Septimus Heap 3 - Physik (16 page)

A chorus of yells rose from behind the boatyard door, and Rupert's voice could be heard shouting, "If you want rats, Matey, you've got 'em. Great big ones with axes.

Come on then!"

As if in response to Rupert Gringe's kind invitation, the RatStranglers gave one massive heave at the door. There was a splintering crash and the mob surged through. A tremendous noise erupted as a fight broke out at the gate. Rupert, Jannit and the yard hands put up a good fight and seemed to be winning, but a few of the RatStranglers evaded the hail of blows.

Led by the tall, spiky woman, they broke away, and brandishing an assortment of makeshift weapons, they headed toward the Dragon House, yelling, “Get the dragon, kill the dragon, kill, kill, kill!”

Fyre and Seek

Jenna and Spit Fyre were airborne. As the breakaway party of RatStranglers headed across the boatyard below them, Jenna guided Spit Fyre toward the small golden plaque set into the wall above the arch at the entrance of the Dragon House. Spit Fyre was flying beautifully, his wings beating against the air slowly and with great control; he responded to Jenna's every command. Soon the dragon was hovering in front of the plaque, nice and steady, as though he understood exactly what Jenna wanted him to do. In front of him the disc of gold was dull in the chill, damp air, but below him the RatStranglers were now running single file between the two tall-masted ships. They were nearly to the Dragon House.

“ Ignite!” Jenna yelled at the top of her voice. “ Ignite, Ignite, Ignite!”

Nothing happened. Afraid that there was indeed more to the Ignite, Jenna was horrified to see the spiky-woman RatStrangler emerging from between the tall ships, brandishing a large plank studded with nails. She was heading toward the sleeping head of the Dragon Boat.

“Please, Spit Fyre, please. Ignite!”

And then Jenna felt Spit Fyre shudder. From deep within the dragon, a subterranean rumble began. It started in the pit of his fire stomach, gathering force until it burst through the fire valve and shot into his great, thick dragon windpipe. Jenna felt the wave of it travel up his neck. Spit Fyre coughed as if in surprise, instinctively flared his nostrils and a great rush of gas came shooting out.

“ Ignite!” yelled Jenna at the top of her voice. With a tremendous whoosh, the gas Ignited. The jet of flame leaped forward and enveloped the golden disc, and for one awful moment Jenna was afraid that the heat of the flame would melt the gold, for the disc glowed and shimmered so that it looked almost liquid in the red light. And then, far below her, Jenna heard a great yell of surprise from the RatStranglers. She glanced down to see if they had reached the Dragon Boat, and to her amazement, all she could see was the great expanse of stone of the Castle wall.

Spit Fyre had done it! The Dragon House had disappeared as though it had never existed. Once again it was Sealed behind the Castle wall as it had been ever since the time of Hotep-Ra.

Jenna threw her arms around the dragon's neck. It was hot, almost too hot to touch, but she did not care. “Thank you, Spit Fyre, thank you. I will never, ever complain about cutting your toenails again. I promise.” Spit Fyre snorted, coughed out more superheated gas, and another great plume of Fyre sent the RatStranglers diving for cover. It also set fire to a pile of paddleboats that Rupert Cringe had brought in for repair.

Jenna and Spit Fyre flew back to the collapsed trawler. Jenna guided Spit Fyre down beside the smashed-up remains of the boat, and keeping his wings outstretched for a quick takeoff, the dragon waited for Wolf Boy to take his place behind Jenna.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” came a familiar voice beside Jenna's left foot, “could you budge up a bit? Then Dawnie and I can squeeze in behind you.”

Jenna knew that voice. It always seemed to turn up when she least expected it. She looked down and there, as she had guessed, was Stanley—ex-Message Rat, one-time Secret Rat. Current position: fugitive from the RatStranglers.

“Come on then, Stanley, quickly, before the RatStranglers see you.” Jenna leaned down to help Stanley up.

“I'm not getting back on that—that thing,” said the small fat rat who was with Stanley.

“But, Dawnie dear, it's our only hope.”

Suddenly the clamor of the RatStranglers changed.

“She's over there,” said the shrill voice of the spiky woman. “ She did this. She should answer for it. Now. ”

“Now, now, now!” the chant began. “Now, now, now! ”

“They're coming this way,” said Wolf Boy. “Quick, Jenna. Leave the rats if they don't want to come. We've gotta go.”

Jenna reached down to grab Stanley's paw.

“Don't leave me, Stanley!” wailed Dawnie. She launched into a superb tackle and brought Stanley down by the ankles.

