Dragon Sword (18 page)

He took a few more swipes with the
blade, and in that close space I had to time my jumps to stay away
from him.

“
No! Fire-breathing
was
a
kt!
trick! No pain aimed!” Maybe if he thought I
was
Ungarth, he would hear better.

“
Doesn’t…
matter
,” King
Mammal grunted, swinging and managing to just cut into the end of
my tail. His pain
was
aimed. I’m glad I
wasn’t
Ungarth, if this was his constant game-cycle with the king. “I had
to slay dragons to keep the people happy. I was king! It was
expected. And now all that’s left me is to prove I was ever king at
all.”

“
I believe you! I believe you!” But
I wasn’t the one he needed to prove it to. I have discovered that
the inner-face is fragile among Earth Orange mammals. I have a
theory this may be connected to the atmospheric gases here, but
I’ve had no time to run field experiments.

He swung at me again, and I was
forced into an improvised Cacklaw move — bouncing off the cave
wall, flipping over in the air, landing behind the king, then
spinning around to lash him with my tail.

The tail-whip sent him tumbling
over, the sword flying from his hands. I picked it up to keep it
away from him and immediately noticed a vibration that pulsed
through the weapon.

King Mammal — who now looked very
sad indeed — stared up at me from the ground. “I suppose it’s your
turn to end the game, eh, Ungarth?”

“
We can play
skt!
something
else, instead,” I offered.

“
Why don’t we play Give the Sword
to the Dragon Youth?” It wasn’t the king’s voice. I turned and saw
them at the cave entrance: My friend Eli, held prisoner by the
other time- roaming boy. He had his gun pointed at Eli’s
head.

“
Hi, Clyne,” Eli said, sounding
both regretful and irked. “I heard your cry. Unfortunately, Rolf
here was waiting for me by the cave.”

“
Hello, friend Eli. And you,
d-dk!
Dragon Youth Rolf, should content yourself with simply
Rolf. You are most definitely no dragon.”

“
If I bring that sword back, I am a
dragon, wolf, lion — whatever I wish. The Fuerher himself will
reward me. Thanks to your stumbling through time with that ship, I
can make this assignment more glorious than a suicide mission. Give
me the weapon, and I will let the little American go.”

“
Brash boy! You cannot handle
Excalibur!” the king spat. “The sword will eat you up! For once,
Ungarth is right: You are no dragon!”

“
The boy for the sword.” Rolf
No-Dragon looked right at me. He clicked his gun apparatus,
preparing to cause Eli terrible harm. On purpose.

I threw the blade down on the floor
of the cave. “Let my friend go. Please, mammal.”

“
We shall see who the most fearsome
creature here is,” the Rolf said as he picked up the blade. “You
see, old king, I am perfectly able to —”

The sudden effect was like a
terrible case of herk-jitters. The sword swung the Rolf around so
much he looked like a Saurian losing an argument with his tail
about which direction to go. Eli ran over to me, as much to be free
of Rolf No-Dragon as to get out of the way of the erratically
moving blade.

“
Give me back my sword!” roared the
king, diving for the boy. Although the Rolf tried to aim the weapon
in the king’s general direction, it was the boy who was flung at
the monarch by the dancing blade. But he kept enough of a grip on
the weapon to nick the king by chance as he and the sword went
sailing by.

“
Excalibur!” King Mammal yelled,
seemingly more outraged than injured. He sunk to the floor, like a
rear-guard ace in Cacklaw who realizes all at once that the other
clan is about to overrun him.

“
Excalibur,” the king hissed.
“Excalibur has
hurt
me.”

As the king’s red blood dripped
onto the ground, I wondered what Ungarth would think to know that
Arthur was now bleeding in his cave, too.

Chapter
Twenty-three

Eli: Dragon Sword

Somewhere in Old
England…

King Arthur’s holding his arm,
furious, not from the cut, which is bad enough, but at the fact
that it happened with his own sword.

