“Sir,” Laurence said after a moment, “I must tell you I think the Russians as yet doubt the arrival of our oncoming forces. I fear they may not intend to organize their forces so as to provide that ground support which they have promised.” He spoke half-reluctantly: his duty to bring the Chinese aerial forces to bear warring with his sense of what was owed them.
“I do not see why they should not support us properly,” Temeraire said; he turned to look at Grig, who had become something of a fixture of their encampment, drawn by the regular helpings of porridge. “Grig, surely they do believe us now, they must know we are telling the truth.”
“Oh,” Grig said, doubtfully, looking up from his bowl, “I would not know about that. Are you sure that all these dragons are coming? It does seem very strange that there are so many of them, and we still have not seen them on the way.”
Temeraire flattened his ruff. “Of course I am sure,” he said, “and anyway, Laurence,” he added, “even if they don’t believe us, they may as well prepare: after all, they must give battle somewhere.”
Tharkay had been sitting beside the dragons, reading; he looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Temeraire paused, doubtfully. “But they cannot simply keep running away,” he said.
“Why not?” Tharkay said, and Chu gave a snort of laughter; Temeraire put back his ruff.
“Ha ha,” Chu said, to Temeraire, “young fellows like you are the only reason why not, and probably that Tsar of theirs is clamoring for a fight, too. Well, I see that fat old general is not so stupid after all. If we come, why then, he will win a great battle and the war will be over; and if we don’t, we have given him an excellent excuse to run some more without losing face.”
“But if we did not come, and he ran, then Napoleon would win the war!” Temeraire protested.
Chu snorted. “We had to fly over three thousand miles of this country just to get here!” he said. “This Napoleon would have a long way to go to conquer the whole thing, a long and hungry way. No: I begin to think a little better of this Kutuzov fellow, even if these people don’t know anything about dragons.”
LAURENCE SLEPT ONLY ILL, the night of the seventh September; his head was pillowed on his folded coat, where he stretched on Temeraire’s arm, and he raised it at a dozen sounds, a dozen noises, all his mind alive to the wide road of possibilities opening before them. In the distance there was the occasional sound of musketry, now and again a faintly heard roar: the Cossacks on their dragons and horses were harrying the French lines.
The Russians had previously established a small redoubt at the town of Shevardino, a meager fortification of only a few logs piled atop one another, which now Kutuzov meant to use as a lure to dangle before the French—another day’s distraction before the great conflict unfolded, and another day which might allow him to slip away if the dragons did not materialize.
Laurence slept again, woke again, this time to the sound of resonant dragon voices near-by. He roused to see another of the scarlet dragons, wearing the symbols of a jalan commander, speaking low with Chu and bowing deeply. “No, Shao Ri, it is not to be supposed we might travel without attracting any attention,” Chu said. “You have done all that you could. Establish your camp and bring forward your troops.”
“As you command, General,” Shao Ri said, and with a final bow went aloft again; Laurence sat up as Temeraire lifted his own head, and Chu looked over at them.
“So you are awake? It’s just as well,” Chu said, “for we have had some bad luck. A patrol of those French dragons came upon the leading edge of Shao Ri’s jalan, late last night, and three of them escaped. He says,” he added, “they are good fliers: too bad! You had better go and tell Kutuzov. The French will be falling back at once, of course, unless they are very stupid; but if he moves quickly enough there may be a chance to strike him on the road.”
Temeraire flew very quickly indeed. “It would be the outside of enough,” he said as they went, the air tearing with great violence at Laurence’s hair and the skirts of his coat, “for Napoleon to escape, after all the trouble we have gone to, and when he has come all this way.”
“We will bring him to battle sooner or late,” Laurence answered, but he felt as much urgency as Temeraire did, and sprang down from his back with jarring haste directly they had landed, to push his way into the camp; he waited impatiently while a cold, reluctant aide went to rouse Kutuzov, and counted every dragging minute as a blow.