The King's Dragon by Una McCormack

Author:Una McCormack
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409071273
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter

8

Beol strode across the chamber towards them. Four of his knights followed him, and behind them came a fraught-looking Teller.

‘It is most strange!’ said the King. ‘Only a few short hours ago my guests were shown to their rooms – the best rooms that I can offer! – and yet here they are, in the dead of night, skulking round the council chamber… What, I wonder, could have brought them here?’

‘Yes.’ The Doctor jerked his thumb at the dragon. ‘Well, that, obviously. And your Teller has already done that joke. Very good, though. Did you think of it yourself?’

Beol glanced at Hilthe. ‘I confess that I’m surprised to find you here, Mother. I thought you held Geath’s interests at heart.’ Hilthe opened her mouth to protest, but Beol turned away from her to speak to his knights. ‘Take them away.’

‘Now hold on a moment!’ The Doctor ran to take cover behind the dragon, dragging Rory after him. ‘Beol, I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I can absolutely one hundred per cent guarantee that you’re wrong. You’re so wrong that right now whole new scales of wrongness are being calibrated simply to encompass the sheer magnitude of wrong… This isn’t winning you over, is it?’

‘Beol,’ said the Teller. ‘He’s a clown but I think you should listen to him—’

Beol raised his hand. ‘I know already what you have to say, Doctor. I admit I do not understand how you have conjured up these strange apparitions, but my Teller has already explained that they are not demons or monsters, but simply mechanical. If men have made them, I can master them.’

‘No, no, no!’ The Teller clutched his hands to his head. ‘That’s not what I was saying! That’s the opposite of what I was saying! Beol, you can’t defeat these ships! Not alone!’

‘I am the King of Geath, not you!’ Beol replied.

Shocked, the Teller took a step back.

‘Oh, marvellous, just what my life needs,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘Another power-hungry megalomaniac.’

‘It falls to me to protect this city,’ Beol said regally. ‘As we promised.’ He put his hand upon the Teller’s shoulder. ‘You are very dear to me. But I shall not allow you to make me break my word. I have enjoyed all the riches and honours that the people of this city could lavish upon me. Now I shall play the part that they expect from me. I shall do what we promised. What I promised.’

‘Doctor,’ Rory whispered. ‘He doesn’t sound power-hungry. He sounds honest.’

‘They’re the worst kind,’ the Doctor said. ‘The ones who believe everything they’re saying. Next it’ll be the special destiny or “I did what I thought was right.”’

As he spoke, the dome darkened and the unmistakable shadows of the dragon-ships were visible again through the gold.

‘Beol,’ said the Doctor firmly. ‘This is an enemy that you do not understand. You can’t defeat it, not without my help and no matter how much you strut around in a gold hat saying that you can.

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