His head drew back on its neck, momentarily like a cobra ready to strike, and he spat: but even as he did, Iskierka coming to meet him opened her own jaws, and her flame boiled up out of her throat and seared the air between them.
The thin black stream of poison was caught and scorched, with a stench so powerful it reached the ground; an acrid black cloud rose up, and the dragons both wheeled back from it in either direction. The Copacati was reeling away while giving small cries of distress, black scorch-marks streaked over his face and forequarters, stark upon the silver scales. Iskierka did not give quarter, but circled back and pressed hard upon him, breathing another gout of flame from which he flinched sideways, and then another; and suddenly all the dragons were roaring once again, for the Copacati’s shadow had slipped out of the courtyard, and fallen into the running stream.
“MOST REMARKABLE,” Hualpa said yet again, inclining his head in compliment while Iskierka preened; Manca Copacati was huddled sulking at the far end of the courtyard, with a handful of attendants washing down his hurts with water from the fountain, and applying some sort of ointment.
“After all, he did not know that she could breathe fire; it seems to me that is a slightly—a very slightly ramshackle sort of trick to use, to win. At least, it is not as impressive as if he had known—” Temeraire said; or rather, wanted to say; but in the end, he could not justify it to himself: too mean-spirited, and he had a horror of so appearing before Laurence. Instead he grudgingly said, “That was nicely fought,” to Iskierka, in congratulations, and privately determined to himself that the next time they should have any call for fighting, he would show what he could do.
“Yes,” Iskierka said complacently, “and I suppose they will know better than to challenge me in future; now you may tell that governor we would like to know the way to take Taruca back to his home.”
This required a brief pause, for several large roasts were being brought out at that moment: llamas on spits, their fat still sizzling and dripping on the ground as they were carried in by young men staggering beneath the weight, and two extremely nice ones were delivered to Iskierka, who fell upon them at once.
“Hm,” Hualpa said, gnawing on his spit thoughtfully, when they had eaten—it was made of some sort of interestingly flavored wood, which was very pleasant to have upon the tongue when the meat was done. “So you really do mean to give him away? I thought you were only saying so, as an excuse.”
“Whyever would we have made up such an excuse?” Temeraire said. “It is not as though Iskierka—or any of us—minded fighting, if anyone wanted a fight with us.”
Hualpa shrugged one massive shoulder. “You Europeans are always lying about one thing or another,” an accusation which Temeraire did not think justified, and in any case, he was Chinese, “but if you really do not want him, he might as well remain here. I would be pleased to take him into my own ayllu, in fact. There is no sense in dragging an old man halfway across the empire just to leave him somewhere else.”
“Indeed, Captain,” Hammond said to Laurence eagerly, having overheard this suggestion, “you must admit there is a great deal of sense in what he says: and it is plain to see they have no notion of slavery, at least in the Western mode; there is surely no cruelty or abuse—”
“Sir,” Laurence said, cutting him short, “will you ask the gentleman if he prefers to remain here, or be taken to his first-proposed destination?” and Hammond sighed even before he had put the question; Taruca had no hesitation in affirming his wish to be taken home, with an enthusiasm increased by his growing belief in its chances of being accomplished.
When Temeraire had made clear that they were quite firm in their intentions, Hualpa also sighed. “Well, as that is the grounds on which you accepted the challenge, I suppose the law is now with you,” he said. “I will give you right of passage to Titicaca, then; and as long as you are there, you may as well continue on to Cusco, and see what the Sapa Inca will make of you: I have heard there are some Europeans to be welcomed there, presently, so perhaps it will be permitted.”
“Is Cusco the capital, then?” Temeraire said. “Is it very far from Titicaca?”
“Two days’ easy flying, I would call it,” Hualpa said.
“Oh,” Hammond said, and all the objections he had begun to make to Laurence abruptly fell silent.
“I wonder he should be so doubtful, when we have been laying ourselves all-out for his sake,” Granby said, perhaps with a shade of resentment: he had gone all over Iskierka’s head himself, by hand, making certain not a drop of venom had landed which might later roll into a nostril or an eye-socket or her jaws. “You would think he might believe, by now.”