“We must leave at once,” she said. “The tumi patrols are out after you, and beating the jungle near-by: I have bribed a lieutenant to let me rescue you, but he cannot keep them off for very long.”
When they demanded explanation for her having gone to treasonous lengths in their interest, “How can you call it so?” she protested. “It is my duty. After all, I did not know the Sapa Inca was going to choose to marry your enemy when I asked Hammond to join my ayllu. What sort of creature would I be if I did not do all in my power to protect him, only because it has become inconvenient?”
Of course, her preferred notion of that protection was that Hammond should return with her, to her mother’s territory. “For the Sapa Inca will not mind at all, I promise you,” she added persuasively, “and my mother will give me more people to join the ayllu: you may have three wives all your own, if you would like.”
“I call that justice,” Granby said to Laurence, with a great deal of enjoyment in Hammond’s discomfiture, even as they directed the urgent retreat: all were piling aboard the dragons in great haste, men scrambling to tie themselves to the harness while Forthing and Ferris pushed the clumsier among them back into the belly-netting.
Hammond struggled meanwhile to dissuade Churki, edging close to Temeraire as he spoke: a certain frowning gleam in her eye suggested temptation to snatch him away in disregard of his wishes, when they were so plainly misguided. Until at last he hit in desperation upon the notion of adding, “And you know, I cannot desert my family: why, I have eight brothers and sisters, with any number of children themselves—there must be three dozen by now—”
“Oh!” Churki said. “Why did you not say so, at once? Dozens, and in that uncivilized country of yours, with no dragon to look after them. Of course we must go back to them.” She ruffled her feathers high. “I do not like getting in the way of the tumi patrol, of course; I am sure it will make trouble for my mother if it is known. But she will understand, when I can send her word.”
They were aloft scarce twenty minutes after Churki’s warning. Full dark had fallen, and even as they rose they were attacked by a patrol: five dragons, striking out of the dark, all with small spear-shaped heads and dark green feathers cropped short. They were middle-weights at most, each not a quarter of Temeraire’s size, but they made up for that in numbers and in night-vision; their coloration made them nearly invisible against the night, and plainly the hazy moonlight which came through the clouds was sufficient to enable them to see.
The green dragons were making low calls to one another, in almost chirping voices. “Do not roar,” Laurence called urgently, as yet another of the dragons came darting into the fray from up ahead, slashing at Temeraire’s flank in passing as it winged to join the other five in harrying their flanks. “Temeraire, do you hear me? The jungle must be alive with these beasts; if you should roar, you will draw them upon us in a cloud: we must get ahead of their line before you roar.”
Temeraire flicked his ruff in acknowledgment; he was flying and fighting at once, and Laurence had all the pain of feeling himself and his crew useless in their present circumstances: they had neither guns, nor incendiaries, nor even flash-powder, which might have allowed them to be of assistance against enemy beasts, and could only cling on and hope they did not obstruct Temeraire’s own efforts.
“Mr. Ferris,” Laurence called, leaning over, “do we have that netting—the rope and sailcloth netting, have you any of it left, below? Light it along, if you please—”
“Aye, sir,” Ferris called, and came clambering up Temeraire’s side with a rope lashed around his waist, a tether to the heavy entangled bundle; Forthing and Roland and even Hammond joined their hands to the cable, and they drew it up, brine-stinking cloth and half-rotten rope. Laurence hacked apart a portion with his sword, Roland setting her knife to the sailcloth: she and Ferris and Forthing, aviators all since childhood, managed to take and keep their feet long enough to heave it out as one of the green-feathered dragons swung close to Temeraire’s hindquarters, and the mess billowed open, descending, and settled on the dragon’s head.
The beast squalled, muffled and surprised, and fell away clawing blindly at the unexpected attack; it ran into a second beast and fouled her flight for a moment, but this one squirmed loose and plucked away the ragged cloth, throwing it out over the trees. It sank, a momentary flash of pale cloth, and vanished away amid the trees behind them.