But he need not have struggled so hard to keep it in: the very next morning, Minnow and Reedly came into camp flying so quick they had to skip-hop a few paces along the ground to stop, full of news: “Pigs,” Reedly said, panting, “so many of them, a whole pen back of their army, and some of ’em are big as ponies.”
“Pigs,” Gentius said thoughtfully, cracking an eye. “Pigs are good eating, all the way through.”
“Pigs are easy to keep,” Lloyd put in. “We drive ’em into the forest and they will feed themselves, and you go in and take one when you want, or round ’em up to drive them along.”
“And there are only a couple of old Chevaliers to guard them,” Minnow said. “They are big, but lazy, and they were fast asleep when we saw.”
“Very good,” Temeraire said, attempting to sound cool and serene, although his tail wanted to thump the ground in an undignified way. “Lloyd, you and your men will go with Moncey and the Winchesters. You will wait until we have attacked, and drawn everyone off, and then you will go and take the pigs and bring them along here.
“Now,” he said, turning, and swept a patch of dirt smooth with the tip of his tail. “Minnow, show me what the camp looks like—”
They set off a couple of hours before evening: Minnow and Reedly were very sure there was not a Fleur-de-Nuit with the company, and so they would attack at night, when everyone would be asleep and most surprised, and have the most difficulty in chasing after them when the pigs had been seized. The little dragons would come behind, that much was decided; and Temeraire after some thinking put one of their Chequered Nettles, Armatius, in front, carrying Gentius upon his back. Ballista and Majestatis went on either side of him, and Requiescat came behind them, and to either side of him a couple of Yellow Reapers carrying their flags.
These were not very elegant, only some velvet curtains tied up to saplings, but every real army had flags, and red was an auspicious color. Streaming out they made a fine show, especially carried by the Yellow Reapers to either side of Requiescat’s orange and red. Everyone brightened as they billowed out, and the Reapers were especially pleased, and held themselves proudly. Even Requiescat turned his head as they flew and said, “Well, those are something like, anyway,” to Temeraire, who only inclined his head, stiffly; he did not by then trust himself to speak.
They came near the camp with the sun already down behind them, and small cooking-fires lit, all over, among the tents. “Gentius,” Temeraire said, “when I roar, you will go in first—only show them your wings, and spit somewhere near the guns, and then fly back to Armatius and go back to camp. You cannot see well enough to be spitting once we have flown in, but they will not know that, and I dare say it will make them very alarmed.”
“Ha ha!” Gentius said. “Fighting again, at my age; I feel like a hatchling,” and he fluttered out his wings a little, making ready.
Temeraire broke away and flew ahead towards the camp, climbing as he did, and hovered directly above it; the moon had not yet risen, and he did not think they would notice him. It was very peculiar to be so close to the enemy but not fighting yet, to start a battle when he chose; and not wholly comfortable. It had always seemed so very plain to him, and quite natural, when one should dart in and begin; but that was when he only needed to think of himself. Now there were so many others to consider, and the enemy, too. Perhaps, it occurred to him suddenly, there were a great many other French dragons nearby, which they had not seen or heard of, who would appear out of nowhere and turn the tide. Then they should lose, and it would be his fault; he should have lost the day.
The prospect was alarming as no ordinary fighting would have been, and Temeraire almost thought perhaps he would go back, and ask the others what they thought. He looked back northwest: he could just make them out, a great mass of shadows darker than the trees and the fields below. They were coming on as slowly as they could, wingbeats lazy so they drifted low and then swooped back up, describing great arcs instead of flying straight, all of them waiting for his signal. If only he might have a little advice—
But he was quite alone. He trembled, but there was no use being cowardly; there was no-one to help him, and he must decide. Below, the two Chevaliers slept just one hill beyond the low rough earthwork barricade, where the sentries strolled along the line, casually. In the camp, fires were scattered about, and some horses—the wind drifted a little, bringing some eddy with it, and one of the horses raised its head and whickered, uneasily; another pawed at the ground and tossed its head.
“Ce n’est rien, ce n’est rien,” a man said, eating his supper near them.
Temeraire drew his lungs full, thought of Laurence, and roared out his challenge.
He kept roaring a long time. The Chevaliers jerked up in their clearing at once, their wings opening even before their eyes had, and began roaring furious answer, their heads twisting this way and that as they searched the sky for him. Men came racing from the tents about them; Temeraire saw a captain with flashes of gold on his shoulder, being put up. They sprang into the air half-crewed, men leaping for the harness from the ground as they rose.
“Je suis là!” Temeraire called out, propelling himself with great thrusts backwards away from the camp, and roared again. “Me voilà!” They wheeled mid-air and came barreling straight towards him, teeth bared, and he hovered and waited and then dropped himself straight out of the way, his wings folded closed and tight while they shot by, white flashes of rifle-fire sparking along their backs—and behind them, Gentius came soaring gracefully down over the camp on his wide-spread enormous wings, and spat acid over ten cannon in a row.
Bells of alarm were clanging madly now, torches lit, men rushing out to form into rows as the handful of horses screamed and struggled against their handlers. Temeraire could not help a wild surging sensation of excitement almost overpowering, as Requiescat and Ballista and Majestatis came thundering down through the camp, claws and tails dragging through tents and pickets and fires all alike, scattering them, and the red banners glowing in the fires that bloomed at once all over.
He dived down and joined their long straight row, stretching his ruff wide. They tore across the full length of the camp without a pause, and whipped back up aloft trailing canvas and rope and anything else they had snagged upon their claws. Once they had gone high enough again they could not be shot, they pulled it all off and let it drop down upon the camp.
Perscitia had suggested the notion, as they had no bombs, “especially if you can get some tents pulled up, and drop them on the pepper guns,” she had said, and it answered remarkably well—most of the tents bundled up as they dropped, but one luckily unfurled and floated down in a heap atop a company of infantry trying to aim the long-barreled pepper guns, the bayonets poking out of it and making them only worse entangled.
“Oh!” Temeraire said exultantly. “Oh, it is working! Perscitia, look—” but she was nowhere near to be seen, and he could not spend time finding her. The Chevaliers had wheeled about to come back, but they were holding off—the sizzling crisp of Gentius’s acid was sharp in the air for anyone to smell if only they put out their tongue, and though it was dark, the fires leaping up from the camp glowed red against Temeraire’s belly, and Majestatis and Requiescat and Ballista, enough to make it plain that there were four heavy-weights lined up opposite. Quickly Temeraire turned and roared out, “Chalcedony! Go around and at them!”