Crucible of Gold

advantage, and began another pass at the Copacati. He completed his circle and seemed as though he would begin another, which would have left him coming out of the pattern just in time to meet her; but as she neared, he abruptly pumped his wings twice and shot forward with surprising speed, opening his jaws wide.

His head drew back on its neck, momentarily like a cobra ready to strike, and he spat: but even as he did, Iskierka coming to meet him opened her own jaws, and her flame boiled up out of her throat and seared the air between them.

The thin black stream of poison was caught and scorched, with a stench so powerful it reached the ground; an acrid black cloud rose up, and the dragons both wheeled back from it in either direction. The Copacati was reeling away while giving small cries of distress, black scorch-marks streaked over his face and forequarters, stark upon the silver scales. Iskierka did not give quarter, but circled back and pressed hard upon him, breathing another gout of flame from which he flinched sideways, and then another; and suddenly all the dragons were roaring once again, for the Copacati’s shadow had slipped out of the courtyard, and fallen into the running stream.

Chapter 9

“MOST REMARKABLE,” Hualpa said yet again, inclining his head in compliment while Iskierka preened; Manca Copacati was huddled sulking at the far end of the courtyard, with a handful of attendants washing down his hurts with water from the fountain, and applying some sort of ointment.

“After all, he did not know that she could breathe fire; it seems to me that is a slightly—a very slightly ramshackle sort of trick to use, to win. At least, it is not as impressive as if he had known—” Temeraire said; or rather, wanted to say; but in the end, he could not justify it to himself: too mean- spirited, and he had a horror of so appearing before Laurence. Instead he grudgingly said, “That was nicely fought,” to Iskierka, in congratulations, and privately determined to himself that the next time they should have any call for fighting, he would show what he could do.

“Yes,” Iskierka said complacently, “and I suppose they will know better than to challenge me in future; now you may tell that governor we would like to know the way to take Taruca back to his home.”

This required a brief pause, for several large roasts were being brought out at that moment: llamas on spits, their fat still sizzling and dripping on the ground as they were carried in by young men staggering beneath the weight, and two extremely nice ones were delivered to Iskierka, who fell upon them at once.

“Hm,” Hualpa said, gnawing on his spit thoughtfully, when they had eaten—it was made of some sort of interestingly flavored wood, which was very pleasant to have upon the tongue when the meat was done. “So you really do mean to give him away? I thought you were only saying so, as an excuse.”

“Whyever would we have made up such an excuse?” Temeraire said. “It is not as though Iskierka—or any of us—minded fighting, if anyone wanted a fight with us.”

Hualpa shrugged one massive shoulder. “You Europeans are always lying about one thing or another,” an accusation which Temeraire did not think justified, and in any case, he was Chinese, “but if you really do not want him, he might as well remain here. I would be pleased to take him into my own ayllu, in fact. There is no sense in dragging an old man halfway across the empire just to leave him somewhere else.”

“Indeed, Captain,” Hammond said to Laurence eagerly, having overheard this suggestion, “you must admit there is a great deal of sense in what he says: and it is plain to see they have no notion of slavery, at least in the Western mode; there is surely no cruelty or abuse—”

“Sir,” Laurence said, cutting him short, “will you ask the gentleman if he prefers to remain here, or be taken to his first-proposed destination?” and Hammond sighed even before he had put the question; Taruca had no hesitation in affirming his wish to be taken home, with an enthusiasm increased by his growing belief in its chances of being accomplished.

When Temeraire had made clear that they were quite firm in their intentions, Hualpa also sighed. “Well, as that is the grounds on which you accepted the challenge, I suppose the law is now with you,” he said. “I will give you right of passage to Titicaca, then; and as long as you are there, you may as well continue on to Cusco, and see what the Sapa Inca will make of you: I have heard there are some Europeans to be welcomed there, presently, so perhaps it will be permitted.”

“Is Cusco the capital, then?” Temeraire said. “Is it very far from Titicaca?”

“Two days’ easy flying, I would call it,” Hualpa said.

“Oh,” Hammond said, and all the objections he had begun to make to Laurence abruptly fell silent.

“I wonder he should be so doubtful, when we have been laying ourselves all-out for his sake,” Granby said, perhaps with a shade of resentment: he had gone all over Iskierka’s head himself, by hand, making certain not a drop of venom had landed which might later roll into a nostril or an eye-socket or her jaws. “You would think he might believe, by now.”

“I am grateful; but I have been stolen fourteen times, since this,” Taruca said, touching his scarred face, when the question had been put to him. “But if Inti wills it, I will be glad to go home; if you can take me.”

His latest cause for doubt was a merely practical one: the rope-and-sailcloth rigging they had put together would not do for very much longer. Shipley and all the sailors with any skill at needlework had been at it daily, but by now it was more patch than original matter, and three weeks in unfamiliar high country would certainly be past its limits, unless they liked to risk plunging to their deaths upon the jagged mountain-sides of the Andes. But they had no supply. Hualpa had been generous enough to make them free of the countryside, hunting, but while there were enough llamas running wild and untended to feed the dragons to their satisfaction, there was no such easy source of leather: they had not even a single leatherworker left, of their ground crews, and the nearest thing was one old round-bellied sailor who vaguely remembered a childhood’s apprenticeship to a tanner, of a few months’ duration.

Gong Su had begun laying up stores as best he could lacking salt; Temeraire had knocked him down a large hollow tree, for smoking, and he had somehow managed to acquire a local technique of drying meat through observation and pantomime. Some he also endeavored to exchange for sacks of dried maize. “I make no promises that it will eat well,” he said to Laurence, having organized several of the sailors to lug the sacks back to their ragged little tent-camp on the city outskirts, “but at least we will not starve.”

But though their pile of llama hides rose, the best leather they were able to produce was only a half-rotten scaly-natured material, which stank queerly and gave no-one much confidence in its holding up to even the most sedate flight. “But sir,” Forthing said privately, “I don’t answer for the men if we don’t leave soon: they will be at the temple, the first chance they get. I have had to chase a dozen of ’em down this week, and Battersea made it all the way: was busy chipping away at the wall with his pocket-knife, when I came on him.”

Nor was this their only concern regarding the men: at the beginning of their third week of labor, Forthing came to report two gone missing entirely, and four days later Handes disappeared as well. “If it were him alone, sir, I would suppose he had run off,” Forthing said, “but Griggs was not meant for hanging; and Yardley is too damned lazy even to go after the gold unless someone were marching him to it. What if they should have them here, those bunyips—” these creatures, native to the desert of the Australian continent, having been responsible for similar disappearances when first encountered.

“This is settled country,” Laurence said, “and I cannot imagine Hualpa leaving us unwarned of such a peril, if it existed; nor such incaution as the local populace show, about walking in the open. No: I must assume they have been stolen, in the charming local style,” he finished dryly.

“And how the devil are we to find them, I would like to know,” Granby added.

Temeraire was indignant and determined to pursue inquiries; but without much success, until several days later Ferris came into camp with Griggs, an awkward expression, and half-a-dozen men carrying baskets, which when he had gestured to have them set down proved to be full of excellent leather, thick and well-cured. “Sir,” he said to Laurence, “I hardly know if you will think I have done well—I don’t know myself—”