Tongues of Serpents Page 0,75

quite sound like myself, but that is only a bit of smoke still in my throat; let us go at once."

Temeraire indeed did not sound like himself, and the pace he set was considerably lowered from the extremes to which he had formerly tried to press: Laurence had been obliged to ask him to rein in, a dozen times in an hour, to keep to a speed which Caesar could match; now not at all. Kulingile clung on to Temeraire's back flattened low and strapped on, Demane sitting beside him, the recipient of cold disapproval from every aviator who looked over at him; the boy's head was held up proudly in defiance, and Laurence said, "Mr. Blincoln, we will have a little of the dried meat brought up for the hatchling, if you please," by way of reproof to the others.

Kulingile devoured what was offered him almost at once, and sighed for more, although they had only been in the air half-an-hour: they were obliged to feed him twice again mid-air, before a water-hole offered itself below and Temeraire descended for a rest - without requiring much persuasion, Laurence was concerned to note.

The landscape was yet blasted in all directions, save where the thick green bushes had acted in some manner as a fire-break, or a barren patch of earth had offered nothing to the hunger of the flames. Fringed with both of these protections, the water-hole had only a thin coverlet of ash resting upon the surface, which they were able to skim off with their cups and buckets; it was however not very deep, for the most part, and they were obliged to keep most of the water they had obtained at the creek in their jugs and cans, and use the better and fresher supply only to satisfy their immediate thirst.

Temeraire drank and drank, when they had done, until the hole was nearly down to a damp recession in the earth; fortunately the water began to seep out again when he withdrew, so they might have a prospect of more when they had rested through the heat of the day. "Can we spare so long?" Temeraire said, wistfully.

"We will do better to conserve your strength," Laurence said. "My dear, you are not yourself yet; I beg you do not try and push on through this heat. At least here we have a little shade, and I do not think Kulingile ought to be exposed to the sun's worst violence."

However, Kulingile did not at present seem to care anything for the sun, or for anything but food: he stood waiting out in the open at the edge of their makeshift camp nearly quivering, until Demane came trudging back with a fresh load of game for him to eat, and fell upon the provender without a pause.

He was done very quickly, and looked for more with a hopeful air; Demane stared at the wreckage - there was very little left but scraps of hide of the four small animals he had brought - and then pulled himself up to his feet again, despite the heat. "You may have another hour," Laurence said, glancing upwards: the sun had made noon and was beginning its descent; soon, he hoped, they might leave again.

Another pair of lizards and a smallish kangaroo were found amid the burnt wreckage, only a little torn by birds, and they vanished into Kulingile's gut with the same ravening speed while Demane knelt at the water-hole and cupped water into his mouth with his bare hand, panting, his arms shaking with fatigue; then he crumpled beneath one of the bushes and slept. Having devoured all there was, Kulingile licked his jaws and muzzle and every bloodstained talon clean, very carefully, and then looked around again: he crept to Demane and curled against him in the shade, and fell into a fitful, wheezing slumber beside him.

Sipho watched all this resentfully. Being both younger and easier in temper, he had acclimated with far less hesitation to the upheaval of their life, and the new society in which he found himself had become his home, where Demane, warier by nature and experience, yet held aloof. Sipho had begun, Laurence thought, to dislike a little his brother's overzealous and smothering attention, the last year; but he was far from approving its transfer to the new recipient, and too proud to compete with open demands instead put himself in the deep shade of Temeraire's body, and opened again his book, a Chinese text,