War of Dragons (36 page)

John shook his head. "We're deep in Blue Dragon territory with thousands of girls who can't fly out of here. There's too many for us to carry home in one trip and it’s a long flight back—far too long to do twice in a day, let alone in less than half a day. I don't care what we negotiated with the Browns; we can't abandon these girls."

Theo looked taken aback. "Too many? Wait a minute, are you sure about that? I mean, how many do you think there are? There can't be too many of them. I mean, we have at least ten thousand dragons, don't we, Gul?"

Gul coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. "We
had
about that many at the start, yes. But half of my dragons had to be deployed elsewhere, and in the battle we will have sustained considerable losses…."

"What?" Theo asked, shock written all over his face. "Where are they deployed? Why would you deploy them anywhere other than here for this rescue?"

Gul nodded solemnly. "Yes, yes. I shall explain. Your map writers gave us the locations of all of the settlements that they found in this area and there were more than we had expected. Two of them were sizeable and posed a threat that we couldn't ignore."

"Couldn't ignore? What do you mean you couldn't ignore? It's not as if they've sprung up overnight. Why couldn't you ignore them?"

"Theo, my friend, when the guards saw us coming, I assure you, the first thing they would have done is to have despatched messengers to all of the towns nearby calling for help. Their combined number would have posed a very significant threat and could have wiped us out. But picked off one at a time and through a surprise attack... well, they would be much easier to fight. My troops are still busy wiping out each and every one of their settlements as we speak. Doing this, we are now much safer."

"Bah," Theo replied dismissively. "It's a land grab and nothing more. You've used this rescue to extend your borders. I would never have agreed to this. This was not part of our agreement."

"No, it was not, but our agreement did not forbid it either. I can't see how you could really object to this, Theo; the whole point of this arrangement was to bring us into a war with the Blues and the only objective of a war is to extend your borders or to defend them."

"And this was meant to be about defending borders—"

"Theo, Gul, please," John interrupted their argument, "this is an argument for another time. Gul, you may have made us safer from Blue Dragon communities between here and the border, but not to the north of here, past the limits of where the Daves flew. We have no idea of how many towns are just to the north of here. By tomorrow, you can be sure that the Blues will return to this place in sufficient numbers to retake this place. In fact, we don't know that they won't return today. We don't have enough dragons to defend this camp and to be honest, what is there to defend? It's just a big, open field. We have to get everyone out of here and quickly."

Theo frowned. "Are you sure we don't have enough dragons? Shouldn't we check first?"

John shrugged. "Of course; Gul, can you tell us how many dragons you have? How many survived the battle?"

Gul smiled and bowed deeply. "A count shall be done." He clapped his hands twice and one of his men approached, bowing before him. Gul spoke to him briefly before the man hurried away.

"We shall know shortly," Gul said, smiling broadly.

"That's only half of the picture," Theo pointed out. "We'll need to know how many prisoners there are and how many Wasp and Sandy Dragons are left."

"I'll count the prisoners," John told him. "You take care of the rest."

"How will you count them?" Theo asked curiously. "There are thousands of them. It will take hours."

John laughed. "Give me ten minutes!"

He transformed, not waiting for Theo's reply and flew to the edge of the group of prisoners before transforming back again to address them. The girls nearby all turned to face him. He approached one and held her by the shoulders.

"You. Stand here and don't move. We need to count you all." He moved to a second girl, taking her hand and guiding her to stand behind the first. "Put both of your hands on her shoulder. That's right. Now stay like that and don't move." He pointed to the nearest girl. "Now you, put your hands on her shoulder. That's it." John raised his voice so the girls could hear him. "Keep going, form a long line. Count off from the front and make sure your line has no more than one hundred."

He grabbed another girl and stood her next to the girl at the front of the growing line. "We'll start another line here. You, take her shoulders. That's right." He shouted out to the girls. "All of you need to get into lines. Each line can have no more than one hundred. Come on, you two, start two more lines here."

