“Three of you, now?” Placet said with a sigh at Dyhern’s addition to their party, though he outweighed an elephant handily and could have taken several more passengers without any real trouble. “Well, I suppose you had better lock yourselves on; we won’t get there any sooner.”
The encampment was barely respectable, by Chinese standards, though its appearance astonished Dyhern to silence. Shen Shi and her escort, eight of the common blue dragons and their numerous crews, had labored extensively: large cooking-pits were covered with rough-hewn stone lids, and over these enormous mats of wood and metal had been unrolled, on which dragons might sleep warm: more stood yet unused and waiting. Wells had been sunk up on a hill, near-by, and channels dug to bring the water rolling downstream, diverted into distinct pools for drinking and for bathing, and continuing on towards the cattle pens.
Above all this stood the great gauzy pavilion which had been erected once more for Temeraire, and beside this the one for Chu, where the general was napping; as they approached he raised his head, peering narrowly at Dyhern, and before Hammond could address him on the subject of the missing beasts demanded in tones of irritation, “Well, is this a Russian general, finally? Where are his maps? Will he tell me where the enemy is? My army cannot travel any slower than they already are.”
Hammond, mouth half-opened, recalled himself and stammered, “Sir, no, this is Captain Dyhern, a Prussian officer, a friend of Captain Laur—that is, I mean, of His Imperial Highness. But so far as the army goes, we had come to ask you that very—that is to say, to inquire of you, where your army might be. I am afraid the Russians have had no reports, from the countryside, of any substantial forces approaching—”
He trailed off, in the face of Chu’s stare, and fell silent. “Your remarks are very peculiar,” Chu said. “Are you complaining because we are not spoiling the territory of our allies? My troops are not undisciplined yearlings.”
“I beg your pardon,” Hammond said, “but surely by now many of the—of the niru will have joined up, in preparation for the final muster? Even a quarter of a jalan could not escape notice—”
“No,” Chu said, “nor travel more than twenty miles in a day, through this barren and unsettled countryside, before they had to stop to be sure they could feed themselves; certainly stripping the farmers bare to do so.”
Laurence could not but recognize the plain sense of Chu’s remarks: he realized in dismay he had unconsciously gone too far in assigning to the Chinese legions some fantastical power of supplying their wants, by the example he had seen within China itself, where undoubtedly there had been, unseen, supply depots and warehoused goods in the near distance available to the building force. “Sir,” he said, “do you mean they are traveling in their individual niru? Keeping some substantial distance from one another?”
“Twenty miles, at least,” Chu said, agreeing: indeed a sufficient separation to permit even many groups of dragons, traveling four at a time, to make themselves nearly invisible within the vastness of the Russian countryside. “It will require four days to muster the full force upon the battlefield: but that,” he added in some heat, “must be presently!
“I have already sent the couriers to delay their pace, having seen the inadequacy of our supply here, but they cannot merely halt where they are, nor slow very much: the countryside is too poor. We must find the enemy, concentrate to defeat him, and disperse again to return.”
Hammond cleared his throat and said, “Sir, I am—I entirely take your point, and—and I beg you do not suppose I in the least mean to question your arrangements; but perhaps if—perhaps if some fraction of the force might be assembled, and summoned hence—”
Chu lowered his head to stare at him. “Why?”
“The Russians think us liars,” Laurence said bluntly, when Hammond would have continued to evade. “They do not believe that the force is coming.”
Chu snorted and shook out his fringed mane with disgust. “They will certainly believe it when they have three hundred dragons eating every last scrap of wheat in twenty miles around this city, but they will not be very happy, and less so when I will have to send all my jalan away again before we have even seen any fighting!”
“I am very glad to see you, Captain Dyhern,” Temeraire said, “and oh! It is the greatest shame, about Eroica: we must try and find out where he is, and I dare say then we can get word to him that you are at liberty. Perhaps we will take some French dragons prisoner, and I will ask them: I am sure no dragon could fail to be sympathetic to his situation, nor wish him to be denied a reunion with you.”