Dragonfell Page 15

  It’s a diagram. Yes, I know how this works. Gears, pistons, cylinders.

  Yes, it’s a machine.

  Maud can’t see it, but I can: when it is powered up, it will unfold and expand into the shape . . .

  . . . into the shape of a dragon.

  It is made of gears and pistons, with polished iron talons and sharpened metal teeth.

  Maud is crouched next to me. “Look,” she says, pointing at the diagram. “There’s no coal box, no steam engine.” She glances up at me. “What is powering it?”

  I peer closely at the drawing of Flitch’s mechanical dragon. Maud is right. It’s not powered by a coal fire. It’s powered by a flame of a different kind.

  I know—now I know what Flitch really wants with the dragons, and with me. For him, our dragon flame is useful. Even better than coal.

  I rear back and open my maw and let out a ferocious roar. The sound echoes like thunder from the mountain.

  I’m aware of Maud curled on the ground with her arms over her head again.

  Sorry about that, Maud, I want to tell her.

  And then I open my wings with a thunderous clap and leap into the sky, because Gringolet is here to collect a dragon’s spark—to kill a dragon and steal its flame—to power one of Mister Flitch’s machines.

  And, oh, I am going to stop her.

  Chapter 31

  My wings buffeting the air, I climb out of the crater and fly over the rim of the mountain.

  Below, halfway up the ashy side of the Ur-Lair, is Gringolet’s convoy.

  With a flap of my wings, I soar away from the mountain, then dive down to get a better look.

  The lead vaporwagon is driven by Gringolet. She sees me coming, and shrieks, jumps out of the wagon, and hides underneath it like a bug scuttling under a rock. The men in the back scatter, some of them drawing weapons, others trying to hide among the rocks.

  I fly lower and as I turn, I pass over the canvas-wrapped shape on the cart pulled by two vaporwagons. With my claw I slice right through the canvas, which falls away to reveal Mister Flitch’s mechanical dragon, all hunched and gleaming in the morning light. It holds no fire—it is a dead thing, only metal with no spark.

  Gringolet was coming to the Ur-Lair to kill the glass dragon and steal its spark for this false dragon.

  I bank and feel my flame burning hotter than ever—it’s stoked with all of my fury and sorrow—and I open my maw and my fire flows out, engulfing the machine.

  I know why Flitch wanted me, even more than these other dragons. Their sparks do not burn as hot as mine. With my flame he could power all of his factories and an army of mechanical dragons.

  I hover, bathing the false dragon in my fire, until its gears and rods and pistons glow white-hot and they slump and drip, melting into a useless metal lump.

  And then I swoop into the sky, roaring out my triumph. From far below, I can hear Gringolet’s men shrieking with fright as they flee down the mountain.

  I go into a dive, straight toward where Gringolet is hiding. Gringolet, who could have been a dragon, but chose otherwise. Banking, snow swirling around me, I settle onto the ground.

  She crawls out from under one of the vaporwagons. She’s bony and stiff, and glinting with pins, and she’s lost her smoked-lens spectacles, and I can see how her eyes once had a spark in them, but they’re dead now. When she gave up that spark, what she really lost was herself. Straightening, she brushes snow off her front, then puts her hands on her hips and looks me up and down.

  Then she nods. “So you’ve made your choice, Rafi Bywater.”

  I have, I say, even though I know she can’t understand me. I want to ask her if she regrets her choice. But I think I already know the answer.

  “You do burn brightly,” she says bitterly. “I knew you would. Once we found you in that backwater village of yours I told Flitch that we should go after you before you realized what you are.” Then she shrugs. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re too late.”

  Too late?

  As if she understands my question, she nods. “You might want to ask yourself two questions,” she says dryly. “Flitch isn’t here. Where is he?” Then she points at the melted ruins of the mechanical dragon. “That’s one of his machines. The other one has my spark in it. Where is it?”

  A bolt of fright spears through me. I have no more time for Gringolet. Leaving her, I leap into the air and fly back to the Ur-Lair, spiraling to the floor inside, where Maud is waiting.

  Flitch! I say to the glass dragon as I land with a thump on the stone floor near its hoard of lenses and mirrors. He has built two false dragons. Where is the other one? I ask the glass dragon. Can you see?

