Dragon Shield Read online

  One of the St Georges rode ahead, and the other bought up the rear.

  So far the toughest opponent they had faced was Little Tragedy who had to be forcibly restrained by The Gunner to prevent him joining the raiding party. Victory had stayed with him, a firm hand on his other shoulder as she waved Will off.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For coming back and backing me up . . .’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good luck, boy.’

  Her face was serious. If she’d smiled, even just a fraction, he’d have thought ‘good luck’ was just a pleasantry, like ‘have a nice day!’ or ‘see ya!’. Because there was no smile with it, he had the strong and unwelcome sense that she felt he was going to need luck to get out of this in one piece. He raised his hand in a sketchy farewell and turned away with the rest of the patrol.

  No one talked. They communicated by hand signals as they filtered through the stuck traffic and frozen people as if they were just inanimate obstacles in a normal landscape, like rocks and trees.

  Will tried to keep his spirits up by remembering the encouraging words the Duke had sent him off with.

  ‘Take heart young Mr Will,’ he’d said. ‘This London is the ancient capital of a very stubborn, terrier-like nation. As you see if you look around you, it is positively bulging with statues glorifying its many warriors. If there is something attacking it, it will find a rather formidable army ready to jump on its neck, magic or no magic. We do not lack reinforcements.’

  This had lifted his spirits a little, and being at the centre of this warlike group certainly felt better than running through the streets with nothing but the heavy shield to protect him. Though as he thought that, he realized he was finding the shield easier to carry. Maybe he was getting used to it.

  A soldier in a grenadier’s bearskin carrying a long rifle stopped and raised a hand, signalling a halt. Everyone went still.

  The Grenadier crept back to the Officer and spoke quietly into his ear, pointing round the corner for emphasis. The Officer turned to Will and crouched down so he was eye-to-eye.

  ‘He says the yard in front of the museum is empty of everything except frozen people, but the doors are wide open. Anything could be watching from within though . . .’

  He took his binoculars out of their case.

  ‘I’m going for a closer look. Stay put.’ He turned and gave the Pilot a thumbs up. Without another word, the Pilot had spread his wings and lifted into the night sky.

  The Officer ran low across the street and took up position against the outer wall of the museum front yard. He aimed his binoculars between the railings and trained them on the building.

  After a couple of minutes he turned and ran back at a crouch. The Pilot landed softly beside him.

  ‘Right,’ he said to Will as much as the Officer. ‘Debrief. Your sister, same colour hair as you, blue T-shirt, hooded sweater, red gym shoes?’

  Will nodded, his heart racing.

  ‘There’s a hole in the dome,’ said the Pilot. ‘Something broke a pane of glass. I had a dekko inside. She was pretty easy to spot actually. The only one of the frozen people in the Great Court who was looking terrified, and certainly the only one being guarded by a big beetle job like the one you’re wearing.’

  ‘A scarab?’ said Will.

  ‘Big as a sofa. Ugly thing. Walking round her in circles. Quite close to the front entrance actually. Some other kind of chanting going on, sounds like people gargling in the bath, but probably magic. Can see strange blue lights from Egyptian Gallery. So your hunch was good.’

  The Officer handed Will the binoculars.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘keep low and have a look.’

  He pointed at a messenger cyclist who was standing on the pavement, stuck in the act of pouring water from a bottle down his throat, his bike leaning against the outer wall.

  ‘Go by the bicyclist and you’ll have a good angle to see some of the inside through the open door.’

  Will ran with the Grenadier across the road and knelt by the bicycle. He put the binoculars to his eyes and peered inside the door of the museum, fifty metres away. He could see shapes, backlit by a strange blue light.

  He couldn’t see Jo though.

  And then his heart jumped as the lights shifted a bit, and just for a second he saw what was unmistakably the side of her head.

  ‘That’s her,’ he said excitedly.

  The other soldiers had gathered behind the wall beside him and leant in for a quick conference.

