His head was dragged abruptly up through the water, the clear sun overhead a painful dazzle in his eyes and salt water choking his mouth; he vomited more onto the waves, and blindly clung where Demane put his hands, on a piece of driftwood—on a piece of deck planking, hot to the touch and still smoking from one corner—
There was no sunset. The Allegiance was shattered open along her stern: from the gundeck to the waterline a gaping mouth full of splinters and flames, and all her sails were ablaze.
“My God,” Laurence said involuntarily; his voice was a raw croak.
“What happened?” Demane said, gasping for breath beside him, also holding fast to the plank as it bobbed in the waves.
A sudden roar and shudder shook the Allegiance again, and another eruption of incandescent fire burst from her side; Laurence pulled Demane’s head down and ducked his own: in a moment a rain of splinters and ash came pattering over them, stinging on the skin.
The cloud passed. “But—” Demane said. “But—” He stopped.
Laurence looked up again. The flames inside the ship were dying as the waters rushed in over the broken planking. She was tipping backwards and up, the great fan-shaped dragondeck rising into the air. The dragons were circling overhead like ravens watching some great beast die, as she began slowly to sink down beneath the waves.
TEMERAIRE DID NOT PRECISELY understand what had happened, at first—he had been skimming low over the water, soaking the drunken sailors despite their loud protestations, and then suddenly a great roaring and fire everywhere, a hundred times louder than Iskierka might have been. Burning scraps of sailcloth and wood were flung upon him, and when he pulled up into the air to look, he saw the flames rising from the deck.
“Is it a battle?” Kulingile demanded in high excitement, dashing over and dripping water onto Temeraire from the men crammed into his own belly-rigging. “Will we have a prize?”
“Well, I suppose we must have been attacked, but I do not see any other ship at all,” Temeraire had said, deeply confused himself, and winged around the Allegiance, only then seeing the enormous gaping hole into the ship—and so very strange to see her cut open in such a way and look in at all the decks in cross-section, the lumpy white hammocks swinging from the rafters like the drawing he had seen once of silkworms in their cocoons, and the guns sliding out into the ocean with tremendous plashes. Casks and bales were floating everywhere, and the sheep had escaped their pen and were swimming away, bleating: many of them had fire caught in their wool.
“Oh,” Kulingile said with interest.
“I am sure we oughtn’t eat them now,” Temeraire said, “this is not a time to be eating. And where is Laurence?” he added, and looked higher. The deck was littered with rigging and broken yards, the ladderways seething with fire and smoke, and bodies lay limp and strewn carelessly everywhere, bloody. Temeraire did not see Laurence anywhere, or any of his crew, and no-one answered when he called. “Laurence!” he cried again.
He flew around the ship again in perfect distraction—there were men in the water, but it was very hard to make them out, only little heads bobbing very much like casks, and they did not call out to him—why, why had Temeraire ever left the ship without Laurence? He had only meant to be gone a few moments—there had been no enemy in sight—what business did the ship have, bursting open in this way—
He jerked his head as something bright flashed in his eyes, and looking over saw Roland—Roland, waving at him wildly from the edge of the dragondeck. She had out one of his talon-sheaths and was reflecting the sunlight at him off the polished gold; she had been ducked underneath one of the tarpaulins. He stooped and snatched her up at once, and seized little Gerry and Sipho also while he was at it—he ought not have left any of them out of his reach at all, ever.
“Laurence?” he demanded. “Yes, yes, I see you,” he added with impatience, taking up Cavendish, who was waving his arms frantically to be picked off the deck also: a midwingman of sixteen, whom Laurence had taken on for some inconceivable reason; who cared anything for him?
“I don’t see the captain,” Roland said, hooking her carabiners onto his harness, and reaching to help Gerry with his. “Leave off yammering, you damned drunken sots,” she added, to the men clamoring from the belly-netting, as she climbed up past them, “or I will tell Temeraire to cut you all loose, and good riddance.” Temeraire had quite forgotten they were even there. “Do you circle about, Temeraire, and go slowly; we’ll all look, for him and—and for Demane.” Kulingile was already flying in wide anxious rings around the ship, calling for Demane.