It did not make Temeraire feel much better, either, to see Vosyem and the rest of the Russian heavy-weights sitting disgruntled in their own encampment, sullenly tearing at the ground and snapping at one another, when he came past them: Chu had sent a word to the Russian generals hinting that perhaps it would be easier for the Chinese legions to operate if they were not being fouled and harassed by their own allies. The Russian heavy-weights had several times bulled through the niru formations to engage the enemy directly, with nothing but ill-effect all around.
Temeraire sighed and looked back towards the battlefield: the guns had begun roaring more energetically. The front row of the fences had at last fallen, but the French had got away their guns, and raced back behind the shelter of the second row; the artillery were now pounding away at the Russian troops who had seized the first row, before those men might even have enjoyed a moment’s respite from their victory. The batteries of artillery aimed against the sky were yet sheltered behind a third row of fences, and overlooking them were the massed ranks of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, as yet withheld from all the fighting. But aloft, the niru were battering steadily and systematically away at the French dragons.
“Ah, there you are,” Chu said, when Temeraire came down in the encampment. “This is Colonel Zhao Lien, commander of the third jalan,” he said, presenting Temeraire to one officer, a heavy-set dragon of pale green, with a bristling spine of tendrils and a mane not unlike Chu’s own, in scarlet; she bowed her head politely before continuing her report.
“The quantity of smoke produced by the guns has made it most difficult to obtain a clear understanding of the organization of the enemy’s forces,” she said, “but their reserves are substantial, and I have determined their supply may be a great deal better than we have supposed to be the case. I sent a small foray against their rear, upon the ground, which was repulsed swiftly by the repositioning of their guns, but one of my dragons was able to seize a packet from their supply-waggons—”
She indicated this, a large square bundle which had been hastily rewrapped; when one of her crewmen opened it up again, Temeraire bending down to sniff found it full of long hard strips of some dark brown stuff that smelt strongly of spice; pieces were handed around, and when Temeraire chewed it, he found that it was meat: quite tough and dry and salty, but perfectly good to eat.
“Hm,” Shen Shi said, inspecting it. “That is very clever: they do not need cattle, then.”
“No,” Zhao Lien said, “and they had fifty pallets of a similar style on hand.”
Chu made a low grunt. “Well, then they can hold out at least a week,” he said, “but why would they have had so much meat, for this number of dragons—” He fell silent, scratching at the ground ruminatively.
“I will say, General,” Zhao Lien said, “that it seems to me the enemy are fighting very conservatively.”
“Hm,” Chu said. “Colonel, I wish you to take four niru and scout—where are those maps? What is to the north of our position?”
Temeraire looked back and forth between them, conscious that he had not quite followed their train of thought, and wondering how he might ask without looking somehow foolish. Chu was bending low over his maps, and then suddenly, very near-by, a blasting of thunder erupted, a cannonball-whistling. Temeraire looked up and around, in surprise, and then recoiled with a cry as something hot and terrible seared along his side. Roars of pain went up on all sides of him—canister-shot was flying down all over the rear of the camp. “Aloft!” Laurence was shouting from his back, through his speaking-trumpet. “All aloft, at once! Get into the air!”
Temeraire flung himself up, blindly, backwinging, and took up the cry himself as he went, roaring it out as loudly as he could; as soon as he was up, and out of the flight path of the balls, he could see the guns firing upon them: a tiny clearing, some four hundred yards to the north, where the French had established a small battery of three-pounders. They were firing at a furious pace: not even pulling their guns back into place after they fired, nor even trying to aim, merely reloading and firing again and again; all they cared for was to hit anything in the Russian rear at all, and even more guns were being dragged out from the trees behind them.
But they had as yet no covering-fire, nor aerial defenders; Temeraire hissed in fury and circled towards them, out of their line of fire. Plunging towards them, he drew in his breath, once and twice and three times, swelling all his chest with air, and roaring fell upon the line of guns, sweeping them and seeing men and horses fall screaming to the ground before the divine wind, while he caught at the hot guns and tipped them over into a clanging, tumbling heap.