Victory of Eagles (22 page)

“No, wait, I have had an idea,” the blue-green dragon said, the one called Perscitia, and leapt into the

air; in a moment she had returned, with something in her talons which she laid down upon the ground: a

heap of the sodden and ragged figures, stuffed with straw, from their decoy clearing; some were still

smoking and charred. “Tie them on to us,” she said, to the group of militiamen, rubbing their eyes, who

had been sleeping beside her. “Tie them on, with rope—”

“They are quite wet,” Temeraire said, sniffing at the figures. “I do not see the use of that.”

“They will think you are harnessed!” Perscitia said. “Oh, and the paint, where is that black paint? Bring it

at once, too, and make straps on them—”

“We have no time,” Temeraire protested.

“Their dragons are not fighting yet,” Perscitia said. “—very well, very well, we will do it only to the

heavy-weights! Do you not see,” she snapped, “they will jump over to try and board you, and then there

will be nothing for them to latch on to, and you will have them off in a trice.”

“Ha,” Jane said with satisfaction, when she had landed with Excidium, only a little while later, and had

the plan explained to her, while the men finished painting Requiescat with the false harness-stripes. “Yes;

very clever. They will smoke it soon enough, but while the trick lasts, they will be jumping over to board

you big ones by the dozens. All right, gentlemen,” she looked over at Temeraire, “here are your orders,

then: you unharnessed fellows will go in first, then, and go in close quarters at them. If you can draw their

boarding parties, they will be undermanned when we come in, and we have the advantage in weight. He

has only eight heavy-weight beasts brought up from the coast, as yet; I dare say he has had to send the

rest back, for lack of food.”

“And when you have come in?” Temeraire asked.

“Then I cut you loose against the flanks of their infantry,” Jane said. “If we are all fighting aloft together,

we will only get ourselves into a tangle, but you cannot do anything but good against them near to the

ground, so long as you keep out of the line of fire of our artillery.”

“And keep out of our acid, too,” Excidium added, and leapt into the air.

“We have acid ourselves,” the old Longwing Gentius muttered, from where he was perched aboard a

big Chequered Nettle, Armatius.

Temeraire turned his head and asked, “Are you all quite secure?”

Laurence checked his borrowed cutlass and pistols, one last time. “We are,” he answered, and they

were aloft, with a great surging rush of wind, and many voices roaring as they rose.

Bonaparte’s Armée de l’Air was seduced easily into trying again the strategy, which had served them so

well at Jena, the cloud of smaller dragons rushing the heavy-weights, loaded up with men. Laurence

looked away; thirty Frenchmen at once had flung themselves with enthusiasm and courage onto

Requiescat’s back, to face the large company they expected, and a shrug of the great Regal Copper’s

shoulders threw them off into the air, grasping and futile; and a few of them cried out as they fell,

dreadfully, until the noise ended below.

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“Ow!” Temeraire said, suddenly, jerking, and Laurence looked back to see that he too, had been

boarded; but one of the men, an ensign, had caught himself by stabbing a knife into the flesh and clinging

to the hilt. “Ow, ow!” Temeraire added, as the French officer drew another blade, and began crawling

grimly upwards stab by stab.

Laurence tightened his hands uselessly, on the harness; if there was nothing for the man to cling to, there

was also nothing for them to use, to climb back and fight him off, and the Frenchman was placed near the

back haunches, where Temeraire could not reach with his claws. And where, Laurence realized, in a few

more of his laborious steps, he would be placed to try and stab at Temeraire’s spine. “Take hold the

harness,” Laurence said, to his small crew, and called forward, “Temeraire! We are well-secured, turn

over and shake him free—”

The world spun sickeningly, and for all his effort Laurence’s hands pulled loose from the harness, and

left him dangling by the carabiner straps as they turned, once and twice spiraling, and righted again; all of

them a little green from the close and rapid turn, and the two knife-hilts standing up alone from

Temeraire’s back, the small cuts trickling a little blood down his side.

