by Naomi Novik
“Hah,” Chu said, “so he is making a mountain pass, out of gunfire. Yes, I see; we will have a hard time coming at him.” The Russian heavy-weights were already being stymied, their approach towards the French falling back before the blistering fire, which would have torn their wings apart if they had continued.
But Chu signaled nevertheless, and Temeraire watched with rising joy as six niru flew forward to make the first sortie, and two other wings of four niru apiece broke away to either side of the battlefield, to probe at the French defenses. They were fighting, at last they were fighting, and then Chu said, “Well, let’s go back and sit down and have a morning drink; is there any tea, Shen Lao?”
“What?” Temeraire said, outraged. “But the battle is joined! Everything has begun!”
“And it will be a long while going, too,” Chu said, unperturbed, “as long as we can’t come at them more than twenty at a time.” He waved towards the engagement: the niru had closed with the front ranks of the French dragons, and were skirmishing with them skillfully though as yet cautiously, all the dragons on both sides working out a sense of their unfamiliar enemies. There was indeed no room for any other Chinese dragons to attack. One of the niru was already falling back a little from the fighting to give the rest more room for maneuvering.
“But then surely we ought do something to open a wider front, on which we might attack,” Temeraire said. “We might—” He paused, and looked upon the field: perhaps they might go around to the west—but there were guns on the heights there covering the French rear, with a forest of sharpened stakes rising up around them. “Well, we ought to do something, anyway,” he finished a little lamely, even if he could not immediately see what that something might be.
“Certainly,” Chu said. “Go find that Russian general, and tell him we had better arrange supply for another two days.” And then he turned around and flew back towards the campsite, as though there were no fighting going on at all.
The rest of the morning was equally deflating. Even Laurence only said, “We could scarcely give Bonaparte a better gift than to accept the extraordinary losses which it would require on the part of the Chinese legions to seize and overwhelm those artillery positions as they stand: pray notice, if you will, that the French have secondary guns waiting against just such an attempt, and crews of pikemen in support.
“Time is our ally: they cannot hold against us indefinitely. They have sixty dragons here, you five times that number. Even if we allow the French dragons to be the equal of the Chinese, which we ought not, as the day progresses we can send fresh beasts against tired, and by slow tide wear them down; and all the while, the Russians will be executing their own assault upon the French ground positions.”
This was a very sensible and practical explanation and by no means satisfying. Temeraire without much enthusiasm agreed to Laurence’s suggestion that they should indeed go and assure additional supply, for the Chinese legions, largely in hopes that the Russians should protest and insist on some more useful course of action. But Kutuzov was sitting in his own low chair with no more hurry in his manner than Chu; he only nodded to Laurence’s request and said, “I think Colonel Ogevin has already put it in train. Vasya,” he added to one of his aides, “see that it is done.”
So Temeraire, with enthusiasm still more diminished, returned to the campsite, where Chu was now eating a large helping of porridge as placidly as—as a cow, Temeraire thought, meanly; he scornfully refused the bowl which Shen Lao offered him. He had not in the least regretted Iskierka’s absence, all this while, but in the moment he missed her quite acutely. He was certain she would not have tolerated merely sitting about, but would have insisted on their going to join in somehow or other.
He ventured quietly to Laurence that perhaps they might try a pass against the French artillery. “For I am quite sure,” he said, “that I would be able to break some of those earthworks, with the divine wind, and bowl over a great many of the gunners, so the Russians might be able to come at them.”
“Yes,” Chu said, having overheard and demanded to know what Temeraire was saying, “and you could also go and dig some ditches, for latrines; and I dare say if you wanted, you could try and cook our dinner, though it might not taste very well; and also you could go and dance for the troops, which at least would entertain them. None of that is your business: it is your business to stay here, and learn how a battle is managed properly, and then if a moment should arise where you may, through a decisive action, alter the course of the battle, you will be ready to act, and not worn out and too distracted to observe it.”
