Blood of Tyrants. Naomi Novik

the shore, but Kaneko’s house evidently stood perhaps fifteen or even as much as twenty miles inland.

      “Hakata Bay” was a promising sound, however: at least he should be on the coast again, and if there were any chance of slipping away, he could more easily hunt out some fishing-boat. So, at least, he told himself; he refused to listen to the grim internal voice which would fain have whispered in his ear at length of the impracticalities of any such plan, and the absurdity of escaping alone from a large and well-armed party accompanied by dragons, no less. Hopelessness was a worse defeat than any other; he did not mean to yield to it.

      The countryside below was not unpromising for his purposes. At first the land below was settled; but towards the end of their flight, the dragons turned away from a bustling harbor full of shipping, following the line of an old low stone wall—some sort of coastal defense, perhaps? It resembled nothing so much as some of the defenses thrown up against Napoleon, on Britain’s own shores. It carried them along to a more isolate shore, hidden by the curving of the coastline, where there was only a mere fringe of sand leading up to a thick forest of tree-trunks, which Laurence thought might serve to hide him even from dragons.

      But as they landed, the waters of the bay shuddered and broke open, and a monstrous creature came rising from the waves. It was something like the sea-serpents of half-legendary repute, but magnified to a size that put to shame the most outrageous and absurd sea-tales Laurence had ever heard passed off for truth by sailors; he had never even conceived its like.

      The smaller dragons landed before it and bowed their heads low to the ground; the men slid to the sand and all knelt deeply before the creature. It climbed a little way out on the shore to meet them, its enormous talons digging great gouges in the sand, so deep that water pooled up in them as it lifted them to claw its way further up the shore. It made a rumbling speech to the party, permitting them to rise, and even inclined its head a very little to Lady Arikawa; but when at last it swung its heavy finned head towards Laurence, a glitter of angry malice shone in its pallid white eyes, one of them shot through with broken black vessels of blood.

      “Pray be reasonable,” Hammond said, leaning greenish over the rail; he was chewing a great lump of coca leaves in his distended cheek, an effort to make up for the wad he had lost when the Sui-Riu had swamped them: he was still in his sodden clothing. “We must go on to Nagasaki, as soon as we may, and there make amends. Only consider: if the beast was not some mere feral creature, and it should report our quarrel, any efforts to find Captain Laurence will certainly be grievously hampered by the opposition of the authorities—”

      “What you mean is,” Temeraire said, “you want us to run away from that big sea-dragon like cowards, only because you are afraid he will come after the ship.”

      He did not bother to be polite about it. Captain Blaise had not been the least reluctant to express his own sentiments, when Temeraire and the others had returned, on the subject of the Sui-Riu as it was described to him—sentiments which did not in Temeraire’s opinion do him the least credit. “We must get out of these waters at once,” Blaise had said, and he had made all the men beat to quarters instantly, though there had not been any sign of the other beast all the long flight back.

      “And,” Temeraire added, “this after we blacked his eye for him quite thoroughly, to boot; it seems to me you might have a little confidence in us.”

      They were waiting now only for high tide to finish coming in: the great tree-trunks had been with enormous effort wedged slowly and painfully between the ship and the reef; the anchor-cables were woven in and around Messoria’s harness and Immortalis’s. Maximus would take one lever, Kulingile the other, and Temeraire the middle. Iskierka would lie about on the rocks doing nothing but criticizing—Temeraire snorted—and Lily would look on, and perhaps strike the shoals with acid, as they tried to get the ship off them, if that should seem useful.

      “And if he does show himself, while you are working,” Iskierka put in, yawning, “I am perfectly able to breathe flame, even if I do not mean to be exerting myself a great deal presently. He will certainly think better of attacking us, then.”

      “Dear God,” Captain Blaise said, and seized Granby by the arm to object violently to any such proceeding: the sailors were really unreasonable on the subject of fire, Temeraire felt; it was not as though Iskierka had proposed setting the sails alight.

      He withdrew along the line of the shoals to wait alone until the tide should rise, and simmered quietly beneath the steady cold wash of the waves. He would not go on to Nagasaki. He did not know where precisely Nagasaki was, but it was not near-by; he did not mean to abandon the search for Laurence an instant longer than the ship’s rescue required. The egg would be quite safe, once they were afloat again.

      The emptiness of the coast he had flown over with Ferris lingered in the back of his mind like an unpleasant aftertaste. It had been three days and nights since Laurence had been swept away—already any visible signs upon the shore might have been lost. Laurence would have gone inland for water, perhaps; or perhaps he had even been lying under some tree for shelter, or calling up to Temeraire from a distance, unheard. Temeraire still had not the least doubt of Laurence’s survival, but that alone would be of little use if he could not find Laurence.

      “Temeraire!” Dulcia landed on his back and knocked him on the shoulder with her head. “We have been calling and calling: it is time to get the ship off the rocks.”

      “Oh!” Temeraire said, rousing, and found himself very cold and stiff indeed coming out of the great dark circling of his thoughts; the water was almost halfway up his hindquarters, and the short harness about his shoulders was sodden and heavy and dragging as he went into the air, a reminder of his empty back.

      Messoria and Immortalis launched themselves with the cables; Dulcia and Nitidus each took another cable, for what help they could give, and Captain Blaise gave the word to throw the sea-anchor over the side beyond them, to help if it might. The tree-tops had been wedged in carefully under the hull, and their long trunks were jutting up from the ocean, froth churning up around them.

      “Are you quite ready?” Temeraire asked Maximus and Kulingile.

      “I still say there is something strange about this,” Demane said, from the dragondeck, gripping the railing hard; he had been reluctant to see Kulingile lent to the attempt at all. “Kulingile, you are sure you will do this? I don’t see how it can work—”

      “I’ve told you!” his brother Sipho hissed at him.

      Temeraire flattened his ruff: he understood a little Demane’s anxiety—there was every reason to believe the Admiralty would be delighted to push him and his brother off if Kulingile were lost: he had still not been confirmed in his rank, and Laurence had been his only patron. But it seemed to Temeraire that this was all the more reason to help him find Laurence and bring him back.

      “Oh, I don’t mind trying,” Kulingile said easily, however. “If it don’t work, we will only sit on those logs for a while, and nothing much will happen.”

      Temeraire drew breath to explain, yet again, why it would work, after all; then he forced himself not to argue. “If you are quite ready,” he said, and together they flung themselves down upon the levers, and as one exhaled as deeply as they could, from all their air-sacs.

      Temeraire had worked it all out on paper, or rather, Sipho had worked it out to his direction, with help from a still-doubtful Ness; but paper made nothing to the experience of plunging deep into the icy cold water, feeling his body pulling at him as though an anchor. He had to scrabble desperately to keep himself upon the lever; his own weight would have dragged him instantly deep beneath the surface of the water.

      “Hold on, there, you damned lummox!” Berkley was bellowing, over the railing. “Breathe in again!” Maximus was struggling beside him, and Kulingile was sinking so deep the water was nearly to his fore shoulders.

      “Oh, but it is working!” Lily cried, on the far side of the ship, and then with alarm, “Look out—” as the ship came up and off the rocks with almost startling ease, and began to slide down the levers towards them.