Crucible of Gold (34 page)

“It is just chance,” Temeraire said uneasily, “that I have not yet had an egg—”

Iskierka, who was watching narrowly across the great courtyard, where the lamps showed Maila sitting outside the French hall and speaking with the Flammes-de-Gloire, snorted over her shoulder. “After all that noise you made, of having to do your duty by all those dragons in the breeding grounds which they put you to? And that was years ago: by now there would surely be news, if any of them had got an egg by you.”

“Well, if Lien is telling a little of the truth, perhaps it is that I have not tried enough with the right sort of dragon,” Temeraire said, “for they were forever putting me to only the most docile beasts—not,” he added, “that they were not perfectly pleasant creatures; but they had none of them been particularly remarkable, in battle, and many of them were only middle-weights—”

“You do not need to hint,” Iskierka said, with a huff, “although it would serve you perfectly well if I did not care to anymore; but I
will
try now with you, if you like, and Maila can wait,” she added, in a rather venomous tone, “as he likes to go sit and make eyes at the Frogs.”

“I was not hinting—” but Temeraire shook out his ruff, and hastily said, “—oh, never mind; very well,” when Iskierka bridled up, with a martial light in her eye. Privately even he might admit that it would be something, to have an egg with both the divine wind
and
breathing fire. He bent his head, and surreptitiously polished his breastplate; it was too bad he had not insisted on his talon-sheaths for the ceremony earlier, he belatedly thought; only he had not felt like putting his best forward on what had been such a dismal occasion.

“Come on, then,” Iskierka said. “I should like a snack first: I saw a herd of those wild llamas moving on the plain to the south,
yesterday, and I dare say they are still there; and there was a nice private little valley just up the mountain-side from there.”

“Those
were
tasty,” Iskierka said, licking her chops: when they had finished hunting, Temeraire had persuaded her to heat up a few rocks with her fire; he had piled them into a pit with the llamas and buried them along with a pleasantly aromatic shrub and a bit of water from a salt spring, so that when they had finished their business, the llamas were cooked and ready to eat.

“And we shall see,” Iskierka continued, “about the egg. It does not seem to me there was much to it, and I am sure for my part at least, everything will go smoothly. I have been ready this age: if only you were not always so difficult.”

“As though you had any business accusing anyone else of being difficult,” Temeraire said, but without much heat; the llamas had been excellent, which he considered a triumph in his first attempt at cooking anything himself. And after all, no-one could deny that Iskierka was an impressive dragon. Her spikes had even not been so very awkward as he might have thought, although requiring some ingenuity in maneuvering.

It was nearly morning: a certain pallid quality to the sky behind the mountains ahead of them as they flew back to the city, Temeraire carrying a couple of extra cooked llamas, which he meant to show to Gong Su for his approbation. “What is going on, there?” Iskierka said suddenly, as they drew near: there were many dragons gathering behind a wall of the great city fortress, and also soldiers in their woven armor with swords and musketry, forming into lines.

“Wait: this way, we mustn’t let them know we have seen them,” Temeraire said, nipping at Iskierka’s wing, and they darted back out of sight behind a curve of the mountain-side. Temeraire set down his llamas. “Wait here—oh, pray stop grumbling; if you should let off any steam or fire, they will certainly see you at once.”

“I do not care, in the least,” Iskierka said. “What are they about? Of course they are making an ambush,” she added impatiently, “but on us, or on the French?” She stretched out her neck to peer at the gathering force.

Temeraire went aloft, careful to keep the gradually lightening sky ahead of him, and studied the scene: the British enclave lay to the east of the soldiers’ position, the French to the west; both in striking distance. The Inca’s soldiers were carrying shields covered splendidly in silver, and one of these caught the rising sunlight and gleamed painfully bright out of the terrace for an instant as Temeraire looked.

“On us,” Temeraire said to Iskierka, as he dropped down to seize his llamas again: they might need the food, he thought. “They are going to attack us; we must fly at once.”

 

T
HE WATERFALL WAS NOT WIDE
but very high, crashing noisily down over its long and broken cliff wall, and so muted the labored panting of the dragons as they slept a little; the high canopy of jungle trees provided them cover. Kulingile’s golden scales they had slathered over with mud, and Temeraire and Iskierka were not in much better case: branches thrust through their harness-straps all over their backs, and vines strewn liberally atop, the better to camouflage them against the relentless pursuit.

A host of small dragons, lightning-quick, had chased and harried them near three hundred miles already in little more than a day and a night and a day, although they had not traveled anywhere near that distance in a straight line: their course had been desperately zig-zagging and convoluted. If they paused, or tried to engage, the small beasts fled before them: to carry the news of their position back to the larger dragons who hung back, waiting and reserving their strength to come directly upon them.

Already they had just barely evaded several close engagements with various Incan aerial battalions: six dragons of heavy-weight size and thirteen of middle-weight, who skillfully attempted to surround and bring them down. Only Kulingile’s massive size had enabled them to escape the first: he had put his head down and bulled through the hemming line of dragons, not one of them less than twenty tons. Temeraire and Iskierka had darted out after him, then
turned with their greater maneuverability to claw and lash the enemy long enough for Kulingile to get away into the cloud cover, where they followed shortly after.