“Dawnie, let go! ”

Jenna hauled up the two squabbling rats, one in each hand, and placed them firmly between two large spines behind her, one behind the other. A moment later Spit Fyre was airborne, followed by a hail of trash can lids and a nasty-looking plank with nails stuck in it.

Two hundred feet above the Castle, the squabbling continued. “I hope you realize you nearly had us both killed, Stanley.”

“Me? I nearly had us both killed? That's rich, that is, coming from you. If you'd had your way, Dawnie, which may I say you usually do, we'd have both been strangled by now and hung up on the tally board.”

“Sometimes you say the crudest things, Stanley. My mother was right.”

“There's no need to bring your mother into it, Dawnie. No need at all.”

“Well, it's nice to see that you got back together,” said Jenna cheerily, trying to change the subject.

Both rats were unusually silent.

Taking advantage of the silence, Jenna passed the Navigator's tin back to Wolf Boy.

“Can you fish out the green piece of, er ... stuff?” she asked. “It's got Seek written on it. That's the one I need to get Spit Fyre to find Sep.”

“ Seek?” asked Wolf Boy in a panic. “What does Seek look like?”

“S-E-E-K,” Jenna spelled out, shouting above the whoosh of the dragon's wings.

“Big black letters. Can't miss it.”

“I can,” Wolf Boy muttered to himself. “What's the ... S thing look like?” he yelled back.

“Like a snake! S for snake, see?”

Jenna was guiding Spit Fyre so that the dragon kept following the Castle walls. She had decided to take him around in circles until she could do the Seek properly. It was also an excuse to look at the Castle, which, spread out far below like a map with ants moving slowly across it, fascinated her. It reminded her of a much-treasured map that Simon had given her one MidWinter Feast Day. It had shown every rooftop, tree, roof garden, alleyway and secret hideaway in the Castle. In fact, as Spit Fyre flew leisurely toward the old Message Rat headquarters, the East Gate Lookout Tower, Jenna wondered if the mapmaker had not had his own dragon, so like the map was the vista spread below her.

Wolf Boy was having trouble finding the Seek. It was quite enough, he thought, to be hundreds of feet up in the air, feeling sick and trying not to fall off a flying dragon, without having to look at letters as well. Spit Fyre did not exactly fly smoothly. With every downbeat of the dragon's wings, a great rush of dragon-smelling air passed Wolf Boy's face. Then the dragon shot up in the air, where he hung for a few seconds until the upbeat of his wings. There was another rush of smelly underwing air, and then down he went again. These were not ideal conditions in which to look for a snaky kind of letter-thingy.

As he rifled through the toffee tin, trying not to lose any precious bits of dragon skin, something occurred to him that would explain his troubles finding the Seek. “But not all snakes begin with S, do they?” he shouted forward to Jenna. “I mean, there's python and adder and Big Green Forest Snake and—”

Jenna leaned back and saw the look of puzzlement on Wolf Boy's face. “Tell you what,” she shouted, “why don't you just pass me all the green pieces?”

“Hey, I've got it!” yelled Wolf Boy, triumphant, as the dragon wings swept down. “I was confused because ... aargh”—the dragon wings swept up—“...there are two snakes on this one. But none of the others ... oof”—the dragon wings swept down again—“...have any snakes at all so this must be it. Here, oops”—the wings swept up—“...you are.” He passed Jenna a piece of crackly green leather. On the front of it was written Seek and Ye Shall Find.

“Great!” said Jenna. With some difficulty—it was like reading on a roller coaster—and hanging on tight to the scrap of green dragon skin so that it did not blow away, she read out the words of the Seek:

"Faithful dragon Seek the One Whom you be Imprinted on.

Let this Seek show in your Mind The Way to your Imprinter— Find! "

At once Spit Fyre banked sharply to the right. Jenna was caught by surprise. She had taken both hands off Spit Fyre's spines while she read out the Seek, and in one swift and terrifying movement, she slipped from her place behind Spit Fyre's neck, grabbed at the spines she should have been holding on to—and missed.

“Jenna!” yelled Wolf Boy. “Jenna!”

There was no reply. Jenna was gone.

Rider Retrieve

Jenna was too shocked to scream, she knew that there was nothing but thin air between her and Raven's Rock far below. But, as Spit Fyre felt the weight behind his neck disappear, something instinctive kicked in. Something that, unknown to Spit Fyre, all human-Imprinted dragons possessed: Rider Retrieve. As Jenna fell, Spit Fyre dropped like a rock and grabbed her with his feet.

