The queen looked up. She saw the golden dragon and her face broke into a grin of astonished, greedy delight. She threw up her arms, her fingers curved like claws.
Smoke shrank back from the border and spiralled high into the sky, covering the golden dragon, shrouding her in a stifling cloud. At the same moment, Conker dropped heavily to the ground and rolled, disregarded, out of the blue haze.
Freda flew to his side like an arrow. Hal sprang after her, and in seconds had slung Conker over his shoulder and was racing back across the border and up to the edge of the orchard, with Freda flapping behind him.
The Blue Queen didn’t even look at them. She was totally absorbed by the task of securing her prize – the female dragon so unexpectedly, so miraculously, delivered into her hands.
As his friends gathered around him, Conker sat up stiffly and shook his head. ‘Oh, my heart and lungs, that was a near thing,’ he mumbled. ‘How did you manage to –’
Then he caught sight of Hal’s haggard face and looked back towards the castle. He saw the queen, triumphant, arms held high. He saw the golden dragon falling from the sky in a thick blue cloud.
‘The female!’ he said blankly. ‘But she said she wouldn’t come here! She swore…’
The golden dragon thudded to earth. She reared and lashed her tail. Gold still flickered among the rainbow colours spinning in her eyes. The queen’s hands made a rapid circling movement. A heavy chain rose from the grass like a snake and coiled swiftly around the raging beast, binding her legs and wings, sliding around her neck and jaws, tightening until she toppled, helpless and muzzled, to the ground.
‘Don’t!’ Mimi screamed. ‘Let her go!’
Tears were pouring down Mimi’s cheeks. She was shaking all over. Leo put his arm around her, feeling sick with anger and despair. He had been so sure that the golden dragon would keep her vow to stay away from her mate! Now she would die, and the queen would secure the final ingredient for the Great Potion. Tomorrow Rondo would wake to a new Dark Time.
If Mimi had the Key she could stop it, he thought suddenly. Hal was wrong to make her hide the Key away – wrong, wrong, wrong! So pitting it against the queen’s magic is dangerous – so what? Nothing could be worse than this!
He glanced over his shoulder, rapidly calculating how long it would take to run back to the Safe Place by the stream. As he turned back he met Hal’s sombre eyes and realised that Hal had guessed what he was thinking.
‘We can’t use it as a weapon against her,’ Hal said, so softly that only Leo could hear. ‘We must not, whatever the temptation. I know this, Leo – know it in my bones. The Key is a great trust – a Langlander trust. It must be used to create, not destroy.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Leo hissed back. ‘I mean – “create, not destroy” – it sounds good and noble, and all that. But the queen had no trouble using it to destroy in the Dark Time, did she? Now she’s found another way of grinding Rondo down, and we’re just standing here, waiting for it to happen!’
Hal looked at him so bleakly that he felt a twinge of remorse, and this made him even angrier. ‘The Artist must have realised that something like this might happen one day!’ he said furiously. ‘And we’re Langlanders! We’re the ones trusted with the Key! Surely the Artist assumed we’d use it to defend Rondo if we had to? Hal, maybe that’s what we’re for!’
Mimi gave a small, choking cry. Leo looked at her quickly, but saw that she hadn’t been listening to him. She was staring at the queen.
Satisfied that her victim was helpless, the queen had turned to the green dragon. He had quietened at last and was swaying where he stood, his forked tongue flicking in and out, tasting the air.
‘Kill!’ she ordered, pointing to his mate. ‘Tear out her throat, but do not touch the heart. That is mine.’ She closed the fingers of her left hand, and when she opened them a glittering blue dagger lay on her palm.
The green dragon raised his head. His eyes, gleaming in the rays of the sinking sun, suddenly looked pure gold.
‘Kill!’ shrieked the queen. ‘Be quick! Time is running out!’
The green dragon lunged forward. His terrible fangs closed on his mate’s neck.
Mimi buried her face in Leo’s shoulder. Bertha, Conker and Wizard Wurzle groaned and turned away.
And so it was that only Hal, Freda and Leo saw what happened next.
The green dragon pulled back. The loop of chain that encircled his mate’s throat was in his jaws. He tore at it, bellowing fire, and the chain glowed, softened and broke. As the two mangled, smoking ends rattled to the ground, the other coils loosened, and in an instant the golden dragon had freed herself and struggled to her feet.
Briefly, the two dragons touched noses. Then, snarling, they both turned on the queen.
You do not understand the bonding of dragone… The memory of the golden dragon’s voice hissed in Leo’s mind and his heart seemed to swell in his chest. No, he had not understood – and neither had the Blue Queen. She’d had no idea that in ordering the green dragon to kill his mate she was asking him to do something that he would not – could not – do. She hadn’t dreamed that the order would weaken and break her power over her slave, as his fire had melted and broken her magic chain.
The queen threw up her defence shield an instant before the dragon fire struck her. As flames licked the transparent bubble in which she had enclosed herself, the blue smoke shrank further away from the border – shrank until the dragons themselves were standing in almost clear air. But they made no attempt to escape. They merely stood, swaying in confusion. Now that the crisis was over, the queen’s enchantment was taking hold again.
