The Red Red Dragon Read online

  “Come not between the dragon and his wrath.”

  William Shakespeare

  (King Lear, Act I Scene 1)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Block I: Hatched Red

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Block II: The Mission

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Block III: The Town-Place

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Block IV: Meeting The Uprights

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Block V: The Uprights Return

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Block VI: Journey to Upright Island

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Block VII: The Arrival

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Block VIII: The SkyScraper People

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Block IX: The Journey Home

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Copyright

  When he was first hatched, his parents had no reason to suspect that he wasn’t a perfectly ordinary – though, for them, precious and special – tiny dragon.

  As the thick white shell of his egg fell apart and revealed him curled inside, gazing up at them with blinking eyes and breathing out just the faintest trickle of infant smoke, his mag and dag bent their long necks and nuzzled him, the way dragons do, and licked him with their forked tongues. He was smooth and hairless, soft, cool and cuddly as a dragon hatchling should be.

  His colour?

  A sort of beige, which is the colour most hatchling dragons are before they become brown or green or black. If there was the faintest tinge of pinkness to his skin, they put it down to reflected firelight. What else?

  Before long he was able to stand on his strong little hind legs and jump about their cave with the help of his tail, not yet full-length, with the point on the end of it still quite soft. He sometimes curled it into his mouth to chew when he was dropping off to sleep.

  His front paws began to sprout claws, and his forehead two knobbly horns. For his parents, these were exciting stages of their son’s growth, and they blew thick white smoke at each other to celebrate. Dragon smoke, of course, is quite free of any nasty stuff due to the filter in their throats. The filter doesn’t work as well on black smoke, but this family didn’t blow any of that kind.

  The development of the young dragon’s wings, which had been all scrunched up like fine crumpled leather when he was first hatched, was even more exciting. It meant he was beginning to grow from a hatchling into a mumbo, as young dragons are called.

  Shortly after, he spoke his first words.

  There was still a certain sense of wonderment among dragons when their young ones began to use words that, for untold lights and darks, dragons had not had. While all dragons tried not to think about the terrible time before the Great Ridding, they had a dragonlore back-think of an age when uprights ruled, and only they among the living things of the world had the ability to communicate in language.

  Now dragons could talk.

  How this had come to pass, none of them were certain, but it had something to do with a cataclysmic event many, many dragon hatchings and life-overs ago – one that had changed dragons’ think-spaces and throats and made it possible for them to speak. This event was referred to as the Ear Breaker, from which the world had emerged as a much emptier place, but one in which dragons could come into their own.

  Other events that had contributed were seldom spoken of, except in occasional heads-togethers among the wiser dragons, who thought it important that they should not be completely forgotten. Talked-down stories suggested that something called the Big Heat had also played a part. Dragons loved heat.

  Even young dragons knew there had been something called fighting before the Great Ridding. That was long left behind, of course, because there were no enemies to fight any more. Although Dragons now prided themselves on being peace-loving, they knew that hadn’t always been the case. They had once been fierce and powerful. Otherwise how could there have been the Great Ridding?

  Oddly enough, they still liked to keep the names that suggested the Old Time and the old ways, which is how it came about that these proud dragon parents decided to call their son Ferocity. They thought it sounded very good with their family name, which was Bychaheadoff.

  It wasn’t until Ferocity was growing scales and fins on his back that his parents noticed his colour was – how best to put it? – unusual. They’d been wondering whether he was to be green, like Perilous, his mag; or black, like Rampant, his dag. But then the beige darkened and became…

  “A sort of falling-leaf tint?” suggested his mag.

  “Brown, then,” said his dag. “Unexpected, but quite acceptable.”

  But then the brown seemed to drain away altogether, leaving only the red, which grew redder and redder until…

  “It’s obvious,” whispered his mag, one dark after fire-out, peering down at her mumbo in a worried but loving way as he slept.

  “No question at all,” agreed his dag. “He isn’t any of the usual dragon colours.”

  “What is he, then?” asked his mag, who thought she had the word for it on the tip of her tongue but didn’t like to say it.

  There was a stretch of silence between them.

  “I know what he is,” muttered a gruff voice behind them.

  Rampant and Perilous whipped round to see a familiar shape emerge from the darkest part of their cave.

  “Dag!” spluttered Rampant, pretending not to have got a terrible fright. “I didn’t see you there.”

  Rampant’s dag, a large, snaggle-toothed old dragon with a limp from an ancient flying injury, hobbled over to them. He peered down through heavy lids at his oddly hued grandmumbo.

  “I’ll tell you what he is. He’s red.”

  “Red?” croaked Rampant. “But … that’s impossible. There’s never been a red dragon. Red dragons don’t exist.”

  His old dag gave him a funny look and grunted, “Now one does. Yours.”