I’m trying to remember if Laddy
ever found himself in a jam like this with Arthur in any of those
old cartoons. Those cartoons, though, weren’t really scary. Not the
way this Rolf is genuinely, actually scary.

He’s still being jerked around by
Excalibur, but he won’t drop it. Maybe if we just stay out of his
way, he’ll smash into a wall.

I wish I could’ve smashed him into
a wall earlier.

I was lost almost as soon as I ran
into the woods. Thea was next to me, then disappeared. The path I
thought I was on disappeared, too. I was surrounded by
trees.

I yelled, but no one yelled back. I
was definitely, absolutely lost.

That was also genuinely
scary.

And I might still be out there if
Clyne hadn’t screamed. Actually, I didn’t know it was Clyne at
first. Didn’t know what it was. But it was the first noise beside
my own voice I’d heard, and the trees suddenly opened up in the
direction the sound came from — so I followed.

I heard water, then found a stream.
I bent over to take a drink. Two sips later, the reflec- tion of a
cave appeared in the water. When I was looking straight at the same
spot a moment before, I hadn’t seen a thing.

I sat up, and there it was — a
large opening hidden behind some vines in the high banks along the
creek. And then I heard Clyne and Arthur, and it sounded like they
were fighting.

But I didn’t get to see their fight
— I had one of my own. Rolf jumped me as I was heading
inside.

“
Hi, Roy Rogers!” He was almost
cheerful about it as he knocked me down.

“
Get off me! I’m sick of you!” I
tried to punch him, but since he was on my back, I couldn’t
reach.

“
You will have a chance to be sick
of me — and the Reich — for a thousand years, little Roy!” I
decided to let the “little” crack pass for now. “I knew someone
would come along and want to help, acting out of cheap
sentimentality,” he said with a smile. “Now I have a hostage, a
bargaining chip. Because everyone else will be sentimental, too.
Get up!”

I felt the gun press against the
base of my skull, and I rose slowly to my feet. You hate to think
of someone like Rolf being both clever and patient. You just wish
people who do bad things in the world would have their plans
backfire every once in a while.

“
Inside, let’s go. The Allies’
secret time-travel project ends here, hundreds of years before it
begins.”

“
I’m not from the same war you’re
from!”

“
We are all from the same war, Roy
Rogers.”

That’s when we went in to see Clyne
holding the sword over King Arthur.

But Rolf isn’t thinking about what
war he’s in now. All he’s thinking about is not stabbing himself in
the guts with a blade he can’t control.

Rolf looks like he’s getting
electroshock treatments, the way he’s being jerked around. Finally
he spins and smashes the sword against the wall of the cave,
knocking it out of his hands. Instead of reaching for it, he pulls
out his gun again. This time, he aims at Clyne.

“
Pick it up,” he tells
him.

Clyne cocks his head. “Mammal
weapons. No thanks.”

“
You can control it. You will pick
the sword up and return to the ship with me. You are from an
inferior race, but I need you.”

“
Inferior
skkt!
race? Don’t
judge species-wise. First guesses can be wrong — I know. Besides,
kktng!
”— and Clyne tapped on the weird helmet he was wearing
—“we were here first.”

“
You won’t be here at all unless
you pick up that sword.”

“
Field trip rules say no threats
can be made
ch-ch-chng!
or agreed to.”

“
Very well.”

I reach down and grab the sword
handle, but it’s like trying to hold a bolt of lightning, and it
shoots out of my hand. The distraction is enough to turn Rolf
toward me. It all happens so quickly, I’m not sure if his gun is
clicking and maybe I should be dead, but I’m not. I run straight at
him and plow into his stomach with my shoulder, knocking him on the
ground. Maybe I should still be scared, but now all I feel is
white-hot anger.

“
Quit
hurting
people!” I
have a rock in my hand and I want to bash him with it, hurt him
right back. “You kill families and innocent people! Mothers and
babies!” I spit at him.

“
It isn’t killing,” he answers
slowly. “It’s sweeping the floor.”

