That gigantic, unspeakably horrible beak came so close to Twigleg that it touched his nose!
‘Nothing, nothing!’ he managed to say. ‘Or rather… no, wait, to be honest that’s not true. The other griffins are in league with the poachers. They’ve been making plans to steal your treasure for a long time. And they… they want to crown Shrii king!’
What luck that he had centuries of practice in telling lies to megalomaniac monsters!
Kraa stared at the hatch on which he slept. Its outline was just visible in the middle of the platform.
‘Nonsense! Tchraee would never betray me!’
‘Tchraee? Tchraee is the ringleader!’ cried Twigleg. He hadn’t the faintest idea where his lies would lead him, but maybe the others would turn up after all and rescue him. No! No, he wanted his master to stay where he was. Safe on a dragon’s back! Far away from that beak and those terrible claws!
Kraa was listening for sounds from outside again. A shudder ran through his wings, and every muscle in his lion’s body was taut under the tawny coat.
The screams were getting louder.
‘Treachery!’ bellowed the griffin. ‘Treachery everywhere!’
He spread his wings, and his beak uttered a scream of aggression that Twigleg felt to the marrow of his bones. Even Nakal flinched in terror, so that his fingers closed even more tightly on Twigleg. Crushed by a proboscis monkey! No, even being swallowed by a griffin sounded better than that.
Kraa swung around and bent down to Twigleg. His beak looked as if it were smiling all the time – in a very cruel way.
‘It’s true that I lost a lot of feathers when I ate that other jenglot,’ he growled, ‘but as you may remember, Nakal, it also made me much stronger. And it was deliciously juicy and crunchy at the same time!’
‘Unlike me! Jenglots of my kind aren’t at all crunchy and juicy, O sharp-clawed Kraa!’ Twigleg tried desperately to free himself from Nakal’s grasp. ‘We really aren’t. We taste like… like…’
He hesitated. Who could say what a griffin would find tasty?
Kraa opened his beak.
‘Get in here and bring it down to me, Nakal!’
The proboscis monkey raised the hand holding Twigleg – and froze rigid when a sound came in from outside that made even Kraa stand as motionless as the pictures of griffins on his walls.
It was a roar that he had heard only once before in his long, long life. On a starless night hundreds of years ago.
‘Do you hear that?’ his father had asked him and his brothers. ‘That’s the voice of a dragon. If you drink its blood, it will make you immortal, and as powerful as the griffins whose statues adorn the palaces of the ancient kings.’ And in reply another roar had come from the sky, as if the dragon had heard the challenge. But their father hadn’t let them fly after it. At the time Kraa had wondered why. ‘Maybe because he’s frightened of the dragon!’ his youngest brother had whispered. Kraa had pecked his brother’s wings until they bled for saying that.
‘What’s that, Tanunda?’ whispered Nakal. ‘I’ve never heard a roar like it.’
Kraa was still standing motionless, with his feathers bristling.
A dragon.
He had always wanted to be immortal.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Challenge
There is one fairly good reason for fighting –
and that is, if the other man starts it.
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Barnabas Greenbloom had known many dark hours in his life. But it was unusual for anything to weigh on his mind so heavily as knowing that his actions had brought two dragons within reach of a fearsome enemy.
He was kneeling beside one of Kraa’s jackal scorpions to check that the anaesthetic was still working when Firedrake and Tattoo, with their dragon riders, broke through the branches above him.
No! Barnabas wanted to call to them. Fly away – please!
But then he saw Shrii, landing on the throne platform along with Firedrake. A griffin beside two dragons! That was a sight that perhaps had never been seen in the world before. For a moment it made Barnabas forget his fears – but only for a moment.
Then Kraa stepped out of his palace nest. With the proboscis monkey at his side. And the monkey had Twigleg in his grasp.
Ben cried out in horror. Sorrel was only just in time to catch hold of him before he slipped off Firedrake’s back.
How Barnabas cursed himself! After all these years, how could he keep hoping that ventures like this one might be achieved without a fight? It’s because you’re a hopeless romantic, Barnabas, he told himself. Because you won’t come to terms with the fact that in this world, violence always leads to more violence.
