The going was slow among the trees, and slower still for lack of clear destination. Laurence could look up and catch a glimpse of the stars, now and again, which pointed him south-west generally, but besides this his progress was wholly blind. “Do you have any notion what is in the countryside near-by here?” he asked Junichiro, as they struggled onwards through the rough terrain.
“We are in Chikugo Province by now,” Junichiro said. He paused and looked up over his shoulder: a sound of leathery wings, faint but carrying over the water, not far distant.
Laurence caught sight of a large old pine, gnarled and twisted, roots erupting from the ground in low arches. They squirmed between two of these and pressed themselves back into the meager shelter their intersection offered. The night was not bitterly cold, but enough; they were wet, in thin cotton robes, and it would be a long while for the hollow to have warmed with their bodies. The dragon swept overhead a few times, with no particular direction, merely having a general look, or so it seemed to Laurence; but they huddled beneath the predatory search in silence, hearing the distant noise of search parties.
A clamor was raised somewhere off, in the direction of the river, and the dragon turned away towards it: perhaps the boat. Laurence breathed, but did not yet live and move; too soon for that. The sun was barely up, but had not yet penetrated the trees; he only saw the sky lightened overhead. The voices left off, after a while, and the dragon’s searching resumed, but more distant—it was looking somewhere on the other side of the river, Laurence thought. In any case, this was the best chance which was likely to come; a search would close in upon them soon enough if they merely remained in hiding.
He stood, not very quickly or easily; all his muscles protested the cavalier treatment he had served them, going from hot work to a cold, crouching bed, and he could only ruefully envy Junichiro, who bounded out of the hollow behind him as easily as a deer with the limberness of youth. “Have you any notion of the best direction?” he asked.
“We should continue southward and make for the coast of the Ariake Sea,” Junichiro said, “and follow its shore around to Nagasaki.” Laurence nodded, and followed him into the thicket.
They walked in silence most of the time, speaking only in low voices; the woods were deep and hushed about them, and every word seemed to ring out like a bell, inviting capture. But Laurence asked Junichiro the distance to the sea when they made a brief halt by a spring and they gave their feet a rest; blisters were already raising white upon his skin. The number meant nothing at first, as he did not know how long a ri was, but when they began walking again, Junichiro did his best to tell Laurence when they had crossed the distance, and he made it something near two and a half miles. Ten miles to the coast and sixty around, if they could not find another boat and cut across: three days’ forced march, for an infantry company—a company with boots and supply.
Laurence marched on after him and grimly did not make any close inspection of his feet: they would be worse before they were better.
“They are busy enough over something, there,” Granby said, peering through his spyglass, which was rigged out with a loop into which he might slip his hook, and thereby use his hand to steady the front. Temeraire would have liked a spyglass himself; he could not see why one might not be made in dragon-size.
“Why would anyone bother?” Iskierka said, dismissively. “If I want to see what is happening, I will just go fly over and take a look; should you like me to do so, Granby?”
“Stay where you are, if you please,” Granby said, “—or if you don’t please, for that matter,” he added. “The last thing I need is Hammond yowling at me some more; he leapt out at Berkley this morning directly he had put his head out of doors, before he had even swallowed a bite of breakfast: I think the fellow don’t sleep.”
Several dragons had come into the Japanese port. This alone was not unusual: they had seen several coming and going and in the town beyond, in the past several days, but those had been nearly all of them courier-beasts, or a few light-weights evidently engaged in the trade in some way. This party was led by a middle-weight, a grey dragon wearing an elaborate drapery of green, which had some sort of jeweled border that sparkled in the sunlight; Temeraire could not tell if it was diamonds, or beads, or something else, but it certainly looked very attractive. John Wampanoag had flown over a little while ago, evidently to meet the new party.
Temeraire observed it all with anxious hope: if only Wampanoag was right this moment explaining that they would leave should Laurence be found; if only the dragon were a person of substance, who might push things forward; if only she would listen to Wampanoag; if—if—if.