Dragonfell Read online

  “Hmph!” she says, and digs in her bag again. She pulls out a glass square and looks into it. “I think it’s an excellent disguise,” she tells me.

  “Is that a mirror?” I ask. I know what a mirror is, but I’ve never seen one before.

  “Want to see?” She hands it to me.

  Holding it up, I look into it, and see a strange boy—me—looking back. I hold it closer, peering into my own eyes, trying to see past the shadows to the spark that Maud saw inside me, and that Mister Flitch saw, too.

  It’s a frowningly fierce face, and I can see why ordinary people might be afraid of it. Maybe I should try smiling more.

  Maud peers over my shoulder, her face reflected next to mine in the mirror. Pretty, dirt-smudged brown skin, cut-short hair.

  I practice my smile on her.

  “Eep!” she says, and flinches back.

  I turn to face her.

  She gives me a shaky smile. “Sorry, Rafi. Sorry. I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” I ask, handing her the mirror.

  “Well, yes, you look different,” she says as she stows it away, “and a little dangerous, actually, but I don’t usually see that anymore when I look at you.” Then she glances up at me again. “You’re a very normal boy, really.”

  “Normal?” I say skeptically.

  “Truly,” she says, and starts down the road toward the town. The goats and I follow. “You’re kind, and brave, and stubborn, and you’re awfully nice, and you’re . . .” She shrugs. “Normal.”

  When we get to the edge of the town, I sit down behind a low stone wall to wait while Maud goes in to buy supplies.

  “Be careful,” I warn her as she sets off.

  “Oh, Rafi,” she scoffs. “Of course I’ll be careful.”

  But she’s not careful enough.

  Chapter 24

  The goats settle in a sunny spot, napping, and I sit with my back against the wall, waiting . . .

  . . . and thinking about being normal . . .

  . . . and worrying about the Dragonfell . . .

  . . . and half falling asleep.

  And then I hear a distant shriek. I sit up, eyes wide, heart suddenly pounding. Leaping to my feet, I look toward the cluster of cottages. Puffs of smoke are coming from the center of the town.

  Something’s wrong.

  “Come on, goats,” I shout, and start running toward the town, along the rutted dirt road. Panting, I pass the first cottages, and then a few more, and then the road widens and becomes a town square paved with stone.

  Parked in the center of it are two vaporwagons, the steam-driven cars I’d seen near Skarth. They have a set of tall spoked wheels in the back, and smaller wheels in the front, and are gleaming with riveted brass and emerald-green paint. One of them is belching out clouds of black smoke from a tall smokestack.

  And beside them, Maud is facing three figures. One of them—it’s Gringolet—is gripping her by the arm, and Maud is struggling. I catch a glimpse of a hand dealing a heavy blow, knocking Maud to the ground.

  I’m already halfway across the square, bearing down on Gringolet and her two men—me, a kid, against three grown people—but I can’t let them hurt Maud—and with that thought I feel the spark inside me kindle into flame.

  “Rafi,” Maud shrieks.

  —and the shadows swoop around me and my steps grow heavier as if I’m shaking the ground as I stride, and from the corners of my eyes I see sparks streaming away from me, and flames. Gringolet, turning, sees me and screeches out a high, grating cry. Her men stumble away. I go after them. My hand reaches from the shadows swirling around me, and with strength that comes from somewhere—I don’t know where—I seize the front of one of the men’s shirt and hurl him across the square, and he slams into a cottage wall and falls onto the ground like a bundle of rags. He drags himself to his feet and runs. The other man scurries away, too.

  “Get the others!” Gringolet screams after them.

  Then she whirls to face us—and takes a step toward Maud.

  “Leave her ALONE!” I roar, and Gringolet flinches away.

  I take another step, and she flees into a nearby street, shouting for her men.

  Maud climbs to her feet, looking wildly around her. Quickly she grabs up a bag and hurls it into one of the vaporwagons.

  What is she doing?

  She picks up another bag, and then starts climbing into the vaporwagon.

  Then I spot Gringolet pulling out the long, sharp pin from her sleeve, and her two men, and they’ve brought reinforcements, more of the burly workers, all armed with clubs and knives. They start across the square toward me.

