Victory of Eagles (32 page)

to reach the city, on foot, and then if they could find where Granby was, they would not try and get him

out, until it was dark, and nearly everyone asleep. So they are not
late,
at all; they are in good time,” and

did not mention that he had so lately been aloft looking for them, despite these facts.

Page 112

Hollin rubbed a hand over his mouth and said, “I have a dispatch—”

“How large is it?” Temeraire inquired, and Hollin took out a folded snippet of paper from his satchel,

handsomely sealed with red wax, and not quite so small that Temeraire could not see it; but as for

reading, no. “You will have to read it to me out loud,” Temeraire said.

“I am not sure I ought to,” Hollin said, apologetically. “It says it is for Captain Laurence, you see here.”

“I am sure Laurence would want us to know if it is anything important,” Temeraire said. “Anyway, if it is

orders for us, then I suppose that is just a mistake in addressing it by someone who does not quite

understand that I am colonel of the regiment, myself.”

Hollin hesitating looked around the clearing at the other men: none of them in rank higher than lieutenant,

and that dubious.

“Stop looking at them,” Perscitia said irritably. “It stands to reason that it is orders for us, and we cannot

carry them out without knowing what they are; so either you had better tell us, or go back and see what

this Wellesley fellow wants you to do: but if you ask me, he would only be annoyed you had wasted so

much time going back and forth.”

Hollin shrugged helplessly, but this argument carried the day: he broke the seal and read aloud, “‘You

are requested and required, to proceed without the loss of a moment to Coventry, and resume your

duties in guarding the withdrawal, instead of—’” He paused in his reading, and then clearing his throat

finished, “‘—instead of whatever damned fool start you have gotten into your heads now. If you have

forgotten the end of our last conversation, I haven’t, and if you want pay for your damned beasts, you

will keep them at their work.’”

“I do not see why everyone assumes that we are just dashing off madly, without thinking where we are

going,” Temeraire said, exasperated. “Of course we would be doing that, if Iskierka had not got herself

captured, but she has, so Laurence has had to go rescue her; and we cannot go right away, because they

are not back yet.”

“Some of us might go back and join them?” Perscitia suggested, rather hopefully.

“No, we are staying all together from now on,” Temeraire said, “and Arkady and Iskierka and all of the

other ferals will fly out in front where all of us can see them, as they cannot be trusted to behave

properly,” and he translated this for Arkady’s benefit.

“Bah,” Arkady said, with a dismissive sniff, “you would have done the same, if you were not trying to

play at being a human, and flapping along as slow as if we had to creep on the ground like them. They

have nothing to complain of, we did not leave them in any danger. We would have seen if this

Napoleon’s army were chasing them as we came towards London, and there has not been any sign of

them.”

“I would not have done any such thing,” Temeraire returned smartly, “because I would have had better

sense than to go wandering off for no good reason and no particular notion of what to do, just to please

myself—”

“We had very good reason,” Arkady said, “we went to bring food back for everyone, that the French

were stealing—”

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“You did no such thing!” Temeraire said outraged. “Wringe told us, you went to get prizes for

yourselves, and you did not mean to share with anyone at all.”

Arkady had just enough grace to look momentarily uncomfortable, but no more than that. “Well, it was

Iskierka’s idea,” he said, with a flip of his tail, and Temeraire snorted in disdain.

“But anyway,” Temeraire said, turning back to Hollin, “that much is true: we have not seen Napoleon’s

army on any of the roads at all to-day, and we would have, flying back this way, if they were in pursuit.

So he needn’t worry…” He trailed off; Wellesley might not need to worry, but Temeraire realized he

himself had every cause: Napoleon’s army must be somewhere, and if it were not on the road to London,

most likely it was all
in
London: where Laurence was, and Granby.

Of course he still could do nothing but fret: even if they had set off right away, there was no chance of

getting to London before it was quite dark, and he did not need Perscitia’s anxious whispered hints to

know that it was mad to go trying to fly into a French camp at night when they had Fleur-de-Nuits about.

“But in the morning—” he said, and then put down his head without finishing. There would still be guns,

and thousands of men, and who knew how many dragons: it would still be quite useless.

“Perhaps he will be back before morning,” Perscitia said in a tone so gloomy it left no doubt of her

skepticism on that point.

“Well,” Temeraire said to Hollin, “you had better go back and tell Wellesley that we will come as soon

as I have got Laurence back, and he should not worry about the men, unless of course Napoleon has

flown all his soldiers ahead to attack him,” he added, hopefully: perhaps that was what had happened.

“We should have seen them going by, if that is what they were doing,” Perscitia pointed out

depressingly.

After Hollin left, the hours dragged. Temeraire slept fitfully and uneasily, rousing at every rustle or

whisper to peer into the darkness, seeing nothing, and before dawn he was awake for good and

uncomfortable, an unpleasant sharp ache in the underside of his jaw and all along his neck to his

breastbone, where the knotted scar bothered him. He tried to crane his head down to rub his nose

against it, but could not quite manage it: his neck felt very strange when he tried, and crackled as he

stretched. He could not make his foreleg bend to it either, inward, and at last he sighed and laid himself

back down upon the cold ground, thinking wistfully of the warm stone at Loch Laggan, or the pavilions in

China.

There was a faint orange glow of coming sunrise in the distance, to the west; and then he raised his head

again realizing that was quite impossible. “Oh, oh!” he cried, “wake up, everyone—” and flung himself

aloft as Iskierka came blazing towards them, turning now and again to fire flames off into the face of her

pursuit: some seven or eight dragons, trying to get near enough to board her again: there were a handful

of men on her back struggling already—“Laurence!” Temeraire cried, straining his eyes to make him out

among the dim figures.

