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Ben cried out in horror. Sorrel was only just in time to catch hold of him before he slipped off Firedrake’s back.
How Barnabas cursed himself! After all these years, how could he keep hoping that ventures like this one might be achieved without a fight? It’s because you’re a hopeless romantic, Barnabas, he told himself. Because you won’t come to terms with the fact that in this world, violence always leads to more violence.
And then the other griffins arrived as well – except for Tchraee, who was nowhere to be seen. They settled in the branches above the throne like a flock of hungry vultures. The hatred in their eyes as they stared down at the dragons was outdone only by their revulsion at the sight of Shrii.
The young griffin returned their glance with proud defiance. He had fled, he had hidden, and he had been Kraa’s prisoner. It was time for him to confront the old griffin freely and openly at last. Shrii was well aware that the confrontation could very easily end with his own death, but it would be a much better death than the one that Kraa had planned for him.
‘Let me talk to him,’ he whispered to Firedrake.
Tattoo was about to protest, but Firedrake nodded.
‘Try it,’ he whispered back. ‘But don’t forget, we want our friend back alive, small as he is!’
The griffins’ tree was still holding Kraa’s monkeys captive. They could be heard moving noisily about in the nests as Shrii walked past the empty throne and stopped at the edge of the platform.
‘This is our quarrel, Kraa!’ he called up to the palace nest. ‘Let the jenglot go!’
‘He’s a homunculus!’ Ben called down from Firedrake’s back. ‘And…’
The words died away on his lips. To Kraa’s right, something was moving between the pillars surrounding the palace nest. Barnabas! Oh no! Ben realised at once what his adopted father was going to do. He knew him only too well.
Barnabas Greenbloom stepped out of the shadows hiding him from Kraa, and bowed to the griffin as if he were saying hello to a neighbour’s cat.
‘Terrible Kraa!’ he called up to him. ‘Accept me in exchange for the unfortunate homunculus. This honourable proboscis monkey could break all his bones simply by holding him rather too tightly. I am sure we can come to an agreement. We arrived on this island with entirely peaceful intentions. Maybe we can even negotiate between you and Shrii. But please, first let the homunculus go.’
The growl that came from Kraa sounded both amused and disapproving.
‘Peaceful intentions?’ he repeated. ‘Peace is something for chickens and geese. Is your little brain too clouded by fear for you to remember that you are addressing a griffin? And what, by the gods of Babylon, is a homunculus? Do you by any chance mean this jenglot? I’ll tell you what Kraa the Terrible is going to do with him. Eat him, and you too.’
Barnabas was careful not to utter any sound of pain when Kraa took hold of him with his right front claw. This is really no worse than back in the desert, Barnabas, he told himself as he felt the mighty claws pierce through his clothes; there was no ignoring them. Do you remember? When Nettlebrand came crawling out of the well and you had to hide underneath him? Well, maybe this time it was rather worse…
‘Let them go!’ shouted Ben. He was still sitting on Firedrake’s back.
‘Oh, this isn’t good!’ muttered Sorrel, putting a mushroom into her mouth to calm herself down. ‘This is not good at all.’
Firedrake said nothing.
He walked slowly, very slowly, over the platform, stopped beside Shrii, and looked up at Kraa.
It was a declaration of war.
Kraa craned his neck, and stared down at the dragon, delighted.
‘I hadn’t finished m
y sentence,’ he croaked. ‘I was going to add: I’ll eat them both unless’ – and his snake-tail wound its way through the air until Barnabas thought he could feel the forked tongue on the nape of his neck – ‘unless the lindworm will face me in a duel!’
‘No!’
Several of them spoke at the same time: Tattoo, Sorrel, Winston, Twigleg, Barnabas… even the other griffins seemed far from enthusiastic about Kraa’s proposition. Only Ben said nothing. The last few days had taught him a few things. After all that he and Firedrake had been through together, he had been so sure he knew what it meant to be a dragon rider. But he would never forget the disappointment in Firedrake’s eyes – not just because Ben had lied to him, but because he hadn’t left it to the dragon himself to decide whether or not to put himself in danger to help them save the Pegasus foals. How could he and Barnabas ever have thought they could make that decision better than Firedrake himself ? Were they, after all, like most human beings in thinking themselves cleverer than all the other inhabitants of the planet, dragons included? Ben had promised himself that he would never again let Firedrake down like that. And Firedrake wanted to accept Kraa’s challenge. Ben could feel the dragon’s muscles tensing themselves already. Firedrake would need his dragon rider in order to control all the anger and aggression now stirring in him. Ben himself felt something dark emerging in his heart: a wish to see Firedrake’s teeth buried in Kraa’s neck as the dragon took revenge for all that the griffin had inflicted on them and this island. It was an intoxicating sensation – intoxicating and terrible at the same time. It even made Ben forget his anxiety for Firedrake. That’s what revenge does – it drowns even love. If the challenge was accepted, both the dragon rider and the dragon would have to help one another to control that darkness.
‘No?’ Kraa repeated the unanimous answer that had come from so many mouths. ‘You didn’t say that, lindworm. But I don’t hear you say Yes either. Hand me the jenglot, Nakal. I’ll have him as a starter, and then my main course will be the glass-eyed man.’
It was very obvious that Nakal liked that order. He hurried over to Kraa, eager to please him, bowed, and held the kicking homunculus under the griffin’s beak like a ripe fig.
Firedrake gave a roar that went right to Ben’s heart. It merged him with the dragon and made them one, as if they were a single living creature.
‘I accept your challenge, Kraa!’ cried Firedrake.
