by Naomi Novik
The French dragons were somewhere farther back, Temeraire supposed, peering uselessly; trees lashed with fog-banks barred his view of the French rear. “There,” Laurence called, and Temeraire followed the line of his arm to see their own center established.
Temeraire was pleased that, to his eye, their own force was much the handsomer. A great many of the Frenchmen he could spy wore long drab coats, with scarcely a touch of color, and otherwise were largely in white breeches and white shirts—none too clean, Temeraire noted—with very ordinary dark blue coats. He much preferred the vivid red coats which dominated their own army. They had also several companies of soldiers in the center in colorful and patterned skirts, instead of plain breeches; and of course their flag was by far the more interesting.
“And if they do have eagles,” Temeraire said to Laurence, “all the better for us to take them away. Laurence, do you not like those skirts they are wearing, over there?”
“Those are the Scots Greys cavalry,” Laurence said, looking through his glass, “and those are the Coldstream Guard, beside them. If anyone can hold the center, they will; but good God: Bonaparte will pound them without mercy.”
“We will keep the dragons off,” Temeraire said. “I am only a little worried, that at the end we are meant to encircle Bonaparte, and not his aerial support—what if Lien should escape?” Privately, Temeraire felt it was rather peculiar to take so many pains to capture Napoleon and not so Lien, who was a good deal larger, and possessed also the divine wind.
“Let us hope to have such success as will make that a matter for concern,” Laurence said. “But if Bonaparte is taken, she will surrender, I expect; although she may realize he cannot be held hostage for her behavior in the usual manner.”
“Here they come,” Majestatis called, wheeling around. Through the sheen of rain, Temeraire could see the dark shadows of the French dragons coming. Below them the front lines of the British infantry began to form into their large bristling squares to receive the charge. Soldiers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing outwards, about an open center. The front rank knelt with bayonets outward, the second aiming over their heads in parallel, and the third pointing upwards. Long pole-arms were thrust deeply into the ground just behind them, steadied by their bearers: the gleaming broad fan-shaped blades straight up, and the narrower pikes angled backwards, to catch any dragon attempting to strike at the line of the square from behind.
The French dragons were coming with bombs and nets, however, to try and overcome such measures; they had also stolen Perscitia’s trick of uprooting trees, which they plainly meant to use broom-like to sweep gaps into the squares at a distance.
“Now, Temeraire,” Laurence called urgently, and Temeraire dashed ahead to meet the French skirmishers, roaring with delight. There, there was a Roi-de-Vitesse coming out of the fog. He was armed with a tall if slender birch-tree, white and bare-branched, clutched a little awkwardly in his talons. He dived to avoid Temeraire’s charge, making determinedly for the front lines of the first square; his crew fired a spray of rifle-fire up at Temeraire’s belly as they passed. A quick hot sting of pain—he had been hit, but Temeraire sniffed when Laurence asked; it was nothing, nothing at all.
He threw himself over with an elegant, corkscrewing twist, and plunged low in pursuit of the smaller French dragon. Dimly he was aware of the bayonets looming ahead, gleaming and silver as the fog swirled away from them, and Laurence saying something to Demane about the bombs, but the French dragon filled all his view. Oh, it was very quick—but Temeraire stretched his wings, cupped all the air he could, and flung himself after. He would not let it at the square; he would not be outrun—and with a lunge, he had got near enough to put his claws into the other dragon’s tail.
The Roi-de-Vitesse squalled, and tried to jerk away. Temeraire set his talons and beat backwards furiously, while over his shoulder, a couple of small bombs were lobbed at the French dragon’s crew as they tried to bring their rifle-fire to bear again. “Tenez bon,” the dragon cried to his crew, at once squirming to throw off the bombs and flailing away with his tree, as best he could manage with Temeraire’s grip upon him.
