Before the sun had reached its zenith, they had covered a hundred miles of distance, Laurence told him: they were flying nearly fifteen knots. Temeraire would not at all have minded a pause for rest or drink or food, but none was called, and he did not at all mean to be the one to propose it. General Chu himself did not seem to be having any difficulties, and he was a great deal older. Poor Maximus and Kulingile were both of them having a bad time of it, however, and late in the afternoon Berkley raised signal-flags to say he was dropping behind, and would catch them up shortly. He signaled Demane, too, to keep with him; the two huge dragons sank towards the ground. Temeraire privately would not have minded at all stopping to rest with them, if only he could have thought of a way to suggest it, between one wingbeat and the next.
The mountains grew before them all afternoon. In the foothills, as they drew near at last in the late evening, Temeraire glimpsed below a supply depot prepared for them, surely over weeks: pens holding cattle and swine, and enormous granaries; oh, how he would have delighted in a cow, that very moment. The very thought of the sweet gush of juicy blood upon his tongue made his ruff prick forward for a moment.
Their force, he abruptly realized, was breaking apart again into smaller parties, three or four groups splitting away from the main body at one time, the blue dragons diving to take up some supplies from the pens below, and each such company then vanishing into the craggy mountains, to some ledge or cavern or hidden valley. They overflew a few of them already busy making camp, and Temeraire was wondering how much further it would be to their own, when at last they came over a ridge and saw outspread below the bowl of a valley full of tents, and in the middle of an open landing ground several men in armor, one of them in the lead with a splendid cloak, and with them a large wooden chest.
The Jade Dragons with their banners had already landed, and disposed of themselves to either side of the landing grounds; General Chu was stooping towards them. Temeraire came to earth beside him, making a great effort to descend gracefully, easily, as though he were not in the least tired; but he was glad to fold his wings. And then General Chu said sharply, “What is that smoke coming from, there to the west?”
The man in the cloak bowed low and said, “Honored General Chu, we have this very morning destroyed a stronghold of the rebels: and if those in your company are British, we gladly await their explanation for this.”
He turned and beckoned: the chest, nearly six feet long, was carried forward; Temeraire saw to his surprise it was a sea-chest, the front painted with a banner reading LYDIA. They flung the lid open, and inside to the very lip was loose sackcloth, and the chest was heaped with large round balls, wrapped in faded brown petals. “What is that?” Temeraire said over his shoulder, to Laurence, who was gazing down upon it with a hard and grim expression.
“Opium,” Laurence said.
GENERAL FELA WAS YOUNG for his rank, but his hands and his face were those of a man who had spent his life not in drawing rooms but in the field, hardened and sword-callused and leathery with sun; his mustaches and his queue were trimmed to an efficient length. His pistol-belt and swords all of them showed heavy use.
He led the way personally up through the silent ruins of the village: a small creeping terraced place, ancient and clinging to the mountain-side, grey stone mortared to make the walls and steps of the narrow lanes that wound between the houses. The door of the largest house stood thrust open, and blood spattered the floor; the bodies had been removed. Laurence followed Fela and his soldiers inside, grimly, and stood looking in the courtyard: two dozen chests and more, stacked upon one another to the height of a man’s head.
“We followed a British dragon to this place,” Fela said, coldly, “bearing more such chests. The guilty culprits fled before our approaching forces, however, and left their allies to their destruction.”
Laurence looked at Hammond, who did not answer, but only stood in pallid silence.
They went back out through the village. The attack had evidently come in the early hours before dawn, and the town had been brutally punished for its support of the rebels: cattle and goods stripped, citizenry put to the sword. The streets echoed emptily beneath their boot-heels, and the doors stood open, ruined.
A poor mountain village, worth nothing to anyone but its citizens; and now all of those were dead. Laurence could see the marks of talons and jaws, where roofs had been ripped away, walls torn down; and through one gaping hole as he walked along the dusty, smooth-cobblestoned lane he saw a cradle, empty and overturned, blackened with smoke. Laurence was not unused to blood nor to brutality; God knew he had seen more than enough men dead, falling corpses into the ocean or hacked apart with saber and cannon-fire. And yet when he stood looking over the empty and ruined village, his stomach twisted wrenchingly with disgust: a passionate horror.
“Was there more opium there?” Temeraire asked, from where he stood nearly upon the outskirts of the village, leaning anxiously over the roofs.
“Yes,” Laurence said shortly. “Twenty thousand pounds’ worth, or near to it; a monstrous amount.”
“Oh?” Iskierka suddenly raised her head. “Is opium worth so much? I have never heard that, before. What do they mean to do with it, now that they have taken it?”
“Burn it,” Laurence said.
“That seems a great waste,” she said, in disgruntled tones.