We Fight Dragons (Volume 2, Chapter 13) "I see plans within plans..."
‘Making this boy a Torquar was a mistake.' Dad demanded wanted the Marshal own up to his mistakes.
'Knowing what I do now, I agree that 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 because a Dragon cannot calculated for. More importantly, can you reverse what you did to the boy? Will you reverse it?’
‘I will repair the situation. We don’t want the power of the Torquar with someone who has abused it. However, the other person I need to complete it is… currently unwell. 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 strange. When we performed 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 assumes, 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. ‘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.’
‘I’d rather not. So far the Torquar only know about our two families. 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 voice 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 it, 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. Mum implored Mels to take the first train back to the city, then the adults went with the Marshal to fight the Dragon.
Mels considered escaping to the city, but she wasn’t afraid for herself, and she wasn’t going to leave Jam alone with so much as stake. She would beg the Torquar to spare his life if she had to.
Left behind and out of the fight, it didn’t take Jam long to feel like a spare-wheel. He felt like he should be doing something. Anything. However, he knew that if he followed his parents then Mels would just follow him, and he would be putting her life in danger too.
That was when Jam noticed how much mud and bits of strawberry were still covering 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, climbed out, and ran after his parents. He knew that he’d probably have about fifteen minutes before Mels got suspicious.
Freya led the search, shielded on each side by David and Nathan, who held their amulets 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,’ she said.
‘Damn,’ said Nathan. ‘I think it knows that 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 try and 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 quietly 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 life.
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 David and Nathan both 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 wounded, 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 injuries, 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 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 Knights amulets with him to study at the Fortress, once he had killed their owners.
With one eye destroyed, Nambodius understood that the Torquar was the greatest threat, but only because of the others. 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, flinging her into the nearest Knight.
As Freya flew towards him, Nathan dropped his amulet to catch her with as little injury as possible, and put her gently behind him. Freya nodded in thanks.
The distraction was enough to break the field that held the Dragon, and Nambodius focused all its effort on escaping.
As the Dragon leapt into the air, the Marshal hefted the metal stake, and drove it through the beasts’ tail and under the memorial stone.
As it took off 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 metal stake came loose 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 pinned its tail, bringing 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 stake, now twisted and covered in smoking gore, 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.
He looked at the stake, poised to strike, then at the Dragon.
He stalked closer 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 rolled over the wall, instead of blood it was ‘bleeding’ 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 rushing towards him.
His parents and the Torquar found him on the street holding the stake and staring up into the sky. ‘It got away,’ 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 as a breach 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. Your 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 and attack them, but after a tense moment he cooled down and his emotion drained out of him again.
‘Very clever. But let me also remind you that 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 up next to them in the black. The Marshal got inside, gave the Knights and Maidens of Blacken Green one last scything look, and they drove away.
Dad turned to Jam. ‘Bloody well done, son. That was a wise decision. Letting the Dragon escape will keep the Torquar off our backs for now.’
Mum just hugged Jam in gratitude.
Mr Dawson also 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.
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