Temeraire only just stifled an undignified yelp as the tree-top fetched him a sharp slap across the neck and belly: the branches were springy, and stung painfully. But he kept his head, despite the very unpleasant sensation, and managed to seize hold of the tree in his jaws and wrest it away. Disarmed, the French beast gave over his attempt at last and flew away hurriedly for the safety of his own covert, his bleeding tail dripping behind him.
“Ha,” Temeraire called after the vanquished, curling his talons about the trunk, and he lashed the air with the tree experimentally a few times. “Laurence, perhaps we might go at their ranks, with this?” he proposed, over his shoulder: he could see a company of French soldiers advancing slowly from the mist, and he was quite sure the tree would answer nicely in reverse.
“We must stay near the squares,” Laurence answered, “and not advance. Pray call those Reapers back, on your left: they have already let themselves be lured too far.”
Temeraire sighed a little, but he threw the birch-tree into the sea, and turned to corral Chalcedony and the others. They were all darting at a Grand Chevalier, lunging in at her head and nipping at her flanks, but the big dragon, rather than turning on them in earnest or fleeing properly, was slyly retreating little by little, luring them back towards the French lines so the smaller dragons could slip past and make their attempts against the squares.
“You are meant to be an officer, it is your duty to keep everyone else from flying off,” Temeraire said sternly, when he had rounded them and they were all flying back towards the squares.
“Well, Cantarella has the epaulette,” Chalcedony said, a rather craven defense.
“Oh!” Cantarella said, and nipped at the edge of his wing; he yelped and twisted away. “Very well, then I am in command now, you have all heard him say so,” she declared, and hitched her epaulette forward—it was a bit sodden with rain, but still notable against her pale yellow and white. “You may be sure I will not let us go afield again.”
They did not have to go afield, anyway, to have all the fighting they might want: the French were coming steadily after them, and Temeraire wheeled to meet them with a will.
BY MID-DAY, they were driven farther aloft: the French had established an artillery emplacement at the center, despite all the British artillery could do against them, with a shield of pepper guns and several of the cannon elevated to strike at any dragon dipping low.
The air was colder and cleaner as they rose out of range, and more clouds streamed past to divorce them from the noise and fury of the battlefield below. Their own struggle was quieter, the whistling air and the muffling clouds stealing all but fragments of roaring, and the occasional pop-pop of rifle-fire. The French had abandoned their trees and netting, proven to encumber them too greatly against a determined aerial defense. Laurence felt rather discouraged than pleased, however, by the speed with which the experiment had been adopted, tried, and cast off.
He could feel Temeraire’s energy flagging: they had been fighting now six hours, and there was little chance to pause and rest. Many of the soldiers below were lying upon the ground, out of the way of cannon-fire; Wellesley had ordered they might do so, when not themselves engaged. There was nowhere similar for the dragons to land, except the coverts where they had slept, a mile away. Behind the British lines there was only the roar of the sea, invisible beneath the blanketing fog, and on either flank the cavalry horses stood nervously shifting, pawing at the dirt.
The French had abandoned cavalry entirely. It ought to have given away an advantage; dragons could not be risked on charges in the face of artillery, as the cold calculation of warfare would allow an individual horse to be, and the British horses were all hooded now, blinders cupping their eyes, so they could only see straight ahead, with sachets of fragrance over their nostrils so they could not smell the dragons. A little past noo
n, Laurence heard the drumming of the first charge below.
The heavy cavalry were splendid in their rush, all of them shouting furiously and waving scimitars, the standard flying out behind them. They were sent at a battalion of the French infantry, a maneuver to gain some breathing room—nearly every French company now was pressing steady fire against the Coldstream Guards, which Napoleon had surely identified as the linchpins of the British center. The French battalion did not break; instead they formed square themselves—but a peculiar square, double-size, with a great empty gap in the center.
The cavalry committed to their charge: they were flying across the gap, in the face of the steady musketry—horses falling with terrible human shrieks, men flung off and crushed beneath the hooves of their own mounts. “Laurence, where is that Pou-de-Ciel going?” Temeraire said urgently, pointing—one of the small drab French dragons had broken away from the skirmishing and was diving quickly towards its own lines.
