World War Dragon!

No Place For Humans

Marion squeezed her eyes shut as she fell, clenching her muscles.

She thought of Charlie at the top of the Fairy Mound, beckoning to her from the top of the tree. Come on, Tug. Nothing to be scared of.

She thought of Mama's scent as she held her close when she was little, just a hint of lavender.

Papa's smile.

Then ... the impact. There was a thump that pushed the air out of her lungs. But there was no sickening crunch, no explosion of pain. Instead, whatever was beneath her gave way like a stretch of taut parachute silk. She slid down a smooth surface to the floor.

When her feet hit rock, she stumbled and fell forwards onto her knees. Ow! She looked back. A great web of Fae silk was stretched taut behind her, apparently suspended in thin air. Suddenly it collapsed like a sheet blown from the washing line.

A chill prickled over her neck. Slowly, she looked up. Her own stunned and frightened face gazed back at her, replicated a thousand times over in scales as reflective as mirrors. With shallow, ragged breaths, she took in the great, sinuous body before her, its talons as long as a man's arm, and a tail that soared almost to the ceiling of the hall.

With a whoosh like a roller-coaster carriage, the dragon's head whipped down to examine her. Its skull was the length of Marion's entire body, its eyes pits of glittering darkness, filled with golden flecks like a picture of a heavenly constellation.

It opened its great jaws. Not one forked tongue, but two, whipped out of its mouth. Its breath had the chill of a winter gust. The tongues whipped round Marion, tasting the air around her.

'You leave tha' girl alone, Shard!' Trousers' voice sounded clear above them.

Marion looked up. Trousers was sitting on an intricate platform of Fae webs that floated just to one side of the central rock. The webs criss-crossed, creating the effect of elaborate curtains over a mini four-poster bed. Tiny crystals were caught in their folds and glinted in the light. Marion realized that it was Trousers who had conjured up the Fae web that had broken her fall.

The wizard did not look the same as back at the estate. She was not wearing trousers for a start. Instead, her plump form was enveloped in armour, the chains rippling as if they were alive. She still had the daft straw hat perched on her frizzy hair, though, and the same battered old satchel at her side. Her heels banged rhythmically against the throne, as though she were a two-year-old impatient for her lunch.

THIS IS NO PLACE FOR HUMANS! The dragon bellowed. Marion winced at the volume.

'I know that!' Trousers snapped. 'Jus' wait a blinkin' moment though.' She raised herself from the throne and reached into her satchel. She withdrew what looked like the blade of a propeller, the kind you would see at the end of a steamboat. She shook it and it unfolded like a fan: a pair of wings made entirely of whirring cogs and gears. Trousers raised it over her head and fitted it to her back. Wings spread out behind her, as though she were a mechanical angel. She stepped off the throne platform and swooped down, the wings making a sound like a rusty old wind pump.

Her feet hit the floor in front of Marion, the cogs still whirring as the wings folded back into themselves. After a little shuddering, Trousers put the blade back in her satchel.

'Marion Blount,' she shouted. 'Yer litle fool. Wha' are you doin' 'ere?'

Marion tapped the dowsing rods in her belt and shrugged.

'You asked me to practise with them. And that's what I did.'

Trousers' cheeks went pink. The scales of her armour rose and bristled like ears of barley in the wind.