Tongues of Serpents Page 0,130

at him in utter horror before the serpent's thrashing shook the man loose and he vanished still whole deeper into the creature's belly.

The serpent was unmanageable with its enormous mass drawn out of the water and so violently clawing - "I cannot keep hold of it," Temeraire panted, struggling to drag it still further; but then Iskierka called, "Only a moment, keep clear!" and dived in. She blasted its dangling length with flame, the skin and scales crisping up and roasting with a dreadful stink; the serpent made a high thin shrieking noise and curled around itself like a beetle as Temeraire dropped it at last back into the water.

"That does for that one," Iskierka said, satisfied, but Tharunka had just darted in and flung yet another sack of the fish-refuse all upon the disordered deck of the Nereide, closer now that the riflemen were all in disarray, and still more of the serpents came boiling out of the water in a frenzy.

There were dozens of them, ripping, tearing - nothing coordinated, only a maddened and savage fury which did not know even their own kind: as the axes and cutlasses bit into their flesh, they began to snap and tear at their injured fellows, at the rigging, even at the guns slick with fish-scraps - a cannon breaking free of its moorings and running riot across the deck to smash through the railing, taking half-a-dozen men and a serpent with it. The deck was slick with their blood, and the guns roared: cannon tore into their flesh and flung them back into the water.

But more came, and the injured, only still more frenzied, clawed in blind, mad rage at the source of their hurt; and one of the greater monsters, perhaps now recognizing the ship itself as prey and danger, pulled its huge forequarters to the far side and plunging down over into the water began to loop the whole vessel.

Laurence had seen the maneuver attempted once before, on the Allegiance - a vessel nearly twice the draught of the poor Nereide - and only the greatest effort had kept it from succeeding. "We must stop her, that one," Laurence shouted to Temeraire, who dived and set his claws into the traveling length, the spine itself too protected by a vast and razored network of hard spiny fins.

He strained back, beating; but as they began to drag the serpent clear, above them one of the spars tumbled loose and tipped towards them, and Laurence was half-blinded with the muck as it splattered from the sail upon Temeraire's back and wings. He wiped the stuff from his eyes only to see a great pink saw-toothed maw coming lamprey-wide towards him, unblinking orange eyes fixed on him with intent greed.

Laurence jerked his sword loose - pistols useless after the dousing - and managed to bring it down into the approaching lower jaw, opening a deep purplish gash into the creature's lip, which made it recoil; only a little, but Temeraire noticed, and snapped at the beast. It snapped back, and then turning its head bit at his wings, seizing the pin-joint in its mouth and wrestling back and forth while it tried to pierce the tough, resilient membrane. Temeraire roared at it, the great startling thunder of the divine wind resonating painfully in the bones of Laurence's ears, and it let go and fell away with that high shrilling cry.

But more were lunging at them, and the great serpent beneath them was all the while marching on; the noose was drawing tight, and abruptly the port rail snapped like matchsticks beneath it, and the starboard gone an instant later. The bulk of it slipped Temeraire's claws and fell to the deck heavily as the support was taken away; he darted down again to seize a fresh hold, and four serpent heads reared up feeding from the deck, one tipping back to swallow the better part of another victim.

Temeraire twisted away from their stretching mouths, and Laurence had managed to pack his powder fresh; he pistoled one of the creatures directly in the eye, and saw the sclera cloud with dark blood as it recoiled shrieking. But Temeraire had to beat away again: they were biting at him from all sides, and he had not won a fresh grip; he had only brought away one sailor, snatched from the deck, and now twisted to hand him up to Laurence: a midshipman, perhaps fourteen, hair and face thick with slime.

"God save you, sir,