Dragonfire Read online

  Dougal MacLeod eyed him dryly, quite aware of the bombshell he had just dropped. “Twenty thousand gallons of whisky are missing from your vats and you will agree, Sir James,” he went on in his soft, Highland voice, “that twenty thousand gallons is a tidy amount of whisky! Enough for a small loch, you might say!”

  Sir James eyed his adversary with extreme dislike, but twenty thousand gallons was a lot of whisky and how exactly it had disappeared was beyond him.

  “Twenty thousand gallons!” he exclaimed incredulously. “Twenty thousand gallons! I don’t believe it! You must have made a mistake! It’s impossible!”

  “It’s not impossible, Sir James. It has happened. How it has happened,” he said sourly, “I couldn’t say but the fact remains that somehow, somebody is tapping whisky from your vats.” Dougal paused, his eyes glittering. For many years he had been trying to prove that there was had been a steady pilfering going on. Where or how, he had never quite been able to find out, but he had always had his suspicions. His long nose twitched. And now he had been proved right with a vengeance! “Maybe someone with a wee private pipeline of his own?” he suggested.

  Sir James eyed him warily, conscious that he had broken out in a cold sweat. If only the man knew how right he was! But twenty thousand gallons was ridiculous! “We’ll have to look into it, of course,” he said. “Give me a few days to find out what’s been going on and I’ll ring you before the end of the week.”

  “Don’t be leaving it too long, Sir James,” the other remarked. “I have a report to make out, as you know.”

  Sir James rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hang fire for a while, Dougal, won’t you. After all, it might just be that somebody got their sums wrong!”

  “Not to the tune of twenty thousand gallons though, I’m thinking,” was the Excise man’s parting shot as he took up his cap and left the office, shutting the door gently behind him.

  5. Past Times

  Sir James let out a long breath and stared blankly at the dark, oak panelling that lined his office. He just couldn’t get that dreadful amount out of his head. Twenty thousand gallons! It had never happened before. Something must be wrong, very wrong indeed. And how on earth was he going to explain it away this time? Pressing the intercom button, he spoke to his secretary. “Janice, what’s happened to Jamie? I want to see him at once!”

  When Jamie Todd, the Distillery Foreman, entered Sir James’s office, he found his employer gazing out of the window at the red cliffs dominating the park.

  “What the devil is going on, Jamie?” he asked, swinging round. “That Excise man has been ranting on about twenty thousand gallons of whisky having gone missing! Tell me it’s not true!”

  Jamie Todd ran a hand through his hair. “I’m afraid it is that, Sir James. I was going to phone you at the castle when I realized, but MacLeod arrived early. By my reckoning, two vats must have been emptied over the holiday and Number Three is only a quarter full.”

  “But they can’t have taken that amount, surely?” muttered Sir James. “It’s never happened before! They know we have to account for every drop! Dougal’s been treating me like one of the Great Train Robbers for years and this time he’s got me cold. How the devil are we going to explain away twenty thousand gallons of whisky?”

  “We could always say the faeries took it!”

  Sir James eyed him sourly. “If the faeries took it then there must be some very sore heads out there,” he snapped. “But can we be sure that they have taken it?”

  “Who else has access to the vats?”

  “That’s true,” Sir James scratched his head. “I think, Jamie, that I’ll have to get in touch with them somehow. Dougal MacLeod’s deadly serious this time.”

  “Do you know where to go?”

  “I thought, perhaps, there might be an entrance near the well — you know, St Anthony’s Well. Have you ever tried to find out?”

  “No, Sir, although I’ve always had the impression that there’s something … dreadful under Arthur’s Seat.”

  Sir James frowned. “Your father gave you no hint as to what it might be?” he asked. “After all, he was the one that helped them with the pipeline.”

  Jamie Todd thought for a few seconds. “The old Park Ranger helped as well,” he said eventually. “My father always said that he knew more about the MacArthurs than he cared to let on.”

  “But he died a while ago, didn’t he?”