  “Make your choice, Rafi Bywater!” Gringolet shouts. “Come with us, and we’ll leave the girl alone, and your village, too!”

  I feel my spark flare, and I take a step toward them. Ten men is a lot, but I can fight them.

  “Rafi!” Maud shouts, and I glance toward her. Her face is bruised, and blood is trickling from her nose. “Come on!”

  I take a steadying breath. Then another, shaking, wrapping my arms around myself, willing my sparks and shadows to go back where they came from. Then I whirl and race toward the vaporwagon, and climb over its tall back wheel and inside.

  As I climb in, I see a dashboard covered with dials and knobs and little brass flywheels. Below that is a small closed iron door that pulses with heat; at the front is a huge brass boiler lined with rivets, and the tall smokestack puffing out black smoke.

  Maud is bent, stuffing the bags under a polished wooden bench. She slides over. “Get in, get in,” she pants.

  “I’m in,” I gasp. “Go! Make it go!”

  Maud sits up, pointing. “Pull that lever,” she orders.

  I pull the nearest lever toward me. Nothing happens.

  “The other way!” Maud shouts.

  I glance up to see Gringolet and her men bearing down on us, rushing across the village square.

  “Gah!” Maud shrieks. “Go!”

  With all my strength, I shove the lever, and with a rattle-clash, the vaporwagon starts to move. Pistons pump, and the wheels turn. Black smoke gusts from its smokestack. The vaporwagon bumps over the cobblestones, straight toward one of the cottages, picking up speed.

  “How do we steer it?” I shout over the rattle of the steam engine.

  Instead of answering, Maud leans past me to yank on another lever, and the vaporwagon turns at the last second, barely missing the cottage. We clatter across the square, past Gringolet, who is shouting orders at her men, and Maud steers us onto the road.

  I turn and kneel on the seat to see behind us. Gringolet and her men are piling into the other vaporwagon, ready to come after us. My goats are trotting across the square. Fat Fluffy is falling behind. “My goats!” I yell.

  “Oh my goodness gracious!” Maud gasps, and leans across to throw the lever again, and our vaporwagon slows, then rolls to a stop. “Hurry, Rafi. Hurry!”

  “Goats!” I call, and they trot up the road toward us.

  Back in the square, Gringolet’s vaporwagon shudders, and then roars to life with a cloud of pitch-black smoke.

  Behind the seat I’m kneeling on is a long bin half filled with coal. “Up here!” I call to the goats. Nimbly, Poppy and Elegance leap onto the step, then up onto the mound of coal. Then comes Gruff, with a clatter of hooves that scratch the green paint. I leap to the ground and boost Fluffy up. With a flail of her legs, she finds her footing and joins the others.

  Maud is practically vibrating with her need to be off.

  I climb back in, and before I’m even sitting on the bench beside her, she throws the lever and we zoom away, just as Gringolet’s vaporwagon starts racing toward us.

  Maud glances over her shoulder, then at me, and gives one of her sudden grins. Her cheek is bruised where Gringolet hit her. “I’ve never driven one of these things before,” she shouts, over the loud rattle-clash of the steam engine.

  I check on Gringolet, coming up the road behind us. “They’re
getting closer,” I shout back.

  “Then we’d better go faster!” Maud turns one of the little flywheels. “That should wake up the fire a bit. Now add some more coal to the firebox. There should be some gloves around here someplace.”

  “I don’t need gloves,” I remind her, and grab a long-handled shovel from behind the seat. She points at the iron door, and I open it, feeling the heat of the metal under my bare hands. The coal fire inside is blindingly, brilliantly white-orange; a wave of heat gusts out, making Maud flinch away.

  Quickly I shovel in more coal and slam the door again. I stow the shovel and check on the goats.

  Gringolet’s vaporwagon has fallen farther behind. I can see her driving, and all ten of her men clinging to the side of the wagon, or riding on the pile of coal in the back.

  As I watch, Gringolet’s vaporwagon bucks, bumps, and lurches to a stop, surrounded by steam.

