The Last Dragonslayer

years now.’

I frowned.

‘This was all planned?’

He knocked a peg in, wrapped a tape around it and walked off in the direction of a stream. I followed, more out of a sense of shocked disbelief than anything else.

‘We knew that Brian Spalding was expecting someone to replace him. He resisted all our attempts to get him to appoint an apprentice so we watched him, waiting for the time the new Dragonslayer would come and take his place. It just so happened that you chanced along on my shift.’

‘How long were you waiting?’

‘Sixty-eight years. A team of six people, working round the clock. My father gave his working life to ConStuff. He watched Brian Spalding for over thirty years.’

‘Thirty years? Just for some real estate?’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said, as though I were some sort of idiot. ‘Snodd and the Duke of Brecon are powerful, Miss Strange. They have the power, as you have seen, to change the law at a whim and outlaw their citizens at their command. But even they are merely transient when it comes to the might of commerce. Governments may come and go, wars will reshape the Ununited Kingdoms many times. But companies will stay, and flourish. Show me any major event on this planet and I will show you the economic reason behind it. Commerce is all powerful, Miss Strange. Commerce rules our lives. ConStuff have put a lot of time and money into Project Dragon, and their investment is about to bear fruit.’

‘Money,’ I murmured.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘money. And lots of it.’ He spread his arms wide and looked around to make the point. ‘Do you have any idea just how much this parcel of land is worth?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, ‘I have a very good idea of the value of the Dragonlands. But you and I are talking about different currencies. You’re talking about gold and silver, cash and securities. I’m talking about the sheer beauty of the land, the value of unpolluted parkland made wild and staying wild for ever.’

‘Dream on, Strange,’ he sneered, ‘in every direction are millions of greedy speculators eager to lay claim to a few square yards. While you have been gallivanting around pondering the imponderables, I have potentially laid claim to sixty per cent of the lands. We already have plans drawn up. We will build an access road through that oak forest and just over there’—he indicated a small copse of silver birches—‘will be a retail park for over seventy different shops, with parking for a thousand cars. Over there,’ he pointed to another hill in the other direction, ‘will be a luxury housing development. Just beyond that hill there will be a power station and a marzipan refinery. This is progress, Miss Strange. A billion moolahs’ worth of progress. We were lucky you turned out to have such high ideals—if you had fallen for King Snodd’s schemes to claim the Dragonlands on his behalf you might have been something of a nuisance to us. As it is, everything has turned out admirably.’

‘Then I pity you,’ I replied, ‘pity you because you will never know or see a decent act. You have given nothing, you will receive nothing.’

‘I have a bank balance that proves you wrong, Jennifer. My share alone in this project amounts to over thirty million. I watched Brian Spalding doggedly for over twenty-three years. Don’t tell me I don’t deserve it!’

‘You don’t deserve it.’

We stared at each other for a few moments.

‘So all those Dragonattacks. They were arranged by ConStuff?’

‘Certainly. As soon as the prophecy began we could see how we could use it to our advantage. Even King Snodd and the Duke of Brecon wouldn’t have dared fake a Dragonattack. We just helped things along. Massaged fate, if you like. Look at it our way—we have actually helped solve the Dragon Question. I think the Mighty Shandar would be grateful.’

‘And the prophecy that began all this? You as well?’

‘If only!’ said Gordon, laughing. ‘If that was in our power we could have engineered all this sixty-eight years ago. Nope, that wasn’t us.’

We continued to stare at each other for a moment longer. ConStuff and Gordon were playing with things quite outside their understanding. ‘Money is a form of alchemy,’ Mother Zenobia had often told me, ‘it turns kind, normal people into greed-mongers, intent only on acquisitiveness.’

‘You have no idea what’s going on, have you?’ I told him, my voice rising. ‘I know that,’ I added, ‘because I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m the Dragonslayer. Everyone wants the Dragon dead except me and Shandar. Even the Dragon wants the Dragon dead. If I were you I’d get out of the Dragonlands while you still can.’

‘You’re blabbering, Jennifer. I’ll be staking claims until the first Berserker comes over that hill.’

I couldn’t think of much to do, so as a pointless gesture I pulled up a marker stake and threw it in the river. Gordon wasn’t impressed. He pulled a service revolver out of his waistband and pointed it at me.

‘Be a good little girl and leave me alone. Do something useful like kill the Dragon so we can finish this all up and get to the bit where I am handed wads of—’

There was a growling and a snapping noise and I looked up. The Quarkbeast had left the safety of the Rolls-Royce and was running down the hill as fast as his short legs could carry him. He’d been keeping his anger in as I had ordered, but out in the Dragonlands his instincts were taking over. He was going to protect me whether I liked it or not. I wasn’t mad keen on Gordon but no one deserves to be savaged by a Quarkbeast.

‘Call him off, Miss Strange. I’ll shoot him, I swear I will!’

‘Stop!’ I shouted to the Quarkbeast. ‘Danger!’

But he kept on coming, his jaws rattling dangerously, the sharp obsidian teeth glinting unkindly in the sunlight. There was a sharp report and the Quarkbeast fell, rolled over twice in the heather and lay still. I looked across at Gordon, who now turned the smoking revolver back to me.

‘Don’t even think about it!’ he said angrily. ‘I never liked the little tyke anyway. Run along and do your duty or by King Snodd and St Grunk, I’ll shoot you where you stand and get Sir Matt Grifflon in here to do your work for you—I could even claim the reward on your life!’

I tried to find something to say but nothing came out.

‘Well!’ sneered Gordon. ‘Quite the Dragonslayer, aren’t you? I was wondering how you could possibly have handled this any worse. All you had to do was kill a Dragon, and instead we’ve got a major war about to break out. Destiny is unkind sometimes, isn’t it? How many deaths will you have on your conscience? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? How much are your fancy scruples worth now?’

‘Stop!’ I shouted angrily, but he wouldn’t.

‘Stop?’ he repeated as he smiled a triumphant smile. ‘Or what? What will you do?’

I suddenly knew exactly what I’d do.

‘Or I’ll fire you, Gordon.’

‘Well you can’t,’ he sneered. ‘I resign.’

‘You resign?’

‘Yes, I—’

‘You mean you’re not my apprentice?’

He clapped his hand over his mouth as he realised what he had just said, and his face drained of colour.

‘NO!’ he yelled, throwing the gun away and changing his tone to a mournful plea. ‘I don’t resign! I’m sorry, please take me on again, I don’t want to end like—’

There was a bright flash and a smell of burnt paper as Gordon was reduced to little more than the sort of powder you might find in a cup-a-soup sachet. Only his clothes, derby hat and a steaming revolver remained to show that he had ever been. None but a Dragonslayer or their apprentice could enter the Dragonlands. His arrogance had got the better of him; his thirty million meant nothing.

I walked over to where the Quarkbeast was lying still in the heather. I dropped to my knees and rested my hand gently on his forehead. His large eyes were closed; he might have been asleep. There is a legend about Quarkbeasts that tells they are sent by the spirits of dead relatives to watch over you in times of uncertainty. My father had sent the Quarkbeast, I was sure of it. The small animal, although repulsive to many and possessed of disgusting personal habits and, yes, a bit smelly, had done his duty without regard for his own safety. I moved his body to a hillock above a bend in the river and placed a pile of stones over his small form. I topped this with a