ANOTHER HOUR PASSED; NIGHT had come. Enough of the rocks had been drawn away, by now, that Temeraire could breathe freely once more; but he scarcely noticed the relief, by comparison with the rest, although he was very glad when Arkady—who had begun by then to feel well enough to complain incessantly and fidget—was freed from his side and helped away. Immortalis had stolen back to the camp, under cover of dark, to tell the others what had happened; Nitidus had flown back carrying Maximus’s surgeon Gaiters, who now was studying the dreadful chains and considering how they might best be removed.
Temeraire could not quarrel with his situation despite the discomfort. It was worth, oh, everything! to know that Laurence did not wish to leave him. Temeraire was with some difficulty trying to comprehend Laurence’s disgust of his own lost fortune—he could scarcely call it anything else—only because it could not buy him honor. The fortune could have bought him a great many other things, all of them very splendid, so that did not really explain it to Temeraire’s satisfaction. But he was not so determined to be unhappy that he would insist on Laurence’s being so, having been given such assurances.
“Why is he taking so long about it?” Arkady demanded of Temeraire, breaking in on his thoughts. Temeraire jerked his head up, for he had been drifting in a half-doze, dull with fatigue even though he could breathe now more easily. “Tell him to finish and take it off me. I do not see why he is waiting.”
Temeraire looked over. Gaiters had already drawn the hooks which had been driven through Arkady’s wings, by cutting them and pulling them away; his point of concern seemed to be how to cut out the barbs in Arkady’s shoulders so that the flesh would not be torn so badly that he could not fly.
“Well, I will have a go at it, at any rate. Horrocks, get me my knives,” Gaiters said, calling down from Arkady’s back to his assistant, and Kulingile was pressed from the work of digging to hold Arkady still for the operation. Arkady indeed shrilled loudly in protest and shuddered all over while the cruel knives dug around in his flesh; Horrocks pointed, now and again, and Gaiters, without taking his eyes off his work, grunted and nodded in answer, while the blood welled up continually around his hands. Horrocks mopped about them with a rag, and three of the midwingmen stood holding the bar of the barb steady.
Temeraire tried not to watch; it was gruesome, and he did not like surgery at all. But some fascination drew his eyes again and again to the spectacle, until at last Gaiters gave the word. “All right, fellows, lift away,” and he and Horrocks together reached within the wound to guide the barb out as the midwingmen raised up the bar. It emerged little by little—a thing of horror with curling spikes and gobbets of flesh still clinging to them.
The second one was extracted more quickly: not five minutes, and then Horrocks was finishing the sewing while Gaiters washed his hands. “What a vicious piece of work,” Gaiters said, looking it over laid out upon the ground. “I have never seen the like. I suppose they have so many dragons here they don’t mind if they ruin a number of them.”
Temeraire was very glad to have it bundled up and taken away, in any case; Arkady was coaxed limping away to a corner of the encampment, as he had been warned away from any exertion until the wounds had healed, where he collapsed almost at once into slumber, snoring loudly.
Kulingile turned back to help with the digging. Nitidus had been working industriously on the stones directly before Temeraire’s chest, clearing a safe path; he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! I hear them; I am sure I do,” and in another quarter of an hour Sipho scrambled out of the first narrow opening, and a little while after Ferris and Forthing came staggering out over Temeraire’s forearm, which was still pinned in place.
Then at last Temeraire could heave himself free, the last of the stones pouring away from his hindquarters as he lunged out, and he collapsed wearily with a sigh beside Arkady. “Oh! how tired I am,” Temeraire said, closing his eyes, only for a moment, as Laurence came to his side and stroked his muzzle again. “But I am not going to wait an instant. We must get back to camp, and I will squash General Fela, and I do not mean to let Hammond or anyone else talk me out of it, either.”
But somehow his eyes did droop shut; they closed, and he heard Laurence saying, “He must have some water, and something to eat. Can we get it out of the camp, without being observed?”
He woke again with Mei nosing at him anxiously, and an even more anxious cow lowing in his ear: fortunately this second might be dealt with in the most summary fashion, if somewhat indecorously. Temeraire swallowed down the last bite of the head, spat out the horns, and said, “I beg your pardon: I was extremely hungry.”