Chapter 21 Tailspin
E ven though he had his eyes closed, Beetle knew what was happening - he could smell burning dragon flesh. This is not a good smell when you are actually flying on the burning dragon some five hundred feet in the air. It is not, in fact, a good smell at any time, particularly for the dragon.
The lightning had struck Spit Fyre with an earsplitting crash, sending a bone-juddering jolt of electricity through them all. After that everything had happened extremely fast - and yet Beetle was to remember it later in silent slow motion. He remembered seeing the lightning streak toward them, then the jarring shock that ran through Spit Fyre as the bolt hit and Spit Fyre's head rose high in pain. Then a lurch, a roll and a sickening free fall as the dragon dropped out of the sky, heading straight for the lighthouse. It was at that moment when, at the very top of the lighthouse, Beetle had seen the little man with the huge eyes staring out in horror, that Beetle had shut his own eyes. They were going to crash into the lighthouse and he didn't want to see it. He just didn't. But Septimus had no such luxury - his eyes were wide open. Like Beetle, he too saw the shocked face of the little man at the top of the lighthouse; indeed, for a split second, as Spit Fyre hurtled toward the tower, their eyes met, both wondering if this was the last thing they would ever see. And when, at the very last minute, Septimus managed to steer his floundering dragon away from the lighthouse, he instantly forgot about the Watcher in the lighthouse, as all his concentration focused on keeping Spit Fyre in the air. With each wing beat, Septimus willed Spit Fyre on. The dragon lurched past the black rain-soaked tower, through the brilliant beam of light and into the night once more. And then Septimus saw something - a pale crescent of sand catching the moonlight in a brief break in the clouds.
Excited, he turned to Jenna, who was white-faced with shock, and pointed ahead.
"Land!" he yelled. "We're going to make it, I know we are!"
Jenna couldn't hear a word Septimus said, but she saw his relieved, excited expression and gave him a thumbs-up. She turned around to Beetle to do the same and got a shock - Beetle had all but disappeared; all she could see was the very top of his head. Spit Fyre's tail had drooped right down, taking Beetle with it. Jenna's feeling of optimism evaporated. Spit Fyre's tail was injured - how much longer could he keep flying?
Septimus urged Spit Fyre on toward the sliver of sand, which was drawing ever closer. Spit Fyre heard Septimus and struggled onward, but his trailing, useless tail dragged him down, until he could barely skim over the top of the turbulent sea. The storm was passing now, taking its lightning and torrential rain to the Port, where it would soak Simon Heap as he lay sleeping under a hedge on his way to the Castle. But the wind was still strong and the waves were wild, and as Spit Fyre struggled through the spray his strength began to desert him.
Septimus clasped the dragon's neck. "Spit Fyre," he whispered, "we're nearly there, nearly there!" The dark shape of an island, outlined by the white of a long strip of sand, rose tantalizingly near. "Just a little farther, Spit Fyre. You can do it, I know you can. . . . "
Painfully the dragon stretched out his torn wings, somehow regained control of his tail for a few seconds and with all three of his riders willing him on, he glided across the top of the last few waves of an incoming tide and plunged down onto a bed of soft sand, just missing an outcrop of rocks.
No one moved. No one spoke. They sat shocked, hardly daring to believe that there was land beneath their feet - or rather, beneath Spit Fyre's stomach, for the dragon's legs were splayed out in deep sand troughs where he had skidded to a halt and lay exhausted, resting his entire weight on his wide, white belly.
The clouds parted once more and the moon shone down, showing the contours of a small island and a gently curving sandy bay. The sand glistened white in the moonlight - it looked wonderfully peaceful - but the sound of the waves as they thundered onto rocks and the salt spray dusting their faces reminded them of what they had only just escaped.
With a great, shuddering sigh, Spit Fyre laid his head onto the sand. Septimus shook himself into action and scrambled down from his pilot seat, closely followed by Jenna and Beetle. For a horrible moment Septimus thought Spit Fyre's neck was broken, as he had never seen him lie like this - even in his deepest, most snore-filled sleep Spit Fyre had a curve to his neck, but now it lay on the sand like a piece of old rope. Septimus kneeled and placed his hand on Spit Fyre's head, which was wet with rain and salt spray. His eyes were closed and did not flicker open at Septimus's touch as they always did. Septimus blinked back tears; there was something about Spit Fyre that reminded him of how the Dragon Boat had looked when Simon's Thunderflash had hit her.
"Spit Fyre, oh, Spit Fyre - are you. . . are you all right?" he whispered. Spit Fyre responded with a sound that Septimus had never heard before - a kind of half-strangled roar - which sent a spray of sand into the air. Septimus stood up, brushing the sand from his sodden HeatCloak.