  ‘Right,’ said the Pilot. ‘If she’s close enough to see, she’s close enough to snatch. In, out, fast and hard, the Georges in first, heavy armour at speed, supported in force by—’

  ‘No,’ said the Officer. ‘I’m sorry, but no. We have to report back. I don’t know what the blue lights are, but they’re not good.’

  He did look truly sorry.

  ‘But,’ said Will in disbelief. ‘But you all promised . . .’

  ‘We’ll still get her back all right,’ said the Officer. ‘Just not right now. This is too big a discovery. Wiser heads need to think about this. It’s about all London, all the other Regulars too you know. Not just your sister. But we will be back for her.’

  There was a cough from waist level. Everyone looked down. The two small Georges stood there with their hands bobbing in the air, like schoolboys trying to get the teachers attention.

  ‘Er. Sorry, old fruit . . . I mean Sir, but how d’you know doors’ll be open?’ said the first George, smiling up at the Officer. ‘When you come back?’

  The other George nodded his head.

  ‘George here makes a good point, old man,’ he said. ‘You can’t be sure, can you?’

  ‘It’s not about being sure. It’s about making a best guess in a bad situation. And tactically, this is it,’ said the Officer. ‘Sorry.’

  Will felt this was an argument he was going to lose. He could see the shape of it, the sense of it. He knew how grown-ups could talk their way round so that whatever they wanted to do was right.

  ‘Seriously Will,’ said the Officer. ‘I am sorry. But be patient. Think about it. We can’t just run in and be fast enough to expect whatever’s in there to just . . .’

  ‘I’m not going to run,’ snapped Will. The George was right.

  That open door was now.

  ‘Now’ was all he could control.

  Next time it could be closed and barred and he would not be able to see Jo, not then, maybe never.

  And that was not acceptable.

  He slung the shield over his back like a messenger bag, and took the bicycle handles out of the cyclist’s unresisting hands.

  ‘Wait,’ said the Officer. ‘That’s an order.’

  Will threw his leg over the crossbar and was about to start pedalling when the small George leapt in front of him with his lance.

  ‘Hold on!’ he said.

  ‘Don’t try to stop me,’ Will gritted through clenched teeth.

  ‘Who’s trying to stop you, you fathead?’ said the George. ‘Give me a leg up, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘You two! Stop right there,’ said the Officer. ‘That’s an order!’

  ‘Sorry sir,’ grinned the small knight as he climbed up onto the handlebars in front of George. ‘Not an actual soldier. Am a George. Meant to be a saint thingy. Answer to a higher authority and all that . . .’

  And before anyone could grab him, before he could have a second thought, Will focused all his concentration on his legs and the image of Jo’s profile he had glimpsed through the open door.

  He worked his aching leg muscles up and down faster than he had ever done before in his life.

  The bicycle accelerated through the yard towards the shallow steps. The George got his lance sorted out and pointed it ahead of them, so that by the time George hit the wheelchair ramp they were at full ramming speed and ready for action.

  He heard the Officer shouting orders behind him, but didn’t turn to see what was happening. He heard hoof b
eats break into a gallop as the full-size Georges spurred their mounts forward.

  What he didn’t see was two dragons erupting from where they’d been lying hidden and racing to meet them. He was going so fast and making such a headlong assault that he had actually surprised the ambush that Bast had set by leaving Jo in plain sight.

  Sometimes fortune favours the brave; sometimes it favours the foolhardy.

  The bike went airborne from the top of the disabled ramp and headed through the doorway half a metre off the ground.

  He heard the George on the handlebars laughing exultantly . . .

  . . . and then one of the lion-women appeared out of nowhere blocking their way and it suddenly looked like the game was over before it had really begun. He began to squeeze the brakes . . .

  . . . but then there was the sound of gunfire from behind him and he felt a round smacking past his ear.

  The lion-woman was knocked backwards, out of their way.

  He took his hand off the brake lever and pedalled harder.

  Will saw Jo, penned behind a slab of reception desk, and steered for her. Only then did he hit the brakes and jump off. The George leapt for the top of the desk and skidded to a halt.

