Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Dubiously he took a bundle of it in his claws, and discovered it was wet; and it did not smell very nice, either, like the smell when grog was passed out, aboard a ship. “What have you done with them?” he said, and, “Ow,” jerking his head back; there was something sharp and bitter, which stung his nose.
“Liquor,” Perscitia said, getting back her breath, as other dragons came and took more of the bundles from her, “and also some tar, I think; and there is some pepper on them, too, so do not sniff them. Where is Iskierka? She must—oh, there you are, no,” she said, resisting as Iskierka reached for one herself, “you shan’t take one, you must set them all alight, as we drop them—”
“Oh, that is easy,” Iskierka said. The Anglewings each snatched a bundle, and the Grey Coppers, and a good many of the ferals: all the quicker dragons, the little ones.
“Hurry, hurry,” Temeraire called: the French dragons were coming slow, but they were coming, and down below their infantry was already engaged in a dreadful struggle, bayonet-to-bayonet, which was spilling blood over the field and weakening the massed British squares: the French design plainly meant to leave them vulnerable to aerial attack.
He led them all aloft, high aloft, and spreading out along in parallel to the French line they let the bundles go: Iskierka shot after them eagerly, flames licking from her jaws in one burst after another, and the unraveling bundles caught with bright blue and yellow flames as they fell through the air.
The French dragons recoiled from the fireballs dropping into their faces, fouling their smooth line. “Now, at once,” Laurence said urgently, pointing at the weaknesses in their line. “That Chanson-de-Guerre, and that Defendeur-Brave—”
“Ballista, do you see?” Temeraire called, and she waved her tail like a flag to show she had heard: a swarm of Yellow Reapers dashed after her as she charged the marbled yellow-brown Chanson-de-Guerre. “Quickly, with me,” Temeraire said, to the lightweights, “and do you want to come with us?” he asked Perscitia.
“No, I do not,” she said, hastily circling away, “and anyway,” she called back over her shoulder, “I will go see if I can make more of those bundles; although I think I have used all the spirits that were in the supply-waggons—”
Temeraire did not have time to listen to any more: they were hurrying down straight for the Defendeur, who had swerved to avoid a particularly large one of the fireballs, that had left a thick trail of smoke behind. His flank was open now and unprotected for a moment by the line, and the Grey Copper Rictus darted in and opened a great slash along the line of his shoulder, nearly severing one strap of his harness.
The Defendeur bellowed in pain and hunched himself towards the wound: a wide gaping slice stark red against the golden brown and green of his hide. “Hah!” Rictus called, and then squalled as the Defendeur snapped out his hook-ended tail and caught him full in the belly: a more dreadful and dangerous wound, on so much smaller a beast, and Rictus was borne crying away by one of the Anglewings.
But he had opened an avenue for attack, and Velocitas flung himself to the Defendeur’s rear, baiting the slashes of his tail and swerving this way and that, so the other Anglewings and the Grey Coppers could make darting attempts on the Defendeur’s head; and when the riflemen had all been flung off their feet, Minnow threw herself into the melee, landed upon the big dragon’s back, and snatched away one of the men in her talons.
“There, that’s your captain,” she called, waving the poor man, and the French dragon roared furiously and went after her in a rush, bowling over one of the Anglewings and breaking the French line completely, as Minnow raced away towards the British clearings with her prisoner.
“That is a little hard,” Temeraire said, feeling rather sorry for the poor dragon, and making a note Minnow should never again ride upon his own back, while Laurence was there; he had not thought she was quite so unscrupulous as to steal in the middle of a fight. But he could not deny it had been very handy, at getting the big dragon away, and now he himself might clear away great swaths of middle-weights, just by roaring to either side of the gap the heavy-weight had left.
Requiescat was engaged with the Grand Chevalier in the next section of the line, and though he might have had a little edge in weight, her advantage in having a crew was telling against him: a steady rifle-fire was peppering his massive sides, and had left a great many small holes visible in his wings, and she cleverly took every opportunity to position herself higher aloft, where he was forced to dodge one bomb after another which her bellmen flung against him. Temeraire saw that on their flank, too, the harnessed dragons of the Corps were only just barely holding off the vast right wing of l’Armée de l’Air, also advancing, and they would soon all be forced into a tangled mess together.
“There are ships coming,” Majestatis said, looping nearby.
“What?” Temeraire said.
“Ships,” Majestatis said laconically. “Out to sea. You can see them if you go over that cloud.”
And then the trumpets were at last, at last sounding the order to yield the center, with a shrill note, and there was no time to look; the squares below were falling back into column and marching away, and Temeraire had at once to be sure everyone was flying away properly, to either flank as they were meant to do. “Remember, we are to meet again behind their lines!” he called urgently, nipping an over-excited Anglewing who had started to fly the wrong way.
The French soldiers were charging forward more quickly now, and their dragons were stooping. “Surely we ought not just fly away—they will have our men in a moment,” Temeraire said urgently over his shoulder to Laurence.
