Chapter 52
With the wind at their backs, the Dragon Riders had hoped to make the Scottish city of Inverness before taking a break, but Blue kept a close eye on all the dragons, especially their Gronckle after the previous flight from the Faroe Islands. From what he had read in the various dragon literatures he had obtained from DeGroot, Gronckles although slower than some dragons, did have incredible stamina. But the determined little guy bringing up the rear of this group did not have much experience with long flights yet, and was clearly in need of a rest.
"Let take a break down there" Blue pointed to a village where three roads came together on the northeast side of the Scottish mainland.
"Let's not land in the middle of town" Haley suggested "We don't want to cause any medical incidents."
"Avoid causing heart attacks; good idea" Blue agreed and he led the way down to a field east of the town.
As soon as they were on the ground, the five lazy little Terrors who had been enjoying a ride on Lucy and Ricky's back, glided down to the grass and started to sniff around to familiarise themselves with the area.
"Don't go too far Rollo" Abigail called out.
Blue walked over where to the remains of a rock wall separated the field and the road, and found a sign lying on the ground. He bent down and turned it over to read the faded letters.
"Latherton" he called out to the others and wandered back.
"Still think we'll make Inverness before noon?" Abigail asked.
"Well that depends on what we find here" Blue noted.
"Are we looking for anything in particular?" Calla asked.
"A pony club" Blue winked.
Calla looked a little confused until the penny dropped.
"You're looking for more saddles" she smiled.
"Saddles, stirrups, reins, horse blankets, anything that may help us" Blue replied "If you and Abby can look after the dragons for a while, I'll take Haley into town and we'll see if there's a post office."
'"Doesn't look like there is much of anything" Calla remarked as she looked down the road at the remains of the small town.
"Still worth a look though" Blue insisted.
"Are you taking Speedy with you?" Calla asked.
Blue looked down and smiled at the Night Fury, rolling on his back and begging for a tummy rub.
"Nah, the big dragons need rest" Blue answered as he gave in to his dragon's display of cuteness.
"Okay but if you're not taking any dragons with you, at least take this" Calla said, holding out her axe.
"I um... think I'll take a couple of small dragons instead" Blue decided "Firefly, Ginger Nut, come on guys!"
The two Terrors started off flying up to Blue and Haley shoulders, but soon took point when they started walking up the road; the little dragons found the idea of exploring a new place far too exciting to resist.
"Why a post office?" Haley asked as they went.
"Post offices usually have the two things I need right now; a phone book and a street directory; the first to find a riding club..."
"And the second to find where it is" Haley realised.
It was only a short walk into the tiny hamlet, and it appeared to be deserted. Most of the buildings had received a considerable amount of damage in the past, probably for one or more rapidly moving walls of water. If it were not for the fact that every building was made from solid stone, there may not have been anything left at all.
"It certainly looks like we don't have to worry about giving anyone a heart attack" Haley said when she realised the place was truly deserted.
"And we don't have to worry about searching the town either" Blue pointed up to the building on the northwest side of the three way intersection.
"Well what do ya know; a post office" Haley grinned.
The stone building was missing most of its south wall and half its roof, so as the explorers made their way inside they began to doubt if their mission would be successful.
"Well here's a phone book... not that it'll do you any good" Haley noted.
The book in question sat soaking in a pool of muddy water, and looked like it may have been there for a long time. The rest of the building appeared to be just as damp, even under the sections that still had the remains of a roof.
"We could always try some of the houses" Haley suggested "If they ever had phones, they would have had phone books."
"Yeah... if we don't have any luck here, but I wanna try and find the storeroom, or storage cupboard. Supplies were usually delivered to places like this covered in shrink wrap plastic" Blue noted.
"Ah, so we still may find some dry phone books" Haley commenced the search.
Just as would be expected, they managed to find the sought after storeroom at the rear of the building. There was standing water in there as well, but there was also some intact shelving on the right corner.
"Oh... here are the phone books but they're loose on the shelves, and pretty much ruined" Blue stated disappointedly.