Jenna looked at him in dismay. "He - he's bad, isn't he?" she said, shivering, water dripping from her rat-tailed hair.
"I. . . don't know," said Septimus.
"His tail doesn't look too good," Beetle said. "You ought to have a look. "
Spit Fyre's tail was a mess. The lightning bolt had struck just before the barb, and it had left a mangled jumble of scales, blood and bone and had very nearly severed the barb itself. Septimus crouched down for a closer look. He didn't like what he saw. The scales on the last third of the tail were blackened and burned, and where the lightning had hit, Septimus could see chunks of white bone glistening in the moonlight. The sand underneath was already dark and sticky with dragon blood. Very gently, Septimus put his hand on the wound. Spit Fyre gave another half-strangled roar and tried to move his tail away.
"Shh, Spit Fyre," Septimus called. "It will be all right. Shhh. " He took his hand away and looked at it. His hand shone wet with blood.
"What are you going to do?" asked Beetle.
Septimus tried to remember his Physik. He remembered Marcellus telling him that all vertebrate creatures were built to what he called "the same plan," that all the rules of Physik that worked for humans would also work for them. He remembered what Marcellus had told him about burns - immediate immersion in salty water for as long as possible. But he wasn't sure if you should also immerse an open wound. Septimus stood, indecisive, aware that both Jenna and Beetle were waiting for him to do something. Spit Fyre roared once more and tried to move his tail. Septimus made a decision. Spit Fyre was burned. He was in pain. Cold salt water would take away the pain and stop the burning. It was also, if he remembered rightly, a good antiseptic.
"We need to put his tail in that pool," said Septimus, pointing to a large pool set back in the narrowly missed rocks.
"He won't like it," said Beetle, running his hand over his hair like he always did when he was trying to solve a problem. He frowned. His hair was sticking up like a chimney brush. Beetle knew he shouldn't be thinking of things like hair right now, but he really hoped Jenna hadn't noticed.
Jenna had noticed Beetle's hair. It had made her smile for just about the first time that night, but she knew better than to say anything. "Why don't you go and talk to Spit Fyre, Sep," she suggested. "Tell him what we're going to do, and then Beetle and I can lift his tail and put it in the pool. "
Septimus looked doubtful. "His tail is really heavy," he said.
"And we're really strong, aren't we, Beetle?"
Beetle nodded, hoping his hair didn't wobble about too much. It did wobble, but Jenna deliberately stared at the tail.
"Okay," agreed Septimus.
Septimus kneeled once more beside Spit Fyre's inert head. "Spit Fyre," he said, "we need to stop your tail from burning. Jenna and Beetle are going to lift it and put it in some cold water. It might sting a little, but then it will feel better. You'll have to shuffle back a bit, okay?"
To Septimus's relief, Spit Fyre opened his eyes. The dragon stared glassily at him for a
few seconds, then closed them once more.
"Okay!" Septimus called back to Beetle and Jenna.
"You sure?" asked Beetle.
"Yep," said Septimus. "Go ahead. "
Beetle took the injured part of the tail - which he knew would be by far the heaviest - and Jenna took the barb at the end, which was still hot to the touch.
"I'll say 'one, two, three' and then we'll lift, okay?" said Beetle. Jenna nodded.
"One, two, three and - oof! He is heavy!"
Staggering under the dead weight of the huge, scaly tail, Jenna and Beetle lurched step-by-step backward toward the pool, which shone flat and still in the moonlight. The muscles in their arms were screaming under the weight, but they dared not drop the tail before they reached the water.
"Sep, he needs to. . . kind of. . . swivel," Jenna said, gasping.
"Swivel?"
"Umph. "
"Left or right?"
"Um. . . right. No left, left!"
So under Septimus's direction, Spit Fyre painfully shuffled around to the left, and his tail obligingly traveled to the right, taking its two lurching helpers with it.
"Now back - back!"
Slowly and very painfully, Spit Fyre, Jenna and Beetle shuffled backward along a narrow gap in the rocks toward the pool.
"One. . . more. . . step," grunted Beetle.
Splash! Spit Fyre's tail was in the rock pool. A great spray of water rose up. Spit Fyre lifted his head and roared in pain - the water stung a lot more than Septimus had told him it would. A loud hiss came from the pool, and steam rose as the heat burning deep inside the dragon flesh was dissipated through the water. A colony of small octopi marooned in the tidal pool turned red and shot for cover in a crevice of a rock, where they spent an unhappy night white with fear, trapped by Spit Fyre's tail. Spit Fyre relaxed as the cold water began to soothe the burn and numb his tail senses. Gratefully he pushed his nose into Septimus's shoulder, and Septimus promptly fell over. Spit Fyre opened his eyes once more and watched Septimus get up, then he laid his head down on the sand, and Septimus saw that the natural curve in the dragon's neck had returned. A minute later the dragon's snores had also returned, and for once Septimus was glad to hear them.
