Arkady was not yet well enough to fly, but that dawn they had loaded him onto Kulingile, who was good-natured enough not to mind his ongoing sighs and restless shifting. He had shown them the way to a pass through the mountains, not far from the encampment where he had been chained, and a valley at its end with a small and glacier-cold pond fed by a trickling cleft in the rock.
“Here,” he had said, “this is where they took us. We saw them having a drink, so Tharkay thought we should ask them for direction; but after he climbed off my back, and spoke with them, suddenly they sprang on him.”
“What did you do?” Temeraire said.
“Oh, well,” Arkady said, “I thought it would be a very good thing if I could only get away, so I could come round and free him later, of course—so I tried to fly away as quick as I could; but those red fellows are fast, even if they do not look it much,” he added disgruntled.
“As though he had any right to be,” Temeraire had said indignantly to Laurence, after, “once he turned tail and left poor Tharkay, and I am sure would never have given him another thought.”
Arkady and Kulingile were waiting for them there in the valley when they descended with Chu; Temeraire had been sure to fly on ahead as quickly as he could, without pausing for conversation. “What is this?” Chu demanded. “Who is that peculiar dragon, and why have we come here?”
“Sir,” Laurence said, “I beg your pardon for the maneuver which has brought you here. We have reason to believe we have all been practiced upon, to an extent difficult to swallow; but we have not a hope of demonstrating it, without your assistance.”
But Chu received the explanation of Arkady’s presence, and of Fela’s treachery, with enormous skepticism; Temeraire laid back his ruff to see it, and said angrily, “I suppose you would rather believe that we are all liars—that I am a liar, and Laurence as well, even though he is the Emperor’s adopted son.”
Chu snorted a little. “That does not disqualify anyone to be an emperor’s son, or an emperor for that matter: what is an emperor but one who tells a lie that all the world believes?”
Temeraire was rather taken aback by this remark, which made an uncomfortable sort of sense, and did not quite know how to answer it. Chu waved a wing-tip dismissively and said, “But in any case, I do not think you liars; I think you want China to make alliance with this foreign nation of yours, and so you are willing to believe the lies of others. General Fela, to have committed such treachery? To have sent false reports, and connived at the attempted murder of the crown prince?”
“Sir,” Laurence said, “have you seen any evidence at all, of the rebellion which he claimed was so greatly resurgent as to challenge his own forces?” General Chu was silent in answer, frowning; in the cold mountain air, the breath from his nostrils drifted forth in pale clouds.
“Then I ask you to indulge us this far,” Laurence went on. “You yourself commanded the army which cleared away the last insurgency. You are well acquainted with these mountains, and whatever rebel fastnesses were taken and secured by the army at that time. Is there anywhere close-by, where they might have taken and concealed a prisoner? If we can find our man, we may find answers with him; his guards may be questioned, and other evidence found.”
“Hm,” Chu said, after a moment, and then he said, “Well, it will not hurt for us to take a look.”
He leapt aloft, Temeraire after him, both dragons beating far up to where the air grew thin and cold. A thin clouding layer of haze reduced the mountains to faded blue, but the sharp and angular lines of their peaks might be clearly seen below. Temeraire heard Laurence’s breath coming quickly; his own was laboring in his chest, and his wings working mightily to keep with Chu.
Chu did not keep them so high long, but soon dropped to a more comfortable height. There he flew in ruminative circles a while, and then beat up a second time, as though to confirm some conclusion; then he swung in easy circles back down to the clearing. He plunged his head into the cold pool and drank deep, then raising his head shook water from his mane vigorously.
“It is a long while since I hunted these mountains,” he said, half-aside to himself, “but I have not forgotten all the bolt-holes of the rabbits yet. There was a White Lotus fortification, a cave, near Blue Crane mountain. And there is some smoke coming from the mountain-side now.”
? ? ?
“Ha, this makes me feel like a young soldier again,” Chu said, peering over the mountain’s ridge, “flying over the northern plains looking for the enemy, under the great Kang-Xi Emperor! It is not at all respectable, of course,” he added, “for either of us; but it can be excused in this case, I think.”
There was some sort of activity at the cave, certainly: as Temeraire raised his head cautiously to peek over, alongside, he could see that the fortifications by the mouth of the large cavern had been rebuilt, and fresh traces of cart wheels tracked through the dust of the slope and into the entryway.