“As though you had any business accusing anyone else of being difficult,” Temeraire said, but without much heat; the llamas had been excellent, which he considered a triumph in his first attempt at cooking anything himself. And after all, no-one could deny that Iskierka was an impressive dragon. Her spikes had even not been so very awkward as he might have thought, although requiring some ingenuity in maneuvering.
It was nearly morning: a certain pallid quality to the sky behind the mountains ahead of them as they flew back to the city, Temeraire carrying a couple of extra cooked llamas, which he meant to show to Gong Su for his approbation. “What is going on, there?” Iskierka said suddenly, as they drew near: there were many dragons gathering behind a wall of the great city fortress, and also soldiers in their woven armor with swords and musketry, forming into lines.
“Wait: this way, we mustn’t let them know we have seen them,” Temeraire said, nipping at Iskierka’s wing, and they darted back out of sight behind a curve of the mountain-side. Temeraire set down his llamas. “Wait here—oh, pray stop grumbling; if you should let off any steam or fire, they will certainly see you at once.”
“I do not care, in the least,” Iskierka said. “What are they about? Of course they are making an ambush,” she added impatiently, “but on us, or on the French?” She stretched out her neck to peer at the gathering force.
Temeraire went aloft, careful to keep the gradually lightening sky ahead of him, and studied the scene: the British enclave lay to the east of the soldiers’ position, the French to the west; both in striking distance. The Inca’s soldiers were carrying shields covered splendidly in silver, and one of these caught the rising sunlight and gleamed painfully bright out of the terrace for an instant as Temeraire looked.
“On us,” Temeraire said to Iskierka, as he dropped down to seize his llamas again: they might need the food, he thought. “They are going to attack us; we must fly at once.”
THE WATERFALL WAS NOT WIDE but very high, crashing noisily down over its long and broken cliff wall, and so muted the labored panting of the dragons as they slept a little; the high canopy of jungle trees provided them cover. Kulingile’s golden scales they had slathered over with mud, and Temeraire and Iskierka were not in much better case: branches thrust through their harness-straps all over their backs, and vines strewn liberally atop, the better to camouflage them against the relentless pursuit.
A host of small dragons, lightning-quick, had chased and harried them near three hundred miles already in little more than a day and a night and a day, although they had not traveled anywhere near that distance in a straight line: their course had been desperately zig-zagging and convoluted. If they paused, or tried to engage, the small beasts fled before them: to carry the news of their position back to the larger dragons who hung back, waiting and reserving their strength to come directly upon them.
Already they had just barely evaded several close engagements with various Incan aerial battalions: six dragons of heavy-weight size and thirteen of middle-weight, who skillfully attempted to surround and bring them down. Only Kulingile’s massive size had enabled them to escape the first: he had put his head down and bulled through the hemming line of dragons, not one of them less than twenty tons. Temeraire and Iskierka had darted out after him, then turned with their greater maneuverability to claw and lash the enemy long enough for Kulingile to get away into the cloud cover, where they followed shortly after.
The Incan dragons pressed the pursuit without excessive risk, cautiously: all the advantage of time was on their side, and knowledge of the territory. With every moment of flight, Temeraire and Iskierka and Kulingile grew weary, and their strength waned.
There had been no time either for provisions or sensible assembly. The two llamas which Temeraire had brought back from his hunting had gone down Kulingile’s gullet, while the men were hurried into belly-netting without even the opportunity of putting on harness; at least four had been left behind, Laurence thought, having evidently sneaked off on night excursions. He was only consoled that their fate would not be as unkind as it might: they should certainly be welcomed into some dragon’s ayllu in their persons, despite any political differences with their nation, rather than flung into a prison from which there would be little hope of extrication.