"Don't panic yet" Haley replied "You were right about the plastic wrapped supplies."
In a fallen metal cabinet, the young lady found three of the parcels they had hoped to find. Pulling out her pocket knife, Haley unfolded it and stared to open the packages.
"Stamps" she said as Blue continued to search his side of the room.
Haley didn't bother with the second pack because it was obviously just small flat pack boxes used for posting parcels. The third one did not have phone books either, but it did contain something useful."
"JACKPOT!"
"What have you got?" Blue asked, not wanting to set his hopes too high.
"Tourist guides" Haley grinned while happily waving a few of the papers.
"Wha?" Blue wondered and then realised "Ah... tourist guides."
After handing one to Blue they both started to unfold the brochures and pour over them. Each one had lists of attractions and advertisements on one side, and a map of Northern Scotland on the other.
"Oh... here's a list of local distilleries" Haley noted with excitement.
"Forget it" Blue responded "After a major disaster, the first three things to be stolen by looters are food, fuel and alcohol. After all these years I'm sure there'd be nothing left."
"Hmm... I guess you're right" Haley sighed "I suppose it's no surprise that nobody ever bothered to loot the tourist brochures."
"I don't know why, they're a wealth of information" Blue replied "and here is exactly what we post apocalyptic tourists are looking for."
After pointing to a section of the map legend that read Equestrian Services, Blue grabbed a few more of the brochures and started to leave. Outside they found the Terrors playing tug-of-war with an old piece of rope they had found.
"Calla will be pleased to hear how well you protected us in this dangerous place" Blue smiled as he shook his head.
At the sound of his voice, the dragons dropped the rope and flew back to their two legged friends for a free shoulder ride back down the road. A few minutes later, Calla waved as she saw them approaching but Speedy gave a much more boisterous greeting. He bounded towards the road, knocking a new gap in the already half destroyed short stone wall, and ran at Blue like an over excited puppy; much like he always did.
"Whoa" Blue gasped as the Night Fury ran around behind the young man and scooped him up.
"Looks like he enjoys having a rider" Haley laughed.
"It certainly looks like he's had enough rest anyway" Blue smiled "And we haven't even been gone half an hour."
He showed Calla and Abigail what they had found as soon as they were back in the field.
"There are a few places north of here but I don't want to recover old ground, so I'd like to head south to where this river meets the sea at the town of Brora. See hear how the river loops down about a kilometre inland, there's a horse riding centre just south of there; should be easy to find and a good place to start."
"Right then, let's be off" Abigail clapped her hands together and returned to her two headed dragon.
They soon lifted off together and resumed their journey, excitedly anxious about what they may find. It only took then another fifteen minutes to cover the distance, but they were not pleased by what they found there. They did manage to find the river, but there was no loop and no old riding centre; even the town of Brora was gone. In its place was a large circular bay roughly two kilometres in diameter.
"Oh my..." Abigail gasped.
"A meteorite crater" Blue added "Based on the regrowth around it, I'd say it happened about twenty years ago... more or less."
On their travels across the world, they had seen destruction of this kind before, but never in a place where there had once been a thriving population. Blue was aware other town and cities had been destroyed in similar ways in the last fifty years, but this was the first time he'd actually seen one up close. If it were not for the maps the Dragon Riders had studied, they would not have even known there was once a town full of people down there.
"Just think about it... they wouldn't have stood a chance" Calla realised "I mean I've experienced several meteorites over the years, but they all landed far away or exploded in the atmosphere."
"Yeah me too" Haley nodded "Makes you think about how quickly the end could come if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Looking down from their dragons, the group was silent for a moment until Abigail could take it no longer.
"Blue... let's get out of here and go to Inverness... I don't like it here" she said with fear in her voice.
"Considering we're not too far from Inverness now, I dare say there wouldn't be anything much left there either" Blue replied.
"Oh" Abigail sighed.