And then the other griffins arrived as well – except for Tchraee, who was nowhere to be seen. They settled in the branches above the throne like a flock of hungry vultures. The hatred in their eyes as they stared down at the dragons was outdone only by their revulsion at the sight of Shrii.
The young griffin returned their glance with proud defiance. He had fled, he had hidden, and he had been Kraa’s prisoner. It was time for him to confront the old griffin freely and openly at last. Shrii was well aware that the confrontation could very easily end with his own death, but it would be a much better death than the one that Kraa had planned for him.
‘Let me talk to him,’ he whispered to Firedrake.
Tattoo was about to protest, but Firedrake nodded.
‘Try it,’ he whispered back. ‘But don’t forget, we want our friend back alive, small as he is!’
The griffins’ tree was still holding Kraa’s monkeys captive. They could be heard moving noisily about in the nests as Shrii walked past the empty throne and stopped at the edge of the platform.
‘This is our quarrel, Kraa!’ he called up to the palace nest. ‘Let the jenglot go!’
‘He’s a homunculus!’ Ben called down from Firedrake’s back. ‘And…’
The words died away on his lips. To Kraa’s right, something was moving between the pillars surrounding the palace nest. Barnabas! Oh no! Ben realised at once what his adopted father was going to do. He knew him only too well.
Barnabas Greenbloom stepped out of the shadows hiding him from Kraa, and bowed to the griffin as if he were saying hello to a neighbour’s cat.
‘Terrible Kraa!’ he called up to him. ‘Accept me in exchange for the unfortunate homunculus. This honourable proboscis monkey could break all his bones simply by holding him rather too tightly. I am sure we can come to an agreement. We arrived on this island with entirely peaceful intentions. Maybe we can even negotiate between you and Shrii. But please, first let the homunculus go.’
The growl that came from Kraa sounded both amused and disapproving.
‘Peaceful intentions?’ he repeated. ‘Peace is something for chickens and geese. Is your little brain too clouded by fear for you to remember that you are addressing a griffin? And what, by the gods of Babylon, is a homunculus? Do you by any chance mean this jenglot? I’ll tell you what Kraa the Terrible is going to do with him. Eat him, and you too.’
Barnabas was careful not to utter any sound of pain when Kraa took hold of him with his right front claw. This is really no worse than back in the desert, Barnabas, he told himself as he felt the mighty claws pierce through his clothes; there was no ignoring them. Do you remember? When Nettlebrand came crawling out of the well and you had to hide underneath him? Well, maybe this time it was rather worse…
‘Let them go!’ shouted Ben. He was still sitting on Firedrake’s back.
‘Oh, this isn’t good!’ muttered Sorrel, putting a mushroom into her mouth to calm herself down. ‘This is not good at all.’
Firedrake said nothing.
He walked slowly, very slowly, over the platform, stopped beside Shrii, and looked up at Kraa.
It was a declaration of war.
Kraa craned his neck, and stared down at the dragon, delighted.
‘I hadn’t finished m
y sentence,’ he croaked. ‘I was going to add: I’ll eat them both unless’ – and his snake-tail wound its way through the air until Barnabas thought he could feel the forked tongue on the nape of his neck – ‘unless the lindworm will face me in a duel!’
‘No!’
Several of them spoke at the same time: Tattoo, Sorrel, Winston, Twigleg, Barnabas… even the other griffins seemed far from enthusiastic about Kraa’s proposition. Only Ben said nothing. The last few days had taught him a few things. After all that he and Firedrake had been through together, he had been so sure he knew what it meant to be a dragon rider. But he would never forget the disappointment in Firedrake’s eyes – not just because Ben had lied to him, but because he hadn’t left it to the dragon himself to decide whether or not to put himself in danger to help them save the Pegasus foals. How could he and Barnabas ever have thought they could make that decision better than Firedrake himself ? Were they, after all, like most human beings in thinking themselves cleverer than all the other inhabitants of the planet, dragons included? Ben had promised himself that he would never again let Firedrake down like that. And Firedrake wanted to accept Kraa’s challenge. Ben could feel the dragon’s muscles tensing themselves already. Firedrake would need his dragon rider in order to control all the anger and aggression now stirring in him. Ben himself felt something dark emerging in his heart: a wish to see Firedrake’s teeth buried in Kraa’s neck as the dragon took revenge for all that the griffin had inflicted on them and this island. It was an intoxicating sensation – intoxicating and terrible at the same time. It even made Ben forget his anxiety for Firedrake. That’s what revenge does – it drowns even love. If the challenge was accepted, both the dragon rider and the dragon would have to help one another to control that darkness.
