Page 32 of League of Dragons (Temeraire)
The guards were clamoring below, bells ringing wildly out. “Quick, there!” Iskierka called.
“No!” Temeraire said. “They have already lit the lamps on that side of the grounds, we must try to the north—” But there were lanterns coming alight in that direction as well, hemming them in.
“Over the house, then!” Iskierka said, “and we may as well have a go at picking Granby up, after all.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Temeraire said. “Our only hope is that they will assume just that, and all go to the house, and we must choose a way to get past whoever is left elsewhere. We must go over the lake, and then we must try for a woods somewhere to hide, or a very large barn.”
“I cannot hide in a barn!” Iskierka said. “And neither can you, so don’tyoube foolish! The lake is a dreadful idea: if they should catch us there, and I breathe fire on them, they have only to duck into the water, or knock me into it, and it will be of no use, or at least much less. Be careful with that!” she added.
“Iambeing careful!” Temeraire said. “Only it is shifting all on its own,” and as soon as he had said it, he realized, with a shock of breathless outrage, that the ungrateful thing was hatching,now,after all their trouble.
But there was no help for it: the egg was rocking so that it was sure to fall out of his grasp. He was forced to drop hastily into a small clearing just to the east of the great house. He had the small satisfaction of being proven right: in the lights of the house he could see nearly twenty French dragons milling about in the air, and there was a great noise going forth inside; they were certainly securing Laurence and Granby even now, he thought despairingly, as he put the egg down on the ground—very carefully, despite his resentment. But when the egg split wide down the middle in a single loud crack, and the dragonet inside popped up, Temeraire was entirely of a mind with Iskierka, who snorted a small tongue of flame and said, “Well, I likethat! Why didn’t you hatch yesterday, and save us all this trouble?”
The dragonet sneezed twice and shook the slime from her wings—quite mature, and certainly able to have come out anytime this last fortnight, Temeraire noted with some indignation—and answered without a qualm, “I hadn’t made up my mind to hatch just yet. The situation did not seem entirely auspicious. But neither of you seems to know where you are going.”
“It is no joke to find a way out when we are in the middle of the French Army, I will have you know,” Temeraire said. “And what of Laurence and Granby? They will certainly be put into prison: we will never get them out of the palace now.”
The dragonet turned her head to look at the building. “So that is a palace!” she said. “It is very handsome. But if you want someone out of it, I suppose you must go and take them.”
“There are twenty dragons over it!” Temeraire said. “Iskierka, perhaps if we only go back to our pavilion now, quickly, and pretend that it caught fire by accident, and we had only taken the egg and gone to the lake to be safe—perhaps they will not punish Laurence and Granby, after all.”
“Yes, but then you will be prisoners again,” the dragonet put in, “and they will require an answer from me.”
“What answer?” Iskierka said suspiciously, and Temeraire felt quite baffled himself.
“The French Emperor wants me to take his son to be my companion,” the dragonet said. “I did not want to come out and at once have to sayyesorno,when I did not know what was best. There is so much that is unclear from inside the shell! I have been trying to think how I might arrange to avoid committing myself. It would certainly be best if we should get away quietly, before anyone knows I have hatched.”
“Well, now you are out of the shell, you will have to manage things for yourself,” Iskierka said. “I am certainly not going anywhere without Granbynow.”
“Or Laurence,” Temeraire added, with a feeling of strong indignation: so all his fears had been for nothing, and the egg had never been in any danger of indignity at all. So much for Lien talking ofpoor mongrels—at least Napoleon could recognize true quality, in a dragon. “We are not going to abandon them, only because you cannot make up your mind.”
“That,” the dragonet said, “is quite rude. I hope I am not to be calledindecisive,only because I mean to make a careful choice. But I will pardon you, as of course you are anxious for your companions. I do not expect you to abandon them! Besides, we will never get away with everyone looking for us like this. Plainly we must have a diversion, and at once.” She looked over at the palace, and tipped her head consideringly. “It is a pity, of course, but I cannot see any alternative.”
Temeraire was just about to inquire what additional sort of diversion she imagined they might be able to produce, which would not merely draw everyone’s attention to them straightaway, when she shook out her wings and leapt into the air. “No!” Temeraire hissed out in alarm. “Wait, come back; you will be seen at once!”
