The Great Zoo of China (50 page)

It slammed into the cliff-face at full speed, head-first. An almighty crash could be heard and a spray of rocks went flying out from the cliff-face and CJ heard a sickening
crack
.

The emperor didn’t emerge from the fog.

CJ swung Lucky around and they risked a peek down at the base of the cliff. There they saw the body of the emperor, curled in a ball, neck twisted at an impossible angle. Dead.

‘One down,’ CJ said. ‘Two to go.’

CJ and Lucky looped around and returned to Crater Lake.

Lucky landed halfway up the rim of the crater, a few hundred metres from the second emperor standing guard at the tunnel’s mouth.

CJ was trying to figure out what to do when Lucky’s voice spoke in her ear.

‘
Lucky fight red dragon . . . White Head fight red master
. . .’

CJ frowned. ‘What?’

‘
Lucky fight red dragon . . . White Head fight red master
. . .’ the dragon repeated. ‘
Lucky . . . challenge . . . red dragon
. . .’

CJ wasn’t sure she understood until Lucky bucked gently, suggesting she get off.

CJ dismounted.

And immediately Lucky flew off, zipping out into the open, positioning herself
right in front of
the red-bellied black emperor.

Lucky pulled into a hover, lowered her head and barked fiercely: an invitation to joust.

The emperor snorted with contempt before issuing a low growl of pure anger.

With a lazy beat of its wings, it rose into a hover of its own and lowered its head menacingly.

Challenge accepted.

CJ was torn. She didn’t like Lucky’s chances at all against the emperor, but she knew what Lucky was doing: Lucky was drawing the emperor away from the tunnel so that CJ could run to it and get inside . . . even if it meant an almost certainly suicidal joust with an emperor.

So CJ ran, dashing through the forest toward the tunnel’s yawning entrance.

As she ran, the two hovering dragons glared at each other, sizing each other up.

CJ was almost at the tunnel when, with a blood-curdling shriek, the emperor charged at Lucky.

Lucky launched herself forward in response.

Dragon rushed at dragon: the huge red-and-black emperor against the tiny yellowjacket prince.

The emperor flexed its massive keratin claws.

Lucky streamlined herself as she sped forward.

CJ came to the tunnel entrance and looked up just as the two hurtling dragons came together.

Lucky rolled. The emperor lashed out. There was a slash of claws and an explosion of blood and . . .

. . . to CJ’s horror . . .

. . . Lucky went peeling off to the left, her body lifeless, her wings and tail unmoving. Her body flew downward toward the edge of the lake before it slammed into the shallows in a spray of water.

‘No . . .’ CJ breathed.

A
far louder smashing noise made CJ snap around to look in the other direction.

The emperor, also wounded, went crashing into the hillside not far from her. It crunched through trees, turning their trunks to splinters before it too came to a crashing halt.

It moaned painfully, deep and loud. It wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t doing very well either. It tried to get up but instead it dropped back to the ground with a heavy
boom
, unable to lift itself.

CJ risked a glance around a tree trunk and saw that the great beast had a ragged gash running right up the length of its belly. Its huge intestines were pouring from the wound.

Lucky had completely eviscerated the emperor.

But at great cost. CJ turned to see the gutsy yellowjacket lying in the shallows of the lake, also still. She couldn’t believe Lucky’s courage. She had done this to give CJ a chance to stop the superking and CJ wasn’t going to let Lucky’s sacrifice be in vain.

Suddenly the emperor moaned again and CJ jumped in fright, but then the great beast slumped and, with a final sighing exhalation, went completely still.

CJ turned and gazed at the tunnel’s yawning mouth.

It was just her and the superking now.

She hurried into the tunnel on foot.

The tunnel stretched downward at a steep angle, in a dead-straight line, cutting through the nickel.

CJ flicked on her helmet flashlight and hastened down it.

As she ran, she noticed the occasional flare of fiery orange light illuminating the lower end of the tunnel.

When she arrived at the base of the tunnel, she saw the reason for those flares.

CJ stood on a ledge high above an enormous—
enormous
—underground cavern. Like the nest back at the zoo, it was funnel-shaped—wide at the top, narrow at the bottom—with a single curving ledge running in a spiral all the way down its nickel-sided walls.

And lined up neatly on that spiral were dragon eggs: hundreds and hundreds of them.

CJ gasped. The nest at the zoo had held 88 eggs.
There must be over 2,000 of them here
.

In the middle of it all was the red-bellied superking, blowing gentle bursts of liquid fire around the cavern, warming it, creating the right conditions for the eggs to . . .

. . . an egg not far from CJ cracked. CJ saw a tiny snout pecking at the shell from within.

The egg was hatching.

Consumed with its task, the superking hadn’t seen CJ arrive.

‘Okay, genius,’ CJ said to herself. ‘What are you going to do now? How do you stop a ten-ton fire-breathing dragon?’

She checked her weapons: the MP-7 with its taped-on grenade launcher and the flamethrower with its liquid propane tank.

She looked out at the superking as it blew another tongue of fire.

That was its greatest strength—the ability to breathe fire—but perhaps it was also its greatest . . .

‘Go hard or go home, Cameron,’ CJ said aloud. ‘Win or die trying.’

And so she laid her trap. It took her three minutes.

Then she sprayed fire from her flamethrower out into the cavern and called, ‘Hey! Fire-breather! Are you looking for me!’

The red-bellied superking turned at her shout.

CJ was standing in the mouth of the tunnel at the top of the enormous cavern, waving. She loosed another burst from her flamethrower.

The superking accepted the challenge and rocketed up at her.

CJ immediately turned and hurried back up the tunnel, making it about twenty metres by the time the superking appeared in the tunnel’s entrance, filling it.

It roared, a deafening sound in the confined space.

CJ froze, as any normal prey would do.

The superking responded by doing what any normal predator would do: it folded its wings, stomped up the tunnel, reared its head and blew a great extended blast of fire right at CJ.

At which point, two things occurred that most certainly did
not
happen in the usual predator–prey dynamic.

First, CJ flipped on the hood of her heat suit, so that now her whole body was protected, just as the wave of fire rushed over her.

Second, the dragon’s great tongue of fire ignited the pool of liquid propane that CJ had poured onto the tunnel’s floor from her flamethrower’s tank . . . a pool that extended out from where CJ stood down to the spot where the superking raged.

The propane pool immediately lit up in a curtain of blazing fire and suddenly the superking itself was engulfed in flames!

The dragon shrieked as its wings and skin caught alight. It bucked and thrashed against the walls of the tunnel.

Then its head was consumed by fire and the hideous flaming thing turned and locked eyes with CJ—to find her holding her MP-7 aimed directly at its face.

Braaaaaaaack!

CJ loosed a burst on full auto and the rounds slammed into the superking’s eyes and forehead, ripping its skull apart. Its eyes exploded, shredded by bullets.

And the superking dragon fell.

It hit the floor of the tunnel with a monumental thump, its body still on fire. Its muscles twitched and then it went completely still.

The superking was dead.

CJ exhaled, utterly spent.

But she wasn’t done.

Without hesitating, she strode past the burning body of the superking and headed into the cavern, still holding her MP-7.