  “They threw a piston,” Maud says with a glance over her shoulder.

  “Whatever that means,” I say.

  “They’ll have to stop to fix it.” She gives a satisfied nod. “It’ll take them all day to get the parts they need. We’ll get way ahead of them.”

  But we can’t truly get away. The problem with the vaporwagon is that we have to stay on the road. As long as we follow the road, they’ll know exactly where we’re going.

  Chapter 25

  We drive for a long way without another sign of Gringolet and her hunters coming up from behind. We pass farms and a few small villages, and for a while the road runs alongside a river. My bottom is sore from bouncing on the hard wooden seat, and my ears echo with the sound of the engine chug-a-chugging away. Every now and then I have to throw more coal on the fire.

  “It boils the water to make steam,” Maud shouts over the rattle and bang, “and the steam does things in the engine to make it go, but I don’t know what, exactly.” She casts a glance over her shoulder at the bin behind the seat. “I hope we don’t run out of coal.”

  Then she shows me how to steer, by turning the lever, which she calls a tiller. “I want to have a look at the dragon book and the map,” she says, pulling it out of her coat pocket. She wedges herself into a corner of the seat, with her feet propped against the dashboard, and tries to steady the book enough to read it. The wheels go over an extra-large bump in the road, and Maud makes a face. “Ow,” she says, and puts her hand over her mouth. “I bit my tongue.”

  Late in the afternoon, she decides it’s time to stop. She checks the map one more time, and points at a clump of trees well off the road. “I think that’s it.” She drives off the road and turns a brass flywheel, and the vaporwagon chugs to a stop. The engine idles, and slow puffs of smoke come from the smokestack.

  “Phew!” she says in the sudden quiet. “Rafi, I’ll drive on a bit and park in the trees over there. Can you hide our tracks leading off the road?”

  “Yep,” I answer, and I’m glad to jump down onto the springy grass. The goats join me.

  Maud drives away, and I scuff out the place where we left the road, and then drag some dead branches over where our wheels turned onto the grass. Looking around, I take a deep breath and realize how far we’ve come. The river and the cliffs and Skarth are far behind us, and ahead are forested hills that pile up on each other, and looming beyond them are steep, snow-covered slopes leading to one huge, cone-shaped mountain. The Ur-Lair. Seeing it makes my heart pound and my breath come short. The spark inside me burns hot and keen.

  With the goats trotting behind me, I run over a low hill to the clump of trees where Maud is waiting. As I approach, our vaporwagon gives off one more big puff of black smoke and goes quiet.

  Maud hops down holding the book with the map unfolded.

  “It won’t be dark for an hour,” I say as I come up to her. “We could have kept going and gotten closer to the Ur-Lair.”

  “We had to stop,” Maud says, and opens another fold of the map. “There’s a dragon village near here.” She turns and surveys the low hills all around us. “Just over that rise there, if the map is correct. At the very least we can warn the dragon there about my . . . about Mister Flitch and his collection.”

  She’s right.

  Maud consults the map again, then folds it up and stows the book in her pocket. “This way!” she says, and leaving the goats behind in the copse of trees, we hike along the base of a hill. About halfway around we hit a narrow path that leads through another small forest—I’ve never been surrounded by trees before, and it makes me feel strangely small. We follow the path for a long way, until we come out of the trees and head up the side of a low hill.

  “Wait,” I say, and grab Maud’s arm. “Listen.”

  She stops, and we stand in the middle of the path.

  In the distance I can hear a high jingling sound, and a lower ringing, and then a ripple of chimes.

  Maud looks at me, eyes sparkling, “Do you know what it is?”

  “Bells?”

  “Wait and see,” she says, and we go on. The path crests the hill and in a bowl between this rounded, grassy hill and two others, is a village. It’s a cluster of whitewashed cottages, and it’s where the ringing is coming from.

  As we go closer, I see bells hanging from the eaves of every house. They’re made of iron, of tarnished silver, of brass, from the size of a blueberry, to the size of an egg, and even bigger. Chimes tinkle in the breeze. The biggest bell is set in a high tower at the center of the village.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Maud asks, smiling.

