The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (29 page)

the shape of a teardrop, waiting to catch the rising sun.

But that wasn’t all. Lucy was the first to notice what had been uncovered on

Scuffenbury Hill. Not the scars in the earth – the hundreds, probably thousands ofpockmarks in the soil, as if a plague ofmoles or rabbits had escaped – but theregion by the horse’s head where all thesunken stones had been. They were gone,torn away to their places in the cairn,leaving behind a long, twisting spiral ofchalk. “Tam,” she said, swallowing agulp.   Her   hand   began   to   shakeuncontrollably as she pointed. “This is nota horse.”

He looked over and saw what she

could see.

“It’s a unicorn,” she said.

The legend of the Vale

“Impressive,” said a voice.

Ms Gee whipped around. A little way below her, dressed in green Wellington boots and an unflattering weatherproof top, was Hannah.

The old woman cursed and stretched a

long finger, as though about to turn the intruder to dust. Hannah was quick to raise her hands in submission.

“Please. I’m no threat to you. I have no powers. Please.”

Ms Gee kept her finger aimed at Hannah’s heart. “Why are you here?”

“To   see   the   dawn.”   Hannah

approached the cairn. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against the stones,

caressing them as if they were alive. “I come up here to worship the sun, to be part of this landscape and all that it is. I’ve had a passion for dragons ever since I was a child. And now you’ve shown me this – and the unicorn as well. With one

flick of your fingers you’ve vindicated all my beliefs. If you look back far enough into the history of this area it’s written that people like you have always existed. Women able to control the elemental

forces. I never dreamed I’d be lucky enough  to witness the restoration of the cairn – or meet a genuine sibyl.”

Ms Gee lowered her hand. She was

wearing a woollen tweed suit all the colours of vegetable soup and a pair of dull brown shoes. “I don’t have time for

this prattle. Your insignificant presence is of little interest to me. In a matter of

moments the sun will be aligned with the eye of the cairn and what is hidden beneath these hills will be mine to

command. Worship all you like. You will be consumed in the dragon’s first breath.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“You dare to defy me?”

Hannah shook her head. “I’m simply questioning what you think you know.”

A stream of air flew into the sibyl’s nostrils.

“Wait! I didn’t mean to insult you. All my life I’ve wanted to see the dragon and the unicorn risen, but this isn’t how it happens. Look across the Vale. Where’s the shadow of the cairn?”

Ms Gee turned sharply on her sensibleheels. “I can’t see it,” she snapped.

“And you won’t,” said Hannah. “It’swritten in the legends that the ‘horse’ willwake and call the dragon when a teardropof flame is framed beneath its eye. But thatcan never be. The angle of the sun isalways wrong.  That version of the legendis a cover for the real one.”

“Then pray tell me what is right?” the sibyl demanded.

Hannah let her gaze roam over the stones and plucked something barely visible from them. “It’s all to do with

this,” she said, holding up a single red

hair.

“The girl,” said Ms Gee, curling her

fingers. Her gaze flashed across the

valley, but there was no sign of movement

on Scuffenbury Hill.

Hannah   nodded.   “A   red-haired

innocent, to tame the unicorn. But she must be touched by the spirit of dragons – and she must be prepared.”

The sibyl’s mouth snapped like a hunting trap. “How?”

Hannah chewed her lip. “I can arrange it, but I want something from you in return.”

“Oh, really? Then have
 
this
.” Ms Gee twisted her hand. A streak of energy flew from her fingers, striking Hannah in the centre of her chest. The younger woman fell to her knees in pain. The glass in her spectacles cracked and fell out.

Ms Gee’s soft and callous footsteps

stopped a few yards in front of her victim. “Tell me what you know, or your eyeballs will be next.”

Hannah leaned forwards, spreading herhands on the warming earth. “Gaia, Earthgoddess, guide me,” she  breathed. Shespat a trail of thick saliva from her mouth. “My   family   are   no   strangers   topersecution, Ms Gee. My grandmother, sixtimes removed, was left dangling like abauble from the tree in my garden, all forthe truth she refused to give up, a secretentrusted through the generations to her. The tree died with her and her spirit stillhaunts it. You would do well to remember

that. Those who took Mary Cauldwell’s life tore down the cairn in frustration and

vengeance and covered the unicorn’s horn

with its stones. That was over 400 years ago. Do you really want to wait that long again, sibyl? Do you want to see your clever spell wasted?”

“Very well,” said Ms Gee. “What are your terms?”

“I want a gift,” said Hannah. She removed the frames of her useless

spectacles and threw them aside. “In ancient times, a scale or a claw, given by a dragon to those in its service, would endow the receiver with creative integrity and purity of heart.”

“How wearisome.” Ms Gee stifled a

yawn.

“What you do when she wakes is your lookout,” snapped Hannah. “All I ask for my part in her rising is to be blessed with

a token of her glorious body so I might do

great things in her name.”

“She?” Ms Gee seemed to freeze to the

spot. “Did you say…
 
she
?”

“My god, you really don’t know, do you?” For a moment, Hannah’s laughter filled the Vale. She struggled to her feet and looked at Ms Gee with bitter

contempt. “I always knew that a sibyl would be drawn to this place, but I had hoped it might be one that could
 
cope
 
. Are you sure you want to learn the truth, Ms Gee? Are you sure you want to wake the beast in this hill? The dragon underneath our feet is a queen. One of the fiercest matriarchs ever known. She came here

when the Vale was a natural forest, tired, wounded and about to give birth. She was

seeking a creature of her own legends, a white horned horse that might heal her injuries and grant her time to rear her unborn young. The storytellers say she was far beyond help, but the unicorn still did its best to save her. It failed. In its

distress, it lay down on Scuffenbury Hill to die. If the queen hadn’t shared the last of her fire and let them both go into stasis, it would have. They are locked together, Ms Gee. Wake one, you wake them both – the last of the healing horses, Teramelle, and the greatest dragon of her age, Gawaine.”