The Pou-de-Ciel landed, directly within the French square—and doing so, brought to vivid life the relative nature of size. The Pou-de-Ciel were a light-weight breed just barely combat-weight, and this one perhaps six or seven tons only. It yet loomed hugely over the ranks of soldiers, great taloned claws flexing behind the silver rows of bayonets, roaring with its red mouth full of teeth.
Even hooded and with their noses full of perfume, the horses would not run directly at a dragon: the cavalry-charge wavered, and broke. The horses’ necks were bowed deeply, or pulling frantically away to either side, as they fell to a stumbling gait fighting the reins. One, out in front and recoiling too late, slid off its hind legs as it came too close. The Pou-de-Ciel leaned over and snatched the horse bodily off the ground with one clawed forehand, shook the rider unceremoniously off onto the ground, and with much enthusiasm opened its jaws wide and took off the flailing horse’s head with one bite; the French dragons had likely been on short commons a while now.
The effect upon the remaining cavalry of the pitiful sight was pronounced; the horses were given their way, wheeling away back to the British lines, never having come within ten yards of the infantry square at all. The Pou-de-Ciel leapt away again as soon as the cavalry had fled, before British artillery could be brought to bear against it, having had a little rest and a little supper besides.
Farther to the rear of the French army, Laurence saw, more of their dragons were dropping down for a similar rest, out of artillery-range and amidst the infantry companies, who did not flinch.
“Well, I do not need a rest,” Temeraire said bravely, “and if I did, there are Ballista and Requiescat coming now, with the fresh shift. I suppose I would not mind setting down for just a minute, perhaps,” he added, “and a little something to eat.”
“I think we cannot,” Laurence said, grimly. “He is sending in his reserves.” The fog was thinning now a little, blowing away from the land, and far to the rear of the French lines, dragons were leaping into the air, one after another. And now the advantage would tell: none of the French dragons, with their short and frequent rests, were withdrawing. There would be no rest for Temeraire, or any of the British dragons who had been aloft and fighting since first light.
Temeraire pulled up very short, abruptly, so Laurence was flung against his leather straps. A determined crowd of six little Garde-de-Lyons pouring fresh into the field had charged him in a body, and now began shrieking in exaggerated voices and belaboring his head and neck wildly, batting with wings and claws.
Temeraire backwinged with two mighty strokes and roared to scatter them, the tremor of the divine wind knocking them back, but in those few moments, the enormous Grand Chevalier they had seen earlier came crashing past, and threw herself down at the square of the Coldstream Guards.
The pikes and bayonets were stiffened, but she did not come down upon them directly. Instead she struck the ground directly before the front ranks, so heavily many of the men were flung off their feet, and turning round roared full in all their faces. It was a moral assault only, but a dragon the size of a large barn roaring less than ten paces away might make the bravest man blanch. Bayonets wavered and dipped, and then twenty riflemen stood up on her back and fired a terrible and concentrated volley into the stunned ranks.
A knot of men fell all together, opening a vulnerable gap in the wall of the square, and she thrust her massive foreleg into that open space and swept it along the line, all the way to the corner of the square, crushing and knocking down men and pikes like so many blades of grass. Temeraire roared furiously and dived towards her, but one of the Garde-de-Lyons flung itself into his path.
“That,” Temeraire said furiously, “is quite enough, and anyway the soldiers are smaller still than you.” He seized the little dragon’s neck in his jaws, and with a jerk of his head broke it, a single dreadful snap. He let the beast go falling out of the sky, a little scrap of scarlet and blue, the small handful of crewmen scattering like falling leaves through the air behind.
The Garde-de-Lyon had bought the necessary time with its life, however. Below, the Grand Chevalier had gotten herself off the ground again, and with an escort of joyfully roaring Pêcheurs and Pou-de-Ciels was ponderously flying back to the shelter of her lines—“The coward,” Temeraire said bitterly, watching her escape into the range of the French artillery. The square was trying desperately to re-form, some soldiers crawling back to their places on hands and knees, too dazed yet even to stand, dragging their muskets along behind them.
