I sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and listened as another shell was lobbed into the lands. Only a few more minutes and the battle would begin. King Snodd’s massive landships would lumber across the hills, churning up the ground with their heavy tracks, laying waste to all before them as they pushed their way towards the Duchy of Brecon and beyond in their campaign to conquer Wales. I ducked instinctively as a shell landed in the forest about a hundred yards away and felled an old Douglas fir, which crashed into the undergrowth with a tearing of foliage. But their aim was wild and erratic. The Hereford gunners were firing blind into the Dragonlands.

I noticed that my pulse had started to race, and I felt hot and angry. I pulled at the collar of my shirt as a bad feeling started to rise within me like a fever. I clenched my fists as a red veil of rage descended upon me. I tried to swallow the anger down but it was too strong. I simmered for a few seconds, then I boiled. All rational thought vanished. I was out of control. The image of the Quarkbeast and the leering face of Gordon assaulted my mind. I thought of the crowds around the Dragonlands, waiting for the moment of the Dragon’s death with greedy expectation. Suddenly, I wanted to run to the marker stones and attack and kill and maim as many of the greedy, bloodsucking, Dragon-hating people as I could. I leapt for Exhorbitus and grasped the hilt. My hand latched on to it with a tightness that made me cry out in pain. I felt strong enough to take on a landship, tear at its iron hull with my bare hands and face the guns with an iron resolve. I let fly at a boulder with the sword, hoping to release the rage that rose within me; the boulder fell neatly in two but I felt more angry, not less. A noise like a hurricane had started in my head and every muscle in my body tightened like a spring.