Temeraire flattened his ruff, but even Laurence did not disagree, saying gently, “My dear, you must see that in the present situation, where the enemy’s positions mean we cannot bring to bear even the better part of the forces which we have, it would be folly to risk you to no purpose. Recall that we are here not merely as soldiers, but as envoys; it would be as wrong for us to go foolhardy into battle now, when our destruction could cast into serious disarray all the cooperation between the Russian army and the legions we have asked to follow us here, as it would be in another situation for us to evade battle out of cowardice.”
So Temeraire had nothing to do but sigh, and put down his head, and wait, while the Jade Dragons darted back and forth, bringing Chu reports of endless tedium, and the sun crawled by overhead.
“What a hideous noise,” Tharkay said. The artillery had not ceased to fire, all this time.
Temeraire went aloft again after noon had passed, only to have a look; although privately he thought perhaps he might see an opportunity, of making a particularly significant attack. The battlefield was so thickly obscured by smoke, by now, that it was nearly impossible to see what any of the soldiers were doing on the ground. One could only guess at it, by listening to the roar of the guns, which went on and on and on. His own ears rang with it, the unpleasant brassy noise: he had never heard anything like, save at the battle of Shoeburyness, during the final great bombardment, which had lasted half-an-hour; here so far it had gone on more than half the day.
“Oh, there,” Temeraire said, when a breath of wind stirred and blew a great rolling cloud of powder away from before the French earthworks on their left flank, “now we will be able to see something, at any rate.” And then he paused, and was silent. The ground was littered thickly with the shattered bodies of horses and of men in both uniforms.
“Dear God, what a slaughter,” Laurence said, low. And the soldiers were yet fighting, bitterly, around the fence: the Russians had seized one end now and were striving forward with bayonets and swords and even in some instances bare fists to push back the French further along it.
“Surely we might help them,” Temeraire said, unhappily, but even as he half-stooped towards the struggle, involuntarily, another roaring sounded below, and he backwinged, recoiling instinctively: a hail of canister-shot went whistling by not a hundred feet distant.
“We have already helped them,” Laurence said to Temeraire, as they drew back. “We have put a stop to Napoleon’s aerial attacks: the French would otherwise be enacting a terrible bombardment against the Russian troops. And the guns which he is using to keep the Chinese legions off, he cannot direct against the infantry.”
“But he seems to have enough of them to do both,” Temeraire said: there were hundreds and hundreds of field guns, it seemed, on both sides. “Laurence, whyever is Napoleon insisting on such a battle? Surely he can see, as well as we can, that he is lost: that he is only dragging things out dreadfully, for everyone, and killing so many on all sides.”
“He has little alternative,” Laurence said, “save if he chose to abandon his army, and flee back to France in a state of ignominy: in a pursuit, our aerial advantage would shortly begin to tell ruthlessly against him; we would have been able to overwhelm his rear-guard, and catch him and his army strung out upon the road. Most likely he yet hopes for some mistake upon our part, which would permit him to use his own advantage in artillery
and in ground troops.” But the Russians were being quite careful to avoid that: as the fortifications and the heavy woods kept them from coming at the full body of the French Army, General Barclay had positioned his soldiers along the road to Moscow to the south, to guard against any attempt on the part of the French to slip away again during the night, or to sneak some substantial portion out to flank the Russian Army.
Junichiro had unexpectedly begged to be allowed to come aloft with them, on every one of Temeraire’s passes: he had become, to Temeraire’s gratification, quite a reformed character, and in the course of their journey from China to Russia had acquired a great deal not only of English but of French; to-day he had been avidly studying the order of battle of the armies on both sides. He ventured now, from Temeraire’s shoulder, to say, “This seems something between a battle and a siege,” and Laurence nodded in agreement.
As a siege might take months or even years to lift, that was by no means encouraging, and it was only meager consolation when Laurence said, “They cannot have the supply to hold out for more than a few days, Temeraire, even if they eat the cavalry-horses: you can see for yourself they have virtually no cattle amongst their baggage.”