“That has torn it, sir,” Emily said, pointing; and Laurence nodded. The French had noticed their lack of

success, and the loss of men: they were no longer trying to board, but turning a steady rifle-fire upon the

beasts instead. Quicker than he might have hoped; but their attempts had borne some fruit, at least, and

many of the French middle-weights and light-weights, who had so daringly come in close to the decoyed

British heavy-weights, had paid for it dearly as well: blood ran freely down many a side, black and

steaming in the cold air.

“Throw out a signal, Mr. Allen: we are made,” Laurence said, and leaned forward. “Temeraire, you had

better pull away now, and go for their flank—they have a weakness, there on their right; do you see it?”

“No,” Temeraire said, rather reluctantly detaching himself from the Pêcheur-Couronné he was presently

mauling about, who had with more valor than sense made a run directly at him. But the movement of men

below caught his interest, after a glance. “Wait; I do, where that ditch is in their way, and they are having

to go around—”

“Yes,” Laurence said: the French lines were compressed, awkwardly, where the men were crowding to

advance, and they made an ideal target for an aerial strike, which should drive a hole into Napoleon’s

flank not easily repaired. “Quickly, before they have got past—”

“
Alors, la prochaine fois vous feriez mieux d’y réfléchir à deux fois,”
Temeraire said to the smaller

beast, before with a final lecturing shake he let it flee, and turning towards his fellows gave a roar unlike

any Laurence had heard from him before: an odd inflected sort of sound, rising and falling in almost an

eerie musical way. It pulled the attention of the other unharnessed beasts quickly, and they came peeling

away from their individual battles with the French beasts, as the formal ranks of the Aerial Corps

charging forward took their place.

As Temeraire banked away, Laurence turned in his straps to watch: the ranks of the harnessed beasts of

the Corps were coming, not in their usual arrow-head formations, but drawn out into a single thin line of

light-weights and courier-beasts and middle-weights. At intervals there was a small cluster: two

middle-weights in front with a heavy-weight behind, like knots on a string; Maximus made one of them,

red-gold and roaring, behind Messoria and Immortalis.

As the two forces met, the middle-weights clawed their way into the cloud of French light-weights,

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opening room for the heavy-weights to bull through behind them; the lighter British dragons engaging also,

but only a little, slashing and continuing on, so the whole line advanced together through the French ranks,

scattering them above and below.

It was as neat an answer as could be imagined, to the harrying French strategy, and now the

heavy-weights were through and swooping with their tremendous loads of munitions: bombs and spikes

dropping like a black iron rain down upon the French infantry and their gun emplacements. Laurence

could see Excidium, those vast purple-and-orange wings spread wide as the Longwing darted low with a

protective guard of two heavy-weights, and another who must have been Mortiferus, with a yellower cast

to his wing-tips, on his flank. Their acid caught morning sun and sparkled, descending, and a hot grey

cloud of smoke and agony rose in its wake.

The gap in the French defenses did not last for long; the French dragons regrouped and flung all their

heavy-weights in a mass after the Longwings: three Petit Chevaliers, a couple of Defendeur-Braves, a

marbled orange-yellow Chanson-de-Guerre. Together they massed some hundred tons and more, and

descending with ferocity they could not be turned aside. Excidium and Mortiferus were forced back up

into the safety of the British line, the other British heavy-weights turning to cover their escape, and the

quick skirmishing cloud of the French harried them back away from the field.

Laurence was only a very little aware of the last of this: Temeraire leading them down they had stooped

upon the infantry, shockingly low, and now the unharnessed dragons were wreaking a ruthless havoc on

the awkwardly placed men, who could not easily get their guns up to shoot, compressed as their column

was by the uneven ground. The great Chequered Nettle, Ballista, even landed herself fully on the ground

a moment, and laid about with her massive barbed tail in great sweeps.