‘Go!’ Leo shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Get away while you can!’
The dragons turned to look at him, but didn’t move.
‘Remember your baby!’ Leo yelled in desperation. ‘Your baby has hatched! Your baby needs you! Fly back to your lair! Go back to your lair – to your baby!’
The golden dragon’s head jerked up. Yellow light glimmered through the rainbows in her eyes. She roared to her mate. His own eyes cleared. Clumsily he spread his wings. And ignoring the Blue Queen’s screeches of rage, both the great beasts took flight and soared away, green dragon and gold, streaking towards the setting sun.
Sitting by the fire in the little farmhouse, surrounded by his rejoicing friends, Conker rubbed the little bald patch on the crown of his head.
‘She ripped it out by the roots,’ he grumbled. ‘What if it doesn’t grow back? I’ve lost the Hair-Gro cream, too. I’ve a good mind to creep down there and try to get it back.’
‘No!’ everyone yelled.
‘It didn’t work, anyway,’ Spoiler said, feeling his receding hairline gloomily. ‘I put some on in Flitter Wood, and it hasn’t grown a single new hair. Brewer’s a fraud. ‘
Despite his complaints, he looked very happy. His relief on hearing that the golden dragon had escaped had been so obviously genuine that even Freda hadn’t complained when Hal invited him to join them by the fire to finish drying his clothes.
‘So Sly the fox was the spy,’ Tye said, shaking her head. ‘He took a great risk, sneaking by the tigers of Flitter Wood.’
‘His eyes are normal,’ Leo told her. ‘If he’d been caught, he’d probably just have said he was lost, or something.’
‘He saw us asleep,’ Bertha said, gnawing her lip. ‘The thing is – how long before we went to sleep did he arrive? I mean, did he hear anything about –’
‘Watch it!’ Freda warned, sliding her eyes towards Spoiler.
‘By the sound of it, Sly came and went very quickly, and heard nothing of importance,’ Hal said smoothly. ‘But it’s best not to discuss the matter now.’
‘I’m not going to –’ Spoiler began sulkily, then froze as there was a sharp tap on the front door.
Tye crossed the room silently and peered through the keyhole. Apparently satisfied, she slipped outside, closing the door behind her.
In a few minutes she was back. ‘The sun has set and the crows are now off duty,’ she told Hal. ‘The owls have taken over the border patrol. Marjorie reports that the smoke has drawn back almost to the castle moat. Princess Pretty, Barbara and the rest of the enchanted beings are inside the castle with the queen.’
Bertha made a small sound of distress, Conker looked grave.
‘Poor Pretty,’ Mimi said in a low voice. ‘Just when she was really happy for almost the first time in her life. Now she’ll never see Claude again. It’s so cruel…’
Spoiler’s presence stopped her saying any more, but Leo knew that, like the rest of the team, she was thinking about what would happen to the prisoners if the barrier plan succeeded.
If the plan succeeded. He dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to relieve the tension he felt, wishing he could get rid of the feeling of foreboding that was growing in him, weighing him down. There was no reason for it. Everything was going as planned.
‘The queen’s voice raised in terrible anger has been heard floating from the tower room,’ Tye continued, unable to stop a look of satisfaction crossing her face. ‘The fox, Sly, is prowling about this house, no doubt attempting to overhear what we say.’
‘The outside walls of this room are still fairly solid,’ Conker said, bending to throw another log on the fire. ‘We should be all right talking in here, as long as we keep our voices down.’
‘Marjorie sends the crows’… good wishes,’ Tye went on. ‘She wished to deliver them personally, but I thought it best not to invite her in, under the circumstances.’
She didn’t glance at Spoiler as she said the last words, but her meaning was obvious.
Spoiler stood up abruptly. ‘Put me somewhere out of earshot and I’ll get some rest,’ he said, speaking directly to Hal. ‘Obviously you’ve got things to talk about, and you don’t want me listening in. Well, that’s fine with me. If I can’t hear your plans, I can’t be blamed if anything goes wrong, can I? And I’m dead tired anyway.’
There was a shabby dignity in the way he spoke. Leo was glad to see that Conker, Tye, Bertha, Mimi and even Freda had noticed this, and were eyeing their old enemy with grudging respect.
‘There’s a bedroom out the back,’ Conker said gruffly, getting to his feet. ‘The bed might be a bit dusty – this is the first time I’ve been back here in years – but you should be comfortable enough.’
‘Thanks,’ said Spoiler, and followed Conker out of the room without a backward glance.
‘This is Conker’s house, isn’t it?’ Leo asked suddenly.
‘It is,’ Hal said, pulling out his notebook and pencil and beginning to scribble a message. ‘We’re lucky to have it. Its position makes it a perfect meeting place.’
‘We left it in the Dark Time,’ Freda said. ‘Escaped from the queen’s monster army by the skin of our beaks. We scraped a living dot-catching in town. Then we met Hal and got into the hero business, and the rest is history.’