Two seconds later he was carrying Jenna in his talons, as an eagle carries its prey.

Wolf Boy was frantic. He could not see Jenna dangling below. All he knew was that she was no longer there.

“Jenna!” he yelled. “Jenna!”

“ 409!” came an answering voice, or so he thought.

“Where's she gone, Stanley?” asked Dawnie peevishly. “I do think that's a bit much, just getting off like that. I mean, who's going to fly this thing now, I'd like to know?”

“Oh, do be quiet, Dawnie!” snapped Stanley. Dreading what he was going to see, the rat peered out over the great black spines of the dragon, but all he could see was Spit Fyre's fat stomach.

“409!” came Jenna's voice, almost blown away by the wind.

“Jenna?” Wolf Boy twisted around to see if she was behind him but there was nothing. He looked down to see if she was clinging on below him but he saw nothing except Spit Fyre's belly.

“409 ... I'm here...” Wolf Boy began to wonder if he was imagining it. Where was she?

Spit Fyre had turned back toward the Castle and was descending now, slowly and carefully. Wolf Boy looked down, scanning the ground, fearing the worst. They flew over Raven's Rock, across the new boat blockade, which spanned the river and stopped any Sickenesse-infested boats from arriving at the Port, and now they were heading toward the quay below Sally Mullin's Tea and Ale House. Customers were running from the cafe, and Wolf Boy could see people milling around, looking up and pointing excitedly. As Spit Fyre came in lower, Wolf Boy could hear what they were saying.

“It's the Princess!”

“That Wizard dragon's taken the Princess!”

“Look at her—just hanging there ... oh my, oh my...”

“Dead.”

“Don't say that. She can't be. She can't!”

“Well, she ain't doin' much.”

“Ain't much she can do, stuck in them claws like that. I always said that that dragon would turn. They all do.”

“Look! Look—she's moving. She's alive, look...”

“He's comin' down. He's going to squash her.”

“Aargh! I can't look—I can't!”

Spit Fyre was now hovering no more than ten feet off the ground. Wolf Boy's relief at realizing that Jenna had not fallen was replaced by a horrible thought: How was Spit Fyre going to land without crushing her?

Slowly, slowly, Spit Fyre came lower until he was so near to the quay that Wolf Boy could easily make out the complicated patterns on top of the fishermen's hats. The beating of Spit Fyre's wings—and quite possibly the strong smell of dragon—pushed the crowd back; Wolf Boy watched their astonished faces as the dragon hovered about five feet above the ground, uncurled his talons and let Jenna jump lightly onto the edge of the quay, running forward to keep her balance.

The crowd applauded and there were a couple of appreciative whistles, which seemed to go to Spit Fyre's head, for the dragon settled onto the quay, stuck out his neck and rumbled so that Wolf Boy felt it deep inside him. The crowd, fascinated by seeing Spit Fyre at such close quarters, especially after such a daring feat, was drawing near, pointing out the various strange bits and pieces that are part of any dragon.

“Horrible black spines he's got...”

“Look at the size of his tail...”

“Wouldn't fancy being stuck in them claws myself...”

And then, noticing Wolf Boy: “There's a kid on the back...”

“He's got quite a stare on him. Wouldn't want to come across him on a dark night.”

“Shh, he'll hear you.”

“No, he won't. Listen, what's that?”

The rumble deep inside Spit Fyre was getting louder. Jenna jumped back, for she knew what was coming, missed her footing and fell off the edge of the quay into the water. Still intrigued by the dragon, the crowd paid no attention whatsoever to the splash as their Princess vanished below the flotsam. As if drawn by a magnet, people drew closer and closer to Spit Fyre, watching the dragon as he threw back his head and flared his nostrils, listening to the volcanic rumblings inside him. Unnoticed, Jenna surfaced, spat out a small, but disgustingly dead fish and swam toward the steps at the end of the quay.

Suddenly, with a jet-engine of a roar, a great plume of hot gas streamed from Spit Fyre's nostrils and Ignited. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds of fire shot into the air and across the water, where it torched the sails of two herring boats that formed part of the blockade across the river. At the end of the thirty seconds the crowd had gone.

Many had taken refuge in Sally Mullin's cafe only to find themselves handed one of the large collection of fire buckets kept at the ready and told to “go and put that dragon out before we all go up in flames.” The rest could be seen running up the hill toward the South Gate with a great story to tell in the taverns at lunchtime.