He looked hesitantly over the camp. They were still under guard, the scarlet dragons watching from their posts, and the British dragons had not tried to go on maneuvers. Chu had evidently ordered patrols of the region, but only by the other dragons under his command. Laurence had seen them overhead, flying in small groups.
To take Iskierka up, or Lily, or one of the heavy-weights, would at once be provoking and leave their own party too bare. But one of the Yellow Reapers was sleeping near-by, Immortalis, and his captain, Little, was sitting beside the drowsing beast and sketching a little upon a writing-desk—an illustration of a Chinese pistol, which he had evidently got somehow from one of the soldiers, perhaps in exchange for his own. He had a neat hand; Laurence paused and Little looked up from his work and straightened.
“Captain Laurence,” he said, formally.
“Captain,” Laurence said, “I would not disturb you, but Temeraire has been gone some time, and I—I have some reason for believing him in some distress. May I presume so far as to ask you to take me up in search of him?”
“Ah,” Little said, and was silent, obviously hesitant. Laurence recalled too late that Little had been awkward about him and had avoided conversation whenever conversation might be avoided. Easy to understand, now: Little of course had known of the treason which Laurence had committed, even when Laurence himself had not. Little had known the stain upon his character, and perhaps cared more than the other aviators; because Granby sympathized, and Harcourt, did not mean they all did so.
“I beg your pardon,” Laurence said. “I have not the least desire to impose on you; pray consider the request withdrawn.” He would have gone, at once, but Little rose hastily.
“No, no,” Little said. “I do beg your pardon. Of course we ought to go and find him.”
They had flown a couple of widening circuits of the camp when Immortalis turned his head over his shoulder and said to Little, “Augustine, what is that there, do you think?” A plume of smoke and dust was rising from a knot of mountains not far in the distance.
“That is no ordinary rockfall; that is black powder,” Laurence said, when they had gone close enough for the sulfurous smell to reach them.
“The rebels, do you suppose?” Little said. “We had better have a quick look,” he told his dragon, and came rounding over the smoke, cautiously, to find Temeraire buried in stones up to his collarbone with a small grey dragon by his side, its head marked with a bright crimson patch like a birthmark.
“Good God, is that Arkady?” Little said.
“Do you know that beast?” Laurence said, startled. “Is he is one of ours?”
“Yes, but what the devil he is doing in China, I should like to know,” Little said. “Immortalis, take us down there. What they have been doing to get themselves buried like that—”
There were some soldiers already clambering over the stones towards the two imprisoned dragons; but Temeraire whipped his head around on his long neck and snapped at them, his jaws clashing on empty air: the men were beyond even his reach. “Temeraire!” Laurence called out surprised as he leapt from Immortalis’s back.
“Laurence!” Temeraire cried, catching sight of them, “Laurence, look out! They are assassins, all of them.”
“What?” Little said, himself just slid down from Immortalis’s back.
A shadow was growing on the ground beneath them, and Laurence, seeing it, turned and shouted to Immortalis through cupped hands, “Aloft again, quick!” while he and Little both dived for safety. A great scarlet beast in armor came heavily down where Immortalis had just in time darted away, its claws digging furrows in the rock; the beast roared and swung its head narrow-eyed over them all.
Laurence scrambled away over the loose stones, towards Temeraire and Arkady. The red-patch dragon looked down at him and said in a strange tongue, which Laurence only a little followed, “Make Temeraire move! They will all be squashed anyway, if those men kill him.”
“Laurence, be careful,” Temeraire called anxiously. “Do not get anywhere near these fellows; and that is for you,” he added, snapping again at one of the soldiers, who had lunged at him, a weapon a little like an old-fashioned halberd in his hand, a curved and wicked blade bound to the end of a long staff, which he jabbed at Temeraire’s eyes. “Ow!” Temeraire added, and Laurence saw one of the other soldiers had climbed up onto his back and was stabbing the blade down towards Temeraire’s spine.