That’s it. I’ve never hurt anyone.
Never beat anyone up before. But my mom is stuck some- where trying
to fight guys like him who are hurting
kids
on purpose, and
maybe it’s time one of this big punk’s plans backfired after
all.

“
No.” It’s Thea.
“Don’t.”

Rolf doesn’t hesitate in the slight
pause to grab his gun and pull it up point-blank. “Cheap
sentimentality, Roy Rogers.” I see him squeeze the trigger
—

“
Empty.” That’s Merlin.

“
The little pellets inside. I
transformed them into powder, over by the lake.” Rolf is pulling
the trigger frantically. “I pride myself on being a little useful,
still,” the wizard adds.

Only then does it feel safe to turn
my attention away from Rolf, where I see the biggest surprise of
the day.

Thea stands holding
Excalibur.

“
You are nothing but a bully.” She
has the sword pointed right at Rolf. It doesn’t shake or tremble,
and neither does she. “Bullies killed my mother. Bullies burned my
city. I will not have my friend become a bully, too.”

Now the blade is pressed against
Rolf’s lip, right under his nose. His eyes cross as he stares at
it.

“
Name your parents,” she
demands.

His eyes widen a little more, but
he doesn’t answer. “Name your parents!” And as I wonder what Thea’s
about to do next, it hits me: He doesn’t understand her.

“
She said tell her who your parents
are.” I’m wearing a lingo-spot, and Rolf speaks English. Thea
flicks the tip of the sword under his nose. “I think you better
tell her.”

“
Lukas and Marie,” he
whispers.

“
Again. Like you miss them.” She
doesn’t take any pressure off the sword. I’ve never seen Thea like
this.

Rolf understands that order just
fine. “Lukas and Marie,” he says, louder. And then adds, without
being asked, “Two sisters, too. Katarina and Liesl.”

“
My mother’s name was Hypatia,”
Thea tells him. “She was murdered. Eli, tell him who your parents
are.”

“
Sandusky and —” I stop myself. I
don’t want to say my mom’s name. Rolf would know Margarite
Franchon. She was probably one of the people he was after. I didn’t
want him to know I was her son. “My mother disappeared after an
accident.”

“
K’lion? Your parents?”

“
Many sires and dames,
ssk!
Thea. Clutch-parents all, raising the young in groups. Kelber was
special clutch-‘dad’ to me, passing on star lore and telling of
dimension travel by nightfire. Lemny mothered sweetly,
smm!
with Cacklaw tips and legends, and fern soup for gray days with
nostril ailments.”

Thea keeps staring at Rolf. “There,
you see? You are no different from the rest of us. You’re
somebody’s child, too. You come from someplace. Everything you’ve
told yourself to make yourself a bully is a lie.”

I translate it for Rolf. His face
changes, and, for just a moment, he almost looks like a normal
teenager, instead of someone pretending to be a grownup. He doesn’t
say anything, doesn’t move. Just lies there against the cave
wall.

Having made her point, Thea throws
the sword down. I see Rolf’s eyes bulge a little, and his body
twitches. I realize he’s trying to go for the sword again but
can’t. He’s unable to move.

“
I recast the spell I had on him by
the lake. He won’t have use of his arms and legs for some time.
This should make your prisoner easier to handle.”

“
Thank you, Merlin,” Thea
says.

The word
prisoner
lands on
me with a thud. If Rolf is our prisoner, where are we supposed to
take him? And what are Clyne and Thea going to do?

“
I guess maybe we will need to get
back to the ship,” I say. There’s a nod from Thea.

Merlin helps King Arthur to his
feet, and with his good arm, the king lifts up Excalibur, holding
it now like he’s never seen it before. He keeps casting glances at
Thea, and so do I.

“
What?” she finally says, after
being stared at so much. “He
is
a bully.”

But that’s not why we’re looking at
her. Thea acted like holding the sword was no big deal. But our
stares are making her a little self-conscious. “Perhaps we should
leave now.”