the dragon’s mouth as the buildup of fire found a way to escape between the gaps in its teeth. George tried to get free of the grip on his wrist, but the creature just yanked him closer.

  “Must free yourself . . .” panted Dictionary. “Cannot hold . . . much longer.”

  George could see the big man’s hands shaking with the effort of fighting the dragon, but he was stuck.

  The dragon punched Dictionary. A vicious uppercut with a hooked talon hit him in the stomach and jerked upward, ripping open his coat and waistcoat. George heard the “unh” of surprised pain from the man shielding him, and then the dragon shook its muzzle clear of the hands holding it shut.

  George saw its eyes find him, zero in on him, and ignite with a fire as hot as the one it was about to jet into his face.

  “No, sir, you shall NOT!!” roared Dictionary, looking up from where he was bent over the pain in his stomach.

  The dragon spat flame in a jet like a fire hose. As the world went fatally slow, George saw the jaws fill with a ball of fire that grew as it headed for his face, only feet away, and then the ball of fire was eclipsed as Dictionary lunged between them again. Using the last of his energy, he did the only thing that could possibly save George. He used himself to shield the boy from the fire.

  The fire hit him in the head, but he didn’t move. Instead he stood tall, hands trying to keep George behind him while the dragon tried to pull him clear.

  “You . . . shall . . . not . . . have . . . him!” bellowed Dictionary as the hose of fire hammered into his eyes. George saw him trembling with the effort to hold his ground, and when he looked up was horrified to see that the top right-hand quarter of the bronze head was being melted off, the velocity of the fire jet working it into an out-flung splash, like a frozen wave of metal sloughing off the face.

  The dragon exhausted its breath, and the flame stopped as it filled its lungs for a second blast.

  “You must get free, boy,” murmured a strange raw voice. “I fear I cannot hold him forever. . . .”

  It was only when Dictionary turned to look blindly at him, and George saw the terrible erasure that the fire had wrought across his eyes and forehead, that he realized the voice was the spit’s.

  “Dictionary,” George cried involuntarily.

  The dragon roared, cocked its head confidently for the coup de grâce, and then jerked it violently sideways once, twice, three times.

  It coughed and looked at George, a question in its eyes, as if it didn’t know why it had done that, and then . . .

  BLAM.

  A fourth shot rang out and knocked the head limply back on the scaly neck, and George realized he had heard three earlier shots but had been too busy preparing to die to work out what they were.

  The dragon pitched backward, its twitching tail sweeping Dictionary off his feet as it went down.

  “What happened, boy?” he said hoarsely.

  There was a strange noise building to their right—a low rolling thunder of hooves with a high-pitched yipping in counterpoint, like someone shouting “Hi, hi, hi!” over and over. George’s eyes followed the sound waves back to their source. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “But whatever it is, it’s still happening.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A Trap Worth Walking Into

  Little Tragedy scampered ahead of Edie along the Embankment, heading east.

  Toward the ice murk lowering over the City.

  Edie didn’t notice the cloud. All she saw was her mother’s stone bobbing along in Little Tragedy’s hand. She sprinted after him and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Hey,” she said, spinning him around and bunching her fist.

  “Don’t—”

  She punched him. The pain in her hand was instantaneous and numbing. He stumbled backward.

  “Hit me,” he finished, getting his balance.

  “Give me that stone,” she growled, holding her throbbing fist and deciding not to look at it, no matter how broken it felt.

  “I’m made of metal,” he said, backing up as she advanced on him. “It’s stupid to hit me. . . .”

  She kicked and hooked his legs out from under him. He smacked down on his back with a satisfying thud.

  “Ow!” he yelped.

  “Give me the stone!” she repeated, bunching her fist again. She tried not to show how much just bunching it now hurt.

  “All right, all right, keep your hair on,” he grumbled, and held up the stone. “I was just trying to help.”

  As she reached for it, the Raven swooped in and picked the stone from his hand, so close that Edie’s fingers brushed the feathers on its back as it passed between them.

  “You’re pulling my leg. . . .” she said.

  The Raven hung in the air and beckoned her.

  “Don’t start that again,” she sighed. “I’m really not in the mood.”

  “He’s trying to ’elp an’ all,” said Tragedy. “Can I get up, or do you want to hurt your hand some more?”

  “You betrayed me. You took me to that house, that prison with the woman with the sewn-up eyes!”

  She couldn’t begin to explain the scope of his treachery or the depth of her disgust and hatred for him. It rose in her throat like a black column of bile.

  “You l
ied, you stole. You stole the broken carving, the one George broke. And you handed me to the Walker. He hurt me. You hurt me. You worse than hurt me: you got me killed!”

  “If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t,” he whined.

  “Yeah, well, if I had a gun, I’d shoot you,” she spat. “In fact, I’m going to get a gun right now. . . .”

  She turned away and started to call out to the Gunner.

  “Wouldn’t do that if I was you, girlie. Not if you want to see your mother again.”

  Edie’s heart gave that treacherous lurch skyward. “What?” she gasped.

  “Your old mum. You want to see her, right?”

  The best of all possibilities was being laid before her by the worst of messengers. She took a deep breath, then another. Tried to think straight. Gave up.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Well then, that’s why Old Black sent me,” he said, as if she should have known this.

  “The Black Friar sent you?” she said, trying to catch up.

  “’Course he did. This ’ere bird flapped in, all of a twitter, an’ clacked away in Ol’ Black’s lug ’ole, and Ol’ Black, ’cos he understands the bird, sends me to get you. The bird wants to show you something.”

  “Where?” said Edie.

  “In the pub, where else?” sighed Tragedy. “Blimey. You sure you didn’t bang your ’ead as well as your knuckles?”

  Edie was well aware her heart was still fluttering somewhere above her head, ready to be dashed to the ground and crushed by the familiar iron heel of disappointment. As far as she had experienced life, which was more than most people three times her age, when things were too good to be true, they usually weren’t either good or true.

  It had to be a trap, at the very least.

  What changed her mind was what happened next.

  The Raven swooped really close to her, eyeballed her, and then dropped the stone into her hand. Then it nodded and flew off toward the distant lights of the Black Friar’s pub.