“Go!” Laurence said; he was looking through his glass at the sea. “Go at once! You must get clear of the center, and aloft—”
Temeraire pulled away, with a last anxious look over his shoulder; but as he did, he was startled to see the last of the Coldstream Guards throwing themselves flat upon the ground instead of marching away farther, and then a roar of thunder erupted from the fogbank, smoke and orange flame.
He broke over the top of the cloud-bank and saw them in that moment: sixteen ships-of-the-line, and the enormous gold-blazoned Victory at their head, with Nelson’s admiral’s flag flying from the mast. All of them together were unleashing their full broadsides directly into the front rank of the French dragons and men, clouds of black smoke enveloping them even as the fog at last spilled off their sails and prows.
The French dragons came down in shocking numbers. The heavy-weights, one target after another, were struck with cannonballs: wings shattering and bones cracked, they came down into their own infantry below them. A few only managed with faltering beats to carry themselves out over the remaining laggard lines of British infantry and smash them. The great Grand Chevalier crashed through the lines and dragged so far along the ground that she ended at last in the surf, shattered and still, her head rising and falling limply with the choppy waves as they crashed upon her shoulders.
Temeraire felt a queer, confused shudder of sympathy, his wings wanting to come forward, as if to protect his own breast. The trumpets were blowing again, and the British artillery on the flanks, whose force had all this while been blunted, opened a deadly hail of canister-shot against the rear and flanks of the French infantry, chasing them forward into the endless rain of cannon-fire from the ships.
“Temeraire!” Laurence called, and he started: Excidium was roaring out the signal, distantly, and he was not yet in place! He flung himself hastily back—he no longer felt tired at all, the urgency of the moment trembling along his wings. He gathered up the others who also had been distracted by the dreadful spectacle, all of them flying to join the dragons of the Corps in a great single body, nearly a hundred of them all together, and as one they roared and charged the French reserves.
The French soldiers were already reeling from so visible a disaster—the falling dragons could be seen for a good mile, and the wind was blowing harder now, clearing at last the clouds and fog. Nelson’s flagsh
The French broke, at the attack from their rear, and fled; but there was nowhere to run but into the waiting maw, a withering cross-fire of Navy and Army guns at the ready to receive them. The British infantry marched at a steady trot into the emptied space, and Temeraire heard Lien at last—she was calling frantically as the infantry divided her and the last French aerial reserves from Napoleon and his Guard.
Napoleon had seen the trap, of course, and the retreat was sounding furiously from every French trumpet; but too late. The order of the French ranks had dissolved into one mass of terrified men, and the dragons carried by their momentum all came falling into the hail of cannon-fire. Wellesley had committed all his reserves now, companies which had been held off to either flank, and emerging from the trees and fog with their artillery set up a wall of hot iron, to prevent the French forces from retreating or regrouping.
The tightening noose closed upon Bonaparte. “Temeraire, the Corps will help the infantry hold the line,” Laurence called. “We must keep off any who break through.”
Temeraire could see Lien now clearly—she was yet on the ground, calling to direct the French dragons to try one thing after another, intent now only on breaking someone through, to rescue Napoleon and what other survivors could be rescued from the wrack and ruin.
“Of course she would not come herself,” Temeraire said, contemptuously, as a great cloud of little dragons—she had even sent in the couriers—came racing forward. “Velocitas, you and all the other Anglewings, fall back to meet them, and you too, Moncey. Cantarella, when they have got them confused, you all harry them forward, into the range of the ships.”
The little dragons managed to dart through and past the heavy-weights, but came quickly up against the pack of Anglewings, too agile to easily be passed. Velocitas and the others slashed and snapped at the little dragons, chivvying them along, breaking up the knot and dividing the dragons from one another, leaving them easy prey for the pouncing Yellow Reapers. Recoiling from so many larger dragons, they were herded into the cross-fire. “Temeraire, you must call Chalcedony back,” Laurence said, sharply.
“Where?” Temeraire said, looking round too late. Chalcedony had pursued one little Pou-de-Ciel too far, and with a dreadful hollow thump one of the indiscriminate cannonballs took him directly in the chest.
He seemed to fold up around the blow, and fell without a sound. The little Pou-de-Ciel fluttered raggedly on, managed to thread the rain of iron, and broke out again into the open sky. It did not turn back for another attempt, but flew on across the Channel, towards France.
A handful more had managed to get through—a few even had collected some handful of desperate soldiers from the ground—and were straggling away over the water. But none had got near Napoleon himself; and the British infantry were advancing on his position. The Guard had pulled into square around him, a mortal shield.
Lien had seen the failure, and his peril; she gave suddenly a loud shrilling call, and took to the air herself.
“Oh!” Temeraire cried, eagerly, but she did not come: she turned instead away and fled, over the fields, with the scattered handful of French dragons behind her: her honor-guard of Petit Chevaliers, and a few half-blind Fleur-de-Nuits, with eyeshades. “Oh, oh!” Temeraire said, jouncing in the air with indignation, “oh, how cowardly, she is leaving him behind—”
“She will be going after the ships,” Laurence said. “Temeraire, quickly, turn so they can see you. Allen, the signal-flags, warning to ships, wing to northeast—spell out for them, Celestial, Nelson will understand—”
“Shall we go and help them?” Temeraire said, hopefully, hovering while Allen waved the flags urgently. It still looked to him as though Lien had run away, and he was sure if she did mean to try anything at the ships, it would just be an excuse: what she really wanted was to be out of the fighting, and he was sure she would flee for good as soon as she had made some small gesture. “If she does mean to run away, we ought to stop her; I was worried all along she should escape.”
