Empire of Ivory (41 page)

said very softly, his yellow hair darkened with rubbed-in

dirt and water. "Let me have your boots." Laurence nodded

silently, and handed them over, and Martin tied them up

with his own.

Martin's hand on his ankle guided his foot to one of the

narrow holds: a rough shallow scrape in the face of the

rock, which just admitted the grip of his toes; another, to

the right. Laurence eased himself over the edge, groping

for hand-holds beneath the lip; he could not see the face

of the cliff beneath him, his own body blocking what little

glimmer the stars gave, and could only rely on the sense of

touch: the stone cold, beneath his cheek, and his breathing

very loud in his own ears, with the strange amplified

quality of being underwater; blind, deaf, he pressed his

body flat as he could against the rock.

There was a dreadful moment when Martin touched his ankle

again, and waited for him to lift it from the cliff;

Laurence thought he would not be able to make himself yield

the support. He willed the movement; nothing happened, then

he took another breath and at last his foot moved; Martin

drawing him gently downward, toes brushing lightly over the

rock, to another hold.

The second foot, then one hand, then the next, mindlessly.

It was easier to continue, once he had gone into motion, so

long as he did not again allow himself to settle into a

fixed position. A slow deep bruising ache began between his

shoulders, and in his thighs. The tips of his fingers

burned a little, as he went; he did not wonder if it was

some trace of the acidic fluids left, or tried not to; he

did not trust his grip well enough to wipe them against the

rag hanging uselessly from his waistband.

Bailes, Dulcia's harness-man, was near beside him, a little

way farther down; a heavy-set man, going cautiously; ground

crewmen did not ordinarily go into combat, and had less

practice of climbing. He gave suddenly a queer, deep grunt,

and jerked his hand; Laurence looked down and saw his face

pressed open-mouthed into the rock, making a horrible, low,

stifled sound, his hand clawing madly at the stone:

clawing, and coming to shreds, there was white bone

gleaming at the fingertips, and abruptly Bailes flung out

his arm and fell away, his bared teeth clenched and

visible, for a brief moment.

Branches cracked, below. Martin's hand was on his ankle,

but not moving, a faint tremor. Laurence did not try to

look up, only held to the rock face and breathed, softly,

softly; if they were lost, there was nothing to be done:

one sweep of a dragon's foreleg would scrape them off the

wall.

At last they resumed. Down again; and to the side, Laurence

caught the gleam of translucent rock at the surface: a vein

of quartz, perhaps, on which the venom might have pooled,

unabsorbed.

Some time later, some ages later, a dragon flew by, going

quickly through the night. It was well overhead: Laurence

felt its passing only as wind and the sound of wings. His

hands were numb with cold and raw. There were pockets of

grass beneath his seeking fingers; in a few more steps a

slope, scarcely less than vertical; then a tree-root

beneath his heel, and they were nearly down: their feet

were in dirt, and the bushes were catching at them. Martin

tapped his ankle, and they turned and slithered down on

their rumps, until they could stand up to put back on their

boots. The water could be heard somewhere below, rushing;

the jungle a tangle of palm leaves and tough-skinned vines

hanging across their path. A clean, damp smell of moving

water, fresh earth, and dew trembling and thick upon the

leaves; their shirts were soon wet through and chill

against their skin. A different world entirely than the

dusty brown and ochre of the cliffs above.

They had all agreed none should wait for long, but go on

ahead in small parties, hoping if they were discovered at

this stage, at least some might yet escape. Winston, one of

his harness-men, was waiting a little way on, squatting and

rising to stretch out his legs; also young Allen, nervous

and gnawing on the side of his thumb, and his fellow ensign

Harley. The five of them went on together, following the

course of the cliff wall: the earth was soft, and the

vegetation full of juice, compliant; easier by far to work

through than the dry underbrush, if the vines reached up to

trip them from time to time. Allen stumbling almost

continuously, his latest growth making him gangly and

awkward, all long coltish limbs. They could not avoid some

degree of noise; they could not cut their way through, but

from time to time were forced to haul upon the vines to

make enough slack to get through them, with corresponding

groans of protest from the branches on which they hung.

"Oh," Harley breathed out very softly, frozen; they looked,

and eyes looked back: cat-pupiled, bright green. They

regarded the leopard; it regarded them; no one moved. Then

it turned its head and melted away, solitary and

unconcerned.

They went on a little faster, still following the channel

of the gorge, until at last the jungle thinned out and

dredged up to a point where the river's course had divided,

and two channels followed separate paths: and he could see

through the last stretch of jungle Lily and Temeraire

waiting there anxiously, astride the narrow banks, and

squabbling a little.

"But what if you had missed?" Temeraire was muttering, a

little disconsolate and critical, while he stretched his

neck to try and peer into the jungle. "You might have hit

the cave-mouth, or some of our crew."

Lily mantled at this suggestion, her eyes very orange. "I

hope I do not need to be near-by to hit a wall," she

replied quellingly, and then leaned eagerly forward, as

Harcourt came stumbling down the wet slope towards her.

"Catherine, Catherine; oh, are you well? Is the egg all

right?"

"Hang the egg," Catherine said, putting her head against

Lily's muzzle. "No, there, dearest; it has only been a

nuisance, but I am so very glad to see you. How clever you

were!"

"Yes," Lily said complacently, "and indeed it was much

easier than I thought it would be; there was no-one about

to pay any mind, except that fellow on the hill, and he was

asleep."