  Will scrabbled in his pocket and felt for Jo’s bracelet. He gripped her hand, a nasty shiver of fear running through him as he noted how cold and lifeless it was. It wasn’t at all like the strangely comforting warmth they’d both felt from their frozen mother. That seemed like aeons ago. Hard to believe it had really been just a few hours earlier.

  His heart was pounding as he got the bracelet out of his pocket. All his vision seemed to tunnel down into a narrow cone centred on Jo’s face, the face he knew so well, the one that annoyed him more than any other, that made him laugh more than any other, the one that – more than any other – felt like home, the terrible face that now looked so horribly unmoving and dead and frightened. He was terrified himself, scared that Jo’s face wouldn’t come back to life when he put the bracelet on, petrified that he had no idea what he’d do then, and at the same time exultant and disbelieving that his mad bicycle dash had worked, that he just maybe was about to succeed . . .

  He squashed the fear with that jubilant thought. The Duke was wrong. He’d done it.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, reaching out with the scarab.

  ‘NO!’

  The voice boomed and yowled around the huge internal courtyard as the cat Bast leapt at him, hitting him with such force that he dropped the bracelet which skittered away across the floor into the shadows.

  It was the dragon’s shield that saved him.

  As he reflexively twisted away from the attacking cat, the heavy metal strapped diagonally across his back like a messenger bag shifted and slipped round his shoulder, the great weight giving it such momentum that the edge of the shield caught the cat in the side of the skull just below the earring. Metal clanged on metal and the cat staggered sideways, stunned.

  Will ducked his head and shucked out of the strap which was about to entangle him, and in the short moment it took the cat to shake and clear its own head, got his arm through the strap and held it properly, so that when the cat leapt back into the attack he was able to protect himself.

  Sparks flew as Bast slashed scimitar-sharp claws across the front of the shield, claws that Will knew would have taken his face off if he hadn’t been on the right side of the protective metal.

  The cat leapt again and Will parried, matching speed for speed.

  Even as he did so he marvelled at his reflexes.

  He was moving fast, almost as if he knew which way the cat would attack, almost as if he wasn’t having to think – and then he realized that he wasn’t thinking. The shield was helping. The shield was thinking for him, making him stronger, quicker . . . maybe even more dangerous.

  The cat snarled and sprang at him again, the gold in its ears and nose glinting as it did something totally impossible and changed direction in mid-air, wrong-footing him . . . but even then, even though it was fast and sneaky and defied the laws of physics in the way it moved, Will and the shield were faster. The shield was like a power-up, like an added ability.

  He swatted the airborne cat in a powerful backhand that thwacked it into the marble desk with a resounding crash.

  Will’s eyes scoured the shadowy floor looking for the bracelet.

  The cat got to its feet, but did not return to the attack.

  Instead it turned towards Jo.

  ‘SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR SISTER,’ it spat.

  Will’s guts turned to ice water.

  The cat sprang towards Jo.

  Will dived despairingly for the cat, chopping the edge of the shield down, trying to block it.

  The cat was too fast. Will missed it.

  But the shield smacked into the ground and trapped its tail.

  There was an undignified YERK sound as the mighty Bast was pulled up short, and then Will, remembering what Tragedy had told him about the fate of the other cat, Hodge, grabbed the tail in his right hand and spun.

  He spun round one and a half times, the weight of the shield on his outflung left arm acting as a counterweight to the unexpectedly heavy cat howling in fury as centrifugal force whirled it out at the very end of its tail, like a hammer-throw in the Olympics.

  ‘This is for The Fusilier!’ he grunted. ‘And this is for attacking my sister!’

  And then Will let go with a mighty heave that wrenched all his muscles, and the cat sailed across the shadowy courtyard and slammed into the top of a forty-foot redwood tree-trunk carved into a totem-pole with such force that one of the cat’s flailing claws accidentally chunked into the wood, leaving it to hang there lifelessly suspended above the floor far below.