Temeraire was so close to the ground himself that Laurence was able to draw his pistols and shoot four

men from his back, and Demane and Emily accounted for another two apiece, Allen another. It was

more difficult to miss than to hit, at first, so packed were the French ranks; and then Laurence and his

small crew were all standing in their straps and drawing swords, as a few of the soldiers leapt aboard

daringly.

“Hi! Look there, the eagle, the eagle!” Moncey yelled in great excitement, darting around, but a young

lieutenant shouted,
“À moi! Vive l’Empereur!”
and seizing the standard leapt into the ditch itself,

quickly followed by the remnant of the company. All of the men knelt, heedless of the wet, and together

they became a bristling mass of bayonets and rifle-fire, spitting at the dragons from below.

“Well, that is bad luck,” Temeraire said, as they were forced to lift away for a respite; but Laurence

could not agree: they had wrecked the advance on the French right flank for too little cost to call it

anything but good luck, the very best. Some of the dragons had taken fire, and a handful were turning tail

for the camp, with shots to their wings or heads, and one smallish Yellow Reaper being helped away by

his fellows had a long dreadful bayonet-slash across the belly, which had lain him open to the white gleam

of ribs. But they were yet more than forty in number, after casualties and those who had been up at night

fighting, and in a few hours the latter would return to the field.

The opening gambits had been made; no decisive stroke yet had fallen. The aerial combat settled into the

steadier, grinding work of attrition. “You must send some of your fellows to rest,” Laurence said to

Temeraire, when they had been aloft an hour, fighting nearly without a pause and in tiring style. The

French had not made any more convenient mistakes, so it was all quick darting strikes whenever an

opening could be seized, to get past the pepper guns and the rifles and do a little damage. “You cannot

get worn down; the French dragons will take advantage as soon as they see you slowing too far. You see

they are already going in shifts off the field.”

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“I suppose,” Temeraire said, rather disconsolately, “only it is difficult enough already, with all of us, to

manage to do any good; we have not got a single eagle, or even taken a gun. There was that one

Majestatis broke, just now,” he added, “but that is not as good.”

“You are doing better than that; you have worn down their right flank, and the advantage to our own

infantry will tell, more and more over the course of the day,” Laurence said. “You cannot expect a quick

victory; remember how long the battle lasted, at Jena.”

It was still more of a struggle to make him go and rest himself; he would not do so until Laurence at last

resorted to pointing out, “If you do not, then you will get more tired still; and if Lien should come in at the

last moment—”

“Oh!” Temeraire said, “that would be just like her; I suppose I must—Ballista!” he called, “you must

take charge, so I can go and rest, in case Lien comes sneaking in later. I wonder where she is hiding,” he

added, rather darkly, and craned his head up to spy the rear of the French lines, hidden around a curve

of the river.

The sky was brilliant clear, and the sunlight though not warming was bright; Lien’s red eyes and fragile

white skin were vulnerable to such conditions, and likely, Laurence suspected, she would make no

appearance, save in desperation. But if deception his suggestion were, it had sufficient good effect to

make its own excuse; Temeraire grew rather drooping as they flew back to the clearings, and he fell with

ravenous hunger on the dead horse which was laid out waiting for him, still in its cavalry saddle.

He shut his eyes and was asleep at once, after; Laurence climbed down to stretch his legs, and to let

Fellowes and Blythe make their survey of the abbreviated harness while he made his own, walking up

and down Temeraire’s sides to see what injuries had been made. The two knives, Emily was now

carefully removing, slowly, fresh blood trickling. The handful of stab wounds had crusted over, at least,

but there were a good half-dozen musket-shot wounds, balls gone into the meat of Temeraire’s flanks;

and near one of them, Laurence was alarmed to notice, a puckered mark he had not before seen, a

recent one: a ball had gone in, and not been removed.

“Sipho,” Laurence said, “go and find Mr. Keynes; you know him? Good; find him, or Dorset, and bring