It did not make Temeraire feel much better, either, to see Vosyem and the rest of the Russian heavy-weights sitting disgruntled in their own encampment, sullenly tearing at the ground and snapping at one another, when he came past them: Chu had sent a word to the Russian generals hinting that perhaps it would be easier for the Chinese legions to operate if they were not being fouled and harassed by their own allies. The Russian heavy-weights had several times bulled through the niru formations to engage the enemy directly, with nothing but ill-effect all around.
Temeraire sighed and looked back towards the battlefield: the guns had begun roaring more energetically. The front row of the fences had at last fallen, but the French had got away their guns, and raced back behind the shelter of the second row; the artillery were now pounding away at the Russian troops who had seized the first row, before those men might even have enjoyed a moment’s respite from their victory. The batteries of artillery aimed against the sky were yet sheltered behind a third row of fences, and overlooking them were the massed ranks of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, as yet withheld from all the fighting. But aloft, the niru were battering steadily and systematically away at the French dragons.
“Ah, there you are,” Chu said, when Temeraire came down in the encampment. “This is Colonel Zhao Lien, commander of the third jalan,” he said, presenting Temeraire to one officer, a heavy-set dragon of pale green, with a bristling spine of tendrils and a mane not unlike Chu’s own, in scarlet; she bowed her head politely before continuing her report.
“The quantity of smoke produced by the guns has made it most difficult to obtain a clear understanding of the organization of the enemy’s forces,” she said, “but their reserves are substantial, and I have determined their supply may be a great deal better than we have supposed to be the case. I sent a small foray against their rear, upon the ground, which was repulsed swiftly by the repositioning of their guns, but one of my dragons was able to seize a packet from their supply-waggons—”
She indicated this, a large square bundle which had been hastily rewrapped; when one of her crewmen opened it up again, Temeraire bending down to sniff found it full of long hard strips of some dark brown stuff that smelt strongly of spice; pieces were handed around, and when Temeraire chewed it, he found that it was meat: quite tough and dry and salty, but perfectly good to eat.
“Hm,” Shen Shi said, inspecting it. “That is very clever: they do not need cattle, then.”
“No,” Zhao Lien said, “and they had fifty pallets of a similar style on hand.”
Chu made a low grunt. “Well, then they can hold out at least a week,” he said, “but why would they have had so much meat, for this number of dragons—” He fell silent, scratching at the ground ruminatively.
“I will say, General,” Zhao Lien said, “that it seems to me the enemy are fighting very conservatively.”
“Hm,” Chu said. “Colonel, I wish you to take four niru and scout—where are those maps? What is to the north of our position?”
Temeraire looked back and forth between them, conscious that he had not quite followed their train of thought, and wondering how he might ask without looking somehow foolish. Chu was bending low over his maps, and then suddenly, very near-by, a blasting of thunder erupted, a cannonball-whistling. Temeraire looked up and around, in surprise, and then recoiled with a cry as something hot and terrible seared along his side. Roars of pain went up on all sides of him—canister-shot was flying down all over the rear of the camp. “Aloft!” Laurence was shouting from his back, through his speaking-trumpet. “All aloft, at once! Get into the air!”
Temeraire flung himself up, blindly, backwinging, and took up the cry himself as he went, roaring it out as loudly as he could; as soon as he was up, and out of the flight path of the balls, he could see the guns firing upon them: a tiny clearing, some four hundred yards to the north, where the French had established a small battery of three-pounders. They were firing at a furious pace: not even pulling their guns back into place after they fired, nor even trying to aim, merely reloading and firing again and again; all they cared for was to hit anything in the Russian rear at all, and even more guns were being dragged out from the trees behind them.
But they had as yet no covering-fire, nor aerial defenders; Temeraire hissed in fury and circled towards them, out of their line of fire. Plunging towards them, he drew in his breath, once and twice and three times, swelling all his chest with air, and roaring fell upon the line of guns, sweeping them and seeing men and horses fall screaming to the ground before the divine wind, while he caught at the hot guns and tipped them over into a clanging, tumbling heap.
