Naomi Novik - Blood of Tyrants

The walls were a faint luminescent grey, paler than their frames. He kept the very tips of his fingers lightly against the surface of the paper, guiding his steps through the dark. There was a yellow glow of lantern-light somewhere on his right—outside the house, he thought; within, all the rooms were dark. He came to Kaneko’s office, and the door slid soundlessly open on its track. He thought at first he had mistaken the room: the desk was gone, and the room entirely bare at first glance. Then Laurence saw the furniture had all been tidied away against the walls, and the writing-desk stood atop a low chest.

He carefully lifted down the desk, and opening the lid found the blade wrapped in a soft silk cloth, which he left behind. He put the sword inside his bundle of clothing, pulling out folds to conceal it from hilt to tip, and restored the chest and desk to their places. He was comforted to have the sword again, and yet distressed for being so: too much as though he could not trust himself, his own feelings, to be as they ought.

Slipping back into the hallway, he looked for a way out, and followed a breath of air to the entryway: a very indifferent sentry drowsed in a corner, and Laurence was past him and had a foot in the gardens when a great roaring came from above, a sound at once familiar and bone-rattling, though he had not heard it since the battle of the Nile: a dragon, overhead, and the lights of all the house flared at his back.

“Buggering mad, the lot of you,” Mr. Ness had said, rudely, but Temeraire had with some exasperation demanded a better suggestion of him and, failing to receive any, had nodded firmly.

“Then we shall at least try,” he said, “and if it does not work, then I suppose you must begin to take out all that ballast and throw it into the ocean, along with the cannon, until we can lift the ship; and while you do that, Iskierka will go to the shore to be safe, and the other dragons will stay with her and the egg, and I will go and find Laurence. You will stay with the egg?” he appealed, turning his head.

“Of course we will,” Maximus said stoutly, and Lily added, “All of us: except Nitidus will go with you, to carry messages back and forth,” an excellent notion. Temeraire was quite sure no-one would give any trouble to Iskierka and Lily and Maximus.

“Anyway,” Lily said, “perhaps it needn’t come to that, and I am quite ready to be off these rocks: let us go by all means and fetch some trees.”

But they were unable to leave immediately: “I want to come, too!” Kulingile called down, in protest. Certainly Temeraire could not stay, but Maximus stood on seniority and refused to stay behind, either, which bode fair to make a quarrel; and meanwhile Hammond began bleating of the necessity to avoid being seen. Well, Temeraire did not mean to go in blowing on trumpets, but after all, they did need to take away several large trees, and he supposed someone might notice: that would not be his fault.

“We had better come along, then, Hammond; and all your crews, also,” Churki said.

Hammond, taken aback, said, “Certainly not—a martial presence, nothing more undesirable—”

But Churki shook her head censoriously at him. “If there are dragons here, they will certainly assume we are here to take their people away if they do not see we have any of our own. And if there are men, they will want men to talk to: that is only the natural order of things, and all the more so if they are like these peculiar sailors you have here on this vessel, who are afraid of dragons.”

Hammond paused, doubtful; Temeraire could see the sense in what Churki said, but he did not mean to countenance the delay involved in getting all the crews aboard. He only had a scant few officers himself, but Lily and her formation-dragons had their full crews, and even the aviators could not easily go clambering aboard from the precarious surface which the ship presently offered.

“The captains shall come with us,” Temeraire said, “and Ferris shall come with me, which will make a sensible number of men, and not any sort of threatening number; and,” to Kulingile, “this time Maximus shall go, and if we cannot get the boat off, then next time, you shall: that is surely only fair. And,” he added, very handsomely in his opinion, “I will take the lines when we come back to give you a rest before we lever her off, even though it will not be my turn yet.”

“I do not need a rest,” Kulingile said disconsolately. “This is not very difficult: it is only tiresome, and I want something better to eat, which you are sure to get when you are on land.”

“Oh!” Iskierka said, raising up her head from the dragondeck, where she had lain down again, ignoring Granby and Maximus’s surgeon Gaiters clambering about her hindquarters, consulting in low voices, “a cow! You shall bring me back a cow, Temeraire; do not forget it.”

“Wherever am I to find a cow, which is not someone’s property?” Temeraire said in exasperation, and Hammond at once began to speak again—likely the discussion should have been another hour, but Temeraire realized his mistake and said quickly, “but we will bring you both back something good to eat, if we should find anything without anyone seeing us, or objecting: we will save you the very best of what we find, you have my promise.”

“Well, that is fair,” Kulingile said, mollified, and Temeraire put out a foreleg on the dragondeck for Ferris, who hesitated only a moment before climbing into his grasp, and then launched them before anyone else could object further, or make any more unreasonable demands.

Ferris was very quiet, when he had got astride Temeraire’s neck and buckled himself on, while they hovered waiting for the other dragons to take up their captains and come aloft—Temeraire was careful to keep out of ear-shot of the deck. “Are you quite well, Ferris?” Temeraire said, craning about his head.

Ferris hesitated; he looked a great deal better lately, Temeraire had even before now noticed and approved: he could not help but congratulate himself for it, and see in it evidence that he was not a careless guardian of his crew, despite all their trials amongst the Inca and since.

Certainly Ferris was happier than when he had first come back to them in New South Wales; he was not so weary-looking, and the ruddy blotches which had marred his face then had cleared. He looked nearer his four-and-twenty than he had, and if he did not wear a green coat—Temeraire did not understand why Hammond had not straightened out that matter yet—at least the coat which he did wear, brown, was neat and trim and with silver buttons; and he took excellent care of his linen, which was properly white.

“You ought have taken Forthing,” Ferris said abruptly.

“Oh, Forthing,” Temeraire said, with a flick of his ruff. “Whyever for? I do not see why I ought to be giving Forthing any special notice: he is very well, I suppose, for ordinary work.”

“He is an officer of the Corps,” Ferris said, “and I—I am not; he is your first lieutenant.”

“You were, before him,” Temeraire said, “except for Granby; whom I cannot ask to come away from Iskierka under the circumstances. I do not take any notice of what some silly court-martial may have said, Ferris: I hope you do not think I do, and you ought not, either. Why, they declared Laurence should be put to death; you cannot imagine their judgment holds any water with me, or anyone of sense.”

Ferris was silent, and then he said, “You wouldn’t be taking Forthing up, no matter what, I suppose.”

“Taking him up?” Temeraire said. “I am perfectly happy for him to ride, when the rest of the crew do,” although this was not entirely true: with as much opportunity as Ferris had been given, during their brief stay in Brazil, Forthing had not bothered to repair any of his wardrobe but what had outright holes in it; his green coat was faded almost to grey, his neckcloth a disgrace, and his trousers frayed at hem and seams. It was an embarrassment, and all Temeraire’s hinting had gone unheeded entirely.