they landed in the dover covert amid the clamor and bustle of preparation: the harness-masters bellowing orders to the ground crews, the clatter of buckles and the deeper metallic ringing of the bombs being handed up in sacks to the bellmen; riflemen loading their weapons, the sharp high-pitched shriek of whetstones grinding away on sword-edges. a dozen interested dragons had followed their progress, many calling out greetings to temeraire as he made his descent. he called back, full of excitement, his spirits rising all the while laurence felt his own sinking.

temeraire brought them to earth in obversaria's clearing; it was one of the largest in the covert, as befitted her standing as flag-dragon, though as an anglewing she was only slightly more than middling in size, and there was easily room for temeraire to join her. she was rigged out already, her crew boarding; admiral lenton himself was standing beside her in full riding gear, only waiting for his officers to be aboard: minutes away from going aloft.

"well, and what have you done?" lenton asked, before laurence had even managed to unfold himself out of temeraire's claw. "roland spoke to me, but she said she had told you to stay quiet; there is going to be the devil to pay for this."

"sir, i am very sorry to put you in so untenable a position," laurence said awkwardly, trying to think how he could explain temeraire's refusal to return to london without seeming to make excuses for himself.

"no, it is my fault," temeraire added, ducking his head and trying to look ashamed, without much success; there was too distinct a gleam of satisfaction in his eye. "i took laurence away; that man was going to arrest him."

he sounded plainly smug, and obversaria abruptly leaned over and batted him on the side of the head, hard enough to make him wobble even though he was half again her size. he flinched and stared at her with a surprised and wounded expression; she only snorted at him and said, "you are too old to be flying with your eyes closed. lenton, we are ready, i think."

"yes," lenton said, squinting up against the sun to examine her harness. "i have no time to deal with you now, laurence; this will have to wait."

"of course, sir; i beg your pardon," laurence said quietly. "pray do not let us delay you; with your permission, we will stay in temeraire's clearing until you return." even cowed by obversaria's reproof, temeraire made a small noise of protest at this.

"no, no; don't speak like a groundling," lenton said impatiently. "a young male like that will not stay behind when he sees his formation go, not uninjured. the same bloody mistake this fellow barham and all the others at the admiralty make, every time a new one is shuffled in by government. if we ever manage to get it into their heads that dragons are not brute beasts, they start to imagine that they are just like men, and can be put under regular military discipline."

laurence opened his mouth to deny that temeraire would disobey, then shut it again after glancing round; temeraire was plowing the ground restlessly with his great talons, his wings partly fanned out, and he would not meet laurence's gaze.

"yes, just so," lenton said dryly, when he saw laurence silenced. he sighed, unbending a little, and brushed his sparse grey hair back off his forehead. "if those chinamen want him back, it can only make matters worse if he gets himself injured fighting without armor or crew," he said. "go on and get him ready; we will speak after."

laurence could scarcely find words to express his gratitude, but they were unnecessary in any case; lenton was already turning back to obversaria. there was indeed no time to waste; laurence waved temeraire on and ran for their usual clearing on foot, careless of his dignity. a scattered, intensely excited rush of thoughts, all fragmentary: great relief; of course temeraire would never have stayed behind; how wretched they would have looked, jumping into a battle against orders; in a moment they would be aloft, yet nothing had truly changed in their circumstances: this might be the last time.

many of his crewmen were sitting outside in the open, polishing equipment and oiling harness unnecessarily, pretending not to be watching the sky; they were silent and downcast; and at first they only stared when laurence came running into the clearing. "where is granby?" he demanded. "full muster, gentlemen; heavy-combat rig, at once."

by then temeraire was overhead and descending, and the rest of the crew came spilling out of the barracks, cheering him; a general stampede towards small-arms and gear ensued, that rush which had once looked like chaos to laurence, used as he was to naval order, but which accomplished the tremendous affair of getting a dragon equipped in a frantic hurry.

