League of Dragons (37 page)

“Well, they are an artillery company and they can fire it, so it is worth a great deal to
them,
” Temeraire said. He scratched a claw thoughtfully along his eye ridge. “It is true that the value of things may depend upon how much someone
else
wants them. But I cannot call it anything but mean to keep it for yourself when you can get no good from it, and anyway, where are you going to keep it? You had much better let the men fight it for you. Have them paint your name upon the top of the barrel, so you can always see which gun is yours while you are flying above it, and then let them manage it for you.”

After a little more nudging, and the promise of gold paint, Jevionty was persuaded to accept this solution, but the episode did not inspire any confidence in the Russian dragons as porters.

Meanwhile, the large body of Russian light-weights, who would have been by far the more valuable as part of their unified force, were nearly impossible to make use of or even to count: their numbers in camp varied widely from day to day. Barring a handful of beasts like Grig, who had established a stronger relationship with one or another of the officers, they would only perform errands given to them in the moment and with the promise of an immediate reward of food.

“The heavy-weights must eat first,” Ilchenko answered flatly, when Laurence suggested he might establish a regularity of feeding time, to create the beginnings of discipline among the light-weight greys. But the ferocious heavy-weights were the pride of the Russian forces, and Ilchenko refused to care that they often left their feeding pits scraped clean, or spoiled what they did not eat with hot squabbles. So the greys were left to scrounge for scraps, and likely to go stealing from the local farmers. At least the irregular Cossack troops fed themselves: their fly-weight beasts were well practiced in living off the land without excessively offending their neighbors, and ate a cheerfully indiscriminate variety. But they were no use in a pitched battle, or against the French dragons, unless they came across one of them alone and unwary.

All the dragons were by now reconciled to the porridge-pit, but while this made feeding their enlarged force
possible,
it did not make it
easy.
With so many bellies of such enormous capacity to fill, their supply was in regular danger of running out and required the most careful and constant attention.

Laurence straightened up from the ledgers when they had finished their tallies, and nodded to the young aide whose duty it was to send their numbers on to Blücher's staff. He stretched backwards, hands pressed into the small of his back, thoroughly stiffened after the hours bent low: he ruefully thought he felt his years more sharply after an afternoon in a tent than after two days aloft. He and Dyhern stepped outside together, while Ilchenko stayed in to finish the letter which he would send to the Tsar with his report: a rather more formal affair.

“I cannot delight in this book-keeper's work, Laurence,” Dyhern said, “but I have no right to complain. When I think how we gnashed our teeth at you for twenty dragons, before Jena! And look upon our coverts now. My heart must be appeased.”

They were encamped in the bowl of a nameless valley perhaps a hundred miles from Leipzig, dragons strung along the heights and hillocks all around like decorations, nearly covering all the open ground. The steam rose in pearlescent gusts from the cooking-pits, in the center of the camp, and on every side the voices of dragons—the hissing of their breaths, their deep rumbling speech, the dry rustle of scales rubbing over one another. The sheer number of them echoed the tales of the uncountable hordes of the Huns, of fairy-stories; Laurence could well share Dyhern's dissatisfaction and pleasure both, in the scale of their force and the difficulties of its management.

A tiny figure came gliding down over the tree-tops to the north-east, a bird Laurence thought at first, but moving very fast; the sentry-dragons did not even lift their heads until she was already far beyond them, and before they could raise a warning, she had darted twice across the bowl of the valley, her head seeking, and then dropped with startling speed to the ground directly before Laurence, folding her disproportionate green wings in. “Yu Li,” Laurence exclaimed, very surprised, as the Jade dragon bowed very low as well as she could, with the dragging ends of her wings.

“Forgive this clumsy one's rude and hasty approach,” she said. “I have been sent to establish lines of communication with Your Imperial Highness and Lung Tien Xiang—”

“Why, you are very welcome to startle us all ten times over, on that account,” Laurence said, and turning to Dyhern explained, “She is the leading edge of the Chinese legions.”

But Yu Li was not finished. “Honored Brother of the Dread Lord,” she said, and Laurence turning caught the change in her address, and realized with a start that the Emperor must have died, and Mianning by now crowned, “I beg your forgiveness for my hasty and improper address, but I have grave news to impart. Having mistaken your location, I first sought to find you in the small town not three hundred
li
from here, where a great many noble officials were encamped.”

