Emily Rodda - Dragon's Nest

Lief signalled to them and at once they began to pull the ropes up, hand over hand.

Rolf looked up as the rope tightened around his waist and his feet left the floor of the Nest. When he saw Lindal’s grim face and straining arms above him, he shrieked.

‘Be quiet!’ Lief whispered.

‘But the woman of Broome is lifting me!’ cried Rolf in horror. ‘How could you let her lift me? She and her kind are demons who dance on the bones of Capra! She is not worthy to—’

‘Shut your mouth, Rolf!’ hissed Lief.

But Lindal had heard. ‘I am happy to drop you if you wish, Capricon,’ she called.

Rolf whimpered and pressed his lips together. He clung to the rope, a dead weight, as slowly he and Lief were dragged upward over the loose and sliding stones.

But the moment he reached the top, he scrambled away from Lindal, avoiding her hand.

‘Do not touch me, foul woman of Broome!’ he gabbled, tearing the rope from his waist and casting it aside as though it were poisoned. ‘Keep away from me!’

‘It would be a pleasure,’ said Lindal scornfully.

Barda gripped the hilt of his sword. ‘How do you dare to insult Lindal, who has risked her life to save you?’ he growled, looking at Rolf with contempt.

Eyeing the sword warily, Rolf crawled to his feet.

‘My king,’ he cried in a trembling voice. ‘Your man is menacing me!’

But Lief, still slumped on the ground where Barda had left him, knew he could not interfere, even if he wanted to. He felt sick and desperately weak, as though stricken with a grave illness. He could only wonder how Rolf could move.

Barda took a threatening step towards the cowering Capricon.

‘Lindal has more strength in her little finger than you have in your whole body,’ he growled. ‘She has a better brain than you will ever possess, and a bigger heart than a hundred of you put together!’

‘Why, thank you, Barda,’ murmured Lindal, raising her eyebrows. ‘Though, now I come to think of it, it is not so great a compliment.’

Barda ignored her. ‘Get out of my sight!’ he spat at Rolf. ‘Go and hide your miserable self from the dragon, and trouble us no more!’

With a gulp, and a last, beseeching glance at Lief, Rolf scuttled away. Soon he had disappeared among the giant stones.

‘Good riddance,’ said Jasmine calmly. ‘Now we can get down to work. How should we begin?’

Feeling her eyes upon him, Lief made an effort to sit up. A wave of dizziness overcame him, and he fell back with a groan.

He heard Barda and Jasmine exclaim, and felt them kneel beside him. He tried to focus on their anxious faces, looming above him amid a spinning haze.

‘I—I do not know where to begin,’ he mumbled. ‘I do not know what to do. The Belt does not help me. In the Nest, there is evil everywhere. It batters you from all sides. It is …’

Despair and die .

Another giant wave smashed on the rocks. Freezing water rained down on them and ran in streams into the Nest.

‘We have to get him away from here,’ Lief heard Barda mutter.

‘No!’ Lief managed to say. ‘The feeling is passing. Just give me a moment to—’

‘BEWARE!’

Lindal’s cry rose high and urgent over the sound of the waves. A freezing gale suddenly pounded down upon the rocks. A dark shadow swept overhead, blocking the sun.

Jasmine and Barda cried out, sprang to their feet.

And as they moved, Lief saw a horror above him—a vast, bloated thing of glittering scarlet.

The beast’s spiked wings sliced through the air like knives. The stunted mass of lumps and spines that was its tail twisted and thrashed. Its tiny red eyes, almost hidden amid puffy folds of scaly skin, were the mad eyes of a killer.

Who knows what might have happened to the body and brain of a beast that has slept for centuries?

Barda’s words roared in Lief’s mind.

Desperately he struggled to get to his feet, fighting the dizziness, the weakness. Desperately he fumbled for his sword.

Curved black talons, impossibly long, struck viciously downward. Lief rolled, and a claw missed him by a hair, scraping on the rock.

The creature roared in fury—a harsh, high sound like shattering glass. Fire belched from its gaping jaws. Boiling red slime dripped from its fangs and fell, sizzling, onto the streaming rocks. Steam billowed upwards.

Lost in the steam, blind and helpless, Lief gripped the Belt of Deltora.

He fixed his mind upon the great ruby. With all his strength he willed the dragon to feel the power of the great gem, to hear him and understand.

But the beast bellowed in rage and madness and came for him again, a monstrous glistening fury, red as blood.

Lief felt Jasmine and Barda seize his arms and haul him back. He heard the razor sharp claws scrape the rock again, felt the hot blast of fire on his face.

A wave thundered onto the tall rocks behind them. Cold spray drenched them, instantly turning to steam in the monster’s fire.

Barda was bellowing over the sound of the waves … get as close to the water as we can!’ Barda was shouting. ‘Our only chance …’

But the dragon was above them, striking at them, sending them sprawling on the greasy stone, rolling and scrabbling away from its clawing feet, its bursts of fire.

And, then, through the swirling veil of steam, Lief saw the tall figure of Lindal standing her ground, her spear arm raised.

‘Lindal!’ Barda bellowed, scrambling to his feet. ‘Get down!’

A spear flew through the air. It struck the dragon’s thrashing tail, bounced away and clattered uselessly to the ground.

Lindal did not falter. Another spear was already in her hand. She hurled it, and this time it reached its mark—its point piercing the softer, paler flesh of the monster’s belly.

The monster screeched, clawed the waving spear from its body, and wheeled to face its attacker.

They all saw Lindal’s teeth flash in a savage grin of triumph. ‘Now! Go!’ she shouted.

Barda hesitated.

‘Barda!’ shrieked Jasmine, pulling at his arm.

‘Do not make this all for nothing, you bumbling ox!’ roared Lindal, reaching for her last spear. ‘Get to the water!’

And with a groan Barda obeyed her. He turned his back on her, seized Lief with his free arm and leaped for the tall rocks where the sea pounded upon the land, where spray now rained down unceasingly, and water ran in streams.

They squeezed into a gap between the rocks and turned, in terror, just in time to see Lindal fall—fall, crumpled and bleeding, beneath the monster’s beating wing.

The beast’s ghastly head turned on its swollen neck. It glared at its fallen enemy. It roared, and a plume of fire belched downward.

Lindal’s clothes burst into flames. The puddles on the stones around her hissed and steamed.

Lief and Jasmine cried out in grief and horror. But Barda stood rigid and silent as the rock.

A giant wave thundered behind them, and this time the water frothed over them in a flood, streaming over the smooth stones, running down into Dragon’s Nest.

The beast snarled. It shook its head as if to clear its eyes. And then, suddenly, its neck twisted again—twisted away from Lindal. Suddenly it was looking up—up into the swirling steam above its head.

It gave a broken cry, its crooked mouth gaping, its forked tongue darting. Its leathery wings began to flap wildly. Its ungainly body jerked, turning this way and that as if in panic. Its spiked, stubby tail thrashed on the steaming rock.

Then abruptly the billowing steam was swept away—swept away as if by a great wind. And Lief’s heart leaped as he saw, plunging down from the sky, a vast, glittering creature red as the setting sun, with eyes like glowing coals, wings like scarlet sails and a tail sleek and slender as a stream of fire.