granby came out of the barracks amid the cavalcade: a tall young officer dark-haired and lanky, his fair skin, ordinarily burnt and peeling from daily flying, but for once unmarred thanks to the weeks of being grounded. he was an aviator born and bred, as laurence was not, and their acquaintance had not been without early friction: like many other aviators, he had resented so prime a dragon as temeraire being claimed by a naval officer. but that resentment had not survived a shared action, and laurence had never yet regretted taking him on as first lieutenant, despite the wide divergence in their characters. granby had made an initial attempt out of respect to imitate the formalities which were to laurence, raised a gentleman, as natural as breathing; but they had not taken root. like most aviators, raised from the age of seven far from polite society, he was by nature given to a sort of easy liberty which looked a great deal like license to a censorious eye.

"laurence, it is damned good to see you," he said now, coming to seize laurence's hand: quite unconscious of any impropriety in addressing his commanding officer so, and making no salute; indeed he was at the same time trying to hook his sword onto his belt one-handed. "have they changed their minds, then? i hadn't looked for anything like such good sense, but i will be the first to beg their lordships' pardon if they have given up this notion of sending him to china."

for his part, laurence had long since accepted that no disrespect was intended; at present he scarcely even noticed the informality; he was too bitterly sorry to disappoint granby, especially now knowing that he had refused a prime position out of loyalty. "i am afraid not, john, but there is no time now to explain: we must get temeraire aloft at once. half the usual armaments, and leave the bombs; the navy will not thank us for sinking the ships, and if it becomes really necessary temeraire can do more damage roaring away at them."

"right you are," granby said, and dashed away at once to the other side of the clearing, calling out orders all around. the great leather harness was already being carried out in double-quick time, and temeraire was doing his best to help matters along, crouching low to the ground to make it easier for the men to adjust the broad weight-bearing straps across his back.

the panels of chainmail for his breast and belly were heaved out almost as quickly. "no ceremony," laurence said, and so the aerial crew scrambled aboard pell-mell as soon as their positions were clear, disregarding the usual order.

"we are ten short, i am sorry to say," granby said, coming back to his side. "i sent six men to maximus's crew at the admiral's request; the others - " he hesitated.

"yes," laurence said, sparing him; the men had naturally been unhappy at having no part of the action, and the missing four had undoubtedly slipped away to seek better or at least more thorough consolation in a bottle or a woman than could be found in busy-work. he was pleased it was so few, and he did not mean to come the tyrant over them afterwards: he felt at present he had no moral ground on which to stand. "we will manage; but if there are any fellows on the ground crew who are handy with pistol or sword, and not prone to height-sickness, let us get them hooked on if they choose to volunteer."

he himself had already shifted his coat for the long heavy one of leather used in combat, and was now strapping his carabiner belt over. a low many-voiced roar began, not very far away; laurence looked up: the smaller dragons were going aloft, and he recognized dulcia and the grey-blue nitidus, the end-wing members of their formation, flying in circles as they waited for the others to rise.

"laurence, are you not ready? do hurry, please, the others are going up," temeraire said, anxiously, craning his head about to look; above them the middle-weight dragons were coming into view also.

granby swung himself aboard, along with a couple of tall young harness-men, willoughby and porter; laurence waited until he saw them latched onto the rings of the harness and secure, then said, "all is ready; try away."

this was one ritual that could not in safety be set aside: temeraire rose up onto his hind legs and shook himself, making certain that the harness was secure and all the men properly hooked on. "harder," laurence called sharply: temeraire was not being particularly vigorous, in his anxiety to be away.

temeraire snorted but obeyed, and still nothing pulled loose or fell off. "all lies well; please come aboard now," he said, thumping to the ground and holding out his foreleg at once; laurence stepped into the claw and was rather quickly tossed up to his usual place at the base of temeraire's neck. he did not mind at all: he was pleased, exhilarated by everything: the deeply satisfying sound as his carabiner rings locked into place, the buttery feel of the oiled, double-stitched leather straps of the harness; and beneath him temeraire's muscles were already gathering for the leap aloft.

maximus suddenly erupted out of the trees to the north of them, his great red-and-gold body even larger than before, as roland had reported. he was still the only regal copper stationed at the channel, and he dwarfed every other creature in sight, blotting out an enormous swath of the sun. temeraire roared joyfully at the sight and leapt up after him, black wings beating a little too quickly with over-excitement.