  ‘Here!’ shouted a voice from behind him. ‘Catch!’

  He turned to see the George on the reception desk leaning down and fishing something off the floor with the tip of his lance. It was the bracelet. He flicked it across to Will who caught it on reflex.

  ‘Get a bend on!’ said the George. ‘We should be going!’

  Will grabbed Jo’s outflung, frozen hand and slammed the scarab into it. She jerked as if he’d given her an electric shock, and gasped at him. He felt a jolt of unexpected, answering happiness as he saw the life flood back into life.

  ‘Will!’ she cried.

  He grinned and closed her fist over the scarab.

  ‘Don’t let go of that’ he shouted. ‘Whatever you do, keep hold and . . .’

  He looked round. He had intended to cycle straight out of there, but hadn’t thought how hard it would be to get her on board quick enough.

  ‘Just RUN!’ he yelled and yanked her towards the door.

  The giant scarab erupted out of the shadows in front of them and blocked their way. It was bigger and much nastier than a sofa, and its wings unfolded into whirring angry half discs of sharp black stone.

  Will froze, looking for a better direction to escape to.

  There was an open door to an inner gallery, a gallery with blue light and dark shadows bouncing round it. He was about to pull her in that direction when the lion-women came out of it at speed. One with a stick snarled and headed for them, the others ran for the front door.

  Something howled between Jo and Will, and hit the scarab like a battering ram, knocking it onto its back, where it spun, legs angrily flailing, chittering as it tried to get itself the right way up.

  Filax barked and jumped sideways, putting himself between Jo and the charging lion-woman.

  ‘Good dog!’ shouted the George, and leapt off the reception desk to land right between the scarab’s legs, pinning it to the floor with his long lance.

  The lion-woman slashed her weapon at Filax at the same time that he leapt for her.

  There was a sickening thwack of stone on stone, and then they fell together into a yowling snarling ball of fury as each tried to rip out the other’s throat.

  ‘KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!!’ boomed a voice from the top of the totem pole. Bast h
ad regained consciousness and was struggling to free her claw from the dense wood, convulsively twisting in rage as she did so, wholly unconcerned about the long drop beneath her.

  ‘Run boy!’ shouted the George.

  Will grabbed Jo and they sprinted for the door.

  Two lion-women were pushing the tall metal doors closed. Freedom was just a few paces away, but the gap to it was closing fast.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  The narrow slit suddenly disappeared as someone leapt into it.

  The Officer braced a hand on either door and pushed back against the lion-women.

  ‘Come on then!’ he shouted. ‘Get a bend on!’

  The grenadier jumped in behind him and threw his weight against the doors.

  One of the lion-women looked round the edge of the door and snarled.

  ‘Soldiers!’ she roared. ‘Soldier statues!’

  Will saw the door begin to close again.

  The Officer waited until Will was right on him, then he let go of the door, grabbed Jo and threw himself backwards. The doors began to slam, but Will’s shield jammed the gap open. The strap parted and he tumbled out onto the steps.

  Looking back inside the museum he saw the blue lights begin to flicker faster and faster and heard a voice that appeared to come from everywhere roar in anger as the whole building seemed to vibrate into a blur.

  ‘ALL WHO BEAR ARMS AGAINST US, TREMBLE AND BOW DOWN! ALL SOLDIERS AND WEAPON BEARERS, HEAR THE WORD OF MIGHTY BAST THE HUNTRESS!’

  The shield holding the door open began to buckle under the pressure of the force being exerted on it, and then two things happened at once: it flexed and spanged out, flying over Jo’s and Will’s heads, and as the door slammed shut with a noise like the crack of doom itself, the dog Filax hurtled out of it.

  Will stared at the closed doors and realized what it meant.

  ‘George!’ he cried. ‘The George is stuck in there—’

  ‘No I’m bally well not’ said a voice.

  He looked down to see the knight was holding on to the shaggy mane of the dog, which he had ridden to safety.