‘But you never came back,’ Bertha said wonderingly. ‘Even after the Dark Time ended.’
Freda shrugged. ‘We thought of it. But somehow we didn’t fancy building the place up again, with the queen just over the border. We knew she’d start giving us trouble again eventually.’
‘Besides,’ Conker added, overhearing as he came back into the room, ‘we’d got used to another way of living by then. You know how it is.’
‘Yes,’ Bertha sighed. ‘Questing is so exciting that it spoils you for the peaceful life. I was quite happy being a model and guarding Macdonald’s farm, but now I think I’d find both those things a little bit dull if I did them all the time.’
‘The way I look at it, you need peace as well as excitement,’ said Hal, finishing his message and turning a page of his notebook to begin on another. ‘If we succeed tonight, we can all return to our homes if we want to. Then we can quest a little, and in between quests we can have quiet lives. It sounds good to me.’
‘Me, too!’ Leo said fervently.
Bertha’s stomach rumbled loudly. ‘Pardon,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘But being worried to death always makes me hungry.’
‘I’m starved myself,’ Conker said, rubbing his hands. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got to eat. The sooner we get some food into us, the sooner we can catch up on some sleep. We can’t go into battle yawning.’
He unstrapped his pack and began pulling out the contents at random, making a jumbled pile on the flying rug, which was basking in front of the fire exuding a very strong odour of Dragon’s Bane. Mimi’s shoes came out tangled up with the kettle. She pounced on them with a cry of joy and put them in front of the fire to finish drying.
‘See what Spoiler’s up to, will you, Leo?’ Hal asked in a low voice, looking up from his notebook. ‘I want to send notes to Plum, Bing and the others telling them we’re in position, and I don’t want Spoiler seeing me do it.’
‘It is a great nuisance having the man here, Hal,’ Wizard Wurzle ventured. ‘In a few hours my colleagues and the witnesses will be arriving, and our great effort will begin.’
‘The meeting place is the orchard at midnight, and Spoiler will be in here, tied up, by then,’ Hal said curtly. ‘Tye and I will see to that. For now, however, he might as well be comfortable. Leo?’
With very mixed feelings, Leo took the lantern Tye handed him and padded down the dank little corridor that led to the back of the house.
The sagging door of the bedroom had been pulled only partly shut. Leo peered through the opening. The room was dark and cold. Wind blew through large holes in the walls, and a vine had grown through the shutters covering the window. Leo held up the lantern and made out a huddled shape lying on a narrow bed.
‘Who’s that?’ hissed a voice, and Spoiler sat up abruptly, his face ghastly in the flickering lantern light.
‘It’s only me,’ Leo said. ‘Do you want me to bring you something to eat?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Spoiler ungraciously, flopping down again and pulling the blanket over his head. ‘Just leave me alone! And shut that door, will you? I can still hear the sound of your voices, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear a thing!’
‘I’ll try.’ The door stuck on the floorboards but Leo finally managed to drag it closed with a scraping sound that set his teeth on edge. He turned away, feeling terrible.
‘Leo?’ Spoiler called, his voice suddenly small. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem,’ Leo called back, and went back to the light and warmth of the sitting room where everyone was eating, chatting and laughing.
‘He’s in bed,’ he said briefly, as Hal raised his eyebrows.
Hal bent and knocked on the floor seven times. In seconds, seven mice were marching in single file through a hole in the skirting board beside the fireplace. They all wore nutshell helmets covered in leaves, and looked very serious.
Hal handed all but one of them a folded note. ‘To your appointed witch or wizard, if you please,’ he said. ‘Then the orders as discussed.’
Six of the mice marched back through the skirting board. The seventh went over to Wizard Wurzle and stood to attention by the leg of his chair.
‘What’s this?’ Conker demanded, staring at the mouse in distaste.
‘Part of the plan,’ Hal said quietly. ‘Each of the Seven will have a personal messenger mouse from this point on.’
Conker turned to gape at him. ‘Oh, my lungs and liver, Hal, how did you talk the mice into that?’
The mouse by Wurzle’s chair leg narrowed its eyes. ‘Rondo expects every mouse to do its duty,’ it squeaked severely. ‘The messenger service fully understands that its role in this battle is vital.’
‘Oh really,’ Freda jeered.
‘Yes,’ said the mouse. ‘In a few hours–a few short hours – the battle will begin. My comrades and I, handpicked for our speed, will be risking our lives to keep communications open and support our appointed witch or wizard. I’ll thank you to remember that! And I wouldn’t say no to a bit of that cheese, thanks.’
Conker took a breath, then glanced at Hal and subsided, only chewing his moustache furiously as Mimi took the mouse a piece of cheese.
Leo stared, his heart beating fast, the mouse’s words still ringing in his ears. His resentment at the way Spoiler was being treated suddenly seemed completely trivial. He looked around and realised how tense the others were beneath the brittle surface of their smiles and talk.
In a few hours – a few short hours – the battle will begin…