Chapter Twenty-two

‘Here comes the dragon, lads!’ called Mr Davies. His hairy, bearded followers punched the air and cheered.

‘Thanks for coming, boys,’ Mr Davies smiled. ‘You’ve no idea how much it means to us to have a dragon flying as our mascot. We’re going to beat those Saxons good and proper!’

‘Yo!’ chorused the hairy, bearded warriors. ‘Death to the Saxons!’

The Ancient British Re-enactment Society had set up camp at one end of the park, under the shadow of the ruins of Castle Gertrude. The Ancient Saxon Re-enactment Society had set up their camp down by the bowling green. The Ancient Saxons were just as hairy and bearded as the Ancient Britons.

According to the posters that decorated all the lamp posts for miles around, the battle was due to begin at 2.30pm.

By 2.25pm, a huge crowd had assembled to watch the show. Music trilled from a little funfair down by the pond while an announcer explained what was going to happen on the loudspeaker system.

‘Welcome ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys. Welcome to the world of history, to a time when savage war was waged between the Ancient Britons and the bully-boy Saxons, invading from the East.’

The two armies lined up and raised their fists and shouted vile curses at each other. The crowd booed or cheered, depending on who they were supporting. The atmosphere was electric.

‘Ready, boys?’ Mr Davies puffed his chest out and pulled himself up to his full height.

Harri switched the light on his radio-controlled box and pointed it towards the new, much larger box. ‘Dragon … up!’ he ordered.

‘It’s bigger than I remember?’ Mr Davies sounded surprised.

‘I — I — err. I crashed the last one, Chief,’ Harri explained. ‘So I made a new one. A bigger one — a better one.’

‘Fabulous!’ Mr Davies grinned as Tân rose gracefully above them.

The hairy, bearded warriors cheered at the site of their emblem. ‘Long live the Red Dragons!’ they chanted.

The crowd cheered. They were really getting into the spirit of the occasion.

Then a murmur swept across the crowd. The murmur turned into an Oooh! and then an Aahh!

Harri couldn’t believe his eyes. The Saxon army lay a hundred metres from them. Now above their heads another dragon flew! A white dragon! If anyone in the world knew about dragons, Harri did. This wasn’t a radio-controlled model, this was a real dragon. Where on earth had the Saxons got a real dragon from?

The line of Saxons parted. A Saxon chief walked through the gap and stared directly at Harri! A sinister grin spread across his face.

‘Ryan! It’s your dad!’ Harri gasped.

‘What the…?!’ Ryan was lost for words.

Ryan’s dad held up a radio control unit. He too was pretending to be controlling a model dragon. ‘Behold, Draca, the White Dragon of the Saxons!’ he roared.

‘It’s 2.30!’ The announcer could barely contain his excitement. ‘Let battle commence!’

The two sides raised their swords and spears and shields and charged.

‘Long live Draca! Long live the White Dragons!’ yelled the Saxons, as they began their headlong stampede across the newly mown grass towards the Ancient Britons.

* * *

Harri kept one eye on Tân and one on the white dragon, which was circling, gaining height above the marauding Saxons.

‘Up, Tân!’ Harri ordered. ‘Get up high!’

It was too late. The white dragon tucked up its wings and fell from the sky like a rocket … like a rocket trailing smoke.

‘Oh no!’ Harri threw his fake control box on the ground. There was no point pretending anymore. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Tân! Watch out!’

It started as a trail of tiny, crackling sparks, then blazing, flaming jets of yellow fire shot out of Draca’s nostrils. The crowd cheered. What a fantastic show! They hadn’t expected dragons — they looked so real!

Tân flipped and rolled as he felt the flames scorch the scaly tip of his tail. Where had that dragon come from? He didn’t look friendly, and he wasn’t playing a game. This was a real fight!

The white dragon came at him again, flames blazing. This meant war! Tân closed his wings and dropped like a brick. He opened them at the last moment, swooping over the heads of the crowd.

‘Oooooooh!’

The white dragon had anticipated Tân’s move. It circled and came in for another attack.

‘Aaaaaaah!’ The crowd were loving it … until they realised the white dragon was heading straight for them with both nostrils blazing with heat and fury.

The roar of the flames could be heard above the spectator’s screams as they ran in all directions.

‘Stop it, Harri! Stop it now!’ Mr Davies was shaking Harri’s shoulders.

‘I can’t, sir — I mean Chief!’ With all the tumult going on around him, Harri had remembered to call him Chief!

‘Switch him off!’ Mr Davies yelled.

‘I can’t!’

Mr Davis picked up the radio-control unit and flicked the switch on and off. As he did, the top came off the box and a pile of worms fell from inside it.

‘What the … urrgh!’ Mr Davies saw the fear on Harri’s face.

‘Oh my Lord!’ he gasped. ‘They’re real! The dragons are real!’

Ryan’s dad stood in the middle of it all, watching the mayhem, laughing like an evil genius from a bad cartoon movie.

Tân was not going to be beaten. Rage would not help him now, but anger would stoke the fires in his belly. He flew towards the sun, so the other dragon would be blinded if it tried to follow. He struggled to get higher … higher still, as the heat built inside him.

Feeling like his little heart was ready to burst, Tân turned and dived.

The white dragon was far below him. With the sun behind him, it couldn’t see Tân coming.

The first the white dragon knew of the attack was the sound of Tân’s fires igniting, the sputtering jets of flame building to full blast, then the pain as Tân burned a hole through the leathery fabric of its right wing.

The creature screamed. Unable to control its flight, the white dragon tumbled out of the sky, but not before it lashed out, grabbing Tân by the tail, dragging him down, falling, falling through the air.

The canopy over a sweet stall broke their fall. They crashed onto the counter, snarling and growling, lashing their tails, slashing with their claws, scattering sweets in a cloud of gummy bears, flying saucers and smarties.

‘Tân!’ Harri ran towards them.

‘Draca!’ Ryan’s dad was running as fast as he could too.

Police sirens pierced the frenzied row.

‘Tân!’ Harri ordered, ‘Come here now!’

Tân held his head low, wings outstretched, ready to pounce in an instant. Waves rippled down his ribbed body as a low growl emanated from his belly.

‘Tân! Now!’ The rest of the world faded away. All Harri’s concentration was focussed on Tân. Tân had to know that Harri was his master. ‘I said now!’ Harri hissed.

Tân dropped his wings a fraction, a sign to the white dragon that this battle was over. But the war had only just begun!

Tân inched backwards carefully, warily, keeping his eyes firmly on the white dragon, in case it should still try and attack. When he was a safe distance away, he let Harri pick him up and hold him firmly in his arms.

Tân let out a sigh of relief. He flicked his tongue out and licked Harri’s face.

‘Well done!’ Harri whispered.