Victory of Eagles

“Morning, sir,” the captain said, touching his hat, as Laurence came over: Hollin, his former ground-crew master. “Elsie, will you give the captain a leg up? There is a strap there, sir, handy for you.”

“Thank you, Hollin,” Laurence said, grateful for the steady matter-of-factness, and climbed up to her back. “We are for Pen Y Fan.”

“Right you are, sir, we know the way,” Hollin said. “Do you need a bite to sup, Elsie, before we go?”

“No,” she said, raising her head dripping from the water-trough. “They always have lovely cows there, I will wait.”

They did not speak very much during the flight. Winchesters were so small and quick one felt always on the point of flying off on one’s own, the force of the wind steadily testing the limits of the carabiner straps, and Laurence’s hands, already blistered, grew bruised where he held on to the leather harness. They raced past blurring fields of brown stalks and snow, the thin cold air chapping at their faces and leaking down into the neck of Laurence’s coat, through the threadbare shirt and piercing to the skin. He did not mind in the least, except to wish they might go quicker still; he resented now every mile remaining.

Goodrich Castle swelled up before them, on its hill, and Hollin put out the signal-flags as they flashed by: courier, with orders, and the fort’s signal-gun fired in acknowledgment, already falling behind them.

The mountains were growing nearer, and nearer, and as the sun began to set Elsie came over the final sharp ridge and over the broad packed-earth feeding grounds, stained dark with much blood, and the cliffs full of dragon-holes. She landed. The cattle pen was empty, its wide door standing open. There were no lights and no sound. There was not a dragon anywhere to be seen.

Chapter 4

OVERNIGHT, ICICLES HAD grown upon the overhang of the cave, a row of glittering teeth, and now as the sun struck they steadily dripped themselves away upon the stone, an uneven pattering without rhythm or sense. Temeraire opened his eyes, once in a while, dully to watch them shrink back away towards the edge; then he closed his eyes and put his head down. No one had further proposed his removal, or disturbed him.

A scrabbling of claws made him look up; a small dragon had landed on the ledge, and Lloyd was sliding down from its back—“Come now then,” Lloyd said, tramping in, his boots ringing and smearing field-muck on the clean stone. “Come now, old boy, why such a fuss, today? We have a lovely visitor waiting—a nice fat bullock will set you up—”

Temeraire had never very much wanted to kill anyone, except of course anyone who tried to hurt Laurence; he liked to fight well enough, as it was exciting, but he had never thought that he would like to kill anyone just for himself. Only, in this moment it seemed to him he would much rather anything than have Lloyd before him, speaking so, when Laurence was dead.

“Be silent,” he said, and when Lloyd continued, without a pause, “—the very best put aside for you special, tonight—” Temeraire stretched out his neck and put his head directly before Lloyd and said, low, “My captain is dead.”

That at least meant something to Lloyd: he went white and stopped talking; he held himself very still. Temeraire watched him closely. It was almost disappointing. If only Lloyd would say something else dreadful, or do something foul as he always did; if only—but Laurence would not like it—Laurence would not have liked it—Temeraire drew in a long hissing breath, and drew his head back, curling in upon himself again, and Lloyd sagged in relief.

“Why, there’s been some mistake,” he said, after a moment, his voice only a few shades less hearty. “I’ve heard nothing, old boy, word would’ve been sent me—”

It made Temeraire angry all over again but differently; that sharp strange feeling was dulled, and now he felt quite tired, and wished only for Lloyd to be gone away.

“I dare say you would tell me he were alive, if he had been hanged at Tyburn,” he said, bitterly, “only as long as it made me eat, and mate, and listen to you; well, I will not. I have borne it, I would have borne anything, only to keep Laurence alive; I will bear it no longer. I will eat when I like, and not otherwise, and I will not mate with anyone unless I choose.” He looked at the little dragon who had brought Lloyd up and said, “Now take him away, if you please; and tell the others I do not want him brought again without asking first.”

The little dragon bobbed his head nervously, and picked up the startled and protesting Lloyd to carry him down again. Temeraire closed his eyes and coiled himself again, with the drip-drip-drip of the icicles his only company.

A few hours later, Perscitia and Moncey landed on the cave ledge with a studied air of insouciance, carrying two fresh-killed cows. They brought them inside, in front of him. “I am not hungry,” Temeraire said sharply.

“Oh, we only told Lloyd they was for you so he would let us have extra,” Moncey said cheerfully. “You don’t mind if we eat them here?” and he tore into the first one. Temeraire’s tail twitched, entirely without volition, at the hot juicy smell of the blood, and when Perscitia nudged the second cow over, he took it in his jaws without really meaning to. Then somehow in a few swallows it was gone, and what they had left of the first also.

He went down for another, and even a fourth; he did not have to think or feel anything while he ate. A small flock of the littler dragons clustered together on the edge of the feeding grounds, watching him anxiously, and when he looked for another cow, a couple of them rose up to herd one towards him. But none of them spoke to him. When he had finished, he flew for a long distance along the river and settled down to drink only where he might be quite alone again. He felt sore in all his joints, as if he had flown very hard for a long time, in sleeting weather.

He washed, as well as he could manage alone, and went back to his cave to think. Perscitia came up to see him, with an interesting mathematical problem, but he looked at it and then said, “No. Help me find Moncey; I want to know what has been happening with the war.”

“Why, I don’t know,” Moncey said, surprised, when they had tracked him down, lazing in a meadow on the mountainside with some of the other Winchesters and small ferals: they were playing a bit of a game, where they tossed tree-branches upon the ground and tried to pick up as many as they could without dropping any. “It’s nothing to do with us, you know, not here. The Frenchy dragons and their captains are all kept over in Scotland, farther up. There won’t be any fighting round here.”

“It is to do with us, too,” Temeraire said. “This is our territory, all of ours; and the French are trying to take it away. That is as much to do with us as if they were trying to take your cave, and more, because they will take everything else along with your cave.”

The little dragons put down their sticks and came nearer to listen, with some interest. “But what do you want to do?” Moncey said.

The official couriers were crossing the countryside in every direction, at all speed, and the afternoon was not yet gone before Moncey and the other Winchesters were able to return, full of all the news which Temeraire could wish. If the numbers reported were perhaps a little inconsistent, that did not matter very much; Napoleon certainly had landed a great many men, all near London, and there had not been any great battle yet to throw him off.

“He is all over the coast, and then the fellows say there is this Marshal Davout fellow poking about in Kent, south of London, and another one, Lefèbvre, who is already somewhere along this way,” Moncey said, pointing out the countryside west of the city, and nearest Wales.