by Naomi Novik
The going was slow among the trees, and slower still for lack of clear destination. Laurence could look up and catch a glimpse of the stars, now and again, which pointed him south-west generally, but besides this his progress was wholly blind. “Do you have any notion what is in the countryside near-by here?” he asked Junichiro, as they struggled onwards through the rough terrain.
“We are in Chikugo Province by now,” Junichiro said. He paused and looked up over his shoulder: a sound of leathery wings, faint but carrying over the water, not far distant.
Laurence caught sight of a large old pine, gnarled and twisted, roots erupting from the ground in low arches. They squirmed between two of these and pressed themselves back into the meager shelter their intersection offered. The night was not bitterly cold, but enough; they were wet, in thin cotton robes, and it would be a long while for the hollow to have warmed with their bodies. The dragon swept overhead a few times, with no particular direction, merely having a general look, or so it seemed to Laurence; but they huddled beneath the predatory search in silence, hearing the distant noise of search parties.
A clamor was raised somewhere off, in the direction of the river, and the dragon turned away towards it: perhaps the boat. Laurence breathed, but did not yet live and move; too soon for that. The sun was barely up, but had not yet penetrated the trees; he only saw the sky lightened overhead. The voices left off, after a while, and the dragon’s searching resumed, but more distant—it was looking somewhere on the other side of the river, Laurence thought. In any case, this was the best chance which was likely to come; a search would close in upon them soon enough if they merely remained in hiding.
He stood, not very quickly or easily; all his muscles protested the cavalier treatment he had served them, going from hot work to a cold, crouching bed, and he could only ruefully envy Junichiro, who bounded out of the hollow behind him as easily as a deer with the limberness of youth. “Have you any notion of the best direction?” he asked.
“We should continue southward and make for the coast of the Ariake Sea,” Junichiro said, “and follow its shore around to Nagasaki.” Laurence nodded, and followed him into the thicket.
They walked in silence most of the time, speaking only in low voices; the woods were deep and hushed about them, and every word seemed to ring out like a bell, inviting capture. But Laurence asked Junichiro the distance to the sea when they made a brief halt by a spring and they gave their feet a rest; blisters were already raising white upon his skin. The number meant nothing at first, as he did not know how long a ri was, but when they began walking again, Junichiro did his best to tell Laurence when they had crossed the distance, and he made it something near two and a half miles. Ten miles to the coast and sixty around, if they could not find another boat and cut across: three days’ forced march, for an infantry company—a company with boots and supply.
Laurence marched on after him and grimly did not make any close inspection of his feet: they would be worse before they were better.
“They are busy enough over something, there,” Granby said, peering through his spyglass, which was rigged out with a loop into which he might slip his hook, and thereby use his hand to steady the front. Temeraire would have liked a spyglass himself; he could not see why one might not be made in dragon-size.
“Why would anyone bother?” Iskierka said, dismissively. “If I want to see what is happening, I will just go fly over and take a look; should you like me to do so, Granby?”
“Stay where you are, if you please,” Granby said, “—or if you don’t please, for that matter,” he added. “The last thing I need is Hammond yowling at me some more; he leapt out at Berkley this morning directly he had put his head out of doors, before he had even swallowed a bite of breakfast: I think the fellow don’t sleep.”
Several dragons had come into the Japanese port. This alone was not unusual: they had seen several coming and going and in the town beyond, in the past several days, but those had been nearly all of them courier-beasts, or a few light-weights evidently engaged in the trade in some way. This party was led by a middle-weight, a grey dragon wearing an elaborate drapery of green, which had some sort of jeweled border that sparkled in the sunlight; Temeraire could not tell if it was diamonds, or beads, or something else, but it certainly looked very attractive. John Wampanoag had flown over a little while ago, evidently to meet the new party.
Temeraire observed it all with anxious hope: if only Wampanoag was right this moment explaining that they would leave should Laurence be found; if only the dragon were a person of substance, who might push things forward; if only she would listen to Wampanoag; if—if—if.