‘No?’ Kraa repeated the unanimous answer that had come from so many mouths. ‘You didn’t say that, lindworm. But I don’t hear you say Yes either. Hand me the jenglot, Nakal. I’ll have him as a starter, and then my main course will be the glass-eyed man.’
It was very obvious that Nakal liked that order. He hurried over to Kraa, eager to please him, bowed, and held the kicking homunculus under the griffin’s beak like a ripe fig.
Firedrake gave a roar that went right to Ben’s heart. It merged him with the dragon and made them one, as if they were a single living creature.
‘I accept your challenge, Kraa!’ cried Firedrake.
He had known what he was now feeling only once so keenly before. On the day when he had challenged Nettlebrand: a lust for battle so old and powerful that it seemed to be stealing out of a dark past and into his heart. Even the hatred that stirred in him at the sight of Kraa’s cruel beak seemed older than himself. Dragon against griffin. Griffin against dragon. No, that enmity was nothing to do with him. But Firedrake saw, in Kraa’s eyes, that he would kill Barnabas and Twigleg as casually as he snapped up flying squirrels and young monkeys.
‘Sorrel, get on Tattoo’s back!’ Firedrake told her as he let the darkness in – into his sinews and muscles, into his mind, but not, he hoped, into his heart. ‘You too, Ben,’ he added.
Ben and Sorrel exchanged a glance. It wasn’t often that they were in total agreement, but this time Ben knew he could count on the brownie girl.
‘You’re talking nonsense!’ said Sorrel. ‘We’re exactly where we belong. And Tattoo has a rider of his own.’
Firedrake was about to answer. But now it was Shrii who turned to Kraa.
‘What’s the idea?’ he called up to the old griffin as he spread his wings threateningly. ‘I challenged you first. I, not the dragon, Kraa! This island is my home, and you will have to fight me for it!’
The other griffins ducked down on the branch where they were crouching, ready to pounce.
‘Stay where you are!’ Kraa called to them, holding the glass-eyed man in his claw like a captured mouse. ‘No one here is fighting except me and the dragon! It will be like the old days. Single combat will decide it.’
‘Decide what?’ Tattoo came to Firedrake’s side.
Kraa didn’t trouble to answer him.
What a night! The arrival of the lindworms was the best thing ever to happen on this eternally damp island. A challenge worthy of him at last. It made up for all the uneventful years when the only diversion had been trading with a few ragged poachers. Although these dragons were probably young idiots like Shrii. The silver one was clearly the older of the two, but even he couldn’t be more than two or three hundred years old. All the same, he was an impressive opponent. Kraa scrutinised the dragon’s long, jagged tail with satisfaction, Firedrake’s powerful flanks and curving horns… how often had he used them in battle? Most lindworms were very proud of their peaceful natures. But the one with the patterned scales was as excited as if he couldn’t wait to attack. A beginner. He, Kraa, had fought a thousand duels in his life, and he had won all of them. All of them.
Kraa ran his beak over his tawny wings – so much more distinguished than Shrii’s parrot plumage – and looked up at his opponent.
‘Announce the conditions, Nakal!’
‘Conditions?’ The proboscis monkey looked at his master in surprise.
‘Promise them anything you like!’ Kraa whispered to him. ‘Promise them the blue out of the sky. It makes no difference, because I shall win. As for my price – demand the usual. You know what I like.’
‘Oh yes. May I express a wish?’ Nakal tapped Twigleg’s pointed nose with one finger. ‘I’d like to keep the jenglot?’
‘Why not?’ growled Kraa. ‘Maybe he really is poisonous.’
