The leader of the RatStranglers, an earnest-looking young man sporting a badge showing a fearsome rat with huge yellow fangs dripping with blood, stepped forward. “We are doing our civic duty, Your Princessness. Rats are filthy vermin, they spread disease—”
At this Jenna laughed. “That's ridiculous. They're as clean as you or I. And it's humans that spread disease, not rats.”
“We beg to differ, Princess,” said the young man. “The Sickenesse that has come to the Castle has been brought by the rats. They must be destroyed.”
“That's crazy,” said Jenna, shaking her head in disbelief. “You're just chasing rats because you like killing defenseless animals. It's horrible.”
“You should be grateful to us,” a thin, reedy voice piped up from the back of the crowd.
“Why?” asked Jenna, catching the threat in the voice.
“Because some people say that you have brought the Sickenesse, Princess.”
“Me?” Jenna was incredulous.
“They say it came on your Dragon Boat. They say it's a pity that that mutant ship wasn't left on the bottom of the Moat where it belongs.” This was accompanied by a general muttering of agreement from the back of the throng, but no one near Jenna dared say anything.
Jenna was shocked into silence and the RatStranglers took her silence for permission to invade Spit Fyre's kennel. They swarmed up the ramp, and in no time at all they were raking through the straw, searching for the rats. Jenna and Wolf Boy were overwhelmed by sheer numbers and there was nothing they could do—but Spit Fyre decided otherwise. As the RatStranglers crowded past him, he swung his tail angrily and sent the owner of the reedy voice flying into a pile of dragon droppings at the back of the kennel. Then with a loud creaking as the tough dragon skin stretched out from its creases—accompanied by the smell of stale dragon sweat—Spit Fyre unfurled his wings and raised them high into the air, casting a shadow across the dragon kennel. The RatStranglers stopped their hunt and watched in amazement as Spit Fyre bowed his head toward Jenna, as if inviting her to sit where Septimus always sat—just behind his neck between his shoulders.
Afraid that Spit Fyre might change his mind any minute, Jenna scrambled up into Septimus's place and hauled Wolf Boy up behind her, into the Navigator's position where she usually sat. Then, remembering the instructions that Alther had given Septimus on Spit Fyre's FirstFlyte, she gave the dragon two kicks on the right side.
They worked; Spit Fyre beat his wings slowly, once, twice, and on the third stroke.
Jenna felt the dragon's muscles tense as he rose just a few inches off the ground, keeping himself steady and controlled in the close confines of the Wizard Tower courtyard. Then, as Spit Fyre hovered for a brief moment and prepared to accelerate, a yell came from one of the RatStranglers: “There they are! Catch 'em!”
As Spit Fyre left the ground, he was carrying more passengers than he had bargained for. Hanging from the barb on the tip of his tail were two terrified rats.
19
The RatStranglers
The two rats' teeth chattered with fear as Spit Fyre rose from the Wizard Tower courtyard to a chorus of jeers and boos from the RatStranglers below.
Jenna was concentrating too hard on remembering all she knew about dragon flight to pay much attention, but one shrill voice rose above the clamor.
"She's in league with them. Didn't I tell you? It's her and that boat she brought here. Come on, boys." Although the voice belonged to a tall, spiky-looking woman, the Rat-Stranglers were mostly men and boys."Come on, let's go sink it once and for all." There was an answering howl from the rest of the RatStranglers.
Spit Fyre flew higher, and Jenna and Wolf Boy saw the mob surge through the Great Arch and head off along the narrow lane that led to the boatyard. Underneath the dragon, the rats swayed perilously.
“Dawnie,” gasped the larger rat that was hanging on to Spit Fyre's tail, while the shorter, more rotund rat clutched on to his ankles. “Dawnie, your claws are killing me. Do you have to hold on quite so tight?”
"Do you think I am doing this for the fun of it, Stanley? What do you suggest I do?
Let go and get killed by those fiends down there? Is that what you want?"
"Ouch. No. Don't be silly, dear. I just wondered if you could loosen your grip a little.
I can't feel my feet."
Spit Fyre swooped down low over the mob members, one of whom let fly a well-aimed trash can lid. It skimmed toward the rats, spinning in the air like a flying circular saw. Stanley shut his eyes. This was it, he thought. What a way to go, seen off by a flying trash can lid.
But Spit Fyre had seen the missile hurtling toward them, and the last few weeks of avoidance training with Septimus, which he had hated, as it had involved Beetle throwing all manner of things at him, paid off. Like a true professional, Spit Fyre dodged the lid and for good measure gave it a hefty swipe with his tail.
“Aargh, Stanley! We're going to dieeeeeee...” Dawnie screamed. Wolf Boy, who was feeling quite sick, felt some sympathy for Dawnie.
Jenna took Spit Fyre at full speed to the boatyard. They flew over the RatStranglers and Jenna reckoned they had about five minutes before the mob arrived at the boatyard. Five minutes in which Jenna had to land Spit Fyre, get over to the Dragon House and somehow make it secure.
Jannit Maarten was not at all pleased when she saw Spit Fyre heading toward her boatyard. The last time the dragon had turned up had been a complete disaster, brought about by the Heaps, as usual. And now here it was again, no doubt with one of the Heap clan on board. As Spit Fyre flew low into the boatyard Jannit tried to direct the dragon to an empty space recently occupied by the Port barge that Jannit and Rupert Gringe had just launched. Spit Fyre ignored Jannit. He didn't like people waving their arms at him and shouting, “Over here, over here! Oh, gunwales and gimlets, what is the idiot creature doing?”
Spit Fyre flew right over Jannit's head, missing her by a hairbreadth, and landed on the pilothouse of an old trawler, which was in a rather delicate state. The pilothouse could just about withstand the odd seagull landing on it, but it had no chance against a dragon whose total weight in seagulls was exactly 764. With a loud crack, the pilothouse collapsed, and Spit Fyre and his passengers found themselves in a pool of stagnant water in the trawler's hull.
“Up, Spit Fyre, up!” yelled Jenna, giving Spit Fyre a hefty kick on the right. With some difficulty, accompanied by a lot of squeaking from the end of his tail, Spit Fyre flapped and clawed his way out of the hull in a rather undignified fashion and landed beside the trawler.