Tongues of Serpents Page 0,35

either. "I do not understand why we have not yet found a way," he said. "Whenever we have flown up over the mountaintops, it looks as though this gorge and that one should meet, beneath the trees, and then we come down again and suddenly we have gone the wrong way, or else the gorges do not meet at all, and there is a great heap of rock waiting; and everything looks the same. I do not like it in the least, and it seems to me quite uncanny we should mistake our way so often."

Large game was not plentiful, and what they found the dragons had to eat; Caesar complained of his much-reduced menu, incessantly, until the general oppression began to make itself felt to him as well, and then he wished only to be gone. "There is nothing good in this place, and I am sure no cows would like to come here, either," he said. "We had much better get a grant of land nearer the city, where it was so sunny and pleasant; not here where one cannot even see past the trees."

They were obliged to spend some time each day finding water, although from their lack of success in finding a route, they were often able to fall back to their former camp by the river. The fifth day of their surveying attempt, however, ended in more confusion. From the air, they thought two valleys had conjoined, if only by a narrow passage, which could barely have admitted men on foot to pass, single-file. "I will settle for that, gladly," Granby said. "It can be widened, and perhaps once we have found one route, we can find another, if we look in the other direction."

"And more to the point, while we look, we can in the meantime put the men to work, which should hardly be delayed another hour," Rankin said, with a cold look over his shoulder at the string of convicts who had not yet roused themselves from around their rough and makeshift camp, though the morning was well advanced. "So far they have nothing to occupy them but idleness and rum, and I am sure we may expect trouble from leaving such men prey to restlessness and wild fancies."

Those wild fancies were rampant not only amongst the convicts, by now. "I hope, sir," Fellowes, his staid and hard-headed ground-crew master, and ordinarily a sensible fellow, said to Laurence under his breath, "I hope you will have a care, walking that pass; I am sure we have not had so much bad luck for no reason."

"I do not like it, either," Temeraire said. "Perhaps I might try and break it open wider, myself, before you should go; I have found the divine wind answers quite well for breaking rock."

"And for bringing half the cliff wall down upon our heads, certainly," Rankin interjected.

"It may come down upon your head, and no-one mind in the least," Temeraire flared, but this criticism was unfortunately sound, and barred the experiment: the soft sandstone walls would crumble a little even from a leather-gloved hand rubbed vigorously across their face, and everywhere the rock rose above the tree-line stood the scars of small landslides and collapses.

The ground of the pass was uneven and shifted easily beneath their feet, gravel and rock slipping where new grass and undergrowth had yet to take secure hold, though there was also enough greenery risen calf-high to hide the canyon floor and make their passage more difficult. They could only go single-file, and the rock thrust up on either side crowding near, so that looking up, squinting, one saw only a narrow strip of sky stark against the dark walls; Laurence had the sensation that the cliffs leaned in towards them.

The wind also was crammed in narrowly, and whistled a little where it passed over sharp edges or crevasses in the rock; a loose slope challenged them awhile in climbing, and Laurence slipped badly on the other side, sliding with a tumble of loose pebbles, sand creeping into all his clothing; falling backwards he caught himself awkwardly on his hands, which sank wrist-deep into the gravel as he slid a little further.

He managed to halt his skidding progress, and lying a little dazed in the spill of stones around him saw directly in front of him another overhang in the cliff, the height of several men from the ground, marked with the ochre signs: handprints and a faded painting. A very narrow and steep