Musket-fire spat against his flank, hot stinging bursts of pain, but he was through and pulling up and away, the guns silenced, their crews shattered. Looking back he saw the wreckage they had already made in that brief span of time: the cooking-pits clogged with dirt and smoking metal, many spoilt; a dozen of the Shen Lung moaning upon the ground, bleeding, many of the wounded dragons injured again also; and near the half-collapsed pavilion—
Temeraire flung himself down again next to Chu: the general’s great scarlet side was heaving, and with each breath a gush of blood rose up and spilled black from three gaping wounds, clustered near the top of his back; his wings lay limp against his sides. “No, no,” Temeraire said, wretchedly. Five of the Chinese dragon-surgeons were already at work, digging their arms within to bring out the shot: one was calling for long tongs to be brought. Another managed to draw out one, which had struck upon a rib; the ball had burst like a star, and another torrent of blood followed it when the surgeon pulled it out.
Chu’s eyes were closed; he coughed, rattling, and blood trickled from the sides of his mouth; one of the surgeons was thrown from his back. Temeraire almost nosed at him, but timidly held back; he did not know what to do. Zhao Lien landed beside him and said, “I have ordered five niru to the north, accompanied by couriers, to scout for more of the enemy attempting to flank us, as General Chu directed. What are your commands?”
She was speaking to him, Temeraire realized; she was asking him for orders. Abruptly, Temeraire felt rage swelling hot in his breast; he imagined with burning satisfaction throwing himself to the front, commanding all the legions to fall in behind him and overturn the French defenses, smash their artillery and then slaughter all their ranks, no matter what the cost. He would drive them forth with the divine wind, and avenge—
“Temeraire,” Laurence said softly, a hand on his neck, and Temeraire dragged in a breath; he looked at Zhao Lien, and saw her regarding him narrowly, warily, as though she feared what he might do. He swallowed and said to Laurence, in English, “Laurence, what ought I do, now?”
“If you will be counseled by me,” Laurence said, “we will determine which of the three jalan commanders is
senior, and appoint them to the command.”
Temeraire took another breath, and nodded; he said to Zhao Lien, “Who is the senior commander, of the three jalan?”
She sat back upon her haunches, relaxing a little. “I am,” she said.
“Then—then you shall take command, until General Chu is quite recovered,” he said, though he could not help but think longingly, one more time, of the glorious vision of his charge. “And I am quite sure,” he added savagely, “that there are more soldiers coming; it is just the sort of thing Napoleon likes to do, so you had better plan as though there were.”
Zhao Lien turned to a limping Shen Shi, who had one badly torn wing, and conferred with her about supply; then she turned and said, “If the soldiers who approach are a substantial force, our situation will be extremely precarious.”
“But we still outnumber them so heavily in the air!” Temeraire said, uncertainly. “Of course we must still beat them, surely.”
“We cannot be assured of doing so in the present position,” Zhao Lien said. “An immediate assault upon the artillery must lose us half our fighting troops. This, having diminished our aerial advantage, may permit the enemy to hold their well-fortified positions against us. If they have sufficient ground forces to strike against the flank of our allies’ ground soldiers—”
Interrupting her explanation, Lung Yu Fei came blazing into the camp as swiftly as a rocket, skidding in the dirt as she pulled up: Temeraire regarded her with dismay even before she opened her mouth and said, “There is a whole army coming, from the north-east: they are coming through the trees on foot.”
• • •
Once again now the advantage changed hands, as abruptly as before; but Kutuzov’s caution had not deserted him even in an apparent moment of triumph: he had placed his rear-guard to cover the road to Moscow, and had kept a great many of his forces uncommitted to the battle. Even before the French reinforcements had completed half their advance, the Russian Army was melting away again eastward, escaping the trap.