  “Aye, but his son took over the job after him. Nice chap. I know him quite well. If anything’s going on in the hill then I reckon MacLean will know about it.”

  “Do you think it’d be worth paying him a visit?” frowned Sir James.

  “I’ll give him a ring and ask him to drop by. I’m sure he won’t mind and, with any luck, he might even know the way into the hill.”

  The Ranger, as it happened, was at home when Jamie called and, anxious to hear anything he could about the MacArthurs, arrived at the distillery ten minutes later.

  Sir James took an immediate liking to the tall, weather-beaten man that Jamie ushered into his office.

  “Ranger MacLean,” he smiled, rising to his feet and shaking his hand firmly. “Nice to meet you.” Suddenly Sir James was uncertain how to continue.

  “It’s all right, Sir James. I told John on the way up that we were losing a lot of whisky and that you wanted to ask him about the MacArthurs,” Jamie said helpfully.

  “You do know about the MacArthurs, then?” Sir James asked.

  “Aye, my father told me about them and ten years ago they rescued me from a snowdrift. I owe them my life.”

  “What exactly do they look like?” asked Sir James curiously. “I’ve never seen any of them myself, you see, and well … I’ve often wondered.”

  “You mean, do they have pointed ears and the like?” grinned the Ranger.

  “Well …”

  Ranger MacLean shook his head. “Actually, they look pretty much like us, but smaller. Otherwise you’d never know the difference. What I’ve always wondered is how your father got involved with them in the first place.”

  Jamie Todd leant forward and put his cup and saucer on the table. “It all started when my father noticed that small quantities of whisky were going missing from one of the vats.”

  “So he told my father,” continued Sir James, “and between them they set a trap to catch the thief. It was quite an ingenious arrangement and it worked with unexpected results because it wasn’t a man they caught but one of the MacArthurs; a young chap wearing a sheepskin jacket. Well, by the time they had fished him out of the vat, you could smell the whisky off him at a hundred yards. My father said that if he hadn’t been in the state he was in, he would never have taken them into the hill. But he did, and when they came out they were both changed men, weren’t they, Jamie?” He looked to his foreman who nodded solemnly in agreement.

  “Neither my father nor Jamie’s ever told us what happened in there but from that day on they were firm friends with the little folk and helped them rig up a secret pipeline from the distillery into the hill. That’s where your father came into the picture, I should imagine. Being Park Ranger they would have had to take him into their confidence. Of course, it has always involved us in a wee bit of double-dealing as far as Customs and Excise are concerned but they’ve never been able to prove anything … although,” and here he grinned wryly, “they’ve always had their suspicions. As I say, it hasn’t been much over the years but today they found a big discrepancy, a big discrepancy indeed, and I don’t mind admitting that I find it very worrying. In fact, if I don’t manage to get in touch with them to find out what is happening I might well end up in prison.”

  The Ranger looked thoughtful. “There’s something very strange going on inside Arthur’s Seat at the moment, but to be quite honest with you, I have no idea what it is,” he admitted frankly. “The children say that they haven’t seen any of the MacArthurs for some time. All the ducks and geese have left the lochs and strange noises have been coming
out of the well. I heard them myself last night.”

  “You heard noises from the well?”

  “I did. The children went there on their own to see if the MacArthurs were only coming out onto the hill when it was dark. They were at the well when a huge bird appeared out of the mist and attacked them. I’ve been out on the hill all day trying to spot it in case it attacks anyone else.

  “You don’t by any chance know the way into the hill, do you?” asked Sir James.

  “I don’t, but Neil and Clara might.”

  “It’s most important that I meet with them,” stressed Sir James. “In all honesty, I face ruin if I don’t.”

  “You said a lot of whisky had gone missing …?” queried the Ranger.

  “Twenty thousand gallons have gone missing!” said Sir James savagely.

  The Ranger stared at him in disbelief. “Twenty thousand gallons!” he whispered in awe. “That’s an awful lot of whisky!”

