Tongues of Serpents Page 0,52

us be going; it is light again."

It was not yet quite light; there was just enough of a paler quality to the sky to see her shape silhouetted black against the horizon, and the faint white clouds of steam issuing from her spikes. But the men had still to be got aboard: the sun was near the horizon as they finally leapt back aloft, and in their climb they broke into the sunlight before it had struck the land.

They had a little while searching before they found the trail itself again, and were obliged to land several times that Tharkay might look for signs. The repeated delays were extremely wearing to the spirit, but Temeraire held back the complaints which he might have wanted to make; he could see that their insistence on continuing to search, into the night, had made it quite impossible for Tharkay to keep any sight of the trail. He could not be unreasonable, he told himself, and added to Iskierka at the fourth such pause, "And the chances of finding the egg must be so much smaller if we should lose the trail entirely; it is only sensible, and we are not wasting time, really, but gaining it."

"Yes, yes," Iskierka said. "Is he not done yet? Whyever must it take so long, only to peer at the ground; and why must there be so many trees here?"

"As long as they are here, you might let me down to rest under them; I am very hot again," Caesar put in, from Temeraire's back, where he had been sternly instructed to remain; naturally, just to make more of a nuisance of himself, he had put on another five or six stone of weight overnight, Temeraire thought.

It was very inconvenient to be hunting over such forested country: they had crossed now over the mountains, and there were everywhere trees, so one might look as far as one liked without seeing a break in them, except for the river below flowing south- and westward, away from the ocean. "It must flow to the southern coast, or empty into some lake or inland sea, I suppose," Laurence said, looking at them, and at his spread-out maps of the coastline of the continent, sadly incomplete.

"That would be something to look forward to, I suppose," Granby said, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. "I would not mind coming across a lake. These smugglers must have water somewhere along their road?" he added.

It was very hard to endure the slow pace, the endless trees slipping by, the river winding away from them. Iskierka was of the opinion they had better be done with it, and fly onward straight; and Temeraire found it a grave struggle to persuade her otherwise: he had to argue with himself and not only her, even though Laurence and Granby were so very certain.

Temeraire tried to fly as cautiously and slowly as he might, but several days went by without a sign, and Tharkay began insisting for all their efforts they had overshot and must go back. Temeraire could not quite believe it - they had been going so very slowly - but Laurence at last persuaded him to pause, one morning before they had gone aloft, to let him draw out a diagramme, showing him the fastest pace the thieves could have made: and Temeraire could not deny it; they had gone too far.

They had another three days flying back over the same ground, retreating to the last traces they had found and repeating their search, before at last Tharkay allowed them to continue further: but he had found nothing new. Temeraire landed dully for water that afternoon by the river, full of despair; he could not help but drink thirstily, but he did not feel he deserved it.

"Laurence," Tharkay said, rising, "a word, if you please." Temeraire pricked up his ruff, and valiantly resisted the temptation to eavesdrop; whatever could Tharkay be saying, which he should not like the rest of them to hear? And Laurence looked quite serious, when he said it; of course one could not go prying into a secret conversation, but -

"I cannot hear them at all," Iskierka said. "Granby, go and tell us what they are saying."

"Well, I shan't," Granby said firmly, "and you shan't go nearer, either; you have enough sins to your account with adding on the vice of listening."

But then Laurence came back and said, very gently, "My dear, I must ask you to exert the greatest restraint,