  The glass dragon reaches into the chest that holds its hoard and pulls out a ball-shaped glass. See, it says. Look into the glass and see.

  I crouch so Maud can put on my spectacles again, and I peer into the glass ball. It’s cloudy at first, and then it clears.

  It will show you your lair, the glass dragon murmurs from nearby. The place of your heart, Rafi of Dragonfell.

  And it does. The clouds part, and I see the high fells, deep in snow now that winter has begun. And below it, my village.

  But I barely glance at it, because coming up the road from Skarth is a vaporwagon, its smoke staining the air. Two other vaporwagons are pulling carts, and on the carts is a huge shape wrapped in canvas.

  It’s the mechanical dragon—and this one is powered by a real dragon’s spark.

  Flitch is bringing destruction to my village.

  Without wasting a second, I grab Maud, and ignoring her questions and protests, I hurl myself into the sky and head for home.

  Flitch knows that I will do anything to protect Dragonfell—my lair. The horror of what he might do to my village shivers through me. I imagine cottages burning, dead sheep everywhere, Old Shar fleeing in terror, my da trying to run from the mechanical dragon.

  I’m an arrow, all speed, holding Maud with both claws clutched to my chest, and I leave a fiery wake behind me.

  I’m too late. I know it.

  As I fly, the hills below us unroll into the flat plain, and the Ur-Lair mountain recedes into the distance. A dark smudge on the horizon is Skarth. My keen dragon eyes catch a glimpse of hundreds of factory chimneys belching black coal smoke into the sky. Then I turn and head toward the fells. Pumping my wings, I climb from the valley and see the bare, snow-covered hills, and the road from Skarth, which has been cleared of snow. Deep ruts are scraped into it. And then I see something that makes my flame burn hot with fury. A line of vaporwagons loaded with coal, heading away from the Dragonfell.

  And there. More coal smoke where it shouldn’t be.

  I hurtle past my village, and I see that the cottages are still standing, and then I see it—a coal mine.

  Mister Flitch offered me a choice, and I didn’t take it. He told me that if he couldn’t have my flame he’d take what he needed from under my village. He needs power—he’s doing exactly what he said he’d do: he’s digging coal from under the Dragonfell.

  The mine is halfway up the Dragonfell. A road leading to it has been hacked out of the rocky side of the fell. The mine itself is a wide, deep pit, and an immense metal scaffold supports a mining machine that is hard at work, digging into the fell, sending up clouds of black smoke, spitting out rocks and shards that workers are shoveling up and carting away to pile in mullock heaps not far away. There’s a crust of black coal dust over the snow all around the mine. Vaporwagons with black smoke swirling around them are lined up, waiting to be filled with coal for the factories in Skarth. There’s another engine that pumps water out of the mine and down the center of the village street; the water steams and gives off a smell like rotten eggs. There are canvas tents, and fires burning. Waiting near the mine entrance is an enormous, canvas-covered shape on a wagon—Mister Flitch’s mechanical dragon.

  I bank sharply, and as I turn I see the workers screaming and shouting and pointing up at me, and people running out o
f the tents.

  Folding my wings, I plunge toward the ground, where I land only for a second, long enough to set Maud down, and then I leap into the air again. As I flash by, I catch a glimpse of the workers. Jeb and Jemmy stand by a cart full of broken rock, and I see Tam Baker’s-Son, who has been picking up shards of mine tailings, and I see Old Shar bent under the load of rocks she’s carrying on her back. They all stare, and I see Tam gaping. I don’t see my da anywhere. I hope he is safe.

  Maud knows what I am here to do—I will destroy the coal mine engine and send Mister Flitch and his men back where they came from. I will protect my village.

  Maud has flung off the knitted hat and scarf, and she’s already shouting and waving her arms, telling the workers to get away from the mine. I climb higher and see men running away from the engine, abandoning it. Other workers are streaming from the mouth of the mine itself.

  The fire builds inside me, boiling hotter with my fury. I climb higher, past the very top of the Dragonfell, the lair where the first dragon kept a hoard of blue-painted teacups. Then I turn and aim myself at the mining engine.