  “Now do you understand why I have to talk to them?”

  “I do that!” answered the Ranger.

  “Can we ask your children where the entrance is then?”

  The Ranger looked at his watch and got to his feet. “They’ll be home from school by this time,” he said. “Let’s go!”

  6. Secret Passages

  Dawn was just breaking next morning when Neil and Clara, followed by Sir James, Jamie Todd and the Ranger, walked along a narrow path on the slopes of Arthur’s Seat. Neil stopped from time to time as if to take his bearings and then, more confidently, moved off the path towards a rocky outcrop.

  “I think it’s over here, Dad. They always seemed to move towards this part of the cliff when we were leaving.”

  “Did you never think to look for the way in and try to explore on your own?” queried his father.

  Neil pondered the question. “I think we always knew that if they had wanted us in the hill, they would have invited us,” he answered.

  The Ranger nodded in relief but, as they moved closer to the rocky outcrop, a growing sense of unease made him watchful. Although he saw nothing, his fears were not unfounded, for high above them, Amgarad watched with baleful eyes. From his rocky vantage point, he had viewed the little group with more than a passing interest for he was fairly sure that the two children were those he had attacked at the well. And when they rounded a jutting cliff and did not reappear on the other side, he sat up and took notice. Slowly he flexed his great wings, launched himself into space and swooped downwards.

  It didn’t take him long to discover where they had gone. Walking awkwardly, for he was only comfortable in the air, he strutted and flapped his way among the boulders until he saw a dark opening in the cliff face.

  Triumph, mingled with a certain amount of relief, flooded through Amgarad, as his own search for the entrance had been fruitless and he had spent a tortured, sleepless night envisaging the terrible prospect of failure. Barely able to contain his excitement, he hopped nearer to the slit-like opening that gaped blackly between two broken slabs of stone and peered into the darkness beyond.

  It was then that his resolve weakened, for Amgarad was a creature of the air and to venture through black, confining tunnels where his wings would not serve him, was anathema to him. As it was, he took one last look at the rising sun and bravely hopped forward. The men and children were, he knew, not far in front of him and only a few moments passed before he caught a glimpse of torchlight ahead. Thankfully, he took a deep breath and followed the light.

  Inside the hill, the Ranger had taken over as leader. He had come armed with ropes and other items of climbing gear but so far they had proved unnecessary as the going was relatively easy. The passage was wide and sloped smoothly and steadily downwards, but its spaciousness soon gave way to smaller, narrower passages.

  The Ranger stopped suddenly.

  “What is it?” whispered Sir James.

  “A flight of stairs,” said the Ranger. Sir James moved up and saw a flight of steps in front of him that curved like a spiral stairway down through the rock. It seemed to go on forever and they were all more than slightly dizzy by the time they reached the last step. The staircase gave onto a large, high-roofed chamber in whose walls gaped the black openings of other tunnels.

  Sir James glanced around the room. “Well,” he asked, “where do we go from here?”

  Wordlessly, the Ranger shone his torch downwards, revealing a pathway of little footprints that led to the right-hand tunnel.

  “Let’s go, then,” instructed Sir James.

  The new tunnel led them deeper into the heart of the mountain. Gradually its roof became lower and the men passed with no little difficulty beneath a few jutting outcrops of rock. Soon, however, it came to an end and opened to reveal a deep split in the hill whose sheer walls formed a gorge of such impenetrable blackness that the narrow shafts of torchlight made little impression on its depths. This fearful chasm was spanned by a narrow bridge that looped in a fantastic curve over the void. They had little choice but to cross it.

  The Ranger took the coil of rope from his shoulder and, anchoring one end firmly to a jutting rock, he fastened it round each of them. Strung safely together, they crossed the fragile structure on their hands and knees. By the time they had all reached the other side they were totally exhausted and, by common consent, paused to take stock of their surroundings.

  “I think we should have something to eat and drink before we go any further,” the Ranger announced, heaving a heavy rucksack from his back.