  Ferocity’s parents talked it over that dark, when Granddag had hobbled back into the shadows to a crevice in the rear of their cave, which he shared with his pair.

  “Do you think there’s anything actually wrong with being red?” asked Perilous hesitantly.

  “Why would there be?” replied Rampant. “Red makes him … er…”

  “Different?” put in Perilous.

  “Well, yes. But every dragon’s different in his or her way. Being red – that makes him more … more…”

  “Interesting.”

  “Right! That’s exactly what it makes him.”

  “And special,” added Perilous, peering down at Ferocity, who looked adorable with his tail-point in his mouth.

  “Oh, yes. Very, very special. If our mumbo’s red, my dear, then red’s what he’s supposed to be.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Perhaps th
ere are others,” said Perilous suddenly. “Red dragons, I mean – somewhere out there in the world.”

  “Yes, I expect so – lots of them,” agreed Rampant. “But we never go anywhere so I guess we’ll never know.”

  Perilous dropped her head and rested it on her pair’s haunch. He covered her tenderly with his wing.

  “You’re so wise, my mild, decent love,” she growled softly. Growls were fierce once – used to frighten uprights, mostly – but now they were only affectionate.

  “Ferocity’s a wonderful, strapping mumbo,” said Rampant, “and for my part I’m proud he’s different.”

  They crouched there quietly. Perilous felt a wave of contentment wash over her until, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a trace of brown smoke drifting from Rampant’s nostrils. Her head jerked up with sudden concern.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What? Nothing – why d’you ask?” He hastily sniffed the smoke back up his nose.

  “You never blow smoke like that. Not unless something’s wrong.”

  Rampant’s think-space was filling with not-true-thinks, but his pair knew him too well, and deep down he was bursting to tell her anyway.

  “Our coal supplies are running low,” he said in a sort of spluttering cough. “I found out. It’s all the Council can talk about.”

  In a corner of cave, Ferocity’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t understand much language yet but there was an unfamiliar tone to his dag’s voice. A tone he didn’t like. Could it be – what was the word – fear?

  By the time Ferocity was due to start dragon school, his parents had very nearly forgotten he was different. So it’s easy to imagine their surprise when, on the light before he was due to start school, Head-dragon Heinous called them in for a quick heads-together in the big, shabby, crumbling-at-the-corners school built-thing, with the big hole in its flat top where a very tall dragon teacher had, in a moment of untypical annoyance, thrust his horns. Of course, when such not-decents damaged an old built-thing, there was no way to repair it, and most such shelters eventually crumbled away.

  “It has come to my attention,” Heinous began, “that your son is – how can I put it? – red.”

  “Is he?” replied Rampant, as if he’d never really noticed. “Well, now that you mention it, he is rather a fine shade of red, don’t you think?”

  “He has a wonderful think-space!” added Ferocity’s mag.

  Head-dragon Heinous looked at her sternly. “He would have, wouldn’t he? All mumbos are bright.”

  “I think what my pair is trying to say,” put in Rampant quickly, “is that we’re sure Ferocity will be a credit to the school.”

  “Let’s hope so, shall we?” replied Heinous. “But I was wondering whether … I mean, we prefer all our mumbo pupils to look … well, like … like regular mumbos, if you take my smoke-drift?”

  The Bychaheadoffs shared a bemused look.

  “Regular?” echoed Perilous.

  “Yes. Very regular.” Heinous lowered his voice slightly and leaned forward. “Your son will, I fear, stand out in the playground. If he were perhaps a rugged black like you, Rampant, or … or a delightful green like you, Perilous… What I’m trying to say is—”

  “Yes, what exactly are you trying to say?” asked Rampant evenly.

  Heinous took a deep breath. “Couldn’t you arrange for him to perhaps roll in some mud—”

  “Mud?” repeated Perilous sharply.

  “Certainly – or take a dip in a pond of green slime—”

  “Slime?” spluttered Rampant.

  “Yes, or … or…” Heinous spotted the dark trickle of smoke now seeping from the Bychaheadoffs’ nostrils and added, “Nothing that would harm him, of course!”

  Ferocity’s parents rose to their full height.

  “We are not,” said Rampant, “going to roll our son in mud or dip him in any dirty stinking pond slime.”

  “Or anything else for that matter!” snorted Perilous.

  “There is nothing wrong with his colour,” Rampant continued. “As a matter of fact, we’re very fond of it. Red is … is… What is it, Perilous?”

  “Different,” answered his pair.

  “In a good way,” said Rampant firmly. “Now, Head-dragon, if you have a problem with it, we’ll simply home-cave Ferocity instead.” He coughed. “Good dragon-light to you.”

  When Ferocity’s mag dropped him off on the first light of school, the other mumbos tried not to stare at him, which would have been undragonly rude. Rudeness was the opposite of politeness, and politeness was one of the first Rules of Dragonkind. “Put the kind into dragonkind!” was something mumbos recited every single day at school. They meant it, too.

