“And where is this ship, now?” Matsudaira said.
His expression betrayed nothing but the same mild interest he had displayed throughout all the conversation, but the question came very quick. Laurence paused. He had just been thinking he might ask for a map of the coastline, or for a local fisherman to question. A transport had a draught near fifty feet: she could not anchor in shallow waters, and would not risk coming very near the coast. Some haphazard anchorage sheltered from the worst of the ocean by shoals was the most likely; near in straight line flight from this bay. He thought he might be able to guess a likely place, and even direct a boat thence, given some sense of the nearby waters.
He looked at the great serpentine creature looming overhead: the gleam of intelligence in its eye was plain, despite its monstrous size, and it was following their conversation with a keen, cold interest. It had come up from the bay with no warning—evidently it could breathe underwater. Laurence could easily imagine what such a sea-dragon could do to a ship, even one the size of a transport. Come up from below, throw her on her beam-ends, heave a loop of its body over the stern and drag her down—he could envision no easy defense. Perhaps the Longwing might be able to strike the beast, but in time to save the ship?
Its eye was fixed upon him, badly bloodshot. Was that merely some accident, or something else? Laurence glanced around the clearing. The ground was trampled into mud, as though after heavy rains; and when he looked he saw more damage to the trees around, smaller saplings crushed, branches fallen. There had been more than a mere dispute here—there had been fighting.
Laurence rose slowly to his feet. “I cannot hazard a guess,” he said grimly, and watched Matsudaira’s expression harden.
? ? ?
Temeraire was very cold. He did not know anything else, at first, and then his head was out in the air, and Iskierka was hissing at him ferociously, her talons sharp and clawing into his shoulders, saying, “Quick, quick, breathe in!”
The water held him like a vise, dragging. Temeraire tried to breathe and could not: his chest clenched and he vomited instead, gouts of water erupting painfully, dribbling away down his neck in long streams. Then at last Temeraire could draw in a thin, struggling stream of air. Lily was swimming beside him, trying to get her head under his foreleg. He clung to her, and scrabbled with his other foreleg at the great side of the ship, rising up before him; he managed to catch at a porthole, but the ship listed towards him alarmingly, and cries of warning came down.
“Oh! Why will you not listen to me?” Iskierka was saying impatiently. “You must get more air in, I cannot lift you if you will be so heavy!” She lowered her head and butted him.
“But I am trying,” Temeraire said, only he could not speak for coughing; every breath was a battle. His sides were filling a little more, but the blood was running down his shoulders and he felt so very heavy. His head was ringing in a very peculiar way, and everything seemed colored with a faint greenish light.
Kulingile came up in the water beside him, bulling in under Temeraire’s foreleg, so Temeraire could lean upon him and get out of the water a little more, though Kulingile grunted with the effort. “Get under his hindquarters, if you can,” Berkley was calling down.
“Come on, Temeraire, scramble up, there’s a good chap,” Maximus said. Temeraire did not quite see his way clear to doing as much. He coughed again, and let his head sink against Kulingile’s back; he was sliding back into the water, but he could not mind that so much. It did not feel so cold anymore, after all—
“Temeraire!” Roland said, leaning over the side, “if you drown, we shall all sail away and leave Laurence behind! You know no-one else thinks he is alive. You must get up, or else Hammond will make us all go.”
Temeraire struggled his head up to protest: he was not going to drown, at all; he could swim excellently well. And as for leaving Laurence behind—
“You will, too, drown, and then we shall leave him, see if we don’t!” Iskierka said, and bit him sharply. “Get out of the water. What else do you suppose you are doing?”