Crucible of Gold. Naomi Novik

which were left.

      He then lost himself slinking into the crowd and made his escape, perhaps hoping to have his sins forgotten if he could only get out of sight for a time; meanwhile hydra-like the little fires still crept along the deck, and the smoke clotted Laurence’s nose and his breath; they stopped and wiped their eyes, steam of the cooking pots damp on their faces. “Laurence, Laurence,” he heard Temeraire calling from above, the deep sonorous voice penetrating through the boards.

      “We had better get back up where they can see us,” Granby said hoarsely—no need to articulate for anyone the consequence of leaving the dragons to grow too anxious for their safety.

      “Darcy, go along there and tell that tar-eating cawker Powton to beat to quarters, if he damned well cannot hear me shouting it; and if he has deserted his post, find a drum and beat it your own self,” Riley said. “If I cannot have them pumping water, I would rather have the men at their guns than running wild all through the ship; we must get a little order here.”

      The boy scrambled up the ladderway even ahead of Laurence; he and Granby had barely gained the deck before the relentless drum-beat was pounding away and the officers all set up a shout, “To quarters, to quarters!” The effort did some good: sailors were not unused to smoke and disorder, in battle or in drill, and the familiar roll sent many of them, even confused with drink, running below to their battle-stations on the gundecks. But too many of the men less trained or less sensible were left shoving to and fro on the upper deck, to no end, and spoiling what progress could be made.

      Laurence pulled himself out of the ladderway wreathed in smoke that curled and clung to his arms, and thrust away a pair of sailors wrestling with each other over an uncorked jug that spilled all its contents even as they fought. They reeled away from him, and then Kulingile reached down over the dragondeck railing and snatched them up in one great taloned forehand: Laurence looked up and saw him dropping the pair into an open sack made of his own belly-netting, pulled down loose.

      “I thought it would help, sir,” Roland called down: all three of the dragons were taking it in turn to pick off the worst of the drunkards, clearing the deck.

      “Well done,” Laurence called back, before he fell to coughing; he took one quick swallow from the rain-barrel to rinse his mouth, then with Granby joined the rest of the aviators in herding the worst of the drunkards forward to their doom, to be piled in on one another in the netting, a mass of arms and thrashing legs.

      “Only be careful!” Temeraire called, not without cause: shot was rolling loose over the deck, knocking men off their feet and going overboard with gulping splashes, or tumbling into the hatches. The sailors had the advantage of liquored stupidity, which made them thoroughly unpredictable: careened into one another and pulled on the ropes, knocked over water-casks, slapped and shoved and yelled. The men on duty in the rigging, not drunk themselves and sorry for it, were jeering and throwing down handfuls of greasy slush scraped off the sails with indiscriminate aim.

      The swell was not high—that was to say, not high for the Southern Ocean; only twenty feet—and the Allegiance rolled and pitched wildly from her crew’s neglect. “Look out there!” Purbeck shouted, from the helm: one of the cannon had burst loose from its tackle, and as the ship heaved majestically over the next crest, the snub-nosed iron monster eased out of her traces and began trundling towards them at deceptive pace, wheels of the gun-carriage a hollow grumble over the deck.

      Granby was trying to guide some men towards the reaching dragons: the carpenter and three of his mates, amiable drunks swaying deeply and keeping their feet only with the practiced balance of long-time sailors, arm in arm with one another and hiccoughing with laughter. The cannon slid into them sideways at the waist and knocked them over the barrel: expressions more of surprise than alarm as it swept onward with them.

      Laurence had only time to seize Granby by the arm, and be dragged alongside with him by the inexorable weight: a corner of his coat was hooked over and pierced by the broken iron ring that had set the gun-carriage loose. Sliding over the deck behind the gun, Laurence managed to set his boot-heels to the railing and stop himself with a jolt as the gun crashed with ease through the oak. The cannon went over; the carpenters went, too, at the last yelling in fear as they fell. Granby screamed once, a shocked cry wrenched out of him, and his arm came queerly loose in Laurence’s grip.

      The fine silk slid through Laurence’s fingers, embroidery snarling upon his rough calluses; the sun was in his eyes and dazzling on the cloth-of-gold. Granby had clenched shut his jaw, but his hand did not grip back, and he was sliding over the edge. Abruptly Ferris was beside them, dropping to his knees with a knife in his hands. He put it to the back of Granby’s coat and thrust it through, ripping up, and the cloth sheared away.

      Laurence tumbled backwards with Granby, who gasped only, very pale under his sunburnt color; the arm still hung limp when Laurence and Ferris had set him on his feet.

      “Granby, Granby!” Iskierka was shrilling, leaning deeply over the dragondeck railing and reaching for the mainmast to support herself, trying to get to them: in a moment she would have clawed through the rigging.

      Ferris called back, “I’ll bring him to you, Iskierka; don’t snatch at him or you’ll jar his arm worse,” so she subsided back in hissing anxiety; Laurence nodded to Ferris, who ducked under Granby’s other arm and helped him across the deck.

      There was no sign of the other men over the side; the ocean was beaten into a froth all around the ship. No more jeering came from the rigging. All the ship’s officers and her Marines were now awake and on the deck, Riley calling orders from the stern and his servant Carver hovering behind him with a neckcloth flapping in the wind like a white banner, attempting now and again to dart in and tie it for him, over Riley’s impatient jerked hand.

      “Laurence, are you well?” Temeraire was calling, with not much less anxiety than Iskierka. Laurence wiped his streaming eyes. Smoke still seeped up from the creeping fire below, and Riley was sending the more coherent of the men down in groups under an officer, to go at it with buckets and pails; he needed hands now, and badly.

      “I am very well,” Laurence said, “and pray take those men in your belly-netting and go dunk them half-a-dozen times in the ocean; we will see if they can be sobered enough for work.”

      Then he was suddenly looking at the Allegiance as through a window of old mazed glass, green and rippled, with a sunset behind her: fascinated he watched her growing darker and more distant, red and gold color swallowed up by murk; he felt curiously light and free, like flying but without wind.

      His head was dragged abruptly up through the water, the clear sun overhead a painful dazzle in his eyes and salt water choking his mouth; he vomited more onto the waves, and blindly clung where Demane put his hands, on a piece of driftwood—on a piece of deck planking, hot to the touch and still smoking from one corner—

      There was no sunset. The Allegiance was shattered open along her stern: from the gundeck to the waterline a gaping mouth full of splinters and flames, and all her sails were ablaze.

      “My God,” Laurence said involuntarily; his voice was a raw croak.

      “What happened?” Demane said, gasping for breath beside him, also holding fast to the plank as it bobbed in the waves.

      A sudden roar and shudder shook the Allegiance again, and another eruption of incandescent fire burst from her side; Laurence pulled Demane’s head down and ducked his own: in a moment a rain of splinters and ash came pattering over them, stinging on the skin.

      The cloud passed. “But—” Demane said. “But—” He stopped.

      Laurence looked up again. The flames inside the ship were dying as the waters rushed in over the broken planking. She was tipping backwards and up, the great fan-shaped dragondeck rising into the air. The dragons were circling overhead like ravens watching some great beast die, as she began slowly to sink down beneath the waves.

       Chapter Four