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I returned to the Slayermobile and drove to Maltcassion’s lair, the clearing in the forest. I parked up and stepped out. The large marker stone was humming louder than usual. The Dragon was sitting up on his hind legs. He was far taller than I had supposed – at least the height of one of King Snodd’s landships. He sniffed the air and listened carefully with his finely tuned ears.

‘I am sorry for your small friend,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘He had a good soul, despite his appalling table manners.’

I thanked him, and he told me he knew I would come, despite my own misgivings.

‘The Mighty Shandar just spoke to me,’ I said. ‘He demanded that you were to be spared. How do you account for that?’

Maltcassion growled angrily.

‘Don’t you dare speak of that scoundrel in my presence!’

I was shocked.

‘Scoundrel? You mean Shandar?’

Maltcassion roared and a sheet of flame burst from his throat and shot across the clearing in front of me, where it ignited a mature Douglas fir. The tree went up like a Roman candle. I took a few hasty steps back from the heat.

‘I told you not to mention his name!’

‘I don’t understand,’ I yelled above the crackling of the burning tree. He beckoned me to move away and I joined him.

‘Why do you think you are the first Dragonslayer to ever come up to the Dragonlands?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then let me ask you something else. Why do you suppose you are here at all?’

I thought the question a bit obvious but answered nonetheless.

‘To slay any Dragons guilty of violating the Dragonpact?’

‘But in four centuries none of us has ever violated the pact. Have you any idea why?’

‘Because you respect the Dragonpact?’

‘No. I’ll tell you. Shandar suggested the use of a force-field surrounding the marker stones to keep humans out. Such an act of magic is vast; he requested that we help him and we readily agreed, binding the magic of the marker stones so tightly it could never be undone except by the death of the Dragon it was there to protect.’

‘And?’

‘He tricked us. The weave of the magic was tighter than we imagined. The marker stones don’t just keep humans out, but us in. These Dragonlands are not a safe haven but a prison!’

I digested this new information.

‘Then the Dragonpact wasn’t a pact at all!’

‘Exactly. Shandar earned his twenty dray-weights of gold, believe me. The first Dragon who tried to get out of his lands was vaporised instantly. We sent around a message warning of the danger, and here we have sat, dwindling in numbers, communicating rarely and watching our magic slowly siphoned out of us by the energy of the very force-field that was meant to protect us!’

‘So why have Dragonslayers at all?’

‘Window dressing,’ replied the Dragon. ‘The Dragonslayers, far from being a most noble profession, are really nothing more than a contractual obligation. In Shandar’s plan you would never have come up here at all.’

‘Then . . . I don’t have to kill you.’

The Dragon raised a claw in the air and wagged it at me.

‘Well, that’s the wrong answer, I’m afraid,’ he said reproachfully. ‘We’ve planned this for a long time. You were chosen by us to do this deed; at midday you have to kill me!’

I could feel large salty tears well up in my eyes. It all seemed so unfair.

‘But I’ve never killed anything in my life!’

‘Big Magic is by definition highly specific. Someone like you must do it.’

‘What’s special about me? Why can’t Sir Matt Grifflon do it?’

‘You are more special than you realise, Jennifer.’

‘Tell me why it has to be me!’

‘I am only the last in a long line of greater minds. Not even I have all the answers. All I know is that you have to discharge your duty using your own free will and judgement. It is your destiny, Jennifer. You will do it.’

I picked up Exhorbitus as a clock started to strike twelve somewhere in the distance, and Maltcassion lifted his chin to reveal the soft flesh beneath his throat. I started to cry, large drops that ran down my face and on to the soft earth. Sometimes your duty takes you to dark places that you’d rather not be, but duty, as they say, is duty.

I held the sword aloft as a light wind whipped the leaves and twigs into motion. I placed the tip against his skin and paused.

‘Goodbye, Jennifer, Gwanjii. I forgive you,’ he said.

I closed my eyes and thrust the sword upwards as hard as I could. The effect was immediate, and dramatic. Maltcassion shuddered and slumped to the ground with a mighty crash. A large cloud of dust was thrown up by his falling bulk and knocked me backwards into the dirt. I was momentarily winded and struggled to my feet, expecting some sort of magic to start happening. I stole a glance at Maltcassion then hurriedly looked away. The jewel in his forehead had stopped glowing and an unnerving silence invaded the forest.

Abruptly, the marker stone stopped humming. What if I had been wrong? Big Magic, Wizard Moobin had told me, has rarely more than a 20 per cent success rate. Maltcassion and the Dragons had staked their survival on that; pretty long odds but the best they could get. I had done my best for them but there was no magic. No high winds, no noises, no mysterious flashes of light, no ‘bzzz’ sounds – nothing. If this was Big Magic, it was a grave disappointment. I suddenly felt very small and solitary. One person alone in 320 square miles of disputed territory, sandwiched right between two huge armies with artillery and landships, and with only forty tons of dead Dragon for company. I apologised to the large beast but he could not hear me. It was over. The ancient order of the Dragons was dead.