By
small town
she must have meant Dresden; any Western city would bear a peculiarly shrunken character to a Chinese dragon, who expected to find in these places thoroughfares and pavilions suitable for draconic inhabitants and not merely humans—which meant, in turn, that she had flown some one hundred miles in an hour, a remarkable achievement even for one of the Jade Dragons. Her chest was indeed heaving rapidly, and her wings trembling. She extended one limb towards him, the golden mesh upon it carrying a letter.

“I was honored to meet there with your advisor Mr. Hammond,” she said, “who has entrusted me with this letter and begs you consider it as soon as you think wise.”

Laurence took the letter—a note, not even enclosed, and scrawled in an irregular and hasty version of Hammond's usually tidy hand, at least large enough to be easily legible. A moment was enough to read it; he handed it on to Dyhern and turned to Yu Li. “Did you see the French advance, yourself?”

“Yes, august one, and in hopes of offering you further intelligence, I crossed their body from aloft,” she said: Jade Dragons flew at a far higher altitude than most dragons, and with her small size, she would certainly have been taken for a bird, even if anyone had glimpsed her. “Their beasts are not very orderly, so it is difficult to properly tally their numbers, but there were in excess of five hundred assembled. Their carrying-harnesses held perhaps a hundred men, for each dragon, and the larger carried guns, as well.”

“My God!” Dyhern said. “He will smash them to pieces. There are not twenty beasts at Dresden, and those convalescent.” He turned to explain the situation to Admiral Ilchenko, who had come out of the tent at the commotion; Laurence had seized pen and paper from his runner and was hastily scrawling a reply. “Yu Li,” he said, “will you take this back to Mr. Hammond at once, if you please?” She accepted the note with another bow, and as soon as it was stowed away she gathered herself, leapt, and was gone.

“What is to be done?” Dyhern said.

“Gentlemen,” Laurence said, “I am taking every beast that can travel at speed—every one that can sustain sixteen knots or better.
Les Cossacks, il faut que je les emmener avec moi,
” he added to Ilchenko, who was nodding intently. “Dyhern, you must take my heavy-weights, and your own, to our depot at Leipzig. Stupefy every pig and sheep in the place with opium and bring them, with all the grain you can carry. The Russian heavy-weights must remain with Field Marshal Blücher here. We must take it as a certainty that the rest of the French infantry is coming up on our rear. Napoleon plainly intends to cut our lines of communication and supply—perhaps even capture the Tsar—and then smash us between the two wings of his force. We must try and hold him at Dresden long enough for you to come up behind him, instead. Do you agree?”

There was so little room to dispute the plan that Laurence had not hesitated to send to tell Hammond that he was coming: his force was the only one substantially composed of dragons who could manage the speed necessary to catch the French; certainly neither Eroica nor Ilchenko's dragon Sorokshest could do so. They shook hands in agreement, and Dyhern took Hammond's letter. “I will go and speak with Marshal Blücher,” he said. “Begin your preparations! I will send as soon as he has confirmed the order of battle.”

I
SKIERKA DID NOT HIDE
her delight that Requiescat had to be left behind, to go with the Prussians; although her pleasure was a little dimmed by Laurence's saying to him, “You may be sure that the rôle of providing supply to our forces is no less urgent, and will merit no less recognition, than direct engagement with the enemy—if we cannot eat, after the battle, then hunger will rout us as thoroughly in victory as any defeat Napoleon might inflict.”

“But surely I will have better chances to earn additional shares,” she muttered, with a narrow glare at the rolls. Temeraire sighed a little. He understood Laurence's position that it would scarcely be fair for him to award shares to his own dragon; and as the flag-dragon he was entitled to a handsome five shares of every division as a matter of course, but it was sadly disappointing to see Cavernus and Iskierka and Requiescat reaping the benefits of their labors, while he could not.

However, Temeraire was determined to hold himself above petty competition. He was for his own part not very sorry to leave Obituria, who was also too slow to come. Fidelitas could make sixteen knots, however—respectable, even if not up to
his
own pace, and Laurence meant to divide them into two companies anyway.

“The ordinary order of flight must be suspended,” Laurence was saying to his captains, and several of the Prussian officers who had dashed over to hear his orders—one of them Ferris, who had been made acting-captain for one of the Prussian middle-weight dragons. Temeraire had meant to object to this in strong terms, until he had met her: she had a wild, hollow-eyed look. Her captain had died, during her long captivity. “I
will
have vengeance,” she said, low and harsh. “I will, I will,” and Temeraire had not had the heart after all to demand that she give Ferris up.