“Whyever has Hammond not been useful,” he said, in rising impatience, “and got us aboard a translator? I might have begun to learn a little Japanese, and be able to speak with them directly. Can you see, is she speaking with Wampanoag?”
“I don’t see, at all,” Granby said, and Temeraire began to wonder if perhaps he had not ought to go ashore after all, just briefly, to speak with them. He felt a great deal better, indeed. He had drunk up all the medicine and eaten all the porridge resolutely, every day; and he had gone for a very long swim just this past evening, with not the least ill-effects.
“I am sure I could manage it without any trouble,” he said, “and it only seems courteous that I should pay a call, while we are guests here—”
“Will you not ever have any sense?” Hammond said, when he had come running; Temeraire narrowed his eyes at Churki, whom he suspected of having made him some signal—perhaps they had agreed upon it in some way.
“They condemn us all as little better than pirates,” Hammond continued, “and they must look upon this ship as the most rank provocation—a vessel of this size, this strength! Our armament! Bearing an entire formation’s worth of beasts, and,” he added, “you will note they do not have heavy-weights among them, so far as we have seen.”
“That is perfect nonsense,” Temeraire said. “I have never seen a dragon half as big as that sea-dragon.”
“But he is confined only to the water!” Hammond said. “That is nothing to what a dragon of Kulingile’s size could do, in the air, anywhere in the country he liked, if they have no heavy-weights of their own to check him: he might run rampant over them.”
“I might, too,” Maximus said, raising his head with a jealous gleam—he was not so inclined to quarrel with Kulingile as he had been, but he could scarcely be blamed when Hammond insisted on being so outright provoking.
“Good God, I hope I do not mean that in the nature of a compliment, I assure you,” Hammond said, entirely missing the point, as usual.
“So much the better, then,” Temeraire said. “I am very content for them to be worried, and to wish us gone: let them only find Laurence, and bring him to me, and we shall go.”
“If they should even believe such a promise, and find it possible to fulfill your demands,” Hammond said, “they will not fear us the less for going out of their sight, on such an endeavor. What do you imagine such a nation must think, with a vast neighbor so near-by, which has on previous occasions attempted their conquest, making alliance with another nation equipped with vessels of a size that might ferry a dozen dragons in a week across the China Sea? They cannot help but fear it.”
“Then they must be afraid,” Temeraire said, outraged. “You desire that alliance, you have said so again and again—”
“That does not mean I must be in a great hurry for the Japanese to learn of it,” Hammond said, “and particularly not to think that more has been accomplished than has; it is better not to announce the wedding before the proposal has been accepted.”
In Temeraire’s opinion, this was quite absurd; if the Japanese wished to be anxious and imagine dreadful things happening, when no-one had done anything to them at all—bar taking a few trees which they had not been busy to use anyway—that was their affair. “Mine,” he said, “is to see Laurence brought safe back to me, and if flying across and hav
ing a few words with that other dragon will persuade them, or our making some show of strength, I am happy to see it done: I would not hesitate in the least.
“Indeed,” he added, with a sudden kindling impulse, and looked down to where Captain Blaise was consulting with Granby, “Captain Blaise! Will you listen to me, if you please? I do not suppose we have exercised the great guns, in over a month—surely you ought to do it, do you think? If we cannot make answer for the Phaeton straightaway, at least we should like them to know we might—that we are not only sitting here because we cannot.”
Captain Blaise did not look up at Temeraire directly, but he said after a moment, “Do you know, Captain Granby, I do believe we ought to exercise the great guns. And then at least those ruddy blighters will know we might answer them properly, if we liked.”
Temeraire did not see why Blaise needed parrot what he had said, as though he had thought of it himself, but he did not very much care; Hammond’s protests, swift to come, were not in the least heeded, and Temeraire had the pleasure, only a little while later, of hearing the drumroll as the ship beat to quarters, and every hand went to his rope or gun.
