We Fight Dragons (Volume 2, Chapter 13) "I see plans within plans..."
‘Can we also agree that making this boy a Torquar was a mistake?' Dad demanded of the Marshal.
'Knowing what I do now, the probability of an advantageous outcome was very low. It was a miscalculation… no, it was a… I don’t know how to say it…'
‘That’s right. Because you cannot calculate for a Dragon. But can you reverse what you did? Will you?’
‘I will repair the situation. We don’t want the power of the Torquar with someone who has abused it. However, the ritual takes time. And the person I need to help complete it is not here. We shall deal with it later.’
‘You are assuming that the Dragon won’t kill you.’
‘Yes. It might. But that is not useful.’ The Marshal studied Tobes’ prone body thoughtfully. ‘It is so strange. When we did the ritual, and all his emotions were stripped out, I saw the sort of a person he was. By my calculations, he would have been a powerful Knight. That is all assuming, of course… that his father had not betrayed the bloodline.’
It was a somber reminder that Mr and Mrs Dawson had hidden a great secret from all their friends for years. They had pretended that she was a Maiden, and that Tobes would one day become a Knight. The lie was always destined to end.
Jam understood that this was why Mr Dawson pushed his son to be the best that he could. Why he celebrated so much whenever Tobes achieved anything before his friends. Jam had always thought it was vanity on the part of Mr Dawson, but in reality it was pure joy.
‘Yeah,’ said Dad. ‘We have things to talk about. But that can wait until later. Right, Nathan?’
Mr Dawson nodded as he slowly stood up and stretched his limbs, like he was warming up for a fight. ‘Yes. Later. We have more urgent priorities now. Can we talk in private for a second?’
David and Nathan walked away so that no one could hear them. David waited for his friend to speak first.
‘So, what about the other families? The Joyces? The Smiths? Do we get them involved in this too? We might need them in a fight. Especially once the beast is dead and we have to deal with the Torquar.’
‘No. So far the Torquar only know that our families are the Knights and Maidens they were looking for. And the ones they will want to kill afterwards. Yes, the others could be useful, but it would be selfish of us to bring them in just to die alongside us. Does that make sense?’
Nathan nodded. ‘So it’s just you, me and Freya who will be hunting. Like the old days.’
‘Yeah, like the old days. Hopefully not our last days. At least, if we fall, we know they will not kill Tobes or Mels.’ David couldn’t bring himself to speak the idea that Jam would probably be killed if the Torquar triumphed.
‘One last thing… in case we die… I just wanted to explain… about Olivia.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘Yes, I do. I should have. Long ago. We fell in love before I felt the pull of any Maiden in my heart. When that pull happened, I fought against it for so long that eventually it went quiet. I love my wife more than anything. Even if she isn’t a Maiden.’
‘Yeah. I get it. Personally, I’ve never had any doubts about Freya. But I get what you are saying, and now you’ve said that, you need to get your head in this fight!’
After the ambulance had taken Tobes and Mrs Dawson off to hospital, Mum and Dad took Jam and Mels back to their house. Once Mum was sure they would be safe there, the adults went with the Marshal to fight the Dragon.
It didn’t take Jam long to feel like a spare-wheel. Like he should be doing something. However, he knew that if he followed his parents then Mels would just follow him, and in effect he would be putting her life in danger too.
That was when Jam noticed how much mud and strawberry bits he still had all over him, which gave him an idea. He got some fresh clothes and took them to the bathroom, while Mels continued to nervously pace the house. He ran the shower, and left it running as he opened the window and climbed out. He knew he’d probably have about fifteen minutes before she got suspicious.
Freya led the search, shielded on each side by David and Nathan, who had their amulets at the ready. The Marshal walked behind them. Occasionally, Freya would see a black car shadowing them, most likely more Torquar who would arrive exactly when it would be most advantageous.
‘I can just sense it. It’s very high.’
‘Damn,’ said Nathan. ‘It knows we are onto it. It’s not going to come down while we are united.’
‘Then we will have to give it a reason to think that we aren’t,’ said David. ‘Freya, lead us to the nearest walled garden. I have a plan.’
‘It better not be to betray me,’ warned the Marshal.
‘Don’t worry, Torquar. That’s so out of character for a Knight that not even a Dragon would believe it.’ David explained to the Marshal what he needed him to do.
When they arrived in the garden, which had a memorial stone from the last war set in the middle, Freya made a show of believing that the Dragon was supposed to be there, but that she could no longer detect it.
The Marshal accused her of working with the Dragon, to save her own skin.
Freya denied it. David and Nathan supported her.
The Marshal declared that they had broken the Pact, and with a single spinning kick he sent both David and Nathan flying through the air to impact the garden wall.
He grabbed one of the metal garden stakes that was being used to secure a rose bush, threw Freya to the grass and held the stake at her throat, pinning her down. David and Nathan were barely stirring.
‘Deceiver!’ yelled the Marshal. ‘See how easily I took down your Knights? They are helpless, and by the time they have recovered you will have paid for your treachery.’