“Captain Poole, you and Fidelitas will take in charge all our Yellow Reapers, and the Prussian middle-weights, as well as the middle-weight ferals. All those dragons who can sustain a pace of twenty knots will come forward with us. When you arrive, if possible we will resume our formations, with the Prussian middle-weights forming a loose phalanx in the center under the command of Captain Ferris, for the ease of his transmitting British signals to the rest of the force.
Captain von Tauben, Captain Wesselton, j'entends que vous parlez bien Français: voilà ce deux ensign-signaleurs qui allons monter avec vous, de relayer les commandes.
” He nodded to the two ensigns, who went a little timidly to the Prussian captains he had named.

“Captain Poole, should you come and find that we are already overwhelmed,” Laurence said, “you must consult your judgment. It is of the first importance that the French should not capture the Tsar. Lung Yu Li will report to you, when you arrive, if he should be in danger. Midwingman Roland will go aboard Fidelitas to translate for you.” Temeraire flattened back his ruff; he did not see why Roland should go anywhere, much less to Fidelitas; he had certainly done nothing to deserve her, and after all, Gerry could speak a little Chinese by now, too. But with an effort, he restrained himself; he could not quarrel with Laurence on such an occasion, even if Emily's expression was perfectly flat, and she certainly did not
wish
to go. At least, Temeraire comforted himself, she would not ever stay with Fidelitas—she would return as soon as she could.

“Temeraire, if you will be so good, take all the dragons to eat, as much as they can hold,” Laurence said. “Porridge first, and eat your meat on the wing, as much of it as you can carry: anything we leave will only go to feed the French. The Russian greys have leave to eat now as well: they are coming with us.”

“We will go at once,” Temeraire said, and leaping aloft he roared for attention, and then called, “Pray will all the heavy-weights go to your porridge, three to a pit; then middle-weights and light-weights fill in around them, and no jostling if you please: we must all eat together.”

He went down himself, and after a little chivvying to keep everyone in order, he nudged a couple of the Scots out of the way to eat himself. But he had scarcely taken a bite when the Russian greys descended and began a really frenzied attack on the food. He had to interrupt his meal and go and pin several of them down—which made them squall and begin to plead for mercy, as though he were going to hurt them, and it took a small roar before each of them would quiet down enough to listen to him say, “You are
welcome
to eat, only stop clawing anyone else out of the way, or gobbling so quick that you spill half the porridge out of your mouth onto the ground: there is enough for everyone.”

When he had repeated himself some nine or twelve times, to different dragons—and once to the
same
dragon, which annoyed him very much; “If I catch you at it again, you will have to sit out until everyone else has eaten,” he told her sternly, the second time—at last the greys calmed down. By then they had all got something into their bellies, and also the rest of the light-weight dragons, especially Ricarlee and his fellows, had taken up the work of prodding them into better behavior using thwacks and nips, as they could not speak to one another. One could not help but feel sorry for the greys, they did look so thin and hungry; and when at last they saw most of the British dragons finishing and going away, with plenty of porridge still left, they did look a little abashed, and began to eat more sedately.

Temeraire heaved a sigh and went back to his own delayed meal. He had time only for a few bites more when Grig landed beside him—having finished eating already, Temeraire noted, disgruntled. “We have been allowed to eat
first,
” Grig said full of gleeful malice, with a belch entirely disproportionate to his size, “before all of the heavy-weights: you should have seen Vosyem scowl! And that Laurence of yours says we will be fed again tomorrow, too, if we can only keep up with this Fidelitas, and do something on the battlefield: now, which one is Fidelitas, pray?” He asked the question very intently: even he looked rather hungry, although he was his captain's pet, and usually ate better than most of the greys.

Temeraire had to swallow down a gulp of porridge to answer. “He is that Anglewing, over there. The golden-yellow one.”

“Almost all of you British dragons are yellow,” Grig said, peering over in that direction. “That one?”

“No,
that
one, the large one with the extra ribs to his wings, and the darker shade,” Temeraire said. Fidelitas was indeed talking to several of their Yellow Reapers, but the shape of the head was distinctly different, in Temeraire's opinion, and anyway Fidelitas did not have white stripes.

“We will be sure to keep up with him,” Grig said, nodding firmly. “What ought we do on the battlefield?”