The Incan dragons pressed the pursuit without excessive risk, cautiously: all the advantage of time was on their side, and knowledge of the territory. With every moment of flight, Temeraire and Iskierka and Kulingile grew weary, and their strength waned.

There had been no time either for provisions or sensible assembly. The two llamas which Temeraire had brought back from his hunting had gone down Kulingile’s gullet, while the men were hurried into belly-netting without even the opportunity of putting on harness; at least four had been left behind, Laurence thought, having evidently sneaked off on night excursions. He was only consoled that their fate would not be as unkind as it might: they should certainly be welcomed into some dragon’s
ayllu
in their persons, despite any political differences with their nation, rather than flung into a prison from which there would be little hope of extrication.

The force which had been assembled to seize them—with, he could not help but believe, the aim of securing the dragons as prisoners and perhaps for breeding, as well as delaying any report back to Europe—had come on them even as the sun rose. The few minutes of warning which Temeraire and Iskierka had brought proved, just barely, enough; they went aloft pursued by the first roars of challenge, and flung themselves into a mist-shrouded gorge, flying desperately east into the mountain fastness.

The day had worn away; night brought no relief, for a handsome half-full moon shone on the ice-sheathed mountain-slopes, and there were dragons among the pursuit who seemed able to see them in the dark. But at last Temeraire, flying in the lead, had broken out onto the eastern side of the Andes, and they fled down the slopes into the seeming endless jungle which rose impenetrable and green at their base.

Here they had found enough concealment for a few breaths, a little sleep; a few swallows of water might be cupped from the
steady rivulets which trickled down the smooth bark of the trees. Already a light misting rain had fallen twice, in the half-day which they had spent in hiding. But they could not hide for very long with three such beasts among them; Laurence watched the sun creep over the sky, through the dappling leaves, and hoped only that their shelter would serve them until the night.

Hammond, shaky and green from the speed and unsteadiness of their flight, was folding together with trembling hands a few of the coca leaves, which he had stuffed into his pocket as they fled: he put the leaves into his mouth to chew, as they could not boil water for tea. “It is an outrage—a betrayal of all common principles regarding the sanctity of ambassadors—” he was saying, a variation on a theme which he had not ceased to develop since their pell-mell departure.

“If they take their notion of principles from the example which the Spanish made them, there is not much to wonder at,” Laurence said, controlling irritation; he would have been glad of a cup of tea himself, and more grateful yet for one of strong black coffee; instead he cupped water in one of the broad, dinner-plate-sized leaves which hung vinelike off the tree, and poured off the trickle into his mouth.

“We must rather consider our course of escape, and our direction,” he said, and bent to sketch out the shape of the continent roughly in the dirt.

“To Rio, of course?” Hammond said, as though it were merely a matter of choosing their destination. “Now there can be nothing worth delaying for; we ought make all speed possible.”

“Well, we can’t: it is asking for disaster to go haring off through the jungle with no water to speak of,” Granby said. “Laurence, I don’t think we have much choice in the matter: this tree-bark dribble will do for us, but not for the dragons. There might be a hundred streams flowing under the leaves, but they won’t do us any good if we can’t see them from the air. At least if we hold by the mountains, we are pretty sure of seeing some run-off every day.”

“And more likely to be seen in turn,” Laurence said, “by our pursuit. But I do take your point: if we should keep to the trees by day, and put our heads north by night, towards Venezuela—”

“No, no,” Hammond cried. “Gentlemen, we
must
go to Rio. You have not considered, perhaps, the increased urgency of our mission. With the Sapa Inca having decided to throw her lot in with Napoleon, Brazil is now beset on all sides. You must recall the Prince Regent of Portugal is there, and all the royal family. They must be warned—warned, perhaps rescued; they do not as yet know anything of their danger. I must insist upon it, in my authority as ambassador: I hope you will agree I do not exceed it, in such a cause.”

“If he can’t marry us off, he will murder us, I suppose,” Granby said to Laurence under his breath. “Had we better make for Venezuela, and then circle back to Rio along the coast?”

“We should lose six thousand miles on such a journey,” Laurence said, “and no guaranty of supply along the way, in any case.”

They bent their heads over the dirt, trying without much hope to plot a course more direct across the jungle: they scarcely knew where they were, so even to begin was difficult, and at Granby’s insistence had to allot full half each day’s flying for finding water. “And that I would call ambitious,” he said. “In any case, we mustn’t go so far that we could not fly back to some decent water within a day.”

“Well, it will have to do,” Laurence said finally, when they had at last agreed, and they made their uncomfortable damp beds on the ground to take a little more rest before nightfall; but twilight had only just begun to descend when Demane was shaking Laurence awake.

“The monkeys have gone quiet,” he said softly. Laurence sat up listening, but the waterfall covered any sound of wings. They sat together a moment, squinting upwards: then a groan of rustling branches, and a great orange-feathered dragon’s head thrust down and whispered in Quechua, “Hammond? Are you there?”

“What?” Hammond said, staring up, and Churki landed among them, ruffling up her plumage to cast out the leaves and twigs which had been caught betwixt the feathers.