Freya struggled and screamed, like she was being tortured.
All of sudden her eyes widened, and she said to the Marshal, ‘It’s almost here! Move!’
The Marshal grabbed her and spun them both aside in a heartbeat as a massive invisible force thumped into the lawn where they had just been.
David and Nathan woke up instantly from their pretend unconsciousness, and drew their amulets. They ran to either side of the Dragon and the effect of the field they created between their amulets revealed the Dragon as a scintillating mass of sparking scales, and it held the beast within that field.
Nambodius roared in anger. It was so used to being the deceiver that to be caught in a trap like this was the worst indignity that it could imagine. It tried to take flight, but the amulets held tight to its essence.
The Marshal walked calmly towards the thrashing beast, dodging every claw and fang like he knew what the Dragon was going to do next. He calculated that the Knights amulets were reducing the chaos factors around the Dragon, and it was relatively easy to drive the stake he was holding into one eye of the beast. He made a mental note to take the amulets with him to study at the Fortress, once he had killed the Knights.
With one eye skewered by a protruding stake, Nambodius knew that the Torquar was the greatest threat, but only because of the Knights. The Dragon could not reach the Knights, or catch the Torquar, but… with a coiled flick of its tail, it lashed out and caught the Maiden, then flung her into the nearest Knight.
As Freya flew towards him, Nathan ignored his amulet to catch her with as little injury as possible, and put her gently behind him. Freya nodded in thanks.
This distraction broke the field that held the Dragon, and Nambodius focused all its effort on escaping.
As the Dragon leapt into the air, the Marshal grabbed another stake, drove it through the beasts’ tail, and under the memorial stone.
Nambodius snagged on its own tail, and was suddenly pulled sideways, crashing down across the garden wall. The jarring force, leveraged by the way that its body came down half on the other side of the wall was strong enough to rip up the memorial stone. In so doing, the stake came lose from the tail, and spun through the air, landing somewhere outside the garden.
Nambodius was shaken by the attack as it lay on the ground. In its confusion, it thought it was looking at a young boy, a young Knight, who was watching the fight from behind a parked car.
The fight was mostly silent, but savage to witness.
Jam was shocked when the Dragon tried to escape and something had pinned its tail, sending it crashing down over the garden wall.
He looked at it. It looked at him, with it's one remaining eye.
The sound of clattering metal caught his attention, as a long three-bladed metal garden stake, now twisted, landed beside him.
He picked up the stake, and approached the Dragon’s remaining eye, which seemed to stare at him in shock.
All he had to do was run it through, and it would be dead. He tensed to strike, using all his power.
‘But then what?’ It was a voice in his head. It could have been Mum’s voice. Or Mels’. He thought it through.
He would kill the Dragon.
The pact would be complete.
Then Torquar would kill his father.
Then kill his mother.
Then they would kill him.
Maybe they would even kill Mels.
He looked at the stake, poised to strike, then at the Dragon.
He stalked carefully up to the Dragon and kicked it in the snout. ‘You? Can you still fly?’
The Dragon’s eye widened further in surprise, and then narrowed in understanding.
‘Then get out of here! Go!’
The Dragon shook itself into alertness. As its injured tail coiled itself over the wall, Jam could see that instead of blood, it was ‘bleeding’ some kind of glittering dark smoke that dispersed into the air.
The Dragon leapt skyward again, this time more sluggish, but it was away.
Jam heard noises from the other side of the wall, rubble and stone being moved, and then footsteps and curses that came rushing towards him.
His parents and the Torquar found him on the street holding the stake and staring up into the sky. ‘It got way,’ was all Jam could think of saying.
‘Unfortunate,’ said the Torquar. ‘Why didn’t you stop it? I wonder if your failure can be considered a breaking of our Pact.’
Dad interjected. ‘The kids had no obligation to fight. You agreed to that.’
‘So I did,’ said the Torquar. ’And now I wonder if this was your plan all along.’
‘I can’t predict the future,’ said Dad. ‘If anyone should have seen this outcome, it was you.’
‘Well spoken, Knight. Regardless, maybe I should continue this fight. Those amulets look interesting, and will make a great addition to our collection.’
‘No, the Pact survives. You agreed that it would end when the ‘monster was destroyed’. Those were your words.’
For the first time that Jam could remember, the Marshal looked like he was about to lose his cool. Possibly break his own Pact to attack them. The he cooled down.
‘Okay. Very clever. But let me also remind you. I said we would ‘not harm any Knight or Maiden in Blacken Green’. So I hope you like your little town, because you will be dead the moment you step outside it.’
As if on cue, the other Torquar who had been circling pulled in the black car pulled up next to them. The Marshal got inside, gave the Knights and Maidens of Blacken Green one last angry look, and they drove away.
Dad turned to Jam. ‘Well done, son. That was a wise decision. Letting the Dragon escape will keep the Torquar off our backs for now.’
Mum just hugged him in gratitude.
Mr Dawson grudgingly agreed that it had been a good move.
Jam was relieved that after making so many bad decisions of late, he had been able to make the right one when it counted the most.
.