  By the end of the second lesson, everyone had almost forgotten Ferocity’s unusual colour. Teasing just wasn’t done. One she-mumbo, Merciless, sidled up to him between lessons and asked politely why he was red.

  “Why? How should I know? I was hatched like it.”

  “It’s nice,” Merciless said. “Can I nuzzle you now?”

  There was something about the way she asked the question that sent a slightly uncomfortable tingle down Ferocity’s back-fins.

  “If you want,” he replied a little anxiously.

  And she did. Behind his ear. Which was surprisingly nice – and a bit tickly. Then she said, “Can I call you Red?”

  Ferocity looked at her. He realized he quite liked the idea of a nickname.

  “If you want.”

  And just like Ferocity when he spread his wings, the name took off in no time. It wasn’t long before the whole class was calling him Red. And that was the name the other mumbos called him from that light onward.

  Red did well at school, just as his parents had expected – just as everyone had expected, because, as the head-dragon had said, “All mumbos are bright.” And indeed, it was a well-known fact: all dragons were now clever. Red stood out only by seeming to be a bit too clever.

  But that didn’t stand in the way of him making friends. He may have been different, but the other mumbos liked him even more for his very special think-space than for his very special colour. It was what went on in there that made him say all sorts of things that set him apart. Like when he suggested, “Let’s play Dragons and Uprights.”

  Dragons and Uprights? The other mumbos fell into stunned silence.

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Red.

  Basher, a bright green mumbo with a particularly large head and noticeably sharp teeth, turned to him. “Uprights,” he said, snarling, “are our worst enemies, driven out a long, long time ago when the fighting ended. We don’t play games about them!”

  “And anyway,” added Fiery, a small black she-mumbo with knobbly horns, “they’re gone from the mainland, which means the whole world.” She gave a hoity grunt and added, “Don’t you know anything?”

  “Yeah!” scoffed Basher. “So why bother even thinking about stupid uprights?”

  “I think about a lot of things,” mumbled Red.

  Thinks? They weren’t that useful, his teacher would say. “Because the more thinks you have, the more confused you get. Think less. Do more.”

  The lessons the mumbos learned were limited to the things dragons needed to know. Or, more specifically, the things their teachers thought they needed to know. Which wasn’t that much. Flying skills, for example, were important – like how to glide or soar or do a tail-over-horns, crash-land and, in the advanced classes, do straight-up take-offs. All very challenging when you’re as bottom-heavy as dragons.

  “If we were like sky-flappers,” said Red to his granddag one dark over supper, “it would be much easier to fly.”

  “If we were anything like sky-flappers,” replied his granddag, sucking on a juicy ground-flapper bone by the fire, “we’d be the ones being eaten.”

  Granddag always said funny things like that.

  Mumbos also learned Cave Law and Rules of Dragonkind, like talking-not-quarrelling, resisting strong fee
lings – ugh! – and displaying excellent dragon manners in school. Everything to do with how dragons should treat each other came together under one subject heading. “Say it again – louder this time,” Berserk, a she-dragon-teacher, would roar.

  “DECENCY!” the class would roar back. They enjoyed roaring, mostly because they weren’t allowed to do it very much.

  By the time Red and his classmates were fully scaled and their back-fins about half grown, their class teacher, Berserk, announced it was time to talk about the Facts of Smoke.

  “At present, you blow white smoke when you’re happy—”

  Basher, always the first to demonstrate, blew a big puff of white smoke.

  “Very good, Basher. Anyway, as you may unfortunately have realized, there’ll be times in your full-grown lives when you’ll feel things. Feelings are things we dragons don’t really have good words for.”

  An excited murmur rose in the class. Fiery was first to raise her tail-point.

  “Like what sort of things?” she asked, knowing several of them but enjoying watching her rather uptight teacher attempt to explain.

  Berserk cleared her throat. “Things like anger, hate and … um … envy.” The young teacher could hardly bring herself to say the last one. A shocked silence fell over the class. “These words,” Berserk continued, her voice now lowered to a whisper, “are called swearing and are strictly forbidden.”

  Everyone knew about swearing. A mumbo could be kept in school for a whole free light if he or she said a swear word out loud. It was Red who raised his tail-point next.

  “Yes, Red?”

  “I just had a think—”

  “Uh-oh,” grunted Basher.

  “If we feel things, we should definitely have good words for them because, well, feelings are very important things for a dragon to have.”

  The rest of the class turned and stared at Red. If dragons could have fallen about in fits of giggles they would have done.

  The teacher cleared her throat again. “I’m not sure, Red, that I follow you,” she said, even though, deep down, she probably did.

  Red opened his mouth to answer but was suddenly aware of all the other mumbos staring at him.

  “Nothing,” he said awkwardly.