Temeraire nuzzled Laurence gratefully, too, all his

quibbling silenced: he still wore the thick iron collar,

much to his disgust, and a few clubbed lengths of cable

dangling off it, blackened and brittle at the ends where

Lily's acid had weakened the metal enough for the two of

them to break it. "But we cannot leave without Mrs.

Erasmus," Laurence said to him, low; but Dulcia was landing

among them, and Mrs. Erasmus was clutching to the harness

on her back.

They fled cautiously but quickly homeward, the rich

husbanded countryside providing: Temeraire savage and

quick, cutting out elephants from a herd, while the smaller

herd-dragons yelled angry imprecations but did not dare

give pursuit when he had roared them down; Lily doubling

back sharp on herself, when a heavy-weight roused up in a

village on their course and bellowed challenge, to spit

with unerring precision at a branch of the great sprawling

bao-bab tree beside him. Her acid sent it crashing down

upon his shoulders: he jumped and thought better of giving

chase; looking back he might be seen gingerly nosing the

thick branch, large as an entire tree, away from the

clearing.

The aviators wove grasses into makeshift cords, to tie

themselves on with, and pinned their limbs under straps of

harness so that whenever they paused for water, they all

went down in staggering heaps, pounding on their thighs to

drown out the prickling of returning blood. The desert they

flew across almost without a pause, pale rock and yellow

dust, the curious heads of small animals popping up from

holes in the ground in hopes of rain as the dragon-shadows

passed by like racing clouds. Temeraire had taken all of

Dulcia's crew but Chenery himself; and also some of Lily's;

the three of them made all the haste which could be

imagined, and they broke over the mountains into the narrow

coastal province of the settlements in the hour before dawn

on the sixth day of flight, and saw the tongues of flame,

where the cannon at the Cape were speaking.

Narrow pillars of smoke were lying back against the face of

Table Mountain as they came across the bay driving into the

city, drifting before a hard wind blowing into the bay, and

fires all through the city: ships beating desperately out

of the harbor into the wind, close-hauled as they could go.

The cannon of the castle were speaking without cease,

thunder-roll of broadsides from the Allegiance in the

harbor also, her deck swathed deeply in grey powder-gusts

spilling down her sides and rolling away on the water.

Maximus was fighting in mid-air, above the ship: his sides

still gaunt, but the enemy dragons gave him still a wide

and respectful berth, and fled from his charges; Messoria

and Immortalis flanked him, and Nitidus was darting beneath

their cover to harry the enemy in their retreat. So far

they had preserved the ship, but the position was

untenable; they were only trying to hold long enough to

carry away those who could be saved: the harbor full of

boats, crammed and wallowing boats, trying to get to her

shelter.

Berkley signaled, from Maximus's back, as they came on:

holding well, retrieve company; so they flashed on past and

towards the shore, where the castle lay under full siege: a

vast body of spearmen, crouched beneath great shields of

oxhide and iron. Many of their fellows lay dead in the

fields just before the walls, cut dreadfully apart by

canister shot, and musketry; other corpses floated in the

moat. They had failed to carry the walls by climbing, but

the survivors had withdrawn past the substantial rubble

that had been made of the nearby houses by the cannon-fire,

and now sheltered there from the guns, waiting with

terrible patience for a breach in the walls.

Another corpse lay dreadfully stretched, upon the parade

grounds: a yellow-and-brown dragon, its eyes cloudy and its

body half-burst upon the ground by impact, a gaping hole

torn into its side by the round-shot which had brought it

down; scraps of bloody hide stood on the grass even a

hundred yards distant. Some thirty dragons more were in the

air, now making their passes from very high, dropping not

bombs but sacks of narrow iron blades, flat and triangular

and sharpened along every edge, which drove even into

stone: as Temeraire dropped into the courtyard, Laurence

could see them bristling from the earth as if it had been

sowed with teeth; there were many dead soldiers upon the

heights.

King Mokhachane was standing on the lower slopes of Table

Mountain clear of cannon-shot, observing grimly, and

occasionally mantling her wings in yearning when one of the

men or dragons were struck; of course she was a dragon of

no great age, and all instinct would have driven her to the

battlefield. There were men hovering around her flanks, and

others running back and forth to the company gathered

before the fortress walls, with orders. Laurence could not

see if the prince was by her side.

The city itself had been left untouched: the castle alone

bore the attack, although the streets had nevertheless been

deserted. Some large boulders lay also strewn in the

corners, bloodstained, and others trailing behind them a

line of smashed bricks, red under their yellow paint. The

soldiers were mostly on the walls, sweating as they worked

the guns, and a great crowd of settlers, men and women and

children together, huddled in the shelter of the barracks

waiting for the boats to return.

Mrs. Erasmus sprang almost at once from Temeraire's back

when they had landed, scarcely a hand to the harness;

General Grey, hurrying to greet them, looked with

astonishment as she went past him without a word.

"She has gone for her children," Laurence said, sliding

down himself. "Sir, we must bring you off, at once; the

Allegiance cannot hold the harbor long."

"But who the devil is she?" Grey said, and Laurence

realized she must have been quite unrecognizable to him,

still in her native dress. "And damn the bloody savages,

yes; we cannot hit a one of those beasts, as high as they

are keeping, even with pepper-shot; they will have the

walls down soon if the place does not catch, first. This

has not been built to hold against three companies of

dragons. Where have they all come from?"

He was already turning, giving orders, his aides running to

organize the withdrawal: an orderly, formal retreat, the