"gently," laurence called; temeraire bobbed his head in acknowledgment, but they still overshot the slower dragon.

"maximus, maximus; look, i am back," temeraire called out, circling back down to take his position alongside the big dragon, and they began beating up together to the formation's flying height. "i took laurence away from london," he added triumphantly, in what he likely thought a confidential whisper. "they were trying to arrest him."

"did he kill someone?" maximus asked with interest in his deep echoing voice, not at all disapproving. "i am glad you are back; they have been making me fly in the middle while you were gone, and all the maneuvers are different," he added.

"no," said temeraire, "he only came and talked to me when some fat old man said he should not, which does not seem like any reason to me."

"you had better shut up that jacobin of a dragon of yours," berkley shouted across from maximus's back, while laurence shook his head in despair, trying to ignore the inquisitive looks from his young ensigns.

"pray remember we are on business, temeraire," laurence called, trying to be severe; but after all there was no sense in trying to keep it a secret; the news would surely be all over in a week. they would be forced to confront the gravity of their situation soon enough; little enough harm in letting temeraire indulge in high spirits so long as he might.

"laurence," granby said at his shoulder, "in the hurry, the ammunition was all laid in its usual place on the left, though we are not carrying the bombs to balance it out; we ought to restow."

"can you have it done before we engage? oh, good lord," laurence said, realizing. "i do not even know the position of the convoy; do you?" granby shook his head, embarrassed, and laurence swallowed his pride and shouted, "berkley, where are we going?"

a general explosion of mirth ran among the men on maximus's back. berkley called back, "straight to hell, ha ha!" more laughter, nearly drowning out the coordinates that he bellowed over.

"fifteen minutes' flight, then." laurence was mentally running the calculation through in his head. "and we ought to save at least five of those minutes for grace."

granby nodded. "we can manage it," he said, and clambered down at once to organize the operation, unhooking and rehooking the carabiners with practiced skill from the evenly spaced rings leading down temeraire's side to the storage nets slung beneath his belly.

the rest of the formation was already in place as temeraire and maximus rose to take their defensive positions at the rear. laurence noticed the formation-leader flag streaming out from lily's back; that meant that during their absence, captain harcourt had at last been given the command. he was glad to see the change: it was hard on the signal-ensign to have to watch a wing dragon as well as keep an eye forward, and the dragons would always instinctively follow the lead regardless of formal precedence.

still, he could not help feeling how strange that he should find himself taking orders from a twenty-year-old girl: harcourt was still a very young officer, promoted over-quick due to lily's unexpectedly early hatching. but command in the corps had to follow the capabilities of the dragons, and a rare acid-spitter like one of the longwings was too valuable to place anywhere but the center of a formation, even if they would only accept female handlers.

"signal from the admiral: proceed to meeting," called the signal-ensign, turner; a moment later the signal formation keep together broke out on lily's signal-yard, and the dragons were pressing on, shortly reaching their cruising speed of a steady seventeen knots: an easy pace for temeraire, but all that the yellow reapers and the enormous maximus could manage comfortably for any length of time.

there was time to loosen his sword in the sheath, and load his pistols fresh; below, granby was shouting orders over the wind: he did not sound frantic, and laurence had every confidence in his power to get the work completed in time. the dragons of the covert made an impressive spread, even though this was not so large a force in numbers as had been assembled for the battle of dover in october, which had fended off napoleon's invasion attempt.

