Throne of Jade Page 0,8
Laurence with bright, interested eyes: not yet three months out of the shell, she was still small, even for her breed, but her hide was almost glossy-clean, and she looked very well-tended indeed. "So you are Temeraire's captain? Thank you; I like my Hollin very much," she said, in a light chirping voice, and gave Hollin a nudge with enough affection in it to nearly knock him over.
"I am happy to have been of service, and to make your acquaintance," Laurence said, mustering some enthusiasm, although not without an internal pang at the reminder. Temeraire was here, not five hundred yards distant, and he could not so much as exchange a greeting with him. He did look, but buildings stood in the line of his sight: no glimpse of black hide was to be seen.
Roland asked Hollin, "Is everything ready? We must be off at once."
"Yes, sir, indeed; we are only waiting for the dispatches," Hollin said. "Five minutes, if you should care to stretch your legs before the flight."
The temptation was very strong; Laurence swallowed hard. But discipline held: openly refusing a dishonorable order was one thing, sneaking about to disobey a merely unpleasant one something else; and to do so now might well reflect badly on Hollin, and Roland herself. "I will just step into the barracks here, and speak to Jervis," he said instead, and went to find the man who was overseeing Temeraire's care.
Jervis was an older man, the better part of both his left limbs lost to a wicked raking stroke across the side of the dragon on whom he had served as harness-master; on recovering against all reasonable expectations, he had been assigned to the slow duty of the London covert, so rarely used. He had an odd, lopsided appearance with his wooden leg and metal hook on one side, and he had grown a little lazy and contrary with his idleness, but Laurence had provided him with a willing ear often enough to now find a warm welcome.
"Would you be so kind as to take a word for me?" Laurence asked, after he had refused a cup of tea. "I am going to Dover to see if I can be of use; I should not like Temeraire to fret at my silence."
"That I will, and read it to him; he will need it, poor fellow," Jervis said, stumping over to fetch his inkwell and pen one-handed; Laurence turned over a scrap of paper to write the note. "That fat fellow from the Admiralty came over again not half-an-hour ago with a full passel of Marines and those fancy Chinamen, and there they are still, prating away at the dear. If they don't go soon, I shan't answer for his taking any food today, so I won't. Ugly sea-going bugger; I don't know what he is about, thinking he knows aught about dragons; that is, begging your pardon, sir," Jervis added hastily.
Laurence found his hand shook over the paper, so he spattered his first few lines and the table. He answered somehow, meaninglessly, and struggled to continue the note; words would not come. He stood there locked in mid-sentence, until suddenly he was nearly thrown off his feet, ink spreading across the floor as the table fell over; outside a terrible shattering noise, like the worst violence of a storm, a full North Sea winter's gale.
The pen was still ludicrously in his hand; he dropped it and flung open the door, Jervis stumbling out behind him. The echoes still hung in the air, and Elsie was sitting up on her hind legs, wings half-opening and closing in anxiety while Hollin and Roland tried to reassure her; the few other dragons at the covert had their heads up as well, peering over the trees and hissing in alarm.
"Laurence," Roland called, but he ignored her: he was already halfway down the path, running, his hand unconsciously gone to the hilt of his sword. He came to the clearing and found his way barred by the collapsed ruins of a barracks building and several fallen trees.
For a thousand years before the Romans first tamed the Western dragon breeds, the Chinese had already been masters of the art. They prized beauty and intelligence more than martial prowess, and looked with a little superior disdain at the fire-breathers and acid-spitters valued so highly in the West; their aerial legions were so numerous they had no need of what they regarded as so much showy flash. But they did not