With Spit Fyre asleep, Jenna, Beetle and Septimus flopped down beside the dragon. No one said much. They looked out to sea and watched the moonlight on the waves, which were calmer now and fell with no more than a busy rush onto the sand. In the far distance they saw the beams of light from the strange lighthouse that had guided them to safety, and Septimus wondered what the little man in the window was doing right then. Jenna got up. She took her boots off and walked barefoot across the fine sand down to the sea. Beetle followed her. Jenna stood at the edge of the waves, looking around. She grinned as Beetle joined her.
"It's an island," she said.
"Oh," replied Beetle. He assumed that Jenna had seen it from the air and he felt a little embarrassed that he had had his eyes closed.
"I can feel it. There's something. . . islandy about it. You know, I read about some islands in one of my Hidden History classes," said Jenna. "I wonder if this is one of them. "
"Hidden history?" asked Beetle, intrigued.
Jenna shrugged. "Queen stuff. Really boring most of the time. Gosh, the water's cold, my feet have gone numb. Shall we go and see what Sep's doing?"
"Okay. " Beetle followed Jenna back to the dragon, longing to ask about "Queen stuff" but not daring to.
Meanwhile Septimus had gone domestic. He had pulled the sodden saddlebags off Spit Fyre and had spread the contents out on the sand. He was very impressed - and touched - by what he found. He realized that, during the dark winter evenings by the fire, when he had often talked about his time in the Young Army, Marcia had not only listened to his descriptions of the night exercises, she had remembered them - right down to the makeup of various survival backpacks. To Septimus's amazement, Marcia had put together the perfect Young Army Officer Cadet Hostile Territory Survival Pack, with some rather nice added extras in the form of a self-renewing FizzBom special, a Ma Custard bumper variety pack of sweets and a fancy WaterGnome. He could not have done it better himself. He was eyeing the collection with approval when Beetle and Jenna sat down beside him.
"Anyone would think Marcia had been in the Young Army," said Septimus. "She's put in everything that I would have. "
"Maybe she was," Jenna said, grinning. "She does the same kind of shouting. "
"At least she doesn't do the same kind of shooting," said Septimus with a grimace. He held up a small box with a circular wire attachment on the top of it. "Look, we've got a stove with that new Spell she was doing, FlickFyre. You just flick it like this - " He demonstrated, and a yellow flame shot out of the top of the box and ran around the wire.
"Argh, hot!" Septimus quickly put the stove onto the sand and, leaving it burning, he showed off the rest of the contents of the saddlebags. "See, there's food to last us for at least a week, plates, pots, cups, stuff to build a shelter and look - we've even got a WaterGnome. " Septimus held up a small figure of a little bearded man wearing a pointed hat.
"Is that one of the rude ones?" asked Beetle.
"No way," Septimus said with a laugh. "Can you see Marcia letting one of those through the door? The water comes out of his watering can. See?" Septimus tipped the figure and, sure enough, a small spout of fresh water came out of the WaterGnome's tiny watering can. Jenna picked up one of the leather cups and held it under the spout until it was full, then drank it down in one gulp.
"Tastes good," she said.
Using an assortment of packets labeled WizDri, Septimus put together what he called a "Young Army stew, only much better. " They sat and watched the stew bubble in the pot on the stove until the aroma made it impossible to just watch it anymore. They ate it with Marcia's StayFresh bread and washed it down with hot chocolate - made by Jenna with the help of her ChocolateCharm, which she had used on some seashells. As they sat around the flickering FlickFyre stove, silently drinking the hot chocolate, each one of them felt surprisingly content. Septimus was remembering another time on another beach - the first time he had ever tasted hot chocolate or ever sat around a fire and not had someone yelling at him. He looked back with a feeling of real fondness for that time; it had been the very beginning of his new life - although back then, he remembered ruefully, he had thought it was the end of the world. Jenna felt happy. Nicko was safe. He would be sailing home soon, and all the trouble that had begun with her taking Septimus to see the Glass in the Robing Room would be over. It would not be her fault anymore.
Beetle felt amazing. If anyone had told him a few months ago that he would be sitting on a deserted beach - well, deserted apart from a snoring dragon and his best friend - in the moonlight with Princess Jenna, he would have told them to stop fooling around and go and do something useful, like clean out the Wild Book Store. But here he was. And right next to him was Princess Jenna. And the moon. . . and the gentle splish-splash of the sea and. . . eurgh - what was that?
"Spit Fyre!" Septimus jumped up. "Oof, that was bad. I suppose his stomach is a bit upset. I'd better go and bury it. "
Marcia had thoughtfully provided a shovel.