Pulling back the tongue and making sure the laces were as loose as possible, carefully he edged his giant, sockless foot into the right boot while both his vision, and more importantly his brain, told him that it couldn't possibly fit into such a small space. As his toes disappeared from sight he felt a prickly, tingling sensation, right at the very tips of them. More than a little perturbed, he continued pushing his foot, which to his pleasant surprise was becoming more and more enveloped in the raggedy old boot. A moment later his heel slipped down the back of the shiny worn leather, producing a tiny little mushroom cloud of dust when it thudded down on the insole. Surprised at quite how comfortable his foot felt, tentatively he tugged on the laces, pulling them as tight as he dared, the fear of snapping them right at the front of his mind. With a double bow tied tight, he followed exactly the same process with the left boot. Standing up after he'd put them both on felt like walking on air.
Leaving the discarded trainers in a heap, he turned and faced the direction he needed to travel in. Just by looking into the distance, he could feel the power of the boots welling up, threatening to spill out, ready to be unleashed at his command. With his destination firmly set in his thoughts... he took a very small step. Instantly he was inundated with blurred lines of colour, that even his finely tuned and highly evolved dragons senses couldn't keep up with. What felt like a tornado whipped at his clothes, causing them all to flap like the wings of a demented seagull. A cold chill washed over him, gone as quickly as it had arrived, replaced instead by sheer exhilaration. Effectively, the world around him stopped. Momentarily he wobbled, thinking it was a side effect of travelling with the boots. It wasn't. He was perched precariously on top of some huge rocks, calm waves brushing gently at their base. In one small step, he'd reached the Dorset coastline. There, right in front of him, was the English Channel. Knowing exactly where he was, if he'd attempted that journey in a car it would have taken well over an hour to get there.
'These boots are amazing!' he thought, as he lifted up his left foot and took the biggest stride he could. Again the sights and sounds all washed over him, as in an instant the English Channel was but a memory, with the French countryside closing in all around him on all sides. Australia was getting closer and closer by the second.
49
Are We There Yet?
With Flash disappearing off into the distance on the back of the magnificent healer dragon, Richie knew it was time for a decision. She also knew that it was her everyone was looking to, to make it.
'Oh to go back a few hours and be just a blissfully unaware human,' she thought, trying hard to compose herself. 'Two objectives, two forces, both going to the same city.' It made sense to stick together, at least until they reached the outskirts of London. Then they could split up, with a view to achieving their separate goals... re-establishing communications for the dragon world via the telepathic node system, and attempting to either rescue, reinforce or defend the king, depending on the situation. Unfortunately, with power to the monorail cut off, she was at a loss as to just how to get to London, short of heading back above ground which might prove a bit tricky with a small force of dragons in tow, especially given that, no doubt, their enemies would be watching and waiting there too.
Gathering everyone in, and her thoughts at the same time, she decided to put all her fears to one side about looking weak in front of them, and asked the question.
"As a force, we need to get to London. I suggest we go as one unit until we reach the very outskirts. Then we can split up and concentrate on our own objectives. Has anyone got any ideas about the best way to get there?"
"Can we not jury rig one of the monorail carriages with an independent power supply and go that way?" asked a younger dragon towards the back of the small gathering.
She'd already thought of that, but if she had, then so had they. As well, there was simply no telling how many stranded carriages would be on the line between here and the capital, and no way to know about them until a collision had already happened. Before she could speak, the master mantra maker spoke up.
"Impractical," he bellowed. "Our enemy will already have taken that into consideration."
"I take it above ground would be out of the question?" asked one of the remaining healers.
"I think the same thing applies," answered Richie, "as well as the problem of... THIS!" she stated, pointing at the shopkeeper with both hands.
Quiet acknowledgement rippled through the group, as an elderly female dragon stepped forward into the space at the front. Simply striking, with patches of intense purple fading to deep blue, her stomach edged with a scarlet stripe, she had every dragon's attention.
"We could use the flying tunnels of old," she announced confidently.
For Gee Tee, it was like a light bulb going off in his head, and he nodded his agreement enthusiastically.
'The flying tunnels... of course,' he thought. 'Before that blessed monorail, all we ever did to get around was use the now abandoned network of tunnels that were at that time the only way, other than on the surface, to travel between places. Most were three or four times the width of the biggest dragon's wingspan and served each and every major city, as well as many places in between. Once the monorail had announced its presence, there seemed little or no need for them anymore, so they were just discarded, like so many of us old things,' he thought.
"Weren't they destroyed?" responded Richie.
Before the master mantra maker could reply, the splendid dragon in front of them whose idea it had been answered.
"Not destroyed, their entrances were just blocked up. That shouldn't be too hard to sort out, and it should allow us to fly up to London totally unnoticed."
Richie liked the sound of that!
"Do you know where the entrance to the Salisbridge tunnel is?"
"I do," replied the elderly dragon female. "And it would be my pleasure to show you, and assist in unblocking it."
Richie nodded.
"Well... what are we waiting for?" Eager to get on with things, she let the elderly dragon lead the way.
Twenty five minutes later... they were in! A thick layer of rock which perfectly matched its surroundings, had been laid to waste, revealing a very wide, dark and cloying tunnel. The draught of warm air that had been released when they'd finally broken through had been an invigorating deep lava spa for most of the dragons there. Even Gee Tee seemed to take pleasure from it, puffing his chest out and pulling in great big lungfuls of air. It almost looked as if he were preening and showing off a little. That certainly couldn't be true... could it? And surely it would have nothing to do with the stunning female dragon whose brilliant idea it had been to use the tunnels... would it?
With the small, desperate force ready to go, it was only really a matter of working out who the humans and Richie would travel with. (A polite way of saying... ride upon.)Much to the amazement of all the humans there, Tank had transformed back into his natural dragon form. Sure it would terrify them, to his astonishment, they all came straight up to him to tell him how cool and wonderful he looked. It was indeed a strange old world they lived in. These last few hours had seemingly changed it forever. All they needed to do now was SAVE IT!