Temeraire considered this as he ate, doubtfully: he was well aware the Russians never troubled themselves with trying to train the light-weights, and only bullied them into coming along with the heavy-weights to distract the enemy and get in the way. “Well—if you see any of the French dragons trying to gather for a run at us, you should dash at them and bat them around the heads; or if you see anyone beset by too many of the enemy, you should go and help them. And whenever there is a chance, you should form into a long pack and go flying all around us, and especially in front of the enemy, to keep them from working out just what we are trying to do…”

He trailed off; he could tell, from the doubtful flick of Grig's ears, and that dragon's glance over at his fellows, that the greys would very likely do none of this. “Wait a moment,” Temeraire said, struck by a sudden thought, and called, “Ricarlee, will you come here, if you please,” and presented the two small dragons to each other, which was made possible by Grig's English—although this had been acquired to spy upon them in the last campaign, which Temeraire had not quite forgiven. Still, it was handy that the greys were better than most dragons about languages.

“Ricarlee and his fellows have grown very smart about harrying the French,” he said, which made the feral thrust out his chest proudly, “and there are a great many of them, and they are nearly your size. Ricarlee, I should like you to pair off each of your fellows with one of the greys, before you come to the field. Then,” he said to Grig, “you may tell your friends they need only do whatever they see their partner doing, and stick with them through the battle.”

Grig nodded thoughtfully. “And naturally the Scots will report if anyone runs away and just hides through the battle, and they will have to eat last.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Temeraire said, a little taken aback; he had not thought of it that way, and it seemed very peculiar to him that any dragon would
hide
during a battle—although he recalled that Perscitia did not quite like fighting, either; but then, she
was
a very peculiar dragon.

“I will tell everyone, you may be sure,” Grig promised. “We will do our share, and,” he sidled up a little, with his head slanted, “perhaps those who distinguish themselves
particularly,
who assist you in some notable fashion, such as keeping others in order, will be entitled to a little more consideration, after the fighting?”

“Oh,” Temeraire said, a little anxiously. He did not know if Laurence meant to include the greys, in the distribution of prizes—they were pretty sure to get a prize in this battle, Temeraire felt. “I certainly cannot make any promises,” Temeraire said, as he dismally contemplated dividing the same thousand shares among more dragons, but privately he had the sinking feeling that Laurence would do just that.

Laurence for his part would have been glad for any hope of his having prizes to award after the coming engagement. While the dragons took their meal, he himself swallowed some bread and cold meat and drank a little wine, writing all the while: messages for the Admiralty, and for Jane; if Napoleon smashed them here, she must be warned before another five hundred dragons appeared on her doorstep. “I'll reach her, never fear,” Minnow promised, as she ducked her head into the letter-harness. Laurence did not care to lose even a single beast at present, but Winchesters were so small they could do very little good in combat even against other light-weights, and Minnow was clever enough to slip her way along the coast past Napoleon's forces. Captain Wesley and his Winchester Veloxia had already gone for Whitehall; they would make for Berlin, and see the message relayed from there.

Then the dragons were finished eating, and everywhere the harness went on. The ground crews would have to be left behind, to march with the infantry; likely a good deal of equipment and matériel would be lost. But there was no help for it. Winters came hurrying with Laurence's flying-coat, struggling under the weight; Laurence took it from the small girl and shrugged into the heavy leather, checked his pistols and his sword—he would never forget having gone aloft with only a dress-sword in his belt, but his beloved Chinese blade was a satisfying weight there now—and stepped into Temeraire's ready talons to be put up.

The weather was extraordinarily beautiful, and the sky studded over with small puffs of charming white cloud which sadly shortened their field of vision. Laurence rarely took his glass from his eye, and the lookouts kept their own out, straining for a first glimpse. Beneath him, Temeraire's wing-muscles beat in steady lapping strokes, working nearly to his limits—his speed was extraordinary for a heavy-weight, but he was in armor, although with a quarter the usual weight of incendiaries. Only the fastest of the dragons had come with him: Iskierka, their light-weights, and the Cossack ranks behind them in their clannish groups, some forty dragons each carrying ten men crammed aboard. There would be no real hope of defeating Napoleon: they could only try to hold him long enough for more of their forces to concentrate upon the field.

It was three hours to Dresden at their break-neck pace; it would be another hour before the rest of the force could join them. Laurence put firmly from his mind the unwanted awareness that those desperately needed dragons would arrive under the command of an officer who hated and despised him, and who would be glad of almost any excuse to see him brought low. There was no use in entertaining the thought; Fidelitas was by far the senior of the dragons in the second wave. For a moment he had entertained leaving Granby and Iskierka back to command it—but only for a moment. If there was anything to be gained in the space of that first hour, it would only be gained by the most ferocious defense they could put forward.