She was flying directly towards the house. The heads of several of the dragons were already turning towards her wingbeats.
“That is all that we needed,” Temeraire said, despairingly. “We had better go back to our pavilion at once, before she has got herself caught. Perhaps she will take the blame for it all: and serve her right.”
“I don’t want to go back to our pavilion!” Iskierka said. “We will only go back to being prisoners, and I am sure they will lock Granby away much better, no matter what excuse we give. Anyway, what do you suppose she is planning?”
“I do not know, and I don’t suppose she hasplannedanything,” Temeraire began, only to jerk his head around as a thin shrill whine pierced all the clamor, very like a pot boiling underneath a badly fitted lid. His ruff flattened against his skull involuntarily: a truly dreadful noise, and it kept rising so. The rest of the dragons began to make complaining sounds—not merely the guards but everywhere through the grounds, heads rising up on all sides.
“Why must she make that dreadful noise?” Iskierka said, jetting out a ring of steam in expression of her own displeasure. It was indeed the dragonet, Temeraire realized—she was hovering directly over the house now, escaping notice because all the other dragons were twisting their heads away from the noise, and then abruptly she pointed her head down and blasted out a stream of white flame directly along the ridge cap of the immensely long grey roof. It was quite thin, but it ran away from her with tremendous speed, rippling strangely, and a moment later a shockingly loud thunderclap noise followed it, as nearly every window in the building burst.
Temeraire found he had hunched into himself, head ducked under a wing for shelter, entirely without meaning to. He shook himself out. Glass was raining down with a tinkling noise, like the box of magnificent porcelain he had seen shattered on delivery, in New South Wales, ruined beyond repair—he still remembered the carnage with regret—and the roof was in flames, all over. “Laurence!” he cried out in staring horror, and flung himself into the air.
—
“Is it Temeraire?” Granby shouted over the dreadful shrieking noise, and Laurence could only shake his head without answering. It was like nothing he had ever heard in eight years of his experience of the divine wind, but Temeraire before now had managed to make some new and unexpected use of his abilities, and Laurence could not be sure. Their guards at least had no doubts, he saw from their faces, nor any lack of horror. Brouilly’s grip on Laurence’s arm, above the elbow, was bidding fair to squeeze all the blood from that limb as Aurigny led the way, the guards dragging them urgently down the staircase, surely towards some holding-place below.
Laurence was in an odd state to be flung into a dungeon: he had been dressing for dinner, and he was yet in the evening clothes which had earlier been sent him by the same emperor who had now commanded his imprisonment: knee-breeches with polished buckles, silk stockings and slippers, and his cravat just properly creased; a new coat in deep aviator’s green, lined with golden-yellow silk. The guards had burst in upon them unannounced just as Laurence had shrugged his way into the coat, and without ceremony or explanation had bundled them all off at once down the hallway. Laurence understood well enough; he had not even been unprepared, thanks to Tharkay’s earlier news. Temeraire and Iskierka had acted; they had been seen in some act of rebellion or escape, and the French now meant to secure their hostages. He would have liked to know what had happened, but there was no chance to ask in the confusion, and the guards in no mood to answer.
They had been bundled, pell-mell-tumble fashion, all the way along the hall and down one turn of the stairs, towards the ground floor and the kitchens. Then the thunder had come. Laurence looked round with his ears still ringing, and all down the full length of the hall the massive windows burst: a noise like a broadside full-on through the stern cabin of a first-rate, glass and splinters flying. A sheeting wave of white flame came washing down the outer wall, and reached in roaring through the shattered frames.
“Good God!” Granby said, shouting and yet muffled in Laurence’s half-deadened ears. The carpets were already aflame, and smoke was pouring into the hallway through every crack and open door, grey waves accompanied with screaming.
Brouilly, single-minded in the face of disaster, tried to continue onwards onto the cellar stairs, but Laurence caught the corner of the wall and planted himself. “No,” he said, shouting to be heard. “No: I would rather be shot here, than driven below to roast alive. I have no idea what has happened, but there will be no escaping this house in ten minutes. We must get outside at once: where is the nearest door?”