but in that battle, they had been forced to send up every available dragon, even the little couriers: most of the fighting-dragons had been away south at trafalgar. today excidium and captain roland's formation were back in the lead, ten dragons strong, the smallest of them a middle-weight yellow reaper, and all of them flying in perfect formation, not a wingbeat out of place: the skill born of many long years in formation together.

lily's formation was nothing so imposing, as yet: only six dragons flying behind her, with her flank and end-wing positions held by smaller and more maneuverable beasts with older officers, who could more easily compensate for any errors made from inexperience by lily herself, or by maximus and temeraire in the back line. even as they drew closer, laurence saw sutton, the captain of their mid-wing messoria, stand up on her back and turn to look over at them, making sure all was well with the younger dragons. laurence raised a hand in acknowledgment, and saw berkley doing the same.

the sails of the french convoy and the channel fleet were visible long before the dragons came into range. there was a stately quality to the scene below: chessboard pieces moving into place, with the british ships advancing in eager haste towards the great crowd of smaller french merchantmen; a glorious spread of white sail to be seen on every ship, and the british colors streaming among them. granby came clambering back up along the shoulder-strap to laurence's side. "we'll do nicely now, i think."

"very good," laurence said absently, his attention all on what he could see of the british fleet, peering down over temeraire's shoulder through his glass. mostly fast-sailing frigates, with a motley collection of smaller sloops, and a handful of sixty-four- and seventy-four-gun ships. the navy would not risk the largest first- and second-rate ships against the fire-breather; too easy for one lucky attack to send a three-decker packed full of powder up like a light, taking half-a-dozen smaller ships along with her.

"all hands to their stations, mr. harley," laurence said, straightening up, and the young ensign hurried to set the signal-strap embedded in the harness to red. the riflemen stationed along temeraire's back let themselves partly down his sides, readying their guns, while the rest of the topmen all crouched low, pistols in their hands.

excidium and the rest of the larger formation dropped low over the british warships, taking up the more important defensive position and leaving the field to them. as lily increased their speed, temeraire gave a low growling rumble, the tremor palpable through his hide. laurence spared a moment to lean over and put his bare hand on the side of temeraire's neck: no words necessary, and he felt a slight easing of the nervous tension before he straightened and pulled his leather riding glove back on.

"enemy in sight," came faint but audible in the shrill high voice of lily's forward lookout, carrying back to them on the wind, echoed a moment later by young allen, stationed near the joint of temeraire's wing. a general murmur went around the men, and laurence snapped out his glass again for a look.

"la crabe grande, i think," he said, handing the telescope over to granby, hoping privately that he had not mangled the pronunciation too badly. he was quite sure that he had identified the formation style correctly, despite his lack of experience in aerial actions; there were few composed of fourteen dragons, and the shape was highly distinct, with the two pincer-like rows of smaller dragons stretched out to either side of the cluster of big ones in the center.

the flamme-de-gloire was not easy to spot, with several decoy dragons of similar coloring shifting about: a pair of papillon noirs with yellow markings painted over their natural blue and green stripes to make them confusingly alike from a distance. "hah, i have made her: it is accendare. there she is, the wicked thing," granby said, handing back the glass and pointing. "she has a talon missing from her left rear leg, and she is blind in the right eye: we gave her a good dose of pepper back in the battle of the glorious first."

"i see her. mr. harley, pass the word to all the lookouts. temeraire," he called, bringing up the speaking-trumpet, "do you see the flamme-de-gloire? she is the one low and to the right, with the missing talon; she is weak in the right eye."

"i see her," temeraire said eagerly, turning his head just slightly. "are we to attack her?"

