The Griffin's Feather (Dragon Rider 2)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Griffin and Dragon

We all have to meet our match sometime or other.

Richard Adams, Watership Down

Feathers and scales. Claws and paws. Tawny yellow and silver-grey wings, Kraa’s dreadful beak, Firedrake’s bared teeth… Barnabas had seen many fights between fabulous creatures before, but this time he soon took off his glasses, with shaking fingers, because he simply couldn’t bear to watch. Even sharp eyes could scarcely make out where the dragon ended and the griffin began. But the sounds, if anything, were even worse. The dragon’s roar, the griffin’s screech, Nakal’s screams of hatred… Ben’s voice mingled with the noise of battle, and so did Sorrel’s curses as she called on all kinds of poisonous fungi…

Who would be victorious? Sometimes the dragon seemed to be stronger, sometimes the griffin. Barnabas couldn’t have said whether he was more worried about Ben or Firedrake. Or rather, he could say: he was more worried about the boy, of course. Nothing about being a father is harder than giving your own children the freedom to do dangerous things now and then.

Of course, Ben didn’t know anything about such anxieties yet. He hadn’t even had time to think about the danger. He and Sorrel were at the heart of a storm. The breastplates that Hothbrodd had made them saved them more than once from the thrusts of Kraa’s beak and his terrible eagle’s claws. Whenever Nakal’s machete glanced harmlessly off the wood, Nakal gave vent to a screech of frustration. Firedrake’s scales protected him, but all the same Kraa’s claws inflicted minor wounds on him. Again and again, Ben managed to warn the dragon just in time for him to avoid the griffin, or he fended Kraa off with the club that Hothbrodd had given him. But the griffin was fighting to kill. Every blow of his claws, every thrust of his beak wanted Firedrake’s blood, and Ben soon began to fear that the griffin’s unbridled bloodlust would make him stronger in the long run. But the less control Kraa showed, the more restraint Firedrake displayed in fighting back. With Ben’s help, he avoided the griffin’s attack as smoothly as if he had turned into the fire that he could breathe, although he did not use that ultimate weapon, even when Kraa’s beak finally opened up a more serious wound. The griffin stared at the blood running over the dragon’s injured shoulder like someone dying of thirst who sees water. Firedrake’s next attack, however, made Kraa stumble, and Sorrel took her chance to reach into his tawny plumage. She had her fingers already closed around one of the sun-feathers when the griffin realised what she meant to do. Kraa almost pecked her hand off, and now it was Firedrake who lost his self-control at the sound of Sorrel’s scream of pain. His attack drove Kraa back until the griffin was standing on the edge of the platform with his wings quivering, his feathers and coat wet with sweat, and his beak open as he struggled for breath.

Firedrake was also breathing heavily, but Ben felt that he still had enough strength left to go on fighting.

‘Surrender, Kraa!’ the dragon cried. ‘Surrender, and honour your promise.’

The griffin was staring at the wound he had inflicted on Firedrake.

‘Do you know what we tell our young about the origin of the dragons?’ he croaked. ‘It’s said that they crawled out of the flesh of a dying demon like maggots. And that they were created only to make griffins immortal.’

Kraa was trembling with exhaustion as he spread his huge wings again, but he was still a very menacing sight.

‘There’s only one king on this island!’ he screeched, striking out at Firedrake with the last of his strength. ‘And you will curse the wind that brought you here, lindworm!’

Then, with a shrill scream, he gave the other griffins the order to attack.

With wings threateningly spread, Shrii leaped to Firedrake’s side. Tattoo did the same. But the five griffins who had come to Pulau Bulu so long ago, and from so far away, stayed motionless on the branch where they were perching.

‘You’re defeated, Kraa!’ called Roargh down to his leader. ‘Give the lindworm what you promised him, as our honour demands.’

Kraa stretched his neck, and looked up with hatred at his fellow griffins.

‘Honour?’ he screeched. ‘This island is mine, and I decide what its laws are!’

He fluffed up his feathers until they adorned his head like a crown, and then turned back to the dragon.

‘You’ve defeated the eagle and the lion, lindworm! But you forgot the one who has scales, like you!’

His snake-tail rose as the griffin swung around, and the viper dug its poison fangs into Sorrel’s arm.

Firedrake bit its head off, but the venom was already working. Ben was just in time to catch Sorrel before she fell off Firedrake’s back, and the dragon felt his own anger like lava in his veins. This time it was so wild and dark that Firedrake couldn’t control it.

That was exactly what Kraa had hoped for. Only the silver dragon could burn away the shame of his defeat. After all, there was no more honourable end for a griffin than death by fire.

Maybe Firedrake would indeed have given Kraa what he wanted. But Tattoo beat him to it. He soared into the air and breathed fire down on Kraa. Flames licked around the griffin’s coat and feathers, the ghostly grey fire that decades of petrified sleep had given Tattoo. And when it went out, Kraa and Nakal had turned into the same stone that had held Tattoo captive for so many years.

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The other griffins stared at their leader in motionless dismay, looking as if Tattoo’s dragon-fire had turned them to stone as well.

‘Firedrake!’ Barnabas called down to the dragon from Kraa’s palace. ‘Quick – get Sorrel to Hothbrodd!’

The dragon obeyed, without asking for an explanation. He shot down through the air, past the nests where the captured monkeys were calling for their feathered master, down and down through leaves and branches, with his heart hurting worse than the wound that Kraa had given him. It seemed as if the trunk of the griffins’ tree would never end! But at last they saw Hothbrodd sitting down among its roots.

Ben was still holding Sorrel in his arms as Firedrake landed beside the startled troll. She wasn’t moving. Ben couldn’t even make out any heartbeat!

Hothbrodd dropped the branch that he had been carving with the knife he had made from a seashell.