Laurence heard the horns blowing, a thin and thready sound, and everywhere the French were suddenly advancing. The knot of fishing huts on the left flank, so long hotly contested, now came suddenly under a savage bombardment. The fresh dragons coming in flung themselves over it, casting down loads of munitions, until at last a rush of infantry poured over the low encircling fences and charged into the huts, one after another, and black smoke came out the windows as the British colors came down.
If they meant to give the center up, it must be soon. But Wellesley gave no order: he was observing the battle from a ridge on the right flank, where a few tents had been erected for the headquarters. At the moment he was looking out to sea, gauging perhaps the weather, which had begun at last sluggishly to clear, before sweeping his glass back towards the French rear. Laurence followed his line of sight with his own glass, and saw in the thinning mist Napoleon’s standard, and the Emperor himself in his plain grey coat and black hat, mounted on a white horse and backed by the gleaming and polished ranks of his Guard.
Even as he watched, Napoleon raised a hand, and with a single economical gesture sent ten thousand men in motion. The word ran along the French lines, and one after another of those marshaled companies began their steady march forward, into the British center. The Emperor himself turned towards the fishing huts, just taken, and the Guard followed in steady ranks as his command shifted forward.
On either flank, the dragons of the Corps were fighting fiercely to hold off the advance, but they too were tired. On the right Accendare, the great Flamme-de-Gloire, loosed a torrent of flame against Lily’s formation, and Laurence to his horror saw Messoria recoil, her wing blackened and smoking. She did not fall out of the sky, but reeled heavily against little Nitidus, fouling his flight, and a few men, specks of black, went tumbling down through the sky.
Two of Accendare’s wingmen darted in to press the advantage, boarders leaping across to Lily’s back. She twisted and plunged, trying to shake them loose, and in the opening a spectacular Honneurd’ Or, gold and blue and red, went through the shield, diving towards the massed ranks of British cavalry with a great roar, his crew firing off flares from his shoulders as he went, spreading his wings wide.
The horses shrilled and bucked in terror, and stampeded madly straight ahead, pouring in a mass into the open field, and providing the French with their bodies a shield against the British artillery. The advancing ranks of the French infantry broke now into a steady jog, their bayonets fixed low as they came; and back over the French c
amp, dragons formed into line: heavy-weights and middle-weights, with a screen of light-weights and courier-beasts before them, and all together began a slow, measured advance, one wingbeat after another, inexorably.
“LAURENCE, IF WE DO NOT GIVE THEM the center now, I think they will take it themselves,” Temeraire said, doubtfully. Still Wellesley did not give the order; the signal-flags on the hill, when Temeraire could get a glimpse of them through the fog, showed still hold fast.
“I know,” Laurence said. “We must keep off the advance, as long as may be. If you will break their line at scattered points, and engage the heavy-weights—”
“Wait, wait,” Perscitia cried shrilly from a distance, and Temeraire looked over surprised to see her flapping madly towards them. She looked very odd: all her artillery-crew of militia were upon her back, tied on with ropes, and they in turn were helping to hold on her back enormous bundles, of the carrying-harnesses which had been used to bring the Army hence. The harnesses had been made hastily of silk and linen, any which could be obtained: dresses and curtains and table-cloths all sacrificed to the cause, many in bright colors, so she looked as though she were wearing an enormous fringed skirt dangling over her sides and legs, just barely shy of fouling her wings.
“We are not going to retreat!” Temeraire said, indignantly. “We have not lost the battle; and we shan’t, either,” he added determinedly.
“No, no,” she said, panting, as she came up to them: and Temeraire saw the harnesses were really so hopelessly tangled up that no-one could have picked them apart in less than an hour. “Take—” she said, gulping for breath, and waggled some of it at him.