"our first duty is to keep her fire away from the navy's ships; have an eye on her as best you can," laurence said, and temeraire bobbed his head once in quick answer, straightening out again.

he tucked away the glass in the small pouch hooked onto the harness: no more need for it, very soon. "you had better get below, john," laurence said. "i expect they will try a boarding with a few of those light fellows on their edges."

all this while they had been rapidly closing the distance: suddenly there was no more time, and the french were wheeling about in perfect unison, not one dragon falling out of formation, graceful as a flock of birds. a low whistle came behind him; admittedly it was an impressive sight, but laurence frowned though his own heart was speeding involuntarily. "belay that noise."

one of the papillons was directly ahead of them, jaws spreading wide as if to breathe flames it could not produce; laurence felt an odd, detached amusement to see a dragon play-acting. temeraire could not roar from his position in the rear, not with messoria and lily both in the way, but he did not duck away at all; instead he raised his claws, and as the two formations swept together and intermingled, he and the papillon pulled up and collided with a force that jarred all of their crews loose.

laurence grappled for the harness and got his feet back underneath him. "clap on there, allen," he said, reaching; the boy was dangling by his carabiner straps with his arms and legs waving about wildly like an overturned tortoise. allen managed to get himself braced and clung, his face pale and shading to green; like the other lookouts, he was only a new ensign, barely twelve years old, and he had not quite learned to manage himself aboard during the stops and starts of battle.

temeraire was clawing and biting, his wings beating madly as he tried to keep hold of the papillon: the french dragon was lighter in weight, and plainly all he now wanted was to get free and back to his formation. "hold position," laurence shouted: more important to keep the formation together for the moment. temeraire reluctantly let the papillon go and leveled out.

below, distantly, came the first sound of cannon-fire: bow-chasers on the british ships, hoping to knock away some of the french merchantmen's spars with a lucky shot or two. not likely, but it would put the men in the right frame of mind. a steady rattle and clang behind him as the riflemen reloaded; all the harness he could see looked still in good order; no sign of dripping blood, and temeraire was flying well. no time to ask how he was; they were coming about, lily taking them straight for the enemy formation again.

but this time the french offered no resistance: instead the dragons scattered; wildly, laurence thought at first, then he perceived how well they had distributed themselves around. four of the smaller dragons darted upwards; the rest dropped perhaps a hundred feet in height, and accendare was once again hard to tell from the decoys.

no clear target anymore, and with the dragons above the formation itself was dangerously vulnerable: engage the enemy more closely went up the yard on lily's back, signaling that they might disperse and fight separately. temeraire could read the flags as well as any signal-officer: he instantly dived for the decoy with bleeding scratches, a little too eager to complete his own handiwork. "no, temeraire," laurence called, meaning to direct him after accendare herself, but too late: two of the smaller dragons, both of the common p??cheur-raye breed, were coming at them from either side.

"prepare to repel boarders," lieutenant ferris, captain of the topmen, shouted from behind him. two of the sturdiest midwingmen took up stations just behind laurence's position; he glanced over his shoulder at them, his mouth tightening: it still rankled him to be so shielded, too much like cowardly hiding behind others, but no dragon would fight with a sword laid at its captain's throat, and so he had to bear it.

temeraire contented himself with one more slash across the fleeing decoy's shoulders and writhed away, almost doubling back on himself. the pursuers overshot and had to turn back: a clear gain of a minute, worth more than gold at present. laurence cast an eye over the field: the quick light-combat dragons were dashing about to fend off the british dragons, but the larger ones were forming back into a cluster and keeping pace with their convoy.

a powder-flash below caught his eye; an instant later came the thin whistling of a pepper-ball, flying up from the french ships. another of their formation members, immortalis, had dived just a hair too low in pursuit of one of the other dragons. fortunately their aim was off: the ball struck his shoulder instead of his face, and the best part of the pepper scattered down harmlessly into the sea; even the remainder was enough to set the poor fellow sneezing, blowing himself ten lengths back at a time.

"digby, cast and mark that height," laurence said; it was the starboard forward lookout's duty to warn when they entered the range of the guns below.

digby took the small round-shot, bored through and tied to the height-line, and tossed it over temeraire's shoulder, the thin silk cord paying out with the knotted marks for every fifty yards flying through his fingers. "six at the mark, seventeen at the water," he said, counting from immortalis's height, and cut the cord. "range five hundred fifty yards on the pepper-guns, sir." he was already whipping the cord through another ball, to be ready when the next measure should be called for.

a shorter range than usual; were they holding back, trying to tempt the more dangerous dragons lower, or was the wind checking their shot? "keep to six hundred yards' elevation, temeraire," laurence called; best to be cautious for the moment.

