They had undertaken the return to Peking in a blazing rush, as swiftly as dragons could go; but even so the weeks seemed to Laurence to melt away and run through their fingers. By now, they were all dreadfully aware, Napoleon might already have crossed the Niemen; if the Russians had chosen to give battle, the fate of Europe might already have been decided.
The speed of the Jade Dragon couriers, within China, depended on their intricate system of relays; traveling so far as Moscow was no easy matter, and they labored without intelligence. They could only muster with all possible speed and go, hoping. Laurence had wondered how swiftly the assembled jalan could be brought back north from the mountains, but Chu had shaken his head in some bemusement even to be asked. “There is no sense bringing those soldiers all that way,” he said. “Those niru will go back to their usual stations; we will muster up fresh as we fly north. You Westerners seem to insist on thinking of dragons as though we were infantry. Telling ten thousand where to go is very difficult. Telling three hundred is not! Now, feeding them, that is another matter.”
Tharkay had not wholly recovered, but he had preferred to come with them than to remain behind for his convalescence. Laurence now stopped into his bedchamber in the palace, returning from the ceremony of handing over the egg. They had made use of the sickroom, which gave out upon the courtyard, to spread a great many maps upon the floor and consult upon the quickest route towards Russia’s borders.
Gong Su and General Chu had come three mornings ago to look these over, bringing with them a nondescript middle-weight dragon, one of the common blue sort, who was distinguished however by a silver headdress featuring two cabochon amethysts nearly the size of her own eyes, and who was introduced to them as Lung Shen Shi.
They looked over the maps, the dragons’ heads thrust through the open wall; withdrawing, Shen Shi had shaken her head doubtfully as though casting off water; the movement set the silver jingling. “I suppose we cannot rely on them to have any proper depots?” she asked Chu. “We must rely entirely on forage?”
“I am sure the Tsar will be pleased to put his resources at your disposal,” Hammond began.
“Herds of cattle, I suppose,” Chu said, with a snort. “We cannot rely upon them.”
She nodded her head. “In such circumstances as these, Honored General,” she said to Chu, “I regret most deeply that supply will be somewhat difficult to assure.”
Chu grunted. “How many dragons will this Napoleon have?”
“No more than a hundred?” Laurence said. “He can scarcely muster and supply a force larger than that which he brought across the Channel to England, so much nearer to home.”
“That is something, at any rate.” Chu said, not very enthusiastic. “Well, I hope he is not as clever as all of you seem to think.”
“I had not thought, sir, that you thought so highly of our Western tactics,” Laurence said, a little dryly, but wondering truly; he himself would not have given much for Napoleon’s chances in the air against the Chinese legions, so outnumbered and in hostile territory.
“I am not worried about the fighting,” Chu said, “when we have any. I am worried about time. I do not like to think what it will be if we have not defeated him before the harvest season. As the Emperor has commanded, however, so it must be.” He heaved himself up. “There is no time to lose, but I suppose you will not want to go until you have seen the egg safely conveyed,” he added to Temeraire. “We had better go the day after that, then. I will send on the word to the jalan-commanders, and we will rendezvous at Moscow.”
“And I myself must leave at the earliest possible moment,” Shen Shi said. “I ought to have been there six months ago, to assure proper supply.”
Gong Su nodded and turning to Hammond said, “Mr. Hammond, will it be convenient for you to leave at once?”
“Oh,” Hammond said, dismally. “I thought I—that is, I had expected, in the new circumstances of amity between our nations—surely I ought remain, as our standing ambassador—” He looked around as though for rescue. He had spoken with much enthusiasm of the opportunity of promoting the fragile new alliance, of cementing closer ties with Britain; and Laurence suspected he would be equally enthusiastic to be done with flying from one corner of the earth to another.
But Gong Su said gently and implacably, “The crown prince desires me to serve as the envoy of the court to His Imperial Majesty the Tsar, and relies upon you to provide the necessary introductions.”