again.
Laurence had a moment of relief; then Temeraire cried out in pain. He turned and saw in horror that in his confusion and agony, Victoriatus was scrabbling at Temeraire, and the great claws had raked Temeraire’s shoulder and side. Above, muffled, he heard the other captain shouting; Victoriatus stopped, but Temeraire was already bleeding, and straps of the harness were hanging loose and flapping in the wind.
They were losing elevation rapidly; Temeraire was struggling to keep flying under the other dragon’s weight. Laurence fought with his carabiners, yelling at the signal-ensign to let the men below know. The boy scrambled partway down the neck-strap, waving the white-and-red flag wildly; in a moment Laurence gratefully saw Granby climbing up with two other men to bandage the wounds, reaching the gashes more quickly than he could. He stroked Temeraire, called reassurance to him in a voice that struggled not to break; Temeraire did not spare the effort to turn and reply, but bravely kept beating his wings, though his head was drooping with the strain.
‘Not deep,’ Granby shouted, from where they worked to pad the gashes, and Laurence could breathe and think clearly again. The harness was shifting upon Temeraire’s back; aside from a great deal of lesser rigging, the main shoulder strap had been nearly cut through, saved only by the wires that ran through it. But the leather was parting, and as soon as it went the wires would break under the strain of all the men and gear currently riding below.
‘All of you; take off your harnesses and pass them to me,’ Laurence said to the signal-ensign and the lookouts; the three boys were the only ones left above, besides him. ‘Take a good grip on the main harness and get your arms or legs tucked below.’ The leather of the personal harnesses was thick, solidly stitched, well-oiled; the carabiners were solid steel: not quite as strong as the main harness, but nearly so.
He slung the three harnesses over his arm and clambered along the back strap to the broader part of the shoulders. Granby and the two mid wingmen were still working on the injuries to Temeraire’s side; they spared him a puzzled look, and Laurence realized they could not see the nearly severed shoulder band: it was hidden from their view by Temeraire’s foreleg. There was no time to call them forward to help in any case; the band was rapidly beginning to give way.
He could not come at it normally; if he tried to put his weight on any of the rings along the shoulder-band, it would certainly break at once. Working as quickly as he could under the roaring pressure of the wind, he hooked two of the harnesses together by their carabiners, then looped them around the back strap. ‘Temeraire, stay as level as you can,’ he shouted; then, clinging to the ends of the harnesses, he unlocked his own carabiners and climbed carefully out onto the shoulder, held by nothing more secure than his grip on the leather.
Granby was shouting something at him; the wind was tearing it away, and he could not make out the words. Laurence tried to keep his eyes fixed on the straps; the ground below was the beautiful, fresh green of early spring, strangely calm and pastoral: they were low enough that he could see white dots of sheep. He was in arm’s reach now; with a hand that shook slightly, he latched the first carabiner of the third loose harness onto the ring just above the cut, and the second onto the ring just below. He pulled on the straps, throwing his weight against them as much as he dared; his arms ached and trembled as if with high fever. Inch by inch, he drew the small harness tighter, until at last the portion between the carabiners was the same size as the cut portion of the band and was taking much of its weight: the leather stopped fraying away.
He looked up; Granby was slowly climbing towards him, snapping onto rings as he came. Now that the harness was in place, the strain was not an immediate danger, so Laurence did not wave him off, but only shouted, ‘Call up Mr. Fellowes,’ the harness-master, and pointed to the spot. Granby’s eyes widened as he came over the foreleg and saw the broken strap.
As Granby turned to signal below for help, bright sunlight abruptly fell full on his face; Victoriatus was shuddering above them, wings convulsing, and the Parnassian’s chest came heavily down on Temeraire’s back. Temeraire staggered in midair, one shoulder dipping under the blow, and Laurence was sliding along the linked harness straps, wet palms giving him no purchase. The green world was spinning beneath him, and his hands were already tired and slick with sweat; his grip was failing.
‘Laurence, hold on!’ Temeraire called, head turned to look back at him; his muscles and wing-joints were shifting as he prepared to snatch Laurence out of the air.
‘You must not let him fall,’ Laurence shouted, horrified; Temeraire could not try to catch him except by tipping Victoriatus off his back, and sending the Parnassian to his death. ‘Temeraire, you must not!’
‘Laurence!’ Temeraire cried again, his claws flexing; his eyes were wide and distressed, and his head waved back and forth in denial. Laurence could see he did not mean to obey. He struggled to keep hold of the leather straps, to try and climb up; if he fell, it was not only his own life that would be forfeit, but the injured dragon and all his crew still aboard.
Granby was there suddenly, seizing Laurence’s harness in both his hands. ‘Lock onto me,’ he shouted. Laurence saw at once what he meant. With one hand still clinging to the linked harnesses, he locked his loose carabiners onto the rings of Granby’s harness, then transferred his grip to Granby’s chest straps. Then the midwingmen reached them; all at once there were many strong hands grabbing at them, drawing Laurence and Granby back up together to the main harness, and they held Laurence in place while he locked his carabiners back onto the proper rings.
He could scarcely breathe yet, but he seized his speaking-trumpet and called urgently, ‘All is well.’ His voice was hardly audible; he pulled in a deep breath and tried again, more clearly this time: ‘I am fine, Temeraire; only keep flying.’ The tense muscles beneath them unwound slowly, and Temeraire beat up again, regaining a little of the elevation they had lost. The whole process had lasted perhaps fifteen minutes; he was shaking as if he had been on deck throughout a three-day gale, and his heart was thundering in his breast.
Granby and the midwingmen looked scarcely more composed. ‘Well done, gentlemen,’ Laurence said to them, as soon as he trusted his voice to remain steady. ‘Let us give Mr. Fellowes room to work. Mr. Granby, be so good as to send someone up to Victoriatus’s captain and see what assistance we can provide; we must take what precautions we can to keep him from further starts.’
They gaped at him a moment; Granby was the first to recover his wits, and began issuing orders. By the time Laurence had made his way, very cautiously, back to his post at the base of Temeraire’s neck, the midwingmen were wrapping Victoriatus’s claws with bandages to prevent him from scratching Temeraire again, and Maximus was coming into sight in the distance, hurrying to their assistance.
The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful, if the effort involved in supporting a nearly un conscious dragon through the air were ever to be considered ordinary. As soon as they landed Victoriatus safely in the courtyard, the surgeons came hurrying to see to both him and Temeraire; to Laurence’s great relief, the cuts indeed proved quite shallow. They were cleaned and inspected, pronounced minor, and a loose pad placed over them to keep the torn hide from being irritated; then Temeraire was set loose and Laurence told to let him sleep and eat as much as he liked for a week.
It was not the most pleasant way to win a few days of liberty, but the respite was infinitely welcome. Laurence immediately walked Temeraire to an open clearing near the covert, not wanting to strain him by another leap aloft. Though the clearing was upon the mountain, it was relatively level, and covered in soft green grass; it faced south, and the sun came into it nearly the entire day. There the two of them slept together from that afternoon until late in the next, Laurence stretched out upon Temeraire’s warm back, until hunger woke them both.
‘I feel much better; I am sure I can hunt quite normally,’ Temeraire