Twigleg wasn’t sure whether this was good news or bad news. He was clutched so tightly in Nakal’s fist that he could hardly feel his arms, but Barnabas was in a considerably worse situation. Kraa had lowered his claw and was bracing it, together with his captive, on the flight ramp where he was standing. It was a wonder that Barnabas was still breathing.
‘These are the conditions of Kraa the Terrible!’ cried Nakal to the challengers. ‘The two prisoners will get their freedom should the dragon be victorious, and the young parrot –’ he made Shrii a mocking bow – ‘will be lord of this island.’
The other griffins ruffled up their feathers disapprovingly, but Nakal gave Kraa a conspiratorial wink.
‘Excellent,’ he growled. ‘And now tell them my price!’
Nakal cleared his throat.
‘If the mighty Kraa wins the duel,’ he announced in such a loud voice that Twigleg wished he could put his hands over his ears, ‘he will eat the glass-eyed man alive, as well as all who have supported the traitor Shrii. Then Kraa the mighty, Kraa the feathered storm, Kraa the bringer of a thousand deaths, will drink the blood of the dragon, rip out Shrii’s beating heart and eat it, so that everyone on the island will know who is their king.’
It really isn’t easy to breathe when a griffin’s claw is squeezing your ribs. But Barnabas was choking even more with anger at himself. It seemed to him as if he had betrayed all that he had fought for and believed in during his life. Peace instead of hatred and war, protection instead of destruction, working with others rather than against them… all of that was lying in the dirt with him, and soon two fabulous beings would be killing each other on his account. It was no consolation that the griffin might, after all, be the loser. Even Kraa’s death would be a loss to the world and the variety of creatures in it. Just as the death of every tiger was.
‘Listen to me, Kraa!’ gasped Barnabas, trying again to struggle out from under the claw that was pinning him down. ‘Please!’
The griffin took no notice. Only his snake-tail wound its way towards Barnabas and hissed in his face.
‘Good!’ cried Firedrake. ‘Here are my conditions.’
The green of the jungle was reflected in his silver scales. It was almost as if the dragon had become part of the island.
‘I will fight you only if you agree to free the prisoners, even if I lose. Swear it! Swear by your treasure or whatever is sacred to you. After
this battle, whatever its outcome, the prisoners and all who have rebelled against you may leave this island uninjured.’
Kraa scrutinised the dragon like a prey animal that he had spotted down by the roots of a tree as he flew past.
‘Of course!’ he growled. ‘Why not? A griffin should crown his victory with magnanimity. You have my word, lindworm.’
‘Liar!’ cried Barnabas, as loud as he could. ‘Don’t believe a word he says. Firedrake! Griffins take no prisoners. And certainly they don’t let anyone go. I forbid this fight! Do you hear, Firedrake? Take Ben and fly away!’
Kraa bent so low over him that Ben cried out in fear. The snake-tail fell over Barnabas’s throat.
‘Humans!’ snarled the griffin. ‘You chatter all the time like monkeys. Not surprising, considering the close relationship. I’m sure you‘ll go on chattering even in my belly!’
Then he opened the claw holding Barnabas on the ground.
‘Get out!’ he snarled. ‘And let the jenglot go as well, Nakal. Then we’ll see whose word can be trusted. The word of a griffin or the word of a dragon!’
Hesitantly, Barnabas stood up.
It was too good to be true.
Nakal gave Twigleg a regretful glance, but in the end he opened his fist. Barnabas felt Twigleg’s heart beating like the heart of a frightened bird in his fingers as he reached for him.
‘O terrible Kraa!’ he stammered as he threw himself on his knees in front of the griffin. ‘I will get you treasures, I will fill your palace with gold, but please let the dragons go. They are here only because of me!’
And because of three unborn Pegasus foals, Twigleg added in his thoughts. He really did hope they were worth all this.
Kraa did not condescend to answer Barnabas. He had eyes only for Firedrake.
‘What do you say, lindworm? I have fulfilled your condition. What about you? Will you fight?’
Firedrake exchanged a glance with Tattoo. If the griffin killed him, what would become of Maia and his unborn children? He hardly dared to think of them for fear it would make him vulnerable. But Tattoo understood and nodded. Yes, he would look after them.