"sir, lead signal to us, fall in on left flank maximus," turner said.

no immediate way to get over to him: the two p??cheurs were back, trying to flank temeraire and get men aboard, although they were flying somewhat strangely, not in a straight line. "what are they about?" martin said, and the question answered itself readily in laurence's mind.

"they fear giving him a target for his roar," laurence said, making it loud for temeraire's benefit. temeraire snorted in disdain, abruptly halted in mid-air, and whipped himself about, hovering to face the pair with his ruff standing high: the smaller dragons, clearly alarmed by the presentation, backwinged out of instinct, giving them room.

"hah!" temeraire stopped and hovered, pleased with himself at seeing the others so afraid of his prowess; laurence had to tug on the harness to draw his attention around to the signal, which he had not yet seen. "oh, i see!" he said, and dashed forward to take up position to maximus's left; lily was already on his right.

harcourt's intention was clear. "all hands low," laurence said, and crouched against temeraire's neck even as he gave the order. instantly they were in place, berkley sent maximus ahead at the big dragon's top speed, right at the clustered french dragons.

temeraire was swelling with breath, his ruff coming up; they were going so quickly the wind was beating tears from laurence's eyes, but he could see lily's head drawing back in similar preparation. maximus put his head down and drove straight into the french dragons, simply bulling through their ranks with his enormous advantage in weight: the dragons fell off to his either side, only to meet temeraire roaring and lily spraying her corrosive acid.

shrieks of pain in their wake, and the first dead crewmen were being cut loose from harness and sent falling into the ocean, rag-doll limp. the french dragons' forward motion had nearly halted, many of them panicking and scattering, this time with no thought to the pattern. then maximus and they were through: the cluster had broken apart and now accendare was shielded from them only by a petit chevalier, slightly larger than temeraire, and another of accendare's decoys.

they slowed; maximus was heaving for breath, fighting to keep elevation. harcourt waved wildly at laurence from lily's back, shouting hoarsely through her speaking-trumpet, "go after her," even while the formal signal was going up on lily's back. laurence touched temeraire's side and sent him forward; lily sprayed another burst of acid, and the two defending dragons recoiled, enough for temeraire to dodge past them and get through.

granby's voice came from below, yelling: " 'ware boarders!" so some frenchmen had made the leap to temeraire's back. laurence had no time to look: directly before his face accendare was twisting around, scarcely ten yards distant. her right eye was milky, the left wicked and glaring, a pale yellow pupil in black sclera; she had long thin horns curving down from her forehead and to the very edge of her jaws, her opening jaws: a heat-shimmer distorted the air as flames came bursting out upon them. very like looking into the mouth of hell, he thought for that one narrow instant, staring into the red maw; then temeraire snapped his wings shut and fell out of the way like a stone.

laurence's stomach leapt; behind him he heard clatter and cries of surprise, the boarders and defenders alike losing their footing. it seemed only a moment before temeraire opened his wings again and began to beat up hard, but they had plummeted some distance, and accendare was flying rapidly away from them, back to the ships below.

the rearmost merchant ships of the french convoy had come within the accurate range of long guns of the british men-of-war: the steady roar of cannon-fire rose, mingled with sulfur and smoke. the quickest frigates had already moved on ahead, passing by the merchantmen under fire and continuing for the richer prizes at the front. in doing so, however, they had left the shelter of excidium's formation, and accendare now stooped towards them, her crew throwing the fist-sized iron incendiaries over her sides, which she bathed with flame as they fell towards the vulnerable british ships.

more than half the shells fell into the sea, much more; mindful of temeraire-->>

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