‘You idiot!’ Jeremiah crowed smugly. ‘You stabbed it with the wrong blade!’
‘No,’ Lex replied, ‘I didn’t.’
‘The challenge of this round is to kill it, not give it back more life!’
Sword in hand once again, Jeremiah was striding back towards the dragon with a purposeful air Lex didn’t like the look of one bit. He and Jesse both stepped in front of the dragon? not that that made much difference, for the beast was far too big to be shielded by humans? but the gesture was startling enough that it temporarily stopped Jeremiah in his tracks, just the same.
‘Get out of the way!’ the nobleman said. ‘That thing’s a killing machine. It’ll have both your fool heads off in a minute!’
‘Oh, don’t be such a galloping twit!’ Lex snapped. ‘Can’t you see it’s tame? It probably never hurt a human in its life!’
Even now that it was no longer old and drooling, the dragon did look quite absurdly friendly. Especially now that it was nuzzling the back of Lex’s head with its snout. Not to be deterred, however, Jeremiah said, ‘What about all those mining deaths, then? They closed the mine down and left all that gold here just because they felt like it, did they?’
‘No, it was the fire-bunnies.’
‘Fire what? What the heck are you talking about?’
Lex stared at him. ‘Surely you’ve seen them? This mine is full of hundreds and hundreds of fire-breathing rabbits!’
‘Oh, that’s rich, even for you!’ Jeremiah sneered. ‘Surely you can’t expect me to fall for that! Just how stupid do you think I am? Fire-breathing rabbits! I never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life! You’re making it up to throw me off my guard, and then you’re going to slay that dragon yourself and win the Game!’
Lex glared at him. ‘If I was going to make something up, believe me, I would come up with something much more convincing than fire-bunnies! They’re far too ludicrous to be made up! I’m telling the truth! Just look at my burnt trousers!’
‘Nothing you say is going to convince me,’ Jeremiah said firmly. ‘Now, stand aside or risk getting your head chopped off!’
Then the idiot drew back his sword arm and prepared to throw…
But then there was a familiar rumbling sound. Lex and Jesse exchanged a horrified look, whilst Jeremiah stood staring around stupidly.
‘What’s that noise?’ he asked.
‘The bunnies are coming,’ Lex replied.
From the sound of it, there were even more of them this time than there had been last time. Their stampede was causing bits of dust and gravel to fall from the walls and the ceiling, and the water of the lake to ripple. There were only two entrances into the cavern. Lex had entered through one, Jeremiah through the other. At almost the exact same moment, hordes of ferocious fire-bunnies poured in from both entrances. Their eyes were angry, red and bloodshot; they were slavering from the mouth and blowing fire through their nostrils. Jeremiah screamed and Lex couldn’t blame him. That was not the way bunnies were supposed to look at all.
They were surrounded. Trapped. There was no way out of the cavern with still more bunnies pouring in from both entrances towards them where they stood in the centre of the room.
Presumably, the dragon was safe from the rabbits. After all, they’d had more than a hundred years to eat it and hadn’t done so. Possibly they could not bite through its scales. But, unless they got out of this room, and quickly too, the three humans were all going to be eaten alive.
Lex looked at the dragon and the bunnies and the ceiling? his mind working faster than it had ever worked before. And? suddenly? he knew what he had to do.
‘On to the dragon!’ he shouted. ‘Now!’
Then he grabbed his bag and the glow-canary, turned on the spot, and dragged himself up on to the dragon’s back, gripping scales the size of dinner plates to climb the animal like he would a rock wall. He sat down right behind the dragon’s neck. Jesse quickly followed and so did Jeremiah. The dragon seemed quite happy to have the three humans sitting on its back and, indeed, the beast was so large that it probably didn’t even feel their weight. But that alone did not make them safe. Already, the rabbits were swarming towards them and, once they reached the dragon, there was nothing to stop them from climbing up it after their prey, just as the humans had done. There must have been close to a thousand fire-bunnies in the room by now but, clearly lacking a single aggressive bone in its body, the dragon seemed quite unconcerned by all the rabbits swarming towards it, and it was quite clear that it wasn’t even thinking of attacking them. Which meant they had to try to escape. But getting a dragon to fly upwards is not as easy as getting a horse to trot forwards, as Jeremiah was already finding out. Sitting at the back, clinging on to Jesse, the nobleman was shrieking, ‘Fly, you stupid beast, fly!’
Which, unsurprisingly, had no effect on the dragon whatsoever. But Lex knew something that would. He opened his bag and fumbled desperately for the last remaining trout, as well as the fishing rod he had spotted in there earlier. Finally, he got them both. The rabbits were climbing up the dragon as Lex hooked the fish on the end of the line and then threw it up into the air as far as he could.
The dragon spread its wings instantly, and Lex, Jesse and Jeremiah were forced to cling on desperately as the huge thing beat its great wings, causing ripples to run along the surface of the lake. Slowly, it rose up into the air, quite oblivious to the trails of fire the little rabbits were shooting at it below.
Doggedly following the trout Lex dangled before it, the dragon swooped upwards towards the roof of the cavern. Lex risked one last glance back at the frantic, maddened rabbits beneath them and? only for a moment? thought he caught, just out of the corner of his eye, a brief glimpse of what looked just like a giant waving fox. But, when he moved his gaze to get a better look, there was no giant fox down there. Just more and more furious rabbits.
Lex had to look back towards the ceiling then because the screams of the other two were distracting him. As Lex had hoped, the dragon did not slow down when it reached the top, but merely went right on through, head first. The dragon’s great bulk was more than enough to shatter the earthy ceiling and they burst out of the mine in a shower of dirt and stones and into the bright, sparkling sunlight beyond.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The dragon seemed to forget about the trout for a short time after it emerged from the mine. It had not, after all, seen the sun or breathed fresh air for over a hundred years. With some of its youth now restored, it was enjoying its freedom more than ever and soared joyously out over the desert below.
This did get slightly worrying for a while. Especially when the dragon began to climb steadily higher towards the clouds with no sign of turning back any time soon. But, by waving the trout around particularly energetically, Lex managed to get the dragon’s attention back again. He used the fishing line to dangle the fish lower than the dragon’s snout and soon they were heading back down towards the ground. The dragon spread its wings just in time, and they came to land outside the mine with a thump that made the ground shake.
The Gods were already there, along with the sprite, who perched on top of a nearby cactus, looking despondent.
‘That,’ raged Kala as soon as the dragon touched down and instantly devoured the trout (and half the fishing line), ‘was the most astonishingly poor show I have ever witnessed!’ Pointing at Lex, she went on, ‘You deliberately saved that thing’s life and didn’t even try to kill it! If I were your Goddess, I would turn you into a wooden chessman right here and now!’