  At the same moment, there is a roar from the huge, canvas-wrapped shape on the cart near the mine entrance.

  I am ready—I have been expecting it.

  The canvas splits along its seams, ripping away to reveal a machine that gleams with its own wicked light. It unfolds, lifting itself off the cart with a shrieking of metal and a grinding of gears. Clouds of poisonous steam erupt, and when they clear, it emerges.

  The mechanical dragon.

  It is far, far bigger than I am. It is powered by Gringolet’s dragon spark—and by the sparks stolen from the bell dragon, and from fifty dragon-flies, and from the teacup-collecting dragon who used to lair here. Wreathed in steam, it is all metal and gears and rivets, with four piston-driven legs and a whirling mass of blades at its tail end. Molten heat radiates from its metal skin. A giant head appears, swiveling back and forth as if it’s looking for something. As I swoop closer, its jaw creaks open, and it roars out a blast of heat and steam that slams into me, sending me crashing into the side of the fell with my wings crumpled beneath me. Righting myself, I catch a glimpse of the mechanical dragon’s chest, where there’s a thick, curved window. Inside it I can see Mister Flitch. He’s pulling levers and pushing buttons—he’s driving the dragon.

  As I launch myself back into the air, the dragon-engine looms above me, clouding the air with soot and shadow. Gears roar as it pulls back its head to strike. A gob of flaming, stinking tar bursts from its maw and arcs toward me.

  I am small, for a dragon, but I am fast. With a flick of my wings I dart out of the way, and the fireball of burning tar splatters onto the rocks behind me. A pump of my wings, and I swoop past the dragon-engine, open my mouth, and spray it with a blast of furious fire. My flames are repelled by the engine’s metal skin. Inside it Mister Flitch throws a lever, and the engine’s flail-like tail strikes out at me. I dodge, but not fast enough, and the whirling blades slice into my flank. Roaring with the pain of it, I tumble, head over wings over tail, and slam into the ground. All around, people are screaming and running away and hiding.

  I get to my clawed feet, my tail lashing with fury, feeling blood dripping from my wound. I shake the mud and snow off my wings.

  The dragon-engine stalks toward me, its every footstep shaking the ground. Through the window on its chest I can see Mister Flitch sneering down at me. He reaches over his head to turn a dial, then slams his fist on a button. In response, the engine’s mouth opens, and scalding steam blasts out.

  But I am already gone. I fling myself into the air, where it cannot follow, and aim myself at the mineworks. With the dragon-engine lumbering after me, I blast the mine-digging engine with my hottest fire. Its metal scaffold sags. I bank and make another pass, slicing at it with my claws, and the entire structure tilts, and with a high-pitched scream of tortured metal, it falls like an enormous tree, crashing into the snow and soot-covered ground.

  I shout out a roar of triumph, but the dragon-engine has already turned. Clouds of black smoke billow from its mouth as it heads away from the destroyed mine.

  Toward my village.

  Chapter 32

  The dragon-engine thunders toward the village, and I speed after it, as fast as my wings can take me, trailing sparks and drops of blood from the wound on my flank. It rumbles down the main street, past Old Shar’s rebuilt cottage, past the bakery and the forge, and I see where Flitch is going.

  Toward my da’s cottage, at the very edge of the village.

  Desperate, I streak past the dragon-engine, and let loose a stream of fire that scorches it from head to tail.

  It lumbers on.

  I bank sharply and dive at it, dragging my claws across its back. Blue sparks fly up, but its metal skin is not even marked. Just in time, I catch a glimpse of its flail-tail barreling toward me, and I fling myself out of the way, and it slams into the ground like a boulder.

  A grinding of gears, and the dragon-engine goes on.

  And then I see something that makes my heart shiver in my chest.

  Maud, running as fast as she can down the center of the road. She runs practically under the dragon-engine’s belly, and a moment later she is through the gate in the stone wall around my da’s cottage. When she gets to the front door, she turns and braces herself in the doorway. As if her own small human body can provide any defense against the massive engine that her father has built.

  Her face is wild and desperate, and she’s looking up at the dragon-engine, and I know that Mister Flitch—her father—is staring back at her.