She shot by overhead and the French pursuit all of them backwinged as Temeraire rose into their path,

scrambling to avoid running into him. Temeraire opened wide his jaws and roared furious thunder on

them, a Pêcheur-Rayé point-blank in front taking the brunt of the attack. The French dragon wavered a

moment mid-air, and then a great gush of blood came pouring out of his nostrils, his eyes bloodshot and

strange. He sank from the sky tumbling over himself, and his wings broke beneath him like kites as he

smashed into the ground.

Page 114

Majestatis was coming up beside him and Ballista: the other French dragons, all middle-weights, turned

tail and fled. Temeraire hovered a moment longer, panting with frustrate energy and confusion.

Requiescat was rising, too, complaining, “What is all the noise for? It is too dark to fight.”

“We do not have to fight,” Temeraire said. “They have all run away.”

“Oh, cowards!” Iskierka said, circling back. “They did not mind fighting when
they
outnumbered
me.
”

She turned her head back anxiously, glaring hotly at the French boarders upon her back. “Granby, you

are well? Are you sure I should not just kill these men?”

“No: they have surrendered, and now they are our prisoners,” Granby said. “There is head-money for

prisoners,” he added, wearily.

“I would rather kill them than have money,” Iskierka said. “They hurt you.”

“
You
have hurt him,” Temeraire said, angrily, “and after I gave him to you, too,” and he reached out

urgently to take Laurence off her back. “Are you quite well?” he said anxiously.

“Yes,” Laurence said briefly, in the way that meant he was not well at all, but he did not like to say

anything where anyone else might hear. Temeraire sniffed at him surreptitiously: he did not think Laurence

was bleeding, but it was so dark he could not be sure he was not missing some injury. “We must away at

once,” Laurence added, “they will bring more pursuit, and we have neglected our duty too long: we will

have been missed.”

“We
have
been missed, and Wellesley sent a very rude note, too,” Temeraire said to him, turning his

head back to talk, when they had all gotten under way, “which was not very sensible, but we have

worked out that the army has all gone back to London: how did you get Granby away?”

“We had help,” Laurence said. He was looking at something very small in his hand, which glittered a

little, golden, in the early dawn light.

“Is that a prize?” Temeraire asked in interest, cocking his head to look at it.

“No,” Laurence said.

The flight to rejoin the British Army was long, but at least uneventful: Iskierka gave no more trouble. If

she was not much chastened, she was at least very solicitous of Granby, and willing to do nearly anything

only to please him, and Temeraire had rearranged the order of flight, in any case, so she was directly

under their eyes.

The ring was like a coal in the small breast pocket inside Laurence’s coat, which his hand kept returning

to touch: heavy beyond its weight, while Woolvey’s blood dried cold and stiff on his stolen shirt.

Laurence tried not to think of Edith, how she would learn the news, or what her fate would be, widowed

and alone with a small child in the occupied city.

“He was a brave fellow, sir,” Janus ventured: the old sailor had climbed over to Temeraire, who was

lighter-burdened than Iskierka, for the trip. “Bad luck we had, there.”

Laurence only nodded. He could not go back; his duty lay ahead.

Page 115

They caught up Wellesley’s corps that afternoon, and paced them the rest of the long way to camp

outside Coventry, with a bitter wind blowing south: a taste of the weather they would have in Scotland.

The men came marching dully along the road, falling out of step into quicker shuffling as they came at last

to the cold comfort waiting for them: ground frozen solid as stone, covered with drifting flurries of snow.

At least the waggons rolled easily, wheels clattering: the muddy road had frozen into uneven ridges.

“I don’t see why we must be staying up here,” Requiescat said, gliding into another slow circle. “There is

a nice clearing here below us: we could see just as well from there if anyone attacked, which they won’t,

as we would have seen them sometime the last hundred miles.”

“We mayn’t land until the infantry are settled,” Temeraire said, but then turned his head back and

murmured, “Laurence, why mayn’t we?”

“They have less comfort marching than do we aloft,” Laurence said tiredly, “and will sleep in worse: the

least we can do in solidarity is protect them until they have established the guard-posts, and lit their fires.

If you went to your leisure while they yet struggled, it would only arouse envy and discontent.”

Temeraire said, “Well, I can hover, but it is not very easy for the others to stay up: we had much better

go down there and help them. We could pull up trees for them, for firewood—”

Laurence opened his mouth to say it would throw the men into a panic; but looking down at those slow

and weary ranks, he did not think they had the energy to run, even if they had been half-dead with fear.

“The smaller dragons, perhaps, might begin.”

Temeraire turned and spoke to the ferals, and Gherni led down a handful of them, smallest, to go and

pull out the old dead trees from the forest, shaking needles and dirt and squirrels out of the logs as they

lifted them up, and carried them by twos and threes to the camp. The men mechanically breaking up the

ground for ditches did not at first even notice the activity at their backs, and then only flinched when the

first logs were put down: they stared up at the dragons with their shovels and pickaxes clutched in their

hands. Lester, who had just landed, stared back at them curiously, and then poked his head over to look

at the ground and asked them something in his own tongue.

“He wants to know why they are digging,” Temeraire said, and, “No, no—” he called, and then went

down himself, a descent which did send the men stumbling haplessly away, to stop Lester from picking

one of them up: evidently with the plan of shaking him for answers, as if this would enable the man to

speak the dragon-tongue.

“It is for a midden, stop being so foolish,” he informed Lester, and then turning his head back to

Laurence added, “and I suppose we may help them with this also: I can do what Lien did at Danzig.”

She had used the divine wind there as the French dug their siege-trenches, to break up the frozen ground

and make it easier for the men to dig. But it took several attempts, and the ruin of some fifty trees brought

down by excess, for Temeraire to manage the same effect. “It is not,” he panted, having taken a moment