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“Yes, I do.” Firedrake rose, shook himself, and bent his neck so low that the brownie girl had to look him in the eye. “He’s helped us, Sorrel. He’s a friend. So I don’t mind whether he’s a human being, a brownie, or a rat. What’s more,” he added, looking at Ben, who was standing there hardly daring to breathe, “what’s more, he doesn’t have a home now any more than we do. Isn’t that true?” He looked inquiringly at the boy.
“I never did have a home,” muttered Ben, looking at Sorrel.
The brownie bit her lip and dug the claws of her toes into the muddy bank. “Oh, all right, all right,” she murmured gruffly at last. “I’ll say no more. But he sits behind me. I insist on that.”
Firedrake nudged her so firmly with his nose that she fell backward into the dirty grass. “He sits behind you,” Firedrake agreed. “But he’s coming with us.”
8. Flying Off Course
When the moon had risen above the city rooftops, and a few lone stars began to appear in the sky, Firedrake came out from under the bridge. Sorrel was up on his back in an instant, but Ben didn’t find it quite so easy. Sorrel watched with a scornful grin as he laboriously clambered up Firedrake’s tail. When he finally reached the dragon’s back he looked as proud as if he had climbed the highest mountain on earth. Sorrel took his backpack, buckled it to her own, and hung them like saddlebags over Firedrake’s back.
“Hang onto the spines of his crest,” she told Ben. “And tie yourself to them with this strap, or the first gust of wind will blow you off.”
Ben nodded. Firedrake craned his neck around to look at the two of them. “Ready?”
“Ready!” said Sorrel. “Here we go. Fly south!”
“South?” asked Firedrake.
“Yes, first south, then after a while turn east. When I tell you.”
The dragon spread his shimmering wings and took off. Holding his breath, Ben clung tight to the spines of Firedrake’s crest. The dragon rose higher and higher. They left the noise of the city behind. Night enfolded them in darkness and silence, and soon the human world was no more than a glitter of lights far below.
“Well, how do you like it?” Sorrel called to Ben when they had been flying for some time. “Do you feel sick?”
“Sick?” Ben looked down to where roads wound through the darkness like gleaming snail trails. “It’s wonderful! It’s — oh, I can’t describe it!”
“Personally I always feel sick to start with,” said Sorrel. “The only thing that helps is eating. Take a look in my backpack and hand me a mushroom, will you? One of the little black ones.”
Ben did as she asked. Then he looked down again. The wind was roaring in his ears.
“Wonderful!” said Sorrel, smacking her lips. “A following wind. This way we’ll be in the mountains before daybreak. Firedrake!”
The dragon turned his head to her.
“Time to turn east!” Sorrel called. “Eastward, ho!”
“What, already?” Ben looked over her shoulder. Sorrel had the rat’s map on her lap and was tracing the golden line with her finger.
“But we haven’t reached the right place yet!” cried Ben. “We can’t have.”
Putting his hand in his jacket pocket, he brought out a little compass. His flashlight, his penknife, and his compass were his chief treasures. “We have to go farther south first, Sorrel!” he called. “It’s too soon to change course.”
“No, it’s not.” The brownie patted her stomach happily and leaned back against the spines of Firedrake’s crest. “Here, see for yourself, cleverclogs.”
She handed Ben the map. It fluttered so much in the wind that he could hardly hold it. Anxiously he scrutinized the lines the rat had drawn. “We really do have to go farther south!” he called. “If we turn east now we’ll end up in that patch of yellow!”
“So?” Sorrel closed her eyes. “Good thing if we do. That’s where Gilbert said we should stop and rest.”
“No, he didn’t!” cried Ben. “You mean gray. It’s in the gray parts he told us to rest. He warned us against yellow. Look.” Ben switched on his flashlight and shone it on the words at the bottom of the map. “Gilbert wrote it down here. Yellow = danger, bad luck”
Sorrel swung around crossly. “I knew it all along!” she spat. “You humans always think you know best. Honestly, you’ll be the end of me! We’re flying in exactly the right direction. My nose tells me so. Understand?”
Ben could feel Firedrake slowing down.
“What’s the matter?” the dragon called back to them. “What are you arguing about?”
“Oh, nothing,” muttered Ben, folding up the map and putting it in Sorrel’s backpack. Then he peered anxiously out into the night.