  Slowly the engine’s head draws back. Its maw cranks open. A billow of black steam leaks out.

  In the doorway, Maud squeezes her eyes shut. She is shaking like a leaf in the wind, but she doesn’t get out of the way.

  He is going to do it. Flitch is going to kill his own daughter.

  I was angry before, but now I am past fury, into a white-hot flame of destruction. The feeling builds in me, and builds, and I hurl myself into the air, my wings stroking until I reach the top of my dive. As I turn in the air, I fold my wings and I become a bolt of white-hot lightning, and I aim myself at the dragon-engine’s heart. As I spear through it the air crashes behind me with a thunder that shakes the ground and echoes from the fells all around.

  Because I studied the vaporwagon, I understand how this mechanical dragon works. I know just where to aim my fire so that it will be destroyed.

  As I flash past the dragon-engine, my mouth opens, and the flame of my fury is a spear of light that smashes into the engine, and this time it’s hot enough and powerful enough to pierce the metal skin. The bolt finds the dragon-engine’s heart—the sparks of many dragons hunted by Flitch and Gringolet, and killed by them, too. As my flame strikes the sparks, they burn together for half a second with the fire of the sun, and then, in a flash, they go dark.

  The mechanical dragon groans, metal on metal, and a sound rips out of it, a roar like a factory engine pushed too hard and about to explode. The air is thick with soot and steam. The dragon-engine’s head arches back, and back, over-cranked, and it rises onto its hind legs. There’s a shrieking of gears, and a tearing of metal, and it tips over, landing with an echoing crash that shakes the ground.

  I land on the road and whip my head around to check the door of the cottage.

  It is open. My da is standing there with his hand on Maud’s shoulder. They are both staring at me, and then beyond me to the shattered wreckage of the dragon-engine.

  I see Maud say something to my da, who stares at me, his eyes wide, and then Maud leaves the doorway. I think she’s running to me, and then she’s past, her feet slipping on the snow and mud, to the steaming corpse of the dragon-engine.

  “Help me, Rafi!” she calls.

  The engine is a ruin of twisted metal and smashed pistons. Tendrils of acrid steam leak from burst seams. Maud climbs over it, to what is left of the engine’s main section.
The window has shattered. Among the shards of glass and the cracked dials and broken levers, lies Mister Flitch. He is pale, and his eyes are closed.

  Maud crouches beside him. A plate of metal and rivets lies across his chest. She reaches out to shift it, then jerks back. It’s too hot. It must be burning her father. “Rafi, quick, come help me get him out.”

  To dragon me, the metal plate weighs nothing, so I lift it away and toss it aside. I’m aware of my da limping out of our cottage. With Maud’s help, I drag Mister Flitch out of the wreckage and onto the road. My da holds out a blanket, a fine wool one that he wove himself, and Maud darts to him, takes it, and runs back to cover her father with it.

  And then Mister Flitch opens his eyes. With Maud’s help, he sits up. His clothes, I realize, are fireproof and armored. The destruction of his dragon-engine left him only slightly injured. Pushing my da’s blanket away, he gets to his feet.

  The other villagers gather, murmuring and staring at me. I see Tam Baker’s-Son, and Jeb and Jemmy, and I see Lah Finethread cast me a glance and then lean over and whisper something to John the Smith, who nods.

  Then Mister Flitch coughs, drawing everyone’s attention to himself. Maud gazes up at him with wide eyes, the same green as his eyes, which are narrowed as they study me.

  “So,” he says sharply. “The dragon has returned.” He spares a glance for the villagers. “Just as I said it would. And it has destroyed the mine on which the entire village depends.”

  As Mister Flitch speaks, his men come down the road from the village. I see Stubb armed with a metal rod, and other men holding weapons. For a moment they look as if they might do something stupid, like attack the villagers, or come after me.

  To dragon me they look small, like they’re at the other end of a long tunnel. I am fierce and powerful, and I could easily open my mouth, blast them with fire, and incinerate them all.

  But just because I can doesn’t mean that I should.

  Instead I snort out a puff of smoke and give them a fierce glare. It’s enough that they lower their weapons.