He pulled himself up onto the bridge ahead of the party, Forthing and Ferris scarcely a step behind, and they together managed to calm the lead horse, if calm were the word for it; they had nearly to bind it into immobility and bodily drag it, and as they hauled the snorting and terrified creature its saddle-girth burst. Saddle, blankets, harness, all fell away and jouncing off Temeraire’s hip-bone tumbled down the gorge and were flung from side to side in their descent, the stirrups clanging, until at last they vanished into the cataracts below.
Even with Temeraire supporting nearly all its length, the bridge felt alarmingly fragile: a motion not unlike the crow’s nest on a windy day, save it had not the solidity of aged oak underfoot and thrice-laid hawsers in arm’s reach. Laurence managed to draw the plunging horse along its length—a stallion, he noted with some irritation, and no wonder the beast could scarcely be managed—with Ferris lashing its hindquarters unmercifully, until at last it was got up onto the far bank and he left Forthing to secure it to a nearby tree.
He climbed cautiously back out upon the leaping bridge, and offered a hand to the man lying prostrate and clinging to the matting, white-faced; what use, if the bridge were to fall apart around him, Laurence did not see. “Get along, there,” he said, pushing him along the length, and turned to the second horse: but the poor animal’s frenzy had overcome it. In its mad kicking, it had put one leg clear through the matting, tearing its own flesh against the sticks, and even a glance showed there was no hope: blood pouring freely, and bone showing white from fetlock to hock.
The man at its bridle had seen as much; he drew a pistol from his waist and threw Laurence a swift unhappy look, found no reprieve in Laurence’s nod, and clapping the gun to the animal’s head put a period to its misery. “Temeraire,” Laurence called up, “can you take this carcass off?”
“Not very easily, I am afraid,” Temeraire said, craning his head about, “but I had a llama this morning: Kulingile, would you care for it?” he called: the other dragons had withdrawn to the far side of the gorge, and perched themselves where they could upon the bare stone.
“Arrêtez, arrêtez!” the handler said, pointing to the fallen animal’s belly, which Laurence only then saw was grossly distended with pregnancy; as they watched a tiny hoof might be seen pushing out from within as if in protest.
“What the devil does he want to do, cut it out in mid-air while we are all hanging fire?” Ferris said: he had clambered back out to Laurence’s side, and the bridge yet undulated beneath them like a blowing veil.
Kulingile came off the wall of the gorge and sweeping low took the dead horse off in one massive talon, and laid it in the same pass upon the far side; Demane slid down his shoulder and was by the side of the carcass in a moment, knife out, to slice open the belly. The handler looked long enough to see that Demane knew his work, then turned back to the last of the horses; with his assistance and that of the third horseman, they had the beasts off at last, and in the meantime the llama-train and their handlers had retreated to the other side of the gorge.
The little foal had been extracted from the body of its dam and was tottering feebly on stick legs; the handler had wiped it gently clean. “What does he mean to feed it?” Demane said, frowning, but the third animal, another mare, was not much less forward in pregnancy as well. Though she seemed justly perplexed to be applied to by a foal before having given birth, she did not make great objection, and shortly the small animal was suckling energetically enough to give hope of its survival.
“Mille fois merci,” the handler of the horses said, coming away from the nursing foal to seize and shake Laurence’s hand vigorously.
“De rien,” Laurence said, bowing politely, and then belatedly realized they were speaking French: and also that his hand was now all over blood. The horseman noticed as much in the same moment, and in some embarrassment left off his clasp.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Granby said, when Iskierka had landed—they were encamping for the night only a little way off from the men they had rescued—“that we have just been risking our necks to save a French baggage-train?”
“Yes,” Laurence said. “They are on their way to Cusco overland, following De Guignes: he and his embassy are certainly there already.”
“And a baggage-train of gifts, I have no doubt,” Hammond said, “meant for the Sapa Inca: those horses are breeding stock.” He spoke half-reproachfully, as though he blamed Laurence for having rescued the Frenchmen and their goods. “And here we look little more than beggars.”
“As we have none to give, sir,” Laurence said, “let us hope instead that the ruler of a mighty nation will not be so easily swayed by trinkets and gifts.”
“Let us hope that without them, we will be admitted into his presence at all,” Hammond said.