The eruption of flame and smoke and thunder was everything which he could have desired: the great dreadful roar of the broadside, the gouts of red and blue flame, the thick clouds of black powder smoke rolling away over the water before the wind, carrying towards the harbor. And then Captain Harcourt said, “Do you know, fellows, I think we will go up and have a bit of exercise, ourselves,” and to compound Temeraire’s satisfaction he could watch Lily and all her formation aloft, weaving through the intricate patterns of battle-maneuver. Even Iskierka took an interest, and capped the entire production by going aloft at the very end, and blazing a great circle of fire like a wreath around the ship. Ordinarily Temeraire by no means approved her rampant showing away, but in this case he forgave it. “That has shown them,” he said with real joy.
“Yes,” Hammond said, low and grim: he had not left the dragondeck all the while, but yet stood by Churki’s side, his thin narrow hands clenched upon each other as though he wished to wring them out. “And now we must wait for what they will choose to show us.”
• • •
A host of fiddler crabs, too small to be worth the attention of fishermen, scuttled away rapidly along the empty seashore at Laurence’s approach: numerous enough that he and Junichiro were able to rake together a pile of them, with branches, onto a rock and away from their escape into the mud. They ate them raw, cracking the shells and sucking the large claw indecorously clean, without the least hesitation.
They went a little way towards easing the bite of hunger, and a small rivulet emptying into the sea near-by, running quickly over rocks, was fresh enough to drink. Laurence soaked his feet again in the salt water without removing the sandals, if he could even have done so without a knife at this point: the cords had sunk into his swollen flesh. He looked across the sea. The sun was setting at the far end, throwing an orange beam across a flat and level plain of water placid as glass, with scarcely a wave to be seen: broad gentle ripples only coming in to shore, nearly silent.
“I would undertake to cross it on a log, paddling with my hands,” Laurence said to Junichiro. “It is not twenty miles across, here?”
Junichiro thought as much, when they had made some more calculations, and refreshed by their crab supper they plunged back into the forest and hunted out a few sturdy fallen branches, to be latticed together with saplings and the interstices stuffed with leaves. Three hours of work, by the fading light, gave them a raft serviceable enough for the distance—or so Laurence hoped.
“Can you swim?” he belatedly thought to ask, and was glad for Junichiro’s nod; if she came apart beneath them, halfway across, the distance would not be insurmountable, if they could only hold on to a few of the larger limbs.
The moon had risen, brilliant full. “I will try her,” Junichiro said, and carried the raft out upon the water and lay himself upon it flat, cautiously. She did not come apart at once; Laurence looked up from shore at his shout of triumph, and was very satisfied. The wind was in the west, gentle, a mere breath; he finished the last of the work, two branches crossed and tied with some strips of fabric cut, with a sharp rock, from the robe he wore; the rest of it he rigged on her as a sail, and striding out into the water he pushed the foot of the makeshift mast through the raft while Junichiro steadied her, and secured it beneath with another knotted length of fabric, filled with sand and pebbles.
He cautiously got himself upon her, braced his hip against the mast with Junichiro doing the same on the other side, slipped his finger into the loop of the cord he had tied around the end of the cross-yard, and drew her into the wind. The irregular sail stirred, and belled, and lifted; she began to move slowly but surely out upon the water.
“Well,” Laurence said, after they had glided a dozen yards, and not yet sunk, “I would not like to meet even a strong breeze with this rig, but if we can contrive not to move very much, I suppose we may make it into sight of the opposite shore.”
The sea was peculiarly still beneath them, broken more by the eddy of their passage than any waves. Laurence slept in fits and starts, rousing at the tug of the cord upon his finger to adjust the sail. Occasionally he glanced over the side and even saw fish moving, moonlight on dark scales through clear water, and watching them felt a curious sense of familiarity, something just out of reach.
“Have you any family?” Junichiro asked drowsy, drifting. “Any children of your own?”