"What are you up to, John?" Natan asked as he landed behind him.

"Counting the girls. We need to know how many we have. Can you help?"

"Sure thing; what do you need me to do?"

"Get them all into lines, each one hundred long. Get them to count off down the lines and when they get to one hundred they shouldn't let anyone else join their line."

Natan nodded and started to organise the girls and shortly three other Golden Dragons arrived to help. Amazingly, within ten minutes every prisoner was in a line and John was able to begin counting them.

"I make that sixty-five lines," John said. "Do you all make it the same?"

Natan nodded. "There's only seventy-five in the last line. Hey, John, shouldn't we work out how many of each race there are? They'll be going to different destinations, won't they?"

John shook his head. "Let's avoid doing that if we can. Treat them as one group who we need to move, or we'll end up with no one willing to take the Reds. Keep them here in these lines for the moment. I'll go and speak to Gul and Theo."

John quickly flew over to join Gul and Theo and found that the leaders from the Wasp and Sandy Dragons were with them.

"Very impressive," Theo said, admiring the neatly arranged crowd. "I didn't think that was possible."

"They've been prisoners for some time. They're used to being bossed around. There are six thousand, four hundred and seventy-five of them," John stated. "I don't know how many troops we have but it's not going to be enough."

"Only five thousand five hundred and sixty-six," Theo replied sadly. "Nine hundred short. I really didn't think there were as many prisoners as that."

"There were more," John replied. "The Blues killed a lot. There are quite a few that are badly injured as well."

Theo shook his head. "This is bad.
Really
bad. How are we going to get these girls out of here?"

John replied immediately, having already given the problem some consideration. "Take about nine hundred dragons, get them to each carry one of the girls and fly about an hour away from here, into the forest and leave the girls there. Some girls will have to be left behind, but let's leave them far from this camp, where they will have a chance of hiding. The nine hundred can then come back and get another nine hundred girls and fly two hours towards home, which is about as far as they can get before sunset. Everyone else just takes a girl each and flies all the way home—or at least as far as you can get today carrying the girls. Put all the injured girls and those with children in that larger group."

"Children?" asked the leader of the Wasp Dragons. "These are Blue Dragons? Why are we taking them at all?"

"We disagree on many things," the leader of the Sandy Dragons added, "but on this we are united. We see no reason to let these monsters live."

Theo glanced at John, noticed his icy look and raised a finger to his lips to silence him. Theo turned back to the three leaders.

"Friends, we do not need to resolve this now. These are newborns, weighing next to nothing. To try to take them from their mothers would cause panic. Take them with their mothers and then we can discuss this in the safety of our own camp."

Gul frowned. "I agree with you, but with what you say, Theo and nothing more. These are monsters and the only reason to let them live is to make the mothers easier to transport. I want this resolved when we get back."

Theo nodded. "I understand, Gul and we can discuss this further when we're back."

"Quickly," John urged. "Let’s start allocating prisoners. We'll need to send nine hundred ahead. "

"Plus another nine girls," Theo added. "I think that's right. Gentlemen, perhaps you will divide up your men. About a fifth of them need to go in the first group. John, where will you go?"

"Leading the nine hundred, of course. Unless anyone else wants to do that instead?"

No one replied. "Well, that's agreed," Theo surmised. "John will count them out to make sure we have the right numbers. Please send your men over now."

Gul and the other two turned to speak with their minions. John turned to speak to Theo.

"Will you lead the rest?" John asked.

Theo smiled. "With Gul and these two, I don't think leading is the right term, but yes, I will go with that group."

"What will you do with the babies? I don't care what they want to do; our laws are quite clear on this one."

Theo nodded. "Remember, you're not speaking to Reuben. I recognise the reality of the situation but I never agreed with him. I'll send one of our dragons ahead of the group to go back to the nearest of our towns to the border and to request volunteers to come over to collect the babies. I'll do my best to get them all out, but I can't promise anything, John. I doubt that we will get all of the girls back over the border, to tell you the truth—let alone the babies."

