Arthur

Chapter Nineteen

And promptly bounced off his thick, muscled arm, and flopped straight to my back.

The guy, still holding his sword, looked down at me curiously. And then started getting a little pissed. I had certainly diverted his attention away from Arthur.

Unfortunately, I had diverted it to me.

"Arthur..." I said, scrabbling backwards, crab-like.

"You're doing fine," said Arthur, grunting through clenched teeth. As he spoke, the sword slid out a few more inches. Or, as they say here in England, a few more centimeters.

Focus, James.

More screaming from outside, and now something else. Something that sounded like...

A roar.

Yes, a roar. As if a tiger had been let loose in the streets of Glastonbury. The terrifying sound came again, louder, vibrating up through the cobblestones, and up into my skull, rattling my brain.

Somehow I suspected it wasn't a tiger. Somehow I suspected it was something else. Something bigger.

But I didn't have time to think about that now. The goon was now bringing his broadsword down like a man chopping wood. Or like a man determined to cleave a skull in two. I dove to the side, under the card table, just as the sword came crashing down.

I half expected the weapon to go through the table, but instead it wedged deeply into the particle wood. A portion of the blade appeared above me, through raining particle wood dust. The blade moved back and forth as the freak tried desperately to work it free.

Outside came the roar again. Somehow louder. Somehow even more bone-chilling.

What the hell was that?

Grunting, the guy above me finally worked his sword free. As he did so, I did the only thing I could think of. From my position under the table, I whipped-kicked him, sweeping my leg low across the floor, and neatly swiping his own legs out from under him.

The results were more than I could have hoped for.

As his feet went in one direction, his broadsword went flying in the other. He landed hard on his back, air bursting from his lungs.

I did not just do that.

Across the tent, under the bright set lights, Arthur gave a tremendous heave -

And pulled the sword free from the stone. I had a brief image of my crazy new friend staggering backward, holding the sword triumphantly, when a blinding flash of green light sent me hurtling through the air.

Chapter Twenty

I found myself lying on my back in the middle of the outdoor market, staring up into gloomy skies. As I stared, something very large and bat-like passed in front of the lowest hanging clouds.

I blinked. Surely I was imagining things.

Groaning, I rolled over to my side and stayed like that for a moment or two, my body aching in places it had never ached before. And as my senses came back to me, so did my memory. There had been an explosion in the tent. What happened to the tent, I had no idea. What happened to Arthur, I had no idea, either.

I shook my groggy head, and that's when I heard - and felt - the galloping of hooves. I turned toward the sound and immediately saw three men on horseback charging down the middle of the street, kicking up dust and rocks and holding honest-to-God lances.

The street, thank God, was mostly clear of tourists. Unfortunately, I was lying in the middle of it, directly in their charging path.

If I was dreaming, I wanted to wake up now.

But I didn't wake up. The horses were still coming and now a massive shadow was sweeping over the ground. Still on my side, I craned my head up around up toward the sky. The rain had stopped and there was a break in the clouds. Sunlight poured through, and as it did, some of it caught something very, very big flying just under the cloud cover. The sunlight gleamed off two massive, leathery wings.

I gaped. "You have got to be kidding me."

And now I knew what all the roaring had been about. Yeah, I very much wanted to wake up.

Now!

The dark shape swept across the sky again, disappearing briefly below the distant foothills. I say briefly because now it was coming back. Low and hard and fast, and heading straight towards me.

A dragon.