“No,” Laurence said; the lack of a ring upon his hand told him that much, enough that he could give the answer in confidence. “But I have my young gentlemen to look after, which is, as responsibility goes, not unlike: midshipmen, and some lieutenants, not your age,” and as he said it he felt a name upon his lips—Roland, he thought, and was nearly sure of it; Roland. Hope filled him: that was not a name eight years old; that was something emerged from the lost depths.
They drowsed again and woke; they were nearing shore: the moon had been caught in the frame of the open volcanic cone of a high mountain: “Mount Tara,” Junichiro said. “We should try and land to the south.” He did not need to say why: directly ahead over the water, a cluster of bobbing lights shone in the distance, marking a fishing village or a settlement.
Laurence adjusted their direction. The mast gave them another few miles, but the wind changed a little, likely as they emerged from the sheltering bulk of the mountain: it came suddenly into their faces with more strength, and the sail was taken aback. Mast and sail both tipped; branches cracked; abruptly Laurence was in the water. He put his hand out blindly, trying to get his bearings, and touched sand, groped, straightened: he and Junichiro were standing, only knee-deep in water, and there were trees visible against the horizon perhaps a mile distant through the shallows.
They slogged through the remaining distance slowly, with the longest branches as walking-sticks. The thin cotton of the under-robe was soaked and plastered to Laurence’s skin, chilling-cold, and broad sheets of dark seaweed tangled clammy about their ankles, but the stand of trees ahead was all the encouragement he might have wanted. He undid his bundle again and put on the green coat, the good wool staving off some cold. They staggered out through thick sheaves of sea grass, crawled up onto the sandy shore, and onwards just into the trees without getting up off their hands and feet.
There were dry leaves, rough branches, a large stone—this time, Laurence prodded it first with his stick to be sure it was nothing more. The sun was rising. They dug into the leaves, and Laurence shut his eyes; hunger gnawed, and thirst; his feet complained in earnest; but none of these proved able to stave off sleep. He slept as long as nature let him: the sun rising across the water warmed their resting place, and eased both ache and chill. He woke warm, and with only a tolerable amount of pain was able to get himself halfway up and knee-walk awkwardly a sufficient distance away to relieve himself.
Junichiro still slept, and Laure
nce let him continue; he crawled down to the shore again and put his feet back into the cold water to numb awhile before he tried them. There were some fishing-boats out on the water, but at a long distance that made the men aboard them only stick-figures, in straw hats; when one waved, Laurence raised a hand in answer without fear. Sitting on the shore he worked out a loose thread from the green coat still in his bundle, to tie around the pin of one of the gold bars: bent in half, it made a serviceable hook, and he thought there might be a chance of some biting even so near the shore.
He took a mudskipper, by sitting still until they forgot to fear him, and with it as bait took a few better, and roused Junichiro to eat before they set out again. They had cut across a good deal of the distance: twenty miles left. Laurence counted it in quarter-miles and ignored his feet and the increasing heat of the day. He had bundled the coat back up around the sword, and wrapped the tatters of the sail around his head.
Junichiro said nothing, but eyed him sidelong, repeatedly; Laurence looked down at his bare chest, and realized Junichiro was looking at the many scars of pistol-shot and blade; mute testimony to Laurence’s experience in battle. He did not recognize them all. He touched one long stroke along his shoulder, the white smooth long-healed line of it, then shook his head and let his hand drop.
When he had finished, Junichiro tried to press his own outer robe on him. “We look like beggars,” he said urgently, in his persuasion.
“That,” Laurence said, “I dare say we cannot avoid in any case; and it must be your task to approach anyone we must bespeak, while mine shall be to keep far out of sight. Keep it.”
They struggled on through brush and trees, following a very awkward course well away from the road: but Laurence wanted only to find some coast, anywhere not settled, where they might approach Nagasaki cautiously. Any pursuit must expect the port to be his destination—the net would surely be waiting for him there, and his only hope should be to espy some European ship, or the Dutch commission, and strike out for it in some roundabout way. An improbable goal perhaps, but he had come nearer than he had looked to do, in cold rational consideration.