About unicorns

“Morning. What do you know about

unicorns?”

Zanna swept into the Pennykettles’kitchen, picked up the kettle and filled it atthe sink. The whole movement was

flawlessly smooth, as if she’d had it programmed into her at birth. “Well, that’s a good one as early morning greetings go. I suppose it beats ‘did you sleep well, Zanna?’ or ‘did you manage to get our daughter to nod off, eventually?’, knowing she was upset that Daddy might flit away to the boys in the colony at any moment.” She clamped the lid on the kettle and plugged it in. “You’re still here, then – Daddy?” She opened a cupboard and took

out some mugs.

“Wayward Crescent is my home,” he said, hoping she would turn and see the sincerity in his eyes. She was wearing a hair band and very little make-up. He liked her like this. Stark, pale-faced, achingly beautiful. Yet still untouchable – for now. “That communication yesterday: I’ve been given more time to take the dark fire to the Arctic.”

“Bully for you.” She swung a teaspoon idly. “Not great as bedtime stories go, but Alexa would have appreciated hearing it all the same.”

“I needed time alone to think. I’ll do

my best to make it up to her, I promise, but the situation remains unchanged. When the dragons are ready, Alexa
 
will
 
come into

play. There is nothing you or I can do to stop it. It’s what she chose. It doesn’t mean we can’t be with her.”

Zanna closed the cupboard door andstared at it. “Then answer me this: if her

destiny is written, why is she so upset when her father ignores her?”

He lowered his head and sighed. “Where is she this morning?”

“Parked in the front room, watching TV.”

“OK. I’ll go and talk to her in a minute. Liz is unchanged, by the way. I sat with her through the night to give Arthur a rest. He’s with her now.”

“And Gwillan?”

“In the Den, still asleep, I imagine. I

sent Gretel up yesterday afternoon to make

sure he didn’t get up to any mischief overnight. I’ll have her wake him shortly. Do you know if Alexa spoke to him?”

Zanna opened the teapot and dropped in two bags. “She said he was ‘making friends’ yesterday. He’s become goods pals with Groyne, apparently. They spent the afternoon playing hide and seek. She also told me that at one point Golly opened his tool box and brought out some sort of board game for them.”

“A version of ‘Mousetrap’,” David said, bemused. “I heard about it from G’reth. Gwillan won every time, he said. Hide and seek? None of them mentioned

that – slightly unfair if Groyne was ‘it’?”

“I find it creepy,” said Zanna. “Just a bit surreal. I’m not sure I like the idea of

Alexa spending so much time with him.” She shuddered and set her black hair

dancing against the bare skin of her pale white shoulders. She was wearing a redstriped, scooped-neck top and a pair of blue jeans with decorative stitching on one rear pocket. “Pass me the milk, will you?”

David dragged his eyes away from her and opened the fridge. He said a quick hurr of greeting to the listening dragon, which gave a sleepy blink and barely raised its ears. “Tell me about unicorns.”

He gave her the milk.

“White horses – flowing manes, horns.

What about them?”

“There’s one on Scuffenbury Hill.”

“What?” She put the kettle down.

“I had a phone call from Tam. He and Lucy were on the hill at dawn when they witnessed   the   restoration   of   the

Glissington cairn, he thinks by a sibylwho’s staying at the guesthouse he’sbooked them into.”

“
Another
 
sibyl?”

“One sniff of a dragon and they’re out

of the ground like worms – no offence.”

She resisted a caustic comeback.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. The sun came up, shone through the eye of the cairn and moved on round the sky. Shortly afterwards, Lucy saw the cairn disappear. Tam thinks the sibyl may have cloaked it to prevent unwanted   attention   from   locals   or

tourists.”

“And the unicorn? Where does that fit

in?”

“The sibyl used magicks to draw the cairn stones from the countryside around them. A bunch had been used to hide the

unicorn’s horn. That, Tam says, the sibyl

hasn’t cloaked.”

Zanna frowned darkly and startedplonking mugs onto a tray.

“So, unicorns are good, right?”

“Unicorns,” she said, “are generallytaken to be the most wholesome, spiritualcreatures in the universe. That doesn’t

mean they’d be a pushover in a fight.” She opened another cupboard and took out some sugar. “They’ve been romanticised by storytellers for centuries, generally dressed up as icons of purity by children’s

books and the film industry. The chaste white horse is the image that’s become fixed in people’s minds; the carving on Scuffenbury would seem to support that. But if you  look back far enough the picture wasn’t always quite as rosy. In ancient Greek texts you’ll find unicorns described as having the feet of elephants or the head of a lion.”

“Not an animal you’d want to mess with, then?”

“Definitely not. I think the horse depiction is generally accurate, but if provoked they can probably appear as ferocious as a lion or as daunting as an elephant. Maybe they physically change. I don’t know.” She nodded at Bonnington who had just swaggered in, crying for

food. “Maybe they’re like him? Interesting hosts for the Fain, wouldn’t you say?”

David chose not to comment. “What

about magicks? What abilities do they

have?”

Zanna flicked the kettle on to boil

again. “Unicorns were persecuted, one assumes to extinction, because it was believed that their horns could enable

spells, usually medicinal ones – there’s a theory that magic wands are really just dried and shrivelled unicorn horns. The