John nodded. "Just do as much as you can. Enough of these girls have died today as it is; I don't want any more to die as the result of something I started."

Theo shook his head disapprovingly. "Don't be too hard on yourself. These girls were never going to live beyond thirty anyway. They just disappear from the camp once they no longer get pregnant quickly enough. From what we've learnt, I'm guessing they murder about a thousand a year, and we lost far less than that today. Think of it like that."

John shook his head and pointed to the ground not far away, where a charred body lay, still smoking.

"I've seen too many girls like that today to be able to think of it like that, Theo, and heard too much talk of killing little monsters. I'll think of the positives when we actually have them all home." He extended his hand. "Good luck, Theo, and have a good trip back."

Theo shook his hand and smiled. "Are you sure you're just sixteen, John? I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe."

John smiled back. "Well, I am almost seventeen. Oh, by the way, I'll take a few of ours if that's alright? I was thinking of Reuben, Barnabas and those three youngsters."

Theo nodded. "Fine. See you soon."

John flew back to the front of the queues, where a crowd of Brown Dragons had started to gather. Natan was waiting there with Gideon.

"What's the plan, boss?" Natan asked.

"Right, Gideon, fetch Reuben, Barnabas and Gideon's friend—whatever his name is—and bring them here. The six of us will be going in the first group. Natan, you can help me assign girls to these dragons."

"Sure thing; how are we doing this?"

"Take two lines and walk between them. Look for any girls that are injured, or who are carrying an infant or just look weak. Tell them to go and form a new line and send the rest to go with these dragons. Once you get to the end of the lines, go to the next two lines and do the same. We need to pick nine hundred and nine healthy girls to go with these dragons."

"Hmm, alright," Natan replied uncertainly. "Why are we doing this?"

John shook his head. "I will explain later. I'll tell the Browns to just lead the girls away from the line and stand over there. We will all leave together. Oh, and if they look nervous or likely to panic, choose someone else."

"Alright, although I'm not really liking the sound of this. Why does it matter what they do? They're just going to be passengers, aren't they?"

"Nine hundred and nine," John repeated, walking towards the growing crowd of Brown Dragons. "You had best get started…."

Allocating the girls took more time than John expected and the time was ticking away. They had to sort through fourteen lines of girls to find enough to go with the group. Fortunately, Gideon and the other three Golden Dragons turned up and helped with the task.

As soon as they were all allocated, John gave the signal to transform and take off. The nine hundred and nine dragons took to the air, carrying their precious bounty with them and flying much slower with the added weight.

Can you explain now?
Natan asked, pulling up to fly next to John. He had selected a very attractive young lady to carry, a fact that didn't escape John's attention.
Why are we not going with everyone else?

We aren't taking these girls all the way home. Not now anyway. There's not enough of us to get them all home in one trip and it takes too long to go all the way back and come back again. We're going to take these girls part of the way home and then return for a second batch. We'll have to leave these girls overnight in the forest.

Seriously? Isn't that a bit dangerous? There's so many of them; they could easily be spotted.

It's very dangerous,
John replied,
but it’s the least bad option. We can't leave anyone in the camp as it’s the first place the Blues will look and they'll be there by morning, if not sooner, so we have to take them far enough away to have a chance of staying safe.

So how far are we taking these girls?

Not as far as I would like,
John replied.
No more than an hours' flight, probably less. Somewhere near some water, but far enough away that the Blue Dragons won't go there immediately. I don't want to leave the others behind for too long in case any Blue Dragons come back today.

So when will we get back?
Natan asked.

No idea,
John replied.
Depends how far we can take these girls today. I'm guessing that we have about another five hours of light at most. We will get back there in two hours, pick up the remaining girls, then fly till it gets dark. I'm not sure how long the journey will be carrying these girls, but I'm guessing about five or six hours, so tomorrow, we will have a lot more flying to do. I was thinking of coming back for this group at first light, taking them all the way back, then coming back for the second group.