The Dragon Riders turned to fly due south before following the coast down to the Moray Firth. As Blue had expected, the great and historic city of Inverness was every bit as much of a washed out ruin as the towns and villages they had passed on the way. Turning to the southeast for another hour, they flew on passed the mountain of Ben Macdui before coming in to land in a large pine forest clearing very close to the River Dee.
"Unload the dragons and we'll take a break here" Blue said, still with sadness in his voice.
With their burdens removed, the dragons were encouraged to head down to the river to feed while their riders gathered some wood for a fire.
"Hey Blue, you okay?" Calla smiled warmly.
"I was thinking about all the destruction up north we saw" he admitted "I mean... yeah we grew up knowing all about it, and we both saw a lot of it travelling up through North America, but seeing it from the air... seeing it stretched out... mile after mile... whole towns, whole cities..."
"Makes you wonder how we managed to live this long" Calla agreed.
"Makes me realise how lucky I am to have you" Blue smiled "While I was reasonably safe inside the Railgun Complex, you and your family were experiencing everything first hand."
"It would take more than a meteorite bombardment to kill me" Calla stated with confidence.
"I just wish I could work out what to do with the dragons" Blue sighed "I've always known there would be some animals we could take to an Off-Earth settlement, and some we couldn't; but naturally I'd never really thought about dragons before, and I'd like to try and save more than just a few small Terrors."
"But how?" Calla shrugged.
"I don't know" Blue shook hs head.
As they talked about facing the future destruction of the planet, Firefly retuned with a fish in his mouth. Noticing the un-lit camp fire next to Blue and Calla, he placed his lunch on top of it and looked at Blue expectantly.
"Well if you want it cooked, light it up" Blue gestured to the wood pile.
He and Calla had expected the little dragon to send in a fireball but much to their surprise, Firefly pursed his lips and blew a soft jet of flame into the centre of the wood.
"My goodness; you are full of surprises" Blue nodded.
"It's interesting how they like to have their food cooked now that they have tasted it" Calla noted "I mean they could have done it themselves anytime they wanted."
"You have to remember though, the various flammable liquids, gasses and gels that give a dragon it firepower, would also alter the taste of what they wanted to heat. It's like cooking on a wood fire would give your food a completely different flavour, than if you cooked it over a kerosene flame."
"Yeah I suppose" Calla smiled "Presenting Blue Dias; Master Chef to all dragons."
"I don't think I could cook for all of them" Blue shrugged.
As the fish began to change colour, Blue grabbed a stick and turned it over. As he watched it cook, Boris and Speedy returned with several fish of their own, giving one each to their riders.
"I'll clean 'em, and you can cook 'em" Haley offered.
"Deal" Blue agreed as he tossed Firefly his hot steaming lunch.
Calla placed a few more pieces of wood on the fire while Blue whittle a few sticks to place the fish on, when suddenly they heard a scream coming from the forest behind them. Everybody turned to see a young boy running faster than he should have been capable of, while still trying to look back over his shoulder.
"HEY!" Blue called out to warn the boy before he ended up running into Boris.
The boy turned to see who had called, saw the Monstrous Nightmare in front of him, screeched to a halt and screamed again. It certainly did not help the situation when Boris assumed this was some kind of attack and started his usual defence by setting himself alight and roaring in the boys face.
"AAARRGH... DON'T KILL ME!" he begged as he fell backwards.
"Okay... if you insist" Haley said bluntly as she took Boris back to the camp fire and sat down.
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Nice warm weather has set in for a few days making my extended home stay quite pleasant. The birds around here have plenty to eat Vin so I think they were just telling Boo that cats aren't welcome as far as they are concerned. I'm just glad they leave her alone when she is in the yard. She's sleeping in her room now and looks very contented.
Just heard the news about Tim Brooke-Taylor dying today from covid-19. I was fortunate enough to meet him and Graham Garden several years ago when they toured Australia and my most prized possession is a Goodies T-shirt they both signed. As a joke they wrote Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Garden, but not Bill. They were both very kind to me and the small group of fans I was with, and I will never regret spending so much time watching the Goodies over and over again, every evening after school.
Thanks again Draco for the encouragement and sorry about causing the tears, Marty.