Crucible of Gold

there was nothing for Laurence to fear. But somehow it was a very great effort to draw breath, and when he had drawn it, he preferred to use it for flying, instead; the air was so very cold.

Iskierka and Kulingile were also flying very low to the water—they were keeping in closer company now. Temeraire saw a spray rise up around Iskierka’s tail for a moment; Kulingile was a little higher in the air, but gradually sinking also. Temeraire heaved breath again and roared—a paltry sort of roar, with nothing of the real force which he could put behind it; only a gesture of defiance, but it rang across the water, and Iskierka’s head jerked up: she looked over and blew out a thin ragged stream of flame, in answer, and together all three of them beat back up determinedly.

Darkness crept up from the rim of the world, a long blue curving unbroken by anything which might have meant rest—no land, no sails, not even another reef. Temeraire did not really notice the night coming on; all the world had narrowed to the next wingbeat, and the next after that, cupping the air with each stroke and pushing it away, trying only to get enough room for a breath; trying only to draw enough breath for the next stroke. He could hear the swells breaking beneath him from his passage.

“Temeraire,” Laurence said, and, “Temeraire,” as though he had said it more than once already. “There away, two points to starboard, my dear.” Temeraire turned and flew on; he was vaguely conscious that there was some movement upon his back, signals of lantern-light, and a few answering lights ahead, bobbing; then a blue light went hissing up from his back.

The painfully bright light flung out over the ocean for a moment, an island amid the dark, and with a final desperate effort Temeraire came over the deck and dropped down onto it—barrels and casks were hastily being cleared in every direction, and warm—oh, warm!—bodies coiling away to make room for him, and Iskierka, and Kulingile landing half on top of them both—Temeraire did not mind that in the least.

The men in the belly-netting were yelling protests and pleas. Temeraire caught Iskierka by the base of the neck and kept her from lying down upon her own load of passengers; there were knives and hatchets already at work, and the netting was coming loose, spilling men everywhere. They crawled feebly away, and Temeraire sank down gratefully; Laurence was climbing down from his back, Laurence was safe, and dimly as he fell asleep Temeraire heard him say, “We surrender.”

Chapter 5

THERE WAS AN OPEN RAIN-BARREL directly before Temeraire when he awoke; he had not quite opened his eyes when he knew it was there—smell, a glimmer of light on water—and rearing up to throw off two of Iskierka’s heavy coils he seized upon it and drank the whole off in one desperate gulping rush. Then he was awake—and very hungry, with his shoulders and wing-joints aching dreadfully, but awake, and he looked round and discovered he was being stared at in what could only be called contemptuous disapproval.

“I do not see what business you have, glaring so,” Temeraire said, putting back his ruff and sitting up. “At least I am not all over feathers, or whatever those are,” for the very peculiarly looking dragon was covered both body and wings in bright, elongated scales—or Temeraire thought they must be scales, but they had irregular edges, and were much larger and did not fit so neatly with one another as did his own. Anyway, Temeraire was larger, too, so there was no excuse; although he was unhappily conscious that it had been rather bad manners to snatch up all the water, without being sure there was enough for everyone else.

The strange dragon snorted, and said something back in a language Temeraire had never heard; then someone else said sleepily, “He says no-one who surrenders without even fighting, from only a little flying, should make much of himself.”

Temeraire looked over at the young Fleur-de-Nuit lying on the other end of the deck, who had her large pale eyes half-lidded and shaded by her wing against the sun. “I am Genevieve,” she added, “and that is Maila Yupanqui; he is an ambassador.”

“Ambassadors, I have always understood, are meant to be especially gracious and polite,” Temeraire said, eyeing Maila darkly. “What language is that?”

“Quechua,” she said. “The Inca speak it.”

The ship was the French transport Triomphe, fresh from the docks in Toulon and having just come around the Horn; she was sailing north, en route to the Incan empire, evidently with a project of alliance.

“I am sure it must be some mischief of Lien’s,” Temeraire said to a very disheartened Arthur Hammond—in Chinese, the only language in which they might have some privacy—when that gentleman had come up on deck. “But at least she is not here herself, and if we should explain all the circumstances to the Inca, I am sure they will think better of allying themselves with her and Napoleon: they cannot be pleased with him when he has been delivering strange dragons from over the ocean into their territory, or near it, anyway. Where is Laurence?”

“The French are not likely to give us an opportunity of making them any such explanations,” Hammond said, seating himself on a coil of rope, “and Captain Laurence is belowdecks with Captain Granby and Demane: they are in good health. I am to inform you that they will each be allowed an airing once a day, in your sight, on the quarterdeck; so long as there is no gesture—no attempt—which might suggest a violation of parole.” He spoke disconsolately.

“What is he saying about Granby?” Iskierka said, picking up her head, and when Hammond had repeated the intelligence for her in English, she hissed in displeasure. “I do not see we have given our parole at all; I did not surrender, and I am sure the three of us can take this ship, if we like: what is this nonsense of keeping my captain away from me?” she demanded.

“We needn’t have let you land last night,” Genevieve said, with some heat—she had been taught English, as well, it seemed—“and then you and your captains would be drowned. It is all very well to say now that you can take the ship: you ought have done it then, if you liked to try.”

Iskierka snorted a curl of smoky flame from her lip—much to the alarm of the crew, whose urgent shouting she ignored—but there was no answering Genevieve’s argument, however much one might have liked to do so.

It was hard to find oneself aboard a perfectly splendid prize, a French transport only just built, and not be allowed to take it when they could have. Besides Genevieve, who was not even fully grown, there was only a Chanson-de-Guerre named Ardenteuse, and a Grand Chevalier absurdly named Piccolo, both of them presently aloft overhead to make room on the deck for the visitors. Piccolo was flying back and forth over the ship and peering downwards narrowly, trying to see just how big Kulingile was—somewhat difficult as Temeraire and Iskierka were coiled up over him.

So that was three against three, or three against four if one counted Maila on the French side—he was disagreeable enough that Temeraire was perfectly willing to do so—and none of them able to breathe fire, or anything like. Oh! They would certainly have been victorious, in a fair fight; only it would not have been fair when they had just come from three days’ flying.

Maila, watching Iskierka, said something to Genevieve without turning his head; she ruffled up her wings and answered him shortly, then after a second exchange she turned and said to Iskierka, “He asks if that is as much fire as you can breathe, at a time.”

“Of course not,” Iskierka said, and put her head to the leeward side and blew out a rippling streamer of flame which reached nearly the full length of the ship and shimmered all the air about it. “And more than that, if I care to,” she added, with a flip of her wings.

This was too much for the sailors: a few minutes later the ship’s captain, a M. Thibaux, mounted the dragondeck with lips grimly set and his hand upon the hilt of his sword, to express his objections to open flame aboard his ship. That was quite understandable, Temeraire felt, but the captain carried it too far, saying to Hammond, “I must beg you to convey to the beast, in whatever terms you think best, that her captain must suffer the consequences of her behavior—I would be sorry to have to execute such a threat, but monsieur, it cannot be tolerated; the next time, I will have him flogged.”

“You will do nothing of the sort to Granby,” Temeraire said indignantly, in French, “and if you should try, Iskierka would set the ship on fire; and I would not stop her, either.”