Dragon Rider

“There!” cried Ben. “Land ahoy, Firedrake! Can you get that far?”

With the last of his strength the dragon steeled himself against the wind and slowly, very slowly, approached the safety of the shore.

Beneath them the sea was lashing low cliffs where palm trees were bowed by the wind.

“We’re going to make it!” shouted Sorrel, digging her little claws through Ben’s pullover. “We’re going to make it!”

Ben saw the sun rising higher among ragged clouds. The sky was slowly brightening. The storm slackened, as if lying down to sleep as the day dawned.

With a couple of final wing-beats the dragon left the sea behind, descended even lower, and landed, exhausted, on fine, soft sand. Ben and Sorrel undid their sodden straps and slid off Firedrake’s back. The dragon had laid his head on the sand and closed his eyes.

“Firedrake!” cried Sorrel. “Get up, Firedrake! We have to find a place to hide. Soon it’s going to be as bright here as if we were inside a fairy hill.”

Beside her, Ben was looking around anxiously. Only a stone’s throw away, palm trees lined the banks of a dried-up riverbed, their fronds rustling in the wind. Behind the palms rose sand dunes, and in the morning light the travelers saw fallen columns, ruined walls — and a large camp full of tents.

No doubt about it, there were people in those tents.

“Quick, Firedrake!” Sorrel urged the dragon as he wearily rose. “Make for the palms over there!”

They ran over the sand, crossed the dry riverbed, and climbed the rocky slope of the bank where the palms grew. The trees stood close enough together to hide Firedrake from prying eyes for the time being, but the place wouldn’t do as a hideout for the whole day.

“Maybe we can find somewhere in the hills,” said Ben. “A cave or a dark corner among the ruins.”

He took the rat’s map out of his pocket, but it was so wet that he couldn’t unfold it. “Bother,” he muttered. “We’ll have to dry it in the sun or it won’t be any more use.”

“What about those humans over there?” asked Sorrel. “The place is swarming with them.” She peered anxiously through the palm trees at the distant camp. “They are humans, aren’t they? I never saw so many humans living in canvas houses before.”

“With all those tents, I think it must be an archaeologists’ camp,” said Ben. “I once saw a camp just like that in a movie.”

“Archaeolojiwhats?” asked Sorrel. “Is that a particularly dangerous sort of human?”

Ben laughed. “No, archaeologists are people who dig up old temples and vases and so on.”

“What for?” asked Sorrel, wrinkling her nose. “Those things must have got broken ages ago. Why bother digging them up?”

Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Out of curiosity. To find out how people lived in the past, see?”

“Oh,” said Sorrel. “And what do they do then? Do they repair the buildings and the vases and everything?”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “Sometimes they stick the shards of pots back together, but mostly they leave things the way they find them.”

Baffled, the brownie girl looked at the broken columns. The sun was rising higher, and the people in the camp seemed to be starting work.

Firedrake brought Sorrel back to earth out of her thoughts. He yawned, stretched, and arched his neck wearily. “I’ll just lie down under these funny-looking trees,” he murmured drowsily. “The rustling of their leaves is sure to tell me wonderful stories.”

He lay down, sighing, but Sorrel hauled him up again. “No, no, Firedrake, it’s not safe enough here!” she cried. “I’m sure we can find somewhere better. Ben’s right, it really doesn’t look too bad up in the hills. We just have to find a place far enough away from the humans’ camp.”

She was pushing the dragon farther into the palms when Ben suddenly clutched her arm.

“Hey, wait, Sorrel!” He pointed back to the beach. “Look at that!”

They had left clear tracks in the damp sand behind them, leading across the dry riverbed and then up the slope.

“Oh, bother, how could I be so stupid?” said Sorrel crossly. She hastily climbed the trunk of a palm tree and pulled off a long frond. “I’ll see to the tracks!” she hissed down to Ben. “You find a good hiding place for Firedrake and I’ll catch up with you. Go on, get moving!”

Reluctantly the dragon turned, while Sorrel jumped down into the riverbed and began sweeping the palm frond over the sand to cover their tracks.

“Come on,” Ben told Firedrake, putting the backpacks over his shoulders.

But the dragon did not move. “Shouldn’t we wait for you, Sorrel?” he called anxiously “Suppose the humans turn up?”

“Well, even if they do come this way, I’ll hear them from a long way off!” replied Sorrel. “Go on, do get out of here.”

Firedrake sighed. “Very well, but hurry up.”

“Brownie’s honor,” promised Sorrel. She looked around, pleased. The tracks on the slope and in the riverbed were already gone. “If you happen to pass any mushrooms think of me!”

“We will,” said Ben, and he followed the dragon.

They found Firedrake a hiding place, a cavern among the rocky foothills, half-hidden by tangled thornbushes and at a safe distance from the human camp. There were carvings of ugly faces in the rock around the entrance, and in one place the stone was covered by strange writing. In fact, the place looked rather eerie. But the coarse, prickly grass around it grew tall, and no path had been trodden through the thick undergrowth. To Ben’s relief, it looked very much as if the archaeologists weren’t interested in this cavern.

“I’ll go and see what’s keeping Sorrel,” he said after Firedrake had made himself comfortable in the cool cave. “I’ll leave the backpacks here.”

“See you later,” murmured Firedrake, already half-asleep.

Ben unfolded the rat’s map as well as he could, weighted it with small stones, and left it to dry in the sun. Then he ran back to join Sorrel as fast as possible. On the way he obliterated Firedrake’s tracks. His own human footprints weren’t likely to arouse much suspicion, but where he could he walked over the stones and remains of walls that rose from the sand everywhere. The sun wasn’t very high yet, but it was extremely bright as it blazed down from the sky. Wet with perspiration and breathless, Ben reached the dry riverbed. It was cooler here under the palms. He looked around.

Sorrel was nowhere to be seen. Ben raced down the slope, crossed the riverbed, and ran to the place on the beach where Firedrake had landed. But there was no sign of Sorrel there, either, only the dragon’s tracks. His huge paws had sunk deep into the sand, and the long mark left by his tail dragging behind him was clearly visible, too. Why hadn’t Sorrel finished getting rid of all those tracks?

Ben looked around anxiously. Where was Sorrel?

The camp was swarming with people now. Vehicles were driving in and out, and there were men digging in the hot sand among the ruins.

Ben went over to the spot where Firedrake’s tracks appeared as if out of nowhere. Sorrel had clearly only got this far. Ben crouched down to look at the sand. It was all churned up as if a great many feet had been scuffling in it. He could hardly make out Sorrel’s paw prints among the tracks of all the human boots that had trampled around in the sand. His heart thudding, Ben straightened up again. There’d been a vehicle standing not far off, and the prints of the boots led to it. But Sorrel’s paw prints didn’t show up again anywhere.