Chapter 24

“Get off him!”

Beck clubbed his stick as hard as he could against the dragon’s side and Ju-Long launched a furious kick at its head. But the dragon had already let go of Jian’s wrist and backed off.

Now none of the humans were distracting the other dragons, and the other three all pressed forward. One of them swung around, maybe looking for the food it could still smell, and its tail knocked against the base of the fire. It quickly flicked the tail away again when it sensed the heat, but the pieces of wood scattered and the skewer that held the lobster over the flames toppled to the ground. A dragon swiftly swooped and grabbed it in its jaws, pulling it away from the heat. Another dragon pounced and grabbed the lobster’s head. The shell split in two, leaving each of them with half a lobster. The other two dragons immediately started to grapple with their friends, with hisses and strange croaks of frustration. For the time being, they had forgotten the humans and Beck could give all his attention to Jian.

The older boy lay on the ground, eyes closed, shuddering, with a strange, choking sound coming from his mouth – the sound of someone in so much pain that it couldn’t come out all at once. Dreading what he was going to see, Beck gently took his wrist and studied it – and blinked when he found hardly any damage at all.

The splint on Jian’s arm bore the clear imprint of a powerful pair of jaws, but it had also taken all the impact. No wonder the dragon had dropped him so quickly – it had expected a tasty morsel and just got wood and polystyrene. The pressure would have squeezed the ends of Jian’s broken bone together, and Beck could well imagine the pain that must have caused. But that was all.

But just as he was feeling a gush of relief, and opening his mouth to tell Jian that he would be okay, a flash of red appeared. And grew. Blood was pooling along the edge of the splint.

Beck gently turned Jian’s wrist over, and cursed under his breath as he took the whole picture in. The splint had protected the top and bottom of Jian’s wrist – but, on the side, just below the wrist joint, the dragon’s teeth had torn through the skin. Blood welled up out of the puncture wounds, each about a centimetre wide. There was no way of telling how deep they went. And they would need attention. If they were back in civilisation, any kind of animal bite would mean heading straight off to the nearest hospital.

No hospitals here, though.

“Come on. Let’s go,” he said quietly, shooting a final look at the squabbling dragons. They were aggravated – they might easily just turn on the humans. He quickly picked up the sling full of oysters. Beck wasn’t going to let them go to waste. “Jian, can you stand? Ju-Long, help me…”

It wasn’t easy because Jian was taller than both of them, and he was still faint with pain. His mind was jumbled, and every conscious and unconscious thought was about doing absolutely nothing that might jar his body with the tiniest movement. But they helped him to his feet and supported him with arms around his waist. They staggered past the dragons, which were still fighting even though the lobster had completely gone.

“I feel sick,” Jian mumbled. His face was whiter than Beck had ever seen.

“We need to treat those bites,” he said. “Any kind of animal bite can be infectious and goodness knows what’s in those things’ saliva. We don’t know what they’ve been eating.”

They had already set up a fire back at the beach camp, ready to be lit when they returned that evening. Jian was ready to slump down on the sand, but Beck shook his head. They helped him over to the platform so that he could prop himself up there, with his arm resting on the wood. It wasn’t exactly sterile hospital conditions but it was cleaner than the sand.

“Brace yourself. I’m going to take the splint off…”

As gently as he could, Beck undid the ropes that held Jian’s splint in place. The two halves came away cleanly and he could study the rest of Jian’s arm. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there were no more bites – just the two he already knew about. They were circular puncture wounds, so if they didn’t go bad, they had the best chance of healing nicely.

“Okay.” Beck handed Ju-Long the metal saucepan and a bottle. “Fill these up with sea water, please.”

Ju-Long nodded and hurried off, as Beck bent down to light the fire. For once, being stranded on an island was in their favour. They were close to sea, and salt water was naturally antiseptic.

Ju-Long was back. She hastened over to Jian and began to dribble salt water from the bottle slowly over the bite marks, rinsing anything larger than a bacterium out of the wounds. The water mingled with the blood that was already clotting and ran to the ground in red streams.

Beck balanced the full saucepan over the fire and willed the flames to take hold so that the water could start to boil. Which of course, he thought, a watched pot never does. A wood fire was great for roasting food but it wasn’t as hot, or as quick, as a gas fire back home.

“Is there anything in the bite marks?” he asked. “Any black specks? Bits of dragon food or anything else?”

“No,” Ju-Long reported after a moment. “They seem clean. I will keep washing them.”

“Yes, keep going, thanks.”

While he was waiting for the water to boil, he took the knife and cut a strip off Jian’s trouser leg, from ankle up to the knee. He dunked the material in the slowly warming water. The wounds would need bandaging, and the bandage would need disinfecting if it wasn’t just going to add to the problem.

Tendrils of steam were curling up from the water, and small bubbles were appearing, clinging to the sides of the saucepan. He gave the bandage a prod with the knife blade to push it all under water.

Finally, the water in the pan was heaving and bubbling. He gave it a minute, then carried the knife and pan over to Jian.

He lifted the bandage out of the boiling water with a stick and held it so that the air would cool it down. When he thought enough time has passed, he lowered the bandage onto Jian’s wrist and wrapped it around the bite marks. Jian grunted, a sound of a much deeper pain pushing its way out. His arm was still unsplinted; the ends of the broken bones were rubbing together.