“I’m sure you’re right,” said Chantel. “Okay. We’re going to stop them.”
Chantel climbed back onto the dragon’s back—she was getting quite good at this now.
Lightning dropped from the mountain ledge, spread his wings, and flew. He circled high over Lightning Pass.
They didn’t have long to wait. The guards and patriarchs marched Franklin to the wall. There was a staircase, almost ladder-steep, up to the wall-walk. Franklin was forced to climb up, a difficult job with his hands tied behind him. Patriarchs and guards climbed beside and behind him. Last of all came a hooded executioner bearing an enormous two-handed sword.
17
THE DRAGON’S LAIR
Honor was a thing Chantel had trouble understanding. Honor meant that the patriarchs, having said they’d kill Franklin, now had to kill him.
And honor meant that Franklin had to act as if he didn’t much mind.
He was doing that now, as he stood on the wall, elevated on a shooting-step and visible to the Sunbiters who had gathered below. Guards held him by the arms. The official executioner made his way along the wall, bearing the sword with which to strike off Franklin’s head.
Chantel clung to the dragon’s neck as they dove.
“There’s a very nice view from up here,” said Franklin, his voice trembling slightly.
“Put your head down on the parapet,” said a guard. “It’s easier that way for everybody.”
Then everyone looked up at the plunging dragon. The guards squawked in terror. The executioner screamed, dropped his sword, and fell off the wall. Lightning seized Franklin in his claws.
The dragon swooped up in the air again, high over the city. Chantel just had time to see a volley of Marauder arrows rising. One struck a patriarch, and Chantel saw him tumble from the wall. Then Lightning soared away, over the sea, and Chantel couldn’t see what happened next.
Lightning dropped Franklin in the ocean.
The dragon skimmed to a landing in deep water beside a cliff, sending up silver fans of water. Chantel cried out in dismay as Franklin sank straight down.
“Do something!” she yelled at the dragon. “If you please, I mean!”
“He’ll be back,” said Lightning.
And a moment later Franklin bobbed to the surface. He wasn’t choking at all. He could swim, Chantel saw with a twinge of envy. He was kicking furiously, though, and his face kept getting smacked by waves that crashed against the cliff and then rolled back.
Chantel managed to catch hold of his collar and drag him halfway onto the dragon’s back.
“Climb up,” she said.
“I can’t! My hands are tied!”
Chantel tried to undo the leather thongs binding his wrists, but it was impossible. The seawater had swollen and tightened the knots.
“Lightning!” said Chantel. “Can you cut him free?”
In answer the dragon directed a sharp, sudden flame at Franklin’s hands. Chantel was so surprised she almost fell into the water.
Franklin’s hands were free. He hauled himself up on the dragon’s shoulders.
“You have no eyebrows,” he told Chantel.
“Neither do you,” said Chantel shortly.
“Hold your breath,” said Lightning. “Hold on.”
Chantel just had time to take a deep gulp of air as the dragon plunged straight under the water. It was icy cold.
Chantel tried to hold on, but she felt herself floating away as the dragon dove. She felt Franklin grab her arm. She struggled furiously. She was being dragged deeper. Water pushed at her, trying to make her take another breath.
Then suddenly she was thrust upward. She gasped for breath too soon, and got saltwater instead.
Franklin was hauling her through shallow water, and she struggled again, coughing—she could walk. She wasn’t drowning! She couldn’t talk, however, and so she ended up being dragged, and deposited on what felt like stone. The darkness here was total.
She went into a furious fit of coughing that sent white stars of light flashing around her eyes.
“Okay?” said the dragon.
Franklin, apparently not sure what to do, hit her on the back a few times.
“Turn her over,” the dragon suggested.
Chantel hastily turned herself over, and coughed some more. Franklin knelt beside her. “You okay?”
“Argh,” Chantel managed to say.
She staggered to her feet and did the light spell. She held the light-globe cupped in her hand, and looked around.
They were in an underground cavern.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Lightning tilted his head, and gestured with one wing as if to say look and see.
Chantel walked around the rocky ledge, shining her light. There was an opening in the wall, a tunnel into darkness.
She glanced back at the water. “They might try to follow us.”
The dragon shook his head emphatically no.
Franklin had gone to the passage mouth. “Hey, I hear something. Bring your light.”
Chantel heard it too—a sound of water dripping.
She and Franklin followed the sound, into the close, clammy passage. They had to duck under outcroppings here and there, and step over unexpected crevices in the floor. The dragon crept along behind them, his tail dragging and scraping against the stone.
The tunnel widened into a cavern.
“Hey, c’mere,” said Franklin. “Look at this.”
Chantel held up her light, and it reflected like the moon on a clear pool of water, with white sand at the bottom. Water fell into it from the stalactites that hung above, and the drips echoed loudly in the silence.
Beside the pool, on a sloping wall of the cave, were human handprints, outlined in red. And there were drawings. Chantel could make out something that looked like it might be a horse, except that it had horns; a man with antlers; and—a dragon.
“Is . . . is there a dragon down here?” she asked.
“Me,” Lightning croaked.
Chantel looked from the drawing to Lightning and back again, doubtfully.
“How did you know this place was down here?” said Franklin. “Oh, and, I mean. Thanks for rescuing me.” He looked from Chantel to the dragon. “Both of you I mean.”
“You’re very welcome,” said Chantel politely. “It was no trouble.”
The dragon indicated the cave—the passage, which led back to the ocean pool and ahead into darkness—with a nod. “Mine.”
“The cave is yours? But—” she looked at the drawings on the walls. They looked very, very old. She peered at the sketch of a dragon. “But—”
But he’d been a snake just a little while ago. And Miss Ellicott had said—
She winced. The thought of Miss Ellicott’s betrayal still hurt.
“Always mine,” said the dragon.
“Wow,” said Franklin.
Miss Ellicott had said a snake was an immature form of dragon. If Lightning had been immature until just recently, then that couldn’t be him on the wall. Unless—
Unless, Chantel thought with some embarrassment, it had been her that had been immature.
“How old are you, Lightning?” said Chantel. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Old as the city,” said the dragon, his tongue darting back and forth as he flicked the words out of a mouth shaped all wrong for speaking. “Older. Old as first humans. Called.”