  Clara had the same feeling of dread that she had felt on the hill and looked round fearfully. For someone who was afraid of the dark, it was a very dark place. She could feel the darkness like a blanket ready to smother her in its soft folds. Hastily she turned her eyes to the comforting light of the torches and gratefully bit into a cheese sandwich.

  “You okay, Clara?” Neil asked.

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  From the far side of the bridge, Amgarad watched hungrily as they ate, but it was only when they set off again and the dancing torchlight disappeared down the tunnel, that he glided over the chasm on silent wings to follow them further. At the entrance to this new tunnel, however, Amgarad paused. His sense of smell was more acute than that of humans and this tunnel spelt danger.

  The Ranger pressed ahead, his torch revealing a worn trail of footprints that took them deeper and deeper into the hill. It was not long, however, before he started to become alarmed.

  “I don’t like this at all,” he said, flashing his torch on the wall. “Look at the walls! They’ve been scorched by fire — and the deeper we go, the blacker they get!”

  “I’ve heard that Arthur’s Seat is an extinct volcano …” Sir James broke off suddenly and grasped the Ranger’s arm. “Look!” he whispered, “Look! One of the MacArthurs!”

  The Ranger shone his torch on a smallish, slight, fair-haired young man whose eyes blinked in the glare of its powerful beam. He rushed towards them.

  “Go back! Go back!” he cried. “Thank goodness I found you! It’s dangerous here! Quickly! Back to the bridge!”

  Such was the urgency in his voice that they all turned immediately and started back the way they had come. Behind them came a rumbling roar that made their blood curdle, followed by a dreadful wave of heat and smoke that left them gasping and panting.

  “Faster! Faster!” screamed the MacArthur.

  At last the bridge was reached. Choking and gasping for breath they made to cross but the little creature, its sheepskin jacket black and tattered, pulled them to one side … just in time. As they pressed back against the rocky wall, a burst of flame shot through the tunnel opening; a sparkling, glittering stream of fire that held all the colours of the rainbow, threaded with stars of gold and silver. It was more marvellous than any firework display they had ever seen.

  Amgarad paled. The secret of the hill was revealed to him and, as the flames subsided and the roaring died away, he melted silently into the darkness. He had heard a
nd seen enough.

  The Ranger switched on his torch with an unsteady hand while Sir James drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. Clara and Neil, however, were staring at the MacArthur. “Hamish!” they said together, “Hamish! What on earth is going on?”

  Sir James looked back at the drift of smoke that still wreathed from the mouth of the tunnel. “What,” he demanded chokingly, “was that?”

  “That,” answered Hamish, “was our dragon!”

  “You have a dragon?” gasped Neil in complete disbelief. “You … you never told us!”

  “A dragon?” Sir James almost dropped his torch. “Did … did you say a dragon?”

  “I did that! But you must all come with me. It isn’t safe here and besides, the MacArthur himself will want to see you. Come! Follow me!”

  7. The MacArthurs

  Without giving them time to protest, Hamish set off at a brisk trot and led them through a further maze of tunnels until they saw lights ahead and emerged into a cave of cathedral-like dimensions. Lit by blazing torches the cavern was an Aladdin’s Cave stacked with piles of old furniture, strange, iron-framed mirrors, lamps and what looked like hundreds of Persian carpets. These not only layered the floor of the cave but were also stacked in rolls against the walls, their colours giving a glowing richness to the overall bleakness of the cavern.

  Most amazing, however, were the occupants of this vast hall, for it was full of milling groups of little people. Some were wrapped in blankets, others wore sheepskin jackets over long tunics and leggings, and many were gathered round a thin, wizened little old man seated on an enormous carved, wooden chair, banked up with cushions. Heavily booted and dressed in a dull red tunic covered by a long fleece coat, he stared imperiously over the crowd, and noticed the new arrivals immediately.

  There was a sudden silence as everyone turned to stare and the crowds parted as they were taken straight to the chieftain.