‘Call him off, Miss Strange. I’ll shoot him, I swear I will!’
‘Stop!’ I shouted to the Quarkbeast. ‘Danger!’
But he kept on coming, his jaws rattling dangerously, the sharp obsidian teeth glinting unkindly in the sunlight. There was a sharp report and the Quarkbeast fell, rolled over twice in the heather and lay still. I looked across at Gordon, who now turned the smoking revolver back to me.
‘Don’t even think about it!’ he said angrily. ‘I never liked the little tyke anyway. Run along and do your duty or by King Snodd and St Grunk, I’ll shoot you where you stand and get Sir Matt Grifflon in here to do your work for you—I could even claim the reward on your life!’
I tried to find something to say but nothing came out.
‘Well!’ sneered Gordon. ‘Quite the Dragonslayer, aren’t you? I was wondering how you could possibly have handled this any worse. All you had to do was kill a Dragon, and instead we’ve got a major war about to break out. Destiny is unkind sometimes, isn’t it? How many deaths will you have on your conscience? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? How much are your fancy scruples worth now?’
‘Stop!’ I shouted angrily, but he wouldn’t.
‘Stop?’ he repeated as he smiled a triumphant smile. ‘Or what? What will you do?’
I suddenly knew exactly what I’d do.
‘Or I’ll fire you, Gordon.’
‘Well you can’t,’ he sneered. ‘I resign.’
‘You resign?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘You mean you’re not my apprentice?’
He clapped his hand over his mouth as he realised what he had just said, and his face drained of colour.
‘NO!’ he yelled, throwing the gun away and changing his tone to a mournful plea. ‘I don’t resign! I’m sorry, please take me on again, I don’t want to end like—’
There was a bright flash and a smell of burnt paper as Gordon was reduced to little more than the sort of powder you might find in a cup-a-soup sachet. Only his clothes, derby hat and a steaming revolver remained to show that he had ever been. None but a Dragonslayer or their apprentice could enter the Dragonlands. His arrogance had got the better of him; his thirty million meant nothing.
I walked over to where the Quarkbeast was lying still in the heather. I dropped to my knees and rested my hand gently on his forehead. His large eyes were closed; he might have been asleep. There is a legend about Quarkbeasts that tells they are sent by the spirits of dead relatives to watch over you in times of uncertainty. My father had sent the Quarkbeast, I was sure of it. The small animal, although repulsive to many and possessed of disgusting personal habits and, yes, a bit smelly, had done his duty without regard for his own safety. I moved his body to a hillock above a bend in the river and placed a pile of stones over his small form. I topped this with a larger rock upon which I scratched the word Quark and the date. In the warm summer sunshine I stood for a moment in silent contemplation. He was a good, loyal friend, and he gave his life to save me.
Noon
I returned to the Slayermobile and drove to Maltcassion’s lair, the clearing in the forest. I parked up and stepped out. The large marker stone was humming louder than usual. The Dragon was sitting up on his hind legs. He was far taller than I had supposed—at least the height of one of King Snodd’s landships. He sniffed the air and listened carefully with his finely tuned ears.
‘I am sorry for your small friend,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘He had a good soul, despite his appalling table manners.’
I thanked him, and he told me he knew I would come, despite my own misgivings.
‘The Mighty Shandar just spoke to me,’ I said. ‘He demanded that you were to be spared. How do you account for that?’
Maltcassion growled angrily.
‘Don’t you dare speak of that scoundrel in my presence!’
I was shocked.
‘Scoundrel? You mean Shandar?’
Maltcassion roared and a sheet of flame burst from his throat and shot across the clearing in front of me, where it ignited a mature Douglas fir. The tree went up like a Roman candle. I took a few hasty steps back from the heat.
‘I told you not to mention his name!’
‘I don’t understand,’ I yelled above the crackling of the burning tree. He beckoned me to move away and I joined him.
‘Why do you think you are the first Dragonslayer to ever come up to the Dragonlands?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then let me ask you something else. Why do you suppose you are here at all?’
I thought the question a bit obvious but answered nonetheless.
‘To slay any Dragons guilty of violating the Dragonpact?’
‘But in four centuries none of us has ever violated the pact. Have you any idea why?’
‘Because you respect the Dragonpact?’
‘No. I’ll tell you. Shandar suggested the use of a force-field surrounding the marker stones to keep humans out. Such an act of magic is vast; he requested that we help him and we readily agreed, binding the magic of the marker stones so tightly it could never be undone except by the death of the Dragon it was there to protect.’
‘And?’
‘He tricked us. The weave of the magic was tighter than we imagined. The marker stones don’t just keep humans out, but us in. These Dragonlands are not a safe haven but a prison!’
I digested this new information.
‘Then the Dragonpact wasn’t a pact at all!’
‘Exactly. Shandar earned his twenty dray-weights of gold, believe me. The first Dragon who tried to get out of his lands was vaporised instantly. We sent around a message warning of the danger, and here we have sat, dwindling in numbers, communicating rarely and watching our magic slowly siphoned out of us by the energy of the very force-field that was meant to protect us!’
‘So why have Dragonslayers at all?’
‘Window dressing,’ replied the Dragon. ‘The Dragonslayers, far from being a most noble profession, are really nothing more than a contractual obligation. In Shandar’s plan you would never have come up here at all.’
‘Then... I don’t have to kill you.’
The Dragon raised a claw in the air and wagged it at me.
‘Well, that’s the wrong answer, I’m afraid,’ he said reproachfully. ‘We’ve planned this for a long time. You were chosen by us to do this deed; at midday you have to kill me!’
I could feel large salty tears well up in my eyes. It all seemed so unfair.
‘But I’ve never killed anything in my life!’
‘Big Magic is by definition highly specific. Someone like you must do it.’
‘What’s special about me? Why can’t Sir Matt Grifflon do it?’
‘You are more special than you realise, Jennifer.’
‘Tell me why it has to be me!’
‘I am only the last in a long line of greater minds. Not even I have all the answers. All I know is that you have to discharge your duty using your own free will and judgement. It is your destiny, Jennifer. You will do it.’
I picked up Exhorbitus as a clock started to strike twelve somewhere in the distance, and Maltcassion lifted his chin to reveal the soft flesh beneath his throat. I started to cry, large drops that ran down my face and on to the soft earth. Sometimes your duty takes you to dark places that you’d rather not be, but duty, as they say, is duty.
I held the sword aloft as a light wind whipped the leaves and twigs into motion. I placed the tip against his skin and paused.