  I’m about to agree, but then I realize.

  There are no people.

  And half of the cottages are burned out.

  We come to the first house. The door is open, and the windows are broken, and all of it is charred black from a fire. The yard is overgrown with a rosebush that sprawls out into the path. The next cottage is just as burned and abandoned.

  We go to the center of the village. From the bell in the tower hangs a frayed rope. Maud gives it a tug, and a deep, desolate bong rings out, echoing from the surrounding hills.

  She gulps and consults the book, then looks back up at me. “It hoarded bells, of course,” she says softly. “And shared them with the people who lived in its village.”

  I nod. “Where?”

  She checks the map. “That’s where it laired,” she says, pointing to one of the hills.

  Without speaking, we climb the hill where the bell-hoarding dragon laired. The whole top of it is bald, scraped down to bare rock. In the middle is a pile of stones, and around it are bells, all half melted. The stone itself is scorched black.

  “Maud,” I whisper, pointing.

  She turns to look. Just over the crest of the hill is what appears to be a tunnel made of a row of curved pillars that meet in a knobbed arch. Beyond it is a huge, white boulder with . . . with spikes all over it.

  It’s not an arched tunnel, it’s a rib cage, and it’s not a boulder, it’s a skull. It’s a dragon skeleton. Huge, way bigger than the Coaldowns dragon.

  “Oh, I see.” With shaking fingers, Maud folds the map back into the book, and closes it, and very carefully puts it back into her pocket. “We’re too late,” she whispers. “He got here first.”

  As we walk back through the half-burned, abandoned village, Maud stops, looking down at the path, but I don’t think she’s seeing it. “Rafi,” she whispers.

  “I know,” I say, stepping up beside her, and putting my arm around her shoulders. She’s thinking about her father again, knowing that he’s killed the thing that she loves most: a dragon.

  Gringolet must have done it for him. Maybe she did it before she gave up her own spark. When she was dragon-touched, she couldn’t be burned by a dragon’s flame, so she could get right up close to it and kill it.

  Maud leans into me, and I can feel her shaking. “What do you think he collected from the bell dragon?”

  “I didn’t see any bells in his collection room,” I say.

  “Neither did I.�
�� She sighs. “It must have been something else.”

  Realization slams into me. “Their spark,” I say, feeling stupid that I didn’t realize it before.

  Maud turns and looks up at me. “You have a spark, Rafi. But dragons have a lot more than that. Don’t they?”

  I nod. “But I’m betting that’s what he really wants from them. Their fire.” I think it through. “Their power.”

  “Why?” Maud whispers. “Why, why, why? That’s the question.”

  I don’t know the answer.

  In silence we follow the trail back. The sun dips down behind the hills, and as night falls the air grows damp and cold.

  Our campsite is a small clearing in the trees. The vaporwagon is parked nearby, and the goats are all inside it, sleeping in the coal bin, which they like better than sleeping on the soft, grassy ground.

  After rummaging in her bag, Maud pulls out a candle and lights it.

  I get busy unpacking our dinner, the sorts of things that Maud picked out without worrying about the cost because she had a purse full of gold to pay for it. In the glimmering light of the candle, we eat hothouse grapes, and bread and soft cheese, and cubes of spiced meat, and boiled eggs with pepper, and sugar-dusted nut pastries, only a little squished from being in the bag.

  When we’ve finished eating, Maud flops on her back with her hands on her stomach. “What a feast.” She sighs contentedly. “Rafi, I know we’re in big trouble, that Gringolet is hunting us, and I’m terribly sad about the bell dragon, and about my . . . about Mister Flitch, but I can’t help it. I’m about as happy as I’ve ever been in my life right now.”

  “Why?” I ask. I sit cross-legged on the grass, watching her.

  “Just . . . being here. Knowing that you know the truth about me now, which is such a relief. Knowing that I’m about to find out all the dragons’ secrets.”

  “And that we can help save them,” I add.

  “Yes, that too.” She sits up again and pulls the dragon book out of her coat pocket. “Listen to this, Rafi.” She finds her place on the page and starts reading aloud.