“If we should engage, the British ships will not be able to fire upon her,” Laurence said. “There, they have been warned, do you see: he is directing some of their fire against her. Can you come about the other side? If she tries to flee towards France, we may then intercept her course.”
It was a fine and elegant sight to watch the flank of the British line-of-battle weaving gracefully, one after another, to present their broadsides to the dragons coming around. Lien went nowhere near the ships’ range, however; she had stopped far distant, a small white figure against the grey sky, and now was hovering over the waves while the remnants of the French aerial forces wheeled and wheeled above her in tight circles. She was roaring: the echoes of the divine wind came carrying over the water, even at such a distance, with a fine mist of wave spray steaming away from her in clouds of white.
“Have you any notion what she is doing?” Laurence asked; he was looking out at her through his glass.
“Perhaps she has gone mad, over losing another companion,” Temeraire offered. He did not really think so, but he did not see what good it could possibly do her, to be roaring at the water. “It is not as though water holds shape; even if she breaks it, it will just come back together, so—” He flicked his tail, uncertainly. “She is going nearer the ships, though,” he added, “so they will be able to shoot her, soon, in any case.”
Lien was indeed gradually approaching the ships, still roaring madly at the waves. She was so low now the waves were nearly lapping at her belly, rearing up to reach for her after every roar.
“Those waves are ten foot above the rest of the swell,” Laurence said. “Mr. Allen, a signal for the ships: storm anchors, not in our code, in the Navy’s—yes, the red and white, and then the green, and then the red circle. Temeraire, I do not know what she is about, but I think we cannot hazard letting her try it—go after her, and quickly.”
Temeraire scarcely waited for the word and threw himself joyously forward. The waves did not seem so very high; they would not have reached over the sides of the tall ships, and he had been to sea enough to know they might manage much higher. But if they should be struck by so many waves, one after another, perhaps they could not fire their guns, and then Lien might come near enough to use the divine wind upon them.
In any case, he privately cared only that he should at last have a chance at Lien; who had done nothing, only sat about watching while everyone else was hurt and killed. But even as he came, Lien abruptly stopped chasing the waves she had raised. Instead she wheeled back from them, some dozen wingbeats. Temeraire was close enough he could see the trembling of her breast, and the way her wings wavered. She was very tired; and Temeraire pressed on with new urgency. He would have her now, she could not fly away quickly enough—
Lien hovered a moment, drawing breaths, and then she charged after the waves once more. She swept low and level across the water, roaring so loud that the cannon, still speaking behind Temeraire, were drowned out. A fresh swell rose ahead of her in response, not so high as the others, but low and smooth, and moving very fast away. Spent by the effort, she fell silent and hung there in the air trembling. Her head was almost limp, but the swell ran on without her, to outpace and catch the elevated waves. As it met them, the waves seemed almost to stutter and collapse into it, one after another melting into the whole—
Temeraire heeled back, startled: with scarcely any warning the wave had reared high enough to block Lien out, thrusting itself directly in his way, and his wing-tip cut a line of spray in its face as he wheeled away just in time to keep from being caught by its rising crest. He thought, at first, he would just climb higher aloft and go over the wave; but he had no
“Temeraire!” Laurence was crying out, “Temeraire, can you break it—”
Temeraire darted a look over his shoulder: the wave was still growing. He had never seen anything so vast, and a shudder trembled along the tip of his tail. They had weathered a typhoon once, in the Indian Ocean; a swirling wrath of clouds overhead, so he could not fly, and the Allegiance climbing and climbing each terrible rising wave, only to go rushing down the far side at shattering speed. But this was another thing entirely; almost not of the world in its monstrous size. But Lien had made it; she had raised it, with the divine wind, and so surely he might break it.
The wave came on after them, swift and dreadfully silent for all its great size, the choppy surf smoothing out before it as minor courtiers yielding way to a passing monarch. With frantic wingbeats he pulled away, trying to get a little more room to turn around. The ships were so very near now that he could read their names off their prows, and see men in the rigging, and darting about on the deck, little specks scurrying. Temeraire was dripping with the spray, his wings streaming as he flew and flew. He could not gain elevation, he had not time to draw much breath; but he had gained all the ground there was to be gained, and he turned himself around, and roared out, with all his very might.
“DEAR GOD HAVE MERCY,” Laurence said, or thought he said, when he had wiped the salt from his eyes and looked back.
Temeraire had broken them a hole in the wave: a great ragged patch standing open like a window, for an instant, wherethrough they could still see a glimpse of the line: Victory with her pennants, all the line-of-battle and their white sails gleaming like pearl against the thunderstorm color of the ocean. And then doom was upon them.